‘Never,’ said Alexander. ‘I’ll die first.’
The smell was getting fairly noxious by now. If you were at home and your granny let go one of those beauties, then you wouldn’t just sit there. You’d either be opening the window or, more likely, running out of the room gasping. But if you had to endure it to save the world, then you would.
Thlugg loomed over Alexander, and a cold dollop of drool splashed onto his forehead.
The ‘Speak, slave!’ ‘Never!’ conversation went on for a while, and then a new tone emerged from the speaker.
‘This Earthling endures muchly. Braver than kamikaze worms of planet Zomit. Fine. Test let us how he wants cruel pain or bad kill happening to comrades.’
Chapter 39
THEY HIT ALEXANDER WHERE IT HURTS
ALEXANDER FELT HIS bonds loosen.
What was that about his comrades? Maybe . . . Could it possibly . . . ? Hope leaped in his heart. He scoured the room, and noticed something he had missed before. As well as the Borgia actively swarming around him in the torture chamber, there were also Borgia hanging around the walls like shy kids at the school disco. They were, Alexander realized, more of the same storage drones in which he’d been transported.
And as he looked at the blobby brainless creatures, he saw that they weren’t empty. He could see inside them the shapes of his friends. Make out faces, even expressions. Their eyes were open. They were watching him, helpless. Jamie, Felicity, Melvyn, Really Annoying Girl, The Hurricane, Magic Titch, Tortoise Boy, and there, on his own, Cedric, as glum as ever.
Alexander was torn between the joy of seeing that his friends had not (yet) been eaten, and the horror of their plight.
Then he noticed something odd about the Borgia drone that encased Cedric. He didn’t know much – well, anything – about Borgia physiology or anatomy, but he got the distinct feeling that this particular specimen wasn’t well. Rather than the lurid green of the standard Borgia complexion, this fellow was a faint pink, with some splodges of brown. It reminded him vaguely of the rotten fruit you’d find on the street after the market traders had gone home. Alexander felt the underpants working again. They were trying to tell him something. Something important. But there was too much to take in, too many things happening, and Alexander’s head began to throb with confusion.
More orders were vented by Thlugg. Some words leaked into the translator, but nothing that Alexander could make sense of. Then one of the drones began to wriggle. It was the one containing Really Annoying Girl, still clutching her lethal, bejewelled school bag. Alexander could see the panic on her face.
Actually, it wasn’t panic. More like rage.
With a rippling convulsion the drone expelled her onto the floor, where she slid on her back for a couple of metres before coming to a stop.
‘I knew you was gonna—’ she said, or tried to say, but her mouth was full of slime, and it came out as a burbling babble. She was held fast by two Borgia guards, and a third oozed towards her.
Then the voice came again, and Alexander knew he was supposed to hear the order that followed.
‘Human female eat. Do not kill yet. Make bad feeling of being eat last long time. Begin with pedal extremities. End with spongy grey organ of thinking with.’
Then the third Borgia guard began to engulf Really Annoying Girl from the shoes up. Alexander watched in horrified fascination as the powerful Borgia digestive juices began to dissolve her trainers. It was all visible through the semi-transparent jellied flesh.
Finally, Really Annoying Girl found her natural voice. ‘Oi, them’s new, you stupid lump of snot!’
Brave though Really Annoying Girl was, Alexander knew that soon the trainers would be gone and then the pain would start. And in fact that was already happening. The juices had worked their way in at the ankles, and Really Annoying Girl was starting to look uncomfortable (as well as annoyed).
‘Enough!’ he said. ‘I’ll talk.’
‘Excellent very,’ sighed Thlugg. ‘Commence.’
Alexander did his best to sound as if he knew what he was talking about, clearing his mind to let the pants speak for him. He had to buy time. For what? He didn’t know yet, but somehow he knew that Einstein’s underpants would come to the rescue.
‘The defence shield runs on the Linux operating system. The entry code is one-seven-six-eight-nine QQGY. You can access the system by sending a radio wave repeating the musical notes G, A, F, F, C, where the second F is an octave lower than the first. This will deactivate the anti-virus and spy-ware module. The warheads are a neutrino-based zilium alloy. Converting their output to standard thermonuclear mega-tonnage isn’t really appropriate, as they work more through molecular disruption rather than simple blast or radiation damage. The secret of a good pizza is a thin base, but only if cooked in a wood-fired oven, giving good heat from all directions. Use a mixture of mozzarella and provolone cheese. A waiter with a really enormous pepper grinder will add greatly to the spectacle. Got that?’
There was a pause. Thlugg looked at his chief science officer, Colonel Paaarp. Paaarp, who was also the acting technical head of the Torture and Maiming Department (acting head because Thlugg had recently eaten the official head), shrugged a heavy Borgia shrug, and vented noncommittally:
‘I suspect the Earthling is talking out of his rear venting hole. But it will not take us long to ascertain this.’
Before Thlugg had the chance to respond, a breathless Borgia female entered the chamber.
Thlugg looked at the attractive young thing, and drooled a little. He would, he decided, have her delivered to his quarters later on. Her behaviour would dictate whether the pleasures pandered to would be culinary or carnal.
‘Lord, there is a . . . situation.’
‘Situation? Speak plain, girl, or be humphlejabbed.’
‘Sire, I think you should return to the command deck. An object has been detected—’
‘Enough. I go. This had better be worth my time.’
Yes, thought Thlugg: she will be humphle-jabbed and then eaten.
Before he left he returned his attention to Alexander.
‘This given me information. If wrong, not change any. Still we crush your planet. But also extra will you suffer. We you make pain until your hurt capacity exhausted is. Amusing it will be to see how long that time length is. Skilled, we are, in making last. Live you may long enough to see your planet enslaved. You may enough not. In either case, when time comes we kill you. Slowly. As leader, you will have privilege of watching the die others. First courses of our banquet you will see. Last course you will not see. The last course will be you. Ha ha ha.’
Then, with the other Borgia, he left, but not before issuing a final order.
‘Vomit forth the worms,’ he vented, in the direction of the brainless storage drones, as the heavy door slithered shut behind him. ‘Apart let them tear themselves, before finish the job we will.’
Brutal monster Thlugg may have been, but his psychology was ever acute.
CHAPTER 40
THE RECKONING
‘ARE YOU OK?’ Alexander asked.
Really Annoying Girl looked at him like he was mad. ‘Yeah, course I’m OK, because, like, I’ve just been having a right good old time, haven’t I? I just loves being eaten, puked up and then eaten again. Better than Disneyland, innit?’
Alexander was relieved that at least some of the old fire was back. But there were tears in her eyes. She was human, after all. He squeezed her hand.
‘Gerroff!’ she said, but when he began to pull his hand away she gripped it.
Together they watched in fascination as, one by one, the drones spewed out the other FREAKs. Alexander helped wipe the mucus out of their eyes, and clapped them on the back until they’d brought up the worst of the gunk.
In a few minutes they were reunited again.
‘Thank God you’re all fine,’ Alexander said. ‘When I first saw you inside those . . . those things, I thought . . .’
�
��I’m actually not sure that fine is what we are,’ said Melvyn, and proved the point by spewing up a final squirt of goo.
Alexander looked at them again. Tortoise Boy, Melvyn, Felicity, Really Annoying Girl, Jamie, The Hurricane, Magic Titch. They were bleak and broken and spent. They looked like they’d been hollowed out. They were covered in mucus, drying now into crusty flakes. They looked like the lepers in his Horrible History book. He guessed he looked pretty terrible too.
‘Don’t feel good,’ said Jamie. ‘Didn’t like being in that smelly belly. Had enough adventures. Want to go home now.’
‘I know, Jamie. But you’ve been really brave.’
Alexander felt his throat catch. He’d led Jamie into this deadly peril. Led them all. And he didn’t know how to lead him out again.
Then Titch said, ‘What have you got on your head? It’s not those—’
‘Pants, yes. Einstein’s underpants. They’ve been helping—’
But before he could go on, a groan came from Tortoise Boy.
‘Cedric? Where’s Cedric?’
Alexander remembered the sick-looking drone.
‘Here, I think . . .’
They all gathered round. The drone had now lost its shape, and looked more like a puddle than a monstrous alien being. Its flesh had turned completely grey. Cedric stared out from the midst of it, unblinking.
‘Do you think he’s—’ Melvyn began.
But Tortoise Boy shoved his hand straight into the mess and pulled out his beloved companion. ‘Cedric, Cedric,’ he implored. ‘Speak to me!’
‘Maybe he needs the kiss of life,’ said Felicity.
Tortoise Boy didn’t need a second invitation. He lowered his mouth towards the dry reptilian lips. But before he made contact Felicity cried out:
‘Hey, he moved! He definitely moved!’
And, yes, the eyelids flickered, and Cedric’s pink tongue came out for a wiggle.
Tortoise Boy drew back. ‘Cedric, you’re OK,’ he sighed, and hugged the impassive tortoise to his chest.
‘Well, that’s sweet,’ came the squeaky voice of Magic Titch, ‘but it doesn’t change the fact that we are up to our neck in you know what. And we all know whose fault it is – the Underpant Kid.’
‘I knew you was gonna say that. And it’s true,’ added Really Annoying Girl as they all swivelled away from Cedric and stared at Alexander.
Alexander glared back at them. He couldn’t believe they still doubted him after everything that had happened.
‘But don’t you see? Otto was right about the invasion, about these pants, about everything. These monsters are trying to destroy the Earth and . . . and . . .’
‘But what use are we?’ said Felicity. ‘It should be grown-ups doing this, not us. I’m frightened and I want to go home. We all do.’
The others shouted their agreement. Even Melvyn.
‘But you must understand,’ Alexander implored. ‘We’re the Earth’s last hope.’
‘You mean because of our special powers?’ said Titch, with bitter sarcasm.
‘Yeah, well—’
‘Because, you see, I’ve been thinking about that. In fact I was doing a lot of thinking inside that thing’– he gestured with his thumb towards the drone that had puked him up – ‘and I’ve got a good memory, me. You have to have a good memory when you’re a magician. No good forgetting how to do a trick halfway through, is there?’
‘What are you getting at, Titch?’ said Melvyn.
But Alexander already had a sinking feeling in his stomach.
‘I was doing some maths in my head. And I may not be as quick as the genius here, but I can do multiplication if I think about it hard enough, setting it all out like it’s on paper. And I thought I’d do that to take my mind off where I was, and what was happening to me.’
‘So what?’ said Really Annoying Girl. ‘’Cos, like, this is really boring up to now, and I don’t want to add being bored to all the other useless things going on.’
‘It’ll all become clear in just one minute. Remember you knew the square root of two hundred and eighty-nine?’
‘Yes, well, it wasn’t that hard, just—’
‘No, not that hard. But the next one was – the square root of twenty-one thousand, eight hundred and seventy-four point four one, as I recall.’
‘He got it right again, though, didn’t he?’ said Melvyn. ‘We checked. It was amazing.’
‘He did, and I can’t explain it, except by luck – sheer, amazing fluke.’
‘But what about the others? He got even harder ones right. And they can’t all have been luck.’
‘Ah, that’s exactly my point. You see, that was the last one we actually checked on the calculator. But now I’ve checked in my head. And he got them all wrong.’
There was a gasp. And a tut (from Really Annoying Girl).
‘No way you could remember.’
‘I can, and I did. The first was: What is the square root of one hundred and twenty-three million? That’s right, isn’t it, TB? It was you that asked it.’
Tortoise Boy looked up from Cedric. ‘Yeah, that’s right. I think.’
‘And you said—’
Alexander completed the sentence for him: ‘Nineteen thousand four hundred and eighty.’
‘Precisely. And even though I can’t tell you what the square root of a hundred and twenty-three million is, I can tell you it’s not nineteen thousand four hundred and eighty, because I did it my head, like I said, and nineteen thousand four hundred and eighty squared is three hundred and seventy-nine million, four hundred and seventy thousand, and four hundred exactly. And if you don’t believe me, write it all down and do the sum yourselves.’
Titch said all this with his eyes burning into Alexander like lasers.
‘And it’s the same with all the others. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Those things on your head are just a pair of stinky old tramp’s grundies. They’ve got about as much to do with Einstein as my mum’s knickers have. Alexander is a fraud. A liar. And we’re here for nothing.’
‘Who are you to talk?’ said Felicity, using a voice that none of them had ever heard her use before. ‘You’re supposed to be a magician, but what have you ever done that’s magic?’
And then it was a free-for-all, with accusations and recriminations buzzing like flies around fresh cow dung.
‘. . . and I thought you were going to organize us. Well, you’ve organized us into getting mashed.’
‘Well, at least you’ve lived up to your name, you annoying . . .’
‘. . . tortoise! What’s the blinking point of that?’
‘. . . and you, you’re just boring . . .’
‘. . . boring’s better than stinking . . .’
‘. . . at least I’m not the eighth blinking dwarf . . .’
Then there was a brief pause as they all drew breath. Titch took the opportunity to focus his anger once again on Alexander.
‘Everyone’s right,’ he said. ‘Absolutely one hundred per cent right. We’re just a bunch of losers. Freaks, in fact. But not like the flipping Fellowship of Really Awesome Kids. Just freaks, plain and simple. And now we’re all going to die. Because. Of. You.’
Alexander looked from face to face. Titch was as hard as quartz. Really Annoying Girl viewed him with open hostility. Tortoise Boy and Cedric were both grim. Jamie looked lost. Melvyn stared at the dungeon floor, and Felicity looked like she’d been betrayed.
She was right. She had been betrayed. The FREAKs were a waste of time. The FREAKs were nothing. And he was the biggest nothing of all. Slowly, as they all watched, he began to remove Einstein’s useless underpants from his head.
But before Alexander could finish the job, the door opened again, and so the erstwhile leader of the once glorious and noble FREAKs was left to confront the new challenge half in and half out of the scraggy old pants.
CHAPTER 41
A GLIMMER . . .
IT WAS HARD TO be sure, but Alexander thought he recognized the sma
ll Borgia who came gliding into the torture chamber. The strange thing was that this Borgia was on its own. And unarmed. Both in the sense of having no arms and not having a weapon.
‘Let’s jump it,’ hissed Tortoise Boy, determined to get revenge for the injuries done to Cedric.
‘Yeah,’ said Titch. ‘Let’s at least go down fighting.’
Alexander felt that this was a bad idea, but it was, surprisingly, The Hurricane who spoke up.
‘Hold on, guys. I think . . . I think she comes in peace.’
‘How the heck would you know she comes in peace?’ said Titch.
‘And how do you know she’s a she?’ added Felicity.
‘I can sort of sense it . . . No, I can smell it.’
While they were debating, the Borgia slimed its way straight to the translation device, and began to waft gas with some urgency.
‘Plymm my name is,’ came the voice. It was subtly less mechanical than before, and carried an almost feminine tone. ‘In your language means Smells of Wild Flowers. Time is not plenty. Quickly must be. I am navigation officer. We have found tiny planet coming. Tiny planet will hit Earth. Smash. All dead. Bad is this for Thlugg. Bad for Borgia. All smash, not any left to eat.’
‘WHAT?’ yelled the FREAKs in unison.
‘Yes, tiny planet smash Earth.’
‘This can’t be . . .’
‘No!’
‘But . . . but . . .’
‘I knew I was unlucky, but this is ridiculous.’
‘Hang on,’ said Alexander, who like the others was struggling to take in the true meaning of what the Borgia was saying. ‘Is there nothing you can do? Do you have some sort of plan?’
‘Plan? Yes, plan I have. Is small chance only. Thlugg pride much high. Will not want to lose meat on Earth or face with Borgia High Council. Will use ship’s energy shield to try to deflect very small planet away from Earth. This dangerous is. Might not work. If not work then ship go bang. No more Thlugg. No more Borgia invasion.’
Plymm – who, as you’ve probably worked out, was that same pretty little Borgia female slavered over by Thlugg – paused, and Alexander cut in:
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