Chapter 12. The Land of Oil and M16s
"Check it out, Jack! We're on the news!"
Meg was in the back seat of the SMART with her feet up on the cushioned leather chair beside her, watching the evening news report out of Kazakhstan on one of those PSP-style does-every-thing-except-bake-cookies devices.
"Really? Cool! What are they saying?" Jack replied with a grin.
"How should I know? It's all in Kazakhstanesse! But, they keep playing the clip of the SMART blowing up those fighter jets."
Patience just shook her head slowly.
"All the SMART bots should be awake by now," she said, "so I'm going to signal to the nearest one to come pick me up and get me the hell out of here, Jack. I'm going to go home and send hate-mail to Chase. Actually, no- letter bombs."
Jack gave her a sideways glance of befuddlement. A formation of fighter-jets appeared from the clouds below and raced to engage the bot. The SMART shot all them out of the sky at its own will, and the threat went almost unnoticed by Jack.
"I don't get it," said Jack. "What is this grudge you have against Chase? What did he ever do to you?"
Patience threw her head back and laughed freely at some private joke.
"Oh, Jack. I could try to explain the very long montage of mortal combat and humiliation that is my relation to Chase, but it began almost two decades ago, before Chase even turned evil. Believe me…" she trailed off and looked away, out the window. "That's a whole other FanFic," she muttered quietly.
"What?"
"I didn't say anything."
The second SMART bot approached from the northeast a few moments later, guided entirely on its own. It opened its blast shield and flew alongside Jack's bot, just a few feet below.
"Buckle up, boys and girls," Patience said, getting to her feet and walking behind Meg's seat to the edge of the blast shield.
"Won't you get, like, sucked out?" Meg asked, looking up at Patience upside down. Patience just gave her a sly nod and secured the Master Pen in a safe place.
"Check your e-mail, Jack," Patience said, holding up her watch and pushing a button to open the shield.
With the hiss of the retreating shield, all three of them were instantly subjected to a buffeting. If Meg and Jack hadn't been strapped down, they would have been thrown into the open void of the sky, just like Patience. After about four seconds of a sudden change in pressure, freezing air, and getting pummeled with wind like rag dolls, the shield snapped down again, darkening their view. Jack gave a high-pitched sigh and readjusted his goggles on its forehead. Meg unbuckled as fast as she could and ran to the edge of the window to look for Patience.
Sure enough, Seek free fell quite some distance while the other SMART carefully fell along side her trying to match her speed exactly. It had its legs dragging almost over its head, and its engine occasional lit up faintly to give it a boost. Within moments, Patience and her bot were falling at precisely the same speed and she was close enough to pull herself into the cockpit and take her seat.
Jack rolled his eyes and veered the bot in the opposite direction, away from western Russia.
"Huh. I could do that. I'm not the only villain in the world who doesn't have wildly stylish exit plans!" He paused for a moment of self-doubt. "Am I?"
"Well," Meg chuckled. "The Heli-bot isn't exactly James Bond!" Then, she added quickly. "But, you've got the SMART bots now, so you know you're going to get the respect you deserve!"
"That's right!" Jack put his fist in the air. "So, what country should we take over first?"
Meg jumped up and took the co-pilot seat beside Jack.
"Let's go dethrone Fidel Castro!" she cried happily, clasping her hands.
"I don't know," Jack shrugged. "Should we really start off there? I mean, wouldn't Europe be an appropriate starting place?"
"If you're looking for 'appropriate'," Meg said, putting her hands on her hips, "then you might as well pull a U-turn and go back to finish off China!"
"Well, what was is that Patience said about getting the attention of all the countries? If we want to get people's attention, we should…hmmm…."
"New York City?" Meg suggested.
"No, no, then we'd have to do the rest of America, too." Jack tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Wait! I've got it!" he snapped his fingers.
"What?"
"Why not go where the world is already focusing its attention?" Jack suggested, proud of his own genius. "Let's go to the Middle East!"
"Back to Kashmir!"
"The Oil Fields!"
"Let's blow up Mecca!"
"And then we'll get the other two thirds of the world at that giant Buddha statue and the Vatican!"
Meg paused in the revelry to consider the consequences.
"Holy shit, Jack," she muttered. "Do you think Patience's robots can stand up to God, too?"
Jack gave her a flat look and set the coordinates for Iraq.
"I'm not even going to answer that question."
It was late afternoon when the first SMART landed outside a sandy city with such intensity that water bottles for miles around tipped over. Each landing bot kicked up a massive cloud of yellowish, dusty sand, as did each heavy step. There was a relitivly modern city about a mile away, and the SMART bots trampled a number of highways to get to it.
Jack Spicer's Evil Army of SMART bots was received in the desert land of oil and M16s with a rocket launcher report. The missile left a gray, spiraling trail and detonated harmlessly on one of the many SMARTs surrounding Jack.
"As far as I'm concerned," Jack broadcast his voice, "you're all my enemies now! I don't care what country you're from or who you're fighting for- I want unconditional surrender!"
To no one's surprise, Jack and his bots engaged the city and got all the news coverage. SMARTs would stomp on the buildings, as they were larger than many, with their massive talons. One Mini SMART attacked a tank and ripped off the cannon so it could ride around on top. A pair of SMARTs drilled a network of tunnels under the city that broke water mains and caused cave-ins at random. Jack took it upon himself to blast his Evil Theme Song over the area from every SMART. That, it seemed, was the true torture of the people, who only thought they had experienced all the terrors of war.
Every half and hour, Jack's message demanding surrender and rule of the city played, and was eventually translated into a few other languages.
"And, if you don't give in, I'll go and blow up the rest of the county! Muahahahaha!"
A Black Hawk helicopter rushed at Jack's SMART in an attempt to shatter the blast shield, but the bot leaned back and shot it down with a succession of rockets.
"This is almost too easy," said Jack smugly, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up. "At this rate, I'll have the world under my thumb by the end of the month!"
"Don't jinx it," Meg said levelly, pointing to a scene in the distance.
About a mile away, they spotted a SMART bot with its legs bound in high-tension cables and its engine aflame. A helicopter skimmed past it, riddle it with bullets, and whipped off again just in time to escape a massive explosion. The SMART teetered for a moment, and then began to fall. Being so massive, it seemed to fall slowly, but it smashed into the city ground and caused another, final explosion that greatly damaged the buildings all around.
"How did they do that?" Jack screamed, jumping to his feet.
"Maybe that one was flawed?" Meg suggested.
Jack took his seat again sulkily. "Naw, they just got lucky. Somehow I don't think Patience would send me factory rejects. Computer," he shouted to the ceiling, "order the bots to step up the attack! And, send a message to whoever the heck is in charge around here that they still have the chance to surrender!"
"Yes, Sir," the computer replied in a Jack Bot voice.
"Hey, the voice changed," Jack noticed the new voice. "I guess Patience did that."
Jack Spicer's Evil Rampage across the city and a few other parts of Iraq lasted much longer than Jack had expected. Enemy reinforcements seemed to always stream in, even after Jack was sure he had sent bots to block the supply lines.
"What is this? Why is it taking so long? They're like cockroaches! Or solicitors! I'm calling Patience!"
The night sky over the desert was alight with battling fighter jets from several countries and SMART bots. The fires from multiple cities reflected in the dark blast shield as Jack waited for Patience to answer his call. He used his cell phone this time, as the control screen was occupied with other matters.
"Maybe she's asleep," Meg suggested.
"Or, maybe, she's watching the news and seeing how long this is taking!"
Then, the line beeped and Patience answered.
"I wasn't expecting to hear back from you so soon, Jack," she yawned.
"Yeah, right! Why is this taking so long? I've been at it for, like, eight or ten hours now!"
Meg heard Patience burst out in uncontrolled laughter at the other end. Eventually, she recovered enough to speak.
"Wow, Jack, haven't you ever picked up a newspaper or watched the evening news? Haven't you ever heard of World War One? Two? It takes years to make any progress, Jack, especially with today's modern weapons! I keep telling you…"
She paused, realizing that this wasn't the answer Jack wanted.
"All right, listen," she said. "I did a little bit of vague number punching and I calculated approximately how long total world domination will take. Take, to begin with, the fact that there about 220 countries in the world, more or less. If 200 of these countries are just minor ones with basic defenses and even the mildest sense of nationalism, each one will take an average of one week to two weeks to gain full control over. That's twenty-eight hundred days, at most. Then, the remaining 20 counties, a few of which are nuclear powers and absolutely out of their minds, will easily take a good couple months to defeat and conquer- that's twelve hundred days- but probably more. These places didn't spend centuries building up their governments and cultures just so some punk kid could crush them. But, all together, unless the world experiences some bizarre change of heart, I'll give you about ten or eleven years to conquer and control the whole world. Even then, you'll be fighting rebellions and such."
Patience paused to chuckle at Jack's expletive-filled reaction.
"Ah, yes, Jack. It sure seems like a long time, doesn't it? That'll make you, what? Twenty nine or thirty?" She laughed again, with a cold touch this time. "Don't worry: it will come and go before you even realize it." She paused. "And, now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go turn lead into gold."
The line went quite and Jack could only gawk for about a minute.
"Ten or eleven years?" he repeated slowly.
"I'll be twenty two!" Meg said happily. She paused, though, and her expression turned sour. "Ew."
Jack put his phone away and watched a distant city burn.
"I think," he began, "Patience just gave me those numbers to freak me out. If there's one thing I know about war, it's that it takes supplies and people to use them! There's no way the world could keep its armies supplied effectively for ten years! Well," Jack paused again and considered, for the first time, the effect he would have on the world's economy. "If I take over the world and destroy hundreds of thousands of buildings in the process…hmm…"
"What?" Meg wondered, seeing he rather concerned expression.
Jack was then taking into consideration just how the world would change. When he turned Beverly Hills to a smoking crater, wouldn't that also effect the production of precious commodities like, say, video games? And, if all the world's efforts are pouring into fighting him, what company will continue to sell pudding cups? Who will maintain the television stations? Who will monitor who cares?" Jack exclaimed. "Once I take over the world, I'll have no trouble putting it all back the way it was before, only better!"
Meg cocked her head to the side and made a small, slightly confused peeping sound.
"So…if you're Evil Emperor of the Earth, can I be Evil Empress?"
Jack came very close to glaring at Meg.
"Meg, that just wouldn't work. First of all, I'm almost twenty and you're, like, ten."
"I'm twelve!"
"All the same. You can be the Evil Court Jester."
Meg crossed her arms and pouted a little. Jack rolled his eyes.
"Alright, you can be the Evil Rave-Thrower."
Meg cheered up considerably and changed the music the SMART bots played to her favorite rave song.
The peoples of the Middle East writhed in agony and begged for mercy.
