Issue 1 Downtime

John led Wanda to the door to Room 305 and knocked insistently.

There was a 'just a minute!' shout from somewhere inside, and a lot of clattering. THen a moment later, Cal opened the door. "Oh, hey John," he said, giving the girl he didn't know a nod. "What's up?"

"Your 'kids' attacked me again," he said, taking a demanding tone, "This nonsense has to stop. Now."

"Hell," he sighed. "What'd they do now?"

Wanda held Phooey forward, still being gentle. "Caught this one after he'd dropped another one off to attack John," she said, smiling. It was obvious she considered the whole situation at least somewhat amusing.

Cal winced, seeing the robot, reaching out to take it, giving it a cursory examination to make sure nothing was broken.

John was, however, obviously far less amused.

"If you keep letting them act like this, one of these days they're going to hurt someone. They certainly have the intent," he said, completely judgmentally.

"You mean like kicking someone across a room?" Cal asked mildly as he looked over the robot in his palm, making it get up and walk around so he could make sure movement wasn't obstructed.

"That was a misunderstanding! How many times do I have to apologize for that?"

"Hey, I'm not holding any grudges. They all think that you're bent on their eradication."

"And it's your job to teach them otherwise."

Wanda had been very careful with Phooey, more careful than one would imagine someone of her size could be.

"Yeah, because people respond so well and quickly to 'this deep-seated belief you have is just totally wrong'."

"Deep-seated beliefs..." he said incredulously. "None of them are even nine months old!"

"Yeah, and they think as fast as a computer. A day is like a month's worth of thinking and reasoning for them."

All the speed, none of the logic.

"That's still no excuse for letting it get this far."

"I'm flattered that you think I'm some kind of all-knowing cyber-problem-solver, but it's still not exactly true," Cal said.

"No. I'm thinking you're their father and should start acting like it."

"And I think that if you hadn't kicked one of them, this wouldn't be happening despite my efforts to teach them not to do this crap," Cal shot back, his voice heating a bit.

Deciding she had little to contribute to the discussion and that her presence was unlikely to be helpful, Wanda shifted weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably and then made her exit.

"That never would have happened if you had kept an eye on her around the reprogrammed alien invader I had no way of knowing wasn't a threat!"

"Aside from the fact that it didn't have any weapons and wasn't attacking you?"

"Excuse the hell out of me for not thoroughly examining one of the things that attacked us before acting defensively. And at least I wasn't trying to outright kill anything."

"Oh, really? Have they done anything actually dangerous to you? Stuff that'd be easy for them like, y'know, poisoning you, rigging gas in your room, setting something up to electrocute you?"

"If they knew a knife wouldn't have worked they wouldn't have tried," he responded, "And thanks for giving them ideas."

"Maybe they don't know it, but the AI that's overseeing them to make sure they don't do anything catastrophic does. So seriously. You're fine, everyone's fine, don't bitch when people you kick kick back. Better go catch up with your little girlfriend there."

And with that, Cal turned back into his room, kicking the door shut behind him.

"Grah! It ceased to be eye for an eye months ago!" he bellowed in pure exasperation before he stormed off.