Home Again

Game Show

...

The man smiled at her, as she sat in his lap. "You see the stars, spark?"

She looked up at the black sky, noticing the glittering diamonds between puffy clouds. "Yeah... I see them. They're pretty."

"Back in the day, sailors and heroes used them as guides," the man explains. He pats her back. "These days, people use Google Maps and the internet. But I say the stars are still one heck of a guide if you ever want to use them. Maybe even better if you know where to go."

She smiled. "Especially when I'm a hero?"

He grinned and ruffled her hair. "Of course. The stars will always be your guide, spark."

ALICE

Game Show Island, in short, is totally taken over by robots. There are signs about robots everywhere, and most buildings have electronic cameras controlled by robots. And basically everything's a robot; even the trees. The only things that aren't robots are the Poptropicans (aka humans), of course. We skipped speaking to people- or should I say robots- and headed into the white, marble museum. Like everything, it's powered by electricity.

Inside there are statues of robots, and platforms built from circuits. Fierce Fox and I watched a video explaining the backstory, which was good for me because I didn't have to explain it for once. The video shows how robots were once used for 'slavery', then this man called 'the inventor' built an intellectually intelligent robot, Holmes, that beat everybody in a game show called Brainiacs.

However, the inventor received all the prizes, and Holmes got jealous. With his intelligence, robots took over the world. Meanwhile, the inventor got away, and the robots were looking for him so they could complete their 'justice'. Kind of weird, but understandable.

After that, we spoke to a Poptropican wearing a robot costume. He told us to find a toolkit, so we could sneak into a nightclub, which isn't something I would normally do (my mom would hate it). We found the toolkit on the nightclub's roof, then headed over to a factory. A couple of robots gave me skeptical glances, which I tried to ignore.

Soon, we arrived at the stone-built factory, which has so many conveyor belts I can't even tell you. We entered the factory, climbed up some moving platforms, and controlled a crane. Why, you ask, did we do this? It was to get a machine working, so we could receive an incredibly powerful fan (or, two, since both of us helped out).

Then we entered the nightclub, Club Nouveau Riche. It's a typical nightclub- dance floor; disco ball; dancing robots (well, that's not very typical); comfy lounges; lack of light. The humidity in the air made my skin itch, as we approached a disco robot. I blasted him with the powerful fan. Unlike other robots, he actually thanked me, and paid me a nickel.

Fierce Fox and I returned to the factory. Except we passed it, and found a homeless guy chilling on the outskirts. I noticed mountains of discarded robot parts behind him, which is like if we humans had mountains of our bones sitting around. A little creepy if you ask me.

Anyway, we gave the homeless guy the nickel. He accepted it with a smile.

"Thanks, friends," he said kindly. "I owe you one."

"Don't mention it." Fierce Fox replied proudly.

"Here, I found these goggles in the trash bin behind the factory. I'm not sure what they do, but they look pretty sharp." the guy handed us heat vision goggles, which to me looked like an insect's head or something.

"Um... thanks?" Fierce Fox said, just as weirded out by the goggles as I was. The guy left to buy some soap, so we returned to Club Nouveau Riche.

"These are heat vision goggles," I explained, once we were inside. "They're gonna help us find an important character." Fierce Fox shrugged as I placed on the 'insect head'. I looked around, the humans glowing a bright orange. One of the orange creatures snuck into a vent; I let out a gasp (only for dramatic affect, of course). "A guy just went up a vent! Let's get him!" I said, and Fierce Fox nodded.