Disclaimer: I disclaim all but the alternates!

Chapter Two

Barb, Brad's alternate, was, obviously, very surprised to find Brad there. When she was told what was going on, though, she seemed to take it a lot easier than they expected. Then again, the adventures she most likely experienced with Johnny probably made her more open-minded about such things.

The two robots and two humans left the house, heading toward the alternates' Tremorton High. Brad, who had changed from his ripped shirt to a new one, glanced around for a moment. When he didn't find what he was looking for, a puzzled look crossed his features.

"Where's Tuck?" Brad asked, turning to his counterpart.

"Who?" Barb scratched her head.

"Your...um... little sister?"

"Oh, Kat. She doesn't really like walking with me anymore. She usually takes off a while before I do."

"Why's that?"

"She doesn't really like Johnny. She thinks he's evil."

"What? Why?"

"Brad... remember when we first met?" Jenny asked him, shooing an annoying fly away.

"Yeah," he looked over at her.

"Tuck didn't like me very much at all when we first met. Maybe ... um... Kat was even more convinced that Johnny is evil because of his lack of personality and emotion."

"Yeah," Barb agreed. "Kat always watches those old movies with the demented, emotionless robots taking over the world. That's where she picked up the idea."

"I should... feel offended by that... right?" Johnny spoke for the first time. Barb looked at him, something lighting up in her eyes.

"Yes!" she said, sounding like she was containing excitement. "Do you feel that?"

Johnny just stared at the ground, looking like he was in deep concentration. "I feel..." his eyelids lowered. "Nothing."

Barb seemed to deflate at this. "Well... you're getting some progress... I think you're disappointed."

He looked at her. "Disappointed?"

"Did you feel anything after you realized you felt nothing?"

He looked back down at the ground. "It felt like I was making you unhappy."

"That's close enough. You don't like it when I'm sad, so that means you feel something." she smiled. Johnny smiled back, but they could tell he was just copying her. Barb glanced around as they neared a crosswalk. "I'm going this way." she said, going down the sidewalk instead of crossing the street. "You coming, Brad?"

"What? Why aren't you coming this way?" Brad asked. "Isn't it faster this way?"

She gave him a confused look. "Maybe you don't have this problem in your dimension." She turned and continued walking. "You should come with me."

Brad glanced at Jenny, who just shrugged. They started walking with Barb when they noticed Johnny wasn't following them.

"Wait," Jenny stopped, looking toward her fellow robot. "Johnny, aren't you coming with us?"

He simply said, "No," and turned and continued going in his own direction.

"C'mon Jenny," she heard Barb call to her. "Don't want to be late, do you?

Jenny caught up to them. "But wait, why-"

"It's such a great day, isn't it?" she interrupted her, indicating the cloudy sky. She hesitated a moment. "Well... at least it's not raining."

Of course, Murphy's Law is proven yet again when it immediately starts raining.

"Oh no! I'll rust!" Jenny ran, wanting to get to the school as quickly as possible.

"Wait up!" one of the two human's yelled. It was hard to tell because of the sudden thunder.

The two teenagers came up with some excuse so they could get into the school without too much suspicion. They couldn't actually attend classes that day, though. Since the regular, stricter principal was gone for the day for some reason or another, the less strict vice-principal took over. Otherwise the two of them would have to take classes anyway, which wouldn't be too bad, just more frustrating.

They were assigned a student to show them around the school instead. Though they knew the school already, they didn't want everyone to know this since that would conflict with their story.

Currently, boy and robot were waiting for the student to show up outside the school office. Their tour guide was a little late, though, which irritated Brad. It was truly interesting to see all the differences between the two universes, but it got a bit tiring after a while. Jenny, though, was still fascinated.

"Sorry I'm late!" a voice called, accompanied by hurried footsteps. The two of them turned to quite an amusing sight. A rather dorky looking girl, hauling two duffel bags and one backpack, lurched clumsily toward the two of them. How she managed to run while two heavy bags constantly pounded her thighs was beyond them, but she managed it.

Of course, they recognized her immediately. It was too obvious that she was Sheldon's counterpart. There was barely a difference in the two. Only the higher-pitched voice and the very subtle female features separated her from him. They could easily pass off as each other if they wanted to, or if they even knew about each other.

She stopped just short of crashing into the two of them, needing to lean back a moment since her heavy bags didn't really want to stop going forward.

"Hi, I'm Shelby," she said, extending her hand out to Brad first. "I hope you'll enjoy it here at Tremorton H-" she stopped, noticing Jenny for the first time. She frowned. "You're not another one of those Johnny copies made by another scientist who can't think of ideas for himself if they constantly crashed into his skull, are you?" she asked, sternly.

"What? No!" Jenny said, feeling insulted. "I was created by Mrs.- ah... Mr. Wakeman. I'm Johnny's sister."

She smiled, looking a bit relieved. "Oh, okay. I'm sorry it's just that I hate it when people steal other people's work. Hate!" she growled menacingly before going back to normal. "Well, I guess we should begin the tour now. Shall we?"

"Um..." Brad scratched the back of his neck. "Are you sure you need all those bags?"

"What? Oh these?" she laughed. "Oh I carry these with me all the time! I always forget when I'm even wearing them." She laughed again, sounding shriller and less sane for a moment. "Let's begin the tour."

Needless to say, they toured the school.

At one point, they met up with Dona, obviously Don's alternate. She was the most popular and beautiful girl in school. She made a particularly nasty remark about them, which was probably the most interesting part of the tour.

When they finished, it was time for lunch.

"Well, I hope I helped you guys out all right," Shelby said. "See you later." With that, she walked off.

"That was kinda boring," Jenny remarked softly as they got in line to eat.

"That was the fun part," Brad said, grabbing a tray. "After lunch we have to pick out some classes, have all but one rejected, pick out more, and so on. It can drive you insane."

"How do you know all this?"

"Information like that just kinda floats around and I pick it up."

Jenny was about to reply as the two of them left the lunch line when they bumped into a group of girls. The robot apologized, though she might as well have pointed and laughed like a baboon. The girls were too preoccupied by quite a popular boy.

It was Johnny.

Jenny's jaw dropped at this. How is it that her counterpart was so popular, while she was a complete outcast in her world? True her popularity flared once in awhile, but most of the time she was unpopular. It irritated and intrigued her to see him so popular.

Johnny just had that effect on those girls. It could've been his lack of emotion, making him seem mysterious, or it just could've been the way he looked. Whatever it was, he was given a lot of attention for it. One of the girls jumped up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, hugging him close. This caused the other girls to go into a frenzy, almost knocking over the robot.

Jenny had to feel sorry for him. She glanced around and saw Shelby watching this. She felt sorry for her too. She looked longingly at the boy before adjusting one of her duffel bags and turning away.

She and Brad found at some seats with Barb. Eventually Johnny joined them, bringing all those girls with him.

After that, just as Brad had predicted, they had a lot of frustration to go through. They were mentally exhausted after that. The secretary they had to deal with had such a nasally voice, and talked so slowly. If they were in there any longer, one of them would have cracked for sure.

They finally exited the school and found Barb out there waiting for them with Johnny. Only three of them left, though, leaving Johnny there at the school.

"Why doesn't he ever come with us?" Jenny asked.

Barb scratched her head, smiling. "Well... do you know who Shelby is?"

"Yeah, she was our tour guide," Brad responded.

"Okay. Does you world's version of her have a crush on you, Jenny?" she asked.

"A crush? More like an obsession," the robot said.

"Well, I feel kind of sorry for her so I let her walk with Johnny alone," she smiled sadly. "You must think I'm a jerk."

"What? Why would we think that?" Brad asked, confused.

"Well... I'm using Johnny. What if he doesn't want to walk with her?"

"Um... He didn't seem to mind much," Brad pointed out. "You should feel glad. You're making someone happy."

"Yeah?"

"Of course."

Johnny was walking Shelby home. She clung to his arm like a lifeline. If he were human, she would've surely crushed his arm. When they reached her house, she gave him a hug, acting like she wouldn't see him in a long time. He continued walking down the sidewalk as soon as her door closed behind her. He continued walking until he saw someone he was quite surprised to see. A little, black-haired girl sat perched upon the fence, frowning at him.

"Hello, Kat," Johnny greeted her, knowing full well that she didn't like him, but also knowing that ignoring her completely wouldn't do much good. She just stared at him, a thoughtful look on her face. He was about to leave when she spoke.

"Why?" she asked.

"Why not?" Johnny answered, thinking she meant that great philosophical question.

"No, I mean, why do you do that?" she asked, sounding irritated.

"Do what?"

"You... play with them. Humans aren't toys, we have feelings," she said sternly. "Unlike you."

"How am I playing with who?"

"You're..." she stopped for a moment and bit her lip, trying to find a way to say it. After a time, she blurted something. "If you had a choice between Shelby and my sister, who would you pick?" She winced at her own blunt question, yet looked at him hopefully. He seemed confused and surprised, pretty much the extent of his emotions so far.

"Shelby... and... Barb?" he thought for a moment. Kat hopped off of the fence.

"You think on that. I'm going home," and with that, she left.

Johnny stood there for a moment, thinking, before he started again toward his home.

It was a beautiful night, though still just a bit cloudy. The air, freshened by the rain, felt so pure. A few stars could be seen along with just a sliver of the moon. Not a perfect night, mind, but still quite nice. The only thing that was a bit irritating was the grass was so wet.

The person who was irritated by this was a teenage girl who had decided to take the long way home. She found that she liked nighttime strolls, so long as she stayed on the sidewalk and off of the wet grass so her pants wouldn't get soaked.

She grinned to herself as she daydreamed about silly fantasies. Unbeknownst to her, someone was following her. She heard something crack behind her. She turned around to see what it was, but before she could, she was clubbed in he head. Only a small gasp escaped her before she was knocked out.

Around five the next morning, in that same area, someone walked outside and took a deep breath of fresh air. He was going to go for his morning walk when he saw the bloody mess.

"Oh my-!" the man exclaimed before promptly throwing up.

Author's Note

I thank you, my reviewers! I do read those by the way, and they help a lot. They let me know that people are reading this rather than taking a glance, reading a bit, then leaving or something like that.

Sorry it took so long to get this up…. I'm not a very fast writer. Added on to that, it takes me looking over it a million times before I'm remotely satisfied, at least enough to put it up. I don't like how this chapter turned out myself, but I can't think of any way to change things without having to kill what I have planned. I only brought the rating up to be careful… I'm not sure if that last scene would be K+ or T.

I'm having a bit of a hard time with the next chapter. I know what's supposed to happen, I just don't know how to bring to story to it.

By the way, crashfourit, who is Rob?