The Worst Robot Yet!

"Glad to see you've come around," said Samson as he continued to remote-control P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤, "though I can't say I know particularly what you've come around to."

Had to hand it to Samson: with his constant inventing and borderline obsessive crush on Snowcube, the guy could get under your skin easier than most wood splinters. But he was a pet owner too, the proud owner of a robot panda. So he probably — no, definitely — wasn't a bad guy.

"Ok, Samson. It's time to spill the beans. What is all of this?" I asked, gesturing broadly out to sea. As amazing as it was that what felt like the entire animal kingdom in microcosm was here surfing, it was still totally unexplained. "A surfing competition full of animals? What is this all about? What's really going on here?"

"Yeah!" Snowball cupped her chin in a hand, thinking hard. "This beach can't be like this every day, right?"

"Of course it's not like this every day," Samson shot back, nasally phlegm-voice pitching into irritation. Well, excuse me for not knowing. "Today is bring your pets to the beach day."

Well, that explained it. And drove a stake through my heart, just about. Metaphorically, of course, but it still hurt. Bring your pets to the beach day, and here I was sans Matchstick… and all because of my stupid attitude. How was I ever supposed to make it up to him?

How was I ever supposed to make things right?

"So you invented your own pet, dude?" Fence asked Samson. "And entered him into this pet surf contest to impress Snowcube, dude?"

Out on the water, the armed mechanical panda was nonchalantly soul arching with a rocket launcher built into its back.

Samson spared us an, "Uh-huh. This competition is called 'The Best Pet Yet.' P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 and I are in it to win it."

"That's pretty sweet, dude," Fence said.

"He's super cute!" Snowball added. "And I love the accessories! The only way those weapons could look better is with a generous slathering of glitter!"

"Those weren't my doing," Samson told her, taking a second to flip his damp hair out of his eyes before going back to controlling P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 at the speed of light. "They were your sister's."

"Snowcube's?" I asked, stupidly since Snowball didn't have any other sisters. Technically, they weren't actually sisters. Snowcube was the humanoid clone of a naturally occurring artificial super intelligence from the far reaches of space, and Snowball was a robot created by Snowcube in her own image. But everyone at school knew them as identical twins, so that's the story we who knew the truth were going with, and the only story Samson needed to know.

"He didn't have those when I originally constructed him," Samson explained. "I'm a man of love and peace, not war. Hey! Outta my way! You're blocking my view, you sunburned schmuck!"

Samson interrupted his story to hair-whip the poor sap who just so happened to make the grave mistake of walking in front of him and blocking his view of the action.

"Ahem. Like I was saying. I'm against violence. That's why I built and programmed P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 to be the ultimate robo-bear of smiles and affection, y'know?"

"Not so sure about that one, man…" Fence mumbled. I guess even he knew better than to come right out and say something like that to Samson, but he was right. The grimace-shaped face grill on P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤's totally vacant, expressionless mug didn't exactly match the cute-n-cuddly mascot vibe Samson seemed to have been going for.

I mean, neither did the minigun P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 was making liberal use of to cut a path for itself through the surf either, but apparently that was Snowcube's doing. Luckily, Samson wasn't trying to aim at any of the other animals and no one was getting hurt. Still, all mayhem was breaking out. A spotted leopard had to quickly escape the spray by using its tail as a propeller for its board. Meanwhile, a couple of cassowaries had to leap out of harm's way so fast you'd think they learned how to fly. Needless to say, a bunch of other pets had to surf, swim, dive, doggy paddle, fly, flounder, and otherwise get out of the way of the of P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤's onslaught. It was pure chaos and pure madness.

We kept listening to Samson's story.

"P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤's prime directive was to bake cookies and gift balloons not just to all the good little boys and girls of the world, but anyone with a pure heart and a kind soul."

Oh, Jesus. I knew where this was going.

"Weirdly enough, he refused to bake any cookies or gift even a single balloon to Snowcube. I guess I musta programmed him wrong or something."

Nope. Something tells me the bear was following his programming to the last line of code.

That something being "everything I knew about Snowcube and what her heart and soul were like."

Hint: not pure and kind, respectively.

"So in the end, Snowcube just got mad and ended up borrowing P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 for a while to make some improvements."

Knowing Snowcube, by "borrow," Samson probably meant something closer to "requisition." Well, if there's anything being the object of the misplaced affections of Snowball had taught me, it was that love really is blind.

"And in the end," Samson said, "Snowcube returned him, new and improved. That's where the Mk. II designation comes from. And the 🖤."

Yeah. And where the freaking arsenal of deadly weapons turning him into a walking, bamboo-chomping murder machine clearly came from! Was Samson forgetting that? It made sense though. Just like the 💖 was Snowball's trademark when it came to naming her inventions, the 🖤 was Snowcube's."

Out on the water, standing on its board, P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 was humming like an old fluorescent light. He was totally still, a dead nothingness in his beady robo-bear eyes as he stared mechanically into the middle distance.

Then, with a mechanical whir we could hear even from the shore, P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤's belly split open top to bottom, into two equal halves that slid open to the side to reveal a gaping black abyss of nothing.

Maybe that was one of Snowcube's modifications. "Interior fashioned after the creator's soul."

Just kidding (kind of). Snowcube wasn't pure evil or anything. She just ranged from aloof to mean, depending on the day.

P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 wasn't done transforming. From out of its belly extended a pair of gunmetal gray prongs, drab and dull even under the shimmer of the summer sun and the glow off the bay.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what it was. Some kind of gunbarrel, obviously. And it was pointed directly at us. After driving all the other pets away with its needless aggression (and needlessly hardcore surfing skillz), P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 was all alone.

It had a straight shot at us.

"So uh. What the heck is that?" I wondered aloud.

Samson squinted. "That's… That's P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤's most powerful weapon…"

My stomach dropped like a sack of bricks dumped off the side of a skyscraper. This wasn't good. There was no way this was good, right? "Its most powerful weapon being…?"

"Snowcube's masterpiece… P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤's EM railgun…"

"Its what?"

"Oooooooh, awesome!" Snowball smiled in the face of — and actually because of — impending certain death.

Fence's reaction was more my speed. "Dude! Why are you having it fire a railgun straight at us, dude?"

"I…" Samson gulped. "I'm not."

Suddenly the remote controller in Samson's hands started whirring and making a fizzing sound… and then exploded.

Uh-oh.

Suddenly, the barrel thing on P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 started to hum even louder. Even better or, in our case, worse: it started sparking, crooked blue bolts of insane electricity running up and down the rods, faster and faster.

At his point, I was pants-pissingly afraid.

"Hey, I know! Should we run?" Snowball asked. "A blast from that thing would be the end of us all! Hahaha!"

How she was so easygoing about this I had no idea.

Wait. Yes I did. Snowball was a genius. And like most geniuses, she was also an idiot.

Samson shook his head, gravely. "Nowhere to run. That thing fires at tens of thousands of miles per hour. We couldn't outrun the shot if we tried."

An awful energy was filling the air, making all my hairs stick up on end.

"Great!" I threw my hands up in defeat for the second time this day. "Just great! Why did Snowcube have to go and build something like— Hey, wait. The heck is that?"

I noticed something odd on the charging gun. Stuck on one of the long prongs was a sticker.

Since my eyesight wasn't as godawful as Snowball's or Samson's, I could read it clearly, even from this far away.

So I did. Aloud.

"Danger. High voltage. :3"

And those were my last words. Cause that's when everything went to hell.

First, a white-hot flash burned the world out of existence.

Then came a low bass tone, louder, deeper, and more bone-rattly than any I'd ever heard before, reminding me that light travels faster than sound. It reverberated deep inside me, like it was coming from within. It was like watching a marching band up close and feeling every drum beat with your whole body — like that times a million.

Then, I felt it. A roaring, ripping, searing pain obliterating my whole body, turning all I had ever been, every last atom of me, into a splattering rain of tapioca-lumpy mush.

That's right: I was dead.

Surprise. Turns out this is the story of how I freaking died. How I was gunned down in public at total random, through no fault or wrongdoing of my own. Here's where I'd say something like "Welcome to America," but this part of the story is already morbid enough.

Anyway, the worst part about getting randomly killed? My last thought was as stupid as they come:

Wait, how do you pronounce ":3" anyway?

To be continued!