Waking-up Sucks

"Ah... My head." I mumbled to myself as my consciousness gradually returned to me. "Oh shoot! Rom-..." I stopped myself, remembering what had happened.

"Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were at that town, right? Walked right into that Beary Bandit ambush, same as us." A voice with a slight scandinavian accent spoke to me.

I looked up to find a man with long blonde hair sitting across from me. It appeared that we were in a wooden trailer, along with a handful for other people, that was being towed by a green tractor. Everyone’s hands, including myself, were bound together with cloth.

"Where are they taking us?" I wondered.

"I don't know where we're going, but it seems like we're near Lincoln." The man responded.

"Shut up, back bear!" The guy dressed as a red panda who was driving the tractor reprimanded us.

Everyone in the trailer looked completely hopeless. Each and everyone of them hung their heads in despair.

For the next several minutes the ride was silent, as our trailer was pulled along toward downtown Lincoln. Just as every other place I'd been so far, all the buildings were boarded up and vacated. The only exceptions were that every so often on the roads, there were checkpoints set up with guys dressed in bear outfits deciding who could pass. It seemed like these bear guys had taken over the entire city.

We suddenly stopped as we reached a wide stone building with a tall golden domed tower in the center. This was Nebraska's State Capitol building.

"Alright, everyone de-bear the cart!" The red panda guy ordered us.

A couple guys dressed like black bears who were standing out front of the building approached and pointed their AR-15s at us. "Time for you to go meet Papa Bear." One of them said, as they proceeded to usher us up a set of concrete stairs.

As much as I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, I didn't want to end up getting shot either. I muttered to the blonde haired man from the trailer. "Who are these guys?"

"How do you not know? These are the Beary Bandits. They control what remains of Nebraska's water supply." He whispered back to me.

A lot more happened while I was in that cellar than I thought.

We were forcefully ushered through the capital building's entrance into a large cathedral-like hall. In the center was a golden facade throne with a person sitting at it.

"Kneel before Papa Bear." One of the black bears declared.

I looked back at him with a confused look. "Is that his kid or something?"

Immediately I was met with a rifle stock to the stomach. "That was beary disrespectful. Have some bearspect for the supreme ruler of the world, Papa Bear!"

I toppled over to my knees, trying to catch my breath.

The kid sitting in the throne appeared to be around ten or eleven years old and was dressed in a grizzly bear onesie with a gold plastic crown on his head. He looked down at me then proceeded to spit a loogie at my face. "It's pretty pathetic that an adult who's wearing a blankey is calling me a kid."

I completely disregarded what he said and began aggressively wiping my face with my bound hands. "Oh shoot... I'm probably infected with little kid germs now!"

He spat at me again. "I dare you to call me that one more time, blankey man!"

"What, a ki-?"

Papa bear immediately leapt from his throne and started repeatedly slapping my face around like a chimpanzee. After about a minute he got bored and returned to his throne. "Just for that I'm sentencing this whole group to hard labor because of you. All of you will be hauling stones for my Great Bearamid."

All the other prisoners immediately shot me dirty looks. I wasn't particularly sure why they were irritated with me, all I did was ask a simple question.

"Take these people out of my sight, my cubs." Papa bear ordered. Our group was then escorted away and loaded back onto our trailer.

"Papa bear was beary cross with them. Take them to the Great Bearamid." One of the black bears relayed to the red panda driver.

"Understood, have a beary good day." He responded.

Why are these bear guys being led by a kid?

What is a Great Bearamid?

Am I going to get a weird disease from that kid's spit?

There were so many questions going through my head at the moment, I didn't know what to think. The tractor fired back up and started pulling us toward our next destination.

🐻🐻🐻

There was a spark, followed by the sensation of electricity filling my battery. Life faded back to me as I powered back on.

Eddy?

The last thing I remembered was him getting dragged away. As to where I was now, I had lost all my bearings (no pun intended) since I lost power. I attempted to roll forward, but it was no use. It appeared that my wheels had been disabled. Even worse, my exterior plastic shell was missing, exposing my circuitry. The room I sat in was dark, my optic sensors couldn't really make anything out.

Well this sucks.

A spotlight suddenly clicked on, shining directly onto me. The silhouette of a person appeared to be operating the light.

"What are you dang aliens after?" A voice boomed.

Aliens?

"Don't play dumb with me! Where's the Earth's water?"

How the heck should I know?

As the figure stepped forward, the light glinted off of his outfit, which appeared to just be tinfoil that he wrapped around himself and fashioned into a cone shaped hat on his head. The man appeared to be in his fifties and resembled an island castaway with his long matted gray hair that came down to his shoulders and his grimey beard that went down to his belly button.

"Don't think you can go pull a fast one over ole Jethro, you alien drone." The man spoke with his mouth that seemed like every other tooth was missing and the ones that were still intact were stained pee yellow.

Great another genius.

"Was that 'sposed to be sarcasm?" He gazed at me with a suspicious look.

Of course it wa-... Wait a second, can you understand me?

"Course I can. In case you haven't noticed, I connected your robo doohickies to that there terminal and it displays everything you think through text."

To be perfectly honest, I was so disorientated that I didn't even notice the wires hooked up to my exposed circuit board. Maybe this guy was sharper than he looked.

In case you haven't noticed, old man, I'm a vacuum.

Jethro let out an unconvinced laugh. "A likely story. You don't look like no vacuum cleaner and that roach guy I traded with for you said you were alien technology."

After I lost power, that roach king weirdo must have gotten a hold of me and bartered me off to this tinfoil hat guy. Obviously Roachard made up some nonsense to get him to buy me.

I hate to break it to you, but you got scammed.

He waved me off with his hand. "Nonsense, you can try to dodge me as much as you want, but whether you like it or not, you're going to help me save the world."

And how do you plan of doing that? Are the so-called ‘aliens’ going to make water appear like magic?

"Don't get smart with me, boy. Obviously you know something about the aliens that stole all the Earth's water."

It wasn't any surprise, especially considering he was wearing a literal tinfoil hat that this guy was a conspiracy theorist. Honestly, if he wasn't a complete nut I'd be fairly happy since I would have found a new owner that could actually keep my battery charged.

What proof do you even have that aliens stole the Earth's water?

Jethro got closer and leaned up against the table. "I saw it... A UFO that looked just like you, but larger, flew over Lake McConaughy and sucked the whole thing dry." He looked completely sincere as he spoke about his encounter, unfortunately I wasn't sure if I could actually take him seriously.

The sound of a kitchen timer went off. He went back over to the spotlight and flicked it off, causing the room to go dim. "You're lucky my enchiladas are done. It doesn't matter though, I'll get you to crack soon enough, alien."

Once again, I'm a vacuum…