Cats vs. Robots #2

by Margaret Stohl

  Classic Feline timing.

  Pounce would find it funny if it didn’t mean he must now take the fleet on an ill-advised journey to Earth, Meow included, threatening the destruction of everything he held dear.

  Pounce considered sabotaging his own work but decided it was best to follow Meow’s orders. The Binar Fleet had already launched toward Earth. The Felines had to do the same and match the Binars ship for ship, crazy for crazy. It was dangerous, but it gave him, and Beeps on the other side, a small chance to stop the madness before it got out of control.

  The Feline Fleet launched without a hitch, for the first time in recorded history, and before long, they were speeding toward Earth, on pace to arrive the same time as the Binars.

  Pounce couldn’t believe his whiskers.

  With the fleet underway and Meow fed, Pounce finally had a moment to himself. He hurried to his quarters to contact his two-legged allies. He had been under so much pressure from Meow that he still hadn’t told the humans about the recent cat-astrophic developments.

  Time to warn them that bad had gone to worse.

  He activated his medallion and nervously cleaned his fur.

  “Hellooo, Pounce!” The boy Max’s voice blared through the medallion. “Can you hear me?”

  Pounce sighed. “Loud and clear. Do you have the group together? I have unfortunate news.”

  “We’re here, Pounce,” Javi’s voice echoed through the medallion. “What’s the problem?”

  Pounce quickly told them that the Binar and Feline Fleets were fully deployed and headed for a conflict on Earth.

  “I hope you have made progress on the Infinity Engine,” Pounce said after making his grim report. “I’m afraid it’s the only hope we have of averting disaster.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Mom said. “Thankfully, we had some clutch help from a friend you haven’t met, but she’s here now.”

  Pounce heard a new voice. “Hi, Pounce, nice to meet you. They call me Portillo.”

  “Well met, Portillo. Felinus appreciates your help.”

  “No worries,” she said. “Earth’s got your back.”

  “We’re making two engines,” Dad added. “We’re still not sure what we’re going to do with them, but it gives us options.”

  “Oh, Pounce!” Max interrupted. “Is Obi all right? Can you let Obi know we’re making the engines?”

  “Of course,” Pounce said. A light flashed on the terminal in his room, indicating an urgent message from Meow. He couldn’t remember the last non-urgent message. “I have to go now,” he said. “Pounce out.”

  On Earth, Max put the medallion back in his pocket. Messages from Pounce always made him feel a little better and a little worse. “Holy cow. Both fleets are coming here? That’s bad! Right?”

  “Yes. Bad,” Min agreed glumly. “They could easily blow each other up, even just by accident!”

  “They could blow us up by accident,” Portillo said, frowning.

  “At least Obi is still safe,” Max said.

  “That’s right! He’s safe and he’s coming to Earth,” Javi said, patting Max’s shoulder. “We don’t have to figure out how to get to Binar anymore.”

  Max thought about it. “We still need SLAYAR to let Obi go. If we give him an engine, we should make him promise to give Obi back.”

  “We need him to promise more than that,” Mom said. “We need to make sure both sides don’t attack.”

  Max looked at his parents. “Do you think if we can give them both an engine they will agree to stop fighting? That’s what they want, right? I mean, Meow just wants to stay alive. . . .”

  “SLAYAR wants the power source,” Min added.

  Dad held out his arms and shrugged. “It’s so hard to know, but we have to try. They might still fight because they don’t trust each other.”

  Portillo pushed out her chair and stood up. “Either way, we better get back to work if we want to have the engines ready in time.”

  As Portillo and his parents returned to the lab, Max put his head in his hands. “How did everything get so messed up? When did the rescue Obi mission become a Save the World mission?”

  “It doesn’t matter how we got here.” Min tried to focus. “The bigger problem is, how do we stop something worse from happening?”

  Max nodded and looked up. “It’s both of their faults. Both planets, both sides.”

  “Agreed. So?” Min wasn’t seeing an obvious solution.

  Max thought about it. “So . . . we just need to be able to make them all stop fighting long enough for us to talk sense into them.”

  “We need to get their attention,” Min said. “Like when the teachers marched, or like those huge protests we learned about in school.”

  Max nodded. “Something impossible to ignore.”

  Just then, Stu and Scout came flying into the room, chasing and wrestling each other.

  RAWRRR!

  MEOW!

  Stu swung a paw at Scout’s ears—

  Scout ducked and launched at her brother’s tail with a HISS—

  Stu whipped his tail away and wiggled his body, preparing to launch an attack.

  Scout raised a paw high, holding it up ready to strike.

  Suddenly, she dropped her paw, busying herself with frantically scratching her furry cheek with a paw’s worth of furry toes.

  At the same time, Stu gave up his attack and rapidly scratched his own neck.

  Before long, they were both sitting side by side, searching for fleas in their fur.

  SCRITCH SCRATCH.

  SCRITCH SCRATCH SCRATCH.

  SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH.

  SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH.

  Min saw the scratching and turned pale. “Wait, what?” She got up and pointed at her brother. “Max,” she said, threatening, “how is it possible that the fleas are back?”

  Stu and Scout took a break from scratching and sprinted after one another for a moment. They raced around Min but both stopped again for a scratch. Min hopped back, horrified. “This can’t be happening! Those fleas are so relentless . . . and nasty.”

  Max thought about it. “Wait, did you see what just happened?”

  Min was staring at the kittens. “Yes, Max. The cats came in the room. They still have fleas. It’s still disgusting.”

  Max shook his head. “No. I mean, did you see how they suddenly stopped fighting?”

  Min nodded. “Hmmmm . . . Because of the fleas. There’s a lot of them. And they’re very persistent.”

  “Exactly.” Max looked at his sister. “So persistent, they can stop cats from fighting. . . .”

  “They can. They did.” Min looked from her brother to the kittens. “And remember how the fleas shut down Elmer?”

  “Tell me,” Max said, his voice sounding strange. “What do robots hate, Min? Aside from being mistaken for litter boxes . . .”

  “Hackers? Viruses . . . ?” Min stared at the cats as they scratched. “Bugs?”

  “Exactly.” Max grinned. “And what do cats hate?”

  Min looked up. . . . “Fleas!”

  And as Stu and Scout scratched away in infested kitten flea oblivion, the Wengrod siblings scratched away at a plan for a protest.

  19

  Flea Factory

  Later that day, Max and Min called a family council on the front porch of the Wengrod house.

  “I think we figured out how to we can protest Meow and SLAYAR and this whole cat robot fight,” Min said.

  Max nodded. “Yeah, it’s a little like my INSECTAGONS™ game, where you can use an army of the soldiers that are really small to take down things that are way bigger.” Max was trying to explain but got confused looks in return. “Like them!” He pointed to the kittens, who were still clawing at themselves, even after following the family to the porch.

  “I don’t follow,” their dad said.

  “Are you talking about some kind of video game attack?” Mom asked.

  “The idea came from Max’s ga
me, but it’s definitely not a game,” Min said.

  Max tried again. “Look at Stu and Scout. They were fighting like crazy one second, and then the next second, they stopped. Because of the fleas! It was like they were paralyzed. I mean, if a couple of fleas can do that,” he said, pointing at Stu and Scout, “it proves tiny things can make a big difference.”

  “So are you saying you want to raise an army of fleas?” Mom asked.

  Javi listened carefully but looked skeptical. “Your idea sounds good, but how would it work? I don’t know of any flea farmers, and the little critters don’t exactly follow orders.”

  “Not actual fleas,” Max said.

  “Yeah.” Min nodded. “Mom and Dad, you used to build small bug robots, right?”

  “A long time ago,” Dad said.

  “Not that long,” Mom said.

  “What if you made a robotic flea? Or more like, an anti-robot bug flea? Something that would annoy both robots and cats?” Min asked.

  Max looked hopeful. “But make a lot of them. You know, like INSECTAGONS™ . . . or, like INFESTIPETS. You know what I mean.”

  Dad looked at Mom. “Flea-sized robots? That’s an . . . interesting challenge.”

  “Flea-sized robots that will do what you want them to do?” Mom added, “That makes it even more interesting.”

  “You may be onto something. We need to go to the lab and check,” Dad said.

  “Let’s go look at what we’ve already done,” Mom agreed.

  The family council moved downstairs into the advanced robotics lab, where the Wengrod parents had built and tested all their robotic creatures that eventually led to creating Obi.

  “You remember we started our research on how brains work with simple creatures,” Mom said, leading them in. “Things like worms, without a lot of moving parts, that could be controlled with a simpler intelligence. We eventually moved on to more complicated things like insects.”

  “We built a few insect robots, but we usually made them larger to make things easier,” Dad said. “Making something really small is almost harder than making a full-sized robot.” He walked over to a large, wide container and opened it.

  “Bugs!” Max said, excited, when he looked inside at what looked like an assortment of insects spread out on black foam.

  “Our bug collection,” Dad said, proudly, showing off the robotic insects inside.

  “We didn’t finish a lot of them unfortunately,” Mom said. “We were building them to learn and research brain function. And like we said, we made them a bit oversized also, to save time.”

  Min reached in and gently picked up a fragile-looking robotic butterfly with dark, thin wings. “This is beautiful,” she said.

  “Hold it under the light,” Mom said.

  Min placed it on her palm and held it under a bright lamp on the table.

  “The wings are solar panels,” Mom explained as the butterfly began to slowly move its wings and started to flutter away.

  “Oh no!” Min looked over, excited but nervous.

  “Don’t worry, it won’t go far. It doesn’t last long out of bright light,” Dad said, and they watched as the butterfly slowed and landed after it flew away from the light.

  Min carefully carried the butterfly back into the case.

  “This is what we wanted to show you,” Dad said. Between his fingers, he held a small robot that looked like an oversized flea.

  “Meet Jerry.” He placed Jerry on the table and inserted a tiny power wire. “Jerry isn’t solar. He needs to be charged up.”

  “Jerry Fleaman,” Max said as he came for a closer look. “Pleased to meet ya.”

  Mom sat down at a laptop, plugged in the other end of the wire, and a 3D outline of the robot appeared on half of the screen. She spun the model of the bug around on-screen so they could see, then clicked on a red “POWER” button.

  The flea twitched to life.

  The other half of the screen had one area filled with a list of actions and behaviors, and an open space below labeled “COMMAND.”

  Mom started dragging actions into the command area, connecting them together. “This is how we used to build the behaviors of our robots like Jerry.” She gestured to Max. “Here, put your hand next to it.” Max scrunched his face, cautious, as he leaned over and placed his hand next to the flea-bot.

  “Don’t worry,” Mom said as she quickly clicked and assembled a string of commands into the command area and hit a green button. The flea, still connected to the wire, started moving, searching with its tiny wire antennae. When it turned toward Max’s hand, it immediately jumped on.

  “Cool!” Max said, followed immediately by a “YOW!” as he yanked his hand away from the table, startled.

  “Success!” Dad said. “You’ve been bitten by Jerry,” He ruffled Max’s hair. “The flea’s behavior is to find a warm body, hop on, and start munching. Classic flea behavior, am I right? But don’t worry, Jerry doesn’t really bite. It was just a tiny shock. Annoying, but harmless!”

  The flea-bot hopped around on the table, frantically hunting for something to bite, but held back by the wire, like a little leash.

  Mom walked over. “Also, check this out.”

  She hovered her hand over Jerry and dropped it down on top.

  “NOOO!” Min cried out. “You smushed Jerry!!”

  Max put his hands over his eyes. “I can’t look.”

  Mom lifted her hand. “Jerry is fine. Look!”

  Max peeked between his fingers and watched as the robo-flea popped back from flat to its normal shape and started hopping around.

  “Wow.” Max sighed with relief.

  “See? Good as new. Jerry’s a durable guy. We built it using flexible material and a foldable design that allows it to flatten if it gets smushed.”

  Mom picked up the robo-flea and squeezed between her fingers, and the flea went back and forth from flat to flea. “It can compress down but still return to the original shape, kind of like origami. Real insects have evolved to have similar structures to help them survive being stepped on. It also helps them jump.”

  Min took a closer look. “That’s so cool. These are tough fleas. Oh! And if they can flatten out, you can fit more of them into a small space, right?”

  Mom nodded, smiling. “Hadn’t thought of that, but that’s a good point.”

  Dad moved to a computer near a pair of 3D printers and called up a design program. “Fortunately, the design should work even if it’s tiny.” He started clicking and dragging on the model, scaling it down to a tiny speck. “Making an army of them is another story, but I have some ideas.” He pointed at a row of 3D printers.

  “We used these microprinters to make small, intricate moving parts for Obi. They can make things on a much smaller, almost microscopic scale, even if they are designed to be larger. They use something called implosion fabrication to take a 3D model and re-create it on a microscopic scale, called nanostructures.”

  Max leaned in to look at the model on the screen. “You’re going to implode Jerry?”

  “Jerry will be fine,” Dad said.

  Min turned to Mom. “What about the AI? Can you make them smart enough to know how to find Meow and SLAYAR?”

  “Good point, Min. The fleas will need to find the right targets in a room.” Mom pulled up a different program that showed a three-dimensional map of dots, connected with thin lines, almost like a frozen image of fireworks or a constellation. “Fortunately, we’ve improved our AI a lot since we first built Jerry.”

  She rotated and zoomed in on different points, which they saw were different actions or behaviors. “The new system is much more powerful than the original two-dimensional mapping we used for Jerry. He just went for the nearest, largest warm body.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Max said, rubbing his hand.

  “I should be able to program them so they can find Meow and SLAYAR in a room. It won’t be easy, but it’s manageable.” She stood up from her chair.

  “One thing I
just realized”—she went and put her arm around Max—“we may need Stu and Scout’s help to test the fleas’ cat-detection AI.”

  Max frowned. “What? No fair!”

  Min looked at Max, grinning, rubbing her hands together like a mad scientist. “Ha! They deserve it for bringing real fleas in here!”

  He glared at Min. “What about the robot detection part?”

  Min looked at Mom, nervous.

  Dad stood up. “Well, we don’t have any Binars around.” He put his arm around Min, looking down. “We may have to borrow Elmer at some point to test that part out.”

  Max stuck his tongue out at Min.

  “We’ll try to annoy them as little as possible,” Mom said. “On the bright side, they will be doing the world a big favor.”

  She pulled Max and Min together for a pep talk. “You know, you two make a pretty good team. I would never have thought of robo-fleas that are intelligent enough to take orders,” she said.

  “And,” Dad joined in, “using them to annoy robots and cats enough so they stop fighting.” Dad ruffled Min’s hair.

  “You think it will work?” Min asked.

  “We’ll find out,” Dad said.

  Javi agreed. “They might really make the perfect protesters. Numerous and impossible to ignore.”

  Mom smiled. “And they won’t give up.”

  Min nodded. “Not until they power down.”

  “We better get started,” Dad said, ushering them out of the lab. “We have a small army to build.”

  “Let’s go get something to eat,” Javi said, leading the way up the stairs.

  Max didn’t notice when he stepped on a small bug on the stairs. The Roachbot was crushed flat but seconds later twitched and bounced back into shape. Shaking itself into order, it scurried up the stairs to its hiding place on the shelf.

  20

  Huggs in High Gear

  “We have a small army to build.”

  CRUNCH!

  “Robot fleas?” Huggs scoffed, stopping the recording. “A ridiculous idea! These fools are taking direction from children, House! What a tragic waste of time and talent. Not worth my concern.”

  “If you say so,” House said. “I felt it was worth bringing to your attention. That family has a habit of being . . . troublesome.”