"What... what was all that?" I finally managed to stammer, still staring at the disheveled robot. The image of him burrowing underground like a super-mole was far more shocking than Pako's unexpected kiss.
He glanced down at his muddy Perman suit, then back at me. "First things first," he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Let's clean up this mess." He gestured at his dirt-caked form.
"Just use the bathroom," I told him, still trying to process the magnitude of what he'd just done.
He nodded, and in a flash of red and white, he zipped into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he emerged, no longer covered in grime. He was wearing other set of clothes, along with perman set.
"So," I pressed, my voice a little impatient now. "What was all that about? The hideout? Why did you build it?"
He met my gaze, a rare hint of excitement in his eyes. "Explaining it won't do it justice," he said, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips. "I'd rather show you."
Before I could even respond, he scooped me up. One moment I was standing on my bedroom floor, the next I was flying through the evening sky, clinging to his back. The wind whipped past my face, and the city lights twinkled below. We flew in silence, heading away from the familiar suburbs, towards the darker, greener expanse of the forest.
We landed in a clearing, surrounded by tall, silent trees. The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and pine. The robot carefully set me down, then, with a single powerful stomp, the ground beneath us cracked open, revealing a dark, gaping hole. He then turned on the lights of his Perman suit, casting an ethereal red glow into the subterranean darkness.
"After you," he said, gesturing into the hole with a theatrical sweep of his hand.
With a mix of apprehension and exhilaration, I followed him down a rough-hewn tunnel. As we descended, the tunnel opened into a vast, excavated chamber. My jaw dropped. The underground space was huge, easily double the size of my entire room. It was shaped like an almost perfect rectangle, its walls smooth and surprisingly uniform, considering they were carved from solid earth. The air, though cool, was fresh, indicating some kind of ventilation.
"Amazing..." I whispered, my voice echoing in the cavernous space.
The robot's voice held a note of pride. "Took three shovels to level this place," he remarked, gesturing to a pile of what looked like mangled, broken shovel heads in a corner. "They just kept breaking."