The Green Beans, Volume 2: The Strange Genius of Lefty O'Houlihan
Page 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Noodles
“Noodles!” Lefty shouted.
“What the…? I don’t see any noodles.” Ebenezer looked about in confusion, startled by Lefty’s odd outburst. He turned to Jasper and demanded, “What’s he babbling about?”
“I dunno,” Jasper shrugged, shouting to be heard over the music.
Jack, however, was paying little attention to the discourse of the villains. His eyes were glued to the gangly, blue-eyed figure that had lurched from the vault in a flurry of break-dancing. Now, with the benefit of full lighting, he realized that it was a robot… a robot the likes of which he had never before seen or heard of.
His initial impression of the thing had been correct. It was an ungainly figure, tall and lanky-limbed. As he had originally perceived, the robot stood at a height of perhaps seven feet, taller than even Jasper by a fair amount. It had long, thin legs, and long, thin arms – almost like noodles in proportion to his body.
Observing these details, Jack made a sudden realization… Lefty wasn’t referring to edible noodles. He was calling the robot “Noodles”. Noodles was the robot’s name!
Temporarily immobilized by the collision, the robot shook his head from side to side, as if to clear away cobwebs. With an ungainly motion, he lurched to his feet, holding his arms out to regain his balance. He began to tap his foot and bob his head in time to the music. Bending his legs at the knees, he seemed ready to lurch into another round of fabulous break-dancing.
But before Noodles could do so, the music abruptly cut off. Ebenezer had reached over to the stereo in Jasper’s arms, and killed the power. The two of them were staring at the robot with slack-jawed amazement, their mouths agape.
With the termination of the funk, Noodles stopped moving and stood still. In the following silence, there was a shared moment of stunned observation by all those in attendance.
“Holy macaroni!” Jack gasped.
“Gadzooks!” Ebenezer cried. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Lefty, I’ll give you that!”
“Noodles!” Lefty cried out again.
He rushed forward to the robot and patted him affectionately on the shoulder, inspecting the metallic body for damage. With a whirring noise, Noodles tilted his head down to look at Lefty.
“Beep boop beep!” Noodles said.
“Noodles?” Ebenezer asked in bewilderment. “You named it Noodles?”
“Not it,” Lefty countered, raising a finger in protest. “Him! His name is Noodles. Noodles Von Crazy Legs, to be precise. I still have to work out the kinks in the programming of his artificial intelligence, but he’s coming along quite nicely, if I do say so myself. I began using funk music as an auditory signal for certain movements, but I found that his reaction to the music was too powerful for his own good. Now, I’m in the process of perfecting more subtle means to signal his behaviors.”
“Well, he is quite impressive,” Ebenezer admitted. “But I see you’ve become sentimentally attached to your creation… I expected you would fall back upon your old habits. So predictable, Lefty!”
Nibbler slowly ventured forth, and began sniffing about the large, shiny feet of Noodles. The robot looked down at the Labradoodle, and waved a long-fingered hand in salutation.
“Beep boop beep!” Noodles said, greeting the dog.
“Woof!” Nibbler answered, and it seemed that a friendship, however odd, was swiftly formed. The Labra-doodle was, after all, an expert at making new friends.
Noodles had a sphere-shaped head, like a silver globe, within which his round, blue eyes glowed brightly. There was a small antennae mounted on each side of his head, and these devices apparently served as his ears, for they swiveled in the direction of whoever happened to be speaking at any given moment.
His mouth looked like a smile-shaped speaker, from which he would periodically emit a beep or a boop. His body was shiny and silver, and his long, noodle-like appendages seemed to be constructed from a material that allowed for a great deal of agility. Each limb was almost like a slinky, though far more durable in construction.
“I just need more time to work with him,” Lefty told the others. “He’s not quite field-ready yet.”
“Hah!” Ebenezer cackled. “You must realize that I have no interest in your silly robot! He’s an interesting project, perhaps, but completely inconsequential.”
“Then why are you here?” Jack demanded. “Didn’t you say you were here to steal my uncle’s research?”
Ebenezer glowered at Jack. “First of all, young man, I’m not stealing anything. I’m simply taking what belongs to the Black Hats.”
“I disagree!” Lefty interjected.
“Secondly,” Ebenezer continued, ignoring the interruption, “my interest is not in the robot, but in that which powers him. The power source of the robot is what I’m here for, as Lefty knows full well. I’m here to claim the end product of our long years of research. You can’t imagine my delight, when our espionage revealed that the research had progressed so thoroughly.”
Lefty repositioned his body, so that he was standing directly in front of Noodles. He faced Jasper and Ebenezer, and told them, “I’m afraid I can’t allow that, gentlemen. I cannot permit you to leave with the power cell. I can only imagine what nefarious, misguided plans the Black Hats might have for such technology… and as I said earlier, you might hurt yourselves!”
Jack and Nibbler came to stand beside Lefty, forming a wall with which to defend Noodles. But the villains only cackled, and they seemed far from concerned by the resistance they faced.
Reaching a hand into one of the voluminous pockets of his black lab coat, Ebenezer withdrew a strange device. It was an unwieldy object, and it looked like it was almost too big to have fit into his pocket. It had buttons, switches, a hand crank, and what appeared to be a trigger. Jack suspected that it might have been a weapon, but he had never seen anything even remotely similar to it. Ebenezer hoisted the device, flipped a pair of switches, and aimed it squarely at Lefty.
“By the spectacles of Ben Franklin!” Lefty exclaimed. His bushy white eyebrows shot up. “What is that, Ebenezer? Put that thing down before you harm yourself! You know you were never handy with using such machinations in the field. Why, just look at what happened when you tried to pilot that jetpack a few minutes ago! Is your memory really that short?”
“I know what I’m doing! Never question the genius of Ebenezer Widget-Bocker!” the mad scientist bellowed. “You’re not the only inventor around here, Lefty. This is one of my latest creations – the MegaNet 4000. Would you care for a demonstration?”
“Hmm…” Lefty rubbed at his chin, his interest captured. He had a most inquisitive mind, and he could not help but be engaged when faced with a new device. “Well, it does look most fascinating. What exactly does it-”
“Uncle Lefty, no!” Jack warned.
“I would be happy to demonstrate!” Ebenezer assured them, as he pulled the trigger of his bizarre weapon.
Lightning-quick, a weighted net shot from the device. Before any of them could react, Lefty, Jack, and Nibbler all became ensnared in the heavy-duty web that had been propelled at them. They were instantly immobilized, and the group of them tumbled to the floor in a tangled heap.
“Egads!” Lefty cried, impressed by Ebenezer’s invention. “That thing packs a wallop!”
“Now, Jasper! Move in, and secure the power cell,” Ebenezer ordered.
Jasper began to edge toward Noodles, but he hesitated as he drew near. “Um… Are you sure it’s safe, Ebenezer? I don’t like the looks of this Noodles character. He looks like a troublemaker, if you ask me… And I know a troublemaker when I see one.”
“Of course it’s safe! Look at that heap of tin, he’s just standing there. He can’t do a darned thing without that funk music. He’s just another one of Lefty’s foolish, harebrained projects.”
“Well… if you say so…” Jasper said, as he reluctantly continued edging toward Noodles.
“Go on, hurry up!” Ebenezer ordered. “That net won’t hold them forever. Meanwhile, I’ve got to reload this thing.”
From where he lay ensnared upon the floor, Jack was squished between Lefty and Nibbler. He tilted his head so that he could see what was going on. It appeared that Ebenezer was working a hand-crank on the MegaNet 4000, getting it ready for another go-round.
Jasper had crept to within arm’s reach of Noodles, and he began to cautiously poke at the robot with the bristles of his broom. Noodles made a strange, mechanical chuckling noise, as if this tickled him.
“Beep boop beep,” Noodles said to the janitor, and he extended a hand in greeting.
“Gah!” Jasper exclaimed, jumping backward.
“Don’t be such a wimp! He’s harmless, I tell you,” Ebenezer said. “Now, seize the power cell and we can get out of here. It should be right in the middle of the robot’s back, if I know Lefty. He’s ever so predictable, as I believe I’ve mentioned.”
Jack saw the concerned look on his uncle’s face, and he knew that Ebenezer’s theory must be correct.
“I can’t let them get hold of that power cell. The results might prove disastrous,” Lefty whispered to Jack and Nibbler.
But no matter how hard they strained, they couldn’t free themselves from the net. Nibbler had begun to do what he did best (nibbling), but he had not yet been able to chew through the material of the net, which was thick and strong.
In a last moment of desperation, Lefty shouted from where he lay on the floor. “Defend yourself, Noodles! Defend yourself!”