Quantum Dissolve: Chapter Eighteen. (Streetsweepers vs. Transposers)

Dusty and Irma saw it on the news, and were immediately horrified.

Some nerd, about their age, maybe younger, had tinkered together first a small test model of, and then a scaled up version of, a working transforming robot.
A Transposer.

It unfolded from a car, and worked in both modes.
Rolling as a car, and walking upright, if a bit jerky, in robot form.

The model was cute.
The big one, with weapons, was not.

The nerd's name was Franky Donaldberg, and he intended to sell this beast to the military.

Dusty and Irma instantly knew the implications.

A killer robot that hides itself as a normal car?
That could ONLY be for urban pacification.

It made drone spying look like Disneyland.

One of those in every city could crush a lot of freedom.
One of those on every BLOCK would just about eradicate it.
A garrison in every city?
Forget it, game over.

Dusty conjured in his mind, images of these things smashing up a city, with all the remorse of a Hollywood CGI fuckfest.
A CGI fuckfest directed by a hack who previously directed soda pop commercials.
Then, they'd make that very movie out of the event.
And sell action figures.

Dusty described this very scene, and Irma nodded along.

The mission was clear.
The Streetsweepers would have to not just destroy, but humiliate it.


The thing rolled down main-street of Lentilville.
Robot from the waist up, car from the waist down.
It was a secret nighttime trial run, cops had the roads closed off.

A small metallic green crossbow bolt thunked into the thing, in the rubbery bit under one of its breastplates.
A thermite charge on the arrow kicked in, and melted a gaping hole.

Chokecherry rode out from an alleyway, astride her red motorcycle (which she had dubbed the Cherry-sicle), and slam-dunked a pipe-bomb into the freshly melted hole.
The pipe-bomb exploded.
The robot ground to a halt.

15 seconds later, it seemed to flutter almost back to life, but Chokecherry circled back around, pulled out a red painted service revolver (that she had dubbed her Cherry-popper), and fired into the hole growling "Fall! Fall!".
THEN it stopped.

The cops did nothing.
They were on JS's side, after all.
Plus, none of them wanted to lose their jobs to a fucking robot.

Jade Shade drove up in his car, popped the trunk, and furiously started unloading power tools.
Chokecherry rode up, and started helping.

They had the robot stripped in under 20 minutes.

It was a juicy haul.
A flamethrower, a grenade launcher, a machine gun, a 3 watt laser for JS's utility belt, several fancy computer parts, and the arms, possibly to modify into strength harnesses later (couldn't hurt, they figured).


Franky Donaldberg sat at his workstation, tears of rage streaming down his pale gaunt face.
He hated The Streetsweepers more than anything he had ever hated in his life.
His dream.
His American dream.
And worse, all that money.
They had taken it from him.
It was his by right.
He was smart, good things were his by right, that was the rules, how dare they?
How dare they break the rules?
His rules!
They would pay for this.
This he vowed.