“Unbelievable,” Hiro grumbled, and Baymax suddenly reached out and gave him a hug. “What are you doing?” Hiro asked.
“Other treatments include compassion and physical reassurance.”
“I’m okay, really,” Hiro said, trying to push him away. But then he realized Baymax was trying to help. Hiro gave him a hug back.
“You will be all right. There, there,” Bamax said, patting Hiro on the back.
Hiro couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, Baymax.” He had to admit, the hug did make him feel a little better.
“I am sorry about the fire,” Baymax said.
“It’s okay. It was an accident,” Hiro replied. He had never talked about it before, but once he’d said “accident,” the wheels in his mind started turning. He looked up at Baymax. “Unless...unless it wasn’t.”
Then all at once, the pieces fell together. “The guy in the mask stole my microbots, and then he set the fire to cover his tracks!” Hiro exclaimed. “We gotta catch that guy!”
Hiro was suddenly reenergized. He now had a purpose. He had to find the guy in the mask. But how? He’d already tried the police. They weren’t going to help.
He put his hand on Baymax’s arm, remembering that in addition to being deflated, it was also covered in tape. The robot wasn’t built for battle. But bot-fighting was a pastime Hiro was very familiar with. He suddenly saw Baymax as a giant version of one of his fighting bots. “But first, you’re gonna need some upgrades.”
Hiro’s mind was racing with ideas as he snuck Baymax past Aunt Cass and out to the garage.
Hiro couldn’t wait to get started. He had Baymax stand in the center of the garage. “Okay, arms up,” he said as he pulled an electronic device from a shelf. He quickly scanned Baymax, then rolled his chair over to his computer.
“Will apprehending the man in the mask improve your emotional state?” Baymax asked.
Hiro nodded. “Absolutely.” Then he cracked his knuckles and turned his computer on. “All right. Let’s work on your moves.”
He downloaded the scanned image of Baymax to his computer. A 3-D model of Baymax’s soft body appeared on the screen. With Baymax peering curiously over his shoulder, Hiro began to program a new fighting chip.
On another screen, Hiro downloaded a martial arts video. With a smile, he linked the karate moves to the model of Baymax. Once the program was running, Hiro turned his chair around and looked at the robot.
“Now let’s take care of this,” he said, poking at Baymax’s vinyl belly. Hiro turned to a different computer screen and uploaded images of armor from throughout the ages. Hiro enjoyed mixing and matching the pieces until he came up with a suit of armor he liked.
He typed in the code that programmed his 3-D printer. With just a push of the print button, it created three-dimensional carbon-fiber objects in minutes. Hiro grabbed the first piece of armor and rolled his chair to where Baymax was waiting.
As he fitted each armor segment to Baymax, the fighting chip programming continued on another screen. The 3-D Baymax model was learning elaborate karate moves with every passing second.
Hiro finally added the last piece of armor to Baymax’s soft body. “Now, that’s more like it!” he said, admiring the hard shiny discs.
Hiro triumphantly placed a helmet on Baymax’s head.
But Baymax simply stared at his armor. “I have some concerns,” he said, tapping his hard belly. “This armor may undermine my nonthreatening, huggable design.”
Hiro couldn’t help laughing. “That’s kind of the idea, buddy. You look sick!”
“I cannot be sick. I am a robot,” Baymax said.
Just then, an alert came from Hiro’s computer: “Data transfer complete.” The fighting program was ready! The red chip popped out of the drive and Hiro drew a skull on it.
He rolled over to Baymax and opened his access port. Then he gasped when he saw Baymax’s green health-care chip—Tadashi’s name was written on it. Hiro froze for a second. It hurt to see Tadashi’s handwriting. But then he remembered why he was doing this, and slid the fighting chip in next to Tadashi’s.
“I fail to see how karate makes me a better health-care companion,” Baymax stated.
“You want to keep me healthy, don’t you?” Hiro asked as he gathered a pile of wooden boards to test out the new programming. But Baymax still didn’t understand. Finally, Hiro held a board in front of Baymax and said, “Punch this.”
With almost no effort, Baymax snapped the board in two.
“Ha! Yes!” Hiro yelled. He held up a series of boards and gave Baymax new commands.
“Hammer fist!” Hiro said, and Baymax shattered the board.
“Knife hand!” Hiro ordered, and the edge of Baymax’s hand hit the board like a guillotine.
“Back kick!” Hiro shouted, and with the grace of a ninja, the giant robot split the board with his foot, launching the pieces out the garage door.
Hiro continued to have Baymax practice karate moves. Baymax’s work was flawless. Hiro smiled approvingly and held up his hand. “Yeah! Fist bump!”
Baymax stared at Hiro’s hand and blinked. “Fist bump is not in my fighting database.”
Hiro laughed. “No, this isn’t a fighting thing. It’s what people do when they’re excited...you know, pumped up.” Hiro bumped his fist against Baymax’s and made an exploding sound.
Baymax blinked and made a mock exploding sound, too: “Bata-lata-la.”
“There! Now you’re getting it!” Hiro said.
Baymax nodded. “I will add fist bump to my caregiving matrix.”
Hiro kicked the garage door open and stepped out with a fully armored Baymax. “All right,” he said. “Now let’s go get that guy!”
Hiro led Baymax back to the old warehouse that had been filled with barrels of microbots, never noticing that a car was following them every step of the way.
He walked up to the warehouse door, but this time it didn’t matter whether it was locked. He pointed to the door and Baymax smashed it.
Hiro peeked into the dark warehouse carefully from behind his robot and said, “Get him, Baymax!”
But the warehouse was empty. Hiro was puzzled. “We’re too late,” he said. He took the petri dish out of his hoodie and watched it. The microbot was vibrating very softly in one direction.
“Your tiny robot is trying to go somewhere,” Baymax said.
Hiro turned and walked in the direction the microbot was leading. He headed out the door and down the street. The vibration grew stronger. He smiled. Maybe they weren’t too late after all!
He stared down at the petri dish, following the movements of the microbot as if it were a compass. The vibrations were getting stronger with every step he took. Now he knew they were going in the right direction. He was ready to start running when he was yanked from behind by his hoodie. He fell backward and turned to see Baymax.
“Always wait one hour after eating before swimming,” Baymax cautioned.
“What?” Hiro said, then looked down and saw that his next step was going to be right into the San Fransokyo Bay! He hadn’t realized he’d been walking on a pier for the last few minutes.
Hiro stared out at the cold, dark water. A layer of fog was floating above the bay. He looked at the petri dish again. The microbot was still tapping in the direction of the water, but Hiro didn’t see anything out there.
Suddenly, the microbot tapped so hard, the top of the petri dish flew off. Hiro watched the bot disappear into the fog. Then he heard an ominous buzz, soft at first, but gradually getting louder. Slowly a shape emerged. It was the man in the white-and-red Kabuki mask!
Hiro quickly grabbed Baymax and they hid behind a shipping container. He peeked out to see the masked man being transported across the water on a platform—made of a million microbots!
They also seemed to be carrying a strange
metal piece. Hiro narrowed his eyes, making out a faint image etched on its side. It looked like an imprint of a bird.
“Your heart rate has increased dramatically,” said Baymax.
“Shhh. Okay, Baymax?” Hiro whispered, wanting to stay hidden. “Time to use those upgrades.”
Just then, a car came screeching down the street. It drove straight at them! Pressed flat against the container, Hiro and Baymax froze. But they were caught in the headlights.
The car skidded to a stop. When Hiro saw who was driving, he blinked a couple of times and smacked himself in the head. Wasabi was the driver! The rest of the group was jammed in to the car with him.
“Hiro?” Wasabi said.
“No, no, no! Get out of here! Go!” Hiro yelled, knowing they had no idea what danger they were walking into. He couldn’t figure out why they were there in the first place. Then he looked at Baymax and remembered. The big robot had contacted his friends to improve his health.
Wasabi climbed out of the car. “Dude, what are you doing here?” He looked around at the grimy docks.
“Nothing. I’m fine,” Hiro whispered as they all climbed out of the car.
But Wasabi was staring at the robot. “Is that Baymax?”
Hiro moved quickly to his friend and tried to push him back toward the vehicle. “Yeah, but you really—”
Go Go asked, “Uh, why is Baymax wearing carbon-fiber underpants?”
“I also know karate,” Baymax said.
Hiro took a deep breath. “You guys need to go, okay?”
“No,” Honey said. “Don’t...don’t push us away. We’re here for you.”
Baymax nodded. “Those who suffer a loss require support from friends and loved ones. Who would like to share their feelings first?”
Hiro cringed as Fred said, “I’ll go. Okay, my name is Fred, and it has been thirty days since my last—” He stopped, staring up at something above their heads. “Holy mother of Megazon!” he said as the shipping container behind them began to rise.
It was being lifted by microbots!
Then the masked man from the warehouse appeared directly behind the container.
“Am I the only one seeing this?” Fred shouted.
Honey raised her phone and quickly took a photo. The flash blinded the villain for a second. Then, furious, he hurled the shipping container at them.
The friends scrambled out of the way as Baymax jumped up and caught the falling container.
“Go! Baymax, get him!” Hiro cheered. Go Go grabbed Hiro’s arm and pulled him into Wasabi’s car.
“No! What are you doing?” Hiro yelled as they all piled in behind him. “Baymax can handle that guy!”
THUMP! Something had hit the car roof. It was Baymax.
“Oh, no,” Baymax said.
Baymax’s rear end was wedged in the sunroof when Wasabi floored it. The car zoomed away from the pier with the masked man and the microbots right behind it.
Go Go narrowed her eyes. “Hiro. Explanation. Now.”
“He stole my microbots! He started the fire! I don’t know who he is!” Hiro said as a swarm of microbots streamed toward the car.
“Baymax! Palm-heel strike!” Hiro said. Baymax leaned his armored hand out and when the microbots hit it, they scattered in every direction.
The car swerved off course.
“Hard left!” Go Go shouted, and they turned a corner with tires squealing.
Fred suddenly brightened like a bulb. “The mask...the black suit...we are under attack from a super villain, people! A real bad guy—a Yokai! I mean, how cool is that?” he said as the car whipped around a corner and jolted to a stop.
“Why are we stopped?” Go Go asked.
“The light’s red!” Wasabi exclaimed.
Everyone groaned.
“There are no red lights in a car chase!” Go Go screamed.
Wasabi nodded and gunned it. Then he leaned out the window, looked toward Yokai, and yelled, “Why are you trying to kill us?”
Yokai hurled a car at them in response. Terrified, Wasabi clicked on his turn signal and screeched around a corner.
Go Go was furious. “Did you just put your blinker on?”
Wasabi cringed. “You have to indicate your turn! It’s the law!”
Go Go couldn’t take another second. She took out her gum, stuck it on the dashboard, pushed back Wasabi’s seat, and slid onto his lap. She grabbed the wheel and slammed on the gas pedal with her foot. The car hurtled forward.
Hiro moved to take Go Go’s spot in the front seat, yelling, “Stop! Baymax can take this guy!” But the passenger door suddenly swung open, and out tumbled Hiro.
Baymax grabbed Hiro’s hoodie seconds before he hit the pavement. “Seat belts save lives,” Baymax said. “Buckle up every time!”
Go Go looked into the rearview mirror. There was nothing behind them. For a moment, it seemed Yokai and the microbots had given up. Go Go smiled—then saw that she was driving on a ramp formed by millions of microbots!
Before she knew it, the ramp turned into a tunnel that was closing around them. Up ahead, the tunnel’s exit was closing fast!
Wasabi threw his hands over his eyes as Go Go zoomed toward the tunnel’s exit. Hiro braced himself and yelled, “Baymax, hold on!”
“We’re not going to make it!” Wasabi howled. But Go Go steered the car onto the wall of the tunnel, lifted into a one-sided wheelie, and squeezed the car through the tunnel’s narrowing exit.
“Aaaah!” everyone yelled as the car went sailing.
“We made it!” Wasabi cheered. But his relief turned to horror when he saw that the tunnel’s exit was right over the bay. Everyone screamed as the car splashed nose first into the water and started sinking.
Filling with water, the car began to sink. Yokai watched and waited until it disappeared. Then he and the microbots retreated into the darkness.
Inside the car, the friends struggled to escape. They were losing air quickly. But just when things were looking hopeless, a big hand pulled them from their seats. Baymax had removed his body armor and inflated to a larger size than he had ever been before. Wrapping his arms around them, he floated everyone to the surface.
Baymax bobbed onto his back and placed the friends, gasping for air, on his stomach.
“I told you we’d make it!” Honey exclaimed.
“Your injuries require my attention,” Baymax told them. “And your body temperatures are low.”
Hiro agreed. “We should get out of here.”
“I know a place,” Fred said.
They settled themselves on Baymax for the ride to the dock. Go Go saw her gum float to the surface and happily popped it back into her mouth.
Within an hour, Hiro and his friends were standing in front of a large mansion in San Fransokyo’s most exclusive suburb. They looked around, confused. What was Fred up to?
“Where are we?” Honey asked, pushing her wet hair out of her face.
“And where are you going?” Hiro asked with a shiver as Fred went up the front steps.
“Welcome to mi casa,” Fred said finally. “That’s French for ‘front door.’” He pressed the doorbell.
“Listen, nitwit, a lunatic in a mask just tried to kill us. So I’m not in the mood for any—” Go Go said, stopping midsentence as the door was pulled open by a butler!
“Welcome home, Master Frederick,” he said in a British accent.
“Heathcliff, my man!” Fred greeted the butler with a fist bump before turning and addressing everyone else. “Come on in, guys! We’ll be safe here.”
Baymax noticed Fred’s greeting and fist-bumped the butler, too. “Bata-lata-la.”
The friends walked into the vast entryway, stunned. “Freddie,” Honey said, “this is your house?”
“I thought you lived under a bridge,” Go Go
said.
Fred shrugged. “Well, technically, it belongs to my parents. They’re on vacay on the family island.”
He led them into his enormous bedroom. It was a virtual museum of rare comic books, Japanese monsters called Kaiju, and sci-fi action figures. A huge painting of Fred dressed like a barbarian riding a white tiger hung on the wall.
Wasabi stared up at the painting wide-eyed. “If I hadn’t just been attacked by a guy in a Kabuki mask, I think this would be the weirdest thing I’ve seen today.”
The friends settled into comfortable chairs while Baymax tended to their cuts and bruises. Hiro grabbed a notepad and started to sketch. “Your body temperature is still low,” Baymax told him.
Baymax leaned against Hiro’s back and began to glow red. Heat emanated from his body. One by one, the friends were drawn to his warmth. Fred wrapped his arms around Baymax and laid his head on Baymax’s back.
“Ahh. It’s like spooning a warm marshmallow.”
“So nice,” Honey said with a smile.
Hiro’s sketch turned into a picture of a bird, the image he had seen on the metal structure the microbots had been carrying. “Does this symbol mean anything to you guys?” he asked.
“Yes!” Fred said. “It’s a bird!”
Hiro looked at Fred and sighed. “Yokai was carrying something with my microbots. This symbol was on it,” he explained, hoping it was a clue to who might be behind the Kabuki mask. But for now it seemed like a dead end.
“Apprehending the man in the Kabuki mask will improve Hiro’s emotional state,” Baymax said.
“Apprehend him?” Go Go asked. “We don’t even know who he is.”
“I have a theory!” Fred said, and ran to his carefully archived comics collection. He held up a comic book and showed them a masked super villain. “Dr. Sinister?” he asked the group. Fred frowned and turned the page. “Actually, millionaire weapons designer Malcolm Chazzeltick!” Then he held up another comic. “The Annihilator?” Fred asked, and shook his head. He showed one last picture. “Behind the mask, wealthy industrialist Reid Axworthy!”
Big Hero Six Page 4