Whack to the Future
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Seven – We Are Family
Nora wiped the perspiration from her face, and dropped her darkened goggles over her tired eyes. They had worked all night Wednesday, and now Thursday night was almost gone too. She was working at a fever pace to finish in time for the Robot Roundup the following night. A pencil-thin jet of blue flame shot from a small welding torch in her right hand, as she installed a reinforcing metal strut onto the chassis of her robot. She needed to hold it very, very precisely, or else the cover would never close when she was done. It took all the strength in her thin arms to wedge the strut into its proper position. Finally, she was ready to weld it into place.
And that's when the basement of her house start to shake and rattle – another one of those stupid earthquakes! Nora had to quickly grab her robot, to keep it from falling off of her workbench; Sherman barely saved his laptop computer from getting crushed by a falling toolbox. Fortunately, Nora was so focused on her robot that she didn't notice Jenny zip back and forth at superhuman speed to prevent half a dozen other items from crashing to the concrete floor.
"Blast it!" she shouted, throwing the goggles from her face. "Stupid town picked a fine week to drop into the center of the earth. I came this close to slicing off the manipulator arms! Arghhh, I need to take a break. Guys, I'm going to run upstairs. Can I get something for either of you?"
"Nothing for me, thanks," said Jenny, as she returned a dozen heavy books to a set of shelves.
Sherman heaved a sigh of relief as he checked the software on his laptop – everything seemed to be okay. "I'd love a can of Coke, if you have any. Any chance you can warm it up for me?"
Nora scrunched her face into a disgusted expression, then ran up the steps to leave Sherman and Jenny alone. Sherman plopped himself down into an old, ripped up basement sofa, and massaged his temples with his fingertips. "Wow, that was awfully close. If anything had happened to my laptop, it would have been game over."
Jenny walked over to the little robot sitting on the dusty, wooden workbench. It was about the size of a suitcase, made of steel and aluminum, simple and boxy in its construction. Four large wheels were positioned at the corners of the frame, and most of the inside was filled with heavy-duty rechargeable batteries. With its cover flipped open, she could see hundreds of feet of multi-colored wires running throughout the chassis, connecting circuit boards to electric sensors and servos. Two crude cameras served as the robot's eyes, each perched at the end of a fixed metal stalk. And two flexible arms, with crude manipulating claws, extended from the sides of the rectangular steel body.
She pulled off a glove and pushed back the sleeve of her sweater, allowing herself to deploy a welding torch from her wrist. With her enhanced strength, she had no problem positioning the metal strut, and in a few seconds, the welding job was complete. Jenny retracted her torch into her robot arm, and an affectionate look came over her face.
"Aww, would you just look at her? Poor little thing doesn't even have a fusion reactor, or a rocket motor. And look at its little brain! It's a Pentium chip. That's so cute!" Jenny smiled, patted the little robot, and started talking in a baby voice. "Ohhh, she's so cute, yes she is! Yes she is! Can you move your arms for your big sister? Hmmm? Can you wave to Jenny?"
"It doesn't have voice recognition," groaned Sherman, as his fingers danced madly on his keyboard. "Besides, the operating software isn't loaded yet! It's just a hunk of metal, gears, and wires."
Jenny folded her arms with a huff. "Oh, yeah?!? Well, I think she's adorable. And she'll be even more adorable when you're done with your software. How soon?"
"I'm compiling right now. But I want to take a look at my custom news page first. I've got a funny feeling about something." Sherman brought up a web browser on his laptop. "It's all these annoying little earthquakes that have been going on all week long. I can't remember this many little quakes ever happening so close together. Here, take a look at the headlines on my home page."
Jenny looked at the screen of Sherman's laptop, which he had customized to show news articles about Centerville. The lead story was about a major rezoning of the city. Centerville was going to combine with two smaller towns on either side of it into one single, larger city. The mayors of the three towns were having meetings this week. The second story, though, confirmed Sherman's hypothesis: "Town officials stumped by increase in seismic activity."
Sherman clicked on a link, which displayed a map of the Centerville area, covered with a series of red dots. "All the epicenters of the earthquakes have been focused around Centerville itself. That's really strange, because Centerville isn't located on a fault line."
"Uh, okay then … is there something else that could cause earthquakes?"
Sherman looked at Jenny with worried eyes. "Yeah, there is. Earthquakes are usually caused by pieces of the Earth's crust moving against each other. But in theory, they can also be caused by strong gravitation disruption. But in order to do that, you'd need a something like … a black hole."
Jenny's eyes sprang wide open, as the realization of what Sherman was saying hit home. Sherman punched a few more keys on his laptop. All of the dots on the map were focused around a single spot, located out in the undeveloped region of the suburbs.
"That's where I showed up back on Monday morning," she gasped. "That's where the time machine is."
"That's what I was afraid of," gulped Sherman. "I think the time machine is causing the earthquakes!"
That's just what they needed – a whole new source of problems. But they had to stop talking right then, as they heard Nora's feet cascading down the basement steps. Nora still didn't know anything at all about time machines or robot girls from the future, and it was best to keep it that way.
She finished off a tall glass of lemonade, then tossed a warm can of Coke through the air to Sherman, catching him off guard. "Warm Coke. You are so weird, Sherman. But I don't care, as long as you get that software finished. How's it coming?"
"Ready for download," he grinned. "All we have to do is hook up the Ethernet cable."
Once the software was installed, Nora lowered the cover, carefully guiding the sheet metal into position so that no wiring would get caught on any sharp corners. She fastened it into place with a cordless screwdriver. Then with a look of pride, Nora wiped the moist brown hair from her forehead, and started cleaning the smudge marks from her robot's stainless steel exterior. "All finished! I never thought we'd get done in time. My very first autonomous robot prototype." She planted her hands on her hips, striking a triumphant pose. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to introduce to you, the winner of tomorrow night's Centerville Robot Roundup … Experimental Robot Zero."
With a soft whine of motors and the hum of electricity, the little bot powered up, and its cameras swiveled from side to side. Then its arms slowly reached out, grasping and ungrasping, running a test program of all its moving joints. Jenny was completely captivated by the little robot. "Oh, she's such a sweetie! Look, she's trying to hold my hand. What else can she do?"
"Well, tomorrow night that robot's going to be kicking butt," grinned Sherman. "Haven't you ever seen those robot battle shows on TV before? Where the robots fight each other in a giant metal arena with flaming pits and jets of flame and crushing hammers? It is so awesome! I was watching Robot Wars on TV last week, and this one robot had a sawblade, and it was ripping apart this giant wedge robot – RRROWR! Ripping huge gouges into it side! But then the wedge robot flipped the sawblade robot into the air, and it crashed into the flame pit! BLAM! Into a million pieces! It was fantastic!"
A wave of revulsion came over Jenny, and she wrapped her arms around Nora's robot defensively. "That's … that's horrible! That's barbaric! You make robots slaughter each other just for cheap entertainment? You … you can't do that to her!"
"That's not what will be going on tomorrow night, Jenny," said Nora, shaking her head at Sherman. "For one thing, the robots on those cable TV shows are all remote controlled. All of the robots in the Roundup have to use their own brains and programming. And while the rules are pretty open, you don't win by blasting all the other robots to pieces."
Nora rummaged around in a cardboard box, and pulled out a spongy yellow ball about the size of a grapefruit. She held it out in front of her robot, and moved it from side to side … and the robot's camera eyes followed it. Then one of the arms reached out and gently closed its claws around the sponge ball.
Jenny clasped her hands to her cheek. "She wants to play catch! Awwww …."
"The robots have to collect as many sponge balls as they can," explained Nora. "The one who collects the most in the time limit wins the prize."
"You're really going to call it Experimental Robot Zero?" Sherman's face twisted into a sneer. "You might be a genius, Nora, but you can't name anything worth beans. That's a pretty lame name for a robot. A robot needs to have an intimidating name, like … the Eviscerator! Or the Deathbringer! Or …"
"You're not going to give her a horrible name like that, are you?" pleaded Jenny.
"Stop calling it a 'her'," grumbled Sherman. "Seriously, this is why girls shouldn't build robots."
"Wait a minute – why not?" grinned Nora. "Boys call machines 'her' all the time. They call cars and boats and planes 'her'. And Sherman, I know you call your laptop 'her'."
"That's not true," he pouted. "I call it my precious."
"The more I think about it, the more I like it," said Nora. "I've put so much time and work into this little robot … it doesn't seem like just a machine any more. It almost feels like … I'm its mommy." She chuckled at the silliness of that thought, not noticing the warm smile on Jenny's face. "You know, Jenny, you've really been so amazing to me this week. I don't have a lot of girlfriends at school … I really appreciate a cool girl like you taking time to help me out. I'm going to name the robot after you."
"Wow …" she gasped. "I don't know what to say!"
"You're naming it Experimental Jenny Zero?" asked Sherman. "Still lame. And besides, it's too long."
Nora was growing frustrated with Sherman, but he did have a point. She intended to paint the robot's name on its shiny cover for the competition, but a long name like Experimental Jenny Zero probably wouldn't fit very well. A shorter name would be catchier, and stand out better …
"All right, I'll just abbreviate it," said Nora. She dipped a paintbrush into a can of blue paint, and made a few bold, stylish strokes on top of the little robot, right behind its eye-stalks.
"XJ-Zero," read Sherman. "Hey … that's actually kind of catchy."
Jenny reached down and gently patted her littlest sister. "Yes, it sure is."
The orange sun was setting through a layer of broken clouds, giving the impression that Mother Nature herself was shining a spotlight on Centerville High School this night. Friday had flown by in a blur, and now, after days and weeks of anticipation, the 2004 Centerville Robot Roundup was only half an hour from getting underway. The school parking lot was packed to overflowing, as students and parents from the tri-county area began to converge on the gymnasium. Dozens of teenagers fumbled with bulky metal contraptions of every imaginable shape and design. While some of the students wheeled their robotic creations into the school gym for registration and setup, and few lingered outside for some last-minute modifications. There were a couple of white television vans parked next to the curb, and reporters interviewed randomly selected roboteers for their local news stories later that evening. The Robot Roundup made for a good "puff piece" – it certainly wasn't a major news event. After all, it's not like one silly student robot competition could influence the course of history.
Sh-yeah, tell me about it, Jenny grumbled to herself. Even though Nora's robot, XJ-Zero, weighed close to eighty pounds, she had no trouble lifting it out of the back of the station wagon while Nora received a good-luck hug from her parents. She and Sherman had ridden to the high school with Nora's parents, under the auspices of providing moral support. Jenny, of course, had a more vested interest in the outcome of the evening – it was going to decide whether or not she would even exist in seventy years.
While Jenny gave a final once-over to XJ-Zero, Sherman tapped her on the shoulder. Once he had her attention, he simply gestured to his right. Jenny's shoulders sank with a sigh. It was Sidney Wakeman, struggling to load his robotic contest entry onto a large dolly, for transport into the gym. And standing behind him was Brooke Krust, dressed in a fashionable baby-T and hip-huggers that left little to the imagination. She was snickering with a couple of her popular friends, as they watched Sidney clumsily maneuver the dolly. He exhibited all the poise and grace of a young Jerry Lewis.
"I wonder what Mom sees in him," moaned Jenny. She gave Sherman a pained expression. "We've been so busy for the past two days that I haven't thought up a way to get Nora and Sidney together. Even if Mom wins tonight, I don't think I can fix the future if she doesn't get together with Sidney."
They snapped their attentions back to Nora as she walked over to XJ-Zero. For the time being, it would be better to help her keep her mind on her robot; she might get too distracted if she started thinking about Sidney right now. Nora actually seemed upbeat as she took a reading of the robot's diagnostics, making brief notes on a hand-held clipboard.
"The big night is finally here," she smiled. "Jenny, Sherman … I just wanted to say that I really appreciate all the help you've given me this week. Wow, would you take a look at everybody who's here tonight? I didn't expect that the TV guys would bother showing up. And there's a big black limousine in front of the school. I think the mayor is in it."
"I guess this robot contest is a bigger deal than I realized," said Jenny. She remembered that her Mom had told her that the Robot Roundup was, in part, a promotional gimmick to draw attention back to the town of Centerville after the Great Dot-Com crash. "There's some kind of a cash prize for first place, right?"
"Twenty-five hundred dollars," smiled Nora.
"Wow!" said Jenny. "That'll go a long way to helping out with college."
"Heh-heh. That's what my mom thinks." She smirked defiantly. "If I win, I'm using it to get laser eye surgery. No more coke-bottle glasses for me!"
"What?!?" gasped Jenny.
"Or maybe plastic surgery," said Nora, rubbing the tip of her nose. "Do you have any idea how much it sucks going through high school with a banana stuck in the middle of your face?"
"Nora, don't you think that it would be a better idea to …" Jenny didn't finish her sentence.
She saw a familiar face in the crowd, one that got the coolant boiling in her radiators. Quickly excusing herself, she bolted away from Nora, Sherman, and XJ-Zero, weaving her way through a crowd of students and parents. She was pursuing a short bearded man in white lab coat. She didn't want to lose track of him, and she knew that he had to be here to cause trouble. He was just about to enter the side door of the gym when Jenny caught up to him, laying a gloved hand on the old man's shoulder with an angry grip.
"Mogg," she growled. "You no-good, dirty rotten weasel …"
The old man wheeled around with a start, then sneered with contempt when he realized who it was. "Robot! Well, I must say that I'm a little surprised to see you here tonight. Shouldn't you be down at the shopping mall, wandering about in that silly costume of your, masquerading as a teenager? Now as for me, I'm here to enjoy myself. This all brings back a lot of fond memories for me, seeing all my old classmates when they still had acne, and wore their retainers …"
She pulled them both off to the side, so they could speak in relative privacy. "Knock it off. Look, I know you didn't steal my mom's time machine to come here for sightseeing. I didn't have any proof earlier in the week, but I do now. You've done something to change the future."
The old doctor raised his hand and started to protest, then stopped himself. He responded to Jenny's hostile gaze with an arrogant smile. "And what if I have? All I've done is give history a gentle little nudge in the right direction. It's you that's been foolish enough to jeopardize her entire future by clumsily interfering in the timeline. All I did was drop a gentle hint, a tiny piece of information here and there. A quick little peek at the last page in the book, you might say."
"What are you babbling about?" she asked …
"Hey, old timer, are gonna help me out here or what?" They looked to see young Phinneas Mogg – or "Vinny" as he preferred to be called – wheeling his robot entry into the gym on a dolly. And the robot was amazing. Where most of the other entries looked like something that had been built in a basement, Vinny's robot, the "Mogg Masher", looked like a creation spawned from a military research laboratory. The Mogg Masher had tank treads, four sets of arms, and a weapon barrel mounted on a rotating turret. It actually did look a bit like a miniature army tank. Upon closer inspection, Jenny could see intricate circuit paths and sensors attached to the Masher, which would give it huge advantage over any of the other entries. Complex sensors that did not exist in the year 2004.
She turned to Mogg with an even more furious scowl on her face. "You cheater! You're giving yourself technology from the future to use on your robot! That's not fair!"
"Why don't you file a complaint with rules committee then, robot girl?" chuckled Phinneas.
"But where did you get all of that advanced technology …" Jenny gasped as the realization dawned on her. "The time machine! You went out and stripped parts from the time machine, to use in a high school robotics project! Are you completely whacked out?!? Oh, wow … is that why the time machine is creating all these earthquakes?"
"Very minor earthquakes," answered Mogg with a grin. "Hardly even worth mentioning."
"But they're getting stronger! You're going to put the entire town in danger if we don't get out to the time machine and repair the damage!"
"There'll be plenty of time to repair the Continuum Vortex Generator after the robot competition is over in a few hours." Mogg smugly slid his hands into his pockets. "By which time my younger self will have won first place, will be receiving recognition from local news and businesspeople, and will be well on his way to a very prosperous future. I'm afraid that poor Nora's robot doesn't stand a chance against my – I mean, against Vinnie's robotic tank. Just make sure you meet me after everything is over tonight. Otherwise, you'll be stranded when I time-jump home." And with that, he left Jenny writhing in anger, and escorted his younger self into the gym.
Sherman ran up to Jenny just in time to see the old man walk away. "Is that who I think it was?"
"That's Phinneas Mogg – both of them," she grumbled. "Did you see that robotic brute they were entering into the contest? Vinny is using future technology on it. He's cheating, and there's nothing I can do about it! What am I supposed to do? Tell the judges that I'm a robot girl from the future? That big hulking tank is going to turn poor little XJ-Zero into spare parts! It just makes me so …"
Suddenly Jenny stumbled a bit, as a wave of disorientation came over her. A few people on the wide sidewalk outside the gym grew concerned, but Sherman grabbed her arm to help steady her. After a few seconds, she regained her equilibrium. "What the heck was that!?!" Sherman asked, bewildered.
"That was really freaky," she said, still blinking the fuzziness from her head. "I kind of felt all warbly through my whole body. I think I feel okay … although … wait, something's different …"
Jenny turned around to face away from the crowd, and rolled up her sweater to expose her metallic abdomen. She swung open the door in her belly, and deployed a small spotlight from her fingertip to illuminate the inside. She didn't need to deploy a magnifying glass, though, to read the label pasted to the inside of the door …
"Mogg Robotics Domestic Robot – Model 'Jenny' Version 5.6.23.7 Serial Number 353594-TX-1933. For warranty information call 1-800-MOGGBOT. Made in Taiwan."
"Unbelievable," Sherman mumbled involuntarily. "It looks like Nora's not going to win tonight, even after all our hard work. Things in the future are continuing to change. Now it's catching up with you. You're gradually changing into that housecleaning robot we saw in the advertisement. Soon those changes will become permanent!"
"Then we have to take more drastic action," she said, clenching her fists. "There is no way I am going to let that old goofball make himself the richest man in the world and ruin my mom's life. And there's no way I'm going to spend the rest of my life cleaning carpets."
"But what can we do?" asked Sherman, shrugging his shoulders. "You've seen Mogg's robot. It's unstoppable."
"True – none of the other kids' normal robots can stop it. That's why we need to enter a robot in the contest that can stop the Mogg Masher. Sherman, you're going to enter your own robot. One that can stop that cheater from winning."
That spun Sherman for a loop. He folded his arms and gave her a sarcastic look. "Jenny, the competition is about to start. Most of the teams have already registered. And as you may have noticed, I did not happen to bring a homemade robot with me tonight! Where in the world am I supposed to come up with something in the next ten minutes that I can use as an entry for the Robot Roundup?"
Jenny gave him a confident smile. "You're looking at her."
Continued in Chapter Eight