Escape From Paradise

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Three – Welcome to Scenic Cluster Prime

The train's horn blared faster and faster now, overpowering the wail of Jenny's saw blades as they ripped into the thick metal enclosure. Both of her arms were free, but her legs were still bound tightly to the heavy U-shaped harness, which was lying in the middle of the magnetic track. The yellow containment barrel that had imprisoned Drew now lay sawed neatly in half. Silvery-green syrup drizzled out of the barrel, forming a large pool of shiny molasses on the tunnel floor; but it just sat there, bubbling and oozing, showing no signs of life. Another horn blast, and the blinding glare of the train's headlights, brought her attention back to her own immediate problems.

She added the power of her eye-beams along with the saw blades, frustrated by the toughness of the metallic alloy. The restraint on her left leg was giving way. But she'd never free her right one in time …

Then she felt a measure of slack – and saw that the puddle of nanobots had spawned long floppy tentacles, which had wrapped themselves around the heavy casing. It grew soft and doughy, and turned a shimmering, silver-green color. She grinned with relief – Drew was all right, and he was eating the restraint on her right leg! With a surge of strength, she burst her left leg free. Then the bonds on her right leg dissolved into sludge, and the teenage heroine sprung to her feet, with only seconds to spare. She could see the terror on the robot's face in the onrushing train's windshield.

Click-snap-whirr. Her newly freed legs transformed into a huge drill, and screamed up to full speed. Jenny scooped Drew's doughy body into her arms, and ripped into the wall of the tunnel – just feeling the passing train nick the tip of her pigtail, as she carved her way through the rock. Seconds later, a deafening crash told her that the train had collided with the wreckage from the first accident, and Jenny decided that she'd had enough of tunnels for a while. She angled her body upwards, and began to climb towards the surface, and the unknown dangers that awaited them there. Chunks of rock and gravel fell back in her face, while she clutched the blob of silver taffy protectively in her arms. Jenny had no idea how far underground they were. She must have bored through two hundred feet of rock already …

Then a shaft of light struck her in the eyes, and moments later, they spilled out onto a hard concrete surface. Jenny rolled away from the freshly dug hole, and let Drew's body flow into a sticky blob a few feet away. Then she just flopped onto her back while her legs reverted to normal, and struggled to calm herself down. She was exhausted, and stunned … and terrified.

As her energy reserves recovered, she heard a welcome gurgling sound. The silver-green blob was oozing and stretching back into a humanoid figure. Tentacles sprang out, turning into arms and legs, and a head sprouted up, wearing a weary face. With a final shimmering wave through his body, Drew was back in android form, sitting on the ground next to Jenny, with his face buried in his hands. Then he slowly looked up at her, and the two robots exchanged a sigh of relief – for each other, and for themselves.

"I'm going to have nightmares about barrels for the rest of my life," he gasped. He looked around with darting, paranoid eyes. "Jenny, do you have any idea where we are?"

"Not really," she panted, still recuperating from her harrowing ordeal. "That tunnel went from the military base to Vexus' palace. So that means we're somewhere between the two … gulp … probably right in the middle of the Cluster capital!"

"The Cluster capital?!?" The realization crashed down on him like a ton of bricks. "We're in the middle of the freakin' capital of Cluster Prime!?! Oh, we are so dead."

"Okay-okay-okay, relax!" babbled Jenny … not sounding very relaxed herself. "We've just got to stay cool, and make sure we don't run into any more Cluster goons."

"Right, on a planet with billions of assimilated zombie robots," he said, sarcastically rolling his eyes. They got to their feet, and realized that they were inside some kind of building. Rows of shelves stretched off in every direction, loaded with boxes and containers of every imaginable size and shape. Conveyors and transport tubes hung from the ceiling, carrying boxes around to different parts of the room. The air was filled with the sounds of motion – and the whirr of robotic servo motors. Jenny snuck a quick peek around a stack of crates, and saw dozens of robots walking back and forth amongst the shelves. "Oh no – this place is crawling with Cluster creeps!" she said, in a loud whisper. "This must be some kind of military storage warehouse, for all their evil weapons and junk. We've got to get out of here!"

"I've got more good news," Drew whispered back, with a look of panic on his face. "I can hear voices coming up from our escape tunnel. I think some of Smytus' little roach dudes are following us!"

"Oh, perfect," gulped Jenny, gnawing on her metallic fingers. The only door she could see was on the far side of the room; right now, it seemed to be a million miles away. "Okay, follow me and be quiet!"

The two teenagers followed one of the tall shelves to the side of the room, in hopes of sneaking out against the wall unnoticed. They sprinted from shelf to shelf, glancing down the aisles to make sure no-one was looking, edging ever closer to the exit. They were making good progress – but halfway to the door, three tall forklift-robots turned a corner and clanked in their direction. Jenny grabbed Drew and dove behind a large round storage bin, clumsily knocking a pile of thin plastic packets onto the floor beside them. She prayed that the sudden motion hadn't been noticed.

She kept a nervous eye on the forklift-bots, mentally wishing they would just go away. Curious, Drew picked up one of the white packets and inspected it. "Jenny, these are envelopes," he whispered. "Check it out, it says … it says … 'Happy Birthday, Uncle Flexo?'"

"Wha?" She double-blinked in confusion, and grabbed the envelope from his hands …

"Halt, unauthorized units! You are in a restricted area!" The mechanically synthesized voice nearly scared them out of their wits. They had been discovered by a lanky bronze robot, who glared down at them menacingly with his single optical sensor. His double-jointed arm whined into motion, its servo motors buzzing madly as it reached out towards Jenny – and snatched the envelope away from her.

"If you are picking up a package," it bellowed, "you have to take a number, just like everyone else!"

Then the bronze robot pushed the stunned, and baffled, teenagers towards the exit. The door slid open, leading to a bright, pleasantly decorated room with … a service counter. Half a dozen robots stood patiently in line, holding boxes and packages of their own. A couple of them took notice of the teenage troublemakers, then turned their attention back to the cheerful robots working behind the counter. The walls were covered with colorful posters bearing catchy slogans. To his astonishment, Drew realized that they were … advertisements. "Empire Express," he read out loud. "Guaranteed overnight delivery anywhere in the Empire … or your money back? What the …"

"Uh … okay, so maybe this isn't a military warehouse," said Jenny, scratching her head. In fact, she was taken aback by the sheer normalcy of the place. And the robots weren't intimidating insectoid warriors; they were pleasant, ordinary folk, just going about their business.

"Aaah … They don't seem to be as … zombie-ish as one might expect," stammered Drew, with a puzzled look on his face. He wandered across the carpeted floor, trying not to stare at the robot customers, towards a set of glass double-doors … and froze in place, with a look of amazement on his face.

Jenny chased after him … then she got to the glass, too. After a few seconds of stunned silence, they walked through the doors, into the outside air. And looked up.

"Whoa," she croaked, in a weak voice.

"Holy … schnikey," he gasped.

Skyscrapers soared hundreds of stories into the warm red sky, majestically towering over them like a stainless steel forest, shimmering with soft hues of green and blue, copper and gold. To their left, a dark obelisk rose towards the clouds, glistening like a polished black pearl; to their right was a graceful tower of intricate latticework, covered in tinted glass that made it glisten like a giant sapphire. Each building had an individual grace and design all its own; some loomed as symbols of might and power, others rose in fanciful swoops and curves that seemed more like works of art. Signs, billboards, and holograms were scattered over the faces of the buildings, flashing a dizzying array of messages that added even more vibrancy and color to the cityscape. Transport tubes and elevators ran up and down the sides of the towers, and high-level skyways connected them with their neighbors; there were streets and avenues down at ground level, but this was a city that used all three available dimensions.

That was evident from the traffic. Hovercars, hover-trucks, hover-buses, hover-taxis … thousands of vehicles flew overhead, stacked in crisscrossing layers of aerial traffic every hundred feet or so. It seemed impossible that so many vehicles could fly safely in so many different directions at once, but the blizzard of cars flowed along with grace and efficiency, tracing hypnotic patterns through the skies with effortless ease. Some vehicles pulled up to the top floors of the skyscrapers, stopping at sky-high doorways to unload passengers. Dozens of monorails hummed between buildings along ribbons of airborne rail; some of the tracks were built into the sides of the towers themselves, to service their higher elevations. The city was a chaotic symphony of motion and activity.

And there were robots; robots in more sizes and shapes that Jenny had imagined could exist. Robots traveling alone, and in pairs, and in families with small robot children, even some with robotic pets. Humanoid robots walked along on two, three, or four legs; some robots rolled on wheels or treads; some hovered by with propellers or anti-grav generators. Tiny robots no bigger than a toaster whizzed past, zigzagging their way between pedestrians; hulking ten-foot loader-bots labored behind parked transports, moving cargo and supplies. Robots drove by overhead in hovercars and hover-buses. Robots zipped past on the monorail. Fat, thin, short, tall, round, cylindrical, boxy, streamlined … in every conceivable color. There were thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.

They gazed up at the Cluster capital, and the planetary ring that stretched from horizon to horizon, arcing magnificently over their heads as if a brass rainbow was holding up the sky. "Incredible," Jenny finally managed to say. "It's … it's incredible."

Then they were snapped from their trances by sounds of commotion coming from behind, back in the sorting room of Empire Express. Drew glanced back through the windows, then grabbed Jenny by the arm, pulling her down the sidewalk in a panic. "It's them! Smytus and his merry band of stooges! And they're talking to that bronze guy who kicked us out!"

That was all she needed to hear. Jenny took off in a sprint, dodging around annoyed robotic pedestrians, without a clue as to where she was running. Struggling to keep up with her, Drew glanced over his shoulder every few seconds to see if anyone was following them. The crowded sidewalk made for a frustratingly slow pace; then they came to an intersection, and just missed the crossing lights. Heavy cargo vehicles whished by at high speed, kicking up faint whirlwinds of dust and smoke.

Jenny thought about using her pigtail-jets, then got a better idea. On the outside of the pewter-colored building behind them, she saw a large elevator capsule, resting at ground level. The electronic sign over the doors read "Express to 100th floor". They slipped in, just as the doors slid shut … and vaulted into the air on a magnetic rail, like they'd been fired out of a cannon. The speed caught Jenny by surprise, though it didn't seem to bother the other passengers at all. As the ground shrank away from them, she saw a group of robots roughly pushing their way along the sidewalk – and a telescopic zoom of her eyes confirmed that it was Smytus and his team of roach-drones. Jenny nudged Drew in the ribs, and pointed down with a smile – seeing their pursuers shrink into a collection of dots filled them with a sense of relief.

The capsule decelerated quickly but smoothly, and opened onto a new level of walkways encircling the skyscraper, hundreds of feet above street level. The robot teens spilled out of the elevator, and merged with another busy stream of pedestrian traffic. They walked around the building's gleaming exterior, admiring a series of beautiful frescos molded into its walls. The path led to an elevated skywalk, which spanned the distance across the street, bridging two skyscrapers. Transparent panels in the skywalk's walls gave a spectacular view of the towering buildings that lined the street, stretching from the heavens to the earth. Rivers of flying cars sped past in both directions, above their heads and below their feet.

Still in a wondrous state of shock, Jenny had a sudden revelation, and a smile crept onto her face. Drew was staring out the skywalk windows like a little kid, and it took a few seconds to get his attention. "Look around us," she said. "Look at all these robots around us! What do you see?"

"A lot of them," he said. "I sort of figured there would be, but it's still amazing …"

"No, no, no!" she grinned. "They're ignoring us. We're just another pair of robots here … nobody's staring at us like we're a couple of freaks!"

She could see the light go on in his eyes, as he realized what she was saying. "We blend in," he smiled. "A six-foot robot girl, and a silver-green android boy … and we just blend in!"

The skywalk led to a huge, semi-circular balcony covered with artificial plants, crystal sculptures, and a spectacular fountain lit up with colored laser beams. The patterns painted on the water were so beautiful, and Jenny wished that she could just stop and watch – but constant movement was their best defense. Besides, most of the robots were heading for a wide row of sliding glass doors. Over the doors was an elaborate sign, made of wrought iron, which read "Welcome to the Capital Galleria."

"No … way," said Jenny, with excitement bubbling in her voice. She bolted through the doors so quickly that Drew nearly lost her. Grumbling with irritation, he weaved his way through the robotic pedestrians, and caught up to her inside … where she stood ramrod-straight, with a look of rapture on her face.

Rows upon rows of stores and shops spread away from them in a great circle, decorated with lasers and holograms and colorful logos. The open area in the middle of the shops was larger than a football field, and was configured as a recreational area for robotic citizens to rest and relax. Ten layers of shops were stacked one on top of the other, ten spectacular circles of glamour and lights that reached up towards a great crystal rotunda that shone with the warmth of a noonday sun. Dozens of vertical elevator tubes were arranged around the circle, providing quick passage to any level. Thousands of robots, in every variety imaginable, rolled and scurried busily between the stores, filling the tower's interior with the chatter of conversation, against a backdrop of soft electronic music piped in through a speaker system.

"You've got to be kidding me," chuckled Drew, as he took in the spectacle. "Wow, this is really something else … Jenny? Hmm? Jenny?" He snapped his fingers in front of her face, getting no response. Jenny had entered nirvana. "It's the mall of my dreams," she squeaked, as she walked onto a great stainless steel escalator. Drew hopped on behind her, shaking his head in amusement and disbelief.

Jenny's head snapped back and forth, trying to take in everything at once. Hundreds of robot girls – and guys – walked alone, and in groups, between stores filled with everything a young robot could possibly want. There were stores filled with glamorous body panels and paints, new arms and legs, attachments and upgrades; the very latest in robotic fashion. Stylish chassis designs were on display in the windows of shops like Robocrombie & Switch, Hot Sprocket, Limited Tool, Logic Gap, and … blush! … Victoria's Circuits. Robot families shopped for furniture at Crank and Barrel, and wheeled shopping carts of housewares out of JC Pulley. You could recharge your power cells at Battery Barn. You could get your feet re-surfaced at Tread Locker. Beauty salons hummed with the sounds of polishing tools and grinding wheels. Robots relaxed at a gourmet petro-café, sipping one of the hundreds of available blends of oil. It was the type of place that Jenny would dismiss as an impossible dream.

They got off the escalator in front of Gears-Roebuck, one of the larger stores, and took a moment to collect themselves. Jenny gazed in wonder at the colorful sculptures of stars and planets, hovering in the air over the common plaza area. Drew gawked like a rubbernecking tourist … he felt like he was on the set of a science fiction movie. Then he laughed, nudged Jenny's arm, and nodded his head towards three cute robot boys, riding up the escalator. Jenny's cheeks flashed blue as she realized that they were checking her out. "Want me to tell them I'm your brother?" chuckled Drew.

That earned him a smack in the ribs, and suddenly they broke out into a fit of laughter. Drew leaned back against an elevator tube, wiping the hair out of his eyes. "Okay … if I asked you yesterday to describe what Cluster Prime would be like … is this what you would have thought of?"

Jenny shook her head no, and then grew serious. "I remember … the Cluster ambassador told me that Cluster Prime was a paradise for robots. I always assumed that he was lying. How … how can this all be possible?" She looked out over the plaza again, at ten of thousands of robots – happy, smiling robots – going about their business, seemingly without a care in the world …

When a bit of reality reared its ugly head. Four roach-drones had just come in through the entranceway five floors below, and a moment later, a twelve-foot Cluster warrior thundered onto the plaza. Smytus and his crew had tracked them into the Galleria. Jenny grabbed Drew, and ducked behind an elevator tube, peeking out with a renewed pang of fear stabbing at her circuits. Stanley's egg-shaped body wheeled in frantically behind Smytus, and they exchanged words in a heated argument. The commander snapped off a set of orders, and the drones began to fan out, searching the lower level of the mall.

"Great," Jenny groaned. "Just when I was starting to enjoy myself. We'd better get going." A few steps away from the elevators was a glass-top pedestal, which projected a holographic map of the mall into the air. "There's another skywalk on Level Seven. We can use it to cross over to the next tower …"

"Too late," growled Drew, pointing up two levels, where they could see a pair of roach-drones prowling the walkway in front of the skywalk exit. "Looks like they'll try to squeeze us between them as they search up from the floor. You know, I'm really starting to get sick of this Smytus jerk." He studied the holo-map for a few seconds, tapping his metallic chin. "What say we make him do the running for a change?"

"What are you going to do?" she asked, a bit puzzled.

"Just make sure none of those stupid robo-roaches sees you. You're the one they're really after. I'll meet you back here in … ten minutes." And without explanation, he turned and walked briskly into the crowd, circling the fifth level, taking note of where Smytus and Stanley stood, five floors below.

"Hope he knows what he's doing," Jenny muttered to herself … just as she noticed two red roach-drones pop out of an elevator tube, only fifty feet to her left. Yikes! She dropped to hide behind the holographic pedestal, waiting to see what the drones would do. One of them turned left, the other turned right – and the roach-drones began a methodical sweep of the fifth level, drawing odd stares from the mall's robotic patrons. That meant that one roach-drone was walking directly towards her. She knew she could take out one roach-drone with her eyes closed. But a fight in a crowded mall would be sure to attract a lot of attention that she didn't want right now.

The roach-drone was only twenty feet away. But now shoppers were giving her strange looks, and there was nothing she could do about it. She powered up her palm laser, wishing there was some way for her to avoid an incident. The drone whined up to the other side of the pedestal, almost within arm's reach – then Jenny caught a break. A robotic child started arguing with his mother, stomping his wheeled feet, and demanded a trip to Clustard Queen for dessert. The scene distracted the drone just long enough for Jenny to speed into the nearest store – a specialty headwear shop, Antenna Republic.

Jenny smiled from behind a display stand of designer antennas, as she watched the disgusting roach-drone continue its search of the Galleria's fifth level. Now that she was actually in one of the stores, she decided to have a look around; it was still hard for her to believe that she was standing in giant mall filled with stores just for robots. She wandered among the displays, giggling as she put different models on top of her head; she never realized that there could be so many types and styles of antennas. Then she heard the sounds of a squabble, and noticed two humanoid robot girls standing at the sales counter. Her turbo-pumps revved with glee. Teenage robot girls … just like me!

The robot girls exchanged impassioned hand gestures with the store clerk-bot, who simply folded her arms, and shook her bulb-shaped head. Jenny edged closer, still a bit hesitant to talk to any of the locals, to see what the fuss was about. The two girls were obviously friends; one was short and squat, painted in deep reds and burgundies, with a large metallic bow on top of her head. The other was tall and svelte, with a tapered face and an attractive, streamlined chassis. She was painted in a style almost matching Jenny, with a muted purple in place of pale blue. It seemed like she was the one with the problem; she was holding an antenna in her hands, arguing with the clerk behind the counter.

"What … what do you mean, I can't exchange it? I bought it here just yesterday!" The robot girl clasped her hands together, pleading. "You told me it was compatible, and I spent all last night trying to make it fit! I had to wear my old antenna to work today, and it's practically worn out!"

"I'm sorry, miss," shrugged the clerk-bot, "it was a clearance item. No refunds – that's store policy."

"Oh, this is such a total lube job," huffed the short girl. "What a racket! What a bunch of con artists!"

The tall girl clanked her hands on her hips. "So what you're telling me is that I spent seventy-eight credits for an antenna, and all I've got now is a fancy dipstick?" Jenny listened to them argue back and forth for a few more moments … then she summoned her courage, and cleared her throat to get their attention.

"Excuse me, miss?" the clerk-bot asked her. "Can I so something for you?"

"Um … if you don't mind, I think I might be able to help out." The customer arched an eyebrow at Jenny, but shrugged her shoulders and handed the new antenna to her. Jenny inspected the end of the antenna, then ratcheted her legs a few feet higher, to look at the receptacle on top of the girl's head. She deployed a laser scanner, and realized that the antenna's base was a little too wide. As the girls watched in awe, Jenny extended a grinding wheel from her wrist, and shaved away a thin layer of metal. Then she cooled off the antenna with a fan, deployed from her other wrist. "That should do the trick."

The tall robot girl fitted her new antenna into the top of her head, and squealed with delight as she felt her connectors lock it into place. Then to Jenny's amazement, the girl's hair sprung to life. Long strips of metal foil hung from the back of her head; with the whirr of servo motors, the foil strips spun around the antenna, forming a large parabolic dish. She balled her fists, and bounced up and down in excitement. "It works! It works! Oh, thank you, thank you – so – much! You're a life saver … um …"

"Jenny," she smiled, as her legs returned to normal. "Don't worry about it – it was no biggie."

"Are you kidding?" blurted the short girl, bursting with admiration. "That was so awesome! That was high-frequency awesome! That was awesome to the tenth power …"

"Downshift it, girl," teased her friend, as her dish unwound into a curtain of foil that flowed over her shoulders. "Seriously, Jenny … you really saved my bumper. I am no good with mechanical stuff – I am strictly a software kind of robot. My mom was already giving me a hard time about … Oh, oh, wow, I am being so completely rude! This is my very excitable friend, Dottie. And I'm LSN-1482. I know, I know … it's a real voice chip twister. Um … we were just on our way to hook up with some friends, over at the lube court. Would you like to come along with us and, umm … hang out?"

Jenny's smile had never been so wide before in her life. "That … sounds … great!"

Drew jostled his way through the busy crowds, and glanced over the railing to see Smytus pacing back and forth on the plaza floor, almost directly below him. He knew the roach-drones were out scouring the mall for Jenny; she was the trophy that the queen wanted, after all. Well, if they wanted Jenny so badly, then that's who they were going to get. He called up a copy of the mall's 3-D map in his memory, went over it one more time, then heaved with a deep sigh. I swore I was never going to do this again, he groaned to himself, rolling his eyes. Well, if this works, nobody's ever going to know about it.

He strolled into an elevator tube, and stepped on the floating disk inside. A synthesized voice asked him where he wanted to go, and a split-second later, he was sailing towards the plaza floor. The trip was faster than he expected, but he was getting better at shape-shifting. Schwerrrrp. He softened into a doughy ball of silver-green, stretched himself a bit taller, streamlined his legs … and grew a set of pigtails.

Two seconds later, foomp, the disk stopped at the first floor, and the elevator voice politely asked for him to leave the tube. But instead, a six-and-a-half-foot robot girl stepped out, painted white and pale blue – the spitting image of Jenny. Drew gave a quick look over his reshaped body – oops, forgot the belly-bolt – and was more or less satisfied, for such a rush job. Well, time to mess with Smytie-poo's head.

Smytus was standing only twenty feet in front of him; the timing couldn't have been better. He turned around just as 'Jenny' stepped out of the elevator, and his beady robotic eyes nearly shot out of his face. "XJ-9!!!" he bellowed, raising his crackling fists over his head. "Oh, you led us a merry chase, you insolent brat – but you cannot escape Smytus! Lord of the Outer …"

"You know, Commander Doofus," laughed 'Jenny', "you talk too much!" Then she made a face at him, and took off in a sprint across the plaza, zigzagging her way around robotic shoppers. Smytus cringed with rage, scaring ordinary citizens who recoiled in alarm at his display of weaponry – then he deactivated his blasters, as quickly and quietly as he could. He had his own reasons for not wanting attention. The mighty Cluster warrior flipped open his arm panel, and activated his radio. "All drone units, to the first floor, immediately! XJ-9 has been spotted. She's heading for the monorail stop."

Continued in Chapter Four / Seven Days to Cluster Dawn