Episode 12, Litle Boy Robot Lost writer – ?

- BG and Rusty have been called to defend a dam that is under attack by giant robots, likely from the Legion.

Rusty: Why would they wanna blow up a darn dam?

At this point, the robot causes a hole in the dam, spurting water out. BG moves to take on the robot.

BG: Put your finger in that dike, Dutch-boy robot.

While BG is distracted by the larger robot, cluster probelets start to attack Rusty’s brain.

Rusty: This is no darn good.

Despite his best efforts, Rusty’s brain appears wiped, and he collapses. BG catches him before he hits the ground.

BG: Performing robot CPR (jolts Rusty with electricity).

Dwayne: Hmm, no EMF pulse.

- At Quark headquarters in Dr. Slate’s lab, Rusty is being examined.

Dwayne: Rusty will pull through – he’s a tough little piece of hardware.

Slate notices that Rusty’s software, ie his memory core, is wiped out and deduces that perhaps the Legion is interested in the code for Rusty’s nucleoprotonic logic circuit.

Dwayne: The dam buster was a decoy – this was a kidnapping from the start!

Slate: And Rusty could be anywhere.

- Meanwhile, Rusty comes to somewhere in cyberspace, where a giant drill is closing in on him..

Rusty: Hey, that tickles! Where am I , the dentist? … But I don’t get cavities, do I?

At this point the Legion introduces themselves and tell Rusty they are after the code for his logic circuit. The drill is actually an extracting program.

Rusty: Hey, hey! No one’s allowed inside my noggin except Dr. Slate!

To the surprise of the Legion, Rusty escapes the restraints, so they send a deletion twister after him. But Rusty escapes their computers and disappears into a data channel vortex, the Internet.

Legion Member: It would seem he has been erased.

Legion Member: Not erased, escaped.

Legion member #4 is drafted to go after him.

- Rusty meanwhile has somehow stumbled into what appears to be a scifi chatroom.

Tiger Nerd: Yo, Moon Platoon rules!

Alien: Name? Age? Place?

Rusty: Age? I’m eight in human years. Look, I need to know how to get back to Quark –

Cute girl: Quark? That a new show?

Alien: What time? What channel?

Rusty: Uh, are you guys OK?

Cute girl: Never met a Quarkie; get together sometime?

Tiger Nerd: Off topic, no moon chat, I’m outtie. (door opens, tiger nerd leaves)

Rusty: Look, how do I get out of here, like that guy?

Cute girl: (confused) Just press control-E

Rusty: Oh. (shouts) Control –E! Control-E! (nothing happens) What if I don’t have a keyboard?

Cute girl: (confused) How can you be on the ‘Net without a keyboard?

And now Rusty gets it; he’s on the Internet. Unfortunately, a new person has entered the chat room, White Male with Internet Access, also known as Legion member #4.

Legion Member #4: Rusty, why don’t you stay and chat for awhile?

- At Quark headquarters, Dwayne has found the probelet on the defeated robot from the damn; Dr. Slate will see if she can use it to locate Rusty. Meanwhile, the Legion are watching #4’s progress in the chatroom from their computer (hence where we see his chatname).

Rusty: You’re a Legion ex Machina guy. So you were trying to take stuff outta my head!

Legion Member #4: Just a few bytes.

The alien chat guy says something, at which point #4 blasts him apart. The cute girl chatter takes this as a cue to control-E.

Cute girl: Tough room, I’m outtie (leaves, door starts to close).

Rusty: Comin’ with ya! (follows through door)

Legion Member #4: Uggh! (falls back)

Rusty now finds himself in an area full of rockets all saying ‘keyword’. They’re apparently search engines. #4 catches up to him.

Rusty: This is virtual reality! You can’t hurt me, nyah!

#4 begs to differ, however. He has a weapon called the deletor – it is specially programmed to erase software in cyberspace.

Rusty: Oh yeah? Eat nucleoprotons, egghead! (nothing happens; apparently hardware weapons don’t work on the Internet.)

#4: Surrender your logic circuit or prepare to short circuit.

Rusty: (runs to a rocket and hops on) Magitech Warriors! (takes off, with #4 barely keeping up/hanging on; they eventually arrive at Magitech Warriors website, a multi-player game. They are greeted by Anthrax the Terrible.))

Anthrax: Interlopers! You trespass in the realm of Anthrax the Terrible. Who art thou, infidel? I shall smite thee into gristle

Rusty: I’m a level-6 cyber sorcerer with great charm; I cast a nil spell on you (nothing happens) If I was at my computer, you’d be fairy dust now.

Fortunately (I guess) before Anthrax can do Rusty in, #4 arrives and takes Anthax out with his deletor. Rusty runs deeper into the castle of the game, dodging enchanted stairs and traps and such, while #4 keeps getting tripped up. The rest of the Legion watches his progress on their computer.

Legion Member: It’s some sort of multi-player game

Legion Member: A game #4 is apparently unfamiliar with…

Rusty: Whoa, Magitech is even better in the Net than on the Net.

When #4 catches up to Rusty on the stairs, he tricks him into almost getting eaten by them.

Dragon under stairs: You dare to disturb Dragar the Loathsome?

Rusty: Nyah, nyah!

Rusty takes this opportunity to use the search engine to take him to Quark’s homepage.

- Back at the real Quark headquarters, Slate has succeeded in reactivating the probelet. Unfortunately, the probelet wants to upload their data.

Slate: But we have real brains!

Mac: Upload this! (fires weapon, destroying probelet) We had no choice.

Dwayne: I’m not complaining.

Rusty finally makes it to the Quark homepage but hits a firewall, a literal brick wall. Rusty tries to ram it down with his face, which doesn’t really work, but…

Computer voice: Scanning face print…Attempting to forge a link.

And Rusty’s in! In the real world, Slate and the others try and figure out a way to reach Rusty. Dwayne sees a message on the computer that reads I’M IN COMPOOTR.

Dwayne: Slate, you are amazing.

Slate: I didn’t do anything. (turns around and reads message) It’s Rusty! He’s a terrible speller.

Rusty finally meets Dr. Slate, but becomes suspicious when she says he can surf the Net past powerdown time. She is revealed to be #4, who steals the circuit and attacks Rusty with the deletor. Suddenly, everything freezes. It turns out the real Dr. Slate was able to save Rusty by shutting down the computer with a priority one brain teaser.

Slate: I got thrown out of computer lab with that gridlock.

- In another part of Quark, the power outage annoys Donovan and Jenny. Donovan resolves to fix it himself.

Jenny: Rebooting the mainframe?

Donovan: Relax, that’s why we have manuals.

Slate tells the crew they have one hour before the computers are manually restarted to hook up an interface between BG and the Quark mainframe so that he can help Rusty when the power resumes. As the hour ends, Donovan and Jenny use joint key cards to restart the mainframe.

Slate: Let’s beta test!

Rusty cringes from the deletor bullet but something knocks it out of the way.

Rusty: Big Guy! How’d you get here?

BG: Science.

Slate sends out an email file attachment to retrieve Rusty’s missing data, knocking it out of #4’s hands.

BG: You have mail.

Rusty: My ball! My ball! (catches circuit data)

Meanwhile, #4 has souped himself up with artificial enhancements to take on BG.

BG: Time to floss some titanium teeth. Say hello to kingdom come dot com. (nothing happens)

Slate: No hardware, sorry.

BG: I guess I’ll have to go digital, as in a 10-digit steel knuckle sandwich.

BG and #4 fight, and #4 seems to have the advantage, until BG knocks #4 into a data stream, breaking it.

BG: Breaking a data stream creates a dangerous feedback – thought you’d like to know.

- Rusty finally comes to in his real body, but is still suspicious of Dr. Slate and asks again if he can surf past power down time.

Slate: Not a chance.

Rusty: That’s the Dr. Slate I know! Whaddaya mean, not a chance?