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“Alright Karen, baby. Let’s take this thing for a ride,” Plankton said, rubbing his hands together.
It had taken a week of all-nighters to get to this point, sneaking out of the city to gather materials.
Bikini Bottom was eerily quiet. Everyone was lying low, licking their wounds and sorting through the rubble. For once, he was grateful for the lack of business.
He had done a complete overhaul of the original designs for Karen's body. Starting with her monitor, he had rounded off the sharp edges, making it more balanced and aerodynamic.
Her design was smaller, with a taller than average height, but far from the monstrous form of the original mech suit.
Her legs were long and flexible. Plankton had always been an ass man and he had allowed himself a few indulgences to go along with the BBL. Getting the right type of metal that could flex and hold its shape was tricky and he ended up having to test a few chrome alloys before finding the right mix.
But it was her arms that Plankton was particularly proud of. Her forearms were thick with reinforced gauntlets, but hidden inside them were blades that could be released with a trigger built into her palm. Each punch could be packed with the crippling force of spring-loaded steel. He was practically drooling at the thought of seeing those in action.
“Take a lap around the room, first,” Plankton directed, looking over at the monitors displaying the interior designs. “Tell me if I calibrated the gyroscope right. I was having some trouble with your new weight distribution.”
Karen glanced over at her husband. “Are you saying my new screen makes me look fat?”
Plankton raised his hands in surrender before realizing she was joking. He huffed a laugh. “I think the term is more rounded.”
She tossed her head in the exaggerated way that she used to express rolling her eyes. “It feels fine to me so far. Should I try some flips? The suspension in my legs feels like it needs to be broken in.” She rotated her joints, before doing a few squats. Plankton’s brain shorted-out for a minute. That BBL was really doing its job.
“Honey?” Karen said, bringing him back to reality. “Ready for more?”
Plankton hummed in anticipation. “Babe, I’ll always take whatever you want to give me.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Then I guess we should finish these tests so we can run a different kind of experiment.” Karen took a running start before executing a textbook handspring. Her feet slid a little on the metal floor, but otherwise she didn’t seem to struggle with the motions.
“How did that feel?” Plankton asked, his science side winning over for the time being. It really was amazing watching his wife get these new experiences. He didn’t know why he waited this long to make a body for her. He hadn’t thought of it as a thing she might want.
“Gyroscope is holding fine but my joints still feel stiff,” she reported. Plankton was willing to admit that this was not the only thing stiff at the moment. He needed to finish this up quickly.
“Alright, Karen. Really put it through its paces. If anything is going to fail, I’d rather it happen now,” Plankton said. The last thing he wanted was for a critical system error in a deadly situation, which seemed to be occurring more frequently than ever these days.
Karen turned to him and flashed a smirk emoji. “You got it, boss,” she said teasingly. Plankton inhaled slowly. He hated her for how easily she riled him up.
She raised her arms before throwing herself backwards into a handstand, her form lithe and limber. He hadn’t chosen to give her breasts due to their impracticality, but for the first time he wished he had. They would have looked lovely right now.
With each rotation, Karen gained momentum, reaching superhuman speed within minutes. Her feet slammed hard on every landing, but she didn’t slow down, going higher with every jump.
“Hey, Karen?” Plankton called after a while, “Don’t you think we have enough data now?” Her boots were leaving dents in the floor.
“In a minute,” she snapped, and Plankton knew she only sounded like that during a particularly difficult debugging.
“Talk to me,” Plankton called, wandering over to his laptop while still keeping and eye on Karen. Maybe he coded something wrong.
“I narrowed the issue to my ankles,” she said, transitioning into standing backflips. She paused after each one, listing her head to each side like she could hear the problem.
Plankton frowned. “They should be fine. I had to adjust the specs from the last model to fit your size, but everything else should be the same. Come over here a minute and let me take a look.”
Karen shook her head. “I think I can figure it out. I just need a little more data.” She turned to the wall and sprinted toward it, bounding off the metal and running up until she flipped over.
“Now you’re just showing off,” Plankton muttered.
“I thought you liked it when I put on a show?” she threw back, making Plankton remember she had ears everywhere.
Plankton rolled his eyes. “Of course I do, honey, but I’m trying to help you find the problem before something-”
He threw himself to the ground on instinct, narrowly avoiding being struck by the metal that rocketed toward his head.
He looked backward, finding a foot spinning slowly on the ground. His wife was laying sprawled in a heap, looking dazed.
“Are you ok?” Plankton asked.
Karen pulled herself up into a sitting position. “I think I snapped my ankle.”
Plankton couldn’t help it. He laughed, doubling over with the force of it.
Karen frowned, using an emoji with particularly thick eyebrows. Plankton laughed even harder.
“Nice of you to make fun of my pain, Sheldon.” Karen said, crossing her arms.
Plankton tried to calm down, gasping deeply for air.
Karen waited a few minutes. “Whenever you get done, help me up. This body is worthless with one foot.”
Plankton relented, dragging over a chair for Karen to hoist herself into. “Most bodies are,” he replied.
Plankton walked over and retrieved her foot from the other side of the room, inspecting it for damage. It looked like one of the lynch pins had sheared straight through. He was going to have to try a different alloy for the replacement.
He turned back to Karen. “This is going to take some time to fix. Do you want me to hook you back into the hub?” He had made sure to keep her head separate from the rest of the designs just for cases like these. He didn’t want her to feel trapped in a broken body when she was so much more than that.
“We could do that,” Karen said, trailing off.
“Or?” Plankton prompted.
“Or you could wheel me into the bedroom and we can stress test my fingers.”
Has he mentioned how much he loves his wife?