Quintet: Part Eight
by Martial Arts Master
All PBS Kids characters copyright of PBS, PBS Kids, and the shows' respective creators. This fanfiction idea came to me in a dream. In my dream, five PBS Kids characters were on a quest of some sort, though I don't know exactly what, so I made up the story from there in this fic. In my dream, they were known as the Heavenly Quintet. (This was a weird dream. So weird, in fact, that the word the dream actually used was "quantet", which isn't even a word.) However, I had to make a couple of changes. First of all, the Dragon Tales character that appeared in my dream was Ord, but I put Cassie in this fic instead because otherwise, Sagwa, the main character from Sagwa: The Chinese-Siamese Cat, would've been the only female in the entire quintet, which might cause female readers to accuse me of being a sexist pig, and they would have a right to do so. Therefore, Cassie will appear in this fic instead. Second of all, I changed the name of the quintet to the PBS Kids Quintet, because using the word "heavenly" would've been a blatant religious reference, and with the exception of The Adventures from the Book of Virtues, which had an episode centered around "Faith", and the Cyberchase episode that involved the Greek deity Zeus, PBS Kids is completely non-religious. I can't always say the same for the regular PBS, but PBS Kids is for the most part immune to religion. Therefore, to keep the spirit of PBS Kids, the name change stands. Grand High Idol had the idea of policemen robots, Dr. Thinker had the idea of Matt disappearing and the clone Hacker, and Sir Alanna had the idea of guilt and logic using Skwak. Now, on with the story!
***
Our heroes were falling from the sky after having completed the Sky section.
Luckily for Cassie, she was a dragon, and, remembering that she had wings, saved herself by flying.
The others, however, weren't so lucky, and they fell flat on the ground.
Cassie gasped and quickly flew down to check on them.
Miraculously, they were unhurt, although dizzy.
"I never wanna do anything like that ever again..." Arthur groaned.
"You said it!" Sagwa agreed. "That was worse than being chased by Tai-Tai's sleeve dogs!"
Seeing the blank looks on everyone else's faces, Sagwa quickly added, "Tai-Tai's the wife of the magistrate where I live. She has these useless dogs she keeps in her sleeves. Honestly, I don't know why she bothers. Dogs aren't as useful as cats."
Clifford cleared his throat loudly. That reminded Sagwa that it isn't usually wise to insult dogs when you are in the prescence of a dog bigger than a house.
"Present company excepted," Sagwa hastily corrected herself.
"And all my dog friends?" Clifford asked warningly.
"Them too," Sagwa confirmed.
Clifford sighed in relief.
"So now what?" Matt asked.
"You tell me, you're the cyber-expert," Arthur snapped.
"That doesn't mean I know everything about technology! I'm not even out of school yet!" Matt shot back.
Before this could escalate into a full-blown argument, Cassie hastily stepped between them.
"Instead of arguing, we should consult Matt's Skwak and figure out the way out of this section," Cassie told them.
At that, our heroes took a good look around at where they were.
It was a huge city, filled with bustling skyscrapers, factories, and roads.
In fact, technology was present everywhere, prompting Arthur's ill-timed "cyber-expert" comment.
One might expect a lot of vehicles in a place like this. Well, there were vehicles, all right...but not the ordinary kind, however ordinary they looked.
These vehicles, after arriving at their destinations, disappeared.
That meant they turned into wireframe mode such as a computer-rendered model might start off as, and then vanished.
The people of this city, when they needed them again, typed a code into electronic wristbands on their wrists.
"I guess this must be the Metropolis section," Sagwa commented.
"Well thank you, Captain Obvious," Matt snapped.
Then, he quickly apologized, adding, "I'm sorry. I'm just dizzy from all this hustle and bustle."
Before anyone could say anything else, a policeman walked up to our heroes.
"Are you lost, kind citizens?" the policeman asked in a friendly tone.
Forgetting that a dog was not supposed to be able to be understood by humans, Clifford piped up, "Oh yes, sir! We're trying to find a way out of the Metropolis section."
Clifford looked back and saw his friends making frantic 'be quiet' gestures. He hung his head guiltily.
The policeman didn't seem to find anything unusual about it.
"Come with me to the police station, and we'll see what we can do," the policeman responded.
With shrugs, our heroes followed the policeman.
They did find it odd, however, that he didn't react to Clifford being able to speak.
When our heroes arrived at the police station, however, they reacted with awe as to how gigantic it was.
This was no normal police station. It encompassed an area equal to five police stations.
Seeing the surprised looks on our heroes' faces, the policeman explained, "The Metropolis section is such a huge city that we need all the manpower we can get to handle it."
Without another word, our heroes were taken inside the station.
Inside, our heroes were surprised to discover a whole army of police officers waiting for them.
"Is all this really necessary?" Cassie asked.
She got her answer when the police officers, including the policeman our heroes had encountered, threw off their clothes to reveal shining metal underneath.
Then, our heroes got an even bigger shock when the police officers pulled off what appeared to be their faces, only to reveal that the faces were masks, and metal heads were underneath.
"You guys are robots!" Matt shouted.
"Uhhhh...what are robots?" Cassie and Sagwa asked simultaneously, clueless expressions on their faces.
After reminding himself that Cassie grew up in a land without technology, and Sagwa grew up in the ancient past, and neither of their fictional books mentioned anything about metal creatures like they did in Clifford and Arthur's worlds, Matt mumbled something like "long story don't ask".
"You see, we have been secretly controlling this city from behind the scenes," the robot that was the policeman our heroes had encountered said. But now his voice was mechanical, with no inflection or emotion.
"Every elected official is secretly elected by us," another robot added.
"But you guys can't possibly make up a majority!" Arthur shouted.
"Did you idiots think only the police have been infested by robots?" a robot on Arthur's left snapped. "We are everywhere! We're in the fire station...a business CEO north of here is a robot...we're in the schools..."
"Okay, okay, we get the picture! But why?" Matt asked.
"Because robots are more efficient than humans," a small robot retorted. "We don't need to sleep. We don't need to eat. We don't get bored. We don't need to drink. We started controlling this city from behind the scenes so that we, the superior race, get the power we so richly deserve."
Something about the way these robots were talking nagged at Clifford. But he didn't say anything yet.
"Why did you reveal all this to us?" Arthur asked.
"Because we were planning to kill you anyway," a huge robot answered. "You see, all the research shows that only humans and robots are capable of sentient intelligence. Among you are a cat, a dog, a dragon, and an aardvark. All inferior species. Therefore, you four must be eliminated, and the human too, for harboring inferior species."
At this, Cassie gasped, Sagwa screamed, Clifford trembled, Arthur fainted, and Matt looked angry.
Then, Clifford suddenly realized what had been bothering him.
Not only that, but for some reason Matt's Skwak had become a recording device, with Matt not even noticing. The "record" button was switched on. Probably the game world did that to give them a way out of the challenge, if they could use it right.
And Clifford had a plan.
After whispering in Matt's ear what had happened, and then outlining his plan, Matt turned off the recording device.
"Tell me," Clifford asked casually, "you say robots are superior?"
The robots all nodded.
"Do they have emotions?" Clifford asked.
"Of course not," a robot responded.
"So, if I could prove that you guys have indeed expressed emotions, would you let us go?" Clifford went on to ask.
The robots hesitated.
"We would give you a chance to escape if you could prove that," the same robot reluctantly admitted. "But you don't even have one such instance. So prepare to die."
With that, Matt played back the recording of the entire conversation.
First of all, in response to Arthur's question about majority, a robot had called our heroes "idiots" in a hostile tone. That alone required emotions, but that wasn't all.
Second, another robot had said, "We started controlling this city from behind the scenes so that we, the superior race, get the power we so richly deserve" in a gleeful tone, which would require the emotion of haughtiness.
The robots all screamed upon listening to the recording.
"Very well, you all may go, if the human passes a test," a thin robot said.
"Bring it on!" Matt said challengingly. "I'll take on anything!"
Another robot snapped, "Not when our friend Ashura is giving out the test."
"Did you say Ashura?" Matt asked, eyes widening.
But instead of an answer, all the robots in the room disappeared.
Then, Cassie, Clifford, Sagwa, and Arthur all disappeared as well.
Worse than that, though was what appeared.
It was Hacker. Hacker, the enemy of cyberspace. Hacker, who had long been the proverbial thorn in Matt, Jackie, and Inez's sides.
"Surprise, vermin!" Hacker cackled with glee. "I'll destroy you, and I'll dance on your grave! Prepare, brat!"
Hacker took out a laser pistol and fired at Matt, who was narrowly able to dive out of the way.
After that, it was a like a sick, deadly game of tag, with the Hacker chasing after Matt, and Matt running for his life.
Matt tried to run out the door and out of the police station, but found to his dismay that the door was locked. Obviously the robots had locked it earlier when our heroes had come in.
So, in desperation, he ran up the stairs of the police station, Hacker close behind, still firing lasers.
Matt, instead of stopping at the different floors, didn't get off of the stairs until the very last floor of the police station, 7 stories up.
He quickly locked the door behind, and for the moment, Hacker had to suffice with firing lasers through the door, hoping to catch Matt with a lucky shot.
Matt sat down beside the door so the shots would miss, and started to think about his situation.
This was a test...so this probably wasn't the real Hacker.
That, however, didn't make the situation any less dangerous.
Then, he spotted an oil can on a shelf.
This was no fantastic coincidence. Robots needed oiling sometimes, so there were probably cans like this everywhere.
It was still exactly what Matt needed, though, especially as Hacker had stopped firing lasers and begun trying to ram the door down.
Thinking quickly, Matt opened one of the windows, and then spilled the oil on the floor, being careful not to slip on it himself.
With that, Matt hurriedly opened the door.
Hacker, who had been in the middle of another charge, was caught off guard by the lack of resistance.
His momentum carried him into the oil spill, and he began slipping and slidding all the way to the open window.
Matt took a moment to reflect. He wouldn't do what he was about to do next if this were the real Hacker. He wasn't the type that believed that even criminals deserved to die.
But this was a fake.
So Matt had no qualms about waiting until Hacker had slipped towards the window, and then shoving Hacker out of it.
That, of course, is exactly what he did.
Hacker screamed as he fell seven stories, and then, amazingly, as he hit the ground, disintegrated into computer pixels, which then disappeared.
Matt's hunch had been right. Hacker was a fake.
No sooner had Hacker completely disappeared then the entire city followed suit.
As Matt gawked, the entire city and all of its citizens disintegrated into computer pixels, and then disappeared.
Turning around, he found Cassie, Arthur, Sagwa, and Clifford standing behind him, looking confused.
"Weren't we just in a police station?" Sagwa asked.
Matt realized that his friends must not have been aware of anything that had happened during the time they disappeared. Or that they disappeared at all.
Consulting his Skwak for the map to lead them to the next section, the Cave section (and then mentally kicked himself when he realized he could've done that earlier), he said to them, "Never mind. Let's just head to the Cave section. We're done here..."
To be continued...
E-mail all other questions and comments to bleifer@comcast.net
by Martial Arts Master
All PBS Kids characters copyright of PBS, PBS Kids, and the shows' respective creators. This fanfiction idea came to me in a dream. In my dream, five PBS Kids characters were on a quest of some sort, though I don't know exactly what, so I made up the story from there in this fic. In my dream, they were known as the Heavenly Quintet. (This was a weird dream. So weird, in fact, that the word the dream actually used was "quantet", which isn't even a word.) However, I had to make a couple of changes. First of all, the Dragon Tales character that appeared in my dream was Ord, but I put Cassie in this fic instead because otherwise, Sagwa, the main character from Sagwa: The Chinese-Siamese Cat, would've been the only female in the entire quintet, which might cause female readers to accuse me of being a sexist pig, and they would have a right to do so. Therefore, Cassie will appear in this fic instead. Second of all, I changed the name of the quintet to the PBS Kids Quintet, because using the word "heavenly" would've been a blatant religious reference, and with the exception of The Adventures from the Book of Virtues, which had an episode centered around "Faith", and the Cyberchase episode that involved the Greek deity Zeus, PBS Kids is completely non-religious. I can't always say the same for the regular PBS, but PBS Kids is for the most part immune to religion. Therefore, to keep the spirit of PBS Kids, the name change stands. Grand High Idol had the idea of policemen robots, Dr. Thinker had the idea of Matt disappearing and the clone Hacker, and Sir Alanna had the idea of guilt and logic using Skwak. Now, on with the story!
***
Our heroes were falling from the sky after having completed the Sky section.
Luckily for Cassie, she was a dragon, and, remembering that she had wings, saved herself by flying.
The others, however, weren't so lucky, and they fell flat on the ground.
Cassie gasped and quickly flew down to check on them.
Miraculously, they were unhurt, although dizzy.
"I never wanna do anything like that ever again..." Arthur groaned.
"You said it!" Sagwa agreed. "That was worse than being chased by Tai-Tai's sleeve dogs!"
Seeing the blank looks on everyone else's faces, Sagwa quickly added, "Tai-Tai's the wife of the magistrate where I live. She has these useless dogs she keeps in her sleeves. Honestly, I don't know why she bothers. Dogs aren't as useful as cats."
Clifford cleared his throat loudly. That reminded Sagwa that it isn't usually wise to insult dogs when you are in the prescence of a dog bigger than a house.
"Present company excepted," Sagwa hastily corrected herself.
"And all my dog friends?" Clifford asked warningly.
"Them too," Sagwa confirmed.
Clifford sighed in relief.
"So now what?" Matt asked.
"You tell me, you're the cyber-expert," Arthur snapped.
"That doesn't mean I know everything about technology! I'm not even out of school yet!" Matt shot back.
Before this could escalate into a full-blown argument, Cassie hastily stepped between them.
"Instead of arguing, we should consult Matt's Skwak and figure out the way out of this section," Cassie told them.
At that, our heroes took a good look around at where they were.
It was a huge city, filled with bustling skyscrapers, factories, and roads.
In fact, technology was present everywhere, prompting Arthur's ill-timed "cyber-expert" comment.
One might expect a lot of vehicles in a place like this. Well, there were vehicles, all right...but not the ordinary kind, however ordinary they looked.
These vehicles, after arriving at their destinations, disappeared.
That meant they turned into wireframe mode such as a computer-rendered model might start off as, and then vanished.
The people of this city, when they needed them again, typed a code into electronic wristbands on their wrists.
"I guess this must be the Metropolis section," Sagwa commented.
"Well thank you, Captain Obvious," Matt snapped.
Then, he quickly apologized, adding, "I'm sorry. I'm just dizzy from all this hustle and bustle."
Before anyone could say anything else, a policeman walked up to our heroes.
"Are you lost, kind citizens?" the policeman asked in a friendly tone.
Forgetting that a dog was not supposed to be able to be understood by humans, Clifford piped up, "Oh yes, sir! We're trying to find a way out of the Metropolis section."
Clifford looked back and saw his friends making frantic 'be quiet' gestures. He hung his head guiltily.
The policeman didn't seem to find anything unusual about it.
"Come with me to the police station, and we'll see what we can do," the policeman responded.
With shrugs, our heroes followed the policeman.
They did find it odd, however, that he didn't react to Clifford being able to speak.
When our heroes arrived at the police station, however, they reacted with awe as to how gigantic it was.
This was no normal police station. It encompassed an area equal to five police stations.
Seeing the surprised looks on our heroes' faces, the policeman explained, "The Metropolis section is such a huge city that we need all the manpower we can get to handle it."
Without another word, our heroes were taken inside the station.
Inside, our heroes were surprised to discover a whole army of police officers waiting for them.
"Is all this really necessary?" Cassie asked.
She got her answer when the police officers, including the policeman our heroes had encountered, threw off their clothes to reveal shining metal underneath.
Then, our heroes got an even bigger shock when the police officers pulled off what appeared to be their faces, only to reveal that the faces were masks, and metal heads were underneath.
"You guys are robots!" Matt shouted.
"Uhhhh...what are robots?" Cassie and Sagwa asked simultaneously, clueless expressions on their faces.
After reminding himself that Cassie grew up in a land without technology, and Sagwa grew up in the ancient past, and neither of their fictional books mentioned anything about metal creatures like they did in Clifford and Arthur's worlds, Matt mumbled something like "long story don't ask".
"You see, we have been secretly controlling this city from behind the scenes," the robot that was the policeman our heroes had encountered said. But now his voice was mechanical, with no inflection or emotion.
"Every elected official is secretly elected by us," another robot added.
"But you guys can't possibly make up a majority!" Arthur shouted.
"Did you idiots think only the police have been infested by robots?" a robot on Arthur's left snapped. "We are everywhere! We're in the fire station...a business CEO north of here is a robot...we're in the schools..."
"Okay, okay, we get the picture! But why?" Matt asked.
"Because robots are more efficient than humans," a small robot retorted. "We don't need to sleep. We don't need to eat. We don't get bored. We don't need to drink. We started controlling this city from behind the scenes so that we, the superior race, get the power we so richly deserve."
Something about the way these robots were talking nagged at Clifford. But he didn't say anything yet.
"Why did you reveal all this to us?" Arthur asked.
"Because we were planning to kill you anyway," a huge robot answered. "You see, all the research shows that only humans and robots are capable of sentient intelligence. Among you are a cat, a dog, a dragon, and an aardvark. All inferior species. Therefore, you four must be eliminated, and the human too, for harboring inferior species."
At this, Cassie gasped, Sagwa screamed, Clifford trembled, Arthur fainted, and Matt looked angry.
Then, Clifford suddenly realized what had been bothering him.
Not only that, but for some reason Matt's Skwak had become a recording device, with Matt not even noticing. The "record" button was switched on. Probably the game world did that to give them a way out of the challenge, if they could use it right.
And Clifford had a plan.
After whispering in Matt's ear what had happened, and then outlining his plan, Matt turned off the recording device.
"Tell me," Clifford asked casually, "you say robots are superior?"
The robots all nodded.
"Do they have emotions?" Clifford asked.
"Of course not," a robot responded.
"So, if I could prove that you guys have indeed expressed emotions, would you let us go?" Clifford went on to ask.
The robots hesitated.
"We would give you a chance to escape if you could prove that," the same robot reluctantly admitted. "But you don't even have one such instance. So prepare to die."
With that, Matt played back the recording of the entire conversation.
First of all, in response to Arthur's question about majority, a robot had called our heroes "idiots" in a hostile tone. That alone required emotions, but that wasn't all.
Second, another robot had said, "We started controlling this city from behind the scenes so that we, the superior race, get the power we so richly deserve" in a gleeful tone, which would require the emotion of haughtiness.
The robots all screamed upon listening to the recording.
"Very well, you all may go, if the human passes a test," a thin robot said.
"Bring it on!" Matt said challengingly. "I'll take on anything!"
Another robot snapped, "Not when our friend Ashura is giving out the test."
"Did you say Ashura?" Matt asked, eyes widening.
But instead of an answer, all the robots in the room disappeared.
Then, Cassie, Clifford, Sagwa, and Arthur all disappeared as well.
Worse than that, though was what appeared.
It was Hacker. Hacker, the enemy of cyberspace. Hacker, who had long been the proverbial thorn in Matt, Jackie, and Inez's sides.
"Surprise, vermin!" Hacker cackled with glee. "I'll destroy you, and I'll dance on your grave! Prepare, brat!"
Hacker took out a laser pistol and fired at Matt, who was narrowly able to dive out of the way.
After that, it was a like a sick, deadly game of tag, with the Hacker chasing after Matt, and Matt running for his life.
Matt tried to run out the door and out of the police station, but found to his dismay that the door was locked. Obviously the robots had locked it earlier when our heroes had come in.
So, in desperation, he ran up the stairs of the police station, Hacker close behind, still firing lasers.
Matt, instead of stopping at the different floors, didn't get off of the stairs until the very last floor of the police station, 7 stories up.
He quickly locked the door behind, and for the moment, Hacker had to suffice with firing lasers through the door, hoping to catch Matt with a lucky shot.
Matt sat down beside the door so the shots would miss, and started to think about his situation.
This was a test...so this probably wasn't the real Hacker.
That, however, didn't make the situation any less dangerous.
Then, he spotted an oil can on a shelf.
This was no fantastic coincidence. Robots needed oiling sometimes, so there were probably cans like this everywhere.
It was still exactly what Matt needed, though, especially as Hacker had stopped firing lasers and begun trying to ram the door down.
Thinking quickly, Matt opened one of the windows, and then spilled the oil on the floor, being careful not to slip on it himself.
With that, Matt hurriedly opened the door.
Hacker, who had been in the middle of another charge, was caught off guard by the lack of resistance.
His momentum carried him into the oil spill, and he began slipping and slidding all the way to the open window.
Matt took a moment to reflect. He wouldn't do what he was about to do next if this were the real Hacker. He wasn't the type that believed that even criminals deserved to die.
But this was a fake.
So Matt had no qualms about waiting until Hacker had slipped towards the window, and then shoving Hacker out of it.
That, of course, is exactly what he did.
Hacker screamed as he fell seven stories, and then, amazingly, as he hit the ground, disintegrated into computer pixels, which then disappeared.
Matt's hunch had been right. Hacker was a fake.
No sooner had Hacker completely disappeared then the entire city followed suit.
As Matt gawked, the entire city and all of its citizens disintegrated into computer pixels, and then disappeared.
Turning around, he found Cassie, Arthur, Sagwa, and Clifford standing behind him, looking confused.
"Weren't we just in a police station?" Sagwa asked.
Matt realized that his friends must not have been aware of anything that had happened during the time they disappeared. Or that they disappeared at all.
Consulting his Skwak for the map to lead them to the next section, the Cave section (and then mentally kicked himself when he realized he could've done that earlier), he said to them, "Never mind. Let's just head to the Cave section. We're done here..."
To be continued...
E-mail all other questions and comments to bleifer@comcast.net
