by Rob Vlock
“Excellent, Ivy,” the Bing Collective crowed. “I knew you could never hurt us. You’re just a big lovey-dovey cuddlepuss. Now execute your prime directive like a good girl. Go to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and rain fiery nuclear destruction down on the human race!”
Ivy froze in place, her head swiveling from me to the horde of scorpipedes and back to me.
“I—I . . . I don’t know,” Ivy replied.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” The Bing Collective rippled all around us, their stingers poised to strike. “You’ve always wanted this, you silly goose!”
The girl scratched her curly blond head. “Well, yes . . .”
“Exactly! So go! Do what you were always meant to do!”
“Ivy?” I pleaded one last time.
She looked at me for only a second before she turned on her heel and strode out the restaurant’s front door.
“Ivy, no!” I called after her. “No!”
The creatures laughed as one. Without warning, they crawled back toward the rumpled skin on the floor, freeing us from the thousands of legs that had been crawling over our bodies. “You see? You can’t change her programming. She was designed for stealth, for entering even the most secure facilities, bypassing the most advanced security systems, evading detection—all so she could, when the time was right, gain access to the Complex and launch a preemptive strike against all of humanity.”
“But won’t the nuclear war kill you, too?” I reasoned desperately.
“We hope so!” An excited ripple went through the Bing Collective. “We’d be gosh-darn proud to make that sacrifice for the greater good! But ask us about the good news for you.”
Will’s voice shook as he spoke. “What’s the good news for us?”
“We’re so glad you asked,” it chirruped back. “We’re going to let you live to witness the Synthetics’ grand victory. Which, unless we are very much mistaken, should happen just as soon as Ivy infiltrates the Complex and initiates the launch codes. Yay!”
It laughed, flooding the air with hundreds of squeals of delight.
The creatures’ collective laugh withered as the front door of the restaurant burst off its hinges and fell to the floor with a crash. Hundreds of screaming Dixon Watts fans streamed into the Happy Hog.
“Where is it?” a large man wearing a Dixon Watts T-shirt several sizes too small for him bellowed as he lurched toward the kitchen.
“It’s mine!” screamed a teenage girl with blue hair tied into a long ponytail. “I’m his biggest fan! I deserve it!”
Whatever the “it” was they were arguing about must have been pretty awesome. They were so desperate, they paid no heed whatsoever to the disgusting Ticks under their feet.
“Hey, wait!” the Bing Collective wailed, its voice barely reaching my ears. “You’re stepping on us!”
Flattened against the restaurant’s walls, our little party did its best to evade the seething crowd of Dixon fans. Dix, himself, had thrown a barbecue-stained napkin over his head to prevent them from tearing him limb from limb in their rabid enthusiasm. The Bing Collective’s screams grew fainter and less frequent as the mindless army of Dixon Watts fans stomped across the floorboards, crunching arthropod bodies underfoot.
“Come on, Sven! Let’s go!” Alicia grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked me toward her. “We have to stop Ivy!”
We struggled against the incoming tide of humanity. My feet threatened to slip out from under me as they skidded on the slick layer of slimy crushed Bing Collective that covered the floor. By the time we emerged into the bright sunshine I felt like I had just gone ten rounds with an octopus wearing boxing gloves.
“What was with the stampede?” Alicia asked.
“Let’s worry about that later. First we need to find Ivy!” Sam instructed. “Spread out, everyone! She can’t have gotten far!”
There were still tons of people milling around the parking lot, and they all closed in on us in their effort to get inside the Happy Hog. And that was a serious problem. Because it was tough enough seeing Ivy when she was standing right in front of you in an empty room. But in a crowd like this? It was hopeless!
“Dix!” I yelled as an idea popped into my head. “Head that way! Toward the corner of the parking lot. If you can draw the crowd away, maybe we’ll have a better shot at finding Ivy!”
Dix nodded at me and leapt onto the hood of a car with effortless grace. “Hey, everyone,” he screamed, ripping the sauce-stained napkin from his face.
He jumped down from the car and started pushing through the crowd to the far corner of the hot black asphalt. His mass of fans started after him. Alicia, Will, Sam, and I barely managed to avoid being swept away with the crowd. But as the last of the screaming admirers pushed by us, we found ourselves alone in the middle of the lot.
My eyes scanned the area, looking for any sign of Ivy. Will and I ran around, urgently calling Ivy’s name. But there was no point. She was nowhere to be found.
This was bad. If we didn’t find her, we were all going to end up vaporized. Everyone on Earth would be wiped out. I thought about my mom and dad back in Schenectady. What would happen to them? Would they be instantly incinerated? Or would the radiation get them slowly. I wished there was a way I could warn them. But even if I could get word to them, they’d still be overwhelmed by the Ticks as soon as they came out of hiding.
My eyes stung with tears as I thought about being so far away from them. Only they wouldn’t be missing me at all, because Fake Sven was filling in for me. I was still bitter about the fact my parents couldn’t tell the difference between me and the fake me. He had a face where his butt should’ve been! Why did that two-faced knockoff Sven get to hang out with Mom and Dad doing fun stuff while I was out here looking for a snarky little girl whose biggest ambition in life was to blow up the world?
“Sven? Will?” Sam’s voice tore me from my somber thoughts. “Any sign of her?”
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and shook my head.
“That’s not good,” he replied quietly. “She could be nearly at the Complex by now. If we don’t find her . . .”
He didn’t have to finish the thought. We knew exactly what would happen if we didn’t find her.
We’d all be dead.
CHAPTER 21.0:
< value= [I Get a Little Sister] >
“WE HAVE TO GET TO the RV!” Sam cried. “The only chance we have is to get to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex before Ivy does. We can warn the guards she’s coming. If we’re not already too late.”
Will chimed in eagerly. “Good idea! If the whole place is on high alert, there’s no way she’ll be able to get in!”
I nodded, but I had my doubts. I thought about how my eyes couldn’t seem to fix on Ivy back in the storage room. And Bing said she was specifically designed to sneak into the most secure facilities. Even if we did manage to get to the Complex before Ivy, it might not do any good.
“What about Dixon?” I asked, nodding toward the crowd of fans on the other side of the lot.
“Leave him,” Sam answered. “There’s no time. We can pick him up later.”
If there is a later, I thought glumly.
We sprinted to the RV, Sam jiggling and huffing and puffing as he struggled to keep up with us.
Will reached the door first. He tugged on it. “Locked. Hurry, Sam!”
“Coming.” Sam wheezed, joining us with a set of keys in his hand. He unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Let’s go.”
We stepped into the motor home.
“Where are we going?” a voice rang out.
Ivy’s voice.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could just make out Ivy, sitting with her feet up on the dining table and gnawing on a rib. She licked her fingers and dropped the stripped bone into a foam takeout container.
“Ivy?” I gaped. “What are you doing here?”
“Eating, duh. That Porkbutt guy makes some good ribs.”
&nbs
p; “But I thought . . . we thought . . . didn’t you . . . ?” Will cocked his head at her. “I thought you were going to the mountain! To, like, totally blow up the world!”
The girl picked her teeth with a shard of rib bone. “Yeah, I decided not to. But, geez! Did you see Bing? I had no idea he was a big, gross bag of bugs. I guess he was a Sympathetic, huh? Like me?”
“Synthetic,” I corrected. “But not like you. Dixon, you, and I are the most advanced models they’ve built. Bing definitely wasn’t. We’ve been designed to pass as completely human. That’s not going to happen if you’re stuffed full of centipedes.”
Sam sat down next to Ivy. “So were you responsible for the stampede back in the restaurant?”
Ivy beamed. “Yep! I figured five pairs of feet wouldn’t be enough to stomp those Bing things in there. So I told the crowd that there was a golden ticket hidden somewhere in the Happy Hog and whoever found it would get to hang out with Dix backstage at his next show.”
“Wait,” Alicia interjected. “Why didn’t you go through with your mission? That thing in there—the Bing whatever—said getting inside that mountain is what you want most in the whole world.”
Ivy’s cheeks reddened in a blush. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But I guess we were both wrong. Turns out the thing I wanted most of all . . .” She fixed her eyes on me. They sparkled excitedly. “. . . was a brother. And now I have two!”
* * *
“So how do we figure out where to go next?” Dix asked once we had rescued him from his adoring fans.
“I have an idea,” Sam said.
“No cables!” I snapped.
Sam’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. “Fine.”
“Look, we can figure this out,” I insisted. “Think about it: We know that Ivy is really Five Omicron. Dixon is Six, and I’m Seven. And now that Ivy isn’t going to destroy the world, the next Tick in line will be up to bat. If the order holds, that should be Four Omicron.”
“So we know he’s Four Omicron, but where are we going to find him?” Will asked nervously.
Ivy angled her head at him. “Maybe the next one’s a girl!”
“You’re both wrong,” I corrected, playing the scene from the Tick deer’s CPU over again in my memory. “Four Omicron is a dog.”
Alicia raised her eyebrows. “You’re sure about that?”
“A German shepherd, I think,” I added. “Or maybe a poodle. Or a little of both?”
Alicia snorted. “Well, that narrows it down a lot. Thanks, Sven.”
“Hey, watch it, jerkface!” Ivy snapped. “That’s my big bro you’re talking to. Go ahead, Sven,” she cooed sweetly, grinning up at me. “Don’t listen to her.”
I felt myself blush. “Uh . . . um . . . Ivy, I’m not really your brother, you know.”
“Sure you are!” she chirped. “You heard Bing. You and Dixon and I are a family. But you’re my favorite,” she added in a loud whisper while she beamed at me.
We’re about as much a family as a bunch of cars that came off the same assembly line. I started to tell her as much when I caught her bright eyes gleaming at me. So I bit my tongue and gave her a feeble smile. “Ohh-kay. So anyway, anybody have any ideas where to start looking?”
Will shrugged. “I mean, dogs are everywhere. My cousins Steve, Danielle, and Peter have three dogs. And you know what they named them? Steve, Danielle, and Peter. They gave them their own names! Which is so stupid because nobody knows who they’re talking to when they call—”
“Uh, Will?” Alicia interrupted. “Not now.”
“Right,” Will said, scratching the back of his neck as he stared at his feet. “Sorry.”
“Maybe we could start calling animal shelters and ask if they have any poodle–German shepherd mixes,” Sam suggested.
I nodded. “Well, that’s an idea. Anyone know how many animal shelters there are in the country?”
“Too many.” Dixon shook his head. “It’s not going to work. Trust me. I spent who knows how many hours searching animal shelters online looking for a monkey. And you’re assuming this dog is actually up for adoption, which it probably isn’t.”
I sighed. Dix was right. We weren’t going to find Four Omicron by looking in a shelter. I could think of only one thing to do. “Fine. Sam, you want to hook me up to something, hook me up to something. Grab your cables and let’s get this over with.”
CHAPTER 22.0:
< value= [The Runt of the Litter] >
“I’M NOT ENTIRELY SURE THIS is going to work,” Sam mused, after we had returned to the Happy Hog. He squinted at a tiny silver box dangling at the end of a minuscule cable that stuck out of the gooey remains of a squashed scorpipede. “It’s too small. I don’t think I can connect you to this, Sven.”
“So wait. That’s it? You’re saying there’s nothing we can do to find Four Omicron?”
I looked to each of the others in turn. No one met my eye.
“Well, I’m not willing to accept that!” I continued. I marched over to Bing’s discarded flesh sac. Ignoring how utterly disgusting it was, I picked it up and shook it in Sam’s direction. It felt like a heavy leather blanket. “Maybe you can hook me up to this!”
Alicia shook her head. “Sven, I think that’s just an empty skin. It’s not—”
The words caught in her throat.
“What?” I asked.
I followed her gaze to the flesh sac. As I watched, a scorpipede no bigger than my thumb wriggled out of the mouth and scrabbled onto my wrist. I froze.
“Hey, man. Who’s shaking the flesh sac?” it asked in a tiny voice.
Dix jabbed a finger at the creature. “Stomp it, Sven! Kill it!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the thing cried. “Hold on. There’s no reason to do that! It’s cool, man!”
I hesitated.
Alicia glared at me. “What are you waiting for? Mash that foul thing!”
The scorpipede swiveled to face her. “Hey! You’re no prize pig yourself! Besides, what’d I ever do to you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Will replied. “How about try to sting us all to death?”
“Not me, man. I never stung anyone.”
“Really?” I snorted. “Because it sure felt like we were getting stung.”
The scorpipede spat out a tiny laugh. “Don’t look at me. That was the Bing Collective. I don’t even have a stinger.”
I took a closer look at the creature. It was right. “Hold on, you’re saying you’re not part of the Bing Collective?”
“Not me. I’m just plain old Bing 808. You can call me 808 for short. The Bing Collective would never let someone like me into their little club. Ever since we were created they’ve always teased me, called me the runt of the litter. And when they all formed their neural link, they left me out. Eight hundred eight of us all together, and I’m the only one who didn’t get an invitation. They made me live down in the little toe of the flesh sac too. Not a nice neighborhood, believe me. Stinky. Cramped. And whenever they’d go out stinging, they’d be like, ‘You stay here, 808. Guard the little toe in case any big, bad foot fungus comes around.’ Then they’d laugh. Jerks. Honestly, though, I think they were just jealous of my awesomeness. Hey, what happened to those guys, anyway?”
I gestured at the slimy remains of the Bing Collective smeared all over the floor of the Happy Hog.
“Oh,” 808 said. “Well, can’t say they didn’t deserve it. And, bonus: I guess I have the whole flesh sac to myself now. Nasal passages, here I come!”
Dix squinted at the creature. “So . . . you don’t want to kill us?”
“Should I? You seem cool to me, man. And the way I see it, I owe you one for squashing those Bing Collective guys. They were making my life seriously miserable.”
He owed us one? A tiny ember of hope sprang up in my mind. “Hey, no problem. Glad we could help. Maybe you could . . . do us a little favor in return?”
808 scratched his little insectoid head with one of his legs. “I’
ll try.”
“I don’t suppose you know where we could find Four Omicron, do you?”
“Four Omicron? Hmmm, let me check the network. Hold on a second.” The little scorpipede went silent for a few moments, then he spoke. “Okay. Got him.”
Alicia’s eyes lit up. “You found him? Awesome! Where is he?”
“44.5263 degrees north latitude; 109.0565 degrees west longitude,” 808 told her.
“And where exactly is that?” Will asked.
“I’ll tell you what,” he answered. “Take me with you and I’ll show you. I’ve always wanted to see the world.”
* * *
Let’s put it this way: I would almost have preferred spending the last six hours listening to Dix sing over having to spend six hours cooped up in the RV with Ivy being all sweet and doe-eyed and constantly referring to me as her brother. Don’t get me wrong. I had nothing against her personally. Well, nothing other than the fact that she was a cranky little bundle of annoyingness. But what was worse was how uncomfortable it made me whenever she used the word “brother.” I still didn’t think being manufactured in the same line of synthesized life-forms actually made us siblings. And it was . . . well, stressful. I mean, I had never been a big brother before. What was I supposed to do when she beamed up at me with her big blue eyes? Did I have to hug her? Or tease her? Pull her hair?
And then there was the whole embarrassment factor. Every time Ivy called me her “big brother-wother,” I could feel everyone’s eyes bore into me. Plus, I was starting to get the feeling she and Alicia didn’t like each other very much.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!” Ivy shook a tiny fist at Alicia.
Alicia sighed. “All I said was, ‘You can’t be serious about wanting to destroy the planet.’ ”
“See?” Ivy crowed triumphantly. “You said I can’t be serious! I can be serious about whatever I want! Watch! I seriously think you’re ugly!”
Her eyebrows arced downward, and she squinted, steely eyed, at Alicia.