Do Better

It was already a hot day. The garage Penny worked in always felt like an oven even in the winter. Penny tried to adjust herself in the cramped space she found herself in. She was trained never to panic in dangerous situations. This situation was the worst case scenario. Penny pushed different sequences of buttons and inputted various codes into the robot’s main computer.

“How are you doing there Penny?” She could hear her fellow engineer say from the outside.

“It’s hot in here. It’s not getting any better. Did you figure out why my B.R.U.C.E locked me in here?” Penny asked. It had been twelve minutes inside the robot. She was using her backup oxygen and it was running low.

“I can’t figure it out. Everyone here is looking into it. Even the emergency hatch is locked up. This set of diagnostics says there was a virus in the program.” A virus? A virus is impossible. I coded B.R.U.C.E myself. Suddenly Penny perked up.

“It isn’t a virus. It’s a hack!” Every word cost her precious oxygen.

“How could B.R.U.C.E get hacked? It’s not connected to our mainframe, there’s no valuable information.” Penny was frantic. Her eyes darted up and down the screen reading every line of code within the system. Penny was the lead engineer in the B.R.U.C.E program. B.R.U.C.E was the Battle Ready Unit Concerning Emergencies robot Penny designed for the military. The purpose of B.R.U.C.E was to assist in national defense strategies. Penny fought for the military contract for years.

She spent years perfecting the robotic suit until finally being granted an audience with top military and government officials. The demonstration worked flawlessly. Penny was able to manipulate the robot with ease. After the demonstration Penny was approached by several competitors to offer her congratulations on her newly acquired military contract. One competitor however was bitter in their defeat.

“Congratulations on getting a second-hand product approved by a second-hand government.” Jean Simon was the chief engineer at the French tech company Mains De Métal.

“Pardon me?” Penny was surprised this stranger would have such biting words for another stranger.

“No, pardon me. I didn’t realize that your country prefers cheap things regarding their national defense. If I would have known I wouldn’t have come.” Before Penny was able to give Jean her retort he sauntered off. Since that day Penny and her company had experienced major and mysterious setbacks. Including this incident of Penny being stuck in her B.R.U.C.E.

Penny continued to scan the screen within the robot. She wiped her brow as sweat rolled down her cheeks. Finally, she found what she was looking for.

“Rodger, I found it! I need you to get my green thumb drive and insert it into the palm of B.R.U.C.E.” Her colleague ran to Penny’s desk at the far end of the garage. After rustling around in the drawers, and dropping books and papers on the floor, Rodger found her green thumb drive.

“I have it Penny!”

“Great! Stick it in the palm of the left hand!” Penny’s heart was pounding in her ears. She tried to calm her breathing to preserve the limited amount of oxygen.

“Done!” Rodger yelled out. Penny could see her files pop up on the computer screen. She wiped her sweaty hands on her pants before scrolling through the code. The seconds felt like hours as Penny diligently searched. Once she saw the piece of code she needed, she copied and pasted it into the hacked program. Penny hit the enter key. The entire system shut down with a high pitch screech. Penny covered her ears. She was now in complete darkness.

“Penny? Penny? Did it work? Penny, can you hear me?” Penny uncovered her ears.

“Rodger the system shut down. Lift the…” Before Penny finished her directions B.R.U.C.E suddenly turned on emitting a deep red glow.

“Did you turn B.R.U.C.E back on?”

“No, I didn’t touch anything!” Penny was shaking as she looked at the monitor. The screen showed a metallic clenched fist with the words Tu es pathétique et commun. Under those words was a timer ticking down from one minute. “Rodger, you and the crew need to leave.”

“What do you mean? I’m going to open the emergency hatch!”

“RODGER DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! There is a timer counting down right now and there’s only forty seconds left. LEAVE NOW!”

“I won’t leave you, everyone else has left. How did the timer appear?” Rodger asked.

“It has to be a part of the hack. There’s a metal fist and some French underneath it. I don’t know what’s going to happen when this timer hits zero.”

“We’ll find out soon.” Rodger pulled up a chair in front of the robot as it still emitted red. Penny watched the timer tick down. 14, 13, 12, 11, 10…

“Ten seconds.” Penny said to herself. She closed her eyes and counted down with the timer. “Six, five, four, three, two…” Penny took a deep breath. There was a loud trumpeting that echoed throughout the robot causing Penny and Rodger to flinch. Penny opened her eyes and saw that B.R.U.C.E was now glowing a soft blue. The screen displayed the same metal fist but the message underneath had changed. It now read Faire mieux. Suddenly the back of the robot opened allowing fresh air to rush into the cavity. Penny fell backwards.

“What happened in there?” Rodger caught Penny just in time.

“It was the hack.” Penny pointed at the screen. Rodger squinted at the illuminated screen.

“Do better.”

“What?”

“It says ‘do better’ in French.”

“Then that’s exactly what we will do.” Penny sat up staring at the roof of the garage. It was too hot.