Doppelganger Danger, page 9
“Yeah?”
“Don’t go to the bleachers after school today. I promise you, no good will come of it. Thaddeus is not your soul mate. And those girls are most definitely not your friends.”
Beatrice gaped.
“Trust me,” Em hollered over her shoulder, with pep in her step, feeling as though she was slowly getting the hang of this Earthling world.
CHAPTER 15
All Afternoon, The Cadets Puzzled Over The Strange message Dr. Khatri’s team at NASA had received. Isaiah could barely pay attention to his history or math lessons, fixating instead on cracking the code. However, no matter how much he wrestled with various ideas, nothing made sense. He’d felt like this before—when Uncle Ming had sent him all those cryptic notes prior to going missing. Everyone dismissed the messages, claiming Ming’s mind and spirit were deteriorating, but Isaiah knew better. And he’d been right!
Ming had been onto something big, mapping the drilling sites that were secretly being controlled by the Empyrean One, thanks to double agents like Dr. Scopes. Isaiah slunk lower in his seat as Mrs. Minuzzi droned on and on at the front of the classroom. General Shro had been apprehended on Station Liminus, but Scopes was still at large, shape-shifting into who knew what identity and slipping out of their grasp. He hadn’t been able to solve Ming’s messages back then because he didn’t have the right cipher, and Isaiah couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was some missing key to their current conundrum.
“Isaiah? Ahem, Mr. Yoon?”
He snapped his head up, suddenly aware that someone was calling his name. “Yes?” he asked, his voice garbled.
“Could you read to us from page seven-twenty-one?” Mrs. Minuzzi asked.
Isaiah’s heart jumped in his chest. “Did you say S21?”
Across the room, Dev perked up.
Mrs. Minuzzi shook her head and rapped a knuckle against the smartboard. “No. Page seven hundred and twenty-one, please.”
“Okay.” Isaiah sighed. For a moment, he thought maybe his history textbook contained an important clue. He flipped to the designated page. He was about to begin reading when the final bell of the day rang.
“Saved by the bell, it seems, Mr. Yoon,” Mrs. Minuzzi said, straightening her floral cardigan. “We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow. Have a nice afternoon, everyone!” she called out.
Isaiah slammed the thick textbook closed and grabbed his backpack, eager to check in with the others and see if they’d had better luck cracking the NASA code.
Em made her way toward the gymnasium, careful to avoid any other students or teachers. There had been a gymnasium in the other dimension, too, with a warped wooden floor and basketball hoops dangling crookedly from the walls. In contrast, this gym was illuminated with bright lights. The polished floors shone. A cart of cones and orange balls stood in one corner. A large scoreboard hung above the center of the court. Squishy blue mats were folded and stacked in another corner. Adjacent to the gym, Em discovered smaller rooms for changing and showering. This time, she made sure to enter the door marked Girls’ Locker Room.
Inside, there were wooden benches and rows of small lockers, painted green and yellow. There was a bulletin board on the wall with information about tryouts, game schedules, and equipment swaps. Em searched until she found a bin labeled Uniforms.
She rummaged around inside and pulled out a pair of emerald green mesh shorts. Next, she found a tank top with a cartoon astronaut on the front dunking a planet-shaped basketball into a net. The words Conroy Cadets were printed across the top in blocky letters. On the back was a large number 8. Dim8 was her home dimension, so this felt like an auspicious sign. Em yanked off her zilks—including her heavy boots—and stuffed everything into an open locker. She pulled on the shorts and top.
There were a few pairs of sneakers lined up under the bench that seemed available for the taking, so she tried some on until she found a pair that fit. She glanced at herself in the mirror. She realized she was more vulnerable without her spear-proof zilks, but she felt this risk was worth taking, in case anyone else happened to spot her without her hoodie. Speaking of which . . .
She grabbed the damp garment and walked over to the nearest hand dryer. She was about to press the button for hot air when a woman dressed in a striped tracksuit entered the room. Her name, Coach Northside, was embroidered on the pocket.
She looked Em up and down. “Maeve Greene? Going out for basketball?”
Em nodded, unsure what to say.
“Does Coach Diaz know about this?”
Em cleared her throat. “Coach Diaz?”
“Yes, Coach Diaz. He’s in charge of the marching band.” She searched Em’s face. “I thought you had band practice after school most days, but if you can juggle the two activities, we’d love to have you on the team.”
“Really?” Em said, feeling something stir in her chest. No one had ever invited her to join a team before. She often suspected that the kids at her training facility on Dim8 hung out with her merely because she was the niece of the Empyrean One. No one would dare bully or exclude her for fear of her aunt’s wrath. But this whole be-part-of-our-team thing? That sense of belonging was highly appealing.
Em quickly shook the feeling away. What was she doing? She cursed herself for getting so sidetracked. She needed to execute her plan without any further distractions. Otherwise, she’d be on the receiving end of her aunt’s wrath.
“Tryouts start in forty-five minutes, Greene,” Coach Northside said, grabbing a whistle from the hook on the wall and a clipboard from her desk. “Hope to see you out there!” she added before leaving the locker room.
CHAPTER 16
“I can’t think on an empty stomach,” Lewis said to the cadets, who’d gathered together after school to swap notes. Unfortunately, no one could make sense of the S21 message, and Dev’s father hadn’t received any additional information or transmissions from the auditory lab. At this point, the message seemed like an anomaly, or a dead end. “If I’m going to help you guys crack this code, I’m going to need a bag of chips first. Maybe two.”
“You’ll be late for marching band practice if you go all the way back to the cafeteria now,” Maeve scolded.
“I’m not going back to the caf, Miss Punctuality,” Lewis snipped back. “There’s a vending machine at the end of the hall. Right outside the band room.”
Zoey’s forehead scrunched up. “There is? I don’t remember seeing one there. I’m on the student council, and I’m pretty sure the concessions committee would have let me know about new snack options on campus.”
Lewis shrugged. “They just installed it today. I saw a team of burly guys wheel it in this afternoon when I was taking the scenic route to class.”
“The scenic route?” Tessa asked, adjusting her messenger bag over her shoulder.
“Fine. I was wandering the halls to kill time and avoid Mr. Phipps’s super boring lecture on integers,” Lewis replied. “Look. There it is.” He jogged over to a vending machine at the end of the hall.
It was the size of a portly refrigerator, made of metal and glass and painted with cheerful primary colors.
“See?” Lewis said, digging in his pockets for money. “Told ya.”
“All right, no need to gloat,” Maeve said. “You get your snacks, and we’ll go pick up the loaner instruments from Coach Diaz. He said he was going to leave them in the music department’s storage closet.”
“Sure, sounds good,” Lewis replied, barely paying attention. His stomach rumbled loudly.
“What a weird place to install a vending machine,” Zoey said, looking around. “Hardly anyone passes by this area.”
“Except for us band members,” Dev said.
“It’ll be a struggle to move inventory,” Zoey added, making a mental note to bring the issue up at the next student council meeting. They’d recently struck an agreement with Principal Brant that directed all vending machine profits to the student council activity fund. She needed to make sure they were optimizing their fundraising efforts, especially if they wanted to plan a truly epic Winter Snow Ball.
“I wouldn’t worry about moving inventory,” Tessa said to her sister. “Especially now that Lewis knows about it. I predict he’ll empty it out before the end of the week.”
Lewis pulled a few bills from his thick wad of sorry we’re too busy to hang out with you money. He stood in front of the vending machine, weighing his options. Popcorn? Barbeque-flavored chips? Pretzels? Chocolate-dipped granola bar? All of the above?
Then something shiny caught his eye. It was lodged in one of the spiral dispensers, in the upper right corner. It was a little larger than a tin of mints, without any discernable label.
“What kind of snack is that?” he wondered aloud, though no one heard him. The others had moved on down the hall, swapping their Other-Earth instruments for the loaners Coach Diaz had left in the storage closet. Lewis squinted through the glass at the shiny object. Upon closer inspection, it didn’t look like it belonged in the vending machine at all. Maybe the delivery guys had left it behind accidentally?
He slid a few dollar bills into the vending machine, then inspected the keypad. “Let’s see . . . Letter S . . . Number 21.” He froze, his index finger inches from the keys, a lightbulb suddenly illuminating inside his brain. “Holy hot dogs!” he shouted. “Dudes! Get back here!” He waved his arms frantically and jumped up and down.
Isaiah poked his head out of the storage closet. “Lew looks pretty excited about those potato chips,” he said to Dev, who was standing beside him, reaching for his new saxophone.
“Typical,” Maeve sighed.
“I cracked the code!” Lewis hollered.
They all stared at one another, grabbed their new instrument cases, and ran toward the vending machine.
“Check it out!” Lewis said breathlessly when they arrived. He pointed to the rows of snacks behind the glass.
Maeve huffed. “Way to get our hopes up! You really think Ignatia sent us the location of highly processed cheesy puffs?” Then she noticed a small sign along the top of the machine that read Station Snaximus. Hmm. That was an odd coincidence.
“I’m serious,” Lewis said. “Look.” He punched the keypad. “S21.” The spiraled metal wire spun. The silver object dropped into the catch bin. Lewis reached his hand inside and retrieved it. It was cold to the touch. He turned it over in his palms. Embossed on the front was an unmistakable thirteen-sided symbol—the MAC logo.
Isaiah’s mouth hung open. “No. Way.”
“Told ya so.” Lewis grinned. “Can I gloat now, or what?” He shot Maeve a teasing look.
Maeve tried her best not to seem too impressed, but she was pretty astounded. “We still don’t know what’s inside.”
“Exactly. Open it!” Tessa said impatiently.
During their final moments on Station Liminus, prior to departing through the glitchy portal in Gate Hall, Ignatia and Duna had promised to remain in contact once the cadets returned to Earth. The kids had been so preoccupied with getting home that none of them had given much thought to what this communication might look like or how it would operate. The cryptic code from Dr. Khatri’s team of scientists seemed like a piece of the puzzle, but it was hard to know for sure. Now they all felt certain this had been sent for them to find. Which meant their work at Station Liminus wasn’t over just yet.
“I bet it’s a comm device,” Isaiah said, his voice uncharacteristically giddy.
Lewis hopped around excitedly, unable to contain his energy. “I hope it’s one of those snazzy circular glass lynks that Duna had. My big brothers will be soooo jealous if I get an alien smart phone before they do. Ha ha, suckers!”
“Maybe it’s one of those blue translator crystals that delegates wear around their necks. Those were beautiful,” Tessa added. “And super functional.”
“Dev, you should open it,” Lewis said. “Since your dad’s the one who forwarded us the S21 message.”
“Okay.” He swallowed, his hands shaking a little.
The cadets held their breath as Dev opened the case.
Lewis leaned over to get a better view. “Huh?” He scratched his head.
Isaiah frowned. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Seriously?” Tessa muttered, equally mystified.
Dev carefully lifted the object from the case. It was red and yellow and . . . plasticky. About four inches long, tapered at one end, with a circular hole on top and a few minuscule buttons along the bottom.
“A kazoo?” Lewis moaned. “You have got to be kidding me! Station Liminus has the best technology in the world—no, in the whole multiverse! They could literally invent anything: hoverdiscs, illumabeams, you name it! But instead of something epically awesome, the MAC sends us a dinky kazoo?” Lewis delivered a swift kick to the vending machine, stubbing his toe and yelping in pain.
“What are we supposed to do with it?” Zoey frowned.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Lewis nudged Dev. “Yo, you wanna get in touch with me? No prob. Just hit me up on my kazoo, bro!” he said sarcastically.
The rest of them laughed. It did seem pretty ridiculous.
Maeve tried to hide her own disappointment. “If I learned anything from our recent adventures, it’s that the multiverse is full of surprises. Things are rarely what they seem. So maybe there’s more to this kazoo than meets the eye?”
“As in?” Zoey asked.
Maeve rocked back on her heels. “Maybe something that meets the ear?”
Dev lifted it to his lips and gave a loud, obnoxious honk.
They waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Dev honked again. The kazoo wheezed, sounding like an asthmatic goose.
“This feels like a bad repeat of this morning,” Dev said, depressed. “Why would Ignatia send us a cheesy plastic noisemaker?”
“Maybe it’s some sort of joke?” Zoey offered.
“It’s a joke all right,” Lewis grumbled. “Just not a very funny one. Can I see it?”
Dev shrugged and handed the kazoo over. Lewis tapped it a few times, twisted the nozzle at the top, and gave a little toot. This time, the kazoo sounded less like suffering water fowl and more like a magical flute.
Do re mi fa sol la ti do! The tiny plastic instrument played a scale and flared to life. A beam of orange light shot toward the ceiling.
Lewis gasped and nearly dropped the kazoo, but Maeve swooped in and caught it before it hit the floor.
A disjointed holograph appeared a moment later, floating a few inches above the top of the kazoo.
“Whoa! I take back everything I said. This thing is awesome.” Lewis watched the holographic pixels stitch together, slowly forming an image. A face came into focus. It was Duna!
Duna had been their first real friend and ally at the Station. A nonbinary humanoid from Mertanya of Dim10, Duna used they/them pronouns and had frilled ears and closely cropped green-tinted hair and proudly served their dim as the youngest member of the Multiverse Allied Council. Duna had advocated for the cadets and their home planet and helped orient them to the strange new world they found themselves suddenly thrust into.
Holo-Duna’s mouth moved. A prerecorded message began to play:
“Greetings, Space Cadets! I hope this message finds you well. As you have now discovered, the Multiverse Allied Council chose to conceal your designated communication device in the form of a small and rather inconspicuous Earthling instrument.
“In its current form as a kazoo, this comm device is easily concealable, portable, and quite durable. It operates on a secure channel, linking you directly to Station Liminus’s primary triskaidecagon and mainframe. Guard the kazoo well, Cadets. Make certain it does not fall into the wrong hands, for these are tumultuous times.
“The Empyrean One and several of her cronies are still at large. In an effort to stop the progression of their nefarious plans, Secretary Ignatia Leapkeene has issued an immediate dimensional lockdown. Aside from a handful of regulated and heavily guarded access points within Station Liminus, interdimensional travel will be halted henceforth. All known portals will be deactivated and will remain closed until further notice.
“Our goal is to prevent the Empyrean One from infiltrating any additional dimensions. The lockdown will also prevent her fugitive associates, including Dr. Genevieve Scopes, from fleeing whatever dimensions they might currently be hidden within. To that effect, the council has also deployed an elite search squad responsible for sweeping each primary dimension and its parallels in an attempt to apprehend these miscreants.”
There was a pause, while the second half of the holovid message loaded.
“I guess we’re not going on an adventure anytime soon,” Isaiah said quietly, thinking of Ming, wherever he might be.
“Nope.” Dev shook his head. “Looks like this lockdown will keep us Earth-bound for a while.”
“Prior to closing the portals on your home dimension, our team successfully shut down all of EnerCor’s mining and drilling stations and neutralized the Cataclysmosis spores that were incubating beneath your planet’s crust. Your planet still has a long way to go before it is fully healthy again, but this is a positive start. As promised, the MAC will assist Earth of Dim14 with the development of regenerative environmental therapies, but the bulk of this work will have to wait until the dimensional borders reopen.
“I understand that this might not be the news you had hoped to hear, but I promise that Secretary Leapkeene, myself, and every member of the Multiverse Allied Council have your best interests at heart. In time, we hope to reestablish transit routes between Earth of Dim14 and Station Liminus so that we might see each other in person again. For now, we must all stay on our home dimensions until the Empyrean One is apprehended. The safety of the multiverse is at stake. I know I can trust you to do your part.
