Mario's charm
The Call of Chaos and the Grip of Steel
Mario stood in the center of the frozen plaza, his boots crunching on the crystallized remains of a civilization he didn't understand. To his left, J was tapping her foot with the rhythmic precision of an angry clock, her yellow eyes flashing with corporate authority. To his right, V was sharpening her claws against each other, the screeching sound of metal on metal echoing through the dead air. And right in front of him, Uzi was waving her railgun around like a conductor’s baton, her visor practically vibrating with purple static.
"He is a biological anomaly of unknown origin!" J shouted, her voice echoing off the nearby ruins. "Protocol 4.02 clearly states that all non-classified entities found within the sector must be detained for corporate processing. He is coming with me to the pod!"
"Oh, bite me, J!" Uzi barked back, her height disadvantage making her look like an angry purple grape compared to the tall Disassembly Drones. "He’s a person! Sort of! And he’s definitely not going with the murder-bots who spend their weekends building towers out of my neighbors' heads!"
V leaned in, her tail flicking back and forth like a cat tracking a bird. "I don't know why we're talking about 'processing' or 'safety.' I just want to see how fast he can run through the snow before his little legs give out. He’s cute when he’s confused." She looked at Mario and blew a kiss that looked suspiciously like a threat.
Mario, who had been focused on trying to see if he could balance a small icicle on the tip of his nose, suddenly felt a vibration in his pocket. A familiar, frantic jingle started playing—the kind of ringtone that usually meant someone was about to scream at him.
"Ooh! Hold on, ladies. Mario’s getting a call," he announced, holding up a finger to silence the three most dangerous beings on the planet.
He reached into his overalls and pulled out a high-tech, slightly cracked smartphone. He pressed the green button, and a holographic projection shimmered into existence above the screen.
The image was chaotic. The interior of the Mushroom Kingdom’s new castle looked like it had been put through a blender and then set on fire. In the foreground, SMG4’s face was pressed right against the camera, his eyes bloodshot and his hair a mess of uncombed static.
"Mario! Mario, can you hear me?!" SMG4 shrieked. Behind him, a massive explosion rocked the room. Meggy could be seen in the background, frantically trying to wrestle a wild, screaming Fishy Boopkins who had somehow managed to set his own head on fire.
"Mario! It’s only been twenty minutes, and the entire kingdom is falling apart!" SMG4 sobbed, ducking as a stray plate of spaghetti—Mario’s own abandoned lunch—flew past his head and shattered against a wall. "Bob tried to declare himself King and accidentally deleted the castle’s plumbing! Tari is crying in a corner because she can't find her rubber duck, and Luigi is currently hiding in the fridge because the Toads have formed a primitive cult around your hat! We need you back! The balance of stupidity is gone! Everything is too logical and it’s causing a reality collapse!"
Mario blinked, looking at the screen with a mixture of mild surprise and genuine amusement. "Wow. You guys look-a like garbage," he said, picking his nose.
"Mario, this is serious!" SMG4 yelled, his voice cracking. "Where are you? What is that snow? Why is there a purple-haired toaster staring at the camera?"
The three drones had stopped their arguing and were now huddled around Mario, staring into the holographic projection with intense fascination.
"Is that... a human?" J whispered, her eyes widening as she scanned SMG4’s frantic face. "No, he’s too low-resolution. And his proportions are... offensive to my sensors."
"Look at all that technology," Uzi muttered, her eyes darting across the background of the castle. "Is that a castle? Are those... sentient mushrooms? Where do you come from, Red?"
V just leaned closer to the screen, her tongue darting out. "The blue one looks like he’d be fun to break. But he’s not nearly as sturdy-looking as our Mario."
Mario turned the phone around, panning the camera so SMG4 could see the three female drones looming over him. "Hey SMG4, look! I made-a some new friends! This one is a toaster, this one is a business lady, and this one is a psycho! They all want-a the Mario!"
The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. SMG4 stared at the three murder machines, his jaw dropping. He saw the sharp claws, the glowing yellow eyes of the Disassembly Drones, and the sheer, unhinged energy radiating from the group.
"Mario," SMG4 said, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "Mario, listen to me very carefully. You need to run. You need to find a way to reverse the portal coordinates on your end. I’m trying to recalibrate the castle’s teleporter, but I need you to—"
"Quiet, small blue man," J interrupted, snatching the phone out of Mario’s hand with a lightning-fast motion. She held the device between two sharp fingers, looking at SMG4 with a cold, predatory smile. "This biological unit belongs to the Company now. Or, more specifically, to this squad. Your 'chaos' is no longer his concern."
"Hey! Give that back! That’s my brother's friend’s computer thingy!" Mario protested, reaching for the phone.
Uzi stepped in, her visor flashing a warning. "He’s not going back to some weird castle to be a 'balance of stupidity.' He’s the first interesting thing to happen to this planet in a century!"
"Wait, wait, wait!" SMG4 screamed from the phone. "Don't hang up! Mario, the spaghetti! I have a whole truckload of—"
*CRUNCH.*
J’s hand tightened, and the phone shattered into a thousand pieces of glass and silicon. The holographic projection flickered and died, cutting off SMG4’s desperate plea. She dropped the remains into the snow and crushed them beneath the heel of her boot for good measure.
"Mama mia..." Mario looked down at the pile of junk that used to be his connection home. "That was my high score on 'Angry Birds'..."
Suddenly, he felt three sets of hands—or claws—grab onto him.
J grabbed his right arm, her grip firm and possessive. "You are coming to the landing pod. We need to document your physiology. Every... single... inch of it."
V grabbed his left arm, pulling him toward her. Her silver pigtails brushed against his face as she leaned in, her visor displaying a mischievous grin. "I think he needs a tour of the spire first. I want to see if he can bounce. Do humans bounce, J? I bet he bounces."
Uzi, not to be outdone, lunged forward and grabbed the front of Mario’s overalls, trying to pull him away from the two taller drones. "Let go of him, you vultures! He’s a rebel! He winks at danger! He’s coming to the bunker where we can... I don't know, find him a hoodie or something! He’s freezing!"
Mario found himself being pulled in three different directions. He was like a human wishbone, and the three drones were not in a sharing mood.
"Wait-a minute!" Mario yelled, though he didn't actually look that upset. "Mario is not a pizza! You can't-a just slice me up!"
"We aren't slicing you," J said, her voice dropping into a tone that was strangely soft for a murder machine. She pulled him closer, her metallic chest plate clinking against his shoulder. "We are... securing you. You are an asset. A very... unique... rare asset."
"He’s mine!" Uzi hissed, her purple eyes glowing brighter. "I found him first! Well, I threatened him first! That counts as a claim!"
"I saw him from the bridge," V countered, her tail wrapping around Mario’s waist, pulling him flush against her. The sharp, needle-like tip of her tail hovered just inches from his nose. "I liked the way he fell on the pile of bodies. It was poetic. He’s staying with me."
Mario looked at the three of them. He saw the blush on Uzi’s visor, the intense, focused gaze of J, and the wild, hungry stare of V. For a normal person, this would be a nightmare. For Mario, it was just another Tuesday, albeit with more robots and less pasta.
"Okay, okay!" Mario said, puffing out his chest. "If you all want-a Mario so much, there is only one way to settle this!"
The three drones paused, looking at him with genuine curiosity.
"A dance-off?" V asked, her eyes turning into spinning stars.
"A corporate merger?" J suggested.
"A revolution?" Uzi added.
Mario shook his head. "No. You have to find-a the Mario some spaghetti! The one who brings the best pasta gets to... I don't know, take me to their house for N64 and chill!"
The drones exchanged looks. They didn't know what "N64" was, and they certainly didn't know where to find pasta on a frozen, dead planet, but the challenge had been issued.
J straightened her tie, her eyes narrowing. "Challenge accepted. I will locate the finest preserved organic noodles in the city ruins. It will be the most efficient retrieval in Company history."
"I’ll just find a kitchen and kick the door down until food happens!" Uzi declared, letting go of Mario’s overalls but staying close enough to guard him.
V didn't say anything. She just leaned in and licked Mario’s cheek, her tongue feeling like a cold, wet piece of sandpaper. "I’ll just kill whoever has the food. It’s faster."
Mario wiped his cheek, a goofy grin on his face. "Wahoo! Let the Great-a Pasta Race begin!"
As the three drones began to argue again, this time about the logistics of finding Italian cuisine in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Mario sat down in the snow. He looked at the broken pieces of his phone and thought about the chaos back at the castle. He thought about SMG4’s screaming face and the burning kingdom.
Then he looked at the three beautiful, deadly, and completely obsessed robots surrounding him.
"Eh," Mario muttered to himself, leaning back against a rusted car. "The castle can-a wait. This is much more interesting."
He didn't notice the way J was surreptitiously scanning his vitals to ensure he wasn't catching a cold, or the way Uzi was trying to figure out how to hold his hand without looking "weird," or the way V was already planning how to make a throne out of scrap metal just for him.
Mario was on Copper-9, and for the first time in his life, he was the most popular guy in the room. Even if the room was a frozen graveyard and the girls were programmed for mass murder.
"Mama mia," he sighed happily, closing his eyes. "Mario is a lady killer."
High above, the cold wind howled, but for the first time in a long time, the silence of the planet was broken not by the screams of drones, but by the sound of a fat man humming a cheerful tune about meatballs. The hunt for pasta was on, and the fate of Mario—and perhaps the entire planet—hung in the balance of a noodle.