Revolutionizing a
Robot
Chapter Three: Trapped Forever, Here
in Robot Hell (Only Not Really)
Once again, thank you for the reviews! This chapter was harder to write than the previous one, so please forgive anything that doesn't really make sense. Then again, most of this fic hasn't made any sense…
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Bender must have passed out, or drifted off into a mode resembling the organic creature's 'sleep'. This mode happened every night to conserve energy, but never before had Bender experienced the feeling of exhaustion. He understood why Fry laid around all day now.
Anyway, he was awoken by a distinct rise in temperature around him, particularly in the region of his ass. "Owowow, hot hot hot!" Bender yelped, jumping up and attempting to fan the flames away from his ass.
The Robot Devil, who was obviously the culprit, laughed maniacally. "Well that certainly was fun! Now then, let's check on that chip's progress, shall we?"
"You can do that?" Bender asked, flaming ass temporarily forgotten.
"Well of course I can." The Devil scoffed. "I'm the Robot Devil, I can do anything! Except defeat my sworn nemesis, Godbot." For a moment that typical relaxed and cunning manner was dropped for a look of pure hatred, and then everything was back to normal, and Bender remembered his ass was still burning.
"Ow! Ow! Owowowow!"
"I didn't know robots could make that noise!" The Robot Devil laughed, swinging his tail around.
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"Bad news everyone, Bender is missing!"
"Yes, Professor. We just discussed that." Leela sighed and rested her head in her hand. They'd spent two extra days in Vegas searching for the third wheel, but he'd disappeared. He wasn't in any bars or floozy houses that Leela could find, and Fry had searched the library, of all places. Who knew Vegas even had a library? "Now can you tell us whether or not there's even a slight chance of finding him?"
The Professor remained quiet at the head of the table until Hermes elbowed him. "Uhwah?" He asked, adjusting his glasses. "Oh yes! Bender. We can find him by tracking him using this metal tracking device I just created!" The Professor stood up and held out a regular South-and-North Pole magnet. "It's pure genius, I tell you. That'll put those young whipper-snappers in their place—" Before he could finish, all the metals in the house suddenly attached themselves to the magnet. "Oh, my back!"
"So much for that." Fry had really thought the Professor's invention was genius too. It would have found Bender, if only there wasn't so much damn metal around. "Well now what?"
Hermes punched in a few numbers in his calculator, then gasped. "My god! If we, hypothetically, didn't find Bender, then we'd be makin' one hell of a profit in this company!"
Gasps were heard all around, and Zoidberg's exclamation of, "Yay! More money for Zoidberg!" was ignored as usual.
"But… that would mean…" Fry pondered aloud, weighing the consequences, "…that we'd never see Bender again!"
"Oh my no," The Professor finished shoving the last of the metal off him, though it remained stuck tight to the magnet. "We could get a new robot that wouldn't charge us anything!"
Leela frowned. "What does that have to do with not seeing Bender?"
"I have no idea!" The Professor declared, then sat back down in his chair. "Time for a nap!" And with that, the chair hovered out of the room, leaving the remaining employees speechless.
"He's crazier than a snake in the sugarcane factory." Hermes shook his head.
"What does that mean anyway?" Amy asked, but she was ignored as the others tried to think of a solution to this conundrum. How were they going to find Bender, and then fire him to make a profit? Or maybe they could cut his salary for this…?
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"You sure this'll get me back home?"
"Well of course I'm sure. I'm always sure!"
"Uh huh…" Bender wasn't convinced. Following what appeared to be an old, non-hovercraft train line back to New Jersey didn't seem like the smartest idea. He'd done stupider things before, but that was before this damn chip actually made him think. Now he had to think about what could possibly happen to him instead of just doing it. He really hated that damn chip. That Professor was pending for a bending alright.
"Trust me," The Robot Devil crooned. "I think I would know how to get to Jersey Hell and back."
"Then come with me." The retort wasn't supposed to sound like that. Bender would have winced had he the capacity to do so. Instead, he cringed away from the Robot Devil's full-body grin. Was it even possible to do that? Apparently so.
"Wonderful!" With that, the Robot Devil clamped a hand onto Bender's head and started dragging him off down the old train line. "We're off to Jersey!"
"Oh no, please no singing!"
"Cigars are evil, you won't miss 'em…"
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"Leela, I've been thinking." Fry started, sitting on the bench while Leela examined her locker for a missing watch.
"Oh? Did it hurt?" She responded sarcastically. Fry just set himself up for these things, after all.
"Well, a little." Fry admitted, causing Leela to sigh. "We have to find Bender. Deliveries just won't be the same without him!"
She took a moment to look around the locker at Fry. It was funny, he'd always chased after her, and then the moment when he almost had her, something else came up to occupy him. "Fry, I know he's your best friend, but there's nothing we can do. We searched everywhere and couldn't find him."
"Well maybe he went off somewhere! There aren't any anti-pimping laws in Vegas!"
"There aren't?" That was news to Leela. "Do you think he would have? No, don't answer that. He'd do anything for a quick buck." Another sigh. Bender, that crazy robot. He was giving her a headache. "Alright, let's go back and look for him."
"Hooray!" Fry cheered, jumping up. Leela noticed that he looked much happier now. They were best friends, she told herself. And Bender was anti-robosexual. But Fry…
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The horrible awkward feeling that he had first noticed around Fry had returned about halfway through the trip. The Robot Devil hadn't noticed anything was amiss (was he as dense as Fry?) and was still humming the violin (fiddle?) part to that obnoxious song. Bender wasn't fond of music in general (except folk, but no one could ever know that!) so why the hell was the Robot Devil so interested in it? Pardon the pun.
"You see that?" The Robot Devil's humming abruptly stopped as they passed by something Bender had never seen before. It looked like one of the monorail trains currently used, but far older, and larger, and rather ridiculously shaped. "That's one of the original trains. This track never actually ran from Vegas to Jersey, but a little of my Hellians' digging certainly got it that way!" The Robot Devil laughed, and Bender was willing to bet he hadn't helped at all.
"Huh." It wasn't that interesting, and Bender didn't have anything to say back, for once. All the comebacks he thought of would sound stupid, after all.
"You're awfully quiet." The remark was biting, enticing Bender to say something back. The Robot Devil was even looking at him expectantly, but Bender merely shrugged in response. "That chip must really be messing with your circuits. I mean, really." He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe it, then burst out laughing as flames randomly shot up behind him.
"Do you have to do that?" Bender managed to escape with his ass intact this time, but didn't look where he was going and slammed straight into a second, newer version of that train. Even though it made absolutely no sense whatsoever, he was knocked unconscious.
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There was a ringing noise echoing around Bender's normally hollow head when he finally woke. The first thing he noticed in his vision was red. And a lot of it. Frowning, or rather, what could pass as a robot's frown, Bender sat up slightly, only to smack headfirst into the sea of red.
"Ow," Said a voice above him, though it didn't sound like it was in any pain. "Didn't realize you were awake."
Bender placed it as the Robot Devil's voice as the ringing died down. He realized he'd been laying on the track, tampering with his hearing chip. Stupid older metals, messing with his head. "Uh… what happened?"
The Robot Devil got up from his position, kneeling over Bender. "Well…" He dragged the word out in a nearly playful manner. "You ran straight into the old metro train and knocked yourself out. I didn't even think that was possible." He laughed, but luckily for Bender, no fire shot out from the ground. "But you seem to be okay now."
"Yeah, but my ass hurts." He complained. Glancing up, Bender noticed the Robot Devil's toothy smirk. "Oh no you didn't…!"
"No, I really didn't. I just wanted to mess with you!" The Robot Devil laughed again, then pulled Bender up and started walking off again. He pulled out the golden fiddle (fixed since Leela last smacked it into his head) from his well-hidden chest cavity and quickly tuned it, followed by some sort of overture that managed to keep Bender's interest for once.
"Wow, you can walk and play that crazy thing at the same time?" Bender couldn't even drink and walk at the same time! Well, he could, but not without spilling.
"You could say I'm programmed to be capable of it." The Robot Devil commented, producing a third arm from his back, equipped with a second bow. "But not really. I was created a long time ago, but the hardware they gave me allows me to learn, sort of like a human."
"So… you're a metal meatbag?"
"Kind of." The Robot Devil went back to playing, leaving Bender in some sort of awe. Was it really possible for a robot to learn? Bender never seemed to, after all. He knew what he had learned at Bending University, and that was about it.
It was at that moment that Bender realized it. Leela wasn't the only one with a thing for musicians. It made sense now; why he'd been able to keep quiet and still during Fry's opera, and why he'd been able to listen to that meatbag practice the holophoner, even when he sucked. He still did, and he still practiced, and Bender still listened. "Oh crap," He grumbled to himself, unheard by the Robot Devil walking a few steps ahead of him. "They're more alike then I'd hoped."
