Astro Robot: Savior of Humanity

A giant robot falls from the sky,  then rages against humanity's greatest foe.

The voice of the Brain is Sarah Nightmare. "Duke" is by Dr. Brandon Winter," "Astro Robot: Savior of Humanity" by Klaus Brenner.

Transcript

Good evening, gentle, gentle listener, and welcome to this, the penultimate episode. We’ll get right to it. In a second, after this special message from the Duke.

Are you thirsty? Then put some Duke in your face! What’s that, you say you can’t handle the Duke? Then get lost! 

Because the Duke isn’t just beer, it’s the galaxy’s favorite beer. It’s made from real water, real hops and real barley. And not just any barley—the Duke uses Ergot barley, developed for agriculture in methane-heavy atmospheres. 

Now, I’m not going to bore you with the details, science is for nerds, after all. All you need to know is that it goes down easy and you’ll trip balls! What’s it taste like? Who cares!

Duke: It’s not just beer; it’s a life choice. Fill the emptiness inside with Duke.

No one knew who made it or where it was from, a 100-story robot that fell from the sky and landed just outside Tokyo, red and grey and yellow and blue. It did not speak or move. Engineers took saws and blowtorches to it, only to find it quite indestructible. 

Until one day, a scientist found a button on the backside of a control panel inside the robot’s head, and when he pressed it, a microphone rose from the floor.

“Can you hear me?” asked the Scientist.

“Who am I?” replied Astro Robot, in an overpowering voice that shook the countryside.

“Why, you are Astro Robot, savior of humanity.”

He was told about the Kaiju, massive beasts who had been mankind’s mortal enemy for millenia. They destroyed cities, he was told, killed whoever stood in their path. Not out of hunger or for survival, but because they were vicious, uncaring behemoths with evil in their hearts.

The robot bellowed out, in a voice so huge, it could be heard a hundred miles away. “I am Astro Robot, and I shall not rest till the very last Kaiju is dead and gone.”

And so he travelled the world, hunting the Kaiju where they lived. In the Sahara, he spent months tracking the Dunecrawler, a sandwurm as elusive as it was gargantuan. Untiring and unrelenting, Astro Robot was finally able to hunt it to exhaustion, then pull it out of the ground and disintegrate it with death ray eyes.

In Siberia, it tussled with the giant mastodon Sigmund. It’s massive trunk wrapped around Astro Robot, threatening to crush its delicate, alien circuits. But the robot threw it off like it was nothing. Sigmund tried to skewer it on its tusk, but whatever alloy Astro Robot was made of was unbreakable. Finally, the robot landed a devastating punch that cracked the beast’s skull, and Sigmund fell dead where he stood.

The giant bat Grimwing was unlucky enough to be in its lair when Astro Robot found her. She was no match, and soon, the great machine was tearing her wings from her body. Recognizing the creature was mortally wounded, Astro Robot left it to bleed out and turned towards its newborns. Grimwing seemed to moan in sorrow as the robot incinerated her brood, but Astro Robot had been told that Kaiju were cold and soulless, so he paid her no mind.

Within a year, Astro Robot had reduced the Kaiju population to just a few dozen worldwide, a number the humans could easily control. Since he was no longer needed for survival, mankind found another use for him. Entertainment.

They built a city, the streets deserted, the buildings empty. And once every few months, they'd fly in one of the remaining Titans, so that it could do battle with Astro Robot, broadcast live to a pay-per-view audience of millions. None of them stood a chance. Not Zeo, the Emperor Lizard, who the robot decapitated with one swift kick. Not the many-tentacled Octapoid, impaled on a skyscraper. Even the great sea turtle, Lavia, fell, her iron shell no match for Robo’s energy sword.

And then one day, Astro Robot faced the fearsome Crimson, a tremendous red ape who had stayed hidden within the jungles of Vietnam for generations. For days, the titans battled, the whiley primate dodging and countering Robo’s blows expertly. But he was just flesh and blood and his opponent an automaton, and eventually, Crimson tired. 

Robo looked down at his fallen foe, the ape too exhausted to fight back, and raised his arm to deliver the finishing blow. But something in the ape’s face made him pause. Tears welled in the beast’s eyes as he grasped onto the robot’s shoulder, as if he were pleading for mercy. But that wasn’t possible. Astro Robot had been assured that these beasts were cruel and unfeeling. If that was wrong, then all the things he’d done-

It was too much to think about. So he brought his fist down with conviction, hoping Chrimson’s death would quell the indecision in his head. But as his foe slumped to the ground, lifeless, Astro Robot felt only despair, complete and all-consuming. He closed his eyes and shut down.

The scientists didn’t know what to make of it. Attempts to restart the machine or communicate with it proved fruitless. Which was just as well. The ratings on Kaiju fights were way down, and for conservation’s sake, it would probably be a bad idea to kill them all. So they built a refuge, a place where the Kaiju could live and be observed, both by scientists and anyone willing to pay the park’s exorbitant entry fee.

Astro Robot was left there, dead to the world. 

But unbeknownst to anyone, there were circuits in his mechanical brain still functioning. He wasn’t asleep. He was lying in wait. And his revenge would be spectacular.