“I don’t want her to see me how I really am.” Harvey’s whisper didn’t come from any direction. Probably only I could hear it.
He needed to hear something thoughtful and wise. I couldn’t think of anything like that, so I muttered, “Suck it up. Now, wake up Vera.”
I placed Vera on the floor, and knelt above her, hands atop her shell.
Nothing happened for a second, until I heard Harvey’s voice ask from inside the Red Herring, “Juliet, a very unusual race lives on the first dwarf planet past the gas giants. Would you like to meet them?”
Shaking away the last of the snakelike tubes holding her to the wall, Juliet jumped up and down gleefully. “Yes! Get in here!”
Vera stirred under my hands. “Machine, eat! Cut him down!” I shouted, leaning forward and wrapping my arms around the unfolding Vera.
A clunk sounded behind me. I had to look over my shoulder, even if it was risky. I got to see Ray pick Harvey up and fling him through the gate. When the hard mummy shape landed on the floor of the Red Herring, Juliet wrapped her arms around it, pulling it into her lap and covering the featureless face with kisses.
For one final measure, I pried Archimedes loose and tossed him into the interior of the Red Herring. Juliet could use him better than I ever could, and…
No more biotech. No more Puppeteer anything. Humanity was not ‘civilized’ because of me.
Juliet was too busy embracing Harvey to notice my gift. Harvey’s ears were vibrating wildly when the gate cut off.
“I’d call that a happy ending,” chirped Claire. I let Vera float up into the air next to me. She looked around the room curiously, but didn’t start blasting anything.
Ray lifted his hat, pulled off his mask, and gave me a curious, eyebrow-lifted stare. “Can my evil mistress truly unleash her terrible power and burn this unwelcome rock from space?”
I winced. “Yes.” I was not comfortable with this, but my superpower loved Puppeteer biotech, loved weapons, and most of all, loved bombs.
Okay, power. How could I use whatever I had in this room to blow Kalyke to kingdom come?
I was not even slightly surprised when my hand slid into my pouch and pulled out my last cursed penny. I reached up and stuck it into the dangling tentacle that used to hold up Harvey. Walking over to the wall, I levered off a chitin plate that looked the same as all the others to regular me. Super me knew what to expect, and caught the stone disk that fell out. The disk had the same primitive appearance as Thompson’s stone spear, and looked like a blocky, stylized sun.
Or like a gear, with the teeth sticking around the thickened edge. Yeah. A lot like a gear. I dragged the heavy thing back to the middle of the room, and lifted it to touch it to the dangling alien uvula.
I did not know what I did next. I felt a little funny, and then it passed, and the only clear memory I had was of a picture of Kalyke blowing apart in a ball of fire and pieces smaller than dust.
Ray and Claire both stepped up in front of me. “Time to go, then,” said Claire. She and Ray were both smiling.
Okay, that was it. No more sulking. I was in space. I was on one of the moons of Jupiter, for Tesla’s sake, and I had something even cooler than that right in front of me.
I walked past both my friends and up to the gate. Pulling off my gloves, I ran my bare fingers over the rock. That was all it felt like, rock. That was all it looked like, a bunch of crudely squared off rocks balanced in an arch. It didn’t just look old. It looked primitive. The effect was only enhanced by the engravings covering every surface. They weren’t symbols, or glyphs, or writing, or anything like that. They were pictures, little stick figure men and women with spears hunting bison, or gathered around a pillar with the sun shining overhead, or standing next to curvy water lines doing nothing I could figure out. They looked like cave paintings, on the highest tech piece of machinery in the solar system.
A truly messed up idea snuck into my head. Sure, I was good, but what if there was a much better mad scientist way back in the time of the cavemen? A mutated brain with such an absolute understanding of science that it could make a space warping gate by piling rocks up just right?
Some of the bison looked like they had six legs. So, you know, an alternate explanation would be that it had been built by advanced aliens with highly retro artistic sensibilities.
It would be a shame to leave it, but this gate was too dangerous. Also, a ticking in the back of my brain suggested that we were running out of time.
With enormous relief, I turned to look at my friends and said, “Vera, take us home.”
dramatic flash left us standing on the metal floor of Ceres, looking out its windows over the frozen landscape.
I looked at Ray, and at Claire, and they looked at me, and we all threw our arms around each other and squeezed! Of course, only my ribs would end up bruised, but such was the burden of leadership.
“I want to go home,” Claire groaned.
“I want to go back to school,” said… oh, wait. That was me.
Ray hmmmed. “I could use something to eat,” said superpowered metabolism boy.
I held up a single finger. “We’re sticking around long enough for just one more thing.”
Over in the corner lay the haphazard bioengineering set we’d taken from Happy Days Durable Medical Supplies. I pointed at it and announced, “Vera, that contains Puppeteer biotools. Destroy it.”
The words ‘destroy it’ were entirely unnecessary. No sooner was ‘Puppeteer’ out of my mouth than Vera spun around to look at the set, and to my mild horror so did the Orb of the Heavens. Vera extended her tiny arms, orange flickered around the Orb of the Heavens, and a pink flash not only annihilated the bioengineering machines, but melted a large hole in the floor and wall.
Spider didn’t need to know they could do that.
Out the window, I saw a little spark go off next to Jupiter. Wow. That must have been a serious explosion. Good job, superpower. You do love your bombs. Hopefully, nobody got radiation damage.
My work on this asteroid was complete. I lowered my goggles around my neck, flipping my braids over them and for a moment regretting that Remmy had cut hers off. They had been one of the many things about her I’d envied.
Spider’s smooth, confident woman’s voice projected from the Orb of the Heavens. “Bad Penny, Reviled, E-Claire, please return to my office immediately. Time is critical.”
I looked at Ray and Claire, shrugged, and we ran over to the exit, and through it. I immediately sailed off my feet and had to be caught by Ray and Claire. After all that time in space, I’d still forgotten I’d have to pass through the light gravity of the moon. Fortunately, I had minions to do the grunt work, like drag my clumsy carcass through the second portal into Earth’s more comfortable gravity.
Mmmm, Earth. Smell that underground car park air, asphalt with a hint of giant bug! Nothing like it in space.
Claire’s eyes snapped shut when we entered the garage, and she put her hands over her face. Oops. We’d also forgotten Spider. At least she wasn’t very close, hanging a dozen yards away in a thicker part of her web.
Not so far away we couldn’t hear her clearly. “You deserve a villain’s welcome and a debriefing, Inscrutable Machine, but we have time for neither. Change clothes immediately. I have received disturbing messages from Ceres, but if we hurry, your secret identities will be strengthened, not harmed.”
Mom and Dad! I was so close to seeing them again!
I really wanted to do it without them asking probing questions about me doing the bidding of a rhino-sized super-intelligent criminal arachnid. I hurried over to the creepy silk pod where the clothes I’d left in my lair waited. Claire’s were waiting for her in a stairwell, which was a thoughtful touch.
Tying my shoes, I hopped out of the cocoon to see Vera and the Apparition in the corner, hugging each other. My memory whirled. Had she been there when we’d walked in? That spot had been awfully grey.
What happened to The Apparition wh
ile we were gone? Had taking Vera away drained her into near-invisibility? Did Apparition know the moment Vera returned to Earth and come looking? A hundred suspicions pulled themselves up short. They were happy now, with Vera jingling like sleigh bells, and Apparition listening to a language that only made sense to her and the Orb of the Heavens.
Claire was already out, looking fixedly at the happy inhuman couple and not in any way at the giant spider. Ray stood between her and Spider, since really all he’d had to do was take off a few items.
“So, what’s this super amazing alibi you’ve prepared?” he asked.
“It centers around an interesting piece of trivia I learned recently. If you enter a space of null time, you were always there, since time stopped,” she sort of answered. She sounded quite light and amused about it.
Abruptly, a blank white glowing door opened up next to us. Spider waved a foreleg in our direction. “Not to be melodramatic, but step into the light.”
Eh. What else was I going to do? I stepped into the light.
I fell into my father’s arms, and that only because I lost my balance for a second. Nothing had happened. I’d just been teleported back into my lair, where my dad, my mom, Claire’s mom, and Mech all stood very unwelcomely in the elevator shaft. Miss Lutra had Claire wrapped in a hug almost as engulfing as the one my parents gave me.
Mech, power armor and all, held Ray’s arm to steady him. “Are you sure they’re okay?”
“There was no time for anything to happen to them.” For all he sounded terribly confident, Dad held me to his chest like I’d just been saved from a tank of nuclear sharks.
I felt a faint tingle in the back of my head. Nuclear sharks? Seriously, superpower? No.
“Could someone tell me what’s going on? And can my parents get out of my secret laboratory? It’s not my underwear drawer, but criminy!” My voice fluttered. Should I have said that in front of my parents? Mostly I just had left a lot of tools here that could be anybody’s, but the cursed statue was in the back, and I did not want him seeing that!
If my nervousness seemed anything but authentic, nobody showed a sign. Claire’s mom hit the button sending the elevator up.
“I think this explains most of it, Princess.” Dad handed me a much creased and downright rumpled paper. I stuck a pinkie out to show him I’d noticed the P word, and looked it over.
It had started out as elegant stationary, but had endured hard wear since. It read:
Brian and Beatrice Akk,
I try to respect your desire to not be in communication with me. I sincerely believe you will forgive this lapse because of the importance of this message. Your daughter is technically unharmed, but has been the victim of a practical joke by the Inscrutable Machine, a practical joke that has gotten out of their hands. Penelope is trapped in the field of Fourth Dimension’s temporal negation device, in her clubhouse under the middle school she attends. Her clubmates are trapped with her. So, unfortunately, is the device itself.
It is the nature of high schoolers to misunderstand boundaries and push too hard, but this was not acceptable. I will make it clear to the Inscrutable Machine that until your daughter enters the superhero world of her own volition, she is not a target even for minor harassment.
Any information or technology I obtain that may help free your daughter will be passed along to you immediately.
With Deepest Regret,
Spider
“Temporal negation device,” I repeated. I let that sit for a moment. “How long have I been out?”
Nervousness crept up my legs. I could have been in the field for thirty seconds or a month. I would have no way of knowing. Just how much hooky had I ended up playing?
“Four days,” said my mother, and I let out a sigh of relief. In the ‘thirty seconds’ range, then.
My sigh choked off halfway through. “My homework!” I squeaked. It hadn’t even occurred to me until now. I was going to be eating so much shame when I went back to class.
I took a couple of deep, steadying breaths. “My grades are good. I can absorb a couple of zeroes.”
Dad let go of me. Reluctantly, but he did. Rubbing the top of my head, he said, “That’s my mature little girl,” entirely unaware of the ridiculous contradiction or the damage to my pride.
I jerked a thumb at Claire, still being held off the ground in Miss Lutra’s embrace. “I think I need to talk about this with my friends, if you don’t mind.”
Mom nodded. I gave them both another hug. It was hard to let go until she gave my shoulder a pat and a little push. “Go on.” She even helpfully distracted Dad by saying, “High school students. That makes so much sense.”
They both looked across the street at Upper High. “You are not combing their yearbooks, Beebee.”
She sighed in theatrical surrender.
I tugged Ray away from goggling starry-eyed at Mech. It was hard to remember sometimes that as much as we rubbed shoulders with heroes and villains, he and Claire were still giant fans. Miss Lutra put Claire down with such convincing sniffling that I began to wonder if she’d known about our going to Jupiter after all.
Behind me, Mech said to my dad, “The Fourth Dimension’s machine turning up after all this time. I can’t wait to get a look at it.”
“Tech thieves. Brilliant tech thieves,” noted my mother.
Just a hint of post-crying rasp to her soft laugh, Claire’s mom said, “Don’t even think about it, boys. Teenagers need their space, and their space is feeling very much invaded right now. They’ll get it for you later.”
“If I was good at patience, I wouldn’t be a superhero,” quipped Mech. This was apparently hilarious, because Dad, Mom, and Miss Lutra all snorted.
Ray, Claire, and I walked around the corner of the building, with me admiring how well Miss Lutra had just given us cover for private talk. We’d only just stepped out of sight when I heard Mech speak up sharply. “Brian. You need to hear this.”
“Hmmm?”
“One of Jupiter’s smallest moons just blew up like a nuclear bomb. The light from the explosion only reached Earth about five minutes ago. Then a minute ago, NASA picked up this.”
The next voice I heard, high pitched and badly staticky, was Remmy’s. “People of Earth. I am the Kludge, protector of the Jupiter colonies, and I have a message for you. You are not welcome here. Your supervillains are not welcome here. If the Inscrutable Machine return to our space, I will deal with them personally.”
That seemed to be it. The silence dragged on, until my mother commented, “That does seem to explain what keeps happening to the Jupiter probes.”
“Do you think this stasis field really was a prank, or cover while they went into space?” my dad asked.
Emotion drifted out of Mom’s voice, although her tone still only hinted at the Audit’s cold reason. “Spider has only been caught lying twice, which is why I note her phrasing that she will punish the Inscrutable Machine, not that she has. It would seem she’s waiting for them to return to Earth.”
Mech chuckled. “Blew up a moon. Spider’s going to have to punish them hard for them to not be strutting like roosters all over Chinatown.”
“Those moons are less than five miles across, Mech,” chided my mother, the keeper of all numbers everywhere.
“No one will care how big or small it was,” he countered. Nobody said anything, because they knew he was right.
I dragged Ray and Claire further, until whatever our parents discussed next, we couldn’t hear it.
My back hit the brick wall with a thump. How to say this? How could I tell anyone that I was creeped out about my power, where it came from, and what it could do if I didn’t keep it in check?
Claire gave me no chance. Slipping her arm into mine, she cooed with unabashed glee, “Penelope, did you know you’ve just achieved one of the biggest milestones any villain ever can? Ray is going to seethe in jealousy when it hits him.”
Completely derailed, I shook my head. “It’s missing me.�
�
She squeezed my arm closer. “A supervillain has truly arrived when a superhero arises just to stop her.”
I snorted, but Ray’s face lit up as if Claire had suddenly passed him the secret to life. Wow.
Then my brain tingled. A supervillain creating a superhero, huh?
Heh. Heh heh heh. My grin joined theirs. “You know, maybe I don’t need to reform Bad Penny. I just need to make Penelope Akk into a hero.”
This was going to be a fun semester.
Ray took my other arm, and the three of us looked up at the sky and laughed. They were pretty good at it.
“HA HA HA HA HA!”
Richard Roberts has fit into only one category in his entire life: ‘writer.’ But as a writer he’d throw himself out of his own books for being a cliche. He’s had the classic wandering employment history – degree in entomology, worked in health care, been an administrator and labored for years in the front lines of fast food. He’s had the appropriate really weird jobs, like breeding tarantulas and translating English to English for Japanese television. He wears all black, all the time, is manic-depressive, and has a creepy laugh.
As for what he writes, Richard loves children and the gothic aesthetic. Most everything he writes will involve one or the other, and occasionally both. His fantasy is heavily influenced by folk tales, fairy tales, and mythology, and he likes to make the old new again. In particular, he loves to pull his readers into strange characters with strange lives, and his heroes are rarely heroic.
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Billy Lovecraft Saves the World, by Billy Lovecraft
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The last thing Billy Lovecraft’s parents sent him before the crash was a photo of something on the wing of their plane.
Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon Page 37
