During a recent visit with my grandparents in Florida at the Hope Springs Retirement Community, I learned two things. The first was that long ago some non-transbeings grew jealous (some were scared) of transbeings; they attempted to make up for their “powerless” nature by augmenting themselves with ancient cybernetics and some magic. Eventually, a battle between transbeings and these augmented people started. The transbeings won (for the most part) and the augmented people were defeated…mostly killed. Second, I learned that the retirement community is built upon one of the burial grounds for the augmented people…and also the fountain of youth.

“That explains why everyone here is…lively,” I said.

It also explained why every couple years the augmented people semi-return from the grave. They attack the retirement community so they can use the fountain to fully restore themselves.

“They’re zom-bots?” said Sally.

“Or the unrusted,” I said smiling. Everyone glared at me. “Get it? Rust? Cyborgs?” I sighed. “Fine, we’ll go with zom-bots. So, how do we fight them?”

“The same way we do every time,” said Grandpa, “hold them off until they run out of fountain fluids and return to the grave.”

And that’s what we did. I used my gifts and gadgets while The Pack used their gadgets. As for the rest of the retirement community, they used everything from rolling pins to golf carts to the kitchen sink to battle the zom-bots.

Grandpa smacked one off me that was either trying to eat my brains or just claw my face.

“And you guys wonder why family doesn’t visit often,” I said before bashing a group with a nearby trash dumpster.

Grandma hit one with a baseball bat. “They certainly neglected to mention the recurring invading horde of ancient undead warriors in the brochure.”

Finally, the zom-bots time was up. They either fell where they stood (later cleaned up by the gardeners) or shambled back to wherever they rested until their next attempt.

“OK!” said the activities director. “Now that the survival part of this evening’s activities is complete, let’s all head into the main hall for cake and ice cream.”