Renegade Robot

Six

"It's not supposed to be a snake snake," came the text of Bilj Bjurnjurd through the wristband. "It's a metaphor, referring to the biblical serpent in the Garden of Eden".

"Oh!" Wyatt said aloud.

"Oh, what?" asked Jalopy. They were still standing in the parking lot, several moments after being abandoned by their team leaders.

"What what?" Wyatt replied, unaware he had made a sound.

"You said 'Oh', like you just thought of something."

"Right, right," Wyatt bobbed his head. He was quick to recognize he must have done something he had done so many times before - vocalize his part of the silent conversation - so he repeated what Bilj had told him. Jalopy thought it made sense.

"Although," he added, "It could also be a reference to the Hydra myth, a several-headed serpent which grows two new heads every time you chop off one."

"Could be," Wyatt agreed. They relapsed into silence once again for a few minutes. This time it was Jalopy who broke the quiet.

"Guess we ought to get out of here," he said.

"I can't believe they just ditched us like that," Wyatt said. "Way the heck out here at the lake, too. Was that nice?'

"That was not nice," Jalopy agreed, "But the 78 Corcoran runs a few blocks from here on Stanlan Avenue. We can catch it at Jerrell Street".

Whatever other faults he may have had, Jalopy knew his bus routes. The pair were aboard the 78 headed for a transfer to the 29 in practically no time at all, and Wyatt found himself back home before noon. Jalopy had gone on his own way, but not before promising Wyatt that he'd check in with the Board first thing the next morning.

"After all," he stated, "We're Board Certified and have the two years. There's no way they're going to freeze us out like Randy said. We've got grievance if it comes to that."

"Yeah, okay," Wyatt said, knowing that while they did have their two years, and while they were certainly certified, he was never convinced that anything would ever end up going his way, and while he was thinking of that, he remembered he'd promised his sister he'd come over at the end of his shift, and even though he didn't really feel like it, he pulled out his old three-speed bicycle, climbed on, and headed off toward The Gathering, the walled-garden semi-gated enclave where his sister and her quasi-community tried to feel safe from the outside world.

The Gathering was surrounded by high pink stone walls surmounted by broken glass and total surveillance. The checkpoints were guarded by youngsters in uniform who merely waved Wyatt through without slowing on his bike. Inside, the narrow, winding sidewalk-free streets were well-paved and lined with excellent lawns. There were precisely three hundred and nine homes in The Gathering, a number determined to be optimal by the neighborhood's founding fathers, who were literally 'fathers' in the sense that many of them were ministers in The Church of Ultimate Reclamation, and one of the requirements of being a member of that church was being a father of at least one child. Only members of the church were permitted to live in The Gathering, and as no members of the church were allowed to live anywhere else, it was a matter of simple math to determine that the church was not and could not be any larger than could fit in the dwellings therein. All of this calculation came straight out of some portion of the bible, just as the church's doctrines were also eclectically selected from that same book. Despite its small size, or maybe because of it, the church and its members were financially quite well-off, with everyone sharing to some precise extent in the profits of each others' works, the printed and audio books of Bethany Lorenzo Hayward included, along with her related merchandise, including sleepwear and personalizable intimate accessories.

As Wyatt went past the Simpson house, he saw that Blair was there, raking over a large pile of fallen leaves. Wyatt waved and shouted,

"Hey Blair," and heard Blair call back, laughingly,

"Hey Chump".

Wyatt rode on, wondering what that was all about. He and Blair had been on formally friendly terms for years. He found out soon enough, for when he arrived at his sister's house, the boys were out front waiting for him in the front yard. They surrounded him as he dismounted, all of them chattering all at once, asking a lot of questions that Wyatt didn't understand, and all of them also calling him 'Chump' as if that was his given name.

"Boys, boys," Bethany shouted, "leave him alone! Wyatt, come in, come in," and she shooed the boys away and grabbed Wyatt by the arm and marched him into the house.

"What's going on?" Wyatt asked as Bethany led him into the living room and plunked him down on a couch.

"It's all over the place," she told him. "Watch!".

On the wall, the frantic news network was playing, trumpeting the latest disaster.

"CHUMPS FOOLED! SNAKE ON THE LOOSE!" were the headlines streaming repeatedly across the bottom of the screen. In the upper-right corner were close-up shots, playing in a loop, of the little ape thing spitting out its ticker tape, and there, of course, were Jalopy and Wyatt with goofy grins just letting this apparent apocalypse go on without a care in the world.

"Oh for goodness sake!," Wyatt exclaimed. "We didn't know! They told us to look for a snake. Does that look like a snake to you?"

"It's a metaphor," Bethany explained. "Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden."

"I know that now," Wyatt murmured, thinking, shoot, there goes my career down the drain. Bethany turned off the broadcast and sat down next to him on the couch. For a few moments they remained side by side in silence, and then Bethany said.

"Okay. We know about your problem. Now, about mine."