30 Days of Undead Summer

#SciFiSaturday

Jack bent his head, staring at his quickly moving feet. As a robot moved past him, he hunched his shoulders, praying to whoever might have been listening that it would leave him alone. Thankfully, the robot didn't spare him so much as a glance.

Finally, he ducked down one of the spaceship's hallways and bumped directly into Sapphire. "Hey," she said, grinning at him.

"Hey," he replied, flipping down his hood. "Do you have them?"

"What, no 'how are you?'" Sapphire asked teasingly. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small orange bottle. "Here. Payment?"

Jack reached into his coat and pulled out a Currency Chip, handing it over without hesitation and accepting the bottle. "Tell me how to take them," he ordered Sapphire, opening the top and meticulously counting to ensure that all the pills were accounted for.

"Pop 'em right after a glass of water. I'm talking a full glass. But don't take them with water," Sapphire instructed. "Take one. That'll do it."

"And the results?"

"You'll be as strong as them," Sapphire said, her usually humor-filled eyes flashing with sudden anger. "You'll be able to defeat them."

"Good." Jack closed his hand tightly around the bottle. "I'll make them pay."

"You do that." Sapphire gripped his shoulder and stared into his eyes. "Make every last goddamn one of them suffer."

*

Jack stared into his glass of water as he listened to someone crying softly. He didn't know what they were so sorrowful about, but he could guess.

Ever since robots had taken over the human race, killing off the majority and taking a select few onto the spaceship to perform repairs and provide entertainment, humanity had been at a loss. Beaten down and hopeless, Jack couldn't remember the last time he had heard someone laugh.

Most had given up. But not Sapphire. Not him.

Jack resolutely downed the glass of water in a few seconds and popped a pill into his mouth, struggling to force it down without liquid.

He sat for a few seconds, tapping his fingers in quiet anticipation.

Suddenly, horrendous pain split open his mind, and he was lost to the world.

Sapphire's POV

Sapphire had no idea what had gone wrong with the pills she had given Jack. After all, her friend, a former Earthen scientist, had assured her of what the pills would accomplish.

Either he had lied, or he was a very bad scientist. Sapphire couldn't exactly ask him because he had disappeared two days after the attacks started.

Either way, the pills had gifted Jack with phenomenal strength...along with other attributes, such as hugely decreased intelligence levels and cannibalistic tendencies.

The robots had no idea how to stop Jack from attacking other humans (which was not even remotely close to the original intent of the pills) and transforming them into whatever he was through (their best guess) his saliva.

When robots don't know how to fix a problem, humans pretty much knew it was pointless.

Sapphire sighed as she looked over the small living quarters that she shared with five other survivors. The robots had done worse than simply fail at understanding Jack's illness - they had also abandoned the humans as soon as they realized that Jack was strong enough to tear their metal bodies apart.

So Sapphire and the others were alone in their fight to live.

She picked up a small, silent girl who had lost her mother mere days ago, and her father a week before that.

Quietly, Sapphire cried.

For the dead, for the survivors, even for those humans killed in the robot uprising so long ago.

Even for Jack.

But mostly, she cried for herself.

Because she was the one who had sold Jack those damn pills.