Gibby Norton smiled to himself; he turned round and looked at Velma as she slept peacefully in the back of the car. A surge of emotion washed over him – she was safe at last and he was the hero of the hour. Now the hard work had to being as though she was physically free she was still not mentally free from their malign influence. He turned around and got ready to move off; still he took satisfaction from the fact that the first part of his plan was a complete success, it would take them ages to... the car radio came to life
…attention all units, be on the look out Gibson 'Gibby' Norton. He is suspected to be responsible for the attack on the officer earlier and the recent kidnapping of Velma Dinkley. He is believed to be in vehicle Bravo-3-9-Charlie and was last seen hea... the radio abruptly cut out. Gibby slammed the steering wheel in anger, how dare they! This was not in his plan they should be following his plan. He floored the accelerator and hit the lights and sirens. He spoke into a different radio "Velbot 21, bring forward the collection vehicle to the pick-up point. Velbot 3, start loading the trucks."
Soon they pulled behind a big-rig. Two Velbots in combat fatigues had opened the tailgate. Gibby drove the squad car inside and the Velbot followed behind closing the trailer door. As soon as all was secure the rig drove off, at the wheel was another Velbot. Gibby got out of the car "Velbots 15 thru 17 take Velma out of the car and secure her to the stretcher," Two Velbots wearing tight-fitting orange jumpsuits and stilettos took Gibby by the arms
"Jinkies, that was wonderful Gibby" they said in unison and he walked arm in arm with them to the front section of the truck
Velbots 15 thru 17 obeyed, once Velma was secured the clown Velbot clustered round her head, looked down and smiled, they neither moved nor blinked for the rest of the journey. Fortunately for Velma she remained sedated for the whole journey. Soon the rig reached its destination a small factory outside of Coolsville. The place was swarming with activity; many figures in orange jump suits were rushing around getting things ready. Outside a number of large trucks were starting to pull into the loading bays, as they dropped their ramps another group of figures all wearing orange striped combat fatigues climbed on board.
As the rig pulled in all the orange suited figures rushed over cheering and waving, those in combat fatigues stood to attention and saluted. The side door opened and Gibby emerged soaking up the devoted adulation of the Velbots.
"Take Velma to the recovery room" he said as he descended from the rig. A guard of combat Velbots formed up to escort the stretcher to the recovery room. Velma was starting to come round. She thought she was hallucinating as she could see many copies of herself wearing orange cheering and waving, then she noticed that she was tied to the stretcher and it was being carried by the same clowns that had trapped her in the police car. She shut her eyes and felt her insides tremble.
Velma half opened an eye and looked ahead of her. She was being carried towards a set of double doors which lead into a building of some kind. Inside they went down a short corridor and into a large factory area. Inside was a hive of activity, it was obviously some kind of production line with workers in identical orange overalls moving here and there carrying out their allotted tasks. The obvious difference between this place and a normal factory was that all the workers were identical, all copies of her, and that the production line was making even more copies. She jumped slightly at the sight of rows and rows of her head waiting next to a machine. As they went down the production line she saw the robotic versions of herself become more complete. She noticed that all the Velbots wore a number on right hand side on the right hand side of their clothes
The finally arrived at a small room which contained noting but a large bed. The stretcher was placed on the bed. Velma felt herself being freed and half opened an eye and saw that the room was empty. She plucked up the courage to look around and saw that she was alone in the room. Now's my chance she thought if I can get the clothes off one of those robot versions of me then I can sneak out of here. She carefully got off the bed and moved as silently as she could towards the door. She was relieved to find that it was a normal door and was unlocked. She carefully opened the door and walked straight into a clown Velbot, it looked at her with unblinking eyes, smiled and reached out for her. The next thing Velma knew she was shivering in terror under the bedclothes of the bed.
"I see you have met your bodyguards Velma" said Gibby entering the room " Should anyone threaten or scare you they will be there to protect you. Should those so-called friends of yours try to interfere the clowns will move in to protect you. They are only concerned with your safety and will escort you whenever you leave your designated safe areas just to protect you."
"JUST GET THEM AWAY FROM ME!" shrieked Velma
"Very well my dear I am hear so you are safe" he replied "Velbots, clear the room"
"Yes Mr Norton" said a number of identical voices simultaneously.
She could hear the sound of movement and then the door being closed "We are alone now my dear you can come out now"
Nervously Velma appeared from under the bedclothes, she sat up in bed and clutched the bedclothes in front of her.
Gibby smiled, opened his arms and went forward to embrace her
"You lay one finger on me and I'll break every bone in your body, clowns or no clowns!" she growled angrily, so angrily that she didn't notice that she had said the word clown. Gibby signed, he had hoped that she would have responded better to her rescue but he wasn't surprised, they had been warping her mind and thoughts for years. He looked pitifully at her
"Don't worry Velma, you'll be cured soon, I'll repair all the damage they have done to you" he said, his voice full of concern and sympathy
"What are..." started Velma but she was interrupted
"But first you need to meet your sisters. Example Velbots enter!"
Three copies of her enter the room, one dressed in orange striped combat fatigues, one dressed in a tight-fitting orange jumpsuit and stiletto shoes the other dressed as a clown
"What do you think of my army of Velbots? Each one is modelled on the most perfect woman in the world, Velma Dinkley" he sighed looking at her
"You have already met your bodyguards, the others are the combat Velbot and the control room Velbot. The latter also work in the factory and do all sort of other tasks."
"I would never wear clothes like that" said Velma as she pointed at the control room version of her self, all clad in just tight-fitting orange jump-suits and stiletto shoes. She could not bring herself to look at the image of her dressed as a clown and pushed herself further up the bed and averted her gaze "And I would never d... dress as a... a... c...c...c...clown." her voice trembled as she spat out the last few words.
"It's time for you to become the centre of things, the centre of everything that is important Velma, would you like to the clown or control room Velbots to escort you?"
"ControlroomVelbots" she blurted out
"Velbots 80 and 81 come in here!" shouted Gibby a short while later two control room Velbots came in
"Velbots 27, 80 and 81 escort Velma here to the control room and secure her on the throne."
She was taken arm-in-arm buy two of them, the other one and Gibby following on behind. She was lead to a large circular room which was bustling with activities, it reminded her of the bad-guys lair for a James Bond film. Around the outside were various control stations at which were the inappropriately dressed versions of her working away. She noticed two boards which made her heard sink, both labelled 'Target List'. One list was of various key locations in Coolsville, the other was a list of her friends, with Shaggy at the top. The status options next to her friends were alive, captured or dead. All except Shaggy, for him the only options were alive and dead.
"The combat Velbots will be taking care of those tasks. They have a few jobs to do first then they will hunt down your tormentors."
Before she could reply she caught sight of the clown versions of herself standing guard in alcoves around the control centre, she registered that they all had nightsticks hanging from their belts. Raised up in the centre of the room was a chair behind which was some kind of huge contraption which reached almost to the ceiling. She was lead to the chair, turned around then gently, but firmly made to sit down. Thick metal restrains were fixed in place round her ankles, wrists and neck and what felt like an open faced motorcycle helmet was lowered onto her head.
Gibby then stood in front of her.
"Though it may appear cruel I need to break your conditioning. All those false memories and ideas they implanted in you over the years will soon be driven out and your true self will emerge."
He's stark raving mad thought Velma "What 'false memories' are you talking about? There is nothing false about what I remember" Velma replied angrily
"You see? That false memory, that your memories are all true, that they are your friends, that they care for you, that you don't want to know me, false, false, false, false, false! But don't worry, one of the reasons I brought you here was so save you from them and the harm that they had caused you my precious. After much research I have come up with a simple scheme to cure you."
Gibby took the cover of a small control panel a few feet in from of her "It is quite simple, I press the green button for negative reinforcement and the grey button for positive reinforcement"
"By positive and negative I guess you mean pleasure and pain" said Velma, it wasn't lost on her that the green on the button was the shade of green that Shaggy preferred. "So what are you going to do electrocute me to show how much you care?"
Gibby looked shocked "Nothing so crude my precious, I would never physically hurt you, this works by direct stimulation of the pain and pleasure centres of the brain" he saw her look of horror "Be calm Velma, the machine will use magnetism to directly stimulate those centres. I could never disturb your perfect head"
"No but your happy to torture me so you can mess with my mind" Velma said angrily
"No, no, no I do this because I care," he appeared genuinely hurt by her remark "I'm trying to cure you, to restore you to how you should be. Their thoughts are a disease in your mind and I am the doctor who will free you" he replied, a little too earnestly for her liking
"Restore me to how I should be or how you want me to be?" she paused "you are confusing the latter with the former. In any case is that the best you can do? Behaviourism for Beginners?" but she knew that if applied carefully over time, it would be successful. She was confident that he lacked the skill or knowledge and, she fervently hoped, the time to succeed. Her mind went back to the rat that starved itself to death pressing the pleasure button rather than eating or sleeping.
"There is so much more to this machine that treating you. It is an interface to the main computer system; I call it the Orange Queen in honour of you, it will sense your emotions which will help me fine-tune your treatment so I can guide you through to true freedom." He paused at the thought of how devoted she would be to him and how happy they would be together after he had completed his mission in life. "Also as you were never allowed to reply to my questions I had to guess at the answers..."
"I didn't want to reply" replied Velma acidly "I certainly wasn't going to get into a body scanner for you. No-one stopped me."
"That's want they want you to believe. But now it doesn't matter as this device will not only help break their influence over you it will also copy your personality and implant it into my legions of Velbots. Soon they will be perfect like you, my love"
"Don't call me 'my love' I have never loved yoAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Gibby took released the green button; Velma was wide eyed and sweating
"What did you say my love"
"I have never loved youAAAAAAAAAAAA please no AAAAAAAAAAAA"
"Velbot 12 keep the button depressed for 5 minutes" Gibby shouted over Velma's screams. "Control room Velbots prepare to collect the first perfection update in an hour"
Ten minutes later Gibby went back to Velma
"So do you love me now?" asked Gibby slyly
"So I say yes just to avoid pain, big deal" said Velma sarcastically "OK then I-Love-YoUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!" this time Velma was screaming in pleasure
"See Velma, see how much better the world can be for you?" said Gibby "Tonight we will work on you mind while you sleep, next door is a machine that can not only read your mind in great detail but can implant thoughts and images. Think inappropriate thoughts and you will be punished; think appropriate thoughts and you will be rewarded"
"Mr Gibson, sir?" one of the control room Velbots came up to him "The first wave is now in place and awaiting your command"
"It should not take long for them to achieve their first objectives so they will be in position to receive their update. Strike now." he replied
"What do you mean by 'strike'?"
"While your personal liberation is taking place you will be able to watch the cleansing of Coolsville. Those who are guilty of being part of the conspiracy to keep us apart will be banished and then a new city will emerge, Gibbsville. My army of Velbots will take control of the city and I will rule with you at my side. All of this I do for you"
"You are going to attack my city? Gibby you will do no such thing, you will certainly not do it in my name" she stared angrily at him "You know that I would never do such a destructive thing"
"You destroyed me! You hurt me!" wailed Gibby looking pained "Thought I know that you had no choice, those so-called friends of yours forced you into it, I know how much that made you sad."
Free me from this throne thing and you'll find out just how much I can hurt you thought Velma angrily
Gibby paused then sighed "That is in the past, we must now face the future, soon the force of your true self will be made known to the whole of Coolsville as the Velbots become more like you."
"So this will copy my personality, feelings and thoughts onto the robots I mean Velbots?" asked Velma, despite herself she was curious and perhaps she was not as helpless as she first thought.
"Yes, the Velbots contain a series of neural network chips which can learn"
"Back-propagation with dynamic event-driven knowledge structure re-indexing?"
"I knew you would read those papers I sent you. Oh yes! You see Velma; see just how exciting this is for us both?" he replied enthusiastically, at last they were making contact deep down she did love him! His assessment of her situation was correct.
"Something like that MMMMMMMOOOOOOH!"
Gibby pressed the Grey button, "Velbot 3 keep the grey button pressed for 5 minutes"
Gibby leant forward and whispered in her ear "Once this has happened, they will hunt down and eliminate the other members of Mystery Inc that will be my wedding present to you." At the end of the 5 minutes Velma was cross-eyed. The pleasure was much harder to combat than the pain at least that gave you a foil to work against.
Soon the hour was up "Cerebral analysers are fully calibrated sir. We are ready for the personality extraction Mr Norton."
"Begin the personality extraction!"
Velma felt like her mind was parting company with her brain. Her body was having an out of mind experience. Velma focussed on two key things above all else and whimpered slightly at what she was forcing herself to think about.
A few minutes later the process had finished, Velma felt like she had just spent several sleepless nights cramming for exams in a language she had only just learnt.
"ooohhhh" she whispered.
"Processing of personality update has started Mr Norton."
"Now Velma it's time for your treatment to start" said Gibby gently "remember Velma, I am here to help you, this is for your own good"
"Your own good you mean!" she shot back at him
"No Velma, I am truly interested in your welfare, all of this is for you" he replied leaning close to her
"If you are interested in my welfare then let me go, return me to Shaggy and never darken my door again!" she shouted in his face
"You ungrateful..." Gibby went to strike her face with the back of his hand but stopped, all the clown Velbots were staring at him, standing ready for action with nightsticks drawn. They had one purpose, protect Velma from harm, with deadly force if necessary. He had forgotten that there were no exceptions in their programming. He had also forgotten that having sensed imminent and proximal danger to Velma that the Orange Queen would send instructions to the factory to adjust the ratio of the Velbots produced From now on only clowns would be produced until the proximal threat had gone.
"Start the discussion circle!" he shouted then went to sit down at his desk and compose himself. For the next 20 minutes a host of control room Velbots crowded round Velma telling her how wonderful Gibby was, how grateful she should be to him for saving her, how perfect her life would be with him and how bad and worthless her friends were and what a looser Shaggy was. Any disagreement from Velma caused her to receive a jolt of negative reinforcement. At the end of the session Gibby looked at the results, negative reinforcement events 327; positive reinforcement events 0. Gibby frowned, this was unexpected, he had been sure that there would have been some positive results, and then there were the results from the deep emotional scan. The Orange Queen was able to read her subconscious emotions, these were her true emotions, those that could not have been affected by the brainwashing she received from Mystery Inc. The results showed fear, anger and distress not the predicted joy, gratitude and relief. So her outward and internal emotions were one and the same, but that would mean… No what she needed was stronger medicine...
"Run the visual training program."
The helmet directly stimulated her visual cortex, shutting her eyes had no effect on what she saw. For the next 25 minutes Velma was show a series of short films, some real others computer generated, each accompanied by a suitable reinforcement stimulus. The first 20 minutes were split into one minutes segments, first she saw pictures of her friends accompanied by negative reinforcement; pictures of Gibby accompanied by positive reinforcement; pictures of her with Shaggy accompanied by negative reinforcement; pictures of her with Gibby accompanied by positive reinforcement then pictures of her friends suffering accompanied by positive reinforcement. The session ended with 5 minutes of computer generated scenes of her rejecting, attacking and even killing Shaggy, all of which received positive reinforcement.
Velma was in a terrible state afterwards, she had managed to focus her mind on deriving pleasure from harming Gibby. So the animation of them kissing she added the thought of her biting his nose, holding hands meant breaking fingers. This was equally distressing as she was not a vindictive person but had to try to counteract the effects of the conditioning. Her friends had been much harder, she tried to think of the times they have saved her from pain or danger, Shaggy holding her hand at the dentist during some root-canal work or comforting her after she had been bulled at school but it was much harder than she had expected. As for the last part she had tried to focus on Gibby being disguised as Shaggy but she found it easier to just try to blank her mind. Afterwards she thought about Shaggy and the rest of the gang, she wondered what they were doing and hoped that they would come up with a rescue plan. The effect of the first update on the Velbots would tell her if her plan was going to work. She was not sure quite yet how to save herself, but she was determined to save Coolsville and her friends.
Back in Coolsville Shaggy got up and went into the kitchen returning with a box of Scooby Snacks then sat back down. He slowly began to eat through the box, aside from a furrowed brow his face was blankly. Daphne could see that Fred was holding back from speaking so as to give Shaggy the chance to contribute. Fred looked at Shaggy, he reminded him of Velma when she was deep in thought and he hoped that he had absorbed some of her thinking skills in the same way she had picked up some of his cooking skills. When he had finished the box he looked up
"Robots" said Shaggy suddenly "Gibby is into robotics and robots. All of his recent letters have been about robots, plus asking her to fill in personality questionnaires and even asking for her to go through a body scanner."
"Ewwwww" said Daphne as both her and Fred shared a look of disgust
"Remember he once said he would make a robotic Velma for a theme-park and as she would never reply to him..."
"...He took Velma." replied Fred
"I don't suppose that he'll be done with simply running Velma through a body scanner and then let her go?" said Daphne
"No" sighed Shaggy "He's not smart enough to do that. Velma always regarded him as her most dangerous opponent as he's intelligent, but not wise. You know, intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad? That's how she explained it to me."
"So what do you think he will do?" asked Fred keep it up Shaggy he thought were making progress here
"If anything I'd expect him to return a robot Velma to us."
Over the police radio came some reports of trouble at the local train station and airport. Daphne got up and switched on the local news channel. She stared at the pictures for a few seconds.
"Guys, you need to see this..." The gang came over and stared at the TV in disbelief "I think we have more than one robot Velma to worry about." said Daphne quietly.
