Rain patters against the window. Based on a few calculations determined by the amount of droplets and their velocity, Jenny estimates that it will take her between fifteen and twenty minutes to rust if she were to walk outside right now.
Nothing, no upgrade concocted by her mom, ever seems able to overcome Jenny's weakness to water. Sure, she has some forms that, for the most part, are indeed waterproof. She can turn into a submarine, for Job's sake. But those forms only seem to function properly in the situations they were designated for. Submerged in the ocean, her submarine form is fine, completely functional. If she were to transform herself into a sub now and maneuver outside, she'd still rust within the estimated time limit.
According to Mom, Jenny's submarine form's waterproofness comes from how it moves water around her. Her components themselves aren't waterproof, but when she's swimming along, various processes in them work to shift water away from touching her most vulnerable areas constantly. The full explanation Mom gave her was very technical (and therefore very confusing, so Jenny honestly hadn't listened for too long). What it basically boils down to is her external-facing components, as long as she's moving, are constantly being replaced so no piece of metal touches the water too long. If Jenny stays still too long underwater, though, the processes stop and she'll rust through.
And that's if she's not electrocuted or short-circuited first. For those options not to happen, she has to mentally prepare her body herself before being submerged, which can be fine, just not when she's fighting a giant monster or something along those lines and it flings her into the nearest body of liquid.
There are times when Jenny wonders if Dr. Wakeman left her water-related flaws in intentionally. A last failsafe if she ever were to turn against mankind. Something that can and has happened, although not by Jenny's own choice.
It still bothers her that there are those in town who fear her because of the year she spent unwillingly destroying holiday celebrations. That no one figured out she wasn't doing those things by her own free will. Besides Sheldon, that is. Jenny hesitates to even count Sheldon there, though. Mostly on the grounds that, if she were to actually turn completely evil tomorrow, he'd likely side with her because he'd never side against her.
Although, if it weren't for him, Jenny reminds herself, she would have never gotten back to normal before someone (likely Mom considering the weaponry Dr. Wakeman has access to) disassembled her.
There are times, like now, when Jenny wonders about that. Despite her weakness to it, her greatest fear isn't water. It's being destroyed, or disassembled, or shut down and locked away in the basement with her prototype sisters (something Jenny still finds highly unfair, though she hasn't come up with a winning argument against Mom's 'the money from my patents barely funds all the repairs to the damage you do to this house, young lady, there isn't enough to go around if the entire XJ Series were activated at once' reasoning yet).
Jenny pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them. I don't want to be discarded, she thinks to herself.