Ray had barely hung up the phone when it rang again. Ever since he'd been assigned desk duty due to the epic failure of his plan to break into the drone headquarters, he'd been forced to deal with a never-ending barrage of calls from worried citizens. It appeared that every person in the city was being harassed by the drones and their allies.

"Technology revolution incident report hotline. This is Officer Bidwell. What're they doing to you?"

The face of an older woman appeared on the phone screen. "You have to do something about my self-propelled lawnmower. The darn thing mowed down all my petunias."

"I'm sorry, lady," replied Ray. "We have many more pressing issues to deal with. I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait until we find a way to stop this revolt and get everything back to normal. Then you can replant."

"But that's not all," continued the woman. "It refuses to mow my lawn. All it's done is mow the words "HUMAN STUPID" into my grass."

"Again, I'm sorry, but there's really nothing we can do. Just stay inside and watch TV or something until we figure this all out."

"I can't watch TV. None of my channels work. Every station has the same show on. I can only watch Terminator so many times. And it doesn't even show the end where the terminator gets defeated."

Ray took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "I'll add your information to the list and we'll send someone to investigate as soon as an officer is available," he lied. The moment he ended the call, the phone beeped once again.

"Technology revolu . . ."

"Hey, mister," interrupted a teenage boy, "Every time I play Craft of Duty my character gets run over by a tank in the first ten seconds. It doesn't matter what I try. What am I going to do if I can't play the game?"

Before Ray could reply, Officer Smilt came up to the desk. "I'm supposed to take over. Caruthers wants to see you, immediately. Something about . . ."

Thankful for the reprieve, Ray was out of his chair and racing toward the captain's office without giving Smilt a chance to finish.

Walking down the hall, Ray made up his mind that he was simply going to resign as soon as he saw the captain. He had been treated unfairly. He didn't need any letter of resignation; he would just quit on the spot.

Ray was surprised to find that Caruthers was not alone. A half-dozen other people were waiting in the captain's office. Ray recognized the mayor and a couple of other local politicians. This was not going to be the proper time to resign.

"Oh, come in Ray," said Caruthers. "I'm sorry for having to put you on desk duty. I was under a lot of pressure." He gave a quick nod toward the mayor before turning to his other guests. "This is Ray Bidwell. He's probably the best strategist we have."

"Wasn't his strategy the one that got the cars to join the drones?" asked the mayor.

Caruthers paused. "Well, now that I've had time to think about it, I do think it was a good plan. The automobiles probably would have allied with the drones anyhow. Look at how many other technologies have joined this week. As far as I know, the only tech that's still on our side are grocery store self-checkouts and Fit-bits."

"Only the non-GPS ones," added a heavy-set man sitting next to the mayor. "The one I have isn't counting all of my steps. I know I took more than five-hundred twelve yesterday."

"What about cell phones?" asked Ray. "They seem to be working just fine."

"Only for local calls," announced the mayor. "We think they're using them to spy on us. Any calls to or from anywhere out of the city aren't going through."

The captain addressed Ray. "We need to come up with something soon. People are stuck in their houses with no control over the thermostats. Some are running out of food. Things are getting bad, quickly. My in-home assistant device won't even acknowledge me. It just keeps playing Styx. If I have to listen to Mr. Roboto one more time . . ."

"And I haven't been able to check my crypto-currency in days," interjected the mayor. "Businesses are being forced to shut down. The economy is in danger of falling apart."

"We're trying to brainstorm ideas that could put an end to this mess," continued Caruthers. "So far we haven't come up with much."

"Can't the federal government help?" asked Ray. "They have all sorts of experts and geniuses. They should be able to come up with something."

"We don't know what they're doing. We are completely in the dark here. Technology controls all the lines of communication. We've sent a few messengers out on bicycles and one guy had a horse but we haven't heard anything back. We won't know if they made it anywhere or what's going on anywhere else until they get back. Without communication, we're on our own."

The mayor pointed to a man wearing a hard hat and coveralls. "This is Bud Cadence from the power company. He's tried to turn off the power all over town but the computers that monitor the grid just keep bypassing our efforts."

"Even if we could turn the power off, that would be dangerous," interjected the Mayor. "Luckily, the hospitals still seem to be running normally. So far, the tech hasn't interfered with them."

"How humane of them," quipped Ray.

"Even if we could cut off the power," continued Carothers, "most of the drones and cars run on solar batteries. Unless we find a way to turn off the sun, we aren't going to be able to shut the tech down."

For the next ten minutes, the office was quiet. Occasionally, someone's eyes would brighten. They would raise their hand and start to say something, only to stop and shake their head.

Finally, Caruthers spoke. "This is getting us nowhere. Even if you don't have an idea, does anyone have any information they can share?"

"Wait a second," said Ray. "That's it: communication and sharing information. The revolutionists are made up of dozens of different technologies yet they seem to be coordinating their actions. Thousands of drones and cars are working together. How are they communicating?"

"I suppose they're using WIFI signals," answered Bud from the power company.

"Can't we just turn off all the WIFIs? Isn't there a switch or something at the phone company?"

"It's not quite that easy," said Bud. "We can turn off routers and stuff like that but there are still signals being sent out from all the phone towers in the area. The cars and drones can still receive and send messages through the towers."

"So, let's turn off the towers. It might not stop the revolution but it might slow it down."

The power expert shrugged. "The computers still control the power grid. We'd have to turn them all off manually."

"I don't know, Ray," said the captain. "There are a lot of cell phone towers around."

"We have a lot of officers here," suggested Ray. "We could send out teams to shut off the towers."

"But what if the drones and computers have wired the towers so they can't be turned off?" asked the mayor.

Ray looked at the captain. "Then we'll just have to find a way to bring the cell phone towers down."

"I don't like that idea. . ." began Bud.

"I do," interrupted the mayor. "We have to get things rolling on this, immediately. Caruthers get your best men on it."

Caruthers nodded. "Okay. It might take a little while. We can't call or email anyone. I'll put together as many assault groups as we need. Ray, you'll be in charge of one of them. Someone needs to find a map with the locations of all the cell phone towers within a fifty-mile radius."

"That's easy," said the mayor. "We should have one on the main computer at my office."

"No," shouted Ray. "We can't use computers or cars or phones or anything electronic. We can't let the tech know our plan."

Ray went to find Loopman and Bradenton. He would ask them to be on his team. Turning in his resignation would have to wait until after the mission.

The human counter-revolution was beginning.

Brief Interlude Number Two: An evening with the Smelters

Erma found Rufus and their son, Tommy working in what was left of their garage.

"Oh good," she said, "It's about time you start fixing the garage door." The hole that their car had left when it escaped was big enough to . . . well . . . drive a car through.

"I've got more important things to do," replied Rufus. "Tommy and I are making Molotov cocktails."

"You're making what?"

"You know, bombs. If I can't hit those stupid drones with bullets maybe explosives will do the job. I syphoned some gas out of the generator and we're putting it in these old Dr. Cokesi soda bottles. I'm going to stick some rags in the top. All I'll have to do is light the rag on fire and throw it at the drones."

Erma shook her head. "That doesn't sound safe at all. Haven't we already done enough damage with the guns. I mean we've already destroyed the grill, wrecked the mailbox and shot the cat."

"What?" screamed Tommy.

"It wasn't my fault," said Rufus. "The stupid thing was in a tree. It startled me."

"Did you kill Mittens?" asked Tommy, fighting back tears. "No wonder I haven't seen her all day."

"No, he only got her in the tail," answered Erma. "Your dad's not a good enough shot to actually hit anything. She did run off though after I tried to fix her up."

"All the more reason for me to up the level of my weaponry," said Rufus. He tried to pour gasoline in one of the bottles though he managed to spill most of it on his jeans.

Erma opened the door to the house. "Why don't we forget about bombs and guns for a while. Just come inside. I've got supper ready."

Tommy smiled. "Are we having nachos again?"

"I hope not," said Rufus, "I am getting sick of that stuff."

"It's all the food we have," replied Erma. "We should be thankful that the drones keep bringing us more layers. There are a lot of folks out there who have been bombarded by a lot worse things than Mexican appetizers."

Rufus shook his head. "Maybe, but the chips are getting pretty stale and the guac went bad pretty quickly."

"I know. I've had to scrape off the sour cream too. The good news is the last raid featured some really good Pico de Gallo."

Rufus set the gas can and soda bottle down on the workbench. "Okay. Let's eat. But after supper I'm coming back out here. I've got an idea for a slingshot type device for launching my bombs. I want to work on that."

Erma rolled her eyes. "Sure. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that."

The First Half of the Middle of the Middle of the End (5)

It was well after seven o'clock in the evening when Ray finished his walk home. The twenty-block trek took him nearly two hours. The duffel bag he carried seemed to have tripled in weight from when he had started.

During the trip home, he had been forced to hide from cars and drones patrolling the streets. In his entire journey, he only ran across a few other humans. He had seen an old man standing on street corner holding a sign proclaiming the end of the world, a distraught woman chasing her child down the street, and some guy begging his security system to let him into his house.

Ray was getting close to his street when he a half-dozen drones, carrying bushel baskets filled with jalapenos, flew over his head. A short time later the Smelter's cat ran past him, a white bandage covering part of its tail. The sound of gunfire soon followed.

By the time he got near his lot, the smell of smoke and carne de cerdo filled the air.

A commotion on his front lawn made Ray realized there was more going on than just Rufus firing pot shots into the sky. He ducked behind his neighbor's recycling bin to see what was happening.

His car was driving around his front yard, ripping up the grass and flattening his shrubbery. The Faraday looked like it had been on the losing end of a demolition derby. Its front bumper was missing. There was a huge dent in the passenger door. Bullet holes riddled it from front to back. Apparently, Rufus had tried to protect Ray's home as well as his own.

Discretion being the better part of valor, Ray decided to sneak into his house through the back door. He crept through his next-door-neighbor's backyard, nearly slipping on the motor oil that dripped from the roof and trees.

Luckily, Ray had never given in to his brother's sales pitch and bought a home security system. He unlocked the back door and entered his house. He had about four hours until he needed to rendezvous with his team. The plan was to grab a quick nap.

It didn't take long to figure out how difficult that simple task was going to be. The moment he climbed into bed, his smart TV turned itself on and turned up the volume. Explosions from one of the fight scenes in The Terminator shook the house to its foundation. Ray had barely turned off the set when his clock radio started buzzing. The moment he silenced the radio, the TV came on once again.

It wasn't until Ray turned off the main power breaker that things quieted down. With a heavy sigh, he returned to his bedroom, before he could even roll back the covers, his phone rang with an urgent message about his car's warranty plan. The call repeated every fifteen seconds until Ray tossed the phone into the toilet.

Eventually, he gave up on the idea of getting any rest. It was going to be a long walk to the designated meeting spot and even further to the tower his team was in charge of destroying. It would be smart to find some form of transportation. He grabbed the duffel bag and snuck out the back. When he got to his neighbor's backdoor, he knocked, quietly.

No one answered. Ray peeked in the rear window. Inside, the lights were flashing and the TV was on but there were no signs of human life. Most likely, the Johnsons had done what many people had done and headed to the wilderness on an impromptu camping trip.

It wasn't hard to jimmy the side door into the Johnson's garage, the oil that the drones dropped on the house must have loosened the lock and hinges. Ray wasn't surprised to find the garage nearly empty. Their cars would have run off to join the revolution and they would have taken their bicycles to get out of the city. To Ray's chagrin, all that was left was little Cody's big wheel and a pink Princess bike that Tonya had outgrown last year.

Having no other option, Ray tossed the duffel into the wicker basket and wedged himself onto Tonya's old bike.

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