Today's #flashfiction #MetaMinions

“Can you hear me now?”

E.T.* #quote

Today I went out to dinner for a large family gather of epic fun. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Meta-Minions

       Two robots belonging to a supervillain hung out in the middle of a dank hallway in the middle of a massive evil lair. This is where they usually stood 9-5 on weekdays as their guarding point. At other times they would be under maintenance, or be downloading information on the latest superheroes, or training with the other robots, or receiving instructions/new orders from the supervillian. Being robots with more “sentient” like brains required more awake time and interaction live for learning. They didn't shut down often except for power-ups during maintenance.

       “Hey Twelve,” The robots referred to each other by the manufacture numbers on their backs, usually by the first two unless by coincience the first two numbers are shared by multiple robots in the room then they continue down the twenty digit numbers until they can say something different.

       “Yeah Fifty?”

       “You ever wonder what it's like to be a calculator?”

        Twelve whacked Fifty with his steel arm. “What kind of question is that? Your talking crazy. You want to be dragged into maintenance? I don't even understand what you're saying. Where's the jokes you usually tell to pass the time?”

        “I just wondered what it would be like to not have all these thoughts that Doctor Dementedian gave us. Well I guess he kinda bought the designs for us then modded our brains for combat. Since sentient robot brains can be so efficient. Why didn't he remove the emotion? Was it too hard? Did he not have the skill to do it?”

       Twelve stamped one of his robotic spider legs. “You know this kind of talk can get you scrapped. You never talk anything bad about the Doctor. You never should gossip about the Doctor unless its worship.”

       Fifty revved his treads. “Oh, don't be so paranoid! He doesn't care what we say unless we're right in front of him! We're just the things that guard the halls. I just had a passing thought. Just wondered what it would be like to not be what I am. I've not only wondered what it would be like to be a calculator. But even what it would be like to be a bird, or a dog, or a human. Or a supervillain. Or a superhero.”

Twelve waved his arms. “Why do you even bother thinking all these absurd things?”

      “Because thinking about these absurd things is all we can do. Besides training and waiting for the arrival of whatever superhero is going to charge through this hall and attack us. We probably won't even hurt the hero. We'll probably just slow the hero down at most so that stupid Doctor gets another second to work on his plan which will fail again. We've seen it happen before. Other robots in other hallways. You think we'll be any different!?” Fifty strained his speakers yelling at Twelve, but his voice only peaked at “You think we'll be any different” and it echoed through many halls of the lair even barely reaching the Doctor's ears. But he ignored it as he had to deal with a hero breaching the compound.

     Alarms sounded off. Telling the machines to ready themselves for an attack. The hero was going hall after hall. He destroyed robots without other robots in other halls knowing. In moments the tall muscular hero stood before Twelve and Fifty. A gate closed behind Twelve and Fifty, leaving them with the hero. Behind that gate was the last few halls leading to the supervillain. Twelve and Fifty were surprised that with the suddenness of the attack that the Doctor managed to spring one of his armored trap gates to slow the hero.

The hero looked at the two robots. He readied himself to fight them like all the rest.

Twelve used his emergency access codes to spring the gate, lying to the mother computer that a flood happened and the gate needed to be opened.

      “We don't want to be evil anymore. Please stop the Doctor.” He motioned with his arm to let the hero through.

       “Good work robots. I'll come back to save you.” The hero smiled and went deeper.

Fifty looked at Twelve, “You...let him through.”

       Twelve responded, “Well after listening to your long talk about change I figured that you made sense. I think I'd rather lead a new life and change like you said then stay the way I am and be demolished in the middle of a hallway. Change can be good.”