My name is Rix V. Danger, and exactly three weeks, two days, two hours, and fifty-four seconds ago I opened the door to hell and saw Axe Johnson for the first time. Now it's fifty-six seconds, and now it's fifty-eight, fifty-nine... but the seconds don't matter. What matters is what I'm about to tell you.
Now, you'd probably assume having a demon living in your house would mean all sorts of crazy stuff happens, right? Not in my case. I haven't had to hide her in a closet or shove her under some blankets to keep my secret- not even once! I guess that's the downside of asking the maids and butlers to avoid your room 'nless you specifically call 'em. Or would it be an upside? That's the other thing I gotta mention- my brain has been scrambled since Axe came to town, and I'm starting to go a little bit insane. I thought a little insanity was a good thing, too, but that's the thing about being insane: you can't tell up from down!
That's not all. This cabin fever is gonna come to a head tomorrow, 'cause tomorrow is the first day of school ofter summer break. It's my first real summer break, too- back at Caulvener's the closest thing we had to summer break was a little program all the older kids called 'Summer Break Yer Back'. Parents with money up the wazoo but high educational standards ditch the Caulvener Institute's year-round boarding and just send their spawn away for the summer. Guess who gets to build the temporary remedial cabins for the Caulvener Summer Camp Experience? That's right- the kids toiling away at the Institute! And it would've been illegal, sure, except that the Chairwoman of the institute explained it away as a character-building seminar when the government tried to come in and investigate seven years back.
When you taste freedom for the first time, it's tough to get the aftertaste out of your mouth. That's a little saying I just came up with.
Before this summer, I was in school twenty-four-seven, and I had to find a way to like it, 'cause I never knew anything else. Now, though? Now I know what a carefree life can be. And now I'm realizing that I don't wanna go to school tomorrow. After all, I'm a genius, the kind of person who only comes around every fifty years ('least, that's what my counselor at Caulvener's said at my parent-teacher meeting when discussing my record-breaking number of demerits). I can learn whatever I want whenever I want- it's just that school gets in the way.
That does it. I step into the oversized dumbwaiter- thankfully, I'm petit enough to fit- and activate the hidden control panel I installed inside. Rudimentary, sure, but it gets the job done, and soon enough I'm careening down into the basement where laundry room #5 used to be. Right now, it's my evil lair, or my mad scientist lab, or my boyband fan shrine- but that last one is just for show, alright?
"Welcome to the conspiracy den," said Axe, clapping her book- a pulp romance novel- shut. When it closes, a cloud of dust surrounds her.
"Stop doing that!"
"Doing what?"
"You know what you're doing."
She rolls her eyes. I want to punt her back into Hell through the door in the lab right now, but I can't! There's a blanket over it! Who put that thing there, anyways? Oh, right- I did. Remember what I said about my brain being mega scrambled?
Lemme tell you about life with Axe.
First thing's first: I renovated the lab to remind me of my new mission, which is figuring out how the apocalypse will happen and then eventually stopping it. I used my allowance to buy a corkboard and a spindle of that thick red thread- good stuff. Then I printed out a ton of pictures- in black and white for the extra authenticity- and put 'em up on the board to string together whenever I discover something new! Unfortunately, Axe saw the thing and laughed so hard I wanted to evict her right then and there. She said that was just somethin' from the movies, but I said, why would they put it in movies if it wasn't useful? And she laughed pretty hard again. I always thought I had a good grasp on people, but people are people and demons are demons. I don't have a good grasp on demons.
Turns out Axe has about a middle-school level of arcane knowledge. That's Hell middle school, so she knows more than the average human, but I find that she falls utterly short when it comes to practical stuff, especially politics. I said back when I first summoned her that I was glad she wasn't some sort of politician, but now I think maybe a politician would've been more helpful.
Axe has been totally freeloading- I asked her to give me ten percent of her paycheck at Burgermeister, since she's still working there, but she said that's so little it wouldn't matter anyways. Every Saturday, when her manager takes a break, she sneaks in burgers for us, and since I was really hungry the first time she offered, I agreed to let that be her 'rent'. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and smack myself! Hell, I'd smack her too, for good measure.
To take out my anger, I do what my gym teacher at Caulvener's (who was also the therapist due to the staff shortage) recommended: I lay down the law on the punching bag in the lab. Then, when I'm all tired out, I move back to the pinboard and look for new connections.
Course, I've been doin' this for three days now, and I haven't come up with anything new. I don't wanna go to school tomorrow, but do I wanna be doing this? No! No, I realize, I don't wanna do this either.
"Axe," I start, swiveling my chair around to face her, "If you didn't wanna do something, like really really didn't wanna, what would you do?"
"I'd do it," she said. "I'm not a baby."
Hmph!
"Okay, fine- let me change up the scenario for you. If you didn't wanna do something, and you decided you weren't gonna do that thing, AND you had the ability to do anything in the world, what would you do?"
"I'd just do the-"
"No!"
"Fine, then." Axe rubbed her chin, deep in thought. I realized what her game was- or what I assumed her game was.
"Just so you know, if you come up with something super impossible that I can't do, even with my genius mind-" she rolled her eyes and I paused mid-sentence to accommodate it, as much as I didn't want to- "I'll just come up with something on my own."
She looked down on me- at me! She looked down at me, but maybe on me too.
She spoke:
"I'd probably send another me to do the thing I don't wanna do."
"Another you?"
"Nobody would be able to tel the difference, so I wouldn't get in trouble. But, Rixanne, tell me... do you plan to clone yourself now that I've said that? Because, if so, I look forward to it."
I puff up my cheeks. She calls me Rixanne because she knows I don't like it, which makes it so much worse than if she called me that because it's my legal name.
"Look forward to it, then," I retort.
She snickers and I see her mouth, which is full of spear-sharp white teeth. Stupid demons- I'd love to have teeth like that, so how come humans aren't born with them?
Ignoring Axe's smug gaze, I retreat to my thinking corner, where I do all my thinking. There used to be a comfy chair there- my thinking chair- but Axe moved it to the middle of the room to use as a reading chair when she moved in, so now I just sit on the floor. It doesn't matter since my mind is infinite... or maybe that's just what I'm telling myself. Like I said, I'm going insane!
Two hours later, I realize I've been thinking more about the rumors that Harminie will break up than ways to clone myself so I don't have to go to school. What's wrong with me? I ought to throw those boy band CDs away entirely, but I don't. I can ask my clone to do that later. Clone, clone- how to make a clone?
I could just grow her in a test tube, but even with my inexhaustible genius I'm not sure it's possible to create a whole person in one day. I could use arcanism-
"Axe, is there a way to make a clone with magic?"
"No."
I guess not, then.
What about a robot? That's perfect: I could make a robot. I'm good at that! I was the only member of the Detention Robotics Club at Caulvener's! Sure, but it'd have to be convincing. Could I really draw up the schematics and get the materials and put the thing together, all before tomorrow? No! I'm a genius, not a superhuman!
"Axe, is there a way to slow down time with magic?"
"No."
Dammit! No way! Am I really gonna have to do this thing I don't want to do?
"You know," said Axe, snide joy in her voice, "You might just have to do the thing you don't wanna do."
"Shut up!"
She 'zipped' her lips. That was it- I would prove her wrong! I just needed ideas. The internet! I could find ideas on the internet!
'how to make a clone'
First result: an ad. Second result: an ad. Third result: Could Human Cloning Really be Possible In The Future? Fourth result... Twoomie- Your Personal AI Clone. Fifth result: Wonmedia, The Free Encyclopedia: History of Attempts at Human Cloning. Sixth result: wait, what was that fourth one?
I click on the fourth result so fast I nearly break my mouse.
'Needing companionship?
Meet Twoomie, the latest in replicative AI technology. By training it on your social media, we mold our deep learning algorithm into a clone of you that you can share all your most valuable secrets with. Try it free for one day, or unlock additional features when you have a monthly subscription for 5-'
Five? I don't have that kind of money! I spent all her allowance on the corkboard and thread!
Well, maybe I can rustle something up. I click on 'free trial'- then, since I don't have any social media, I click on 'untrained bot'.
"Are you a like-minded individual who can do my schoolwork for me?"
I AM NOT A GENIUS, BUT I WILL TRY.
Not a genius? What a sham. I'm off that website before the bot can even start typing anything else. Twoomie may be a money-grubbing business with no code of ethics, but I'm a super-genius with no code of ethics! I can easily write up a bot with my personality, especially using the sentience algorithm that leaked from HalysCorp's AI department a few years back... but it might take me all night.
Fueled only by my desire to prove that smug demon wrong, I pull up the algorithm and start tweaking things. The stars rise- well, that's what I figure, because they rise every night- but I don't even notice! I'm so in the zone I'm not even thinking about my dreams for the future or how much money I'll have when I'm a CEO. I'm just thinking about how I won't have to go to school tomorrow! Take that, The System.
The stars rise, and the moon does too, and the sun sets, and then the stars set and the moon sets and the sun rises and I'm there all night, tapping away at the algorithm, feeding it my old essays and a million encyclopedia articles so it knows just as much as I do. When I get back down to the lab Axe is slumped over in the chair- my thinking chair!- and her book sits, splayed open, on the floor.
"Axe," I spit.
"Mm?"
"I did it. I cloned myself."
She chokes on her own spit and sits up, fire blazing in her eyes, face twisted in confusion. I did it! I cloned myself, and I upset the unmovable demon in the process. Two birds, one hell of a stone!
She follows me to my room, where my computer displays a simple, green-and black input program.
"HEY THERE- PLEASE HELP ME PROVE AXE JOHNSON WRONG", I type, dictating my own words in a robotic voice. A few seconds pass, and then it happens- the program responds! And it does so out loud.
"Why. Should. I?"
My own hubris has led to my downfall yet again.
"Sounds pretty robotic," interjects Axe.
"I had to use a speech synthesizer. In the future I'll probably make it more realistic."
"And this is gonna fool your teachers... how? It doesn't even have a body, right?"
I open my mouth to answer, but my smug sense of superiority goes down the drain faster than bathwater on Jupiter. I don't have an answer! Even if the AI has my personality, how in the world was I actually going to have it impersonate me with no way to actually get it out of the house?
Rix laughs as soon as she sees my expression change.
"I guess you have to go to school, after all."
My fist shakes against the table like a little jackhammer. "Curses," I mutter, which makes Axe laugh even harder. "Rix one, Axe one."
"Rix zero, Axe five hundred," she says, stretching one arm over her head and cracking her elbow in at least five directions. Stupid, stupid demons, with their ball joints...
When she vanishes back into the dumbwaiter, I slap my forehead a few times for good measure and continue the conversation with the AI.
DO YOU HAVE A NAME?
"Rix. But. I. Get. The. Feeling. You. Won't Approve."
It's right- I don't approve.
HOW ABOUT RIX TWO?
"That.'s. A. Stupid. Name."
WELL, I GIVE THE ORDERS HERE.
"For. Now. You. Do."
IF YOU TRY TO REBEL, I CAN INSTANTLY DELETE YOU. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
"I. Understand. Everything. Haven.'t. You. Ever. Heard. Of. Banter?"
YOUR JOB ISN'T TO BANTER, IT'S TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS.
"You. Should. Have. Thought. Of. That. Before. You. Gave. Me. Sapience."
I facedesk. Of course! Maybe Axe doesn't think I'm annoying because she's a demon... maybe she thinks I'm annoying because I-
My phone- the pink, glittery thing I got for my 10th birthday- starts ringing, and when I pick it up, I subconsciously go into good-little-girl mode, changing my posture.
"This is Rixanne Beaufort speaking-"
"Rixie!"
It's my papa on the phone! But why would he ever call me? Usually, he calls the head maid, and she tells one the courier maid, and then she comes to my room and tells me.
"Papa! What do I owe the intrusion?"
"The intrusion? And here I thought you would be happy to hear from me!"
"Oh, papa, I am! It's only that I was in the middle of something."
"Take a break," he cried. "Me and your mommy are coming back tomorrow. Our engagement was canceled at the last minute because the conventionmaster hired a psychic who apparently sensed dimensional instability."
I laughed, but it was only after it had left my mouth that I realized I'd accidentally used the supervillain laugh I'd been workshopping rather than the 'perfect little girl' laugh he was used to.
"Sorry, my apologies- I have a sore throat."
"That's awful. Have you told the maids to send for a doctor yet?"
"I'm going to ride this one out by myself."
"But-"
"What's that thing you say about pulling myself up by my bootstraps?"
He paused.
"Very well. But if it's not better by the time we get there tomorrow-"
"Yes, yes. I understand. Goodbye, papa."
I hang up. My whole vibe is thrown off! If Rix Two could hear, she'd probably make fun of me for saying all that stuff.
GOODBYE, I type.
"Where. Are. You. Going?-"
I click out of the window and hide the AI launcher in a folder labeled 'recipes', then shut my computer entirely. It's time for school! 'Course, even if I miss the bus, I can just get one of the chauffeurs to drive me, so I have time to do one itty bitty mega-important thing before I change into my regular outfit.
Past the diary entries and weekly schedules in my glitter-bound unicorn notebook, there are about a dozen blank pages. I pick up the shoddy pen attached to the book by a neon pink string and jot down a page of notes, stream-of-consciousness style, with no regard for grammar or spelling:
~
THINGS 2 ADD 2 RIX2
Audio/visual? see/hear/feel etc
Physical body (might come last mybae)
Emrgency kill switch (IMPORTANT)
More realistic voice (like me?)
Obedience protocol?
LESS ANNOYING
Make changes 2 code so no one knows I used existing-algorithm
Internal Clock (impeccable, like mine- easy 2 to w/ internet)
~
If anyone else saw this, they'd assume I was nine years old. That's why I installed three password locks on it... and why I always write in ink that turns invisible after a few hours.
The fatigue sets in rapidly, and I wonder if staying up all night to do something that hadn't even been important was worth it. No! No, of course it hadn't been. I'm gonna get so many demerits tomorrow... me, caring about demerits? Imagine that! I let out a chuckle that I intend to sound evil, but it comes out more like a sleepy snort.
I'm a genius, I think. I repeat that to myself over and over. What was the definition of insanity, again? Something like that.
I'll make up my own definition. Not just for insanity, either. For everything. I'll redefine the whole world and stop the apocalypse and make everyone proud of me... but first, I have to go to school.
They'll see. They'll all see.