Author's Note: Here's Chapter Two!

Phoenix Fire
Chapter Two

Jenny slowly came back online, her eyes not yet in focus. Once she was fully active, she realized she was no longer in the burned-out building, but in her mom's lab. "Hello?" she called tentatively. She received no answer. She tried to stand, but found that she was buckled down onto a lab table. A moment later, Dr. Wakeman walked through the door.

"Oh, you're back online, XJ Ni-yun," she said, slipping on a pair of insulated work gloves. "That's good to know. Why don't you run a diagnostics check and let me know if you have any software damage?"

Jenny did as she a was told. A moment later, she replied, "No software damage found, Mom. But what about physical damage?" Her eyes popped out of their "sockets" and curled around, allowing Jenny a full view of her body. She let out a soft shriek as she saw what had become of her: she was practically a robotic Frankenstein, with mismatched, spare parts abounding. "Mom... What happened to me?" she whispered.

"You suffered serious hardware damage, XJ Ni-yun, to both your appearance and your weaponry. I had to use parts from your prototype bodies to fix you, but I still haven't been able to repair all of the damage."

"Well, how long will it take, then?"

"I'm afraid...I can't, XJ Ni-yun. The damage is too extensive; I'd have to build you a completely new body. And had I known something like this would happen..."

"What do you mean?" Jenny was suddenly nervous.

"Well, some of your parts I made myself. And, not knowing that you would ever suffer such damage, I foolishly threw away the original schematics. And inside you, those parts are either too damaged for me to be able to copy them properly, or they have fused with other parts and I cannot remove them without having to replace the whole section of your body, such as here." She released the bonds holding Jenny's left arm, then tried to bend it at the elbow. The movement was rough and jerky, and Jenny could hear the distinct screech of improperly fitting parts rubbing against each other. "There's nothing further I can do for you."

"But...with all these parts jury-rigged on, one fight could land me in the recycling bin!" Jenny said in a yell of protest.

"I know, XJ Ni-yun," Nora replied in an equally loud, upset voice. In a slightly calmer tone, she added, "That's why I think it might be best if you took some time off from your world-saving duties. Perhaps with a little effort I can create some upgrades that would do the trick, but it would take time that we currently don't have."

"But Mom, aren't you the one who's always telling me that the world can go into peril at any moment?" Jenny shot back.

"Jennifer Wakeman, if you say one more word, you will be grounded--permanently!" Nora shrieked. Jenny cringed as if she'd just been slapped. She then broke the leather straps holding her to the lab table, activated her foot jets, and shot out of the lab, crying. At that moment, Nora mentally slapped herself. That had been much too familiar for her taste. She immediately called Brad. "Bradley, would you please go and look for XJ Ni-yun for me? I believe she may be at the park. We had a bit of a...falling out, and she's upset."

After a few minutes of flying through the still night, Jenny arrived at the park. With a tearful sigh, she collapsed onto the ground, letting artificial tears leak from her eyes. She pounded the dirt repeatedly until she realized she was creating a rather large divot in the ground. "I knew it," she said to herself. "Mom wants to decommission me. She thinks I can't fight anymore, so she's going to put me in sleep mode just like 1 through 8 and she's going to replace me with a better robot--an XJ-perfect-10." She slowly stood, cringing at the screech of her knees as they worked their way through damage and rust. Taking the worn walking path, Jenny went around and around in a half-mile circuit until she bumped into someone. Looking up, she realized it was Brad. "Oh, hey, Brad," Jenny said glumly.

"What's wrong, Jen? Your mom called. She said you two had a fight, and--whoa!" Brad said, startled, as Jenny walked into the glow of a nearby streetlamp.

"This is what's wrong, Brad. I got hurt...in that fire downtown." Jenny sat down glumly in the middle of the path.

"The one that happened last week?" Brad asked, sitting down next to her.

"It's been a week already?" Brad nodded. "Wow...well, Mom can't fix all the damage that was done to me, so she's going to decommission me."

"She told you that?"

Jenny opened her mouth and a recording of the conversation could be heard. At the conclusion--"Jennifer Wakeman, if you say one more word, you will be grounded--permanently!"-- the final word seemed to echo in the night air.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Brad said, "Umm...Jenny...when's the last time your mom actually called you 'Jennifer?'"

"I...I don't really know."

"Hmm... You know, I think this may be a big misunderstanding. I don't think she's going to decommission you, Jen. She has the same tone in her voice as my mom does when I argue with her. Maybe at that moment, she wasn't thinking of you as a robot, but as a daughter. She's worried about you, Jen."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. I do. So, do you want to go back now?" Brad grasped Jenny's hand in his own. "I'll go with you, if you want."

Jenny nodded, secretly happy that he was holding her hand. "Yeah." She tried to start her boot jets, but they wouldn't ignite. "Hmm... I guess they got damaged too. Looks like we're walking."

"Don't worry about it," Brad said. He let go of Jenny's hand and dug around in a bag that she had only just then noticed. A moment later, he held out two jet packs and handed one to her. "Your mom figured you might need this."

Jenny smiled. "She was right...as usual." They strapped on the jet packs and took off into the night sky. Neither of them noticed the tiny robot floating in the air behind them.