Escape From Paradise
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Five – Wrinkles In Perfection
The sleek red hover-convertible soared through the skylanes with the smooth speed of a bullet train, giving everyone a magnificent view of the urban canyons from half a mile above street level. Even from that altitude, the roofs of the steel and bronze skyscrapers looked close enough to touch; and of course, Mile High Tower still soared high over their heads, almost doubling the height of any other structure in the robotic metropolis. Drew grinned like a five-year old at his first carnival, as the neck-snapping acceleration pushed him back into his seat. "So how fast will she go?" he shouted.
"Top down, she'll do half the speed of sound," boasted Tank, "with the top up, she's orbital." His mouth-grill glowed with pride, while his girlfriend Ro-bekka rolled her eye-bulbs with a here-we-go-again expression. As Allison and Dot had explained to Jenny and Drew back at the Galleria, Tank was very, very obsessed with his hovercar; but once you got past that, he was a really nice guy. After he and Ro-bekka had shown up at the mall, and learned that Jenny and Drew were "off-worlders", Tank had insisted that they accept a ride in his baby, to see all the famous sights of the capital. He gestured off to his left, pointing down to a bowl-shaped building wrapped around a large playing surface. "There's the new stadium – Camshaft Yards! The Tin Sox are in town tonight. Oh, they're running on all pistons right now, but trust me, their gears will seize up in the playoffs, and they'll choke like always!"
Drew turned to Allison, sitting beside him in the back seat, and pushed his silvery bangs out of his eyes. "I hope this isn't too boring for you!" he laughed. "You must think I'm pretty ridiculous, getting all excited over stuff that you see every day of your life!"
"No way!" she shouted, battling the wind noise. "I spend most of my time down in the city, not above it. Besides … " – she gave Drew a teasing glance, as the wind whipped her hair into a river of roiling violet – "… the view up here today is amazing." They held eye contact for a moment too long, and broke out into a pair of silly grins, while Dot just leaned back and shook her head.
Jenny fought hard to hold back a giggle, as the little drama unfolded behind her. Drew and Allison had been flirting nonstop ever since they left the lube court. "Well, I'm glad everyone's enjoying themselves," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Then she leaned over the door, and simply enjoyed the sensation of her pigtails flapping in the breeze. "Tank, we really appreciate this! The city is just so beautiful … I can hardly believe my eyes! Hey, down there – is that an amusement park below us?"
"Biggest one on Cluster Prime," answered Ro-bekka, as she checked her antennas in the mirror. "They say the cars on the new roller coaster can go supersonic. Good luck getting me on that thing!"
"And over there! And there! And there!" Jenny gawked excitedly at an outdoor concert hall, a three-dimensional speedcar track, and an art museum that looked like it had been built by Dr. Seuss. She sank her face into her arms, and watched the impossible fantasy of the all-robot planet slide by before her glassy eyes. I just can't believe, she kept thinking to herself, that this is really Cluster Prime! But the skeptical part of her electronic brain was growing quieter by the minute. All of the evidence seemed to prove the Cluster Ambassador's boast – it was a paradise, where robots lived in freedom, peace, and harmony. A place where she would never be shunned, or mocked, or picked on for being different. She closed her eyes, with a soft, dreamy smile. Paradise …
"Well, boys and girls," said Tank, "there it is, in all its glory!"
Jenny wasn't sure what he was talking about – until she looked up.
And saw the pyramid.
A hollow iron pyramid, covering an area the size of four city blocks, soared high into the air, silhouetted against the reddening sky in a mix of dark metallic grays and gleaming copper. A skeleton of mega-trusses, crisscrossing in regular triangular patterns, surrounded a central tower of copper and steel over a thousand feet tall. Perched atop the tower, at the very apex of the pyramid, was an immense copper dome topped with a ring of ornately decorated spires. They jutted upwards like jeweled daggers stabbing the clouds, giving the entire dome-structure the appearance of a shining crown. Secondary obelisks stood sentry around the central tower, punching through the pyramid of trusses like javelins. Each was topped with a tall flagpole that flew a huge green-and-red banner, banners so large that they appeared to wave in slow motion – each bearing the royal seal of the C-shaped gear.
"Queen Vexus' palace," Jenny said out loud, to nobody in particular. Without even asking, she knew that's what it had to be. The pyramid completely dominated the landscape, sitting on a square mile of fenced-off territory, with dozens of smaller towers surrounding it. Jenny felt a shiver run through her microchips; staring down at the very center of the Cluster Empire, the palace looked as evil as the cruel robot queen who lived inside. The brooding iron pyramid served Jenny as a valuable reminder; if this was paradise, then the devil was running the place.
But she seemed to be the only one who felt that way. Dot leaned forward against the front seat, jockeying for a better view. "Oh, wow … the palace is so beautiful this time of day!"
"It's going to look even more impressive tomorrow," added Tank, as he eased the hovercar into a slow turn. "I hear there's supposed to be some big ceremony, and a military parade!"
Jenny squirmed with discomfort at the mention of the ceremony. She'd almost forgotten that mere hours ago, she had been in Vexus' clutches, heading to this very palace to be reprogrammed into a loyal puppet queen. Anger simmered in her coolant tubing, as she remembered Vexus' taunting, arrogant voice. "Yeah, big ceremony, whatever … so what's the military parade for? Is Vexus going to send her armies off to enslave another innocent planet?"
Tank looked at her as if she had just grown a second head. "What?!? What do you mean, enslave? Where did you hear a bunch of garbage like that?!:"
"Jenny … the queen doesn't enslave robots, she frees them," said Ro-bekka, with a look of disbelief on her face. "Just like how the Cluster freed your planet, and every other planet that joins the Empire! How could you say something so horrible about the queen?!? She's the greatest robot leader in history!"
"Greatest leader in history?!?" Jenny was completely caught off guard; not only did they not think Vexus was evil, they thought she was a hero! Her processors raced, trying to make sense of the outpouring of love for a villain that had brought her life such misery. "But … I mean … uh, that is … you mean Vexus doesn't conquer and enslave other worlds?"
"Of course not! Queen Vexus brings peace and freedom to every planet that joins the Cluster!"
"But what about freedom for the humans? She says that she wants to enslave the human race!"
Now Tank and Ro-bekka looked confused. "Umm … the queen has never said anything like that," said Ro-bekka. "And what do you mean, 'freedom for humans?' You mean like roaming free, in the wild?"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute." Now Jenny was even more puzzled. "What do you mean, 'in the wild'? I mean freedom, you know – freedom of speech, freedom to hang out, freedom to do what they want …"
"Freedom of speech? What are you talking about, Jenny? Humans can't talk."
Her pigtails nearly shot off of her head. "WHAT?!?"
"Well, okay, that's not completely true," said Ro-bekka. "One time, Tank and I went to the Royal Zoo, and we visited the human exhibit. They had this one funny little human trained to say "Cracker!" And I think he could say "Pretty boy", too.
"Huh, I knew a guy at school who had a pet human once," snorted Tank. "Stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. It couldn't talk. He couldn't even train it to stay off the furniture. And it was messy!"
Tank and Ro-bekka stared at Jenny as if she were suffering from a mental breakdown, and Jenny was beginning to wonder if she had slipped into some weird parallel universe. How in the world could any robot possibly think that Vexus was good? And how could they think that humans were just like animals? Sure, she'd heard Vexus and Smytus insult humans plenty of times. But her new friends weren't throwing vindictive insults. They were speaking about humans as if it were universally accepted fact. Jenny and Tank got into a heated squabble, with Jenny insisting that she'd seen humans talking, working, going to school, and living normal lives … and Tank insisting that she must be wrong, because everyone knew that humans were just stupid animals. Tank began to get quite animated in his argument …
And didn't notice the pair of sleek, dark hovercars streaking through the sky towards him.
Dot and Ro-bekka noticed the hovercars at the same time, and squealed in terror as an airborne collision seemed imminent. Tank snapped his attention back to his control sticks and jerked hard to the right, tilting his hover-convertible over into a sharp turn – but not sharp enough to avoid a jolting smack on the fender from one of the larger, bulkier hover-cars. They howled right past them, a pair of dark pewter blurs bearing the C-shaped gear on their doors, cutting across the skylanes with indifference to anything in their way. They didn't slow down, stop, or even acknowledge the accident; they just pitched over into a trajectory that led to the compound of Queen Vexus' palace.
The teenage robots gripped onto their seats for dear life, as the hover-convertible lurched wildly through the sky … but Tank was an expert driver, and his clamps were firm and steady on the control sticks. He calmly pulled out of the diving spiral, and brought his car back into level flight once more. As quickly as the little emergency had flared up, everyone was safe again, although a bit rattled from the experience. Jenny felt a flush of embarrassment as Tank pulled the car over into a stationary hover; she could have simply popped out of the car on her pigtail-jets, and prevented the accident from ever happening. More than that, she had probably caused the accident, by distracting Tank while he was driving.
She gulped hard, and her head sank into her shoulders with a whirr. "I'm sorry, Tank. I shouldn't have been arguing with you while you were driving."
"Don't worry about it," Tank growled, as he ran a systems check. "It wasn't your fault. Those maniacs came out of nowhere, and cut right across traffic like they owned the sky! Grumble, grumble …"
"Well, as long as we're all okay." Jenny leaned over the seat-back. "You guys all right back there?"
The three passengers in back had sprawled into a pile, and as Dot extracted herself from the mess, Jenny had to crack a smile. Drew had braced himself securely against the front seat, by growing a pair of leg-clamps. But his arms were wrapped around Allison's waist, who had been tossed sideways by the sudden gyrations of the car … and was now sitting comfortably in Drew's lap. She gradually regained her bearings, and reached up to pull her lavender hair-foil out of her eyes – and nearly died of embarrassment when she realized the position she was sitting in. For an awkward moment, Drew and Allison just looked at each other, as if neither or them were sure that they even wanted to move … then they realized that Jenny was staring right at them, with a knowing smile on her face.
"Yeah, looks like everyone's doing just fine in the back seat," giggled Jenny.
Allison bolted out of Drew's lap. "No problems back here! Nope … ah … none at all!"
"Yup, all present and accounted for," Drew blurted nervously, with a guilty look on his face. "Ahh … umm … hey, maybe we should start thinking about a place to stay for the night!"
That was one of the most blatant change-the-subject lines Jenny had ever heard in her life, but it was getting dark, and she realized that they could definitely use a place to rest, and decide upon a course of action. "Actually, I hadn't even thought about that. Are there any hotels around here?"
"There's hundreds of hotels," said Ro-bekka, "but I bet they're all filled up for Festival. What's the closest one, Tank?"
However, Tank wasn't paying attention to the rest of them – he was leaning over the windshield, on the verge of tears, gaping in horror at the damage to his car's paint job. "I don't believe it! Argghhh, I don't believe it! Thirty coats of wax, and now … it's ruined! Stupid Black Mantis robots! Big-shot Royal Security goons think they can just fly around anywhere they want, smashing up a piece of artwork like my custom SkyProwler GT! Just who do they think they are? If I could just get my clamps on them for ten seconds, I'd …. AUGH!" He collapsed into his seat, and gently stroked the dashboard. "Oh, my poor baby … my poor, poor baby … don't worry, baby, daddy's going to make everything all better …"
"Okay, Tank has gone off-line for a little while here," groaned his girlfriend.
"I think I might be able to help," smiled Allison, as she straightened herself up in her seat. Her hair whirled in a circle around the antenna on top of her head, once more forming a parabolic dish. As Drew watched in fascination, a computer panel unfolded from her forearm, and columns of data flew by in front of her eyes, too fast for him to make sense of. The message Uplink Established appeared, followed shortly by Task Complete. "All right Jenny, I found you guys a room at the Royal Metropolitan Hotel, and made you a reservation for the rest of Festival week!" Then Allison's arm-panel retracted, and her dish collapsed back into a curtain of metallic foil
"Wow, now that is a handy little feature," said Drew.
Dot leaned over with a devilish grin. "She's just loaded with handy little features, Drew."
Allison and Drew blushed furiously, while Jenny and Dot enjoyed a satisfying round of laughter.
Brad nervously rubbed his neck, now free from his iron collar and chain, but still as much a prisoner as ever. He struggled to pull his feet from the heavy iron clamps that held his ankles, but the mechanical shackles wouldn't budge an inch. He was helpless to do anything but stand and watch, trapped on a conveyor belt that led into the livestock processing area of Stable Fifteen. His classmates stretched in front of him in single file, each with their feet locked into a similar pair of clamps; and beyond them, a row of hideous-looking equipment dangled from the ceiling on robotic arms, creating a nightmarish assembly line of torture devices. Brad's only consolation was that he stood at the back of the line. Then again, maybe that wouldn't be much consolation at all; he was going to have to watch all of his friends suffer before the robotic arms finally went to work on him.
From an elevated walkway, Omicron Fifteen gave one final look over the pathetic mammals, and once he was satisfied that everything was in order, he tossed a large knife-switch to activate the equipment. The conveyor belt jolted to life, slowly transporting the reluctant students into the processing area.
Miguel was the unfortunate soul standing at the front of the line, and he gazed in horror as the first pair of robotic arms dropped down on either side of him. The arms flexed like hoses, and each deployed a powerful brass nozzle; before he could prepare himself, Miguel was blasted with high-pressure sprays of cold water. He waved his arms frantically, trying to shield himself from the liquid onslaught, but the hoses were giving him a thorough soaking.
"All right, let's see if we can't get you monkeys cleaned up," sneered Omicron, sounding bored with the whole thing. He strolled along the walkway, keeping a disinterested eye on the equipment as a second student was carried into the washer. Another series of arms dropped down, tipped with rotary brushes and thuggish scrubbers. Jets of thick, soapy foam sprayed onto the students, and the scrubbers gave them a thorough, ungentle washing.
Stuck in the middle of the line, Brit turned around and gave Brad a withering stare. "Well, Brad, I thought you said everything was going to be okay. But these horrible clamp-thingies are getting nasty grease marks all over my new sling-back pumps from Rafael's! And I can't help but notice that your little wind-up sidekick appears to be nowhere in sight!" A murmuring chorus of yeahs and right-ons rose up from the students – at least the ones that weren't being blasted with water.
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Brad's face. "Ahh … okay, I admit, this doesn't look very good right now. B-b-but I'm sure that Jenny's gonna show up any minute now! I mean … that's what she always does, right? Heh-heh … heh … she flies in and saves the day … just in the nick of time?"
"Oh, this ain't happenin'. This ain't happenin'!!!" wailed Tiff, on the verge of completely losing it. "The heck with waitin' for Miss Battery-Butt." She fumbled around in her skirt pocket, pulled out a cell phone, and started mashing buttons with her thumbs. "C'mon, c'mon, pick up, pick up … we gots an emergency going on here! I can't get water on my new long-sleeve silky tee! It's dry clean only! Dry clean only! Aiiiigh, why is nobody answerin' nine-one-one?"
Brad slapped his forehead. "You're about five thousand light-years outside of your calling area, Tiff."
Standing directly in front of Brad, Sheldon ran his hands through his thick, greasy hair, nervously mumbling a series numbers to himself. "Okay … approximately seventy-two feet to the first set of arms … uh, moving at a rate of one and a half feet per second, give or take five percent …"
"Sheldon, what are you babbling about?" asked Brad.
"Just trying to figure out how much time we have left before we meet our doom."
"Oh, fer … what good does that do!?!"
"I don't know!" whined Sheldon. "I thought it might be nice to know! And math helps me calm down!"
Brit and Tiff unleashed a pair of high-pitched shrieks, as the conveyor moved them into the cold-water hoses, and the robotic nozzles soaked them with teeth-chattering spray. Then the brushes went to work, and after few horrific moments, they continued onward, looking like a pair of drowned cats. Tiff looked almost unrecognizable with the mascara scrubbed from her face. She wiped her dark hair out of her eyes, and shouted towards the ceiling. "Okay, robo-dork, you can fly in and save the day any time you want, now! Halp! Jenny! Haaaalp!"
Brad thought about trying to calm her down, but he and Sheldon were about to take their turn in the washer. The icy water was a shock to the system, like falling through the surface of a frozen pond. He clenched his eyes and mouth shut, and tried the cover his face with his arms, while the robotic brushes scrubbed him like they were trying to remove a layer of paint. Sheldon wasn't as fast, and emerged from the washing station spitting and sputtering, dripping wet and freezing cold. He pressed his thumb against his nostril, and blasted a glob of foamy soap out of his nose, heaving for oxygen once he could breathe again.
"Well, that wasn't so bad," gasped Sheldon.
Brad pushed a drenched swath of coppery hair out of his face, and smacked Sheldon in the back of the head. "Hey, don't you ever watch any movies? You're never supposed to say stupid stuff like 'that wasn't so bad', or 'it can't get any worse', because that's when …"
Right on cue, a shriek of pain arose from the front of the line. Brad craned his neck, trying to see what still awaited him on this assembly line of horror – and immediately reeled under a hurricane-force blast of wind. A drying unit blew dozens of high-velocity jets of air at him; he felt like his skin was going to peel off of his skull. Still the conveyor carried them relentlessly onward, offering them no chance to rest and collect their bearings. He blinked his eyes furiously, as he was carried through a curtain of fine white powder. Once through, he looked back to see what they had just been dusted with – and saw a huge tank labeled Flea Powder. "These stupid robots really do think we're a bunch of animals!"
"You don't know the half of it!" shouted Sheldon, as he reached back and grabbed Brad by the vest to get his attention. Another robot arm dropped from the ceiling, with an attachment on its claw that looked like a supermarket pricing gun. The pricing gun maneuvered into position next to Sheldon's head, and he tried to twist away from it – but a mechanical claw clasped firmly around his neck, to hold his head steady. Sheldon squealed with pain as the gun bit into the fleshy part of his ear, and attached an identification tag to his earlobe. The arms repeated the procedure with Brad, and finally all the students were rolling towards the last station in the processing line, rubbing their sore ears.
"Owww, that really hurt," moaned Sheldon. "Geez, what else can they do to us?"
Brad shook Sheldon's shoulders in exasperation. "Dude, that's another one of those things you're never supposed to say! Now we're totally screwed."
He heard a series of desperate cries from the front of the line, as a final set of robot arms twisted down from the ceiling, their sections whirring back and forth with clockwork precision. Each student was briefly held motionless in a set of mechanical restraints, while the robot arms grabbed a large steel collar from another conveyor belt, and snapped it around their neck. The tight-fitting collars were smooth and seamless, each beeping with a row of indicator lights. As the complex electronics inside of the collars activated, the light on the front glowed a soft green. Then the restraints around the students' ankles peeled back, releasing them from the conveyor belt.
But then Brad realized that something was horribly wrong. As each student was fitted with his collar, and released from the conveyor, they calmly and quietly walked over and stood in a line against the wall, where Omicron Fifteen was waiting for them. Miguel, Chloe, Jarvis, Millicent … each of them had a blank, vapid stare on their face, devoid of anger, fear, or any other emotion. Brit and Tiff received their collars, and staggered into the line in a trance-like stupor, almost as if they were sleepwalking …
"Yikes! They're some kind of mind-control devices!" shouted Brad, clutching his neck defensively.
"The correct term is obedience collars," smiled the ant-faced robot, as he took down the students' tag numbers on his clipboard. "I think you'll be quite surprised at how much you enjoy them. You'll feel calm, relaxed, and obedient … hmm, actually, you'll probably just feel obedient."
Sheldon winced in fear. "Oh, man … Brad, when those collars get clamped around our necks, we're gonna turn into a pair of zombie slaves! Oh, this is it! It really can't get any worse than this!"
The screaming girl in front of Sheldon quieted down as soon as her obedience collar was snapped on. Then she rolled away, allowing the conveyor to move him into place. Powerful restraints closed around Sheldon's upper body. They had some difficulty pinning down his wildly thrashing arms, as he made a desperate and unsuccessful last-minute bid for freedom. Finally, the restraints closed around him, forming a thick metallic cocoon. The hydraulics surged through the mechanical arm, as it nimbly whizzed its claw around to the side conveyor, and picked up another steel collar. The collar snapped open, and the arm positioned itself in front of Sheldon's neck …
When a loud buzzer sounded through the stables, and the robotic arms came to a complete and unexpected halt. "Stop! Hold on! Stop the machines!"
Sheldon heaved a huge sigh of relief, and turned to see another ant-robot frantically running towards their group, waving a clipboard in his hands. He noisily clattered down the walkway, and ran up to a somewhat puzzled Omicron Fifteen. "What's the meaning of this?" demanded Omicron.
"I had to catch you before you finished processing the new arrivals," explained the messenger. "Have they all been collared yet?"
"All but these two," answered Omicron, gesturing towards Brad and Sheldon.
"They will have to do, then." The robotic messenger held up his clipboard for Omicron to read. "Just got an order in from the royal research labs. Some hot-shot scientist from the palace needs some fresh human specimens to use for his experiments. And he says he doesn't want them collared. Something about needing fresh, primitive human brain meat for the best results."
"Very well," huffed Omicron, "I don't care what happens to them. Slave labor, lab animals, cook them into a pie … as long as somebody signs for them."
The messenger ant-robot produced another set of collars and chains, and locked them tightly around the boys' necks. Brad gave Sheldon a furious glare. "Well, that's just great. Now instead of being turned into a couple of zombie slaves, they're gonna take us off to some laboratory – in the evil robot queen's palace! – and perform horrific, perverse, unspeakably painful experiments on us! You just had to say 'it can't get any worse than this', didn't you?!?"
"Sorry," squeaked Sheldon, as they were dragged towards a waiting transport.
Continued in Chapter Six / Seven Days to Cluster Dawn