We pulled into a gas station. I noticed a motorcycle leaning up against the building, hidden behind some bushes. A short, skinny guy in a black leather jacket, wearing a black bandanna on his head and aviator glasses, walked to the van.
“Look at this punk,” said Agent Mathison.
“Who do you expect pumps gas out here?” said Agent Quinn.
“At least you get your windows cleaned,” said Agent Mathison. She jerked her thumb toward the back.
I turned around. The guy wiping the back window and grinning at us was Eddie.
Thirty-six
RONNIE
SOMEWHERE IN SPACE
2012
I’D never been on a plane—much less a spaceship—before. The takeoff was noisy and bumpy. I squeezed Buddy until he started squirming. Sorry. I felt breakfast coming up into my throat. It tasted worse this time. I swallowed it back down. That tasted even worse. My mouth was dry. I was scared. Tom must have noticed, because he smiled at me and gave me a little tap on the shoulder. That surprised me. He was trying to make me feel better. It did make me feel better until I thought, Things must really be bad for Tom to act nice.
Friendship One climbed for a while. The people in blue jumpsuits were busy with levers and dials. On the screens in front of them I could see views from all around us, Earth getting smaller and the sun getting dimmer and the moon paler and space darker.
No escape now. For the first time since I’d been on my own, there was literally no way out. I’m in a spaceship heading to wherever, I thought, and I can’t just slip away and get back on the road. Trapped. And who knows what’s up there? Even when those G-men had had me, I had been thinking about how to escape, imagining that Eddie would come for me. Never thought it would be Tom.
I looked at Tom now. He was staring at the back of the pilot’s head as if he was trying to get into his mind. Sometimes I thought he could do that. I was always careful to jumble up my thoughts when he was staring at me. Sometimes I thought I could feel a little tickle in my brain, as if Tom was poking at it. Now I hoped he was getting into the pilot’s mind, maybe finding out what was going on. Maybe even learning how to fly this plane.
Sooner or later, someone was going to find out the truth about me, and it would be too bad if it was someone like Keith or Dr. Traum who found out first, before my friends did. Eddie deserved to be the first to know, but I wasn’t sure how he would take it after all this time. He was a straight arrow. Maybe he’d feel I’d lied to him. He might be angry and hurt.
Then there was Alessa. She was a good, kindhearted person. She might help me. Britzky wouldn’t care—he might even say he’d known all along. I wondered about Tom. He wasn’t as mean as I had always thought.
A voice over a loudspeaker said, “PREPARE TO LAUNCH.”
“Ready for launch,” said the pilot.
Keith looked around, making sure we were all strapped in. He didn’t want us to get hurt. He needed us.
WHOP.
It felt as if we’d been shot out of a cannon. We all jerked back into our seats. On the screens, the big plane was falling away and the piggyback plane with us inside was flying farther into space. Earth got even smaller behind us and space up ahead got darker and deeper.
My ears popped.
“Don’t worry about that,” said the pilot. “The pressure adjusts automatically.”
The popping stopped, but it felt as though there were cotton in my ears. It took a moment before I realized Tom was talking to me.
“You okay?” He sounded as if he cared. Or maybe he was like Keith—he needed me for something.
“Yeah.”
“What do you think happened to Alessa and Britzky?”
I shrugged. “You worried about them?”
“Duh.” He looked at me in a funny way. I felt that mind tickle.
“Cut that out,” I said.
“Cut what out?”
“Trying to get in my head.”
“How can you tell?”
“There’s like a little tickle.”
He frowned. “Got to work on that.”
Tom touched my arm and pointed at Keith, who was leaning across the pilot and the other men to say to the director, “Do you want to review your proposals to the aliens?”
She shook her head. “This is not a negotiation, Agent Novak. I’m giving them an ultimatum. They can allow us to use their planet as a space station or we can blast them out of the sky.”
“Perhaps we might start from a friendlier position, Director,” said Keith. “All the years I’ve been monitoring them, I’ve never picked up any hostile vibrations.”
“Exactly,” she said. “If these aliens were any kind of real threat, they would have invaded Earth and taken us over years ago. So we have nothing to worry about.”
Keith sighed and leaned back in his chair. He looked unhappy.
I could see that Tom was fighting to keep his mouth shut. He lost. He shouted out, “What if they’re trying to make the universe a better place?”
The director said over her shoulder, “Tom, you’re too old to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. The aliens are only out for themselves.”
“We’re not like you,” Tom said. “We’re not even human beings.”
I could tell Tom knew he’d made a mistake even before the director and Keith whirled around in their seats to face him.
“What do you mean by ‘we,’ Tom?” the director asked.
Thirty-seven
EDDIE
EN ROUTE TO THE RIVERBOAT SPACE STATION
2012
I FELT hot and cold, standing in the front of the shuttle as it headed toward Riverboat. All I could think about was seeing Dad again. For two years, I had thought he was dead, and then, six months ago, I saw him for just a moment as Dr. Traum’s prisoner. Dad had let himself be captured so Tom and I could go free. I had cried as I’d watched him go up an open elevator into the belly of Riverboat.
Before the bay doors had closed behind him that day, I had yelled, “Dad!” and I thought he’d looked at me and smiled. I thought I heard him transmit, See you later, alligator! That was one of our favorite expressions.
I was thinking of that when Alessa and Britzky squeezed my arms. They could tell that Dad was on my mind. They were excited for me. I felt really good about them as my friends.
Rescuing them had been so groovy.
I don’t know how Hercules had locked the front doors of the van from the outside, but the agents were inside, banging on the doors, while I melted the back door lock to let Alessa and Britzky out. I had been psyched until I’d realized that had been strictly newbie-boobie stuff for a halfie. I needed to do better with my powers.
After Alessa hugged me, Britzky had started to hug me, then stopped as if he had remembered something. He backed away, and I saw the stain on his pants.
“Forget it,” I said. “I did that once in a football game.”
It wasn’t true, but it was worth lying for the way he said, “Thanks.”
The guy who ran the gas station had been busy in the back when we pulled in, and now he came out running and yelling. He had a shotgun in his hands.
I looked at Hercules, who grinned at me. His arms were folded across his chest. “You know how to deal with this.”
It was almost too easy. The moment the gun started wiggling in the gas guy’s hand, I had an excellent idea. I imagined the snake taking the bottom of the guy’s pants in his fangs and trying to pull them off. The guy frantically unbuckled his belt, dropped his pants, and jumped out of them. Then he turned and ran away.
I imagined the snake slithering after him, and then I picked up the pants and handed them to Britzky.
Hercules clapped his hands. “You’re not as dumb as you look, Eddie.”
Britzky went into the bathroom to change while Alessa went inside the station and found the food and soda machines. She didn’t have any money, so I cracked them open for her—more newbie-boobie stuff, no imagination. I felt ba
d about stealing, but when I heard the two agents yelling and banging inside the locked van, I thought, Well, under the circumstances . . .
We were filling a bag with cookies and water when a gray box with wings about the size of the van landed in a field behind the gas station. I thought, That has to be the shuttlecraft.
We had piled in, all four of us. The shuttle had lifted straight up. And now, minutes later, Earth was the size of a basketball below us.
“That was amazing, Eddie,” said Britzky. “What made the guy drop the gun and take off his pants?”
“The snake made him do it,” I said.
“You made him think there was a snake?” said Alessa. “Just with your mind?”
“Your alien powers,” said Britzky. “Could you get into my mind?”
“I haven’t tried,” I said. That was true.
“Better not,” said Alessa.
“You’re my friends,” I said. “Why would I need to?”
Alessa and Britzky looked at each other. What did that look mean? I thought about trying to get into their minds to find out but decided it would be wrong.
“Heads up,” said Hercules, pointing to the shuttle’s rearview screens. “We’ve got company.”
A blue craft shaped like an airliner, the words FRIENDSHIP ONE on its fuselage, was cruising behind us.
“They’re less than a half hour away,” said Hercules. “Maybe you can tune Tom in. Space is pretty clear here.”
I felt dumb for not coming up with that idea myself. I focused all my energy into piercing the plane’s blue skin. I picked up a fuzzy image of Buddy right away, then Ronnie and Tom.
Yo, bro.
Where are you, Eddie?
In front of you. Heading to Riverboat. Alessa and Britzky are here.
They’re okay?
Yeah.
Is Dad on Riverboat?
I hope so, Tom.
So’s that creep Dr. Traum.
Hercules chuckled and I said, “Tom didn’t really mean that.”
“Of course he did,” said Hercules, his voice sounding even more like Dr. Traum’s. “You never have to apologize for honesty among Primary People. And as Mark Twain said, ‘If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.’”
Eddie, you still there?
Yeah.
I’ve got to make this quick. We can’t trust Lump and the director. Lump might be able to hear our conversations. And there are soldiers on board here and they have guns.
I heard static, then nothing. I looked at Hercules.
“Tom’s in trouble.”
“Tom can take care of himself,” said Hercules. “Like you.”
The shuttle bumped against something and Hercules disappeared. His voice was inside my head. We’re here. Your dad’s waiting for you.
Thirty-eight
BRITZKY
THE RIVERBOAT SPACE STATION
2012
IF it were my movie, the scene of Eddie and his dad running toward each other would have been in slow motion. Alessa and I had been right behind Eddie as he’d walked through the passageway connecting the shuttlecraft to Riverboat. We had followed him into a docking area with room for other spaceships and then through a long hallway that led to a brightly lit white auditorium.
Dr. Traum had been standing on the front of the auditorium stage. He was the same short, skinny guy I remembered from six months ago, with a pale, smooth ordinary face, easy to forget except for the glittering green eyes. He was dressed in a white shirt that came down to his knees and black pants.
Behind him were maybe fifty people—really more like shapes—sitting in rows on the stage. They were grouped together by the colors of their long shirts—purple, red, and green. They looked sort of human, but their faces all looked alike, even with different skin colors and hair lengths.
Watching the shapes and colors on stage shift and meld and separate, I felt as if I were in a dream. I remembered when I’d mentioned the Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court back in the cafeteria when Hercules had first showed up. I hadn’t said that the whole story in the book turned out to be a dream for the hero after he was knocked out cold by a guy nicknamed Hercules. Did I want all of this to be just a dream?
Alessa had grabbed my arm then. “Look!”
A tall, thin man in a long white shirt like Dr. Traum’s had jumped off the stage and started running toward us.
Eddie had started running toward him.
They slammed into each other’s arms. They hugged for a long time. I think they were both crying.
“This is so sweet,” said Alessa now. We both giggled. We were feeling a lot better after all the water and cookies. I was even happy in my greasy gas-station pants, compared to what I’d been wearing. They almost fit around the waist. The legs were rolled up.
We were close enough to hear any conversation between Eddie and his dad, but they weren’t saying anything. After a while, they pulled apart just enough to look at each other. Then they touched foreheads. I figured they were doing their telepathy thing, mind to mind.
It seemed like a long time before they totally unhugged, but they kept their arms linked. Eddie pulled his dad toward us. “These are my best friends, Alessa and Britzky. They were with us at the insane asylum last year. This is my dad, John Tudor.”
“You’ve been very good friends to Eddie and Tom. Welcome.” He had a nice deep voice. He gave each of us a hug. “You’ve been in danger and you’ve been brave.”
“Not so brave,” I said. I looked at Alessa, who nodded me on. “We need to tell you something. The agents back on EarthOne know that Tom and Eddie are twins. We told them. We didn’t mean to—we were hungry and tired, and it just came out. I’m sorry.”
“I’m surprised you held out as long as you did,” Mr. Tudor said. “That was strong and brave. Don’t worry. By the time the agents communicate with their superiors, it won’t matter.”
“What’s happening here, Mr. Tudor?” said Alessa.
“The Supreme Council of the Primary People”—he gestured at the shapes on the stage—“have assembled. They represent the three governing bodies on Homeplace. The ones in green are Science; the ones in purple are Politics; the red ones are Art. They are going to make a decision on when to destroy the Earths.”
Before I could ask a question, I heard the loud scraping of metal on metal below us. It had to be another spaceship docking in Riverboat’s bay.
Mr. Tudor pulled Eddie toward a side door, opened it, and pushed Eddie into another room. “Stay out of sight.”
Alessa pulled my sleeve. “Did he say they’re deciding on when to destroy the Earths? Not whether?”
“Decisions can be changed,” I said. “The twins can do it.”
I hoped I sounded more sure than I felt.
Thirty-nine
TOM
SOMEWHERE IN SPACE
2012
I PROBED the director’s mind. All I found were sharp edges and red flags. I could tell she didn’t like me even before she whispered to the Lump, “I don’t like him.”
“When this is over, Director,” said the Lump in a soothing voice, “you can toss him into space. Right now, we need him alive. He may turn out to be a bargaining chip.”
The Lump winked at me. I couldn’t tell if he was signaling that he was on my side or on her side or if he was just telling me to keep my mouth shut. His mind was in lockdown.
“Get that brat out of here,” said the director.
Two guards were lifting me out of my chair when the pilot said, “Destination in view.”
I spotted what had to be Riverboat in a corner of one of the flight-deck screens.
“That’s it?” said the director. She sounded disappointed.
“What were you expecting?” I said. “The Death Star?”
“Kind of,” she said. “What was the place where the Borg hung out?”
“The Unicomplex,” I said.
“You would know that,” said
the director.
“I think that’s just a floating space station,” said the Lump, indicating the picture on the screen in front of them. “It’s not their planet.”
“Homestead?” said the director.
“Homeplace,” I snarled. “Better get it right if you expect them to listen to you.”
She shook her head. “I will deal with you later.” She signaled the guards. They dropped me back into the chair. One of them gave my arm a little twist on the way down. I couldn’t resist imagining one of his fingers breaking. He let out a cry of pain and clutched his hand. It was all in his head and his finger was physically fine. I shouldn’t have done it, though, as good as payback feels for the moment. Luckily, no one else was paying much attention. If people saw stuff like that happen, they could figure out that I have powers. I had to watch myself.
Riverboat slowly filled the screen. Its belly was open and lights shone from inside. After a while, a tube slid out and attached itself to our ship, right over the main hatch.
The hatch popped open. A digitized voice said, “You may enter. The passageway is pressurized for your safety.”
“Think we can trust them?” said the director.
“If they wanted to blow us away,” said the Lump, “we’d be dust by now.”
Buddy started barking at the screen. Ronnie shot me a smile. I imagined I heard him think, Buddy knows Eddie’s there.
“Let’s go,” said the director. She waved two armed guards to lead the way and two to bring up the rear.
The tube connecting us to Riverboat swayed as we walked over its shifting plastic plates. Buddy scampered ahead, squealing between barks, scurrying out of the tube and over a metal floor into a brightly lit white auditorium.
Buddy ran to a closed door, went up on his back legs, and began scratching. I figured Eddie was behind the door, hiding so that the director and the Lump wouldn’t know there were two of us.
Ronnie grabbed my arm. “Look!”
Alessa and Britzky were waving at us.
The Twin Powers Page 10