Betrayal From Within
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Five – Hideouts and Shootouts
Tuck gingerly walked over the rope bridge that spanned the gully, making sure he always had two hands on the guide ropes. Even though he'd crossed it dozens of times, he still wasn't up to running over it, like his older brother could. The slightest oscillation in the bridge would still creep him out. After a few more cautious steps, he finally made it to the grove of trees on the other side, and broke into a flat-out run. His feet kicked up loose twigs and pine cones as he sprinted down the well-worn forest path. "Wait up! Wait up! Come on, Brad, slow down!"
"Ehh, maybe you just need to hurry up, shrimp boat." Brad didn't even look back over his shoulder as he walked briskly through the woods, his hands rammed into his pockets. He was in a foul mood. He'd been in a foul mood all day long.
It was a beautiful spring day to be in the woods, just outside the suburbs of Tremorton. But Brad wasn't out here to enjoy nature. He needed to get away from the madness back in his neighborhood – the circus that surrounded the Wakeman house. The street hadn't been empty since yesterday – there was always a black van or a news truck parked on the curb, and others continually circled the block like vultures. His family had already talked to annoying government officials, nosy policemen, and obnoxious reporters. Brad didn't want to deal with any of that right now. He just wanted to get away.
The sound of a little pair of heaving lungs told him that his brother had caught up to him. "Thanks for waiting up," Tuck grumbled. "Leaving a little kid to walk all alone through the forest …"
"Oh, give it a rest, Tuck, you're out here by yourself all the time," Brad snarled back. "Besides, we wouldn't even be here if you hadn't forgotten the baseball gloves in your stupid tree house. So grow up a little and stop complaining like a baby all the time!"
He immediately regretted saying it, and saw the hurt that registered in Tuck's huge, quivering eyes. "Tuck, look – I'm sorry for …"
Tuck's lower lip pouted a bit. "I miss Jenny too," he sniffed.
They left the path at a memorized spot, and shortly afterwards arrived at Tuck's tree house, hidden in the branches of a stately oak. Once just a few planks nailed together to make a platform in the sky, the brothers had worked together to add some walls and a roof. Now it was a fortress of solitude, a place to read comic books, and get sick on Twinkies. Or to use as an escape, when they felt the crushing pressure of the world bearing down on them – like it was right now.
"Those jerks at school, I'd like to give them all smack in the head," Brad growled, as he climbed up the boards nailed into the trunk of the tree. He swung himself up to the floor, with Tuck just a few steps behind him. "Always ready to blame Jenny for everything!"
"Well, maybe this is like when her dream chip went kablooie," said Tuck, as he pulled himself up into his tree house. It wasn't huge, but it still managed to collect a big mess. There were a couple of chairs, an old orange crate for a table, and a pile of toys and board games against the wall. There were still shovels and toboggans underneath an old blanket, left over from construction of his snow fort last winter. The baseball gloves were sitting on an old lawn chair, right where he'd forgotten them.
"This isn't like that at all," said Brad, as lobbed a baseball in the air. "That was an accident. Whoever's wrecking all that army stuff is doing it deliberately. And everyone just assumed it was Jenny. Now she's out there, somewhere … running for her life." Brad flung the baseball against the wall, catching it on the rebound. "We might never see her again. She might be hiding on some desert island. Or at the north pole. Or on the moon, for all we know!" Brad flung the baseball extra-hard, seething with frustration, and missed it on the rebound. The baseball ricocheted into the blanket, bouncing off the snow shovels with a loud clang …'.
And a squeal of pain. "Ow!" shouted a familiar voice. The boys were momentarily spooked, as something pushed the blanket aside …
Then Jenny sat upright, blinking her eyes after being rudely woken from her sleep mode, and rubbed her forehead. "Be careful with that baseball, guys … a girl could get a nasty dent."
She was knocked backwards by a black-haired bundle of energy jumping into her metallic lap. Tuck flung his arms around her neck, glomming onto her like a baby koala. Brad dropped to the floor next to her, with a huge grin on his face. "Jenny! We were so worried about you after the way the Army was freaking out yesterday. Did they hurt you at all? Are you all right?"
"Are you malfunctioning? Being controlled by aliens?!?" asked Tuck excitedly.
Jenny chuckled as she pulled Tuck away from her neck – the first time she'd even smiled in over a day. "Wow, is it ever good to see you guys! I was a little worried when I heard noises outside. I'm all right. Well … I'm mostly all right." It was only then that the brothers noticed the sharp, crackling sound of electrical sparks. Jenny's left arm was exposing a couple of severed wires.
Brad was horrified. "Jen! Oh, man … just relax, and lay back. Tuck, get off of her, now!" He pulled him off by the collar, and started to get a little hyper. "Jenny, just lie there calmly, and we'll go get a doctor. No, wait – we'll go get a mechanic."
"Guys, guys, relax … Mom could fix it in thirty seconds with a pair of pliers." She tried to smile, but didn't do a convincing job. "I spent most of yesterday getting shot at by just about everyone you can imagine. I got pretty roughed up … it's tough being in a fight when you can't fight back. I needed a place to hide, but I didn't know where to go. Then I remembered Tuck saying that he came here to hide from your dad, that time he spilled house paint all over the living room carpet. So I managed to sneak here after dark, and went into sleep mode to run self-repairs. Hope you don't mind."
"Of course we don't mind!" said Tuck – then he folded his arms in a huff. "And that bucket of paint had no business being in the living room in the first place!"
"So you've been hiding here ever since last night ..." Brad pounded his fist into the baseball glove. "I knew it! There were more sabotage attacks overnight. This proves it wasn't you! All right, once we tell the authorities about this, you'll be totally in the clear!"
With a tired whirr, her eyelids drooped, and her face took on a heavy, pained expression. "Brad … you know and I know that they're never going to believe you. They wouldn't listen to me yesterday. What makes you think they'll listen to me today?" She paused, and sunk her head into her chest. Brad could see the hurt on her face. Then he noticed that Jenny was holding onto something in her right hand …
It was the medal she'd been given by the mayor during Monday's ceremony. She noticed Brad looking at it. "From 'Jenny Wakeman Day' to Public Enemy Number One in twenty-four hours," she snorted. "Everyone thinks I'm a traitor, now."
"Pfft … you're not a traitor, Jenny." Brad folded his arms indignantly. "You're a hero. You're the greatest hero that this city has ever seen."
"Thanks, Brad. I know that you believe that." Her robotic shoulder heaved with a deep sigh. "But I'm not sure if anyone else feels that way. Do I even want to know what the kids at school are saying about me?"
Brad didn't say a word, but one look into his face told her everything. "That's what I figured," she said.
"What are you going to do now?" asked Tuck.
"Well, you guys said that there have been more sabotage attacks since last night. The only way to prove that I'm innocent is to go out there and catch the big jerk who's been impersonating me." Jenny flexed her left arm, and a new spattering of sparks leapt from the wires sticking out of her elbow. "Ow! I wish I was at full strength, but I guess this'll have to do."
"Well, hold on a minute." Brad rummaged around in his pockets for a second, and pulled out a Swiss army knife. "Look, maybe we can help fix you up, Jen. Just tell us what you need."
She slumped against the wall, and her face grew sad again. "Look, you guys … you shouldn't even be anywhere around me. If someone ever found out, you could be in big trouble! You might get arrested – just like my mom. I don't want you guys to go to jail because of me! Just take off, and try to forget you even saw me here. I'll go find a different hiding spot."
"Like heck you will." Brad stared at her intensely, until she raised her face to meet his eyes. He almost seemed upset by her request; his face was set with determination beyond his years. "No way are we going to abandon you. You're going to stay right here until you're all fixed up, and then we're going to help you prove that you're totally innocent. And there's really not much you can do about it."
"Yeah!" added Tuck, perching his fists on his hips in a heroic pose. "That goes double for me!"
Jenny silently rubbed her elbow for a few moments, and a huge smile spread across her face. "You two guys are so awesome," she grinned. "I don't know how much repair work we can do on my elbow. But I did lose a little bit of oil yesterday. I could definitely go for quart of 10-W-30."
"Done and done," said Brad. "Tuck, dad keeps a case of motor oil in the garage! Go get a couple of quarts, and come back here. Don't let anyone see you."
Tuck snapped a brisk military salute, clamored down the stepping boards to the ground, and took off in a sprint for home. Brad gently lifted Jenny's left arm, and rested it on his lap. He grabbed an old six-volt flashlight from the corner of the tree house, and positioned it to shine on the elbow.
Jenny shook her head, laughing. "Brad, it's just some loose wires. It's not going to fall off! Besides, just how much do you know about fixing robots?"
"Oh, I'm pretty handy with a screwdriver. I, ah … heh-heh … do all my own work on my hog. You know … my bicycle." He wiggled his eyebrows, getting a laugh out of her – he simply refused to allow her to be upset whenever he was around. He poked around the small gap in her elbow, and quickly realized that Jenny's design was far more complex than his bicycle's gear-shift. But just maybe …
"The sparks are coming from these two exposed wires," he realized. "I've got no idea how to fix them, but I think I can get them to stop sparking. Try and hold your arm still for a second." Brad fumbled around in the piles of junk next to him, and found a roll of masking tape. "Not too high tech, but it'll work."
"All right, Doctor Carbunkle," she joked, as he cut off tiny strips of tape. Then she grew more serious, as he patiently worked the strips around the fine wiring in her elbow. "Brad … thanks for sticking up for me. I realize it must be tough for you at school. After all, all the TV news stations are showing pictures of me blowing things up. Whoever's doing it looks just like me. It's pretty convincing."
Brad silently finished his makeshift repair job. Then he looked his best friend in the eyes. "Maybe it's convincing for anyone who doesn't know you. But I know what you're really like, Jen. These yo-yos at school and on the TV don't have a clue … they'll always jump at the chance to dump on you. But no matter what happens … I'll always believe in you, Jen."
It grew quiet in the tree house all of the sudden. Jenny could only smile back, rendered momentarily speechless by Brad's unshakeable friendship – and his big dumb trademark everything's-going-to-be-alright grin. Then she noticed that the electrical sparking had actually stopped. There were two ugly patches of masking tape on her wires, but they weren't short-circuiting anymore. I shouldn't be surprised, she thought to herself. Everything just seems to be alright whenever Brad's around.
"I'll zip back to town and sneak over your house," said Brad. "There's got to be some kind of maintenance kit in your mom's lab that I could bring back here. Just hope that repair holds while I'm gone."
"Well, let's give it a little test, then." Tiny motors whirred throughout the arm, and Jenny flexed her elbow and wrist, slowly reaching out to grab Brad's hand. Then she flexed her robotic knuckles, gently sliding her fingers between his, and squeezed firmly. Brad chuckled, squeezed back, and let their clasped hands fall into his lap.
"Fine motor control test – check," giggled Jenny.
"Grasping mechanism test – check," chuckled Brad. It was good to hear her laugh.
A thin contrail weaved its way across the azure-blue sky, looping and swerving and barely under control. Most of the plant's workers were scrambling for their cars, desperate to escape the impending catastrophe. But a few of them stopped, and took notice of the smoke trail on the horizon that grew closer and closer. They shielded their eyes and squinted into the air, trying to make out the approaching projectile. Then they gradually heard the roar of a rocket engine, rising above the wail of klaxon alarms. The object made a last-minute course correction – and suddenly it was heading straight for them.
Something that looked like a giant silver-green paper airplane, with a jet pack strapped to the top of it, crashed into the parking lot like a falling meteor. Screaming workers dove for cover as the silver-green airfoil tumbled end-over-end across the lot, gouging out a furrow in the earth. At the front of the main building, a group of men in hard hats were gathered around the hood of a white utility van, looking over a large blueprint and shouting into walkie-talkies. Suddenly one of them noticed the approaching danger, and the men scattered – just before the silver airfoil slammed into the side of the van, nearly knocking it over from the force of its impact.
Completely baffled, a large man whose hard hat read Plant Supervisor approached the smoking debris. The shiny paper airplane had been reduced to a pile of silver-green wreckage … then it began to gurgle and shimmer, as if it were made of metallic gelatin. Waves of distortion coursed through it, transforming it into a doughy, amorphous silver blob. Then the supervisor nearly had a heart attack, as a fountain of silver goo leapt upwards, in seeming defiance of the laws of physics. Within seconds, the silver goo molded itself into the image of a frazzled-looking teenage boy.
"Any landing you can flow away from …" moaned Drew, as he smoothed out his crumpled forehead. Dr. Wakeman's jet pack was definitely going to take some getting used to. He gradually took notice of the sounds and panic around him; then he gathered his bearings, and shouted to the stunned technicians. "You guys! An emergency call came in from a place called Spruce Ridge. Is this it?"
"Yes, it is," barked the plant supervisor, eyeing him suspiciously. "And just what the Sam Hill are you supposed to be? Are you from Emergency Services?"
"Uh … okay, sure – let's go with that," answered Drew. "What's all the ruckus about …"
It was only then that he noticed that the trail of smoke he'd been following was coming from a large hole in the side of a strange-looking concrete building, just in front of him. There were two of them, with identical tall, concave profiles. Rows of high-tension electrical towers spread away from each of them, stretching off towards the horizon. A large sign was posted next to the front door …
"Welcome to Spruce Ridge Nuclear Power Station … holy schnikey! Nuclear Power Station!!!" Drew flung his arms into the air, wild-eyed with near-hysteria. "Oh, for the love of … arrrgghh … my first solo gig, and I get a nuclear reactor!?! Aw, geez … no pressure, huh!?!"
The supervisor pointed up to the hole in the giant cooling tower, a hundred feet off the ground. "An explosion rocked the whole plant a few minutes ago – came out of nowhere. Some of the men think they saw something come out of the sky. All I know is, something attacked our operations room, and we can't control the reactor any more. There's a manual shutoff inside that tower, but my men can't reach it!"
"Well that's just great," groaned Drew. He racked his brain for a moment, and noticed the walkie-talkie in the supervisor's hand. "Okay, walkie-talkie, walkie-talkie … I can do one of those." Drew concentrated for a moment, and a thin ribbon of nano-goo flowed out of the side of his head, forming a microphone in front of his face. "Can you give me directions to the manual shutoff with this thing?"
The supervisor slapped him on the back enthusiastically. "You'd better believe I can! We've got less than six minutes before that reactor goes critical. Get moving!"
Drew picked up the jet-pack, and flowed his body around the straps and fasteners as fast as he could. "Couldn't get a cat stuck in a tree … oh, no," he grumbled. "Right off the bat, I get Three Mile Island." He mashed the red button on the control stick. The technicians shielded themselves from the exhaust, as the silver-green android made the quick hop up to the hole in the side of Cooling Tower One.
The inside of the cooling tower was a three-dimensional maze of giant pipes. The dull yellow emergency lamps and the rotating alert sirens combined to fill the interior with a bizarre dance of shadows. Screeching columns of superheated steam flowed from dozens of pipes; whatever had attacked the cooling tower had already done extensive damage. Scaffolding ran everywhere, giving access to the machinery that supported the reactors, which themselves were located underground. Over the walkie-talkie, the plant supervisor explained that there were emergency control rods at the bottom of the tower. They could be triggered by hand to safely extinguish the nuclear reaction. However, due to the superheated steam leaks, it was close to two hundred degrees inside the tower. Lethal for humans, but not a problem for androids.
With a quick schwerrrrp, Drew's hands and feet morphed into clamps. He leapt forward and grabbed onto a giant vertical pipe, then began walking on all fours, straight down, like a squirrel skittering down a tree. It was difficult for him to see as he crawled through billowing clouds of superheated steam. But he wasn't worried about heat – he was worried about radioactivity. His body's network of sensors told him that radiation levels were still low – but they were on the rise.
"Look for a large red and yellow lever, with a sign that says 'Emergency Crash'," the supervisor explained over the walkie-talkie. "That's what we call an emergency reactor shutdown."
"I think I see it just below me," Drew shouted. Weaving his body around an intersection of pipes, he could now see to the bottom of the cooling tower. And right in the middle, there was a thick slab of concrete, pierced with dozens and dozens of tall, thin brass cylinders. Immediately next to the slab of concrete was a pole painted with red and yellow stripes, and a large emergency handle.
With a smile of relief, he slid down the giant pipe like a fireman's pole, and dropped the last twenty feet to splash down next to the emergency handle. "Bingo! One emergency crash coming right up. Well hey, that wasn't so tough after all ..."
The brilliant blast of laser energy caught him in the right shoulder, spinning him in circles before he crashed spectacularly into a support beam with a moist thud.
Even as his nanobot body instinctively repaired the damage, it took Drew a moment to realize what had just happened. Somebody had just shot at him – while he was trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown, for Criminy's sake! His arms flung out to brace against a pair of steel girders, and he scanned the dim interior of the tower, looking for something – anything – that didn't belong. But the boiling clouds of steam and the chaotic sirens made it almost impossible to concentrate …
Something came at him, from the direction in which he'd been shot at. A silhouette in the steam rocketed towards him on twin blue flames. Drew just had time to recognize it as a humanoid robot before it slammed into him with a high-speed tackle.
His body gave way upon impact, but he held fast to the steel girders with his arms, and wrapped his legs firmly around his attacker. Suddenly, instead of merely being a tackling dummy, he was using his assailant's momentum to his own advantage. The two robots swung violently against a bank of horizontal pipes, colliding with an impact that ripped a hole in two-inch-thick steel. Drew tumbled across the concrete floor, but he quickly righted himself. He grinned as he watched the attacker spin into a stack of orange barrels, and stumble back to its feet. A month or so ago, I would have been a stain on the wall by now, buddy. But he wasn't a pushover anymore, thanks to all those training sessions with –
"Jenny!?!?"
Drew's jaw dropped, as he saw his friend snarling in disgust at him through the steam. His mind raced, and his heart sank. He couldn't believe it – he didn't want to believe it – but here was Jenny, not more than twenty feet in front of him. She had a short laser cannon deployed from her left arm, which would account for the blast that had almost taken his head off. Jenny really was the saboteur, and she was willing to fire at him. Correction – already had fired at him. And she was preparing to do it again.
Drew raised his hands, hoping he'd be able to reason with her. "Jenny, come on – I know there's got to be a good reason for this. Tell me how I can help. I don't want to fight you!"
Jenny leveled her weapon at his chest, and it glowed with a pale blue light.
"You're still mad about the whole 'I'm a little teapot' thing. And that's cool! I can understand that!"
Another shaft of searing energy crackled through the roiling steam. Drew's body snapped into an evasive shape, but the laser still managed to slice off his left hand, just above the wrist. The glow from the laser hadn't even died off, when Jenny ignited her pigtail-jets, and made another charge at him while he was still disoriented. Drew didn't know what to do. All of the sudden, his robot friend seemed possessed of a killer instinct, intent on destroying him. And he simply could not accept that.
Jenny crashed into Drew again, engines firing at full thrust, and drove him through the scaffolding towers – before he could re-absorb his detached hand. Drew's body shuddered against the impact of dozens of pieces of steel tubing. He twisted his head around backwards, and to his horror, realized that Jenny was pushing him towards a massive power generator, and its whirling high-speed turbine blade. The blade would chop him into countless pieces, like a giant food processor. He'd never tried to re-assemble himself from something like that. He didn't want to practice now.
Instead of trying to escape Jenny's grip, he flowed his right hand over her eyes. Furiously, she clutched at his grasp, flying blind through the maze of pipes and scaffolds. They missed the turbine blades, and ricocheted off of a giant water pipe, heading off in a random direction. The world spun in dizzying circles, and then Drew realized that they were heading directly for the concrete wall at top speed …
The remaining workers outside ducked, as two robots exploded through the wall of the cooling tower, showering the parking lot with boulder-sized chunks of rebar concrete. Jenny finally wrenched her arms underneath Drew's grasp, and pried him free. They split apart and tumbled to the asphalt in separate directions, rolling and clattering fifty feet apiece until they came to a stop.
Drew's body gurgled and shimmered with waves of self-repair, and he spun around to face Jenny once more, desperately hoping to talk some sense into her. "Jenny, for Pete's sake, let me go back inside and turn the reactor off! Do you realize how many people will get hurt if there's a meltdown?"
Then he realized that Jenny was very badly damaged. Her right leg had been severed at the knee, and was lying a few feet away in a shallow crater. She got up on one leg, glared furiously at Drew, and hopped over to the crater where her leg sat.
Then the detached leg began to shimmer with waves of silvery-red distortion. The robotic limb quivered for a second, then liquefied into a mass of silvery-copper jello, shuddering with nervous energy. Thin tendrils of goo sprang from the mass, and snaked up to join with Jenny's leg stump, which itself was shimmering with waves of silver-red. Drew stared at her in shock as the puddle of goo flowed out of the crater, and reformed into a streamlined leg housing, complete with pale blue trim.
He grasped for words. "What … the heck … are you?"
"Jenny" simply smiled back at Drew, and raised her laser cannon once more, aiming for his head.
Drew grit his teeth, trying to summon as much courage as he could find in his nanobot body. On one hand, he was terrified … that robot just did something that only I'm supposed to be able to do. But he was also relieved – this meant that the saboteur was definitely not Jenny. The gloves could come off. He steeled his nerves, and flung his arms out to his sides, letting them stretch into long, curved nano-blades …
Then they were both knocked backwards, as a laser bolt slammed into the pavement between them.
Neither of them had been hurt, but both Drew and "Jenny" were extremely confused. They stared into the sky, trying to find the source of the mystery blast. They didn't have to look for long.
A huge silver saucer, twelve feet across, spun through the air like a giant discus, powered by glowing jets of rocket exhaust that circled its body. It swooped dramatically over their heads, and curled through the air with a graceful ease. Then it came to a stop in midair, hovering twenty feet off the ground … and started to transform. The giant discus divided into pie-shaped sections. Two wedges swung outwards, and extended a pair of robotic hands that were clenched in triumphant fists. Another pair of wedges swung downwards, unfolding into powerful robotic legs. Finally, a head deployed from the top … with a robotic face, a masculine jaw, and a pompous grin.
The saucer had transformed into a twelve-foot tall silver robot, who struck a photo-op pose, then dropped to the ground with an impressive crash. He thrust out his fantastically massive chest, which was adorned with a stylized spiral, and flexed his robotic biceps for all to admire. His mighty jaw jutted outwards, and his voice bellowed a single word, rising above the wail of the klaxon alarms …
"EXCELSIOR!"
Continued in Chapter Six / Eight Days to Cluster Dawn