Claire walked up to the next cyst and kicked it. Nothing. She punched one growing on the wall, then grabbed and shook it. No activity. None of the tumors around her showed any activity, not even through Cat Vision. Other blobs both ways down the hall boiled with yellow ready to emerge, but the ones near Claire were quiet.
I opened my human eyes to see Claire’s playful grin, and her impudent little bounce. “It’s my superpower. I can cloud the minds of men, women, and disgusting alien cancer zombies!”
“The ones near you go to sleep. Although… what is that?”
I was getting better at seeing through my own and Archimedes’ eyes simultaneously. At least, I sorta registered the yellow mass when a cyst in a side room down the hall spat up its monster. The fleshy red abomination shambled out into the hallway.
This thing did not have four arms. It had two, and a head that grew more heart shaped by the moment. A blob stuck out the back, like a ponytail. Most of its mass went into a cone shape around its legs, sort of like a poodle skirt.
It was a clumsy, grotesque imitation of Claire, yes, but the intention was obvious. It ignored her, stumbling towards us instead.
It got about five feet before Vera noticed it and glided out to burn it to ashes. This one didn’t even seem to feel pain, and kept stumbling forward until its legs fell apart.
That had been both disgusting and funny, and I gave Claire a bemused look. She glowed with pride while I slow clapped. “They like you. They really like you.”
I swept the place with Cat Vision again for any more active monsters. None. Instead, I heard Harvey’s distant voice. “…can’t re-educate the… she’s too…”
He faded. I hadn’t seen him, and had barely heard him.
The metal framing of the diving helmet cast shadows on Calvin’s face, and his eyes looked like they glowed when he stared this intensely. “Congratulations, young lady. It turns out you have the greatest power in all the moons of Jupiter. Can I talk you into using it for a little errand? In my dad’s living room, he had a stone spear hanging up on the wall. If you’re willing to fetch it, I’d be grateful.”
Willing? Claire practically skipped down the hall, hopping playfully between the meaty red roots before walking boldly into the Fawkes apartment. The spear must not have been hard to find, because seconds later she walked out carrying it, skipping her way back to us. She deposited it into Calvin’s waiting hands with an impish curtsey.
I had something much more valuable to retrieve, and crouched down to pick up my Machine, fastening it around my wrist into bracelet mode. Still, I had to give Calvin’s prize a curious look. It was a spear. Diamond shaped head, long thin shaft. The whole thing had been made out of stone, which was weird, and the spearhead had a hacked, Native American sort of arrowhead look. The shaft was badly weathered, and had a bunch of nicks in it. Those might have been interesting symbols once, or just random scratches. They were too worn away to tell.
“Dad’s trophy from Earth? Why that?” Remmy wrinkled up her nose in confusion.
Calvin shook his head slowly, cradling the spear. “It’s not from Earth. It was on Kalyke when our great-grandparents came through the gate. It was there when the Rotors came through. There were other artifacts. The tether is one of them. Even the founders couldn’t make material that strong.”
Remmy gave him a lopsided look. She had so much hair, even tied back it piled up on one side when she tilted her head. “So, what does this one do?”
Her brother pointed the spearhead up the hall towards the Fawkes apartments. I didn’t see what he did, but a shockwave thundered around us, so hard I swear the air itself rippled. A blast wave knocked cysts off their moorings, peeling up roots from the walls and floor. Two of the hard cases shattered, but not badly enough. Meaty red shapes crawled out, rising and congealing into vaguely Claire-like shapes.
He gave them maybe three seconds before pointing the spear at each of them in turn. Smaller but still uncomfortably loud blasts ripped them into wet shreds.
“It’s a weapon,” Calvin said into the ringing silence.
Remmy reached up to rub her ears, but the helmet was in the way. “Did Thompson know that was here?”
Calvin’s voice hardened. I’d only heard this kind of disgust from him when he talked about automatons. “Why do you think you’re here? My brother’s a real great guy, as long as he’s sure he’s in charge.”
Uncomfortable silence mixed with lingering tinnitus. It took Remmy a few seconds to push away from Calvin and put her hands on her hips. “I know you two don’t get along, but he seriously wants Io back, so all the Jets can come home.”
Calvin’s smile returned, and his tone grew light, although not quite convincingly casual. “A true gentleman doesn’t try to poison a sister’s feelings toward her brother. Instead, we have a guest to welcome. Miss E-Claire, would you be willing to use your power to see my ladylove to safety?”
Sure enough, Juno stood in the doorway to the stairs. Claire threaded her way through the cysts to meet her, and they held hands, walking close together on the way back. I kept Archimedes’ alien eyes out for trouble, but being close to Claire seemed to be enough. Nothing moved, except gusts of wind when Claire and Juno broke through the invisible bubble the rotors made.
Well, nothing down here moved. A green and yellow mass was descending the staircase towards us, and I was pretty sure I knew who that was.
While I looked through a cat’s eyes, Juno said, “I have been listening, child. The Jovians did tell me you all had a role to play. Yours is a gift beyond price, and you will surely play a greater part in freeing Jupiter than I had imagined.”
Remmy scowled up at Calvin. “Why send her? You’ve got that spear. Clear us a way out.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
Even with my human eyes open, I saw hints of the yellow and green bulk that was how Archimedes saw Chief Fawkes when he rounded the last turn of the stairs. He stood in the doorway of the stairwell, staring past the Puppeteer minefield at us with shoulders up and fists clenched.
That was why. Calvin didn’t have to say it. The deadly Puppeteer cysts stood between the two brothers, and Thompson had a lot less clothing between his flesh and theirs.
“If you take your witch and go, I’ll let you leave,” Thompson told Calvin. They looked each other in the eyes across the infested hallway. The rest of us were spectators at best.
Or prizes. “I’ll leave. These children are coming with me. You can’t begin to guess the good they can do, for our people, for the Rotors, for all of Jupiter.”
“Take the Earth kids. I need Remington.”
Calvin snarled with uncharacteristic anger, “You are the last person I would leave her with. The Earth children can save us all. I’m going to save Remington. From you.”
Face twisted with fury, Chief Fawkes gave a speculative look at the pods in his way. With his superpowers, I didn’t think they could stop him. He was clearly considering the same.
So was Calvin. He pointed the tip of the spear at his older brother. “Not a step.”
“You wouldn’t use that on me.” Chief Fawkes sounded confident. He also hadn’t moved, other than to raise his fists a few inches.
Calvin switched the spear to one hand, and drew a flame pistol with the other. “No. But I would shoot you. I know you’d live. The kids are coming with me. You don’t want them.” He lifted the spear up farther. “You want this.”
“There are others.” Not a denial. I didn’t want to see Remmy’s expression, but I glanced anyway. She stared at her oldest brother, open mouthed in horror.
“On Kalyke, guarded by Conqueror drones and buried under a mountain of Puppeteers.”
Thompson Fawkes said nothing, and his face showed nothing but blank, controlled anger.
“Hold still, Tommy,” Calvin ordered. When Thompson straightened up angrily instead, Juno extended her arm.
“Hold,” she commanded. Her voice was clearer than anyone else’s in
our scratchy radios, but it also echoed. Behind the clouded glass of her crude helmet, shining white eyes flared.
Thompson stiffened. Calvin drew his arm back and threw the spear down the hall, over Thompson’s shoulder. It hit the back wall of the atmosphere bubble, and a burst of wind blew it up the opposite hallway.
Chief Fawkes glared a few more seconds, turned, and charged after it.
“Thompson!” Remmy shrieked, her voice raw and betrayed.
Calvin didn’t try to calm her down. He scooped her up under one arm, instead. “Now we run.”
“Wait!” I yelled. My heart ached for poor Remmy, but I couldn’t leave yet. I ran into the apartment next to us. Ash covered everything. Vera floated out of one side room towards the other, her hands already outstretched and projecting a pink ray into a mass of Puppeteer flesh I couldn’t see.
“Vera! Time to leave!”
She ignored me.
“Vera, we have to go!” I shouted, grabbing her. The pink beam winked out, but her little ceramic chip hands pushed mine away, and her crystal ball head dragged me forward.
Fine. I reached up to tap the top of her head. One of her six wings slapped my hand away.
Criminy. Did she hate Puppeteers this much? Would she even listen if the Apparition asked?
“I can’t shut her down!” I yelled back at my friends.
Ray scowled in thought, but Calvin stepped forward. I understood his impatience. We did not have much of a lead on a furious Thompson Fawkes, and that was slipping away. From one of his holsters, Calvin pulled out his strobe pistol.
Vera recognized it. Calvin drew the pistol with the speed of an old-fashioned gunfighter, but Vera moved faster. As he pulled the trigger, a pink flash melted the lens.
To my considerable surprise, Juno pushed Calvin gently aside and extended her arm again. Archimedes yowled. My eyes watered. A white, glowing shape, like a particularly bulbous jellyfish, hovered around Juno. One of its tentacles lashed out, tapping Vera’s head.
Vera’s ceramic shell closed up, and she fell to the floor. I caught her before she hit, and started running even before I’d finished stuffing her into a pocket.
Either some of us weren’t close enough to Claire, or her power couldn’t cover all of us. Cysts rocked as we passed; as I rounded the stair, I saw things climbing out of each one. No, not really climbing out. The blobs weren’t eggs. As the Claire-shaped abominations grew, they sucked the whole mass of the cyst into themselves.
Nobody paused for careful scientific analysis. A brief pang tugged at me. We’d have had to drag Juliet away. Where was she? Was she okay?
No time to worry about that, either. We raced up the stairs until microgravity made that dangerous, then pulled ourselves up the railing the rest of the way. Calvin fired the first magnetic grapple towards the end of the huge central tunnel. He fired it not at the end open to space, but at the other end. The door there opened into some sort of tunnel.
We all decided he had the right idea, and our grappling lines shot out with his, until we were all pulled through that door so fast, I hit the floor, or ceiling, or whatever on the other side with a painful thump.
Remmy’s voice rang out over the radio. “Thompson? Tell me what’s going on. Was this really an excuse to get that spear?”
Silence.
Calvin used his grappling hook again, dragging him down the hugely long corridor. This thing was big, wider than both sides of a major freeway, and as tall as a barn. It had once connected the disk Remmy’s family had lived in to the even bigger central disk. Now it was a perforated wreck.
Ray grabbed my waist and Claire’s, and followed by jumping from one wall to another, exploiting his superhuman reflexes and balance.
“Thompson?” Anger put a sharper edge on Remmy’s voice.
“He’s not going to answer. He doesn’t want to give away his position.” Calvin sounded guilty, which he should. For a few minutes there, I had liked Calvin. He’d been clever and cool. Now I’d watched both brothers care more about wounding each other than about Remmy’s feelings, and I wasn’t happy with either of them.
We didn’t go even halfway to the central disk. Calvin reached a particularly large hole in the wall, and kicked out into space, with Remmy in one arm and the other wrapped around Juno’s waist. Ray did the same with me and Claire. We aimed at Calvin’s kludged together double flying saucer, and this time when we climbed through the hatch, I noticed the atmosphere bubble Remmy’s scavenged rotor created. Calvin’s ship didn’t need an airlock.
He sat Remmy on a table, and stormed off to the cockpit, already yanking at the fastenings of his spacesuit.
Remmy leaned her head forward, propping the bubble helmet on her hands. “Why did we just let him take us?” Her voice shuddered. She was on the edge of crying.
I pried off my helmet with one hand, and tried to lay the other over her shoulders. She squirmed away. Claire laid her own hand on Remmy’s knee from the other side, and she let that stay.
As softly as I could, I said, “Listen. Your brothers are idiots, so forget them. Do what’s important to you. You took the first step to bringing Io Alpha back online today. Now we’ll head to Europa and make it livable. Let them fight over who’s the hero. You act like one.”
The hints of sniffling stopped. Remmy looked up, eyes red, mouth turned in a scowl. She twisted off her helmet, and as mad as she looked, her scratchy voice didn’t hold any anger. “Yeah, well. Thompson still has my aetheric fluid, so that’s easier said than done.”
“You left something on Callisto. Look in the engine room,” announced Calvin’s voice from the radios on our collars.
We didn’t have to move, because Ray darted back into the engine room for us, and a few seconds later emerged with a heavy metal canister. Opening the lid, he showed off a familiar glass tube of softly glowing grey something.
Remmy perked up considerably. As she sat upright, I put a hand on her shoulder, and this time she let me. “One thing I’ve had to learn as a supervillain is that you never have the tools you wish you had. Treat life like your superpower. When you don’t have the parts you have, figure out what you do have that will make things work.”
“You could learn a lot from this girl, Remington,” Calvin said over the radio.
“These children are blessed by the Jovians. Follow their example,” Juno added the same way.
Remmy growled, rolling her bloodshot eyes. She leaned over and grabbed the metal canister from Ray, hugging it and her hard-won aetheric fluid to her chest, even though her arms barely reached all the way around.
t least Calvin’s heavily customized flying saucer had portholes. I knew when we went into orbit around the scratchy brown and white ball of Europa, and got peeks of the space station as we closed for a landing.
Claire responded to the view with, “I thought for sure Thompson would chase us.”
Remmy, arms and legs still wrapped around her fluid tank but noticeably calmer, said, “By the time he got his ship going, we were a speck. If he did follow us, what would he do? Shoot us down? I…”
She trailed off for a moment, and the sullen scowl crept up into a faint but proud grin. “I overdid it on the rotors so this ship could go fast without you feeling it. When Calvin cranks up the speed, we fly in a whole cloud of feedback. If somebody survived getting close enough to shoot at us… shoop. Cannonball gone.”
Claire and Ray grinned, but I snickered. The joy of mad science was when unintended consequences played out in your favor.
A couple of minutes later, we landed. I helped Remmy carry her fluid tank down the ramp and across the deck to the main rotor. By the end of that, my arms ached and I was sure I put the canister down seconds before my fingers slipped. Remmy had merely grunted and shuffled. Ray, of course, strolled up behind carrying the other canister over his shoulder as lightly as a basketball. My jealousy was entirely defused by my delight that Calvin had recovered both lost tubes of aetheric fluid.
I stretched, and I wa
sn’t the only one feeling the drag. Claire yawned, and asked, “I wonder what time it is?”
Ray looked up into the star-studded sky, first at Europa, then at Jupiter, then at the bright little dot of the sun. “My sense of time is distorted by hours of space station jacking. It might be two pm, or midnight.”
“Let me check,” I offered. Let’s see. I had my phone in my back pocket. I flipped it open, and…
Awww, criminy. “Out of power.”
“Well, you haven’t recharged it in days,” Claire pointed out.
I pressed the buttons. Not even a ‘battery needs charging’ image. Criminy twice.
Realization made me wince. “Criminy buckets! I took it out into space! For hours!”
Ray winced in sympathy. “That will do it. Frozen to death. At least your dad can fix it.”
I gave him my best skeptically raised eyebrow. “The second mysterious phone death in a month? Handing the parts over to the one man who can recognize flash-freezing damage on sight? I’ll say I fed it to the Machine because I’m making myself a new one.” I tossed the busted smartphone on the ground.
Ray let out a single, barking laugh. “As if your power will let you make something so straightforward and prosaic.”
With a shove of her foot, Remmy finished wedging an aetheric fluid jar into its socket. Stepping over to me, she picked the phone up off the floor and peered at it through her goggles. “So, you didn’t make this?”
I shook my head. “Nope. This is regular Earth science.”
Remmy flicked a screwdriver from her pocket like she was drawing a switchblade. She poked the end into cracks until she found a good one, and levered the cover off. “Looks like the inside of a robot black box, but it’s tiny!”
All bland and casual and carefully not sounding superior, Ray shrugged. “Sixty years of improvements in microcircuitry since your ancestors left Earth.”
“Huh. I bet I can kludge this into something.” Dropping the broken calculator into one of her pants pockets, she went back to hooking up the fluid tanks.
I really should help with that. Standing behind her, I looked over her shoulder at the massive assemblage of cogs and levers and pipes that I knew contained more cogs, and absolutely none of it made sense. At all. It had all seemed reasonable enough the first time, but now the whole machine could have been written in Greek. Or German, which I was still no good at.
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