The brick wall of the 13th floor (which was the penthouse floor) opened and I was dropped off at honestly one of the strangest places I had seen in my whole life. The room was an electrical room, filled with the intricacies of thick, black, hairlike wires and light grey circuit boxes. The room was also a laboratory, filled with test tubes, Bunsen Burners, flasks, centrifuges, batteries, bottles of the worst acids ever, severed wiring, wirecutters, and circuit boards. The most noticeable objects were the various invented gadgets-the two black strappable wings powered by jet fuel, a couple of jetpacks that were far from Mandalorian perfection, and hoverboards that glowed like plankton and changed color every few seconds. Surprisingly, the lab lacked any advanced or even modern light. The light sources were either late 19th century Tiffany lamps (which gave off rainbow disco vibes) or even dimmer gas lamps (which burned very quietly and gracefully). Atmospherically, the lab was steampunk in nature. A scarlet macaw fluttered around, its wings hypersonically flapping like a hummingbird. At closer inspection, I saw that it was not alive-the wings were segmented and metallic and its eyes glowed slightly luminously in the dimness. It flew around another robot, who seemed to be garbed in an exoskeleton of war. Its carapace was entirely black and it towered way over my head, nearly reaching the ceiling. A jetpack seemed to be fused to its back. Then it turned its head and I saw that it was still human, however only the mouth was showing. The rest of his face was covered by a visor.

  “Peux-tu me donner les yeux, s’il te pla?t?” His voice was so strange-it sounded so robotic. Then I realized that he was speaking through autotune. “What?”

  “Peux-tu me donner les yeux, s’il te pla?t?”

  “Look, can you speak English?” His lifeless French was irritating me to death.

  “Désolé, I thought you were French!” His accent was thickly Francophone. “Could you hand me les yeux on the table?”

  I looked to where he was pointing. A round and gleaming glass eye sat on the metal table that was painted to look like wood. I did what he requested. “Merci.” He fitted the eye into a mechanical dodo bird.

  “Temps pour vol!” He pressed a red button on a black walkie-talkie that looked as if it had been made from homemade appliances bought from Home Depot. Immediately, large eagle-like wings emerged from its sides and it zoomed around like a noisy bee. Its sound was awful. It was so awful that I wanted to shoot it out of the sky. But after three laps, the cyborg scientist finally landed it. “Que penses-tu? What do you think?”

  “Impressive,” I replied rather sarcastically. This weird android was getting on my nerves.

  “Tres bien!” He extended his hand. “Docteur Jean-Pierre DuBois, en francais. You can call me Dr. Jimmy.” I shook his cold, metallic hand and experienced a helluva of a strong grip. Hopefully there would be no cramps when I got to bed. “What is your name?”

  “Calvin.”

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  “Et last name?”

  “Garcia.” My annoyance level was now above the height of Mount Everest. But I still had to keep my cool. “Okay, thank you for saving me.”

  “De rien.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Monsieur Parrotieur has yeux.”

  The mechanical red parrot descended gracefully onto his shoulder.

  “Salut, Monsieur Calvin!” it chirped, in an eerily similar voice to its master except it was more high-pitched.

  “Et ce mont garde du corps,” Dr. Jimmy said as he motioned at my sleek robotic angelic savior.

  “L’Archange Alie a ton service,” the robot angel said as he saluted me militarily.

  “What the hell is this place?” I wondered.

  “Ah, c’est mon laboratoire. J’ai un scientifique, un biologiste, un chimiste, un physicien, un ingénieur. Mon dipl?me à l'école Polytechnique. Je suis spécialisé en robots. J'avais travaillé à Robot. Inc.”

  I knew that company-it was at the forefront for mass-producing android gynoids that porn addicts could gawk at and for the nerdiest of nerds to get job offers at. “Do you want to hear why I was fired from my dream job?” Before I could say no, he had begun.

  “Je was première dans ma classe. Numéro un. After graduation, Robot. Inc. hired me for work immédiatement. At first, I was travaillent en designing robots but soon I was promoted to directeur. Dans trois années, je suis passé devant le projet en désignant une voiture volée. Mon boss immédiat, je nom il Daniel Douchebag, est très jaloux. Il craignait que je me surpasse lui so il found à way à getting rid of moi. Il à mentir à ses supérieurs que je l'ai insulté. Moins d'un jour, je suis à renvoyer. Daniel Douchebag est un gogol! Il est payé pour ?a!” He was stomping around and thumping his fists on the metal and making quite a loud racket.

  “Look, I understand you had a horrible job experience but someone was just murdered in the condo that you rescued me from.” He was still throwing his cybernetic fit. I was near my fuse’s end. One more transgression and I would blow. “Did your Monsieur Parrotieur see what happened?”

  “Non,” was the robot parrot’s voice. “Je n’ai pas vu, il.”

  “Daniel Douchebag, juste regarde-moi. Je dois construire le générateur de foudre. Et je dois gagner le prix Nobel. Juste regarde mo-.”

  “GODDAMN IT, DO YOU EVEN FRICKIN CARE?!!!” I bellowed at the top of my voice. The silence was stunning. They all stared at me blankly-the mad cyborg scientist, the robotic parrot, and the android Archangel.

  Then, “Je n’ai pas concerné. Pour you will be my laboratory assistant. Tu help me win le prix Nobel. Comprendre?”

  That was the final ball. I gave him the middle finger.

  “Screw you.” I walked to the two doors. They were locked. “Open the door,” I spoke in a deadly cold voice so that the robots knew I wasn’t jerking around. “Open the frickin damn door!”

  Finally, Dr. Jimmy came over and pressed a button. A light on top of the door frame turned green and the doorknob was movable. But before I could go, he thrusted one of the mechanical wings into my hands. They were enfolded, meaning that it looked more like a backpack than a bird. I looked up at him as if he had just urinated on me.

  “What in the world is this?”

  “C’est for your safety. Au revoir.” I left in a huff, intending to return home as quickly as possible.