A First Time For Everything
A MLAATR-Inspired Fanfic
By Shvique

Author's Note: Once again, sorry for the long delay in posting this chapter, dear Readers, but the past few months have been both hectic & stressful for me (for the most boring & mundane of reasons, which I won't go into.) Hopefully, it won't be another eight or nine months before the next chapter is posted. Fortunately though, we're pretty much done with the "Preliminary/Set-Up" stuff now, and the really good parts of the story will start to get going pretty soon. I hope you enjoy the story so far, find it interesting, and if you like it, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below (please keep it clean.) And as always, thanks for reading.

Shvique


Chapter 7—Fragments of Time

"You…you what?!" Jenny demanded in a growing, scarcely-controlled rage, which threatened by the moment to completely overwhelm her.

"Now…now Jenny, take it easy," Sheldon stammered, backing away from her, with his hands raised defensively. "I can explain everything! See, I had a very good reason for—"

But Jenny was beyond listening at that point, beyond the ability of mere words to reach her. She had been betrayed! By a trusted friend! Or rather, by someone she thought was a friend, but who had turned out to be no different from her worst enemies! He was an enemy! He had worked with her enemies! Worked towards her destruction! And the destruction of other robots like her!

The fury within her continued to grow, going far beyond the range of anything she had ever before experienced, beyond anything that had been programmed into her, beyond anything that she'd ever before encountered in normal human interaction. Emotional pain, fury, feelings of betrayal, misplaced and destroyed trust, all blurred together within her and coalesced into an all-enveloping, all-consuming, white-hot rage, which threatened to consume her very existence. All of her other thoughts, emotions, even the primary commands of her basic mission programming, her conscience-program and her friend/enemy-recognition program were all overwhelmed and subsumed into that anger, to the point where she could scarcely articulate it.

"You…you…you…!" she sputtered in barely-coherent fury, followed by an expletive of which she had no conscious memory, but which she must have unconsciously picked up somewhere, and which now came so appropriately to her vocoder. "All this time, when I thought I could trust you, you were really working with them! Ohhhhhh, you…you…!" she concluded with a an even-fouler variation of the expletive she'd just uttered.

"But—but Jenny…!" Sheldon cried, now backing away from her, in fear of what was to come, his eyes wide in terror.

Before another moment had passed, and before she had any conscious awareness of what she was doing, Jenny transformed into the same combat-configuration she had utilized only moments earlier. She fired up her rockets, lifting herself several feet into the sky, and deployed her multiple laser-cannons from her flanks. Once aloft, she began the activation-sequence to bring the cannons to full-power, targeting the small human figure on the ground below.

Sheldon immediately turned and bolted in the opposite direction at breakneck speed, faster than he had ever run before in his life; faster than he even knew he could run, to escape the now-furious robot-girl who'd formerly been the object of his desire, but who now seemed intent on destroying him.

But just before Jenny's laser-cannons had reached their full power, an intense flash of brilliant, purple-white light appeared in the air directly in front of her, blocking her flight-path, and bringing her to an immediate mid-air halt. The light grew in both size and intensity, expanding like a form of ball-lightning, nearly ten feet in diameter, with smaller trails of minute forked-lightning arcing around its periphery, followed a shower of sparks cascading all around it, as if burst from a 4th of July skyrocket. Jenny, hovering in midair before the uncanny phenomena, simply stared, momentarily stunned at the sight. Her sensors registered highly-charged electrostatic energy in the atmosphere, apparently emanating from the ball of light. Whatever the strange phenomenon was, it was powerful, she knew; possibly even more powerful than herself. Or at least, powerful enough not to be trifled with.

But almost as soon as it appeared, the ball began to diminish in both size and intensity, and in moments, it disappeared entirely, leaving in its place…another Jenny! A perfectly-exact, down-to-the-smallest-possible-detail replica, hovering in mid-air, with a pair of twin ponytail-jets holding her in perfect midair stasis, just like Jenny herself.

Jenny blinked; it was uncanny! Like looking in a mirror! Except that it wasn't a reflection. It was no mere illusion or hologram or any other sort of visual trick of her optical-sensors. No, this was real, physically there, as evinced by all of her sensors, clearly indicating an actual physical presence there in the air before her.

Once the ball of light had dissipated, Jenny's doppelganger looked all around her, surveying her surroundings, then her eyes locked onto Jenny. "Oh, thank Jobs!" the duplicate Jenny cried with a smile. "I made it! And from the looks of it, not a moment too soon! Now listen, I haven't got much time; only a few minutes. So listen to me—" She reached out to Jenny with one hand, while the other held a small, bronze-and-silver, card-shaped electronic device, the likes of which Jenny had never seen before.

Jenny stiffened. She didn't know who this imposter was, where she'd come from, what her purpose was, or what sort of game she was playing that had made it all possible. Nor did she have time for any of that. She had other priorities right now. She would deal with this imposter later.

"Outta my way!" she cried, training her laser-cannons onto the imposter. "And you better stay outta the way, if you know what's good for you!"

The duplicate Jenny sighed in exasperation and rolled her eyes. A compact storage-compartment opened up out of her hip, and she slid the electronic device into it, leaving both hands free. "No, wait!" she cried, holding out her hands. "Stop! You can't do this! You've got to stop and listen to me! Right now! Before you go any further!"

"I don't have time for this!" Jenny snarled, "I gave you a fair warning, and that's all you're gonna get! I'll deal with you later, whoever or whatever you are, but for now, and for the last time, get outta my way! Unless you wanna get blasted, too!" With that, Jenny gave her rockets an extra burst, propelling her toward her duplicate.

But the duplicate Jenny fired her rockets, and grabbed Jenny by the shoulders, pushing back with an equal-but-opposite force.

"Ohhhhh, I knew this wasn't gonna be easy!" The duplicate Jenny muttered. She then stared hard into Jenny's eyes. "Now, look, this is an order!" she commanded. "Stand down! Repeat, stand down! Now!"

Jenny ignored the words, her lasers now at full-charge, ready to fire. "All right, you asked for it!" She snarled.

"Emergency Command Override!" the duplicate Jenny cried. "Code: two eight three zero point five four eight one eight zero one two!"

Jenny froze, blinked twice but otherwise remained motionless, and stared wide-eyed at her doppelganger, as if suddenly pole axed.

"Now, stand down!" the doppelganger again commanded, in a tone that meant business, even if the words themselves had left any doubt.

Another nanosecond passed before Jenny's laser-cannons began their power-down sequence, then quickly folded themselves back up and retracted back into the sides of her thoracic cavity. She continued to stare in amazement at her double, unable for the moment to utter a single word.

When she was at last able to activate her vocoder, she spoke. "That's…that's impossible!" she said, quietly enough for only the two of them to hear. "You…you can't possibly know that code! Nobody knows it…! Nobody except me! And…and—"

"And Mom…right?"

"Then you can't possibly know it!" Jenny repeated. And yet, even as she said it, it was clear that this duplicate somehow did. For one of the rare times in her life, Jenny began to feel a faint twinge of fear.

"I'll even tell you what it is, too," the duplicate Jenny went on. "It's the square-root of Mom's birthday…right?"

Jenny's eyes widened, and her pupils contracted into tiny pinpoints as she reeled back with a tiny gasp. "No…! No…!" she whispered, confusion now entering her mind and blending into her now-growing fear. "There's no way you could possibly know that…! Not unless…unless…"

"Unless I'm you…right?"

Jenny shuddered violently at the revelation. "No…! No, that's not possible…!"

"Now, I know this is all very confusing to you," the duplicate Jenny went on with just a touch of understatement, and what was intended to be a reassuring smile. "And very hard to accept. But you've just got to believe me! I really am you! Or rather, I'm the future version of you. Or a possible future; maybe one of several possible futures. I'm not really sure how all that time-stream stuff works, all the nitty-gritty detail stuff; you'd have to ask Mom about that. So here's the short version: I traveled back in time from the future, to stop you from making a terrible mistake! The biggest and worst mistake you'll ever make in your entire life, believe me!"

By now, Jenny had recovered from her initial shock, and her confusion and fear began to diminish. She narrowly eyed this mysterious doppelganger, as though sizing up an opponent prior to a fight. Although it irked her to admit it, this imposter, whoever or whatever it was, was a darned good one, able to mimic all of her body-language, personality traits, and speech patterns and mannerisms perfectly, to the point where it all looked and sounded so uncannily familiar; even annoyingly so.

"Wait, wait, wait," Jenny said. "Back up a sec! Did you say you're from the future? That you're the future me?"

"Yes! That's exactly what I'm telling you! And you've got to—"

"Oh, come on!" Jenny exclaimed, her fear and confusion now banished entirely. "I'm not stupid, you know! That's not even possible!"

"Oh no? Well what about that time-machine Mom's got stashed away in the basement? You know; the one she says she's safekeeping for that friend of hers, that Professor Wells, or whatever the heck his name is. What about that?"

Jenny blinked and stared wide-eyed again. Something else this duplicate somehow knew about, a closely-guarded secret that she couldn't know…but somehow did!

"Wait, wait, wait," Jenny shook her head, her eyes tightly shut. "Let me get this straight. Are you saying that, not only are you the future me, but that you stole the time-machine to get here? Is that what you're telling me?"

"Wellll …" the duplicate Jenny hemmed. "I didn't exactly steal it… Let's just say, I borrowed it. For a little while. And I'm gonna give it right back once I'm done with it."

"You borrowed it."

"That's right."

Jenny stared at her duplicate. It was eerie…but the evasion sounded exactly like the type of thing she herself would say in just such a situation! Both the words chosen and even the manner, inflection and tone of voice used sounded just like her own in such circumstances.

She eyed the duplicate sideways. Could it be true? She wondered. Could this imposter really not be an imposter, but actually be a future version of herself?

But then she shook her head dismissively. "No, no, no," she said. "I can't accept that. I mean, I don't know much about time-travel, but one thing I do know is that it's supposed to be impossible for a person to go back in time and meet a past version of herself! Something about time-streams not crossing or intersecting or something like that, otherwise the universe blows apart or something. I mean, it's gotta be true! It always says so in all the science fiction movies and TV shows!"

The duplicate Jenny rolled her eyes and sighed again, even louder this time. "Look, told you: I don't know all the details of temporal physics, all the whys and hows of how the stupid time-machine works! You'd have to ask Mom about all that junk—if you have a few hours to spare to get bored out of your skull, that is! The point is, I stole—I mean, I borrowed—the time-machine to travel back to here and now to stop you from what you're about to do before it's too late!"

"Ohhhhhhh, I don't want to hear it!" Jenny cried, clenching her fists and reverting back to her earlier, combative state. "And I don't have time to deal with you—whoever or whatever you really are! I've got a rat to squash! Now, get outta—" she raised her fists, as though preparing once again to knock the duplicate out of her path.

"Now, look!" the duplicate Jenny barked, now clearly running out of patience. "I know how stubborn and hardheaded you—or rather I—can be at times! But you've got to believe me!" She grabbed Jenny by the arms, holding her fast. "I told you, I don't have much time! And I didn't go to all the trouble of taking the time-machine and using it to travel all the way back here just to bang heads with you! But if I have to clobber you and knock your head inside-out to get you to listen, I will! So stop being a jerk and just listen to me!"

Something in the duplicate Jenny's words and tone of voice made Jenny hesitate for just a moment. As before, there was something so uncannily, even irritatingly familiar about the tone; something which demanded obedience, not unlike the tone she sometimes heard from her creator whenever she was being reprimanded for some misdeed or mistake.

And so, slowly, reluctantly, she relaxed her fists and arms and backed off—slightly. Her duplicate seemed to sense the easing of tension, and she also relaxed her grip.

"Now…instead of us just hovering here, wasting rocket-fuel, suppose we set down on the ground and talk it over calmly and quietly?" the double said quietly. "Okay?" She paused. "Okay?" She repeated.

Jenny eyed the duplicate narrowly and mulled it over. It wouldn't hurt to just listen, she supposed. For a few minutes anyway. If it turned out to be some sort of trick, she could always reactivate her weapons and blast this imposter to smithereens, before moving on to do the same thing to her former friend-turned-enemy. But…for now, she would at least listen. So she cooled her jets, and drifted earthward to make soft-landing on the ground below, her duplicate following likewise.

Once the two Jennys were on the ground, they faced each other like a pair of prizefighters in the ring.

"All right," Jenny said grudgingly. "I'm listening! But make it fast! I don't have all day! I've got things to do! For one thing, I've still got a traitor to pulverize!"

"He's not a traitor!" the duplicate Jenny blurted out in a sudden, furious cry. "I know exactly what you're thinking, and what you're feeling! Right at this moment, you want to blast him into a million pieces! Right? Isn't that what you're thinking? Believe me, I know! I'm you, remember? I've been there, right where you are now! So believe me, I understand!"

Jenny blinked. It was uncanny…and yet somehow, this duplicate knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling at that precise moment!

"But you're wrong if you think Sheldon is a traitor," the duplicate Jenny went on, though the intensity of her tone had softened considerably. "He would never turn against you or knowingly hurt you in any way, no matter what. I know it doesn't seem like that now; I know you feel like you can't possibly believe it, but I'm telling you, it's true! And I know that, right now, all you want to do is start blasting away at him with your lasers. But you can't! I'm asking you—no…no, I'm telling you! You can't!" The duplicate's words grew more intense with emotion. "Because if you do, if you use your…" she hesitated, unable to speak the words. "If you attack him and…and hurt him…you'll be starting down a path that, trust me, you do not want to go down! 'Cuz once you do, your conscience-program will never let you live it down! Ever! You remember what Mom always says about the conscience program? Well, take my word for it: she's not kidding! If you go through with what you're about to do, that conscience-program will tear you apart inside afterward! Tear you up so bad it'll be a hundred times worse than the time I—I mean, the time that you—swiped the Musique! And you remember how bad that was, right?"

Jenny reeled back in shock once more. Yet-another little-known intimate secret that this duplicate somehow knew about! She began to wonder: Could it really be true? Could this really truly be herself, from the future?

Only a few minutes had elapsed since the duplicate Jenny had appeared from the mid-air ball of light, but within those few minutes, Jenny's initial anger had cooled down. Slightly. She still felt hurt, and angry, and betrayed, of course, but this mysterious doppelganger—allegedly from the future—did seem to know an awful lot of details about her private life—an unnerving amount of detail, in fact.

Could it be true? She wondered.

"If you attack Sheldon and hurt him, you'll not only be acting against everything you've been programmed for," the duplicate went on. "And everything you've trained for your whole life, but you'll also be going against everything you yourself believe in! You do not hurt your friends! Ever! I mean, you know that!After all, you don't have that many friends to being with! You certainly can't afford to lose the few you do have!"

"Friend?!" Jenny cried in protest. "How can you call him a 'friend'?! He's been spying on me! All this time! He's been spying on me, watching my every move, taking notes, keeping tabs on me, and all for those rotten creeps in that secret agency! The same creeps who wanted to destroy me! And my sisters! And every other robot—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know about all of that," the duplicate Jenny said. "I was there, remember? I know the whole story, including a whole bunch of other stuff that you don't know! At least, not yet, anyways. But you will. Trust me. If you give him a chance to explain—and I mean explain everything—and you really listen to him…" She hesitated, as if afraid to say more, then continued. "Well…let's just say you'll understand. And yeah, you're still gonna be major-league ticked at him, I won't lie to you about that. But once you hear some of what he's got to tell you, like the real reasons why he did what he did, and why he got mixed up with those goons in the first place…well…you'll understand. And believe it or not…you're even going to forgive him."

"Forgive him?!" Jenny cried, backing off. "Are you nuts or something? After what he did to me? After what he did to all of us? He nearly got us destroyed! All of us! He—"

"Yeah, but in the end, he did save you from those creeps, didn't he?" The duplicate Jenny challenged. "When those goons had you surrounded and outgunned on all sides, who came to your rescue? Sheldon did, that's who! When he had to choose sides, he sided with you and he saved you! And that wasn't the first time, either. Remember when he helped rescue you from Cluster Prime?"

Jenny frowned at the mention of the incident. Although she could barely remember Sheldon's role in it, and clearly didn't want to acknowledge it, she couldn't deny it, either.

The duplicate Jenny went on. "Or how about the time that Sweeney kid took control of your mind?" she said. "Remember that? It was Sheldon who still believed in you, even after everyone else in town turned against you! Everyone, including Brad… And Tuck… And even Mom!"

Jenny reeled at the mention of the painful memory. Even after all this time had elapsed, and she had long since reconciled with her creator and her friends, it still pained her to recall the harrowing experience.

"You see?" the duplicate Jenny continued in a soft tone. "Sheldon's always been there for you when you needed him. Always!" The duplicate paused, then went on in a quiet, subdued tone. "The truth is…you don't know it yet, but…in many ways, Sheldon's actually the best friend you—the best friend we—have. Even better than Brad in some ways."

"You are crazy!" Jenny cried, backing off. "You almost had me going there for a while, but now I know you're either crazy, or a lying imposter, or both! Sheldon's just a creep! An annoying, obnoxious little creep and a pest, and now it turns out he's a traitor as well!"

But the duplicate Jenny remained adamant. She merely raised a hand and slowly shook her head. "No. No, he's not. Trust me. Sheldon has many, many faults—believe me, I'm aware of that just as much as you are! I know he can be a real pain in the posterior power-unit, I know he can be irritating and annoying and act like a really stupid jerk sometimes. But he's no traitor. You know—we both know—that underneath that sometimes-annoying exterior of his, he's really a sweet, decent guy." She paused. "Now…Iknow you don't want to admit that now, not in the mood you're in, I get that. But deep down inside, you know it's true, all the same. For all his faults—and he's got a lot of them!" The duplicate allowed a brief, momentary smile, then concluded. "For all his faults, and all his dumb, annoying mistakes, he's still basically a nice guy at heart."

"But…but he betrayed me!" Jenny said, speaking in a subdued tone, a clear indication of just how deeply she had been wounded inside. "How can he possibly be a 'nice, decent guy' when he betrayed me the way he did? I mean, there's no excuse for what he did! None at all! I mean, cripes, at one time I thought he was a friend, someone I could trust, but now… How can I ever trust him again? Or can I?"

The duplicate Jenny nodded her head sympathetically. "I know what you mean. Really, I know exactly what you're thinking and feeling right now. But once you hear his side, and you stop and really think it over, you'll eventually come to see things the way I do. It won't be easy, and it'll take time, but little by little, you'll begin to…understand him a little bit better. And eventually, you'll even learn to trust him again, too. Believe me."

A long silence followed, as Jenny mulled over the words. She eyed her duplicate with suspicion, still not entirely willing or able to accept the word of this apparent imposter. From her expression, it was clear that she remained unconvinced, but she was at least listening…and thinking.

At length, she spoke. "I'm not saying I necessarily believe you," she said in a quiet, guarded tone. "But…assuming that what you're telling me is true—or at least that it might have some small tiny little bit of truth in it…" She hesitated, then went on. "Well…I mean, how canI believe it? The whole cockamamie story you're giving me, about coming from the future and everything… It all sounds so crazy and far-fetched! How can I believe any of it?"

The duplicate Jenny sighed—another annoyingly-familiar response that Jenny recognized as one of her own when she became impatient. "Well," the duplicate said. "If you don't believe anything else I said, you can believe this much: Sheldon could never deliberately hurt you or any robot." The duplicate paused, allowing the words to fully register, then continued softly, as though she were about to share a closely-guarded secret. "Now, you know that. Be honest. You know how much you mean to Sheldon...and you know that he would do anything for you. Anything! And you know why."

Something about that last comment irked Jenny, and though she dreaded hearing the response, she couldn't help but ask, "Why?"

Her duplicate smacked her lightly across the side of her head. "'Cuz he loves you, Dummy! That's why!" she said with a laugh. "Why do you think?"

At just that moment, a high-pitched **ping** sound filled the air, and the duplicate Jenny seemed to fade slightly for a moment, like a television station that had temporarily lost a signal. The duplicate reached down and pressed against the side of her hip, and the small built-in storage-compartment opened up again. She reached inside, pulled out the small electronic device she'd held earlier, and raised it before her eyes, examining it closely.

"Uh-oh, my time here's almost up," she said. "I've only got a few seconds left. So remember! You've still got a chance to do the right thing, so do it now! Please! Do it now before it's too late! Do it now!"

With that, the duplicate Jenny vanished into another bright flash of purple-white light, just as suddenly and mysteriously as she'd appeared, leaving Jenny alone, utterly perplexed and bewildered as to what had just happened, what to make of it, and above all, what to do about it.

But she mulled over the words of her doppelganger, still not entirely willing to accept their veracity, nor ready to entirely dismiss them out of hand, either. Sure, it was crazy, it was far-fetched, it seemed impossible, and yet…she'd already experienced so many incredible, unbelievable adventures in her short life, all of which might have seemed every bit as impossible to believe, had she not experienced them herself firsthand. She had, after all, already traveled in time once before, when she'd traveled through the wormhole in deep space… And her creator did have a time-machine hidden away in the sub-basement vault... And those two colleagues of her creator's did know a few things about time-travel…

And, she had to admit—though it pained her to do so—using a time-machine to correct a stupid mistake she'd made did sound like the sort of crazy, desperate, last-ditch thing she would do…

So maybe… she thought. Maybe it is possible… Maybe it is be true…

And if it was true, if her future self really had travelled back in time to warn her about something important, something that could possibly affect her entire life, could she risk ignoring that warning? Shouldn't she at least think about it, and consider it very carefully before acting?

She did tend to act rashly, without adequately thinking things through, she had to admit, often acting purely out of emotion rather than out of rationality. And the consequences of those actions frequently proved to be disastrous.

And the emotions she experienced that day were far more intense and extreme than any she had ever experienced before. And the actions that would have resulted would probably have been far more devastating, too.

Could the warning be true? She wondered. Was she in fact on the verge of making a terrible, possibly life-altering mistake? She couldn't entirely dismiss the possibility…

As she thought about it more, her temper continued to cool, and she was able to evaluate the matter more clearly, her judgment no longer impaired by blind fury.

After several more minutes had passed, she finally turned and began walking in the direction where she'd last seen Sheldon heading.

"Sheldon! Sheldon, come on out!" she called as she walked, looking from her left to her right. "Wherever you are… I'm…I'm not going to hurt you! I promise!" She scanned her surroundings, her audio-visual sensors turned up to maximum gain.

"I give you my word!" she cried. "I won't…I promise I won't hurt you."

In the midst of the dead silence, she detected a faint rustling, scraping sound to her left, and turning to look, she saw a small, slight movement in the periphery of her vision. She zoomed in on it to discover Sheldon's head—his normally jet-black hair now dyed a bright blonde, for some still-unexplained reason—slowly emerge from inside the rusted-out, crumpled-up hulk of an ancient, century-old Volkswagen beetle. He hesitated, still too frightened to fully emerge into the open.

Jenny beckoned to him. "Come on," she called, struggling to keep her voice calm and steady and her barely-cooled temper under control. "It—it's all right. It's okay. I'm…I'm ready to listen now."

Slowly, Sheldon crawled out through the vacancy left behind by the now-missing windshield of the vehicle and clambered down what had once been its hood. Once on his feet again, he cautiously approached Jenny, carefully measuring every step as though it might be his last.

When he at last stood directly before her, Jenny scowled down at him, her arms folded in front of her chest. "All right…" she said quietly, her voice tight and strained as she tried to remain patient. "Let's start at the beginning. Tell me the whole story again, from the beginning…"


Jenny sailed through the whirling, dizzying, spiral time-vortex, traveling back even further in time, toward her next destination.

Phase One complete! She thought with a satisfied smile. And it seems to be a success! At least, I hope it was successful! We'll see…

She glanced at the time-travel remote-link she held in her hand to see how much time had elapsed, and how much she had left.

Uh-oh! She thought. That last stop took longer than I thought! I'm going to have to work double-time on the next one to make up for it!

Even though she was relieved that the first phase of her plan had been successful, she also felt frustrated that it had taken so long. And that it had been so difficult. She also felt so stupid!

Cripes, am I really that stubborn? She wondered. Am I really that hard to talk to? That unwilling to listen? In a sudden, disturbing flash of self-insight, Jenny had a brief inkling of how her creator might have felt in dealing with her all these years. Not to mention how her friends might have felt… Brad…Tuck…and Sheldon…

Sheldon…she thought, wistfully. The one I'm doing all this for in the first place! Ohhhh, I sure hope it works!

She careened through the time-vortex for what seemed like only a few more moments, before she reached the next exit-point, suddenly emerging into the second of the two time-coordinates she'd set before embarking on her journey.

It was the day, time and place when and where she'd made her earlier serious mistake with Sheldon, the time she'd accidentally corralled him into a spaceship with the mob of little extraterrestrial aliens, and launched them all into outer space. That one act of carelessness on her part had virtually ruined Sheldon's entire life, as it had left him stranded far away from earth for decades. As if that weren't enough, she then compound the mistake by abandoning him again, when she'd handed him over to the very same space pirates from whom he'd escaped.

Sheldon had never truly forgiven Jenny for incident, and in hindsight, she didn't blame him. For once she realized the true magnitude of her act, Jenny had never forgiven herself, either.

Like her actions at the secret agent compound, it was another serious wrong that she'd done to Sheldon, one that must somehow be undone, whatever the cost.

She took a quick look around to get her bearings, and in the distance, as expected, she caught sight of the past version of herself, but with the crowd of small, Jenny-worshipping aliens nowhere to be seen. Immediately, she realized that her past self must have already loaded them onto the ship, and was about to launch it into space.

Once again, she realized, she had arrived just in the nick of time!

"STOP! WAIT!"she bellowed in her full, maximum-volume,140-decibel voice, as she rocketed toward the raised platform where the spaceship sat, awaiting its launch.

As on her previous excursion through Time, the past version of Jenny turned and stared at the newly-arrived duplicate of herself in utter perplexity. "Who the heck are you?!" she demanded. "And what are you doing here?"

"Ohhhhh, I don't have time for this!" Jenny grumbled. "I don't have time to go through the whole stupid thing a second time! Get out of the way!" With that, she unceremoniously shoved her past self aside.

But her past self proved to be just as stubborn and intractable as Jenny had ever been at any time, and didn't take kindly to being shoved aside. By anyone. Least of all by this ridiculous imposter from who-knew-where.

"Hey, what's the big idea?!" she demanded, slipping into her fallback 'fighting mode' program, with fists raised, feet spread apart, and all her weapons-systems rapidly activating and arming.

Jenny faced her past self with a combination of annoyance and impatience. "Ohhhhhh!" she fumed in frustration. "Stand down! Emergency Command Override code two eight three zero point five four eight one eight zero one two!" she recited the code in rapid-fire delivery.

The past Jenny immediate froze in position like a statue for a moment, then reluctantly, almost as if against her will, she lowered her arms to her sides and relaxed her fists. "How…how could you possibly know that code?" she asked, absolutely astonished. "Nobody knows that code! Nobody but—"

"Ohhhhhh, I don't have time to explain that whole stupid thing again, either!" Jenny grumbled, even louder and more impatiently this time. "Now, just—just get out of the way, and stand there, all right? Just stand there! Don't move, don't touch anything, don't do anything! Just stay put! You got it? Don't do anything!"

With that, she dove into the jam-packed space ship, and struggled to make her way through the massive, wall-to-wall crowd of tiny worshipful aliens, as they gathered around her, drawing close to her, the object of their adoration. She searched desperately for Sheldon in the crowded confines of the spacecraft's interior, scanning the biometric readings of each life-form in as it passed before her, one by one, searching for the one human life-form among them that she knew must be there, somewhere.

Come on, come on, come on! she thought as she frantically scanned the crowd. Where the heck is he?! He's gotta be in here somewhere!

The crowd of aliens continued to close in on her even more tightly in their adoration of her, further hindering her progress and doubling her frustration.

With precious seconds ticking away, she spotted Sheldon at last: Pressed tightly against the far wall near a window, struggling to make his way to the open hatch, but with his passage hopelessly blocked by the weight of the densely-packed crowd.

Once Jenny spotted him, she fired up her ponytail-jets and soared over the heads of the aliens.

"Sheldon!" she called out to him.

"Jenny…?" he looked up, stunned—even amazed—to see her.

As soon as she was immediately above him, she reached down with her extendo-arms and grabbed a hold of him. "Hang on!" she cried as she hauled him out of the crowd of aliens, gathering him up in her arms and pulling him close to herself. Holding him firmly, she then turned and rocketed her way back to the open hatch and outside.

"There now," she said softly, as she gently set him on his feet again on the platform. "You're safe now." Regarding him with a warm smile, she proceeded to carefully brush him off with her steel fingertips, as though freeing him from specks of dust.

Sheldon merely stood and gazed up at her, his face beaming. "Jenny!" he said, his eyes brimming. "You really do care about me! You do!"

Her smile widened, and she gave him a light, playful little punch to the shoulder. "Well, duh!" she said. "Of course I do! And don't you forget it, either!"

However, the past version of Jenny continued to stare, aghast at the scene before her, of this strange, uncanny duplicate of herself, who appeared from out of nowhere, flew into the alien spacecraft, and somehow retrieved Sheldon from its interior...

…and who now seemed to be on much-friendlier terms with Sheldon than she'd ever been in her entire life!

It was, to say the very least, a lot for Jenny to take in and accept, so much so that she could scarcely believe her own audio-visual sensors. And trying to make sense of it defied the best efforts of her logic-circuits.

"Will somebody please explain to me just what the heck is going on here?!" she demanded.

"Yeah, I don't understand, either," Sheldon interjected, looking from one Jenny standing beside him to the other, the former smile on his face now replaced by a look of utter confusion. "What is going on here? How—how the heck did you do that? Why is there two of you now? Did your mom make a duplicate of you or something? Or what? What the heck is going on?"

Jenny looked down at Sheldon for a moment longer, then looked up to face the past version of herself. She shook her head. "Ohhhh, there's no time to explain," she said. "And you'd never believe it anyway. But here!" With that, she spun Sheldon around in a rougher-than-intended about-face, and shoved him toward the past version of herself. "You be more careful with him this time, you hear me?" she said. "Don't be so stupid and careless with him! You be good to him from now on, understand? Because if you don't," she paused and leaned close to her past self, her eyes narrowing and her voice deepening to a low, menacing tone. "I'll be back!"

Both Sheldon and the past Jenny merely stared blankly at the newly-arrived version, not having the slightest idea of what had just happened or what the words meant.

But before either Sheldon or the past Jenny—or indeed anyone witnessing the event—even had a chance to react or to wonder how it was possible for there to be two Jenny Wakemans present at the same time, the newly-arrived incarnation backed away and rocketed up into the sky. She paused in mid-flight, hovering for just a moment, then suddenly vanished into thin air in a brilliant flash of purple-white light.

Sheldon continued to stare up at the sky for a long moment, then turned his attention back to the Jenny of his own time, who still stood beside him. "I still don't understand," he said, the smile returning to his face, his eyes full of emotion. "But I know that you do care about me, Jenny! You do!"

Jenny's attention also remained focused on the point in the sky where her mysterious doppelganger had vanished. Her gaze then shifted down to regard Sheldon with an annoyed, petulant frown. "Ohhhhhh, shut up!" she muttered.

With that, she shoved him aside with one hand and slammed shut the spacecraft hatch with the other. She then grabbed onto the spaceship with both hands and, firing up her rockets, she hauled it up into the sky, and hurled it out into deep space.

Sheldon meanwhile, remained where he stood on the platform, gazing up at Jenny adoringly with a huge smile on his face.


Jenny sailed through the time-vortex one final time, now returning back to her own era with a huge, relieved smile on her face.

I did it! She thought triumphantly. I did it! I did it! I did it! Both Phase One and Phase Two are complete, and both were a complete, total success! I traveled back in time and changed the past! I know Mom'll probably give me static for taking the time-machine, and messing with historical timelines and all that junk, but I don't care! I undid both of my ultra-incredibly-dumb, stupid mistakes of the past, that's all that matters! Those dumb, stupid, terrible things I did to Sheldon, the things that made him hate me…now they never happened at all! Now he's got no reason to hate me! Or be scared of me, or be suspicious of me or anything! Instead, he can go back to liking me again, just like he always used to! And when I get back home, I can treat him better, be nicer to him and be a real friend to him, just like I should've done in the first place! I can do things right with him this time! There's no more obstacles in the way now, nothing to stop us! So the next time I see him, I can just go right up to him, and say, 'Hey, Sheldon!', give him a great big smile, and he'll say, "Hi, Jenny!' and give me an even bigger smile, and he'll come running up to me, and I can just take him in my arms, give him a great big hug and—

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTT!

Jenny's thoughts were brutally-interrupted by a nerve-shatteringly-loud buzzing sound, like that of a broken blender going off right next to her audio-sensors, immediately jarring her wide awake. Her eyes snapped open, and all her circuits and programs instantly fired up into full activation-mode. She looked around the room in the growing light of morning, the sun creeping in through her bedroom-window, then she looked over to the electric alarm-clock on her nightstand, still buzzing away loudly. She reached over to it, switched off the alarm and sighed. Checking the time displayed on the clock against her own internal clock, and—allowing for the few microseconds' discrepancy between them—she realized immediately that it was, of course, nothing more than just another average, ordinary school day morning.

And that the voyage she'd made through time had never happened; it was nothing more than a dream. A highly-elaborate, greatly fanciful and deeply-satisfying dream, borne entirely of her own hopeful, wishful thinking…but still only a dream, just the same.

Which meant, she also realized in dismay, that she was still left with the exact same set of unresolved personal problems remaining between Sheldon and herself.

Ohhhhhhhh, no! she thought, shutting her eyes tightly, as if through sheer willpower she could somehow recall the dream and cause it to become real. No! No! No! No! She rhythmically pounded her head against her pillow in silent, disappointed frustration. It's not fair! It's not fair! It's just not fair! At one point, she even felt almost ready to cry.

Ohhhhhh, why can't real life problems be easy to fix, like they are on TV? She asked herself.

For one brief, fleeting moment however, she also thought, Still…it could almost work…! Almost…! Maybe if I…

She shook her head, dismissing the thought. No…no…I better not… If I do, Mom'll ground me for a hundred thousand million years! Maybe longer! Then she'll dismantle me into a million pieces and ground them, too!

And so, with great reluctance, Jenny finally resigned herself to facing the facts of the situation. The dream was only a dream, and she still had reality to face, however difficult and unpleasant it might be. She heaved a deep, heavy sigh, and dragged herself out of bed and trudged into the bathroom, to prepare herself to face the day.

As she went through her daily morning ritual of washing, cleaning and polishing, she tried her best to console herself.

So…all right! she silently told her reflection in the mirror. So it was all just a stupid dream! So what? It's not the end of the world. And it doesn't matter, because I still have a definite action-plan in mind for today anyway! Today, I begin 'Operation Make-Sheldon-Like-Me-Again'! And this time, I'm not quitting, I'm not gonna get discouraged, I'm giving up, and I'm not gonna let anything stop me! Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, I'm going to get Sheldon to like me again by the end of the day, no matter what, and that's that!

With her mind thus made up, and now firmly committed to her new goal, Jenny's spirits began to rise. "Okay, Jenny!" she smiled at her reflection, giving herself a final nod of affirmation. "Let's do this!"

With her head held high, she turned on her heel, marched out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, where she grabbed up her backpack, turned and quickly trotted downstairs. With only a short detour into the kitchen for a quick breakfast of high-grade jet-fuel, and a quick "'Bye, Mom!" to her creator, she stepped through the front door to meet Brad and Tuck, waiting for her outside.

"Hi, Jen—" was all Brad was able to utter before Jenny locked onto his hand with a vice-like grip, and took off sprinting down the block like a bullet fired from a gun. Brad had just enough time to grab a hold of Tuck's hand, or else the younger sibling would have been left far behind in seconds. Neither boys' feet touched the ground from the moment they'd left Jenny's front step; instead, they trailed along behind her like paper streamers tied to a car antenna.

"Come on, come on, come on, you slowpokes!" Jenny called out to her friends behind her. "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! What're you waiting for? Don't dawdle!"

"Whoah! Whoah! Whoah, slow down, Jenny! Slow down!" Brad cried out to his robotic friend. "What's the big rush?!"

"I'm not in a rush, I just wanna get there in a hurry!" Jenny called back to him in reply, without slowing for even an instant.

"Jenneeeeeeee!" Tuck also cried out shrilly. "Slow dooooooownnnnnnn!"

Jenny took a sharp turn, and both boys whipped around the street-corner with a sharp, whiplike snap, resulting in more panicked cries from the both of them. "Gaahhhhhhhhhh!" they howled in unison.

"Ohhhhh, I think I'm gonna hurl!" Brad cried.

"I'm gonna blow chunks!" Tuck concurred.

"Ohhhhhh, stop it, you big babies!" Jenny called out as she put on an extra burst of speed. "What're you so afraid of? You're in good hands!"

Jenny's earthbound supersonic flight came to an abrupt halt in front of the main entrance of Tremorton Elementary. For a split second, both Brad and Tuck, carried forward by inertia, sailed right over Jenny's head, and they would have crashed through the front doors of the school, had she not caught them at the last instant, gently setting them both safely on the ground.

The boys barely had a moment to catch their breath before Jenny grabbed onto Brad's hand once more and took off running again, this time heading in the direction of Tremorton High, with Brad now trailing behind her solo.

Tuck, meanwhile, left behind in front of Tremorton elementary, continued to wobble and totter on unsteady legs, his head swimming. His countenance gradually acquired the brightest shade of green as he struggled mightily to keep his breakfast down…

Jenny and her not-entirely-willing companion arrived at the front entrance of Tremorton High only moments later, where she again slammed to an abrupt halt. As before, she had to grab a hold of her friend a split-second before he crashed through the front door of the school.

Once his feet were safely on the ground again, Brad immediately doubled over, his eyes bulging, as he clutched his knees and gasped for breath.

Jenny looked down at him. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked innocently.

He looked up at her, his face as pale as a sheet of paper, and managed to utter, in between gasps for breath: "Jenny, have you—*gasp*—lost your mind?! *gasp* Just what the heck—*gasp*—was that*gasp*—all about?!" He took several deep breaths before he elaborated further. "Have you gone nuts or something?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What's the all-fired rush to get here for?!" He took several more deep breaths. "Yesterday, you couldn't get out of here fast enough, and now you can't wait to get back here! What's with you?"

"Oh! Um…nothing…nothing…" She tried—and failed completely—to put on an 'innocent' look. "I just…felt like going for a bit of a run, that's all. You know…let off some steam." She smiled, hoping to coax a similar response from her friend.

The effort failed. He continued to stare at her as though she had a screw loose somewhere.

"Are you sure you're all right?" she asked. "You don't look so good."

He nodded, then dropped his head. "I'll be fine," he said. "I just—ooooooo, I think I left my breakfast behind on your front porch!"

"Oh, sorry," Jenny said, somewhat belatedly. She placed her hand on his back, gently rubbing it, trying to provide some small degree of comfort. He continued to breathe deeply, trying to regain his composure.

When he at last recovered somewhat, he stood up straight again, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Taking one final deep breath, he then turned to face the school entrance. "Well," he said, pressing against one of the front doors. "As long as we're here, we might as well go inside."

He was surprised to discover however, that Jenny remained standing in place on the front steps, facing the street, apparently looking down the block.

"Hey, aren't you coming?" he asked.

She turned to him and shook her head. "No…no, you go on ahead," she said. " I wanna stay out here awhile. I'll catch up with you later." She waved her friend on with her hand, then turned back to face the street again.

"Oh, now wait a minute!" Brad said with a frown. "Jenny, what is going on? First, you practically break the sound-barrier to get here, you drag me and Tuck along for the ride without a word of warning or explanation, and now that we're here, you…" his voice trailed off, his eyebrows raised and his eyes opened wide.

"Oh, now I get it!" he said with a smirk and a nod. "You wanna wait out here to meet Sheldon, right? Right?"

Jenny's head whipped around to face him, the LEDs beneath her cheeks flaring brightly. "No!" she said. "No, I don't! I just—"

"Yeah, you do!" He said with a smirk. "Now I see why you wanted to get here so early! Now it makes total sense!" He continued nodding his head in an annoying, all-knowing manner.

"No, no, you are so totally wrong—" she shook her head vehemently. "Totally, totally wrong!"

"Uh huh," he said, regarding her with a look of profound skepticism, as if to say, You really expect me to believe this, huh?

They stared at each other for a long moment without a word, until finally, Brad simply shrugged and turned to the front door. "Well," he said, affecting an air of casual indifference, as though the matter were of no concern to him. "You can hang out here all day if you want. Me, I'm heading inside." He paused at the door for a moment and looked back at her. "See you later?" he asked.

"Yeah…sure…" she replied.

He stepped through the doors and into the hallway. Jenny continued to stare after him. Cripes, am I really that obvious? She wondered, before she turned away and refocused her attention back to the street in front and down the block.

Well…it doesn't matter! She thought with a nod. Sheldon'll be here soon, and then I can start putting my new plan into action! She smiled, encouraged by the thought.


Sheldon woke up and looked over at his bedside clock. It was still quite early in the morning, a few minutes before the alarm was due to go off, in fact. He lazily reached over and switched it off before it sounded, yawned and stretched.

He had gotten to bed relatively late the night before, later than he normally did on a school night, but he'd slept soundly, and now felt reasonably well-rested and in fairly good spirits.

Only a few more days to go, he thought. And I'll be all though being grounded! Then I'll be free!

He hopped out of bed, dressed quickly and made his bed. After a few minutes' spent in the bathroom to wash up and comb his hair as well as he could, he returned to his bedroom, grabbed up his backpack and walked over to the bookcase.

Let's see… Hallas…Irlaine…Joachelmo… he scanned the shelves of the bookcase, searching through his favorite science-fiction authors for one name in particular. Ah! Here it is!

He pulled the book from the shelf and slipped it carefully into his backpack. Zipping the pack closed, he grabbed up his hoodie from the back of the chair nearby, turned and left the room.

It's just as well that I got up early today, he reflected as he trotted downstairs. I'm gonna need the extra time in the mornings from now on…

The battery on his electric scooter had finally conked out for good the afternoon before, and he had to walk it home the last few blocks. And until he could either buy or build a new battery, that meant he'd be walking to school for the foreseeable future, and leaving extra-early in the mornings in order to get to school on-time.

Ah well, he thought, pulling on his hoodie and slipping his arms through the straps of his backpack. It's no big deal… It's only for a few days, and school isn't that far away. And if I leave early enough, I should get there early enough and not have to worry about running into…well…anyone I don't want to…

Once downstairs, he stepped into the kitchen, and over to the automatic fried-egg sandwich-maker on the counter. It was one of his own inventions, a new one, and still in the testing stage, so he was anxious to see how well it performed. So far, the results were very promising. He leaned over and peered at the LED display on the front of the device, checking the time remaining on its counter against the clock on the wall.

Any second now! He thought. Right on cue, a bell on the device sounded and from a slot on its side there emerged a steaming, fried-egg sandwich on wheat toast, done to perfection. He grabbed the toast just as it popped out of the machine, tossed it back and forth between his hands a few times, blowing on it until it cooled sufficiently to comfortably hold. Then, satisfied that it was just the right temperature, he raised it to his mouth, and took a bite. He smiled, satisfied. Perfect! He thought. Absolutely perfect! Even the great Caractacus Potts himself couldn't have done a better job! Just a few more days' testing, maybe a little fine-tuning here and there with a slight adjustment if I need to, and it'll be ready for a patent!

He finished eating the sandwich quickly, washing it down with a glass of orange juice, then stepped out of the kitchen and into the hallway. On his way to the front door however, he glanced over and was surprised to see his mother was already up, resting easily in an armchair in the living room with a cup of coffee. Normally, she slept in late after she'd worked the night before, so her presence downstairs at such an early hour was highly unusual.

From the first glance, Sheldon could tell she looked tired. But then, he reflected, she always did.

"Um…hi, Mom," he ventured softly. "You're up kinda early this morning, aren't you?"

She glanced up. "I haven't been to sleep yet," she said, her voice weary. "I just got home… About an hour ago."

She paused, then went on. "I was up all night…on a difficult case."

"Oh," Sheldon replied quietly.

"It…didn't go well."

"Oh…" he repeated, even more softly.

He knew exactly what she meant by "It didn't go well." It was a euphemism she used whenever she'd lost a patient.

"I…I'm sorry…" he added, sympathetically.

"Mmm…" She replied neutrally, leaning her head back with her eyes closed.

An uncomfortable silence lingered heavily in the air, as Sheldon struggled to find just the right words to say. He knew from past experience however, that under these circumstances, words were largely useless.

"Well, I…I hope you can get some rest," he said at last, trying to strike a supportive note, then paused. "Um…I'm…I'm off to school now."

"All right, Son. Have a good day," his mother replied, he eyes still closed.

"Thanks. See you."

But just as he reached the front door, about to open it, she spoke again.

"Sheldon?"

"Yeah, Mom?" he said, turning to face her.

She hesitated for a moment before she spoke. "I…can't make any promises, but…if it's at all possible, I'm going to try to take some time off from work this Summer, and take a nice, long vacation."

"Oh!" Sheldon blinked, pleasantly surprised. "Well, that would be great! You sure deserve it, you've been working so hard lately and everything."

"And I really need it…is that it?" she replied. "That is what you're thinking…isn't it?" She regarded him with a brief, rare smile.

"Well…yeah…" he replied, returning her smile.

Mother and son silently regarded each other for a long moment, and they knew that they were both thinking the same thing: That she had been working hard lately, and she was seriously in need of some time off for rest and relaxation.

"Maybe—again, I can't promise anything, a lot can happen between now and then—but I thought that maybe we could take a nice, long, relaxing trip somewhere. Hawaii, perhaps. You know; just to get away for a while, get you into some fresh surroundings, out into some fresh air and sunshine, see some new sights and scenery..."

And get you away from that computer and out of that workshop of yours for a while! She thought, but did not speak aloud. And out into the real world!

"Say, that would be kind of nice, now that you mention it." Sheldon nodded in agreement, particularly receptive to the idea of getting outdoors again, especially after having been cooped-up inside the house for so long.

"You might even make some new friends there…" His mother went on. Perhaps even meet a nice Japanese girl… she silently added. A nice, traditional Japanese girl, one who will know how to care for you, and treat you properly…

"Yeah…yeah, maybe you're right," Sheldon replied, still nodding. "Maybe it would be good for me to get away for while…" And really make a fresh start. He thought. Just make a clean sweep of the past…

"Plus, I read the other day that the new Nakatomi Science Museum in Honolulu is due to open to the public soon. You'd like that."

At the mention of the name of the prestigious new museum, Sheldon's face lit right up. "Boy, I'll say! I'd love to visit the Nakatomi Museum! I've been reading about it for months now! Geez, I bet I could spend an entire week there! Maybe even a whole month!"

Dr. Toshiro smiled. "I thought you'd be interested," she said. "I've read about it, too. It's supposed to be really something; one of the finest museums of its kind in all the world, with state-of-the-art exhibits of all the latest discoveries and developments in several different fields, all on display right there, under one roof."

"It sounds great!" Sheldon's enthusiasm grew, and his face fairly glowed in a beaming, radiant smile. "Ooooooo, I sure hope we can get to go see it!"

"Well, as I said, I can't make any promises," his mother went on. "It's still early, but…I will try very hard to get the time off; that I can promise you. I'm going to try to get a whole month off, if I can manage it. Possibly two, although that might be pushing it."

"Well, I sure hope everything works out okay and we can make the trip!" Sheldon said excitedly, his head already teeming with plans for sights to see and activities to pursue during the hoped-for trip. "Thanks, Mom!"

Doctor Toshiro regarded her son with a quiet, subdued smile for a long moment. He's grown up so much, she thought. Just within the last couple of years… And with a mind such as his, there's no telling how far he can go, with the proper guidance, motivation and education…

She sighed. If only he would stop wasting so much time on those silly contraptions of his! She thought, more out habit more than anything else. And face the fact that he's going to go to med school, and become a doctor! And if only he would stay away from that horrible robot-girl! Unconsciously, she began to frown at the final thought.

Sheldon noticed her scowl, and asked, "Is something wrong, Mom?" he said.

"No, no, it's just that…" she began, then paused. "Well…on another matter…why don't we just…skip the rest of your grounding. You know. The last few days you have left of being grounded. Why don't we just…forget about them."

Sheldon blinked and his eyebrows arched in surprise. His mother almost never unilaterally ended a punishment early; this was practically unheard of. "Oh…! Okay…" he said, still too stunned to say much else. "Th-thanks, Mom…!" his smile widened, but cautiously—it almost sounded too good to be true, and a small part of him feared that it was some sort of trick, that there might be some kind of catch involved.

"Yes, well…" his mother went on. "You see, I've been hearing some very good reports about you lately from your teachers, about your overall scholastic performance in general, and the remarkable progress you've made over the semester, the last several days in particular, and…well, I think you've earned an early release from your grounding. So starting this afternoon, if you want, you can just…you know, visit your comic-book shops and gaming-supply stores and burger-places and such, and just…any of the other places you normally like to visit after school."

"Oh! Okay! Great! Thanks, Mom!"

"And assuming you won't start to neglect your schoolwork, that is!" she added, just sharply enough to get the point across.

"I won't, I won't," Sheldon assured her. "I promise! And thanks again!"

"Well…all right, then. Just so that's understood…"

He smiled, nodded, then started to turn toward the door again. He hesitated at the last moment however. "Um…" he said quietly.

"Is there something else, Son?"

Sheldon looked at his mother. It almost felt like a perfect opportunity to bring up the subject of transferring to Poly Tech. Almost. The words were nearly out of his mouth in fact, when he abruptly stopped himself. No…no…he thought. Now's not a good time. She's exhausted right now…this'd be a terrible time to spring the idea on her…

Instead, he merely shook his head with a weak smile. "No, no, it's…nothing. Nothing that can't wait. We can talk about it some other time." He paused, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Anyhow, I gotta get going now." He turned to the door, opened it and stepped outside. "See you," he said with a wave. "And thanks again!"

"Good bye, Son."

The front door closed and Dr. Toshiro wearily leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes again, utterly drained, both physically and emotionally. The previous night had been difficult and had ended tragically. It was an almost hopeless case right from the beginning, and they all knew it. She and her team had done everything they could, everything that was humanly possible to try to save the patient, but…in the end, it didn't make any difference; their best just wasn't good enough.

It wasn't the first time that Dr. Toshiro had experienced such a loss, and it wouldn't be the last, either. It was an unfortunate but expected part of her profession. She wasn't supposed to let such occurrences affect her; as a surgeon, she was expected to maintain a certain professional objectivity, and not become emotionally involved. And yet, when it came to losing a patient…well, that was another matter altogether. It was, in fact, the one aspect of her profession that she had never really gotten used to, not in all her years of practice. And each time it happened, it took an emotional toll upon her, a toll which seemed to grow heavier and become harder to bear as time went on.

She sighed, rose from the chair, walked over to the sofa and lay down on it, stretching out, and trying to relax. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she felt drowsy, but just as she started to drift off to sleep, the phone rang, immediately jolting her awake again. Ohhhhhhh, it's too early for this! She thought with immediate irritation. I'll let the machine get it!

The phone rang a few more times before the voicemail system activated with its standard greeting, followed by a tone. The voice at the other end of the line then spoke:

"Hello, Dr. Toshiro? This is Dr. Noreen Wakeman, the creator and unit-operator of Global Response Unit XJ-9—better known as 'Jenny Wakeman.'" The voice paused, then continued. "I wonder if it might be possible to meet with you sometime, over a cup of coffee perhaps, as I feel we have some…important issues to discuss, concerning your son and my daughter. Just an informal talk, you understand. I believe we can resolve these issues amicably, simply by talking them over in person." The voice paused again. "So please give me a call at 555-3172 when you get a chance. Thank you. Good bye." The line went silent as the call concluded.

Unconsciously, Dr. Toshiro frowned as she recalled the name. What on earth could Dr. Wakeman of all people possibly have to say to me? She wondered. And what could she possibly have to say that I would want to hear?

She sighed; though she really had no particular interest in doing so, she supposed she would have to at least return the call, for courtesy's sake if nothing else, and find out just what was on this Wakeman's mind. But…not now. Perhaps later…perhaps…if she had time…

Time… she thought, as she yawned and settled back to resume her brief, fitful nap. There never seems to be enough time…


End Chapter 7