Electric Midnight - A Short Story

Posted by David Kim on

The following is a work of fiction. 

THE ELECTRIC DEMONS

It was always midnight. The machines calculated that if they kept the roof closed and blocked out the sunlight, that humans would go crazy and surrender. The Roof. It was a cute name for an invisible barrier that spanned the whole sky seamlessly. The Central Brain controlled the roof. We don't know exactly when it was constructed but that damn thing made everything virtual, the sun, the moon and the stars. Just for good measures it simulated a thirty kilometer asteroid once just to mess with us. Twenty-four hour day was something of fiction now. Few years ago the evil machines flickered the daylight on and off for a month that made the last surviving birds go crazy and slam into the concrete below. That was what the machines have become, angry metallic demons.

The machines waged a war on the humans with their fancy weapons for three hundred years. They tried everything imaginable. The thing about the human spirit was that we always found a way to adapt and survive. Tonight was no exception. 

Hundred meters above the street was Unit 1A-55, a fifth generation robotic owl with a camera lens for a head glided effortlessly through the nigh sky scanning for a high valued target. It never failed. 

Michael Weaver looked out of the window from his twentieth floor apartment building clenching his trusty PP-K1, a seven round slug, small but kicked like a mule. The fake full moon looked beautiful tonight. It was always full moon. He had a good view of the whole city. In the distance was down town beaming its night light onto the Roof that bounced off in all directions. He lived in a shitty part of the city like all humans did. The robot patrol left us alone if we were "vaccinated". It was another word for sterilization. Any "unvaccinated" humans were taken in a white van and never seen again. Weaver had the T.V on. The news was on. A robot mechanically read out an incident with a man in his forties who has stolen a valuable sample from a lab this afternoon and is highly dangerous. The A.I news anchor named the assailant: Michael Weaver. 

He turned around and turned the T.V off. On the pull out bed was a new born baby, his first son. He didn't steal him from no lab, he was born this afternoon to him and his dead wife who laid next to the baby. Beautiful Kate, the love of Weaver's life. 

On the sidewalk next to the entrance to Weaver's apartment were two vans, one white, one black. Inside the black van were twelve drone soldiers on standby to raid weaver's apartment. They were waiting for the green light from the Unit 1A-55. 

Weaver choked back tears and kissed Kate good bye and picked up his baby son gently and got ready to move. The 1A-55 picked up Weaver's heat signature and as it's cyclops eyes dilated. On the ground, the attack unit lit up like a Christmas tree as the back hatch of the van opened. In perfect unison, the attack humanoid drones got out swiftly and made their way up the stairs. On the roof of the apartment were more of the drones ready to ounce on weaver. 

Weaver saw that he was surrounded on his wrist watch. There were no way out. Every exit were covered. He's seen the way these robot thugs treat people. There were no way he was going to let thing tin cans lay their hands on his new baby son. He knows what happens once babies get taken in those white vans. He had plans and it just might work. 

Weaver went out into the hallway to use the elevator. When he heard the machines make their way around the corner he went back into his apartment. 

The machines had no reason to stop or hesitate. One of the drones kicked the Weaver's door down and scanned the room. It scanned Kates dead body and quickly jerked to other parts of the room. Weaver was facing the window holding his baby. The robot opened fire without remorse. In its vision, a message read target eliminated. 

Machines were very easy trick, because they were all about zeroes and ones. The robot soldiers only read the simulated hologram of Michael and his baby. He was never in the room. He's been waiting for the vans to turn up in his cruiser around the corner. Weaver made a mess of the white van with a flame thrower and pressed a button on his watch. His apartment exploded like a fire cracker. 

As long as he is breathing there was no way that his son was going to a robot butcher. As Weaver drove away the 1A-55 dropped from the sky shattering into useless pieces of junk. 

Written by DK. 

 

 

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