by M. R. Holman
time she had attempted stand-up comedy. Robot Nessie had still not quite found its comedic voice, and the rudest audience members of the local cryptid comedy club let Robot Nessie know it in true heckler fashion.
Robot Nessie swam on and on beneath the surface of the loch. It filed away its potato chip bag observation in a document folder entitled GOODJOKESATTEMPT5 in its memory banks. As it swam, it searched for the most logical yet humorous location for the observation in its revised stand-up routine. It would have to build on the idea a bit, but Robot Nessie knew that there was something in the potato chip bag observation.
The real Nessie was blissfully unaware of Robot Nessie's electric dreams and mechanized aspirations to become a stand-up comedian. Robot Nessie's artificial intelligence unit had ran computerized simulations of how Nessie may react if she ever discovered that her robot was performing stand-up comedy rather than being an elusive omnipresence in the loch, but always reached inconclusive results. In some, she was ecstatic that the machine of her own design was so brilliant and successful. In others she was angry and was forced to call the Robo-Parts Unlimited customer service line and request a refund for all of Robot Nessie's components.
A target appeared in Robot Nessie's computerized vision. It was a fishing boat several hundred yards in the distance. A command line of bright green text scrolled past its eyes, reading: APPROACH BOAT FROM BENEATH. SWIM AT A SPEED OF FIVE KNOTS. MAINTAIN DEPTH OF FIFTEEN FEET. SINGLE PASS BEFORE DISAPPEARANCE.
The command took precedence over its comedy pondering sequence. It set off at once for the fishing boat. Robot Nessie cut through the water at great speed until it neared the boat. It initiated its forward facing thrusters to slow it down to five knots and checked its depth. It was at fifteen feet below the surface. As it passed beneath the twenty foot long vessel, it detected voices from below.
"Did anyone else see that? I swear I just saw a monstrous shape beneath us in the water! It's moving!" a muffled voice cried out from above.
"Ah, hush up, will ya? I'd be seeing things too if I'd been drinkin' since the sun came up," another muffled voice said.
Robot Nessie filed away this exchange in its memory banks. It automatically sent human encounter updates and transcripts to the real Nessie every three hours via email. As Robot Nessie cleared past the fishing boat, it dived rapidly until it was several hundred feet below the surface - two-hundred and eleven feet, to be exact.
A bright green asterisk appeared in the top left corner of Robot Nessie's vision. It felt the robot equivalent of excitement. It had set up a notification system for whenever its favorite stand-up comedians were performing nearby. The notification read:
MURPHY THE MERMAN. APPEARING IN ELEVEN MINUTES AT THE LOCH NESS LAUGH-IN CLUB. NO COVER CHARGE. TWO DRINKS MINIMUM.
Robot Nessie knew that it could not miss a performance of Murphy the Merman, especially at a comedy club in its very own loch. The problem was that, even with Robot Nessie's incredible swimming speed, Loch Ness was very large and the Loch Ness Laugh-In Club was at the furthest point from where it currently was located.
The great mechanized beast's processors began to spin and whirr with much haste as it monitored the above water and air conditions and scanned the surface for humans. To make it to the comedy club in time, it would have to use its rocket thrusters.
LIGHT FOG. NO WIND. NO HUMAN PRESENCE DETECTED IN SELECTED ROUTE. CLEARED FOR LIFTOFF.
Upon seeing this message, Robot Nessie began to rumble. Bubbles rose from behind its flippers as its thrusters began to spin and hum, growing continuously louder until it began to move forward. It gained great speed as it launched toward the surface of the loch at a forty-five degree angle. When it breached the surface, the gargantuan cryptid robot leveled out its flight path and sped only ten feet above the surface of the water. It had to stay close in case it needed to breach quickly.
A satellite updated map displayed behind its eyes as it flew, showing positions of fishing, leisure, and tour boats throughout the loch. As long as it stayed on course it could fly almost the whole way. It would make it in time.
Robot Nessie neared the sound barrier, but did not break it. It did not want to call attention to itself with the sonic boom that would result. The water rippled violently beneath the soaring dinosaur-like machine, and the fog seemingly ripped in half at its approach.
A bright green arrow pointing downward alerted Robot Nessie when it was time to descend once more. Its rocket thrusters cut off abruptly and it lost altitude. Robot Nessie skipped across the surface of the loch like a rock thrown from a river bank. It skipped and skidded for thousands of feet, however, quite unlike a rock thrown from a river bank. When it had lost an adequate amount of speed, it lowered its long neck beneath the surface and the rest of its body followed, slowing with great rapidity due to the friction of the surrounding water.
A target appeared it in its vision. It was settled on the Loch Ness Laugh-In Club on the floor of the loch. Robot Nessie dove straight down until it had reached the entrance of the building. It got into line behind the other patrons and moved slowly toward the front door.
A sasquatch wearing scuba equipment was the bouncer of the comedy club. He floated idly at the door and checked the other cryptids' I.D.'s as they entered to make sure that they were of age to see the show. Finally, it came to be Robot Nessie's turn to show its I.D.
"I.D.?" the scuba wearing sasquatch bouncer asked with a tone that implied immense boredom.
"I do not possess a photo I.D.," Robot Nessie said in a thick, mechanized Australian Accent.
"Well, if you don't have an I.D. you can't come in!" the sasquatch said as bubbles rose from his scuba mask.
"I am a robot, and thus I do not have an age relative to living beings," Robot Nessie responded.
"Uhhhhh," the sasquatch uttered in confusion.
"What's the hold-up here?" A kelpie had poked its head through the front door. It was the owner of the Loch Ness Laugh-In Club and it knew Robot Nessie personally. Its name was Jean.
"This, uh... whatever this is doesn't have an I.D.," the sasquatch said to its boss, pointing at Robot Nessie.
"That is Robot Nessie, the Robot Loch Ness Monster. It can come in, and remember in the future that it doesn't have an I.D., alright?" Jean the kelpie told the sasquatch calmly but sternly.
The scuba-wearing sasquatch moved aside and Robot Nessie shimmied through the door. It was difficult due to its large frame and metallic components beneath its high-tech pseudo-skin. Robot Nessie and Jean the kelpie had forged something resembling a friendship over the course of Robot Nessie's repeated visits to the Loch Ness Laugh-In Club. Jean let Robot Nessie watch the comedy shows for free, and Robot Nessie wrote and published reviews of the Loch Ness Laugh-In club on their website instantaneously after every show. It was a good relationship.
Jean ushered Robot Nessie to a large vacant depression in front of the stage. The chairs and tables at which the other cryptids and creatures sat were located behind this depression and were raised so that they could see above Robot Nessie's monstrous form.
Soon after Robot Nessie and the rest of the audience had settled in, the first performer took the stage. It was a jackalope comedian who did prop comedy. It was also wearing scuba equipment so that it could perform in the underwater comedy club. Robot Nessie's head swiveled back and forth from the performer to the surrounding crowd, collecting comedic data and information on which jokes were funny and which were not. For some reason much of the crowd appeared angry.
"Psst! Robot Nessie..." Jean was whispering by the robot as the show continued. "Can you stop swiveling your head toward the crowd? It's making some of them uncomfortable, the way you're quantifying their facial expressions and everything.... Just enjoy the show."
Robot Nessie swiveled its head up and down in agreement and locked its eyes on the jackalope as it made some sort of comparison between a bicycle pump and its last romantic relationship. The crowd seemed to have enjoyed it and Robot Nessie lau
ghed mechanically with a hearty series of guffaws. The jackalope finished its set and swam off of the stage.
JACKALOPE PROP-COMEDY MET WITH GREAT ENTHUSIASM. The words appeared in a document in Robot Nessie's artificial mind as it thought them. It was preparing the review that it would file on the Loch Ness Laugh-In Club's website after the show was over. As the next comedian entered the stage area, Robot Nessie caused the document to become transparent so that it could watch.
The comedian that followed the jackalope was a chupacabra that performed from a small submersible. The tiny underwater exploration vehicle hovered before the microphone as they told a series of rambling jokes and stories. There were a few good laughs, but overall it was somewhat unimpressive. Robot Nessie, knowing the power that online reviews had on both the content creator and the potential consumer, decided to give the chupacabra a positive, yet honest review. CHUPACABRA STORY TELLER INSTANTLY REVEALS POTENTIAL AS EXCELLENT COMEDIAN.
After the chupacabra's submersible motored off of the stage, Jean the kelpie, owner of Loch Ness Laugh-In Club, gamboled onto the stage.
"Ladies and gentlemen, sasquatches and sea serpents, unicorns, centaurs, and the rest - I would like to introduce our main act of the evening... Murphy the Merman!"
There was a great deal of slow applause at