Lab Rats in Space

by Bruno Bouchet

  The ladder moved off at high speed, but it didn’t feel like they were rushing. There was no wind and absolutely no noise.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Emm. ‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man?’

  ‘I wasn’t asking a question,’ replied Miss Tennet. ‘It’s the activation code for the transport system. Some joke from so long ago that noone can remember where it’s from. Bit silly if you ask me. Why on any planet would a woman want to be more like a man?’

  ‘I agree,’ said Dee and stuck her tongue out at Zed, who curled his lip back at her.

  They soon reached Arrivals where they enrolled as members of the library, had their photographs taken, and were issued with library cards. Everyone in the universe was welcome to use the facilities at Libris but they had to join the library first.

  ‘There,’ Miss Tennet held a date stamp and stamped each of their library cards with their date of arrival.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about your problem and the best option is to take you down to Cataloguing and have you all scanned and cross-referenced with our species database… you can never go wrong with cross-referencing. We’ll have your species and home planets identified in no time. How does that sound?’

  ‘Fantastic!’ the children shouted. They had no idea it would be this easy. Zed regretted they had not come sooner.

  To get to Cataloguing, they had to go through the Great Hall—the oldest, most magnificent room on the entire planet. Just before they entered, Miss Tennet warned them.

  ‘No talking in here. Some of the finest minds from around the galaxy are studying and we don’t want to disturb them.’

  The Great Hall’s huge domed ceiling was made of frosted glass. The light shone through in an even glow— perfect for reading. From the floor to the bottom edge of the dome, there were rows of books. Thousands of books. At row upon row of desks, people sat surrounded by piles of books. Ladders swept silently around the bookcases, some travelled up and down too, reaching the very top shelves. There was absolutely no sound.

  Halfway through the hall, Zed brushed his rear hand on one of the desks. Without realising, he knocked a pen off and into a small paper bin. As it hit the metal, the noise echoed louder and louder thundering through the hall. Everyone looked up and glowered.

  Miss Tennet silently picked up the pen, replaced it on the desk and hurried the children along.

  Once outside the Great Hall, she spoke.

  ‘That was unfortunate. Give me your card, Zed.’

  She took his card and inserted it between two books in the wall on her left. A computer screen flashed in front of them.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid you have incurred a fine for that Zed. There is a very strict no noise in the Great Hall rule. We’ll have to sort that out before you leave.’

  ‘Miss Tennet,’ Dee had a sensible question, ‘if you have such great computers why are you still using books?’

  ‘The books themselves act as computer terminals linked into our central system. You can access every piece of information we have from any one book. We still have the books because some of us prefer to do it the old-fashioned way.’ She gave Dee a small smile, looking over the top of her glasses.

  In the Cataloguing section, they were all scanned and Miss Tennet began the cross-reference.

  ‘This will take longer than normal as we have to check every known life form.’

  ‘How long will it take?’ Katy asked.

  Miss Tennet held up her finger and looked through the corner of her eye. ‘That long!’ she smiled.

  The screen flashed up before them. There appeared to be a lot of information.

  ‘What does it all mean?’ Emm asked.

  ‘Most peculiar,’ she replied. ‘This cannot be right.’

  ‘What is it?’ Zed asked. The children stared at the screen. Even XL, the only one that could understand the information, did not believe what he saw on the screen.

  ‘It seems you are entirely new life forms,’ said Miss Tennet. ‘The magnificent database of Libris has no record of anything like you!’

  Chapter 18

  Reality Overload

  Libris was buzzing with the excitement. There had not been a new species in living memory.

  Dr Doe was the Head Librarian in Cataloguing. He could hardly believe the news.

  ‘Forgive me, Miss Tennet,’ he said, ‘but they don’t look like new species. Most of them look quite… human. Have you cross-referenced with everything?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor Doe, nothing matches.’

  The children were sitting in Dr Doe’s office. It was the only room they had seen on Libris with no book shelves. The walls were wooden panels. On the desk was a single book, Dr Doe’s computer terminal.

  ‘I don’t feel like a new species,’ said Zed. ‘I know I have a home, I just don’t know where it is.’

  The others agreed. They sat down on the chairs in front of the desk. Emm held XL on her knee.

  ‘There must be a factor missing,’ said Miss Tennet. ‘It’s one of our golden rules, if all the information has been entered and the results are not logical…’

  ‘…then some of the information must be incorrect or missing,’ Dr Doe looked hard at the children over his glasses. It seemed that everyone who lived on Libris wore glasses.

  They gulped.

  ‘Is there some information missing?’ Miss Tennet asked. The children stared at the ground and swung their legs.

  ‘We can only help you if you tell us everything you know,’ Dr Doe asked them.

  Before the children could answer, there was a gentle tap on the door. A librarian walked in quietly and whispered something to Dr Doe.

  Miss Tennet looked at the children and pursed her lips. She could tell they were hiding something.

  The doctor cleared his throat.

  ‘There has been a breach of security in our information systems. Certain files have been wiped without our knowledge.’

  Miss Tennet looked shocked.

  ‘Noone has that sort of technology. Noone comes close to the security systems we have.’

  ‘Except for the person who helped devise our first system many years ago,’ Dr Doe added. ‘We’ve updated and improved it regularly, but there is one person with the intelligence to…’

  ‘Surely not!’ Miss Tennet was so taken aback, several hairs fell out of her bun and she didn’t even bother to put them back.

  Zed’s heart sank. He knew exactly who they meant. Their only option now was to tell the truth.

  ‘Xanax, Professor Xanax,’ he said. The librarians turned to look at him.

  ‘I think, young man,’ said Doctor Doe, ‘you had better tell us everything you know.’

  The children explained how they had all woken up with no memories in the Lab and decided to escape.

  ‘This is very serious indeed,’ the doctor glanced at Miss Tennet who was holding her bun in disbelief.

  ‘You’re clearly very resourceful and brave young people,’ he said, ‘and I can only assume you are in considerable danger.’

  ‘What if he’s put a secret tracer on the deleted files!’ Emm piped up. She suddenly thought that if Xanax had deleted their files, he might place a secret bug in the system. If anyone tried to find the missing files, he would know the Rats were on Libris. XL had planted the thought in her mind.

  ‘Very astute,’ Miss Tennet said, ‘have you ever thought about a career in…’

  ‘No time for careers Miss Tennet,’ interrupted Dr Doe. ‘Xanax is undoubtedly on his way here.’

  ‘Yuck, that smell!’ Jay suddenly leapt up from his chair and ran to open the window. It was sealed shut to maintain the perfect temperature.

  ‘Oh yes!’ Suddenly all the children were pulling faces. Even Miss Tennet and Dr Doe had their hands over their noses. The only person who didn’t have a problem with the smell was Emm.

  ‘It’s that lovely smell!’ she said smiling. Her eyes glassed over and she breathed deeply. ‘It’s so… peaceful!’

  �
��It’s rancid,’ said Katy. She grabbed XL from Emm’s lap and backed away.

  ‘It’s you, you’re making the smell!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Emm said, waving her head from side to side. ‘Mmm bliss!’

  Everyone else had moved away as far as possible.

  ‘Is this Xanax’s work?’ Zed asked Dee.

  ‘Must be.’

  ‘I can’t stand it, it’s, it’s…’ Jay’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. With his huge nose the smell was too much. He fell to the ground and passed out cold.

  ‘We need to get the children to safety,’ Miss Tennet said. She began to activate her personal computer. It was a projection onto her glasses. That was why all the librarians wore glasses.

  ‘No!’ said Dee and stopped her.

  ‘Good girl,’ said Dr Doe. ‘If Xanax has penetrated our information systems, we cannot access them to help the children—he would locate them immediately.’

  ‘La la da, di da da,’ Emm stood up singing to herself and wandered around.

  ‘Emm, what’s going on?’ Katy asked her. The smell was growing stronger. They could barely breathe. It was like every fart, every dirty sock, every rotten cabbage and every dead mouse smell all rolled into one.

  Emm was barely conscious of them all.

  She swung around in the room, singing to herself dreamily, as happy as could be.

  The door opened, a library assistant walked in and immediately gagged.

  ‘Dr Doe,’ he said trying to hold his nose, ‘Professor Xanax has requested permission to land.’

  ‘Refuse,’ said Miss Tennet, ‘say we’re re-cataloguing and not dealing with enquiries. Don’t let him land.’

  Katy put XL on Dr Doe’s desk and knelt down to revive Jay, but it was no good, he was dead to the world. Emm leaned against the wood-panelled wall of the office, smiling and humming to herself.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Dee said.

  ‘Look!’ Zed was staring at Emm.

  A thread burst out of her tummy and flew around. It landed on the wall behind her.

  ‘Emm, move!’ Dee rushed forward to help her friend but Miss Tennet stopped her.

  ‘Do not interfere. There are some species that cocoon themselves like butterflies. She must be one of them. To interfere could kill her.’

  ‘Emm!’ shouted Dee with tears in her eyes. ‘Tell me you’re OK.’

  Emm stopped singing. Her eyes were open but not moving. She leaned against the wood panelling as more and more threads shot out and attached themselves to the wall around her. The threads flew out faster and faster until they could not see her at all.

  ‘Emm!’ they all shouted together.

  The children watched in horror as their friend disappeared into a cocoon. When she had completely vanished, the threads stopped and goo oozed from the hole in her tummy. It trickled along the threads, coating them in a dark green slime, which grew solid to make a hard case all around her. The smell was at its worst as the goo poured out. They all started to feel faint and thought they might all join Jay on the floor.

  As the smell faded they stared at what used to be Emm, which was now a hard shiny dark green shell. The surface was lumpy and they could still see the lines of the threads that had emerged from Emm’s belly button. Dee put her ear to the shell. She heard some gurgling and squelching in there.

  ‘Emm can you hear me?’ she shouted at the shell and listened for an answer. There was no reply.

  ‘Yuck, how could put your ear to it?’ Katy asked from the floor next to Jay. ‘It’s horrible.’

  ‘I don’t care what it is,’ said Dee, ‘she’s still Emm.’

  Katy felt bad that she had called Emm ‘it’.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled and shook Jay again in the hope that he would wake up.

  ‘Miss Tennet,’ said Zed, ‘we have to get Emm off that wall and board our ship before Professor Xanax reaches us.’

  ‘I’ll get a team of IT specialists onto delaying him as long as possible. They’re pretty good at slowing things down. In the meantime, wait here. Dr Doe, you will look after them, won’t you?’

  ‘Noone is forcibly removed from Libris,’ he said, ‘it’s the law. They will be safe in my office.’

  Miss Tennet slipped out of the room to delay the arrival of Xanax’s lab assistants.

  ‘Katy, try and wake Jay up, throw water on him, anything,’ Zed started to organise.

  ‘Dee, is there a way we can remove Emm’s shell from the wall?’

  Dee tugged at the edge of the shell but it was glued on hard.

  ‘We’re going to have to remove the wall around her, sorry Dr Doe,’ Zed said.

  ‘How?’ asked Dee.

  Zed looked at the wall around Emm’s hard shell. It was a beautiful wood, polished and smooth. He knocked on it. It sounded hollow enough.

  ‘What’s behind this wood, Dr Doe?’ Zed asked.

  ‘This wall doesn’t hold up the roof, so it should be just the wood, then space for the information cables and then the wood panels of the room next door. But it’s very…’

  He hadn’t been able to say ‘old and hardwearing’ before Dee swung her hammer at the wall.

  ‘Ow!’ She’d swung hard and hurt her arm. There was a small dent in the wood.

  ‘I’ll never smash through this.’

  ‘Give it another go,’ said Zed, ‘but don’t use your whole arm.’

  Dee swung again, just from her elbow. It didn’t hurt so much and the wood splintered a little more.

  ‘Just keep at it,’ said Zed.

  Katy was having no luck with Jay. She’d tried slapping his cheeks, squeezing his nose, pouring the water from a vase of flowers over him. Nothing could wake him up.

  While Dee hammered at the wood panelling, Zed pulled the wood away between each of Dee’s blows. Slowly but surely they were beginning to break through the wood around the cocoon.

  ‘Dr Doe,’ Zed called out, ‘do you know of anything that could wake up Jay? We’ll need his help to carry Emm out of here.’

  Dr Doe did not reply.

  ‘Dr Doe?’ Zed repeated. The head librarian was staring straight ahead, as if he was concentrating hard on something.

  ‘Vote him out!’ said Dr Doe.

  ‘What?’ asked Katy.

  ‘Vote for Chanelle… get rid of Myetta… Paul’s the best dancer… vote for Shantini,’ the doctor was gibbering to himself.

  ‘Katy, go and fetch help. See if another librarian can come in here,’ Zed asked. Katy gave Jay one last shake and then ran to the door.

  In the corridor, she discovered the situation was even worse. All the librarians were walking around talking to themselves, bumping into walls, bouncing off and walking off until they hit something else.

  ‘Lewis lied about Cherise breaking the sewing machine on purpose.’

  ‘Gervais has the best voice, but Maria sings from the heart.’

  ‘Becky and Carlo deserve to win the house.’

  ‘Rhianan lost much more weight than Sheronda, she should stay.’

  ‘I want Blair to win.’

  Katy realised that noone was in any condition to help them. All the quiet logical people of Libris were suddenly being very loud and making no sense at all. Back in Dr Doe’s office she reported what she had seen.

  ‘Xanax must be up to something,’ said Dee. It was the only possible explanation.

  Chapter 19

  The Professor Lands

  Sweat dripped off Bumface as she puffed and panted. She was running on the spot, lifting her knees high. She wanted to stop but she couldn’t, her legs just kept going.

  ‘I feel… I am… at my… limit,’ she said to Xanax. He wasn’t so sure.

  Xanax was on his ship, bored as he waited to gain access to Libris. The ship looked like one of his laboratories—all white with hard benches. He didn’t believe in things being comfortable and he loved the colour white, it was so clean. He liked things to be clean.

  Xana
x sat in his hard white control chair annoyed that Libris had been able to keep him out. His plan to disable the security systems was taking some time so he had decided to amuse himself by testing a new invention on Bumface.

  So far it was working very well. A tiny computer chip had been injected into her bloodstream. When it received a signal from the Typetor, it controlled all her muscle movements. It had been ordered by a school in the outer galaxy as a way of forcing lazy children to exercise more. Bumface’s body was currently obeying a command to run on the spot.

  ‘Star jumps, Typetor,’ Xanax commanded. Typetor adjusted Bumface’s settings. Unfortunately, instead of jumping up with her arms and legs to her side, her arms started waving up and down in front of her and she walked towards Xanax. She panicked as her body moved towards the evil genius and her arms started hitting him.

  ‘Stop the experiment!’ he commanded and glowered at Bumface, who stopped moving. She stood still, panting more than ever.

  ‘…Sorry… I…’

  ‘Running on the spot,’ Xanax commanded and she started running again.

  ‘Faster!’

  Her legs moved faster than ever.

  ‘High knee raising, change!’

  Her knees shot up so high she almost hit herself in the face.

  Xanax smiled. He had wanted to check the chip was still working and that Bumface had not faked the error to make him stop.

  ‘Stop!’ he called out to the Typetor when it looked like she could take no more.

  Bumface collapsed in a heap on the floor. She dreaded it when Xanax was bored. She hated the whole of Libris for keeping them out and making Xanax bored and despised the Lab Rats for going there in the first place.

  ‘Typetor, check progress on Libris!’

  Xanax sat with his hands resting on the square white armrests of his command chair. He turned his cold eyes to the big screen. There he could see the Great Hall of Libris. The librarians were all bumping into the tables and knocking things over.

  ‘Professor, our virus has worked beautifully.’ Bumface might have been exhausted but she was always impressed by how clever Xanax was.