Mission Multiverse

by Rebecca Caprara

  “Uhhh …”

  “The secretary is putting great stock in you and your fellow Earthlings’ abilities. Do not take this opportunity lightly. You may have arrived here in error, and made a terrible first impression …”

  “Gee, thanks.” Dev wondered where this little chat was heading.

  “But this is your chance at redemption,” Shro said. “That is no small task. But I have faith you can handle it. I can see it in your eyes, Dev.”

  “See what?” Dev asked, blinking.

  “Leadership. Potential. Ambition.”

  “Oh.” Dev was pretty sure he lacked all of those qualities. He usually just wanted to disappear and blend in. His rules for surviving middle school involved not speaking up, not acting out, and avoiding getting his butt kicked.

  But Shro’s words felt warm as sunshine, especially inside the cold, sterile Station. Dev leaned into the idea, the possibility of making his mother and father proud. Of securing a better future for his baby sister. Of helping his friends. Of saving the world.

  “We’ll perform like our lives depend on it,” Dev replied.

  “That’s the spirit,” Shro said.

  Just then, Quirg scuttled down the hall, racing toward Ignatia as fast as his legs could carry him. “Your Eminence!” he called out.

  Ignatia stopped, her face wrought with irritation. “What is it? We are in the middle of something rather important.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt. So very sorry! But your counsel is required. Our security team needs to speak with you immediately.”

  “Shro, could you please go with Quirg? Resolve this issue,” she said, waving her hand.

  “No, Your Eminence.” Quirg shook his head. “They will not proceed without your personal authorization. The Ebvarienne adolescent known as Kor has escaped.”

  “Again?” Ignatia huffed.

  “She’s a slippery one,” Shro muttered, scowling.

  “I’m afraid so.” Quirg nodded, his chins wobbling. “Perhaps the door wasn’t properly secured after the Earthlings’ exit?”

  Ignatia looked from the kids to Quirg and back.

  Shro cleared his throat and stepped forward. “If it would be helpful, I would gladly take on the lowly task of escorting the Earthlings to the auditory lab while you apprehend this miscreant and lay down justice.”

  “But I would like to witness this so-called music,” Ignatia said, torn. “If they can …”

  “I know. I know,” Shro replied, his voice smooth as glass. “And you will, Your Eminence. In due course. I’m sure the Earthlings would appreciate a little more time to … warm up.” Shro glanced at the instruments in their hands.

  Maeve clutched her oboe tightly. “A little more practice would be a good idea,” she agreed.

  Shro turned back to Ignatia. “Presently, there is a fugitive on the loose within the Station. Only you can provide guidance for this most pressing issue, Your Eminence.”

  “Yes.” Quirg nodded. “Only you.”

  “Fine,” Ignatia relented. “But I expect to witness this music as soon as my duties are complete.”

  “Not to worry, Your Eminence.” Shro bowed. As he rose, he locked eyes with Dev, who nodded gravely. “I’m sure the Earthlings will blow us all away.”

  34

  EARTH

  On the far side of town, Coach Diaz knocked on a trailer door. The mint-green siding was sagging and mildewed. He knocked again.

  No one had picked up when he had called on the phone, so he figured he would stop by in person on his way home.

  A thin woman with bloodshot eyes and a baggy beige sweater came to the door. “What do you want? I already told the last one, we don’t need no stinkin’ magazine subscriptions.”

  Coach Diaz held out his hand. “Are you Mrs. Greene?

  “It’s Ms. Greene. And who’s asking? You with the services?”

  “What service?” Coach Diaz asked.

  “Social services,” she spat.

  “No, ma’am.”

  She chewed her lip, which was cracked and bleeding. “What’re you selling, then?”

  “Nothing, ma’am. I am Raul Diaz, Maeve’s marching band coach. She’s a tremendous asset to our group, by the way.”

  “Maaaaaeeve!” The woman turned her head and shouted into the dark trailer. “Get your asset out here! Now! You’re in some sorta trouble.” She looked the coach up and down.

  “No, no. She’s not in any trouble, I assure you,” Coach Diaz said, wiping a hand across his bald head. He’d begun to perspire despite the chilly, early November air.

  “Maaaaaeve!” the woman called again, her eyes glassy. “Where are you, you little—”

  “Ms. Greene, please. I just came by to inform you that your daughter’s not home. She’s at the Gwen Research Center, a NASA field station nearby. We had a school field trip there today. Maeve volunteered for a special sleep study. She’s spending the night at the Center with her peers.”

  “My dad go, too?” Maeve’s mother squinted at the whistle around Coach Diaz’s neck.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Gil Greene. Maeve’s grandpa.”

  Coach Diaz stared at her, confused. “No, I don’t believe so. Why?”

  “This time of day, he’s usually glued to that recliner, watching his game shows. Today he’s gone.” She swayed a little, then gripped the doorframe to steady herself. “How much does that sleep study pay, by the way?”

  “Oh. There’s no compensation. Just, um, experience. Perhaps some complementary space ice cream, or something of the sort.” Coach Diaz forced a smile.

  The microwave beeped from somewhere inside the trailer.

  “I gotta go. Supper’s ready,” Ms. Greene said.

  “Of course. Here’s my personal number, as well as Mrs. Minuzzi’s. If you have any other questions, please reach out. We’ll make sure your daughter is returned safe and sound.”

  A dark look passed over her eyes. “You sayin’ I can’t take care of my own kid, Coach?”

  “No, not at all.” He stepped back, alarmed by the change in her mood.

  She glared at him, her nostrils flaring. The microwave beeped again. “Good. Now get lost!” She slammed the door with such force it shuddered on its hinges and nearly knocked Coach Diaz off his feet.

  He stood on the stoop, frozen for a minute, trying to figure out what had just happened. Maeve was responsible, kind, organized, and upbeat. She didn’t fit into the narrative he’d just witnessed. Then again, she was a star performer. Maybe she put on a game face each day at school to hide her own reality.

  Coach Diaz walked to his car, casting one last look at the trailer. Was this run-down, loveless place really where Maeve came home to each night after band practice? His heart ached for her. Her own mother hadn’t even realized she was missing.

  35

  STATION LIMINUS

  Shro ushered the cadets through the exploratory sciences wing of Station Liminus. They hadn’t visited this area on their tour with Duna, and the construction dazzled them. The kids had thought the Gwen Research Center was cool, but it paled in comparison to where they were now.

  There were labs full of robots pipetting glowing liquids into hovering petri dishes. Alien-looking scientists gazed through highly advanced microscopes, while others printed three-dimensional tools with smartwands. Other rooms offered glimpses of holographic cell dissections, complex biomimicry, and gravity-defying engineering.

  “Whoa,” Tessa breathed. She wished Zoey were here to see this. Despite the fact that they’d had a doozy of an argument earlier that day, Tessa missed her sister. She wondered what Zoey was doing back home. She’d lost all sense of Earth time. Was it still afternoon? The middle of the night?

  The Station and its inhabitants seemed to use a similar time system, but she wasn’t sure whether the minutes and hours matched up to what they were used to on Earth. Tessa glanced down at her eChron watch, wishing she could send her sister a message. But its face was blank and unres
ponsive, the batteries likely fried during their Transfer.

  “The auditory lab is down this hall, but our team will need a few more minutes to prepare the recording equipment. In the meantime, you can practice in here.” Shro gestured to a featureless white wall. A door materialized and swung open.

  The practice room was completely purple, floor to ceiling. Even the tables and chairs were a rich lilac color. Isaiah entered and rubbed his eyes. Flashes of alternate realities bombarded his vision, making it hard to focus. Behind the purple walls, Isaiah saw a roaring reactor, firing pistons, flames. He clenched his eyes shut, swaying. Lewis caught him by the elbow.

  “Hey, buddy. You okay?”

  “Yeah, just dizzy.” Isaiah kept the hallucination to himself. He’d already lost his lunch; he didn’t want his bandmates thinking he’d completely lost his mind, too.

  “Performers typically prep in something called a green-room. But a purple room will do just fine, too,” Maeve declared, perching on an aubergine velvet couch. Now that they were no longer going to be jettisoned into space, she was rather enjoying the oddities and luxuries that Station Liminus had to offer.

  “A greenroom?” Shro asked. “That could be arranged.” With a snap, the walls, ceiling, floor, and furniture turned vibrant emerald. “Better?”

  “How did you do that?” Isaiah asked, wondering if he had imagined the change.

  Shro twirled his fingers. “Simple trick, really. Realigned the prismatic lumi-ratios.”

  “Right. Obviously,” Lewis said.

  Shro buttoned up his leather jacket. “I’ll return shortly. Make yourselves comfortable. In the meantime, enjoy a little snack. I’ve heard Earthlings can be rather insatiable.” He snapped his fingers and a bowl full of chartreuse starfish and plump sea slugs appeared on the table. They writhed and wriggled.

  “Are we supposed to eat those?” Isaiah asked, feeling like he might throw up again.

  Shro looked baffled. “They are a delicacy in our dimension. But perhaps you’d prefer something less—”

  “Mobile?” Tessa eyed a starfish that had crawled out of the bowl and was making a squelchy escape across the table.

  “Of course.” Shro snapped his fingers again. The starfish and slugs were replaced by a platter of juicy grapes and tart green apples.

  “Much better. Thank you.” Maeve smiled, popping a grape into her mouth, savoring the sweet taste.

  “Is there anything else I can assist with?” Shro asked.

  “Actually, yes. It’s sort of freezing in here,” Tessa said, rubbing her arms.

  “Seriously,” Dev agreed, his teeth chattering. Even the NASA suit’s built-in thermodynamic management system wasn’t cutting it.

  Shro nodded. “My apologies. Station Liminus accommodates such a vast array of species, you never know if your next guest will be warm-blooded, cold-blooded, ferium-blooded …” Shro pointed to a small dial on the wall. “Feel free to adjust the temperature to a comfortable level.”

  “This isn’t in Fahrenheit or Celsius. How high should I turn it?” Lewis asked, but Shro was already gone, the door closing behind him. “Hmm.” He looked at the dial. “How about somewhere in the middle?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Tessa said, shivering. Behind the wall, gears began grinding. Metal squealed, air popped. A gust of warmth filled the room. “Ah, that’s better already,” she said, stretching out on the couch beside Maeve.

  Isaiah’s eyesight blurred. The green walls flared to a jarring orange. The entire room shifted. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “What’s wrong?” Maeve asked.

  “Nothing,” Isaiah said. “Just a headache.” He tried to blink away the vision. The glimmers of strangeness he had felt back on Earth were becoming stronger, as though the Transfer process had amplified something within him. Duna had warned them that cellular mutation could happen. The thought was unsettling, but he didn’t want to worry his bandmates. Everyone was already dealing with a lot.

  “Okay, then let’s get started,” Maeve said.

  They picked up their instruments and began to play, with Tessa singing along. The room grew warmer. After they’d been rehearsing their music for a few minutes, a metal grate overhead trembled. The bolts holding it in place twisted, popping off one by one, clinking onto the green floor below.

  “Look!” Isaiah said, fearing his vision had predicted the arrival of some duct-dwelling spacebeast. But within the ceiling’s opening appeared the shimmering face of the shell child.

  “Huh?” Tessa stopped singing. “How did you get up there?” she asked.

  “Remember the holomap Duna showed us?” Dev said. “The entire Station is laced with ducts running behind walls, above ceilings, and beneath the floors. She must have escaped with Kor, inside that strange bag of hers, and traveled through the ducts.”

  “But how did she find us?” Tessa asked. “The Station is massive!”

  “Maybe she followed the music?” Dev said, giving a friendly wave.

  The child’s huge eyes darted back and forth, as if trying to assess whether it was safe to enter the room.

  “We won’t hurt you,” Tessa said gently.

  “She can’t understand you,” Maeve said.

  “Maybe not, but hopefully she can detect some kindness in our voices and gestures,” Tessa replied, smiling warmly. “It’s okay. You can come down.”

  Sure enough, the child descended into the room, climbing dexterously along the wall like a gecko. She landed nimbly on the ground, her shell shrinking and retracting as she moved, until it was the size of a backpack.

  Behind the walls, heaters rumbled. A whoosh of hot air filled the room. Lewis began to sweat.

  The child’s eyes moved rapidly. She reached for Tessa’s hand, squeezing it.

  “She’s scared,” Tessa said. “She’s trying to tell us something.”

  “What is it?” Maeve said, a little impatiently. “Because we really need to keep practicing. There’s a lot on the line here. As drum major, it’s my job to make sure—”

  Before Maeve could finish, the child began pulling Tessa toward the door. Tessa tried to protest, but a shiver zinged through her body, starting at her wrist and moving into her arm and down her spine. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

  Out of Tessa’s mouth came words in a strange, warbling voice. “You’re in grave danger! Leave this place!”

  Tessa shook her head, and yanked her hand away from the child. “What just happened?” she said in her regular voice.

  The others stared. “You told us, or that shell kid told us through you, to get out of here.”

  Tessa’s eyes widened. “Then why are we still in here?”

  They scrambled toward the door, but the handle was jammed. The room was becoming warmer and more stifling by the minute.

  “Hurry!” Isaiah said.

  “Watch out,” Lewis instructed. “I learned this move from Ninja Masters. Here it goes! Hi-ya!” He high kicked the door’s lockset but it didn’t budge. “Youch!!” he hollered, jumping up and down on one foot.

  “Hand me your drumstick!” Maeve shouted, wiping sweat from her brow as the temperature soared. Lewis stopped hopping and passed it to her.

  She jammed it into the keyhole and wrenched it downward. It snapped in half, splintering like a broken twig.

  “Aw, man! Why’d you have to do that?” Lewis groaned. “Now I have nothing to play with!”

  “Not a priority at the moment,” Maeve said through gritted teeth. “Plus, anything can be used as a drumstick. We’ll find you another.”

  Meanwhile, Dev frantically fiddled with the thermostat on the wall, trying to reprogram the heat. The dial was stuck. A message flashed on its small, circular screen, but it was in an alien language he couldn’t read.

  Isaiah’s head pounded. He pressed his thumbs to his temples, trying to dull the sensation and the doomy premonition that accompanied it. He knew the shell child was right; they needed to get out of this room as quickly as possible.
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br />   “Stand back!” Lewis picked up a chair from the seating area and slammed it against the door. The chair cracked to pieces. “That was actually kinda fun,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow and reaching for another chair.

  “Enough destruction, Lewis!” Maeve yelled.

  Tessa wasn’t sure what she should do to help. She tugged at the neck of her suit, which suddenly felt way too tight. Then she remembered Shro leading them into the room. The entry door had sort of materialized from a blank wall. Perhaps there was another exit somewhere? Maybe the whole lumi-ratio reconfiguration thing had obscured it …

  Tessa pressed her hands along one wall and then another, running them up and down, feeling for something, anything, that might indicate a hidden doorframe or handle. The shell child watched, then joined her, mimicking the movement.

  The walls were all smooth. Nothing to grab hold of. Nothing … wait. Tessa backtracked. There! She couldn’t see anything unusual on the plain, green-hued wall, but she felt a square-shaped knob. It was metallic, cold to the touch. She twisted it to the side. It clicked. Clicked again. She pushed, but the wall held fast. She twisted the knob another half rotation, leaned all her weight forward, and fell through the opening, landing in the hallway face-first.

  “You did it!” Lewis shouted.

  “Are you okay?” Dev asked, lending her a hand.

  She rose to her feet and brushed herself off. Her nose was bleeding, but other than that she was okay. “I’m fine,” she said, wiping the blood away, staining the sleeve of her green-and-silver mesh suit. “But let’s get outta here. That room gives me the creeps.”

  The bandmates fled into the hall, clutching their instruments, all except Lewis, whose drumstick was unsalvageable. “This way!” Maeve directed.

  “Wait!” Tessa shouted, stopping in her tracks. “The shell kid. Where is she?” They looked up and down the hall. “We can’t leave her in there!”

  “She’s the one who warned us. I’m sure she got out safely and is hiding somewhere,” Dev said, hoping it was true.

  “Don’t go back in there,” Isaiah warned. His head throbbed. He couldn’t help but feel like the headache was somehow related to whatever was happening, or about to happen, in that room.