Shock the Monkey, page 8
“It would have been enticing,” Ogden admitted, “but they never asked.”
“Well,” said Sahara, “as it so happens, we know Agent Rigby—the head of FOBE. A single call to her, and it’ll be scalpels for you.
“Yeah,” seconded Noah. “You’ll be the subject of their next alien autopsy.”
Merlin began nervously nibbling on an empty plastic soda bottle. “What do you want from me?”
“We need a way off-planet,” Andi told them. “In a ship with an RTR drive big enough for all of us to catch up with the Usurpers.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” cried Sahara. “When did this become a ‘we’ thing?”
Noah sighed. “Sahara’s right. I mean, she can’t just drop everything and go off-planet; she has a life.”
“Well, I’ve got a semblance of one,” Ogden said, “and I’m willing to go.…”
“Of course you are! Because this is your mess!” Sahara pointed out.
Ogden glared at her. “Sure, just abandon your closest friends when things get a little stressful.”
Sahara glared right back. “(A) you are not my closest friend, and (B) taking a blind leap into outer space where we all might die horrible deaths is a bit more than ‘things getting stressful’!”
“I’ll make sure nobody dies,” said Andi. “At least not immediately.”
“And my powers can help protect us, too,” Noah pointed out. “That is, if we all decide to go.”
Sahara crossed her arms, understandably huffy. “Well, none of this matters anyway, because we don’t have a ship!”
Then they all turned to Merlin, who had been happy to be left out of this conversation. Now he backed away at the prospect of their combined attention.
“Don’t look at me—I don’t have a trans-stellar ship,” Merlin told them, then took a moment to consider. “But I know a thing who knows a thing who might be able to help you.…”
The UFO event of the previous evening was already bringing government types flooding into town. They wandered the area around the Jensen home, waving radiation detectors and taking soil samples, and questioning neighbors in an ever-widening circle. Reports of missing people—mostly party guests—kept law enforcement busy, as did the inexplicable abundance of babies, who were all now in the overwhelmed hands of Child Protective Services.
“We need to be off the streets,” Noah said, as they left the game shop. “With FOBE agents poking around everywhere, it’ll be hard to avoid them, and we can’t risk them seeing me or Andi.”
“And I don’t want to have to go into defensive mode,” said Andi. “They already think I’m some sort of doomsday weapon.”
“Aren’t you?” asked Ogden.
“Oh, please! I might be able to turn a building into a smoldering crater, but that’s hardly an extinction-level event.”
“So, what now?” asked Sahara.
“While we’re waiting for Merlin to contact his sources, I can tune my sensors to look for interstellar residue and traces of RTR exhaust, in hopes of finding a ship we can get passage on,” Andi suggested, “but it’ll take time.”
“We don’t have time,” whined Ogden.
“Well, that star isn’t going anywhere,” Andi pointed out.
And apparently neither were they.
They went to Ogden’s mom’s house to regroup and plan their next move. His mom was off at work, but Ogden’s cat seemed glad to see them. And alternately not. The cat wove in and out between them, meowing, begging for attention but seemingly annoyed whenever anyone gave it some. Like Ogden himself, the cat was a bundle of contradictions.
Andi moved around the room pacing as she scanned the neighborhood for a ship, but so far had come up with nothing.
Merlin showed up at Ogden’s door and said he had news but seemed a bit guarded.
“Through my contacts, I’ve been able to confirm that there’s an RTR ship here in Arbuckle.” But then he hesitated.
“So where is it?” Noah prompted.
“I don’t know,” said Merlin, looking sheepish. “The thing who knows a thing wants payment for information. And so does the second thing.”
The kids looked to one another. “Will this thing take Apple Pay?” Ogden asked. “The other aliens did.”
Merlin sighed. “The first thing is demanding payment in human souls.”
“Fine,” said Andi, barely blinking. “How many—and do they have to be decent ones, or can they be really bad people?”
Merlin shrugged. “Probably a nice mix.”
“Andi!” shouted Noah, then turned to Merlin. “Sorry, that’s not an option!”
“Maybe we can go straight to the second thing and skip the middleman.”
“Middle-thing,” corrected Ogden.
“Whatever,” said Sahara. “Just tell us what the second thing wants.”
“Human brains,” Merlin informed them.
“How many—and do they have to be smart ones?”
“Andi!”
She threw up her hands. “Can you at least let me negotiate?”
“No!” Noah said, standing firm. “Tell your things no deal.”
“Well, I did my part,” said Merlin, “so you can’t expose me.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ogden. “This town wouldn’t be the same without you, Merlin. Your secret’s safe with us.”
Merlin was visibly relieved. “There’s one bit of information my guy slipped. Wherever this ship is, it’s old and hasn’t been used for a while.”
“Hmm,” said Andi. “Probably why I couldn’t find any residual trace of its engine.”
“I’d be careful if I were you,” Merlin warned. “Even if you find it, a ship that’s been out of use that long might not be very spaceworthy.”
“Noted,” said Noah.
Merlin turned to Ogden. “May your quest be attainable without loss of life and limb, Sir Ogden of Coggin-Criddle.” Then he bowed and left them no better off than when he had arrived.
Andi sighed. “He hath left us with nary a clue.”
Sahara glared at her. “Don’t you start talking like him.”
“Sorry,” grumbled Andi. “I couldn’t help myself.”
“This is terrible,” moaned Ogden. “We’re never going to find her! This is all my fault!”
“Agreed,” said Sahara.
Which irritated Ogden no end. “You’re not supposed to agree with me! As a supportive friend, you’re supposed to say it wasn’t my fault at all and that it couldn’t be helped!”
“But it was your fault, and it could have been helped.”
“You’re not making me feel any better! What happened to the friendly comforting Sahara from last night?”
“That was before I found out you fell for an obvious scam by people who were clearly aliens!”
“Guys,” said Noah, coming between them. “Let’s just bring it down a notch, get ourselves some warm milk, and relax.”
“Warm milk?” said Sahara, looking at him funny.
“Sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind. Must be an animal thing. Ogden, maybe get us some snacks so we’re not all so cranky.”
“Best idea I’ve heard all morning.” Ogden went into the kitchen but couldn’t let it go. “It could have happened to anybody,” he insisted. “How was I supposed to know?”
“Maybe because the ‘people’ who sold you the star looked dead… and smelled dead?” said Sahara.
“My parents are university professors—that describes half the people they work with.” Ogden returned from the kitchen with what he thought were snacks, but when he looked at the plate, all he had done was open a can of tuna. Disheartened and wondering how he could have been so distracted, he gave it to the cat, who was more than happy to devour it.
“If we can’t find ourselves an RTR ship,” said Sahara, “we may have to find a way to accept that Claire is gone.”
Ogden buried his head in his hands like it was, once more, the end of the world.
“Don’t worry, Ogden,” Noah said. “We’ll find her.” Then he sighed and leaned back. “But first, I just want to lie down on a big green sofa in a big blue house and forget all about it for a while.”
That got Sahara’s attention. “Did you say a big blue house?”
Noah considered that. “Yeah, I did. Why did I imagine that?”
“Does the blue house have yellow trim?” she asked.
“And wind chimes…,” said Noah, sitting up. “How did you know?”
The cat meowed and brushed between them.
Sahara took a good look at it. “Ogden, where did you get this cat?”
“Mittens is a rescue,” Ogden told her. “We found him after the volcano blew.”
“Right—I remember now,” said Sahara. “At first you thought it was a female cat.”
“Only because I have a tendency to see dogs as male and cats as female,” Ogden explained. “Anyway, since no one came looking, we adopted him.” Then Ogden furrowed his eyebrows. “Not sure where we got the name Mittens. It just kind of felt… right.”
Sahara looked at Noah. The cat meowed. Both of them suddenly had an image come to mind. More of a feeling, actually.
“Sudden urge to go outside?” Noah asked.
“And to come right back in.” Sahara said. “That’s definitely cat.”
“So was that thought of warm milk,” said Noah, “and Ogden opening a can of tuna without realizing it.” Noah turned to his sister. “Andi?”
Her eyes snapped open “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“I need you to do a scan of Ogden’s cat.”
She looked at him with faint disgust. “It’s a cat,” she said.
“Run a scan anyway.”
She sighed. “Fine.” She raised a hand, moved it about in the air above the cat…
… and suddenly her weapons systems came online. Her eyes turned red, and laser bolts shot out. The cat yowled and jumped just in time, as Ogden’s mother’s favorite chair was reduced to ash.
“Andi!” yelled Noah.
“That’s not a terrestrial feline!” shouted Andi. “That’s Mittens the Disgruntled. He has the death sentence in twelve star systems.” Her eyes began to power up again.
“Andi! Stand down!” demanded Noah.
A moment of laser-sharp tension, and Andi’s eyes went back to normal. “I’m supposed to protect you from threats—and that’s a threat.”
“Actually,” said Noah, “he might not be. He might be trying to help us.”
Mittens was now on his scratching post, back arched, fur on end. Suddenly, everyone got a very distinct image of being attacked by merciless claws, then a sudden craving for mouse.
“Ogden—he’s your cat. Could you get him to… de-escalate?” said Noah.
“Mittens, come here,” Ogden said. “I’m sorry that the big bad robot stressed you out. Let me scratch behind your ears.”
Reluctantly, Mittens slunk down from his perch, pausing only to hiss at Andi, before climbing into Ogden’s lap for the aforementioned ear-scratching.
“Mittens is clearly telepathic,” Noah said. “And when we were talking about the RTR drive, Sahara and I had the identical vision of a blue house.”
“I had a vision of a vegetable garden,” Ogden said, “but I think it was in the yard of a blue house.”
“Mittens,” Noah asked, “do you know where we can find an RTR drive?”
Again the image of the house and garden came, almost as vivid as a photograph.
Sahara shook her head. “I know Arbuckle backward and forward—there’s no house like that in town. It must be somewhere else.”
“How do we know it’s anything?” Andi said, annoyed that, as an android, she couldn’t get telepathic projections from a criminal alien cat. “It could just be the last place he lived.”
“If he’s really trying to help us, then he must want something in return.” Noah turned to the cat in Ogden’s arms. “Mittens—what do you want for helping us?”
And although Sahara and Noah got nothing, Ogden got the full picture.
“Uh… He wants this whole house. To himself. And a human whose sole purpose in life is to serve him.”
Sahara looked around at the house, then at Ogden. “Um, doesn’t he already have that?”
“Well, yeah,” agreed Ogden, “but it’s not official.”
Noah considered it. “Tell him… you’ll work on it?”
Just then Andi jumped up. “Hey! I’ve got something.”
“You found a ship?” Noah asked.
“No… but someone just opened a portal right here in Arbuckle!”
9
My Thoughts Exactly
HALF AN HOUR EARLIER, AGENT KNELL AND DR. KRATZ ARRIVED in Arbuckle. As they approached the town, Agent Knell insisted that Kratz slink low in his seat as not to be seen. “No need to advertise your presence,” Knell said.
After months of captivity and interrogation, Kratz didn’t have the will to argue, so he lowered his seat back and continued refining his plan, such as it was, to gain the advantage.
“Getting into the Quantavius Zone won’t be difficult,” the agent said, “and FOBE will have no idea we’re heading there—because I left clues suggesting we’re headed south, so Rigby will be off on a wild-goose chase.”
They arrived in Arbuckle by an unpaved, unguarded road—but hit unexpectedly heavy traffic once they were in town, and Kratz dared to poke his head up slightly to look around.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“In case you forgot, thanks to you, a volcano popped up in the middle of everything, messing up all the roads,” the agent grumbled. “You can’t get anywhere from anywhere in Arbuckle anymore.”
“Not that you ever could,” quipped Kratz, “since anywhere in Arbuckle is basically nowhere.”
They both chuckled at that, for precisely the same amount of time.
The detour took them past a small, freshly built park at the base of the new volcano, featuring four gleaming bronze statues that had been draped in flowers and surrounded by candles.
“The Prime family,” Agent Knell said, even before Kratz asked. “They’re missing—presumed dead. Officially, they’re the only casualties from the volcanic eruption—but unofficially, we know that the boy and his robotic sibling are still at large. Not sure about the parents, though.”
But none of this addressed his primary concern.
“What about me?” railed Kratz. “Did no one notice I was missing, too? I demand to be presumed dead and given a statue!”
“The world is fickle and cruel,” said Agent Knell. “With so many other people claiming to be you, no one wanted to hear about ‘Kratz actual.’”
“People are imbeciles.”
“Agreed. All the more reason to take what’s ours.”
“What’s mine,” Kratz corrected.
“If you say so.”
When they reached the Quantavius Zone, they drove past the guarded entrance and down a side street. “We can’t risk the main entrance, but I arranged alternate access,” Agent Knell said.
Her “alternate access” turned out to be bolt cutters in the back seat. They hopped out at a spot where trees hid them from view, and Knell proceeded to cut a hole in the chain-link fence that surrounded the Q-Zone. “Guards walk the perimeter once an hour. We have about forty-five minutes to get in and out before they find the breach.” Then she went back to the car and grabbed something from the back seat. “We can’t risk that any of the sub-Kratzes we pass will recognize you. Put this on.”
It looked like some sort of rubber Halloween mask but felt too soft to be rubber. He felt he should have recognized the face but had no clue who it could be.
“In case you’re wondering, it’s a likeness of Noah Prime’s father,” Agent Knell said.
“Why would FOBE make a mask of Noah Prime’s father?” Kratz asked.
“We didn’t. We found a damaged artificial skin in the woods the day of the eruption. We suspect Noah Prime’s parents were aliens using sophisticated disguises.”
“Won’t people recognize him from the statue?”
“You didn’t—and since anyone we run into in the Q-zone will be a sub-Kratz, we can assume they won’t recognize him, either. Now shut up and put his face on!”
While Kratz hated being told what to do, there was something he liked about being ordered around by Agent Knell. Her harsh directives reminded him of his own inner voice. He slipped the strange mask over his head, and immediately his face felt odd and tingly. He reached to touch his face, and he could actually feel his fingertips. It was as if the mask had fused with his own skin.
“A shame to hide that handsome face,” Agent Knell said. “But we do what we have to do. Just try not to rip it when you take it off.”
Once through the fence, they proceeded to Kratz’s apartment building, passing boarded up storefronts and several people with supremely irritated expressions on their faces.
“Even after all these months, their frustration hasn’t faded,” noted Agent Knell as they went to the building’s back entrance. “Many of them still insist that they are you and want to be back in your body. But others have come to appreciate being you, but with the benefit of a better body.”
That made Kratz pout a bit. “My body is adequate,” he grumbled. Which was really the best he could say about it.
They made their way up the dim stairwell to Kratz’s floor without encountering any neighbors, then down the hall to his apartment. Crime scene tape was across the door, but it was old and frayed. FOBE had already done a full forensic analysis of the place and had concluded long ago that there was nothing left to find. How wrong they were!
Agent Knell, who had prepared a copy of Kratz’s keys, ripped off the crime scene tape and opened the door.
Once inside the empty apartment, Kratz stopped and looked around, bewildered. “What happened to all my things?”
“The government took it all to test for unusual electro-magnetic energy but found nothing. Now I’m sure it’s all crated in a warehouse in Area 51, or some such place.”
