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WaTch Out:
Robot Spoken Here
The Robots of WrathCircuit sat down slowly in the crowded garage with the other robots. He was tired of being programmed by Mr. and Mrs. Wired and their two middle school children, Sparky and "Cap". Cap was just the fifth grade boy's nickname; his full name was Capacitor. Circuit schemed in secrecy with the other household robots. Tomorrow, after years of ordering the automatons, Mr. and Mrs. Wired would feel the wrath of the robots.
Cap Wired woke up slowly the next morning. He looked at his hyper-digital clock, but for some reason, it was out of power. Cap then checked the obsolete manual clock on his bureau. He squinted as he read the small hands on the clock face. Ten o'clock! Cap wondered why his hyper-digital alarm clock did not ring at 7:00 AM. He gasped as a robot pushed his door closed and locked it from the outside. Suddenly, several of the family robots in his room began to close in on him.
Sparky awakened and felt startled as she heard a door slam in the room next to her. She lay her head back on the pillow. Usually, in the morning, Cap played his holographic games and closed his door to avoid waking up the parents. However, unexpectedly, Sparky saw a beam of light come through the auto-retracting sunshade. She yelled at the microphone by her bed, "Circuit-- why didn't you wake me up yet!?" Suddenly, she heard the bolt-lock slam shut as the room robots began to encircle her bed.
Cap backed away nervously as the robots surrounded him within three feet of his body. He suddenly felt the windowpane on his back-- that's it-- the window! He didn't have time to press the auto-retracting sunshade button, so he tore it off and jumped out of the second story window. Cap heard a scream from Sparky's bedroom one room away. Something must be wrong with the central computer, Cap thought. He yelled for his younger sister through his microphone watch-communicator, but the line was out. A fuse must have blown. He screamed up to the second story, "Sparky-- jump out the window!" Cap caught the terrified girl as she leaped out the window and they tumbled over. Cap just didn't want to think what would happen to his mom and dad inside the demon-possessed house.
Mr. Wired awakened unsettled. He smelled something burning. He shook his wife next to him. "Do you smell that?""I smelled something burning, but I didn't know what it was. I went back to bed, because I figured the auto-water hose would extinguish it (like it always does). I wonder what it was.""Let's go and see," said Mr. Wired. The two adults entered the kitchen and saw no signs of burning. "Over here," said Mr. Wired. "It's coming from upstairs." As Mr. and Mrs. Wired walked up the stairs, they heard the sound of whirring robot wheels. The smell of smoke got closer. "Is it just me," said Mrs. Wired, "or is a robot carrying something burning?" Just then, Circuit took his torch and threw it in the Wired's last exit way. They were trapped!"Oh, no!" said Cap. "It looks like the robots have torched the second floor!""Oh, no!" cried Sparky, as flames crawled out of one of the bedroom windows. "What about my electronic beanie babies?" "Don't worry about your dumb beanie babies," retorted Cap. "Mom and dad are in real danger! Sparky, I'll go try to turn off the power in the main computer room, and you make sure no flames come out of that window" (he pointed to the room where his parents were trapped). If flames do come out of there, take this ladder and spray water in there from the automatic hose."
Cap rushed through the kitchen door to the central computer room. Error messages flooded the screen. Smoke was coming from pulverized dials. A warning light was blinking on and off on the control panel, and a blaring siren made Cap's ears ache. You could smell burning microsystems and electrical explosions. There was only one thing to do. Cap took his Great great great grandfather's age-old hatchet from a display case and ran back towards the computer room. He took a big swing, and CRACK-- ! He had taken a pretty good swing for the first time in his life, but there wasn't any time to marvel at his deed. He'd hit the monitor, and shards of glass were everywhere. Cap pried open the computer side panel, and stared at the giant CPU diamond. If he smashed the CPU diamond, his father would "exterminate him", but he had to destroy it somehow. Then Cap had another idea-- he would connect the ax to a motor inside the computer, close the housing, and turn on the motor. It would chop up everything in the mainframe, and he wouldn't have to take any of the blame!
He ran to his workbench to get the engine. Snickering, the clever boy slipped the ax into the motor shaft and inserted the odd mechanism in the computer frame. As he removed the remote control from his pocket, Cap closed the computer housing and stepped outside the doorway to protect himself from the explosion. He gently pressed the remote switch and KLUNK KLUNK KLUNK SMASH! BOOOOOOOOM! Abruptly, all the lights went out in the house. Shaking floors sent pictures off their posts, and light bulbs were crushing. The sound of shattering glass filled the airwaves. Suddenly, a ceiling panel fell off onto the floor. Cap yelled as it hit his body.
Meanwhile, Sparky spied a flame lick through the bedroom window. She grabbed the wooden ladder Cap had given her, and jammed the hose through the window. She noticed her parents yelling, "Sparky! Sparky!" Suddenly, she heard a loud explosion. There was so much smoke coming from downstairs, it felt like a sauna, except ten times hotter. The house was vibrating so much, it felt like an earthquake, and she almost fell off the ladder. The opposite wall fell down and Sparky yelled, "Jump out!" just as Cap had cried to her before. Her parents leaped out the hole where the wall used to be and landed in the garden below. Now, Sparky had to somehow save Cap, as he had saved her.
Cap pushed away the board that laid on top of him. He stared in horror as he saw flames less than two feet away from him. He thought that he would never survive this. All of a sudden, Sparky fell through the ceiling with a hose. She sprayed the flames with large amounts of water. As soon as the flames died out, the valiant 3rd grader pulled Cap out of the self-destructing house. Without warning, the house collapsed in a maze of burnt wood.
When the Wired's finally moved into a new house, they didn't pick one controlled by robots. From that day on, they never owned a robot again, not even a computer or programmable VCR!
An original story by Robbie, February 13, 2000.
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