A/N – Sorry for the little hiatus there. A few readers actually e-mailed to see if I was okay; thanks for the concern, but I was just taking a much-needed vacation from work and computers. I enjoyed an extended Memorial Day vacation dipping my toes in the ocean off the shores of North Carolina. Ahhh. By the way, a drawing of the characters is up on my DA account now.
Whack to the Future
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Five – Future Shock
Jenny did recognize some things in downtown Centerville. Major streets, and buildings like banks and police stations, were in the exact same locations that Jenny expected to find them. This allowed her to start making a computerized map in her mind, comparing old Centerville with modern Tremorton. So when Sherman led her around a certain downtown corner for their "date", she realized that they were going to a familiar after-school hangout for teenagers. A warm smile spread across her face. In the middle of all this time-travel craziness, it would feel good to relax for a while in …
"What!?!" she shouted. "Sherman, why are you taking me into a bank?"
Sherman blinked in confusion a few times. "Um … what are you talking about, Jenny?"
"The sign on this building says Star Bucks," she protested. "I thought you were taking me for coffee. 'Starbucks' is like, what, an intergalactic bank?"
A loud chortle blasted from Sherman's throat. "Wow, you're funny and beautiful! Let's grab a seat before all the good tables get taken."
As they walked though the doors, sure enough, the building was filled with tables, chairs, even comfy sofas … and lots of teenagers and college-aged kids, all drinking varieties of coffee. Jenny noticed a small plaque on the wall by the front counter which read "Starbucks franchise number 15493 – Angus Mezmer, owner/manager." I knew this place felt familiar … I guess it just won't be Mezmer's for another sixty or seventy years!
Sherman bought a pair of steaming mocha cappuccinos, and strolled back to their table, trying to look as sophisticated as possible. He slid a steaming cup over to Jenny. "I made sure yours got extra whipped cream," he smiled, wiggling his eyebrows. "And chocolate sprinkles."
Jenny plopped down in her seat with a groan. "Thanks, Sherman, I'll drink it in a second. Now … as I was trying to tell you back in the cafeteria, Nora and I are in a bit of trouble."
"… and you need a big smart guy like me to help you," Sherman grinned through a frothy mustache. Then he took another swig of coffee, making a loud slorping sound.
"Heh-heh … riiiight. See … Nora has this robot gizmo thing that she's working on for the competition on Friday night."
"The Robot Roundup. Yeah, I guess that's just three days away now."
"Right. And Sidney Wakeman was supposed to help her with her robot. I think she said that the software needed some work."
Sherman glugged down the rest of his mocha. "That makes sense. Sidney is like, a super genius when it comes to computer software. He even works with artificial intelligence and stuff."
"But that's the problem," Jenny continued excitedly. "Sidney was supposed to work together with Nora, but now he's teaming up with Brooke Krust. She's just using him to avoid summer school! And if Sidney doesn't help Nora, then Nora won't win the contest! And Nora has to win the contest! And she's supposed to do it with Sidney! See, she has to get together with Sidney, or else they'll never get …"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute." Sherman waved his arms to slow her down. "You're not making any sense. And aren't you even going to drink your coffee?"
I don't think it would do wonders for my oil pan. "Ummmmm … I think it's still too hot. Anyway, like I was trying to tell you …"
"Well here, just take the top off and let it cool down." Sherman leaned over the table, and removed the plastic cover from the large paper cup …
Just as a deep rumbling sound started to build underneath the floor. Everyone in the coffee house noticed it, like a distant rolling thunder. Then the room was filled with the sounds of cups and silverware clattering. The tables began to vibrate, and the hanging planters swayed gently from the ceiling. It was another minor earthquake – just like the one that hit town last night before I went to sleep, realized Jenny. A few mugs vibrated their way off of their tables, and crashed to the floor. Jenny's mocha started to tip over as well …
Sherman lunged to save it – but instead, he knocked the full cup of hot beverage onto Jenny's left arm, soaking her glove and the sleeve of her sweater. Jenny yanked her arm away, wincing in discomfort … but it wasn't the heat that bothered her. Being doused in liquid was causing small short circuits to dance up and down her left arm.
"Oh no, I'm so stupid!" shouted Sherman. "Stupid stupid stupid!" He grabbed a glass of ice water from a neighboring table – thinking that he had just scalded Jenny's arm. "Just hold still … this cold water will relieve the burning sensation!"
"What are you …" Before she could stop him, Sherman slid up her sleeve, and poured the water onto her arm. "Sherman, NO …"
FRRRRZZZZAAAAPPPP
The electric shock sent Sherman rocketing backwards, knocking over a table and sending another two students to the floor. Horrified, Jenny leapt out of her chair and rushed to his side. His eyes were closed, and his muscles were twitching, and wisps of smoke drifted from his hair. Jenny started to grow concerned. Nobody had ever gotten a really serious electrical shock from her before, and she couldn't be sure if Sherman was in any danger. She needed to give him a quick medical scan …
One of the students pointed in Jenny's direction. "Hey … uh … what's up with your arm?"
Her sleeve was still pushed up, and visible sparks of electricity could be seen leaping from Jenny's metal skin. Oh, cripes … I've gotta get out of here. She wrapped an arm around Sherman's shoulders, and helped him to his feet. He was still conscious, if a bit groggy, and it proved to be a challenge to help him stumble his way out of the coffee shop. She half-dragged him around the corner and into an alleyway.
Jenny tried to deploy her medical sensors, but she couldn't unfold the panels on her arm with the turtleneck sweater on. I guess this is why Mom won't let me have clothes. I never realized that they were so inconvenient. She quickly pulled off the gloves and rolled the sleeves up to her shoulders. With a quick series of clicks and whirrs, her elbow cracked open and her wrist opened up, converting her lower arm into a multi-purpose health scanner, complete with heart monitor. Wires snaked out from her fingertips, connecting sensor pads to Sherman's temples and his chest.
Sherman's eyes fluttered briefly, then he opened them with a moan. "Wow, did anybody get the license plate number of that truck?"
"Sherman!" grinned Jenny. "Whew, what a relief. I was afraid that you …"
He felt something cool and metallic pressing against his forehead. There were small metal pads on his temples, which had wires connected to them … wires which were coming out of the fingers of Jenny's hand – her very inhuman hand. He stared in bewilderment at the dozens of small rods and panels which had unfolded from Jenny's metallic arm – then shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Oh boy, oh boy …" Jenny desperately tried to calm him down. "Umm … I have a perfectly good explanation for this … sort of …"
"You're made of metal," babbled Sherman. "You're … you're some kind of bionic cyborg! Stay back! Stay back, I said! Please don't shock me again!" His chest began to heave, and Jenny worried about the attention that more shouting would generate …
But Sherman didn't shout. He started breathing in heavy, ragged gasps. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, and he clutched his hands to his chest in a panic. His lips moved, but the only sound coming from them was a high-pitched wheezing. Finally, he managed to gurgle out one word … "Asthma."
Jenny was stunned, and sympathetic at the same time. Everyone knew that asthma was an ancient disease that had been wiped out by modern medicine, like whooping cough or tuberculosis – but apparently not yet, not in the year 2004. She grabbed Sherman by the arms, and looked directly into his face. "Look, I know this must be really freaky for you, but you've got to believe me – I'm not going to hurt you. Now tell me – do you need to go to the hospital?"
He seemed to calm down a bit, enough to speak another sentence. "Need my breather – forgot it – back at my house."
After a little more assurance, and coaxing, Sherman managed to tell Jenny what his address was. Quickly checking the new map in her brain, Jenny realized with relief that she would be able to find Sherman's house. He needed to get to his medicine as soon as possible. After pulling off her wig and storing it in her belly, a section of her head flipped open, deploying her pigtail-jets. Sherman's eyes grew wide as a pair of blue flames blasted from the nozzles. She wrapped an arm around his waist, and before he even realized what was happening, they shot into the cloudy sky at a terrific speed.
Standing in his bedroom, thirty hair-raising seconds later, Sherman clutched his breather in an iron grip with both hands, huffing into it as if it were an emergency scuba tank. His asthma attack had subsided, but his brain couldn't come to grips with what had happened to him over the past five minutes. He stumbled backwards and sat down on the corner of his bed, staring at Jenny with complete fascination.
Jenny looked on nervously. "Feeling better?" she asked hopefully.
He was calming down, but still could not break his stare. "Who … who are you … what are you?!?"
"My name really is Jenny. As for what … well, I guess I might as well show you. Besides, this stupid turtleneck is still soaking wet." Jenny started to take off her sweater, then realized that Sherman's eyes were still locked onto her with laser-like focus. "Hey, umm … do you mind turning around, or something? Give a girl a little privacy?"
"Uh … oh, sorry," blushed Sherman. He clasped his hands over his eyes.
Jenny peeled off her second-hand clothing and draped it over the back of a chair to dry. She took a moment to calm down – there was no going back once she revealed her true self – but she figured that she had to trust somebody here in 2004, and it probably made sense to choose a science geek. "Okay, Sherman, you can look now."
He renewed his stare of utter disbelief, stunned into silence by the six-and-a-half foot marvel of blue-and-white steel that stood in front of him. But the fear was gone from his face now. In its place was a huge toothy grin, full of wonder and amazement. Jenny extended her arms, letting Sherman watch as her elbows cracked open and deployed at first a laser limb, then a rotating radar dish, and then a pair of giant clamps. Finally her hands and arms returned to normal, and she activated her anti-grav gyros, hovering a few inches above the floor.
"Unbelievable," Sherman mumbled. "You're a robot!"
"Ever since I got switched on, back in the lab," she chuckled nervously.
"And you can walk and talk, and think, and fly, and deploy all those … whatever-they-are-things out of your arms and hands!" Sherman was beaming. On a nerd scale of one to ten, a walking, talking robot girl with lasers in her arms ranked somewhere around a forty-six. "Wow … are you like a top secret government weapons project?"
"Well, I guess I do have quite a few weapons," she said awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck. "But I only use them to save the Earth. That's what I'm programmed to do! And I don't belong to the government. I don't belong to anyone except myself. Well – and my mom, I suppose."
"Come again?" he said with a squint. "Your mom?!?"
"Well, she did build me in her lab, so I've always called her 'Mom'."
"Hold on, hold on. One person built you? Who on Earth could build a robot as sophisticated as you?"
Jenny laughed nervously. "Ah … heh-heh … Nora."
Sherman blinked a few times. "Nora built you?"
"Well, she will …" – gulp – "… a little over sixty years from now."
"Sixty years from now …" Sherman's face glazed over into a joyous stupor. "Are you trying to tell me that you can travel through time, too? Oh, boy! A cute robot girl from the future that gets sent back in time. Just like in Terminator 3! Uh, without the whole destoy-the-human-race thing, I hope."
"No, no … I can't travel through time," she explained. "There was a … little mishap … with my mom's time machine."
"Nora built a time machine all by herself, too?!?!?" Sherman grew more amazed by the second.
"She built the machine by herself, but it's powered by an artificial black hole. Mom didn't create that … um … heh-heh … you did."
That was a little much for Sherman to take. His eyes spun in their sockets, and his mind started kicking into overdrive. "Back in the cafeteria, you called me 'Doctor Sherman Lee, from the university.' Are you telling me that I'm actually going to build my very own black hole? I was just reading an article in Scientific American last week about black holes and space-time. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Wait a minute – before you called me Dr. Lee, you called me 'Sheldon'. Who the heck is Sheldon? Somebody else you know in the future?"
"Yeah, you could say that," said Jenny, rolling her eyes. "We go to high school together. He's your … well, he's your grandson."
"Grandson." A dopey smile wiggled onto Sherman's face. "Do you know what this means? This means that I must finally get a date sometime in the future! Oh, wow … this is just too much. This is just too much to believe."
Jenny scratched her head, trying to think of something else to help convince Sherman of her story. Then she got an idea. "Here, take a look at this." She opened up the door on her abdomen, and deployed a large magnifying lens from the top of her head. Jenny twisted the flexible arm of the lens so that Sherman could read through it. "Look at the tiny writing that's etched on the inside of my belly."
He squinted a bit, then made out the words. "Global Robotic Response Unit XJ-9 …"
Jenny folded her arms with a huff. "Ugh, that's what Mom calls me. Keep going."
Sherman continued. "… Activated September 19, 2068. Designer/Engineer: Dr. Nora Wakeman." He raised a pensive hand to his chin. "Nora Wakeman … oh, wow. Nora and Sidney? Nora and Sidney get married? Unbelievable. I didn't even know they liked each other."
"Oh, believe me, my mom likes Sidney a lot." Jenny still felt uneasy believing that her mother was even capable of crushing on a guy. "In fact, they were supposed to work together on her robot project. She told me all about it back in her lab. I'm not sure, but … maybe that's how they fell in love. Figures that two geeks would fall in love over a computer keyboard and circuit boards. Except I … think I might have messed things up when I bumped into my mom yesterday."
A grave look of realization dawned on Sherman's face. "So that's why you kept saying that they were supposed to work together …"
"And my mom is supposed to win the contest on Friday night," continued Jenny. "After that, she devotes her life to studying robots, goes to college, and becomes a world famous scientist."
Sherman reached for a can of cola on his computer desk, cracked it open, and started drinking it warm. He was deep in thought. "This might be a problem for you, Jenny. It's the classic time travel paradox. You go back in time and do something to prevent your mom and dad from getting together, and then you never get born! But since you weren't really born … I'm not what that means for you. Maybe you never get designed or built. Whatever happens, it could severely throw your future out of whack."
She gulped, loudly. "I don't think I like the sound of that. B-b-but I'm still here, right? So everything must still be okay. Right?"
Something caught Sherman's eye. "Hey, what's this here inside your … uh … stomach?"
"That's just my disguise," Jenny said, as she grabbed the wig and tossed it next to her clothes. Then she realized that there was something else in there as well. She quickly rummaged around, and found the copy of Time Magazine … the one with the story about her. "Oh, I forgot this was in here! Take a look at this. See the date on the cover? It's says March 17th, 2074. That's where – er, when – I came from."
Sherman started thumbing through the pages of the magazine. "News … from the future! Unbelievable … 'Congress passes bill giving clones the right to vote' … 'Mars celebrates ten years of independence from Earth' … 'World leaders debate Cluster threat to world safety'. 'Cluster?' What's a 'Cluster'?"
"Trust me, you don't want to know," she moaned. "There's a story in there about me! I saved a space station last week. Rescued fifty-five astronauts! There's pictures and everything."
He quickly leafed through the rest of the magazine, then double-checked the index at the front. "I don't see any stories about a robot girl saving a space station."
"What?!? I know it's in there," she protested. "Let me think for a second … check page fifty-three."
Sherman flipped to the appropriate page. It wasn't a story about Jenny saving a space station. It was a feature article in the magazine's business section. He stared for a few seconds, dumbstruck, then finally managed to speak. "Is that … Vinny Mogg?"
Jenny snatched the magazine away from Sherman. The bold headline announced: "Mogg Technologies Completes Hostile Takeover of IBM." Below it was a color picture of a smiling Phinneas Mogg – but instead of wearing a white scientist's smock and rubber gloves, her wore an expensive Italian suit. Mogg was leaning against the "IBM" logo, with a group of robots standing around him that she didn't recognize. Horror gripped at her electronic brain. "This is wrong … this is all wrong!"
She quickly glanced over the article. "One of the oldest and largest companies in history was purchased this week by Mogg Technologies, the global robotics juggernaut. Even after the purchase, company president and CEO Phinneas Mogg, widely known as one of the greatest geniuses of the 21st century, is still the wealthiest man in the world. With the acquisition of IBM, Mogg Technologies now holds a virtual monopoly on the construction of robots. Over ninety percent of the robots built and used in the solar system are manufactured by Mogg Technologies …"
Jenny's cheeks began to turn red with anger. "That rotten no-good lying weasel," she fumed. "He's the reason I'm back here in the past, Sherman! Phinneas Mogg is a professor at the university, just like you. But when my mom invented her time machine, he got jealous and stole it to come back to the year 2004. He's done something to change history! I knew he was lying to me yesterday … why that …"
Sherman interrupted her. "Umm … Jenny … check the next page."
She looked across to the facing page. "Big deal, it's just an advertisement …" Then she felt the hydraulic fluid in her veins run cold. It was a huge color advertisement for Mogg Robotics.
And there was a picture of her in the ad. Holding … a vacuum cleaner?
"Mogg Robotics – our robots work hard, so you don't have to! Tired of fighting to keep the house clean? Struggling to keep up with the hectic pace of modern life? Free yourself and free up your time! Now with zero-down financing, your family can be the next to own their very own 'Jenny'! From the name you trust in robots, the 'Jenny' is our most popular domestic care robot in production today! It's fully programmed for housecleaning, food preparation, and new for 2074 – infant care! And remember, when you buy Mogg, you're buying safety. The 'Jenny' has the best safety record on the market – state-of-the-art obedience circuits guarantee that your 'Jenny' will follow any orders you give it!"
She stumbled backwards onto the bed, with her eyes shrunk to a pair of pinpoints. "Your 'Jenny' will receive continued updates and technical support for the life of the warranty. And with over forty million satisfied 'Jenny' owners, you can be sure that you'll be in good company!"
Her voice quivered as she looked up from the magazine. "I'm … I'm a robot maid."
Continued in Chapter Six