27. Chapter 27
Several hours passed that seemed like an eternity. With the help of the military and the police forces, they managed to gain some ground on ending the riots. Only, it wasn't a lot of ground.
Jenny was having a particularly difficult time keeping up her pace. She wasn't low on power, but she felt tired. People would normally think that a robot couldn't feel fatigue, but she swore that's what she was experiencing.
She used to want to do this kind of work, but after the events of the past few weeks, she felt almost no urge to keep going. She knew what the incentive was, but she didn't feel it. It seemed like she was doing it for no reason.
XJ3 had noticed Jenny's sharp decrease in performance, but wasn't able to speak to let the other's know. Finally, she had an idea.
"I'm hearing Morse code," XJ8 said.
"Is that you XJ3?" XJ5 asked.
"Yes, it's me. I think Jenny might be in trouble. She doesn't seem nearly as strong as before, and she actually seems to be wearing out. I'm sure she's able to last longer than this, right?" XJ3 asked in Morse code.
"All of us have received damage, but none of us are actually wearing out. Why would Jenny be?" XJ7 asked.
"Hey Jenny. Are you hearing all of this?" XJ6 asked.
A few seconds of silence followed. Jenny wasn't answering them at all.
Finally, XJs 4 through 8 and Melody yelled "Jenny!"
A moment later, Jenny finally responded "Yeah yeah, I heard you loud and clear. Honestly, I really don't understand it myself. Robots aren't supposed to feel tired, but I do."
"Okay…something has gotta be causing this. What is on your mind right now?" Melody asked.
"My whole life. Most importantly, my most recent experiences. I think that maybe dwelling on these thoughts is slowing me down, but I can't just stop thinking about it all. Not only that, but I don't really feel like doing this at all. I have almost no drive to continue," Jenny explained.
"Wait a second. My sensors are picking up something…familiar," XJ4 said.
All of the XJs stopped what they were doing as they all started picking up the same signal.
"What is that? It's definitely familiar, but I can't put my finger on it," Jenny said.
"It is the same signal XJ4 and I detect earlier when night was approaching," XJ8 said.
"Whatever it is, I can sense its strongest concentration coming from right outside the city I'm in. I'll go check it out now," Jenny said as she took off flying in the direction of the signal.
When she arrived at the edge, she could see an enormous silhouette of something in the darkness.
Jenny was about to use a higher power flash light when a voice sounded from very loud speakers said "There won't be any need for that XJ9."
All of a sudden, lights from small robots floating in the air turned on and shined directly on the large object. The light revealed the object to be a space ship that landed on the ground.
The chaos in the streets slowly came to a halt as they focused their attention on the bright lights and ship.
"That voice. I know I've heard it before. Wait, I remember now. You're that guy I saw in that video a few months ago. You're Mr. Green," Jenny said.
Four small robots situated themselves in the air in a horizontal rectangle formation. They then formed a hologram of light between them. Then Mr. Green's face showed up on the screen grinning.
"Your memory is just as good as ever. Even I didn't think you'd figure it out so quickly. Though, even you would never have figured out I was behind all of this unless I told you. I'm not the type to leave obvious clues," Mr. Green said.
"But this just isn't making any sense. Why you of all people? Why would a corporate lawyer and computer engineer want to cause so much chaos? And since when did you get your hands on a space ship?" Jenny yelled.
Mr. Green chuckled for a moment, and then said "Those are good questions. One question you should've asked though is am I really who you think I am."
"Huh?" Jenny asked puzzled.
"I'll get to that, but first, I should let you know that I have these nifty little screens and speakers hovering above cities and towns all over the world. Everything that you or I say or do will be heard and seen by everyone," Mr. Green explained.
Jenny's eyes opened wide with surprise knowing that all eyes are on her at that moment.
"One question I'm sure you would all like answered is how I managed to infect all of those computer systems without anyone noticing. Well, I guess now is a good time to explain it. First of all, there's no possible way for me to have infected the computers without anyone noticing at my current size. So, I didn't actually do it myself. I sent small hard to see robots all over the world to plant the virus. I knew if I acted too quickly, there was I good chance one of my robots would've been discovered. I can only imagine the look on Mr. Filman's and all the other people that asked for my helps faces right now. They thought I was going to be their savior when they had no idea I was the cause of the problem in the first place," Mr. Green explained.
"Ok. I guess that makes sense. Another question, how did you get your hands on the money for all these robots? I'm sure even a man with your credentials couldn't even begin to afford all of this," Jenny said.
"Another good question. I had these robots hidden for years. They've been at my disposal since, but I didn't have use for them until recently. I have a question I want to ask. How did your first suicide attempt go anyway?"
Every screen that had Mr. Green's face changed over to show Jenny's shocked and embarrassed expression. The people around the world who actually did admire Jenny were very shocked to hear this news. The screens that switched from Mr. Green to Jenny finally switched back from Jenny to Mr. Green.
With a big evil grin, Mr. Green said "That's the look. That's what I've been waiting to see. I must admit, you even surprised me when I learned of your recent decline. I thought you were just going to become one of those emo teens and remain that way, but it didn't happen that way, did it? No, you bypassed that stage almost completely and went straight to a suicide attempt in almost record time. It only took a few weeks. Oh yeah, and when I watched your poor performance for the past few hours, I realized you must still be all torn up inside over it. So tell me this people, how is this emotionally unstable girl going to save you now? Simple answer, she can't. And even if she was at full strength, she or her defective sisters couldn't save you worthless people from what I have in store for you."
The top of the space ship opened up slowly. Jenny fired a few lasers at the ship, but the lasers fizzled out when they hit an invisible force field surrounding the ship. A large platform rose up from the opening revealing Mr. Green and a young kid standing beside him. Everyone figured the kid must be his son.
"Nice try XJ9. Your pitiful lasers cannot penetrate this barrier. Try all you like, but it won't get you anywhere," Mr. Green explained.
"You know Mr. Green, you still haven't told us who you really are yet, but you don't really need to. I think I've figured it out already. You and your phony son can't fool me very easily. Your voice may sound different, but the mannerisms in the way you speak are still the same. I really thought you two were dead…Smytus and Krackus," Jenny said.
Both Mr. Green and his son grinned as their skin started slowly breaking apart like pieces of glass and their eyes glowed a bright neon green.
"So, you figured it out after all. Well done. Come bear witness to our glorious comeback, for most of you will only live long enough to see our performance once," Smytus said.
Both Smytus and Krackus started laughing maniacally as the rest of their disguises shattered revealing black and green humanoid robot forms. A few seconds later, their bodies grew in size and reshaped themselves to match their original forms.
"Hah, what's so glorious about that? You're exactly the same as before," Jenny said grinning.
"Don't get too excited XJ9. We may look the same, but our bodies have been heavily modified. You'll find that defeating us will be next to impossible this time," Krackus said confidently.
"Oh yes, and we have a little surprised for you. I'm sure you'll like it," Smytus said as he pressed a button on a remote.
A hole in the platform opened up. A smaller platform rose up out of that one, and it had a large containment unit of some kind on top of it. When it opened, it revealed a robot connected to many other wires and machines. It was very hard for Jenny to see who this robot was since none of the lights were flashing directly on it.
"Here, maybe this will shed some light on the situation," Smytus said as a light shined on the robot revealing who it was.
"What, Vexus?" Jenny yelled surprised.
Vexus was barely conscious and was badly damaged. Her right eye had several cracks in it and the light that normally shines from it was noticeably dimmer than her left. There were dents, burns, and cracks all over body. All the wires and restraints connected to her looked like something right out of a science fiction film.
People everywhere were mumbling similar things such as, "Is that really her?," "She doesn't look so good," "What happened to her," "It's about time she got what she deserves," "Why didn't XJ9 do that to her long ago?," etc.
Vexus opened her mouth slowly as if to try to speak. Everyone quieted down and waited to hear what she had to say. Every speaker was prepared to let the world hear what she had to say.
A few moments later, Vexus finally found the strength to say very slowly "Please…please…help me."
"And just why the hell should we?" Somebody yelled from the ground.
Very quickly, people all over the world went into an uproar. The only person that would even consider helping Vexus right now is Charlotte, but one voice from a thirteen year old girl just wouldn't count against billions of others. Vexus listened to how angry they all became when they heard her desperate plea. Not surprised at all, she remained silent and listened with a very weak smile on her face.
When the noise died down a little, Smytus yelled "Silence."
When everyone did, he walked over to Vexus and said "What an incredibly stupid thing for you to ask for. You, of all people, ask them for help. Even I have more sense than that. If I was in your place right now, my former queen, I would know better than to ask for help from people that I tried to enslave."
"Well said Smytus. We must've damaged her brain or something in our fight. She's babbling like an idiot. Oh, you have no idea how many times I've wanted to call you an idiot in your face, just like you did to me for centuries. If you were so much smarter than me, why is it that I was the one coming up with most of the plans while you sat around in your precious throne room?" Krackus asked.
Vexus remained silent with the weak smile still on her face.
Krackus leaned in close to her face with his right ear close to her mouth and said "I can't hear you. I am expecting an answer."
A moment later, Vexus found the strength to slowly force the light in her damaged eye to brighten to normal; she opened her eyes all the way, grinned, and then said "You're still an idiot."
Vexus's damaged eye dimmed again and her expression returned to a desperate one. Krackus was furious at her response.
"If we didn't need your body, you'd be dead right now. You might want to remember that next time you decide to insult me," Krackus yelled.
By this time, the sun's light was starting to pierce through the night sky. The sun itself was still invisible at this point.
"Hey, don't worry about it. There won't be a next time remember. Once her usefulness runs out, we'll just toss her body into the nearest dump," Smytus said.
"Your right. Now, how about we get on with the next phase. There's nothing stopping us now that you found the final component," Krackus said.
"What component?" Jenny asked.
Krackus pointed towards Vexus and said "That little orb on Vexus's head. The power to control almost all machines with a built in computer: a technological marvel that I've spent centuries trying to reproduce. She knows how to reproduce it, but the materials for it are rare, and the programming language is thousands of years ahead of anything I've invented. I've been trying to find an alternate means of producing the same effect. Now do you see? We may not be able to reproduce it, but we have found a way to amplify its power many fold."
"Oh no, you're monsters. So, you make the humans fight each other first, then when they have virtually no way to defend themselves, you force their own machines to attack them. I see you really will go to any extreme to get what you want," Jenny said.
Smytus lifted the hand with the remote up into the air, and with a big grin on his face, he said "Of course we will. That is the most effective way, right,"
Smytus pressed one of the other buttons on the remote. The platform that Vexus was on rose even higher into the air and stopped at around forty feet from the top of the first platform. The upper fourth of the ship broke apart into a large intricate looking array of smaller machines that situated themselves all around the container Vexus was in. Some of the machines were stationary in the middle of the air. In all, they were situated in a spherical formation. The machines then transformed into several rod shapes.
"It's time for the ultimate test for Earth's greatest hero. Let's see you find a way out of this one," Smytus said still grinning as he pressed another button.
"No!" Jenny yelled as she started firing at the force field repeatedly.
As her lasers fizzled out each time, Vexus's orb started glowing without her control. She fought hard to keep it under control, but to no avail. Once the orb was fully operational, the other machines responded by pumping electricity into her body and drawing the energy waves out of her orb amplifying them. About ten seconds later, the array of machines were emitting visible waves of energy out into the world. The overwhelming power surge through Vexus's body was too much for her, and she finally let out a loud scream.
Jenny kept frantically firing at the force field hoping desperately that one shot would break through.