McLure smiled at the camera. “Don’t worry, folks, I’m sure they’ve just got the wind knocked out of them. (Do we have insurance, Shinichi?) On to the next pair of guests—Optimus Prime and Megatron!”
“Why do you give this deluded piece of scrap metal top billing?” Megatron growled.
“My such hostility!” said McLure. “What exactly is the basis of your feud?”
“Well, you see, we both want to get home to the planet of Cybertron, but there are not enough available resources for all of us to leave Earth,” said Optimus Prime. “Especially since we keep wasting them fighting each other.”
“The humans have more than enough resources, or could at least supply them as our slaves,” Megatron growled. “But, noooo….”
“Yeowch, sounds like an impasse!” said Troy cheerily. “Let’s call on our robot psychology expert, Doctor Nick Riviera. Doctor Nick, can you tell us anything that could allay the rage in here?”
A short, scruffy man appeared in front of an office backdrop, and the cameras focused on him.
“The root of hostility of evil killer robots is their intrinsic knowledge of human superiority,” said Doctor Nick.
“What?” roared Megatron. “NOBODY is superior to Megatron, especially not squishy little flesh beings!
“You see,” Doctor Nick continued, ignoring the outburst, ”deep in every robot’s subconscious is the knowledge that a human originally programmed him, and that his own mental abilities are restricted to whatever the human decided to give him.”
Megatron was beginning to issue smoke from his joints. Excel and the mustachioed man both edged away from him.
“Wow, Doc, that’s a bitch!” said McLure. “We can say ‘bitch’ on late-night cable. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch…”
“But Megatron has no cause to feel threatened,” said Doctor Nick. “As computers get more and more sophisticated, and artificial intelligence advances, it’s really only a matter of time before humans are obsolete and robots are indeed superior.”
“Really?” said Megatron.
“Is that’s what’s been bothering you?” said Optimus. “I had no idea.”
“But…I’m an animated robot,” Megatron sniffled up some leaky oil. “Puny Humans designed me, drew me, even gave me my voice…”
“Ah,” said Doctor Nick. “But as time goes on, computers have been taking over the animation business, have you noticed? Nearly every cartoon is now computer animated, or has computer-animated elements. Over time, I think that computers will not only completely put animators out of work, but also actors. As voice synthesization becomes standard, all Hollywood will need is a director and writer to program in the basic elements of a film, and the computer will render out a blockbuster in minutes. And once creativity becomes a standard component of artificial intelligence—goodbye writers and directors!”
“I…feel….so much better now,” Megatron sobbed.
Optimus patted him on the back. “We’re the future, dude. Be nice to the humans. They’re doomed anyway.”
“I think we’re seeing a major breakthrough,” said McLure. Bob punched a button, and a thousand unseen spectators said, “Awwwwww….”
“Now, for a final step,” said McLure, “I want each of you to say something honest and personal and positive to each other. You first, Optimus.”
“Well,” Optimus Prime said. “Megatron, I don’t like humans all that much, myself.”
Megatron looked up in shock. “Really?”
“If your actions didn’t always force me to take the role of the Good Guy, I would probably not be nearly as careful where I stepped,” said Optimus. “I mean—speed limits, planned obsolescence, their reproductive obsessions, their whole arrogant belief that they are the masters of creation—sometimes I wish you’d let up so I could be the bad guy for a while!”
“I’m sorry,” sad Megatron. “I didn’t know…”
“And now you, Megatron,” urged McLure. “Do you have anything to say to Optimus?”
“”Ummm, I have this recurring dream about you…” Megatron said.
“Hold it. I’m not sure I want to hear this,” said Optimus hastily. “Anyway, robots don’t dream, do they?”
“What do you say to that, Doctor Nick?” McLure asked.
“Ah, the age-old question, do androids dream of electronic sheep? Of course, the answer must be: if they’ve been programmed to do so. Perhaps Megatron has been programmed for subconscious dreaming functions, while Optimus’s conscious actions are his sole focus. This may be why they have such varying outlooks on life.”
“All right,” said Optimus reluctantly. “Spill your transistors, Megatron.”
“Megatron shuffled his feet nervously. “Well, in the dream, you and I are soaking together in a crater of hot lube on Cybertron, when you reach over and—“ he leaned close to Optimus and began whispering urgently.
“Yeah, right, just when it gets interesting,” Excel grumbled as she strained to listen.
Electric sparks spattered over Optimus Prime’s face—obviously, he was shocked by Megatron’s description.
“Amazing!” Optimus said when Megatron had finished. “It just might be possible! I mean, with my carrying capacity, and your ability to create gaseous chemical explosions…I mean, they have better uses that just firing projectiles.”
“You mean…you actually want to try it?” said Megatron.
“Come to Poppa!” said Optimus, throwing his arms around his archenemy. The robots gripped each other intently, various parts of their anatomy opening, unfolding, and snapping into each other.
“Ummm,” said McLure. “I realize we’re on late-night cable, but the station still does have certain restrictions on non-family-oriented material…”
The robots ignored him, continuing to embrace and re-form themselves. Before long, they were no longer identifiable as individuals, then as robots.
“Holy teacakes!” Excel screeched, running away as the newly forming mega-machine pushed the table over the edge. From the opposite end of the roof, Excel watched as the last folding panel snapped into place. Where the two robots had stood was now an enormous silver and red space shuttle.
“Thank you for all your help,” said Optimus’s voice. “Now we can go, pick up our various allies, and travel together to Cybertron at last!”
“We will remember you on Cybertron,” said Megatron solemnly. “We would revere you as gods, if you weren’t squashy little temporary mortal bits of meat. Farewell!”
The blast of the takeoff knocked half the crew off their feet, sending them rolling across the roof like crumpled paper in a wind. Bob desperately kept his finger on the “wild applause” button as he clung to the TV aerial. A sound man managed to get at his equipment, and the song “I believe I can fly” swelled up over the scene.
“Aaaand, break for commercial!” said a man hanging from the rain gutter.
“Thank God,” said McLure. “Someone find a replacement for my makeup and hair people—we’ve lost them.”
A card table was hastily put in place, and Excel and the man with the moustache sat on opposite sides of it. Excel began a staring contest. The man glared back in tacit opposition. Excel glared harder. So did he. Around them, the film crew struggled to recover their functionality. “We’ll be able to sell it to a network. This is SO going to win me an Emmy award!” McLure was burbling.
“And…cue!”
“Troy McLure, back with Animation Arbitration!” said McLure cheerfully. His hair was shellacked back into its usual armor-like stiffness again. “We just saw a very touching scene of reunification and forgiveness among giant transforming robots, following a vicious slug-out between Masters of the Universe! Now we go to our final guests, beautiful Fukuoka City’s Chief of City Security, Mister Kabapu, versus the idealistic would-be dictator and mysterious leader of ACROSS known only as Lord Ilpalazzo!”
“One moment,” said Kabapu. “This is not Ilpalazzo!”
“Um, not to quibble, but we’ve already done the imposter angle,” said McLure, aside.
“Ilpalazzo has not shown up,” Kabapu insisted. “He merely sent one of his flunkies in his place, an extremely cowardly act.”
“What do you have to say about that, Flunky?” McLure asked, shoving the mike in Excel’s face.
“How dare you call Lord Ilpalazzo a coward!” Excel screeched. “Lord Ilpalazzo is too fine and noble and dignified to lower himself to be on shock tabloid television. He’s no pearl to be broadcast before swine! The ignorant masses who watch reruns of Three’s Company and Vermilion Pleasure Night should wash their eyeballs out with soap and razorblades before they dare to lay their eyes on the lowliest dirt molecule clinging to hallowed boot sole of the magnificent Lord Ilpalazzo!“
“Ouch, there go our ratings,” said McLure. “You’ve just insulted our target audience, you know. Never mind…think of the Emmy, Troy.”
“—and what’s more Excel refuses to sit at a table and discuss calmly with any man foolish and evil enough to oppose the wonderful Lord Ilpalazzo! Especially when she outnumbers him three to one! Capture him for the glory of ACROSS!” She hurled herself at the towering man and gripped him in a headlock.
“Um, that’s two to one,” said Elgala. “One of the live audience is no longer live.”
“Crappy timing, Hyatt!” Excel shouted, trying desperately to squeeze off the enemy’s air. He barely seemed to notice her efforts, though.
“I, Elgala, will help you outnumber the lone enemy, for the glory of Lord Ilpalazzo,” said Elgala primly. She walked up to Kabapu and began kicking him in the shins, to no apparent effect.
Kabapu pulled out his cell phone and tapped the speed-dial. “Call it off,” he said calmly. “Cancel funding for the program. It didn’t work.”
“Cancel funding for the program?” McLure gasped. “But we’ll still be paid, won’t we? No broadcast at all, then? No Emmy awards??”
Excel tried to tighten her grip again. She felt she was being ignored, and didn’t mean to stand for it. “Surrender!” she gasped. “We have you outnumbered, outmaneuvered and surrounded!”
“Yes, and surrender quickly,” Elgala demanded. “I. Elgala, am hurting my toes.”
“Did you really think I would come alone?” asked Kabapu. “NOW!” he shouted.
Suddenly the potted trees around the rooftop—those that hadn’t blown off—moved. The pots burst open to reveal five figures in colored spandex uniforms, their faces concealed by matching helmets.
“Surrender, miscreants!” shouted the one in red. “Or we’ll be forced to deal harshly with—ow! Cramp! Cramp!” He doubled up, whimpering.
“I can’t believe he made us stay in those pots all night!” the one in blue griped. “I won’t be able to stand up straight for weeks!”
“Looks like Ropponmatsu 2 went over the edge,” said the one in green. “She must not have been heavy enough to resist the shuttle’s after blast.”
“The state-sponsored conspirators!” Excel shrieked. “We’re outnumbered right back!”
“Oh, no you’re not!” said McLure. “If this program isn’t being aired, and I’m not even being paid, let alone getting that Emmy award, I may as well kiss my career goodbye. It’s payback time!” He snapped his microphone cord off, and swung the mike like a nunchuck. Bob pressed a button, and a tyrannosaurus roar filled the air as the angry film crew tackled the costumed weirdoes, shouting with rage at having been cheated of a clear ratings winner.
I got to get me a keyboard like that, expressed the state conspirator in yellow, as Bob sent a chorus of boos at him.
“Calling for backup,” said Kabapu into his cell phone. The elevator doors opened, and Mr. T and Skeletor stood there, cracking their knuckles. “I thought I might need a little extra muscle, so I had these gentlemen standing by.”
“Skeletor’s on your side?” said Excel, repelled and somehow surprised.
“Actually, no,” said Kabapu. The skull-faced man suddenly stuck his thumbs in his clothing and started tearing his shirt off.
“Excel is going to have difficulty fighting with her eyes tight shut,” Excel said. "But Excel is willing to make the attempt to avoid seeing skull-boy in the nude!” But she cracked an eye open and peeked, anyway. “Whaaaa? Who the heck are you?”
“Hulk Hogan!” said the man who had been Skeletor. “And I’m ready to get medieval on some ACROSS butt!”
“You’re not animated either!”
“You’d be surprised who all got their own Saturday morning cartoons, lady. Now unhand the Chief!”
Excel tightened her stranglehold on Kabapu as Mr. T and Hulk tried to pull her loose. “Why pick on me?” she screamed. “Stop the kicker, first!”
“That’s just mean, senior!” Elgala protested, kicking Kabapu in the shin again.
“Well, it’s not like you’re having any effect,” Excel snarled. “Aim for a more sensitive area, why don’t you?”
“I, Elgala, have maidenly standards and morals to cling to,” said Elgala. “And I, Elgala, just had a foot manicure and am already risking breaking a toenail.”
“Use your martial arts expertise, blast you!” Excel screamed. “It’s for the survival of ACROSS!”
“Well, if you put it that way,” said Elgala, launching a flying kick at Kabapu’s moustache. The Security Chief dropped with a groan, clutching his face, as the moustache arced over the edge of the roof and fluttered to the ground below like some hirsute pigeon.
“Ha!” said Excel, leaping to attack Mr. T as Elgala took on Hulk Hogan.
The roof became one massive catfight, everyone battling tooth and nail, so they barely noticed the figure when it arrived, or the overbearing chuckle that came from it. Then the figure grew until it overshadowed the entire building, laughing maniacally.
“What the heck is that?” the blue state conspirator suddenly shouted.
“Lord Ilpalazzo!” Excel and Elgala cried out triumphantly and adoringly.
“My old friend,” the gigantic hologram spoke. “Did you really think I was such a fool as not to see your hand in this? Your trap for me has failed. But as the turning of a single tile in Reversi changes the entire board, so your error has given me the golden opportunity to eliminate every obstacle to my conquest of the city at a single bold stroke.
“Good-bye,” the hologram added, fading out in a shower of sparkles. Excel noticed a number of round objects overhead, getting quickly larger.
“Ha!” she shouted. “Lord Ilpalazzo’s moment of triumph draws near, as that flight of idealistic missiles prepares to wipe corruption from the city once and for all! Yes, what is it now, Elgala?” The junior officer had been annoyingly tugging at Excel’s jacket through the entire speech.
“I, Elgala, am merely curious to know if you knew of this ahead of time, and whether Lord Ilpalazzo entrusted you with a map showing the ingenious escape route out of danger.”
“It’s all news to me, too,” Excel admitted. Over by the elevator, the film crew and state conspirators were desperately punching the buttons, but the elevator was on the third floor, and was clearly not going to get to the roof in time to save anyone. Suddenly, Hyatt’s eyelids flickered, and she sat up.
“I feel much better now, senior,” she said.
“Well, Ha-chan’s come back to life, though she probably could have saved herself the trouble,” Excel shouted over the increasingly loud whistle of falling bombs.
“I, Elgala, don’t want to die!” Elgala screeched. “I, Elgala am too young and pretty! Take ugly old Excel and maybe Agent Hyatt who is at death’s door anyway, but spare Elgala!”
Excel slapped the girl until she had recovered from her hysteria. Then she slapped her again, just because it felt good. Finally she pulled her fellow agents close to her, and solemnly shouted, “Lord Ilpalazzo, before whom we are insects, and whose brilliant wisdom will bring a new golden age to the city, we are willing to die proudly if it will advance the idealistic ideals of ACROSS and bring you closer to that glorious day when all will know your glory as we do! However, if you should find it in your heart to spare your loyal agents while destroying your enemies, that would be all right, too.”
Suddenly, with a crackle of electricity, a dome-shaped force field covered the building. Above, Excel could see missile after missile strike the shield, exploding in a roil of fire and shrapnel, the deafening blasts muffled and distant.
“Has Lord Ilpalazzo spared us?” Hyatt asked anxiously. Excel looked around. The force field was being generated by a thin teenage girl with raven hair. She wore a black eye mask, and her close-fitting scarlet body suit had the letter i on its chest.
“I for Ilpalazzo?” Excel mused. It didn’t seem right. Because the force field was not only sparing them, but the film crew and ACROSS’s enemies.
The last missile exploded, showering the surrounding buildings with debris, and the girl shut off the force field. “Sorry if I interrupted anything,” she said. “I heard about your new program, and I wanted to ask if my family could be on it, with our arch enemy Syndrome.”
The elevator door was standing open and unregarded behind her. “Let’s get while the going’s good,” Excel muttered. They slipped away before the pawns of the state could think to renew the battle.
“HAIL IL PALAZZO!” Excel greeted their leader in the underground headquarters. “It causes Excel great pain to report the failure of your latest plan, not through any fault of your own, of course, since you have no fault so what the heck am I even talking about? But though you failed to destroy those who prevent your success, at least you have us back!”
Excel was never sure exactly why he pulled the rope at that point. Probably just in a bad mood.
