A/N – Just wanted to say thank you to all my readers and reviewers, especially the ones who have left reviews over the holiday season. I know it gets crazy busy over the holidays, and I appreciate everyone who took the time to keep up with the story. I know this sounds goofy, but I miss you guys when you don't review! Anyway, I imagine that everyone should be back into their routines by now.

Well, less than two weeks to go until a new season of Teenage Robot. Five new episodes starting Monday, January 24th, every night for a week. Back when I started this trilogy, I had hoped to be done before Season Two started, but that ain't gonna happen. So once again, remember that this trilogy takes place before Season Two (or the Christmas special) takes place.

Oh, and as for "or as the Italians called it, savoir-faire" … I know it's French, not Italian. Eh … it was written in Sheldon's POV, and it was supposed to be funny. Well, it was supposed to be.


Countdown to Mindshatter

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Seven – Let's Have a Talk


The briefing tent at the Starship Camp was even busier than it had been yesterday, and the air was ripe with urgency and tension. A semi-circle of pedestals at the front of the tent held large maps and charts, detailing the planned positioning of the Space Defense Forces for the impending Cluster invasion. Computer screens showed the latest research and intelligence retrieved from the starship, in hopes of gleaning some speck of data that might possibly give Earth an edge in the coming battle. General Brohammer had been talking about fleet strength and weapons loadouts for over half an hour, and Jenny was having a hard time concentrating on his endless stream of charts and numbers. She would have found all that stuff boring under the best of conditions – and she was still very upset over the disastrous day she'd had at school. Not to mention, it was hard to focus on charts and lectures with her mom fastening dozens of sensors all over her metallic body.

Brohammer tapped a button on the holographic briefing table, and a three-dimensional grid phased into view. "Now here, we see how the Cluster battle groups will make their approach to Earth. Small skirmish groups will come up from below the ecliptic as a diversion, while their main battle fleet jumps out of hyperspace right here, using the moon as cover. We're going to send our ships after the diversion, and let the bug-heads think their little decoy is working. But we're going to have a surprise of our own waiting for the main fleet. That's where you come in, XJ-9 … XJ-9?" The general raised his voice in annoyance. "I hate to bother you with this, little lady, but it's kind of important!"

"I'm listening, I'm listening … yeeowch! Mom, watch where you stick that thing!" She winced as her mother secured the last sensor probe right between her eyes. Ignoring her protests, the doctor connected the other end of the wire to a portable field scope, and started taking readings from the monitor.

"Hmmm … I do not see any problems with your power outputs at the moment, XJ-9." Mrs. Wakeman tapped a pencil against her nose, deep in analytical thought, then flipped open her daughter's chest plate to inspect her electronics. "Nor does there appear to be anything amiss with your primary or secondary bus circuits. Are you certain that you experienced a power surge?"

"Oh believe me," groaned Jenny, "I'm certain. And so is Justin Spitzer and the rest of kids in the cafeteria. Gawd, I can't believe I spazzed out in front of Justin like that …"

The general glared at Jenny impatiently; he was the kind of man who didn't tolerate being ignored. "If I'm bothering you, maybe I could send a message along to Queen Vexus. Ask her to reschedule the invasion for sometime next week. Would that be a better time for you?"

Jenny fought back the urge to scream yes it would!, and gave the general a pleading look through her cocoon of wires. "I'm really sorry, General, but this is important too! I don't think this Z-Doohickey is working right! Ever since my mom turned it on, I've been having nothing but problems with it. I can hardly control my strength anymore! And it looks like somebody welded a big ugly oil barrel onto my back! I'd be better off fighting without it!"

"Preposterous!" snapped Dr. Mogg, who was holding a large scanning device. "Without my Z-Pack, there is simply no way that Nora's robot can possibly defeat the Cluster. Besides, there's no problem with my invention. See?" He waved his scanner over Jenny's belly, and a row of small blinking green lights lit up. "The Z-Pack is working absolutely perfectly."

"All right then, let's change horses for a second," sighed the general. "Dr. Plink, what can you tell me about your nanobot research? Do we have a usable weapon?"

Plink picked up a small plastic scale model of a Cluster Stealth Wasp – almost dropped it – and pointed to a long cannon attachment on its belly. "Well, it should be no trouble to affix the … glah … Slurry Projector to the bottom of the Stealth Wasp. It's just a couple of bolts here and there, a few welds … maybe a dab of Krazy Glue … bwah … but there's two problems. First, a special flight code is needed to activate the Stealth Wasp's systems. Oooh, so sneaky, that is! We think we can get the code from a captured pilot-drone, but so far … nyaah … he ain't talkin'."

"I know about the flight code problem," said Brohammer, massaging his forehead. "We've got a team of experts working on the Cluster prisoner now. What's the second problem?"

"This is!" Plink turned towards a large stainless steel tank, with a huge rotating attachment, that looked for all the world like a mixer from some giant's kitchen. He turned a valve on the side of the tank, and with a sickening glug, a small nozzle belched out a glob of silver-green goo that splattered against a metallic target plate. Plink crossed his fingers, hoping that the blob would start to devour the target … but instead, it simply bubbled obnoxiously, then with a quick poof, it disintegrated into a pile of gray ash.

"I could have told you that was going to happen," said a muffled voice from inside the tank. Drew's head sprang up on a flexible stalk, wearing a frustrated face, while the rest of his doughy body was churned and kneaded like cake batter. "If you slice off a piece of my body, it just turns into ash!"

"Bwa-haw, I realize that, but I have … glah … high confidence that I can find a solution to …"

"Based in what, Einstein?!?" Drew's voice grew more irate, until he was shouting angrily at the professor. "I haven't been able to figure out how my stupid body works after months and months and months, and you think you're gonna figure it all out in one night? And this mixer is your best idea so far? Geez, did you get your college degree out of a gumball machine or something?!?"

Everyone in the tent stopped what they were doing, distracted by the sudden outburst. Jenny craned her neck around to watch her android friend; Drew looked tense and upset, and she worried that he might say something that would get him in trouble. But instead, he just lowered his head. "I … I'm sorry, Dr. Plink … General … um, sir. I'm just a little … nervous … I guess. I … uh … listen, can we just take a break here? I'm getting a little tired of spinning around inside this giant Cuisinart."

"Very well," growled the general, glancing at his watch. "At ease, everyone. And son … I suggest you get your head on straight before we continue, understand? There's a lot of work to be done."

"Believe me, I know," said Drew, rolling his eyes to himself. He poured himself out of the steel tank, resumed humanoid form, and slowly walked towards the tent's exit, glancing left and right, nervously twiddling his fingers together. Jenny squirmed around on her portable platform, frustrating her mother's efforts to take scanner readings, and watched her friend loiter by the tent flap. She really did worry about Drew these days – he was the only other teenage robot on Earth, after all – but he looked terrible, and a little depressed, and she wondered if he would ever be the same again …

Then he spoke up. "J-Jenny? Uh … can I talk to you for a minute? Outside?"

Finally – maybe she could talk some sense into him. She ripped off the sensor wires – much to the chagrin of her mother – leapt off her platform and rushed to the exit, still not quite used to the way the Z-Pack threw her off-balance. She gave Drew a reassuring smile, which he tried to return, unsuccessfully … then they stepped outside.

It was a perfect spring day in Tremorton, with a brilliant sun and warm breeze that were tailor made for playing in the park. But the only sounds in the park today were of heavy motors, busy soldiers, and the whine of hovercrafts gliding overhead. The gargantuan carcass of the downed Cluster starship still dominated the landscape, and military vehicles buzzed all around it, with army scientists and technicians constantly streaming in and out, to scavenge it for new technology. Jenny and Drew hopped out of the way as a loader rolled by with a pair of ground-to-space missiles. "A little noisy out here for a talk," said Jenny, shouting to be heard over the loader's engine.

"I think you're right," replied Drew. "Let's duck inside one of these supply tents."

The teen robots slipped inside a small tent filled with wooden and plastic crates, and closed the flap behind them, which reduced the outside noise to a more tolerable level. Now that they had some privacy, Drew paced back and forth for a few seconds, pushing the silver-green hair out of his eyes … then he turned to face Jenny, who was waiting patiently with her hands clasped together.

"Sorry about that, Jenny … " – he gulped hard, steadying his voice – "… I just needed to get out of there for a little bit. I think I'm okay now."

"Well I don't think you're okay," she said, her voice filled with unease. "Drew, what is going on with you? Just look at you! You look like you're about to fall apart! And you nearly bit Dr. Plink's head off in there. Sure, he's a little bizarre, but that's no reason to shout at him! What's the matter with you ?!?"

"I know, I know, I know … I've been, uh, acting a little freaky the past couple of days."

"A little freaky? Try a lot."

He nervously rubbed at the back of his head. "Yeah … I … I know …"

She stepped closer to him, and put a metallic hand on his shoulder. "I know this is hard for you. I know you miss Allison. I miss her too … so I can only imagine how you feel." Then she raised her hand to his chin, and lifted his eyes to meet hers. "I can only imagine, because you won't tell anyone how you feel! Drew, we've barely talked ever since we got back from Cluster Prime. You're just moping around with this huge black cloud over your head!"

"I know, I know …" He shuffled nervously from one foot to the other.

"I don't like seeing you like this! You're my friend, Drew … and I'm your friend. I care about you … and you need to remember that. You need to stop pushing away the people who are trying to help you." Jenny paused for a moment, then continued, with a warm smile on her face. "We've been through an awful lot together over the last few months, haven't we? Remember when I was modeling those diamonds and acting all snooty? And when you saved my mom from Vexus? And when I set you up on that blind date with my little sister?" Jenny chuckled, coaxing a weak smile out of him, and went on. "We androids have to stick together, right?"

Drew's smile began to quiver slightly. "I really miss her, Jen," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

"I know, but you've got to try and feel better," she continued. "Making yourself totally miserable isn't going to help Allison, is it?"

He took a deep breath – he didn't need the oxygen, but it still had a calming effect – and shook his head. "You're right … feeling miserable isn't going to help her."

Jenny felt a glimmer of optimism; maybe Drew was finally coming out of his self-imposed isolation. "Tell you what. After we're done with all this boring briefing garbage, let's call Brad and get together at Mezmer's for sodas. And oil for me, and silverware for you," she giggled. "Or maybe just the two of us, robot-to-robot. You'll feel better after you finally start talking about things."

Drew looked up with calm eyes, and smiled for the first time that day. "Jenny, I … I don't tell you this often enough … but you've been a really good friend to me. The accident with the nanobots … trying to figure out how to live as a robot … I wouldn't have been able to hack it if it weren't for you. I'm lucky to have you as a friend, and I just wanted to say … I just wanted to say thanks."

"Aw, Drew …" She wrapped her arms around him in a warm embrace, and he hugged her back …

"And …" – he sighed – "… I'm sorry."

Jenny blinked her eyes in confusion. "Sorry? Why would you say …"

She didn't feel the cool press of his fingers against the back of her head until it was too late. The nano-computers in his fingertips hummed with activity, and quickly interfaced with her master computer, overriding her higher brain functions. Her sleep command was triggered, and she had a vague sensation of consciousness leaving her mind as the world began to grow fuzzy. Her hard drives spun down, her memory banks went dormant, and her CPUs went into low-power mode. She just had time to register a look of surprise on her face before her eyes glazed over in a frosty blue, and her metallic eyelids slid down with a soft whirr. Drew held her tight as her servo motors shut down, and she slumped into his chest, reduced to a titanium rag doll.

Drew carefully laid the sleeping robot girl down on the floor of the tent – positioning her on her side, due to the Z-Pack – and pulled an envelope out of his chest with a syrupy glurp. He tucked the envelope, which read To Jenny, in her hands, and took a few steps back to collect himself. He felt terribly guilty, but it had to be done – Jenny would never let him try something as stupid as the stunt he was about to pull. He briefly thought about chickening out … then he began to warble with patterns of silver-green, and a wave of multicolored distortion washed over his body. His malleable form stretched a few inches taller, his shoulders broadened, and his shiny surface repainted itself into a dark olive military uniform. He took one last moment to calm down, then he opened the tent flap and walked outside.


"All right men, we've gotta get this equipment loaded onto these pallets, and moved into that hangar! C'mon, c'mon, we don't have all day. The sooner we get done, the sooner we can all break for chow!" Lieutenant Olsen, just one year out of officer school, didn't have a particularly spectacular assignment – heck, most of the assignments in the army were 99 percent boredom – and he tended to overcompensate for it with his youthful enthusiasm. He drove his men with tireless efficiency, but he often wished that he'd gotten one of the more exciting posts in the army. Maybe something in a foreign country, or even one of the Mars bases – anything but working in Supply.

His platoon was working up a sweat in the afternoon sun, loading heavy boxes of scientific equipment into the giant starship's hangars for the eggheads to play with. It wasn't a much different in principle than his job stocking groceries in high school, and it was about half as interesting …

Suddenly one of his young privates pointed into the sky. "Hey! You guys see that?!?"

One by one his troops set their heavy crates down and pointed into the sky, towards a mysterious disk that was hurtling in their direction. For an instant, Olsen wondered if it might be an attack – but as the disk grew closer, he sensed something … familiar about it, like he'd seen it somewhere before. It swooped down majestically, slowing to a hover directly over their heads, perched on flames of rocket exhaust. Twenty soldiers stared up at a fifteen-foot wide spinning saucer, their eyes wide with astonishment …

Then the lieutenant's jaw dropped open as the giant saucer split up into pieces, and began to transform into a robot before his very eyes. Wedges of the saucer rotated and pivoted to form arms and legs, and a grinning head popped up from a Herculean metal chest, adorned with a stylish spiral. The robot struck a bodybuilder's pose in mid-air, and slammed to the ground with thunderous force …

"Holy corn fritters!" gasped a freckle-faced private.

"No stinkin' way!" shouted a pudgy, crew-cut corporal.

Despite his military training, Olsen was grinning like a little boy who'd just met his favorite baseball player. "It's … it's …"

The massive robot grinned smugly, and perched his fists on his hips. "EXCELSIOR!"

Lt. Olsen ran up to gawk at Tremorton's legendary robot hero. "The Silver Shell! Oh wow … wait'll I tell the guys back at the barracks! Mr. Shell, do you think I could get your autograph …" Olsen gradually became aware that his men were laughing at his boyish giddiness, and he quickly snapped back into a more military demeanor. "Cough, cough, I mean … excuse me, sir, this is a military installation and a controlled access area. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Fear not, my good lieutenant," boomed the Shell, "for I am here to offer my services as a hero to the commander of this base!" He thrust a melodramatic fist into the air, and spoke in a rich baritone. "In this grave hour, when the Earth is menaced by an unspeakable evil horde, I, the Silver Shell, would pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and your fine fighting men! To defend the innocent, protect the good, and thwart evil in all its forms!"

Cheers rang up from the men as the lieutenant eagerly shook the mighty robot's hand. "This is great news, Mr. Shell! Really great news! Man, I still have the newspaper clipping from when you beat up that runaway robotic bull – I can hardly wait to see what you do to those lousy Cluster roaches! I'll call the general and let him know you're here. Say … um, do you think that, later on, you could …"

"Tell you what," beamed the Shell. A thin slot opened up in his chest, and out popped an extendable arm with a digital camera mounted on it. "Why don't we take some photos of me, with you and your men?"

Lt. Olsen struggled to contain his excitement. "Oh wow, Mr. Silver Shell, that would be absolutely incredible. Oh wow. If there's anything I can ever do for you, you just name it!"

A sly smile came to the Shell's metallic face. "Well, you … could give me a tour of the starship."


"XJ-9? XJ-9? XJ-Niyun!" Mrs. Wakeman stormed out of the briefing tent with a scowl on face, wondering just what the blazes her daughter was up to now. "I cannot fathom how a girl with an atomic clock integrated into her brain manages to be so consistently late all the time! XJ-9! XJ-9, Andrew, where are you?!?" She shielded her eyes with her clipboard and scanned the camp – even amongst all of the tents, shelters, vehicles, and soldiers, one would think that a six-and-a-half-foot metal girl would stand out. But there was no trace of her anywhere.

Phinneas Mogg stepped out of the tent behind her, with a smug little smile on his face. "So it still thinks it's a teenager, does it, Nora? Amazing. The fate of the entire human race is at stake, and your 'daughter' is off … what, checking the mall for shoe sales?"

Mrs. Wakeman gave Mogg a nasty glance, partly mad at him for zinging her with yet another verbal pot-shot, and partly mad because she suspected he might be right. "Just don't you worry about my XJ-9, Phinneas. I programmed her well … she knows that her primary responsibility is to save the Earth, and battle against the forces of evil!" Her shoulders slumped with an exasperated sigh. "She just … occasionally takes a little side trip to the mall on the way to battle."

General Brohammer burst out of the tent, looking like his reservoir of patience was just about exhausted. "Dr. Wakeman? Consarn it, Doctor, what is the holdup out here? We have a schedule to keep …"

"I know, I know," she said, as she fished inside one of the pockets of her yellow lab coat. She pulled out a small metal cylinder, pressed a button, and it quickly unfolded and expanded into a small communications monitor. She tried to give her daughter a call, but strangely, the screen remained dark, except for the stylized XJ-9 logo with its cute little smile. "The caller you are trying to reach is not in service at this time," said a synthesized voice. "Please hang up, and try your call again later."

A puzzled look came to Mrs. Wakeman's face. "Not in service? I don't understand …" She didn't even get her voice mail; what on Earth was going on?

Suddenly they heard a voice shout out to their right. "Hey! Who da heck put dis in here? Geez, dis tent is only supposed ta be used ta store food and medicine. Who stuck dis robot in here?"

Robot?!? Mrs. Wakeman exchanged confused glances with Mogg and the general, and then all three of them ran the thirty yards to the small supply tent, where a pair of soldiers were standing and scratching their heads. She darted between the soldiers, tossed back the tent flap …

And saw her robotic daughter stretched out on the ground, leaning on her side, and snoring loudly.

The general was growing more incensed by the second; he wanted answers, and he wanted them now. But Mrs. Wakeman ignored him and dropped to her daughter's side, with a twinge of motherly concern mixed in with her irritation. She grabbed a screwdriver and flipped open XJ-9's cranial access panel, probing around for the manual startup switch … it was in there somewhere … click.

Motors spun up to speed and systems came back on-line, and Jenny bolted up to a sitting position, stretching her arms high above her head. "Yawwwwwnn … oh, wow, my aching servos. Oh … hi there Mom! What's going on … ummm … why is everybody staring at me?"

Her mother folded her arms, with a scolding glare. "XJ-9, what on Earth made you decide to take a power nap in the middle of the day? You haven't been working that hard."

Jenny gave her mother a nasty look. "I didn't take a power nap, Mom, I was just talking … with …" – it all came flooding back to her – "… Drew! I don't believe it, Mom, Drew put me to sleep! We were talking … and then I gave him a hug … and then that sneaky little … ooooh, and after I was all worried about him! Why that …" She balled her hands into a pair of angry fists, and only then, realized that she was holding on to something. An envelope – with her name on it.

"What the …" – she ripped open the envelope, and unfolded the letter …

"Oh, no. No, no, no. Mom, where's Drew? Has anyone seen him? We have to find him, now!"

While Jenny tried to explain to her mother just what had happened, the general grabbed a walkie-talkie from his belt, and dialed it to the command frequency. Something about the way that the android boy had been acting earlier was bothering him; this whole sideshow was setting off his well-honed instinct for smelling trouble. "This is General Brohammer to all units. Be advised, we are attempting to locate one Andrew Nabholtz, male teenage android, six feet tall, silver with green stripes. The shape-shifter who's been working with Dr. Plink. He's needed immediately for the defense strategy meetings. If you see him, please escort him back to me, at the Briefing Tent."

A series of quick confirmations squawked back over the walkie-talkie … and then one of the security detail asked a question. "General, sir? Please confirm, you want us to bring him to the Briefing Tent?"

"Affirmative, Captain," he barked into the handset. "That's where I am."

There was an awkward silence, then … "Begging your pardon, sir, but I just passed you at the security checkpoint. You were heading inside the starship."

"Inside the starship? I haven't been anywhere near …" – then realized who they were looking for: a shape-shifter. The general looked down at Jenny, who was showing her mother the letter, with cold, squinting eyes. "Tell me everything, XJ-9. Now. What in blazes is your little friend trying to pull?"


The room wasn't much bigger than an average school classroom, and after it had been filled with banks of computers and monitoring devices, it felt even smaller still. One of the many secondary equipment rooms in the Cluster starship had been converted into a makeshift research lab, and a pair of experts, who were among the best cryptographers in the country, had been flown in just for this special (and somewhat strange) project. They hammered away at their keyboards, trying to make sense of the alien computer software, desperately looking for a needle in a binary haystack. Two armed guards stood vigilantly just inside the door of the lab, keeping a watchful eye on their unusual prisoner. But they didn't expect too much trouble out of him – after all, they'd unfastened his arms and legs.

"Organic oppressors! Do your worst! You will get no flight code from me, flesh lumps!" Most of the roach-drone crew had been blasted to pieces when the Space Marines had stormed the starship, and many of the rest had successfully activated their memory-wipe fail-safes. Protecting the Cluster's secrets was more important than any individual drone's life, after all. But unfortunately for pilot drone GXZ-9966-Q, he had been knocked offline instead of being completely destroyed. Three days ago, the humans had reactivated him in this lab – with his limbs and engines removed, and with dozens of wires snaking into his metallic torso and dome-shaped head. They had interrogated him, verbally and via computer linkup, nonstop ever since. But they had gotten nothing from him.

"I've never seen a firewall this sophisticated before," groaned one of the human scientists. "Aw, crap! Another dead end!" He slapped his monitor in frustration.

The pilot-drone let out an obnoxious, synthesized laugh. "Foolish primates! You cannot even conquer a single Cluster drone. Soon Queen Vexus will come to liberate me, and all of the oppressed robots on this primate-infested planet! We will be free at last! Free at last! Thank Cog Almighty, free at last!"

The other scientist shook his head. "For Pete's sake, will you please take out his speech processor …"

The lab doors slid open, and a tall, thin man in a white lab coat walked in, glancing casually at the flat-panel monitors. He had a receding hairline, and looked to be in his forties – which would have made him twenty years older than either of the cryptography experts. He was holding a shiny computer disk in his hand, twiddling it nervously between his fingers, when one of the scientists finally noticed him.

"Yeah, whaddaya want? We're a little busy in here."

"Hmm? Oh, uh, I just brought along a disk of some new code-cracking software. Some guys at Tremorton Tech think it'll speed things up. Hey …" – he gestured to the Cluster robot – "… how are things going? You getting any information out of him?"

"Nah, nothing at all," growled the young scientist, as he snatched the disk. "That moron Plink is on my case, Brohammer calls us every hour for status reports, and now some bunch of hacks at Trem Tech think they can do my job for me? I'd like to see them try and decode a five-dimensional matrix of …" He turned the disk over in hands to examine it, and harrumphed in frustration. "Is this some kind of joke? This is an AOL disk, you moron!"

"Uh, yeah, I know … I just ripped it out of a magazine I found in the trash." The tall, middle-aged man flexed his fingers … which began to shimmer with veins of silver-green …

The guards gasped with momentary surprise, then grabbed their pistols and ordered the stranger to get on the floor with his hands behind his head. Instead, he twisted around and swung an arm through the air with a haymaker punch. Faster than the blink of an eye, his arm stretched out and punched one of the guards – standing ten feet away – in the chin, knocking him to the floor, out cold. The other arm turned into a speeding tentacle that slammed a fist into the second guard's stomach. Both guards lay moaning in a heap by the door; the two young cryptographers had dived under their desk to cower in terror.

"So our friend here doesn't have too much to say," said the tall man, as his shimmering arms flowed back to his sides. His entire body gurgled into a shimmering pillar of silver-green molasses, and a moment later Drew had reformed into his default, green-striped appearance. He glared at the helpless Cluster roach-drone, like a jaguar watching an antelope, and sensed a hint of robotic fear in the drone's eyes. He raised his right hand, so the roach-drone could watch his fingers grow into long, silver claws, each tipped with countless nano-computers. The drone could do nothing but watch as the silver-green hand came down against his domed head. He could feel the his firewalls being bypassed as the nano-computers ran through their adaptive subroutines …

"But y'know, I think he'll talk to me," said Drew, as the pilot-drone's eyes glazed over. "You'll give me that flight code for the Stealth Wasp, won't ya, buddy? And hey, why you're at it … why don't you tell me everything you know about flying that thing."


Continued in Chapter Eight / Twenty-three Hours to Cluster Dawn