Obvious Disclaimer – The characters in this story are from the cartoon "My Life as a Teenage Robot", and I own nothing, nada, zilcho pertaining to them. My sole creation is the character of Drew, a human high school student who was turned into an android by Cluster nanotechnology. Say what? If you give a doing, it's explained in the story "Android Scam" by CoyoteLoon. I got the silly little idea for this story shortly after finishing that one.
SOME LIKE IT 'BOT
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter One – The Day The Music Died
It had been a lot of hard work, but Jenny knew she was up to the challenge. There would be one chance, and one chance only, to get it right. She had to pay close attention to the equipment. She didn't dare blink an eye, because when the signal came, she was going to have to act lightning fast. She had gotten up early and spent nearly an hour reconfiguring the monitors for the most crucial mission of her teenage life.
Every monitor in her bedroom had a line running from an output jack into a communications switching panel that was deployed from Jenny's chest. That way, she could watch them and use them all at once. Every screen displayed sine waves and communications signals. She was getting nervous, and her sensors were getting a little fatigued from her constant vigil. But there was no way she could risk missing –
The signal!
She heard it! It almost caught her by surprise, but Jenny quickly activated a circuit on her communications panel. Rapid-fire beeps filled the room and her electronics hummed at top speed. Then the beeps stopped, and Monitor Eight showed a successful connection. There were a few clicking noises. Jenny deployed a small microphone to her mouth, and held her breath –
"Congratulations, you're caller sixteen!"
"Yessss!" It was all she could do contain herself.
"And you're talking to Zinger McCloud in the morning! Who's this?"
"Jenny! Jenny Wakeman!" Oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes!!!
"And what do you have to say for us this morning, Jenny?"
"K-T-R-M 103 is The Bomb that rocks Tremorton!!!"
"That's the phrase that pays, and Jenny, I hope you're not busy tomorrow, because we are hooking you up, with three friends, with tickets and backstage passes to see … the Back Sync Boys!!!"
Jenny leapt into the air, screaming with pure joy, and knocked a hole into the ceiling. She could barely calm down long enough to give the DJ her personal information, then she unplugged herself from the monitors, and started dancing around her bedroom. She grabbed a pillow and squealed into it. The force of her voice blew a hole right through it like a sonic cannon, sending soft white feathers blowing around the room.
She finally stopped and composed herself. "Okay, Jenny, okay … get it together … gotta get ready for school … and go pick three friends to meet the Back Sync Boys!!!"
Jenny was back in dance mode, twisting and spinning, when her bedroom door flew open.
"XJ-9! What in the name of Heisenberg is going on in here?!?" Mrs. Wakeman barged in, investigating the thumping and pounding that shook the whole house. She half expected to find a signs of a struggle, or the remains of a bomb blast. Instead, her robot daughter was lip-syncing to some racket on the radio in front of one of those ridiculous boy band posters, and … her monitoring equipment was lying about in disarray, half-disassembled, the floor littered with wires and cables.
"The emergency monitors!!!" She clutched at her long white hair, horrified. "XJ-9, what have you done?!?"
Jenny spun around on her toes. "I won, Mom! I won! I'm going to – "
Mrs. Wakeman pointed a finger, with a threatening look. "You are going to reassemble these monitors right now, young lady … or else."
That slowed Jenny down a bit, but she was still giddy. "Sure, Mom. Don't stress it. I just needed to use them for a little while."
"You are supposed to monitor for trouble, and save the world! It would seem to be difficult to monitor for trouble when you do not have any monitors!!!"
"Okay, okay, I said I'll fix them, Mom!" Oh, it's no use trying to get Mom to understand. She just has no sense of priorities! She knelt down and started rearranging cables, and flashed a big innocent smile towards her mother.
That seemed to satisfy Mrs. Wakeman. "Well, all right then. And you'd best be quick about it, or you'll be late for school."
"School! How much time until school starts … oh wow, ten minutes." This shouldn't be too much trouble. After all, she'd taken them apart, she could put them back together. She stood up, holding a mess of identical black cables in her two hands. Hmmm, I probably should have labeled these. This turned out to be a little trickier than she thought. Now she was down to five minutes. Oh, what the hey. Jenny quickly reconnected all her monitors together at random, figuring that at least one of them had to work. She grabbed her backpack, jumped out of her bedroom window, and ignited her pigtail-jets. Jenny sped across the sky, a blue blur, happily singing to herself all the way to Tremorton High School.
Drew didn't have much to do while the other guys hit the showers after Phys Ed. With an android body made of nanobots, he didn't sweat or generate odor – at least none that he noticed. It was just one of the thousands of little things that was different about his life now. And for the most part, he had to admit that there was an awful lot of upside to being an android. He was a lot stronger and faster than he used to be. His sight and hearing was a lot better. He didn't feel pain. Of course he was nowhere near as strong or fast as Jenny – after all, she did mop the floor with two thousand copies of me – but Drew enjoyed one perk that Jenny could never have. No responsibilities.
Then there was the strangeness of the Cluster nanobots themselves. Nobody, not even Dr. Wakeman, was completely sure yet of what they could or couldn't do. He could stretch and turn his body into different shapes, and that was a blast, but he couldn't turn himself into anything too complicated. Hard as he tried, he couldn't even make a simple wheel. Too bad. It would've been really cool to be a motorcycle.
Brad walked out of the locker room, smoothing back his spiky red hair. "Hey, Drew – nice game. Basketball's a lot easier when your arms are twelve feet long, huh?"
"Oh, come on," Drew laughed. "I did that once!"
"Just kidding. I don't see you again till lunch," said Brad. "What are you up to this weekend?"
"No plans so far. You wanna get together with Jenny and hang out?"
"I'll just bet you'd like that," said a nasal voice from behind.
A thin, gangly student came out of the locker room, pursuing Drew. He wiped his greasy black hair off of his acne-covered face, while stuffing wads of tissue paper into each nostril to stop a nose bleed. It would've been a tense situation, if he didn't look so pitiful.
Drew sighed. "Look, guy, I said I was sorry! I mean, you were looking right at me. I thought you were going to catch that ball."
"Oh, I'm onto your little game. Getting yourself a fancy android body. Trying to take me out of the picture! Well, it won't work. It won't work, I tell you!"
"What won't work? Look … I don't even know your name."
"Playing dumb, huh? Well, that's fine with me. The name's Sheldon. Sheldon Lee."
"Okay, Sheldon … what won't work?"
Sheldon pointed a clammy finger into Drew's chest. "You're trying to steal the love of my life."
"Look ... I think you might be making a mistake. I'm not after anyone's … uh … Sheldon?" Suddenly Sheldon's eyes seemed to glaze over, and a big, dumb grin spread on his face. He was looking past Drew, like he wasn't even there. Drew raised a hand and snapped his fingers, with no effect.
Sheldon sighed deeply, and his voice swooned.
"But soft, what light through yonder hallway breaks?"
Drew was starting to wonder about this guy. He glanced at Brad, who had his hand over his mouth, fighting back laughter.
Sheldon continued. "Tis the east … and Jenny is the sun."
Drew turned around. Sure enough, Jenny was walking down the hallway, surrounded by a swarm of other girls. They were talking loudly, rapidly, and excitedly, and the babble was punctuated by the occasional squeal. Whatever was going on, Jenny looked to be in absolute heaven. Hmmm. They don't pay this much attention to her when she shoots down an incoming ballistic missile.
A little light went off in Drew's head. He stifled a chuckle.
"Ohhh … I didn't realize that you and Jenny were an … item." Straight face! Straight face!
Sheldon snapped out of his daydream. "Well … more or less. I mean, it's not official or anything. And we really haven't actually … dated." His chest swelled. "But … our fates are written together in the stars!"
"Okay. Okay." Mmmph! Straight face! "Listen, Sheldon, one guy to another … I appreciate the heads-up. Jenny and I are just friends. Don't let me get in your way. Go for it, Tiger!"
Sheldon gave Drew a suspicious look. "Well, okay then. But I'm keeping an eye on you, you … usurper!" And with that, he wiped off his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, and headed down the hall to his next class, looking back over his shoulder to give Drew a nasty look.
Drew and Brad were almost in pain from holding back, and burst out into roars of laughter. After a few moments, they caught their breath. "Oh wow …" gasped Drew. "Jenny is one lucky gal."
Brad wiped a tear from his eye. "Poor Sheldon! He's got a humongous crush on Jenny, and I guess he sees you as a threat now. I guess it makes sense from his point of view. Robot girl, robot guy."
"Should I be worried? I'm not going to find a horse's head in my locker, am I?"
Brad waved a hand. "Nahh, Sheldon's harmless. He's just a little obsessed when it comes to Jenny."
"I guess so. Does she know about this?"
"Does she know?!?" laughed Brad. "Oh yeah, she knows, and I don't think she's thrilled with the attention." They looked down the hallway, where the crowd of girls around Jenny was still filling the air with chatter. "Although, she seems to be pretty happy with the attention she's getting right now."
"Yeah, I noticed that. Check it out?"
"Sure, but let's wait for the girl riot to die down first."
Which took another couple of minutes, until the crowd finally dispersed. Girls drifted away in pairs and groups, some chatting excitedly, some sobbing with disappointment. Jenny noticed Brad and Drew, and waved them over to her locker.
"Hey, Brad! Hey, Drew. Great day, isn't it?"
"For some of us more than others, Miss Popularity," said Brad. "What's with the mob scene, Jen?"
"Oh, just picking three friends to go with me to the Tremorton Coliseum tomorrow afternoon. I've got tickets for the Back Sync Boys," she grinned.
"Wow, that's been sold out for weeks. Your mom bought you concert tickets?!?"
"Nope. Won them myself on the radio this morning. With backstage passes, too." She sighed dreamily, and turned to stare at a poster on the inside of her locker door. A brooding, handsome young boy with long, thick brown hair and a goatee stared back at her through stylish sunglasses. "I'm going to meet Logan. He is such a hottie."
"Okay, I'll take your word on that," shrugged Brad.
Drew scratched his head. "Wasn't that a poster of … whatzisname … Timber Justinlake, a couple of weeks ago?"
"Please," huffed Jenny. "Timber is so last month. Besides, he was just a singer. The Back Sync Boys write all their own songs. Siiiigh. Logan is such a bad boy, but he's sooo sensitive …"
"Yeesh," chuckled Drew. "It's a good thing I don't have a stomach, or I'd be sick to it."
Brad laughed. "Hey Jen, you want us to leave you and the poster alone for a little quality time?"
Jenny harrumphed and closed her locker. "You're just jealous that someone so good-looking can be so talented. See for yourself." She reached into her backpack, pulled out a copy of Tiger Bleat magazine, and flipped to a story. "Logan wrote all the songs for their new album. And he threatened to leave the band unless they gave ten percent of the sales to save baby dolphins. Siiiigh."
Drew rolled his eyes. "Wow. Two obsessions in five minutes. Cupid is on a drunken rampage today."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jenny asked.
"Oh, Drew just met Sheldon, after P.E. class," explained Brad. "He was making sure that Drew wasn't moving in on his territory."
"Yeah," chuckled Drew. He dropped his head, clasped his hands behind his back, and bit his lower lip, sulking. "I'm not allowed to be your fwiend anymore."
The two boys laughed themselves silly, while Jenny buried her face in her hands. "Sheldon … auugh, what am I going to do with him? I'm sorry, Drew. Sheldon shouldn't be saying things like that. I'll try to explain it to him …"
"Don't bother, Jenny. So he's got a crush on you. It's actually kind of cute," Drew teased.
"It's only cute because it's not happening to you!"
"C'mon, Jen," said Brad, "it's no different than your little crush on Lomax there."
"That's Logan," she humphed. "And it's totally different!"
"Everyone gets a crush at some point or another," continued Brad, as the three started walking down the hallway. "I remember my first one. Slyvia Trypowski, in fourth grade. She would blow spitballs into my hair in class, and then wave to me. And I thought her braces were cute, but I called her 'tinsel lips' because my friends all thought that girls were disgusting. Ah, good times, good times."
"Wow, there's a romance for the ages," Jenny said sarcastically.
Drew rubbed his chin, searching his memory, and chuckled. "Let's see … oh, yeah, I remember now. It was my fifth grade English teacher, Miss Heddington. Brother, I actually used to bring apples to her, if you can believe that. Thought I was so mature for liking an older woman! Hah! How lame is that? Oh, wow, I can picture her now ..."
A soft schwwerrrp sound started to come from Drew's body, and his skin started to shimmer with silver-green ripples.
"She was tall, pretty, and wore these little square glasses that made her look so sophisticated. She had a mole on her left cheek that I thought was cute …"
Jenny and Brad stared at him with dropped jaws.
Drew chuckled, and continued. "And she had long straight hair that hung over her shoulders. It was sort of brown …"
"Actually," said Brad, "I'd call it more of a sandy blonde."
"Yeah, I think you're right … huh? Brad, how did you know that?"
Jenny's right hand retracted into her arm, and a telescoping rod popped out with a stack of sections that unfurled into a mirror. "Miss Heddington, I presume?" she grinned.
"What are you talking about –"
Drew stared into the mirror in disbelief.
Standing in front of Jenny and Brad was an attractive woman in her early thirties, with square glasses and a mole on her cheek. A schoolteacher in a plain blue blazer and skirt, with shoulder-length sandy blonde hair. And a horrified expression on her face.
"Holy crap!!!" shouted "Miss Heddington".
"Wow!" said Brad. "How did you do that?"
"I don't know!!!" Drew was suddenly aware of a few students staring at him … or her … and started feeling extremely self-conscious. He looked around in a panic, saw a broom closet just across the hall, and dove in.
Brad slowly shook his head. "Well, that was a little different."
"We'd better see if he's okay," chuckled Jenny.
They both walked into the closet, where Drew was staring down at his new appearance with a mix of amazement and terror. He wiped his arms madly, as if he was trying to rub off paint. "It won't go away! Aiiighhh! Come on, erase! Undo!"
"This is amazing!!!" said Brad. "Dude, you totally look like a … not-dude. You still sound like you, though."
A series of shutters clicked in Jenny's eyes, rotating through different modes in her optic sensors. "Nothing looks different, Drew. You're still made of nanobots on the inside. The surface is still metal, it's just changed color. And you're, well, … shaped differently," she giggled.
"Oh, I'm glad somebody's getting a laugh out of this!!!"
"Okay, relax, relax." Brad tried to think. "Now, this all started when you remembered your old fifth grade English teacher. Maybe you just have to think of somebody else."
Drew took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down. "Okay. That makes sense. Picture somebody else …" Drew closed his eyes, and sure enough, a few seconds later his skin started to warble with waves of silver-green …
But when the shimmering stopped, Miss Heddington was replaced by a stunning, sexy Asian woman with long black hair, wearing a skin-tight aerobics outfit.
Brad's eyes widened. "Hel-lo-o-o, Big Sally."
"AAAIIIIGHHHH!!! This is not better!!! It's the babe from the morning fitness show on Channel thirty-two!!! Oh, nuts, I've got girls on the brain now!!!"
Jenny planted her hands on her hips with a disgusted clank. "Hmmph! Boys. That's all you think about."
Drew covered his chest with his arms. "Criminy, Brad, stop staring at me!"
"Wha -? Oh wow, that voice coming out of that body is just so wrong. Okay, think of something else. Baseball always works for me."
"Okay. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball." The sexy aerobics instructor started to shimmer silver-green, and this time she changed shape considerably. Drew grew a few more inches. His shoulders and chest broadened, and his arms and legs thickened with muscles. His skin darkened to a rich mahogany brown, and his face sprouted a mustache and a fade-away haircut. When the shimmering stopped, Drew was six-foot-four and wearing a baseball uniform.
Brad gazed in awe. "Dude, you look just like Cornelius Jackson! You hit sixty home runs last season!"
"Sixty-four," said Drew, a little calmer. "And it's exactly who I was picturing in my mind. Holy schnike, I think I'm actually getting the hang of this."
Suddenly the door to the broom closet flew open. A tall, stern-looking older woman glared in, who Jenny recognized her as one of the senior teachers. "What is going on in here?" she cackled. "What is all the commotion? You're not supposed to be in here!"
Jenny and Brad stammered for a few seconds, a little caught off guard. Uh-oh.
"This room is supposed to be for school employees only!" roared the teacher. "And you should be in your next class by now. The bell rang two minutes ago. I should give you both detention! What are you doing in here?
From behind the door, out of sight to the teacher, came a faint flowing sound. Schllorrrrrp.
"Well? I'm not hearing any explanations."
"These two students were assisting me," bellowed Vice Principal Raszinski, emerging from behind the door of the broom closet. "I had to carry a vacuum cleaner down a flight of stairs to this closet." He turned to Brad and Jenny. "Thank you, Bradley, Miss XJ-9. That will be all."
"Vice Principal Raszinski! I'm sorry! I didn't see you there," said the teacher, a little surprised. "Er … what's wrong with your voice?"
Drew had tried to make his voice sound low and gravelly, but it wasn't even close to Raszinski's. "Ah, just a bit of a hoarse throat. Shouting at the students, you see. I shout a lot! Ah … don't you have a class to teach now?"
"Yes, yes, of course. Uh … good day," she said. The teacher scurried down the hall, a little perplexed.
"Phew," said Jenny, "that was close."
Brad grinned, watching the vice principal shimmer into a silver statue, squash, and re-form. A few seconds later, the humanoid form smoothed out into a familiar gray-with-green-stripes android. Drew quickly glanced at his arms, legs, body – and butt – and smiled in relief. He had returned to normal, or at least what passed for normal these days.
Drew crossed his arms and smiled. "You know, I think I could get to like this."
Jenny was enjoying herself immensely on the way home. She flew past a honking flock of geese, enjoyed the surprised looks on their faces, then pulled up into a big, lazy loop, popping through a layer of puffy cotton-ball clouds. Some days, everything just seems to go right with the world. The sky was so perfectly blue, in the sunshine high up over Tremorton. The town, and the fields and forests around it, looked so calm and peaceful from up here.
And it had been a calm and peaceful day. Not one alarm, not one call from Mom. All the better to focus on more important things, like tomorrow's concert. The girls at school had been buzzing about it all day. They had swarmed around her and her three chosen friends at lunch, making her the center of attention. It was wonderful, and it was going to be even better on Monday when she would tell the girls all about the concert. They are just going to die of jealousy! And my popularity problems will be a thing of the past.
Jenny dove back through the clouds, and smoothly flew over the rooftops of her neighborhood towards her house. A quick little adjustment of her pigtails, and she came down to a feather-soft landing on her front yard. There were things to do, so she trotted inside the house, happily humming to herself. Need to go up to my room and make a list of questions to ask the Back Sync Boys when I meet them tomorrow …
But the house felt a little strange … it was quieter than normal. When she got to the stairs, she saw her mother standing in the living room, with her arms folded across her chest, and a stony glare on her face. She did not look to be in a pleasant mood.
"XJ-9, would you join me for a moment, please?"
"Sure Mom, in a minute." Oh, boy, what's this all about? "I just need to pop in my room first."
"Global Robotic Response Unit X – J – Nine, come here and sit down this instant."
Jenny gulped. Wow, my full name. This can't be good. Already halfway up the stairs, she turned around and slowly clanked back down. She couldn't help but shrink a little under her mother's stare as she took a seat on the sofa.
She tried a big, cheerful smile. "Hi, Mom. How was your day?"
It didn't work. "XJ-9, what was the last thing I asked you to do before you left for school this morning?"
"Ummm … " Jenny scratched her chin, trying to remember. "To operate efficiently and be productive?"
"I asked you to repair your monitoring equipment, that you had so thoughtlessly strewn about your room."
"Oh … right. Wait a second … but I did fix it, Mom!"
"Really," said Mrs. Wakeman. She lifted a remote control, and turned on the television. The cable news channel came on.
A reporter was standing in front of the First National Bank of Tremorton, which had a large hole knocked in its side. "… and police are still without any leads as to who was behind today's daring daylight robbery, that some are saying resulted in the theft of over twelve million dollars …"
Jenny couldn't believe her eyes. Mrs. Wakeman changed channels.
A shot from a helicopter showed a town being swallowed up by a slow-moving wall of thick brown liquid. "… federal officials have successfully evacuated the outlying areas of Hershey, Pennsylvania, where a freak accident has unleashed a tidal wave of chocolate on its unsuspecting citizens …"
Jenny sank a little lower in the sofa. Her mother turned off the television. "Well?"
"But I did re-connect all the monitors! Okay, so maybe a few of them got crossed up … but I was sure that I used all the wires that I took out!" Jenny was starting to get nervous. Mom had that look on her face. "And besides … if there was trouble, why didn't I get any remote alarms at school?"
"I tried to call you, but I wound up talking to some strange man at a radio station. Instead of contacting my daughter, to have her save the world, I won two tickets to something called … 'Extreme Skateboard Thrashfest'."
Gulp. I forgot to disconnect the monitors from the radio station frequency. "Ummm … congratulations?"
Mrs. Wakeman's eyes narrowed, and she had a scornful look on her face. "Young lady, I am very, very disappointed in you. It was only a fortunate happenstance that nobody was seriously injured today. I have put up with a great deal of your irresponsibility – but you are becoming increasingly distracted from the purpose you were built for, which is to protect the world from evil and disaster. Until I am convinced that you understand this, I must take steps to impress your duties upon you."
Mrs. Wakeman raised a hand to deliver her dictate. "Until further notice, you will remain in your room, observing your monitors, and will not leave except for school or distress calls."
Jenny gasped. "What … what are you saying?"
"You're grounded."
"WHAT?!?!" Jenny was in shock. "Grounded? Mom, you can't!!!"
"Oh, I most certainly can. Until I am convinced that you understand the seriousness of your responsibilities, you will remain in your room with no television, no telephone, and no visits."
"But what about the concert tomorrow?!?"
"Concert? Concert?!?" This was the first that her mom had heard of this. "You are most certainly not going to any concert!"
"NO!!!" Jenny screamed, horrified. "No, You can't do this!!! It's not fair!!!"
"Your grounding starts immediately. Go to your room, young lady!"
"But Mom, you've got to let me –"
"Now."
Jenny's face quivered for a moment, and then she burst into tears. "It's NOT FAIR!!!" She flew up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door, shaking plaster loose from the walls and ceiling. Then came more screaming that cracked half the windows in the house, and pounding that made the ground itself start to vibrate. Finally, the only noise coming from Jenny's bedroom was the sound of wet, heaving sobs.
Mrs. Wakeman unclenched her teeth, thankful that the house was still standing. "Well, that went about as expected," she sighed, and shuffled off to her laboratory in a somber mood. It's the only way to make her take her duties seriously. Sigh, that girl will be the death of me yet.
She stopped briefly in the kitchen to grab some cheese and crackers, and a make a fresh pot of tea. Hopefully, a light snack would steady her nerves. She cleared a small space from the stacks of notes and equations on her messy workbench, and set out a small lunch. "I wonder if I was too hard on her," she mumbled to herself.
Mrs. Wakeman's laboratory was filled with fantastic experiments, half-completed robots, and scientific curiosities of every type imaginable. Most revolved around her work on the X-J series of defense robots, but she had other interests too, including animal research. One shelf on the wall held a series of cages. Mrs. Wakeman finished her tea and crackers, and walked over to the shelf with a leftover piece of cheese.
"No … no, a teenager needs discipline, to learn to make the right decisions. Just like you did, didn't you, sweetums?" She wiggled her finger at one of the cages, and dropped her leftover cheese inside. "That's how you learned to run your little maze so well. Oh, if only teenagers were as easy to handle as you are, Mister Scruffles."
Inside the cage, a small black rat grabbed the piece of cheese with a white paw. He ate it quickly, giving a contemptuous look to Mrs. Wakeman as she walked out of the laboratory.
The rat grinned an evil grin, and started to speak. "So, you are thinkink that I am easy to handle, da? Vell, you have not been seeink anything yet, Vakeman!"
He glanced at a flask of yellow-green liquid hidden in the back of his cage. "Tomorrow, ven I am puttink my mind control serum in town vater supply, then every human who has crushed us beneath their boots of oppression vill suddenly be becomink very easy to handle. For me, that is!"
The rat slid a homemade lock pick out from under his water dish, and started working on the cage door. "Then I vill be usink bourgeois fools as soldiers in my mind-control army. Ve shall have our revenge for political imprisonment of my Comrades! And ve shall have our revenge against our Oppressor Vakeman, and her jack-booted robot enforcer!"
The locked popped, and the rat opened the cage door. "Vladimir has much to do. Tonight is labor. Tomorrow is … revolution!!!"
Continued in Chapter Two