After a little grumbling, she said, “What did you expect? Brian and Beebee are royalty in the community. Little Penelope Akk was the princess they kept in a tower, who proved she had what it takes to inherit the crown when she became Bad Penny.”
I took a wooden chair, and Miss Lutra took the one next to me. Leaning over a few inches, her voice low but still audible to the others, she said, “She’s exaggerating, but a lot of people do care about you. Fame has some unexpected downsides, and this is one of them.”
Scowling harder, Pong raised her voice in symbolic protest of the others’ trivialities. “The point is, I’d like to smuggle you out of town until they forget.” Leaning forward, hands clasped tightly in concern, she looked me directly in the eyes. “Please. I know you want your body back, but it’s not worth dying for. If you’re here, you must be having second thoughts.”
“Bet you a grand they’re not the thoughts you’re thinking she’s thought,” said Lucyfar, eyes closed and body limp.
“We could let Penny tell us herself,” suggested Miss Lutra.
Despite my dragging my feet, the spotlight was finally on me. I pulled the X Device out of my corset. “They’ve gone crazy because I have this.”
Lucyfar turned her head and opened one eye. Pong leaned back in her chair, silver tattoos shimmering on her arm as she toyed with an earring. Someone else had a nervous tic. “We used one of those to transfer my son. Of course, it only had a single arrow, since the robot body was empty.”
“Oooooooh,” said Lucyfar, reaching towards me.
Pong slapped her hand. “Don’t touch it. There’s no button. It’s literally just touch both ends to two different people and it activates.”
I flashed a cynical grin. “I hope this doesn’t offend you, Lucy, but there’s no way I’m letting the crazy mischief-maker play with it.”
She stuck out her lower lip like a six year old, or like Claire, either way. “Aw.” Miss Lutra, hands drawn back so she couldn’t possibly touch the X Device by accident, prompted, “You’re ready to go, but you have cold feet. Why?”
I did the shoulder-tilting thing I was using to approximate a shrug. “Because I’m a hollow shell with no blood circulation.”
“Woo!” shouted Lucyfar, rearing up and leaning over, extending her arm. I gave her a high five, and we both settled back into our seats.
Fortified by that moment of ridiculousness, I let out a heavy sigh and got serious. “The truth is… it’s about these power enhancers my double made. She keeps taking them to fight me, and every time she does, she gets crazier. I think they’re damaging her brain. Our brain. When I grabbed the switcher yesterday, I didn’t even fight her and she went straight for one.”
Miss Lutra’s mouth tightened, and tilted, in a brief, pained, but elegant grimace. “Claire is worried, too. She’s seen Penelope take one of the pills for demonstration purposes. More importantly, Penelope herself is worried, but she sees them as her only reliable way of driving this Penny off.”
Lucyfar’s hand shot into the air. “Yo. Lucyfar, Times of Dis. You all act like they’re both the same girl. How can this one be better than that one?”
Tucking the X Device back into its hiding spot, I clasped my hands, wringing them and watching the segmented joints move. “I’ve thought about that a lot. It seems like she makes better plans ahead of time, but in the chaos of a fight, I adapt and come up with new plans better.”
“And not many fights go the way you planned them,” added Pong, going past ‘confident’ to ‘bitter experience.’
The other two agreed, Miss Lutra by twitching her cheek in a momentary, ironic smile , and Lucyfar by rolling her eyes and her head with them.
I went back to watching my hands. Now that I had to tell them to someone else, these thoughts made even less sense. “I don’t know why that is. I would swear she’s my less-controlled, more impulsive side.”
Now it was Lucyfar who chimed in. “Oh, no, I get that. It takes discipline to think clearly in the middle of a battle. I’ve fought you, and kid, you do not freak out, no matter what. You turn into cold, calculating ice.”
With the mind switcher put away again, Miss Lutra felt safe to give me a small nudge with her elbow. “Go on, dear.”
Yeah. Um. “I’m worried. A lot worried. This next fight is for all the marbles. I can’t afford anything else, and I can’t afford to not give it everything. Neither can she, and she is going to freak out. How many more of those power-stimulating pills will it take to destroy our brain? Just one? Can I take that risk?”
My voice fluttered, but I’d said it. I was terrified of turning myself into a psycho-vegetable, a walking super power with no room for Penelope Akk in her brain.
The other three left me in silence for a second. Miss Lutra, voice quiet and face blank, said, “If you sincerely give up the fight, your parents will take you back. The other Penny would love for this to be over.”
Yes, with her winning by default.
Pong tried to sound noncommittal instead of tender, staring out the window past me. “You can be a robot and human. Some people do, and are happy with their lives.”
A little more silence. My expression must have been a picture, because Miss Lutra said, “You miss Brian and Beebee terribly, don’t you. Claire said you’re writing letters.”
My hand went automatically to the pocket I kept the papers and pencil in. “Uh… yeah.”
“Can I see them?” she asked, holding out her hand. Tentatively, though. Not very far.
I appreciated the implied permission to refuse, but really, why not? I pulled out the folded stack, and passed them to her. Most were really just sticky notes and cards I’d scribbled something quick on. She flipped through them as seriously as if they were holy script.
That gave me time to sort out my thoughts. Folding my arms over my knees, I leaned way over, staring at the floor as the words shuffled into place. “I know they will always love me, but that would be… second best. I can only get part of my life back that way, and… I don’t feel comfortable letting the other Penny… hold my brain and body… hostage.”
“So whatcha gonna do?” asked Lucyfar, lying in place with her eyes closed again.
“Well, there was my original plan to get Mourning Dove to burn my super power out of my brain. She’d said she could do it. Would I give up my power to get my body back? I would certainly give my power up to save it. That was all easy when I thought what was in my body was just a parasite, but now… Okay, she’s as fully Penny as me, but still more attached to my super power. What if destroying it lobotomized her?”
That all came out in a dribble, word by forced word. No one interrupted, and when I finished, they stayed silent.
I looked up at two solemn faces, Miss Lutra holding my papers but looking at me, now. Lucyfar looked unconscious, but as the silence stretched, she said, “I hate to be wise, but you don’t want our opinion, Penny. Our job is to listen to you make your own decision, so you know someone will catch you if your thinking goes straight off the rails.”
Which meant I hadn’t. But that didn’t mean I was right. “Or maybe… maybe I have this backwards. It feels weird to echo Heart of Gold, but maybe I can’t leave my body in the grip of someone who will destroy it to keep it. Not only can I not let her keep it hostage, I have to rescue myself. Rescue both of us.”
Still more silence. I looked up. “You’re not going to pressure me either way?”
From the couch, Lucyfar flapped a lazy hand. “Pfft. Like we care.”
Pong’s face hardened, her nose bunched up in pained disgust. “No fourteen year old should have to make decisions like this herself.”
Miss Lutra’s look of distress was a lot sleeker, but she didn’t hide the upset in her voice. “No one can make this decision for her, Pong. And Penny, if anyone your age can see this through, it’s you.”
That exchange should have depressed me, but I appreciated the faith Miss Lutra had in me more. In fact, maybe I was looking at all
of this backwards.
I took another deep breath, and I could swear I felt it rattle through my lungs. Straightening up in my chair, I said, “Then I’d better go haunt my flesh and blood double’s footsteps. This has to end today.”
Still solemn, but with a bit of encouragement in her tone, Miss Lutra said, “All right. Lucyfar, can you take her home? I need to go in exactly the opposite direction.”
“But Mooooooom…!” Lucyfar whined, kicking her feet.
All the way back to playful, Miss Lutra noted, “She’s living in a seaside mansion.”
Lucyfar sat bolt upright at that. Miss Lutra stood up as well, and a memory stirred. I gave her perfect white sleeve a tug. “Tell Claire that yes, I know she’s spying on me.”
Miss Lutra smirked, and walked out.
That left me tucked into Lucyfar’s demonically sleek car, watching her navigate LA’s streets like a speedrunner making a computer game do things its creator never imagined.
We were about halfway there when she said, “Sooooo, seaside mansion, huh? Sounds pretty swank. Mind if we stop in Burbank on the way and pick up a frozen yogurt? There’s this little store that makes the best in the world. You have to try it. Sinfully healthy.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I can’t eat, and it’s the opposite side of the city.”
“Okay, okay.”
About sixty seconds later, she said, “Hey, what about the observatory? We could break in and steal the planetarium projector.”
“Fun, but I do have more pressing business, Lucy.”
She grunted. “Yeah, sorry, wasn’t thinking.”
A full two minutes passed this time, and she said, “Okay, so, what if we drive through the subway—”
I slapped the side of one hand into my palm. “Home, Lucyfar! My home! The normal way! Or no swimming pool!”
“A swimming pool by the ocean? Bwahahahaha!” She shifted gears, and shifted lanes three times in rapid succession to pass cars. Whether that was in eagerness or just her normal driving was hard to say.
She didn’t get time to come up with another ridiculous suggestion. My phone played “Stacy’s Mom.” I dug it out, and asked, “Claire?”
Next to me, Lucyfar’s phone sang, “And it’s so easy when you’re evil!” She picked it up, and said, “Yo, the Devil here.”
I tried to shut her out and focus on Claire’s excited babbling. “Penny! You’re never going to believe this! The First Horseman has come out of hiding, and he’s downtown right now!”
What, that old guy from the junkyard? I didn’t say that, of course. I asked the question that made even less sense to me than it would to her. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Get over here fast, and maybe we can find out! Every hero in the city is on their way to try to take him out. It’s going to be the biggest show of our lifetime.” A moment’s pause, and Claire’s voice fell. “Aw, crud. That means you’re going to go confront Meatbag Penny instead.”
“I doubt I’ll ever get a better chance. Are you going to tell her?”
“No.” Claire poured amazing amounts of sulk into that one word, and hung up.
Lucyfar put her own phone down, and her eyes blazed with eagerness now. “Change of plans, kid. We’re going downtown to watch the First Horseman kick everybody’s butt simultaneously.”
I kept my voice calm and flat and serious. “My place first.”
“But he’s been dead for twenty years! There will be action! Romance! Historic levels of property damage! Idiots learning they’re not one-tenth as tough as they thought they were!” She literally bounced in her seat with excitement.
“Home first, please, Lucyfar. I’m asking you as a friend.”
Her mouth hung open. She gaped at me in the rear view mirror, an expression of agonized betrayal. Then she let out a long, frustrated growl. “Fine. Buckle up.”
“I’m already buckled up.”
She grinned, a tooth baring display of cruel humor. “You’re going to need another seatbelt.”
The rest of the ride was… special. When she jumped the berm onto the other half of the highway and then back to get around stuck traffic was going to be hard to forget. I might regret not being able to sleep just by touching a button tonight.
We jolted to a stop in front of the mansion. I ran up the walk, shouting, “Ampexia! It’s NOW! Grab your gear! Grab my gear! Put Gerty in the truck. We have maybe an hour while everyone is distracted.”
Lucyfar walked behind me, and I saw black knives appear on either side, stabbing into pieces of machinery that slid into view from under the grass, preventing me from setting off at least a dozen booby traps.
Hair wet, pulling on a hoodie, Ampexia stuck her head out the door. “The goat still isn’t home.”
“That’s fine.” It was. Hopefully she’d found a role more suited to her than a supervillain team. “It means we don’t need the truck. Lucyfar is faster.”
Behind me, Lucyfar drawled, “Weeeeell, Los Feliz is more or less on the way downtown, and I wasn’t actually driving my fastest…”
Ampexia, horrified, started to open her mouth. I cut her off. “Agreed. All the speed you can manage.”
As Lucyfar laughed in wicked anticipation, Ampexia gave me an exasperated but accepting glare, and ducked back inside to grab our things.
We headed for Los Feliz, and what would be someone’s final battle.
mpexia folded her arms in disbelief. “She’s just standing around waiting for you?”
Yep, that was the situation. I lurked down the street—I did a lot of lurking lately—from Northeast West Hollywood Middle. Meatbag Penny stood right out in the middle of the recess lot, with our parents and Ray and Claire hovering near. She wasn’t obviously armed, but I couldn’t see clearly from a block away.
I tried to explain the reasoning to my partner, who didn’t think like Other Me. “She knows I’ll be coming for her. That’s why she left the trackers in place. This way, we duel on even terms.”
“Man, I hate this goofy hero stuff, but you need your body. I’ll follow your lead.”
Meatbag Penny needed this battle as much as I did. She had more to lose, but just as much threat hanging over her head. Besides, we both needed to find out which of us was real.
At least sneaking up was a possibility without Gerty. Not that I planned and ambush, but I had to know all her guards had left. Death mark, overzealous heroes, yadda yadda.
The big question was… what would Mom and Dad do?
Time to find—okay, not time to find out. Instead, in a violent swirl of red smoke, Marvelous appeared next to my parents. Floating in midair, legs bent slightly underneath her, she gestured furiously as she jabbered at them. Ampexia, in her element, flipped a couple of switches on her gloves and pointed a thin antenna straight at her. Marvelous’s voice immediately came out of one of her smaller speakers. “—you!”
Dad drew back in shock. “Would could be so important that you would use up a teleport?”
Marvelous sounded as desperate as her waving hands. “We need the Audit and Brainy Akk. Need them!”
My mom sounded calm, of course. “Has the First Horseman done something?”
“He hasn’t had to. Rage and Ruin are there, and they’ve gone berserk defending him. It’s just like the stories of him mind-controlling people and giving them power. The Horseman just stands behind them, singing.” Her voice audibly shook. Rage and Ruin must be terrifying. I’d seen them in action, but not in the fury that made their reputation.
Mom crossed one arm under her chest, propped an elbow on it, and touched her fingertips to her forehead. With carefully calculated exasperation and regret, she said, “I’ve been retired for nearly fifteen years, Marvelous. I’m not the ultimate weapon you think I am, anymore.”
“Mech is on his way, isn’t he? He’ll take care of them,” predicted Dad.
Marvelous’s hands stopped waving, and she clenched her fists. “They already defeated him.”
That shocked my Dad ag
ain. “What? How? They’re strong, but not strong enough to get through his shields or his armor.”
Marvelous’s voice trembled again. She sounded scared. “Rage grabbed him by his shield and beat him against the ground until his shock absorbers gave out.”
Mom nodded. She always approved of clever tactics.
The floating sorceress went back to her urgent pleading tone. “He’s unconscious. We think he’s okay, but we can’t get him out of his suit. Please, Brian, Beebee. We need both of you.”
Mom crossed both arms now, and sounded faintly strained. “We can’t leave. Our daughter is about to have the most important fight of her life. We don’t know what we’ll come back to.”
My double’s raised voice came from a few yards away. “You’ll come back to one daughter healthy and happy, and the other harmlessly asleep for ten years. No matter who wins. You should go.”
Dad lifted his hand, protesting, “Princess—”
She cut him off, her tone sharper now. “People could die without you. Go. Hurry.”
“Is this really what you want?” asked Mom, voice blank again.
“Go!” other me shouted.
They turned around and headed for our car. Dad’s voice dropped to a whisper. “She may think she’s a villain…”
“Yes,” agreed Mom, just as quietly.
Marvelous disappeared in another twisting implosion of red smoke.
What nobody but Me and Other Me understood was that she didn’t send them away out of nobility. We desperately wanted Dad gone. It was bad enough that Ray would have to watch this. Maybe Mom felt the same way, because she certainly knew I was here.
When they had driven out of sight, Other Me shouted, “You can come out now.”
I did, walking calmly towards her. And of course, as I passed under the shadow of the school, I heard a man shout, “Got you!”
You Believe Her Page 35
