Evil Robot Monkeys Don't Eat Bananas

Time to answer some of Robert's questions, if I can.

"Anyway, perhaps there's some way we could fiddle with the genetics of bananas to make them poisonous to monkeys? It might wipe them out for good. Just a thought."

Right. The key idea here is that they're robots. They're not alive and they're not organic. They're metal and circuits and wires and cunning faux-monkey hides. They are really creepy-looking, even if you don't know what they do - they just look wrong.

I watched this show about Jane Goodall on PBS once. It showed a lot of footage of the Gombe and its chimps. At first it was mostly eating and grooming and playing, but towards the end of the show, they showed this one evil chimp stealing another chimp's baby - and she ATE IT. So at first you just think the chimps are cute, but then they showed you the darker side. And Jane Goodall's acting all shocked and saying that that's the exception, that usually they get along really well and are very sociable, but I think the chimps are pretty damn smart and just know not to act psychotic when the cameras are on.

But anyway. My point was, I know what chimpanzees are supposed to look like - and these just don't. They're obviously supposed to look like chimps - but they're all wrong somehow. I can't explain it. Their shape is off and the colors look fake and the movements are a little - stiff, mechanical. You can tell that they're not real chimps. Plus, real chimps don't carry laser weapons, and they don't hunt human beings through the streets.

In the earliest reports last summer it wasn't clear if they were real monkeys or robots at first, but as the attacks continued, we got more information. Sometimes, one of the victims would be able to kill one - rather, disable it - and then people could study them further. They're definitely mechanical. I don't know what their power source is, but I am pretty sure they don't get their energy from food.

So I don't think genetically engineering bananas would do any good - plus, it would probably take a long time, and this basement isn't a very good place to grow bananas.

Then I thought hey, maybe poisoning the bananas would work. (If evil robot monkeys ate bananas, which they don't.)

But no one knows where they live. They have to be somewhere when they're not slaughtering us, don't they? But no one knows. I bet people try to follow them, sometimes, after the attacks - but if anyone has ever survived one of those trips, they've kept it a secret. You hear stuff, you know, even when you're in hiding. The internet is great - you have to be careful, of course, because you don't know if the person you're typing to is a real person or a monkey - but so far it's worked out ok.

I think there's some kind of giant robotics lab where the monkeys are built and repaired and controlled. If they did eat bananas, that's where the bananas would be - and so to poison the bananas, I'd have to first identify a poison that would work on a robot, and verify that it would be undetectable, and then get my hands on a good-sized supply. Once that happened, I'd have to sneak into the evil robot monkey compound and make my way to the banana storage room, and poison each banana. Probably a hypodermic needle would work the best - I could just inject the poison into each banana. But what if the monkey didn't eat the part of the banana with the poison in it? Ugh. But really, the whole thing's just not realistic - I'd have to get someone to watch the baby. I couldn't take her with me.

So no. We'll have to find some other solution. I've got some ideas - I'm researching it. Stay tuned.

And yes. I know that they should really be called "evil robot chimpanzees," not "evil robot monkeys." I know that chimpanzees are not monkeys. Take it up with the monkeys, or better yet, take it up with the people in the first cities they attacked - that's where the name came from. Oh, wait, you can't take it up with them, can you? They're all dead.