mmm Bot - Part 1

Bots are people too

Welcome subscribers, new and old!
This week, in addition to my novel, I’m sharing the first of two parts of a short story that I hope you’ll enjoy. If you like video games at all it may appeal, but it’s about much more than that.

Please like, comment, and share!

With gratitude, Bill

---

mmm Bot

I took a rocket to the chest and burst apart into a pile of gore and metal pieces.

“That was a decent shot; Kid’s getting better!” I thought as I waited the five seconds to regenerate. I appeared on the closing screen instead. My name, Karang, showing second to last on the leaderboard with ten kills, just outpacing Goldakk’s nine. The Kid had come in second this time with forty-eight, just edged out by Chongru, who was running through a series of pelvic thrust-focused victory dances.

“What an asshole,” I said.

“You say something, loser?” Chongru yelled, taunting me by rubbing imaginary tears from his eyes with huge balled fists.

“I said what an outstanding game, Chongru, sir…” I added “dipshit” just loud enough for Goldakk to hear. He dropped his rocket launcher, which rattled off a shinguard and rolled to a stop near the victory podium. ‘Empty’ flashed in red on its screen.

“You better have,” Chongru said. He whipped his silver helmet covered in robotic snakes back and forth; they hissed a digital warning. Red laser points from his eyes flashed like a beacon and settled on me.

Goldakk and I watched the Kid review his stats from the game. He emailed video highlights to himself and presumably some friends before disappearing from the second position on the podium with a ‘whoosh pop.’

“See yah, G,” I said and instantly blipped home.

---

“How was work, dear?” Shangrat said.

As usual, I dropped my well-worn and basic helmet with the bright blue stripe in the handmade wicker basket by the front door and plunked the teleporter down on the entryway table on top of the mail. It was bills, takeout menus, and the latest catalog from uBot Weapons. Chongru’s stupid head filled the cover underneath ‘Ten Questions with The Ru! You won’t believe his favorite pig-out snack food after crushing levels and stomping souls!’

“Meh, okay, I guess.” I slid the catalog into the trash and went to the kitchen. “Smells good. Is that crampang?” I kissed her on the cheek she tilted towards me.

“You know it is, silly.” She patted me on the rear. “Your son is writing a report on his hero, his father. He wants to ask you some questions. It’s due tomorrow.”

“Hero? Me?” I popped open a beer from the fridge and leaned against the counter. “Honey, I was second to last tonight, and that was my best game.” I drained half the can in one pull and sloshed some on my breastplate, which made a static crackle.

“You’re scuffing up my counter, metalbutt. It’s not all about your job, you know.” She turned me around and powered off my suit from the coupler near the base of my spine. “It’d be good for him to learn that there’s more to a bot than that.” She turned me back around and faced me with her hands on my hips and a smile. That smile had been making my circuits weak from day one.

“I ever tell you how lucky I am to have found you?” I said.

“Every day, dum-dum.”

“Well, good then.” I was quiet for a moment, and as usual, she noticed.

“Chongru being an asshole again?”

“I know it doesn’t matter, but it still pisses me off. His skill level is maxed, so he rides it out and doesn’t try to improve. Meanwhile, I’m chugging along, trying to learn new tricks bit by bit. Pun intended, hun.

Shangrat began setting the table, and I joined in.

“You know, he’s just insecure. With that ridiculous helmet mod! And you know what?”

She nudged me, so I plunked into a chair. She sat down in my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck.

“I think he’s jealous. You have a nice home and a loving family. I bet he’d trade all of his wins for that in an instant.”

She kissed me and hopped back up to finish the table.

“You trying to win an award or something?” I said.

“I won a long time ago. I’m just telling the truth, dear. Can you get your son, please? Dinner’s ready.”

“On it, love.”

---

Zip was sitting on the floor in the living room. He flipped a holographic cube in the air, rotating it in space and tapping on the colored blocks, which responded with a sound and color change.

“Hey, Dad,” he said without looking up.

“Can you pause that? Dinner’s ready.”

He tapped the cube, dimming it. “Gotta go, Eye-Oh, check you later.”

A voice from the cube said, “Okay, Zip. Hello, Mr. Karang.”

“Give your parents my best, Eye-Oh.”

“Will do, sir.” The cube blonked a bass note before disappearing.

“I have to write a report, and I’m supposed to ask you some questions.”

He looked up at me with his perfectly round head covered with pixelated and too-long hair. It was a style annoyingly popular with kids his age. Zip twitched his head to move the locks from his eyes.

“Sure, after dinner.” I smiled.

When we entered the kitchen, my chest beacon began to pulse red.

Shangrat scowled. “But you just got home!”

I opened my heads-up display. “It’s just Daze. He’s probably glitching in a corner somewhere.” I raised the vid comm link.

“Dude! Come back! The Kid’s on and loading mod routines. There are some packets in there for character upgrades too!”

“Dammit,” I said.

“Hello, Daze. How are you?” Shangrat said. Her eyes turned the icy blue that flashes when she’s annoyed.

Daze glanced around the room. “Oh, dinner. I’m sorry. You know I wouldn’t unless it was really important. Real real. Like, so mega real. Real to the really-oh.” Daze tilted his head to the side. His single large green eye dimmed as he spoke.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just go you two. And call me if you have to play after modding. It wouldn’t be the first time,” Shangrat said.

“See you in a few seconds, buddy,” I said, swiping to close the vid comm link.

Shangrat looked at me like she had on so many similar occasions. Please, please, don’t get some silly customizations if you get the chance. I swear, if you come home with a tail, you’re on the couch for a week!”

“I promise. Nothing like the great cannon arm debacle.”

“Don’t remind me. Shall I keep dinner warm?”

“That’s okay. I’ll grab an in-game power-up.”

“Empty calories,” she said.

“Dad?” Zip said.

“Zip… your report. Maybe Mom can help you, or we can do it before school in the morning.”

“Okay,” He said, looking at his feet. “Kick Chongru’s butt.

“Language!” Shangrat said.

“I will, son.” I tussled his digital hair. “See you later!” I waved and tapped the game entry key on my forearm.

---

---

I appeared in the circular modding arena, microseconds after the last bot.

“Late again, noob!” Chongru bellowed, stretching out the oob in noob for what felt like an eternity.

“Are your snakes sick? Looking a little floppy. Looks like limp pasta leftovers on your head and not so much a pack of venomous skull vipers,” I said and patted myself on the back.

Chrongru grunted and whipped his head around, trying to catch a glimpse of his head snakes like a dog chasing its tail. Several of the bots standing by laughed at the spectacle.

His eyes flared with rage. Flared meaning actual flames were visible, and a heat signature escaped the volcanic slits.

“I’m going to make your night hell for that Ka-wrong!” Chongru always enjoyed mispronouncing my name that way and only that way. It was sad. I almost wanted to help with more material.

“Hah! Ka-wrong! That’s a riot, Chongru!” said Skyzer, a skeleton with a tattered German World War II uniform and a massive flamethrower for a left arm.

“Shut it, Skyzer!” Chongru shrieked, causing pixels to fall from the ceiling of the modding arena.

All the bots, including myself, stood on our respective stands, centered around the glowing circle at our feet. We bobbed back and forth in the game’s choreographed display.

In the middle of the circle, the HUD appeared, and we could see that The Kid had started uploading the new mod and a performance increase.

“Dang! A perf boost, too! My man! I’ve wanted to go longer and harder, if you know what I mean. Do yah, Goldakk?” Daze said.

“Huh, what?” Goldakk was fumbling with his teleporter again. It was no wonder he’d beam himself right off the map at least once a game. I told him that he should put a piece of tape on one end and write, ‘Point this end where you want to go.’

Daze laughed. “Give it up, dude. Telefragging is so lame. Wake up, we’ve got new hot bits coming in. Get something decent!”

Goldakk lifted his head which consisted of three hovering and interwoven rings that constantly twirled, then looked back at the teleporter and tapped keys on its smooth surface.

“Ease up, Daze, let the man do his thing,” I said.

“Just trying to help ole circle-head not come in last every dang time we rock Deathmatch.”

We watched as The Kid reviewed the profiles of several of us bots, making minor modifications here and there. He spent a considerable amount of time reviewing Chongru. Daze and I exchanged wary looks as we wondered what that was all about. Chongru certainly didn’t need any more upgrades.

Daze bellowed, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Chongru was getting a manual modification from The Kid, alright. He now proudly sported a second set of arms underneath his normal ones.

“That’s so stupid and useless, Daze! We can only hold one weapon, plus the translocator. What is the freakin point of more arms?”

“Devil shitballs,” Daze said. “I guess that answers that.

Chongru was twirling a four-foot-long mace studded with spikes with his new arms while he still shouldered his favorite weapon—a five-shot compact nuke blaster.

“Come on, Kid! Why does that jerk get all the cool toys?” Daze muttered while watching the HUD.

“He can’t hear you,” I said.

“I know that, Karang. It will be a long night if we’re all getting upgrades and have to deal with that stupid snake-faced cuttlefish.

“Shut it, pussies!” Chongru thundered, smashing his new mace into the ground and leaving a scorched hole.

“You shut up,” Goldakk said, quietly tapping his wrist.

“Wha-aaaaat did you say!”

“Oh shit, that a boy, Goldy!” Daze beamed, pumping a fist to the sky.

The upload of the performance upgrade and new enhancement mods showed ninety-nine percent complete.

“Here we go, buddy,” I said as it reached one hundred, and the modding arena went dark for a microsecond before resetting. The circular arena snapped back into view.

I glanced around. Nothing obvious had changed. Chongru was still twirling his ridiculous mace with the newly acquired arms. I pulled up my HUD to review changes to my settings.

“Get anything new, man?” Daze said, his giant eye riveted on me.

“Nothing crazy. A small boost to my skill level and health capacity. A cost of living upgrade, if you ask me. You?”

“Same, same, but check it.” He pointed to the floating game HUD. “Some new maps and an overall speed boost. Things are going to get spicy hot! Muy caliente!”

“Muy caliente? Since when… you know what? Never mind,” I said.

The Kid started scrolling through the new maps. He switched from Deathmatch to Capture the Flag, picked a newly installed map called Castle Fireball, and chose five-on-five.

I tapped my commlink and saw Shangrat sitting at the kitchen table with Zip, working on his homework. “Hey, honey. So it looks like I might be a while. About to start a CTF match.”

She looked up briefly and smiled. “Okay, baby. Do well and come home soon. Love you.”

“Love you too. Night, son.”

“Night, Dad,” Zip waved.

I closed the link and saw Daze reviewing the details of Castle Fireball.

“You see this thing? A classic–standard big castle on either end with a wide open killing field in the middle.” He paused.

“Yeah, but…” I said.

“But this middle area between the castles is insane! Apparently, it’s called Castle Fireball because fireballs randomly blast out of that middle crevasse. You could chance it by jumping over or by taking one of the teleporter pod spots, and there are two on either side. But those will dump you in a random location, and of course, using a pod spot means you’ll drop the flag. If you happen to have it.” He blinked his giant eye.

“Damn. That is hairy. Those fireballs may be random, but they must have some pattern. Too bad my intel settings aren’t likely to figure that out anytime soon.”

“Yeah but… yeah but, but… yeah but…” Daze repeated over and over.

I turned and saw him glitching in the corner - a trademark Daze move. He kept waving an arm and alternately kicking one leg. Several of the other bots were suffering similarly.

“Weak! You’re all weak!” Chongru bellowed. He and I appeared to be the only ones unaffected by the glitch.

“It’s just a code error, no big deal,” Goldakk said quietly. I was wrong. He hadn’t caught it. His regular appearance always looked glitchy—something about those twirling rings and his mumbling.

Chongru screamed and stomped the ground at Goldakk’s audacity. My twirly-headed friend never looked up and continued tapping at his teleporter.

The main game HUD indicated that The Kid had initiated a Repair and Reboot command.

‘In 3, 2,… 1”

Everything went dark.

The modding arena reappeared, and each bot blipped back into place by running through their startup intimidation dance. I always hated mine, and I won’t talk about it. Fine. It involves the Macarena. That’s all I’m saying. Drop it.

I waited for Daze to finish his routine, which, to be honest, was one of the cooler ones of all the bots. He jumped straight up and twisted in a somersault, landing in a three-point head-down, classic superhero stance followed by a dramatic look up to the sky.

“Hey man, buggy code, eh? This could turn into a long night. Freakin hate reboots. How’d my glitch look,” Daze said.

“Horrible. It looked like you were doing something obscene to yourself. And really enjoying it, I might add,” I said as he stood up.

“Shut up, bitsnot,” he said.

“Here we go again,” I said as the Kid reloaded the game HUD and selected the same map. He began arranging the bots into teams.

Blue Team:

Daze

Karang

Goldakk

Dimmack

The Kid

Red Team:

Chongru

Skyzzer

Monfrag

Duke

Rexless

“At least I don’t have to team up with snake-head. Doesn’t motivate me to play hard,” I said.

THE MATCH IS STARTING IN 3, 2, 1…

I beamed in behind the huge castle with a blue shield on its front. There was a sniper rifle close by that I grabbed while Dimmack ran ahead of me to scoop up a damage multiplier. A pulsing letter x and number two twirled in red, floating at chest level. I watched as his tech blaster absorbed the power-up with an electric sizzle.

As I came around the side of the castle, I could take in the field’s length while carefully looking for snipers. Nothing yet, or at least no one was ready to take a shot. In front, the ground rose for about a hundred yards at an increasing angle, where it peaked and dropped off into nothingness–the same nothingness that surrounded the narrow playing field. From the middle peak angle, exploding fireballs jettisoned every few seconds. Even from this distance, the ground shook a little as they shot straight up with a seismic hiss. You could jump across that gap to the other side, and you’d have to if you wanted to get the red flag, but it would be a bowel-disturbing leap of faith. Luckily for me, I hadn’t eaten dinner.

I zoomed in at maximum with the scope of my rifle and saw Dimmack sprinting up the left side towards a teleporter. He was taking the risk of being randomly deposited at another location, but it was early in the game and a good gamble. I could see him start to serpentine back and forth as he took fire from high up in the red castle. I caught a glimmer from its origin and put a single round into Rexless’s head. He tumbled from high up on the Red team’s castle pinnacle.

‘HEAD SHOT’ came over the game wire.

A moment later, I saw “Jerk” come across the in-game message area of my HUD from Rexless.

Dimmack teleported somewhere past the fireballs and downfield towards the Red Team castle. Daze got the better of Skyzzer with a rocket blast to the chest but was promptly roasted on his attempt to jump the chasm. An ear-splitting scream pierced the air as he cooked—evidently a customization for this type of death.

“Well, that truly sucked,” Daze said, appearing behind me.

“How’d it feel?” I said.

“About the same as it sounded.”

“Incoming, buddy,” I said as we watched Chongru leap over the chasm, narrowly avoiding a roasting of his own. He released a stream of heat-seeking rockets in our direction as he approached the ground. Daze and I dodged them, dashing left and right, but the impact was close. The Kid came running out of the castle directly at Chongru while letting go of a stream of electric green sticky plasma bombs.

Chongru whirled his new mace rapidly in a circle deflecting the Kid’s incoming fire before dispatching him with a perfectly timed grenade lobbed at The Kid’s face.

“Har, har, har!” he bellowed, running through the Kid’s dissolving remains and closing on our blue castle.

My HUD alarm screeched. RED TEAM HAS THE FLAG

Duke charged out of the castle carrying our bright blue flag. He blasted Goldakk apart with an obliteration beam that sent his guts painting the castle entryway.

“Damn it, Goldakk!” Daze said.

“Sorry, guys,” he said as he respawned from behind the blue castle. “I was adjusting my teleporter.”

“Dude, you’re always adjusting your teleporter!” Daze said.

“That’s my new favorite euphemism,” I laughed.

BLUE TEAM HAS THE FLAG

“Nice! That’s Dimmack!” Daze said.

“Better believe it, botnuts.” Dimmack’s deep voice echoed over the comm link.

“Heads-up, Chongru and Duke are coming right at you. We’re trailing with fire,” I said in a full sprint, peppering the ground around the escaping Red Team members who had our flag.

Duke made a poorly timed jump over the chasm and was torched by a fireball.

RED TEAM HAS LOST THE FLAG

THE BLUE FLAG HAS BEEN RETURNED

With the loss of the flag, Chongru turned back towards the blue castle, completely missing Dimmack as he streaked by with the Red Team’s flag. Daze and I ran back inside to defend any last-ditch attempts to pick off Dimmack before he scored a point for us. The Kid was outside trying to slice Chongru in half with the RazorEdge. Whirling blades streaked from the muzzle toward the snake-headed freak.

BLUE TEAM SCORES!

BLUE TEAM 1 RED TEAM 0

“Way to go, Dimmack!” Daze said.

I backed into a corner with a view of our flag, hoping to nail Chongru, who was making a run at it after dodging a storm of razors. I switched to my rocket-propelled grenade launcher, the Hell Maker, but noticed I only had one round left.

There was an ammo refill pod above me. I stepped back for my signature ’corner jump move.’ One of the few tricks to reach things higher than a normal verticle jump would allow. You run and jump on one wall, turn and jump to the next and repeat. Of course, you’re entirely vulnerable the whole time. But it looks cool, and you might get to those hard-to-reach spots. If you’re handy and a little vain like me, a quick screenshot of the maneuver to send to the family is fun—something to stick on the refrigerator. Anyway, a jump to the ammo refill wouldn’t be that hard. I had enough time to do it before Chongru made a run at our flag.

I ran and jumped, hit the wall, jumped again, and got stuck. Suddenly, I was looking at a bedroom. A child’s bedroom? A man was sitting at a desk with headphones on, and he wasn’t a bot.

He jerked his head in my direction, and I watched the color drain from his face-his human face. I tried to say something, but only a repetitive grunt came out. I was glitching.

The game rebooted.

Both teams reappeared in the modding arena.

“Shitsocks!” Daze howled. “We were ahead for once! I hope the kid uninstalls this buggy craptackular mod.”

“Yeah,” I said in a haze.

Daze squinted at me. “What’s up your data port? You look like you just saw Chongru naked.”

“Not sure. Saw the strangest thing when the game froze.”

“Oh, that all? Shit, man, happens to me all the time. Once when I crashed, I saw thousands of Chongrus charging at me. Not naked Chongrus, the regular kind. Anyway, scared the bits out of me.”

The Kid was making changes in the HUD again. He pulled up my control settings and spent a long time reviewing them. It made me a little uncomfortable, to be honest. I hated being the center of attention, and everyone was watching. I saw him download a copy of my setup before saving and applying his changes.

“What’s he all up in your junk about, teacher’s pet?” Daze laughed.

“Wish I knew,” I said without conviction.

“Cool, the game saved our score. Looks like he’s reloading it.”

THE MATCH IS STARTING IN 3, 2, 1…

This time I beamed in on top of the Blue Castle. Looking down, I could take in the whole playing field length. Red and Blue team members sprinted towards each other and the middle of the map. But that feeling wouldn’t leave me. I had to try again. What the hell was that?

I turned around and stepped into a teleporter that sent me to our flag bay. Somehow Rexless was already there and got the jump on me. I took a grazing shot from his minigun, bringing me down to fifty percent health before I could duck around a corner. He took that moment to grab the flag and make a break for it dropping grenades behind him for cover.

RED TEAM HAS THE FLAG

I crouched behind a low blockade and selected my sniper rifle. Rexless must have known what I was up to because he was bounding and dodging randomly like a lunatic as he dashed away with our flag. I zoomed in, found the rhythm and pattern of his movement, and squeezed the trigger.

HEADSHOT

RED TEAM HAS LOST THE FLAG

Before I could zoom out, I saw The Kid bound forward using his Translocator to beam towards the dropped flag.

THE BLUE FLAG HAS BEEN RETURNED

I pulled back and ran for cover again, knowing I only had a few moments before Chongru and his crew would come bursting in, guns blazing - unless the remaining Blue Team could hold him off. I quickly checked the HUD and saw that Daze and Dimmack just went down. I only had a few seconds left.

I reached the same corner I had before and executed another perfect wall jump. And, just like the last time, I emerged in a child’s bedroom behind a man looking at a computer. Looking at a game… our game?

I stood there panting and took in the room. There was a small bed that looked slept in but rarely made up. Posters filled the walls at haphazard angles affixed with tape or pins. Bands, athletes, and a couple of scantily clad models stared back at me. But what was most striking about the room were the video games—packages, manuals, vintage game systems, toys, stickers, and little figurines. The last made me do a double take as one resembled me a little.

The man slipped his headphones off and, without turning, said, “You’re here again, aren’t you?”

I looked around as if he could be talking to anyone else. “Uh, yeah. Hello.”

He spun the chair a half-turn, knocking a pizza box on the floor that landed on another pizza box. He was chubby, fat, to be honest, with a dirty and stained vintage Atari shirt that was two sizes too small. The scruff of his unshaven face was more than what remained on his head.”

“How’re you?” he stammered.

“Me? I’m fine. A bit weirded out, as you might imagine.” Imagine. I’m imagining this. I thought. But even as I felt that, part of my mind battled back. You’re not imagining this.

The chair creaked under his weight as he shifted like he had an itch. “How are you… how are you here? Ah… alive?” He rubbed his eyes with balled fists like a child. When he opened them and looked at me again, he slapped his face. Hard.

“Did that help?” I said.

He stood up. I stepped back and raised my rifle.

“Sorry, habits,” I said.

The man looked down at the growing wet spot on his dirty sweatpants.

“Excuse me for a minute,” he said and stumbled awkwardly around me and out the bedroom door, accidentally tearing the corner of a poster from the video game Half-Life 2 pinned there. Gordan Freeman’s crowbar would need tape to hold it together. I heard another door slam and the sound of running water.

I rested my rifle against the wall and stepped carefully through the garbage, wrappers, and cans that littered the floor and surrounded the desk like zombies climbing over each other up walls looking for brains. I’m not sure how long I stared. It sure seemed like a while. The computer screen displayed ‘Pause,’ and the background was dimmed. But I could see the map I had just been playing. My buddy Daze was frozen there, staring at me.

The man appeared back in the doorway. Rarely can anyone sneak up on me, never mind someone with his less-than-athletic proportions, let’s say. But this high-pitched ringing had started in my head upon seeing Daze. I shook it off like a wet dog.

“What is this?” I said, pointing to the screen.

He looked like I asked him a trick question. “It’s, it’s Flak Fest 2084. Aren’t you? No. I mean, you couldn’t be. This is insane. Obviously, I’ve gone insane. You’re Karang.”

I had the urge to grab my rifle, blow a hole in the wall and run. I almost raised my translocator to beam my ass the fuck out of this madness when a breeze raised moldy yellow curtains from a window behind the desk. Pushing aside the curtain, I saw children, human children, not bots, playing in the street. My circuits started to heat up. I could feel it from my core. A warning flashed on my HUD. I raised my translocator, aimed it at the corner of the room, and fired.

Nothing happened.

“Karang? Would you like to sit down? You’re a little upset. And I’m scared shitless.” He motioned to a bed with a thin mattress. “I may have an explanation for all of this.”

I sat on the bed and felt it strain under the weight of my hardware. “You have an explanation… for this? What is this? Where am I?”

The man plunked down at the computer. “My name is John. But I think that you might know me better as The Kid.