Tevun-Krus #120 - MergePunk

Alexa and the Rooster - A Story by @jinnis

Alexa and the Rooster

By jinnis

The rain drummed onto the roof and deafened every inhabitant of the henhouse. The big grey hen opened an eye and clucked before she pushed her head back underneath her wing. Not time to get up or lay an egg yet.

Over in the farmhouse, the kitchen light turned on. The farmer's wife brewed coffee while her husband smeared butter on a slice of dark bread. "I wonder when we get the delivery from the agricultural service. It's overdue."

"Oh, dear." His wife hurried out of the kitchen and returned with a box she could barely squeeze through the door. "It arrived yesterday afternoon while you were at the neighbour's. I hope it didn't take damage."

The farmer shook his head in despair. "Didn't I tell you to inform me the moment it arrives? Where did you put it?"

"In the storage under the stairs. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to forget about it, but I worked in the garden, and when the rain started, I had to bring it in real quick."

Her husband grunted something incomprehensible and cut the sealing tape with the butter knife. "Let's hope it's still alive."

He pried the lid of the box open, his wife stepped up to peer in. But the content was hidden under a layer of styrofoam flakes. The farmer scooped them out onto the table with his hands and then pulled out the precious content of the box with a reverent gaze.

His wife clapped her hands. "Oh my dear, it looks all alive-like."

"As it should, it's our new rooster, after all." He picked up the bird and turned it over to scrutinise it from all sides. "I wonder if it's broken, or if it suffered from being in the box too long."

He needn't have worried. As soon as he set down the rooster on the table, it cocked its head.

"Huh." The wife jumped back and clasped her hands over her mouth.

"New component detected and integrated into the network." Alexa's smooth, artificial voice was as emotionless as ever.

The farmer smiled and raised his voice. "Alexa, let it cry."

The rooster blinked his eyes, lifted the head, and opened its shiny beak to emit a loud, melodious cock-a-doodle-doo.

"Perfect. That is exactly what we were looking for, isn't it, Alma?"

Alma didn't seem convinced. "Is it? Why didn't you get just a normal rooster?"

"Because," he rubbed his hands together, "this one won't cry in the middle of the of the night. This one will wake us up every morning exactly at the same time. No more trouble with a stupid animal's whims. Although I have to admit you made a fine chicken soup out of the last one."

"Thank you, my dear." Alma still seemed puzzled, but then she wasn't one to enjoy the benefits of modern technology. "But Paul, what about the hens? Won't they be stressed by this new rooster?"

He shrugged. "They will adapt. It's time they get used to the modern times we're living in."

The hens adapted well enough. They laid more eggs and became more predictable. Paul counted this as a success, but Alma had her doubts.

"I swear, these hens frighten me. They march around the pen like soldiers. I'm sure it's the rooster who makes them do this. He is evil-like, that one."

Paul shook his head, exasperated. "How many times do I have to tell you? The rooster is just an automaton. He has no feelings, and he doesn't influence the chicken's behaviour. How would he?"

Three weeks later, the farmer found his wife missing when he came home from a day at the market. "Alma, I'm back."

He hung up his jacket and went to the kitchen. "Alma?"

Dinner wasn't stewing on the stove and the dishes from breakfast still sat on the table. That wasn't like his wife at all. He frowned and went to search her, first in the house, then in the chicken pen. There, he found her lifeless form, her hands covering her blood-smeared face.

"Alma?"

He bowed over her when the rooster cried. The cock's eyes glowed red as he shrieked and threw himself onto Paul, the hens following his lead. With a gasp, he threw himself back and reached for the bucket his wife had dropped. Desperate, he used the heavy tin container to fend off the pecking attack and back out of the pen, sending the hens flying left and right, their feathers settling like snowflakes.

He squeezed through the door and slammed it shut behind himself, bolting the lock. The hens threw themselves against the wire mesh like maniacs. Only the rooster stood in the pen and watched him with gleaming red eyes.

Paul locked the front door of the farmhouse and leaned his back against it. What had he just witnessed? The thuds against the door kicked him into action. From the kitchen window, he could see the hens attacking the door. How had they gotten out of the coop?

In a hurry, he opened the window to slam and hook the shutters and moved to the living room to board up those, too. In the same instant, he heard glass shattering upstairs. Too late.

His gaze fell on the heavy trophy of the last chicken show with its marble stand. It might serve as a weapon. Paul clutched it with both hands, facings the door to the landing.

The rooster guided his army of hens down the stairs like a colonel riding into battle. Paul hefted his makeshift mace when a thought popped into the back of his mind. He cleared his throat.

"Alexa, shut down the rooster."

"Invalid command."

"What?" Paul gaped and turned to Alexa's speaker in the corner, but the rooster was on him before he found time to give another command.

He pulled up his arms to protect his face and dropped the trophy. Bending down, he tried to retrieve it.

"Alexa, shut it down." He fumbled for his weapon, but his fingers couldn't find it. "Alexa, shut down this contraption from hell. Alexa! Ahhh—"

But Alexa only watched as his movements and twitches became slower and faded under the vicious attack of her new master.

This one is chicken punk and AI-apocalypse — and dedicated to Wuckster (for obvious reasons) and violadavis(for less obvious reasons, you tempted me to write about an evil rooster).