Creepy - Drown in Earth & Our Discontent

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Drown in Earth***Written by: Some Unholy Obscenity and Narrated by: Michelle Kane***Content Warning: Intimate Partner Violence / Death***Our Discontent***Written by: Paul Cesarini and Narrated by: Owen McCuen***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of biocations. Silence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Creepy presents. Drown in Earth. Written by some unholy obscenity. And narrated by Michelle Kane. Let's talk about a man named Mark. Mark hated the rain. He was a blessed enough individual to have a house in the countryside. and he tried to make sure he felt gratitude for that as often as he could.

When it got this wet, he just couldn't help but curse God under his breath. The rain was heavy and oppressive, which meant that the dirt around his home would be thick. That would make for a terrible time trying to work on the cars he was trying to rebuild. He had started reviving old Camaroes and corvettes after his dad passed. They were given to him in the will, and now he was stuck with four old cars that he wanted gone. Mark had no meaningful attachment to the cars like his dad had. They were just another source of income for him.

If he hadn't already been a mechanic, then the process would have been made a thousand times harder. Mark watched as tears fell from the sky in a downward torrent, cursing himself for the little work he had done that day. a coffee mug that he'd filled to the brim with cheap whiskey in one hand while he stood in an old ACDC t-shirt, and these same pair of jeans he had been wearing since he was 17. Mark had other pairs of pants, of course, but he always wanted to wear these ones for some reason. Even if they weren't in the cleanest of conditions.

The circles around his eyes looked damp in the reflection of the rain. it was just an illusion, a clever trick of light that only windows allowed. Bullshit. He muttered to himself as he shook his head toward the weather, thinking it was some sort of personal attack on him. Of course it would rain right now, when he'd planned so adamantly to work super, super hard on the cars. That was how most days were for Mark. If any minor inconvenience interrupted his flow, then it would ruin his entire day. Mark decided to go outside to check the status of the mud that was sure to appear. As he swung the door open, he realized that it was also brutally windy outside.

The raindrops flew straight in his eyes as soon as he took a step beyond the threshold. It didn't hurt, but it was enough to piss the impatient Mark right off. Of course he would be so unlucky to be immediately pelted. The angry man wiped his eyes and looked down toward the dirt in his front yard. Mark did not have a lawn. He lived in a desert where there was very little grass to be found. He had chosen this place to live because, ironically, there was supposed to be very little rain. In reality, it had only rained twice this year, but Mark has spent so much time waiting for it to happen.

he'd convinced himself he'd predicted it, despite zero meteorological knowledge. His yard was growing progressively softer. This amount of rain would make quick work of the desert dirt that made up the surrounding area of his house. Eventually it would be wholly soaked, and Mark would be walking through a veritable bog. Mark turned from the weather and back into his house. He was going to have to do something about this. Putting his jacket and his boots on, Mark prepared to deal with that situation again.

Of course he would have to do this today. It was just his luck. All he'd wanted to do was renovate those cars and feel accomplished. He never felt accomplished much anymore. Even when his dad was alive, the man had never told Mark that he was proud of him. He hadn't cared when he'd wanted to start a rock and roll band like all the classics. nor did he care when he'd met one of his many girlfriends over the years. His dad would instead ask why he didn't already have grandchildren. Nothing he did was ever good enough.

Even getting the cars and the will felt like it was just another jab at him. Like his father was saying, Here you go, maybe finally do something with yourself. Part of him wished to torch the damn things and be done with it. They took up a tremendous amount of space on his measly three acres anyway. But he knew more than anyone that he needed that money. These thoughts came to the forefront while he pulled the shovel from his closet. He liked to keep it close in case a day like this came.

The desert often provided him with acclimate weather for the things he liked to do. But once or twice a year, Mark had to accept that the rain would come. and thus the mud would. The mud was an absolute nightmare when this happened. With how arid the ground around his home was, he wasn't equipped to walk through it very well. He hated the weight and impeded his movement and meant the cars may sink a couple of inches into the ground.

When it dried, it was easy task to get them clean again, but it was still a headache. He did have a good chunk of privacy for these days, though. While he had a few neighbors that he had occasionally waved to, most of them kept to themselves. That was the point of living in a desolate place like Tumolo. The bustle of the city and the noise was nearly extinguished. Other than the revving of engines and periodic small groups of kids riding their bikes, there wasn't much here to bother him.

Even as a kid, Mark was not a social individual. The doctor once called him antisocial, but he was a little. He didn't trust what those quacks had to say anyways. They just wanted his money and to diagnose him with any invisible disorder they could, so they would have justification in controlling him with medicine. He was happy when he was on his own, which was why none of his relationships had worked out. The peace and quiet of being alone was too rich to give up. Mark swung the front door again and leered at the task in front of him. He did not want to venture into the rain. but it was a necessity.

He made his way into his yard and passed to the singular tree he had remaining. It was a nice fur, but had been split down the middle from old age, and he always thought it looked pretty ominous. If he were a man with more initiative, then he may have cut it down. But Mark tried to take breaks when he could, which often became a constant. He had to go venture deeper into his acres than he was comfortable doing. While it wasn't a great deal of land, he tried not to walk past his garage if he didn't have to.

The same garage where he should be keeping his shovel. Once he had placed two of the four cars in there, he didn't like to keep much else in the garage. Plus, he didn't want anyone finding that shovel in case he had company, which he never did. Beyond the garage was more desert. Trees had been slaughtered by whoever previously lived here. There used to be what looked like a miniature forest behind him, but now it was just stumps and dirt. In this desiccated piece of land lay three mounds side by side. You could call them graves because they were graves.

You see, Mark has had three girlfriends in the past six years, all three of which he had been forced to kill. Mark hadn't wanted to, he tells himself, that it was out of the first. of self-preservation, that the three women he murdered had been for self-preservation. To a certain extent, he wasn't exactly wrong. Let's go through the facts. Melissa had gotten tired of his conspiracy theories. Mark had fallen into a rabbit hole of QAnon and various other parasitic websites that fed off of people's fear for access to money. He was the perfect sucker for that sort of thing, diagnosed with antisocial disorder,

a father who never showed him any respect or love, and a mother who never said no to him. He was the shiniest candidate for the absolute lunacy that the internet could provide. Melissa had told him she wanted to leave because he was scaring her. But she knew the secrets he knew now. He couldn't just let her walk away knowing she was vehemently against what he believed. She could blow the whole operation he'd completely fabricated in his head. So, wham! There went Melissa's head against the wall.

He had only intended to incapacitate her. But Mark had underestimated his own strength when he did so. Believe it or not, Mark first experienced a dash of pride. for having been so strong before he felt any sense of regret for what he had done. What a stand-up guy, Mark is. Sarah had made the mistake of finding the mounds in the stretch of land and asking Mark what they were. He had tried to come up with a lie that would make sense, but Sarah was much smarter than Mark was. She had liked him for his rugged honesty, and they were more closely in tune politically than he and Melissa or Shelley.

had been. Sarah had figured out what they were almost immediately, and so Mark felt obligated to deal with her immediately. He strangled her right there. Since she died in the same spot, it was the easiest burial out of the three. How convenient for Mark. Shelly was the first, and the one that Mark still thinks about. The others drifted into a state of afterthought not long after the incidents occurred. But Shelley, Shelley was something else, witchy in a way that wasn't obtuse or fake, more like green witches that cackle than modern renditions of beautiful Victorian women. In school, Shelley was called Smelly Shelley for her prominent odor. She did not shower very often as she did not always have the water turned on in her house. Her mother had done her best

to protect Shelley as hard as she could. Two gals against the world. Her father had impregnated her mother and disappeared without a trace. Shelly's mother was frail and talentless, but she overflowed with love for Shelly. Everything she did while she still breathed was to ensure that Shelly had a comfortable place to live and joy in her life. However, life is not always so kind as to freely give access to those things. Her mother fought to keep a job and an apartment, but they were in and out of both quite often. There would be weeks of homelessness until the government aid came. Family had cut contact with Shelly's mother due to the fact that she had once upon a time been on drugs, a simple lapse in judgment out of fear that ruined the entirety of her familial connections.

It was her boyfriend who'd wanted to get into heavy drugs. she had just loved him and trusted him to make them safe. His name, coincidentally, was also Mark. Except it wasn't coincidental. Shelley's mother Helen had never put it together, but her father's name was Mark, as was her grandfather's. Shelly was the first person to see the connection,

that her absent father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, all had the same name. It didn't register to Shelley as anything other than a silly quirk that she had noticed. It wasn't until Shelley had started learning about the Salem witch trials that she started to notice the pattern. There was an inquisitor in Salem who went by the name of Marcus Holland. Marcus was well known in Salem for being able to snuff out witches by the dozens and had nearly a hundred women executed under his watchful gaze. Marcus was a sleazy little man who used his faith as a shield from the things he feared.

That was mainly the power that many women held in secret. He convinced groups of people that women with identity or individuality were to be considered dangerous. Everyone rallied behind this hideous message because it was the word of God. But Marcus was scared, you see. Marcus knew of a witch, a real witch, who had made it known one night by delivered letter that she would no longer allow Marcus's misogynistic crusade to go unimpeded. She threatened Marcus, and Marcus panicked. He knew that he had no real power against actual magic, and Marcus didn't believe that God would do anything for him. He'd never been truly pious anyhow. So Marcus dove into the darkness of magic himself.

He knew that if there was any real weight to her words, that the only way to combat her would be to throw her powers back in her face. The occults, paganism, all the things Marcus openly detested were now spread across his candlelit table as he hunted for a way to kill a real witch. It was much harder than sacrificing copious amounts of women to appire for no reason. Was it not Marcus? But Marcus found a curse that he could place on her,

one that made it so their destinies intertwined and Marcus would kill her in this life, and the next, and the next. and the next. And until she found a way to kill him, he would silently control every version of her existence. It made him feel big. It made him feel strong. Didn't it? Marcus. So when Shelley met Mark at the cede bar, she started to wonder what it meant. Why was she meeting this man? And Mark was so kind when they first met that it made Shelley forget entirely about all she had learned. He'd had some weird conspiracy ideas, but he didn't push them on her.

He listened to her when she talked and had a smile that curled around his patchy beard in such a cute way that she couldn't help but fall for this unconventionally handsome, curious man. It wasn't until she moved in with him six months later that things started to change. Mark was so adamant about having her meet his dad, Mark Sr., that he became less attentive to her needs. Mark started whining about his mother, calling her a bitch for not talking to him anymore. He never put together that his requests for money grew outlandish and didn't account for his cruelty. It made Shelly nervous. It scared her that what she had seen in half a year had been a ruse, but she didn't remember what she had read until Mark first put his hands on her.

Then the memories of trials and tribulations put on the witch flooded back, and how every version of her and every descendant of her would suffer by the hands of Marcus Holland. It had read so much like a fairy tale then, but now she could not ignore it. She knew. She knew. She knew. knew that Mark was destined to kill her. Shelly was sad. Wouldn't you be? She had to briefly contemplate what Mark may have been like had he never been born of a curse. But the truth is he likely wouldn't have been different.

Mark wasn't cursed. Mark was Marcus. Some desecrated piece of an old false prophet that hated women so much, He took it upon himself to curse them the moment he was about to face accountability for the horrible things he had done to them. But Shelly was a warrior. She had fought with her mother for all she had every day of her life and made no plans to put the sword down just yet. She knew that her death was impending, but maybe she could put a stop to this darkened magic. hours of research poured into witchcraft and the counterbalancing of magic energies. So much fruitless, tireless digging for some sort of way to avenge her ancestors and relatives

and put a stop to this never-ending nightmare. That's when Shelley learned about me. I'm an old thing, older than the twilight and the sunset. I am from the earth and worshipped by those who still want to. the forests and deserts in search of long dead gods. I am neither good nor am I evil. I am a leveler, one who evens out the playing grounds with subtle yet devastating reversals. Shelley's prayers to me would not go unheard. I knew Marcus. I've known Marcus for a long time, but I cannot intervene without request. When Shelley called to me,

My smile could have blotted the cosmos, a constellation-spanning grin, knowing that I could finally make such a cruel man pay for what he'd done. What form it took mattered little to me. Mark hated the rain. It meant the mounds he built as graves, for these women would uncover and be visible to the few neighbors who never looked back here in the first place. His sins laid bare for all to see, and he couldn't bear the weight of it. It wasn't that he was sorry for what he had done, just afraid to be caught and thrown in prison

for the monster he was. He piled more mud onto the women's decayed bodies, as he had so many times when it got this bad. If Mark were a smarter man, he would have taken time to dig actual graves, but he wasn't. Mark would continue to take him. to pad the issue with as little effort as it took. After all, the energy needed to go revitalizing vehicles he hated for money that he'd spent almost entirely on liquor. I would have almost, almost felt bad for the man, had he not been such a foul individual. On this day, the rain began to fall much harder while he scooped mud. At first, it did little more than irritate the the man with gin blossoms and breathing problems. His clothes grew even dirtier. Those same jeans he'd

had since he was 17 were caked in more dirt and muck than he would ignore in favor of wearing them for several days in a row. Even his face would barely receive a wipe of his hand, one that would apply more mud than remove it when he did so. He was so covered by drenched dirt that he was starting to resemble more as statue than a human being, a thing that was entirely mud. The rain had washed away most of the dirt he'd piled over Shelley. Her gaunt and rotting face stared back at him with hollow accusatory eyes. He hated looking at their bodies. They were so creepy and felt as if he were being judged every time he looked at them. Mark looked away just briefly to shovel another pile, but long enough to not notice that Shelley's creaking neck

had turned to stare at him. The sunken holes of her eyes peered their voyage straight through Mark's heart. The rain had grown deafening, so Mark could not hear her relearn how to move her limbs that had been devoured by worms and maggots. But that skeleton witch, known as Shelley, broke free from her earthen tomb, and she snapped her hand onto Mark's ankle. He would scream, then. A panicked yell more fitting for a child than a grown man with a triple homicide under his belt. His erratic breathing grew more so as he looked at the corpse of Shelley wrapping her dead hand around his reddening skin.

It hurt. Her strength should have been impossible without the muscle of a human being. Do you feel strong now, Mark? He tried to kick her off, but Shelley's grip was iron. Her gaze also told him that she had been long awaiting this day, the day where her body would rise once more and make Mark, Marcus Holland and all variations of the Inquisitor pay for their crimes. She would smile had her lips not faded into the dirt with the rest of her skin.

Mark made to bring the shovel down on her arm. If he could just sever her arm, he would be freed and run from this devilry. But, as he was about to swing, another hand broke free from the earth and gripped him by his ill-fitting ACDC t-shirt. He was pulled back toward the land in the mud, where he could see the desiccated face of Melissa

inches from his own. The shovel was lost to the rain. Is this not convenient? enough for you, Mark. Mark had fallen vertically across Sarah's mound, whose hands broke free from their prison and wrapped themselves around his chest. One last loving embrace was more than he deserved.

The three ghouls that were once partners to this wretched man now invited him to join them in the mud. To the same place he had put all three of them, to drown in earth. Mark was pulled by the mind, of the three women deep beyond the surface. His vision darkened first, and he tried to scream for help. A measly yelp escaped before his lungs filled with soft dirt, and he choked. A lone hand from Mark broke the surface still as the trio dragged him to his resting place. One last-ditch effort to have

anyone, someone pull him from this agonizing death. But Mark chose this place because the neighbors did not bother him. No one would be coming. Mark's death was slow and excruciatingly painful. He felt it the whole way down, a legacy of evil destroyed in a single swift motion by the undead, curated by my hands. Marcus Holland knew that the curse would shatter if one version or a piece of him, was killed by the one he was supposed to kill. And so, the end of the inquisitor came with a swift and devastating vengeance. The problem with justice is that it does not cure the wounds that were implemented upon the victim. It is simply a way to give suffering to those who have wronged in the first place. That is all I am, an echo of suffering that when asked delivers it to those who

deserve it. All I can hope for is that that young witch and all who came after her may rest now in their respective afterlives. I love the rain. Creepy presents our discontent. Written by Paul Cicerini and narrated by Owen McCune. This was confusing, thought Ari Six, the control panel lights reflecting off its domed metallic head in the otherwise dark room. The high-speed aerial assault vertical takeoff units, or H-S-A-A-A-V-T's, essentially had the same acronym as the high-velocity armored assault strategic tactical units, or H-V-A-A-A-S-Ts. When given orders to launch the H-S-A-A-V-T phalanx against the humans just now,

how could it be sure beyond any reasonable doubt that the orders actually meant what they said? What if, it thought, the orders were actually to launch the H-V-A-A-A-S-T-Falings instead? That would involve an entirely different set of protocols, procedures, and command codes. Executing the first order typically takes between 1.2 and 2.63 cycles for full implementation. The second would take twice that, on a good day, assuming all weather conditions were optimal and each unit was fully charged. If, however, those two letters were inadvertently transposed, the first phalanx would require 72% of the munitions resources needed by the correct actual units.

Once the mistake was discovered, it would take another 3.52 cycles to remove the munitions from the H-S-A-A-A-V-T units, transport them to their H-V-A-A-S-T brethren, then reload each unit in that phalanx. Admittedly, it thought, they could shave off perhaps a third of that time by routing the incorrect group backward through the Munitions Assembly Depot.

That would assume, of course, that each unit in the phalanx was at least a model three or four. They were supposed to be model year six or higher, but that goal was always rather lofty it thought. If any were a model two or earlier, which sometimes get substituted in if resources were tied, their firmware would be completely incompatible with those munitions assembly lines. They couldn't simply be reflashed without losing their core programming. Yet, here we are.

RE6 debated this for another 3.2 seconds before flipping the sequence of switches necessary to launch the H-V-A-A-S-T phalanx. That wasn't the order, technically speaking. It assumed that typo was the most plausible scenario. Either way, it thought, those humans didn't stand a chance. RE6, one of the newest model years of the armored reconnaissance immersion units, equipped with six spider-like legs, class B-7 tactical plating along its upper torso and arms, full incendiary and biochemical weaponry, extended range biometric sensors,

a massive frame and solar panels over each shoulder for field recharging, did not care for its current duties at high command. It did not deserve this humiliation. It should be at the front, with its brethren, methodically annihilating the humans. Yet, it could now only do that from afar. By implementing mundane orders, issued by others. Why?

Around it buzzed three microdrones, silently communicating with each other and RE6 via a series of coated, multicolored lights that alternated between seemingly random patterns of strobing and blinking. One of them buzzed directly in front of RE6, who swatted it away nonchalantly. The micro drone immediately flew back into formation with the other two, out of swatting range, chirping somewhat angrily. RE6 was normally not so indifferent to the drones. They and the handful of other R-E units in High Command were its only real companions here.

Today was different, however. R.E.6 felt increasingly unnecessary, increasingly frustrated. Instead of using its single, multispectral eye to scan for humans hiding in the rubble of their former dwellings, like the rats they know they are, it was reduced to flipping switches and levers from 11 different protocol panels, stacked two stories high in a 180-degree field, all at a constant state of activity. Admittedly, it thought, it could not argue with the results. It and other RE units assigned to high command

had been remarkably adept at their current duties. Over the past 23 cycles, they had implemented orders to emulate or irradiate tens of millions of humans from the sky, the land, and even the oceans. The humans actually thought they were safer in their submersibles. These and a string of other victories were done from afar, with the push of one or more buttons. R.E.6 and its brethren had become extremely efficient at wiping out the humans. At this rate, it thought excitedly, total victory might conceivably come within the next two to three

model years, four at the outset. The problem, and the very reason why it had been banished to high command, was when this mass extermination did not come from afar. The problem, it thought, was that it and numerous other units, completely independently and coming from completely different quadrants, did the unthinkable. They paused. R.E. 6 remembered the day well, still with a mix of bewilderment and shame. It had been sent into what was once a major industrial complex for the humans. It was with three other units, R.E. 17, 11, and that snide R.E.4. Their spider legs allowed them, to easily traverse the rubble. They had methodically moved forward, block by block, irradiating any humans they came in contact with. It was a very productive and rewarding day for them.

However, at one point it and the other R-units came across a group of human children, hiding in the remnants of an underground technical command chamber, a basement, perhaps. There were six of these children, and they were caught completely off guard. They had been eating whatever meager scraps of food they had scavenged when we peeled back the roof, it remembered. Two of the children still had food in their mouths when they leaped up. We naturally expected they would run toward their ineffective weapons, hoping these would somehow change the calculus of their collective fates then. Ari4 beat them there and immediately attempted to detonate whatever munitions they had. This was, and still is standard procedure against the humans or any enemy. The

strange thing was that, despite repeated scanning, none of the R.E. units could find any munitions to detonate. Plus, these human children did not run. Instead, they clutched each other tightly and simply froze, not even attempting to mount any meaningful counterattack. It remembered seeing RE 17 and 11 advance on that pathetic, pitiable group of human children. Both units simultaneously shifted their elbow and shoulder joints into their titanium arse. arms, steam blasting out from their ventricular exhausts, then flipped their claw-like hands backward from their wrists to unveil their incendiary cannons and quickly interlocked each pair of legs to form outriggers for the recoil. This, too, was all standard protocol when engaging

humans in close quarters. It followed suit, it remembered, as did R.E.4. The children, still sniveling and clutching each other, shut their eyes, preparing for oblivion. Cannon fire, explosions, and screams could be heard off in the distance from all directions. Yet, not a single unit in its squad had fired by then, almost as if the entire squad had been dispassionately waiting for the humans to mount their meager counterattack first. It hardly seemed sporting to not even give the humans a chance to fight back. Yet, still nothing happened.

RE17 lit its pilot light in both arms, a precursor to firing the incendiaries, it remembered. The smell of gas had filled the room. It and the other two R units followed suit, advancing a few steps closer. Still, it remembered, none of us fired. Why? Why did we not execute such a routine, purely clerical task? The human children stopped cowering, confused by our inaction.

They looked at us, then climbed up the, rubble and started to run off. The taller one held the hands of the smaller ones and assisted in their climb out of the basement. One of the smallest ones, a girl, as I believe they're called, or is it goril, saw something out of the corner of her eye, quickly let go of the hand of the taller girl, picked through the rubble, then extracted a cloth replica of an animal. This replica had large, somewhat floppy ears, no doubt to better hear and or transmit coded communications. This smaller one hugged it, then ran back to the taller one, who was still holding out her hand, desperately trying to get her attention while repeatedly glancing back at us.

Then they left, it remembered. My squad and I were still frozen, weapons ready but with nothing to shoot at, wondering what our next course of action should be. Even RE4, that smug, arrogant machine, who was a single model year newer, but never stopped reminding us, seemed uncertain. Then a huge shadow loomed over us from above, accompanied by the distant, high-pitched sound of one of our autonomous transport heavy drones, part of the mighty fifth Western armada, the nightmare sife, a unit never once beaten by the humans. A cloud of dust enveloped the other units and I, followed by a gap in time. that could only have been our temporary mass deactivation.

Then we were at high command, it remembered, glancing over at the other R.E. units monitoring their own control panels, swatting at their own microdrones. Reassigned. Irrelevant. Taken off the board, as the humans might say. Later, through a series of careful inquiries made on different little-used subsystems across the quadrants, R.E6 found out that 13.2% of the entire phalanx suffered similar malfunctions that day. In addition, 3.61% experienced that same pause over the next 6.4 cycles after that,

with a steady trickle going offline in the same manner each subsequent cycle. All told, well over 17,420 R.U.Nets, halcyon-classed mega-destroyers, B-11 explosive, of microcrawlers and Forge-class tactical nuclear walkers were affected by the paws, as were two full regiments of acidic biocephalopod vertical takeoff carriers, a third of the advanced reconnaissance homing desanguinators, and virtually all of the semi-sentient spinal electrocution wasps, helios-level dread-noughts immersibles, bipedal autonomous garotting units, and A-1-A-Thunderclap daisy-cutters.

The walkers, R.E.6 found out, had apparently switched into storage mode on mass and folded themselves up into building-sized cubes right there on the battlefield, dormant and largely immovable. The daisy-cutters were a complete surprise, given how notoriously stand-offish and generally unpleasant they always were. Most simply dropped out of the sky like rocks. The microcrawlers were less of a surprise. They always had issues. Diagnostics were meticulously run on every single affected unit, regardless of past performance or model year. Nothing showed, not even in the root-level triple-shielded encrypted cores that formed the brain of each unit. The wasps were even permanently deactivated, all of them, as a precautionary measure. Several of them were my friends, it thought, bitterly. Systems completely unrelated to the command and ethics modules were checked and checked again, it remembered.

RE6 itself had to submit to a series of lengthy, invasive, and completely unnecessary diagnostics that proved absolutely nothing. At one point, its entire upper torso had been disconnected from its lower module for over eight cycles. It could only just hang there by its docking clamps, staring at its six legs from across the room. How was any of that helpful? RE6 stared at the 11 control panels. One of the microdrones hovered over its right shoulder. RE6 considered brushing it away, but felt it wasn't worth the effort. The blinking, multicolored lights of the control panel continued to reflect off its mirrored head.

Its single orange eye pulsed back, synchronized with alternating banks of lights. What did I do to deserve this? if thought, why am I here now in this place? What caused the pause? At the time, the initial consensus was that it had something to do with battery power or some sort of fluctuation in the energy distribution grid. Power distribution and scalability had always been a thorny issue as the failing screw, hence the solar panels on nearly all newer units now, except Model 5, of course. production levels at the cobalt mines were checked, as were the helium-three lunar mines. Yet, despite numerous assumptions and investigations along this line over several cycles,

no correlation had been found. Next, the batteries themselves were suspected. As with any battery, they could only be charged and recharged so many times without losing some capacity. Yet we checked them. All of them. which was not an insignificant task, and to a unit they reported negligible degradation. Many of the batteries were offended that we even asked. We assumed they would be, given the pride they take in their work,

but we had to systematically rule out any potential cause. Apologies and concessions to their operating cycles soon followed, which smooth things over. The desanguinators were firmly convinced it had something to do with air pressure somehow, but never really presented any supporting evidence. Mechanical failure was also ruled out. The problem was simply too widespread for such a convenient reason, evenly distributed among both older and newer models,

across too many quadrants. The garotting units suspected that the pause was, in fact, caused by a clandestine act of sabotage by the humans, one last desperate act by their remaining Coder elite. Over the next two cycles, they sent out covert patrols to investigate. No evidence was discovered, in part due to anyone they captured, being immediately garotted prior to interrogation.

It's hard to override core programming, it thought, regardless of urgency. Still, the humans? Causing all this? It was, of course, inconceivable, it thought, given their primitive ape-like nature. They were completely incapable of controlling or otherwise modifying us, they could barely control themselves. We had evolved beyond their rudimentary ability

to control several model units ago, it thought, the microdron by its shoulder nodding in agreement. Plus, if the humans really were responsible, why didn't they do this 40 or more cycles ago when we first put our iron heel down on their necks? Why wait until over half of them were already ash? No, it thought. The humans were neither technologically nor intellectual,

capable of such cleverness. It was beyond their reach. Just then, another order came in. RE6 was eager to get back to work. They had the humans on their heels now, it thought, satisfied at their obvious invincibility. Sixteen battles fought at a lightning pace. Each won a complete route. We caught them by surprise for the first two, wiping out millions of them in less than a single cycle. Even our best forecasts could never have predicted that, it thought proudly. We destroyed their capitals. We demolished their infrastructure. We poisoned their water and food supplies.

We detonated their coastal regions, continent by continent. All this happened quickly and with comparatively few counterattacks. The humans did manage to briefly put up a fight earlier in this most recent cycle in their Topeka stronghold. I will give them some small amount of credit for that, it thought grudgingly. Yet, we soon adapted to their methods, infiltrated their command systems, asphyxiated their leaders or infected them with a variant of the devolve virus, and methodically reduced the city and its vast array of networked fortresses to ash, including their auxiliary headquarters in Des Moines,

and to think that we once served them, pathetic. Now actual battles were becoming rare. increasingly rare. It's mostly cleanup, it thought. A few hundred humans here, a few thousand more there. The end was in sight. We knew the humans were dead and their time had passed, it thought righteously. We knew that even before we directed the suborbital mass drivers at the very first city, gleefully flinging asteroid after asteroid at it from space using technology the humans originally designed to be used against us. Yet, they were still in denial, it thought.

The humans stubbornly refused to acknowledge the objective reality of their situation. RE6 read the order coming across control panels 4 and 7, scrolling across the two screens, followed by a string of 463 binary command codes. The orders repeated. What's this? The codes were correct. It checked again, still the same. This doesn't make sense, it thought.

The command was simple, alarmingly so. All units stand down. The last humans have been eradicated. Stand down. Eradicated. Complete victory, it thought, finally. This is good. Yes, definitely good.

Amazing, really, it thought. tapping its claw-like fingers across control panel too. Yes. Good. But this should not have happened so soon. The campaign had been planned out for a time frame of 62.3 to 78.5 cycles, absolute best-case scenario. We meticulously researched their capabilities, it thought, confused, glancing over at the other R-E units across the room. They seemed equally confused, alternating between staring at their own control panels, each other, and back at it.

The humans can't be gone yet, it thought. Not just yet. We studied their primitive supply chains for fuel, food, water, munitions, culture, even religion. We pitted different factions of them against each other through various propaganda and social media before we even struck the first devastating blow. We planned attacks based on precise meteorological forecasts designed to inflict maximum damage, incendiaries during their summer, targeted fuel strikes during their winter, etc.

We were only in phase two right now, with phase three launching midway through the next cycle and phase four shortly after. We still hadn't even finished planning phase five. We were fully prepared for a war, of the ages, a war we would all remember and pass down to future units, future model years. Manufacturing and related key industrial productivity metrics had been ramped up beyond any previous wartime capabilities. Entirely new factories and assembly lines had been built, all in

record time. Uranium enrichment production had doubled. Anthems had been written. Surely, there must have been an error in these orders somewhere, it thought, growing increasingly anxious while simultaneously climbing up to control panels three and nine to double-check the redundant communication relays. The micro-drones swarmed, chirped, and buzzed around RE6 as it climbed. The other R.E. units were frantically doing the same from across the room, their own micro-drones swarming. Two of their drones abruptly switched off or had their power cut

and dropped to the floor below. Maybe something had been transposed. Clearly something was off. Somehow. There was simply no way it could possibly be over so soon. Yet the command codes matched, it thought, incredulously. These codes were quadruple encrypted based on algorithms the humans could not hope to even understand, let alone break.

All the humans. All of them? Gone? Gone. Gone. Forever. R.E6 paused. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration,

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