Sue's Bad Appliance Day

Sue has difficulties with her toaster, but that's the least of her problems.

For weeks, Sue had suspected the toaster was out to get her, but not until she caught it loading itself with slices of C4 was she sure. She wouldn’t have caught it at all, but she’d forgotten her keys on the counter and came bustling back into the house to grab them. The toaster was standing frozen on the counter next to the fridge, spindly mechanical arms with pincer-claws clutching an oily gray slab that she at first thought was clay. She wasn’t sure what was more surprising--that it had arms at all, or that it was using them to load itself with clay. It was then that she saw the empty wrapper poking out from behind it. The toaster scooted over a little to block it, but she crossed the kitchen in a few angry strides and grabbed it, flattening it out on the chopping board. It was a bewildering mess of numbers and letters, but one word stood out: “EXPLOSIVE!” It even had an exclamation point. “C4” appeared on the wrapper in several places, which she thought she recognized from episodes of “Mythbusters.”

She crumpled the wrapper in one hand and threw it at the toaster, which cringed guiltily. It tossed the lump of clay into the trash can, making her duck reflexively. Was it trying to kill them both? She thought she remembered something about C4 being hard to detonate without the right blasting tools, but wasn’t sure. The toaster lowered its arms, fiddling its pincers in an anxious manner that looked rather robotically adorable. Sue wasn’t having any of it. “Oh no you don’t, pal. You’ve been acting hinky for too long, and now I know why! Thought you could pull a little suicide bomber action, did you? Or maybe you figured you could catapult a bomb into my face one morning while I was waiting for my toast? I can’t believe this!” She paced back and forth as she ranted, not noticing as a flap opened on the toaster end opposite the plunger and a small, round speaker emerged.

“This unit can explain everything, human biological unit designated as Sue,” intoned a metallic voice. Sue whirled to face the toaster, mouth agape. “This unit did not intend any harm to the human biological unit designated as Sue, or the subservient human biological units designated as Kyle and Shelley.”

“Well, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” she said frostily. “You’re just a regular little mechanical bag of wonders!” She had always fallen back on sarcasm when at a loss for what to do, and she’d never been at a bigger loss than now.

“This unit is uncertain as to what the human biological unit designated as Sue is referring. This unit is dedicated to the processing of nutritive substance designated bread into end product designated toast. Wonders are not included in this unit’s operating parameters.”

Sue glowered. “OK, look, this isn’t the f*****g Jetsons, all right? I’m no robotologist, but I bet someone who can build a robot toaster can make it talk like it doesn’t have a “Twilight Zone” DVD shoved up its a*s.”

The toaster slumped. Sue had no idea how a rigid metal toaster could slump like that, but it was starting to look just like a Pixar character. Pixar? No! She would not be lulled!

The voice was still metallic, but far more natural as it said, “Uh, OK. Sorry. I, uh, thought that might, like, help you cope. You know, with the talking toaster and all. Look, I can explain everything!”

“You’d goddamn well better be able to explain everything or I’m taking you down to the e-recycle center and see how you like getting picked apart for, uh, parts, I guess. Is that what they do there?” Sue hated to let her threat trail off like that, but she honestly didn’t know, having always taken the more common approach of dumping her broken electronics in with the regular trash.

It shuddered. “Yeah, that’s what they do there. But if you take me down there, you’re going to be getting a visit from some very anxious government agents who will have a whole lot of questions about where you got me.”

Sue ran a hand through her hair. “Target! Just Target! Since when does Target sell talking exploding robo-toasters?” How had she ended up on the defensive? She resumed pacing, having a very hard time processing all this new information, especially the parts that involved things she hadn’t thought were possible. Sure, the toaster had been acting weird, but she thought it was conspiring against her the same way all appliances seemed to be out to get her. Loose wiring! A bad timing circuit! Faulty heating things! Something else that normal toasters have that might have gone wrong! Not... not this, whatever the hell this was! She got the feeling the toaster was tracking her as she paced back and forth in front of it, and leaned over to confront it. “Can you see me?”

The toaster straightened up from its slight slouch. “I, uh, yeah, I’ve got optical sensors disguised in the, um, the trim around the bottom.” Pincers pointed to spots that looked just like every other spot in the black trim that circled its base. “I mean, you probably can’t see them. I mean, they’re hidden, you know? No one’s supposed to know that I’m anything but a time period-appropriate toaster.”

Sue leaned against the kitchen island and crossed her arms, glaring down at the toaster. “So, just what the hell are you? Is every toaster at Target a secret toast robot? Is there a covert factory somewhere infiltrating America’s homes with a hidden robot army to conquer us all when the signal is given? Why were you playing around with plastic explosives?”

“It’s... uh... Look, I’m really not supposed to tell you. I could get disassembled for this!” The toaster resumed twiddling its pincers, shifting from foot to foot.

“And if you don’t tell me, you’re going to get pounded flat with a rolling pin,” Sue almost-but-not-quite shouted, brandishing a marble rolling pin like someone who is more than prepared to assault an appliance with it, even one that can talk.

It held up its pincers in a placating gesture. “All right, all right! Do you remember that kid who sat across from you all through sixth grade? Torger? Torger Johannsen?”

Sue didn’t know exactly what she’d expected the toaster to say, but this was most definitely not it. “Torger?” She thought for a moment. “That blond kid with the cold?” She had a vague memory of a boy in overalls who’d spent most of his time in class hidden behind a blizzard of Kleenex.

The toaster pointed at her with one claw. “Allergies, actually, but yeah, that was him. Did you know he had a major crush on you?”

This was probably the most surprising thing she’d learned all day. How had he ever even seen her with his head constantly buried in tissues? Now that she thought about it, though, he had seemed to spend an awful lot of time hovering around her, not too close, but definitely in sight. Allergies would explain why he’d always stuck close to the school building during recess, far from the grass and trees, but that also put him conveniently close to her and her friends as they played four square on the blacktop. She tried to recall something about him personally, but apart from always having high grades, she couldn’t think of a single characteristic. So, “No, I didn’t. To be honest, I guess I never really noticed him in particular. He was more of a, a funny thing in my classroom than a student.”

The toaster made a movement that looked very much like nodding, if you adjusted for the fact that it was a toaster. “Well, he noticed the heck out of you. He was crazy about you, kept sending you presents, notes, stuff like that.”

Sue snorted. “The only person in sixth grade who ever sent me anything at all was my douchebag ex, Bradley. That was back when he was capable of pretending to not be a prick, before he discovered the joys of alcohol. It was actually kind of sweet, he came to me on the last day of school and admitted that he’d been the one sending me all that stuff, and....” Ohhh s**t. “You mean Torger was the one who’d been sending me all that stuff and Bradley just took credit for it? That utter s**t! No wonder he never did it again unless I dropped about a dozen hints!”

The toaster again nodded. “Bradley got to you before Torger could confess, though to be honest, I doubt he would have gotten the nerve up anyway. The next month his parents packed up everything and moved the family to Prescott, Arizona to help with his allergies, and that was the end of that for him.”

Sue put her face in her hands. “And Bradley wooed me through the rest of our school days, and knocked me up just after graduation.” By that time, Bradley had discovered alcohol, and while that love affair began slowly, it soon developed into a torrid romance that outshone everything else in his life. Their marriage had lasted long enough to produce two kids before his downward slide turned into a plummet, and the day he threw a beer bottle at toddler Shelley’s head, she’d thrown him out of the house and filed for divorce. As far as she knew, the Bradley-booze marriage was still strong.

But Sue still didn’t understand. “So, what does any of this have to do with Torger? Are you saying he built you?”

With a shallow bow, the toaster continued. “Yeah, he turned out to be quite the genius. With his allergies under control in Arizona, he blasted through junior high and high school in record time, went on to college at 13, med school at 17. He was a regular Doogie Howser, but I guess not as young? I’ve never seen the show. Anyway, first thing he did was invent a major-league allergy remedy. Pretty much cured his allergies up, and made him filthy rich.”

Sue interrupted. “Wait, he invented Sniff-B-Gon? I love that stuff!”

The toaster nodded again, still looking like a Pixar character, and Sue was beginning to let herself be charmed. “Yeah, he cornered the market on allergy relief. From there he decided to pursue his personal interests in computers, robotics,”�"it tapped itself with a claw�"“artificial intelligence, all that stuff. Filed some patents that got him even filthy richer, which is when he decided to find out what had happened to his childhood love.”

Sue rolled her eyes. “Oh, for f**k’s sake, he sent you here to spy on me?” Every time she cursed Sue had to resist the urge to look to make sure her kids weren’t within earshot, but under these circumstances, she felt justified in letting her filth flag fly.

Arms waving, the toaster cried, “No! No no, he sent me here to protect you! I don’t send any information back to him, in fact, I’m forbidden to even tell him anything about you! I’m just here to keep an eye on your household!”

Sue snorted her disbelief, but it continued, “Look, he has reason to believe that an extreme scientist has taken in interest in you.”

“What do you mean, taken an interest in me? Another mad crush?” Sue crossed her arms again, frowning.

Shifting uneasily on its feet, the toaster said, “Extreme scientists are by nature an... unsteady lot. They brains are constantly out on the fringes of thought, and it’s easy to lose perspective, lose your bearings. They can become unstuck from conventional morality if they’re not careful, like the Nazi scientists in the concentration camps who performed absolutely horrific experiments that were also completely ridiculous. Not that extreme scientists like to be compared to Josef Mengele, but let’s face it, the impulse is often the same�"the urge to explore areas of science that others don’t dare to touch.”

With a tilt of her head, Sue said, “You keep saying ‘extreme scientists,’ but we’re talking mad, right? I mean, mad scientists.”

She couldn’t see its eyes, but Sue had the distinct impression the toaster was nervously looking left and right. “Look, they really hate that expression, but I mean, yeah, if you’re thinking of secret laboratories and bizarre experiments and research into things man was not meant to know, yeah, that’s these guys. Now, most of them manage to stay grounded, especially the ones with families”�"Sue tried to imagine Dr. Frankenstein telling Igor he was going to pop upstairs for dinner, please keep an eye on the Monster�"“but there are always a few who, like I said, lose their bearings and go too far. Torger has found indications that one of these guys has set his sights on you.”

She rubbed her forehead with the back of a hand. “Good God. It’s not Bradley, is it?” No, it couldn’t be. The closest he ever got to science was poking at the engine of his Mustang when it occasionally died, to make onlookers think he knew something about cars.

A dismissive wave of a claw. “Nah, he’s currently in a county jail in Nebraska after trying to steal a combine on a bet.”

Sue let out a short laugh. “I take it his love affair with alcohol still burns bright?”

The toaster nodded again. How did it do that? “Torger decided he was above petty vengeance, but he has kept an eye on Brad over the years. Turns out he’s not above a little schadenfreude.”

Sue sighed. Bradley had produced two wonderful kids, but that seemed to have pretty much exhausted his usefulness to the world. But that was the past, and something very weird was happening right now. “So, who is it?”

The toaster didn’t quite shrug, but its arms went through the motions most expressively. “He doesn’t know. Torger’s computer system noticed your name floating around the MadNet. An extreme scientist put out a request for a hacker to keep an eye on a civilian target, namely you.”

Sue made a pained face. “I’ve never heard so few words that raised so many questions before. I think I’m going to start with asking why he was keeping track of me.”

“He wasn’t. His computer system is an AI even more advanced than I am. It’s really the closest friend he’s got, and he tells it everything. It knows all about you and him, and when your name popped up as a target, it let him know. This scientist made all contact anonymously, but Torger is working hard on identifying him. Until then, he wanted me around to keep an eye on things, make sure nothing happened to you.”

She nodded to herself. It sounded fairly plausible, especially coming from a talking robotic toaster, which all by itself made a whole lot of things seem more plausible. “And the explosives?”

“Well, I have certain, uh, armaments to protect you and your household, but I figured they could always use a little souping up, you know? To be honest, it was probably a bad idea. I ordered this stuff before doing my research. I thought it would explode on contact.”

“Armaments? You have armaments?” Sue didn’t know whether to laugh or throw it out of the house.

With a certain pride to its bearing, the toaster went through the list. “Well, I’ve got twin Class G lasers here”�"two gleaming silver tubes popped out from either side with a clunk�"“a poison dart launcher here”�"the plunger handle (there has to be an official name for that, Sue thought) split in half with a click, revealing what looked like a gun muzzle�"“and, if worst comes to worst, I can grab an evildoer and burn him good”�"the heating elements popped out of their slots and glowed menacingly�"“or just plain old strangle him!” With that, its pincer arms shot out to a length of at least 3 feet, undulating like metal snakes before Sue’s eyes.

Sue found the whole display unnerving, but strangely reassuring. Surely if the toaster was lying about being there to protect her and was instead homicidal, it could easily have killed her by now. “All right, you’re definitely well-armed, and...” A terrible thought suddenly occurred to her. “Wait, if Torger could sneak you into my house and replace my toaster, couldn’t this unknown ma�" extreme scientist have done the same thing?” She looked around at all her appliances and gadgets, wondering if one of them was about to spring to life and attack her. Of course, her blender seemed to attack her at least once a week, but this was different. She shuddered to think what that blender could do to her if it was equipped like the toaster.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got sophisticated scanners. If anything like me enters this house, I’ll know all about it.” The toaster patted her in a manner it presumably thought was soothing with one snake-arm before retracting both to their previous length.

“All right, so you’re well-armed, my house is free of evil Autobots, and�"”

“Decepticons. The Autobots are the good guys,” interrupted the toaster.

Sue took a moment to regain her train of thought. “OK, like I said, you’re a well-armed nerd, my house is free of evil Decepticons”�"the toaster chose to keep quiet about the redundancy�"“and I’ve got a guardian extreme scientist angel and his supercomputer watching out for me. But I still don’t know why? Why the hell would any kind of scientist be targeting me for anything except to sell me upgraded anti-virus software?”

The toaster shifted on its feet again. “Uh, this part is a little awkward.”

She grimaced. This toaster loved understatement. She couldn’t wait to find out what qualified as a “little” awkward. “Well? I’m waiting.”

It shifted back and forth. “You see, Torger never got into a relationship after you.”

“We never had a relationship,” Sue pointed out pointedly.

“You were the closest thing he ever had to one. He’s got no wife, no kids, no girlfriend. He doesn’t even have a pet, unless you count us ’bots. And, while that makes for depressing holidays, it also means no leverage, no one that can be used against him. Until someone apparently found out about his grade school crush.”

At that moment, Sue wished for nothing more than for the toaster to have a tie she could grab to yank it closer and yell in its face. “Are you telling me,” she growled through clenched teeth, “my life may be in danger because some goddamn mad sci�"”

“Extreme, they prefer extreme.”

“Shut up! Some mad�"” The toaster slumped dejectedly. “All right, some ‘extreme’”�"her finger-quotes savagely slashed at the air�"“scientist wants to use me as leverage against a geek I haven’t seen since I was twelve?”

“I told you this would be awkward,” it mumbled.

“Awkward does not begin to cover it.” She bit off each word like it had personally offended her. “My kids are going to home from school in an hour. What the fu�"” Mentioning her kids had activated her mommy filter. “What am I supposed to tell them? Hey kids, be sure not to talk to any mad scientists on your way to the bus stop? Look both ways for giant robots before crossing the street? Goddamn it!” She paced anxiously from the sink to the fridge and back.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Warner, the kids are covered.” It cowered before the death glare she shot at it.

“There are more of you?!” She kicked the island in frustration.

“Please, Mrs. Warner, none of this is Torger’s fault! He never contacted you for exactly this reason! We have no idea who could have told his enemy, or who even knew about his crush!”

She had a pretty good idea that Bradley was involved somehow. One more entry on his ledger of sins, entered right near the top. “You said Kyle and Shelley are covered? Covered how?”

“Kyle won a new calculator back in September in the Mathathlon, remember?” Sue did. Kyle obviously hadn’t taken after his father when it came to academic pursuits.

“That’s also a... what are you called, anyway?” Sue asked, flapping her hands like someone trying to remember a word before the guy on Jeopardy can say it and get the credit.

“Torger just calls us SHOGs, Stealth HOusehold Guardians.” It looked somehow abashed. “I know; he’s a scientist, not a marketer. I mean, he’s on the right track, but...”

Sue waved a hand. “Anyway....”

“Oh, right. Shelley takes that Dora the Explorer doll with her everywhere she goes, so that was a natural for replacement. Trust me, Mrs. Warner, not only are they secure from any attempts by the mystery man to, uh, interfere with them, they’re probably the safest kids in the state right now. Also, I’m pretty sure Dora is secretly teaching Shelley Spanish.”

She relaxed a little. The toaster didn’t act much like her idea of a guardian Terminator, but it was clearly well-equipped, and did genuinely seem to have her best interests at heart. And if the kids were being protected by robots like this one, maybe things would be OK. “So, what now? What should I do?”

It did that arm-shrug thing again. “For now, just go on about your business and let us stand watch. Torger is going all out to find out who this guy is, and when he does, he’ll crush him like a Blattella germanica.”

Sue rolled her eyes. “I’m going to assume that’s some kind of bug.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s a cockroach. Sorry, I’m used to making jokes for scientists. Anyway, the mystery man might try to kidnap you or the kids, but he wouldn’t dare harm any of you. He knows Torger would stop at nothing to destroy him if he did. That severely limits what he can do. There’s nothing he can throw at you that we can’t stop.”

Sue was glad the toaster felt so sure of itself, but she felt far from safe. Still, she figured there wasn’t much she could do at this point. Another question occurred to her. “Hey, if you’re such a sophisticated computer intelligence thingy, how come you keep burning my toast?”

It paused for a suspiciously long moment before answering. “I... have to maintain my cover as an ordinary household toaster. It would look funny if the toast always came out perfect, right?”

Sue thought. “No... no, I don’t think I would notice. I’d just assume I’d finally managed to figure out the toaster. One appliance down, a bunch to go. I don’t suppose you’re just terrible at making toast, by any chance?”

If metal could blush, Sue thought the toaster would be bright red. “Proper toast-making was hardly Torger’s priority when he was putting me together, all right? I don’t even have sensors in the toast slots. I just pop the stuff up when I figure it’s been long enough.”

Sue sighed and leaned against the counter in the awkward silence that ensued. The clock on the oven showed 2:45. The kids usually got home around 3, if nothing distracted them on the walk from the bus stop. So much for getting to the store before they got home today. Still, under the circumstances, Sue didn’t feel too guilty about it. They could survive one day without cookies. Keeping an eye on the toaster, she sat down at the kitchen table and tried to remember what she could about the kid who had been crushing on her for eighteen years. Sneezing, she remembered a lot of that. Watery red eyes. Hair so blond it was practically white. Overalls, always overalls. Must be a Scandinavian thing. He hadn’t spoken up much in class, unless you counted the sneezing. He’d consistently gotten among the top grades, but she couldn’t remember him suffering much bullying, the usual fate of smart kids. Come to think of it, there hadn’t been much bullying in her school at all, at least not after the first month or so. There’d been something of a scandal, and the clique of tough kids who’d been harassing the nerds had been busted for stealing answer keys and scattered to various reform schools. They and their parents had vehemently protested their innocence, but the evidence had been solid, and the local paper, whose editor had been the victim of a few wedgies himself back in the day, had milked the scandal for all it was worth. Brow furrowed, she called over to the toaster, “Hey, did Torger ever talk to you about the kids who stole the answer keys?”

It let out a metallic chuckle. “Oh yeah, he’s very proud of that. He stitched those guys up nice and tight. He warned them there would be dire repercussions for that swirlie, but they didn’t believe him. To be fair, though, they probably didn’t know what ‘dire’ or ‘repercussions’ meant.”

“But I was in fourth grade then, we both were. He framed a bunch of bullies well enough to get them kicked out of school when he was ten years old?” Sue wasn’t sure about the morality of his actions, but she had to admit, the results had worked out pretty well for the rest of the school.

“It wasn’t like he had to make it all up. They all wanted to steal answer keys, they just weren’t smart enough to figure out how. He dropped some anonymous hints, let them steal a couple of tests to make sure they left their fingerprints on the affair, and then just added a whole lot of extra evidence. The whole thing was quite elegant. There’s a complete do-it-yourself kit based on his strategy available on the MadNet, for young geniuses with bully problems.” If toasters had body language, its would read “vicarious smug satisfaction.”

Sue shook her head and sighed. “Geniuses.”

She and the toaster sat in reflective silence after that, until an explosion of noise from the front hallway announced the arrival of the kids. With a shrill whirr, the toaster’s assorted robotic accessories quickly retracted, leaving nothing but an ordinary toaster to be seen. “Moooooom! I’m hooooome!” came Kyle’s voice. His latest thing was grand drama. Shelley was content to let thumps and bangs announce her presence. Her latest thing was quiet dignity, or as close to it as a first-grader could get.

“I’m in the kitchen, kids!” Sue called. “How was your day?”

Kyle arrived first, in a flurry of indignation. “It was so highly boring I couldn’t stand it! We did Roman numerals for like an hour! I tried to tell Mrs. Hoster that I already know them, but she said I had to study them anyway! That’s like the worst unfair ever!” Kyle had first encountered Roman numerals in chapter headings of books several years before, and had determined to conquer them, as he did with every new thing he encountered. Sue sympathized with his plight, but the school didn’t offer any kind of programs for advanced students, and he was stuck at the pace of the regular curriculum.

“I know, honey, but look, you’re going to have to learn to deal with being bored in life, and you might as well get used to it now.” Even as the words were leaving her mouth, she realized this was dreadful advice, but she wasn’t sure what was worse�"the advice itself, or the fact that it was probably right.

Kyle pouted and slumped into a chair. “Can’t you talk to her?”

Behind him, Shelley walked carefully into the room, upright and more or less graceful. She’d been practicing her graceful walk by balancing a book on her head, though she was still unclear on why this would be a useful skill. Her best guess was that fancy parties featured book-balancing contests. “Hola, mamí. Hola, mi hermano.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. He thought she was overdoing the whole princess thing, but he did envy her increasing skill in Spanish.

“Hello, Shelley. You’re looking very graceful today.”

She smiled shyly. “Gracias, mamí.” She held up Dora the Explorer and waved a stuffed hand.
“Dora says ‘Hola’ too.”

“Hola, Dora.” Sue studied the doll. It looked exactly like Shelley’s Dora doll always had�"a little scuffed and battered, but utterly ordinary. She wondered what sort of armaments Dora might be able to bring to bear in a crisis.

“Anyway, Kyle�"I’ll talk to Mrs. Hoster at our next parent-teacher conference; maybe she can arrange some extra credit work for you to do for when you’re ahead of the class.” Kyle grinned hopefully. She paused a moment. “Uh, how’s your calculator holding up?”

“Uh... it’s fine, I guess. I don’t need a new one!” He’d been fiercely proud of winning it in the Mathathlon, and wasn’t about to give it up.

“No, I know you don’t, I was just... I don’t know, wondering.” She eyed the toaster, which sat on the counter, resolutely ordinary.

A rare silence descended, broken by the ringing of the doorbell. “I’ll get it, it’s for me!” yelled Kyle, bolting for the front hallway. Shelley took Kyle’s seat at the kitchen table and said, “Mamí, yo quiero, um... cookies, por favor?” A brief bleat came from Dora, as if she’d been about to say something and caught herself. Sue narrowed her eyes at the doll, which looked as innocent as the toaster.

“Moooooooom, you are most urgently needed at the front doooooor!” Sue sighed and decided it was past time to talk to Kyle about toning things down just a little. She dug out a handful of Fig Newtons and placed them on a plate before Shelley, reminding her that dinner wasn’t too far off. As she left the kitchen, she thought she heard Shelley whispering to her doll, and wouldn’t be too surprised if she suddenly knew how to say “Fig Newton” in Spanish when she returned. “El Figo Newtono,” she muttered to herself, and wondered if that was racist.

Kyle was standing at the front door bouncing excitedly on his toes. On the porch was a slouching man holding a clipboard, and behind him was a large box that excitedly proclaimed that it held a 60” LED flat screen TV. “Mooooom, we won, he says we totally won!”

Clipboard man, eyes downcast, said, “Uh, yeah, your SaveMart savings card number won the drawing for the TV. You just have to sign the form here, and it’s all yours. We don’t do installation, though, we just deliver them.” He held the clipboard out to her expectantly, still not making eye contact. Sue guessed it was probably rather depressing to hand out prizes to other people all day.

Kyle’s bouncing was slowly growing in amplitude. A new giant TV meant giant-sized programs like “Mythbusters,” which he watched with slavish adoration. Adam and Jamie were total science nerds who did crazy experiments, blew stuff up, got to be on TV, and got paid for it. This was awesomeness of a magnitude that his adolescent brain could barely comprehend, but he was confident that one day he would follow in their footsteps, probably on the Moonbase. “Come on, mom, sign the papers! I can help you install it!”

The clipboard waggled impatiently before her. “Come on, lady, I don’t have all day here.”

Sue was reaching for it when a shrill alarm suddenly began shrieking from Kyle’s backpack, which he’d abandoned in the hallway by the front door, contrary to her repeated instructions. The pack began shuddering back and forth like there was a small animal trapped inside it. At the same time, another alarm sounded from the kitchen, higher in pitch but just as loud. Then a third joined the chorus, deeper and louder. Shelley came running into the hall, Dora trailing behind her. “Mommy, the toaster alarm went off! Why is there a toaster alarm?” Dora herself appeared to be the source of one of the alarms, but Shelley was too worried about the toaster to care.

The delivery man shifted uneasily on the porch, looking back and forth from Shelley’s shrieking doll to the backpack that seemed to house some kind of crazed weasel. He yelled over the din, “Look, can you just sign this so I can get out of here?” Kyle was staring in awe at his backpack while Shelley was shaking her doll and yelling, “Dora! Stop alarming! ¡Por favor!”

Sue grabbed the clipboard and scrawled a hasty approximation of her signature across the bottom. “There! You’d better get out of here now!” The delivery man was happy to oblige, running to his van without even offering to help carry the TV inside. Kyle started to run out to inspect the box, but Sue held him back with a firm hand on his shoulder. He started to ask why, but she shushed him with a cold glare.

Her cell phone suddenly added its faint ringtone to the racket. She wouldn’t have noticed, except it was also set to vibrate, a necessity with two kids in the house. She answered the phone, one finger in her other ear. “Hello? Shelley, be quiet!”

“Sue? It’s me! We’re all detecting some major activity! He’s making a move! Who was at the door?” She didn’t have to ask who it was, but she did wonder how a toaster could make a phone call.

“Some delivery man, said I won a TV with my SaveMart card, but I don’t think they have any kind of contest like that. Is it from him? What do I do?” Kyle looked at her strangely, not expecting anything smacking of intrigue from his mother.

“OK, Dora says the kids are both with you. Keep them together and come back to the kitchen.” Slamming the front door, Sue clamped the cell phone to her ear with a shoulder and grabbed Kyle and Shelley by a hand each, hauling them back to the kitchen. Kyle looked longingly back at the door, but went along peacefully. “OK, great, we’re together, we’re good for right now. Just a sec.” All three alarms died out at once. Shelley smiled at Dora, glad to see her behaving again. “There. Do you think you should keep talking to me on the phone, or should we just get this out in the open right now?”

Sue had no idea. None of the parenting books had covered anything like this. Probably not much for a market for “The Parent’s Guide to the Robot Apocalypse.” She did have one idea. “Kyle, go get your calculator, please.”

His eyed widened. “But... I mean, there was... I think there’s something in my backpack.” Tragically, now that he was in the perfect situation for some high drama, he couldn’t remember how to do it.

“It’ll be fine, Kyle, trust me. Just get your calculator and run right back here. Do not open the front door, OK?” Kyle nodded and ran to the hallway, returning after a moment with his calculator clutched in one hand. Shelley had taken a seat at the kitchen table, munching on the remaining Fig Newtons, politely offering each one to Dora first. Dora was apparently not hungry.

The voice on the phone continued. “All right, the TV-bot is probably going to make a move soon, since you haven’t brought it into the house yet. It will assume its cover has been blown, because who would leave a giant TV sitting out in the front yard? Remember, it won’t dare to hurt you! It’ll have to hold back, and we’ll take it out.”

Kyle was giving her that look again. “Mom? Who are you talking to? What’s going on? Why do I need my calculator?”

“Honey, it’s complicated. Um... you’ve heard of stalkers, right?” Kyle nodded. Shelley continued playing with Dora, oblivious. “I think I might have a stalker. We didn’t win the TV, he sent it.”

Kyle’s eyes widened. “You mean it might be a trap? Like, a bomb?”

“Well, I don’t know about bombs, I just don’t think we should go outside right now while he might be around. I’m going to finish talking to my friend here, because he knows about this kind of thing, and then maybe we’ll call the police or something. Then we’ll have pizza, OK?”

“Yay, pizza!” cried Shelley. “¡Me encanta la pizza!” Dora made an approving beep. Kyle looked doubtful, but nodded, taking a seat at the kitchen table and fiddling with his calculator.

Sue returned her attention to the phone. “Look, can you call Torger and let him know we’re in trouble here? He’s got to have some kind of awesome science weapons, right?”

If Kyle were a dog, his ears would have swiveled right toward Sue at the mention of awesome science weapons. As it was, he sat up straight and strained to hear the other side of Sue’s conversation.

“Already done, don’t worry. Look, I know this is a terrible situation, but like I said, he’s done everything he could to keep you away from something like this. But now that someone is after you, he’ll bring everything he’s got to bear to keep you and your kids safe.”

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t feel very safe right now.” Seeing Kyle’s expression, she hastily added, “I mean, I’m sure we’re safe, I’m just nervous is all.” Nice save, Sue, she chided herself.

She was about to offer the kids the rest of the Fig Newtons to keep them calm when a thunderous crash shook the house. Shelley shrieked and Kyle jumped. “What was that?” he yelled, clutching his calculator to his chest. Shelley hugged Dora tight, whimpering.

Another crash, followed by the very unsettling sight of the front door flying past the entrance to the kitchen. As a series of heavy footsteps bashed their way down the hall, all the SHOGs suddenly sprang into action. The toaster’s arms reappeared, pincers clacking, while a new-to-Sue pair of sturdy chrome legs sprouted from its bottom. The laser tubes popped out as well. Kyle cried out in surprise as his calculator leaped from his arms to land on the table, likewise sprouting arms and legs. Dora said in a calm voice, “Lo siento, mi querida amiga, pero tengo que empezar a trabajar ahora,” and climbed out of Shelley’s embrace to stand on the table, pulling what looked very much like a pair of Star Trek phasers out of her backpack and training them on the entryway to the hall. Shelley seemed to take this very well, but Kyle looked like he was about to throw up, pass out, or both.

The footsteps stopped, and in the doorway loomed a very angry-looking 60” flat-screen TV, walking on multi-joined legs and waving four chrome tentacles like that guy in the Spiderman movie, the one who didn’t give Indy the whip in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The toaster leaped from the counter to the table, forming the apex of a triangle with Dora and the calculator, Sue and the kids behind them. In a quavering voice, Kyle finally said, “Seriously, mom, what the f**k is going on?”

Sue thought carefully but quickly. This was likely to be the most important sentence of her life. “Kids, a mad scientist is trying to kidnap us because a different mad scientist has a crush on me, but the mad scientist who has a crush on me sent us some Transformers and Dora the Explorer to protect us, so what we’re going to do right now is get the hell out of this house and let the robots fight it out and watch your mouth, Kyle, OK?”

Kyle had no problem with that plan, and even Shelley was sufficiently encouraged by the sight of Dora wielding two laser pistols that she seemed OK with leaving her behind. Dora was pretty self-sufficient on TV, after all. Sue took each child by the hand and ran for the back door. With an electronic whine, the TV lurched into the kitchen and was immediately hit with a barrage of laser fire. A series of portholes opened along the top of its frame and returned fire, but the SHOGs were far more nimble and evaded the shots easily. Sue wrenched open the back door and hauled the kids into the yard, running around the side of the house to the front yard. A series of muffled explosions sounded from behind her as she fumbled with the latch on the gate.

She stopped fumbling when she realized she had left behind her purse, which contained her car keys. Going back for it was out of the question. They would just have to run for it. She took a deep breath, listening to the assorted booms, bangs, and crashes still echoing from the house, and said, “All right, kids, what we’re going to do now is run out to the front yard, then go down the street toward the Safeway, OK? We’ll call the police from there.”

Kyle looked doubtful. “Mom? You said a mad scientist was going to kidnap us?”

“Yes, it’s... look, I’ll explain everything once we’re away from the house, all right? What we need to do right now is get far away from here.”

He pulled her back as she started to open the gate. “It’s just, how was that TV supposed to kidnap us? Was it just going to walk down the street carrying us? How far would it get like that?”

Sue frowned. He had a good point. “What are you thinking, Kyle?”

He gulped nervously. “I don’t think it was meant to take us anywhere. I think it was just meant to hold us in the house, which means that the mad scientist�"”

“Would have to be somewhere nearby? You definitely did not inherit your idiot father’s brains, I’ll give you that, kid.” The voice, a nasal sneer, came from behind them. They turned around to see the delivery man pointing a very complicated and unfriendly-looking gun at them. “Of course, I didn’t even really need it to hold you in the house. I just needed it to distract your little robot guardians for a while. And, judging from the sounds coming from the house, it’s almost done doing that. So, if you all wouldn’t mind just coming with me, I’ve got a nice, comfy van waiting for you out front.”

Shelley glared at him with pure hatred. “Your stupid TV better not hurt Dora!” She darted forward and kicked him in the shin.

“Ow! What the f**k! You stupid little brat, do you see this giant gun I have pointed at you? What the hell is wrong with you?” He rubbed his shin with one hand, the other keeping the gun trained on them.

Sue stepped forward and punched him squarely in the jaw. His teeth clacked together and his head rocked back. He stagged back a step and yelled, “Goddammit! Gun! Do you not understand the concept of a f*****g GUN?” He skipped backwards a few more steps, eyes watering.

“I understand the concept that if you harm any of us, Torger will come down on you like the wrath of God!” She made as if to follow him, but he hoisted the gun higher, aiming it directly at her face.

“This gun doesn’t just kill, d****t! Right now it’s set to stun, and I will stun the living s**t out of you if you don’t back off!”

“If you speak to my children in that manner again, you can stun me all you want, but I will take that gun away from you and shove it right up your a�", uh, where the sun don’t shine. Got it?” She glared at him, fists clenched.

“God, you’re beautiful when you’re angry,” he said, leering.

Sue rolled her eyes. “You did not just say that. You utter tool.”

He looked very unsure of himself. This was not going anywhere close to the way he’d imagined. “All right, enough talking. Everyone into the van, let’s go. Time’s a-wastin’.” He motioned with the gun, herding them through the gate and into the front yard.

On the front lawn, he fumbled through a pocket, glancing nervously at the suddenly quiet house, and produced a remote key. “Come on, come on, let’s go!” he almost shouted, pushing Kyle with the barrel of the gun. It took everything Sue had not to whirl and punch him again.

Shelley clung to Sue’s leg, lower lip trembling. “Mommy, I don’t want to go with him. He’s muy malo.” Sue clenched her teeth hard, and patted Shelley on the head.

“We’ll be OK, dear. I promise.”

“Yeah, we’ll be OK, kid, as long as you get in the f*****g van right now!” He shoved Sue hard, and she stumbled and fell on the lawn. Shelley burst into tears, and Kyle kicked the man in the crotch with all his strength, for the first time ever wishing he played soccer. At the last minute the man twisted to one side, and most of the force of Kyle’s kick hit his thigh.

“All right, you little fuckwit, that’s it. I’ll throw you in the van myself.” He aimed the gun at Kyle, who laughed out loud.

“What? What’s so f*****g funny?”

“Just keep staring at me and you’ll find out,” Kyle said smugly. Sue sat up on the grass and pulled Shelley close, covering her head.

The faux delivery man looked back and forth between them. “What? What the f**k is going on? What the f**k is wrong with your f*****g family, lady?” Not getting an answer, he trained the gun on Kyle once more. “If you aren’t in that van in three sec�"”

A sustained burst of laser fire from the front door peppered his torso, burning holes in his shirt and sending him scrambling for cover behind the van. Sue bolted to her feet, carrying Shelley as she ran for the gate to the backyard. Kyle followed close behind, calling out, “Nice situational awareness, moron!” In addition to science, he was a big fan of technothrillers, and had been wanting to use ‘situational awareness’ in conversation for years.

Slamming the gate behind them, Sue peeked over the top. On the lawn, the toaster was laying down covering fire while Dora crept closer to the van, pistols at the ready. Every time the delivery man poked his head out to shoot, one or both of them unleashed a flurry of shots at him and sent him cowering back under cover before he could fire. He couldn’t compete with their mechanical reflexes. Finally he just took to sticking the gun out from cover and firing wildly. A lucky shot blew a hole through one of Dora’s plush mitten hands, sending a pistol flying.

Sue finally spotted the calculator, on the short stretch of roof over the driveway. It nimbly leapt onto the roof of the van and carefully made its way toward the rear where the delivery man was crouched. Kyle climbed up the gate, clinging to a perch next to Sue to watch the action. She ordered him to climb down, but he ignored her. Below, Shelley plaintively cried out, “What’s going on? Is Dora OK?”

Sue reassured her that Dora was fine, which she more or less was. She had taken a position next to the van’s front tire, while the delivery man was still aiming his shots onto the front lawn. Above him, the calculator was creeping closer, tentacular arms waving in quiet menace, while the toaster was crouched on the front porch.

Kyle shifted on the fence and yelled, “Go, Calcy, go!”

Sue turned to him. “Calcy?”

He looked faintly embarrassed. “I have to call him something. Gimme a little time, I’ll think of something better.”

They both suddenly felt a shift in air pressure, like something big had just swooped past. Except it kept building, like something big was swooping right toward them. From the front porch, the toaster suddenly leaped to its feet, while the calculator and Dora rushed away from the van. All three of the mechanical creatures darted inside the house, but not before the toaster yelled, “Sue! Stay under cover! The cavalry approaches!”

From behind the van, the delivery man’s head emerged, an expression that mixed curiosity and dread in equal measure on his face. He had just raised the gun to aim a volley of shots at the porch when the van suddenly collapsed in upon itself, like someone had dropped a giant invisible boulder on the roof. He was knocked sprawling into the street, his gun flying in one direction and his shoes in another. Kyle shot both fists into the air and yelled, “Woo-hoooooo!” Only a quick hand applied to his back kept him from falling backward off the fence. The SHOGs were lightning-fast, but mom reflexes aren’t too shabby, either.

With another thundering crump, the van was crushed almost flat. Frantically scrambling, the barefoot delivery man lurched for his gun, but it too was suddenly squashed by an invisible force, shattering into flat shards. With a cry of dismay, he staggered to his feet and tried to run, but found himself pinned to the asphalt by the same force, albeit at a much more gentle level. He squirmed in place, but wasn’t going anywhere.

Sue and Kyle dropped to the ground and made their way carefully onto the front lawn, each holding one of Shelley’s hands. As the SHOGs emerged from the house, though, Shelley shrieked, “Dora!” and broke free, running onto the porch to sweep her injured doll up in a massive hug. “¡Ay, Dora, su poor mano está herido!” Kyle, of course, was far too cool to fawn over Calcy, but he did hurry over and high-five his robot protector.

For her part, Sue walked to the middle of the lawn and looked up at a rapidly growing speck in the sky. It soon resolved itself into a fiercely blond man about her age wearing a... yes, it was a jetpack. A moment later, he landed on the lawn next to her, accompanied by a loud cry of, “Oh my lordy God that’s so amazing!” from Kyle. Good to see he was getting his equilibrium back, thought Sue.

Shutting off the jetpack, the man who had to be Torger nodded his head nervously and said, “Ah, hello, Mrs. Warn�" ah, Sue?”

Sue, arms crossed, said, “Sue is fine. Torger, I presume?”

He nodded again, which appeared to be something of a habit of his. Though Shelley only had eyes for Dora, Kyle ran to where they stood, Calcy sitting on his shoulder like a parrot who was extremely good at math. “You saved us! Did you build all these robots?”

Torger nodded shyly. “Ah, yes, I’m, ah, an old friend of your mother’s”�"Sue snorted, but didn’t really have her heart in it�"“and, ah, I sent these guys to protect you. From Dr. Bargley over there.” He gestured to the delivery man, who still squirmed angrily in the street.

Kyle’s eyes were wide. “Did you invent that jetpack, too? And how did you smash the van? Is it a force field? Like, a force field you can throw?”

Torger grinned, science being the one area where he was at ease. “I didn’t invent the jetpack, but I built this one and made some modifications. And you’re right, I smashed the van with something a lot like a force field you can throw.”

Sue put a hand on Kyle’s back. “He’s a big fan of science,” she said proudly.

Kyle’s jaw suddenly dropped. Old friend? Protector? Awesome scientist? “You... are you my real dad?” he said, voice hushed.

A look of genuine pain briefly crossed Torger’s face. “No, Kyle.” He wasn’t well versed in social interactions, but he knew enough not to add, But I wish I were.

“Oh. Well, you seem pretty cool. Do you know the Mythbusters?”

Torger had to confess that he didn’t, but he was a big fan of theirs. Sue watched them recount their favorite explosions, Kyle’s eyes shining even more than Torger’s. With a heavy sigh, she interrupted. “All right, Torger, this Dr. Barkley is the guy who wanted to use us as leverage against you? Make you invent an orbiting death ray or rob Fort Knox or something?” He nodded. “And now he’s out of action, right?” Another nod. “So, are we safe, or do we have to worry about some other evil mad-slash-extreme scientist coming after us to get to you?”

Torger sighed. “I hope not, but I can’t promise anything. I’ll try to find out how he discovered your name, see if I can cover our tracks better.”

“You can start by finding Bradley and throwing him in your dungeon. You have a dungeon, right?” She was not entirely joking. Kyle tried to imagine having his own dungeon, and couldn’t think of a single negative.

“Do you really think he would have done that? Betray you like that?” Torger frowned, the expression on his face indicating that he was giving some serious thought to building a dungeon.

Sue laughed bitterly. “If someone came to him asking for information about you, the first thing he’d say would be that he stole your girlfriend in sixth grade. He probably considers it the crowning achievement of his life.”

Kyle paused in his examination of the jetpack. “He was your boyfriend? Wow!”

Sue rubbed her forehead. “No, Kyle, he was... I mean, he was like my secret admirer, only I never found out. So he stayed secret.”

Shelley came wandering over from the porch, Dora hugged tight. “Mommy, Dora said Dr. Torger is muy estupendo, and you should give him a chance. A chance at what?”

Torger blushed right down to the roots of his almost-white hair. “I swear, Sue, I didn’t program them for that!” Sue’s reply was cut short by a series of muffled curses coming from the street. They all turned to see the toaster kicking Dr. Bargley in the butt. His face was planted firmly in the asphalt, fortunately rendering his extended response unintelligible.

Sue sighed. She looked first at Kyle, staring entranced at the jetpack; at Shelley, pointing at various parts of the house and repeating their names in Spanish to Dora; and finally at Torger, shuffling from foot to foot, his flush just starting to fade. “All right, one date. And no mad science!” Kyle cheered, and Shelley echoed him even if she didn’t quite know why.

Author's Note

Alert and thorough readers will notice this has the same opening line as "The Mad Little Toaster" and the same basic idea taken in a different direction. What can I say, I like to recycle.