I watched the whole thing happen. Paralyzed and speechless, of course. Someone pulled back the cloth and I found myself looking up into the face of Sal. Sal! I felt a sense of peace. Like closure. If it had to end then and there, at least it’d happen with her. And Nora and Rose were still present. And, wait, was that Morris?

Maybe there was a chance of getting out of this mess. If they all worked together.

And they were doing just that.

Lifting me up. Taking me away from August.

Then it began. The laying-on-of-hands. Wasn’t that what I had called it when Sal brought me back that day I had tried to go off on my own and first turned into this awful thing?

Sal and Rose. The two priestesses kneeling over me.

And then I was back. That simple. Back to being me. On my feet, a bit woozy and naked. But back.

Nora averted her eyes and held out to me a familiar white jumpsuit.

I did not bother to ask what happened to my clothes—though that dinner jacket had been exquisite! It could be that my outfit was damaged by that robot ray gun, or maybe I had soiled myself. Best to just focus on the things immediately in front of me and in my control.

I put it on the jumpsuit, and as I was zipping it up, Morris tossed me a certain red toupee.

“Well, hello old friend,” I said, cradling the hairpiece. And why not? The double-sided tape was still sticky. I put it on. It was nice to have some degree of sartorial continuity.

“That was an experience,” I told them, half expecting a round of warm applause.

The sensation of my restoration had been painful, but without the pain. You know how it feels when a dentist deadens your entire mouth and he gets in there, really gets in there, digging and pulling and using god knows what to lever out that obstinate wisdom tooth, and you hear the scrapping of bone, and your jaw is hyper-extended…but there’s no pain, not the slightest? You know that feeling? It was just like that. But with my whole body.

“Oh, man, I am starving.”

Nora handed me something in a large foil pouch. It resembled a sandwich. Almost. Sal was crying, but she was also smiling, so it was okay.

“What is this?” I certainly looked like a sandwich. “Tastes like an old sock stuffed with moldy sawdust.”

But I ate it all.

“In-coming!” Nora shouted. She was standing at one of the consoles, looking at a screen and pushing buttons. She sure seemed to have it on the ball. “The robots are free.”

“Yes,” Rose said. “I saw them early on the monitor. They zapped a bunch of the Chaos Squad.”

“Gotta love those robots,” Nora said.

“So, they’re on our side?” Morris asked, confused. He wasn’t the only one.

“Absolutely not!” I said to him. “Those robots turned me into that thing.”

“And you missed the murder and mayhem,” Rose said to me.

“Oh, dear,” I muttered. I hate to miss the murder and mayhem.

“Well,” Nora explained, “I don’t think anyone has died out there yet, but there was some very nasty fisticuffs.”

“Caused by game show contestants much worse than robots,” Rose added.

“You’ll excuse me if I hold on to my opinions on robots,” I said. Let Rose get zapped into a squid and then see what she thought of robots.

Luckily, I seemed have a similar physique to these robots. The jumpsuit fit almost perfect. A bit tight in the buttocks. I fished around in the pockets, but found nothing. What would a robot keep in his pockets? WD-40? Spare 9-volt batteries? I looked over at the sad rubbery thing that was August. He hadn’t been covered back up. I knew he was seething. Watching me back on my feet. Laughing, eating a sandwich, adjusting my wig. Back to normal.

Poor wretch…poor murderous wretch. Couldn’t even blink his eyes.

Rose and Nora stood over him, trying to decide what to do. I gathered Rose had slipped into some sort of Stockholm Syndrome mindset, as she was trying to explain that August was a victim in all this.

“Hal,” I said. “And Lydia.”

“And he killed others before,” Sal explained to Rose. “Before he came to us. You know that as well as I do.”

“Just put it to a vote,” Morris said. “Let’s resolve this now and get out of here.”

We did. It was four to one.

“Just think of him as no different than everyone else sent through those portals to Central Processing,” Morris said to Rose. “Those robots will do their job. Whatever that is. Leave him be, and let’s clear out.”

Central Processing? What was Morris talking about? Was that the name of this place?

Rose nodded. But first she covered up August before we all headed down the short flight of stairs, through the door, and out into the curved mezzanine of Tier 1.

Everyone else ignored the groaning man on the floor and the smashed birthday cake, so I did as well. We crossed over to the elevator. The one that Morris and Sal said led to the surface.

Morris reached a finger to the control panel, but froze.

“There’s no button,” he said.

“Use your key,” Rose told him.

“My what?”

“Oh, no,” Saligia said with a gasp that carried more emotion than one uses when speaking of an elevator key.

We all turned and found ourselves facing about ten stern-faced individuals. The dreaded Chaos Squad, I assumed. Young and attractive men and women, well-proportioned, muscular, perfect chiseled features. Their colorful skin-tight costumes were something of a distraction. You’d think the wardrobe department of Chaos Squad would have wanted to leave something for the audience’s imagination. You know, in that region below the waist. They had not.

It did captivate my attention, I tell you. And I am not disposed to excessive prurient thoughts.

They were waiting, poised to attack. It was like some nature show, where the hyenas won’t fall upon the terrified baby wildebeest until it takes flight.

Morris cleared his throat to get their attention.

“Let’s not get off on the wrong foot,” he explained. “I believe we have a common enemy. Those robots?”

They didn’t seem swayed, but Morris had bought us a couple of seconds. Because I was feeling much better after eating that sandwich, I whispered to him: “I think we should rush them.”

He looked at me like I was crazy.

That was when the robots showed up. Five of them. I might not be a fan, but I respected their style. They did not bother to negotiate.

They just came up the staircase from the lower level with ray guns ablaze. A barrage of quick pulses of light and those Chaos Squad men and women screamed and quivered for only a couple of seconds before they hit the ground as harmless squid.

I half expected Nora to shout: “Hooray, robots!” But she stood her ground, feet slightly spread, ready for an attack.

Two of what I took to be the more senior of the robots stepped forward. 

“We need to process all these REINCORs before the the backlog gets any worse,” one of them said, indicating the writhing squids. He was speaking to his fellow robots and ignoring us.

His robot buddy idly brushed at some stains on his white jumpsuit. Was it blood or cake frosting?

“You should try club soda,” I suggested.

The robot looked over at me with sudden interest.

“Before the stain sets,” I clarified.

Perhaps he’d been having a difficult day, what with the murder and mayhem, but shouldn’t a robot be programed with a certain regard to personal grooming?

“What about this one here?” the sloppy robot asked his boss. He was pointing at me.

Without a word Sal and Rose stepped forward as though it were a rehearsed movement and shielded me from the robots. My protective priestesses!

“You mean this REINCOR cowering behind these two Readers?” asked the robot boss. I wouldn’t think a robot could speak with such a derisive and dismissive tone. I suppose it was just a matter of programming.

“And then there’s the matter of these civilians.”

“One thing at a time,” the robot boss said. “We’ll deal with them all later. They’ll not be going anywhere.”

The two robots joined their companions, who were gathering up the transformed Chaos Squad contestants and depositing them in wheelbarrows. One, who had gone up the stairs to the control room, came back down carrying August, still in squid form.

And then they all headed off, to do whatever robots do with squids.

Rose was trying to make Morris understand that the elevator to the surface couldn’t be opened without a key, when I remembered something I’d seen up in the control room.

I rushed up, returning with a small toolbox. I placed it on the floor beside the metal door to the elevator and opened it to survey the contents. I looked over at Nora.

“Don’t you know a thing or two about elevators?”

“I do,” she said with a smile. She walked over to join me.

“Looks like we’re not going anywhere without a key,” Morris said, noticing the two of us at the elevator.

Nora stroked the door. She rapped her knuckles against the outer frame. Then she leaned close to the metal panel on the wall with the recessed keyhole.

“Sixteenth inch Allen wrench,” she said holding out her hand.

I gave it to her. It was fascinating to watch the speed and precision with which she removed the panel, used a Stanley blade to strip a couple of the wires of their plastic insulation, reset the circuitry, and, voilà!, opened the elevator door.

“What was that you were saying, Morris?” I asked.

He had no reply.

We all five entered.

When the door slid shut and we were safely heading up and away from robots and squads and stale sandwiches, I found my eyes drifting to a colorful brochure sticking out of Morris’ back pocket. There it was again. The phrase Central Processing.

I pulled it out and began to read with growing excitement.

How extraordinary!

Needing to share my discovery, I waved the brochure in front of Nora’s face.

“You’ll never guess where we are?”

“LA, right?” She reached out to steady my hand so she could read the front of the brochure. “Wait. What does it mean that Los Angeles has been relocated to Phobos? Who’s Phobos?”

“It’s not a who,” I said. “It’s a where. And it’s Mars. Isn’t it great? We’re on Mars.”

“I don’t get it,” Nora said, scrunching up her face.

“What?” Rose snatched the brochure from my hands.

“One of the moons of Mars,” Morris corrected me.

Well, technically. But, whatever.

We were on Mars!