"... And this is the main control room, where Dr. Eggman does all his spying on Sonic and his friends."
Orbot glanced around the room as Cubot spoke his bit to Retrobot and Robeat. The yellow robot was having a great time explaining everything to these two. Especially to Robeat. And he seemed to be taking his time, considering this tour had already lasted nearly an hour. Orbot had never realised how many nooks and crannys this place had.
"Who's Sonic?" Robeat asked.
"They already explained that, Robeat," Retrobot said exhaustedly, "he's like a faster, blue version of Madam's arch rival, Jasmine the Wolf."
"And over here," Cubot headed toward the right side of the room, "are Dr. Eggman's quarters, his coat and boot rooms-"
"He has a whole room for just coats and boots?" Retrobot whispered to Orbot.
"Two rooms, one for coats, one for boots."
"Wow, I thought only Madam did that."
Orbot was about to ask what she meant by that when Cubot interrupted. "...aaaand the rollercoaster."
"You guys have a rollercoaster here!?" Robeat squealed.
"You bet!" Cubot confirmed.
"Can we ride it? Please?!"
"Sure, let's go," and with that, Cubot sped off down the correct hallway.
"Hey you two, wait for us- oh- never mind." Retrobot sighed in defeat. "Does it ever seem to you as if your always waisting your wordsh?"
"Quite often. But I've really come to expect this sort of thing from him."
"Yeah, me too. But about Robeat."
A pause. "Do you really want to ride the rollercoaster?" Orbot asked.
Another pause. "Noooo, not exactly."
"Good, because I would do just about anything not have to go near that place. I have had multiple experiences with repairing that contraption, and none of them were very pleasant."
"Well then, what can we do while they knock themselves out?"
"We could..." Orbot scaned the room for ideas " um...look in the storage room? Eggman keeps his more extensive collection of rare parts and such in there." He suddenly realized how boring that might sound to anyone but him. "Or never mind, you probably have some other-"
"That would be great," Retrobot interrupted.
"OK, then." Orbot floated down the hallway with Retrobot following. All the way down the hall, his mind was wondering She actually enjoys looking at parts and pieces of robots? I thought I was the only one in the who enjoyed that in the entire world!
The large room they floated into was lined with shelves and shelves and more shelves of boxes, nuts, bolts, and parts of broken robots and other unidentifiable machines. "This is one of my favorite places to be," Orbot sighed as he pulled a small box off the shelf. "You never can tell what you're going to find in this room."
"You mean you haven't already looked in all these boxes?" Retrobot asked.
"No not in the least," he answered. "In fact, I've looked in only about half of them at this moment, but keep in mind that things are constantly coming in and going out of here. At the very best, an item might stay in here for two weeks before there simply isn't any room for it due to new things coming in."
"Oh," she said simply. After a slight pause, "What is in that box?"
Orbot smiled. "Only one way to find out."
The box in question actually held nothing but scrap metal, as did the next several they opened. "What a disappointment," Retrobot sighed.
"Well, sometimes there isn't any thing good in here, but that doesn't happen often." Orbot said nervously. He had hoped this would be a bit more interesting for her. But the Doctor hadn't done much inventing in the past two weeks, only cleaning up. "Let's keep looking," he encouraged.
"Alright," she agreed, "we haven't looked on this shelf yet." She pointed at the top shelf of a nearby set. Gliding up to it, she began to pull a large box down. "Orbot, this rather heavy, could you..."
Surprised and slightly alarmed at her trailing off, Orbot zipped up and took the box from her. "Are you alright?" What happened? Did the box have something in it to cause her to malfunction? No don't be silly, you are holding the box right now! So did I do something? But what could it have-
"Orbot, look!"
Retrobot's sudden exclamation snapped Orbot from his thoughts, and a wave of relief washed over him. Then he comprehend what she had said. "Look at what?"
"That!" She was pointing behind where the box had been sitting.
Orbot peered into the space, and he couldn't believe what he saw. "It's an energy sphere!"
"A what now?" Retrobot asked.
"An energy sphere. Dr. Eggman has several of them for a new robot he was working on. Somehow, the energy contained I these objects is supposed to be so powerful, that one alone could destroy a building as big as this lair with one blow!"
"Fascinating! How do they work?"
"I have no idea. The Doctor doesn't ever tell me those sort of things."
Retrobot sighed, "I know how that goes. But...if it's so important, then why is it here?"
Orbot had to think a minute on that one. "The Doctor probably sent it here by mistake when he was cleaning the lair for Madam Lightbulb's visit."
"That makes sense. Wonder if there are any more of these in this room. Do you think," and taking the sphere from Orbot, put out a hand to reach further back on the shelf, "that they would be-"
She never got to finish her sentence. The door to the storage room banged open just then, they both jumped, and in her surprise, the energy sphere slipped from Retrobot's hand to shatter on the floor.
"What is going on in here!" Eggman belowed. "And what is-wait is that my missing energy sphere?! Why is that in here? Are you stealing from me you dimwit?! AND YOU BROKE IT!"
Fear washed over Orbot in waves. He hadn't intended this to happen at all, and now Eggman was upset with the both of them. "No sir! I'm not stealing, we just found the sphere in here!"
"Doctor, if may," a level voice interrupted, "it seems it was my robot that broke the sphere of yours. If it's all the same to you, please allow me to punish my robot for her actions. I see no reason to punish yours, he seems to have done nothing wrong."
At these words, Dr. Eggman visibly relaxed. "Very well, Madam, if that's what you think is best."
Orbot was relieved. He was of the hook! That never happened! Perhaps Madam Lightbulb wasn't so bad after all.
But something inside of him was knotted up with worry. Not for him though.
As Madam Lightbulb moved to grab Retrobot's arm, he made up his mind.
"No."
"What did you say, you mindless piece of metal?" Eggman asked.
"I said no," he repeated. "Retrobot may have been the one to drop the sphere, but I was the one who brought her in here, and I was the one who suggested we look through these boxes, so I'm more to blame than she is. So if your going to punish someone..." here he paused, then forced the next words out, very slowly, "then punish me." After he said this, he quickly looked at the floor.
A pause. "Well, Doctor," came Madam Lightbulb's level voice again, though it sounded a bit more strained this time, "this is your lair, and your robot, so you decide on a punishment, and my robot will be punished the same way."
Another agonizing pause "I think that the robot liter boxes need to be cleaned, eh Orbot?"
Orbot groaned inwardly, but all he said was, "Yes sir," and zipped out of the room as fast as he could. Staying longer would probably mean getting more punishment.
As he raced down the hallway, a voice said, "why did you do that?"
Orbot jumped. He'd completely forgotten Retrobot was there.
"Why did you do that?" she repeated.
"Do what, exactly?"
"Take the blame for the sphere breaking, when you would have gotten away scotch free."
Orbot stopped moving. Now that he had a chance to think about it, he wasn't sure why he'd done it. It wasn't like he wanted to be in trouble. "I don't know," he finally answered.
"Well...thank you. That really means a lot." And she smiled. "Now where are we going?"
"Um...second door on the right."
"OK," and Retrobot glided toward the door, passing Orbot as she did so, her shoulder brushing his ever so gently.
But the shock of electricity that ran through him wasn't gentle. It felt incredible. And then, it was over.
"Are you coming?" Retrobot asked from the doorway.
"Yes, I'm coming," he answered weakly.
As he entered the room and was about to close the door, he heard a shout from a ways away. Smiling sadly, he thought to himself, Sounds like someone had a good time riding the rollercoaster.
So what do you think? Please review and let me know!
