“Kat, I warned you about this robot,” Uncle Victor said. “He’s very smart. But he has problems. And —”
He stopped. Behind his glasses, his eyes bulged and he stared hard at me. “Your hair. What happened? Is that shampoo? Your hair is sopping wet.”
“I — I —” How could I explain? Finally, I just blurted out the truth. “Yesterday, I poured that green gunk on Poochie, Uncle Victor. And he grew huge. So, today I poured it on me. I wanted to grow big so I could fight off the robot.”
He studied the empty beaker. “You wanted to grow big?”
“Why didn’t it work?” I said. “Why didn’t it change me?”
Uncle Victor burst out laughing.
Robby and I just stood there, waiting for him to stop laughing.
Finally, he shook his head, still smiling, and said, “Wrong beaker, Kat. That’s the hand soap I use when I finish work.”
“The what?” I cried.
He started to laugh again. “You just poured a bottle of soap on your head.” He pointed across the table. I saw a green beaker nearly hidden by a tangle of yellow tubes. “That’s the Growth Chemical over there.”
I touched my hair. Wet and sticky and matted together. I knew I looked ridiculous.
Uncle Victor’s smile faded. “You and Robby were in my lab because … ?”
I decided to be honest. “Because we were looking for answers. There are some strange things going on here, and we wanted to find out —”
Uncle Victor nodded. “Yes, indeed. There certainly are some strange things going on here, dear. But you don’t have to sneak around. I’ll be happy to explain everything to you. You’re my favorite niece, after all.”
“I’m your only niece,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “Well, no matter. You’re my family. I trust you.” He guided me to the door. Robby followed.
“Tell you what,” Uncle Victor said. “Robby, you’d better get home. Your parents will be wondering where you are. And, Kat, you go upstairs and wash your hair. And when you come down, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
I squinted at him. “Everything?”
He nodded. “Everything. And I’ll tell you about the plans I have for you. Very big plans. Very important.”
A chill of fear ran down my back. “You — you have plans for me?” I stammered. “You had me come here for a reason?”
A sly smile crossed his face. “Maybe.”
It took a long time to shower out the soap from my hair. The whole time, I kept thinking about my uncle and what he said about having plans for me. Should I be afraid? Should I be terrified?
No. My uncle didn’t seem angry that Robby and I had entered the lab when he wasn’t there. Mainly, he just laughed about me pouring hand soap on my head. He thought that was a riot.
He had his same crazy sense of humor. I couldn’t be in danger.
Or could I?
I couldn’t get Frank out of my mind. In a way, the robot really was a monster. He was cruel and strong, and couldn’t be controlled. He really did want to hurt Robby and me for invading the lab.
I wondered if Uncle Victor made him that way. Maybe he wanted a cruel, hard robot to protect his lab.
At least he admitted that strange things were going on. I couldn’t wait to hear him explain.
I fluffed my hair dry with a bath towel and tossed the towel onto the bathroom floor. I had a million questions to ask my uncle. Would he really answer them all?
Poochie greeted me at the bottom of the stairs. He rolled onto his back and wouldn’t move until I petted his stomach for a long while. As I rubbed his stomach, he shut his eyes and mewed like a cat. Cute.
I found Uncle Victor in the kitchen. He was wearing his white lab coat. He had prepared a plate of cookies and a pitcher of iced tea. I sat down at the table, but he motioned me back on my feet.
“Follow me,” he said. “We can have our talk in my secret room.” He carried the cookies and iced tea on a tray and led the way down the back hall.
Again, I felt a tingle of fear. Secret room? “Are we going into the lab?” I asked.
No. He stopped short of the lab and unlocked a black door. I followed him into a long, narrow room. It looked like some kind of control room.
A row of big TV monitors filled one wall. On the long table beneath the monitors stretched a row of several desktop computers. They were all blinking and flashing with screens filled with numbers.
“My spy room,” Uncle Victor said with a smile. He set down the food tray. Then he took a seat in front of the monitors and motioned for me to sit beside him.
“What do you spy on?” I asked. I took a cookie and sampled it. Chocolate chip. I was suddenly way hungry.
“Everything,” he said.
He pushed some buttons, and the TV monitor in front of us flashed to life. As it came into focus, I could see his lab next door. I saw the table with all the chemicals. And I saw Frank standing at stiff attention in one corner, eyes half shut.
“You can watch the lab from in here?” I asked.
He nodded. “And I keep a recording of every minute in the lab. It’s important. My work is so hard and so complicated. I need to keep a visual record of what I have done.”
I took another cookie and stared at the screen.
Uncle Victor pushed some more keys on the computer in front of him. “Here, Kat. I think you’ll find this interesting.”
The screen blinked and went blank. When the picture returned, I could see the door of the lab open. Robby and I came walking in. Robby glanced excitedly all around. You could see how amazed he was by the awesome equipment.
“This was yesterday,” I said. “You saw us in the lab. You saw everything, right?”
He nodded, eyes on the screen. He made the picture fast-forward.
I watched myself bump the table. Saw the beaker of green liquid topple over. Saw the chemical pour onto Poochie.
“You — you knew what happened,” I stammered. “You knew the trouble Robby and I got into in the lab.”
He patted my hand. “I have to know everything, dear,” he said softly. “My work … It’s too dangerous. I have to have my eyes on the lab at all times.”
“But — but —” I sputtered.
He handed me another cookie. “Don’t worry, dear,” he said softly. “You’re not in any trouble. It’s like our family to want to be bold and explore, right?”
“I guess,” I said, watching Poochie grow big on the screen. “I … I didn’t know what to do yesterday,” I said. “I was in a total panic. Poochie grew bigger and bigger and —”
“That growth hormone is one of my little experiments,” Uncle Victor said. “Yes, I watched the whole thing later when I got home. The looks on your faces made me laugh so hard. But growth hormone is not really what I’m interested in.”
He sighed. “What I’m trying to do is much harder than making creatures grow instantly.”
I swallowed some of the cookie and wiped my lips with my fingers. “Tell me about your robots,” I said. “You said you would tell me everything.”
He nodded. The light from the TV monitor flashed on his glasses. I couldn’t see his eyes. He leaned forward and tapped his fingers on the table. “Where shall I begin?”
I shrugged. “At the beginning?”
He took a deep breath. He tugged at the sleeves of his lab coat. I could see he was definitely a little nervous about telling me the story.
Finally, he cleared his throat and started: “Kat, I already told you what I’ve been trying to do here,” he said. “I’ve been building robots and giving them artificial intelligence. My idea is to make them smart enough to survive without human control.”
He tapped his fingers on the tabletop again. “As you may know, we scientists create artificial intelligence on computers. We try to copy the way a brain works into a computer program.
“Almost everything a brain can do can be copied into a computer program,” he continued. “I worked for ma
ny years on such a program. And I was able to make my robots think and talk and understand a lot of things.”
He paused. “But then I had a different idea. A crazy idea. But it worked.”
I nibbled another cookie. “What was it? What did you do?” I asked.
“I used my own brain waves,” he answered. “I hooked up my brain to the computer brain. And I copied my brain. I made a perfect copy of my brain waves and sent them into the robot brains I was building.”
My mouth dropped open. “Wow,” I murmured.
I didn’t totally understand everything he was telling me. But even I knew this was something amazing.
“And it worked?” I asked. “The robots had your exact brain?”
“Not exactly,” he replied. “I couldn’t copy everything. And … there were some things I didn’t think of.” He rubbed his chin. “But, yes. I was able to copy my brain waves into the robots.”
I gazed at him, waiting for him to continue.
“Well,” he started finally, “I guess my success went to my head. I did some bad things, Kat. I did some crazy things I never should have done. And that’s when I totally lost control.”
A silence fell over the narrow room. The monitor screens flashed and flickered. I glanced down at the cookie plate. Without realizing it, I had eaten them all.
My stomach felt heavy. My hands were suddenly ice-cold. I tucked them into my jeans pockets.
“I … got carried away,” Uncle Victor continued, in a hushed voice. “Since I was using my own brain, I decided to build robots that looked like me. It started out as a joke. I’m not sure why. But it struck me funny.
“I built several robots that looked like me. I gave them my brain. And since I was giving them my brain, I also gave them my name. You know me, Kat. It was just my strange sense of humor.”
“Well … that explains the robot I saw last night,” I said. “He told me he was you and —”
“Yes. The robots really believe they are me,” Uncle Victor said. “And why shouldn’t they? They have my brain. But … I didn’t realize how dangerous it was. I didn’t realize how foolish I had been.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean?”
“I made them too smart,” he replied. “I made their brains too much like mine. They decided they didn’t need me. They decided they could be me. They … they …”
He began to sputter. He gripped the edge of the table to calm himself.
A chill ran down my back. “What did they do?” I whispered.
“They tried to take over my life, take control of the lab. They tried to imprison me. Lock me up. And take my place.”
Another chill swept down my back. “Oh, wow,” I murmured. “What did you do?”
“I shut them down, and I locked them up,” he replied. “That room at the back of the lab. I closed up all the Victor Frankensteins in there. I locked up all the robots who wanted to take my place. Then I built Frank to keep guard. To keep them in the failure room.”
Uncle Victor shook his head. “But … they’re too smart. They know how to power each other up. They figured out how to escape the failure room. How to escape this house. Some even made it as far as the village. That’s why the villagers are afraid of me.”
He shuddered. “I have to keep guard at all times. That’s why I have Frank. That’s why I have the guard dogs. I can’t let them capture me and lock me in the failure room. I know that’s what they want to do.”
“That’s horrible,” I murmured.
“It’s my own fault,” he said. “My own fault for making them too smart.”
He stared at the monitor in front of him for a while. Then his expression changed, and he turned to me. “Let’s talk about something more pleasant,” he said. He patted my hand. “Let’s talk about my big plans for you.”
“For me?” I said. “What kind of plans?”
That strange smile spread over his face again. “Kat, I’m going to turn you into a robot.”
“Excuse me?”
My mouth dropped open. My stomach did a flip-flop.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Uncle Victor said. “I’m trying to build a female robot. I need to see if there are any problems involved.”
“But — but —” I sputtered.
“So I decided to honor you,” he said. “Here. Look.” He pressed some keys on the keyboard in front of him. A robot appeared on the screen.
“She — she looks just like me!” I cried. “No! You don’t plan —”
“You will be the first female,” he said. “Kat, don’t you want to see what it would be like to have such a close copy of yourself?”
“No,” I said. “No way. What if she wants to take over my life like your other robots?”
“That won’t happen,” he replied. “I’ll be more careful.”
“But, Uncle Victor, I really don’t want —”
He raised a hand to silence me. “You can name her. What do you want to name her? How about Kitty? Then we’d have Kitty and Kat!”
“Kill me now,” I said. “That’s so lame.”
“I don’t want you to be frightened,” Uncle Victor said. “If you are, you will pass the fear onto the robot.”
I gasped. “What do you mean? Do you mean you’re going to suck out my brain?”
“No, no. No way.” He patted my hand again. “I’m not sucking out your brain. I’m copying it. Copying the brain waves. That’s all. It’s real easy, Kat. You’ll feel a little buzzing in your head. But it isn’t painful. It doesn’t hurt.”
I stared at the robot on the screen. She had my hair. She was dressed in jeans and a maroon sweatshirt. She stood stiffly, eyes shut tight.
“Uncle Victor,” I said, “I really don’t want to do this. I’m sorry. I don’t want to mess up your work. I’d love to help you, but I just can’t. I … I won’t let you copy my brain.”
“Yes, you will,” my uncle replied softly.
“Huh? No. Seriously. I won’t —” I insisted.
“Yes,” he repeated. “We are going to copy your brain now, Kat. I put something in those cookies, see. You’re starting to feel sleepy, right? You’re starting to feel very sleepy.”
I gasped. The room started to fade in and out. I struggled to keep my eyelids open.
My last thought before I fell asleep: He cannot be my uncle. My uncle Victor would never do this to me.
Then … darkness.
How long was I out cold? I don’t know. I awoke, blinking, struggling to focus my eyes.
I saw only a bright light. I felt a hard buzzing in my head.
It took a long time before the light faded and the room came into view. I realized I was seated in Uncle Victor’s lab. I saw him hunched over a computer keyboard, typing rapidly.
Then I saw the Kat robot at my side. She had a tall gray cone on her head. The cone was attached to a lot of wires.
And then … then … I gasped when I saw that the wires were also attached to me. I felt something on my head. Something heavy and tight.
Another gray cone?
The buzzing in my head became a rattle. It made my teeth chatter.
I had to remove the cone.
But my arms … they wouldn’t move. I gazed down. And saw the black cords tied around my wrists, holding my arms to the arms of the chair.
“Uncle Victor!” I shouted. “Untie me! Untie me — now!”
He raised his eyes from the computer monitor. “Sit still, Kat. Don’t ruin it. I’ve just started.”
“But, Uncle Victor —”
“You’ll be okay,” he said, eyes back on the screen. “I’ll let you up once the brain wave transfer is made.”
“No. No. Please!” I begged.
“We’re going to make history, Kat!” he shouted. “History! Don’t you want to be famous? The whole world will know about Kitty and Kat!”
He’s crazy, I thought. He can’t be my uncle! He CAN’T be!
I struggled against the cords. But they were too tight t
o budge.
The rattling buzz shook my head. It felt like someone was drilling on my skull. I shut my eyes, but I couldn’t get away from that awful vibrating sound.
“Uncle Victor — PLEASE!” I cried.
I turned when I saw the lab door swing open. Robby stepped in. He saw me seated beside the robot that looked like me. He saw the tall cones on our heads. His eyes went wide with surprise.
“Hey! What’s going on in here?” he cried.
Uncle Victor waved him in. “Close the door, Robby,” he said. “You should see this, too. Kat and I are making history today.”
Robby lingered at the door. “I — I don’t understand,” he stammered. “Why —”
“Just watch closely,” my uncle said, tapping on the computer keyboard. “Watch the new robot come to life.”
I strained at the cords around my wrists. “Help me, Robby!” I called. “I don’t want to do this! Help get me out of this!”
Robby took a few steps toward me. I could see the confusion on his face.
“Don’t touch her,” Uncle Victor ordered him. “Leave her be. She isn’t in any danger.”
“But I don’t want to do this!” I screamed. “He — he’s forcing me to do this!”
Robby froze. His eyes moved from me to my uncle.
My uncle waved Robby back with one hand. “Just stand there. Wait. It takes only a short while. And it doesn’t hurt at all.”
“But … Kat doesn’t want to do it,” Robby protested.
“She is just in a panic,” Uncle Victor said. “When it is over, she’ll be happy. I swear.”
The buzzing in my head grew to a roar. It felt as if my head was about to explode.
“Help me!” I screamed. “Robby! Get me out of here! Please!”
“Stay there,” Uncle Victor warned Robby. “Don’t take another step. It’s dangerous to stop in the middle.”
“I have to untie her,” Robby said. His voice trembled. He lurched toward me.
“NO!” Uncle Victor screamed. “You cannot move her while the brain transfer is underway. Stay where you are!”