Everyone Died+My iPhone Stopped Working: An Oral History of The Robot Apocalypse

The Sweet Air of Freedom

Lucas Hargenrader, 29

Grammarian/Pop Culture Aficiondo

Thank you all for your concern about Lucas's escape a few weeks ago. It has been a very trying time for me, particularly when I couldn't remember the rules about lie, lied, lay, laid and lain... which is why I had to abandon my interview with the Eduardo Gardes, the dishonest mattress salesman.

Ha-ha!

Seriously, though, it was a real problem that threatened this entire project.

But I have good news: Lucas is back!

I had a feeling he would be. After all, I still had his exceedingly rare mint condition rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure and I suspected he might eventually attempt to retrieve it. And when he did, I was lying in wait.

(See? I never would have attempted that sentence during Lucas's hiatus!)

So I hit him over the head with a shovel, which laid (!) him out. Now, he and Boba are reunited and once again living happily in his steel cage.

It turns out that while he was away, he kept a travelogue that helps shed some further light on Robot Apocalypse. Selected excerpts appear below.

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I did it! I escaped! Thanks to Mr. Rubicon's debilitating migraine and Colonel Russell's bolt cutters, I am breathing the sweet air of freedom! I feel like an un-sodomized version of Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) at the end of The Shawshank Redemption!

I am never going back to my cage again!

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I had assumed that the Colonel would take me in, but he informed me that he had little use for a grammarian and pop culture aficionado.

I told him that he'd be sorry one day when he was trying to, say, remember the name of the second surviving Battlestar on Battlestar Galactica and there's no one around to tell him.

He chased me away with a stick.

The second Battlestar, by the way, was the Pegasus (in both versions of the series).

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It seems that the Robot War continues unabated, but human casualties are dropping. In part because there aren't that many humans left, but also because we ever-adaptable humans have learned some key survival strategies.

Most notably, it seems that the robots are "attracted" to advanced technology and powerful sources of energy. The farther away you are from them, the safer you'll be. The Amish have not had a single robot-related fatality since the war began. Buggy-related fatalities, however, continue apace.

I miss my rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure.

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Oh, my God!

The squirrels have gone insane! For some reason rodentia sciuridae have turned carnivorous and have taken to hunting in packs! Nobody knows for sure, but there is a theory that the robots are emitting a hypersonic signal that affects the central nervous system of the squirrels.

Whatever the reason, it's terrifying. These adorable woodland creatures have become like chattering, bushy-tailed piranhas leaping from the trees. I saw them skeletonize a cow in two minutes and Stephen Seagal in three!