Melanie, Pieter and Hans all burst out laughing.

  ‘What?’ asked Friday.

  ‘It’s the way you said it,’ said Melanie. ‘You made it sound like Dr Sore Bot. You know – bot being short for bottom – so it would be Dr Sore Bottom.’

  ‘And that’s funny?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Always,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Okay, then Dr SawBot it is,’ said Friday.

  ‘I’m going to make up a stencil so we can spray paint that along the side,’ said Pieter excitedly.

  It was late and there was no-one in their carpark, so they set up an old metal rubbish bin for Friday to test it out on. The remote control had two joysticks to control direction and buttons to control the circular saw.

  ‘Just see if you can navigate with it first,’ advised Pieter.

  ‘It’s just front and back, left and right,’ said Friday. ‘I know I’m not terribly coordinated but how hard can that be?’

  It turns out the answer was ‘very’. There was a lot of backing when she meant to go forward, and turning left when she meant to go right and right when she meant to go left. Friday eventually drove it right off the driveway into a flower bed, which wasn’t such a big deal. The lavender had needed a prune. But two minutes later, she slammed it into a parked Mercedes, scraping the bumper and ripping off a mudflap.

  ‘What have I done?!’ panicked Friday.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Hans said. ‘We can fix it.’

  Pieter and Hans hurriedly buffed out the paintwork and reattached the mudflap before the owner got back.

  ‘With zip ties you can secure anything,’ Pieter assured her.

  ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,’ said Friday. ‘I need to learn to accept that not all things can be conquered with intellectual application alone. My hand-eye coordination and spatial thinking is not up to this task. You should have a go . . .’ She handed the remote control to Melanie.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Melanie. ‘I don’t know my left from my right.’

  ‘I think that might help,’ said Friday. ‘You’re a more intuitive thinker. Give it a try.’

  Melanie took the controls and tentatively tried moving first forward and back, then turning left and right.

  ‘I think I get the idea,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Now try it with a bit of speed,’ suggested Pieter.

  ‘Okay,’ said Melanie. She spun Dr SawBot to the right, then hit the accelerator and it whizzed towards the rubbish bin at full speed. She dropped the front shovel so it scraped along the ground, jammed under the bin and flipped it over.

  ‘Awesome!’ cried Pieter.

  ‘Hit it with the circular saw!’ urged Hans.

  Melanie hit the circular saw button. The shrieking sound of tearing metal filled the carpark as the robot ripped apart the whole bin in seconds.

  ‘Wow! That was so cool!’ yelled Pieter.

  ‘If they didn’t have grounds to arrest us for being terrorists before, they certainly do now,’ said Friday.

  ‘I never realised how much fun destroying things could be,’ said Melanie.

  The location for the Robot Wars tournament was a swimming pool. The water had been emptied out for the winter, so the twenty-five metre by fifteen metre concrete pit was the perfect place to safely send weapon-wielding robotics in to destroy each other. Bleachers had been borrowed from the auditorium and assembled on all four sides of the pool, so the maximum number of people could attend. And of course, the whole thing was being live-streamed for the researchers who couldn’t bear to be parted from their research to watch in person.

  Dr Dalecki himself was going to referee the matches. He had on a microphone headset that made him look like a backup singer. He was jovially enjoying everyone sucking up to him as they waited for the first match to begin.

  Sixteen teams had entered, so in the first round there would be four battles with four teams in each battle.

  ‘I’m nervous,’ said Melanie.

  ‘There’s no need to be,’ said Friday. ‘To win the whole tournament we only have to make it through three matches.’

  ‘But the other robots have been made by some of the greatest scientific brains in the world,’ said Melanie. ‘Plus, they’re all adults.’

  ‘Barely,’ said Friday. ‘Besides scientists have an inherent weakness in their approach. They work things out through trial and error. They have error built into their methodology. Whereas I am a detective. I eliminate errors. We just have to wait for their mistakes then pounce.’

  ‘And by “pounce”, you mean “tear to pieces with a circular saw”?’ said Melanie.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Friday.

  When the draw was posted, Dr SawBot was scheduled to be in the third match of the day. This was good. It meant Friday and Melanie got to watch eight other teams compete first and get some ideas for tactics.

  Dr Dalecki gave a short speech before the match started. ‘Welcome to the first annual CERN Robot Wars Competition!’

  The crowd cheered.

  Dr Dalecki continued. ‘Now we’re all here to have fun . . .’

  ‘And eat free food!’ heckled a jokester from the crowd.

  Dr Dalecki snapped his fingers at his assistant and put his hand over his microphone. ‘Get that person’s name,’ before turning back to the crowd to resume his speech. ‘There are some very impressive robots here today, so let’s have a good fair competition. May the best engineers win!’

  A hooter blowed and the first match was underway. It soon became apparent that Friday’s plan to rely on the flaws of the other teams was never going to work. The robots were seriously good. Halley’s boyfriend, Brad, was the leader of the engineering team in the first match. His robot was called Sir Stabsalot. It was about the size and shape of a lawn mower, if the lawn mower had a tiny medieval knight inside. Brad’s strategy was to drive Sir Stabsalot at his opponents at top speed, then just before the moment of impact a long sharp lance would shoot out and stab the other robot. It was remarkably effective.

  Halley was there to be supportive. Although she wasn’t actually watching. She spent the whole time on her phone. No doubt messaging her team about their experiment.

  A bigger robot with a huge crushing arm lined Sir Stabsalot up to pulverise it, but as the arm lifted, the lance shot out and stabbed it in the armpit. The lance went straight through the protective armour and destroyed the electronic components inside. Sir Stabsalot easily went through to the next round.

  ‘Wow!’ said Friday, turning to Halley. ‘I never would have imagined you falling for an engineer, but Brad has impressive skills.’

  Halley glanced up from her phone. ‘What? Oh, he won, did he?’ She looked up to see Dr Dalecki shaking Brad’s hand, then posing for a photo with him.

  ‘You should go over and congratulate him,’ said Friday.

  ‘Why?’ asked Halley, returning her attention to her phone. ‘He told me he was going to win. And he did. What’s the big deal?’

  Friday knew her social skills were limited, but her sister seemed to be taking it to another level.

  The second match had an entirely different cast of robots. There was one called The Potato Wedge that was basically a huge wedge.

  ‘What’s that one going to do?’ asked Melanie. ‘Wedge a door open?’

  ‘Just because a wedge is simple, doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful,’ said Friday. ‘A wedge may simply be two inclined planes, but it will push two objects apart. In fact, it will use the object’s own force to do it.’

  Friday was right, they soon saw what The Potato Wedge was capable of. It would wedge its edge under an opponent, then activate a powerful piston inside that would flip it over.

  ‘I’m glad we’re not up against that one in the first round,’ said Melanie.

  Soon it was time for the third battle, which meant it was Friday and Melanie’s turn. The other three robots in their battle were intimidating. The Dungeon Master had a mace on the end of a whipping arm that smashed back and forth. The Lobster had giant pincer arms. And The Cannon Blaster had a long tube coming out of the front.

  ‘What do you think comes out of that tube?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Friday. ‘I doubt it’s good though.’

  When they drove Dr SawBot down the ramp into the pool, Dr Dalecki glowered at Friday and Melanie.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  ‘Entering the Robot Wars,’ said Friday.

  ‘You’re not staff,’ said Dr Dalecki.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Friday. ‘I’m my mother’s carer. Support staff are people too, you know. You didn’t say only staff with PhDs could enter.’

  Dr Dalecki glowered some more. He clearly would have loved to have thrown Friday out of the competition, but he didn’t want to do so while thousands of people were watching.

  ‘Perhaps you could explain why, when I moved into my campus housing this morning, I found two cubic metres of trash in my living room,’ said Dr Dalecki. ‘A considerable portion of the trash being letters, bills and periodicals addressed to your mother.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Friday. ‘Sorry about that. We needed somewhere to store it until recycling day.’

  ‘I have reported the incident to Human Resources,’ said Dr Dalecki. ‘There will be a note in your mother’s permanent file.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Friday. ‘But her file has got a Nobel Prize certificate in it, hasn’t it? So no-one is really going to look at anything else.’

  Dr Dalecki looked like he wanted to fire Friday and her mother right there on the spot. But he turned away, flicked his microphone on and addressed the crowd. ‘COMPETITORS READY!’

  The operators positioned their robots. The DJ pumped up the music.

  ‘THREE, TWO, ONE – FIGHT!’ bellowed Dr Dalecki. He was getting into the spirit of the event a little too much.

  The DJ pumped up the music. The crowd started happily baying for blood. Not that there was actual blood, but whatever the robot equivalent was – sewing machine oil.

  ‘Any suggestions for tactics?’ asked Melanie as the metal lobster bore down on her position.

  ‘Run away?’ suggested Friday.

  ‘Oooh, I like the sound of that,’ said Melanie. She deftly spun Dr SawBot away from its attacker and whizzed off down the length of the pool. They were yet to learn if Dr SawBot would be an effective fighter, but it proved to be an excellent retreater. Apparently, their opposing teams had focused on brawn but not speed.

  Melanie easily dodged the others and avoided damage to Dr SawBot.

  ‘We’re doing well,’ said Friday.

  ‘It’s a bit boring, though,’ said Melanie. ‘The other robots are having more fun.’

  At the other end of the pool, The Lobster was being bashed to smithereens by The Dungeon Master with its mace. The Cannon Blaster was lining them both up.

  ‘What do you think The Cannon Blaster is going to do?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘It could be a flamethrower,’ said Friday.

  ‘Cool!’ said Melanie.

  The Cannon Blaster fired its weapon, but it wasn’t a flamethrower. It turned out to be a giant super soaker.

  ‘It’s a water pistol?!’ said Melanie.

  ‘It’s genius,’ said Friday. ‘The robots are controlled by electronics. The water will make them short out.’

  The crowd fell quiet. This was disappointingly anticlimactic compared to watching robots being smashed up.

  The Lobster lurched back and forth a couple of times, then seized up and stopped moving. Sparks came out of The Dungeon Master and his mace arm locked up. The Cannon Blaster spun around and started making its way towards Dr SawBot.

  ‘What now?’ said Melanie.

  ‘Now we find out if this thing really works,’ said Friday. ‘Attack!’

  Melanie hit full acceleration and Dr SawBot whizzed towards The Cannon Blaster.

  ‘The water pistol has a range of about three metres,’ said Friday. ‘Stay that far away from it, move around and get behind the other robots. We can use them as a shield.’

  Melanie did as she was told. She powered ahead until they were just three metres away, then swerved left. The Cannon Blaster fired its water pistol at the same moment, but she had dodged the flow. The Cannon Blaster couldn’t spin the barrel as fast as Melanie could whizz by. She was soon taking cover behind the defunct Lobster. The Cannon Blaster fired its jets at them, but they were only hit by spray ricocheting off The Lobster’s chassis.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘Now we crush it,’ said Friday.

  ‘How?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘Go full throttle at The Cannon Blaster,’ said Friday.

  ‘But The Lobster is in the way,’ said Melanie.

  ‘I know,’ said Friday. ‘We’re going to use The Lobster as our battering ram. We’ve got way more torque than they do.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Melanie. She rammed Dr SawBot into The Lobster and drove it at The Cannon Blaster. The Cannon Blaster’s driver hesitated and that was fatal. Melanie slammed The Lobster into them at top speed, and the cannon bent upwards. Now it was like a garden fountain. The spray was shooting over the top of Dr SawBot. Melanie powered the robot forward and crushed it into the concrete wall of the pool.

  The final hooter went off.

  ‘We have a winner!’ called Dr Dalecki.

  ‘We’re through!’ cried Melanie.

  ‘I can’t believe we won a sporting competition,’ said Friday.

  ‘Well, the robot was doing the sporty bit,’ said Melanie. ‘And I was doing the hand-eye coordination bit.’

  ‘But I built the robot,’ said Friday.

  ‘Yes,’ said Melanie. ‘You’re the Dr Frankenstein of robotic athletic achievement.’

  Friday and Melanie didn’t see any matches until it was time for their second-round battle. One of their opponents was shaped like a garbage bin. It had a chainsaw on a manoeuvrable arm built into a turret in the lid.

  ‘It’s a garbage bin,’ said Melanie. ‘That’s good. We practised on one of those.’

  ‘We didn’t practise on one wielding a chainsaw,’ said Friday.

  ‘Imagine if bins did all have chainsaws,’ said Melanie. ‘People would be much more conscientious about recycling.’

  ‘We know our circular saw can cut through a garbage bin,’ said Friday. ‘But there’s no way a chainsaw is cutting through a shovel blade. Chainsaws are designed to cut wood, which is porous and full of microscopic air and fluid pockets. They can’t cut through sheer steel. We’ve got this in the bag.’

  When the match got underway Melanie and Friday were feeling more confident. Melanie attacked Roombota first, a robot with spinning ninja stars on top. Their circular saw sliced it in half in seconds, ninja stars flying off in all directions. When Dr SawBot spun around to take on the next opponent, the Trash Can was systematically destroying a robot called The Hammer. It was cleaving off pieces with its chainsaw arm.

  ‘Wow!’ said Friday. ‘The Trash Can body might be simple. But the electronics controlling that chainsaw are amazing. It doesn’t just go up and down. It’s moving in both planes.’

  The Hammer was soon completely destroyed. The Trash Can spun around to face off with Dr SawBot.

  ‘I’m scared,’ said Melanie. ‘Should we try running again?’

  ‘There’s no need to be scared,’ said Friday. ‘It’s just a robot.’

  ‘But I love our robot,’ said Melanie. ‘She’s only two days old. She’s too young to die.’

  There was no time for evasive action. The Trash Can was bearing down on them.

  ‘Our saw is better than theirs on steel,’ said Friday. ‘Just go a full-frontal attack. We’ll cut straight through the can.’

  ‘Okay,’ Melanie drove the robot forward and set the saw spinning. The Trash Can raised its chainsaw.

  ‘It’s going to hit us,’ said Melanie. ‘I can’t dodge that.’

  ‘Let it hit us,’ said Friday. ‘It can’t damage our shell.’

  Dr SawBot kept whizzing forward, but at the last second The Trash Can’s chainsaw dropped down and precisely stabbed into the thin gap alongside the circular saw, just missing the blade and stabbing into the body of the robot.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Melanie. ‘Not the heart!’

  ‘It doesn’t have a heart,’ said Friday.

  ‘You’re the one who doesn’t have a heart!’ said Melanie, bursting into tears. ‘Stop being so rational when it’s killing our robot-baby.’ She was desperately trying to manoeuvre Dr SawBot away, but it had stopped responding.

  ‘And The Trash Can wins!’ called Dr Dalecki.

  Friday stared in dismay at their decimated machine. She felt like crying too. It didn’t make any sense. It was just a machine. But she’d poured her heart into that machine. And she’d been so proud of Melanie’s driving skill. Now it was all over in a fraction of a second. It didn’t feel fair. But life was not fair. When would she learn that?

  Friday didn’t want to be the type of girl who moped around because her boyfriend had amnesia. But now she had no boyfriend and no robot. There was a lump in her throat, which was equivalent to a burst of hysterics in a normal person. She had decided to build a robot to cheer herself up. Now she felt worse than ever.

  ‘Gone too soon,’ sniffed Melanie.

  ‘Yes, but what a glorious one day to be a robot,’ said Friday.

  A short time later, Friday and Melanie were sitting on their oversized toolbox in the staging area. Dr SawBot’s remains had been covered in a tarpaulin. Friday had her arm around Melanie. She’d stopped crying, but she was still very upset. There were at least two other teams who stood looking at their robots like they were beloved family pets whose lives had tragically been cut short.

  ‘Come on,’ said Friday. ‘I want to see Brad’s next battle. Halley may be glued to her phone, but the fact that she is even here at such a frivolous event suggests that she is genuinely in love with him. It will be cool to have someone with practical skills in the family.’

  By the time the girls returned to the poolside, the first battle of the semi-finals was over. Brad was going up against The Trash Can as well as a machine that looked like a Dutch windmill and a robot with a huge scorpion tail that curled up over from the back and shot out flames.