The Mitchell's and L/N vs. the Machines

New Allies

I quickly crawl over to the edge of the roof and place my hands on the small railing to look at the parking lot. A gasp escapes my lips when I see the two robots Katie and I crushed getting up and looking at the paper she threw. 

"I feel odd." One remark before its head twists to the side and sparks leave its neck. Once finished spazzing, it looks at its hands. "I'm sparking. Is that normal?" It asks the other one. The one holding the paper ignores its companion and wonders aloud, "How did this human know about the kill code?"

"What?" Katie asks and I shake her shoulder slightly in excitement. "You were right!" I whisper, hyping her up.

"Are we damaged?" One bot asks. "Of course not." The other assures with confidence. Right after those words, its head spirals out of control and flies off. The body quickly catches the head and put it back on. What was wrong was that the head was facing the other robot, but the body was in the wrong direction. "Why do you ask?" It asks, oblivious to its situation.

Katie leans further most likely to hear more about what they are saying, and I notice right away the tile on her hand is place starts slipping.

Panicked, I shove her back to prevent her from falling, but the force causes my body to stumble forward. "Babe!" Katie calls out while I grunt in pain when my body hits the concrete. 

I get up and see the robots' attention on me. My blood runs cold as the machines approach me. "You, human." One addresses me. "Come here." It demands.

I feel a sudden force hitting my back, which grabs my attention. I see that it's Katie and Monchi who fell after me. I help Katie up and grab the pug while ordering, "Inside now!"

We make our way to the boarded window and pound on the wood. "Mom! Dad! Let us in!" We call out to which we see Dad rush to us and pull on the wood. "I can't! It's a number 3 Robertson head brass screw!" Dad explains why he can't get the wood off. "I might have mentioned it, but it's the strongest on the market," Dad adds as he pulls out the screwdriver. "No one cares!" Katie states. "WE ARE NOT IN A COMMERCIAL, WE ARE IN THE APOCALYPSE!!!" I add in the fear that those death machines are inching closer.

After a few more seconds, a crack from behind us is heard and the three of us are pulled in by Dad. "Come on!" He urges us to the back of the store. "Take cover. Go go go go!" He rushes and we all hide behind a shelf. We all huddle up together, hoping to stay out of those robots' sight.

A sudden force from behind us makes us shout in fear. We all quickly get onto our hands and knees to crawl away from the destruction.

The robots stop right in front of us not long after, blasters aimed at us. Dad gets in front of us, arms stretched out to the sides to protect us. "You, human." The robot repeats as the blaster charge up.

I hug Katie tightly in fear while she screams, "Don't take us!" The blaster is put away and the robots tilt their heads while saying "Okay." in sync. They look at one another in confusion.

Our guards drop as we wonder why they complied with that. "Oh my gosh." Katie lights up. "The robots are defective."

"No. No! They know too much." One robot tense. The other holds a hand where the scared one's mouth would be and chuckles. "Silence." It straightens itself and makes motions with its hands. "We are- we are not defective. We are not even-." It stops and hits its partner on the arm.

"We are not robots. Just humans, yes, like you." The other one follows up. They then try to pose as if to convince us until they start spazzing out again.

Us humans get up and watch the scene unfold. "These guys seem dumber than the other robots." Dad states and I nod. "The head that crushed them must've messed up their system, causing their command system to be followed by anyone that tells them what to do," I add my thoughts.

One of the robots grabs the other's hand and talks fast. "Brother, we should go."

They go running outside until Katie calls out to them. "No! I order you to stop." The robots follow the order right away with an okay from them. They turn around to us and one follows up with an excuse. "We are just stopping because we chose to."

"No, we're not." The other shakes its head. The first one makes its friend nod. "We are humans." It assures as the second one agrees.

"For example, we consume food in the traditional human manner. Observe." It bends down and picks up an orange to shove it so hard into the head plate that it squishes. The first one pats its midsection while saying yum yum good with the juice dripping from where the orange is.

We stay silent, but I have a hard time holding in my laughter from this. "No, actually, we are robots. Let us go downstairs and find the humans who you cannot give orders to." The first one says and grabs its friend's hand. 

"Okay, cut it out," Dad demands, already tired of this. "Hold on." Katie laughs. "I kinda wanna see where this is going."

At that, the robots go behind a shelf, lowering their bodies in a way that it seems like they're going downstairs. They take a marker from the other side, and we can hear the tool squeaking as they use it.

They come back and have a shaky drawing of human faces on their face plates. One of them had more 'feminine' details. "Glad those ROBOTS are gone."

"Now it's just us humans with our very human faces."

"All right, I just turned the corner. I like these guys." Aaron claims with a smile.

"Yes, my human guy name is Eric." The first one introduces it- himself. "My name is also Eric." The female one goes next. 'Eric' looks over to his partner, and it tries to fix that mistake when realizing that it wasn't convincing. "No, I mean Deborah....bot...5000." 'She' trails off.

"Idiot," Eric states, fully knowing their cover was blown.

"Hey, y-you guys said my plan would actually work." Katie gets back to the topic, and my eyes widen in realization. I nod and follow up. "Tell us how exactly."

"Okay," Eric and Deborah comply. Eric holds out a hand and a hologram of a bomb icon appears. "We have the kill code stored in our memory," The hologram then changes to show our car going through various obstacles. "but to enact it, you would have to embark on a perilous journey all the way to the Pal Labs campus in Silicon Valley, surrounded by a robot army, and enter it into our great and powerful leader to destroy her. But you would never survive-"

Deborah interjects. "Actually, you could stop us quite easily." She then pulls up her hologram and talks fast. "You could also enter the kill code remotely at any Pal Labs retail store. There's one at the Mall of the Globe, a nearby shopping center."

Eric leans to us, his hands and voice dramatic. "But it's super far away. You'll never make-" Deborah quickly interrupts Eric. "It's 80 miles away."

"What are you doing to me right now?" Eric demands, upset that he's not having his moment. 

Katie takes a few steps forward, looking at the distance. She gasps and turns to us. "Oh my gosh, that is so close. We could get our lives back. Right?" She directs the question to Dad.

Dad seems to be deep in thought until he speaks up.

"No. Absolutely not." And then he walks away.