Warning: Do Not Remove

“Okay, it’s in my room now. So what do we do with it?” Lisa asked, leaning back against her desk wearily, her blonde ponytail a mess, sweat sticking the shirt to her back as the air conditioner saved her life. After dragging the heavy metal form half an hour through the woods, she was nearly dying from exhaustion.

“As I’ve been telling you since we found him, I don’t know,” Frankie replied, adjusting her glasses and leaning in to examine the metal man standing in her friend's room, the lights dimmed and the shades drawn with only a string of pink and purple Christmas lights strung along the wall lighting the room. She ran her hand along the skinny metal arms and legs leading to wiry fingers and boot like feet, tapping on the sturdy chest and walking her fingers up to the face. Two big glass eyes took up the upper part of its blank face, and a spherical node emerged from the top of its head with a key like attachment embedded in it.

“How do we turn it on? Or do we even want to?” Lisa asked.

“Why would we not want to?” Frankie asked, as if the thought was utterly ridiculous. If you go for a walk in the woods with your best friend looking for birds to catalogue for your lame science project and find a robot half buried in the dirt like it fell from the damn sky, of course you’re going to turn it on.

“What it it’s dangerous? Hell, what if it’s some secret nuclear powered world ending military kill bot?!” Lisa asked, her voice rising in either fear or excitement. Frankie rarely knew which was which with her spacey friend.

“There is no way our military has kill bots. They’d be bragging about it,” Frankie said, tapping one of the eyes.

“Aliens?” Lisa asked, leaning in.

“God, I hope so,” Frankie said with a quiver in her voice. She scratched her scalp, her hair much too dirty for its own good. “What do you make of this thing on its head?”

“The weird tumor looking thing?” Lisa asked, tilting her head and walking around the metal man. “Looks like a key or something is sticking out of it.”

“I thought so too. I’m gonna pull it,” Frankie said, reaching up to grab it. The metal was cool in her sweaty fingers.

“Last chance go back out and go to the mall,” Lisa said. Frankie let a smile crease her face as she pushed her glasses up her nose.

“Let’s go get Cinnabon later. We’ll bring our new robot friend,” Frankie said, and she began to wiggle the key left and right, figuring out which way it should go. Counterclockwise won out, and she slowly twisted, metallic clinks ratcheting with each turn until the key rotated fully around once. The key popped out in her hand and she stepped back with shock as the sphere sprang up like an antenna, the entirety of the metal man shuddering.

“Crap! Mister Tin Man scared the snot out of me! ” Lisa shrieked, hiding behind her desk chair. “Why did it have a seizure?”

“I don’t know. Let me check the instruction manual,” Frankie said dryly. She looked down at the key, which, as it turned out, wasn’t a key at all. There were no teeth on it. Instead it had a thin metal plate running along it which had bizarre figures carved into it, looking like a strange written language, with a green glow flickering along the writing.

Her thoughts on the key were interrupted when the insides of the robot’s began to shudder and clank, like the power source inside was desperately trying to turn over.

“This thing sounds like my uncle’s truck. You know, the one with the raccoon living in it,” Lisa said, standing next to Frankie.

“Hopefully he doesn’t catch on fire like the truck. You might have to bravely dive behind a chair,” Frankie said. As if to answer her point, the mechanical man jerked forward, a bright green glow emanating from its eyes and a small glass window on its chest. It wobbled on its feet, thumping towards the girls for a few steps as they fell backwards onto Lisa’s bed.

“Bad idea bad idea such a bad idea!” Lisa cried out.

The robot raised its hand, pointing at them, moving between one and the other. It nodded, and a strange language came from it, sounding like Latin had merged with alien wailing. A bright green light flared in its eyes and flashed over the girls, causing them to collapse back onto the bed.

“My brain is…full of freaking ants…” Lisa said, shaking her head, her blond hair flying about.

“What…what are you…doing?” Frankie asked, gritting her teeth and trying to keep her eyes open.

“I apologize mistresses!” The robot said in a cheerful male voice, the green light disappearing. It stood still, its skinny body rigid and alert. The girls looked at each other, confused.

“Did…did it talk?” Lisa asked.

“And it called us mistresses,” Frankie said, for once looking as surprised as her friend. “Um, why did you call us mistresses?”

“As holders of my activation talisman, I can only assume you are my owners! Again, I apologize, but your language did not appear to be programmed into my memory banks, so I had to do a brief brain scan. Do forgive me, Blonde Airhead and Visually Impaired Stick in the Mud!”

“Hey! Who are you calling a frickin’ airhead!” Lisa yelled, getting into the robot’s face.

“I do apologize again, mistress! I only used the phrases you used internally to describe each other,” the robot said, bowing slightly in apology.

“This stick in the mud is going to talk about perceptions in our friendship later,” Frankie grumbled, side eyeing Lisa as she came up to the robot. “Look, let’s start over. My name is Frankie, and this is Lisa.”

“And I am soul golem construct 110-ID! Oh, my apologies once again! I completely forgot my proper introduction! My dear new mistresses, thank you for your purchase of the third variation of the Magus Industries soul golem servant unit! This model, the third variation of the basic companion series, is popular from the mountains of Akir Tar where mages gather in secret to the tropical paradise of Valush with its mermen kingdom. I will serve you and your lineage for generations, and with attachments ranging from household chore help to self defense weaponry, there is no end to the usefulness of this…”

Frankie shoved the key back into the orb on top of the robot’s head. The antenna retracted into the metal skull and the green light faded from its eyes as it went still and silent.

“Hey, it was starting to get good! Why did you turn him off? I wanted to hear how it would do my chores for me,” Lisa asked, hands on her hips, pouting a bit.

“Lisa, were you listening to what it was saying? Weird places which don’t exist, mages and mermen and…it called itself a soul golem,” Frankie said, hand hovering in front of the robot, barely daring to touch it. “This…I don’t think this is aliens or government stuff. I don’t even think this is science.”

“Then…what is it?” Lisa asked. They both knew the word which would answer the question, but were cautious to say it, as if speaking it would confirm the impossible.

Magic. Before them was a magic robot, and it apparently now belonged to them.