A Category Five Cemetery
by Kjetil Jansen
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
“Fine by me.” I got out my brand-new AK-47 and started shooting. Steel-piercing bullets. Hail on a tin roof. It continued to speak until it fell to its one remaining knee. Only then did it unhinge its right arm to show that it had a weapon, too. What it didn’t have was circuits left to control it. I couldn’t help myself, I fired till empty. To call the asimo scrap metal would have been an insult to scrap metal.
“Sir, I am making a robot citizen’s arrest. Throw down your weapon and surrender.”
I turned around slowly. A second asimo had placed itself behind the tombstone. Gun ready.
“I surrender! Please don’t shoot me!” I yelled, as I charged at it with my hands above my head, still carrying my rifle. I threw myself down against the marble, pulse racing, my ears numbed. I waited. The return of robot silence. And logic. It could not shoot at what the county had hired it to defend.
“Sir, surrender your weapon.”
I held it up, sideways, rested it on the stone. “I surrender.”
Ears better, I could hear the asimo approaching. Black visor. It bent its torso as it grabbed for my gun. I struck out and forced the tent pole top into its neck joint. Its arms began to flail. I leaped, I rummaged, I had it. My second and final magazine. That sweet click. I cut the thing down. This time I managed to stop.
The smell of destruction reached my nostrils, but I didn’t gloat. It may seem strange after what I had done to Abigail’s body, but my first concern was the stone. No damage. I blinked. The inscription was no longer at the top, but near the middle. The stone had shrunk. I looked around. The cemetery was disappearing. Monuments were retreating, hiding their names as if in shame or prayer, only some odd shapes and ornamental touches staying above ground. This was new. Category New. Why now, after the fight?
There was an answer to this question. Oh boy, how I wish there weren’t. It was not about me as a threat. It was all about giving passage to the hunters. Far away, the day hot enough to blur him, yet another asimo. Not much of a cavalry. I checked behind me. Nothing moved except the stones. I was down to eight bullets. I squinted against the sun. A second blot came into shape, walking a few steps behind the robot, as if the main attraction.
I wanted to run, but I also wanted to know what I was up against. How can I describe it? A robot dog the size of a mechanical bull, moving like an armadillo but made from spikes and rotating knives. Nearer, nearer still. It was the stuff of some primal nightmare. No head as such. I doubt if it even had a voice box with which to reason with offenders. It was made to strike fear and to destroy. When I saw it slice a stone dove in half, I finally woke up.
I made my way back toward the entrance, hunched, but no bullets came. In the next section, a white rectangle fought against the tide. It wanted to go up but was stuck. It had plexiglass walls the size of an old phone booth. Two asimos stood back-to-back, trapped inside this elevator. Motionless and neutral and probably not seething on the inside, they still were a satisfying sight. I glanced back. The robot and the armadillo marched on, but too slowly. I was out of their domain.
Shaking, I stored the rifle away, got Esmeralda into gear and onto the road. Ready to let her rip, I almost didn’t notice an obstruction. The water robot. The stupid gizmo had lost its way.
I was forced to stop, right in front of it. “Keep on the grass!” I yelled out, high on adrenaline. At first it didn’t react. Well, it did, but in an odd manner. With a whirring sound, the water tank got rid of its shell, but not to quench my thirst.
Without hesitation, I threw myself backwards and rolled away as the white and red missile found poor Esmeralda and her very heart. If the tank had been full, I would have been toast. Even so, the explosion tore her limb from limb. I rose, unscathed. A small shard of mirror had failed to penetrate my boot.
I had no time to brush myself off. I was just outside the entrance, and the asimo and the knife monster were only two rows away. The water robot circled around the burning wreckage; gears shifted as a second rocket filled the vacant slot. I sprinted across the entrance. As I heard the missile go off, I swung left and inside the fence. It whistled past me on the outside, slamming against the pickets, soft as a toy. A dud.
I was stranded against the fence. The asimo slowly, delicately raised its weapon. The knife thing just stood by, grey steel drinking sun. There was no call for surrender.
As the robot was taking aim, the missile decided to explode. The end part of the fence was demolished, wood splintering sky high. The wave of destruction decreased to a rattle. It left an opening just behind me. I dived through as bullets started to fly, felt a nick in my left elbow. I jumped a burning Esmeralda wheel and ran past the now empty and uninterested water robot. I ran and crawled down the dry and crusty embankment until I finally got Burlytown Cemetery out of my sight.
The flower doofus was standing outside in his apron, watching me with narrow eyes, waiting for me to regain my composure. He was entertaining another customer, an elderly gentleman with a sourpuss face and wearing a black suit and tie. He had brought a dog: a small carrot-red cretin with a cinnamon-bun tail. He had lilies too. Twenty or more.
“What is all this commotion?” he snapped.
“A minor valve cap problem.”
The gentleman snorted. “I don’t abide this conversation.”
I knew his kind. Your old-timer who wants to emulate the town’s great benefactor and behave and dress as he imagines an industrialist does, pretending to be closer to Burly than most. He had probably worked at the factory all his life, without ever having been promoted or ever having met him.
He snorted once more for good measure. “Well. Samuel, my good man. I’ll be on my merry way.”
Flower guy cleared his throat. “A pleasure. I am however required to inform you by county law that as of this very day you are entering a Category Five cemetery.”
“Much obliged, son.” He left. Both he and his dog moved stiffly, as though walking on stilts.
“Enjoy,” I said.
Samuel the florist nodded to nobody in particular. “I love this town.” He scratched an apron strap. “But I guess you’ll be leaving us. And not by bike. Do you need directions? Bus or train?”
“I’ll be fine.” I chose to inspect my pocket before the elbow. The extra weight was still there. My wound was only skin deep, bleeding, but not profusely, and my left hand throbbed after encountering an angry bush during my escape. I wondered how I smelled. Dirt, smoke, sweat; a little whiff of everything unpleasant. And of Abigail. An empty train wagon would suit me fine. They could not trace me by the stuff I left behind. Even Esmeralda.
“Do you need a bandage? And some painkillers. I’ve got Vicodin, Vanquish...”
I set my eyes on him. “Why didn’t you tell me about the upgrade?”
He shrugged. “I guess it just slipped my mind.”
I found my way to his truck and turned over the top sheet. A sign. Welcomes and warnings and Category 5. “First day and all. I find that hard to believe.”
“Listen, partner—"
“I am not your partner.”
“You are right. I misinformed you. That Five business has been ready for months. You started out from Arlington yesterday, am I right?”
“Right.”
“It is not my place to know, but maybe, just maybe, someone kept tabs on you and knew you were coming.” He held his hands up. “Just saying. Someone with the means and power to build, and to legalize and activate when time was right.”
I mulled this over. Someone with a grudge and suspicion deep enough to pay for four years of surveillance. I could think of two very powerful men. “I reckon train or bus is not a good idea,” I said.
The florist showed his lack of teeth. “At this point,” he said slowly, “I don’t think it really matters.” As he was finishing the sentence, he hit the ground. He looked back up at me, eyes twinkling, like a kid at the circus. “That is some category, Category Five.”
My body stiffened. Sounds. Servo motors. Steel on tarmac. I didn’t look. I didn’t run. I reached out my hand, opened the truck door, got inside and drove away, engine roaring, transmission screaming. When I did look, the metal thing refigured, spitting out a drone. It didn’t catch me, but only just.
Nightfall. Far into Oklahoma. Wheels purring. I used to cherish that noise. Category Five. Graveyard justice gone federal. The hunt is on. The road has become my blacktop coffin. Every road leads somewhere. And every somewhere has a cemetery.
I hope they didn’t trample the lilies.
Copyright © 2022 by Kjetil Jansen
