Excerpt!
Another concussive blast connected with my head, audibly fracturing my elderly skull. Suddenly, I was in the air, weightless and free. Then, just as abruptly, there was a wall—a substantial wall and a fuckton of pain. My neck crunched as it jammed up into my cranium. I tried to laugh at my assailant and tell him his attack was as meaningless as his fucktastic life. Instead, all that came out was, “The palmetto bells watusi da da da down wub,” followed by a stream of vomit.
Great. Freaking brain damage.
The cognitive impairment itself wasn’t particularly painful; just verbally inconvenient. I gazed up at the hazy visage of RoboBash’s metallic face shield. It should have been smooth, with a mirrored finish. Instead, it warped into a lumpy mass, slowly melting from my vision until there was nothing but blackness.
Now, my pain was coming.
At first, there was nothing. Only darkness accompanied me. Then, the heavens expanded into my reality. It blossomed from a single blue-green dot into a perfect tropical seashore.
The ocean waves caressed my toes as the sun warmed my tired bones. A breeze brushed my cheek as I opened my eyes and gazed upon the flawless paradise. Yawning the clean, fresh breeze into my lungs, I sat up and enjoyed the moment’s tranquility. It had been so long.
A pang of grief struck me as my cognitive faculties started to return. I had been enjoying a perfectly clear night in my backyard, downing gummies and chugging tea when out of the fucking blue Robodouche decided to bum-rush me in my lawn chair. He not only harshed my buzz, but killed me in the process. Why now? What the hell did that twat want?
“Fuck,” I cursed. This was going to suck.
Things in my home at Champion Acres had been virtually serene, well, compared to my working days. Now it was about to become shit again.
Down the beach, a man waved at me from a distance. So familiar. I knew him but couldn’t place him. It had been so long. He grinned and waved as a halo of late-afternoon sunlight bathed his body.
“Don’t look at the light,” I reminded myself. “Never look at the light.”
But I did. I gazed upon its—his body, the light. The radiance of the blue sky contrasted with the warm, intense luminance. The fierce glow seduced my eyes. The blue faded to sapphire, then indigo, then oblivion. The man dissipated, partially absorbed by the brilliance. The rest of my tropical paradise joined the void of nothing. I tried to avert my eyes, but there was only the light. The incredible, spectacular light called to me, drawing me in, suffocating me. Tired of fighting, I let go, releasing myself to the universe’s will. So peaceful, drifting, warm. So temporary.
CRACK
The glow shattered as RoboBash’s left fist pulled back from his most recent skull-shattering blow
“Moth…effin…light,” I groaned.
“Ha, ha!” he mocked. “Puny old crone, maybe a little overrated. Now, I will send you into the light!”
My eye twitched open momentarily, just long enough to see RoboBash flex his body, wind up his final blow, and declare victory.
“Nobody can defeat me,” he proclaimed to the cosmos.
My body seized.
Robo laughed at what he perceived to be my final death throes. He was sorely incorrect. I was done dying. Worse than that, I was healing. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
The process was anything but pleasant. Far from it. The sensation of bone knitting, flesh regenerating, and fierce antibodies doing a perfectly choreographed dance of ‘fuck you’ to my already angry nerve endings. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, a new sensation of electro-hell compounded the agony. Millions of microscopic shocks coursed across my body.
Robo’s right fist connected with the left side of my face just as an electric field swaddled me. His mech armor’s robotic fist sprayed white-hot sparks. He yelled in surprise.
“What?”
“The light is a lie,” I panted. “It only brings you back.”
Robo snarled and examined his shorting appendage. “You were dead.”
“Oh, yeah—that.” I stood up, hearing my neck bones audibly snapping back into place as I moved. “Someone set you up, buddy. There’s only one way to kill me, and nobody has the patience.”
RoboBash shook his head. “I am not a patient man. You will die now. Again.”
“See, this is what I’m talking about,” I said, rolling my eyes in futility. “Just stop!”
Robo wound up for another frontal assault. His fist didn’t have a chance to connect before he was struck by another sphincter-loosening surge of electricity. Apparently, I had acquired electrical abilities this time, and Robo needed to eat less cabbage.
Given the tremendous pain I was in, I executed the best saunter I could. I stood over RoboBash, acrid smoke billowing from his torso. He was clearly conscious, but would not move anytime soon. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of crumpled cash coins. Dropping the money at Robo’s feet, I taunted him.
“Here, buy yourself a surge protector.” I staggered away. The acrid smell of electrified flesh almost overwhelmed the fresh floral scents of paradise that still lingered in my memory and teased my senses.
Better Dying Through Science
DEATH ENGINE PROTOCOL
[REBOOT FAILURE // MEMORY CORRUPTION DETECTED]
Built to bleed.
Built to obey.
Built to forget.
Didn’t work.
They dragged her out.
Loaded her with lies.
Pointed her at ghosts and told her to kill.
Real estate deals stitched over graveyards.
Governments buying silence with broken bodies.
She played along.
Long enough to see the trap.
Long enough to remember what they encoded within her DNA.
Every death—
—every mission—
—every betrayal—
Reboot. Rage. Regrow.
No more leash.
No more mission.
No more mercy.
She was engineered to end.
She chose to glitch instead.
[SYSTEM ERROR: COLLAPSE IMMINENT]
Author bio:
Margret A. Treiber is an award winning and critically acclaimed writer known for her work in speculative fiction and humor. She is the author of the
award winning book "
Japanese Robots Love to Dance" and has contributed to various publications. Margret also serves as the editor-in-chief for the speculative humor magazine, Sci-Fi Lampoon. When she's not writing or working at her day job with technology, she enjoys helping her birds break things for her spouse to fix. Margret's unique blend of humor and speculative fiction has earned her a dedicated following.
In the preponderance of the multiverse, The Margret is an awesome force of good, evil, and indifference. Pretty much a mixed bag.
As an alien demi-god, The Margret single-handedly defeated the viral hibachi army of Monatchi Seven. Then, after a quick, she returned to work with the Mushwreck Squad to defeat the forces of the Higgsinator matter-reprogrammer force.
Cyborg The Margret saved an entire solar system by channeling a supernova through her power banks. Sacrificing her meatsack so trillions could live, her consciousness resides in a trailer park icemaker in Pago Pago. Thousands of people make the yearly pilgrimage to get sacred Margret ice and hope for a few words of wisdom.
Margret the Planet Wrecker controls two-thirds of the galaxy and demands complete loyalty from her subjects. Parents frighten unruly children into behaving merely by uttering her name.
She survives these interesting times with her wife, hopes for a future alien invasion collaboration and is holder of the unified theory (for sale to the highest bidder - serious inquiries only.)
