A/N – Thanks to all reviewers, especially the new ones. I just figured out about a week ago that there was a checkbox in my profile to allow anonymous reviewers. D'oh! (Smacks self in the forehead.)
Wondering where I got the year 2074 as the current time? In the episode where Jenny is sent to preschool, Brad asks her if she remembers certain historical events. One of those was Super Bowl 100. That's going to occur in January of 2066. So Jenny must've been turned on after that date. Add five years (Jenny's age) and that's 2071. I just tacked on a few extra years to bring it up to an even 2074.
Whack to the Future
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Two – The Ultimate Do-Over
Gasps of amazement made their way around the lab as the gravity of Mrs. Wakeman's latest scientific achievement started to sink in. Brad and Drew stared at the blinking lights on the deceptively humble, barrel-shaped body of the time machine, their mouths rounded and locked in an ooooooooh expression. Tuck was still recovering from the experience of meeting himself, but a grin was starting to wriggle itself onto his face. And even Jenny had to admit that her mother's latest nerd project was a lot more impressive than the molds and fungi she'd been working on last month. Mrs. Wakeman folded her arms with justifiable pride, and enjoyed the surprised gapes from her two scientific colleagues.
"This is impossible," Dr. Mogg finally stammered. "My team at the university has been working on time travel theory for fifteen years now! There's no way that a device so small could …"
But he was interrupted by another blast of light and wind. A brilliant pinprick of blinding white manifested in the middle of the lab, and instantly expanded into a disk, which rushed towards the floor to form a cylinder of light. Everyone was knocked back on their heels from the outward rush of air; those who had not been quick enough to shield their eyes were now squinting to regain their vision. Jenny, naturally, had simply turned down the brightness control on her eyes, so she was able to see everything. And as the cylinder of light faded away, she saw standing in the center of the lab –
A copy of Brad, holding onto yet another version of the time machine. A huge grin broke out on his face. "AWESOME! Man, this is so insanely cool!!!"
Mrs. Wakeman slapped her forehead in exasperation. "Bradley! This machine is not a toy!"
"B-b-but I didn't do anything!" protested Original-Brad.
"Not yet, you haven't," growled the doctor, looking over the newly arrived, second time machine. Then she pointed an accusing finger at Future-Brad. "But you did! Or rather, you are going to. Precisely … one minute and forty-seven seconds from now. What were you thinking, young man? Don't you realize the possible consequences of your tomfoolery could …"
Future-Brad laughed out loud. "… jeopardize the integrity of the space-time continuum. Oh, this is so freaked out! You already said all of this stuff to me, Mrs. W. I remember it perfectly!"
"I haven't told you anything yet, Bradley," she huffed. "Well, wait a minute – I suppose I have told you this already, in your timeline. Oh, groan … teenagers are going to be the death of me."
Future-Brad walked over to his other, two minutes' younger self. "Hey, check it out! Greetings from the future, dude!" The two Brads shook hands. Jenny and Drew gathered around them, laughing and joking and agreeing that it was one of the coolest, freakiest things they'd ever seen.
Dr. Mogg was still staring, stunned, trying to understand how it was all possible. He and his team of professors and graduate students had worked on a time travel project at the university for the past fifteen years, with little to show for it. Yet here, in a humble home laboratory, Dr. Wakeman had invented a fully working time machine – all on her own! "I just don't understand … all of our calculations showed that a time traveling device would have to be huge – perhaps the size of a ten-story building!"
A smile of realization dawned on Dr. Lee. "Don't you see what Nora has done, Phinneas? The artificial black hole I created at the university can bend space-time. It twists time, but it can twist space too."
"Correct, Sherman," smiled Dr. Wakeman. "I had been reading about both of your projects, and got an idea while I was trying to shove extra cans of motor oil into my kitchen cabinets. XJ-9 goes through quite a bit of oil, you know. Anyway … I thought, 'I do wish my cabinets were roomier, but there just isn't enough space to install bigger ones.' And that's when the answer hit me – why not just make them bigger on the inside?"
Dr. Lee nodded his head. "The time machine is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside! A stroke of genius, Nora! Well done!"
Mogg's shoulders slumped in depression. "Oh yes, well done indeed, Nora. I spent tens of millions of university dollars and fifteen years of my life trying to develop a time machine. I promised them that the University of Tremorton would be the birthplace of time travel! And then you go and figure out the whole thing by yourself while you're putting away your groceries. Wonderful. I can't wait to explain this to the university president on Monday."
Mrs. Wakeman jotted down readings from the gauges of the "future" time machine. "Oh, Phinneas, I thought you'd be happy to see your theories at work. Let's see now … the departure time was Saturday, March 17, 2074 – at precisely 5:15:00 PM. That is fourteen seconds from now. Bradley, I would recommend that you take your place by the time machine. Make sure it's the original one."
"This is going to be cool beyond words," grinned Original-Brad. "I'm off, guys – see you two minutes ago!" He stood next to the time machine, whose controls were still set to travel two minutes into the past. Then a devious thought occurred to him. "Hey, Mrs. W, tell me something … what happens if I don't press the big red button?"
"Bradley!" gasped Mrs. Wakeman. "Stop joking around! You must press the button because you've already pressed the button! Do you want to create a temporal paradox that would quite possibly rupture the fabric of space and time and destroy the known universe?!?! Five seconds!"
Drew gave him a stop-fooling-around look. "Brad, please don't destroy the universe. That's where I keep all my stuff."
"Three seconds!" shouted Mrs. Wakeman. "Two! One! Bradley!"
"Okay, I won't destroy the universe," he laughed, and punched the red activation button on the side of the barrel. Once more, an aura of energy briefly danced around the outside of the time machine, bathing the lab with a spectrum of colors. A bright white donut shot out of the top of the barrel, expanded, and rushed to the floor, surrounding Brad and the machine in a curtain of brilliant light – then they disappeared with a flash and a roar. The windows of the lab rattled from the shock wave, and the blast of wind tossed papers into the air, and knocked picture frames off of the wall.
The remaining Brad eased his hands into his pockets and smiled at Mrs. Wakeman. "I knew he was going to push the button," he chuckled.
"That's it! Out! Out of the lab, the lot of you!" Mrs. Wakeman chased the three boys out into the hallway, eager to regain some degree of control over the proceedings in her laboratory. She turned back and surveyed her lab area with disgust. She had a low tolerance for chaos and disorder, and the shock waves from the time jumps had the lab looking like her daughter's bedroom.
"I'll catch up with you later, guys," Jenny called out to the boys. Normally she'd be upset that her mother had chased off her friends, but she was still struck with a touch of awe. "Wow, Mom, a time machine - this is the first cool thing you've ever invented! Now I don't have to study for the English midterm next week. I can just go forward in time, and get a copy of the test!"
"That is not why I built a time machine, young lady," growled the doctor. "XJ-9, I created it to assist you in your world-saving activities! Think of all the disasters and accidents that are impossible to predict – wouldn't it be nice to be able to simply go back in time a few minutes, just enough to save the day without irrevocably damaging history? Think of all the good that could be accomplished!"
"Sure Mom, that sounds great," Jenny said. Then she put on her huge, lovable-daughter smile. "But what's wrong with a taking a little trip on the side to pick up an English midterm now and then?"
Her mother sighed heavily. "Just help me pick these things up off the floor. And do be careful!"
"All right," groaned Jenny. She was still holding onto the Time magazine with the story about her saving the space station, and she did want to read it later. So she quickly opened the door in her belly, stashed the magazine away inside, and then deployed a pair of brooms from each of her elbows. "Gee, 'scientific research' seems an awful lot like weekly chores," she complained as she started to sweep.
"This is going to mean another article for you in the World Physics Journal," smiled Dr. Lee. "Most likely an award from the university. Oh, let's be honest here – you could wind up with a Nobel Prize. You should be very proud, Nora."
"Yes, very proud," grumbled Dr. Mogg, leafing through a random stack of papers on the desk. "I imagine you'll want to get a patent on your new gadget, eh? After all, you already own enough patents on robotics to fill the Tremorton Yellow Pages. This is the big one, though. This could make you a very wealthy woman." His voice was dripping with a jealousy and resentment.
Stars danced in Jenny's eyes. "Really? Wow, Mom – we're going to be rich!"
"My primary concern is the advancement of science, not financial gain," said her mother, metaphorically dumping cold water on Jenny's dreams of movie star living. "I already enjoy a very healthy income from my patents – which is necessary to support my very expensive daughter, I might add." Jenny blushed with embarrassment, and refocused on sweeping the debris off the floor.
"Careful where you're stepping there, Miss XJ-9," said Dr. Lee. "Watch by your foot."
"Oops." Jenny knelt down and picked up a small object that had fallen down from the wall. She had already picked up a few pictures of her mother posing with famous scientists, and three of her mother's doctorate degrees – but this thing seemed like a piece of junk in comparison. It was a simple wood-and-brass plaque, its letters worn down by the years. Jenny deployed a small polishing wheel from her wrist, restoring some of the shine to the brass, and read the engraving.
"What's this, Mom? It says, 'Centerville Robot Roundup, First Place – May 14, 2004.'"
"For goodness sake," groaned Dr. Mogg, "don't tell me you still hang that thing on your wall."
"That certainly brings back memories," chuckled Dr. Lee.
"Come now, Phinneas, you're not still upset after all these years," giggled Mrs. Wakeman. "It's really nothing more than a sentimental token. Merciful heavens, that does take me back, though."
"I don't understand," said Jenny, "what's a Robot Roundup? And where is 'Centerville'?"
"Tremorton used to be called Centerville back then," explained her mother. "They changed the name about seventy years ago. And the Robot Roundup was an old competition they used to have for local students. We would build our own home-made robots and have them compete against each other, in a sort of sporting arena. The town was hurting after the Great Dot-Com Crash, and it was a way to promote science in the local schools. Oh, these robots were extremely simple and primitive compared to you, XJ-9. But at the time, we all thought it was very exciting!"
Jenny couldn't keep from rolling her eyes. "Sure, I'll bet all the cool kids in school were building robots back then. Not."
"Now see, XJ-9, this is just what I meant when I spoke of making productive use of one's free time!" Her mother started wagging her finger again. "I knew that if I worked extra hard and put my best effort into that contest, it would benefit me in the long run. It may not have been 'cool' or 'dope', but my share of the prize money helped pay for my college tuition. It aided me in winning a scholarship, and it helped fuel my desire for the study of robotics!"
"I know, I know, you spent all of your spare time with your face buried in books, reading by candlelight," groaned Jenny. "Your computers only ran at 66 Megahertz, and they were made of rocks. And you were darn thankful to have them."
"Oh come now, Nora, you're being far too modest," said Dr. Mogg. "After you won that very first Robot Roundup, you got your picture in the paper. You were on the local TV news. You got noticed by businessmen and scientists who were doing robot research at the beginning of the Great Robot Boom of the early 21st century. They were on the lookout for bright young talent like yourself, and they declared you to be a prodigy – a rising star in world of robotics."
"Oh, Phinneas, stop being so melodramatic," said Dr. Wakeman.
"And you would never have won that contest if you hadn't teamed up with Sidney."
A warm expression came over Mrs. Wakeman's face. "Ah, Sidney. He was truly a young man of great intellect and remarkable computer abilities. I must admit, Sidney's uncanny talent for artificial intelligence software programming was a large reason for our victory in the Robot Roundup."
Her smile broadened, and she broke into a chuckle. "I remember that I was having the most difficult time getting the software to work correctly in my robot. If I hadn't bumped into Sidney earlier that week, I doubt that I would have gotten my entry ready in time for the competition." The doctor placed a hand on Jenny's arm. "You know, dear, your software is written in the CyberCel Nineteen artificial intelligence language. Sidney was the creator of CyberCel One."
"Look Mom, hearing about your old friends is all fascinating and junk … sorta." Jenny finished returning the notebooks to Mrs. Wakeman's workbench. "But all I'm hearing is that you and your friends were even bigger nerds in high school than you are now. It sounds like kids back in the early 21st century just studied and worked and never had any fun at all!"
Mrs. Wakeman started to speak, but Jenny planted her hands on her hips with a clank and beat her to the punch.. "I know, I know … there are more important things in life than fun, young lady!"
The doctor held her tongue, and shook her head in frustration. Sometimes, trying to have a conversation with her daughter was simply an impossibility. "I am going to put on a pot of tea to calm my nerves before we continue, gentlemen. Can I get you anything?"
"Allow me to help, Nora," said Dr. Lee. "It'll give us a chance to talk about how you used the gravity well to achieve critical curvature of space-time …" The two scientists lapsed into incomprehensible physics-speak as they made their way into the kitchen.
Jenny's pigtails slumped. "Leave it to my mom to find a way to have a boring night with a time machine," she muttered to herself. It's going to be a yawner of a night, with lots of science junk and geek talk and old stories. Maybe I can duck out of here while she's in the kitchen.
While she set the plaque back on the wall, and Doctors Wakeman and Lee made tea in the kitchen …
Doctor Phinneas Mogg inspected the Continuum Vortex Generator closely, brooding as he walked around the simple barrel-shaped machine.
The machine that mocked that last fifteen years of his life.
Phinneas Mogg ran his hand along the top of time machine, stroking the shiny metal finish.
"It should have been mine," he said in a low voice.
Jenny glanced up, barely paying attention to the short, disagreeable professor. She wasn't sure if he was trying to start a conversation or not. She would just as soon not talk to him; as far as she was concerned, he was only here to talk science with her mother, and he didn't seem like friendly type.
"It should all have been mine you know, robot," he grumbled. Jenny frowned; she didn't appreciate being addressed like an inanimate object. "It all started with that infernal Robot Roundup, so long ago. It must be close to seventy years, now. Robot, what's the date on that plaque again?"
Jenny took a quick glance at the wall. "It says May 14, 2004."
"A little less than two months short of seventy years, then." Dr. Mogg stroked his beard, and a dark expression fell over his face. "Seventy years of trying to escape the shadow of the great, the famous, 'the' Doctor – Nora – Wakeman." His words dripped with bitterness and anger.
He continued speaking, more to himself than to Jenny. "I was going to be a pioneer in the robotics industry, but Nora beat me to it. Then I was going to make a breakthrough in translating alien languages, but Nora beat me to that, too. She beat me to the revolution in cheap fusion energy, and she beat me to the first fusion rocket engine design. Time travel was going to be mine. I devoted fifteen years of my life to working on time travel, and she snatched it right out from under my nose."
Something about the tone of Dr. Mogg's voice was starting to spook her a bit. Something about the way he was staring at the time machine.
He muttered to himself in a low, guttural voice that even Jenny couldn't make out. "And it all started way, way back … at that stupid Robot Roundup, in 2004. If I had won that contest, my life … our lives … would have been very, very different. Very different indeed."
Jenny heard the beeps and bloops of fingers working on a computer keypad. "Five days ought to be enough," said Mogg.
"Hey … hey!" Jenny shouted at him. "What are you doing with my mom's time machine?"
"It won't be her time machine in a few seconds." He raised his hand to give her a good-bye wave …
And slammed it down on the large red activation button.
The peace and quiet that had settled over the Wakeman home was shattered as an ethereal halo of light grew in intensity around the time machine. Wild flickering shadows filled the laboratory, and a dancing orange-purple aura licked the outside of the machine's barrel-shaped body. Shouts of alarm came from the kitchen, as everyone in the house realized that the time machine was about to begin another leap – an unplanned leap – across the fabric of space-time. The power circuits of the generator whined higher in frequency, and the time machine prepared to make its jump …
Jenny covered the distance between herself and the time machine in two long strides. "Turn it off!"
"It can't be turned off, robot," yelled Mogg. "Now get away before …"
A brilliant donut of white light shot out of the top of the barrel, and expanded over their heads. Then with nerve-rattling speed, it shot towards the floor, engulfing Jenny, Mogg, and the time machine in a cylinder of blinding white. Then there was an explosion of dazzling energy all around them, saturating them with perfect white light, and Jenny had the strangest sensation … as if her body had turned into a ghostly vapor. A tiny surge of panic coursed through her wires and hydraulics – but then a fraction of a second later, the sensation passed. The cylinder of white light surrounding them disappeared, and a thunder like a dozen cannons ripped through the air – followed by the strange sound of disintegrating wood.
And suddenly Jenny felt herself falling. They had re-materialized about six feet in the air.
Instead of ceiling above her, she saw only a broken canopy of green leaves. She was surrounded by twigs and branches and foot-wide tree trunks. She swung her arms wildly through a blizzard of wood chips before crashing into a bed of rough, scratchy shrubs. Instead of the floor, she felt the slick texture of mud underneath her body; she had landed on moist dirt, covered with slick wet leaves. Now, suddenly, she felt herself sliding backwards down a short incline. She tried to brace herself, but only wound up completing two undignified somersaults before landing in a brackish, six-inch deep puddle of water.
Short circuits crackled all over her metal body. She shuddered and convulsed for a few unpleasant moments, before managing to roll herself out of the water. Her eyes spun in their sockets as she took a few minutes to just lay on the ground and relax, coated with dirt and leaves. Faint wisps of smoke drifted from her fingers and pigtails into a clear blue sky.
She finally raised a hand to her forehead with a whirr, and pulled away a clod of mud. "Eww, disgusting! Aw, gross … wow, do I ever need a wash and wax. What just happened here?"
Jenny slowly got to her feet, still groggy from the whole ordeal, and took in her surroundings. She appeared to be standing in a long ditch, at the edge of a patch of scraggly forest. Majorly weird. She climbed back up the incline, to the spot where she'd impacted. There sat the time machine, half-buried in the dirt; its anti-grav gyros were off, and the moist earth couldn't support its weight. There was a huge dent in its side, apparently from falling against a large tree trunk; a faint crackling sound came from its control panel, which Jenny recognized as the sound of failing electronics. None of the lights or gauges on the time machine were illuminated. At the very least, it was powered down … at the worst … she didn't want to think about that right now.
"My mom is so going to freak when she sees what you did to her time machine, Mogg." She looked around, and suddenly realized that she couldn't see anyone or anything but forest. "Dr. Mogg?" She deployed a scanning scope and did a three-sixty, but still all she saw were trees. "Mom? Brad? Drew? Tuck? Anyone?"
She walked back to the ditch she'd fallen into, climbed up the other side, and found herself standing alone at the edge of a long dirt road, surrounded by trees and overgrowth on either side. She couldn't see any houses in either direction.
I was just standing in Mom's laboratory a few seconds ago … where in the world am I? She cracked her elbow open, and deployed a loudspeaker. "Dr. Mogg! Can you hear me? Are you all right?" Still she heard nothing but the chirps and squawks that composed a normal forest's background noise.
Jenny gulped. The time machine was only set to go back in time two minutes … right?
For lack of a better idea, and with a growing sense of uneasiness, Jenny followed the dirt road to look for the increasingly annoying Dr. Mogg. He might have walked this way while I was short-circuiting in the puddle. She deployed a set of motorized wheels from her feet, and quickly roared her way several hundred yards to the end of the dirt road. There was still no sign of Mogg; but at least she was back in civilization. She saw a two-lane road, which was lined with brand-new houses.
Well, the houses looked brand-new, but they were a really old style … simple ranch and two-story boxy houses without any classic rounded deco lines. But they looked as if they'd just been built.
Feeling more confused with each passing second, Jenny spotted a large sign that was posted at the entrance to the dirt road. She sprinted around to read it …
"Land Available For Development. Residential Housing Only – Centerville Zoning Authority."
Her mouth hung open for a few seconds. "Centerville? Isn't that … the old name for Tremorton?"
But it was the printing at the bottom of the sign that blew her away.
"Road scheduled for paving, Summer 2004."
Continued in Chapter Three