“Five thousand dollars. That’s all. And, and then they’ll build him! They really will! They already made up the diagrams and ski-mats and stuff! Reggie showed them what I wanted!”
“And what’s that?” asked Agnes. “A working brain?”
“I’ll show you! Come on!” He took a few inaugural steps toward the door. “Come on!”
“ ‘Him,’ ” Doc said with his best deliberation, in an effort to get Axel to slow down and explain. “You said ‘him.’ And ‘they.’ You said ‘they’ too. Who is ‘him’? And who are ‘they’?”
“Rotomotoman, Doc! It’s Rotomotoman! Rotomotoman!” Axel beckoned with his forepaw. “Come on!”
Doc wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be an answer to one question, or two, or to no questions at all. The more he tried to decipher what Axel said the more his stomach rumbled.
Agnes shut her eyes and raised her back as far as it would go. “Why? Why us?”
“I—I think we better go along with him,” Doc said, “if we’re ever going to find out what this ‘Roto-man’ thing is.”
“Roto-moto-man!” Axel corrected him, then said it again more quickly, as if the mere saying of the name was a kind of sheer delight.
“He’s flipped,” Agnes said. “What hold he’s had on sanity—”
“It hurts nothing to see what’s got the little fellow so excited.” Doc took a step toward the door.
“Little fellow,” Agnes spat the words out and turned to Bronte. “Little fellow!”
“Come-on-come-on-come-on!” Axel shouted from the doorway.
Preston picked up the box with the egg and, hearing no objections from the others, followed Axel. Bronte kept to Preston’s side, as close to the egg as possible, with Kara on the other side. Doc limped along with Sluggo while Agnes, furiously reluctant, brought up the rear.
By the time the entourage reached the stairs Axel was already at the bottom. Looking up and waving.
“Hurry up!” he shouted, as if they were missing the last total solar eclipse for the next fifty years.
“Patience,” said Doc, as he and the others boarded the lift. “Patience. We’re coming.”
The lift was an adaptation from the “human days” of the house and was originally built to carry a wheelchair up and down the stairs. Now it was a simple flatbed platform that transported the saurs who were too small, too lame or too tired to climb up or down between the two floors. Speed was never part of its design or of its renovation. To Axel, it was agony watching the others come down on the lift, like being forced to watch the tide go out.
When the lift came to a halt, Doc and the others had barely gotten off before Axel raced on to the dining room and up the plastic stairs to the computer.
“Come-on-come-on-come-on!”
“We can see the screen from here,” Doc said, as the group settled a meter or so back from the desk. “Show us whatever it is you want us to see.”
“Reggie,” Axel said to the screen, “display Rotomotoman.”
The monitor screen displayed a gray background and light blue grid lines. A snatch of music played, something with a bouncy tempo and a lot of horns. A metallic gray figure appeared on the screen—a cylinder topped with a hemisphere. Just above the line where the cylinder met the hemisphere were two white circles with two smaller black circles inside them, like cartoon eyes. The cylinder rested on four small circles that one could suppose were wheels or casters, and attached at its sides were two articulated rods that one could imagine were arms. At the end of each rod was a flat, rectangular plate, out of which sprung five digits, one set off thumb-like from the others. The retinas of the presumed eyes shifted slightly from left to right, as if the figure were surveying the scene around itself.
“Go!” cried Axel.
The figure rolled off to the left of the screen, followed by horizontal “speed” lines and a cartoon dust cloud left behind. It reappeared, this time rolling in from the left and disappearing to the right side of the screen. It rolled from left to right, right to left, left to right again, as Axel chanted:
“Ro-toh Moto-Man! Ro-toh Moto Man!
Ro-toh Moto-Man! Ro-toh Moto Man!”
Before the saurs became completely dizzy watching this relentless back and forth motion, the grid lines were replaced on the screen by a simple cartoon street scene, with houses, sidewalks, trees, bushes, lawns and fences. Rotomotoman remained still now while the speed lines and changing background lent him the illusion of motion.
A chorus of voices joined the musical accompaniment.
The melody was simple enough, like a theme from an old television program from the middle of the last century, cannily synthesized by Reggie:
“He’s our man! Ro-to-moto Man—”
Axel sang along, staring at the screen, completely enthralled.
“He’s our man! He’s not from Japan—”
Doc looked at Preston. Kara looked at Bronte. Sluggo looked at Agnes.
“Japan?” he asked.
Agnes shook her head. She stood in front of the box with Bronte’s egg where Preston had placed it on the floor, as if to shield the egg from the sight.
The “theme song” continued:
“Whaa-at a man!
It’s none other than that Ro-to Moto Man!”
“But,” Bronte whispered to Doc, “it’s not a man at all.”
“It’s not even—” but Doc couldn’t go on.
The verse repeated, while Rotomotoman, up on the screen, crashed through a brick wall. He raced down a busy street while a flashing red light rose out of the top of his hemisphere-head. He extended himself on thin metal legs. His cylindrical body also extended, something like a telescope, until Rotomotoman could see through second- and third-floor windows. By the end of the second verse, little flashes of flame were shooting from one of the digits of his right “hand,” as if it had turned into a machine gun.
By end of the song, Rotomotoman was holding at bay a group of “bad guys” who wore traditional snap-brim caps and black masks over their eyes. Their arms were raised in surrender. Round, bulging bags with dollar signs printed on them lay on the floor where the bad guys had dropped them. A policeman with the appropriate badge, gun and club saluted Rotomotoman before taking custody of the villains. Rotomotoman modestly returned the salute. A man in a dark suit, a monocle and top hat—presumably a bank president—shook Rotomotoman’s metal hand—the same one from which bullets had been firing earlier.
The screen faded.
The saurs stood there, gaping in silence, wide-eyed, stunned and dumbfounded.
“See?” Axel trotted down the plastic steps. “Wasn’t that great? Wasn’t that the neatest-greatest thing you’ve ever seen?”
Doc, struggling for a politic response, was the first to speak. “Axel,” he asked sympathetically, “have you been getting enough sleep?”
“Axel,” Agnes said quietly but firmly, “are you nuts?”
“I saw it in a dream!” Axel insisted. “If I dreamed it, I was sleeping!”
“I wish I were dreaming,” said Kara.
“But these guys can make a real one!” Axel continued. “A real-real-real Rotomotoman! I asked Reggie and he found a company that makes—what did he call them? Prototypes!”
Bronte, in her whispering voice, said “Roto-prototypes.”
“Proto-motoman,” Preston mumbled.
“We should disconnect Reggie,” Agnes said. “Right away.”
“So—they can build him!” Axel turned to Preston. “And they can send him here! And—and it costs five thousand dollars. So can I have it, Preston, please? Please-please-please?”
Agnes made a sound that started like a cough and ended like a gag. “Five thousand dollars for a trashcan on wheels! A trashcan on wheels that crashes through walls! A trashcan that’ll run around and crush us until we’re flat as pancakes! A trashcan with a revolving red light flashing on his head and bullets shooting out of his fingers!”
“Yeah!” said Axel. “Isn’t he neat?”<
br />
“Axel—” Doc started, but Agnes cut him off.
“Axel, look around. Do you see any walls around here that need to be smashed through? Do you see any saurs that need to be flattened out? Do you see anyone that needs to be riddled with bullets?”
“Won’t do that! Won’t do that!” Axel raised his forepaws. “Reggie said we shouldn’t ask for that. No bullets, no smashing. He’s gonna have sense—like, a sensing system so he won’t squash anybody!”
“In other words,” Agnes said, “a trashcan that rolls back and forth, endlessly and uselessly. For five thousand dollars!”
“Not a garbage can!” Axel admonished her. “Rotomotoman! He’ll be mine! I made him up! Reggie helped but I made him up!” His voice took on a pleading tone. “He won’t smash anything! He’ll be our friend!”
“He won’t shoot anything?” Sluggo asked.
Axel shook his head. “Rotomotoman is good.”
“It’s good you made Rotomotoman,” Bronte said. “That was very clever of you. But—”
“You did a very nice job,” Kara added. “Very well done. But—”
“You are a deranged idiot and probably insane,” said Agnes.
“Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you.” Axel bowed to each of them.
“But perhaps,” Doc ventured, “it would be better for everyone—” Axel turned to him.
Doc pointed to the computer. “—if your Rotomotoman limited his activities just to that screen.” His stomach rumbled—another call to breakfast. “You can still play with him as you wish. Rotomotoman can smash through whatever he likes as long as he remains on the screen.” His stomach now made an “urrrr” sound, distinct from the other noise.
Axel looked carefully at Doc.
He continued. “You can assuage the rancor of sweet Agnes here and relieve the apprehensions of the rest of us.”
Axel kept staring, saying nothing.
“Axel? Are you listening?”
“Yes.” Axel nodded. “Do it again.”
Doc cleared his throat. “Do what again?”
“Make your stomach go ‘urrrrrr’ like that.”
Doc took a deep breath. “I meant, did you listen to what I said?”
“Sure. What was it?”
Agnes thumped her tail against the floor. “He said that there’s no way in hell that we’re ever going to agree to have that metal trashcan in this house!”
Axel’s jaw dropped and his eyes grew wide. One could almost feel the theropod’s heart sinking. “But, but—I made him up! I did!”
He looked at Kara, Bronte and Sluggo—he couldn’t bear to look at Agnes. “It’s not what Rotomotoman does! It’s that he is! Do you see? I’ve got to make Rotomotoman!”
“I see that Preston would have to have lost his mind to waste five thousand dollars on a useless, dangerous piece of junk!” said Agnes.
“Axel,” Doc said with great sympathy, “Preston here writes books all about great star captains, mighty armies and flying cities, but he doesn’t have to build prototypes of them or march them through the halls of our little abode.” He patted Axel on the head. “We can’t build everything we imagine.”
Axel stepped away, head lowered, and turned to Preston.
“Is that true, Preston? Is that how you feel?”
It was always difficult to gauge Preston’s feelings. He spoke so little, and what he wrote in his books presented so many points of view it was difficult to figure which ones might be his own. He smiled at his companions, a little more to one side of his mouth than the other.
“I think what Axel has done is creative and—amusing,” he said in his soft tenor voice.
“Amusing?” Agnes replied. “I suppose a direct hit from a missile would have you in hysterics!”
Preston put his hand on Axel’s head and led him to the plastic stairs, up to the computer. The other saurs, with the exception of Agnes, were speechless.
“Preston!” she cried. “What are you doing?”
Axel and Preston kept going without reply.
“Preston, you’re not—you wouldn’t dare!”
At the top of the stairs, standing before the computer, Preston said, “Reggie?”
“Reggie is ready,” the computer replied.
“Please connect me to my bank.”
“Preston!” Agnes wailed. “You’ve gone nuts too? Preston!”
“What will Tom say?” Sluggo asked Doc.
“I suppose Tom will have to deal with it. As we all will.”
Preston leaned over and said right into Axel’s ear, to make sure he heard, “Remember, no machine guns. No death rays. No crashing through walls. No squashing little ones. No speeding.”
“Yes-yes-yes-yes-YES!” Axel wrapped his forepaws around Preston’s leg. “Whatever you say! Oh, thank-you-thank-you Preston!”
The transfer of funds to the prototype company went smoothly. It had long ago ceased to be strange for non-humans to hold bank accounts. The idea that banks thought in terms of anything but accounts and their activities belongs to the generation of our fore-parents. Preston’s financial holdings were hardly remarkable except for their size, as were the accounts held by some other saurs—like Alphonse, who often won money on radio quiz programs—and Doc, who had a trust fund from a former “owner.”
Axel’s excitement set the plastic stairs wobbling as the two came down from the desk.
“Oh, thank you, Preston! Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you-thank-you! You are the best-best, most wonderful perfect greatest friend in the whole complete universe! Thank you thank you you YOU!”
“Is anyone in here planning to have breakfast?” Tom Groverton stood behind them, arms folded and head tilted. “Now that everyone else has finished?”
“Breakfast-breakfast-breakfast!” Axel dashed out past Tom. “Come on, Preston! My best-best friend! Let’s have breakfast!”
“Sorry for the delay,” Doc said to Tom, “but we had a little business to take care of.”
“Business?”
“I’ll explain later,” Doc said. “I think it will take a little time.”
“Don’t ask me,” Agnes shook her head wearily, “I don’t think I ever want to eat breakfast again.”
Bronte carefully covered up the egg with a swath of cotton before Preston picked up the box and headed for the kitchen.
“What’s that? Another egg?” Tom asked.
Agnes raised her tail and stared severely at Bronte.
“Y-yes,” Bronte said nervously, looking from Kara to Agnes. “Sluggo found it the other day. A crow’s egg, I think. It-it’s rather big.”
“Well,” Tom said, bending down and rubbing Bronte just above the little furrows on her brow, “best of luck. You’re a first-rate egg-hatcher. You’ll do a fine job.”
“Thank you.” the words came out as a rasp, as if her mouth was very dry.
She followed Preston out of the room, just behind Kara and Sluggo, slowly heading for the kitchen. Doc walked with his head down, attempting the difficult gesture of rubbing his head with one of his short forepaws. His stomach rumbled again.
“After breakfast.” He sighed. “After breakfast.”
Agnes narrowed her eyes and stared up at Tom.
“You just mind your own damn business!” she said, and followed the others out of the room.
* * *
At dawn the next day, when Axel crawled out from the sleep pile and ran downstairs, he heard muffled sounds coming from the living room and noticed that the big video screen was still on.
Hubert had turned off the video just before sleep-time—Axel distinctly remembered. Maybe the video had gone on by itself—or was there another saur who decided to get up even earlier than Axel? He hurried over to investigate.
In the middle of the living room, about the same place where the saurs sat when they watched the video, was a lone frog—a frog!—about the size of a softball; pale green with a pattern of gray, blotty spots all over.
Next to the frog was the remote con
trol pad the saurs used to change programs. He, or perhaps she, sat very still, head turned to the screen. But the frog must have heard Axel approaching. Before he could get any closer the amphibian slapped the remote pad with his left forepaw. The video clicked off and the frog hopped over to the couch by the window, then up onto the cushions.
“Hey! Where ya goin’? Hey!”
Axel ran after the frog, but not fast enough. In seconds the frog was up on the back of the couch, onto the window ledge and—flooop!—out the window and out of sight.
Axel climbed up after him—or her. He looked out into the yard, still dark in the early morning shadows, then back at the video screen.
“Wow!” he whispered. “A frog who can watch TV!”
* * *
After breakfast—and after most of the saurs had made their morning visit to the litter room—Doc found a spot of sunlight near the big window in the dining room and pushed the plastic box he used as a stool there. It was a good place to sit and feel a little warmth, and it still afforded him a view of the video screen, where he could see a fat man and a thin man, both in ill-fitting bowler hats, trying to move a piano up a ridiculously long flight of stairs. The piano movers monopolized his attention until the hats started to remind him of the head of Rotomotoman and he looked elsewhere for contemplation.
Little saurs were grouped in front of the Reggiesystem computer. Doc could hear them learning what the principal exports of Ghana were. On the other side of the room, the Five Wise Buddhasaurs were sitting on the couch, running their plastic horns through a synthesizer, playing something fast and wildly rhythmical that they referred to as “Chinese” or “Dizz” music. To his left, Kara was sitting with Hetman, reading to him from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. She had the book propped up against the back of a straight wooden chair and she carefully turned the pages with her snout.
Other little ones were using the small, battery-powered wheeled platforms called skates to get from one end of the house to the other. On the far end of the living room, the stegosaur pair, Zack and Kip, were playing with Jean-Claude and Pierrot, the theropod tyrannosaurs, a game using checker pieces whipped across the floor with their tails, like hockey pucks. The game was called “Hit ’Em Hard” until a red stegosaur named Veronica got hit a little too hard by a stray checker. Then Agnes declared the game should be changed to “Not So Hard.”
Nebula Awards Showcase 2004 Page 3
