You Believe Her

by Richard Roberts

  She held out her hand, and wiggled her fingers. I couldn’t see anything, but she said, “He’s on his way.”

  “Okay, we are leaving,” announced Will. He zipped over to Cassie, and with a grunt of effort scooped her into his arms.

  “Not without my exquisite genius!” Cassie cried, making grabby motions at me.

  “Go! Go!” said Mirabelle, flapping her hands with increasing urgency.

  I paused long enough to look Mirabelle, then Cassie, and then Will in the eyes. “We’ll scatter, but you haven’t seen the last of Bad Penny.”

  Everybody laughed, and everybody but Mirabelle ran for it.

  e had to leave Gerty in the truck. Delicate reason was not one of her many talents, and anyway, she would love me no matter who or what I was. But it was nice having Ampexia behind me, in full tech thief regalia, when I showed up for the judging. The parasite would certainly bring allies.

  With any luck, those allies would be mine in a few minutes.

  We met in front of Claire’s house. A good choice, since it felt neutral to me, even if the parasite probably didn’t think of it that way. She was there, wearing my old jumpsuit of all things, with my goggles perched on her forehead. Behind her stood Mech, in his copper-colored power armor, and a hero I didn’t know in white.

  Not willing to be intimidated, I looked Mech right in the helmet. “Stick around. You can tell all the other heroes which of us deserves protection.”

  I had to give my doppelgänger credit. She didn’t show a smidgeon of fear at the prospect of being unmasked. “So, let’s get on with it. Where is our mystery expert?”

  A car beeped. Then it beeped three more times. The worst driver I had ever seen came swerving and skidding up the road towards us, in a ridiculous yellow car. In fact, maybe it wasn’t her driving. The outside of the car was made of yellow plastic, it belched smoke in multiple places, and what I could see of the inside had none of the usual amenities like seats—only metal frames and a mass of bars. The tires wobbled as it drove, and as it drew closer. It looked like such a death trap that Mech stepped between the rest of us and it as it got closer. Maybe twenty feet away, the car tripped. That’s all I could call it. It jumped off the ground, landed in an erratic roll, struck Mech, and bounced off as easily as a balloon.

  When the unlikely rubber vehicle rattled to a halt, right side up, even, an equally yellow plastic robot stepped out of the driver’s side. She gave us a wave. “Hello! This is Mech, who is a hero, and I am Polly Vinyl Chloride, a very interesting and likable and intelligent robot, and I have been asked to figure out which of you is Penny.”

  “Polly, please get a new car. You’re going to kill someone with that one,” asked Mech, with the strained tone of someone who’d tried and failed at this argument a dozen times.

  “Nonsense. I am a very good driver for a robot, and my vehicle has many excellent safety features,” she answered as she breezed past him.

  The front door of Claire’s house opened. My mom stepped out. Miss Lutra was nowhere to be seen, but I was sure she was watching.

  Solemn rather than detached, Mom asked Polly, “Are we ready to begin? I assume you have already seen what you need.”

  Polly said something, and Mech said something, and I didn’t pay attention, because Ray and Claire walked out of the still-open door behind her.

  Ray walked, at least, and in thick black boots unlike anything I’d ever seen him wear before. Everything else was the same, although his shirt and pants looked just a touch ragged. Claire hobbled, almost managing to look fabulous on a pair of crutches and with both her feet wrapped in bandages. It had to be the perfect blonde hair and the faint smile on her pink lips, as if nothing below her shoulder blades really mattered.

  They saw me. They both stared, wide-eyed, but beyond that I couldn’t identify their expressions. Yes, Claire had a calculating and fascinated edge to that stare, but she would have that regardless of her other feelings.

  That moment passed. Ray gave Claire a sly grin. “I could carry you.”

  She smirked back, and nobody could match Claire’s teasing smile. “In front of not one, but two of your girlfriends.”

  “The real Penny would rather see you manhandled than in pain,” Ray argued.

  Claire pursed her lips in sudden, sour resentment. “My mother, however, says that I insisted on going to ballet camp against her advice and without any training, and I am not allowed any sympathy.” Looking away from Ray, she told me and the parasite, “I hate ballet. I hate ballet so much. If I ever get a stupid idea like that again, build a common sense machine to slap me into sanity.”

  Polly raised a hand. “I am very good at common sense!”

  Tesla’s Heavily-Restricted Friendship Circle, I’d missed those two so much. I lowered my eyelids and fought to restrain my grin to mere cynicism. “And yet, you have another idea already.”

  “You want me to invent you a machine to shape your arches and strengthen your ankles so you can wear high heels without putting in the work,” predicted the parasite.

  I glared at the body-stealing abomination, trying to worm her way into my friends’ good graces. Especially since I could tell this was the first time she’d seen them. They must have just gotten back.

  She glared back at me, but she could forget trying to intimidate me into leaving them alone.

  Mom spoke over all of us. “We should proceed before this gets chaotic. Polly, what do you see?”

  Ray didn’t give Polly a chance to answer. “Wait, aren’t we waiting for Penny’s dad?”

  “Brian will not be coming,” Mom answered, no more or less solemn than she had been since she stepped out the door.

  Claire screwed up half her face in confusion, screwed up the rest of it in pain as she settled too hard on one injured foot, and returned to confusion. “What could keep him from something this important?”

  “I drugged him unconscious.”

  Ray and Claire stared at her, flabbergasted, but she ignored them. Parasite Penny showed no sign of caring. I was neither surprised, nor confused. It would take a great deal for Mom to decide protecting Dad’s feelings was more important than letting him make his own decisions. Sparing him from having to see his daughter declared a fake counted.

  That I understood with only a sense of grim resolve suggested Miss Lutra had been right. When the hammer hit the anvil, I was more like Mom than Dad.

  “Go ahead, Polly,” said Mom.

  This time, no one interrupted.

  Polly pointed first at the parasite, then at me. “This mind looks like Penelope Akk, but more impulsive than I remember. This mind looks like Penelope Akk, but more angry and self-controlled than I remember.”

  …

  While my brain tried to process what I’d just heard, Mom let out a small, pained sigh. “Which is consistent with one having to live alone, and the other no longer hiding her temptation to be a supervillain. Otherwise, they are both the Penny you met before one became a robot?”

  “No,” said Polly, scattering my thoughts and the anger that had been starting to build.

  She kept talking without delay, but everyone was now staring at her so hard, it felt like she’d taken a dramatic pause. “They are missing an element that I remember from the original Penelope Akk, but my interaction with her was sufficiently limited that I do not know if that extra trait was meaningful. Certainly all three look like the same person in different moods.”

  “Three?” asked Mech, his tone sharp despite his helmet hiding his expression.

  Mom as already looking at the lump in my coat pocket before Polly pointed at it. “She is carrying a third Penelope Akk, who appears to be asleep and so rigidly disciplined that it could be mistaken for mind control. However, I have a great deal of experience identifying mind control, for a robot, and her rigid viewpoint seems to be built in.”

  Ray got it. “You brought the Heart of Gold with you?”

  Claire nodded, suddenly understanding. “Wouldn’t want to lea
ve her behind if you traded places.”

  The parasite looked more surprised than anyone. “She’s alive? She’s okay?”

  And with that hopeful tone, my Mom-like detachment exploded into anger. Leveling a finger at her, I yelled, “How dare you pretend to care. You tried to kill her!”

  She pointed a finger right back. “How dare you pretend you hold the moral high ground on that! Do you think you’re so pure? What did you intend to do to me? Huh? Go on, tell me.”

  My ceramic shell vibrated with rage. “I intend to burn you out of my head by burning my super power out, because you’re nothing but a mutant growth that comes with it, and I should have spotted that when you started making creepy Puppeteer bio-weapons! I’d rather be normal and have no powers than be infected with you!”

  She crossed her arms, sneered, and jutted out her chest. “So you’re perfectly willing to commit murder if you think I’m not a real person and you’re mad enough at me, but I must be evil for getting so mad at a robot that I wanted to destroy it before I calmed down.”

  …murder? Yikes. Was what I was planning murder?

  Mom stepped between us, her voice sharp. “Girls. Settle down. You will want to be calm for the next test.”

  I faked taking a deep breath, but didn’t really feel it.

  My double didn’t even try. “How am I supposed to calm down with her admitting she wants to destroy my super power because she thinks that will kill me and leave her body free to take?”

  “Would a distraction help?” asked Claire so very sweetly.

  We looked at her. Sucker move on the part of the parasite. Claire’s hair turned golden and curly as I watched, and her face more plump, less supermodel and more baby doll. I’d never been in a position to pay proper attention to the shape change before, even though I knew it happened. With her meat brain, the parasite couldn’t be so detached, and Claire’s power left her dazed and motionless.

  Everybody but Claire, Polly, and my mother had gone still, and Mom only by looking in the other direction and tapping her foot.

  Claire glanced at me. I spread my hands helplessly. “Solid state. Immune to psychic control.”

  Neither angry, nor disappointed, she smiled and tapped her lips with a finger. “Really? That could have possibilities. Later. Right now…” She returned to platinum blonde goddess mode, and brought her face close to the parasite’s, her frown concerned and her eyes searching. “Feel better?”

  “You found more uses for your power?” asked the parasite, impressed and amused.

  Claire giggled wickedly, which she was so very, very good at. “I had to do something while other people were standing on their toes for more than two seconds at a time. At least I did the stretches okay, thanks to the super cheerleader serum.”

  “Penny’s planning troublllle!” singsonged Ray.

  The parasite leaned back, hands to our chest, what there was of it. “Me? Perish the thought! The mantle of full-time villainess Bad Penny has passed on. I am only a good girl, now.”

  Even Mom couldn’t help but look skeptical at that.

  Claire stepped past the parasite, winked at me, and rubbed her hands together. “Well! Now it’s my turn. Obviously, if there’s a real Penny here, her best friends can tell who she is. Ray, if you would be so kind?”

  He didn’t look nearly as gleeful. I knew Ray well enough to detect a haunted touch behind his fiendish anticipation as he, too, stepped between my double and I. He gave us a bow, flourishing his hat, and when he straightened, he looked at her, then at me. “There’s one way I know Penny that no one else does. All you have to do to prove yourself is kiss me.”

  Criminy. I had to admit, I should have seen that coming.

  It caught my double at least as much by surprise. “Gaak,” she said, and I hoped I’d never had that freaky look of idiot panic on my face when I had that body.

  “Yeeeees?” he asked, stepping closer.

  Her freckled cheeks rapidly turning red, she squeaked, “Here? Now? With people watching? With Mom watching?”

  He put his hands on her hips, and I had to admit, I felt embarrassed just watching it. Especially since all Ray’s second thoughts had clearly disappeared as he brought his face an inch from hers. “I’m afraid so.”

  She faked panic well, eyes darting from side to side, until she whispered, “I am going to get you for this, Ray Viles.”

  Their faces moved the remaining inch closer, and their glasses clicked together at the same time their lips touched.

  About two seconds after that, my double stumbled back a step, and hid her face in her hands.

  Ray turned to me, stepping forward, one arm outstretched toward my waist. “And now the other? Don’t worry. You look quite kissable, for a robot.”

  Polly nodded approvingly.

  I put my hand over my eyes, and dragged it down my face. Then I looked at Claire. “This was your idea.”

  As one, Claire and Ray swiveled, pointing at the parasite. “That’s the real Penny.”

  My mouth hung open. Pain and betrayal closed around my metal heart. I couldn’t even be mad at my friends. They hadn’t betrayed me. Time had. I was being punished for growing up and being more mature than I’d been a month ago.

  And what’s worse…

  “You little fake!” I shouted at the parasite.

  “Excuse me?” she demanded, voice shrill.

  I took a step forward, shaking my finger at her. “You gave me a whole speech about how you hated how I held back about everything. You didn’t mind that kiss one little bit. It was an act!”

  Her teeth clenched in anger, and she took her own step forward. Now her words came with a snarl. “You need to get something through your empty robot skull. It doesn’t matter. I can’t fake being me, because just by knowing what to fake, that means I know me at least as well as Ray and Claire do, which I can’t do without being Penny Akk! And just because I wouldn’t refuse, unlike you, Miss Stick-In-The-Mud Me, doesn’t mean my knees weren’t about to give out under me. Which of us is the more real, the Penny who gives in to temptation, or the one who doesn’t feel it at all?”

  Throwing my arms up, I yelled, “I feel it! Now just isn’t the time for Claire and Ray to be cooking up a scheme to make me blush!”

  She folded her arms again, glowering. She faked hurt way too convincingly. I didn’t have to fake it, because I looked around, and saw no faces on my side except Ampexia’s. Even she had the stony expression of someone who wasn’t convinced, she just knew who she was loyal to.

  “I’m the real Penny Akk. I am!” I said, to those silent, worried, pitying faces.

  Even the parasite looked like she felt a little bad for me, and that was the last straw. I turned on the spot, so I didn’t have to see any of them, and walked away. When Ampexia tried to fall in next to me, I pushed her aside, and kept walking Not toward her truck, either.

  Just away.

  walked. It was almost a straight line down the street to South Central. Miles of walking, but my legs couldn’t get tired anymore, and that let me lose myself in the monotony, like I had at West Lee’s house.

  At one point, my phone beeped a text message, but I ignored it.

  I was passing through Koreatown, with all its tiny shops and signs in—presumably—Korean, when she caught up with me. Today was a day for heroes wearing white. There’d been that dapper albino guy hanging out behind Mech, and now a woman in a full body suit carrying an umbrella, both items so white they gleamed, although without the rainbow shininess of Radiance and Diamond Pullet. No, this woman’s claim to distinction was that it was a full body suit. It covered every inch, including her head, with goggles over her eyes and holes barely big enough for her to breathe and talk through.

  She ducked out of a gap between two buildings too small to be called an alley, held out her umbrella like a shield, and barked, “That’s far enough, robot!”

  Despite her whole body being hidden, she clearly was not a robot. Not only was I getting sensitive
to how she didn’t move like one—human joints stretch as they move—but she panted for breath because she’d been running to get ahead of me.

  I gave her the Fish Eye. “I’m just walking down the street, lady.”

  “My name is Coruscate, and you just threatened to kill a child.” She declared it in full hero mode, feet apart, back proudly straight, whipping the umbrella up above her head.

  I gritted my teeth. “That’s going around already?”

  “My brother told me so, and which way you were going. Every hero in LA will be out to destroy you, kill-bot, but I got to you first.” She sounded so giddy and into this. First time heroine? I’d never heard of her, but that didn’t mean much.

  “Revealing personal information there,” I reminded her.

  She put a hand over her mouth. “Oops!”

  Yeah, first time hero. And I was totally unarmed. Well, no, I had my bad pennies, and the Machine, but I didn’t even know what this woman did.

  It didn’t take long to find out. The hand holding the umbrella tugged on her opposite glove. Two fingers came free, and immediately burst into flame. Oh, joy. At least I was fireproof.

  Then she held her arm out to the side, and once it passed the protective shadow of the umbrella, her hand really caught fire, in a hissing blaze so bright it was almost white. She swung her arm like throwing a baseball, and a glob of that flame rushed out at me.

  Ready for that, I did a back handspring out of the way, and fell on my head. Ow. Okay, apparently it takes a little more than just a strong and flexible body to do one of those. I turned it into a roll, got back on my feet, and shouted, “Are you crazy, lady? You’re going to hurt someone!”

  To be honest, this was not a brilliant and imaginative tactic. The other people walking down the street got there first. The moment the fire got thrown, they went from jadedly ignoring the super-powered ranting to shrieking and getting out of the way.

  She brought her hand back under the umbrella, calming the fire back down to a mere match flame. Light. Had to be light-activated, especially sunlight. “Oh. Don’t think about trying to escape. I’d rather melt you down than let you escape to kill another day. But… if you’re—” She hesitated, and restarted, more forceful. “Start walking. The construction lot up and over a block.”