Escape From Paradise

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Twelve – Skeleton in the Closet

A pair of eyes poked above the stack of gaskets at the end of Aisle Two, flicking left and right to check for hostile movements. Drawing guidance from every ninja movie he'd ever seen, Brad sprang from his hiding place and somersaulted into the shadows next to the store's front window. Glancing outside, he could see a loose scattering of Cluster citizens lingering about, and a few hovercars gliding by – but he also saw another pair of Black Mantis robots, ominously hovering overhead.

He snapped his face back just as a powerful searchlight swept past the window, blasting the interior with the light of a dozen suns. That was the tenth patrol to fly by since they'd gotten away from Vexus' robots. They'd found sanctuary by sneaking inside a small convenience store whose owner had shut down early for Festival; now Brad wondered how much longer even this place would be safe. He ground his teeth together, and tightened his grip on a piston rod that he'd plucked from the everything's-under-a-credit bin. "Any Cluster creep tries to get in here," he snarled, "and the Bradster is gonna bring the pain!"

"Brad, get away from the window before someone sees you," said Jenny, in a loud whisper. "We need to lay low until we find out where the rest of the class is!"

"Jen, I don't even know where we are. How are we supposed to find the rest of the class?"

"Sheldon's got an idea." She arched a suspicious eyebrow at him; she always felt a little suspicious whenever Sheldon found a reason to get close to her. "At least he says he does."

"Not to worry, Jenny!" he croaked, grinning confidently at her through his overbite. "See, I got to thinking about those ear tags that the robots stamped on us back at the Stockyards."

"Don't remind me," grumbled Brad, rubbing his right ear. It had been almost as painful getting Jenny to take it off, as it had been to get tagged in the first place. "So what about them?"

"You see, each tag is etched with a serial number," explained Sheldon, relishing the chance to impress his lady love. "And I figure that the Cluster uses those serial numbers to keep track of humans, the same way we use serial numbers back on Earth to keep track of ordinary machines! Ulp … uh … of course, Jenny, just because you have a serial number doesn't mean you're an ordinary …"

"Yeah yeah yeah, don't sweat it," sighed Jenny. "But are you sure about this setup of yours?"

A monitor had extended from Jenny's chest, not unlike the one her mother talked to her with – but this one had deployed a computer keyboard along with it. A bundle of wires snaked their way from her belly-bolt, across the cashier's counter, and into a small steel box pried loose from the wall. The box was the store's central data hub, and Sheldon had jury-rigged a makeshift connector into it. He was entering commands on the keyboard, exploring the files in the store's computer system. There was a lot of useless data in there - grease sales, vacuum tube inventory – but if he could find a link to some kind of city-wide computer network, then it might be possible for him to track down the students.

"Oh please, it's just an improvised cross-platform universal multiplexer/demultiplexer," he smirked, as his fingers danced over Jenny's keyboard. Sigh … I'll never wash these fingers again. He gazed up at her lovely metallic face, with moist, sparkling eyes. "It's really nothing, Jenny. At least, not for a brilliant misunderstood guy with unbelievable technical know-how …"

Suddenly a buzzing noise, which sounded very much like an alarm, screeched from Jenny's monitor.

The data and graphics on the screen disappeared, replaced by an ugly flashing box which read Firewall Breached – Virus Detected. A faraway stare fell over Jenny's eyes, and her pupils dilated into tiny ice-blue dots. A drop of sweat crept down Sheldon's chin, and his fingers hammered the keys with renewed urgency. "Ummm … not to worry, Jenny. I can fix this ... I can fix this …"

Then the monitor faded to black, and a small explosion of sparks sprayed across the counter, accompanied by a yelp of pain. Sheldon instinctively flinched, then looked up to see Brad frowning at him, holding the frayed ends of the data connectors in his reddened hands. He had run over at the first hint of trouble, and yanked Jenny's wires free from the data hub – receiving a nasty shock in the process. "Geez, Sheldon, I thought you said you knew what you were doing! Jen! Jen, are you all right?"

Jenny gave her head a quick shake, and her eyes resumed their normal appearance. Fortunately, Brad had severed the connection quickly enough, and her anti-virus software was able to easily fight off the low-level snooper programs that had gotten into her system. But if the connection had stayed active for just a few more seconds … "Guys, I'm fine. Wow, that did feel kind of freaky, though. Drew told me not to plug myself into any computers around here … guess I should have taken his advice."

"Jenny, I'm so sorry!" gasped Sheldon, munching his lower lip. "Oh please, please forgive me! I promise I'll never try to use you to hack into another computer as long as I live …"

"Don't stress it, Sheldon," she said, as the monitor retracted back into her chest. "It was a good idea. If we want to find the rest of the kids, we have to take a few chances. My systems check out just fine …" Then her sensors picked up the chemical signature of scalded flesh, and she noticed a set of nasty electrical scorch marks on Brad's palms. "BRAD! Oh no … you're hurt!"

"Pfft, I'm not hurt," he said, feigning a macho smirk. Then he winced and shook his hands vigorously, trying to cool them off. "Yeeowtch! Although it does sting like nobody's business."

Jenny deployed a spray bottle from her forearm, and squirted a layer of medicine onto Brad's scalded hands. She examined them with a medical tool that she'd deployed from a hatch in her forehead; thankfully, the burns proved to be minor, and would heal in a day or so. And apparently Brad's hands were feeling just fine, because now that they'd received their medical attention, they slid into Jenny's metallic hands, and his fingers interlaced with hers. "Just performing a little motor control test, Doctor Wakeman," he grinned, giving her hands a gentle squeeze.

She glanced up to see his carefree smile, which had the same effect on her as it always did, even here in the throes of danger. "Just be more careful next time," she giggled, as a hint of blue shaded her cheeks. "I'm picking up skin temperature readings that are still above normal." Of course, she didn't think they were caused by the burns. And she didn't mention that her own oil temperature was creeping up a bit.

Suddenly playing the role of the invisible man, Sheldon inched away from Brad and Jenny, pretending to be interested in a rack of robot-themed magazines. He rammed his hands in his pockets and glanced at them out of the corner of his eye, grimacing at the way they looked so natural together. But it was nothing he hadn't seen a dozen times before, and everyone knew that Brad and Jenny were just friends, right? It was common knowledge. He told himself that every time he saw them sit in class together. And walk home from school together. And hang out at Mezmer's together. And go to the mall together …

A sharp noise at the door snapped Sheldon out of his moping. He heard the noise a second time; then his eyes sprang to the size of hubcaps upon seeing two figures silhouetted at the door. "Jenny!" he shouted in a loud whisper. "Somebody's trying to get in!"

Jenny's pigtails shot into the air; the mood instantly changed to one of dire emergency. "Guys, stay back and be quiet!" She tiptoed across the darkened room, and the boys ducked behind the sales counter. Now she saw the strange figures too – had the Black Mantis robots started door-to-door searches? She lurked in the shadows, hoping to avoid a noisy confrontation. Just keep on walking, you Mantis losers …

With a swish, the front door slid open, and a shaft of light pierced the empty darkness. Jenny froze in place behind a shelf of transmission fluid, as the mysterious figures walked inside. With a determined scowl and a subdued clank, her palm opened up, and deployed a set of metal tubes that extended into a blue-and-white baseball bat. She gripped the handle, wiggled the end a few times … and leapt from the shadows with a home-run swing. "You're headed for the cheap seats, bug-face!"

"GAAAAH!!! Jenny! Stop, it's me! It's ME!"

The bat screeched to a stop a half-inch from Drew's nose. He nearly keeled over from shock, and Jenny's war cry quickly gave way to a huge girlish grin. "Eh heh heh heh heh …" She giggled nervously as the bat retracted back into her hand. "Sorry about that, Drew. I guess I'm just a little jumpy."

Drew clutched a hand to his chest. "I'd hate to see you when you're a lot jumpy. What gives? You just told me to come over here. Who the heck did you think it was?"

"I thought it one of the Black Mantis dorks who've been hunting me down for that past hour!" she said in an exasperated voice. "I didn't think you'd get here this quick!"

The second robotic figure stepped forward, and resolved itself into a feminine form – with a friendly, impish grin. "Well, we told the bus driver that we'd tip him five credits if he ran all the red lights."

"Allison!" shouted Jenny, thrilled at the sight of her new friend. The robot girls squealed happily and wrapped their arms around each other, bouncing up and down while Drew smiled and rolled his eyes at the typical female behavior. "Allison, it's so great to see you again! Listen, I'm really really sorry that I was so mysterious with you guys on the video call …"

"That file has been moved to the recycle bin," smiled Allison, brushing Jenny's concerns away with a sweep of her hand. "Forget about it! When you said you were in big trouble, I got really worried. Drew and I got over here as fast as we possibly could. We actually jumped onto a moving hover-bus! That was kind of exciting." Her warm, dark eyes danced in Drew's direction.

"Well, you said the bus would get us here quicker than the monorail, and you were right," he laughed, returning the smile. "She does know the city better than I do, after all!"

"Well, I'm just glad it was you guys, and not a pair of …" Then Jenny's voice drifted off in distraction, as her sensors picked up something … different about the demeanor of her two friends. Her feminine intuition circuits blinked with frenzied activity, her microchips hummed with relationship algorithms … and a knowing smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. Drew was smiling broadly, his hazy eyes practically target-locked onto Allison, and she had her hand wrapped around his shimmering forearm, returning a dreamy gaze of her own. Jenny's knowing smirk blossomed into a beaming smile.

"Well, well, well," she giggled. "So, just what were you two doing when I called you, hmmm? Hope I wasn't … interrupting anything." Allison slapped a hand to her face, her cheeks in danger of bursting into violet flame. The green glow and the dopey grin on Drew's face gave Jenny all the additional proof that she needed, and she clasped her hands together with glee. Squee! They're in love! I knew it! I knew from the moment they saw each other back at the Galleria …

Sheldon poked up from behind the sales counter, like a nervous little prairie dog, clutching a big steel wrench in his hands. "If you n-n-need any help, Jenny, just g-g-give me a sh-sh-shout and I'll b-b-be right th-th-there … oh." He let out a huge sigh of relief. "It's just you."

"Hey, what is going on, Jen?" Brad jumped up and slid his legs over the counter, tired of hiding in the shadows. "I hear lots and lots of gabbin', but no clobberin'! Who are you talking to …" – then he recognized the silver-green android standing a few yards away. "Drew! Hey, good to see you out of the barrel, man! What's shakin', buddy?"

Drew burst into a huge grin, and gave Brad a hearty slap on the shoulder – Jenny had failed to mention that she had found a pair of their lost friends! "All right! Man, it's good to see some familiar faces! What the heck happened? How did you guys escape the Cluster drones? Oh, never mind, we'll talk about it later. The important thing is that you guys are okay! Finally, everything's starting to look up!"

"Yeah, well, if you don't mind, I'll save my celebrating for when I'm back in my front yard, sitting in my favorite lawn chair, ordering Tuck to get me a lemonade." Then Brad peered around him, finally noticing the mysterious robot girl. "Hey, um … who's your new friend, Drew?"

"Heh, heh … Brad, Sheldon, I'd like to you meet Allison. Allison, this is Brad and Sheldon …"

But Allison was already staring at Brad and Sheldon, her large oval eyes bulging out of their sockets like white basketballs. She swallowed hard, forcing a lump of hydraulic fluid into her pumps, but she didn't budge a servo. Suddenly Drew became aware of a faint metallic rattling sound, and to his astonishment, he realized that it was coming from Allison – or rather from her robotic joints, as she trembled with paralyzing fear. She silently babbled a string of phantom words, and pointed at the boys with a shaking finger, as if she was staring down a pair of Bengal tigers …

"H-H-HUMANS!" she finally screamed, as she flung her arms around Drew in a death-grip. "Oh, my Cog – talking humans! Talking humans! Running loose – without collars! Guys, we've got to get out of here and call Animal Control! We've got to get out of here before they attack us …"

"Hey, nobody's calling those Animal Control losers again!" protested Brad. "And what is it with you robots and collars, anyways? Sheesh!"

"Whoa, Ally, whoa, whoa!" Drew held her tight and stroked her hair-foil, trying to calm her down. Normally he would have loved the chance to wrap his arms around her – but she was in near hysterics at the sight of Brad and Sheldon, and he couldn't understand why. "Ally, don't be scared! They're not going to attack us. They're my friends!"

She looked at him as if he'd just grown a second head. "Friends? You mean they're your pets?"

"No, they're not our pets!" Jenny slapped her head in frustration; Allison was reacting just like Dot had earlier. This might be a problem …

Brad took a few cautious steps towards the nervous robot girl. "Look … Allison, is it? Just listen to me for a second. Do I sound like some kind of dumb animal to you? Come on, I'm speaking in complete sentences and everything!" He held up his hand, and started ticking off fingers. "Check it out – one, two, three, four! Now, if I was an animal, would I be able to count like that? Uh … okay, wait a sec, I saw a horse at the town fair once that could count to ten. Okay … but a horse can't do math! Give me a math problem. No algebra, though. On second thought, I kind of suck at math …"

"Just … stay … back!" Allison hid behind Drew, looking as if she expected Brad to lunge at her with his fangs bared. "I don't care if you can talk and count and sing every verse of the Cluster national anthem! Humans belong in cages – or on a leash!" With a quick swish of her servos, Allison's hair-foil circled around her antenna, forming a dish transmitter. "Jenny, if you keep them cornered, I can call Animal Control and they'll be here in five minutes." Her finger hovered over the communications panel on her left forearm …

Then Jenny grabbed it, preventing her from making the emergency call. "Allison, stop! Listen, I told you that I was in big trouble. If you call Animal Control, the Black Mantis is going to show up instead, and drag us all back to Vexus' palace to turn us into slaves!"

Allison stared skeptically at Jenny, wondering if she'd gone completely insane. "Jenny … I don't understand … why would the Black Mantis be after you? And what's this talk about slaves? Queen Vexus doesn't turn robots into slaves!"

Jenny looked at her new friend with crushingly sad eyes; Allison was growing more and more confused with each passing second. Jenny felt guilty for concealing her origins from her for the past two days, wishing she could have simply told her the truth – even though she still wasn't completely sure what the truth actually was. She gestured for Brad and Sheldon to back off for a moment, and took Allison's hands in her own, speaking slowly and seriously, looking her directly in her eyes.

"Allison, Drew and I aren't part of the Cluster. We come from a planet called Earth, and Vexus has been trying to conquer it for a long time now – and I keep stopping her. But Vexus really, really wants Earth for the Cluster Empire – in fact, Brad heard that she's going to launch a humongous invasion in just six days. Allison, Vexus is evil. I know it doesn't seem that way to you, but she really is. Her soldiers flew to Earth and kidnapped me, and Drew, and our human classmates at school, and brought us here to Cluster Prime two days ago. She was going to reprogram us into slaves!"

The Cluster native looked as if her CPU was about to overload; she looked into Drew's face with disbelief in her eyes. "Earth … that's one of those barbarian planets, isn't it? Outside the Empire! And you say … you say you go to school with humans? But … but that's impossible!"

"Here on Cluster Prime, maybe," Jenny continued. "All the robots here think that humans are just dumb animals, but they're not. All the humans that you've ever seen in your life have been wearing obedience collars. I'm not totally sure yet, but I think they might even make them too stupid to talk, by lowering their IQ, or whatever. Queen Vexus hates humans, Allison. She hates them more than anything in the whole universe, and she wants to turn them all into slaves. Cluster Prime has millions of humans slaves on it already, working like pack mules! And Vexus wants even more."

Brad gestured to a red mark on his earlobe. "I watched the kids in my class get scrubbed, and tagged, and fitted with obedience collars, Allison. Sheldon and I were gonna get collared too, but then some weirdo mad scientist robot called 'dibbs' on us, and they took us away to use as human guinea pigs in a test lab! I think the rest of the kids got sent off to some kind of slave labor camp."

"I think we could track them using the ear tag numbers," said Sheldon, holding up the engraved metallic strips. "If we could connect to the Cluster data network, then we should be able to run a search and see where they got sent! I'm having a little trouble getting the network protocol figured out, though. Would you know what it is?"

"Well, of course I do, you big silly, I connect to the ClusterNet all the time. The protocol is an asymmetric progression of geometric …" She smacked herself in the forehead. "I'm talking to a monkey about data protocols! What am I doing!?! This is crazy!!! All this talk about Queen Vexus … being evil?!? She's our queen, Jenny, and everybody loves her! And she loves us, and she protects us … she's the greatest leader robot-kind has ever known! Every robot knows that!"

"Because every robot's been programmed to think that!" shouted Jenny. "Including you!"

Allison did a double-take, and arched a suspicious eyebrow. "We've been programmed? Oh, come on, Jenny. How on Earth could we be programmed like that?"

Drew snapped his fingers. "Those backup headbands! Like the one on the bed-platform, back at the hotel. Remember what it almost did to you, Jenny? Oh, wow, those headbands could do it!"

Jenny nodded her head. "Every night, when every robot in the Cluster goes to sleep, they back themselves up with one of those little headbands. At least that's what they think they're doing … but I think they're being reprogrammed, every night, to make sure and stay loyal and obedient to Vexus! Allison, yesterday we were all in an accident with Tank's convertible. We got hit by a Black Mantis hovercar, and nearly got knocked out of the sky! But Tank doesn't remember it – neither does Dot, and I'll bet you don't either. But Drew and I remember, because we didn't back ourselves up. I think that whenever a robot gets mad, or suspicious, or upset at Vexus or her goons for any reason, then those memories get erased the next time the robot backs up – and they forget all about it! That way, Vexus knows that her subjects are always loyal to her. You're being mind-controlled, Allison. You're a slave – just like the humans."

Allison planted her fists on her hips with an angry clank. "So now, not only are humans suddenly intelligent, but on top of that we're all being mind-controlled, too? Knock it off, Jenny! Queen Vexus isn't evil. She's kind, and strong, and caring …"

"That's what you've been programmed to think," shouted Jenny, flinging her arms in exasperation. "I've been fighting against Vexus and the Cluster for months, Allison! I've seen Vexus attack my school, my hometown, and even my entire planet! I've seen her assimilate innocent robots with mind control chips and nano-ticks. Vexus and her soldiers have attacked my classmates, my friends and my family … and now she's going to turn them into slaves, along with all the rest of the humans on Earth. And no matter how I feel about Cluster Prime, and my new friends here … I can't let anything happen to the people I care about … back home."

Allison clutched a hand to her chest, feeling like she was suddenly the only sane robot left in the universe. "This is insane! I … I don't believe you! Queen Vexus isn't … I mean … the queen would never do anything like that! Jenny … Jenny, you're a traitor! How could you do this? How could you betray robotkind like that … how could you fight for humans?!? They're primitive dangerous animals … how could you ever call a human your friend? How could you ever care about them?"

A tear trickled down Jenny's metal cheek, and pain registered in her large quivering eyes. Pain at being torn between her human friends and her new robot friends; pain at being called a traitor to her kind; pain at seeing how Vexus' evil had poisoned the minds of Cluster Prime. But she couldn't think of any other way to convince Allison of the truth. The Cluster programming was too strong …

Then Drew took a solemn step forward, and turned to gaze into Allison's confused face. He took her slender fingers in his silver-green hands, and heaved his shoulders with a heavy sigh. "Ally, everything that Jenny said about Vexus is absolutely true. She wants to conquer Earth, and enslave the human race. I know, Ally … I've fought her before. And if she's going to launch an attack … then I have to try and fight her again."

Allison's hands started to shake. "Y-y-you too? B-but why … why would you ever want to protect a planet of humans, Drew? How could a robot ever possibly care about a human?"

Drew closed his eyes, and spoke in a heavy voice. "You tell me, Ally."

A faint electric hum filled the room, and the surface of Drew's body started to shimmer slightly, his nanobots pulsing with waves of silver-green distortion. He didn't change shape – but suddenly a silver-green wave washed over his body, and he changed his appearance, as if he'd been repainted by a phantom paintbrush. Now he was wearing a baseball jersey and a wrinkled pair of cargo shorts. His shiny finish was gone, replaced by the bland peach color of human flesh. Silvery bangs filled out into a mop of dirty blonde hair. And the right leg warbled slightly … and morphed into his old artificial limb.

"I told you I had a different body before the nanobots." Drew opened his eyes, hoping that Allison would forgive him for what he was about to say. "This is what it looked like. I used to be human, Ally. I wasn't built in a factory; I was born in a hospital. I was a human student at Jenny's high school, and then the Cluster attacked, and I wound up getting infected with nanobots. So now I'm an android – but in a lot of ways, I'm still a lot like the human teenager I used to be. Ally, there's not as much difference between humans and robots as you might think …"

She yanked her hands free from his grasp, and took a few steps backwards, with a mix of horror, disbelief, and betrayal on her face. "Oh my Cog … you … you're a human …"

A sickening feeling swelled in Drew's throat, as the beautiful oval eyes which had just been looking at him with affection now stared at him with revulsion and fear. "Ally, please … just let me explain …"

She stumbled through the darkness, edging closer to the front door. "H-h-human … in a robot b-b-body … but … it's … it's not possible … human's aren't … they're not … I … I've … I've got to go … I've … I've got to get home … I've got to go …"

Then she bolted out the door and sprinted down the sidewalk, her shiny face buried in her slim metallic hands; in seconds, she disappeared around the corner of a featureless intersection, trailing twin streams of hot robotic tears as the panicked clank-clank-clank of her footsteps faded into the distance.

A thick silence fell over the darkened store, and the joy of reunion, so prevalent only minutes earlier, was now replaced by a chilling gloom. Brad and Sheldon exchanged a confused glance, still not understanding what had taken place in front of them; but the sadness on Jenny's face was as plain as day, and told them that something very bad had just happened. Jenny wiped a tear from her cheek, still hurting from Allison's words, and from being rejected by the first robot girl-friend she had ever had. But she felt even worse for another friend right now…

Drew stood ramrod-straight, staring out of the large front window like a stone statue, without a hint of emotion on his face. The soft whirr of Jenny's servos approached him from behind, and she gently laid a hand on his shoulder. "Drew? Are … you okay?"

"It's my fault," he said, in an ashen voice. "I should have told her earlier. It's … it's probably for the best. I was going to have to say goodbye anyway, right?"

His nanobots shimmered with activity once more, and a wave of silver-green washed over his human appearance, restoring his body to android form. He watched the last of the transformation flow over his hands, turning his fingers from fleshy pink to silvery green; then he looked up with wounded eyes, to ponder his reflection in the plate-glass window.

"Part robot, part human. Something for everyone to hate."

Continued in Chapter Thirteen / Six Days to Cluster Dawn