Game of Clones

by M. E. Castle

  Fisher and Alex took a few steps backward as Dr. X threw the mom-bot’s power switch and backpedaled, holding his staff at the ready.

  The mom-bot twitched a few times, made a few garbled digital noises, and sat up. It rotated its head back and forth, stood, and turned to Dr. X.

  “Orders confirmed,” it said, and it slipped through the Liquid Door and out of sight.

  When it had gone, Fisher felt all the night’s exhaustion hit him at once, like a sandbag dropped from a ladder.

  “Come on,” he said to Alex. “Let’s find some place to stash our former nemesis and then get some rest.”

  “Stash?” said Dr. X. “You make it sound as if you’re just going to toss me in the refrigerator.”

  “Believe me,” Alex said, “we would, if we could. Right now it won’t even let us put food in it.”

  As Fisher snuck through the front door, he was hit with a powerful urge to pull Alex in with him and slam the door, locking Dr. X outside. Dr. X had caused both of them terrible suffering and there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t do it again given the chance.

  But the fresh memory of Three’s mysterious army moving into position was enough to stifle his impulse. Working with Dr. X really was the only way to stop Three. But Fisher swore to himself that once Three was out of the way, he would finally see Dr. X brought to justice.

  Fool! Do you know who I am?

  Do you know what I’ve done??

  Do you know what this device I have is?!…

  Seriously, do you know what this is? I just found it.

  —Prince Xultar of Venus, enemy of Vic Daring, Issue #30

  Ms. Snapper sent word out early the next morning that Wompalog had officially been closed down for the foreseeable future. As she was the only teacher still sane, the news was unsurprising, to say the least.

  Fisher and Alex picked over their breakfast of leftover chicken wings, occasionally glancing up at their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Bas were reading the one newspaper in the city still in circulation, the Daily Harbinger, the local sensationalist tabloid. Most of its stories involved alien abduction, Elvis sightings, or abduction by aliens dressed as Elvis.

  “Apparently, a recent construction project disturbed the underground lair of a five-thousand-year-old cult of witch turtles,” Mrs. Bas said, folding the paper over a picture of a snapping turtle with a pointy black hat crudely Photoshopped onto its head.

  “Maybe they were underground to escape the talking lobsters … from space,” said Mr. Bas, scrutinizing another article.

  They both sighed. Mr. Bas looked across the table at Fisher and Alex.

  “Your mother and I are attempting to work out what’s causing this mass chaos,” he said. “We’re in contact with a few colleagues of ours who haven’t succumbed to it …” He drifted off and looked at Fisher’s mom, a lightbulb going off above his head. “Instead of us looking out to space, perhaps there is a way to bring the Unknown Universe to us.”

  “Yes, dear. Something to ponder on, certainly. Fisher, it’s hard to say how long it’ll take us to find a solution,” Mrs. Bas added. “But we’re going to keep plugging away until we do. If you need anything, we’ll be in our labs. Just be careful, and stay inside, okay?”

  Fisher wondered if Alex felt the same guilty pinprick in the stomach that he did. He ducked his head and triple-checked the message he’d received early that morning—the mom-bot had succeeded in cutting Amanda’s power. By now the fiendish android was a puddle of melted alloy and plastic, an image he didn’t dwell on.

  The brothers wolfed down the rest of their breakfasts, checked to make sure their parents were both upstairs, grabbed some equipment, and headed down to the basement.

  The basement of the Bas house was not the beeping, clicking technological wonder that most people assumed it was. The Bases didn’t have their own nuclear reactor down there, or a hidden city of automated servants that worked to keep the house’s machinery going. Mr. Bas’s bio lab had been in the basement, but after the AGH project had been canceled, Mrs. Bas had needed storage space for all the equipment she was no longer using, and he’d consolidated to his smaller lab on the second floor.

  So now their basement was just a vast space full of stuff that was either useless or, in rare cases, had never been used in the first place. Cases and cases of test tubes, beakers, and flasks on top of storage units and crates full of air hoses and microscope lens cases. Mr. Bas’s first astronomical telescope sat in one corner, pointed up at the cement ceiling in futility. There were also storage shelves for new equipment and parts that the Bases didn’t need yet, or simply didn’t have space for upstairs.

  More mundane objects were mixed in with the clutter as well. There was a framed picture of Mr. Bas standing next to a colony of muddy waterfowl. The bicycle that Fisher had ridden three times before he’d flipped over the handlebars into a pond full of unfriendly turtles and swore never to ride again. The washer and dryer that Fisher’s parents had let him use once when he was eight, when he’d used the tumble dryer to conduct an experiment studying the effects of gravel erosion on cotton—specifically, all of his parents’ socks.

  Fisher and Alex waded through the experimental debris until they reached a door that led to a sectioned-off portion of the basement—a door neither of their parents had passed through for at least three years. Fisher had secured it with a padlock, just in case. He pulled out a key from the chain he was wearing around his neck.

  He pushed open the creaky door to reveal a small, dusty room lit with unflattering fluorescent lights, which shone down on old, collapsing weight benches, rusted dumbbells, and a lonely stationary bike, whose pedals had fallen off and sat on the floor like the dried-up fruit of a dead tree.

  This was the workout room that their parents had put together when they’d first moved in. Since that initial day, it had probably been used only once or twice.

  Sitting on the floor, next to a rusted barbell, was Dr. X. He sat cross-legged, his hands resting in his lap, palms turned up.

  “What are you doing?” said Alex as Fisher closed and locked the door behind them. He set down his backpack and removed his laptop, opening it and sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  “I was meditating,” said Dr. X.

  “Meditating?” repeated Fisher.

  “When one has an immense catalogue of knowledge in one’s mind as I do, and such feverish powers of calculation, it is occasionally necessary to clear the head, let the brain cool off a bit.”

  “Your plan worked,” said Fisher, ignoring Dr. X’s immense egotism. “If we can get past Three’s henchmen in the street, Amanda should be willing to help us. But where do we go from there? We don’t have any leads.”

  “Actually,” Dr. X said, standing up and stretching his back, “we do. When we reprogrammed the android, I was able to download the contents of its memory onto my personal portable computing and communications terminal.”

  “Your smart phone,” Alex said, raising his eyebrows.

  “Anyway,” Dr. X continued, frowning at Alex, “I spent much of the night sifting through this data and discovered its report-in location.”

  “And?” Fisher said.

  “Funny, really,” Dr. X said. “It’s the very place I used to teach you biology.”

  “Wompalog??” Alex said. “Three’s made his home base our school?”

  “Not necessarily,” Dr. X said. “It could simply be a designated meeting spot for his agents. But even if he isn’t there, it’s likely we can find clues there that will help us locate him.”

  There was a pinging sound. It was Fisher’s phone, alerting him that he had a new e-mail. He opened it nervously. It was a school-wide message, sent from another Wompalog seventh grader.

  “Hang on …,” he said as he opened it up. It was a link to a video that had already received over a million views. Alex and Dr. X moved behind him to watch.

  It began with sad violin music playing over scenes of vandalism, looting, and traffic jams dev
olving into fist-fights. The scenes faded out as Three came into view, wearing the same uniform and low-pulled cap as he’d been wearing in the holographic message. He was standing in a plain-looking room of gray-painted concrete. Behind him were a few wires and exposed pipes, dangling from one section of the cracked ceiling.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Three began, “you have already observed my task force of mechanical, remotely operable, semi-intelligent drones. They are humanlike robots, or androids.”

  The video cut to a new image, and Fisher and Alex nearly leapt out of their shoes.

  The image was a column, ten wide and eight deep, of androids.

  Androids that looked exactly like Fisher and Alex.

  All of them were wearing the same sort of gray uniform Three was, but without the cap.

  “My androids have been deployed throughout the city,” Three went on. “They will now be assuming peacekeeping operations. All traffic and transportation will be logged, checked, and monitored … for your safety. They will deal with civil unrest and incidents of crime, in whatever way they deem necessary. Soon peace will be restored. My androids are here to help you, and I urge you to fully cooperate with them.

  “I urge you strongly.”

  The video faded out.

  Dr. X’s eyes had misted over a bit. “He is truly my greatest creation ever.…” He sighed. “A little too great.”

  Fisher pocketed his phone and sat down. The end of the world was here, and it literally wore his face.

  “We have no time to waste,” Alex said, his voice shaking slightly. “Even getting to school is going to be tough with the … Three-bots around. By now they’ve probably set up checkpoints and guard posts. Not to mention patrols.”

  “Three has assembled massive power,” said Dr. X. “Wherever he is, getting inside may well be impossible.”

  “With all due respect, Dr. X,” Fisher said, managing a wry smile, “I’ve heard that before.”

  Dr. X opened his mouth to reply but found no good words in grasping distance.

  “Let’s start gearing up,” Alex said. “We can get Amanda on the way.”

  “We should get Wally, too,” said Fisher. “If ever there was a time to lure Mason out, it’s now.”

  Alex shook his head. “I worry that wherever he is, Mason isn’t coming back,” he said darkly.

  “But we have to try,” Fisher insisted. Making a sudden decision, he said, “FP will come, too. He proved invaluable when we infiltrated TechX.”

  Dr. X frowned.

  Fisher and Alex took Dr. X to the front yard and locked him in one of their mom’s gardening sheds. They were keeping him away from technology at all costs. He could do damage with a rake and a watering can, true, but nothing compared to what he might do if he accessed any of the Bases’ laboratory equipment. And though he was an ally—temporarily—neither of the boys trusted him.

  The boys went upstairs to retrieve a selection of the gear they had taken with them the night before. This time, they selected only the most important items, so they would not be weighed down.

  Alex packed a water bottle full of his Instant Ice. So long as it stayed sealed in the bottle, it would remain in a liquid state. When poured, thrown, or flung from the bottle, it would solidify almost instantly. He also packed a small bag of Spider Marbles. The little spheres would roll freely while clinging to any surface, including walls and ceilings. Some were fitted with cameras; others, small hooks.

  Fisher had been served well by his elastic necktie in the past, and he tested its strength quickly before packing it. Then he held up his electric stun stick, thumbing the button and letting it crackle for a moment.

  They’d made Alex a spy suit, and upgraded Fisher’s to be sleeker and better fitting, with improved climbing grips on the soles and gloves. A small pouch on each suit’s back contained a piece of technology the brothers had developed together. Although Shrub-in-a-Backpack was effective, Alex realized to go up against Three, he needed something with a little more teeth. So he had created the Thornbush-in-a-Pouch.

  “Do you have our special weapon?” Fisher asked as Alex came into his room, still double-checking his gear.

  “It’s stowed safely,” Alex said, patting his bag. “I just hope it works the way it did in beta testing.”

  FP was hopping around in his own mini–spy suit as Fisher finished organizing his things. There wasn’t a single popcorn kernel, not even a trace of one, anywhere in Fisher’s room. Fisher looked over the elaborate machine he had set up the night before to distract FP, shrugged, and dismounted the popcorn gun from it.

  “Could come in handy,” he said, slinging it over his back. “Are you ready, boy? Ready to put a stop to yet another world-threatening maniac?”

  FP shook his head around, his ears flapping as they tried to keep up, then looked up at Fisher with an excited grin.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Here we go.”

  The robot army had begun marching at midnight. It was now late afternoon the next day, and all was quiet. That meant only one thing: Three’s servants were all finally in place.

  Fisher, Alex, and FP went quietly downstairs and out to the front yard. They unlocked the gardening shed and gestured Dr. X out from its depths.

  “Ready?” said Fisher.

  “Ready,” said Alex.

  “Ready,” said Dr. X. “Do you have a plan to reach Amanda’s house?”

  “Alex,” Fisher said, “you remember that abandoned pizza delivery car we saw parked down the block?”

  “Yes … why?” Alex said.

  “The keys were sitting on the driver’s seat,” Fisher said.

  “I don’t like where this is going …,” said Dr. X.

  “I suggest you start liking it,” Fisher said. “You’re driving.”

  Alex poked his head through the front gate—literally—then waved Fisher and Dr. X through it. FP stayed close on Fisher’s heels. He seemed to realize serious business was happening. His eyes darted back and forth, and he kept his snout to the ground.

  They were in luck. There weren’t any guards posted on their street—at least, not yet. They kept their heads down and walked quickly to where the delivery vehicle was, thankfully, still parked, doors ajar, down the block.

  “I should warn you,” Dr. X said as he climbed into the driver’s seat, “I haven’t driven an automobile voluntarily in some years.”

  “If makes you feel better, you’re not driving an automobile voluntarily now, either,” growled Alex as he got into the front passenger seat. Fisher got in the backseat behind him, and put the middle seat belt around FP as best he could.

  “Okay,” Fisher said. “Go slowly at first. We need to get past the … Fisher-bots without arousing their suspicion.”

  “Fisher-bots?” said Alex, turning to look back at him as Dr. X turned the ignition. The car lurched away from the curb.

  Fisher shook his head. “Their existence is as much my fault as Three’s,” he said. “I’m only being honest about it.”

  The car moved slowly and jerkily down the street, and Fisher held on, sliding as low in the seat as he could manage. Every lurch made him hold on tighter. He tried to keep one hand on FP to keep the little pig from bouncing around.

  “Left here,” said Alex, and the car turned like a sleep-deprived hippo. “Fisher-bots ahead,” he said, immediately after Dr. X made the turn. He slouched down in his seat. “Act like a pizza, Fisher.”

  Fisher flattened himself onto the backseat, keeping FP shielded beneath him. Seconds passed, and Dr. X rolled the car forward.

  “We’re in the clear,” Dr. X said finally.

  Fisher sat up, exhaling. They were almost at Amanda’s street.

  “Keep straight,” Alex said.

  Dr. X’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “Bad news. There’s a checkpoint at the next intersection,” he said. “Should I stop or crash through it?”

  Fisher craned his neck so he could scope out the checkpoint. Two bots stood next to a po
lice line–style wooden roadblock.

  “I vote crash,” Alex said. “Fisher?”

  “I have another idea,” he said. “Pull over.”

  A minute later, the Fisher-bots watched what looked like a walking pizza box approach their checkpoint. Fisher’s entire head and torso were dwarfed behind the enormous lid, which was open, like a mouth.

  “Hey, you two!” Fisher said in a cartoony, high voice. “Who wants some pizza? Fresh baked several days ago! Two toppings, and it talks! What more could you ask for??”

  The bots stepped forward to examine the talking pizza.

  There was a loud crack, and then a blur of motion. One of the bots fell over, its head dented in. The other bot whipped around to face Dr. X, who stood crouched in a fighting stance, his staff at the ready.

  “An army of Fishers was my idea,” he said in an icy voice. “And I hate copycats.”

  The bot rushed him, but a second solid thwack put it out of commission.

  “You really are handy with that,” said Alex.

  Dr. X bowed.

  “We’re almost there,” Fisher said. “Let’s go!”

  They piled back in the car. Dr. X reversed, swerved around the wooden roadblock … and then crashed straight into a lamppost, killing the engine.

  “I warned you,” said Dr. X as he got out of the car. He looked at the steam pouring out of the hood.

  “Now we’ll have to get to Wompalog on foot,” said Alex.

  “We’re losing time,” said Fisher, with growing frustration. Luckily, they were only a few houses down from Amanda’s. He turned to Alex. “Stay here with him”—he gestured to Dr. X—“until I call for you. I better warn Amanda that Dr. X is with us. Otherwise she’ll have him in a headlock before I get the chance to explain.”

  FP trotted after Fisher as Fisher jogged to Amanda’s house and knocked on the door. He needed an excuse in case her mom or dad answered the door.

  But to his surprise, Amanda herself opened the door.

  “Fisher?” She scowled. “What are you doing here?”

  Wally peeked out from behind her legs. When he saw FP, the two darted out into the yard and started to chase each other in circles.