Robot Revolution Read online

“What was that horrible noise?” asks Mrs. Pingle, one of our nosier neighbors. “Did another robot blow up?”

  “Negative,” says E, who’s answering all the questions while Mom, Dad, and Blitzen tinker with Soovee. “In fact, we are pleased to report that we have just achieved two explosion-free days here at Dr. Hayes’s robotics workshop, where safety is always job one.”

  Finally, the SUV starts up and, shifting into reverse, quietly rumbles back through the gaping hole in the garage door. It makes that BEEP BEEP BEEP noise trucks do when they back up. It also crunches a few splintered boards on its return voyage, but the CRUUUNCHes are a lot quieter than that KABANG when it shot through the garage door at, like, twenty miles per hour.

  Mom comes over to address the crowd on the sidewalk. Everyone is staring at her. Maybe because—and I hadn’t noticed this earlier—her lab coat and hair are sort of smoldering. Even though she’s scorched and charred, Mom is totally unflustered.

  “This incident is a good thing,” she assures everyone. “A very positive step. We’re moving in the right direction, folks. Mistakes are extremely useful.”

  “Is that why your son makes so many?” asks a sarcastic voice in the crowd. “Is he just trying to be ‘useful’?”

  Well, what do you know?

  Randolph R. Reich lives in our neighborhood.

  Even with the crash, the biggest surprise of the night for me is that Randolph doesn’t wear a tie with his pajamas.

  Hi, Randy,” I say to R.R.R. because I know he “prefers to be addressed” by his “proper name, Randolph.”

  “Samuel,” he says stiffly. “What, pray tell, is your mother up to now? Pursuing advances in the exciting field of robotic home demolition, perhaps?”

  “Nah. She’s working on something genius. A major scientific breakthrough. And to do that, you have to stumble a few times. Make a couple mistakes. Hey, you can’t make scrambled eggs if you don’t break a few eggs first.”

  “Actually, you can,” says Reich. “You can simply purchase liquid egg substitutes in a cardboard container from the dairy section of your local supermarket. Now, that’s progress, Samuel. Cars that smash through garage doors whenever they feel like it? Not so much.”

  Geoffrey ZHOOSHes out to the sidewalk with a plate of warm, fresh-baked cookies for all our neighbors.

  “So sorry for the unexpected early morning disturbance, old beans,” he says very smoothly and snootily, which is how he says everything because he has that British accent. “Perhaps a chocolate chip cookie will soothe you back to sleep, eh, what?”

  “Indeed,” adds E, strolling down the driveway to help Geoffrey distribute the goodies to our neighbors. “Sugar-laden snacks, such as chocolate chip cookies, cause insulin levels in your blood to surge, triggering your brain to curb all activity. Therefore, eating a cookie in the middle of the night is very similar to hitting the Sleep button on your laptop. Enjoy!”

  After E’s cheery little speech, nobody seems all that interested in gobbling down Geoffrey’s baked goods. Our rudely awakened neighbors just hold the cookies in their hands and stare at them.

  Until they hear a very loud VAROOOOOM! In the garage, Soovee is gunning its own gas pedal, revving its own engine.

  “Kindly ignore the noise,” calls Mom from up the driveway, where she’s fiddling with thumb toggles on a giant controller.

  Soovee suddenly makes some loud, choking sounds: VROOM-SPAK! BAROOOM-SPUT-SPUT! GRAAAROOOOM!

  And then it blasts out of the garage again!

  Tires squealing, the self-driven SUV tears down the driveway and aims for the clump of nosy neighbors gathered on our sidewalk.

  People scream and scatter in both directions—giving Soovee easy access to the street.

  The self-propelled, self-controlled car hangs a louie (which means it turns left) and veers up the block. Small problem: our street ends in a cul-de-sac. A round dead end. Soovee looks like it plans on treating that circle like a straightaway.

  “It’s headed for the front door of my house!” screams a panicky Randolph R. Reich. “Your insane autonomous automobile is going to crash into my home! Mr. Fluffles is in there!”

  Two seconds before hitting the curb, Soovee slams on its brakes. Tires screech. Rubber burns. Gears grind. The SUV’s transmission slides into reverse. Wheels spinning, body swerving, the self-driving vehicle executes this incredibly tight secret agent–style backwards spin into a 180-degree turnaround, so when the smoke clears, its nose is pointing away from R.R.R.’s house.

  “Awesome,” I say because, hey, it is.

  Then Soovee putters up the block.

  “I am going to the all-night convenience store for milk,” it announces as it passes our amazed neighbors. “You can’t have warm cookies without cold milk.”

  Mom is with me on the sidewalk, admiring her newest creation as it silently whooshes down the street for a gallon of milk.

  “It steered itself out of danger,” I hear her mumble. “This is fantastic!”

  “True,” I say. “But how is it going to pay for the milk?”

  Mom grins. “Don’t worry, Sammy. I have it covered.”

  And you know what? I bet she does!

  We’re all feeling pretty great inside the house of robots the next morning.

  For one thing, Mom is making real progress on her self-driving SUV, despite the middle-of-the-night chaos.

  For another, we get to have chocolate chip cookies for breakfast since nobody ate them out on the sidewalk last night. They were too busy being terrified by Soovee.

  Dad is frantically drawing final illustrations for his manga masterpiece with a stylus on the sketch pad connected to his computer.

  Meanwhile, Maddie is doing her best to “mother” all the robots. She got the toddler-bot, Four, to stop bawling when she found its pacifier. McFetch was using it as a chew toy.

  “I believe the worst is behind us,” says E as we bike to school.

  “Is that an insult?” says Trip as he pedals up behind us. “Because I was behind you guys when you said ‘the worst is behind us.’”

  “You are not the worst,” says E. “In fact, Trip, you are Samuel’s best friend who isn’t his sister or bro-bot.”

  “Wow,” says Trip. “I’m a BFWIHSOBB! Woo-hoo!”

  “You should’ve seen Soovee last night,” I tell Trip. “It was amazing. Mom’s autonomous automobile made all these incredibly cool defensive driving moves. Like in those spy movies. Show him, E!”

  “Gladly, Sammy.”

  And since he’s programmed all sorts of awesome BMX moves into his memory chips, E executes an excellent re-creation of the SUV’s amazing backwards spin into a complete turnaround. He also adds the engine revving and tire screeching noises because he has an unlimited sound effects library on his hard drive and a booming subwoofer in his shoes.

  “Wow,” says Trip. “I wish I could’ve been there to see it.”

  As it turns out, Trip didn’t need to be at our house at two o’clock in the morning to see Mom’s driverless car in action.

  Because Randolph R. Reich took all sorts of unflattering photos and even video on his phone.

  He posted everything on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—even that website that always runs lists: “The Top Ten Reasons Self-Driving Cars Are Self-Destructive and Super Dangerous!”

  The video begins with Soovee tearing out of the garage (the second time) and heading straight for the neighbors. It ends suddenly, as the car launches at the house, with Randolph screaming off camera.

  Missing from the video, of course, is the amazing midcourse correction the automatic automobile made when it realized it was on track to crash into R.R.R.’s living room.

  Also missing?

  Any mention of the peaceful ride down to the corner store for a gallon of milk. Believe it or not, the cashier could scan Soovee’s window-mounted iPhone, which was running a payment app!

  When school’s out for the day, Trip and I check all of R.R.R.’s posts again.

/>   You wouldn’t believe the comments. (Or maybe you would, if you’ve ever read some of the snarky stuff polluting the Web.)

  “This proves that autonomous automobiles should only be driven by crash test dummies.”

  “Or regular dummies.”

  “How can I call other drivers jerks if they’re not driving their cars?”

  “If these cars take away all the fender benders, they’re going to put towing companies and repair shops out of business. That could really hurt the economy, and my car painting business, too.”

  “I don’t want Big Brother driving me to work. I don’t even want my little brother driving me!”

  “How am I going to be able to tailgate if my car automatically wants to keep me safe?”

  “Does the car do its own honking? I like to honk. Especially in hospital zones at 3 a.m.”

  Yep. In one day, it seems like Randolph R. Reich has done more damage to Mom’s latest invention than it did to itself when it crashed through that garage door.

  Twice.

  Thank you, Randolph R. Reich!” are five words I never thought I’d hear myself say. (Well, four words and one letter.)

  But I say them when Trip, E, and I pedal up our driveway, which is lined with official-looking company cars from Ford, General Motors, Nissan, and Honda! Randolph’s attempt to ruin Mom’s self-driving SUV has totally backfired. It’s attracted the attention of the world’s major carmakers.

  “Wow,” says Trip. “This is so cool. Soovee could be, like, the next Prius or something!”

  “I guess Randy Reich just made his first mistake,” I say as we dismount from our bikes. “He showed everybody that Mom actually built an autonomous automobile—including the car companies!”

  “Indeed,” remarks E. “For as Phineas T. Barnum, the nineteenth-century American showman and circus owner, once said, ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity.’”

  The three of us peek into the garage, where, for whatever reason, Mom has made Hayseed her car salesman. He’s showing off Soovee to the visiting auto execs, all of them wearing polo shirts or sport coats with their car company logos stitched onto them.

  “Where’s Mom?” I wonder out loud. “This is a huge deal for her. If she can sell her driverless SUV idea to Ford or General Motors or one of the big Japanese car companies, she’ll never have to work again.”

  Trip nods. “She’d be so rich, she could retire and eat peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches all day long.”

  E actually grins. “That doesn’t sound like Dr. Elizabeth Hayes.”

  “Fine,” says Trip. “She can skip the sandwiches and eat steak and lobster all day instead.”

  “What I meant to say,” E continues as we move away from the garage door, “is that Dr. Hayes does not strike me as one who longs for retirement. She loves her work. In fact, I suspect that the reason she is not the one in the garage selling the car to the automobile executives is because she is somewhere else working on her other project, the one that will benefit Maddie. The one she probably considers the most important project of her entire career.”

  “Seriously?” says Trip. “Do you know how many new cars were sold last year in America?”

  “Sixteen point one million,” says E, whose computer brain can google faster than anybody in the world.

  “And how much money did the car inventors make?”

  E is about to answer, but Trip is too excited to let him.

  “Bajillions of dollars!”

  “E’s right,” I tell Trip. “For Mom, Maddie’s more important than all the money in the world. For me, too.”

  That’s when somebody in a leather flight suit and tinted-visor helmet glides up the driveway on a super-cool electric robo-bike I’ve never seen before.

  The bike rider takes off her helmet.

  Shakes out her hair.

  It’s Mom!

  Thank you, Bob,” Mom says to the bike.

  “You are most welcome, Dr. Hayes,” says the electronic bike.

  “What the heck is that?” I ask, practically drooling.

  “Bob. My bot-operated bicycle. It runs on a battery cell that is constantly recharged by the movement of electromagnets spinning around inside the wheels. I designed it several years ago but never really had any use for it until today. I needed to run over to Notre Dame and make sure phase two was prepped and ready to go. I couldn’t take the SUV, so I dusted Bob off and…”

  I was still drooling over the awesome robo-bike.

  “Um, Mom? Can I take Bob to school tomorrow?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “How are things going inside the garage?” Mom asks, totally ignoring me.

  “Fantastic!” says Trip. “The biggest car companies in the whole world want to make you a bajillionaire!”

  “If they do,” says Mom, “all that money will be used to fund future research on my Maddie project.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say because, yes, I’m still too mesmerized by the energy efficient robotic bicycle to be jealous of Maddie. Even though the bike doesn’t have a motor, it does have a Turbo button. I don’t know what it does, but hey, turbo anything sounds awesome to me.

  “I sense that Hayseed is just about to close the deal,” says E.

  “Excellent,” says Mom. “I knew he was the bot for the job.”

  We all march over to the garage door and watch Hayseed wrap up his sales pitch.

  None of the car execs make an offer.

  In fact, none of them say anything.

  “Come on, fellers, open your wallets,” says Hayseed. “Don’t be tighter than fiddle strings. Let’s get this here auction rollin’. Who wants to bid one bajillion dollars?”

  A couple of the car executives cough. Others clear their throats. Finally, one of them speaks up.

  “Is Dr. Hayes on-site?”

  “Yes,” says Mom, stepping into the garage. “Do you have questions?”

  “I do,” says one lady. “Why did you make the body out of a gel-like substance encased in a high-tensile polymer? That makes the manufacturing extremely expensive.”

  “Easy. If there is a collision, the gel will absorb and dissipate the energy while the polymer shell remains highly resistant to puncture. Ladies and gentlemen, my family will be riding in that car. I wanted to make sure it was as safe as possible.”

  “We could plate it with solid gold and sell it for less,” grumbles an American car company executive.

  “And who wants a car that drives itself, anyway?” asks one of the Japanese executives. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “It’s positively un-American,” says a guy from Detroit.

  “Un-Japanese, too!”

  “But think about it,” says Mom. “If we all had driverless cars, there would be no more traffic jams. They’ve already run tests in Silicon Valley. Six lanes of traffic could cross seamlessly. There would be no more accidents. Plus, if we didn’t have to waste time driving, just think how productive we could be. We could do conference calls during our morning commute…”

  “If there were no more accidents, people wouldn’t have to keep buying new cars!” says one greedy car exec. “Dents pay our rents!”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Hayes,” says a man with a fancy smile. “This isn’t for us. We’re sorry you wasted your valuable time on such an impractical project.”

  They file out of the garage, shaking their heads. When all the auto company bigwigs climb into their fume-spewing gas-guzzlers and putter away, Mom is seriously disappointed.

  Dad comes out of the house.

  “How’d the meeting go?” he asks.

  “Terrible,” says Trip, once again saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. “They totally trash-talked the self-driving SUV!”

  Mom sighs and shakes her head. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.”

  She plods back into her workshop.

  “Don’t worry,” Dad tells me after Trip takes off for home. “Everything is going to be fine, financially.” H
e even winks at me.

  “Is your new book really that good?” I ask.

  “Yep. It’ll be a runaway bestseller. I guarantee it. Trust me, Sammy. Everything is going to be fine!”

  I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that one before…

  The next day at school, we’re doing a unit on robotics.

  So Mrs. Kunkel invites me up to the front of the class.

  “As you all know, Sammy’s mother is a professor of robotics at the University of Notre Dame’s College of Engineering. So he’s lucky enough to live in a house filled with robots. I don’t mean to put you on the spot, Sammy, but I was hoping you might be able to share some of your firsthand experiences with these mechanical marvels.”

  When she calls our robots mechanical marvels, it makes me feel proud of all that Mom has accomplished in her workshop and as a professor at Notre Dame.

  “Why, I’d be happy to, Mrs. Kunkel,” I say, strutting up to the front of the class.

  Randolph R. Reich, who is sitting at the table closest to me, rolls his eyes like he can’t believe I’m the one about to be a guest speaker instead of him.

  That makes me want to do it even more.

  “It’s true. My mom is a genius inventor. A few months ago, she created E to come here to Creekside Elementary for my little sister, Maddie, who can’t leave the house because she has a compromised immune system. At home, we have tons of other awesometastic robots, too. If there is a task that needs doing around our house, Mom comes up with a robot to handle it.

  “For instance, we don’t have a doorbell. We have a little bot named Dingaling, with motion detector sensors. When someone climbs our front porch steps, Dingaling senses it, activates its arm servos, and starts swinging a bell.”

  Randolph R. Reich and the kids at his table giggle, like that’s funny. I’m not sure why.