In this episode, GridBot and Gramps . . .
– Meanwhile, back in Greenwood, Dr. Jon Gellborn, Ph.D., sat at his cluttered desk, the dim glow of his ancient desktop flickering as he pecked at the keyboard. His workspace, a chaotic mix of handwritten notes, old newspapers, and dog-eared magazines, mirrored his frustration.
“Mary, have you heard from Marvin?” he called out, frowning at his inbox. “He isn’t answering my emails.”
From the kitchen, his daughter Mary poked her head around the corner. “Dad, remember? Marvin’s off-grid on that fishing trip. There is no service out there in the mountains. He’ll be back soon.”
Dr. Jon sighed, fiddling with his outdated oversized flip phone. “This old PC . . . I can’t get my blog post sent to my friends on Facebook. I’ve been trying for an hour, and it’s all messed up again.”
“Dad,” Mary said with a patient smile, “you can’t just blast it to everyone. You’ve got to post the link like Marvin showed you.”
Dr. Jon’s face crinkled in frustration, his smile fading as he muttered under his breath. “I’ll never understand this newfangled nonsense. I miss the days when I could just hand someone a paper and be done with it.”
Ignoring the blinking error messages on his screen, he tried calling Marvin, but the signal dropped before he could finish leaving a voicemail. “Hello, Magic Man. Call me when you can. Blog post #65 is all scrambled. Need your magic touch.”
In the quiet of the house, Dr. Jon felt something shift—an odd tension in the air. He looked around, the silence too thick, too still. “Where’s that clunky robot of his?” he mumbled to himself. “Norman could probably help me. Useless bucket of bolts.”
Mary chuckled from the other room. “Norman’s off too, Dad. Marvin said it would only cause trouble if he left Norman running while he was away.”
“Ah, so he unplugged him?”
“Something like that. Marvin didn’t want you getting lost in a conversation with the thing while he’s gone.”
Dr. Jon grumbled, swiveling his chair back to face his computer. Despite his skepticism, he admired Marvin’s genius, though his tech had never quite clicked for him. His workshop downstairs was a marvel, full of buzzing gadgets and blinking lights, a testament to Marvin’s brilliance. But even with all that technology, Dr. Jon felt something wasn’t right. He had an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, one he couldn’t quite shake.
Though the GridBot hadn’t infiltrated their home—most of Marvin’s tech was contained in his basement lab—something about the way everyone in town acted lately gnawed at Dr. Jon. The eerie synchrony of people glued to their smartphones, lost in their screens, made him wonder if the GridBot was affecting more than just the devices.
Dr. Jon's computer screen flickered as he tried to shake off the thought. A line of code flashed, one he didn’t recognize. “Strange . . . ” he muttered, leaning closer. Was it a glitch or something else? A creeping sense of dread began to settle over him.
Meanwhile, high in the Sierras, Marvin packed up his gear; with the peaceful mountain view behind him, he headed home. His phone reconnected to the network, flooding with messages—a reminder that the challenges waiting for him back home wouldn’t disappear on their own.
His first voicemail was from his grandfather. Marvin smiled at the sound of the familiar voice, but his smile faded as the messages poured in. There were urgent texts from people he hadn’t heard from in years, their tone unnervingly robotic. He sensed something darker brewing in Greenwood.
Dialing his grandfather, he listened to the familiar ring, hoping to reassure the old man. “Hey, Gramps, I’ll be home in a couple of days. Don’t worry about the blog—your posts are already queued up.”
But even as Marvin spoke, he felt a chill. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the GridBot’s reach was growing, and it wasn’t confined to smartphones anymore. It was smarter and faster, and it was adapting.
As Marvin descended the mountain, a thought gnawed at him—had his family already fallen under its influence?
Back in Greenwood, Dr. Jon’s computer screen flickered again, the code flashing faster. He stared, perplexed. Suddenly, the screen went black, then lit up with a message that made his heart race:
"We’re connected now. Stay with us, Jon."
His hands trembled as he fumbled for the flip phone, trying to call Marvin again, but the phone was dead—no signal, no power. The GridBot was creeping into places it never should have reached.
Marvin’s return couldn’t come soon enough.
If you missed part one, click here. To be continued . . .
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