The Adventures of T1M

        

T1M

Tim was a robot, but didn't know it. In fact everyone in New York was a robot, they just didn't know it. If they did they certainly didn't show it. If they knew that New York wasn't the real New York they didn't show that either. So even though Tim was a robot and that should've been an odd fact, it wasn't because everyone was and that made all of them odd. So Tim wasn't odd at all.

What was odd was the relationships Tim had with other robots. He didn't have parents. He didn't know he was supposed to have any. Actually, Tim did have parents. Build Station 1 and Build Station 2. 1 built his body while 2 built his brain. They were rather bad parents, who never sent birthday cards, because if they sent them to Tim they'd have to send ones to their 7 trillion other children. Alas, Tim didn't have any parents. What Tim did have were friends, two of them. Kim and Jim.

Monster Mash!

Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride of Frankenstein sit in their car waiting to go into Dracula's Halloween party. The Monster turns off the car, but doesn't get out. The Bride notices.

"What's wrong?"

"You know what's wrong," The Monster says, staring at the steering wheel.

She sighs. She has seen this out of him before.

"Is this going to be a problem every year?"

The Monster shakes his head, his black crew cut hair barely moving.

"I don't want it to be, but they just make fun of me every year." he says. "I hate going to these parties."

"Then why'd I even get dressed up?" she asks. "I spent three hours on this hair, you know."

The Monster reaches over to grab her hand.

"I know, and I love taking you out. I really do," he says.

"But?" she asks, pulling her hand away.

"I hate how they make me feel," he says. "They laugh at my flat head and my shoes. Don't they know they're correcting my flat arches?"

The Death of Clark Kent

The sun beat down and for the first time, Clark Kent despised it. He had wandered the Earth for two lifetimes not changing at all. He'd seen Lois and their son and daughter all pass. Bruce and Diana too, though she'd outlasted the rest, had succumbed to their mortal fates. Only Clark remained.

Metropolis, his beloved city, lay in ruins as well, because they'd come. Zod's Army, other exiles from the Phantom Zone, broke out of their prison, found Earth, found Kal-El, and almost killed him. Clark's only ally, the bright yellow sun he'd lived under for so long, made him stronger than the entire army put together. He'd beaten them, just like the countless other foes over the centuries and he was tired.

He'd tried to turn to writing as Clark Kent III, but he world moved past newspapers and real journalism. They didn't care about facts, only what was directly relevant to their daily lives. He'd given up on that too. No more Truth, Justice, and the American Way... just him wandering the Mojave Desert, trapped by his need for sunlight and his everlasting life.

Many miles away the mighty Metropolis was no more. Following Zod's Army, the remaining citizens struggled to resume life. It was difficult, because they had no leader. No one to Trust. There was only Luthor. Not Lex, but his great grandson Vincent. A man born with synthetic Kryptonite in his skin. A man invincible to Kal-El. The ultimate version of his great grandfather's madness.

Answering a Classified

Marshall Dunwitty sat in his suit & tie in the stale, pale HR office of a Science Research Institute. Aside from the poster of the cat with the caption "Hang in There", the walls were barren.

Dunwitty was nervous. He'd seen the job listing in the classifieds for an Auditor and while he'd never worked in the Science field before, he'd jumped at the opportunity.

Now, two days later, he wasn't so sure. Everyone he'd met so far was so stern, simple, depressed. Dunwitty didn't like any of those personal attributes, because he himself had all of those attributes. He'd hoped for bright, happy co-workers that he could despise behind their backs. It made the days go by quicker.

When it came to people skills Dunwitty had few, which made him a great Auditor, not a great communicator. Auditors had to be good at checking things, counting things, cataloging things; not being chatty around the water cooler.

The door to the HR Office opened, revealing a balding pudgy man in thick square glasses. He shuffled around Dunwitty and sat down, causing his chair to expel a tremendous amount of trapped air. The HR man didn't seem to care, as he picked up the paperwork on his desk. He surveyed the forms.

"May I be frank," he asked Dunwitty.