by R. L. Stine
“Livvy—why did you put her back together again?” Mom demanded.
“You went down to the basement again?” Dad said. “Haven’t you learned your lesson?”
“I—I didn’t,” I managed to choke out. “I … opened my door and—”
“This is not acceptable,” Dad said angrily. He stepped up to Francine, his eyes running up and down the robot, a frown on his face. “We have to have some rules, Livvy.”
“Rules?” I cried. “Why are you talking about rules, Dad? You told me you took Francine apart. Remember? So how is she standing here?”
“She’s standing here because you put her back together and brought her upstairs,” Mom said.
“I did NOT!” I screamed. “You lied to me! Both of you. You said you dismantled the robot to study her.”
“We did take her apart,” Dad said. “We didn’t lie.”
“Piece by piece,” Mom said.
She looked uncomfortable. Awkward. They both did. Like they weren’t telling the truth. Or they were hiding something important.
I studied them both for a long moment. Mom had her arms crossed tightly in front of her nightshirt. Her hair had fallen over her forehead again, but she made no attempt to brush it back.
Dad had his fists clenched tensely at his sides.
Why won’t they tell me the truth?
I turned my gaze to Francine. The glass eyes gazed blankly at the wall. The hum that I’d heard before she started to talk had faded to silence.
Before she started to talk?
Yes. Francine had talked. She had repeated the same words: “Listen to me.”
Was she trying to tell me something? If my parents hadn’t come bursting out of their bedroom, would I have learned some of the things I was dying to know?
Too late now. Dad had Francine under one arm and was carrying her down the stairs. I knew he was returning her to the basement. The Forbidden Zone.
But I no longer cared about what was forbidden. I had to know the truth.
And that meant I had to go down to their precious lab and talk to Francine—and find out what the robot was so eager to tell me.
My chance came after school the next afternoon. No one was home. The house was empty. It was my time to learn some answers.
I made Gates come with me. He didn’t really want to go back down to my parents’ lab. The whole robot thing was freaking him out.
“I can’t sleep at night,” he told me as we walked to my house after school. “I’m having very real dreams, just like you. Terrible nightmares. I just want to forget about Francine, forget about what we saw down in your basement.”
“But don’t you want to know the truth?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “Not if the truth is too scary,” he said.
So, okay. We were both scared. And we were both totally confused.
How had Francine put herself back together? How did she make her way up the stairs to my room? Why did Francine keep saying, “Listen to me”?
“I seriously think she was trying to warn me about something,” I told Gates. We started up my driveway.
“That’s crazy,” he said.
“What isn’t crazy?” I demanded. “Ever since we built Francine, our lives have been crazy.”
“So let’s leave her in the basement,” he murmured. “Let’s pretend the whole thing never happened.”
“I’m ignoring that,” I said, opening the kitchen door. “I can’t believe you would be such a coward.”
“Coward? Me?” The word seemed to shock him.
The breakfast dishes were still on the table. The frying pan on the stove still had lumps of scrambled egg stuck to it.
“Where is Mrs. B?” I wondered. “She always cleans up right after breakfast.”
“Do you have any Pop-Tarts?” Gates asked. “I’m kind of hungry. Don’t your parents keep Pop-Tarts in the cabinet?”
“Forget the Pop-Tarts,” I said, tossing my backpack onto the floor. “Come on, Gates. We have to get down to the basement before they get back. Sometimes they come home early.”
“Can we have Pop-Tarts when we’re finished down there?”
Gates was acting weird. I could tell he was frightened. That’s why he was stalling. I don’t even think he liked Pop-Tarts that much.
“Follow me,” I whispered. “Let’s check out their lab.”
“Why are you whispering if no one is home?” Gates asked.
I shrugged. “Sorry. I guess maybe I’m a little scared, too.”
I crossed to the basement stairway and pulled open the door. I clicked on the light and peered down the stairs. Warm in here. And silent. I could suddenly hear the blood pulsing at my temples.
“You go first,” Gates said.
He didn’t need to say it. I was already heading down, the wooden steps creaking under my shoes.
I was halfway to the basement when I realized the lights were on. A white glare poured into the stairwell.
I stopped.
“Do your parents always leave the lights on when they’re away?” Gates asked in a soft, quiet voice.
“I don’t know. I’m never allowed down here, remember?”
My heart was pounding hard now. My legs felt kind of rubbery. I took a deep breath. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s just do this.”
I forced myself to take the rest of the stairs. I stepped onto the basement floor. And gazed through the glass walls into the brightly lit lab.
“Ohhhhhh.” A moan escaped my throat.
I saw my dad first. Once again, he sat in the straight-backed chair with his back to us. But his head … his head … his head …
His head wasn’t on his shoulders. Tangles of green and yellow wires hung out of a hole between his shoulders. And his head was on a table across the room.
Gates stumbled into my back, and we both almost toppled over.
Mom was in the lab, too. She didn’t see us. We watched her plug a thick white cable into Dad’s back.
Then she reached a hand to the back of her neck, and opened a square flap of skin. She plugged the other end of the cable into her neck.
“Oh, wow,” Gates murmured behind me. “Oh, wow. Oh, wow.” He tugged my hand. “Let’s go.”
He started to the steps, but I tugged him back. “We can’t go,” I whispered. “I … I have to see what they’re doing.”
And that’s when Mom turned and saw us.
Her eyes went wide and her hands flew up in the air in surprise. When she got over her shock, she waved us into the lab.
I pulled open the glass door and took a step inside. Gates stayed in the doorway.
I saw Francine in the far corner, against the wall. When I entered, she said, “Listen to me … Listen to me …” in her metallic robot voice.
“Mom—” I started. “I … don’t understand.”
“You—you shouldn’t be here,” Mom stammered.
I stared at Dad’s head, resting at an angle on the table across from us.
“TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON!” I screamed.
“Go away,” Mom said. “Just go away.”
“TELL ME!” I insisted, waving my fists in the air. “TELL ME THE TRUTH!”
“You’re … both robots?” Gates stammered.
“Listen to me,” Francine uttered from the corner. “Listen to me …”
Mom stared at me blankly.
“You’re not my parents,” I said, my voice trembling. “Where are my parents?”
“No more questions!” a voice shouted. And Mrs. Bernard came striding in from the back room. Her round face was twisted in anger. Her cheeks were bright red.
“What are you doing down here?” I blurted out.
“Why did you come down here?” Mrs. B demanded, spitting the words angrily. “It’s too soon. Too soon for you to know the truth. My bots need more time!”
My head began to spin. Nothing made sense. Mrs. B in the lab? Talking about her bots? I suddenly felt as if the world had fallen away from benea
th my feet. And I was floating … floating in a distant dream world.
Mrs. B stood there, glaring at Gates and me, tapping one foot on the floor.
I finally found my voice. “Your bots?” I cried. “This doesn’t make any sense! What are you talking about?”
“You are ruining my experiment,” she said. “These parent bots have been functioning perfectly. And now you’ve ruined everything.”
“Parent bots? Your experiment?” I cried. “I thought you were a housekeeper. What are you really?”
“This is my artificial intelligence experiment,” Mrs. B said. She crossed her arms in front of her and kept glaring and scowling at us as she talked. “I’ve spent my whole life programming bots like your Mom and Dad bots. My entire life!”
“You’re … you’re a scientist?” Gates asked. I could see that he was as shocked and confused as I was.
“My whole life programming bots,” she continued. “My whole life working on powerful memory modules. Look what I’ve done.” She motioned to the Mom and Dad bots.
“I have given them free will,” Mrs. B said. “They think on their own. They act and move on their own. They have their own thoughts. How brilliant is that? How brilliant am I?”
“But—but—” I sputtered. “If these are your bots … where are my real parents?”
She ignored my question. “Do you realize what I can do?” she said, her voice trembling with excitement. “Do you see what I did here? I made bots that could take the place of humans. Take the place of humans in every way!”
Her voice rose higher and higher as her excitement grew. “I made new parents for you. You had no idea they were my bots. That’s because I programmed them perfectly and built them perfectly. Admit it! You had no idea.”
She is crazy! I realized.
I gaped at her with my mouth hanging open. I didn’t know what to say. And then, I had a flash. And I realized something else I hadn’t figured out.
“Francine!” I cried. “You programmed Francine—didn’t you? You are the one who programmed her to do all those terrible things. It wasn’t Chaz. It was you.”
“Of course it was me,” she answered. A grin spread over her face.
“Every time we brought Francine down here for my parents to study her, you programmed her to do something terrible.”
Mrs. B nodded. Her grin grew wider.
“But—why?” Gates demanded. “Why?”
Mrs. B’s eyes flashed. “For fun,” she said. “And … because I could. I could make her do anything. And so … Why not have a little fun with you and your simple little bot?”
“But where are my real parents?” I cried. “Tell me. Answer me. Where are they?”
Mrs. B jutted out her chin. She narrowed her eyes at Gates and me. “Enough,” she said through gritted teeth. “Enough.”
“Answer my question!” I shouted.
“You know too much,” she said, lowering her voice. “You’ve both seen too much. You know things you shouldn’t.”
“But—” I started.
“So sorry you came down here. I was starting to like you. But now I have no choice. Now you must be destroyed.”
Destroy us?
Does that mean Gates and I are robots, too?
I squeezed my arm hard. My skin was real, and the pain rode up to my shoulder. I raised a hand to my throat and felt my pulse beating.
No. We’re real. We’re people.
Mrs. B turned to the two parent bots. “Grab them. Don’t let them get away. We must destroy them.”
The headless Dad bot jumped to his feet. The Mom bot unplugged herself from the white cable and spun to us.
I froze for a moment, my fear keeping me in place. But then I lowered my head and forced my legs to move and started toward the basement steps. GOT to get OUT of here!
I was nearly to the stairs when I heard Gates shout.
I twirled around—and saw that the headless Dad bot had grabbed one of his legs with both hands. Screaming, Gates struggled and squirmed. He tried to kick himself free but tumbled facedown to the floor.
I raised my eyes and saw the Mom bot coming after me.
No time to think. I knew I needed a weapon. I saw a long metal toolbox on the floor against the wall. I dove for it, grabbed it up in both hands—and slammed it into the headless Dad bot’s belly.
The Dad bot bent over—and froze in place.
I pulled Gates to his feet and tugged him to the stairs. We scrambled up the steps with Mrs. B screaming behind us. “Stop them! Stop them! They’ve seen too much! Destroy them!”
Gasping for breath, I burst out the kitchen door. I could hear Gates close behind me. We ran across the backyard and ducked around the tall hedges that formed a wall along the side.
“What are we going to do?” Gates asked breathlessly, his chest heaving up and down. Big drops of sweat ran down his forehead. “They want to kill us.”
“I … don’t know,” I confessed. “Where can we go? Who will help us?”
I jumped as the back door slammed behind the two bots and they came running fast toward the hedge. How did they know we were here?
Gates and I spun away and took off, running across the neighbor’s backyard. We ducked around a round rubber kiddie pool and leaped over a fallen tricycle. And kept running.
At the end of the block, we darted around the side of a shingled garage, pressed our backs against the wall, and struggled to breathe.
My side ached from running. My temples throbbed.
I reached into my jeans pocket and fumbled for my phone. I pulled it out, my hand shaking.
“What are you doing?” Gates asked.
“Calling 911,” I told him, my voice hoarse, my throat painfully dry. “We need the police. They’re the only ones who can help us.”
“But they won’t believe us,” Gates said.
“They’ve got to,” I replied.
“What are you going to say?” Gates demanded. “That your parents were replaced by bots and the bots want to kill you?”
“Exactly,” I said.
Gates shuddered. “Good luck with that.”
“They’ve got to believe me,” I said, crossing my fingers. “They’ve got to.”
I raised the phone and punched in 911.
“Emergency Services,” the woman on the other end said. “Is this an emergency?”
“Y-yes,” I stammered. “My name is Livvy Jones. I live at 248 Little Street. My friend and I—we need help. You see, my parents … my parents have been replaced by bots. And they’re trying to kill us.”
Silence at the other end. My hand was shaking so hard, I nearly dropped the phone.
The woman finally spoke up. “Did you know it’s a crime to play a joke on the 911 emergency line? You could get in a lot of trouble.”
“I’m already in a lot of trouble,” I told her. “I didn’t expect you to believe me. But they really are trying to kill my friend and me. It’s not a joke. Please … please believe me.”
Silence again.
“You sound very frightened,” she said finally. “Are you an actress? Are you pulling a prank?”
“Please believe me. We really are in terrible danger.”
“Okay. I’m sending a patrol car.”
I let out a long whoosh of air. “Oh. Thank you. Thank you. You’ll see. I’m telling the truth.”
“Miss Jones,” she said, “do you want to stay on the line until the officer arrives?”
I glanced around the side of the garage. No sign of the parents bots. “Uh … I think we’re okay,” I said. “We’re hiding on the corner. We’ll see the patrol car when it arrives.”
And a minute later, I saw a black-and-white patrol car slow down as it made its way onto our block. No siren, but the blue and red lights on the roof of the car were flashing.
Gates and I left our hiding place and went running after the car, waving our hands over our heads and shouting.
A young officer in a black police uniform climb
ed out from behind the wheel. He had wavy blond hair falling out of his uniform cap and a blond mustache. He narrowed dark green eyes at us.
“I’m Sergeant Miller. Tell me the story again,” he said. “I was on the next block, so I was able to come fast and—”
“They want to kill us!” Gates cried. “Livvy’s parents. Only they’re not her parents. They’re robots. Robots with special intelligence.”
He shut his eyes. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“It’s real,” I insisted. “It sounds crazy, but it’s really happening. Mrs. Bernard is our housekeeper, only she isn’t. She’s some kind of computer scientist, and she built these bots that look like my parents. Only they want to kill us.”
“Bots, huh?” Miller said, frowning. “You mean like in a sci-fi movie?”
“Only real,” I said. “And dangerous. Gates and I—we really are in danger.”
Miller adjusted the cap on his blond head. “Okay. Let’s see,” he said. “Which is your house?”
I pointed. Then I started to lead the way, but he held me back.
“Let me go first,” he said. “You two stay behind me.”
We followed him up our driveway. Sunlight covered the front window. I couldn’t see inside.
We stepped onto the front stoop. Officer Miller raised his hand to knock on the front door. But the door was partly open.
“Hello?” he called.
He pushed the door open the rest of the way.
Gates and I followed him into the front entryway.
My legs began to tremble. My stomach tightened. I felt sick.
I peered into the living room—and let out a cry of shock.
The Dad bot sat on the living room couch, his feet up on the coffee table. He was smoking a pipe and had a magazine in his hands.
The Mom bot wore an apron over her jeans and top. She was at the stove, lowering a tray of cookies into the oven. Our kitchen and living room are one big room.
She turned when the three of us burst through the door and put on a sweet smile. “Oh. There you are,” she said. “Did you come back to apologize?”
I made a choking sound. “Huh? Apologize?”