Lightning on a Clear Day -- Inspector Gadget/X-Men Xover

[EmilyH]

Lightning on a Clear Day

Disclaimers: The characters from “Inspector Gadget” do not belong to me. Neither does the X-Men universe, as much as I wish it did. I’m only borrowing them for a little while. Sorry, no X-Men cameos in this fic.

* * * * *

Penny really didn’t like English class this semester. She was great at math and science, even history, but they were covering poetry in her English class at the moment. Poetry, in her opinion, was a waste of time when she would much rather be working on a computer program or her web site, which included a wealth of information on robotics, AI, and computer software. But her current assignment for school was to write a haiku, and she was having a terrible time trying to come up with something remotely poetic.

“I’ll take a walk outside,” she muttered to no one in particular. “Maybe that’ll inspire me.” The 16-year-old high school student grabbed her keys and headed out the door.

It was a spring day, and like most spring days, it was very nice. Not a cloud could be seen in the cerulean-blue sky as the blonde girl strolled down the sidewalk. *Hmm,* she thought. *I could write something about the clouds, maybe?* While trying to come up with an idea for a poem, she very nearly stumbled into a little old lady walking her pet poodle. The dog growled at her, which looked pretty funny since it was all dressed up in a little purple doggy sweater and wore purple ribbons on its ears.

“Oops,” Penny apologized, blushing. “Sorry.”

“Watch where you’re going, young lady.”

“Thanks. I will.” Mentally counting syllables in her head, she thought, *Teenage girl stumbles/into silly-looking dog/and gray-haired lady. Works, but it’s not very poetic. I’d better try to find something more inspiring.*

Continuing her walk, Penny crossed the street and passed by a video rental place and an antique shop. She was walking past a pawnshop when suddenly, the burglar alarm sounded, and a man wearing a black ski mask holding a pillowcase stuffed with something ran out.

“Stop him!” the shopkeeper yelled.

Childhood memories of crime-fighting with her uncle and pet dog surfaced. Her Uncle Gadget had started his own private investigative firm, and was currently out of town on a case. Brain was with him. Penny had been living a relatively normal life as a high school student, though her few close friends knew who her uncle was. She’d taken a few self-defense classes recently, mostly on her uncle’s insistence. So it was an entirely reflexive move when she pivoted, intending to kick the bad guy.

As her right foot shot out, her arm also did, completely unintentionally. There was a bright flash of light followed by the smell of electricity. The hapless robber gave a shout of pain. Then everything went dark.

“Hey,” the shopkeeper yelled, “Are you okay, miss?”

Penny opened her eyes slowly and gaped, incredulous. Her right hand was glowing electric blue. The would-be thief lay on the ground, clearly alive, but unconscious. There was a scorch mark on his shirt where the lightning had struck him.

“Oh no,” she breathed, realizing what must have happened.

There was only one logical explanation that fit the facts, and it was not a truth she wanted to face. Turning, she saw her expression of shock reflected in the pawnshop’s window and the growing fear on the shopkeeper’s face. Then her legs acted as though they had a mind of their own -- not entirely unlike her uncle’s gadgets. She ran from the scene, through her front door and into her bedroom, where she sobbed for nearly twenty minutes until her laptop alerted her to an incoming video phone call.

“Penny?”

It was her uncle. The Eiffel tower could be seen in the background behind him. She sniffled, wiped her nose with a Kleenex, and faced the computer screen.

“Hi, Uncle Gadget. How’s Paris?”

“Wonderful.” His eyes narrowed as the sensors in them detected minute details that an ordinary human’s eyes would have missed. Was her web camera lens dusty, or were those tears on her cheeks? “Penny, is everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, managing a grin. There was no need to tell him that she was a mutant until he got home. He needed to concentrate on his case and not worry about her. “I have to write a poem for school. I went out for a walk to find something to write about.”

“Did you?”

“I guess you could say that. How’s the case?”

“Very interesting. It appears that some stolen jewelry was taken for the purposes of building a sophisticated weapon. Brain and I are tracking down the thieves right now. We should have this wrapped up in a day or two. Oh, Brain says hi.”

“Great. I really miss you guys.” This time, her smile was genuine. She should have been there with them, but Uncle Gadget said that school was more important right now.

“We’ll see you soon.”

The video phone call ended and the screen went black. Penny sighed and stared at her hand, which had gone back to normal by now. Surely there must be some way of controlling her powers. She didn’t want to worry about them going off accidentally, like her uncle’s gadgets had a habit of doing. His control had gotten a lot better over the years, but every once in a while, accidents still happened.

“Think, Penny,” she told herself. “Maybe there’s a web site for mutants out there.”

Mutants were not well-known by the general public, but being who she was, she’d known about them. Sometimes, she missed the challenge of dealing with Dr. Claw, but he’d been sentenced to life in a maximum-security prison with no chance of escaping.
She quickly searched the Internet and found that the first 20 hits in the search engine were articles claiming to “debunk the myth” of mutants as a government conspiracy. The rest of the sites that followed were either official government sites, or messages in chat forums debating the existence of mutants and whether they were a threat to global security.

The idea that so many people seemed to adamantly hate mutants without knowing for sure whether they existed made Penny so frustrated that her hand charged up again and sent a static shock through her keyboard, causing it to disrupt the power supply. Of course, when the computer screen abruptly went black, she got even more frustrated and accidentally sent a bigger jolt through the system. Then the fire alarm went off as smoke from the laptop’s smoldering remains floated into the air.

“No!” Penny wailed in anguish. “My computer!” Her laptop had been as much an extension of her as her uncle’s gadgets were extensions of him. Having had homework for several classes saved on the hard drive and ready to be turned in the next day, she was horrified. What was she going to do now?

Suddenly, her cell phone rang. The caller ID identified the incoming number as Uncle Gadget’s. Great. He would know about the fire alarm, since the house’s security system communicated with the computer chip in his head. What was she going to tell him?

“Penny, are you all right? What’s going on over there?”

“I’m okay, Uncle Gadget. I think,” she amended.

“What happened?”

“I kind of fried my laptop.”

“You ‘kind of’ fried it? How did you ‘kind of’ fry a laptop?”

“Um…it’s a really long story.”

“Tell me.”

“Do you have time?” she asked, shouting to be heard over the fire alarm.

“Brain and I are on the train. Our stop isn’t for another 23 minutes and 17 seconds.”

“Can you tell the house to make the fire alarm stop? My computer isn’t on fire anymore, and my ears are starting to hurt.” When the alarm stopped buzzing, she gave a sigh of relief.

“Now, Penny, tell me what happened. Are you hurt?” The concern in his voice was very audible.

“No. Uncle Gadget, I just found out that I’m a mutant.”

There was a moment of silence. Then her uncle said, “Wowser. Are you sure?”

“Uncle Gadget, I shocked a guy trying to steal stuff from a pawn shop earlier today, I electrocuted my laptop, and now I’ve got to spend all night doing the homework that was on my computer. On top of that, I still have to write a stupid poem for English class. What am I going to do?”

“Everything will be fine. You’ve gotten through plenty of sticky situations before. You’re just like rubber; you always bounce back.”

“Rubber! Uncle Gadget, you’re a genius. Why didn’t I think of that before?” she mumbled, mentally kicking herself.

“Uh…okay. Don’t stay up too late doing homework. Just do as much as you can. Brain and I will be home in a day or two. If anything else happens, call me. Be careful, okay?”

“I will. You too.”

Penny disconnected. She hunted under the sink in the kitchen and found a pair of brown rubber gloves, right where she’d figured they would be. After slipping them over her hands, the girl was relieved.

Going back into her room, she searched through her bedroom closet, tossing clothes onto the floor that were in the way. Then she found her old computer in the corner, collecting dust. After dumping the remains of her other laptop into the garbage and cleaning up, she put the old computer on her desk and plugged in the battery.

“Yes,” she exclaimed as it powered up. “Now to get some homework done.”


Her typing was very slow and clumsy with the gloves on. Eventually, Penny was forced to use two fingers. But as the hours passed, she was able to recreate her assignments from memory. She took a short break in the evening to eat something. There was leftover pizza, which was good as anything. The teenager had to take a glove off to get the plastic bag open and put the pizza on a plate, but she put the glove back on to use the microwave. Still, it was too awkward eating with the gloves on, so she took them off and set them on the table beside her plate.

Penny wished that she could be in Paris helping her uncle, but he’d insisted on her staying home and going to school. While in the past she’d disobeyed orders and helped her uncle solve his cases (mostly without his knowledge), her attendance record and grades needed to be strong for her to go to college. Not that she’d ever had any trouble with her grades in the past, but she didn’t want to start having trouble with them now. Having finished eating, Penny started working on her assignments again.

It was nearly midnight when she’d gotten to the point where she had been. Everything but her poem for English class was complete. She took a glove off to rub her sleepy eyes. Maybe inspiration would come in the form of a dream. Yawning, Penny changed into her nightshirt, turned off the light, and crawled into bed.

* * * * *

Lightning flashed, though the sky was perfectly clear. Birds sang in the distance. Penny stood in the middle of a grassy field wearing her nightshirt, which had a cartoon nerd girl sitting in front of a computer and the words “Cyber Dreaming” written in purple glitter across it. Her hands were glowing electric blue.

Suddenly, Uncle Gadget’s words echoed through her mind: “You’re just like rubber.” Penny found herself bouncing as if on a trampoline, but she couldn’t stop. At the same time, bolts of lightning sprang from her hands and struck everywhere, incinerating bright yellow dandelions and leaving scorch marks on the grass.

* * * * *

With a scream, the teenager woke. It was 5:30 AM. As her heart pounded, she glanced around. Her hands were glowing, but there wasn’t any lightning at the moment. “That was too weird,” she muttered to nobody in particular.

There was an unexpected knock on the door. “Penny?”

She gasped. “Uncle Gadget, what are you doing here?”

“I wrapped up the case sooner than expected. Brain and I took the first non-stop flight home that we could get. Are you okay?”

“No,” the girl mumbled, staring at her glowing hands as tears welled up in her eyes.
Gadget turned the light on. His niece blinked away tears, but more came. It broke his heart to see her cry. He crossed the room and stood next to her, trying to think of something to say. Everything he thought of seemed too trite. Finally, he offered her the Kleenex box sitting on the nightstand next to her bed. “Tissue?”

She grabbed one and used it. “Thanks.”

“Want to talk?”

The teenager shrugged. “You’re just going to tell me that you know exactly how I feel and try to cheer me up.”

“This may come as a surprise to you, Penny, but I do know how you feel.”

She shook her head. “It’s not the same.”

“Really? Let’s see. One day, everything is perfectly normal. The next day, you’re trying to get used to the idea of being a freak and having everyone stare at you, wondering what you’re going to do next. And then they tell you, don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. But that’s not the worst of it. The worst part is the fear that one day, you’ll screw up and endanger the lives of everyone you care about the most, and then you won’t be able to save them.” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “Believe me, I know.”

The teenager gaped at her uncle. There was a bitterness in his voice that she’d never heard before. She had no idea he’d felt that way. “But…but I always thought you were having fun. When I was little, and you took me and Brain along on your trips, we had a blast catching all those bad guys. I thought you had the best job in the whole world.”

He grinned. “We did have fun back then, didn’t we?”

Penny managed to smile. As her uncle reached out to hug her, she suddenly jumped back. “Uncle Gadget, no! If I accidentally shock you, it might be catastrophic. Remember what happened to my computer.”

He glanced at her wastebasket, in addition to the chunk of melted plastic and metal it now contained. The laptop was definitely a lost cause. He realized that it would have taken a very powerful lightning bolt to do that kind of damage. The idea that his niece could generate that much electricity without using any gadgets was mind-boggling. “Wowser. You really did that?”

She nodded and blushed.

Then Gadget looked down at his rubber boots, which he hadn’t had much time to take off because he’d only just gotten home from the airport a few minutes ago. “I should be grounded pretty well.”

Penny reached out to hug him, but then her hand started to glow. When she hesitated, sparks began to dance along her fingertips. She stared at the amazing phenomenon for a few moments and whispered, “Wowser.”

Her uncle started to laugh, and then she joined in.

“Feeling better now?” Gadget inquired after they’d recovered.

“Yeah. Thank you.” The teenager gave him a great big hug. Then she realized what time it was. “I’d better get ready for school.”

“Okay. I’ll make us breakfast. See you in a bit.”

As Penny got dressed, inspiration hit. Frantically, she looked around for a pen and paper to scribble down a few lines of poetry. She hastily counted syllables while writing.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. Finally, a haiku that was poetic enough to turn in. She finished getting ready and headed toward the kitchen, still clutching the scrap of paper with her poem on it.

“Ruht’s rat?” Brain wondered aloud, as he waited in the kitchen.

“This? Nothing. Just my poem for English class.” Jenny grabbed a bowl and poured some cereal into it.

“You wrote a poem?” Gadget asked. “Let’s hear it.”

“Oh, I don’t know…I mean, it’s really only a rough draft.”

“Aw, come on,” he said, putting milk and orange juice on the table. “You can read it.”

“Okay, but it doesn’t rhyme. It’s a haiku.” Penny cleared her throat. “On a clear day, a sudden flash of bright lightning illuminates truth.”

There was a long silence. Then her uncle said, “That’s very good. I’m impressed. It could be a little longer, though.”

“It’s not supposed to be very long, Uncle Gadget. Traditionally, a haiku is only supposed to have 17 syllables.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, it’s fantastic.”

She blushed. “Thanks.”

Lightning on a clear day may have illuminated the truth, but could Penny live with being a mutant? Only time would tell.