Part One: The Animal Ark

Em glances once at Mikey and his shovel, but she think it's going to be very hard to dig a hole deep enough quickly, and harder still to lead the robot directly into it. So instead she scoots along behind Georgie, joining him on the porch as quietly as she can. As her friend starts blabbering (as he does), she fishes for the device she hastily assembled in the hideout before they set off: a pack of 9-volt batteries all taped together so that the business ends could make contact with a flat surface... say the side of a robot. In her other hand, she wields a translucent green water gun...

Jaden flipps out when he turns and sees Spud going all chatty with Asimov."Spud, what are you doing??"
He barely gets to finish his sentence as Em decides to stroll off towards Asimov as well, holding a bunch of stuck-together batteries and a water gun??? Have they gone mad?!
In a desperate move, he marches towards the robot as well and takes a surprise swing at it, emerging between Em and Spud.

As Mikey makes his way around the house, he suddenly hears Georgie starting to talk... to Asimov?
With their chance at surprising the robot ruined, he runs over to his friends, ready to, if they can't get the robot to help them, smash it with the spade before it can make trouble.

With his tire idea not gaining traction Andy was left feeling somewhat deflated. He figured he better join his friends and lend a hand whatever way he could. But still he wasn't enjoying this adventure that much anymore. The scrap yard incident had left a mark on him but he had to tough it out, just like his coach would tell him to do when he felt too tired to run that extra lap.

He crept around the house hoping to see Asimov still inactive.

Mikey, sets off around the back of the house, before the rest of you have the chance to protest. He runs across the road, giving Asimov a wide berth there on the front porch. He holds his breath as pushes through the hedges that separate Cuckoo and his neighbors property.

Nothing…

Asimov must be powered down. You hunch and scoot your way down the side of property. You look back at your friends for a moment and see Andy rushing for the car, following much the same path as Mikey, equally wary of the robot.

You stop at the corner of the house, and look into the backyard. Keeping low and small, you spot nothing. And so you move in.

… kkkkkhhhhkhkhk… the grating sound of a metal edge scraping off of stone. Your shovel. It’s left a long white groove in the driveway by the grass. You wince, and then you see Cuckoo Hernandez standing by the back window, looking out into the garden. He’s in a T-shirt and shorts with a gown over it, but open. His helmet is missing and he holds a mug or something in his hand. He looks surprised and then confused. He starts to shout something, but you can’t hear. He moves for the latch to open a window and yell at the kid standing in his back garden. Until…

---

Georgie makes his way up on to the porch, with the oblivious confidence of a child. The robot is stock still, even as Georgie thumps up the steps. Even as Georgie is standing in front of the robot, making his introductions. The eye… scanner… thing that serves as a face is black. Inactive. Off.

And then it lights up read, as quick as a flash. The robot unfolds itself there on the porch and towers over Georgie when extended to its full height. A klaxon, unseen by Georgie, emerges on the back of the robots body somewhere and immediately starts to ring.

Weeeeeeeew! Weeeeeeeeew! Intruder alert. Intruder alert!

---

Mikey: Cuckoo reaches for the latch, and then you hear an alarm ringing out from somewhere at the front of the house. Intruder Alert! Georgie! You see Cuckoo’s eyes go wide, and then he races from window. You can’t see him anymore, and so you run around the side of the building, back to the front! You’re just in time to see…

---

Em, as the robot extends itself to full height, you step back for a moment. It is menacing, isn’t it? You see more clearly now, there on the undercarriage, a net launcher… thing set up. Is this how they caught those animals then?

You lunge out with your homemade device. You wait for the reaction. Nothing. Whatever future scientist designed Asimov already considered your mode of attack and planned accordingly. The scanner that sits on the robots head moves to you. You await whatever it has in store for you…

---

Jaden, seeing how Em tried to attack the robot, and failed, moves in. Just at the scanner rests on the girl, Jaden’s guitar comes out to left field and connects brutally with the robots head. It’s not much, but it’s enough. You knock the creature off balance for a moment. Long enough for your friends to retreat down the steps and in to the front yard.

The robot reels from the hit. It’s spider-like legs scratch against the wood of the porch. Within a few seconds, it’s corrected it’s balance, and you hear:

"Fffffriend - orr - Fffoooe?" a few seconds pass as it’s gaze rests on Jaden.

"Foe."

It launches one of its nets at the Rocker!

---

Andy, you had thought to blow out Cuckoo’s tires, but thought better of it and return to the yard as all this commotion breaks out. The swing, the net, the scanning, the melee. Throughout it all, you see the front door of the house swing open. A harried Cuckoo emerges, fastening his helmet to his head, and carrying nothing but a walkie talkie!

"Boathouse, Asimov!" Cuckoo shouts, exasperated, above the din of the net launcher firing.

With that, he takes off down the road, leaving you all behind. The robot doesn’t budge yet.

As Jaden sidesteps the net, he glances briefly at his friends and breaks into a run , chasing Hernandez with all he's got.

Georgie has been studying Asimov, oblivious to the mortal danger. This robot is unstuck from time, and while the strange technology of the current era is despicable and probably resulted in his father's death, this machine with a serial number beyond the cutting edge prototypes of the day is hope that future sees an improvement.

Plus it's gnarly to the max.

He struggles to comprehend a way to manipulate the machine to lead it astray.Georgie leans closer, heedless of injury from shovels and guitars and automated lethal defense systems, looking for a reset or off switch.

As Jaden already chases Cuckoo, Mikey decides to focus on Asimov. Upset about ruining the group's plan by getting spotted by Cuckoo, he repeatedly swings his Spade at Asimov like an axe to try and destroy the robot before it can attack anyone else in the group.

He continues hitting the robot over and over until his arm hurts and he maybe even gets hit by some piece of machine he knocked loose with his attack.

Em runs from Asimov when her ill-conceived ploy fails, the girl's skirt and hair flying, her skinny legs carrying her to safety as Jaden comes to the rescue. It all goes to heck at that point -- Cuckoo is on the porch, the bot is coming for them, there's Georgie just sort of standing there, here comes Mikey with a shovel, Andy was nowhere to be seen... whatever plan they had is gone, replaced by adrenaline-fueled in-the-moment creativity.

Hernandez takes off running, and Jaden is after him as Spud and Rogan face down the killer machine. Morgan's brow knits as she kneels, scooping up a handful of damp earth from a garden bed. Her eyes narrow as she looks for a weak point in the stomping machine. But there's too much movement, too much going on as Mikey has at it with the shovel -- so the girl closes in, intent on smearing dirt on Asimov's glowing eye or gunking up his gears somehow with her handful of muck...

On the ground, the girl's pack lies open, and a dark shape darts from it -- lightning fast, hard to see amidst the chaos. Milo the rat, heretofore unseen, joins the action!

Meanwhile.........

Andy comes tearing towards the porch, pedals a blur, face red with anger and exertion. He heads straight towards the porch. Skidding to a screeching stop, he gets off the bike. Out of the way, he shouts! Raising the bike over his head, he crashes it down onto Asimov.

Jaden dodges the net, ducking out of the way as it flies just overhead. It scrapes to a stop somewhere in the street, a useless ball of rope. Already he can see his friends running in to take the fight to the robot, but no one chasing this mad scientist. Jaden, deciding that the robot had already met its match, races off after the man.

He’s running wildly, at full pelt, though the slippers slow him down significantly. He looks back, wheezing heavily from the exertion, and sees you gaining on him.

"Gah!" he takes off again. His helmet bobbing wildly side to side.

"You… don’t understand… kid!" he shouts as he runs!

"You don’t… understand. It was an… accident! Leave me alone!!"

He continues his frantic running. You hurry to keep up!

---

Asimov lumbers down the porch, as it’s net flies off the mark. Around it, a whirlwind of children descend. Momentarily, he scans Georgie. It’s scanner reads "Fr-riend." then quickly switches to "F-foe."

It follows the large boy with its scanner for a brief second, before the screen cracks and dims. Mikey, unseen by the distracted robot, sinks the edge of the shovel into the sensitive thin glass. Again, and again. Asimov stabs out wildly with one of its legs in self-defense but meets air. A few of Mikey’s blows go astray, scratching up the paint around the robot’s ‘face.’ Cracked, blurry images give way to black nothingness. The upset boy has throughly ruined the robots sensors, leaving it flailing wildly in the garden.

In a final act of defiance, the robot fires off some of the those darts that the gang found up at the Hunter’s Lodge. Thanks to Mikey’s work, the sleeping darts find themselves buried in the front of Cuckoo’s house. Harmless.

"Out of the way!"

And suddenly the robot is a crumpled heap on the front lawn in this residential street. Thick grooves have been cut into the grass. Andy’s bike lays atop the robot, who’s leg still shoots out weakly. Andy gives a satisfied grunt, and recovers his bike from the mound of metal.

Immediately, Georgie and Em swing into action, looking for a more permanent solution to the Asimov issue. Quickly, before the robot can right itself. There it is! A switch. Almost impossible to see while the robot was flailing about, but quite obvious as it lays there defeated on the ground.

George gets on his hands and knees in the dirt, and reaches under for the switch. He stretches, his hand protesting as he does so. Em gets down in the dirt with him, craning her neck to see what he sees. She reaches too. No good. She fumbles in her pocket, for her most prized possession, and thrusts her hand back under the robot. Some gently persuasion from the girl gives the rat no other option but to push against the switch.

You hear a deep, deadening sound of heavy machinery coming to a stop. Asimov’s leg stops reaching for… well anything. The few buttons that were it’s last signs of life dim and go out. He’s done.

You race for your bikes.

Jaden, you’re running hard now to keep up. You’re exhausted. And Cuckoo isn’t doing much better. He stops, and his hands go to rest on his knees. He gulps in air, and gets a better look at you.

"I’ve… seen you… before. Was it before? Or after?…"

He gulps again, and then his eyes go wide at something behind you. His hand starts waving frantically.

Jaden is overtaken by a taxi, it’s signal showing it’s intention to pull in. Before it even stops, Cuckoo is clambering with the back door, and shouting at the taxi driver.

"Boathouse!"

You huff and puff as the taxi driver, bewildered, begins to depart almost as quick as he arrived. You come hurtling to a stop. The chase is up. He’s gotten away from you.

You watch for about 30 seconds as the taxi pulls away and takes a left turn up ahead. And then you hear the screech of rubber on road, and your friends are there, mounted on their bikes. Andy trails behind a little as he awkwardly brings your bike along with him one-handed.

"Qui.... He... way..." Jaden could barely make half-coherent sounds that resembled words. He took a couple of breaths as his friends approached and tried again, making more sense this time: "He-gettin-away!" he said without taking a breath. "Boathouse, after him!"

Mikey slowed down when they reached Jaden but as soon as he manages to finish the word 'Boathouse', Mikey speeds up again, racing as fast as he can that way. He doesn't even care if the others can keep up with him.
Now that Cuckoo knows they're after him, who knows what he will do...

Georgie high fives Em for getting the switch he shouldn't reach. He's suddenly aware of the pain in his wrist. "I wish I had some ice." His thoughts immediately go to the freezer of horrors, the blood draining from his face. He could feel the presence of the dead tortured animals ever since he got into they property, and focused hard to not think of it.

But he doesn't cry, he gets angry. "He's not getting away. He's not getting away WITH THIS!" With a bellow, he grabs his bike, and cradling his probably broken wrist against his belly begins to ride. "Come on, Em!"

"Em, grab some of those tranquilizer darts from the house. See how he likes it!"

Andy extricates his bike from the tangled metal, does a cursory check over his bike to make sure it is still reasonably intact and takes off after the others. Still, on an adrenaline high from smashing his bike down on the evil robot and full of confidence, his fear banished, he was sure they could lick the world.

Right behind you guys!

After tucking Milo back into her pack, petting him with a single finger to calm him, Em nods wordlessly at Georgie as he and the others take off -- eventually taking up the chase of Cuckoo, who it seems is headed for... a boat house?

Might be where he's keeping the horse... and a bunch of other animals, she thinks to herself as she plucks the darts from the house and carefully puts them in her bag. Mounting her bike, she pauses briefly before she starts pedaling, looking down at Asimov almost sadly. Robots are really neat... can be neat. The ones that catch animals so some deranged teacher can kill them? Less neat. Way less neat.

Setting her bike down again, the girl hurries to the inert machine's side... there's a rustling and a clanking and a terrible wrenching sound, then she's back on her bike and on her way.

"Coming!" she calls to her disappearing friends, her bony legs pumping as she tries to catch up. Milo's pink nose pokes out of her backpack, sniffing the morning air as it rushes past, then his whiskers and dark eyes appear as he formally takes up his position of copilot.