Ruby VS. R.E.D.

                                                           Ruby VS. R.E.D.

A Modern Tale

 

            “Ruby?” I looked up from my homework to see my mom hovering above me. Sensing that she got my attention, she said, “Can you go drop off some stuff to Clarissa?” Clarissa is my oldest sister and she’s pregnant, so she can’t do much. Besides, her tummy’s so big that she probably couldn’t move very well in her tiny apartment. She lives across the town in a different apartment building. Thankfully, here in New York City, we have subways. My parents have just started letting me go by myself since I turned eight last month. 

 

There’s just a fun excitement of being on the subway, but today I was going to chat with my pen pal, or more precisely, chat pal, Ava Lee. She’s really into coding and we were going to try some things with my robot. But then again, if I go see Clarissa, I can eat some of what Mom prepared. I fiddle with my glasses in indecision. Finally, I say, “Okay, just a minute.” 

 

I go to my room and grab my backpack. Then, I dump out my school stuff, except for my i-pad. Then I quickly chat Ava.

 

Ruby: Sorry. I’ve got to go visit Clarissa. She can’t do much, being pregnant and all. Do you want to chat on Sunday, at 1 pm then? 

 

Ava: Okay. Since Clara and Isabella are only three years old, they’ll be napping. Austin and Malachi will probably be helping the male adults with the new treehouse. By the way, it’s cool that your sister is pregnant. My aunt is too.

 

            Ruby: See you then.

 

            Then, I turned off my phone, slipped it into my pocket, grabbed my backpack, and headed back into the living room/kitchen. My mom tossed some wrapped goods in my backpack and pushed a bottle of Dutch coffee into the cupholder.

 

            As I walked down the street, I quickly spotted the green “globe lamp” that marked the entrance. I climbed down the stairs. Before I could swipe my MetroCard, I felt a certain vibration against my body. It was my phone and it meant that somebody was following me. Wait a minute, not a human, a robot. Huh? The only robots I knew of besides mine that looked like humans were still experimental.

 

Suddenly, I thought of something. Once, I was looking up flowers for something and I found a suspicious website that didn’t have any posts but was viewed over a thousand times a day.  I’d hacked into it and found some weird stuff. This person had kept going to this other robot website that was password protected. Why would someone who made a flower website be at a robot website so much? I’d looked through the website’s programming and found the password. When I got in, the most recent post was about my sister? That couldn’t be right. I blinked a few times, but it was still there. Then I’d noticed a robot with a label underneath that read, “R.E.D short for Revenge Everything Destructive.” Then I had laughed out loud because the flower website had also had a name. It had been, “G.O.O.D. short for Great Organic Original Daisy’s”

 

It also seemed suspicious that I just happened to be visiting the very same sister and a robot that looked that same as the one in the picture was following me. Still, I wanted to make sure that there was a robot following me and not a human. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the supposed human in the shadows above me. He was wearing all red. As I looked a little more closely, my glasses, sharpened into better focus (another thing I made). At the robot’s shoulder, there was a slight bump, just like my robot. It was one thing that people put on robots so that they could tell the difference between humans and robots. 

 

I quickly swiped my MetroCard because I didn’t want R.E.D. to know that I knew he was a robot. I waited for the click that tells me that I can go and stepped onto the right platform. While I waited for the train to arrive, I looked around for R.E.D. I spotted him a few feet away and inwardly shivered. It was creepy enough that someone was following me, not to mention a robot. 

When the train arrived, I waited for the passengers on board to disembark before climbing in myself. I held on to a pole and braced myself for the fun bumpy ride. When my stop came, I jumped off and headed up the stairs. Then, I walked the few blocks to Clarissa’s apartment building. I peeked back and noticed that R.E.D. wasn’t behind me. Maybe he was farther behind me or maybe even in front of me. 

 

            Once I was inside, I stepped into the elevator and pressed the twenty-third-floor button. As I stepped out, I saw a figure turning the corner. How did he get this much ahead of me? I speed-walked the rest of the way to Clarissa’s apartment. I unlocked the door with the key that Clarissa had given me and opened the door. 

 

            Clarissa was sitting in a seat and R.E.D. was pointing his hand at Clarissa, his back to me. I let out a little yelp and he turned. He said to me in a robot voice, “When I shoot the laser from my hand, your sister will die. I have a twenty-second count down. 20. 19. 18.” I frantically tried to think of something to do. Already, Clarissa was starting to turn back. 

 

“T-t-t-urn o-o” Clarissa tried to say, but it seemed like an invisible force kept her from saying what she was trying to say. Suddenly an idea came to me, it probably wouldn’t work, but what choice did I have? I pulled out my phone and frantically typed in the password. “15. 14. 13” the robot droned on. I pressed my robot’s programing app and quickly typed in that passcode. Then I typed in a code that would turn off the robot. I didn’t know if it would work. “5. 4. 3.” I pressed send. “2.” 

 

And then the incredible happened, he turned off. Clarissa turned back to her normal skin color. Then another idea came to me. Why not turn the robot good and turn him back on? I did the coding and turned him back on. “Turning on.” R.E.D. said. He blinked and said, “Hello. My name is R.E.D. Short for Ready to End Destruction.” It worked! He was no longer Revenge Everything Destructive!

 

Clarissa smiled and I asked her, “Why was R.E.D. trying to kill you?” Then, Clarissa explained, while we all ate the chocolate chip walnut cookies. It turned out that Clarissa had also found and hacked into the same website that I had, but she had read more and been tracked down. In the end, the three of us were more determined than ever to keep New York City safe from the supposed G.O.O.D.’s plan to make the world all robots!

 

The End…. For Now.