Clones vs. Aliens

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Clones vs. Aliens Page 10

by M. E. Castle


  Spectators stumbled backward as musicians lurched, tripped, and floundered, crashing into the barricades that kept the spectators from spilling into the street.

  “Is there a techno remix happening back there, or did something go wrong? Over,” said Amanda over the radio.

  “Wrong,” Fisher said.

  “I’m wrong? You forgot to say over.”

  “No, right. I mean, something went wrong,” Fisher responded, getting flustered. “The Gemini are disguising themselves as drummers and messing up the whole parade rhythm. We’ll try to sort it out. Over.”

  Floats were starting and then jerking to a stop. The band itself was a few measures away from being a brass heap. The crowd, at least, was amused. They laughed and pointed as people in costumes stopped abruptly and collided with one another, as the tempo changed frenetically every few bars.

  It was chaos. The mission had changed.

  “Come on!” Fisher said, jumping off of the float and hitting the ground hard. Alex followed him. They both tapped buttons on their suit collars, switching the ChameleoClothes from “auto” to “manual.” A few more taps later, Fisher’s disguise immediately puffed out and turned the golden brown of corn bread while Alex’s shifted to the many-hued cobble pattern of an ear of maize.

  Fisher pulled two small boxes from his backpack, and tossed one to Alex. Moving as quickly as they could in the cumbersome costumes, they ran to opposite sides of the street, ducking around the colliding band members.

  Fisher had brought the devices to help time and coordinate the group’s efforts more exactly—but they were going to have to serve a different purpose now. He pressed a switch on his device, a speaker he’d been working on to help develop his dancing skills before he’d perfected the technology in the iGotRhythm automated dancing shoe. The speakers pumped out an extremely powerful beat at subsonic frequencies; a beat too low to hear, but powerful enough to feel all through the skeleton. Fisher adjusted the tempo to match that of the real drummers, and soon the rest of the band began to regain control, the inaudible thud-thud of the speakers too powerful to ignore.

  By the time the band had resumed formation, the four impostor drummers were gone.

  But Fisher couldn’t relax. There could be Gemini anywhere. If the Gemini wanted to make trouble, he had no doubt they would. His eyes moved to the crowd. Was that old man’s posture natural? Had he ever seen that girl around town before? Who would the Gemini most likely go after next?

  Fisher jogged ahead to walk beside the colonial thatched-roof house float, hoping to get a better view.

  “Hey, Fisher?” Amanda’s voice patched in through his earbud. “The parade’s supposed to go down Main Street this year, right?”

  “Of course,” Fisher said. “The same as every year.”

  “Well it isn’t,” Amanda said. “You’d better get up here. Um, over.”

  Fisher motioned for Alex to follow him. They ran past the plastic colonial house, past the side-dish float with its piles of cardboard stuffing and a few real giant corn ears that had survived poor Fee’s fall in Mrs. Bas’s garden. Panting, they finally reached the condiment float where Amanda and Veronica were hiding. Amanda and Veronica hopped to the ground. Their suits morphed to look like twin green apple bushels, sprouting various leafy branches laden with fruit.

  “Look,” Veronica said, pointing. Up ahead, Main Street forked. A cop stood directing the parade along its intended route. His back was turned to an identical cop, who had moved the barricades and was directing the parade to bear left toward South Oak Street.

  Fisher peered through his binoculars. The cops were almost identical. But the second cop’s badge had no detail; it was solid and featureless. Also, his eyebrows looked like they’d been drawn on with Magic Marker. The cop was a Gemini decoy—badly made, hastily drawn.

  The longhouse float had already turned left. The condiments float came to an abrupt halt at the fork, swaying, its driver apparently unsure which way to go.

  “You go take that cop down,” Fisher said to Amanda and Alex. “We’ll run ahead and try to reroute the longhouse.”

  Fisher and Veronica bolted down the street, sending halfhearted waves to the parade watchers so that no one would be alarmed. Fisher fought down a surge of frustration. If the Gemini kept making trouble, Fisher and Alex would have to spend all their time preventing disaster and they wouldn’t ever get close to the shuttle. He couldn’t help wondering if the Gemini knew somehow, if they’d anticipated Fisher and Alex might use the parade to regain a strategic advantage and were taking steps to prevent it.

  They bolted past the fake cop. Fisher had full confidence that Alex and Amanda would be able to take him down. The longhouse float was cruising down South Oak Street, a route that hadn’t been cleared of traffic for the parade. Fisher’s heart flapped in his throat like a dying fish.

  Coming directly toward the float was a flatbed truck loaded up with antique clocks and fine porcelain dishes.

  “You have to be kidding me,” Fisher gasped out, picking up his pace, his lungs and legs burning with the effort.

  The truck swerved toward the sidewalk. But even with the float hauling to the right, they looked certain to clip each other. The float may only have been going fifteen miles an hour, but given its size and the truck’s load of breakable cargo, it was more than enough for a heavy crash.

  “Veronica!” Fisher rooted in his backpack with one hand and tossed her a slingshot and a small black pellet. “Hit the truck!”

  Without asking any questions, Veronica stopped to take aim. The black projectile sailed over Fisher’s head, landing in the truck’s bed and bursting into a purple foam, a buoyant material that would protect and buffer the cargo from any shocks.

  Fisher kept running and at last pulled up alongside the float. The truck was almost on top of them. He had only seconds to act. He took a magnetic clamp from his belt and slapped it to the steel undercarriage. Spooling an almost invisible thread from the clamp, he hooked it to a dart, and threw it at a lamppost as they glided past an intersection.

  Fisher’s wire wrapped around the base of the lamppost and caught. The nylon thread—actually made of an incredibly durable steel fiber patented by Fisher’s mother—halted the float in its tracks and, slowly, guided it to the right.

  The truck and the float just brushed each other as the truck blew by, pounding its horn. The cargo jostled heavily, but the extra padding kept it safe. Fisher pulled a special blade from his belt and severed the wire as the float completed its turn, rounding the corner and heading back toward Main Street. At the speed it was going, it should merge with the rest of the parade at just the right spot to slot back into its space.

  Alex and Amanda caught up to Fisher and Veronica.

  “We took down the cop drone,” said Amanda.

  “How?” Veronica asked.

  “Made fun of its eyebrows,” Amanda said. “Until it went kaboom.”

  Screams broke out from the parade route.

  “Sounds like the party’s not over,” said Alex, who tore off along the side street that connected with the parade. Fisher, Amanda, and Veronica sprinted behind him.

  Principal Teed had commandeered the condiments float, and was deploying the Cran-Cannons. Tart ammunition went in every direction, dousing the crowd. The principal’s grin was a little bit too wide—and in the very back of the parade, the real Principal Teed was still sitting behind the wheel of his Volvo.

  Fisher groaned.

  “Okay,” Amanda said. “Suggestions?”

  “I have one,” said Veronica, raising an eyebrow.

  The condiment float kept up its berry bombardment, gallons of sauce flying every which way, as spectators screamed and scattered, coated in the thick, purple goo.

  Fisher, Alex, Veronica, and Amanda came running at the float from four different directions. The condiment float was decorated with many food items, including a number of massive squash stuck on the sides. The kids each grabbed one. Together, they stu
ffed the barrels with the squashes—then ran, rolled, or leapt out of the way.

  The cannons, powered by air pressure, were now completely stopped up. When the Gemini drone went to deploy the next round of cranberry ammunition, the cannons instead backfired. The center of the float burst open, dousing the drone in red berry sauce. The fake Principal Teed, drenched in red, let out a frightening roar. He took two long strides and a running leap from the side of the float into the crowd.

  Then he was simply gone. He had merged with the crowd of panicked onlookers instantly—maybe even shape-shifting as he went.

  The thought gave Fisher the chills.

  Fisher picked himself up from the ground. The crowd was still scattering, pushing and shoving to escape the cranberry barrage. The few remaining spectators were staring over Fisher’s shoulder with horrified looks on their faces.

  Fisher turned to see why and nearly froze solid himself.

  The Gemini had taken on a new form.

  Four giant turkeys were clomping down the street, the ground trembling beneath their massive claws.

  You cannot hope to truly understand how an alien mind works. You can only hope it understands that you do not wish to be vaporized.

  —Vic Daring, Issue #235

  Each turkey was roughly the size of a sedan. The poultry moved together, quickly, black eyes gleaming with malice.

  “It was only a matter of time,” Amanda said. “The Gemini don’t like it when their plans get messed up. We’ve made ourselves a threat, and they’re coming after us.”

  “Fisher!” Alex cried. He had snatched the binoculars from Fisher’s hand and was peering through them. “The Gemini’s shuttle is completely unguarded. Now’s our chance to get close!”

  “Okay,” Veronica said, taking a deep breath. “Alex, you and Amanda go get that scan done. Fisher and I will distract the turkeys.”

  Alex and Amanda dashed off toward the end of the parade, leaping over splintered police barricades and ducking through the dispersing crowd, giving the massive, lumbering turkeys a wide berth.

  The Gemini were going all-out now. Fisher wasn’t sure why they were causing such havoc in the parade—what did they have to gain? But he had a feeling this was just a test. They were testing how people reacted to them. They were seeing how much they could get away with. The kids had interfered with their test, and now the Gemini were coming to get them out of the way. Alex and Amanda had escaped their notice for now, but they had Fisher and Veronica dead in their sights.

  “We’re at the shuttle,” came Amanda’s voice in Fisher’s ear. “We need twenty seconds! Over!”

  One turkey had zeroed in on Fisher. He sidestepped one way, then the other, before diving left, like an asteroid being yanked into a new path by Jupiter. The turkey lunged down, its beak pecking the street so hard it cracked. It missed Fisher by inches.

  A scattering of applause rose up from the remaining crowd. Fisher realized that they must think this was planned—a kind of stage combat spectacular.

  Veronica rolled under the legs of another as it swept toward her, coming up on her feet just in time to duck under a second one’s head swipe.

  “Fifteen. Over,” Amanda said.

  Fisher ran in circles around one mammoth bird as it aimed talon slashes at him. He jumped over one claw, hit the ground hard, and rolled underneath a second. Veronica jumped to the side as the two birds chasing her both lunged simultaneously. Their hive mind kept them from colliding, but the complex dodge they had to execute was enough to give Veronica a moment to breathe.

  “Ten,” Amanda said.

  Two turkeys were bearing down on Fisher. He looked from one to the other rapidly, then made a dash and grabbed one’s leg, wrapping himself around it. It kicked hard. Fisher felt like his insides were being rearranged, but he clung as tightly as he could and the bird couldn’t dislodge him. The other one aimed a peck at him but only hit his side on the wing.

  “Five,” Amanda said.

  Fisher clutched the turkey’s leg for all he was worth. Veronica hit one of hers in the side of the foot, tripping it.

  “Got it!” Amanda said.

  “RUN!” Fisher bellowed. The turkey’s next kick hurled him through the air and straight into the “feathery” embrace of the Terence the Towering Turkey float, which was still being driven by the real, and very confused, Principal Teed. Veronica sprinted full tilt between the four mega-turkeys, turning her suit to a dull black to lose them. The Gemini turkeys, having lost their prey, trotted back toward the shuttle, disappearing behind the network of vast floats still clogging the street. Seconds later, eight girls emerged, resuming their position at the top of their shuttle as though nothing had happened.

  Big cheers went up from the crowd. Everyone had loved the show. Even though he was shaking, Fisher took a little bow, forcing a smile on his face, trying to maintain the impression that this had all been planned.

  The parade limped to its end, dinged, and mostly covered in cranberry sauce but still intact. The bewildered kids on the floats looked exhausted, and the marching band had long ago stopped playing. Little bits of float decorations lay scattered along the route like battlefield wreckage. Which it basically was.

  Fisher took another look around to make sure the floats were all accounted for. They all were, save one. The shuttle, and the Gemini, had disappeared.

  I never thought I’d say this, but I miss fighting robot dinosaurs.

  —Fisher Bas, Personal Notes

  “We got a complete scan,” Alex said, sliding the device into his pack. “Let’s hope this is all we need to get the Gemini ship up and running again.”

  “Let’s pray,” Fisher said, brushing a few red specks of cranberry from his sleeve. “They’ve changed their tactics. They’re not interested in sneaking around anymore. They’re causing chaos, panic. We’ve got to get them off Earth before things get any worse and they begin to cause real damage. I think the parade was them flexing their muscle a little to see if anyone caught on to what they really are. Nobody did. What few people stuck around till the end of the parade were too busy cleaning up to even notice they’d gone.”

  “I agree, that was probably just a test,” Veronica said. “To see how much they can get away with. Unfortunately”—her blue eyes flashed a stormy color—“it looks like they can get away with quite a lot.”

  “They’re moving to another phase of their plan,” Alex said darkly.

  “We need backup,” Amanda said.

  “We need Mason,” Fisher said. “I can’t believe he hasn’t shown up.”

  “He didn’t answer last night,” Alex said. “And he hasn’t returned my message.”

  Fisher and Alex scowled at the ground, which their basically identical appearance made sort of comical.

  “That’s not like him,” Fisher said, feeling a little dejected. Agent Mason always came through for them when they were in a pinch. Didn’t he realize that they wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency? “The fate of humanity is at stake and he isn’t even in his office?”

  Veronica laughed suddenly, snorting a bit. “You guys called his office?”

  “Yeah, how come?”

  Looking at Fisher and Alex as though they were the aliens, she sighed. “Even FBI Agents have cell phones, nimrods.”

  “His what?” Fisher and Alex said in perfect unison, looking back up.

  Veronica sighed, pulling out her phone. She looked up a number in a few seconds.

  “Agent Mason?” she said after a moment. “This is Veronica Greenwich. Fisher and Alex have been trying to reach you.… Yes, that’s what I told them.… I know! For geniuses they can be so absentminded sometimes.” She chuckled. Fisher stared dumbly at Alex and got the same dumb stare right back.

  “He’s been a little busy putting down a mutant snake rebellion in Arizona,” Veronica said, hanging up. “But now that he knows we need his help, he’s on his way.”

  Alex made a call to the MORONS base, asking to be picked up and taken ba
ck to the compound. A beat of silence passed as they all gloomily waited, and considered what might happen next. Fisher felt the weight of the situation settle onto his shoulders like a soaked wool blanket.

  “Well, that’s some good news, at least,” Amanda said with a sigh. “Until Mason gets here, let’s get our findings back to the super-villain who’s trying to save the world.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said, rolling his eyes. “And grab him a sandwich so he doesn’t destroy it by accident.”

  A black SUV pulled up to the curb, and they boarded it in silence. They drove off to the NASA compound. It took some convincing, but they were able to talk the driver into making a quick stop at Fisher’s favorite sandwich shop on the way. The Reuben on a hero roll was roughly the size of a shoebox. Fisher hauled it back to the car along with a big bag of chips for everyone else. They’d need the fuel for the work ahead.

  Once again, they entered through the silo into the silent elevator. This time there was no dance lock. A blue glow pulsed off the walls as they at last emerged into the maze of walkways and stairways cutting across the artificial cavern.

  “Fisher,” Veronica said, leaning over the railing to look down into the open space. “Look at this.”

  The light was coming from the ship. Seven or eight panels along the length of its hull had illuminated, and the rhythmic deep blue wash was eerily hypnotic.

  This time, they skipped on the laundry chute and took the spiral escalator near the center of the cavern. On the cavern floor, Dr. X was working on the ship with two other scientists and a dozen techs, who scurried back and forth with a variety of brightly polished instruments.

  “Welcome back,” Dr. X said, turning to greet them with a shallow grin. “I heard all about the parade antics on the news. The story going around had something to do with rampaging puppets.”

  “The Gemini have given up on staying incognito,” said Alex. “They don’t seem to care who notices. We need to get them off this planet, stat.”

  “It looks like you’re making progress here, at least,” Fisher said.

 

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