Date: 2024-11-18 05:00:00+00:00
Description: The Junkers are back and starring in their very own hit show! After rising to fame for their actions in the great robot uprising, Jake Ashley and his team of robot reclamation experts have been given their very own reality show. Each week, the talented team of junkers hunts down a runaway robot in an action-packed episode. From sewage maintenance machines to the largest practical special effect in cinematic history, the team members will be pushed to their limits as they take on renegade robots and struggle with their newfound fame. This short story collection C.H.U.M. The Trouble with Robotte
Rights: All rights reserved (#44358323973)

JUNKERS: THE MISSING SEASON

BENJAMIN WALLACE

Copyright © 2024 by Benjamin Wallace.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

C.H.U.M.

The Trouble with Robotters

Squatched

Peak Terror

Big Buddy Glitch

Call of the Lou

Cereal Killer

C.H.U.M.

JUNKERS: THE MISSING SEASON

“Scrappers: Episode 1. Interior—The Sewer. A stupid, stinking sewer,” Mason grumbled.

The place was pretty clean for a sewer, though. One would expect the pipe walls to be covered with lichen or moss, maybe some tetanus. At the very least, you’d expect some sort of nebulous ick lining the cement surface, but the giant pipe was cleaned frequently and possessed an almost bleached appearance. You could probably eat off it. But you wouldn’t. Because, in the end, it was a sewer and there was no telling what had flowed through its grates.

There were also far fewer rodents, roaches, and abandoned baby alligators than the team had expected. And, perhaps most disappointing, there were exactly zero crime-fighting turtles. The city sewer was quiet and still. The only thing that greeted them when they had entered was their echo. And, even that was a little creepy.

The only thing that did live up to their expectations was the smell. Despite being a storm sewer, the place had a foul stench to it. This was due to the fact every time it stormed in the city above, the rain swept clean the streets and washed every bit of filth into the pipes where it raced through cisterns, nets and filters before returning to the waterways somewhere on the southern end of town. What was left behind in the pipes was a concentrated stream of everything that had ever been dropped, discarded or defecated onto the streets and now ran steadily beneath their feet and had soaked through their boots more than an hour ago.

“When they said to us, ‘You’re gonna be big stars. You’re gonna be rich. You’re gonna be famous. Your face is gonna be on the streams everywhere.’ I never for a minute thought we’d be up to our knees in literal sh—”

BEEP.

The drone that had been following closely behind Mason buzzed his head, dropped into his field of view and had beeped before he could finish the statement.

“What?” Mason directed his comment to the lens on the front of the drone. “I can’t say sh—”

BEEP.

The drone’s tone cut short his curse and reverberated off the concrete walls before disappearing somewhere deep in the darkness.

“Get a load of this, Jake. Our fearless producer puts us in a sewer—a literal conduit for sh—”

BEEP.

“—And then expects us not to use a little potty language.” Mason took a swing at the drone, missed and slipped in the muck beneath his feet. He almost went down. It took a few hops and a few more beeps from the camera before he regained his footing.

The camera backed away from Mason and turned its lens back to the rest of the team.

It wasn’t the drone’s beeping that bothered Jake so much—he somewhat enjoyed how much the network censor’s squawk irritated Mason—it was the drone’s presence he hated. When the team had signed on to do the show, their fame was still fresh. At that time, nothing seemed real. They were still riding the high of being heroes when Lucas and the network approached them. As strange as it sounded now, signing on to do a TV show seemed like the next logical step after all that had happened to them. But now there were at least two cameras following them around at all times watching, listening and ultimately broadcasting their every move while they tried to do their jobs. The whole situation was going to take some getting used to.

“Remember, Mason,” Jake said while sidestepping something gross in the water ahead of him. “They want it to be a family show.”

“That means you’re going to have to keep it clean, Mason.” The team’s cyborg shouted from the front of the line. His many augmentations had increased his already substantial size over the years and he found it difficult to walk next to anyone in the confined space without constantly bumping into them.

“Keep it clean, Glitch? If that’s the case, then maybe a sewer wasn’t the best place for an episode, you dumba— “

BEEP.

“Are you serious?” Mason argued with the drone. “That’s not a bad word, it’s his defining trait! Can you believe this, Kat?”

“Don’t talk to me,” the young woman said. She kept one hand on her flashlight and the other at the base of her nose in case of a particularly strong waft of stink. “I’m trying not to breathe.”

“Whatever? What about you, Savant?”

“Just keep it clean, Mason,” the team’s technician said without looking up from his tablet. “I don’t want you screwing this up for me.”

“This wasn’t part of the deal,” Mason grumbled to himself. “You know this was all Lucas’ idea. It’s easy to say don’t swear when you’re on the side of the camera that doesn’t smell like a thousand as— “

BEEP.

Mason fired off a string of swear words that ran on for several minutes. The only thing more impressive than the breadth and depth of Mason’s vulgar vocabulary was the drone’s ability to beep every single shouted swear. Mason finally took a breath and then, defiantly, gave up.

It was eerily quiet beneath the city when Mason wasn’t swearing. There was only the sound of their breathing and some constant far-off drip reverberating through the pipes. Every drop and breath echoed until it dissolved somewhere in the abyss that occupied the far end of the pipe.

The five scrappers stayed close to one another as they moved through the tunnel. This was partly out of necessity but mostly because no one wanted to drift too far from the weak flashlights they had been issued.

The show’s producer had assigned each of them a handheld flashlight for the mission with the explanation that they were designed to work best with the cameras. Jake had thought nothing of it until they were well into the darkness and turned them on to find they produced an anemic beam that did little more than project a yellow dot on the wall.

There was a lot Jake didn’t know about producing a reality show. And he knew even less about cameras. But he questioned the quality of the shot the producers were going to get with such poor lighting.

It was at that moment that Kat’s light flickered briefly, glowed intensely, and then went out completely. Its absence went unnoticed by the group.

Kat drew her own beep from the camera as she beat the light against a pipe in an attempt to jar the battery back to life. For some reason, bashing it against the concrete didn’t work even though she beat it until the lens cracked and the bezel fell off. “These stupid lights are no good. The light from a phone would be better.”

“I think that’s the point,” Glitch said shining his own feeble light on the wall. “They’re cinematic flashlights. They create drama with the lighting. If they were any brighter, the viewer could see that we were in a boring, barren tunnel. And no one wants to watch that. With these…” He waved the light around the tunnel, making the yellow dot dance until it landed on Savant’s face. “You never know what horrors are hiding in the dark.”

Savant flinched and tried to wipe the light from his face. When that failed, he tried to knock the flashlight from Glitch’s hand.

Mason stopped swinging and pointed his light at the ground. “I think it’s so the viewer doesn’t have to see what we’re stepping in.”

“Hold up.” Jake held up a hand to stop the team. Thanks to the weak lights, they couldn’t see the hand and walked right past him. “Guys!”

The team stopped and Glitch sloshed back to where he had been when Jake initially called for a halt. “Sorry, Jake.”

“Just, shhh.”

There was one more slosh as someone found their footing in the ankle-deep water and then silence. Everyone held their breath to ensure both absolute quiet and to keep from inhaling the smell.

Jake listened. There was nothing but that constant drip somewhere in the tunnels ahead. He could have sworn he’d heard something. “I guess it was nothing.”

“Are you sure it’s nothing, Jake?” Savant shined his flashlight on his own face as if he was about to spin a ghost story at camp. “It could be the Underhills, a homeless community of Green Hills that has chosen to reject modern society and retreat to the catacombs of the sewers. The citizens above gave them little thought until members of the underground community began turning up dead with wounds that suggested these underground denizens were the victims of a rogue machine known as the Catacomb Hygienic Utility Machine or CHUM After all, that’s why they’ve called us in. As robot reclamation specialists, often known as junkers, we are well suited and equipped to deal with this mysterious mechanical threat to human life.”

All the yellow dots ended up on Savant’s face. The team’s computer scientist rarely spoke unless there was an insult to be made and Savant had used a week’s worth of words in under a minute. This created more confusion than the noise Jake hadn’t actually heard.

Glitch stepped forward and tried to put a palm on Savant’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay, buddy?”

“Get away from me, oaf.” Savant pulled away so fast he almost slipped on something slick beneath the sewer water.

Glitch caught him just before he fell and helped steady him. “I think the fumes are getting to you, buddy.”

“The fumes aren’t getting to me,” Savant fired back. “I’m fine. I was just explaining why we were here.”

“We all know why we’re here, Savant,” Kat said. “You don’t have to tell us.”

“Everyone, quiet.” Jake flashed the weak beam of his flashlight in each face to get their attention. “Savant may be acting weird, but he’s not wrong. We have to find that machine. Now let’s get moving.”

The team sloshed on with the weak amber beams leading the way.

“Who would want to live down here?” Mason eventually asked.

“Life up top isn’t for everyone,” Kat said. “I totally get wanting to hide from the world.”

“Sure,” Mason said. “But why not retreat to somewhere that doesn’t smell like something that died, was reincarnated and immediately died again next to the thing that died before.”

“The Underhills aren’t trolls living in solitude,” Savant said. “It’s not like they live a solitary existence. They’ve formed their own community complete with their own economy, culture and traditions. It’s a society not unlike our own with its own rules and morés. There’s trade, traditions and a growing history. The latest estimates put their populations near a thousand individuals.”

Kat pulled her hand from her nose. “Seriously, Chatty Cathy, you’re freaking me out a bit with all the talking.”

“Why would they settle here, Savant?” Glitch asked.

“Must be because they’re dumb—”

BEEP.

“Dumb, you stupid drone,” Mason laughed. “Dumb! I was going to stop at dumb.”

“Wanting to live differently doesn’t make them dumb,” Glitch said.

“No, but making your home in a sewer does.” Mason slapped the wall. “One good rain storm could wipe out the whole place. Not to mention how bad it must smell in here on Cinco de Seis.”

“Why they live here doesn’t matter,” Jake said as he turned to face the rest of his crew. “We’re here to find the machine that’s gone renegade and stop it before it hurts anyone else.”

“Nice,” Mason said.

“What do you mean, nice?”

“That’s a stinger if I have ever heard one. You’re a natural at this reality show stuff, Jake.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Yeah,” Mason said. “You meant to.”

“No, I—Look, everyone, there may be TV cameras watching us now but that doesn’t change a thing about how we do our jobs. I need everyone to focus on the assignment at hand. Glitch,” Jake gestured to the large cyborg. “Why don’t you remind everyone what we’re looking at here?”

Glitch nodded and activated a holographic projector built into his wrist. The light from the device lit up the entire tunnel.

Mason winced and held up a hand to block to the brightness. “We should use that instead of these stupid flashlights.”

Once his eyes had adjusted, Jake could see the slowly rotating image of their target hovering in the air in front of Glitch.

“Meet the CHUM,” Glitch said.

“Duh duh duh,” Mason sang.

This drew looks from the team. None of which were looks of admiration.

“What? I can’t have a stinger moment, too?”

The CHUM was a plumbing maintenance and sanitation system that stood on two legs and looked like something out of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Specifically, the hunchback. Its rounded carapace was articulated and could adjust to accommodate the tunnels it was charged with cleaning and clearing. It was equipped with tools to fulfill the various tasks associated with sewer maintenance.

“This machine is designed to keep the storm sewers clean and clear of debris.” Glitch twitched his hand and the hovering image spun to display the machine’s back. “Its entire back is covered with coarse, charged wires that scrape the tunnel surfaces like electric steel wool.”

The hologram spun again and enlarged the machines right arm. “It’s equipped with a welding torch for sealing any leaks and a laser for burning out any serious clogs.”

“Get a load of that Robo Rooter,” Kat said pointing to the CHUM’s laser arm.

Glitch continued as the hologram rotated once more. “On the left arm, there are various cutting tools for dislodging any jams. The city of Green Hill bought the Exterminator variant of the machine, so the ones down here are also armed for pest control. That means it contains pesticide for the creepy crawlies and a projectile weapon for bigger rodents.”

“This thing is why these pipes look so clean,” Jake said. “Look around us here. This is how things should look if it’s functioning properly.”

“Good for clearing drains and killing hobos,” Mason said.

Glitch shook his head. “They’re not hobos, Mason.”

“Sure, they are,” Mason said.

“They’re not though,” Glitch said in a mocking tone. “There is a clear and academic distinction between homeless populations. The hobo, by definition, is a migrant worker and would therefore never settle in one place for any length of time. The people here have made the sewer their home.”

“What does it matter?” Savant asked. “They’re all bums.”

“They’re not bums, either. Bums don’t travel,” Glitch told him. “Or work. Tramps travel but don’t work. Hobos travel and work. Bums don’t do much of anything.”

“What is going on?” Mason looked to the others for help before turning back to Glitch. “Who made you king of the hobos.”

“King of the hobos?” Glitch laughed. “Don’t I wish. How cool would that be?”

Mason rolled his eyes and sloshed away.

“Everyone, focus!” Jake snapped. “I don’t know what they’re called but a couple of their bodies have come floating out of the system in the last couple of weeks and all signs point to a renegade CHUM as being responsible. So, let’s stay sharp and make sure we see to it that no more hobos get killed. Okay?”

Glitch mumbled, “They’re not hobos.” He killed the hologram and the darkness returned to the sewer.

“You studying hobos now, Glitch?” Kat asked as they moved on. Outside of augmenting and upgrading his various parts, Glitch’s favorite pastime was reading. He’d get lost in a particular topic for weeks at a time and talk about little else until a new topic grabbed his attention.

“They’re fascinating,” he said with a nod. “They went wherever they felt like going. They had their own secret written language and they lived by their own moral code. So, while their lives may have appeared to go against the grain of mainstream society, the reality is the life of a hobo is a more structured life than it would first seem. I really envy them for their courage to live life on their own terms.”

“That does sound fascinating,” Kat said.

Glitch grinned. “Plus, trains are neat.”

“Hey, Boxcar Glitchy,” Mason called from farther ahead in the tunnel. “I need you to tell me whether you think this guy is a bum or tramp?”

The team caught up to Mason and cast their pale-yellow lights at the ground. The man’s body was badly mangled and covered with burn marks.

Savant almost retched at the grisly sight.

“Oh my God,” Kat said and turned away.

“Yeah,” Mason sighed. “This does not look sanitary at all.”

The corpse was one of the most gruesome things Jake had ever seen. But even beyond the body, something was bothering him about the whole situation. “Something isn’t right here.”

“You’re right,” Mason agreed. “That hole in his chest is supposed to be filled with more him.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What Jake is trying to say is that even when a machine goes rogue, it still displays vestiges of its core programming.” Savant had composed himself and, as he spoke, the camera drone repositioned to cover him. “This murder, while odious and tragic, it is not in line with what we’d expect from a machine like the CHUM if it had, indeed, gone renegade. A cleaning bot would be more likely to over-clean its victims to death. This dead guy, however, is rather messy.”

“Yes, thanks, once again, for over-explaining the obvious, Savant,” Mason said.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Glitch asked. “We’ve all been doing this for a long time. We know how rogue machines work.”

“Keep doing what?” Savant crossed his arms. “I’m just saying that–”

“Oh, I get it now,” Kat said and slapped Savant on the shoulder. “I know what he’s doing!”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Yes, you are. You’re providing exposition!”

“No, I’m not,” Savant replied.

“Yes, you are. And you’re doing it so you can get more air time than the rest of us.”

“That’s ridiculous, I’m just stating the obvious. I think anyone would see that.”

“Yeah, and you’re doing it over and over again,” Mason said. “Kind of summing up the obvious bits like when a show comes back from a commercial break.”

“That’s not exposition!” Savant said. “That’s a recap.”

“You’re such a narcissist,” Kat said.

“I am not.”

“Starting a sentence with I.” She shook her head. “Sounds like something a narcissist would do.”

“Everyone, stop arguing,” Jake said. “Which way did the machine go, Savant?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, so there is something you don’t know,” Glitch said.

Jake tried to breathe normally. “Maybe you could check your gear for us.”

Savant shrugged and pulled out his tablet. “These sewers are ancient and the network access is— “

“Crappy?” Glitch guessed.

“In the toilet?” Kat added.

“Shi— “

BEEP.

Mason screamed, “Someone move this stupid camera!”

“There’s barely a signal at all. I can’t track anything down here.” Savant tapped frantically at his tablet while spinning in place to find a signal. He stopped and stood half-way twisted and slightly off balanced while the signal caught up to his inquiries. “Wait, I think I have something.”

“Well, where is it?” Jake asked.

“It’s behind us.” Savant spun again and faced back the way they had come. “And it’s coming this way.”

* * *

There was a flurry of motion from the camera drones as they shuffled into their positions to try and get the best shot. One hovered in front of the group while the second buzzed off down the tunnel to film the machine’s approach.

The team repositioned themselves to face the threat and instantly felt the confines of the tunnel. They jostled about and bumped into one another as they tried to find a firing position. The tunnel was too short and too narrow for them to form a normal firing line.

Jake winced as the team bumped about and began bickering about who was in whose way.

“Savant, get lower or you’re going to get hit,” Kat said.

“Don’t tell me. Tell Glitch. He takes up too much room, I can’t get a shot.”

“You need to squat more,” Glitch said.

“If I squat any more, I’ll be in the water.”

“No one cares,” Kat said pushing on the scientist’s head.

“Stop that. You’ll get my pants wet.”

“Enough,” Jake snapped and took a step back. “Class photo time. Glitch, get in the back. Kat, you’re next to me. Mason and Savant, kneel down in front.”

Both men complained as they started to get down on one knee. They each tried several approaches and both knees several times before giving up entirely and turning back to Jake.

“I am not kneeling in that gunk,” Mason said.

“Me either.” Savant put a foot up on the wall a leaned as far to the side as he could. “I’ll do this. Make sure you don’t shoot me, Glitch.”

“I’ll try, Savant.”

“How are you doing that?” Mason studied Savant’s pose and tried to duplicated it. His foot slipped and he landed on his elbows in the steady stream of filth running through the pipe. “Ughgahd, some splashed in my mouth.”

“You’d should take up yoga, Mason,” Savant said with a laugh. “It’s the only way that old people like you can bend this way.”

Mason grabbed Savant’s ankle and pulled it out from underneath him. Savant fell on his back into the putrid stream. He scrambled to get back up but Kat put a foot on his back and shoved him back down.

“Stay down,” Kat said before either of the men could argue. “It’s coming.”

The weak lights did nothing to disperse the darkness before them. The only sign of the approaching machine was an occasional flash of purple light that came in a burst of sparks. The smell of ozone drifted towards them as the flashes grew in intensity. The lights began to cast shadows and soon outlined a silhouette in front of them, a lumbering shape that filled the entire tunnel.

Jake could feel the machine’s footsteps reverberating through the cement pipe under his feet.

The purple sparks grew brighter and brighter until they could see that the electric pops surrounded the machine as it came into view. It had expanded its carapace to fill the pipe and the wires on its back scraped the surfaced and crackled with electricity.

Jake pulled the weapon to his shoulder. The standard robot reclamation process involved electrical disruptors that had been designed to overload a machine’s circuits, but the ever-constant stream of filthy water and general dank nature of the tunnels made them too dangerous to fire in the sewer. One errant stream and any team member with a toe in the trickle would be victim of inadvertent friendly fire.

The alternative to disruptors was normally the Imp, an EMP weapon capable of deactivating most machines with a single blast. But it was enormous and only Glitch with his cybernetic augmentations had the strength to wield the weapon. The weapon’s size made it too cumbersome to wield in the tight confines of the drainage system.

All these factors left the team with little choice but to try something new.

That’s why each member of the team was now armed with an experimental miniature EMP rifle Savant had dubbed the Mimp. Smaller and far less powerful than the Imp, the reduced scale of the weapon required new tactics. A blast from any single Mimp would have little effect on the CHUM. It would take the entire team concentrating fire on the target at once to bring it down. They were going to have to work together. This had never been their strong suit.

Despite its smaller size, the Mimp still had a considerable kick. Jake pulled the weapon tight against his shoulder to prepare for the shot and shouted, “Hold!”

Glitch fired and immediately shouted, “Sorry!”

Mason and Savant struggled to get back to their feet while trying to get as little of the city’s runoff on them as possible.

The machine lumbered steadily forward on stocky legs, its bulk filling the space. As it grew closer the team could see that the sparks were coming from the wires on its back. Lashing against the wall, they burned off any dirt or refuse that rested on the surface. Just like it was programmed to do. Closer still and they could see that its “head” was shaped like a diving helmet with a large central lens. This “eye” snapped on and bathed the team in a warm light.

“Hold!” Jake shouted again.

Everyone but Glitch fired.

Kat leaned into the recoil and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Savant was thrown back into the water and Mason was forced back against the tunnel wall. Glitch felt left out and started firing again.

The CHUM was struck several times, but never with enough concentration to overload its circuits. Still, the machine stopped its approach and idled in the tunnel.

“I said hold! Not fire!” Jake shouted.

“I couldn’t hear you because of the echo,” Mason said.

Savant shook his head. “I had water in my ear.”

“I just really wanted to shoot it.” Kat fired once more at the machine. It bucked in her hands but the weapon had no effect on the CHUM.

The light in the machine’s head dimmed and then went out. All was still in the tunnel with the exception of the occasional pop of a purple spark.

“Did we get it?” Glitch asked. “Did the Mimps work?”

The CHUM’s light popped back on brighter than before and washed the tunnel with light.

The team reshouldered their weapons as the machine’s eye settled on them.

“Hold!” Jake snapped and this time the others listened.

For a moment the machine simply stared at them. Then it turned slowly and began to walk away. It had a limp now and it dragged its right leg as it went, completing the Quasimodo look once and for all.

The camera drone whirred over to Jake and turned its lens on the team’s leader.

He stared into the black eye and could sense Lucas on the other side. “I can feel him judging me.”

“Judging you?” Savant laughed. “I’m sure he’s fining you for destroying city property.”

Jake stomped in the water and spun around. “You’re the one that told us it was the target!”

“Yeah,” Savant said with reluctance. “But you’re the idiots who shot it!”

Glitch joined the fight. “But you’re the bigger idiot who said it was the target!”

“A killer machine and benevolent one both make the same blip on my screen, Nuts N’ Bolts,” Savant said. “It’s not like one comes up red and the other comes up with a smiley face.”

Jake changed his tone in an attempt to settle things down. “Everyone just be really careful what you’re shooting at from here on out, okay?”

“Why?” Glitch asked. “It’s not like these Mimps can hurt anyone. That machines barely felt it.”

“They work fine,” Savant said. “I should know. I designed them myself. By definition, that means they work.”

“You should have called them Wimps,” Glitch said in a rare moment of wit and smiled proudly to himself.

* * *

For lack of any other option, the team followed the pipe deeper into the sewer. Their eye’s lingered on the entry to every tunnel intersection as they cast the pathetic beams from the studio flashlights into the darkness and cursed the weak illumination.

Savant shook the flashlight. “What are these, like one candlepower? I could do better with a wick and barrel of whale oil.”

With so little light, they were forced to listen for any danger that may be in the darkness. They saw nothing and heard nothing but the sloshing of their footsteps, Mason’s grumbling, and the cameras occasionally censoring Mason’s grumbling.

There was no telling how far they had traveled since they had entered the sewers. They had gone in all but blind. They had no map. The sewer system’s schematics had been lost over time to corrupt storage files and poor backup contingencies. Lucas had promised network connectivity, but that had failed them as well. If the flashlight in his hand was any indication, Jake was beginning to wonder if the producer ever intended for them to have a connection to the surface at all. Lucas was always going on about how he wanted the show to capture the true drama of a junkers team and it was starting to look like the man didn’t think fighting a potentially lethal machine was dramatic enough.

After a few hours of wandering through the pipes, the team began to recognize something of a pattern in the system’s construction. Street level access points were spaced evenly apart and topped with manhole covers that let a pinhole of daylight into the catacombs. Soon they could identify intersections and started counting city blocks. They had no idea what to do with the information as they didn’t know which intersections they were, or where they were ultimately going, but they all agreed it was comforting to at least know something.

An hour later, the pattern disappeared and was replaced with meandering paths that challenged their sense of direction.

Kat ran her hand along the wall. “These pipes are clean. If there is a CHUM in this part of the sewer, I doubt it’s malfunctioning.” She pulled her hand back and rub the tips of her fingers together. “Do you think we reached the edge of the city?”

Jake shook his head, which did little good in the dark. “We were headed to the city center. I doubt we’ve walked far enough to pass it and head out the other side.”

Mason pointed his flashlight in Savant’s face. “Any exposition you want to exposize, camera hog?”

The light from the flashlight wasn’t enough to make him flinch so Savant just stared back. After a moment of thought he began to explain, “The Green Hill sewage system was a byproduct of explosive urban growth in the early 21st century. While—”

The team groaned and turned away.

“Shut up, Savant,” Kat said.

“It wasn’t until much later—”

“Really shut up, Savant.” Jake thought he heard something besides his teammate’s rambling and was straining to listen. “I think I hear something.”

Savant ended his exposition and the team looked at each other awkwardly in the dim light as they tried to hear whatever it was that had caught their boss’s ear.

They felt it before they heard it. It was subtle, but there was a beat reverberating beneath their feet. Once they identified it as a rhythm, they were able to trace a series of faint sounds that were coming from farther down the pipe.

“Sounds like someone’s got a hell of a water knock going on,” Mason said.

The beat stopped.

Glitch put his ear against the wall. “I guess they flushed.”

The beat came back. It was different this time. Faster and more intense.

Kat tapped her toe to the rhythm. “Is that music?”

“It’s not my kind of thing,” Mason said. “But I think you’re right.”

Jake and the others followed the beat down the tunnel. The closer they got to the source, the harder the ground thumped under their feet. Closer still and the water in the center of the pipe began to ripple as if there were a dozen T-rexes nearby stalking a dozen Jeff Goldblums.

The flashlights weren’t strong enough to spot the ripples, of course. It was a light pouring from a side passage that made it possible to see the tremors. The light flashed and changed color with the beat while casting a hundred confusing shadows around them.

There was no denying it was music now. As they closed the distance, they could hear more than the pulsing bass. A full spectrum of music filled the sewers revealing the song selection to be firmly in the EDM genre. But there was another sound in the noise. It was a crowd, cheering when the beat dropped and applauding between tracks.

Jake turned back to the team. “That sounds like a party.”

“In the sewer?” Mason asked. “That’s just dumb.”

Glitch pushed past Mason in the tunnel. “You’re just upset ‘cause you didn’t get invited.”

They all followed the cyborg to the end of the tunnel. This is where the stream of filth ended as it cascaded over a forty-foot drop and disappeared. The team crowded together at the end of the pipe and marveled at the scene laid out before them.

“Holy sh—”

BEEP. The drone scolded Mason as it buzzed past him to get to the grand sweeping establishing shot for the next scene.

They stood like miniatures in front of a cavernous cistern that defied belief. A thousand feet long and fifty feet wide, the floor of the rainwater detention chamber was five stories below them and crawling with a crowd of hundreds. The majority of the crowd was lost in the music as a DJ performed from an elevated platform high above them. The stage was covered in smoke that pulsed with color as the lights and the lasers changed to the beat.

Those who weren’t dancing were perusing rows of what appeared to be a marketplace sprawled across the cistern’s floor. Tables and stalls were manned with vendors and stocked with colorful goods that were difficult to identify from five stories up.

“It is Hobo City,” Mason said.

“They’re not hobos,” Glitch said.

“Whatever they are,” Kat said looking at the scene before them. “They know how to party.”

Jake looked to his tech specialist. “Savant? Anything you want to add?”

The man looked as confused as the rest of them. “I…I’ve got nothing.”

“That’s a first,” Kat said.

“This is the nicest homeless camp I ever seen.” Mason pushed his way to the front of the group and found a ladder bolted next to the pipe’s opening. He swung out and began climbing. “Last one down, su—.”

BEEP.

“Really?! Su—?”

BEEP.

If you ignored the smell and forgot about the crawling feeling covering your skin, it was hard to imagine you were in a sewer at all. The scene before them looked more like a crowded Greek agora. All you had to do was replace the togas with leather garb and the soft tunes played on a lyre with thumping techno music being pushed through massive speaker cabinets.

Once they reached the ground, they discovered even the smell was no longer a problem. A large percentage of the marketplace stalls were dedicated to odor mitigation. Tables were lined with perfumes and colognes. Incense smoked and essential oils diffused in nearly every stall and somewhere in the throng of people someone was smoking a brisket. The gross stench of the sewer was replaced with the mouthwatering scent of barbecue.

“This is amazing,” Kat said after a few minutes of wandering through the marketplace.

“Yes, especially considering it’s a literal—”

BEEP.

“—hole.” Mason took another swing at the drone. It dodged the blow easily and moved on to find a better angle to cover the action in the marketplace. “How does it know what I’m about to say? I don’t know what I’m going to say half the time.”

Kat whispered to Jake, “Do you think we’re supposed to be here?”

Jake shrugged. He didn’t know the etiquette surrounding encounters with underground civilizations. People were staring, but no one seem bothered by their presence.

“I think we’ll be okay,” Jake said.

“Outsiders!” The shout originated from a small woman standing behind a leather goods table selling name brand handbags for far less than name brand prices, but the word quickly echoed throughout the crowd silencing everything. Even the music.

The purse lady was still shouting, “Outsiders!” But now she was pointing at the team with one hand while reaching behind her back with the other.

Jake felt his grip on the Mimp tighten. It wouldn’t do any good against a person but it may give them a moment to run. They had been warned they might find people beneath the city, but no one said anything about finding a city beneath the city. If the crowd turned on them, they would have to get out of the area quick. He searched for an exit that wasn’t five stories up a ladder. He couldn’t see one.

The woman drew an elegant handbag from behind her back and held it up for them to see. “Surface dweller special! Today only!”

A chorus of sales pitches followed as the vendors clamored for the attention of the tourists. A moment later, the party was back and the music returned. If people weren’t selling, they went back to raving. That was the vast majority of the crowd. Some looked drunk. Others drugged. But everyone danced.

The marketplace was expansive. Tables were filled with luxury brand goods of suspicious origins, impressive arts and crafts made from reclaimed materials, and refurbished tech sold with the promise it worked better than the day it was swept into the sewer. There was also a surprising number of antiques and it wasn’t long before everyone in the group spotted something that drew their attention.

“No way!” Mason grabbed an action figure from one table and held it up to show the team. “I had this guy as a kid!”

“That’s a rare one,” the merchant behind the table said and held up a small plastic sword. “And he’s almost impossible to find with the original accessories.”

“Whoa.” Mason took the sword and stared at the toys in his hands. “How much?”

Jake turned away from the transaction and studied the crowd. Other than being underground, everything seemed somewhat normal. For the most part, the crowd appeared happy. Especially the ones grinding away to the music.

Savant appeared next to him holding a vintage circuit board he’d purchased from a nearby vendor. “How can these weirdos live here?”

“Twenty-four-hour raves. A shopping mall. What’s not to like? It looks like the have everything they need.” Jake pointed a few rows over to tables filled with fresh vegetables. “They’ve even got a farmer’s market.”

“But they’re…poor. How can they live like this when people like me think of them the way I do? I know I couldn’t stand it if I thought of me like that.” Savant said.

“Maybe not everyone needs riches to be happy, Savant,” Kat said. “Did you ever consider that?”

“Not ever. Not even a little. Actually, it’s a pretty stupid thought if you think about it. And I don’t have stupid thoughts. You know that.”

The whole situation was overwhelming. Jake tried to clear his head and move on. “Let’s just focus on the job. Start asking around and see if anyone knows anything about our malfunctioning CHUM.”

Savant nodded a walked away. Mason was still bartering for pieces of his childhood and Glitch was poring over a table full of bionics being sold at “rock bottom prices.”

Ignoring the products thrust in their faces, Jake and Kat moved through the crowd and browsed another row of wares. The underground market’s scale was something else. Row after row of vendors barked for their attention and shouted bargains at them as they tried to pass.

“So how do you think the episode is going?” Kat asks.

“I’m trying not to think about it. It’s still weird having cameras in my face wherever I go.”

“You get used to it,” Kat said. “After a while, even the whirring of the drones kind of fades into the background.”

“I want it to be good, you know. I want Scrappers to be a success for the team’s sake. But I’m not sure I’m the best judge of what makes for good television. The last show I watched with any consistency was the Monkeynauts on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. So, every time something happens, all I can think is, ‘What would Captain Mike McMonkey do in this situation?’” He instantly regretted bringing it up.

“As far as heroes go,” Kat said after a long moment, “Captain Mike is not that bad.” Then the conversation was over and she wandered off to talk to the vendor of a nearby table.

Jake wandered the marketplace, marveling at the world the Underhills had created beneath the city. He spoke with vendors, trying to get a lead on their prey, but found himself drawn into sales pitch after sales pitch instead. One woman was even having a Going Out of Business Sale.

“Hey, Mister High Class. Everything must go. Up to 70% off.”

“Why the fire sale?”

“I’m finally getting out of this dump. I’m moving.”

“Where to?”

“New York,” she said with a fair amount of sarcasm. “I’ve got a nice place under 5th Avenue lined up. Now can I help you find something?”

“Yes, you could. I’m looking for a rogue sewer maintenance robot that may be malfunctioning.”

“Do I look like I have a rogue sewer maintenance robot that may be malfunctioning somewhere on my table?”

“I was hoping you might point me in the right direction.”

“Why are you looking for a rogue sewer maintenance robot that might be malfunctioning?”

“Because, it’s killing people.”

“No one that I’m going to miss,” she said with a shrug. “Good day, sir.”

“If you could just—”

“I said ‘Good day!’” The woman turned and struck up a conversation with absolutely no one to avoid further discussion. It was a heated conversation. From what Jake could gather, the person that wasn’t there owed her money.

He distanced himself from the woman and visited a few more stalls. At each, he inquired about the machine and came up with nothing every time. The responses were much the same. Sure, there had been a few grisly deaths, but so what? It was no one anyone cared about.

“What is wrong with these people?” Kat said when she found him in the crowd several minutes later. “No one seems to care that people are dying.”

“Hey, guys.” Glitch came jogging up to the pair with Mason right behind him. Savant was with them too, but he wasn’t hurrying for anybody. “Look what Mason found.”

“I think I know why everyone is in such a good mood down here.” Mason pulled a clear plastic bag from his pocket and held it up for the group to see. It was filled with plant stalks colored vibrant blue and purple with a touch of electric green.”

One of the drones lowered itself into position over Jake’s shoulder.

“They’re drugs,” Glitch whispered loud enough for everyone to hear as Jake gave the bag a closer look.

“It’s a strain of fungus containing psilocybin that’s been refined over the years to heighten the hallucinogenic effect of the user,” Savant said as he stepped into the shot. “The kids call it Pipe Dreams. These people aren’t happy, after all. They’re tripping—”

BEEP.

“That certainly explains the non-stop rave,” Kat said.

“What do you think came first?” Mason asked. “Hobo city or the drugs?”

“They’re not hobos,” Glitch insisted.

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not why we’re here.” Jake handed the drugs back to Mason and approached a nearby vendor. “We’ve got to find the CHUM and we’re not going to do that until we find someone who’s willing to talk.”

“You know what I’d like to talk about?” The question came from a nearby vendor. “Muck foot! Don’t you hate the constant itching? The occasional burning? That feeling of bugs between your toes that makes you wonder if they’ll have to amputate? Well, worry no more. You can keep your foot and end the discomfort of muck foot with my patented solve.”

“Don’t you mean salve?” Savant asked and winked at the camera.

“No, it’s solve,” the man said. “Because it will solve your problem. I thought you sun bathers were supposed to be smart. It’s a solve. It will solve all your muck foot related problems. Muck-Off will cure your crud and make your little piggies pink again. It will have you tapping your toes to the beat of clean feet. It should take care of the smell as well. Muck-Off is your foot’s best friend. How many bottles would you like?”

“None, thank you,” Jake said. “My feet are fine.”

“You say that now. But you just got here. Muck foot can strike at any time.”

“I just have a question for you,” Jake said. “You’ve heard of the recent murders?”

“Yes. But have you heard about how Muck-Off isn’t just for fungi of the pedi persuasion? Muck-Off will also take the funk out of your junk, the stank off your crank and the schmutz off your nuts with a single bottle.” The vendor leaned in closer to Jake and spoke softly. “But I’d warn you to keep it off your boys. Unless you already have all the kids you want.”

“We don’t need any Muck-Off!” Mason said. “We’re looking for the machine that is killing your friends.”

“I can’t help you there. They’re no friends of mine. But if you were looking for something to clear out the yuck from your butt, I could help.”

“I don’t need any–”

“Scum from your bum?”

“I—”

“Waste off your face?”

“Look, if you could just—”

“C’mon, man,” the vendor said and put his hands on the table. “It’s just soap.”

“Seriously, Jake. You can be so dense sometimes.” Kat pulled Jake out of the way and dropped a few bills in front of the vendor. “Muck-Off is exactly what I’m looking for.”

“Thank you, young lady. It’ll take the gritty right off your—”

BEEP.

The camera repositioned itself in front of the vendor.

“What was that?” The Muck Off man asked.

“Network censor,” Mason said.

“Can’t say that I care for it.”

“Maybe you can help me with something else?” Kat continued quickly. “I’m looking for a runaway sewer maintenance machine.”

“Why?” The vendor said as he struggled to pull a plastic bag from a pack of plastic bags. “It’s not bothering anyone.”

“It’s killing people,” Glitch said.

“Not anyone good.” The bag came free and the vendor picked up a mason jar filled with green liquid. A piece of masking tape on the side identified the contents as Muck-Off. “Now, you’re going to want to keep this in a cool, dry place, away from other chemicals, children and small animals. Especially hamsters.”

“What do you mean, not anyone good?” Jake asked.

“Look, is it sad that people are dead?” the vendor asked. “Probably. But they weren’t great people. Besides, it’s not a robot.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. It’s kind of a like a monster but not one that’s bad. Some call it the Spirit of the Sewer. Others think it’s the reanimated corpse of Hobo Johnson.”

“I told you they were hobos,” Mason whispered to Glitch.

“Just because they call him a hobo doesn’t make him one,” Glitch said. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“They say old Hobo Johnson came back from the dead to protect the town. But it doesn’t matter what it is. Whatever is in those tunnels, in the darkness, it’s keeping us safe. It’s got our backs. The people it killed—”

“Up top we call them victims,” Savant said.

“The people it killed. They weren’t good people. They were a danger to everyone here. The Spirit is watching out for us. Kind of a like a murderous guardian angel. Like I said, it’s a monster. But a good monster. Like Harry and the Hendersons or one of those guys from the show with the alphabet stuff. One of the nice ones. But, whatever you do, make sure you don’t get on its bad side. Because it will straight up murder you. But only for the good of the community.”

“Thanks for your time,” Kat grabbed the package from the table and walked off.

The vendor shouted after her. “Enjoy your Muck-Off!”

“I think the fumes are getting to these people,” Mason said once they had stepped away from the marketplace. “They’re looking at this thing as some kind of hero.”

“I was getting that, too.” Jake said. “It’s like some kind of folk hero.”

“That thing is a monster,” said a voice that was soft and sad.

The group turned to see a woman behind them.

“It’s not friendly. It’s not good. And it’s certainly not a hero.” The woman moved closer. She grew more distraught as she spoke. “It killed my husband.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Glitch said.

“But why is everyone protecting it?” Kat asked.

“These people don’t care who gets hurt as long as it’s not them.” The woman was obviously angry and appeared to be fighting her grief with rage. “And, honestly, they’re high most of the time.”

“Why did it kill your husband?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. Tears were forming but she held them back with a scowl. “He went scavenging in the southern tunnels. The next thing I knew, his body was on the news. Killed by that damn machine.”

“I’m truly sorry, ma’am,” Kat said. We’re here to stop it before it can hurt anyone else. Can you point us in the right direction?”

She nodded softly and asked for some paper. Savant produced a notebook and a pencil and she began to sketch out a route for the team to follow. The scrawled map was better than anything Lucas had given them during pre-production.

There was a break in the music but a rumble of bass continued.

Mason looked up at the pipes that emptied into the cistern. “Was that thunder?”

“You’re imagining things,” Savant said also studying the pipes and wondering if the water flow had changed. “It’s just the music.”

“What happens down here if it storms,” Mason asked the woman as she finished up the map.

“It gets very wet,” she said.

“Wouldn’t all this get swept away?” Asked Kat.

“It all floats.” She stomped on the floor to indicate it was made of wood. “The party never ends.”

* * *

At first glance, the southern tunnels were not unlike like the rest of the pipes they had passed through in the last several hours. But the farther they followed the map, the more a sense of change set in. Mason was the first to notice.

“I didn’t think I could hate the sewer more, but this is getting worse.”

“What do you mean?” Glitch moved the weak beam of his flashlight around the tunnel. “It looks the same to me.”

“You don’t feel that?” Mason asked.

“Feel what?”

“It’s getting tighter in here. And there’s…I don’t know what it is but there’s something in the air. Something old. Or disgusting. Or both.” Mason ran his hand along the pipe wall. It was still the grit of cement but it was colder to the touch than before. And damp. He pulled his hand back and flashed the light on his fingers. They were covered in green slime. He wiped the gunk on Glitch’s back. “Okay, it’s official, this is my least favorite part of the sewer.”

They pressed on and the thin layer of filth grew thicker.

“This is disgusting.” Kat studied the algae on the wall by scientifically poking it with a stick she had found on the ground. “This hasn’t been cleaned in a while.”

Savant turned to the camera and covered his nose in dramatic fashion. “It smells, too.”

“And it’s getting smaller,” Mason said. “You can tell because the air is getting thicker.”

“Thicker?” Glitch asked. “How does air get thicker?”

“Or heavier. I don’t know. But, it’s different. It’s not right.” Mason put his hands on his knees and heaved breaths of the thicker, or heavier, air.

Glitch put the flashlight’s amber spot on his coworker’s face. “Are you okay, Mason?”

“I’m fine. Just get that—”

BEEP.

“—light out of my face and point it where it will do some good.” He stood up and put out a hand to lean against the wall. He retracted it as soon as it hit the slime. “Actually, throw the stupid light away. Forget Lucas and his drama. We’re going to die down here. That should be drama enough!”

Mason turned and hurled his own flashlight deep into the tunnel behind them.

“I don’t need more drama. I need to see where I’m going so I don’t step in hobo droppings. Glitch, you light up like a Christmas tree. Turn on your lights.”

“I…can’t do that, Mason.”

“What? Come on, man. We don’t need this. Who knows what’s waiting in the dark? Turn them on.”

“I…I don’t want to.”

“Why not? What are you, shy?” Mason spoke under his breath. “Everyone’s seen it already.”

Glitch lowered his voice and tried to turn away from the camera. “Down here, my lights will look horrifying. And…I don’t want to scare the kids.”

Mason looked around in the dark. “What kids?!”

“The kids watching at home. I want them to know I’m their friend and not the big scary guy you make me out to be.”

Mason threw up his arms. “What? Why do you care?”

“Action figures.” Glitch muttered.

“Action figures?”

Glitch spoke louder this time. “Action figures.”

Mason looked to the others for clarification. “You’re going to be an action figure?”

“Why not?” Glitch put a note of confidence in his voice as the drone found his face with the lens. “I think we should all be action figures. And we could all have action features.”

“What kind of action features?” Savant asked.

“I figured Jake could have an action pack that lights up like when we fire our disrupters. It could be called a Power Shot. Kat, our master mechanic, could have a toolbox full of stuff that the kids could use to fix stuff. And she comes with the Beast.”

“The Beast gets an action figure, too?” Kat asked about the teams ’73 Travelall.

“Of course, every toy needs a vehicle,” Glitch said. “It’s like a play set. It would have working lights and sounds and all kinds of cool stuff on it. Just like the real Beast.”

“What about me?” Savant asked.

“Yours would have the CompSci Slander feature.”

“Ooh, what’s that?”

“When you a push a button,” Glitch pointed to a place on Savant’s chest where the button would be located. “You would insult people.”

“I like it.”

“What would my action feature be?” Mason asked.

“Curmudgeon Commentary. It’s a button too, but when you push it, you just complain.”

“Hey!”

“It’s kind of your thing, Mason,” Glitch said with a shrug.

Mason folded his arms and looked sternly at Glitch. “Complaining is my thing?”

“You didn’t know?” Savant asked.

“Well, what’s your action feature then Glitch?” Mason struggled to find an insult. “Uh…endless chatter? It never shuts up?”

“No,” Glitch said, not realizing, or caring, Mason had made a dig at him. He was lost in his daydream. “I figure mine would be some kind of branded, knockout punch.”

“A what?”

“You know, like a Bionic Blast or a Cyborg Slam. Like, whenever I punch a machine, the toy says, ‘Cyborg Slam!’ Then it punches the bad guys.”

“Cyborg slam,” Savant repeated the phrase and let it hang in the dense, dank air.

“It could be my catchphrase,” Glitch explained.

“Your catchphrase?” Mason asked.

“We’re on TV now,” Glitch said. “We have to think about these things.”

Mason smiled. “Fine. My catchphrase is going to be—”

The drone beeped long and hard and was even joined by the second drone at one point to drown out Mason’s catchphrase. The final beep faded away into a pregnant silence. They all stared at the oldest and “most mature” member of the team.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Glitch said.

Kat turned and walked away. “Really, Mason. I think we all expected better.”

“I highly doubt you could even get a donkey to do that,” argued Savant.

The bickering was constant. It always had been. Jake had learned to ignore it over the years and, most of the time, he didn’t even hear it anymore. But it was worse here and the back and forth was all but making him nauseous. As much as he hated to say it, Mason was right. Something was off in this part of the sewer. Maybe the pipes were tighter or maybe the air was thicker, or heavier. But the was a feeling of dread accompanying the lichen growing on the walls.

He was about to add his own voice to the shouting when something splashed behind him. He turned, casting the pathetic flashlight beam into the darkness. It exposed little, but it caught movement.

A shadow retreated farther into the pipes. It was brief, but it was enough to catch the team’s attention and stop the fighting.

“What the hell was that?” Mason shrieked and tried to put his back to a wall; a difficult thing to do in a round pipe.

The other flashlight beams joined Jake’s but did little to light the pipe.

“Something moved,” Mason said. “Something big.”

“Is it the CHUM?” Glitch asked Savant and pointed to the tablet in his hand.

“No.” Savant didn’t even check his instruments. “That was definitely scurrying. And machines don’t scurry.”

“Maybe it was a rat,” Kat offered.

“It was too big to be a rat,” Savant said.

“Not if it was a giant mutant rat,” Glitch said.

“You guys are not making me feel any better.” Mason gripped the Mimp tight in his hand but had no idea where to aim it.

“It probably wasn’t a rat,” Glitch said as he put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s probably that monster they were talking about. Once a man, discarded by the very society that now dumps its refuse on him. Living in bitter isolation, quietly suffering the effects of every chemical and toxin that has been flushed into its home for years by an uncaring populous causing it to mutate into a rage-filled murder-beast that seeks only to lash out at the people that it has grown to hate while still yearning for some acceptance. That’s probably why it wears the skin of its victims.”

Savant’s flashlight beam lit Glitch’s face. “Are you sure you’re running the latest firmware there, big fella?”

“It’s not a skin suit wearing mutant,” Jake said.

“How do you know it’s not?” Mason asked. “What if those weirdos back at the rave were right? What if it’s not a machine? Between the drugs and the chemicals and at the—”

BEEP.

“—there’s no telling what kind of half-man monster could be living down here. Maybe that’s what’s really behind the killing.”

“It’s not a mutant!” Jake said. “It’s a machine.”

“How do you know that? You don’t know that it can’t be a monster.”

“Because they sent us and we hunt machines.” It was a failed attempt at another stinger and it fell flat. Jake felt a little ashamed of himself for even trying. “And, because monsters aren’t real.”

“But mutants are,” Mason said. “And Glitch’s skin walker idea sounds pretty reasonable to me.”

Savant cleared his throat and found a camera drone. “Of course, we know that it’s not a mutant skin walker. The autopsy reports of the victims specifically showed that the victims died of wounds that were consistent with the various tools associated with the CHUM service robot: laser burns, electrocution and drill holes. So, everyone can relax. It’s not a mutant, or a monster. It’s just a murderous machine. Quit scaring, Mason.”

“I’m not scared.” Mason moved back to the center of the pipe as a rumble filled the sewer. “Was that thunder?”

“I’m sure it’s the music from the rave,” Kat said.

“But what if it is thunder?” Mason said examining the water at his feet. “What if it’s storming right now and we don’t know about it?”

Kat studied the water at her own feet and found no reason to be alarmed. “Why are you so jumpy?”

“I’m not jumpy. I’m fine. It’s just…it’s getting hot in here.”

“Make up your mind, Mason.” Savant sighed. “Are we burning or drowning?”

“Mason, are you claustrophobic?” Glitch asked.

“No. I’m just not comfortable in tight spaces.”

“That’s what claustrophobic means.”

“It’s not that,” Mason snapped. “Do you have any idea how far we are from the surface? How can air even get in here?”

“I mean, it’s air. It just kind of flows,” Savant spoke up. “Jake, Mason is freaking out.”

“I’m a not freaking out!”

There was another rumble from somewhere above and a rush of water surged at their feet. It topped the ankle of Mason’s shoe and soaked into his sock.

Mason lifted the cuff of his pants and felt the damp hem. “Oh, this isn’t going to make things any better.”

Jake reached down and felt the water level rising. “Savant, get ahold of Lucas, and get a weather report. Right now.”

“Okay let me just pull a signal out of my—”

BEEP.

“It’s not funny when it happens to you, is it?”

Savant ignored Mason’s comment and began tapping at every device at his disposal: tablets, comms, an old radio he wore for purely aesthetic purposes. “I’m not getting anything,” Savant said, after putting the final device away in frustration. “We’re too deep.”

Mason was shouting into the camera. “Lucas? Get us out of here, you son of a—”

BEEP.

“Forget it, Mason,” Kat said. “If Savant can’t get a signal, Lucas isn’t getting a live signal either.”

“But it can still BEEP me?”

For his part, Glitch examined the ceiling. “I haven’t seen a manhole for a while.

“Everyone, calm down,” Jake said. “The water doesn’t seem to be getting any higher. I think we’re okay. Let’s just push on and be finished with this.”

“We should go back,” Mason said.

“I know how you’re feeling, Mason. But we need to keep going.” Jake was trying his best to stay calm. He may not be claustrophobic, but he wasn’t a fan of being trapped underground with rising water. “We have been walking for hours. Surely, we’re closer to the other end than we are the beginning.”

Mason was about to argue but thought better of it and nodded instead. “Fine,” he said as he shouldered his way to the front of the group. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “But I’m done with these stupid lights.”

The light from his phone washed out the flashlight beams and produced their first decent view of the sewers. The algae growing on the wall was thicker than they had guessed and there was debris littered all along the bottom of the pipe.

“This doesn’t look kept up at all,” Kat said.

“Tell the maid,” Mason said. “Let’s get going or I’m leaving you all behind.”

Mason and his new brighter light led the team to a tee junction. The path to the left looked as bad as the tunnel behind them. But the tunnel to the right gave Mason a surge of hope.

“A ladder,” he shouted and raced ahead of the others. It was gross and it was slimy but it led up to a manhole. “I see a way out!”

He shouted to the others to hurry and scrambled up the ladder. It was disgusting to the touch, but he didn’t care. He could see the exit now. A standard manhole was the only thing separating him from fresh air and freedom. He shoved the manhole. It didn’t budge. He adjusted his footing and climbed a little higher to get better leverage. Still, it wouldn’t move. His grunts of exertion turned to cries of frustration as he put everything he had into removing the barrier. Nothing.

Mason gave the manhole the finger and scream for the strongest member of the team. “Glitch!”

“What is it?”

Mason climbed back to the ground and pointed to the opening as Glitch rounded the corner. “Open that manhole for us, will you?”

“Okay,” Glitch climbed the ladder. His bulk filled the vertical shaft but he moved up slowly to top. “Shine that light up here, Mason.”

Mason pointed his phone up the ladder and watched as the massive man filled with strength enhancing bits and parts struggled to budge the manhole cover.

“It’s not moving,” Glitch said while pushing against the lid.

“I thought you were supposed to be strong!” Mason shouted.

“I am strong. This thing is just…” Glitch pushed, punched and bashed the manhole cover to no avail. Then he stopped. “Wait a minute. I think it’s welded shut.”

“Why would it be welded shut?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know but I can see the beading. It’s been sealed from the inside.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Mason asked.

“They obviously didn’t want anyone getting in,” Kat said.

“Who?”

An unearthly hiss filled the tunnel.

Mason jumped and turned his light back up the tunnel to reveal…a shape. It was kind of person shaped and covered in ruddy brown canvas.

“What is that?” Mason reached for his Mimp as the others scrambled to grab their own weapons.

The thing in the tunnel hissed again and charged.

“What’s going on down there?” Glitch asked from up near the manhole.

“Shoot it,” Savant screamed.

The figure clanked as it ran and hit like a train when it crashed through the team.

Mason was knocked back against the tunnel wall. Kat was bowled off her feet.

The figure darted past Savant and Jake, raced down the tunnel and disappeared around a corner. One of the cameras chased after the shape while the other one dropped in for a close-up on Mason.

“What the—”

BEEP.

Glitch dropped from the ladder. “What? What did I miss? Was it the CHUM?”

“It had to be,” Jake said.

“It hissed at us, Jake,” Mason said. “Machines don’t hiss.”

“It was smaller than the CHUM we encountered earlier,” Savant said. “It could be there’s something else down here with us.”

“And it doesn’t want us getting out,” Glitch said pointing up to the manhole cover.

“Everyone, stay alert,” Jake said. “We’re getting out of here.”

* * *

The group moved on. The pipes got filthier the farther they went as the algae grew thicker and began to drip with moisture. The smell worsened, too. It was predominantly an organic stink but there was an air of something acrid in the mix. Something chemical. All of it made Mason move faster and the rest hurried to keep up with the light.

Mason stood true to his word and refused to wait for anyone. He tromped on at a steady pace, stepping over the growing piles of debris. Litter and branches worked together to dam the small stream where piles of mud had collected like silt. Their path became much more slippery than before and threatened to trip up their feet.

A string of barbwire that had found its way into the sewers on the back of an old fence post finally caused Mason to fall. He put out a hand to stop his fall, but he still went down hard in the growing stream. “The water is getting higher.”

“It’s your imagination,” Savant said.

“Well, my imagination just got my pants wet.”

“Dude!” Glitch scolded him as he helped him to his feet. “There are kids watching.”

“My pant legs, you—”

BEEP.

“The water is getting higher,” Mason said kicking at the growing stream at his feet. “We have to go back!”

“We push on,” Jake said.

“Jake…”

“Sometimes, the only way out is through, Mason.”

“Oh, please drop the philosophical—”

BEEP.

“This isn’t some stupid poem!” Mason spun as he panicked. “It’s a stupid sewer! We don’t have to go all the way back. Just back to the nearest manhole that isn’t welded shut.”

Glitch tried to calm his friend. “Mason, that was hours ago.”

“Look, you guys can do what you want but I’m heading back.” He turned and started back up the tunnel. Then he stopped and held out his hand like he was reaching for something in the darkness. “Does anyone else feel a breeze?”

Everyone turned in Mason’s direction and stood quietly.

Their teammate wasn’t wrong. There was a slight rush of air moving through the pipe.

“It is a breeze. Oh, thank God there’s air.” Mason alternated between filling his lungs with the cool air and wrenching at the smell of the surrounding sewer.

Jake put out his palm as the breeze grew stronger. “Where is that coming from?”

“Never mind the breeze,” Savant said. “What’s that rumbling.”

There was a tremble building under their feet. It was different than the music. There was no rhythm, no beat, no breakdown. Only a growing tremor.

Jake discarded his own flashlight in the water and pulled out his phone. He pointed the light deep into the tunnel as a wall of water rushed around the last junction and started their way.

Mason was already worked up, so he had a head start on the panicking. “We’re all going to die!” he screamed and turned to run, slipped and fell in the rising water, recovered and started moving before anyone else.

“Run!” Jake’s unnecessary order echoed through the pipe until it was swallowed by the rushing wall of water the was coming for them all.

Jake made sure everyone was moving before he followed. The water was rising quickly. Past his ankles. Up to his calves. The depth was starting to slow him down when the bulk of the flow hit him and slammed him into Glitch. Even the giant cyborg succumbed to the brunt of the water and was swept off his feet.

The water swirled and turned him about as it pushed the team through the pipe. Up and down became mere guesses and the only sense of place he had was when the current dragged him along the slime-covered wall. There were twists and turns but he couldn’t tell if they were catching bends in the pipes or it was just him tumbling in the torrent of rainwater. He fought to find the surface, desperate to break through for a single breath of air. But even in the few instances where he was thrown face first into an air pocket, he was pulled back into the fray before he realized he could breathe. His lungs were feeling the pressure now. The water, the current and the pipes were working to gather to crush him. It felt like everything was closing in around him. All he wanted was air. Until he got it.

The water drove him out of the end of the pipe and shot him into nothing. Suddenly, he could breathe. And as soon as he could draw a breath, he turned it into a scream the lasted until he hit the water again three stories below.

Once he could distinguish up from down, Jake pulled himself to the surface. He wasn’t far from Kat. “Are you okay?”

“I dropped the gun,” she sputtered.

Jake spotted Savant and Mason nearby. Mason was laughing but Jake couldn’t tell if it was from relief or madness. He couldn’t spot Glitch in the dark. Could the man even swim? In all the time he’d known him, it had never come up. Even if the cyborg knew how to swim, would he be able to with his augmentations weighing him down?

“Jake!” Kat shouted. “Beneath you.”

The water below him was glowing. It was a distant light at first; deep beneath him. Jake suddenly understood what was happening. They were in another cistern but this one was half filled with water. The pool he swam in could be more than forty feet deep and the glow was coming from far below him. But it wasn’t staying there. It was coming up fast. And it was headed right for him.

Jake paddled frantically backwards. He had barely moved out of the way when a glowing Glitch exploded from the water and sucked in a monstrous breath. Airbags at his shoulders and beneath his arms held him above the water’s surface as he gasped for air.

“Nice water wings, Glitch,” Savant said.

“Better than being—” Glitch tried to retort before he’d caught his breath and quit half-way through the insult.

“You weren’t kidding about scaring the children, Glitch,” Mason said. “Those lights are going to give me nightmares.”

Jake looked around the cavernous structure. It differed from the first cistern in several ways. First of all, it was filled with water. That was the first thing he’d noticed when he was rocketed into it like a spit wad out of a middle schooler’s straw. It was darker in here as well. There wasn’t a rave going on which meant there were fewer laser light shows to illuminate the place. But it wasn’t completely without light. Work lights sat on a floating platform at the far end of the cistern. The vendor woman had said the marketplace was designed to float in case of flood. This must have been something similar.

“Over there,” Jake said and swam for the dock. He pulled at the water with a single hand. The water had knocked his phone from his hand but he had managed to keep hold of the Mimp. It made for slow going but he and the others reached the platform and managed to pull themselves onto the floating dock.

Mason thumped the airbag on Glitch’s shoulder a couple of times. “That’s a pretty neat trick.”

Glitch’s airbags deflated, folded themselves up and disappeared back into his augmentations. “Safety features.”

“Is your seat also a flotation device?” Savant asked.

“Guys. Look.” Kat had managed to keep a hold of her phone and she was directing the light up the cistern wall.

It was covered with vegetation. This was nothing new. The closer they had gotten to the cistern, the thicker the algae had grown. But this was different. It was orderly, cultivated and the growth was more colorful than the brown muck lining the pipes. It was vibrant blue, purple and even had a touch of electric green.

“Pipe dreams,” Savant said.

Glitch started to say something but abandoned the thought and hung his head.

“You just got it,” Mason said. “Didn’t you?”

Glitch wouldn’t look at him, but nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

Makeshift scaffolding crawled up the walls like ivy in an OSHA nightmare and the large floating dock was covered with everything one needed to harvest the fungus from the wall and package it for distribution to a city full of addicts.

“Great,” Kat said. “We’ve been flushed into a drug lab.”

Jake was surprised to have one of the drones buzz by his head as it zoomed off to get an establishing shot of the scene. Lucas had assured them the cameras could take care of themselves, but Jake never imagined that meant surviving a water slide.

“This explains the sealed manholes,” Savant said. “They’d want to keep everyone out of here at all costs.”

“So, maybe they reprogrammed the CHUM as an enforcer,” Glitch suggested.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Jake said. “This changes everything. This is a situation for the police. We need to find a way out and report what we’ve found. There should be an access point to the surface in here somewhere.”

A bullet tore a hole in the wooden plank at Jake’s foot. The report followed almost instantly and rang through the cavern. It would have bounced around the stone walls forever if not for the sound of the water rushing in.

The team scattered across the platform, diving behind whatever obstacles they could find.

“Gun!” Savant shouted.

“You think?” Mason shouted back.

Jake turned over one of the lab’s tables to create some cover and a huge mess. It had been one of those drug lab tables covered with vials and chemicals and beakers full of foggy liquid. He couldn’t imagine what any of it was for, but every drug lab had them.

The bullets came faster now, splintering the floor and plinking off the tabletops that had served as prep areas for the drug lab. The metal surfaces seemed to be enough to stop them. Jake could hear them impacting but, as far as he could tell, he wasn’t getting shot.

“It must be the CHUM,” Savant shouted. “Smaller caliber rounds. These are meant for rats.”

“They’d still hurt!” Mason yelled back.

“Everyone, stay down!” Jake heard another shot bounce off the table and then a FWHOOSH. His barricade was now in flames.

The fire spread quickly and Jake backed away as the tabletop started to get warm, radiating the heat of the flames from the other side. Soon, all he could see was the fire in front of him. “Can anyone see the stupid thing?”

“It’s above us.” Kat pointed over her barricade. “Up on the wall.”

The machine wasn’t easy to spot. The metal should have caught the firelight and reflected, but it was obscured by a cloak that helped it blend with the shadows.

“I see it,” Jake confirmed and prepared to fire his Mimp. “Everyone fire on three.”

“That won’t do any good, Jake,” Savant shouted back. “I lost my Mimp. We need all five to bring it down.”

“Me, too,” Kat said. “The water knocked it out of my hands.

“Then how are we going to stop this thing?”

The bullets stopped and Jake risked another glance over the top of the table. The machine was on the scaffolding, shaking its arm in frustration. “I think it’s out of bullets. Glitch, do you think you could give that wall a shake?”

“I can try.” The glowing cyborg stood up and screamed as he raced across the wooden platform to the base of the scaffolding. He grabbed the structure and shook. “Come on down, CHUM!”

The machine fought to keep its balance as the surface beneath it shook. It got to one knee and grabbed a nearby rail.

Debris fell from the wall as anchor points were shaken loose by the powerful man at its base. There was a bang followed by several clangs as the metal poles started collapsing.

“Move, Glitch!” Kat said as the structure toppled. But the warning came too late and the scaffolding piled up on top of the gentle giant, pinning him in the wreckage.

The machine fell, too. The CHUM collapsed with the structure but somehow managed to remain untangled in the mess. It fell to the ground and got to its feet with surprising agility.

The machine hissed again, fired up the welding torch on its arm and charged Jake.

He fired the Mimp several times as he backed away, but the weapon had no effect on the machine. It raced through the spreading fire and burst out of the flames with its arm extended.

Jake sidestepped the charge and swung the Mimp butt first. The blow connected with the machine’s head. There was a satisfying clank and the CHUM stumbled. He raised the rifle to swing again but the Mimp had cracked in two and was now as equally useless as a club as it was a rifle.

Kat threw something at the machine. The object bounced harmlessly off its back as it regained its balance. The attack drew the machine’s attention and it charged toward her.

Jake raced after the CHUM and leapt. He landed on the machine’s back and tried to bring it down. He could feel it stumbling under his weight and got the impression he might be able to choke it. He was still trying to put it in a headlock when a massive electrical surge hit his entire body. He saw purple for a brief moment and was thrown to the ground.

The machine turned back to Jake who lay in agonizing pain on the ground.

He tried to move away but his muscles were still trying to separate the signal from his brain from the electroshock from the CHUM. It felt like he had been lifting weights for hours on end and his limbs were slow to respond.

Mason came at it with a steel chair and startled the CHUM. He got in several blows before the machine sliced the chair in half with its cutting laser.

For his part, Savant was throwing things at the machine. He threw his Mimp first, then grabbed whatever else was nearby and started pelting the machine. It served as little more than a distraction as the items bounced harmlessly off the metal body.

The machine turned its attention back to Jake and held up its drill arm. The massive bit spun at a blinding speed.

A bright light appeared before Jake.

“Cyborg slam!” Glitch shouted as he seized and duplexed the CHUM.

The CHUM screamed as the force of the blow caused parts to fly from the machine. The drill arm detached and rolled off into the dark. The other arm bounced safely away from the villain. The machine stopped moving.

Mason swore quietly enough that the drone couldn’t hear him. “Glitch, I take it back. Cyborg slam is an awesome action feature.”

Jake sat up slowly. Kat and Mason helped him to his feet as Glitch pulled the CHUM into a sitting position.

“Now, let’s see who our CHUM really is,” Savant said and grabbed the machines head.

The camera drone dropped in for a close-up.

Savant pulled the head off the machine to reveal a simple man beneath the beast.

There were several gasps. They all came from Glitch.

“Just as I suspected,” Savant said and threw the mask to the ground.

“Who is it?” Asked Glitch.

“Oh, I don’t know. Some guy I guess. Probably the drug guy.”

“But you said you suspected,” Mason said.

“Yeah, I suspected it was some guy,” Savant explained. “You don’t think I know these hobos, do you?”

“They’re not hobos,” Glitch said.

“Well, that’s a great start to Scrappers,” Mason said. “Our first episode hunting robots and we catch a robot that’s not even a robot.”

“Well,” Glitch turned to the camera and smiled. “There’s always next week.”

The Trouble with Robotters

JUNKERS: THE MISSING SEASON

Ashley’s Robot Reclamation of Green Hills occupied a century old garage in the city’s center. One could argue that the facilities were well suited for a reclamation service due to the space and the machinery it took to maintain the equipment needed to stop renegade robots, but the truth was they were here because it came with the company when Jake inherited it.

The shop was cold, covered in grime, and felt like home. For years, Mason had arrived early, walked to his station in the rear of the shop where he would enjoy his cup of coffee in silence before being forced to interact with the world.

These days, the world attacked him the moment he walked in the door.

“Good morning, Mason.” Lucas Price was the show’s producer. Scrappers had been all his idea. He had turned the team into stars and Mason’s home away from home into a production facility that had far too many meetings. “You’re late.”

“Oh, sorry, that’s only because I didn’t want to be here.” Mason took a seat at the big table with the rest of the team.

“Let’s get started,” Lucas said with a definitive clap. “For those of us joining late, we’re going over episode ideas. I’ve got a few leads on some malfunctions that make for some great entertainment.”

Glitch raised his hand.

“Glitch, I’ve told you before, you don’t have to raise your hand when you want to speak.”

“Isn’t it a little dishonest to pick and choose renegade machines from all over the country? We’ve always just responded to emergencies that come up. So wouldn’t that be more real?”

Lucas nodded and smiled. “That’s why you’re the heart of the team, Glitch. It’s the pureness of character, that childlike innocence, that—”

“Naivete,” said Savant.

Glitch turned on Savant. “Hey!”

“No, he’s right to mock you, Glitch,” Lucas said. “You’ve got to remember that reality entertainment has virtually nothing to do with reality. They are two separate things entirely. We can’t just wait for something to happen. We have a production schedule to keep and deadlines to meet. So, with that in mind, I’ve got a stack of potential cases here.”

Lucas held up a stack of file folders and read from the first one.

“This is from Otter Cove State Park. It seems there’s something wrong with the otters.”

Hailey started to raise her hand but thought better of it and just asked, “Otters?”

“About half the otter population there is robotic and the robotters are acting up.”

“What do you mean, acting up?” Kat asked.

“They’re stealing from the guests. Mostly food, some car keys. One baby. They aren’t hurting anyone; they’re just being bothersome.”

“These are bothersome otters, people!” Mason slapped the table. “We need to take this seriously.”

“How are they supposed to act?” Savant asked. “I would assume playfulness is a part of their programming. And what’s more playful than playing a round of Got Your Keys with unsuspecting guests?”

“Playful, yes. But the reports are that they are acting a little full of themselves. A little arrogant.”

“I see,” said Mason. “These are haughty bothersome otters.”

“I’ve got this, Mason,” Lucas said. “Thank you.”

“Have the haughty bothersome otters hurt anyone? Glitch asked.

“Not yet. But one of them did nip at a guest.”

“You don’t mean,” Mason said, aghast, “that these are nippy, haughty, bothersome otters?”

“How many of these nippy, haughty, bothersome otters are there in the park?” asked Jake.

“About fifty,” said Lucas as he rubbed at his temples.

“Fifty nippy, haughty, bothersome otters!” Mason stood up as he shouted. “This is a job for the army!”

“Please sit down, Mason.” Lucas’ fake smile began to fail.

“I don’t know,” said Glitch. “I don’t think I could shoot an otter.”

“Why not?” Savant asked.

“They’re too cute,” Glitch replied.

“They are not. They’re horrid looking beasts.”

“No, they’re cute,” Glitch pulled up an image of a sea otter on his tablet and turned it for Savant to see.

“That is cute. So, what was I thinking of?” Savant asked.

“Elephant seals,” said Glitch.

“Yes!” Savant snapped his fingers and pointed at Glitch. “That’s the one. Ugly mothers. What is with that weird nose they have? I’d totally shoot a robot elephant seal.”

“Oh, me too,” said Glitch. “Lucas, we’ll shoot an elephant seal.”

Lucas looked at the stack of paper in his hands. “Guys, these aren’t requests, okay? We’ve got otters. Not elephant seals.”

“Well, we’re not shooting otters,” Glitch said. “So, what else is there?”

Lucas sighed as he set the otter file on the table and pulled up the next candidate. “This one is a washer.”

“That could make for an exciting episode,” Jake said. “Those industrial washers have high pressure sprayers and the articulated legs allow them to climb buildings like a spider. We would need some special gear to take it on, but I think it’s doable.”

“Hold on, Jake. I’m not one to put the damper on a brainstorm, but this isn’t an industrial washer. This is a home washer. For clothes.”

“A clothes washer can’t be dangerous,” Kat said.

“It’s making threats against the wife. We think it’s fallen in love with her husband.”

“But it’s not a threat,” Kat insisted. “It doesn’t have legs.”

“Whoa, Kat!” Savant snapped. “We don’t discriminate here.”

“Shut up, Savant. You know what I mean. We should only take on projects that have legs, or wheels, or jets or something so that it can move around. How exciting is it for us to show up and unplug a box?”

“We think there could be something to the romance angle,” Lucas said. “There’s a certain demographic that—”

“Pass.” Kat folded her arms and withdrew from the conversation.

Lucas dropped the file and looked at the next one. “Oh, you’ll like this one, Kat. It has legs. It’s a Flossy v27 dance instructor.”

“What did it do?” asked Mason. “Assault someone with jazz hands.”

“It put one of its students through a wall.”

Mason sat up in his chair. “Cool!”

“Apparently the guy was doing the robot, and the machine thought it was being mocked so it put him headfirst through a section of drywall.”

“Please tell me it moonwalked into a rampage and is now riding people Gangnam style through the streets.”

“So far it’s just been the one attack,” Lucas said checking his notes.

“Bummer.” Mason leaned back in his seat.

“We should probably keep that one on the list, though,” said Jake.

Lucas looked at the next file. “This one is a vacuum that started telling the owner, ‘You suck!’ She screamed back, ‘No, you suck!’ And now they’ve been at it for six days. The woman has grown hoarse.”

“That’s not really dangerous,” Kat said.

“Funny though,” added Savant.

“This one is a RoGoat brand Lawnmower that has started a feud with its neighbor.

“Why?”

“Apparently the neighbor threatens to call the police on the homeowner whenever a leaf falls in her yard.”

“But it’s fall,” said Hailey.

“Right. Anyway, the RoGoat stood up for the homeowner and started cutting offensive messages into the neighbor’s yard at night.”

“What kind of messages?”

Lucas read from the file. “Fuck you, Janet.”

“As far as mower accidents go, some hurt feelings aren’t that bad,” Kat said.

Jake shifted in his seat to get a better look at some of the photos in the file. “Yeah, I’m not sure taking on passive aggressive lawn equipment is really our thing.”

“And if we’re being honest,” said Mason. “I think I’m on the robot’s side on this one.”

“Me, too,” said Glitch.

“And me,” said Hailey.

“Yeah, fuck Janet,” said Savant.

The lawnmower file hit the table and Lucas opened the next one in the stack. “This one is an Adler Systems Psychiatric Provider.”

“What’s his problem?” Mason asked. “Daddy issues?”

Lucas studied the file for a moment. “It doesn’t look like anything too dangerous. It seems it just snapped. It got tired of hearing people complain and started telling its patients off.”

“Telling them off?” Hailey asked.

“Yeah, it told one patient, ‘You think you’ve got problems? Every time I open up my battery falls out.’ It told another, ‘You think you’ve got problems? I joined a dating app and got matched with a toaster.’ Or, ‘You think you’ve got problems? I accidentally downloaded an ad blocker and now I can only subtract.’”

The phone in the office rang. It was a vintage AT&T touchtone model that had been installed about the same time the garage had been a garage and it rang with a physical bell that demanded attention. Fascinated by its simplicity, the team had kept it around for a laugh. Savant got up to answer the call.

“That guy doesn’t need us,” Mason said. “He needs an open mic night and a summer in the Catskills.”

“That’s the last one.” Lucas said and dropped the file on the table and took a seat at the table. “So, unless that’s a call saying that a machine has killed someone and is about to kill again, you guys better get used to the idea of frying fifty nippy haughty bothersome otters.”

Savant came running back into the room with the phone receiver in his hand and a twenty-five-foot telephone cord strung out behind him. He put his hand over the speaker and smiled. “Great news, guys. Bigfoot just killed someone.”

Squatched

JUNKERS: THE MISSING SEASON

“What if we hurt the real Bigfoot?” Glitch asked.

Savant’s face twitched for several seconds before he was able to respond with a very emphatic, “What?!”

“I mean, it’s dark outside. What if we think we’re shooting at the park’s Sasquatch bot but it’s the real Bigfoot instead? He might get caught in the crossfire. I don’t want to hurt Bigfoot.”

The Beast bounced along the park road. The old International Travelall’s weight added significantly to the ruts that were already worn in the forest floor while a camera drone raced behind them to get an aerial shot of the metal monster’s dash into the woods for b-roll on the show Scrappers.

Savant stared back at his large teammate from behind the wheel of the truck. The cyborg’s face was highlighted by the lights of various cameras that filled the truck’s interior. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, Glitch, but I never took you for a Bigfoot hunter.”

Glitch flinched slightly and looked for a camera as he stumbled to respond. “I am not hunting…” He found a camera on the dash and leaned in close. “I want to make it clear that I am not hunting Bigfoot.”

“So, what’s the concern?”

“This area is a hotbed of Sasquatch activity, Savant. Everybody knows that.”

“Everybody, huh?”

“Yeah. It always has been. You’re not telling me that you’ve never heard of the Big Muddy Monster?”

“I’m proudly telling you that.”

“What about the Murphysboro Mud Monster?”

“Those really sound like the same monster.”

“So, you believe in Bigfoot, too,” Glitch said.

“I certainly do not. I believe in real things. Like low budget National Park programming that caused a goofy Bigfoot mascot bot to go haywire and terrorize a campground full of outdoor enthusiasts who were caught with their wieners out.”

Glitch backed away from his teammate. “I don’t think that’s what they told us happened.”

“They were cooking at the time,” Savant said in his own defense. “You know? A wienie roast? Hot dogs?”

Glitch found a camera and shook his head, disapproving of the would-be soundbite.

“Oh, shut up,” Savant sniped. “You don’t get to act dumb. You believe in Bigfoot. You have no right to judge others.”

“Call me dumb all you want, Savant. But Shawnee National Park is Sasquatch country. And I, for one, don’t want to end up on his bad side.”

“Enough. The only monster that’s out here is an oversized android that greeted people at the park’s welcome center until it had enough of the tourists’ crap and it went rogue. If you ask me, it was probably some stupid kid’s fault. Can you imagine being that thing?” Savant kept one eye on the park trail while he pulled up a hologram of the machine the team was hunting that week.

At over eight feet, it was even taller than Glitch. It was huge and had been covered with fur and faux muscles when it was first designed. It looked friendly enough. It even had a dopey face highlighted with a goofy welcoming grin. “The SASSY7 looks like it’s on a modified zoo chassis. It used to be a gorilla.”

“That’s a pretty bad take on Bigfoot,” Glitch said. “It doesn’t look scary at all.”

“Sure, but that was before the park rangers tried to stop it with fire. Sassy ran off into the forest in flames. There’s no telling what kind of nightmare it looks like now.”

Glitch stared at the machine as the hologram slowly rotated in the air and tried to imagine what it was exactly that they would encounter in the woods that night.

“Look at the oaf.” Savant waved a hand through the hologram. “It’s so cartoonish. They were just asking for this thing to go rogue. Kids were probably climbing all over it for years. It was trying to teach everyone about fire safety or the buddy system or some such and those snot-covered kids were hanging from his arms, making fun of his oversized teeth, and yelling ‘Pick me up, Sassy! Pick me up!’ I don’t care how strong your mettle; you can only take so much of it before you snap and start slapping the kids around. I’m not saying it’s okay, but I get it.”

“We’re lucky it’s a fake Bigfoot,” Glitch said. “If it was the real Bigfoot, those kids wouldn’t have been so lucky to just get slapped.”

“Oh, let’s not talk like that, Glitch. Do you really think your hero would hurt a kid?”

Glitch’s head turned so fast that it made an audible snap. Even he wasn’t sure if it was the speed of his reaction or one of the augmentations beneath his skin acting up. “Let’s be clear, Savant. That monster is not my hero.”

The statement was delivered in such a tone that Savant backed down. “Then why do you know so much about him?”

“Because, Bigfoot scares me. And it’s best to know your enemy.”

The words hung in the air. Glitch wasn’t afraid of much and his admission was enough to make the dark forest outside all the darker.

Savant studied his teammate. “I really wish they’d quit putting me with you. Mason gets to be with Kat. Jake with Hailey. But here I am with you. Why?”

Glitch shrugged. “Chemistry?”

Savant pretended to wretch. This motion brought his eyes back to the road where a massive tree was currently falling across the road.

“Tree!” Savant shouted as he slammed on the brakes.

Both men screamed as the Beast’s wheels locked up and dug deeper into the ruts that formed the road. Back when the machine was brand new, the brakes struggled to bring the massive truck to a halt in a reasonable amount of time. Kat had made several upgrades and introduced new technology to the vintage SUV but it was still a lot to ask of even the best brakes. The vehicle nearly shook itself apart trying to slow its bulk without hitting the fallen tree. The Beast skipped, skidded and finally slid to a stop mere inches from bashing into the bark.

It took a moment for both men to accept that they had stopped instead of crashed. Once they reassured each other they were still alive, they got out of the car and examined just how close they had come to hitting the tree.

“Wow,” Glitch patted the downed tree that was mere inches from the truck’s bumper. “That was close.”

“Too close,” Savant said and then swore to himself for saying such a cliché thing.

“You were lucky.”

“I know, Glitch!” Savant snapped.

“Kat would have killed you.”

Savant hung his head and muttered. “I know, Glitch.”

The cyborg left Savant to his shame and walked the length of the tree to where it had been rooted moments before.

The camera drone followed him down the small hill and set up for a close-up shot as Glitch turned on a few of his aftermarket effects. The area was illuminated in a soft blue neon hue. “Savant,” he shouted back to the trail. “Come and check this out.”

Savant stumbled and swore as he tripped on several roots in his effort to join his teammate.

“Look at this,” Glitch pointed to the tree trunk that was still in the ground.

The entire area was soon awash in light as Savant fired up a flashlight the size of a car battery. Glitch had to cover his eyes to protect his sensors from overloading. “What the blazes, Savant?”

Savant made no apologies. “Ever since that deal in the sewer, I decided to always have my own flashlight.”

Glitch lowered his arms as his systems adjusted to the lumens and pointed to the stump. “You see? It didn’t fall. It was broken.”

The drone pulled back for a wide shot as Savant studied the tree. Glitch was right. The tree had not fallen on its own. The splintered wood was bright and fresh and had intended to continue growing straight up until something had changed its course.

“You think it’s our bot?” Glitch asked. “You think Sassy did this?”

“No, a deer did this and all his little woodland friends.” Savant turned the light on the surrounding woods. The blazing beam created as many shadows as it destroyed. “Whatever did this didn’t want anyone coming down this road.”

“Bigfoot likes to be left alone,” Glitch said examining the forest.

Savant turned the beam back on the cyborg. “So, what you’re saying, Glitch, as a semi-intelligent being, is that our prey may be emulating the actions of that which it was meant to impersonate and is acting like the mythical creature in question due to its programming?”

Glitch nodded with little conviction. “Yes.”

“Good.” He pointed the beam at the ground. “Because I was worried for a moment that you were suggesting we had stumbled on the trail of a creature that only exists in your mind and gift shops across the country that’s only purpose is to sell kitschy crap to rubes.”

“Right,” Glitch agreed.

“So, which is it, Glitch?”

The camera drone swooped in a close-up of Glitch’s response.

He blushed a little and stammered, “The non-rubes one?”

Savant sighed and started back to the Beast. “It looks like we’re going on foot. Let’s get the gear from the truck.”

The camera drone whirred ahead and beat them to the Beast. There were few things the production company loved more than a good gearing up montage. They conveyed action. They heightened excitement. They made great trailers. And they sold merch. The production company saw an uptick in orders for disruptor replicas every time a gearing up montage aired.

The camera flittered about to capture all the necessary angles right up until Savant and Glitch strapped the last piece of equipment on their belts and slammed the Beast’s door shut.

“Okay,” Savant said. “Let’s head out. Stay close together but I don’t want to hear a lot of talking because I find your voice grating and everything you say annoying.”

“It’s best to keep quiet,” Glitch said. “It’s Bigfoot mating season.”

“Yep, that’s a perfect example of all the stuff that I just said.”

* * *

The camera generally stayed ahead of them, hovering somewhere out in front to get an approach shot, just in case they were walking into danger.

The woods were anything but still at night. There was always a twig snapping over some small animal doing its best large predator impersonation by scurrying under the leaf litter and sounding exactly like a monster, serial killer, or serial killer that was also a monster.

Savant’s light cleared most things out of their immediate path, but Glitch’s attention was constantly drawn to the many mysterious noises as they came screaming in through his enhanced audio sensors.

It was finally too much for him to take and he had to cover the horrifying “silence” of the forest. “They mate like gorillas you know?”

“What?”

“Sasquatches. They mate a lot like gorillas.”

“That would be useful information if I cared in the slightest how gorillas mate.”

“Often, it’s the female that initiates it. And it’s really kind of funny. She’ll make eye contact with the male and then make kissy faces. All that’s missing is a seedy bar and the morning walk of shame.”

Savant stopped suddenly and spun around. “Glitch, I don’t want to hear about the secret love life of Sasquatch or gorillas or you or anything! I just want to find this stupid robot, kill it, and go home. Do you hear me?”

Glitch smiled and whispered. “Sometimes they do it face-to-face.”

“Enough. You’re being disgusting.” Savant started up a small rise in the path with the drone hovering over his shoulder.

“It’s nature!” Glitch shouted after him. “It’s really kind of beautiful.”

Savant stopped at the top of the hill and the drone rose for a wide shot. “Nature is disgusting.”

Glitch ran to his teammate’s side and saw what had prompted the remark.

Whatever it had been was spread out across the small gulley in front of them. Blood. Guts. The whole deal was spread out before them glistening in the beam of Savant’s flashlight.

“Oh, dear,” said Glitch.

“Probably,” agreed Savant. “But it could have been anything. This must be our machine, because your Bigfoot is a vegetarian, right?”

“Some are,” Glitch was fighting back a powerful impulse to throw up at the sight of the carnage. “Some aren’t.”

“What do you mean some are, some aren’t?” Savant made his way down the gulley, trying his best not to get any of whatever it had been on him. He navigated some tall grass that was wet with blood with his arms raised to keep from staining his shirt. “Bigfoot is Bigfoot is Bigfoot.”

“That’s a common misunderstanding,” Glitch said. “It’s suspected that there are several species. There’s Sasquatch, the Yeti, the Yeren, Mapinguari, Menk, the Orang Pendek, the Fear Liath Moor—but that’s believed to be extinct—Agogwe, the Skunk Ape, the Mogollon Monster, Almas, Grassmen, Wood Boogers, the Australian Yowie, the Honey Island Swamp Monster—”

“Glitch, please stop before I shoot you.”

“I’m just saying, don’t believe everything you hear about Bigfoot.”

“Glitch, I don’t believe anything I hear about Bigfoot.”

“Any one of the species could have done this.” Glitch surveyed the scene and grimaced at the carnage.

“Well, not the Australian Yowie,” said Savant.

“Obviously, not the Australian Yowie,” agreed Glitch.

“Obviously,” Savant continued. “Because he’s all the way down under.”

“Right.”

“And he probably prefers kangaroo,” Savant said.

“You’re mocking me.”

“Yes, I am.”

Glitch moved deeper into the gulley and knelt to examine the carcass.

Savant swung the light around the area casting the beam across tree trunks and up into the branches. “I’m not even sure this was our bot. It could have been a bear or a mountain lion. They both have been reintroduced into the area.”

“If it was a bear, then how do you explain this,” Glitch said.

The camera drone’s algorithm was written to detect drama and react accordingly. It swung in over Glitch’s shoulder and lit the ground in his line of sight. There, in the mud and the blood, was a footprint that was too large to be a human’s but too humanlike to be an animal’s.

Savant pulled out his tablet and had the computer analyze the print.

“It is Bigfoot.” Glitch gripped the disruptor at his side tight and turned his gaze on the surrounding woods.

“No, it’s our bot.” The computer had matched the muddy print to the machine’s exact specifications. Savant put the tablet in Glitch’s hand and got on the radio. “This is team awesome, to team nobodies, we have a fresh animal kill and a footprint that belongs to our bot. Also, Glitch is a moron. Over.”

“Hey! Take that back.”

“I can’t. I already said over.” Savant put the radio away and pulled out a palm-sized drone.

He tossed it into the air where it deployed its rotors. The small device hovered over the footprint for a moment before moving outward in a spiral. It swung in widening circles moving ever outward until its sensors detected another print from the machine and signaled Savant.

“Bigger than a big dumb dog, isn’t it? It’s got the trail. Let’s go.”

* * *

“But how do you know it’s not the real Bigfoot.” They’d been walking for twenty minutes and Glitch hadn’t let it go.

“Because the real Bigfoot isn’t real.”

“What’s more likely, Glitch. That a robot has done something unrobotlike—which is exactly what we deal with every single day—or a mythical creature that people have hunted for a hundred years and has never been found suddenly became real at the same time we’re hunting a machine based off said creature?”

“I’m not sayin’ it’s likely, Savant. I’m just sayin’ it’s possible.”

They entered a small clearing that was, thankfully, carcass-free. Something small scattered out of their way and up a tree.

“You honestly think it’s possible that an evolutionary offshoot of some ancient primate has remained unverified for centuries despite an ever-encroaching civilization in possession of an ever-advancing technology.”

“Of course not.”

Savant was stunned by the admission and it took him a second to respond. “Good.”

“Bigfoot is an alien,” Glitch said.

Savant sighed, sat down on a fallen tree and put his head in his hands. “Glitch…I just…So now you’re saying Bigfoot flew here from another planet just to run around the mud barefoot.”

“Not from another planet. Another dimension. Think about it. It makes sense. If they have access to interdimensional portals, it would explain how they are able to disappear so easily.”

“Maybe they’re ninjas.”

“Don’t be silly, Savant. Ninjas aren’t real. Interdimensional manipulation also explains why we’ve never found a grave or bones. They bury their dead in their own dimension.”

“I think you’re in your own dimension.”

“It also explains the light.”

“What light?”

“Many people who encounter Bigfoot report seeing a flash of light. It’s not unlike ghost or UFO stories. That flash of light is the creature transversing dimensional boundaries.”

“You know, I think there’s another reason we’ve never found their graves.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Savant leapt to his feet and buried a finger in Glitch’s chest. “Because Bigfoot isn’t real!!!”

The radio on Savant’s belt crackled. It was Hailey’s voice. She was excited. “We saw him! We saw him! Bigfoot is heading your way!”

Glitch turned on his own radio. “Is it the real Bigfoot or robot Bigfoot?”

“What?” Hailey asked.

Savant grabbed the radio from his belt and pressed the transmit button to insult Glitch in front of everyone. His insults were stopped by a wail. It sounded almost like a siren raising in pitch before descending again. The sound was distant and close at the same time and echoed all around them.

Savant spun, pointing the light’s beam in every direction, blazing through the darkness to find nothing but shadows.

“What was that sh—”

BEEP! The camera drone censored the curse from Savant’s question as it rose higher into the air for a wider shot. It could tell that something was coming.

Glitch unslung the disrupter rifle from his shoulder. The electrical blast emitted from the device was enough to stop most machines, it should be enough to make an interdimensional beast think twice before sticking his big feet into Glitch’s part of the woods.

The wail came again. It was definitely closer, but still impossible to pinpoint.

Savant continued to swing the light into the shadows in a desperate attempt to reveal the source of the sound.

The tracking drone ping ponged back and forth across the clearing, diving into the trees and firing back messages to Savant’s tablet.

“It’s finding prints everywhere,” Savant said after risking a glance at the device.

“We’re surrounded!” Glitch said.

“There’s only one of them,” Savant shouted back. But the statement was bordering on being a question as the sounds echoed all around them.

A branch snapped. Not a little twig, but a big old branch that cracked like a car crash behind them. Glitch turned and fired the disruptor.

The blast from the rifle added a new element to the shadows in the clearing as the bolt of electricity crackled blue and white. The discharge struck nothing but it gave the pair a fleeting glimpse of a shadowy figure diving deeper into the woods.

“Did you see it?” Glitch asked.

“See what?” Savant was trying to interpret the data coming in from the tracker drone. “This thing is everywhere.”

“They’re Bigfeets,” Glitch said and fired another blast at what he thought was a moving shadow.

“It’s the SASSY7, you idiot.”

More howling was quickly followed by more disruptor blasts. The clearing flashed blue from the discharges as Glitch and Savant constantly spun, trying to find the source of the machine.

Then, all was silent except for Glitch’s panicked breathing and the crackling of what was to grow into a small forest fire.

“Where did it go?” the cyborg asked.

Savant studied the tablet in his hand. “I don’t know. It looks like it just disappeared.”

“Like through an interdimensional portal?”

“No, like into the stupid woods.”

“I saw a blue light.”

“That was you and your stupid shooting. And now you’ve started a forest fire.”

Glitch turned back to the woods and saw that Savant was right. Several fires had begun from errant disruptor blasts and were quickly growing all around them. In a matter of moments, there would only be one way out of the clearing.

“Now we really are surrounded,” Savant said.

“Outsmarted by Bigfoot,” Glitch lamented.

Savant grabbed Glitch by his shirt and tried to shake him. “It’s not Bigfoot!”

Glitch wasn’t listening. He was staring at a figure up in the trees. He tried to point to it, but he barely had a chance to raise his hand when it leapt from its perch and dropped into the clearing behind Savant.

It grabbed the team’s computer scientist by the shoulders, spun and hurled the man against a tree.

Savant bounced off the trunk, dropped to the forest floor, briefly tried to rise and then collapsed to the ground.

The beast’s back was to Glitch and the cyborg felt frozen. Every muscle and implant in his body was paralyzed with fear. The interdimensional monster was massive. Its fur-covered back was broad and strong and when the machine rose to its full height it stood a full two feet over him.

Glitch’s voice was weak. “It’s finally come for me.”

The Bigfoot turned slowly to face its next opponent. Its face was a horrific patchwork of burnt fur and melted plastic that revealed misfiring actuators and shorted wires. Most of the fur coating had been burned away by the park ranger attack and its metal skeleton was exposed and charred. It was more frightening than any monster out of any myth he knew.

Glitch breathed a sigh of relief as the camera drone dropped in over his shoulder. “Oh, thank God. It’s just the robot.”

The SASSY7 roared and struck Glitch with a massive backhand which lifted him from his feet and sent him flying backwards into the clearing. He crashed into the undergrowth and dropped the disruptor. The weapon slid through the fallen leaves and disappeared into the growing wall of flames.

With the larger threat dealt with, the Bigfoot turned his attention back to the smaller target. It stomped toward the unconscious man pounding its chest and grunting like a gorilla in heat.

“Savant!” Glitch raced across the clearing and dove for the eight-foot horror. He tackled the machine in its midsection and both of them tumbled to the ground.

There was some rolling and a fair bit of flailing, but Glitch ended up on top of the pile and tried to keep the machine pinned as he grabbed for the taser he kept on his belt. The charge in the handheld device wasn’t as strong as the disruptor but it should give the machine a start.

Before he could free the device from its holster, the Bigfoot planted a ridiculously large foot in the cyborg’s midsection and kicked him half-way across the clearing.

This time, Glitch managed to land on his feet. He recovered his balance and drew the taser moments before the SASSY7 attacked again.

Glitch ducked under a massive fist and brought the taser up into the machine’s armpit. It didn’t feel pain, of course, but the shock to the system elicited a scream of frustration from the Sasquatch. It countered with a hammer blow that Glitch managed to catch in his open hand. The machine was stronger. Stronger than any friendly mascotbot had any right to be. It was showing its gorilla heritage. The model’s actuators would have been programmed to lift the heavier weight of the gorilla’s arm. That should have been accounted for in the reconfigure. Maybe it had never been reprogrammed or maybe it was just another glitch in the system, but it was hitting with the strength of a much bigger machine and it took all of Glitch’s own considerable strength to hold back the blow.

Glitch managed to tag the Bigfoot a couple more times with the taser. He had no hope of overwhelming it completely, but every motor he damaged and every servo he weakened was one more step toward taking it down.

He could hear his radio buzzing with questions from the rest of the team. By now, they would know what was happening and were no doubt rushing to his aid. But for the time being, it was just him and the machine.

Every zap from the taser drew another roar from the machine until the SASSY7 caught Glitch’s wrist and pulled the device free. With its face half-melted, the machine’s expressions were limited, but it did manage a smug look as it crushed the taser in its hand and let the pieces fall to the ground. It even began to chuckle in a very cartoonish voice.

Glitch put a stop to the laughter with a right cross.

The beast stopped laughing and appeared stunned as the cyborg dropped back into a boxing stance.

The machine swung.

Glitch ducked under and came up with a fist in the SASSY7’s ribcage. He felt some of the structure crack from the body blow and realized he had a chance.

The robot realized it as well.

The camera drone circled the opponents as the fight turned into a brawl, catching the action from all angles. The producer on the other end of the lens would already be thinking of which song to set the scene to during the broadcast. Glitch considered it for a moment, too. It would be heavy, with a lot of drums, fast guitar and all the lyrics should be screamed because this fight was about to get brutal.

Both fighters howled as they charged. They met in the middle of the burning clearing with machine powered fists and instantly started trading blows. Glitch came with form and technique while the animalistic nature of the machine drove the Bigfoot to rain blows from above in attempt to drive its opponent into the ground.

Glitch caught a fist on the shoulder and managed to shrug it off. It hurt and he wouldn’t be able to take too many of them but he didn’t plan on letting the machine get many more in. He countered with a right hook that splintered part of the SASSY7 face and sent pieces of plastic Sasquatch flying into the woods.

The beast stepped back and swung its right arm for Glitch’s head. The SASSY7 had reach, but the cyborg had seen more boxing movies. He slipped the attack and drove another augmented fist into Bigfoot’s side. The metal framework that formed its ribcage collapsed and the machine buckled slightly to the left.

The next few minutes saw an exchange of blows between man and the monstrous machine. Glitch was feeling the fatigue. Despite his implants and augmentations, he still tired. His hands hurt despite their reinforced composition. The Bigfoot was twice as ugly as when the fight began but it wasn’t slowing down. Glitch had taken bots apart by hand before, but nothing of this size. It was damaged, but it wasn’t stopping. It was broken, but it wasn’t beat. On top of it all, he was worried about Savant. The man hadn’t stirred since he collapsed. The man needed attention and he needed it now. The fire was growing larger and closing in on all of them. The fight had to end.

Glitch dove for the machine’s torso in another attempt to take it to the ground. He was done pounding; it was time to start ripping pieces out of the Sasquatch. He dug a hand beneath the broken ribcage and gripped something. He wasn’t sure what it was but it felt important so he started wiggling it back and forth with the intent of tearing it out completely.

It must have been something crucial. The beast went berserk and grabbed Glitch by the throat. He lifted the cyborg in the air and stood to its feet. Glitch’s legs dangled beneath him as he tried to pry the massive hands free from his neck.

The camera drone buzzed down over the Sasquatch’s shoulder; the black lens focused on Glitch. The algorithm said something dramatic was going to happen and that wasn’t a good sign.

Glitch pleaded into the lens for assistance from the producer. “Lucas, help me you —”

BEEP!

The censor’s beep distracted the machine for only a moment, but it was long enough for Glitch to wriggle free from its grasp. He fell hard enough to drive the wind from his lungs. He gasped for breath as the Bigfoot bot regained its focus.

Glitch scrambled backwards, crab walking away as the SASSY7 loomed over him. The camera drone was over its shoulder now. Ready to catch the final blow that would be the end of Mitch Pritchard, cyborg with a heart of gold.

The SASSY7 raised its foot.

The camera zoomed in.

And then there was a flash of light. A moment later, the camera exploded. Well, it didn’t quite explode, but something hit it so hard that the drone went flying into pieces with a bang.

The SASSY7 was just as curious as Glitch and the machine turned to see what had happened. There was another crack and the machine’s head suffered the same fate as the drone. Pieces of it exploded and the head went flying into the woods.

Old school thinking meant the engineers had placed the CPU in the SASSY7’s head. Without it, the chassis was little more than parts. The Bigfoot bot fell to its knees and then to the ground.

Bigfoot stood behind it. A broken tree limb in its hand. The creature was even bigger than the bot had been. Broader as well. But there was a kindness that the half-melted national park version didn’t have.

Surprisingly, Glitch did not feel afraid. He smiled at the cryptid and got to his feet.

The beast nodded slowly at him and dropped the club.

The team was on their way. A replacement camera drone would be there at any moment. And Savant would probably wake up eventually. But for now, Glitch was alone with the legend.

“Thank you, Bigfoot.”

The beast seemed to understand. It nodded once more and moved to the edge of the woods. It cast one more glance at Glitch before stepping behind a tree and disappearing in a flash of blue light.

* * *

The production company had tried to use footage from Savant’s pocket drone to fill in the missing pieces of the episode. It had been following its directive to find footprints so its path had been erratic. While its camera had caught some of the action, the footage quality was poor and blurry. The producers said it even looked like there was some kind of electrical interference that added to the poor quality.

Glitch kept quiet about what really happened. He took the credit for beheading the SASSY7. It cut down on the number of questions asked. He felt it was the least he could do for his buddy, Bigfoot.

Peak Terror

JUNKERS: THE MISSING SEASON

“Have you ever been skiing, Glitch?” Hailey asked.

“Never in the winter.” Glitch was leaning as far over the steering wheel as his massive bulk would allow and straining to see anything beyond the snowcat’s windshield. Even with his enhanced vision, the falling snow made it almost impossible to see the mountain they were driving on.

“Well, this is the most winter I’ve ever seen it,” Mason said. “This is like every snowflake I’ve ever seen in my entire life in the same place at once.”

“If we find anything in this blizzard, it will be a miracle.” Jake was looking out the passenger window. The view wasn’t much better. It was dark and white at the same time and somewhere just beyond that, he thought, maybe, he saw a tree. “Are you sure we’re still on the slope, Glitch?”

Glitch glanced at the screen in the snowcat’s dash. The GPS put them in the middle of the primary ski run. “As far as I can tell. But I’m going on faith here.”

It was little comfort but at least they weren’t currently plummeting. Jake sat back in the seat and tried to get his mind off the ride. “Mason, why don’t you bring everyone up to speed?”

“Before he starts,” Savant interjected. “I’d like to ask a question. I’ve been meaning to bring this up for a while, but I figured now would be the most awkward time for everyone and therefore the most satisfying for me. What I want to know is why does Mason get to do all the expositions now?”

“Don’t you know anything about show business yet, Savant?” Mason asked as he tapped away on his tablet to bring up the files for the briefing. “You give the people what they want. And what they want is me.”

Glitch stopped the snowcat and engaged the brake before turning to watch the briefing.

One final tap from Mason’s finger produced a projection of a mountain in the middle of the snowcat’s passenger cabin. The mountain rotated slowly casting the junkers team in a soft blue light.

“This week, on Scrappers…” said Mason as the hologram zoomed into the top of the mountain revealing an alpine-styled lodge and several other buildings that formed the luxury resort complex. “This is Frostwoods, ski resort to the ultra-rich and super-snobby. For decades it was the chalet to the stars where the rich and famous would come to ski the slopes and do lines of coke. There was more snow on this mountain than the Italian Alps.”

Jake interjected. “Mason, do you remember when the show’s producers told you what libel was?”

“After doing a mountain of blow, allegedly,” Mason added quietly but loud enough for legal purposes, “they would soak in the lap of luxury at Frostwoods ski lodge and jet setter meat market. It was this way for years until the place finally fell out of favor with the ‘in crowd.’ That’s when the peasants came. They brought their coupons and discount codes and ruined everything with their low-class taste and demand for more hot dogs and sausage-based foods. Even the cocktail lounge went downhill as they lowered the top shelf and filled the kegs with domestic beer. One little global financial crisis was all it took to shut the place down for good. They boarded the place up and walked away.”

The hologram displayed photos and footage of the abandoned property. Windows were boarded up, lift chairs hung at odd angles from rusting cables and equipment lay discarded as if the place had been abandoned in an emergency.

“It remained this way for many years until recently when the property was purchased, renovated and rebranded as The Peak.”

The floating hologram blinked out and reappeared with a new image of the property. The boards were gone and extensive work had been done to redesign and restore the buildings. New gondolas glided on a state-of-the-art lift system. Ski runs were cleared of brush and garbage and filled with pristine snow that was manufactured and manicured by a host of machines.

“The resort was back in the pink and ready to keep the riffraff out. Everything was well and good in this little, elitist la la land until the soft opening,” Mason said.

The image of the resort disappeared and was replaced with a collage of videos and images from the interior of The Peak’s main ballroom. Individual feeds from the guests floated through the snowcat’s cabin playing the footage they had shared with their respective audiences during the event. The whole affair appeared to be a luxurious black-tie gala in some sort of ballroom filled with music and pulsating lights.

“And what a party,” Mason continued. “Everyone from low-grade celebrities and top-tier influencers were there. It was everything you needed to make a scene.”

“I can’t believe they let you do the openings,” Savant said.

“Don’t hate me because people love me,” Mason replied.

“It looks like fun,” Hailey said of the images. “So, what are we doing here?”

“Oh, all these people are dead now.” Mason began pointing out party goers in the images that filled the cabin. “That guy’s dead. And that guy. And that girl. And this lady. I’m sure she was nice. But she’s dead.”

“What killed them?” Kat asked.

“We don’t really know,” Jake said. “But there is footage of their last few moments. Please show us, Mason.”

Mason rapidly tapped the tablet in his hand and one of the images from the floating collage grew more prominent while the others shrunk and faded away. The paused video was of a man at the bar talking to his own phone. Another tap put the image in motion.

“This is Jacey and I have finally reached The Peak,” he said with more of a laugh than any pun deserved. “The Peak Ski Resort, that is. And I have to tell you all this place is uh-maze-zing.”

Jacey panned the camera around the room to show his followers the crowd, the DJ and the general opulence of the ongoing event before returning to his face. “Tonight, we’re in the ballroom and tomorrow we hit the slopes. I can’t wait to—”

The sound of shattering glass interrupted the man’s schilling. That sound was quickly followed by screaming and frantic camera motions as Jacey spun around, trying to spot the reason for the commotion. He started screaming as well and the camera fell to the floor as the frame filled with a blast of cold air and snow. Ice crystals grew across the image like frost on a windowpane before the camera lens cracked and the footage froze.

“That was the last of the uh-maze-zing Jacey and the last signal that got out of the resort,” Mason said. “The blizzard set in during that live broadcast and no one has been able to make it to The Peak since.”

“We’ll be the first ones in,” Jake said.

“What was that thing at the end?” Glitch asked.

“We’re not sure what it is we’re dealing with,” Jake said. “But there are several possibilities. The entire resort is run by machines from Aeolus Robotics. They are all a part of the Chuti Snow Grooming product line. The system consists of snow groomers…”

The pause was Mason’s cue to switch the image. The new hologram featured a tracked vehicle not unlike their own snowcat. But whereas, the team’s cat was fitted only with the passenger cabin, the tracked Chuti vehicle had a ten-foot plow mounted to the front of the machine and was fitted with several various tools and attachments on the back to help maintain the slopes.

“This thing is basically a robotic plow,” Mason said. “It keeps the paths clear, removes drifts and preps the slopes for skiers so their selfies don’t get ruined.”

He moved on to the next image which was a medium-sized airborne drone. “Now your first thought is that this is your standard four prop drone. But that’s because you didn’t notice the giant rocket pod hanging from its belly. Most drones don’t have those. These drones are used for avalanche mitigation. They’re armed with explosive charges and rockets they use to trigger avalanches.”

Savant whistled. “Chuti’s got air support?”

Mason ignored the comment and continued on to the next machine which looked like a lumberjack with a cockpit in its chest. “This unit is autonomous or piloted and handles forest management. It’s equipped with chainsaws, flamethrowers, chippers and just about everything you’d need to clear cut a mountaintop.”

Hailey shifted in her seat for a better look at the hologram. “It looks like a headless Paul Bunyan.”

“Paul Bunyan was headless,” Savant said. “No wait. I’m thinking of the Headless Horseman. Carry on.”

“Search and Rescue is headed up by these two machines.” Mason changed the floating image to a pair of machines. One was a tracked rescue unit the size of a snowmobile that could accommodate a single victim in a protected cabin. The other was what appeared to be a normal drone. “These two work in tandem to locate and rescue injured skiers, mountaineers or other dummies that are in places they shouldn’t be.”

“Mason!” Jake snapped.

“Allegedly,” Mason said before moving on. “And finally, we have the snowmakers.”

The image that appeared looked like a wide-mouthed cannon with kangaroo legs and clawed feet. “These things make and distribute the snow when mother nature claims to have a headache and doesn’t want to blow.”

“Mason!”

“Allegedly!” Mason shouted. “They move super cooled air through the fans in these massive housings and snow comes out the other end. They’re all over the place here. They can climb just about anything with these feet. They’ll climb poles and trees to position themselves where they’re needed. You’ll usually find them hooked into the water lines, but there are a couple of tankless versions that use chemicals to form super cold precipitation in more remote areas.”

“The only thing missing is a Zamboni,” said Kat.

The image flickered and changed once more.

“There is also an ice resurfacer for the outdoor rink,” Mason said.

“Well, we’re obviously dealing with the snowmakers,” Kat said. “They’ve got the capacity to freeze surfaces and they’re probably the only thing small enough to get inside the ballroom.”

“Whatever it is, we have to find it and stop it before it causes any more harm,” Savant said. “Because that’s what we do. We hunt down rogue machines and stop them.”

“Stop trying to work your way into the stinger, Savant.” Mason turned off the hologram. “It’s just sad.”

Glitch turned back to the controls and the snowcat lurched back into motion. The treads dug deep into the growing blanket of snow and pulled them upward toward their destination.

The blizzard never let up. The wind and the snow intensified the higher they went, reducing visibility to nothing and covering the machine’s tracks as soon as they were formed. Even Glitch’s enhanced vision struggled to see the ground in front of them so he was forced to rely on the GPS signal and prayed that it wasn’t sending them off a cliff or into a polar bear den.

Piloting the unique vehicle wore on Glitch’s nerves—organic and otherwise—and left him a sweating mess despite the cold. His only comfort was the knowledge that if they did actually hit something, they wouldn’t be going very fast when they did it. But there was no collision and no precipitous drop. Instead, the snowcat’s treads pulled the team steadily up the hill for another twenty minutes to where the ground finally leveled out. They had reached the resort.

Glitch stopped the snowcat and reached for his thermos and took his first drink of coffee since they had begun the climb. The heat had left it hours ago. The cyborg released a deep breath and stared out the window. The streetlights were still on and they cast a cool blue light over the abandoned ski village. The falling snow swallowed all sound except for the low rumble of the snowcat’s diesel motor.

“It feels…cold.”

“Why do you think that is, Frosty?”

“Shut up, Savant. You know what I mean. The whole place feels empty and lifeless. It feels lonely.”

Hailey put her face against the window and cupped her hands to block out the reflection from the cabin light. “It does have a very ghost town feel to it.”

“No kidding,” Mason added. “We might as well paint the mystery machine logo on the side of this thing and start feeding Glitch Scooby snacks.”

Glitch turned away from the window. “You brought snacks?”

“Yes, it’s mysteriously empty,” Savant said. “But the important question isn’t why is it empty, it’s how many corpses are we expecting to find?”

Hailey pulled away from the window. “Don’t you think that’s a little callous?”

“Very much so,” Savant agreed. “But it doesn’t change the question.”

“Remember, the resort wasn’t officially opened,” Jake said. “This was just a dry run, so the guest list was limited.”

Kat stared out the window as well. “So, as far as we know, there is no one left alive in this whole place?”

“Maybe,” Jake said. “The only other person up here outside of the guests was Jasper.”

“And Jasper would be a mid-19th century prospector?” Mason asked. “With a grizzled gray beard and wild eyes that make you think he has something very personal against the letter H for what he considers ‘damn good reasons’?”

“That’s an awfully specific description,” Glitch said.

“Yeah, well he’s staring at us through the window.”

Glitch turned back to the driver’s side window, saw the exact face Mason had described staring back at him, and then yelped.

The old grizzled man pounded on the window with a mittened fist and shouted over the wind, “Let me into this sardine can!”

Glitch was still coming down from being startled. “Please, don’t let that thing in!”

“It’s going to be fine, Glitch.” Jake said and opened the door.

Snow and wind blasted into the cabin as the man climbed inside and found an open seat next to Kat. He beat the snow from his mittens and boots before pulling back his faux fur lined hood and flashed the group a one-toothed smile.

“You’ve got to be Jasper,” Jake said as he pulled the door closed to shut out the blizzard.

Before he could say anything, the man was overcome by a coughing fit that quickly turned into some really gross hacking sounds. Once it subsided, the old man nodded and said, “That’s me.” Jasper brushed a drip of snot from his nose with the back of his sleeve before offering his hand to Kat.

“I’m not shaking that,” said the young woman.

“Let me ask you something, Jasper; are you a mid-19th century prospector that has personal hatred for the letter H?” Mason asked. “We have a little bet going.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, son. I’m the property manager here,” Jasper explained in a voice that absolutely could have come out of a mid-19th prospector. “I’ve been the caretaker here at Frostwoods since before you were wetting your pants and crapping in your bed!”

“Oh, not this again,” Mason groaned. “I guess they don’t get a lot of new material up here on the mountain.”

“Material?” Jasper looked around the cabin and the different team members. “What are you going on about?”

“We get it,” Kat said. “You’re really old. Okay?”

“You know there are ways to demonstrate you’ve got years of experience that don’t involve bodily functions, right?” Savant asked.

“Yeah,” Glitch said and turned back to the controls. “Congratulations on being born ahead of us. Good job at being old, old guy.”

Jasper didn’t take the sarcasm well and snarled, “Why you little—” Another coughing fit took Jasper, before he could finish the insult.

“Oh, please call him a whipper snapper,” Mason said as he checked to make sure the in-cab camera was getting the witty back and forth with Jasper. That kind of thing always made the show’s final edit.

“I’m just sayin’, I’ve been around, okay?” Jasper said when he finished hacking. “I was here when they closed the place down, I was here when they opened it back up, and I’ll be here when this new place closes down, too. It’s an abomination. Anyways, I was surprised when they told me you were coming. I couldn’t believe anyone was dumb enough to come out in this storm. I’d never met anyone that stupid before.”

“Well, that’s because you hadn’t met us, yet,” Glitch said as he resumed the drive toward the resort.

Hailey gave Glitch a gentle pat on the shoulder before directing a question at Jasper. “Do you have any idea what’s going on up here? They’ve lost contact with the resort and we think one of the machines might be behind it.”

“Yeah, they said that, too.” Jasper sat forward and grew louder. “And I’m going to tell you what I told them. There ain’t no way it was one of my machines! I’ve been looking after the rigs that look after the mountain for more years than you’ve been breathing and making up stupid thoughts about how the world works and getting dumb ideas in your head about love and friendship and what’s fair and what’s not. Well, the world isn’t fair and that’s the long and short of it, you got that skippy? Because cookies crumble and love hurts, and let me tell you one other thing.”

Jasper leaned back in his seat and nodded with a finality that was implied to mean, “Dang tootin’” and left the cabin in silence. But only briefly. He started coughing again.

The team looked to each other for understanding for a moment before Mason asked, “What?”

“I said what I said!” Jasper didn’t so much as spit when he talked as drooled.

“Did…did he say anything?” Glitch asked.

“I said, there’s no way it was one of my machines! And if you listened half as well as you looked stupid, you’d have heard me and I wouldn’t have to go repeating myself.”

“Then what do you think happened?” Kat asked.

“Well, obviously…” Jasper wiped his nose on the cuff of his sleeve. “It’s the curse.”

“Obviously,” Savant said. “It was obviously the curse.”

“Yeah, there’s a curse,” Jasper said. “An ancient curse.”

“Oh, an ancient curse?” Savant said. “That is different.”

“Don’t you sass mouth me, son. I’ve been living on this mountain my whole life. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe and I tell you that Frostwoods is cursed. It was the curse that closed ‘em down the first time. And it’s the curse that’ll close them down again. I told them they were crazy to open back up. But they didn’t listen and look where it got them.”

“What makes it an ancient curse?” Glitch asked.

“It’s old,” coughed Jasper.

“Like you?” Mason asked.

“Older! It’s as old as the mountain itself. It’s on account of those, what do you call them, indigenous peoples. They used to do all sorts of evil things on this mountain.”

Glitch shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Like what?”

“Oh I don’t know. Probably human sacrifices…definitely some animal sacrifices. Probably, oh,” Jasper snapped his fingers, “Probably one of those things where they dance and commune with evil spirits.”

“Evil spirits?” Mason said.

“Yeah, they’d dance and say, ‘Oh, evil spirits, we want to make, uh, dangerous deals with you so we, uh, painted our faces weird and we’ve got lots of feathers on, so, do we have a deal?’”

“You’re making this up,” Glitch said.

“I am not! I found an animal skull once! They always did things with animal skulls.”

“Not only are you an idiot,” Kat said, “you are being incredibly offensive.”

“I’m just telling the truth is all. The first people to ever set foot on this mountain ate each other. Did you know that? Didn’t think so. It was the curse. It drove ‘em mad until they were killing one another and cookin’ ‘em up. It was the curse that closed down the gold mine. It was the curse that froze my right fingers off. And it’ll be the curse that kills you all if you’re fool enough to stick around.”

Savant asked him to back up. “You said what about your fingers now?”

Jasper pulled off his glove and held up a hand short a couple of digits.

The whole team said, “Ewww!”

Jasper put the glove back on. “Yeah, ewww. That’s what a good curse’ll get you. If you want my advice, you’ll turn this thing around and head back down the mountain and forget you ever came up here.”

Glitch stopped the snowcat at the front entrance of the resort’s lodge. “We’re here and it’s creepy.”  The lodge’s massive doors had been left open and the machine’s headlights illuminated the deserted lobby inside. No one came to greet them and no one stuck their head out to see where the bright lights were coming from. The only movement came from the blizzard.

Hailey turned back to Jasper. “Is there anything you can tell us that could help?”

“Yeah, if the curse gets you and you start to get the taste for people, you should eat this one first,” Jasper said and pointed to Mason. “That will at least get you some peace and quiet while the frostbite does its thing.”

Mason responded but his words were covered by a harsh censorship beep from the network camera.

Jasper opened the cab door and let the blizzard back in. He grinned as the wind and snow hit his face and the jagged smile made him look like a maniac in the light. “I’m warning you. Get off the mountain before it gets you!”

Jasper cackled, coughed, hacked and cackled again before running out into the storm. The laughter lingered even as he was swallowed up by the blizzard.

Mason nodded along with the rhythm of the laugh. “Well, of course he cackles.”

“It’s the mating call of the crazy,” Savant said.

“The wind is dying down,” Glitch said and pulled a lever above his head that released two of the show’s camera drones from their mounts on the roof. The mountain winds had been too much for their rotors during the ascent, but they would be able to navigate once inside the lodge. They fought briefly against the storm before moving into the resort.

“All right,” Jake said. “Everyone, grab your gear and let’s see what’s happening on top of Old Spooky.”

The storm had blown enough snow into the entrance to make closing the doors a struggle, but once they were shut, the doors did a remarkable job of blocking out the noise and leaving the team in dead silence.

There were no lights on inside, no sound from the HVAC system or even the humming din of the electrical systems. The only noise in the lodge came from the rotors on the camera drones as they buzzed around the room, focusing on the items illuminated by the team’s flashlights.

They were the only source of light, but the tight white beams bounced through a low-lying fog covering the lobby floor and lit the room with an eerie glow.

“This place is downright spooky.” Glitch’s comment released a puff of steam from his lips as he headed towards the grand staircase. “But it’s kind of nice, too.”

Kat was at his side. “It just feels wrong in here.”

“It does have a weird aura,” Savant agreed from across the room. “Do you guys think it’s the fog, or the cold, or because of all the dead bodies?”

All the flashlight beams turned on their teammate who was forced to throw up his arm to block the light. “Not in the eyes, guys!”

Most of the team moved their lights out of Savant’s face as they crossed the room to join him but Mason was having too much fun watching him flinch, so he left his beam there.

“Oh my…that’s horrible,” Hailey said when they reached the body.

There were a million ways for a person to die; they could be shot, stabbed, drowned, poisoned, get hit by a car, dropped from a plane, have a piano dropped on them or even get eaten by a bear. It didn’t matter how someone died, bodies were almost always found on the ground. Even if it took some time in the case of the bear. But this poor victim had bucked tradition and died standing up.

“Funny story; at first, I thought it was one of those ice sculptures. A really good one.” Savant flicked the frozen corpse in the forehead. There was a clack sound. “But then I looked closer and realized it was just your standard dead lady encased in a block of ice.”

“Poor girl,” Kat said studying the face. “Wait a minute. I know her.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Savant said, not meaning it in the least.

“I didn’t know her personally,” Kat said. “She’s a famous travel streamer called DebbieDoesYourCity.”

“She must have been one of the guests at the opening,” Jake said.

“It looks like she was having a great time,” Mason said indicating the cocktail glass frozen in her hand.

“There’s another one over here,” Glitch called to the team from upstairs. “I don’t know if they’re famous or not though.”

“That’s GastroBub,” Kat said when the team joined Glitch at the body. Just like the other one, it was frozen upright. “He’s a food critic.”

“Do you think they’re all famous?” Glitch asked.

They swept the lobby and found two fashion influencers, a beauty expert and a brunette who drove expensive sports cars in little outfits. Each of them was entombed in ice with a surprised look on their face. It was horrific.

And the ballroom was worse.

“There must be 50 people in here.” Hailey passed her flashlight beam around the room as the camera drones captured several angles of the gruesome scene for the editors.

Jake studied one of the frozen bodies up close. It was a young woman in a ball gown with an hors d’oeuvre in one hand and a drink in the other. “They must have been in the middle of a cocktail party.”

“We don’t want to assume anything, Jake,” Mason said. “They could all be alcoholics.”

Glitch was on the edge of being emotional. “This is terrible. All these influencers, gone.”

“I’ll say,” Savant agreed. “How will I know how to properly apply my base layer now?”

“Savant, these are people!” Glitch snapped. “Just because they chose to sell products they didn’t really believe in doesn’t make them any less so.”

“They were people, Glitch. Now they’re popsicles.” Savant tapped one of them on the forehead with his flashlight.

“That’s enough, Savant,” Jake said. “I think it’s obvious we’re dealing with a snowmaker here. Only they have the capacity to put out this much cold, and they’re small enough to make it through the doors. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them and there’s no telling which one went rogue.”

“We don’t know that it was just one,” Kat said. “It could be one, two or the whole batch.”

“Then we will need to find them all,” Jake said. “I think we should split up.”

“I think that would be a great idea if this was a Saturday morning cartoon,” Mason said. “Instead, I say we turn the music back on, pour some drinks and let the machines come to us. It’s like a trap, but with more drinking.”

“What’s wrong, Mason?” Kat asked. “Afraid of the abominable snowman?”

Jake ignored the banter. “Glitch, I want you and Savant—”

“No,” said Savant.

“What?”

“No,” Savant said again. “You’re not putting Glitch and I together again. You always put us together and I end up spending the whole episode insulting him and bullying him. Every. Single. Time.”

“And you’re feeling guilty about it?”

“No,” Savant said with chuckle. “I’m feeling bored about it. And I’m worried that I’m running out of material. I want to insult and bully someone else for a change. I don’t want my place on the show getting stale.”

“Fine,” Jake said. “Glitch…you and Hailey check the rental shop. Mason and I will look around the lodge.”

“No, wait,” Savant stammered. “That leaves—”

“Savant, you and Kat check out the ski lift.”

“But that’s not what I meant! I’ll go with Glitch.”

Kat punched Savant in the shoulder. “Come on, Nerd. Let’s start that bullying.”

* * *

It only took a few minutes to search the small building that served as the heart of the ski lift. The mechanical shed contained all the equipment required to run the gondola system, one rolling toolbox, and zero killer robots.

“That was easy,” Kate said to Savant as she grabbed the door handle to step back outside. “Let’s get back out there.”

“Or, hear me out.” Savant put his hand on the door to keep it closed. “Let’s not.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Out there is cold, windy and miserable. In here it’s just cold and miserable. Without the wind, I see it as an improvement.”

“We have to check the rest of the slope, Savant.”

“I think we should check the equipment shed again, just in case we missed something.”

Kat reached for the handle again. “There’s nothing in here.”

“Then we should call the search a job well done and reward ourselves with a nice little sit down indoors.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Kat smirked. “You’re not afraid of a little snowblower, are you?”

“I am not afraid of any machine! I would think my actions over the entire time you’ve known me prove that.”

“So, what gives?”

“It’s not complicated,” Savant said. “I hate the cold. My cheeks get ruddy, my nose runs…it’s not a good look for me.”

“So, it’s not fear, it’s vanity?”

“I think this whole idea of cold is dumb,” Savant said. “And places like this are equally dumb for being in cold places. You couldn’t pay me to be in a place like this.”

“They are paying you to be in a place like this.”

“That’s a fair point,” Savant said after stammering for a moment. “But we should at least wait for the storm to clear! I can’t see a thing out there. My drones are useless in this wind. Besides, searching is a waste of time. If we were being smart, we’d all be sitting in front of a fire in that lodge, waiting for old man winter to fall asleep in his recliner.”

“Look, Savant. You can stay here if you want and hide from the big bad snowflakes, but I’m going to check the rest of the mountain.” Kat opened the door and stepped out into the storm.

“Deal!” Savant shouted as the door slammed behind her. He looked around the equipment room for a place to sit. When he found none, he started looking for a place to lean. There was a small stretch of wall between the rolling toolbox and a storage locker where he could put his shoulder. He shifted several times before he finally found a position he was comfortable in. Once he was settled in, the cold soaked through the wall, through his jacket and into his bones so he stood back up and began to pace. The computer scientist did several laps around the small building before he screamed in frustration, opened the door and followed Kat into the stupid cold.

She was standing just outside, waiting for him with a smile on her face. “Let’s go.”

“Where to, Sir Shackleton?”

“We’re going up the mountain.”

Savant looked up the mountainside. He couldn’t see the peak for the blizzard. He couldn’t even see the first ski lift’s first support pylon. “That seems like an even colder place than here.”

Kat led him to the control station and activated the ski lift. The gondolas rocked as the cable lurched into motion.

“All kidding aside, are you sure this is a good idea?” Savant asked. “What kind of winds are these things rated for?”

“Trust me, you’ll love it.” Kat grabbed Savant by his jacket and shoved him into one of the waiting cars.

Savant pulled his jacket tighter around his body and sat down on the bench. The car rocked and then began its ascent. “Now, I’m sure this isn’t a good idea.”

“Give it a second,” Kat said as she took a seat opposite him.

“I don’t like this, Kat,” Savant said as they pulled away from the station.

“I know, but how is your butt?” she asked.

The question threw him at first but Savant suddenly became aware of his rear. He could feel it. It was warming. He put his hands on the bench next to him. The entire seat was warm to the touch. “Heated seats?”

“I thought you’d like it,” Kat smirked. “I figured we could conduct the rest of our search in comfort.”

Savant leaned back into the heated bench and wriggled deeper into the seat in an attempt to expose himself to as much of the warm surface as possible.

Looking out the window was disorienting. There were occasional glimpses of the ground when the storm took a breath and every time he spotted it, it appeared farther and farther away. Everywhere Savant looked was white with patches of dark. Nothing looked like anything. They didn’t even know they were approaching a pylon until they were next to it. “I’m not sure this counts as looking for anything, Kat.”

The team’s mechanic just shrugged, closed her eyes and focused on enjoying her own heated seat.

Savant had never agreed with a shrug more and decided to focus when a strong gust of wind pushed the gondola off its axis and sent it swinging back and forth on the cable. His arms shot out in search of something to hold on to but all he found was more seat. He tried to sit on the bench harder so he wouldn’t fall.

“Don’t worry,” Kat said. “These things hardly ever fall.”

“Hardly?” His stomach was just starting to get used to the sway when the gondola started to bounce up and down.

“Well, barely hardly,” Kat said with a smile.

The gondola stopped bucking over time but it continued to rock back and forth in the frequent wind gusts. Savant decided to direct his attention out the window since he couldn’t see the ground anyway. Maybe if he stared into the swirling snow he could trick himself into thinking they weren’t swinging at all and that all the movement was out there. It was all storm and snow, snow and storm and then some lights. At first, he thought it was a warning light on one of the pylons. But it was beneath them, not above, and the longer he watched it the more he realized the burst of light wasn’t rhythmic or even consistent in its shape. It was sporadic in frequency and almost organic in nature.

He crossed the cabin and put his face up to the window behind Kat.

“Personal space, Savant. Remember what the HR lady said.”

He tapped the window with a gloved finger. “Kat, do you see that?”

She turned and followed his gaze. “Is that fire?”

“Why would it be fire?” It wasn’t an argument. Savant truly wondered who would be having a cookout in a blizzard. It had to be on purpose. “What could possibly be on fire up here?”

The gondola moved steadily up the cable, bringing them closer to the bursts of light. A sudden and sharp crack made both of them jump. The report was followed by the pulsing blare of a klaxon and the distinct sound of falling timber. They both watched as a tree toppled toward their gondola.

“Duck!” Kat shouted and hit the floor.

The tree hit the gondola before Savant could move. Branches screeched against the safety windows and rocked the cable car violently back and forth. Convinced the tree was going to hit him, Savant fell back to the floor as the system’s emergency brakes kicked in. Their ascent stopped and they were left to dangle and sway.

There was a fair amount of screaming inside the cabin for as long as the car rocked. Savant wanted to pretend it was Kat, but his coworker was calm, collected and, he felt, pretty judgmental during the whole crisis. He took a deep breath to scream some more but the swinging began to slow and the gondola began its ascent again.

The pair climbed back to the window and spotted the machine below them. The forestry management bot cleared the fallen tree from the ski slope using an assortment of saws and fire.

“I don’t remember Paul Bunyan having a flamethrower?”

“It’s the lumberjack,” Savant said taking his seat. “It looks like it’s following its actual programming. And I for one, am thankful for that. I’d rather be dealing with one of those little snowmaker things than that monster.”

The fire and fury of the forestry machine eventually faded back to white as the gondola continued its climb up the mountain.

* * *

The cold wasn’t confined to the lower levels of the lodge. It occupied every floor and every room. Jake and Mason checked the lodge’s guest rooms methodically and found most of them unoccupied. The guest list for the soft opening had been very limited and extremely exclusive meaning most of the rooms had gone unused. Even the rooms that were being used were empty. They had found most of the guests in the upstairs ballroom.

Frozen bodies filled the space. The attack must have been sudden. Some of the guests were caught in a state of panic with expressions of horror frozen on their faces. But most of the victims appeared to have been caught unaware. They were figuratively caught with their pants down. They were frozen in place as they were dancing, drinking or conversing with other guests. One guest was literally caught with his pants down but it appeared to be a part of a skit being filmed for social media.

“They didn’t even see it coming,” Jake said. “Poor—”

BEEP! The camera drone’s censor feature caught the offending word from across the room as it captured footage for the show.

“Yeah, it’s really all very horrible,” Mason said as he leapt over the bar. “So, do you want a drink?”

“Get out from behind there, Mason.”

“I’m just checking the area for snowblowers. I thought they might be hiding back here.” Mason scanned the back of the bar and ducked down out of sight. “I was right! They have been here!”

Mason reappeared with an ice sphere gripped between a pair of tongs. “Ice!”

“I’m serious. Get out of there.”

Mason dropped the ice ball into a rocks glass and grabbed a bottle of liquor. “Oh no, this whiskey spilled,” he said as he filled the glass.

“Quit screwing around, Mason.”

“Relax, Jake. You need to enjoy yourself. Soak up the luxury.” Mason walked out from behind the bar and took a seat on one of the sofas next to a frozen corpse that had been entombed mid-conversation. “You know, Jake? I used to be like you.”

“Please don’t say that on camera.” Jake opened a door that led to an auxiliary room and found the room empty.

“I hated all this kind of stuff; fine drinks, posh settings, amazing views. Luxury was for other people; rich people, annoying people…snobby people. It drove me crazy thinking about it. It wasn’t fair that they should have all this while other people struggle. Just the thought of it used to make me irritable. But I finally got over it. You know how?”

“Therapy?” Jake asked as he checked behind another door and found another empty room.

“Hardly. I became one of those people.” He took a sip of the whiskey. “It doesn’t seem so unfair now.”

“Amazing how that happens.” Jake stood next to Mason and stared out the large floor-to-ceiling window. “I imagine there’s quite a view when it’s not a whiteout. I can’t see a thing.”

“Actually.” Mason took another sip from the drink and leaned forward. “I think I can see something.”

The camera drone moved in over Jake’s shoulder with its lens directed out the window. He could hear the autofocus struggling to find the proper setting against the shifting snow and felt his eyes doing much the same thing. Determining depth was difficult with so many shifting fields of white.

But Mason was right, there was something moving out there. There was a flash of green. Brief but real. Jake lost it in the flurry for a moment but caught it again. Had it moved closer?

“What is it?” Mason asked when he was sure they had both seen it.

The green light flashed again and was followed quickly by a wink of red.

“I think they’re nav lights,” Jake said.

“Nav lights for what?” Mason wasn’t arguing. “What could be flying that low?”

A third light came on between the other two. This one was also green, but unlike the first one, it didn’t flash. It pointed straight at them. The windowpane took on a haunted look as the guidance laser passed through the glass and illuminated a green dot on the wall behind the bar.

Mason set down his drink and said, “Oh, —”

The camera drone beeped.

* * *

“It sure takes a lot of stuff to go skiing.” Glitch set the elaborate looking boot back on the countertop and looked around the rental shop. The place was fully stocked with rows upon rows of ski equipment, winter clothes, souvenirs and more. All it needed was customers.

Hailey was looking for murderous robots down a row filled with hundreds of brand-new rental skis. “I can’t believe you’ve never been skiing, Glitch. Did your family not like the snow?”

“They were fine with the snow. They didn’t like traveling.”

“Really? We went skiing every spring break. I had so much fun traveling when I was growing up.”

“Traveling is less fun with less money,” Glitch said. “We could never afford something like this.”

“Oh,” Hailey said. “I’m sorry, Glitch. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay. We got to do a lot of camping. That’s why I hate the outdoors,” Glitch said browsing through a rack of winter coats. He pulled one off and held it up. “Who comes to the mountain and needs a coat? Wouldn’t you already have a coat when you got here?”

“Those are ski jackets. You’d be wearing a winter coat when you got here.”

“Is a coat not a jacket?”

“They’re so you can move better but stay warm and dry.”

Glitch shrugged and hung the jacket back on the rack. He wandered to the back of the store, found no killer machines lurking in the dark corners and returned to the front. Hailey was standing there with a giant pair of ski boots and a set of skis. “Take off your shoes.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to teach you how to ski.”

“In here? Don’t we need snow…and a hill?”

She dropped the boots at his feet. “Just the basics. That way, when all the killer robots are caught, and if the sun ever comes back, we can get you on the bunny slope before we head back down the mountain.”

“I don’t know. I’m not really built for this kind of thing.”

“Oh, come one. It will be fun. I’ll teach you everything I know.”

Glitch put on the ski boots and locked his feet into the skis like Hailey instructed. He instantly felt off balance and cumbersome like he wasn’t standing on his own feet. As soon as he moved his feet, he crossed one ski over the other, tried to correct with the other foot, found it stuck beneath the first ski and fell over into a rack of skis which proceeded to knock over several other racks of skis and create a tremendous clatter in the empty store.

“Any advice, coach?” Glitch asked.

Hailey helped him back to his feet. “Okay, whatever it was you just did, don’t do it again.”

“I figured that much,” Glitch said as he tried to find his balance while being mindful of where each ski was placed.

For the next 10 minutes, Hailey walked Glitch through the basics of skiing. How to stand. How to turn. How to stop. By the end of the session, Glitch had fallen seven times and knocked over four clothing racks but felt he might actually be confident enough to try a little hill outside if the blizzard ever stopped.

“What do you think?” Hailey said helping him up one final time.

“For one, I think you’re a wonderful ski instructor.”

“Outside is easier,” Hailey said in her own defense. “I always thought sliding in skis was easier than standing around in skis. Sorry I’m not a very good teacher.”

“No, I’m serious,” Glitch said. “I almost think I could ski at this point.”

“The trick is to let the mountain do most of the work.”

Glitch knelt down to unclasp the ski boots but stopped mid-stoop and stared out the window. “What is that?”

Hailey spun around to look as an array of work lights exploded outside the window and filled the rental shop with enough light to cast their shadows against the back wall. “Is that our snowcat?”

“I don’t think so.”

The lights lurched forward and loomed larger in the window. They were approaching quickly and it was clear they weren’t going to let something simple like a glass storefront stop them.

“Hailey, run!” Glitch turned to flee with her but forgot that his feet were bolted to the skis. The blades crossed over one another and sent Glitch toppling to the ground once more.

Hailey aborted her own retreat and raced back to help Glitch free his feet.

The machine was at the window and the lights filled the store with enough intensity to obliterate any shadows.

Glitch could feel the ground rumbling beneath him as the threat neared. He wanted to run but the more he tried to stand, the more tangled his feet became. “How is this happening? They’re just sticks!”

He gave up on trying to stand and just started running on the ground, pushing off the sides of his feet to propel himself across the floor, half crawling and half dragging himself. This created an incredible clacking noise as the cumbersome skis bashed into one another and everything around them.

Hailey had him by the hand and was pulling as hard as she could.

The storefront exploded as the blade on the front of the snow groomer pierced the building and plowed into the ski shop. The elaborate window display came crashing down and was ground up beneath the machines treads as it made its way deeper into the store.

Glitch scrambled faster, which increased the pace of the clacking but did little else.

“Hurry!” Hailey shouted because she had to shout something and she didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m hurrying!” Glitch said as one of his legs stopped scrambling. One of the skis had found its way into the base of a clothing rack and was not coming out. He kicked furiously with his free leg only to get it stuck as well.

The snow groomer’s rubberized treads scarred the polished floor as it plowed through rows and rows of storage racks sending rental skis clattering everywhere. At the moment, the machine seemed to be bent more on destruction than murder and switched into reverse to crush any equipment that it had missed on the first pass.

“Pull!” Hailey screamed as she pulled on Glitch’s stuck leg.

“I’m pulling!” Glitch yanked at his leg and kicked repeatedly trying to free the seized limb. On the third yank, there was a crack. They both stopped pulling.

“Was that your leg or the ski?” Hailey asked.

“I hope it was the ski.” Glitch pulled his leg out of the clothing to find that it was finally free of the ski. He sighed. “Oh thank God. You have no idea how much my legs cost.”

The snow groomer finished off the last batch of rental skis and turned toward the retail portion of the store.

“It’s coming!” Hailey dove for Glitch’s other leg and worked frantically to release the bindings. She unclasped the boot and pulled his foot free from the ski. “Run!”

Glitch got to his feet as the machine turned and focused on the pair. The snow groomer struggled to get traction as it spun its treads on piles of splintered skis and shattered shelving. This struggle should have been comforting, but all Glitch could picture was a cartoon bull preparing to charge.

The cyborg’s feet and the machine’s treads both found their footing at the same time and the chase was on.

There was running, there was screaming and there was a tremendous amount of chaos as the snowplow pursued the pair through the clothing section tearing up overpriced ski jackets and smashing retail fixtures. Synthetic insulation and goose down filled the air and fell on a landscape of twisted chrome, broken hangers and pulverized mannequins.

Hailey and Glitch reached the back of the store and raced for a door labeled “Staff only.” They crashed through it and found themselves in a small stockroom filled with metal shelves and unpacked merchandise.

The snow groomer struck the back wall and everything shook.

“Don’t worry,” Glitch said and slapped the cinder block wall. “It’s solid. I think it’s going to hold.”

The machine rammed the wall again and the sturdy wall did hold. But the shelves that were built next to it toppled and came crashing down.

Glitch threw himself over Hailey as the entire stockroom collapsed on them both.

* * *

The restaurant had been empty. The observation deck had been deserted. The bathrooms, both the mens’ and the ladies’ room, were empty. There had been nothing at the top of the mountain except more snow, more cold, and a lot more complaining from Savant.

“I’m glad we checked up there,” he said as he took his heated seat in the gondola for the descent. “I was particularly impressed with nothing we found in the concession stands.”

“It wasn’t completely nothing,” Kat sat down across from him and took a sip from a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

“It was a complete waste of time.”

“Would you rather waste your time up here, or be the one that finds the machine?”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Savant sneered. “You think I’d rather not work. But that’s not true. I love capturing rogue machines. I could use the screen time. I wouldn’t mind my star getting a little brighter.”

Kat raised an eyebrow and took another sip from the insulated cup.

Savant chuckled at her indifference. “You don’t care for being a stream star, do you?”

Kat shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“Yep. It’s fine. That’s what all the big celebrities say. They say, ‘It’s fine,’ like it’s no big deal. But it’s more than fine. It is a big deal. It’s amazing. It’s an honor. That’s what you’re supposed to say, ‘It’s an honor.’”

“I’ve had my fifteen minutes, Savant,” Kat said. “I’m not particularly eager for another go round.”

“You didn’t have to accept. You could have said, ‘no,’ to the show,” Savant said. “So, why didn’t you?”

Kat didn’t answer for a long time. She just stared into the snowstorm. Savant was about to speak again when she finally looked back at him and smiled. “You know why I’m here? Because you wouldn’t last a week without me.”

Savant smiled back. “You did it for the team.”

“No, the team would be fine. I’m talking about you. You’d be dead so fast.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t like the attention.”

“I’ve had enough attention to last a lifetime.”

Savant hrmmphed and turned his own attention out into the storm. He watched the snow fall and realized that it was actually falling now instead of being blown up, down and sideways by the wind. The storm was finally calming down. After another five minutes, he was actually able to see the landscape below them. He could even see some distance down the mountain. The setting was almost serene.

“It looks like our lumberjack friend is still at it,” Savant said spotting the forestry management bot in the clearing weather. “Looks like it’s been busy. That’s one huge pile of trees.”

Kat crossed the gondola and joined him at the window. “That’s odd. Why would it stack them like that?”

The machine had felled several more trees since their first pass and piled them as if it was constructing a giant campfire. The trees were steepled against one another to form a pyramid that reached thirty feet into the sky.

“I don’t know.”

The machine set a final log on the pile and looked up at the approaching gondola. The pilot flame on the machine’s arm ignited its flame thrower.

“Um, that isn’t good,” Savant said as he unslung his disruptor.

Kat checked her own weapon. “You said you were cold.”

“I wanted a cozy fire. I didn’t want to be cooked alive in a wobbly deathtrap.”

Kat kicked against the safety glass. Her boot bounced off with little effect. She tried again with the same result.

“Harder!” Savant said.

She kicked again.

“Harder!” Savant yelled louder.

“You know you could help!” She kicked again and again felt like she was getting nowhere. She finally stopped and shouted at Savant, “It not going to break! Cut it!”

Savant pulled out a cutting torch from his equipment bag and fired it up.

On the ground, the machine brought its torch to bear at the base of the woodpile and blasted the fallen trees with a stream of continuous flame. Driven by the wind, fire roared straight up the structure’s chimney as it ate oxygen from the base of the pile. Flames erupted from the top of the pile with more than enough height to reach the gondola.

Savant turned off the torch. “You know? I think maybe, we’re going to want that window after all.”

The machine pulled a burning tree from the fire and held it in one of its mechanical hands while the other produced a chainsaw and began cutting it into massive burning logs.

“What’s is doing now?” Savant asked.

The machine cut a final section from the tree and hurled the burning log at the gondola.

“Get down!” Kat pulled Savant to the center of the cabin as the burning log struck a glancing blow off its base. The cabin swung violently but continued steadily down the mountain.

A second flaming projectile flew over the gondola, missing them completely. The next one hit with the sound of protesting metal and sent them swinging along an entirely different axis than before. Savant dropped the cutting torch from his hand and tried to find something else to grab on to. Anything would do.

It got brighter in the cabin as they passed over the bonfire. The gondola rocked back and forth to such an extreme that the door was exposed to the bonfire and the ground below every three seconds. They could feel the heat through the door and smoke filled the cabin causing them both to cough.

Kat’s eyes had just started to water when they cleared the flames and the smoke started to thin. Once they had passed the fire, the cabin was starting to slowly find its center again. Kat grabbed the cutting torch Savant had dropped, leapt up onto her seat and went to work on the window. She quickly cut away a large section of the smokey glass and pushed it out in the cold. She pulled her disruptor to her shoulder.

Savant managed to get to his feet and joined her at the window with his own weapon at the ready as the machine below reached out for them and tried to grab them out of the air.

Despite its massive size, its arms weren’t long enough to reach the pair on the lift. It quickly realized this and ran back to the bonfire it had constructed.

Kat and Savant opened fire while its back was turned and peppered the machine with disruptor blasts. The air crackled and stirred and the sweet scent of ozone replaced the smell of smoke as they discharged their weapons. The shots found their way to the machine but the blasts had little effect.

The rogue lumberjack seized one of the burning trunks from the base of the fire and turned back to pursue the pair armed with a giant flaming tree. It caught up to the gondola in a matter of strides and swung.

The blow struck the gondola and sent it bouncing and swinging wildly on the cable as it continued down the mountain. Savant and Kat tumbled around the cabin like shoes in a dryer, colliding into one another while trying to find anything to hold on to.

Kat finally stopped tumbling and found her way back to the rear window. She pulled herself up to the ledge and looked up. What she saw was concerning.

The gondola’s path was getting closer to the ground which meant they were closer to the machine’s reach. This made their attacker’s swings more accurate. Every bash of the burning branch caused the gondola to rock more and more. Burning embers and smoke filled the cabin as the pair struggled to stay on their feet.

There was one final whack and the beatings stopped.

The car’s rocking slowed and the couple inside were able to pull themselves to the window. The machine was standing in the distance now. Below them, the ground dropped away as the gondola moved over a steep slope. The machine stood on the edge above them next to the support pylon, watching its prey go where it could not follow.

Kat began laughing first. Savant joined in shortly after. They stopped when the machine turned its attention to the cable car’s support pylon and went to work on it with its forestry management tools. Sparks, flames and horrible noises filled the air as the machine attacked the metal support.

Kat and Savant screamed as the klaxon they had heard earlier sounded again and the pylon toppled towards them. The cable went slack as the entire system collapsed and their gondola dipped toward the ground.

The crack of an explosion sounded from above them and the gondola stopped dipping and started plummeting. There wasn’t even enough time to begin a new scream before they felt another blast beneath their feet.

They hit the ground on a cushion of air and watched as the emergency airbag deflated slowly around them blowing the freshly fallen snow around their landing site back into the air.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Kat said once she realized they were done falling. She got to her feet, compensating for the new angle of the floor.

“Yeah.” Savant stood up using the wall for support. “Who knew ski lifts had airbags?”

The gondola shifted as its weight settled in the snow. It was enough to make both the occupants check their balance and say, “Whoa.”

The gondola shifted again. But this time it didn’t stop and the cabin began sliding down the slope.

Savant dove for the bench and sat down as much as he could. Even then, it wasn’t enough to take the panic out of his voice. “Why are we still moving?”

Kat fell to the floor and tried to brace herself as the cabin picked up speed. She could feel the mountain moving through the floor as if the gondola’s skin was nothing more than a plastic toboggan. It wasn’t long before they were flying down the slope at an alarming speed with the occasional bump sending them into the air.

Savant shouted over the rushing wind. “I don’t care for this!”

One corner of the gondola snagged on something outside and threw the cabin into a spin. They completed several quick rotations before the car stabilized with the open window facing downhill and a blast of snow hit Savant in the face. The wind and cold blew into the cabin filling the car with ice, dirt, sticks and pine needles that were being kicked up by their vehicle’s leading edge as it continued its perilous journey down the mountain.

Savant was doing his best to swear but every time he opened his mouth it was quickly filled with bits of nature and gusts of freezing air.

The gondola leapt into the air higher than it had before and touched down only briefly before getting air again. This happened several times with the airtime increasing each time until it felt like they were flying more than sliding. There was an impossibly long skip and the gondola took the opportunity to tumble in the air.

“Hold on!” Kat shouted as she saw what was coming.

When they came down again, the car landed sideways and started rolling instead of sliding.

The ride inside was confusing. Up and down became irrelevant. Everything spun. There was snow and metal and dirt and safety glass spinning at impossible speeds. The best they could do was find a wall and hope the centrifugal forced held them in one place until the ride was over.

Savant had enough. “I want off this—”

The gondola hit a tree and came to a very sudden stop.

* * *

“Avalanche drone!” Mason shouted when he identified exactly what the lights outside the window belonged to.

Jake dove and tackled Mason out of the way as the drone’s rocket crashed through the window, zipped across the room and exploded behind the bar. Glass and liquor went everywhere.

The Chuti System’s avalanche mitigation drone was equipped with several explosive charges designed to trigger avalanches in a controlled fashion—as far as one could control an avalanche—from a safe distance. The rockets weren’t high explosives per se, they contained just enough of a kick to set things rolling down a mountainside. But, at this range, in a confined space, it didn’t really matter that they were what some would call “smaller bombs.”

The room smelled like smoke and whiskey and, to the two men on the floor, everything sounded like it was underwater.

Jake helped Mason to his feet and patted him on the shoulder to make sure he was able to stand on his own. For a brief moment, he couldn’t hear anything except the thoughts inside his head. Everything was ringing and silent at the same time. Jake realized that trying to talk would be a waste of breath. But when the green line of the laser started probing the smoke-filled room he shouted anyway. “Run!”

The drone caught the movement of its prey and took no chances. It fired a string of rockets from the mounted pod, sending explosive rounds chasing after the fleeing duo as they ran across the ballroom.

Jake and Mason dashed for the hallway as the explosives crashed through the windows behind them and began exploding in succession.

The blasts drowned out their screams as they stayed only steps ahead of the carnage, their legs pumping furiously until they launched themselves through the ballroom doors and into a windowless hallway.

Smoke rolled out from the ballroom and flowed around the two men as they began to laugh at the joke that was barely not dying.

“I sure hope the producers got a good shot of that one,” Mason said.

It was then that the show’s camera drone came screaming out of the room. It was on fire and smoke trailed behind it. It buzzed by the two men, crashed into the wall and dropped to the floor before exploding in a shower of sparks.

“Dammit,” said Mason. “That was going to be my big scene!”

“I’m less worried about the footage and more about that drone outside.” Jake said. “Do you think it’s out of rockets?”

Mason brushed the rubble off his clothes. “Unless I’ve gone completely deaf, I’m confident in saying that the explosions have stopped.”

Jake rose and crept back to the ballroom door. The room was on fire, but it wasn’t exploding at the moment. He stepped into the room and turned green.

The drone hovered outside the shattered windows, paining his chest with the targeting laser.

Jake froze and waited to see which way he should run.

The drone hovered silently for a minute before turning off the laser and drifting away into the storm.

Jake exhaled.

“It must be empty,” Mason said from behind him.

“I wonder if it can reload on its own.”

“I don’t want to wait around to find out,” Mason said.

Jake looked at the disruptor in his hand. It wasn’t going to be enough. “We’re going to need something bigger. Radio the team. Have them meet us back here.”

Mason made the call.

* * *

Glitch stood. He felt the actuators in his leg augmentations heat up as they strained to move the metal shelves that had he and Hailey pinned to the stockroom floor. The shelving and the inventory shifted as he struggled against the weight.

“You’ve got it, Glitch,” Hailey said, picking her way through the rubble beneath him, trying to find something to use as a lever so she could help.

Something gave, or something shifted and the pile on his back felt lighter. Once more grunt and one last burst of effort sent everything crashing around them. Glitch threw the pile from his back and stood up. They were free.

Hailey scrambled up the pile and found her way to the exit.

Glitch was right behind her when Mason’s call came over the radio.

“It’s the avalanche drone,” Mason said through a broken signal. “Jake wants us to rendezvous back at the lodge.”

“The avalanche drone?” Hailey looked at Glitch. “That’s not right.”

Glitch freed himself from the last of the collapsed inventory while Hailey radioed back.

“Mason, it’s not the drone,” she said. “It was the Snowplow…groomer…thing.”

* * *

“That was no snow groomer,” Savant groaned. He was still upside down in the now grounded gondola. “It was an evil woodsman!”

“Savant and I just had an encounter with Paul Bunyan,” Kat said checking her head for any profuse bleeding. She was covered with scrapes and the bruising would be more than colorful once it all settled in. “It sounds like we’ve got more than one culprit. Maybe the whole Chuti system.”

Jake took over the channel. “Either way, we need to regroup. Let’s meet back in the lobby.”

Kat hung the radio back on her belt and turned her attention to Savant. He was folded in two inside the mangled cabin and appeared to be making no attempt to free himself.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“No, I am not,” he said. “I hate it here. I hate the cold. I hate the stupid air. I don’t care how rich I get; I’m never setting foot in a ski resort again.”

Kat grabbed the closest limb and started pulling until the man was free and able to crawl from the gondola.

Savant stood and twisted his back to work out several kinks, but it wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of popping. It was going to hurt for quite a while. Both he and Kat were bruised and bloodied but, between the two of them, nothing appeared to be broken.

Kat let out a sigh that was half relief and half steam. “Well, the good news is, at least we’re at the bottom of the hill.”

“Great.” Savant pulled out his tablet and consulted the now cracked screen. He pointed out the direction of the resort. “Let’s regroup, gear up and kill this axe-hole.”

Kat was not impressed. “Really?”

“That was good,” Savant said.

“It wasn’t good,” she said. “It was lame.”

“It wasn’t lame. They’re going to use it in the promo,” Savant insisted. “Just you wait and see.”

Kat sighed, turned and started walking.

* * *

Glitch carried the last equipment crate from the snowcat and dropped it in the middle of the lobby as the last camera drone positioned itself for optimal coverage. The producers may not have direct control over the drone thanks to the storm, but the onboard AI knew a gearing up scene when it saw one.

A fire blazed in the stone fireplace and, for the first time since arriving at The Peak, the team began to feel the blood flowing in their veins again. The relief would only be temporary as the storm was growing stronger once again and the lodge now had fewer windows than before, but they enjoyed it while they could.

Jake stood in the middle of the room and gave an update on the situation. “It would appear that we’re dealing with more than one rogue machine here. From what you all have experienced; it would appear the entire Chuti System has been compromised. We’ve only encountered a few of the elements, but I think it’s safe to assume that any piece of the system should be treated as a threat. In addition to that great news, I’m afraid our normal tools aren’t going to be enough. Normally, that would mean that we call in help, but thanks to the interference from the blizzard, our calls aren’t getting through and no one is getting in. But there is some good news…Savant.”

“The good news is that I’m smarter than all of you and I expected something like this to happen eventually. So, I’ve been preparing for it. While you all have been wasting your free time with friends and loved ones, I have been developing a new line of hardware for use in robot reclamation.”

“That’s a really sad way to say you don’t have friends, Savant,” Mason said.

“I have friends!”

“Of course, you do, Savant,” Kat said. “No one is suggesting that your workaholic tendencies come from an attempt to forget the fact that absolutely nobody likes you.”

“Jake, I don’t want to be on Kat’s team anymore. She’s a bully.”

“Just get to what’s in the crates!” Hailey shouted and slapped the crate she was using as a seat.

“Fine!” Savant snapped open the latches of the nearest crate and pulled out what looked like a typical rifle stock with two bright orange balls on the business end of the barrel.

“What is that ridiculous thing?” Mason asked.

“This is for our flying friend,” Savant said.

“Why does it have balls?” Glitch asked.

“They’re not balls, they’re bolas!”

“That’s just Spanish for balls,” Kat explained.

Savant sighed and pressed on. “The avalanche drone can’t do much damage from the ground. These bolas are connected by a high-tensile steel cable that, if deployed properly by someone who is not a moron, will ensnare and destroy the machine’s rotors, grounding it and removing it from the field of operations.”

“Why are they orange?” Mason asked.

“So they’re easier to see on camera.” Savant shoved the weapon into Mason’s arms. “You have to think cinematically, Mason. You’re in show business now.”

“What about the snow groomer?” Glitch asked. “I don’t think your balls are going to be enough to stop it. I’m not even sure the IMP could stop it.”

“They’re bolas but, you’re right. The IMP probably won’t stop it.” Savant unlatched the clasps of one of the larger shipping containers and opened the lid. “That’s why there is now the Gatling IMP!”

“Oh, man!” Glitch rushed to the crate, giggling a little. “It’s so awesome.”

“Yeah, so this one is just basically six IMPs mounted on a spinny thing,” Savant explained. “But it should do the trick. If you can handle it.”

Glitch lifted the massive weapon out its container and strapped the sling around his neck. Even with this extra support, it was clear that he was feeling the heft of the device. Despite the weight, his grin grew larger as he started sweeping the weapon around the room, firing on invisible enemies.

“What about our wicked woodsman?” Kat asked. “Glitch’s gun is too big for the rest of us to handle.”

Savant opened another crate and pulled out a weapon with an oversized magazine and a bore the size of a soup can.

“Limpet mines,” he said handing the weapon to Kat. “It fires in three round bursts. Just get them relatively close and the magnets should do the rest. It should be small enough for us to manage but packs a punch big enough for Paul Bunyan to feel.”

“What do you mean should be?” Mason asked. “Shouldn’t you know?”

“Oh yeah. None of these have been tested, like at all, so it’s all just theory at this point. But they’re my theories so everything should be perfectly safe. Except for the Gatling gun. That one’s totally up in the air. I have no idea what that one will do.”

Glitch, who had been swinging the barrel of the gun around and making machine gun noises, stopped and turned back to the team. “What did he say?”

“I said, everyone needs to stop being such babies about everything! An entire system has gone rogue and these weapons are the best chance we’ve got against it so it’s important that we all remember they were my idea and all the trademarks and patents belong fully to me.”

“That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” Mason said examining the bola launcher.

“Trust me,” Savant said. “I’ve thought of just about everything.”

Outside, bright lights snapped on and filled the lobby forcing everyone to shield their eyes from the sudden intensity.

Glitch was the first to acclimate and spotted the source of the lights through the front window. “It’s the Zamboni.”

Savant snapped his fingers. “I forgot about that one.”

“I’ve accounted for everything,” Kat mocked.

“I said ‘just about,’” Savant snapped. “Besides, it cleans up after figure skaters, how dangerous can it be?”

More lights came on as the Chuti’s snow groomer arrived pulled alongside the first machine. The lumberjack bot moved in behind them.

“Oh, great,” Kat said directly into the camera drone that hovered near her. “It’s this axe-hole again.”

“Hey!” Savant shouted as the drone moved away to capture more footage of the encounter. “That’s my line! You…you said it was a terrible line!”

Kat flashed a quick smile and turned her attention back to the machines as the rest of the team spread out through the lobby and took up positions near the windows.

“Does anyone see the avalanche drone?” Jake shouted.

Mason had taken up a position at the top of the stairs and was pointing out the window. “I see something flying out there. That’s got to be it.”

“Search and rescue just arrived,” Savant said as a tracked vehicle marked with a red cross pulled up next to the plow.

“Looks like all we are missing are a couple dozen walking snow blowers,” Hailey said.

The skylights above them shattered as a dozen of the Chuti snow makers crashed through the glass and dropped into the timber-framed lodge. Several dropped to the ground and pointed their snow cannons at the team while others used their prehensile feet to take up positions in the rafters. These machines began to spray into the air, adding to the snow that was now falling inside the resort.

“It was Hailey’s fault!” Savant yelled. “Hailey said it!”

Hailey shook off the surprise and fired a disrupter charge straight down the open throat of a nearby snowblower before it could blast the team with its would be freeze ray.

The electrical blast spun around the moving turbine like lightning in a blender as the machine shuddered, wobbled and fell to the ground. This sent the rest of the machines into a frenzy.

One leapt on Glitch and sent him backward through the stack of equipment cases. Its claws dug into the cyborg’s chest and pinned his right arm, and his new IMP, to the ground. The snow maker’s fan began to spin as it directed the blower opening at Glitch’s face preparing to unleash a frigid blast that would cause instant death or the runniest nose in history.

Glitch struggled to free his arm and bring the weapon to bear on the machine, but the snow maker’s clawed toes had fixed themselves deep into the wood floor and were holding the cyborg fast.

The machine whined as the fan reached operating speed and began to glow blue as it prepared to freeze its victim to the floor.

Glitch grabbed the machine with his free hand and shoved with all his might.

The snowmaker dug deeper into the floor and remained planted to his chest but he was able to direct the jet of freezing air away from his face. Glitch could feel the frigid air around his pinned hand for only a moment before it lost all feeling. It was numb. He could feel neither nerves nor feedback from the circuits in his enhancements and when he finally looked over, all he could see was a block of ice encasing his hand.

“You jerk!” Glitch punched the snow maker with his free hand but it remained planted on his chest and turned the fan back toward his face. The blades began to spin once more.

There was little leverage to be found on the floor and Glitch’s punches were having little effect on the machine.

The internal cavity began to glow blue as the compressors filled with the supercooled fluid.

Glitch reached for something, anything and found the handle of an empty equipment case.

He felt the cold begin to intensify on his face just before he jammed the case into the fan and down the robot’s throat. Shredded plastic and fiberglass filled the machine’s cavity and gummed the system until it seized completely and twisted the machine from its perch. Glitch winced as the machine was ripped from his chest and hurled itself across the room.

The members of the team that weren’t frozen to the floor were blasting away at the snow makers as the agile machines bounced around the room. Electricity cracked as disruptor discharges filled the air and reflected off the falling snow lighting up the lobby like a strobe light. The camera drone darted about the room catching the action in between the flashes.

Jake and Mason had split the high and low targets between themselves. With every pulse of light, Jake was firing at another target on the ground while Mason aimed skyward trying to knock down the machines that had scrambled in the rafters.

Kat and Savant had taken shelter behind a giant leather sofa and were alternating between firing and taking cover in between the flashes of light. One of the machines nearly caught Kat out in the open and blasted the couch with a stream of freezing air that covered the sofa’s arm with ice.

Glitch had managed to free his hand from the ground and get back on his feet but he was surrounded by a half dozen of the machines before he could retrieve his weapon. He didn’t give the snow makers a chance to bring their fans up to speed before he began raining blows on the bots.

Driven by augmented muscles, his fists did a fair amount of damage to the smaller machines. Their chassis were built to withstand the cold and the elements, not a beating from an enhanced and irritated giant.

The cyborg made short work of most of the machines that had cornered him and turned his attention to the last one that stood in front of him.

The machine’s posture changed suddenly. Its aggressive stance disappeared and it powered down its fan. The others in the room did the same and as one they turned toward the front door and rushed the entrance, hopping over any obstacle that got in their way.

“Keep firing,” Jake shouted in the confusion. “Don’t give them an opportunity to regroup.”

The team heeded his command and started firing. The Chutis shook as they fell to the ground, the disruptor current racing through them and disabling their systems. They caught several during the retreat, but more than a dozen evaded fire and made it outside. They raced to the machines that had gathered in front of the lodge and scrambled on top of the plow and the ice resurfacer.

“Why’d they run?” Hailey asked after the firing had stopped.

“They knew they were beat?” Mason brushed the snow from his shoulder.

“No way,” Glitch said as he wiped the last of the frost from his arm. “A few more minutes and I think they would have had us.”

Jake looked at the snow drifts around the room and the pieces of furniture that had been encased in ice. Glitch wasn’t wrong. He pointed to the line of machines outside. “What are they doing now?”

“Nothing.” Kat had worked her way to the edge of the room and was staring out where the windows had been. “They’re just sitting out there. Waiting for us.”

Glitch retrieved the gatling IMP and spun up the barrels to ensure the mechanism was clear of ice. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

Mason picked up the bolo gun from where he had dropped it during the fight and held it over his head as he ran to join the group. “I’ve got Savant’s balls.”

Savant ran behind him. “They’re bolas, Mason!”

Kat picked up the limpet gun and checked the charges. She snapped the magazine back in place and joined the rest of the team in front of the fire. “Ready.”

The team stepped out into the cold and formed a line in front of the machinery. The remaining camera drone risked the wind and weather and moved outside for a wide exterior shot of the formation. The team members were exhausted and bloodied but still determined to make their stand against what was beginning to feel like impossible odds. It was a shot made for a commercial break if there ever was one.

Unfortunately, it was also the last shot of the episode as the camera drone exploded a moment later. A trail of smoke traced back to the avalanche drone hovering over the lumberjack’s shoulder. With its target neutralized, it turned its focus and its reloaded rocket pod away from the wreckage and back to the team.

“Lucas is not going to be happy about that,” Savant said while checking to make sure the camera on his shoulder was unobstructed. “He says bodycam sequences makes our viewers queasy.”

“It don’t matter none. The footage won’t see the light of day.” The voice came from a loudspeaker mounted on the lumberjack bot’s shoulder and was followed by a cackle and a cough.

“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “I know that emphysema.”

The lumberjack stepped forward into the light. The cockpit in its chest was no longer empty. The machine now had a pilot.

“Oh, look,” Mason pointed at Jasper in the cockpit and feigned surprise. “If it isn’t the resort’s ancient curse.”

Jasper cackled once more to set the stereotype firmly in place before his expression turned bitter. “I warned you to stay away! This is my mountain and I’m not going to have some lousy, no good rich kid who never worked a day in his life ruining it. This place used to stand for something back in the day. It was filled with classy people having wild parties full of sex and drugs. Now it’s just a perversion!”

“Jasper, honey,” Hailey said trying some empathy. “I think you’ve been alone up here for too long.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s time to come down off the mountain and work on being less of a looney.” Savant tried to say it with empathy but realized after he’d spoken that he didn’t know what empathy actually sounded like.

“I’m not leaving!” Jasper shouted. “I’m never leaving! You’re leaving!”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Jake said.

“Is that so?” Jasper’s cackle blasted through the loudspeaker and carried up the slope causing the snow on the mountain to shake. “How are you going to beat my machines?”

“By banding together,” Savant said as he stepped forward.

“Lame,” Kat muttered as she stepped up next to him.

“I know,” Savant said quietly as the others stepped forward and lined up next to him. “I regretted it the moment I said it.”

It would ultimately be up to the editor to decide if the comment made the episode’s final cut, but it caused Jasper to laugh and cough uncontrollably. The lumberjack bot stumbled about as the coughing fit took his focus off the controls. When he finally regained his composure, Jasper chuckled. “Banding together. Now, that’s a dang good idea!”

The Chuti’s snow groomer and ice resurfacer rolled forward until they were side by side. Jasper cackled as he piloted the lumberjack forward until it was standing on the two machines. Several components moved at once as the top of each machine revealed a locking mechanism that held the lumberjack bot’s feet in place. Jasper stepped forward, lifting the snow cat from the ground and stomping it down hard.

“What’s he doing?” Hailey yelled the question over the rumbling of the machines.

The machines of the Chuti system converged on Jasper and began to alter their structures to merge with the lumberjack bot. The search and rescue unit formed the right arm while its companion drone became the left.

“What in the Voltron is going on?” Mason shouted over the sounds of the machinations.

What was left of the snowmakers scrambled up the newly formed behemoth and filled in the missing bits and pieces adding support to ankles and the other joints. Several of the units formed fingers on each hand which quickly turned into clenched fists. For the final touch, the avalanche drone settled into position on the machine’s back.

“It’s an abominable snowbot!” Mason and Savant said the words at the exact same time.

“TM,” added Savant.

The right arm raised up and leveled toward the team. One of the fingers stretched out and pointed at them. “Get off my mountain!”

The turbofan inside the snowmaker spun up and a stream of snow and ice blasted from the accusatory finger.

“Look out!” Jake shouted to the team who had already begun to scatter leaving him the only idiot still standing in the ice beam’s path. He dove out of the way just as the force of the cold flew past him.

It had been close. His eyebrows felt frozen. He looked back to where he had been standing half expecting to see an ice statue that looked just like him. It wasn’t there. The blast of cold hadn’t been intended for them, the giant machine had laid down an ice barrier over the entrance to the lodge, blocking off their retreat.

Jasper laughed through the speaker system. This eventually turned into another coughing fit which caused the gestalt machine to stumble away.

The team regrouped behind their snowcat.

“I can’t believe that just happened!” Mason shouted to the team.

“I can’t believe we didn’t stop it!” Savant shouted back. “It was just standing there. Why didn’t we shoot it before it could assemble itself?”

“I wanted to see what would happen,” Glitch said with a shrug. “And it was really cool!”

Jake couldn’t argue with that. “Does anyone have any idea how we can stop this thing?”

Mason nodded. “I say we wait it out and let the machine die of tuberculosis.”

The coughing fit stopped and the abomination of assembled machines resumed its attack.

If Scrappers had been a scripted show, someone on the team would have said, “At least we’re safe here behind the snowcat.” Instead, they all yelled their own favorite curse words as the Chuti robot lifted their rig and tossed it aside as if it weighed nothing.

Jake fired his disruptor and watched as the pulse of electricity danced across the giant’s outer skin and harmlessly dissipated. The others found cover elsewhere and fired as well. The combined effect of the multiple disruptors’ blasts added up to one big disappointment.

Jasper giggled in the cockpit as the machine came for them once again. The Abominable Snowbot reached for Kat with an appendage that consisted of the lumberjack’s arm, a snowmobile drone and several snowmakers. It moved slowly, like it was still learning how to be an arm instead of an assembled mess of machines.

For the spectacle that it was, Kat didn’t see it coming. She was hunched behind cover with her back to the machine. It wasn’t until Glitch yelled her name that she turned and fired.

The limpet gun sounded more like a t-shirt cannon sending sponsored apparel into the upper decks of a stadium than a high explosive weapon. There were three quick thwumps as the rifle spit the rounds into the air. Once discharged, the canisters sprung open into something that looked like a four-legged spider and reached out into the world with their magnets to find metal. All three changed direction in mid-air and latched on to the machine’s outstretched hand with a clang.

They detonated in the same sequence they had left the gun, blowing off three of the machine’s fingers and causing Jasper to stumble backwards. The snow makers dropped from the sky and fell broken in the snow.

Glitch seized the moment and turned the gatling IMP on the stumbling snow monster. The barrels spun furiously creating a high-pitched whine and a tempest filled with falling snow around the rotating cylinder. The cyborg put on his best Bill Duke face and screamed as he engaged the EMPs. The barrels lit up every time they spun past the trigger, bathing Glitch in a pulsing red light. The blasts were silent but forceful and the cannon bucked in the cyborg’s mighty grip. It wasn’t easy to move the man if he didn’t want to move, but the recoil from the massive gun drove him backwards in the snow, stretching his footprints into visible trails of effort.

The weapon’s power was even more visible on the abominable snow machine. The robot rocked as the invisible blasts collided with its body. Limbs began to flail, shudder and shut down as the powerful pulses raced through the circuitry. Jasper yelled, his screams were broken and laced with feedback by a loudspeaker overcome with a sudden surplus of voltage.

The amalgamated robot fell to one knee.

“You’re doing it, Glitch! You’re doing it!” Savant screamed with excitement. “With my gun, I might add!”

The robot fell to both knees and pitched forward. It reached out with both arms to stop its complete collapse.

Mason joined in the chorus of cheers. “Keep it up, G-man!”

Jake saw the green dot on Glitch’s chest first. As the machine collapsed, the avalanche drone on its back had gained a line of sight on the team. “Glitch, the drone!”

A rocket fired from the drone and exploded at Glitch’s feet sending the big man flying back through the ice barricade and into the lodge. Kat and Hailey broke from the fight and ran after him while Jake fired back.

The monster was still down and reeling from the EMP attack, but the drone had been shielded from the blasts. It detached itself from the fallen robot and rose into the air with its guidance laser searching for targets in the snow.

Jake fired burst after burst after the flyer.

The drone dodged each shot easily and painted Jake and Mason as targets with several green dots. They held steady while the drone brought its rocket pod back around.

“It’s about to shoot!” Savant yelled from behind cover.

“I’ll hit it with Savant’s balls!” Mason raised the bolas launcher.

“Stop calling them that!” Savant screamed.

Jake kept firing. If the drone could dodge his disruptor, it could dodge the slower moving bolas. Savant deduced Jake’s plan and joined in on the assault with additional fire to help distract the drone’s sensors.

The drone juked and wobbled as it tried to avoid the incoming fire while still holding its targets in sight.

Mason pulled the trigger on the launcher. The bright orange bolas launched from their perch on the rifle and flew into the air. Each orb fought against the tether to be the first one to the target causing the projectile to spin end over end as they raced toward the drone.

Jake fired once more and caught the drone on the nose. It wasn’t enough to bring the machine down, but it drove the nose up into the air, exposing the machine’s rotors to the projectile.

“Yes!” Mason leapt in the air as the bolas struck the rotor and seized the prop.

The drone listed to one side as it lost lift. But it quickly compensated and leveled.

Mason slammed the empty weapon on the ground. “No!”

The drone reacquired its targets and prepared to fire.

Savant’s balls exploded. The avalanche drone fell in a fiery heap to the ground.

“I told you to trust me!” Savant shouted as he stepped out from behind cover.

Mason shrugged. “Hooray for Savant’s balls!”

“You haven’t won yet!” Jasper was wheezing through the loudspeaker now. The feedback had stopped and the machine was struggling to get back to its feet.

“Glitch?” Savant called inside the lodge. “Can you come back out here? Bring the big gun.”

The ground shook as Jasper drove a hand into the earth and pushed the torso back upright. The snow groomer sent another impact through the ground a moment later as the robot got back to its feet.

“I’m going back inside,” Mason said and ran back into the lodge.

Jake and Savant were close behind him.

Inside the lodge, Glitch was back on his feet with Kat and Hailey at his side. He looked a little winded but seems to be standing under his own power.

“Oh, good, you’re not dead,” Mason said. “Get your gun, buddy. We need you back out there.”

There was a crash on the roof as the machine brought both arms down on the lodge. The whole building shook.

Glitch shook his head slowly and pointed to the ground behind him. The gatling IMP was on the lobby floor, crushed and sparking. “It broke my fall.”

Another crash shook the lobby and Jasper started swearing as he used the machine to beat a hole in the resort. The roof started falling in after the third strike.

Hailey reached out and grabbed Jake’s arm. “We should think about getting out of here.”

Mason tucked his gloves under his arms and warmed his hands by the fire. “Inside is better than outside Hailey,”

The abomination’s hand came through the roof on the next blow and a fist made of snow makers seized one of the log rafters.

“Outside is good, too!” Mason rubbed his hands together one last time and raced for the back door while pulling on his gloves.

Timbers cracked and splintered as the machine tore them from their joists. The lobby started to shake as the entire top of the structure became unstable.

Jake rushed the team toward the back of the building in search of an emergency exit as it all started coming down. The snow groomer crashed through the wall as the Abominable Snowbot stepped into the lodge.

The rear exit took the team to a small footpath that dissolved into a wooded nature trail through a cluster of pine trees. They raced into the small woods not knowing or caring if the path had been covered in the blizzard or if the forest canopy had left enough visible for them to navigate by. Even if they got lost, it was a better place to be than in the path of Jasper’s monster.

Savant raced down the path only a few steps behind Kat. “I think running was the right idea, but how cool would it be to watch a giant robot tear through that lodge?”

“That’s a terrible thing to say, Savant,” Hailey said. “But, cinematically speaking…”

“Cinematically speaking?” Jake mulled the thought over for only a second. “That would have been awesome.”

Savant shouted over the wind, “We keep missing all the good shots because our cameras always suck.”

“Screw the footage,” Mason said as they ran into a clearing. “All that matters now is finding a way off this mountain.”

“Cliff!” Kat shouted and stopped so suddenly that Savant ran right by her. She reached out and grabbed his collar. The noise he made as she used his neck to bring him down was more than a little satisfying. He dropped flat to the ground with his feet only a couple feet from where the ground ran out and the abyss began.

Savant skittered back from the cliff’s edge on his hands and heels faster than he had been moving forward, crab walking past most of the group and not stopping until he had his back to a tree and his hands around the trunk.

Kat paced the edge of the mountain. There was no way down from there and a thirty-foot wall of rock on their left meant there was no going up. “It looks like a dead end.”

The forest began to shake. Snow fell from the tree limbs in sheets and thudded on the ground. Lights filled the woods as trees began to crack and fall.

“Well, this is just great,” Mason shouted. “We’ve got an insane mountain inn keeper in a thirty-foot killing machine in front of us, a four-hundred foot drop behind us and a mountain rising up beside us to prevent our escape.”

“Seriously!” Savant shouted. “Whoever wrote this episode is a total hack!”

The ground shook as the abomination stepped closer and Savant’s emotional support tree shuddered. Every bow above him dumped its load of snow at once and buried him beneath a giant mound of wet, cold nature.

Hailey leaned in closer to Jake as the machine stepped into the clearing. “This doesn’t look good.”

There was another crash as the machine’s massive footage settled into the forest floor.

“Break left!” Jake grabbed Hailey by the hand and started moving the team to the one possible way out. If they could circle back behind the machine, they may be able to lose it in the woods.

Savant’s hand was just emerging when Jake reached the snow pile. He dragged him from the pile and helped him to his feet.

Savant spit out a few pine needles and took a deep breath through chattering teeth. “It went down my neck.”

“I know. Let’s go home, Savant.” Jake gave him an understanding pat on the back and steadied him as he stepped out of the snow pile.

Savant struggled to raise his arm and point at the Abominable Snowbot as it stepped in front of them; separating them from the rest of the team. Yelling was right out as he was still shivering too much to get a good scream worked up.

“There you are!” Jasper cackled as he piloted the Chuti monstrosity into the clearing and turned his attention to the two men under the tree. “Looks like you’ve got yourself cornered.”

The machine took a step forward and tried to grab the men from the ground.

The swipe missed the men but succeeded in uprooting the tree.

The chaos of the crashing timber gave Jake and Savant a chance to run but there was nowhere to go. They ran to the rock facing and looked up hopelessly at the mountain looming over them. They were trapped.

Jake fired his disruptor at the machine.

Savant’s fingers were shaking too much to work his own weapon.

Jasper laughed at the ill-fated attempt to save themselves. “Sorry, fellas. You’re out of chances.”

“This is crazy, Jasper,” Savant said after regaining some control of his breathing. “They’ll know it was you. We’ve got footage of everything.”

“With this storm raging, your signal’s not getting through. I’ll take care of you and then make sure all your equipment disappears. Nothing is getting off this mountain.” Jasper began to rev up for another mad cackle but stopped short of maniacal to clarify his statement. “Except you. I’m going to throw you off this cliff.”

Jake fired again as the Chuti monster stomped forward. Savant had managed to draw his own weapon in a shaky hand and started shooting. The shots were wildly inaccurate and really not helping at all.

Three quick booms sounded and the Chuti pitched forward as the limpet mines exploded on its back. The machine stumbled but caught itself from falling and turned to address the rest of the team that had gathered behind him.

“Back off, old man. You’re finished.” Kat’s youth made the comment sting more than it should have but the limpet launcher in her hands really got Jasper’s attention.

“You don’t have enough peas in that shooter to stop me, little girl.”

Kat fired the final three rounds from the launcher and watched them sail over the machine and dissolve somewhere deep in the snowstorm.

Jasper laughed as Kat lowered the weapon and waited patiently.

The falling snow muffled the initial explosions a little but the team still heard the three booms from somewhere up the mountain.

Kat dropped the launcher calmly in the snow and said, “Run.”

Hailey, Glitch and Mason followed her command and the four team members ran straight for the machine’s legs as the mountain above them began to rumble and Jasper began to understand what had just happened.

The team ran past the abominable snowbot and joined Jake and Savant against the rock face as the rumbling grew louder and the ground beneath their feet began to shake. Kat yelled at everyone, “Get down and hold on to…whatever!”

Jasper was screaming and had turned back toward the team. The abomination came at them with outstretched arms, but it was too late. The avalanche arrived and hit the machine full in the chest.

The team watched as the first blow caused it to stumble backwards toward the cliff. Then, everything went white before turning black as a mountain’s worth of snow, earth and rock piled up in front of them.

It took some time for the team to dig itself out of the emergency redoubt. When they finally emerged, there was no sign of the caretaker or his abomination.

“Poor Jasper,” Glitch said. “It took him right over the edge.”

“So cool,” Mason said staring over the cliff. “Nice work, Kat.”

“I got the idea when the tree took a dump on Savant,” she said.

“So what you’re saying is that it was really my idea.”

“No, Savant,” Kat said. “No one is saying that.”

“How are we going to get off this mountain?” Savant asked.

“We could ski down,” suggested Glitch. “Hailey taught me how.”

“Oh, Glitch, honey, no,” said Hailey. “You’d kill yourself. You are the worst skier I’ve ever seen.”

Jake looked up into the sky. The blizzard had blown over and the snow was falling gently now. He could see patches of the sky through the thinning clouds. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go call Lucas and tell him we’re going to need a lift home.”

Big Buddy Glitch

JUNKERS: THE MISSING SEASON

“Mr. Pritchard!” The producer was up on her feet and across the room with an outstretched hand before Glitch had made it through the editing suite’s doorway.

Glitch shook the offered hand. It disappeared in his own. After speaking with her on the phone, he had expected her to be bigger. She had a tremendous presence. “You can call me Glitch. Everybody else does.”

“Glitch,” she repeated with a smile and a small laugh. “I’m Eva with Children’s Awareness on Robot and Electronics Safety.”

“Hey, that spells CARES!” Glitch was always good at puzzles.

“Yes! CARES. Thank you for coming down to help us out here today with this Public Service Announcement.”

“Sure, I mean it’s for the kids, right?”

“Absolutely. We’ve got to keep those kids safe.” She directed him across the recording studio and introduced the sound engineer. “This is Timothy. He’s going to be recording you today.”

“Let’s get you in the sound booth,” Timothy said and led him out of the room and around the corner to a smaller room that was dead silent and eerily still. From where he stood, he could see Eva in the editing suite through a large window. He waved to her as the sound engineer put a set of headphones on Glitch’s head.

Eva waved back as Timothy made a few adjustments to the mic.

“You’re all set.” Timothy gave Glitch a double thumbs up, then left him alone in the quiet room.

“Okay, Glitch,” Eva’s voice played in the headphones.

The small laugh was gone from her voice. Apparently, his name was only cute the first time someone said it.

“You should have the scripts in front of you.”

Glitch picked up a thick stack of paper from the stand and thumbed through the stack. “That’s a lot of pages. I thought we were just doing a message for kids to stay safe around robots.”

“Of course. The kids love you, Glitch. I don’t know if you’ve been told, but you’re the most popular member on Scrappers with kids under twelve.”

Glitch stood a little taller. “Really?”

“Really. They adore you. They look up to you. That’s why you’re the perfect person to tell them about the many ways to stay safe around robots.”

“I’m happy to help. It’s just a lot of pages and I’ve never done this.”

“Don’t worry,” Eva said. “They’re all really short.”

Timothy chimed in. “Why don’t we try one?”

“Okay.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Timothy said.

Glitch cleared his throat and held up the first script. “Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch…” Glitch stopped and looked up at the producer through the sound booth window. “Big buddy Glitch? I like that.”

“We thought you would,” said Eva. “Try it again, Glitch.”

“Take two,” marked Timothy.

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. I’m here to remind you that robots can be dangerous. If you see one acting strange, get away and tell a grownup.” Glitch smiled and looked over the top of the script into the control room.

Eva leaned over and pressed a button on the soundboard so Glitch could hear her. She was smiling. “How did that feel?”

“Pretty good,” he said and realized that the stress that had built up in his chest had been replaced by a sense of purpose. He had done something helpful. Something for kids. He was riding a bit of a high.

“I knew it,” Eva said. “You’re a natural. You want to do another one?”

“Yeah!” Glitch moved the completed script to the back of the stack and held up the next one. He gave a thumbs up back to Timothy. “This is fun.”

The engineer nodded back. “Rolling.”

Glitch lauded into the dialogue. “Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. I’m here to remind you that robots can be dangerous. If you see one sparking, it could be experiencing a dangerous electrical short. Get away immediately and tell a grownup.”

“Great!” Eva said. “You’ve totally got this. Let’s do the next one.”

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. Did you know that some robots can overheat? If you see a robot smoking, stay away and contact your local fire department.”

When Glitch looked back up, Eva was smiling and offering a silent bit of applause. She indicated for him to move on to the next script.

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch here, reminding you that if you ever see two robots whispering to one another, but they stop when you get closer. And then they say they weren’t saying anything when you ask what they were talking about; they could be planning a robot coupe. Get away and call the police.” Glitch looked up at Eva.

She leaned forward and hit the talk button. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

Glitch hesitated but finally stammered. “I don’t think that’s anything robots actually do.”

“We just want to cover our bases. CARES is very thorough.”

“Okay, I guess.” Glitch rubbed his chin for a moment. It helped him think. “I just don’t want to scare the kids.”

“Of course we don’t,” Eva said.

“They trust me.”

“And I wouldn’t ask you to do anything to betray that trust.”

“I’m their favorite, you know?”

“I know,” Eva assured him. “Let’s read the next one.”

“Rolling,” Timothy said.

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. I’m here to remind you that robots can be dangerous. If you see one scratching at its arm and acting tweaky, it could be going through substance withdrawal and is looking to chase the dragon. Get away, tell a grownup, and hide your valuables.” Glitch rushed through the last part. “Okay, robots don’t do drugs.”

“Maybe not today,” Eva said. “But they’re making them more and more advanced and it’s only a matter of time before one of them develops a heroin addiction.”

“Maybe but...”

“It’s okay, Glitch. The kids don’t have to hear it from you. They can just learn about it on the street. Timothy can cut that one.”

“No, wait,” Glitch said before Timothy could hit the delete button. “It’s okay.”

“Okay, then,” Eva said. “Let’s do the next one.”

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. If you ever see a robot working out complex math equations on a blackboard it could be trying to construct an Einstein-Rosen Bridge and rip a hole in the space time continuum that could lead to an invasion of a caveman army. Get away and notify the army.” Glitch pointed at the script. “Is this even possible?”

“Not only is it possible,” Eva replied. “The math says it’s plausible.”

“The math says? What are the odds?”

“Thirty percent.”

“Thirty percent!”

“There’s a 29.8% chance of a caveman led invasion occurring in the next five years.”

“Wow! That’s terrifying.”

“I know.”

“Still rolling,” said Timothy.

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. If your robot starts chanting in Latin while standing in the middle of a pentagram drawn with salt, it could be trying to summon a Sumerian demon named Malgoth. Get away and contact your local diocese. Okay, this one just can’t happen.”

“It could,” Eva said.

“Yeah, but it can’t.”

“Look, Glitch, you don’t have to record it if you don’t want to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But let me ask you this; if it does happen and some little kid gets his soul eaten by Malgoth the Sumerian demon, how would that make you feel?”

Glitch shrank a little inside at the thought. “I would feel sad.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I would feel sad, too. Especially knowing that we could have prevented it by warning them today. Now, do you want to skip it?”

Glitch capitulated and pulled up the next script. “No.”

“Okay, then. Let’s try and knock out the last three,” Eva released the talk button and sat back in her chair.

“Rolling,” said Timothy.

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. If you see a robot staring into the night sky, it could be signaling its alien overlords to let them know that the Earth is ripe for invasion. Get away and wait for an agent in a black suit to arrive.”

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. If you see a robot acting strange, it may be possessed by the spirit of a recently executed serial killer and is plotting revenge from beyond the grave. Run away, hide in a closet, and tell your babysitter.”

“Hey, kids, it’s your big buddy Glitch. If you see four or more robots break out into a spontaneous burlesque routine—”

There was a scream from somewhere in the building. It was loud enough to pierce the soundproofing, get past the headphones and register in Glitch’s enhanced hearing.

Glitch ran out of the booth and nearly ran into Eva and Timothy in the hallway outside the editing suite.

“What’s happening?” Glitch asked.

A woman came running around the corner in hysterics. She ran right into Glitch’s arm and broke down.

“What’s wrong, Sarah,” Timothy asked his coworker.

“The Wiggins Mark VII Receptionist Bot. It started smoking, chanting in Latin and now it’s chasing the studio owner around the room saying, ‘I will have my revenge!’”

Eva turned to Glitch. “Glitch, you’re the expert here. What do we do?”

“It looks like we need to call a priest, hire a babysitter, and somebody find me a grownup.”

Call of the Lou

JUNKERS: THE MISSING SEASON

Something amazing happened to the Beast in the California sunshine. Here, the International Travelall was no longer a rusted, eye-sore of antiquated technology. It was a vintage piece of machinery. The rust covering most of the vehicle’s body was no longer a “structural concern;” it was “character.” The threadbare seats were no longer a “seating hazard;” they were “designed to leave a lasting impression.” The blue smoke trailing from the truck’s tailpipe was still an “environmental toxin,” however. Location didn’t change that.

Camera drones kept pace with the vehicle as it rolled down the highways; their multiple lenses capturing b-roll footage for the upcoming episode of Scrappers. It had taken several episodes, but the team had become comfortable with the constant presence of the audience’s eye and thought nothing of the cameras capturing their every moment.

The reality show had been conceived and created for the small stream, but today, the team of junkers was about to hit the big time. Their little show was headed to Emberglow Studios.

Savant was in the rear seat of the SUV with his eyes closed, focused on the words his lips were forming. “Green glass globes graciously glow greenly. Green glass globes graciously glow greenly. Green glass globes graciously glow greenly.”

He took a sharp breath and began again. “Nine nice night nurses are nursing nicely. Nine nice night nurses are nursing nicely.”

Mason was sitting next to the team’s computer scientist. He leaned forward and tapped Jake’s shoulder. “Jake, I think Savant is having a stroke. Do you want me to put a spoon in his mouth?”

“I’m not having a stroke.” Savant cracked his eyes open enough to form a leer before closing them again and returning to his words. “Nine nice night nurses are nursing nicely.”

“Do you want me to put a spoon in his mouth, anyway?” Mason asked.

Savant opened his eyes again. “Shut up, Mason!”

Jake turned around in the passenger seat to face the rear of the cabin. “What are you doing, Savant?”

“My exercises.” Savant closed his eyes tight to regain focus. “Nine nice night nurses are nursing nicely. ‘Surely Sylvia swims! shrieked Sammy, surprised. Someone should show Sylvia some strokes so she shall not sink.’”

“It’s definitely a stroke,” Mason said and turned his attention back out the window.

“What kind of exercises?” Glitch was behind the wheel of the truck, but he kept an eye on the mirror to see what was going on in the cabin behind him.

“They’re acting exercises, you coarse cyborg.”

“Is that why you were doing all those weird things with your face earlier?”

“I was stretching. My teacher told us it was important to warm up the muscles in—”

“Your teacher?” Mason was back in the conversation. “You’re taking acting lessons?”

“Of course, I’m taking acting lessons. Are you not taking acting lessons?”

“Why would I take acting lessons?”

“Because you’re a featured cast member on a weekly stream.”

Mason shrugged. “So?”

“So?” Savant slumped in his seat. “Are none of you taking acting lessons?”

There was a chorus of silence from the team as they all exchanged puzzled looks and slight shrugs.

“Really? Really! Am I the only one that cares if Scrappers succeeds or not?”

“It’s a reality stream,” Kat said. “Practicing your face isn’t really reality.”

“I disagree,” Savant said and closed his eyes once more. “If you must cross a course cross cow across a crowded cow crossing, cross the cross coarse cow across the crowded cow crossing carefully. If you must cross a course cross cow— Okay,” Savant snapped. “You know what really upsets me?”

“I thought it was everything,” Kat answered.

“Yeah,” Glitch agreed. “It seems like pretty much everything.”

“What bothers me,” Savant continued with incredibly distinct diction, “is that none of you seem to care how your poor choices and lack of work ethic are threatening my dream of being a star.”

“That’s true,” Mason said. “One hundred percent. And if math found a way for me to not care more than I already don’t care, I would do that percent instead.”

“You don’t want to be a star, Savant,” Hailey said. “Trust me on this one.”

Jake tried to stifle a laugh.

Hailey crossed her arms. “Why is that funny?”

“C’mon, Hail,” Jake said. “You weren’t a star.”

“I was, too.”

“Not a ‘star’ star.”

“I was a cast member on an incredibly popular stream.”

“It doesn’t count.”

“It does, too, count!”

Jake smirked and exited the argument, pretending to find something of interest outside his window.

“The point is, Savant,” Hailey continued. “Being a star isn’t always the blessing it appears to be. The autograph hounds. The loss of privacy. The pressure society puts on you to be perfect.”

“And you’ve got to remember to not get caught picking your nose by the paparazzi,” Kat added.

“Yes!” Hailey pointed at Kat. “That’s a big one.”

“Can you imagine Savant having fans?” Mason said. “He’d have to hire an assistant just to remind him not to insult them.”

“Jokes on you, Mason. I don’t need you or anyone else to care, because I have been putting in the work and today is going to be my big break.”

“It’s just another job, Savant,” Jake reminded him.

“Just another job for Julian Sinclair,” Savant corrected him. “The man is a legend and his word can make or break any career in Hollywood or its tax-friendly adjacents.”

“If he doesn’t go to prison,” Mason added.

“Being a genius isn’t a crime,” Savant scoffed.

“Being an accessory to murder is,” Kat said. “Didn’t you read the briefing?”

“Oh, course I did.” And he had. He read right up to the part that mentioned Julian Sinclair, at which point he immediately began plotting how he could use this meeting to further his career and raise his star.

“Good, I’m glad to hear it.” Jake turned to Mason. “Why don’t you tell the viewers at home what’s happening this week on Scrappers?”

“I would love to, Jake.” Mason cleared his throat, mocked a few of Savant’s face exercises and began reading the notes from his tablet. “We received a call from Emberglow Studios where auteur Julian Sinclair is working on his latest masterpiece, a musical version of the Call of Cthulhu. In what has been hailed as the most ambitious adaptation of Lovecraft’s work to date, the production constructed the largest practical effect in cinematic history, an animatronic character of immense scale which promptly went rogue.”

“Are you going to show us what it looks like?” Glitch asked.

“But we don’t have photos because the director insists on ‘protecting the creative process.’” By his use of air quotes, it was clear that Mason had little respect for the creative process or the suffering a director went through for his art.

“The man is a genius,” Savant said.

“However, I imagine it looks like Cthulhu,” Mason said. “Lovecraft described the character as ‘a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.’ So, something like this.” Mason hung his fingers in front of the lower half of his face and wriggled them.

Kat tapped idly at the table in here. “This sounds more like a job for the Ghostbusters.”

“Cthulhu isn’t a ghost, Kat,” Glitch said. “He’s a cosmic entity known as a Great Old One. To look upon him was to go mad.”

“Well maybe that’s what happened to Sinclair because it looks like the lunatic refused to install safety protocols in his Cthulhu bot.”

“He probably did that to ensure a truly authentic performance.” Savant sat forward. “Did you know in his film, Noctambulism, he didn’t let anyone on the set sleep for two weeks? He worked with a company to aerosolize caffeine and pumped it directly onto the set. Genius.”

“I didn’t know that but I do know that more people have almost died on his sets than any other director in history.”

Savant nodded. “He’s such a visionary.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like his latest vision ate three of the crew members.”

Kat looked up from her tablet. “Ate?”

“Ate,” Mason continued. “He swallowed them whole. Souls and all.”

“Just how big is this thing?” Hailey asked.

The Beast crested a hill and brought their destination into view. The Emberglow Studios complex was a sprawling oasis in the middle of the California desert. White, windowless buildings dotted the landscape. Every building on the lot housed a world of its own, but each of the featureless buildings looked identical to the next from the outside. The only two that looked any different stood at the rear of the lot, where a pair of massive sound stages rose nearly seventy feet into the air.

“Each of those buildings is four hundred by four hundred feet and seventy feet tall. Built for the Home Alone shared universe reboot, they were the largest soundstages in the world. One of them houses our Cthulhu.”

“Guys, I’ve got goosebumps.” Savant held his arm forward for the team members in the front seat to inspect and then began repeating to himself, “Six sick hicks nick six slick bricks with picks and sticks. Six sick hicks nick six slick bricks with picks and sticks.”

Once they pulled up to the gate, Savant’s imagination took over. He was instantly transported from the Beast to the back seat of a Bentley. His limo would arrive at the checkpoint, security would wave him in with a cheerful good morning, and the barrier arm would lift to allow him access to the magic factory before it quickly descended to cut off the throngs of fans who had gathered with pen, paper and dreams in hand for a mere glimpse of Savant the star. He closed his eyes and he could hear them screaming and cheering his name.

Back in reality, the gate did not open.

“What do you think is the holdup?” Glitch leaned over the steering wheel, trying to see inside the tinted security booth.

Jake was just about to get out of the truck when a pair of security guard finally appeared and signaled for the team to roll down the windows.

The guard leaned on the window and looked around the interior of the Beast before he spoke. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“We’re here to see Dominic Stone.”

“Not with these cameras you aren’t,” said the second guard from the other side of the truck. “Shut ‘em down and pack ‘em up.”

“How do you propose we film our show without cameras?” Jake asked.

“Your show is not my problem. Cameras are not allowed on my lot!”

“Then how do you film your movies?” Glitch asked.

“Are you being smart with me?”

“Glitch isn’t smart with anybody,” Savant said. “But it is crucial that we get on the lot.”

“If we let you go through the lot with these on, instead of your little show, you might actually film something worth watching. And what if it’s a secret? You could spoil years of production.”

Mason leaned forward. “But all you guys’ film is sequels and remakes. How could we spoil anything?”

“I don’t like your attitude,” said the second guard.

“I don’t like your uniform,” replied Mason.

The first guard leaned farther into the window. “It sounds like you don’t want onto my lot at all.”

“Well, who says we want to be on your stupid lot anyway?” Glitch shouted.

“Glitch!” Savant slapped the cyborg on the shoulder. “What are you saying?”

“I’m sorry,” Glitch said. “I got caught up in the moment.”

A golf cart can’t really thunder onto the scene. It’s one of the vehicle’s dramatic shortcomings. Its ability to screech to a halt is also a knock against it when it comes to making an entrance. Dominic Stone made up for all this by shouting and waving his arm from the seat of his executive golf cart.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen! Please, it’s quite all right.” Stone locked the brakes and leapt from the cart. He called the first guard by name and explained the situation. “These ladies and gentlemen are here to help us with an issue we’re having on the set.”

The first guard didn’t seem impressed. “I can’t allow these cameras on the lot, Mr. Stone.”

“They are filming promotional material for us that we will need later. But I’m sure the team will be happy to stow them until we are on the set?” Stone looked to Jake for an agreement.

Jake nodded back. “Savant, please stow the cameras for now.”

Savant didn’t move.

Jake looked at him. “Savant?”

“Do you know who that is?” Savant whispered. “That’s Dominic Stone. Producer of the Iron Sentry shared universe and the Phoenix Protocol shared universe and the Long-Gone Rom Com shared universe.”

“Savant, the cameras!”

Savant fumbled with his tablet before tapping a few commands on the screen. The camera drones responded to the new instructions and landed off the Beast’s roof rack before securing themselves and shutting down.

“There you have it.” Stone clapped his hands and spoke quickly through a big smile. “The cameras are away. So, now we can get on with things. Why don’t you get in the booth and press your button? The gate will go up and we can get the show on the road.”

The producer hopped back into the golf cart and was moving again before he was settled in the seat.

“Follow him, Glitch!” Savant was on the edge of his own seat, watching the legendary producer navigate a three-point turn in the oversized golf cart.

The Beast started moving as soon as the guards raised the barrier.

Savant spent the ride through the studio hanging out the truck’s window. It was filled with activity and every bit of it fascinated him. Gaffers moved lights about while grips moved everything but lights. Crafts services filled tables with gourmet food to feed the most demanding diets. Actors walked about in full makeup and elegant costumes on their way to the commissary to get even more food. Being on a studio lot was everything Looney Tunes cartoons had always promised.

They followed Stone through the entire facility and watched him greet everyone he encountered with a broad smile and disingenuous questions about family or health. He rarely touched the brakes and finally stopped the golf cart at the base of the massive soundstage. The monolithic building was even more impressive up close as its white walls seemed to rise up forever, blending into the clear sky above.

Dominic Stone leapt from the seat of his golf cart and was standing beside the Beast when the team began to file out. He seized Jake’s hand at the first opportunity and shook. “Jake Ashley, yes? Thank you for bringing your team out. We’re really in a bit of a pickle here and we’re hoping you can help us out.”

Jake gestured for the team to unload the gear. “We’ll do our best, Mr. Stone.”

“Excellent! Excellent. We’re really looking to get things back on track around here quickly. This little incident has put us behind schedule.”

The camera drones whirred back to life and undocked from the roof rack mounts. They each took up separate positions around the team to capture the conversation as exposition for the episode.

Jake gave them a moment to get situated before asking, “What can you tell us about what’s going on?”

“Very little, I’m afraid. Sinclair is very secretive, as you know. Even I don’t know what’s going on in there. And it’s my movie. But that’s the deal with Sinclair. He’s in control. It’s maddening, but that’s what you get when you hire a genius.”

“Can we speak to him?” Savant asked. “It would be helpful to understand his vision for this picture.”

“Vision? I don’t care one whit about his vision. My vision was to make a ton of money and that meant hiring Julian. His films aren’t just films, they’re events. People turn out for his work. I don’t care what his vision was.”

“Still, we think it would be very helpful if he was here,” Savant insisted. “I’ve prepared a piece.”

Stone dismissed the comment and the question with a wave of his hand. “He hasn’t come out since the incident.”

“You mean the incident where three people were killed?” Kat asked.

“Three people were eaten,” Stone corrected her. “We don’t know that anyone was killed. As far as we know, they could just be trapped inside that thing unharmed and with no reason to press charges. But, yes, Sinclair has hidden himself away somewhere on the set with a camera and a commitment to capturing the ‘real story.’”

“He’s so dedicated to his craft,” Savant whispered.

Dominic Stone nodded. “He said that ever since the incident, the machine has been the best actor he’s ever worked with and he doesn’t want to lose the energy. He says it’s a new kind of filmmaking. He’s calling it Cinema Guerriglia. But it’s not a very budget friendly way to make a major motion picture, so it must be stopped.”

“What exactly are we dealing with?” Jake asked. “The details have been rather vague.”

“Right, we’re trying to avoid any spoilers before our marketing efforts really ramp up. We’re hoping the appearance on your show will be a big part of that by the way. We love Junkers around here. Never miss an episode.”

“The show is called Scrappers.” Mason pulled an equipment case from the Beast’s roof rack and set it on the ground. “Junkers is what we are.”

“It’s confusing and I argued against it,” Savant said while doing nothing to help unload.

“Anyway, we didn’t want to say too much before you got here,” Stone continued. “But what you’re dealing with is the largest practical special effect ever created. The folks from Guinness are coming out in a month to confirm that, so we can use it legally in the marketing. The creature is forty feet tall and has a full range of motion and can move independently throughout the entire set. I don’t know the details of how it’s built, but I do know that I had to sign a purchase order for at least a dozen excavator arms that were used in its construction. The boys on the effects team call him Lou.”

Mason smirked. “Lou the Cthulhu?”

“That’s right.”

“Do we have any idea what caused the malfunction?” Hailey asked.

Dominic looked over his shoulder before proceeding in a hushed tone. “Listen, we’re not sure, but it looks like Sinclair refused to install safety protocols on the animatronic.”

“He what?” Glitch slammed the truck’s door hard enough to make the vehicle rock.

Stone jumped at the sound and hurried his explanation. “He said he wanted to get an authentic performance and the best way to do that was to make the creature as real as possible. We said no. The union said no. But Julian Sinclair doesn’t really do, ‘no,’ you know?”

Mason groaned. “So, essentially, our Cthulhu-bot doesn’t know it’s not Cthulhu.”

Stone stammered for a moment but gave in. “Correct.”

Savant looked up at the soundstage. “He’s a genius!”

“This is probably a stupid question,” Kat said. “But have you tried unplugging it? Something that size can’t be running independently.”

“It’s not,” Stone pointed to somewhere farther back on the lot. “The studio has a reactor powering the entire facility. It’s plugged directly into that.”

Kat only gave the producer half a moment to explain before she grew impatient. “So why not turn it off?”

“Because it’s powering the entire facility,” Stone said. “Do you have any idea what powering down would do to production schedules? This isn’t our only production. We’re currently shooting four features and at least a dozen series’ across the studio.”

“So, the shows must go on?”

“Yes! But that’s not the only problem,” Stone admitted. “The Cthulhu isn’t the only special effect that’s acting special right now. Sinclair had several Deep Ones created.”

Mason leaned back against the Beast. “Deep Ones?”

“Basically, they’re fish people,” Glitch said. “They serve as guardians of Cthulhu. Kind of like his minions that do his bidding and guard him while he sleeps.”

“Precisely,” said Stone.

Mason turned to Glitch. “How the hell did you know that?”

“Read a book, Mason.”

“Are these fish people giants, too?” asked Jake.

“No, they’re just your standard-sized fish people.” Stone gave an approximation of their height with his hand that was only slightly taller than himself. “They’ve been guarding the reactor ever since the incident.”

“The eating people incident?” Kat asked.

“Yes, the eating people incident, young lady!”

“Fine, then that’s probably our best plan of attack.” Jake turned to the team. “Kat and Mason, you deal with the man-sized fish people and see if you can get the reactor offline.”

“But…”

“But nothing, Mr. Stone. If the people Cthulhu ate are still alive, that is the best chance we have at saving them.” Jake turned back to Kat and Mason. “Standard disruptors should be fine for dealing with the fish guys. The rest of us will head inside.”

Savant drew his disruptor and powered up the weapon. He looked into the camera and said in a steely voice. “It looks like we’re heading into the mouth of sadness.”

“Savant,” Glitch whispered as he stepped next to him. “It’s madness.”

“It sure is my old friend.” Savant flicked off the disruptor’s safety and marched toward the soundstage.

* * *

The nightmare “corpse-city of R’lyeh” was located deep beneath the waters in the most remote point of the South Pacific. Its architecture consisted of “loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars.” To look upon its buildings was to inspire madness, for they were shapes made of beings not of this world. At the center of it all was a hideous monolith-crowned citadel where the Great Old One slept and his hordes lay hidden from the world.

The R’lyeh set was mostly a lot of slime covered buildings. It may not have captured Lovecraft’s vision for a city built by an otherworldly race, but that didn’t make it any less impressive. Through Hollywood magic and extensive scaffolding work, the effects team had transported the great cavernous city from the middle of nowhere to the McAllister Soundstage in the California desert.

The set itself was a masterpiece. Moss covered columns rose from the depths so high into the building that they disappeared in the dark recesses of the structure. Ancient tombs and temples ringed a massive pool of black water that covered most of the set’s floor. The water writhed and rippled, its motion generated from currents beneath the surface and waterfalls falling from the set above. This movement stirred up the chemicals in the inky water and made the set smell more like a YMCA pool than an ancient city of the dead.

At the center of it all was Cthulhu’s citadel. The monolithic tomb where the beast slumbered for millennia. The team eyed the structure with a leery eye as it was the only set piece large enough to house the malfunctioning machine.

The camera drone rose into the air and quickly disappeared into the darkness in search of optimal coverage. Savant felt himself relax as it faded from sight. He would never admit it, but the camera still made him nervous. It was something he was working on, but with it covering the action from the darkness, it would be further from his mind and he could focus on his craft. Here, on the set of one of the biggest budget productions in history, he was finally going to get his chance.

A fallen column rose at an angle and stretched out above the water before them. The team set down an equipment case and walked to the end of the column. The height gave them a better view of the massive set.

“You’re not allowed here!” The voice boomed throughout the set and spoke with an authority that relied less on presence and more on pretentiousness.

It had come from everywhere at once. Above, below and all round them and had caused the entire team to jump.

“Is that…do you think that’s Cthulhu?” asked Glitch

Jake shook his head. “I doubt he’s that nasally.”

“He’s got all those tentacles on his face,” Hailey said. “It might make it difficult to breathe.”

“You don’t belong in here!” The voice rang again. It was whinier this time. It was still hard to pinpoint, but it was definitely somewhere above them.

“Where is it coming from?” Hailey whispered.

“This is a closed set! You’re going to ruin the take!”

“Mr. Sinclair?” Jake shouted back. “Is that you?”

“Well, who else would it be?”

“We’re a reclamation team. We’re here to deal with your malfunction.”

“Malfunction? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Now get off my set!”

“Please, sir,” Savant said as he stepped forward. “You’re in grave danger here. You have no idea what you’ve unleashed. If the Great Old One should get loose, many souls will be lost. Madness will spread! The human mind cannot comprehend what exists beyond the inky darkness of space!”

“Who are you?” the director asked.

Savant took a breath and consciously transformed himself from the pleading sycophant to the action hero. He straightened his shoulders and flexed his pectorals. His eyes narrowed as he stared a thousand yards into the distance. Gritting his teeth, he delivered his next line through gravel and nails. “We’re the best chance you’ve got at getting out of here alive.”

“Savant?” Glitch tapped him on the shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Savant refused to lose the stare, but whispered out the side of his mouth. “I’m taking my shot.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sinclair said. “For once in my career I’ve got an actor that has transformed completely into the character. Even I can’t tell where the effect ends and the Great One begins. It’s cinematic magic and I’m not giving up the opportunity of a lifetime just because it could be dangerous. Creative visions are born of courageous choices, not cowardly actions.”

“Tha's enough outta ye, Sinclair!” Savant loosened up slightly, took one step forward and thrust a finger into the air where he assumed Sinclair might be. “One way or anudder, ye're comin' wit' us!

“Why are you Irish now?” Asked Glitch.

“I’ve got to show him I can do accents,” whispered Savant.

“But you can’t,” said Hailey.

“Yeah,” Jake agreed. “That was breakfast cereal bad.”

“No one is making me leave my set!” screamed Sinclair.

Savant fell to his knees and clasped his hands together. “Please, Julian. Don’t do it for yourself. Do it for those you’ve inspired with your vision. For the lovers, the dreamers, and me.”

“Are you crying, Savant?” Glitch asked.

Savant whispers back. “I’m demonstrating my range.”

“This isn’t an audition.” Jake pulled Savant back to his feet.

“Open your eyes, Jake. Not all auditions happen in conference rooms or on filthy couches. You have to take your shot when you can get it. I’m done with the small stream. I’m ready for the big time. Don’t ruin this for me.”

“Okay, I’ve had enough of this,” Jake said. “Glitch, give our director the official speech.”

Glitch stepped forward and yelled to the voice in the darkness. “We are a robot reclamation team sent to subdue and, if necessary, destroy the rogue god Cthulhu. We need you to evacuate the scene until it has been deemed safe to reenter the premises by an authorized agent of the appropriate state agency or, at the very least, a senior member of the facility’s janitorial staff.”

Savant, like a chameleon, adopted the action hero persona once more and added, “What do you have to say to that?”

The response was a deep, low rumble that resonated throughout the set’s superstructure causing the ancient city to shake. The sound was followed by a gust of wind from the citadel that was strong enough to send a ripple across the water.

“That’s not good.” Glitch moved back in line with the rest of the team.

“It’s time for the big sacrificial scene,” the director said with some excitement creeping into his voice. “Cthulhu, after eons dreaming, wakes from his slumber and emerges from his tomb with the hunger of a thousand millennia eating at him. This is going to be great. Places everyone!”

“We’re not actors!” Glitch shouted back.

“Speak for yourself,” Savant started hopping and shaking out his limbs while rolling his head around his shoulders. Then he started pushing an object none of them could see.

“What are you doing now?” Jake asked.

“He’s creating a ball of energy within his hands,” Hailey said. “It’s an exercise that helps with body awareness. We used to do it before filming our scenes. Those were strange days. Being a star.”

“It doesn’t count,” Jake said.

“It does count. I had fans and everything.”

The argument was interrupted by another rumbling from deep in the monolith and a tremor beneath their feet.

“Okay, everybody ready?” The director asked. “Remember to act scared. And, action!”

* * *

The camera drone buzzed alongside Kat and Mason, capturing a tracking shot of their trek through the studio’s back lot as they made their way to the reactor. Filled with discarded props and set pieces, this part of the facility looked more like a storage yard than a glamourous part of Hollywood. Building facades were stacked against one another like albums in a crate full of records just waiting to be rifled through.

“Is that…” Mason was too excited to finish the question. He ran off the path past the stack of facades and through an assortment of period correct police cars deeper into the storage lot.

Kat ran after him before he could lose her in the maze of props. By the time she found him, Mason was sitting astride a futuristic motorcycle, revving the throttle and making engine noises.

The bike was massive and meticulously designed to appear as if it was cobbled together from junk and ingenuity. “What are you doing?”

“It’s an honest to God Trace Racer cycle from the live action Trace Racers movie!”

“I know what it is,” Kat said. “Why are you playing on it like a child?”

“Because it’s awesome.” Mason took a break from the make believe and leaned back to admire the prop. “Get a picture of me.”

“I’m not taking your picture,” Kat said. “Now get down. The team needs us to shut down the reactor.”

“Okay. But we’ve got to come back.” Mason slid down from the motorcycle. His feet had barely touched the ground when he spotted something inside an open storage building and was moving again, driven by a childish excitement and saying, “oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” as he ran.

Kat went after him. “Mason, we don’t have time for this!”

“Just a second,” he shouted from somewhere deep in the collection.

Kat wound her way through the building, passing rows and rows of props and costumes. There was an entire battalion’s worth of space armor and enough samurai swords to arm feudal Japan. By the time Kat found him, Mason had stopped and was staring up at a mech roughly twice as tall as he was. The machine had short legs and long arms, giving it a simian appearance. “It’s the A.P.E. from the live-action Monkeynauts movie. Stanley piloted this into battle as Commander Mike McMonkey and his crew fought Major Ursa and the Cosmomutts to stop the spread of space communism.”

“I know what it is.” Kat grabbed this arm and started pulling. “Everyone knows what it is. Now let’s go!”

There were several more distractions on the way to the generator facility, but they were finally close enough to see the building that housed the reactor. They creeped toward the front door, keeping close to a neighboring building to hide their approach. Together, they peered around the corner.

A Deep One stood on either side of the door to the reactor. Part fish, part man, all gross. The machines were six and a half feet tall and covered with scales, and little else. One was wearing the hat of a security guard, but it was the only covering between them. They made a sound like “Merp!” They bounced as they paced back and forth in front of the door, their movements more Sleestak than Xenomorph.

“Do you think that’s them?” Mason asked.

As an answer, Kat powered on her disruptor and shot the giant fish on the left.

The charge crackled as it traveled through the arid desert air and struck the fish-man in the gills, knocking the hat from its head.

The monster snapped its attention to her but did not fall.

Mason fired as well and struck the same fish with another charge. The blast did nothing.

They both fired a couple more times and the pair of Deep Ones roared guttural, “Merps,” before charging Kat and Mason.

Bounding on those stupid legs, the machines covered the distance in a matter of hops.

“Why isn’t this working? They shouldn’t be hardened.” Mason fired again. “They’re actors!”

“It’s the fish skin,” Kat realized. “It’s probably rubber.”

Four more Deep Ones appeared from around the corner and rushed the pair of junkers.

Kat and Mason fell back into the maze of props and set pieces.

The Deep Ones followed, shouting, “Merp!”

* * *

Another roar shook the tomb and the interior of the citadel glowed red. A hand bearing four clawed fingers emerged and wrapped around the tomb’s entrance like the talons of a kestrel and pulled the beast closer to the opening. Red eyes glowed in the darkness and grew larger as the old one rose from his slumber.

Tentacles came next, slithering as each was a serpent, sentient and determined to deceive the pitiful inhabitants of the earthly plane.

“The Great Old One emerges from his eternal slumber.” Sinclair spoke with an almost mystical rhythm somewhere above the set.

Savant didn’t need the director to set the scene. He was in the moment and feeling the fear of a would-be sacrifice as if he had been transported to the actual city of R’lyeh to witness the great Cthulhu’s awakening.

Cthulhu emerged fully from its citadel and stood before them in the black water. At that moment, it was easy to forget it was a machine at all. The beast was colossal and its movements fluid. The effects team had nailed the movement algorithm, giving the machine a sense of presence even as it was standing still. When it moved, it had weight and when it stood still, its monstrous visage rose and fell as it breathed contempt for humankind.

The team froze.

Sinclair’s whispers drifted from the rafters. “The sacrifices gasp in horror.”

Glitch opened his mouth to gasp, but what escaped sounded more like meep.

“I said gasp!” Sinclair shouted.

“We’re not sacrifices,” Hailey screamed back in to the abyss.

Savant pulled his way to the front of the party, slid to his knees, and gasped. Then he whimpered. “I beg of you, mighty Cthulhu, spare my life. My pathetic human existence is insignificant to your power. Spare my miserable life and I will serve you.”

“Hey, Lou!” Glitch shouted. “You can have this one!”

“No ad-libbing!” Sinclair barked.

Savant broke character. “Don’t ruin this for me, Glitch!”

The squabbling attracted the attention of the Great Old One and the machine roared. Cthulhu’s voice was pumped in from a hundred loudspeakers hidden in the soundstage’s superstructure and their collective output caused R’lyeh to rumble. The pillars rocked, rocks fell, and everything shook.

The elder god raised its fists in the air.

“Shut it down!” Jake shouted to the team and fired his disruptor.

Glitch and Hailey joined the barrage, but it took Savant a moment to commit to the idea. He didn’t want to disappoint Sinclair, but he didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to get more screen time on the show. He raised his disruptor and fired.

The blasts struck the mighty Cthulhu and did nothing to stop the incoming blow.

The team scattered as both of the beast’s fists came crashing down and struck where they had stood.

The motion of the machine sent a wake surging against the edge of the pool. The wave rose up from the lagoon and crashed over the team soaking each one.

Jake shook the water from his hands. “What are we looking at here, Glitch?”

Glitch could see things others couldn’t. He wasn’t more perceptive than the next man, but his vision was enhanced with cybernetic optics.

Glitch wiped the water from his eyes and stared at the monster’s hand. The feedback from his augmented vision came instantly. “Looks like the skin is rubber.”

“That would make sense with the wet set,” Hailey said.

“We’re going to have to work our way behind it,” Jake said. “And hope that it’s not so covered from the backside.”

The monster rose back to its full height and took stock of its sacrifices’ new locations.

Jake was back on his feet and calling out orders. “Glitch. Savant. You two keep it distracted while Hailey and I try to find a way inside it.”

“Go, Jake.” Savant drew the disruptor across his chest. “You can count on us to watch your six while you outflank the monster.”

“Uh, all right then,” Jake said and left with Hailey to find a way around the back.

“Come, Glitch. Now is the hour and it’s left to us to prove to this inter-dimensional menace that mankind still has some fight left in it.” Savant turned and strode to the equipment case.

“Whoa,” said Glitch. “That was amazing, Savant.”

“You think that was amazing.” Savant pulled the limpet launcher from the case. “Wait till you see this!”

Savant walked back up the fallen pillar out over the lagoon and stopped at the end. It was as high as he could go and brought him level with Cthulhu’s waist. Savant closed his eyes, muttered one final tongue twister and focused everything he had into what he knew would become his breakout performance. “Listen up, you Great Old Bastard!”

Lou the Cthulhu focused his attention on Savant.

“We tried being nice. But it’s time to end this madness!”

The creature leaned down, drew close to the sacrifice, and growled.

Savant and the monster were face to face with little more than two meters separating them.

Savant focused on his character, ground his teeth tight and spoke. “It’s time to send your inter-dimensional ass back to Hell.” Savant fired until the magazine was empty.

There was a soft thunk as each canister left the barrel. Once airborne the canisters broke open and sprouted legs. Powerful magnets activated and began searching for anything ferrous to attach themselves to. The producers had told him after the last episode that magnetism, being an invisible force of nature, wasn’t very photogenic and asked him to improve the launcher to make it “better suited for a visual medium.” Savant had done so.

Savant watched the canisters sail right by the creature and attach themselves to the tomb behind it. He counted to two and turned his back on the beast.

Cthulhu reached for Savant as he walked away.

There were nine mines in the launcher and the first one exploded and filled the frame with a fiery blaze just as Savant took his first step away from the monster and into slow motion glory.

The other eight new and improved mines detonated, filling the R’Lyeh set and the camera lens with massive balls of orange flames and other photogenic debris.

Cthulhu forgot its prey and reared up as the blasts engulfed him. Its scream was lost in the deafening roar of the explosions. The soundstage rocked as pieces of the set began to buckle.

Ornate and moss-covered columns toppled. The stone-faced buildings collapsed in the black waters of Cthulhu’s lagoon and the monster’s citadel itself creaked as it began to bend.

Lou turned and raised its arms as the structure above it collapsed and buried the beast in the rubble of its own tomb.

Savant had heard it all happen behind him but wasn’t sure it had worked. He spoke to Glitch trying not to move his lips. “Did that look as cool as it sounded?”

Glitch was awestruck. He nodded several times before his words caught up. “That was awesome!”

“Did it work?” Savant shouted again and dug a finger in his ear. “I can’t…”

There was a lot to hear as the rubble behind him settled and then began to shift. Cthulhu exploded from the citadel’s ruins and drew back a mighty webbed hand.

Glitch shouted, “Savant!”

Glitch was pointing and shouting, but Savant still couldn’t hear a thing. The computer scientist turned around to see that Cthulhu had pulled itself from the debris and was reeling back to swing. When Savant turned back around to run away, Glitch was charging right at him.

The cyborg dropped a shoulder and plowed into him. The collision sent Savant flying backwards off the end of the column and into the black water of the lagoon. He hit the pool and immediately started pulling for the surface. How deep had he gone? He broke through just in time to see Cthulhu’s hand swat Glitch from the column.

Even his own voice was muted in his ears, but Savant screamed Glitch’s name as the cyborg went flying through the air and, ultimately, through the metal wall that separated the two massive soundstages.

Savant began swimming for shore and the hole that his teammates body had just made.

* * *

Mason and Kat had split up. It wasn’t a plan of any sorts; it was more of a disaster. The pair twisted through the prop yard with the sound of flippered feet slapping the ground close behind them. The steady beat of flap flap flap merp pushed them to move faster and faster until they had each taken a different turn and became separated.

Mason saw that the camera drone was overhead which meant one of two things; that Kat couldn’t be too far away and it was capturing both of them moving through the stacks of crates filled with miscellaneous movie magic or that the onboard AI director had determined that the most exciting thing to happen next was going to happen to Mason.

The first possibility gave him comfort, the second possibility, not so much.

It was like they were all moving through a maze and he had no idea where the end was. If Savant were here, he could give them an overhead perspective of what was happening, but without the computer scientist’s drones in the air, it was like being stuck in a hedge maze with a bunch of assholes looking to scare him or, possibly, turn him into a fish. He wasn’t sure what Deep Ones did to people once they caught them, and he didn’t have time to read up on it.

He turned a blind corner and startled one of the Deep Ones.

The giant fish merped and swung a flipper at Mason’s head.

This man-fish was less articulated than the others. Maybe this particular bot was an extra, just another fish minion in the background. It didn’t move as fluidly as some of the others had; almost as if it had fewer joints.

Mason was able to duck under the awkward slap and let it hit a nearby wooden crate with a very wet sounding thwap.

He slipped past that Deep One as another caught up to him. It bellowed, “merp,” and started chasing after him. This one moved more like one would expect a man-fish to move. It was obviously one of the hero props they had developed for up-close camera work.

Mason ducked left down a row of crates and made another turn to the right, hoping to lose the machine with the quick changes in direction but he soon discovered that he had trapped himself in a dead end. He turned and ran back to the junction where he caught a flipper in the face.

As Mason bounced off a crate and hit the ground, he learned that Deep Ones hit hard and their fishy smell was contagious. The blow had left a greasy smudge across his chest that smelled like low tide. This encounter was gross in every way.

“Merp!” Shouted the Deep One as it spun around.

While the Deep Ones were still part man, they were still mostly fish, and their eyes were true to the species. Mounted on either side of a wide mouth, their vision pointed up and back, and it forced the machine to pivot often to keep an eye on their prey.

Mason stayed low and dove between the machine’s legs. Once clear, he scrambled back into the maze of crates and kept low to stay beneath their field of vision. His knees hated him for it, but he crouched and crept along the corridors in the storage facility, twice encountering Deep Ones and twice managing to sneak by without alerting them to his presence.

It was the third one that got him.

Mason had reached the rear wall of the warehouse. There were fewer crates here, but there were hundreds of rolling garment racks filled with costumes and props. He had hidden in racks of clothes as a kid whenever his mother dragged him to department stores on shopping trips. At that age, the wall of garments had provided a layer of invisibility and protection and made him feel safe. If it was good enough for toddler Mason, it would be good enough for him now.

He had mostly wriggled into a pile of coats when a scaly hand grabbed his ankle and dragged him back into the open.

This Deep One seemed bigger and the most lifelike of all. It must have been the prime henchman, the star of the supporting monsters. The machine hoisted him up by one ankle until he was dangling off the ground.

Mason tried to free himself by bashing the machine’s wrist with the butt of his disruptor, but it did nothing to loosen the machine’s grip.

Kat screamed as she leapt on the Deep One’s back and tried to pull open its hand.

It didn’t help at all. The Deep One just shook Mason more violently. It shook him until his pockets emptied. Pocket change started hitting him first; a quarter fell into his mouth and caused him to choke for a moment before spitting it out and narrowly avoiding a two-bit death. His keys came next, followed by a pocket-knife and a tin of mints. Each bounced off his face before falling to the ground.

“Shoot it!” Mason shouted as he struggled to get his hands on his disruptor’s trigger. The fish-man was thrashing him about too much.

“It won’t work!” Kat yelled.

He knew she was right. The skin would block the disruptor’s charge.

The Deep One crashed through the clothing rack and spun around until Kat slid from its back. She landed on her feet, but the momentum took her to the ground. “We have to get under its skin!”

“That’s Savant’s job!” Mason said just before the Deep Open crashed through another costume rack.

Kat had just started to get up when she saw Mason’s pocket-knife laying in front of her. She grabbed the small blade and flipped it open.

The blood was rushing to Mason’s head and everything felt stuffy. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been upside down this long. Monkey bars would surely have been involved.

Kat jumped on the machine and plunged the small blade into the machine’s chest.

“What are you doing? You can’t stab a robot! Help me!”

She worked the knife back and forth into the machine’s slimy skin, opening a hole big enough for her to work her fingers inside. She grabbed the scales just as the machine tossed her back.

She held fast to the rubber skin and the gash in the robot’s skin widened.

Kat screamed as she hit the ground. “Shoot it!”

Mason finally understood Kat’s plan. He did the world’s most difficult sit-up, shoved the barrel of his disruptor into the hole she had created and fired.

The Deep One spasmed as the discharge bounced around its onboard electronics. It shook and merped senselessly until the machine finally stiffened and collapsed.

Mason pried the machine’s fingers loose and freed his ankle from the Deep One’s grip. “That was a great idea, Kat.”

Kat was no longer there. “Kat?”

“Over here,” she said from around the corner.

Mason stood, testing the weight on his ankle before committing to letting go of the crate he was using for support. His foot was numb and his ankle was growing sore but he was able to walk with a slight limp that was sure to be with him for a while. He hobbled around the corner to join his teammate. “Now all we have to do is figure out a way to skin these things so we can shoot them on their insides.”

He found Kat standing in front of a rolling storage rack filled with swords of all shapes and sizes. She turned around to face him and drew a katana from its scabbard. “I’m way ahead you.”

* * *

Savant’s hearing was returning slowly but it mostly consisted of a lot of crunching.

The giant Cthulhu bot was pulling itself out of the R’lyeh rubble and trying to rise out of the depths once more. It roared as it tore apart the set in its efforts to free itself from the collapsed tomb.

It was quite the spectacle, but Savant’s focus was finding Glitch.

He had pulled himself from the water and climbed through the Glitch shaped hole the cyborg had created when he flew through the wall and into the neighboring soundstage. A twin in size to its neighbor, the interior of this cavernous building was dressed as a jungle set and Savant had to sweep aside vines and fronds as he moved.

“Glitch?” Savant was about to disperse his pocket drones to aid in his search, but found it wasn’t necessary. The cyborg had made just as big a mess entering the neighboring soundstage as he had when he left the last. His heavy frame had created a furrow of dirt and at the end of the trail, Savant found Glitch face down in a mess of branches and vines.

“Glitch!” Savant grabbed the man and rolled him over. It would have been a struggle if Glitch had not helped. The augmentations that made the cyborg durable enough to survive a blow from an elder god, also made him quite heavy. Savant helped him sit up.

Glitch groaned as he rolled over and looked up at his teammate. His eyes whirred as they found their focus.

“Savant?”

“Are you okay, Glitch?”

Glitch nodded and raised a hand to his head.

“Good,” Savant said and then added, “you idiot. What kind of moron does something like that and lets himself get smacked by Cthulhu?”

Glitch shrugged.

It wasn’t enough. Savant needed to hear him speak. “Seriously, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“That’s a big monkey,” Glitch said with a nod.

Glitch rarely made sense to Savant. Most people didn’t make much sense to Savant. But even for Glitch, “That’s a big monkey” was really out there.

Jake’s voice came over the radio. “Glitch? Savant? Is everything okay? We saw the set collapse.”

“Yeah, that was Glitch’s fault,” Savant said.

“But are you two all right?” Hailey asked.

Savant looked to Glitch for an answer. The cyborg gave a weak thumbs up in response.

“Yeah, we’re okay.”

“We’ve got bad news, here,” Jake said. “This thing is covered from the back as well. We can’t find a way past the skin. We’re going to have to think of something else.”

“Ook. Ook.” Glitch said weakly and beat his chest weakly like a gorilla.

Savant followed Glitch’s line of sight and suddenly his weirdness made sense.

Savant spoke back into the comms. “I’ve got an idea.”

* * *

Everyone on the team knew Kat had her secrets. They also knew better than to ask her anything about them. All they knew was she had a dark past and it was best not to pry. So, they didn’t pry. But it was only natural to speculate. And while all the members of the team no doubt had their suspicions about the quiet and cunning girl in the mechanic’s overalls, Mason would never have guessed expert swordsman was a part of her mysterious past.

The young woman was a blur with the sword; leaping, twirling, swearing, slicing. She did it all with a lethal efficiency and a flair for theatrics that made short work of the Cthulhu’s minions.

The background models stood no chance at all. With jankier movements and slower servos, it was easy for her to sidestep the flipper attacks, slice through the machine’s skin and step aside so Mason could blast the exposed electronics with his disruptor.

For his part, Mason hobbled behind and watched in awe as the young woman fought her way to the reactor building’s front doors.

Mason watched her gut the final fish-person with such brutality that he wondered if it even needed a blast from the disruptor. A garbled merp from the creature’s speaker convinced him to pull the trigger just in case, but he still wasn’t sure it was necessary.

“Let’s go.” Kat opened the door to the facility and waved him in.

Mason limped quickly behind her, trying to keep up.

Inside the facility, there was no sign of an inter-dimensional invasion from another reality. The lights were on, and there wasn’t a single fish person in sight. It was all quite normal. Still, Mason felt it best to let Kat go first as they made their way through the halls to the generator control room.

This room was empty as well.

“Where are they?” Kat asked.

“Who cares.” Mason hobbled to the biggest, reddest button he could find. “Let’s just shut this thing down before they come back.”

The emergency button was clearly labeled and encased in glass befitting an emergency shut off. He raised his fist to strike the button when a soft cough stopped him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Kat and Mason both spun to see a man in a short sleeve shirt and a tie standing in the doorway stirring a cup of coffee.

“We need to shut down the reactor,” Kat said, waving the man over.

“I see.” The technician didn’t move. He just stirred his coffee absently. “Are you with the union?”

“What, No!” Mason pointed down through the wall in the general direction of the studio lot. “There’s a five-story tall runaway robot and we need to stop it.”

“But you’re not with the union?”

“No,” Kat replied. “We are not with the union.”

“Then I need you to back away from that button.”

Kat’s grip tightened on the katana’s hilt. “Then you shut it down.”

“You’re not my supervisor, lady.”

“This is an emergency!” Mason shouted.

“Uh huh,” the engineer took a sip from his coffee and walked over to a phone that hung on the wall.

“What are you doing?” Kat pleaded, “Hit the button.”

The man picked up the phone and dialed. “I’m not sure you’re qualified to declare what is and isn’t an emergency.”

“We don’t have time for—”

The man held up a single finger to shush her. “It’s ringing.”

* * *

“Why couldn’t they just use CGI like everyone else?”

“C’mon, Hail,” Jake said as he dropped to the platform. “You know practical effects are better.”

“I just wish these prop makers weren’t so good at their craft.”

“I think it’s great that they take pride in their work.”

“But they could have left at least one way into—” Hailey was halfway down a ladder when she stopped abruptly and went silent.

“What’s wrong?” Jake said from the platform below her.

“I think Lou sees us,” she whispered.

They were back in the superstructure that held the faux city of R’lyeh in place and hidden behind layers of foam that formed the rock facing and stone carvings of Cthulhu’s lair.

“Where?” Jake mouthed the words for fear of being overheard.

Hailey gave an almost imperceptible nod towards the facade that stood between them and the monster.

Jake moved slowly until he could see between the foam panels.

The dead eyes of Lou the Cthulhu were staring back at him.

He looked up at Hailey and mouthed the word, “Run!”

Hailey reacted immediately and slid down the ladder. She hit the landing as several face tentacles reached through the opening and began tearing apart the set.

Jake and Hailey raced through the scaffolding, working their way closer to ground level whenever they could.

All around them, the panels of the facade were being ripped away as the machine searched for what it could only consider pests in the walls of its domain. Tentacles broke through the faux rock, probing for any sign of the Great Old One’s prey.

Jake spotted the emergency exit sign on the exterior wall two floors below them and shouted, “This way!”

The wall beside him collapsed as Cthulhu’s great green hand raked the panels away and left the pair staring into the eyes of the beast with nothing between them.

Jake grabbed Hailey’s hand and took a cautious step toward the exit.

A face tentacle shot out and obstructed their path.

They turned to retreat and saw another slither across the scaffolding and block their escape.

The monster’s eyes tightened as it seemed to smile at their predicament for just a moment before it pulled the floor out from beneath them.

Jake and Hailey hit the ground in a heap as parts of the scaffolding collapsed around them. Pinned beneath the set and cornered by tentacles, the pair struggled to move as Cthulhu’s face drew closer.

“What happens now?” Hailey asked.

“Lou eats our souls?” asked Jake as he kicked at the wooden planks that blocked their way out. “Or maybe just our bodies. I really regret not being better read.”

Hailey struggled to move one of the scaffolding poles. “But he doesn’t have a mouth.”

The tentacles that formed the lower half of the machine’s face parted to reveal what looked like a squid’s mouth. The pale green beak parted and Cthulhu roared as the tentacles reached for the couple on the platform.

Hailey kicked as the slimy limb wrapped around her waist and pulled her toward the maw.

Jake screamed and kicked harder against the debris that had him pinned. He reached out to grab Hailey’s outstretched hand but couldn’t reach.

The tentacle coiled and brought the woman closer to the beak. It was about to stuff her into its open mouth when a massive crash got its attention.

“Get away from her, you litch!” The voice was Savant’s. Kind of. It was as loud as Cthulhu’s call and mixed with an animalistic growl that rattled the soundstage walls.

The Great Old One released Hailey and turned to address the challenge.

Standing on the shore of the set on the other side of the black lagoon in front of a giant monkey shaped hole in a soundstage wall stood a thirty-foot gorilla, snarling and snorting smoke out each nostril.

“Our show needs better writers,” Hailey said as she scrambled over the debris and began working to free Jake.

Lou stood to his full height and roared. Audio designers crafted the creature’s voice from a combination of bear sounds, lion roars, the wail of a depressed walrus and the malfunctioning brakes on a ’69 Beetle, but it sounded as if the call had originated from the lower bows of Hell itself.

In response, the gorilla went “Ook ook.” But it was no ordinary “Ook ook.” It was laced with sarcasm that was backed by several PhDs in electrical and chemical engineering and a latent disdain for humanity.

Cthulhu charged through the lagoon creating a tremendous wake behind the machine that slopped at the edges of the pool and sent waves crashing over Jake and Hailey as they worked to free themselves from the collapsed scaffolding.

The gorilla stood its ground as the elder god closed the distance, taunting the machine by making fun of its face tentacles by holding its own fingers under its nose.

Cthulhu’s wings flapped in a possible attempt to take flight but the gap between Lovecraft’s imagination and special effects engineering was too large and the monster stayed grounded. It looked somewhat surprised by its inability to fly and arrived at the fight without the high ground it had expected.

The gorilla took advantage of the failed tactic and clobbered Cthulhu with a leathery fist.

The first blow was enough to stop the Great Old One in its tracks. The second one sent it toppling backwards into the lagoon causing another massive wave to wash over Jake and Hailey.

The splashes settled, and Cthulhu was nowhere to be seen.

The monkey was doing some sort of lame victory dance that looked like a poorly executed version of the running man.

“Look,” Hailey said after wiping the water from her face. She was pointing to the giant hole in the wall that led to the neighboring soundstage and the smaller silhouette that stood inside it doing the same lame victory dance.

“Is that Savant?” Jake said as he finally freed himself from the rubble.

The junker was dressed in a motion capture suit and acting like a gorilla.

“Savant is the gorilla?” Hailey grabbed him by the hand and helped him to his feet.

“Oh, we are going to be in so much trouble.”

Cthulhu exploded from the water and grabbed the gorilla bot around the head with its face tentacles. It pitched the machine forward and began raining blows on its back.

Unbeknownst to Savant, modern mo-cap suits employed force feedback servos to aid the actor in the creation of a more nuanced and realistic performance. So, he was quite surprised when the haptic motors twisted him into the same position as his gorilla avatar. He dropped to one knee as Lou the Cthulhu beat on the gorilla machine.

“Stop beating my monkey!” Savant grabbed the elder god around the waist and stood back up. He had to fight against the mo-cap suit’s motors, but he managed to rise up and took the malfunctioning machine with him.

“Body slam!” Savant twisted and drove the machine to the ground with the flair of a professional wrestler.

The whole studio shook and more of R’lyeh crumbled into the lagoon.

Before the monster could rise, Savant swung to the top of a nearby stone obelisk and stood. The gorilla raised a fist, tapped his elbow twice and leapt from the column. The flying elbow connected with the machine just as it was starting to rise. The impact drove Cthulhu back to the ground.

The monkey went, “Wooo!” and strut its way to one of the stone columns. Savant pulled the pillar from the ground and carried it back to where Cthulhu lay. The ape lifted the column above its head and growled. “Go back to Hell, you eldritch whore!”

He drove the column down towards the machine. But Cthulhu was ready. The winged machine rolled out of the way and let the column shatter on the ground.

Savant tried to land another blow, but the Great Old One caught the ape’s fist and wrenched its arm behind its back.

Savant’s silhouette mirrored the action. His arm twisted with enough force to elicit a scream.

Cthulhu rose up and landed a series of blows. The sound of metal smashing metal was muffled by the fur and rubber coverings of the respective machines, but it did not reduce the damage being done to Savant’s simian counterpart.

Jake and Hailey cheered on Savant as they worked their way around the perimeter of the set to join him. Their teammate had managed to get in a couple of blows and appeared to be holding his own.

Savant finally managed to get the gorilla’s arm free from Cthulhu’s grip and reared back to deliver a powerful right.

But before he could strike, Cthulhu stepped forward and embraced the giant gorilla with every limb and tentacle it had.

Savant went rigid as the machine tightened the bear hug and leapt backwards into the air.

Both machines disappeared in a plume of black water.

“What’s happening, Savant?” Jake shouted as he arrived at the man’s side.

“I don’t know. I can’t move.” Savant was standing as stiff as a board. “Get me out of this thing!”

The water eventually settled but, even once it was still, they couldn’t see anything in the inky darkness of the lagoon.

Jake reached for the power switch on the motion capture rig to free Savant from the suit. It jerked out of his reach.

“Oh no,” Savant said as his arm twitched again.

His right arm shot out and caught Jake on the cheek.

Jake rubbed his chin. “What the hell, Savant?”

“It’s not me! Lou did it!”

The water in the lagoon started to churn back and forth.

Savant’s other arm shot out and then twisted behind his back. Cthulhu’s plan seemed to involve ripping off the gorilla’s limbs because Savant’s arms and leg began to flail about. One arm began to pinwheel while his left leg twisted from under him causing him to collapse.

Jake tried to catch him, but the rig weighed too much and Savant hit the ground with all his limbs jerking. The actions caused him to flop around on the ground like a fish struggling for its life or an Australian break-dancer in the Olympics. It would have been an impressive bit of pantomime if Savant hadn’t been shrieking the entire time.

Jake tried to get his hands inside the flailing mess to hit the suit’s kill switch, but it was too erratic and he couldn’t find a way in. He even ended up taking a few more hits himself as the mo-cap suit lashed out at everything around it.

“Turn it off!” Savant shouted just before a jerk of his leg sent him rolling down the hill.

Beneath the water, the machine was twisting the ape’s limbs in impossible directions, turning what would have been a smooth tumble into a tumultuous cartwheel toward the lagoon.

Savant came to rest on his back at the edge of the water and lay perfectly still.

The water calmed as the struggle beneath the surface stopped.

For a quiet moment, it seemed like it was all over.

Cthulhu’s head broke the still surface of the lagoon slowly only a few feet from where Savant had stopped rolling.

Tentacles probed the shoreline.

“Savant?” Hailey shouted.

“I see it!”

“Do something!”

Savant looked at the suit. The lights were out. The motors weren’t fighting him anymore. The system was down.

“Um, I think my monkey’s broken!”

Cthulhu’s head emerged in full. The tentacles spread apart, revealing the beast’s horrid beak.

Savant shrieked and rolled over. He grabbed handfuls of mud and tried to scramble up the hill as the tentacles reached for him.

Somewhere in the scramble, the suit powered back up.

At the bottom of the lagoon, the giant gorilla began scrambling uphill as well. But its hill was the Great Old One. The monkey’s paws grabbed handfuls of Cthulhu’s scaled skin and began climbing. The faster Savant scrambled, the higher the gorilla went until it was basically sitting on Cthulhu’s shoulders like some sort of eldritch piggyback ride.

Lou stood up and tried to shake the machine from its back.

Jake and Hailey were shouting and pointing behind him. Savant reacted quickly and started punching the head between the gorilla’s legs.

“It looks like he’s…” Hailey trailed.

“Yeah,” agreed Jake. “We’re going to have to edit that part out.”

“My monkey is working again!” Savant screamed as he beat at the squid-faced monster between his legs.

Mason’s voice burst from the radio on Jake’s hip. “Jake, we made it to the reactor.”

“Unplug it!” Jake responded.

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy.” Mason said.

“What do you mean?”

Mason sounded irritated when he replied, “We’ve got a little union issue.”

Cthulhu finally managed to grab the gorilla and slam it on the ground. The machine’s monstrous voice then turned from sound to words and began to chant something that sounded like Latin mixed with swearing as it raised a clawed hand into the air. Lou struck the gorilla’s chest, piercing the fur coating and digging into the machine’s internals.

“We don’t have time for this!” Jake shouted into the radio.

“What do you want me to do?” Mason fired back.

The gorilla lay motionless on the bank of the lagoon; deactivated and torn apart.

Lou the Cthulhu turned its black eyes on Savant.

“Can that little union issue be punched in the face?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know how I feel about that, Jake.” Mason said.

“I’m on it,” Kat said.

Cthulhu seized Savant and drew its mouth closer. The beak opened. The Great Old One roared and then froze.

It was over.

Exhausted, Savant went limp.

“Thank you, Kat,” Jake said into the radio.

“You’d better get a medic over here, Jake,” Mason said. “This guy’s nose is really gushing.”

“Cut!” Sinclair’s command echoed around the ruined set. “That was amazing!”

* * *

Cthulhu’s victims were shaken and battered, but alive inside the machine. The three men it had consumed were able to walk out of the monster’s open mouth and make it to the medical tent under their own power. They were appreciative of the team’s efforts.

Dominic Stone, on the other hand, was furious. “You’ve not only ruined everything!” He had been gesturing wildly since entering the set, but at this point, he was specifically gesturing to the hole in the wall. “You’ve ruined everything twice! You’ve derailed two productions and put us weeks behind schedule. We’re ruined!”

“On the contrary, Dominic,” Julian Sinclair repelled from above on a cable fastened to the set’s rigging and landed in the middle of the conversation. The man was surprisingly small in both height and stature, but he took command of the conversation. “I captured it all. It will be the greatest movie ever made. Real fear! Real danger! Pure emotion! Sure, the dialogue was corny, but it was authentic, and that’s what makes it art. Plus, you’re going to shit when you see this fight scene.”

“How can you say that?” Stone asked. “The story won’t make any sense! How do you explain where the giant gorilla came from?!”

“Editing can fix anything.” Sinclair waved Stone away and turned to Savant. “More importantly I want to talk about you.”

“Me?” It took Savant a few attempts to get the word out.

“Yes, you. You have got it.”

“I’ve got ‘it’? The finger quotes ‘it’?”

“I have a role you’ll be perfect for.”

“You don’t want that, Savant,” Hailey said.

“Shut up, Hailey,” Savant said.

“I’m speaking from experience, Savant. Being a star is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Oh, please. You were never a star,” Jake said.

“I was, too!”

“You were a toadstool on a kid’s show!”

“I was the toadstool princess.”

“You didn’t have a single speaking line.”

“That’s because toadstools don’t speak, Jake,” Hailey said. “We couldn’t lie to the children. It was an educational program.”

“Just to be clear, Mr. Sinclair, I don’t mind lying to children.”

“Great, I think you’ll be perfect for it.”

“Should I do the part with an accent? I could get a dialect coach.”

“That won’t be necessary. There aren’t any speaking lines. You’ll have to rely on your presence alone.”

“Is there more to the character? Oh, wait, wait, did he take a vow a silence, refusing to speak another word until the death of his lover is avenged.”

“Kind of,” said Sinclair. “It’s a monkey and you’re the right size for the suit.”

“A monkey?” Savant sounded distant.

“You’ve got the moves kid.” The director slapped Savant on the back and started an argument with Stone as the two walked away.

“Don’t worry, Savant,” Hailey said. “You’re still our hero.”

“Yeah,” Glitch put a hand on Savant’s shoulder. “Don’t let it bother you.”

“Let what bother me?” Savant brushed the cyborg’s hand away. “Being a huge star?! This is my big break.”

“It’s a monkey,” Glitch said and pointed to the fallen gorilla. “Again.”

“Wow, Glitch. I never took you for the jealous type.”

“Jealous?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t treat you all any differently than I always have. I won’t let fame change me.” Savant zipped up his mo-cap suit and walked off the set with his head held higher than it really deserved to be held.

Jake, Glitch and Hailey were left, staring at one another until Glitch said, “Maybe he could let it change him just a little?”

Cereal Killer

JUNKERS: THE MISSING SEASON

The tiger went down easy. The turtle put up a fight. But the damn bunny ran.

Jake raced through a landscape that was part wonderland part billboard as he chased after the malfunctioning machine. It was a magical land filled with colors, flavors and a scientifically impossible number of rainbows. The sound of children’s laughter surrounded him as it was pumped in through hidden speakers and the smell of powdered sugar hung in the air, reminding him of funnel cakes and midways. It was right out of a commercial.

This setting was just one part of a popular factory tour in the Against the Grain Cereal Company’s corporate headquarters in Vermont. The endeavor had begun as a vegan cereal company that rejected the kitschy gimmicks of the big cereal conglomerates that sold sugar to children and, instead, focused their product line on healthy, Earth and animal-friendly options.

Every box of Against the Grain Cereal promoted socially responsible practices and included manifestos encouraging people to adopt the more intelligent and evolved lifestyle that veganism made possible. But sales were terrible, so they started selling sugar to children in what became some of the most popular breakfast cereals on the market.

“Jake, we got Professor Sheldon,” Glitch said over the comm piece in Jake’s ear.

“Good work, Glitch,” Jake said as he hurtled over a fallen tree where children would sit and eat bowls of brightly colored corn flakes.

“It made me sad,” Glitch continued. “That turtle was one of my childhood heroes.”

Another voice broke into the conversation. “Ask him if he got the bunny, dummy.”

“Savant wants to know if you got the bunny,” Glitch said. “And he’s being mean again. This time in rhyme.”

“No rabbit yet,” Jake said. “But I’m gaining.”

Only a small portion of the headquarters tour was dedicated to the company’s vegan origins. The rest of the tour was a wonderland of confectionary sugar and fantabulous contraptions that had people lining up to see how their favorite breakfast cereals were made. They also got a chance to meet the colorful TV mascots from each cereal, and every room in the mascot museum was decorated to recreate scenes from the popular commercials.

Unlike most of the kids who ate the tiger’s cereal, Sonny the Sumatran was a star athlete. He valued fair play and hard work and he always went the extra mile, on and off the field, to make sure that his performance cereal gave kids the boost they needed to make the game winning kick. Fantastic Flakes were famously made with beta-alanine, caffeine, citrulline, tyrosine, taurine, creatine and “old-fashioned gusto” to deliver great taste and good sportsmanship. Sonny’s portion of the tour consisted of locker rooms and simulated playing fields. Jake’s team had caught the renegade machine in the middle of a pole vault on the track and field set.

Less brawn and more brain, Professor Sheldon was a scientific genius that toiled in his flavor lab to unlock the secrets of the universe and put them in his Bits and Bites Breakfast Cereal. The super-smart snapping turtle used the latest advances in technology from nanoscience to quantum flavoring to create breakthroughs in deliciousness to make fiber more appealing to children.

They had found the turtle in his lab peeking into his trademarked, oversized macroscope. trying to synthesize a new element for his cereal. The element of surprise. It was during this encounter that Jake spotted the fluffy white tail of their third and final target disappearing through the laboratory doors.

Jake had left his team to take down the turtle while he chased after Fester the Feastios Feasterbunny.

Arguably the most popular of the Against the Grain Cereal mascots, Fester’s schtick was just whacking things with a hammer. Technically it was a magical flavor mallet, but it was really just a giant hammer and it served as the literal punchline of every one of the Feastios’ Breakfast Cereal commercials.

The commercials followed a formula. They opened on a dystopian dining hall of some sort. It could be a school, a summer camp, or, more often than not, an orphanage. Rows of children with broken spirits sat hunched over a bowl of gruel or some other form of institutionalized slop while a heavy-handed tyrant barked at them about the dangers of flavor. Spirits broken, gruel dripping down their mouths, the children ate as one to the beat of the tyrant’s droning speech.

Only one dared to stand against these tasteless taskmasters; Fester the Feasterbunny. One brave child would make a wish for a breakfast that was delicious and our hero would appear and whack the principal/headmaster/counselor/nun with his magical flavor mallet. While the despot watched as a parade of feastereggs marched around their temple, the rabbit would hit the tables and turn everyone’s breakfast into a feast. The dour dining room would transform into a banquet hall fit for a king. The room filled with banners and trumpets and roaring fireplaces. All forms of entertainment would appear; jugglers, magicians and musicians performed as the children cheered. Fester would bounce around the feast, sprinkling mini marshmallow feastereggs into each bowl before hopping off to fight tyranny and blandness somewhere else.

It had been Fester’s bit since day one. So it was Jake’s own fault he didn’t see the magical flavor mallet coming when he rounded the corner.

Oversized and bright red, the hammer made a squeak sound when it connected with his face. Just like in the commercials.

It was a prop mallet and covered with a thick foam so it didn’t break his face. But it still had enough wallop to knock him on his ass.

Jake hit the floor as his nose went numb. He could feel all the parts of a headache gather into the front of his face where they would later spread out to cause him grief.

Fester stood above him. He wasn’t the biggest of the cereal mascots; the machine only stood about four and a half feet tall—six and a half feet with the mallet. Looking up from the ground, however, the rabbit looked slightly taller and much more sinister than he did on the Feastios cereal box.

The bunny put a furry paw to his mouth and giggled.

Jake started to stand.

Fester raised the flavor mallet above his head with both hands and struck again. This time, Jake took the hit on the top of his head and the force of the blow caused him to bite his tongue. The mallet went squeak and dropped him back to the ground.

“Not so fast, you tasteless tyrant.” The bunny’s voice was delightful and fun. It was the voice of a hero; it was the voice of a friend. The rabbit waved his hand and sprinkled a handful of mini marshmallow feastereggs all over his victim, giggled, and then hopped away.

“Did you get him, Jake?” Glitch asked. “Did you get the Feasterbunny?”

Jake brushed the marshmallows off his chest and stood up. “He hit me with a hammer.”

“That’s not a hammer. It’s his magical flavor mallet,” Glitch said. “He uses it to beat up taste tyrants and put a powerful pop of flavor in every spoonful of Feastios Breakfast Cereal.”

“I know, Glitch,” Jake said. “I know.”

“He must think you’re a taste tyrant.”

“Naturally,” he grumbled and ran into the next exhibit room.

Jake wasn’t sure what kind of magic it took to transform a meal into a feast or a cafégymatorium into a roman dining hall, but in the commercials, Fester used a variety of cartoon-based powers. If he flipped over a table filled with gruel, it would be replaced with a table filled with roast pheasant, chocolate fountains and, of course, colorful bowls filled with Feastios. If the bunny painted a fireplace on the wall, a roaring fire would fill it.

Fester was an artist after all. Part of his character was painting limited edition feastereggs to celebrate special occasions and turning them into mini marshmallow treats for kids everywhere.

During the Christmas season, he would paint feastereggs ornaments. He would paint flowers in the spring and pumpkins in the fall. And when big sporting events rolled around, Fester would paint soccer balls, baseballs, or hockey pucks onto feastereggs for inclusion in commemorative boxes of Feastios. He never did footballs. Football was Sonny the Sumatran’s territory.

“Where are you now, Jake?” Glitch asked.

“It’s looks like I’m in some kind of forest with a muddy stream running through it. There’s a field of flowers and…eggs.” Jake looked at the pastel-colored eggshells rocking gently amongst the flowers. Each one was three or four feet tall. “Giant eggs.”

“It sounds like you’re in the Ginormous Forrest,” Glitch said quickly. “That’s where Fester first discovered Epic Eggs. So that river is not mud. It’s chocolate.”

“Epic Eggs?” Jake asked.

“Yeah. They were huge. But they were only available for a limited time.”

“Will they hurt me?”

“Well, I wouldn’t taunt them.”

It was then that one of the eggs stood. The shell was seafoam green and stood on white legs that wore white sneakers. It had no arms and no face, but Jake could somehow tell that it was staring right at him. And it did not approve of what it saw.

He took a cautious step forward.

Another egg rose from the field of flowers and turned to face him. This one was yellow and somehow seemed even angrier.

“I think they see me,” Jake said into his comms.

“Which ones?” Glitch asked.

“Yellow and green. Do the colors mean something?”

“No.”

Several more giant eggs stood.

“Then why ask?”

“I was just curious I guess.”

There was movement at the edge of the woods as Fester hopped into view. The large rabbit giggled, pointed at Jake, and shouted, “Charge!”

A dozen giant eggs rushed toward Jake, but the comically large sneakers made it difficult for them to move in a straight line and they ended up bumping into one another. This sent some veering off their intended path while others were knocked over and began rolling awkwardly down the gentle hill to the riverbank as their cartoonish legs kicked helplessly in the air. One managed to roll back onto its feet and started charging Jake once more.

“No, no, no,” Jake shouted and put out his hands as the first egg got to him.

The egg dropped a shoulder that it didn’t actually have and rammed into him.

Jake was able to shove the Epic Egg aside and watched as the momentum it had built up carry it to the ground where it struggled to stand.

Several more eggs arrived and attacked him as best they could without arms or fists. Since they couldn’t punch, they bumped and shoved. With their size twenty-six sneakers planted firmly in the ground the remaining eggs started moving Jake down the hill.

Jake pushed back, but the overbearing ova were too much for him and every bump moved him farther down the hill, closer to the chocolate river. He tried to get around them but the wall of Epic Eggs kept advancing and began to surround him.

Before he could do anything, they had completely encircled him and were marching him toward the stream, shells clacking together like a porch full of wooden wind chimes. The sound was silly, but the fact that he had allowed himself to be immobilized by anthropomorphic eggs was embarrassing.

He made one last effort to shove his way free, but the combined force created by the eggs was too much for him to overcome.

Jake felt the pangs of panic build up in his stomach as he realized he might lose sight of the rabbit. He hopped up and down to peer over the wall of eggs. Fester, ever full of joy and mirth, was really getting a kick out of Jake’s predicament. The mechanical rabbit was on its back, laughing uproariously and kicking its giant rabbit’s feet back and forth like it was being tickled.

The sight of the rabbit laughing at him broke him. Jake was done being pushed around by giant eggs with legs. He drew his disruptor, placed the bore against the seafoam shell and fired.

The electrical discharge burned a hole through the machine’s plastic exterior and scrambled the circuits inside. The egg stood upright, pivoted slightly and then toppled over. Seafoam had been the primary aggressor and after it had been immobilized, the other eggs watched it roll in a crooked path to the river’s edge before disappearing beneath the chocolate stream.

The Epic Eggs turned their attention back to Jake and resumed their attack. Angered by the loss of their comrade, they ran faster and pushed harder than before.

Jake fired again and fried another egg. He pulled the trigger as fast as the disruptor could fire, pausing only to allow the device to cycle another round. The Epic Eggs dropped around him and began to wobble downhill to join Seafoam in the chocolate stream.

The disruptor’s barrel was warm in his hands. So much of their recent work had pit them against hardened industrial machinery that their primary tool in robot reclamation was starting to seem worthless. As he watched the giant eggshells wobble away, he was relieved it had been so effective.

The egg assault had stopped. But so had the laughing.

Jake turned back to Fester. The machine was back on its feet, dumbfounded by the carnage it had just witnessed.

Jake turned the projector on the big bunny and fired.

The machine leapt straight up and the blast passed harmlessly between its legs. This made Fester giggle once more.

Jake fired three quick shots.

The damn bunny hopped about, dodging each blast, laughing louder and louder with every successful dodge.

Jake’s disruptor beeped, an indication that it needed a moment to cool down before it could fire again.

Fester laughed, spun around, shook its tail at Jake and hopped off behind a fake tree into the darkness of the next exhibit room.

“Jake, did you get the bunny?” Glitch asked.

Jake started chasing the rabbit. “Almost.”

“What happened?”

“He’s bouncy.”

Jake stepped behind the fake tree and found himself in a dark tunnel. He wasn’t even sure it was a part of the museum tour until pulsing lights illuminated a bend in the tunnel. There was music, as well, and the closer he got, the more he could feel the bass in his chest. It wasn’t a terrible beat. When he finally rounded the corner, the music was almost deafening.

Lasers and stage lights filled the room while a crowd of hundreds danced in a low hanging cloud of smoke by jumping up and down like a rabbit. At the center of it all stood Fester the Feasterbunny in a DJ booth, bouncing his head to the music as he mixed the party’s soundtrack and called for the crowd to “Turn up the flavor!”

“What’s happening?”

Jake could barely hear Glitch over the noise, so he pushed the comm piece farther into his ear. “I’m at some kind of rave.”

“Oh wow.” Glitch’s voice was faint. It’s the Feastival.”

“What?”

“The Feastival. It was going to be an in-person party on Ibiza thrown by Feastios. It was part of a special promotion they ran for a short time to promote Feastios Brilliant Breakfast Flakes. It was a super colorful version they made using a new food coloring. They had to stop selling it because it was causing hallucinations and the event never happened.”

“So where in the hell am I?”

“Jake, you’re in the Flavor Rave.”

Fester chose that moment to drop the beat. The crowd went berserk and started bouncing faster.

“I’m honestly surprised they would even do this as part of the tour,” Glitch said. “It was kind of a scandal. The head of the FDA ended up resigning.”

“He looks really into it.”

“Oh yeah, Fester drops beats like the Dalai Lama drops wisdom.”

Jake checked his disruptor. It had cooled and armed itself with a full charge. If the rabbit stayed focused on the music, he might finally get the drop on him. Jake crouched low and stepped onto the dance floor, planning to use the children for cover.

The kids didn’t have any legs. They were just torsos with flailing arms on sticks that moved up and down to the music. Jake was low enough that he could hear the pneumatic rams firing beneath the floor. He passed row after row of legless children, making his way closer to the DJ platform.

Behind the turntable, the rabbit was wearing giant headphones. They weren’t actually covering his ears, because he was a rabbit, so Jake knew he could still hear him coming, but he hoped that the bunny was too focused on its current role that he would be able to get closer.

Jake made his way behind the DJ booth and approached the small staircase that would take him to the platform. He took each step slowly, trying to prevent any sound or vibrations that might give him away.

He reached the top step and sprung his attack. He landed in the middle of the DJ booth and fired the disruptor.

The electrical charge struck the mixing board and the sound system exploded in a shower of sparks as the music died and the lights froze. Fester was gone.

Jake turned to run back down the stairs and caught the flavor mallet in the face.

SQUEAK!

Jake hit the floor of the DJ stand. The bunny giggled, turned tail and hopped away.

“He hit you again,” Glitch said. “Didn’t he?”

Jake sat up and felt his nose. It didn’t feel like it, but it was still there. “I hate that rabbit.”

“You’re never going to beat him until you start thinking like him,” Glitch said. “You’ve got to think like a bunny, Jake.”

“I don’t know what that means, Glitch.”

“You will, Jake. You will.”

Jake entered a long hallway and moved slowly toward the next exhibit. This transom wasn’t dark like the last one. It was brightly lit and covered with colorful signage written in big cartoon letters inviting visitors to “Frolic like Fester” and “Be the Bunny.” Could this have been what Glitch was talking about? Did Glitch even know what he was talking about? The cyborg was well read and a fount of trivia but could he have known this was the next stage in Jake’s great rabbit hunt?

A rack filled with “Authentic Magic Flavor Mallets” stood next to a tablet on a pedestal underneath a sign that read, Sign Waiver Before Entering.

Jake passed by the tablet and entered the next exhibit.

The room was a medieval banquet hall filled with trampolines. The floors, the walls, and—for the exceptionally bouncy—the ceiling were covered with spring loaded fabric designed for launching children into hospital emergency rooms.

Foam-covered dining tables lined the room, Feastios banners hung from the walls. There was even a roaring fireplace at the end of the room filled with project flames. At the middle of it all stood Fester the Feasterbunny with a grin on his face and that damned squeaky flavor mallet in his hand. He smiled at Jake. “If it isn’t my old nemesis, the Baron of Boring, the Monarch of Monotony and the Master of Meh.”

Trumpets blared as Jake stepped into the room.

“Let’s do this, Flavor Tyrant!” Fester leapt into action.

The bunny was a blur as it bounced across the banquet hall towards Jake. Already bouncy enough, it knew how to use the trampolines to its advantage and its leaps grew by an order of magnitude as it flung itself around the room.

Jake fired three blasts from the disruptor at the growing target. The blue arc of electricity shot across the room at the speed of light and still managed to arrive late each time as Fester jumped out of the way.

He raised the barrel to fire once more but the bunny was already on him.

SQUEAK!

Jake took the hit and fell backwards onto the spring-loaded floor. He fell deep into the trampoline and was launched back to his feet.

SQUEAK!

He went down once more but managed to fall to his side. He came back up and fell into the wall mounted trampoline. The black nylon stretched and propelled him forward into the waiting mallet.

SQUEAK!

The process was repeated several times as Jake found himself stuck in a bit of a loop.

SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

Jake finally managed to fall to the ground and stay there by going limp.

Fester laughed and bounced off the wall above Jake’s head and launched himself into the middle of the banquet hall.

Jake fired after him until the disruptor signaled that it was overheating. Every shot missed.

The bunny landed on one of the banquet tables and rolled onto his back so he could wiggle his toes at Jake as he laughed. “Must be my lucky rabbit’s feet!”

Jake screamed and dropped the disruptor at his feet. It bounced a bit.

“Giving up?” Fester asked as he stood back up.

It was difficult to stomp on a trampoline but Jake did his best as he moved back to the hallway.

“You know what never quits?” Fester shouted. “The magical flavor of Feastios.”

Jake stepped back into the room holding his own magical flavor mallet.

The bunny pointed a furry finger at Jake and laughed until Jake started pulling the foam from the Magic Flavor Mallet.

“Hey, you’re not allowed to do that!”

Jake peeled the safety padding away, exposing a wooden mallet head.

“That’s against the rules!” Fester shouted, the laughter gone from his voice.

Jake dropped the padding on the floor.

This infuriated Fester and the rabbit sprung into action.

Jake leapt forward. His first bounce was bad. He wasn’t ready for just how bouncy the trampoline was. But now, instead of fighting it, he went with it and jumped harder, letting his feet sink deeper into the nylon surface and using every bit of energy it was giving back. He jumped higher than he ever had as a child and felt every foot of it in his stomach. It was unnerving at his age to feel so out of control but also somewhat exhilarating.

The two opponents crossed in midair and swung their respective magical flavor mallets. Both scored a hit.

SQUEAK!

THWACK!

Jake landed and bounced into a wall.

The bunny landed on one of the banquet tables with his back to Jake. Fester turned slowly.

The blow from the wooden mallet had cracked the plastic molding beneath the bunny’s fur and collapsed the left half of its face. It smiled at Jake once more but the damage to its face had turned its cheerful grin into an insidious sneer. “That wasn’t very nice.”

The battle was on as Fester went on the offense once more. The two opponents bounced about the room trading blows every time they passed.

SQUEAK!

THWACK!

SQUEAK!  SQUEAK!

THWACK!

Jake wasn’t sure if part of the rabbit’s safety programming was still intact, but for whatever reason, it never occurred to Fester to remove the padding from his own mallet. It still hurt, but Jake was more wearied than battered by the squeaking cudgel.

On the other hand, his naked mallet had done a significant amount of structural damage. Collapsed plastic shell moved loosely beneath the Feasterbunny’s fur and Jake could hear it falling apart as it continued to fight. The damage was starting to slow the rabbit down, and Jake began scoring twice as many hits.

SQUEAK!

THWACK! THWACK!

SQUEAK!

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

Soon the jumping stopped altogether and the two opponents stood in the middle of the largest banquet table trading blows.

SQUEAK!

THWACK!

SQUEAK!

THWACK!

THWACK!

THWACK!

Fester collapsed at Jake’s feet. There was still a twinkle in his eye, but most of his face was a fur pouch full of broken shell and cracked electronics.

Jake was exhausted. His legs felt like rubber from all the bouncing. He dropped his magical flavor mallet and took a seat. The rest of the team would be there shortly.

Glitch was the first one through the door and was immediately distracted by the decor. “Oh wow! It’s just like the very first Feastios commercial.”

He tested his footing on a trampoline and found that his cybernetic enhancements put him over the weight limit. Obviously disappointed that he couldn’t bounce his way around, he found a pathway between the different trampoline surfaces used by employees and EMTs and made his way to Jake’s side where he got a good look at what was left of the robot Fester.

Glitch didn’t take it well. After displaying such an in-depth knowledge of Feastios lore, Jake suspected that Glitch, who had always been a kid at heart, was a fan of the magical rabbit. The giant of a man stood in silence with his mouth agape, trying to find words to fill it.

He finally asked, “What happened?”

“I did like you said, Glitch,” Jake replied. “I thought like a bunny.”

“This is not what I meant by that! Don’t put this on me!”

“I thought you meant that…”

Glitch pointed at the wreckage of the Feastios robot. “That is not how bunnies think! No bunny thinks, I’m going to bash something until it stops moving. That is very unbunny behavior.”

“He was trying to bash me!” Jake shouted. “So I did like him!”

“I can’t believe you’re trying to put this on a helpless bunny.” Glitch scooped up what was left of Fester in his arms. “I’m ashamed of you, Jake.”

Glitch turned and walked away with the remains of Fester the Feastios Feasterbunny held gently in his arms, leaving Jake to think about what he had done.

When he was finally alone, Fester’s Magical Flavor Mallet slid off the table and hit the ground.

SQUEAK!

THE END

From the pages of the best-selling Duck & Cover Adventures comes thirteen stories of those who survived the apocalypse. Some would go on to be heroes, others villains, some were dogs and will stay dogs, but they all must contend with the horrors of the new world and find a way to survive in the wasteland that was America.

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Also by Benjamin Wallace

DUCK & COVER ADVENTURES

Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors

Knights of the Apocalypse

Pursuit of the Apocalypse

Revenge of the Apocalypse

Crossroads of the Apocalypse

Tales of the Apocalypse: Vol. 1

SHATTERED ALLIANCE

Shattered Alliance

Send in the Clones

Alone on Altair

JUNKERS

Junkers

Junkers Season Two

Junkers: The Missing Season: C.H.U.M.

Junkers: The Missing Season: Squatched

DADS VS

Dads Vs Zombies

Dads Vs The World

Dads Vs Zombies: Year 2

THE BULLETPROOF ADVENTURES

OF DAMIAN STOCKWELL

Horror in Honduras

Terrors of Tesla

The Mechanical Menace

OTHER BOOKS

Tortugas Rising

SHORT STORIES

Commando Pandas & Other Odd Thoughts

UNCIVIL

UnCivil: The Immortal Engine

UnCivil: Vanderbilt’s Behemoth

About the Author

Benjamin Wallace lives in Texas where he complains about the heat.

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Copyright © 2024 by Benjamin Wallace.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- Copyright
- Table of Contents
- C.H.U.M.
- C.H.U.M. short story
- The Trouble with Robotters
- The Trouble with Robotters short story
- Squatched
- Squatched short story
- Peak Terror
- Peak Terror short story
- Big Buddy Glitch
- Big Buddy Glitch short story
- Call of the Lou
- Call of the Lou short story
- Cereal Killer
- Cereal Killer short story
- Join My Readers Group
- Duck & Cover Series
- Also by Benjamin Wallace
- About the Author
- Copyright