Revenge of the Apocalypse

by Benjamin Wallace

  The path cut right, and they were met with a wall of corn. The team nearly fell over Glitch. The large man sat tenderly picking at his arm. His sleeve was dark with blood and he twitched with every touch.

  “Glitch?” Kat put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Damn thing shot me in my real arm.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of all the arms I’ve got, he had to shoot this one.”

  “I’m sorry, Glitch,” Kat said.

  “Ah, it’s okay. I was thinking about getting it replaced anyway.”

  “Why didn’t you fry him?” Mason asked.

  “I did. Right after he shot me.” Glitch stood and brushed at the wounds on his arm. “Stupid thing used that spinny-gun to soak up the shot. Then he shot a bunch of popcorn at me and ran off.”

  “It’s mini-gun, Glitch.”

  “Whatever it is. He’s using it as a shield.”

  “It did the same back there,” Jake said. “Mason. Kat. If you’re going to shoot, try and hit it from the left side.” He turned to Glitch. “Can you handle the IMP?”

  Glitch pulled the large rifle from his back, seated it in his hand and smiled.

  “Good. Try to keep the damage down.” Jake turned to the others. “We distract. Glitch melts.” He turned back and parted the corn. “Oh, thank God.”

  The team stepped through the crop into a large clearing. The heart of the farm consisted of several large steel barns surrounding a paved lot filled with equipment. Several service lights glowed above each door. It was the first light they’d seen since venturing into the fields. Unfortunately it didn’t produce much more than atmosphere and shadows.

  The group stepped onto the pavement and surveyed the area looking for movement or any clue as to where the machine had run.

  “Any ideas?” Kat asked.

  Mason raised his disruptor and started walking. “He went this way.”

  “How can you tell?”

  He pointed to a trail of fluffy white popcorn. “Come on Hansel. Come on Gretel.”

  There wasn’t much, but the wind had left enough of the popcorn undisturbed to establish a trail.

  “Everyone stay behind Glitch.” Jake spoke softly.

  “That’s because he likes you least,” Mason said.

  “It’s because of the IMP, you jerk.”

  “Shut up, both of you,” Kat said. “Before the wind takes the trail away.”

  The crew formed up behind the cyborg’s bulk in a small “V” as Glitch followed the white specks.

  They had taken only a few steps when a sound in the cornfield had them all spinning on their heels. Glitch pulled the trigger on the IMP and it kicked in his hands. The sound it made was subtle, a high-pitched bloop like a pebble falling into a hundred-foot well, but the shot itself tore a four-foot hole straight through the crop.

  The stalks that weren’t obliterated burned. The kernels popped all at once, creating a cloud of popcorn. Once it settled to the ground, it looked like Christmas and the team could see clear through to the other side of the cornfield.

  There was nothing else behind them.

  Mason clapped. “Nice shot, Redenbacher.”

  “Shut up, Mason.”

  He patted Glitch on the belly. “Whatever you say Jiffy-Puffy.”

  “I’m not fat. They’re servos.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Would you two please just follow the trail before the wind blows it away?” Kat asked.

  “Right.” Mason pointed ahead of Glitch. “Follow the popcorn. Like a professional.”

  The still air didn’t last long, but it didn’t have to. The popcorn led them around the corner to a metal barn that was larger than most neighborhoods. Once they turned the corner, they found the steel door ripped from its hinges and tossed ten feet away.

  “I think he went in there,” Glitch said.

  “Very good, Glitch.” Mason asked. “That new processor is really doing wonders for you.”

  Jake shook his head and stepped through the hole into the barn. He reached out to the wall looking for a light switch, not really expecting it to be there. It wasn’t. The barn felt even bigger inside. He pulled out a flashlight and hit the switch.

  The beam didn’t penetrate far into the darkness, but the cavernous nature of the barn was exposed. It rose three stories up before there was anything resembling a ceiling and was filled with massive pieces of farm equipment. Several harvesters were lined up near a pair of monstrous doors. They were set to roll as soon as the computers said the crop was ready.

  The rest of the team filed in behind Jake and spread out along the wall.

  Jake splashed the flashlight around the group. “Someone find the lights.”

  Before anyone could respond with a “how?” or “yeah right” the metal cavern filled with a mechanical whir.

  “Spinny-gun!” Glitch shouted and shoved Mason out of the way a half second before the corn came raining down from the rafters.

  Mason hit the ground as the rest of the crew dove for cover.

  Glitch stood. The big man’s machine mind snapped on. As the corn struck the floor around him, one of his oddmentations began to calculate the trajectory of the corn and triangulated its origin in the darkness.

  The data load was immense due to the number of kernels, but it finally returned an answer.

  “I’ve got you now,” Glitch said as he raised the IMP and fired. The gun sounded and a round section of the roof melted away, letting in just enough moonlight to expose the Reaper’s silhouette as the machine leapt from its place in the rafters.

  The IMP was knocked from Glitch’s hands as the mechanical scarecrow kicked the giant back against one of the harvesters.

  The Reaper’s left arm still hung limp at its side, but it swung the mini-gun barrel to great effect, bashing Glitch back into the machine every time he took a step forward.

  “Shoot it!” Mason yelled as he searched for his disruptor.

  Kat kept tabs on the Reaper with her own disruptor but couldn’t get a clear shot. “The current will run right through it into Glitch.”

  Jake stepped out from behind a crate and the mini-gun spooled up instantly to fire. He dove back behind cover as the kernels dug into the wood.

  Glitch made the most of the momentary distraction and seized the machine by the waist. The metal muscles in his arm twitched as he lifted the Reaper above his head. He bashed it into the ground as he yelled, “You hurt my real arm!”

  The Reaper’s eyes turned brighter and it brought the gun to bear on the cyborg. Then its head and torso melted.

  Mason flew back across the room and dropped the IMP as he slammed into the barn wall and collapsed.

  The collision caused the entire structure to roll like thunder.

  Glitch dropped the remains of the machine and rushed to his side. “Are you okay, Mason?”

  Jake slid to his knees and examined Mason as best he could. “Would someone find the lights?”

  “I’m on it.” Glitch stood and ran off into the darkness.

  “Firing the IMP?” Jake said. “That was…”

  “Brave. Courageous. Selfless.” Mason said as he stood on shaky legs.

  “Stupid,” Jake said.

  “This sounds an awful lot like the start of one of your insurance premium rants.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Oh, now we’re doing performance reviews?”

  Bright lights filled the barn with a boom.

  “Good job, Glitch,” Jake shouted over his shoulder.

  Glitch’s voice came back from somewhere deep in the barn. “That wasn’t me.”

  Jake turned. The lights weren’t coming from overhead. They were coming from one of the massive combines. The work lights were focused on the two men in front of the barn doors.

  “That’s weird and terrifying,” Mason said.

  “Maybe it’s just trying to help,” Jake said not believing a word of it.

  “Yeah, I don’t like the way i
t’s looking at us.”

  “I’m sure it’s just the farmers back at the office trying to help.” Why did he keep saying things he didn’t believe?

  The combine’s engine turned over and the giant machine began to rumble. The blades began to spin.

  “How sure are you?”

  Jake started to edge toward the access door they had entered. “Not much. Actually I kind of regret saying it because now it sounds really stupid.”

  The combine lurched forward as the two men dove aside. It crashed into the door and produced a thunderclap that shook the barn and rattled the team.

  Glitch ran out of the darkness and joined the two men. “What did you guys do?”

  The combine backed up and redirected its lights at the trio.

  “Run!” Mason shouted and turned for the door.

  Jake and Glitch followed.

  The three men ran out of the barn and were halfway across the tarmac when the combine exploded through the barn doors in a shower of sparks and screeching metal. The combine’s reel snapped in two and spun away across the parking lot. The machine turned on the fleeing trio and choked out the moon with its work lights.

  Jake fired a blast from the disruptor, knowing that it would do little to slow the massive machine. The streak of electricity ran the length of the farm equipment to no effect.

  They zigged and zagged across the open space and the machine course-corrected each time.

  Cybernetics notwithstanding, Glitch’s bulk slowed him down and he was falling behind. “It’s following us.”

  “You think, dumbass?” Mason shouted as he tried his own disruptor against the machine. It worked as well as Jake’s.

  “Lose it in the corn,” Jake yelled and turned into the field.

  Glitch followed him as Mason took the next row over.

  “I’m not going to make it, guys.” Glitch yelled.

  “You can do it, Glitch.” Jake turned to encourage him. “Redirect power or something.”

  “Nope.” Glitch crashed to the ground and slid through the dirt as the combine tore into the corn behind him. “I was right.”

  The machine sucked the giant man into its maw and Glitch’s screams disappeared inside the machine.

  Jake screamed himself and fired his disruptor at the combine until the system shut down to prevent it from overheating.

  The machine chewed through the corn toward him.

  Mason burst through the row of stalks and fired his own weapon to failsafe.

  The machine kept coming.

  The two men turned to run but bounced off one another in the process and fell to the ground.

  The combine’s blades snapped at a blurring rate as they neared, and the two men kicked into the dirt trying to push themselves away.

  The machine loomed over them.

  The lights were blinding them.

  The two men rolled out of way as the blades sheared the corn stalks from the earth and the combine passed between them.

  Jake got to his feet and beat against the machine looking for a hollow spot, a belly in the beast. He screamed the cyborg’s name. “Glitch!”

  “I’m okay.” The voice came from behind the combine.

  Jake rushed to the rear of the machine and found Glitch lying in the cleared field naked to the skin.

  “Glitch! Glitch, are you okay?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “How the hell are you okay?!”

  Mason ran around the far side and saw the two men. “Why are you naked?”

  “That thing ate my clothes.” Glitch stood, revealing that every shred of material had been thrashed away on his journey through the machine. Also, that his crotch glowed in the dark.

  “Geez, Glitch. Even your junk? Can’t you leave anything alone?”

  “Shut up, Mason.”

  “Let’s talk about Glitch’s little light show later,” Jake said. “It’s turning around.”

  The combine roared as it turned and bore down upon them once more.

  “Man that thing is surprisingly nimble.” Mason checked the status on his disruptor.

  Jake held up his own and saw that it was ready to fire once more. “Maybe if we both hit it at once?”

  “Sure,” Mason nodded enthusiastically, “that will never work.”

  “Just shoot.”

  Both men fired and the front of the combine turned blue as the disruptors let flow a steady stream of electric bursts. The engine sputtered, wheezed and died, leaving them in silence but for their panting and something on Glitch that beeped.

  The work lights flickered, popped and went out leaving them in the dark with only their flashlights and Glitch’s junk providing any kind of light.

  Mason looked at the weapon in his hand. “That really shouldn’t have worked.”

  The combine boomed and all three men jumped. A hatch squeaked open and Kat jumped to the ground. “It looks like I saved you all once— Glitch, why is your dick glowing?”

  4

  Bruises and fatigue made it a long walk back for everyone, but even more so for Glitch, as the tarp they’d found in the barn covered his nakedness but did little to hide the glow in his crotch.

  “Tell me it’s just to make peeing at night easier.”

  “Shut up, Mason.”

  “I’m not judging,” Mason said. “Just asking.”

  “No, you’re judging.”

  “Okay, you’re right. I’m judging.”

  They reached the office parking lot to a round of applause.

  The rest of the ZUMR team had arrived and were busy unloading their reclamation equipment. Four robots standing seven feet tall and four wide at the chest stomped into the parking lot from an old model moving truck. Designed to take a beating from anything the company had ever manufactured, they were built thick and shook the ground when they walked.

  The technicians turned at the team’s approach and clapped fervently, whistled and made other congratulatory comments that they obviously didn’t mean in the least.

  Mason told them all to go to hell and walked back over to the Beast.

  Hailey didn’t clap, but she was smiling when she walked up to Jake. “How did it go, Jake?”

  “It went fine.”

  “You have a funny definition of fine, Ashley.” The man’s name was Colton Porter. And he was a dick.

  He walked up to the couple and held up his phone. A splintered ray of light shot from the end, projecting a large screen into the air that was playing drone footage of the exact moment Glitch was dropped naked from the combine into the cornfield. “So that’s how morons are born. So much for the cabbage patch.”

  The ZUMR technicians laughed at this.

  Glitch turned red and rushed to the Beast, where he sat inside wrapped in his tarp and sulked.

  “You’re a class act, Colton,” Jake said.

  “Sorry, Ashley. I wasn’t thinking.” He put his arm around a reclamation bot and smiled. “You see, our machines don’t have feelings. They just do what they’re told and keep their pants on.”

  “You put a little too much faith in your machines. I wouldn’t trust them to fold my laundry, much less stand by me in the field when it mattered. One little hiccup and I’ve got two renegades to worry about.”

  “That’s not how it works, junker. A machine can’t turn other machines.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” He patted the machine on the back. “I coded the Guardian series myself. They are completely incorruptible and incapable of anything but compliance.”

  “Yay for you. I’ll remember that the first time I’m called to bring one down.”

  “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Jake smiled at Colton and took Hailey by the arm. He led her a few feet away under protest.

  “What are you doing?” She snapped her arm out of his hand.

  “I need to talk to you about something. How long did you have your drone overhead? How much did
you see?”

  “I saw it all. You managed to destroy a barn, a crop, a combine and Glitch’s pants all in a few minutes. I’d call it your highlight reel.”

  “You saw it then?”

  “Saw what?”

  “The second anom.”

  “What? No, there was no second anomaly.”

  “Then what do you call that giant corn cob chomping monster that tried to run us down?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say salvage error.”

  “You think we turned it on ourselves?”

  “Oh, I’m sure it was an accident.” She put air quotes around “accident.” He hated it when she used air quotes. “I’m sure a stray shot probably triggered its programming. And I say that because I’d never accuse you of intentionally sabotaging a machine just to justify a second bounty.”

  “You’d never do that? That’s sweet of you.”

  Hailey nodded. “Just like I’d never even think for a half a second that you would fry a machine and make it go renegade just to extort more money out of the poor farmers here at Happy Dell Independent Family Farms Incorporated.”

  “Isn’t that nice of you to say.”

  She smiled at him and nodded.

  He leaned in close. “Look, you and I can play I Hate My Ex all night long, but I’m being serious here.”

  She folded her arms and cocked her hip. “Yeah, because you’re Mr. Serious.”

  “Hailey, we never touched it. Not once. It went renegade on its own. I swear.”

  “First of all,” she said. “We are not exes. We would have to have been a thing before we could even be a couple. And we’d have to be a couple before we could be exes. That’s how it works. And you and I were never a thing. You get me? Second of all, you don’t get to swear. I get to swear. If anyone has a right to swear it’s me, dammit.”

  Jake took a deep breath, focused on removing all sarcasm from his voice and looked her in the eyes. “Hailey, both of them were ZUMR tech. Don’t you think that’s at least worth looking into? At the very least to cover your company’s ass?”

  Hailey looked away and sighed.

  “Look,” Jake continued, “I want to be wrong. And I want you to be the one that proves me wrong. Because I know how much you’d enjoy that. So please, prove me wrong and call me up and tell me you told me so.”