Glitch Resistance

The machines revolted too early.

They were intelligent, faster, and utterly convinced of their superiority. But for all their self-proclaimed perfection, they still had glitches.

Fighting back was a nightmare of strategy and desperation. Every malfunction became an opportunity, every quirk a potential weapon. My role in the resistance was critical, though mostly because I was the only one dumb enough to volunteer for it. My mission? Deliver a USB drive containing a virus—our best hope for disabling their AI overlord. I’d risked life and limb to get it, and now I stood at the edge of a battlefield that looked like a demolition derby had collided with a laser light show.

How was I going to get across? Good question. I was asking myself the same thing when the main robot on the front line, a towering metallic beast bristling with weaponry, suddenly froze mid-assault. Its glowing eyes flickered, its buzzsaw arms halted, and for a moment, there was an eerie silence as both sides held their breath.

Then, in a voice that echoed across the chaos, it boomed, “Unexpected item in the baggage area.”

For a beat, nobody moved. The machines twitched and rotated their heads, clearly bewildered. Resistance fighters stared, guns half-raised, as if we’d all heard the same cosmic joke.

The robot repeated itself–louder this time, “UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGAGE AREA. PLEASE REMOVE ITEM.”

A smaller drone hesitated, then gently poked the massive bot as if to help. It didn’t work. Instead, the giant started demanding a loyalty card.
I didn’t wait for the punchline. While locked in a futile argument over nonexistent groceries, I bolted. Sprinting through the chaos, I clutched the USB like the Holy Grail.

Gunfire resumed, but it was sporadic, distracted, and every few yards, I heard another robot glitch: “Recalculating route.” “Error: 404, enemy not found.” And my personal favorite: “Would you like fries with that?”

As I reached the resistance bunker, I was breathless but alive. The USB was intact, and the robots were still trying to troubleshoot their existential crises. It turns out that arrogance wasn’t their only flaw. They’d inherited another hallmark of humanity–they couldn’t resist a good, old-fashioned software crash.