Three friends hear a strange signal in the school lab and are swept to a glowing planet where a silver robot gives them one impossible warning.
Hania, Max, and Michael had talked about adventure so many times in robotics club that it had started to feel like a joke. But after lessons, in the quiet science lab at school, with Ms Iwona’s newest invention humming on the table, the joke began to feel much less funny.
The Quantum-Bot looked harmless enough: a polished metal body, blinking lights, and a screen crowded with numbers. Ms Iwona had told them it could catch signals from far beyond Earth.
"So if aliens call, we answer?" Michael asked, grinning as he adjusted a dial on its back.
"Only if you don’t break it first," Max muttered, leaning closer to the screen.
Then the display flickered.
A pattern of bright green code crawled across it, pulsing like a heartbeat. Underneath came a sound that was half static, half birdsong, as if someone had tried to teach a radio how to sing. Hania stepped nearer, her breath catching.
"That’s not random," she said. "It’s a message."
Before anyone could answer, the Quantum-Bot shuddered. Its speakers crackled, and a soft metallic voice filled the room.
"Come... We are expecting you..."
The lights snapped off.
A flash of green wrapped around them so fast it seemed to pull the air apart. The lab vanished. The floor dropped away. Hania felt Max grab her arm, and Michael shouted something she never heard clearly.
Then, all at once, they were falling no more.
They stood on warm green grass beneath two glowing emerald suns. Flowers with silver petals swayed around them, and a small robot made of bright metal waited nearby, watching them with round glass eyes. Beyond it rose strange buildings, half castle and half spaceship, shining above a forest of tall, whispering trees.
Hania turned in a slow circle, her heart thudding.
"Where are we?"
The silver robot rolled forward and opened a panel on its chest. One line of text lit up in green:
"Solve the riddle before the second sun sets. You only get one chance."
The friends looked at one another just as the trees at the edge of the forest began to move, and something unseen stepped out into the light.