Remmy twisted a pronged plug into place on the bottom of a tank, and tapped her chin with her oversized wrench. She looked down at her feet, or rather at all the different pipes spreading out under her feet and disappearing into the floor. “I bet the plumbing is mostly intact. If I give that power first, we have plumbing, heat, air, and lights. The automatons are dead, but the key winding grid could still be useful. Hmmm.”
Claire stretched, arms above her head, one hand grasping her elbow. “Personally, I think it can wait. I’m exhausted. Why don’t we all get some sleep first?”
Ray almost didn’t stare at her at all, and sounded serious and tired instead of lecherously evil. “Seconded. I don’t know if I require a nap or eight hours, but confronting Puppeteer zombies earned us all a rest.”
I ground my teeth a little, looking back at the inexplicable maze of parts that used to make sense. “Not me. I said I would use my power to help these people. I just need to figure out how.”
Claire looped an arm around my shoulder and gave me a brief, small hug. “I’m afraid I’m going to bow out. I’ve had all the mechanical work I can bear for awhile.” Looking up at the sky, she let out a huge, wistful sigh. “What I really want is to be home playing Teddy Bears and Machine Guns.”
“I actually miss school,” said Ray.
So did I, as crazy as that would have sounded a couple of days ago. I gave them both a wan smile. “My plan is to make something big and helpful, then quit while I’m ahead and go home. If we can’t contact Juliet, we’ll wake up Vera and gate back.”
Ray inclined his head first towards Claire, and then the deck’s central staircase. “Go rest. I shall play Igor and attend upon The Master’s need for tools and parts.”
It was my turn to wave Ray towards that staircase. “That’s sweet, but you don’t have to be my slave. I’ll manage. This is my thing, and you two can take a break.”
Ray gave me a long look, and apparently decided I was serious. He shrugged, put his hands in his pockets, and walked off. As Claire fell in next to him, he speculated, “Maybe we can find a board game. Those were popular at the turn of the twentieth century, weren’t they?”
That left me and Remmy, and Remmy had things well in hand. She knew what she had to do, and had already gotten back to work wedging pipes back into place to connect lines of whatever aetheric power actually was. I walked away from her, scowling up at the sky.
What could I do? I didn’t want to turn my superpower loose. It was much too fond of biotech lately. A shudder ran along my shoulders. No more of that. I would wipe out all Puppeteer everything if I got the chance.
That would be great. Superpower, do that!
My head ached a little. I’d been pushing my power like crazy lately. Still, if it wasn’t for this, what was it for?
Come on, power. Puppeteerocide! Gooocide! Rougocide! Whatever, just give me a device.
This one didn’t overwhelm me and knock me out. It crept up. Vera’s most useful power for supervillainy had been a field that broke down and degraded gunpowder anywhere near her. In the Red Panacea Clinic, that same power ate the life out of Puppeteer goo, turning it grey and crumbly. Maybe that had been its original purpose.
Not every Conqueror orb could do that, but I’d seen a few broken orbs the last time we explored this place. Were any of them support grade?
A memory flashed up. Shards under a stair. Big shards, which must have broken off a head-sized orb.
What else would I need? Hmmm. I let my feet carry me along, swimming in the daze of my power. A jewelry display caught my eye in the wrecked market. I took the largest gold ring from the box, and kept walking. A bunch of wax cylinder phonographs had shattered, but a tuning fork lay in the debris. I scooped that up and gave it a ring. The cold had warped it off note, but that was fine. I could work with it.
Maybe I picked up some other things. I couldn’t really recall. I certainly remembered reaching through the gaps in a metal staircase, straining until my fingertips managed to scoop three quarters of a crystal orb into my grip.
When I worked my way back up to the deck, I decided I had enough. I didn’t really need to borrow Remmy’s tools. The Machine sprang off my wrist, still carrying lots of power from eating that Puppeteer cyst. I squeezed until it spat heat out, melting a circle into the broken side of the Conqueror orb.
Eventually, I was left turning the finished device over and over in my hands. I hadn’t done much visibly. The orb remained a dulled, greyed-out pink without a pupil or ceramic body. The broken-off end had been glued back on, with a thick, visible layer of gold around the seal.
It worked. I knew it worked.
I knew it in the back part of my head that throbbed painfully. Penelope’s Log: do not make your head explode by overusing your power, okay? That was not enjoyable.
Ah, who was I kidding. I totally felt smug.
Standing up, I worked the kinks out of my arms and spine, and then yelled down the stairs as loud as I could, “IT’S FINISHED! COME CHECK IT OUT!”
Less than thirty seconds later, Claire came sliding up the hall on her frictionless shoes. She looked fresh again, back in her supervillain costume without the uncomfortable spacesuit underneath.
Aw, man. I wanted to take mine off.
Claire even smelled fresh and soapy. “What happened to you?”
“I took a shower.” Ooh, her dreamy smile made me even more jealous. It didn’t entirely fade as she looked around and added, “I think Ray is taking one himself. This place echoes, so I know he heard you.”
I lifted my new toy in one hand. “Well, we’re going testing out my answer to all of Jupiter’s problems. Come on.”
Calvin and Juno, arms around each other’s waists and also suspiciously clean, showed up by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs. Juno’s glowing eyes and mysterious fortuneteller smile studied me. “What have you wrought, child? Are we another step closer to freedom?”
“A giant leap, if it works like I think it does.” I was pretty sure I remembered where I was going.
I got through a side corridor and down one staircase before Ray showed up from what I was pretty sure was the direction of the dorms. Claire was right, he’d taken his own shower. That left only me and Remmy, who trailed behind her brother, looking and smelling like grease monkeys. The price of power.
By the time I led us all down to the pneumatic tube room, everyone looked suspicious. I couldn’t blame them. The room was still coated with Puppeteer flesh. That was why I’d come here in the first place.
I held up the modified Conqueror orb. Ray announced slyly, “Insert triumphant expository speech here.”
I went ‘pffft’ at him and shook my head. My baby would prove itself.
Gripping the orb tightly, I rammed it and my fist into the nearest Puppeteer cyst. The shell crumbled out of my way like a graham cracker.
There wasn’t even a dramatic pause. Grey spread from the hole, seeping over the cyst, and as the central mass turned to dust, the death zone kept spreading, out along the roots into the wall of featureless flesh.
Ray whistled. Claire applauded. She would be my next guinea pig.
I tossed her the orb. “Try it yourself. I want to make sure it’s not keyed just to me.”
She caught the crystal ball easily, and skated up to a cyst on the opposite side of the room. Of course, with her power she had nothing to fear even if this didn’t work. Raising her hand just long enough for the light to twinkle off the orb dramatically, she punched this cyst like I had.
Grey oozed over the shell, until it fell apart like burned-out charcoal.
Sliding back to me, she deposited my Puppeteer-killing orb into my waiting hands. I immediately tossed it to Calvin, who plucked it out of the air as smoothly as Ray would.
Holding the orb up, he turned it this way and that in front of his face. “I would say this is too much, but Jupiter never refuses a gift from a lady.”
Juno, on the other hand, barely gave it a glance. �
�Potent, but unnecessary. With E-Claire’s power to render Puppeteers calm and helpless, another device to kill them is merely useful.”
Calvin stared at the orb a few more seconds, his expression fading to regret. “I suppose that’s true.”
He tossed it back at me, and I scrambled to catch it in both hands. It was actually pretty heavy.
Shifting the orb to one hand, I held up a warning finger. “I wouldn’t reject it so quickly. My friends and I are only on loan. Europa works, Io Alpha is on its way to working, and I’ve given you a weapon to clean out your Puppeteer problem. It’s time for the Inscrutable Machine to go home and sleep in our own beds.”
I threw the Puppeteer poisoner to Ray, and dug out Vera. With my thumb, I tapped her on top of her shell to wake her up.
She didn’t move.
I tapped her again.
Nothing.
Oh, oh, oh CRIMINY.
Tap tap tap. Nothing nothing nothing. Why wouldn’t she wake up?
Thrusting Vera at Juno accusingly, I demanded, “Whatever you did to her, reverse it. Turn her back on.”
She wasn’t flustered in the least. Folding her hands solemnly in front of her, she looked down at me with those glowing eyes. “The Jovians enhanced the signal learned from Calvin’s deactivator. Your plight will surely move them, but I cannot guess how long it will take to create a reactivation signal. Until now, there has been neither need nor desire for such a thing.”
My eyes felt hot and hard as I glared, but then Claire put her hand on my shoulder, standing right up next to me body to body, and leaning her cherubic face to block out Juno’s arrogant beauty. “It’ll be fine, Bad Penny. Vera was only one way home. Between your superpower, contacting Juliet and the Red Herring, and Calvin’s spaceship, we’re in no danger of getting stuck here.”
Ray eased up on my other side, taking my hand in both of his and squeezing. “Get some sleep. My bet is that you’ll wake up with an idea of how to revive Vera.”
I was… I was tired. I was really, really tired. Having my invention rejected and getting mad at Juno sapped the last traces of strength out of me. I let out something half-growl, half-sigh. “Fine.”
At least it wasn’t hard to find a bedroom. Most of the kids’ dorm rooms were a mess, but not all of them. I picked one that looked intact, shut the door on everyone, and crawled into bed.
After lying there for a minute, I managed to crawl out of bed long enough to peel my jumpsuit and the spacesuit off. I felt so much better not being squeezed like that. A shower would be even more wonderful, but my limbs were rapidly turning to lead.
Rallying one last burst of strength, I tried to peel Archimedes’ tail off my neck. Eesh. Ouch. No, that stung too much. It would sting more in the morning, but I’d have energy then. I cuddled up to my fuzzy psychic weapon like a teddy bear instead, and let sleep happen.
didn’t get nearly enough sleep, and when Juliet whispered, “Penelope? Don’t move. If you become too awake, we’ll lose contact,” it was easy to obey.
“Mfgl?” I replied. I could think words. It was just taking a minute to line them up in my mouth.
“Yes, it is me. Harvey has quite kindly helped me get in touch with you. In fact, we have been waiting for you to fall asleep wearing your amplifier. You must stay still and quiet, for you are rather close to a source of interference and our connection is weak.” Even peeking through half-opened eyes in a dark room, I could see Juliet clearly―but then, she wasn’t really here. She stood near the wall, in a plain and heavily starched white dress with Harvey’s arms around her middle. Him I couldn’t see clearly, and not just because he was behind her, holding her against him. Juliet might be crisp and well lit, but Harvey faded into a blur of blue suit and white fur.
Still, the dapper rabbit man holding the mutated goat girl made an adorable couple.
I managed to martial words. The most important first. “Are you okay?”
She smiled, mismatched teeth gleaming white in an elongated jaw. Leaning forward, she reached out her arms with her hands clasped together, then sank back into Harvey’s embrace. “Oh, Penelope. I am more than okay! I should have come to get you sooner, but we had to feed first, and being a spaceship is wonderful. I swam in the oceans of Europa, and spoke to a living comet. You have given me freedom I did not imagine even when I was human. The secrets of the universe are open for me to explore.”
That made me smile, wiping away my bad feelings so thoroughly that tears crept into my eyes. “That’s great. We could use a ride home now.”
She paused. Her smile faded. Red eyes with oblong pupils closed, leaving her human eyes watching me in sober reflection. “Yes. Harvey connected us that I should give a warning and we could all flee to Earth, but I don’t intend to. Right now, he is arguing with me, but I know he won’t cut us off. Listen, Penny. Something terrible is happening, and we must stop it, not run away.”
That made me blink. My shoulders bunched up. Archimedes mewed, and Juliet receded into the shadows.
Letting go of my tension, I collapsed back down and closed my eyes. Juliet’s voice returned. “The colonists of Callisto are in danger. Please, Penelope, you and your friends must help them. Harvey can’t, and that is why he wants us to run. You rescued me, and I have no doubts at all that you will save them from a similar fate.”
A similar fate? Puppeteers? Yikes. Had I made my new anti-Puppeteer weapon just in time?
“Do not trust the adults!” Juliet’s fading voice called out.
I had woken up too much. She was gone.
Well, I was awake, and it sounded like every minute counted. I hopped out of bed and grabbed my supervillain costume.
I swear I did more hero work than villain work, but never got credit for it!
I left the spacesuit. I might regret that later, but I had no actual plans to go anywhere unpressurized, and I hated that thing.
Slipping stealthily out into the corridor made me feel stupid. Juno and Calvin hadn’t wanted rooms in the kids’ dorms. I knocked on Claire and Ray’s doors simultaneously, and didn’t bother to do it quietly. I wanted them awake!
Very soon, my disheveled and mostly dressed minions appeared simultaneously in each of their doorways. Claire was still putting on her glasses, and Ray buttoning his shirt.
“Harvey and Juliet just came to visit me in my sleep,” I told them.
Their faces betrayed absolutely no expression.
Feeling the unfairness of carrying the lion’s share of this awkward conversation, I pressed on. “Some kind of disaster is happening on Callisto. Juliet hinted it involves Puppeteers. We are going to go stop it, right now.”
“So Harvey is talking to you?” Ray asked, still carefully sounding nothing but curious.
I lifted my goggles, rubbed my hands over my eyes, and put my goggles back on. “I don’t know. Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I’m nuts. Juliet didn’t want us to bring Calvin and Juno, and if we can figure out a way to get to Callisto without them, I’m all for it. I’d rather look like an idiot in front of as few people as possible.”
“What are you people up to?” Remmy shouted behind me. Corset loose, hair unbound and hanging in a waterfall from her head, she gave me a groggy and suspicious stare.
The poor girl. Claire swept out of her own room and bore down on Remmy. There was no resisting that charm. Claire wore her own half-escaped ponytail and skewed neckerchief like a damsel in distress. When she grabbed both of Remmy’s hands and held them to her chest, Claire looked as emphatic and desperate as she sounded. “You’re a pilot! We need you to take us to Callisto, please! Please?”
“Why would I do that?” Remmy snapped. Well, she tried to snap. She was already starting to have that pole-axed, owl-eyed expression people got when Claire turned up her power. It probably wasn’t safe to look directly at them, but I couldn’t help it. Remmy, if anything, made a more adorable tableau than Claire.
Claire lowered her face. I couldn’t see her expression, but I heard the quiet serious
ness of her voice. “Because people are in trouble and it’s the right thing to do.”
“Uuuuuuugh! Fine,” Remmy snarled.
“If this is official business, I need to find my hat,” said Ray behind me.
emmy did not talk much on the way over, and Claire maintained a careful position nearby. I looked out of portholes, trying to keep my mind clear of Claire’s power. Poor Remmy. I hated to do this to anyone, but it was hopefully for a very good cause. If the warning turned out to be real, I had no doubt Remmy would care about saving people more than how we got her there to do it.
From a distance, Callisto looked perfectly normal. It looked like a boat the size of a small city, with two pairs of biwings sticking off both sides, and the deck covered in trees and plants and little buildings. The rotor swung placidly over the scene, providing light and gravity and keeping the atmosphere in.
We set down so gently, I hardly felt the thump, and things still looked peaceful. If anything was weird, it was just how peaceful things looked. There were no dockworkers, and no one strolling around the park or farms.
“You’re right. Something is wrong,” Remmy whispered as we walked down the gangplank. I felt the same urge to keep my voice low, to not break the uncharacteristic hush.
I slid Archimedes down from my shoulder to my forearm. “Battle stations, then.” Ray and Claire nodded. She adjusted her grappling hook. He passed the Puppeteer poisoning orb to Remmy.
I squeezed the cold lump of Vera in my pouch, and tapped her again just to make sure. I’d have been much happier with her behind me right now.
The only movement that caught my eye when we stepped onto the main deck were butterflies. Still, I heard something. Or maybe Archimedes did. I pricked up his ears. One of us heard men’s voices, distant but shouting.
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