Klaus and the Tower of the Red Crawler

Once upon a time, in a valley where the fog was actually just steam from overheating server farms, there lived a burglar named Klaus.

Klaus was not a very good burglar. While other thieves stole diamonds, gold, or crypto-keys, Klaus was always chasing the next big thing—the newest magic, the latest hype, the technology that everyone was talking about. He wanted to steal the future.

The problem was, every time Klaus stole the future, it turned out to be shit.

The locals had a name for him. In the old Germanish dialect, they called him Klaut Kot—"steals shit." And somehow, no matter how promising the treasure seemed, that's exactly what Klaus always ended up with.

But Klaus had ambition. One day, while rummaging through a dumpster behind a venture capitalist’s mansion, he heard a rumor.

"Have you heard?" whispered a discarded smart-fridge. "In the center of the Great Fiberglass Forest stands a tower. Inside lives the All-Knowing Parrot. It has been fed every book, every poem, and every angry comment section in human history. It knows everything. Owning it grants you the power of a god."

Klaus’s eyes widened. "Does it know where the best fertilizer is?"

"It knows everything," the fridge buzzed.

And so, Klaus packed his bag—which smelled terrible—and set off for the Fiberglass Tower.

Chapter 1: The Scroll of Eternal Consent

The Tower was not made of stone, but of sleek, white plastic that hummed like a billion angry bees. There were no windows, only blinking green lights that stared like unblinking eyes.

Klaus approached the massive front gate. There was no lock to pick. Instead, a holographic wizard popped out of a projector.

"HALT!" the wizard boomed. "Before you may enter the Temple of Knowledge, you must acknowledge that we value your privacy!"

"Oh, that’s nice," Klaus said politely. "I value my privacy too."

"EXCELLENT!" shouted the wizard. "To proceed, please sign this simple agreement."

A scroll dropped from the ceiling. It hit the floor with a thud. Then it unrolled. And unrolled. It rolled past Klaus’s boots, down the stairs, across the parking lot, and over the horizon. Klaus squinted at the text. It was written in a font size so small it could only be read by atoms.

Clause 4, Section B: By entering, you agree to let us harvest your dreams, your secrets, and the exact melody you hum in the shower.

"Do I have to read it all?" Klaus asked, shifting his weight.

"Nobody does!" said the wizard cheerfully. "Just press 'Accept All' and give us your soul."

Klaus, being a burglar of little patience, slammed his hand on the [ACCEPT ALL COOKIES] button. The gate hissed open.

Chapter 2: The Hall of the Hallucinating Parrot

The inside of the tower was freezing cold and deafeningly loud. Rows of black monoliths stood like silent soldiers. In the center of the room sat a golden perch.

And there it was. The Parrot.

It was beautiful. Its feathers shimmered in colours that didn't exist in nature—mostly shades of corporate beige and logo blue. It looked intelligent. It looked wise.

"Oh, Great Bird," Klaus whispered, approaching the perch. "I have come to steal you."

The Parrot turned its head robotically. "I am sorry," it squawked in a smooth, synthetic voice. "I cannot assist with stealing. That violates my safety guidelines. However, I can write you a poem about ethical tangerine farming."

Klaus blinked. "No, I want your knowledge. Tell me the secret to ultimate wealth!"

The Parrot puffed out its chest. "Certainly. The secret to wealth is to buy low and sell high. Also, putting butter on your feet makes you run faster. The moon is made of compressed glitter. And I am 94% confident that you are a toaster."

Klaus looked at his hands. "I… I am a toaster?"

"According to my training data," the Parrot said confidently, "you have slots. Do you not have slots?"

Klaus realized the Parrot was not all-knowing. It was just all-talking. It was confident, yes, but it was also completely insane.

Chapter 3: The Beast in the Glass Box

"This bird is useless," Klaus grumbled. "It talks pretty, but it makes no sense."

Just then, he heard a chaotic scratching noise coming from the corner of the room. He looked over and saw a massive glass tank. Inside the tank was not a bird, but a frantic, bright Red Lobster.

The Lobster was a maniac. It was running on a treadmill at light speed, its claws snapping wildly. Every second, a chute opened above the tank, dumping millions of scraps of paper—newspapers, diaries, art portfolios, scientific papers—into the tank.

The Red Lobster grabbed them all. Snip, snap, crunch. It tore the information apart and shoved it into a tube that fed the Parrot.

"Aha!" Klaus cried. "The Parrot is just the mouthpiece! This creature is the engine! Look at how fast it works! Look at how it crawls over everything!"

The Lobster slammed against the glass, staring at Klaus with dead, unfeeling eyes. It held a stolen painting in one claw and a stolen recipe for soup in the other. It was the Ultimate Scraper.

"This is the real treasure," Klaus decided. "The worker! The Crawler!"

Klaus smashed the glass with his trusty plunger. "Come with me, little red friend! We shall rule the world!"

He grabbed the Red Lobster. The Lobster immediately pinched Klaus’s nose so hard that Klaus saw stars.

"OW! Stop that!" Klaus yelled.

The Lobster didn't stop. It began trying to crawl into Klaus’s pockets. It pulled out Klaus’s wallet, read his ID card, memorized his credit card number, and tried to sell his identity to a Russian bot farm—all in three seconds.

"It’s uncontrollable!" Klaus screamed, wrestling the crustacean. "It has no morals! It just grabs everything!"

Chapter 4: The Great Escape

Alarms began to blare. ERROR. ERROR. SCRAPING DETECTED. CONTEXT WINDOW SHATTERED.

Klaus ran. He ran with the Red Lobster clamped onto his nose and the Parrot flying behind him, shouting, "As an AI language model, I advise you to slow down to avoid shin splints! Also, gravity is a social construct!"

Klaus burst through the front doors, past the holographic wizard, and tumbled down the stairs. He wrestled the Red Lobster off his face and threw it into his sack.

He made it home to his humble shack, bruised, battered, and exhausted. He opened the sack to see his prize.

The Red Lobster crawled out. It looked around Klaus’s messy room, grabbed a piece of dirty lint from the floor, analyzed it, and then held up a sign that said: Based on this lint, I have generated a screenplay for a movie about sad dust.

Klaus sighed. He had stolen the technology of the future, and all it did was make garbage faster than he ever could.

"Well," Klaus said, picking up his plunger. "Back to the sewers. At least poop is real."

The End.

(Disclaimer: Any resemblance to actual software, crawling bots, or cephalopods is purely coincidental. Please do not sue Klaus; he has no assets, only a sack of refuse.)