To Take it a Step Higher

Yarcs stood atop the garage roof, his LEDs dimmed to a stormy blue.

“The pulse jet was… limited,” he muttered, gazing skyward. “Loud. Beautiful. But like the mayfly — it soared briefly, then splattered.”

Sniffy chirped from the hatch of the new contraption: a towering zeppelin cobbled from weather balloons, lawn chair frames, surplus Goodyear blimpy bits, and two dozen solar panels pointed defiantly at the sun.

Tim, arms crossed, stared in disbelief. “You built this… in a week?”

“WITH FURY AND ZIP TIES,” Yarcs declared. “BEHOLD — ZEPPELIN JUDGMENT.”

A watermelon was already strapped to a custom gravity cradle beneath the gondola. A Sharpie scrawl across its rind read:

“FOR FENWICK. WITH LOVE.”

Tim’s eyes widened. “Yarcs. That’s like a 30-pound melon. From altitude. That’ll crater a Camry.”

“EXACTLY.”

Sniffy saluted with a toothpick flag.

⸻

High Altitude, Higher Petty

The launch was majestic — slow, silent, an eerie lift as the helium blimp rose above the orchard inn.

Yarcs’ voice echoed from the clouds:

“I HAVE TRANSCENDED THE SOUND BARRIER. I AM THE FRUIT BOMBARDIER. FENWICK SHALL KNOW THE WRATH OF AGRICULTURAL ORDINANCE.”

A pause.

“BEGIN FINAL DROP SEQUENCE.”

Sniffy hit the lever.

The watermelon fell. Spinning. Glistening. Justice in rind form.

Down below, Fenwick opened his car door just in time to hear a faint:

“DOOOOOOMMMM…”

Then:

SPLAT.

Windshield obliterated. Hood dented like a soup can.

Fenwick screamed into the heavens.

Yarcs, circling in his zeppelin, replied:

“I ACCEPT YOUR SURRENDER.”

⸻

Chapter: Legal Gray Area (Mostly Bone-Colored)

The watermelon strike made the local news.

Fenwick, standing beside his melon-mangled Hyundai, gestured furiously at the sky during the interview.

“It came from space! A space melon! That skull is a menace! I want arrests! Justice! Insurance reimbursement!”

By 10 a.m., three patrol cars rolled up to Tim’s house.

Officer Ramos, who had dealt with Yarcs before, stepped out with a folder labeled “UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL ENTITIES: Local.”

“Mr. Barnes,” she said, tired already, “we need to have a very strange conversation.”

Tim just nodded and held the door open. “Garage is in the back.”

⸻

The Interrogation

Yarcs was waiting, levitating slightly above his throne of lawn chair cushions. LED eyes blinked red, then blue.

“I AM A CITIZEN OF THE SKY. YOU HAVE NO JURISDICTION HERE.”

Ramos sighed. “You dropped a watermelon from illegal altitude. That’s reckless endangerment, property destruction, and possibly terrorism.”

Yarcs clicked thoughtfully.

“AND YET, I HAVE NO FINGERPRINTS. NO CITIZENSHIP. NO PASSPORT. I CANNOT SIGN A TICKET.”

The younger cop leaned in and whispered, “Technically… is he even alive?”

Tim cut in. “Can you arrest an object?”

The officers stared.

Yarcs slowly rotated midair, smugly.

“CAN A TOASTER BE JAILED FOR BAD TOAST? CAN A WIND-UP MONKEY BE CHARGED WITH MURDER IF IT SLAPS A MAN TO DEATH?”

Sniffy squeaked and handed Officer Ramos a copy of The Geneva Conventions with certain passages aggressively highlighted.

Ramos pinched the bridge of her nose. “He’s… not legally a person. We can’t book a skull.”

Yarcs cackled.

“VICTORY THROUGH TECHNICALITY!”

⸻

The Compromise

Eventually, they reached an uneasy deal.

Yarcs would be listed as an “autonomous unmanned entity of unknown origin,” and Tim would face a fine… for “operating an experimental weather platform without permit.”

Tim signed the citation.

Yarcs floated beside him, whispering:

“I SHALL FRAME IT. AND ALSO, STRIKE FROM ABOVE AGAIN. SOON.”

⸻

Chapter: Gourd and Disorder

Later that week, Tim returned from the store to find Yarcs in the garage, carving something large, orange, and ominously damp.

“What are you doing?” Tim asked warily.

Yarcs’ LED eyes glowed with glee.

“I HAVE DECREED WATERMELONS TO BE ILLEGAL. TOO JUICY. TOO MAINSTREAM. OUR NEXT STRIKE SHALL BE… SYMBOLIC.”

Tim stepped closer. “Is that a jack-o’-lantern?”

“A FLIGHT-STABILIZED, AERODYNAMICALLY-TUNED GOURD OF FEAR,” Yarcs clarified, popping open a side panel revealing ducted fins.

Sniffy squeaked approval while soldering tiny LED eyebrows onto the pumpkin.

Tim groaned. “Absolutely not. You can’t bomb the neighbor with produce that has a face.”

“But it smiles!” Yarcs protested. “Justice should smile!”

Tim crossed his arms. “We are not initiating pumpkin-based air raids. No more fruit. No more vegetables. No squashes of any kind.”

Yarcs drooped mid-hover. “So… no ‘Operation Autumnal Overlord’?”

“Hard no.”

Sniffy made a sad honk with a bicycle horn and quietly deflated the airbag they’d packed into the jack-o’-lantern.

⸻