The EngiNerds Strike Back

by Jarrett Lerner

  “THERE!”

  It’s Mikaela, darting a little ways up the street and then pointing down at the curb.

  The rest of us rush over and take a look.

  And there, perched on the rounded stretch of pavement, is a small pile of leaves and rocks and gum wrappers.

  “Another one!” Mikaela shouts, pointing a little ways farther up the street, to where there’s a second small pile of debris sitting atop the curb.

  I spin around and peer down the street in the other direction. And it takes only a couple seconds for me to pick out a bunch of rocks, a sun-bleached bottle wrapper, and some crunched-up leaves scattered about the pavement.

  And while I’ve got no clue just what in the world Klaus is up to, it’s pretty clear how we can find him.

  44.

  WE FIND KLAUS JUST A few blocks away. John Castle and his cameraperson are nowhere in sight. I’m not sure what spooked them, but I guess they gave up on monitoring the situation for Channel 5 News watchers.

  The bot hears us behind him and pauses in his street cleaning to turn his head and greet us.

  “Greee-tings, NIN-com-poops.”

  He doesn’t wait for us to respond. Just turns around and goes back to de-littering the patch of pavement he’d been working on before we arrived.

  I lean over, hands to knees, and catch my breath. I’ve probably done more running today than I have in the past couple years combined.

  Mikaela recovers quicker than I do, so she asks Edsley the question all of us are no doubt wondering.

  “What is he doing?”

  “Cleaning my room,” Edsley answers. “Or, I mean, that’s what he thinks he’s doing. You really think I’d just reprogram the bot to be an overgrown calculator and repeat whatever stupid sentences I wanted him to?” He chuckles. “Of course not. I reprogrammed him to be an overgrown calculator, repeat whatever stupid sentences I want him to, and do all my chores.”

  Mikaela takes a step closer to the bot. She narrows her eyes. I can tell her thoughts are zipping and zooming about in her brain. I don’t know what it is, but she’s on the verge of figuring something out.

  “Keep talking, Mike…,” she says.

  “Um, sure,” he says. “Okay. Yeah. Talk, talk, talk. I’m talking. I’m talking. I’m still talking.” He turns it into a song. “I’m talking ’cause Mikaela loves the sound of my voice, ’cause it sounds so—”

  I give Edsley a shove.

  “Keep talking about the bot,” I tell him.

  “Oh,” Mike says. “Uhh, well, he can feed my cat and also scoop the poop out of my cat’s litter box and dump it in the trash. And then, once it’s full, he can take out the trash, and then even put a new bag in the trash can, which I hate doing, because the stupid thing was clearly designed by a turd goblin of the highest order and it always pinches my fingers. And he—the bot, not the turd goblin of a trash can designer—was supposed to clean just my room, but I think I messed up that part of the programming a little, so I guess he kind of thinks the whole planet is my room.” He shrugs. “Dan’s design is so good that, as long as you know what you’re doing, you can get one of these bad boys to do pretty much anything at all.”

  Mikaela’s eyes are no longer narrow.

  They’re wide open.

  Unblinking and ticking back and forth like she’s chasing down one particular thought ricocheting around her brain.

  I’m watching her, trying to catch up with her thinking, since I’ve obviously failed to keep up.

  Abruptly, her eyes stop.

  A grin slips onto her lips.

  “Klaus?” she says.

  The bot stiffens.

  Stands up straight.

  Turns to face her.

  “NIN-com-poop?”

  “We’ve got a different kind of mess for you to clean up,” Mikaela says.

  Beside me, Dan—who must have more of a clue than I do what Mikaela’s thinking—takes a shaky breath.

  “A mess?” asks Klaus.

  Mikaela nods.

  “A really, really big one.”

  45.

  “THE WAAAY YOU ARE LOOK-ING AT meee has meee mod-ERR-utt-lee CON-cerned,” Klaus tells Mikaela.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “You’re about to take the trip of a lifetime.”

  “Wait a second,” says Edsley. “Why are we sending Klaus to Disneyland? And can I go with him?”

  “Mike,” I say. “Mikaela’s not saying we should send the bot to Disneyland.” I lean toward Mikaela and, quietly, add, “You’re not, right?”

  “Of course not,” John Henry Knox answers for her. “Mikaela’s proposing we send Klaus to Plerp-5. She’s suggesting that Dan’s creation could, perhaps, convince the planet’s Planetary Leadership that humans aren’t all selfish, careless, destructive idiots.”

  “Oh,” Edsley says.

  And then, a second later:

  “Ooohhhh.”

  And then, another second later:

  “Well, can I go with him there?”

  “Definitely not,” I say, freshly aware of just how much trouble Edsley’s capable of causing on his own planet, and not the least bit interested in learning what he can do on someone else’s.

  “Think about it,” Mikaela says, eyeing Klaus again. “The bot constitutes an impressive feat of design work, construction abilities, and programming skills. If that doesn’t show the Plerpians that we’re not all fools, I don’t know what will. Also, Dan built the bots to respond to a problem, right? Because he cares. Not just about himself, but about humanity as a whole. I mean, I know it’s not a perfect plan. I know it’s not a slam dunk. But we don’t have a lot of time here. If we sit around hoping for an idea like that? It’ll be morning before we know it.”

  We’re all silent, thinking things through.

  Finally, Edsley says, “It is a pretty solid idea. It’s just too bad I kinda manhandled Klaus’s insides when I reprogrammed him.”

  Dan looks concerned.

  “What do you mean, ‘manhandled’?”

  Edsley aims a finger at Klaus.

  “Let’s just say that that guy’s insides look more like a bowl of spaghetti than a motherboard.”

  “Oh-kay,” Mikaela says. “So can’t we just go in there, clean up the wiring, and—”

  “Noooooo,” Edsley interrupts. “No, no, no, no, no. You don’t want to open him back up. That rope there’s the only thing holding his torso together. And the front panel—that’s holding the toilet paper roll in place. And if the toilet paper roll gets knocked out of place, then the toothbrush could hit the wiring and—”

  SPZZT!

  A spark arcs out of Klaus’s neck.

  I leap back, just in time to see the little, white-hot flame land on the pavement where one of my feet had just been. It fizzles out in a fraction of a second, leaving a small black smear on the street.

  SPZZZZT!

  SPZZT-SPZZT-SPZZT!

  SPZZzZZzzZzZzzzzZZZzZZzZZZZZZZZT!

  “Uh-oh,” Edsley says, the sparks now coming out of Klaus’s neck fast and furious, obscuring the bot’s head and creating an on-the-spot, several-weeks-early Independence Day fireworks show. Except, you know, way more dangerous.

  Within seconds, the air is busy with noise and smoke.

  My lungs begin to burn.

  I can’t see a thing.

  But just as suddenly as the sparks started, they stop.

  I peer into the thick cloud of smoke, hoping what I never could’ve imagined I would—that Klaus is okay.

  46.

  WHEN THE SMOKE FINALLY CLEARS, Klaus’s head—it’s gone.

  It’s just… no longer there.

  Not atop the robot’s head.

  Not on the ground.

  Not anywhere.

  It’s like the thing got nailed by a Plerpian zap-cannon.

  But the bot’s still standing.

  Briefly.

  Then, with one last SPZZT! and a handful of sparks, he tips forward and—CLANK!—slams down o
nto the pavement.

  47.

  “MICHAEL!!!”

  That’d be me, shouting at Edsley.

  And Edsley, calmly as a refrigerated cucumber, says, “Yeah?”

  “Do you REALIZE,” I ask him, “that you MIGHT’VE. JUST. DESTROYED. OUR LAST. CHANCE. TO SAVE. THE PLANET?!?!?!”

  Edsley doesn’t have any real reaction.

  He doesn’t look the least bit remorseful.

  Not even slightly worried.

  “Can’t we just use the other robot?” he asks.

  “WHAT other robot?” I demand.

  “The last one Dan made. The one that was never built. The one that you’ve got some of, and Dan’s got some of, and Jerry’s got some of, and John Henry Knox’s got some of.”

  The eighteenth bot, I think as I picture the duct-taped box of parts stashed under my bed.

  “Oh,” I say. “Yeah. I—I guess we could do that.”

  48.

  WE GATHER UP WHAT REMAINS of Klaus and haul him back to my house as quickly as we can.

  I check the sky again, making sure there are still no cumulonimbus clouds sinking down out of it.

  “So are we doing this?” Dan calls out loud enough to be heard over our street-slapping sneakers. “Will it really work?”

  “Now’s not the time to be humble,” I call back to him.

  “I’m not,” says Dan. “But the bots—they didn’t exactly run smoothly.”

  “So they had some minor flaws,” I say.

  “Minor?!” cries Dan.

  “In the grand scheme of things,” I argue. “I mean—”

  “KEN,” Edsley interjects. “I’m pretty sure Dan means the farting! The super-fast farting the robots did!”

  “I know!” I say. “But with all of us—”

  “And maybe also the punching!” Edsley adds. “He might also mean the punching and the kicking and the stomping and the clawing.”

  “With all of us working together—”

  “And the head-butting! Didn’t one of them head-butt someone too?”

  “I think what Kennedy might be trying to say,” says John Henry Knox, “is that, with all of us working together, we may be able to reprogram the last bot in a completely flaw-free way.”

  “Aha!” Edsley says.

  I just shake my head and adjust my grip on the robot parts I’m carrying.

  “But,” says Mikaela, “before we do that, we have to decide what to program the bot to do. It’s got to be really—”

  “TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK!”

  It’s Edsley, charging out ahead of us, hoisting a hunk of Klaus’s torso up over his head like it’s some kind of trophy.

  “He’s not wrong!” Dan calls out to us.

  “Come on, then,” says Mikaela, picking up her pace to keep up with Edsley. “LET’S DO THIS!”

  49.

  WHEN WE’RE STILL ABOUT A block away from my house, Dan calls out, “Ken!”

  I turn to him in time to see him toss me the robot leg that he’s been holding.

  Snatching it out of the air, I ask him, “Going home to get your share of the bot parts?”

  He nods, then veers off in another direction.

  John Henry Knox says, “I will too!”

  Then he chucks the robot arm that he’s been holding toward Edsley. But the throw isn’t exactly a great one—in fact, it’s downright tragic—and even though Mike makes a valiant attempt to catch the thing, it just ends up smacking him in the side of the head.

  “My bad!” cries John Henry Knox as he hurries down a side street.

  I slow my stride and angle my steps so I can scoop up the arm, then call out to Edsley, “You all right?”

  “NO PAIN, NO GAIN!” he shouts back.

  Which doesn’t really apply to this situation.

  But I suppose I appreciate the sentiment behind it.

  With Edsley a few strides in front of us, Mikaela and I follow him the rest of the way to my house. There, I dump what I’ve got of Klaus on the lawn and lead the way up the front steps, across the porch, and inside.

  Right away I grab the phone and dial Jerry’s number.

  Because if we’re really going to get this job done, we’re going to need as many EngiNerds as we can get.

  50.

  THE THREE RINGS IT TAKES for someone to answer the phone at Jerry’s house feel like three eternities.

  But luckily, it’s Jerry who finally does answer.

  “Hello?” he says normally enough.

  And I say something along the lines of:

  “Jerrythere’snotimetosayhellorightnowthisisridiculously-importantandtimeisoftheessencedoyourememberhowwe-neverbuiltyourrobotandwesplititupintofourpilesofpartsand-IkeptoneandsodidDanandJohnHenryKnoxandyouwellwethinkthebotmightbetheanswertosavingthewholeworld-ohyeahIforgottofillyouinonhowthesealienscalledPlerpians-aregonnablowupourplanetsotheycanputupaginormongousbillboardfortheirbeansbutbacktotherobotpartscanyoupleasedropeverythingyouaredoingandbringthemoverto-myhouserightnow?”

  At first, Jerry says nothing.

  And then—pretty reasonably, I suppose—he says, “Uhhh…”

  Mikaela grabs the phone from me.

  “Jerry?” she says. “It’s Mikaela. If we can convince the aliens that human beings aren’t all selfish, stupid, destructive idiots, we’re pretty sure we can save the planet from being permanently terminated. To do that, we’re gonna need you to bring over those robot parts you’ve got under your bed.”

  I can’t hear what Jerry says, but it must be affirmative.

  Because half a second later, Mikaela says, “See you soon,” and hangs up the phone.

  And that’s when a voice that isn’t mine or hers or Edsley’s enters the conversation.

  “Is everything all right in here, kids?”

  We all whirl around and see my dad, standing there in the doorway with his coffee cup in one hand and an empty bowl of cereal in the other. Based on his question and the mostly confused, partly panicked look on his face, I can only assume he’s been standing there since we barreled into the house, too caught up in saving the planet to notice that we weren’t alone.

  Mikaela looks at me.

  I look at her.

  But before either one of us can figure out how to respond, Edsley answers my dad—and answers honestly.

  “Not really,” he says. “But give us a few hours, and it will be.”

  “Probably,” Mikaela hedges.

  “Hopefully,” I say.

  Dad says, “Oh-kay…” Then he gestures across the kitchen with his cereal bowl. “Can I just get to the sink?”

  We step aside.

  My dad crosses the room and drops his dishes in the sink. Then, giving us one last confused glance, he returns to the living room to sit on the couch and continue having a regular old run-of-the-mill day.

  51.

  THANKS TO HIS SKILLS ON his skateboard, Jerry gets to my house before either Dan or John Henry Knox.

  Mikaela, Edsley, and I meet him out on my lawn.

  Right away, Jerry and I get to work opening our boxes of robot parts and laying them out on the grass.

  While we’re at it, Mikaela fills Jerry in on the rest of what he’s missed.

  Edsley jumps in here and there, making sure Jerry gets all the most important details. Like how the Plerpian demolition crew were dressed as normal adult humans—minus pants. Or how since, because he was the one who proved that the bots could be more or less flawlessly reprogrammed, he’s sort of responsible for saving the planet.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I tell Mike. “We haven’t even figured out what we’re going to reprogram the bot to do.”

  A surge of nervousness runs through my body.

  Because even though I really do believe that the EngiNerds, working together, can do anything—including save the planet—that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

  Most likely, it’s going to be very, very far from it.

  52.

  DAN AND JOHN HE
NRY KNOX show up just a couple minutes after Jerry and I’ve finished organizing our robot parts on the lawn. And just a couple minutes after that, we’ve got their parts added to the bunch.

  We step back and look at it all.

  “Okay,” says Dan. “First, we’ve got to figure out what we want the bot to do. Then we can work backward and see if we can tinker with the design and program it to actually do it.”

  “So, what do we want it to do?” I say. “What sort of function would most impress these Plerpians? What would blow them away to the point where they’d say, ‘We can’t zap this awesome species and their wonderful-if-damaged planet into a whole bunch of nothingness. We’ve got to keep them around’?”

  “Oh! Oh!”

  It’s Edsley.

  I prepare myself for the worst—while also, perhaps stupidly, hoping for the best.

  “These aliens love beans, right?” Edsley says.

  “Right…,” says Dan, a hint of hesitation in his voice.

  “But maybe,” Edsley continues, a big grin sliding onto his face, “they don’t all love to cook.”

  I sigh.

  “We’re not going to program the bot to cook beans, Mike,” I say.

  He’s still grinning.

  “Duh,” he says. “We’re gonna program it to cook, bake, roast, sear, stir-fry, and sauté beans.”

  “You can sauté beans?” says Jerry.

  Mikaela clears her throat.

  “Let’s keep it on the list of options, Mike,” she says. “But we should probably come up with some others. Just to make sure we’re choosing the absolute best.”

  We all go back to thinking.

  “Part of what made Dan’s creation so incredible,” John Henry Knox says after a minute, “is that it addressed a problem.”