Rolo jumped away from the two earthling catchers. He had come so far today and discovered so much, but foolishly they spent too much time away from home. And now the bots found him and would soon catch him and lock him up! If they could just make it home, he would be safe because, according to the precise rules of the Animal Control Force, pets only needed a license when they were not at home.

Quiggles leaped into action and slid across the air-slockey table. He grabbed toys from the prize wall and chucked them at the bots’ foot wheels.

The rest escaped out of the arcade to the main boardwalk, but soon the clattering bots were in pursuit. They weaved through the crowd and around the concession stands. Quiggles caught up, and they ran through the fun-house maze of spatial distortions, which made Rolo queasy from all the stretching and compressing. They ran around the bumper pods, which caused the bots to spark and jitter on the positronic floor.

Rolo saw a carnival game with life-size stuffed earthling prizes, so he jumped behind the counter and hid among the plushies. The bots rolled by. His ruse had worked! He ran off in the other direction. But even in the noisy crowd, the bots sensed the pitter-patter of his little feet. They doubled back and pursued.

“This way!” yelled Zira as she led them to the Sky Lift ride, with chairs dangling from a moving cable stretched across the boardwalk. They all hopped in a chair as it lifted off, ascending over the heads of the two bots, who looked up at them in dismay, shaking their fists.

They made their great escape! Until they saw the bots hop in the next chair behind them.

The next ten minutes was a slow, uneventful “chase” as the bots’ chair followed their chair at a constant crawling speed across the boardwalk. Rolo leaned forward on the safety bar, bored, dangling his feet over the edge. Quiggles had a prize bag of fireworks that he had taken from the arcade. He threw a firework at the bots just to make things more exciting. It burst in their faces, but they were unfazed.

Once the Sky Lift landed, they ran to an airboard rental stand. Riffa, Zira, and Quiggles each grabbed an airboard and took flight, balancing on the round saucers. Rolo rode with Zira, terrified as they soared high above the ground, spinning and swerving on the wobbly disk of death.

The two bots skidded to a halt, unable to reach the runaway Rolo. They turned to each other, and B-L1 said, “Release the Robo-Net!”
B-D3 nodded and launched a large metal hoop from his torso, a rocket-propelled flying net made of energy strings. It thrust upward in aerial pursuit.

“Look out! Behind us!” yelled Rolo.

Zira engaged in evasive maneuvers, spinning and spiraling in nauseating loops. They flew through the flerris wheel, and the net followed. They dove under the roller-racer, and the net followed. They circled around the tilt-a-swirl, and the net followed. Quiggles flew nearby and threw fireworks and smoke bombs at the net, but it dodged and spun around the bursts.

They dove down toward the carnival games, weaving rapidly through the aisles as the net got closer and closer. They turned sharply left, right, right, left. The net followed their every move. Then Zira made one wrong turn, and the net swept across her board, scooped up Rolo, and carried him away!

“Rolo!” she screamed.

The net promptly returned to B-L1 and B-D3 to deliver their prisoner. The bots leaned in for a closer inspection. But Rolo seemed unusually soft. And fluffy.

“That’s not the earthling!” yelled B-L1. “That’s a plushy!”

The net looked embarrassed somehow, which was weird because it had no face. It spat out the plushy, arcing high over the beach, then it turned to pursue Rolo. But it was too late. They had already lost their target.

Rolo was now riding safely with Riffa; they had made a clever switch down in the carnival games. The subway station was a short way ahead, and Rolo felt relieved. It seemed safe now.

But then it wasn’t.

From the dark sky above, the 14th Airborne Drone Squadron swarmed in, swirling around them, buzzing in their faces, and bumping their airboards. Rolo clung tightly to Riffa’s legs as she and Zira swatted at the drones. Quiggles threw fireworks, taking out several pesky botlings, but not fast enough. So he leaped from his airboard and hopped from drone to drone mid-air, kicking and tearing them apart, and gnashing them in his teeth with a crazed growl.

Zira and Riffa dove toward the subway station while Rolo clung even tighter and squeezed his eyes closed. They crashed outside the entrance and ran inside, followed by Quiggles.

The surviving drones halted at the entrance, hovering outside with dangling wires, sparking and sputtering smoke.

Rolo and the rest pressed through the crowd of commuters. At the same time, General Glirk just happened to be leaving the subway on her way home. Rolo bumped into her and ran by. At first, she didn’t recognize him, but then she looked again—he was the unlicensed runaway! She almost started to chase him, but then she remembered that she didn’t care. So she shrugged and went home, leaving the petty job for the overzealous bots.