You Believe Her

by Richard Roberts

  I had no doubt whatsoever that this skinny little man was a superhero. The clothes, while too big, were immaculately pressed. His tie might be made out of rock, it was so straight. Under fluffy eyebrows his eyes moved between Gerty, myself, and Ampexia with alert confidence. Most of all, it was the walk. That shriveled frame moved with a casual precision that made the rubble under his feet seem like an even floor.

  He walked a little like Mom, which was not a comforting thought.

  Ampexia was as professional as I’d always expected. She watched him for two seconds, and didn’t question if he was really a superhero or dangerous. “Have you heard of him?” she whispered.

  “No idea. Probably came out of retirement because he was here shopping,” I whispered back.

  “So we have no idea what his powers are. We have the loot. We can escape through the undamaged aisles.”

  I shook my head minutely. “He’ll follow Gerty back to our base.”

  She grunted, since groaning would be too obvious and noisy. “This is why I wanted to ditch that thing.”

  Actually, he probably wouldn’t. We didn’t exactly count as the kind of hardcore threat to public welfare worth tracking across the city. We were robbing a glorified gardening store, for Tesla’s sake!

  But I didn’t want to just give up. Especially not now that I had real weapons.

  The first of those weapons swung her animatronic goat arms out, and clunked forward to grapple with the intruder. The old man’s umbrella swung up and poked her in one hand just as those arms started to close for a hug. That effectively communicated he did not want to be hugged, and Gerty froze in place. Effectively communicating anything to Gerty was pretty impressive, and he’d done it with a gesture.

  He spoiled the effect by opening his mouth and making the most unspeakable noise. ‘Unspeakable’ was the word. I couldn’t have made it. I couldn’t make it with this artificial voice box. The noise wasn’t loud, but squeaked and screeched and stuttered and grinded. His lips wobbled like he was drooling oatmeal.

  Gerty swung back up to straight from where she’d bent forward to hug. “Oopsadoops! You’re right! Who’s a Gerty Boy?”

  He made the noise again. No, a slightly different noise, much less squeak and more scratch. Like an irregular duck call.

  Gerty’s jaw flapped with excitement. “Golly gosh and jeeparoos, no, Mister Protocol! Not in ages and forever and ages! Since before breakfast, even!”

  Ampexia and I shared a glance. Nope, she didn’t know the name Mister Protocol either. There could be a thousand retired superheroes in this city. Most of them quit by thirty, right?

  He gargled at the goat. Goat-gargled. Her arms swung down by her sides. Her upper body wobbled forward and back, and she exclaimed, “Safety is the only thing more important than waffles! Initiating full diagnostic.”

  And with that, she went into a sort-of song and dance. Her computery voice came back, and she raised one hand and bent her joints one at a time as she mumbled through a list. “My toesies are warm, my fingies conform, my knuckles show friction loss but within norm…”

  Mister Protocol stepped around her, toward us.

  I really should have attacked while he was busy with Gerty. Maybe it was the name, ‘Mister Protocol.’ Maybe I’d instinctively worried Gerty would give me a Time Out. Maybe it was just habit. Whatever, I’d obeyed unwritten and thoroughly stupid supervillain tradition and let him finish one duel before starting another.

  Ampexia at least had the right idea. She flipped a switch on one glove, muttering, “He wants sonic attacks, huh?” When the glove started to hum, she raised it to point at the old man.

  As her hand lifted, he made a bing-bong musical chime, and the glove went quiet. The LEDs on them and her backpack went out. So did the lights on her cat-ear headphones, and the faint, eternal scratch of their muffled music.

  Growling, eyes wide, she flipped switches, stabbed buttons, fiddled with wires, but her equipment refused to turn back on. Her legs wobbled a little as well. That heavy backpack must have had a weight compensator in there somewhere.

  Time to try the plow. If I understood how it worked, it should force him back and give me planning time.

  Still toddling forward towards us, he looked straight at me and said, “You are not expected to understand this.”

  Shut down.

  What? No.

  Fatal error. Restart.

  No, not going to!

  Sleep mode.

  Half second—wait, I couldn’t be shut off by internal command anyway. Tesla knew I’d tried. You had to overload me or press the button.

  While I argued with myself, Ampexia lost her temper, and stomped forward to try and kick the old man in his shin. He was at least as skinny as us, and not much taller. He looked like one solid kick would kill him.

  His umbrella barely moved, swinging just enough to turn her foot aside once, then a second time. That one sent her crashing down on her back, looking like an upturned turtle.

  Segment violation – core dumped.

  Forget the voice in my head. It had no power. This old guy was coming after me, and he was way more physically adept than he looked, even if that wasn’t a high bar.

  Mister Protocol, huh?

  I went with the stupidest idea I’d ever had, and asked him, “Would you like to play a nice game of chess?”

  He stopped cold. “P – KB4?” From his pocket, he pulled a pile of paper with the title ‘Request For Comments (RFC) 11938 – Network Chess Protocol.’

  Then he started drawing a chessboard on the floor with the point of his umbrella, and I knew I had him. I’d guessed the theme of his powers and his obsession.

  The only mad scientist who’d ever consistently defeated my Mom was a guy named Chaos Theory, whose seemingly harmless inventions did things that were always useful, but never predictable. Normally she would avoid a fight she couldn’t predict and let someone else fight him, but that same chaos made her unable to avoid him. Thank goodness he never actually wanted to hurt her, and there were plenty of other heroes around. Dad, for one.

  The point was this: while Mister Protocol drew a chess board for us, I completely broke the rules of courtesy, fair play, and good order by pointing the weather control sponge at him and squeezing it as fast and as hard as I could.

  Fluids gooshed through the tubes from the small tank holstered onto my shoulder, the other half of this stupid-looking device.

  The effect was decidedly not stupid. Water condensed out of the air so fast, a howling wind exploded from the target, and the thunderclap sent Mister Protocol sailing.

  He hit the pile of mulch bags, hard.

  Loud and petulant, I whined, “Gerty! I want waffles and hash browns! Let’s go home!”

  And then I yanked Ampexia to her feet, and ran for it.

  She finally reactivated her equipment about ten yards down the aisle, at which point we ran for it a lot faster. Gerty’s thumping, crunching footsteps confirmed I’d freed her from diagnostic mode.

  I was pondering my victory speech when we hit the front doors, or at least what was left of them after Gerty’s arrival. After all, this was the revamped Inscrutable Machine’s first public victory, over two heroes, even.

  Except the third hero was waiting for us in the parking lot.

  This woman liked diamonds and feathers. Okay, the gemstones could be glass, or shiny plastic, but her spandex one-piece glittered. It wasn’t quite the normal cut for the classic superhero costume, either. Yes, it was mostly skin-tight, but with lapels so wide they were almost a cape, and a short skirt only around the sides in back. Together they gave the effect of a dress coat, even if they were all one garment. Add the gemstones, and they gave the effect of chain mail, a suit of jeweled armor. Scarlet boots laced with a bow-tied ribbon nearly reached her knees, with thick but impractically high heels that must have required serious leg strength to walk in.

  She probably had that. Not that I would have called her fat, but she definitely spri
nted to the hourglass, and had trouble slowing down after she reached it. That soft-looking figure could easily conceal muscles like rocks. She stood with a tilted, flaunting posture that emphasized the curves even more.

  A small, red-painted mouth in a sleekly oval face pursed, then smirked, and she said, “Tut tut, darlings. Did you think you could escape without facing a real hero?”

  Criminy, that accent. She could be Radiance’s sister. They talked alike, looked alike, and had the same scarlet hair, the color of this woman’s lips and boots. In his case it had been an obvious dye job. In hers, it looked like that bright, unnatural color was, well, natural. It flounced as she tossed her head.

  Well, if she wanted to be like that…

  I smirked back, arching one eyebrow and putting a fist on my hip. “Haven’t I already defeated one bird-themed poseur today?”

  Oh, yeah, the feathers. Criminy, the feathers. Where her costume didn’t have gems, it had feathers. Not in sleek lines, or long swoops. Fluffy crests of feathers, mostly in brown, but with a constantly shifting rainbow riot of highlights. Mostly they stuck out around her lapels, but they also trimmed the skirt, ran down a chest that didn’t need more emphasis, accented her shoulders, and lined the tops of her boots. Oh, and she had a few tied into her hair.

  Waving a hand lazily, she declared, “You defeated the Emu, children. A sweet girl who’s trying hard, but emus aren’t exactly birds of power and majesty. Now, you face Diamond Pullet, and you will learn the true glory that is the chicken.”

  And with that, three chickens fluttered down out of the sky. Two landed with a thump, but the third, large and pitch black, settled gracefully on her shoulder like a pirate’s parrot. Except no parrot was that shining, ink-black. Even its eyes and legs and beak were black.

  All three chickens wore little suits, which covered a lot less but were at least as shiny as Diamond Pullet’s own.

  Raising my chin proudly, I answered, “I see your chickens, and raise you a goat.”

  I lifted my arm and pointed at the exact moment that Gerty stumbled through the wall, shedding bricks. “Cheese and crackers. Wasn’t there a door here a minute ago?”

  Diamond Pullet, iridescent red and yellow eyes never wavering from mine, snapped her fingers. “Girls. Barnyard dance battle.”

  The two chickens on the ground strutted, heads bobbing forward and back, to stand in front of Gerty. She stared at them. They stared at her.

  Then the chickens spun in a circle and started sidestepping rhythmically and flapping their wings in what was clearly disco.

  Gerty’s lower jaw flapped with glee for a few seconds before she shouted, “Yay! New friends! Your name is Griselda, and yours is Princess Mighty Thews Mega-Fashion. Now let’s all get down and funky together!”

  I was probably the last person with the right to say this, but watching an animatronic goat try to disco in a high-speed version of its normal, one-joint-moves-at-a-time, stuttering pace was just weird. There was also no way I would get her to stop any time soon. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  Ampexia whispered in my ear, “Keep her busy.”

  Oh, I could do that. Good thing this robot face moved naturally, because it was time for my most arrogant sneer. “Your chickens are impressive, but this is a battle you cannot win. I have both youth and experience on my side. The name Bad Penny instills fear in man and woman alike. A trail of adults helpless before my evil lays behind me. Literally, in fact. You will be the next fool crushed in my robotic grip.”

  Holding up one hand, I flexed my fingers, then closed my grip, showing off the doll joints. Ampexia slid the sponge and its accessories off my arm first, making that easier.

  She also helpfully set a little pocket speaker next to Gerty and the chickens, playing some particularly synthetic-toned disco for them to dance to.

  She laughed, as bright and glittery and liquidly feminine as her appearance. It made me kind of jealous. My laugh sounded like a demented junior witch.

  “Oh, darling, darling little girl. Like my noble and beautiful birds, I too have been underestimated time and again, and I believe the carpet of fools I have left pecked and scratched behind me is as long and luxurious as yours. It is my destiny to build a fabulous chicken world out of this sordid, crime-dirtied vale of tears. No one can stop me, although I do give you credit for that magnificent steampunk ensemble you have going there.” She golf-clapped, and her shoulder chicken clucked in clear approval.

  I gave her one, growly snort of a laugh, so as not to sound maniacal. That would beg for moving on to the fight. Jerking my head towards our pets, I said, “But are you as fabulous as you believe? Behold! Even now, my goat gains the upper hand over mere poultry. Admit your weakness, Diamond Pullet. And be swift, for I left a hero inside with a mild concussion, and should he rejoin us your heart will wither and perish at the horribleness of his suit.”

  My boast about Gerty was not in vain. Not that the chickens were bad dancers, but Gerty kept getting faster, and her stop-motion moves more complicated. She also had to be getting extra points for the blasters with big crystals in them that had emerged from her lower arms, only to rotate around and shower her with maddening rainbow colors. The weapons looked suspiciously like Red Eye’s creations repurposed from war to friendship.

  The voluptuous heroine watched me with flattened eyebrows now, which shadowed her already floridly mascara’d eyelashes. “Well. Aren’t you full of surprises. I, the great Diamond Pullet, should know better than to underestimate anyone. Perhaps you, Bad Penny, will be the first to taste the succulent terror that is my full power. Vantablack! Show that goat what rhythm is.”

  “We could do that,” shouted Ampexia from her truck, “Or we could escape, because I’ve loaded all our loot while you two were yakking. Bad Penny, get over here! Let the goat catch up!”

  ‘All’ our loot? There did seem to be more in the truck bed than I personally stole. Apparently my larcenous teammate went back for seconds. I approved thoroughly.

  Diamond Pullet clapped, her languid, satisfied smile returning. “Oh, how that was clever. And you do rant so well, Bad Penny. It was a pleasure dueling you. Alas, that distraction technique was so brilliant, I wish I had thought of it myself.”

  She paused, and a fourth chicken darted out through the hole Gerty left in the wall, flapping madly as it flew up over the roof carrying a gleaming silver item of clothing. Hard to tell what as the garment whipped around, but clearly mad science.

  “Oh, that’s right! I did.”

  Had there been something like that in the vault? I’d really only paid attention to the likely weapons, and grabbed just enough to get by.

  …wait. Was Diamond Pullet a villain?

  She flourished her arms, releasing more fluffy feathers, and with furiously undignified flapping of her own rose into the air. She almost made it look good with her curved back, one knee lifted pose, but… no. Graceful or not, she called down, “Goodbye, children! Thank you for the good time, and the lovely gift,” and flew away.

  Well. That left me with one last villainous rant to perform before this caper ended. Swiveling sharply in place, I gave the store’s silent, spectating customers and staff my most florid bow. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Inscrutable Machine thanks you for kneeling before our might. Now that we have liberated the hidden arsenal from this horticultural hidey-hole and defeated the heroes fool enough to try and stop Bad Penny, I must avenge my partner’s mysterious injury by equally mysterious opponents unknown!”

  “Yay, a guessing game!” shouted Gerty as she fell over onto the pickup truck bed, which was about all the climbing she could do.

  “This is the dorkiest team I could possibly have joined,” grumbled Ampexia.

  “AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” I laughed, and ran to join them.

  omewhere on the 405, Ampexia checked her cell phone.

  With feathery gentleness, I reproved her, “Do you mind? I don’t know if this car has mad science shock absorbers, but I know the other cars
don’t.”

  “I’ll drive!” Gerty’s gleeful enthusiasm was unmistakable.

  Trying to sound equally apologetic, I answered, “Sorry, Gerty. You couldn’t pass a breath test.”

  Heavy wind noises followed, but they did not seem strong enough to threaten anyone’s driving. Good enough!

  My remonstrances to my new partner were equally efficacious. “You’re right. I just wanted to know if it worked.”

  My left eyebrow kinked up, I opened that eye wide, and leaned just a little toward her while tilting my head away. “Whaaaaat’s going on?”

  She made brush-off noises. “Eh. I slipped a phone into the dress, so I could follow it with the anti-theft GPS.”

  My other eyebrow rose to join its colleague. “The dress is that important?”

  “No, I think it’s just shiny and repels dirt. I knew it had to be what chicken lady was after.” She wrinkled up her nose, and swerved us around a little blue car that must have been the only driver on the freeway not in a hurry to get somewhere. Gerty waved at them and did huff-and-puff breathing exercises in their direction.

  I pressed my hands to the arm rest between us, leaning closer and grinning. “So it’s Diamond Pullet you’re after. She’s the secret enemy you need help with.”

  As casual as I was eager, Ampexia said, “No, but she’s connected and will lead us to them.”

  I leaned in a little more, until she had to lean away. But not much, because, you know, safe driving. “So let’s follow her!”

  Reclaiming her personal space, the dirty-blonde bonked her head against mine. “Immediately? What have I told you about learning to chill? She won’t run straight to the real target anyway.”

  “Aw.”

  Ampexia’s nose wrinkled again. “You’re starting to sound like the goat.”

  “Yay!”

  “Yay!” chimed in Gerty, flapping her arms up and down, although I’d bet she had no idea why we were cheering.

  My partner groaned in much-abused weariness at our shenanigans. “I am going to dump my loot at our base, and go buy music gear. I want to score some pieces just for the repeller. You can come along, I guess.”