Giant Killer Robotz™ and the Case of Kylie

The boys down the street had Giant Killer Robotz™. They went to the same school as Kylie, and got off at the same bus stop. Her mother always told her to try and get along with them, because Kylie had no one else to talk to when she was shooed out of the house to go 'play outside.' They were okay, but they were boys, and sometimes boys didn't quite get it.

Like the sometimes when they didn't let her play with them. They always had their reasons, she didn't have the right toy, she was wearing the wrong color, they only needed three people... but she knew the real reason they didn't let her play.

The day they all had Giant Killer Robotz™ was one of those days.

"How can you play with us if you don't have a robot?" Michael asked in that philosophical way he had, and pushed the glasses up his nose because the sweat was making them slide off.

"No one told me that it we needed robots today." Kylie looked at the three boys with their three robots. The robots were only two feet tall, and didn't look very giant to her. Maybe the standards for Giant Killer Robotz™ were different, and no one had told her that, either.

David looked at Billy.

Billy chewed on his lower lip and squinted up at her. "No one has to tell you about robots," he told her.

"Oh," Kylie said, realizing that he was right. Everyone should know about robots.

She didn't get to play with the boys that day. It was her fault that she didn't know about the robots, after all.

"Mom, I need a Giant Killer Robot."

"You know I don't like that kind of play," her mother told her. Her mother normally said that kind of thing, whether Kylie wanted a Dress Me Up™ doll or a Deathzone Frontier Battlesaur™. There would be no changing her mind, no matter how much Kylie asked, pleaded, or asked her father. That much she had learned from painful trial and error.

Kylie decided that this simply wouldn't do.

So she stayed up late one night and made a plan, and stayed up late the next night to set that plan in motion.

*****

It took Kylie longer than expected. First she had to clear out the garage to make space, and no one would help her do that. She didn't like cleaning, and that set her schedule back by a few days.

Her parents asked her what she was doing, and she told them that she was making a robot. "Out of that junk?" her father had asked. "What is all this?"

"Oh, those are rockets. They're gonna be rockets, anyway. And those'll be actuators, and those are the old welding tools, oh, oh, and those are for supports over there, and I got an engine from an old Chevy but I don't think I'll use that it's not very environmentally friendly and I don't want my robot to feel bad for polluting...."

Her father had walked away. He had never been one for the technical details.

That was okay. Kylie wasn't very good at explaining, anyway.

It took her nearly a week to finish, but by the next Tuesday her giant robot was taller than she was. It was even more giant than the Giant Killer Robotz™.

"Hello," said the Giant Giant Killer Robot.

"Hello," Kylie said. "I need you to meet my friends."

****

On Wednesday they didn’t meet because Michael was sick. On Thursday, Kylie led Giant Giant Killer Robot out of the garage and out into the street to meet her friends.

"We don't play with the robots anymore," David told her apologetically.

Kylie tried not to sound disappointed. "Oh."

"Your robot's pretty cool," Michael said. "What can it do?"

"Loads of stuff! Watch!" Kylie turned to Giant Giant Killer Robot. "Show them what you can do."

Giant Giant Killer Robot looked at the four expectant faces. "...I can bake..." it hazarded.

"No! Giant killer robot things," Billy said, and it sounded like an order.

Giant Giant Killer Robot said something that sounded like "uhm," and stomped a foot as it wondered what a suitable giant killer robot activity was.

A crack ran down the street, black asphalt rupturing with a rumbling, growling noise somewhere between a lion's roar and thunder. The street split, and a blue station wagon fell into the resulting chasm.

"Cool!" the three boys exclaimed in unison.

Kylie and Giant Giant Killer Robot shared a moment of smugness.

David was the first to ask another question. "Can you smash stuff?"

The next hour was spent trailing along after Giant Giant Killer Robot as it smashed a tree, splintering to make toothpicks (it offered to build them a tree house from the lumber, but the boys were adamant that destruction was much better). Michael asked whether or not it had rockets, and the next thing they knew, a Volkswagen parked a hundred yards away was a smoldering hole in the ground.

"Cool!" the children said.

And so they got along. For a time. ...For the afternoon, at any rate.

"You should blow up that house," Billy said, pointing at the house in question.

David flailed his arms like he was about to hit Billy. "That's my house!"

"Okay, don't blow up the whiner's house," Billy shrugged.

Giant Giant Killer Robot fidgeted with its rocket launcher.

"Smash another tree," Michael suggested thoughtfully. There wasn't much else for Giant Giant Killer Robot to do, now that they had smashed a tree, cracked the street, and made a car disappear.

Billy heaved a sigh and picked up his Giant Killer Robotz™. "Aw, that's boring. I'm gonna go home, my mom was making cookies."

"I'll come," David said. "Me too," Michael echoed him.

"I like cookies," Giant Giant Killer Robot said in the direction of the retreating forms of the three boys.

Kylie glared down the street. "Fine! Have cookies! I have cake." She whirled around, and stomped back in the direction of her house.

Giant Giant Killer Robot considered this. "...I like cake."

"Good, 'cause you're baking it."

"I am?"

"You said you could bake," Kylie said, and tried not to feel betrayed.

"Oh," said Giant Giant Killer Robot. "Yes."