Five black helicopters chopper away overhead, searchlights crawling across the human slums lining the edge of the city. Sid and I are hunkered down in a drainage pipe just beyond the ghetto, hunched on our toes and trying to keep everything important out of the watery shit spewing past.
“I think they’re following us,” I say, carefully looking up at the search team.
As if on cue, the helicopters turn and drop, sweeping closer to the sewage treatment plant, the downdraft churning up pulpy liquid from the spillway in front of us. We push backward into the pipe.
“Why are they following us?” I whisper. I wipe sludge from my wrist, check my watch. “It’s not past curfew is it?”
“No, we’re good,” Sid says quietly. “With the time anyway.”
“‘With the time?’ What aren’t you telling me, Sid?”
“You’re not going to like it …”
“Talk.”
“Fine,” he says. He takes a deep breath, regrets it immediately. Then: “I, uh, I didn’t pay for the waffles.”
I deflate. “Really, man? That’s what you think this is about?”
“They were REALLY expensive.”
“So, what? Fifteen bucks?”
“More like five hundred ...” he mumbles.
“Dollars?”
“Five hundred and one, technically. Before taxes.”
“God damn it, Sid!” I shout. “That’s a Class D felony!”
“I didn’t know that when I took them!”
“WHY WOULD YOU STEAL FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR WAFFLES, YOU GANGRENOUS TWATKNUCKLE?!”
“Jesus, man,” he hisses. “Be quiet!”
“Asshole,” I mumble. “Let’s just lie low for a few and get home.”
“Hey, I’ve always wondered: What’s the D stand for?”
“What?”
“The D, in Class D, what’s it stand for?”
“DOOM,” screeches a voice that isn’t either of ours. We turn to look and find a massive robot blocking our exit.
“Look what you did!” hisses Sid.
The robot’s an Android Coalition Security Droid – a Mark I cyborg, the first in a line of human/robot experiments. The thing looks like a Ken doll and an electronics store dumpster smashed together by a troubled five-year-old. Exhaust blades where limbs should be, flesh used like twine. It’s a walking cyberpunk nightmare.
We try to disappear into the sewage pipe but there’s a metal grate no more than twenty feet back. We’re trapped, and worse, all the runny poop is starting to seep into our socks.
“Uh … Here!” shouts Sid, hoisting the take-out box and stepping toward the cyborg. “Take the waffles!”
“Code 42C, Statute iii of the Coalition Codes of Conduct,” drones the droid. “Returning stolen property does not subvert the initial offense.”
“OK, sure,” says Sid, “but, like, they’re … for you? As a gift.”
“Code 822R, Statute xi of the Coalition Codes of Conduct: Bribery is punishable –”
“What? No,” he stammers. “Who said bribe? I didn’t say bribe. I just figured you could … use a break?”
“I have no need for sustenance.”
“Waffles aren’t for sustenance, dummy. They just taste good.”
The red eyes of the robot’s Hunt Mode blink blue. The entire meat-and-circuit monstrosity seems to relax.
“The sustenance paste they feed us IS pretty disgusting,” says the cyborg. “Robots should NOT be in charge of food.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” replies Sid, shoving the box into the security droid’s hands. “Here. Eat.”
The android’s eyes flash purple for a moment – Computing Mode – before returning to blue. The cyborg slowly opens the take-out box and then crams an entire waffle into its Food Deglutition Cavity.
“Oh my God,” says the cyborg. “These waffles are incredible! AMAZING! I can … I can FEEL again!”
“So … You’re not going to bring us in then, right?”
The robot’s eyes flick red. “Tell me where you got these waffles.”
“The Tick Tock Diner,” Sid answers immediately.
“On Old Route 3,” I add.
“I need to obtain more of these,” the cyborg monotones, before hopping into the spillway and heading west, entirely ignoring his idling helicopter.
“What the hell is in those waffles?” I whisper, watching the android skip away.
“Pre-war Canadian maple sugar.”
“Oh.”
“And military-grade hallucinogens.”
“Damn it, Sid! We have been over this!” I bark. “You can’t – Wait. What do military-grade hallucinogens do to a human/robot hybrid?”
“I don’t –”
There’s a tremendous sound, then a number of even more tremendous explosions. We scurry to the end of the tunnel. The cyborg is down the spillway in full-on Kill Mode, weapons extended from all its orifices.
“COME BACK HERE, YOU STUPID BUTTERFLY!”
We watch as Mother Murphy’s Home for Wayward Bastards erupts in a tiny mushroom cloud of nuclear fire. Firefighting drones spring up from the sidewalk surrounding the flaming wreckage. The security droid starts picking up burning orphans and throwing them at the drones.
“That’s just mean,” says Sid.
“This is absolutely going to end the truce,” I add.
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