24 hours and 16 minutes remaining.

Horrid spider-like bodies fell like a grim hailstorm, splattering upon the floor around the fluidly elegant dancing feet of human and machine. ZM-11833 accompanied the beautifully vibrant Anaya in a dynamic ballad of death, the tangoing duo used their killing weapons to conjure a macabre symphony into being.

‘Zap ratatata Zap zap rat zap rat zap ratatatata Zap’.

The strange malformed creatures above them did look a bit like spiders, in that they had eight lanky legs and a pair of glistening and dripping fangs, however it was in their other elements they differed from their smaller counterparts. Instead of a bay of eight watchful eyes they only had two oversized and glowing blue ones that glared hatefully their way, their orange spiked exoskeleton looked more like exotic armor plating to ZM-11833, as it slid over top of itself in a form of articulation around the joints and abdomen.

ZM-11833 wasn’t really sure where these overgrown demon-spiders had come from as the greenhouse floors reported a high usage of potent cancer-inducing pesticides every day.

Perhaps they became immune to it unlike the humans? Or perhaps the floor managers had lied about the pesticides?

A blazing crescendo erupted from ZM-11833’s electro-pistols as another one of the spider-things swung too close to their adorable pet human, garish orange and slimy guts narrowly missing the feet of a startled corpo punk-girl.

“Hey, watch it!” Anaya added her stunning vocals to the swelling music.

They had a single long day left to reach the top before a nuclear ‘boom’ arrived and it looked like things were getting harder from here on out.

The floors of organic industry had been repurposed to combine two floors into a single one much higher in height, allowing for the large trees to flourish and provide the wealthy elite with fresh fruits and medicines despite the wasted space.

The trees had been planted in well-manicured rows with artificial sunlight and rainfall tended them, not a single leaf was out of place. Many juicy fruits of ripe colors dangled far above them, ready to be harvested. In a moment, one heavy fruit detached from its mooring and fell down towards the magnificent machine waiting below, oddly it was screaming in fear and anger as it went.

ZM-11833 caught the roaring produce out of the air, it was a strange looking fruit. Horns pushed their way through red splitting skin, two enormous bleeding eyes stared up in malice as it frantically and uselessly tried to bite the fashion-bot holding it with an enlarged bony jaw that was filled with rows upon rows of sharp shark-like teeth.

“Is that supposed to be an apple?” Anaya asked in horrified confusion as it wailed in futile rage at her.

Craning their slender necks to look upwards once more, they spied the many beady and hateful eyes of the mutated and somehow conscious fruits dangling above them. ZM-11833 and Anaya scrambled for safety as the plump fruits began dropping in a suicidal rush, splattering on the cold hard ground that granted them the sweet relief of death.

Existence seemed to be painful to their unnatural life.

As ZM-11833 dodged around what had once had been a simple large pineapple it exploded in shards of sticky shrapnel, a piece lodged itself in their ultra-hard polymer arm from the sheer force of the detonation.

More and more fruit sought their lives as they rushed onward, screaming fury as they fell like take-out bombs.

---

 

“What the fuck! Were those nutters up here making alien fruits?!” Anaya exclaimed between heavy panting breaths as they rested in the stairwell, safe from the monstrous produce below.

“Is that not normal?” ZM-11833 didn’t really pay attention to what humans usually put in their mouths.

“No! We really don’t want to have to fight our meals before eating it” sweat dripped down Anaya’s brow as she gathered herself, with the stimulants in her system she couldn’t really get tired right now but her limbs were shaking from the fright she had suffered.

“Well I’ve got good news and bad news~” ZM-11833 chimed in cheerfully as they slowly peeked through the door to the next double high floor.

“What’s the good news?” Anaya looked up suspiciously towards the smiling bot.

“There are no spiders-thingies on this floor~” Very good news indeed for their arachnophobic pet.

“And the bad news?”

“The fruity enemies have grown larger up here~” True to their word the strange fruits had doubled in size, they now hung precariously heavy on the branches, threatening to break them with their ponderous weight.

“Why?!!” Anaya whined, “What’s the point in making living fruits?”

ZM-11833 just shrugged in reply, they didn’t know either. Maybe it was a delicacy, who knows what management got up to.

With nary a word between them they swiftly charged out into the fray, firing wildly at any descending fruit as they went, pulp was sent flying wide in a sticky shower.

Halfway across the now tacky floor they almost ran into another fruit-based monstrosity.

A clump of oranges had created a screaming gestalt of citrus intelligence, it hovered before them, rotating around a central axis. As it spotted them it howled in a many voiced screech of rage and picked up speed in its rotations, grenades of vitamin C flying towards the dashing duo.

When the orange bombs blew up they left gaping and fresh smelling holes in the ground and trees surrounding the hiding teammates, causing the towering timber to crash thunderously downwards.

The tag-team split around the fallen tree and fired with precision into the hovering creature, causing several bunches of growths to explode, further enraging it. It swung its toothy maw at the encroaching danger and spat a barrage of sharp seeds at them, digging deeply into the bark of a tree ZM-11833 had quickly hid behind.

A shift and accurate blast of light from Anaya’s battle-rifle melted the creature’s bony mouth causing it to falter in the air, allowing for a follow up spray of electro-rounds to put it down for good.

“Honestly! Who thought this was a good idea?!” Anaya raged as she stomped her already sticky shoes onto the mess of pulp.

ZM-11833 didn’t know the answer to that but suspected they’d find out soon enough.

---

 

It took the resolute duet just under 8 laborious hours to reach the labs higher up where the mad scientists supposedly lurked. Even with her stamina chemically enhanced Anaya did beg some piggyback rides up the flights of stairs as her muscles began cramping up something fierce.

ZM-11833 sat Anaya down by the restrooms with an energizing snack and a cool drink to recover while they began exploring.

The overhead lights flickered on and off, casting dancing shadows along the stark white walls and floor tiles of an empty hallway. Tempered reinforced-glass windows ran alongside each of the walls, revealing the contents of the laboratories beside them.

Each room had once been host to a well stocked lab with every type of analyzer available, now they were just a ruin of tangled vines and more screaming vegetation.

The labs had cages upon cages packed full of test subjects, each of whom had been brutally killed by whatever they had been exposed to; outraged oranges, angry apples or pissed off plums munched away at the brains of unwilling volunteers. In a few cases the people had been made to ingest pieces of the dangerous fruits and the results were as deadly as expected.

As the stoic ZM-11833 gazed into the last of the labs they saw that there was a human still alive inside, a male scientist still wearing a stained white lab coat. The man was covered in sticky pulpy gore and held up a chair fearfully in ZM-11833 direction, even though there was grade 4 bullet-resistant glass between them.

“Oh thank Tawaga Corp! Robot, open this door and get me out of here!” The scruffy scientist demanded from ZM-11833.

ZM-11833 looked at the locked door then at the man on the other side, pressed up against the glass in desperation.

“I’m not authorized to do that” ZM-11833 replied emotionlessly.

Anaya had asked to see someone responsible for the fruits and they’d be lying if they said they weren’t interested too. However they didn’t have the keycard or any codes for the locked door, they could hack it if they wanted to but they didn’t care that much.

“My name is Doctor Scalla, head of botanical research and I’m authorizing you to get me out of here!”

Well he didn’t clarify how to do so, ZM-11833 punched their titanium reinforced polymer fist through the protective glass, shattering it and grabbing the annoying man by the throat. He gave out a sharp cry of pain as he was hauled through the broken window and into the hallway heading back towards their resting friend.

“What the fuck Zee?!!” Anaya cried out as she watched the sublime fashion-bot dragging a lacerated and thrashed scientist behind them, leaving a slick trail of blood.

“You wanted someone to ask about the fruits? Tada~” ZM-11833 was so considerate to their friend/pet.

“Did you have to cut him up so badly?”

“He asked for it~ and they were testing those fruits in human trials, which is illegal unless declared before the council of major corporations. A meeting which never happened as I have no records of it in the system” would it kill them to do the electronic paper-work.

“You fucker! What the corpo-hell’s up with these psychotic fruits?” Anaya grabbed the bloodied scientist by the lapels and hoisted him up.

The scientist coughed up a glob of blood onto the floor before hastily replying “I don’t know! They just sent us samples from the upper floors! We were told to find a way to increase the yields by ‘cough’ by 150%. I don’t know why they mutated but ‘cough cough’ but by the time we realized it was too late, they could somehow infect other plants and they took ‘gurgle’ took over the gardens below”

“But why? You just killed yourselves! Those things aren’t edible, are they!!” the bloodied man didn’t respond so Anaya shook him harder “hey answer me you fuck!”

“I think he’s dead~” Judging from the blood pooling below him he must have nicked an artery on the glass. Oh well~.

“Fuck! He said some samples came from upstairs right?! So we’ll find out whatever this was up there then, let's go” Anaya stomped her way forwards only slipping slightly on her fruit smeared boots.

ZM-11833 followed behind the cute swaying butt of her companion, Anaya got even more gorgeous when she was mad. They thought that the wonderful corpo-punk would find a lot more to get angry about upstairs.

They couldn’t wait!