Astro gazed down on the unorganized parade of people from his perch beside Zog's head. They were all heading to the stadium for the robot games, and he was looking forward to seeing what sorts of games robots actually played.
Hamegg zipped about ahead of Zog in a personal hover car proclaiming, "My fellow surface-dwellers!" A hidden amplifier projected his voice for all to hear. "Today's the day you've all been waiting for! Give him a hand, folks: the kid in the red boots! He's the one who got this killing machine up and running."
Zane and the twins were sitting on the big robot's cement mixer, while Cora rode like a queen in Zog's hand. "You are the golden child," she said to Astro. "Hamegg really likes you."
"I like him too. What's he mean by 'killing machine'?"
"Well, the robots fight until one of them is destroyed."
Astro couldn't contain his shock. "What?"
"Don't worry; Zog is going to crush them all."
"That's what happens in the robot games?"
"Well, what did you expect? Rock, paper, scissors?"
Astro leaned against Zog's head. This was not what he had expected or wanted, but he was committed to watch for now. At least he hadn't told them he was a robot, or he might well have found himself on one of the fight cards.
The kids dismounted when they got to the stadium, and Zog led them into the stables under the bleachers, where all the competing robots had their stalls.
Astro mulled over how to deal with the situation, and decided, once Zog was parked, to make his appeal. "I thought it was a show, not a slaughter," he said to Hamegg.
"They're just robots, son."
'Just robots'? "I thought you liked robots?"
"I do," Hamegg answered as he started to walk away, Astro following directly behind him. "But at the end of the day, they're just junk waiting to happen. I know, some of those more advanced ones from Metro City are programmed to smile and laugh, just like us."
Cora said, "Really?"
"Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, they don't have real emotions, which is why I have no problem doing ... this!" He spun around unexpectedly and aimed a forked device at Astro. A crackling beam of radiation hit him and enveloped him in light.
Pain! Astro hadn't felt such pain even when he was being attacked by that big ship in Metro City—a memory of Toby's told him it was called the Spirit of Freedom. Fault and error messages flooded his mind, and he collapsed as he started to go into protective shutdown.
He could still see Hamegg, who exclaimed, "It worked! I don't believe it!"
Cora was horrified. "What are you doing?"
Hamegg held the instrument up proudly. "I swiped this from Doctor Tenma after he fired me from the Ministry of Science."
"Who cares? Why did you do that to Astro?"
"He's our friend!" Sludge said.
Hamegg turned on them angrily. "I thought I raised you better. Are you blind? He's a robot!"
Astro numbly wondered how the man had discovered his secret. Could it have been when he had been using that metering instrument on Zog? It was the only possibility he could think of. Stupid.
"He's ..." Cora looked down at Astro in shock. "That's not true." Hamegg nodded gently as the others stared sadly at their fallen comrade. "It can't be true."
Oh Cora! Astro thought sadly. You trusted me. I didn't mean for you to find out like this.
{Initialize(main shutdown)}
"Somebody programmed him to be nice," Hamegg went on. "He's not really nice; he's just an incredibly powerful machine."
Cora seemed shattered. "But he was so ..."
"I know, sweetheart," Hamegg said to her.
{Complete} Please, Cora, don't hate me. {Initiate(main shutdown)} ...
{Clear(fault codes)} {Complete} {Clear(error codes)} {Complete} {Initialize(centre)} {Complete} {Initiate(centre)} {Complete}
Where am I? Astro opened his eyes and saw that he was trapped inside a small capsule of some sort, with daylight leaking in.
At that moment, Hamegg started his spiel. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ..." He was in the hover car, flying above the stadium floor. "... and all you riff-raff who snuck in without buying a ticket, allow me to present ..." The capsule opened to reveal Astro to the crowd which filled the bleachers. "... Astro-boy!"
Astro, still dazed, wandered off of the small platform that housed the capsule. Somebody had put shoulder pads on him and placed a red 'A' on the front of his shirt.
Hamegg was in fine form. "I know, I know; you're wondering what a nice-looking kid like that is doing in a place like this. That ain't no kid, folks! That's a robot! From Metro City!"
Astro scanned the seats and finally located Cora and the others, but as soon as he made eye contact with her, she frowned and looked away. He felt sick. He couldn't help it that he was a robot, and there was no way he could have told her, as events had proven.
Hamegg swooped down near Astro. "Get this, folks! Astro personally told me he doesn't think much of our fighting robots."
That angered the crowd, which was exactly what it was supposed to do, and they jeered and booed at him.
"Thinks we're all a bunch of sissies," Hamegg continued. "Thinks you're all trailer-park trash!" He swooped towards one of the doors along the high walls that separated the floor from the bleachers. "This is what we've all been waiting for: a fight between the surface and Metro City. Let's get it on!"
Astro braced himself: he was on one of the cards after all. Too bad.
The immense door opened to reveal a large, black, ninja-style robot with spinning circular saw-blade hands. It advanced on him aggressively.
"I'm not fighting!" he said, but it attacked anyway, and he had to back off in a hurry.
The crowd roared its approval.
Astro swooped behind the robot and landed on its back. "I'm not doing this!" he said and shot upward, but was stunned by an unexpected force field over the stadium. He plummeted to the ground, but recovered just in time to avoid the other robot's next move. He dodged a flurry of attacks—he wasn't going to be able to avoid a fight—got under the robot and lifted it up into the force field, destroying its head.
He tossed the remains onto the arena floor and descended. He wasn't proud of what he had just done; a robot had been destroyed because of him—no, because of Hamegg. This was his idea.
But why was there a force field up there at all? None of the other robots he had seen looked like they could fly.
A couple of utility machines pushed the defeated robot into a pit to one side as Hamegg cried out, "Bring out the Little Stinker!"
An adorable-looking little robot came out toward Astro and asked in a child-like voice, "Will you play with us?"
"Us?" Astro asked. He could only see one.
"Yes, us." It quickly split and became two deadly-looking robots. Astro backed away quickly, but one of the pair opened fire with machine guns.
Astro tore around the inside wall of the stadium, keeping low to protect the audience from bullets and shrapnel—keep the humans out of this! He then shot in very close to the robot with the spiky club, spun around it to confuse it, then rapped on its head. "Hey fella," he said.
The robot swung at him, but he dodged, causing the blow to fall on the machine-gun unit and immobilize it.
Astro snatched the unit up and aimed it at the other one. The heavy gunfire destroyed it, and he flung the unit into the wall, where it exploded.
Hamegg was furious, and ordered every robot in the place out to battle Astro. They quickly surrounded him, but he knocked back all comers. Then, drawing on all of his strength, he threw himself into the battle, scattering chunks of robot all around the stadium floor.
When the last one was defeated, he rose up into the air, exhausted. An awed silence hung over the stadium for a moment, then the audience jumped up as one and cheered their lungs out.
He only had eyes for Cora. Finding his friends again in the bleachers, he gave her a tentative smile, but she refused to meet his gaze. His heart crumbled: she hated him after all. He settled back onto the floor as the maintenance robots cleared the last pieces out of the way, hoping—fervently wishing—that the fighting was over.
Hamegg had other ideas. "And now," he announced, swooping low. "The final challenger! A robot so fearsome, so powerful, even I'm afraid to watch." A hatch opened in the floor, and up rose Zog into the light of day. "I give you the Mighty Zog!"
"Oh, no," Astro said. The man couldn't have hit him with a more painful blow if he'd used his zapper.
Hamegg flew over beside Zog and said, "Let's see how Astro-boy does against a robot powered with the same energy he's got."
Astro clenched his fists. The man had discovered he was a robot by using that metering device back when they first brought Zog to him. Astro had no choice. "I'm not fighting you, Zog," he declared, but the whole place shook as Zog lumbered toward him. "I mean it!" he cried, and ripped the A and shoulder pads off. "I won't fight!"
Zog came to a crashing halt beside him and reached toward him. Astro braced himself for the attack, but it never came: Zog gently rubbed him on the head and nudged him in a gesture of companionship. It then lowered its hand and offered it to him. He climbed on and was lifted high into the air, to the loud acclaim of the people watching.
Hamegg was not impressed. "Great! A love-in! Some big finale!" He whipped out the instrument of torture and commanded, "Fight!" He zapped Zog, then, when Astro tried to take off, hit him full force, knocking him to the ground.
Struggling to get to his feet, Astro said, "I won't fight!"
"Fight!" He zapped him again, even harder.
From the stands Astro heard Zane bellow, "That's enough!"
Hamegg turned on Zane. "What's the matter with you? They're just machines. They'll do what I tell them!" Jumping down from his hover car, he approached the stubborn robots. "What? I'm going to get embarrassed by some souped-up hot-shot from Metro City?" He hit Astro. "A hundred-year-old bulldozer from New Jersey?" He hit him again. "I don't think so!"
Astro struggled to block out the protective shutdown as the fault messages flooded his mind. If he lost consciousness now, he was doomed.
Stopping in front of the two robots, Hamegg said, "I'm turning you both off!"
Suddenly it seemed as if Zog had had enough; it brought one of its great feet crashing down onto the floor, which bounced and knocked Hamegg off of his feet. The man scrambled to pull himself away from the enraged machine; however, Zog caught up with him easily and raised a foot over him threateningly.
"Stop!" cried Hamegg in desperation. "The laws of robotics! You can't hurt a human! It's been that way for fifty years."
His head swimming, Astro watched in horror at what was going on, and dragged himself to his feet. This must not happen!
Zog hesitated, then spoke for the first time. "I'm old school," it said, and brought its foot down full force with a clank.
The audience gasped.
Astro groaned; the weight of Zog's foot was crushing, but he had made it.
Hamegg looked up, startled. "What kind of robot are you?"
Astro turned and gazed at Cora: See what kind of robot I am? This time she did not look away.
The roar of President Stone's command ship filled the air, and it came in and landed on the stadium floor near Zog. Soldiers poured out and took up positions around the perimeter, guns pointed at the audience.
Zog stepped back, and Astro straightened up, wondering why the military was still chasing him. Would Dad never give up?
President Stone stepped out and commanded, "Seize the rogue robot, and secure the area."
Astro blinked in surprise. Or was it Dad? The president was here, and he would hardly being doing Astro's father's bidding. What was going on?
A soldier took hold of Astro, but Zog grabbed the man and another soldier nearby, and hoisted them into the air.
Astro couldn't let it turn into a war. "No, Zog, stop! Put them down." It all suddenly became so clear to him: he could live a life on the run, putting the lives of others at risk; or he could accept the reality that he had been rejected, tossed aside as the lowly robot he was, by the most important people in his life. He sighed and said, "It doesn't matter any more."
Zog obediently dropped the soldiers, and another soldier shoved Astro toward the waiting ship. The audience was incensed and began to throw things.
Now in handcuffs, Astro turned to Cora and told her, "I'm sorry. I tried to tell you." If she at least didn't hate him, it would be okay.
The soldier pushed him toward the ramp, then was attacked by Trashcan, who had come down out of the audience to defend Astro. It was merely kicked aside, and Astro told it, "It's okay, Trashcan." He then turned to face his lonely, meaningless death.
