Dinosaur Boy Saves Mars

by Cory Putman Oakes

“Yeah. You know, because of my dinosaur parts. Was I just an excuse to get us into the lab?”

  My grandfather swallowed.

  “Sawyer, I brought you on this trip because you are a brave, resourceful, and smart kid. I knew finding Sylvie’s dad was going to be tough. And when I thought about who could help me do it, you immediately came to mind. I didn’t think up the Star Wars thing until after we got here.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling a bit foolish.

  “Why would you ask me that?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Elliot was saying something to me about everybody having a purpose here. And I guess I don’t really understand yours. Why do you care so much about finding Sylvie’s dad?”

  My grandfather rubbed the back of his neck like it was sore or something.

  “Well, partly because she’s your friend and she was worried about him. And partly because…well, because of Gloria,” he stammered, turning a bit red.

  They had been holding hands! I knew it!

  “Oh. So you and Sylvie’s mom…” I didn’t know quite what to say to that.

  “We didn’t want to tell you and Sylvie until we were sure it was serious.”

  “Is it serious?” I asked hesitantly. “I mean, do you, like, love her and stuff?”

  “I do,” my grandfather said. And his eyes went all soft, sort of gooey. I had never seen him look like that before. “She was worried about her ex-husband. I thought if I could find him, I could put her mind at ease. I thought it would be something I could do for her. Before…”

  He trailed off, then paused to stretch the back of his neck.

  “Enough about me,” he said finally. “What about you? Have you given any more thought to the chancellor thing?”

  “I know you don’t want me to do it,” I said quickly.

  He grimaced, still rubbing his neck.

  “I know you keep saying this isn’t our problem, that we shouldn’t get involved,” I added. “But I’ve been thinking… Maybe it should be our problem.”

  He groaned.

  “No, seriously,” I went on. “I mean, what will happen to the Plutonians if they’re never anybody’s problem? And what about the Martians who are going to get gened? Maybe I’m the only one impartial enough to—”

  My grandfather groaned again, and I was beginning to think it didn’t have anything to do with what I was saying.

  “Are you OK?” I asked, standing up in alarm.

  “I’m fine,” my grandfather said, but I could tell he wasn’t. He was breathing hard and when he stood up, he had to hold on to the edge of the table. “I just—”

  He groaned again and leaned forward over the table.

  “My jacket,” he said, his voice tight. “Help me get it off!”

  I rushed around behind him and helped him ease one arm, and then the other, out of his sleeves. But it wasn’t until I peeled the jacket off his back that I saw why he was in so much pain.

  There were holes in the back of the white, button-down shirt he was wearing underneath. Two long rows of them. And each hole had a tiny, stegosaurus plate peeking through it.

  Cure, Shmure

  The jacket fell from my hands and made a leather puddle on the kitchen floor.

  “But—the cure! You took the cure!” I stammered.

  My grandfather sighed in relief and sank back down into his chair, only to jump up again a second later, grabbing his backside.

  His tail, I realized. His tail is growing back too!

  “The cure stopped working a couple of weeks ago,” he explained, bracing his elbows on the table and lowering himself gently so that only one side of his bottom rested on the very edge of the chair. “At least I suspected that’s what was happening. I had the symptoms: pain, hunger. But my blood tests were inconclusive. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what was happening until a couple of days ago. When everything started to grow back.”

  “So the cure doesn’t work?” I asked, thinking of the blue vial sitting on top of my bookcase at home. It had been my choice not to take it. I had chosen to stay part dinosaur. But I had always sort of liked the idea that it was there. Just in case. But now…

  “Evidently not.” My grandfather sighed, still shifting around the chair, trying to find a comfortable position.

  “So if the BURPSers gene all of the Martians, like Dr. Marsh said they were going to, he won’t be able to turn them back? The cure won’t work?”

  “No, it won’t,” my grandfather said, wincing as he accidentally shifted his weight onto his tail stub. “This is what comes of fooling around with things you don’t fully understand. I warned Otto this would happen. I tried to tell him what was happening with me—”

  “You did! You did start to tell him! Right before I—” I remembered suddenly, then I felt my heart sink. “Right before I triggered the alarm. It’s my fault. I didn’t let you finish.”

  My grandfather risked his precarious balance to put a hand on my arm.

  “He wouldn’t have believed me anyway,” he told me. “You heard him. He’s too far gone. Too obsessed with his own genius to admit failure or even a fault. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had told him everything.”

  “What about the Martian police?” I persisted. “You told Ms. Helen and Chancellor Fontana where the lab is, right? Couldn’t they—”

  “I spoke to Ms. Helen when we returned to the apartment, and again just a few moments ago. The Martian police found the lab, but the scientists and Sylvie’s father had already sealed themselves inside. Ms. Helen thinks it’ll be at least twenty-four hours before the Martians can blast their way in. By then—”

  “The summit will be over,” I finished heavily.

  My grandfather nodded.

  “Which says to me that Dr. Marsh has already done his part and is just biding his time. Whatever he and the BURPSers are planning, I’ll bet it happens soon. We have to think of a way to keep the Martians from kicking the Plutonians out of the ISF tomorrow.”

  I stared down at the table. Somebody had to do something. But did it really have to be me?

  “Hey,” I said, thinking of something else. “When you said you wanted to do something for Sylvie’s mom ‘before.’ Did you mean before all of your dinosaur parts came back?” I asked.

  My grandfather sighed heavily.

  “I’ve been down this road before, Sawyer. With your grandmother.”

  “My grandmother?” I repeated. I tried to think if he had ever mentioned her before. My mother only brought her up occasionally. And never in a particularly nice way.

  “Yes. She was a paleontologist, of all things, so she understood more than most what was happening to me. She was supportive at first. But eventually, she decided she didn’t want to be married to a part-dinosaur. What if Gloria—”

  “What if Gloria what?”

  Mrs. Juarez was standing in the doorway. From there, she had a perfect view of my grandfather’s back. And his two rows of budding plates.

  My grandfather’s head snapped up at the sound of her voice. I could see the muscles in his arms tighten, like he was thinking about jumping up or turning around or doing something to hide what was happening to him. But instead, he stayed perfectly still and stared blankly at the tabletop.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Juarez said quietly. “Oh my…”

  “I’d better get some sleep,” I said, getting up from my chair as quickly as I could and leaving the two of them alone in the kitchen.

  No Thanks on That Hamster DNA

  It was very late, but I wasn’t feeling particularly tired. I couldn’t think of anything useful to do, so I eventually wandered into the hall bathroom, thinking I might brush my teeth.

  I clicked on the light and froze.

  Venetio was there. One of his blue hands was clutching an open vial of cloudy liquid.

  The other
was holding my toothbrush.

  Neither of us moved or spoke for at least a full minute.

  Finally, Venetio cleared his throat.

  “They asked you to be the new chancellor,” he said.

  “That’s right,” I said slowly.

  “That means I’m supposed to infect you with this”—he nodded to the vial—“for Pluto. But I-I don’t…”

  “You don’t want to,” I finished for him.

  He shook his head miserably.

  “No, I don’t want to.”

  “What is it?” I asked, honestly curious.

  He shrugged. “A serum. Some kind of rodent gene,” he said. “Hamster or something. I didn’t ask. I didn’t really want to know.”

  I nodded and gave a small sigh of relief that I had avoided becoming the first-ever stegosaurus-human-hamster hybrid. At least for the moment.

  “So,” I said, trying to sound casual. “You didn’t really win your ticket from a radio station, did you?”

  Venetio shook his head.

  “No! I mean, yes, I won the ticket. But I didn’t have any way to get to Mars. The ship I borrowed didn’t really belong to my mom—it belonged to the BURPSers. I’m not one of them—I didn’t lie to you about that. But I guess you could say I’m working for them. Kind of.”

  “Kind of?”

  “Well, I wasn’t really supposed to have to do anything. They put me in an old busted ship and dropped me off right next to yours. The same way they stuck stowaways on every ship headed to Mars that they could. Just in case. They gave me this…this serum stuff and said there was a tiny chance I might have to use it on somebody. But I never thought I’d actually have to go through with it. I mean, how was I supposed to know they’d nominate a dinosaur kid to be chancellor?”

  “I see your point,” I said. I did. Sort of.

  “Plus, they told me they had a cure for the gene-ing,” Venetio added. “That they could reverse it. So I figured, what was the harm? I would get to go to the game. And on the small chance I ended up having to gene somebody, it could be undone. No harm, no foul. But now—” He hesitated.

  “You heard everything my grandfather and I were talking about?” I asked.

  Venetio nodded.

  “I can’t do it,” he said. “Not now that I know you. And not now that I know they can’t undo it.”

  “Um…thank you?” I mumbled, not really knowing what else to say.

  “But I also can’t let them vote to ban the Plutonians from the ISF,” he added, looking quite conflicted. “I can’t do that either.”

  “Why?” I asked him. “I mean, I know you like soccer, Venetio, but why do you care so much about this? Enough to almost gene me?”

  “Well, for one thing, my mom works for the ISF,” Venetio explained, putting my toothbrush back on the counter. “If Pluto gets kicked out, she’ll lose her job. Things aren’t great on Pluto right now. Who knows when she’ll be able to find a new one?”

  “Oh.”

  “Plus, if they do this, who knows what they’ll do next? Mars hates us. And all the other planets always follow their lead. If Mars decides they don’t want to trade with us anymore or let us visit their planet anymore, the other planets will decide the same thing. Mars isn’t going to stop until Pluto, and all the Plutonians, are all alone. Way out on our icy little rock with nowhere else to go.”

  “Oh,” I said again, and for some reason, all I could picture was Orlando sitting by himself at that big, empty table in the cafeteria.

  “I know it’s wrong for the BURPSers to go around gene-ing people,” he continued. “But it’s also wrong for the Martians to treat us this way, just because they don’t like us. Everybody’s wrong. How am I supposed to pick a side when everybody is wrong?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Maybe we need to make our own side,” I suggested.

  “Sure,” Venetio scoffed.

  “I’m serious! Listen, I know you were passed out when Dr. Marsh told us everything. But do you know the BURPSers are planning to gene all of the Martians?”

  He nodded.

  “Maybe some of them deserve it,” I allowed. “But most don’t. And maybe the BURPSers deserve to be punished, but not every Plutonian does. There are way more good Martians than bad ones, and way more good Plutonians than BURPSers. But nobody’s fighting for them. Maybe it’s time someone did.”

  “Like us?” Venetio asked, sounding doubtful.

  “Yes,” I said, suddenly feeling way more sure of myself than I had in a long time. “The BURPSers cooked up this whole plan with Sunder Labs because they were assuming that the Martian Council was going to vote to ban the Plutonians from the ISF. But what if I make sure that doesn’t happen?”

  “How are you going to do that?” Venetio asked.

  “I’m going to be chancellor, that’s how,” I said. “After the game tomorrow, I think I can get the Martian Council to change their minds. If I can do that, then maybe the BURPSers will back down. Maybe—”

  Venetio shook his head slowly.

  “They’re not going to wait for the vote. It’s the game, Sawyer. It’s all about the game.”

  • • •

  “It’s simple, really,” Venetio said after I had gathered my grandfather, Mrs. Juarez, and Sylvie in the living room. Elliot had not responded to my knock on the door—he probably was still mad at me. “If they want to avoid getting gened, the Martians have to win the soccer game tomorrow.”

  “I don’t get it,” my grandfather said, and I was glad I wasn’t the only one. “What does the soccer game have to do with the entire planet getting gened?”

  “The BURPSers are planning to gene the Martian water supply, sir,” Venetio explained. “There are a dozen BURPSers disguised as Kuiper Kicker fans on the planet right now, just waiting to do it. But they have a problem.”

  He held up his wrist with the metal tracking bracelet.

  “Every Plutonian in Mars is wearing one of these. The BURPSers have to get away from their escorts to do the gene-ing, but if all of them just suddenly run out of wristband range, the alarms will go off and the police will be on them in a second. They need a distraction. Something that the police will be even more worried about than them.”

  “Like the soccer game,” I said.

  Venetio nodded, but Sylvie was shaking her head.

  “If the game is just a distraction, then why does it matter who wins?”

  “Because the first phase of the gene-ing is going to take place during the toast,” Venetio said.

  “The toast at the end of the game?” I asked. “The one the losers have to make to the winners?”

  Venetio nodded.

  “Each team plans a drink for the toast, just in case they win. The Martians are planning to use Nutri Juice,” he reminded us. “I don’t know what the Plutonians brought, but the BURPSers added a little something extra to it. The losers have to drink whatever the winners pour for them. If the Plutonians win, the entire Martian team will get gened. With Plutonian DNA.”

  “Right there in the stadium?” Sylvie asked, her eyes wide with shock. “In front of everyone? People are going to flip out.”

  “That’s the idea,” Venetio said, looking a tad embarrassed. “If there’s chaos in the stadium, the Martian police will be too busy dealing with it to notice the BURPSers sneaking off. By the time they calm everybody down, it’ll be too late. The water will be gened. And anybody who drinks it will be gened too.”

  “That’ll be everybody,” my grandfather muttered. “The whole planet. Just like Otto said.”

  “Geez,” I muttered, picturing an entire planet of newly blue, confused Martian-Plutonians.

  Sylvie was glaring at Venetio.

  “You knew about this? And you’re just telling us now? When it’s too late to do anything about it?”

&nb
sp; Venetio wrung his hands. “Look, I know it sounds bad. I do. But Sunder Labs told the BURPSers they had a cure. Nobody thought this was going to be permanent.”

  “But now we know the cure doesn’t work,” Mrs. Juarez said, absentmindedly touching one of my grandfather’s growing plates.

  Venetio nodded. “That’s why the Martians have to win tomorrow, ma’am. If they win, they won’t have to drink the Plutonian toast. And the BURPSers won’t get the distraction they need to gene everybody else.”

  “Why risk letting them play at all?” I asked. “Why don’t we just call off the game? We could just tell Chancellor Fontana and—”

  “No way,” Sylvia said, looking at Venetio. “Remember when they tried to cancel the ’09 Finals, because of a sandstorm on Jupiter? There were riots.”

  “So?” I asked. “I mean, riots aren’t great, but wouldn’t that be better than everybody in Mars getting gened?”

  “No, Sylvie’s right,” my grandfather put in. “If the BURPSers are looking for a distraction, a riot would be a good one. Maybe even better than waiting until the end of the game. If a stadium full of people are suddenly running around like crazy, the police would never notice a dozen BURPSers leaving their escorts.”

  “There were riots after the ’14 Finals too,” Mrs. Juarez said thoughtfully. “When the Martians won on penalty kicks after Tycho Brawn got fouled—”

  “Took a dive,” Venetio corrected her.

  “Whatever,” Mrs. Juarez continued, just as Sylvie opened her mouth. “My point is, a questionable call could cause a riot too. If the Martians win on penalty kicks again or in some other controversial way—”

  “Like sudden death,” Venetio interrupted. “The Plutonians hate that rule. If the Martians win during sudden death, there will be a riot for sure. Plutonians are convinced the Martians have figured out a way to rig it.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Sylvie protested. “Sudden death is random. It’s programmed into the game clock!”

  “OK.” I cut in before Venetio could respond. “So the Martians have to win in a totally clean, non-sketchy way. But the main thing is, they have to win. How can we make sure that happens?”