My Life As A Teenage Robot Porn Story: Countdown to Mindshatter Chapter 12

A/N Sorry this chapters a bit late. Work has been killer lately. As an apology, this chapter is a bit longer
than normal. Man, I wouldnt be
surprised if this story tops out at 100K words!

Countdown to
Mindshatter

A My Life as a
Teenage Robot Fanfic

Chapter Twelve
Demons, Ghosts, and Reflections

Its not like Jenny could blame them. In the few short hours since the morning
bell had started the day, she had pretty much demolished the English, Social
Studies, and Biology classrooms. Two of
the schools major corridors had been bathed with laid waste with plasma fire
and napalm. An entire row of lockers
had been squashed like an accordion.
One of the stairwells had been closed off due to partial collapse. And there wasnt a single unbroken window
left on the north side of the building.
And all of it had been caused by random outbursts from Jenny Wakeman
the resident reject from a bad horror movie.
Students whispered frantically to each other, speeding past their
robotic classmate as fast as they could.
Who could say when Mount Jenny would erupt again?

Jenny slowly shuffled down the hall in a miserable funk as
if her feet weighed ten tons apiece.
She was slumping so drastically that her hands almost dragged along the
floor; her paint color seemed a grayer shade of blue, and her eyes were so
darkened that some of the girls wondered if shed gone Goth. And still that miserable Z-Pack clung to her
back, like a parasite draining her of the will to live.

It was all so unfair.
Not even two weeks ago, everything had been going great. The kids had finally started to accept her
as a normal teenager. She could walk
the halls and wave to her friends well, people whose names she knew and
theyd wave back with a smile. Then the
Omni-droid had come to Earth and ruined her name, turned her into a
fugitive. After that, apparently not
satisfied with wrecking her reputation, the Cluster had decided to ruin her life
by kidnapping her and her classmates.
It was all her fault, she knew she should have stopped them
somehow. Yes, theyd made it back to
Earth, but she should have stopped them from being kidnapped in the first
place. And now shed lost the only two
other teenage robots shed ever known Allison and Drew. Some hero I am, I cant even keep my
friends safe. And now she knew
why. The Z-Pack just made her shortcomings
all the more obvious. She was
obsolete. Old technology. Last years model. She was a slide rule in a world of supercomputers. The Z-Pack was a Formula One race car, and
she was a Model T. With a mournful whine,
her shoulders slumped even lower, and her pigtails hung weakly onto their bolts
as if they would snap off at any moment.

So naturally, who should come down the corridor just then
but her perpetual torturers, the Krust cousins. The school socialites were already smiling with satisfaction over
one of Tiffs classic put-down jobs on a shy girl in Biology class. When they saw Jenny moping along in front of
them, their eyes lit up with the joy of finding an easy target. Ah, there you are, Jenny! cooed Brit. I wasnt sure whether or not Id bump into
you at lunch. I thought you might be
busy ripping the water pipes out of the bathrooms. I believe theyre the only part of the school you havent
destroyed yet.

Tiff burst into a nasty chortle. Yeah, if the Cluster dont hurry up an get here soon, there
wont be anything left for them to blow up!

Jenny didnt react as the Krusts broke into cruel
laughter. She didnt mutter a word of
protest; she simply stared at them blankly, while their insults rained down on
her like a barrage of laser fire. She
didnt try to defend herself from any of it.
She didnt even react to the warning alarms and diagnostic messages that
flashed in her vision, on the inside of her eyes. Caution Mood-O-Tron exceeding designed safety limits. Caution power levels becoming
unstable. Caution neural net
integrity dropping.

My, she appears to be speechless, dear cousin, chuckled
Brit, cleaving her gloved hands to her chest.
Hmm, we really must think of a way to cheer her up. I know!
We can check to see if Justin Spitzer is in the cafeteria! Maybe snicker maybe he still
needs a date to the prom!

Tiff clutched her ribs, near delirious with laughter. Oh, dats hot! Dats hot! Ha, ha, ha! Hey Jenny, so what if Justin wasnt a
marshmallow fluff kind of guy? You
could always try drowning him in a couple of thousand gallons of chocolate
syrup, and see how that works! Ha, ha,
ha!

And as the laughter of Krusts faded away into the lunch
room, a nervous twitch fluttered in Jennys right eye. The prom ah yes, the prom. Shed almost forgotten what a complete fool
shed made of herself yesterday, right in front of Justin, and the whole
school. It was only too obvious now
that Justin had never had any intentions of asking her to the prom. The rumors had just been rumors, nothing
more. In fact, with only two days to go
until the prom, she was totally dateless.
Big surprise just add Social Interaction to the big list of XJ-9
failures. But then again, there wasnt
even going to be a prom unless she defeated the Cluster this
afternoon. Defending the Earth was
something she was still good at wasnt she?
Caution brain operation degrading.
Caution neural net integrity at sixty percent and dropping.

Suddenly, her right pigtail twitched up in alarm. Her auditory systems still worked perfectly,
and she heard the cry for help loud and clear.
A glimmer of alarm flashed in her eyes.
Someone was shouting from the parking lot, somebody in pain and one
microsecond and one voice match later, she realized that the person in danger
was Brad!

With a gust of wind like the exhaust from a rocket launch,
Jenny disappeared into a blur of motion.
She exploded through the last untouched wall in the school, tore through
the Music room in the middle of band practice, and flew through a plate-glass
window into the outside air, like a mortar shell blasting from the mouth of a
cannon barrel. In the midst of the
bricks and plaster crashing onto the ground, she heard Brads voice cry out
again . Help! Haaalp! Jenny!

It only took a quick scan to locate him. Brad was lying motionless on the pavement in
the parking lot, with a pool of sticky red liquid on his chest underneath the
rear tires of a school bus!

Oh, no! BRAD! Unstable energy surged through her circuits,
and she leapt into full-tilt superhero mode.
Brad was only fifty yards away, but Jenny still broke the sound barrier
getting over to him. A deafening sonic
boom cracked across the parking lot, shattering the windows of every parked
vehicle and building within a one-block radius. But all that mattered to Jenny was removing the crushing weight
from Brads wounded chest. Her arms
ratcheted out and grabbed onto the chassis of the school bus, and she gave it a
mighty heave. The heavy yellow bus shot
into the air like a stray newspaper in a hurricane, punching through a puffy
white cloud before simply disappearing into the sky.

Jenny dropped to her knees and examined Brads chest, being
extremely careful not to touch or move him.
Brad! Are you all right? Brad, say something!

Brad gripped his chest in his hands, creaked open his eyes,
and moaned dramatically. Ohhh
there I was, walking across the parking lot, innocently enjoying a carefree day
of education when from out of nowhere, a runaway school bus hurtles towards
me like a rampaging hippo! I was pinned
under the tires I thought I was road kill for sure! Then he broke into a huge grin, and slapped
his hand on Jennys shoulder. But then
you showed up and snatched me from the Grim Reapers cold, merciless
hands! You saved me, Jenny! Youre a hero!

The tiniest of smiles crept onto Jennys face. Well, it was just a lucky thing that I was
so close hey, wait a minute. She
cocked a confused eyebrow at him.
Wheres the driver of the bus?
He just ran you over and walked away?

Ahh err Brad
tugged nervously at his shirt collar.
Did I say the bus hurtled towards me like a rampaging hippo? I meant the parking brake slipped, and it rolled
onto me. Yeah, rolled. Uh like a rampaging hippo.

Brad, what are you
She dipped a finger into the sticky red fluid on Brads chest, and
examined it closer. Brad why are you
covered in spaghetti sauce? she growled.

Wha see, the thing is okay, I just happened to
be cooking pasta for the basketball teams pre-game meal, when the bus

Uh-huh. Yeah, right. Jenny drifted back into her deep blue
funk. Real funny joke, Brad. Guess its all that a screw-up like me is
good for nowadays. Why dont you just
slap a kick me sign on my back?
Thats always good for a chuckle or two.

No! No, wait, Jen,
you dont understand! Brad jumped to
his feet, in remarkable health for a guy whod just been crushed by a bus,
desperately trying to explain himself.
It wasnt a joke! See,
the important thing is, you thought that I was in danger okay, even though I,
maybe, wasnt exactly but you thought I was, and you rushed over and snatched
that killer bus away at the last second!
And who knows? I mean, maybe the
parking brake really was about to snap loose! It could happen! The bus
driver doesnt look like the kind of lady who keeps up to date on her regularly
scheduled maintenance

She squinted at him in disbelief. Have you gone completely off your rocker, Brad? Nobody was in danger from that school bus

Suddenly they heard a whistling sound coming from the sky,
and looked up to see a yellow school bus punch through the clouds, screaming
towards the ground at terrific speed.
What goes up must come down, and the school bus that Jenny had thrown
into the stratosphere was hurtling back to earth like a comet. Fortunately, it was going to crash outside
of the populated part of town. Unfortunately,
it was going to crash into Tremortons one and only oil refinery. There was a spectacular flash of light on
the horizon, and an orange pillar billowed into the sky, forming an ominous,
flaming mushroom cloud.

Jenny turned to Brad with a nasty scowl on her face. nobody was in danger, at least until I
came along. Thanks again. She slumped back towards the school, in an
even deeper state of depression.

But I was just trying to cheer you up. Brad babbled for a few more seconds, then
shrugged his shoulders and just watched his friend disappear back into the
battered remains of the school. I
sure didnt do a very good job of it.
He really had been trying to cheer Jenny up, but in her current frame of
mind, that seemed all but impossible.
What was it with teenage robots, anyway? He thought Drew was the resident black cloud of gloom these
days. But that stupid Z-Pack had Jenny
in such a dark mood that she made Drew look like a cheerleader in
comparison. This was different from
Jennys usual angst and moodiness. This
was serious. Dr. Wakeman had said that
her robotic brain might even become unstable.
From what Brad had seen so far today it was already happening. She has convinced herself that she is
obsolete, Mrs. Wakeman had told him.
Youve got to snap her out of it, somehow. Yeah, right how in the world was he
supposed to snap her out of this?

Establish connection to Hyperspace Communications Array ACCESS
DENIED.

Aww, cmon, gimme a break here Display command interface
for Drone Hive Mind. Log in to Nightly
Backup System Mainframe. Download
master encryption keys ACCESS DENIED.

Arrrghh!
Allison slumped in her tangled web of wires, silently mocked by the
swarm of virtual windows that hovered in front of her face, each bearing the
simple phrase Access Denied.
With the Cluster Fleet on its way, her workload had slowed down to an
almost leisurely pace, and would stay slow until just before the fleet arrived
at Earth. Ally was trying to make good
use of the time by poking and snooping around in cyberspace, looking for a way
to free herself, or to get a message to the outside world. Normally, she wouldnt have had any trouble
accessing any computer system in the Great Network. But the Cluster assimilation protocols that
dominated her higher brain functions were putting serious limits on what she
could and couldnt do.

For the past five days, shed helplessly watched and
suffered while her mind obediently churned through mountains of data, helping
to prepare the very war fleet that would enslave her new friends. Shed managed to piggyback a hidden message
into Queen Vexus long-distance gloat, but that was about it; she wasnt having
much luck initiating anything on her own.
Here she was, plugged into the center of the most complex computer
network in all of existence and she couldnt even make a phone call! She glanced at the shimmering, translucent
sphere of energy that surrounded her like a smoky soap bubble. After it had protected her from Vexus
vicious cyber-attacks, shed hoped that she might be able to somehow use its
power to break free but so far it seemed that it served only as a defensive
shield. She was still as trapped as
ever.

Flashes of light and data streaked around her, and a minor
report raced through her processing nodes with an update on the War Fleets
position. Allison obediently processed
the report and filed it in the archives, then moaned sadly. The fleet was more than halfway to
Earth. Her thoughts drifted to the new
significance of that small blue planet whose name shed barely known of a week
ago. She thought about her new friend
Jenny; she owed Jenny so much, for showing her the truth about the Cluster, and
the cruel nature of its evil queen. She
was grateful to have learned the truth, even in spite of everything that had
happened to her since. Allison felt
like she was already in mourning for Jenny; she couldnt imagine that the Earth
robot girl would survive a battle against the mighty Cluster War Fleet, no
matter how powerful she was. It had
been such a blast being with Jenny at the Galleria last week laughing and
shopping, hanging out at the lube court, checking out robot boys

Allison closed her eyes and sighed. The one with those cute green stripes all
over his body

She replayed the files in her memory banks for what must
have been the thousandth time. Those
big dark eyes that made her feel weak in the knee joints, smiling out at her
from behind that swath of silvery hair the cute way his cheeks turned soft
green whenever he got embarrassed. The
electric tingle she felt in her wires when he held her hand the fun they had
dancing together at Festival Square.
The haunted look on his face when hed told her about the accident that
had cost him his leg, and how he understood why she felt so self-conscious
about her replacement arm. When I
look into your eyes, Ally I think I can see my soul reflecting back at me
the warmth and intimacy of the tender mind-kiss that had followed those
words. She shivered in her bonds, and a
soft, glowing tear trickled down her ghostly cheek. Shed only met him a week ago, but the pain of losing him burned
in her circuits with a ferocity that Vexus claws could only hope to match.

Then the pleasant memory was rudely interrupted by a flash
of yellow light from a distant part of the ClusterNet. A new batch of video data rushed into the
pathways of Allys brain, another instruction from an unseen master that kicked
her processing matrix into high gear.
Her decoding algorithms revealed that it was a police report filed by a
Black Mantis unit. Allison rolled her
eyes with a huff; just another stupid message to file, and copy out to all the
other Mantis goons roaming the capital.
Lets get this over with, she groaned, as the implants in the
back of her head buzzed with activity.

A new data window popped into existence in front of her
face, and the boring details of the police report spilled out in rows of soft
green text. Mantis Unit 538 filing an
incident report, blah blah blah, location grid co-ordinates and
timestamp, blah blah blah

Whoa. Black
Mantis Unit 539 has been found sliced in half? Allison arched an eyebrow, and started to
pay closer attention to the police report.
The Black Mantis robots were tough, and ruthless theyd given her the
chills, even before shed learned their true nature shed heard that even the
army officers were scared of them. But
a pair of robots had attacked a Mantis robot at an observation deck only
three miles away from the palace and left it in a smoking heap! She shook her head at the foolhardiness of
the unknown attackers. Phew
when the rest of the Black Mantis find out about this, theyll hunt them down
like robotic dogs!

The report included a video clip taken from Mantis-539s log
file, which opened up in a second window next to the first. The picture crackled to life, and showed two
odd, nervous robots a silver-colored hulk with a giant swirl on his chest,
and a lanky, bronze-colored rattle-trap.
They had gotten caught hacking into a tourist information computer, then
the bronze fellow started babbling something about his serial number, and the
Mantis unit tried to perform a mind scan

Then she saw the robots arm stretch out into a thick gooey
paste, and form a razor-sharp, silver-green machete and suddenly she felt
that all of her fuses would blow at once.

Impossible she gasped, thats impossible!

The video continued, showing the lightning-fast blade
delivering its deadly blow, followed by a mighty punch from the mysterious
silver giant then the bronze robot amazingly turned into a flowing pillar of
silver-green slush, and re-formed into young teenage robot boy

With cute green stripes all over his body

And then the video file ended, trailing off into a blathering
stream of official statistics for filing.

Allison gasped in shock and amazement. She couldnt feel her arms or legs anymore,
even her virtual ones. Time felt like it was speeding up and screeching to a
halt all at once. An uncontrollable
smile came to her face, and she swore she could feel her hydraulic fluid
swirling around inside of her like a giddy whirlwind. Only her state of shock kept her from screaming out at the top of
her voice Drew! That was
Drew! Here, on Cluster Prime
within sight of the palace! I dont
believe it I thought I would never see him again! For the first time in days, despite being
imprisoned in cybernetic limbo, she felt like she would burst with joy. Drew was here on Cluster Prime, with a
large, strange silver robot probably some kind of elite robotic
super-commando, she figured. What in
the galaxy was he doing back here?
Reconnaissance? Sabotage
mission? Guerilla attack?

No, as crazy as it seemed, she knew deep inside why Drew was
here. He had come back to rescue her.

She felt a chaos of excitement bubbling up in her
circuits. He came back for her! He was risking his life and his freedom to
save her! Hes so brave! Hes so magnificent! Hes

She blinked her eyes a couple of times as reality set back
in. Hes CRAZY! I dont believe this hes absolutely nuts! What is he thinking? If he gets caught, theres no telling what
theyll do to him! Hes going to get
himself killed

A message blinked impatiently on the data window in front of
her. Mantis-538 recommends arrest and
detention of two suspects identified in this video. Issue All Points Bulletin to all Mantis units.

Then Allison groaned and shook in her bonds, as she felt
flickers of data and code racing in and out of the horrid connectors that
invaded her brain and body. The Cluster
assimilation protocols were compelling her to obey. Obey, obey, OBEY. She had
to send out an alarm right away, that would make Drew the most hunted robot on
Cluster Prime. No, I wont Do it NOW.
Obey. Now. Obey.
NOW. No, Im tired of taking
orders she winced in her web of circuitry, trying to resist the Cluster
command but it was strong. VERY
strong. Obey. Obey. I wont put Drew
in danger! Send the alarm NOW. OBEY, LSN-1482. Nnnghhhh noooo have to stop it OBEY, NOW.
OBEY!

The commands were too strong. She couldnt prevent the alarm from going out

But she could modify it.

Her processing nodes glowed with brief activity, and
microseconds later, an alert message went out on the Black Mantis command
frequency. Two robots, a large silver
brute and the treacherous shape-shifting nano-droid, wanted for immediate
arrest. They are to be presumed armed,
and dangerous, and Mantis units are instructed to shoot to kill on sight. The robots are enemies of the Cluster and all
robot-kind. All Mantis Units be
informed, their last known position was

at the high-speed monorail station, boarding a
train for the other side of the planet.

Thousand of miles away from here, Allison sighed in
relief, feeling some satisfaction in her little act of digital vandalism. With luck, maybe she had managed to help
Drew out a little. Hanging limp and
motionless in her neon webbing of circuitry, she surveyed the bizarre
cyberspace realm in which she was trapped, and allowed a small smirk to come to
her face. Maybe there was more that
she could do from in here, she thought.
Maybe she could keep an eye out for Drew, from within the
ClusterNet. Maybe Im not as
helpless as I thought I was.

And once it was gone from view, an industrial exhaust fan
atop one of the warehouses began to shimmer like a block of silver-green
gelatin. Then it tipped up, and out
crawled the Silver Shell, who anxiously scanned the skies like a nervous
chipmunk looking for falcons. Is he
gone? Is he gone?

The industrial fan oozed back into android form, and Drew
motioned for his ungainly partner to lower his voice. Hes gone, but I imagine one of his buddies will be back in a
couple of minutes. Theres drones all
over this city like mosquitoes in a swamp!
All right, lets go. He snuck
over to the edge of the rooftop, lying prone on his stomach, and grew his eyes
out into a pair of telescopic lenses.
The Silver Shell crawled up beside him, as flat as he could manage with
his giant barrel chest.

Sheldons hacking had almost gotten them caught, but it had
succeeded in downloading a copy of the tunnels running into the Royal
Palace. Unfortunately, Drew sighed to
himself, knowing where the tunnels were and actually getting into
them were two very different things.
Just like every other tunnel entrance they had scouted in the past few
hours, the one below them was overflowing with hundreds of vigilant
roach-drones. A pair of nasty-looking
heavy laser guns stood sentry at either side of the entrance. Drones on small hover-scooters buzzed in loose
circles overhead, watching for any unwanted activity. And this was just at the mouth of the tunnel, five miles away
from the palace itself! There had to be
even more cameras and patrols inside the stupid thing

Drew let his eyes shrink back to normal, and slumped his
face into his arms. Those tunnels are
guarded like crazy, he moaned.
Wed have better luck breaking into Fort Knox

Then he noticed that the Silver Shell was sitting upright
and cross-legged, with a blank expression on his metallic face. He could hear a faint high-speed tapping
coming from within the giant robots chest.
Sheldon, he hissed, what the heck are you doing?

A tiny door slid open in the side of the Shells torso. Phew!
There we go wow, I needed to get a little fresh air in here! Sheldon had temporarily stowed the Shells
control sticks away, and was focusing on one of his computer monitors. He pulled a length of red licorice from a
dispenser wheel and started chewing.
While you take your little pictures, Im going to work on a
couple of my new hacking programs and Im going to look over the rest of the
maps that I downloaded! Not
only did I find all the tunnels, but I got the blueprints for the inside of
Vexus palace, too! Now, all I have to
do is find that secret lab where they keep the nanobots

Okay, lets get one thing straight right now. Once we find a way into the Iron Pyramid,
were going after Allison first.

Nuh-uh! Ive
got the maps, so I decide where we go first!

Hey, Ally is more important than any stupid batch of
nanobots! Drew pointed an angry finger
towards Sheldons ventilation door.
She could be hurt, or disassembled, or even geez, I dont even want
to think about it. Weve got to get to
her somehow. Oh, man, shes got to be
so afraid right now shes been afraid of being disassembled ever since she
spent all that time in the repair shop, after that monorail accident. Geez, she was lying there for days in
the repair bay, with half of her systems turned off plugged into an external
battery she couldnt move or talk while the mechanics worked on her she
didnt even know if she was going to be scrapped or not! And she was surrounded by all these
monitors, and spare parts, hanging from the ceiling like some robotic butcher
shop He sunk his face into his
hands, plagued with worry

Sheldon paused for a moment, with a curious expression on
his face. Wow, Drew you talk about
it like you were actually there.

Well, I was!
I mean well, I wasnt. Of
course I wasnt. But he pushed his
silver-green bangs out of his eyes, confused and upset arghh, this
is so weird, Sheldon! Of course I
wasnt there, but I remember what the room looked like. I remember what the beeping monitors sounded
like. I remember how afraid Ally was
except, I know that she didnt tell me about any of this! She didnt tell me, but I swear, I can
remember it! I remember it, almost as
if it happened to me!

Ah-ha, I knew it!
I knew it! See, that confirms my
theory! Sheldon Lee, youre a
genius! He thrust out his chest and
smiled proudly, all while continuing to hammer away at his computer
keyboard. I knew there was something
different about the way robots kiss!
Hee hee hee hee! Snort! Blush!
This means that my brain interface invention will work just the way I
imagined it would! Hee hee, I can
hardly wait to get back to Jenny, to test out my little present to
her. Ah, I can just imagine my sweet
angels forehead pressed up all snuggly close against mine Oh, rapture

Whoa whoa whoa the way robots kiss? Drew looked at Sheldon as if the little nerd
had just grown a second head. Okay,
youre losing me here.

You mean you havent figured it out yet? Sheldon shook his head and gave Drew a
condescending smile, and started babbling excitedly. Robots like you have computer brains, which generate radio
waves, just like a wireless network!
When two robots press their foreheads together to kiss, their networks overlap
each other and if the networks are tuned the right way, and theyre
compatible, then the robots can actually exchange data, just like sharing a
file between two computers! Its a
brain interface! Cool, huh? Thats where all those strange data files in
Data Bank 546-A came from! Theyre
pieces of data from Allisons memory banks!

Sheldon had explained the process with a techno-geeks
enthusiasm, as if he was describing a cool new way to download songs but Drew
gulped hard, as he realized what Sheldon was really saying. He had exchanged memories with Allison and
there were snippets of her memory stored in his data banks. Deep, private memories maybe she had even
selected which ones to share with him.
He closed his eyes, and dwelled on that thought for a bit. Somewhere deep inside his mind, he was
carrying a tiny piece of Allison around with him

Hey, wait a minute! Drews face snapped up, and he arched an irritated eyebrow at
Sheldon. How, exactly, did you
know that those memory files were in Data Bank 546-A?

Sheldons face drained itself of all color. Umm well, I, uh lucky guess?

Drew leapt to his feet and stretched his neck, flowing his
head inside the Shells torso to within six inches of Sheldons nose. You rat! You snooped in my memory!
When you downloaded my brain Tuesday night you read through my memory
files! You rotten, sneaky little creep

Sheldon raised his hands defensively as Drews cheeks glowed
an atomic red. Hey hey hey, you
asked me to download your brain, remember? I had to search through all the files, in order to make
that Cluster anti-virus program for you!
I just happened to heh-heh find a few other interesting
chunks of code while I was rummaging around in there. I didnt hurt anything! I
mean, thats how I figured out how to build my human-robot brain interface

Drew stretched an arm inside the Shell, and waved an angry
fist under Sheldons chin. Im gonna
interface your human brain with my robotic knuckles, pal! Sheldon got nervous

And slammed his palm down onto a panic button, and the
Shells control sticks snapped back up into his waiting hands. The mighty robot whirred back to life, and
gave Drew a shove in the chest, knocking him backwards onto his butt. Drew was hopping mad, and gave the Shell a
hard shove back. The supposed partners
abandoned any pretense of stealth, forgot about their mission, and started
shoving each other back and forth in almost comical fashion, like a pair of
eight-year-olds fighting on the school playground at recess. The Silver Shell blocked a wildly thrown
silver-green fist, and wrapped Drew up in a headlock. While the teen android struggled, Sheldon deployed a new
attachment from the Shells right wrist.
Hed wanted a chance to test out the new Atomic Noogie attachment

The two robots became so wrapped up in their wrestling match
that they didnt notice the Cluster police hovercraft until it roared over
their heads. The argument came to an
immediate halt, and they desperately scrambled for a hiding spot. The hovercraft slowed down, made a gentle
loop in the sky, and floated down towards the roof it was coming back to
land! Theyd been spotted! Drew and the Shell ducked behind a satellite
dish, then they dove behind a ventilator fan that was only slightly bigger than
they were. The roof was large and flat,
and there really werent any other good places to hide

The police hovercraft settled down on its landing struts,
its canopy flipped open, and an eight-foot tall civilian police robot stepped
with a heavy thud. He deployed a
bullhorn from his thick left arm, and held it up to his mouth-grill. Attention, attention, this is a restricted
area. We know youre out there. Come out and be identified. You have ten seconds to comply

There was nothing but silence. A second police-bot got out of the hovercraft, deployed a huge
stun cannon from his arm, and nodded to his partner. They started walking towards the ventilator fan

When the Silver Shell stepped out, swinging his arms with a
cocky grin and purposeful strut. But he
didnt look like his normal, swirl-chested self. Amazingly, the Shells metallic body seemed
to have gotten an instant repaint!
Instead of the usual mix of light and dark grays, the Silver Shells
body now sported a mix of drab burgundy and olive green, with gold stripes on
his shoulders an exact replica of the Cluster police-bots uniform. Nothing to worry about, guys, boomed the
Shell, in his easy-going, baritone voice.
Just doing a little routine patrol.
Yep, nothing at all around here.
This roof is secure. Yessirree,
roofs dont get any more secure than this one

The police-bots exchanged an annoyed glance with each other,
and folded their arms back up with a series of ratcheting clanks. Nobody told us there were foot patrols on
the roofs, said the senior police-bot.
Didnt we see another guy up here with you?

Uhh yes! Yes, you
did. Ah, it was just some punk robot
kid that wanted to watch the drones marching around. The Shell waved off their concerns with a dismissive smile. I chased him off. Nothing to worry about, guys.

Well, this was a fantastic waste of time. Thanks, buddy. The two police-bots dragged themselves back into their
hovercraft, and with a burst of power from their anti-grav engines, they
climbed back into the traffic pattern, and disappeared from sight as quickly as
theyd appeared in the first place. The
Silver Shell waved as the hovercraft flew off, then let out a massive sigh of
relief. Phew, that was a close
one!

Youre telling me.
Suddenly the Silver Shells new paint job came to life. The new colors started to flow off of him,
as if they were a layer of watercolor paints being washed off in the rain. Moments later, the colors spiraled into a
puddle at the Shells feet, and shimmered into a silver-green color. Drew reverted to android form, and planted
his fists on his hips, annoyed both with Sheldon, and with himself for losing
his temper. That was pretty smooth
talking there, Sheldon. Good job. He scratched at the back of his head, and
managed to bring himself to look the Shell in the face. Uh sorry I got mad, there.

Yeah, well the huge silver robot rolled his eyes and
sighed ahh, Im sorry I read through your memory files without your
permission. And it was kind of cool,
the way you turned yourself into a layer of camouflage for me. It worked out pretty well.

Thanks, replied Drew then he tapped his chin, and
started to think for a second. Hmmm,
it did work out pretty well, didnt it?

Drew got an idea. A
crazy one.

Continued in Chapter
Thirteen / One Hour to Cluster Dawn