“You’re the one who attacked me in a crowded public place.”
“I’m not here to attack you!”
She sneered down at my mega plow. “I’m sure the innocent bystanders are relieved. Or are your weapons precision-targeted?”
She had me there. The diners around us were relying on me to not fire, because if I did, there’d be a few broken bones at least.
The parasite met my silence with smug satisfaction. It knew it had scored a point. Ray, confident now that the innocent were safe, let go of our arms.
Picking up her cola cup by the lid, my doppelgänger swirled it gently and gave me a challenging, haughty stare. “So if you’re not here for a fight, why are you interrupting my time with my boyfriend?”
Yes. That. Lowering my weapon, merely cradling it ready in both arms, I straightened up to give her my own balefully proud glower. “I’m just here—”
“Penny, is that you?” shouted a familiar voice. From across the street, a familiar figure leaped up into the air, and swooped across the intervening distance to land next to me.
Claudia was instantly recognizable, of course, not just because she was the only girl I personally knew who could fly. She looked happier and more relaxed than the last time I’d seen her, but the too-quiet, damaged look in her eyes might never go away. Where everyone else was wearing as little as possible in the late summer heat, she had on a white dress shirt with a cream sweater over it, a long cream skirt, and blue stockings underneath. Note to Penny: Add resistance to temperature extremes to the terrifying list of Claudia’s powers. It did look good against her dusky skin.
I had to admit, it was nice to see her smile and hear enthusiasm in her normally haunted voice as she addressed me. “Of course. Who else our age would dress… like… what is going on?”
Anger took over, and I snarled. “A brain tumor stole my body.”
Planting her hands on the tabletop and half-rising, the parasite growled back, “A delusional robot is trying to steal my body.”
Claudia’s mouth opened. A shock of surprise, with hints of pain, turned her voice quiet and her expression plaintive. “Why didn’t you come to me immediately?”
I didn’t know which of us she meant, but we both shouted, “No!”
“I don’t want you involved,” said the parasite.
“I’ve been trying to keep you from finding out,” I said.
Claudia looked confused. Maybe a little betrayed, but it was impossible to tell for sure with those eyes.
Softening my tone, I said, “What kind of friend would I be if I convinced you to retire from heroing, except when it’s convenient to me?”
The thing in my body, equally gentle, raised a hand to not quite touch Claudia’s arm. “You’ve carried the world on your shoulders more already than anyone should in their whole life.”
I looked across at the parasite, shocked. Those exact words has been lining up on my tongue.
No. I didn’t… I didn’t want this to be true.
She gave me a tight, mouth-twisted, miserable glare that I would bet was exactly my expression. She’d seen it too.
We talked over each other. We made the same brilliant, not-entirely-thought-out plans. Nobody could tell us apart. Arguing with her was like arguing with a mirror. The cursed pennies didn’t work on either of us. We both looked at Ray the same way. What hurt her so much that it was the point of her first scheme? What was my greatest comfort? That I’d inherited the Machine.
There was only so much she could be faking.
Ray and Claudia watched us, their eyes turning from one to the other. All they understood was that we were hurting. It made Ray turn wide-eyed, like his world was falling out from under him. Claudia’s anguish was pleading. For all her incredible power, she couldn’t fix this.
The words tasted like bile. My tongue struggled to choke them off. Maybe if I’d needed it to speak, I wouldn’t be able to say them, but I had to. “You’re not just a parasite.”
My biological double grimaced, teeth clenched so hard her head shook, but she forced it down and husked, “You’re not just a robot.”
Ugh. I wanted so badly to find an excuse, but she’d spoken too quickly, echoed my exact feelings. I had to tell her. “You have the good parts of me.”
“We both do,” agreed the other Penny.
The words were easier now. I’d gone numb. “Which means we’re both the real Penny Akk.”
She covered her face with a trembling hand, rubbing it up and off again before speaking. “All three of us. I shouldn’t have—”
I could spare her the pain of confession. “No, I get it. You were right about us both being equally ruthless. So was she.”
She smiled, a shred of humor in this lake of painful truth. “Yeah. That’s what got us into this mess.”
Claudia, her face returned to the blank, haunted stillness I was used to, said, “You are both Penny Akk.” As empty as her expression might be, she sounded emphatic.
Ray did not look blank. His face had gone so pale and tight, I thought he might cry. “There are some things only Penny would say.” He knew me. Maybe only Claire knew me better. Both of me.
The other Penny and I drew deep breaths at the same time. We’d be echoing echoing each other that way a lot. I’d have to get used to it.
I spoke first. “But we only have one body.”
The flesh and blood Penny, the version of me that loved bombs and got carried away, nodded. She stood up, facing me formally. “I don’t see a peaceful solution to this. Do you?”
“No.” Mom and Dad would take in both of us, but that wasn’t enough. Only the Penny with our original body would have our true, full life. I would not relinquish that to her, even if she deserved it as much as I did. Neither would I expect her to surrender. Even if she was what stayed behind when I got transferred to this body, that made us equal halves, with an equal claim she wouldn’t give up.
I did not want any of that to be true. But it was.
Ray looked back and forth between our solemn, hard faces. “Please don’t fight.” He was begging, now. It tugged at my heart. Nothing was more Ray, or more why I loved him. When all the jokes were over, what he truly cared about was no one getting hurt. Especially me. Either of me.
But as much as we hated disappointing him, he begged in vain. The other Penny spoke for us. “I’m sorry. This can’t be stopped.”
Both of us reached out, and took one of his hands in one of ours, but our eyes never left each other.
Claudia didn’t beg. She spoke with a quiet, flat confidence. “I can and will stop you from killing each other, even if you make me fight through every hero and villain in Los Angeles to do it.”
I cocked my head at the question that raised. “What are the stakes here?”
The Penny in my real body answered, “I am going to break you, put the Hearts of Steel and Gold on a shelf, and after I finish college I’ll make you both new bodies to wear. By then there will be no point in trying take back our body, and Mom and Dad can raise you as my younger robot sisters.”
My turn. “I’m going to kidnap you, seal you in a stasis field, and hide you until I can switch our souls. Then I’ll do the same thing with the Hearts that you’re planning.”
Her mouth tightened at the corners, but the rest of her relaxed. “I made it plain to Mom and Dad that this is my duel to fight. I’m positive that whoever wins, they’ll accept her as real. They don’t like it, but they know this isn’t about who’s real, it’s about who gets our body. They said so, and we didn’t pay attention.”
She’d already told our folks this was just between us. It was exactly what I would do. Another reminder that she wasn’t just faking this.
Twisting her nose up in revulsion, the other me said, “I can’t stop the heroes. They’ve got it into their heads that it’s noble to save me from you, and won’t listen. I’ve tried.”
I waved a hand. “As long as you don’t deliberately call them in.”
She shook her head viciously. “No way. This is between us.”
“This puts…” Ray started, then hesitated.
His awkwardness made me grin. I couldn’t help it. I pointed at me, then at the other Penny. “Robot Penny. Meatbag Penny.”
Meatbag Penny nodded approvingly. Neither of us sounded more real than the other.
Ray smiled, but it was grim, which was completely appropriate. “This puts Robot Penny at a severe disadvantage. You don’t look afraid.”
I couldn’t shrug, but I twitched my upper torso to tilt one shoulder higher than the other for a moment. “I’m better than her.”
Meatbag Penny didn’t answer. She tried to keep it off her face, but I understood her silence. I was right. She’d noticed it too, in that first fight. We might both be legitimate, might be Penny in the real and important ways, but I had an edge.
“I don’t want this to happen,” said Claudia, but now that she knew we weren’t going to kill each other, the determination had gone out.
The other me gave her a weak but affectionate smile. “Take care of yourself, Claudia.”
I nodded. “Please.”
Ray started to say something, but I touched a fingertip to his mouth, hushing him.
“The prize has to stay neutral,” I warned him, and flashed a sly grin.
Ha! He blushed. He actually blushed.
“Then when next we meet—” my double began.
“—we meet as rivals,” we finished together.
Leaning down, I kissed Ray on the cheek. “Sorry about the date.” Then I turned my back to him, Meatbag Penny, and Claudia, closing the conversation.
Ampexia had been watching us all with her arms folded, and as I walked past and she fell in next to me, she said, “This isn’t goofy at all, is it?”
I shook my head. “Nothing is more serious.”
She scratched her head behind her earphones, from which I could hear the faint scratching sounds of music. Awkward now, she said, “Listen, you two are dueling one on one, but I’m going to be there for you all the way. You did the same for me.”
Grinning, I raised a fist, and she bumped hers against mine.
In fact, my grin widened a little, and I had to force myself to sound apologetic. “Fair warning. My duel is completely serious, but this next bit I have planned? Not so much.”
ot that I leaped immediately into the fray. Timing is important. No, the next stage involved me waking up in the morning to my phone ringing.
The caller was either very lucky, or had called repeatedly. Once I pressed my off button, there was no waking me until time ran out.
Groping for the phone, I tapped the answer button and croaked, “What.”
“You owe me,” said the voice on the other end.
I groaned. “I was up until four a.m. playing Princess of the Closet Monsters. When I close my eyes, I still see giant spiders falling out of suitcases.”
This whole tired and groggy routine was a total fraud, of course, but it felt good to pretend.
“We had a deal, Bad Penny. A pact sworn to evil itself.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let me check my logs.” I stumbled to my feet, hunched forward and stomping audibly as I crossed out into the pink main room of my pink new lair over to the bank of computers. After clicking my mouse around a little, I said, “Okay, fine. We can do it this morning, but I get to pick where.”
She hung up, and I poked with my mouse a little more. It was so, so convenient to have exactly the same voice and speech patterns as the person I was spying on. I could leave a computer to look for word cues, and not have to do all the creepy listening in on conversations that the Lutras no doubt got a kick out of.
Echo had presumably felt the same way, which was why he’d bundled this voice recognition function into his tracking software. Good man.
I showered, and drank a box of robot juice to finish the human experience, and headed upstairs, to be met with a scene that took my nonexistent breath away.
In the living room, her clothes badly rumpled and half-dressed, surrounded by a heap of electronic debris, sat my new partner Ampexia. Over her loomed Gerty Goat, frying pan extended and filled with gooey, freshly cooked pizza. Nearly filled, at least. Ampexia had a fat slice in her hands, with lines of cheese extending from it to her mouth as she chewed.
Struggling to make sense of what I was seeing, I said, “I thought you didn’t eat food that appears out of nowhere!”
Ampexia took another huge, savage bite, chewing hastily and swallowing. Her eyes half-closed, and she crooned in ecstatic satisfaction. “That was before I found out how good a cook this robot is.”
I smirked, one cheek pulled up tight. “Funny, that. The pizza at her restaurant is terrible.”
Gerty jerked, going from leaning over Ampexia to straight upright so fast the pizza shot into the air, flipped once, and landed perfectly in the pan again. “They wouldn’t let me cook! That’s why I left. Good kids deserve good food, and to this goat all kids are good kids. Even the ones without horns.”
Ampexia also straightened up, grinning at a sudden thought. She grabbed my sleeve and tugged. “Oh! Watch this. Hey, Robo-Goat. How about some crushed red pepper?”
“Activating spiciness protocols,” announced a sweet, liquid, girlish voice. Gerty thrust the pan into Ampexia’s hands, and transformed. The barrel of a cannon rose out of her forearm, and one after another hatches opened everywhere else in her body. Long, thin arms extended, attaching cables, pipes, pistons, and less-identifiable pieces of machinery. In a glass globe, burgundy light swirled, increasingly shot through with white electrical arcs. What looked like an ammo drum spun up until it whined. She leveled the barrel at the pizza Ampexia held up like a shield.
“Uh,” I said, in case that helped.
Machinery kicked into gear so fast the arm cannon let out a series of squeals, and then a loud thud. Flakes of red pepper puffed out of the gun barrel in a brief, delicate cloud that ever-so-lightly dusted the surface of the pizza.
Faster even than it had been assembled, the red pepper gun came apart, its pieces withdrawn into their storage spaces. Ampexia took a bite of the next slice, and gave Gerty a thumbs up.
I applauded, and said in all sincerity, “I wish I could watch this all day, but it’s time to get your gear together. Ridiculousness is about to happen.”
Gerty swung her arms up over her head. “YAY!”
“Okay, here!”
“Here?” asked Ampexia, voice sharp with disbelief, and probably disgust.
“Here! Find a parking space!”
She gave me a dirty look for that one. A parking space would not be difficult to find. The one thing this neighborhood had was space. It looked like a war zone. The only functional building for several blocks was the front of a giant, irregular, tarp-walled lot. A paintball arena, in fact.
I checked my phone. Yes, this was it. We must have gotten here first. I wasn’t going to argue with good luck!
Lucyfar hopped out of the bed of the truck, and was waiting when Ampexia and I climbed out of the cab. Stamping her foot, the Princess of Darkness complained, “You should have let me drive. We’d have been here twenty minutes ago.”
“It took twenty minutes for Bad Penny to convince me to let you ride at all,” said Ampexia, fitting on her backpack and gloves.
Lucyfar’s pout did not go away, and she added folded arms to the expression. “You could at least have let me play with the goat.”
Ignoring her, I climbed up onto the truck bed, where Gerty sat with her fingers in her ears, her eyes shut, and her breath held. Her ears were just long rectangles sticking off the side of her head, but that wasn’t the point. She believed she couldn’t hear anything, and that had kept Lucyfar from waking her up.
Now I had to outwit myself to get her attention. Hmmm.
Reaching around her massive torso, I dug my fingers into her armpits and tickled furiously. Just in case my intentions were not clear, I chanted, “Tickle tickle tickle!”
<
br /> For about three seconds, nothing happened. Then her whole body quivered. Finally, her arms flapped up into the air, her eyes opened, and she barked, “HAAAAA!” in an explosion of released breath. Semi-literally, as some mechanism inside her released a blast of air from her mouth.
I hugged her, and said, “You did it, Gerty! Now let’s go inside. Lucy has a game for us to play. I don’t know what it is yet, but you can bet it will be crazy.”
She lurched upright and shouted. “Gerty Goat doesn’t take or make bets. Remember kids, gambol, not gamble!” Between that and the crash as she jumped out onto the asphalt, everyone for at least a mile knew we were here.
Lucyfar had already forgotten her, eying the dull green and brown paintball hut with a wicked grin. Rubbing her hands together, she said, “This will be perfect. Let’s go commit the strangest crime in Los Angeles history.”
Trying to pretend I wasn’t itching to find out what that meant, I shrugged. “A deal is a deal.”
Beside me, Ampexia muttered, “Not that she did anything to fulfill her side.”
Lucyfar kicked the shop door open, and stepped inside. Black knives formed in a halo around her, above and below her outstretched arms. “Let all who claim to have innocent hearts flee before me, for Lucyfar tries to drag only the wicked down to their destruction. Everybody else, you should also run away, but find a good spot to record this with your phones. It’ll be a hoot.”
Gerty hooted twice, like an old fashioned train whistle.
“Just not a hoot you’ll want to be within telescoping mechanical arm’s distance of,” said Lucyfar.
A couple of high school boys eyed her, tempted, but good sense won out. They edged around the walls to the door, and ran for it.
That left only the proprietor, with the nervous but basically calm stillness of someone who had dealt with supervillains many times. Leaning on his counter, I said, “And fill me up a bunch of paintball guns.”
While he snapped things onto bulbous, brightly-colored fake guns, he also pressed a button on the wall. I could hear the echo of his voice outside through a PA system. “The park is closed due to real supervillain attack. Leave through the nearest emergency exit, and do it fast. By the time you find out why it’s not safe to stick around, it will be too late.”
You Believe Her Page 25
