Title: Deus ex Machina
Author: vashsunglasses
Rating: T
Fandom: Inspector Gadget
Disclaimer: I don't own Inspector Gadget, but I used to watch it on TV a lot.
Summary: One Shot. Dark Fic. Gadget watches Penny and thinks about why it's vital that she thinks him an idiot.
Note: Written because who the heck would spend billions of dollars making a man a cyborg if he was an idiot? I'm thinking at least ex-special forces.
She was doing it again, and it was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud and giving away his hiding spot behind the pillar.
He popped his eye from its socket, extending it like a serpent around the side of the pillar so that he could watch her. If she took the time to look in his direction she would probably see his disembodied eye ball staring back at her but he didn't think she would look. She may have been his brother's little prodigy but she was still a child and couldn't always see the forest for the trees.
Ah! There she was kneeling on the ground, typing on her laptop. Probably hacking into the security systems of the base or something. He wants to speak up and tell her that Claw's security systems are beyond her abilities this time, but that would give the game away and he couldn't have that.
She thinks he's an idiot, but that's ok because at least it keeps her mind occupied and keeping her occupied is a very good thing. Especially when he considered how fucked up she was when the social workers had dumped her on his doorstep. When they had called him to ask him if he wanted custody he had really wanted to say no. What were they thinking giving a child to a guy like him? He couldn't figure. But then they brought her in, shoulders hunched and much too thin, eyes down and face old, and all he could see were the hundreds of children whose lives Claw ruined over the years.
To say that Chief had been surprised would be an understatement, and the look on his face when he had first pulled his "Inspector Gadget is an Idiot" act. Priceless.
If he continued this line of thought he really was going to bust out laughing. Maybe he had been pretending to be a moron a little too often-- Shit! There was someone hiding behind the pillar across from his own on the opposite side of the door. Taking one last good look at his happily oblivious niece still typing away, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, he pulled his eye back and then up the pillar and along the ceiling. What he saw turned his blood to ice. It was one of Claw's thugs, he recognized him as an escaped con wanted for multiple counts of murder and armed robbery… and he was pointing a gun at Penny.
Although she would never suspect it, her uncle had been armed with much more than the innocent toys he displayed in her presence. Such as the large knife he extended in his right hand on the same path his eye had traveled.
The deep cut across the throat took out both arteries and the vocal cords. His death was soundless, Penny didn't even look up as the criminal's body slid to the ground.
Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh.
Gadget swiveled his eye back in her direction. Huh… Apparently he had underestimated her computer skills because Claw's advanced computer system had been hacked and the door was open. She ran through the door and he snapped his eye and hand back into place. He couldn't let her get too far ahead…