The Gubble Story

Gubble D. Gleep was sleeping. He liked sleeping. Sleeping was fun. He’d often have contests with his friends to see who could sleep the longest, and he’d always beat them, if only for the fact that his snoring would wake them up. This time, the Gleepster was enjoying a particularly nice snooze, when suddenly he was awakened by a loud KABOOM. Gubble looked up just in time to see a large and very unfriendly-looking flying saucer blast him into his component particles.

When he opened his eyes again, his house was no longer there. Gubble did not like that. Actually, the Gleepmeister was kind of happy that he still had eyes to open, since he thought he was just blasted into his component particles. But still… Gubble liked seeing his house. He also liked seeing the neighboring houses, which were not there either. In fact, nothing even vaguely known to the Gleepmachine was present at the weird place Gubble found himself. There were, however, plenty of things unknown to the Gleepdude that he did not at all enjoy seeing. He did not enjoy looking at the dirty floor he found himself standing on. He did not enjoy looking at the strange, triangular windows, opening out to nothing. And most of all, he did not enjoy looking at the face of the robot who had been trying to get his attention for the last minute. It was not a face meant to be looked at. It was blocky. It was metal. And it had no ears. (Gubble, accustomed to large, spacious ears, was especially resentful of that fact.)

Seeing that the Gleepman was at last looking at him, the robot ground his gears for a moment, cleared his electronic throat, and spoke: ”Welcome oh mighty Gubble D. Gloop, are you ready for your mission?”

There were two things now bothering Gubble about this robot, and he spoke about the most important one, ”Where are your ears?”

The robot was not programmed to deal with this kind of abuse. He ground his gears furiously for a moment, blinked his lights, started spewing smoke from his nose, and spoke again, ”Forget my ears! Are you ready for your mission?”

Seeing that it was a stubborn robot, Gubby decided to mention the second thing that bothered him, ”My name is not Gubble D. Gloop. It’s Gubble D. Gleep.”

If you thought the robot was gently smoking before, his reaction to this statement would send you screaming for a fire marshal. “Ay caramba!” said the robot after a minute. Then he added, ”We got the wrong Gubble.” And after another smoke-filled silence, ”Oh, shrump.”

Gubble waited. He was beginning to get used to this strange place and was just starting to contemplate falling asleep. He fluttered his eyelids. He gave a few test snores. He plopped down onto the floor. But the robot, seeing that he was losing the Gleepmando’s attention, woke Gubble up again: ”Okay, look. We can’t go back to get Gloop. So you are going to have to help us out. Deal?”

Gubble thought for a moment, then imagined being blasted into his component particles if he refused, and said: ”Fine.”

The robot continued, ”Good. Here is what we need you to do. You have to go down to the zymbots of the planet Rennigar, and unscrew them.” Seeing that Gubble was puzzled, the robot added, ”They’ve been screwed, nailed, and otherwise riveted by space pirates.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued.

Suddenly, there was another loud KABOOM, and Gubble felt himself being blasted into his component particles again. Just as he blanked out, he heard the robot say, ”Good luck, you won’t be sleeping on this planet.” And when Gubble opened his eyes again, three very nasty-looking gears were rolling at him.