‘Ah, straight down to business, I see,’ Van Kleiss said. ‘Very well. I want your help, Rex.’
Rex snorted. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘As you know, Rex, away from the soil of Abysus, I am weakened. All I ask is that you let me absorb just a few of your nanites, to help build up my strength a little.’ He smiled, showing all his teeth. ‘So that I may enjoy the fairground freely.’
‘Hey, guys,’ Rex said, talking to his friends, but not taking his eyes off Van Kleiss. ‘My arch-enemy wants me to help make him stronger. What do you think?’
Bobo cracked his knuckles. ‘I think we should kick his sorry butt all the way back to Abysus.’
‘Sorry,’ Rex said, with a shrug. ‘The monkey has spoken.’
As Rex’s shoulders raised into the shrug, the Smackhands appeared around his arms. He brought them up sharply, slamming them into Biowulf’s chin. The Evo henchman was sent hurtling backwards across the room. His reflection bounced back at him from a dozen distorted mirrors, before he crunched down onto the ground.
Bobo whipped out his twin pistols and sprayed laser blasts towards Van Kleiss and Breach. They ducked for cover behind a mirror. The blasts bounced off the reflective surfaces and ricocheted around the room, forcing the heroes to dodge and weave.
‘OK,’ Bobo muttered, slipping the guns back into his belt. ‘Bad idea.’
Skalamander crashed across the room and swung wildly at Noah with his crystal club arm.
‘The fish,’ Noah yelped, as he ducked beneath the arm. ‘Watch the goldfish!’ He fired a kick into Skalamander’s lower back. It didn’t hurt the enormous Evo, but it threw him off balance. He staggered forwards. Bobo raced up Skalamander’s scaly back and drove both feet against the back of his head. The henchman hit the ground, face-first.
‘Who’s next?’ Rex asked, raising the Smackhands.
‘Breach, take us back to Abysus,’ Van Kleiss hissed. ‘Now!’
Silently, Breach conjured up one of her swirling red portals that would allow Van Kleiss and the rest of The Pack to teleport home. Van Kleiss took a step towards the portal, but something pulled him back.
He turned and saw the portal’s distorted reflection in the closest mirror. A wind seemed to whip out from within the reflected portal. But this wind wasn’t blowing out, it was sucking in!
Van Kleiss felt his feet slide across the floor towards the mirror. ‘Breach?’ he demanded. ‘What’s happening?’
There was a series of sharp cries, as everyone in the room started sliding towards the portal in the mirror. Van Kleiss was pulled in first, passing right through the glass as if it didn’t exist.
Biowulf’s claws scraped across the floor, but he couldn’t hold on. He went next, closely followed by the flailing Skalamander.
Noah and Bobo were holding onto a mirror’s frame. Their legs were pulled out behind them as the force of the wind became greater and greater.
With a cry of shock, their grips slipped and they went tumbling through the air, towards the mirror portal. A split-second before they were sucked through, Rex caught their arms. He was standing his ground, his Punk Buster legs braced against the wind.
He yanked his friends clear just as Breach went spinning past. As she was sucked into the portal, the wind dropped, and silence returned to the room.
‘What was that?’ Rex asked. The portal Breach had made was gone, but its warped reflection was still there in the mirror.
Noah had managed to keep hold of his plastic bag throughout his whole ordeal. He held it up and looked inside, checking his fish was still OK. It swum around happily.
‘I don’t know what that was, kid,’ Bobo shrugged. He raised a hand and pointed to the mirror portal. Something moved within it. ‘And I don’t know what that is, either.’
CHAPTER 4
‘STAND BACK,’ Rex warned. All three of them took a step away from the mirror. Rex brought out his Smackhands. Bobo clenched his hairy fists. Noah shielded the goldfish.
A man in a neat white suit slid out through the surface of the mirror. He landed smoothly on his feet, right in front of the startled heroes. His hair was short and neat, the colour of his suit, but with a single black stripe running through it.
Strangest of all, on his left hand the man wore a bright yellow foam finger. The phrase “You’re #1” was printed on it in red lettering.
‘That was … interesting,’ the man said. He spotted Rex and the others and his face lit up in a warm smile. ‘Hello there,’ he said. He reached out to shake Rex’s hand, realised they were far too large to shake, so changed direction and caught hold of Noah’s hand instead. He pumped it up and down, like he was jacking up a car. ‘Dan Nice. Wonderful to meet you.’
‘Uh … hi,’ said Noah.
Dan pointed with his foam finger. ‘Loving the fish.’
‘Thanks,’ Noah muttered, but Dan was already crouching down beside Bobo.
‘And who do we have here?’ he asked. He reached out with his normal hand to give Bobo a playful pat on the cheek.
‘Come any closer with that hand and I’ll make you eat it, bub.’
Dan’s eyes went wide. ‘You can talk!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s incredible. Such intelligence. And, may I say, that’s a fetching hat you’re wearing!’
Bobo grunted, but didn’t reply. Dan was already straightening up and turning back to Rex. The newcomer opened his mouth to speak, but a sudden movement from within the mirror cut him off.
A blonde-haired girl in a frilly pink dress slid from the reflected portal. Her matching pink high-heeled shoes clopped noisily on the floor as she jumped up and down with excitement.
‘Like, OMG!’ she shrieked. ‘That was just, like, the most awesome thing ever. I mean, like, whoa!’
She looked around at the room, her dress twirling around her as she turned. She clamped her hands on either side of her face, trying to hold in her excitement. Her gaze finally found Rex. She skipped over and threw her arms around him.
‘OMG!’ she cried. ‘You have, like, the biggest mechanical hands I’ve ever seen. I mean, I’ve never seen any other mechanical hands before, but if I had, yours would be the biggest by, like, far.’
‘Who are you?’ Rex asked, when the girl finally pulled away.
‘Name’s Sealina,’ she said. ‘Although, most of my friends call me “Seal”.’
‘Seal?’ Rex frowned.
‘OMG, I, like, totally love the way you say my name! It’s so cute.’
Rex turned to the sharply-dressed man. ‘And Dan Nice?’
‘That’s me,’ Dan said, flashing his winning smile.
‘What’s with the foam finger?’ Rex asked.
‘Ah, yes, a rather unfortunate affliction,’ Dan said. ‘Still, one learns to adjust,’ he added, brightly.
‘Wait, that thing’s your actual hand?’ Noah asked.
Dan held up the hand and made the finger waggle up and down. ‘All me!’ he chirped.
‘White hair, black streak,’ Rex muttered. ‘Foam finger in place of metal glove. Dan Nice. Van Kleiss.’
‘Kid, you’re talking to yourself again,’ Bobo told him.
‘You’re a mirror image,’ Rex realised with a start. ‘You’re like a mirror version of Van Kleiss.’
‘So Van Kleiss becomes Dan Nice,’ Noah said. ‘And Breach becomes Seal!’
‘What, she’s going to start balancing balls on her nose now?’ Bobo asked. ‘This I gotta see.’
‘Not that kind of seal,’ Noah told him.
‘But wait,’ Rex said. ‘Biowulf and Skalamander went into the mirror, too. Where are their –’
THUD.
Two small shapes slid from within the mirror, just as the portal closed. They landed in a tangled pile at Rex’s feet. Rex looked down into the trusting brown eyes of a Labrador puppy. It wagged its tail, then noisily licked his shoe.
Beside the dog, a chameleon-like lizard turned the colour of the floor and eyed the group suspiciously.
‘You
have got to be kidding me,’ Rex said.
Noah thrust the goldfish bag into Bobo’s hand and snatched up the dog. Its tiny tongue lapped at his face, making him laugh. ‘Can we keep him?’ Noah asked. ‘I’ll call him Biowoof. I’ll take him for walks every day. It’ll be awesome.’
‘OMG, he, like, totally loves you, you can so tell,’ Seal babbled.
The chameleon crawled up Noah’s back and perched on his shoulder. It settled there, but looked ready to move away at any moment.
‘You have a real way with animals,’ Dan told him. ‘It’s wonderful to see.’
Noah blushed. ‘Thanks.’
‘You can’t keep them, they might be dangerous,’ Rex said. ‘They might all be dangerous,’ he added, more quietly.
‘Come on, you said yourself they’re the opposite of The Pack,’ Noah whispered. ‘So they’re the opposite of dangerous.’
Rex thought about this. It did seem to make sense. Besides, he couldn’t just leave the Mirror Pack to roam around. There was only one thing for it.
‘Yeeeeeeeha!’ Rex cried. A few metres behind him, sitting in the roller-coaster cars, Noah, Bobo and their new friends laughed and shrieked with excitement.
Dan Nice, it had turned out, had some sort of control over non-organic materials. He couldn’t control plants like Van Kleiss could, but he was able to bend the broken track back into place.
The motor that powered the whole roller-coaster was still broken, but that didn’t matter. Rex had just the solution.
The Rex Ride zoomed up a steep slope in the track, towing the coaster cars along with it. Everyone raised their hands above their heads as they went into a loop-the-loop. Everyone except Noah, that is, who was clinging tightly to Biowoof, his goldfish and the lizard, whom he had named Mandy. He screamed and laughed along with the others, though, enjoying every moment of the ride.
A buzz in Rex’s pocket alerted him that his phone was ringing. Keeping one hand on the Rex Ride’s handlebars, he pulled out the phone. He groaned when he read the caller display.
‘Hey, Six,’ he said, holding the phone to his ear. ‘Kinda busy right now.’
‘Is that screaming I hear?’ Six demanded.
‘Yeah, but it’s good screaming. Not Evos-coming-to-kill-everyone screaming.’
‘I’m calling curfew,’ Six told him. ‘Get back to base.’
‘But, Six, we were just –’
‘Curfew,’ Six repeated. ‘Now.’
CHAPTER 5
THEY STEPPED DOWN FROM THE ROLLER-COASTER, all still buzzing with the sheer excitement of it. Seal threw her arms around Rex’s neck for a second time and hugged him tightly.
‘Like, wow, OK?’ she gushed. ‘Just … just wow. That was, like, so amazing! I mean, we were all waaaah! And you were, like, zoooooom! Awesome, just awesome!’
‘It was pretty awesome,’ Rex agreed. ‘Shame it had to end so soon. I bet we could have really supercharged the Wheel of Terror.’
‘We could always stick around,’ Bobo suggested. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t exactly be the first time we’d ignored anything Six said.’
‘It’s tempting,’ Rex said. ‘But I guess we did kinda promise Six. Besides,’ he added, turning to Seal and Dan Nice, ‘he’ll want to meet you guys.’
‘I don’t know who this “Six” is that you refer to,’ Dan said, ‘but I’m sure it will be an absolute joy to meet him.’
Bobo grunted. ‘Man, are you in for a disappointment.’
‘He won’t care about these two,’ Noah said, hopefully. He pointed down at Biowoof, who was running in circles around his feet, and then at Mandy, who was perched on his shoulder again. The lizard quietly licked her own eyeball. ‘Will he?’
‘I doubt it,’ Rex shrugged. He reached down and scratched the dog behind the ears. ‘Six isn’t exactly what you’d call an animal lover.’
‘Tell me about it,’ muttered Bobo.
‘So I can take them home?’ Noah asked.
Rex couldn’t see the harm in it. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Just keep an eye on them. Don’t let them go running off or anything. The doc might want to check them out and make sure they’ve had their shots or whatever.’
He stopped patting Biowoof and stood up. The dog began pawing at Rex’s leg, trying to get his attention again.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t let them out of my sight!’ Noah said. ‘Here Biowoof,’ he called, patting the front of his leg. The puppy glanced at him, then stared longingly up at Rex.
‘Here, boy,’ Noah urged, but the dog didn’t budge. ‘Come on, Biowoof. Who’s a good doggy? Who’s a good doggy? Doggy, doggy, doggy.’
Noah glanced up to find everyone looking back at him. He coughed below his breath, blushed, then bent down and picked the dog up. It whined and whimpered and squirmed in Noah’s arms, as it struggled to be nearer Rex. Noah tickled the dog under the chin. It barked happily, then licked the end of Noah’s nose.
‘That’s more like it,’ Noah grinned. He nodded to the others. ‘Well, I’ll catch you guys later!’
‘Farewell, my young friend,’ said Dan, giving Noah a friendly wave of his foam finger. ‘Safe journey.’
He kept waving until Noah was out of sight. ‘What a nice young man,’ he said, once Noah had gone. ‘And I should know. It’s like they say – Dan Nice knows nice!’
‘Uh … who says that?’ Rex asked.
Dan laughed. ‘No one,’ he admitted, ‘but I’m really hoping it’ll catch on.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Rex said. ‘OK, let’s get back to base.’
He made for the fairground’s exit. Seal wrapped her arm around his and teetered alongside him in her high heels, chattering constantly. Dan walked on Rex’s other side, whistling a bright, cheerful tune.
Still standing by the roller-coaster, Bobo looked down at the bag in his hand. A bulbous pair of eyes looked back at him, unblinking.
‘Hey,’ he said, calling after the others, ‘how come I’m the one left holding the goldfish?’
CHAPTER 6
DAN STEPPED FORWARD, his normal hand outstretched. ‘Dan Nice,’ he beamed. ‘It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Mr Six. I’ve heard so much about you from Rex and Bobo.’
Agent Six regarded Dan with suspicion. He didn’t shake his hand. ‘Have you?’ he asked ‘Did they tell you what I do to non-authorised personnel who wander in to Providence Base?’
Dan’s smile didn’t falter. ‘No, they did not,’ he said, ‘and I’m almost certain I don’t want to find out.’
‘He’s with us, Six,’ Rex said. He gestured to Seal, who was holding onto his arm with both hands now. ‘And so’s she.’
Dr Holiday nudged Six aside and shook Dan’s hand. It went from being a greeting to being a physical examination in the space of half a second.
‘Hi. Dr Holiday,’ she said, before adding, ‘Skin is a little dry, but otherwise fine. Body temperature feels normal.’
Dan waited patiently until she had finished prodding at his hand. ‘Thank you for that vote of confidence, Dr Holiday,’ Dan said, with a wink. ‘As far as I’m aware, I’m in good health, but it’s always nice to have a second opinion.’
Holiday turned to Rex. ‘And you’re saying the mirror just … spat them out?’
‘Yeah. No. Kind of,’ Rex said. ‘Breach made a portal between the mirrors, and then the reflection of one of them sucked The Pack into it.’
‘The reflection sucked them in?’ Six asked. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘Hey, I’m just telling you what I saw,’ Rex protested. ‘I leave the whole is-it-or-isn’t-it-possible thing up to you guys.’
‘The kid’s telling it straight,’ Bobo said. ‘Van Kleiss and the rest of ’em got pulled right inside the mirror. Few seconds later, out pop these two.’
‘Four went in and two came out?’ Holiday asked.
‘Uh, no, not exactly,’ Rex said. ‘There was a puppy and a lizard thing, too. Noah took them home to look after. I don’t think they’re Evo.’
‘Let�
��s hope not, for his sake,’ Six said.
‘I think the worst that could happen is the dog licks him to death,’ Rex said. His brow furrowed. ‘Which, come to think about it, would be a pretty horrible way to go.’
Six turned his attention to the girl at Rex’s side. ‘Who’s your girlfriend?’ he asked, prompting a high-pitched giggle from Seal.
‘I’m Sealina,’ she smiled. ‘But like I said to Rex, all my friends, like, totally call me Seal.’
Six felt his eye twitch. ‘Then I’ll, like, totally call you Sealina,’ he said.
‘OMG, your dad’s, like, such an old stiff,’ Seal whispered. ‘He totally needs to lighten up.’
‘He’s not my dad,’ Rex objected.
‘Wow,’ Six said to Rex. ‘And I thought you could be irritating. She’s a whole new level.’
‘But Rex is right,’ Holiday said. She was leaning in, looking more closely at Seal’s perfect blonde hair. ‘She’s the exact opposite of Breach. Not just the way she looks, but the way she behaves, too. She’s … peppy.’
‘I don’t do peppy,’ Six said.
‘You’d rather she was acting all sullen and attacking you with her super-strong arms?’ Holiday asked.
Six didn’t answer, but Rex had a sneaking suspicion that the answer to that question was probably “yes”.
‘We’re going to have to ask you a few questions,’ said Six, turning to Dan.
‘I shall do my very best to answer them as openly as I possibly can,’ Dan said, sincerely. ‘Any friend of Rex and Bobo’s is a friend of mine.’
‘Where did you come from?’ Six asked.
‘From your point of view, I suppose we came from the Mirror World,’ Dan explained. ‘It’s sort of a parallel universe to this one, similar in many ways, but very different in others.’
‘Examples?’ Six said.
‘Well, take the nanite accident,’ Dan continued. ‘Rex tells me that here the nanites cause untold damage, turning many of those affected into rampaging monsters.’
‘That’s right,’ Holiday confirmed. ‘So?’
‘Back in our world, the accident was a blessing. There were one or two … unfortunate abnormalities, yes.’ He held up his foam finger hand. ‘But, by and large, those affected became better than they were before. Like young Rex here, or Bobo.’
Mirror Mirror Page 2