"Professor! The universe...!"

"Astrobiologists will rue the day they refused to put me on their speed dials, my boy. Today is a good day to destroy mass!"

"But why must all mass in the universe be destroyed?"

"Because," the professor told me, "the universe is going to collapse anyway, eventually. All we're doing here is making sure that when it happens, there's no mess. No mass, no mess. Ipso fatso."

"That's very interesting."

It was a luke-warm May night, and my antivirus software had just expired. The sun was setting, casting purple shadows all about the gray observatory walls. I glanced over at my mentor, Professor Faust. The man was more than just a comparative planetologist; he was a mad scientist obsessed with finding a way to convert matter into energy. Ever since he started playing eXtreme Checkers, the notion of a universe composed of pure energy captivated his every waking moment.

"But why is it so important that there be no matter left in the universe? From what I've heard, the universe is constantly expanding. How could it-"

"Fool! Have you not heard a single word I've said?! Did you just forget my lectures?! This isn't summer camp anymore!" he roared. I could tell he was about to put on his game face.

"Professor, you're starting to lose touch with reality."

"Am I now?!"

"Yes."

He ran over to the experimental Matter Decoupler and started pressing buttons, seemingly at random. The machine let off a buzz and began pulsing. I could hear the reactor hum at progressively higher frequencies.

"Professor, what have you done?!"

"I've taken the first step in a complex process that will result in the end of this universe. Can you say the same? I thought not!" he laughed diabolically.

"An end to the universe? That sounds very inconvenient! How will it affect the value of my property?"

The room started to twist into all kinds of bizarre colors, some of which I'd never seen before. It was so... beautiful... walls turning into slime... all mass in the universe... melting...

That was when I woke up, covered in a layer of papier-mâché. This happens every time a new Opera beta comes out. Seriously, what's up with those widgets?!

"Doctor, are you saying there was once intelligent life in this system?"

"Yes, Commander," chirped Doctor Goous as he gently tapped the console in front of him. Using the suction cups across his ten tentacles, the weather-worn Dectapucian hoisted himself up so that the concave brow of his beak lined up with the Commander's line of sight. He was very excited; this was the first time in recorded history that even a trace of another Type II civilization had been found. Every other extinct society the Dectapucian Science Core had located had only been a Type I before they self-destructed over a lack of planetary resources.

"Do we know yet what caused such an advanced species to collapse?" asked Commander Viprate.

She knew full well the possibility that anything capable of felling a Type II civilization would surely pose a threat to the Dectapucian Republic. As an officer of the Guard, she could not allow any harm to come to the beloved homeworld.

"Actually Commander, it would be more correct to say species. The databases we managed to salvage from what the locals termed the 'kupier belt' reveal not one but two sentient species of equal technological prowess inhabiting this system: the humans, from the third planet, and the Venusians from the second planet. The humans were carbon-based, like us, but the Venusians were silicon-based. The two appear to have fought an extensive war before their sun unexpectedly accelerated its life cycle and became a red giant."

"Do we know why that happened?" If a third specie had the power to turn a sun into a weapon...

"It seems to have been a natural occurrence," croaked Goous as he used the vessel's neurolitic interface to call up a diagram of a Grell-type star orbited by eight planets. "A micro-fissure formed in the center of this system's star, causing it to rapidly lose mass. This greatly accelerated its stellar evolution, wiping out the civilizations that existed here."

"Then... there is no threat to the homeworld?" a palpable sense of relief emanated from Commander Viprate as the nerve bundles behind her eyes relaxed for the first time since entering this system.

"No, but this is a sad day for science. The only other Type II civilizations we've been able to find in all the galaxy reduced-"

An explosion snapped the ship backward. The warning lights began to flash, and a buzzing sound resounded throughout the ship.

"Doctor," screamed Viprate over the din, "you said this system was completely lifeless!"

"It is, it is!" bellowed Goous as the two grappled their way to the bridge.

***

"What is it?" asked the Commander to her primary subordinate.

Through the bridge's monitor, the crew could see a large spacecraft in front of them. A sneak attack? How unsporting, thought Commander Viprate.

"Demand that it identify itself," she said to the bridge crew. "See if you can understand their language. Bring the experimental linguistic database online." The database consisted of over a million languages, including the deciphered languages of the many extinct Type I cultures discovered by the Dectapucians.

"We're receiving an audio response over R/F channel 1007."

A static squeal shot out through the ship's speakers. Everyone cringed; the chromatophores in their skin contracted, changing the texture of their skin to indicate displeasure.

"We are eee the eee nnnnn Childre nnnnn of Modena." came an eerie wailing sound from the unknown craft.

"Are we broadcasting?" asked Commander Viprate softly.

"No, sir," responded the communications officer in the same bland tones as the so-called "Children of Modena."

Rotating her carapace, Cammander Viprate stared right at the doctor. "You said there was no life in this system!"

"I... Commander, the databases indicated that this system was populated by carbon and silicon based life. Our sensors did not find any trace of such lifeforms..."

"Then are they robotic, some kind of sentinels left by the Type II?"

"No... if they were, we'd be detecting some kind of electromagnetic field."

"So what are they, doctor? My patience is running thin."

The ocular muscles contracted around Viprate's eyes, giving her the menacing look shown to her by her mentor at the academy. "Intimidate the inferiors and they will obey you..."

"We don't-"

"Ask what their demands are."

The communications officer ran his tentacles over the console to his left, and entered a mental command to the central processor. He paused a moment.

"Commander, they wish to speak directly to you. Through a digital construct."

"What is the status of their weaponry?"

"We cannot disallow the possibility that they will collide with us, destroying both vessels."

The bridge crew tensed up. Viprate was well aware of the dangers of entering a digital construct with a stranger, let alone an alien life form. She forced her tentacles together, making her tower above the rest of the crew. "Prepare the bio-digiverter."

***

Nothing.

Then... a flash of light. Viprate could see a grid forming around her, then the overlay of a physical landscape. A lifeless desert, the preference of the Children of Modena. The sparsely oxygenated atmosphere would have been unable to support Dectapucian life... had it been a real environment. But for the Commander's digital form, it would suffice.

"Show yourself," shouted Viprate. A flickering light shattered the faux desert, revealing a figure similar in appearance to the humans. Except there was no life in this creature's eyes.

"What are you?"

"I... am... Modena..." it rasped, its breathing apparatus moving in an unnatural manner. "We... are from... Modena... Utah..."

Viprate stood spellbound as she watched this soulless alien creature. Realizing she was twisting her tentacles over her beak the same way she did back at the academy, she forced herself into the same imposing stature she had used countless times before to assert her presence.

"Why can we not detect any life signs from your vessel? What shielding technology do you possess?"

"We... of Modena... are not alive..."

Suddenly, the ground began to shake slightly. A loud sound came from above. As Viprate looked up, she could see a Grell-type star expanding before her W-shaped eyes. The creature was somehow uploading its own memories into the construct... memories of the end of the Type II civilization?

"You can't have those memories," Commander Viprate reverberated through her digital form. "The human planet was destroyed by its sun. There were no survivors."

"We... did not... survive..."

And then the digital construct melted away.

***

"Bring the antimatter compactor online," shouted Commander Viprate as one of the medical technicians removed the connectivity probe from her neural implant. "We need to be able to destroy that ship-"

"Commander, begging your pardon, but the Modena are... gone."

Viprate blinked her quartet of eyes in unison. The W-shaped pupils expanded slightly. Sure enough, when she got to the monitor, there was no trace of the craft housing the Children of Modena. "Scan for ionic residue. I want to know where they went."

"Commander, there is no ionic residue, or residue of any kind. It is simply... gone."

A few of the crew clicked their beaks in relief. The ordeal was finally over.

"Activate the superluminary accelerator. I want us out of this system immediately."

"Yes, Commander."

***

They watched the small ship leave. They knew it wouldn't be back. And they knew that thanks to the reputation the Dectapucians would start that no other sentient beings would ever intrude on them again. Yes... this was what they wanted. Silence. Silence and solitude. It was why they used a neutron reactor to create a micro-fissure inside the sun; for it was they, the people of Modena, who conspired to turn the sun into a red giant and wipe out all life in the solar system. Soon.. soon they would descend upon the cosmos, doing the same to every system. All must be as Modena.

Sun-streaked skies closed up before the praetor. It was the first time in many decades that the chloroforming mission could claim a success; glancing down on the hovering city of Nest Yeshire, he could see children running out to play in the sulfur streaming in from the sky.

Life on Venus had taken a sharp decline after the humans tried to terraform their sister world. Completely ignorant of the existence of the long-lived Venusians, human scientists spent nearly a century bleeding off the thick atmosphere of Venus before the effects were enough to rouse the Venusians from hibernation. The first encounter between the two sentients had been quite disturbing, what with the humans expecting not to find any kind of life in the deadly clouds. But being woken up after eons of rest was in itself unsettling to the silicon based Venusians, who massed on the terraformers, destroying them and the humans inside. Following that was a war that lasted nearly thirty years and resulted in the total destruction of the volcanic Jovian moon Io, which was mined out to provide precious metals for the war effort.

But then the Robots stepped in, bringing humanity and Venusity together in harmony at a summit in Moab, Utah in 2146. The city of Moab was chosen, said the Robots, because it was the only place in the known universe that provided enough oxygen for humans to survive, yet enough sulfur and carbon dioxide to sustain Venusian life. In the spirit of diplomacy and friendship, the Robots threatened to destroy both Earth and Venus if the two sides didn't reach an equitable compromise. This caused the formation of the first Earth-Venus alliance, which promptly used electromagnetic field disruptors to eliminate the Robots, who had become complacent and arrogant. This heralded the beginning of the New Age.

"Run along, children," called the praetor. He knew they couldn't hear him; just as well, as deep down he secretly hated them. Pulling out a cartouche of the solar system, the wizened Venusian began to formulate the action his government should take in response to the Humans' refusal to cede mining rights on Callisto. Proconsul Iiiid wouldn't accept anything less than full incorporation, and had the influence to usurp the praetorship if the government looked weak.

Then, without warning, the sun expended all its hydrogen and became a red giant, engulfing both Earth and Venus. None survived.

Reposted from Last Gladiator Standing because it’s just so relevant.

“Mr. Gyrobo, is it true that you’ve accepted Drone #389723’s challenge?”

“Mr. Gyrobo, Drone #389723 says you ain’t got the courage to face ’im. What say you?”

“Mr. Gyrobo-”

“Get these bums outta here!” Karl Überdale snarled, pointing at the gaggle of reporters surrounding me. Suddenly, the ground started to shake. As if the building was over a volcano, the floor split open, releasing four grotesque monstrosities. The monsters grabbed at the screaming journalists, dragging them down into the fire pit from whence they came.

“Hey, Karl, I don’t know if I’m ready to take on the Drone.”

“Don’t worry Gyrobo. I gots faith in ya. Yer a wreckin’ machine!”

“Ain’t nobody gonna mess with my main man!”

“Yes, you’ve said that several times now. But Drone #389723 is an actual wrecking machine. They used him to tear down houses before he was retrofitted and given enough intelligence to fight.”

“You just gotta want it enough! I know you,” Karl began. The aged sorcerer pulled out a scrapbook and went through a twelve minute montage of our time together. “You haven’t been hungry enough, Gyro. Can I call you Gyro?”

“No. Wait, if you pronounce it ‘hero’ like they do in Greece, then yes. But if you pronounce it the way it’s supposed to be, like a gyroscope, then forget it. No sale.”

“I’ve worked with you for twenty-some odd years, and yet I’ve never heard you say your own name before.”

“That’s because the communists were out to get me.”

He stared at me, trying to understand how that last sentence could possibly make sense. Then he gave up and drank another swig of coffee. The man loves coffee.

“Yeah, so I signed you up for the fight. You’re gonna fight Drone #389723, and- hey! Don’t you walk away from me! I made you...” then he pulled out a blue vial. “And I can destroy you!”

“What’s in that vial?”

“Gold!”

And then Karl started dancing about the room like a lemur. I hate lemurs... you don’t want to know.

***

“After-glow! Gyro-bo! After-glow! Gyro-bo!” chanted the crowds. Sure, my theme song wasn’t really catchy, but it sounded a lot better than Drone #389723’s “Carpe diem, buy a dog! Carpe diem, buy a dog!”

This is Ciscos, my number one fan this week.

“Okay, I want a good, clean fight,” said the umpire. Yes, there was an umpire. The usual guy who judges wrestling matches was out, so they got an umpire from the little league next door. You got a problem with that, tubby?!

“Unit active protocol delta,” clicked my opponent. I could smell his fear.

As we levitated over to the corners of the ring, Karl teleported in next to me.

“Where have you been, Karl?! You were supposed to train me hours ago!”

“Gyrobo, you can’t win! The guy’s a wreckin’ machine! Throw in the towel!”

“But...” I stammered, trying to make sense of Karl’s sudden, yet inevitable betrayal. “You were the one who told me to fight him! You signed me up. I told you I didn’t want to but-”

“And you gotta fight ’im, Gyrobo! He... he, uh... what?”

Then, with a glazed look in his eye, Karl lumbered off.

“You’re on your own, kid.”

“I’m fifty years older than you!”

“In robot years, Gyrobo. In robot years. You need to learn you some learning, young man.”

*clunk*

“What was that?!”

“Oh, that’s the bell,” said the shortstop. What? I told you, we were next to a little league.

“I didn’t hear no bell.”

“Unit protection protocol active. Delta. Delta. Strike. Alpha. bzzz.... processing primary directive...”

“Not on my watch!” I screamed, punching him out with my patented robo-hook. A half-nelson later, and the pitiful remains of my once proud opponent lay before me, shaking in agony.

“Take that, random stranger!”

“I did it!” I shouted as the umpire counted to ten. “I’m the greatest there ever-”

“Noooooooo! Gregory!”

“Huh?” I turned around to see a middle-aged woman run out into the ring.

“Gregory, can you hear me?! Gregory?!”

“What’s going...?”

“Hey, Gyrobo, I just remembered,” said Karl off to my left. “Drone #389723 couldn’t make it tonight. His car broke down outside of Memphis.”

“Then who did I just...”

“That was just some guy. From the audience.”

“Karl, have you ever been to Texas?”

“No. Want to go there right now?”

“You bet! Let’s go to Tom deLay’s house and get him to bake us cookies!”

“And also, we can see Mount Rushmore while we’re there.”

“Karl, you so crazy!”

“Tom deLay... I thought I’d never see you in the halls of Congress again,” said Senator Ninja to his old sensei. The two of them had had a bit of a dispute over who was taller back in the first grade, and a bitter rivalry had developed around it. But now that Tom deLay was no longer in Congress, the healing could begin.

Like most former Congressmen, Tom deLay has devolved into toon-form.

“I sure sneaked up on ya, didn’t I?” giggled deLay as Senator Ninja put away his embossed katana. “Anyway, I heard you talking to Dick Cheney and-”

“Yes, deLay, I was talking to Dick Cheney. Because I’m a Congressman, and you’re not. Follow the logic, deLame,” he laughed, hitting deLay upside the head. Tom didn’t find this amusing, and pulled a small piece of paper out of Senator Ninja’s back pocket.

“So, Cheney gave you one of his invisible ink messages, did he? Well, nuts to you. I don’t need to help you, you know. I’m retired.”

“Yes. ‘Retired.’ More like ‘retroactive!’”

“That made no sense at all.”

“It doesn’t have to. I’m a ninja,” grinned Senator Ninja.

And this is what Senator Ninja would look like as a giant ant.

“Yeah, that’s what you’ve been saying the entire time I’ve worked with you. Yet in all that time, I’ve never seen you talking to any of your constituents-”

“And you never will, ’cause you don’t work here anymore!” interrupted Senator Ninja, his nostrils flaring in anticipation.

“-and I don’t even know what state you’re from. No one does. How did you get into Congress?!”

“It’s... I was... Look, I don’t have to explain any of this to you. I’m a ninja.”

deLay just stood there, staring at Senator Ninja, trying to place his dialect. Nothing. It was if Senator Ninja came from...

“Are you from Omaha?”

“No...?”

“I was just asking because you have, like, no accent. You could be from, like, anywhere.”

“Yeah. I’m a ninja.” began Senator Ninja. He turned his head upward to observe the gaping hole in the ceiling. It was still a gaping hole in the ceiling, not much happening to it, really. He looked back at deLay, who was staring impatiently at his watch. It was starting to get awkward.

“Where are you from?!”

“So, uh... hey, have you seen Family Guy lately?” asked Senator Ninja, trying to jump-start the conversation.

“I don’t watch Family Guy. I think it’s poorly written and the animation is also of poor quality.”

Senator Ninja’s eyes bored into deLay’s ragged soul. Any enemy of Family Guy must be destroyed, declared a voice inside the senator’s head.

“You will suffer the fate of a thousand bees!” screamed Senator Ninja, his fingers cracking in an unnatural manner.

“I respectfully disaggree with your assessment of Family Guy!”

“Why don’t we just get back to the letter Dick Cheney gave you?” asked deLay, noticing smoke billowing out of Senator Ninja’s pantleg.

“Uh? Oh, right, Dick Cheney. Hey, how did you know he would meet me here? I didn’t even know we were meeting until, like, five minutes before it happened.”

“I’ve been hiding out in Congress ever since I retired. That’s where I live now,” deLay pointed out a large potted plant next to the cafeteria. “Every night, I sneak into the cafeteria and eat the fruit rollups. Then I sneak out. It’s easy because the cafeteria and this hallway are the only areas in Congress where there aren’t cameras.”

“What about the bathrooms?”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t want to risk getting caught, so I haven’t left this hall in weeks.”

“But then...? Oh, Tom! The cafeteria’s right over there!” Senator Ninja broke down. “That smell coming from the back room-”

“That’s just the poor quality meat they use to make Congressburgers. It’s made by the same people who made Family Guy. Burn!” Then deLay went for a high-five, which Senator Ninja, against senate regulations, did not return.

“But then... is there a sink or...”

“Use your head, fool!”

“I held it in, Senator Ninjerk.” deLay laughed.

“For weeks?!”

“Yup.”

“How?!”

“I’m an American.”

“X to the second power doesn’t exist,” the judge bellowed at the top of his lungs. “There is no such thing as an exponent!”

This immediately caused an uproar amongst the jurors. One man had to be escorted from the courtroom after he stood up and began reciting the quadratic formula from memory. “You’ll never silence us, Judge! We’re the plurality!” announced the man as the bailiff dragged him away.

“I won’t have such talk in my court, young man. Take your evil postulates outside.”

See the fire in his eyes? That’s justice.

Banging his gavel slowly, the old man’s eyes beamed with the venerated glow of righteousness. You won’t make a fool out of me in this place, thought the judge to himself. It had been many a decade since Judge Ante Agoniste had been challenged in such a manner.

“Continue, Mrs. Modren.”

“Yes, judge?”

“Tell the court who you saw last Friday calculating the area under a curve.”

“Yes, yes. It was... him!” she jerked her gnarled hand out in an awkward manner until it moved in the general vicinity of Prote Agoniste.

An accusation or an interpolation? You be the judge.

“Let the record show that the witness pointed directly at Mr. Agoniste,” said the judge blandly to the court stenographer. “Also, add in a line about my new haircut.”

“Yes, judge,” clicked the stenographer, typing away with the speed of a jackrabbit on a jackhammer inside a Jack-in-the-Box.

“Okay, I think we’ve got everything we need here. We’ve got a witness, a plaintiff, a defendant, and some me, the judge. So I’m just gonna declare you guilty and get us all home early.”

“But, Ante!” cried Prote Agoniste. “You’re my brother-”

“In law. Never forget that, Prote.”

“But you know I didn’t do no math! I was with you, throwing cats into the river, Ante! We both know it was-”

“Bailiff, hit that man in the head repeatedly!”

Judge Agoniste smirked as Prote was driven away to jail forever. “Now I can drown cats without any witnesses,” he mused. “Ha! And who’s going to stop me?!” He then sat down, realizing he had screamed the whole thing to a packed courtroom. Fortunately, he managed to make everyone forget what they just heard by using his Vaudeville ventriloquism act.

You can barely see his lips move.

Ten years later a prison train carrying Prote Agoniste collided with Judge Ante Agoniste’s car. As they were polar opposites, they fused into one person. Then the story was forced to end, because there was neither a Prote Agoniste or an Ante Agoniste.

Curses! A whole month gone, and what do I have to show for it?! Have I, the great and malevolent King Evil Robo-Bob Dole managed to capture the Roboshrub Capital/Headquarters?! No. Has my ally’s Armada Automata laid siege to the walls of the ancient supply sheds of Gardjaban? Kind of. Okay, not really. When I signed on to be the archetype of evil, the antagonist if you will, of Roboshrub Inc., I really expected a bigger, more robust role. Instead, I’ve been relegated to steerage. With my royal bloodline, I could have been the arch-enemy of any worthy foe across all the stars and even underwater.

Even the crazy guy who lives next door.

So today, instead of trying to invade you with Irish Rock music and armies, I’m going to try a different route and bring you around to my way of thinking through reasoned debate. Okay, here goes: I’m a king and you are a peasant. Obey me. That went well, don’t you think? Tomorrow I think I’ll go on tour so that I can demonstrate my fantastic debating skills to the unwashed masses, starting with that crazy guy who lives next door.

If I can teach him word-anger, or “debating” in the “new” English, the world is mine!

Until then, watch the skies. But not too closely! I don’t want your unworthy eyes to gaze upon the sun that I descended from. That’s right, according to my royal bloodline, the sun is my ancestor. Wanna fight about it?! Ha! I’m a king, you fool! You’ve already lost by default!

It's as simple as that. I'm not Bill Clinton. I'm Karl, a friendly sorcerer that casts magic spells and so forth to occasionally generate plot events in the poorly thought out farce that is Roboshrub Inc.

My potions will one day save the world, if I don't destroy it first.

At the behest of the Armada Automata Resitor Squad, I have been asked to cast a protective aura. So here goes:

Eieron boseas nov icoq g'dish!

*waves hands*

I have cast a spell of temporary robot insanity. Every Friday from now on, the visage of the mighty Roboshrub will be replaced at the top of yonder sidebar by an insane robot. The spell only has the power to exist for one day a week (because you only paid me 1/7 of our agreed upon price) and will only be active once clicked on. Does not stack with Thorns Aura. +3 to Combat Skills.

Auro lerb vee!

*Throws small plastic stars at you*

MAGIC!

Now, back to my reckless experimentation!

“Master, the walls are starting to buckle!”

You turn and glare at your minion. All the planning, all the money spent on expensive machinery, all the senators bribed, all for naught. Your dreams of world domination are dashed like so many of your “guests” on the rocks far below your evil fortress. As the uniformed forces of an unspecific country march forward, bent on eliminating the threat your pseudo-mad science poses, you have one option: escape.

“Fool! You’ve indirectly led them right to us, sort of!”

Many of our clients have overt designs on world control, either by cornering the stock market, seizing control of the moon, or starting false religions (most notably the First Church of Tax Exempt Status). If the James Bond movies of the 1960s have taught us anything, it’s that all these “get rich quick, stick a needle in your eye” schemes are doomed to failure. And if there’s one thing Roboshrub Inc. is good at, it’s making failure look like anti-failure (in Canada and parts of Oregon, anti-failure is called “fishscope” and retails for $80 per kilogram).

The only way to evade capture after one’s ingenious plan fails is to use an escape pod, so we started out with a basic open-source Lancaster 3400C all-purpose expulsion vehicle. We stripped it down to its core operating system and rebuilt it from scratch. Our top concern during the redesign process was making the pod more stylish, which is why the blast hatch is now retractable, allowing the occupant to experience supersonic flight unfettered by bulky windows. By increasing the girth of the propulsion engines and removing the cup holder, we managed to make the device over 60% more fuel-efficient. This forward-thinking engine rebuild earned us a Chuck Norris approval tag, which we cannot display due to legal issues involving a porpoise and three buckets of house paint.

It’s more than just an escape pod. It’s a Chuck Norris approved escape pod.