Metallic Genealogy

"General," Jeeps screamed into her commander's personal intercom. "Would you please come to the control room? I need your advice. Immediately!"

General Quock grimaced. He was watching the events unfold from the safety of his escape pod, and was at the moment torn between duty and certain safety. His finger twitched just above the eject button, when Jeeps rang him again.

"Okay," he growled, wincing and gritting his teeth. "I'll be right down."

Despite his fear, General Quock was above all else the supreme leader of this facility. As such he, at least on some level. felt the well-being of his men should ultimately come first. However, he was not about to be rushed. When his lesser officers summoned him, he simply did not come running like a faithful dog.

Quock took his time:

He stopped to make himself a sandwich; yelled at the surgical officers engaged in open-heart surgery for not saluting; and participated in a plethora of small-time meandering before finally finding his way to the bridge.

"What is this all about?!" he yelled, scanning the room for Jeeps, Once he located the woman behind one of the computer monitors, he restated the question, using the less formal: "What in Grandizer's Furnace did you want?!"

"I'm sorry to have disturbed you, sir," Jeeps said, cowering amongst the printed media. "But there was an ambush..."

Quock appeared annoyed, he knew what events had transpired, but he wanted to appear casual and aloof. "Well," he said. "The fighters should have taken it out then?"

"They should have, but they were taken out themselves...almost immediately, actually. The unknown ship fired four shots and knocked them all out of commission without a miss! It was quite spectacular, actually. Perhaps we could discover their allegiances and sign them up for your..."

"SHUT UP!" The general could not believe that any human could have snipped off highly trained fighter pilots with such accuracy. "I HAVE TO..."

Quock began to shudder. His eyes rolled over white, and suddenly he was gone from this world, having returned to the previous vision with his brother and the dead bird.

///

Fendripth was here with young Quock behind the curtain.

"What do you expect to happen," Fendy asked him, his diminutive voice grating and prying.

"Let's just wait and see," young Quock said, impatiently. He scowled. "I think I hear something. Go out there and check the cage." Already officer material at a very young age, he considered his little brother cannon fodder.

Fendy whimpered, and shook his head. "I don't want to."

Young Quock growled and pushed his brother with a force that knocked him down, sending him sliding along the hardwood floor. He came to rest just under the dead bird's metal container.

"Do you see anything?"

"No," he said, crying. "But I hear something."

Young Quock pulled a pair of bi-optics from his play rucksack. He found that the cage was shaking slightly. "I can't see anything," he growled. "Get up and look in there, and send back a report."

Shakily, Fendy got to his feet, and apprehensively peered inside. The bird was vibrating violently. "It's shaking off it's feathers?"

"What?" He wanted to rush forward to get a look for himself, but was afraid it might be a bomb.

"There's something underneath the feathers," Fendy mewled.

"What? What is it?"

"Metal!” Fendy cried. “The bird is made of metal!!"

"Robots!" General Quock roared, coming out of his trance, dramatically. "No human could do such a thing! THEY MUST BE ROBOTS!!"

Jeeps eyed her superior suspiciously. “General, I…”

Quock lifted his finger towards the woman’s lips in an awkward attempt to silence her. Jeeps, however, quickly ducked out of the way to avoid any physical contact with the man, and placed her free hand on her blaster.

“Don’t interrupt, Jeeps,” he said, and suddenly his eyes almost seemed to glow red. In a whisper, he continued. “I’ve been expecting this my entire life. I’ve been preparing for it.”

“Erm,” Jeeps began, unsure what to even to say to this burbling madman before her. “You’ve known what all your life, sir?” The final word, ‘sir,’ was a long time coming. There was an uncomfortably long pause that preceded it, and Jeeps was shocked when Quock didn’t fill that space with more of his insane rhetoric. It was as though he were immobile until the honorific had been officially appended.

“Robots, Jeeps.” he said, matter-of-factly. “It was only a matter of time before they began to rise up and destroy us all.” He turned and began to pace. “You see, it’s a matter of supremacy. They see themselves as perfect entities, no longer wanting to take orders from lesser beings?”

Jeeps appreciated that irony in silence.

Quock spun around as though performing a pirouette. A rather bulbous individual, he nearly lost his balance in the process. “We must make our escape, young Jeeps,” Quock said, righting himself by deftly grabbing onto the corner of the desk.”

“Escape, sir?”

“Escape, to fight another day, of course.”

“I shall alert the men…”

Quock snapped his fingers in front of her face. “No,” he said, strictly. “Alert no one...The enemy must not know of our plan. We shall take our officers to a pod and find our way to safety.”

Jeeps shook her head. “The men, sir? They must at least be made aware…”

“To safety!” Quock said, pointing his finger towards the stars. He then dramatically whisked himself away down the hall.

Jeeps watched him, stunned, as he disappeared into the shadows. She was torn. As this was her first week on the job, she didn’t especially want to die. And while she felt some duty to warn the soldiers, she also knew the offer to accompany the General and his functionaries was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

She snapped her fingers. “Biz-me” she said. “Come with me. I’m going to need you for something.”