Transformers by Alan Dean Foster

Author:Alan Dean Foster [Foster, Alan Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-03-25T11:40:53.142000+00:00

T R A N S F O R M E R S

151

They realized that the sound of metal-on-metal combat had stopped. Both turned toward the place where the two much-larger skirmishing robots had rolled while they had been battling the spider-thing. A shape began to emerge from the dust and wreckage, coming in their direction. Sam held his breath, then slowly exhaled.

The shape was the color of the sun. A black-striped sun.

Standing over the now-silent scene of battle, the robot reached down to pick something out of the dirt. Extending a limb, it offered this to Sam. His jeans. Filthy and torn, but an improvement over his boxers.

“Uh, thanks.” Awed by the machine standing silently only feet away, he hurriedly struggled back into his pants. Next to him, Mikaela’s stare as she gazed up at the mechanoid was no less rapt.

“What is it?”

Sam had already come to a decision. Maybe it wasn’t founded on solid science, but it was good enough for him. And there was no one around to contradict him.

“Looks like a robot. Moves like a robot. If it could talk, I have this feeling it would talk like a robot. So I think it’s a robot. But like—superadvanced. Way beyond the stuff they use to assemble cars or sell in RadioShack. Probably Japanese,” he decided impulsively.

“Gotta be Japanese. They love the things.” Full of wonderment, he took a couple of steps toward the hulking machine.

Mikaela gawked. “What are you doing? This thing didn’t come out of a cereal box!”

Gleaming yellow, the robot responded by taking a step toward the approaching Sam. The head inclined downward in his direction. Sam found himself smiling. He’d 152

A l a n D e a n F o s t e r been wrong from the get-go. His car hadn’t been trying to hurt him. It had been doing—something else.

“I don’t think it’s gonna hurt us.”

Mikaela’s eyes kept flicking between her companion and the massive machine that was now standing within arm’s reach. “Oh yeah? You speak ‘robot’ now? ’Cause this one just participated in, like, a droid death match.

Maybe it’s only intermission. Maybe we’re the second round.”

“No.” For the first time all day, Sam’s voice was normal, relaxed. Reaching out, he extended a hand toward the ’bot.

As they stared at the robot and Sam reached out to experimentally caress its gleaming metal skin, they failed to notice the lights that sprang to life within what for the past several moments had been a dark, inert skull.

Sprouting tiny centipede-like legs, the decapitated head rose up slightly to take stock of its surroundings. Its attention fixed on an object that had been dumped in the dirt: Mikaela’s purse. Skittering over to it, Frenzy’s head began to transcan the contents. Lipstick, useless. Glasses, no good. Pen, insufficiently complex.

Sidekick. Limited storage capability, small and decidedly primitive, but sufficiently adaptable. As soon as it completed the transcan, Frenzy kicked the actual device into a pile of rubble and out of sight. Transformation ensued. The result was that it became an exact duplicate of the now-banished device.

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