Robotics 101

Dr. Flavour's secret laboratory looks like a dumpster from the outside, but inside it is a fully equipped research and development facility. When he picked me up from the rain-soaked mud fields flanking the former site of Fakie Central Headquarters, there was a strange look of mixed horror and fascination on his face.

I stepped inside the lab and was momentarily blinded by the lighting. On top of the usual 100 watt bulb dangling from the ceiling, the good doctor has decked the place out in flashing, multi-coloured Christmas lights.

"Well, Flavour," I said, "you came along just in time." My voice sounded more deep and hollow than I remembered, but I chalked this up to being in the afterlife for so long where sound doesn't carry the way it does in the "real" world.

"I'd say it's high time for a round of 'nog!" I suggested. I had a hankering for a festive draught, but was perplexed when, instead of a cup of rich, satisfying eggnog, Dr. Flavour approached me with an oil can in one hand and an adjustable spanner in the other.

"Fascinating!" Dr. Flavour's mind was clearly not on creamy seasonal comforts as he reached for my head with the wrench. "A slight adjustment to the frontal lobe should do the trick..."

"Hey! What's with the hardware?" I queried, stretching out a hand in protest. To my great horror, instead of a hand I saw a fluorescent blue tendril of protoplasm.

Hastening to the corner cubicle that passes for a bathroom in Flavour's lab, I peered into the tarnished mirror hanging over the basin and was greeted by a leering robotic head, replete with flickering ear-probes and a crop of smokestack-like protrusions in lieu of hair. The thing looked like it had been pieced together from scrap parts, and below it all hung an amorphic, globular "body" of blue jelly that writhed in a constant, cellular kind of motion.

"It's just temporary," said Dr. Flavour, "--until we can regenerate an organic host body for you. You have to admit though, you look pretty cool."

"Cool? Frankenstein's monster is more like it! How am I supposed to go out in public like this? I look like a hovering freak show!"


Temporary host-body courtesy of Roboshrub Inc.

Anyways, I guess a robotic/protoplasm body is better than nothing. No one said returning from the afterlife would be easy. Pretty hard to skateboard with the thing, though.

Now, to get back to my story about my trip to the other side....