Chapter 5: SMART Bots
"No assembly required: that's my kind of robot!"
Jack Spicer stood in the tall and open garage of his lair to inspect the shining new robot that had just arrived. His Jack Bots stacked the sides of its massive crate against one wall. According to the mailing label, Dr. Patience's office had it sent out as a twelve-pack of Texas-Style Extra Large dentistry chairs. And that is essentially how large the robot was: about two chairs across, two chairs deep, and three chairs high. Plus, it came with all the extra- and unpleasant- gadgetry of the device, as well.
"All right, how do I work this thing?" Jack asked no one in particular. The Jack Bots were still wiping off packaging peanuts as Jack climbed up into the central control seat of the machine.
The robot's body was similar to the cockpit of a jet, only more rounded. It looked vaguely like a crouched bird in its Off position, with long, dexterous legs folding down from the body. In good evil taste, the body was painted dark gold with a black blast-shield. The legs of the bot were black, with armored, three-toed talons, and the sides of the body had slim, rectangular hatch doors of unknown purpose. The flat back of the body boasted a large black booster engine and the nose of the body was a silver drill.
"Sure, it looks cool," Jack muttered as he opened an envelope on the driver's seat. "But does it work?" He ripped open the letter from Patience's office after a few failed attempts and read the dentist's instructions. "Let's see…Okay: This is a SMART Bot," he read aloud. "The SMART stands for Stimuli Mirroring Automatic Reaction Technology. What the heck is that supposed to mean? That means, in layman's terms, that the A.I. in this robot can instantly respond to its surroundings, far beyond the abilities of Organic intelligence. This is a mini SMART bot: I sent you this one so you can play around with it and learn how to use the control panel before I put you behind a regular sized SMART. (A regular sized SMART is no smaller than a fifteen-story office building). Similar to it's European counterpart, the SMART bot is compact, highly maneuverable, and (believe it or not) energy efficient. I actually own stock in the Smart Car."
Jack skimmed a few lines down to look for instructions, but Patience had not included her own. Instead, she'd sent him the Privately Owned Demolition Technology For Dummies guidebook.
"If that isn't a statement, nothing is," said Jack as he picked up the big yellow book. He sat back in the leather control seat- the only seat- and put his feet up on the control board to search for the chapter on SMART bots.
"Hey, it says here that you have the option to plug in a controller from any of the major game systems as a method of controlling the robot! That's pretty cool. I guess they figured the same guys buying these things would also be gamers or something."
To bring the bot to life or put it to rest, Jack needed to press a narrow blue button that looked remarkably like a space bar near the top of the control panel. The button was hidden behind a narrow shelf to prevent the machine from being ordered to shut down simply because of a sudden stop that could cause the driver's head to fly forward and smack the dashboard because he wasn't wearing his safety belt. Or so the guide explained.
"Aw, who needs this thing!" Jack finally exclaimed. He tossed the book out of the cockpit and, in excellent Spicer form, began testing buttons.
Jack discovered a small collection of long-lost sneakers and Frisbees on the roof of his mansion, after the SMART bot launched him out of the cockpit via ejector seat.
"I'll need to remember not to pull that lever," Jack made a mental note as he hovered off the roof with his Heli-pack.
Back in his garage with his Jack Bots snickering secretively, young Spicer returned to the instruction manual for the basics in SMART bot operation.
Though no one would ever believe it, Jack was actually a fast learner. One might argue that Jack never learned his lesson from the Xiaolin monks- after the trend of being unfailingly defeated began around the time they became Apprentices- but that wasn't a matter of learning a lesson: it was just determination. As many times as Jack's enemies dubbed him an idiot or moron or sniveling little boy, there's something to be said for the mind that taught himself to design and build highly advanced robots by the time he was a teenager. For this reason, when his Shen Gong Wu detector alerted him to head west a few hours after he first opened the control manual, Jack already had a thorough understanding of how to operate his new mini SMART bot.
"Sir, there's a new Shen Gong Wu alert in... Kashmir," a Jack Bot informed him, holding up the Wu detector.
Jack tapped his chin thoughtfully.
"Hmm. Do I really want to go after yet another Shen Gong Wu? I suppose I could just take this opportunity to test out and show off my new SMART bot. Yeah, I think that's what I'll do."
Jack hit a button to his right and the black blast-shield swept down with a hiss. With a little more switch flipping and dial turning, Jack brought the bot to life. The machine rose up on its heavily armored, bird-like legs. The large bay doors of the garage opened with a grinding sound as Jack pulled his goggles down over his eyes. A pair of sleek jet wings emerged from the body, revealing the purpose of the slim, rectangular hatch doors. With the bay doors open and the wings spanned, Jack fired up the booster engine and…
The SMART bot literally ran out of the garage, and in a matter of seconds it had singed Jack's lawn and launched towards cruising altitude. Jack was flattened to the driver's seat. Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes and zipped back in his ears and hair. There was a deafening rushing sound, along with the roar of the engine, that seemed to last forever. But, as abruptly as he had been smacked to the chair, the pressure eased and he could sit normally.
"Whew!" he breathed as he shook his head sharply and put his goggles back on his forehead. "I didn't think it was going to do that."
Just then, the display screen in the center of the control board blinked on.
The words This is a pre-recorded message showed for a moment in white on black, and then Dr. Patience's message played.
"This message was programmed to play once you figured out how to get my SMART into flight at a steady altitude of 10,000 feet or greater. I assume, Jack, that you've read at least some of the instruction manual, but you could search that thing from cover to cover- it is the only text on SMART- and never find a single piece of info on the SMART bot's weapons and defenses."
"Ooh," Jack grinned expectantly. "My favorite part."
The picture on the display screen switched to a series of diagrams and partly animated instructions- similar to the safety run-downs on Boeing 747 passenger flights- accompanied by Patience's spoken instructions.
"While a great deal of the SMART bot is light-weight, impenetrable armor, that armor's primary function is to protect the weapons, not the operator. Any SMART bot can operate freely of human manipulation, but only if given a very specific goal and only as long as its energy supplies last."
"As for the weaponry…"
Patience listed a series of extremely destructive heat-seeking, coordinate-guided, and remote-control missiles, and a series of automatically aiming machine guns and turrets that can be armed on a surveillance program or to search out moving objects. The bot also carried a supply of chemical weapons, retractable blades in the legs to prevent the enemy from tying the legs and trying to trip the bot, and one, very small, low-radiation nuclear bomb.
"Your mini bot, however," Patience explained, "doesn't come with the nuke. You should be arriving at your destination relatively soon, so feel free try test out any of the bot's weapons."
The screen blinked off and left Jack with only the roar of the engine. If it was possible, Jack was actually more pale than usual.
"I'm not entirely sure if I want to use machine guns…" he commented tentatively. "I just want to kick their butts, not murder them."
Arrival at Kashmir in one minute, a computerized voice informed him.
"One minute?" Jack repeated. "That was fast!"
On the horizon, Jack saw the dimly flickering lights of the war zone that was Kashmir. He also spotted Dojo far behind and below.
But the SMART bot picked up speed again as it began its descent, slowing just in time to avoid hurling Jack through the windshield when it came a stop.
Next time, buckle up, the voice reminded him as the wings retracted back into the body.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jack snapped. "Let's just find that Wu."
Kashmir was a dark place, littered with demolished buildings, scorched wasteland, and unidentified scraps of tanks and machinery. Jack rode past huge heaps of blackened, bloodied scrap metal and rolled vehicles. A bomb went off in the distance, lighting the sky for a moment. Though the dark blast shield lowered visibility slightly, Jack just turned the bot's headlights on rather than expose himself to the likely rank-smelling air outside.
Within minutes, the SMART brought him to the site of the Shen Gong Wu, buried under the bottom half of a roasted tank. Jack used the bot's talon-like foot to kick aside the rubble and reveal the Green Thoughts.
"What is that?" Jack asked aloud, peering down from the bot.
The Green Thoughts Shen Gong Wu, the SMART replied. This artifact gives one the ability to hear the thoughts of any living flora in one's own language. It is particularly useful in tracking through forests, as no plant ever forgets.
"Oh. That's convenient," Jack muttered, referring to the SMART's explanation.
He noticed Dojo dropping the monks off not too far away, so Jack decided to set a trap. He positioned the SMART in a crouched position just behind the Green Thoughts and hid among the copious amounts of rubble all around. A 'camouflage' command allowed the bot to blend in a little better with its surroundings, but once Jack turned the head lights off and the bot went silent, it was virtually invisible.
"They are going to pee their pants when they see what this thing can do," Jack snickered. "I should have brought my Camera bots!"