This story is rated PG for violence.

Disclaimer: Matt Groening owns the Simpsons.

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Chapter 1

In the basement of a decrepit office building in downtown Springfield, two men who fancied themselves gentlemen were making a fateful deal.

"Lindsay Neagle is killing me in the polls," said Mayor Joe Quimby, known as "Diamond Joe" due to the diamond pin he always sported. The room was dimly illuminated with wall lights, and reeked of cigar smoke. A well-stocked bar stood in one corner, a pool table in another.

"I see," said the other man, Antonio "Fat Tony" D'amico. "And you want to reciprocate in kind. I know exactly how you feel."

"Do this one thing for me," Quimby urged him, "and I'll remember you after I'm re-elected."

The mob boss smiled warmly. "Fortunately you caught me at a good time. My daughter's wedding was this morning."

Only one door led out of the room, and a knock was suddenly heard from it--a strong, insistent knock.

Fat Tony motioned at the mayor. "You stay right where you are," he ordered, "and don't make a sound, capisce?"

Drawing a revolver from his belt, Tony shuffled quietly to the door and backed up against the wall next to it. The knocking continued, unvarying, uninterrupted. The visitor, whoever it was, clearly didn't know the secret knock.

Tony stood, not breathing, gun raised level to his head.

The next knock was much louder and much stronger. So strong, in fact, that it crushed the door into slivers.

Fat Tony sprang into action, confronting the intruder and unloading all six cylinders of his revolver. The bullets simply bounced off.

Before him, filling the entire doorway, was a creature the likes of which he had never seen. It easily exceeded seven feet in height. It had arms, legs, a torso, and a head, but they were thick as tree trunks and encased in a dull gray metal. At first Tony suspected it might be a new type of police assault vehicle--but how did such a thing get into the basement without making noise?

His weapon exhausted, Fat Tony hurled it at the monster's chest, but it was deflected without leaving so much as a dent. He picked up the gun and threw it at his opponent again, with the same result. He tried a third time, but the metallic beast raised an arm and caught the revolver in its pudgy iron fingers.

As Tony and Quimby witnessed in horror, the creature squeezed the gun into a shapeless mass.

It then extended its arms and began to speak in a shrill, tinny voice. "Kill...kill...kill..."

Before the mob boss could retreat even a step, the machine lunged forward with lightning speed, wrapping its hydraulic fingers around his throat. Alarmed at seeing his friend in mortal danger, Quimby flew at the creature and pounded his fists against its side, but hardly succeeded in making it vibrate.

It took only a second. The robotic intruder released its grasp on Fat Tony, and the mobster collapsed to the floor, limp as overcooked pasta.

----

It was business as usual at the Kwik-E-Mart.

"Open the safe, dude," barked Snake, training the muzzle of a huge shotgun at the hapless Apu. "I'm totally gonna strip this establishment clean."

"I cannot open the safe," protested Apu, his hands raised. "Only the day shift clerk knows the combination."

"And who is that, dude?" Snake demanded.

"Er...I don't know."

"I am totally losing my patience, dude," said Snake, tensing his trigger finger.

The automatic doors flew open, and the tattooed thug suddenly had another target--a most unusual target.

Snake swiveled and aimed his weapon at the hulking metallic creature, which approached him with elegant strides, its anvil-like feet leaving indentations in the linoleum. He fired several shots, but failed to even slow down his attacker.

As Apu watched in astonished disbelief, the massive, quick-moving robot grabbed Snake by the neck and levitated him several inches above the floor. A second or two passed, and the petty crook dropped from the beast's grip and landed in a lifeless heap.

The creature's blank, bifurcated face displayed no emotion. It made no sound, other than a faint whine. It turned around by spinning on one leg, then trudged out of the shop as if nothing had happened.

Apu looked down at Snake's motionless figure, then watched the robot as it vanished into the darkness of the street. "Uh...thank you, come again," he choked out.

----

The next morning was a Saturday. Bart and Lisa were thoughtfully watching TV from their couch--by "thoughtfully", I mean they had enough sense to change the channel when they noticed that Krusty was a rerun.

"Hey, cool," said Lisa when she saw what the next channel held. "It's that educational PBS show."

"Oh, man," Bart groused. "Now the TV is trying to make me smart. Is nothing sacred?"

On the screen, a little cartoon mouse boy with a kerosene torch in one hand was looking sheepishly up at his father. "I didn't do it," he insisted in a squeaky voice.

"It's not good to lie," said the father, gazing upon the scorched wreckage of his house. "You should always tell the truth."

"Okay," said the little mouse boy. "I burned down the house, Dad. I'm sorry."

"There, now," said his father, smiling proudly. "Doesn't it feel better to tell the truth?"

As the end credits rolled, Bart could do nothing but complain. "Some kid's gonna try that in real life, and his dad's gonna kill him."

The familiar face of a certain washed-up actor appeared on the TV screen. "Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such PBS shows as 'Upchuck, Downchuck' and 'All Creatures Great and Smelly'. I'm donating my valuable time to encourage you to donate your valuable money to a valuable public resource."

"Hey, Dad!" Lisa called out. "It's a PBS pledge drive!"

Like a flash, Homer tore down the stairway and rushed to the phone. As he dialed the number on the screen, Lisa cautioned him, "Be sure to donate a reasonable amount this time. Remember when you pledged ten thousand dollars, and Mr. Rogers and the Teletubbies tried to kill you?"

"I'm sure they've forgotten all about that," said Homer, not noticing that Arthur the Aardvark was mooning him through the picture window.

Exasperated, Lisa clicked the remote and changed the channel.

"This is Kent Brockman reporting for Channel 6 News. Police have no leads in a pair of bizarre murders that took place last night."

Upon hearing the word 'murders', Homer put down the receiver, bounded over to the window, and looked out in the direction of the Flanders home. He groaned in disappointment upon seeing that Ned was alive and well, happily riding his lawn mower.

"Murder number one took place in the Kwik-E-Mart, where this man"--an image of Apu appeared--"claims that he was being robbed at gunpoint when a giant robot entered his shop and strangled the robber to death."

"Giant robot," Homer chuckled incredulously. "Manjula must be feeding him too much curry."

"Murder number two took place in the basement of the Crumbly office building, where this man"--Hans Moleman stood before the reporter--"led police to the body of local Mafia kingpin Antonio 'Fat Tony' D'amico."

"I was walking along, minding my own business," the wrinkly old geezer recounted, "when someone conked me over the head. I woke up in a bar room next to a dead guy."

Brockman's next interviewee was police chief Clancy Wiggum. "The marks on Fat Tony's neck are exactly like the ones on Snake's," he reported. "No fingerprints were left. We're operating under the theory that a single killer is responsible."

A crude drawing of a mechanical creature appeared. "This is a police artist's rendering of the culprit, based on the witness' description," said Wiggum.

"Here with me now," Brockman continued, "is a local expert on robots, Professor John Frink."

The gaunt, bespectacled scientist nodded toward the camera. "The police portrait resembles one of my most recent creations, the Justicebot," he stated. "However, I did not design the Justicebot to kill. The Justicebot is incapable of violence, and aggression, and crushing, and destroying, and hurting, ng'hoyven."

"Dr. Frink," said Brockman, inching his microphone closer to the professor's face, "you claim to have built one of these Justicebots. Where is it now?"

"That's the funny thing, Kent," Frink replied. "I looked all over the secret warehouse where I keep all my prototypes, and the glavin thing wasn't there."

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to be continued