9. The Machinery of Death

Page 99
No more Coffee!
Down at Earth-Mucks, Pug poured a cup of mud and slid it over the counter to a sad little man.
“Cream?” he asked.
“No, Amos.”
“Sugar?”
“Na,” sneered Pug.
“Conniving Chinks,” said Arbor, even though the cream and sugar disappeared from Starbucks a short day into his revolution, not during the Chinese takeover.
“That Trojan Horse trick sure [...]

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Page 98
The kill-bot gamers (KBGs) were experiencing zero difficulty in activating their backdoor control over those 20,000 kill-bots originally shipped to the former regime of Vancouver City State.
Within minutes, every kill-bot in Vancouver was under control of the Chinese hives. Amos Arbor escaped by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin. His underlings who lived, did so [...]

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Page 94
“We have decided to kill you now, Ben Woods,” boomed the voice in the jar.
“Killing me,” I said, “won’t change the outcome.”
“We decide whose life is worth supporting. We meter out…”
The voice changer crapped out and the speaker continued in another voice; shrill, aged, and female.
“…resources to the worthy. One Earth will not permit [...]

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Page 85
Ragnar looked back out on the English Channel where the Storm Trooper was anchored. He swallowed one mortal thought then followed the boy down toward the valley where a herd of anemic mossy-backs intermittently bellowed. But Lysander stopped.
“What is it?”
“Looks like men.”
Ragnar took out his binoculars. Sure enough, a couple of armed men were [...]

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Page 86
Peace Prosper – same date as chapter one
Below the square, a team of 12 fit defenders passed through a door marked ‘Defense Plan B7″ and sprinted down a tunnel that ended at a hatch.  Climbed through to a room containing their gear, and closed hatch 1 behind them.  They hurriedly pulled on and hooked [...]

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Page 87
127 citizens ignored the Commander’s order to fall back. Alongside the Blacks they confronted the thousands of grey-clads that entered their town. A pitch battle erupted around the square below the Statue of Human Liberty, and down the side streets. Snipers with bolt action rifles were scoring big from top floor windows.
Sprocket was pinned [...]

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Page 88
Above ground the smell, the sound, and the quake of munitions was all consuming. A mortar dropped at the commander’s feet.
[o Hedonis? t]
[o Yes, Commander. t]
[o When the last of the invaders are dead - lead the people through the tunnels to Subterainea. t]
[o Subterainea? t]
[o Yes. Seek refuge there. The days of the [...]

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Page 89
Hector on PPDC: “I’ll go.”
Hedonis on PPDC: “Give them pain, boys.”
The two blacks ran down the road at 40 mph to confront the marines and silence the mortars.
Hedonis on PPDC: “Evacuation plan E10 commencing now. Get underground! Everyone! We are locking this tunnel up in two minutes!”
Hedonis stopped at the statue and pried off [...]

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Page 90
I am Ben Woods. I am in a hole without heat or light or sound. I have lost time. Perhaps I have lost my mind.
In this hole, I await death bitterly. Death is hard to accept. So sometimes I abandon long swaths of dread for a stook of hope.
I dream of her skin.
I dream [...]

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Page 91
Newman looked out over the deck of Platform One at the siluette of forgotten San Francisco. Skip tended to the avocado trees. Inside, Mike paced back and forth with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Wen and Why were playing foosball and Wayne was in the ‘bounce room’ having his shift with the twins. [...]

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Page 92
“I love you, Mau,” said Yeng only two weeks into her.
“I know,” she said, noting how he shrunk at her unenthused response.
“I want to see the hive.”
Yeng panicked. He was a level 7 supervisor, but he couldn’t just walk a normal subject into the hive without it destroying his career.”
“I can’t, Mau, it’s off [...]

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Page 93
[o Charlie, Charlie, wake up, Charlie. t]
[o Samara? t]
[o Charlie, you’re alive! t]
[o Sam, I am a superhero. t]
[o Hedonis is coming to fetch you. The train will head out…t]
[o Train? t]
[o Yes, the AMC tunnel has punched through. We are going to an underground city called Subterranea that’s north of the Republic. t]
[o [...]

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Page 95
Ragnar and the boy walked quick through the streets of London. Eyes followed them. Gray-clads sized them up for slaughter. When Ragnar noticed a small human body being butchered in a back alley he made a decision.
“We’re going to open carry now.”
He pulled the battle riffle from under his trench coat and slung it [...]

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Page 96
“Look,” Lysander pointed at the smoke which plumed over the city. “It looks close, and in the right direction too.”
Ragnar reserved judgment.
A young man ran toward them shouting with crazy eyes, “… on fire! The Committee House is burning down! The Committee House…”
“Dad!” Lysander broke into a sprint. Ragnar almost kept pace. When Lysander [...]

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Page 97
Homayra: You’ll bring him here then?
Lysander: Yes, Mom.
Homayra: I am very proud of you, Lysander.
Lysander, Ragnar, and the cryogenically frozen co-author of this tall tale were on board the Storm Trooper. Megan set the course for an island across the Atlantic that was once called Newfoundland. There, they could rendezvous with an aircraft to [...]

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Page 101
Hector and Hedonis were among a group of Blacks being toured around the ____ materials Co. plant by Smashing.
“We have developed new technology for you to deploy in battle against the kill-bots. The first and likely most impressive is the ichirous wing…”
“Excuse me, Tits, but didn’t he crash?”
“He flew to close to the sun, [...]

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Page 102
Wen woke up and noticed what he was doing.
[o Howy fuck! t] he wiped some drool from his cheek.
[o Dude? t]
[o We-o in! t]
[o We’re in! t]
The Bounty Hackers had made it into the hives. Now they had to learn as much about the code and system as possible before they were punted out. [...]

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Page 103
[o Look! t]
[o Must be 100. t]
Hector and Incognito flew though the Rockies over the first column of trucks loaded with containers of kill-bots.
[o Please verify the contents. t] asked Hedonis.
Hector swooped down and landed on the hood of the last truck in the line. It did not slow down. His intensions were to [...]

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Page 104
Enormous drone freight planes came over Calgary at 40,000 feet in squads of ten. They opened their cargo doors and unloaded 20,000 kill-bots each. The kill-bots streaked toward civilization until their parachutes automatically deployed at 7000 feet and they floated down like dandelion seeds.
40 freighters had already dumped before the Blacks engaged the next [...]

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