Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot:
Trick or Treat, Part 1
By Jill Weber
Disclaimer: The characters are owned by Sony Corporation and Darkhorse Entertainment. They are used without permission and without intent to make a profit.

Dr. Erika Slate scowled at the test results. The numbers just didn't make any sense, it was almost as if somebody had gone through her computer and moved the data around. Obviously something had corrupted her data, she wondered if she had a virus. Consulting with co-workers didn't yield any useful information. Their theories ran the gamut from 'bad data' to 'sunspots' to 'It was a stupid idea for an experiment anyway. It must have been Donovan's idea.'

Dr. Lester was the least help. She'd insisted that it had to be gremlins. Slate just rolled her eyes at the older woman and went back to her lab. Whatever the cause, it looked like she was going to have to start over from scratch. Speaking of scratch… a faint scratching noise behind her made Slate whirl around. "Oh, Rusty," she said, putting her hand over her heart.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Slate," Rusty said apologetically. The red-headed boy robot had a magazine in his hand. From where she stood, Slate could barely make out a blur of orange and black.

"That's all right, I just didn't hear you come in." She gave a final scowl at the results of her last test. The numbers were just plain wrong! Then she decided that Rusty's interruption was a sign that she needed to take a break. "What did you want?" She asked, giving her prize project her undivided attention.

"What's trick or treating?" Rusty asked. He held up the magazine, which showed pictures of lit jack-o-lanterns.

That explained the color scheme, she thought. Then she had to figure out how to explain trick or treating. "It's what children do on Halloween, Rusty. They dress up in costume and go door to door and people give them candy." It really was an odd custom, when you thought about it. She was worried that Rusty would want to go trick or treating because she wouldn't have time to take him. She was just too busy trying to work out this project.

"What's Halloween?" Rusty asked.

Oh, good, on to the harder questions. Slate wasn't quite ready to explain religious holidays and pagan cultures just yet. So she tried as simple a version as she thought Rusty would let her get away with. "Well, Rusty, Halloween is a holiday that started out as a memorial to the people…" She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Well, to the people who are no longer with us."

Rusty blinked up at her. "Oh, you mean, like dead people?"

Slate nodded and Rusty frowned. "Why do people celebrate about dead people, Dr. Slate? Shouldn't they be sad?"

Slate nodded slowly. "Well, losing people that you love is sad. Halloween, however, is to celebrate their lives, not their deaths. You see, most people think it would be sad if their loved ones forgot the good times that they used to have. They want to be remembered with joy. So they have a special feast for to remember what fun they used to have."

Rusty scratched his metallic hair. "So, what's with the ghosts and goblins and stuff?"

Slate adjusted her glasses. "Well, a long time ago, people thought that the spirits of people who had died were threatened by bad spirits. So, they dressed up in horrible costumes in order to frighten the bad spirits into leaving their loved ones alone."

Rusty frowned. "But why do they dress up as ballerinas and firemen and stuff? That wouldn't frighten a demon, would it?"

Slate grinned. "Well, as people forgot the original reason for dressing up, they moved away from just scary costumes. A lot of people just like to dress up. I guess it's a form of make-believe."

A look of understanding came over Rusty's face, then he came back to his original question: "So, what's with the trick or treating? Why do people just GIVE kids candy? Do the kids have to pay or do chore…?" Rusty thought about it another moment. "Or do they have to do tricks, like the animals in a circus?"

Slate's grin widened. "No, the children don't have to pay for the candy, or do tricks for it. In fact, the ritual started out as a bribe to prevent children from playing practical jokes on people. Hence the phrase 'Trick or treat'."

Rusty boggled at that. "But… that's not fun! That's extortion! Big Guy says forcing people to give you things is bad!" Which, of course, meant in Rusty's eyes it was very bad. Big Guy was never wrong about these things.

"Well, not anymore it isn't," Slate said. "Children don't actually play tricks on people anymore."

"But you just said that they used to!" Rusty demanded.

"Yes, but that was a long time ago, Rusty. Times have changed since then." Slate sighed. She could remember when she was a child, it was safe enough to run around the neighborhood and get candied apples and Rice Krispie bars. Now, everything had to be supervised and if it wasn't factory packed, it was trashed. In fact, she had a vague memory of a memo going around that there would be trick or treating in the Quark Tower so the children of employees could have a safe holiday.

Rusty's snort of disgust interrupted her reverie. "That's no darn good. I guess I'm just as glad that I'm a robot and don't do things like that."

Mentally, Dr. Slate breathed a sigh of relief, until Rusty's next words.

"Besides, you'll be too busy on Halloween."

Slate was taken aback. "Why are you so sure that I'll be too busy?"

Rusty looked at her in surprise. "You're always too busy," he said. Then, turning back to the magazine, he walked casually out of the lab, unaware of the devastation he'd left behind.

Slate's stomach hurt and she acknowledged the truth of Rusty's comment. She'd been putting in a lot of overtime lately. She had to remember that Rusty wasn't just a robot… he was a BOY robot, and he needed time to be a child. He needed family time, and Slate decided. Halloween would be a good place to start.

She went back to her computer to look up that memo and found herself confronting her failed experiment. "Okay, I guess I don't have to succeed at everything," she sighed. She closed the experiment as a failure. When the 'reason for failure' question popped up, she debated her answer for a few moments: computer virus? Bad data? Sunspots? It was a dumb idea to begin with?" Finally, with a feeling of defiance, she typed in 'gremlins.' Then she went on to look for information about trick or treating in the Quark building.