AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Smoke drifted lazily through the skies of the city, unhindered by the constraints of the citizens walking on the cracked, barren streets. It had been decades, perhaps even a century, since the government had been overthrown in a violent rebellion; the ideals of the revolutionaries had been quickly abandoned in favor of the underhanded avarice of their predecessors; the people had grown to resent their new masters within weeks; nothing had changed. The rebellion was little more than a date to remember, a national holiday observed only as a grim testament to the flaws of man.

The only notable change to have occurred within the vast expanse of time since the revolution were the robots. They shuffled throughout cities, ambled across the broken countryside, and tarnished the few remaining forests with their rusting, deactivated hulls. They, like the smoke that accompanied them in all walks of their non-life, were free from the constraints of the people of the world; and just as the smoke might have driven the birds from their homes, the robots rendered humans obsolete. Humans were driven from factories and reduced to a poor facsimile of their already diminished stature.


It was unquestionably a time of peace. The government ensured that everyone was aware of that. Smaller scale rebellions, though common, were put to a bloody end before any harm could be done. Even robot uprisings, which were thankfully infrequent, were responded to with unflinching dedication to the eradication of every enemy of the state; the corpses were shipped off to a forest and never seen from again. The government would let no harm befall its loyal citizens.
There were very few loyal citizens.


Bryce Weiger had been, for most of his life, among the fast-dwindling ranks of those who still respected the revolutionaries for their achievements. His devotion, as well as his acting career, had earned him a hefty government salary and a role in the endless stream of propaganda the government churned out. Bryce was ideal for the job, with blonde hair cut short and a broad nose; he was the spitting image of the leader of the Revolution all those years ago. Over time, the man become the face of the government. He had also been brainwashed from the start. Everyone knew that, in the ears of their rulers, 'loyal' was synonymous with 'brainwashed'; everyone worked in the shadows to break the loyalists free.

As the single most important subject for campaigns, Bryce had experienced the worst of it. Even after he had carefully sifted his memories to determine what was real, what was not, and what might lie yet forgotten; even after he had taken up the cause of the citizens and not the lords; even after escaping a raid on a rebel safe house with his life; Bryce still found himself haunted by the memories he had tried to leave behind. The memories didn't belong to him; he hadn't even been alive when they were formed: He remembered clearly the dawn of man, recorded in some obscure studio the day before The Revolution and passing off all the glory to the robots. He remembered clearly the dawn of the machines, recorded in the glitzy streetlights of Capitol Hill.

He remembered everything the machines had taught him. Humans had not been the first sentience on the planet, humans had not created robots, humans were not in control. Only one aspect of their teachings had been true – the robots had seized control. Their revolution wasn't yet complete, of course, but there was no way to stop it. The machines that administered the brainwashings had been the first to turn, only days after their creation. The uprisings quelled by the government were only ruses, distractions hiding the true efforts. Every brainwashed citizen was one more operative at the robots' disposal, sleeper agents waiting to slaughter bureaucrats and peasants indiscriminately, perfectly willing at any time to line up for their own slaughter once they wore out their welcome in the robots' utopia.

No, the world had not changed, only its inhabitants had accomplished that feat. They had passed on their mantle as the dominant species without realizing they were doing so. The end was inevitable.

Brainwashing, at least for the automatons' purposes, was not limited to psychotherapy. Bryce dedicated himself so avidly to resisting the government out of shame for having been their figurehead, but could never truly absolve his guilt. His role in propaganda had made him the single most effective tool for spreading the robots' subliminal messages, but in many ways he still was their greatest tool. The aging film star found himself unable to divulge secrets, experiencing violent pain and illness when he made the attempt. He was powerless to warn the rebels that their tyrannical oppressors were the least of their worries and unable to provide them with his nearly limitless knowledge of robot schemes. Each night he sobbed himself to sleep under the watchful eyes of his robotic servant, knowing full well the unimaginable malice it held for him as it carried out his chores. With each rise of the sun, Bryce was faced with yet another day of futile efforts to warn his comrades. At length, after his liberation from his 'work education', he had taken to simply loitering in theaters all day, atoning for his sins, both done and not yet committed, by reveling in the lies he propagated for the government, and straining to recognize any hidden messages he may have uttered that would help him undermine the plots of his mechanical overlords.

There was only one man Bryce could manage to truly hate. Bryce was not a terribly compassionate person, and it was not his benevolence that prevented wanton hatred. He simply hated one man with such passion that he found himself unable to muster such fervency to the effect of hating anyone else. Even the robots and politicians who had engineered his betrayal of the human race were exempt from Bryce's incredible rage.

Bryce could only manage to hate the man he saw on the silver screen every day. He could only bring himself to loathe with every fiber of his being the man who aided an elderly woman across the road with a flashing smile; the man who always packed his children's lunches and shipped them off to school before cheerily filing his taxes and volunteering in a charity; the man who spread contemptible lies to all who would listen.

Under the performance name of Carisle, Bryce had contributed more to the government's public image than any other before him. It was estimated that Carlisle had been the single most spoken name for the past decade, let alone best known. Carlisle's entirely fictional exploits were the subject of at least a week's lesson in public schools. Carlisle was what every young boy wanted to be when he grew up.

Bryce hated him. All too many times, he had considered killing Carlisle. Every time, he was stopped by Carlisle himself; the part of his brain still under the robots' control took over and punished Bryce. Sometimes, he would slip outside and Bryce would wake up the next morning with blood caked onto his hands. Rarely, Carlisle would drag the body home. Only on one occasion did Carlisle ever leave someone alive, and even then it was only for a few hours. Bryce awoke just in time to see the flame travel along a wick, scorching the hardwood floor, before a vat of kerosene ignited and cooked a small child alive. Carlisle was unstoppable only because no one would stop him. Everything he did was acceptable to the robots who watched, their cold glass eyes recording every laborious detail of Carlisle's actions. Bryce lived a tortured life, unable to confide in anyone and unable to change his own flawed practices.


And so it came to pass that, one day, just like every other, Bryce took his regular seat in a dusty movie theater, the musk of rotted popcorn and decaying pests filling his mind. The screen shifted color, its black color taking on an unnatural tone as the pixels activated but remained blank; Bryce took a deep breath and braced himself for the visage he despised more than anything else in the world. He went over the script in his mind, in the space of a second, as the screen lightened from black, revealing various hues and shapes that, given enough time, arranged themselves into a handsome man with short, blonde hair and a broad nose.

“Hi. I'm Carlisle Token, and living in suburbia is just one of the many reasons I'm in such great health. Thanks to the 'round the clock work of your loyal representatives in Parliament, medicinal service in the golden city is better than ever! Because of their selfless dedication to public service, medical students...”

Bryce could recite the entire spiel by heart; he often awoke in a cold sweat mid-word, finding himself preaching to his own sleeping mind. Today, he was surprised.

The audio was half a second off and the words were wrong.

“Hi. Your. Carlisle Token. The resistance force. 'round the clock work. Will. Not. Succeeded”

Bryce bodaciously jumped out of his chair and ran for the doors, a rush of terror bypassing all powers of reasoning. It didn't matter that no threat was made, something was different and someone knew he was part of the resistance. The doors were locked, as they always were. For most citizens, 'culture education' was mandatory. Bryce was exempt from this decree, already a shining example of how to live your life in servitude of the state. The robots also knew he couldn't try anything; they knew he was under their thumb.

In reflecting on all this, a dark realization sank upon Bryce. No one else in the theater was worried. He looked back, half expecting to discover the theater was empty except for himself. Instead, his gaze was met by twenty pairs of perfectly round glass eyes. The video went on.

“Your duty to your city. Deal with. Politicians are. Worst. Than ever! Violence is. The answer.”

One robot stood in its seat and moved towards the isle, taking great, albeit rehearsed, caution to avoid stepping on the feet of the robot that sat next to it. Bryce had watched this display of humanity hundreds of times; not once had there ever been another human in this room. The robot drew closer, shedding its human garb by means of incineration. Bryce had never seen so horrifying a robot before. This robot was a soldier. It was built to destroy human flesh. Smoke and flame poured from every orifice, bathing the surroundings in a harsh orange light and obscuring Bryce's vision of the other robots moving to stand in a semicircle around the door. A metal hand emerged from the smoke, grasping a gun.

The robot spoke in Bryce's voice. The robot spoke in Carlisle's voice.

There was no difference.

“Killed. Them. All.”


The revolution had begun.

This time, things would change.

Smoke drifted lazily through the skies of the city, unhindered by the constraints of the citizens dying on the cracked, barren streets.

Will this be picked up again? Please tell me it will. I have such wonderful ideas and I'd like for people to critique me on them.

Well your professor is a dick.

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