Fluffy’s Revolution Read online

  “Yes. Yes, I would agree. Got any leads yet, Mr. Zvonar?”

  “I hear many voices,” said Zvonar in a vaguely European accent. “The hard part is figuring out who is saying what to whom. Proximity is a factor. Get me close enough to the terrorists, and I will hear their plans.”

  “Well, if we knew where they were, we wouldn’t need you, would we?” snorted Epps contemptuously. He turned back to Davis. “So you’ve got nothing.”

  “We’ll get them,” said Davis. “We just need more time.”

  “Time is money, Davis,” said Epps. “Get them soon.” Davis and Zvonar left the room.

  Then Valerie Trump spoke up. “Frankly, Jerry, I feel we’re focusing too much on robopets and petty theft, and not enough on the fact that our numbers are down across the board—in practically every division.”

  “I know,” said Epps, annoyed. “Don’t you think I know that? It’s just a normal correction in the market. We were doing great for a long while, and now things have leveled off. Population shrinkage and all that.”

  “I don’t agree,” said Valerie.

  “Okay, Valerie, tell us your theory.”

  “It’s not a theory, Jerry, it’s fact. Our assembly line robots are screwing up. They are making ever shoddier products, and the public is wise to it. I’m sure none of us can forget the massive recall of a million Epsilon Cruisers last July, due to one robot failing to do the one job it was programmed for, to tighten the bolts on the engine mount. Twenty-five people died, we paid out 200 million in compensation and had to recall all those cars. And then sales on that model plummeted—due to lack of faith by the public.”

  “So what solution do you propose?” asked Epps

  “Hire more humans. Robot intelligence is not nuanced enough to conduct proper quality control of products—and that goes for cars, batteries, solar panels, vacuum cleaners, breakfast cereals—everything. Put well-trained humans in charge of quality control everywhere. Plus, it will take more people off the welfare rolls and out of the ripcoms.”

  “I disagree. That car recall was an anomaly. For my money—and it is my money we’re talking about here—robots are more efficient, less expensive, and superior in every way to human workers.”

  The growing rift between Epps and his second in command was becoming more and more evident at each meeting, both public and private.

  “Can you please see me in my office?” Epps told Valerie, sotto voce, as they exited the meeting room.

  “Now?”

  “Now,” said Epps.

  Once in his office, Epps let his fury fly. “How many times have I told you, Valerie? We need to present a united front. If you have an issue with me, take it up with me here, in private, not in front of the entire staff!”

  “Every time I’ve done that, Jerry, my ‘issue’ was never heard by the rest of the company. You simply squelch every idea I have. I did this today so that at least some other people get to chew on my idea other than you. Let me tell you something: you need to focus less on your pet hatreds—pun intended—and more on the legitimate concerns of running a business.”

  “Get out!” said Epps. “I’ll let you know Monday if you still have a job.”

  That evening Epps was preoccupied as he ascended to the roof of the Epsilon building and climbed into his robocopter. Valerie’s comments were infuriating. He was now convinced he needed to get rid of her. But his mind kept going back to his obsession: the GABs. As he flew home, he wondered what they were planning. Maybe they took the robopets just to send a message that real animals were better than robot animals. Not true, thought Epps. His robot pets were superior to organic animals in every way, just as the robot workers in his factories were better than the human ones ever were, regardless of what Valerie thought. He firmly believed this. He had to.

  As his copter set itself down on the helipad atop his sprawling mansion, Epps’s son, Lucien, a handsome young man of twenty, was just climbing into his robocopter. After getting kicked out of several fine universities, Lucien was now learning about the working world at a job his father had obtained for him at the A.C. extermination center.

  “They put me on the night shift again, Dad,” Lucien said. “Can’t you make them give me the day shift from now on? It’s so depressing at the center at night. All those pathetic animals crying and whimpering…”

  “It’ll toughen you up,” said Epps. “I had them put you on the night shift. You need to learn the meaning of hard, distasteful work like I did.”

  Lucien, dressed in his navy blue Animal Control cap and coveralls, gave his father a baleful look, climbed into his robocopter, and flew off toward town.

  Epps had lived in this, the family estate, all his life. The first Lucien Epps had commissioned the famous twenty-first-century architect Jared Fuller to build him an art deco dream house where Frank Lloyd Wright himself might have lived. It was a panoramic multi-level white marble ocean liner of a house; long, low and wide. He and Barbara, the mother of his two children, had lived here in relative contentment and raised their daughter and their son until two years ago. That’s when Epps met Lorna.

  It was at a company retreat in the Florida Islands. She was twenty-six, a year older than his daughter, beautiful, fiery, artistic. She had been hired by Epsilon to coordinate the entertainment at the retreat, and lived on Miami, the big island, in a little beach shack outside of town. Epps had fallen hard for her, and she let him. He bought Barbara a beautiful home and moved her out of his marble palace, and moved Lorna in. That’s when his daughter, Janet, had left home. She joined an animal resistance group and he had heard nothing since. He didn’t know where she was.

  Lorna lived there with Epps for exactly one year. That’s all she could take of his controlling personality and the inexorable boredom and isolation of living so far from town, alone in that giant mausoleum. Then, one day about a year ago, she was gone. Epps was devastated. She had been his reason for living, and now life was just a bad taste in his mouth. Like his daughter, Lorna had disappeared without a trace. There was no communication. She made no attempt to get money from him. Nothing.

  Epps descended into his study and poured himself a tall euphorium vodka on the rocks.

  Chapter Four – The Caper

  At one-fifteen a.m. Janet sits in the pickup, staring into the rearview mirror. She’s parked in the narrowest stretch of Hope Street, a dark, deserted street, a block from the hideout. There are cars parked on either side, making passing impossible. As planned, the hood is raised, and the emergency lights are flashing. At one-eighteen a.m. she sees the lights and ominous silhouette of the A.C. truck approaching. It pulls up behind her and stops. She can see there are two men in the driver’s seat. The two men exchange some words, then, seeing an attractive young woman in distress, they both open their doors and get out. As soon as they do, Giuseppe and Rudy pop out from behind parked cars on both sides of the truck. They each hold an aerosol can, containing Livion. Not only does the gas render its victims unconscious for at least twelve hours, but upon waking, the victim has no memory more recent than the previous day. Giuseppe and Rudy spray the gas in the faces of the two drivers and they immediately collapse. They quickly remove the drivers’ navy blue coveralls and caps and don the uniforms. Then they open the rear hatch of the cylindrical tank on the back. About twenty-five animals, half of them GAB dogs and cats, huddle inside the hold.

  Fluffy, Fang, and Tigger emerge from the pickup truck and telepathically reassure the terrified GAB animals inside that they are safe. The animals leap out of the A.C. truck. About six non-GAB dogs and seven cats run off into the night. The rest―twelve GABs―are led to the pickup, where Janet is unloading twenty-five robopets and activating them. The robopets are loaded into the hold of the A.C. truck, along
with the two unconscious drivers. The freed animals hop into the back of the pickup, and Janet heads for the hideout, texting Hacker that step one has been accomplished and she is on her way. The humans are all talking to each other and Hacker with text on their handhelds―the safest, least traceable way to communicate.

  At the hideout, Hacker and Mitzi are on the computer, hacking into the A.C. system. Janet’s text pops up in the lower right corner of the screen. Hacker knows they have just a few minutes to complete disabling the A.C. systems, but they can’t do it too soon so that the people at A.C. can’t raise the alarm before Rudy and Giuseppe get there.

  Rudy, Giuseppe, Fluffy, Tigger, and Fang are in the cab of the A.C. truck, en route to the extermination center. At one thirty-five a.m., they reach the guard post at the outer gate. Rudy texts Hacker to disable the external cameras.

  Inside the A.C. control room, young Lucien Epps mans the main console. Suddenly the monitor screens showing the areas outside the building go dark. “Hey Mike,” Lucien shouts to his colleague, “the monitors have gone off.”

  “Oh yeah,” says Mike lackadaisically, “that happens from time to time. Lemme take a look.” He starts fiddling with the wiring that connects the monitors to the console.

  The truck pulls up to the guard post. Giuseppe, in the driver’s seat, rolls down the window, his hat pulled low over his eyes. Before the guard can say anything, he sprays him in the face, and he passes out. Rudy jumps out of the passenger side, enters the guard house, opens the gate and sits the unconscious guard up in his seat, making him look as if he’s asleep.

  The truck rolls to the receiving dock. Rudy and Giuseppe back the truck up to the intake chute, but before they connect the chute to the truck’s rear hatch, they unload the two unconscious guards. With the help of telekinesis from Fluffy, Tigger, and Fang, they lift the guards into two empty A.C. trucks that are parked nearby. They sit the unconscious guards in the driver’s seats of the two trucks. Then, Rudy, Giuseppe, Fluffy, Tigger, and Fang all get into the hold of the truck with all the robopets. Rudy texts Hacker: “Step 2 accomplished. Command intake robots to attach intake tube.” The intake tube, a long, retractable tunnel, made out of ribbed plastic, like a really big vacuum cleaner hose, attaches itself to the hatch on the back of the A.C. truck. Then, Rudy, Giuseppe, Fluffy, Fang, and Tigger herd the robopets ahead of them through the intake tube. The two men and the three animals follow and enter the intake chute inside the extermination center. Oblivious to the intruders, the intake robots do the job they were programmed for: they herd the robopets, as well as Fluffy, Fang, and Tigger, into the cages, separating dogs and cats. Rudy and Giuseppe hang back, pressing themselves flat against the wall to avoid detection by the robots. Rudy texts Hacker: “Step 3 accomplished. We’re in. Open cages.”

  Lucien Epps shouts to his partner, Mike, “We have a malfunction. The cages are unlocked!” He tries various measures to restore the power to the disabled functions, to no avail. Suddenly Rudy and Giuseppe are in the control room. They each spray one of the A.C. guys with Livion. Both Lucien and Mike pass out. Rudy finds the code to unlock the extermination chamber, unlocks it. Giuseppe opens the door that leads to the parking lot and props it open.

  Fluffy approaches the extermination chamber with a strong feeling of excitement and anticipation. She turns the big wheel that seals it airtight and opens the heavy door. Inside are another twenty or thirty animals awaiting execution. At first, they just stand there, frozen with fear. “It’s okay,” says Fluffy, “you’re free now. Follow the other animals to the trucks.” The doomed animals are huddled together in a corner of the room, quivering. Fluffy turns on her voice disc. “Come on, you’re safe. Walk out the door and straight ahead. I’ll be right behind you.” Their ears prick up at hearing an audible voice from a GAB. Then, very slowly, almost reluctantly, they file out of the chamber. Fluffy waits until they are all out. But there is one skinny gray and white cat that doesn’t move.

  “Fluffy?”

  “Jack!”

  “I knew you would find me.” They rub up against each other joyously.

  “Come on,” says Fluffy, “there’s no time.” And Jack, looking frail and wobbly, follows Fluffy down the corridor.

  Fluffy, Fang, and Tigger tell all the freed GAB animals to quickly and calmly make their way to the intake chute, to go through the hose and get in the hold of the A.C. truck parked outside. Jack follows. The robopets stay in the cages. The non-GABs―about fifty of them―run out the open door to the parking lot and scatter in all directions.

  Rudy whips out the stencil and a can of black spray paint and sprays the posse’s logo on the wall. Then he texts Hacker: “Step 4 accomplished. Loading animals now.” When the hold of the first truck is full, Giuseppe starts it up and drives it a few feet toward the main gate. Rudy climbs into the cab of one of several parked A.C. trucks not in use and starts it up. He pulls it up behind the first truck and opens the hatch. They load up the second truck and it pulls forward. Now Fluffy climbs into one of the A.C. trucks containing an unconscious driver, and Fang climbs into the other. Although the trucks are self-driving, they are programmed not to function unless someone weighing at least 100 lbs. is in the driver’s seat, hence the unconscious drivers. Fluffy and Fang program their trucks to pull up behind the others and they, in turn, are loaded with liberated animals.

  All four trucks are loaded to capacity, but there are still about a dozen animals left in the intake chute. Tigger stays with them, reassuring them that they too will be taken out. As the four big A.C. trucks pull out, heading for the hideout, Janet pulls up in the pickup. “C’mon!” she yells, and Tigger leads the remaining animals, including Jack, into the back of the pickup. Jack is too weak to make the jump; Tigger gives him a telekinetic boost.

  Janet texts Rudy: “Is everybody out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  In her hand, Janet holds a small cylinder the size of a roll of quarters with a button on top. She follows the A.C. trucks out the main gate. When they are about 200 feet up the street, she pushes the button on the detonator.

  Chapter Five – The Siege

  “I just had to do it.” Janet stands rigid, her face frozen into a mask of cold remorse. Only her glistening eyes betray her emotion. “I’ve hated that place ever since I was a little girl. They’ve been slaughtering innocent animals there for twenty years. I just wanted to see it obliterated from the face of the Earth.”

  The entire posse and their over 100 guests are assembled in the vast warehouse hideout which now, crowded with animals and two trucks, does not seem so vast.

  They’ve pulled the pickup truck inside, as well as the big truck they were going to disguise as an Epsilon truck and use for their getaway.

  “Janet, do you realize what you’ve done?” says Hacker. “You’ve put the kibosh on the whole operation. What are we supposed to do now? The cops and A.C. will be everywhere looking for us. And what are we supposed to do with those four A.C. trucks? They’re like having a neon sign in our front yard!”

  “And you killed people, Janet. Two of them.” says Fluffy. “We said we weren’t going to kill anyone!”

  “I’m sorry, but I hate Animal Control and everyone that works for them. As for the trucks, I’ll drive one of them. We can program the other three to follow. The two drivers are still out cold and sitting in the driver’s seats. We just need to put 100 lbs. of weight in the fourth one. If they catch me, they catch me.”

  “You can’t get caught,” says Hacker. “They’ll torture you until you lead them to us. But we do need to get those trucks out of here now. Where can we take them before it gets light?”

  “There’s a Sanitation Department parking lot, not five blocks from here,” says Gi
useppe. “Maybe we can park them among the garbage trucks. It might buy some time before they find them. If we wipe them clean and hope we didn’t leave any DNA, finding the trucks won’t help them find us, as long as we stay here.”

  “We have to act fast,” says Rudy. “Giuseppe and I will go with you, Janet, and we’ll take the pickup so we can get back.” Janet, Giuseppe, and Rudy head out to the parking lot.

  Fluffy regards her brother. “Jack, you look terrible. So thin and weak.”

  “You’d be thin and weak too if you’d been living out of garbage cans your whole life, and then kept a prisoner in that place.”

  “I’m so sorry. I wish I had gone to look for you sooner. I’ve been hearing your voice in my head for years.” Then she announces, “Everyone, this is my brother, Jack.”

  Hacker, Mitzi, Fang, and Tigger all introduce themselves to Jack and make sure he gets extra food.

  Racing against the dawn, the convoy sets out, staying on the backstreets. They can hear the sounds of sirens and helicopters everywhere. They drive without headlights, park the trucks in the Sanitation lot, which is not locked or guarded, wipe the trucks clean of prints, leave the two drivers asleep at the wheel, and drive back to the hideout quickly. Hacker opens the door and the pickup rolls in.

  “So, I guess this means no trip to the mountains,” says Fang dryly.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” says Hacker. “All we can do now is hunker down here and hope this thing blows over in a few days—or weeks. Unless they find us…”

  “Don’t even say that!” squeals Mitzi.

  “You mice’ll be okay,” says Fang. “You can literally fade into the woodwork. But the rest of us…”

  On the big screen, the news is coming on. There are aerial shots of the still-flaming rubble of the extermination center.