Code Lightfall and the Robot King by Daniel H. Wilson

about—was painting bright yellow happy faces. You see, Charlie loved making happy faces just like I love slaught—”
    Code groaned. “I know! I know! Slaughtering!”
    Gary harrumphed and then continued. “But the other robots laughed behind Charlie’s back. They would turn his happy faces upside down and, thinking that they had become sad faces, Charlie would spend all day redoing them—only to have them turned upside down again. Charlie was too simpleminded to understand that jokes were being played on him. So when the other robots played mean pranks, he laughed, too. He thought they were his friends. And that only made the mean-spirited robots laugh even harder. Sometimes they would even congratulate each other on being so very smart.”
    â€œI hate jerks like that,” blurted Code, thinking of Tyler. It seemed that no matter where you went, there was always someone who was trying to make fun of someone else.
    Gary shook his head ruefully. “But one day, the jokes went too far. The factorybots took Charlie out to a trash rocket. It was about to be launched on a one-way trip into the Trash Quadrant. They told Charlie that the rocket needed a smiley face on the very top. So Charlie climbed atop the rocket and began painting a happy face on the nose cone. Just then, the rocket ignited. Charlie frantically tried to climb off, but it was too late. The rocket launched with Charlie on board and disappeared into space on a thousand-year journey to nowhere.”
    Peep chirped sadly and flickered to blue.
    â€œPoor Charlie,” said Code.
    Gary continued. “After the next thousand-year work shift, the factorybots weren’t laughing. News reports had begun to trickle in about strange happenings in deep space. Mysterious radio transmissions had begun to arrive from the Trash Quadrant. It was puzzling since the factorybots had no idea who—if anyone—actually lived in the Trash Quadrant. No one had ever bothered to check.
    â€œThe factorybots went back to work, but by their next break, the news had become downright terrifying. An unidentified energy pulse had been detected roaring toward Mekhos at an incredible speed. Stars were winking out of the sky in the Trash Quadrant. New planets were disappearing from solar systems closer and closer to Mekhos. Something terrible was coming. King John Lightfall organized the Light Reconnaissance Space Cavalry and reinstated the long-defunct Exo-Spheric Battle Savants; he armed them for combat with the most powerful weapons captured during the Xeno Wars.”
    â€œWow,” murmured Code.
    â€œThe cruel factorybots knew something disastrous was about to happen,” said Gary. “They peered into the sky and shook with dread. They held on to each other and cried out in fright. Then they tried to run away, but there was nowhere to go.”
    At this point, even little Peep was engrossed in the story. She had stopped cleaning herself midstroke and now stared intently up at Gary. One of her wings was still cocked at a wild angle behind her leg.
    After a dramatic pause, Gary said, “In the sky above, looking down with a horrible smile, was a happy face made entirely of displaced stars. Each eye contained a thousand burning orbs, the mouth a hundred thousand more, and surrounding the entire monstrous apparition was the yellowish vapor of a billion shattered solar systems.”
    Gary smiled and leaned over the campfire. Code took a deep breath. This was clearly Gary’s favorite part of the story.
    â€œSee, Charlie had been hard at work in deep space. As the workers looked on in horror, a familiar-looking rocket crash-landed next to the launchpad. The rocket was bright yellow, with happy faces painted across every visible surface. Each bolt that held the rocket together had a happy face painted on it. The nose had a happy face. Even the happy faces were made up of happy faces.
    â€œThe door opened and little Charlie