In all his years of public speaking, Fanzer Stip had learned to employ a variety of devices to either keep his audiences awake, or from walking away in boredom. A multi-popping neck crack usually got their attention, but a good suicide attempt kept them captivated for several minutes.

"And because of the fatty acid build-up," went the theory still, "so common in the structure of the human body, the metallic devils are able to remain hidden to make evil in relative privacy."

The last two people to remain from Fanzer's small recent crowd, stared up at him with dumb expressions stamped neatly on their faces.

"And from then on," Fanzer said, building to his grand finale, "the world is everyday rebuilt and concocted in an ever-new solution of chemicals, ingeniously sloshed together!"

This was of course his own personal theory, his "program" rather, which had always been a source of great frustration to him, as it never did sit quite well in the minds of his listeners.

A conversation would usually end, more commonly than not: "Robots! Taking over the world? Are you a Frangdemind Loon?!"

And this was the least complicated part of the theory. The second -- about robot wizards transforming the entire planet into a kind of soup, stirring it up, and "cooking" it all back together again on a daily basis--was beyond a normal being's tolerance for free-thought.

But on this occasion, Fanzer was receiving only silence. He sighed, and got to his feet, and concluded his speech by throwing himself from the three-foot-high platform on which he spoke.

The woman stood up, swore under her breath, and walked away, seemingly annoyed that the speaker had not died in the fall.

Fanzer brushed himself off and walked over to the young man.

"Well," he said, addressing the obvious intellect. "What did you think of my Program?"

The young man sat amongst the tall grass, wobbling slightly with the wind as if he were a giant blade of the stuff--and added as much to the conversation as the rest of the ground-cover. Fanzer asked the question again, and when the young man failed to respond, was afraid he had talked the lad into the dreaded "layman's coma"--a popular affliction the small-minded seemed to find so enjoyable.

"Come on, now. Snap out of it, lad. I know that truth can be a painful infection, but..."

Suddenly a quicker, stronger wind breezed by, and the un-talkative man bobbled over, landing back-first on the ground.

"I killed him!" Fanzer told himself, almost joyfully. In all of his years of unscheduled speaking engagements, not once did he receive more than a disdainful glance. But here, he had actually destroyed another living creature with the power of his thought-provoking words alone. Fanzer seemed to fall into a trance. He seemed to forget the rotting corpse was at his feet, stepping on the man's head as though a boot scrape. In this state he remained, until he noticed a horrific metallic thing staring up at him through the park's carefully manicured foliage.

"AND THE FUNGI COUNT THIS EVENING," the bio zone engineer rattled on, "WILL RANGE IN THE TOP QUARTERS, BEATING LAST WEEK'S RECORD..."

Eggensotz snapped the viewer off and looked around the room erratically, as if for an annoying insect.

"Who switched this viewing apparatus to the operating position?" it asked. The robot, of course, already knew the answer the question, as it could only have been one person.

Fanzer crouched lower in his hiding place behind the sofa, allowing only his eye to protrude through the ancestral floral design.

"Lord Mettic," mumbled Eggensotz. "Save me from the children!" He sighed dramatically, and then rolled out of the room.

Fanzer waited for a time, statuesque, before deciding on a course of action. He had only wanted to watch a little of the FlatView before going to school, a want to which little boys were prone. But Eggensotz, Fanzer's Family's robotic servant, had a strict rule about noise in the morning: It was not to be tolerated under any circumstance.

"I'm an old droid," Eggensotz had once explained to his new Stip masters. "My auditory functions are at an uncorrectable saturated state, which greatly exaggerates external sounds. Oddly, the disease is at a climax in the morning hours, dissipates a bit in the afternoons, and begins again to build in the evenings, starting at approximately 4:00." Conveniently in keeping with the boy's schooling schedule. "I agree it's a most bizarre affliction."

Fanzer knew the truth, however: crankiness, and a bad disposition. It had always been his opinion that Eggensotz should have simply been taken out to the backyard and shot, thus effectively ending his child-hating tenure.

The boy waited behind the couch for several minutes more. He knew if he attempted to escape at this time, the robot would be waiting for him. Whether to jump up from a trapdoor hidden in the floor, or pounce at him from behind the curtains, Fanzer knew he couldn't make a single step towards the front entryway without confrontation. The robot might even materialize out of thin air. To young Fanzer, Eggensotz at times seemed like magic.

So he would wait. Hours if necessary. The Phoose-bus might come and go. The school bells might ding summons -- but the boy wasn't going to move an inch until he heard the high-pitched squeak of Eggensotz's chamber door: A sound which signified the robot had returned to his murky lair, having grown tired of the game, and that Fanzer actually had a chance to escape the room unharmed.

It finally came, after only minutes of the accusation. Maybe the robot truly was getting old, Fanzer thought.

The young boy bolted. Once clear of the soft-cushioned barricades of the sofa, he shot through the living room like an arrow, his hand hitting the doorknob as though a point to a bullseye. But no sooner had Fanzer dashed through the front door, did he find himself enveloped with a strange light.

He felt his stomach churn, and his mind begin to swell, and finally boil. And then suddenly, everything went dark. At first, Fanzer thought he must surely be dead, but then he slowly began to regain his senses, and he realized his surroundings had changed -- and he was indeed in the dark.

The air was dank and musty, and somewhere in the distance, a faucet was dripping monotonously.

"No sooner a sad accomplishment," Eggensotz said with a carefully contained voice of fury.

"It's wasn't me," Fanzer said quickly.

A light flickered on, yellow and dim, casting the room in a grotesque pallor.

"No," the robot said sarcastically, sparking as though malfunctioning. "I didn't think it was. A good boy like you knows that rules are meant to be obeyed, and not fragrantly disregarded. A good boy like you knows to respect me as he would any upstanding citizen of his own race."

Fanzer nodded, eyes teary and bulbous.

"A good boy like you learns these things through proper training and discipline. Yes," the robot said, musing. "Much discipline."

Without warning, a rope tightened around Fanzer's legs, and his little body upended, shooting skyward as though shot with a giant sling. There he hanged, attached to the ceiling for no less than six hours--the time Eggensotz decided proper enlightenment of the "program" could be obtained.

"Yes," said Eggensotz, quite proud of his newest ideas. "When I'm through with you, boy, you'll be the envy of mankind!"

Sweating as though a waterfall and not a man, Fanzer shook his head to clear the memories this thing before him had stirred. A garbage receptacle, he tried to convince himself. Nothing more. In robotic shape, but still only a place to dump one's trash.

Around its neck, a sign read: “A dirty gathering area denotes a dirty social attitude. Please deposit all unsightly refuse, and enjoy wonderful human relations all your remaining years.”

A rusty robotic hand was bent upward, a finger pointed to its gaping maw, into which everyone who wanted to enjoy "wonderful human relations" via the removal of refuse, should deposit wrappers of spent Ju-Ju Mund, and the like. Purely harmless. Utterly without malice.

"Eggensotz!" Fanzer mumbled. "Eggensotz, Eggensotz..." Repeating the word without end, the olive-colored man raised up this hands, and beat the little receptacle until its bolts fell off.