Random book chapter be here

Chapter iiiviixiixiillmmm© - There is a chip shop in England that absolutely does not sell chips and no one in there thinks they’re Elvis (although one person went to a Stars in There Eyes talent show as The Human League[1])

“Sorry to bum you out dudes and dudettes, but you’ve got to die, orders of the most bodacious Queen Helena!” a metallic voice rang out through the village. The residents looked non plussed at best, they liked their robots more sports casual.

Suzie flinched “Does that mean what I think it does?”

“Certainly m’lady, that is a very specific sword used to identify a specific person or thing observed or heard by the speaker. Or so the ye olde dictionary tells me.”. Zed tried to be helpful.

“You’re an idiot.” Suzie said plainly to Zed.

“Less academia, more asskickademia!” Roared Luci (who was not very good at puns, less so at motivational speaking). She preceded to perform a full double somersault to land in front of the robot, as quick as a flash (other bathroom cleaners are available) she performed ‘The Moe’, a move of deadly grace and precision involving sticking your fingers in the eyes of your assailant.

Luci took a half step back perturbed as the fingers just bounced off the reinforced lenses of the automaton. Luci flipped back away from the robots rapid counter punch. The machine paused, unhappy with the fingerprint smudges on its lenses, it took a silk handkerchief with comedy pigs from its pocket (they said to the T1001’s creator that a robot doesn’t need pockets, but who is laughing now, oh no one) and wiped its ocular devices, before checking the handkerchief to see what magic the contents revealed. The robot took another step forwards.

“I think we have this machine all wrong” Zed piped up “He’s a large robot, he’s a long way from home, he’s in Ashton Village, we just gotta get him a pint of oil and he’s ok!” Zed started to approach the machine, before anyone could say ‘Zed you pillock that’s a highly advanced killing machine which has been sent to Earth with the express orders of hurting us all really badly’ (admittedly for a warning they should have picked a more pithy turn of phrase). The machine met Zed with a backhand swipe sending him flying through the air hitting a car with a heavy ‘thud’ (might have been a ‘bong’).

“Oi watch the car!” shouted a resident from above the fight.

“Zed are you OK?” Luci asked genuinely concerned.

“Fine. Happeneth all the time.” Zed seemed utterly unphased by what had just happened. Truly he was a professional idiot.

“Bogus!” declared the robot in a way that got Alex thinking. The hamster put its cigarette out, rose from the sofa with a groan, mounted the wheel and slowly started running with a slight limp.

“Suzie’s time to shine!” Suzie gave out her not especially intimidating battle cry. She gracefully swiped her top hat off her head and a platoon (squadron? Flotilla? Herd? Murder?) of doves flew out pooing on the robot on their way out and past. “Take that tin head!” Suzie declared with a triumphant giggle.

“And that’s achieved?” Luci asked.

“That stuff is a nightmare to get off, he’s gonna have serious rust problems in a few years!”

“bummer!” the machine mused.

“Anything a little more immediate?” Luci asked impatiently.

“Err…”

“I’ve got it!” Alex declared. The hamster satisfied with its work and knackered after reaching speeds of up to 4 rpms got off the wheel, eased itself gingerly back onto the sofa and lit another cigarette. “Anyone got a USB lead?”, looking at the blank faces that met him, Alex realised they’d have to source one themselves “distract him. It. Whatever!” Suzie saw the cue and removed her hat again, drew 3 canes throwing 1 each to Zed and Luci. She then threw the hat to Zed and the three of them started an elaborate, yet spontaneous, Busby Berkley type dance routine. Given the impromptu nature of this show, it was surprisingly impressive, it had high kicks and everything.

Alex ducked their head back into the chip shop “do you have a USB? It’s a matter of life and…”

“No chips!” The crone shouted unfastening her studio microphone from her lapel.

“Ah of course.” Alex was not to be defeated and after literally minutes of looking around the village somehow found a USB lead. Lets say a passing winged monkey passed Alex the USB lead for the sake of completeness. It might be what happened.

Alex tentatively approached the machine which was appreciatively tapping its foot along to the dance routine. Getting close enough Alex plugged in the USB into the conveniently prominent front slot on the machine. The automaton turned its gaze menacingly to Alex and weighed up the most interesting options in its programmes to pulp this human upstart. Alex knew they had one shot at this, they flicked through the film library on their phone. The machine raised its arms, servos whirring, building up to ‘insta-death’ speed. Finding what they were looking for Alex pressed play. The machine swung its arm at murderous velocity, millimetres from Alex’s face it stopped, opened its palm and patted Alex’s head.

“Awesome!” the robot declared, somehow managing to sound happy, despite its programming only containing the emotions anger, hatred, grumpy anger, rage, ire and to mix things up a little ennui.

Seeing their work done, Alex turned to the others “Guys! Guys?!”

“Wait, wait we’re building up to the big finish!” Suzie said impatiently. And with that Zed leapt surprisingly gracefully in the air to be caught by the two women with a collective “ta da!”. Alex found themselves applauding involuntarily.

Luci gently lowered Zed to the ground on his head. “Oh yeah!” she declared suddenly pulling the horn she kept in her belt and blowing hard on it. The horn made a sound that sounded suspiciously like the theme music to the TV show Minder. There was a pause. Then nothing. Nothing happened.

“Oh” said Luci disappointedly.

“What was that m’lady?” Zed asked picking himself off the ground head last.

“In my moment of direst need, if I blow on that horn, salvation will arrive.” Luci clarified with a hint of pride.

“But you can see the robot is no threat, I’ve pacified it. We didn’t need any help. Haven’t you kind of wasted it?” Alex asked.

“I panicked!” Luci said sheepishly.

“Well what happens?” Suzie asked.

“Well err…you see…there is this…well when things are bad then…I don’t know.” Luci admitted. They waited a few minutes longer. Nothing happened. Again.

“Come on lets go.” Suzie decided, turning to Alex “How did you know to stop that thing?” she asked.

“Simple really. I recognised the early 90s surfer speech pattern. I’ve plugged it into Point Break, seems it was all he needed.”

“He needs to broaden his film palette.” Luci muttered.

[1] They came third behind Tina from Pontefract who did a salsa infused version of ‘Plague Rages’ by Napalm Death and Barry from Hull who did a fantastic version of The London Philharmonic Orchestra doing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture