Land of the Giants – Battle Bots

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

It's been awhile since I had a good idea for an Astro story. This one will be a crossover between Irwin Allen's "Land of the Giants", and "Battle Bots"

Chapter 1.

Atom sat in the cockpit of the experimental deep space transport. So far his mission had been rather boring, the computerized robot ship had been performing perfectly. The Spindrift was the Ministry of Science's latest development, and Professor Ochanomizu was optimistic that the craft would enable the exploration of the outer regions of the solar system.

“Day eight, and I'm already beyond the orbit of Neptune,” Atom dictated into the ship's log. “My speed has already passed twenty percent of C, and is still increasing. With any luck I'll reach the edge of the Oort cloud soon, and then the Heliopause as well.”
The boy robot closed the log recorder and busied himself with scanning his instruments again. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he'd noticed one of the indicators twitching into the yellow zone, but at the moment all of the system readouts were now in the green. It must have been a glitch, but that worried him.

Atom turned on the telescopic view port and swung the field of view in a 360 degree arc around his ship. Except for the stars glowing brightly against the backdrop of space, there was nothing unusual to observe. One hundred eighty degrees behind him, the telescope picked up the dim image of a blue green dot against the inky blackness. Atom sighed as he stared at the tiny, almost invisible dot that he knew was his home, the Earth.
Suddenly, an alarm sounded. Atom quickly spotted the readout that was now glowing red, the same one that he had seen subliminally minutes ago blinking yellow. It was the gravity field indicator, and it was giving a clear warning that the ship was caught in a very strong gravitational pull. Right ahead of him, filling his view screen the very fabric of space seemed to be shimmering like the air above a hot asphalt road during the hottest part of a summer day.

“What's going on?” Atom asked himself. He debated going EVA to get a better look, but the ship lurched forward like a fishing floater bob, after the bait had been swallowed hook, line, and sinker by a whale. His computer brain had already analyzed the available information now quickly scrolling down the main computer monitor screen, and he had a good idea what had suddenly grabbed hold of the Spindrift. Atom quickly entered a course change directive into the navigational computer and activated the change. The ship bucked like a bronco as the hyper drive shifted into full power.

He made another entry into the ship's log, and transmitted his status back to the Ministry, though he knew it would be many hours before the radio transmission would be picked up. “All the instruments have suddenly gone bananas,” Atom spoke into the microphone. “It seems that the ship has entered the sphere of influence of a mini black hole that is orbiting the outer regions of the Oort cloud. I haven't been able to break free of its gravity, though I'm hoping I can sling shot the ship around it.”

The distortion in the view screen increased as the ship accelerated. Atom felt the G forces building, and he was squashed down into his seat, unable to move. Being a robot he didn't black out from the gigantic weight that his body felt pressing down on him, but he couldn't move either. The ship began to spin as its momentum flung it in a tight arc around the invisible body that had tried to suck it into the well created in the space-time by its incredible mass. It seemed like an eternity, but eventually the G forces began to ebb, and the space in front of the ship began to take on its proper appearance once again. Most of the ship's power systems were now off line, in executing the high power maneuver to escape from the black hole, he had used up almost all of the ship's fuel, and had damaged a few critical systems.

Atom, now able to move, took a look around his craft with the telescopic scanner. None of the constellations of stars looked familiar to him, it was as if the ship had been thrown many light years from its previous position into another region of the galaxy, or even another galaxy! Directly ahead of him was a blue green planet. Except for the fact that the various land masses looked nothing like the shapes of Earth's major continents, the planet could have been a twin of the one he'd left a bit over a week ago.

The Spindrift was being pulled into orbit around the world, and there was nothing that Atom could do to prevent that. He hoped that if he could somehow make a soft landing, he might be able to effect repairs, that is if he could locate a source of the rare elements that served as fuel for the hyper drive.


Elvis Costello flinched from the pain inflicted on his digit from the tip of the hot soldering iron. “OUCH!” he yelled, dropping the tool and sticking his finger into his mouth to cool the skin, which had already started to blister. “Damn it!”, he yelled, “this bot is cursed!”

Dick Murphy tried to suppress a burst of laughter, but still released a bit of a cackle. “Sorry Elvis,” he smirked, “Looks like you'll never get that stomper working. I told you that a tank bot was the way to go.”

“Ugh!”, the younger man grimaced. “Tanks have no personality. I'm going to get this humanoid walker going if it kills me. It may not have the mass of your heavy beast, but it will be much more maneuverable.”

“And defenseless,” Murphy added. “Battle bots have to inflict damage to win, they can't just keep getting out of harms way.”

“I've got some secret weapons under development that nobody knows about yet,” Costello countered. “If I could only finish the computer systems without soldering myself!”

Dick moved in closer to get a better view of the small circuit board that his friend was trying to build. “That think is too tiny, how can you see what you're doing?”

“With great difficulty,” Elvis agreed, as he removed the magnifier glasses from his face.



The hull of the Spindrift glowed a dull orange color as it fell through the upper atmosphere of the planet. Atom was now close enough to the surface to make out details on the major land masses. He could clearly identify what looked like towns and cities, this world was clearly inhabited by an intelligent civilization quite similar to the Earth. With that in mind, he tried to control the ship's re-entry flight pattern to land outside of any major city, he didn't want to be discovered by the inhabitants until he was sure they weren't hostile. As he got closer to the ground he became aware of the matter of scale, the structures on the ground were huge compared to those on the Earth, he quickly realized that the beings inhabiting this world were much larger than Earth humans.

The ship was now bouncing around violently as it hit the denser parts of the atmosphere. Without power, he would have to glide in, with no opportunity to make a second pass if he chose a bad landing site. Atom now rapidly scanned the ground below, looking for a suitable spot to attempt to safely set the Spindrift down. The controls were sluggish and heavy, he realized that he'd have to plan each maneuver long in advance, an almost impossible task. At the last possible moment, Atom spotted a clearing in the middle of what looked like a sparsely populated area. He attempted to make a final course change to reach it, but the ship responded like a giant ocean liner to his inputs, making the turn much too slowly as it rapidly lost altitude. Suddenly the roof of a large building filled his view screen, and the ship came to a violent stop as it crashed into the structure.


Elvis awoke from a troubled sleep from what sounded like a thunderclap. The entire house shook from an impact that seemed to come from directly over his bed. Elvis looked up at the ceiling and saw paddle fan above him now swinging slowly back and forth on its mounting. There was a new crack in the wall where it met the ceiling. “Something crashed into the roof,” he thought.

Costello got out of bed and grabbed a flashlight. Still wearing his pajamas, he walked into the hallway. He grabbed a chair from the dining room and placed it under the ceiling access hatchway for the attic crawlspace. The young man stood on the chair and pushed the panel open. He held the flashlight in his mouth as he pulled himself up into the ceiling, grabbing onto a joist beam next to the opening. Once inside, he scanned the torch about looking for the source of the jolt. The beam of his flashlight fell on a section of the roof which now sported a gaping hole in it. Lying below the new roof opening, on the floor of the space, sitting on a pile of fiberglass insulation, was a strange object. It looked like a model spacecraft, and it was visibly hot, still smoking, and scorched.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

“What the hell?”, Elvis, muttered as the beam of his flashlight illuminated the spacecraft that sat embedded into the fiberglass matting thermal insulation lining the attic crawlspace. The thing was a good size, its width barely fit between the 18 inch spacing between the roof rafters, and was about twice that in length. Still, it looked like it would barely fit though the attic hatchway with care, if he could reach it.

Carefully he crawled towards the object, taking care to keep his weight on the ceiling joists, and not on the sheet rock panels that made up the ceiling of the room underneath him. He tried to touch the miniature ship, but it was still very warm to the touch, too hot to handle. Thinking quickly, he pulled up a wad of the R16 insulation lining the ceiling and wadded it around the object, and was then able to grasp it. Costello slowly reversed his motion and soon found himself back at the opening where he had entered the attic.
Elvis lowered himself down to stand on the chair, and then reached up into the hatchway to retrieve his find. It took him some effort to slide the object though the hatchway, it must have weighed a good 50 pounds. He closed the hatchway, and then dragged his find downstairs towards his workshop in his basement 'man cave'.

Once he was downstairs, the young man carefully examined the strange object. He placed it on a work cart, under an illuminated magnifier to get a better look. Under the lens, he could see that the thing wasn't a toy, it was too well made, and was highly detailed. The surface of the thing was covered with burn marks as if it had re-entered the atmosphere at a high rate of speed from orbit.

He moved the magnifier around the object, examining it carefully. There was clearly an access panel to the inside of the craft, but he could not find an obvious way to get it opened. Elvis got a higher powered eye loupe from his tool box and made a more careful inspection of the area. There appeared to be a locking mechanism on the door, it probably required a special key to open it from the outside. Elvis selected a high speed tungsten steel drill bit from his toolbox and chucked it into his power drill. He plugged the tool into the power socket, and started to drill out the lock. Sparks flew as the bit dug into the mechanism. It was hard going, the material seemed to be quite hardened, maybe to stand up to the rigors of space flight. The drill bit finally burned out, its sharp cutting surfaces now dulled and useless. Elvis selected another bit from the his collection and replaced the damaged one with it in the drill. He continued drilling, this time putting a few drops of cutting oil on the site to prevent the bit from over heating. After a few more minutes, he felt the bit break through the lock. He then used the tip of a common screwdriver to pry the hatch open.



Atom made a last second maneuver to attempt to bleed off some speed. He was able to apply aerodynamic braking, while using the very last drops of available fuel to fire the reverse thrusters. He braced himself for impact microseconds before the Spindrift crashed through the roof of the building. If this had been an Earth structure the ship would have smashed through to the basement, but as this world seemed to exist on a larger scale than the Earth, the roof was thicker and more massive. Atom was thrown out of his seat in the cockpit, and smashed against a bulkhead. The force of the impact knocked his systems off-line and he lay unconscious in a heap by the cockpit door that had been torn off its hinges by the force of the impact.



Elvis carefully stuck his hand into the craft, feeling about the inside. His thumb brushed against a live wire, and he quickly yanked his hand violently out of the interior. “OUCH!” he grimaced in pain. The live wire had brushed against the blister he'd raised a few hours ago with the soldering iron. “OK, let's take a look inside first,” he thought. He rummaged through his toolbox and came up with his illuminated flexible fiber optic inspection scope. Elvis pushed the business end of the device into the open hatchway with the viewer held against his right eye.

The inside of the ship was a mess, bulkheads had buckled and bent, panels had popped loose from their mountings, wires and tubing hung from the ceiling. As he twisted the inspection tool towards the front of the ship he spotted the open door to the cockpit, through which he thought he saw the pilot lying on the floor in front of it.

Elvis suddenly realized that the craft might be an alien ship from outer space. He hadn't expected to find an occupant inside, he'd thought the craft was surely either someone's remote controlled drone, or an experimental autonomous ship built by the military.
Guided by the inspection scope, he once again carefully inserted his hand into the ship,

He pushed his arm towards the cockpit door and gently picked up the pilot. Elvis' face turned a ghostly white, the pilot's body felt cold and limp. “He's dead!”, the young man gasped to himself as he pulled the small body from the ship's interior. He carefully extracted the pilot and placed the limp body on the soft seat cushion of an arm chair he kept in the 'man cave' in front of his large screen TV. He pushed the chair closer to the workbench and swung the arm of the illuminated magnifier over it to get a better look at the pilot.

The being Elvis had just extracted from the damaged spacecraft was humanoid looking, about a foot high. It was wearing a silver flight suit, consisting of a vest and a matching pair of trousers, the legs of which were tucked into a pair of almost knee high red boots. The pilot had dark hair that featured two spiky cowlicks, and a large widow's peak like tuft of hair in the middle of his forehead.

Elvis carefully opened the vest of the flight suit, and gently removed it to get a better look at the pilot's body, to look for injuries. He then noticed the outline of what looked like a panel in the beings' chest. He poked at it carefully with the point of a pair of tweezers, and managed to pop it open. “Hey, this thing is a robot!” Elvis realized. “Maybe I can repair it.”

He picked up the doll like creature and placed it on his workbench under the inspection microscope that he used to work on micro circuits. Guided by binocular vision he probed inside the robot's body. “Wow, this think is complex!,” Elvis muttered to himself. He located what looked like test points, and carefully probed them with a voltmeter, and then his digital oscilloscope. There seemed to be some activity on a few of the test points, it looked like the robot wasn't completely inert after all. “Maybe it just needs a jolt of power,” he thought. After some more visual inspection, he located what looked like a power socket, clearly labeled with '+' and '-' terminals. Elvis rigged up two heavy wires to connect to the socket, and connected them to a variable voltage supply.

“OK, here it goes,” he said, crossing his fingers as he turned on the supply and slowly increased the voltage.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

Atom blinked and slowly opened his eyes. He squinted as the bright light of the microscope's illuminated stage hit him squarely in the face. He then noticed the giant person, dressed in what looked like pajamas, and wearing glasses with thick lenses, smiling at him.

“It worked!” Elvis exclaimed with glee. “Are you OK?” he asked. “Do you under stand me?”

Atom groaned as he tried to sit up, but he was stuck in place, pinned under the business end of the microscope, and by the wires sticking out of his chest. “Where am I?” he asked.

“You're in the basement of my house, on the planet Terra-Prime. I found you inside of that spacecraft,” he said, pointing to the other end of the workshop. “I still can't believe I'm talking to a robot. I'm in a club that builds robots, but they're mostly remote controlled. Nobody I know has ever built something that is self aware and can talk! We did you come from?”

“I come from a planet we call Earth,” Atom said, “which is strange because in one of my world's languages, Terra means Earth.”

“But you're so much smaller than us,” Elvis puzzled.

“I think things just evolved on a larger scale on your planet,” Atom guessed. “As I approached for a landing I was able to observe the surface of this planet, and while it looked a lot like Earth, everything was nearly an order of magnitude larger.”
Atom struggled to free himself from the microscope base where he was still strapped in. “Would you mind releasing me from here?,” he asked.

“If you promise not try to run away, or over power me.” Elvis said.

“I won't,” Atom laughed. “Besides, I'm going to need your help to repair my ship so I can get back to Earth.”

“Sure,” Elvis said. He raised the objective head of the microscope, and then carefully removed the wires from Atom's recharge socket and gently closed his chest panel.

Atom crawled out from under the instrument and finally managed to stand up. He walked along the edge of the workbench, and looked around. Standing up in the corner, attached to a support frame was a crude looking humanoid robot about his size.

“That's the battle bot I was building for competition in the robot arena on TV,” Elvis told him. It's not finished yet, in fact I've had a lot of problems trying to build an electronic brain small enough to fit inside and yet powerful enough to control its systems. I also haven't yet been able to miniaturize my weapons systems to fit inside it either. I was going to name him Atlas.”

“You guys have robots fight each other?” Atom asked. “That's primitive.”

“Well they're really remote controlled robots,” Elvis explained, picking up the remote transmitter he had on the workbench. “Here, I'll show you.”

He turned on the flat screen TV hanging on the wall of the workshop and inserted a tape into his video player. The recording started to play, and Atom watched as several different crude robots began to attack each other. They were mostly tank like machines, riding on wheels or treads, and they sported weapons such as hammers, flame throwers, or power saws. The robots were controlled by humans holding remote transmitters, standing behind a glass wall surrounding the combat area.

“My best friend Dick Murphy won on that show several times with a tank 'bot that he's built,” Elvis said. “I don't like those tanks, they have no class. I've been trying to build a stomper, a robot that walks on two legs. Stompers are more agile than tanks, they can get out of the way quickly, but they usually don't have heavy enough fire power to destroy the heavy armor that the tank bots can carry.”

Atom shifted his gaze between the video screen and the battle bot that Elvis was building. He walked towards Elvis' creation and carefully examined it. Its outer shell was slightly larger than his own body, and would easily fit over him like a suit of armor.

“You really want to win at this, don't you?” Atom asked.

“I've been building battle 'bots for over five years now,” Elvis sighed. “And none of them ever even made it past the first elimination rounds.”

“How much horsepower do these combat robot's have?” Atom asked.

“Horsepower?” Elvis asked.

“I guess your world uses different standards,” Atom said, shrugging his shoulders. “Well how about Watts? That's a measure of electrical power equal to one volt at one ampere of current. Here, I'll write down the definitions of those units in their basic terms.” He picked up a pencil stub from the workbench and started to scribble on a scrap of paper.

Elvis looked at the equations that Atom had put down on paper. “Yes, we use similar measurements on this world,” he said. “I guess most of those combat robots top out at less than 1000 of your watts.”

“That's less than two horsepower.” Atom smiled.

“So what's your power level?” Elvis asked.

“A bit more than that.” Atom voiced.

“How much?” Elvis asked, his interest peaked.

“OK, a lot more than that,” Atom hedged.

“Tell me!” Elvis demanded.

“All right! 75 mega watts!”, Atom finally admitted.

(One horsepower = 750 Watts of electrical power. So 100,000HP = 75 Mega Watts)

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

Chapter 4

Elvis' jaw dropped, and it seemed like he was salivating. “Would you be willing to ..., “ Elvis stammered.

The idea had already crossed Atom's mind. He didn't exactly like the idea, but if the favor would get Elvis motivated enough to help him repair the Spindrift, he'd do it. “You want me to wear that robot shell as a sort of costume and pretend to be your battle bot, don't you?” he asked.

“Would you mind?” Elvis asked, “PLEASE” he added, folding his hands together in a begging posture.

“I have a few conditions,” Atom answered.

“What do you want?”, Elvis voiced.

“First of all, you will help me repair my ship. You may have to search for some rare and possibly expensive materials,” he answered.

“Sure, I can do that,” Elvis answered. “Maybe, if we can win a few matches in the Battle Bot arena, I'll get enough in prize money to purchase what ever we'll need to repair your spacecraft.”

“Fine,” Atom smiled. “Second, don't use the name Atlas when you enter us in the contest, I have a problem with that name!”

“OK, what name should I use?”

“Well my name is Atom, but I'm sometimes called Astro Boy by the news media back home,” Atom replied. “You see, I'm considered a sort of superhero back on Earth because I'm a bit of a crime fighter and rescue robot.”

“Astro Boy,” Elvis muttered out loud, trying out the name. “I like that! OK, anything else?”

“Well, we'll have to figure out how to fake out this remote control thing.”

“Yes, I already realized that,” Elvis agreed. “The battle bots are all remote controlled, though many do have inertial guidance computers on board to allow them to avoid obstacles if their controllers reflexes aren't fast enough. Robot weapons are usually only controlled from the remote operator. In our case, I guess I'll rig up my transmitter to send you voice commands, and you can sorta follow along while making all the critical combat decisions in real time on your own. I don't know what would happen if anyone found out that my battle bot was really a fully A.I. robot.”

“Would you get disqualified?”

“I don't know,” Elvis considered. “I don't think the rules cover such a thing. Nobody thinks it's even possible.”

“Guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Atom shrugged.

“What about weapons?” Elvis asked. “I suppose with your strength you could just smash your opponents with your fists.”

“Easily.” Atom laughed. “But I do have a few other tricks.”

“Lasers?” Elvis asked.

Atom pointed a digit at a toolbox that was sitting on a table across the room. He fired a digibeam laser at it and burned a small hole in the side of it.

Elvis stared in amazement. He examined the tool chest, feeling the hole with his index finger. “Holy crap!” he exclaimed. “that will do nicely.”

“Now watch this!,” Atom laughed. He turned his backside toward the wall where a dartboard was hanging and extended the barrels of his two fanny guns and fired a half dozen rounds. “Bull's eye!” he laughed.

“You have machine guns in your butt?”, Elvis yelled. “Crazy! That will really mow down the enemy! Anything else?”

“Well there is this,” Atom said, as he fired his leg jets and flew through the air. He zoomed upwards and then dived down, smashing though the top of the workbench.

“You can fly!”, Elvis gasped. “I don't think we'll get away with that at the arena. At least not during the first rounds.”

“No flying bots battle bots?” Atom asked.

“Nope. Although I think they are considering a drone category,” Elvis said, scratching his chin. “Anything else?”

“Yes, but I'm not going to use it,” Atom said. He pointed his left arm out straight and retracted his hand into the arm to reveal the gaping maw of his surge cannon. “If I fired this I could take out the top of a mountain.” he explained.

“You mean you could blow the entire arena away?” Elvis stammered.

“I could,” Atom answered. “I am equipped with a particle beam weapon with the output of a small atomic bomb. It's a weapon for extreme emergencies only. I've just commanded my systems to deactivate it while I'm on your world.”

“Good idea,” Elvis agreed.

Elvis removed the shell of his unfinished stomper bot from the stand it was hanging on. He picked up a screwdriver and began to remove the inner skeleton framework, leaving only the outer skin. “Here, try this on for size,” he told Atom.

Atom first stepped into the bottom part of the robot skin. He had to first retract his feet into his legs as the soles of his boots wouldn't fit though the leggings. He then lowered the upper part over his head, carefully pushing his arms though the sleeves. Elvis then lowered the head over Atom's, it fit like the helmet of a spacesuit.

“You look the part,” Elvis nodded. “I think we can get away with this.”

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

Chapter 5

Elvis grinned, “I can't wait to go up against Dick Murphy,” he laughed. “We'll show him that his tank bot isn't so great!”

“You know,” Atom voiced, “This is a bit like cheating. Don't the rules require you to have actually built and programmed your robot entry? I'd be ringer, an impostor.”

“Not exactly,” Elvis hedged. “You should see some of the entries, they make use of stuff that was purchased, not built, jury rigged to be remote controllable. I've seen battle bots that had actual chain saws, nail drivers, circular saws, even BB guns, mounted on a mobile chassis made from modified large scale RC cars.”

“So I'm just an off the shelf robot chassis dressed up to look like a battle bot?” Atom asked.

“I see your point,” Elvis said shrugging his shoulders. “But believe me, the contest judges will look the other way, even if they knew. All they care about are the shows ratings. The rules, such as they are, exist only to keep the competitors on a somewhat even basis, at least on paper.”

“Fine.” Atom replied as he slowly removed the battle bot suit. “But, you'll need to make a few mods here.”

“What's wrong?” Elvis asked.

“Well the pants will need two holes cut in the rear to let my guns project through. I can't wear these gloves if I'm going to use my finger tip lasers, you'll have to at least cut the finger tips off of them. And you'll need to make the faceplate a bit more transparent.”

“Hard to see though?” Elvis asked.

“A bit,” Atom replied, but the real problem is they are polarized like one way mirrors.”

“You don't like mirrored glasses?” Elvis questioned.

“Well with them this won't work very well,” Atom explained as he turned on his eye searchlights full bright.

“Wow!”, Elvis laughed. “Guess you forgot to tell me about that one. You planning on blinding the enemy?”

“I've resorted to that before,” Atom nodded, handing the battle bot suit to his host.

Elvis placed the robot skins on his work area and started making the modifications. He used a hand held drill to make the openings for Atom's fanny guns, and then carefully removed the visor shield from the helmet. He found a suitable piece of lightly tinted transparent plastic, cut it to size and shape, and inserted it into the helmet in place of the
mirrored glass.

Atom examined the modifications and approved. “What's the plan?” he asked.

“I'm going send Dick a challenge by email,” he replied. “He's the current entry challenger, anybody who wants to enter a battle bot in the show would have to first go up against his tank bot and survive for at least a minute's combat.”

“That won't be hard,” Atom said, “bring it on!”

“OK,” Elvis agreed, pressing the final key on his computer to send the email. “Well, it's getting late, and I need to catch a few hours of sleep before sunrise. You OK down here?”

“Sure,” Atom replied. “I'll sack out in what's left of the Spindrift, I need to check the ship out and make an inventory of what will be required to fix it. See you tomorrow.”

Elvis headed for the door and waved. He turned out the lights as he left, leaving Atom in the dark. The boy robot switched on his eye lamps and flew back to the Spindrift. He entered though the doorway that Elvis had broken into and checked the ship out.

“Doesn't look too bad,” Atom thought to himself, as he looked around. He checked the storage area where his personal supplies were loaded. “My reserve energy tanks weren't damaged, thankfully.” He opened his chest panel and inserted the refueling hose from one of the energy tanks to top himself off. “I have a feeling I'm going to need this, real soon!”

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

It was cramped and uncomfortable inside the locked case, but Atom dealt with it. He was swaddled, sung as a bug in a rug, in the cutout made in the foam lining of the carry case that also contained the robot suit skin, and the fake remote control that he and Elvis had rigged up. Even with the padding, Atom felt every bump in the road with the case strapped to the luggage rack over the rear wheel of the young man's motor scooter.


It had been just a few days earlier, when Elvis had received the reply from Dick Murphy. He'd come down into the basement workshop even more excited than the evening when he'd first found the Spindrift up in his attic. “I've gotten the reply, Murphy has responded with a formal challenge,” he told Atom, reading the email. “You're on!, I can't wait to finally steamroller your stomper. I called the TV studio, they have an opening this weekend. Bring your 'bot, I'll be there with mine.” Suddenly Elvis' face turned white. “The weekend?”, he panicked, thinking out loud. “We'll have a lot to do to get ready!”

“No problem!”, Atom replied, “I'll help.”


Elvis parked the scooter, and untied the bungee cords holding the case to the luggage rack. He grabbed the luggage by the handle and ran with it towards the main entrance of the TV studio. Inside the case, Atom was bounced around from the G forces, like he'd been riding a roller coaster at a Six Flags park. Suddenly the darkness disappeared as the lid of the luggage was opened, and he looked Elvis squarely in the face.

“You could have been a bit more careful lugging this case around,” Atom complained,
“You gave me a bit of a ride there!”

“I'm sorry,” Elvis apologized, “I thought I had you well padded there.”

“You did,” Atom answered, “but if I wasn't a robot, this case would be filled with vomit right now!”

“That bad?” Elvis voiced.

“I guess you don't understand the physics of scale,” Atom shrugged.

“I'm sorry, I'll try to be more careful next time.”

“Fine.” Atom answered. “Let's get ready.”

Elvis removed the remote control box from the case, while Atom put on the robot skin. He first put on the lower half, pulling it up over his boots like a pair of trousers. He then donned the middle part, which when on like a vest, and finally the helmet.
Elvis powered on the remote transmitter. They'd modified that by adding a jack for a single ear-bud, which Elvis had stuck into his left ear. Atom was able to communicate with the young man via voice, the conversation was two way since Elvis' ear-bud also acted as a microphone via bone conduction. The two joysticks sent messages which Atom could read via a heads up display in the helmet. He'd be able to 'act out' being controlled by the remote, while actually handling the tricky stuff himself.

“Mr. Costello!” a voice called from down the hallway. “Glad you're on time! You're on in five minutes!”

Elvis gave a hand gesture reply towards the man who was waving for him. He picked Atom up and placed him back into the case, and closed the lid. Once again he grabbed the luggage by the handle, a bit less violently this time, and quickly shuffled down the hallway.

Dick Murphy was waiting for him inside, his tank bot was already on the arena floor. “So you didn't chicken out,” he laughed. “Meet BoraBora-2” he laughed, pointing at the impressive looking machine on the combat floor.

“You, rebuilt it!” Elvis gasped.

“Sure did!” Murphy smiled. “BoraBora-2 has twice the power of Bora-1. I made it a bit larger so I could conceal all of the weapons inside. You won't know what hits you, till it's too late!”

Elvis swallowed hard.

“So let's see that stomper of yours, Atlas wasn't it?”

Elvis waked onto the combat floor and placed the carry case on the ground. He snapped the two latches open, and lifted the lid.
“Actually, I've renamed him,” he replied, reaching inside. He gently picked Atom up and placed him in a seated position on the floor.
“Bora-Bora, meet Astro Boy!” Elvis announced.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

“Contestants! Move your bots to the starting positions!”, the announcement came over the PA system.

Dick Murphy placed BoraBora-2 behind the starting line on his side of the arena, while Elvis sat Atom down behind the other side, also behind the white line that ringed the arena.

“Contestants! Power up your bots and make any final adjustments before combat begins!”

Dick lifted the rear of BoraBora's chassis and activated its power switch. The tank bot just sat there for a few moments as its internal computer systems booted up and ran their initial diagnostics and initialization sequences. The robot emitted a low hum, and then a slightly louder mechanical squeal as its servos swung from end stop to end stop. The robot lifted itself up off the ground as its body raised itself up, and exposed its tank treads. It then exercised those treads, wiggling back and forth as the motors self aligned.

The upper chassis then slowly raised up revealing the bot's cameras. Enclosed in a thick plastic bubble, the twn cameras gave BoraBora 3 dimension vision. Twin microphones hidden below the vision turret provided the bot with stereo hearing. BoraBora then seemed to stretch itself, as the front and rear halves of the main chassis telescoped outwards revealing trap doors underneath which the robot hid its arsenal of weapons.

Meanwhile, Elvis fumbled with the switches on the hand held remote control transmitter. Atom slowly got to his feet, carefully acting out the power up sequence that he and Costello had worked out. Making mechanically choreographed movements, he flexed his arms and legs, like an Olympic athlete doing his warm up exercises. Atom then took a defensive stance, staring out at his opponent, who was nearly twice his height and looked to be many times his weight and mass.

“Be careful Atom!”, Elvis whispered into the remote link. “Dick's bot looks twice as deadly as the prototype I saw a month ago. The last one was equipped with a buzz saw and a flame thrower, God knows what else he's added into this latest incarnation!”

“Don't worry,” Atom radioed back. “I can handle the flame thrower, providing he doesn't have something exotic in there, like LOX”

“Contestants! Combat starts in 5 seconds! Good luck!”

A large overhead scoreboard illuminated, and a count down clock began running backwards. It reached zero, and a Klaxon sounded. Atom stepped forward slowly, his gaze fixed on BoraBora. The tank bot inched forward slowly, as if daring Atom to make the first attack. Atom stood his ground. “Let Bora make the first move,” Elvis whispered. “We want him to reveal his secrets first!”

“Right!”, Atom replied.

After nearly two minutes of a tense standoff, with both battle bots teasing each other by making false starts, BoraBora suddenly charged. The tank offered no offense other than accelerating to ramming speed. Atom wasn't taken off guard, he readied himself to leap out of the way at the last moment. Bora continued its charge, Atom faked a move to the right before suddenly dogging away from Bora's charge with a move to the left.

But Bora seemed to expect that, the left hand trap door on its fore chassis popped open and a chrome steel claw shot out and snapped shut around Atom's neck!

“Yipes! Its got me!” Atom cried out. His fingers grabbed at the claw and he tired to force open the jaws, but the ratchet drive of the device would not budge backwards. Slowly the vise like pincers increased their squeeze around his neck.

“No you don't!” Atom yelled, twisting his body around. The twin barrels of his fanny guns emerged from their hiding places. Atom swing his legs up over his head, bringing his weapons in line. He aimed and fired. The burst of depleted uranium shells blasted into the claw arm at its base, severing it from BoraBora's chassis. With the claws activators deprived of their electrical power and hydraulic pressure, the grip around Atom's neck released itself. Atom freed himself from the vise like weapon, and hurled the appendage back at the tank bot, jamming it into Bora's right hand tank tread drive. His opponent suddenly spun around in circles, partially paralyzed.

“Good work Atom!” Elvis radioed.

The studio audience suddenly started cheering. “Go Go Go Astro Boy!” they shouted.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

Chapter 7

Dick Murphy grumbled to himself, “So that was the 'secret weapon' Elvis was adding to the bot, machine guns!” He threw a switch on the remote control, “Well two can play at that game!”

The jammed tank treads on the battle bot flew off the machine as several explosive bolts detonated. From within the lower chassis a replacement running gear was pushed into place and the machine resumed its normal motion. Murphy activated the remote viewing screen on the remote control and observed his warriors view of the arena though the turret mounted cameras.

Atom was almost caught off guard as the tank suddenly repaired itself and turned to face him again. “Maybe I should go on the offensive now,” he suggested over the radio to Elvis.

“No, let's wait and see what else Dick has up his sleeves,” came the reply. “I didn't expect the tank to have replacement parts on board for auto repair. This is going to be more difficult than we planned.”

“We'll see,” Atom replied.

Suddenly their opponent spun about 360 degrees. The top mounted turret reversed itself to look backwards as the tank swapped ends to resume its attack. Two rear mounted trap doors popped open to reveal a pair of saws, one a chain saw, the other a high speed circular buzz saw. The tank waved it's weapons about and suddenly charged at Atom, intending on catching him between the two sharp cutting blades to slice him up.
Atom dogged one attack run after another, either jumping out of the way, or danced about, quick on his feet. “This would be easier if I could fly,” he complained.

“Not allowed,” Edsel answered. “We'd be DQ'ed.”

Murphy smiled as he worked the controls. He wasn't surprised at the agility of the little stomper bot, but he had a plan to use Astro's defensive tactics to his own advantage. With each attack run he gained a little ground, by carefully changing his approaches he was slowly backing Atom into a corner.

“Look out Atom,” Elvis radioed. “He's going to get you trapped!”

Too late, Atom suddenly realized that his back was literally up against a wall. The tank bot just about had him cornered, its two whirling razor sharp saws positioned for the coup de grace. “No you don't,” Atom yelled. He aimed the index fingers of both hands and simultaneously fired both digi-beam lasers. The first severed a link on the chainsaw blade, which parted from the machine and flew past Dick Murphy's left ear. The other laser melted the retaining bolt on the buzz saw blade, which then zoomed upwards impaling itself in the over head message board.

Atom laughed and held both fingers up to his face, blowing on them like a gun slinger in the old west would to clear the smoke from his revolvers.

Murphy reacted immediately. Another trap door opened up exposing the maw of a flame thrower. “OK, no more Mr. Nice Guy,” Dick muttered under his breath, “Now you get melted!”

Inside the tank bot a fuel pump pressurized a mixture of gasoline and nitro. The two volatile fluids mixed in the weapons combustion chamber where they formed a thin vapor as an air pump forced the mixture out of the gun barrel after the ignition spark was fired.

Atom didn't have time to get completely out of the line of fire. Elvis lost sight of him as he was totally enclosed in the white hot flame. “Atom, do you hear me?” Elvis cried into the radio link.

The tank bot quickly used up all of the inflammatory fuel, and the flame thrower shut down. A ball of flame still surrounded Elvis's entry which seemed to be wandering about its attacker, like it was drunk or in incredible pain.

“Burn, Baby, Burn!” Dick laughed as the fire continued to rage around Atom, who was leaving a sooty trail of footprints in his wake as he moved away from the tank bot.
Gradually the fire surrounding Atom grew smaller as what remained of the combustible mixture that had been sprayed on him either evaporated or was consumed by the flames. The robot suit he'd been wearing was now charred and melted.

“Enough of this!” Atom said through clenched teeth. He ripped what was left of the helmet off his head, pealed the remains of the vest off, and kicked the leggings aside. “No more pretending, now I'm just me!”

Atom turned to face his attacker. He was now minus the robot suit, dressed only in his boots and pants, bare chested.

The crowd awed. Dick's lower jaw hung low to the floor. Elvis realized that the radio gear in the suit had been melted, his link with Atom severed. He'd really be faking it now, Atom was totally on his own.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

While keeping an eye on the tank bot, Atom sifted through the charred remains of the gear he'd been wearing. He found the radio transceiver that had been hidden inside the helmet, and examined it. It seemed to have survived the extreme heat, and was still working. Atom opened his chest panel and plugged the transceiver into his system.
“Do you hear me, Elvis?”, he asked.

“Yes, thank god!” Elvis replied. I thought I'd lost contact with you.”

“Well the heads up display is gone, all we have left is the comm link," Atom grumbled back, “Enough of this passive crap, I'm going to finish this monster once and for all!”

“How?” Elvis asked.

“Simple, I'm going to smash it,” Atom replied. “I'm going to cheat a bit, I won't fly, but I will make use of some jet power”

Atom held out his right fist and started running toward his opponent. As he got closer his left hand folded back into his arm, as he held it behind him. He shot forward as his left arm jet propelled him towards the tank. He took a running jump and smashed his fist into the left side of the bot, ripping off the tank tread drive. Before Murphy could react, Atom ran around the warrior tank and repeated his attack on its right side, totally immobilizing it.

Murphy was now boiling mad. “It ain't over till it's over,” he grumbled. “Guess I'll have to resort to plan X!”

Murphy threw the remote control down, and removed another one from the metal suitcase that he had brought into the arena with him. He activated the second control unit, and entered a command.

Suddenly the two sides of the tank bot to which the drive treads had been attached were blown free of the bot as explosive bolts detonated. Trap doors on the sides of the machine fell open and three arms extended from each side. At the ends of these protrusions, engine pods unfolded into an upright position and propeller blades extracted themselves. Several more bolts exploded freeing the upper chassis from the lower as the six engines spun up to speed. The upper half of the tank separated from the lower as a hex copter, and became airborne.
Murphy's battle bot, now flying, started a strafing run as laser blasts hit the arena's metal floor, leaving burn marks. Atom somehow managed to keep out of the way of the attack.

“He's turned his battle bot into an attack drone!” Elvis radioed, with anger in his voice.

“That does it!” Atom replied. “If he wants an aerial dog fight, I'm going to give it to him!”

“You do that!” Elvis answered.

The soles of Atom's red boots opened up and his feet folded back into his legs. The twin nozzles of his leg jets extended outward as he became airborne. The tank bot continued to shower the air beneath it with laser blasts, which Atom flew around as his computer aided vision searched for a weak spot in the tanks armor. He spotted a thin patch of metal dead center between the rows of laser cannons on the under side of the machine.

Atom took aim, extended his fists forward and with a blast of jet power he smashed through the machine, and tore thought the top. The turret containing the battle bots cameras and electronic brain tore free of the machine as the lithium ion batteries inside the device exploded. The smoking wreck crashed with a thud on the arena floor where it burned leaving nothing but a molten and charred lump of metal.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

Richard Murphy threw his remote control to the floor and repeatedly jumped on in, until he'd flattened it almost to a pancake. Atom stood in front of the smoking remainder of Murphy's flying battle bot, gently prodding it with the tip of his right moon boot, as if testing to see if it was still 'alive'.

Elvis ran into the middle of the arena and quickly snatched Atom up from the floor of the battle area, and cradled him under his left arm. “Keep still Atom,” he whispered, “gotta make this look good.”

Atom blinked his eyes in an affirmative response. From their left side, one of the officials entered the arena. The man held a trophy in his left hand, a large winner's cup, mounted on a pedestal base, with an engraved plaque. The referee motioned towards Murphy to step into the center of the arena where Elvis was already standing.

“I could disqualify both of you, you know,” he said, “The rules for this bout clearly stated that this was a land based battle. Nothing was mentioned in the rules about battle drones.”

“There wasn't anything in the rules that specifically ruled out flight either,” Elvis replied, quickly adding, “Besides, my bot didn't make use of that ability until it's opponent breached the ethics.”

“That is the only reason that we decided to ignore the violation of that rule by the two of you,” the official said, “That, and the fact that it was good for the shows ratings. The feedback on the internet has been unbelievable!”

Carefully, he reached up and turned on the wireless microphone that was clipped to his lapel. “We have a winner, battle bot fans!”, the referee shouted to the crowd up in the stands. “Elvis Costello's Astro Boy humanoid bot is the winner over Richard Murphy's tankbot BoraBora2!” The large trophy cup was thrust into Elvis's right hand. Costello transferred it to his left, still hold Atom in the pit of his elbow, and shook the official's hand.

Murphy glared at him and hissed, “I want a rematch!”

“With what?” Elvis asked.

“You managed to beat my prototype,” Dick said, “It's successor will make chopped meat out of your stomper!”

“You're on!”, Elvis blurted out.

“Excellent!”, the referee said. “We were hoping the two of you would agree to a rematch! And you'll be happy to know that the winner's prize for such a rematch will be fifty times as large as the check I'm about to hand to Mr. Costello. Also the rules for this next match will encourage advanced weaponry, including flight.” With that, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out a large envelope which he handed to Costello.
The two contestants then turned their backs on each other and walked towards exits on opposite sides of the arena.



Elvis looked at the check that had been inside of the envelope. “Wow!, he muttered, “It's for one thousand dollars! If we beat Murphy again, that will be fifty grand!”

“You mean WHEN we beat him, don't you?”, Atom said, stomping his right boot on the table.

“Oh, yes, of course!” Elvis quickly said. “I mean, there isn't any doubt in my mind!”

“Don't forget your promise,” Atom added. “I'm not entering that arena again until you take a good look at my ship.”

“Sure thing!”, Costello said. “In fact I'll do it right now!”



The Spindrift was still in the corner of the basement workshop, exactly where Elvis had left it after he'd rescued Atom from it. He donned his magnifier head band, switched on its spotlight, and started to examine the outside of the ship.

“The hull doesn't look too bad,” Elvis said. “I can weld the obvious cracks, structurally, it should be sound enough to get you back home. I'll need to figure out how to get at the propulsion system so we can repair that.”

“I can do any of the work required from the inside,” Atom told him. “I have the blueprints for the ship, we can print them out on your computer.”

“OK,” Elvis said. “but how will you get me the files?”

“Well, if your computer has something like a USB, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet connection, I can interface myself with it. Computer brain you know,” he said pointing to himself.

“Can you do token-ring?” Costello asked, handing Atom the business end of a network cable.

Atom stared at the male connector end for a few minutes and smiled. “I'll draw up a schematic for you to make me an adapter. Then I'll have to hack myself a new network driver. Fortunately, Reno showed me how to do stuff like that. Then we'll just plug it in here.” Atom opened his chest panel and pointed to an internal socket. Elvis moved closer in to look, and nodded.


Several hours later, the last of the ledger sized prints finished coming out of Costello's ink jet plotter. Atom walked across each of the sheets, pointing to various areas while explaining the basics of the ship's star drive. Elvis followed Atom's lecture, but his face had a bit of bewilderment on it.

“I guess I'm just not a rocket scientist, Atom,” he sighed.

“That's OK,” Atom replied. “if we work together on this we can fix it. I have all the necessary data on the ship, I just don't have the tools or the spare parts. That's where you will come in.”

“Sure,” Elvis agreed. “If you give me the blueprints, and the materials, I can build anything.”

“Then let's get to work!”, Atom said. “We'll start by taking part of my ship apart so we can get at the drive assembly and see just what went wrong.”