Thomas clapped his hands together in triumph. “Wormholes!”
Mazzy gave him a flat look. “Nobody calls them wormholes. That’s such an Earther thing to say.”
“Hey!” said Jack, who was getting a bit annoyed at the way everyone was picking on his home planet.
“Anyway, these twelve planets are called the Nexus. The rift gates are all connected, so if you know the coordinates of one, you can get to it from any other. That’s how we got to Gallia from Earth. If the Hunters got through the rift before it closed, then they must have ended up somewhere else. What’s important is that we lost them.”
Jack was brimming with questions, but before he could ask them, a cheery, idiotic little ditty played in the silence.
Mazzy looked embarrassed. “Gotta change that ringtone,” she said, then tapped a communicator behind her ear. “Go ahead, Epsilon. You’re on speaker.”
“… RGENT NEWS … OUNT … EADS …” said the ship’s computer calmly.
“Say again, Epsilon. You’re breaking up.”
“We’re too far underwater,” Boston murmured.
“URGENT N … GOING TO … YOU …”
The voice crackled into silence. Mazzy shook her head. “Lost the signal,” she said.
“Don’t much like the sound of that ‘urgent’ part,” Dunk said.
“Well, let’s do what we need to quickly and get back,” said Boston as the elevator reached the bottom and the doors opened into the Underneath.
It was a far cry from the lighted world above. Down here it was dim, and broken lamps flickered. Metal tunnels leaked and creaked with the ominous weight of the water above them. There was trash piled in the corners, and shady characters coughed and muttered in the mouths of dark alleys.
“My old stomping ground,” said Boston bitterly. “Say hello to the real Gallia. Bet you didn’t draw this in your sketchbook.”
They made their way through shady passages, an ugly world of rivets and steel where hungry-looking people lurked. They passed shabby markets and saw floodlit underwater fields where thousands of people in heavy diving suits labored among rows of colored seaweed.
“Here’s where the work gets done that lets those above live in luxury,” said Boston. “There are spices and plants that grow at the bottom of the Gallian ocean that you can’t get anywhere else in the Nexus. Those workers don’t last more than a few years before the weight of their suits and all that water mean they can’t work anymore. But that doesn’t matter to the folks above.”
“Is that why you became a smuggler?” Jack asked.
Boston grunted. “Anything rather than end up here.”
“What are you smuggling, anyway?” Jack asked. “I mean, you all seem to think Earth is such a hole. What’s Earth got that everybody else wants?”
Boston gave him a suspicious look, as if deciding whether to trust him or not. “Reality shows,” he said at last.
Jack wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Er … what?”
“Reality shows. The Voice, Love Island, all that kind of stuff. Nobody does them like Earthers. It’s the only thing you’re good at, apart from the amazing immune systems you’ve got from fighting off all those deadly germs.”
“Reality … shows …” Jack repeated slowly.
Boston shrugged. “The Nexus goes nuts for them. What can I say? They’re like a drug.”
“And probably do as much damage to your brain,” Mazzy added cheerily.
“Anyway,” said Boston, “it’s illegal to go to Earth, so either you have to wait a million years or so for the signal to reach you across space, or you have to get dodgy copies from someone like me.”
Jack eyed the dumpster-sized container Dunk was pulling. “That thing is full of recordings of reality shows?”
“Whole seasons of MasterChef India in there,” Boston commented proudly.
“Aye, and don’t I feel it in my back,” Dunk complained. “Here I am again, hauling a load like a mule. Just ’cause I’m a Thuvian, everyone assumes I’m the strongest. That’s racist, that is. Ain’t there some law about how much a feller’s allowed to pull?”
Their destination, as it turned out, was a nightclub called Scoochy’s. It lay at the end of a shabby alley off a deserted tunnel, where only one in three of the overhead lights was working. The name was written in swirly neon handwriting that hovered in the air above the forbidding metal door that guarded the entrance. It was quiet and looked closed.
Thomas glanced around nervously. “Doesn’t this place seem a little … er … dangerous?” he suggested. He took out his inhaler and sucked on it.
“Danger is my middle name,” said Boston.
“It actually is,” said Mazzy, projecting a copy of his Gallian citizen’s ID into the air in front of him. “He changed it.”
“What was it before?” Jack asked.
“Marion.”
Thomas snorted and choked on his inhaler.
“My parents wanted a girl,” Boston said irritably.
Jack barely managed to suppress a smile. He wasn’t supposed to like these people—they’d kidnapped him and Thomas, after all, and put them in torture collars, which was mildly unfriendly, to say the least—but against his better judgment, he was warming to them. Underneath all that bickering and griping, Jack sensed an easy, unquestioning companionship. They knew one another’s faults and didn’t care. They felt like a family, or at least what Jack imagined a family to be like. Jack couldn’t help but be attracted to that.
Dunk lumbered up to the door and pounded on it with one huge fist. The ringing impacts faded into silence.
“Nobody home?” said Thomas hopefully, his eyes still watering.
The door screeched and began to move. Behind it was an enormous hairy alien who looked like a cross between a gorilla and a turtle, wearing a sharp suit and carrying a blaster in one meaty paw.
“I think your boss is expecting us?” Boston told him.
The gorilla-turtle grunted and waved them inside. Dunk dragged the container full of reality shows in behind him.
The interior of the nightclub was covered in battered fabrics. Curtains hid alcoves full of sofas, and there were strange ornaments on the tables. They were led through to the main dance floor, which was surrounded by a high balcony and lit by chandeliers of cloudy and scratched crystal. There in the center was the alien Jack presumed they were supposed to meet. Standing with him were half a dozen goons of various races from across the Nexus, some human and some definitely not, because they had tentacles coming out of their faces or something.
“Boston Sark! And you’ve brought your whole crew!” he said. “How pleased I am to see you.”
He looked like a newt, with a long body draped in robes and smooth, glistening skin. A long blue tongue flickered out between his fangs and licked one of his bulging eyes. Wisps of black hair were slicked across his head in a greasy comb-over. There was something oily and deeply unpleasant about his manner, like a used car salesman or a Realtor.
“Hello, Gax,” said Boston. “I brought the goods.”
“Excellent!” said Gax. “I have buyers lining up for the episodes of The Real Reality Show.”
“Is that the one where it’s a reality show where you watch people watching reality shows?” Thomas asked.
Gax seemed to notice Thomas for the first time, and then looked at Jack, studying him as if he were a particularly tasty fly. “Are these two Earthers you have with you?” he asked Boston. “How fascinating. You do like to pick up strays. And what’s your name, boy?”
“I’m Jack,” Jack said, then added defiantly, “Jack from Earth.”
He may not have liked his home planet much while he was there, but it was part of him, just like his android parents were. He’d been moved from state to state so often that he’d never had a place he could have claimed to come from. But he came from Earth. He would claim that one.
“Jack from Earth.” Gax wheezed with laughter. “I’m sure you are.”
; Boston didn’t seem to like the sound of that. “Well, we’re kind of in a hurry, Gax, so if you want to check out the merchandise, please do. But either way, give me my money.”
Gax gave him an evil smile. “Your money? You must not have got the memo, Boston.” There was the sound of a dozen blasters powering up above them. Jack looked up and saw goons gathered on the balcony that surrounded the dance floor, aiming at them.
Boston didn’t flinch. “Really, Gax? Haven’t I always come up with the goods? You’re going to rip me off now?”
“Rip you off? No, you’re too good a supplier for that.” He motioned at one of his men, who produced a palm-sized projector. “Show him,” he said.
An electronic notice projected itself into the air above the man’s hand. On it were pictures of Boston, Mazzy, Dunk, and Ilara. WANTED, said the message. DEAD OR ALIVE.
“There’s a bounty on all your heads,” said Gax. “A big bounty. The kind of bounty that makes losing your business worthwhile.”
“Huh,” said Dunk. “That’d be the urgent thing Epsilon was trying to tell us.”
Mazzy gave Boston a dry look. “Did we just walk into a trap, Boston?”
“Yup,” said Boston. “It’s a trap. Hit the lights.”
A sparkling line of code danced across the surface of Mazzy’s eyes, and everything went black.
Jack had suffered enough ambushes from his dad to know what to do when the lights went out. He hit the floor and rolled as everyone began shouting in confusion and a few fizzing bolts of plasma scorched through the dark from the balcony.
“Stop shooting, you fools!” Gax screamed. “You might hit me!”
Boston Sark had no problem with that, however. The darkness lit up with muzzle flare as he fired his blaster randomly in Gax’s direction. Two of Gax’s goons went down, but Gax slid away like water, his long body winding into the blackness. Dunk piled forward into the rest of them, bulldozing them flat with his immense weight.
Jack caught sight of Thomas in the momentary flare of light. He was whimpering and gibbering, dancing on his toes as if uncertain which way to go. Jack got to his feet and grabbed Thomas’s arm.
“Door is that way! Come on!”
Thomas clung to Jack in terror, pawing at him desperately as Jack pulled him clear of the fight.
“Now!” Gax shouted to the goons on the balcony, once he was clear of the tangle of people in the center of the dance floor. “Open fire!”
“Flare!” shouted Mazzy. It was a warning only her crewmates understood, for they shielded their eyes a moment before Mazzy overloaded all the chandeliers in the room. The room went from pitch darkness to blinding light in an instant, and then the chandeliers exploded, raining crystal shards down on all of them. The goons on the balcony reeled away, yelling, and their shots went wild.
Jack was not quick enough to cover his eyes, and he was dazzled like the rest of them. But Dad had always taught him to keep moving in a combat situation, so he kept going in the direction of the door, even though he could hardly see. Thomas slowed him down, but as much as the kid annoyed him, Jack wasn’t going to leave him behind.
A few of the chandeliers had survived the overload, and though they had burned out, they still glowed faintly, enough that people could see their way dimly through the room. Boston was darting this way and that, shooting down the dazzled goons with his blaster. Dunk muscled his way to the gorilla-turtle who had met them at the door, and though he was half his size, he grabbed hold of his opponent’s legs, swung him around like an Olympic hammer throw, and sent him flying into a pillar that supported the balcony overhead, smashing it to pieces. Gax’s goons scrambled out of the way as a section of the balcony groaned and collapsed.
Jack had reached the doorway by now. Thomas was blubbering, fighting to catch his breath. Jack looked back, blinked tears from his eyes, and saw Ilara and Mazzy heading their way. Blasters screamed and bolts flew through the air, but in the chaos most people were just firing wildly.
“Move it!” Jack cried.
Over their shoulders he saw one of Gax’s goons spot them. This one was some kind of brightly colored slug man, carrying a long blaster rifle in his slimy appendages. He raised the rifle and took aim at Ilara.
“Look out!” Jack called, pointing.
Ilara swung around and threw out her arm toward the slug man. The creature gave a bubbling wail, and instead of firing upon them, he turned and began shooting at the other goons along the balcony. They scattered, running for cover.
“What did you do to him?” Jack asked as Ilara and Mazzy reached them.
“I showed him his worst nightmare,” said Ilara with a nasty smile.
“Aaaagh! Giant pots of salt coming to get me!” the slug man screamed, his blaster blazing. “Get away!”
Most of the goons were in disarray now, but a small group of them, led by Gax, were still keeping Boston pinned down with blaster fire. Dunk lumbered over to the dumpster-sized container he had been dragging around, lifted it over his head with ease, and flung it across the length of the room at them. Gax had time for one small, pathetic squeak before it landed on him, smashing open and scattering thousands of DVDs and flash drives everywhere.
“Nooooo!” Boston howled, seeing his profit evaporate before his eyes.
“So much for MasterChef India,” said Mazzy. “Move it, you two!”
They took to their heels then, fleeing the nightclub as blaster fire seared the gloom all around them. Out into the Underneath they went, running down alleys and dripping tunnels. Only when they were far away did they come to a halt, gasping, in the shadow of a seedy apartment complex.
Thomas sucked loudly on his inhaler. His nose was running with snot, and his eyes were full of tears. “They were trying to kill us!” he wheezed.
“That’s what happens when someone puts a price on your head,” said Mazzy darkly. “Question is, who did it?”
“The Hunters?” Jack suggested.
“Nah, they’d rather kill us themselves than pay someone. I think it’s whoever sent the Hunters.”
“Well, who’s that?” asked Jack.
“I don’t know,” said Mazzy. “But I’m pretty keen on finding out.”
Boston kicked an empty carton angrily. “All I wanted to do was sell trashy TV shows for a profit. Wasn’t that a humble enough ambition? Instead I’ve ended up losing all my cargo and lumbered with two completely useless hostages, and everybody wants to kill me. What did I do to deserve this?”
“This collar you put on me is too tight,” Thomas complained. “I think I’m getting a rash. I might be allergic— AAAAAAH!” He shuddered and shook as Boston electrocuted him.
“That was petty,” Mazzy said. Boston had the decency to look ashamed.
Thomas shook his head, sniffed, looked around dazedly, and sniffed again. “Wow, that thing really clears the sinuses!” he said in wonderment.
“It seems to me that we need a plan,” said Ilara.
“Plan is to dump these two lumps of deadweight,” said Boston, waving at Jack and Thomas. “Then we go hide in some backwater dive on the outer edges of the Nexus till everyone forgets about us.”
“Solid strategy, hero,” said Mazzy sarcastically. “That’ll show ’em.”
“I’m a Host,” said Ilara, curling her lip in disdain. “I will not hide in some backwater dive.”
“Look, all of you!” said Jack, holding up his hands. “I just found out my parents were androids and got orphaned in the same afternoon. There’s a psycho robot, a shape-shifting slime blob, and a guy who shoots fire, all trying to kill me. And I’m sorry that I’m not whoever you thought I was and everything, but you did just kidnap me and Thomas from our home planet. However bad a day you’re having, it’s nothing compared to mine. So don’t even think about dumping us here, all right? You’re stuck with us for now.”
Mazzy raised an eyebrow at Boston. “You do sort of owe them,” she pointed out.
“I saved their lives!” he cried. “And l
ook where it got me!”
“We’re in this together now,” Jack insisted. “And I’ve got an idea.”
“Glad somebody does,” Dunk muttered.
“Everyone thinks I’m this Gradius Clench superspy guy, right?” said Jack. “And they put a bounty on you because they think you’re working with Gradius Clench. No one’s going to believe us if we tell them otherwise. So our best bet is to—”
“Find Gradius Clench!” Thomas cried, catching on. “Yeah! I bet he can straighten things out! Maybe he and Jack can do a selfie together!”
Maybe we can, thought Jack. And maybe then he can give me some answers, like where my real parents are.
It was an idea that had been slowly forming ever since they’d come to Gallia. There was no point in trying to escape his kidnappers, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Where would he go, anyway? There was nothing for him back on Earth. All he wanted now was to find the one who had caused this mess, and to make Gradius tell him who he really was.
At a stroke, he’d lost one set of parents, but he’d gained the possibility of another. What were they like? he wondered. Were the loving, sane parents he’d always dreamed of out there somewhere, on another planet? He needed to know.
“So let me get this straight,” said Boston. “We have to find Gradius Clench to prove we have nothing to do with Gradius Clench. Any idea how we might locate him, then? You know, since half the Hunters in the galaxy have been trying to do just that for the last three years?”
“I do,” said Ilara.
The Epsilon had a surprisingly dinky lounge area, with cushioned sofas to either side of a long, low table and state-of-the-art beverage makers. Boston had been forced to renovate it recently, after Dunk threatened to call his union representative because he was not getting the required quality of tea to dip his cookies in.
Jack sat on one sofa, Ilara on the other, opposite him. Between them, Jack’s sketchbook lay open. The others stood around watching. The only sound came from Thomas, who every few minutes had to snort back the runnel of snot that kept creeping out of his nose.
Out of This World Page 7