CHAPTER 1
Winners and Losers, or Not
Every B12 student at the Academy of Superior Learning, otherwise known as the Clone Academy, wanted to witness the fight between the 12-year-old clones, Vlas and Dar, and the ute-baby—uterus born—twins, Elsie and Everest Basker. Well before the 13:00 fight time, the spectator area in the B12 fight room was jammed with kids, all jostling for a better view. Plenty of the twelve-year-olds were forced to wait in the recreation room outside, hoping to hear reports on the action. Students from other age groups were denied admittance due to space limitations, but they still participated in the betting. Virtual currency had been placed on various outcomes, despite such activities being expressly forbidden on campus.
It was exactly a month to the day since Elsie and Everest had come to stay at their uncle’s boarding school for clones; one month since they had beaten the reigning 12-year-old champions in an impromptu fight match. Despite the recent adventures that had united the clones with Everest and Elsie against a dangerous smuggler, Dar and Vlas still waited impatiently for a chance to kick the twins’ keisters all the way to Glagcha (that irritating world that consistently beat Earth as best planet for raising a family in the Milky Way galaxy.)
Whoever lost the fight was honor bound to treat the winner with respect for a full month, which meant no insults or aggressive behavior. In addition, the loser was expected to protect the winner from other challenges.
Because it was a half-day for students, they were able to hold the fight early. Elsie was nervous about the competition. For no apparent reason, her jellach bodysuit felt unusually snug and hotter than a Krustak volcano. Tugging at her outfit, she glanced over at her brother. Quiet as usual, he took in the room with a serious expression. Elsie would have bet zetta virtual currency that he was as nervous as she was. But he would never show it.
She was a big fan of the school’s zeller B12 fight space. A ten-meter ceiling left plenty of room for jumping. Strong ropes hung from the ceiling and hooks climbed the walls. A thick pad covered the floor. Her only complaint was the room’s disgusting odor. While pico-brownies kept the room immaculate via their nighttime cleaning, there still were years of accumulated adolescent sweat that no quantity of pico-brownies could erase.
Would life at the clone academy be better or worse if they won? A couple of weeks ago, Elsie had confessed to Dar that she had spied on her and learned her secret: every night the tough-as-a-cyborg girl cared for the babies and toddlers who lived at the academy. Dar had been furious when she’d found out that Elsie knew, and she’d promised payback. Maybe if they lost, the girl would finally get off her back. But it was much more likely that Dar would decide she had license to torture her for the entire month.
Besides, Baskers didn’t throw competitions.
“Hey, ute-twins, time to blast-off,” Dar called from across the room. Her thick golden hair was pulled back into a tight pony-tail with her trademark cap neatly settled on top. Even after a month of rooming with Dar at clone-ville, Elsie still couldn’t get over how weird it was to be confronted with a Shadara copy. Shadara had been the most beautiful woman in the universe before her tragic and mysterious death at a young age. And Dar was equally as beautiful though she did everything she could to hide that inescapable fact.
“What are you staring at?” Dar called out, a frown creasing, but not marring, her perfect features.
Elsie glared back. “Nothing!”
“Hey is this a fight or a tea party?” Larry Knight asked from behind the see-through pad that protected spectators from the action. “Are you aliens ever getting this freak show on the road?”
He was the twenty-first-century boy who they had smuggled to the thirty-first century, and then, against all school and galactic rules, had kept. His skin was a rich shade of chocolate, and he had shiny, curly black hair. Through some zetta fancy holoputer work and a little help from Dar’s sponsor, Adriatic Mink, they had convinced everyone that he was a clone who had been living off-world until coming to their boarding school.
Vlas snickered. “Yeah, we’re going to get started—and finished—at light speed.”
“Don’t be so down on yourself,” Elsie said cheerfully. “I’m sure you’ll last at least a couple of minutes before we flaser you.”
She couldn’t believe it when Everest scowled at her like she’d said something wrong. Just because he wasn’t going to stick up for them didn’t mean she wouldn’t. She made a face back.
Dar ignored the verbal jab and strode barefoot to the middle of the padded room. Like their first fight, they had agreed to no skyboots since the clones owned older models, and therefore, might be at a disadvantage.
“Referee,” Dar called then groaned when the same Clegl humanoid who had officiated at their last match appeared. “What are you doing here?”
The short, bald, black and white, striped holographic creature blinked the eyes in both the front and the back of his head. “You called me.” His voice was high-pitched and whiny.
“Aren’t we supposed to get a random referee? You officiated last time.”
“Look missy, I didn’t write the program, I just show where I’m programmed to show.” The man visibly bristled.
“And we appreciate the excellent job that you do.” Wiry, ridiculously clever, and often charming, Vlas stepped forward so that he flanked Dar who grimaced at his obvious brown-nosing. She looked as if she’d swallowed a limonino fruit from Bandogiar, the sourest fruit in the universe.
“Don’t think I didn’t see your expression, missy,” the Clegl referee screeched at Dar. He waved irritably at Elsie and Everest who quickly joined them in the middle of the floor.
The Clegl referee moved between the two sides. Using both sets of eyes, he stared fiercely and simultaneously at both teams. “This time, no funny business.”
Dar was the picture of innocence. “Of course not.”
The referee had not been happy with Dar’s behavior at the beginning of their last fight. Exactly one month ago, Elsie’s inadvertent use of Dar’s full name had caused the girl to break the rules and start the match without the required pomp and circumstance.
“Humph.” He blinked again as he planted his feet apart, fisted his hands on his hips, and stuck his chin in the air. “Today, May 12, 3002, it brings me great pleasure to announce and officiate this match that pits the honorable clones, Shadara and Vlas, against the equally honorable twins, Elsie and Everest Basker.”
His high-pitched screeching reverberated in Elsie’s ears, making them ache. The avatar had to know exactly how much Dar hated to be called Shadara. Was he testing her?
Elsie always found it a bit disturbing to be subjected to a Clegl’s eyes on the back of his head since both nose and mouth were missing. But there was no arguing that Clegls were zeller referees.
“Can’t we get on with this?” Dar muttered.
It became apparent that Clegls also had excellent hearing because he flasered Dar with another furious look.
“This competition,” he continued, “will adhere strictly to the rules set forth by the United Nations of Earth in the year 2800, most prominent of which is the rule prohibiting any attack to the face. Do you agree to abide by this and all other rules detailed by this noble group?”
“Yes, yes, of course we do,” said Dar impatiently as the others murmured their assent more politely.
The Clegl bristled. “I can and will disqualify fight contestants for rude behavior,Shadara. After your disgraceful performance last time, I won’t need much provocation.”
Though her expression tightened, Dar managed to refrain from comment, nodding her understanding instead.
The Clegl cleared his throat, and continued to screech. “Do you agree to abide by the rules set forth by the United Nations of Earth?”
“We do,” they all chorused.
“Excellent.” He pivoted around on his short legs so that Elsie and Everest were now treated to eyes, nose and mouth as well as a particularly stubby chin.
“And do you agree to the rules that govern the behavior of the winners and the losers of the competition?”
“We do.”
He stared for several moments then turned and with the back of his head stared again. “Very well, you may bow to your opponents.”
Dar’s bow was curt whereas Vlas added a flourish. He grinned as if he were having the time of his life. With years of practice, Elsie and Everest bowed in precise unison.
The Clegl referee stepped back a few paces to give the fighters room, then declared in his screeching voice, “Match begin.”
Dar and Vlas jumped simultaneously, grabbed ropes and twirled around, kicking out so they each made contact—Dar with Everest’s solar plexus and Vlas with Elsie’s. Their speed was unsettling, but both Elsie and Everest managed to go with the blows into back flips so they barely felt the strikes. In unison, they popped out of the series of moves and leapt onto the ropes. Since Vlas and Dar were swinging toward them, the twins kicked off of each other and swung their ropes in a wide arc, capturing the cord of their competitors and whipping around in circles, entangling Dar and Vlas and forcing them to drop to the ground. Elsie jumped and landed on Vlas’s back, making him twirl and buck crazily in an attempt to unbalance her. The B12s shouted and booed as she refused to be bucked off. One lone clapper had to be Larry, the only other non-clone in the bunch. She barely registered that Everest had landed a few feet away from Dar and now fought against her in earnest.
Elsie was hard-pressed to hang on to Vlas. The boy was as fast as a flaser beam and as slippery as a Nurubian fire eel. Sliding off as he went into a somersault, Elsie sensed someone behind her and whirled. Dar flew at her with a double kick and landed Elsie on her back. She rolled just in time as Dar leapt to pin her. Scrambling to her feet and beating a fast retreat, Elsie now found Everest in combat with Vlas. She groaned when Vlas sent Everest to the ground with a low reverse roundhouse kick.
But Everest immediately rolled sideways and found his feet again. Elsie was too busy evading Dar to be sure that her brother was okay. She hoped for the best.
Only minutes had passed, but it already felt like hours. The Clegl referee kept up a steady stream of screeched commentary while she and Dar exchanged a series of blows, both on the ground and in mid-air, with Elsie mostly blocking Dar’s assault. The girl was a demon on the fight mat. Both were breathing hard, and Elsie was sweating like a rabid cooligrar. She didn’t think Dar was as winded as she was. If they didn’t somehow shut down this fight early, Dar inevitably would wear them out.
“Basker Bling!” Elsie yelled and shot into a series of handsprings. Within a heartbeat, Everest followed suit. They moved toward each other so that by the time they reached the end of the room, they were side by side. Everest gave her a look as if to say that he was going to kick her keister if this didn’t work. Then, yelling at the top of their lungs, they charged Vlas who stared as if they were lunatics from the asylum planet of Dementurnum.
“Deng, stop spinning into space,” Vlas yelled.
At the last minute he tried to evade them, but they double-teamed him, using every two-person move they knew. Like a fury, Dar joined the mix: kicking, striking, blocking and parrying. Since she reached Everest first, he took the brunt of her attack.
He fought well, but Elsie could sense he was tiring. Who knew how much longer she could keep up the pace? Her legs and arms were the consistency of jellach. She’d hoped their choreographed attack would shake up their opponents enough to reverse the tide, but it didn’t seem to have done the trick.
Then a voice rose above all the yelling and stomping.
“END MATCH!” it said with amplification.
Elsie, Everest, Vlas and Dar swung around as one and shouted, “What?”
The speaker was one of their uncle’s holograms, an enhanced copy of the director with excessive height and hunched shoulders, pinched nose, sunken cheeks and dirty brown eyes. Director Lester-Hauffer ran the clone academy, but his two holograms did most of the work. While their parents were off-world, he was also Elsie and Everest’s guardian, one of the main reasons their fellow students had automatically mistrusted and disliked them.
Dar strode up to the hologram, her fists clenched. “No way.”
The hologram flinched. “Director Lester-Hauffer requires Elsie and Everest’s presence immediately.” He pivoted to the Clegl referee. “Is there a clear winner?”
“No, sir,” the Clegl replied.
“Then I suggest we call it a draw.”
There was a collective gasp, then pandemonium, a cacophony of jeering and yelling.
Dar lunged for the hologram, and it was all Vlas could do to pull her back. She strained against him and broke free, but by then she seemed to have remembered that there wasn’t anything physical she could do to a hologram.
Sniffing his disapproval, the hologram maneuvered his way around so that he was behind Elsie and Everest. Now they could smell the slight odor of rotting vegetables that was the director’s signature scent. It was zetta alien that a hologram could exude the same disgusting odor.
“Come along, no dawdling. Your uncle expects you immediately.”
Elsie wished she could crawl into a dark cave and never come out. Even Larry looked angry, as if somehow she and Everest were responsible for this outcome.
“Hey,” she said, “we forfeit; we lose; we don’t agree to a draw.”
The look on Dar’s face would have terrified a Vlemutz. She crowded Elsie and poked her in the chest with her forefinger. “We beat you fair and square or you beat us, but we will never accept a forfeit.” She turned her back on Elsie and strode off to pick up her gray vlatex towel. The fight room roared with silence.
The Clegl referee blinked all four eyes. “This is highly irregular—”
The hologram straightened so that he was slightly less stooped. “This is highly necessary and not open to debate. Baskers, with me.” He executed a brisk turn and marched out of the room.
The Clegl referee began to screech in several languages that the match was officially a draw.
Elsie glanced at her twin. His jaw was rigid, and he seemed ready to do someone damage. She raced to keep up with the hologram, snatching up her skyboots along the way. There wasn’t much they could do about the protective jellach gear. They would have to change out of it later.
All the B12s booed and hissed as they passed as if it was Elsie and Everest’s fault that the director had shut down the match.
“Coming through, move aside, make way.” The director’s hologram parted the B12s just enough for Elsie to feel as if they were in ancient times, running the gauntlet. It was all she could do to ignore the glares and hostile language.
As they rushed to the nanovator to rocket down to the second floor, Elsie asked, “What’s going on?”
The hologram sniffed. “Your uncle requires your presence in his office immediately. He has a very important guest waiting for you there.”
Elsie couldn’t imagine who would want to see them. Could it have something to do with their parents? Could there be news? Their parents were on a secret mission in another galaxy, and there had been no communication from them for two full weeks. That was longer than expected. It would be so zeller if there was news.
She leaned over to her brother and whispered, “Maybe it’s about Mom and Dad?”
CHAPTER 2
Mysterious Visitors
Everest hoped Elsie was wrong. If this was about their parents, then it couldn’t be good news. Only one month had gone by since their parents had left on their “secret mission,” and they were supposed to be gone for many months. Why would anyone be contacting them now unless something bad had happened? A panicky feeling churned up his stomach as if it had been swirled into a black hole. He told himself to keep his aura on until they knew more.
When Elsie grabbed the sleeve of his jellach gear, he knew she was starting to imagine the worst too. He wanted to shake her off, but he forced himself not to. Right now, they only had each other.
The trip from the twelfth floor to the second seemed to take forever, despite the speedy and noisy old nanovator. Lester-Hauffer’s hologram jabbered nervously about Italian music, gardens, and the cost of tea, but his voice shook so much from the nanovator’s vibration that it was hard to understand him. Everest treated it all as background noise—the high-pitched squeal of the nanovator, the hologram’s vibrating voice, his pounding heart.
Despite the worry and fear mixing up his insides, he was still furious about the outcome of the fight contest. Dar would never let them forget that their uncle had called off the match. Even if there wasbad news about their parents, that wouldn’t matter to the clones. The whole concept of family was alien to the dupes.
The nanovator came to an abrupt halt and the hologram exited at a fast clip. Elsie and Everest paused just long enough to slip on their skyboots before rushing after him.
“Ah, there you are, Elsinor and Everest,” their uncle said as they walked into his office. “Please take a seat.” He ushered them in and settled them on the nanofiber couch. “This is Dr. Jensa, an associate of your parents.”
Not good, was all Everest could think. Elsie’s fingers tightened on his sleeve.
The man somberly nodded his head. “Hello Elsinor and Everest.” He was the epitome of a studious and dedicated scientist, with his silver hair and unusually pale skin. He looked as if he could have a brown complexion if he ever went outside, but it was doubtful he ever left the lab. His eyes squinted as if even the light in their uncle’s office was more than he was used to, like a Dangor genetically-altered miner mole. He had high cheekbones, a pointy chin, a long, thin body, and narrow hands.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” Dr. Jensa said.
An honor? Flasers, why?
The man sat down across from them and leaned forward just slightly, resting the palms of his hands on his knees. He stared for a very long time.
Everest glanced at their uncle but wasn’t reassured since his nose and mouth were even more pinched than usual.
“What is it?” Elsie asked, her voice high and strained.
“I’m sorry, Elsie,” Dr. Jensa said. “I don’t quite know how to tell you this.” He shook his head. “There’s no good way. Your parents are missing.”
Elsie leapt to her feet. Everest jumped up as well not knowing what she might do. Their parents missing? He swallowed hard.
“What do you mean, they’re missing?” Elsie asked.
“A little over two weeks ago, we stopped receiving transmissions from them. We sent someone to their location, but there was no sign of them. No notes, nothing. I’m sorry; they seem to have vanished into thin air.”
“Maybe they’re in a different time,” Elsie said.
Dr. Jensa dipped his head. “That’s certainly a possibility. Of course, we haven’t given up hope. We will leave no stone unturned. But we thought you ought to be informed. We also believe you might be able to help.”
“Help?” Everest asked, for once beating Elsie to the obvious question. “How?”
“You and Elsie have knowledge that we desperately need.” the man responded. “It’s critical that you give us what your parents gave you before they left. It may very well be the one thing that could save their lives.”
“How is that possible?” Elsie asked.
“My dear girl, this is no time to be asking questions. We need action. Cooperation. Please, for your parents’ sake, give us what they gave you.”
Everest grabbed Elsie’s hand and squeezed hard. This was serious. They had to get moving. The man was talking about the strange pendants that their mom had given them the day they had come to the academy.
“Okay, we’ll go get them,” he said. “Now. It won’t take long. Come on, Elsie.” He started to drag her to the door.
She stared at him as if he was a Zylorg who had just grown his second head. He willed her to stay shut down for once.
“I can come with you,” Dr. Jensa said.
“It will be faster if we just go to our respective rooms and come back. We’ll be quick—only a few minutes.” Everest spoke fast, making it impossible for Elsie to say anything. If she started asking the wrong questions or making the wrong statements, who knew what the consequences might be?
If looks could kill, hers would have sent him straight to that sorry state. He ignored her glare and dragged her out of the office.
“Deng, Everest,” she said when they were far enough away not to be heard.
“Shut down,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just shut down.”
“What kind of yocto-brain do you think I am?”
“I mean it, Elsie, not another word.”
She yanked herself free. “What is your problem? If anyone should shut down, it’s you!”
“I don’t trust him,” Everest whispered harshly. Why did she always make everything so difficult?
“Of course you don’t. Who would? Mom and Dad said to give our necklaces to Dr. Yee and Dr. Yee only.”
“They aren’t necklaces,” he said irritably, despite his relief that Elsie wasn’t the yocto-brain he’d thought.
“Flasers, Everest, I wanted to catch him out in a lie, to expose him in front of Uncle Fredrick, but you dragged me out of there before I had a chance.”
Everest stared. “Are you out of your mind? Haven’t you learned anything from the clones? We have no proof Dr. Jensa is a villain. Why would Uncle Fredrick believe us? If Mom and Dad have disappeared, who knows what happened? There could have been foul play. Dr. Jensa, or whoever he is, could be zetta dangerous.” Again, he started to drag her down the corridor.
“If you thought that, why did you agree to give him the necklaces? Why not just deny we have them?”
“He already knows we have them, yocto-brain. If we deny it, he’ll just get suspicious.”
“So what’s your brilliant plan?”
“We’re getting out of here—now.”
Elsie stumbled, but Everest kept dragging her.
“Getting out of here?” she asked. “You mean, like, running away? You know perfectly well that we can’t escape. He’ll catch us, and then he’ll know that we know he’s not who he says he is.”
They reached the nanovator and jumped in seconds before the doors rematerialized. The nanovator jerked to full speed as it shot straight up, shaking their cheeks and chattering their teeth with its force.
When they arrived at the twelfth floor and their cheeks no longer shook, Everest said, “He’ll know anyway as soon as we don’t give him the disks.”
Elsie sighed. “I wish you had let me take the lead. Running is a bad idea, but it’s too late now. We’ll ask Dar for help. At least she can transport us onto the grounds. I have no idea what we’ll do then.”
“Yeah, I’m sure Dar will be happy to help us right now—after she kicks us to Xlexuri. Deng, Elsie, Dar’s not feeling too kindly toward us after that fight match.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’ll still help us. I know she will.”
Elsie was probably right. Dar had helped them before without liking them.
“We’ll need to steal a hover vehicle,” he said. “I guess we’d better try to find Dr. Yee.”
Elsie stopped again. “What if Mom and Dad are dead?” Her voice shook.
Everest turned to face her, grabbing her shoulders and looking her in the eye. “They aren’t dead. We would know if they were. We just need to find someone we can trust. Dr. Yee will know where Mom and Dad are.”
Everest talked reassuringly, but he wasn’t feeling very reassured at the moment. It was unthinkable that anything had happened to their parents, but it also was very unlike them to have been out of communication for so long. The fact that they had vanished completely was a zetta bad sign. Whoever this Dr. Jensa was and however many lies he was telling, he also was telling one truth.
Something had gone horribly wrong for their mom and dad.
CHAPTER 3
Escape
Elsie rushed to her dorm room with Everest close behind. “Dar,” she called as the door disappeared with a slight hiss. “We need your help. It’s an emergency.”
Elsie came to an abrupt halt. It wasn’t just Dar in the room; Vlas, Lelita, Borneo and Larry were all there too. Dar had just swooshed her skyball through its hoop to the screech of whistles and a burst of lights. Lelita and Larry were eating Blackholes—no-cal chocolate that exploded in the mouth—and Vlas and Borneo hovered over PicoBoy, a zetta-clever picobot that Vlas had designed and built.
They all glared at Elsie and Everest. Even soft-hearted Lelita frowned.
Everest groaned, but Elsie was glad they were all here. No matter how much the B12s might despise them right now, Elsie and Everest desperately needed their help, and they didn’t have time to track down everyone.
“Everest and I have to escape,” she said. “Now.”
Dar stilled, her expression shifting from a dark glare to a complete blank. “Deng, Elsie, keep your aura on.”
“I can’t, he’s lying, and we have to get away. We have to find our parents.”
“You’re not making sense. Everest’s lying? And why do you have to find your parents? For that matter, how are you going to find your parents? Aren’t they off on some super secret mission?”
“They’ve disappeared,” Everest said quietly. “Elsie isn’t talking about me lying. She’s talking about someone else.”
Elsie’s chest was going to explode, just disintegrate into a million pieces as if someone had pointed a flaser at her and pulled the trigger. “We don’t have time; we have to leave now.”
“No,” Dar said, “what you have to do is calm down and tell us exactly what is going on. You need to be much clearer.”
Elsie swallowed a scream.
“There’s a Dr. Jensa in our uncle’s office,” she responded.
“He’s the one who told us our parents have disappeared,” Everest added.
“He wants us to give him our necklaces.”
“They aren’t necklaces!” Everest yelled.
Elsie shoved her brother hard. “Mom and Dad told us to give the disks to Dr. Yee. He was the only one. When Jensa asked for them, we told him we had to retrieve them. He’s expecting us back right away. We have to get out of here before he realizes we’ve run.”
Dar exchanged looks with Vlas as she rose from her bed. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Elsie asked.
“We’ll help you.”
She sighed with relief and scrubbed at her cheeks. “Thanks.”
“We’re going with you,” Dar said.
“No,” said Everest. “This is our problem.”
Everest was right. It wasn’t fair to bring Dar and the rest of them into this. They could get into zetta trouble. But Elsie was afraid, and Dar always knew what to do. Already the girl was in her closet thrusting items into her Vlatex II pack, while Elsie stood there, perilously close to tears.
“Everest, you wouldn’t last five minutes without us,” Dar said without pausing her packing.
“You underestimate us.”
Dar glanced over her shoulder, a hint of a smile on her lips. “No, I don’t.”
Everest stood straighter. “We don’t need—”
“Please,” Elsie begged, tugging on Everest’s sleeve. “We do.”
“Gosh,” Dar said, wiping away an imaginary tear. “I’m all choked up. Come on utes.” She slung the pack over her shoulder. “We’re wasting precious time. By the way, you might want to get out of that jellach gear. It’s not exactly street wear, though I guess it could provide added protection.”
Elsie had forgotten she still wore the fight gear. Her cheeks heated up as she and Everest quickly stripped off the jellach bodysuits. Underneath they wore their gray vlatex exercise clothes. Dar wore hers as well, but the rest of the B12s had on more brightly-colored exercise gear. Larry’s was red and black, and Vlas’s was purple with a white stripe.
Dar directed her attention to Vlas. “We don’t have time to gather equipment from your room. We’ll have to make do with my toys.”
The boy shrugged. “Your toys are pretty zeller. I have PicoBoy and a few odds and ends like my scrambler in my pocket. It’s enough.”
“What about us?” Lelita asked, motioning to Borneo and Larry.
“You stay. We might need to be in touch. Borneo, boot up your IH. We’ll do our best to get word to you.”
“IH?” Larry asked. “You sure do speak a foreign language.”
“Illegal holoputer. He’ll need to do some fancy cloaking because the school checks regularly during the day for illegal access. But Borneo’s up for the job. Right?” She patted him on the shoulder.
“Sh—sure,” he said, stumbling over the word.
“Okay, let’s get moving.” Larry rubbed his hands together.
“Larry,” Dar said, “you are definitely staying here. You have no experience in the thirty-first century.”
“Girl, I don’t need experience in your time. I got more street smarts in my little pinky than all of you got mashed together.”
Dar rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time for this.” She looked to the ceiling. “Melista?”
The beautiful room avatar shimmered into existence, her golden horn sparkling and her dress diaphanous with blue and gold diamantes. As always, the sweet scent of liligilds permeated the room. “Yes, dear?”
“Cover for us?”
She dipped her horn. “Of course.”
Dar shoved Elsie toward the mini transporter they had installed a month previously so they could sneak up Elsie’s pet bobcat at night. “Everest, go with your sister.”
He shrugged but did as he was told.
Elsie could tell he was furious with her; he wouldn’t look at her, and he was zetta stiff.
She closed her eyes against the weird state of being transported, like being in the midst of a black void, with zero sensation and an absolute sense of nothingness. She couldn’t smell or hear, but somehow her nose and ears felt as if they were in sensory overload. Was she in a million little pieces right now? Just when she felt as if she were truly disintegrating, they landed with a thunk under the small shelter in Pooker’s prison. Immediately, her nose picked up the scent of the nearby rosewillow tree—it was as if she could smell the bark, the flowers, even the leaves. Further out, she smelled the tang of the limonino tree. She tasted last night’s rain on her lips and heard Pooker’s claws scratch loudly against the dirt. She never knew whether to be glad or sad that the phenom of heightened sensations after a transport only lasted a split second.
By the time she and Everest scrambled away from the transporter to make room for Dar and Vlas her senses were back to normal.
Beyond the canopy, Pooker stared unblinkingly, her bobcat hair standing on end. On the large size for a bobcat, she was nearly fifty-four centimeters in height, and she probably weighed fourteen kilograms. The unmistakable odor of damp cat still clung, a holdover from last night’s rainfall.
“Deng, Larry!” Dar yelled from behind, and both Elsie and Everest swung around. Dar, Vlas and Larry shoved out of the shelter. Dar was furious. “Don’t you get it? We all could have exploded into millions of atoms. This is a portable transporter, yocto-brain. You don’t just jump on for the ride.”
“Chill, babe.”
Dar shoved Larry hard. “Don’t—call—me—babe.”
Vlas watched the altercation with a grin on his face.
Elsie wasn’t sure what to do. “Uh, Dar.”
She swung around. “What?”
“We sort of need to leave,” Elsie said.
“I know that!” Dar paced back and forth in the pen. “Mr. Brilliant over here nearly got us obliterated.”
“Girl, I told you I was coming. If you’d just listen—”
Dar threw her hands up in the air. “If I’d just listen? You—you suzo-shrimp—you’re the one who doesn’t listen—ever!”
Everest cleared his throat. “Elsie and I are leaving now; you decide if you want to join us.” He grabbed Elsie by the arm and started tugging her to the edge of the pen.
“I’m coming.” Dar pointed at Larry. “You stay.”
“Man, you still aren’t listening, are you?”
“Shut down, both of you!” Elsie yelled. She’d had enough. She yanked out of Everest’s grip and crossed her arms. “I don’t care who comes, but we have to leave now! And Pooker’s coming too.”
“No way!” Dar and Larry yelled in unison. Vlas chuckled.
Everest shook his head. “That’s not a good idea.”
Elsie stomped her foot. “I don’t care; I’m not leaving her.” She pressed the button to deactivate a portion of the dancing lights that kept Pooker penned in. “Come, Pooker,” she said, and stormed down the jewel-toned gravel path.
She couldn’t care less if any of them followed. Okay, who was she kidding? She desperately wanted them all to follow. She didn’t want to do this alone. She wasn’t even sure how to steal a hover vehicle. Still, she marched toward the History Center, hoping that one of those vehicles would do.
“Uh, Elsie?” Dar said from behind.
“What?” She kept on marching.
“We’re already at the garage.”
Elsie stopped and swung around. She’d forgotten there was a garage on the property too. After all, she’d only been here for a month. In all that time, she’d never left campus except via time travel. And they’d used the History Center vehicles for those trips.
“Come on.” Dar quickly led them over to the massive garage doors. Crossing her arms, she studied the building. “Vlas, should we just break in?”
Larry responded instead. “Girlfriend, we better do something ‘cause we’ve got company.”
They all swung around to find Larry looking over his shoulder. Beyond him, Director Lester-Hauffer and Dr. Jensa crossed the grounds at an accelerated clip.
“Galaxies!” Elsie whispered, clutching Pooker’s scruff.
Dr. Jensa broke into a run. They could hear him shouting though they couldn’t make out his exact words. Two very tall, wide and intimidating humanoids stepped out of a hover vehicle sitting in the visitor parking lot. One may have been female and the other male. Their skin carried a green hue. Their shoulders were broad, their feet huge, their muscles gargantuan, and on their face, in addition to a very intense and angry expression, instead of a human nose, there was a cluster of three ugly lumps.
“What’s he doing with Panktars?” Vlas asked.
“What’s a Panktar?” Elsie asked.
“A mercenary,” said Vlas, “from Xlexuri.”
“But—”
Dar grabbed Elsie by the shoulders and shook her. “This is no time for yocto-brained questions.”
Elsie wanted to object to Dar’s rough handling, but the girl was right. Those Panktars looked zetta dangerous. Typical that these clones knew all about them when she and Everest had never heard about the aliens.
“Man, those are some scary-looking dudes,” Larry said. “Vlas, you better put some pedal to the metal and get us inside ASAP.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever gibberish you’re spewing, I’m going as fast as I can.”
Dar released Elsie and rifled through her backpack. The Panktars were running across the property now, and Elsie could have sworn she heard their heavy feet moving the ground with each step. Sparkling gravel spit up like a fountain gone awry.
“Vlas, get the garage door open, now.” Dar pulled out a couple of stunners and shoved one at Everest. “You’ve had experience; get ready,” she told him.
Despite their dire situation, Elsie almost smiled. Dar was never going to let Everest forget that he had stunned Larry at their first encounter.
The girl pulled out foggers and handed one each to Larry and Elsie. “Don’t use these unless you have to. We may want them later.”
She looked over her shoulder at Vlas who was working on the door with his scrambler, a flat, black triangle that sent out pico frequencies to jumble the security current. Carrying a strong chemical smell, it changed from blue to purple to red to pink and then finally became a pearly fluorescent-white when security had been breached.
“Is it white yet?” Dar yelled.
The Panktars were now within twenty-five meters and moving surprisingly fast given that they looked more like ugly boulders than humans.
Vlas nodded. “Yeah.” He requested entry, and the door dissolved.
Dar pushed past him and ran to the nearest hover vehicle. Elsie kept pace with Pooker at her side, and the rest quickly followed.
“Deng, it’s secured,” Dar exclaimed. “Vlas, can you open it too?”
Vlas requested that the garage door rematerialize and secure itself. Then he turned back. “That won’t hold them for long, but it might slow them down till the director gets here.” He crossed over to the vehicle and stared at the door. “I think the scrambler will work.”
Panktars, whether male or female, appeared to have deep, resonant voices, and the two outside were using them to demand that the kids come out immediately.
Instead, Vlas quickly breached the vehicle’s security, and they all piled inside. Made out of a see-through version of jellach, the HV instantly expanded to accommodate the six passengers, counting Pooker.
Dar sat in the driver’s seat and stared intently at the controls. She touched the sunergy symbol on the dash, and an almost imperceptible sigh told them the hover vehicle had sprung to life.
“Thank the Light,” she breathed. “It doesn’t look as if the director has any additional security beyond the vehicle’s door.”
“How will we leave the garage?” Elsie asked.
As if in answer to Elsie’s question, the building sensed that the vehicle was now in motion, and the majority of the front wall evaporated to reveal two very nasty Panktars wielding wicked-looking stunners. Their mouths moved as if they were yelling, but the jellach muffled their words. At least they weren’t waving flasers. Jellach, like so many substances, didn’t stand a chance against being melted into nothingness. Hopefully, the Panktars had orders not to actually kill anyone.
Dr. Jensa was shouting too, but at the Panktars. Elsie couldn’t understand him either.
Larry said something Elsie hadn’t heard him say in a long time. She had no idea what it meant, but she knew it was one of those illegal words from the twenty-first century that he wasn’t supposed to use in their time period.
“Those are some nasty dudes,” he added.
Elsie swallowed. “Dar, I think we should go.”
“No kidding, but I have to get a handle on the HV. I’ve never operated one before.”
“What?” Elsie and Everest both yelled.
“Well, it’s not as if I’m ever let out of this clone prison, you know,” she said defensively.
“Flasers, Dar,” Elsie said, scrambling to the front. “Switch places.” She clambered over Dar, and the girl reluctantly shifted to the back. Pooker stared suspiciously at Dar, but didn’t protest the change in seating.
Elsie searched for the label that would indicate the hover vehicle’s identifier. Some people were too cautious to document it, but others were afraid they would forget. Luckily, her uncle fell into the latter camp. The label was discretely placed below the dash. She wrinkled her nose. It wasn’t at all what she would have guessed, but she didn’t waste time in speaking firmly, just the way her parents always did. “FREDCR999, take flight.” The jellach hover vehicle slowly rose into the air.
Vlas snorted. “FRED?”
“His first name’s Fredrick,” Everest said, ‘but I’ve never heard him called Fred.”
“Jeez, Elsie, you could have just said that from the back,” Dar grumped.
“Well, I had to find it first,” Elsie shot back. “Besides, the vehicle only takes commands from the driver’s seat and sometimes the front passenger seat if that option has been enabled.”
The Panktars were now shooting at the jellach vehicle with a funny-looking tube. What came out was a steady stream of blue light.
Vlas spoke, “Uh, I’m pretty sure that’s a jell-off pipe which means this vehicle could start to dissolve at any second.”
“They can’t have enough jell-off to destroy the car,” Dar said.
Vlas shrugged. “They just have to damage it.”
Elsie’s heartbeat raced, and her palms were wet. “FREDCR999,” she said in a louder and higher pitch, “full speed forward.”
The vehicle lurched then punched, slamming all the kids into their jellach seats as it exploded out of the garage. Dr. Jensa and the Panktars dived out of the way.