"The Laboratory"
Looking through the bars of the cage, we found ourselves in what appeared to be a laboratory. It was the traditional laboratory setting: shelves of books, bottles and flasks of various mixtures and chemicals, colorful and deadly acids—not to mention the assortment of whole, pickled, and ground-up animal parts.
The Green Devil—assuming this was his lab—was not a very tidy creature. Thick cobwebs adorned the shelves. There were no windows or doors. Standing in one corner of the lab, though, was a full sized robot.
“Well, children,” sarcastically began Lisa, “this is not the way I like to spend an afternoon.”
“Would anyone like to explain all this to me?” asked the ever-puzzled Cindy, “I was just barely getting used to the idea of riding around in a sweaty palm. Where are we now?”
“You-are-in-the-laboratory-of-Lived (liv-id) Neerg,” came a mechanical, monotone voice from the corner. We glanced over to see lights flickering upon the chest area of the robot.
“Lived Neerg? Who the hell’s that?” I asked.
“It’s the Green Devil pronounced backwards,” stated Melissa, without batting an eye. She was always very good at things like that.
“Since our voices are so tiny,” started Lisa, “how come he can hear us from way over there?”
“I-am-equipped-with-highly-sensitive-audio-inputs,” offered the robot.
Melissa removed a small piece of paper from her jeans’ pocket and began to write. She showed me the paper which read: “How are your computer programming skills?”
“Not too bad,” I whispered, “Mr. Dietz would prefer it if my techniques were a little more conventional, but I get by.”
Writing again, she asked what I could do with him, and then motioned toward the robot with her head.
I took the paper from her and wrote: “I don’t know, but if he’s equipped with standard boards and chips, I can...” Pausing for a moment to think, I added “...at this height it shouldn’t be too difficult to get inside him.”
“Well, it’s a chance,” scribbled Melissa. She hesitated for a second, but before she could write anymore, Lisa blurted out.
“Robot, I’m thirsty.”
“Lisa!” whispered Melissa, “What are you doing?”
“It’s all right,” she assured us, “I’ve been reading over your shoulder.”
“I-have-been-instructed-to-get-you-liquid-if-required,” stated the metallic man. More lights flickered upon his chest panel and the robot began to roll toward the sink.
Getting a better look at him, we found him to be about six feet tall. His coloring was sort of a tarnished silver and his body and head were both cylindrical. He had a glass domed area over his head that appeared to house antennae and things like that.
His arms and legs were made of what looked like plastic covered springs or hosing, not unlike those on a clothes dryer. His legs were imbedded in tractors, like a tank, allowing him to roll along. His hands were pincers, like the opening on a pair of pliers.
The robot turned away from the sink. He then rolled over to us and put a thimble of water down next to the cage.
“Stand-back-please,” he ordered, as he reached for the door.
“Now’s your chance,” whispered Lisa, pushing me on.
“Thanks.”
As the robot put the thimble into the cage, Melissa screamed, “What’s that?!” pointing toward the door. The robot fell for the oldest trick in the book as his head rotated around to see what she was pointing at (which of course was nothing).
“Go!” she whispered, shoving me stumbling out the open cage door.
Dodging the robot’s open pincers, I flew out of the cage and squeezed my way into an opening between his neck and body.
“I-sense-nothing-in-that-direction,” stated the robot, rotating his head back around to look at the tiny Melissa and the others. He latched the cage door once again and rolled back to his corner. (To this day I still wonder why he didn’t detect the fact that I was missing.)
* * * *
Once my eyes had adjusted to the dimly lit insides of the robot, I found it to be less cramped than anticipated. While his exterior gave the impression of him being a complicated robot, his interior design was fairly simple.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was no security system activated within him. This would explain why I was able to enter him without his sensors apparently detecting me. I cautiously crawled around for a while¾back and forth, squeezing between circuit board after circuit board, being careful not to short out anything.
As I crawled passed a bundle of electrical wires, obviously used for the illumination on his chest panel, I pulled out my pocket knife and cut a few of them. After taking a couple of inches of wire, I twisted the cut ends back together and moved on until I finally found what appeared to be the circuits that controlled his logic.
Using my pocket knife again, I carefully began scraping the solder off a few connections. Then, by using some of the bits of wire I had clipped off earlier, I began to re‑route a few things. I figured if I could bypass part of his programming, I’d might have a chance to alter a few of his pre-programmed instructions.
* * * *
“I hope Larry’s all right,” said Lisa, after about an hour had passed.
“Shhhh! We mustn’t let him hear us,” Melissa cautioned, secretly pointing toward the robot. “I’m sure Larry’s fine,” she added.
“I hope that Green Devil...what’s his name, Livgren Sneed?—I hope he doesn’t come back here.”
“It’s Lived Neerg, Cin. Besides, it’s late, I’m sure he’s gone to bed for the night,” said Melissa.
“If the creature sleeps,” pondered Lisa.
* * * *
Finding what seemed to be the audio inputs, I tapped into them with one of the loose wires. I then verbally gave my new instructions to the robot. When I’d finished, I maneuvered my way back up to the opening at the neck.
So far, so good. Peeking out first to make sure the coast was clear, I then flew out of the robot. I immediately headed straight up toward the ceiling; out of sight. I figured as long as I was out of the parakeet cage, I might as well explore this little laboratory further.
Looking around, I noticed no air vents for escape nor any other breaks in the walls for windows or doors. For that matter, the walls themselves seemed to be made of stone, as if we were inside a cave.
Not wanting to alert the robot to my movements—just in case my minor alteration job on his circuits hadn’t worked—I stuck close to the walls, flying slowly down toward the floor. Once there I came across a small crevice in the wall, almost like a hole.
In front of it, all baited and waiting, was an evil looking mousetrap. As hungry as I was, I put good sense aside and decided to risk taking just a small wad of cheese in my hand. I had to be careful, though, not to take enough to trigger the mousetrap, but I wanted a handful nonetheless—enough for the others and myself.
I pulled out my pocket knife and carefully carved off a hunk. It smelled so good and I do love Swiss cheese. I thought I would take just a few bites now and then bring the rest back for the girls to enjoy.
Just as I was about to sink my teeth into the wedge of Swiss, I was suddenly pushed aside and thrown to the floor. Simultaneously, I heard a loud ‘SNAP!’ coming from the direction of the mousetrap.
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