Death From Above!

by J. I. Greco

  Hunt-R lowers the can. “All right, all right, let’s get this over with. It’s lunchtime. I’m losing prime begging time. Can’t you just leave me be? What do you want with me now?”

  “What do you think we want?” Trip asks. “We’re getting into the military-industrial complex business. Gonna be building some honking big wheeled war machines. Congratulations, you’re employee number three. If we intended to pay you, you’d get stock options. But since we already own your sorry metallic ass, get it moving and come on.” Trip spins on his heel and starts to walk off, clearly expecting to be followed.

  “Wait, what’s that about wheeled war machines?” Rudy stays put, retrieving Finn’s red-and-blue polka-dotted blankey from the end of the pram where it’s been kicked by flailing baby feet. He gives the blankey to the grasping baby, who draws it tight, immediately spitting out his pacifier in favor of sucking a corner of fabric. “I thought we were going to build warbots.”

  Trip spins around on his heel and comes back, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. “I’m sorta off robots.”

  “Since when?” Rudy asks.

  “Since… that.” Trip points his cig down at Hunt-R. “You can’t say he’s anything other than an embarrassment. Out here making a spectacle of himself like this. It’s shameful, really, to see how far he’s fallen. If he was my kid, I’d disown him.”

  “I’ll have you know I clear over four hundred a day doing this,” Hunt-R says, rattling the cup. “Enough for a two-bedroom uptown.”

  Trip spreads his arms wide. “Son!”

  “Stuff it, dad. Look, I’m not interested in another of your hare-brained schemes, robots or wheeled war machines or whatever it is. So, if you’re not in the charitable mood—which I doubt at least you ever are, Programmer Trip—then please stand aside. It’s lunchtime. Prime begging hours.”

  “Okay, okay.” Trip takes a small black box out of a jacket-lining pocket. “Oh, look, what do we have here?” He runs his thumb lightly over the big red button. “A remote control with a button. I wonder what brain it resets to Day One, erasing all those precious memories built up over the years and returning the ungrateful robot to the sassless, free-will free servant he used to be? Shall we find out?”

  “You’re such a dick.” A panel pops open in Hunt-R’s chest and the robot shoves the can inside. “So, we’re in the warcars business now, then?”

  “Megacar business, I think. Better branding.” Trip dashes his cig out on the top of Hunt-R’s head. “Anyway, I think somebody else already owns the warcar trademark. Startup’s gonna have enough problems without having to worry about that kinda fight, too. Besides, trademark attorneys are the worst. All right, let’s go throw my considerable political weight around and brow-beat Morty until he gives us a warehouse, rent-free. And free labor. You know, for our trouble.”

  “You think it’s gonna be that easy?” Rudy asks.

  Trip laces his fingers together and cracks his knuckles with a smug grin. “I’m practically his son-in-law. The old coot will do anything for me.”

  “Doesn’t hurt that he’s usually drunk off his ass,” Hunt-R notes.

  Trip lights another cig. “That too.”

  “So,” Rudy asks Hunt-R, “what you think of the rig?”

  “The pram?”

  Rudy nods. “Independent suspension. Cup holders. Hands-free feeding system. And plenty of storage in the bottom. For, like, sundries.”

  Why do I suddenly feel very, very apprehensive? Hunt-R asks himself. “It’s very nice, I suppose.”

  “Glad you like it. It’s yours.”

  Ah, that’s why. “I don’t need a pram,” Hunt-R says.

  “Trust me, it’s easier than carrying them around in your arms.”

  “Carrying who around?”

  “Who do you think?” Rudy shoves the pram forward with his boot. “Job one. Look after them.”

  “Oh, no.” Hunt-R stands, his under-lubricated joints creaking, his actuating servos whirring loudly. He pushes the pram back towards Rudy with his knee. “That’s a step too far. I’m not babysitting your brood.”

  “You were built to do our dirty work,” Trip reminds him.

  “That’s too dirty,” Hunt-R says. “Shit comes out of them. Often. And they’re very loud.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Rudy says. “Good thing you can turn off your scent and hearing gear.”

  “Why are we even having this discussion?” Trip asks. “You’re gonna do it, robot.”

  “No, I’m putting my foot down,” Hunt-R says, putting his fists on his hips with a defiant clang. “I’m an incredibly advanced piece of technology, not some undertrained slab of alloy to be vomited on.”

  “Don’t think of it as babysitting.” Trip drapes his arm around the robot’s shoulders in feigned camaraderie. “Think of it as an opportunity to turn the little rug-rats against their own dad.”

  “Or uncle,” Rudy says.

  “Nah, they’d never turn against me. Admire me. Aspire to be me. Bask in my glow, sure. But never turn against me.” Trip bends down to pinch a rosy, blanket-sucking cheek. “Right, little Jake?”

  “That’s Finn,” both Rudy and Hunt-R say.

  Trip shrugs. “Does it matter?” he asked, walking off.

  “You hear that?” Rudy asks Hunt-R. “With him as an uncle they’re going to need all the help they can get to avoid turning into psychopaths. Come on. Please.”

  Hunt-R pulls the tram closer. “I’m not changing their diapers. I do have my principles.”

  “You will,” Rudy says.

  “Oh, I will, will I? What makes you think that?”

  “It’s good karma.”

  “Karma is bullshit.”

  “Probably, yeah. So, how about this for a reason, then: Trip’s not the only one with a reset button.”

  “Should I use disposables or cloth?”

  Chapter Seven

  “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t let you in,” the tall, twenty-something brunette in the skin covering but curve accentuating armor-plated leather jumpsuit tells Trip with a firm hand pressed against his chest as he tries to push past her while reaching for Morty’s front door. “The Sorta Council is in session.”

  Trip takes hold of the brunette’s wrist and gently pulls her hand away from his chest. “Which is exactly why you can let me in.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the brunette says, her hand dropping down to her side to rest not-at-all-casually on the duct-taped handle of a sawed-off shotgun hanging in a quick-draw holster on her thigh. “Please move along.”

  “I haven’t been out of town that long,” Trip says, a whine of indignation cracking his voice. “How do you not know who I am? I’m the Minister of War.”

  “She’s a new recruit, sir,” the younger, shorter blonde standing on the other side of the doorway says. “He’s the Mother Superior’s old man, Sharon.”

  “A new recruit to what?” Trip asks the blonde. She’s wearing the same get-up as the brunette, only with a pillbox hat, silver epaulets on her shoulders, and a rusty four-shot .50 revolver on her thigh.

  “Sisters of No-Mercy, doy,” the brunette says with a roll of her eyes.

  “Hey, watch the attitude, missy,” the blonde snaps at the brunette.

  The brunette lowers her head sheepishly. “Sorry, Lieutenant.”

  Trip wags a finger at the women. “Those are not Sisters of No-Mercy outfits. Not enough cleavage, and not a hint of fishnet. You gotta have fishnet.”

  “They’re our civil patrol uniforms,” the blonde says, unzipping the jumpsuit at the collar just low enough so she can pull out the small bronze intertwined phalluses that hang around her neck on a braided leather necklace to show Trip. “They’re designed to be functional, non-threatening, and authoritative, yet still expressing our womanly souls.”

  Trip frowns at the Sister’s holy symbol as the blonde tucks it away and zips back up. “Since when do the Sisters of No-Mercy have a civil patrol?”

  “Not all the new refugees Shunk’s
hosting play nice with others,” the blonde says. “Somebody had to step up to be a police force, and us Sisters, we’re all about public service. The Mother Superior saw a need, and filled it.”

  “Just like the militia unit Sister Gwendolyn is putting together from the refugee recruits to act as a home defense force,” Rudy says, lighting a cig as he steps up next to Trip.

  “Militia?” Trip asks, yanking the cig away from Rudy for himself. “Civil patrol?”

  Rudy nods. “You didn’t know?”

  “You did?”

  “Bernie told me.”

  “About the militia and the civil patrol?”

  “About everything. —We do talk, me and the wife. Rox hasn’t brought up any of this with you?”

  Trip snorts. “We’ve been busy. You know, with make-up schtupping.”

  “So you don’t know?” Rudy smiles. Big and unabashed. “Oh, this is gonna be good.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Trip asks.

  “You’ll see.” Rudy turns to the blonde. “Can you let us in, Dorris? We do have business for the council. Plus, I really want to see this.”

  “Ooh,” Hunt-R calls out from a little ways up the dirt lane where he’s adjusting the feeding armatures on the twins’ pram. “Take pictures!”

  Chapter Eight

  “Where’s Morty?” Trip asks, scanning the dark living room where Shunk’s ruling Sorta council sits in session in folding chairs around three card tables pushed together.

  At least they saved a space for me, Trip thinks, spotting the empty chair at the other end of the tables. He heads for it, reaching over the scuba-gear wearing Minister of Sewage’s shoulder as he passes to dash his cig out in an ashtray.

  “Right here, Trip,” says some clean-shaved, slick-backed hair, pinstripe bathrobe-wearing Korean guy at the head of the tables Trip doesn’t know, and who, unlike everybody else, suspiciously doesn’t have a mug of beer in front of them.

  “Yeah, right,” Trip says, plopping down in the empty chair. He smirks across the tables at the guy. “Morty’s all scruffy and has a lisp. You can’t be Morty – you don’t even reek of booze.” Trip takes a cig and his Zippo out while he glances around him. “Seriously, where is he? There are apologies to be made. To me, by him, it really should go without saying.”

  “Seriously, Trip,” the guy says. “It’s me.”

  “Morty?” Trip pauses, the flame of the lighter an inch from the tip of the cig in his lips, and squints, finally taking note of the guy’s eyes: one cloudy and looking straight and steady at him, the other clear and bright, and staring up at the ceiling. “What the hell happened?”

  “I gave up drinking.”

  “You?” Trip huffs, lighting the cig and snapping the Zippo closed. “Gave up drinking?”

  “Had to, as a matter of civic duty.” Morty picks up a glass of water from in front of him and gives it a tentative sip, with a wince, as if he’s not quite used to the lack of bite but resigned to it anyway. “Being drunk all the time was fine when Shunk was a hole-in-the-wall, but that’s changed. Our population’s quintupled since the war started up — that’s a lot of people, and a lot more administration. More decisions to be made, important decisions. Housing, utilities, beer production and logistics. Shunk needs me to be sober.”

  “And I need you to explain why the Sorta council is meeting without their Minister of War.” Trip leans back and throws his feet up on the card table. “Did nobody tell you I was back in town?”

  “Oh, I told them,” Roxanne says, emerging from the doorway to the kitchen. “Sorry about the constant bathroom breaks, folks. Now, where were we?”

  “You were detailing the new defense plan,” Minister of Sewage Hattie says, his voice muffled by the snorkel bit in his mouth.

  “New defense plan?” Trip’s left eyebrow goes up. “When did I come up with a new defense plan? And why don’t I remember coming up with a new defense plan?”

  Roxanne steps up behind Trip and puts her hands on his shoulders. “Okay, Trip, try not to get upset.”

  “Upset? Why would I get upset? Just losing my memory, is all. Next thing you know I’ll be putting on weight and walking around town in a kimono, pining for the old days and looking for teenagers to shoot for not getting off my lawn.”

  “You’re not losing your memory,” Roxanne says.

  “Oh, you’d better hope I’m losing my memory, because if I’m not, that means someone else is daring to make defense plans.” Trip leans forward, shrugging his shoulders out from under Roxanne’s hands and glaring at Morty. “And that will not stand. Defense plans, war plans, and picking out the dessert items for the Winter Solstice party—that’s all squarely the purview of the Minister of War.”

  “You didn’t tell him?” Morty asks, his cloudy eye darting to look at his daughter.

  “I’ve been busy,” Roxanne says.

  “Right,” Morty says with a sigh. “Trip, Roxanne is our Minister of War. And Defense.”

  “Aha!” Trip exclaims. “I knew it—you didn’t give up booze.”

  “I did,” Morty says. “And she is our new minister.”

  Trip purses his lips and stares at the glowing end of his cig. “I am literally speechless.”

  “Except you just spoke,” Rudy says from where he stands, arms folded across his chest, against the back of the closed front door. “So, not literally.”

  Trip jabs a finger in Rudy’s direction. “I swear to Shatner if you don’t wipe that idiot grin off your face I’m going to—”

  “To what?” Rudy says, his grin getting bigger. “Sick your army on me? Oh, wait, you don’t command an army anymore.”

  “I’ll deal with you later,” Trip barks, then sits back and gathers himself. After an indulgent moment of tight-lipped seething, he looks at Morty. “Please, do explain.”

  Morty takes another sip of water. “You were gone, Trip, and with the war refugees flooding us, we had to have someone here who could coordinate and manage keeping Shunk safe and civil.”

  “Well, I’m back now.”

  “The thing is, son, Roxanne’s been doing a helluva job.” Morty smiles warmly at Roxanne. “Even with all these new people, crime’s actually down. And the city’s better defended than it’s ever been.”

  “Yeah,” Hattie says around his snorkel mouthpiece. “It’s nice to have a city guard that doesn’t run off at the first sign of trouble.”

  “That’s a dig at my robots, isn’t it?” Trip scowls at the Minister of Sewage, with his ridiculous shock of white hair and tattered scuba wet suit. “You really want to start something with me, fat boy?”

  “It’s a glandular condition,” Hattie says. He reaches across his massive stomach for the sawed-off speargun strapped to his thigh. “And I’d be more than happy to discuss it further with you. Outside. At thirty paces. Below the surface.”

  “Settle down, you two, nobody’s dueling.” Morty waves his hands before him, calling for calm. “The point is, Trip, we’ve all talked it over, and we’re sticking with Roxanne. If she’ll stick with us.”

  “Sorry, hon,” Roxanne says, shooing Trip out of her chair. “How about I make it up to you tonight? Nice cozy romantic evening, just you and me.” She rubs her bulging belly. “And the player to be named later, of course.”

  Trip stands, brushing imaginary dust off the lapels of his tux and shrugging with sudden, obviously feigned nonchalance. “Yeah, well, I never wanted to be Minister of War, anyway.”

  “Excellent,” Morty says, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Now that that’s all settled… if you’ll excuse us, son, there’s pressing business to attend to.”

  “No excuses necessary,” Trip says. “That’s why I’m here. Pressing business. I need my warehouse back.”

  “Your warehouse?” Morty asks.

  “Yeah, the one that’s currently, and quite annoyingly, being used to store that vile piss water you call beer.”

  “Piss water or not, it’s making us literal shit-
loads of money,” Morty says. “And we need every bit of warehouse space inside the walls as we can get.”

  “So you’re telling me beer is more important to you than the livelihood of your daughter’s baby daddy?”

  “It’s more complicated than that, Trip,” Morty says. “The beer pays the bills. It’s what’s paying for the new sewage system. And that will benefit everyone. So even if better sanitation was the only thing to consider, yes, I’d have to go with the beer if it means never again having to deal with shit overflowing onto the streets every time it rains.”

  “Here, here,” Hattie says.

  “Does it have to be a warehouse?” Roxanne asks, settling herself down into the chair slowly.

  “Just someplace with walls and a roof where we can build war cars,” Rudy answers.

  “How about a field where you can build war cars after you build some walls and roof?” asks Davenport, the Minister of Food and Stuff. “And I should mention it’s outside the city walls, if that’s a problem.”

  “What are you thinking?” Morty asks.

  The blue-haired Davenport pushes her glasses up her crooked nose. “That patch of field on the other end of the refugee camp.”

  “The old industrial waste dump?” Roxanne asks.

  Davenport nods. “It’s no good for growing grain, and it’d be unsafe for anyone to live there, but, as long as you avoid the chemicals that bubble out of the ground when it’s above 60 degrees, and don’t dig your foundation deeper than the foot of topsoil, it might be perfect for your little war car business.”

  Trip sneers. “A dump? Might work if it was only someplace for Rudy to crash, but I’ll be working there. Occasionally. When I don’t have something better to do–”

  “We’ll take it,” Rudy interrupts.

  “Fine.” Trip snorts. “But only until the beer economy crashes and we can get our old warehouse back.”

  “Good, then it’s settled,” Morty says. “We’ll work out the details of rent later.”

  “Rent?” Trip’s cig drops from his mouth. “What rent? We never paid rent before.”