7~

"I should've gotten up there, instead Marcie," Lab Rat fretted in the Cruiser. "I just had to say yes, after all that begging she did. Ugh! Some m-"

She turned her head to the sound of a white and green truck barreling out of the winding driveway's exit, swerving onto the old road and disappearing in a cloud of road dust and gravel.

She turned the key in the ignition and was about to pull out onto the road to be Marcie's escort, when the flash of sunlight reflected off of a figure sprinting out of the driveway, caught her eye.

"The Questoid!" she gasped, as she started the car. Now, things were getting hairy.

The Questoid kept pace with the truck, its new legs running smoothly, with a 7 percent wider stride, to overtake prey faster. Which was satisfactory to it, as it closed in on the cumbersome vehicle with every pounding stride.

Managing to run parallel of the truck, it reached out a searching hand against the smooth surface of the trailer, trying to find and grab hold of any protrusion strong enough to climb up on, since it couldn't run and rend the vehicle for handholds, at the same time.

Marcie, hearing the sound of metal lightly scraping the truck from the outside, glanced at the rear-view mirror, and gasped.

The plan, originally, was to steal the truck, hide it and maybe discover a vulnerability to the Questoid so that if it was encountered again, it could be destroyed utterly, with no chance of it licking its wounds, afterwards. In hindsight, it sounded like a stupid, desperate plan.

The Questoid, meanwhile, shining in all of its metallic glory, was working hard to keep up and try to climb or damage the truck. That wasn't an option for Marcie.

She twisted the wide steering wheel, careening the truck away from the machine's questing grasp for a moment, then she turned the truck into the side of the running android.

The Questoid, not understanding why the car thief was attempting to turn off the road and crash into the woods, was caught flat-footed when the truck suddenly turned inside the road, slamming into the side of the automaton.

Although the road was mostly empty, it did have the odd car or two using it. One such car, on the other lane, didn't have time to stop when the Questoid, running out of control from being bumped, ran towards it.

Since that car was noticed a good half-mile ahead of time, by the machine, it prepared itself for possibilities concerning it. This collision course was one such possibility.

Calculating both the speed of it and the oncoming car, along with the angle of the preparatory leap and the time in which to do so, it quickly diverted enough hydraulic pressure to the piston-like construction of its legs, so that within two strides, it had jumped to clear the car's roof by inches, landed, and continued the chase.

All of this was seen by a worried Lab Rat, as she floored it to keep up. Her theory of engineering perfection via analyzed destruction was coming true before her eyes. It was faster, thought on it feet better, and seemed more tenacious than before. If it wasn't learning from its defeats, then it was, at least, enjoying the benefits from those who did.

It hadn't reached the cab, yet, probably thinking it was just some unlucky car booster. It would stop the theft just out of general principle, because the vehicle, the contents within, and even itself, were all Quest Industries property. However, if, or when, it found out that Marcie was behind the wheel, then all bets were off, and heaven help her.

Marcie saw how the Questoid had avoided its destruction with the other car, and frantically thought about doing that again when the next car came along. Even a machine could get unlucky, sometimes.

Then, she realized that a person, or persons, were in those cars, and she shook her head. Like some acids, blood was one substance she didn't want on her hands. Reckless endangerment of innocents didn't sit well with her, so a new plan had to hatched, and soon.

Unfortunately, it was the Questoid that came up with one.

The angle of the sun was low, it being late afternoon, however, the sky was clear and the sun still hung high to the left. On occasion, the sunlight would glint off of the robot's surface.

As it tried to increase hydraulic and electrical power to its legs and pelvic motor systems, respectively, it happened to glance up at the outside rear-view mirror just as light reflected off of it onto the mirrored surface.

The driver's side was illuminated for an instant, causing the mystery driver to move the head in reaction to the discomfort. The second that head's face moved into view, the Questoid saw Marcie, and the closest thing to joy surged through its software.

The truck was moving at a good clip down the road, closing in on the town's city limits. It didn't know what Marcie's plan was, but it didn't care. If the Questoid could complete it mission, it was satisfied. Again, sunlight bounced off of it as it lit the side of the trailer.

Then, for the first time in its short existence, the Questoid felt inspiration. Calculating the angle of the sun's ray to maximum effect, it raised its right hand up and out, its angled its palm, which was flat and reflective, to catch the rays.

Instantly, the light beam it made, struck the rear-view mirror ahead and ricocheted the beam directly into Marcie's face.

Marcie squinted and tried to blink away the spots dancing in her vision. Although there were no other vehicles using the road on her lane, at the speeds she was driving, if she couldn't even see the road clearly, she would have to slow the truck to avoid a possible crash, which would make that a possible death sentence for her when the Questoid caught up to her.

In the end, self-preservation in her won out, and she began easing her foot from the gas pedal, when another burst of light dazzled her. Followed by another.

The Questoid, noticing the truck's speed diminishing, decided that it was safe enough to switch to a more leaping stride to close in to the cab.

Seven feet, six feet. Its left hand outstretched to grab the door handle and rip the door away before climbing inside and ripping the girl apart.

It could see Marcie struggle with trying to see with her weak, sensitive eyes, as it was just two feet from the door handle. Two feet from the death of Marcie Fleach.

Then, the sound of a loud lawnmower filled its ears, and for a moment, it hesitated in reaction too late.

Lab Rat, driving the Clue Cruiser at its top speed, managed to catch up to the automaton from behind, hoping to ram it, somehow, frantic to get it away from Marcie.

The Questoid didn't stop its run, but remembered the car and driver behind it for future reference. If she attempted to interfere, it wouldn't hesitate to dispatch the strangely dressed woman.

She interfered, anyway.

So fast was she driving the car, that it overtook the robot, slightly, its bumper shadowing the back of the Questoid's legs.

Then, it happened. The car moved so close that one of the robot's heels struck up underneath the bumper, back-kicking and briefly lifting the front of the car.

Although it felt no pain from the impact, the Questoid's stride was ruined by it.

It fell beneath the Cruiser, getting promptly run over for its troubles, and coming out the other side, rolling violently before settling, sprawled, in both vehicles' dusty wake.

"Marcie!" Lab cried out over the sounds of the truck. "Marcie! Are you alright?"

Hearing a friendly voice, Marcie was overjoyed that the killing machine was gone, at least, for a little while. She looked over at the rear-view mirror and gave a hit on the horn as a signal of her well-being.

A honk from the Clue Cruiser horn signaled Lab's grateful acknowledgement.

Both vehicles finally entered Crystal Cove proper, their drivers breathing relieved sighs. The first part of this now-improvised plan was finished, and the most dangerous part was yet to be done.

A couple wanting to take the scenic route through the pinewood, cruised down the old road on their way back to town. The driver then saw someone lying in their path, yards distant.

He slowed down until he could get a better look. It was human-shaped, but not so.

"What is it?" the girlfriend asked when he stopped the car.

"I don't know," he said, stepping out of the car, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Stay in the car. I'm gonna check this out."

He walked over to the still manikin. It looked worn and coated with a fine layer of dust. It must have been old, he thought. Might make some money off of it, though.

A closer inspection rewarded him with a steely hand clutching his throat, as the Questoid, fresh from its diagnostics and self-repair mode, sat up, looking at the idling car and the terrified woman inside.

Commandeering a vehicle. It was learning.

"That's a lovely car you have, there," it said to its hapless victim.

"I think that's them," Jason called out from within the scrap yard's entrance as green and white truck trundled past, followed by a dented, white VW convertible.

"That's the third truck you said was them," Red groused on his motorcycle, not noticing the small car escorting the larger vehicle.

"Third time's the charm, Red," Daisy said, leaning against the door of her car. "I see the Clue Cruiser."

All three friends gathered by the driver's side of the truck to see Marcie climb wearily out of the cab.

"It's about time you guys showed up," Red complained. "You got any idea how long we waited for you? What were you doing?"

For the sake of friendship and because she was too tired to throw an Insta-Ice capsule against his head to shut him up, Marcie said nothing and just sat down on the footboard below the door.

"Is that the truck you wanted us to hide?" Jason asked, looking at its dimensions and working out where to conceal it. The junkyard seemed the likeliest place to do that, provided the lot's owner was amenable to that, which he was, provided he was paid for the storage of the thing.

That's where Daisy came in. A deal was struck whereby Daisy could come by and buy as much scrap as she could carry, as long as the truck was secured and unhampered with. With the financial strength of the Blake name and dollar signs in the old man's eyes, he agreed.

"Yes," Lab Rat said. "We gave the robot the slip, but it'll be here, you can bet on that."

Daisy shook her head. "I still can't believe that story you told us. A robot coming to town to get you, Marcie?"

Don't worry, you guys," Marcie said, lifting her head to watch the lot's entrance. "It's coming. Have you guy set up the traps, like I asked?"

Red waved the question away. "Yeah, yeah, they're set up, no problem. There just better be this killer robot on its way, or we wasted our time, here."

"It's-"

"Yeah, yeah. It's coming," Red said. "Okay, let's get this truck put away, and then we'll get ready for this robot snipe hunt."

A car entered the entrance of the lot with a quiet that seemed almost sinister, as it crunched across the gravel. Young eyes watched it come to a stop and waited. Impossibly, a machine man stepped out of the car and stared at the mountain range of junk ahead of it.

It decided to conserve its energy, and simply walked towards it, its optics scanning every shadowy crawlspace that a slim human could hide in. Nothing was forthcoming.

Nervous ears could hear the cold sound of metal soles on gravel, and bodies tensed into potential action, as the Questoid calmly walked deeper into the dark valleys of scrap.

As it walked around the base of one scrap meal mountain, it heard something faint, an arrhythmic tapping coming from another junk hill off to the side.

It moved at a brisker pace, homing in on the sound and hoping it was the target, foolishly giving herself away. Finally, it reached the hill, looking for the human, but finding only an old dippy bird, tapping on a hubcap it was perched on, like a plastic, liquid-filled woodpecker.

Red, carefully creeping over the peak of the hill, dragged a cobbled together net woven from thin metal fiber. On its ends were heavy disks which made the net awkward to manipulate. When the Questoid began walking away from the hill, Red reached back and cast out the net with a strong heft.

It sailed through the air silently enough that the machine didn't notice until it fell on him. Reaction was instant, but before it thought to rip through the net, its lines began to tighten around the robot, stealing away its ability to gain enough leverage to rend the net.

It wasn't until the Questoid had struggled long enough, that it understood how the net had restrained it so quickly. The net's disks had attached themselves to its limbs and torso. They were powerful magnets, drawing themselves and the rest of the net into a tangle that even the robot was having trouble freeing itself from.

Red suddenly descended the hill, running at it with an old fire axe, and, like a berserker born, he put everything he had into chopping at the chest and head of what he thought was impossible just minutes before.

The spiked end did the most damage to the squirming Questoid, punching dents and scratched divots in its body, but doing no internal damage, thanks to its stronger alloy. However, the impact left shock damage that the brain was trying to reconcile.

Red, to his credit, kept whacking at it, until the axe's dry, weather-beaten handle snapped in two, after burying the head into one of the robot's shoulder joints, actually wrecking it.

The Questoid struggled some more until one of its legs slid out from under the tight snuggle of the net, and Red was close enough for it to use it.

With a piston-powered kick, it caught Red by surprise, launching him into a tumbling crash against the foot of the junk hill. Winded, he lie there, favoring his gut and valiantly trying to catch his breath, while the robot had loosen the net enough from the kick to begin pulling it apart, gradually.

Red knew that it wouldn't be long until it would be ripping him apart, as well. That's when they both heard a vindictive cackle, that pleased one, as it surprised the other.

Looking up, both human and machine looked up to see a young woman wrapped in a tattered cloak point a crooked finger at the still struggling Questoid, who was tugging magnets off of it by the shredded net cables they were attached to.

"You, machine man!" challenged Daisy, perched on a nearby hill and as junk drunk as ever. "You look well put together. You've already sampled a taste of my champion's hospitality, now you shall become a part of my glorious collection!"

The Questoid looked up at this addled female, focusing its investigation on finding its quarry. "Where is Marcie Fleach?"

Again, the queen of the junkyard laughed haughtily at his inquiry. "You seek Fleach? My alchemist, my scholar? To what end? To take her from me, perhaps? Well, you shall not have her, but you may have what she concocted for my safety!"

With that, she opened her ragged robe, revealing a bandoleer of flasks. She snatched one from its strap and threw it at the robot, who didn't move to avoid it, confident in its construction. It should have suspected something when Red began to scramble away from the machine.

What was thought to be some ineffectual weapon thrown by a mad woman, was, when it impacted with its chest, something else, entirely. The chemical reacted with the collision and exploded with force enough to blast the surprised Questoid back into the base of another junk hill and partially bury it within.

Daisy gave another flask a toss, striking the ground near the still robot and causing the hill to avalanche over the Questoid with its shockwave.

The robot's burial was punctuated by Queen Daisy's triumphant laughter. "Axels to axels. Rust to rust!" she cackled, while Red called out to her.

"Daisy, c'mon down here! That thing's probably just getting its second wind, if robots can have that," he cautioned, which only brought out more of Daisy's imperious attitude.

"If it dares to rise and challenge me again, then I shall have to have it dismantled by inches," she stated.

Red sighed and waved her down. Sometimes, she could be so hard to be with, when she was like this, he thought, as she carefully descended from her hill.

The Questoid rested in its tomb of scrap metal, analyzing the chemical composition of the bomb that struck it, while its diagnostic and self-repair systems went to work.

The end result of the analysis was mercury fulminate. A record of Marcie's involvement in the Wacky and Rotten Racers' incident corroborated with what the woman had just said about Marcie making it for her. She was close, indeed, and so, with a few movements, the automaton began to exhume itself from the loose junk.

Red looked behind to see the resilient Questoid claw itself out of its burial mound, still intact, but no longer looking as pristine as it did before it left Greenman's house.

It wore heavy dents and scratches to its dusty and rust-coated upper torso, head and neck. A few magnets still clung to parts of its body, like remoras, making its movement awkward. Its chopped shoulder joint was in danger of failing and detaching, and the shockwave from the first flask had managed to overload the impact protection of one of its optics, cracking it into uselessness.

Other than that, the prototype was still eighty-six percent operational, as it shook off the detritus from its head, shoulders and back. It swiveled its head to lock its sight on the two humans who got in its way and started to walk towards them, murder in its remaining optic.

Red gestured to Daisy. "Daisy, flask me."

Daisy, understanding their need to deal with the Questoid, even in her junk drunken persona, passed a mercury fulminate flask to him. Red didn't waste time and threw it.

The Questoid raised its arm to shield its face from the oncoming bottle, unfortunately for it, it raised the arm with the bad shoulder. The blast drove it into a backwards tumble and it crashed into the gravel.

It got up again within seconds, but its brain flashed a damage report. The shockwave finished what Red's axe had started, ripping the arm completely off at the shoulder. The robot ignored the trauma, and resumed its stalking of Red and Daisy, leaving the arm wherever it landed, joining the countless number of parts and wrecks of the lot.

When it reached the spot where they stopped to attack it, they were gone. Like Marcie, they proved to be dangerous, capable of inflicting enough damage to hamper, or even stop its mission. Caution was recommended from here on out.

However, mission priority called for Marcie Fleach, and so, it resumed its search.

It crept by junk piles, stalked among the scrapheaps, and kept itself mindful of any more traps that the humans may have set, and gradually it began to feel something, the notion that because Marcie and her compatriots were forcing it to adapt more and more, it had become a better machine, as a result.

That caused an increase in its overall functionality, an inner drive, based on a possibility of failure that could ultimately end in its total destruction, weighed against the possibility of its success in proving the viability of its eventual series.

Its brain interpreted it as an example of dynamic probability assessment, but if it was human, the Questoid would have been said to have experienced genuine excitement in this hunt.

Red and Daisy snuck around a metal mountain, hoping to evade the robot, and ran into it around the next rise of junk and scrap. A piston-powered hand reached out and gripped Red's throat.

"Red!" Seeing this snapped Daisy out of her delusional state, but she couldn't use her flasks against it, he was too close, and the Questoid could dispatch him before she opened her cloak.

"Where is Marcie Fleach?" it asked, smoothly. "You hindered my mission, but you didn't end it. Tell me where she is, and I will disregard you. Please, decide."

Daisy was torn. Could she offer up her friend to save Red? Could she?

A loud cough from somewhere off in the distance took the decision from her. All eyes turned to see Marcie standing in the only industrial section of the lot, near the warehouses, garages, and work areas, where the wrecks and hulks that were brought in were broken down for parts and raw metal.

"I thought you were looking for me, Quest-toy," Marcie called out. "How did you know I'd come here, anyway?"

The Questoid, satisfied with the outcome, released Red and tossed him into a grateful Daisy, who caused both of them to fall to the ground. In an attempt not to provoke it further, they stayed there, while the machine strolled in Marcie's direction.

Where she exposed herself from was a logical place to hide, it thought. The high levels of electrical current from the vehicles and machinery could mask her from its sensors, by causing RF interference. If only it wasn't built by superior minds to fulfill its programming. It almost felt sorry for this stripling of a human. Almost.

"When your friend in the small car ran me over," it explained. "I activated the tracker that was installed in every Quest Industries vehicle. Following you was more efficient, afterwards."

"That's pretty clever...for future soda cans," Marcie taunted. She then ran back into the work area, weaving into the shadows of the utility vehicles, hoping the robot wouldn't run to give chase.

It didn't. It didn't need to. It knew where she was, now, and could easily overtake her when it had her cornered, which wouldn't be too long, then, it would finish off the others for the sake of tying up loose ends.

What it didn't expect, at least, not until it could kill her with its bear hand, was to hear her scream. That spurred it into a run.

Marcie was gone from its perception when it arrived, and it had to filter out the ambient noise of industry to try and isolate her. Then, it stiffened in reaction, as it caught a faint voice in the cacophony.

"Guys? Where are you?" Marcie asked, pained. "I can't-I can't hide in here all day, you know! Guys! C'mon, answer me. Where are you?"

The Questoid homed in on Marcie, like a wolf hearing the bleats of a lost lamb, desirous to make her last experience on Earth fatal and one-sided.

As it entered deeper in the area, the plaintive yelling became louder, until the automaton could almost pinpoint the location to about a few yards distant among the lot's equipment.

There. In a concrete and metal-walled pit within the shadow of a crane, came the sound. It smiled with its deathly face.

"Who's out there?" Marcie asked, pensively. "Is that you, guys?"

The Questoid slid down one of the inner walls of the opening and looked around for her. The walls were metal, as it could see, but had what looked like thin pipework running parallel across the walls' centers, so that they ran around the inner circumference of the pit.

It ignored this in favor of the bumpy, uneven cloth-covered flooring in there. Although it was programmed to approximate curiosity, it was thinking too much of its prey to be distracted, now. The only thing that it was starting to understand was that Marcie Fleach's body wasn't in the pit with him to be killed.

In the center of the pit, however, its steely foot crunched against something, a small, flat object. Moving its foot aside, it reached down to pick up a cell phone.

"Gotcha, soda can!" came the hated girl's voice from the tinny little speaker.

Suddenly, a force began to tug at the robot from all around it, weak, at first, but then with greater vigor. In confusion, it looked at the walls again, and the notion became as obvious to it, as it was too late. Electromagnetism.

At the moment, all the attractive walls could do was play an invisible, four-way game of tug-o-war, with the Questoid in the middle, safe, as long as it stood in the center of the pit. But now, it wondered if those walls' gauss levels would suddenly rise enough to turn its tug-o-war into it being drawn and quartered.

A sound of footsteps near the edge of the pit made the robot look up to see three teens, the oddly dressed woman from before, and lastly, the hated Marcie Fleach, looking insufferably smug in her seeming victory.

"Hi, there," Marcie said, good-naturedly. "What you're in is the latest in metal recycling technology. It's a shredder, in case you didn't know. However, like you, this shredder is state-of-the-art. The owner of the lot said so.

Jason further explained. "What you're feeling are the protective magnets in the walls. They're there to keep the metal from flying out and hurting soft humans, like workers, or even, us."

The Questoid said nothing. It could not hunt its prey, or escape this perfect trap, prepared with the perfect bait. All it could do was contemplate its failure, enjoy its hatred of Marcie, and wait for the end.

"Oh, the owner also said that it was brand new. Hasn't been broken in, yet," Lab Rat said, holding a cabled remote control, her thumb hovering over the thick, green button. "We told him we'd fix that."

It was then that the machine within the machine decide to speak, one last time. A query to the woman who helped defeat it.

"I must ask," it questioned her, its approximated curiosity, piqued. "Who are you?"

"My name is Lab Rat," she said, proudly. "And I'm here to protect Marcie Fleach." To punctuate that point, she pressed the button.

Under its feet, the robot felt the vibrations of powerful motors humming strong and loud. The cloth that hid the bottom of the pit, and the robot's feet, suddenly exploded into a hundred tiny, ragged-ended remnants, revealing the curved, sharp, case-hardened metal teeth of the shredder.

As the oily pieces of old cloth floated down around the maimed Questoid, it had to wonder if Dr. Quest and his fellow designers might have had their prototype succeed, if only they had worked on it just a little bit more.

Anything else the Questoid might have thought became so much static and the gibberish of broken code, ripped away from its rent software, as easily as the ravenous shredder finally ripped apart its body.