Okay okay okay. One step at a time.
First, breathing good? Yes, still breathing.
I needed to get my clothes, then my Machine, then get out. The teleport bracers should be with one or the other, or all together.
Right now, I had to get out of this room.
No. Right now, I had to prepare for if someone pushed that stupid button again. Note to Penny: If you even think someone is going to, set yourself to sleep for only one second. In fact, do that now. Self, I have no idea if this will carry through, but the next time you’re turned off, sleep for one second.
Okay, now to get out of the room. This was a Happy Days outlet, right? So there would be stolen or experimental weapons around. I could certainly use them better than the employees.
“Ah, Bad Penny, but are there any in this room?”
The room contained a lot less than I’d first thought. Not many robots at all. On the pedestal next to me sat a bot like a skeleton with wire muscles and a few chrome plates like haphazard stretches of skin. Very creepy. Probably filled with weapons. I had no idea how to get to them or turn him on, but worth keeping in mind.
On the next pedestal down sat… well, this was sad. It looked like an oil drum with jointless, stubby arms and legs bolted on. It had plastic googly eyes for pity’s sake? A quick thump registered a hollow clang.
Happy Days must have these poor saps on a quota, and they were so desperate they’d started capturing fake robots just to make up their numbers. I mean, on the next pedestal they’d stolen a… a…
A Gerty Goat animatronic.
Up close, she was huge, and there was absolutely no mistaking her. Blue smock with little white flowers, apron, gray carpet covering. A rough patch under one foot even showed where she’d been broken off of her stage. They’d stolen a Gerty Goat animatronic. This was the definition of desperate.
Was she damaged? Did they hurt her? I couldn’t help myself. Yes, she was just a restaurant display, but Gerty was my favorite. Despite my increased robo-strength, I couldn’t get any of the seams of her smock open to check on the internals, but nothing looked damaged. A little old and shabby, yes, but not damaged.
The door clicked and hummed. I hid behind Gerty. A seven-foot-tall goat provides excellent cover.
In walked a big guy, not muscular, not fat, just big. With dark skin and short, red dreadlocks, he wore the Happy Days uniform with more ease than the others. Maybe he just had naturally good posture.
Okay. I would stay out of his sight, and slip through the door behind him when he left. Or before, if I could manage it.
Right now, he blocked my way, and did so quite thoroughly by rushing up to my abandoned pedestal. Gripping it in both hands, he exclaimed, “She’s gone. Was she disassembled? No, she wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow. I checked! Did Travis move her time up?”
He sounded increasingly panicky. He also sounded increasingly British. And increasingly familiar.
My eyebrows pressed together, and I leaned out enough to ask, “Are you… Byron Slade?” That was the guy’s name, right?
He let out a yelp, grabbed his chest, then leaned one hand against the wall and panted for breath. “You’re alive?” Oh, yeah. Listen to that hope and relief. I’d made the right choice to reveal myself.
“Yes. Do you mind not looking? I’m kind of clothesless here.” Technically there was nothing to see on this body that could have passed for a mannequin, but that knowledge helped surprisingly little.
He immediately turned his back, and started complaining. “I knew this would happen. If we went around scooping up robots, sooner or later we’d kidnap a person who happened to be mechanical!”
“I thought you quit this place.”
He stuck his arms straight down, fists clenched. “I did. I got a fun job at a hobby store. Two weeks in, it got bought out and became Happy Days Table Top Entertainment. They just wanted to use the game boxes for smuggling. I quit and took a job in a call center, right before they renamed it Happy Days Telecommunications Frontiers. The translation position at the Japanese television station was the coolest thing I’d ever done, until it became Happy Days Broadcast Content. I liked the pet shop job, and then I barely got out of Happy Days Beloved Companions Center after the chicken incident.”
My disaffected savior shuddered, and thumped a fist into the wall. “Happy Days buys every single place I go to work!”
I blinked. “Wow. Do you think they’re following you?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s just my luck. Or maybe it’s a lesson.” He lowered his hands again, this time flexing and clenching his fingers. “I’ve had enough. I mean, I’d already had enough, but kidnapping a little kid robot is too much. I’ve had so much enough that I’m going to do something. I’m going to rescue you.”
I covered an awkward cough with my fist. “Not to be ungrateful, but could you get my clothes first…?”
“I know where they are. I’m going there anyway. You go back to pretending you’re asleep, please? Not that anyone will come in, but just in case.”
He flicked his card through the door’s reader, and left. I took his advice. He obviously meant well, and knew this place better than I did. Climbing back up on the pedestal, I let my head and arms hang, and waited.
That gave me time to concentrate on breathing, and listening to my heart. And to worry. Hopefully nothing would happen to him.
Was that a stomach gurgle? It was shocking how easy it was to stop feeling human. The smart thing to do would be to worry about this later, but that kind of thinking got me here. So, I twiddled my toes. Robots did not have toes.
The door opened. Byron entered, throwing me my clothes, which I caught gratefully and retreated behind Gerty to wear.
He put on armor. He already had most of it on when he entered, but instead of a suit, it was more like a pile of mismatched parts, and didn’t go on easily. They did match in one way. Every piece was shiny and white.
With Gerty between us, I asked, “Where’d you get that stuff?”
“When I could not get away from Happy Days, I got more and more angry. Every time I quit, I would steal something. It’s not like the company legitimately owns any of it. And now, I will stop dreaming and put it all to use.”
Corset adjusted, I slid my coat over my shoulders and stepped out from behind Gerty. “Wow, Byron. That’s pretty amazing.”
He, too, fastened on his final item, a visor and white plastic headband that left his dreadlocks free. Standing up very straight, chest inflated, he declare, “That name is dust. I am no longer Byron Slade, wage slave. I am a superhero now. I am… Radiance!”
Something clicked, and the armor flickered with constantly changing rainbow lights.
I gave him a firm nod of approval, and ticked off on my fingers. “Okay. Now we get my Machine, get my teleport bracelets, and escape. And take Gerty with us.”
He looked past me to the slumped, unpowered animatronic. “You can not possibly be serious.”
“I’m not leaving my childhood icon here to be disassembled,” I said from my lofty, nostalgic vantage point as a serious fourteen year old about to enter high school.
“Do you know how massively, unbearably heavy that is?” Radiance asked, incredulous.
Walking back over to her, I scooped my arms around the back of the machine. “About to find out.”
The answer, it turned out, was ‘too heavy.’ I couldn’t budge her. To his credit, Radiance didn’t argue any further, just walked around the other side and helped lift.
The array of armor pieces included a strength enhancer. His arms got even more glittery, and he lifted Gerty… by about an inch.
“GOAT ALERT! GOAT ALERT! GOAT ALERT!” wailed an invisible PA system.
I propped a fist on my hip. “Seriously? A special alarm on the Gerty Goat display, but not me? I don’t know whether I’m insulted, or impressed by their taste.”
Radiance jerked upright, mouth drawn in a grimace. “Nobody told me about the alarm! Tha
t self-absorbed ninnyhammer Simon is supposed to record all—I shall get you out of here, Bad Penny, while the getting is good.”
Backing away did me no good. He scooped an arm around my middle, and hauled me off the ground. Punching his armored chest, I yelled, “Not without my Machine!”
Swiping his card, he carried me out into a wide underground hallway, the kind used to haul freight. Robots could get pretty big, after all. “I’m afraid it’s in the vault in the Ultra Hush Hush Company Property Room, and I have had no chance at all to break in yet. I normally do that while they’re processing my termination paperwork.”
A woman in a sun-emblazoned shirt whose lumpiness suggested concealed armor burst around a corner, pointing a pistol at us. Radiance waved his hand like swatting a fly, and a ray of light swept over her. She slumped, her gun falling out of her hand, then dropped down to a sitting position.
As we passed her and started up the stairs, she mumbled, “Sparkle sparkle sparkle.”
I smirked up at Radiance. “I’d say you’re fired.”
“So is she. No conventional weapons on shift, young lady!” Pulling a little box off his belt, he pointed it at her and pushed some buttons. It beeped. “Two demerits.”
I raised my voice, already pretty loud to be heard over the Goat Alert siren. “Okay, but now we go get my Machine.”
“Out of the question! There is a small army of employees back there, almost as well armed as me. We were dreadfully overstaffed after the takeover.”
“This is not open to debate. I am not leaving my Machine!” Bracing my hands against his arm and chest, I wriggled, pitting my enhanced strength against his even more enhanced strength in an attempt to slip free.
… and then we reached the top of the stairs, and I had to stop, at least momentarily. An absolutely huge room, multi-story with brick outer walls and high windows, filled most of the building. Conveyor belts, bins, pulley systems, and tables crisscrossed everywhere.
My mouth already hanging open, I asked, “Is this… a toy factory?”
His lip curled in disgust. “Until Happy Days bought it.”
“And you worked here?”
Disgust turned to tight-cheeked wistfulness. “I did, indeed. My job was color-coding the sprockets. They need to be easily identified, you know, but also visually appealing when put in place.”
Awed, I said, “You might be the coolest person I have… “
Noise drowned me out. Not random noise. Electronic beeps and hums. Music? Yes! A little like the electro-swing Ray liked, but even more synthesized. Words lurked behind the noises, processed into an incomprehensible mumble.
It did sound better than the ‘Goat Alert!’ it replaced.
“That unspeakable racket is not our muzak! Happy Days prefers their unspeakable racket much more drab!” Radiance shouted, dropping me to the floor so he could put his hands over his ears.
Yeah, this was loud enough it must hurt regular flesh and blood ears. It was a jamming attack, and a distraction. I’d used the tactic several times myself. Happy Days wasn’t behind this, so who else had gotten involved? Echo? He was a sound-based hero, but not music-based.
The nearest wall melted into dust, carving out a hole big enough for a teenage girl to step through. A little bigger, because it had to accommodate her huge, round backpack. That looked out of place, too big for her wiry frame to carry, but at least the cat-eared headphones over her blonde hair protected her from the musical overload.
Ah, right. I did know a music-themed tech thief. Timely entrance by Ampexia!
I recognized the round thing clamped onto one gauntleted hand, as well. A sonic liquifier. Completely harmless, unless you were a rock. Cement, bricks, and plaster counted.
Pointing at the liquifier, I asked, “How is the inventor doing?” Last I’d heard, he was miserable without it.
A fact no doubt connected to Ampexia yelling back, “If you tell anyone I used this to save you, you’ll regret it!”
Wait. “You came here to save me?”
“Come on, let’s get out of here!” she shouted, jerking a thumb at the hole she’d made.
“We have to get my Machine!”
Ampexia squinted. “What?”
“Can you hear me?” I yelled.
Reaching back to her round backpack, which looked like a giant stereo speaker with a metal rim more than anything else, Ampexia tugged on a switch. The deafening music turned off.
Jamming deactivated, the PA system resumed blaring, “Goat Alert!”
I pointed at the stairs. “We have to… uh… are you okay?”
She did not look okay. Open-mouthed horror spread over the older girl’s face. That turned into a pained grimace with a hand slapped over her face, and when that pulled away she settled on a look of miserable resignation.
Unhooking a cable with a suction cup at the end from her backpack, Ampexia growled, “I know I’m going to regret this,” as she fastened the tip against the wall. She flipped open a lid on the back of one glove, and called into the microphone, “Wakey wakey eggs and bakey!”
The floor and walls shivered as the words echoed through them. It wasn’t loud, exactly, just pervasive.
In response, men and women charged up the stairs, some with the bulging shirts that signaled armor, and the rest with yellow stickers on their foreheads reading ‘Temporary Security Intern.’ The latter did not look happy, and only a few carried the bulky, mismatched mad science weapons all the actual security guards had.
Radiance stepped protectively in front of me—or rather, he took a step forward and shoved me behind him. Same result. I gave Ampexia a raised-eyebrow stare. “Is this what you wanted?”
Scowling, shoulders hunched, she not-exactly-answered, “Just wait for it.”
The Happy Days guards were even less happy to see us than we were to see them. A quick argument broke out.
“It’s a hero! He’s freed the Bad Penny robot!”
“I thought we decided it’s an android?”
“Which hero? Man of Courage?”
“He’s got to be a villain.”
“Well, look him up in the manual!”
At the back of the crowd, a rumpled man did carry a huge softcover book, and flipped through it madly. Pulling out a box much like the one Radiance had used to give demerits, the guy announced, “Unknown super-powered assailant procedure. First fill out… I’ll do that later… right. Initiate security lock down!”
He pressed a button. With a loud bang, metal shutters slammed closed over every door and window, including the doorway down into the stairway. They all had big smiling suns, and the painted message ‘For Your Comfort And Convenience, Please Reduce Your Breathing Until Oxygen Flow Is Restored.’
“That won’t make a difference,” groused Ampexia, thumbs in the pockets of her battered cargo pants.
“What are you talking about, kid?” yelled the rumpled man. He pushed forward, giving me a look at his cap with the label Senior Junior Branch Facility Overseer. It was a big cap.
One of the minions pointed. “Hey, that’s Ampexia!”
“The thief?!” yelped the manager. Spooked, he retreated into the crowd of employees, flipping through his book some more. “One second. We have a procedure page for her.”
Bricks cracked. Metal banged. Heavy things crashed against other things. The shutter over the stairs exploded out of its doorway, as did a fair amount of the wall next to it. Through that gap stumbled…
Gerty Goat.
She held an oversized frying pan I’d seen in a hundred (well, at least a dozen) shows out in front of her, and with the spasmic, uneven motions of an animatronic, swept it to the side as she called out singsong, “Who called for eggs and bakey?”
The motion, too fast and awkward, flung two fried eggs and a strip of freshly cooked bacon out of the pan. They sailed through the air, hit the manager to form a perfect smiley face over his regular face, and then dropped off.
Ampexia backed up against an assembly line,
sat down, and pulled her hoodie over her face.
Shock flooded through me, replaced by hope and joy so powerful I thought I’d float off the ground.
Gerty Goat was alive. She was real.
Letting out a whoop, I ran across the factory floor, shouting, “Gerty!”
Her head pivoted to look at me, then her upper body turned. Her permanent smile didn’t change, but her plastic eyes fixed on me and her jaw flapped as she asked, “Who’s a Gerty Girl?”
“I’m a Gerty Gerty Girl!” I squealed with glee, throwing myself into her open arms.
Rapidly, but stage by stage, her upper arms closed around me, then her forearms, then her hands, holding me up and against herself in a tight hug.
“It’s awake!” wailed a Happy Days employee who did not appreciate the magic of the most pure and perfect mascot in restaurant history.
“Who has the Prospective Specimen Gentle Inhibition Digital Applier?”
The manager squeezed his manual against his chest. “The clicker is in my office, and I just locked that down!”
“No, I’ve got it,” said one of the security guards, fishing around in his pocket.
Both of them fumbled, nearly dropping the little cylinder with a button on one end that looked so much like a detonator. When he had it securely in his grip, the manager said, “We’ll deal with your demerit later. Right now—”
Half a second, Penny!
He pushed the button.
Then he pushed it again.
And again. And again. And again. I kept the ‘half a second’ setting in mind as the room flickered and strobed around me.
“Sh—not—ting—off!” someone shouted.
Closer to hand, Gerty wailed, “My—ty—rl—hurt! Som—fe—a sm—salt! Wa—r! Gr—ed bl—ck—per!”
Somewhere in there, I went from being hugged to cradled in Gerty’s arms as she leaped and stomped and stumbled across the room. She charged right through the pack of employees, some of whom were definitely repeating, “Sparkle sparkle sparkle,” so I had more than one defender.
About there, the manager dropped the robot shutoff device. Ampexia thrust out a hand, fingers spread. Her glove vibrated, then the clicker vibrated, and it flew across the room right into her grip.
You Believe Her Page 11
