Kaiser Zhang was unremarkable in most ways – another office drone who typed numbers into spreadsheets and pretended to care about quarterly reports. The only interesting thing about him was his weekend hobby of scaling walls that sensible people wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Not that his coworkers knew this; to them, he was just the quiet guy who somehow managed to finish his work by 5 PM every day while they stayed late "optimizing workflows."
Speaking of 5 PM, the clock had finally struck freedom hour on this particular Friday. Kaiser had spent the last two hours perfecting tomorrow's climbing route plans, cleverly disguised in a spreadsheet that looked like sales projections. If anyone had bothered to look closely, they might have wondered why the Q4 revenue forecast included terms like "crack system" and "crimp holds."
The office was still bustling with corporate warriors battling imaginary deadlines. Kaiser glanced at his overflowing trash bin, then at the cleaning staff already making their rounds. A silent apology and a mental note to bring them coffee sometime, and he was out the door.
That's when Mother Nature decided to be a comedian.
The rain wasn't just rain – it was as if someone had taken every cloud in a hundred-mile radius and wrung them out like wet laundry. Kaiser stood there, umbrella-less, watching his perfectly planned evening dissolve like his faith in weather forecasts. The same forecasts that had promised, with absolute certainty, clear skies and mild temperatures.
"Well, shit," he eloquently observed, lifting his backpack over his head. Two miles wasn't far – he'd done worse approaches to climbing spots while carrying twice the weight. Besides, a little rain never killed anyone, right?
The universe, apparently taking that as a challenge, decided to prove him wrong.
He started jogging on the road towards home.
The truck came out of nowhere, moving so fast it was hydroplaning more than driving. Kaiser's body reacted before his brain caught up, years of climbing instincts kicking in. He dove sideways, hitting the concrete with the same grace as a bag of wet cement. His palms took the brunt of it, skin meeting pavement in a brief but passionate affair that left both parties bleeding.
The truck vanished into the rain curtain, leaving Kaiser to peel himself off the ground like a wet sticker. "That's gonna leave a mark," he muttered, examining his hands. They looked like he'd tried to give a cheese grater a high-five.
He picked a different route home – one with more escape options, because contrary to popular belief, he wasn't completely stupid. The rain kept hammering down, and his backpack was about as waterproof as a pasta strainer. Ten minutes of jogging later, he was soaked, bleeding, and seriously reconsidering his life choices.
Then the truck came back.
"Oh, come on!" Kaiser shouted at the approaching vehicle. "Don't you have better things to do? Like delivering packages or whatever the hell trucks do these days?" The truck's response was to accelerate, its engine roaring like an angry metal rhinoceros.
Kaiser dove into a nearby alley, the kind that usually features in crime shows right before something terrible happens. The truck, apparently auditioning for a horror movie, began forcing its way into the alley. Metal screamed against brick as the truck scraped along both walls, pushing dumpsters aside like toys.
He started running towards the other end at top speed, but fate played a cruel joke on him.
Because one homicidal vehicle wasn't enough, an SUV appeared at the other end of the alley. Both vehicles were empty – no drivers, just machines with murder on their mechanical minds.
"This is some next-level bullshit," Kaiser observed, trapped between them. His hands were bleeding, the walls were slick with rain, and he had about thirty seconds before becoming a human panini. The wall was at least fifteen feet high, the kind of climb he'd normally approach with proper gear and a lot less blood loss.
But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Kaiser was fresh out of normal options.
He stripped off his shirt – his favorite climbing shirt, because of course it was – and quickly tore it into strips. The vehicles were advancing slowly now, savoring their apparent victory like mechanical cats playing with a very wet mouse. Kaiser wrapped his bleeding hands, trying not to think about how many safety guidelines he was violating.
The climb was about as elegant as a drunk person on roller skates. Every move sent pain shooting through his arms, and the rain made everything as slippery as buttered glass. Halfway up, he ran out of good holds and found himself stuck, pressed against the wall like the world's most regrettable wallpaper.
The truck was almost beneath him now. Kaiser looked at it, then at the opposite wall, and had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. It was either the dumbest or most brilliant idea he'd ever had – probably both.
He jumped.
The truck's roof dented under his feet as he used it as a springboard, launching himself at the opposite wall. His wrapped hands slapped against the top edge, and he hauled himself up with all the grace of a sea lion flopping onto a beach. But it worked.
Standing on the wall, Kaiser couldn't help himself. He turned to the vehicles below and treated them to a display of creative hand gesture, his middle finger. "How's that for problem-solving, you oversized toaster fkers?"
The police station was close – just a few minutes away across the rooftops. The vehicles followed along the street below, like loyal dogs if dogs were several tons of homicidal metal. Kaiser was already thinking about how to explain this to the police without sounding completely insane.
That's when he heard the plane.
It was small, probably private, and definitely as empty as his hopes for surviving this day. Because why not add aerial assault to the mix? It was heading straight for him, proving that when machines rise up against humanity, they don't mess around with half measures.
How did he know it would head for him? because he just felt it. better take caution than not right?
He needed cover, so he took to cover.
Kaiser jumped off the wall, his landing about as graceful as a drunk man falling down stairs. He rolled into a nearby shop, which turned out to be exactly the wrong move when several tons of aircraft decided to join him.
The explosion was spectacular, in the way that things trying to kill you often are. Kaiser survived, mostly, though he was now significantly shorter than he used to be thanks to some missing legs. As he dragged himself toward the approaching sirens, he saw police officers, firefighters and EMT.
He lost his legs, but he survived that was good enough, but he caught sight of an old friend.
The truck was back, its grille grinning like the world's most murderous cheese grater.
"Oh, fuck off," Kaiser managed to say, because if you're going to have last words, they might as well be honest.
The truck obliged by turning him into a speed bump.