Doctor Tenma raises Astro as if he were his dead son, teaching him to speak and eat (which Astro has the ability to perform). While being alone, Astro learns to fly but accidentally touches electric wires. His destroyed clothes appear to be the only consequences, but not very long afterward the robot has a malfunction and his eyes flashing red. Tenma calls Honda, who tells him the robot might have a short-circuit (although the real reason is the activation of Atlas, Walpur Guiss’s robot).