Clones vs. Aliens

by M. E. Castle

  What had been a featureless stretch of wall became a door, sliding open with a faint hiss. Inside was a small chamber of plain-brushed steel.

  Amanda, Fisher, Alex, and Veronica passed inside together. The door shut behind them, dim bluish light glowed to life, and the little room, which turned out to be an elevator, began to descend.

  The ride lasted for what felt like a very long time. When it finally began to slow, Alex muttered a warning.

  “Be ready to fight,” he said. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side of that door.”

  The elevator finally came to a halt, and the door hissed open, revealing … nothing.

  “Fisher,” Amanda whispered. “Where are we?”

  “What is this?” Veronica added.

  Beyond the door was pitch-darkness and heavy silence. It was like the elevator had taken them to the end of the universe. The bright light spilling from inside the elevator didn’t even reflect onto the floor.

  “I—I don’t know,” Fisher said. “It must be the weirdest security measure I’ve ever seen.”

  He took a deep breath and inched cautiously out of the elevator, hoping he would encounter solid ground and not a thousand-foot drop into nothingness. Instantly, the room burst into multicolored light. At the same moment, music began to play.

  It was “Gift-Wrapped Heart.”

  “What the …?” Amanda turned a full circle. The walls were bursting with kaleidoscopic colors. The floor was a pulsing white, and multiple colored trails moved across it in different directions. Fisher looked more closely. Each trail looked like footprints.

  “Are these … dance instructions?” he said, looking at the shifting footprint patterns.

  “Yes,” Veronica said, cheeks bright red. “But only one of them is correct for this song. Please,” she sighed and her face glowed even brighter, “allow me.”

  Fisher stepped aside. Veronica carefully followed the orange trail, stepping in time to the music, even miming with her arms. She kept going until the song reached its first chorus, and then everything but a simple soft light clicked off. Now the room just looked like a room, and a door was visible on the other side of it.

  “Wow,” Alex said. “I’ve never seen a dance lock before.”

  “I guess my Kevin Keels obsession had a bright side after all,” Veronica panted, pushing a stray bit of hair out of her eyes.

  The door slid open with a satisfying click. On the other side was a man-made cavern bigger than a basketball arena, crisscrossed by walkways and gantries holding immense machines. The sides of the excavated cave were studded with windows, probably offices, laboratories, and living quarters. The floor far below them bustled with engineers and researchers.

  And in the center of it was the Gemini’s ship.

  Fisher could tell it was designed to fly in atmosphere. It had a rounded, aerodynamic nose and a streamlined body with stubby wing-like extensions on either side. It was a dull turquoise color slashed with glinting black stripes, and had no visible engines.

  There was a staircase down to their right and a door to their left.

  Amanda started moving toward the stairs, but Alex grabbed the back of her shirt.

  “If we take the stairs, we’ll be spotted,” said Alex, pointing to a series of cameras on the walkways, all of which were aimed down.

  “Agreed,” said Veronica. “Our best bet is the door. We can try to work our way down through the offices. There must be a secondary way down to the floor.”

  Fisher nodded and took the lead, the others forming up behind him like the well-trained team they had become. Fisher leaned against the door. In his left ear he inserted a mini-stethoscope the size of an earplug. He didn’t hear anyone moving or speaking. He hoped that meant it was empty.

  He opened the door and the others snuck in. Fisher closed it silently behind him. The room looked like a guard barracks, with two rows of bunks, a few posters on the walls, and a computer terminal on the cave-side wall underneath its broad window. There was also a promising-looking hatch in the floor, and a door on the far side of the room.

  Amanda crossed to the second door, leaned in to listen, and then shook her head. “Footsteps. Coming this way, fast.”

  “We have to backtrack,” said Alex, waving Fisher toward him. Fisher put his ear to the door they’d just come through. More footsteps.

  “They’re coming the other way, too,” Fisher said, his breathing harsh in his own ears.

  With no other choice, Veronica opened the floor hatch. It was a dark, ladderless tunnel.

  “Down the hatch then,” Veronica said as she hopped in. Alex threw a look at each door and followed her.

  “After you,” Fisher said, and Amanda jumped.

  Fisher heard a door handle turn. He sat down at the edge of the hole in the floor, looked at the abyss into which his friends had vanished, and pulled the hatch closed after him as he followed them down.

  For six seconds there was nothing but the whoosh of air rushing around his head. It must have been some kind of rapid deployment tunnel, for when guards were needed on the cave floor as quickly as possible. He hoped that meant that the landing would be soft—otherwise they’d splatter like pancake batter on a hot griddle.

  After the sixth second, he felt air open around him for an instant, then the soft embrace of a flexible net. It was an immersion cloth of some kind, built to absorb momentum and cushion landings. It even had a fresh, linen-ish scent.

  In fact, the cloth’s components felt an awful lot like boxer shorts.

  Fisher felt around some more and realized that the “net” he had landed in was a pile of underwear. They had gone down the laundry chute.

  He dug himself out of the underwear as the others pulled the mercifully clean laundry off of themselves.

  “Well, we’re down,” said Alex, removing a tank top from his forehead. “Let’s go find that ship.”

  The laundry room led to a corridor. They moved carefully down the narrow hall. Suddenly, Alex held out an arm, stopping them in place. He pointed to a swiveling camera in the ceiling.

  “My turn,” said Alex, reaching into his pack. He withdrew a small tube, pointed it at the camera, and pressed a button. An almost invisible object zipped out and covered the camera’s lens.

  “I can make that membrane over the camera turn opaque, and then clear again, with the push of a button. If I darken it for just a second or two, it’ll just look like a momentary glitch. Everybody ready to run?” They all nodded.

  Alex led the way, and they ran around the corner as Alex pressed a second button on the tube, releasing it the moment they passed out of the camera’s view. They came to the mouth of the corridor and ducked behind a pile of supply crates.

  The open cavern floor was ahead of them. No more than fifty feet away was the ship. It glimmered in the dim lighting of the lab, majestic and sleek.

  Fisher noticed another figure, shrouded in shadow, searching through one of the supply crates. His blood turned to chunks of ice.

  “Alex,” Fisher whispered, gripping his clone’s arm. From the way Alex stiffened, Fisher knew that he’d seen.

  They would know that slender, sharp-faced profile anywhere. When the figure turned enough to throw light on its face, their worst fear was confirmed.

  Dr. X.

  If you don’t want to hide in the dark all the time, you have to get used to your shadow. Even if your shadow is a crazy little man who wants to rule the world.

  —Fisher Bas, Personal Notes

  “He must be trying to steal the Gemini ship,” Alex hissed.

  “Come on,” Fisher said. “We have to stop him.”

  The four kids lunged out of their hiding spot toward Dr. X, who spun on his heel just in time to see the leaping figures of Alex and Amanda. Amanda locked her arms around his ankles and Alex tackled him around the waist, bringing him down with a whoomph.

  “Get him on his feet,” Fisher said coldly.

  Dr. X was, apart from Three,
the most evil and dangerous human in the world.

  Amanda and Alex hauled Dr. X up, and Amanda locked his arms behind his back. Veronica stood beside Fisher, her fists clenched in contempt.

  “My dear, dear boy,” X drawled, his smirk only increasing when Amanda squeezed his arms a little tighter. “Wherever our paths may take us, they seem ever to lead us back to each other. Perhaps that says something about us, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t start your ‘You’re just like me’ speech again,” Fisher said, glowering. Dr. X and Fisher had been briefly allied in the fight against Three. But Dr. X had turned on Fisher in the end, and Fisher had regained control only when he had refused to partner with Dr. X permanently. “The last time you counted on me to act like you, it didn’t turn out so well, did it?”

  Dr. X’s sly smile disintegrated.

  “You wasted a perfect opportunity,” spat Dr. X. “You have much to learn yet. But that doesn’t make us opposites.”

  “Enough,” Fisher said. “Enough of this. I’m going to turn you in.”

  Dr. X let out an amused laugh.

  “Turn me in?” he said. “You seem to have mistaken which one of us is the criminal party here.”

  Dr. X looked pointedly at Fisher’s torso. Fisher looked down and realized he was covered in red laser dots. So were Veronica, Amanda, and Alex.

  Fisher turned around slowly. Armored guards surrounded them, and Fisher recognized many of the same men who had been on patrol at Loopity Land. They were everywhere—crouched behind crates and equipment, peeking out from every shadowed corner.

  “Hands up,” one of them bellowed. Fisher, Alex, and Veronica raised their hands in the air. Reluctantly, so did Amanda, though it meant releasing Dr. X.

  One of the guards came forward, and Fisher recognized him as the sergeant who’d commanded the Loopity Land team.

  “Stand down,” the man said, with a hand on his headset, and the dots winked out. “Were you harmed?” He directed the question at Dr. X.

  “Whoa, whoa, hold on,” Fisher said, trying to hide his anger and astonishment. The security guard was treating Dr. X as his top priority. “Sergeant, I think you’ve been misled. This man is—”

  “Harold Granger, alias Dr. Xander, commonly known as Dr. X,” said the sergeant. “We know exactly who he is and what he’s done. Believe me, I’d like nothing more than to Velcro him to a wall and use him for penalty kick practice. But my orders say otherwise. Now then, Doctor, is everything all right?”

  “Fine, just fine,” said Dr. X, smiling again and dusting off his immaculate white lab coat. “A simple misunderstanding between old friends—it happens all the time. In fact, with your permission, I actually think these four could be very useful to my work.”

  Fisher’s jaw dropped open so wide, it could’ve accommodated a 747. Was Dr. X, international criminal, evil genius, attempted world conqueror, giving them permission to stay? Was he asking for their help?

  The sergeant looked from Fisher to Veronica to Alex to Amanda, then nodded.

  “As you say, sir,” he said. “And I’d rather not let it get out that a pack of kids got past my security.”

  “I wish I could see this guy twirling around to Kevin Keels,” Alex whispered.

  The sergeant turned toward the kids, his mouth a thin line. “If the doc says you can help, you can help. Oh, I have something for you Bas boys,” he said, handing Fisher a small piece of paper.

  Alex leaned in to look.

  Dear boys, began the note in their mother’s handwriting, we’re going to be in Washington a while longer. We had a feeling you would seek out the Gemini ship. If you do, don’t be alarmed by Dr. X. The government decided to let him fill in for us. We don’t like it, but in this situation we don’t think there’s much choice. Hope to see you soon! XO, Mom

  “Huh,” Alex said. “As weird as it sounds, sometimes I forget how smart they are.”

  On the sergeant’s signal, the guards melted into the background as quickly as they’d appeared, leaving Dr. X and the kids alone in front of the Gemini spacecraft, although Fisher had no doubt they were being observed.

  “You’re working for them?” Amanda blurted out as Dr. X booted up a massive computer terminal sitting next to the ship.

  “In a situation like this, the government needs the best available,” said Dr. X. “And I am the best.”

  A chill shot straight through Fisher. Dr. X’s words, and the sergeant’s attitude, confirmed his worst suspicions. The aliens were a threat—and they needed to be stopped.

  “Exactly … what is our situation?” said Fisher.

  The screen on the computer flickered on, showing a star chart with a connect-the-dots line jumping from star to star over a path several hundred light-years long.

  “It’s taken a massive amount of computing power, but we’ve been able to translate the digital language of this ship’s computer,” said Dr. X. “We can only access a little bit at a time, so we cracked navigation first. This chart shows the path the Gemini have been traveling for the past two hundred years.”

  “Two centuries?” said Amanda.

  “There’s no telling how long the Gemini’s lifespan is,” said Alex. “For all we know, it could be centuries, millennia.”

  According to the charts, the Gemini had been very busy planet-hopping in those two hundred years. Fisher recognized the star where the path ended as the Sun—only the latest in a very long string of stops.

  “They’ve come such a long way,” he said. “Barely stopping long enough to leave a mark. Maybe they’re running away from something.”

  “Frankly,” Dr. X said, “if the Gemini creature is running from anything, it’s the ruin caused by its own appetites. The being you named the Gemini has adopted a nomadic existence. It travels from planet to planet, resides there for a number of years, and then moves on. Based on our observations of its behavior, I can only conclude that it strips each planet of whatever resources it possesses, growing to an immense size in the process. It would likely churn out more and more of its drones to collect resources and support this growth, creating the illusion of a ‘population.’ As the resources begin to dwindle, the entity begins to shrink, until it finally re-embarks on this ship to move on to the next world. Basically, it is an extremely adaptive space parasite.”

  Veronica’s expression was grim. Fisher knew exactly what she was imagining: the Earth reduced to a barren desert, all life extinct, oceans drained, the soil itself consumed, stripped to the bedrock.

  It was all his fault. He’d launched the M3. He’d welcomed the Gemini to Earth with open arms. He’d made every effort to be friendly and accommodating. Had he just been ringing a dinner bell, and were the students of Wompalog served as the appetizer?

  Of all the mistakes he’d made in his life, this one was most certainly the worst. And the way this school year had gone, that was truly saying something.

  He had to fix it.

  “In the chaos of the crash landing and the explosion of the M3, we were able to retrieve their ship,” Dr. X said. “Our teams dug it out of the debris as quickly as possible and got it back here hidden in a flatbed truck disguised as a wreckage hauler. We haven’t yet been able to access the interior, but we’ve scanned it.”

  A graphic chart popped up, showing various rooms and corridors within the ship, slightly bigger than human-sized ones would be.

  “Wait a minute,” said Fisher, hoping to catch a flaw in Dr. X’s calculations. “In its natural state the Gemini is a puddle of liquid. It can take any solid form it wants. Why would it build a ship full of big rooms and hallways? That’s a highly inefficient use of space. Unless …” His throat tightened up.

  “Unless it did not build this ship,” said Dr. X with a thin smile.

  Amanda groaned. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “More aliens?”

  Dr. X inclined his head. “My conclusion exactly.”

  Amanda and Veronica stared at each other, horrified.

  “So the Ge
mini hijacked this ship,” Amanda said. “And, I’m guessing, ate its crew.”

  Dr. X flicked the star chart to the side with a touch, replacing it with an animation displaying the story Dr. X went on to tell.

  “It’s my theory that the Gemini existed for millions of years on its native planet, its growth controlled and balanced by natural predators.” The screen showed a globe, with a fluctuating green area representing the Gemini growing and shrinking, harmonious with its environment. “Then an alien ship, explorers probably, touched down.”

  A close-up view showed the ship descending to the surface. Stick figures emerged after touchdown. A green puddle approached the ship, and gradually the puddle turned into identical stick figures.

  “With the Gemini’s amazing ability to change shape, it mimicked the crew of the ship, infiltrating, eliminating, and replacing them.” The original stick figures vanished and the Gemini copies walked onto the ship.

  “Eliminating and eating,” Amanda stressed.

  “So,” Veronica said, “they’re like a locust swarm. Sweeping across the galaxy, devouring whatever they find. And they’ll keep eating until there’s nothing left. A group of ill-fated astronauts from somewhere in space set this whole cycle in motion two centuries ago. With no natural predators on the other planets it hit, it just kept growing until it had eaten everything, and was forced to move on.” No one contradicted her and she shivered. “I wonder how many civilizations have turned to dust in its path.”

  “Well, that’s the one bit of good news,” said Dr. X. “Based on our best estimates of the distribution of life in the galaxy, Earth is probably the first planet the Gemini has hit that’s home to an intelligent and technologically advanced species. That’s why it spent so much time studying us before landing.”

  “Which means this is the first chance to stop them,” said Fisher. The whole situation had turned around in his head. He’d thought, hoped, that the Gemini would bring wisdom and technology, enlightenment and insight, to Earth.