Cats vs. Robots #2 Page 4

  Pounce sighed. “We’ve got trouble here as well, Obi. I’m afraid Chairman Meow will stop at nothing to get you and the chip.”

  Obi’s reply crackled through the medallion: “You haven’t seen insanity until you’ve seen SLAYAR angry. I tried to get him to send me back . . . but instead he’s threatened to throw Beeps and me into some horrible lava-filled mountain of doom if we don’t give him the chip.”

  “We can’t give them what they want,” Pounce said, reality sinking in. “Either one of them. We’re both doomed.”

  “It appears that way,” Obi agreed. “It also seems likely that they won’t stop at punishing us, or the Empire. All of this may just be the beginning of something even worse.”

  “True,” Pounce said. “Meow will almost certainly order an attack on Binar to get the chip.”

  “SLAYAR will attack Earth to get a new one,” Obi continued.

  Pounce was grim. “They could end up destroying each other, and everything we hold dear. Even the Furless planet.”

  “Earth,” Obi said, sounding sad. “My Furless friends. My found family. They’re what I hold most dear now. I find my mind going back there, when I least expect it.”

  “Ah, yes. I remember. Your Max . . . The Boy.”

  “His sister too,” Obi admitted. “I’m afraid they grow on you, like that. The Furless. You don’t see it coming, of course. Don’t know how much you’re going to care . . .”

  “I suppose not.”

  “But then, in a blink, it’s just gone. And you find . . . to your great surprise . . . oh, you cared, Pounce. You cared quite a bit indeed.” Obi’s voice, if a bit tinny in tone, was thick with emotion.

  “I did? Or you did?” Pounce echoed, a bit confused.

  “It doesn’t matter. That’s the whole point. Everyone does.”

  “Ah.” Pounce finally understood. “You’ve gone soft, old man.”

  “Perhaps.” Obi sighed. “You know, in your ninth go, things begin to get . . . sentimental. You realize you’ve gotten used to it, to the spin and the size of it, the routine and the weather of it, really.”

  “The weather of what?”

  “Of your life. Of the buzz of it, of the living things in it. You start to crave that kind of warm, messy, laundry-day noise. Nothing important. Nothing new. Just the . . . well, the purr of it all, I suppose. The purr and the pulse. Take it from a creature who no longer has either.”

  “I don’t believe—”

  “You will remember it all, Pounce. And you will miss it. You will miss them. Even when they’re as irritating as two Dumpster kittens who get under your paws—and a flying thingamajig that buzzes in your face with her broken propeller.”

  “Please. Joan Drone has impeccable judgment.”

  “I suppose it’s a bit like a tail you can never catch, or a great ball of yarn that never quite unravels all the way, no matter how hard you chase it. You can’t win, and the further along you get, the less you want to—because that would mean it’s over. And the game was—well, it was everything, Pounce. You’ll see.”

  Will I?

  Pounce shivered. He knew the old cat’s perspective was every bit as singular as the chip that had brought him back to life.

  Obi’s was a voice from beyond the ninth. He was a singular tenth. Transformed.

  And this Obi One-Two Catnobi had seen more than any other cat in the history of the Great Feline Empire.

  Will I be so dignified, when my game ends?

  Unable to resolve the nature of existence, Obi returned to the pressing matters of the moment. “We need to contact the Furless inventors, the Wengrods. They understand how the Singularity Chip works, as they invented it. Perhaps they can help.”

  “I agree,” Pounce said. “I’ll take care of it. You do what you must to stay safe, old friend.”

  “Easier said than done, in this strange place,” Obi answered. “But I promise to try. We cannot let things fall apart without trying. That is all any of us can do.”

  Pounce nodded. “You always were a strange creature, and I’m afraid you’ve only gotten stranger, but I believe I quite like it, the Tenth Obi.” By the time he finished the sentence, the Cat of Ten Lives was gone.

  Pounce stress-yawned—as any cat would, when all appeared to be very nearly lost—and curled up to take a restorative nap.

  He found he was exhausted, every bit of him. Mind and heart and soul. Talking to Obi had made Pounce . . . aware. That was the only way he could describe it, the whole of it.

  The purr of it, he thought. Maybe the old Tenth was right.

  As Pounce started to doze, problems circled around his thoughts like butterflies.

  The humans started this conflict and brought us all into it.

  Now they need to fix it.

  5

  A New Hope?

  “There’s only one hundred and four days of summer vacation,” Max said. “It’s going so quickly. How is it we still haven’t heard from Pounce?”

  It was the end of another long summer day, which meant the twins had crashed noisily inside, following their ritual of snacking, flopping, and moaning about wasting precious summertime. As usual, Javi had taken a break from preparing their big case to join Max and Min for their customary pickle chips and juice packs.

  “We still haven’t figured out how we can help Obi,” Min said. Unsolved problems frustrated her, whether or not they were her own.

  “At least your folks are home today,” Javi said encouragingly. “Maybe you can all hang out.”

  “They’re probably too busy,” Max said glumly. “As usual.”

  The twins had hardly seen their parents all summer, since the two Drs. Wengrod had either been sequestered in their own lab, or away touring labs, as they worked around the clock to undo everything the renegade House had done to compromise their many classified works in progress.

  Max knew he couldn’t really complain. If anybody knew how important their parents’ work was, it was Max and Min. After all, without the Wengrods’ work, there wouldn’t be a Singularity Chip at all, and Obi would have . . . Max didn’t even want to think about it.

  But even so, parents who were busy doing important work things sometimes didn’t have time to do important parent things. This summer, Max and Min had been left to process everything that had happened, for the most part, on their own.

  Lately, that had felt sort of unfair—even if letting himself feel the unfair feeling had also made Max feel the guilty feeling that came right after it.

  He sighed. “I think I need a Capri Sun.”

  As Max and Min spoke, Joan Drone darted back and forth between the family and the kitchen, dropping snacks and juice packs like guided missiles.

  Capri Suns. Check.

  Fruit snacks. Check.

  Pickle chips. Check.

  Once the supplies had been satisfactorily delivered, she buzzed around the room one last time to make certain everything was in order.

  “Mess duties completed. Commence perimeter security check!” Joan barked into her comms. “North side?”

  “North side clear!” Drags shouted as he peered through the screen door. “Like always.”

  Joan chided him. “Negative, Drags. Not like always. If we had executed regular security checks, we might have caught a major security breach in our own headquarters as it was happening.”

  She had taken the House betrayal more personally than any of the others, and had sworn to never let something like that happen again.

  Not on her watch.

  “East side?”

  Cy looked out the window to the low stone wall at the edge of the Wengrods’ driveway, where Obi had sat for so many years in his furry form. “East side c-c-clear!”

  “South side?” Joan waited.

  Nothing.

  She tried again. “Tipsy, do you have eyes on the south side perimeter?”

  Static.

  Now Joan was frustrated—and, however irrationally, worried. “Are you there, Tipsy? The back
lawn? Is everything okay back there?”

  “I’ll go check,” Drags said.

  “I can,” Cy said.

  But another burst of static came, and with it an enormous delighted laugh.

  “Birdies!” Tipsy shouted gleefully. “Birdies back there!”

  Joan nodded a propeller with relief. Of course. There was nothing Tipsy liked so much as watching the red hummingbird feeder that hung from the avocado tree in the Wengrods’ overgrown backyard.

  She switched back on her comms. “Thank you, Tipsy. Perimeter check complete. Let’s rendezvous in the lab and power down for a power nap.”

  As Joan Drone flew past the family room bookshelves, she noticed a small speck on the kittens’ pet cam. When she swept back around for another look, the speck had disappeared.

  Hmmm, she thought as she returned to the lab. She set a second—then a third—evening reminder to do a more thorough check of their interior headquarters later.

  A Proto couldn’t be too careful.

  Not since they’d discovered the AI traitor in their own House.

  It had been a real eye-opener.

  Even if you didn’t happen to have eyes of your own.

  The door to the family robotics lab swung open. The twins’ parents, Dr. and Dr. Wengrod—or, Mom and Dad—emerged into the kitchen, smiling.

  “Where are my hugs?” Mom said cheerfully. Max and Min responded with a chorus of tired grunts in return.

  Javi waved.

  Dad sat down next to Min, sneakily snatching one of her chips. “Rough day at the internship office, huh?”

  “My brain is so tired I feel like I’ve run a marathon and all I did was sit in a chair all day staring at a screen,” Min said, crumpling up her empty chip bag. Scout leaped up onto the table and stuck her head inside the bag. Investigating.

  “At least you got something done. The only thing I’ve learned about building video games this summer is that they’re basically always broken, like, at least ninety percent of the time,” Max said, scratching Stu’s ears.

  Stu flickered open one eye, following his sister as she crawled halfway inside the pickle chip bag. He closed it.

  Mom sat down between Max and Stu and gave both boys—furred and furless—a good head scratch.

  Stu purred. Max grinned. “That tickles . . . Don’t stop.”

  Mom smiled. “One more scratch, and then we should have a team meeting, don’t you think? We need to talk about Obi.”

  Max, Min, and Javi looked at the Drs. Wengrod.

  “Finally,” Max said.

  “We’ve been going crazy not doing anything,” Min said.

  “How can we help?” Javi asked.

  Dad looked serious. “I don’t know, but it’s time we brainstormed something. Our lab server just picked up some kind of involuntary ping from the Singularity Chip. Obi seems to be sending a distress signal.”

  “Distress signal?” Max yelped.

  “We don’t know it’s for us. Just that he’s . . . in distress,” Mom said.

  “Hold up.” Javi motioned to Max, whispering, “Is it even safe to talk . . . about that . . . here? What about House . . . and all that snooping spyware?”

  Max looked around the kitchen suspiciously.

  “Mom and Dad got rid of all that,” Min said. Then she looked at her parents. “Didn’t you?”

  Over the bookshelf, the Roachbot was creeping back into position on the pet cam but immediately froze when it heard the words House and spyware.

  Its tiny sensors lit up red.

  <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  The Roachbot scanned the room.

  No further threats emerged.

  Its sensors faded back to white again.

  <>

  And with that, the Roachbot zipped back on top of the pet cam and started broadcasting again.

  Which was when Joan Drone flew slowly into the room . . .

  “I’m still freaked out even thinking about creepy old House bossing us around, listening to everything we say.” Min ripped open her second bag of pickle chips.

  Max lay on the floor, his face buried in Stu’s chubby kitten belly.

  Scout sat nearby, ignoring them. She was too busy investigating—eyeing Joan Drone as she hovered in front of the bookshelves.

  “I know, I know, that was our fault,” Dad admitted, stealing some of Min’s chips. “We thought House would be helpful when we went to China, but we’ve learned our lesson.”

  “That’s right,” Mom said. “It’s taken a monthlong search-and-destroy mission to remove every trace of the House code from our home, but we now have a House-free house!”

  “So if we aren’t being spied on,” Min said, “why are you both always down in the lab?”

  Min had been her father’s right hand for a long time. She knew her father well enough to know when something was going on.

  Like now.

  And Min’s father knew her well enough to know how hurt she was when he didn’t let her in on his tech experiments.

  Also like now.

  “The Singularity Chip integrated more successfully with Obi’s neural network and the robotic prosthesis than we ever could have hoped. Because of that, when Beeps ran off with Obi and our chip, we decided not to retrace our steps, but to build something even bigger and better,” Dad said.

  “You mean, you’ve been in the lab working on Singularity Chip two point oh?” Min asked. “I knew it!”

  “That’s cool,” Max said.

  “Seriously,” Javi agreed.

  “Well, we had a little help from an old friend,” Mom said mysteriously.

  “Who?” Min said, sounding a little jealous.

  “We call it the Infinity Engine. And believe me,” Dad said, “this thing makes the Singularity Chip seem like . . . a potato chip.”

  “Infinity Engine?” Min liked the sound of that.

  “Potato chips?” Max realized he hadn’t had lunch.

  “Wow,” Javi said. “That sounds . . . powerful.”

  “It is!” Mom nodded, excited. “We improved the design of the quantum energy source, and the power it can generate is unbelievable.”

  Max stared at the ceiling, getting bored. “Got it. It’s like the chip but way better.”

  “Way better?” Mom raised an eyebrow at Max. “Sure, if by way better you mean expanded processing capabilities so advanced they might exceed the capacity of the human brain.”

  “Uh, yeah, that’s what I meant.” Max grinned, sheepish.

  Scout stared up at the bookshelves. Something was going on up there. She was sure of it.

  “Would you just relax already?” Stu was rolling on the floor next to Max.

  “No, I won’t relax.” Scout sniffed. “Relaxing is how that evil House almost destroyed this entire family, or have you forgotten already?”

  “I’m just saying. The Furless seem to have it under control.”

  “Stu, Obi almost died, now he’s gone, and there’s a war between our own people and machines. Nobody has anything under control.” Scout began to do what she always did when she was super stressed out, which was briskly scratch her right ear with her bottom left foot.

  “Fine. You do you.” Stu tucked all four paws beneath him, morphing into his favorite cat loaf position. He buried his face in his chest until he looked like a bit like a stuffed, furry brick.

  “I will,” Scout said, prowling around the lower bookshelves. “I just wish I could see . . . a little . . . higher . . . up there.”

  “Do not do the shelf thing,” Stu warned, his voice muffled by fur and whiskers.

  “I don’t have a shelf thing,” Scout hissed back at him.

  “Scout. You totally have a shelf thing.” More fur and whiskers.

  Scout snorted, still eyeing the shelves. “I mean, maybe there was that one time in Min’s room, but that wa
s as much your shelf thing as it was my shelf thing, Stuart.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Don’t you have to get back to your nap thing?”

  Scout moved away, prowling around the lower bookshelves. She couldn’t see the higher shelves, but couldn’t not keep trying to. . . .

  Before she knew it, she was wiggling her butt, trying to gauge the jump up, getting ready to throw herself into it—even if it seemed too far.

  Scout sat back on her haunches, considering her options as kitten math kicked in: Ottoman to chair to shelf. Stereo speaker to coffee table to plant to shelf. Wooden armchair to middle shelf . . .

  Ding ding ding! That one. Wooden armchair.

  And so she began to scramble up onto the armchair with all the confidence of a kitten with a shelf thing.

  Max watched Scout climb onto the chair, but he didn’t stop her. The family meeting had grown too serious to be interrupted.

  “We can’t scan a human brain yet,” Dad continued, “but there are a lot of complex things the brain does that we already know how to code up but are too complex for any mobile robot to perform.”

  “Like what?” Max asked.

  “If you think about it,” Dad said, “a lot of what a brain does is predictable, almost mechanical, like moving your body.”

  “You mean motor skills?” Min said.

  “Exactly.” Mom smiled. “Walking, running, balancing, controlling your arms and hands, those are things programmers have solved, but take too much processing to calculate quickly enough.”

  “Like Elmer’s walking algorithm!” Min said, excited.

  “Exactly. Elmer’s programming works, but it’s slow and still has problems. With the Infinity Engine, we can finally make a robot that could process everything quickly enough to handle movement as well as a human, maybe better.”

  Javi listened intently. “I can imagine a lot of ways to use something like this. It could help a lot of people.”

  Dad looked excited too. “Even just as a power source, if we can figure out how to mass-produce it, we could help people power their homes or cars without polluting. Clean, cheap, and portable energy.”

  “It could power and guide an exoskeleton so people with disabilities could take care of themselves, walk, move, drive, almost anything.” Min’s mind was racing.