Now most of humanity was unaware of the
events that were transpiring in orbit of the Earth, but the first human was
soon to get a taste of their nature.
Certainly there were many questions following
the untimely and gruesome death of Marcus Bradford.
He had been an ordinary example of urban
American humanity. He did not differentiate from the crowd in any significant
way. He was neither overly smart nor overly dim. He was not well known to the
authorities as he neither robbed, gambled nor sold drugs.
He did not drink save for socially and he treated the women he knew with
respect. He was nominally Christian, but never spoke of it to any great degree
and tended to only attend church at Christmas and Easter. Those who even
noticed him tended to like him well enough, but he was not a type destined to
inspire great love or loyalty. Marcus Bradford was a bland cog in the machinery
of civilization.
Why then, we must ask, did fate prepare
for him such unexpected and horrendous end?
The story of the only significant event in
the life of Marcus Bradford began in
Marcus’ mother, Ruth Kitts, was a no-nonsense
type who had raised the boys on her own as their father Steven Bradford (who
she only referred to as “that shiftless man” when she spoke of him at all), had
left them shortly after the birth of Marius declaring that he had to go “do
some business”, and was never heard from again save for a post card four years
later that had the return address of a state prison in Maryland in which he
appealed to Ruth for a conjugal visit. She threw the card in the trash and
never thought of Steven Bradford again. Ruth was thirty-nine but had more the
appearance of a woman of around fifty, for her life had been challenging and
circumstances had effectively minimized her chances at any real success. She
worked on the administrative staff of a local hospital typing patient’s records
into a computer and shifting files from one drawer to another. It was enough to
keep the family healthy, sheltered and fed, but not much else. Buzzy did have a desire for expensive sneakers that Ruth
informed him he could easily fulfill if he were to, in her words, "get a
damn paper route", but she was hard enough pressed just keeping him in
dungarees that fit. She counted herself quite lucky that her sons were not
prone to trouble as so many other boys growing up without the influence of a
man could be. She had accomplished this by running her household as much on the
power of fear as love. One of her favorite phrases that she used with her sons
was, “I made that ass of yours and I’ll kick it as hard as I need to!”
Her household was not a democracy.
Ruth had hoped to send Marcus to college, but
she had not been able to save enough and he had not been either outstanding
academically or particularly good at sports. While Marcus wasn’t completely
enthusiastic about a future in pest control, he was happy enough that he had a
job. He hoped to get a place with a couple of room mates after the first of the
year that he incorrectly assumed to be the first of a new century, but let us
not pick nits with Marcus as he didn't live to see that year anyway.
On Monday November 8th, Marcus Bradford was
dispatched on a call in
The house was in a nice neighborhood on the
good side of
“Is he friendly?” Asked
Marcus nervously.
“Fluffster wouldn’t
hurt a fly. I’ll show you where I saw the ants.”
Marcus was led downstairs to a partially
finished basement. He guessed that the project had been started and abandoned
quite some time ago as it had very dusty and dog hair ridden '70's style shag
carpeting on half of the floor. Apparently this forgotten den had become the
mastiff's lair. Over in the more poorly lit section of the basement was an
unplugged refrigerator next to a water heater. The lady of the house pointed in
that general direction and said, "Right there."
Marcus unharnessed
his spray tank and said, "Give me half an hour."
"Alright, I'll be upstairs if you need
me."
When the woman had gone about
her business, Marcus began to spray along the baseboard and in the space under
the refrigerator when one of the offending insects appeared from underneath the
appliance. Marcus did a double take. That was not an ant. He was pretty
sure it wasn't an insect but was far less certain of what exactly it might be.
It dashed across the floor so rapidly that he had a hard time making out the
details of the tiny creature. He had an idea. Briefly returning to his truck he
grabbed a small package and the again descended to the basement with it in
hand. From the package he withdrew a glueboard of the
type used to catch mice, but he had another purpose in mind. He stood and
waited and before too long, his patience was rewarded and another of the small
and speedy things emerged from underneath the fridge. He dropped the glueboard glue side down right on top of it.
He turned the board over to get a look at
what was held in the sticky gel. He blinked a few times at the sight and then
dug through his bag for a moment withdrawing a magnifying glass. What he had
caught was most definitely not an insect and in fact, he suspected, probably not
a living thing at all. It looked like some sort of machine, but far smaller and
more complex than any machine he had ever seen before. It was slightly under
three quarters of an inch long and looked like it was made of plastic with some
smaller parts made of shiny metal. It had two main sections that were joined by
a slightly narrower jointed section. The two lobes were equipped with four
jointed legs each and each leg ended with an odd foot that somewhat resembled
those seen on some old bathtubs made to look like a bird's claw gripping a
ball. The little balls were about the same size as the ball in the tip of a Bic pen, regular, not fine point. They spun rapidly as the
thing struggled against its captivity. At one end the thing had a sort of
flexible "snout" that seemed to have a tiny circular saw on its tip.
The other end appeared to contain a battery of various sharp tipped
manipulators. Marcus made a mental note that this thing was to be handled with
some care. Using a long handled surgical pliers, he removed the...whatever it
was... from the glue board and dropped it into and old mayonnaise jar he
grabbed off of a nearby shelf and quickly snapped the lid on. Instantly the
tiny robot, for Marcus was now somehow sure that this is what it was, assumed a
stance of alertness in the jar. Gingerly it tapped the glass with one of the
needle-like manipulators. Marcus got the distinct impression that it was able
to determine the characteristics of the glass from the sound it made when it
did so. It took a few steps in the jar and then rolled on the tiny balls up the
side of the glass that they seemed to grip with the same ease as a fly's feet.
Again, it tapped the side of the jar with a soft, but clear "tink-tink" sound. Marcus was somewhat worried.
Normally bugs weren't smart enough to test the walls of their prison. At the
same time, a pair of manipulators combed over its body to remove the bits of
glue that still clung to it. It skittered up to the jar's lid and tapped again
and its body stiffened. The snout with the circular saw extended and it started
spinning with the high-pitched grind of a dentist's drill. The robot brought it
into contact with the lid. Marcus panicked. He picked up the jar and shook it
as hard as he could so that the thing rattled like a bean in a maraca. He kept
it up for thirty seconds and when he stopped, the whatsit
lay inert in the bottom of the jar with several of its legs and widgets broken
off. Marcus now brought the jar close to his face to take a closer look when a
brilliant green laser light stabbed out from the battered machine to burn his
hand. In shock and pain, he dropped the jar, which shattered on the floor and
the broken robot bug skittered away.
Marcus clutched his wrist in alarm. It felt
like someone had put out a cigarette in the palm of his hand. The thingy had
been playing possum. He was pretty sure at this point that this particular
infestation was beyond the scope of his expertise. He was going to get out of
the house and strongly recommend that the residents do likewise. He turned to
go up the stairs to notice that a number of the tiny robots were now positioned
around the room including a few on the stairs. He stopped. While he had never
identified a structure that could specifically be called “eyes” to be pointed
at him on the creatures, there was no mistaking that he their undivided
attention. He had already seen that these things were at least as hazardous as
a scorpion or a wasp and he guessed that they might be considerably more so.
One of the critters on the stairs hopped
toward him and landed at his feet. Marcus raised s boot and stomped hard on it
and was gratified to see that he had destroyed it completely. It was broken and
bent bits of plastic, metal and some sort of glassy substance with a few drops
of greasy fluid. In this basic elemental way, they could be killed. One down, how many to go? He stepped back as two more jumped
close to him and raced around his feet on tiny spherical wheels. One leapt and
clung to his trouser leg. He reached down and brushed it off at the expense of
being stung by some needle sharp appurtenance. He stomped on that one also. The
sting had felt like a electric shock and left his hand
twitching spasmodically. He became aware that there were hundreds of them
around him now. He jerked his head around looking for the cellar door to make a
quick escape, but then one of the things landed on his eye and clung tight. He
heard the dental drill sound and cried out and as he did several of them
crawled into his mouth and down his windpipe sending him into a fit of
coughing. The drill sound came from inside of him and his vocal chords were
severed. He coughed blood. Several of the things zipped up inside his pant leg
and wriggled into his anus and others made their way into his nose and ears.
The whirring noises that came from inside of him were mostly muted save for
those inside his ears. Those were loud beyond loud. It was only a few short
seconds before the first to find its way in became the first to burrow its way
out followed in short order by many of its associates. Marcus’ end was quick,
but painful and only the first of very many. The lady of the house came down to
investigate the noise and fell to the creatures as did the dog trying to defend
her and police officers who came looking for the missing exterminator. All the
while, metal, glass and plastic from every source was manufactured into more of
the devices. Humanity had just been handed its nastiest challenge. The war had
begun.