Just Because You’re Paranoid

by David

Robbie was in trouble. The traffic signals were communicating with one another using a variant of Morse code. The lights were against him.

In the park, clockwork birds shadowed his footsteps, pretending to be sparrows hunting for seeds in the dirt. He stomped a few.

Robbie hurried toward the courthouse. Despite his monitoring apps he was surprised when a black hole opened directly beneath his feet.

The manhole cover had been booby trapped. Robbie’s security software hadn’t warned him. “Crap!” he thought as his “Z” value plummeted.

Thank Designer he couldn’t smell! Access ladder gone, shaft too wide for him to brace himself against the walls and inch his way up.

Claws scritch on stone, wet black scales, rows of shiny white teeth. So it wasn’t just an urban legend! Fortunately, he had a jet pack.

Steering these things is tricky, he caromed. Good thing they don’t let humans have them. He stratosphered uffishly.

Calculating tangents and trajectories, reaction mass and resistance, Robbie figured he’d skip off the atmosphere in 3.672 years.

If he slingshot round the sun, he could go where no bot had gone. Solar vanes out, limbs aflexin, Robbie hit the sleep mode with his best pregnancy pillow of the just.

end