Clive, against his better judgment (indeed, without his better judgment), did his best to visualize the short-haired girl in the Yordilian uniform who had been introduced to him as Sue Ellen. "This should only take a few seconds," he assured Sue, who waited and wrung her hands in the back seat of Mr. Krantz's car.

A buzzing sound became audible throughout the piny forest, and grew in volume. Frink, glancing in the rear-view mirror, witnessed the approach of a helmeted figure on a green motorcycle. It's Ling, he realized, observing her jet-black hair as it twisted in the wind. Glavin be praised! I hope she can find a way to stop Clive, because I can't will myself to do a thing.

"Okay, I got it," said Clive, nodding.

"Wait!" said Sue impulsively. "Someone's coming!"

Someone had come. Before the motorbike even came to a stop, the agile Ling bounded out of her seat, shoved Clive aside with a wave of her slender arm, poked a gloved hand into the car, and wrapped her strong fingers around the sphere. "No! Stop!" cried Sue, but the Asian woman ripped the orb from her grasp almost without effort. The motorcycle, meanwhile, slowed down and apparently parked itself.

Mr. Krantz blinked and shook his antlered head. "I can…I can think freely again," he exulted. "It's like coming out of a bad dream."

While the stunned Clive struggled to his feet, Sue groped in vain for the sphere, which now lay in the hands of the woman in the black skirt and helmet. "That's mine! Give it back!" she ordered, her belly resting in the window frame. "Why the heck doesn't it work on you?"

Ling's deep brown eyes were barely visible through her visor. "I'm a robot," she stated with a thick accent. "Haven't you guessed?"

The guards, liberated from the sphere's influence, seized Clive's arms before he had a chance to flee. Frink stood up to commend his teaching assistant, saying, "Just for that, Ling, I'll reinstall your love chip."

"Thank you so much, Plofessor," said the girl as she pulled off her helmet.

Astonished by her easy defeat, Sue climbed out of the vehicle and started to gaze at Ling in admiration. "She's a robot, huh?" the cat girl marveled. "How did she know to follow us?"

"Simple, my curly young friend," replied Frink. "Ling is equipped with a Voigt-Kampff sensor array, which measures human physiological and emotional responses to certain questions, such as the one involving the tortoise. Based on said responses, she can ascertain whether a person has been subjected to hypnosis or mind control, or is in actuality a cyborg replicant, with the implants and the neural nets and the hand smashing through the wall, ga-hoy. The notion of a Voigt-Kampff device was introduced by Philip K. Dick in his science fiction novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which was later adapted as a…"

"Okay, I get it," snapped Sue. "You can skip the credits."

Ling's pupils darted back and forth in a regular pattern as she examined the pale green orb. "Odd," she remarked. "My X-ray scan detects no mechanism inside this object."

"That's because it's just an innocent rock," Sue insisted. "May I have it back now, please?"

"No!" said Mr. Krantz vehemently. "Don't let her have it! Don't let anyone have it!"

"There is, however, a strange form of low-level radiation emanating from the center of the sphere," stated Ling. "Recommended course of action: study it."

"Recommended course of action, destroy it!" said the livid moose man.

"Patience, my antlered friend," said Frink. "If I destroyed every object that was considered dangerous, well…you know that warehouse where they stored the Ark of the Covenant? It would be utterly empty."

They debated at length—Frink in favor of studying the sphere, Krantz in favor of destroying it—while Sue, unable to take her eyes off Ling, bombarded the shapely robot with question after question. "How old are you?" "How strong are you?" "How high can you jump?" "What do you eat?" "Is there anything you're afraid of?"

"I'm not programmed to experience fear," Ling related. "However, due to the imperfect nature of my algorithms, certain situations render me unable to function."

"Like what?"

"Crowds," was Ling's reply. "When I'm surrounded by a large number of people, the sensory input overload makes my brain shut down. Michael Bay movies have the same effect."

Seeing that his efforts to change Frink's mind were futile, Mr. Krantz decided to go his way. He pulled his car back onto the country road with Sue in the passenger seat, while Frink hitched a ride to his lab on the back of Ling's motorcycle. Though it was early December, the sunshine and the deep greenness of the pine needles created an illusion of spring.

Sue sighed dejectedly. "I failed," she muttered to herself. "I could've given Earth back to the Yordilians, but I wasn't quick enough or smart enough. Well, at least I got to meet a cool robot."

Mr. Krantz scowled as he drove. "Let's say you are an anti-Sue from another dimension," he said darkly. "Then what happened to the real Sue…my Sue?"

The cat girl shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe she's in my dimension. Maybe she doesn't exist anymore. I don't really care. I mean…the Doctor killed April, but she helped him anyway. She helped him to fight against her own people! What the heck happened to me in this dimension to make me that stupid?"

"If you met her, you'd like her," said Mr. Krantz.

"If I met her," said Sue peevishly, "the resulting paradox would unravel the space-time continuum and destroy all reality. Which is fine by me, because I don't want to meet her."

As Rodentia Ratburn marched into the principal's office, she noticed what she thought was a man standing next to Mr. Haney's desk. Upon further examination she realized that the man was actually sitting down. The rat woman looked up and down, from his bald spot to his enormous leather shoes, astonished at the sight of such a large human being. When her eyes landed on his hip, she beheld something that troubled her even more.

"Herbert," she said coldly, "there's a man with a gun sitting in front of me."

Mr. Haney merely grinned. "He's my bodyguard," he explained. "He has a carry permit."

"Permit, schmermit," said Rodentia. "That makes it legal, but that doesn't make it right. If I were still in charge, I'd have Godzilla here thrown out on his tail."

The hulking man spoke up, his tone disarming. "I'm sorry if you object to my presence, ma'am. The government feels strongly that Mr. Haney needs protection, because of the sensitive piece of technology that's keeping him alive."

Miss Ratburn smiled slightly. "No offense intended, stranger. Do you have a name?"

"Yes, ma'am," the bodyguard replied. "It's Richard Tulev. I also go by the nickname Scrunchy."

Rodentia fought back a giggle. "Scrunchy?" she said incredulously. "Don't people laugh at you?"

"Not if they know what's good for them, ma'am," was Scrunchy's response.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Richard," said Rodentia, putting out her hand. Though the bodyguard's hand was nearly three times the size of hers, his grip proved to be gentle.

"Is there something you need to talk to me about?" the principal asked her.

Rodentia turned a blank face to him. "I…don't remember," she said, "but it'll come back to me." Looking at the tall stranger again, she inquired, "I'm curious…what does a big man like you do with your spare time?"

"Spare time?" Scrunchy repeated. "Well, I'm a bodyguard, so I don't really have any. But when I do get a break, I like to play my guitar and make wood carvings."

"Interesting," mused the rat woman.

"And this is gonna sound funny," said the pig-faced man, "but my favorite thing in the whole world…is fudge."

Rodentia's heart nearly shot out of her throat. A man who likes fudge…I didn't think there were any left!

To be continued