Two heroes jumped out of a window. Well, a hero and a heroine. They had on the traditional spandex leotards I could never take seriously, his muscle-outline tight and decorated with symbols, hers with strategic cutouts.
I didn’t find out what their powers were. Ampexia swung up a hand, fingers splayed, and subjected them to a horrible screech that even outside of its direction of focus made me wince. They grabbed their ears, landing so clumsily on the grass that they fell on their sides. I already had my wand out, and gave them a good spray.
Locked shoulders to feet in a candy shell, they already looked bleary. The woman said, “No. Must… protect…” and passed out.
That stuff ate fibers. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t be bald when they woke up. I found it quite difficult to care. Goobers.
Meatbag Penny hadn’t moved., confident I would handle them easily. She waited for me, arms at her sides but poised to act. Stepping onto the recess ground got me close enough to check out her equipment. She had on my white jumpsuit and mad scientist goggles, which were good protection from bumps and scrapes, but not really armor. Another bomb bandolier crossed her front, as expected. She had a large pistol tucked onto one hip. Her blue bracelet showed on her left wrist, and her red ring on her right hand. If she carried anything else, she hid it well.
Claire and Ray stood well off to the side, hopefully out of danger. Ray looked very, very tense. Claire didn’t, but her hand gripped his arm just above the elbow, and gripped it tight. From the way he hovered one step ahead of her, she was keeping him from acting.
Oh, Ray. We tried. We wanted to keep you out of this, unprejudiced and unaffected, so you could accept whichever of us won. You and Claire cared too much.
I stopped maybe ten yards away from my double, and adopted the same pose. We looked like steampunk gunfighters in a particularly weird Old West. Alas, Ampexia failed me and did not play a whistly music sting, but at least a breeze gusted past.
Slowly, so as not to provoke me, Meatbag Penny raised a hand. “Okay. First, you have it?”
I pulled the X Device out of my corset. “I have it.” I let her get a good look, then tucked it back into its protected place.
Her hand stayed up. “Second, where did you get that equipment?!”
I snickered at her tone of shock. She meant the sugar tank, of course. I had come wearing my steampunk costume, with the sugar tank on my right hip, under my clothes. The Machine showed on my left wrist, and the gold defensive straps on my hands and boots. What did not show was the irrigator whose tubes ran up my left arm and its little tank on my left shoulder, all small enough to hide under my lab coat. I had the jacks and rubber ball in my coat pocket, but I didn’t consider those hidden. She would know I had them, having seen the sugar tank.
To answer the question, I just said, “Someone stole it and repaired it. Not a clue who. Then I stole it.”
Her mouth tightened in jealousy, but she moved on. “Third, where is the Heart of Gold? I need to be able to find it.”
That I kept in a pouch on the back of my belt. I took it out, held it up for inspection, and put it back. At least that was easy to do. My shoulders might be shoddy, but my arms reached behind me almost as well as in front. “I brought her. To the victor go the spoils.”
Behind his back, Claire smirked and pointed at Ray.
I only saw that in my peripheral vision. Meatbag Penny and I kept our eyes on each other. “Ready?” she asked.
“Ready.”
We didn’t wait another second. She grabbed her bandolier. I whipped out my wand. That took less time than opening a pocket, and I got to shoot a spray of crystalizing cola at her before she could pull out a bomb. Opening a pocket did mean her hands were together, so she had time to press her ring.
Cola splattered across the yard when it hit the expanding shock wave. A couple of drops hit me, but I’d already experimented and knew this costume wouldn’t dissolve, and the crystal wouldn’t spread far enough to make any difference.
The dome she made wasn’t huge, but it gave her some room to move around. Temporarily safe, she finished pulling out three bombs. These were bigger than the marbles I’d seen before, like small eggs.
She lobbed one towards me. When it hit the frozen shock wave, the bomb got launched at high speed way over the recess grounds… only to turn and fly toward me.
Oh joy, homing missiles. At least it didn’t fly all that fast. When this one got close, I blasted it with a pair of forcefields.
Rainbow glitter sprayed. The bomb went off, and it went off big time. The shock knocked me off my feet, and back to skid a few feet on my butt. Ow. Another ‘thank goodness this body is more durable than flesh’ moment.
Smirking, but still poised and alert, Meatbag Penny said, “I noticed last time it’s hard to hit with my bombs, so I asked our power to fix that.”
Her gloating gave me a few seconds. I had a battery in one pocket. Nothing special. No mad science. Just an ordinary battery, full of ordinary electricity. I slipped it out, unwound my Machine, and pushed the battery into his mouth. “Eat this, and then eat her ring.”
Those words I let Meatbag Penny hear, but, bent over my work, I added in a whisper, “and bracelet.”
Her mouth hung open, and she gave her foot an outraged stomp. “Oh, come on! He would follow me slowly to the other side of the Earth, if I avoided him for a million years!”
Not that slowly. The electrical charge of the battery had my little baby crawling across the gravel-studded blacktop at a decent pace.
I climbed back to my feet, and raised my chin in defiance. “It’s not unfair. You only wish it was unfair.”
She scowls, first in playful grumpiness, then in serious concentration. Jokes were over, and she tossed out the other two bombs. Like the first, they catapulted out into the distance, then swooped around to follow me.
If we were unleashing seeker weapons, I tossed out the rubber ball. When it hit the shield, it got slammed away so hard that it disappeared. Yeah, so much for that.
Fine. I skated away from the hovering bombs, which wasn’t really hard. As small as they were, they just didn’t have room for much flight equipment. Not even Tier Three flight equipment. As long as I kept an eye on them, I could skate around Other Me’s dome and plan my next attack. An attempt to lure them into it didn’t work, more’s the pity.
I didn’t have long to wait. Scuttling industriously, the Machine passed through her dome unaffected, and headed for her feet. So much for her patience hoping her weapons would sneak up on me.
She responded by kicking the Machine. He rolled out of the globe, but not very far. Over a certain limit, any force you tried on him he just ate.
As he crawled right back in, I zipped around behind Other Me. She wouldn’t put up with that, of course, but watching both me and the Machine put her at an awkward angle. That gave me an extra half second to pull out a pair of sugar blocks from my tank. I threw the first one down a few feet in front of the shield. Stalagmites shot out, surging forward, only to hit that wall and get blasted to pieces. Shrapnel rained down everywhere, making me glad of my armored coat. It also left a hole in the shimmery explosive dome. One not quite big enough, so I threw the other crystal, and got another blast.
My double grabbed at her pockets just as the Machine reached her, and her legs caught her boot.
In a panic, she grabbed him in her right hand and threw him away. It was a terrible, thoughtless decision, because as she did he curled forward and bit down on her ring. Ha!
She squealed. The Machine crunched and chewed. The dome stopped being frozen, and became a regular shockwave, booming out over us. I slid backwards right to the fence on my spats. Ray ducked in front of Claire, holding her steady with his superhuman strength.
Meatbag Penny stood in the eye of the storm, unaffected. She finished her throw, gently lobbing the Machine across the pavement. Irritated but not panicked, she said, “Fine. So much for playing defense.” I was much too far away to do anything as
she pulled out two more handfuls of bombs and tossed them up. Three came after me, and the other two orbited her like guardian drones. Yay. Well, at least the explosion had taken care of the first two seeker bombs.
She had the benefit of throwing these straight at me, so I put up a shield and let the blast of a bomb send me sliding across the lot, not actually at Meatbag Penny, but closer to her. She responded with still more bombs, little marble ones that merely blew up when they hit the ground, and gave me more to worry about.
I let my other scheme run, focused mostly on skating around to avoid attacks, and pondered her defense drones. I really should have saved the rubber ball for this.
With my terrible aim, her odds of actually hitting me were remote. When that became clear, she stopped tossing them at me, and took the gun off her hip. A little bigger than a pistol, its irregular, shiny shape had ‘mad science’ written all over it. Literally, in little gold letters. Oh, my super power, I missed your ridiculous flair so. Also being able to make a device that spread clawed antennae and formed a crackling red web between them, like this gun did.
Teeth gritted now, my double said, “You know what else you never let me do? Vaporize things!”
She swung the barrel up to point at me, gripped in both hands. Before she could fire, Claire called out sharply, “Remember what we said? No vaporizations, or no smoochy smoochy!”
She gripped Ray’s shoulders, pushing him forward. Mortified, his whole face went tight. Both Mes looked about the same. Somehow, Claire had managed to actually lose a little shame over the summer.
Other Me let out a high-pitched whine of frustration, one I knew was all theater. “Fine! I’ll use the other setting!” She pulled the trigger, and the gun emitted a solid red beam.
Literally solid. It appeared right in my path, and when I put out a shield to block the ray, I ended up vaulting right over it.
She shifted her aim, and everywhere the gun pointed, the beam, as thick as two fingers, followed. When it passed over me, it did so without force, but only to become an obstacle on the other side. I had to duck, roll over the top, and skip when it tried to trip me up. Suddenly, avoiding the seeker bombs was really, really hard, and took all my attention.
Aiming took all of Other Me’s attention. She completely failed to notice the Machine crawling back up to her until he was climbing her boot. Dropping the pistol, she shouted, “No no no!” and yanked at him, trying to pull him off her leg. No dice. Now he had a good grip, he wasn’t letting go.
With her thoroughly distracted, I fired a jet of cola at her. A defensive drone swung sharply around to block it, and blew up. Cola sprayed wildly again. Ray danced out of the way. Claire stayed where she was, daring the clothing-eating goop to splatter her. By sheer luck, none did, but criminy. She really was even more brazen than before this started. Maybe she had to make up for the boredom of ballet camp.
Now I had the advantage. Meatbag Penny gave up trying to stop the Machine, and fumbled with the top pouch of her bandolier. It opened, and sure enough, I saw sparkly white inside.
Nuh uh. As she pulled out a power activation pill, I slid the irrigation sponge into my fist. This was exactly why I’d brought it. With a firm squeeze, I exploded water out of her pocket, washing away the pills, including the one she’d been holding. They fell into puddles around her feet, dissolving into mush.
The Machine reared off of her chest, and grabbed her arm at the wrist. Obedient to my instructions, he bit into the bomb-resistance bracelet, pulling it right off.
Now! I sprayed her with sugar again, and the other drone intercepted and detonated. This time Meatbag Penny wasn’t immune, and the blast so close by knocked her to the ground.
Something bumped against my back, and went boom. Oh, criminy. This time I’d gotten distracted, and one of the seeker bombs caught up to me. The explosion shoved me to the ground, much harder than mere backlash knocked Other Me sprawling. I managed to fall on my left side, at least, to spare the sugar tank and most importantly the X Device.
Now I couldn’t dodge. The other bomb hit, going off like a hammer with the asphalt as the anvil. Pain threaded through me, accompanied by many cracking sounds.
On the opposite side of Other Me now, I saw Claire holding both Ray’s arms in a twisty grip, keeping him from running over to us. He looked more pained than I felt. He’d always hated to see anyone hurt. That was a major part of his charm.
All those thoughts happened in a hurry. This situation was bad, no question, but I did have an advantage. A good shake would scramble my double’s gray goo brain. My solid state heart didn’t get confused for even a second. I launched another spray at Meatbag Penny, and this time it hit, locking her legs together in a crystal shell.
She rolled over onto her stomach, and did something with her goggles. By the time I’d realized she’d pulled a pill out of them, it was too late. With her back to me, I couldn’t stop her from swallowing it.
Criminy buckets, of course she had one hidden! I lunged to my feet, pushed off, and activated the sliding spats to send me rocketing towards her.
I was too far away. She had time to pull out one of her little conventional bombs, and flip it in the air. Not at me. Rather, it landed on the sugar shell around her legs. The blast shattered it, sending more bits flying around. Just as importantly, the shockwave caught me at the exact time to send me sliding backwards the way I came. The shock also sent pain spasming through me again, but I’d already been hurting. The double punch against the ground had spiderwebbed my body with serious cracks. I could feel them…
Climbing groggily to her feet, she let out a barking laugh. “Ha! It’s all in the angle. There’s a whole branch of engineering about that. Reams and reams of math to make sure the force is channeled in exactly the right directions. All I have to do is follow the pictures in my head.”
I launched myself towards her again, shield bands ready. She took a couple of little copper electronic bits out of the little pockets that studded my jumpsuit, and wriggled them into cracks in her oversized pistol. As she did, she chattered, “I brought a bunch of components for my power to work with. Clever, huh?”
She pulled the trigger, and this time the gun emitted a red wall instead of a line. She swung that around right in my face.
Damaged or not, this body was stronger, faster, and most importantly lighter than flesh and blood. I jumped, grabbed the top of the wall, and vaulted right over it.
Her eyes widened behind the goggles. This time, I’d caught her by surprise.
Black fluttered around us. A lean, yellow-and-white figure appeared, and grabbed me as I descended towards Other Me. One vice grip hand on my neck, the other on my wrist, holding my wand still.
My double fell onto her butt, and scrambled backwards, pulling out more components and sticking them together.
Mourning Dove, in her horrible raspy voice, said, “Do not worry. The threat is over.”
Claire and Ray watched us, horrified. Ray was slightly hunched, ready to move, but also cautious. Especially cracked like I was, Mourning Dove could rip me apart before he reached her, and she out-powered us all, easily.
Personally, I dangled, and tried to think. A plan to get out of this alive was not presenting itself.
Claire, hands over her mouth, cried out, “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be fighting the First Horseman with everyone else? They need you!”
The white-suited, white-haired, leathery yellow-skinned vampire croaked, “Saving a life is more important than punishing past deaths. I will destroy this robot, then return to combat the Horseman.”
Claire shook her head, yellow curls bouncing. “You can’t do that. They’re not trying to kill each other, just switch places!”
“Being switched into a robot is death,” answered Mourning Dove, staring at her hard.
Immune, it took me a second to realize what was going on. Claire looked like an adorable cherub. She’d turned her power up, way up. Mourning Dove didn’t react to it like other pe
ople, but she scowled, forcing herself to move slowly through the paralyzation.
Slowly enough that Ray could pick up a fist-sized chunk of sugar debris and fling it at her. It sped through the air like a rocket.
Mourning Dove wasn’t impaired enough. She let go of me, and darkness flickered again. She reappeared behind Ray, and grabbed his shoulder. “Your loyalty is commendable, but a robot is not a friend.”
Claire grabbed her other wrist, tugging with both hands. “Let him go!”
Her power was still slowing Mourning Dove, and now it had Ray boggled.
Personally, I was busy, and only caught the edges of all of that. When my feet hit the ground, I threw myself in a tackle at Meatbag Penny.
We didn’t actually drop to the ground. It hurt enough when I smacked into her. That dazed me momentarily, but I still managed to grab her wrists. Wrestling up close, she would be no match for me. I would pin her, switch us, and take out the Heart of Steel. Then I’d be alive, and Mourning Dove wouldn’t care.
Meatbag Penny responded by giggling and hunching forward. Holding her wrists did nothing to stop her from pressing her forehead against the thing she held in one hand. It was a tuning fork, upgraded with a lot of electronics, and looked familiar.
It looked like a souped-up version of the device I’d tried to build back in December, to push my powers into showing themselves.
The fork touched her skin, and sparks danced from the contact point.
Tesla’s Forbidden Equations. I was in trouble. Both of me.
Behind her goggles, my double’s eyes slipped out of focus. Her arm twisted. Pain shot up my arm, and I spun around, letting Meatbag Penny go and dropping onto my back on the ground.
In a pleasant, businesslike tone, holding onto my aching wrist now, she said, “I’m proud of your body, but there are limits to its range of movement.”
Another puff of blackness, and Mourning Dove blinked into place above me. Her foot smacked down on my chest, pinning me in place. If she pushed any harder, the X Device and my stomach would both shatter, and it was only guesswork which would collapse first.
You Believe Her Page 36
