The Search for Ball Zero (13 page)

“
Straight outta
Terminator.” Perry whispered.

“
HK’s aren’t that big
man.” Tony corrected him.

“
Straight outta
Terminator… on crack!” Perry corrected his statement.

They moved from cover to cover, staying out
of sight as often as possible. Finally they reached a tree line
that encircled the warstore. There was no way to get closer without
going out in full sight. No one wanted to do that. Each person had
to split up and take cover behind individual trees. They sat
looking at the giant machine as it rested, a medium humming sound
emanating from it. Tony imagine how loud the thing must be when it
was “On”.

“
Ok, see it? Let’s go.”
Eric had had enough.

They heard a whooshing sound, like a Star
Trek door. From the middle front of

the warstore, a place they couldn’t see from
their position, some red lights rolled out, like Terminator eyes,
attached to some dark silhouettes.

Fozzie didn’t like it, she tried to leave.
Tony held her collar tight.

The two silhouettes grew as they came in
their direction. Everyone sat

motionless, in fear and awe. They finally
entered enough light for them to see details. Two robots!

Eric looked over at L with his eyes open as
wide as possible, possibly even wider than that. Everyone else was
silent and unmoving.

One robot was tall and skinny, the other
short and round.

The short one kind of looked like an
off-road R2D2 mixed with a Mars lander. It had 6 wheels, they
looked like they could run over nails all day and be fine. The body
was the R2D2 looking part, wider than tall, so not a perfect
circle. Short and squat, it probably had a low center of gravity.
The head didn’t spin, but it looked like the “eyes” went all the
way around, 360 vision. Its face had a few different lights, some
blinking, mostly red, a few green, some scanning back and forth
like Kit from Knight Rider. Along its body was many compartment
looking shapes, no doubt it had retractable arms just like its Star
Wars buddy. It seemed to have a scowl, if a robot can scowl.

The other was tall and lanky. If you had to
pick a robot it resembled, it would

be a mix between IG-88 and a T-800
endoskeleton. But it was probably 10 feet tall. It walked
bipedally, its feet were more like points than feet. Its IG-88 head
swivelled, but it also looked like it had 360 vision. It had
unusually long arms that hung below its knees, like a gorilla, even
though the were skinny, like the entire robot. It moved in a jerky
walk, slowly starting a step, then finishing it quickly and
heavily. Not a graceful walk, but very non-human and
intimidating.

The 2 robots walked in strange unison,
scanning and staring around.

They had seen a lot of crazy stuff in their
lives, but this was too much. Eric got a case of Space Madness,
even though he wasn’t in space. Maybe it could be called Robot
Madness, but he lost it. He took off running.

To the terror of the rest of Eric’s
fellowship, both robots stopped and focused in

their direction. Fozzie scrambled to get
free, twisting around and making too much noise, Tony let her go
and she sped off, the same direction as Eric.

The small robot made a beep and dirt shot
out from behind it as it peeled out on

the forest floor. Its body sank a bit and as
it sped off it resembled more of an off-road dune buggy than its
former self. The big robot bounded in long strides behind it. As
the robot duo reached the forest edge, the big robot jumped up an
amazing height and stuck its pointed feet in two different trees,
both trees crunched, made loud snapping noises, lurched and almost
collapsed. The tall robot was getting a better vantage point. It
jumped again, this time to the ground, both trees it was using
snapped and crackled down to the forest edge, their use done. The
ground rumbled as it landed.

Perry, L and Tony looked back. The whole
scene in view. Eric, running as fast

as possible, looking back over his shoulder
every few steps. Tiny Fozzie running her motor as fast as it could
go, making her own little wake of dirt. She was actually catching
and passing Eric. Behind them, short robot was ripping through the
forest, hitting bumps and catching air, but handling it like an
expert kid on a R/C course he knew by heart. Tall robot bounding
like the giant robot it was.

“
What do we do?” L didn’t
know.

“
Go.” Perry took off,
pulling his shotgun around and getting ready.

Tony took out one of his pistols and
followed, L in stride. Tony thought about

firing at them, or shooting in the air to
distract them. “Too dangerous” He thought. Tony and Perry ran next
to each other for a second, “Ball three, baby.” they both
thought.

“
Fozzie!” L said
worriedly.

The chase was unfolding in front of the
group, Perry and Tony contemplating every second if they should
shoot. But they were far enough away that a shotgun was useless and
they were running so fast pistol fire would be inconsistent.
Someone shot though. It sounded like a dart gun or something, an
automatic dart gun. Puffs of dirt mixed with electricity popped
near Fozzie.

“
No!” L screamed and
slowed down. L thought The Foz was gone. But she

wasn’t. Whatever they shot at her missed.
The little bitch sped up, shifting into a gear no one knew she had,
Fozzie passed Eric at the bottom of the hill.

“
Damn you little bitch!”,
Eric thought. There was no Juicy for Eric to outrun

and shift blame to this time. The robots
closed on him, he was dead tired, a druggie running at full speed
doesn’t last for very long. He was their new target.

The small robot continued zipping through
the forest floor like a pro, leading the

chase, catching air over roots and bumps,
but never losing control in any way. The tall robot strode behind
it in heavy spikey steps.

The dart sound quickly went off three times
again. Eric was hit mid stride and

dropped like a stiff bag of potatoes.

L stopped. Tony had stopped when he saw Eric
fall, but then aimed his pistol and started running towards them
when he saw Eric was still struggling. Perry was closing in also,
shotgun in ready. They were still more than 100 feet away, but
closing quick as Eric and the robots were no longer moving.

Eric was dazed from being tased, but he
recovered quickly and tried to scramble

up the rock face at the bottom of the hill.
He was quickly half way up, the R2D2 robot rolled up to the rocks,
it could do nothing. Eric looked like he was out of their reach and
about to scramble to safety over the edge. He looked over his
shoulder, “Fuck you.” He thought. He made it.

The tall robot disagreed, and with an eerie
length that seemed even beyond the

ten foot robot’s grasp it reached and
grabbed Eric’s ankle before he could pull it over the edge. With
scary effortlessness, the robot’s 4 fingers closed on his ankle.
Even L heard the pop. Eric yelled in pain like a wild animal caught
in a trap.

His now liquid ankle leaked through the
robot fingers, red blood, white bone fragments and other purple and
black tendons oozed through like pasta. The robot pulled Eric off
the rock formation, he fell over ten feet and landed on his back
with a thud and the terrible grunt of a human getting the wind
knocked out of them. He kicked at the tall robot’s legs, it was as
effective as a baby kicking a skyscraper. It stepped towards him
with Terminator-like silent determinism.

Eric was still full of fight, he looked and
saw Tony and Perry running towards them, guns drawn. This gave him
some hope, and with a half breath yelled, “Fuck you!” He stood up
on his one good foot and attempted to tackle the tall robot like a
linebacker. The robot stood unaffected, but did have to adjust
itself to the new position and grabbed at Eric’s body.

They couldn’t shoot at the tall robot now,
Eric was tangled with it. Tony stopped running and focused on the
short one, aimed and unloaded his semi-automatic with 6 loud
cracks. They swear a bullet ricocheted off one of the tires, but
another bullet popped a different tire. 2 shots missed, hitting the
dirt in front of the little robot, Tony’s minor adjustment
corrected that and the last 2 shots were direct hits. The robot
launched a rooster tail of dirt again as it put the pedal to the
metal and peeled out. It took off, directly at Tony. Tony had a few
more shots and blasted the thing at least 4 times as is sped
towards him. Arms reached out from its short body and grasped at
the air like it wanted to grab Tony. Perry saw all of this and took
a few steps towards Tony, aiming and waiting for the right
moment.

About fifteen feet from Tony the little
robot hit a bump and caught air. Or did it

spring up by itself? No matter, it was now
flying through the air, reaching its little arms at Tony wanting to
grab his face.

Perry’s shotgun roared from their left,
blasting the flying R2D2 robot with a spectrum of shot and knocking
it off course. Tony was trying to head fake and dodge to the left,
but the boom of the shotgun forced him to dodge right. The flying
robot and Tony’s head collided, both fell back. Tony’s hands
reached up to his head and he fell face down in the dirt. The robot
landed on its wheels, like the damned thing always seemed to, and
zipped off back towards the warstore.

The humans now focused on the tall robot,
who seemed to be watching the

action, but was still tangled with Eric. One
of its hands grasped Eric’s body, his lower stomach on the right
side and raised him up over its head. Two big metal fingers on each
side of Eric’s body. It looked painful and awkward to be picked up
like that, like a vice squeezing and picking your body up by the
side of your stomach. The fingers again squeezed with scary
effortlessness. The skin on Eric’s stomach ripped and popped, blood
spilled across his body. With the sound of more ripping, Eric’s
body twisted, his skin tearing, holding up his weight. The robot’s
grip closed even more, cracking ribs and crushing organs into
paste. Eric’s body separated into two pieces, one piece was the
right side of Eric’s stomach with a few organs and cracked ribs,
still held in the robot’s grip raised above its head, the rest of
his body fell a long way to the ground with a slapping thud. Part
of Eric’s intestines were caught in the robot grip and they unwound
from his body as he fell, like the chain of an anchor being thrown
into the sea. When he hit the ground this time there was no
grunt.

The robot brought the chunk of Eric it was
holding up to its own “face”, looking at the chunky mash of oozing
human parts with a detached robotic curiosity. Then it looked down,
its eyes slowly following the intestine trail to Eric’s unmoving
body.

Perry was no longer wielding a shotgun, he
was holding something in his hand

and he hurled it at the tall robot. “Eat it
shit bag!” He taunted.

Tony and Eric both had played countless
hours of online gaming with Perry, they all knew when Perry said
“Eat it shit bag!”, he was throwing a grenade. Tony turned to run,
he was probably far enough away, but he wanted to be sure. He
gestured at L, “Get down.” She already was. Eric’s body even rolled
over, blindly taking cover after the audio clue.

The grenade flew at the robot, but it was a
bad throw and it started sailing up. It was about to miss the robot
and go over its head. Suddenly the gore covered hand of the robot
jerked up, catching the grenade in mid flight with amazing agility.
Slowly the robot brought the grenade down and looked it curiously.
It probably had never seen anything like this grenade from the
Vietnam era. The robots grip tightened, it was going to crush the
grenade just as easily as it had ripped apart Eric’s body. As the
robot’s grip tightened, the grenade’s outer shell twisted and
snapped.

“
After all these years, a
dud.” Went through Perry’s head.

The robot seemed to be gaining pleasure by
crushing the grenade right near its

face, examining it. Just as the robot’s fun
was about done, the grenade exploded. It shred the arm and hand
that was holding it, bending metal backwards towards its elbow. The
robot’s head was ripped open and ripped off, it popped backwards
and bounced a few times before stopping, blankly looking up at the
sky. The nearly 8 foot body froze, balanced for a few moments and
then plunged backwards to the ground like a statue. Its massive
weight sinking it deep in the dirt, dead as a door nail.

They all ran over. Eric was face down, not
moving. The big hole in his right

side was gore filled and what could only be
called “things” were sliding out. Perry rolled him over, half
expecting him to deliver a grenade joke like Eric always did.
Instead, he rolled over to a corpses face, teeth gritting, blood
everywhere it shouldn’t be, a dead stare.

“
Awww, fuck!” Perry rolled
him back over. “He’s dead.”

Tony was looking at the tipped over,
headless tall robot. Its severed neck was

almost like a human throat, but with black
oily liquid instead of blood. There was blood spattered on the
robot’s chest, probably Eric’s. Then he saw a bit of blood drool
out from behind a cracked piece of its metal outer shell. He
reached down and tried to peel a piece of its outer armor back, it
was thin but tough and didn’t want to bend. He pulled harder but it
wouldn’t bend. He kicked at it, it ripped his shoe.

“
Fucking piece of shit!”,
Perry ran over and blasted the robot corpse with a

point blank shotgun blast to the chest.

The corpse barely moved, but a chunk of its
outer armor ripped off. It was bloody underneath.