The Robot Ransom

  “Poor DogBot,” said Jessie.

  “Poor us!” Rico groaned.

  Naomi shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense. If someone wanted to hold our robot ransom, why would they break it?”

  Someone spoke behind them. “Hey, STEAM Team.” They turned to see Logan grinning at them. “You know what steam is, right? Just a bunch of hot air.”

  Naomi glared at him. “Actually, steam is water vapor. Did you steal our robot?”

  Logan’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

  Naomi gestured toward the empty table. “Our robot is missing!”

  Logan shrugged. “You blame me for everything. Why would I want your robot? Our team’s robot is better. I wouldn’t use your silly robot.”

  Naomi leaned closer to him. “What about ransom?”

  Logan looked confused. “What about it?”

  “You might take our robot if you thought you could get money for it,” Naomi said. Rico nodded.

  Logan shook his head. “That’s crazy. Your robot isn’t worth anything. Is this some kind of trick? I bet you know you’ll lose, so you hid your own robot. You want an excuse to drop out. Well, it doesn’t matter whether you compete. Silver City is going to win!” He turned and walked away.

  The Greenfield team watched him go. Jessie said, “He didn’t seem to know anything about our missing robot. But I wish we could get a sample of his handwriting to compare to the note.”

  Naomi sighed. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “If Logan didn’t take our robot, who did?” Rico asked.

  “That is the big question,” said Henry. “I guess we should tell someone what happened.”

  “I wish Coach were here,” Jessie said, and the others nodded.

  The teammates joined Violet and Benny outside the room and explained what happened. Then they looked for the judge for the middle school competition. They found her as she was about to start judging another team. The children explained their problem.

  The judge frowned. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m very sorry that you misplaced your robot.”

  “We didn’t misplace it!” Rico said. “It was stolen!”

  The judge shook her head. “I don’t see how that is possible. The room is guarded at all times. The robot security guards are very reliable. That’s why we use them. We had some problems with human guards a few years ago, but robots never leave their posts. They cannot be bribed. They cannot be forced to do something wrong.”

  Henry said, “But couldn’t a robot make a mistake? They aren’t perfect.”

  The judge said, “The robots have sensors to monitor activity. Even in the dark, they would know if someone entered the room. I don’t see how someone could fool them. They are perfect guards.” The woman smiled. “Plus, they are less intimidating than human guards. People enjoy them so much!”

  Violet shook her head. SARA made her nervous, but she didn’t tell the judge that.

  The judge glanced at her watch. “I need to start judging this team.”

  “What should we do?” Henry asked. “We can’t compete without our robot.”

  “You do not compete until tomorrow,” the judge said. “I’ll give you another set of supplies. If you rebuild your robot in time, you can still compete.”

  “We have to start over?” Rico asked.

  The judge gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can do.” She pulled out a phone and called the check-in desk. A minute later, she said, “Your supplies will be waiting for you. Good luck.”

  The children headed for the check-in desk. “It’s not so bad,” Henry said. “We have the programming on our computers. We only have to rebuild the robot body.”

  “That will take all day,” Rico said. “Maybe all night too.”

  “We can do it,” said Naomi. “You are so good at building! And this time will be easier because we know what to do.”

  “I guess so,” Rico said. “I hope we can remember everything.”

  “Why don’t you two work on building the robot,” said Jessie. “Having too many hands work on it would only make it more confusing. We’ll work on the finding DogBot.”

  “Good idea, Jessie. If we find DogBot, we can use him tomorrow,” Naomi said. “If we don’t, we’ll use the new robot.”

  Rico nodded. “I only hope we can do one of those things in time.”

  Too Many Questions

  Naomi and Rico headed back to the hotel. The Aldens went to the food court. There they could sit at a table and make plans. Benny ran ahead and greeted one of the waiter robots. “Hello! Do you have ice cream?”

  “Good morning,” the robot said. “I have several flavors of ice cream.” The robot turned to face Benny. “It is early in the day for ice cream. How about some healthy fruit?”

  “It’s never too early for ice cream!” said Benny. “But I like fruit too.” He turned to his brother and sisters. “Can we share some fruit salad?”

  “Order two servings,” said Henry. “One for you and one for the rest of us.” Henry paid the robot.

  They sat down at an empty table. As they waited, a robot rolled by with a tray of lunch food.

  “We could have had burgers!” said Benny.

  Jessie ignored him and took out her laptop. “I’ll make notes of everything we know so far,” she said.

  “We have a lot of questions,” said Henry. “We still have not seen Coach Kaleka.”

  “Do you think something happened to him?” Violet asked.

  “He said he would stay at the same hotel as us,” said Jessie. “But he’s not there, and he isn’t answering his phone. Maybe the school knows where he is.”

  “But today is Saturday,” Henry said. “No one will be at the school.”

  Their robot waiter dropped off their fruit salads. Benny dug into his. Violet took a few bites from the second container and then passed it to Jessie. Violet said, “You have been working with this coach for a while now. Is it like him to be so late?”

  “He is pretty disorganized,” said Henry.

  “He was often late to our after-school meetings,” said Jessie. “His classroom is on the other side of the school. I thought he was late because it took a long time to walk that far.”

  “Even after he arrived, he wasn’t ready to work,” said Henry. “He often seemed confused about what we were supposed to do. Rico and Naomi sometimes knew things he didn’t.”

  Jessie nodded. “But they have been building robots longer. Mr. Kaleka became coach after Mr. Thompson lost the job. I don’t think Mr. Kaleka had built robots before that. He normally teaches history.”

  “It sounds like your coach could be running late,” said Violet. “But this is very late!”

  “Yes,” Henry agreed. “Still, we don’t compete until tomorrow. Maybe he thought he only had to come for one day. He might not realize we’re here for the whole weekend.”

  “I’m sure we told him we were staying at the hotel for three nights,” said Jessie.

  Henry nodded. “But how many times did Coach Kaleka ask us about the dates of the conference? He couldn’t keep them straight. Maybe he got mixed up on the number of days as well.”

  Jessie sighed. “I guess we can only wait. Even if we found him, Coach couldn’t rebuild our robot. And I don’t think he could make the judge change her mind. No one believes DogBot was really stolen.”

  “We know it was,” said Henry. “We have to figure out how. I’m not sure Rico and Naomi can build a new robot in time. We need to find out who stole DogBot and get our robot back!”

  Violet pointed at the laptop. “Put down SARA as a suspect. That robot gives me the creeps!”

  Jessie chuckled. “I don’t know why SARA would steal our robot. But I will add her to our list of suspects.”

  “Maybe she wanted her own robot dog,” Violet said.

  “I agree that SARA is a suspect,” said Henry. “She was the only one who could get into the room overnight.” He thought for a
moment. “She said something strange. Remember, she said her current programming does not allow her to steal. She didn’t say that she didn’t steal DogBot.”

  Jessie stared at him. “You mean her programming might have changed? Could someone change it between last night and this morning?”

  Henry shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe she changed her own programming. Remember what Naomi said? Some robots can learn on their own. That’s what artificial intelligence is.”

  “I still don’t think SARA stole DogBot,” said Jessie. “What would a robot do with two hundred dollars?”

  Benny pushed away his empty fruit container. “If SARA did want her own robot pet,” he said, “she probably wanted money to buy robot dog toys!” The others chuckled.

  “What about the sound in the night?” Violet asked.

  “That’s right,” said Henry. “Maybe someone did come in during the night. But how did they get past SARA? Those walls are tall. I don’t think anyone could climb them. They’re temporary, but I don’t think one person could move them.”

  “What about a ladder?” asked Violet. “Someone could have used one to climb over the wall. No, wait. How would they get down on the inside?”

  Henry said, “How about this? Someone put a ladder against the wall away from SARA. They climbed up the ladder and dropped down onto one of the tables. They might have broken our robot by landing on it. That would explain the pieces we found.”

  Jessie frowned, trying to picture the room in her mind. “That wouldn’t work. Our table was against the back wall. That one goes all the way to the ceiling.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Henry. “They’d have to drop down to a different table. It wouldn’t explain how DogBot got broken. Anyway, would SARA have missed all that movement? The judge said the robot would know if a human were in the area. Maybe SARA has heat sensors or something.”

  “She must,” Jessie said. “SARA insisted she would know if a human were inside. She knows the difference between humans and robots.”

  “If someone got in, how they did it isn’t so important,” said Violet. “We need to know who did it. Naomi and Rico seemed sure Logan was the culprit.”

  “He acted like he didn’t know anything about it,” said Jessie. “But he also really wants our team to lose. And he tried to get in yesterday with his laptop. Maybe he came back later and found a way to sneak in! Has his team competed yet?”

  “I don’t think so,” Henry said. “Why?”

  “If they did, that would mean they took their robot out of the room to use it for the competition,” said Jessie. “After they competed, Logan could have changed the programming on their robot. SARA would never know. She only makes sure we don’t change the programming before we compete. Maybe Logan programmed his robot to do something to ours!”

  Benny looked at her with wide eyes. “So it really could have been a robot thief!”

  They all considered this for a minute. Finally Henry said, “It makes sense that someone used a robot to get into the room. But even if Logan’s robot did something to ours, then what? How did he get the two robots out of the room?”

  Jessie groaned. “He didn’t. At least, I saw the Silver City robot there this morning. Wait, I’ll look up the schedule for the contest.” A minute later, she said, “Silver City competes tomorrow. Logan could not have changed their robot’s programming yet.”

  “It’s starting to look like Logan didn’t do it,” said Violet. “But then who did?”

  Jessie made some notes on her laptop. “Some other things don’t make sense. Why were pieces of our robot scattered under the tables? Why was the note crumpled up and on the floor?”

  Violet sighed. “We have two good suspects. SARA and Logan. But neither of them seems to fit the clues.”

  “Maybe it was Watch!” said Benny. “Our real dog didn’t like DogBot very much.”

  “That would be a surprise twist,” said Henry. “But Watch is still back at home.”

  “Besides,” Jessie said with a smile, “I don’t think Watch has very good handwriting.” She studied her laptop screen. “We must be missing other suspects. What about Mr. Thompson, the old coach? He was acting strange yesterday. He knew our names, but we’ve never met him. He was wearing the team tee shirt. It was almost like he was pretending to be on our team still.”

  “He did seem nervous around us,” Henry said. “He kept fiddling with his name badge. But SARA wouldn’t let him in the room with our robot.”

  “Maybe he managed to sneak in,” Jessie said doubtfully.

  “Twice?” Henry asked. “He had to get in on Friday to leave the first note and again last night to leave the ransom note.”

  “That’s true,” said Jessie. “But someone got past SARA. We need to talk to her again.”

  “Let’s go!” Benny said, gathering up their garbage. “Then we can come back here and order lunch!”

  They made their way back to the robot staging area. It was tempting to stop and watch the demonstrations, but they had a mystery to solve! When the children reached SARA, they greeted her politely. They knew she was a robot and didn’t have feelings. Still, she seemed so human sometimes.

  “SARA, we have a question,” said Henry. “Can you tell us if Mr. Thompson was in this area yesterday morning?”

  SARA blinked a few times. “I have no record of a Mr. Thompson here yesterday. I do show a Lilliana Thomas, Silver City Gearheads coach.”

  Henry frowned and looked at the others. “It’s strange that their names are similar, but it must be a coincidence. I saw the Gearheads coach, and she definitely wasn’t Mr. Thompson in disguise.”

  Jessie addressed SARA. “Mr. Thompson was the Greenfield coach last year. Was anyone from Greenfield here, besides us?”

  “Yes,” SARA said. “Greenfield STEAM Team Coach Kaleka was here yesterday morning.”

  The children stared at each other. They had not seen their coach anywhere all weekend. Had he been there all along?

  What had Coach Kaleka been doing all this time?

  A Race for Answers

  “Could Coach really be here?” Jessie asked.

  “I guess he must be,” said Henry. “But where? Why didn’t he answer our messages?”

  Jessie frowned. “Maybe his phone broke. Or maybe he responded to Rico in the last couple hours.”

  Henry pulled out his own phone. “It’s hard to hear a call in this big building. I could go outside and call Rico.”

  “Let’s walk back to the hotel,” said Jessie. “It’s easier to talk in person, and we can make sure he and Naomi don’t need any help.”

  “We should bring them lunch!” said Benny. “I don’t think they can get food at the hotel.”

  Henry ruffled Benny’s hair and said, “Good thinking. We can order sandwiches and take them to the hotel to eat later.”

  Violet smiled. “That will be nice. It’s quieter there. All these robots get on my nerves sometimes!” She quickly looked at SARA to see whether the android had heard her. Fortunately, SARA was helping other people.

  The children headed back through the big room. Many people were demonstrating their robots. One man stood at a microphone talking about a robot on stage.

  Benny said, “That robot has arms and legs like a person. That makes it an android.”

  The robot was built like a human, but it had a strange way of walking. It kept its knees bent more than a person would. The robot bent and picked up a box, turned in a circle, and put the box back down.

  Jessie said, “Remember how it’s hard for a robot to walk on two legs? That robot had to keep its balance while it bent down. It also had to grip the box so it wouldn’t drop it—or crush it.”

  A robot the size of a large dog came onto the stage. It had four legs and a long neck that bent and straightened. It grabbed the box in its mouth and backed up, pulling the box.

  The android bent forward and reached for the box. The animal robot pulled it away. They played a game of chase around the stage. Final
ly the animal robot let go, and the android robot picked up the box as people cheered. The animal robot bent its front legs, dipping forward in a bow.

  Benny laughed. “You should teach DogBot to bow like that!”

  Jessie grinned. “Maybe we’ll work on that for next year.”

  They kept going through the crowd. Benny slowed down to look at something. When the others waited for him, Benny ran toward them. He kept looking back and almost crashed into Henry.

  Henry caught him by the shoulders. “Whoa! What’s so exciting?”

  Before Benny could speak, a humming sound grew louder. A dark shape flew through the air straight toward them! It buzzed past them only inches above Henry’s head. “What was that?” he asked.

  Benny pointed at the thing as it flew back the way it came. “A flying robot!”

  “That’s a drone,” said Henry.

  Violet stood on her tiptoes to get a better look. “What’s it doing?”

  “It looks like an obstacle course,” Henry observed. “See, it has to fly through those rings set up on posts. The rings are not in a straight line, so the drone has to zigzag left to right, and up and down.”

  “I want to see!” said Benny. “Does the drone fly itself?”

  “I think someone is using a remote control,” said Henry. “Let’s look.”

  They squeezed through the crowd. When they had a clear space, Henry moved Benny in front of him. “See,” said Henry. “That girl is flying the drone. She almost missed that hoop!”

  “It’s okay. She went back to it,” said Jessie. “She’s good.”

  Just past the line of hoops, a basket sat on a table. The drone hovered over it. Metal arms with claws stretched out and grabbed a small ball from the basket. The drone flew back through a different line of hoops. The girl dropped the ball into a second basket and landed the flying robot on a table.

  The man behind the table said, “Good job! You went through the obstacle course quickly. Only four minutes and twenty-three seconds.”

  “That man!” Benny pointed. “It’s the old coach we saw yesterday.”

  “He’s right,” said Jessie. “It’s Mr. Thompson, the Greenfield coach who got fired. This must be the drone he said he was demonstrating.”