Some Like It 'Bot
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Three – Band On The Run
Drew stared at Sheldon for a few seconds, stunned into silence, trying to figure out what to do next. When Jenny concocted this little scheme a few hours ago – shape-shifting and altering his voice to impersonate her – it had seemed insane then. That was when they just needed to fool Dr. Wakeman. Now a hyper-intelligent rat bent on vengeance was after him. And as for Sheldon – Good Lord. You could practically see the little hearts floating around his head.
"Jenny, are you all right?" asked Sheldon. "It looks like you … kinda had a rough landing there."
"Uh, yeah … sorry about the mailbox," Drew managed to stammer out.
"Oh, don't worry about it. It's replaceable. You're not." Sheldon's eyelids were fluttering.
Drew clenched his teeth and shuddered. Oh, the horror.
A rumbling, choking screech from overhead suddenly snapped Sheldon out of his amorous gaze. He shielded his eyes and looked up. "Wow, would you take a look at that! Is that another one of your mom's robots?"
Drew looked up to see Vladimir's robot suit diving out of the sky towards him, trailing a dark sooty cloud of exhaust. A small tube ejected out of the side of the robot's stovepipe-body and a split-second later, its back end ignited. It was an air-to-ground missile. It was going to hit in about three seconds. And Sheldon was standing right next to him.
"Geez, Sheldon, LOOK OUT!" He lunged out of the crater, tackled Sheldon onto the front lawn, and shielded him with his metal body. The mini-missile plowed into the crater and detonated with an earth-shaking blast. Fresh clods of dirt and rock sprayed in all directions.
Drew slapped Sheldon's face. Even as creeped out as he was right now, he still hoped the little nerd wasn't hurt. "Hey! Yo! You okay there?"
Sheldon blinked a few times, and smiled. There he was, lying on his back on his front lawn, with "Jenny" leaning over him, showing concern … "I've never been better, my angel."
Drew cringed, wondering just how much worse today could get.
Sheldon shook the cobwebs out of his head. "Jenny … that robot is trying to destroy you!"
"Yeah, no duh," said Drew. "Get out of the way. I'll take care of this thing." Well, at least that sounded like something Jenny would say. Drew, however, didn't have a clue as to what he was going to do.
Vladimir's robot dropped down on a pillar of flame and landed near the crater with a thud. He opened the door of his beam weapon, and brought it to bear on Drew. "Enough with the runnink away, little robot girl. When I am finishink with you, there vill not be enough left for can opener!" The rat yanked the large red lever on his control panel.
Drew tried to twist out of the way, but the beam still caught him in the leg, and slammed him against the front wall of the Lee house. Sheldon was horrified – then he ground his teeth in rage, and ran into the garage.
Vladimir's robot lumbered towards Drew, who was still slumped against the wall of the house, trying to gather his senses. "Pfaah! So this is best that Vakeman can do? Is all too easy! I vill be arrivink at Tremorton vater supply far ahead of schedule!"
Drew knew that taking a few more of those hits couldn't be healthy. He tried to blink his vision clear as the olive-green robot stopped three feet away from him, and brought its weapon to bear directly at his head. The barrel hummed with an intense red glow …
Then the robot stumbled backwards, as a slimy pink glob splattered hard against its chest. Both Vladimir and Drew were surprised, and turned to see where it came from.
Sheldon stood defiantly in the driveway, holding a fantastic-looking rifle topped with a clear tank of thick pink liquid. Anger crackled in his eyes as he glared at the rat inside the strange green robot. "Leave her alone, you cheese-eating schnook! You come to my house, and think you can just shoot your death ray at my Jenny, and have me do nothing about it? Prepare to taste pink, slimy retribution!"
Sheldon fired, sending a blob of pink goo directly at the barrel of Vladimir's energy weapon. The pink mess splattered around the barrel, jamming and gumming the mechanism. Strained servos started to short out, and a wisp of smoke drifted from the olive-green robot's chest.
"NO!!!" shouted Vladimir. "You miserable, meddling mouth-breather!!!" The rat jiggled the red lever a couple of times, yielding nothing but squirting, bubbling noises from the barrel of his beam weapon. "Bah! Is RUINED!!!"
Drew took advantage, and jumped to his feet. He swung his right leg in a kick – about time I do something here – that sent Vladimir's robot flying backwards into the street, while managing to keep his own balance.
"Sheldon, you … yeesh, you saved my life." He wasn't sure whether to feel grateful or embarrassed. "Where the heck did you get that thing?!?"
"My polymer-based immobilizer? Built it right here in my workshop," Sheldon beamed proudly, gesturing to the garage. "I was going to give it to you later as a present."
"You built it yourself? That's pretty impressive." Sheldon grinned and blushed, and Drew smacked his forehead. I have got to watch what I say to this lovesick twit.
They were interrupted by loud, rattling clanks from Vladimir's robot, as it clumsily staggered to its feet with belches of oily smoke. The rat shook a tiny white first in boiling fury at "Jenny" and Sheldon. "Your trickery has only delayed your inevitable doom, mechanical stooge! Vhen my mind-slave army descends on you and Imperialist Vakeman, you vill be turned into tractor parts! Ve vill bury you!!!"
Orange fire blasted from the robot's rocket nozzle, filling the air with thick, dark exhaust. It rose on a column of flame and rapidly arced into the air like a missile.
Now Drew was getting plenty worried. "Water supply?!? Mind-control army?!? Somebody's got to stop that maniac!" He wondered how this call was going to sound to the 911 operator. No, you see, it's not a just a talking rat. It's a talking rat in a rocket-powered battle suit. Right, mind-control army. Hello? Hello? No way they were going to believe this story.
Sheldon punched the air with a fist. "C'mon, Jenny, I know you can do it! You can still catch him!"
"Jenny" laughed nervously. "Ah, heh-heh … yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But I seem to be experiencing a … malfunction in my rockets. From those energy blasts. Yeah, sure, that's it."
"You mean you can't fly?" asked Sheldon.
"Afraid not."
"That's fantastic!!!" Sheldon sprinted back into the garage.
"Jenny" raised a confused eyebrow. "It is?!?"
Sheldon was back in a flash, lugging something that looked like a huge metallic backpack. "This will give you a chance to try this turbo jet pack I've been working on! Just slip these straps over your shoulders and connect them like this!" He enthusiastically mounted the backpack on "Jenny's" back, started unfolding the control arms, and began the activation sequence.
Sheldon continued. "Just fly it with these two controls. Of course, they operate like standard tri-axis translational joysticks – full manual in normal mode, then self-stabilizing fly-by-wire upon reaching equilibrium cruise velocity. Heh-heh, but of course … I don't need to tell you that! Now, remember to watch your fuel mixture as the indicated air speed rises above one hundred knots …"
Sheldon kept talking, and Drew's head was spinning – he felt like he'd been dropped behind the wheel of a space shuttle. There's no way I can fly this thing. Far overhead, Vladimir's robot was growing further and further away. It was going to reach the water supply in short order.
Somehow, he had to stop Vladimir. He couldn't reach Jenny. He couldn't reach Dr. Wakeman if he wanted to. And he still didn't want to expose this whole masquerade. He came up with one idea. By far the craziest idea of the day, and that was saying something, considering the long list of insane things he'd already done today.
"Hold up. Sheldon, can you fly this thing?"
"Well, of course. I built it."
Drew closed his eyes and groaned. "All right, this'll go a lot faster if you do the flying. Would you …" – shudder – "… like to come with me?"
"Would I?!?" Sheldon grinned so hard his face almost folded in half – then he scratched his chin. "Only one problem, Jenny. There's only one set of straps. If I hang on, I can't operate the controls. I need both hands."
"Jenny" grimaced. "Okay, I'll hold onto you. Now hurry up."
Drew wrapped his arms around Sheldon like a harness, holding him tightly against his chest. Sheldon blushed about twenty shades of red. "Isn't this nice and cozy," he chuckled.
"Just start the engines, and keep those hands on those controls, buster," grumbled "Jenny".
Sheldon grabbed the control arms, and flipped a pair of switches. The jet pack split in half, and unfolded into a wing with two engine pods. The pods whined to life with a high-pitched squeal, and the unlikely duo blasted into the sky on a pair of steaming exhaust plumes.
The Tremorton Coliseum was shaking from the ecstatic screams of fifteen thousand teenage girls. The Back Sync Boys were heading into their big finish after a spectacular show. After wowing the crowd with an extended version of Baby I Love You, and their classic hit I Love Your Love Baby, they were wrapping up the show with their current number one single, You're My Baby Baby. And among the weeping and shouting, down in the front row, were four contest winners having the time of their lives.
Jenny and her friends were swaying back and forth in rhythm to the music. She'd been on edge earlier in the show, convinced that her belly-bolt would start beeping at any moment with a call to go off and save some stupid cat stuck in a tree. But the afternoon had been everything she'd dreamed of, and she'd just been enjoying herself for the past two hours.
"This is the best concert ever!" she screamed to the rafters. Actually, it was really the first concert she'd ever been to, but that was nitpicking at this point. The music was thumping with deep bass and a techno beat, the fog machines were flooding the stage with rolling waves of vapor, and the laser light show was off the hook.
Connie started waving her arms frantically, overcome with joy. "K.J.! Nicolas! Logan! Dakota! Omigawd, I love you! I love you all! Marry me, Nicolas!"
"Connie!" laughed Jenny. "Connie, amp down! You're embarrassing the rest of us!"
Samantha started tugging at Jenny's shoulder, and pointed excitedly towards the stage. "Jenny! Jenny, Logan is totally looking at you."
"WHAT?!? He is?!? How do I look?!? Logan!" Jenny lost herself in a dreamy gaze. A door in her head slid open, and a three-foot wide electronic sign deployed, with flashing lights around the edges. In blue and white lights, it started scrolling the message I LUV U LOGAN, over and over.
"So much for amping down," huffed Connie.
"Just look at him, girls," swooned Jenny. "Those blue eyes, that long gorgeous hair, that secret little smile that he just gave me …"
Latisha arched an eyebrow. "You sure you don't have that dream chip of yours stuck to 'on' again?"
"We'll just ask him ourselves," smirked Jenny, "when we meet them after the show!" All four girls started jumping and squealing madly, for about the thirtieth time that afternoon.
And they were still drowned out by the crowd, screaming on cue as the band finished the chorus – yeah, you're my baby, baby – and broke into a dance routine while the drums and keyboards carried on in the background. The four pop sensations mugged and flirted to their adoring fans, while the stagehands prepared for the big finale.
Samantha was shouting and yanking on both Jenny's arm and Latisha's arm now. "Oh! Oh! Here it comes! This is the big finish! Get ready for the fireworks!"
Smoke pots ignited on either side of the stage, shooting columns of multi-colored sparks into the air in perfect choreography to the music …
Then an explosion blew the center of the stage thirty feet into the air with a deafening roar.
The singers were tossed across the stage and landed with a thud as fragments of plywood fluttered back to the ground. Stage lights pivoted to focus on the fifteen-foot hole. The music screeched to a halt.
Connie was a little stunned, then threw her hands into the air. "Best concert ever!!!"
Jenny looked around at the confused faces on the fans, the stagehands, and the security people. Everybody was trying to get the ringing out of their ears from the explosion, and looking very nervously towards the stage. "Girls … I don't think that this is part of the show!"
She tried to see what was happening onstage. Hydraulic motors whined, raising a scissor-lift from beneath the stage into the rolling fog. Five dreary figures stood there, dressed in dark, drab colors. They stepped forward onto the stage, and the fog cleared enough for Jenny to make out their sunken, depressed faces.
"Oh, brother," she shouted. "It's the Lonely Hearts Club Gang! What are those idiots doing here?!?" I can't believe my concert is being ruined by these pathetic mopes!
The Boss, all three feet of him, looked out onto the shocked audience with disgust. "Look at them all, cheering and screaming for a bunch of made-up pretty boys." He closed his eyes, and shook his head. "The girls always went for the musicians in high school, even if they were a bunch of jerks. It's not fair, I tell you. It's just not fair. The rest of us didn't have a chance."
He turned to his henchmen and pointed towards the band members. "Get 'em, boys!"
The largest henchmen, a massive, sulking lummox, pulled out four large burlap sacks, grumbling. "D'uh, my fourth girlfriend left me for a drummer!" The thugs each grabbed a sack, and quickly headed towards the stunned singers.
Latisha screamed in horror. "They're kidnapping the Back Sync Boys!"
"Oh, no they're not," growled Jenny. She leapt over the security barrier and dropped onto the stage in one fluid motion, only a few yards away from a very surprised Lonely Hearts Club Gang. These guys were small timers. This should be over in about thirty seconds.
"The robot girl?!?" shouted the Boss. "You certainly didn't waste any time getting here!"
"All right, you lovelorn losers … let's get this over with. The sooner I send you off to jail, the sooner the boys can play their first encore."
"So you're a fan of shallow musical hacks too, hmm? Well, I think you'll find that the concert is ending on a sour note." He pointed to one of his henchmen. "Hit it!"
The henchman reached into his burlap sack and pulled out … a set of bagpipes. He slung them over his shoulder and blew into the mouthpiece. The pipes squealed with ear-shattering volume, filling the arena with a piercing, mournful dirge. Jenny slapped her hands over her auditory inputs, and just about everyone else in the Coliseum covered their ears, groaning in agony.
The Boss took a deep breath and drank in the shrieking music. "Ah, the bagpipes. Their wail symbolizes the futility of life, and the folly of happiness. They are the saddest, most miserable, depressing sound there is. Next to country music, of course." He snapped his fingers. "Back to business, boys!"
The Lonely Hearts Club Gang rounded up the four Back Sync Boys, who were now both stunned and twitching in agony at the screeching bagpipes. They quickly tossed a burlap sack over each of them, and started carrying them away – K.J., Dakota, Nicolas, and Logan …
The sight of Logan being stuffed into a burlap sack snapped Jenny back into action. Still clamping her hands to the sides of her head, she raised her right leg in the air, cracked open her leg housing, and deployed a crossbow. Jenny took careful aim at the gangster's bagpipes, and shot an arrow that pierced the pipes' air bladder. The gangster blew furiously into the mouthpiece, while his bagpipes deflated in his arms with a muffled whine.
Jenny lunged forward, knocked the bagpipe gangster on his butt, and landed in front of the rest of the gang. She raised a fist towards the Boss. "That's just about enough out of you guys. Now let those highly talented, and extremely cute, boys go right now, or you'll be singing the blues. So help me, if you hurt one hair on their head …"
The gangsters froze in their tracks, blocked from escape by the teenage super-robot. From one of the burlap sacks, one of the Back Sync Boys, Logan, popped his head out, trying to see what was going on.
"Whoa, no way! Dakota, I told you she was a real robot!"
Another head popped out from a different burlap sack. "Whoa, no kidding?" Dakota shouted towards a short, fat man standing just off-stage. "Hey! Morty! Check it out! We're being saved by a robot!"
Morty, manager and agent of the Back Sync Boys, flung his arms in the air with excitement. "Fantastic, baby! Kidnapped by gangsters and rescued by a robot! This publicity is worth millions! Millions, baby! I'm going to make sure this is the top story on every TV news program tonight!"
He gestured towards the stage technicians and began barking out orders. "Get those lights on her! Cue up the cameras! This gimmick is gold, baby!" Morty started making calls on his cell phone.
Jenny was just about ready to round up the Lonely Hearts, when she noticed the huge video screens on either side of the stage. They had been showing clips of the band, but now they had switched to a live shot of her. A pair of thirty-foot images of her face stared out at the crowd.
She overheard Morty yelling into his cell phone. "Get every news crew you have over to the Tremorton Coliseum, baby! I got your lead story right here! Robot saves teen singing sensations!"
Jenny was flush with excitement at the thought of all that attention focused on her. I'm going to be the girl who saved the Back Sync Boys, she grinned to herself. I'm going to be on the evening news! I'm going to be famous!!!
A thought suddenly occurred to her.
Mom watches the evening news.
This was a catastrophe! If her mother found out that she had defied her orders, and gone to the concert behind her back, she'd be grounded for a year – if she was lucky.
Panicking, Jenny blasted over to the side of the stage and grabbed Morty's cell phone. She started shouting into it. "No! Don't send any news crews! There's nothing to see here! Just a big misunderstanding! A great, big misunderstanding!"
Morty nearly had a heart attack. "What?!? What are you doing? You're killing my P.R., baby!"
The gangsters weren't sure what Jenny's problem was, but they were grateful for the distraction. The boss ran over to the fog machine, and cranked the dial up to its maximum setting. A thick blanket of white vapor poured over the stage, and into the first ten rows of spectators. People screamed and coughed, and for a few moments, Jenny couldn't see anything.
She fixed that quickly. Her elbows unhinged, and a pair of giant propeller blades slid out of her arms. She pivoted them towards the center of the stage and revved them up to full power, quickly driving the thick fog away.
Then she gasped. The stage was empty. The Lonely Hearts Club Gang, and the Back Sync Boys, were gone.
Drew and Sheldon corkscrewed wildly through the skies high over Tremorton, in fevered pursuit of Vladimir's battle robot. They could see the Lake Tremorton reservoir in the distance, getting nearer, but they were also getting closer to the olive-green flying stovepipe.
The wind blasted their faces as the jetpack lurched left and right, making for a very bumpy, stomach-churning ride. "Sh-Sh-Sheldon!" yelled Drew. "I th-th-thought you said you could fly this th-th-thing!!!"
A patch of turbulence spun them through two barrel rolls, but Sheldon managed to level them out, only fifty yards behind Vladimir. "See, I knew we could do it! We're right on top of him, Jenny! Now you can bring him down with one of your fancy lasers!"
Drew frowned. He hadn't thought this far ahead. "Yeah … about those fancy lasers …"
Sheldon looked back over his shoulder at "Jenny". "They're malfunctioning too?"
"Uh … okay, sure. Let's go with that."
"Not a problem!" Now I get a chance to impress her even more! "I've stocked this baby with a few optional extras!" Sheldon pressed a trigger switch on the right controller, and small rocket spat out of the jet pack with a whoomp. Its motor ignited, and it blasted off towards Vladimir …
And flew right past him, weaving wildly back and forth, until it suddenly dove towards the ground and slammed into the sign of the North Hills Bowl-A-Rama. People screamed and ran for cover as pieces of giant, neon bowling pins crashed to the sidewalk.
Sheldon blushed, with a nervous smile. "Ahh … they are still in the testing phase."
"Jenny" sighed. "All right, let's just take the direct approach. Fly us right underneath him!"
"Aye aye, Cap'n Jenny!" Sheldon squeezed a throttle control, and their speed increased. In a matter of moments, they were flying directly underneath the olive-green robot.
Drew wanted to get underneath Vladimir so that Sheldon couldn't see what he was about to try. His pale blue legs started to shimmer silver-green, and stretched upwards towards Vladimir's robot. He concentrated, and managed to form a large clamp at the end of each leg. With one last stretch, he grabbed on to the flying stovepipe.
"Got him!" shouted Drew. Holy smoke, that actually worked!
Drew's sense of triumph lasted about half a second. Vladimir started randomly working his flying controls, desperately trying to shake off his robotic pursuer. Drew held on tight, but the combined gyrations of Vladimir's robot and Sheldon's jet pack soon sent them into a wild, uncontrolled spiral.
Three voices screamed at the top of their lungs as the entangled robots plummeted towards the outskirts of town. This is the second time I've hurtled towards the earth in the past hour, Drew moaned to himself. Any chance of landing somewhere soft? Didn't look like it. They were diving towards the north parking lot of the Tremorton Mall.
Jenny jumped down through the hole at center stage, figuring this was the only route the Lonely Hearts could have used. Sure enough, there was the scissor-lift, sitting in a concrete tunnel that ran underneath the Coliseum. But there was no sign of the Gang or the Boys. They couldn't have gotten far! At least I hope they haven't gotten far! Her only hope was to get the band back safely, and try to fast-talk them into keeping everything out of the news … if that was even possible any longer. She had to try, though. Mom would burst an artery if she knew I was here!
She flew down the tunnel, which wound up leading her outside into the Coliseum parking lot. All she could see was acres and acres of cars. Oh, no! How am I supposed to find their car in the middle of all of this?!? I've got to try. If anything happened to Logan, I would just die! She leapt into the air and started circling around the Coliseum parking lot. They had to be here somewhere, and she was going to find them, no matter how long it took.
And they were there, still unseen to Jenny flying high above. In the middle of the parking lot, a big black sedan sat with its engine running. The Lonely Hearts Club Gang was inside, with the four Back Sync Boys tied up in burlap sacks.
"D'uh, Boss, what are we gonna do with them?" whined another one of the gangsters.
"I'll tell you exactly what we're going to do with them," said the Boss, looking very depressed. "These four record industry Romeos represent everything that is phony about romance. Legions of girls scream for them, pledging their undying love. But what they love is a mere illusion, conjured up by some marketing department in an office somewhere. We will expose that illusion for all to see."
Logan spoke up. "What are you lunatics babbling about?!?"
The Boss moped on. "The robot girl herself gave me the idea. She said not to harm a single hair on your heads. You four are products of a cruel society which says that only the beautiful people should ever experience true love. People with beautiful faces and beautiful hair. Well, let's see how your fans take it when the objects of their affection are a little less beautiful."
He clasped his hands behind his back. "We're going to shave them bald, boys."
Dakota nearly spat his teeth out. "What?!? You can't! That's crazy! We have a photo shoot tomorrow!"
"I remember Dorothy, my second girlfriend," the Boss moaned to himself. "She dumped me after I started going bald. And that was in junior high."
"D'uh, we got no scissors or clippers, Boss."
"Then we shall simply drive to the closest hair salon, gentlemen. Fasten your seat belts."
The whiny gangster revved the engine and shifted into gear. The tires squealed on the big black sedan, and it fishtailed out of the parking lot, towards the highway. The sound of the tires carried high into the air, where Jenny was scanning with telescopes and radar dishes.
"That's them!" she shouted. I've got you now, you depressing dweebs. Jenny dove towards the highway, following a big black sedan that was recklessly weaving through heavy traffic. She was going to have to be careful here – her programming told her that it would be difficult to stop the speeding car without creating an accident, or harming the hostages inside. And she still wanted to try and keep everything as quiet as possible, so the last thing she wanted to do was cause a highway pile-up.
Jenny figured she'd simply catch the sedan, pick it up, and carry it back to the Coliseum, but it turned out that the Lonely Hearts weren't going that far on the highway. Their sedan pulled off at the very next exit, and roared into the south parking lot of the Tremorton Mall.
Mrs. Wakeman groaned in frustration, and tried to explain it again to the store clerk. "For the last time, I asked you if you had any more micro-fusion regulators. The ones on the shelf were the wrong size. How difficult can that possibly be?"
The teenage store clerk held up the parts in his hands. "Uh … are these the right size?"
"Those are lawn sprinklers."
"Oh," mumbled the clerk. "Uh … do you need any lawn sprinklers?"
"What I need is to speak to somebody with functioning brain matter," she sighed, rolling her eyes.
"Uh … I'm not sure if we carry that, either." The clerk yelled to his manager. "Mr. Johanssen! This old lady is looking for micro foosball roller gators!"
"Oh, for the love of Oppenheimer … do you or do you not have any micro-fusion regulators in stock?"
A chubby, balding man ambled over to Mrs. Wakeman. "Ah, let's see here … oh yeah, these things just fly off the shelves this close to the holidays, eh? We won't get another shipment in until next Tuesday. But I tell you watcha can do, ya? They carry stuff like that over at the new Circuit Suburb, over in the mall, there."
Mrs. Wakeman tapped her chin. "A new Circuit Suburb, you say? At the mall? Hmm. Normally, I wouldn't want to get within a mile of that three ring circus on Saturday afternoon … but I do want to get back to work on those new engines for my daughter."
"Aw, that's sweet, eh? They for her car?"
"No, they're for her head."
"Well, that's real nice too, youbetcha. You have yourself a good day now, eh?"
With that, Mrs. Wakeman left the store and headed back to her station wagon. The Tremorton Mall was a zoo on Saturdays, but it was only two miles up the road. And since she was by herself, she wouldn't have the distraction of her daughter begging for every fashionable trinket and knick-knack that caught her eye. Honestly, XJ-9 can make such a production out of a simple purchase of supplies. Well, at least she won't be gallivanting about the mall today.
Traffic was actually flowing well. Perhaps I'll manage to zip in and out without too much trouble. Mrs. Wakeman quickly found herself pulling into the west parking lot of the Tremorton Mall.
Continued in Chapter Four