by Ken Spargo
‘Anyone hurt?’ asked Davidia. ‘Miss Percival and I can bandage you, if needed.’
One of her favourite pastimes was role-playing with Miss Percival. Had she been here, she would have known what to do.
‘All of me is here,’ replied Grunt.
‘Where’s Batbit? Oh, there you are, under my armpit and hanging on. We’re safe now.’
Batbit was slightly dazed. His small brain didn’t cope too well with all the tumbling. It could have become misplaced.
‘Where have we ended up this time?’
‘It certainly is all one metallic grey colour,’ said Grunt. He knew his colours from the Valley of Preciousness, where they had many. Here, there could possibly be only one, with slight variations. His hands rubbed the walls of the alley. They felt cold to touch and devoid of any warmth. Davidia did the same.
‘It feels like one of dad’s saw blades after he has cleaned them,’ she said.
The trio walked slowly along the alley to the other end where it opened up into a wider version of what they were walking in.
A bzzt, bzzt, sound walked past, immediately followed by another burst of bzzt, bzzt. They staggered backwards in surprise. A few of the Blender robots were out exercising their mechanical systems. They couldn’t communicate what they were doing with other life forms. Orders from within their system, sent by the Minjans, directed their behaviour. A small camera on their helmets recorded all vision as they moved. Fortunately they hadn’t been seen. They watched the slow-paced robots walk in a staggering fashion, without ever overbalancing. They were the perfect servant. The Minjans, in their historic travels, had seen various different sized life forms and had created their own range from small to large.
‘It’s a mobile mechano set. My brother Dan has one. He didn’t let me play with it. Can we play with these?’ asked Davidia. ‘It would be so cool.’
Before anyone could reply, Davidia had walked in front of one. It bzzted to a stop.
‘Hello, my name is Davidia, what’s yours?’ she said, ever so politely. Her mum and dad had taught her that good manners should always be used when first greeting a stranger.
The Blender stood still. It tilted its head forward with a small bzzt. The camera was refocused so that the Minjans could see what halted its movement. Imagine their surprise when a weird life form, none the like of which they had ever seen before, stood in front in a yellow, dishevelled dress.
‘What are you staring at, metallic man?’ asked Davidia, annoyed that there was no response.
Bzzt, bzzt was all that was said. The Blender raised its arm and grabbed her by her arm and began to lift her.
‘You aren’t going to bully me.’ Davidia swung her other arm in a circle, latched onto a few loose wires and tugged real hard. The Blender suddenly stopped with a long bzzzzzt and released her. It stood motionless. The camera shut down.
The Minjans were furious that something had interfered with one of their perfect machines. Maybe it was a strange Untonk that had regenerated unbeknown to everyone. It had acted independently. They had to have it for analysis. They despatched a special collection group called the Recons that consisted of the specialist recyclers. They were specially formed from the better metallic materials because of the repossession tasks they had to undertake. Sole control of these better-produced robotic models was under the sole command of the Minjocans. Each Recon had a prod rod to immobilise all Blenders and Untonks. It emitted a small electrical charge, which shut down the robot’s electrical circuit. To recharge, the robots had to be plugged in during the dark in the Aisles of Rest.
‘They aren’t much fun, Mr Grunt. Where shall we go? I know; find a fast food outlet; I’m sure there must be one here somewhere.’
They all looked around puzzled, wondering in what direction they should head. The streets had a similarity about them. The city design was that it was built in perfect squares, radiating out from the centre to large and larger squares. There were no shops, malls, parks, valleys, or rocks to climb, anywhere. All buildings were made of the same steel-like substance, which remained at a constant temperature. Describing it as strange didn’t do it justice.
‘Everything looks identical,’ said Grunt. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’
Batbit stretched his wings and flew down a few streets for orientation. Because it was all the same, he lost his sense of direction and couldn’t find Grunt and Davidia. The city was a lonely and foreboding place. This tiny little defenceless bat was now all alone. He began to shake with fear.
‘There’s not even a decent foothold to hang upside down on to. It’s all so slippery.’
In the distance, he heard a bzzt, bzzt coming closer. He hid in a doorway, hoping the bzzter would ignore him. Today, his luck was at the bottom of the bucket. The bzzt he had heard stopped directly in front of him. A short bzzt and the camera had him in focus.
‘It wasn’t me, it was him,’ he involuntarily yelled in fear, pointing his batwing in the direction of the pretend life form.
The robot bzzt, bzztd in response. It made no movement toward him at all. It stood there motionless. Batbit waited for the final blow or even worse, capture. When he opened his eyes, the robot had a quizzical look on his face. No robot that he was aware of could do that. He looked again. It had an arm extended toward him in greeting. Bzzt, bzzt, it encouraged. Batbit outstretched a wing in greeting. The robot’s steely fingers grasped the batwing very gently. It bzztd a few times as it internally processed the greeting ritual. It determined that it was harmless. The robot moved toward the wall where a socket plug was located. There were many of these along the streets. It plugged in a finger and a small screen lit up on the street wall. It contained a message. Batbit fortunately could read, a skill not many bats possessed. He was a well-educated bat. In the caves back at The Rock of Yocklaw, a mimic taught him how to copy languages and recognise different shapes to mean different things. He was now analysing shape meanings. The screen said, ‘I’m Unitse.’ Batbit tried to plug in the end of one wing and received a small electric shock which threw him backwards. It felt as if he had received a rebuke for something naughty. Batbit used his high frequency voice as a responder. The robot bzztd and turned around, with one finger still plugged in. He analysed Batbit’s shriek. On the screen it said, ‘I’m Batbit.’
Unitse was the Untonk robot all Minjans were searching for and here was Batbit engaging in dialogue with a hunted object. The two newest best friends explained to each other who and what they were. That small screen did a lot of message flickering. Batbit was now aware that Unitse was a rogue robot the Minjan rulers wanted to capture and reprogram. However, the freedom that Unitse felt was so good that he wanted to retain it and promote it to his fellow robots. Having someone else to direct all your movements in life was a bit tiresome. It was time for robotic changes. Batbit was impressed that artificial intelligence had progressed to independence.
Unitse explained that he purposely followed many Minjan directions so the deception would not be discovered. He pretended to be a Blender. Batbit was impressed with Unitse’s game of cat and mouse, if only he knew what it was.
Before Unitse unplugged himself, he signalled that he would lead Batbit back to his friends. ‘Bzzt, bzzt, this way.’ Unitse walked slowly at an absolute doddle of a pace. Batbit sat just above the camera so no one could frame him. In a few minutes after walking along identical streets they encountered a worried Grunt and Davidia.
‘This is no time to play hide and seek,’ scolded Davidia. She was worried that she had almost lost her smallest friend. Grunt didn’t have an emotional card to play. He accepted whatever occurred. He didn’t know what true emotion was at this stage, but feelings that ebbed and flowed throughout his body when he touched his necklace kept pressing him into unfamiliar territory. Perhaps it was emotional development.
A few other Blenders could be heard bzzting along the street. Unitse gave a final bzzt and walked off amongst his fellow drones. He waddled off as a dron
e mass representative with no other aim in life other than to be told what to do. He obviously hadn’t heard of mothers-in-law. It was difficult to act like an obedient servant when he believed his powers had more to offer in a robotic life. His secret was safe with the trio of life forms who were in no way mechanical. If they were captured and attempted to be pulled apart for analysis, it would be their doom. The street felt strange and sullen.
‘They could certainly brighten the place up with a dash of colour,’ said Davidia. ‘It feels so miserable here.’
Grunt agreed. The dark colours generated feelings of misery, low self-esteem and boring with a capital B. A robot had no emotional feelings, so it didn’t matter what they did or how they acted. If real emotion could be introduced via their recharging system, it may improve their life style and bzzt, bzzt with more animation.
The drone that Davidia had disabled hung around like loose change unable to be spent. Davidia studied its structure.
‘It’s nicely built, much better than my brother, Dan’s, mechanical set.’ She pushed it with one hand. It responded with a low-charge bzzt as its battery system exhorted its last charge. It gave her a fright.
Grunt’s skin pores began to moisten. His stress level was rising. In the distance he could hear via his group of ears a fast paced bzzt, bzzt and extra bzzts heading in their direction. It sounded like an electrical storm consumed in emitting aggressive lightening shards. The Recons were armed with their prod rods ready to poke and probe at anything they desired that needed a prod. Nothing had ever thwarted their armoury before. Grunt’s watery condition worsened. Droplets pushed by gravity began to fall from his circumference. A small puddle developed. He thought he might be producing his own version of the Pool of Pududdles. A small rivulet ran down the centre of the shiny street. They stood mesmerised at the closing sounds of electrical activity. The Recons suddenly appeared from around the corner waving their prod rods as sticks of authority. They saw Grunt and Davidia standing there ready to greet them. They stopped.
‘Bzzt, bbbzzt, bzzzt, bzt,’ said one Recon to the other.
‘Bbbzttt, bzzztt, bzt,’ replied the other.
‘Bzt, bzt, bzt?’ asked the first one of them. The other nodded its head in the direction of Davidia.
‘Bzzzt, bbzztt, bbbbbzt,’ it replied.
It was agreed that the new life forms needed to be analysed; however, capture came first. They charged their prod rods with an electrical charge by placing them into a socket plug in the wall, and then fired them into the air to confirm their working capacity. It was time to charge and take control of the situation. They saw their non-functioning Blender stooped over in a ready-to-fall position. Unfortunately for them, they stood in the small water rivulet and slipped over on the steely street. Their charged prod rods fired in error and both Recons received a dose of electrical poisoning. Sparks flew like a fire-works display as their systems shut down. Metal, electricity and water were a lethal mix.
‘Bzzzzzzt, bzzzzzt, bzzzzt, bzzzt, bzzt, bzt, bt, b …, then silence. The prod rods hung limply by their side, all batteried out with their charges fully expended. The Minjans in the Steel Tower of Minjocan were absolutely staggered that their finest recyclers had failed. The final image their cameras projected was of a chubby, round, bowling ball, washing itself with watery drips. Davidia watched with scant amusement.
‘They haven’t learnt to walk properly yet. The locals all seem to stagger when they step anywhere. We didn’t get to meet them,’ she sighed. The Valley of Undonko was certainly boring entertainment for her. ‘Where do we go from here? Any clues, Mr Grunt?’
His ideas book was floating in the clouds. They were also grey. Would his necklace guide them? He shook his body as a dog does when its fur is waterlogged. Batbit shrieked in anger as he was given a bat bath. Davidia smiled. At least it was a distraction from dullsville.
Grunt gingerly ran his necklace through some fingers. He wasn’t sure what message it would transmit. Each time he had touched it, strange unknown feelings began to well up inside him. As a guardian of good, these feelings had been hidden from him for a long time. Faint memories of family slipped through with the hope of adorning his mental mantelpiece. Hope for what? He hadn’t yet discovered the true message or meaning of the necklace. It acted as a guide rope on a dangerous journey over the crevices of life. Once again he sat down and all his body extremities closed inwards to form his round bulbous shape. Before he could settle into a world of myths and moments, he felt a small hand shove him in his side. The world began to rotate as he found himself rolling along the street bouncing off the walls.
‘Mr Grunt, Mr Grunt,’ yelled Davidia, aghast that she had unintentionally set a monster marble tumbling along the street. She had placed her hand on Grunt to feel how wet he was when, whoosh, she set him in motion. Grunt rumbled along ending up at the end of the street and banging into one of the Blender houses. Its magnetised doors sprung open to reveal the living conditions under which they were placed. Each house was known as The Aisle of Rest, house number so and so.
Grunt was momentarily dazed. His legs and arms popped out in octopus fashion, waving loosely as he regained his bearings.
‘Are you hurt, Mr Grunt?’ asked a remorseful Davidia. ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’
‘It’s a piece of apple pie. Delicious, but with not too crispy a crust,’ he replied.
‘How do you know about apple pies? Does your world eat them too?’
‘Fast food is so quick that if you don’t swallow quickly, it will run away from you.’
‘But you don’t eat that. My world does.’
‘Roses are red, violets are blue, friends are near and so are you.’
‘Mr Grunt you have had a nasty, bumpy roll.’
‘Is it buttered or plain?’
‘Batbit, I think Mr Grunt is not himself. He refers to things in my world. How would he know that?’
Batbit just shrugged his tiny wings as he sat on Grunt who couldn’t roll any further.
The Irrids felt the tremor in Grunt’s necklace. Its messaged signal was enough to put them on high alert. Its strength was gradually increasing in power. A closeness to their territory was evolving and it wasn’t appreciated. What were they afraid of?
‘Damn! Those brainless life forms have made it through the Valley of Rintslip.’
A pair of almond shaped eyes dripped venom. Her demons were failing her. She needed an extra clever, devious and manic demon of such strength that nothing could withstand its power.
‘I have a special treat for those in the Valley of Undonko. Unleash the Doof Doof beast. It will drive them insane. My ill winds haven’t worked, but my next demon will destroy their minds in endless, high explosive sound.’
She allowed herself a few hums. With arms folded across her breast, she brooded. ‘I dare them to reach here.’
A short time elapsed before Grunt regained his sanity marbles, which had fallen out of their small pouch. There was no message from the necklace. If there was one, it had been interrupted. Grunt peered through the doorway of the house. He checked the door for any traps.
‘Maybe this will tell us something.’
‘We haven’t been invited in,’ said Davidia. ‘It’s impolite to call unannounced.’
‘After my bruising I couldn’t care less,’ said Grunt who showed a slight sign of aggressiveness.
They walked inside into a long hallway. Overhead, lighting shone brightly. All along the corridor were sensor cameras that tracked their every move. The Minjans were immediately alerted.
‘They are in house 409. Go. Bring them to the Fatigue Management Factory. Professor Metal can learn about them there.’
Another larger group of Recons were sent to capture them. The previous lot were collected by mobile rust collectors and sent to The Circle of Hotto to rust and then be rejuvenated. No chances would be taken this time. With prod rods primed, success would be theirs.
The Aisle of Rest had on both sides of its corridor, vari
ous sized cubicles for different sized robots. These were the sleeping quarters of all Blenders. Each dark, they were securely placed in a fitted cubicle and plugged into a socket for their recharge. They were fed by an injection of soft electrical charges, which would then run their batteries and circuits for a full day. The supply came from a special electrical factory, which supplied the whole valley. Professor Metal was the overseer. He was a very important Minjan.
A switch was tossed and the doors of the Aisle of Rest automatically closed. They were trapped. Not one resident greeted them. They were all out exercising their mechanical prowess.
‘What was that noise?’ asked Davidia, as she heard the doors bang shut.
‘The doors,’ said Grunt. ‘Soon we will have some unwelcome visitors.’
‘They might be the welcoming committee to their city. So far, nothing has spoken to me. It seems rather lonely here.’ Her lips began to droop.
‘Stay together and we will remain safe.’
Batbit shook his wings.
‘Are you scared, Batbit?’ asked Davidia.
‘Not at all. I was just exercising them. They get cramp, folded up all the time.’
In reality, Batbit had jumped at the loud clang of the closing door, but wanted to appear brave. There was nothing to do but wait. Batbit stuck a wing end into a socket. It didn’t give him an electric shock this time. However, it turned on a small wall video screen. It showed the robots in various stages of construction development, from the beginning as a piece of metal and wires to the finished product. Grunt had been blessed with a photographic memory and he scanned the video screen in case it had a future use. He might become a metallurgist, which would be a very useful occupation in The Valley of Undonko.
The Aisle of Rest doors opened with such force that the hinges that held them firm suffered instant metal fatigue and fell off. The doors clattered noisily to the floor. At the entrance stood a dozen Recons all armed with their prod rods, which kept emitting small electrical impulses in case they were needed. They looked like a row of instant firelighters. The leader stepped forward. The others followed.
