Doppelganger Danger, page 1
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-1-4197-4825-7
eISBN 978-1-64700-059-2
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For Mia, Isla, and Hunter—
neatest nieces and most cosmic cousins
CHAPTER 1
Dev Khatri’s rules for surviving the multiverse were pretty simple: Speak up. Act out. And kick some serious butt.
These were the exact opposite of his rules for surviving middle school back in Ohio, where most people knew him as a quiet and nerdy band geek who avoided confrontation at all costs. But that life felt a world—no, worlds—away.
He glanced around at the parched, crumbling landscape. It was drained of color, like an old sepia-toned photograph, without the nostalgia or charm. Behind him, a steel and glass building sagged sadly, most of its windows shattered, its halls and labs empty. The faded NASA sign above the front doors hung at a crooked angle.
Rusted cars littered the road, parked haphazardly and forgotten, as though people had been in a hurry to escape. Dev couldn’t help but wonder, what had happened in this place before he and his friends arrived? Why did it look so . . . apocalyptic? What had the people been running from?
Far in the distance, yellow lights blinked and smokestacks coughed up noxious plumes. Ash floated through the air, stinging Dev’s eyes. Blackened vines snaked through the cracked concrete at his feet. He exchanged a worried look with Maeve, who was putting on a brave face and leading them toward the eerie city in the valley below. Lewis, Tessa, and Isaiah followed, their gazes set on the horizon, each lost in their own thoughts.
The wind whispered and the vines at their feet writhed and twisted. A tendril wrapped itself around Dev’s ankle. He kicked it away and quickened his pace, his heart beating hard. None of this was right. He and his friends weren’t supposed to be here. They had tried to travel home, where their families were waiting for them, back on Earth in Dimension14. Their Earth. This parallel place was definitely not it. Dev exhaled, shaking off his fears and steeling himself for whatever lay ahead. There was no doubt about it: In the past few days, everything had changed. Himself included.
It all started when Dev and his fellow marching bandmates—the Conroy Cadets—accidentally activated a quantum collider during a class field trip to the Gwen Research Center, a NASA field station where Dev’s father worked as a catastrophysicist. The collider transported them to Station Liminus, a central meeting place between dimensions governed by the Multiverse Allied Council. As if stumbling into a new dimension and meeting a dazzling array of sentient life-forms hadn’t been mind-blowing enough, the cadets then learned that Earth was on the brink of collapse. Oh, and the MAC, mistaking the cadets for an envoy of Earth’s best and brightest, expected the kids to fix everything. No pressure, right?
In the past, Dev had worried about normal middle school stuff like pop quizzes, body odor, and embarrassing himself in front of his crush. After arriving on Station Liminus, those past worries seemed silly by comparison. Especially when the cadets realized the fate of their home planet—and the entire multiverse—rested in their well-intentioned but rather clumsy hands.
Thrust into uncertainty and peril, the cadets rose to the occasion as best they could, using their musical talents to reestablish contact with Queen Eryna, a powerful and important ally. In addition, they’d thwarted duplicitous General Shro, unmasked Dr. Genevieve Scopes as a traitor, and revealed the Empyrean One’s malevolent plans for destruction and domination. Not too shabby for a bunch of middle school misfits who’d previously been frequent victims of the school bully’s supersonic-atomic-bubonic-wedgie attacks. Sure, the cadets had made some pretty epic mistakes along the way, disrupting interdimensional diplomacy, damaging critical gateways, and setting loose a seriously scary space-beast, to name a few. But overall, Dev was proud of himself and his friends.
GAHROOARR!
Uh-oh. Speaking of spacebeasts . . .
Dev, Tessa, Isaiah, Maeve, and Lewis wheeled around and instinctively huddled together, each one facing outward, eyes wide and watching.
KRRAAGHH!
Something resembling the long-lost cousin of the colossadon crashed through the nearby forest, toppling the blackened trees like toothpicks. The cadets froze. The beast lurched forward, nostrils flaring.
“What. Is. That?” Tessa whimpered, moving closer to Dev, her arm brushing against his, which made him blush the slightest bit. The Hawthorne-Scott sisters had a way of doing that to him, even at the most inopportune times, like right now.
“Looks like a harbinger of doom,” Isaiah croaked, his gray eyes unblinking, his feet rooted to the ground.
Lewis frowned. “Harbinger of doom, huh? That’s catchy, but I think dragomander has a better ring to it.”
Dev studied the creature with terrified fascination. Only a few days prior, his mother had told him that in order to be a knight, he’d need dragons to defeat. Of course, she’d been speaking metaphorically, and then somewhat literally about a revoltingly healthy breakfast smoothie, but that was beside the point. Now Dev was face-to-face with an actual dragon. Or, something vaguely dragon-esque, like one of the creatures they’d viewed (and accidentally released, oops!) from within the Station’s Menagerie. This so-called dragomander was twice the size of his family’s minivan, a mix between a mutant salamander and an armadillo, with the nose-numbing stench of a skunk.
“Shh! It hasn’t spotted us yet,” Maeve breathed. “Large reptiles often have poor eyesight. But they can see movement. Everyone stay still.”
Lewis raised an eyebrow, like he’d much rather make a run for it. As a former member of the school’s track team, he’d have the best shot at getting away. Yet he didn’t try to escape. He stuck by his friends, lowering himself into a fighting stance, with his knees bent and his arms out. In each hand, he clutched a drumstick.
Before their departure from Station Liminus, Secretary Ignatia Leapkeene had kindly returned the musical instruments they’d unwittingly brought from Earth—a clarinet for Tessa (who’d been impersonating her identical twin sister, Zoey, on a dare), a trumpet for Isaiah, drumsticks for Lewis, an oboe for Maeve, and a shiny saxophone for Dev, which he now realized were the closest things to weapons they had.
“Let’s hope this little fella doesn’t actually breathe fire, like a real dragon,” Lewis whispered.
“Oh, please,” Maeve hissed. “There’s no such thing as a real dragon.”
“Maybe not in our dimension, but clearly we’re not in Kansas anymore,” he shot back, a little too loudly.
“Ohio,” Maeve corrected. “Not Kansas.”
Lewis huffed. “Would someone please tell Little Miss Know-It-All that now is not the time to—”
GAHROOARR!
The dragomander’s head whipped around, its small ears pricked. It had spotted them. It shot out of the forest, its four clawed feet tearing up clods of dry earth, heading straight for the cadets. It roared as it approached, its pungent breath blowing their hair back from their faces and bringing tears to their eyes. Tessa shrieked and dropped her clarinet.
In the blink of an eye, the dragomander flicked its long, sticky tongue and snapped up the instrument, crunching it like a pretzel between its sharp, yellow teeth.
“Aww, no!” Tessa moaned. She’d promised her sister nothing would happen to that clarinet. How was she going to explain this? “Zoey is totally gonna kill me!”
Isaiah grimaced. “Assuming that thing doesn’t kill us all first . . .”
Before they could escape, the dragomander began circling them, eyeing them like prey. It opened its jaws and roared again, hungry for more.
Anger welled up in Dev, more powerful than fear. He was no longer that shy, meek kid who bullies picked on without consequence. He was a Conroy Cadet, darn it, and he was prepared to kick some serious butt.
“Hey! You!” he shouted at the beast. “Leave me and my friends alone!” He looked straight into the dragomander’s green eyes. He tightened his grip on his saxophone, lifted it in the air, and roared right back.
The others stared, dumbstruck for a moment, then they all followed suit. Maeve held her oboe poised like a javelin. Lewis jabbed his drumsticks like little swords. Isaiah aimed his trumpet over his shoulder like a grenade launcher. Tessa, who’d already lost her clarinet, struck a karate-style pose.
The dragomander’s pupils dilated. It reared up on its
The creature turned and swung its spiny tail, aiming directly for Dev. He held up his saxophone to block the strike, but the power of the impact sent him flying through the air. He landed hard on the asphalt several feet away.
“Dev! Are you okay?” Tessa shouted, rushing to his side.
Dev nodded and rubbed his knee, where a sharp pain blossomed. His saxophone landed nearby with a sad clang, denting badly. Within seconds, the dragomander snatched it up and gobbled the entire thing in a single bite.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Isaiah called out as the creature turned its attention to the silver trumpet in his hand.
“It wants the instruments!” Maeve began backing away. “We need to create a diversion. On the count of three, throw the instruments as far as you can. Over there!” She pointed to a ditch on the other side of the road. “Then we run and look for cover!”
With Tessa’s help, Dev slowly rose to his feet. He winced in pain. He wasn’t sure he could run, not with his knee throbbing like this, but he’d do his best to keep up.
“One! Two! Three!” Right as Maeve hurled her oboe, a high-pitched noise pierced the air.
The dragomander recoiled.
“Talk about off-key!” Maeve frowned, tugging her ear. “What was that supposed to be? A C-sharp?”
“Where did it come from?” Tessa asked Dev, anxiously looking around. He shook his head, wondering the same.
The sound rang out again. Two distinct blasts.
“Reminds me of the dog whistle we used to train our retriever, Goldie,” Lewis said. “Only much louder and more intense.”
The dragomander flattened its ears atop its massive head, like the noise bothered it. It didn’t even try to eat the broken oboe lying on the ground nearby.
The sound also pained Isaiah. It rang deeply in his ears, as though it were burrowing into his skull. He crouched and tucked his head between knees, but the noise burrowed deeper, finding a way into his mind. Something cold filled the space between his ears, as though he’d chugged a super-sized Slurpee too fast and was now suffering the worst brain freeze of his life.
In that cold, numb moment, he had the distinct and unsettling feeling that someone was trespassing on his thoughts, riffling through his memories and ideas, searching for something. The feeling was unbearable. He clenched his fists, gritted his teeth. Heat built behind his eyes, forcing back the icy, uninvited intruder. His palms opened, his fingers stretched, emitting a faint blue glow. When he couldn’t take it any longer, Isaiah screamed, sending a shock wave of energy outward from his palms.
A sonic pulse rippled across the ground with a flash of light. And then, everything was quiet, the air still. The piercing, whistling noise stopped. Even the dragomander appeared stunned.
Isaiah’s chest rose and fell as the pain subsided and the sensation faded, leaving only a faint tingling in his fingertips. The dragomander shook its head, howled, then bucked. As quickly as it had appeared from the woods, the creature loped away, whining and grunting.
“Wh-what just happened?” Tessa asked, blinking.
The others turned and stared at Isaiah, regarding him anew. “Did you get superpowers or something?” Lewis asked. “Because if you did, that’s seriously cool. But I’m also super jealous.”
“I . . . I don’t know.” Isaiah hadn’t been completely truthful with the others about the changes he’d experienced on the Station. He was still trying to figure it out himself. He’d managed to hide his burgeoning telekinesis fairly well. Until now. He’d felt threatened and he’d lost control. The need to protect himself and his friends overtook him. It was exhilarating but also frightening.
“Are you all right?” Maeve asked, eyeing his hands, which had stopped glowing.
He didn’t feel all right; he felt weird and wired and confused. But Isaiah didn’t want them to worry. He nodded, rubbing his temples. The intense cold was gone, but a dull throb lingered. On Station Liminus, they’d learned that some life-forms tolerated Transfer—the trips between dimensions—better than others. His uncle, Ming, for example, and even that deceitful shape-shifter, Dr. Scopes, suffered cellular degradation with each journey. Isaiah struggled with nausea after Transfer, but once that pukey feeling waned, his other senses lit up and his newfound abilities amplified.
“Nice work scaring away the dragomander,” Tessa said gratefully. “I just wish you could’ve flexed that power move before he devoured my sister’s clarinet.”
“Seriously. Way to keep us on our toes,” Lewis said, giving Isaiah’s shoulder a nudge. “I nearly peed my space-suit. I thought we were toast! For real this time.”
A tremor moved through the ground, an aftershock perhaps, like the quivers—or mini earthquakes—that frequently shook their hometown of Conroy. The kids steadied themselves, trying to find their balance. A fierce gust of wind rattled the tree branches, kicking dust and leaves into the air.
Dev held up a hand, protecting his eyes. Something large and dark moved on the horizon. “I wouldn’t get too comfortable just yet,” he said warily. “I’m pretty sure the dragomander was running from that.”
CHAPTER 2
Isaiah’s Blast Awoke Something On The Desolate Planet. It arose from beneath the cracked earth and descended from the smog-choked sky, gathering into a powerful storm cloud, dense and charcoal gray, swirling and sparking with putrid greenish light. As soon as he saw it, Lewis declared it a smogmonster.
Around the cadets’ feet, the wind stirred dirt and dust into little eddies, sweeping up litter and debris, gathering momentum. Thorny vines thrashed. Tessa’s braids came loose from her bun and whipped across her face. Even the slip of paper with the note supposedly from the Empyrean One herself tore away from Maeve’s hand. If you think you can stop me so easily, you are gravely mistaken. Their adversary’s cryptic words disappeared into the sky, but the sense of foreboding lingered.
Lightning crackled. The wind began to wail. The cloud on the horizon grew larger and more dangerous, like a tornado feeding on everything in its path. A monster born of decay and ash and fear. And it was headed straight for them.
“Isaiah! Make it stop!” Tessa yelled as she stumbled toward a blackened tree trunk and held tight.
“I don’t know how!” Isaiah called back, frantically opening and closing his palms, willing the power to return. But he felt nothing. No spark or surge of energy. What good were his abilities if he couldn’t summon them on demand?
“We need to find cover!” Maeve cried, clutching an old telephone pole so she wouldn’t be swept away by the increasingly strong wind. “Maybe the NASA building has a basement. A secure place we can hunker down until this thing passes.”
“That building is already in shambles,” Dev said, reaching for the telephone pole, wrapping his arms around it, too. “It’ll be a death trap in a storm like this.”
The wind howled louder in response, ripping a chunk of the NASA building roof straight off. Time was running out. The smogmonster would be upon them in minutes.
Just then, Lewis shouted, “The hot dog! We need to get to the hot dog!”
“Honestly, Wynner? This is absolutely not the time to be thinking about food!” Maeve called back angrily.
Lewis shook his head. “No, look! Over there! Behind the lab!”
The kids took their eyes off the angry funnel cloud for a brief moment, just long enough to realize that Lewis was telling the truth. Now that part of the NASA roof was gone, they could see a very large, hot dog–shaped vehicle parked in a back lot a hundred yards or so from where the cadets stood, clinging to telephone poles and tree trunks.
“What the heck is a gigantic wiener doing here?” Maeve asked in disbelief, brushing her red hair from her eyes.
“Actually, it’s a Teeny wiener,” Tessa pointed out. “Not a gigantic one. It says so right on the side.” Maeve shot her a look, but Tessa was correct. Teeny’s was a fast-food chain in Ohio that served hot dogs and bratwurst with all kinds of toppings, ranging from basic ketchup and mustard to gourmet caviar with wasabi crème, and even peanut butter with Froot Loops. Somehow one of their signature food trucks had ended up in this parallel dimension.
