Ampexia jutted out her chin stubbornly. “That’s my partner, and at least kinda my friend. I’m not going to stand here and watch her get hurt.”
That was all the time I had for them, because Meatbag Penny scooped a handful of cubes out of a different pocket, and said, “Let’s try these!”
She threw. Gerty, across the lot, either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Thankfully, with my terrible eyesight, my biological body’s aim stank. I sprinted to one side, and all the cubes missed me. When they did hit a spot, they exploded in purple goo that whipped tentacles around, grabbed any stones or bricks they encountered, and squeezed together into a tight knot.
Just running away was not going to help me for long, and we both knew it. In fact, my double looked guilty, and tugged at one of her braided pigtails in an awkward, behind-her-shoulder gesture. “You don’t have any defensive gear? Seriously? We don’t have to do this. I’ll let you call it even. Ruining an already ruined paintball court isn’t the kind of crime I’d lose sleep over.”
I held up a reassuring hand. “It’s okay, heroic evil twin. My defenses are weak at the moment, but I have one overwhelming advantage. I’ve been playing with Gerty longer, which means I’ve gotten more hugs than you.”
Gerty’s gasp echoed back to us. “That’s right! It’s not fair! I can’t love one of you more than the other. I’m coming, Penelope!”
Aw, she’d learned my name, and recognized we were the same person.
My double took a nervous step backwards, but did not flee. Like me, being at ground zero of a Gerty Goat hugstorm did not sound like that bad an idea to her. It was certainly adorable how Gerty rocketed over, swept Meatbag Penny off the ground, and swung from side to side, giving her the most tender, engulfing, determined hug ever administered by robot to child.
Besides, we both knew Gerty wouldn’t let her be hurt while in Gerty’s care.
Good thing I had no intention of hurting her.
While my double dug into apron and carpeting and enjoyed the embrace, I strolled up to the two of them, took hold of one of her swinging feet, and scooped off the golden band.
That got Other Me’s attention. She shouted, “What? Hey! You dastardly, conniving robot!” and started kicking. Kicking quite hard, and if I hadn’t been much stronger than her, I wouldn’t have been able to wrestle down her other leg and take off that band, too.
Gerty blinked. Her head tilted forward, looking down at me. Quietly aghast, she asked, “Penelope, are you… stealing?”
I shook my head confidently. “Nope. She’s me, and I’m her. I can’t steal from myself.”
My duplicate shrugged. “Can’t argue with that logic.”
Slipping the golden bands over my own boots, I experimented with how they worked. Let’s see. It wasn’t frictionless sliding like Claire’s shoe inserts. My double hadn’t leaned her feet. I kept one foot completely flat, and kicked off with the other.
That did it. I scooted several feet back, like riding a railway track.
“You’re not trying very hard,” I said to my duplicate.
“Who? Me?” she asked, not even trying to hide her smug confidence. Batting her lashes up at Gerty (I couldn’t see it under the goggles, but I knew what I would do) she told the goat sweetly, “Gerty, now I’ve had all of my hugs and all of my hugs, and yet it’s impossible to have too many hugs. When you can explain this and show off your amazing skating skills simultaneously, then truly you will be the master of both farm and kitchen.”
Gerty stared at her, motionless. Admittedly, Gerty never moved except to do something specific, but right now the stillness stood out. Opening her arms, she let my double fall to the ground. Rotating, the animatronic goat rolled off through the dirt and debris. After several seconds she pirouetted, chanting, “What is the sound of one butter patting?”
My double and I exchanged a look of mixed humor, fondness, and respect. Quietly, we walked together around to the opposite side of the Defenestrator from Gerty.
The Defenestrator had gotten big. It towered over us now, with the Machine a rippling band of construction tools sliding up and down to build more, while tracks and cables connected that to the base digging farther and farther into the ground. I was just a little worried we would destroy a subway tunnel.
On the way, I picked up the bag of paintball guns. Other Me picked up her discarded staff. We both understood, so she wasn’t really surprised when I decided we’d reached the right spot, and I yanked out a gun with my left hand and opened fire on her from close range.
One of her hands darted up, forming the shield I could only see because of the sparkles when my paintball blobs bounced off. Without the foot straps, that didn’t push her away, but it kept her busy for a moment. My right hand scooped up the weather sponge. I had to act fast, because she would have a plan in a couple of seconds, tops. I gave the sponge two squeezes. The first splattered water over my double’s head, and specifically over her goggles. With wet lenses, she was momentarily blind. The second squeeze poured water into the pile of dirt under her feet.
That was why I’d chosen this spot. This was the least packed-down dirt I could find. To my delight, a private hope came true. This was, after all, agricultural equipment meant for irrigation. It didn’t just rain water down on the ground. It coalesced the water inside the dirt, mixing it in directly. The result was that my double now stood in gooey, ankle-deep mud.
I tackled her. She had started to swing her staff around, no doubt with a plan more subtle than just blasting me, but blinding her gave me just that extra bit of time to act first. My body hit the shield, revealing it by the rainbow glitter as a rounded disk like an actual shield. Like with the paint balls, it might block me, but the force of the blow carried through. Now she didn’t have her sliding boots to carry her away, and she merely tripped in the slippery mud and fell on her back.
I grabbed the wrist with the staff. A couple of seconds of struggling, and I forced the shield band off her hand. We wrestled and rolled until I got the other hand, pinning my back against her and ignoring the punches and kicks until I’d yanked loose the other band as well.
Scrambling away, I wriggled the bands on over my own gloves. We both kneeled, panting for breath. Maybe technically I didn’t need to, but I felt like I did.
Applause caught our attention, and we looked up to see Lucyfar clapping and smirking wickedly. Her battle costume of black phantom stuff had disappeared, leaving her in faded black civilian jeans and a shirt. “Wait five years and do this again. People will pay to watch.”
Ampexia grunted. Stiff-legged, she stalked away from the rest of us, shouting, “Gerty! Hey, food machine! They’re all playing games. Can you make me some chocolate chip cookies?”
Lucyfar skipped after her. “Ooh, yeah, cookies! Goat Time for Lucy at last!”
I tried the activating gesture for the forcefield gloves. Two fingers out, two pressed against the band. A jabbing motion produced sparks when it hit the ground, pushing me up and making me stumble to get my feet under me. Sweet, these could even fire like a projectile. How far? Note to Penny: this equipment set deserves experiment and training.
My double, having actual breath, was taking longer to get hers back. She stared up at me cautiously, picked up her staff, and slowly climbed to her muddy, muddy feet. She also scowled a lot. “Is that what this is about? Ambushing me and stealing my tech?”
Got it in one. I needed defensive gear, and this was all about suckering her in as an excuse to take it. I’d had my computer waiting to pick up references to her testing equipment, or ‘heroism’, ‘training’, or ‘villainy.’
Admitting any of that would give away my advantage, however. I glared back at her instead. “Excuse me? I remind you again, you attacked me. The finest source of mad science technology in the world picked a fight with me, and I’m taking advantage of the opportunity. Besides, you’re still going easy on me.”
“Hey! I’m—” She stopped, and shrugged. “Okay, yeah, I could be fighting harder. I just
can’t wait to pull my trump card on you.” Flashing me a sudden, manic, evil grin, she asked, “Are you going to let me?”
I shouldn’t. She was blatantly manipulating me, luring me into a weak position. The smart thing to do would be to tackle her again, now, tie her up, collect the Machine, and run for the hills. Possibly also steal her bomb belt and dump that in the sewers. I didn’t want it for myself.
But this wasn’t a desperate situation, and I had what I wanted. It was also smart to save ruthlessness for when I needed it, right? Keep some tricks of my own in reserve, and coax my enemy into revealing all of hers early. That was the path of wisdom.
Okay, and curiosity was already eating me alive. I let out an aggrieved sigh. “Go ahead. I’m still going to kick your butt.”
Wiping a muddy hand on her chest, she pulled a little tube out of one of the many near-invisible white pockets on our white jumpsuit. Not just a tube, a candy dispenser, with a plastic head on the top that sported a red-striped face and plastic crown. Ah, yes, someone else was playing Princess of the Closet Monsters, and going the vengeance route.
I set my feet, and shot a shield blast at the ground in front of me. Sure enough, that skated me backwards a few yards, hopefully far enough to react to whatever my twin was about to unleash.
She popped the top of the tube, and a fat white pill slid out. Not an ordinary pill. Tiny lights orbited it, like a stylized atom.
With great gusto, she dropped that pill into her mouth, and swallowed it.
Note to Penny: Playing manipulative mind games with yourself is seriously weird. We both knew exactly what the other would respond to, and just had to hope that our secrets would win out over the other’s.
Speaking of, I watched her like a hawk. Flames? Light distortions? Sudden movements? What powers would this give her? What was about to happen?
The answer was ‘laughter.’ She laughed, high pitched and rolling. “Ha! Ah ha ha ha! Yes! It’s so obvious. So easy. Why didn’t I see it before?”
Criminy. She sounded nuts. Not playing around, completely insane, with a skewed, tight grin and jerky movements. What had she done to herself? It was like how people described me… when…
She flicked the cogs of her battle staff, called out confidently, “Copper!” and waved it.
…when my super power took over.
I put up both shields and backpedaled, fast. The red ribbon that flicked out of the staff rolled off of them, leaving a pillar of copper metal rising up a good ten feet high.
“Steel! Polyvinylchloride!” she shouted, flicking the staff twice more. I tried to slide away first, only to find myself both times headed straight into the blast, and having to put up a shield a split second before being encased.
My super power knew everything. That was one thing I remembered after using it. Absolute knowledge. Not technically seeing the future, but close enough it didn’t matter. If this kept up, in a few seconds I would be trapped in a cage.
Fortunately, another trait of my super power was its total lack of purpose. Other Me’s attention wandered, and she stopped shooting at me to step up to the tower instead. While I squeezed out a gap between the pillars, she located the blueprint embedded in the now-gargantuan Machine. Pulling a miniature screwdriver out of her pocket, she expertly poked the blue sponge.
Note to Penny: Carry tools. You have the pockets for them.
Second Note to Penny: Moot. I already have the Machine, better than any other tool.
The Machine would only obey my orders, but it thought the blueprint was my orders. Now the pattern of the ring sliding up and down the tower altered, hastily making changes. Subtle changes. Metal arms were replaced with near-identical arms. Nothing really looked different.
It hit me. Oh, Tesla. My double had a way of activating my super power at will, and interfacing with it better than I ever had before. Aside from the giggling, she was mostly coherent. This was bad, bad news.
“Glass!” shouted Other Me suddenly. The cogs on her staff hadn’t quite stopped spinning, and she stabbed it out, not at me, but at the pillars she’d grown a minute ago. A big glass rectangle grew into place on top of those spires, like… a window.
The Defenestrator swiveled on its base. I yelled as loud as I could, “Hey, Gerty!”
Yes, my double was close enough to my power to at least know what I was doing. She gasped. “Don’t you dare.”
“GRITS!!!”
On the far side of the tower, something went ‘bang’, in a big way. Lucyfar yelped. A big cloud of white stuff fountained into the air, only to rain down again in tiny white kernels, like grains of sand.
Feet pounding loudly, Gerty ran past us, waving her stiff arms and shouting, “I can fix it! Don’t worry, they’re just grits? What? You don’t know what grits are? I guess there’s a lot of foods only people who live in one part of the country know about. So…”
And, having given the warm-up speech from her ‘grits’ stage routine, she started in on the song. “Is there chile in your chili? Or is poutine more your thing? I’ve eaten more kinds of pizza than they’ll give me time to sing…!”
Gerty’s performance distracted Meatbag Penny for a couple of seconds. It did not distract the Defenestrator. The Machine had finally switched enough parts, and an arm extended from the tower, swiping down over me. I put up both shields, but long, clawed metal fingers merely curled around the disks to close on my torso.
And then it groaned, and the arm twitched, and nothing else happened.
Ha! Clogged by horrible, perfectly named grits. Thank you, Gerty.
My double just giggled, her shoulders jerking from side to side. “Hee hee! Oh, that was good. So clever. Useless, but clever. Don’t you see? No, you can’t, but I can. We live in a world of possibilities. There’s nothing that isn’t a machine.”
I cleared my throat, because I needed a little courage to try and communicate with that insane ramble. “This is getting too spooky. I’m going to confiscate those power augmenting pills for our own good.”
“These? By all means, take them!” she asked between giggles. Leaning heavily to one side, she held up the candy dispenser, then tossed it over to me. I grabbed it, and stuffed it down my shirt. She wasn’t getting that back in a hurry.
My double lurched forward now, almost hump-backed, her grin wild and her voice cracking. “I’ll just recover them from the blast crater.” She slapped the cogs of the battle staff, spinning them to a no doubt perfectly judged speed, and jammed the head of it into a gap in the tower.
It didn’t reach. Or rather, it did, but the cogs stopped moving before then. They were jammed in place by a dozen floating black knives.
Lucyfar stepped up behind my double, one hand on a hip, smirking in disapproval. “I like a fight and some chaos more than the next girl, but I draw the line at being blown to bloody smithereens.”
If she had anything else to say, she didn’t get a chance. Grits might have seized up the arm now poised above me, but another arm functioned just fine as it dipped down, grabbed hold of Lucyfar, and hurled her through the window Meatbag Penny had built atop her metal spires. As glass rained down everywhere and Lucyfar disappeared over the roof of the paintball shack, her voice dopplered. “Wooorth iiiiiiiit!”
All that registered only in the background. As soon as the Defenestrator started to move, so did I. I pulled free of its frozen claws, and charged Other Me with my head down. I didn’t use the sliding boots. I wasn’t going to make it that easy to dodge.
She giggled, looking confused. I grabbed hold of the staff, and yanked. It took a little struggling, but superior robot strength won out, and I pulled it out of her hands.
She staggered, holding the back of her head and stammering. “Hey! I—I need that. If I spin it at… three hundred… two revolutions per second? And release a charge into the Defenestrator of vibrations that… nitrogen molecules… uh…”
And from outside the walls of the arena, my mother’s voice asked, “Penelope Akk, are you playing s
uperhero without asking me first?”
My double looked lost and confused as our super power drained away. She’d fought it down by forcing it to try and explain how its creations worked. The pills might bring her closer to our power, but they were far from a perfect integration.
Thank Tesla.
Not that my problems were over. I had absolutely no desire to face my mother under these circumstances. “Machine, abort! Forget your gathered materials, return to me now! Gerty, we need to go home fast. I think I left tater tots in the oven!”
I had just enough time to scoop up the Machine when it wriggled free of the tower before Gerty caught me in both arms. Hoisting me up into the air, she galloped through the paintball shack, ignoring its walls and babbling, “Oh, those poor, burned tater tots! We have to save them, in the name of fried potato deliciousness!!”
Lucy and Ampexia could take care of themselves. Ampexia was particularly good at escapes. Momentarily safe, I rooted around in my shirt until I came up with the candy dispenser. A quick peek inside showed several more of those glowy atom pills.
I crushed them all in my fist, squeezing and grinding until they were nothing but dust and plastic shards. No more of that. Watching myself go destructively insane had not been fun.
But.
The plan had been a total success, right? I knew there’d be a lot of winging it. I still had the mega-plow on my left hip, and the irrigator, and now my old unpredictable staff. Most importantly, I had an absolutely fantastic new pair of defensive tools that already had my mind swimming with possibilities.
My debt to Lucyfar was paid, and I had proven again that I was the better Penny. Even directly invoking our super power hadn’t been enough to help her win.
Now it was time to lay low, have some fun, and let her suspicions cool. Hmmm. Where could I find a stasis field and a mind switcher?
Mom and Dad,
I can do this. It’s just camp. I’ll be home soon, I promise.
Missing You,
Penny
You Believe Her Page 27
