People seem more stressed and hurried than the other time I was here, like they’re under some kind of deadline.
I slip through a big green door marked Xenomorphic Tank. Inside is a massive steel structure resembling a cross between a bathtub and a submarine. It’s studded with valves and dials and little round porthole windows. I recognize the substance swirling slowly inside. It’s xenogel.
Workers in hazmat suits crawl around, checking and adjusting controls. One of them wheels up a big vacuum-cleaner thing connected to a clear plastic barrel full of xenogel. He connects a hose to the big tank and flips a switch. The vacuum-cleaner thing rumbles and the barrel empties.
Another worker drives a beeping forklift up to the tank. Resting on the forks is a blue mailbox. I notice the scratches and dents, and I realize it’s not just any mailbox, but the one down the corner from Dale’s.
It’s Big Blue Biter.
The forklift raises Big Blue Biter to the top of the tank and dumps it in through a hatch. The mailbox sinks through the gel, blurring and softening and turning into fluid. Within seconds, there’s no Big Blue Biter. It’s just more gel circulating through the tank.
I knew Big Blue Biter was strange. How long had it been out in the open, an imblobster mailbox, trying to chomp on fingers? I feel strangely good knowing I wasn’t the only xenogel creature hiding in plain sight.
But I’m not here to contemplate my kinship with a mailbox. I slip out the door, and then through another marked Xenomorphic Processing Lab.
This room is much smaller, just one guy in a lab coat standing at a console, eating a green apple. Before him is a little aquarium. But instead of fish and plastic pirates, it contains only water and one little strand of xenogel.
The man turns a knob. Inside, the xenogel strand squirms like it’s in pain.
I’m in pain, too. A sharp ache grows in my skull, like something’s trying to gouge its way out with a knife.
He turns the knob further. The xenogel squirms, and I swallow a gasp of hurt.
The man in the coat glances up before looking back down at his console.
“Hey, Tami, how’s it going?”
“Great,” I manage to say. “Just great. How are you? How’s your day? What’s up, my good friend?”
“Just about to test the xenomorphic processor before the Blast. Because after that, things are going to get pretty hairy. It’s a bad idea, if you ask me.”
“Yes, it’s a terrible idea,” I say with a massive amount of certainty, even though I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Just out of curiosity, why do you think it’s bad?”
He scoffs. “We haven’t done enough tests, we’ve got unplanned xenoforms walking and talking all over town, and we haven’t vacuumed more than a few of them. Woll rushed things, and now we’re all going to pay the price.”
“Those are all good reasons,” I agree.
The “unplanned xenoforms” he mentions must be imblobsters.
He clicks a button. In the tank, the xenogel strand shivers like a struck guitar string, so fast it becomes a blur. I feel like I’m becoming a blur, too.
The man takes one last bite of his apple and then dunks it into the tank. The strand moves toward it like a paperclip drawn to a magnet. When they make contact, the strand is gone. So is the apple. In their place is a huge, round hunk of shimmering gold. It sinks, hitting the bottom of the tank with a heavy thunk.
The pain vanishes.
“Aha!” the man says, smiling like he’s having a really good day. He types something on his computer.
I make a hasty exit.
One by one, I poke my head into every room I come across. Some are just offices. Some are supply closets. And in one room, I find a giant, evil-looking device.
Resembling a microphone, the machine towers at least fifty feet above me. Lights cast a sinister red glow over warning signs. Stenciled in black paint on the side are the words GEOSONIC AGITATOR.
Geo means earth.
Sonic means sounds.
Agitator means something that agitates.
Dozens of workers in orange vests and hardhats scurry around with tablets and wrenches and screwdrivers, too busy to notice me. They’re all wearing headphones. A big computer monitor displays a map of Cedar Creek View with all the sinkholes I know about, and a bunch I don’t know about, marked in red.
I step to the guardrail and look down. The device is even bigger than I thought, plunging into a raw hole in the earth where it’s too dark to see.
I know what this device does.
It’s the source of the Hum.
This is the device that’s been causing me so much pain. The one that’s been making me lose control. The one responsible for all my problems.
I’ve finally pieced together the Collaboratory’s scheme.
The Geosonic Agitator creates the Hum. The Hum sends sound waves deep underground to create sinkholes and cause pain to the xenogel mass. To get away from the pain, the xenogel tries to escape to the surface. Once the xenogel’s out in the open, the Collaboratory sends out crews to vacuum it up. But if the Collaboratory is too late, the gel imblobsters anything it touches, like human beings or mailboxes.
The part I don’t understand is why. What does the Collaboratory gain from all this?
I look to the ceiling, wondering what I should do. Sabotage the device? Make sure it never hums again?
On the wall, a clock displays big red numbers.
10:00:00
9:59:59
9:59:58
9:59:57 . . .
It’s counting down.
The clock keeps ticking away seconds. I bet when it hits zero, the workers are going to activate the Geosonic Agitator, and I need to get out of here before I’m reduced to sludge.
I dig my phone out to text an Abort mission message to Agnes, but before I can type a single word, someone says, “Tami, what are you doing here?”
I turn around.
It’s Woll.
Ugh.
“Did you bring in Jake Wind?”
“No, he wasn’t home. Or at school. Or anywhere. I’ll go back out and resume the search. I’m leaving now. Okay, bye.”
“Don’t bother,” Woll says, irritated. “After the Blast, he’ll be liquefied. The vacuum crews will suck him up with the rest of the loose xenogel in town.”
Why would the Collaboratory want to suck me into a vacuum cleaner and pour me into a tank?
I’m so close to figuring it all out. If I just stay cool and remain Tami for a few more minutes, maybe I can get Woll to spill the rest before the counter hits zero. Then, once I have Woll’s confession, I can make her give me Growler back and then maybe shift into a sledgehammer and smack a bunch of people, which is what they deserve for devoting their lives to doing weird and creepy things.
“WHO IN THE HECK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?”
I know that voice.
It’s Tami. Her eyes bulge in anger, as if I’ve just stolen her burrito.
I have an excellent comeback: “Who in the heck are you supposed to be?”
Leonard, trailing just behind Tami, has an idea. “Dr. Woll, let me shoot them both. It’s the only way to be sure.”
“Hey!” Real Tami and I protest.
Woll rubs her temples. “The Blast is in seven minutes and twenty-three seconds, I am scheduled to release the largest amount of xenogel yet, and I’ve got vacuum crews deployed all over town. This is supposed to be a big, triumphant moment for me. I even have Big Triumphant Moment written in my calendar. And now my Big Triumphant Moment is being complicated by two versions of Tami in the same place. Which means one is the real Tami, and the other is an independent xenogel construct. Leonard, figure out which is which and put the duplicate in the tank.”
“Doctor Woll, a moment?” A technician with a red-flushed face mumbles something about a malfunctioning surge protector.
Woll yells, “I don’t have time for this,” so I guess malfunctioning surge protectors are bad news.
>
I don’t have time for this either.
I have to stop the Blast.
And I can’t do it alone.
I look up at the ceiling, fifty feet above my head, maybe more.
“Agnes! Now!”
There’s a sharp crack. A ceiling tile tumbles down. A rope follows, uncoiling all the way down to the floor.
And then, here comes Agnes.
She slides down the rope and lands with legs wide and one fist on the ground in an absolutely perfect, ten out of ten superhero pose.
“Smoke bombs!” she screams with glee. “Paff, paff!”
It’s pretty cool that she provides her own sound effects.
Our backup plan was having Agnes break into the air shafts from the dead mall and crawl around in the ceiling to keep an eye on me in case I needed help. I think she’s a little glad I got caught, because she really wanted the opportunity to rappel and toss smoke bombs and totally be Night Kite.
The technicians are running around frantically, but it takes me a moment to realize they’re not reacting to us.
Over the blare of a siren, somebody says something about an uncontrolled discharge.
“Turn it off!” Woll screams. “Turn it all off!”
The clock on the wall says there’s more than six minutes to go.
Disaster doesn’t care what time it is.
Chapter 16
THERE WAS A HUGE, DANGEROUS science device and a countdown clock. Heroes always deactivate the huge, dangerous science device before the clock hits zero. Except for this time. “Aw, man,” Agnes says, disappointed. I feel bad for her.
The Geosonic Agitator comes to life with a dreadful floor-shaking thrum. Dust and flakes of ceiling plaster snow down on us. As the haze from Agnes’s smoke bombs drifts away, fissures zigzag up the wall. Red dots multiply like a rash on the map of Cedar Creek View. That means new sinkholes. Dozens of them.
Big, bellowing pain blooms in my head and chest and belly. I can’t hold Tami’s form anymore, and without meaning to, I shift into my most comfortable shape: my own. But I do a bad job of it. I’m me from the waist up, but below that, I’m a lumpy, sticky mess, like a melted candle.
Agnes grabs my arm. “Up on your feet, Jake. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I don’t have any feet!”
“Well, grow some and get up!”
“IT’S NOT THAT EASY TO GROW FEET, AGNES.”
“You’re right; I’m sorry. But you can do this. Think about the way it feels when your toes and soles and heels bear the weight of your body.”
“I can’t! The Hum . . . it’s too much.”
“Don’t give up. Remember how it feels to have ankles. And knees. And hips. And a butt.”
“Don’t talk about my butt.”
“Concentrate, Jake!”
She’s right. Focus. I have to get out of this room, and I need a lower half to do it.
With a long, slow exhalation, I try to loosen. It’s like trying to play guitar with rigid hands. You need to flex and stretch them. You need to warm them up. I must be warm grease.
Gradually, I form feet. Then legs. Then my butt and all my necessary bits and pieces.
“Dearest monkey, what’s going on?” Dairy and Gravy rush up to Woll.
“Kids, you have to evacuate. Tami, Leonard, get Mary and Davey as far from here as you can.”
“Yes, ma’am,” says Leonard, all snappy and military.
People are scrambling and tearing their hair out and saying things like “AAAH” and “GAAAH” and “WAAAH.” Agnes makes a time-out with her hands. “What’s the deal with you two, anyway?”
“We’re her children.” Dairy shrugs, as if she has no idea what “deal” Agnes is talking about.
“But are you her real kids, or imblobsters of her kids?”
Woll lets out a long, weary sigh. “They are my children. A few weeks ago I let them visit the lab because it was Take Your Child to Work Day. I told them not to touch anything.”
“We touched everything!” Gravy says cheerily.
“Especially goo!” Dairy chimes in. “If there was goo, we touched it!”
“And then the inevitable happened,” Woll says. “But they’ve gotten very good at being goo. They’re quite solid.” Woll gives them a proud-mom smile. “Now, you two get somewhere safe. And don’t touch anything.”
“Touch all the things!” the twins cry, allowing Tami and Leonard to lead them away.
“Dr. Woll,” a technician screams, “we have a new locus of geological instability.”
Woll lets out a frustrated groan.
A big new dot blooms on the map. If I’m reading the map correctly, we’re about to get a sinkhole right under our feet.
“I have to get to the tank,” Woll says. She ducks under wires dangling from the ceiling and charges from the chamber.
“Hey!” Agnes shouts, dashing after her.
“Yeah, hey!” I shout, dashing after Agnes.
The ground does not cooperate with dashing. A great low moan rises from the depths of the Earth, and the floor tiles splinter. Debris rains down from the ceiling. Water spews from broken pipes, and more alarms cry.
Hopping over a puddle of standing water, Woll bulls into the tank room. The tank is still in one piece, but inside, the xenogel swirls with turbulence.
The gel is in distress.
It’s in pain.
It’s angry.
I know this, because I’m feeling the exact same things. I feel it in my body because of the Hum. And I feel it in my heart, because it makes no sense to hurt living beings.
Woll checks gauges and meters, tsk-ing and shaking her head at what they’re telling her.
Things are about to get bad.
“Just tell me why,” I ask her, nearly begging. “Just tell me what this is all for.”
“I think I know,” Agnes says. “The Collaboratory can take a bucket of gel and turn it into anything they want. Food. Medicine. Machines. Weapons.”
Or apples into gold.
“We could end hunger,” Woll says. “We could end poverty. Disease. We could revolutionize the way we live. We could transform the entire planet. Doesn’t that sound worth some risk? Worth some inconvenience?”
“Sure,” Agnes says, her voice dripping with venom. “It also sounds like a great way to get very, very rich.”
Woll doesn’t deny it.
I’m still not satisfied with her answers.
“Why me? Why get the twins to lure me here the first time? Why imblobster my dog? What do you need me for?”
“Your friend just told you,” Woll says, impatient. “Xenogel is valuable. And you’re made of xenogel.”
Money. Whatever other reasons Woll claims, they did this for money.
The Collaboratory doesn’t care about the Fosters, or about Growler. Or about me. To them, I’m just xenogel. I’m just something they can sell.
It builds within me.
The Hum.
The pain.
The fury.
If the twins could imblobster Growler at will, then I bet I can imblobster Woll. Let’s see how she likes it.
But is revenge important? Will it solve any problems?
My teeth grow sharp. “Where’s Growler?”
“Who’s Growler?”
It takes all my concentration to keep my angry fingers from forming knives.
“Growler is my dog. The one your kids imblobstered. Where. Is. She?”
“Your dog is wherever you left her,” Woll says, frantically checking control panels. “Or maybe we got around to vacuuming her up. Maybe she’s in the tank. But she’s not your dog anymore. When the gel contacts another creature, it transforms the molecules of that creature into xenogel molecules.”
Agnes grips my arm, holding me back from Woll. “People and dogs are more than just the stuff they’re made from,” she says. “They have memories. They have personalities. What happens to them?”
“I don’t have time to answer your qu
estions,” Woll snaps. “In case you haven’t noticed, the Geosonic Agitator malfunctioned and I am doing my best to prevent a catastrophe. So if you could please let me concentrate—”
“Answer her question, Woll, or I’ll imblobster you right now. Your choice.”
I stretch my twitching fingers toward her face.
“Agh! Fine!” Woll screams, flinching back. “Think of the gel as a 3-D printer. The electrochemical patterns involving consciousness and memory are the design software. Those patterns still exist in the gel.”
There’s a lot going on. Alarms clanging, Collaboratory people rushing around and screaming, ceilings crumbling and water pipes bursting. But I pay close attention to what Woll is saying. If I understand her correctly—
“We can restore the imblobsters to their original form. Growler, the Fosters, Mr. Brown . . . everyone.”
“In theory, yes,” Woll says. “Maybe.”
Before I can demand that she tell me how to get Growler back, before she can say anymore, the metal skin of the tank groans and cracks. With a great, ringing KAAAALLLLANGG, the tank blows, steel shards whizzing through the air like bullets, smashing craters in the walls. The xenogel erupts in a torrent of goo, and Woll vanishes under a heaving wave of glop.
I shift so fast that I’m not even aware of what I’m doing, forming a sphere with a hard outer shell and encasing Agnes within, like an egg protecting a baby chicken.
The floor caves in, sagging and cracking apart, dropping us down to the abandoned department store below. I bob and bounce on the waves of xenogel like a beach ball, only dimly aware of Agnes screaming. With the force of a runaway truck, the wave splinters the walls of the department store, carrying us out into the parking lot.
The wave continues on, gathering itself into a gelatin mass, at least thirty feet tall, gurgling and pulsating with tons of glass and steel and wood and plaster and creepy mannequins suspended inside. It roars on, rolling away from the mall, swallowing cars and trees and anything else in its path. When it reaches the edge of the parking lot, it starts to lose energy, slowing down and finally coming to a rest.
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