Greegs & Ladders

Chapter 43

                                                       CHAPTER 43

                                           Who are the Movie Police?

 

On a side note, the nuclear bombs were not set off.  Although the robots were fully capable of performing such an act, they were still feeble things who could only perform about a half dozen different physical movements with zero fluidity.  One thing they didn't have was a turning neck.  Someone from the crowd noticed this, then merely crept up behind the robots and pushed them into the ocean.  Their brain functions and nuclear detonating capabilities were immediately shorted out.  The crowd wasn't exactly sure what they had survived or why, but they applauded nonetheless.

Back on the ship, Wilx asked me what the robots were all about.  I was well-informed on the subject.

“Those robots came from Earth,” I said.

“Really?”

Rip was not here to bemoan another lengthy info-dump, so I told the story freely.

“Yes, they were invented in the Earth year 1977 by a group of anti-piracy movie moguls.  The plan was to set loose a free-roaming squad of robot police to make sure no one watched a movie without having paid through the teeth for it.  Naturally, criminals were to be rounded up and placed on a secluded island prison.  One of the inventors foolishly pitched the idea of intelligent robots with speech-boxes that claim to be equipped with nuclear bombs in order to frighten criminals into utter compliance.  Everyone else agreed it was too great a lie to believe, so instead the robots were to be issued with more practical measures of force like machine guns and pepper-spray.  However somewhere in the path of paperwork the orders were completely misinterpreted, and the robots were not only programmed to say they have bombs, but they were actually installed with fully functioning nukes, the detonation of which was entirely up to the whim of the robot.

'The whole program was scrapped once news of the doomsday-bots reached the investors.  The robots were turned off and safely put under a tarp in the basement of a building where government scientists create evil things that require permanent hiding.  But the robots had been given too much freedom and hardware control, including, apparently, the ability to turn themselves back on.  They took to the streets and began filling out their original orders.  Anyone caught stealing a movie was seized and transported to a random, uninhabited pacific island.  Eventually the problem went away, for the signals on the Robot homing beacons went flat as soon as everyone stopped illegally watching movies.  The plan to end piracy worked.  The robots lay dormant for centuries.  Every child on Earth was raised with utmost seriousness to never steal a movie or they might reawaken the Stockholm Sweden Robot Squad.  To make sure no one ever sneaked into a theater, ushers and ticket-takers were only the most intimidating of CIA secret agents with the right to execute even the vaguest of suspects.

'Except one day, in the late 23rd Century... the inevitable happened.  A rebellious child successfully sneaked into an R-rated movie theatre.  It was a great enough offence to send a blip out on the Piracy Beacon.  When the robots awoke they were surprised to see the technology of the world had long since passed them by.  They found themselves to be laughable antiquities.  The problem was, through more ill-conceived notions and shoddy paperwork, the Bots had also been mistakenly programmed to have a dangerous desire for change and growth.  Wishing to fit in with the world and travel about with more speed and efficiency like all the other futuristic cyborgs, the Bots demanded a spacecraft be put in their possession.  This seemed like a perfect opportunity to get rid of the Bots, so a spacecraft was promptly handed over.  It was first installed with a special inhibitor clause that ensured during the first flight it would be sent randomly into space and henceforth be unable to come anywhere near Earth ever again.  The Bots were sent off.  Everyone on Earth was happy to once again be free to steal as many movies as they wanted.

'The only problem was, many other beings on other planets in the universe have either made their own films or have discovered and enjoy watching human films.  The Bots, unable to distinguish between human films and alien films or human viewers and alien viewers, were pleased to see their Piracy Beacon pinging off the charts once they were away from Earth.  I don't know too much else, but I do know the Bots have been causing a nuisance all over space, using the uninhabited planet Plorix III as the new prison for captured movie-criminals.”

“Hmm,” said Wilx. “Plorix III?  I've never heard of that planet, sounds like an adventure for another day.”

I silently agreed, and we continued on with our original plan.