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Roomba had shown up just in time. Little Spine was nearly dry when they made it to the kitchen to find Six sleeping on his feet, again.
Spine sighed. There wasn’t enough in his boiler to steam. “Six!”
Nothing.
Grumbling, Spine stood up and cupped his hands around his mouth. “SIX!”
Still, he slept, softly snoring as he leaned against the counter.
This wasn’t going to be easy, and Spine didn’t like what he was going to have to do to get Petes to wake up. But he was desperate. Boiler low, and shrunk so small, he needed help, now.
Steeling his nerves, Spine kicked Petes’ shin as hard as his tiny titanium legs could manage. When Six yelled, Spine fell back onto Roomba with a yelp. Even Roomba beeped and rolled back a ways.
Looking around, Six rubbed his hand under his mask when he looked down. His head tilted slightly to the side, seeming to question if he was dreaming.
“Good! I was afraid you’d sleep all night! Can you get me some water? I’m pretty low.” Asked Spine, waving an arm. When nothing happened right away, he sighed again. He was getting hot. “Six! I need water!” He yelled.
That seemed to jar Six from his thoughts. “Right, right.” Bending down, he carefully plucked up the doll sized robot and sat him on the counter before filling a glass halfway with water. He wouldn’t need that much, surely?
“Thanks, Peter.” It was a little awkward, lifting up the giant cup, but he wouldn’t let Six help. He was perfectly capable of drinking water, or he was until he poured the water over himself, knocking him on his back. At least he’d gotten plenty in his boiler before giving himself a shower.
Crossing his arms, The Spine quietly pouted and steamed while Six laughed at him. Water dripped off his face and his clothes. At least he wasn’t wearing his fedora. It might have shrunk even more. As if being small wasn’t bad enough.
Still giggling, Six gently poked at Spine. “So, care to explain why you’re doll sized, Spine?”
Grumbling, Spine pushed Six’s away. He wiped his face as he staggered to his feet. “Your shrink ray turned on, on its own, and blasted me in the core. Guess it really did just need more power,” he muttered bitterly, trying to ring water out of his suit. He didn’t need anything else shrinking any more than they already had.
Listening, the young master curled a finger on the edge of his mask. A most interesting reaction, indeed! “Fascinating! I wonder if I just added more blue matter, would it work. Or making a blue matter screen? Like a magnifying glass.” As he pondered, he started to pace the kitchen, seeming to completely forget that there was a tiny automaton in need. At least until he tripped over the Roomba, nearly falling over.
“Careful!” Warned Spine as he hurried to the edge of the counter to look down at the little machine as their wheels spun in the air, beeping in distress. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to his little cowboy.
Six let out a soft sigh and bent down to right the Roomba. They lapped the room before going out the door. Shoulders slumped, he walked back to Spine and crossed his arms. “Well, I can try to reverse it, but you’ll probably have to be small for a little while, Spine.”
That made Spine jump and panic, nearly tumbling into the sink, if Six wouldn’t have caught him. “I can’t stay small! How do I practice? We have shows coming up!”
Sitting Spine to rights, Six crossed his arms over his chest and somehow managed to look amused even through his keyhole mask. “I haven’t even finished the shrink ray. I need time to work on it and figure out how to reverse it. If I even can.”
Steam started to pour out of every one of Spine’s vents. Tiny, forever? That couldn’t happen! He couldn’t stay this small forever. Rabbit would use him like a doll. Zer0 would steal his fire truck, and he wouldn’t ever be able to get it back! And what about music? Were there guitars small enough for him? Could they make one that small that still sounded good? What would happen to the band? Maybe they’d have to disband, or worse, replace him! The Spine absolutely could not stay small. That was not going to happen. Right?
Petes stood back and let Spine spiral for a moment before he tried to gently pat his head. He nearly knocked the bot over. “It’ll be alright, Spineo. I’ll figure something out.” The look on his face told Six it didn’t help. Petes sighed and laughed a little. “For now, try and relax a little. Try and think of it as a vacation.”
Vacation? Robots don’t take vacations! That was ridiculous. He was programmed to entertain. What was he supposed to do? This small, Spine couldn’t even try to write songs. He was barely bigger than the pen.
“It’s late. Why don’t I take you up to your room?” Six offered Spine a hand so he could carry him up.
Not that he was happy about, but Spine stepped onto the offered hand. Trying to get comfortable, he held onto the sleeve of the lab coat so he wouldn’t fall. Hopefully, he would feel better in the morning.
Come morning, The Spine was in another spot of trouble. He needed water, and it was a long way down from his bed. They really hadn’t thought that through.
Stepping to the edge, he looked down. It was a long way down. Leaning over a little more, he flailed his arms when he started to lose his balance and fell back onto the thick comforter. That was going to be a problem. He could try and scale the bedding, but that might damage some of the more intricate workings if he lost his grip. He was smaller now. He wasn’t sure how hard it would be to fix him now, or if they could make parts small enough for him.
Humming softly, he tapped his chin while he tried to figure out a solution. Snapping his fingers suddenly, he grinned and carefully walked back to his pillow. That would give him something soft to fall on. Dragging it back to the edge of the bed, he tried to toss it down. While he threw it down, he threw himself with it.
Screaming, Spine scrambled, trying to grab the quilt. When he hit the pillow, it nearly swallowed him, wrapping him in down comfort. For once, it was a good thing he couldn’t feel pain. That might have hurt. And a better thing he had begged for soft down pillows.
Spine brushed himself off with a sigh. At least there weren’t any doors to contend with. One challenge he didn’t have to worry about while he walked down the hall. He still had a long trek ahead of him before he could get water yet.
Worse than long halls? Stairs. The Spine was really starting to hate the stairs. Why couldn’t he just take the elevator? With how small he was now, he was light enough it wasn’t a risk. Of course, he was also small enough he didn’t stand a chance at hitting any of the buttons. Puffing an annoyed cloud of steam, he started down the stairs, trying not to fall this time.
By the time he made it to the bottom, the titanium bot was starting to overheat. Steaming, Spine leaned against the stair, trying to cool off. Overheating would be a real problem when he was small. He didn’t need to be confused for a toy. He quietly scorned that he didn’t even have his favourite hat to try and fan himself.
If Petes couldn’t fix him soon, he was going to have to start going into stasis under the sink. Now, didn’t that just sound cozy? He thought to himself as he finally made it into the kitchen and walked up to the sink. The very high up and out of reach sink.
Head in his hands, Spine let out a quiet groan. This being small had become far too much of a hassle. Couldn’t just one thing be simple for a little robot that wasn’t meant to be little?
At least he was still strong enough to push a chair over to the sink, barely. He could feel his hydraulics strain as he pushed the chair until it hit the counter. At least it would be easier after this. So long as no one moved the chair back to the table.
Now, he just needed to get up there. Standing on his tiptoes, he reached up to pull himself up. Only his fingers didn’t quite make it to the seat. Fuming, more steam billowed from his vents. All this work, and still he was falling short! He was going to run out of steam at this rate. There had to be something he could use.
While he looked around for something to help, there came a familiar whir of one of his favourite machines. Looking up, he beamed. “Hey, there, cowboy! You always know when I need you, don’t ya?” He laughed, trying to wave them over. “Mind giving me a bit of a lift, buckaroo?”
Trustworthy as ever, Roomba rolled up to the chair. They beeped when they hit the leg but stayed perfectly still for Spine.
With a grin, he gave his not so little friend a pat before crawling up. It was just enough to pull himself up onto the seat of the chair. Just about there! Getting up the back was a little easier, and he finally managed to get himself onto the counter. He really needed water now.
At least the cup was still there, one less thing he had to worry about. He dragged it back to the sink. He tried not to drop it in on its side. He wasn’t sure how hard it would be to get out of the sink. Getting it under the tap, he had to walk around to the back of the sink to turn on the tap, leaning over to watch the cup fill. Not too much. His boiler was a lot smaller, and he didn’t want to make another mess.
Which he did anyway. At least this time, he wasn’t totally soaked, but he got more on him than in him. Grumbling, he resisted the urge to try and throw the cup. He’d need it later. But at least for now, his boiler was full.
Setting the cup by the sink, Spine went back to the chair to look down. He was surprised to see Roomba was still there, spinning around the legs of the chair almost excitedly.
“Are ya waitin’ on me down there?” He asked, laughing when the machine beeped in return. “Alright, alright. I’m comin’ down.” And very carefully, he did just that.
Barely getting both feet onto the top of Roomba, they took off like a shot. Or, at least as fast as a Roomba can manage. Flailing his arms, he tried to catch his balance, only to fall squarely on his rear.
“Careful now! What’s gotten into you?”
Instead of an answer, Roomba lapped the kitchen table before starting out to the hall to go on their rounds again. The manor really seemed like a new world this low to the ground. Spine could hardly recognize the rooms they passed and cleaned being so small.
While they roamed the halls and rooms, Spine started to notice some of the dust bunnies were too big for Roomba. They just rolled them or pushed them around until they got unstuck from a wheel. That wasn’t good!
“We gotta wrangle those dust bunnies, partner!” Tapping on Roomba’s sides, he guided them off to a small sitting room where Annie often sewed. It was early yet, so she was still busy elsewhere in the manor.
Climbing off his friend, Spine dug through her sewing basket. A large spool of black thread was just what he needed. Digging deeper, he found a box of pins. Perfect! Proud as punch, he went to put them on Roomba.
In Annie’s seat laid a small plush cowboy that caught his eye. One of Spine’s favourites. Annie had been fixing him up. One of The Spine’s knuckles had gotten caught on a thread, nearly ripping off the poor doll's arm. He had oil in his eyes when he had shown it to her. The cowboy was nearly as good as new. She was even patching up threadbare clothes.
Just a moment of hesitation, and he took the doll’s hat, holding it protectively to his chest a moment. He did need a hat. “You don’t mind, do you? I’ll give it back when I’m big again,” he promised. Slipping on the hat, he jumped back onto Roomba to start their adventure.
While Roomba didn’t go very fast, Spine still had a grand time of it! At first, he had tried to lasso them with a single piece of thread. That went about as poorly as one would expect it to. More thread wrapped together helped, but it wasn’t quite enough to catch little blobs of dust and hair. It took a few more tries and a few ruined pins that he hoped he never had to tell Annie about, but he managed to catch them!
He guided Roomba to gather them all up in a lesser used study. He got them packed tightly together. Not much room to roam, but that kind of the point, after all. They were dust bunnies, not wild horses or cattle.
Hopping off Roomba, The Spine made a pen for the dusty critters with more black thread and pins. He wrapped the thread carefully and made sure to stick the pins deep enough they wouldn’t tip over and end up in some poor Walter Worker’s foot.
Some of them hung over the edge, and he grinned widely at that, just like a horse trying to get grass from the other side of the fence. For being shapeless masses, if he tilted his head just right, he thought they looked like a pretty good herd.
Once he was satisfied with his work, he climbed back onto Roomba and looked over their hard work. Gently, he gave his friend a pat. “We did real good, didn’t we, cowboy?”
Roomba let out a soft beep and stayed in place, watching over the dust bunnies they’d caught.
Chuckling softly, Spine curled his knees to his chest and draped his arms over his knees. He sighed a happy cloud of steam as he relaxed with Roomba. Rounding up dust bunnies was a lot of fun. Things were different, but he didn’t think he minded too much if his days could be like this.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad being small, just for a while.”