Nope. Nothing in the original code for this.

Still, it was worth a try.

If only Clive could actually see out of all the concrete and burnt metal. He squinted through the wreckage and pushed at the stone again. It still wouldn't budge. Granted, he hadn't been built for heavy lifting, but anything was possible when Bratt's life was in danger. Wasn't it?

Clive moped. Maybe it wasn't worth it. Maybe Balthazar was dead. Maybe he was in space and dreaming. Maybe he should just give up. He was just a pile of plastic and computer code; he might as well just throw himself into the nearest recycling bin and wait for the truck to come.

He wasn't going to lie to himself-he wasn't going to make it. There was only flotsam and jetsam as far as the eye could see, and a huge slab was pressing down on his chest. He knew some of that burnt metal smell was probably his own insides, melting…

Clive tried to slap himself in the face to snap himself out of it, but he just wound up cracking his eyes with a small rock. "Balthazar! Boss! I'm here, I'm here! Get me out!" Clive screamed hysterically.

No answer. Just like it had been for however long he was here. "Boss, I'm okay! Come get me! I'm not deactivated!"

Clive was just about to turn himself off for good when he heard a familiar voice. He couldn't make out the words, exactly, but there was no denying it. It was Balthazar screaming. Clive shook his head as well as he was able to. That wasn't good. If Balthazar was in danger, he wasn't going to come looking for him. Even if Clive had been his best friend since childhood and Balthazar had never talked down to him and he was the closest thing Clive had to a friend, too...

He sputtered suddenly as light finally entered his field of vision. Salvation! He frantically scrabbled at the rock, screaming at the top of his voice box.

Nothing changed for a few minutes, but the light kept shining. A Russian guy was yelling and flinging shrapnel away from Clive. #$ %! It was that idiot Gru. Suddenly, Clive decided that his current situation was far better than escape. He sat still and shielded his face with his tiny, useless arms as best he could. Why weren't they built longer?!

"Dru! Are you in there?" Gru shouted. Clive was tempted to say something like, No, you've got the wrong guy. My name is Clive. But it wasn't worth the effort. What was the use? His best friend was gone and he was probably going to shut off in a few hours anyway.

Clive felt himself lifted into the air. He flailed wildly. No way was he going to let the man who probably killed Balthazar touch him. "Let go of me! You're not Balthazar!" Clive yelped.

Obviously Gru was surprised too, because he dropped Clive with a start. Clive fell face-first into the sidewalk and heard a loud crack. He whimpered as he realized his eyesight had just gone out. Great. Now I'm even worse off and even if Balthazar is alive I won't be able to see him. He tried to push himself upright but just fell on his face again. Another crack.

But this crack sounded different. It was louder and had a different texture than the first one, and his head was buzzing. Clive reached up to touch his head and was just able to feel a huge dent in his face. Clive freaked out as he realized what had happened. He...he just damaged my main database! That's got everything in it! If that goes out I'm as good as deactivated.

"You. Hurt. Me," Clive spat. He finally pushed himself upright and tried to glare at Gru. He charged toward Gru, waving his little claws in an attempt to be scary.

All he got was a loud snort for his efforts. Then Gru gasped, and Clive smirked. Glad I scared him.

But that wasn't it. There was somebody else walking up behind Gru. "Brother! Were you looking for me?" said a cheerful voice sounding somewhat like Gru's. Clive did the closest thing he could to rolling his eyes. Two idiots? Wonderful.

A bunch of sappy hugging ensued. Clive didn't even bother listening to what was being said. Instead, he wheeled out and waved his arms desperately in the air. Maybe if he was lucky, Balthazar would see him and come pick him up. He was pretty sure Balthazar was done for at this point, but a robot could hope, right?

To his relief, he heard a familiar voice calling his name. "Balthazar! Over here! Help me!" Clive cried.

He couldn't really hear Balthazar's reply, but it sounded something like, "What did they do to you? I'll kill them!"

"Don't get revenge! Come get ME!" Clive whined. If only his eyes weren't out, he could've seen where Balthazar was. Instead, he rolled in the vague direction of his master's voice, hoping that eventually he'd bump into Balthazar.

Balthazar must have been quite a ways off, though, because Clive rolled for what felt like several minutes and he didn't bump into anyone except a few passersby. "Master? Where are you? I don't know where you are!"

Balthazar yelled something back, but Clive couldn't hear. "What are you saying? I can't hear you!" Clive called. He tried to tweak his antenna to see if he could pick up anything, but nothing worked. In fact, his hearing actually got a little worse.

He frowned and set his antenna back to normal. He shouted for Balthazar again, but his boss's reply was fainter than ever. What's wrong? Is he flying? Maybe that's why he can't come get me, Clive thought. He relaxed a bit at this thought. He'll probably come get me when he gets on the ground. But why is he flying? Did another gum bubble get out of control AGAIN?

"I see you up there, Balthazar! I can't follow! Come down!" the little robot pleaded. No response. Definitely another gum bubble. It happened from time to time, and there was nothing he could do about it. It looked like Clive might be on his own for a while.

"Hey, Agnes, look at him! Isn't he cool?" said a girl's voice. Clive tried to push her away, but the girl had a shockingly strong grip.

"He's so fluffy!" squealed another girl's voice. Clive knew he was in for it. He'd seen how little girls acted around cute things before, and it wasn't pretty.

"Go away," Clive said. The girls didn't seem to care. Instead, they started shrieking and hugging him. Oh no.

There wasn't much he could try, but he sure wasn't going to end up as some kid's plaything. There was always….yes, yes, that might work.

Clive quickly searched to see if he still had any memory of the creepy tape from a particularly weird episode of Evil Bratt that Balthazar had put inside him once as a joke. To his disappointment, there was only the faintest fragment of memory left, but it would have to do.

Grinning, Clive played the soundbite. It was Balthazar saying his trademark "I've been a BAAAAAAAAD boy!", except it was played back more slowly and sounded like it came from the depths of hell. To his pleasure, the girls shrieked in surprise and let him go.

"Goodbye," Clive said as he wheeled out as fast as his feet could take him. He didn't know what he'd do, but he'd figure something out until he found Balthazar again. Maybe he could sell some of Balthazar's silly action figures or something.

Just as he was starting to think he'd get home free, he heard a, "Oh no you don't! You're coming with us!"

Clive whipped around in time to get tasered. He thrashed and groaned for a few moments, then flopped to the ground. Then he felt a high heel pin him to the street. "We're taking you back to the AVL. You're Bratt's property; maybe you have secret tapes or videos or something of other crimes he's committed! Right?" said the voice, a little bit too enthusiastically.

"No. Stop," Clive snapped. It was probably a good time to unleash a few weapons of his own. He quickly retracted one of his arms and replaced it with a drill, then drove it into the woman's ankle.

She said, "Ow!" and hopped back. When a foot came down in his face in response, Clive used the same tactic. Again, it worked. It seemed as though things were looking up.

Clive could hear the screams of Gru's family (if that's who those nasty people attacking him were) behind him as he rolled onto a curb. He stuck his fingers-well, pincers-near his mouth and whistled for a cab. It wasn't long before he heard a car pull up next to him. Before the driver could react, Clive launched himself through the window, shoved the driver out of the car, and took off. There were a few crashes and bangs as he hit other cars, but he didn't care. It didn't matter where he was going; he just needed to get away from all these Grus.

For a while, everything went smoothly: Clive seemed to be making progress, and he wasn't hitting another car every five seconds. It was almost too good to be true. Here he was, a blind robot, driving with no idea where he was going….and nothing happened. The Grus didn't even seem interested in him anymore!

Except that he knew it was starting to go wrong. Horribly wrong. In the next moment, he heard a loud bang and felt a flash of bright hot light on his face. Please don't let this be an oil tanker, Clive prayed.

Except that's exactly what it was. The burning gas from the truck leaked onto his face. Panicked, he screamed and slapped at his face, but he only made the pain worse. In a desperate attempt to squelch the fire, Clive flung himself out of a window and hit the pavement.

Clive weakly rolled over and over, still trying to get the fire out. To his dismay, he heard the screech of a car and the surprised shouts of the Gru clan. Now what? I'm melting, I don't know where the car is, and I'm probably damaged for life, he thought.

"Vhat on earth are you doing?" gasped Gru. Clive ignored him. He was cornered, there was only one option left, and he didn't like it. But it was all he had.

The instant Gru grabbed him, he silently bade farewell to the world and to Balthazar before shutting himself down.

….

"Wow, this guy is really old! Is he like from the 80s or something?" Edith asked as she played with the deactivated robot in the backseat of the car.

"Knowing Balthazar, he probably is," Lucy said. "I hope he's okay! I mean, umm, if we don't fix him, then we'll never know what else Balthazar was up to, right, Gru?"

Gru didn't reply because, well, he'd just seen a robot on fire jumping out of a stolen vehicle. What was there to say? He'd seen a lot of strange things in his life-including some he would never, ever tell his family about-but this was one of the weirdest. To be perfectly honest, the whole thing creeped him out.

"Errr, girls, we need to stop at ze junkyard on ze way home," Gru stuttered.

Edith looked up. "Why?"

Gru didn't know how to put it delicately. He glanced at Lucy, who, to his dismay, looked disappointed. Gru bit his lip before he spoke, knowing that nobody in the car was going to like what would come next.

"Ummm, gurls, zis robot ees broken. I don't think ve can repair him. Oh vell; let's just chalk it up to deesappointment, eh?" Gru said.

Edith stopped playing with Clive and stared at Gru, her mouth wide open in shock. "But it's not that bad! Besides, I really wanted to keep him! PLEEEEASE?" she begged.

"You know, he is kind of cute," Lucy said. "Maybe once Nefario gets out of the carbonite, he can repair him."

Gru hesitated. Edith rarely asked for anything, and it seemed unfair to deny her request. But then Gru looked at the half-melted, dented, and burnt wreck and shook his head. "I'm sorry, gurls. I think zis robot ees done for," he said.

Edith scowled and kick the seat in front of her. "No fair! Agnes gets a goat and a unicorn, but I can't even have a robot!"

"Ow!" Gru winced. He'd never know how such a tiny girl could be so strong. He sighed. He knew he'd lost this battle. He turned to look at Edith and realized that all the girls-even Lucy-were looking at him with puppy-dog eyes. "All right, all right! We'll take ze robot home and see if Nefario can do something about eet. But if he can't fix eet, don't blame me," Gru said. "Edith, please stop kicking ze seat or I might go back on zees…"

Edith shrieked in joy and hugged Clive. "Thank you, Gru! You're the best dad ever!"

Lucy and the other girls cheered quietly as Gru pulled into the driveway. "All right, gurls. I know you are all excited, but it might take a vhile to get Nefario out of ze carbonite," Gru warned.

Nobody seemed to have heard him. Edith ran into the house with the robot lifted over her head as Agnes chased after her. Margo turned to Gru and raised an eyebrow. "Dad, are you sure Nefario can fix it? It looks pretty bad."

Gru shrugged. "I don't know, sveetheart. Ve'll just have to try, von't we?"

"I guess," Margo said. She looked to Lucy for assurance.

"Oh, of course Dr. Nefario can fix it! Don't worry about a thing!" Lucy said cheerfully, patting Margo on the head as she walked into the house.

Gru sighed. It looked like Nefario was going to have to fix that robot if his life depended on it.