-4-
Mr.
Gary Jackson looked them over carefully.
“You’re not servants.” Another
pause as it calculated out the next most logical possibility. “You’re students.”
"Very
good, Sir Robot” said Morgan, giving a slight curtsy for some unknown reason. “Yes,
we’re here to see Andrea. I’m sure she
is expecting us. Well. I’m sure she’ll
be happy to see us. Anyhoo, let us
in. It’ll be all right, I swears!”
Mr.
Gary Jackson looked down at the two waiting just outside the door. It was at least six and a half feet tall, with
black skin, no blemishes, birthmarks, or variations in shade. It appeared to be three hundred pounds or more,
but as Phillip found out, it was closer to four hundred, considering the weight
of his inner workings. “Andrea is not receiving guests. You must leave.”
With
a robot, you had to do the unexpected, before they could react. That’s what Morgan reasoned, and who was
better at the unexpected than she. She pointed to out past the garden. “Oh,
look! A baby deer!”
Mr.
Gary Jackson looked out where she had pointed, trying to see what was
there. Morgan tapped Phillip quickly and
nodded that she was going to slip past the huge robot. She took advantage of her diversion, and
slipped past him into the foyer of the castle, but Phillip had stayed where he
was, confused.
Mr.
Gary Jackson picked up Phillip and held him where he could study Phillip’s
face. Morgan punched the robot in the
upper arm, to no avail. She might as
well have been a gnat. "Let him go,
ya big galumph!”, shouted Morgan, as she uselessly assailed it.
Something
clicked in its mechanical brain. “I know
you. Andrea has mentioned you. She has a picture of you. You are him.
You are Philly, Philly of Westland Village.” Mr. Gary Jackson gently set him down. “You
will survive, but you must leave. She is
not ready for you yet.”
It
moved its arm, the one Morgan had been wailing on, and tossed her against the foyer
wall, with the same minimal effort given to flicking off a flea, "You, I
don’t know. Your existence is not
required.”
Morgan
got up, defiantly. "No one pushes
me around! It’s not my existence you need to worry about, you hunka junk!” She
ran quickly up to it and swiftly kicked it as hard as she could, right in its
nether region.
This
only resulted in incredible pain to her foot.
It looked at her, puzzled. If it
had a sense of humor programmed in to it, it would laugh.
"God,
I hate robots!” Morgan cried out. And
one like this shouldn’t even exist. Yes,
Gregor Robotics was a leader in their construction, but the world thought that
meant industrial robots, designed to pick up and install car parts, or replace
humans on assembly lines, doing the most routine and rote of tasks. But this one, a robot like this – it should
be decades off, maybe even centuries.
Nevertheless, there it was. And
who were Morgan and Phillip to question it?
After ten years in a trap filled with fantastical happenings, anything
was possible.
Mr.
Gary Jackson picked her up by the neck. "Leave, Phillip of Westland
Village. You may not want to see this.”
Morgan
grabbed it by the shoulders, as she felt the robot begin to tighten its hands
around her neck. "Phillip! Help!” she gasped.
The
robot pulled her closer. And her hands
slid down its shoulder blades. “The button!”
cried out Phillip. He raced to help but
the robot kicked him with the back of its foot, leaving Phillip sprawled on the
floor.
Morgan,
choking, on the verge of blacking out, knowing that if she did that it would be
the end, reached to the end of the shoulder blade and found the button,
recessed just under its skin. She pushed it in.
Mr.
Gary Jackson froze. The robot’s hands
eased some on her throat, but not enough to let her go. It moved her enough that her hand slipped off
the button and she could no longer reach it. She continued to hang on to its
shoulders. If she let go, she would be
quickly strangled. “Now what? “she rasped.
“Quick! The code word! You only have fifteen seconds before it
starts back up again.” He tried to get up, but the whole world was spinning,
and he was barely maintaining consciousness.
"Code
word? What’s the code word?” Morgan
pleaded. But Phillip was starting to
pass out. “Phillip! The code word! What is it?” She screamed as loud as she
could.
He
focused through the haze. “Indiana,” he
said, dreamlike, as if he himself longed to go there.
Ok,
great! You just said it!”
"No.
You need to say it. You pressed the….” And
Phillip was under.
"INDIANA!”
she shouted. It let her go, and she clattered to the ground. It teetered, and started to fall. She quickly rolled way, avoiding being squashed
by inches.
She
came over to Phillip and shook him. “Snap out of it! We gotta go!”
Phillip
moaned, but did not wake up. She slapped
him hard. Morgan did not do half
measures. “Wake up, Philly!”
He
half opened his eyes. “Andrea? Is that you?” He focused and saw who it
was. “Oh, God, it’s you.”
“Yeah? Well. I’m thrilled to peaches to see you,
too.” She pulled him up. The weight she
put on right foot hurt like heck fires.
She sprained it good in her stupid move to groin-kick a robot.
"Don’t
ever call me Philly again. Only she can
call me Philly.”
“The
robot called you Philly!”
“The
robot doesn’t count.”
They
made quite a pair. Phillip could barely
stand, and Morgan could barely walk. “How long will it be out?”
"I’m
not sure. I think until someone reboots
it.”
"Re
whats?”
“Reboots. I don’t know.
It’s something she said. I wasn’t
always sure what she was talking about.”
They
put their arms around each other and started to move forward. "Yeah, well,
we can figure out stuff like that another time.
Right now, let’s go get Rapunzel.”
And
they went off into the castle, resuming their quest to find the strange girl
with the long red hair.
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