CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE WITH THE JERRY BENNETT CH. 4

Life does not provide many moments of absolute clarity. Perhaps a handful, even for those who possess the most resolute of convictions. For Jerry, this was only the fifth such moment where the path forward glowed with an almost divine certainty. The other four moments included:

1. Proposing to his future wife,

2. Quitting his job to pursue art,

3. Finally understanding the concept of faith,

4. At four-years-old, choosing the Pink Panther bar during his first visit to an ice cream truck.

Jerry did not think of death as he walked to the open cargo doors. He did not think of pain. He only thought of the pride of a life that had led to a singular action. He may be defeated in whatever lay ahead, he may not be powerful enough to protect the humans around him, but he was walking forward toward the danger and that felt significant enough. He was doing the thing that would make him proud should he live to remember this day.

His joints began disengaging, his frame collapsing and folding. A roar erupted from a turbine jet that formed from what was once his feet. With a powerful blast, Jerry shot into the sky. His heart beat madly while his sleek jet form soared upwards. Shaped like an F-35B fighter jet, Jerry split the clouds, watching the water vapor collect on his windows, sensing the atmosphere change as his altimeter clicked past 6,000 feet and quickly approaching 7,000. Jerry laughed, dazzled by the view of the distant Earth below.

“Oh, right! I’m supposed to be down there!”

Jerry pulled out of his climb. Flying in a straight line was easy, but turning was a bit trickier. He sensed the air pockets passing along his wings, he rode them, correcting, dipping below the horizon and angling back down into a nose dive. An explosion blossomed below. A red square framed the fireball, zoomed in. Guardsmen were scattering away from the flames gushing out of a cargo truck. Smaller green squares singled out the humans. Jerry’s jet burned angry. The speed formed a white halo that passed from the nose to the tail. A thunder clap boomed as Jerry passed the sound barrier. The earth approached at a frighting rate. Three red squares appeared on objects outside the base’s fence line. Tracers from .50 caliber guns zipped past the moving objects. Gun flashes showed returning fire.

Jerry’s form bent, the jet pointing down, his drop slowing. Jerry’s vision enlarged the three invaders. One was an emerald green robot. Tall, lean, a woman. Another was a squat hulking dark green robot with massive cannons for arms. The third was coal black with a red phoenix painted on what was clearly the hood of a Camaro that now served as a chest plate. All three robots lowered their weapons and looked back up at Jerry as he awkwardly slowed to a hover above them.

Jerry wanted to drop in-between the base and the invaders like an angel enforcing a truce.

Instead Jerry listed to the left. He corrected, listed to the right, then started tipping down to the ground.

“Damnit, damnit, damnit!” Jerry screamed in a panic, shooting back into the air, splitting between the three robots and colliding with an oak tree behind them. His engine groaned as it strained to keep him aloft.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Jerry called.

The ancient tree collapsed to the ground. Jerry spun in a circle, steadied, listed to the left again. The fighting had stopped entirely as everyone watched Jerry spin in hobbled doughnuts around the three robots. Jerry transformed to a robot and fell to the ground. He stood, lost his balance, and back-pedaled into the barrel-chested green robot who pushed him back to the ground.

“Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.” Jerry held his head, numbers and sensors and warning lights flashing bright in his mind. “Okay. Okay. I want to throw up. It’s okay. Um. Hold on.”

Jerry sat down on the ground, then laid back on his back. He looked up at the sky, waiting for everything to stop spinning.

“Oh my god. Okay. Um. I’m gonna need you guys to stop fighting.”

The three robots circled Jerry, looking down at him, then at each other.

“Brother, we came to liberate you,” the emerald green robot spoke, her voice deep, articulate, a hint of sultry smoke.

Jerry still couldn’t sit up.

“I appreciate that, but I really don’t want anyone getting hurt on my account. Hold on.”

Jerry pushed himself up to a sitting position, gave himself a moment, then stood up on his feet. He felt better.

“My name’s Jerry, by the way?”

“Charmed. I’m Tabitha. The short guy is—what did you want me to call you?”

“Wrecking Ball.”

“Right, whatever,” she said. “He’s Wrecking Ball.”

“I want to be Inferno,” the coal black robot cut in with a rich Manchester accent.

“No, we you are Bandit!” Tabitha groaned. “I’m not going to call you something different every five minutes.”

“I like Inferno.”

“Yeah, Inferno is better,” Wrecking Ball offered.

“I kind of like Bandit,” Jerry said. “I love Burt Reynolds.”

“I do too,” Inferno/The Bandit said. “I’m just worried people won’t get it. Like younger people who didn’t ever watch Smokey and the Bandit.”

“I bet more kids have seen it then you think,” Jerry said.

“Yeah, my little brother loves all those movies,” Wrecking Ball said. “He’s only seven.”

“Ha!” Jerry said. “That’s awesome!”

“Shut the hell up!” Tabitha closed her robot eyes, bringing her hand to her temple to ease whatever passed for a migraine in robots. Jerry wondered if she had a brain inside the machine. He then wondered if he had a brain. He then thought of the Wizard of Oz.

“This isn’t funny, Jerry,” Tabitha growled.

“Oh, I was actually thinking of something else,” Jerry said, the Youtube video of “If I Only Had Brain” still playing in his ears. “So, Tabitha, Wrecking Ball and Inferno. It is good to meet you and I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I’m good. Let’s just relax and figure this out together before anyone else get’s hurt.”

Tabitha was measuring Jerry. She then looked past him to the base with hundreds of guardsmen with rifles trained on them.

“You think you are still human, don’t you?” she asked. She was amused and her condescension angered Jerry.

“That’s what this is all about,” she continued. “You want to be their pal, their trained hero. They tell you to heel, and you’re gonna heel. You are fine just being a pet, a novelty, maybe even some high tech cannon fodder.”

“They are still our people,” Jerry said. “I don’t know what’s happened to us, but we are still human.”

“We were chosen,” Wrecking Ball said.

“By who?” Jerry asked.

“Who cares?” Tabitha asked. “It doesn’t matter. All that does matter is we are now better than all of them.”

Her feet flashed as jets pushed her off the ground. She flew above the fenceline and landed inside the base. She plucked a guardsmen off the ground and flicked the rifle from his hands. She held him up by the feet like a flapping chicken.

“Look at him!” she called. “This is no longer their world! It is ours! We need them just as much as we need a dog. And, just like a dog, if they snap at us, we’re gonna put them down.”

Tabitha’s jets blasted her off the ground again. She transformed into a jet with forward-swept wings and blasted into the air. Jerry leapt off the ground, transformed back into a jet, and flew after her.

She soared straight into the skies, reaching two thousand feet, then transformed back into a robot. The jets in her feet kept her steady as she waited for Jerry.

He slowed and hovered a hundred feet from her as she dangled the guardsmen.

“We’re the first ones you’ve met, aren’t we!” she called over her blasting jets. “You don’t know who else is out there. You need to join us, Jerry. I don’t want to kill humans, I just want them to behave. Some of our kind aren’t quite so empathetic. Alliances are forming and you need to make sure you are on the right side. I dislike ultimatums, but that is what I am giving you. Join us or fight us.”

“Give him to me and leave!”

Her grip on the guardsman’s legs tightened and he screamed. Tabitha smiled.

“Come and get him.”

WHAT WEAPON DO YOU USE?

Rocket launcher       Chain gun       Sword       Flamethrower

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