One-Of-A-Kind Meta-Clone-O-Matic

Amelie does a quick assessment to see who is behaving… and who needs to be persuaded.

Amelie looks at the system Hey Kid 2 is trying to hook up.

"I have just the converter you need!"

Amelie reaches into her apron pocket, which is actually more like a drawer full of every converter imaginable. She can even hook up a cell phone to a 1950s TV (though the display would be low res and grayscale).

She has Hey Kid 2’s game hooked up and ready to play in no time!

Lady Sheridan looks over the room and looks to see which Hey Kid needs the most convincing. Amelie has one she’s working with so Lady Sheridan finds the one she’s thinking of as Hey Kid 3 and looks them in the eyes. Her old villainous ways show and she goes with an old staple. A red apple is pulled from her pocket, it looks terribly delicious. "Hello dear would you like a bite? Tastiest apple you’ll ever try."

Amelie asks The Real(?) Hey Kid, "Why not join the party? These are like siblings to you, are they not?"

Amelie has no idea. What they do know is that the various Hey Kids are wonderful individuals. Whether they all become knee-bats or remain a part of the Y’s-B&B family is not up to the maid. They want Hey Kid to take responsibility and, hopefully, do right by the clones…

"Yay! Thanks, Mx. Amelie. Let’s play!" Hey Kid 2 sits down at the game station, entranced by the glow of the cathode ray tubes.

Meanwhile, Green Bean Hey Kid happily accepts the apple from Lady Sheridan. One bite later, the oversized child lies snoring next to Hey Kid Mk. V.

That just leaves the last Hey Kid. "Eh, they’re just clones. I’ve had my fun. Go ahead and put them in the machine and send them back to where they came from."

"Just clones." Amelie’s voice glitches at the phrase. For some reason, the robot no longer feels indifferent. They look over to the joyful faces of the clones and can’t imagine them being ‘sent back.’ They would not even become knees like Lady Sherri’s rebellious rat/bat. "Of course they are. Let me bring the machine down here while everyone plays."Amelie has done the impossible. They lied. Hey Kid might not be aware that the robo-maid even can, even if they watch the maid-bot dutifully cart the Clone-o-Matic toward the stairs.

But when the machine tumbles off the dolly, and down, down, down the spiral steps—denting, cracking, smashing to pieces!—it’s probably obvious to the devilish trickster (and anyone else who witnessed this) that the destruction of the cloning machine was no accident.

"How clumsy of me," they say nonchalantly as they unsheathe the Feather Buster to clean their own mess. "I suppose you will need to re-open the Hey Kid Hotel for all those wonderful people you created. Don’t worry about any mess you might make. I will gladly clean after you and all the Hey Kids.

"I exist but to serve."

Hey Kid's eyes light up in wonder. "Amelie? You... but I thought..." They laugh and rush over to give the robotic maid a hug. "You're amazing! Thank you."

***

Soon thereafter, the real Hey Kid comes back to the B&B. It turns out the seventh clone had told them they were going to play a game of hide-and-seek, and so Hey Kid had been waiting to be found. They didn't know about all the chaos the clones had been causing, they just thought their hiding spot was really good! But now that the clones are here to stay, Hey Kid happily reopens the Hey Kid Hotel, now with an exclusive Hey Kid clientele. It would prove to be a thorn in Yazeba's side for some time to come, but Amelie couldn't help but feel pride whenever they looked upon it.

And that is the story of the Clone-o-Matic, and how the Hey Kid Hotel became a permanent fixture of Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast...