7 Call a Waambulance

Chapter Seven Call a Waambulance "Ugh, I don't like that SuperAwesome and her 12121222s or whatever," said Abigail. "You'd think that someone who coordinates a big welcome dance like that would be a much nicer person." "She's not a person," said Vale. "That's the problem. They're all just a bunch of robots." "Hey, so is Foggy," said Finn. "It doesn't matter that they're robots. We need to help Foggy, and I'm guessing we're going to need to help them, too." "Yeah, I'm with Finn," said Elias. "Just because someone is a robot doesn't mean they don't have a heart." "I'm going to let that one go," said Abigail. "Okay, so what's up with Foggy, and how do we help him?"

Finn told his friends about his conversation with Foggy, and the spark that had flown out of Foggy's mouth. "I know this sounds weird," said Finn, "but I think he's sick." "Robots don't have hearts," said Vale. "And robots don't get sick." "But robots can get a virus," said Elias. His three friends all looked at him like he'd just declared his name was 1212222122. Elias explained that computers and robots can't get sick like humans do. A human usually gets sick from germs or viruses: little microscopic organisms that invade humans. They get into their noses or mouths, and sometimes into their blood.

"Gross!" said Vale. "I'm never breathing again." "You should also start washing your hands more," said Elias. "But that's a story for a different time." He went on to say that germs can't hurt computers. Without a living organism, the germ or virus can't survive. But a "virus" for a computer is a completely different problem. Computers run on their own language: a code. And if there's something wrong in the code—either a bad piece of code was slipped onto the computer, or a piece

of code on the computer got broken—then that computer could get a virus. "So something broke inside of Foggy?" said Finn. "That's my guess," said Elias. "It must have happened when he visited you guys in quarantine," said Abigail. "The cleaning program," said Finn. "He ran a cleaning program when I spit on him!" "Ew," said Abigail. "You spit on him?!" "No, I coughed and got spit on him," said Finn. "Oh, yeah, way better," said Abigail. She took one step away from Finn. "Dude, you don't cough into your elbow?" said Vale. "It's like I hardly know you." "But Elias said a sick human couldn't give a virus to a computer," said Finn. "Right," said Elias. "So who knows how this happened?" The explorers all stood in silence, thinking about how to solve this problem. "Well, whatever happened, it seems like Foggy is contagious," said Elias. "SuperAwesome sounded SuperGross when we left."

Finn put his hand on Elias's shoulder. "So if the problem is with Foggy's code," said Finn, "do you think you could fix it? If we got Foggy alone?" Elias shrugged. "Maybe." "Okay," said Finn. "Great. All we have to do is go in there and convince SuperAwesome to give us back Foggy, and then we can see what's wrong with him." "Why don't you just ask SuperAwesome right now?" said Vale. He pointed at the robot stumbling out of the building. "What have you done?" asked SuperAwesome. The robot lurched toward Finn. Finn jumped back just in time. SuperAwesome fell to the ground.

"You," said the robot. "You did this COUGH CRAFFLOFF puke puke blech." Two sparks and a little bit of sizzled wire flew out of SuperAwesome's mouth as the robot's eyes closed. She lay still. "Oh boy," said Abigail. "They've done this to her!" shouted a robotic voice inside the building. "Get them!" The three tall, round-shouldered robots came bounding out of the building. "Fun times," said Vale.