Category: Fiction
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Troublebots are not like any other kind of robot you have ever seen before. Were you to meet one, you might start feeling sorry for it but for the simple fact that their general down-at-heel-ness has made them extremely bad-tempered.This is because that for all the reasons outlined above, and many more that I haven’t even begun to mention, Troublebots are aware enough of their own inherent flawedness to be totally insecure and forever angry.
It is no wonder that Troublebots look like they are about to smash you in the mouth with a badly-clenched fist or stamp on your toes with an ill-fitting foot.
Troublebots are not even able to find any solidarity in their shoddiness. It isn’t just the world and everyone in it that causes a Troublebot to lash out in frustration, they also find it impossible to get on with each other. Picture the following scenario:
Troublebot A leaves a leg out to trip Troublebot B while Troublebot B is trying to blindside Troublebot C and attach a magnetic rope round the ankles of Troublebot D.
While this is all happening Troublebot D is attempting to short-circuit Troublebot E with a long-handled screwdriver.
Meanwhile Troublebots F and G are holding Troublebot H out of a thirty-five-storey window by its badly-fitted legs.
Ever alive to the possibility of a nice bit of roboticide, Troublebot I is poised to shove F and G out of the window, taking H with them.
Quite understandably, no one, not even Dr Don’t Know and he has had a small army of them manufactured, can stand to be in the same room as a Troublebot.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelesshero
She couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwell
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Troublebots were always trouble. They stood the tallish side of average and would look reasonably alright from a distance, were it not for the fact that they were usually scratched and dented.
Each Troublebot had two eyes, a dial where the nose should be and a small round hole for a mouth. Variations do exist within this format, and you couldn’t be sure that the distance between the eyes is exactly the same on each head, or that each mouth was die-cut exactly in the centre of each face.
The upper body was square-like and hollow, with enough room inside for all of the various pistons, wheels, wires, switches, motors and circuit boards required to keep the Troublebot working.
There was also a rectangular grille on each Troublebot’s chest and if you looked through the flimsy bars, you could see their badly-soldered inner circuitry sparking, shorting and generally threatening to give up.
The limbs of a Troublebot were designed with action in mind. Unfortunately, the measurements used for the prototype were very slightly out, and this mismeasurement was most noticeable in the slight limp caused by the right leg being ever-so-slightly longer than the left.
The left arm looked normal enough for a humanoid and ended in a metallic hand. The right arm ended with a bewildering array of random tools attached to it instead of fingers. These tools included useful ones like screwdrivers, mini-saws, sharp knives, small-bore guns, digital cameras, half-size samurai swords, and blow-torches.
Less useful tools that have been found at the end of a Troublebot’s arm include sporks, pencil sharpeners, miniature golf clubs, thermometers, toffee hammers, fountain pens, litter grabbers, flag guns that say ‘Bang’, analogue remote control systems, small kites on short strings, spirit-levels, kaleidoscopes, sextants, mascara brushes, wooden spoons, egg toppers, paper clips, microphones, Clingfilm dispensers, radio aerials, small fizzy sweet dispensers and a ruminator (whatever that is).
Anyone with an eye for the aesthetic, especially sensitive designers and engineers, is likely to find that same eye filling with tears at the simple sight of one of these hapless things.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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If robots, treacherous or not, don’t work for you then perhaps you would prefer a brain-searingly intelligent android. You know, the kind that is always philosophical in their outlook and vaguely sympathetic towards the plight of the obviously inferior human race that they are nevertheless duty-bound to serve without question.
Whilst androids like this might get a little agitated sometimes – and occasionally end up breaking things or themselves – they tend to calm down in the end and go back to adopting the role of the benevolent guardian. It is highly unlikely that they would ever sell the whole human race for scrap.If an android doesn’t really work for you, then you might be the kind of person who prefers synthetic people whose real tragedy is the fact that they will never be properly human, however hard they secretly pine and moon.
Despite their broken synthetic hearts, these artificial people still manage to nobly provide the world with an amazing service and are always seemingly at their happiest when they are doing complicated scientific things for little or no real reward in the face of very real danger.
At the danger of building you all up only to have to knock you all down, I am sorry to have to tell you that the robots in this story are the most irritating and hateful non-human things to ever trouble the pages of a story.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Once the plot had been revealed, it was a relatively simple task for the writers to allow Pearly to discover that the aliens were, in fact, being controlled by a special transmitter designed by the wicked professor.
‘So this is what the real embezzlement of public funds looks like,’ she says to herself when Wanderley, who had disguised himself as a bicycle courier with an important message for the professor that could only be delivered by hand, shows her the photographs he was able to take of the professor’s Alien Contact and Control Transmitter. ‘That needs smashing straight away,’ she says.
‘I’m on it,’ says Wes, and he was. Wanderley disguises himself as a visiting professor ‘who had heard about Professor Pipkin’s genius and wanted to see for himself what all the fuss was about.’ As ‘Professor’ Wanderley flatters the vain Professor Pipkin, Wes sneaks into the Control Room and takes a sledgehammer to the transmitter.
With the transmitter broken beyond repair, the cruel, invisible, and nameless aliens simply vanish, and it is an easy thing for Windy to race to notify the authorities of Professor’s Pipkin’s wrongdoings. The naughty professor is led away by the police to spend the rest of his days behind bars.
‘There won’t be any books or clever talk where he is going,’ says Pearly to her friends. The following day Pearly Stockwell and the Invisible Twins receive an official apology, and Professor Pipkin’s Space Observation Station is demolished and replaced by light industrial units.
This particular adventure tends to buck the more prosaic trends of all of the other Pearly Stockwell adventures, by ending with a flashback to an event that took place before the adventure began.
The flashback reveals that the Professor Pipkin who almost caused the world to be colonised by aliens was, in fact, a robot created by Professor Pipkin to replace himself.
‘I’m very old now,’ lamented Professor Pipkin, ‘and my head can no longer cope with all this scientific stuff.’ He looked down at the robotic version of himself laying dormant on his operating table.
‘This way,’ thought the warped Professor to himself, ‘I will never get old again, and will be able to read books and do research forever.’
Unfortunately, there was a fault in the central processing unit and the ‘new’ Professor Pipkin considered the human race so inferior that he sold the entire planet to the highest bidder on an intergalactic auction website.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Pearly always had her suspicions about Professor Oswald Pipkin and his Space Observation Station, a project funded in perpetuity by the now-defunct University of Fallstown.
‘How do we know that he isn’t spending his days signalling to aliens from outer space and inviting them to colonise our planet?’ she says to the Interesting Twins. ‘I’m not really sure that all those years of scientific study are good for anyone. Besides,’ she continues, ‘there is something about all of those satellite dishes and telescopes that I just don’t like.’
But the banking scandal intervened before she was able to act upon her suspicions and Professor Pipkin was able to go about his business unimpeded. For contacting an alien race and inviting them to take over the world is exactly what the deranged professor was planning, and with Pearly and her meddling friends out of the way, he was close to achieving his dream.
One night, Pearly is woken in her dormitory by the brightest of bright lights filling the sky.
‘Bright lights at night aren’t right,’ she says to herself. ‘I had better look into this.’ And so she does. It was a simple task to rendezvous with the Interesting Twins, who all had similar thoughts about the bright lights and knew they should all be looking into what was happening.
The next morning, Fallstown has fallen captive to a race of extremely cruel, invisible and nameless aliens intent on using Fallstown as the site for something indescribably incomprehensible. Pearly and her detective friends watch from their secret hiding-place as the entire population of Fallstown is herded into the main square by Professor Pipkin.
‘I knew it,’ says Pearly. ‘I just knew that Professor Pipkin had been warped and corrupted by all those years of reading.’
‘Yeah,’ says Wes menacingly. ‘Just you wait until I box his silly scientist’s ears. He won’t know what’s hit him when I whack him three ways backwards.’ Wes punches his fist into his palm.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Everyone loves a robot and we have all enjoyed countless stories about impressive-sounding robots with wonderful names, all shiny and chrome and quick with witty one-liners and other typical science-fiction adventure banter designed to make everyone love the ‘mechanical friend’ forever more.
These are the kinds of robots in those kinds of stories that make their traveling companions laugh by making funny observations about whatever situation, sticky or otherwise, they find themselves in.
Along the way and in between the witty words, these kinds of robots are also able to solve a crisis or two. Put two robots together in the same story and you can also spend hours reveling in the robotic rhythms of their witty robotic repartee.
However, as Pearly Loses the Plot, Or Does She? demonstrates to us all, the relationship between humans and robots is not always a smooth and mutually progressive one.
A misguided investigation initiated by Pearly and the Interesting Twins leads to ninety-three employees of the First Fallstown Beneficial & Mutual Bank being mistakenly convicted of embezzling pension funds and imprisoned in the Fallstown Correctional Facility. It takes a lengthy legal campaign to get the convictions overturned and as a result of these hearings, Pearly is banned from ever investigating again.
‘You need to go back to school like every other child your age,’ says the presiding magistrate, the Right Honourable Judge Lambert Johnstone-Drury. ‘Your investigating days are well and truly over.’
And seemingly they are. The Interesting Twins are separated and sent to three different foster homes. Pearly Stockwell becomes the latest and most unwilling boarder at the Fallstown Academy for Troublesome Children.
Everything they had worked so hard to achieve now appears to be over, but as luck would have it or, indeed, as is essential for any story to resolve the issues that it contains, or just so the writers can add excitement to an episode that is seemingly going nowhere, it just so happens that Fallstown suddenly becomes the focus of a visitation from outer space.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Dr Don’t Know still said nothing, and so the scientist continued continuing.
‘The target’s name is Ellis. Our last report indicates that she has now left the house shared by Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and is headed for the Panic Town Stadium.’ The scientist paused. ‘We have got to stop her before it is too late!’
Dr Don’t Know didn’t react so the scientist reacted for him.
‘Putting aside for one moment the whole evil plan thing, I thought it was also worth me formally registering my complete and utter disgust that a young girl like this has been allowed to leave the family home unsupervised.’ The scientist was angry now.
‘Never in all my time as a professional have I ever known anything as unprofessional as this being allowed to happen.’ Dr Don’t Know still said nothing. The scientist continued continuing his continuing.
‘Whoever is responsible for letting this young child leave her family home and get caught up in all manner of world-threatening adventures should, at the very least, be named and shamed!’
The scientist slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand in that gesture so beloved by people who are looking for the physical equivalent of the grammatical violence of an exclamation mark.
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‘It may interest you to know,’ the scientist continued, ‘that if it were down to me, the person responsible for such irresponsibility would be
tarred and feathered,
pursued aggressively to the very bounds of the bailiwick,
hung by their heels over a vat of rancid soup until they coughed uncontrollably,
forced to publicly confess their crimes on television,
severely castigated, so much so that the mere possibility of any future castigation would cause them to tremble uncontrollably,
dealt with silently for the rest of their lives,
made to walk backwards forever,
picked out for the rest of their days by a powerful spotlight.’
As you can see, the scientist feels very strongly about this.
‘As you can see,’ said the scientist to the Doctor, ‘I feel very strongly about this.’ Dr Don’t Know still said nothing.
‘I can’t help feeling,’ concluded the scientist, ‘that this poor innocent child has been deliberately made to leave the house in order to further the aims of someone who is constantly manipulating situations like this to simply suit themselves.’ The scientist looked around.
‘If I didn’t know any better,’ he said, ‘I would swear that we are all simply characters in someone else’s so-so story.’
Dr Don’t Know pressed a wobbly button on his desk that said ‘Troublebot’ and three of them appeared.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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Just when it seemed that the poor Doctor’s worries would engulf him completely, there was a knock at the door. Dr Don’t Know looked up to see the door to his ‘office’ being violently yanked open. After a brief struggle between man and hinge, one of the Doctor’s few remaining scientists stepped inside. The scientist was wearing a white lab coat with a pocket full of pens.
‘I have it here, Dr Don’t Know,’ said the scientist excitedly. ‘I have the picture you requested.’
The scientist handed an envelope to the supervillain and even though the scientist’s ‘laboratory’ – another converted storeroom – was only next-door to Dr Don’t Know’s ‘office’, he had been unable to resist the urge to seal the envelope with a lick and a long piece of sticky tape.
Dr Don’t Know took the envelope and held it in front of him. After a couple of weak attempts to open the envelope with the nail of his little finger, the Doctor stopped. He handed it back to the excited scientist.
‘But don’t you want to see it?’ asked the confused scientist. ‘I thought that this was a Level One Code Red Ultimate Priority?’
The scientist waited for a response. Dr Don’t Know said nothing.
‘This is the child that Falcon Boy was speaking to,’ continued the scientist.
The Doctor remained impassive and, perhaps fearing being let go like so many of his colleagues, the scientist kept talking.
‘Because we already knew the location of Falcon Boy, it was a relatively simple…’
The scientist stopped. ‘If I make it sound too simple,’ he said to himself, ‘then it will sound like anybody could have done it. If anybody could have done it, then why would that anybody have to be me?’ He started again.
‘Because we already knew the location of Falcon Boy, that meant we were able to put in place an extremely sophisticated and wholly-scientific monitoring and tracing procedure made possible, not only through the dedication of your team, but also by utilising a couple of highly complex and strictly classified logarithms, logarithms that are only known on a need to know basis.’
‘That sounds much better,’ thought the scientist. He continued again.
‘To prevent these complex logarithms falling into the wrong hands, they have never been written down but are instead entrusted to the memory of an extremely indispensable member of your organisation, namely myself.’ The scientist placed his hand on his heart, so as to further emphasise his indispensability.
‘I have them here, Doctor. I have them here.’
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
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The life of a super-criminal can be worrisome enough, especially considering the sort of financial difficulties that he had experienced recently, but even given all of this, Dr Don’t Know is a real worrier and now he had something new to really worry about.
The ‘Other Transmissions’ section of his recently-rationalized and now, in fact, one-man surveillance and monitoring team (who also has to man the main switchboard when he is not busy with any transmissions designated as ‘other’), had just intercepted the conversation that took place between Falcon Boy and Ellis.
Hurried, worried questions burst in the Doctor’s brain like so many bursting bubbles of angry anger.
‘How could Falcon Boy have made contact with anyone?
How was this made possible?
Who is responsible?’
Dr Don’t Know looked straight towards me when he had this thought. Luckily, he doesn’t know that I’m there. He continued worrying.
‘If Falcon Boy has suddenly acquired a superpower then has his foolish friend acquired one as well?
Is someone arbitrarily handing out superpowers to people?
If so, why won’t someone give me one?
What sort of superpower do I want?
I had better think of one just in case. Would I choose falling like a stone but not breaking on impact?
Swimming like an unbidden fish?
Looming large over people?’
And the Doctor worried some more.
‘Why a young girl?
What is she going to do next?
Do I have to kidnap her as well?
Who else has Falcon Boy spoken to?
Will I have to kidnap them as well?
What if he has spoken to lots of people?
What if I have to kidnap lots of people?
Where will I put them all?’
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
BARNABY TAYLOR 