BUG OWNER

Lydia Peregrine was checking her mascara in the sun visor mirror when she noticed her husband stroll out of the house, cradling a sleek, white rifle with an electric blue chamber.

"What in God's name."

She watched as he went to the trunk, stowed it away, then rounded the car and slid into what used to be called the driver's seat—before the Safety in Autonomous Freedom and Efficiency Act criminalized all manual vehicle operation back in 2043.

Lydia's eyes bore into his temple. "Daniel."

Paying her no heed, her husband clapped his hands and pumped his fist. "To-Yo-Ta! Let's go!" The car sprung to life and backed out of the driveway.

{Departure initiated.} The AI announced in a gentle, sensuous coo. {We are now enroute to your destination. Estimated arrival time is 27 minutes.}

"Daniel," she repeated.

"Hm?" His tousled, auburn-hair glinted in the sunlight as he peered out the side window, casually captivated by nothing. To Lydia, he was never more handsome than in profile, and it was the great struggle of her life to not let that handsomeness blind her to his stupidity.

"Why is there an assault rifle in the trunk of the car?"

"It's a pulse rifle, sweetheart," he corrected idly. "It fires ionized helium. Oh look, they're building a new McDonald's." He pointed as the golden arches passed.

Lydia did not look. "Daniel. Why is there a pulse rifle that fires ionized helium in the trunk of the car?"

A pregnant silence loomed in the AI-operated battery-powered hatchback.

"Danie-"

"It's for protection."

"Protection?" She scoffed. "We're going to Evelyn's for a barbecue. What do we need protection from?"

Daniel sighed, crossing his arms. "It has six legs, hideous compound eyes, and a ravenous maw that can swallow a schnauzer whole. "

"Oh. My. God. Are you still on this bug thing?"

He locked eyes with her. "It's a terminid, honey."

"It's her pet."

"Look just cause someone says they've domesticated an 800 pound gorilla, does not make it a domesticated 800 pound gorilla."

"Daniel. Tons of people have bugs for pets."

"Yeah and tons of people vote for the Ecosovereignty Party every year, cause their nutjobs who think we should all be chemically lobotomized back into cavemen to 'Save the Earth Mother,'" he tossed up air-quotes.

"What does that have to do with-"

"All I know is," he cut in. "My grandfather didn't watch his brother get torn to shreds on the front lines of Selvion 9-"

Lydia threw up her hands. "Here we go."

"-just so wine moms could take Dreadshells for walkies!"

"You're ridiculous," she waved him off. "They're totally harmless."

"Harmless? Harmless?!" He whipped out his phone, swiped the screen three times, and shoved a news article in her face. "Does this look harmless to you?"

The article read:

SWARM'S WAY! LOVE-STRUCK DREADSHELL DEVOURS FAMILY OF SEVEN!

"I mean, that's on the owner," Lydia shrugged. 'Everyone knows you have to take bugs to a United Earth hatchery complex during swarm season. Besides, this article is ancient." She squinted at the byline. "How long have you been waiting to show me this?"

Daniel snatched the phone back. The answer was 3 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days. But he wasn't going to tell her that.

"The point is," he pressed on. "You got all these women—who ain't 120 wet—getting these 500 pound mammoths, putting them on leashes, and then the bugs drag 'em around, or carry them off into the sky, and all I'm saying is-"

"Jesus, Daniel. People are allowed to have pets."

"-you shouldn't have a pet if you can't kill it with your bare hands."

"Bare hands?!" she snorted. "What are you, a barbarian?"

He shrugged.

"So is this why we can't get a fish?" she teased. "Scared you can't put a guppie in an arm bar?"

He rolled his eyes. "A fish is dumb pet. It's like a screen saver that eats and shits."

"You're like a screensaver that eats and shits," she mumbled. "So what pet is she allowed to have, Mr. Commissar? You know she got that bug after Roy died…"

"I don't know." He waved his hand. "A cat or something. Maybe a dog."

"Like a pitbull?"

Daniel burst out laughing. "Jesus no!"

Lydia giggled. "Can you imagine?"

"Oh lord." He wiped a tear from his eye. "You know, I read that before the whole breed was forcibly crossbred with Terror-Hounds and shipped off to the front lines of Golgotha-6, scientists found that only 50% of pits had the gene that compelled them to maul human toddlers."

Lydia shook her head. "That's crazy. Why would God even make a dog like that…."

"Who knows…"

They shared a fading chuckle, peering out at the passing power lines. A moment passed.

{Estimated arrival time is 14 minutes.}

"So about Roy."

Daniel threw up his hands. "Here we go."

"Be nice to him."

"Should I compliment her toaster too? It has a better personality."

"Daniel."

"What? It does!"

"Daniel."

"Can I show him the gun?"

"No, you can't show him the gun!"

"Bah." He slumped in the chair.

"And I don't want Evelyn to see it either!"

"The real Roy would have loved that gun," he groused. "And he wouldn't be living with no bug either."

"Well, this is the Roy we have," she said diplomatically. "It has all his biometric data and memories, up to a week before that ghastly accident."

"Strangled to death by his own in-home chore-bot," Daniel clicked his tongue. "That would never happen to me."

"Tch." Lydia rolled her eyes. "You won't even let us have a Roomba."

"I'd just hate to see you upstaged, sweetheart." He beamed.

"Ha. Ha. Anyway, the doctors say it's him, for all intents and purposes."

"Uh huh. Except the real Roy didn't have an app that Evelyn could toggle at whim to make him hate guns and love Help! I Married A Cyber-Dolphin. That thing ain't Roy, it ain't ever gonna be Roy, and it gets less Roy with every passing week."

"Daniel."

"Not-Roy, that's who that guy is."

"God, you're so old-fashioned. When you go, I'll have to bury you at a Cracked Barrel."

"Hey, I'm a modern person!" he protested. "I support techno-sapient rights. But if you clone a human body and then stick an AI in its skull, that ain't a human being, alright? Replinoids are not ensouled."

"Ensouled?"

"They don't have souls."

She threw up her hands. "You don't believe in souls! You're an atheist!"

He shrugged.

{Estimated arrival time is 2 minutes.}

"Daniel, please." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "She's grieving."

"Yeah, and she's riding that grief away on a reanimated talking dildo with legs."

"Daniel!" She slapped his shoulder.

"Don't Daniel me! If I die and you replace me with one of those freaks, God or no God, I will haunt you from beyond the grave!"

She leaned over and pressed her bust against his shoulder, tracing his chest with her finger. "Oh? Are you sure your ghost won't drop dead from seeing what a soulless machine can do with your equipment?"

A flame of rage sparked in his narrowed eyes.

"I'm kidding!" She pulled back, hands up in mock surrender. "I solemnly swear that if you die before me, I'll find a 100% real human man to take over your marital duties." She crossed her heart and fluttered her eyelashes.

"Well, I mean," he faltered. "Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world…"

{Destination reached. You have arrived.}

-THUD-

A pair of severed legs sailed through the air slammed into the hood of the car, splattering the windshield with alabaster blood.

"AAAAAAIIIEEEEE!" Lydia screamed.

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.} The car intoned in a come-hither coo. {WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

Meanwhile, Evelyn's front yard, prepped for a mellow afternoon of burgers, hot dogs, and beer, now played host to a spectacle of terror: a legless man struggling to keep a dreadshell's pincers from tearing off his head. The dreadshell was Evelyn's pet. And the victim was her husband, Roy. Or rather, his replinoid replacement, Not-Roy.

Evelyn, for her part, was crumpled on the front porch, screaming her throat raw.

"Oh my God," Lydia gasped in horror, grasping for her husband. "Are you seeing this? Are you-?"

She turned and found Daniel staring right at her, grinning like a lunatic.

"W-what are you smiling about?!"

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

"Say it."

"Say what?"

He tilted his head toward the trunk.

Her eyes flicked in confusion before recognition clicked. "Are you crazy?! That thing will kill you!"

"Oh, now they're dangerous."

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

"Aaaauuugghh!" Not-Roy howled in agony as the Dreadshell pinned him to the ground and sunk a pincer through his shoulder, right into the Kentucky bluegrass.

Daniel shrugged. "You told me to be nice to Not-Roy, and you won't even let me save his life."

Lydia scowled. "You're sick, you know that."

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

"Somebody, anybody, help!" Evelyn shrieked. The Dreadshell tore her replacement husband's arm off and threw its head back, choking the appendage down.

"Daniel!" Lydia yelped in renewed horror, grasping for her husband again.

"Saaaay iiit," he sing-songed.

Lydie pressed his lips together then popped. "Okay fine! You were right! Get the damn gun!"

Daniel was out the door in a blur. Not ten seconds later, he was on the front lawn, pulse rifle in hand as the spinning chamber hummed with super-heated, ionized helium.

"HEY UGLY!"

"I can't watch." Lydia buried her face in her hands.

SKREEE??

"This is for my Grandfather's brother on the front lines of Selvio-WOAH SHIT!"

SKREEE!!!

VORP-VORP-VORP

The staccato burst crackled, charging the air with electricity. The hairs on Lydia's neck stood on end as she perked her ears. There was only silence, save for the incessant car.

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

"…Daniel?"

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

Lydia's head slowly rose until a piercing wail set her teeth on edge. "My husband! You killed my husband!"

"Ah whatever, lady!" Daniel huffed. "Go load your robo-dildo-husbo from backup!"

SKREEE!

"Not done yet?!"

SKKRRREEEEE!!!

"GET SUM! GET SUM!"

VORP-VORP-VORP

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

VORP-VORP-VORP

VORP-VORP-VORP

VORP-VORP-VORP

Lydia's eyes darted as she listened, strands of her charged hair now floating over her head.

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

Once more, the awful silence.

"…Daniel?"

-THUD-

Gasping, Lydia looked up to find her husband standing on the hood of the car—his polo tattered and torn, a plasma rifle in one hand and a chunk of the Dreadshell's severed head in the other.

"Hell yeah, baby! I got that United Earth Force in me," he hooted like an ape. "Just like grandpa! UEF! UEF! UEF!"

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

Lydia glanced at the house, now riddled with large circular holes, scorched edges still glowing hot. Evelyn cradled what little remained of Not-Roy's remains, and the thought occured that they would probably not be invited back for barbecue.

"UEF! UEF! UEF!"

And yet, as Lydia stared up at her husband, cavorting like some caveman barbarian who just felled a mighty mammoth, she couldn't summon the strength to be furious. She couldn't even get upset. Worse, as she became aware of her thighs rubbing together, her nibbled lip, the hideous realization dawned: she had never been wetter in her life.

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

But she wasn't going to tell him that.

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

"UEF! UEF! UEF!"

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood. Please remove.}

"Daniel, GET OFF THE HOOD OF THE CAR!"

{WARNING: An unidentified object is on the hood of th-}

{"Unidentified object is cleared."}

{"Thank you."}