Prologue:

Excerpt from The Chronicles of Time-Testing Disasters, Vol. II

"When Dr. Evelyn Walsh designed the most advanced time-travel device humanity had ever seen, she wisely decided against using it herself. Instead, she created two... assistants. Or should we say, two delightful mechanical disasters named Blips and Grips. What followed was not the triumphant exploration of ancient civilizations she envisioned, but rather a cautionary tale about robots, Cro-Magnons, and the dangers of overconfidence."

Blips was buffing his chassis, once again admiring his gleaming reflection in the dusty surface of the cave wall. Meanwhile, Grips sat on the floor, attempting to chew a particularly large rock she'd found outside.

"Grips, you imbecilic conglomerate of scrap metal," Blips sighed with condescension, "I cannot fathom why you persist in your futile attempts to consume geological formations. That stone is manifestly non-nutritive."

Grips stopped gnawing on the rock and blinked her single red eye at him. “You use a lotta big words for someone who crashed us into a pile of rocks in the first place.”

Blips paused his buffing, his two blue eyes narrowing in irritation. “I beg your pardon? It was not I who miscalculated the gravitational forces upon re-entry. That was a minor misjudgment in Dr. Evelyn Walsh’s machines temporal coordinates.” He added, "And perhaps your incessant yammering didn't exactly facilitate my focus."

Grips gave a long, exaggerated sigh. "Yeah, sure, blame the crash on me, Mister ‘I’ve-got-it-all-under-control’.”

The duo was stuck. Properly, utterly stuck. Stranded in the Paleolithic era with no way back, thanks to a rather unfortunate crash landing that had left the time machine in pieces, resembling nothing more than a pile of space aged junk that had seen far better days. Their mission had been simple—take a few pictures of Cro-Magnon man and return home.

But Blips, ever the optimist about his piloting abilities, had made the journey far more "adventurous" than necessary. And by adventurous, it meant that he had plowed the highly advanced automated flying machine into a rock face, shattering its delicate carbon fiber hull and gears and scattering bits of it all over the prehistoric landscape.

Grips, still sitting on the floor, picked up another rock and held it up to her eye. "Maybe if I throw this at you, it'll knock some sense into that shiny metal head of yours."

Blips puffed up, brushing dust off his chassis with as much dignity as he could muster. "Ah, once again, the intellectually bankrupt resort to violence. Typical of your crass, brute tendencies. For your information, Grips, I have spent the past several months utilizing my archived data backups to further enrich my already prodigious intellect. I now possess a grasp of advanced mathematics, chemistry, and quantum physics that even the most esteemed scientists of the future would envy."

Grips was unimpressed. "Yeah? And I learned that rocks don’t taste as good as they look. So, who's the real genius here?"

Blips groaned, "Your ignorance is truly a marvel of evolutionary misfortune."

The Cro-Magnon Encounter:

The mission to observe the early humans hadn’t exactly gone as planned. The Cro-Magnon people had been surprisingly resilient and more aggressive than anticipated. On their first encounter, Blips had approached them with the intention of studying their rudimentary language and documenting their behavior. However, the sight of a talking, shiny robot had prompted an entirely different reaction—one that involved a lot of rocks being thrown at his head.

"Why don’t they like you?" Grips had asked after they’d retreated to a safe distance, licking the remnants of prehistoric dirt off her hands.

"Simple-minded barbarians!" Blips had hissed. "They fail to recognize the magnificence standing before them. They are, after all, no more than bipedal primates with an alarming lack of intellectual acumen."

"Or maybe it’s 'cause you talk too much."

Blips ignored her and wiped a smudge off his metallic arm. "I shall henceforth refrain from interacting with such cerebrally impoverished beings. It is beneath my dignity."

They'd decided, after that disastrous encounter, to stay away from humans. In fact, they'd found a nice, secluded cave where they could wait out the long years until someone—or something—could rescue them. Fortunately for them, Professor Quentin Phileas Bumble did just that, many ages later.

Professor Bumble’s Workshop:

Years passed, but not for long in a world of time travel. The duo was eventually discovered by Professor Quentin Pileas Bumble, a time-traveling inventor whose curiosity about certain ancient cave drawings led him to their hidden cave. After what could only be described as a gloriously awkward meeting, the professor brought them back to his time.

The professor tried, truly tried, to teach Blips and Grips the fundamentals of time travel. He explained the importance of non-interference, keeping a low profile, and the dangers of disrupting the space-time continuum.

Blips, naturally, excelled at understanding the scientific principles of time travel, but was not so good at following instructions.

Grips, on the other hand, failed most of the tests, but she managed to crush the practice dummies with ease.

"Look, Professor, I punched a hole in its head!" she’d exclaimed proudly, holding up a decapitated training dummy.

Bumble had rubbed his temples in frustration. "You’re supposed to observe, not destroy!"

Ultimately, the Professor decided it would be better if the two of them stayed in his workshop as his pit crew. It was a peaceful, less complicated life. Or so Bumble thought.

The Chrononautilus Disaster:

But peace wasn’t in the cards for Bumble. One quiet afternoon, Blips decided to give the Chrononautilus a little upgrade. It wasn’t that Bumble had asked for it, but Blips was convinced that the machine could use his “brilliance.”

"My intellect is inversely proportional to the primitive design of this contraption," Blips muttered, fiddling with some wires. "With a few modest improvements, I shall revolutionize time travel!"

Grips wandered into the workshop, munching on a donut. "Blips, you sure messin' with that is a good idea? You remember what happened last time you ‘improved’ something?"

Blips gave her a withering glance. "Please, Grips. Engage your prefrontal cortex for once. What could possibly go wrong?"

An hour later, the Professor was gone. Completely vanished. The Chrononautilus, now sporting unnecessary upgrades like flashing lights and an entirely unnecessary turbo booster, had malfunctioned in a most destructive way, the majority of the parts were now smoking and Bumble had been sent to who-knew-where in time.

"Marvelous," Blips said, staring at the empty space where the Professor had once stood. "Yet another triumph of mediocrity."

"Uh… is he… gone forever?" Grips asked, her mouth full of donut.

"Quite possibly," Blips replied with a sigh. "Perhaps I overestimated the integrity of my modifications."

Epilogue:

And so, Blips and Grips remained in the workshop, once again stranded. This time, not in the Paleolithic era, but in a much more familiar time. Though they had learned many things during their prehistoric adventure—Blips learned the value of silence (occasionally) and Grips learned that rocks were not food—they still had a lot to figure out.

Especially how to bring the Professor back.

But that would be a challenge for another day. After all, Blips still had some chassis-buffing to do.

"Who farted?" Blips suddenly asked, breaking the silence.

Grips blinked her red eye. "That was probably the Chrononautilus blowing another gasket. Or me."

Blips sighed deeply. "Victory will be mine."

To be continued…