I was thinking about Murphy's Law all day. Especially while taking tests. Listening to Give Up from PnF is not a motivator.
Chapter 2- A Robot By Any Other Name is Just as Mechanical
This was not Balthazar's day. First he ran out of jasmine tea packets, then his grappling hook malfunctioned and he had to hypnotize a group of businessmen into forgetting what they had seen, and now headquarters tasked them with test driving a robotic pistachio stand. Their theory was that robots would be more efficient at pistachio protecting than people, and Balthazar was stuck with the result.
The robot's paint job left much to be desired, an incredibly dull shade of green and brown coating its torso, with a few traces of rust on its circular legs. Thick arm cannons shaped like pistachio shells were ill-fitted onto its shoulders. Worst of all, there was a wooden, broken-down pistachio stand and sign with the unoriginal slogan "Tasty Pistachios!" bolted to the top of its head. Red eyes poked out from underneath the wood.
If headquarters wanted him to test out a robot, couldn't they have at least created something a little more threatening?
Balthazar glanced at Vinnie, who was chatting with the robot. "And that's how we blew that popsicle stand. A literal one, I'm not talking metaphorically."
Coughing to get their attention, Balthazar said, "While you've been recounting certain incidents I would rather forget, I have an idea that would serve as training for the robot and allow us to grab the shipment of pistachios that would serve as a grand prize for a contest at the mall later today."
Vinnie leaned back on the robot's leg. "Her name is Arohbeohte. Don't just call her 'the robot'."
Balthazar raised an eyebrow at that. "Her?"
"She told me she was a girl. You have to be more sensitive to her feelings. Isn't that right, Arohbeohte?" Vinnie fist-bumped the ro-Arohbeohte.
"Vinnie Santiago Dakota, you are the only person I know who can come up with such a ridiculous name," Balthazar sighed. Arohbeohte tilted her head, and the letter 'P' fell on the road, a truck quickly swerving to avoid it. He was not just dealing with an overgrown mechanical pistachio stand. He was dealing with a female overgrown mechanical pistachio stand. "Very well. I concede. She will come with us to the mall, scare off every shopper there, and we will take off with the pistachios without any further conflict. However, she will be referred to as her identification number of H54T9U."
Vinnie gave him an odd look. "If I learned anything from pulling all-nighters watching robot movies, it's that robots tend to go berserk and destroy stuff when they're not treated like people."
Balthazar opened his mouth for a scathing retort, but realized he had no argument for that particular point. "You win," he grumbled reluctantly.
"Wait, what? Really? Did you hear that Arohbeohte?" Vinnie slapped his hands on her massive knees in celebration. "I beat Balthazar in something that wasn't actually eating related!" Arohbeohte creaked mechanically, her version of a laugh.
Folding his arms, Balthazar tried not to act like his pride had been blown to smithereens. "Rub it in, sure," he mumbled. "H54-" Vinnie gave him a warning stare. "-I mean, Arohbeohte, your training begins now."
Arohbeohte's eyes lit up, throwing her arm cannons into the air. The letters 'A', 'C', and 'H' tumbled from the sign, creating three more cracks in the pavement. "Your first task is to clean this mess up," Balthazar rubbed his temple. Happy place, imagine a happy place, he thought. Arohbeohte picked up the the broken 'H', contemplating what to do with it. Then a compartment on her chest opened and a flamethrower shot out, the 'H' crumbling to ashes.
"I was going to say pick the letters up and put them in the dumpster at the end of the street, but I suppose blasting them into oblivion works too," Balthazar said, pulling two rolls of duct tape out of his hat. He tossed one to Vinnie. "Start patching up the cracks," he ordered.
"You keep duct tape in your hat?" Vinnie asked. "Doesn't your old-timey British getup have pockets?"
Balthazar kneeled, ignoring Vinnie's tangent. "The cracks, Dakota," he said, applying the duct tape to the pavement. Vinnie obeyed. It took a while to find the perfect angle to place the duct tape without leaving any wrinkles. Vinnie haphazardly covered the cracks, a gray mass of adhesive swallowing the damaged surface. By the time Balthazar finished, Vinnie was halfway through a bag of tortilla chips. Slowly, the pavement absorbed the duct tape, smoothing over again, looking as if no giant letters had ever fallen off giant robots. It was a shame that duct tape in this time period was still very primitive by the future's standards.
"That should do it," Balthazar said. "Now for your second task-wait, where did you go?"
"Over there!" Vinnie pointed to Arohbeohte, who was slowly marching to one of the houses on the other side of the street, leaving more holes on the road and grass on her trek than Balthazar and Vinnie patched up. She stopped in front of a house with a damaged hedge. She studied it curiously, then kicked a wall in.
"Holy mackerel! I order you to cease your behavior at once, Arohbeohte!" Balthazar shouted. The wind had blown his hat off, but he hadn't noticed. Arohbeohte kicked a second time, and a kitchen counter splintered and broke, a plastic bag laying in the ruins of the brick wall.
Vinnie panted, hands on his knees. "I need…to lay off… the cheesecake," he wheezed.
Balthazar rolled his eyes. "You say that every time."
"No, last time…we were running…I said…I shouldn't have eaten those…waxed lips," Vinnie collapsed on his back.
Perhaps there is something to those videos of young people dumping ice water on their peers, Balthazar thought as he returned his attention to Arohbeohte, who was now destroying part of the ceiling. "Arohbe-" he was interrupted when he heard a dog barking.
A small, tan dog shot out of the living room, barking incessantly. Arohbeohte paused in her destruction, scrutinizing the dog closely. They stared each other down, the dog growling. Arohbeohte's sensors processed the newcomer, sending blue sparks across her limbs. Then Arohbeohte turned tail and fled down the street, the dog taking off after her in hot pursuit.
Balthazar picked up the bag, just in case it was pistachios that needed saving. "Vinnie! We need to catch her and get rid of that dog!" With a few shakes, Vinnie was back on his feet, though still tired.
"Okay, okay, calm down! Whoa, what happened here?" Vinnie blinked in surprise, staring at the giant hole.
"I'll explain on the way! Come on, before someone sees Arohbeohte and sends government agents after her!" Balthazar pulled Vinnie along, the bag swinging on his left arm. They followed the giant imprints, hoping that Arohbeohte didn't wander onto a main road.
"I didn't know you cared about her!" Vinnie shouted.
"Pre- preposterous! We just can't let anything happen to her otherwise headquarters would have our heads on a silver platter!" Balthazar sputtered.
Vinnie raised an eyebrow, but let the subject slide. "Where'd you get the chocolate?"
Balthazar stopped in his tracks. "Chocolate?" Sure enough, three heart shaped containers of gourmet chocolate lay in the bag. "I thought these were pistachios!" he complained.
"Well, don't mind if I do," Vinnie reached for a container, only to have his hand slapped away.
"You can have them later!" Balthazar snapped. "We're wasting enough time! Now activate the teleporter so we can reach Arohbeohte's location faster!"
Vinnie fumbled with the flip phone-like device for a moment and punched in Arohbeohte's location. A green beam shot out from a small hole on the base, light dematerializing their physical forms and reassembling them near Arohbeohte.
"Ugh, I hate teleporting," Vinnie brushed off a small fire on the sleeve of his tracksuit.
Balthazar watched as Arohbeohte hid behind a tree in an attempt to get the dog to leave. Of course, hiding behind trees when one is a giant robot is entirely ineffective. The dog sniffed around, following a scent trail until the dog's snout hit the base of Arohbeohte's foot. She bent down, arm cannon out…
"No!" Balthazar and Vinnie shouted, running towards the arm cannon to knock it off course. That poor dog would be nothing but an outline and pile of ashes if the cannon fired at such close proximity!
Vinnie was slightly ahead of Balthazar, when he suddenly stopped and flung an arm out. Balthazar slammed into the arm, coughing and clutching his chest, feeling like he'd been hit by a truck. "Dakota-" Balthazar was about to vent, but noticed where Vinnie was pointing.
Instead of an outline, pile of ashes, and smoking cannon attached to a giant robot, there was a giant robot hesitantly patting a dog on the head. The dog barked, tail wagging, and rolled over. Arohbeohte looked confused, so Vinnie spoke up. "Rub his belly, dogs like that sorta thing," he suggested, gently patting her metallic knee.
Arohbeohte hesitated, then retracted the cannon, a giant set of robotic fingers replacing it. She poked the dog on his belly, his tongue lolling out in delight.
Vinnie reached over, slipping the dog's collar off. "So your name is Diogee, huh?" he grinned, petting the dog's belly.
"Don't get attached," Balthazar warned. "That dog knows too much."
"What? Come on, he's a dog! Who's he gonna blab to?" Vinnie protested. "We should really give him back to his owners."
Oh no. Vinnie, Diogee, and Arohbeohte were giving him the puppy dog eyes. Well, Arohbeohte's robotic equivalent of the puppy dog eyes consisted of shortening and lengthening her optic nerves like a telescope. "Fine. The mutt can go home."
Diogee perked up at that sentence, almost scampering off before Vinnie called him back so he could reattach the collar to his neck. "Don't want animal control to get you," Vinnie gave Diogee a strip of beef jerky and sent him on his way.
"I'll miss him," Vinnie said as Diogee disappeared around a corner.
"I won't. Now, I will kindly remind you that we have an important mission at the mall," Balthazar grumbled. "Here." He shoved the chocolate at Vinnie, approaching Arohbeohte.
Arohbeohte shrank at Balthazar's intense gaze. "Young lady. We need to talk."
First time writing the pistachio protectors! I think it went well! We'll get back to Milo and Sara in the next chapter.
How to pronounce Arohbeohte: spell "robot".