Brilliant 3-minute story from New-Classic Sci-Fi Book 1 - Zero 9-4
Time: 0800 hours: Sheriff’s Office, Delmonica County, Philadelphia, Penn. ‘APB. All 10-8 officers. BOLO for groups of rednecks converging on National Rifle Association rally at Conestoga Park, Phil. Known bunches heading in from Pittsburgh. High likelihood of disturbances along highways and back-routes, especially from the west. Maintain high profile in pull-ins – keep berries and cherries lit up. Establish vehicular checks along all major routes into the city from the west. In the interests of public safety, warrants have been issued to apprehend the following individuals and vehicles…’
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Time: 1306 hours. Daisy-Mae Dixon was clearly re-living the whole delicious nightmare. ‘First we knew, Sheriff, there’s this lumberjack guy, size of a grizzly comes bursting in. Straggly yeller hair all over him, “Willy Joe Deacon, that’s me!” he’s yelling. “Yuh kin tell ya friends y’ met me, in the living flesh! And you-all gonna jes sit back and keep yo little selves quiet while me and the boys…” And there was this whole bunch of’em just burst in. Ten of them. Microbus-full. All drunken turkeys. Every single one armed and aggressive and up for it. Joshing my little girl real crude, they were. And threatening the pump guy. We ain’t used to it: this’s just a call-in diner and gas station. No, Sheriff… Muffleton Bottoms. Not Mifflingtown Junction. Said they were taking these Hick and Back roads so they don’t get your aitch-dubya patrols bugging them. Hick and Back, indeed. “Jes having a bit o’ fun on the way to Philly,” they said.
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Time: 626 jikan: Zyhh to OS.2. Zyhh to OS.2. ‘During the skirmish with Kumo forces we sustained a severe burnout of our central control bank. Succeeded in landing on an isolated humanic-type planet which appears to have an abundance of replacement parts. In particular, I have located a suitable, compact group that already has some unison of coordinated activity. All group members are aggressive, fast, and not excessively intelligent. Ten of them. They have adequate brain capacity; moderate observation skills and coordination. Could be ideal for our purposes. With your permission to go ahead, and use them as substitute units? Yes? Thank you. Yes, I have already detained them when they left the location of a personal and vehicular refuelling depot. No, their detention was not observed by others of their species. All being well, I can do that many extractions, one at a time. It’ll simply take a little longer than usual to do clean removals working on my own. So, with your permission, OS.2, I shall perform the procedure immediately, and fit them into the banks one by one, instead of all ten in series at once. Can’t afford to make cross-wiring mistakes like Jayeff Tee did last year, eh? Prelim tests indicate they should be readily controllable through pain administration, once they’re fully interlinked in the system: they’ll merely be an organic brain unit. With their aggression indices, we should be fine back in the combat orbits, far side of Sigmund. There is power available on this site as well, so I’ll take the opportunity to re-charge the cells. Yes, back in action within about one jikan. Signing off – Zyhh.’
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Time: 2100 hours: CNV-TS News. ‘We are receiving reports of a particularly gruesome find in Central Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Juanita River. Staff and customers at the Muffins Diner and Gas Station have confirmed that ten bodies have been recovered from the vicinity. They are all adult males, and were discovered at a nearby scene where an area of woodland approximately two hundred feet diameter is reported to be completely flattened as though by a tremendous weight being placed there for some time. Many trees are crushed flat. A series of electric power lines has also been brought down and part-melted in the close vicinity, possibly by a lightning strike of immense power. Amateur cellphone footage appears to indicate that the ten bodies are naked and have had the contents of their heads removed. The County Coroner unofficially described the injuries as “brain-ectomies”. In further communication, he said, “and, seemingly, their spinal cords have also been extracted. The whole of the Central Nervous System is missing. This has apparently been carried out with considerable technical skill.” Initial on-site identification suggests that the bodies are those of a group of Pittsburgh Militia who had been travelling the backwoods route to Philadelphia to attend a rally in support of Gun Law Senator Pinkie Peewee. Final confirmation of all identities may take some time, the Knowall County Sheriff says.