Amy stared at the floor. “I’ve been trying to get back home to my family ever since I got caught up in this crazy, dimensional-future mess.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But I’d never be able to live with myself if I didn’t try to help my friends.”
Philip nodded. “I understand. Where would you like to go?”
“There’s only one place in the universe for me. The morning of October 13, 1912. Same dimension.”
Philip spoke to the cat hologram for a moment. The huge sphere of blue lightning hummed around Amy, whipped her blonde hair into a frenzy, and she popped out of existence.
The old man stretched with his arms above his head and sighed. He walked slowly over to the red oval in the floor, dropped to one knee, and spread a wrinkled hand across the stone.
“Peace be with you, Amy Armstrong.”
Chapter Eighteen
On the dry yellow hillside a mountain jay chattered from his favorite lilac bush, which also happened to be the largest lilac bush he’d ever seen. At this moment, the jay was more interested in heavenly rather than earthly considerations, and tilted his blue head to keep an eye on the chaotic battle in the sky.
A blonde girl in a filthy nightgown popped into existence four meters above the bird and sent him fluttering away. The human landed in the lilac bush and tumbled down the hillside knocking purple flowers and stalks of dried grass into the air. She rolled slower and slower and at last stopped in a saltbush.
Amy hissed in pain and climbed to her feet. She rubbed at the scratches on her bare legs.
“Why does everything smell like cat pee? Thanks for almost killing me, old man! Ten feet higher and I’d be a squishy pile of broken bones.”
A boom echoed through the mountains. Amy looked up to see three huge spacecraft shaped like bulbous submarines gliding through the clouds over the sea. Two of the ships––one maroon and the other dark blue––circled the largest of the three, like sharks around a wounded green whale. Dots flitted and buzzed like gnats around the long green ship, which trailed plumes of black smoke. A streaky haze floated below the ships, and Amy smelled an odor like bitter gasoline and burning rubber. A cluster of narrow white contrails flew from the side of the maroon ship and struck the nose of the green vessel with a bright flash. A few seconds later, a loud boom rolled over the sea.
Amy rubbed the back of her leg. “Good grief, they’re fighting each other. That big pickle looks like One’s ship, the Hare Twist. Why would Two and Four turn on her? Wait a second––I’m the dumbest girl in the universe. Philip didn’t come through the portal, so he probably escaped and took over the ship. They’re not fighting One, they’re fighting Philip!”
In the yellow hills to the north, silver glinted under the morning sun. The White Star lay hidden on a flat, grassy area between two mountains. Someone had half-heartedly covered the graceful, hundred-meter spaceship with swaths of brown fabric and the branches of fallen trees.
“I don’t believe it,” said Amy. “Blanche!”
She sprinted through the dry grass of the ridge and up the hill to the camouflaged spaceship.
“Awesome,” she whispered, and ran her fingers over the smooth silver hull.
A pair of cat soldiers in dark green armor stepped out of hiding and aimed plasma rifles at Amy.
“Stop!” shouted one, a gray tabby. “Don’t touch that!”
The black cat next to him nodded. “Yeah, Centauran scum.”
Amy crossed her arms and glared at the two cats.
“Do I look like Centauran scum?” she snarled. “Think for a second exactly who I look like.”
“Oh, poopie,” said the black cat, and lowered his rifle.
The gray tabby shook his head. “Who are you? Identify yourself!”
Amy pointed a finger at him and did her best imitation of One’s voice. “Me? I’m the last thing you’ll ever see, you pair of slobbering, mange-covered morons! If you don’t get out of my sight in the next two seconds, you’ll spend the rest of your days in a punishment cube, picking up dog crap in the world’s biggest dog kennel!”
The two cats glanced at each other, and then sprinted away as fast as their four legs could carry them.
Amy walked along the bottom hull of the huge ship, pulling on the landing gear and slapping the silver hull.
“Open up, Blanche! It’s me, Amy!”
The boom of distant explosions echoed through the hills. Amy backed up and shaded her eyes to get a better view of the slow-motion battle in the sky. She ran forward and slapped the silver hull even harder.
“Come on, Blanche. Philip’s in trouble!”
The outline of a large red circle glowed on the smooth silver skin of the ship above Amy’s head. The starboard airlock hatch popped open and a ladder slid down.
Amy climbed up to the airlock and crawled inside.
“I thought you were at the bottom of the ocean,” she said. “What happened?”
The airlock sealed behind Amy and crimson lights in the ceiling flickered to life.
“My data showed that you had suffered the same fate, my Lady,” came the smooth, motherly voice of the ship. “I was lifted from the depths and drained by a host of very smelly cats and dogs, none of whom were crew members.”
“Are you able to fly? What about the explosion?”
“I have repaired the damage to the cargo hold,” said the ship. “As there was no apparent threat and no captain, I was simply taking a nap. It is quite pleasant when you are my age.”
“Philip’s in trouble and we have to help him. Warm up the engines and let’s get up there.”
“Affirmative, my Lady. Please change into a set of prophylactic clothing.”
Amy rolled her eyes and sighed. “Really? Those stretchy red things again?”
“Yes, my Lady. Your present clothing is covered with microbes, plant pollen, and the fecal matter of twelve different species. I can feel a sniffle coming already.”
Amy pulled the nightgown over her head. “I know I need a bath, but you don’t have to rub it in!”
She jammed her legs into a pair of red spandex trousers and her arms into a long-sleeved top. Amy stretched a black cap over her blonde hair and sprinted out of the airlock and through the corridors of the ship to the navigation room, where the yellow mountains and the battle in the sky was projected floor-to-ceiling on every surface around her.
“Ready to go?” Amy pointed up. “Head for that big green ship. The one that looks like a giant pickle.”
“Yes, captain.”
The invisible floor vibrated below Amy’s feet. The mountains dropped away, replaced by the foaming surf and the sun-sparkled Pacific Ocean.
“My Lady, if your intention is to engage these craft in combat, I would advise against such a course of action,” said the ship calmly. “I detect the radiation signatures of high-powered weapons.”
“It’s my friends that I care about,” said Amy. “If anything’s happened to Philip or Sunflower or Betsy, I’ll burn a hole through all three of these ships, radiation signatures or not!”
A missile streaked past Amy, curved around with a smoky contrail, and blew a smoking hole in the rear of Hare Twist. The nose of the long green ship dipped toward the ocean for a moment as it glided below the clouds, and then rose again, with its engines flaring white.
“My Lady, I have located crew members on the starboard side of the central vessel.”
“Show me!”
A section of the sky above Amy’s head magnified. Philip, Sunflower, Betsy, and Amy’s other friends stood in a damaged section of Hare Twist, their backs to the jagged hole of blackened metal and their fur and clothing whirling in the breeze.
“What’s going on? Philip! What’s he doing?”
“From the elevated heart rate and position of the crew member’s body, I estimate an eighty-nine percent chance that he is about to jump, my Lady. The impact with the ocean’s surface will certainly be fatal, as Centaurans cannot fly.”
&nbs
p; “No! Catch him or something!”
“Of course, my Lady. Maximum atmospheric thrust imminent. Please hold on.”
The White Star flashed through the chaotic battle, dodging tiny cat fighters and the smoking trails of missiles. She rolled beneath the wounded green ship and popped open her port airlock as Philip jumped. The teenager tumbled inside and was followed by a steady stream of Amy’s other friends: Nick, Sunflower, Andy Nakamura, Doctor MacGuffin, Betsy, and One’s first officer Wilson.
“Collision warning,” droned the ship. “Taking evasive action.”
She closed the airlock and shot away as the Wits Hater rammed the Hare Twist with a fierce crunch of twisting steel. The reactors of both ships overloaded with a blinding flash, and the heavy, smoking remains fell into the sea far below.
Amy picked herself up from the deck of the navigation room.
“Blanche, did everyone make it? Blanche!”
“Analyzing. Crew members have successfully boarded the ship and are waiting in port airlock. Some have sustained injuries.”
She kept talking but Amy was already out the door.
Amy palmed the hatch and rushed inside the airlock. Her friends lay in a furry pile of arms, legs, and angrily waving paws.
“Betsy!” screamed Sunflower. “Get your stinky butt off my face!”
“Oh, hey Sunnie,” barked the terrier. “That’s what that was! I thought it felt funny.”
“My face is not funny when your butt is on it!”
Amy helped Betsy and the others untangle themselves. She found Philip at the bottom of the pile on his back. The teenager’s eyes were closed and a trickle of blood dripped from his nose and across his cheek.
“Philip!”
Amy shook him by the shoulders, and kissed the boy hard on the lips. Philip laughed and kissed her back. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.
Amy slapped him on the chest. “You idiot. You were just pretending!”
Philip kissed her again and rested his forehead against hers. “I’m not pretending that I love you, Amy Armstrong. What happened? Did One’s evil machine not work? I assume it simply teleported you back to the ship.”
Amy hugged him around the neck. “It sent me far, far away, but I came back for you. I came back for all of you.”
Andy Nakamura pointed at Wilson and hissed. “What’s that thing doing here? He works for One––he’s her right-hand cat!”
“Right,” said Sunflower. “Explain yourself, traitor! Don’t make us dump you outside with the rest of the trash.”
Wilson bowed from the waist and grinned sheepishly. “Ensign Wilson, formerly of the Hare Twist, at your service. What can I say? I quit. I didn’t like working for One, anyway. She was so mean! Right? Am I right, or am I right?”
“Wilson is a girl’s name,” said Sunflower. “What’s the matter? Did you have hippie parents like me?”
“Certainly not,” said the black cat. “Wilson is my family name. My given name is Eunice.”
“Oh. That’s okay, then.”
“Sounds good to me!” Betsy jumped on top of the cat and licked him in the face. “You can be my new best friend!”
Wilson squirmed and tried to push Betsy off. “Please stop––I’m allergic to dogs. Allergic!”
Sunflower sighed. “Wow. This is the best day ever.”
Andy hugged the orange tabby with her furry paws. “Why? Because we’re together again?”
Sunflower shook his head. “No. Betsy has someone to play with and will finally leave me alone.”
Nick buzzed into the air, her scarlet dress ripped and hair out of place. “Somebody pay attention to me! If I don’t get a shower I’ll murder all of you!”
Philip grinned. “Oh dear––someone said ‘shower.’ ”
He reached for the decontamination button on the wall.
“Nooo!” screamed Nick. “Not that!”
A storm of antiseptic liquid soaked everyone and plastered them to the curved sides of the airlock, followed by a gale-force wind that dried their clothes.
Nick slid down the wall to the floor. “I’ll get you for that,” she whispered. “Someday.”
“Yeah, bad boy,” said Amy, and pinched Philip’s cheek. “Maybe I shouldn’t have rescued you.”
The teenager shrugged. “Sorry. It was getting a bit whiffy in here.”
Everyone changed into the required spandex uniforms and followed Amy to the navigation room. Plumes of black smoke and a large patch of oil on the ocean’s surface were the only signs that a battle had taken place.
Amy shook her head. “What happened to One’s ship?”
“A collision occurred between Wits Hater and Hare Twist,” said the calm voice of the ship. “The impact caused a reactor failure. Both craft are now resting on the seabed, approximately one point two kilometers to the north east.”
Wilson paced the transparent floor of the navigation room, rubbing his head. “That was me! I almost died!”
“There was another ship,” said Philip. “The one captained by Four, I believe?”
Wilson held up a paw. “Yes––Raw Tithes! She was a meanie, too. I brought her the wrong bottle of coconut oil one time and she hit me with a stick.”
“What happened to her, Blanche?” asked Amy. “Is she waiting around to capture us, or planning a sneak attack?”
“From the radiation trail of her engines, I believe Raw Tithes has left the atmosphere and entered orbit,” said the ship. “Detecting a gamma particle surge––I estimate a seventy-three percent chance that it has performed a dimensional jump in the last two seconds.”
Philip shook his head at the sparkling waves far below his feet. “Any survivors?”
“I’m not saving her, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Amy. “She tried to kill both of us!”
Philip hugged her around the waist. “Not at all, dear heart. If that woman survived, I hope she’s forced to don a milkmaid’s bonnet and live her entire life in a barn. I simply meant any innocent cats or dogs from her crew.”
“Right!” said Andy Nakamura, nodding her gray furry head. “Some of One’s crew were forced to work for her. Not all of them were nasty pirates.”
“I’m not a nasty pirate,” said Wilson. “Just a normal cat on the run with a gambling debt longer than a sauro’s tail. What? Woolongs don’t grow on trees, you know!”
“Amy … I notice you’re not carrying a baby,” said Philip. “I hope this isn’t a bad time to mention the subject. What happened to Three?”
Amy stepped back and curtsied. “You’re looking at her.”
“Poppycock! You’re not Three. You’re the real Amy––MY Amy.”
Betsy wagged his tail. “She’s making a joke! Three was pretty and had bigger bump-things on her chest.”
Amy kicked at the terrier with a bare foot and missed. “I’ll show you a bump––on your HEAD!”
Philip pulled up the sleeve of Amy’s uniform and stared at her arm. “You don’t have any tattoos, either. Definitely not Three.”
“I’m also not a baby. Let me sum up––no, that’s too hard. Let me say this––I never had parents and I don’t know who they were. I was abandoned behind the police station in Pacific Grove when I was just a baby, and that’s when my foster mother adopted me. Three and I are exact genetic copies of each other. We’re not twins––we’re the same person.” Amy shrugged. “I didn’t have any way to change what happened to her, but I could choose to go anywhere, so I took her back to where I was found on my birthday––the back door of the Pacific Grove police station.”
“The circle is now complete,” whispered Betsy, wide-eyed and drooling. “You’re your own mommy!”
Sunflower snorted. “Only a dog would say something that stupid. She’s not her mother at all.”
Andy patted him on the head. “Sunnie, be nice.”
“I think I understand,” said Philip. “You’re the real Amy, but also Three. Brilliant. Can I say I’m dating two girls at the
same time?”
Amy crossed her arms. “Absolutely not!”
“Very well,” said Philip, and kissed her. “Shall we fly down to the surface and find these surviving cats and dogs? Hopefully before anyone has captured the poor souls and put them in a zoo.”
Amy nodded. “Blanche, take us down to the surface.” She held up a golden bracelet covered in sixty fine ridges. “After that, how about a little trip to Fiji?”
Betsy jumped into the air and turned a somersault. “Yay!”
Epilogue
The pair of hulking sauropods––one brown and one green––wandered over the seaweed-covered rocks and dodged the occasional spray of surf. The larger, more muscular brown reptile stopped and bent over every few minutes, sometimes thrusting a claw into a dark place to pull out a red-shelled crab.
“I don’t know why you keep doing that,” said the smaller one. “My wounds have almost healed. Smearing more crab guts over them won’t help.”
“Sorry,” said George. “I’m just bored. Can we murder some humans now?”
Nistra shook his scaly green head. “Absolutely not. Do you think I want to get captured again? Better for us to travel down the coast and find a cave where we can live out our natural lives, than to be locked in another cellar by those Centauran monsters.”
“Okay. Can I at least have a human as a pet?”
“Maybe a small one, but you have to promise to feed it and clean its cage.”
“Yay! Thanks, Nistra.”
George reached down into the surf and picked up a large metal panel. The meter-wide square was dark green on one side and tarnished gray on the other, and covered in deep scratches.
“Hey! Look at what I found!”
Nistra rolled his eyes. “Ooo, pretty. A piece of alloyed titanium just like the fifty other pieces of alloyed titanium we just saw today. They’re coming from the same place.”
“From the ocean?”
“No, from the crashed ships, you idiot!”
George pouted. “You promised not to call me that. A promise is a promise, as my––whoa, look there!”
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