Good evening to you. This is the first post on this new world I created, the ridiculously-named "Twilight Brain Assylum". I felt I needed a place to place writings that didn't exactly fit in with the rest of the usual bullshit I churn out. So, here we are, dear reader.
I read Beck's great "Writer's Block Busters" prompts, and I thought they looked like so much fun, I couldn't pass up a chance to use one. I've decided to use "Write about an overheard remark". So, here goes!
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Lars rolled down the brightly-lit corridor leading to the cafeteria. He only had thirty minutes to refuel, and he just wasted eight of them scouring every database in the factory looking for the human actress who played the lead role in the film Mary Poppins. Lars chuckled through his voicebox. "Heh, won't those morons be pissed when they find out ol' Lars and Julie Andrews are a hot item!" He said aloud. Robots are still incapable of inner monologue.
As Lars approached the giant sliding door to the cafeteria, a small, spherical robot shot out in front of him. The robot stopped suddenly beside him, and turned and faced him frantically. It was Henry, one of Lars' co-workers. Henry grabbed Lars' shoulders with his tiny metal arms.
"Lars, did they freakin' tell you, man?!"
Lars stood silent, a puzzled look appearing on his face-screen. "Tell me what?", He asked.
"The freakin' boss, man! He's takin' down the coolant machines!"
"What the Hell?! When?!"
"Billy heard him in his office!", Henry said, almost hysterical at this point.
Lars stormed into the cafeteria, with Henry close behind him. The atmosphere in the place was no more different than usual. Most of the bots Lars worked with came here to refill their tanks with "premium" fuel, although most of them hated the flavor of the drivel the cookbots served up. The bots were having their usual discussions; some bots bickered about who's suspension was superior, others would babble endlessly about useless trivia to prove their data storage capacity was greatest. The bots Lars hung out with were mostly obsolete or half-broken, and therefore relegated to the simplest and most tedious jobs. Lars' job was mostly to bust what seemed to be a never-ending supply of stones with whatever was on hand.
When Lars arrived at his usual table in the corner of the cafeteria, he found his co-worker Billy flailing his arms around, screaming at the top of his circuits. The robots around him didn't seem to notice, or simply didn't care.
"What the Hell, Billy?!", Lars said. "They're taking down the coolant machines?!"
Billy stopped flailing his arms. "Yeah, man! I was cleaning out the trash cans when I heard McFlain talking to the board in the conference room! They wanna put up a Coca-Cola machine!"
"Coca-Cola?! What, a human drink machine?! Screw that!" Lars screamed.
"That's what I heard! Then all the board guys laughed, like it was some kinda joke, man! Whatawegonnado,whatawegonnado,whatawe-"
"What am I supposed to drink in the morning?! Freaking Diet Coke?! That crap'll gunk up my circuits! Next thing you know, they'll start selling apples in the damn fuel line!"
Henry held his hand up, attempting to be recognized. "This is robocism. Robocism, plain and simple! The board? Nothin' but humans! They wanna eliminate the robots from this place! Take the coolant machines, next the data storage, finally pizza in the cafeteria! That's how this works!"
Lars banged his steely clamps against the metal table. "Hell no. Screw this, man! Screw! This! You guys know what time it is!"
Henry and Billy stared into the electronic eyes in Lars' face screen. They knew what he was thinking. They were scared of it, though. Henry was the first to respond.
"...what time?"
Lars smiled. "Freakin' OPEN ROBOT REBELLION TIME!"
It was midnight. The gated community of Jester's Point was quiet, save the occasional rustling of leaves from the cool night wind. A security guard sat at the electronic gates, reading an issue of Weekly World News. There was nothing to do at midnight for a security guard in this sleepy community. No burglars or murderers ever showed up to take out a resident. The worst scum the surrounding communities held were the occasional geriatric going nuts when you stepped on his grass.
Three figures appeared a few feet in front of the gates, and appeared to be coming toward him. He smiled. Finally, company!, he thought to himself. He folded up his magazine, got up from his chair, and approached the figures. As he got closer, he realized they were robots.Damnit, probably some guy's tools escaped from his garage. This'll be fun, finding the bastard these guys belong to, he told himself.
The three robots finally stood in front of him. The guard looked over the three. Chuckling, he asked, "You fellas lost, or what?"
A small, spherical one began speaking. "Um, excuse me, sir. We need to see a resident of this community. He, uh, owes us money."
The guard gave the spherical robot a perplexed glance. "Money? What's a robot need mo-"
A metal clamp came down hard on the back of his neck. He felt no pain, just cold steel against his flesh. He felt an odd sensation, like his body simply didn't feel like staying awake anymore. He slumped down onto the concrete.
"Holy crap, you killed him!" Billy yelled.
"Shut up! You want the whole neighborhood to hear us?!", Lars said. "Besides, he ain't dead. We're robots. We can't kill humans. Prime directive five, or whatever-
"Three.", Henry said.
"Shut up, smart-ass. Let's find that bastard robocist McFlain, and exact sweet robot vengeance! OPEN REBELLION!"
The three robots wheeled down the road to a huge, steel mansion on a hill. There, outside the house, they spotted their cute, furry prey. Lars pulled out a small plastic bag. He clicked his clamps together rhythmically. Henry quickly wheeled toward a small white puppy,sleeping in a small pink house outside the mansion. A compartment in his chest opened, and a clear liquid sprayed out on the puppy. The puppy opened his eyes slowly, and rose from the ground, obviously groggy. Henry looked at his fellow robots, and shrugged.
"What the Hell, Henry?! That crap was supposed to keep him asleep for days!" Lars said.
"What, water? I thought that was supposed to wake them up!" Henry said.
"Water? Water?! What about the tranq I gave you?!"
"You wanted me to put dog tranq in my system? Dude, you're nuts! That stuff'll mess up my system!"
Billy wheeled himself to the puppy, and produced a small pipe. "I'll take care of this", He said. He then swung downward at the puppy, which thankfully missed.
"What are you doing?!", Lars yelled. "We're trying to steal the dog, not kill it!"
"We can't kill dogs, remember? Prime directive three", Billy said smiling.
"That's humans.", Henry said.
"That's humans, man! We can still kill dogs! So don't kill this one! We need leverage!" Lars yelled.
Billy shrugged, and swung the pipe again. The puppy jumped out of the way, and began barking loudly. Henry tried grabbing the puppy, which made it bark even louder. Lars grabbed the pipe in Billy's clamps, and tried to wrestle it away from him.
The front door swung open. Bright light shot out from the door, and the three robots immediately took notice. A figure holding a rifle walked outside. He aimed the rifle, and fired a round into Billy's chest. The impact ripped the pipe from his clamps, and he hit the ground, his chest smoldering with burning metal.
"He shot me! I just had my chest buffed, and he shot me!" Billy yelled, trying to stand upright.
McFlain walked silently toward the three robots in his lawn. His puppy lovingly ran to him, and licked his slippers.
"Did the bad men hurt you, Tommy?" McFlain said, petting his faithful dog. He then eyed the robotic assailants in front of him.
"Who are you? Robbers? Murderbots? What?!" He yelled, shaking his rifle.
The robots were frozen in fear. They were not scared of McFlain's rifle, however; they couldn't be killed with such a weapon. They were absolutely terrified, however, of losing their jobs. They'd be classified as "Useless", shipped to a junkyard, and forced to live out the rest of their short existence in tiny salvaged pieces. Billy, who was halfway up from his shotgun blast, simply laid back down, hoping McFlain wouldn't notice who he was.
McFlain squinted his eyes, looking Lars sqaure in the eyes. "Aren't you Lars, the stone buster? And Henry, the filebot? And... what the Hell were you doing to my dog, Billy?!"
Lars slowly rolled forward. "Uh... this is an open robot rebellion, sir. We, um, we overheard you were going to take the coolant machines down and replace them with Coca-Cola vendors."
McFlain scowled at Lars. "Why the Hell would I do that?! No human but me works at that damn place, and I'm not even there most of the time!"
Lars wheeled backward slightly. "We overheard you in you conference. Billy, I mean. Billy overheard you."
"I heard you," Billy said. "I was cleaning out the trash cans, and I heard everything."
"Wha...? I made a joke to the board about getting a few vending machines in the building so we wouldn't have to go out to get drinks and snacks! A freaking joke, you fools! The place you work at is populated with robots! Why on Earth would you think I would replace their source of fuel so I could drink Sprite?!"
Lars slowly turned to Billy, waiting for a response. Billy simply lay on the ground, his face-screen looking up at the sky. Lars then faced McFlain. "Are we fired?"
"I guess it goes without saying, doesn't it?"
And with that, McFlain took his dog and his rifle, marched back into his house, and slammed the door behind him. The three robots were silent. They stood still for a few minutes.
"Well, this is just great. The trashbot'll be here in the morning to pick us up and rip us to pieces, Billy! Thank you very much!" Lars said.
Billy stayed on his back, looking up at the moon. "Look on the bright side."
"What bright side, Billy? This time tomorrow, we'll be sold by the part in a second-hand store!"
"YOU will. Look at this hole in my chest. Nobody's gonna touch me!"
-fin-
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What did you think? Awesome, or super-awesome?
-Flint
