Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon (24 page)

Not that anybody worked in this room. The rails, it turned out, were for a bunch of department store mannequins. They’d all been broken, melted, ripped apart, or covered in Puppeteer goo, with cogs spilling out of them everywhere. More cogs than I’d ever imagined. This room was where bad watchmakers went when they died.

Watchmaker heaven would not have big hard-shelled Puppeteer tumors everywhere, damp walls, a terrible chill, or heat ray blasts carving and blackening everything. I couldn’t even tell if any of this equipment was intact.

Remmy didn’t look as lost as me, but that was a low bar to clear. She poked at one of the machines with her wrench. “Well?”

I shook my head and shrugged, my face feeling tight with awkward helplessness. “The engine upstairs made sense. This one doesn’t.”

Remmy’s frown didn’t look optimistic either. “I think it’s too broken, but I don’t know. I’ve never seen one of these before. If I can get this automaton working, we can find out. All the motor units are smashed, but maybe I can kludge something together.” Stepping behind the nearest mannequin, she squatted down and peered into its ripped open back. Most of the parts inside did look like they still fit together, and it connected by a pole to wheels locked into the track.

I crawled around to join her, wondering if there was anything I could do at all, and blacked out.

w. I woke up to a dull ache in the back of my head. Ray’s arms were around me.

Planted against the wall on the far side of the chamber, Remmy pointed a shaking wrench at us. “Don’t come near me! What in Michelson’s Mistake is wrong with you?!”

What was wrong was that I’d been pushing my power too much. Ow. That really did ache. I couldn’t remember what I’d made, but I obviously had gone into a mad science fit.

Ray did the talking while I checked if my arms and legs worked. “You’ve never seen a mad scientist at work before?” He didn’t sound contemptuous, just puzzled.

Remmy still sounded hysterical. “Not like that! Not with the laughing and the carrying on! I’ve never… I…” She slowed down, relaxing a little, face scrunched up on one side in thought. “I remember Dad could get creepy when he was working.”

Juliet raised her pencil hand to get my attention. She was standing a lot closer than Remmy, but still stared goggle-eyed. Although she kind of did that anyway. “Harvey and I have considerable experience with biomedical genius, and even a trained human should not be able to revive an aestivating spore, imprint an animal magnetic template, or trigger an organ repurposing sequence.”

Okay, so I’d done something with Puppeteer goo. Presumably the pod next to me that had now been burned down to still-glowing ash, with Vera floating above it. I looked down at the three red, fidgeting balls in my lap. My spacesuit bats had been turned into something more… tentacley. Yuck.

Ray’s arms tightened just a smidge. “You dropped a penny into a gap in that thing’s shell, and when it opened up, you stuck your hand into the goop and felt around. It―”

I held up a hand. “Yeah, I don’t really want to hear more.”

He snickered, and his voice lowered. There was no privacy with an alien robot, a mutant goat girl, an invisible doctor, and a scared eleven-year-old mad scientist in the room, but he pretended we could talk confidentially. “You remember that cloning equipment we got from Happy Days?”

“Yeah?” That was about as witty as I was going to get with this headache.

“It had a lot of new machines built on top of old ones, and it came with a jar of red stuff.”

I groaned, putting the pieces together. “Hundred-year-old Puppeteer goo, passed down nutcase to nutcase from the Red Panacea Clinic.”

Ray nodded. “The Red Herring is too advanced even for your power, love. I do not believe you invented it. Your power told you how to push button one for ‘spaceship.’“

‘Love.’ That word sent chills up and down me that pushed even the headache aside. I forced myself back up to my feet, and looked at the gruesome little balls in my arms. “So what did I tell the goo to make this time? We wanted to fix this automaton, right?” Hesitantly, I picked up one of the twitching balls, and held it out towards the ripped open back of the mannequin.

The results were as effective and as gross as I could have dreamed. The ball uncurled, shooting tentacles into the mass of gears. Pulling itself into the gap, it spread tendrils like a web all through the machinery, until a sheet of Puppeteer goo filled the gap. A lump under the sheet pulsed, and again, and again, in an even rhythm like a heart. The automaton’s arms twitched and… it stood up.

“Is there anything I can do for you children?”

It had a remarkably good voice synthesizer, sounding like a bright, friendly young woman. Unfortunately, all the emphases were wrong, as if each word came from a different sentence. I didn’t know if that was built in, or a side effect of my Puppeteer implant.

Remmy stumbled forward. Scared or not, this was what we came here for. Her wrench flicked, pointing between the automaton and the machine in front of it. “We need a new batch of aetheric fluid.”

“Well-bred children say ‘please.’“ Despite its prim lecture, the automaton swung around on its rattling rails, and opened a hatch in the side of her machine. Pulling out a broken glass tube, she slid around the rails to the wall, and took an empty replacement tube out of one of the only cabinets not welded shut or covered in goo. Returning to her post, she slid it into place, and reached into the guts of the machine to begin moving parts around.

After a few seconds of that, she straightened up. “I’m sorry, children. I would like to help, but the condenser seems to be broken. I’m trying to send a message to the maintenance automaton, but he isn’t answering.”

Remmy scowled. Stomping around to the other side of the machine, she gave the automaton melted halfway into the floor a kick. “Is this him?”

The working automaton asked brightly, “Perhaps Mister Morley can help repair him?”

“He’s been dead for three generations,” Remmy snapped back. Glaring furiously, she hit the casing of the condenser with her wrench. The loud bong must have been satisfying, because she hit it three more times.

The automaton wagged a finger at her. “Children who commit vandalism go to bed without supper. I’ve sent a message to your dorm mother, but she does not seem to be answering.”

At which point Claire slid into the room. Her frictionless soles even worked on this lumpy terrain, and she skidded to a halt as smoothly as any professional skier.

Giving me a salute, Claire barked, “Intelligence report, team leader.”

Was now the time to be supervillains?

Now was the
best
time to be supervillains.

“Report,” I ordered, with my best ‘cold and brusque’ tone. I also tried to look totally detached and businesslike and not in any way grossed out as I tucked the other two control squid into my belt pouches.

“We’ve fallen in with a couple of kooks, Bad Penny.”

“Hey!” Remmy shouted.

Claire ignored her. “I gave them both a dose of ‘I’m harmless, go ahead and talk freely.’ Fawkes is a rebel, or maybe a revolutionary. Every other sentence is about how humanity needs to be set free from the automatons. It’s like he’s not a person, just an obsession.”

I glanced at Remmy. She stood there fuming, gripping her wrench in both hands, but it was the kind of glare you get from someone who’d been caught dead to rights. I asked Claire, “And Juno?”

“She’s serious about the Jovians thing. Acts like they’re space gods, and she’s their chosen instrument. She does have powers, clairvoyance at the least. Whatever you just did, she knows, and she told Fawkes you’re the key to their revolution. They’re right behind me.”

The back of my head ached, but I had supervillain responsibilities. I waved back over my shoulder. “Stand behind me and look harmless.”

Claire slid around between me and the automaton. “I can see your calves, young―” it started to lecture, but I shot it an angry glance and it slumped forward and went quiet. The squid really had put it under my complete control.

I had an unpleasant feeling it would work even better on humans. I did not intend to find out.

Claire’s hand gripped my shoulder. “One more thing. Juno and Calvin are dating, and I mean if we weren’t such a big distraction, it would take a pry bar to separate them.”

Remmy blushed hugely, and stared at her boots. Claire had scored a direct hit. She also wasn’t done. “In my professional opinion, the desire is one sided. She’s got him on a hook.”

Since Claire’s professional opinion consisted of a hundred stories from her super-powered temptress mother, I might have to take that one with a grain of salt. It certainly got no comment from Remmy, only a sour look that replaced the blush.

Seconds later, footsteps thumped on the stairs. Juno led, and while I could see hip and leg movement under that long dress, other than that I would swear she floated across the rubble. Fawkes more prosaically had his guns out, but gave us a cheery grin and tapped a pistol against his forehead when he saw us down the hall.

Juno’s smile was warm, admiring, but also detached. Of course, it might be hard to emote with your eyes covered up by glowing white. She addressed me with a small bow. “The Jovians tell me you have performed a miracle, Bad Penny.”

Remmy answered her, still sounding nervous. “She made meat puppet parasites. She can use Puppeteer cysts like she’s operating a machine.”

Hey! “That’s an exaggeration.”

“No it’s not. Hers even control machines. Look!” She pointed at the automaton. It started to lift its head, but I glared at it and it turned off again.

Calvin gave his guns a twirl, and tucked them back into their holsters. He walked over to Remmy and laid his hand between her pigtails. “Remmy, don’t be jealous just because Bad Penny is some kind of super-mechanic. Her power is a gift. We’re lucky that someone showed up with the powers we need.”

Juno smiled wider. “There is no luck. The Jovians sent us to meet them.”

I expected skepticism over this. Instead, Remmy folded her arms and muttered, “I guess.”

Calvin left her there, walking up to me and getting down on one knee. He took my hands―one of them still bare―and completely ignored Ray’s bristling to tell me, “I’m going to be up front with you, kid. You’ve walked into a bad situation. There are a whole lot of folks just barely surviving after the war. The Jets are so desperate, they might start another war to keep from starving to death. The automatons don’t care. Everyone who doesn’t obey their rules can die, as far as they’re concerned. The Rotors are good people, and they have enough to share, but their masters won’t let them. I know you’re not a hero, but sometimes life puts you in a spot you never expected.”

He was right about that, and Claire’s description of Calvin was playing out right in front of me. “I just got here, Mister Fawkes. Supervillains aren’t real big on authorities in general, but asking me to overthrow a government I’ve never even seen is a bit much.”

Remmy thumped her wrench down on top of the condenser with a loud clang. “We don’t need a revolution anymore, Calvin. We’ve got a whole colony! Europa is right there below us, all the fish and water we need! I can override enough automatons to get basic services, and we can let all the Jets and Rotors who want come live here. This place can be self-sufficient. All we need is about four more tanks of aetheric fluid, and some seeds and farm animals.”