I nodded. “None. It's yours. If E-Claire tries anything, I'll stop her myself.”
Claire stuck her hands in her pockets and pouted, head hunched low and lower lip out and everything.
Sneaking back to the front hall was completely anticlimactic. The 3D printer and its computer in the main workshop were still infected, but as we reached the room, the computer stuck a cord into the centrifuge. The infection attempt backfired, and the computer withdrew its cords to their normal position. It went dark. A few seconds later, the 3D printer clattered back into its normal configuration.
The ugly combined robot/repair bot/doomsday device lay pitched forward halfway into a cabinet under the centrifuge. When I lifted it gingerly out, the sonic liquefier lay under it.
Ampexia snorted. “Yeah, figures.” Scooping it up in one hand, she announced, “Okay, I'm out of here. Later, losers.”
Claire was waiting for her in the hall, with a wicked smile. “You do know, when next we meet, we meet as enemies.”
The teenage tech thief rolled her head, exclaiming, “You are such geeks.” But she didn't bother to hide her grin as she stepped into the magic elevator.
My Machine shuffled up the corridor to meet us. It wasn't particularly fast unless I told it to grow better legs. I did have an order to give it. Not a fun one, but it should solve my last few problems.
The shutdown order did not spread instantly, and that gave me just barely enough time. In fewer minutes than I'd hoped (but not quite too soon), I was standing in front of my parents on the steps of Upper High, holding the remains of my doomsday device in my arms, neat wafers of metal and plastic.
“I found a weird robot attached to a mini-fridge in the teacher's lounge, and had the Machine eat it. When it did, everything began to shut down.”
Lying right in front of my mother was not exactly comfortable, but I had to pray that conditions were too weird for her to spot me. We were outside of normal statistical territory already, right?
Dad picked up one particular square of white plastic, flipped it over, and told the others, “This is the material the infection is leaving behind, little white blocks in perfectly working machines. It is the same material as the sample of the universal repair device I got from the university.”
“The one E-Claire stole,” said one of the superheroes in the small crowd in front of us.
A woman in civilian clothing, but with the kind of buff figure that screamed 'super powered mom,' pressed her fingers to her forehead, and then flipped them away. “So, the Inscrutable Machine did this. It's exactly what we were afraid of when we let our kids start showing their powers.”
A man with a beard – criminy, it was Mechanical Aesthetic! - started to laugh. “What, an invention getting out of control, like has happened to every mad scientist, ever?”
The particularly bulky hero in the heavy armor nudged the incognito super-mom with his elbow. “Remember Brainy's rampaging groomer?”
She smirked despite herself. “At least it left its victims clean and fresh.”
Next to me, Dad muttered under his breath, “I can't be responsible for user error.” Then he held up his hands, one of them holding the white plastic sheet. “I think that's the point here. When the infection shut down, it left the machines it took control of in perfect condition. Better than new, in many cases. There weren't even many injuries, since they weren't after people.”
“So…” pressed the super-mom.
“In summary, our children are exactly like us.”
They all laughed at that, and the group broke up into little groups of two or three people. I caught the seedy, elderly hagfish telling the armored guy (in a horrible croak), “My nephew Charlie, I saw him tear up a car so a family could get free. I could not be more proud of him right now.”
Okay. This was it. I reached for my mom's sleeve, and gave it a tug.
It was time to confess. More and more people kept learning my secret identity. I'd never properly appreciated that superheroes kept things from getting personal precisely because you couldn't possibly keep who you were a secret. It wasn't a matter of if my parents found out. It was when.
I had to tell them myself, at a time like right now, when maybe I'd get grounded, but there would be hugs and 'I understand' and 'At least you saved everyone's and stuff.
This was not the time for Cassie to show up and latch onto my arm. As my mom looked down at us bemusedly, Cassie gave me a tug and said, “Penny, we need to talk.”
I tugged back. “I'm kind of busy here.”
“This is important,” she insisted.
My retort died, because looking her in the eyes, it obviously was important. Maybe desperately so. My window of time to confess could spare a couple of minutes, while the mood was still right, and if not… there would be other chances? I hoped?
Praying I was making the right decision, I let Cassie drag me around one of the buttresses of Upper High, out of sight of my parents and most everyone else.
It had to be the right decision, because Cassie's face was a sight. Not just because she was banged up from all the action. Her electricity-colored eyes were puppy-dog wide.
In a fumbling whisper, she said, “Penny, we may not see each other until the fall. If we don't, there's something you need to know.”
Her arm slid around my waist, and her other hand cupped my cheek.
Cassie kissed me.
…
When the kiss ended, she said something, and ran off towards Ruth and Rachel.
…
PennyOS fatal error.
Attempting reboot.
Yes. Thoughts were happening again.
Maybe there was still time to talk to – I couldn't talk to my parents about the weather right now, much less make a confession. Criminy.
So I leaned against the brick wall, and tried to get my brain working. I watched my super powered classmates, scattered around the street, talking to heroes and being thanked by the teachers they'd saved. There were several kids I hadn't even known were around. Some looked pretty banged up, but they were all glowingly happy. When the moment of truth came, they found out they wanted to be heroes, with a big 'someday' rider attached.
Two figures had an empty area around them. That white-haired, white-clad figure was unmistakable. Mourning Dove was talking to Marcia.
So. They found out what they wanted. Had I found out what I wanted? Well, the best time I had today, maybe the whole semester, had been in that ridiculous ranting contest. That suggested villainy. But when the question arose, I always tried to save people.
Yeah, I knew what I wanted. I wanted my life to be full of not normal super powered things, and I would do what it is I do, and people would slap their own label on that. I hadn't been able to stop them yet. Maybe I didn't care what that label was.
One person did wander up to me. It wasn't Cassie, or my parents, or Ray or Claire. I didn't think my heart could handle any of them. It was Barbara, who offered me a letter. This one was not looseleaf paper. It was a crisp stationary, light pink with a scrollwork border.
Barbara said, “I got this from Abigail,” and walked away again.
I opened the letter up.
Dear Penelope Akk,
I have been watching events over the last few months with both pleasure and admiration. When you turn eighteen and leave your parents' home, if you are interested, I wish to offer you an apprenticeship. You have the knack for inspiring others to do what must be done, and profiting from the arrangement. There are other cities that could use the stability and community spirit I have nurtured in Los Angeles, and I know I can train you to do the same. Just think it over.
Yours Truly,
Spider
There was only one thing I could say to that.
“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 – deg
ree 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.
Now that you have completed this book, we hope you will leave a review so that other readers may benefit from your perspective. Authors like Richard Roberts live and die by your reviews, after all!
Please visit http://curiosityquills.com/reader-survey/ to share your reading experience with the author of this book!
Broken Dolls, by Tyrolin Puxty
(http://bit.ly/1FWlsMl)
Ella doesn’t remember what it’s like to be human – after all, she’s lived as a little doll for thirty years. She forgets what it’s like to taste, to smell…to breathe.
She helps the professor create other dolls, but they don’t seem to hang around for long. His most recent creation is Lisa, a sly goth. Ella doesn’t like Lisa. How could she, when Lisa keeps trying to destroy her?
Ella likes the professor’s granddaughter though, even if she is dying. It’s too bad the professor wants to turn Gabby into a doll, too. What’s a broken doll to do?
Deadly Delicious, by K.L. Kincy
(http://bit.ly/1DctFpK)
1955, Missouri: Josephine DeLune, a disaster in the kitchen, can’t compete with her mama’s spellbinding culinary skills. Disenchanted, she works as a carhop until the granddaddy of all voodoo spirits starts hunting her, and only cooking magic can save her soul.
A Swift Kick in the Asteroids, by Edward Zajac
(http://bit.ly/1PPg68g)
Neurotic tech Zagarat Cole must help an enigmatic privateer named Fletcher Griffin free a race from persecution, all the while fighting off a case of intentionally induced food poisoning (which Fletcher could totally explain), avoiding the ire of a powerful executive (which Fletcher could totally explain), and generally running for their lives wherever they go (which Fletcher could totally explain).
But something strange happens to Zagarat along the way. His anxieties dwindle away, subsumed by something called courage. All because of an enigmatic privateer who is more than what he seems. And he seems to be a bumbling idiot.
Fairy Keeper, by Amy Bearce
(http://bit.ly/1ySQq3D)
Forget cute fairies in pretty dresses. In the world of Aluvia, most fairies are more like irritable, moody insects. Still, almost everyone views the fairy keeper mark as a gift. Fourteen-year-old Sierra considers it a curse, one that binds her to a dark alchemist father who steals her fairies’ mind-altering nectar for his illegal elixirs and poisons. But when her fairy queen and all the other queens go missing, it’s up to Sierra to restore the balance, leading her to a magical secret lost since ancient times. The magic waiting for her has the power to transform the world, but only if she can first embrace her destiny as a fairy keeper.
Billy Lovecraft Saves the World, by Billy Lovecraft
(http://bit.ly/1vYGSCK)
The last thing Billy Lovecraft’s parents sent him before the crash was a photo of something on the wing of their plane.
Now he’s stuck with a horrible and heart-breaking mystery: What was that awful creature, and why were his parents targeted?
It’s up to Billy to gather a team of like-minded kids and lead them through a dark new reality where the monsters are real, not everyone is who they seem to be, and an ancient alien wants to devour the world.
Rex’d: Welcome to Scholomance, by J.B Skelter & Jack Reher
(http://bit.ly/1odZudl)
Rex Gerard is the last in a long bloodline of monster slayers that have been chronicled throughout history in pages that we have embraced as pure fiction. Dracula exists. The Creature exists. The Headless Horseman exists… All these monsters that we’ve thought to be fantasy truly exist in Rex’s world and he’s our only hope in protecting us. As he matures within the series of books as the readers do, so will the threat against humanity and the growing level of monsters will get far more terrifying. It’s up to Rex and his new motley crew of misfit friends that he goes to school with at Scholomance to save the world before it’s too late.
Strings, by G. Miki Hayden
(http://bit.ly/1jeGDPF)
“Robert, an ordinary boy, finds himself in a newly chaotic world. Buildings move when and where they please, and time jumps around according to no known laws of physics. For Robert, getting to his regular school in the morning is next to impossible. As for getting home…
But then, Holden - a boy he and his friend, Nila, meet in a cave - offers them a string. No, not twine, but a string of the kind that forms the universe. Teeny and tiny, and invisible to the naked eye, this string will take Robert and Mila to their homes and way, way beyond…
Accompanied by a memorable cast of characters, Robert and his friends follow the string on a journey across time, space, and dimension to discover the answer to a mystery: Who has caused the world to fall apart?”
Appetizer:
Book Cover
Copyright & Publisher
Title Page
Main Course:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dessert:
Closing
About the Author
More from Curiosity Quills Press
Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen Page 32
