by Kate O'Hearn
Now he was on a strange planet filled with Mimics that could kill with a touch. Angitia said she was a snake charmer. By the looks of the snakes around her, she was. Despite that, and the fact that she was a Titan and would be much stronger than him, she was young and vulnerable. Somehow, she reminded him of his sister, Molly. He was instantly protective of her.
He smiled at her and wiped away her tears. “Can I call you Angie?”
When she nodded, he continued. “Great. Angie, we have to stick together. All of us.” He included the snakes gathered around them. “I don’t know where we are or what is out there. But if we look out for each other, we might just make it. Okay?”
Tears still trickled down Angie’s face, but she wiped them away and nodded.
“Good,” Jake said. “Can you carry some of those injured snakes for me?”
Angie went over to the counter and picked up the snakes. Those that had been pinned and were badly hurt, she wrapped around her neck, just as Jake had done with Nesso and the others. She cradled other snakes in her hands. “We’re ready,” she said softly.
“Good stuff.” Jake walked back to the door and pressed his ear against it. There were no sounds from the corridor. He looked back at Angie. “There are stairs at the end of the hall. That’s where we are going. Are you ready?”
Angie nodded and took a step closer. When she did, all the snakes moved with her.
“Wow, you really are a snake charmer,” Jake said. “Okay, everyone, let’s go.”
Jake held open the door as Angie and all the snakes made their way into the long corridor. As they started toward the stairs, Jake pushed open every side door along the way, looking for more prisoners. They were all laboratories, but luckily, they were empty.
They entered the stairwell and started down. On the next level, there was a window. Jake and Angie approached it and peered outside.
Jake gasped. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting of the Mimic home world, but this certainly wasn’t it. The sky was mostly dark, but there were soft yellows on the horizon, promising that dawn was on its way.
With what little light there was, he saw other buildings that looked like the industrial estates back home, but not quite—they were very ornamental and only climbed three or four stories high. Beyond them were homes. Beautiful homes with pointed roofs covered in brilliant blue tiles and ornate decorations. There was a canal weaving through the area, with charming arched bridges that crossed it. In the distance, he saw the start of some woods.
“I don’t believe this.” He looked at Angie. “Are we in Bruges?”
“Where?” Angie asked.
“Bruges. It’s a small city in Belgium.”
There was still a look of incomprehension on Angie’s face. “It’s in Europe, on Earth. Before my parents got divorced, they took me and my sister there.”
“I’ve never been to Bruges,” Angie said softly.
“Trust me, it looks like this.” Jake continued to peer out the window. “No one’s moving out there. I thought the Mimics would be out.”
“They don’t see well in the dark,” Angie said.
Jake looked at her. “How do you know?”
“Astraea told me when she and Zephyr came back to Titus to get us. It was night. There were very few Mimics out and they needed bright torches. They don’t like the dark.”
“That is great news,” Jake said. “It gives us an edge.”
“What is an edge? Like a knife?”
Jake smiled. “No, it means it gives us an advantage over them. If they don’t like the dark, then that’s when we’ll move. But looking out there, it won’t be dark much longer. Come on, let’s go.”
They moved together down the stairs. Jake’s heart pounded with each step. Now it was more than just his own life he was worried about. It was Angie’s and the snakes’.
When they reached the bottom, Jake was thrilled to see a set of glass doors. Looking at them, he was once again reminded of his home. The Mimics continued to surprise him with how ordinary they were in all their weirdness.
Jake approached the doors and pushed against them, and they opened easily. “The Mimics are obviously not big on security,” he said. He looked back at Angie. “But then again, they’re kinda like bees. They’re not individuals—they only work for the hive, so I guess they don’t have thieves.”
“Is that good?”
He grinned again. “That’s very good. Meaning we shouldn’t encounter a lot of locks.”
They walked outside and were greeted with the most fragrant air Jake had ever smelled, just like lilacs when they first bloomed. There was a slight chill, like Michigan in spring. But it wasn’t cold enough for him to need a jacket.
He looked back at the snakes. “I hope you guys can move fast, because we gotta go.”
Jake started to jog. Angie was keeping up with him easily. When he looked back, all the snakes were too. Although, there was one snake lagging farther behind.
Angie stopped and ran back to collect it. “Don’t worry, you’re safe,” she cooed to the snake.
They started to run again. But after a short while, Jake was out of breath and very tired. He stopped and bent over to breathe. “We—we haven’t gone that far, but I’m exhausted. What did those Mimics do to me in the lab?”
Angie was breathing hard, but not nearly as bad as Jake. “I don’t think that is the problem.”
Jake looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“This is another world,” she said. “My father told me that before he was locked in Tartarus by the Olympians, he would use the Solar Stream to go traveling to explore new worlds. Sometimes they went to worlds where they couldn’t breathe and had to leave quickly. There were other worlds where the pressure was so much, they couldn’t stay without getting sick or weak. We are on a different world here. Maybe it’s not good for us.”
After all the sci-fi movies he’d watched, Jake should have realized the same thing. This was an alien world. He was amazed he could even breathe at all. “I think you’re right. I just hope it’s not poisonous for us.”
“If it were, wouldn’t we be dead by now?” Angie said.
Jake looked at the young girl and smiled. She was small and vulnerable-looking, but she was smart. Very smart. “That’s true.” He looked back toward the horizon and the yellow dawn. It hadn’t changed much.
“Sunrise is really slow here,” he commented. “This must be a huge planet. The gravity could be different. But even if it is difficult, we have to keep moving.”
Jake started to jog again. He had no idea where, just away from that building of horrors. But with each step, his heart was pounding violently in his chest. Finally he had to slow to a walk.
There was a film of sweat on Angie’s brow. She was feeling the pressure. “How long have you been here?” Jake asked.
As they walked, Angie told him about meeting Astraea, Zephyr, and Darek on Titus and the big prison break. Then how they’d traveled to Earth in the middle of the fight with the Mimics, and finally how they’d made it to Xanadu with the snakes but were attacked there as well.
“You were taken just after me,” Jake mused. “Have they given you any food, like ambrosia or nectar?”
Angie shook her head. “Just this strange fruit.”
“Me too,” Jake agreed. He didn’t say more but knew that Angie would need ambrosia or nectar soon if she was going to stay strong.
They pressed on, looking for somewhere to hide. As they walked, Jake noticed that everything about the Mimic world was immaculate. There wasn’t a trace of trash or graffiti to be seen anywhere. The one thing he did notice, though, was that there were planter boxes containing rock-hard, dried soil. But no flowers or plants remained.
There were no vehicles on the road, none parked along the pavement. But if there were no vehicles, why did the Mimics need roads?
“This really looks like Earth,” he commented, turning around and looking at all the buildings. “But how is that possible?
It just doesn’t make any sense. Had the Mimics been visiting Earth before they visited Titus, so they copied our architecture?”
“I don’t know,” Angie said softly.
Reaching another corner, to their left they saw an open square. A fountain sat in the middle of the area. There was a statue made of metal at the top of the fountain.
Jake felt pressure to keep moving, but something about the fountain drew him closer. “Come on,” he said to Angie. “I need to see something.”
As they approached the fountain, the statue became clearer. Jake gasped. The figure wasn’t a Mimic. It looked like a human or a Titan. There were two legs and a body with two arms reaching skyward. There was a large head. As they walked around it, the only difference they saw was on the face of the statue. It had three eyes in a line across the forehead, and the nose was much flatter.
Jake looked at Angie. “That definitely isn’t a Mimic.”
“What do you think it is?” Angie asked.
“I don’t know.” Jake looked around again. “But for as much as I know about the Mimics, this place doesn’t look right for them. It’s too pretty. Yes, the Mimics are clean freaks, but they don’t seem to appreciate beauty. I mean, look around, there are planters with no plants. There’s no water running in this fountain, and there are roads, but no cars or trucks or anything.”
“The Mimics didn’t originate here,” Angie said softly.
Jake looked at her in surprise. Then he nodded. “I bet you’re right. But if it’s not their world, whose is it?”
Angie pointed to the statue. “It was theirs. The Mimics probably stole it, just like they’re stealing Titus.”
“Maybe,” Jake said softly. “We’d better keep moving.”
“Where?”
“Good question,” Jake responded. “I saw out the window that there were some woods just past the houses down there. From what I could see, the area looked bigger than a park. Maybe we can hide in there.”
“I don’t care where we go,” Angie said. “Just as long as it’s far away from the Mimics.”
“Me too!” Jake agreed.
They left the square and headed toward the canal. The cobbled walkway was made up of colorful stones. Lined up along each side of the water were beautiful, ornate homes. The doors on the houses were bigger than on Earth or on Titus. Whoever the people were, they were bigger than humans. The houses all had large windows, but all the curtains in them were drawn.
Jake, Angie, and the snakes approached the edge of the canal and peered into the water. It was crystal clear and teeming with shoals of tiny fish and other water creatures.
“It’s so quiet here,” Angie mused. “There are no birds singing. I can’t even hear insects.”
“Maybe the Mimics have eaten them all,” Jake said darkly. “We’ve seen what they eat. It’s disgusting. Just dry, flattened animals.”
“They haven’t taken all the fish yet,” Angie commented.
“They probably don’t want to get wet. Maybe they melt in water too.…” Jake said it, but his own casual comment brought back a memory he’d suppressed. When he’d been taken from Earth, it had been snowing out. He’d been in such a panic as the Mimics had dragged him away from his father’s plant that he’d forgotten how they’d complained that the snow was hurting them. Snow. Snow was water. Could it be true? Were Mimics sensitive to water as well?
“Angie, does it rain on Titus?”
She looked at him and frowned. “Yes, I don’t think we could live without it.”
“So have you ever seen any Mimics, or people you thought were Mimics, out in the rain?”
Angie stopped. “I—I don’t know. It rained during the day when Astraea, Zephyr, and Darek came back to Titus. My parents wouldn’t go out, even though they’d promised to walk me to school and loved rain. That’s when I started to wonder if something was wrong. Then when Darek was talking to other students about the Mimics, I got scared and went with him to meet Astraea and Zephyr.”
“So your parents are missing? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Angie looked like she might cry again. “It’s just me and my parents. I need to find them.”
“We will,” Jake promised. He looked again at the empty planters and dry fountain and mused, “So, Mimics don’t like water.…”
“How can that be?” Nesso said. “The Mimicsss are mossstly water. They are nothing but a puddle after we’ve bitten them.”
“A puddle of what?” Jake asked the snake. “They appear to be gelatinous and filled with water, but it can’t be water. It’s too dangerous for us to touch.” They started walking again. “But if they can’t stand water, why would they live near a canal?”
“Maybe they don’t live in these houses?” Angie said.
“There’s only one way to find out, and I don’t want to do it,” Jake said. “Let’s just keep moving.”
Jake checked the sky every few minutes. The light was getting brighter, so the sun did move, but it was slow. He just hoped they had enough time to find somewhere to hide.
Feeling the pressure of time, he forced himself to jog again. But he could only sustain it for a short time before the effort became too great.
After a while, the canal swerved to the right. As they continued along it, Jake looked up and cried aloud, “Thank you!”
“What is it?” Angie said fearfully. “What are you seeing?”
He pointed. “Look, it’s a marina.”
Angie followed Jake’s finger. “I can’t see it. All I see are boats.”
Jake looked at her and laughed. “That’s what I mean. A marina is a place for boats. Maybe we can hide there. If Mimics don’t like water, we’ll be safe.”
For the first time since he’d met her, Angie’s face lit up. “Can we?”
He looked at her and grinned. “I’ll race you there!”
It wasn’t much of a race. After a few steps, Jake was too tired to continue. Angie slowed to allow him to catch up. She put the wounded snakes in her right hand and caught him by the arm. “I’ll help you.”
Jake didn’t fight her help. He knew that Titans were much stronger than humans. But it seemed their strength also included moving in different gravities.
“Jake, hurry,” Nesso hissed at his neck. “I can sssmell Mimicsss.”
Nesso’s warning put more speed in Jake’s walk. Soon they were approaching the marina. As they got nearer, he could see that most of the boats were in a terrible state of decay. Those with wooden hulls were not much more than rotting shells. But there were two moored further out in the water that had hulls made of something else. Not wood, not metal. He didn’t know if this world had plastic or fiberglass, but whatever it was, two boats still looked seaworthy.
“Over there,” Jake said. “If we can get to that one, we might be safe.”
“I can swim,” Angie said.
“So can I,” Jake said. “But Tryn warned me that if you’re on a world you don’t know, you have to be very careful. There might be people eaters in this water. Or the water itself could be poisonous.”
“So, what do we do?” Angie asked.
Jake frowned and looked at the rotting boats against the pier. “How are you at climbing?”
“All right. Why?”
Jake checked the sky again. It was definitely getting lighter, and if Nesso was right, the Mimics were starting to move. “Because I think if we climb over these two rotting boats, we might just reach that one further out. Follow me.”
Jake started first. He approached the edge of the water and looked at the rotted hull of the first boat. At any other time in his life, he would never have attempted this. But these were dangerous times and he had no choice. Stepping out onto the deck of the rotting boat, he pressed his foot down lightly. The wood creaked, but it held.
He looked back at Angie and gave her a reassuring grin. “We can do this.”
When he put his second foot on the board, the wreck listed to the side but stayed afloat. He starte
d to move. Little by little, he inched around the rotted deck of the ship. When he reached the other side, the board he was on gave way.
Jake tried to right himself, but the boat started to rock and sway. Soon he heard cracking, and he looked down just as the board broke. With nowhere else to go, Jake fell into the water.
4
ASTRAEA, ZEPHYR, TRYN, AND HIS sister made it out of the temple. As always, the air around them was sweet and filled with birdsong. It revealed none of the horrors happening now within the temple and out.
“Astraea, get on,” Zephyr called.
While Astraea climbed up onto Zephyr’s back, Tryn laid down his skateboard and invited his sister on. “Hold on tight. Let’s see what’s happening at the orchard.”
Zephyr looked back up at Astraea. “Did you know there was a nectar orchard here?”
Astraea shrugged. “No, but it makes sense since so many Olympians live here all the time.”
“True,” Zephyr agreed. She opened her wings and began a trot that turned into a gallop. Leaping gracefully into the air, she started to fly.
Astraea looked over at Tryn and Triana beside them. It didn’t seem right that Jake wasn’t there. He should have been.
Astraea was about to ask Tryn to have the skateboard lead them to the orchard, but the sudden loud booming of thunderbolts led the way.
“That’s Jupiter!” Astraea cried. “Zeph, follow those sounds.”
They followed the intense booming as Jupiter used his best powers against the Mimics. Flying over the top of the temple itself and farther ahead, Astraea saw very familiar flowers growing on extra-large trees.
“Look how big they are!” Zephyr called. “They’ve got to be at least double the size of the nectar trees on Titus.”
“It’s the rich Xanadu soil; everything grows well here,” Tryn said. “Even plants from our world.”
As Astraea looked around for Jupiter, she saw a tree fall. Then a second one and then a third, in the middle of the orchard. Flying closer, they saw Jupiter surrounded by Shadow Titans. He was summoning his lightning and thunderbolts and firing them at the Shadows as they focused on destroying the trees. On contact, the Shadow Titans exploded.