Betrayal From Within

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Seven – Setting the Trap

Catastrophe had been narrowly avoided, but there was still plenty of damage done to Spruce Ridge Reactor One.  Two large holes marred the smooth surface of the concrete cooling tower, and clouds of radioactive steam were threatening to drift into the atmosphere.  The workers had emergency equipment and patching materials for situations just like this, but it would be a few minutes until they could begin repairs.  The most important thing was to plug the holes as quickly as possible, and they needed all the help they could get.

Drew had grown his arms and hands into a large bulldozer blade, and grunted with effort to push the broken concrete and asphalt into a makeshift pile, sealing up the lower hole.  It took a few trips to complete the job – he was nowhere near as strong as Jenny, after all – and an extra pair of hands would have made things go a lot faster.  That's what Drew thought, anyway, as he looked over his shoulder at the Silver Shell, growling and mumbling under his breath.

"Hey, Shell!" he shouted, as he dumped his last load of rubble.  "I hate to interrupt your little photo session, but do you think you might give me a hand over here?!?"

The Silver Shell was smiling and waving to a small group of plant employees, who were lining up to snap photographs and shake his hand.  But the mechanical hero bristled at Drew's sarcasm, and shouted back at him with an edge in his voice.  "I'm kind of busy over here, okay?  Besides, you seem to be doing just fine with all that heavy lifting and stuff.  Keep up the good work … trusty sidekick."

Drew's jaw hit the ground.  "Wha?  Oh, no you didn't!  Sidekick!?!"  He reverted back to default form, and marched towards the giant robot with murder in his eyes.  The Shell saw him approaching, excused himself from his admirers, and stormed off to meet him half-way, in the middle of the parking lot.

Drew pointed a silver-green finger into the Shell's face.  "Why I oughta sidekick you right in the … look, get that chrome-plated butt over there and help me out!"

"Why should I?  It's your mess!" sneered the Shell, in a hushed voice.  "Besides, the right arm has severe structural and hydraulic damage, the power couplers are shot, and it's going to take me forever to clean up the mess in here, all thanks to you!"

"Arrrghhh!  That's it!"  Drew's scowling face gurgled and shimmered, and turned into a thin pillar of gooey paste.  Then it lunged towards the Silver Shell's face, flowed into his mouth, down his neck, and stretched into the cavernous interior of the robot's chest … where an angry Sheldon Lee sat at a fantastically complex control panel, surrounded by banks of television screens and computer monitors.  His face was covered in streaks of dark oil, and he was struggling with a huge socket wrench, trying to make repairs to his robotic exo-skeleton.  Sheldon Lee, high school nerd and robotics genius, who nobody in their right mind would have ever suspected of being a superhero.  At least, not until today.

The worm of silver paste expanded into a blob, and turned back into Drew's head.  "Sheldon, what the heck is your problem?  You have been on my case ever since you got here!"  He ground his teeth together, and grew even more irate.  "And … and just what are you even doing here, anyway?!?  What's the deal with riding around in this giant motorized bucket?!?"

"Hey, I came here because I thought my precious Jenny was in trouble," said Sheldon, in his familiar, nasally tone.  "I figured she could use help from somebody who really cares about her!"

"Yes, and you did such a fantastic job of it, too," hissed Drew, in a loud whisper.  "Thanks again for blowing my head off.  It's a lucky thing you didn't get us all killed!"

"Well, I'm so sorry for slowing you down.  Hey, tell me again how you defeated the villain and single-handedly saved the day."  Sheldon's eyes narrowed to a nasty squint.  "Oh, that's right … you didn't!"

"Well, how was I supposed to know how to fight an evil Cluster shape-shifter …"

"I guess you haven't been paying attention during your little 'training sessions', then," mocked Sheldon, making sarcastic 'quote marks' with his fingers.

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" snarled Drew.

"Don't play dumb with me!"  Sheldon waved a screwdriver at Drew's face, with the smug grin of someone who knew what the real story was.  "I remember back when you first had your little 'accident'.  All of the sudden there's a flashy new robot in school.  Oh, you said that you and Jenny were just friends.  Well, now you're spending more and more time with her.  And you're always over at her house for these private training sessions.  I see what's going on, buster!"

Drew was stunned into silence by the sheer absurdity of the conversation.  "Let me get this straight.  You think that I'm going over to Jenny's house after school – to get myself zapped, stretched, pummeled, pounded, sliced, folded, probed, strained, squashed, and blown up – and it's all part of some ingenious plan to make a move on her?"

Sheldon expected Drew to shrivel up and apologize now that his disingenuous scheming had been exposed.  But instead, his silver-green face boiled with fresh anger.

"You pimple-brained twit!  Yes, that's it exactly!  I want to date Jenny, but instead of just … oh, I don't know, asking her out after class … I figure she'll be more impressed if I let her watch me splatter myself into a cloud of pudding droplets a couple of times a day!"  He struggled to control his temper.  "Sheldon … I've got my own reasons for doing this, but they don't include hitting on Jenny.  This 'global defense' stuff is hard, and it's serious, and it's dangerous.  Only a crazed idiot would go around risking his life, playing at being a robot hero, just to impress a girl …"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Drew realized the truth about the Silver Shell.  The pained expression on Sheldon's face merely confirmed things for him.  "Oh, crap … that's exactly what you're doing, isn't it?  You built this robot suit because you wanted to impress Jenny!"

Sheldon sunk back into his chair with a mournful sigh, as he recalled the painful memories.  "That wasn't the original idea," he moped.  "I still remember that terrible day, when Jenny told me that she should be dating someone more like herself – a nice 'robot boy'.  I built the Silver Shell to show her that she didn't need a robot boy to love her, when she had me right in front of her!  But things … didn't quite work out like I'd hoped.  Anyway, I still use the Silver Shell to protect Jenny, whenever I can.  If that's what it takes for me to be close to my true love, then … so be it!"

"Oh, give me a break," groaned Drew.  "That's got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life."

"It's not stupid!" protested Sheldon, clutching his hands to his heart in a grand, melodramatic gesture.  "True love can drive a man to do unbelievable things!  He would swim the widest river, climb the tallest mountain, and build the biggest robot, if that's what it took to win the heart of his beloved!  If you don't understand that, then how can you really be in love with Jenny?"

"Arrghh!!!  Sheldon, for the last time, I'm not in love with Jenny!"  Drew was losing what remained of his patience.  "Just look at me!  I'm a gooey sack of silver snot, okay?  I figured out long ago that my romantic prospects were pretty much in the toilet.  The girls do not go wild over a shiny blob of pizza dough, okay?  So you can just relax … you don't have anything to worry about from me!"

The tension was dripping down the walls inside the cavernous chest of the mighty robot.  Sheldon folded his arms with a huff.  "I suppose you're going to blab to everyone at school now, that the Silver Shell is really just geeky old Sheldon Lee."

Drew rolled his eyes.  "Sheldon, I couldn't care less about what you do in your spare time.  If you want to run around in this big tin jumpsuit, hey, I ain't yer pappy.  I won't tell anyone, I promise."

That seemed to calm things down a bit, and Drew heaved with a deep, tired sigh.  This conflict wasn't going to be resolved anytime soon, and there were bigger things to worry about right now.  "Look, there's one thing we agree on.  Jenny is our friend, and we're both really worried about her.  The robot saboteur that attacked us was from the Cluster, and I'll bet you a million bucks that it's going after her.  It's going to try and assimilate her, just like it tried to assimilate the 'Silver Shell'."

Sheldon nodded his head.  "Then we've gotta follow it back towards the city!  But … the Shell is pretty banged up.  The rocket motors work, but the struts they're connected to are damaged.  I don't think I can make it all the way back to Tremorton."

"I'm not going anywhere either," groaned Drew.  "Doc Wakeman's jetpack got flattened like a pancake when that Cluster robot beat the stuffing out of me."

Both of the second-string heroes sighed with frustration, trying to figure out how they were going to get back to the city.  Drew could morph his body into any structural shape, but he couldn't make a rocket engine to propel himself.  The Silver Shell had powerful rocket motors, but his structure was damaged and in need of repairs.  A ridiculous thought formed in Drew's mind; a quick and dirty solution that he wasn't thrilled with.  But it would get both of them back to Tremorton in minutes, instead of hours.

"Okay, Sheldon, if you're willing to declare a truce … I think we can help each other out."

She would have been embarrassed by her rude behavior under different circumstances, but Jenny was feeling too thirsty, and her motors and gears were in serious need of fresh lubricant.  Besides, she doubted that Tuck worried much about table manners in his tree house.  She chugged the last bottle of motor oil in one long drink, then quickly slapped her hand to her mouth, as an air bubble worked its way out of her oil pan.  "Excuse me!" she blushed.  "That really hit the spot, Tuck.  Thanks!"

"No problem, Jenny!  And may I say, not a bad burp … for a girl.  Although for maximum effect, you really should project from your diaphragm.  Observe!"  The little fellow pounded back his can of lime soda, and proudly unleashed a wall-rattling belch.

"Eww, disgusting!" she laughed.

"Thank you!" he chuckled, giving her a sweeping bow.  "Besides, it's the least I could do to make you feel at home, during your stay here in stately Tuck Manor.  Are you sure you have all the oil you need?"

"Let me check, really quick."  Jenny opened her mouth, reached down her throat, and pulled out a long, metal dipstick.  "The little line is right on 'Full', just where it's supposed to be!"

"So you're back to full power, then?"  He playfully swung his fists through the air.

"It isn't quite that simple, Tuck," she sighed.  "Even with Brad's little masking tape repair, my left arm still feels kind of weird.  I'm not sure if my self-repair circuits are working properly.  I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I really wish my mom was here right now.  Not only could she fix me up … but with everyone in the world out to get me, it would be nice to have somebody around that I can trust."

"Hey!" protested Tuck, feeling very offended.  "What am I, chopped liver?"

Jenny smiled apologetically, and wrapped her arms around him in a crushing hug.  "Oh, Tuck, I didn't mean anything by that!  I know that I'll always be able to trust my real friends, like you.  It's just that … well, after I've saved the Earth so many times, and saved the lives of so many people … I thought that everyone was finally starting to trust me."  Her pigtails drooped slightly, she set Tuck down, and sank back against the wall.  "You'd think that after a few hundred meteors, dam breaks, and alien invasions, people would get a clue, and realize that I'm one of the good guys!  After the ceremony on Monday, it seemed like the town was finally starting to accept me.  But just like that …" – she snapped her fingers – "… they thought that I had betrayed them.  I guess I found out what everyone really thinks of me."

Tuck tried to think of something comforting to say.  "They don't think that you betrayed them, Jenny.  They just think you blew a gasket and went on an uncontrollable rampage of destruction!"

Jenny folded her arms, and gave him a nasty stare.  He tugged awkwardly at the collar of his shirt, and gulped.  "That doesn't help, does it?"

Fortunately, Tuck's attempt at cheering up was interrupted by a shrill buzzing noise.  Although it was a very familiar sound, it caught Jenny completely by surprise, and it took her a second to believe her auditory inputs.  Her belly-bolt was flashing.  But that must mean …

Jenny's chest split open, and a long pole projected outwards to unfold into the chest monitor.  It blinked to life, and sure enough, there was her mother, staring back at her!

"Greetings, XJ-9," she said, in a calm, nonplussed voice.

Jenny's face broke into a huge grin.  "Mom!  I can't believe it!  It's really you!"  She grabbed her monitor, and drew it closer to her face.  "What a relief!  Are you all right?  Did they really take you to jail?"

"Calm down, XJ-9," answered the doctor, without a trace of emotion in her face.  "I am back at the house, in my laboratory.  I am attempting to retrieve computer records, and assemble a pattern of evidence that will reassure the government that you cannot possibly be the saboteur."

Jenny planted her fists on her hips with a frustrated clank, and smiled sarcastically at the monitor.  "Why, yes, Mom, I'm just fine … thank you for asking!  I've been evading every air force and army in the world for the past twenty-four hours, and my arm's hanging together with masking tape and pipe cleaners, but other than that, I'm feeling super!"

"I don't understand," her mother said, with a look of mild confusion on her face.  "Obviously you are feeling fine, or else you would have not been able to answer your monitor.  Plus, your remote telemetry link indicated that the arm malfunction is a minor one, and all of your remaining systems are operating nominally, within acceptable parameters."

"What-ever," huffed Jenny.  "You get so excited over stupid little stuff, but then a real crisis comes along, and you're talking about 'acceptable parameters'.  Are you sure you're feeling all right?  You sound like you could use a cup of coffee, or something."

"That is not important," droned Mrs. Wakeman, in a hypnotic monotone voice.  "I must retrieve the optical drive from your on-board 'black box' recorder.  With it, I can prove your innocence."

Jenny squealed with joy.  "That's awesome, Mom!  I can be back at the house in sixty seconds …"

But to her surprise, her mother shook her head.  "Negative, XJ-9.  There are many law enforcement officials here, and you would be in jeopardy if you returned to the house.  I want you to …"

"Wait, I don't get it.  If they trust you enough to go back to the house, why won't they trust me?"

"That is not important.  Now, I will meet you at the following location in fifteen minutes …"

"What do you mean, not important?" shouted Jenny.  "It's not important that nobody trusts me?"

Mrs. Wakeman started to reply, but then stopped suddenly in mid-sentence, and a shiver seemed to run through her body.  Her expressionless face twitched slightly … and then grew very annoyed, with her thin lips bent into a frown.   She shook her finger into the screen in a scolding gesture.  "XJ-9, we do not have time for another one of your angst-riddled adolescent outbursts!  I told you that it wasn't safe to come back to the house right now, and that should be good enough for you!  Now, be a good robot, and obey your mother!  I am transmitting a set of co-ordinates to your monitor screen.  I will meet you there in precisely fifteen minutes."  She folded her arms across her yellow lab coat, and her eyes narrowed into a authoritarian stare.  "Not twenty, not sixteen … fifteen minutes.  Do try to be on time for once!"

The monitor screen blinked off, and Jenny balled her hands in frustration as the device retracted back into her chest.  "Aauuuugghh, Mom just makes me so mad sometimes!  Tuck, did I do anything wrong there?  Wasn't I asking perfectly reasonable questions?"

Tuck had listened to the entire exchange, and was scratching his chin, feeling a bit puzzled himself.  "Yeah, Jenny … I think you're right, but it was like your mom didn't want to talk about anything.  And she sounded a little weird, if you ask me.  Uh … until the end, when you two were going at it like cats and dogs.  That part sounded perfectly normal!"

"Ha, ha," she smirked back at him.  "I guess she's just feeling stressed about everything that's happened over the past couple of days.  Well, it sounds like things should be back to normal pretty soon.  Or whatever passes for normal in my freaky life."

With a whirr of motors and pumps, she rose to her feet and walked over to the hole in the floor.  Jenny thanked Tuck one more time, ignited her pigtail-jets, and shot out of the tree house like a missile.  It felt good to get back in the air again, even if she did have to take care to remain unseen.  She checked her internal clock – there was plenty of time to get to the rendezvous point.  That would give her a chance to dwell on her mother's weird attitude during the monitor call.  Well, she thought, even for all of Mom's weirdness, it'll be still be nice to see her again.  At least she's somebody else I can trust.

The monitor in the laboratory winked off, and all was quiet once more, except for the doctor's agitated breathing, as she tried to calm herself down from the heated exchange.  That in itself would not be unusual, except for the fact that the figure in front of the monitor wasn't actually Mrs. Wakeman.  The Omni-droid had molded its nanobot body, changing to assume the doctor's appearance, and perfectly replicating her voice.  It had downloaded the knowledge from the doctor's brain – that was how it knew to use the monitor to contact XJ-9, and how it knew about XJ-9's remote telemetry link, and the existence of her "black box".  The Omni-droid now had a perfect copy of the information from Mrs. Wakeman's mind.

But it had apparently gotten a little extra something.  It staggered a few steps backward, and clutched a hand to its forehead, as if experiencing a headache – something quite impossible for a robot.  It also felt a strange sensation buzzing through its internal network … a sense of aggravation towards XJ-9.

"Why does that girl have to be so infuriatingly stubborn?" the Omni-droid groaned out loud.  Still in Mrs. Wakeman's form, it clutched its long, white hair in its fists – a very illogical behavior, it realized.

It was only interested in using the doctor's knowledge and appearance to trick XJ-9.  The plan had been to first turn the authorities against her – that part of the plan had worked to perfection.  Now that XJ-9 was the most hunted robot on the planet, the second part of the plan was to imitate her creator … her "mother" … when the robot girl was feeling alone and vulnerable.  Logic dictated that XJ-9 would feel her closest bonds of friendship and trust with her "mother".  They would meet in a remote place, just the two of them, where there would be no interference and no witnesses.  And then the Omni-droid would strike, and before XJ-9 knew what had happened to her, she would be pledging allegiance to the Cluster.

But the Omni-droid had been confused by XJ-9's reaction to her "mother" on the monitor link.  She seemed to trust her, but she had also been insubordinate and argumentative.  The Omni-droid was having difficulty deciphering what that meant …

There was a soft creak from the back of the house, and the sound of a door closing.  The Cluster robot snapped back to full attention.  There were only four humans in the house: three FBI agents, and Dr. Wakeman.  All of them were lying on the floor of the laboratory, in varying states of unconsciousness.  The Omni-droid knew that there were more agents outside the house.  Now somebody was sneaking in through the back.  Waves of energy coursed through its body.  It retained the doctor's appearance for camouflage purposes.  But its nanobots were primed and ready to strike.

The Omni-droid slowly made its way back towards the kitchen, where the mystery sounds were coming from.  Its eyes warbled slightly, and it switched to infrared mode – confirming that there was definitely a single human entering the house through the back door.  Waves of silver-red began to ripple through its back, and it squeezed off a short tentacle that could grow into a taser whip at a moment's notice.  It peered its head around the kitchen door …

And saw a young man, an adolescent male, rummaging through a small utility closet.  He was about five foot nine, with a slim frame, and had spiky red hair.  Apparently he was familiar with the layout of the house.  He was searching for something, trying to be quiet, although he was clumsily dropping spare parts and equipment on the floor.  Perhaps there was some record of him in Dr. Wakeman's memories …

"Excuse me?" asked "Dr. Wakeman".  "Can I help you?"

"Yikes!" shouted Brad, nearly jumping out of his shoes.  He knocked over a delicate pile of vacuum tubes on the top shelf of the coat closet, which rained down around him, shattering on the floor.  He grinned at the Omni-droid, as he shielded his head with his arms.  "Mrs. Wakeman, is that you?  Wow, you nearly scared me half to death!  I didn't know you were back home already!  Awesome!  So, eh … how's it hangin'?  Umm … heh-heh … sorry about your light bulbs."

Confirm identification … Bradley Carbunkle, neighbor, attends high school with XJ-9.  "Bradley, what are  you doing here?  Why are you sneaking into the house?"

Brad flinched, as the last of the vacuum tubes bounced off of his head.  "Oh … uh … I just needed to borrow something from your lab, ma'am.  It's real important.  I was going to bring it back, honest!"

"What is so important, that you could not wait to simply ask for it?" queried the Omni-droid.

Brad looked both ways, making sure that nobody else was within earshot.  "It's not for me, Mrs. W!  I was looking for some kind of portable repair kit, for Jenny!  Heh, listen to me … I guess I don't need a repair kit now!  Now that you're out of the big house, you can just fix up Jenny yourself."

The Omni-droid relaxed a bit, calculating that it was highly unlikely this "Brad" human posed any kind of a threat.  Then something occurred to it.  "Bradley, did you say 'a repair kit for XJ-9'?  Do you actually know where she is?"

"Know where she is?  I was just with her," grinned Brad.  "And you can relax, Mrs. W.  Jenny's feeling fine!  She just needed a place to sleep, and a little time to run her self-repair thingamajigs.  She had a few injuries, but nothing too serious.  Come on, I'll take you back to her!"

Suddenly this "Brad" human became very interesting to the Omni-droid.

"XJ-9 went to you … for help, and comfort, in her time of need?"

"Well … yeah, I guess you could say that.  Sure."  Brad arched a quizzical eyebrow; something about Mrs. Wakeman seemed a little … off.

"And she allowed you to perform repairs on her … she trusts you very much?"

"Um … yeah … yeah, she does."  Okay, this is getting weird.

Mrs. Wakeman took a few steps towards the red-haired teenager. 

"XJ-9 considers you to be a … friend, then," she said, in an eerie, monotone voice.  "A close friend."

"Well, Mrs. W, I mean …" Brad squirmed a little, and tugged at the collar of his shirt.  The question made him feel a little uncomfortable.  Mrs. Wakeman was Jenny's mother, after all.  "… Jenny and I aren't just close friends.  We're best friends."

Mrs. Wakeman grinned up at Brad, analyzing him through her thick eyeglasses.  She was standing directly in front of him now.

"That will do nicely."

Brad was just about to make a comment about the doctor's creepy behavior, but the words stuck in his mouth as she raised her left arm.  It warbled with rippling patterns of silvery-red, shuddering as if it were made of gelatin, and began to change shape.  Two long, thin tendrils flowed out of her wrist, and waved back in forth in the air like a pair of silver cobras …

He felt a pair of objects strike him in the temples, and an electric shock ran through his head.  For a split second, it felt like his brain was exploding with sound and images, like a million television channels running at the same time.  The last thing he saw was an evil grin on Mrs. Wakeman's face …

Then everything was darkness.

Continued in Chapter Eight  /  Eight Days to Cluster Dawn