By David C. Daoust
Margo was taken aback!
She went from gleefully hovering through the cargo hold, finally able to move as intended; to suddenly having the giant vehicle of a roving home, she and the others were on, taken on a wild ride through the rubble of Grady, and then tearing out into the desert!
This was not good, not in Margo’s opinion. How would Colin find her if she was not in Grady!? How could he return her body to her? She might be stuck in this malformed monstrosity of a junk-bot for all her days!
Margo spun about as Ratchet told her to watch the girls, and then watched as he jetted up the stairs.
Luckily, she knew a thing or two about babysitting, all thanks to a minor role in one of her later pictures. The ones she spent more time acting in, and much less being a stunt dummy for whatever wild stunt the current producers thought would wow the audiences. She wasn’t actually a babysitter in that movie, but she was sat for… so she just had to, like, not let them eat snacks too close to bed time or something. It was still pretty early in the day, so she was confident she had this whole ‘babysitting’ thing covered.
Margo hovered back through to where the two girls sat on a grimy old work bench. Dicey, with the ever present bunny in the nook of one arm, looked unfazed by the current crisis, and the slightly older of the two youngest Blue siblings was still quietly staring at the vid screen she held before herself; clicking at unseen controls with her thumbs. Margo didn’t know what Grace was doing, but Dicey suddenly reacted to what was on her screen. Grace leaned over and whispered something in her ear, and Dicey rolled her eyes, “Not this again? Uhg!”
Dicey hopped down off the bench.
“What is it?” Margo asked.
“Oh she’s just being Grace,” Dicey answered as she sat the bunny down next to her sister, “Her brain works funny- she’s usually right, but this is just nuts.”
“I’m telling you, it all matches,” Grace suddenly insisted on something Margo could only guess at, “Just get on ‘Berty– I’ll show you!”
“Fine. Everyone’s just going to get mad at you again,” Dicey said as she pulled open an old chest, and dug around until she pulled out a visor and a small controller, she then turned back to Margo and explained, “She, like, quartered off a section of the game, and wouldn’t let anyone near this lump of eggs we were all gunning for -or this big ol’crazy looking beast- She told everyone it was our ‘home’,” Dicey continued, then laughed “They called her a troll!”
“You told them I was just trolling,” Grace interrupted, correcting her sister.
“Well, it was embarrassing!” Dicey defended her action, before turning back to Margo and continuing her story, “She literally bashed them away, knocked people out of the raid. Now she’s following the same beast in her Mecha as it charges out of the nest.”
Margo would nod dumbfounded if she had a neck. She didn’t. It sounded like a bunch of gibberish. Margo decided to remain silent, maybe pretend she knew what the young girl was talking about until she had more information. Such tactics served her well in the past.
“I’m just glad we use voice mods,” Dicey said with one more eye roll before she pulled the visor down over her eyes, “I was like beat red!”
“They don’t even know who we are!” Grace argued.
“They think we’re a couple of old guys,” Dicey explained with a laugh,then added, “But really, no one would play with us, seriously, if they knew we were a couple of little girls!”
Margo watched as the gabby girl fell silent; lights flashed under the metal plate that covered the upper portion of Dicey’s face. She knew Dicey was looking into the hub, a place the runaway bot hadn’t dared re-enter, since Margo freed herself from her trailer– what felt like years ago.
“Where are you…?” Dicey asked as she searched through whatever she may be looking at in there.
“Just find my blip,” Grace answered simply. “I’m close to base.
“Ms. Pennsylvania…” Dicey said as though reading, “got ya… I’m on my way!”
Margo watched as the little girl clicked at the controls in her hand, her body would tilt in different directions, almost rhythmically as she, Margo assumed, made her way to her sister.
“Oh my goodness, Grace!” Dicey announced as something seemed to catch her eye, “Rowdy was on!”
“Yeah, I saw that earlier,” Grace stated, disinterested.
“Awe, why didn’t you tell me!” Dicey dismayed,and then explained wickedly, “I wanted to raz him! He thinks he’s so good– bet he didn’t think so when I smashed his head in with my Mecha!”
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