You Believe Her

by Richard Roberts

  Speaking of distractions, wake up, Penny! Mech’s back was to me. He held the X Device up in one hand while he talked. I would not get a better chance.

  I pointed a fist back over my shoulder, and spawned a shield. Ampexia punched it with both hands, her gloves vibrating with a deep, intense pulse. The effect was as good as a rocket thruster. I hurtled up the sidewalk with my sliding spats, headed for the X Device.

  This was the biggest risk I’d taken since my duel started. Mech wildly outgunned me, and was not stupid. I could only pray I’d worked out all the major angles. With Gerty right there, at least he couldn’t break me immediately. She wouldn’t tolerate that, unless he did it so fast she couldn’t intervene.

  Mech’s back to me meant Meatbag Penny facing me, and she let out a yelp as she saw me coming. “Mech, look out!”

  He turned, his feet apart at shoulder width, balanced and ready. Armored arms folded protectively across the X Device, and blue glitter sparkled over his surface. He’d activated his shields. Any force that could get through that would destroy the device. All he had to do was pick the best way to take me down.

  Or so he thought. My first guess had proven correct. He didn’t instantly try to destroy me. That gave me the two seconds necessary to slide up, jump, and tackle Mech’s head. The impact rocked him, but that was it.

  “You can’t—” he started to say, but I didn’t listen.

  I shoved my left wrist against the rubbery-textured surface of his shield. Something in Mech’s armor went pop and crackle, and the blue sparkles disappeared. His generators just could not keep up with the infinite hunger of my Machine. As a bonus, that woke the Machine up nicely, and he unsnapped with a flick, ready for action. Shoving him against Mech’s helmet, I ordered, “Eat!”

  Mech was definitely not a fool. If he’d underestimated me, it was only for a moment. Without pause for banter, he whipped an arm up to grab at me, while keeping the other securely crossed over the X Device.

  His attack did not land. Startlingly fast, Gerty’s arm swung up and over, grabbing him by the wrist. More angry than sad, she lectured us, “Children should play nice and learn to share.”

  My double panicked, scrambling at a pocket, plucking it open and digging inside. Oh, Criminy, she had more power-activating pills on her.

  The Machine chewed into Mech’s helmet. Her warning given, Gerty did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I had exactly enough time to realize she’d shut off when the voices started in my head.

  Some just made noises. Some had words, but they went by so fast I couldn’t make them out individually. It reminded me of my encounter with Mister Protocol, but hundreds of times faster. Mech was the master of override—

  Good old West Lee and his eight hour fail-safe. I woke up in Mech’s trophy room. The shift would have been disorienting, if not for the trick Lee had built in that let me feel like I’d been asleep. That, and this was what I’d planned on all along.

  I was sitting mostly upright on a white stone pedestal. The X Device sat on the next pedestal over.

  HA! Got you, Mech. Since you didn’t view me as a person, I made a fine trophy. As a hero with an entirely different specialty, you had no interest in taking me apart to find out how I work. Most importantly, you had no way to know about the sleep mode time limit.

  Oh, and with me turned off, you had no reason to believe anyone would put any serious effort into stealing the X Device. It was safe to put us with the rest of your prizes.

  Sucker.

  As smug and confident as those thoughts sounded, my hands trembled in my lap. I’d had to guess everything exactly right. Even without nerves or muscles to twitch, the relief made me shake by sheer instinct. Rubbing my face, I let the fear drain away.

  Okay. Here I was, in the trophy room of Mech’s base. Not much had changed. It was all still a pretty white, designed to show off the displays rather than the room itself. Glass-fronted cabinets with even more trophies in them lined most of the walls. Discreet air vents took up some of the remaining wall space. The only visible entrance was a rectangular doorway with no obvious door.

  My eyes turned to the little red corset in one of the cabinets. ‘Little’ barely began to describe it. The only woman I could imagine it fitting would be Claudia’s mother. It didn’t seem her style, and the pointed back would interfere with her tail. Claire had wanted that trophy, but… no. The cabinets set off the worst booby trap, a mask I could see propped up on its own pedestal. I would take what I’d come here for, and go.

  I hopped down off the pedestal to the floor, and a thick glass door immediately slammed down over the exit. Blue fog puffed out of the vents. I paid it no mind. I didn’t even stop pretending to breathe.

  Picking up the X Device, I stuffed that down my own leather faux-corset. That was definitely proving a useful storage spot for things I wanted protected. Okay, now, how to get out? I’d planned to use…

  I looked at my left wrist. GAAH. My Machine! I wasn’t wearing my Machine! Criminy buckets, of course my fleshy twin had taken him home with her. Of all the angles I’d covered, this was the one I forgot?

  Fine, fine. I would get him back. Right now, I would find some other way to escape. Fortunately, I just happened to be in the room filled with all kinds of weird mad science weapons that a top-tier superhero had taken off his opponents because they were so interesting.

  Intriguing gun over there. Ah, my shield bands and sliding spats. They lay on the pedestal on the other side of me from the X Device. Three prime display locations for this one fight, Mech? Really? And the evasive tools were cute and high-tech, but not flashy or cool. He must really love my family. Lucyfar had said everyone did.

  No time to stand around and speculate, Penny. I slipped the bands on. They would help. Next…

  Oh, my Gerty Gerty heart. It couldn’t be.

  I walked right up to the front of the grid of pedestals, near the door. Off to the side of only a couple of rows sat a very familiar glass tank, one-third filled with brown sludge. It had a pink top and bottom, a hose and nozzle shaped like a magic wand, and a few dials and levers.

  My old sugar weapon set. I dismissed it from all thought after I accidentally turned it into a sucrose black hole. Someone had fixed it, and now it was in Mech’s possession. For, oh, about thirty more seconds. That was how long it took to get it properly hooked onto my belt, check the settings, and scoop up the jacks and red rubber ball that came with it.

  Would this get me out? It just might. Pumping a little lever, I got the tank to spit out a fist-sized lump of crystallized sugar, which I threw at the floor just in front of the glass.

  Crash! Rock candy spikes erupted out in front of the lump, slamming into the door. They cracked and dented it, but clearly this glass had been reinforced. And yet, not reinforced enough. I tossed over another candy crystal, and this time the stalagmites it shot up in front of it busted through, leaving a hole.

  The splintering, stabbing mass of sugar took several seconds to die away. The hole looked just big enough. I had to take off the sugar tank again, but passed first myself, then the tank through and into the hallway. Just as I remembered, a big circle with wood paneling and dull reddish wallpaper, like something out of a mansion. I was practically next to the staircase up to the living quarters.

  Now came the big question. What kind of alarms had I set off already?

  With only moderately good luck, this place wasn’t yet on high alert. By now, it was nearing midnight. Mech might well be asleep, and had certainly dropped his guard about a robot that had sat limp for hours, faithfully deactivated. People break in, not out.

  His stairways were also choke points where he put the most traps. If his defenses had been activated, I’d be ripped to bits going up there. If they hadn’t been activated yet, they would be soon. I didn’t have a lot of time. My original plan had been to have the Machine eat me a path out.

  Ugh, my wrist felt so empty without him.

  Pulling the red rubber ball out of my pocket,
I threw it into the stairwell. It bounced off a stair, and off the wall, and off the ceiling. Never losing speed, it kept bouncing all the way up the stairs, with nothing happening to it.

  As soon as I was sure of that, I ran close behind. At the top, I held out a hand and the ball smacked right into it.

  Ha! A little hustle, and it did, indeed, look like I’d be out of here before Mech could marshal his considerable resources to stop me.

  The living quarters had been completely restored since the Inscrutable Machine had wrecked it. Variously shaped robots lurked in corners, waiting to be needed. The bedroom was dark and empty. Of course, if Mech had been here, he would be armorless and now at my mercy.

  Speed remained my ally. I pulled open the massive metal door, which unlocked easily from inside, and hurried through to the antechamber outside to the elevator. My finger reached for the call button, stopping an inch away.

  The down arrow was already lit. The elevator was on its way. Someone was coming.

  I stuck the tip of my wand against the seam in the door where it would open, and waited. The cola tank had gotten pretty thick and syrupy, but I’d proven it still worked. Just wait, Penny. Wait for the faint thump of an elevator stopping, and the door to crack open…

  It did, leaving me pointing my wand at Ampexia, and her glove vibrating and pointed at me.

  We lowered our weapons, and grinned. She spoke first. “You said eight hours.”

  “HA!” I slapped hands with her, gleeful in victory. Yes, I’d covered all the bases, including a rescue squad in case I’d guessed something wrong.

  Ampexia jerked a thumb upwards. “Easy as pie. The password’s even B-E-E-B-E-E like you said. I didn’t have to hotwire it.”

  After Mech’s enthusiastic talk with Other Me, it seemed a lot less weird he hadn’t changed the code. “Calling it now: when he was a teenager, Mech had posters of my parents on his walls.” Somebody had to, right?

  Ampexia, always of a more practical disposition, merely shrugged. “Eh. Sure.” But she definitely looked satisfied. This operation had come off smooth as goat butter.

  Except it wasn’t actually done yet. I ducked into the elevator, and Ampexia pressed the button with a nod. “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

  “No traps in the elevator shaft, so if he shuts it down remotely, you should be able to get us out,” I said.

  We waited, alert. When we reached the top and the door opened, we greeted the maintenance hallway with drawn weapons. Unnecessary drawn weapons, since the place was utterly empty. Of course, at this time of the night, the building should be abandoned.

  The big cubicle area outside the maintenance door was certainly dark and empty. As I looked around, Ampexia frowned, and put a hand to her headphones. She followed that up by flipping a switch on her glove.

  A woman’s echoey voice came out of the speaker. “Don’t fuss, Mech. I’m almost there.”

  “I hid a microphone in the stairway,” Ampexia whispered. I nodded back. Good plan.

  The woman spoke again, in a playfully scolding tone. “Probably something fell off its stand again. If there’s trouble, I can handle it.”

  I pointed at a window on the far side of the cubicle farm. Ampexia nodded vigorously. Stealth would avail us nothing now. When that heroine got downstairs, there would be no way to pretend it hadn’t been a breakout. Mech would activate everything he had in the building.

  We reached one of the wall-sized glass windows. Ampexia shattered it with a punch, ducking behind me to avoid the falling glass. Then she scooped me up, and jumped out.

  Whoomp went her backpack. It didn’t fly well, but we fell slowly, safely, and she even swerved us around the next building and out of sight.

  We set down in a little tree-studded area near Pershing Square. As soon as both our feet were on the ground, Ampexia asked, “You’ve got the thingy?”

  I pulled the X Device out of my corset, then tucked it back in so it couldn’t touch her accidentally. “Complete success.”

  “Cool. You’ll want this.” Opening up a hatch in her backpack, she pulled out my Machine, swollen with silvery metal from eating Mech’s helmet.

  “EEEE!” I squealed, grabbing him and shaking him until he woke up. “Spit that out!” I commanded, and as soon as he had, I wrapped him around my wrist where he belonged.

  Okay. Now I felt better. Taking a deep breath, I pointed back up at the bank tower. “That is why I need a teammate.”

  She smiled, just a little and with a grim edge. “Can’t watch your own back, and you don’t have to tell me how nervous it is not having backup.”

  I gave one of my braids a sharp tug, and marshaled my thoughts. “We’ll head back, and I’ll stay on guard while you get some sleep.”

  Ampexia’s mouth puckered, and her eyebrows pressed together behind her motor goggles. “We haven’t needed to stand guard yet.”

  It had been more a question than an argument, so I supplied the answer. “As soon as Mech finds out I’ve got the X Device, he’s going to panic. The whole hero community will go into lockdown mode. Meatbag Penny has to know I’m spying on her now. Hopefully she hasn’t figured out how, because the very first chance she’s not under heavy guard, I’m going to finish this. I don’t have time for anything else. Every hero in LA will be on my trail, now. This has stopped being a quirky anecdote—now a little girl is in real danger.”

  Ampexia rolled her eyes, and added bitterly, “Yeah, you.”

  That was why I couldn’t afford to take the time to go visit someone, but I was going to do it anyway.

  egular people have to sleep, so it was well into the next morning when I sat in a nice car driving up into the hills, as opposed to Ampexia’s pick-up truck, which had already been worse for wear before it started hauling Gerty around.

  Poor Gerty had never shown up last night. Maybe nobody had woken her. Mech did say she never stayed with anyone for long.

  Well, fighting wasn’t her purpose, and I had other things on my mind.

  “Thank you for the drive, Miss Lutra, and for setting this up,” I said. I didn’t exactly feel much like smiling, but I did anyway to show gratitude.

  “I said I would be here for you, and I meant it.” Yeah, no faking it with either Lutra. They could read me like a book.

  I fiddled with the X Device in my lap, turning it over and over. At this point, anyone who intercepted me wouldn’t stop with just stealing the device, and I couldn’t leave it back at the lair where someone could steal it while I was out. I only had one basket, might as well put my eggs in it.

  Switching to looking out the window, I watched a lot of brown dirt and brown shrubs go past. “How is Claire?”

  “Worried about both of you.”

  Heh. Yeah, so was I, but that still felt good to hear. No matter what happened in my life, Claire would be right behind me. I might not want to know what she was doing back there, but our friendship was bedrock solid.

  I got really alert as we pulled up onto the actual road where Pong lived. Ducking down, I peered out over the edge of the car window, scanning the skies, looking up and down the curving asphalt path, scanning the blasted summer brown hills. Nothing. Still, a superhero had to be watching these ultra-expensive houses. Best to hurry inside as soon as Miss Lutra stopped.

  Okay, momentary pause to stare at the other car in Pong’s oversized driveway. I knew that sleek, evil-looking sports car well. “What is Lucyfar doing here?” I asked out loud.

  “You said you needed perspective. With her, we have all the perspectives covered,” said Miss Lutra.

  Couldn’t argue with that. I did try to clamp down on the paranoia and walk calmly to the front door. In fact, after I pressed the doorbell, I didn’t even hide in any corners until it opened!

  When the door did open, blank whiteness in the shape of a person stood there on the other side.

  “Alabaster, right?” I asked. Speaking of perspective, here was someone else totally not human.

  Except she turned
and walked away without a word. When I stepped inside, I just barely got a glimpse of her ducking into a bedroom.

  “She’s shy,” Miss Lutra explained, staring down that hall with much the same sad, compassionate smile she’d been giving me.

  Pong, in the spacious living room, rose out of her chair and rushed over. She had on a short-sleeved shirt and a skirt today, and silver tracery ran all over her plump, bare arms. “She is, but it’s you I’m worried about now.”

  As she stepped into arm’s reach, Pong did indeed reach, one hand going for my chin and the other holding up a finger. I jerked my head away. “No thanks. Had enough of that.”

  She didn’t get offended. She beamed at me in visible relief. Suddenly easygoing, she walked back to her chair, waving a hand by her shoulder. “Good, then you’re as human as ever. Please, have a seat. Has the robot food been helping?”

  Lucyfar’s head poked up over the back of the couch. She must have been lying on it. A certain unfocused look in her eyes suggested she’d been asleep, but hope and curiosity replaced that quickly. “Robot food?”

  “No,” said Pong.

  “Down, girl,” warned Miss Lutra, raising a finger.

  Lucyfar draped her elbows over the back of the couch, watching me as I circled around. A little nudge of her head indicated Pong. “Don’t let her fool you, kid. She’s actually freaking out.”

  Pong sat primly in her own well-stuffed chair, hands folded in her lap. Her cover busted, she let a serious scowl show through. “Well, of course I am. The heroes are going ballistic. They’ve never given robots a fair shake. You should ask Polly Chloride what she’s been through. But this is just disgusting.”

  Not pleasant to hear, but no surprise.

  Lucyfar groaned, and collapsed back against the cushion on the couch’s arm rest. I had serious doubts that limber, athletic, and most important superhumanly-powerful body had aches and pains. She had on that same T-shirt with the road map I’d seen Ampexia wearing way back when. Come to think of it, from how badly it fit, maybe Lucyfar had stolen the actual specific shirt. Sneak into a trap-riddled mansion just to take someone’s laundry. Sounded like Lucy, as did showing it off to me and pretending nothing was unusual.