By David C. Daoust
There was ‘bout a second longer of confusion than would be normal, before Grandpa Haul found himself truly confused. He wasn’t sure where his grandson came from- just out of nowhere, there he was. Standing between him, and what he had named the ‘Brain Stealer’.
“Please, don’t destroy me!” Ratchet pleaded.
“What? Why would say that?” Grandpa Haul asked, his befuddled mind suddenly terrified at the real fear that shown clear on the boy’s face, “Of course I won’t- I would never hurt you, Ratchet.” As he spoke he took a step forward to put a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder, only to have his fingers suddenly pass through the holographic form. Without missing a beat, he searched around for a holopad, “oh, where are you calling from?”
“Wait, Grandpa,” his other grandson, Charles, suddenly stepped forward, plasma cutter in hand. The sight of which only scared his youngest grandson further.
Strangely, the Brain Stealer became much more mobile, backing away from the pair as the holographic boy pled some more. The device was cornered, and backed against a tall cabinet.
Grandpa Haul pulled the cutter from his grandson’s arms, “Just calm down- no one is going to hurt anyone…”
“That’s not Ratchet…” Charles was talking directly to him, looking him straight in the eye, but it just didn’t make any sense. “That’s the copy, remember grandpa… They stole Ratchet’s Brain… It’s just a puppet, a program…” the teen explained, “It’s why we’re here.”
“The Brain Stealer?” something clicked in his mind.
He turned away from the hologram, and instead focused on the large spherical device. He knew they wanted THAT destroyed. That’s why they were here. He gripped the trigger on the massive plasma cutter, which he’d just stripped from his grandson, and approached the device menacingly.
The hologram let out a yipe of fear and flickered out of being.
Grandpa Haul suddenly found himself in another one of those seconds of confusion, as the device launched itself backwards, bashing, once again, into the tall cabinet. This time, a small flaming bot suddenly appeared above, throwing a tarp off of his head with rather obnoxious “Ah-ha!”
It then launched itself from the top and it guided the tarp down over the pair of them.
He felt a rather solid foot come down on his head with a solid thunk; dazed him for a moment. Then heard the same sound again accompanied by his grandson’s sudden protest.
Grandpa Haul found himself in the dark, struggling to see what was going on. He was forced to drop the massive plasma cutter to get clear of the all engulfing material of the tarp. Finally free, he got a clear look of the small flaming bot- as it rode the Brain Stealer device from the room.
“What the hell was that?” Grandpa Haul asked as his grandson raced to the doorway and watched the small flaming bot get smaller and smaller as it rode the device as far away as it could.
“I have no idea!” Charles was clearly frazzled, possibly equally as confused as his grandpa for once, “We got to wipe that device! We got to smash it… something!”
Grandpa Haul watched as Charles raced from the room.
“Right!” he retrieved the cutter, hefted it up on one shoulder, and then followed his grandson into the hallway.
Charles the First ran far ahead of him. It was not until the boy suddenly dove forward, that he realized the Brain Stealer was still dragging their rope. The very same rope they had previously used to drag the seemingly immobile device into the workroom; a rather long rope.
Charles daring maneuver got him a good grip on it. Even so, the Brain Stealer dragged him a good twenty feet before the teen got enough traction to get his feet back under himself. Once he was upright, he stumbled into a solid stance. Charles pulled hard- successfully bringing the chase to a halt.
Suddenly the flaming bot came bounding back down the hall.
Grandpa Haul watched as the small flaming figure leapt from wall to wall, then off the ceiling, then back to the wall, off the floor, and back again for the wall to wall action… It vanished suddenly as it came within reach, leaving the hall strangely dark, and then reappeared with the blaze just as it kicked Charles right in the face- from a completely different direction. He watched as the red head spun about… and went down hard.
Still lugging the massive tool, Grandpa Haul was unable to reach them before the strange bot retrieved the rope and bounded back in the other direction.
“Are you okay?”Grandpa Haul asked as the young worker regained his feet.
“Yeah,” the redhead answered with a red face and puffy eye, disgruntled, he asked, “What the hell is that thing?”
“The latest attempt to crush the Unions, I’d bet,” Grandpa Haul suddenly announced as he charged on down the hall, oversized plasma cutter weighing him down, “Rise against, Brother! A few bruises are but pennies to pay for a living wage!”
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