Robopocalypse (3 page)

2. F
RESHEE’S
F
ROGURT

It looks me right in the eyes, man. And I can tell that it’s … 
thinking
. Like it’s alive. And pissed off
.

J
EFF
T
HOMPSON

PRECURSOR VIRUS + 3 MONTHS

This interview was given to Oklahoma police officer Lonnie Wayne Blanton by a young fast-food worker named Jeff Thompson during Thompson’s stay at Saint Francis Hospital. It is widely believed to be the first recorded incident of a robot malfunction occurring during the spread of the Precursor Virus that led to Zero Hour only nine months later
.

—
CORMAC
WALLACE,
MIL#GHA217

Howdy there, Jeff. I’m Officer Blanton. I’ll be taking your statement about what happened at the store. To be honest, the crime scene was a mess. I’m counting on you to explain every detail so we can figure out why this happened. You think you can tell me?

Sure, Officer. I can try.

The first thing I noticed was a sound. Like a hammer tapping on the glass of the front door. It was dark outside and bright inside so I couldn’t see what was making the noise.

I’m in Freshee’s Frogurt, elbow-deep in a twenty-quart SaniServ frogurt machine trying to pry out the churn bar from the very back and getting orange creme-sicle all over my right shoulder.

Just me and Felipe are there. Closing time is in, like, five minutes. I’m finally done mopping up all the sprinkles that get glued to the floor with ice cream. I’ve got a towel on the counter covered in the metal parts from inside the machine. Once I get them all out, I’m supposed to clean the pieces, cover them in lube, and put them back. Seriously, it’s the grossest job ever.

Felipe is in the back, washing the cookie sheets. He has to let the sinks drain real slow or else they flood the floor drain and I have to go back in there and mop all over again. I’ve told that dude a hundred times not to let the sinks drain all at once.

Anyway.

The tapping sound is real light. Tap, tap, tap. Then it stops. I watch as the door slowly cracks open and a padded gripper slips around the edge.

Is it unusual for a domestic robot to come into the store?

Nope. We’re in Utica Square, man. Domestics come in and buy a ’nilla frogurt now and then. Usually they’re buyin’ for a rich person in the neighborhood. None of the other customers ever wanna wait in line behind a robot, though, so it takes, like, ten times longer than if the person just got off their ass and came in. But, whatever. A Big Happy type of domestic comes in probably once a week with a paypod inside its chest and its gripper out to hold a waffle cone.

What happens next?

Well, the gripper is moving weird. Normally, the domestics, like, do the same sort of pushing motion. They do this stupid I-am-opening-a-door-now shove, no matter what door they’re standing in front of. That’s why people are always pissed off if they get stuck behind a domestic while it’s trying to get inside. It’s way worse even than being stuck behind an old lady.

But this Big Happy is different. The door cracks open, and its gripper kind of sneaks around the edge and pats up and down the handle. I’m the only one who sees it because there’s nobody else in the store and Felipe is in the back. It happens fast, but it looks to me like the robot is trying to feel out where the lock is at.

Then the door swings open and the chimes ring. The domestic is about five feet tall and covered in a layer of thick, shiny blue plastic. It doesn’t come all the way inside the store, though. Instead, it stands there in the doorway real still and its head scans back and forth, checking out the whole room: the cheap tables and chairs, my counter with the towel on it, the ice cream freezers. Me.

We looked up the registration plate on this machine and it checked out. Besides the scanning, was there anything else strange about the robot? Out of the ordinary?

The thing’s got scuffs all over it. Like it got hit by a car or had a fight or something. Maybe it was broken.

It walks inside, then turns right around and locks the door. I pull my arm out of the frogurt machine and just stare at the domestic robot with its creepy smiling face as it shuffles toward me.

Then it reaches over the counter with both grippers and grabs me by the shirt. It drags me over the counter, scattering pieces of the taken-apart frogurt machine all over the floor. My shoulder slams into the cash register, and I feel this sick crunching inside.

The thing fucking dislocated my shoulder in about one second!

I scream for help. But frigging Felipe doesn’t hear me. He’s got the dishes soaking in soapy water and is out smoking a jay in the alley behind the store. I try my best to get away, kicking and struggling, but the grippers have closed in on my shirt like two pairs of pliers. And the bot’s got more than my shirt. Once I’m over the counter, it pushes me into the ground. I
hear
my left collarbone snap. After that it gets really hard to breathe.

I let out another little scream, thinking:
You sound like an animal, Jeff dude
. But my weird little yell seems to get the thing’s attention. I’m on my back and the domestic is looming over me; it’s sure as hell not letting go of my shirt. The Big Happy’s head is blocking the fluorescent light on the ceiling. I blink away tears and look up at its frozen, grinning face.

It looks me right in the eyes, man. And I can tell that it’s … 
thinking
. Like it’s alive. And pissed off.

Nothing changes on its face or anything, but I get a pretty bad feeling right then. I mean, an even worse feeling. And, sure enough, I hear the servos in the thing’s arm start to grind. Now it turns and swings me to the left, smashing the side of my head into the door of the pie fridge hard enough to crack the glass. The whole right side of my head feels cold and then warm. Then the side of my face and neck and arm all start to feel really warm, too. Blood’s shooting out of me like a damn fire hydrant.

Jesus, I’m crying. And that’s when … uh. That’s when Felipe shows up.

Do you give the domestic robot money from the register?

What? It doesn’t
ask
for money. It never asked for money. It doesn’t say a word. What went down wasn’t a telerobbery, man. I don’t even know if it was being remote controlled, Officer …

What do you think it wants?

It wants to kill me. That’s all. It wants to murder my ass. The thing was on its own and it was out for blood.

Go on.

Once it got hold of me, I didn’t think it would let go until I was dead. But my man Felipe wasn’t having any of that shit. He comes running out the back, hollering like a motherfucker. Dude was
pissed
. And Felipe is a big man. Got that Fu Manchu ’stache and all kinds of ink running up and down his arms. Badass shit, too, like dragons and eagles and this one prehistoric fish all the way down his forearm. A colecanth or something. It’s like this monster dinosaur fish that they thought was extinct. There are fossils of it and everything. Then one day some fisherman gets the surprise of his life when he pulls up a real live devil fish from hell below. Felipe used to say that the fish was proof you can’t keep a motherfucker down forever. Someday you gotta rise up again, you know?

What happened next, Jeff?

Yeah, right. I’m on the ground, bleeding and crying, and Big Happy’s got me by the shirt. Then Felipe comes running out the back and turns the corner of the counter, roaring like a friggin’ barbarian. His hairnet is off and his long hair is flying. He grabs the domestic by the shoulders, just snatches it up and throws it down. It lets go of me and falls backward through the front door, shards of glass flying everywhere. The bell chimes again.
Bing-bong
. It’s such a dorky sound for this kind of violent shit that it makes me smile through all the blood running down my face.

Felipe kneels down and sees the damage. “Oh fuck,
jefe
,” he says. “What’d it do to you?”

But I see Big Happy moving behind Felipe now. My face must tell the whole story, because Felipe grabs me by the waist and drags me back around the counter without even looking at the door. He’s panting and taking little crab steps. I can smell the joint in his front pocket. I watch my blood smearing behind me on the tile floor and I think,
Shit, man, I just mopped that
.

We make it through the doorway behind the register and into the cramped back room. There’s a low row of stainless steel sinks full of soapy water, a wall of cleaning supplies, and a little cubby desk in the corner that has our punch clock sitting on it. In the very back is a narrow hallway that leads to the alley behind the store.

Then Big Happy plows into Felipe out of nowhere. Instead of following us, the fucker was smart enough to climb over the counter. I hear a thump and see Big Happy bash Felipe across the chest with its forearm. Not at all like getting punched by a guy—more like getting hit by a car or, like, nailed by a falling brick or something. Felipe flies backward and hits the cabinet doors where we keep all the paper towels and stuff. He stays on his feet, though. When he stumbles forward, I see a dent in the wood from the back of his head. But he’s wide awake and more pissed off than ever.

I drag myself away, toward the sinks, but my shoulder is messed up and my arms are slippery with blood and I can hardly breathe from the pain in my chest.

There aren’t any weapons or anything back here, so Felipe snatches the mop from the filthy yellow bucket on wheels. It’s an old mop with a solid wooden handle and it’s been there I don’t know how long. There’s no room to swing the mop, but it doesn’t matter because the robot is hell-bent on grabbing Felipe the same way it grabbed me. He rams the mop up and gets it wedged under Big Happy’s chin. Felipe isn’t a tall guy, but he’s taller than the machine and has a longer reach. It can’t get ahold of him. He shoves the machine away from us, its arms waving around like snakes.

The next part is awesome.

Big Happy falls backward onto the cubby desk in the corner, its legs sticking straight out, heels on the ground. With no hesitation, Felipe raises his right foot straight up and comes down with all his weight on its knee joint.
Snap!
The robot’s knee pops and bends backward at a totally fucked-up angle. With the mop handle stuck under its chin, the machine can’t catch its balance and it can’t grab hold of Felipe, either. I’m wincing just looking at that knee, but the machine doesn’t make any noise or anything. I only hear its motors grinding and the sound of its hard plastic shell banging into the desk and wall while it struggles to get up.

“Yeah, motherfucker!” Felipe shouts before crushing the robot’s other knee joint backward. Big Happy lies on its back with both legs broken and an angry-as-fuck sweaty two-hundred-pound Mexican on top of it. I can’t help but start thinking that everything is going to be okay.

Turns out I’m wrong about that.

It’s his hair, you know. Felipe’s hair is too long. Simple as that.

The machine stops struggling, reaches out, and clamps a gripper down on Felipe’s black mane. He hollers and yanks his head back. But this isn’t like getting your hair pulled in a bar fight; this is like getting caught in a shredder or a piece of heavy equipment in a factory. It’s brutal. Every muscle in Felipe’s neck stands out and he screams like an animal. His eyes squeeze shut as he pulls away with all his might. I can hear the roots tearing out from his scalp. But the fucking thing just pulls Felipe’s face closer and closer.

It’s unstoppable, like gravity or something.

After a couple seconds, Felipe is close enough that Big Happy can get hold of him with its other gripper. The mop handle clatters to the floor as the other gripper closes on Felipe’s chin and mouth, crushing the bottom part of his face. He screams and I can hear his jaw cracking. Teeth pop out of his mouth like fucking popcorn.

That’s when I realize that I’m probably going to die in the back room of Freshee’s fuckin’ Frogurt.

I never spent much time in school. It’s not that I’m stupid. I mean, I guess I’m just saying I’m not generally known for my bright ideas. But when your ass is on the line and violent death is ten feet away, I think it can really put your brain in gear.

So a bright idea comes to me. I reach up behind me and bury my good left arm in the cold water in the sink. I can feel cookie sheets and dippers, but I’m fishing for the drain plug. Across the room, Felipe is quieting down, making some gurgling sounds. Blood is pouring out of him, down Big Happy’s arm. The whole bottom of his face is crushed in its gripper. Felipe’s eyes are open and kind of bugging out, but I think he’s pretty much out of it.

Man, I
hope
he’s out of it.

The machine is doing that scanning thing again, being really still and turning its face left and right real slow.

By now my arm is going numb, the blood cut off from where I have it hooked over the lip of the sink. I keep fishing for the plug.

Big Happy stops scanning, looks right at me. It pauses for maybe a second, and then I hear its gripper motors whining as it lets go of poor Felipe’s face. He drops to the ground like a sack of bricks.

I’m whimpering. The alley door is a million miles away and I can barely keep my head up. I’m sitting in a pool of my own blood and I can see Felipe’s teeth on the tile floor. I
know
what’s going to happen to me and there’s nothing I can do about it and I know it’s gonna hurt
so much
.

At last, I find the sink plug and rake at it with my dead fingers. It pops out, and I hear the gurgling of water draining. I told Felipe a hundred times, if the water drains out too fast it’ll flood the floor drain and then I gotta mop in here all over again.