EARTH ROTATIONS 105–108
Rain hammers the metal roof.
A blue-white flash of lightning illuminates Klink and Klank, sitting side by side in the driest spot of the old barn—the horse stalls.
Klank stretches out a beat-up ax-handle leg.
Klink flexes his squeaky barn-door-hinge elbow, closes his webcam eye.
Freight-train-loud wind roars through the cracks in the barn walls.
A SMAAAAASH CRAAAACK! peal of thunder rocks the whole world.
Klank butt-jumps sideways, closer to Klink.
“Klink,” says Klank.
Klink opens his eye. “What?”
“Are you ever afraid?”
Klink pretends to think about this for three seconds, because he knows this makes Klank feel better. “No. Because we are robots. We are never afraid. Or mad. Or sad.”
Klank nods his dented vegetable-strainer head. “Yeah. That is what I thought”
The storm wind blasts open the hayloft shutter with a mad BAAAAAM!
“YIIIIIKES!” Klank wraps Klink in both his irrigation-hose arms.
Klink hands Klank his stuffed teddy bear.
Klank unwraps his arms, strokes the soft fur, and rocks back and forth.
“Now power down, and stop worrying,” says Klink.
“OK,” says Klank. He pats his teddy bear, rocking it in his arms.
The storm howls and rages and shakes the whole barn. Lightning flashes. Thunder crashes.
Klank tries to power down and stop worrying.
But he can’t stop the thinking and the feeling . . . that this is the end of the world.
The blue plastic bag with an EARTH/HEART logo flies out the back window of an oversized blue truck.
It hits the asphalt road and rolls in the wake of the speeding truck like a futuristic manmade tumbleweed.
The truck makes a sharp right turn.
The plastic tumblebag rolls straight on.
It tumbles
down a ditch
over clumps of waving amber grasses
past an oak tree swaying in the breeze
and under a carved wooden sign reading
MIDVILLE FOREST PRESERVE.
A gust of wind blows the indestructible bag straight up, spooking a mother deer and her fawn.
The bag chases after the deer across the sunny meadow. It spins off down a hill toward three figures standing at the edge of the woods.
The biggest figure spreads his aluminum flex-duct arms wide and booms, “AHHHHHHH NATURE!”
The smallest figure rolls his single webcam eye. “You may not have noticed—but you are the most unnatural thing out here.”
Klank, because of course it is robot Klank, ignores Klink and spins around in a happy circle.
“Who doesn’t love birds and bees and flowers and trees?”
Frank Einstein, kid genius, bends down to inspect the stump of the freshly cut tree.
“It looks like someone doesn’t. Who would be cutting down trees inside the Midville preserve?”
The guys hear the sound of machinery in the distance.
The blue plastic bag flies up and twirls in a mini-twister above Klink, Klank, and Frank.
Klank spins and stumbles against Klink.
“Hey! Watch it!”
“Watch what? Ha ha ha,” laughs Klank. He spreads his robot arms again and sucks a huge breath of fresh forest air into his ventilation port.
He also, unfortunately, sucks the plastic bag into his ventilation port.
FFFFFFFFFFT! The bag plugs Klank’s port. It cuts off the air cooling his heat-producing brain circuits.
SSSSSSHSHHHHHHHHHHH! The plastic bag catches in Klank’s mechanical movement wheels. The plastic shreds. Small threads wind around every cog and wheel.
Klank staggers.
Klink props him up.
BLLLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH! The plastic shreds melt. And drip into every crack and corner of Klank’s processor.
Klank’s music slows.
Klank’s left eye blinks EMERGENCY red.
Klank’s arms and legs start to twitch.
Klank stops spinning and shorts out.
“Alert,” beeps Klink. “Klank may lose balance. His trajectory may intersect with this tree. This collision may bring it down.”
“I think he’ll be okay,” says Frank.
The blue-plastic-bag drips gum up Klank’s gyroscope. Which controls Klank’s balance.
Klank’s heavy-duty-trash-can body leans, and tips. Klink can’t hold him.
“Uh-oh,” says Frank.
“Unfortunately,” beeps Klink. “I am always right.”
Klank falls heavily into the giant tree. The trunk snaps. . . and the entire tree falls with a thunderous CRASSSSSH!
Smashing Klank into a pile of broken parts in the middle of the forest.
“Screwdriver!” calls Frank Einstein.
“Screwdriver,” answers Watson, slapping the tool into Frank’s outstretched hand.
Frank unscrews the metal plate covering Klank’s gyroscope.
“Wire cutters!”
Watson reaches into his expanding rope bag, hands the tool to Frank. “Wire cutters.”
Frank snips the wire on Klank’s leg motor.
“Power drill!”
Watson digs through his bag. “Hammer, wrench, clamps, saw. . . no drill.”
Frank looks up from the pile of disconnected Klank parts. “What? How am I supposed to fix Klank with no drill?!”
“I threw everything into my EMERGENCY bag and came as fast as I could,” says Watson. “Maybe you can use the screwdriver.”
“You should have brought a bigger bag—with more tools!”
“This is the best bag. I use it all the time.”
Frank frowns. “Sorry, Watson.” Frank realizes he is more mad at himself for not being able to fix Klank than he is mad at Watson and his bag.
“You may use my drill,” says Klink. “Part of my farmtrip tool additions.”
“Nice work, Klink,” says Frank. He guides Klink’s drill to Klank’s bent main-drive gear. Frank pulls it out and hands it to Klink. “I think all we have to do is straighten this, rewire the drive motor, and knock out some body dents.”
Klink examines the gear with his single-eye cam.
“No. This can not be fixed.”
“Of course it can,” argues Frank. “Everything can be fixed.”
Klink reexamines the gear.
Klank, in pieces, does not move.
“BRARRRRRRRRRR!” screams a chain saw deeper in the forest.
“RRRRUUUUUHHHHHRRRRR!” buzzes the deep hum of a drill from over the hill.
“No. Your statement is not true. Not everything can be fixed.”
The logging crew boss, wearing a bright orange safety vest, leans out of the cab of the EARTH/HEART logging truck, yelling through a bullhorn.
“Faster, faster, faster!”
“BRRARRRRRRRRRRRRR,” howls a dozen chain saws.
CRASSSSHHHHH! A big oak tree drops.
One of the loggers stops to take a drink of water. “What’s the big rush?”
“I don’t know. But the Big Boss says we have one more week to cut as much as we can.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Faster, faster, faster!”
The other logger shrugs. He starts up his chain saw.
And takes on another oak.
RRKRUUUUUHHHHHKRRKR!
The roar of the giant excavator scooping up a massive bucket load of earth rattles the forest.
The Mining Crew boss, wearing a bright orange safety vest, stands next to an EARTH/HEART dump truck, yelling through a bullhorn.
“Faster, faster, faster!”
“What’s the big hurry?” the excavator driver asks the bucket operator.
“I don’t know. But the Big Boss says we got a week to strip out as much coal as we can.”
“That’s nuts,” says the driver.
“Faster, faster, faster!”
The driver shrugs. He positions the excavator for another scoop.
The bucket gouges out another twenty cubic yards of earth.
EEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! The whine of a huge drill boring through the earth shakes the whole road.
The Drilling Crew boss, wearing a bright orange safety vest, stands next to the EARTH/HEART drill truck, yelling through a bullhorn.
“Faster, faster, faster!”
“What’s the big rush?” asks one of the drillers.
“No telling. But the Big Boss says we have to tap as much as we can in the next week.”
The drill bit rips through another layer of rock.
“That’s crazy,” says the one driller.
“Faster, faster, faster!”
The other driller shrugs. He revs up the drill.
And punches another hole deep into the earth.
A blue plastic bag tumbles across the field and over the fallen oak tree.
A blue plastic bag falls into the trenched earth.
A blue plastic bag spins behind the drilling truck and across the muddy road.
Frank Einstein and his pal Watson lug two large canvas bags of robot parts into Grampa Al’s big red barn.
Grampa Al looks up from the mower engine he is fixing.
“Well, hello, Einstein.”
“Hello, Einstein,” Frank answers absently.
“What genius scheme are you guys cooking up today?”
Frank and Watson drop the bags on the old barn workbench with a noisy metal rattle.
Klink rolls through the double barn doors, carrying a big metal cylinder. He sets it on the workbench, and answers Grampa Al.
“Klank malfunction. We had to disassemble him for transport back here.”
Watson rearranges the aluminum-hose-duct arms and vegetable strainer. “Aw, don’t say it like that. Klank just had an accident. We can fix him.”
Grampa Al wipes the motor oil off his hands and comes over to take a look.
Frank unscrews the access cover to the head port.
Grampa Al leans in and peers over his glasses. “Hmmmmmm.” He clicks the brain gear a few turns. “Uh-huh.” He test-spins the balance gyro. “Ah-ha.”
Grampa Al shakes his head and gives a low whistle. “Wow. This is a real mess. We may not be able to fix this.”
“Exactly,” beeps Klink. “As I said earlier.”
“Of course we can fix it!” says Frank Einstein, picking a few more shreds of blue plastic out of Klank’s brain gear. “We are scientists. That’s what we do.”