FuturAstrorama

X.

The sun slowly slipped below the NNYC horizon marking the start of Xmas eve.

"It's starting." Professor Farnsworth sighed. "Everyone keep away from the doors and windows!"

"I'm going out to face Santa." Astro said as he quickly opened the heavily armed side door and quickly slammed it shut. The door automatically barred and quintuple locked itself behind him.

"Good luck!" everyone in the building cried out.

Astro walked though the deserted streets of the usually busy city. All along the busy avenues doors were locked, windows were boarded up, the only sounds were the wind blowing trash around. A full moon had already rose above the horizon in an almost cloudless sky. Astro cupped his hands to his ears and increased his hearing to 1000x normal power. He rotated his head, and listened for the sound of Santa's sled flying though the atmosphere. He could barely make out the sound of explosions and laser fire coming from the west, over New New Jersey. Astro leap into the air and flew in the direction indicated.

"HO HO HO!" Santa yelled as he lit a fresh stick of TNT and hurled it though the plate glass window of a shopping mall. Moments later there was an explosion that blew out the walls and lifted the roof of the building. A crowd of people that had been taking refuse in the building ran out the rear entrance just in time to avoid being caught in the blast.

"HO HO HO!" Santa yelled as he selected a small caliber photon gun from his arsenal and aimed it at the fleeing crowd. He deliberately fired wide on his first strafing run to scare the crowd, but then turned around for a second pass and engaged his radar sights.
Just as the red and white robot was about to pull the trigger on his firearm his sled was knocked off course as Astro slammed into it as he dived down from several thousand feet above. Santa lost his grip on the weapon, but he quickly regained control of his sled and selected a larger gun from his sack and turned to face his attacker.

"No presents or coal for you!" he laughed at Astro. "You've been a VERY naughty boy!"

"I don't think so!" Astro yelled as he accelerated toward the devil of Xmas.

Santa started shooting, but Astro quickly dodged his laser fire, waiting for an opening to get closer. Santa's weapon paused for a moment to recharge between bursts giving Astro his chance. He zoomed in and yanked the weapon from Santa, bending it into a pretzel shape and wrapping it around the robot's head. Astro then yanked Santa-bot from his sled and carried him high into the air.

"Let go of me you naughty boy!" Santa yelled.

"With pleasure!" Astro laughed, releasing his foe at an altitude of 20,000 feet.

"HO HO HO you fool!" Santa laughed as his remote controlled sled zoomed up in the air to catch him.

"I wasn't counting on that!" Astro muttered to himself as Santa executed an Immelmann turn and selected a huge cannon from his sack. The particle beam weapon caught Astro off guard and he was knocked backwards from the blast. He ricocheted off the structure of the long abandoned Pulaski Skyway and hit the ground.

Astro quickly recovered from the attack and took off using both his leg and arm jets to quickly catch up with Santa who was about to resume his strafing run on locals.

"No you don't!" Astro yelled as he executed an outside loop around Santa's sled with his hip guns blazing.

The sled was raked by the armor piercing depleted uranium shells causing it to veer off course. Santa, who was not damaged by the hail of bullets, quickly regained control of his sled and looked for his attacker.

"HO HO HO .. RAMMING SPEED!" Santa yelled as he took aim at Astro and accelerated the sled to Mach 1.

"I'm through playing with you Santa!" Astro yelled as he morphed his arms into the surge cannons and took aim at the sled.

Astro's double blast lit up the early evening sky over New Hoboken like the 4th of July. The dual particle beams of Astro's arm cannons melted the runners off of the sled and singed the tassels on Santa's cap as the sled fell out of control toward the ground.
Santa was an ace pilot and he pulled out of the dive just before hitting the ground to make a very rough landing, skidding along for several hundred feet and leaving a huge furrow in the ground. Astro landed a few feet away from Santa, his arm cannons still smoking and aimed at the red and white robot's head.

"What gives with you!" Astro yelled. "Do you realize just how stupid you are? You were created to be the image of a saint, yet you act like the devil!"

Smoke wafted from Santa's ears. He was visibly shaken, but mostly still operating within his normal parameters.

"Mankind is naughty!" Santa shouted. "It is my function to hand out presents to the good, and punish the evil! I don't seem to have you on my list. Who are you?"

"Your list is a bit out of date!" Astro yelled. "I'm a robot from 1000 years in the past. When I was created robots were programmed according to the 4 laws of robotics, and were logically committed to serving the good of mankind. Your programming is defective!"

"Nonsense!" Santa yelled. "The zeroth law demands that I must protect mankind, even at the expense of a few evil humans."

"Name a human on your list that ISN'T evil" Astro shouted.

Santa's eyes rolled as his brain was caught in an endless loop.

"If you can't separate good from evil and must destroy all mankind to save mankind then you are in violation of the Zeroth law by obeying it!" Astro yelled. "Lower your standards, or blow yourself up!"

Santa seemed to be fighting the circular logic in his mind for a few minutes. Finally, he reached into his sack and withdrew a thermal bomb and activated the timer.
"HO HO HO! Goodbye!"

Just as Santa bot was about to toss the bomb in Astro's direction Astro fired his surge cannons again, this time using every drop of his one million horsepower. There was a huge explosion, with a mushroom cloud rising up a few hundred feet into the air. The heat of the blast expanded outward for blocks blasting Astro several thousand feet to the east where he landed in the middle of junk yard.

Astro flew back to where Santa had been. Amazingly the sled was still intact, though thrown far down the street by the blast. Santa lay on the ground, heavily charred and dented. His eyes glowed red for a few seconds.

"HO HO ho..." he said as his eyes went dark and his body became still and rigid.

Astro picked up Santa and strapped him into his sled. He picked the sled up and flew back across the Hudson toward NNYC and the Planet Express building.