Young Writers Society

The robot floated over to a wooden gate in the fence next to the house and rapped on it with an arm. "Eniac? It's me, Robert, with a guest."

There was silence for a moment, then without any warning, a head of electric-blue hair popped up over the fence. Two narrowed eyes squinted down at Robert and Sunny. "Eh? You're going to rob me of my quest?"

Robert muttered, "I hate repeating myself. Especially when I know he understood me the first time."

Sunny decided to step in with the speech she’d thought of on the ride there. "Hello! My name is Sunny, and I and my trusted sidekick Robert are on an important quest to retrieve the error descriptions. Esteemed error guardian, would you kindly lend us your aid?"

Robert huffed indignantly. "Excuse me, I'm not your side–"

Sunny elbowed Robert.

"And we're not retrieving anything right now, we're just gathering info–"

Sunny elbowed him a little harder.

The error guardian was firmly looking down at the counter. He rubbed an invisible spot off the marble.

They had just jumped over a narrow stream when Sunny spotted a black patch, around twice the size of her spread-out hand, floating in the river. As they approached, the patch resolved into lines of text that were tangled together.

“What is that?” Sunny narrowed her eyes.

“Well,” Robert started doubtfully, “extraneous code in the river usually gets washed away and ends up in a landfill. Untangling it by hand is quite tedious, so it’s easier to do nothing and just let it decompose naturally.”

“I refuse to do nothing.” Sunny searched for a stick along the ground, then used it to reach into the river and pull up the snarl of code. The letters dripped murky water as Sunny lifted the clump onto the dry bank.

Sunny turned to Robert. "Robert. Dear, sweet Robert. Would you happen to have any money on you?"

Robert rolled his eyes, then reached into a compartment on his side and pulled out some blocks that had a metallic shine to them. He pushed them over the counter.