The EngiNerds Strike Back

by Jarrett Lerner

  Because that’s pretty much exactly how I feel.

  Like moaning.

  And then maybe crying for a bit.

  And then maybe curling up into a little ball and—

  “Hang on,” I say, my mood lifting a little just before it hits rock bottom. “Bem said he came down here to help us. To try to help save us again. So he’s got to have a plan, right?”

  Dan doesn’t answer.

  “Right?!”

  22.

  BEM DOESN’T HAVE A PLAN.

  “He did help, though,” Dan says, coming to the alien’s defense. “And he still is.”

  Reaching into his pocket, Dan pulls out a slim, rectangular object. Its dulled silver color makes me think, for a split second, that it’s one of the duct tape wallets Dan and I made a couple years back. But then I see that the thing’s got a screen. The screen’s got a spiderweb’s worth of cracks running through it, but when Dan swipes it with his thumb, it illuminates with a soft, greenish glow.

  I can sense the excitement building in Mikaela from all the way across the table.

  “Is that…,” she says, “a Plerpian communication device?!”

  “An old one,” Dan says, passing the gadget to Mikaela. She takes it gingerly, handling it like it’s a ticking time bomb or an enormous diamond. “Bem said it’s a bit fritzy, and sometimes gets spammed. Apparently he keeps asking his parents for a nicer model, but he just keeps getting his siblings’ hand-me-downs. But he’s got one too. So as long as this one doesn’t fall apart on us, we can talk to him, even though he’s got to stay up there.” He points at the ceiling.

  “Oh, excellent,” I say, not seeing how this is even remotely helpful. “So he can give us a play-by-play AS OUR PLANET IS REDUCED TO DUST?!”

  “Being able to communicate with him could prove extremely useful,” Dan argues. “Also”—he sets a greenish-gray, pocket-size book on the table—“he gave us this.”

  John Henry Knox plucks the book up and reads us the title. “Plerpian Protocols for Planetary Demolition. Eleventh Edition. English Translation.” Opening to a random page, narrowing his eyes at the incredibly tiny font, he reads, “ ‘Protocol #2,027: No species of legume may be harmed in the course of the demolition of a planet. If a heretofore unknown species of legume is discovered during the course of the demolition of a planet, said legume must be carefully extracted, removed from danger, and properly preserved for later study before demolition may recommence.’ ”

  “Wonderful,” I say, pretty sure this is even less helpful than a busted communication device. “Glad we’ve got some riveting new reading material to enjoy AS OUR PLANET IS REDUCED TO DUST. You’re the best, Bem.”

  “It’s only because of Bem that we even know our planet is under threat,” Dan says. “If not for him, a week or two from now, it’d just be… you know, not pretty.”

  “To say the least,” says John Henry Knox.

  “Bem’s up there poring over these protocols, trying to find some sort of loophole, anything to delay the demolition crew. Hopefully permanently. And thanks to the communication device,” Dan continues, “he can give us a heads-up about anything else we need to know. Also…”

  I’d been looking at the communication device in Mikaela’s hands—but hearing Dan trail off, registering the sudden absence of confidence in his voice, I look back up at him. He’s studying the crumbs on his plate like somehow they might be the key to saving our planet.

  “Dan…,” I say, knowing he’s got something else to say, knowing he’s worried about how we might react to it.

  Clearing his throat, keeping his eyes down on those crumbs, Dan says, “Bem also… well… he convinced the Planetary Leadership of Plerp-5 to have the demolition crew begin their work in our town.”

  John Henry Knox lets out a strangled hiccup and drops the eleventh edition of the Plerpian Protocols for Planetary Demolition. It looks like his frittata’s about to make a reappearance on my kitchen table.

  I swing back toward Dan. “How…,” I ask him, through clenched teeth, “… is that… HELPFUL?!”

  “He believes in us,” Mikaela says, sounding impossibly, infuriatingly calm. “He thinks we can figure out how to stop all this.”

  Dan nods.

  “He said we’re humanity’s best hope.”

  “We’re—” I sputter. “We’re kids! That’s all. We’re—we’re a bunch of KIDS!”

  “Plerpians believe that the younger a mind is, the more flexible it can be, the more creative and innovative its ideas can be. That’s why Bem’s here in the first place,” Dan says. “It’s his job. He’s a ‘scout.’ Even though he’s a kid, he was tasked with finding the best place to start methodically demolishing our planet. Even though he’s a kid, he was given his very own spaceship, and is allowed to fly it around all by himself.”

  “Great,” I say. “Sooooooo helpfu—”

  My sarcasm is cut short by the sight of something in the window above the sink. It’s a cloud. But, as I’ve become intensely aware, not all the clouds looming over us are just clouds. What’s more, this is a big ol’ cumulonimbus cloud, one whose puffs and peaks roughly form the shape of a UFO. It stands out sharply against the rest of the early-morning clouds in the sky, as it’s clearly closer to the ground, and every second sinking more closely toward it in a very unnatural, not cloudlike way.

  “I thought you said Bem couldn’t come back down here…,” I say.

  “What?” says Dan, twisting around in his chair to look out the window, too.

  Beep-beep BOOP.

  Mikaela jumps in her seat and drops the communication device, which continues to beep and BOOP on the table.

  Dan snatches the device up and turns it over to see the screen.

  His eyes grow about a dozen sizes.

  “Um,” he says. “That’s not Bem’s ship… Apparently the demolition crew has decided to get a bit of a head start on their work.”

  23.

  TWO SECONDS LATER, WE’RE ALL on our feet.

  Scrambling for the window.

  Knocking into one another.

  Just generally freaking out and making all sorts of noise.

  We’re loud enough to wake up Kitty, who barrels into the room and starts barking like crazy despite the fact that he’s got no clue what’s going on.

  And Kitty—well, he’s loud enough to wake up my parents.

  I can hear them fumbling around upstairs. And then, a second later:

  “Kitty! Kitty—SHHH!”

  It’s my dad, hissing down the stairs to try to get Kitty to quit making a racket.

  But trying to calm down Kitty once he’s got himself good and riled up is about as easy as stopping a meteor that’s just pierced our atmosphere from racing toward the ground. Really, there’s no point in even trying. The best course of action is to just get out of the way.

  Meanwhile, the four of us—me, Dan, Mikaela, and John Henry Knox—are squeezed around the sink, craning our necks to better see out the window as that massive, UFO-shaped cumulonimbus sinks lower and lower toward the ground.

  Just as it slips out of sight beneath the tops of the trees in my backyard, I hear my dad behind me.

  “Ken?”

  I turn, as do Dan and Mikaela and John Henry Knox, and see my dad in the kitchen doorway, his eyes bleary and his hair sticking up in about seventeen thousand different directions.

  Oh, also, he’s wearing nothing but his underwear.

  He leaps back through the doorway and around the corner as soon as the realization that I’m not alone lands in his sleep-foggy brain. There, safely out of sight, he calls out:

  “Um. Hi! Hey! Good—good morning, everyone. Didn’t, ah, know you had friends over, Ken. Is—is everything all right down here?”

  I glance back toward the window.

  Still no cloud.

  Meaning, of course, that everything is absolutely not all right down here.

  But I’m not about to tell my dad what’s really going on.
<
br />   Well, maybe I will have to tell him sooner or later—but I’m certainly not going to do it before the poor guy’s had his morning coffee and gotten some clothes on.

  So I just say:

  “Yep! Kitty’s ready for his morning walk. That’s all.”

  Then I add:

  “You can go back to bed.”

  “Right,” says Dad. “Ah, yeah. I’ll—I’ll, ah, do that. See you kids later. Have fun!”

  Dad heads back upstairs.

  And as soon as he’s gone, I dart across the kitchen and over to the door.

  I tug it open, then turn to Dan and Mikaela and John Henry Knox.

  “Ready to track down a spaceship?” I ask them, hoping they say yes, because I’m not feeling so prepared myself.

  But before they can answer, Kitty launches himself out the open door and down the porch steps. Two seconds later, he’s tearing up the street.

  “He sure is,” says John Henry Knox.

  “If only,” I say.

  Then I rush out into the street after him.

  24.

  WE RUN.

  We run like chickens with their heads cut off.

  Or, no:

  We run like a bunch of kids who know that their whole entire world might be reduced to a bunch of cosmic dust bunnies in a matter of minutes.

  Kitty, meanwhile, runs like he always does. He lopes along with his tongue lolling out of his mouth and a big stupid grin on his face, like it’s the gosh-darn greatest day EVER and he doesn’t have a care in the world.

  Which, I suppose, he doesn’t.

  Man.

  Whoever came up with that expression “ignorance is bliss” should probably be given some sort of genius award.

  Speaking of genius?

  We aren’t exhibiting any of it.

  I’m just following Kitty, because as much as we really need to locate that cloud, we also really, really, really can’t afford to lose sight of the pooch. Left to his own devices, he’s capable of causing nearly as much trouble as Mike Edsley. And I guess because I appear to be running with some sort of purpose, Dan and Mikaela and John Henry Knox are following me.

  Finally, after chasing Kitty for four or five blocks, I manage to charge up alongside him and, by angling my steps, force him over onto someone’s lawn. As soon as he hops off the pavement and onto the grass, I dive. I get my arms around his middle, scoop him against my chest, and together we roll to a stop.

  As soon as we do, I throw my head back and search the sky.

  There are plenty of clouds up there—but not the cloud.

  My stomach twists into a ball of knots.

  Not because I’m the least bit looking forward to facing a Plerpian demolition crew, but because, as the only people on the planet who know what’s going on, I know that my friends and I might be the only ones equipped to stop them.

  “We need to split up,” Mikaela says. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”

  I nod, since I’m too out of breath to answer.

  Dan and John Henry Knox do the same.

  “I’ll go north,” says Mikaela. “Dan—you head east. John Henry Knox—you can take west. And Ken, you—”

  Just then, elsewhere in the neighborhood, a dog starts to bark.

  And Kitty instantly becomes Super Kitty and uses his super strength to wriggle out of my arms and rush off in the direction of the commotion.

  “Okay,” Mikaela says. “Ken—I guess you should go west.”

  25.

  FORTUNATELY, THE BARKING DOG THAT Kitty just has to go and find is only a few blocks away.

  Unfortunately, the dog is barking because an enormous, UFO-shaped cumulonimbus cloud is sitting in the street, interrupting the pup’s morning walk and, most likely, freaking it out.

  Also freaked out?

  The dog’s owner.

  He’s young-looking, like maybe he only just graduated from college. But I don’t think anything he learned there could’ve possibly prepared him for this.

  After a couple seconds, he notices me standing nearby. He turns to face me, his eyes big and unblinking, his jaw hanging down as far as it goes.

  “Wha—whaaaa?” he says, lifting a hand and aiming a shaky finger at the cloud.

  I turn toward it—and make a split-second decision.

  “What?” I say, turning back to the guy, as nonchalantly as I can.

  And now he’s giving me the same wide-eyed, jaw-dropped look he was giving the cloud a moment ago.

  “The—” he says. “The cloud. The one your dog is running laps around.”

  I look again.

  Then say:

  “What cloud?”

  “You—you don’t see it?” he asks me.

  “See what?” I say.

  The guy drops his dog’s leash and holds on to either side of his head, like he’s worried his brain might burst.

  Do I feel bad about making this guy feel crazy?

  Yeah, a little bit.

  But I’m willing to bet he’ll feel even crazier when the puffs of that cumulonimbus cloud part, revealing a metal door, and a ramp—and an alien demolition crew.

  My hope is to make the guy feel like he’s dreaming, and to get him going on his way.

  So I start spewing some totally random—but I guess not utterly useless—facts that I just learned that morning:

  “Caterpillars have more muscles than humans.”

  The guy gulps.

  “Wha-wha-what?” he stammers.

  “The average lead pencil can draw a line thirty-five miles long.”

  The guy takes a step back, away from me.

  And I take a step toward him.

  “It’s against the law to fall asleep in a cheese factory in Illinois.”

  That does it.

  The guy scoops up his dog and hurries off.

  I turn back to the cloud just in time to see Kitty, still running laps around the thing, streak by.

  A second later, a ramp pokes out of one of the cloud’s curled, thinning puffs and reaches for the ground like a long metallic tongue.

  I take a shaky breath.

  Ready or not—and, yeah, I’m not—here they come…

  26.

  I STAND THERE AND WATCH the spaceship’s ramp meet the pavement with a soft click.

  “Kitty,” I whisper-shout as authoritatively as I can.

  The pooch is still running laps around the ship, and I have this horrible vision of the otherworldly demolition crew stepping out onto the ramp, getting spooked by the big, furry blur circling their vehicle, and, well, doing something or other to demolish it.

  I try again, a bit more forcefully:

  “KITTY! COME! HERE!”

  But this backfires.

  Hearing his name only gets the pup even more excited, and now he’s not just running laps around the ship, he’s running laps around the ship and barking his head off.

  I quickly scan the ground around me for a rock. Because Kitty loves rocks. The bigger the better. He’ll lick the things for hours on end, like he thinks that sooner or later, if he just keeps it up, he’ll reach some sort of pizza-stuffed center.

  But before I can find anything to entice the dog, I notice a figure emerge from the ship. The alien stops at the top of the ramp to take a look around, and I just go on standing there, rigid with fear.

  I wince as Kitty comes barreling around the corner once more.

  But the alien…

  Well, if anything, he seems delighted to see the dog.

  For a moment, he just watches Kitty, the excitement building on his face.

  Then the alien calls back into his ship:

  “Muckle, come quick! There is a pupperoni out here.”

  27.

  I CAN SEE THE ALIEN’S underpants.

  That’s something you should probably know.

  He’s bigger than Bem—about the size of an average adult human—and is wearing a collared button-down shirt, a bright striped tie, and a pair of blindingly white underpants.
Which I can see since he’s not wearing any pants pants. Which, along with my dad, makes the alien the second creature whose underwear I’ve seen today. And it’s not even seven o’clock in the morning yet.

  What a day.

  “Muckle,” the alien calls back into the ship. “Hurry. You must witness the speed and grace of this majestic creature.”

  “I am coming as fast as I am able, Kermin,” comes a second voice from inside the ship. “I fear I may have misplaced my zap-cannon.”

  “I have not misplaced my zap-cannon. I have safely stored it beneath the elastic band of my human undergarments. We may take turns employing mine, if you—”

  The alien stops talking because Kitty has all of a sudden stopped running. He plops himself down on one of the nearby lawns, panting furiously, and kicks his back leg up toward his head to scratch an itch behind his ear.

  “Muckle! Muckle!” the alien on the ramp shouts. “The pupperoni! He is flexible! Extraordinarily flexib—”

  This time, the alien stops talking because Kitty, having scratched his itch, has come trotting over to my side.

  Which, of course, has caused the alien to finally notice me, still standing right where I have been all along, as stiff as a steel rod—a very, very frightened steel rod.

  And based on the way the alien’s expression immediately darkens at the sight of me, I can tell he’s not as big a fan of human beings as he is of dogs.

  28.

  A MOMENT AFTER THE FIRST alien finally notices me, the second steps out onto the ramp behind him. He’s roughly the same size as the other and dressed similarly—in a collared button-down shirt and a bright striped tie. And, yeah, he’s also got that whole underpants but no pants pants thing going on.

  “Kermin,” he says to his partner. “You did not inform me the pupperoni was accompanied by a human.”

  “I realize, Muckle,” says the first alien, whose name, I guess, is Kermin. “I have only now discovered the human.”

  Together, the aliens eye me.

  I let them, standing as still as I can, heart pounding, sweat forming on my brow, worried that if I make any sudden movements, Kermin might pull out his zap-cannon thingamajig and use it on me.