A/N – Just in case you were wondering, I did not make up the name "Carbunkle". According to the official Teenage Robot blog, and the show's writers, that's Brad and Tuck's last name.
Betrayal From Within
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Eight – The Trap is Sprung
Tuck stomped through the knee-high grass, sulking to himself as he made his way back home from the woods. Once Jenny had left him all alone in the tree house, he'd grown bored of waiting for his big brother to get back from Mrs. Wakeman's place. "Brad said he was coming right back with some kind of repair kit gizmo," he moped, shoving his hands into his pockets. "The big dummy's probably home in the living room, playing video games. Ehh, who needs him." If he didn't want to spend any time with his little brother today, well, that was just fine with him.
As he cut across the neighbor's yard behind his house, Tuck noticed that the big black FBI vans were still parked out in front of Mrs. Wakeman's place. Bright, flashing lights in front of Jenny's house were a common enough sight that Tuck barely made a note of it. But … maybe they explained why Brad hadn't come back to the tree house. He'd probably gotten caught sneaking around! Ha, ha, Brad's in trouble with the FBI! Dad is SO gonna kill him! I've gotta see this! Laughing mischievously, he vaulted himself over the fence, and into the Wakeman's back yard.
The back door of the house was slightly ajar; Tuck snuck up to it, trying to hear what the FBI men were talking about. But there was no sound of activity, or conversation, coming from inside the door. In fact, the entire Wakeman property seemed to be unnaturally silent. It was like everybody had suddenly vanished. Tuck swallowed hard, and his knees started to shake a little bit. He took a few deep breaths, reached up to turn the knob, and swung open the back door with a long, drawn-out creeeeeeak. Then he tiptoed in towards the kitchen.
The inside of the house, if anything, was even more quiet than the outside. Tuck took a few steps, looking around cautiously … then he was startled by a sharp crunching sound. He nearly jumped out of his shoes … until he realized that it was just a bunch of broken light bulbs on the floor. Whew. Heh-heh. Light bulbs! Tuck chortled to himself, as he walked into the kitchen …
And tripped over a huge obstacle lying across the floor. He grumbled with irritation, got back to his feet, dusted off his shirt … and looked up to see Brad's dazed face, staring off into the distance like a zombie, with a trail of drool rolling down his chin.
"YYYYEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHH!!!"
Jenny peeked out from behind the empty shipping containers, being mindful to stay out of sight. The sound of a Skyway Patrol helicopter roaring overhead made her duck back into the shadows. It was very frustrating for her to hide – she preferred the head-on approach to handling problems – but it was even more frustrating to get shot at when you couldn't shoot back. She gave the clock on her wrist panel a quick check. The fifteen minutes were up, and she hadn't seen any cars drive through the chain-link fence. After that big speech Mom gave me about me not being late … she'd better show up pretty soon!
The co-ordinates on Jenny's chest monitor had led her to a run-down scrap yard, in an old industrial park on the outskirts of Tremorton. She never came to this part of town, and it was plain to see why. There was nothing here but factories, warehouses, junkyards, manufacturing and chemical plants … and half of them were abandoned and falling apart. The scrap yard hadn't seen any use in over a year. Piles of rusting iron beams and crushed automobiles sat idly in neat rows along the yard's tall fence, forming mountains of decaying metal. Jenny wasn't thrilled with her mother's choice of location. To a robot, a scrap yard had the unnerving feel of … a cemetery.
Oh, that's just silly, Jenny thought … almost convincing herself. A light breeze blew through the mounds of rusting junk, generating faint howls and whistles that filled the air with an eerie moan. Among the stacks of engine blocks and steel pipes, she thought she saw a few old obsolete robots … their once-shiny bodies rotting away into ghostly husks ... okay, get it together, girl. Don't let your imagination run away with you. This isn't one of those teen slasher movies. She clasped her hands behind her back, and rocked back and forth on her heels, softly humming a pleasant tune …
"Over here!" a voice shouted behind her.
"Eeeyikes!" she yelped, knocking over a stack of empty oil drums. Who on Earth was that? I know I'm the only person here – I scanned the whole scrap yard before I landed! I still don't see any cars … Suddenly, she spotted movement between two rusting piles of steel piping. A lone figure walked out into the open, twenty yards away, waving to get her attention. Jenny sighed with relief, feeling silly for her skittishness, and her face broke into a wide smile.
"Brad!" she shouted back to him. "Phew! You gave me a little bit of a scare, there."
"Brad! Brad!! BRAD!!!" Tuck shook his brother's head back and forth, trying to rouse him from his state of semi-consciousness. All he got for his efforts was a spray of saliva. He vigorously slapped Brad's cheeks with both hands, and was only answered with a soft, guttural groan. In desperation, he slid a chair up to the kitchen sink, climbed up to the counter, and turned on the cold water faucet. There weren't any glasses in the sink, but there was a spray hose …
Tuck grabbed the hose and jumped back to the floor, took aim … and blasted cold water into his big brother's face. Brad instantly snapped upright, frantically waving his arms to shield himself from his soaking. "Phppppt!! Tuck, I'm awake! I'm awake! What are you trying to do, drown me?"
"Ah … heh-heh … better safe than sorry," he chuckled, as his brother smoothed back his soggy hair. Then he grew serious again. "Brad, what's going on? What were you doing on the floor?"
Brad slowly got to his feet, feeling a bit wobbly, and leaned against the countertop. "I'm not sure … the last thing I remember is being … attacked … by …"
Suddenly their attention was drawn to another groaning sound, coming from the hallway … where a disheveled, white-haired woman in a yellow lab coat was leaning against the door.
Brad's eyes sprung wide open. "Mrs. Wakeman! Mrs. Wakeman attacked me!"
"GAAAHHHH!!!" Tuck mashed down the handle of the spray hose, and a blast of icy water shot across the kitchen, nearly knocking the doctor off of her feet.
The water quickly brought her back to her senses. "Blaaapt!! Stop! Stop!!! Heavens to Archimedes, turn off the water! I am not a rhododendron, you know!!!"
Brad snatched the hose out of Tuck's hands, halting the liquid assault on the doctor. The brothers grinned innocently as Mrs. Wakeman wiped off her glasses, her long hair drizzling water into puddles on the linoleum floor. "What on Earth are you two doing here?!?" she growled.
Brad stammered for a second, then gathered his nerve and grew a bit indignant. "Well ... what's the big idea zapping me with that electro-weapon gadget that … um … came out of your arm?!?"
Mrs. Wakeman's eyes flickered with fragments of memory. "I certainly didn't attack you, Bradley. In fact, it sounds like you encountered the same individual that I did … oh, my." The images in her mind were beginning to coalesce. "I remember … something in disguise …"
Brad flashed a pleasant smile, and waved for Jenny to come out from her hiding spot. She bounded over to the middle of the scrap yard, comforted to see his friendly face, but also feeling a little confused. "Hey, this is a surprise. I thought Mom was coming to meet me. Where is she, Brad?"
"Dr. Wakeman thought it might be best if I came instead," he explained, in an emotionless voice. "After all, she would have been followed by the police if she left the house. That's why I'm here. This way, we can be sure that we are … alone."
"Okaaaaay," she giggled, not quite sure what to make of Brad's odd tone. "Wow, you sure got here in a hurry. Did your dad let you drive the Turbo Wagon? I didn't see where you parked."
"That is not important," he said. "Dr. Wakeman told me to retrieve the optical drive from your black box. Open up your cranium access panel, please."
Jenny folded her arms across her chest, and gave him a bemused smirk. "Well, listen to you! A guy fixes up one pair of wires with a little masking tape, and suddenly he thinks he's a rocket scientist. Come on, Brad, stop joking around! You don't know the first thing about all the machinery inside of me, let alone something as sensitive as my black box!"
She may have been giggling, but Brad didn't so much as chuckle. He merely stared back at her with cold, serious eyes. "Dr. Wakeman explained the entire drive removal procedure to me. It won't be difficult. Open your cranium access panel, please."
Jenny arched a puzzled eyebrow, as she tried to decipher the expression on Brad's face. It was a little unlike him to be so stand-offish and serious; especially considering how warm he had been, only a half hour earlier, back in Tuck's tree house. Maybe he was upset that her mother had sent him out here on a boring errand. Whatever. One minute he's Mister Sensitivity, the next minute he's as frigid as the school nurse. "Okay … but don't monkey around with anything in there that you don't understand!"
"Don't worry," he said, with a faint smile. 'I won't."
"… A shape-shifter! Yes, I'm certain of it. An android composed of Cluster nanobots!" Mrs. Wakeman rubbed her chin. "It displayed the characteristic fluid structural properties that define …"
Brad flung his hands into the air to interrupt. "Wait … are you saying that Drew attacked us?"
She shook her head. "Of course not. Its coloring and default form were very different. And it displayed an ability to manufacture energy weaponry, which Andrew has yet to master … by Jove! Bradley, I believe the most probable explanation … is another Cluster nano-droid. A newer version, with nanobots that are more technologically advanced than Andrew's."
Brad snapped his fingers with a sudden revelation. "That would explain why everyone thought they saw Jenny attack those military bases! Mrs. W, if it can imitate you, then it can imitate Jenny, too! It's all a Cluster trick! I'm gonna run back to the tree house, and let Jen know what's going on!"
"But she's not there anymore!" said Tuck. "Mrs. Wakeman gave her a call on her monitor, and said …"
"Incorrect!" proclaimed Mrs. Wakeman. "I made no such call, Tucker. I've been … hmmm, wait a minute." She began to piece things together. "If XJ-9 received a call, and it wasn't from me …"
The doctor suddenly realized that her daughter was in grave danger.
"Merciful heavens! I must contact XJ-9 immediately, and warn her!"
The three of them rushed into the semi-darkened quarters of Mrs. Wakeman's laboratory. Naturally, Tuck screamed in terror again upon seeing the stunned FBI agents, who were still lying unconscious on the floor of the lab. While Brad tried to calm him down, Mrs. Wakeman rushed past both of them, and made a bee-line for her workbench. Her stubby fingers were dancing madly over the keyboard before she even landed in her chair. She called up the communications software module, and fired off a high-priority emergency signal to her daughter.
Click. Snap. Whirr. Jenny unlatched the access panel on the back of her head, and flipped it open to reveal the inner workings of her electronic brain. She felt a little vulnerable with her head hanging wide open, but nobody besides Brad was going to see her like this. "Okay, Brad, make it quick. I must look like a complete freak with my brains sticking out like this! Do you see that optical drive thingy?" She turned around, so he could access the back of her head.
"Brad" smiled, and slowly raised his right hand, which began to warble with crisscrossing waves of silver-red. His index finger stretched out, reaching for the main input jack …
When a shrill buzzing sound echoed through the afternoon air. Jenny reflexively looked down at her belly-bolt, and sure enough, it was flashing a soft blue. "Huh? Uh-oh … my mom's calling!"
But to her surprise, her chest-plate did not split open. A moment later, the belly-bolt was silent.
"It just stopped? That's bizarre. I don't think that's ever happened before!" She glanced over her shoulder at "Brad", with a perplexed look on her face – and she seemed to startle him, because he quickly whipped his right hand behind his back. Something weird was going on. "Mom never calls and hangs up – it's not like her to miss a chance to lecture to me. I wonder what happened?"
"Brad" clenched and unclenched his fists in frustration. "I'm sure it was nothing," he grimaced. "Now, stop moving your head around, and let me finish the job."
"Well, yes sir," she said sarcastically. She was still a little put off by Brad's sudden case of attitude, but she was more concerned about a possible malfunction in her circuits. She settled down to let Brad access the back of her metallic cranium, and decided to run a quick diagnostic on her communications system. There weren't any malfunctions, but she did find something unexpected. "All of my internal systems are normal, but I seem to be detecting a … jamming signal from somewhere."
"Jamming signal, huh?" smirked "Brad". "Imagine that."
Mrs. Wakeman ground her molars in frustration, as the message flashed on the screen in front of her: Transmission Error – Signal Lost. Normally, she would have interpreted that as a typical rebellion by her headstrong daughter. After all, Jenny had disconnected her belly-bolt in the past, to cut herself off from her mother's pestering. But telemetry readouts indicated that moodiness wasn't the cause of the present blackout. No connection was being established, because the signal was being jammed.
"I cannot get a message to XJ-9," she fretted. "I've tried three times, but there appears to be no way to warn her about the Cluster threat!"
Brad pried his little brother loose from his grip around his shins. "There's gotta be some way to call her – oh, hold up! My cell phone!" He fished it from his pocket, and speed-dialed Jenny's number.
"If the Cluster imposter made a monitor call to XJ-9, then there should be a record of it in the video log …" Mrs. Wakeman found and replayed the previous call, which had been made fifteen minutes earlier.
"Nuts!" shouted Brad. "I can't get a connection on my cell, either!"
Mrs. Wakeman frantically scribbled down notes as she watched the replayed call. Her frown deepened, as she realized how powerless she was to do anything at the moment. "The imposter arranged to meet XJ-9 at the old abandoned scrap yard on the other side of town. They are most likely both there, at this very minute! Bradley, Tucker – come, we haven't a moment to lose!"
She grabbed her car keys, and they all bolted for the front door. "And Bradley – I need to you to make one more phone call."
"Brad" scanned the fantastically complex electronics inside the back of Jenny's head, identifying the major circuits and subsystems. He saw the black box with the optical drive, and ignored it; he was only interested in the input jack that would give him direct access to her innermost mind, her central CPU core. Once more, his finger shuddered and grew into a long cable, snaking its way inside her body. He called up the Cluster Assimilation Software from his memory banks, and prepared to transmit it to …
Jenny snapped her head around again, once again disrupting "Brad's" efforts to complete his mission. "I don't know, Brad. Maybe I should find a phone somewhere, and give my mother a quick call. It might have been something important."
"We can do that after I'm finished here," he said, struggling to keep his temper in check. "Now knock it off and stand still for a second!" He grabbed her head from behind, trying to hold it steady …
"It'll only take a second to call her," she said, surprised by Brad's sudden forcefulness. An uneasy feeling was welling up from deep inside of her, and she realized that the cause of it was … Brad. The touch of his hand had always been a pleasant thing before; her sensors might not register any feelings, but they could detect warmth. But there was no warmth in Brad's touch right now. In fact, his hand almost felt … metallic. "Brad, what's your deal today? Is something wrong?"
"There's nothing wrong, XJ-9. Now if you'd just quit fooling around …"
Jenny spun around, and took a couple of steps away from "Brad", with a stunned expression on her face. "What did you just call me?"
Traces of anger and nervousness began to crack his emotionless front. "Nothing. I didn't say …"
"You've never called me XJ-9, never as long as we've ever known each other! What's the …" – then her voice trailed off, and her eyes locked onto "Brad's" right hand. His long, silvery index finger was still waving slowly back and forth in the air, like a frustrated serpent that had just been denied its dinner. Jenny gasped in shock, and recoiled with a look of disgust on her face ... which gradually turned into a angry scowl. She sealed up the panel on the back of her head, and assumed an aggressive posture. "Alright, 'Brad' … or whatever you are … just what are you trying to pull, here?"
His shoulders slumped in resignation, aggravated at the small mistake he'd made. "Very well," he said, in a synthesized voice which bore no resemblance to Brad's. "I attempted to do this in the most painless manner possible. Now it appears we'll have to do this the hard way."
Brad's slim frame and red hair began to gurgle and bubble, like the surface of a boiling liquid. Jenny was momentarily shocked as her best friend pulsed with waves of distortion, and turned into a shimmering column of shiny, silvery goo. She recognized the material instantly – those are nanobots! – and the first question she managed to form in her processors was, Why in the world would Drew pull a stunt like this? But just as quickly, she realized a more terrible truth. These nanobots were slightly different. The liquidy material had a reddish tinge to it, not a green one. And the column was morphing into a very different android – a tall, thin insectoid creature with a cruel, beak-like face.
"Default form reset," the hideous android announced. "Greetings, XJ-9. You may call me … Omni-droid. And I am here to bid you welcome and usher you into your new family … the Cluster."
Her fists shook with righteous anger. "You're made up of Cluster nanobots, just like Drew! That's what all this shape-shifting is about … hey … hold on! Another Cluster nano-droid?!?" Suddenly, the past twenty-four hours of her life started to make sense, and her fury boiled over. "It was YOU! You've been impersonating me, flying around all over the world, and destroying stuff! And you let me take the blame for it! All those tanks and planes have been trying to blow me up since yesterday, all because of YOU?!? Why you …"
With a series of lightning-fast transformations, Jenny deployed one of her giant mallets from her right hand. She leapt high into the air, drew her weapon high over her head, and came screaming down towards the Omni-droid … who strangely enough, didn't move an inch, didn't budge a claw, didn't twitch so much as an antenna. She swung with all her might, and splattered the Cluster nano-droid into a shower of thick, silvery paste. The mallet blasted a two-foot deep crater into the ground, and flung a curtain of shiny goo outwards like a blast wave.
"That's for totally messing up my life, you big Cluster jerk," she shouted.
But no sooner were the words out of her mouth, than the wall of silvery molasses reversed direction, curled inwards on itself, and concentrated back into a solid insectoid form. In seconds, the Omni-droid stood once more only a few yards away, showing no evidence that Jenny had ever laid a finger on it.
"XJ-9, this is a pointless expenditure of energy and time," sighed the Omni-droid, more as a statement of fact than a swaggering boast. "My mission is to assimilate you into the Cluster family, and I will succeed in that mission. My subterfuge was conducted to draw you out here alone, because I calculated that you would irrationally resist the gift of Cluster membership. I see that I was correct. Foolish XJ-9! The Cluster knows what is best for you!"
"Can't you Cluster doofuses take hint!?! I am never – going to join – the Cluster!!!" The nerve of those patronizing Cluster morons, thinking they know what's best for me! She picked up an engine block that weighed several hundred pounds, and hurled it towards the Omni-droid with the ease of a baseball. It struck him right in the middle of the chest …
… And stuck there, as if mired in a pool of tar. The Omni-droid gave the engine block a casual glance, and thin tendrils of silvery-red goo slithered out of its chest, engulfing the huge chunk of metal. The engine block began to shimmer with a shiny, coppery luster. Within seconds, it had been completely consumed and absorbed into the Omni-droid's body. "Very well then, XJ-9. For what it's worth, I am truly saddened that you have foolishly chosen to resist me. I will attempt keep your damage to a minimum!"
"You'd better worry about your own damage, mister," she taunted, as she ignited her pigtail-jets and hovered sixty feet into the air, giving herself time to think. Jenny tried to calm herself down, and reason things out. Okay, this guy has the same nanobot powers that Drew does. So I need to fight him the same way I fight Drew in practice, only this time, I set the guns on maximum. She wasn't going to get anywhere trying to brawl or wrestle with him, because he could simply flow out of her grasp … but he couldn't flow away if he was frozen solid. With a confident smile on her face, she cracked open her right elbow, and deployed the long, narrow barrel of her paralyzer ray.
But before she could take aim, to her amazement, she was tackled out of mid-air … by the Omni-droid! It had grown a pair of sleek, silver fairings out of the middle of its back, each of which housed a newly formed rocket engine. The fairings pivoted, aiming their thrust downward, and drove the two robots back to earth with a thunderous crash. They slammed into a tall pile of flattened automobiles, and tumbled amidst the wreckage as it scattered across the scrap yard's sorting area. Jenny and the Omni-droid scrambled back to their feet, to face off once more.
Jenny was more than a little surprised. "How … how did you do that?!?"
The Omni-droid glared back at her with a cool, calm expression. "I am far more advanced than that obsolete abomination that you associate with … and far more powerful. Observe."
He grew a set of tentacles out of his body, sprouted a set of large clamps, and grabbed onto one of the old crushed automobiles lying on the ground. With a smooth, fluid motion, he lifted it over his head, and jumped across the scrap yard, hurtling directly at Jenny. Her paralyzer ray was still deployed; she swung it in front of her, and fired off a brilliant green burst of energy. But it was blocked by the body of the crushed car … and a split-second later, the huge slab of flattened metal was on top of her, knocking her backwards with tremendous force. The Omni-droid drove her into the ground, and used the wieght of the crushed auto to pin her flat on her back, helpless and motionless.
Eight sets of nanobot-grown cables and spikes drove into the earth, securing Jenny and the car to the ground like tent pegs. She wriggled her shoulders furiously, trying to free the arm with her paralyzer ray, but she wasn't going to have enough time. The Omni-droid stretched its right arm out in front of her face. Its wrist warbled with crisscrossing waves of silvery-red, and two long, thin tendrils sprung up into the air, swaying back and forth like a pair of scorpions' tails. Then they twisted towards Jenny's face, and reared back to strike, a tiny pair of attackers preparing to corrupt her soul.
Her eyes froze in horror as the silvery tendrils lunged for her exposed temples …
Continued in Chapter Nine / Eight Days to Cluster Dawn