What exactly is technology? Does it make life simpler, or does make it more complicated? Does it save lives or harm them? Not one of these questions was going through the mind of my current employer as he sent his fingers flying across the keyboard he stood hunched over. His curved glasses gleamed as he stepped away and gazed up the side of his latest creation. His permanent grin grew and he threw his arms into the air and performed the traditional maniac laugh of his variety of scientist.
The sun was shining rather pleasantly that day through only a few clouds, and a massive, metal entity flew across the sky on its equally massive and metal wings. When it finally touched down by what appeared to a complex of warehouses, its alligator-like jaw opened so that I could step out. From my billowing gray coat, I took out my summons to make sure I was on time, but the occasion that I was being summoned to was still a mystery. It was quickly solved though as one of the buildings suddenly developed cracks along its side that leaked out light as in less than a second, the entire structure was destroyed and a massive cannon that dwarfed my mecha fired a projectile that tore open a hole in the sky. My eye twitched and my mouth hung open.
"Well that went as well as could be expected," said Quentin Sigma, my employer, as he used a laser gun to burn notes into his notebook.
"You maniac," I called from the mouth of my mecha, "What'd you just do with Joule?" I let a metal coil rope fall and I slid down.
"Pillar's Secure Mode was the only thing that could create a clean hole in the fabric of space and survive," Quentin said to me.
"You didn't answer my question," I pointed out upon landing on the ground, "Where is my brother?"
"He understood the importance of this experiment," he answered as he turned away from me and back to his notes.
"What experiment?"
"How far I can create a stable worm-hole!"
"Why'd you want to do that?"
I couldn't see the manic glow in Quentin's eyes until he turned around to face me and say, "I'M GLAD YOU ASKED!"
While I was subjected to his agonizing explanation, you the reader can be spared by a well-placed flashback to say, ten or twenty minutes ago.
In the soon to be destroyed building, a crane loaded the worm-hole creating gun with its projectile. In the pilot seat of the mecha, pillar, my brother Joule sat and waited with an annoyed look on his face. A monitor suddenly activated that displayed Quentin's face.
"Alrighty then!" Quentin cackled, "If everything goes as planned, you'll be the first person to traverse a permanent worm-hole!"
"And what could happen if everything doesn't go as planned?" Joule asked, not looking to see a manic glow in Quentin's eyes.
"I'm glad you asked!" Quentin declared, and pulled from his billowing lab-coat a scroll of paper that wasn't completely unraveled after spanning twenty feet. "In fact I made this list of things that could happen!"
Joule's eyes nearly bulged out of his goggles as Quentin began to read off his list and in desperation Joule began to pound his fist repeatedly into the button marked 'Abort', but Quentin had already struck the launch button.
With the flashback concluded, I was using a cloth to wipe the blood from my ears.
"So now you see the beauties of education!" Quentin concluded.
"Can we just go get Joule!" I snapped.
"Very well," Quentin sighed, and a door to the nearest warehouse slid open, "It's time for me to take IQ out for a spin." Then, from the innermost darkness of the building glowed a pair of massive lights.
Meanwhile on the opposite end of the worm-hole, the sphere that was Pillar's Secure Mode was imbedded into the floor of what must've been some sort of alien jungle. The shell of the sphere then unraveled, allowing Joule's bulky mecha to fall flat on its back. Pillar sat up and rubbed his head where a panel slid open that Joule stuck his head out from. Taking in his surroundings, he praised his good fortune that he once again survived one of Quentin's experiments.
Joule fell back into Pillar's pilot seat, but just as he was standing up, from out of the alien vegetation sprung a spider monster the size of Pillar. It bared rows of sharp teeth, but unaware of what happens to someone who frightens Joule, its teeth were turned to dust by a blow from one of Pillar's massive fists. But even as the creature fell to the ground, lamenting its loss, several more giant spiders leaped out of the jungle to surround Pillar.
With the aliens approaching, Pillar swung about the panels of the sphere and quickly returned to its Secure Mode. But as the spiders began to crawl over it, a split appeared down the center of the sphere and the two halves became the wheels for Pillar's Stampede Mode. Pillar barreled through the alien jungle, carrying a panicking Joule, not caring what was flattened. Several miles down the road, though, a pair of spiders had constructed a web between two trees that Pillar reached in a few seconds. The web slowed Pillar down, but all the momentum was transferred to the two trees, and both trees including the pair of spiders attached to them were ripped from the ground, and carried along for the ride. The trees waving around smashed together, flattening the spiders between them, and them slammed Pillar in the back. Joule's mecha quickly returned to its Robot Mode, only to be beset by more giant spiders. One leapt at Pillar's back, but Pillar swung its connected fists into the spider's belly, sending a shockwave through the giant's body that launched off every one of the spider's limbs.
A second spider tried to attack, but quick as before, Pillar had its fist raised above the spider's head. Oddly the blow never landed, and Pillar remained frozen in a raised-fist pose. Within Pillar's cockpit, Joule sat bug-eyed staring at the monitors which had been conquered by the words "Low Battery".