Diamonds Are a Robot's Best Friend

A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic

Chapter Twelve – Consider This My Resignation

Finally freed from the mind-control microchip in the necklace, Jenny was just starting to get her bearings back.  It felt like she had just woken up from a bad dream, only to realize that it hadn't been a dream at all.  Maximillian Marquis had been using her, ever since the diamond show!  No, that's not right, she realized painfully – he's been using me all week long.  And now, he had a laser pistol pointed at the back of Brad's head – and he wanted her back as his slave, to operate the insane machine that was destroying the moon.

Marquis repeated his command.  "Take the necklace, and put it back on – now."

The moon-diamond necklace was floating just a few feet away, tumbling gracefully in zero gravity.  Even with the pistol pressed against his head, Brad's face still pleaded don't do it.  Marquis grew more tense with every passing second.  Jenny had to do something fast.

"All right … you win!  Don't hurt him!  I'll … I'll put the necklace back on.  Oops!"  Jenny reached out, and "clumsily" knocked her hand against the necklace.  It floated towards Marquis …

And provided just enough distraction for her to quickly stretch out her arm and grab the pistol away from him.  Anger and pain flared in her eyes.  "All those things you told me, all week long!  The diamond robbery, your Career Week visit, my big modeling career, all of it was a big load of garbage!  Just so you could have me as one of your little robot puppets!  Well, I've got just two words for you, 'Boss'."

Jenny crushed the laser pistol into a metal ball and flung it at Marquis' head.  "I QUIT!"

Marquis shook with rage and gestured frantically to his crew.  "GET HER!"

Two robot engineers sailed across the cabin towards Jenny, one brandishing a pair of large wrenches, the other with welding torches deployed from his hands.  The first engineer swung and missed with a heavy wrench.  The welder swung one of his torches, singeing her pigtail.  That made her really mad.  Jenny punched the wrench-holder in the head, nearly caving his entire metal face in.  She grabbed him by the arm and swung him into the welder, crushing both robots against the control panel for the Moonsword's lasers.  The robots, and the panel, exploded into a shower of electrical sparks.

With their controls wrecked, the quartz mirrors started to pivot randomly, and the huge lasers started to drift out of focus.  Clouds of rock and debris still marred the surface of the moon, but the thousand-mile long crevice stopped growing.  The lasers started to wander, firing aimlessly into space.

Jenny dusted her hands together.  "So much for your big ray gun.  But if you're really anxious to break up big rocks into little rocks, I'm sure we can find you a prison yard and a sledgehammer!"

"Jenny!  Look out behind you!"  Brad tried to shout a warning to her …

Two more robots jumped her, slamming her into the co-pilot's seat.  One of the robots grabbed the armrests and folded them inward, trapping her in the chair.  Ruby, the lunar geologist, grabbed the mind-control necklace from mid-air, and glided across the cabin towards the struggle.  If she could get it back around Jenny's neck, then they might be able to salvage the Moonsword's mission.

Brad watched as Jenny tried to fight off Marquis' robots.  But it got hard for him to follow the action, since the forward windows were right behind them, and it was getting really bright outside.  Brad squinted to protect his eyes.  Man, the sun sure is bright out here in space!  Wait a minute … the sun is behind us.  And the sun isn't purple.

Suddenly he realized what the brightness was.  One of the Moonsword's six lasers beams was slowly starting to turn towards the rocket itself.

Ruby drifted up to Jenny, and was about to slip the necklace back on, when Jenny gave her a nasty smile.  Her right leg housing cracked open, and unfolded into a large cannon.  Ruby panicked as Jenny fired; but the cannon only shot out a net,  which knocked Ruby across the cabin and pinned her to the wall.  Jenny shattered the armrests, and started to pound her two robot assailants into scrap metal.

Chaos broke lose on the bridge as the ship started to rattle and shudder violently.  Equipment and crewmen ricocheted around the inside of the cabin.  A horrific hissing noise sounded from the front of the rocket, followed by the shriek of metal being sliced into pieces.  Jenny rotated a pair of dark lenses over her eyes and looked out the window …

The Moonsword was beginning to slice itself in half, nose to tail.

"Cripes!  That laser is going to cut the ship to ribbons!" she shouted.  "And I don't think I can shut it off!  The laser controls are smashed up pretty good.  Brad, we'd better get out of here …"

Jenny jumped back as a disintegrator blast came out of nowhere, and reduced the co-pilot's chair into a cloud of ash.  Yikes!  That was close!  It was unbelievably reckless to fire a disintegrator inside of a rocket ship.  But apparently, right now, Maximillian Marquis was in a reckless mood.

He had reached an equipment locker on the side of the cabin, and was now holding a formidable-looking rifle in his hands.  "You insolent robotic whelp!" he shouted.  "All of my planning, all of my dreams … you will pay dearly, girl!  Oh, you will most certainly pay!"

"Are you crazy?!?" Jenny shouted back.  "What if you miss me and disintegrate the windows?"

"Then I will be sure not to miss."  He fired his weapon once more.

A pair of springs deployed from the bottom of her feet, and Jenny leapt out of the way, barely escaping the beam.  It hit a ceiling monitor, which vaporized into floating ash.  "Knock it off, you idiot!" she shouted.  "If you're not careful, you might make a hole in the ship!"

Brad suddenly noticed the strong smell of ozone in the air.  The paint on the front bulkhead started to bubble and peel.

A foot-wide hole blasted through the ceiling, and a thin, blinding column of purple light ripped through the front of the cabin.  The monstrous laser beam had worked its way through the front of the ship, and had reached the bridge.  It was twenty times hotter than the surface of the sun, and it was cutting through the rocket like a stick of butter.  Metal squealed and vaporized, and the front of the crew cabin started to crack into two neat halves.

Air screamed out of the cabin into space, sucking loose debris and a few unfortunate droids directly into the laser's path.  It kept drifting slowly backwards … heading right towards Brad.  His face was starting to turn blue, but there was still enough air in his lungs to shout.  "JENNY!  Ah … little help here!"

Marquis clutched onto a handrail, consumed with fury, even while his human crew fled for their lives.  He braced against the hurricane-force winds, and took aim on Jenny one more time.  She was flying towards Brad, concerned only with rescuing him from the laser, now only ten feet away.  Marquis steadied his rifle as Jenny ripped one of Brad's wrists free.  "STOP!" he bellowed.

Marquis had a twisted smile on his face.  "If either of you moves in the slightest, I shall fire!"  Jenny froze in her tracks; even though she could probably dodge the blast, Brad certainly could not.  Her mind raced for ideas.  The screeching laser was only five feet away.  They could feel its warmth on their skin …

"At least I shall have the satisfaction of watching you two perish," grinned Marquis.

A grotesque moan rolled through the ship, and the cabin flooring buckled under Marquis' feet.  He lost his grip on the handrail, and started to spiral upwards towards the crack in the ceiling.  He flung the rifle aside and flailed his arms wildly, trying to grab onto something, until his body finally slammed against the fractured hull, pinned tight by the suction of escaping air.

Brad had passed out from lack of oxygen.  The laser was only two feet away.  Jenny ripped the metal band off of his other wrist.  She could sense that the laser was only inches away from her back … then she pulled him away from the chair, seconds before it was neatly sliced in two.  Her diamond-painted chest panel slid open and deployed an oxygen breather, which she held over Brad's mouth.

"NOOOO!!!"  A piercing scream filled the cabin as the ceiling ripped apart, and Maximillian Marquis was sucked outside.  He tumbled away from the Moonsword, with a look of terror flash-frozen onto his face, and dwindled into the eternal void amidst a shower of metallic fragments.

The Moonsword was buckling and caving in on itself, as its supporting structure was being destroyed by the laser.  The powerful reactors that drove the lasers were located towards the back of the ship.  When the beam reached them, the results would be spectacular, to say the least.

Jenny wrapped an arm around Brad's waist, and started flying towards the rear of the ship.  Turning and weaving down the corridors, she was looking for some kind of emergency escape pod.  Even a spacesuit would do the trick.  She would have no problem flying back to Earth, of course, but even with an oxygen mask, Brad would never survive out in outer space.  She passed a galley, an engineering bay, a computer room … then she finally saw four small tunnels labeled Escape Pods.

Four small, empty tunnels.  The crew had already evacuated to safety in the pods.  They were all alone now, with no means of escape.  The walls started to heave and twist as if they were made of rubber; the corridors echoed with the shrieking sounds of the laser shredding the metal hull into subatomic particles.  With the air gone, it was starting to get very cold.  Jenny's sensors told her that it was forty below and dropping.  Brad started shivering violently, and she started to grow afraid for him.

Then she saw the airlock, and inspiration hit her.  She laid Brad down carefully inside, and sealed the doors shut.  The airlock ran off of a separate set of oxygen tanks.  Jenny pressed a few buttons, and air started to hiss into the chamber.  A few nervous moments later, she saw Brad's chest take a few heaving breaths, and she sighed with relief.

She punched a hole in the hull and glided outside into space.  With a few quick twists and snaps, her right arm converted into a buzzsaw.  She cut the airlock away from the rocket's hull, then ripped the entire thing out of the Moonsword with her fantastic strength.  The laser had almost worked its way back to the ship's huge energy reactors.  This is gonna be close.  She planted her hands firmly against the airlock, and deployed two giant rocket engines from her leg housings.  They roared to life, and Jenny sped away from the dying ship, pushing the airlock in front of her.  Faster … I've got to get as far away as possible …

With a horrific flash, the sky flared into a solid, blazing white.  A sphere of atomic fire expanded rapidly out into space.  Shock waves rippled away from the explosion, and Jenny braced for the inevitable impact.  They shook her and the airlock violently, but she powered her way through them, and suddenly all was dark and peaceful again.

She popped up to the side of the airlock and rapped on the window, with a big smile on her face.  Brad gave her a weak little wave.  He floated up to the window with dazzled, bloodshot eyes.

"Can we go home now?" he mumbled.

The newlyweds giggled as they walked hand in hand along the pristine beach, enjoying their midnight stroll at the Caribbean resort.  The moonlight on the crystal blue water was breathtakingly romantic.  Although the moon did look a bit different tonight – it seemed like there was a long scratch running down its face.  It didn't seem that important though, and they wrapped their arms around each other in an amorous embrace.  The young woman gazed into her new husband's eyes …

And right past them, at a hideous creature slowly lurching out of the waves.  She screamed at the top of her lungs.  The couple clung to each other and shivered in fear as a shiny humanoid figure lumbered onto the sand, looked around in a daze, and staggered in their direction.  It seemed to be a silver-gray robot of some kind, with odd green jagged stripes running all over its body.

"Where … where the heck did you come from?" asked the husband.

The silver-green android stumbled to a halt, and picked a long strand of kelp off of his chest.  "Mister, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," he moaned.  "Where I can find a phone around here?"

The husband nervously raised his arm and pointed.  "Over there … b-b-back at the hotel."

"Thanks a zillion," said the android.  "I need to give Jenny a call and see if I can bum a ride home."  His eyes started to flutter, and he looked a little punchy.  "Riiiight after I take a little nappy-poo."  He pitched over face-first into the sand, and schlorped into a puddle of silver-green pudding, softly bubbling away.

The young woman looked at her husband, confused.  "Who's Jenny?"

Students shuffled into the classroom for first period, filling the air with conversation.  Brad leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.  This morning's Tremorton Tribune was folded on his desk, with the screaming headline 'Billionaire Attempts To Destroy Moon'.  And sitting on top of that was a graded Career Week report.

"Read it and weep," he grinned.  "A-plus.  Can I just say one thing?  Boo, yah.  Thank you, thank you very much."

Drew looked barely awake, propping his chin up with his palm, but he had to laugh at that.  "'Tribune exclusive by student reporter'.  Not too shabby, Brad, not too shabby at all.  And the pictures really came out nice."

Brad proudly held up Tuck's Johnny Zoom Spy Cam.  "Did I not say that it would be so?  Hey, how about your project?  How did yours come out?"

Drew flipped through his report with disinterest.  "You know, I never did find out what they actually do at that company.  They have a lot of meetings, send memos to each other, and somebody had a birthday yesterday.  So I wrote up a five page report on filing cabinets.  Behold my C-minus, in all its glory."

The sound of whirring motors grew closer, and metallic footsteps gently clanked their way towards the desk.  Jenny softly walked up and set her textbooks down, taking a seat between Brad and Drew.  She seemed a bit uncomfortable, and tried to force a smile.  "Morning, guys.  Phew!  Um … wasn't sure if I would make it on time this morning.  Is the teacher in yet?"

Brad folded his arms, and simply looked at her with a neutral expression.  Drew still looked half-asleep, leaning on his desk.  He managed to raise an eyebrow.

Jenny gulped nervously.  "Uh – wow, Drew.  You sure look tired.  Well – I guess we all had … heh-heh … a pretty hectic night last night, huh?  Yeah, I'm tired too.  Mom and I were up all night, scrubbing off that diamond-paint.  I had to take a bath in acid and turpentine.  And some of the diamond dust got into my servos.  Heh … yeah, Mom wasn't too happy about that …"

The boys still stared silently at her, and Jenny finally heaved with a big sigh.

"Okay, guys … I didn't listen to your warnings, and I kind of got a little carried away with the whole supermodel thing, and I might have … gotten a big head about it all.  Everybody was being so nice to me, and lavishing me with attention, and all the girls were so jealous – and I liked it soooooo much.  I had so many admirers … that I forgot all about my friends.  Brad, Drew … I'm really sorry.  We're still friends, guys … right?"

Brad and Drew remained silent for a few more seconds, then Drew leaned forward slightly, and spoke to Brad in a loud whisper.

"Is she talking to us?"

Brad leaned over and whispered back.  "Can't be.  Don't you know who that is?  It's … Jennifère."

Drew's eyes grew wide.  "Really?  Wow, a real live celebrity here in our classroom!  Should we ask for her autograph?"

"Naw, that would so pedestrian, so … déclass.  Celebrities don't associate with 'little people' like us."

Jenny threw her arms up in frustration.  "Oh, ha, ha … real funny, guys!" she whined.  "Come on, I said I was sorry!  I feel guilty enough as it is already!  Don't be so mean!"

Brad threw his head back, in mock protest.  "Mean?  Mean?!?  Are we being mean?"

Drew tapped his chin.  "I don't think so.  Mean would be … oh, say … using somebody's head like a hammer to bash up a control panel."

"Yeah, or, say … chaining somebody up underneath a rocket engine," Brad shot back.

"Or jabbing them in the back with an electric cattle prod."

"Or strapping them into a chair to get sliced in half by a giant laser."

"Ooh!  Ooh!  Or shoving them out an emergency exit into the vacuum of space."

"AAAUUUGHHH!" Jenny howled, burying her face in her hands.  The boys couldn't contain themselves any longer, and burst into laughter.  They each wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and gave her a playful shake.

"Are you guys going to be doing this all day?" she whimpered.

"All day?"  Brad and Drew exchanged gestures, as if debating the idea, and then nodded in agreement.  "Yeah, all day sounds good.  Well, maybe tomorrow."

Jenny just rocked her head back and forth and groaned.

THE END

A/N – Again, to everybody who left reviews – I honestly can't thank you enough; they're really great motivators.  I'd like to know what you thought of the story length – was it too long?  Did the shorter chapters help?  Make no difference?  I'd also like to know what you think of my OC, Drew.  There have been kind reviews, but I realize lots of people don't like OC's.  It's just that once I created a character made of nanobots, I realized 'Dang, there's a lot of cool things you can do with a body made of nanobots.'