Three Days Grace vs. ChatGPT: Who's the Real Machine Around Here?

 

Arianna Brandolini: Psychologist by Day, HR Staff by Night

 

Clare Easdown vs. Marcus DiPaola: The World Is Crazy Enough as It Is

 

Bubble Man

Just go for a swim in the waterfall

Dive off the hydroelectric dam wall

Undersea creatures waiting for you

Seductive sirens sing the sweetest tunes

Hammerhead sharks smell your blood

Now’s the time for underwear mud

Speedo lemonade for the jellyfish

Sting your ass for as long as they wish

Hold your breath like a YA hero

Watch your temperature drop to zero

Ain’t no lifeguards in my domain

Just a short existence and eternal pain

You came searching for the Bubble Man

Couldn’t come up with a better plan?

Dollar signs in your bloodshot eyes

Dreams of riches dissolved into lies

Bubble Man’s got a price on his head

Yet you’re the one who ends up dead

But not before he has some good fun

And even then, he’s still not done

Bubbles in your ass and in your lungs

Bubbles in your sack and in your eardrums

Pop them fuckers like birthday balloons

Scrape your guts off with a metal spoon

Mix your slime in a cauldron of chowder

Feed it to the minions with curry powder

Shit you out for the plankton and coral

They bring our climate back to normal

You weren’t the first to look for fortune

But you’re the latest post-birth abortion

Bubble Man may have a name so silly

But his weapons turn bitches to beef chili

Better luck next time, bounty hunter

Should’ve stayed in the arms of your mother

Dirty Laundry

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of Beneath the Surface. I am your host, Aaron Moore. Tonight we’ve got a special treat for you. It’s no secret how Dread City’s debt crisis has ravaged our poor and working class population. Many of our citizens are losing their homes, their jobs, and in many cases, their families due to not being able to pay their debts on time. Here to expose the secrets of this little known debt industry is a man who wishes to be known by the pseudonym Heath Riggs. Heath, welcome to the show.”

“Good to be here, Aaron.”

Heath parked his ass at a dimly lit studio table across from his host, while live cameras filmed the interview from every angle behind the shadows. Aaron Moore clearly enjoyed the spotlight as evidenced by the fancy gray suit and tie he wore just for this occasion. Heath Riggs, on the other hand, thrived in anonymity, his black leather jacket, sunglasses, and hood covering everything but his black face driving the point home. While Aaron leaned his body in to ask the tough questions, Heath kicked back with his fingers in a triangle position and his heel across his lap.

“Now Heath, I want to start off by addressing with you the harassing ways in which debts are collected. The late night phone calls, the vulgar speech, the contacting of family, friends, and coworkers. By your own admission, these tactics should be illegal, yet debt collection companies get away with this all the time.”

Heath cleared his throat. “Well, you’re right about the fact that these tactics should be illegal. If they came from anybody other than a collector, the police would be called in a heartbeat. But the funny thing is, the harassment doesn’t actually get us our money faster. Then again, neither does the impending lawsuit and the subsequent garnishing of wages. This isn’t about collecting money we’ll never have. It’s politics. It’s all about weeding out the poor and disenfranchised so that they can’t influence our governmental policies. It’s not a conspiracy. This shit’s as real as it gets.”

Aaron, who was drinking a mug of hot coffee during Heath’s answer, spit out his beverage and choked on whatever was left. After wiping his mouth with his expensive sleeve, he said, “Mr. Riggs, I appreciate your honesty during this interview, but I have to ask you not to swear when giving your answers. We’re on live television in over a million homes. Surely, you understand.”

“Of course I do.” Heath grinned like he was onto something. “Wouldn’t want to offend your audience’s precious Christian ears. Wouldn’t want the children to hear any of this shit. Lord knows they might grow up to become free thinkers. We know that can never happen.”

“I’m warning you, Mr. Riggs….”

Taking his sunglasses off and revealing gray mechanical eyes underneath, Heath said, “Don’t worry, Aaron, I got the message loud and clear. You can’t swear on television, but if you do it behind closed doors with an unwilling secretary, it’s A-okay. I’m not just exposing the debt industries secrets, but yours as well. I agreed to do this interview because I want a clear conscience. Fourteen years of debt collecting began to wear on my soul after a while. I figured, as long as I’m here with an alleged sexual harasser, I might as well go the full nine, you know what I’m saying?”

“Cut the camera feed! Cut it now!” demanded Aaron. Without checking to see if his orders were followed, he leaned in closer to Heath’s face and pointed an accusatory finger at him. “I don’t know what kind of stunt you’re trying to pull, but you have no proof and neither do any of my accusers. Those cases were settled a long time ago. Now do you want to discuss debt collection or do you want to keep toying with me?”

“Why can’t he talk about both? It’s not like you two don’t deserve last words,” said a robotic feminine voice from the shadowy background. While Heath remained calm, cool, and collected, Aaron went bug-eyed and his body trembled at the sight of a cyborg assassin holding two severed heads by the hair like they were cheerleader pompoms. As soon as this mysterious woman stepped into the light, headless bodies all around the studio dropped to the ground and soaked the wooden floors in human blood and cyborg oil. A bald black woman with golden earrings and a green metal suit stared her newest victims down with a mischievous grin.

While Aaron curled up in a ball on the edge of pissing himself, the assassin said, “Don’t worry, honey. None of what you or Heath said made it on the airwaves. I made sure of that. It’s probably just as well. Although, if you want to tell your mindless viewers goodbye for one last time, I suppose I could let you do that.”

“Please…I don’t know who you are, but I’ve got a family I need to get home to. Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!” quivered Aaron while Heath smiled and shook his head.

“It’s the same old excuse: think of my family so that I don’t have to when I’m trying to take the secretary to pound town. Don’t worry, Aaron, I’ve got this.” Heath cracked his knuckles before getting out of his chair and strutting towards the assassin, who tossed the cameramen’s heads off to the side like they were easily disposable to begin with.

“What are you so cocky about, Mr. Riggs? You’re not making it out alive any more than Hard-On Henry over here. In fact, you’re the reason I came here today,” said the assassin with a grin.

Heath gazed his assailant up and down and whistled. “That’s some expensive hardware you’ve got there. How much did them arm blades set you back? Hundreds? Thousands of dollars? And that metal body? Shit, man, I don’t know how you pay for all that with just a Street Ronin’s salary. If only there was somebody here who knew how to make debt disappear quicker than those cameramen you laid out. Hmm…” Heath stroked his chin as he mockingly pondered this question.

The assassin flipped one of her arm blades and held it underneath Heath’s chin. He didn’t back down from his confident demeanor, but he was all ears for his would-be killer. “When you’re as good as me, money isn’t that hard to come by. I don’t know what kind of lies you’re telling about my client, but these poor suckers don’t go into debt because of politics. They do it because they could never make it in a capitalist meritocracy. That’s my special way of saying they’re fucking lazy.”

“Sure, whatever you say…Harlock!”

Upon hearing the assassin’s name, Aaron slowly lowered his feet to the bloody floor, obviously not caring that much about his designer shoes. “Wait a minute, you know this woman?”

“Not as well as I’d like to, but when you’ve been on the job as long as I have, you learn something about these poor pathetic motherfuckers. The boss man gives you a name, an address, and how much they owe. The rest of the research is up to you, hence why we often resort to calling friends and family to collect the debt. Harlock here doesn’t care about the circumstances of others, which is ironic considering those cyborg parts didn’t come easy in this so-called meritocracy. Besides, if she was really as hot shit as she thinks she is, she wouldn’t have revealed all this information to me. We’d both be dead as fucking fried chicken right now. But as it is…”

“Shut the hell up!” said Harlock as she drew a tiny droplet of blood from Heath’s cheek. He still didn’t budge, only smiled wider as he cleaned the wound off with his finger and licked it.

“Face it, lady,” said Heath. “You don’t want to admit it, but you can see the irony of a debt-burdened assassin working for a debt collection agency. You’re desperate for cash, so you’ll whore your services to anybody who can make shit go away. But the truth is…paying those suckers off ain’t going to solve everything. You would not believe the tricks they pull out of their asses just to keep you paying up. Ever heard of zombie debt? How about fifty percent interest? How about debtor’s prison? They still have that shit.”

Harlock narrowed her bladed eyebrows and dug the weapon deeper into Heath’s skin. He flinched a little bit, but not enough to give away whatever modicum of fear he might have been burdened with. She leaned in and said, “You know nothing about me and my struggles.”

“Exactly! Debt collectors don’t know shit about you, which is why they keep calling your ass in the first place! You could come crying to them with your whole life story and it wouldn’t be enough. They got no heart. They got no soul. If a big ass mega corporation had a heart and soul, they wouldn’t be in business for very long, would they? Capitalism is a bitch.”

Harlock’s eyes slowly lowered to the soggy floor as if Heath’s words got through to her. He took this small window of opportunity to grab her by the arm and swing her blade into her own stomach. While Aaron was in the background this whole time shivering and weeping, Harlock’s mechanical guts spilled all over the ground as she coughed up oil and blood. Heath yanked the blade upwards and split the rest of her upper body in two, bloodying the floor even more than it already was.

“What the hell did you do that for?! She was cooperating!” Aaron screamed.

“Recognizing how badly you’ve fucked up isn’t a Get Out of Jail Free card. In case you hadn’t noticed what’s been going on here the past few seconds, look on the ground. That bitch is beyond redemption. Speaking of which, let’s get them cameras rolling again…”

“No! No cameras! No! I’m done with this!”

“Oh, we’re just getting started, Aaron. We’ve got a lot to discuss. Debt collection and sexual harassment all in one story, although that piss stain on your pants will be bigger ratings boost than anything we talk about.”

Aaron spread his shaky legs to see that there was indeed urine on his groin. “Goddamn it!”

Heath shushed him. “Ah, ah, ah! No swearing! There’re children watching!”

Blood Rain

One shot would be all it took. A flying diamond-tipped arrow to Shatter Man’s life core would earn Ino Kara the respect she deserved from her mercenary cohorts. No more jokes about her equine features. No more jokes about being ridden like a cowboy. They could forget about trying to feed her hay. They could spare her the horse dick references and anything else that had to do with bestiality. “You fuckers will put respect on my name,” she said in a low voice to nobody in particular.

Shatter Man was ripe for the snipe. Surrounded by a cluster fuck of dead bodies lying on the dirt and bone-covered ground, the necromantic machine sat cross-legged while his exhaust pipe belched red filth into the gray skies above. Ino could smell the ashen cloud it all the way from her sniper’s nest in the treetops. She had to be careful not to hack up a lung if she wanted to stay hidden.

With a bandana tied around her muzzle and stillness taking over her body, Ino pulled one of her diamond-tipped arrows out of her quiver and took aim with her golden edge bow. A shot to the head would have been her preference for any sniping mission, but Shatter Man’s mechanical dome wouldn’t allow it. She had to pierce through his chest at the exact spot and splatter his life core all over the ground. A filthy death indeed, but no more filthy than speeding up climate change with this necromantic smoke. Ino had to find her exact shot and make it quick.

She breathed deeply not only to calm her nerves, but steady her aim. Just when she was ready to release her arrow, a crow flew from out of nowhere and began pecking at Ino’s mask. “Shoo! Go away! Beat it!” she angrily whispered while swatting the bird away. She didn’t want to whack the poor guy too hard due to her respect for animals, but this wasn’t he best time to horse around. There was another mercenary joke that needed to be eradicated forever: horsing around.

Ino steadied her breathing once more and made a second attempt at aiming for the life core. “Easy…easy does it…you’ve got this…now take a shot!” she whispered to herself. The damn crow served as a distraction yet again, but this time perched its claws right over Shatter Man’s life core. The robot didn’t move an inch, just kept spewing garbage into the cloudy skies. “You asked for it, you stupid bird.” Respect would only go so far as Ino Kara finally took her shot.

Shatter Man looked so still and unaware this entire time, not unlike the zombies he was trying to wake up with his putrid smoke. Ino gasped when the mechanical nightmare grabbed the arrow just before it could pierce his life core. He crushed the arrow into dust, including the diamond tip, before ejecting bird seed from his hand as a reward for the crow.

“That little bastard,” whispered Ino, clutching her edge bow so tightly that a little crack formed.

Shatter Man spun his head towards Ino’s sniping nest. His visor flashed an eerie shade of red, making Ino’s heart race no matter how much she tried to suppress her fear. He pointed a drill bit finger at her and puffed even more pollutants into the sky. “My sacred ritual is not your payday!” he said in a monotone, demonic voice. “Arise, my children of the dead!”

A sprinkle of water landed on Ino’s furry head. And another. And another. When she wiped them away, her teeth and legs vibrated at the crimson color. The tiny droplets became heavier and denser until a full-on bloody rainstorm drenched Ino from head to hooves. Her purple battle dress and blue thigh high boots clung to her body like a frightened child wanting his mother’s undying love.

Ino’s own blood grew ice cold and a knot welled up in her stomach when the bloody rain caused the army of dead bodies to twitch. Limbs and heads awkwardly twisted around. Rotting flesh peeled and rolled. Bulging eyeballs retracted back into their owners’ skulls. Slowly and creepily, the shit-smelling dead bodies rose to their wobbly feet until Shatter Man and his crow informant had their own necromantic army.

The horse woman swallowed a golf ball sized lump while clutching her chest, hoping she wouldn’t die of a heart attack before this battle had a chance to begin. “Fuck it,” she said, tossing all caution to the wind. Even as crimson rain pelted her clothing and soaked her fur, Ino tossed aside her growing fear and ran into the fray.

“I want some goddamn respect!” she shouted, knowing assassinating Shatter Man was the only way she’d get it from her fellow mercenaries. As hordes of zombies trudged towards her with their rotten arms extended and their bloody mouths wide open, she fired multiple arrows at once and each one hit their marks. Chests exploded. Throats splattered on the ground. Guts spilled all over the dirt like a gory mudslide. When Ino ran out of arrows, she continued her assault by swinging her edge bow and smashing the skulls of anybody who dared take a bite out of her horse meat.

Shatter Man’s arms folded while the crow sat perched on his shoulder laughing his ass off at the equine warrior. “You little bastard!” shouted Ino as she trampled fallen zombies on her way to snatch the bird, wanting so desperately to rip his feathers out and snap his beak. The zombies wouldn’t stay down for long. As the blood rain continued to pour, they stood back up even with their detached heads and exploded bones. They grabbed at Ino’s shoulders with broken fingers, but she beat them down with her edge bow until they were little more than rivers of blood and organs.

Despite the aching in her own ribcage and limbs, Ino wouldn’t allow her waning energy to get in the way of her quest for respect, coin, and ultimately her life. She smashed more skulls, stomped on fallen bodies, ripped out spinal cords, but the zombies kept getting back up for more. Even the crow got in on the action when he pecked behind Ino’s ears. She swung at the bird, but he kept dodging and laughing the whole time, turning Ino’s ice cold blood into boiling magma. Even as more zombies grabbed her, she ripped her flesh away from their sharp grips and chased after the bird.

When Ino finally latched onto the crow’s tail feathers and seethed with bloodlust as she imagined ripping the little guy apart, a heavy metal punch to the gut doubled her over and caused her to dry heave on the ground. The zombies were called off as Ino touched her damp wound. She knew it was her own blood and not that of the crimson weather. She could feel her naked ribcage because there was no skin to protect it. That punch came from Shatter Man himself, who stood over her with his red visor glowing and blinding her with every flash.

“Go ahead…finish me off…what are you waiting for?!” begged Ino, spitting out blood in between words.

“You exhausted your body, battled my minions, and put your life at risk for a little bit of respect?” said Shatter Man. Ino tucked her head in shame as she laid in the fetal position waiting to die. “Everybody who tried to claim my life has the same story: a minority mercenary looking for acceptance from their peers. Killing me will suddenly net them the happiness they believe they’re entitled to. Truth is, young lady…you could cure cancer and end worldwide hunger all in the same day. You’re still going to be laughed at. You’re still going to be hated by society. Why? Because ignorance and fear are easier to accept than progressive values.”

Tears welled up in Ino’s eyes as this truth bomb hit her harder than Shatter Man’s punch to her guts. “I don’t want to be a horse anymore,” she sobbed. “If being a normal human will get them to leave me alone, then I’ll take it. I never got racial pride anyways.”

“It doesn’t get more ordinary and boring than laying six feet deep in the ground, no matter what race you identify as. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to please others to get the respect you deserve. You don’t have to conform to tradition. If you want respect, you’ve got to beat it out of those who deny it to you. You think I chose to be a robot? You think I was born with the name Shatter Man? I didn’t win any popularity contests with my background. Why do you think I have a price on my head? It would have only been a matter of time until you had a price on yours.”

Ino spit up more blood and wiped away her tears with her dress sleeve. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? I’m already on my way to hell. At least in hell, they’re honest about what kind of torture they’re going to give me. Here on earth, they just disguise it as making whatever country they live in ‘great again’.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Shatter Man, waving his arm in the sky to show off his bloody rain. “You can have a second chance at life just like my minions. As zombies, they don’t have the highest social ranking. But they take full advantage of their second chance. They hunger for revenge against a society that never wanted them when they were alive. They were and still are weirder than any horse woman they’ve ever seen. Let the blood rain flow into you. Join my army. Don’t wait for respect. Take it from them with both hands.”

The bloody rain poured through Ino Kara’s wounds as she laid on her back waiting for sweet necromancy to overtake her. A warming sensation spread throughout and she didn’t feel like shivering anymore, whether it was because of fear or cold weather. Her eyes rolled back in her head like she was in an orgasmic trance. Her tired body blazed with energy and happiness she hadn’t felt in a long time. Her pain numbed out and was replaced with a massaging sensation throughout her chest, legs, and head.

Slowly and shakily, she rose from the ground. Her stomach pounded with hunger, but not for food and certainly not for hay. She hungered for flesh. She thirsted for blood. Her tormentors would turn into victims. Her cannibalistic meals would taste juicier than a steak dinner. She licked her blood-covered lips and groaned with lust.

Shatter Man placed a hand on her shoulder. “Welcome to my army. You can stay for as long as you desire. They say the taste of vengeance is bittersweet, but you’ll find it to your liking. You will be loved and respected…or else!”

Ino Kara had no words for her seductive master, only groans. Then again, she wouldn’t have to debate the harmful effects of racism with the world ever again. Either her victims took yes for an answer…or they would get chewed up and spit out with no remorse. Ino smiled at that idea. Her newly rotten teeth would make her face look even more horrifying to the racists she would eventually devour. She was strangely okay with that. Fuck beauty. Fuck love. Fuck everybody in this butt ugly world!

Angel's Share

The rift between Alex Macintosh and her so-called “lord and savior” grew with every bigoted slur that came out of a preacher’s mouth. It was already a yawning chasm from an early age. Now it was a dark black hole that sucked all of the life out of her. Going to church wasn’t as fun as she remembered it being. The fairytales weren’t as fascinating. The loving spirit wasn’t as warm. Everything in this mega church full of enthusiastic worshippers revolved around money these days.

How much money could Pastor Shawn Hawkins swindle out of his followers? How much of it would actually go to the poor? How much of it would fund his vacation in Neo Hawaii? The deeper Alex dug into his bank account, the more obvious the answers became. There she was in a shadowy corner of the church tapping away on her smart phone and thumb drive. Her dark trench coat and equally dark scarf around her face made hiding in the shadows that much easier. It also helped matters that the thousands of people packing the arena were too busy praying for things they’d never get on their own.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” shouted a young man into the microphone. His voice temporarily jarred Alex out of her hack job, but ultimately she thought nothing of it and went back to work. “Put your hands together for the messenger of God himself! The angel from the heavens above! The warrior of worship! The preacher of perfection! Here he is: Pastor Shawn Hawkins!”

The raucous clapping and lurching from the congregation once again snapped Alex out of her work. They were so obnoxious with their zeal that she failed to concentrate on what was most important: getting Pastor Hawkins’s ill-gotten fortunes back into the hands of those who needed it. Just a few more bars of code…just a few more clicks…”Damn it!” she whispered to herself. She quickly covered her mouth considering where she was saying it, but still nobody paid attention to her.

As the audience clapped and some of them did back flips and cartwheels in the audience, Pastor Shawn Hawkins descended from the ceiling dressed in flowing red robes. He really was an angel from heaven with his feathery wings gently flapping and lowering him to the stage. “I’ve seen better wings on a plate of KFC,” murmured Alex as she struggled to focus on her hack job.

The raven-haired, thick-bearded Pastor yanked the microphone out of his hype man’s hand and motioned for his congregation to sit down and shut up, which they gladly did. Alex couldn’t believe the smiles on their faces, the tears in their eyes…and the dollar bills folded up in their hands. “Here we go…” she muttered.

Taking a karate stance in the center of the stage, Pastor Hawkins belted his sermon into the microphone like a heavy metal singer moonlighting as a fat-shaming fitness guru. “Sinners! All of them! Each and every damned soul outside of this church today will have no such access to the pearly gates! They choose not to come here and choose not to give their welfare money to the heavens above! They are vile! They are rotten! For every penny they pinch, they are keeping the Christian revolution from taking place! That will not happen on my watch! Can I get an amen?!”

“Amen!” said everybody not named Alex Macintosh, who still thumbed away on her smart phone, still chipping away at Shawn’s bank account.

Pointing his hairy finger out into the crowd, he shouted, “You see that?! The sinners and nonbelievers call that fanaticism, but I call it reality! God is your reality! This world we’ve created for ourselves inside this church is the only thing that’s real to us now! Forget the vegetable-munching hippies! Forget the rock and roll niggers! Forget the transgender fags! They hold no power of us!”

That last slur had Alex’s eyes watering with rage as she looked up from her screen to unleash a hellish look upon her tormentor. He couldn’t see her even as he flapped his wings and floated around the church, but she saw him with tunnel vision, so much so that she forgot to keep cracking the code. She wanted so much to rip his tongue out, but also knew that Shawn Hawkins was a martial arts expert and often used his trade to intimidate “sinners” into giving him money.

“I fly around this room today and I see heavenly beauty!” As if right on cue, congregation members grinned up at him and held out their wads of cash. “You’re not just giving me your hard-earned money. You’re buying something with your dollars. You’re buying a revolution! You’re buying paradise! You’re buying a weapon against the darkness of hell!”

Alex shook her head and got right back to work cracking the code. Pastor Hawkins’s words began to blend together in a cacophony of screaming and prejudice, so much so that Alex didn’t even notice him flapping directly above her until she saw his reflection in her screen. “Come on, damn it!” she whispered as she grew closer to cracking his password.

“Who said that?! Who in God’s good name said that in my church?!” roared Shawn. Alex dropped her phone in panic and almost shattered the screen. She crab-walked against the wall in an attempt to hide from her accuser. She even held her knees to her chest to make herself small. But there he was descending upon her, the flaps of his wings creating deafening whooshes, the anger on his reddening face palpable and tense.

“Come to me, harlot,” said Shawn as he held out his hand. Alex couldn’t. She was frozen in fear. “I said come to me, you devil’s whore!” He stomped over to her and her phone crunched beneath his army boots. The congregation stared at her with wide-eyed shock while Shawn picked up the remains of the phone and instantly deciphered what Alex was trying to do.

“It appears we have a thief in our midst, my children. Stealing is a sin! Stealing from the lord is a MORTAL SIN!” Shawn stared hellfire into Alex’s soul and she could do nothing but cower in the corner and shiver. He ripped off her scarf and revealed another “sin” to the congregation. The blond hair extensions, the white makeup, the poorly smudged blue lipstick, they all led him to one conclusion. “Transgender whore!”

Alex could feel the boos and “Whore!” chants radiating off the congregation and piercing her skin like daggers. She tried to stand up, but her legs were too wobbly and her head was swimming laps around this church. She eventually found her equilibrium by holding onto a stair railing. “Please!” she begged in a low, trembling voice. “Just let me go…I’ll never bother you again…it’s just that I…”

“Silence!” barked Shawn as he punched a hole in the wall next to her head, causing her to trip over her own quaking fear. She couldn’t even crawl down the stairs without Shawn placing his boot across her ankle. The harder he pressed, the louder she screamed. “You dare steal from a house of worship?! You dare steal from the lord almighty?! That is inexcusable! I shall send you to hell myself, you filthy whore!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, just take my flash drive and take your foot off of me!” She blindly chucked the flash drive at him hoping he would catch it. However, her heart and brain pumped her with so many chemicals that she miscalculated how hard she threw it. It bounced off of one of his feathers and exposed wiring underneath. The hacking properties of the device caused even more sparks to shoot out of what was now revealed as his mechanism. The congregation gasped in shock while Shawn’s hardened facial expression grew soft with worry. He even took his foot off of Alex’s leg.

Trying to regain her breath, Alex pointed at the fake mechanical wings and said, “You see that, everyone? He’s not even a real angel. His money isn’t being used for a Christian revolution! He fooled you all! Thou shalt not bear false witness, anyone? He tricked you all into becoming bigots! He tricked you all into giving away your money to what will eventually be his expensive vacation! If you don’t believe me, look on that flash drive! Look on whatever’s left of my phone! The more you hate people like me and the other so-called ‘fags’, the richer he becomes and the poorer you all become!”

Shawn kneeled down beside his victim and smiled at her. “Don’t you get it by now? These people don’t care about any of that. They don’t care about you. Did they care when our president said he would grab a certain part of the female anatomy? No. Did they care when a certain Supreme Court justice was accused of doing much worse to said anatomy? No. These people know who the real enemy is and who their friends really are. They want entry into heaven. They know they’re not going to get it by listening to a transgender thief whore like you!”

“Is…is this true, everyone?” asked Alex. Her answer came in the form of angry stares from the congregation, not at the one swindling them, but at the one they were told to hate. Their hatred hurt her badly. She could feel her heart racing and her mind numbing to the violence that would become of her very shortly.

Shawn slowly stalked Alex as she crawled down the staircase. As soon as she moved too fast for everyone’s comfort, the congregation and their Pastor charged after her in a screaming rage. She almost tripped over her fear again when she tried to get up, but this time she bolted out of the emergency exit and set off a blaring fire alarm. Fire sprinkles set off even more sparks on Shawn’s mechanical wings and his congregation crawled on top of him to put out the electrical storm. Alex used this distraction to dash down the street, her legs trembling and aching the whole way.

She ran until she couldn’t do so anymore. Her lungs burned, her heart exploded, and her eyes dripped with wetness as she hunched over on the street corner. “How could they not care?!” she mumbled unintelligibly. “How could they not fucking care!” She stomped her high heeled boot on the ground and broke said heel in the process. “Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

“Excuse me, Miss!” said a homeless man with sunglasses. “Can you spare me some change?”

How about that? He actually said the right gender prefix. But such a small victory was nothing to celebrate as Alex wiped away burning tears from her reddened face. “I don’t have a dime,” she confessed. After a silence hung between them, she pointed at the mega church and said, “But they do. Why don’t you go ask them yourself?” Alex walked away hoping at least one person got the message she was trying to send.

Robo Heck

“How in the hell did the mechanics fuck this one up?” blurted David Masters V as he twisted various bolts into his gigantic robot with a monkey wrench. Lost and alone in a remote island lush with tropical vegetation, David cringed at the smoke and steam floating freely from his machine’s engine. He tried rapping it several times with a hammer. Nothing. He tried pouring lake water onto it to cool it off. Nothing. He tried twisting even more bolts with that pathetic monkey wrench of his. Electrical storm that zapped the tip of his finger. The pilot sucked on his wound and murmured, “There’s going to be some fucking hell to pay when I get back to base!”

The earth shook beneath David and all he could think was, “Oh no, not again! What now?!” He frantically twisted bolts and screws with his monkey wrench thinking the big ass machine was going to explode in a cataclysm of fiery death. The engine smoked some more. The electrical storm zapped him in his other finger. While sucking on his new wound, he kicked his machine and ran off to hide in the bushes. The earth trembled some more and nearly flipped David on his back. All he could do was clutch the bush roots for dear life and ride out whatever the hell was going on here. Forget sucking his zapped finger, he should have been sucking on his thumb.

Just when he was ready to cry for mommy so many miles away, the ground ceased shaking. Slowly David released his grasp of the bush root and backed away with tender steps. He fell on his ass after colliding with something sharp, which turned out to be a toenail. “What the fucking hell?!” whispered David fearfully as he took one look at the sky above and saw a giantess standing over him with a menacing scowl on her face. David’s sick twisted mind, she could have been a looker if she was human-sized, with her braided blond hair, golden bra, flowing green leather skirt, and wicker flip-flops.

The giantess leaned her face towards David’s so that he could feel the venom and sickness washing over him some more. He shivered while trying to crab walk away from her, but a row of palm trees halted his path. “That’s it, I’m fucking toast!” he whimpered to himself.

The giantess aimed her treacherous gaze at David’s robot, pointed at it with her freight train finger, and asked, “How dare you bring this war machine to my island?!”

“W…war machine? War machine? Hehehehe! No, you have the wrong idea,” stuttered David as he used the tree bark to help himself to his feet. “I’m not a soldier. I’m just a civilian contractor. I’m a builder, that’s all. That’s just a cutting torch he’s holding.”

“Hmm…cutting torch, huh?” She yanked the machinegun out of the robot’s hand, aimed it at the robot itself, and blasted it to shreds until the weapon was out of ammo. David ducked down in the fetal position to avoid pieces of shrapnel slicing him to bits. They were already stuck in the trees and damn near knocked them over. And then the giantess tossed the unloaded rifle across the forest and watched it roll down a mountain hill before it crashed into the ocean and sank like a stone. “Nice cutting torch,” she mocked.

David stood up once again, but this time staggered around nervously and almost fell over. He tried his damnedest to be brave like the soldier he lied about not being, but all that came out were weak little squeaks. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, missy? That was a million dollar piece of military equipment. The global government is going to be furious with you. There’s no telling what kinds of bombs they’ll drop on this place.”

“So you are a soldier, aren’t you? You had thirty seconds to lie to me and all you could tell me was that your assault rifle was a goddamn cutting torch. Maybe I should get a real cutting torch and seal your dick shut so that you can’t reproduce and create more war than there already is!” snapped the giantess.

David’s balls suddenly felt like they were the size of pumpkins when he took that insult. Arms akimbo, he shouted, “You know why they call me David Masters V? Because there’s five of us! Five generations of proud soldiers who would do anything to make this world a better place! You’re not only shitting on my family name; you’re shitting on the world as a whole!”

“So your idea of a better world is one where children and women are buried under rubble? Motherless children? Fatherless sons? You think you can win any argument with a war machine? It’s moronic men like you that made me want to stay on this beautiful island uninterrupted!” the giantess roared.

David chuckled, “For someone who hates war machines and how they kill tons of people, you look like you can just step on me and splatter my ass across the ground right now. What’s stopping you? Huh?”

“Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to stomp all over your military bases and government buildings, but if I did that, I’d be a massive hypocrite. Staying on this island is the only thing keeping me sane in times of war,” she said.

“Well, I hate to burst your bubble, Mother Theresa, but my superiors are going to figure out sooner or later that I’m MIA and they’re going to come looking for me. When they see what you’ve done with their million dollar robot, they’re going to bring the hammer down on your big ass! Bullets, missiles, bombs, you name it, they’ll drop it on your pathetic fucking island!”

The giantess gritted her teeth and scooped David in her massive hand while he kicked and screamed, “Put me down! You’re hurting me!”

“I hate to burst YOUR bubble, but your superiors aren’t coming to save you. You know why? Because you and that goddamn machine are fucking expendable!” the giantess belted, which nearly caused permanent ringing in David’s sensitive ears. “They probably think you’ve already died in the crash. They probably don’t even know this island even exists. You think you’re worth something to your government? Only in the form of yellow ribbons and god awful national anthem lyrics! If they cared so much about you, they wouldn’t have suffered you or any of your four ancestors to go to war in the first place!”

The more David Masters V squirmed in the giantess’s grasp, the softer his bones felt. The tightness alone made him feel as though his head would burst like a grape. Yet he remained defiant until the end. “You know how many times I’ve heard that crap from hippies like you?! My family has been protested so many times that we just shrug it off like annoying little gnats! Besides, what the fuck do you know about peace and love?! You’re squeezing me so fucking hard that I thought I heard my spine pop about three or four times!”

“I’m sure you’ve said this to your loved ones when they hugged you tightly enough that you couldn’t walk away from them,” said the giantess. David’s face grew solemn and long while she lectured him some more. “The reason us ‘hippies’ say these things all the time is because it’s true. You think I don’t feel the pain of war every single day? You think that just because I’m a giant that I can just shrug things off as easily as you? Wake up, dumb ass! I’m the enemy! I’ve always been the enemy! Anybody this goddamn tall is automatically a pariah!”

David tucked his chin to his chest in dark contemplation. His squirming and thrashing had ceased. His big fat mouth morphed into a big fat frown. He couldn’t believe he was feeling sympathy for someone who was capable of squashing him into jelly with one strong grip. He remembered all of the times he was picked on as a kid and during basic training. His mind felt like it was rubbed with Novocain all of those years, but when those memories came flooding back to him, he couldn’t resist any longer. Every swear word, every punch to the gut, every slap to the face, every obnoxious laugh, and every punch to the mouth flashed through his brain at a hundred miles an hour.

The giantess shook him hard to snap him out of his trance and he gagged at the gyro-psychotic sensation. “Sorry, I just…I just…Jesus, what the hell’s wrong with me?”

“It was all going to come out sooner or later, David,” said the giantess in a gentle tone reminiscent of a psychiatrist. “Nobody is immune to the ghosts inside their head, especially not in times of war. You can push them down as much as you want, but they’ll always come back stronger than ever. Your generals won’t admit it in public company, but it happens for them too. Believe it or not, it happens to me all the time. I can’t go out in the human world without getting a heedful of garbage. That’s why I like this island. It’s cool, it’s calming, and it’s perfect out here because I’m the only one.”

“Doesn’t it get lonely out here with just you here?” asked David while sheepishly turning his face away.

“As a matter of fact, it does, my friend. But it doesn’t have to be lonely anymore. And you don’t have to suffer those hideous thoughts anymore. You have no way of getting back anyways, with no war machine and no radio.” That last sentence was punctuated with a loving grin on the giantess’s face.

“Wait a minute…why are you…you’re not planning on….” David looked down at his groin and asked, “How exactly would that work?”

“It wouldn’t work, David. You’d be nothing more than a shit stain in the ground before you had the chance to blow.”

“Oh no, I wasn’t talking about that! I, uh…uh…” David’s face reddened like a strawberry at his own stupid assumption.

“On the contrary, my friend: I have much different plans for your permanent vacation therapy here. And while we’re on friendly terms, I have a name, you know: Amalia. Amalia Strom. But you can call my mommy if you’d like. Oh, do I have plans for you!”

David Masters V gulped a cannonball-sized lump down his throat while Amalia reached in her satchel for something that sounded fuzzy and leathery. Before the traumatized soldier knew it, his head was wrapped in a furry cap with pink bunny ears on top. Amalia cradled him in her arms like a baby and lovingly cooed, “My own little bunny rabbit! I will name him George and hug him and kiss him and squeeze him!”

After grimacing in pain from being hugged and squeezed, David formed a sweet smile on his face and said, “I loved that cartoon when I was a kid. And then I got spanked with a fucking belt for liking ‘faggot shit’. My bones hurt like hell, but keep squeezing anyways, Miss Strom!”

“And I will caress him and pat him and pet him and love him and rub him…”

David Masters V didn’t know if he felt warm and fuzzy inside because he could finally let go of his war trauma or because his organs were squishing together inside of him. For the first time in his life, his smile wasn’t because of a corny sex joke his drill instructor told him. His secret deep down wish came true after all.

"This Is Me" by C.E. Wilson

BOOK TITLE: This Is Me

AUTHOR: C.E. Wilson

YEAR: 2016

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Sci-Fi Romance

GRADE: Mixed

With all of the technological advances in this world, the Asist robot is second to none when it comes to companionship and servitude. Private school substitute teacher Chloe received one named Rogan for her graduation present. The two are inseparable best friends and sometimes lovers, which angers many of Chloe’s friends to the point of bigotry against these robots. Chloe’s human boyfriend Niven is especially enraged and makes any attempt he can to drive a wedge between her and the “fake” Rogan. Sooner or later, Chloe will have to make a decision between her perfect robot and the “real” Niven.

The major themes in this book are humankind’s relationship with technology and ignorant bigotry against anything they don’t understand. These themes are so perfectly interwoven that the novel could spark a debate in today’s real world, especially with such a divided racial structure as we have now. Asists are considered second class citizens because of their technological makeup, but others, like Chloe, argue that they have feelings too. Over a hundred years ago, white slave owners saw black people as less than dirt while abolitionists argued that the slaves were just as real as any other human being. There are also themes of ageism when it comes to young people being so obsessed with technology that they’ll limit human contact on purpose. There are all sorts of civil rights issues being dealt with in this novel. Maybe Chloe should have double majored in music AND political science.

But never forget that this is a romance novel above all else. In the case of Chloe, one of her main love interests is Niven Adams, a rival substitute teacher who wants the same job she’s applying for. If Ms. Wilson wanted to create a hate-worthy villain, she did an A+ job of it with Niven. He’s bigoted against Asists, he’s arrogant, he’s obnoxious, his friends are even more annoying, but his only redeeming quality seems to be that he’s a good singer. Ted Nugent is probably a good singer too, but that doesn’t mean I want to hang around him 24/7, especially after Mr. Nugent told Barack Obama to “suck on [his] machinegun”. With all of these things working against Niven, it makes me wonder why Chloe would ever be attracted to him in the first place. I cringe every time she pushes Rogan away in favor of Niven. Rogan may be a robot, but at least he’s sweeter than a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, which is more than I’ll ever say about Niven. This is comparable to the movie Clerks where Dante chooses the smoking hot cheater Caitlin over the loyal and low-maintenance Veronica.

The final thing I want to touch on is the argument structure between these characters. It seems to me that every time two characters want to go back and forth with each other, they’re hesitant to get to the point and they kill time with negative answers. Rogan is especially guilty of doing this when he argues with Chloe. He’s overly apologetic and always at war with himself, which I guess is appropriate for a robot whose sole purpose is to make Chloe happy, but after a while, it wears on the reader. While Rogan is the worst offender when it comes to filler dialogue, he’s hardly the only one who does this. Niven, Monica, and Fitz also tiptoe around their respective subjects.

The senseless arguments and Niven’s disgusting behavior both make me want to give this book a mixed grade. But C.E. Wilson shouldn’t feel too badly about it, because for every fault, there is a redeeming quality that will convince you to buy this book. The romance is hot, Chloe is likeable, the interactions between Fitz and his mini-Asist Bree are cute and cuddly, and of course, my favorite part of the book has to be the civics debate going on as it relates to racism and technophobia. Ms. Wilson has every right in the world to be proud of her work. If she spends more time crafting her dialogue and sorting out her characters’ priorities, then she can do great things in her next few novels. A mixed grade is nothing to sneeze at.

"Cyborgs and Sorcery" by Marie Krepps

BOOK TITLE: Cyborgs and Sorcery

AUTHOR: Marie Krepps

YEAR: 2017

GENRE: Fictional Short Stories

SUBGENRES: Sci-Fi and Fantasy

GRADE: Pass

A downtrodden cyborg must find four sacred items in order to restore peace to the warring kingdoms in which she lives. A warrior and her falcon companion must stick together in order to survive being hunted a clan of monstrous wizards. A treasure hunter struggles to remain calm as her crow companion keeps running his mouth in the middle of a search. A security guard’s family prepares a huge dinner celebration for him knowing it could be the last time they see him. Four tales of intense drama, cybernetic awesomeness, and mystical wisdom have been unleashed onto the world by the always prolific Marie Krepps. She proves once again that even the shortest of stories can pack the biggest punch.

Of all the stories in this collection, my favorite would have to be Mason’s Promise a.k.a. the one about the warrior and her falcon friend. The kinship between Celeste (the warrior) and Mason (the falcon) is as realistic as it is captivating. They have their arguments every now and then, but in the end, they always have each other’s backs. If a story is going to be called Mason’s Promise, you’d better believe there’s going to be some heavy trust and familial bonding. While I won’t spoil the ending, I will say that it’ll hurt worse than a falcon claw ripping your heart out. It hurts because Marie Krepps makes you care about these characters. Her stories have always been a vicarious experience for any reader, but this one exemplifies it the most.

I’ve always praised Marie’s abilities to show instead of tell and this short story collection will be no different. I’ve already mentioned how much of a heart-wrenching story Mason’s Promise is. But what about the others? What about Four Items (take a wild guess which one this is)? A cyborg’s quest to find her own humanity is always compelling since there are some humans in the real world who have the same struggle. Welcome Home, Brother has an ending that nobody will see coming, but when it hits you, it hits like a wrecking ball to the gut. Red Stone will be a huge deal for millennials due to the wonderfully placed reference of a certain 1980’s cartoon about vehicles that change into giant robots. Come to think of it, there isn’t a single bad story in this collection. There’s something in it for everybody even if sci-fi and fantasy aren’t your go-to genres.

One more strength I would like to point out is that Cyborgs and Sorcery is, and I’m not completely sure on this number, the sixteenth book published by Marie Krepps (if you’re counting stories she published under her real name of Ashley Uzzell). No matter what the number actually ends up being, this latest addition to her personal library shows that she has longevity in her career as an author. She is durable when it comes to writing long novels and she sneaks in a few short jabs with her collections. And the best part about her having this much mileage? She’s still a young adult who has a bright future ahead of her. If she continues to write wonderful stories like these, she won’t have to worry about the future ever again.

If you’re looking for awesomely-written short stories that will keep you entertained throughout this rollercoaster of a ride, look no further than Cyborgs and Sorcery. Yes, it will feel like it’s over too soon, but that’s the beauty of Marie Krepps stories: there will always be more because she’s the iron woman of Generation Y. No matter what book of hers you decide to pick up, she will never disappoint and she will earn your respect from the very first line. Excellent work, Marie! How does a passing grade sound to you?

Nothing

VERSE 1

A bikini selfie is worth more than true art

Gigantic tits are worth more than pure heart

Attention is currency worth more than gold

True love is distant, not close enough to hold

Favorites and likes have become so trite

To even those with the true creative might

Shallow values have come to mean something

Yet underneath it all, there’s all but nothing

CHORUS 1

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

A human body made of paper mache

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

A human mind to shape like clay

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

A human spirit to be taken away

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

A worthless story for another day

VERSE 2

A bold faced lie in a suit and tie

Will bring you to financial highs

A little fairytale going off the rail

Will serve you with papers in the mail

Free speech: silenced with duct tape

Free thought: silenced with mind rape

A big bank account has come to mean something

Underneath it all, you’ve got absolutely nothing

CHORUS 2

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

A human life made of chips and wires

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

A human love with no passionate fires

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

A human story for the funeral pyre

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

A human body far past retired

VERSE 3

What good is power when it’s used for evil?

What good is love when it isn’t for the people?

What good is money when it’s wastefully spent?

What good is anger when you’re not hell-bent?

What good is attraction when you’re just a fraction?

A former shell of a man who burst into action?

Questions and answers should both mean something

But when there’s something to seek, we find nothing

CHORUS 3

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

Robotic body with a putty face

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

Robotic logic so full of disgrace

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

Robotic motherboard all but fried

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

Robotic judgment as national pride

FINAL BRIDGE

There really is no dark side of the moon

But it’s where our heroes will go very soon

The artists, the geniuses, everyone in between

Our final generation is what we have seen

Weapons and Warriors

“What are we looking at here? Formaldehyde, necrolium, nitro benzene. This thing actually has over seven thousand chemicals. Don’t get me started on what they do to you. Prematurely wrinkled skin, stunted lung growth, tooth loss, cancer…”

“Cut the bullshit, Dr. Archer, you know damn well this is wrong,” said Nurse Taylor Patrick, who stood across the mad scientist’s lab in pink scrubs with her arms folded tightly to her chest.

“Wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Miss Patrick,” said Dr. Adam Archer as he ate a slice of pepperoni pizza while twisting the last few bolts on his “project” with a monkey wrench. “You know those goddamn hippies outside of our lab? They just so happen to be getting in the way of production. And if it wasn’t for the hard work of these loyal CEO’s, you’d be out of a job. Well, not really a job. More like an internship. Or indentured slavery. Haha!”

Dr. Archer dropped a slice of pepperoni into the “life core” of his machine and ate it shamelessly, causing Taylor to cover her mouth in disgust. “Look, I need this internship, I really do, but putting a serial killer’s mind into a robot body? That’s just sick and twisted. Not only that, but it’s probably illegal too! You know, there’s always that remote possibility of prosecution.”

“Don’t worry about the legal shit, Miss Patrick,” said Dr. Archer as he finished tightening the last bolt on his robot. “It’s nothing a little hush money can’t fix. And trust me, we’ve got enough hush money to go around, kind of like that welfare shit you hippie liberals love so much. Haha!” Taylor rolled her eyes and shook her head.

The puffy white haired scientist in a dark lab coat stepped backwards to admire his handiwork…and to uncomfortably wrap his arm around Taylor’s shoulders. “You see this, my dear?” said Dr. Archer as he waved his hand about for theatrical purposes. “I want you to meet the new enforcer for Sexton-Naylor Oil Trade.”

“SNOT?” said Taylor when putting the company name into an acronym.

“We don’t call it that, sweetheart,” said Adam before patting Taylor on the shoulder and causing her to shove his arm off. The mad scientist danced happily over to the power box to flip the electrical switch while Taylor sat down in the fetal position with bile coming up from her throat. The poor nurse rocked back and forth silently praying to herself that she would live though this scientific nightmare.

“World? Meet Cain Gutwrench, society’s most sadistic, bloodthirsty, animalistic, and gory serial killer! He’s perfect for slaughtering protesters and anybody else who decides to screw up business for us! Are you ready? I said! Are! You! Ready?!” Adam threw down the electrical switch and lightning bolts flooded through the cords attached to this hellish creation. The robot thrashed and wailed about while Taylor Patrick cried softly to herself. Was this internship really necessary? Were there no other jobs out there for a nurse like her? How did she wind up in this shit-hole of a project? What the fuck was she thinking?!

The lightning flowing through the robot’s body turned purple, green, and blood red whilst crashing into the metallic body in larger waves. Taylor slowly picked her head up from her fetal position to see that the electricity was getting slower and gentler before it fizzed out. The cords running through Cain Gutwrench’s body snapped off and the creature from the ninth circle of hell slowly sat up on the table with an ogre-like groan.

Cain’s face was that of a metallic dragon. His body was that of a robotic skeleton. His hands and feet both held scythe blades that could cut through a telephone pole like a stick of butter. He had black bat wings on his back to make his appearance even more frightening. The life core in his chest had the appearance of blood and ooze in a nuclear container.

Taking one look at this robotic monster caused Taylor to tuck her head and cry a waterfall onto her knees. She wanted so badly to leave this place, but she was too terrified to stand up and move. She shook harder than one of Dr. Archer’s power tools.

“Come on, sweetheart, don’t be like that! It’s going to be amazing! There’s going to be blood everywhere on the streets! It’ll be great!” boasted the sadistic scientist, who received a slash to the gut for his efforts. Taylor screamed like a banshee as Cain Gutwrench stood up from the table and hoisted Dr. Archer’s gushing corpse high in the air. The murderous robot gave a sick laugh before tossing the limp body off to the side and allowing the stomach wound to soak the floor.

As Cain slowly stalked the nurse in the corner, Taylor screamed bloody murder once again before crawling quickly on her hands and knees toward the door. The robot flapped its bat wings and stood in Nurse Patrick’s way, causing her to scream and sob some more while on her knees.

“Please! Please don’t kill me! I’ll do whatever you want! I swear! Just please let me go!” Taylor begged with her hands together prayer style.

Cain held a finger to his monstrous face and creepily shushed her. With tears and snot rushing down the nurse’s face, Cain petted her hair gently and sang in his demonic rasp a lullaby for her. “Hush little baby. Shh! Don’t say a world. Momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. Shh. It’s okay, little princess. I won’t let the big bad monster hurt you.”

Taylor tucked her head down and puked all over Cain’s bladed feet, to which the serial killer said, “Oh, for shit’s sake! You can stop acting now! We all knew you switched out life cores! Well, everybody except Dr. Archer, but you get the point!”

“Sorry,” said Taylor in a weak, shaky voice. “it’s just that seeing the violence for the first time…it’s just a little too much, that’s all.”

“You saw it alright, Taylor. And you’re going to see it again…and again…and again. Did you already forget how angry you were when the CEO stiffed you on your payments? Did you already forget how traumatized you were when they stuck you in this dump basement with that pervert Adam Archer?” Cain leaned his head down so that he was making direct eye contact with his co-conspirator. “Did you also forget that time when Adam offered you money to put your mouth on his…you know what? You’re right. It is a lot to take in at once.”

The trembling voice turned from frightened sadness to volcanic anger when Taylor said, “Trust me, Cain, I didn’t forget about any of that. I had fantasies every night about killing Dr. Archer. I thought about slaughtering every executive in this whole fucking building for the shit they put me through. It’s all I could think about. All those sleepless nights led to this moment. And yet…I still feel empty and cold. This isn’t right, Cain. This isn’t right at all.”

“Do I also need to remind you that it was you who swapped out life cores in my body with out Dr. Archer’s knowledge? Just because you don’t like the results of your actions, doesn’t mean you’re excused from them. There’s no turning back, Taylor. Either you see this whole thing through, or you can puss out and sit in a jail cell. Which will it be?” asked Cain.

Taylor wiped the tears and snot from her face and slowly rose to her feet to give the robotic demon her answer. “I’m sorry, Cain. I really am. I can’t go through with this, not after seeing Dr. Archer looking the way he does. You slaughtered him like a farm animal. It smells awful in here!”

“It’s okay, Taylor. I understand,” said Cain as he put his bony hand on her shoulder. “Not everybody can handle this kind of violence. Which is exactly why…I’m not letting you live a life as a prisoner. Then again…you won’t be living at all!”

In one swift motion, Cain kicked Taylor in the stomach and impaled her body on his scythe feet. Her spine was severed, her life juices poured out of her like a biblical flood, and the room just got a whole lot smellier now that she emptied her intestines and bladder. After discarding her corpse on the floor like common trash, Cain said, “I’m sorry, Taylor. It had to happen. You were going to jail for this one way or another. But since you took the coward’s way out, there was no future for you. Revolution is only for the brave.”

There were heavy knocks on the bolted steel door of the laboratory along with shouts of, “Open up! Security! Open up this goddamn door now before we get the battering ram! Move it!”

Cain Gutwrench reached inside his life core, pressed a few buttons, and detonated a secret bomb that Taylor tucked away in the core should things go south. They went south in a hurry and now a volcanic flow of hellfire blew through the laboratory, taking the SWAT-like security team and anybody else standing around with him to the underworld. Even with the sprinkler system going nuts to put out the fire, it grew and grew until the SNOT building resembled a corporate effigy. One way or another, this shit was going to end badly for somebody. It wasn’t best for business. But then again, if Taylor was still alive, she wouldn’t give the shits that came out of her intestines when she did die.

Battleground

Charles McLean was a lucky man, either because of his Irish heritage or the fact that he could very well have a golden horseshoe up his ass. Only someone of his luck could say he was allowed to train at Battleground MMA Gym despite constantly knocking out and injuring his sparring partners. Did he even know the proper rules for sparring? Was he even dimly aware that knockouts and injuries weren’t supposed to happen? Did he already lose sight of the fact that it was all supposed to be practice and not an actual fight?

Ignorance wasn’t much of an excuse these days, because the only way the light heavyweight cage warrior could ever have access to the gym was after it was closed, which meant a screwed up sleep schedule and nobody would be there to return the favor of knocking him out. Believe it or not, this was the head coaches’ idea of being charitable to someone who deserved no charity at all.

It was ten o’clock at night and the red Mohawked Irish-American entered the gym in preparation for a light heavyweight championship match he had coming up. With nobody there to help him train or to coach him, he was all on his own. Charles seemed to be taking isolation a little better than most would. He went around to the various treadmills, stair steppers, and Jacob’s Ladder machines and beefed up his cardio like the super athlete he was. In a five-round championship match, cardio was the key to success.

Charles had spent two hours in the gym just working on his strength and conditioning. By the time he ran his final few steps on the treadmill, he was a sweaty mess. His bare chest was covered in perspiration, his black MMA shorts were damp, and his shoes and socks smelled like a bus station bathroom. Despite all of the hard work he put in, he stood proudly with his hands on his hips as opposed to huffing and puffing on the floor ready to pass out.

But there’s a reason why the sport was called mixed-martial arts and not cardiovascular arts: because beating the shit out of your opponent was the only way to win. Without a sparring partner, Charles thought he was going to have to clock out early. And then he noticed the boxing ring in the center of the gym had a black body bag mounted against one of the turnbuckles.

“Is this supposed to be funny?” yelled Charles to no one in particular. “What, am I supposed to fight with a dead body now? Cute, guys! Really fucking cute!” He stomped his way to the ring and stepped between the ropes to investigate this special package. Charles even gave the bag a sniff to make sure it was really a corpse. The odor was horrendous, but then he realized it was his own swampy armpits. He was definitely getting in the showers after this was over.

With mild trepidation, Charles McLean unzipped the body bag from head to toe and found something that put a whacked out smile on his face. “No way. No fucking way. Are you guys serious?” The object in the body bag was a 6’11” tall robot dressed in black gothic attire from his trench coat to his boots. Even the spiky black hair and black and white makeup was enough to give away the chilling appearance. Charles wasn’t chilled. He was thrilled.

He pulled the robot out of the bag and tossed the bag aside with excitement, for this was like opening presents at Christmastime. He looked the warrior up and down with wide-eyed excitement and heart-beating amazement. The name “Floyd” was written across the robot’s black tank top in the creepiest font imaginable.

“Alright then, Floyd. Let’s see what you’ve got!” said Charles as he looked for the on switch to this robot, which ended up being on its asshole. “That’s right, guys, laugh it up! Because this motherfucker is going to the scrap yard!” The light heavyweight brawler flicked the switch and sparks shot out of its crevices, sending the hulking brute backwards several feet.

Once Floyd the training robot stopped showering sparks, he began to look around the arena like this was all new to him. The mechanical nightmare looked across the ring at a bewildered Charles McLean with disdain and disgust. Once both combatants put their dukes up and got in their fighting stances, it was time to go to war.

Charles was the early aggressor in this sparring session as he rushed up to Floyd and threw haymaker after haymaker, each punch easily bobbed and weaved by the mechanical drone. Floyd threw one quick and stiff jab and caught Charles on the jaw, back him up a little, but doing not too much damage.

“You want to screw around with me, Floyd? Heh. Floyd. What kind of name is that for a badass robot?!” taunted Charles, an action which almost got him knocked out with a barely dodged head kick. Floyd started throwing other kicks to the hamstring, shin, and ribcage. Being made of metal allowed the pissed off robot to inflict sharp amounts of pain to the normally rough and tough Charles McLean, who was stacked from head to toe with muscles and tone.

Charles threw a few kicks and punches of his own, but Floyd kept him at bay with his height advantage, quick jabs, and leg kicks. After a while of being smacked around with metal parts, Charles was beginning to bruise up. He had a mouse under his right eye, a slash on his left thigh, and a lump on his ribcage.

But if Floyd thought for a minute that Charles was learning his lesson about treating his sparring partners better, he was dead wrong. Out of frustration, the MMA contender threw a blatant kick between Floyd’s legs and brought the mighty giant to his knees. Charles followed it up with an illegal knee to the skull that landed Floyd on his back, seemingly unconscious.

“Yeah! Who’s the man now, bitch?! I’m the goddamn man around here! Woo!” cheered Charles McLean as he danced around the ring holding his fists up in victory. His ego was inflated to the size of a hot air balloon.

And then Floyd nipped up in an attempt to deflate that ego forever. Charles turned around and immediately stopped celebrating his ill-gotten “victory” when he saw the mighty robot staring down at him with even more venom than before. Sparks were flying from his crevices like they were before, but in even greater volume and with even more rage.

Charles looked on at this angry display with paralyzing fear. If one of the sparks touched him, he would need to be rushed to a burn ward. With nobody here to call 9-1-1, it was a deathtrap in the making. Just when the final spark was about to touch the frightened combatant’s foot, the showers stopped instantly and were replaced with a good old fashioned blitz.

Floyd bolted up to Charles with superhuman speed and clutched him around the throat with one powerful hand before hoisting him to the sky and putting a spiked blade to his throat. Not even the mighty number one contender could deal with this kind of punishment and started kicking and squealing in pain to prove it.

The gothic robot put his face in Charles’ reddening face and said, “Please exit the MMA business, punk!” With one arm, Floyd tossed the 205 lb. Charles over the ropes and watched him crash land through one of the metal benches. The normally cocky fighter was rolling around on the ground clutching his back and screaming like a girl.

Such a pathetic display got no sympathy from the cold and calculating Floyd, who proceeded to slowly step outside the ring and kneel down to where Charles was writhing and squealing. With one fist held high, Floyd said in his demonic voice, “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me!” All it took was one stiff punch to the jaw and Charles was out like a light. No more writing, no more growling, only silence and sleep remained.

By the time Charles woke up, which wouldn’t be until the very next morning, his head and body were pulsating with dull pain and he didn’t want to make any effort to move his body. He thought he was in the afterlife after taking a beating like that, but he was right back where he was when he was knocked out: on the floor of Battleground MMA Gym. The only difference was that there were people there who were happy to see him broken and bruised.

One of the head coaches of the gym looked over Charles’ glassy and wet eyes and said, “You have a 13-0 MMA record, which means you don’t know what it’s like to be knocked unconscious or submitted. And then you ran into Floyd and hopefully he did more damage to your ego than he did to your body.”

“Wha…wha…what about my match? What about my championship match?” said Charles with an aching jaw.

“Your match has been cancelled due to your injured state,” explained the coach. “But it’s probably for the best anyways. I hope you learned something from all of this, Charles. Be nice to your sparring partners and they’ll be nice to you. You’re probably too out of it right now to digest all of that, so maybe you’ll learn it eventually when I make you spar with Floyd again.”

The coach patted Charles on his painful shoulder and allowed the EMT’s t take him away. There was only one thing the Irish-American could say to having his ego deflated and his body broken at the same time: “Fuck!”