Saving Jeff, Part 7 - The Crusade of Bob #FixThePlus

Regular readers will have been aware that Dr. Dawg has managed to hook up the dark, destructive, and downright dangerous "Bob the Custodian" to his computer, and imprinted his violent personality onto a minute robot that has been injected into the battleground commonly known as Jeff the shipping guy, in an effort to end the war currently wrecking his insides, or at the very least his shoulder and digestive system, although the way Jeff used to get through sauerkraut and buckeye candy, a little bit of digestive trouble was only to be expected.

(If you haven't read all of the epic Saving Jeff series, don't delay, read now so you don't spoil this episode - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and surprise surprise, Part 6)

Robot Bob found himself in a curious red tunnel, which smelt of chilli and beans, and with a curious red liquid sloshing around.  With a whirr, his outboard motor came to life and he sped down the tunnel, gliding through the liquid like a falling cat going through air en route to a juicy mouse.

 "Hey, you!" shouted another robot.  Without a pause, Bob  took a solid hold of the other robot, pulled it apart, and ate it.  No one messes with Bob.

 Several white blobs cheered at the victory.

 "Say, what are you guys?" asked Bob, wondering if they needed eating too - he couldn't remember the last time he'd had something decent to eat, like a steak or perhaps a really big taco.

 "Leukocytes!"

 Bob got a little angry. "I'm looking, and you're a sight." he growled at them, robot pincers tapping away.  The white blood cells looked as worried as blobs with no facial features could.

"We've been trying to take on these invaders, but they're just too strong for us. We need you, great leader."

 Finally, Bob had discovered a group of people - okay, cells - that recognised his true worth, as a dark and undefeatable leader.

 "Let's go show these robots whose home this is.  It's mine," Bob added, then quickly added, "I mean Jeff's." and for good measure raised his robotic arm into the air and somehow blasted the ceiling of the red tunnel with flame (Dr. Dawg had managed to minaturise more weaponry than he intended).

 Meanwhile, stood around the large twitching body of Jeff, Dr. Dawg and Thomas watched as a hole was burned out of Jeff's elbow, and a puff of black smoke ebbed out.

 "I say old bean, I don't really like the look of that, by jingo! Tally ho!" Thomas exclaimed, having for an ineffable reason taken on a faux-British accent.

 It was clear that the battle for Jeff had turned in our favour.  But would there be anything left of Jeff after?

Jeff and the Tiny Killer Robot. (part 1) #FixthePlus

Until recently we, here at Life Explained, Ohio Division, have not taken much of an interest in applying technology to the field of internal medicine. It really was not part of the mission statement, probably, we are not sure where that is anymore. Maybe we never had one.

We read about the exciting field of surgical micro robots and all the profit potential and decided it was time to add a line or two to our company charter.

First we took one of our Murderous Openfield Mangler (we always thought good ol' MOM would appreciate the nod) bots and scaled it down. It doesn't need nearly as much size when you take away the missiles, grenade launcher, automatic machine gun, flame thrower, ballistic bayonet and cork screw (we added that in case the Swiss Army ever ordered a platoon).

Next we took out the pistons that drove the legs and installed a small inboard motor, similar to a jet ski to propel the little machine of salvation through the blood stream.

Since we were still kind of new to Innerbody Navigation we wanted to pick the right candidate.

"Get Jeff from the shipping department, he is huge. We will have a lot more room to move around, in case we take a wrong turn." Dr. Dawg said. It made sense, we voted, and Jeff was the "volunteer."

Jeff was a big man, 6' 5", 285 pounds, long, reddish hair in a pony tail, big blondish beard, tanned, always wore a Cincinnati Reds hat, even during football season. He was voted the "nicest guy in the company" last year. He had a big smile, a deep booming laugh, and helped anybody who was feeling blue. He was a great guy, and probably would not mind "volunteering", very much.

"OK, Jeff, lay here, while I take your blood pressure, and pulse." Bob, from the nurses station said. He was the only one who knew how to check blood pressure, or pulse, and he had keys to the medicine cabinet in case things went "south" and Jeff needed aspirin.

Bob and Jeff were laughing about eating extra salt when his blood pressure was normal. That is when we injected the little robot into his arm.

"Dang, that hurt." Jeff said, he sounded a little angry, and we all looked. We had never seen him mad before, he was a true gentle giant.

"Sorry, Jeff. It takes a big needle to inject a robot, even a tiny robot, into a person. We thought it would be better to surprise you. Just lay back, and relax, that should be the worst part of the procedure." I said, patting him on the shoulder.

"We have a visual feed." Doctor Dawg said, excitedly, looking over the Thomas' shoulder as he navigated the tiny little life saver through the big man's blood stream. "Your arteries are wide open and clear, it is like the hallway in the basement. Wait, it is the hallway in the basement. Here, let me adjust the video feed. Ah, there we go, Cruising through the blood stream now."

I patted Jeff on the shoulder again, what else do you do?

"Hey, there is little blockage up by the shoulder. We are going to clear that for you, Jeff. You will be healthier than when we started." Dawg said.

"Now Arming Hellfire Missiles" the disembodied voice of the robot said.

"What?!?!" Jeff tried to jump up, fortunately we had strapped him to the table.

"Just kidding, I put that in there as a little joke."  I said. Keeping the mood light seemed like a good idea, so I programmed in some levity. I patted Jeff on the shoulder again, and he tried to bite my hand.

"Navigating to blockage, and engaging drill," Thomas said, his voice relaxed, and touched by a twinge of the South, even though he was from New Jersey. He always acted like a fighter ace when we let him do these things. I would have to talk to the review board about this, it was irritating as hell.

As the robot neared the blockage a group of white blood cells leaped up from their place of concealment and unleashed a barrage of small arms fire at our little robot.

"Man down, I'm hit, Medic, SOS, Ouch.Help me." our robot cried, and began sobbing.

Dr. Dawg looked at me, and said, "well, I did not see that coming. What should we do?"

"We have to send in a squad to get our robot back. What choice do we have? Jeff has a wounded killer robot festering in his shoulder, it could do almost anything. Remember that time we lost one in the supermarket, and it leveled the whole block, including the organic produce section. You are still under probation for that. Besides, I don't want to tell the accounting department we lost a billion dollar robot inside a guy from the shipping department." I said.

"Agreed." Dr. Dawg said. "Jeff, it is 5:00 and you know the rules about overtime at this point in the cycle. So we will have to pick this up tomorrow morning. Try not to eat or drink anything, or use the restroom, or make any sudden or threatening movements, or have the television too loud. We will see you at 8:00 tomorrow morning. Hey, have a relaxing evening."

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion.