by R. McGeddon
From there, getting to the Town Hall was pretty easy. Oh sure, it looked like CHARLES had become even more powerful. In five minutes, he had eliminated our heroes’ best defense strategy (you know, the one Arty so masterfully demonstrated in the last chapter)—the machines were now running rampant without being plugged in! Sam had to dodge the odd killer kitchen appliance and jump over a particularly unhappy-looking hair dryer, but none of it proved to be too much of a problem.
He reached the bottom steps just as Arty and Emmie opened the Town Hall’s front door.
“About time!” Emmie cried.
“I got a little held up.” Sam laughed.
But before he could bound up the steps, something buzzed at Sam’s head. He ducked, but not before a few stray strands of hair were snipped off by whatever had dive-bombed him. Sam watched his lovely locks float off on the breeze, then turned in time for a little helicopter drone to swoop at him once again.
“Wargh!” he cried, ducking just as its spinning blades tried to hack his face to bits.
Sam straightened up into a swing, bringing his baseball bat swooping upward. It hit the drone with an almighty ker-ack, sending the whirring machine spinning up into the sky and then hurtling down to the ground again. It exploded on the steps right in front of Arty, making him jump in fright, and—if he was honest—wet himself just a tiny bit.
“Quick, get in,” Emmie urged, scanning the skies.
Sam scampered up the last few steps and stumbled through the door. Arty and Emmie hurriedly pushed it closed, and they all slumped down against the wood.
“There’s a lot of weird stuff going on out there,” Sam said, through big shaky breaths.
“Yeah, we noticed,” said Emmie.
“We think CHARLES may have a hand in it,” said Arty.
Emmie shot him a withering look.
“Okay, it’s definitely CHARLES,” Arty admitted. “He’s controlling all the other appliances via Bluetooth, which is very clever, if I do say so myself.”
“Yes, well done, Arty,” said Emmie, patting him on the back more violently than he’d have liked. “Your robot has now got a whole army of electronic equipment trying to clean us out of existence. You must be very proud!”
Arty was quite proud, actually. I mean, yes, CHARLES had turned into a relentless cleaning machine of destruction with no concept of mercy, but he was definitely more impressive than a rotating hat with mirrors on it.
Sam tipped his backpack up, spilling circuit boards, microchips, tools, and other fancy stuff onto the floor. “I brought everything I could find,” he said, passing Arty the rolled-up blueprints.
“The first part of making CHARLES nice again is easy,” said Arty. His lips kept moving and he said a load of science things that went completely over Sam’s and Emmie’s heads. They nodded along like they understood it but secretly had no idea what he was talking about. He may as well have just been saying, “Science stuff, science stuff, science stuff,” over and over again, as far as they were concerned.
By the time they’d finished nodding blankly at him, Arty held up a little gizmo he’d made from circuit boards, microchips, and one of those knobbly bits with the wires at either end.
“Ta-daa!” he said, beaming proudly. “What do you think?”
“What is that?” Emmie asked.
“It’s a downgrader upgrade,” said Arty. “We just upload this into CHARLES; it’ll reconfigure his scrambled programming and return him back to his harmless old self.”
“Sounds easy,” said Emmie.
“It is!” Arty said. “Sort of,” he added. “A bit.” He chewed his lip. “Not really.”
“How come?” asked Sam.
Arty took a deep breath. “Because to make it work, we have to plug this directly into CHARLES’s hardware, which involves getting on his back, unscrewing four screws, removing a security plate, swapping out the old chip, and plugging this one in in its place.”
“Oh,” said Sam, who had been dead optimistic a minute ago but was suddenly feeling quite a bit less so. “Still, it sounds doable.”
“It is,” said Arty. “It absolutely is. Except…”
Emmie groaned. “What now?”
“Except, from the moment we get those screws off, we have only thirty seconds to make the swap.”
“Or it won’t work?” said Sam.
Arty smiled shakily. “Or CHARLES will activate his self-destruct sequence, and everything inside Sitting Duck will be blown to bits!”
CHAPTER TEN
Sam and Emmie were sitting with their backs against the door, quietly contemplating the significance of what Arty had said at the end of that last chapter, when suddenly the door flew open, sending all three children rolling across the floor.
They jumped to their feet (well, Arty sort of clambered slowly) to see Earl Brute in the doorway. The head of security’s face was fixed in an angry grimace, but then, that was pretty much his default look ever since that fateful day several years previously, when the wind had changed just as Brute had made that very face. He’d been stuck with it ever since.
As it happened, though, even if his face hadn’t been stuck in that expression, he’d still be doing that same expression right now anyway, because Earl Brute was furious.
“There’s a great big robot tearing up the town!” he barked. “It’s about time I take charge in the interests of public safety.”
“In the interests of public unsafety, you mean,” said Mr. Saunders, racing down the stairs. It was probably one of the worst comebacks in the history of the world, just behind “I know you are, but what am I?”
Mr. Saunders squared his shoulders and pointed an accusing finger at the head of security. “Earl Brute, step back, you are relieved of your duty!” he said.
Sam raised his eyebrows, surprised to see his usually mild-mannered dad standing up to the much bigger Brute.
“No,” said Brute.
Mr. Saunders blinked. “What?”
“No,” repeated Brute, stepping in close and looming over poor Mr. Saunders. His mustache twitched. “This town is now under our control.”
Mr. Saunders swallowed. “Um … what? You mean you and me?”
“No. I mean me and them,” said Brute, jabbing a thumb toward the door just as four of his minions came strutting in like they owned the place. They all had mean-looking laser blasters to go with their mean-looking faces, and all Mr. Saunders’s bravery seemed to evaporate the moment he set eyes on them.
“Right. Gotcha!” he said, sweating heavily. “Good luck with it all, in that case!”
“I don’t need luck,” Brute growled. “My team and I are going to blast that hunk of junk into tiny bits and keep this town safe.”
Arty raised a hand. “No, you don’t have to—”
“Then blast those tiny bits into even tinier bits.”
“Yes, but—”
“Then take those even tinier bits, and mash them up into a fine dust.”
Arty opened his mouth to speak, realized it was pointless, and closed it again. Brute had made up his mind. He was going to destroy CHARLES, and there was nothing Arty could do to convince him otherwise.
Suddenly, the windows of the Town Hall dimmed, as if the morning sun had dropped behind a curtain of black cloud.
“That’s strange,” Sam muttered. “There wasn’t a cloud in the sky a minute ago.”
The floor trembled beneath their feet. Arty glanced down, then up at the darkened window. “I d-don’t think that’s a cloud,” he whispered.
“ATTENTION, HUMAN OCCUPANTS OF THE TOWN HALL,” boomed a voice, so loud it made the windows rattle and the lamp shades shake. “COME OUT NOW, OR I WILL DESTROY THE BUILDING.”
“I bet that’s the robot,” said Brute, who had a real knack of stating the obvious. Rolling up his sleeves, he marched toward the door. “Come watch me blast this thing into next week!”
Surrounded by the armed men, Sam and the others headed outside. Brute stood on the steps, his mout
h open, his eyes wide, and his head tilted back as he looked up at the gigantic clutter of metal that towered above him.
CHARLES’s head and face were the same as ever, but his body had grown to almost twice its height and width, and he had armored himself with fancy metal.
Arty dabbed at his eyes and sniffed. “They grow up so fast.”
“What should we do, sir?” asked one of the armed men. Earl Brute didn’t respond, though. He just stood there, his eyes bulging, his mouth still hanging open, almost like he’d never seen a freaking-enormous killer robot before.
Arty saw his chance. He stepped in front of Brute and flashed CHARLES a warm smile. “Hey, pal!” he said. “It’s me—Arty!”
The expression lit up on CHARLES’s face didn’t flicker.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you recognize me?” Arty said. “Remember all those good times we had? Going to the science fair … and, you know, we probably did some other stuff, too.”
“Recognize,” chimed CHARLES.
“Yes!” Arty cheered.
“Recognize contamination,” CHARLES continued. “Contamination must be destroyed.”
“No!” Arty wailed.
Sam and Emmie caught Arty by the arms and guided him back a few paces. Behind CHARLES, dozens of photocopiers, washing machines, coffee machines, and bread makers all hopped, wobbled, teetered, and bounced up the steps, all controlled by his electrical wizardry. In moments, the entrance to the Town Hall was completely surrounded.
“Sir?” said one of the soldiers, his finger tightening on the trigger of his laser blaster. “What should we do?”
“Um…” said Earl Brute, which wasn’t particularly helpful for anyone. “Um … Um…”
“Blast it?” asked the minion.
Brute nodded frantically. “Y-yes. Blast it.”
The soldiers pointed their blasters at CHARLES. They squeezed the triggers. Laser fire erupted from the barrels, then bounced harmlessly off him.
“Didn’t work, sir,” said the soldier. “Any other ideas?”
Brute shook his head. “N-not really,” he admitted.
Just then, Mr. Saunders stepped forward, taking charge. “Concentrate your fire on that area,” he said, pointing to what looked like a weak spot near CHARLES’s neck. “Don’t stop shooting until—”
Suddenly four long power cords wrapped around the soldiers’ legs, yanking them off the ground and flicking them through the air. They screamed as they flailed across the sky, and then went zzzap when they hit the electrified dome, exploding in a shower of blue sparks.
Mr. Saunders cleared his throat. He smiled vaguely at CHARLES. “Just kidding,” he squeaked, then darted back into the Town Hall, raced through to his office, and took cover beneath his desk.
Back outside, Sam, Arty, and Emmie were desperately searching for a way to escape. Brute, on the other hand, was still just staring blankly up at the enormous robot. His hard-man act had collapsed, and now he looked on the brink of bursting into tears. Even his mustache had stopped bristling and was now sagging like an old dog on a hot day.
“Well, go on, then, Brute!” Sam urged. “Do something.”
“C-can’t,” Brute whispered. It looked like he was completely immobilized by fear and his limbs were refusing to function.
Actually, that turned out not to be true. When CHARLES reshaped his arms into an enormous dustpan and brush and made a move to sweep Brute up, the head of security erupted into a chorus of high-pitched screams, vaulted over an approaching fridge-freezer, and then raced into the distance, his arms flailing madly in the air.
“Wow,” muttered Arty as he, Sam, and Emmie watched Brute go. “They don’t make overprotective tyrants like they used to, do they?”
* * *
Charles Character Profile (Upgraded Version)
• Massive.
• Like, really massive.
• Seriously, look at him. He’s huge.
• Laser eyes that could burn your face off.
• Insanely advanced artificial intelligent chip, getting smarter by the second.
• Upgraded LED face, able to show up to four emotions at once.
• Shape-shifting metal components let him take any form, as long as it’s a massive robot.
• Hammer attachment, for hammering.
• Detachable right leg to use as a golf club, perfect for unwinding after a hard day’s laser blasting.
* * *
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Earl Brute was gone. His minions? Also gone. Sam, Arty, and Emmie? Right there, and ready to fight for Sitting Duck like the awesome heroes they are.
A fax machine—which didn’t realize quite how awesome the friends were—decided to try roughing them up. It lunged at them, swinging its paper tray (which was quite dusty, because it hadn’t been used since the olden days).
Quick as a flash, Sam leaped back, spun around with his bat, and slammed it into the side of the machine, which exploded into a shower of flimsy plastic and—strangely—jelly beans.
Sam hoped that display of butt-kickery would put the other machines off, but all around the semicircle of out-of-control tech, motors revved, components whirred, and bleepy things went bleep.
“It’s no use,” said Emmie. “There are too many of them, and we’ve only got one bat.”
Sam punched his fist into his palm. “If only there was a way of destroying them more easily.”
Arty raised a finger. “Um…”
“You’re right,” said Emmie. “Some means of blasting them to bits while we stayed relatively safe in, like, a room or somewhere.”
“Um…”
“In like some sort of control room,” said Sam. “Where we could remotely operate some sort of, I don’t know, let’s just for the sake of argument say laser-based weaponry.”
“Um…”
Emmie rounded on Arty. “Why do you keep saying ‘Um’?”
Arty’s eyes flicked to an upstairs window of the Town Hall. Sam and Emmie both followed his gaze, and then slapped themselves on the forehead at exactly the same time.
“Arty, you’re a genius!” Sam cried as they turned back toward the door.
“Well, yes,” Arty agreed. “But I don’t think I really needed to be the one to figure that out.”
Slamming and locking the door behind them, Sam, Arty, and Emmie tore up the stairs and barged into the control room. The console operators had all barricaded themselves into the little room at the back, leaving the controls free for Sam, Emmie, and Arty.
“It’s really easy,” said Emmie, who—because she’d fired one laser blaster that one time, suddenly considered herself an expert on the subject. Which was fair enough, actually, because she had managed to hit a moving target on her first try, which was more than any of the actual operators had ever done, so good on her, I say. “You just aim with the joystick, press the button, and BOOM!”
They all plonked themselves onto different seats and turned their lasers to point at the electronic army outside. “Don’t destroy CHARLES,” Arty urged. “I can still fix him.”
“Go for his friends, then,” said Sam, positioning his crosshairs over a particularly aggressive-looking microwave. He pushed the button, and there was a powerful blast of absolutely nothing whatsoever.
Sam pressed again. “Huh? Nothing’s happening,” he said.
“Same here,” said Emmie, and then she yelped as the joystick moved suddenly on its own. On-screen, she saw her laser blaster open fire on Sam’s, which promptly exploded with a bang.
“You shot my blaster!” Sam protested.
“It wasn’t me,” said Emmie. “It did it itself.”
“No, it didn’t,” said Arty. He was wrestling with the controls of his own blaster, but he wasn’t strong enough to stop it swiveling and blowing Emmie’s to bits. “It’s CHARLES. He’s taken control of the zombie-defense lasers.”
“Oh, well, that’s just great!” Sam groaned. “How are we
supposed to destroy his army now?”
“We have to think of something low-tech,” said Arty.
“Pudding!” suggested Emmie.
“Not that low tech,” said Arty.
“I’ve still got my baseball bat,” said Sam. For the first time ever, he was pleased his mom and dad had refused to pay for the extra-deluxe bat he’d pestered them for, with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth dongles. That would’ve been disastrous, given the current predicament.
“That won’t get us very far,” said Emmie. “Some of that stuff looks pretty unsmashable.”
Arty stood up and began to pace the room, deep in thought. “It doesn’t have to be a weapon. We just need a way to distract CHARLES long enough for me to—”
If Arty finished the sentence, no one heard it. They were too busy screaming in panic as the control room window and a big piece of the wall exploded. Sam, Arty, and Emmie stumbled back just as an enormous robotic hand reached through the hole.
“Back off, CHARLES!” Sam yelped, thwacking one of the metal fingers with his bat. CHARLES didn’t seem too upset about it, though, and kept reaching for them anyway.
The three friends tripped and staggered out of the room, then tumbled clumsily down the stairs. They lay in a heap at the bottom, panting and wheezing, their hearts jackhammering like jackhammers in their chests.
“I’ve got it!” cried Arty.
“If by ‘it’ you mean ‘mild concussion,’ I think I’ve got it, too,” muttered Emmie, rubbing the back of her head.
“No,” Arty cried. “I mean I know how we can stop CHARLES.”
“How?” asked Sam.
Arty held up the little gizmo he’d made. “With this!”
Emmie and Sam exchanged a worried glance. “Yeah, he’s definitely hit his head,” said Sam.