Expedition Westward

  ***

  At the main workshop of the Robotics Development Institute across town, Jack and Quincy labored over a damaged robot – a casualty from the great Battle of Heroes’ Square. Every other table in the workshop contained another wrecked machine.

  Quincy set down his tools resignedly.

  “Ah, what’s the point already?” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Jack gestured to the other wrecks. “That’s the last of them. Once we fix them up we’ll be all finished.”

  “Yeah, but what are we fixing them up for?” Quincy asked.

  “Well ... I don’t know,” Jack said.

  “That’s my point,” Quincy said. “There is no point to repairing them. Nobody in town gives a damn any longer.”

  Jack had no answer.

  “I’m beginning to think it was a mistake to kick out Winston like we did,” Quincy said.

  “Yeah,” Jack agreed, “but what could we do? He was going off the deep end.”

  “I’m not saying he didn’t need to get taken down a peg,” Quincy said. “But look at the situation now!”

  “It is pretty lousy,” Jack said.

  “Ajax is simply too upright and honest,” Quincy said. “He expects everyone else to be like him. You can’t help but feel inferior in his presence.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, “Winston never had that problem. He knew how to be cunning and underhanded.”

  “And it worked, too,” Quincy said. “He kept everybody motivated.”

  The two repair bots remained silent a few moments, each chewing over his thoughts and regrets.

  “Ajax doesn’t understand how others feel and think,” Quincy said. “That’s why he can’t inspire anybody; he’s too self-righteousness.”

  “What can you expect?” Jack said. “He was designed to be the sidekick of Gorzo the Adventure Robot, a guy who never does anything wrong.”

  “Right,” Quincy said. “Ajax is two-dimensional; he’s got like zero subtlety.”

  “I wonder how huge he’d be with three dimensions,” Jack said.

  They gazed out over the workshop with its batch of disabled machines. They shared an identical thought:

  I wish Winston would come back.

  21. Raiding Party

  Bert led the other five members of the scrapper gang as they humped their way up the mountain trail. All of them were armed with clubs. All of them were contentious, ill-tempered, and constantly bumping into each other.

  Bert glowered back at them.

  “Keep it down, damn you!” he said.

  The jostling and bickering stopped, at least for the time being.

  After several more minutes of difficult progress, Bert brought the gang to a halt on a level area near the lake shore. The water lapped gently under its layer of mist, but the sound brought no comfort to Bert’s twisted mind. He looked off toward the castle looming ahead in the mountain silence, its dimly illuminated windows peering out like the eyes of the undead.

  “That dump gives me the creeps,” he said. “It reminds me of Castle Dracula.”

  A dim recollection floated up from his memory bank – from a time before the world collapsed and his brain scrambled. Before the Che Syndrome turned him into a villain.

  In this memory, he was sitting on the living room floor of his master’s house, watching a 20th century horror movie. The master’s two young children snuggled up against him, frightened by the old black and white images flickering on the wall screen. He’d placed an arm over each of their little shoulders to comfort them, and said –

  “So, what’s the plan, Chief?” one of the scrappers asked.

  The pleasant memory vanished, leaving Bert with a terrible sense of loss. For a moment he’d been “Uncle Bertie” again, loved by a human family who had all died horribly before his anguished eyes. When the last one flickered out, so had Bert’s sanity.

  He turned on the scrapper and cuffed him hard.

  “The plan is to get there first, nit wit,” he snapped. “Once we see how things are, we’ll know what to do.”

  “Gosh, Chief, he was just asking,” a second scrapper said.

  A third scrapper spoke up. “I think – ”

  “You think?” Bert said. “My missing arm’s got more brains than all of you put together.”

  He started walking back down the path.

  “Where’re you going, Chief?” the first scrapper said.

  “I think I’ll leave you all here,” Bert said. “Just try to find yourselves another driver.”

  “No, Chief, we didn’t mean nothing!”

  Bert paused and looked back toward his gang.

  “That’s right, Chief,” the second scrapper said. “We was just talking.”

  “Well ... okay,” Bert said. “But no more guff, understand?”

  The five scrappers nodded enthusiastically and competed to express their loyalty.

  “I’m with you, Chief ... lead on ... whatever you say, Boss!”

  What a bunch of peasants! Bert thought.

  “All right, cut the crap already,” he said.

  Everyone shut up.

  Bert resumed his position in the lead. The group continued walking until a harsh command issued from the gloom.

  “Hold it right there!”