Remote

"We don't need one. You just use the ordinary remote control tuner."

She was right as ever, but Bill wasn't going to admit to that.

"By the time we find the controls the programme has often started already"

Doris growled. "You could always try walking to the TV and tuning the stations in directly. The exercise will do you good once in a while."

Bill felt he should have exploded in rage, though his point came across in mild, exhausted exasperation. He knew she was winning the argument, again. "Exercise. Exercise? How many calories do you expect me to burn off between the sofa and the Telly?"

He knew that he would soon have to concede defeat. He decided to let her go on a little longer, then buy the disputed device as a present for their impending wedding anniversary anyway.

Doris yawned. "We don't need a robot programmed to find the TV remote control for us. When we've lost it in the past it's always turned up within a few minutes. We really ought to go out and start spending less time watching stupid shopping channel ads anyway."

Bill shrugged his shoulders and walked over to the TV set. The means to change the stations over were inside a little concealed panel which he pulled back, ready to press buttons, as their favourite soap operas were due to start soon.

His motion was interrupted when the house shook violently as if a rhino had just charged into it from outside. Several ornaments fell from the mantelpiece, some of them in pieces. Doris yelped as her hot coffee spilt down her blouse, scalding her slightly. An aftershock to the earthquake like phenomena followed quickly, and more pounding, rhythmic and deliberate battering ram effects came quickly.

Doris stood up from the sofa, and pointed to the wall. "It's coming from the Johnson side."

Bill had already figured that out at that point. He was deciding whether to go round and complain or stay to protect Doris as the wall to their living room was now visibly breaking and cracking apart as if someone was hitting it with a jack-hammer or a pick-axe. Wallpaper and plaster flew into the room, and in a shower of debris, a large portion of the wall disintegrated as though a bomb had gone off. Doris and Bill hugged one another and closed their eyes, fearing for their lives.

When Bill finally steeled himself to look round, a large metal man was stepping into the room, slowly and methodically. It was about seven feet tall and had pincer like claws of stainless steel for arms. With one it batted a coffee table aside where it fell into instant matchwood, and with the other it gently picked a TV remote control device from down the side cushion of the armchair where it had fallen. Behind the colossus, that was buckling the very floorboards of the room, stood Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, wide eyed and speechless in horror. The robot stepped back slowly past them through the rubble that had been the connecting wall betwen the terraced houses, and pointed the control device at the Johnson TV set. Eastenders came on right away. The robot then stood stationary, either deactivated or awaiting further instructions from some source or other.

Mrs. Johnson was the first to break the uneasy silence. "I'm sorry, terribly sorry. We'll pay for any damages, naturally."

"What the hell was that?" Bill asked her as he held his trembling wife in his arms, feeling faint and sick inside himself."

Mr. Johnson replied. "The super-deluxe control locator droid. I just bought it and put it together. The instructions said it could find a remote control device at up to fifty yards, and challenged us to hide ours so it could show how efficiently it could find it. We put our TV controls upstairs in the bedroom, expecting it to go up and look there, but it must have realized yours was nearer, so it came through to get that instead. "

Bill was shaking his fist and swearing a great deal. "You could have killed us... What the hell is a thing like that doing on the market at all? It defies every safety regulation in the book..."

Doris reminded her husband that he had been considering buying one himself only moments before. At the same time, Mrs. Johnson was waving the installation instructions about, saying, " Harry, you really ought to have read these more closely before you switched him on. It tells you to specify the diagnostics of the remote control sought first. You just left it looking for any device instead of ours in particular. There are also codes to install to stop it disregarding obstacles like furniture, walls and people it sees along the way and you seem to have rather neglected those too. "

"Oh, so it's my fault now is it?" Harry snapped, to which the other three people pointed out that it was indeed all down to him. As the row seemed about to explode into a fight Doris shouted that perhaps they should have a cup of tea to calm everyone's nerves down. When her husband and neighbors agreed that this would be a good idea, Doris lifted up a small electronic calculator size button-panel, pressed it, and a small kitchen robot took instructions on who wanted sugar and milk and proceeded to put the kettle on.

Arthur Chappell