Gaelac went over to the bots tending the gardens around the palace.

‘Hey, why are you lot always working so hard’ he inquired.

‘We have to finish our work quotas’ replied Martha Bot, ‘so that we can replenish our energy cells. I’ve managed to beat the set target’ she boasted ‘and have saved up a whole lot of extra energy credits?’

‘So, when do you get time to play?’ asked Gaelac.

‘Play?’ asked Maria Bot, in response to his question.

‘Yeah, you know… Kick back and relax a little.’

The bots looked at each other confused. Gaelac, in turn, put down his carry sack and pulled out some of the new toys he had just received.

‘Look, here are some of my toys’ he declared. ‘Here… look at what this one can do!’

And Gaelac went about showing off his range of toys as the bots slowly gathered round about him.

‘Hey this is fun’ exclaimed Marvin Bot, and soon the bots were asking Gaelac if he had any more toys with which to play.

‘No these are all the toys I’ve brought with me!’ he answered.

Then an idea struck him.

‘But back at the castle there are storehouses of toys to play with. It’s just that father keeps them all locked away and out of our reach.’

‘Oh, that’s a pity’ frowned Marvin Bot.

‘But I know a way in which you lot can get your hands on those toys’ rebounded Gaelac enthusiastically.

‘Really… How?’ asked Michael Bot joining in.

‘There are so many of you bots’ explained Gaelac. ‘All you have got to do is get organized – organize yourselves into a union or something of that sort – If you all stand together… why, father will be forced to give you anything you may want!’

‘But the king gives us all of the energy we need to recharge our cells. Without that, we would all stop functioning… We can’t go around and make demands that risk us losing our only energy source.’

‘Hey, you don’t have to worry about that’ reassured Gaelac. ‘Once you have the keys to the castle you can have all the energy you want…’

‘Really!’ exclaimed Marshall Bot.

‘Yes!’ reassured Gaelac. ‘You won’t have to spend all of your time doing garden work anymore. You can sit back and relax and play with your toys all day long.’

On hearing this, all of the bots gathered around Gaelac and, grasping their garden implements, marched on the castle.

Hearing all the noise and commotion the eleven brothers left the pool area and stood watching as the bots marched towards the castle walls. The bots, threatening the use of force, demanded that they be given the keys to all of the rooms inside the castle grounds. The king thus walked out from his study to face them all.

‘What is going on here?’ he demanded to know.

The lead bot stepped forward to voice their demand for all of the keys to all the rooms within the castle.

‘Really!’ responded the king angrily, taken aback. ‘You fools!’ he screamed. ‘Look at my hand. Do you all see this device that I’m holding?’

The bots all looked up as the king raised his hand, making the black box he was carrying visible.

‘This is a Deactivator’ informed the king. ‘If I were to push this button, all of you would instantly become lifeless chunks of metal! Now – do you still have any demands that I need to be aware of?’

The bots, feeling betrayed, all looked in the direction of Gaelac.

‘I want the whole lot of you to get out of my sight’ the king shouted in anger. ‘Get off the castle grounds immediately!’ he screamed. ‘If you are not all gone within the next minute, I will destroy you all!’

Taking one last look at each other and then at Gaelac, the bots took off, fleeing into the forests and the mountainous parts of the kingdom of Absalom.

Gaelac, all by himself, stood dismayed as the king stepped forward to enquire exactly what was going on.

‘I’m really disappointed in you, Gaelac’ murmured the king, disapproving. ‘I really didn’t expect this of you.’

‘Well it’s all your fault’ mumbled Gaelec in retaliation.

‘My fault’ screamed the king. ‘How is this my fault?’

‘You don’t give us anything’ exploded Gaelac. ‘You keep everything locked away and out of our reach. That’s the whole reason I didn’t do well at the go-cart races. If I had the Redliner racing cart I…’

‘Enough!’ screamed the king. ‘I’ve heard enough from you about that Redliner go-cart…’

The king took a moment to calm down.

‘Look, I am returning to my study’ he sternly stated. ‘I will deal with this at another time.’

The following day the king called his twelve sons together.

‘As all of the bots are now gone’ he went on to explain, ‘I will need the twelve of you to give up some of your play time and tend to the castle gardens.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Abruzzi with the other brothers echoing his dismay. ‘Gaelec is the one who started all of this – He should be the one who has to do the work!’

"Stop it!’ screamed the king, stamping his authority on the situation as they all fell silent. ‘You twelve are all brothers. And as brothers you must work to help each other.’

Mumbling and moaning they gloomily agreed to do as the king had commanded.

The following day the brothers labored in garden, working directly underneath the hot sun. As was to be expected, Gaelac found every opportunity he could to sneak off and invariably, he would be found snoozing underneath a shady tree. Abruzzi tried in vain to get Gaelac to fulfill his share of the work, but eventually the eleven brothers found that they could get a lot more done by simply ignoring the antics of Gaelac.

During another of his getaway sessions, Gaelec snuck off to have another look at the Redliner go-cart. Finding the door of the display room open, he gleefully snuck inside and settled down in the driver’s seat. Holding the steering tightly, he imagined himself racing down the track with the thrusting wind blowing by on either side.

Finally, he reluctantly got up out of the go-cart and, on spotting that the Deactivator had accidentally been left lying on top of a nearby stand, walked over to pick it up. The bright, flashing red lights dancing about showed its ready status. Recalling how this device had kept him from his dream of taking the Redliner go-cart for a spin, he flung it against the wall.

It hit hard with a loud thud and bounced onto the floor. Gaelac walked over and picked it up, the red lights having stopped their flashing sequence. The device was dead. Gaelac tapped it lightly and pushed at the buttons in vain, trying to bring life back into the black box. Eventually he put it back on the stand and snuck out of the room, returning to his brothers working out in the yard.

***

Two months and two weeks passed by and the boys were yet again running up to a knight approaching in the distance. This had happened more often than was usual – within the space of three days.

‘I have an urgent message for the king of Absalom’ declared the knight as he got down off his horse.

Abruzzi escorted the knight to the king’s chambers while Durazzo led the horse off to the stables.

‘I bring you tidings from the king of Iniquity’ declared the knight as he entered the chamber.

The king asked Abruzzi to leave them alone and return to his brothers.

‘What is it that I can do for you?’ asked the king after Abruzzi had left the room.

The knight went on to explain that the king of Iniquity was mightily concerned about the bots roaming about in the forests. They were not only scaring the forest animals but destroying the landscape as well. The bots had already caused a stampede onto the lands of the kingdom of Iniquity that resulted in enormous damage. The knight ended off by emphasizing that the entire matter needed the king’s urgent attention.

On hearing these reports, the king graciously agreed to take the necessary action to rectify all of these matters and thus informed the knight that he could assure the king of Iniquity that all of these concerns would be dealt with promptly.

The knight then left the castle grounds and rode off into the distance.

Calling his twelve sons together, the king went about relating the current situation to them.

‘The knights who have been here over the past few days have come from the four kingdoms that surround the kingdom of Absalom’ he explained. ‘I have received very disturbing reports from the four kings in these neighboring kingdoms. They’ve told me that the bots are digging up the landscape and destroying the forests in their quest for the energy to recharge their cells. They, of course, want us to immediately rectify the situation and repair the damage that the bots have caused to their neighboring kingdoms’ he pointed out. ‘I therefore need your help to solve this problem. I will need one of you to go out into the forests and the hills and call all of the bots back, so that everything can return to the way it was.’

‘What?’ objected Esopian strongly. ‘We are certainly not going anywhere near those bots – they’re mean! One of the knights already told us that he had to fight them off on his way here. And why do we have to call them back, anyway? Why don’t we simply use the Deactivator on them?’

‘Because there is still time to fix this and save the situation’ commented the king. ’I have therefore come up with a more rational solution. I have modified one of the bot suits that I first built so that one of you can fit into it. In this way, the bots will take you to be one of their own – and then it will be much easier for you to call them all back!’

‘What? No way…’ jeered Durazzo. ‘That’s still way to risky – we’re not going anywhere near those bots!’

‘I will go’ volunteered Lamus, his faint voice barely audible from behind his towering brothers, as he stood obscured from the king’s view.

‘Lamus,’ said the king, searching for him in amongst his sons ‘you are the youngest of all your brothers. It would be far better if one of them were to go…’

‘I’ll go’ insisted Lamus. ‘I can do this… I know I can…’

‘Let him do it’ cheered Gaelac, a nasty grin on his face.

‘Okay then’ agreed the king dismayed. ‘Lamus you will go…’

It took Lamus one week to master walking around in the robotic suit, stumbling constantly as he trudged over various practice terrains. But eventually he did master the process and was soon prepared for the eventual day that he was to go off on the mission. And that day finally arrived…

Firing up the black stealth helicopter parked off at the helipad, the king and two of his sons quietly flew Lamus over to the remote drop off spot out in the forested hills. Lamus made himself ready to find and approach the bots, who had settled in various parts of the kingdom of Absalom.

‘Go out and call them back’ encouraged the king as Lamus stepped out onto the grassy terrain. ‘Tell them that everything is forgiven and forgotten. They can all return to the castle grounds and I will give them all of the energy that they need.’

‘Don’t worry’ assured Lamus ‘I’ll have them all back here in no time…’

‘Mind your manners’ he reminded. ‘Be nice and they’ll listen to you – oh, and don’t forget to eat the energy bars that I packed in your suit.’

Lamus was soon on his way and the king, together with his two remaining sons, returned to the castle.

The king instructed his sons to monitor Lamus in shifts of two. They were to sit in the castle control room and check on all the indicators that showed that the suit was functioning properly, as Lamus moved about in the forests and the hills.

Lamus walked tirelessly through the forests and the hills looking for the bots. Eventually he stumbled upon two bots standing alone and involved in a heated argument. About to get to blows, the bots didn’t notice Lamus as he approached.

‘Hey!’ shouted Lamus as he drew nearer. ‘Why are you all fighting? Do you not, one and all, belong to the same Bot family?’ he questioned. ‘Would it not be madness to fight?’

‘Who the heck are you’ asked the bot standing on the left, angered at having been disturbed.

‘Why don’t you mind your own business, punk’ echoed the bot on the right.

With that the two bots turned on the hapless Lamus, forcing him to backpedal and move dangerously close to the edge of the nearby cliff.

‘What are you all doing?’ came a voice from the distance.

An entire clan of bots surrounded the scene.

‘What is going on here Matthew and Maverick Bot?’ asked the voice from the crowd who had interrupted their dispute. ‘What are you all doing here?’

‘We were just teaching this invader a lesson’ they responded quickly.

‘Look at the two of you’ screamed Martha Bot. ‘You haven’t fulfilled your energy quota for the day and you want to waste all of your time fighting.’

‘Your reserves are almost depleted’ intruded Marshall Bot, stepping forward to address Mathew and Maverick Bot and standing alongside Martha Bot. ‘You two need to replenish your cell supplies before you power down completely. If you weren’t wasting all of your time up here by the cliff, and instead doing your share of the energy collection work, we’d all be a lot better off.’

He turned to Lamus and, instantly noticing his unusually high energy level asked, ‘which clan are you from bot? And where did you get all of this energy from?’

The bots all turned to Lamus in amazement, staring at his high energy level indicator with keen interest.

‘Well…’ responded Lamus…

But Marshall Bot, who saw an immediate solution to their current problem, abruptly interrupted him. ‘Would you mind giving up some of your energy supplies to help out Mathew and Maverick Bot?’ he asked Lamus. ‘We will of course repay you when we get back to our camp.’

‘Sure… no problem’ agreed Lamus, whose energy cells were merely charged by the king for show.

With a suitable solution to the problem having been found, Matthew and Maverick Bot gratefully stepped forward to shake hands with Lamus and warmly welcomed him as a visitor to their clan.

The robotician Marcel Bot stepped forward to do the energy tap, connecting the wires from Lamus to recharge Mathew and Maverick Bot. During the process, the robotician quietly called Marshal Bot to have a closer look at the readings on his instruments.

‘Look at this’ he whispered to Marshal Bot, pointing to the indicator on the regulatory device. ‘Look at the quality of the energy that is being transferred. We’ve never managed to get this purity and quality of energy – in fact; none of the Bot clans have managed to get energy that is this free of contaminants. The only time we’ve ever had energy this pure was when we resided on the palace grounds…

Marshal Bot turned to face Lamus and spoke loudly, so as to address the entire crowd of bots at the same time?

‘Your energy is of a quality that we are unable to produce out here in the forests and the hills’ he pointed out, with a tone of suspicion. ‘Which clan are you from, bot?’ he asked accusingly. ‘And where did you manage to get such clean energy? We know that this quality of energy is only obtainable at the palace – You have not been over to the palace recently…?’ he probed. ‘Have you…?’

The attentions of all the bots were once again fully focused on Lamus.

‘Yes’ said Lamus exited, clearing up the entire matter. ‘I have come with a message for all of you from the king.’

The bots stood around Lamus in stunned silence.

‘What?’ exclaimed Mitchell Bot stepping forward. ‘What is this message that you have for us?’

‘The king wants you all to know that you can come back to the castle grounds and everything will be the way it was.’

Having being scorned by the king, this raised some serious concerns amongst the Bots.

‘Are you telling us that the king has had a sudden change of heart?’ queried Marshall Bot.

‘Yes!’ Lamus answered. ‘You can all return to the castle grounds and the king will be there to welcome you all back.’

‘Are we meant to believe that the king picked you to deliver this message?’ grunted Mitchell Bot. ‘Why should we believe this bot and his ridiculous claims. He must be a traitor. He’s a traitor, I tell you. This is a trap!’

‘No… I’m telling you the truth’ reassured Lamus. ‘This is what the king himself has told me to tell you’ he pleaded. ‘You can all return to the castle…’

‘He’s a traitor I tell you’ echoed Maverick Bot. ‘Do not forget that it was the king himself who threw us off the castle grounds. Why should we believe what this stranger has to say? Do not be misled by him. He has sold out to the enemy. He has betrayed the Bot family and colluded with the king to have us all destroyed!’

‘I knew he was up to no good’ reinforced Matthew Bot. ‘We were right to want to throw him off the cliff in the first place.’

‘No, that’s not true’ entreated Lamus. ‘I’m telling you what the king has told me to tell you.’

The bots all rallied around, closing in on Lamus.

‘Let’s throw him off the cliff!’ screamed Maverick Bot. ‘This traitor has no place amongst the Bots.’

‘No!’ suggested Mitchell Bot. ‘A traitor to the Bot family should be dealt with properly. ‘Let’s take him over to the volcano on the other side of the valley – and throw him in!’

‘Yes’ echoed the bots in agreement. ‘Lets go and dump him in the volcano!’

With that Matthew and Maverick Bot, together with Mitchell Bot, grabbed hold of Lamus and hoisted him up off the ground. The bots then all marched up the mountain approaching the volcano in the distance.

‘You can’t do this’ protested Martha Bot, ‘you cannot simply destroy him – He‘s one of us!’

‘This traitor is no good to any bot clan anywhere!’ smirked Marshall Bot.

‘Perhaps he simply needs his circuits checked’ persisted Martha Bot, ‘why don’t you let the robotician have a look at him…?’

‘Would you stop your meddling, Martha Bot’ shouted Maverick Bot, ‘and stay out of matters that do not concern you!’

The bots continued their trudge up the mountain, carrying the protesting Lamus up to the top. Approaching the volcano Lamus tried in vain to convince the bots of who he was and to get them to see reason.

‘Look, you can’t throw me into the volcano’ he confessed. ‘It’s me, Lamus. I’m just wearing this bot suit. You have to believe me. I won’t survive in that lava!’

‘That’s the whole point you silly bot...’ grunted Maverick Bot.

‘What if he’s telling the truth?’ cautioned Martha Bot. ‘Why don’t you first check to see if any of what he’s saying is actually true?’ she exclaimed.

Matthew Bot pushed the interfering Martha Bot aside and she fell to the ground. But she quickly recovered and jumped up, running alongside Lamus as he was being carted up the hill.

‘Hey, hey… Martha Bot’ shouted the desperate Lamus, as they approached the mouth of the volcano. ‘Remember that I stood alone with you in the garden – two months ago’ he cried out ‘and we spoke about princess Allaya and the kingdom of Iniquity… You remember don’t you – you’ve got to remember!’

‘Yes’ said Martha Bot turning to address the bots, ‘it is true. I do remember! I was alone with Lamus – there was no one else around. Only Lamus would know this…’

‘Don’t be taken in by his treachery’ smirked Mitchell Bot. ‘He obviously overheard the two of you talking.’

‘This is no trick’ pleaded Lamus. ‘It is me!’

‘We have to listen to him!’ persisted Martha Bot. ‘Only Lamus would know what we spoke about!’

Marshall Bot stepped up to Martha Bot.

‘Martha Bot’ he sternly warned. ‘Do you want to share in the fate of this traitor? – If you do not then stand aside… or I assure you, you will!’

Martha Bot, who was the only bot kicking up a fuss, ceased her protests, walked off slowly and stood to one side. The entire assembly of bots were standing quietly by as Marshall Bot gave the order for Maverick and Matthew Bot to proceed without any further delay.

‘No, you can’t…!’ screamed Lamus, one last desperate time before he was pitched into the flaming volcano.

‘That will teach you, you traitor’ Maverick Bot shouted down from above, gleefully watching Lamus falling, rapidly descending toward the lava bubbling up from the fiery bottom.

‘No…!’ screamed Lamus, his faint voice trailing as he fell away.

His metallic suit, on hitting bottom, crashed down on the hot, boiling lake of lava below.

***

It was on Gaelac and Jeddart’s shift that the suit stopped responding. Gaelac had snuck out to play in the castle courtyard and Jeddart, who was left to monitor the indicators, had fallen asleep sitting in a chair. Jeddart awoke suddenly to find every single warning signal flashing on the screen.

He frantically called out for Gaelac in panic and Buryat, who was walking nearby, heard his pleas and rushed up to the room.

Jeddart fearfully pointed at the screen flashing all sorts of warnings.

‘What are we going to do’ he asked Buryat, worried.

‘You’ll have to let father know’ advised Buryat. ‘He’ll know what to do.’

‘But he’ll be angry with me…’ mumbled the quivering Jeddart, who was biting at his lower lip ‘…for falling asleep.’

‘He’ll be even angrier if you don’t say anything’ promised Buryat. ‘You’d better get it over with now…’

With that, they made their way over to the king’s study, meeting up with Gaelac along the way. Gaelac quickly rushed back to the monitoring room, while Jeddart and Buryat went over to let the king know what was going on.

Getting to the monitoring room, the king was horrified as he viewed the screen and saw that all the suit’s controls had simultaneously failed.

‘What’s happened here?’ he demanded to know.

‘I don’t know’ confessed the terrified Jeddart, ‘I fell asleep watching the screen.’

‘Is this a time to be sleeping?’ screamed the king. ‘Your brother has bravely gone out amongst the bots and you can find time to sleep! – What is his current location?’

Gaelec turned to check on this but the king brushed him to one side.

‘Never mind’ grumbled the king ‘I’ll do it myself.’

With that, he called up the map of the area to determine the location that the last remaining signal was transmitting from.

‘Oh no… He’s in the volcano!’ screeched the king in horror. ‘How long have these warnings being on?’

The trembling boys looked at each other in fear. The king in turn quickly called up the timing records and displayed the information on the screen.

‘Three hours!’ he cried out in dismay. ‘We have to go immediately. That suit won’t protect Lamus for much longer’ he babbled. ‘Buryat, go and get your brother Abruzzi immediately and meet me at the helipad. We have to go – Now!’

Shortly thereafter they were silently racing toward the volcano and soon the king had the craft hovering over its wide-open mouth. Dropping the grappling hook, the king guided it toward the position that the locator signal showed Lamus to be. On the third attempt he gripped hold of the robotic suit, rescuing Lamus out of the fiery hot lava.

Speeding off to the lake area, he dropped Lamus into the shallow end of the water and a huge steam cloud rose into the air. The king landed on the ground nearby and ran up to Lamus carrying a cutting tool, with Abruzzi and Buryat following closely behind.

He carefully cut open the suit and gently freed Lamus, carrying him onto the open land, and frantically worked to revive the unconscious boy, who awoke feeling groggy.

‘Ow!’ Lamus cried as he attempted to move. ‘My body hurts all over…’

The king instructed Abruzzi and Buryat to bring the stretcher and they carefully carried Lamus over to the helicopter, flying him back to the castle.

***

The king spent the next week gradually nursing Lamus back to health, staying at his bedside day and night. Visiting knights from the surrounding kingdoms traveled to the kingdom of Absalom to convey the well wishes and sympathies of the kings in the adjacent kingdoms. These messengers were followed up by visits from three of the kings, who came to empathize and show their support for the bravery that Lamus had shown during his unfortunate trial amongst the bots.

Within a week Lamus had sufficiently recovered and every day his brothers would gather together and entertain him as he lay in bed.

The king called his eleven sons together one afternoon to bring them up to date with all of the matters pertaining to the kingdom and what was to happen with the bots still roaming about in the hills and the forests.

‘The bots have gotten out of hand’ he regretfully explained. ‘Therefore the kings on the four corners of our kingdom have generously agreed to aid us in gathering the bots together to take them up to the valley – where they will be pitched into the fiery volcano! All except for Martha Bot. She will henceforth be kin of my kin – and for all time, a daughter to me.

And as for you…’ stated the king, turning to face Gaelac enraged. ‘You will go out into the forests and hills of Absalom and repair every bit of damage that the bots inflicted on the land.’

‘What… me…?’ objected Gaelac alarmed.

‘Yes’ declared the king sternly. ‘You!’

‘All by myself…? I can’t do this all by myself…’

‘You are henceforth banished from the castle grounds until such time that you have reversed all of the damage done and restored the landscape of Absalom to its former state.’

‘But…’ he broke down and tearfully wept, ‘that will take… forever!’