Dark clouds blanketed the sky and shielded John Darvick's eyes from the light of the sun, and admittedly, he was sensitive to it. Without a doubt, it was due to him spending all of his days in the JNZ labs, and it showed in the tone of his skin. But when he was hidden under the safety of his car and the big rain pellets pounded against each window, it was a little difficult to see just how badly his skin needed the sun.
He looked out the window, across the street to the emptying elementary school. Little Robot didn't need to see Darvick to know he was here. He only needed to see the big, gray, blocky car, despite how well it blended in with the gloomy environment of today.
In the mounds of schoolchildren running out of the rain or, rather, running in it, he saw the most recognizable child of them all. And of course, it was Robot. He spotted the car immediately, and jumped inside shortly after.
"Hey, Robot," Darvick said warmly, but with a tired crack in his voice. As usual. "How was your day?"
"Quite interesting," the little Robot replied, removing the yellow raincoat that he'd worn to school that day, and hanging it neatly on the coat rack on the opposite side of the seat. Darvick was positive that Robot wouldn't short circuit under some rain-he was made waterproof-but it didn't hurt to be cautious. And besides, Darvick would be lying if he said the otherwise clothes-less little robot wasn't a sight for sore eyes. His luminous yellow eyes matched that coat perfectly. It was painful how cute he was. "One of the human children showed signs of sensitivity to being upside down while performing a handstand for show and tell, and developed a 'nosebleed' in front of the rest of the children. Some looked very scared for the boy, and I was as well, but I was informed it was a perfectly normal for humans to leak a little blood from the nose if provoked."
Darvick nodded and couldn't help but smile. Glancing at Robot but otherwise keeping his eyes on the road, he continued-but only after turning the heat up...or rather, just enough to keep himself warm and not overheat the tiny automaton in the car beside him. Just to be sure. "Have you made any friends yet?" he asked hopefully. "How do the kids treat you?"
The man could only pray that he'd remember everything the young robot told him, or at least get a general idea, so he could put it all down in his reports back at the headquarters. He wasn't necessarily lacking in good memory, but he was certainly lacking in sleep, and it was starting to take its toll on his mind. Usually he'd get at least four hours of sleep each night. Last night, however, he got two. If even. And he couldn't possibly understand why. He wasn't busy, he wasn't anxious. He would just stare at the wall, wide awake.
He really needed to get that checked out.
Robot nodded. "Oh, yeah! I have made friends. I know Michelle and Israel and Nate and Louis and George and Jonathan and Jasmine and Finny and-"
"Okay, okay," Darvick laughed, but he was starting to tense. Either he was really popular with the kids, or he was simply reading off the names of the kids in his class. "Sounds like you have a lot of friends..."
But that didn't answer his last question.
"How do they treat you, though?" he pressed as gently as possible. "Are they nice to you?"
To this, Robot thought for a moment. "Nice to me? Do you mind elaborating?"
Darvick's neck began to sweat.
"Well..." he stared at the road, and came to a stop at the intersection up ahead.
Nice to him...as in treating him like everyone else. Right? That was the point... but if Robot didn't even understand the concept of friends, would he understand that?
"Do the other kids...play with you? What do they say to you?" He finally turned to look at Robot while the car was stopped.
Robot paused again, just long enough to make Darvick even more nervous, and said, "Oh! Play with me? Well, sure they do. Michelle and I built a fortress with the big cardboard bricks, and Israel warned me that Mary-Kate likes to kiss all the boys on Valentine's Day-although I am not sure what that means. Also not quite sure what all this 'Valentine's Day' entails, or why it matters, as it is still months away. And...uh..." Robot looked down at the floor, trying to think of more interactions between himself and the other students, but suddenly, his mind was a blank. He knew all the kids were there, but they were nothing but faces to a name on his digital roster. Deep down he knew something wasn't correct with this, but he just couldn't place it.
Darvick stared holes into Robot's reluctant eyes, breath shallow. "And...what?" he asked. His voice wasn't as warm or tired as it used to be. It was starting to shake.
"I guess I-" Robot looked up from his own claws, and only now did he realize the human-the driver of this very easily destroyable locomotive vehicle, looked awful. "Mr. Darvick? Is everything in order? You look very pale."
As if Robot had flipped a switch, the man jumped up, hitting the roof of the car-not because of Robot, but because of the sound of a loud, aggressive honk behind him. He peeked up at the intersection. Green light...for god knows how long.
"Damn it," Darvick swore, peeling out as the car jerked both driver and passenger back. He gasped and eyed Robot.
"Don't say that word," he warned. He paused, but felt like his point wasn't clarified. "The d-word, I mean...you can say the word 'it'." He laughed nervously under his breath and nearly slammed his face into the steering wheel with embarrassment.
They drove for another block or two in silence, but another thought was poking at Darvick's mind. Not a question, though. He took a deep breath.
"And don't drive like me either," he said with discontent. "I'm a bad driver."
For the rest of the drive back, Darvick knew that he wouldn't get much else out of Robot. Would there even be anything to write in the reports at this point?
In the halls of the headquarters with the little Robot at his side, Darvick not-so-confidently lead him back to his parental units. That was, until a pair of men in suits started charging his way. Darvick started to part from them, but it seemed like they were out to get him.
Even in his innocent stage, Robot sensed that this human was distressed about something, and the paler he got, the more Robot worried. But it didn't occur to the little automaton until he laid eyes on the two strange humans as well: Did I do something wrong? Did I not perform my schooling occupation correctly? Why did he look so distressed when I told him about my friends... Why did I feel so wrong about it?
The stiff looking humans in expensive, professionally cut business suits that were hurriedly following Darvick noticed he'd evaded them. "Darvick!" one of them shouted, shortly after the poor, anxious scientist had come to a full stop. Robot looked up at Darvick, then back at the men, who slowed their pace as they got closer.
Simon Nathans and Oscar Zamboni, Robot realized, recognizing their faces from his data base. Nathans and Zamboni didn't deal with the units on a personal level, and Robot had only ever seen them in person once or twice before. But it seemed they sure loved to make their staff uncomfortable, especially after Dr. Jones, the 'J' in 'JNZ', was no longer around.
Once they stopped, they regarded the little Robot, and Nathans was the first to speak. "Pardon. Didn't realize you still had the robot with you."
Darvick slowly turned and faced the taller Nathans. Darvick was tall enough in his own respect, but the South African man in front of him proved that there were taller men. "Can't you give me a moment?" Darvick asked quietly. "I'm a bit busy."
He confirmed his state of occupation by motioning a hand at the little Robot beside him.
Nathans saw Darvick's anxious look as he met eyes from almost a foot below, and a wry smile cracked on his lips. "You won't be for long" he said in his thick accent. "The robot's father is in that room to the left," he said, pointing to the door in the hallway. "Can he find himself inside? We have some urgent matters to discuss with you."
Darvick's throat began to clench, but he tried to gulp anyway, and he had no choice but to let the little robot go.
"Go on, it'll be fine," Darvick murmured to Robot, who gave him a wide-eyed kind of expression that only a scared puppy could have. He ran into the room Nathans pointed at, and Darvick turned back to the pair of businessmen. Zamboni was writing away on a clipboard and didn't bother to look up from it.
Wordlessly, they walked through numerous busy halls that were abound with a multitude of JNZ employees - some of which were robotic - and with every step he took, Darvick realized that both his footsteps and heartbeat were increasing. Certainly, this didn't help when someone tripped and dropped an entire stack of papers, which went flying in the men's direction. Even the portly Zamboni neatly dodged the mass of papers as he whizzed by on his two feet, but it seemed like Darvick got hit by every piece that was still gliding in the air.
At last, the trio reached a quiet office and sat down at a small round table. Darvick already felt like he was going to have a heart attack.
Simon Nathans sighed, fixing his glasses before folding his hands on the desk. "Darvick, you are not a man who likes lengthy meetings, are you?"
"Are you implying this is going to be lengthy?" Darvick mumbled, wanting so desperately to sound confident but knowing he couldn't speak ill to his superiors.
"Quite the contrary," Nathans said, his voice catching in his throat. "I am a busy man, and so is Zamboni. We have a large factory to run, two more plants on the way, so you should feel pretty important that you are receiving yet another personal meeting from us." He looked to Zamboni, the big Italian brute, who nodded and scribbled on his clipboard. For all Darvick knew it could have been about how to disembowel him. Or Mickey Mouse.
"So, we're going to cut right to the chase. Last night, the factory was paid a visit by members of the FBI, who were very concerned about a supposed rumor that we were letting one of our units attend public school with children. This 'rumor' as you very well know, isn't a rumor, but Oscar and I were able to do you a favor and cover up your papertrail so that the agents had nothing to go on in their search of the factory but what they had heard. Now, of course, there isn't a law that says robots cannot go to school, but public health is a concern, especially with children, and you insisted we go ahead and clear this project without government clearance. Which is why we've brought you here. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to pull the robot out of school-immediately."
Darvick's suspicions that they were going to disembowel him were confirmed - at least metaphorically, because he certainly felt like every organ was being pulled from his body right as he sat in that puny chair.
His mouth shook and was left open halfway as he tried to orchestrate some sort of intelligible sentence, but nothing came out. "I...I-"
"We're waiting for an answer, Darvick," Zamboni impatiently growled after putting his clipboard down.
"I..." Darvick was beginning to sound like a broken record. That was, until he sighed a little louder than necessary, and sat up, face glistening with sweat.
"Why would they be concerned about this when he's not even a threat?!-" he croaked stupidly, before cutting himself off. "Isn't there something I can do?"
Nathans clasped his well-lotioned hands together. "Now, Darvick, we understand perfectly well how important this project is to you. But you must understand that as soon as the government starts sniffing around our company," he said, dropping his voice to a whisper and leaning over the table, shadows falling on his face from the one window behind him, "they may find things they do not like. And they may even consider cutting our funding. The kinds of scientific projects we pursue will be put in jeopardy. Not to mention that if they decide they do not like your little robot, they can just-" he snapped his finger. "Take him away from you. And his parental units."
"He's right, Darvick," Zamboni echoed. "And consider that he does end up hurting a child. You really think that's impossible? You've built him after an industrial unit. We'd be drowning in lawsuits."
Darvick was losing. 2 to 1. And with the government included, that was 3 to 1.
"Jesus Christ..." Darvick mumbled, hiding his face in his trembling hands and rubbing his eyes. He gazed back up at the men across from him. "There's nothing you can do? Nothing? Talk to them about this?"
Nathans' wrinkled his mustached upper lip. Seeing a grown man grovel like this was pitiful. "Listen. You're smart, Darvick, you should be able to follow what it is I am trying to convey to you. What we are ordering you to do is take him out of school now, until we find a government agent who is willing to stamp some clears on some paperwork that covers JNZ of liability. Once the project is cleared, they'll stop snooping, and you won't have to worry about having YOUR head brought to court if anything goes wrong. But it will probably take some time."
Darvick stared at Nathans, who raised an eyebrow, then looked at Zamboni.
"How long is 'some time'?" he asked, but he immediately regretted it, because both men shook their heads in clear disappointment.
"However long it needs to take," Zamboni replied gruffly. "It could take up to a year or more. 5 years, even. We don't know. But you just have to be patient."
Darvick stared a bit longer - past the two men this time - and sunk into his chair. He was trapped. Robot was trapped. Trapped here. "Okay," he said, nodding slowly. "Okay. I'll take him out of school."
Nathans's overconfident smile returned. "Good man. He listens, doesn't he, Oscar?"
Before the men could get their laughs in or pack up and leave, Darvick jumped back in, less civilly this time. "What am I supposed to do with him if he can't go to school?" he asked. "He was made for this."
"Keep him away from other children," Nathans explained. "At least for now. If I remember correctly, he was designed to age, yes? Than you and his parental units will have to continue his schooling and socialization until we can get him back in school. But don't tell him why he was pulled in the first place. Most importantly, until we tell you it's safe, if any government agent approaches you about a project like this," he said, eyes serious, "you have no idea what they are talking about. Understood?"
Darvick paused and glanced at the table. He knew there was no way out of this, but maybe there was a way to prevent it. Choosing a school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania probably wasn't the wisest decision.
"Understood," Darvick said, clearing his throat.
"We'll be leaving, now," Nathans stated as he sat up, Zamboni shortly after. "We have places to be." He shook hands with Darvick and gave him a false smile that didn't even try to pretend it was real.
"Have a good day, sir," Darvick grumbled awkwardly as the South African man let go and stepped out of the room after the impatient Zamboni.
Zamboni. That short little... Didn't even bother to shake his hand like a civil man. And it was always these types of men climbing to the top of the pedestal.
But just as he thought that it was all over, he got worked up again at the thought of telling little Robot of his fate at school.
Robot had been recounting his day to his father when his hearing receptors detected a noise. He turned his head and saw Darvick entering the room. And the smile on his face dropped. Darvick ambled over, shaky grin on his face again. "Mr. Darvick, what did they say to you?"
"Well..." Darvick's grin twitched. There was no way to put this nicely. "You can't go to school anymore."
The moment the last word left his mouth, he immediately regretted it. Robot's face contorted into this hurt mess, the puppy look he always had, but this time, a puppy that was left on the roadside to die.
Maybe if he could get some proper damn sleep, he'd be capable of articulating his words with the precision he needed. The precision Robot had.
Robot, only five years old, but speaking with the vocabulary of a college professor. Robot, with the precision and mental capacity of someone seemingly much older, but really just hiding behind a mask of logic and technology. Underneath it all-underneath the cold, hard metal, the circuitry and wires-he was just a little boy, growing and developing like any other. He desired interaction, he liked the school, and Darvick, now knowing that he couldn't take his words back, now made the little robot believe that he was pulled out due to a fault of his own.
And it wasn't just Robot who'd reacted sourly. Though his maternal unit wasn't present, his father was, and the way his narrowed eyes brightened suggested that he was going to be burning lasers into someone's head-probably Darvick's.
"Listen!" the man pleaded, "I didn't want this. It's just right now..." he sighed and bent down to meet the little robot's eye-level. "The world isn't ready for you, Robot. So we have to...give them some time to prepare."
The words hit Robot like a crushing weight. He knew he'd done wrong. He'd known he'd messed up somewhere, but he never thought he'd face a consequence like this! Threatening to take away this thing called school that he was just starting to get used to! And poor Darvick. He wanted Robot to go to school. Robot could see this was very important for Darvick, though he couldn't quite understand why. He knew it had something to do with his work, and proving something, and Robot loved Darvick. Darvick had helped create him. He wanted to help the man in any way that he could. "Mr. Darvick..." he stared at the man with wide, uncertain eyes.
"... What did I do? W-What can I do to make up for it? I-I'll do anything! Please! Tell them I can go back, I"ll try harder! I'll make the 'friends' you ask me to! I'll let Joey Samson have first dibs on the swings! Please, Mr. Darvick, give me another chance!"
"No, Robot, it's not you," Darvick babbled quickly. "It's just-Look, you'll still be able to go, but not right now-"
Robot's paternal unit grabbed Robot and began to exit the room furiously, but Darvick scrambled after him in the halls, failing yet again to dodge people and papers in his way. He put a hand on the much larger automaton's back.
"Please-just listen!-"
The parental unit turned around, towering over Darvick, glaring menacingly at him, with that same 'burn-holes-into-your-face' look. "Leave us alone," he droned, the hints of rage clear in his voice. Darvick's hand slid off the robot's back and retreated to his side meekly. He wasn't the only one who created Robot. He allowed both parental units to participate. It was only fair. He was the closest thing they would have to a child. And seeing Robot's father at least exhibit protective behaviors over him like this gave Darvick some hope. So he stepped back, and immediately, the furious machine continued through the halls with a crying Robot and disappeared behind a turn in the halls.
Good god, he had to do something before he destroyed that little boy's life.
Witzels and I are finally letting it go:
The big collab we've been talking about for months. The best of both our ideas for our individual RJ fics in ONE fic.
She and I wrote this chapter together, with her putting in most of the work, so GO TELL HER HOW AMAZING SHE IS, especially writing Darvick, this poor baby. He needs hug. u/10996969/Witzels
A few things to note:
-We've both had different ideas about what Robot's ultimate purpose is, and in this version, we came to what is probably our most solid answer
-Wit gets at least 75% of the credit for this chapter and 100% idea itself to merge not only our ideas, but literally write chapters together. So far it's been really fun. Hopefully it's fun to read, too.
Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network