Chapter Two
"Humans Don't Have Batteries"
As far back as he could recall Sheldon had been an unlucky guy. From the time a kid glued his mouth shut in first grade to the pool incident last week he had always gotten the short end of the stick. But a sliver of light entered his life the day he met her.
Jenny Wakeman.
Not only was she a girl, but she was the physical being of everything he strived for as an inventor; Jenny Wakeman was a robot. A robot girl who laughed and cried when she didn't get her way, a beautiful soul encased in the shell of an earth defending machine. Perfect. In every way. Though at the moment Jenny didn't really see Sheldon as more than a friend he had always assured his self that one day things would change in his favor.
However, yesterday Jenny had unknowingly revealed her honest opinion of Sheldon. He had overheard her speaking with her mother while he cleaned up in their guest bathroom downstairs. Nora had brought him along as her apprentice nearly a year ago and since then Sheldon practically had moved in to the Wakeman home, but the extra face time hardly helped his case with Jenny. She had told her mother that he was weird, a stalker and worst of all ugly.
Jenny Wakeman was a six foot tall humanoid robot painted white and blue, but she understood human aesthetics. Sheldon wasn't attractive to normal teenage girls and therefore wasn't attractive to her. This is why Sheldon is currently sitting alone in the back of the library. If it's utterly hopeless for him to win her over, perhaps there is still a chance for the Silver Shell to make Jenny realize how smooth he could be. At least until he could find a way to make himself more appealing to the female species.
Sheldon tentatively prodded at his latest project's inner mechanisms. It was a watch that he had fiddled with for weeks trying to enhance the range in which he could summon the Silver Shell exoskeleton. Last week to his dismay Sheldon had found the boundary while under the bleachers of the football field.
"I just can't think of a way to enhance the signal without compromising the size of my watch…" He mumbled quietly to himself as he flipped through a few pages of his pocket notebook. "Maybe if I try this", Sheldon entered a code and waited for the results.
An outgoing signal was sent, but never reached the exoskeleton. Sheldon noted that he had somewhere around fifteen minutes till his next class. Because his afterschool hours were devoted to homework, Nora and Jenny Sheldon tried his best to advance his own projects during free periods at school and the wee hours of the morning. The dark circles under his eyes were highly unattractive he knew, but all the work he was putting in now would assuredly pay off in the hopefully near future.
A soft rumbling occurred beneath the school. Sheldon dismissed it as an earthquake at first, but the tremor was resonating. A hoard of sounds grew beneath his feet. It sounded like hornets. Pressure built beneath the school till the creatures started spouting from under the pavement by the hundreds. Basketball sized metallic insects with red eyes and pointed features. Sheldon somehow found his way to the library's exit amongst the storm of shredded paper.
He ran as fast as his spindly legs would carry him hoping those wretched creatures would not catch up. One broke from the swarm and latched onto his shoulder, digging it's pincher into his shoulder. Sheldon lost his footing in the pain and fell forwards. He rolled to the best of his ability, trying to avoid agitating the creature already on him.
Sheldon shut his eyes and waited for the others to swarm him. A thundering sound separated him from them followed by the object in his shoulder being removed. He opened his eyes and saw through a hazy filter of pain and poisoned delusion a figure of blue and white.
Jenny held the writhing wasp in a firm grasp. Her fist clenched and broke the mindless bug to pieces seconds before she swung a spiked fist towards the swarm. They focused their attention on her, forgetting the boy curled up on the floor. Hallucinating from the venom Jenny squeezed out of the creature Sheldon somehow got to his feet and began wandering down the hall. He bumped against the lockers, barely keeping his footing as he tried to move forwards.
"…Must help…Jenny…" He weezed.
The pain was numbed by the lack of coherency. A familiar figure, a peach and red smudge tried to grab him, pull him to safety but Sheldon refused. He pushed the boy away and kept walking, following the floating imagery about him. Brad tried to follow after Sheldon, but a hoard of the creatures came through the windows and chased after him and the others still in the school.
His back pressed to the wall, Sheldon tried to even out his breathing and clear his mind. He tried to ignore the growing visions and constant pain. In his moment of weakness he knew he had only one choice. The Silver Shell was summoned.
Middleton onlookers watched the well known silver saucer icon fly through the sky. It transformed and landed in front of Sheldon, in its humanoid form. The Silver Shell stood as a husk, a vessel waiting to be manned. The chest door slowly folded open, lowering a ladder that Sheldon weakly crawled up. As he sat back in the cockpit the burden of exposure faded; in his suit of near invincible armor Sheldon could be a true hero and fight through the pain. He pulled a syringe from a side compartment and stabbed his thigh with the long needle to buy himself some time. Sheldon sat for a moment, feeling the steroid rush through his body. He slid his hands into the arm control and brought his Frankenstein creation to life.
The first couple steps rang the bells in Sheldon's head, but he kept going till it was a numbed pain. As he left the bleachers Sheldon caught movement on one of his surveillance screens. It was a familiar adversary.
Vexes.
The sleek female robot appeared in a whir of familiar creatures, her green eyes slanted with mischief. Vexes took caution and kept a safe distance from her foe, allowing her servants to accompany her proximity as protection. She smiled with an almost human smugness.
"Shell darling", she began smoothly, her eyes looking him over. "I have to say I didn't know what to expect when you called."
Called her? This was news to Sheldon.
"W-What?" He stammered, the computer adjusting his scratchy tone to sound more casual by default. "I didn't…"
"Well that's why I came", Vexes sniped. "The signal you sent out lured my pets to your location", she took a moment to absorb the silence and then chuckled.
"I had no intention of luring you here", Shell countered, his fists raised.
"Now now", She teased, her body evaporating into tiny metallic insects. "I'd planned to invite you to join my legion, but you are still in favor of the humans?" Vexes hissed with venom in her tone. "This affection you feel for them is a disease I will cure. I believe I already cleansed the planet of XJ9's pathetic groupie", as she vanished she left him with a taunting chuckle. "Unlikely he will survive. Such a shame, he would have made a useful slave rebuilding my empire."
Sheldon lowered his head, circles building under his eyes as he felt his body growing numb. His mind was working so slowly everything at this point came down to instinct. Vexes was going back to the school. She was going to attack his friends. Jenny was in danger. Sheldon knew he had to save Jenny.
So he activated Silver Shells rocket boots and headed towards the screams.
Jenny was fighting with all her might, fists trailing blue electricity with every wild swing. There were so many of them swarming her, attacking her classmates and draining her battery. She couldn't go on like this forever. A hoard of them swarmed her, slowly overcoming Jenny in a pile of metal.
A light rained down from the sky and the creatures went flying. Their bodies flinched on the floor, slowly recovering the damaged circuitry. Crawling to one another they combined to make Vexes clones. The grey duplicates made deep unnatural sounds as their eyes opened up with a blood red light.
"Silver Shell", Jenny sounded weak as she looked up her rescuer. "You came"
"You needed me", was all he said.
They worked together, fighting side by side against the Vexes clones. Now there was a chance for victory. But as the numbers started to finally dwindle a game changer arrived. A swarm burst through the gym windows and formed Vexes. She stood arrogantly at the opposite end of the basketball court with her clones standing between her and the dynamic duo. A dark smile mocked Jenny.
"Vexes!" Jenny called, her black eyes narrowed. "I should have known it was you!"
"Why yes Jennifer…you should have", was Vexes' dry response. "Of course you also shouldn't have let yourself stray from your friends."
"What are you talking about?" Jenny screamed.
She heard cries from outside. Her friends were screaming in pain. Jenny didn't think she just flew through the roof. Shell tried to follow, but the clones were on him as soon as Jenny left. Sheldon tried to focus but he was getting so tired. He knew he couldn't last much longer. As a last resort he set his new secret weapon to charge and hoped he would still be alive when it was ready.
Jenny starred in horror as she watched her friends lying on the pavement. Each one had a red stain on them, blood from the stingers. Some of them weren't moving. Tucker was standing amongst the bodies, tears pouring down his paled cheeks. Brad was amongst the injured.
Jenny was at his side in moments.
"Brad!" she fumbled for the first time in her life as she tried to find the spot where he had been stung. "Where did they get you!" Jenny lifted him up into her arms and held on tightly.
"They didn't get me", he admitted meekly. "I twisted my ankle trying to get away, I told Tuck I was fine but he keeps crying."
"Tuck", she softened her voice to try and sooth the startled youth. "Your brother's fine, he didn't get stung…everything's going to be okay."
"B-B-B….B-B-Bu-ut", Tuck stammered as he tried to speak through his crying. "They're not okay…Jenny they won't wake up", his eyes looked sunken as he pointed to the glossy eyed bodies on the floor.
"W-What's wrong with them?"
Jenny leaned down and looked into the face of a girl she had seen wandering the halls of her school. She had long brown hair held with a headband and large blue eyes; they looked dull and empty like a blinking phones dying light. At first Jenny didn't understand what was wrong with her. But as the girl remained stiller than she had ever seen a human do Jenny realized what was wrong with her classmate.
"It's likely that XJ9 has seen my latest work", Vexes hummed as she strode towards the dented Silver Shell. "Untreated, the sting from my minions is quite lethal. Of course, being robots you and she are immune", Vexes pointed out with a smile. "She will now see how different we are from them"
Sheldon thought about poor Jenny facing death for the first time. She'd never seen anyone die. He reminded himself that he was also dying. His suit let him know that his secret weapon was ready, and without much thought Sheldon fired. A blinding white light left his suit's hands. Vexes dodged the attack and it disintegrated everything it touched. He could see Jenny standing in the distance holding a body. It was hard to concentrate, but he hit the auto pilot for Shell's saucer form and fled the scene.
Vexes took the opportunity to disappear as well.
The Silver Shell crash-landed without transforming besides Jenny. She had set Brad down in the grass and focused her attention on the girl on the floor. Jenny held the limp body in her arms and to her sorrow could not shed a tear for her fallen classmate. Jenny looked back at the silver saucer half buried in the tainted soil.
"I will never know what it is like to be human", she whispered. "I'm alone"
Sheldon felt the steroid wearing off, but even through the pain he tried to console his friend. He took a knee and gently cupped her face with his hand. For the first time in a long time he wanted to tell her the truth. Jenny deserved to know that The Silver Shell was just the shell of a boy who was blinded by love. It was however, that love that kept his lips sealed.
"You will always have me, Jennifer", the words that left him were spoken in sorrow but Jenny only heard affection. "I will always be there for you"
"Thank you Shell", Jenny smiled an almost human smile. "I love you"
