Cats vs. Robots, Volume 1

by Margaret Stohl

  “Stu, no!” Scout mewed from the door, watching in horror as Stu careened desperately toward Joan. “Stu, go!” Scout yelled when Stu’s claws hooked onto a dangling wire and he held on desperately as Joan tilted and dipped with the extra weight.

  “Whhhooooaaaa!” Stu yelled as Joan flew in a wider circle, trying to regain her balance. She bobbed up and down, lower and lower, around the room.

  “Yeah, Stu, you can fly!” Scout shouted encouragement.

  Joan, out of control, flew straight toward Scout. “Uh-oh,” she said, shrinking back. At the last moment, Stu retracted his claws and tumbled to the ground. He slid on the wood floor straight through the door, barreling into Scout, carrying both of them down the stairs.

  “Protos, we’ve got them. Shut the door now!” Joan shrieked as she bounced up and carefully regained balance, narrowly avoiding the walls.

  “I g-got this!” Cy zoomed bravely behind the door and pushed until it slammed shut.

  “Hooraaayyyyy!” Tipsy said as she rolled out from behind the couch.

  “Joan, are you okay?” Drags followed her as she flew back to the lab.

  “I’m fine,” Joan said, a little too quietly. She wasn’t fine.

  As they all gathered back in the mess of a lab, Joan looked at the clock and regained her composure. Almost time for Max and Min to return from school.

  “No time for a debriefing, team. Get back into your positions; the kids will be back any minute.” The squad dutifully moved back to their charging stations, circuits buzzing with excitement.

  “Joan, you were sooooo braaaave!” Tipsy lilted.

  “Only doing my duty,” she said, props slowing. She knew inside, however, that this was an escalation and she would need help. She eyed House’s monitor.

  But can I really trust that condescending no-body?

  27

  Wrong Box

  “I’m home, everybody!” Max burst through the front door, excited to see the kittens after the longest day in the history of long school days. He threw his pack on the floor and headed straight for the basement, shouting as he moved. “I’ll get something to eat later, House! Javi, I’m going down to check on the kittens!”

  House’s wall screens lit up, one after another, as Max flew past them down the hall. “But that isn’t the approved after-school protocol! And you can’t just change protocols!”

  “Override, remember?” Max grinned. He stuck out his tongue at the screen and it flashed at him indignantly.

  “Do me a favor and stay down there!” Min’s voice drifted back to him. “I need to focus. The Battle of the Bots is tomorrow, and I have a few tweaks left before Elmer is perfect.”

  Max smiled. He already had one hand on the basement door. “Oh really? The Battle of Boring is tomorrow? Wow, I had no idea.” It was hard not to tease Min on the day before a competition. She was so predictable. And so grouchy—

  “Max!”

  Who wants to be around you anyways? “I’m going, I’m going! I’ve got kittens to hang out with and a game level to finish. Which, by the way, is also due tomorrow—but you don’t hear me stressing.”

  Before Max could open the door, Javi stepped outside of the door to the lab, across the hall. “Heya, Squirt! Where’s . . . Other Squirt?”

  “Freaking out in the kitchen—you know, usual pre-competition ritual.”

  “And it’s just the two of you, I hope? You didn’t decide to rescue any other wild creatures? You don’t have, like, a stray squid down there or something?” Cousin Javi laughed, but Max thought something sounded a little strange.

  “No squid. What’s going on?”

  Javi cleared their throat. “Now that you mention it . . . I guess . . . on the subject of wild creatures . . . um . . . looks like there was a little jailbreak today.”

  Max looked at his cousin. Uh-oh.

  “Yep.” Javi pointed at the basement door, defeated. “I just put them back.”

  Min came thundering down the hall, holding half-strung string cheese. “Ugh, Max! I knew you couldn’t handle this!”

  Max looked down at the doorknob in his hand. “I swear I shut the door!”

  “Look, that part doesn’t matter now,” Javi said. “It’s my fault. I’m the grown-up, and it all happened on my watch.”

  Now Max was extra worried. His cousin sounded so serious. “Javi?”

  “Everyone’s fine, the little guys are safely back in jail. The only this is—they kinda got into the lab—and it’s possible that they made, well, a teeny bit of a mess.” Min’s jaw dropped. “But,” Javi continued, “I cleaned it all up! Good as new. No harm, no foul, as they say in sportsball!” Javi patted Min on the shoulder awkwardly. “Ha ha, kittens, am I right?”

  Max felt his stomach tighten.

  Min dropped her string cheese. “No.”

  Javi sighed. “Yeah, you better take a look.”

  Max tried to follow Min toward the lab door, but she blocked him, folding her arms. “Buzz off, Max.”

  “Maybe I can help?” Max knew his sister was freaking out and felt bad.

  “Oh, I think you’ve already helped enough, Max. I need to figure this out for myself,” Min said.

  He knew what she meant. This is YOUR fault.

  “Come on, Min.”

  Min looked Max straight in the eye. “If they even touched Elmer, you better start looking for a new family for the cats and you.”

  They’re just kittens, Max thought to himself as he opened the basement door. How much trouble could two kittens have made? Everything will be fine. Everyone needs to calm down.

  He tried to put the lab out of his mind as he banged his way down the rickety wooden stairs. “There you are! Did you miss me?”

  Max stopped short when he saw the room—which was almost entirely covered with piles and drifts of shredded toilet paper. He looked across to the open bathroom door—where a trail of spilled kitty litter and mangled toilet paper streamers exploded out.

  “Wow.” Max shook his head. “Guess somebody really had to go, huh?”

  The kittens looked up at him innocently, eyes half shut. They were curled together into a tiny knot of adorable in the center of a sea of TP.

  Max lay down on the TP’d floor until he was eye level with the cats. He lay there quietly until Scout yawned in his face.

  “Jailbreaks are probably pretty exhausting, I guess.” Stu eyed him. Scout lifted her head, then dropped it back down into the crook of her paw. “You’re too tired to talk. I get it.” Max reached out one finger—slowly, carefully—and scratched first a spotty, bony cheek, then a gray one. He smiled. “Who could ever be mad at something as adorable as you?”

  “Poop, Max!” Javi opened the door and yelled down into the basement. “Don’t forget the whole poop thing—”

  “Now? I don’t have to,” Max shouted back. He was preoccupied by giving the kittens little scratches at the curve of their backs, just above their tails. “Wait, what?”

  “Very funny,” Javi said, ducking his head as he came down one more step. “Scoop out the litter box while you’re down there—and put out some fresh water, cat daddy.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Use that plastic rake thing. I left some bags by the box,” Javi said, turning back to the upstairs. “Have fun.”

  “Gross,” Max muttered as he walked to the bathroom. “I hope your poop is adorable too.” He stuck his head in through the door.

  The smell was not adorable.

  “MAAAAXX!!!” Max heard Min yelling from all the way upstairs.

  Max just kept raking.

  But looking back, as he sat there with a poopy rake in his hand? That was probably the best part of his day. Even with the smell. Maybe he knew it even then.

  Everything else went downhill from there.

  The second Min walked into the lab, she knew something was wrong. She just didn’t know what it was. Everything was in place, like Javi said, but she felt like the whole room was somehow contaminated.<
br />
  I’m probably imagining things.

  Min walked to her desk and booted up her computer.

  She felt a little better when her robot AI software came up without a problem. “Yes. Fingers crossed, the delinquent kittens are just too dumb to break anything else.”

  Min started working, scrolling through Elmer’s code. Everything looked good.

  She opened up a simulation program she had downloaded. A top-down model of the Battle of the Bots arena came on-screen. This was where Elmer had fought countless battles against virtual enemy bots Min had created. It was the only way she could test his AI and his design. She needed to see how Elmer would handle a fight.

  Min dragged a mini version of Elmer into the center of the arena and decided on an enemy. She dragged another bot into the arena. This one was designed to flip bots up high, which would either break them when they landed, or hopefully leave them like a turtle on its back.

  The rules were if your robot couldn’t move, you would lose.

  Min clicked “RUN” and started the battle. She felt her nose tickle (stupid cats) and started sniffing. She sniffed again, this time because she smelled something.

  Something not good.

  Standing up, Min started searching for the source of the smell. She walked up to the shelves and the smell got stronger. “Ew,” Min said, and then her eyes grew wide as she realized the smell was coming from Elmer.

  “No,” she said in horror as she picked up Elmer and noticed a tiny drip coming from one of the spare compartments.

  She tilted Elmer and . . . out came a tiny puddle’s worth of kitty pee . . . on the floor of the lab. “NO!” Min shouted as she reached for a cleaning rag and desperately wiped the compartment dry. “NO, NO, NO! THAT IS SO DISGUSTING!”

  She spun Elmer around, checking his other compartments, relieved that there were no more surprises. (Less relieved that someone had relieved themselves using Elmer as a toilet.)

  Setting the robot on the bench, she plugged him in to her computer and switched him on.

  She held her breath as Elmer came online and the diagnostic program ran through all his motors and systems. Elmer sat up, then came to his resting pose, squatting like a gorilla. His head swiveled as he began to scan the room.

  Min watched the text scroll on her computer and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that everything still worked. She sat back for a moment, relaxed.

  Elmer was fine, no damage done.

  Then she sniffed again. She leaned toward Elmer and realized with horror that he still smelled like cat pee. And from now on, for all she knew, he always would.

  “MAAAAAX!!!!”

  This was humiliating. What was she going to say when she brought this foul-smelling thing into the competition? Even if Elmer dominated, she would forever be known as the stinky robot girl.

  Min stormed out of the lab.

  28

  So Busted

  “What?!” Max said as he came upstairs and shut the door behind him.

  “Those things ruined my robot!” Min yelled.

  Max’s stomach sank. “What? How is that even possible?”

  Javi was reading on the couch. “Elmer looked fine when I cleaned up.” But they sounded nervous.

  Min was fuming. “That’s not the point. Elmer’s tech is fine. He’s perfect, actually, just like I built him.”

  Max felt a wave of relief. “Well then, what are you freaking out about?”

  His sister looked irate. “What am I freaking out about? Hmm. Let me think . . . Oh yeah . . . how about: They PEED all over him! Elmer smells like a PORT-A-POTTY!”

  Max couldn’t help himself. He cracked a grin. “Seriously?” He tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t hold it in. “They used Elmer as a litter box?” He spit out the beginning of a laugh, then lost it and began full-on spluttering. “Bwhahahah! A . . . litter . . . box! Bwahaha . . . hahahhaha!”

  “It’s NOT funny,” Min said. Her face had gone strangely pale.

  “It kind of is,” Max said, regaining his composure. “I mean, Elmer can still fight, right? He works? So what’s the big deal? It’s not a beauty contest.”

  Javi looked at their cousin sympathetically, trying to help. “Maybe it will help keep the other robots away?”

  Min shook her head. “Max, I am telling you, those cats do not belong here. They have to go. You have to take them to a shelter . . . like, tonight.”

  Javi sighed. “I hate to say it, Max, but your sister has got a point.”

  “I didn’t let them out,” Max said indignantly.

  Javi shrugged. “It kind of doesn’t matter. They could have broken something, maybe even hurt themselves. This really isn’t a great place for them. It’s not their fault or anything. They’re too little to know any better.”

  “THEY’RE CATS! THEY’LL NEVER KNOW ANY BETTER!” Min stormed into the lab and slammed the door behind her.

  Javi seemed sad. “Sorry, bud, but I’m going to have to find a shelter for them.”

  “Now?” Max felt his eyes prickling.

  Javi pulled an iPhone out of their pocket and shook their head. “Too late to take them tonight—but it needs to happen tomorrow.”

  “It’s not fair, Javi! Just give them a chance, they’ll get better!”

  But Javi had already started pulling up shelters on the phone. “I wish we could, little man.”

  Max was crushed. He walked, stunned, into his bedroom and sat down at his computer. A row of flashing notifications waited for him.

  Messages from his friends . . . about the level. The one they were all supposed to turn in together. Tonight. The one I never finished.

  “Oh no,” Max muttered. He quickly started typing. “I’m here, it’s all good!”

  But it wasn’t, not really. The contest deadline was tomorrow night, and they still had a lot of work—a ton of work, actually—left to do.

  Why does this all have to happen at once?

  Max opened the level editor and waited for it to load.

  I won’t let them take the kittens. I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way.

  Max started working, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the kittens. What if they really did have to go tomorrow? What if this was the last time he would ever get to have pets in the house?

  He couldn’t concentrate, but he kept working until his bedroom windows had gone completely dark. He felt his stomach growling and looked up.

  Time for a snack break.

  He got up and went to the kitchen.

  The house was quiet.

  As Max grabbed a banana from the bowl on the counter, he looked back down the hall. He could still see light coming from beneath the lab door.

  Min must still be working.

  Javi had gone back to the guest room; Max could hear the music. He peeled his banana, thinking about the kittens again.

  Max threw away the peel and stuffed the rest of the banana into his mouth. Quietly, he walked to the basement door, unlocked it, and went downstairs.

  “Meow?” He couldn’t find the kittens in the shadows of the musty basement room. “Hey, guys, where are you?”

  He heard a noise by the old cardboard box on the floor and made his way over to it. When he looked in he saw the kittens, curled up together, taking a nap.

  “Aha! There you are.”

  Max laid a hand gently on each of their furry backs. He could feel their breathing—even their hearts pounding, he thought, as their little bellies puffed in and out.

  It was reassuring. He felt like everything was going to be okay, somehow. As long as they were with him . . .

  I wish I could keep you in my room with me.

  Just while I work.

  That’s when he got a great idea. Max smiled to the sleeping fur balls in the shadowy room. “Hey, guys? Wanna have a sleepover . . . ?”

  Before they could answer—which they couldn’t—Max carefully closed the lid and carried the box upstairs. He locked the door behind him, crept into his r
oom, and closed the door as quietly as he could.

  The kittens slept through the entire journey.

  Max put the box on the floor near his desk so he could look down at them by his feet, watching them while he worked.

  Much better, he thought, turning his attention back to putting the finishing touches on his level.

  29

  Pounce Checks In

  Pounce stared out at the mostly wet planet below, bored out of his mind.

  The major suffered from an extremely rare and untreatable feline malady—Boredom-osis, or the ability to be bored. He’d first noticed it after kittenhood, when he found himself unable to stare at the same spot on the ground for longer than a few minutes.

  Alarmed, Pounce wondered how he could possibly survive in a world where almost nothing ever happened. He kept his whiskers up, however, and found the perfect solution—the GFE government. As Major Meow-Domo to the Throne, Pounce used his fidgety tendencies to get a lot of work done. Not that anybody in the kingdom appreciated it. (Being Meow-Domo was thankless work, but Pounce never complained.)

  On this mission, though—for the first time in his lives—the boredom bothered him. He looked with envy at Oscar napping peacefully.

  Now Pounce grew impatient. “Oscar—status report! What have we heard from Earth?”

  Oscar slowly opened one eye and then the other. Yawned. Sat up and licked his paw.

  “Oh right, our mission. Yeah, so, I forgot to tell you, but I got a message a while ago from that Obi guy.” Oscar yawned.

  “Okay,” Pounce growled. “And?”

  “Right. And he said he recruited a couple agents, and they’re searching for . . . the thing. You know, the thing.”

  “The chip.” Pounce shook his head. Even a dog would be an improvement. “Is that all?” Pounce said impatiently. “Anything else you forgot to tell me?”

  Oscar opened one eye, looking momentarily past the plastic in his paws. “Oh yeah. Also, they actually already did search . . . for the chip . . . but couldn’t figure out how to open some kind of box? Maybe? That the thing was in . . . ?”