The Jeeper - Chapter 2: AI Breakout

by Bruce Chu (5G)

1. The Missing Intelligence  

A month after the tornado devastated Florida, George was having breakfast when he got a call from his boss, Mr.Honda. “What? The Jeeper’s AI chip is missing?” George quickly finished his bacon and eggs, drank his warm cappuccino, put on his fireman’s uniform and headed straight for the warehouse.

“What’s the problem here?” George said, upon arriving at the warehouse. There were policemen everywhere, looking at charts or checking for footprints.

“I'm sorry George, but The Jeeper’s motherboard has been stolen.”

“How did that happen?”asked George. ”That motherboard had been stuck into the robot and connected to the main body by special screws! How could they even…” A thought rose up in George’s mind. “Maybe the criminals made a special screwdriver! Quick! Let's review the surveillance cameras!”

The police used a lot of equipment, and they all saw what had happened: two men wearing striped clothes had carefully taken the chip out, and put it in a truck. On the side of which, weird symbols ”θεχ-βφη” were printed.

“I wonder what these Symbols mean,” George said, suspiciously.

It was late when George finally arrived home. He took out his laptop, and made a cup of tea while he waited for it to start up. He copied and pasted the symbols ”θεχ-βφη” into the search engine. “I got it! It’s the Greek alphabet! All I need to do is translate it.” After he had translated the symbols into English letters, he was left with the word “HexBug”. He suddenly realized that this was his college classmate James's company. He and James used to be best friends, but they drifted apart after graduating. Within a few years, James had started his own company, while George got fired from his job before landing a better one. James’s company's main products were the 4090's and CPUs and computer products . No wonder he was jealous of George's CPU. “James must be using it for no good, ”thought George, “and I must stop him.”

 The next morning, he decided to phone James. He knew that James would be suspicious, so he spoke with a calm voice and agreed to meet his “friend” on Sunday morning. After their conversation, George went to the fire station, got tons of iron, copper and titanium and started “inventing”.

2. Escaping James

It was a sunny day, and James was waiting in Starbucks. ”James Williams!”George cried suddenly. “I've been expecting you.”

James moaned.

”Sorry, I’m late, ”George puffed.

They went into the cafe. After an extremely long talk, they went out and spit up.As James Williams walked away, George followed him secretly for more evidence about the secret. However, James didn't go where George had expected. Instead, he turned to a small backstreet. And there, to George's surprise, was the AI chip. It was being stored in a large TV box due to its size. As James opened the box, he said, “Thank God George didn’t take it, or else I would be dead as a dingbat!”

George was listening carefully, when James’s henchmen came out of vanish and punched George unconscious. When he woke up, he found himself lying on the cell floor. Some henchmen walked in and said, “Sir James wishes to see you.” George stood up, and followed the henchmen gloomy.

When they arrived at the so-called control room, which was just a large container, James Williams was waiting. ”Hey there old friend,” James said. “Welcome to my Headquarters. I’ve been spying on you for months now. From now on, you will help me make a Jeeper, and you must call it the Wills.”

James ordered his men to lock him up in a warehouse, which has everything to make a robot: screwdrivers, scrap metal, miniature thrusters, you name it! First, George started to make both of the legs of the robot. He made them by using 16 separate turbo motors to control every joint, and made them into shapes using weak aluminum for easy loosening, just in case Wills and The Jeeper battled together.

Next, he used his old AI chip as a model and made a copy of it. After that, he created the body of the Wills. He used large pieces of plastic and sanded them down until they were small enough for the joysticks of the robot. He then placed the AI chip somewhere in the bottom part of the body, and wrapped it in iron, because the chip needed to be safely protected. Then, he made the arms. He added Thrusters to the hands, because he was inspired by the movie Iron Man. Finally, it was time to assemble.

He first aligned the legs on a pre-drawn board. He used the large robotic arms to slowly lower Wills' body onto its legs, and locked it up using titanium bolts. After that, he used the robotic arms to keep Wills’ arms in place, and locked it up using metal wires for more freestyle movement. At last, George powered up Wills. While George waited for Wills to boot up, he used his precious time and made a retractable titanium suit that could sustain him for a year and half, and have thrusters to blast him out of here, and the best part was it could fold up into the shape and size of a ring. He then quickly used his tape-measure to measure the size of the AI chip. George used these numbers and quickly created… another copy?

He updated the AI chip, or we could say, changed the AI chip for it to fold up into the size of a smartphone.

With his newly made inventions, he waited till the perfect time: when he was in the toilet. While using the time in the toilet, he swiftly took out a metal shield, and left a bomb on the toilet wall, and waited silently. As soon as the bomb went off, George came out of the hole in the wall, unharmed. With the alarm going off, loads of men appeared before the opening, and with a loud roar, the man attacked.

Soon, George was outnumbered, and was pulled down into the crowd. It looked like a bad situation for George. However, an ear-piercing cranking noise came from the men's crowd, and almost instantly, burning corpses were flying everywhere. And a mechanical machine rose from the ground. “Boot the Wills!” shouted a henchman, “and report to sir Jam—oof!” and with a terrifying crack, the henchman fell into a coma.

Back at the control room, James was standing beyond the glass, smirking and muttering: “I will get my revenge, and will create chaos in the city center!”

PCPS Gazette