“Not to muscle in on the mad scientist schtick, Remmy, but have you considered a shoulder mounted rocket launcher for that power armor you’re wearing?”
I let out another snort. Was it too late to change my secret identity to ‘Clockwork Queen’?
When he asked, “May I borrow the Machine?” it took me a second to realize he wasn’t joking.
“I can ask the Mini-Machine to grow legs.” We’d fed the Machine so much metal, I’d had to make it spit up a clone, which now sat like a barnacle next to the giant hole which we’d saved to patch last. Of course, then Claire had pointed us at a room where the wall hadn’t broken, just cracked and buckled and had to be replaced. That had taken a lot of time.
Ray shook his head, smiling mysteriously, or at least smugly. “Too large. I require the original’s portability and its unique ability to absorb excess kinetic energy.”
Eying him suspiciously, I dropped my precious Machine into his open hands, and followed him out into the hallway. He’d cannibalized someone’s bookshelves to lay wooden boards over the pit in the middle of the floor, and as I watched he knelt down and whacked a railroad spike sized nail with the Machine. I winced, forcing myself to hold still as he pummeled the nail through the metal flooring, and drove in a few more. I knew he was right about the Machine’s energy absorption. He hit the nails hard enough to send himself flying into the air, but thanks to my baby, all that energy went one way.
I wasn’t sure what it would take to destroy the Machine, and had no intention of finding out. As undignified as this was, my greatest invention was in no danger.
Claire immediately trotted over the boards holding a red rubber ball.
My brain rearranged what I’d just seen. Not a red rubber ball. She had a handful of Puppeteer goo! Too shocked to say anything, I rushed after her, and watched her jam the goo into a hole in the wall, pounding it with her fist until it lay flat.
Claire saw me staring and gave me the Lutra grin―utterly unabashed, head lifted like a cat’s in pride at getting a reaction. “Two layers of gloves, one rubber, both filled with circuitry. You said this stuff is inert. There are electrical hazards all over the place. Either this stuff is a good insulator, or the smoke will tell us where we have a problem.”
She waltzed past me, the picture of graceful serenity, and into the apartment across the way. My guess was to get more Puppeteer flesh, because the living room had three cysts and a thicker root network than anything I’d seen so far. This apartment was as overgrown as the Red Panacea Clinic. Yeesh. Whoever had lived here, they’d sure gotten alien attention.
Just the thought to have when Claire picked up a broken picture frame and asked in a suddenly quiet voice, “Remmy? Could you come look at this? I think it’s a photo of you.”
“What? Are we? THOMPSON, YOU—aarg!” Seconds later, Remmy came sprinting down the hallway, toothpick legs flailing. She stopped herself by grabbing the doorframe next to me and yanking herself up short.
Breathing hard, which rasped in our ears through the radio, she looked up, down, around, and then leaned way forward to peer at the photo. The transparent shell of her helmet tapped the edge of the picture frame.
When she reeled away, I took my own look. The allegedly Remmy little girl was tiny, but she did have the same pigtails. They weren’t as long, but then, they didn’t need to be to reach her waist because she was so short. The two young men next to her were definitely Calvin and Thompson. A middle-aged blond man held her in one arm, playing tug-of-war with her over a wrench.
Remmy spun around, and collapsed against the doorframe. “Thompson, you―this is Dad’s place! This is our home! You led us here deliberately.”
“Seemed like a good place to start,” he answered from somewhere.
“And you forgot to tell me?” Remmy’s voice squeaked with fury.
“Didn’t want you distracted.”
She threw up her hands, even though he wasn’t here to see. “Oh, well, that’s good. That’s good. I understand. I mean, I didn’t want you distracted by your ship floating away, either.”
“You had better be joking,” he growled.
“Not joking, didn’t do it.”
He growled again, louder but wordless, and said nothing more.
Remmy’s hands shook spastically. “Okay… okay… I’ll put up the rotors first.”
She darted off, and Ray ran after her. The reason for that became apparent when he pulled a propeller blade as big as me out of a pile of junk Thompson left in the staircase. With Ray to hold the pieces, Remmy fastened the rotor and its engine back together, and I used the Machine to cut holes in the walls near the ceiling so it would fit.
Remmy jumped up and swung at the propeller above her head to get it started, but she couldn’t reach. Ray grabbed the shaft and twisted. It started slow, but in a few seconds the rotor spun up, shedding bright light and making me feel uncomfortably heavy standing under it.
Ray and Remmy dragged parts way down the hall, to the farthest point we’d sealed off. In hardly any time, they got a rotor running there.
I grabbed Ray’s arm as they ran past for the pile of parts again.
“Thanks,” I told him, voice quiet. I mean, everyone heard it, but I could try to make it sound like no big thing.
He tapped his bubble helmet against mine, winked, and helped Remmy drag a small cabinet out that looked very much like a miniature version of the atmosphere generator we’d gotten working on Europa.
Remmy messed around hooking it up to the working rotor by the stairs. “The good news. I’ll have this thing working in no time. The bad news. It needs water and organic stuff to function. We mostly use rotting fish and compost. There’s a lot of paper and bed sheets around, but that might be too tough.”
As she trailed off in thought, I tossed the Machine up in the air and caught it. A delighted grin split my face. “My dear Remmy, we’re surrounded by organic material that could be put to much better use than it is.”
She looked at me. She looked at the bloated Puppeteer pod on the wall next to me. “I know the machine can’t break that down.”
“Your machine can’t. My Machine can break down anything.” I gave my hand a flick, straightening the Machine out and laying it atop the egg-shaped, man-sized blob. “Eat. Reduce the organics to proteins, water, and fats. Separate them, and store the water. Release oxygen and nitrogen in a twenty-one percent / seventy-nine percent mix until one atmosphere of pressure is obtained.”
Folding my arms smugly, I watched the Machine chew its way into the cyst like a worm into a fruit, which was the least grotesque analogy I could think of. Wind whipped past me, growing stronger until Ray had to catch me when it blew me back. The Machine swelled, gleaming like diamond.
Oops. I’d forgotten to tell it what to do with the carbon. Well, diamond was good!
Should the Machine be glowing like that? I’d forgotten to tell it what to do with the energy. Apparently even a hibernating cyst contained quite a lot.
Wind roared, audible even through my helmet, too loud to be completely drowned out by Remmy’s laughter. She held onto the atmosphere generator until the wind died down. It didn’t stop, it just dropped from ‘roaring’ to ‘gusty’, and all ran in one direction.
“I’ve got that!” Claire called out, and disappeared into a side room.
The Machine, bloated like a tick, with diamond jaws and a bulb of iron, under which water sloshed, kept eating. It finished the pod, and was now chewing its way along a rubbery red root.
The wind stopped. Claire had found the leak and plugged it.
I pointed at Remmy. “Go put those materials wherever she wants them.”
Remmy wasted no time. She opened up the generator, saying, “Okay, water in this tank. All the organic stuff in here.” Continuing with the gross worm theme, the Machine crawled over and horked it all up into the appropriate tanks, while its metal shell collapsed inwards.
The box vibrated. Gentle wind blew out of it. I could actually see a heat haz
e ripple down the hallway.
Uh… air shouldn’t do that, should it? Nobody else seemed to have noticed. Maybe I was having another case of the Harveys. Remmy cracked the seal of her helmet, sniffed, and said into her radio, “Hey, big brother. Guess who’s breathing the atmosphere of our own functioning orbital base?”
“Great. I’ll see it in a minute,” his voice came back, quiet and staticky and with the strain of irritation.
The shell of the cyst next to Ray cracked in a dozen places. It twisted and shook as four wet, bright red arms thrust out, clawing at him. He took a step back, but a torso erupted from the mass, and that was enough. Ray ducked to the side and kicked the monster, cyst and all, into the far wall. As it struggled to get upright, growing more legs and a tail, he slapped his hands together and pulled out a ball of purple and pink light. When the ball reached the size of a soccer ball, he threw it at the Puppeteer.
Goo splattered everywhere. The mess twitched, but showed no sign of healing. To my intense relief, it also showed no sign of bones or any identifiably human parts. Or goat parts.
Nobody said anything. Remmy fumbled with the collar of her helmet, trying to reseal it but having trouble because her hands were shaking so hard. Her shallow breathing and faint squeaks of fear dominated the radio.
Another tumor erupted, right behind Remmy. Even as its clawed arms reached for her, Ray grabbed one. Ripping the whole pod off the floor, he slammed it against the wall, then pinned it in place with one foot.
A hand closed on my shoulder. Before I could jump out of my skin, I recognized a human grip. Two burning white balls flew past me, smacking into the evolving shape of the Puppeteer monster. Ray dropped it as it writhed, making no noise except the hissing of the flame burning it into greasy red smoke.
I risked a look behind me. Calvin stood there, in one of those bulky Jet spacesuits, with a pistol in his hand. Behind him, Vera quietly and methodically burned the Puppeteer flesh near me into masses of black char, clearing a space.
Movement made me jump again, but it was Ray, with Remmy in his arms, sprinting past the pods between the atmosphere generator and me. The closest wobbled and shook as he passed, but Vera floated out in front of me and turned her pink heat beam on it. Writhe as the mass of goo might, she burned it down to ashes faster than it could grow limbs.
I looked up at Calvin. He raised his finger to the front of his diving helmet, like he was shushing me. Okay, whatever. Next thought.
“This is bad.” Yes, super genius summation, Penelope.
I had to switch gears. Time to let Bad Penny take over. First, risk assessment. Closing my eyes, I swept the hallway with Archimedes’ vision.
My voice sounded steadier than I felt as I reported, “Yellow lights. Everyone, this whole Puppeteer web is waking up. The activity is centered around us, but spreading. Only the cysts look dangerous and they’re all on the lower levels. We clear a way to the stairs and evacuate, now.”
“WE’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!” Chief Fawkes yelled. Only the distance kept him from deafening me, muting and garbling his radio message.
“Argue later. We’re getting out of here,” I snapped back.
“Your only way out of here is with my spaceship. We’re staying. We’re better armed than the inhabitants ever were. Stay together, and when I get there, we’ll burn our territory clean and lock the monsters out.”
Remmy shrieked at him, “Have you lost your mind, Thompson?!” That did make me wince, but not much. I was too busy sliding Archimedes down my arm and into firing position.
“Deactivate. Go into hibernation. Shut down. Sleep!” I ordered the nearest cyst. Through the cat’s eyes, I saw the yellow fade, turning back to blue, but the moment I turned to point Archimedes at the next egg-shaped blob, the yellow surged again.
Chief Fawkes hadn’t answered. “Thompson? Thompson? Tommy, are you okay?” Remmy’s voice grew less angry and more scared with every word.
Calvin wrapped a bulky pressure suited arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “He’s fine. Juno is jamming his radio signal.”
Vera wandered back in front of me again, burning down the cyst I’d tried to deactivate. She was patient, systematic, and very effective, but through Archimedes’ eyes, I saw yellow blobs finish growing and start to twitch in rooms around us, above us, and behind us. She was just too slow to deal with this!
Bad Penny time, remember? I took a deep breath, and gave orders. “Okay, everyone. Back up a few feet. Stay in the burned out area. We’ll stick together while Vera opens us a path to the stairway.”
“I… can’t… get to where you are, Penny,” Claire said, an uncharacteristic wobble in her honeyed soprano.
I looked behind me. Claire was still down the hall next to the old Fawkes apartments, where the Puppeteer growth was thickest. There weren’t just a dozen cysts between her and us. She was surrounded on all sides, and trying to hold very still. None of them had activated yet.
Calvin drew another pistol and pointed both down the hall. I’d tried to sound calm. His voice was steady as a rock. “Here’s what you do, Miss. You run to us as fast as you can. We’ll shoot anything that grabs for you.”
That sounded like a plan to me. The Puppeteers didn’t come out quickly. “Vera, guard E-Claire as she runs. Burn any cyst that moves. Vera? Vera, over here!”
Vera ignored me. She’d moved into the apartment next to us, roasting a tumor on the ceiling.
Criminy. She wasn’t listening. She’d gone genocidal again. How badly did the Conquerors hate the Puppeteers, anyway? What kind of alien blood feud was humanity caught in the middle of?!
Well, I still had Archimedes, and all I needed to do was buy Claire time. I raised him into firing position. “The plan still works. Start running. We’ve got you.”
When Claire hesitated, Remmy said, “Calvin’s really that good. Trust him.”
Claire ran, hopping over ropes of red flesh and twice having to jump over bulging tumors. I pointed Archimedes at each one as she ran past, but nothing moved. At least, none of those cysts moved. A couple down the hallway had visibly started jiggling.
When she got two thirds of the way, a cyst by the door of the Fawkes home split. Calvin’s pistol spat burning white blobs into it. Ray leaped forward, sprinting into the minefield of pods to meet Claire.
He flashed by like a racecar, but as he reached Claire, the cyst behind him spat up a headless, four-armed abomination. It clawed at Ray, who spun around, grabbed its upper wrists, and twisted.
Claire sprinted past. It ignored her. Calvin shot it in the back. It twisted, but as it writhed the lower arms withdrew. They should have clawed at Ray, or the passing Claire. Instead, even while its midsection smoked and burned, it used that mass to grow a head.
The head did it no good when a pink beam fried it from behind. Ray dropped the monster and backed away.
Claire reached us ahead of him, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing with an uncomfortably strong grip. I couldn’t blame her. Supervillainy had been a game that did not include being surrounded by creepy, murderous alien zombie blobs.
The only active monster dead, Vera wandered back into a side room and resumed her methodical and completely useless extermination program. Well, not completely useless. Nothing was going to come at us from the sides. Whether deliberately or not, she was giving us a safe zone.
“Calvin, you’ve got a spaceship, right?” Remmy asked, her voice still squeaky and quiet.
“And, worst case, we cut a hole in the floor and escape into space. I’d rather not destroy what Remington built here, so let’s leave that for worst case.”
I nodded. Bad Penny got stronger by the second. “We know Vera’s protecting us. Let’s go back to the clearing a path plan. You have guns, and Ray has his blasting gloves.”
Calvin tapped his pistol against his helmet. That was the closest he could get to pushing his hat up with the barrel. “We could, little miss, but I’ve noticed a certain something we’ll want to try first.”
Of all the tones of voice I expected from anyone here, ‘gleefully devious’ had not been one of them.
“This had better be good,” I warned him.
His diving bell helmet wasn’t as clear as mine, but he looked me straight in the eyes―while keeping his pistols raised. “It is. Europa needs Remington. I need Remington. Getting my baby sister to safety is my number one priority. Rescuing you young ladies is number two. The boy is at least number five. The thing is, little miss, if I saw what I think I saw, we’re all safe as if we were back home already and don’t know it.”
I hadn’t thought of going out through the hull. He was clearly a smart guy. I’d forgotten something else, and called out, “Machine! Heel!” Well, I’d have to wait a minute for it to crawl back through the tumorous red mass. I nodded to Calvin. “Go for it.”
He looped an arm around Claire, pulling her away from me gently while still keeping his pistols trained on the nearby tumors. “Okay. Deep breath, Miss E-Claire. This will sound scary, but we’re all guarding you, and I’m betting you’ll feel a whole lot more brave afterward. Go over there and kick one of those blobs.”
Claire gave him a quizzical look, her golden ponytail flopping to one side in her helmet. Her hand reached up automatically to try and brush it back, but bumped into the plastic. “Just kick it?”
“If it moves, we’ll blow it away. I swear.”
His strong, comforting act was wasted. He didn’t know Claire. She might have freaked out being suddenly trapped, but that fear hadn’t lasted long. She walked slowly and watchfully back to the nearest blob, yes, but she didn’t hesitate or look scared. When she got within comfortable reach, she cocked her leg, gave the shell a hard kick, and took a half step back.
It did absolutely nothing. I closed my eyes and watched through Archimedes. Claire gave the cyst another kick, and if anything, the yellow faded a touch, mixing with the blue to form green patches.
I blinked, and narrowed my eyes in thought. So did Claire. So did Ray. Only Remmy still looked skeptical, but she didn’t look confused.
Ray said it first. “The only one that attacked, attacked me.”
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