Chapter 4 "The girl that wasn't there"
Welcome back to my happy home and for once I really am happy dears. My littlest charge is sitting on my lap asleep against my chest. My poor tired old heart physically glows just a bit as she does. I whisper to my heart.
"Yes my love, she'd have been perfect for use all those long years ago. She'd have fit right in."
I know dear Gwendolyn's too old for this but I don't care. She almost died, and in a way, she did die a bit. She's a Phantom now.
Her eyes open all black and red but no longer sad. Her voice is the same though. So is that cute stutter of hers.
"It's time, is it? Is it?"
I smile a real genuine smile.
"It is child, go get dear Lyn and Kirby. Bring them to the workshop, by the time you get there I'll have wound up our machine king."
She smiles and floats off like Peter Pan. I stand, take a look at myself in that ancient mirror I keep. I prim just a bit, run a brush through my hair, and all those things a woman does when she wants to look pretty while not really looking like she wants to look pretty. Then I head off.
The endless halls of my home are so familiar to me walking them with my eyes closed is actually something I tried once. That month was interesting.
Passing the library I keep silent for even I make no noise in that place. The kitchen is always warm and welcoming, even if I regret that one time I ordered a "long pork sandwich" while I was a bit tipsy.
Reaching the workshop I take a deep breath then walk inside. It smells like oil and smoke in here. Here I find my mechanical man, going about his day well mechanically. His movements are all identical every step the same length of stride. Every glance a camera sweep, and my entrance just an object moving into a workspace.
Here I find Rex Machina, the king of the machines, or what's left of him. Like all the others I've given shelter here he's lost. Timelines like his are so very rare because of Professor Paradox. Other than myself he's the only one I've found that noticed what was being done and tried to save his world. Like everyone else to have ever stood their ground against that monster he too was struck down. He crawled here across the void and I brought him what he needed to save himself. We only partly succeeded. There is so little humanity left in him now I don't trust him around any of the others without my supervision. Even then I need to remind him how to be human for a little while. My heart skips a beat and I reassure it who the only one I've ever loved is. It goes silent a while, and I don't blame it.
Rex is tinkering with a clock when I touch him. He looks over at me with those big brown eyes of his and there is nothing in there. No spark of humanity I can see. My lips touch his and something inside him come to life. I feel the power of the meta nanite he holds in his heart pulse. If he had them all, Paradox wouldn't have stood a chance.
Get your mind out of the gutter you don't get to see what happens next. Let's just say if a pair of time travelers want to find an hour or so to themselves they can. In this dimension at least.
The children arrive and we've moved a work table to the center of the room. There are chairs for everyone, and Rex is almost human. He meets Kirby with a big smile and Lyn with a bigger one. My little ghost seems to have gone wandering. It's for the best I think. Rex is dangerous, and she's still too trusting despite everything she's been through.
"Hey there, Jenny tells me I'm your first Salazar. You are not my first set of Tennysons, but I gotta say Gwenny looked a lot better wearing the watch when I met my version of you two."
Between them mentioning my name, even with me not being in my armor, and the horrible pickup line Lyn's eyes flash yellow just a bit. The girl acted before I can stop her. I'm still exhausted from cloaking Zak and well other things. Her fake smile was flawless, and the way she walked over to him you'd think this was a movie set filming the love story of the year. Her voice was like silk as she touched Rex's chest.
"You have a nanotech control colony hosted in your heart and something else too. That so cool, you must be able to build anything just by thinking."
She actually fluttered her eyelashes before leaning in to whisper. Rex looked like he was in love, I'm not even jealous, Lyn is that damn good at this.
"If you do anything with that watch I don't like, or if you call me 'Gwenny' again I'm going to kill you. I'll fill you with mana till you burst, and fry your nanites before they can do anything. You are our first Salazar, not our first human nanite colony."
Kirby speaks up and Lyn ignores him her eyes things of otherworldly fire.
"Lyn, we need these guys to help."
I speak and all three listen.
"Lyn, please we talked about this. Rex's brain is heavily reconstructed so be nice. Second I told you my rules when you came to stay here. You don't harm or steal from anyone here or you deal with me, young lady."
Dear me, I just used the phrase "young lady". How have I gotten old? I am a time walker for Pete's sake.
Rex didn't stop smiling.
"Yeah, the last Gwen I met said she'd kill me too. I got no luck with redheads what can I tell ya. Grab a chair and let me see if Albedo is an arrogant ass in your world too."
Kirby and Lyn exchanged looks. He sat down, and she did too. I realize Kirby has that ruby of his on his left hand and he keeps fiddling with it. He's afraid of what losing the Ultimatrix would mean. I try to calm him, but I haven't had the time to build trust. Rex holds out his hand and Kirby holds out his arm. His other hand with the Ruby Ray of Ulo goes under the table. The boy I know will shoot if he thinks he has to.
Rex is silent for a long minute.
"OK Albedo is, in fact, an arrogant ass in your dimension too. His signature on this thing is HUGE. Second, the core of it, the part Azmuth and his team made IS working great. Don't ask me to make another one but I can see that parts working normally. What's going on is your codon stream capacitor is not getting much of a charge. The log file shows a steady output since day one, then it drops off. Jenny, you have any insight here?"
I touch my own wrist and look at Kirby he knows now I used to have an Omnitrix of my own I can tell.
"Kirby dear, did you ever make it to Primus?"
The boy just shrugged.
"No idea what that is."
I frown and know this will hurt the boy.
"Primus is complicated but the simple answer is the planet-sized data storage center for the Omnitrix. It's meant as a literal backup facility for any species in the universe. Limitless storage space and contains whatever you'd need to reboot a race that dies out."
Kirby shook his head and stood up.
"So my cell phone's OK the towers busted?!"
Rex raises an eyebrow looks over at me and I nod just once letting him know it's OK to keep rocking Kirby's world.
"I can get you a percentage if you bring me the right stuff."
The boy's eyes got wide.
"What do you mean percentage?"
Rex looked over at me and I just smile. Letting him know it OK to keep talking.
"What I mean Kirby is if we get the right parts we can get you a limited list of transformations. We have to install a local storage unit, and that will determine the load-out size. None of the back-end stuff Primus used to do will be there. That means one of your transformations has a problem and nothing is there to fix it. You just need to delete it and scan something else. That includes your human form, so don't mess with that, ever. The parts we get will determine how big a playlist I can give you."
Lyn puts her hand under the table, and I know that ruby on Kirby's other hand is no longer a threat. She speaks, not him. I can tell she's saving his pride by asking for him.
"What would you need, and what will it cost?"
Rex shoots his mouth off, and I shot him a look.
"Your firstborn, and a pint of blood a month for a year!"
I don't intervene to stop any violence, but I am ready to. I give Rex a look. Lyn I'm positive is stopping Kirby from shooting.
"Rex your brain damage is showing dear. Kirby, I don't charge my guests for help, I reward them when THEY help. Rex, what do we NEED."
My mechanical man just grinned like a lunatic.
"You only have a fraction of what we need to set up a closed system. Primary needs are a storage cylinder, a supply of codon juice. Every so often we will need to trade out the codon stuff because we don't have what we need to filter it. An updated genetic stabilizer would go a long way to keeping the thing working long term. Jenny, you got any ideas for a shopping trip?"
I look over at Kirby and Lyn and give it my best maternal smile.
"I think I do."
Unknown to me my little ghost girl was invisible floating over our heads the entire time.
Kirby, Lyn, and I watch Gwendolyn go in a manner of speaking. It is dark as ever in the front yard and she is a ghost girl after all. Kirby is holding the Mask of Ah Punch to his face and gazing out the window into the perpetual night and winter storms. Lyn hovered nearby being protective. I can see why the Ultimatrix was absent from Kirby's wrist for the first time as Rex began his work. If he'd only switch the ruby, and the watch he might be more effective and actually be able to hit something.
Turning to leave I stopped myself. These two need to trust me, but I'm afraid to give away too much. I stop and give a tired little smile.
"It'll be alright dears. Just you wait and see. I'm off to help as best I can."
I step from the room and move slowly and carefully in the direction of my chambers and my armor. I am honestly afraid for the closest thing to a daughter may ever have, but I've been where Kirby and Lyn are now. Wondering how I could have climbed so high only to fall so fast and so far. I'm keeping an ear on those two if not an eye.
For now, however, my main focus needs to be on a girl that isn't even here.
The armor snaps in place and my heart skips a beat. My poor heart doesn't like Lyn or Kirby I know. It's seen Tennyson's go bad before and knows how volatile they can be.
Shush you mustn't let anyone know I'm doing this. No not anyone, anyone at all! Je…. Eon Prime doesn't know, doesn't know. Nope, not even her!
I'm Gwendolyn. But not any of the ones you know. Nope, not any of those. I'm the REAL one before mean old Paradox made HER to replace me and be "a good influence".
For once this gets to be MY STORY! I hope it's my first one and not my only one, Hehehe.
Now that I'm healthy I can help out again. Someone in the house needs something and I'm glad to run off and get it. I love that place, no matter what anyone says. I had no place after my secret was out, and ran away. Anything I can do to help the people that live in that house I'm glad to do.
This time for my first real story I get to go out past the front yard even! It's not nearly as scary as it used to be going, going out through that spooky yard. No one sees me if I don't want to be seen or touches me if I don't want them to. That last one I like best for reasons, reasons.
Moving through the yard I look to my left and see silent spooky things peeking out from the side of the house. Those things still scared me. Leaving the yard and its silent monsters behind I float through the night to the ruined city. This place is for the machines and they don't like people at all. One of them rolls right by me, OK right through me truth be told. It screamed out into the night.
"Destroy all flesh and the works of flesh!"
No one knows where they can form and I doubt anyone ever will. What we do know is they kill anything alive they find, and if they can't more just keep coming until they do.
Except for the house they know we live in it but NEVER go there.
Drifting through the head of one of the big mean things I stop and remember the last time I was there. "Billy + Gwendolyn" is written on the inside. I brought him here my Billy I did and protected him while he made a watch of his own. Then he left me he did the little …
Ahem, a lady shouldn't curse.
He opened his portal to that horrible place he calls "the real world", I know he did, he did! He was a creature of habit my Billy.
I land hidden in the head of one of the fallen robots and turned visible and tangible. Gathering all my power to me I cast my spell and the pretty green color that replaced my blue Mana forms my portal. Doing that I realize I only inhaled for the first time since leaving home to have the breath to cast. It's not the same as before, mana is life energy after all. Ecto energy is for the dead, not the living, but it works.
I step into the portal leaving a world I love no matter how dangerous it is, and into Billy's stupid "real world". The fall sun is too bright and my skin itches in places it touches me. The Mister Smoothie parking lot is deserted, and I hardly feel the cold fall wind. I walk through the wall of the place and help myself to half the cash registers. I deserve a few treats for making the trip. I only take half, a girl dressed for summer with bulging pockets of cash might stick out if I get caught visible.
While I do that I hear a voice I'll never forget. Ben's voice this Ben is older, older, and not my Ben not at all, at all.
He ordered a "double chocolate" smoothie and I grin a wide toothy grin. I love my new teeth.
The girl at the counter calls a manager when the drawer had no change I slip my ghostly lips into this Ben's cup and spit in his drink. All Ben's need to get cut down to size sometimes. That and it's funny when he takes a sip.
An hour later I have a pretty new coat with a hood and some dark glasses to keep the sun from being annoying. Max's plumbing makes my heart sick even if it doesn't beat anymore. He was my grandfather too I found out later.
I slip inside unseen and unheard. I wait for a furry cat-man to use the elevator and go down with him in case something clever is around to see things that aren't there. He smells of alien spice and wet fur.
The place underneath is like a movie set. Unimaginable things just sitting on desks or hanging on walls. I wonder if my Ben would have ended up in a place like this if not for that Paradox. If your world goes wrong, he deletes them before you "hurt" others, the monster, the monster!
Moving through the place like a lost tourist I find what I'm after hours of looking. Only a blue bug man sort of saw me but he's in a cage and not about to help the people that put him there.
The vault is covered in a force field I'm not about to touch. The thing I'm here for is close enough to see, to see. The Nemetrix is a cheap knock-off, but it's got parts that old Rex can use. I like Rex, things inside him tick like a clock.
I talk to him and no one knows. Rex is so sad like a wind-up man with important gear missing.
Being invisible so long is making me tired and I need to get going. So I talk to the blue bug man. His voice is distant and cold.
"I will help you daughter of Pariah but only if you wait for that fur-ball that put me in here."
I agree I do, I do. Then I reach into the door controls and pull out the wires he tells me to just as the cat man walks past.
The fight was short and I think the bug man only wanted the others to see him fight the cat guy. No one noticed when I took the cat man's badge. That badge was also a key that let me take the Nemetrix and drop the badge nearby the fight. By the time they noticed I was back at the Mister Smoothie parking lot.
I am hungry and tired by the time I get here. Hungry in a way I've never felt, never felt. The girl from the counter is sitting under a tree talking angrily into a phone about getting fired. My teeth, my pretty new teeth come out all on their own. All pretty sharp, and serrated, serrated.
Creeping up behind her invisible I whisper in her right ear before grabbing her.
I'm not telling, not telling what I said, I said. It scared me too much, too much.
After I feel better, and something tiny deep inside worse.
I go home I want to sit by the fire, even if I can't feel the heat.
Hush dears I was watching my little one the whole time.
Next: "Hero Time"