Into the Dorkness

by John Kloepfer

  “You want to take the shot?” Klyk asked.

  “Yeah, I got this one.” Kevin peeked around the corner again and aimed the shrink ray at the Kamilions guarding the door.

  The alien lizards didn’t even see the shots coming. Kevin blasted both of them and they shrank down to miniatures. The mini reptilians opened fire, but their tiny laser guns did nothing as Kevin and Klyk marched down toward the control room. They pressed the entry button, and the door opened up. Inside, TJ whipped around in his seat and trained the freeze ray on them.

  “Whoa, dude.” Kevin put his hands up. “Little jumpy, are you?”

  “Jeez, you scared the crud out of me!” TJ said, a smile crossing his face as he looked at Klyk. “No offense, but you’re way scarier when you’re big.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be unbrainwashing these guys,” Klyk said.

  “Yeah, how’s it going?” Kevin asked.

  “Not that well, I’m afraid.” TJ frowned.

  “Did you try accessing the—” Kevin asked, but TJ cut him off.

  “I’ve tried everything!” TJ said. “I think Nuzz has some pretty advanced security protocols on this system. Without his encryption key there’s no way to override the mind-control mainframe.”

  “There’s no way you can crack it?” Kevin asked.

  “Like I said,” TJ sighed. “I tried every-thing I could think of.”

  “Uh-oh,” Klyk said.

  “Yeah, I know,” TJ said. “It’s a bummer.”

  “Not the mind control.” Klyk pointed to one of the security monitors capturing the surveillance camera directly outside.

  On the screen, half a dozen Kamilions were prowling down the hallway, laser pistols drawn, creeping slowly toward the door.

  “That’s the only way out of here,” Kevin said.

  “Not the only way,” TJ said, pointing toward the air vents.

  “Klyk can’t fit through there,” said Kevin.

  TJ picked up his freeze ray and stood bravely with his chest out. “Then we’ll stand and fight!”

  “Wait,” said Klyk. “I have a better idea. There are no surveillance cameras in here, so they don’t know we’re in here for sure.” The massive alien cyborg reached down and flicked a switch on his robotic boots. He then scooped up Kevin and TJ under one arm and jumped straight up. Kevin felt his point of view flip upside down, and suddenly they were hanging from the ceiling.

  “Antigravity boots?” TJ asked.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” Klyk nodded.

  “Awesome,” Kevin said, adjusting the settings on the shrink ray.

  “Okay, get ready,” Klyk said. “Those Kamilions are gonna be coming through the door any second. And when they do, you’ve got to be ready to fire!”

  “Here we go,” TJ said.

  Kevin watched the door intently, heart pounding and blood pumping quickly to his head.

  The door rose up from the floor, and the three Kamilions at the front of the pack entered slowly, scoping out the room.

  Klyk waited for the reptilian henchmen to let down their guard, then—ZHOOP! Klyk swung upside down in the door frame, hanging from the antigravity boots. The alien cyborg unleashed a barrage of ray gun blasts at the platoon of Kamilion warriors in the hallway.

  Clinging tightly to Klyk, the boys dangled upside down and fired their weapons. TJ blasted three of the reptilians out in the hallway with the freeze ray.

  Kevin nailed the reptilian trio inside the control room with the shrink ray.

  Klyk dropped down from the ceiling with an agile flip and landed on his feet. He set the boys down right side up.

  “Yeah, baby!” Kevin shouted, and gave TJ a high five.

  “Those dudes didn’t even see it coming!”

  “Don’t celebrate just yet,” Klyk warned them. “Look!”

  From the doorway of the control room, Kevin squinted down the corridor. The glass dome encasing Nuzz’s brain glimmered in the overhead lights.

  “Get him!” Kevin shouted.

  Kevin, TJ, and Klyk all opened fire on one of the galaxy’s two most wanted aliens. ZAP! ZAP! PYOO! PYOO! SWOOMP! The hallway of the spaceship lit up with the laser beams, photon blasts, and shots from the freeze ray.

  But Nuzz remained unaffected—unfrozen, unshrunk, and unscathed.

  “What the—” Kevin said.

  “He must have some kind of force field!” TJ said.

  The hologram face on the glass case protecting Nuzz’s brain cackled at them evilly. Kevin looked at the mini reptilians and full-sized unconscious Kamilions on the floor around them. All the exits on the corridor clanked shut except for the one next to Nuzz.

  Kevin, TJ, and Klyk raced out of the control room after Nuzz, but the maniacal alien brain-monger was already slipping away through the last open exit.

  Just before he made his getaway, the mechanical alien brainiac rolled something toward Kevin, TJ, and Klyk.

  Nuzz skittered out of the hallway, and the door slammed shut behind him.

  Kevin watched as the metallic ball Nuzz had rolled at them stopped directly in front of them.

  “We have to get out of here!” Klyk shouted frantically. “It’s a fume grenade!” Their humongous alien cyborg friend squatted down in front of the locked door and lifted with all his might. The door didn’t budge an inch.

  In the middle of the corridor, the metallic ball opened up and let out some kind of white gas that filled the volume of the hallway.

  Kevin choked and gagged on the gas. TJ coughed and sputtered. The mini reptilians passed out immediately.

  Klyk tried to lift the spaceship door one more time, but it was no use.

  Kevin looked at Klyk helplessly with his eyebrows raised.

  Klyk opened his mouth and spoke through the cloud of noxious fumes. “It’s a sleep grenade,” Klyk said. “We’re in troub—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, the big alien cyborg swooned and toppled to the ground with a thud. TJ’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled into a heap of limp limbs.

  Kevin’s mind went blank before he even hit the floor.

  Kevin’s eyes popped open, and a sharp, stinging pain stunned his vision. His temples throbbed from a splitting headache. He couldn’t move his feet or his arms. His wrists were shackled to a metal seat. Next to him, TJ and Klyk sat captive, restrained in prisoner seats of their own. Kevin looked around and saw they were being held in the main flight deck and operations center of Zouric and Nuzz’s ship. A huge viewport window curved in a semicircle around the room above a massive control panel.

  Kevin had a clear view of their frozen science camp, the forest in the distance, and the night sky up above. How long had they been knocked out for? Kevin had no idea. The reptilian army surrounded the massive room, blocking all the exits. Mixed in with the Kamilion army, the entire girls’ soccer camp trained their brainwashed gazes on Kevin, TJ, and Klyk. Marcy stood stiffly at the front of the platoon of brainwashed soccer players.

  Tara and Warner stood at the front on either side of Zouric and Nuzz, the galaxy’s two most wanted aliens.

  “Let us go!” TJ shouted at Zouric and Nuzz.

  “I’d be quiet if I were you,” Klyk muttered to the boys.

  “I would listen to your oversized friend,” Nuzz agreed. He skittered forward on his robotic legs to get closer to his prisoners. “Resisting the inevitable will only make matters worse. And as you’ll see, there’s nothing any of you can do.” Nuzz’s robotic arm motioned to a large bank of video monitors above the control panel. On the screens, various shots from all over the western hemisphere showed cities being taken over by the mind-controlling nanobugs. “Take a look for yourselves. We’ve already succeeded with our mission. Within the hour, half of your planet’s population will be under our control. By tomorrow morning, the entire planet will be ours. And there’s nothing you can do about it.” Nuzz cackled. “How does that make you feel?”

  Kevin and TJ said nothing, but Kevin’s stomach sank at
the sight of his fellow humans being brainwashed by Nuzz’s nanoserum.

  Nuzz continued, addressing Kevin, “Without further ado, allow me to induct you and your friend into my army of slaves.”

  Kevin watched as Zouric handed two of the nanobugs to Tara. She took off one of the force field gloves and approached the boys, holding the robotic mind-control insect. The nanowasp squirmed and wriggled menacingly between her fingertips.

  “Tara, it’s me!” Kevin pleaded with her. “Tara, I know you’re in there. Don’t do this!”

  “She can’t hear you,” Nuzz said. “She only answers to me now.”

  Tara stepped behind Kevin, and the nanobug buzzed loudly in his ear.

  “What about me?” Klyk asked Nuzz. “What happens to me?”

  “For you,” said Nuzz, “Zouric and I have a much different fate in mind. You will be sent to a most unfriendly place.”

  “And where might that be?” Klyk asked.

  “Garmonbozia,” Nuzz said slowly, savoring each syllable. “You’ve heard of it, I’m sure. A most unpleasant place. I’m also certain you’ve never been there, because once you go there, you never leave.”

  Klyk’s expression changed instantly from defiance to fear.

  Zouric gestured to Warner, and Warner walked toward them. He stepped behind Klyk and held the wormhole generator to the back of his head.

  “This is it,” Nuzz said. “Prepare to meet your doom!”

  The buzzing of the nanobug between Tara’s thumb and forefinger made Kevin’s head swim. He was out of ideas. How could he have let this happen? He and TJ were about to become Zouric and Nuzz’s brainwashed minions along with the rest of the world.

  “Well, buddy.” Kevin gulped down the panic filling up in his chest. “I guess this is it. . . .”

  TJ looked over at his friend. “It was nice knowing you, Kev.”

  “You too, TJ,” Kevin said, his mind reeling. Was this really how it was going to end? “Klyk, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry I shrink-rayed you. If you had been big this whole time, we might have gotten out of this.”

  “You didn’t know any better. No one can tell the future,” Klyk said. “But from the look of it right now, our time’s about to be up.”

  Tara moved the robotic insect closer to Kevin’s neck, preparing to inject the nanovenom into Kevin’s brain stem. TJ squirmed in his seat to Kevin’s right as the nanobug aimed its snout at the back of Kevin’s neck.

  Warner clicked on the power cell of the wormhole generator and it charged up with an electric hum.

  Klyk tried desperately to wrestle out of the shackles, but they were far too strong. “You’ll never get away with this!” he shouted at Nuzz.

  Nuzz chuckled. “We already have.” The alien brainiac nodded at Tara and Warner.

  Kevin winced and crinkled his brow, tensing up as he waited to be pricked.

  “Get on with it,” Nuzz commanded her.

  But Kevin didn’t feel a thing. The stinger never pierced the back of his neck.

  Kevin whipped his head around just in time to see Tara spring into action. She threw the nanobug onto the ground and stamped it into a blue splotch. She slipped the force field gloves back on and lunged for Warner, grabbing him by the arm. Warner jerked back, shucking off her grip, but Tara snatched the wormhole generator off his wrist before he could blast Klyk into another dimension. With lightning-quick reflexes, Zouric and Nuzz drew their alien weaponry and fired at Tara. She dropped down on one knee as the shots from their ray guns whizzed past her head. Tara did a forward roll and came up with both hands powered up in the force field gloves.

  Zouric and Nuzz fired right at her. Their aim was true, but the shots deflected off the force field and ricocheted throughout the room. Quickly she clasped the wormhole generator onto her forearm and aimed it at Nuzz.

  “Freeze, sleazeball!” she shouted triumphantly.

  “Tara, wait!” TJ called out from his seat. “Don’t shoot him! We need him to shut down the mind-control network. He’s the only one who has the encryption key!”

  “I got it covered, TJ.” Tara smiled. She pulled something out of her pocket that looked similar to a flash drive. “I lifted it off this lamebrain when he wasn’t paying attention.”

  “I thought you were brainwashed!” Nuzz said to Tara.

  “I was faking,” Tara said, her lip curling into a devilish smirk. “The nanobugs didn’t get me. The armor we made covered the back of my neck. I just did everything that Warner did. Because he actually was brainwashed.”

  “Smart thinking,” TJ said. “But what’s the plan now?”

  “I’m going to blast these two intergalactic idiots wherever they were going to send Klyk.”

  “You think you’ve won.” Nuzz cackled. “But the wheels are already in motion.”

  “Oh, you’re about to be in motion all right. Through the wormhole.” She paused for a second. “Tell Morgan Freeman I said what’s up.”

  Tara fired the generator and the wormhole twisted across the room, catching the alien mastermind in its vortex. Within a few seconds, Nuzz vanished into thin air.

  Tara then pointed the generator on Zouric. “You too, buster!”

  The seven-foot Gastropod yawped at the Kamilions, but Tara fired the wormhole generator once more and drilled Zouric in the chest. A moment later, Zouric disappeared, joining his partner in a very unfriendly place.

  “Tara, look out!” Kevin warned as Warner leaped onto her back, trying to wrestle her to the floor. Tara steadied herself and elbowed Warner in the ribs, flinging him off her. Warner came roaring back at her and she punched at him with a force field glove, knocking him back against the wall.

  Warner slumped to the floor as Tara raced over and clicked the release button to unshackle her friends. The restraints popped off and Kevin, TJ, and Klyk stood up next to Tara.

  “You just knocked Warner out. That was awesome!” TJ said, a little awestruck by what had just gone down. “I mean, not for him . . . he’s probably going to have a concussion.”

  They looked around at the reptilian army closing in on them. The Kamilions aimed their ray guns right at the four of them, but Tara held up her force field gloves and aimed the wormhole generator threateningly at the vanguard of brainwashed reptilians. The Kamilions backed off slightly, but kept their weapons trained on the crew. Their yellow eyes burned with brainwashed fury, still under the spell of Nuzz’s mind control.

  Klyk spun around and raced to the nearest exit. Four Kamilions blocked their escape. He stepped up to the reptilian foursome and they lurched at the gigantic cyborg, jumping for him all at once. Klyk whirled around with a fearsome backhand that sent two of them flying across the room and slamming into the wall. The remaining two clung to Klyk, trying to drag him down, but Klyk was stronger than both of them combined. He elbowed one of them to the ground and then grabbed the fourth one by the head, whirling the man-sized reptile like a hammer and launching him into the oncoming horde.

  Kevin sprinted over to the door and pushed the button to open it up. “Come on!” he shouted.

  “What about Warner?” TJ yelled. Klyk raced over to their brainwashed friend. The humongous cyborg threw Warner over his shoulder, and the four of them sprinted back through the alien mother ship, leaving the soccer campers and reptilian army behind.

  “This way!” Klyk shouted, and led the way back to the control room, lugging Warner’s conked-out body over his immense shoulder.

  The five of them piled inside and sealed the door shut behind them. TJ sat down at the alien computer system.

  Tara handed him the flash drive and he plugged it into the mainframe.

  As they waited for the encryption key to activate, Kevin watched the security monitors. A tide of reptilians filled up the corridors, making their way through the spaceship toward the control room.

  “Wait!” TJ said, a hint of panic in his voice. “Wait, wait, no!”

  “What is it?” Kevin asked.

  “It’s asking for
a password.” TJ pointed to the screen, where a little cartoon image of Nuzz had appeared alongside a box for a password.

  “What the heck would that dude’s password be?” Tara asked.

  Klyk pulled up Nuzz’s profile on the 3D hologram. They tried his place of birth on his home planet. Then they tried the date he became a walking, talking brain machine. But the little cartoon Nuzz icon shook his finger no at both attempts.

  “I mean, I always use the name of my dog for my password,” Tara said. “But I don’t think Nuzz has any pets.”

  Kevin’s eyes lit up and he looked at Klyk. “That’s not true,” Kevin said, leaning over the keyboard. “He’s got a big slimy thing that tried to eat me.” Kevin typed in the word “burbles” and hit the Return button.

  The pass code registered, and the encryption key started to unlock the mind-control mainframe.

  “Way to go, Kevin!” Tara cried. “You’re the man, man!”

  “Thanks, Tara,” Kevin said. “You’re the man, too. I mean, you know, the girl version.”

  Once the encryption code hit 100 percent, TJ tapped a few more buttons and then tapped the Return key. “Done! The nanovenom should be cut off from the wireless signal now.”

  Klyk sat Warner down in the seat next to TJ and patted his face, trying to wake him up. Kevin came over by his friend and shook him, but Warner was out cold.

  Up on the monitor, the Kamilions and soccer campers alike halted their march through the labyrinth of corridors. They grabbed at their heads and rubbed their eyes, disoriented and groggy.

  As they came out of their brainwashed haze, Marcy and the rest of the soccer girls looked around at the giant alien lizard men surrounding them. A collective high-pitched shriek rang out through the entire mother ship. The soccer girls pushed through the Kamilions, frantically running for their lives. The reptilian army scratched their scaly heads in confusion.

  WONK! WONK! WONK! WONK! Suddenly a honking sound blared throughout the alien mother ship. Red emergency lights flashed as the alarm sirens wailed.