The story I wrote for the (STATE OMITTED)JCL Latin Convention's Modern Myth. It won second place! (Although that was the cut version, cut in order to meet the 1000 word limit. This one is longer)

Robotica

Kiara Morgan was a nonconformist, through and through. While all of the other girls her age were congregated at the mall for an afternoon of shopping, Kiara and her twin sister, Tina, congregated in the basements of Weyburns School for Girls for an afternoon of robotics.

"Can you pass me one of those red wires?" Kiara said distractedly, pulling at the inside of their robot. She twisted a yellow wire and snapped it in two, connecting the two edges in different areas.

"Sure," Tina said, as she snatched up the wires, "long or short?"

"Long." Kiara replied. Tina got up and rushed across the floor, carrying a long red wire. She tossed it at her sister, and sat down to watch in the chair beside Kiara. The twins, the sole members of the Weyburns Robotics Club, were currently working on their automaton masterpiece, a piece so complicated that Tina, a math genius, had trouble understanding the engineering,

As Kiara pressed buttons and poked around with pliers, Tina watched, chewing on her hair nervously. The whole room was still with anticipation as Kiara screwed the green battery cover in place. She set the robot down on the tabletop.

"It's finished." she said reverently, staring in awe.

"Let's test it!" Tina shouted excitedly. Kiara set the robot on the floor and pressed the start button on the remote. The robot began to move, a little jerkily, forward, heading over the bumpy tile on its path to the door. Both twins started with alarm as their creation rolled out the door. Kiara jumped up, intent on keeping her robot away from the stairs.

But when Kiara reached the hallway, her robot was far from the staircase. No, it was in the hands of the school's unyieldingly strict principal, Ms. Marisa Zwelle. Ms. Zwelle tapped her black pump expectantly against the hall floor.

"What, Miss Morgan, may I ask, is this, this thing?" Zwelle inquired in a clipped tone. Her green eyes stared intently, making Kiara feel as though they were boring into her.

"It's the robot I built, in Robotics Club." Kiara responded. A strange expression flitted over Zwelle's face.

"Robotics," she said, looking worried, "I didn't know we really—" she stopped suddenly. "Well," she said, "You may proceed, but I ask that you not use any more of the robotics funds. You will overrun the robotics budget." Zwelle turned to leave, but before she could, Kiara stopped her.

"But, Principal Zwelle, it needs tweaks to make it move right! And we never used any robotics budg—" but Kiara was interrupted suddenly.

"Goodbye, Miss Morgan," Zwelle said crisply to Kiara. And before she could say anything, Zwelle had marched away, her clicking heels fading into the distance.

"I don't understand. We never touched the robotics budget! I didn't even know we had one!" Tina moaned as the sisters sat in their dormitory, Tina on a beanbag, and Kiara sprawled on the fuzzy rug.

"Totally. Zwelle is so uptight." Kiara replied.

A blond head peeped through the doorframe, grinning mischievously. Jenna Zwelle strode into the twins' dorm room, a smile stretched across her face.

"Did you just say my mother was uptight?" she asked. Kiara and Tina both looked nervous. She noticed their expressions and laughed. "I'm not going to tell her; in fact, I agree with you. It's true. What did she do this time?" Jenna plopped down cheerily on the floor beside Kiara.

Kiara told Jenna the whole story, with Jenna clucking and adding comments every couple sentences.

"Mom is just a stingy old lady. Chances are, she was using the robotics budget to buy n shoes or whatever because she thought no one would ever do robotics." Jenna sighed. "If you like, I could help get some of the budget money for the robots. I could even help fix them. I have an A in Tech Ed.

"Thanks," Kiara replied, "I think that would be great."

"That's the last piece of R.O.B.O.T. 2.0!" Kiara said joyously. She stepped across the floor, away from the improved robot. The updated version had a better gait and a longer battery life. "You can do the honors, Jenna," Kiara said. Jenna picked up the remote, took a deep breath, and pressed the small button labeled "ON". The robot whirred to life.

"WHOA!" Jenna screamed. "THAT IS SO COOL!" Both girls stared at the invention on the floor in front of them for a minute, taking in the sight of it pulling up tufts of rug as it moved along. But the soft chuh of the robot was suddenly interrupted by a loud voice.

"JENNA? IS THAT YOU? Zwelle's voice could be heard coming down the hall, and she did not sound happy.

Both Jenna and Kiara came out of their robot-watching daze with a start, and Jenna started looking frantically for somewhere to hide. Kiara had just shoved Jenna in the closet when the door swung open. Zwelle looked around.

"Miss Morgan, have you seen my daught-" Zwelle stopped, staring at the robot. "Miss Morgan, did I not tell you NOT to use any more of the robotics budget? You do have to share with the rest of the club." Zwelle looked at Kiara angrily.

"It's just me and Tina in the club, Principal Zwelle." Kiara said, miffed.

"Nevertheless," Zwelle said, "I forbid you from using any more of the budget." And with that, she stomped away, calling Jenna's name.

"Dang," Kiara said, "I wanted to get a solar panel."

"Then a solar panel strip you shall have," Jenna called from the closet, "but first, could you let me out of here? You need to start washing your socks." Kiara laughed and got up to open the door. Jenna came out, gulping. "Now," she said deviously, "let me tell you where my mom keeps the money. And about that little back door into the office…."

Kiara stepped lightly across the hall floor as she approached the office. She felt apprehensive about stealing from a teacher, but the money was for the robotics club. Not the "Buy Principal Zwelle Dior Socks" club. As Kiara opened the door to the office, she braced herself for an alarm, but there was nothing. In Zwelle's office, the equine statue was exactly where Jenna said it would be, and the robotics money was right underneath the bronze hoof. It was covered with a clip labeled "Robotics".

Kiara knew she had to move fast before Zwelle returned. She snatched the money up and hid it in a book she was carrying under her arm. And then, slowly, she backed out of the room until the office was out of sight. And then she ran.

Marisa Zwelle was sitting in her office, sipping a mug of steaming coffee. She pulled her internet browser up to feature the picture of the new skirt she wanted to buy. As she leaned over to the horse statue to pull out the robotics money, she glimpsed something shiny out the window. Intrigued, she leaned in for a better look. One of the Miss Morgans, the rude one who insisted upon using the robotics funds, was standing on the blacktop with a robot. It had an iridescent panel on it, and Miss Morgan was angling a mirror towards the panel.

Marisa jumped up. A solar panel! Miss Morgan could not have been able to afford a solar panel without the extra funds-funds that Marisa had intended to use on her skirt. In a fit of anger, Marisa reached for the statue. The money was not there. Irate, she got up and stormed out, intent on finding Miss Morgan.

"MISS MORGAN!" Principal Zwelle was marching towards Kiara on a rampage, her eyes flashing. "MISS MORGAN! WHERE DID YOU GET THAT SOLAR PANEL?" Kiara looked up defiantly at the approaching maelstrom.

"I bought it." she said simply.

"With what?" Prinicpal Zwelle was closer now, and Kiara was afraid of her wrath, though she tried not to show it.

"The remaining robotics funds, which as club president, I am entitled to use," Kiara glared at Principal Zwelle , "and," she said boldly, "and I know all about what you wanted to do with those funds. And now you can't, or tell the police about me, because they'll be more interested in what you wanted with the government-allotted robotics budget!" Kiara grinned victoriously.

Principal Zwelle looked at Kiara seethingly. "Perhaps I cannot bring legal consequences against you, Miss Morgan, but I am your principal and I do not appreciate people ruining my plans!" Zwelle looked thoughtful and then smiled. "But I can give you 30 days of detention, for entering my office without permission. You will serve it every evening in the kitchens, doing the dinner dishes."

Kiara's smile was wiped off her face in an instant. Zwelle looked pleased. She reached into her purse and pulled out a detention slip as Kiara watched.

"Please report to the kitchens at 7:30 sharp." Zwelle handed Kiara the offensive piece of paper to a reluctant Kiara. Angrily, Kiara stomped over to her robot, picked it up, and huffed away.

That night for dinner they had what seemed to be the messiest pasta dish ever, and every single plate was covered with a hardened red sludge when Kiara went to detention. And every time Kiara thought she'd finished washing, another stack of plates was dropped beside her. Detention in the hot steamy kitchens, Kiara concluded, felt like an eternity.

A/N

This story is based upon the "Myth of Prometheus".. In some versions, like the one, have Prometheus freed by Hercules at the end. But I thought that it was better to simply leave my story the version I always knew, where he stays attached to the rock forever.

Please review and tell me what you thought!