Fiction: Percy the robot cop demo

 It's Thursday and I've got nothing, which has been happening often enough for me to rethink how to do this blog. For now, I decided it was time to try fiction again. Here's something I did last year, in the leadup to the story that kicked off this blog. It's part of a longer work that ground down to notes and vignettes, featuring both No-Hands the Evil Possum and an even older character, Percy the robot cop.  actually thought of reviving Percy first, and as part of that decision scaled him up from No-Hands' original scale to human size. Here he is in the new environment I came up with for them both, doing what he always did best.

Police Robot C, aka Percy, made a minor adjustment to his visor as he stepped inside. What he saw before him was a patch of bare floor 10 meters on a side, walled off from a larger space by stacks of boxes and a few large tarps. More boxes with various goods lay open before him, seemingly scattered at random. Also present were several cages with small animals. It was plain from a moment of further inspection that most of the boxes he saw were only half full, while others remained set aside. He took a pointedly casual look at the goods, and then looked over his shoulder at the pair accompanying him.

“Well, Mister… Peyote, is it?... you certainly have an interesting selection,” he said. He picked up a handful of boxed audiovideo disks, and his face (of course hidden) registered real interest. “Let’s see, London After Midnight, The Werewolf, King Kong, with Spider Pit sequence, Frankenstein… by Thomas Edison, Him… nice, a little Moral Contraband… The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai 2…”

He looked through a set of bars at a strange hairless jumping rodent, a quarter of a meter tall and covered in folds of fat. “Exotic pets, now that’s a bit of a gamble,” he said casually. “I remember there was a scare a few weeks back over a sea scorpion that escaped from a sea food restaurant. They say a Quarantine special unit destroyed it, but I hear they still don’t know how they got it through customs… And boy, are you ugly…”

The rodent stepped out from behind an empty cage and lifted a hand in an unmistakable gesture. “Frink you, you frinkin’ frinker,” it squeaked, and then bounded away. Peyote, a man with dusky skin and hair peppered gray, chuckled.

“Don’t mind Baldy,” he said. “But it’s best not to call him that, either. And I see you found our high end merchandise…” Percy had reached a crate of weapons. It was an odd selection, from revolvers and derringers to submachine guns and rifles to a handful of more exotic designs. Percy picked up one, an oddly crude tube with a bore wrapped in wire.

“Plasma weapon,” Peyote said. “Harmless to organics, if that’s a concern, but it will knock out a synthezoid for up to fifteen minutes, It won’t permanently damage them, either, if it’s a shielded model.”

“And too bad if he isn’t,” Percy said. “Very ugly.”

“As you can see, we have good merchandise. But of course, we have to have a good source…” He smiled at Percy, and Percy, visible as a humanoid with an ape-like brow, smiled back.

“Of course, the source,” Percy said, “but I don’t suppose you can tell me about that.” He turned his head ever so slightly, looking for the nondescript figure who had accompanied them inside.

“Well… I suppose I can tell you one thing,” Peyote said. As he spoke, Percy’s vision filled with a bright flash, and then went dark. “He ordered us to meet with you.”

Percy’s vision came back slowly and speckled with static. His back was against a steel beam, and a quick tug confirmed he was shackled to it with his own handcuffs. Peyote crouched in front of him, smiling wider than before, and held up Percy’s mask.  Around them, a small crew scrambled to load what appeared to be a 1958 Chevrolet panel truck. “It was a good disguise,” Peyote said. “Even after I made you, I wasn’t sure it was you. We met before, you know, twenty two years ago. I wondered if you recognized me, or even remembered.”

“It took a little time, but I figured it out,” Percy said. It had, in fact, taken 5.76  seconds, which was above average.  “You weren’t as careful back then, but you still got away. Now I suppose you want to get even.”

The smuggler laughed. “What for? I wouldn’t have lasted half as long if it hadn’t been for you,” he said. “And don’t worry, I’m leaving you alive. The only trouble is, there’s somebody who wants to know what you know, though I already told him it won’t be much.” He held up what looked like (and essentially was) a cattle prod for elephants.

“I suppose there would be,” Percy said. There was a whir and a click. Peyote frowned. Suddenly, Percy’s right arm swung free, with his left forearm swinging from the wrist. The smuggler went sprawling, and a revolver clattered out of his coat. Still, none of the smugglers looked until the rodent shrieked. The man who had accompanied Percy and Peyote into the warehouse came barreling into view, wielding a plasma weapon with a bright ball of blue-white fire growing in the muzzle, just as Percy came up with the revolver. He fired five shots without coming close to a hit, but the smuggler’s searing plasma bolt went wide as he instinctively dived for cover. The rodent bounded past, to backflip into the back of the truck as it rolled into gear, and the smuggler followed his example.

A rumble and a clatter echoed through the warehouse as the loading door opened. Percy was already taking aim. With one shot, he shattered one of the rails of the bay door. He pulled the trigger again, and was mildly surprised when another bullet shredded the rear right tire of the truck. The unseen driver accelerated for the partly open door. The cab narrowly cleared the door, scraping paint from the roof, but the cargo box smashed against it, spilling cargo and several of the smugglers. At almost the same moment, there was a metallic screech as a large claw pushed under a smaller loading door.

Within moments, the intruding claw had raised the door enough for more officers came scrambling through, including a squat, long-nosed creature that looked like a root vegetable with arms and a mane of spindly quills. One or two smugglers opened fire, and there was a short answering volley of low thuds from the policemen’s riot guns. The creature swatted at the bounding rodent, but it was already out the door. Peyote rolled over with a groan and muttered, “Lousy rat.” Without looking, Percy kicked him in the head, and then reattached his arm.

As the other officers finished their search of the warehouse, Percy spoke to the root vegetable, in fact a giant long-beaked echidna. “Well, Hector, we got him, but only because somebody else knew we were coming,” Percy said. Hector answered with a few gestures and a low whistle. “No, whoever’s behind it is long gone. But we were close, and we’ll get closer. And in the meantime…” He glanced both ways, and then held up the copy of the 1974 homerotic film Him. “We’ve got Moral Contraband night!”