Lab Rats in Space

by Bruno Bouchet

  ‘What are they?’ KT asked.

  ‘Zorbats,’ replied XL. ‘They live on asteroids with no atmosphere, attack ships and destroy everything and everyone on them. Then they feed on the remains.’

  ‘If we don’t open anything they can’t get in,’ said Emm. ‘We could just fly faster and they might fall off.’

  ‘Each of them is secreting a fluid that burns through the side of the ship. Once one gets through, the others pour in,’ explained XL.

  ‘How do we stop them? Can’t we shake them off?’ Dee asked.

  ‘There is no information on how to stop zorbats once they land on a ship,’ he continued.

  ‘Can we send out a pulse?’ asked Zed. ‘There must be something we can do!’

  ‘The only option is to seal off the section of the ship and head for the nearest planet. They cannot survive in a planetary atmosphere.’

  XL had scanned all available knowledge. His plan was the only option he could come up with.

  ‘Let’s do that!’ Zed suggested.

  The computer revealed that the nearest planet with an atmosphere was more than a day away.

  ‘How long will it take them to burn through the side of the ship?’ Zed asked.

  The answer came as the computer’s alarm announced, ‘Intruder alert, intruder alert’.

  ‘Look!’ Jay pointed to the screen. Like water surging down a plughole, the zorbats were pouring across the surface of the ship into a hole on the side of the ship.

  Zed leapt into action. ‘Come on, we’ve got to seal them in before they attack the rest of the ship! Where’s the hole?’

  XL flashed up the exact section of the ship on the screen. They could now see the zorbats pouring in from the inside. They had penetrated the gym.

  ‘Block the entrance to the gym,’ shouted Zed.

  ‘Come on everyone.’

  He ran out. They needed weapons of some sort but the ship didn’t carry any weapons.

  ‘The kitchen!’ he thought. At least there were knives there. It was the nearest they had to weapons. They grabbed knives and ran back towards the gym.

  The gym doors were sealed off but it was only a matter of time before the zorbats burned through them as well.

  ‘We’ll just have to attack them one by one as they come through and keep going for as long as we can.’ Zed stood ready.

  ‘We better take it in turns. We can’t all stand around the hole,’ said Dee. ‘Two work while the others rest.’

  ‘Good idea. We’re going to have to keep going for a whole day. You and me first, Dee,’ Zed replied.

  She joined him, knife in one hand, hammer hand ready.

  Zed had a knife in all three hands. He smiled across at her.

  ‘Reckon the hammer’s pretty useful now.’

  The door started buckling in front of them.

  ‘Here they come!’ KT said. He, Jay and Emm had stood back. A back-up line of defence in case some escaped past the front row.

  They waited as the metal started to wobble. It became more and more like a sheet of plastic. They could hear the noise of wings beating. The gym must have been full of zorbats.

  ‘I’m not waiting for them,’ Zed declared. ‘Do your worst Dee!’

  She knew exactly what he meant and swung her hammer hand to the melting door and smashed it through. There was a squeal and then silence. Zed was ready with his knives, determined that not a single zorbat would get past him.

  Nothing happened. No creatures came out. Just silence.

  Zed peered into the hole, gripping his knives tight.

  Bam! A zorbat flew right into his face and sent him flying back. Suddenly, a hundred creatures shot through the hole. Their diamond bodies curled into a tight roll so they could charge through. They surrounded the Lab Rats. The children lashed out with their knives. Dee smashed as many as she could with her hammer, but more poured through, screeching so loud that they drowned out the emergency signal.

  Zed recovered his footing after the first zorbat rushed him and slashed away at the creatures. It took several goes to kill one of them. There was no way they would be able to keep them back.

  ‘Retreat!’ he shouted. They ran as fast as they could to the corridor door.

  ‘Seal the corridor!’ Two doors slid across the corridor shutting off the zorbats. Four had managed to fly through. One had flown straight into Emm and knocked her to the floor. It spread out over her, beating its tail on the floor like a happy dog.

  ‘Get it off me!’

  KT grabbed the creature’s tail, pulled it towards him and plunged his knife into its back, over and over again.

  Dee had trapped one of the other creatures against a wall with her hammer. She had lost her knife so she stuck her iron fingernails into the beast, feeling its cold wet flesh on her fingers. Three goes with her screwdriver fingers and it was dead.

  Zed struggled with the two remaining zorbats, which attacked him from either side. As he fought in front of him, he waved his third knife behind his back. Both zorbats had ignored Jay and flown at Zed. Jay jumped into the fight and attacked one of the space beasts with his knife. Zed concentrated on the other.

  The first four zorbats were dead, but there were thousands more about to burst in at them.

  ‘Why didn’t that one attack Jay?’ Dee asked. ‘Did any of them attack you Jay?’

  ‘I killed some, I did!’ he said.

  ‘I know, but they didn’t attack you,’ Dee replied.

  ‘Whatever, we need to find a way of killing them faster.’ Zed wanted another plan of attack.

  They looked at the dead creatures on the floor.

  Their undersides were pocked with big warts with holes in the top where their acid was secreted.

  ‘Disgusting!’ said KT.

  ‘And they stink, it’s really getting up my nose,’ said Jay.

  ‘That’s the last thing we need,’ said Emm, ‘one of your sneezing fits.’

  ‘I think… it’s… tooo… arhh arhh,’ Jay had a sneeze coming on.

  He stood back to keep away from the others.

  ‘Arhh… Arh…’

  Just as he was about to sneeze, Dee pushed him forwards so he was right over a dead zorbat.

  ‘Chooo!’

  Jay’s snot flew out and covered the creature.

  ‘Gross on gross!’ Emm declared.

  ‘Why did you push me?’ Jay asked Dee, his nose still full of snot.

  ‘Look.’ She pointed at the dead zorbat. The snot was dissolving the creature.

  ‘That’s why they didn’t attack you,’ Dee said. ‘Your snot dissolves them—your nose is the best weapon we have.’

  ‘Fantastic!’ Zed shouted. ‘Good thinking Dee and great sneezing Jay. Here’s our plan.’

  Emm took Jay to the walk-in freezer in the kitchen.

  ‘Pepper, chilli, whatever you can find to make him sneeze, throw it at him. Take his clothes off, wet him and made him cold,’ Zed instructed her.

  ‘That’s not…’ Jay didn’t have time to say ‘fair’ before he was in the freezer in his underpants soaking wet and sneezing away into buckets.

  KT fetched the water sprays. Dee diluted the snot with water and filled the spray bottles.

  Zed kept guard at the sealed door. It was already beginning to buckle. He wiped his hands in Jay’s snot which had hit the dead zorbat and smeared it on the doors. With any luck they’d melt their way through the door and then be melted themselves. He hoped it would hold them off until the weapons were ready.

  As Dee ran down the corridor loaded up with spray guns, the hole in the door began to dissolve. There was a shriek and then the horrible eerie silence again.

  ‘Here,’ she shouted, from fifteen metres away. She threw the water bottles in the air, one by one and hit them with her hammer, using it as a baseball bat. Three water sprayers came flying down the corridor. Zed caught two in his front hands and turned just in time to spray the first zorbat while he caught the third bottle in his rear hand.

&n
bsp; The zorbats poured through. This time Zed was ready. He sprayed in every direction. The zorbats screeched, some tried to fly past but fell to the ground. Some did make it past him, only to fall into Dee’s spray. She misted the snot into the air, they flew into it and collapsed. She worked her way forwards to Zed.

  ‘Where are the others?’ asked Zed. ‘We’ll need everyone if we’re going to drive them back.’

  ‘They’ll be here soon.’

  Zed and Dee held their ground as wave after wave of zorbat came at them. Soon the floor was covered in piles of melting zorbats.

  ‘Even if I could remember the rest of my life,’ said Dee, ‘this is the grossest thing I’ve ever done.’

  Loaded up with spray and refill bottles, KT, Emm and Jay arrived to join the fight.

  ‘Are we ready?’ Zed asked.

  ‘YES!’ everyone shouted.

  ‘Computer, open the doors and… CHARGE!’

  The five Lab Rats charged forward spraying everything around them. The corridor on the other side of the doors was full of zorbats. They virtually swam through the horrid creatures, spraying Jay’s snot on everything.

  They sprayed and sprayed until their fingers were sore from pulling the triggers. They swapped hands, used different fingers and zorbat after zorbat fell to the ground.

  ‘It’s still no good!’ shouted KT. ‘There’s too many.’

  ‘Keep going KT, just keep going!’ Zed shouted back.

  In the control room XL would have been perched on the edge of his seat if he could move. All he could see on the security cameras was a forest of zorbats and glimpses of the Rats. He was so proud and yet so scared. He told the computer to switch to the outside monitors. The outside of the ship was clean. All the zorbats were inside. The Rats had a big fight on their hands.

  As he watched the battle on the screen, he could see what the Rats could not. Despite the zorbats flying at them, they were inching forward.

  ‘I don’t know how much more I can do!’ Jay was exhausted.

  ‘Just sneeze then!’ shouted Dee.

  Jay sighed. His nose was his sorest part, but he had to do everything he could.

  He grabbed a zorbat tail and shoved it up his nose.

  ‘Arhh. Arhh… choo!’ Zorbats immediately flew away from him. He had a space around him.

  ‘Forwards!’ Zed urged Jay on. He was the only one that could make the zorbats flee. Jay ran forward and shoved a tail up his nose again.

  ‘Ow… choo!’ The corridor shook with the force of Jay’s nose and every zorbat in front of them was swept back in the torrent of air and snot.

  On the control deck, XL could see zorbats flying out of the hole in the ship. They were running away. The zorbats surged out in spurts like a whale blowing water out of its blowhole. It was Jay’s sneezes that drove them away. He was growing more powerful and stronger as he moved forward, sneeze by sneeze.

  The others had stopped. Jay just walked forward, sneezing and pushing the zorbats away.

  ‘He’s amazing… the power of his nose is unbelievable.’ Zed was in awe. They followed Jay as he made his way to the gym. He chased the creatures right up to the hole they entered through until every zorbat had flown out.

  Just one remained in the gym, flying around trying to avoid Jay. The others, their fingers sore and blistered from so much spraying, gathered around it and waited for their hero’s cue.

  ‘Fire!’ yelled Jay and the four other Lab Rats pressed their triggers for the last time.

  The final zorbat dropped to the ground.

  Chapter 15

  A Testing Time

  The Research Station was in its worst mood ever. It was never in a good mood but few could remember Professor Xanax being so angry. He had been in bad moods before, but he normally wiped everyone’s memory so they couldn’t remember. Everyone was on edge, worried that their memories might be wiped at any moment.

  Bumface was in her lab. It was back to its spotless order after the chaos of the Lab Rats’ escape. None of the lab assistants spoke. The only noise was the rattle of test tubes as the assistants’ hands shook with nerves.

  Bumface was attempting to graft an elephant’s trunk onto a parrot. It didn’t serve any purpose but it might cheer Xanax up to watch as the poor parrot tried to flap its wings and fly with a massive trunk. She wasn’t having much success. The operation required very delicate surgery but every time she was almost done, Xanax’s holographic head would burst into the middle of the lab.

  ‘All leave for all assistants in sector 9 has been cancelled for the next five years,’ he growled and then vanished.

  Bumface pursed her lips so hard the wrinkles around her mouth grew bigger and tighter as she tried to concentrate on her work.

  ‘All lab assistants in sector 3 have been fired, please report to the departure bay for immediate expulsion from the station,’ Xanax snarled again.

  Bumface tried one more time. If only she could perfect the experiment, Xanax might snap out of his horrible terrible mood. The fact that the Lab Rats had escaped from the Interworlder cargo ship made him furious and his fury hadn’t softened with time. The longer he went without knowing where the Lab Rats were, the angrier Xanax became.

  Bumface was afraid he would blow up the whole station just out of spite. Once again she lowered her eye to the microscope to connect the last important nerve from the elephant’s trunk to the parrot.

  ‘Bumface,’ Xanax appeared once again. He had taken to using the name the Lab Rats gave her. She didn’t like it. Bumface looked up at the holograph. Xanax wore the closest thing to a smile on his face she had seen since the escape.

  ‘Report to my personal laboratory for your performance appraisal!’

  Bumface’s heart sank. On the Research Station, Xanax tested everyone’s performance. It was nothing to do with how well they did their job, he measured how well they performed in random tests to see how much pain they could withstand. Xanax said it was vital research but Bumface had never seen any results. As one of his most senior assistants, Bumface normally didn’t have a performance appraisal. But while he was in this mood, anyone could be tested.

  One of the other lab assistants grunted, trying to suppress a laugh.

  ‘Makes a nice change,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘Silence!’ she said as calmly as she could. She didn’t want anyone to know how scared she was. She walked up to the assistant, looked at the neatly arranged test tubes he had been working on and slowly pushed them all off the bench, smiling as they smashed on the floor.

  ‘Clear up this mess before I return!’ Bumface commanded. She grabbed the parrot with the trunk and headed to the professor’s personal lab.

  She was hoping the parrot would save her from the pain tests but if it didn’t, she had a back-up plan. She’d discovered some information in the Rats’ data files which might help locate them.

  The Typetor was hovering at the door when Bumface arrived. Its screen was splashed with dirt and scratched where Xanax had thrown things at it. The Typetor had been programmed to self-clean as often as possible. It had also been programmed for complete obedience to Xanax, who had commanded that it not wipe its screen. The Typetor was as close to agony as a computer could get, programmed to hate being dirty and yet commanded not to clean itself.

  It flashed a ‘Please clean my screen’ message to Bumface, hoping she would wipe it. Bumface snarled, and wiped the parrot’s backside on the screen. She was in no mood to be nice.

  ‘Bumface,’ the professor said to her and pointed to the pain threshold testing chair, ‘do sit down… just routine, as you know. Everyone must have their performance appraised.’

  ‘Yes professor,’ Bumface tried to smile.

  The chair looked like a comfortable old armchair. It even reclined. When anybody first sat there, it seemed harmless and very comfy. However, as the victim sank into the chair, tiny magnetic hooks gripped them, entered their skin without them realising and connected directly into their nerves. Th
e professor could then send any sensations he wanted to the subject’s brain.

  Bumface knew what the chair could do. She perched on the edge of it.

  ‘Please, make yourself comfortable,’ Xanax commanded her. She sat back in the chair, clutching the parrot with the trunk, hoping it might save her.

  The parrot squawked.

  ‘What’s this?’ the professor’s interest was peaked.

  ‘I thought perhaps it might amuse,’ Bumface offered her most horrible smile, placed the creature on the floor and sat back in the chair. The parrot flapped and flapped its wings trying to take off into the air, but it could not lift its huge trunk. Backwards and forwards, its wings flew but it simply did not have the strength. Eventually the bird gave up and collapsed on the floor with a pitiful little squawk.

  The professor arched his eyebrow.

  ‘Not exactly going to conquer the universe is it?’ he said. ‘You’ve been wasting my resources on this? HOW DARE YOU!’

  The professor projected holographic images of his head, surrounding Bumface as he screamed, ‘THIS IS NOT AN AMUSEMENT PARK, IT IS A RESEARCH STATION!’

  He decided to push Bumface’s pain threshold tests to level 89F—the highest possible level only a few species in the universe could survive.

  ‘I did some probability tests on the children’s decision making based on their races, ages and gender mix.’ Bumface quickly turned to her back-up plan.

  Xanax held his finger dramatically above the ‘begin test’ button.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I examined all the data including their intelligence levels, their races and also the facilities on the type of ship they are on. Taking into account variations of…’

  Xanax interrupted her with a sharp jab of pain. It was only at level 62D so it was agony but bearable.

  She screamed and then composed herself.

  ‘Quickly Bumface, I’ve plenty of experiments to complete today.’

  ‘With a majority of boys on board, the most likely outcome is that they will wander space aimlessly, never finding anything. And they will not be found either.’