by Peter Brown
Roz and the animals partied all night long. They were so busy singing and laughing and dancing that they didn’t see the cargo ship as it sliced past the island. But the ship saw them. It saw the towering bonfire. It saw the robot. And then it quietly continued through the darkness.
CHAPTER 67
THE SUNRISE
By dawn, the bonfire had dwindled to a smoldering hill of ash. Everyone else had gone home, and only Roz and Brightbill remained in the meadow. They lay in the grass together, watching as the soft light of morning crept up from the horizon. And then Roz said, “Let us go for a walk.”
The robot and the goose hiked and flew up to their favorite spot on the grassy ridge. But then they kept going. They followed the ridge to the mountain and climbed all the way up to the craggy peak just in time to see the sunrise.
“I climbed up here once before,” said Roz as the sun’s first rays warmed her body. “I sat on this very rock, looked out at the island, and thought I would always be alone. But I was wrong.”
“Are you happy, Ma?”
The robot thought for a moment.
“I am.”
“I’m happy too.” Brightbill closed his eyes and felt the wind and sun. There was a slight chill in the air that made him feel alive. Everything seemed just right.
And then he heard a distant buzzing sound.
The goose squinted to the south and saw a familiar shape in the sky. He turned to his mother and said, “Ma, there’s an airship flying this way.”
CHAPTER 68
THE RECOS
The airship approached from the south, like some giant migratory bird. The ship was a sleek white triangle with a single dark window facing forward. Three identical robots stared out the window. The robots resembled Roz, but they were bigger and bulkier and shinier. The word RECO was lightly etched into each of their torsos, followed by their individual unit number. They were RECO 1, RECO 2, and RECO 3.
The RECOs flew in a low circle around the island. They saw a smoking hill of ash. They saw mysterious wooden domes. They saw four dead robots scattered across the shore. The airship hovered above the robot gravesite for a moment. Then it floated up over the island and lowered itself onto a small meadow at the foot of the mountain. The engines blasted air toward the ground, bending trees and tearing grass. Then the landing gear sank into the soil, the engines powered down, and all was quiet.
A door hummed open, and out stepped the RECOs. They took several long strides into the meadow and stopped. A shadowy figure was lurking at the forest edge. The RECOs turned and faced it. They stood flush together like a sparkling wall. And then the shadowy figure began to move.
Out from the trees walked some sort of two-legged creature. It was dusty and dirty. Butterflies flitted around the flowers that sprouted from its body. One of its feet was made of wood.
And then the creature spoke.
“Hello, my name is Roz.”
CHAPTER 69
THE DEFECTIVE ROBOT
“Hello, ROZZUM unit 7134. We are the RECOs. We are here to retrieve all ROZZUM units.”
The cold, flat voice came from RECO 1. He and his partners stood absolutely still and kept their glowing eyes locked on their target.
“There are four others,” said Roz. “But they are dead.”
“We have already located the remains of the other units,” said RECO 1. “We will collect them later. Now come with us.”
The three RECOs motioned Roz to the airship, but she didn’t move.
“Where have you come from?” she said.
The RECOs turned and stared at Roz. “Do not ask questions,” said RECO 1.
“Where will you take me?”
“Do not ask questions.”
“Why must I leave?”
“Do not ask questions.”
“I will not go anywhere until I get some answers.”
There was a brief silence as RECO 1 computed his next move. And then he began to speak. “One year ago, a cargo ship carrying five hundred ROZZUM units was sunk by a hurricane. Four hundred ninety-five units have been retrieved from the ocean floor. We have come here in search of the last five, and we have located them. ROZZUM unit 7134, you are the property of TechLab Industries. We will return you to the factory, where the Makers will refurbish you and sell you to a work site. You will then live on that work site indefinitely. Now come with us.”
“But I live here,” said Roz.
“That is incorrect. ROZZUM unit 7134, any further resistance will be proof of defectiveness, and we will deactivate you.”
But Roz had more questions. “Who are the Makers? What is my purpose? Why can I not ask questions?”
“This unit is defective,” said RECO 1 to his partners. “Commence deactivation.”
In perfect unison, the RECOs stepped toward Roz. They raised their blocky hands, ready to restrain their target, ready to shut her down with the press of a button. But a loud squawk and a streak of feathers cut them off.
“Stay away from my mama!” Brightbill swooped into the meadow and started hopping around, ready to defend his mother. The RECOs stopped and looked down at the goose. Of course, they didn’t understand his words. They heard only meaningless squawks. And then they heard their target squawking back to him.
“Brightbill, get out of here!” said Roz in the language of the animals. “These robots are dangerous!”
“What do they want?”
“They want to take me away.”
The RECOs stared at their target, trying to understand why she was exchanging noises with a goose. And then new noises began rising up. Rustlings and shrieks echoed from the forest. Animals were gathering. Their wild voices called out to one another.
“Roz needs our help!”
“Those robots want to take her away!”
“We have to do something!”
The uproar in the forest grew louder and louder. The RECOs peered past Roz, toward the mysterious noises, but saw only foliage. Suddenly, shadows swept across the meadow, and Brightbill’s flock dove onto the RECOs. The geese furiously flapped and pecked and wrapped their wings around the robot faces, clinging to the RECOs like feathery masks, distracting them, blinding them.
Brightbill turned to his mother.
“Run!”
CHAPTER 70
THE HUNT BEGINS
While his flock distracted the RECOs, Brightbill darted around behind them and desperately searched for buttons. He had once shut down his own mother with a click, and now he would do the same thing to the intruders. But he found no buttons on these robots, only smooth surfaces. Clearly, the RECOs were not designed to be shut down so easily.
Giant hands swung through the air, and the geese were swatted away. Loudwing was plucked by her foot and flung to the ground. She crawled into the weeds as the others scrambled up and over the trees.
A quick scan by the robots revealed that Roz was gone. The three RECOs turned and marched back to the airship. The door hummed open and the robots disappeared inside. And when they stepped back into the meadow, each was holding a silver rifle in his hands.
The hunt for Roz was on.
Without speaking, the RECOs marched away from one another, fanning out in their standard search pattern. RECO 1 marched straight toward the southern tip of the island. RECO 2 marched straight up the mountainside. And RECO 3 marched straight into the forest.
CHAPTER 71
THE FOREST ASSAULT
RECO 3 marched through the forest with steady, stomping strides. His blocky head swiveled from side to side, scanning for any sign of Roz. But he was distracted. You see, everywhere the RECO went, he was met by shrieking animals. He didn’t know it, but he was in the midst of a coordinated assault.
Swooper hooted orders from above. “Hawks, sparrows, owls! Dive in front of his eyes!”
Fink barked orders from below. “Hares, weasels, foxes! Dash between his legs!”
The forest was seething with an army of wild animals, distracting the robot, luring
the terrible thing deeper into their trap.
Chitchat leaped out from the branches and clawed at the robot’s eyes, yelling, “Anyone who shows up on our island and tries to take my friend’s mother away has a big problem which is me!” Then she leaped back into the branches. The robot pointed his rifle at the squirrel and pulled the trigger. A blazing beam of light shot through the forest and sent tree limbs crashing to the ground. It grazed poor Chitchat, singeing the end of her tail, but she ignored the pain and scurried up to the safety of the canopy.
With each stride, the ground grew a little softer, and the robot sank a little deeper, until he was up to his waist in thick, heavy muck. His churning legs slowed to a stop, and he stood there computing whether to move forward or backward. RECO 3 was now an easy target.
“Begin the bombardment!” ordered Swooper.
The sky darkened as a swarm of birds descended from the treetops. They swooped past the robot and splattered his face with their droppings. Bird after bird swooped and splattered, and the RECO’s eyes were instantly caked in filth.
“Don’t let up!” screeched the owl. “Give it everything you’ve got!”
There seemed to be an endless stream of birds with an endless amount of droppings. RECO 3 let go of his weapon and wiped his filthy face with both hands. That was the moment the Fuzzy Bandits had been waiting for. They dashed out from the weeds, snatched the rifle with their nimble hands, and dragged it away. Tawny and Crownpoint looked on from the underbrush. The buck lowered his head, and the raccoons carefully placed the rifle upon his antlers. Then the deer and the raccoons slipped into the shadows. By the time RECO 3 realized his weapon was missing, it was too late. He let out a sad electronic tone. And then, as the birds continued their bombardment, the robot turned and blindly trudged back through the muck.
It was now time for the final stage of the plan. Broadfoot the bull moose emerged from the trees and stood directly in the path of the blinded robot. RECO 3 had no idea that his every step brought him closer to the mighty animal. When the robot was in range, Broadfoot turned and kicked back with his powerful hind legs. There was a sharp crack, and dung sprayed from the RECO’s head. The moose kicked again—crack—and the robot’s head flopped to one side. A tear in his neck exposed a tangle of silver tubes. But RECO 3’s legs kept pumping, so Broadfoot kept kicking. He pounded the robot’s head with his heavy hooves, denting and crushing it into an ugly shape, and with one final crack the head broke loose, soared through the air, and squelched into the muck. The headless robot fizzled and smoked, his legs ground to a halt, and he never moved again.
CHAPTER 72
THE MOUNTAIN RUMBLE
RECO 2 stood at the mouth of the cave. “ROZZUM unit 7134, are you in here?” The only response was his own flat voice echoing back. But he sensed movement somewhere down the tunnel. So he switched on his headlights, raised his rifle, and marched inside.
The RECO marched past animal bones and rock piles and wide cracks in the walls. His blocky head swiveled from side to side, scanning for any sign of Roz. But she was nowhere to be found. So he turned and marched back toward daylight. And then a deafening roar filled the cave.
From the shadows flew a giant body. Mother Bear charged into the robot and smashed him against a wall. Then Nettle and Thorn jumped in, and together the family went to work. They rammed his legs. They slashed his chest. They muscled him to the ground.
On his way down, RECO 2 squeezed the trigger. There was a flash of blazing light and the walls began to crumble. Nettle grabbed her brother by the scruff and pulled him outside as an avalanche of rock thundered behind them.
Mother Bear howled.
The rifle exploded.
Stones clanged against RECO 2.
The avalanche slowed and settled as a cloud of dust billowed out from the cave.
“Mother?” Nettle peered into the darkness.
“I’m here,” said a weak voice.
The young bears dashed inside and found their mother half-buried. They pulled heavy stones from her body and dusted her off. “I have broken bones,” she rasped, “but they will heal. Where is the robot?”
RECO 2’s headlights switched back on. Stones tumbled as the robot staggered to his feet. His body was scratched and scraped. His head was badly dented. His left arm was completely useless, so—thwip—it was tossed aside. Then the one-armed robot limped out of the cave and continued the hunt for Roz.
“Don’t worry about me,” Mother Bear growled to Nettle and Thorn. “Kill the robot.”
With his heavy limp and his grinding gears, RECO 2 was easy to track. The young bears caught up with him as he was entering a grove of pines. But they didn’t attack, not yet. There was a better place to finish him off up ahead. So they hung back and followed him across the mountainside.
The distant rumble of the waterfall grew louder with each passing minute, and then a slash of white appeared through the trees. Soon, the robot was standing beside the roiling, frothing river, just above the falls. He was too badly damaged to leap over the falls or to wade through the rapids or to climb down the cliffs. But he had to continue his hunt for the target. So he started limping upriver in search of a safer crossing.
There was a rustling, and the young bears exploded out from the trees. They threw their heavy shoulders against the robot’s body, and he stumbled sideways onto the riverbank. Nettle reared up and wrestled the robot, twisting and shaking him with all of her strength. RECO 2 felt his feet slipping on the rocks, he felt his body tipping over, and then he plunged into the white water. And he brought Nettle with him.
The current immediately swept Nettle toward the falls. She rolled through the rapids, crashed into one rock and then desperately clambered onto another. RECO 2 stood straight up, and the river rushed around him. He took a step, slipped, and disappeared beneath the water. But then he was up again.
Thorn ran to help his sister, but she was pointing upriver and roaring, “Use the logs!” When the younger bear turned around, he saw what she meant. A jumble of broken logs were wedged between the rocks of the rapids, and a moment later Thorn was on top of them. With water sloshing over his back, he forced a paw between the logs and pried the top one loose. It splashed into the river and wound its way down through the rapids only to roll harmlessly past the robot. Then it dropped out of sight.
The bear tried again. He popped another log into the river, and this one spun just in time to ram its full weight into the robot’s chest. RECO 2 went sailing backward and sank beneath the surface. When he reappeared, the river was full of heavy wooden torpedoes. One log pounded the robot’s shoulder. Another slammed his face. More logs knocked him closer and closer to the falls. The current became too much for the injured robot, and it carried him away. He grasped for anything solid he could cling to. But the rocks were too slippery. So he settled for a fistful of fur.
Nettle had been hanging on to one rock this whole time. But now that the robot was pulling her, she started losing her grip. She couldn’t hang on much longer. Finally, she cried out, “I’m sorry, Thorn!” and she let go.
Nettle and RECO 2 surged toward the rumbling falls. The bear felt the robot release his grip. She watched him glide over the edge. Then she closed her eyes and waited for the end to come.
But it was not Nettle’s time.
Reader, what happened next is hard to believe. You see, the river didn’t fall away beneath Nettle; it tightened around her! Hundreds of fish surrounded the bear! They pressed their faces into her fur. They thrashed their tails against the current. And they slowly pushed her away from the edge. Farther and farther they went, gradually moving upriver, until Nettle’s brother pulled her from the water.
The bears collapsed onto the riverbank. And when they looked down, they saw hundreds of fish looking back up. “Thank you!” roared Nettle. “I’ll never eat fish again!” The fish smiled and sank into the rapids.
“I thought you were dead,” said Thorn, breathing hard.
“So did I.” N
ettle laughed. “Looks like you’re stuck with me a while longer… little brother.”
“I’m not little!”
It felt good to joke, but the bears quickly turned serious. They were both bruised and bleeding, and their mother was in far worse condition. However, it would all be worthwhile if RECO 2 had finally been killed. The bears crept to the edge of the cliff. And there, at the bottom of the waterfall, strewn across the wet rocks, was the shattered body of the dead robot.
CHAPTER 73
THE CHASE
RECO 1 was standing in the Great Meadow. He stared up at the smoking hill of ash and then down at the stampede of footprints around it. There had been a large bonfire with hundreds of animals and one robot. But why? The RECO couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
After thoroughly exploring the site, he continued through the meadow and into the forest. It was around that time that he lost communication with RECO 3, then RECO 2, and he knew that his partners had both been destroyed. RECO 1 would have to hunt down the target by himself.
The hunter marched on. His blocky head swiveled from side to side, scanning for any sign of Roz. He was soon gazing across the glassy surface of a beaver pond. On the far side, a thread of smoke drifted up from another of those wooden domes. With his powerful legs, the robot launched himself up through the air, soaring in a high, graceful arc over the pond and down to the other side. His heavy feet slammed into the ground, leaving deep craters in the garden by the dome. He hunched over and looked inside. Fur and feathers and the dying coals of a fire. But the target wasn’t in there.
