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The Essential Laws of Human Robotics
Part Five
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Honey Lemon
As the robot sweeps a punch just a few inches overhead, Honey Lemon lobs one of her chem-balls through its legs. She drops to the ground as it hits the wall behind, hearing the thud of impact and the whoosh of expansion. A gust flicks her hair across her back, and by the time she turns to look, the robot has slammed into the opposite wall hard enough to dent the steel.
She rolls to her feet, continuing the motion as she sprints forward. The stunts come easily enough now that she's back in practice. Honey Lemon has always had about zero muscles, has always been that kid who looks like a stick—one of the main reasons she hadn't initially been comfortable with the decision to form a group of superheroes. But what she lacks in muscle, she makes up in agility, having spent most of her childhood in gymnastics up until the point when it ate into her lab time.
Twisting away from a robot's lunge, she reaches down to pull out another chem-ball. She's out of acid balls, and the smokescreens have been ineffective so far. Best guess is that the robots have some sort of visual setting that allows them to read heat signatures. But Honey Lemon's always got a backup.
A little ways off, Wasabi spars with a half dozen robots. He slips one of his lasers through one of their necks; oily, black liquid drips from its casing as it drops to the ground. The other robots are closing in on her, and a stray kick clips Honey Lemon in the thigh as she runs, but she turns her stumble into forward motion.
"On your back!" she calls.
Wasabi turns just enough to say "I wish you wouldn't—" but that's all he manages before she leaps, the flat of her foot pressing into his shoulder and then boosting her upward into the middle of the robot group.
She comes down hard on one of their faces, pressing the chem-ball into its eye socket, feeling the vibration against her palm. The robots twitch spastically, a simultaneous seizure caused by the high-powered microwave emitter, before they fall to the ground.
"Show off," Wasabi says as she turns, but he's smirking. Probably at her triumphant grin.
"Yeah, well, it's the last one I have," Honey Lemon says, pushing it back into her bag. "I need to charge them."
"No time for that." The lab in which they've found themselves, now partially destroyed, is blissfully robot-free, but Honey Lemon can hear noise from outside.
"Coming through!" Gogo sweeps between them, graceful as a figure skater—though Honey Lemon would never make that comparison to her face. "You gonna stand here or help me with the rest?" she calls over her shoulder.
"Let's go," Wasabi retorts, hurrying after her. Gogo leaps over a fallen console, rolling onward without missing a beat.
As agile and as wiry as Honey Lemon is, she's only gotten better since she started training with Gogo. Though you wouldn't expect it just looking at her, Gogo's a natural: years of skateboarding and biking and riding just about anything with wheels has given her enviable ease and grace. And Honey Lemon feels that envy every time she sees her friend fight in earnest.
It's probably a little unusual that Honey Lemon looks up to someone two years younger, but it's nothing she's ever felt weird about. Of course, that's in spite of the fact that their classmates never expect two people as different as Gogo and Honey Lemon to get along at all, let alone to be close as a pair of sisters. Back when Tadashi had first introduced the two of them, they'd clicked instantly. Their friendship only deepened with their familiarity, with hours spent nagging and bitching at each other about cleaning their shared apartment, or binge watching trashy soaps neither of them will admit to watching in public, or stealing napkins and sugar packets just to keep their shoestring budgets.
It's comfortable in a way Honey Lemon has never been with her other friends, comfortable in a way she's only ever felt with people she knows really well. With her family. And with Wasabi and Tadashi, whom she'd befriended the very first week of school, who had brought her out of her shell.
Because as hard as it is to believe, Honey Lemon hasn't always been as much of a social butterfly as she is now. Growing up, she's had a huge family, aunts and uncles and cousins scattered throughout the area. She was the one called for homework help or babysitting younger cousins; she joined the family in cheering at sports games for her older cousins or pitching in to repaint or renovate one of their homes. Most of her free time had been eaten away by family time, and even now she keeps in constant contact via her cousins' running group chat. But at the end of the day, their large family dissipated into its nuclear components, her cousins went home with their siblings, and she was alone. It wasn't like she didn't have people her own age to be close to, but no one really like siblings.
Until Wasabi and Tadashi, and especially until Gogo.
As long as they've been friends, though, they've never fought like this before. Not seriously, not with stilted conversations and long, meaningful silences, or with Gogo avoiding her during stupid stuff like laundry day or picking fights over whose turn it was to pay for lunch. Not in a way where Honey Lemon could only guess what they were really fighting over.
Now that it's all out in the open, she feels almost relieved.
"The hell are you staring at me for? Move!" Gogo shouts, scowling. She rolls to a t-stop, jabbing the nearest robot into an eye-washing station with her elbow pad.
"Nothing," Honey Lemon says, realizing she's been standing still for some time. Wasabi is down the hall a bit, leaving angry black gouges in a set of wooden cabinets (not to mention the gouges in the chest cavity of one of the robots, now sprawled on the floor). "I'm sorry."
Gogo's scowl deepens. "For everything, I hope."
"That, too." Honey Lemon starts off in Wasabi's direction. After a beat, Gogo follows.
The robots are aiming to kill now, or at least that's the impression Honey Lemon gets from their agitation. If she hadn't had bruises before, they're going to be really serious tomorrow—she isn't really built for long bouts of close quarters combat. With the help of her chem-balls, she's managed to avoid the worst of the fighting, but they'll run out soon. It's lucky she's near Gogo, who's taking to the robots' aggression with an almost mindless will to pummel something to death. Or whatever constitutes death if you're a robot whose human consciousness was brought back to life or something.
"It's...whatever," Gogo grunts finally, whipping her head back to butt one of them with the back of her helmet. "I still don't get why you didn't just say something. It's not like we don't live together. All you would've had to do was turn to me on the couch."
"Do we have to do this now?" Wasabi calls incredulously. Honey Lemon's too busy dodging punches to look his way.
"Yes!" Gogo yells. Her voice is strained, but after a hard thud, it clears up. "I had to find out through Professor Cotton, seriously! He came by to chat about what my plans were now what with your scholarship and whatever, and I had no idea what he was talking about. He got all...awkward, said probably he shouldn't have mentioned anything to me if you hadn't said anything, but he assumed I already knew because we're so close."
"It wasn't—personal!" Honey Lemon grunts.
"Obviously! Not personal enough to tell me anything—"
"Gogo—"
"—even though this whole thing's set in stone—"
"Gogo, watch your back!"
Gogo turns in time to roll out of the way of a lunging robot; Wasabi thrusts his blade out to slice it as it comes down. It ends on the floor in pieces.
"Nothing's going to change," Honey Lemon argues, wincing both at her own words and at the blow she blocks with her forearm (that's gonna hurt later, even with the armor). She imagines rather than sees Gogo's glower. "Okay, okay, things—are going to change. But we didn't—I didn't keep you out of the loop on purpose. I didn't not tell you just to be cruel. It's just that I knew you would try to talk me out of it, since it's an experimental program, and even just—well, I'm already trying to talk myself out of it—"
One of the robots slams into her chest, pinning her to a wall. Honey Lemon sees stars; they clear just quickly enough for her to make out the blurred form of another robot drawing back a fist. She kicks out with her boots and drives it back. Her left arm reaches into her bag for a chem ball, and after she elbows the robot off of her and onto the floor, she tosses it onto the ground. It expands quickly, with a windy whoosh, and Honey Lemon leaps back to avoid getting tangled into the mess. This is one of her favorites, one that expands with the consistency of a marshmallow in the microwave only to harden to the durability of steel in about ten seconds. Honey Lemon watches with fondness as the robots struggle and then are rendered immovable in a sea of orange, like some absurdist painting.
When she turns, Gogo is staring at her. "It's just that I don't know if I can actually do it," she continues. "It's probably the scariest thing I've ever done. But I want to try. I have to try. It's like—if I don't do this, I know I'll regret it forever. I know I'll always wonder what could have happened if I'd gone."
"No, I…" Gogo frowns, looking small for a minute. "I guess I get it. That's valid, your feelings are valid and everything. I'd probably feel the same way. But it...it still wasn't cool."
"No one's leaving forever. When you went to visit your grandparents over Christmas break we literally were on chat or video chat at least, like, every other day to talk about stupid stuff. You really think we'd just—"
"I mean, I know we'd keep in touch," Gogo says quickly. "But—"
"Little help here," Wasabi grunts. Gogo and Honey Lemon spin to find him struggling under the weight of three of the robots. With no small effort, they manage to each take one down, though Gogo's is a close call—it she ducks away from a metal fist just in time to keep it from crushing her skull against the wall. As she stands over her own fallen robot, Honey Lemon thinks she's gotta get some pain meds for her head soon.
Wasabi carves a hole into the last one. Honey Lemon peers up and down the corridor, where robots lay scattered on the floor, severed limbs and torsos almost gruesome but for the presence of sputtering sparks. It's finally quiet. She sways a little on her feet, pulling her hair over her shoulder and off of her sweaty neck.
Gogo offers an arm to Wasabi, who takes it and clambers to his feet, breathing heavily. "Things are changing, but they aren't really," he says at last. "No one's leaving forever. The important stuff—the team, us hanging out and stuff—that's all staying the same. Did you really think we could leave you behind?"
Gogo grimaces. "Guess not."
"You better know we wouldn't," he tells her, smiling.
She smirks back, but pushes it into a scowl as soon as she catches herself. "Don't think this discussion is over," she gripes.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Honey Lemon replies.
A noise from around the corner, forty or so feet off. Honey Lemon stiffens. Wasabi's plasma lasers flare to life again, and Gogo is already pushing forward on her skates when Fred and Hiro round the corner, Baymax wobbling behind.
They relax, tension ebbing from Honey Lemon's shoulders. She can't help but notice that the others don't look much better off; the tail of Fred's suit is so damaged it trails on the ground behind him, and Hiro's black eye has spent enough time marinating that it's really purple now. She strides forward to meet them, but before she has enough time to ask how they are, Fred bursts out laughing.
"Oh my god," he wheezes. "Hiro, just to be transparent like you said, I'm gonna say it looks like a freaking massacre in here. Like something from Lord of the Rings. Freaking Amon Hen or something."
"Too soon, Fred. Too soon." Hiro grins, carefully stepping over a twitching body.
Gogo has gotten close enough to push her fist against the toothy mouth of his suit. "What a creep."
"It's Hiro's fault. He wanted me to share all of my inner thoughts."
"That is not what I—"
"Good. You'd better," Gogo says.
"At this point, it's probably safe to say that if the robots had some way of alerting Krei remotely rather than physically going to get him, he'd be here by now?" Fred asks.
"I guess so," Hiro replies, looking troubled. He peers at Baymax. "That's how it works with us, anyway—Baymax can only talk to us through a headset if we're listening in, but it didn't seem like Krei was earlier."
"Did you get it?" Wasabi cuts in, probably before the conversation can become completely derailed.
"We have the documents and blueprints. Proof," Baymax says, patting his chest.
"Good man."
"Now's the part where we burn this place to the ground," Gogo says.
"Wait, what?"
"No, seriously. Think about it. No one wants to be agreeing with crazy lady Fujita here, but she tried it a while ago for a reason, and we actually need to finish that step for her. It kills all the robots and puts Krei in a place where he can't just sell and profit from them. And, most importantly, where he can't make more of them. He's doing them here, in these labs, and if we wait for some stupid legal proceeding to decree 'okay, actually this was illegal,' it could literally be months. Maybe even years, who knows? The point is, if we leave this stuff as is, he just repairs whatever's broken and keeps churning them out while he knows he can. If we get rid of everything…"
Honey Lemon frowns. "It's arson. That's…"
"Yeah," Gogo replies, sober. "I know."
Hiro rubs at his eye. "I think we have to. If we're voting, I mean. It's not...if we walk out now, we might as well be telling him 'feel free to continue.'"
"We're gonna just do arson while we're in uniform?" Wasabi asks incredulously.
"Who's he gonna tell? Even if he's got us on video, he's got us on video fighting robots, and we have documented proof now about how those robots were made. We're already here doing all this crap, and...in for a penny, in for a pound, you know?"
"Ugh," Wasabi says, squeezing his eyes shut. By unspoken agreement, the others keep watch, peering down opposite sides of the hallway as he takes a moment to consider. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're right," he says finally. "Let's burn this place down."
"Wow," Gogo says, grinning. "Our fearless leader just advocated for criminal activity. Can you say that again for posterity?"
"It hurt enough the first time. Let's do this before I change my mind."
"Baymax," Hiro says, "there are still no humans around?"
"Following a scan of the facilities, I can confirm that Krei is the only one remaining on the premises. He is in the south wing where the blueprints illustrated the private offices. If we are planning to burn the labs, I anticipate that he would have an adequate escape route to leave the building if the offices burn as well."
"Also, does anyone know how to arson," Hiro says under his breath.
"Well, we're not gonna be able to control the fire's direction or anything," Gogo replies, "but Fred's basically a walking case of arson, and I mean that in many ways."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Fred retorts cheerfully. "Let's figure out where to start it."
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They end up starting it in strategic areas around the labs, Wasabi and Baymax taking out the odd robot that comes their way. Fred gets good use out of his suit, seeming a little too happy about all of this for a normal, non-Fred sort of person.
But the fire is hard for Hiro, Honey Lemon realizes. When the flames start to take in earnest, he looks on with a tight frown, hanging back a little. "C'mon," she tells him, threading her arm through his. "Let's go outside."
They all go together, Fred whooping in excitement like some sort of deranged, pyromaniac trick-or-treater. Outside of the tight enclosure of the building, out in the cool night air, Hiro seems to loosen up. He and Gogo follow Fred, laughing hysterically as he starts quoting the Targaryen house motto while his flamethrower catches the side of the building.
"This could be interpreted pretty badly by the wrong person," Wasabi says casually, sidling up to her.
"You mean the maniacal laughter mixed with arson?"
"Yeah, that part."
"They're all insane."
"Oh, for sure."
For a moment, Honey Lemon thinks she understood what Hiro thought, what he felt, staring unmoving into the fire a few minutes earlier. Tadashi. It's weird that he feels so close now, as the blackened smoke and yellow flames eat away at the walls of the labs. But just for a second, she can almost sense him nearby. Warmth beyond the fire. Smiling.
Wasabi shuffles from foot to foot. He looks at Honey Lemon, and then he looks away. "You think...you think we're gonna be okay?"
The ash swirls down around them. Some of it gets in Honey Lemon's face, and she blinks hard, smiling anyway. Without meeting his gaze, she grabs his hand and squeezes it gently.
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A/N: Honey Lemon is one of my faves even though this chapter was a bit shorter than the others. She just didn't have as much to cover :)
One more chapter and it's done! Leave a review and let me know what you thought.
~ket