My Life As A Teenage Robot Porn Story: One Good Reason Chapter 6
One Good Reason
A “My Life as a Teenage Robot” Fanfic
Chapter Six Double Jeopardy
The quartet of Cluster locusts pulled into a climbing turn, preparing to make another strafing attack on the largest of the downtown skyscrapers. Their long, swept-back wings and streamlined bodies were built for speed. This one group of locust-bots packed more firepower than a squadron of Skyway Patrol aircars and there were one hundred and ninety-six others just like them swarming through the skies over Sydney. Their antennae flexed to take aim at another target, and glowed with the readiness of a full laser charge. The attack locusts turned towards the skyscraper
And bellowed into brilliant, fiery explosions as a series of bright blue laser flashes ripped through their metallic abdomens. Jenny shot through the airborne debris like a missile, with both laser-limbs deployed, anxiously trying to keep track of all the robots in the air. For now, the locusts seemed focused on causing senseless destruction and mayhem in the city below. But they wouldn’t ignore her for much longer; she needed to make the most of her advantage.
A quick ninety-degree turn to the left brought her directly into the path of another three locusts, and another three shots quickly turned them into a hail of flaming scrap. She corkscrewed through the sky, picking her chances to nibble away at the enemy’s numbers; every shot from her lasers was rewarded with a blossom of bright yellow flames against the clear blue sky.
Then the crimson blasts of Cluster weapons fire turned towards her. After losing one-tenth of their forces, the locust-bots decided to eliminate the teenage annoyance. Jenny twisted madly through the air, tiptoeing her way through a barrage of energy beams that came at her from every direction. Her computer-assisted eyesight displayed a blizzard of tracks coming at her on multiple trajectories. She evaluated the Cluster’s group combat strategy, and came to a frustrated conclusion
I’m probably already late for Geometry class. Sigh, that’s three times this week.
It was a strange thing to worry about right now, but Jenny found she’d rather worry about school. Snitzenburg is probably giving a pop quiz. I wonder if Tiff is putting gum on my locker handle again? Argh, I’d be in school right now if Mom hadn’t sent me on this stupid emergency call!
She swerved behind a large formation of locust-bots, and leaned backwards to point her leg housings at them. They split in half, allowing a stack of compact air-to-air missiles to slide out. Eight smoke trails leapt from each of her launchers, streaming towards the dense grouping of robot attackers. A split-second later, sixteen explosions littered the sky with fresh clouds of oil and shrapnel.
Stupid emergencies. Stupid Cluster. I wish they’d just buzz off and leave me alone! No, they want to plant me with a chip and give me orders. Why does everyone always want to give me orders?
Two dozen locusts swung around behind her, and began a high-speed attack. Jenny flipped over and pointed two fingers backwards. From each deployed a small nozzle, spraying a fine orange mist into the air. The locusts seemed a bit confused as they flew through the orange cloud, but they pressed on towards their teenage target. Jenny fired a single, small grenade towards her pursuers. It seemed harmless enough, even after it detonated with a small flash then the orange mist ignited. The locusts disappeared into an airborne inferno, and a soft shower of soot-coated metal flakes drifted out of the sky.
Vexus wants to give me orders. My teachers want to give me orders. Raszinski wants to give me orders. Mom wants to give me orders. Ooooh yeah, Mom wants to give me lots of orders.
She had eliminated about one-third of the attack locusts; the remainder had turned their attentions to the city below. Jenny could hear the people screaming for help. Just like they always do. And I’m going to save them, like I always do. Then they’re going to shout at me, like they always do. She grumbled with bitterness as she dipped into a dive, taking aim at a group of vandalizing locusts.
XJ-9, Stop that meteor! Battle those aliens! But be back in your room before five! Why do I always have to be the one to save the Earth? I can guess Mom’s answer to that one ‘Because I said so!’ She’s so mean, bossing me around while she stays nice and cozy at home!
Six dull yellow locust-bots rampaged along a four-lane street downtown, randomly knocking over cars and destroying buildings. As a crowd of people sprinted for their lives to escape the robotic invaders, Jenny swooped out of the sky and flew over their heads in the opposite direction. With a quick flick of her wrists, a large pair of sawblades deployed from her arms, and whined up to full speed. She took aim at the lead attacker, and flew straight through him, neatly slicing him in half. She circled wildly around the rest, slicing off antennas, legs, and wings, until the locusts were reduced to a pile of spare parts.
Jenny rested against the pile of scrap, letting her hands cool off for a few seconds. This was hard work. And there were over a hundred more of these robots attacking the city.
I’m surprised Mom hasn’t called me on the monitor by now to tell me that I’m doing this all wrong. She totally treats me like a five-year-old! Sometimes I wish she’d just buzz off and stop telling me what to do. I’ll bet she’s in her lab right now, sipping tea, dreaming up something stupid for me to do!
Vexus lightly drummed her fingers against her arm, seething with impatience as she watched the metal-shielded Wakeman house for any signs of movement. She turned to glare with disgust at her prisoners; one hundred pathetic human animals shivering on their knees. She didn’t expect any trouble from a bunch like this; they actually looked quite comfortable bowing before her. They were so very inferior to the almighty Cluster. Earth would be but a weekend project for the Cluster Empire, if it weren’t for misguided robots like XJ-9. But that inconvenience was going to be remedied today.
“Your time is up, humans,” she announced. “Drone Fifteen, pick one of those monkeys at random, and prepare a disintegrator beam “
“Wait! Wait!” shouted a female voice. The front door unlocked with a series of heavy clanks, and creaked open ever so slightly. Then slowly, tentatively, the oversized glasses and disheveled white hair of Dr. Nora Wakeman poked out to take a nervous look around. “I I just needed a little extra time to get all of my schematics together.”
The unimposing doctor took a few steps out onto the walkway, taking in the intimidating sight of a battalion of Cluster soldiers patrolling the front lawn. She clutched onto a leather satchel, nervously holding it against her yellow lab coat, and stared up at Vexus’ impressive form with a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face, trembling slightly.
“Oh come now, Doctor, I won’t bite you,” sneered Vexus. Then she gave her an evil grin. “I have other robots to do that for me.” She gestured to a pair of roach-drones. “Grab that pathetic mammal.”
The drones slid a pair of claws around Mrs. Wakeman’s shoulders, but she shrugged them off. “Hey, hey, knock it off, you overgrown toaster ovens!”
The robot queen arched a quizzical eyebrow, and the doctor tried to regain her composure. “Er I mean, unhand me, you mechanical ruffians! I am quite capable of walking on my own, thank you very much! You umm stainless steel scallywags!”
“Such a bizarre little creature,” groaned Vexus. “Very well, then. Move those little runt legs of yours, and get into the van.” She pointed to the Cluster-modified CNS news truck.
“Uh wait a minute. I’ve kept my part of the bargain. Why not let these people go?” said the doctor, referring to the hostages.
“Bargain? We had no bargain. I gave you a command, and you obeyed it. And you had best get used to obeying my commands, for that is what you shall be doing for the rest of your miserable life!”
Mrs. Wakeman gulped. “Look, why on Earth do you want a scrawny old woman like me, anyway? I won’t make much of a slave.” She squeezed her arm. “See? All skin and bones.”
“Oh, it’s not your muscles I’m interested in. It’s your mind.” Vexus strolled right up to Mrs. Wakeman, gazing down on her with a mixture of amazement and antipathy. “You know, I could almost respect you, Doctor. For you have designed and built XJ-9, a robot of such amazing ability that I would be proud to call her my own. Of course, once she has joined the Cluster, she will be my own.”
“Please,” harrumphed Mrs. Wakeman. “Jen er, XJ-9 will never join the Cluster.”
“Ah, but you see, that’s where you come in,” purred the queen. “Jennifer has this most unfortunate soft spot she actually thinks of you as her mother, not just her creator. Well, when I am holding her ‘mother’ in my palace dungeon on Cluster Prime, she will come crawling to us. She will do absolutely anything I say. And in the meantime, you will be working twenty hours a day, building XJ-9 robots until you eventually drop dead from fatigue.”
The doctor tugged at her black turtleneck, as Vexus glared at her viciously. “You see, doctor, I could almost respect you, but I don’t. I despise you. You created the most advanced robot this putrid planet has ever seen, and instead of making her your ruler, you waste her talents on saving all of these sniveling little vertebrates. You corrupt her with your foolish human notions and ideals. And worst of all, you had her oppose me the perfection that is Vexus!”
She leaned down until she was six inches away from the tip of Mrs. Wakeman’s nose, and spoke in a evil whisper. “And just so you know I haven’t forgotten that time at the trade show when you jumped me from behind. I’ve not above holding a grudge I will make you suffer for that.”
“Now, now, there’s no reason we can’t be civilized about this,” said Mrs. Wakeman, as she shivered in the hooded shadow of the Cluster queen. She glanced skyward, silently praying for a blue-and-white robot girl to streak out of the sky. Come on, get that radio working, guys!
Tuck peeked nervously out the window, watching the tension build in the front yard. “Oh boy, things don’t sound too good out there. I don’t think Drew can keep up the act much longer.”
Mrs. Wakeman the real Mrs. Wakeman dashed over next to the little fellow, juggling coils of wire and half a dozen circuit boards. “Hopefully, he won’t have to. Andrew is buying us time, and that’s we need right now. If he can just keep Vexus talking for a few more minutes, we should have the modifications to the transmitter completed, and then we shall be able to call XJ-9.”
“But Jenny’s on the other side of the world right now. How fast can she get here from Australia?”
“For our sakes, very fast, I hope.” Mrs. Wakeman looked out the window, studying her doppelganger with a hint of disapproval on her face. “Oh, for the love of Heisenberg my nose is not that big!”
Tuck tried, and failed, to fight back a nasty chuckle, but thankfully they were interrupted by Brad as he galloped up the basement stairs. He had worked up a mild sweat, unrolling heavy black cable as he ran to the doctor’s workbench. “All right, Mrs. W I got those big alligator clamps attached to the terminals on that big reactor gizmo. And I turned all the dials just like you said.”
He handed the other ends of the cables to the doctor, and snuck a look outside, leaning his chin on top of Tuck’s head. “So how’s Drew doing out there? Is he fooling Vexus?”
“Yes, and apparently he feels I am a ‘scrawny old woman’ who’s all ‘skin and bones’,” she grumbled. “I’m going to have a little chat with him when this unpleasantness is over.”
“The evil robot lady is buying it, so far,” said Tuck. “She thinks Drew’s really Mrs. Wakeman.”
“Give me a hand with these capacitors, boys.” She handed them a pair of heavy ceramic cylinders, and pulled a screwdriver from her pocket. “With your help, we should have communications restored in about five more minutes.”
“I hope we have five more minutes,” grimaced Tuck.
Jenny lifted another locust over her head, struggling to avoid its huge front pincers; she’d learned the hard way that they were very dangerous, and she had the scrapes on her body to prove it. The robot lunged wildly, trying unsuccessfully to break free of her grip; but he had no more success than the last fifty or so of his Cluster brethren. Jenny hopped in the air and hurled him brutally into the pavement, as if she were spiking a football. The robotic insect crumpled up like an accordion, wiggled a few pathetic limbs in the air, then fell silent with a fizzle of electric sparks.
The streets were starting to clog up with lifeless robotic wrecks, but there were still locusts roving about; Jenny wasn’t sure how many, just that there were too many. Vexus had been right about one thing she’d been running herself ragged for the past three days, flying all over the Earth to save people from disasters and accidents, and she was really starting to feel it. A little rest would feel so good
More screams from down the street. With a burst from her pigtail-jets, she streaked through the city, taking note of the destruction below. It looked bad. Sidewalks were covered with broken glass and buildings had blast scars from laser fire. Smoldering brick and rubble were everywhere. Craters dotted the pavement on almost every street. Something else for people to blame me for, she sighed to herself.
The sight of six locust-bots circled around a group of terrified pedestrians snapped her back to attention. The huge ten-foot metallic monsters had corralled two dozen people up against a brick wall. Their antennae glowed with a bright yellow energy, crackling with static discharge, and they prepared to strike against their human prey. The lead locust raised one of his huge claws in the air
And Jenny grabbed it, hauling the surprised locust-bot off the ground. With a crushing grip, she started swinging it like a giant bat, smashing its body into the other locusts. With each swing, she knocked another robot away from the crowd. Locusts flew off in every direction, spraying gears and sprockets in the air as they crashed lifelessly into the surrounding buildings. The last locust-bot cartwheeled into the upper floor of a large bank building, blasting its plate glass windows into razor-sharp shards.
Then Jenny gasped in horror. A young girl, maybe eight years old, was watching the action from the front of the building; now she stared into the air, like a statue, watching thousands of tiny glass javelins hurtling towards her. The girl shrieked at the top of her lungs, and raised her arms to shield herself
And suddenly she was airborne, watching the world fly by at fantastic speed. After a moment’s panic, she realized that an arm was wrapped around her waist. A metallic, robot arm. Jenny looked down into the girl’s stunned, bewildered face, and tried to give her a reassuring smile. She touched down a few moments later, and set the little brown-haired girl down on the sidewalk.
“Phew! That was close. You should be a little more careful.” Jenny gave the girl a quick look-over. “Looks like you’re okay. Well, I’ve gotta get back to work “
“No!” the girl screamed. She lunged at Jenny, and wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’m scared! Please, please don’t leave me alone!”
Jenny was a bit startled, and felt a little awkward. “Umm, I’m sorry, little girl, but I really need to go back to stopping the bad guys. That’s what I do.”
“I know,” said the girl, her heaving voice on the brink of tears. “I saw you on the telly. You’re Jenny-robot, from America. If you stay with me, then I know I’ll be safe.”
Jenny was tired, physically, mentally, and emotionally; she just wanted to finish the mission and go home. But looking into the girl’s pleading face cut through her self-pity like a knife. She was terrified, and Jenny simply couldn’t abandon her without doing something.
“All right I’m going to rest for a few seconds.” Jenny sat down against a wall; she was almost exhausted. She pulled an extension cord from her belly, and plugged herself into a power outlet. “You can help protect me while my power cells recharge. Now, you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“Rebecca,” she smiled, feeling a little better. “But I thought robots never got tired.”
“Well, they do when their stupid mothers send them flying around on emergencies all day,” huffed Jenny.
Rebecca frowned. “I got mad at my Mom too. She told me to stay in the shelter, but I ran off.”
“Well, that really wasn’t a good idea. It’s not safe to be out right now. You should’ve listened to your mother.” Jenny’s face twisted in disbelief did those words just come out of my mouth?!?
“I s’pose you fly around saving people from ‘mergencies?” asked Rebecca, completely fascinated.
“That’s right,” sighed Jenny, glancing at her power readouts. “The nasty robots that are attacking your city have been doing a lot of bad things over the last few days, and I had to save people.”
“Nasty robots? The big bug lady?”
Jenny smiled; apparently everyone knew about Vexus and the Cluster, even little girls. “Her name’s Vexus. Yes, she’s been up to a lot of dirty tricks this week. And that’s why I’m so tired.”
Rebecca looked at Jenny with confused, innocent eyes. “I don’t unnerstand. If the big bug lady is the one doing all the bad things then why are you mad at your Mom?”
Jenny chuckled at her, until she uncomfortably realized wait a minute. That’s actually a pretty good question. This is all Vexus’ fault. So then, why am I so cheesed off at Mom? She let that unsettling thought roll around in her mind for a while. A few minutes ago, she had safely concluded that her mother was the most evil person in the universe; suddenly she felt a lot less sure of that.
“What is the problem NOW!?!” screamed Queen Vexus. She prided herself on maintaining a cool composure in public, but this Wakeman animal was starting to get on her nerves. “I’ve had just about enough of this. Drones, grab this mammal and toss her in the truck. We’ll take her through the portal as soon as we destroy the house.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” yelled “Mrs. Wakeman”, rummaging through a mess of blueprints, on her hands and knees. “Umm there’s no need to be impatient. If I’m going to spend the rest of my life building robots, then I want to be sure that I have all the proper diagrams in order!” As two Cluster roach-drones approached her, she started handing them rolls of oversized drafting paper. “Now, you hold this one, and you hold this one this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
Drew’s mind raced, frantically trying to think of ways to stall Vexus until the real Dr. Wakeman could call Jenny for help. His nanobot body had shape-shifted to almost perfectly mimic the doctor’s appearance and voice, but he couldn’t duplicate the her calm professionalism. He felt like he was going to spasm out in terror at any second. Drew stared down at the blueprints on the ground, pretending to organize them but also trying to hide the look of paralyzing fear on his face.
What the heck am I doing out here? He could feel his skin quivering; he desperately concentrated to keep his nano-disguise in place. Gawd, I am so dead. I wish Jenny was here she’s the hero. Any second now, Vexus is going to find out it’s a trick. Man, why do I have to be so stinking useless?
“We leave for Cluster Prime, now!” commanded Vexus. “My fellow robots, we have what we came for. Now to dispose of this hideous dwelling. XJ-9 won’t be needing it any more. Drones “
Drew gasped in horror. “No! No, you can’t! Brad and Tuck are in there! And the doc I mean, dog! The dog is in there! They’ll all be killed!”
“And this would concern me why?” Vexus sneered. “You need to worry about yourself, Doctor. Worry about yourself and about what I’m going to do with your charming little daughter.”
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? Something. Anything. The only thing Drew had in his hands was the leather satchel that had held the blueprints. In one spontaneous motion, he sprang to his feet and hurled the satchel at the back of Vexus’ head. It collided with her wide striped hood, making an undignified clang, forcing the robot queen to stagger a couple of steps.
The roach-drones responded immediately their queen had just been attacked.
A crimson laser bolt shot out from the antenna of the closest drone, catching “Mrs. Wakeman” square in the chest, at a range of only a few feet. The force of the blast launched her through the air as if she were fired from the muzzle of a cannon. Her compact form crashed into the side of the Channel Four news truck with a sickening thud, leaving a deep, human-shaped dent. Then the elderly lady slumped to the ground like a rag doll. An acrid wisp of smoke drifted up from the smoldering scorch mark in the middle of her chest, and she lay motionless in a heap on the curb.
Continued in Chapter Seven