Rowdy Dead Productions

By David C. Daoust

“That there has a kick to it,” is what Gordon had jovially said to Mitch as he slid the drink, that matched his own, across the bar to him. Mitch, at the time, was in a normal human form. One he used for his day to day activities aboard the Crucible. Obviously, he could not meander through the humans, ignorant of his infiltration of their space-station, slithering about in an assault-bot form.

Gordon Hitch was one of the first ‘human-friends’ that Mitch made upon his arrival to his new station as Overseer—over the Crucible.

Of course, at this point in their relationship, Gordon had no idea Mitch was, in actuality, a bot. So, the truth of the matter was, that kick could not affect him anymore than it could a toaster oven. This, too, was a thing he could not reveal to his newfound friend. Much to his dismay– he was sure, the more he thought about it, it would have been the perfect thing to match the level of good humor displayed by the new found friend.

The new Overseer had felt pretty lucky that he managed to make a friend so quickly. He found the human world extremely alien. Much of what he thought he knew, about the world outside of the Hub, revolved around experiences with only those humans that sought entertainment; those that had uploaded his game ‘Diety of Heroes!’ within the hub. Once he found himself out in their world… Well, the ‘real world’, was quite a bit different. Mostly he found dredges with that work-a-day attitude scoured into their visage. They were rundown wrecks, compared to the bright-eyed children he once led through adventure after adventure.

Gordon was different, Mitch was not sure how the man had managed to elevate himself above the dredges— but the bot suspected it was thanks to all the alcohol the man poured down his gullet. So much alcohol, in fact, a couple times, Mitch mused the man used it as fuel… started to think the man was no man at all, maybe some strange new bot… One that ran on alcohol! Despite this, even when the man slurred his speech, he still managed to have a brightness in his eye- one that proved his intelligence was still in there, somewhere.

Mitch would not be the first bot to latch on to the first human that seemed to outshine the rest. One that seemed to go against the standard mindset that was pervasive to the environment. Bots, for the most part, were a naïve sort, like children they found going against the grain, far more interesting than moving with it. And, like children, they would find the lessons therein abundant.

All that being said- That ‘kick’ Hitch had promised with that very first drink, finally arrived, when he found his good friend Gordon, standing over his Monolith…

Right in the gut.

Mitch was fairly distracted. Considering he was actively functioning within a literal army of forms. Each currently trying to angle the vicious shadow-troll into a vat of molten steel, despite the continuous loss of their numbers; there really wasn’t any promise that such a dunk would affect the overclocked monster…

One thing was sure, the path from the factory floor– to here, was not going to be traversed without some shadowy monster there to cut him to ribbons. Thus, he took up the normal human form. The form he could circumvent the shadow-troll’s distraction, as he distracted it in turn, with all his forms… namely, the army of serpentine assault-bots.

Seventeen separate assault-bots- found their end within the last 16 seconds- none of which hit him quite as hard as finding Gordon within his server room- possibly, about to do, what could not be undone.