Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon

by Richard Roberts

  Satisfied, I joined the throng in the hall. Most of the mechanics joined me, leaving only the three oldest―or at least tallest―prying open Miss Punchcard’s back for further dissection.

  The class stood around, laughing and talking. Nobody from the other schoolrooms came out and did anything.

  Gertrude and Aggie threw their arms around me in a quick hug, then drew back so Gertrude could squeeze my hands and gush, “It’s so sweet of you to take the blame for getting us out of school, but you know you’re all in big trouble, right?”

  A square-shouldered blond boy from another dorm pulled off his goggles and rolled them around in his hands. “It shouldn’t be too bad for Bad Penny and her friends. The loss of meals will stand, but Miss Punchcard never saw them do anything worse. But Remmy…”

  Aggie grimaced, flashing her teeth. Two of them had been covered or replaced with gold. “It depends on what Miss Punchcard had time to notice and transmit. You might be in the clear, but you might… you might be outlawed, Remmy.”

  A boy from Dorm M I didn’t know took a half step back. “If she is, we shouldn’t even be talking to her.”

  Gertrude gave his arm a slap. “Don’t be a rat, Michael. Besides, we’d get a warning.”

  The blond boy took a step closer, and looked between me, Ray, and Claire. “You’re new here, but we can’t… if we help you, we get your punishments ourselves.”

  I waved them all off, smiling airily and trying to look too cool to care. “We’ve got a bag full of food and we’re not planning on sticking around.”

  Remmy rolled her eyes and head, arms crossed, and voice dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah, and another outlaw in the family’s really going to ruin the Fawkes. What will my brothers say?”

  Donovan let out a sigh, his shoulders slumping. “I kind of wish I was an outlaw.”

  “Donovan!” squeaked Aggie.

  Gertrude added her own shocked stare. “Yeah, really, Donovan. Getting out of school early once is fun, but…”

  Michael reached out a nervous hand and touched Gertrude’s shoulder, interrupting her. “No, I get it.”

  Gertrude and Aggie stared at him. Then Aggie let out a deep breath, slumping. “Oh, right.”

  Rubbing the back of his neck, Donovan stared past us at the wall and muttered, “I just wish I was engaged to someone besides Sabrina.”

  A girl mechanic I didn’t know gave him a puzzled look, one eyebrow lifted way up. “You’re upset about that? She’s the most beautiful girl in my dorm, and she’s a Jet.” Her expression changed to a suddenly Claire-like leer, and she gave him a nudge with her elbow. “Take it from me, you are one lucky ducky.”

  The broad shouldered boy gave her a scowl and a hard stare. “Don’t be so shallow, Lane.”

  Her leer melted into a pout. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Sabrina’s a…”

  She let her words trail off.

  Gertrude reached out and gave Donovan’s arm a squeeze, right above the elbow. “The automatons are good at this. I bet they’ve predicted she’ll calm down in a couple of years, and by the time you’re married, you’ll be best friends.”

  Sticking his hands in his jacket pockets, Donovan gave her an accusing stare. “You say that because you got lucky.”

  Gertrude giggled suddenly. With a joyful smile, she reached out and hooked her arm into Michael’s, dragging him up shoulder to shoulder with her. “I sure did. He’s sweet, he’s cute, and he’s in my dorm.”

  Michael had a much gentler smile, but he held on to her tight, like he didn’t want to let go.

  The broad-shouldered boy suggested, “Maybe when Sabrina doesn’t change, they’ll cancel the engagement.”

  Donovan kicked the rug with his boot. Come to think of it, all the mechanics got work boots instead of these silly buttoned-up fashion items the automatons foisted on me. “I doubt it. The engagement happened right after I ranked so high on my test. It’s their stupid breeding program. They want my brains and her looks. I’m stuck with her for the sake of our great-grandchildren.”

  Aggie’s mouth pulled tight for a moment, and she confessed, “My fiancé is in dorm K, and he’s about to graduate. He’s four years older than me, and I’ve never met him.”

  All eyes were now on her, most of them wide with surprise. Gertrude actually gasped. “You never told me that!”

  Aggie shook her head. “I just have to hope the matchmaker knows what it’s doing.”

  Rising out of the group funk, Michael looked up and asked me, “So, who are you engaged to?”

  “Five will get you fifty Earth is like us. They don’t do arranged marriages,” Remmy piped up. Despite her high voice, she had her hands stuck in her pockets and a contemplative sullen-lipped pout. Something about this was personal. She’d tell us when she felt like it, and until then, I could only pretend I hadn’t noticed.

  I jerked a thumb at my accomplice with the super-long pigtails. “She’s right. Even if they did, my friends and I are supervillains.” I reached out and linked arms with Ray and Claire. “And we need to get going, because we have the crime of the century to pull. If we’re not outlaws now, we will be in an hour. Let’s go, gang!”

  Behind me, I heard Gertrude say, “We’ve got time before lunch. I’m going to go visit my parents!”

  I stepped out of the school hallway with Ray and Claire pressed against me on either side like bookends. They were both grinning entirely too much.

  “What?”

  Ray answered, and all I could tell from his tone was that he was enjoying this. “It’s just nice to see you among your people.”

  What was that supposed to mean, anyway?

  y supervillain jumpsuit was hanging in the closet when I got back to my room, and my underwear sat neatly folded in the drawers. We would not have to storm the laundry room just to free me from thirty pounds of bloomers.

  I kicked my bedroom door closed, got dressed, and stepped back into the hallway in comfort and style. Buckling my goggles over my eyes, I smirked at the wreckage of Miss Brassfarthing. She hadn’t approved of our returning so early, and I felt Ray’s response of tearing the automaton off its rails had been entirely justified.

  The goggles were nice. My helmet was back on Ceres. Its visor and these goggles both matched my prescription, and sometimes, I plain forgot just how blurry the world was without glasses. Replacing the goggles’ lenses had been a good idea. Plus, the leather and brass fit in perfectly with the local color scheme.

  Claire glided out of her room, skating a circle around me on friction-defying sneakers and pirouetting to a halt. Ray was the last to the party, adjusting the fit of his black bird mask and hat. He had the food bag slung over his shoulder, or at least he did before holding it out to me.

  I rummaged through packaged meals that even a day old smelled better than Europa’s rubbery fish. A snack would be nice, but something I wanted much more lay curled up at the bottom of the bag. Scooping Archimedes up in my hands, I sat him on my shoulder and wound the end of his tail around my neck. Red eyes opened, he stretched, and his claws locked into my jumpsuit.

  We were ready to wreak some havoc.

  “Do you always pose like that when you don’t have an audience?” Remmy demanded from down the hall. While we changed, she had spent a few minutes taking the stricken Miss Brassfarthing apart, apparently for fun.

  “If you pose, the audience will come,” Ray mangled a quote Remmy couldn’t possibly have gotten anyway.

  Armed to the cat again, I reached into one of my pockets, feeling around for the cornerstone of this operation―a damp, pulsing red control squid. Vera had only been one reason I was grateful the automatons didn’t confiscate belt pouches from mechanics.

  “First thing’s first. Where’s the security automaton?”

  Remmy gave me a hard, suspicious look. Did I sound a little too eager? I hoped so!

  “Why…?”

  I pulled out one of my two remaining squishy alien toys. “I plant one of these on the security automaton,
and the other on the automaton running the aetheric fluid condenser. We walk out with a couple of vats unopposed. The bots might even roll out a red carpet.”

  That metaphor probably flew over Remmy’s head, since this place had red carpets everywhere. She had more strident concerns, waving her hands and shaking her head at me. “No, no no no no no! If you use Puppeteer weapons in public, the whole colony will panic! Besides, the security automaton only deals with outside threats.”

  I gave her my own suspicious, sidelong look. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure about the panic part. I’ll take care of the security automaton.”

  I looked at Claire, then at Ray. We mumbled quietly to each other.

  “I dunno.”

  “Do we cut her in for a share?”

  “We’ll be swimming in loot. We can afford it.”

  Glowing with pride that I hadn’t busted out laughing during that exchange, I stroked Achimedes’s silky fur with one hand and gave Remmy a thumbs up with the other. “You’re in. Welcome to the Inscrutable Machine, Miss Fawkes. Show us what you can do.”

  She buckled her own goggles, staring up at the ceiling in thought. “I need… two typewriters.”

  Ray raised a black-gloved hand. “Placing my bet now. There will be a typewriter store in exactly the same place as on Europa.”

  I squinted at him as we headed for the dormitory reception room and the stairs upwards. “I’ll take that bet. The automatons can’t be that rigid.”

  Less than five minutes later, the four of us stood near the main stairs to the colony deck, looking up at a sign that read ‘Gunther’s’.

  “Well, at least the name is different,” I muttered.

  Slipping his arm around Claire’s shoulders, Ray asked in a honeyed drawl, “So, since I’m not allowed to hit on her, what do I win?”

  Claire giggled, the minx. Or at least the Minx’s daughter. Myself, I gave Ray a hard kick in the ankle to remind him which of us was his girlfriend.

  I wasn’t sure he felt it. Stupid superpowers. He did let go of Claire, and cracked his knuckles instead. He even looked at me, although without the slightest trace of remorse in his grin. I needed to stop liking that grin so much. It was going to get me into even more trouble someday.

  He gave me the same flirty tone he’d just given Claire. “Shall I break down the door, Dark Mistress? Shatter the window? I’ve never tried breaking a window by jumping through it. It’s a shamefully empty line on my evil resume.”

  Remmy had already walked in through the unlocked door, and before Ray finished waxing villainous, asked the shopkeeper, “Hey, Mister Gunther! Can I have two typewriters?”

  He leaned over his display table from the far side, elbows propped on the varnished wooden surface and hands clasped. “It’s little Remmy Fawkes! I haven’t seen you in forever. Where have you been?”

  She puffed out her twig chest. “Bringing Europa Colony back online!”

  He straightened, bracing his knobby-knuckled hands on the counter instead of his elbows. “You did it?”

  “I did it!” Remmy looked like she was going to inflate.

  “That’s worth a lifetime supply of typewriters in my book. I wish I could get away with giving them to you. I take it you don’t have two large metal ration tickets?”

  Ration tickets, huh? I snuck a hasty glance up and down the market. Yes, there was a woman tearing a tab out of a little bitty book, and trading it for a hat covered in fish scales.

  I looked back to see Remmy shrug. “Nope. I was kinda planning on stealing ‘em.”

  Ever alert for his cue, Ray walked calmly into the shop, picked up two bulky metal typewriters, and propped one on each shoulder.

  Mr. Gunther let out a sharp laugh. It brought life to his stiff, leathery face. “Ha! Why am I not surprised? Your brother still a pirate, Remmy?”

  She grinned and nodded. “Yessir.”

  “Your other brother still a pirate?”

  Remmy’s grin got bigger, and her nod more extravagant. “Yessir!”

  Squeaking and rattling heralded an automaton rolling up the ubiquitous rails to stop in front of the shop. “Simon Gunther. For associating with outlaw Remington Fawkes, your salesman privileges are suspended for one week.”

  Mr. Gunther stood up very straight, his face tight and bleak again. “Yes, Ma’am.” He turned away from Remmy, keeping his back to her as he began closing and locking display cases.

  I was too angry to do anything but glare at the tyrannical machine. Claire stepped up to it, blue eyes pleading, and thumped her fists petulantly against the automaton’s metal chest plate. “Come on, Miss Tinkerplate. She’s robbing him! It’s not his fault!”

  Claire’s superpower cut no ice with a machine. It scolded her with a particularly metallic voice, “E-Claire, Bad Penny, Reviled, you will return to your dorm imme―”

  It wasn’t interested in listening to Claire, and we weren’t interested in listening to it. Claire gave it a shove, spreading her fingers. Purple and blue arced between her gloves and the automaton. It creaked, clonked, and went still.

  Claire raised her head haughtily while she dusted off her static gloves. “I was hoping that would work.”

  I sneered. I had never felt quite so satisfied breaking anything before. “Nothing made of gears reacts well to having them stuck together. Now, where is this security automaton?”

  Remmy pointed at the stone-lined main staircase. “Up there.”

  I scowled. “Good. You and your brother are right. I’ve had enough of Big Metal Sister.”

  I took one step forward, and Ray caught my elbow with his. He kept both typewriters balanced on one shoulder while he pulled me up close. “Let me make sure I have this straight. Remmy’s going to use a typewriter to take control of the security bot?”

  Remmy tossed her head proudly. Her pigtails swung like pendulums. “It’s easy if you can make them hold still.”

  Ray leaned in closer, and his grin widened another inch. “So, that means you have an extra tentacular alien mind-controlling abomination, spawned from the nameless and unholy polyps deposited―”

  There was no telling how long he could keep that up. I clamped a gloved hand over his mouth. “Yes.” There was totally no trace of giggle in my voice, nope. Nuh uh.

  He pulled his mouth free, and me away from the stairs. “In that case, we’re making a side trip.”

  “Where are we going? Ray? Ray, where are we going? Where are we going, Ray?” My haranguing availed me naught. We strolled down the market corridor arm in arm until he found a stairway down that seemed to suit him. Claire, the traitor, skated around us in lazy circles. The one desperate look back I managed saw Remmy following, scowling a lot and tapping her oversized wrench on her shoulder.

  We got all the way to the bulkhead hatch, and it still wasn’t until he’d twisted the wheel open one-handed and I saw the undecorated metal corridor beyond that I realized where we were. Dumb butt Penny. This was the route we’d taken to the pneumo room on Europa colony. Sure enough, there it was ahead of us. Ray had remembered the route.

  But why?

  We strolled in, and Ray finally let go of my arm, holding out his hand instead. “Nightmarish cancer that infests flesh and brain―”

  “Yes, yes, here.” I dropped one of my two remaining Puppeteer squid into his hand. It was a good thing he was wearing gloves, because it immediately uncurled and started pawing at him with its tentacles.

  He held the ugly red blob good and tight, and pointed at one of the automatons in the room. Three handled a machine that spat bottles out of its tubes, sorting them into cases or sticking them into new tubes to be whisked away. The fourth stood attached to its winding key in the wall.

  “You. You are the central hub for automaton communications, correct?”

  It certainly clicked and rattled more than any other automaton, even while standing still. It remained glued to the wall as it chided him, “Correct. Bad children like yourselves are not entitled to any c
olony services. Exit this room at once so that the door can be sealed to keep you out.”

  Ray pressed on. “Which means you run the announcement system as well?”

  “Voice announcements are for emergencies. Your outlaw status will be posted in written format at all major intersections.”

  Ray smirked at it. “Indeed. Open wide.” Stepping up in front of it, he waited for it to open its mouth to lecture him again, and stuffed the control squid inside.

  Behind the metal mask, I couldn’t see exactly what the squid was doing. Thank goodness for that! Wet red flesh bulged out of the automaton’s neck and shoulder joints, and that was enough to convince me the squid had worked.

  “Raise your right hand,” Ray told it. Nothing happened, but that didn’t phase Ray at all. “As I expected. Supreme Technological Overlady, could you tell it to obey me, please?”

  I blinked. “What? Oh, sure. Do whatever he says.”

  No sooner were those words out of my mouth than I regretted them. A terrible nervous feeling crept over me in the space of seconds. What was Ray’s mischievous sense of humor about to unleash?

  Ray grabbed the automaton by its lower jaw, and ordered, “First, send a message to all automatons that all punishments for everyone are forgiven. Keep sending that message.”

  And suddenly, I wanted to kiss him.

  I was about to, when he held out his open hand right in front of my face. “Miss Vera, please? I believe it’s time we obtained her help on this heist.”

  “HEY!” Remmy yelled, which echoed painfully in this enclosed metal space. “You can’t do that. Do you know how people will freak out if they see a Conqueror drone flying around?”

  I was already depositing Vera in Ray’s outstretched hand. My trust in him and faith in why I’d had a mad crush on him for years―aside from his considerable physical charms―had skyrocketed one thousand percent over the last sixty seconds.

  Ray was even nice enough to answer Remmy’s concerns. “They will be far too distracted to notice. Trust me.”

  He tapped the top of Vera’s round body with his thumb, and she unfolded, floating up off his hand and staring at the clicking and clacking communications automaton. The other three hadn’t paid us a fig’s worth of attention.