Cats vs. Robots #2 by Margaret Stohl

Author:Margaret Stohl
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

19

Flea Factory

Later that day, Max and Min called a family council on the front porch of the Wengrod house.

“I think we figured out how to we can protest Meow and SLAYAR and this whole cat robot fight,” Min said.

Max nodded. “Yeah, it’s a little like my INSECTAGONS™ game, where you can use an army of the soldiers that are really small to take down things that are way bigger.” Max was trying to explain but got confused looks in return. “Like them!” He pointed to the kittens, who were still clawing at themselves, even after following the family to the porch.

“I don’t follow,” their dad said.

“Are you talking about some kind of video game attack?” Mom asked.

“The idea came from Max’s game, but it’s definitely not a game,” Min said.

Max tried again. “Look at Stu and Scout. They were fighting like crazy one second, and then the next second, they stopped. Because of the fleas! It was like they were paralyzed. I mean, if a couple of fleas can do that,” he said, pointing at Stu and Scout, “it proves tiny things can make a big difference.”

“So are you saying you want to raise an army of fleas?” Mom asked.

Javi listened carefully but looked skeptical. “Your idea sounds good, but how would it work? I don’t know of any flea farmers, and the little critters don’t exactly follow orders.”

“Not actual fleas,” Max said.

“Yeah.” Min nodded. “Mom and Dad, you used to build small bug robots, right?”

“A long time ago,” Dad said.

“Not that long,” Mom said.

“What if you made a robotic flea? Or more like, an anti-robot bug flea? Something that would annoy both robots and cats?” Min asked.

Max looked hopeful. “But make a lot of them. You know, like INSECTAGONS™ . . . or, like INFESTIPETS. You know what I mean.”

Dad looked at Mom. “Flea-sized robots? That’s an . . . interesting challenge.”

“Flea-sized robots that will do what you want them to do?” Mom added, “That makes it even more interesting.”

“You may be onto something. We need to go to the lab and check,” Dad said.

“Let’s go look at what we’ve already done,” Mom agreed.

The family council moved downstairs into the advanced robotics lab, where the Wengrod parents had built and tested all their robotic creatures that eventually led to creating Obi.

“You remember we started our research on how brains work with simple creatures,” Mom said, leading them in. “Things like worms, without a lot of moving parts, that could be controlled with a simpler intelligence. We eventually moved on to more complicated things like insects.”

“We built a few insect robots, but we usually made them larger to make things easier,” Dad said. “Making something really small is almost harder than making a full-sized robot.” He walked over to a large, wide container and opened it.

“Bugs!” Max said, excited, when he looked inside at what looked like an assortment of insects spread out on black foam.

“Our bug collection,” Dad said, proudly, showing off the robotic insects inside.

“We didn’t finish a lot of them unfortunately,” Mom said.

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