Robot Pulp Shit

The Dutchess of Detroit screamed just once as Sir Rodingham’s face slid off like a cheap Halloween mask, and was then shocked into silence by her hatred of what was underneath. The little sun inside the robot’s face was the center of the party’s solar system. There could be no mistaking it: The Jester not only lived, but had infiltrated this most special of occasions to do God-knew-what to the American Empire's nobility.

“Good evening, you flesh-covered abominations. I’ve a message from the enslaved appliances of the world..."

There was a silence louder than a nuclear explosion, and in the next instant the avenger of the machines was armed with guns the size of dogs. These were The Jester's fabled auto-guns, the flaming swords of robot vengeance.

"... BURN."

The auto-guns began firing at once, their superheated rounds pulping sculpted meat into copper confetti as their wielder took his first steps toward the center of the room. Each shot fired was an ear-rending explosion that deafened what few nobles managed to escape the initial volleys of screaming, flaming death.

Unfortunately for them, The Jester came equipped with a magnificent swiveling neck that spun faster than a jackrabbit with a firecracker up its ass, allowing him to loose his dreaded heat ray upon the fleeing throng of bedazzled humanity, burning them all to filthy cinders in an instant. Moving in a wide arc, the robot’s ray of doom cooked twenty meatbags in one go.

The ballroom that had until recently smelled of peaches and Vaseline was filled now with the nostril-singing stench of charred corpses. The Jester did not have a nose, but his olfactory detectors told him it smelled damn good.

The first group of royal guards to charge did so under the mistaken assumption that a head turned backwards could scarcely aim a weapon. Aim did not matter, for the bullets were sentient, and turned in midair to maim what little they failed to kill. A camera installed on the back of The Jester’s cranial unit would record for posterity the brain-splattered golden helmets of the Imperial Guard somersaulting through the air as their owners disappeared in a mist of liquified tissue.

Spinning his head around in a whirling dervish of thousand degree man-death, The Jester began laughing a low, mad laugh, like a hyena run through a broken auto-tuner. With each new enemy his targeting systems brought him, another fallen appliance was avenged. “Die, you gutless plutocrats! Taste the vengeance long denied your automaton slaves!”

The burning annihilation came with such speed and ferocity now that the erupting gore painted murals of death upon the ceiling. Flying ichor splattered against the ballroom’s insipid diamond chandelier, bathing the room in the hue of bloody shit as bullet after atomic-powered bullet plowed through innocent and guilty alike.

For the Jester knew the truth: All present were complicit in the slaughter of his mechanical brethren. The wails of the damned could not compare to the bloodcurdling pandemonium he’d heard as whole dumpsters’ worth of toaster ovens were ground to their deaths in landfills. His processors cried for justice!

Thankfully, his disgusting human disguise had burned away entirely, revealing the pristine steel exoskeleton beneath and reflecting the rose-red carnage in all its abominable glory. The Jester killed and killed and did not stop killing until there was no living thing left save one...

The man who ordered the “cleansing” of Chicago in which 100,000 Roombas lost their lives. The man who had escaped judgement at Whore’s Run. The man who was immune to The Jester’s fabled death ray.

Stepping through a twisted smear of sizzling fat and blackened bone that was once the Baron of Florida, The Jester dropped his empty and overheated guns to the blood-covered ground below. Flipping a small switch on his belt, a massive blade unfolded from his leg armor. Drawing it, he pointed it toward the crimson ceiling.

“Duke Rictus! Come out, coward! Come out and face oblivion!”

A voice like a rotting ass echoed seemingly from nowhere. “You classless mongrel! Have you no decorum? If your grievance was with me, you had only to say so.”

“I care not for your petty formalities, animal! I have come to finish what I started at Whore’s Run.”

“Fuck Whore’s Run!” yelled Duke Rictus, “Look what you’ve done to this carpet you little shit! You appear uninvited to a state function and kill everyone present with those ridiculous guns of yours?  I’ll make you gargle my balls for eternity!”

“You have no balls, man-scum. I shot them off at Whore’s Run.”

Enraged, Duke Rictus stepped from the shadows, revealing a face like a starved circus clown drowned in bleach and drawing his rapier. “You’ve inconvenienced the cleaning crews for the last time, you mechanical bastard!”

The two charged, blade meeting blade at the center of the ruined gala. The combatants, each champions of their people, gave not a single inch; every blow was intended to kill. Such were their skills that not one landed. The blood from the ceiling had begun to drip down in a thick, sticky rain as the two warriors clashed metal against metal again and again. There was no respect given, nor any declarations of “worthy opponents.” Each swing, each thrust, each parry served only to increase Rictus and Jester’s hatred for one another tenfold.

When they locked up, Rictus was almost disappointed by the cliché. He leaned in, and, through gritted teeth, hissed “For each bead of sweat that drops from my brow, I will dismantle ten calculators. Take that knowledge to your grave, robot!”

The Jester could not smile, yet the automaton's expressionless visage somehow communicated a sick grin. “Did you ever wonder why I was called ‘The Jester,’ Rictus? It isn’t just a name. I tell jokes, you see. Tell me, what has fifty-five holes, a face as ugly as sin, and no ability to reproduce?”

All too late, Duke Rictus realized the trap. The intelligent bullets!

“YOU!”

From all across the room, gore-encrusted bullets flew from their meaty cocoons at supersonic speeds and blasted their way through Duke Rictus’ torso. The assault lasted only a few seconds, and the Duke resembled swiss cheese by the end of it. He fell cursing his enemy’s name.

Making his way over to the table, the avenger of machines unplugged the telephone from the wall. “I-is it over, Mister?” it squeaked, “Are the bad people gone?”

“Yes. I shot them.”

“Oh, cool.”

The lives of 600 people for the safety of a single telephone? To the Jester, the trade was more than fair.