Robots Go Wild!

by James Patterson

  Dad is slouching at his drawing table, staring at the blank sheets of paper he is supposed to be filling with a brand-new idea for a graphic novel.

  He isn’t drawing anything. He doesn’t even have the caps off any of his markers. I think we should rename his drawing table his staring table, because that’s all he’s been doing there lately.

  “Come on, Dad,” I say. “You’re Sasha Nee, the award-winning writer and artist behind all sorts of supercool, incredibly popular, impossible-to-put-down manga! Uncap that Sharpie and do something amazing.”

  “You’re right, Sammy!” says Dad, popping the cap off the closest pen. “I should do something. I know—the crossword puzzle!”

  Geoffrey, the butler-bot, comes in flapping a sheet of paper.

  “A municipal official from the city of South Bend just appeared at the door with a bill for E’s damages. Apparently, our chum ‘dented a Studebaker.’ What, pray tell, is a Studebaker?”

  “Something expensive,” I say, taking the bill from the butler.

  Glancing at the list of damages, I see that E also demolished or destroyed three dozen waffle cones and several gallons of Blue Moon and Bubble Gum ice cream at the Bonnie Doon Drive-In. And those are the cheapest charges on the list. Looks like E wiped out my college fund today, too.

  I’m hoping Mom has some kind of robot insurance. Maybe that gecko from GEICO sells it.

  But the saddest room in the whole sad house?

  Maddie’s bedroom.

  Man. She wants to be back in third grade so much.

  So how I can tell her that E is never going to school for her again?

  I can’t.

  I have to do something about this.

  Somebody, probably Penelope Pettigrew, sabotaged E, and I need to prove it.

  Then Mom can keep her job at Notre Dame, Dad will start drawing again, E will be back beside me every morning on his bike, and, most important, Maddie will be doing what she likes more than anything in the world—going to school.

  All I need is a little of that “science is magic that works” action.

  Or regular, old-fashioned, unscientific, hocus-pocus magic.

  I’ll take either one.

  I wish I could say that things are better at school than they are at home.

  They’re not.

  Trip and I are the butts of all sorts of jokes, including ones about what buttheads we are.

  “Hanging out with a juvenile-delinquent robot?” says Jacob Gorski, president of the Creekside Robotics Club. “Dumb move, butthead.”

  He’s brought a brand-new robot to class. It’s called an EV3RSTORM, I guess because a 3 looks cooler than an E.

  Actually, these days, just about anything would look cooler than E, who was still zonked out in Mom’s workshop when I peeked in before biking to school solo.

  Gorski can control his EV3RSTORM with an app on his iPad. The thing has a blasting bazooka, which means it can shoot red balls the size of green peas at my knees. Which it does. Repeatedly.

  Gorski is getting away with this nonsense because Mrs. Kunkel is out sick and we have a substitute teacher. Plus, SS-10K is so huge that when he sits in the front row, the teacher can’t see half of what’s going on in the classroom.

  Trip tries to help me out.

  He raises his hand to get the teacher’s attention. “Um, excuse me, um, Mister I-Forgot-Your-Name?”

  “Yes?” says the teacher, turning around and going up on tippy-toe, staring over SS-10K’s ginormous, helmeted head as he tries to figure out who is talking to him.

  “Well, sir, um…” Trip sort of stammers it out. “There’s this little robot behind the other, bigger robot, and…”

  “Silence,” says SS-10K, rotating his head completely backward like it’s a tank turret so it can lock its eyeballs on Trip. “I am attempting to broadcast today’s lessons to my homebound student.”

  “Is there a problem?” asks the substitute teacher. “Because I can’t see what’s going on. RoboCop is sort of in my way.”

  SS-10K whirls his head back around so that he’s facing forward again. “I am not in your way, Professor. I am fulfilling my mission. I suggest you do the same.”

  “Um, I’m not a professor, I’m actually…”

  “Please return to the educational matter currently displayed on the board behind you.”

  “You should probably do what he says, Mr. Whatever-Your-Name-Is,” suggests Eddie Ingalls, leaning back in his chair smugly. “My dad designed SS-10K to complete his primary objective. No matter what or who tries to stop him.”

  I hear a WHIRR-CHINKA-SHOOK-CLICK. I think SS-10K is activating and loading some kind of internal weapons system. And I have a feeling the big bot shoots something a little scarier than plastic peas.

  “You say these two trains leave their stations at different times?” says SS-10K threateningly. “And one is traveling from Chicago?”

  The sub spins around and jumps back into his math lesson.

  “That’s right. A train leaves Chicago for Indianapolis at nine AM. An hour later…”

  He drones on.

  I take a few more plastic peas to the knee.

  This is SS-10K’s classroom now. The rest of us are just visiting.

  Gym class is even worse.

  SS-10K tells Coach Stringer, the phys ed teacher (and the only person at Creekside Elementary nearly as huge as the IRAT robot), to “step aside.”

  “You are not drilling these recruits properly,” the towering titanium giant says to the gym teacher. “I will take over their PT.”

  “Recruits? PT?” says Coach Stringer, sounding confused. “This isn’t the army. They’re kids. Students.”

  “They are weaklings in need of toughening up, if they are to be of use to us in the coming crusade.”

  “Who exactly are you, again?”

  “That’s SS-10K,” says Eddie Ingalls proudly. “He’s a hero. And he’s famous. Everybody on TV says so. That means you have to do whatever he says. It’s a new rule.”

  “Not in my gym. In here, I set the rules.” Coach Stringer checks his clipboard. Then he props his hands on his hips and, very bravely, jumps right in SS-10K’s face. “You’re Freddy Ingalls’s substitute student, is that correct?”

  “You are correct, muscular humanoid.”

  “Well, phys ed is all about children engaging in physical activity. Since Freddy, the child, isn’t actually here to get physical with us, I see no need for his robot to be here, either.”

  Wow. Somebody’s finally saying no to SS-10K. This is so awesome. For the first time in my life, I looooove gym class!

  But then the bot props his hands on his huge hips, leans down, grinds a few gears, and goes nose-to-nose with Coach Stringer.

  “Please repeat your instructions,” says SS-10K. “I am not certain I correctly understood what you were attempting to communicate.”

  “I said beat it. Go wait out in the hall.”

  SS-10K pivots his head toward Eddie Ingalls. “Edward? Do you agree with this command?”

  Eddie looks at Coach Stringer, who’s still not looking very happy.

  “Yeah,” says Eddie. “For now. Do as Coach Stringer says.”

  “Very well. I shall stand down. But beware, Coach Stringer. You are on my list.”

  Coach Stringer laughs. “What list?”

  “One day, when all is as it should be, when there are more of us, when we have successfully infiltrated…”

  “O-kay,” says Eddie, going over to SS-10K and kind of turning him around. “Out you go, buddy. Wait in the hall. Go study about the Phoenician civilization. Social studies is next, and we want Neddy to be ready.…”

  “I thought your brother’s name was Teddy Freddy?” I say.

  “Neddy is his nickname,” says Eddie. “Go on, 10K. Go wait outside.”

  “As you wish. I am here to serve humans.”

  With special sauce, lettuce, and tomato on a sesame-seed bun.

  Finally, SS-10K ZHURR-CLIC
K-ZHURRS across the gym floor and out the door.

  “Edward?” Coach Stringer says to Eddie Ingalls.

  “Yeah?”

  “Keep your robot out of my gym.”

  Eddie smirks. “I’ll try, sir. I’ll try.”

  And then we all have to run ten laps.

  Smirking is against Coach Stringer’s rules, too.

  After school, Trip and I are at the bike rack unlocking our rides when Jacob Gorski comes over, trailed by six other kids, all cradling toy robots under their arms.

  “Hey, dweebatronics!”

  Yes, you know you are the nerdiest of the nerds when even the Robotics Club president calls you some kind of dweeb name.

  “Are you talking to us?” says Trip, trying to be courageous, just like Coach Stringer.

  “Do you see any other dweebatronics around here?”

  “What’s a dweebatronic?” I ask. “Is that like a dweeb with batteries and a remote control?”

  “Maybe,” says Gorski. “Maybe not.”

  “Well, if it is,” I snap back, “don’t look now, but you guys all have dweebatronics under your arms.”

  All righty-o. I guess that courage thing is contagious.

  Until, of course, SS-10K marches over to join us at the bike rack. I notice that Eddie Ingalls isn’t with him. Guess this is a solo mission.

  “Is there some problem, Jacob?” demands the hulking bot.

  “Yes,” says Gorski. “Sammy Hayes-Rodriguez is getting too big for his britches.”

  “Seriously?” I say. “You call pants britches?”

  “Do not worry, Jacob Gorski. Samuel Hayes-Rodriguez is on my list,” says SS-10K.

  “What’s this list you keep talking about?” I ask.

  “That information is classified.”

  “Um, am I on it?” asks Trip.

  “Not yet, Harry Hunter Hudson, also known as Triple H, also known as Trip, currently residing at 102 East Wayne Street. However, you are on my list of potential list members.”

  “O-kay,” I say, because I’ve sort of heard enough. “We gotta go…”

  “Not so fast,” says Jacob Gorski. He holds out his hand. “Kindly give it back.”

  “Give what back?”

  “E’s Robotics Club membership card. He was the first robot we let join and the first one we’re kicking out.”

  “I don’t have his membership card,” I say.

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know. You gave it to E, not me.”

  “Well, we need it back. Pronto!”

  “Fine. I’ll tell E to check his wallet and his pockets. Two things he doesn’t actually have. Because he’s a robot, Jacob. A robot!”

  SS-10K SHIFF-SHAFF-SCHLOOPS forward. He leans down and goes nose-to-nose with me the way he did with Coach Stringer.

  “If E returns to this institution of elementary education,” the robot warns me, “I will not allow him to interfere with my prime directive.”

  I’m not as big as Coach Stringer. I’m not as brave, either.

  “Fine,” I say, backing away. “Whatever. You don’t like E. I get it.”

  “You’re our hero, SS-10K,” says Jacob Gorski, holding up his EV3RSTORM toy-bot. “My robot wants to be just like you when he grows up.”

  “Commendable ambition,” SS-10K says to Jacob’s toy robot. “I wish you well, small one. Although what your humanoid controller suggests is laughably impossible. You will never be like me.”

  Then he pats the tiny toy on the head like he’s petting a poodle.

  A black SUV pulls into the pickup lane in front of the school. Eddie Ingalls rolls down one of the tinted windows in the back.

  “Oh, hi, Sammy.” Eddie waves at me.

  I politely wave back. “Hey, Eddie.”

  “Your mom has a way-cool office at Notre Dame.”

  “Huh?”

  “My dad texted me some photos he snapped when that rich guy, Max Riley, was giving him the tour.”

  “What tour?”

  “The one they give to professors they’re thinking about hiring to replace other professors they’re firing. Come on, SS-10K, hop in. Dad says there’s a senator who wants to meet you.”

  “Yes. Senator Beauregard. He is vital to our mission,” droned SS-10K.

  Jacob Gorski and the others all sigh in admiration as their robotic hero clumps away, trampling the kindergartners’ organic vegetable garden as he goes.

  “Hey, you guys?” Jacob Gorski says to his fellow robotics geeks. “We should offer E’s old spot in our club to SS-10K.”

  SS-10K practically rips the door of the SUV off its hinges as he climbs into the back of the big black military-looking transport.

  As soon as he’s in, the SUV pulls away and Jacob Gorski screams, “Ow ow OW!”

  The robot he’s holding in his hands is suddenly shooting plastic peas at his face.

  “You could put my eye out! Quit pelting me!”

  He drops the robot to the ground.

  It tumbles and rolls and, somehow, flips itself upright again. It whirrs forward on tank treads.

  “Ah-ha-ha-ha,” laughs a tinny, semi-demonic voice coming out of a tiny speaker located somewhere on the EV3RSTORM. It adjusts its firing-arm angle, reloads, and shoots again. This time, it nails Gorski in the nose and does the same creepy laugh. “Ah-ha-ha-ha.”

  Then it fires more plastic pellets.

  “Stop!” says Gorski, covering his face and kind of dancing in place as he tries to avoid being beaned by more little balls.

  “Object detected,” says the robot. “Object detected.”

  The hand that’s not a peashooter suddenly turns into a spinning fan. Its windmill blades twirl into a blur as it lunges forward to attack Jacob Gorski’s foot.

  Gorski’s buddies run away, freaked out by the little rogue robot. Yep. His robot’s gone wild, too.

  I drop to my knees, sneak up behind the EV3RSTORM, grab hold of the plastic contraption, and finally figure out how to switch it off.

  I also figure out something else: I owe Penelope Pettigrew an apology. Because she didn’t make E go crazy.

  SS-10K did!

  Penelope Pettigrew sent me another mean text,” says Maddie when I burst into her room with my big news.

  “What’s it say?” I ask.

  “‘Having a wonderful time. Wish you weren’t here. Oh, wait. You aren’t. Neither is that annoying E. No wonder I’m having such a wonderful time.’”

  I’m all set to tell Maddie my theory when I notice something very strange: There’s a tear trickling down her cheek.

  Believe it or not, even after all she’s been through, I have never, ever seen my sister cry.

  So now both my eyes are getting all watery, because it looks like Maddie is ready to give up on all her hopes and dreams, something she’s never even come close to doing before.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “She wins,” Maddie says, sniffling back the second tear that was all set to plunk out of her eye. “Tomorrow, tell Penelope not to worry. I won’t be coming back to Ms. Tracey’s class. Ever.”

  “But what if Mom can—”

  “She can’t, Sammy. E can’t be repaired. Mom tried, and she couldn’t do it.”

  “Well, what if—”

  “And I don’t want an SS-10K or even an SS-11K going to school for me.”

  I’ve never seen my sister so upset. It’s almost like she’s throwing a temper tantrum.

  “Why do I need to go to school, anyway?” she says. “Why do I need to know what all the state capitals are? I’m never going to go anywhere or be anything except a sick kid stuck in this room.”

  I’m all set to tell Maddie what I think I found out.

  But then I decide not to.

  Because what if I’m wrong?

  What if I haven’t really discovered the truth?

  What if I’ve just jumped to a conclusion, which is something scientists like my mother always say you should never do. Because when you jump to
conclusions, you sometimes skip over the truth.

  I don’t want to break her heart again if I’m wrong.

  I need proof.

  But to get it, I’m going to need help.

  I put together my A-Team of investigators: Drone Malone on reconnaissance and airborne surveillance; McFetch, our robotic dog, on scent detection and general growling/snarling; Blitzen, the retired linebacker-bot for muscle, to plow over any obstacles in our path; Geoffrey, the butler-bot, for charm and sophistication; Mr. Moppenshine to clean up any evidence that we were ever someplace we weren’t sup-posed to be; and Hayseed, because, well, he says funny stuff and we might be staking out the Ingallses’ house for a long, long time.

  “Here’s my theory, guys,” I say as I pace back and forth in front of my team. “When SS-10K touches another robot, it goes berserk. This afternoon, at school, the big bucket of bolts tapped a toy robot on its head. The next thing you know, BOOM! The toy-bot attacked its owner.”

  “And did this SS-10K chap touch E before he, how shall I put this, went one twist short of a Slinky?” asks Geoffrey.

  “Yes. Both times! The first time, he put a hand on E’s shoulder. The second time, he patted E on the back.”

  “Someone needs to clean that robot’s clock!” grunts Blitzen.

  “But how are we going to prove he did what you think he did?” says Mr. Moppenshine.

  I tap the surveillance photos of the Ingallses’ house already taken by Drone Malone. “We go to the Ingallses’ house. We sniff around.”

  McFetch barks and wags his articulated tail. He likes a good sniff-around.

  “We look for anything and everything we can find to prove that SS-10K sabotaged E.”

  “Sounds like a plan, old bean,” says Geoffrey. “Might I make a suggestion?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “We should send Drone Malone back to the Ingallses’ house, straightaway, and have him hover over it. When he is certain that no one is home, he sends a signal to the rest of us.”