Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

A loud button smash, alarms buzz and red sirens flash. Missile silos open up in the White House lawn. A half-dozen Nukes lift into armed positions from beneath the ground. In a quick flurry the nukes flash, smoke, and shoot out of the ground with great force. Tight trails of smoke slice through the scene.

EXT. SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA – DAY

The Kremlin is surrounded by the black smoke of raging fires. Deep buzzing and flashing sirens signal. We see a cluster of missiles launch upward, ripping past and lighting up the Kremlin on their way out.

EXT. ANTARCTICA – DAY

A pristine glacial landscape. We see a mass of penguins huddled together for warmth on an icy plain. The chaos of the zombie apocalypse is nowhere in sight… suddenly a massive missile blasts through the ice, sending bloody meat and penguin feathers everywhere. The nuke tears out of frame leaving a thick column of smoke to dust the carnage.

EXT. EARTH – LOW ORBIT – DAY

We’re high above thick cloud cover as a small cluster of missiles pierce through. Bright lights flash from beneath the clouds, then more missiles. Leaving puffy trails of smoke tendrils growing through the stratosphere on their way to space.

EXT. EARTH

We jump back to see the missiles leaving planet Earth, then arcing back down toward itself.

CUT TO:

EXT. OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Punching further away, drifting from the pale blue dot, past the sun…

CUT TO:

EXT. THE MILKY WAY

Punching even further into the beauty of deeper space… our sun now a distant star.

CUT TO:

EXT. THE UNIVERSE

The magnificent shape of the spiraling galaxy glitters. The music swells to an operatic crescendo and…

… FAaRRrrtTT.

The tiniest hint of light flashes at the edge of the galaxy – and the sound of an interstellar FART rips into the completely uninterested vacuum of the Cosmos.

KILL TEAM KILL Justin Coates

“This is bullshit.”

It was the second time Macy had said it during the long march up the mountain. Sergeant Nielsen glanced at his MK48 gunner in annoyance as the younger man leaned against an Afghan pine.

“Shut up, Macy,” he said, feeling the same exhaustion he knew the machine gunner felt but refusing to show it. “You can bitch about it once we make it back to Desolation. Take a knee, face out, drink water.”

Macy looked back at his team leader with barely disguised disdain. He lit a cigarette as he got down in the prone, popping out the machine gun’s bipod behind the roots of the pine tree. Nielsen made sure to stump the toe of his boot into Macy’s side plate as he went to check on the rest of Team 1.

Erwin was seated against a smooth limestone boulder. The marksman peered down the scope mounted on his MK14 EBR. The 7.62mm sniper rifle was pulled snug into his shoulder, between where his plate carrier met his Multicam-pattern combat blouse.

“See anything interesting?” Nielsen asked.

“Not a thing,” Erwin muttered, slowly scanning the valleys below. “Not since that weird goatherd guy following us after Meri Khel.” He cocked his head to the side, affecting a higher tone of voice. “Did you see that chicken guy?”

“Yeah,” Nielsen answered. “That guy was weird.”

They both laughed quietly, having shared the same inside joke with the rest of the team for six months now. Being stationed at COP Desolation wasn’t easy; finding humor in the most idiotic or vulgar circumstances had kept the men of the 25^th Infantry Division from killing each other. The combat outpost was tiny, and the daily missions grueling. Bleak humor was all they had.

“We still set to meet with Team 2 on time?” Erwin asked, briefly glancing away from his scope.

“Yeah. If we make this our last stop, we should be fine.” Nielsen fiddled with his Camelback, sucking down a gulp of warm water from the hydration system hose. “Lemme know if you see anything.”

Folen and Coutts were on the other side of the small summit, overlooking a sheer drop of over a hundred feet. Coutts was in the prone behind his M249, the automatic rifle’s stubby barrel poking out into the open air. Folen’s M4 with underslung M320 grenade launcher was propped against a tree while Folen pissed a steady stream of clear liquid over the cliff.

“You’re gonna get shot in the dick if you keep silhouetting yourself like that,” Nielsen said.

Coutts looked up at him, grinning like an idiot. “Right in the diiiick,” he said, spitting out a thick black thread of chewing tobacco. “Quit diiiicking around, Folen.”

“I wanna see how far out I can get it,” Folen said, visibly struggling.

“I’m being serious, asshat. Cut it out.”

Folen buttoned his trousers and took up his position at the tail end of their small formation. “How much further we got to the objective, sarn’t?”

“Another five hundred meters up,” he said, briefly checking the GPS unit attached to his wrist. “As long as we follow this spur we should be fine. Team 2 will be waiting for us there. You all staying hydrated?”

“Roger,” they both replied, their heads returning to the slow, automatic swivel typical of anyone used to patrolling in a combat zone.