You Believe Her Read online

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  © 2018 Richard Roberts

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  etting forth to battle super-powered evil, it is important to remember not to be trapped in a robot body missing one arm.

  So, yeah, I failed that one already, but by the steel heart beating in my otherwise hollow chest, Penelope Akk would not give up. Right now, the parasite that had taken over my body was in my home, confessing just enough to my parents to make them think she was me.

  Going home and confronting her was not going to work. I would do it anyway. Step by step, I would beat her and take back my life.

  Literally step by step. The parasite left the teleportation bracelets on my robot body. In the courtyard of Upper High, I tried to use them and walked smack into a wall. They still worked, but using arm-mounted technology when I was carrying one arm in the other hand… I couldn’t aim. I could teleport, but couldn’t control where I ended up. After my third attempt landed me on top of the fence behind the school, I decided not to risk it again.

  Also, I fell off the fence and landed on cobblestones so hard I worried for a second that my mechanical body might break some more. It really stung, too.

  Pushing myself back up, I found that no, I was in no worse shape than before. The stuff my shell was made of might look and feel like porcelain, but it was tough. Grim satisfaction, that, but any satisfaction in a storm.

  So, step by step, I walked home, up the street to the base of the hills, then along Los Feliz to the cozy little side street where my family lived.

  Nobody bothered the broken robot girl marching irritably up the sidewalk. Hardly any cars were on the street, and no pedestrians. Fine by me.

  As I passed the house next to us, Mom stepped out of the kitchen door, and walked up the driveway to meet me.

  I couldn’t help it. I rushed up to give her a hug.

  To my lack of surprise, I didn’t get to. She caught my outstretched hand, still holding my broken arm. Her other hand reached out to lay on top of my head, stroking my hair back to the base of my pigtails.

  That gesture gave no comfort. Her face and voice set in the Audit’s carefully crafted blankness, she said, “Of course. The copy would be convincing.”

  I’d expected this, but it still hurt. A lot. My metal heart ached, and my eyes stung from phantom tears I couldn’t shed. “You believe her.”

  “The probability of her super power being as strong as it is gave me some trouble, until she shunted the kitchen table into hyperspace. Sometimes the million to one chance happens.”

  Glaring at my mother, I shot back, “You know what I mean. You believe that she’s me.”

  Mom crouched down in front of me, balanced on the balls of her feet so that she could meet me more or less eye to eye. “I believe that my daughter Penelope is inside with her father right now, and I am talking to a robot double that sincerely believes it is the real Penny Akk. Taking this conversation as slowly as possible makes it less painful for both of us. If you are willing to keep your voice down, I will give you a chance to convince me otherwise.”

  Frowning, eyebrows pulled in tight, I asked suspiciously, “Why keep my voice down?”

  “Because Brian hasn’t figured it out yet, and this will break his heart when he does.” Was that a hint of tightness in the Audit’s impenetrable emotionless mask? A hint of wobble in her voice?

  If Mom was hurting this bad… I couldn’t shout and do that to Dad. I wanted to—wanted to drag this out in front of everyone—but I couldn’t do it. What good would it do? Ultimately, Mom was the parent I had to convince.

  So I looked her in the eye. “She must have told you I’ve been trying to confess to being Bad Penny for half a year. To make myself confess, I built a robot and copied my mind into it.”

  Mom nodded. “That is the story she told. What happened today, after the public confrontation? This is your chance to tell me in your own words.”

  The words came rushing out. It took all my effort to not yell them! “The robot betrayed me. She wanted to be me. I messed up, making her so moral she went crazy. She tried to use the mind transfer machine to switch our bodies, but something went wrong. My body woke up without me in it, and instead she was… like an evil twin. She blew me up with a bomb, and left me to die, but I’m not going to.” Those last few words came out in a snarl, but I managed a quiet snarl.

  With a nod, her own voice quiet but still detached, my mother said, “The physical events you described match closely with the story she told us.”

  That was the last thing I expected to hear. “What? She admitted it?”

  Her mouth twitched, and again, she took my hand, this time clasping it between both of hers. “What sounds more likely to you, Penelope? That your empty body betrayed and attacked you after a transfer you don’t clearly remember, or that you made a fresh copy of yourself by accident, and your memories are so clear, you feel so you, that the original seems like a fake?”

  …

  I knew that my parents would be more likely to believe the parasite, but I hadn’t expected the truth to betray me. Her explanation made so much sense. What if—

  No. I was me. The original Penelope Akk. “She admitted that I was the original when she woke up. She blew me up with a bomb. She tried to kill the copy that betrayed me. Look! I would never do that!” Leaving Mom holding my broken arm, I pulled out the heavily dented Heart of Gold.

  She looked at the Heart, but her continued impassive expression told me she was not sold, before she even spoke. “Penny’s confession held a few surprises for me, but it was no shock to learn that she loves the drama of a villainous rant. You have her memories. Understandably angry with each other, you fought. You know about eye witness testimony.”

  I did. This wasn’t just an Audit thing. Any police officer, lawyer, or psychologist would tell you the same thing. Begrudgingly, I recited, “No two people describe any event the same way, especially a fight. The evidence will tell a different story than either of them.” That led to an inevitable follow-up. “You think I’m lying to myself.”

  “I think that reading expressions and tone differently, missing a few words or remembering them wrong because you were so emotional at the time, can make a situation seem the exact opposite of what it really is.”

  My shoulders twitched, sharply, because my whole upper torso had to move to do that. Putting the Heart of Gold away, I held up my wrist. “The Machine obeys me, not her. That’s proof which of us is real.”

  “That is, by far, the best argument you have, but no one knows how the Machine takes orders, and the history of other particularly mysterious inventions suggests it’s as likely it would find a robot version of its master more convincing as it is that it would only follow the true Penelope Akk.”

  She kept her cool, professional Audit demeanor through all of that. Then, suddenly, it disintegrated. Mom leaned forward, wrapping her arms around my head and pulling it to her chest. Her voice sounded onl
y a touch hoarse, but that was… unprecedented. “Penny should never have made you, but not for the reason you think. A perfect copy means that there are two of you, now. You deserve to be taken into my home, raised and loved as my daughter, but I can’t—not unless you accept that she’s the real Penny.”

  My fist clenched so hard, it trembled. “I’m the real Penny. I want my body back. I want my parents back. I want my life back.”

  Her hands tightened on my shoulder. “It would be a poor copy of my daughter indeed that would say anything else. You know where that leaves me, and you know the results of accepting you into our lives while you believe that.”

  She was right there. I could not live in peace with the thing that stole my life, even if she let me. The parasite was evil, even if Mom hadn’t seen that yet.

  She would. Eventually. I couldn’t wait for that, or trust it.

  When I remained silent, Mom loosened her hug and leaned back, merely resting her hands on my shoulders. Oh, Tesla. Her eyes were bloodshot. She really was crying. Crying or not, her voice had gone steady again. “You enjoy being Bad Penny. You are the smartest, most sophisticated and yes, responsible fourteen year old I’ve ever met. You have made friends on the villain side, and maybe on the hero side. Go be Bad Penny, and when you’ve worked out that the Penny inside is the original, come back to us. And until then, don’t trust Spider.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, either, so I stood there as she put my broken arm back in my hand, straightened up, and walked back inside the house.

  The only good news was, that had hurt so much I couldn’t feel it yet. It also wasn’t a surprise. Okay, the details were different, but I’d known it wouldn’t be as easy as convincing my parents. They had a flesh and blood kid and a robot duplicate. Who were they expected to believe? And the better the AI, the more likely it goes nuts, right?

  I’d expected this defeat, but I had to try.

  So… now what?

  Charging in and trying to fight would only make things worse. My only home was right in front of me, and I couldn’t get into it. I needed a base. Allies. Some place to start my campaign to get my life back.

  Some place alone and safe when the emotions from this conversation hit.

  If it had been the weekend, I would have gone to Chinatown. Now, the only villain I could expect to find there was Spider, who would love to help me—for a price. Mom was right about that.

  If I stood on the driveway long enough, Dad would see me through a window. I couldn’t do that to him. Not if he still wouldn’t believe that I was the real Penny.

  Back to my lair. That was at least a place. I could scavenge equipment, and think of something. The parasite had my phone. Maybe I could shut myself off until Friday.

  I walked back up the sidewalk thinking gloomy thoughts like that, and as soon as the hedges blocked the view of my home, the Minx dropped off of a telephone pole in front of me.

  She actually fell only the last ten feet or so, with her grappling hook reeling back in to its wrist holster. Landing in a deep crouch, one hand on the crooked pavement, she looked up at me with an amused smile. “I used to be able to do this in high heels, but it takes constant practice to keep ankles that strong.”

  If the heels on the boots she had on didn’t count as ‘high’, I didn’t want to know what did. Not that she had on one of her flashy, skimpy Minx costumes, but Misty Lutra—aka Claire’s mom—had the figure and natural grace that made a business suit look like a catsuit.

  “You believe me?” I asked. Maybe I’d predicted the conversation with my mom would go badly, but this was the last thing I’d expected.

  She shook her head, not in denial, but with amusement to match her naturally playful smirk. Rising smoothly to her feet, she gave my cheek the pinch she had a thousand times before, when that cheek was made of flesh. “I don’t have to. Unlike poor Beebee, I don’t have a daughter to protect. Don’t expect me to take sides, Penny honey, but I don’t see how a mechanical body makes you any less real than you were when there was only one Penny Akk. I hope you always believed I’d be here for you in a pinch.”

  “The question never occurred to me,” I admitted honestly.

  She waved a hand, tracing liquid designs in the air. All the old folks were showing off their costumed identities today. With Misty Lutra, it was the grace of the world’s best cat burglar. “There are practical issues that I’ll have to figure out. I only just found out about this situation, and haven’t had time to work out the details, but with Claire out of town there’s plenty of time. Thank goodness I have your parents bugged, that’s all I can say.”

  I goggled. “You what now?!”

  Miss Lutra laughed, long and relaxed and playful. “Penny, putting tracers and microphones on your parents has been my hobby for two decades. It’s a game we play, and I wasn’t going to stop just because we retired. Brian has your house rigged so they don’t work inside, but Beebee hasn’t found the latest set. When it all hit the fan, I heard. Come on. Let’s head back to my place. Reattaching that arm has to be our first priority, don’t you agree?”

  I followed along after her. My feet knew the way to Claire’s house and could walk it in my sleep. That left my entire attention free for the sudden explosion of even-by-Lutra-standards weirdness. “Okay, wait. You bug my parents. Putting aside the sheer creepiness” —she laughed, but I bulled on—“of that statement, you did it during your professional careers. Doesn’t that count as ‘getting personal’?”

  She fuzzled the top of my head. “If you ever doubt yourself, sweetie, that was a very Penny Akk question to ask. Spying on other supers is a grey area. You can break into someone’s base, plant a camera on every square inch, and that’s just the job. Tracking an enemy to their base is tacky, but allowed. For tech thieves, it’s an important tool. Officially, you can bug someone’s home if they carry it back on their costume or weapons, and you can spy on civilians all you want and it’s a super-powered crime to be fought like any other. Technically, then, you can spy on their private life and their super-powered life, as long as you keep them separate—but by that point, honey, you’re juggling dynamite. If the community decides you’re mixing the two, there are no second chances or appeals. First offense—” She drew a finger along her throat and made the spitty decapitation noise.

  Hmmm. So the population of people crazy enough to take that risk would thin itself out quickly. I nodded to indicate I understood.

  She took that as her signal to continue, her voice fluttering with a hint of laughter. “Not that that was ever a worry with Beebee and Brian. You can do to friends what you would never consider doing to an enemy. There has always been a giant exception in the rules for if the victim thinks it’s all in good fun.”

  We walked down Los Feliz some more. Ahead, I could see the Lutra home, fancier than ours, because Mom and Dad just weren’t showy people.

  For a moment, my hand tightened on my broken arm, until I loosed my grip again and gave Miss Lutra an awkward half-smile. “Thank you for trying to distract me.”

  Hey, I’d lived with my mom for fourteen years. I knew how people manipulated each other to help, rather than hurt.

  Leaning down, she pulled me into a sudden, tight embrace. If I’d still been made of mere flesh, it would have hurt. Sad, gentle, and encouraging, she said, “You are strong, Penny, and you will get through this. Your parents feel trapped and unable to help you, but I promise they still love you. I may not be able to get involved in what’s brewing between you and your twin professionally, but in your private life, I will always be on your side. You’re not alone.”

  My metal heart relaxed. Tension I shouldn’t have been able to feel melted away, all over my body. She was right. “Thank you. That helps more than I would have believed possible.”

  It really did. The stakes might be high, but I hadn’t lost everything. What I faced now was a supervillain rivalry, and I was very, very good at supervillainy.

  Letting go and resuming our wal
k, she smiled down at me. “If this gets overwhelming, come to me. If you need a place to stay, I’ll make sure you have one. If you can’t take care of yourself, I’ll do it.”

  What a difference it made, just knowing I had someone to catch me! I tried to crack my knuckles, only to be reminded that gesture doesn’t work with only one arm. Still, that just made the point further. “I don’t need a bedroom. I need a base. I am going to win this. Like you said, first step, get my arm fixed.”

  Tilting up the broken end, Miss Lutra peered down into my hollow arm. Her eyebrows went up, with a smirk both amused and impressed. “If we can find someone who can fix this technology.”

  Smirking back, I said, “If there’s one benefit of six months of sin and criminality, it’s that I know lots of mad scientists.”

  Miss Lutra laughed, and shook her head, platinum blonde curls bouncing around. “You never did get just how outrageous your super power is, did you? Look at this arm. No motors, no support structures, but you obviously have a full range of motion, plus a human sense of touch, provided by metal circuits printed on fabric. If you didn’t have the arm to reattach, I guarantee no one in LA, even Brian or the Expert, could reproduce it—and Penny honey, there is no way I would let you walk into the Expert’s clutches with robotics like this to tempt him.”

  Before despair could even begin to hit, she raised a finger. “Fortunately, Misty Lutra knows about an expert in neural circuitry whose work looks a great deal like this.”

  I pursed my lips. She was right, at least, that this was pretty exotic. Nobody I knew did anything quite like this. “Who?”

  She grinned. She had the whitest teeth. Was it fair to the rest of us girls that the Lutras not only had a psychic power to bind men to their desires, but also physical perfection, so they hardly needed to use it? Sheesh.

  Used to the jealous fuming of us less aesthetically-gifted women, Miss Lutra proceeded unperturbed. “That’s what makes this complicated. Officially, I don’t know who he is, where he lives, or that he’s even alive. Getting personal can be complicated that way. Bugging your parents? Perfectly acceptable. Introducing you to someone I found out about by accident? We might as well put guns to our heads. Ah, but I have a plan. Climb in.”