Did it matter?
As I pondered philosophy, Claire took over. Making friends was her specialty. “Hi! Were you sent to meet us? We’re here for an appointment, and if there’s a way to the parking garage that doesn’t involve walking right through there, you’d be doing us a favor.” Claire waved a hand lazily at the crowded mall and the only entrance to Spider’s lair I’d ever used.
She Who Wots stared at nothing for a few seconds before answering. “Oh, right. Physical objects!” Giggling, she turned and walked around the building. We followed, on the basis that she might be showing us the way.
The guy She Who Wots kissed hadn’t moved. Like, at all. Was that blood at the corners of his eyes? My visor did great magnification, but at this distance, I could hope I was imagining things.
Claire tried to make conversation, drifting up right next to She Who Wots. One hand cocked on her hip, Claire looked up at the taller girl. “Did you get out alright after that mess with the Librarian? A straight up fight may be what we do, but reading someone else’s diary at them isn’t fair.”
“Chains. The whole world is chains. Fair and unfair are chains. Even flesh and blood are chains. It’s so much fun to wear chains. My medication is a chain, but it’s not a very good one.” Yep. Good luck putting her on your contacts list, Claire!
A door saved Claire from trying. Two stickers over the little window read ‘Underground Parking’ and ‘Closed.’
She Who Wots walked through the door. Literally. Without opening it first. Was the door an illusion? Ray thought of that before I did, and reached out to push the bar. A click. Nope, real and locked.
Wish I could walk through solid objects. I’d throw that idea at my power later.
The door clicked again, and none of us were touching it now. Ray reached out and pushed it open. No sign of She Who Wots, but a cement spiral staircase led down one level.
I’d kinda half-expected a ‘This Way To Spider’s Lair’ sign.
Ray hopped the railing and jumped down. I trotted down the steps two at a time. Claire took the rear.
It wasn’t like her to drag her feet. She might not be as juiced as Ray was on Super Cheerleader Serum, but jumping the railing wouldn’t have been beyond her.
Oh, right. I remembered just as Claire’s shoulders start to shake.
Claire didn’t like spiders. It had never been worth noticing until we met one the size of a car.
I put my arms around her, and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “It’ll be okay. Don’t look, and I’ll stand between you and her. Just imagine you’re talking to a really ugly woman.”
“Naked,” supplied Ray, completing the traditional advice with undisguised relish.
“Alright, I…,” Claire tried to answer, taking deep breaths. She was still shaking.
An idea hit me.
Giving Claire an extra squeeze, I asked, “Is it okay if I sedate you? We’ll still be here keeping you safe.”
“What?” Claire asked, then followed up with, “Sure.” From her confused tone, she hadn’t gotten it, but she trusted me.
Lifting my arm, I touched Archimedes’ nose to hers, and whispered, “Calm.” Archimedes meowed quietly.
Claire’s shaking stopped. She took a deep, controlled breath. Palms down and away from her sides, she visibly centered herself. “Okay. That helps. I’m still standing behind you.”
Ray put his own hands on Claire’s shoulders, leaned close from behind, and added in a low voice, “You are completely safe. We’ll make certain of that.”
Claire smiled over her shoulder at him―imprecisely, since she had her eyes closed. “I’m fine. Thanks, guys.”
I slipped the non-cat-augmented arm around Claire’s waist, Ray opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, and we stepped into the Spider’s web.
Literally. In this section of garage, gooey white ropes of silk attached right to the walls and ceiling. It was a good thing Claire had her eyes closed. She especially did not want to see Spider’s huge, gleaming black body climb through the web towards us, ghostly silent but faster than I could run.
At least, Spider stopped well outside her arm’s reach. I might not be arachnophobic, but a giant animal bearing down on me that fast had my spine crawling.
Hugely long forelegs folded up underneath her body―from her perspective. She hung upside down, so technically above. Sheesh, even thinking about Spider got complicated! I still had no idea where that assertive adult woman voice even came from. If I closed my eyes, I’d have thought I was talking to a CEO. “The Inscrutable Machine. Thank you for showing them in, She Who Wots.”
From behind me, our so-called guide cheerfully but faintly rasped, “Andrew Stickler wanted to get to know me better. Now he does.”
Ray let the door we’d just come in swing shut. She Who Wots had been behind it, drawing on the cement wall with white chalk.
I had no intention of puzzling out that sketch. I might succeed! Instead I turned back to watch Spider pluck a strand of her web with one of her shortest pair of almost back legs. “I’ll see that he gets medical attention. Bad Penny, Reviled, E-Claire, thank you for coming, especially considering how poorly I have treated you in the past. I have an offer so generous that I hope it will repair our working relationship.”
I tilted my head, giving her the skeptical eyebrows. “And you’re offering what…?” It’s not like we could spend the money we already had!
The huge, glossy black spider remained motionless. “The payment is the job itself. I would like you to go into space.”
Claire jumped behind me, the light touch of her head against my shoulder disappearing as she straightened. Ray inhaled loudly.
After a few seconds, I realized I was standing there thinking nothing at all. Conversation reboot! “How far into space? Are we stealing a decomissioned Space Shuttle, or what?”
“My immediate goal is Jupiter.”
Why Jupiter?
Ray broke in, giving me no chance to ask. “No human has ever been past Mars. Not even with mad science. We only got to the Conquerors’ lunar staging area by hijacking a portal created by the Orb of the Heavens, which… you own.”
Spider’s front legs uncurled, getting a grip in the web while that one almost back leg plucked at its strand. An excited gesture? She did sound intense. “A useful piece of technology, but not well suited to exploration.”
I tried to take control of this conversation again. “Just tell us everything.”
The plucking leg stopped. “This must seem needlessly dramatic. I will brief you properly in a few minutes, when we are less likely to be overheard. The important information is this: Reviled is correct. To date, no known spaceship capable of convenient interplanetary flight has been built. I am offering the Inscrutable Machine the chance to explore the solar system for me, because I believe Bad Penny can build the spaceship required for the job.”
OW.
Ray and Claire caught me. I felt myself hit their arms, sagged into their grip, then pushed myself wobbly straight. I couldn’t have blacked out more than a second, right? It’s just that building a spaceship-
Ow. Ow. Ow.
“Ha! HA HA HA!”
I rubbed the back of my head, which did not work very well through my helmet. The ache forced my eyes nearly shut, but my grin spread so wide, that ached, too.
“I can make a spaceship.” Oh, I could. The spaceship swam around in my head, lithe instead of stiff. The idea was so complicated. So beautiful. I could do it, but… “I need cloning tools. My power’s on a biotech kick.”
Claire asked, “Penny, are you sure?” Ray merely squeezed me protectively.
That grip around my arms ached, too. He so needed a better idea of how strong he’d gotten if he was going to woo the ladies. With great effort, I wriggled an arm free to wave them both off. “Three inspirations in one day is overworking my power, and this job can’t be done by hand. This is just strain.”
Spider hadn’t batted an eye. Metaphorically. In a liter
al sense, I was mostly sure spiders didn’t have eyelids. “Fortunately, an illegal cloning research center was recently shut down by Mourning Dove. She must have been distracted, because she forgot to destroy their biotechnology suite. I am a bit of a packrat, and appropriated the set. The tools will be waiting for you at the launch site.”
Space. The Inscrutable Machine would be the first humans to visit Jupiter, the first to leave the inner solar system. The offer was so, so tempting.
But it wouldn’t work. As much as I wanted to grind my teeth, I had to say, “We respectfully decline your generous offer. Growing a spaceship could take days. Space exploration could take weeks. We have school obligations. We have cover identities to think of.”
Behind me, Ray stomped his foot, and Claire let out a snort of frustration. They knew I was right.
Spider reshuffled her legs, pulling them in to grip webbing close to her body, and leaned a few feet closer. For the first time, I could make out the gleaming black eyes, tiny compared to her bulk but much bigger than mine, and all clustered together. I got the terrible feeling she was giving me a look, an arachnid expression I could not possibly interpret. Her answer came slowly, almost grave. “I hope that by now I have convinced you that I do not offer what I cannot deliver in full. Please rest assured I have a cover prepared that will not only excuse your absences, but will make your secret identities more secure. You will be free to take as much time off school as the job requires.”
“We’ll do it.” I said the words before I’d even thought them through, but there was no way I was taking them back. Not even if Ray and Claire tried to argue.
“Excellent. This way, please.” Spider turned around, crawling through her web at a dainty pace that allowed us tiny humans to follow. I put one arm around Claire’s waist and another over her eyes, Ray took her elbow, and we walked together towards the other side of the web-filled parking garage. Where could we be going?
Well, if I had to guess, the big rectangular hole in the wall edged in flickering light that led into a white painted, metal-trimmed corridor. Another clue would be the yellow and white hazard lines painted just inside the portal, with the legend ‘CAUTION: REDUCED GRAVITY.’
he painted warning wasn’t kidding. I took my first step through the portal, got dizzy, tried to get my feet under myself, and jumped so high, I nearly cracked my head on the ceiling. The high ceiling. I let myself settle down gently, and took the next few steps nice and soft. After two successful steps, I looked back.
Ray and Claire looked perfectly comfortable and in control, like the artificially balance-enhanced superhumans they were. I didn’t know whether to be mortified or furiously jealous.
I opted for ‘grateful.’ Ray eyed the hallway exits and Claire had taken off one glove to slide a finger over the metal walls. They pretended flawlessly that I hadn’t just made a fool of myself.
A few floating steps brought me to a T intersection. I stopped, and behind me Ray breathed, “We’re on the Moon.”
“That would explain the cold,” put in Claire, the one with bare legs.
I took another careful step to the corner, so they could join me looking down the side corridor. “I think we’re going farther out than that.”
At the end of the hallway, another light-edged doorway marked a portal into a huge metal chamber, all metal columns and windows looking out into the darkness. On our end of the portal, another low gravity warning had been painted on the floor. On the other side, the warning read, ‘CAUTION: ENTERING ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY ZONE.’
Wait. I was on the Moon. I was on the Moon! Why not look around?
Because, Penelope Akk, on the other side of that door is someplace so cool it makes the Moon look like a big ball of dead rock.
Cool metaphorically. My jumpsuit insulated me pretty well, but Claire rushed past me, skating on frictionless soles as easily as she did in regular gravity. She slid to a spinning halt on the other side of the doorway and let out a sigh of exaggerated relief at how warm it was over there.
I followed, but stepped really carefully over the edge. My foot got heavier on the other side, and I walked several paces past Claire just to enjoy having solid weight again. Earth normal? Hard to be sure.
What I was sure about was where this artificial gravity came from. In the center of the domed chamber, surrounded by wiring and high-tech looking boxes, floated a crystal the size and shape of a beach ball. Inside the glass, orange and red swirled, almost like fire, and a big black dot of a pupil stared across the room right at me.
That, girls and boys and me, was the Orb of the Heavens, the most powerful alien artifact mankind had ever encountered. Apparently, Spider had gotten it working. The Orb would be the source of both portals, the artificial gravity, probably all the electricity running this place, the heating, might be deflecting meteors right now… and much more besides.
Hey, superpower, you could make one of those, right?
OW. Right, right. I had a head full of biospaceship. At least the facemask hid my wince.
I wandered over to look through the windows. The dome had a lot of windows.
We were in space, and I had to see it.
I pressed my gloved hands up against the glass, and stared out. We were on a planet. No, the Moon. No, that couldn’t be right. Just what was it I was looking at?
A barren plain of grey dust stretched off into the distance. The horizon had a visible curve, but looked hazy. Misty. From around our dome, tunnels spread to other buildings and big pieces of lurching factory equipment, all frosted with ice. The alien scenery came complete with a frozen lake that spread around the outpost.
Above us, stars. So many stars. The sky wasn’t black, but painted with colors and glitter. A little shiny ball, or a really honking big star, caught my attention. The sun? No, not bright enough. Jupiter? Had to be. Spider would send us somewhere closer to Jupiter than Earth.
Or that other round thing that lit up suddenly could be Jupiter, but… no, that was moving.
My eyes darted around. Visibly moving stars. Spots of roving blackness that blocked stars out.
We were in the asteroid belt, which made this Ceres, the biggest asteroid. No other asteroid was big enough to pretend to be a planet. We were way past Mars. My knees felt weak, and I leaned harder against the glass, even though cold had begun to seep through my gloves. Oh, wow.
Some people do not appreciate a moment of semi-religious bliss. Behind me, Claire asked, “So, can you talk?”
Clonk, like a muffled church bell. She was talking to the Orb of the Heavens. Vera had been sort of a Conquerer Orb, and talked with little chimes. So, that made sense.
“But you understand English?”
I didn’t look back, but it must have nodded or something, because Claire kept going. “Are you happy doing this? I mean, can you like things and not like things?”
Did I want to listen, or shut her out? My decision was made by a spaceship drifting up to one of the moving factory towers. ‘Spaceship’ might be stretching the point. In the dim light, it looked like a frame of copper pipes holding a big rock. It released the rock into the tower, and then flew off on a little puffing jet.
Asteroid mining. Cool.
A finger tapped my shoulder. I looked back into Ray’s unmasked, slyly hopeful face. For a second I thought he was about to hit on me, but instead he said, “I checked the side tunnels. There’s nobody else here.”
“Is there anybody else here?” Claire asked. Me and Ray looked over to see the Conqueror orb swivel, as if it were shaking its head.
Ray swept off his hat and rubbed his fingers over his face. “Check me if I’m right, Dark Mistress. We’re millions of miles from the nearest human. This whole mission will be taking us even farther out, where there is absolutely zero chance of anyone hearing us who would recognize my accent, right?”
Claire argued, “I’m not really sure it’s your accent. I’ve heard you fake other accents. It’s still you.”
I was a little more s
ensitive to his actual point. “You can talk all you want on this mission, Ray. Reviled. We should probably still use our villain names.”
“YES!” Ray danced around in a circle, pumping one fist. He grabbed me by my shoulders, threw me up in the air, caught me, gave me a painful hug, and set me back on my feet. While I waited for the world to stop spinning, he threw back his head and growled, “You have no idea how sick I am of keeping my mouth shut. Strong and silent stopped being fun after two jobs, tops.” Drawing in a deep breath, he turned and yelled at the ceiling, “AGLAGLAGLAGL! ECHO echo echo echo!”
A helpless giggle forced its way out of me, but he’d made a thought spark. “That doesn’t mean no one can hear us, but the person who’s listening knows our identities anyway. Right, Spider?”
“Correct. I was letting you enjoy the moment.” Her voice came from the Orb of the Heavens. That made sense.
“Spill the beans. What couldn’t you tell us back on Earth?” I demanded, all business, like a serious supervillain leader.
“For starters, I am keeping the existence of this Ceres facility as secret as possible.” Claire clasped her hands to her mouth and gasped. She hadn’t figured out where we were yet. Ray had. He didn’t react.
Well, he didn’t react with surprise. He did point out, “Asteroid mining seems a little legit for LA’s godspider of crime.”
She answered, briskly but in good humor. “Partly, I enjoy playing with the toys I collect, Reviled. Partly, I enjoy low-overhead, regulation-free, competition-free industry.”
Hmmm. “But the Orb of the Heavens can’t take you all the way to Jupiter?”
“The Orb of the Heavens has limits. Distance does not seem to be one of them. It makes complicated vector calculations with ease, but it still needs a beacon at the other end to reliably and safely open a portal. I had ways of reaching Jupiter’s moons in mind, but was satisfied with Ceres for the moment… until I received this.”
A little girl’s staticky voice complained, “You can’t see it w―” The rest of the last word was probably ‘work’, but the beginning and end of the sentence got real quiet. Only the middle had been loud and clear.
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