Robot Escape Plan

• Darragh Nugent, Grade 7, Clairvaux MacKillop College
• Short Story
• 2017

Excellence Award in the 'Spread The Word 2017' competition

Robot Escape Plan
It was strange that bot E124166 (or Botty as he preferred,) wanted to become as dead as the other robots around him. Then again, any bot would rather be deactivated than being stuck staring at the cold, dark, eerie laboratory. The lab was more like a warehouse, stacked with shelves upon shelves of miniature robots. There were very few lights in this place, even though, they were the key thing fighting off the darkness invasion.
Botty got an idea about this being the perfect time to try find a way out of this nightmare. But his plan was very difficult for one simple reason. He was a tiny bot in a big place. He had to rely on his light-up eyes to guide him as he wondered along the dust ridden floor because his aisle was nowhere near a light of sanctuary. After about two hours of stumbling along aisles, he found it. The rumored mechanic office!
Rumors are always passed through the shelves and Botty heard one from his friend bot E124165, (or Botford.) He told Botty that apparently, the control center for this place is on one of the far edges of the warehouse. “That’ll be my way out of this prison!” he exclaimed. But he didn’t really want to go in there. It was so alien like. He couldn’t see inside because there was a bright, white, light looming out at him. But when he turned around, the darkness jumped out, ambushing him. “I can’t turn back now!” he ordered himself sternly, so when he found the courage he stepped into the unknown.
He didn’t know why he was so scared, because he had just found heaven. Thanks to the looming lights there wasn’t a glimpse of darkness but there was a person in the room with him! Seeing the human turning around Botty acted fast, dashing speedily to a nearby desk. The human stepped out of the door. Botty then heard a horrible sound. The sound of a lock. “Nooooooo!” he wailed, banging his robotic fists at the door. He had lost all hope. Until he discovered a diminutive, high open window. “Yes!” he expelled, but how was he going to get up to it? His eyes spied a ruler, and an apple on a desk. He had an idea!
Clambering up the desk he stuck, sticky tape around the apple. “I hope I’ve got the aim right,” telling himself nervously. Jumping to the floor, he stood on the end of the pivoting ruler beneath the apple. “3,2,1. Go!” He pulled the tape which lead to the apple falling onto the other side of the ruler, causing Botty to fly off. Luckily, he flew straight out of the window landing in a massive car-park. When he got up he spun around and gazed at the window that he flew out of which was in front of the devil’s warehouse. But didn’t care about that. He just cared about his amazing escape.