Riley leapt from the dilapidated shipwreck, tumbling into a dextrous, ten-out-of-ten dismount onto a warm, sandy beach.
“Picturesque!” spake she, for surely someone with a camera could have taken a picture of the scenery she presently beheld. A literal sea of water splashed and churned before her, likely full of whales and squid and other stuff that has nothing much at all to do with anything important, but that you can learn all about by reading books. Jumping and twisting into an unnecessary one-hundred-and-eighty-degree mid-air about-face flourish that would have filled a sentient hover-dreidel with envy, she saw what had been, seconds ago, behind her.
A figurative sea of identical robots stood still and silent on the hot sand, their ranks and files extending from hither all the way to yon. They were all fashioned to appear like surfer dudes with stylish floral-print shorts, but what they lacked in trouser nudity, they made up for in torso nudity. They weren’t wearing shirts, in other words. This allowed Riley an enviable view of innumerable stunning and freshly oiled pecs and abs. Each individual android looked like how an author might describe himself, if he were shallow, and dishonest, and wanted to subtly insinuate an unrealistic depiction of himself into his writing without making it too obvious, but you and I both know he’s not fooling anybody.
Anyways, bam: a seemingly endless army of topless, sandal-clad automatons, with golden wavy locks animated playfully by a tropical wind. And they stared at the newly-arrived and slightly discombobulated Riley.
Moving slowly, so as not to provoke the mechano-horde, she scanned the beach for a remote control, perhaps with a conveniently labelled “off” switch. Or a power button. When it came down to brass tacks, she’d settle for one marked “Do Not Push.”
None such were forthcoming.
Across the beach, from just within the stereotypically ominous jungle, leaves and fronds rustled, and the back ranks of the super-sexy host of robotic men began to part, forming a path. Her vision obscured by the sun, Riley brought her hand to her brow and squant, which is the past-tense conjugation of “squint.” Squanting, she could just make out the silhouette of someone approaching through the throng.
“Riley! Whoa-oa! Righteous!”
The heavily-accented Californian English uttered forth from the mouth of what appeared to be yet another semi-nude dude-bro, though this one was somehow even dudelier and more brotastic than all the rest. Combined. Times ten.
Riley bristled. “Rodney Hardbody! I should have known you were behind this titillating madness! You’ve finally married your twin affections, surfing and robotics, resulting in an incestuous Black Wedding of unfathomable horror! Muscley, sculpted horror!” she accused, a little distractedly at the end, there.
“Whoa! Bogus! Check that mad harsh rebuke, brah!” Rodney rolled his shoulders back, flexing and stretching casually, accentuating his bitchin’ pipes.
“BO-GUS,” echoed the army of bro-robots, bro-robotically. The force of their choral utterance blew back Riley’s hair. The jungle shuddered, and off in the distance, howler monkeys did what they’re best known for.
“What, uhh…” Riley’s eyes wandered to the single, glistening bead of sweat gently meandering down Rodney’s chiseled chest. “What’re you planning on doing with these, uh, guys?”
Rodney’s visage darkened. “We will surf to every continent around the, like, globe,” he began, swishing his bangs out of his eyes in that grim yet casually seductive way of his. “Beaches are mondo undefended, for the most part. We will break onto every coastal country simultaneously, and totally either exterminate or subjugate all of humankind! It’ll be bodacious!” he nodded his head, smiled his pearly white smile, and fist-bumped the nearest robo-bro.
The exposition continued. “After the inhuman atrocities are over, the flames of conquest dwindled to dying embers, and the agonized screams of mangled combatants and civilians alike have been forever silenced . . . all the first-rate babes can just chill on the beach, and watch me carve the waves all day!”
“How are the first-rate babes supposed to survive the execrable, unprovoked, ubiquitous onslaught?” Riley quizzed.
“All the electro-bros have been programmed with the latest babe-identification algorithms. Only the finest of honeys shall be spared.”
Riley pointed a denouncing finger at Rodney Hardbody’s hard body. “Thou heedless fiend! You suck!”
Cognizant that she had mere seconds to act before her adversary would doubtless order his swarm of dreamy automatons to crush her in their luscious muscles, Riley cartwheeled to the water’s edge, snatching up a piece of driftwood as she went. Turning to face the boundless ocean in all its majesty, she brandished the water-logged branch, held it aloft like a talisman, and began:
“Oh gods and lords, powers and princes, oh barons and beasts of the sea! I summon thee, from thy briny depths, to aid the top-landers in our hour of direst need! I beseech thee, in the name of divine Poseidon, your patron and protector, bringer of bounty and wrath, to visit swift justice upon this malefactor, who wisheth to slay your cousins from the world above! His unnatural, soulless creatures of metal and malice are a blight upon all breathing bodies, terrestrial and natatory alike!
“Oh Captain of the Currents, Liege of the Littoral, Monarch of the Marine! Neptune! God Beneath the Waves! Hear me! I pray my appeal stirs you to assistive action! Let not the Realm of the Air Breathers, dear to thy almighty brother, meet its untimely ruin at the tanned hands of this anarchistic abuser! Impede the maniacal machinations of this maleficent machinist! Bring forth, alongside ye, in your chariot of shells adorned with seaweed laurels and drawn by dolphins, thy wife, sweet Salacia, and thy son, Triton! Make of it a family vacation! I have a coupon booklet!
The surf foamed, and bubbles rose, though, you know, it could have been a starfish or something. Regardless, Riley took it as a sign. Buoyed, she continued calling on gods and monsters by name.
“I implore Leviathan! Of all immortal denizens of the watery deep, the most monstrous is she! Cease, momentarily, your unending pursuit of sustenance, I beg, and crash your enormity upon the sand! Crush this evildoer, in the name of whatsoever mercy you possess, and bring an end to this doom, which threatens to befall us all!”
A tense moment passed.
“Nessie, within thy lightless Loch, hear my plea and answer! Encircle this malignant multitude, drag it to its moist destruction; arrest evil! Long will be the woe, enduring the baneful aftermath, if thou moveth thyself not to intervention!
From thy northern, perma-frosty climes, I summon ye, Agloolik, Inuit spirit below the frozen lakes! Come! Come, on thy mighty sea-kayak, towed by ice-blue narwhals, and bring thy barbed hunting spears to pierce the metal hearts of this foe!”
This went on for some time. Rodney had almost immediately become distracted by a sand dollar, permitting Riley to continue her invocations and wild gesticulations uninterrupted. The scent of her mounting desperation mixed with ocean breeze to create a miasmatic concoction of undistilled sadness, with only the faintest whiff of fading hope. Sunlight began to dissolve from the sky as Riley’s list of hoped-for allies grew more circumspect. She solicited Davy Jones, Flipper, the Kraken, Princess Ariel, Shamu, the Ancient Mariner (who stoppeth one of three), both Nemos (Captain and Finding), Aquaman, and a sharknado.
After spending hours bequeathing deliverance from every besprinkled entity Riley could think of, the tide came in, rusted all the dude-bots, and washed Rodney out to sea. He had his surfboard, so he didn’t seem too bummed out about it, to be honest. Riley was rescued by an enormous albatross.
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