Authors: Ryan Schneider
“Well said, Tik,” said Susannah. “She’s a keeper, Moshe.”
“Indeed,” said Moshe.
Danny sighed. “Shit.”
“What?” Tim asked.
“I really thought Candy would be here.”
“The fair maiden locked away in an ivory tower, guarded by a ferocious dragon?” Maggie asked.
Danny sighed again. “Something like that. Alright, if everyone is more or less okay, let’s keep looking. Helen, Sparky, fall in. We’re not leaving anyone behind.” He inserted a fresh clip into his rifle for emphasis. “And be careful around all these shell casings. The last thing we need is a twisted ankle.” Danny’s boot rolled across one of the spent shells, and he nearly fell. “See?”
Stepping carefully, the team followed Danny to the door piled high with drone carcasses.
“Moshe, Blendo, you guys want to clear some of this debris?” Danny asked.
Moshe and Blendo pulled drone after drone from atop the pile and hefted them aside.
Once the doorway was passable, Danny went through.
~
Danny stared in awe. “Holy shit.”
“What?” “What is it?” “What do you see?” everyone asked.
“See for yourselves.” Danny advanced into the room and everyone filed in behind him.
It was the size of a warehouse. A serpentine production line wound through the room. Yellow, multi-jointed robotic arms flanked the conveyor. Banks of white fluorescent lights hung from overhead girders.
“What is this place?” Susannah asked.
“It’s a clean room,” said Rory.
“It’s a robot factory,” said Tim.
“That would explain where all the drones came from,” said Maggie.
“Alright, everyone follow me,” said Danny.
A disembodied voice filled the room. “Hey. Fuckface.”
Everyone raised their rifles and whirled in place, searching for the intruder.
“Over here, Doctor Dipshit.”
A large monitor was built into the wall above a computer-control workstation. On the screen and very much life-sized was Les Grossman. A white tank-top covered his pudgy, soft, alarmingly hairy body. Square eyeglasses dominated his face below a shiny scalp rife with male-pattern baldness. A thin beard and mustache covered his jaw and mouth. He sat on the edge of a desk, looking into a camera. In one hand, he held a Diet Coke.
“If you and your pitiful band of assholes are through destroying my personal property, we need to talk. Actually, I need to talk. You need to listen.”
Danny stepped up to the monitor. “Where’s Candy?”
“What did I just say? I talk and you listen.” Les began to yell. Loudly. “Because if you don’t, I will unleash an ungodly fucking firestorm that will make the drones in the other room look like an old ladies’ sewing circle! I will massacre you! I will fuck you up!”
Les upended his Diet Coke, drained it, and tossed it away.
“Now,” he continued, “seeing as how you are all trespassing, not to mention guilty of felony breaking-and-entering and destruction of property . . . a lot of property, for which I could justifiably kill every single one of you intruderous motherfuckers, I suggest we meet for a little face time. Besides, I have something you want.”
Les reached out and with a large, meaty hand rotated the camera. He angled it to a corner of the room, where a big sofa was situated before a fireplace ablaze with a crackling fire. The room was cast in warm firelight.
Seated upon the sofa was Candy.
“You see?” said Les. “She’s fine. She’s not bound or gagged. She’s not wrapped up in a bunch of rope and suspended over a tank full of pissed off, hungry sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads. None of that evil mastermind bullshit.”
“Candy, can you hear me?” Danny cried.
Les stepped in front of the camera. “Oh, she can hear you just fine, sport.” Les leaned in close, and his face filled the monitor. He spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m just not sure she gives a shit.”
Les leaned away, and Candy was visible once more. Harley walked into the frame. She handed Les a fresh Diet Coke and sat on the sofa beside Candy, popping the top on her own soda.
Les’s face appeared. He made a show of opening his Diet Coke and taking a long, slow sip. “That is refreshing.”
“What do you want?” Danny asked.
“I want you to shut your filthy fuckin’ piehole and let me speak. You know, for a guy with a Ph.D., you’re not very bright.” Les looked over his shoulder and spoke to Candy and Harley. “One of the preeminent minds in his field and he can’t follow simple instructions? Are you sure this is
the
Daniel Olivaw?”
Harley shrugged.
Les faced the camera again. “Are you sure you’re
the
Daniel Olivaw? Because, honestly, you could be fuckin’ anybody with all that paint on your face. I want you to listen real close, doctor, because your lady-fair may not want to leave, but there’s someone here who does.”
Les swiveled the camera again. In the opposite corner were Gali, Copper, and Turing. All three girls were bound at the ankles, with their wrists tied behind their backs. Tape covered their mouths. They lay on the floor. Gali shouted obscenities at Les through the tape on her mouth and struggled against her bonds. Copper lay curled into a ball, weeping. Little Turing lay still, eyes closed. Blood running from a head wound covered half of her face.
Maggie leaped at the monitor, beating at it with her bare hands. She shrieked with a fury known only by mothers. “You son of a bitch!”
Tim rushed forward and pulled Maggie away.
“Wait, it gets better,” said Les. “Now!”
At his command, two drones seized Gali by her wrists and ankles. The drones picked her up . . . and pulled.
Gali screamed, despite the tape covering her mouth. Her entire body stiffened.
“Jesus,” said Les, cringing. “So much for a robot not injuring a human being.”
“You fucker!” Maggie screamed.
The drones continued to pull. Gali’s arms and shoulders appeared awkwardly disjointed.
“Stop!” Maggie shrieked. “Please, I beg of you! Stop! You’re hurting her! My baby. . . .”
“Stop!” Les commanded.
The drones released their hold on Gali and her body fell to the floor. Her head hit first with a hard thump. She did not move.
“Oops,” said Les. “Looks like she decided to take a nap. It’s going to be a permanent fucking coma if you don’t do exactly as I fucking say! I will let those robots pull her fucking arms off and beat the other two to death, so listen up.”
Les moved closer to the camera.
“Are you listening? Do I have your un-fucking-divided attention?”
No one spoke.
Les crushed the Diet Coke in his meaty hand. A geyser of brown soda squirted out of it. “Goddamnit that was not a rhetorical fucking question! I said, are you listening?”
“Yes!” Danny shouted. “Please, don’t hurt her anymore.”
“Oh, I’ll do a helluva lot worse if you don’t do exactly as I say. See, the way I see it, you’re here to rescue your damsel in distress. But, from the look of things, she’s not feeling particularly distressed. In fact, I think she hates your guts. But I’m willing to give her the benefit of a doubt.
“Now, the recent unpleasantness aside”–Les gestured to where Gali, Copper, and Turing lay on the floor–“I am not a bad guy. I am married and have a family of my own. Granted, all my kids are rotting away in old people’s homes because I won’t share my eugenics program with them, but it’s only because they don’t fucking deserve it. I paid to have my fat-ass kid go to Space Camp ten times. You know how awkward it is to have a twenty-year-old man at Space Camp, surrounded by children? It wasn’t tuition, it was bribery. And it was fuckin’ embarrassing. Now he won’t talk to me because I refused to pay for his kid to go to Space Camp. What happened to the days when people took responsibility for their actions? This used to be a great country and it will be again if I have anything to say about it. Diet Coke!”
The arm of a drone reached into frame and handed the can to Les.
Les opened the soda and chugged half of it. “As I was saying, fuckstick, I’m perfectly willing to give you five minutes to proclaim your undying love for Doctor Calvin over there. Hell, I even hope she takes you back. I love a happy ending.”
Les focused the camera on Candy and zoomed in. “She doesn’t look too happy, sport. Looks like you’ve got some explaining to do. And I’m willing to let you try. So what say we dispense with the chit chat and get down to business? Senator? You’re up.”
Senator Stein grabbed Danny by the back of his body armor and rammed a pistol into his temple. “Nobody move or robot boy gets it.”
“No!” yelled Candy.
“Well, well, well,” said Les, “maybe she loves you after all, doctor. Bring him in!”
The Senator wrenched Danny’s rifle from his hands and threw it to the floor. “Nobody move!” He cowered behind Danny and pulled him backwards out of the room.
Tim, Rory, Atom, Poo, Blendo and the others raised their rifles and took aim, angling for a clean shot.
The senator and Danny maneuvered around the pile of drones and out of the room. The door slammed.
Poo approached the door. “Kong, can your gatling gun cut through this?”
“Only one way to find out.” Kong aimed at the door. Poo and the others stood behind him.
“Don’t waste your time,” said Les. “That’s a titanium alloy door. You’d need an oxy-acetylene torch to cut through it. Besides, haven’t you destroyed enough of my doors?”
Kong squeezed the trigger. The gatling gun buzzed, the barrels spun, and a burst of bullets hit the door and ricocheted in all directions, sending everyone diving for the floor.
“See?” said Les. “I told you.”
Les upended his Diet Coke, waved goodbye, and tapped his tablet. The monitor went dark.
~
Senator Stein shoved Danny across the room full of dead drones and through a door covered in stone made to look like the wall. Behind it lay a long corridor lit by electric torches.
“Why are you doing this?” Danny asked.
“Shut up.”
“Tell me why you’re doing this.”
“B
ecause Les Grossman asked me to, okay? He’s a big-dick player and I want to be a big-dick player, too. You think I want to be stuck in the Senate the rest of my life? No! I want to make a real difference in this world. Les Grossman is going to be President of the United States and I’m going to be Vice President.”
“You want to be Vice President?”
“No, I want to be President. And after Les’s eight years are up, it’ll be my turn. Then I can make things the way they ought to be. But V-P is a good start. It was good enough for John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and it’s good enough for me.”
“Grossman has to win the nomination and then the White House first.”
“Don’t be so naive. Elections aren’t won; they’re bought. Everybody knows that. And Les Grossman has more money than God. When God wants to perform a miracle, He clears it with Les first. Sixteen-hundred Pennsylvania Avenue is a done deal. By this time next year, I’ll be in D.C. Now shut and keep moving.”
At the end of the hall was a door. The Senator shoved Danny through and into the study Danny had seen on the monitor.
The fire crackled.
Candy and Harley sat on the sofa.
Gali, Copper, and Turing lay on the floor, guarded by the two drones.
And Les sat on the edge of his broad desk. “There he is. The man of the hour.”
Candy leaped from the sofa, ran to Danny, and threw her arms around his neck.
Les opened a fresh Diet Coke. “Oh, isn’t that lovely. I love a happy ending.”
Candy looked far into Danny’s eyes. “You came for me.”
Danny held her close. “Of course. Listen, Candy . . . I’m sorry–”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Candy. “What’s done is done. We’re together now.”
“I beg to differ,” said Les. He motioned to the two drones. They seized Danny and Candy.
Harley rose from the sofa and came forward. “What’re you doing?”
“Getting ready for the show.” Les tapped his tablet and a live feed of the robot assembly clean room appeared on a large monitor.
In the room, Poo and Rony were attempting to pry open the titanium alloy door. Atom, Blendo, Zammy, and Delilah were conferring quietly. Helen, Sparky, Romeo, and Blackie and the guys were searching for another way out while Rory, Tim, Maggie, Isaac, Nik, and the others were trying to raise a wide roll-up delivery door.
“If they only knew what was on the other side of that door,” said Les. He held up the tablet and hovered one meaty index finger over a green button.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt them,” said Harley.
“I’m not. Senator Stein’s wonderbots are.”
“Wait!” Harley pleaded.
Les tapped the button. “Too late.”
In the clean room, the lift motor on the roll-up door whirred to life, slowly raising the door.