Chapter 2

2

ALL IS QUIET IN FRANK EINSTEIN'S LABORATORY. The lightning storm has passed. Frank is asleep. The town of Midville is silent. The night is now clear. A beam of silver light from the almost-full moon shines down through the rusted windows and skylight. The moonlight glints off the SmartBot's toaster-head and the exposed SmartBot circuit brain lying on top of the pile of video-game controller, stopped watch, electric keyboard, hamburger grill, blender, model-airplane engine, stomach exercisers, aluminum flex duct hose, TV remote, magnets, batteries, locks, old steel file, stereo speakers, Shop-Vac, lamps, computer monitor, bicycle horn, webcam, glass dome, baby-buggy wheels, thermometers, fans, car GPS, collection of rock samples, big silver trash can, and broken talking HugMeMonkey! doll. Every bit of stone, metal,

wood, and plastic matter remains still, as the faintest night breeze through the drafty garage door stirs the crumpled paper ball on Frank's workbench. The ball rolls one and a half revolutions and hits a coil of copper wire. The copper wire uncoils and brushes against the steel file. The file falls across the flint-rock sample. The steel striking flint creates a spark. The spark jumps to the center of the Frank-made SmartBot brain. The spark races along the thin computercircuit-memory-chip pathways. It doubles, triples, quadruples, and forms a network of interconnected sparks, looking an awful lot like a network of interconnected human brain cells.

The interconnected web of sparks becomes... an idea. The interconnected web becomes... a plan. The webcam eye opens. It shutter-blinks and fires a wireless command to the headless robot body. The charge powers on the small LED lights, then speeds into the vacuum-cleaner body core. The charge multiplies, splits, and spreads through the robot body. One mechanical clamp-hand lies still on the workbench. Spark. The clamp opens. Spark. The clamp closes. Spark. The entire clamp-hand moves.

Intricate waves of power now surge and fill electrified pathways. The mechanical clamp-hand unscrews the back of a video-game power pack. The hand gathers the hard plastic Shop-Vac, the webcam, the glass dome. The moon disappears behind a passing cloud. In the pitch-dark laboratory, two mechanical hands gather and sort through the pile of junk parts and tools on the workbench. The hands turn screws, wind springs, adjust gears, bolt, hammer, and build. The hands

rewire circuits, shape scrap, attach pieces, secure hoses, and finally pull a whole new robot head toward a newly rebuilt robot body. The cloud passes. The beam of moonlight shines down into the laboratory again. And now there is something new on Frank Einstein's workbench. Something that wasn't there earlier. Something that thinks. Something that learns. Something that is... alive.