Advanced Robotics

CHAPTER 8

They were being hunted. On the ground, whenever Romanovs were not
being used, they constantly searched for Joe's plane on their radar.
Romanov pilots assigned to fly large aircraft made sure to repeatedly
scan the skies. They were commanded to catch them from an instinctual
thought implanted in every Romanov's mind. In Latveria, the busiest
and most prosperous city in Russia, the buildings towered over 200
stories tall. The streets were filled with different automobiles. The
city bustled with business and trade. But one building stood above
them all, glistening in the sun was the double headed phoenix, the
insignia of Romanov Robotics Corporation. It was the capital of all
robotics trade in the world and controlled all businesses that sold
robots. Up on the top floor was the office of the world's most
powerful business leader, Lord Luther Romanov. He had enough supremacy
to put Microsoft, Dell, Macintosh, IBM and AT&T out of business, so he
did. He stood there, staring out his office window at the city he had
complete authority over. He was dressed in a fine navy suit, hand made
in Switzerland just for him. His glasses stood out on his nose and did
not cover his eyes at all, which were sad, dark and mysterious. He had
a cheerful smile and he kept his blond hair neat and tidy. His large,
red carpeted office had one picture on the wall of Alexi Romanov
staring fiercely down at whoever was passing by. Beneath the picture
in gold was written Scientists like us will use Advanced Robotics for
the good of humanity. On the other side of the room, the large wooden
doors opened, and Luther turned to see his secretary, Ms. Tanya. She
stood and smiled at him, and he smiled back.
"Hey, Tanya, got any good news for me?" he asked her casually.
"Umm, sorry sir, I came to show you the new model for the Romanov 400
series." She then turned to the door. "You may enter." she commanded.
The doors opened and a young teen girl with blonde hair and scantily
clad in a tight cheerleader outfit strolled into the room with a big
smile on her cheery face. It walked up to Luther and waved at him.
"Hi! My name's Romanov 400001! What's yours, cutie?" It asked and
held out its hand. Luther looked down at it for a moment. He looked up
at Tanya.
"Is there a reason it's supposed to be this preppy?"
"Uh, yes sir, we are hoping this would appeal to the male population
as a sex slave of some sort." Luther walked up to Tanya as she checked
her notes, she looked up at him. He was furious and slapped her across
the face strongly enough to knock her to the floor.
"IMBICILE!" he yelled at her as she struggled to get up, "I wanted a
weapon! Instead you give me this piece of junk?! You're a disgrace!
You're fired, Tanya, get out of here!" He walked away from her. She
slowly got up and tried to speak.
"You… you bastard! Twenty scientists were forced to work day and
night on this single prototype! This could actually be one of our best
inventions ever! How could you possibly think of turning it down! And
I won't stop there, no! I've worked my ass off for you, and why?!
Because I thought you were pretty damn cute! Otherwise I would have
quit many years ago! You're an asshole! The board of managers thinks
so, and so do all the workers in the worldwide factories that you have
overworked and underpaid! No one in Latveria trusts you, no one in the
country trusts you, no one in the whole god damn world trusts you! Why
don't you go dig yourself a fancy friggin hole and go die in it you
son of a bitch!" Tanya screamed at him as she got to her feet to walk
out the door. Luther faced the window the whole time she talked. He
was silent for a second.
"Tanya?"
"Yes?"
"Forgive me for this." He pulled out a small pistol and shot her in
the head. She fell limp to the ground. The cheerleader droid still
stood there.
"Umm, that's like, against my protocol and stuff. You can't do that!"
"Shut up and put this body in the garbage disposal down the hall."
"Eww. No! I can't touch that, it's gross!"
"God, what a pathetic slave this failure turned out to be!" he
shouted and then pulled the pistol and shot the droid in the face.
"Oh, my god! You shot me!" He shot her twice more, then kept firing
until whatever was left of her head was blasted off.
"Filthy waste of good machinery." Luther sighed to himself. "Why
couldn't they have just built me that attack model like I had asked
for in the first place. The last thing we need is a robot made for
human pleasure. I allow the creation of robots to do the simple tasks
to let humans gain the knowledge to make better robots to serve my
purpose, that is all. Now, humans are ungrateful for the machines that
do their chores that they could easily do themselves if they weren't
so damn lazy. They see what power I have, and all they can see is
themselves getting that power. I hate all humans, greedy, lazy, filthy
beings that have no point of existence." The phone on his desk started
ringing, he walked over to answer it. "Yes, hello?"
"Lord Romanov, sir! There has been an uprising in south factory 4!
Workers are striking and destroying the machinery! Should we stop it
sir?" came the voice on the phone.
"No, just hold them, I'll be right there." He hung up, and then
walked over to the window. Police helicopters were flying by towards
the factories south of the main city. "Ha! Filthy humans, they always
complain if they don't get what they want." He turned and walked out
of his office. His limo was waiting for him at the bottom of the
building and he climbed into it and drove to the factory district in
the south. The entire area was extremely ghetto. Families that could
not find a single room in the overcrowded projects had to live out in
the streets. Nobody was rich enough to buy cars and worked long hours
at Romanov's factories just to put bread on the table for their
starving factories. Some stared as Romanov drove by, but he wouldn't
look at them. They were nothing more than filthy commoners. He finally
came to south factory 4, where police cars surrounded the entrance. He
stepped out and walked up to the nearest person in police uniform. It
turned around and was nothing more than one of his attack droids
assigned to the police force. It saluted him.
"Lord Romanov, sir! We have the rebellion surrounded."
"Hold your fire. I need to speak to the man in charge of this riot."
"Sir! He is still hostile and dangerous!"
"It doesn't matter. I'm going to see him."
"Of course, my lord."
It bowed and let him pass under the police tape and into the factory.
Destruction was everywhere. Destroyed machinery, demolished attack
droids, and dead workers. Attack droids surrounded a pile of rubble
and on the top stood a group of people. One stood out amongst the
rest. He looked down at Luther.
"There he is! This man has committed crimes against humanity and is
the devil himself! He should be arrested and executed! We will no
longer stand his tyranny! We will fight to the last breath to regain
our freedom!" shouted the worker. Luther walked through the attack
droids and told them to stand down. He walked up to the pile. He
jumped and flew twenty feet up to the top of the pile. The workers
stood shocked with fear in their eyes as Luther hovered in mid air. He
grabbed the leader.
"Now, what was it you were saying?" he asked the leader as he held
him by the collar twenty feet off the ground.
"W-we will n-never fall to the l-likes of y-you!" he shouted.
"Wrong answer!" Luther yelled and dropped the man to his death. He
hovered back down to the ground. The rest of the workers screamed "we
surrender!" but Luther kept walking away from them. He went to the
nearest droid.
"Execute them all."
"Yes my lord."
He walked back out of the factory. There was a huge rush of bullets
and screams could be heard all the way to his limo. He started to
climb in, then stopped.
"Sarge!" he yelled to the attack droid in the police uniform.
"Yes, sir?"
"You remember my secretary?"
"Yes?"
"Kill her family."
"Yes my lord."