Diamonds Are a Robot's Best Friend

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Nine – A Simple Matter of Efficiency


Even though the inside of Maximillian Marquis' personal helicopter was luxurious, Brad felt cramped sitting next to Rojack's massive frame.  The silent giant kept one eye on him, with one robotic hand wrapped around his arm.  If the idea was to intimidate him, it was working.  He glanced out the window and into the night, trying to keep track of which direction they'd been flying for the past half hour – but he couldn't see much in the way of scenery below them.

Marquis was sitting opposite him, between Jenny and Ruby LaRose.  He glanced out the window as well, chuckling.  "A beautiful moon tonight, is it not?  So full, and round, like a delicious piece of fruit … waiting to be picked.  I would suggest that you sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight, young man."

Brad tugged at his collar – he was still dressed in a full tuxedo – and looked at Jenny.  She still sparkled in her diamond-paint, but there was no emotion in her face.  "Jenny – Jen – c'mon, it's me, it's Brad.  Wake up!"

"She is very much awake," smiled Marquis, "and ready to do exactly as she is told.  Aren't you, XJ-9?"

"Awaiting instructions, sir," Jenny droned, staring straight ahead.

"What do you want with Jenny, anyway?" growled Brad.  He nodded towards Rojack.  "You've already got this big goon to run your errands for you.  Or maybe … you're looking to replace him!  A-ha!  That's it!  You're replacing him because he tried to steal those moon diamonds from you a few days ago!"

Marquis had to laugh out loud at that.  "Rojack is my most loyal and trusted robot.  He did exactly as I instructed him to do."

"I knew it!  I knew it!" Brad grinned, pointing at Jenny.  "Told ya!  I told you he was an evil mastermind!  What do you think of my goofy stories now, Jen?  He stole his own diamonds to … er … uh, why did you steal your own diamonds?"

"For the benefit of our mutual friend Jennifer, of course," Marquis said, with his rich, rolling accent.  "The whole robbery was staged so that she would rescue my diamonds, and give me an excuse to thank her – and offer her a position working as a model at my diamond show."  He laughed.  "It was not very difficult to get her to say yes.  She was so very ready to have flowers thrown at her feet."

Marquis placed a hand on Jenny's shoulder.  "You see, I needed her.  The XJ-9 is perhaps the most advanced robot ever constructed.  Only she was powerful and accurate enough to carve my Jovian diamonds, and only she could have created my perfectly flat quartz mirrors.  And she still has one more very, very important task to complete before the night is over."

With that, Marquis leaned back and relaxed.  Brad felt vindicated, yet at the same time, he felt bad for Jenny.  Does she know that she's being used?  He wondered if he saw a twinge of pain in her eyes.  Brad racked his brain, trying to put all the pieces together in his mind …

He frowned at Ruby, who was busy scratching down calculations on a clipboard.  His ego was still a little sore from being tricked – then he remembered something; something he'd heard in Marquis' workshop last night.  No anomalies in the beam at all.  Boss, this thing is going to have twice the power you need to get the job done.  Ruby had told him about drilling mines on the moon …

"Jovian diamonds – like the diamonds that you use in those big drilling lasers on the moon?  So – you could use them to make a humungous laser beam.  Right?"

Marquis broke out in a smile.  "Very good, Bradley!  I am most impressed!  Only, I have not built one 'humungous' laser beam.  I have built six of them."  He leaned forward, enjoying the expression of awe on Brad's face.  "You see, Jovian diamonds can generate immensely powerful lasers.  But they are very scarce, and almost impossible to cut properly.  The diamonds in my drilling lasers on the moon might be, perhaps, the size of my thumbnail.  You've seen the size of the diamonds I am using tonight.  All cut to perfect precision by this remarkable young robot!"

"And the mirrors?  Umm … mirrors reflect lasers, right?  I saw Jenny do that once.  Of course, that was before she took a job working for an evil mastermind!"  Brad shot an I told you so look at her.

Jenny stared straight ahead, without a trace of reaction.

"Why, you've hurt my feelings," Marquis chuckled.  "The beams are so powerful that I need perfect quartz mirrors to steer them, to point them – to focus them, onto a single point.  That requires a great deal of precision.  And that is where the XJ-9 comes in."

Brad took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.  "Man, if a little diamond can make a hole hundreds of miles deep … how far can you go with one of those giant diamonds?"

Marquis' mouth spread into a thin smile.  "All the way through."

"Wha … what do you mean?" stammered Brad.

Marquis gestured to Ruby with a nod.  "Miss LaRose has recently made a major discovery in her geology studies on the moon.  There is a vast deposit of diamonds, very deep underground, where the pressure is extremely high.  The entire core of the moon is surrounded by a shell of diamonds, some the size of houses.  Unimaginable riches – but unfortunately, no human or robot could ever reach those depths."

"Right," said Brad, "because of the lava.  I saw that in a movie once!  Uh, I think there are giant moon spiders underground too.  Oh yeah, the moon spiders would eat the miners.  Probably wouldn't touch the robots, though …"

Marquis sighed, and rolled his eyes.  "Amazingly, 'moon spiders' are not the problem.  No, unlike the Earth, the interior of the moon is solid, not liquid.  But any tunnel a thousand miles deep would collapse on itself.  Any tunneling machine would be crushed by the pressure at such depths.  A limitless supply of diamonds, so close, yet out of reach.  But the answer is so very simple, you see."

He leaned forward on his walking-stick.  "Tell me, Bradley, how would you extract the seed from the center of a fresh peach?  Would you poke holes in the peach, and chip away at the seed?"

"Pffft – no," replied Brad, "you'd just … slice it open."

His jaw dropped as the words came out of his mouth.  "You have got to be yanking me."

"I am most certainly not.  It is a simple matter of efficiency," explained Marquis, matter-of-factly.  "Instead of drilling expensive, and dangerous, tunnels – we simply remove the outer layers of the moon, exposing the inner core.  Then the diamonds may be harvested by conventional means."

Brad looked around, horrified, at the quiet smiles on everyone's faces.  "Okay, okay, am I the only person here who thinks that slicing the moon in half is a BAD IDEA?!?  Doesn't it control the tides and junk like that?  If you destroy the moon, won't that make, like, earthquakes and tidal waves?"

"Let's just say that after tonight, I plan on taking a nice vacation at my private ranch in Montana.  A nice, safe distance from any oceans or fault lines."  Marquis stroked the diamond capstone of his walking-stick and smiled out the window, at the fat moon hanging in the night sky.  "Take a good look, my young friend – this is the last night that anyone on Earth shall ever see it in one piece."


The sleek, black-and-silver helicopter approached the abandoned mine, far removed from any city or town.  It was just a large tunnel cut into the sheer face of a small rocky cliff, surrounded by thinning forest and patches of brown shrubs.  The lights below were the only sign of civilization as far as the eye could see.  But there was plenty of activity.

Large trucks were parked just in front of the tunnel, with dozens of workers unloading supplies, driving them into the tunnel with forklifts.  A row of tanker trucks sat opposite them, feeding hoses into a bank of nozzles on the ground, with white wisps of vapor drifting into the sky.  More workers cleared a flat patch of ground and illuminated a set of bright landing lights.  The helicopter slowed, circled once, and gently settled down on its landing gear as its rotors whipped up clouds up dust.

An attendant rushed up to open the door, and Marquis climbed out, followed by Jenny and Ruby, and Rojack, clutching Brad firmly by both shoulders.  An electric cart sped up to the helicopter.  Marquis and his 'guests' took a seat, and he motioned for the driver to head into the mineshaft.

The cart rolled its way through the commotion and towards the tunnel, as the helicopter's engines whined down, the rotors slowing to a halt.  Nobody noticed a small access door on the helicopter's side start to jiggle.  It swung open, and the cover of the fuel tank popped off.  Then a stream of silver-green ooze flowed out of the mouth of the tank, and started to form a shiny metallic puddle on the ground.


Brad grew more uneasy as the cart bumped along, deeper into the rocky tunnel.  Workers were running in both directions, and a forklift sped past, carrying empty crates back to the outside.  In the dim lighting of the overhead lamps, Brad could just barely make out a logo on the side of the forklift.  It was the familiar black-and-silver double-M of Marquis Industries, with the words Marquis Aerospace written below it.

Marquis noticed a look of confusion on Brad's face.  "Oh, come now!  You were doing so well.  You guessed, correctly, that I have constructed a very power laser.  And now you know that I intend to use it to dissect the moon.  So, obviously – I need a way to get my laser to the moon."

The cart stopped briefly in front of a massive door, covered with black and yellow stripes.  The workers and guards nodded respectfully when they saw Marquis riding up front.  With a loud clank and a hiss, the door split down the middle, and both halves slid into the rock.  The cart rolled forward into a brightly lit room –

No, it was a cavern.  It was immense.  It could have held a football field, and it stretched hundreds of feet into the air.  Scaffolding and towers lined the exposed rock, and rows of windows revealed teams of scientists and engineers, working with powerful computers.  Dozens of technicians and hundreds of robots were securing equipment and tending to machinery, moving in a quick but orderly fashion.  The vast space was lit up by floodlights, all pointing towards a huge structure in the middle of the cavern.

Brad stared up, and up, with an astounded look on his face.

Marquis and his people smiled with excitement.  "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Moonsword."

A giant rocket stood in the middle of the cavern, resting on a monstrous cradle of concrete and steel.  It stood two hundred and fifty feet high, and was fifty feet wide at the base, which was ringed by four small tailfins.  A giant, gleaming silver cylinder, tapering to a blunt nose at the top, with no logo or insignia on its fuselage.  It looked like a giant, gleaming cannon shell – ready to be fired at its unsuspecting target.

Long steel arms stretched out from the launch tower, carrying electrical cables, hoses, and data links that connected to the body of the Moonsword.  Wisps of vapor drifted from various locations along the length of the rocket, as valves vented pressure from the super-cold fuel inside its mammoth tanks.

Brad turned to Marquis with an enormous grin.  "Okay, you may be an evil mastermind, and you're gonna eighty-six the moon, and probably cause global destruction – but THAT is the coolest thing I have EVER seen in my life!  Your very own secret underground rocket base!  This is awesome!!!"  He calmed down a bit.  "Uh, but it's still evil, though."

While Brad gawked up at the Moonsword, a technician with a walkie-talkie ran up to Maximillian Marquis, shouting to be heard over the noise of the machinery and heavy equipment.  "Everything's ready, just like you ordered, sir!  We're at five minutes and counting!  If you'll step this way?"

Marquis gestured for him to wait a moment, then turned back to Brad.  "I am glad to see that you are as impressed with the Moonsword as I am, young man.  You know, it always amazes me that something so massive can take to the skies.  The power required to lift it is most impressive."

He motioned for Jenny to follow him, then he put an arm around Brad's shoulders and guided him towards the rocket.  With his walking-stick, he pointed towards four huge rocket nozzles, hanging down from base of the Moonsword, dangling over a giant concrete flame pit.  "Each one of these rocket engines generates over two million pounds of thrust.  They produce an amazing amount of heat and flame when they ignite; the flame trench is necessary to keep the rocket from destroying itself with the blast from its own engines."

"Wow!" whistled Brad, still a bit awestruck.  He laughed at Marquis.  "Man, I'd sure hate to be around when this thing goes off –"

Marquis simply smiled back at him.

"XJ-9," he commanded, "take our bothersome young friend down into the flame pit and secure him.  I will meet you over by the elevator."

"WHAT?!?" shouted Brad.

Jenny grabbed a length of chain lying on a nearby platform.  She took Brad by the collar, and flew them both fifty feet down into the pit.  Brad couldn't believe what was happening.

"Jenny!  Jen – okay, c'mon Jen.  Snap out of it.  I mean – you're just kidding around, right?  You know, if you destroy the moon, that's really going to hurt your grade on your Career Week project."

Jenny marched him over to a steel pylon, jutting up from the concrete, directly underneath one of the rocket nozzles.  She started to loop the chain around Brad's chest and waist, securing him to the pylon.

Brad started to get a little desperate.  "All right, you're still mad about me teasing you in the cafeteria yesterday.  That's fine!  I'm sorry!  Now what do you say we get out of here, fly back home, we'll go to Mezmer's, I'll buy you a can of oil.  Doesn't that sound nice?"

A pencil-thin laser beam shot from Jenny's eyes, welding the ends of the chain together.  She turned to fly back up –

"Wait, wait, Jenny!  Ah … last request!  I'm supposed to get a last request, right?  Doesn't the condemned man always get a last request?"

"Three minutes and counting," echoed a deep voice from an unseen loudspeaker.

Jenny tilted her head, a bit confused.  "Mister Marquis did not specify one way or another.  What is your request?"

Brad gave her a sad-puppy face.  "I just wanted to give you a good-bye hug."

Jenny pondered that for a moment, and there might have been a twinge of sadness in her eyes.  "O-okay."

Brad wrapped his arms around Jenny, and leaned his head against her cheek.  "Hey, check it out, we're both in formal wear – heck of a place for our first date."  He patted her on the back, innocently drifting his hands closer to the back of the neck.  His fingers fumbled around a bit, and found the clasp on the mind-control necklace …

Jenny jerked away, slapping his hand in the process.  "A trick!" she growled.  "You're just trying to get my diamonds."

Brad rubbed his sore hand, as Jenny flew up to ground level to meet Marquis, Ruby, and Rojack.  Marquis and Ruby had changed into silver-and-black flight suits, and were just about ready to board the Moonsword.  "Well done, XJ-9," grinned Marquis.

"Ah – hey, excuse me?!?" shouted Brad, his voice cracking a bit.  "Look, tell you what, why don't I just forget that I ever saw any of this, y'know, I promise to keep it all a secret, you let me go, and I … eh … die of old age in eighty years or so?"

"Why, I thought you'd be pleased.  You have the best seat in the house, for the story of the century!  I imagine this will make quite a 'Career Week' presentation, wouldn't you agree?"  Marquis laughed sarcastically.  "Farewell, Bradley.  Curiosity kills more than just cats, it would appear."

They boarded a large steel-cage elevator.  Motors squealed to life, and the Marquis crew, with several other humans and robots – and Jenny – quickly climbed hundreds of feet into the air, to a steel walkway leading to the cockpit of the ship.  A deep rumble reverberated through the cavern as the rooftop of the silo split in two, and its massive doors slowly retracted.

"Two minutes and counting," announced the loudspeaker.

Brad pulled at the chains securing him to the steel pylon, but it was no use.  They were strong enough to hold an elephant.  He tried wriggling back and forth, hoping to squeeze free from their grip, but they were too tight.  Right about now is usually when Jenny flies in and saves my butt.  Except that now she's working for the bad guys.

The massive rocket nozzles started to twist and gimbal back and forth to warm up their hydraulics.  Wisps of gas and vapor spat out of the huge nozzles, softly at first, then with increasing force, enough to blow Brad's hair into his face.  A low, dull whine emanated from the engines as their turbo-pumps started to spin themselves up to speed, and grew in pitch and volume.  The whole base of the rocket started to vibrate ever so slightly.

"Sixty seconds and counting."

Brad stared up at the gaping nozzle and gulped hard.  In sixty seconds, I'm gonna be a crispy critter.


Continued in Chapter Ten


A/N – I dunno, this story's getting a little long.  Maybe I should just stop it right there … wink