Game of Clones

by M. E. Castle

  Alex and Amanda walked up, hand in hand. FP trotted in happy circles around them.

  “Okay,” Amanda said. “You blew up the school. What now?”

  “Pizza,” Fisher said promptly. “I’m starving. That work for all of you?” Amanda, Veronica, and Alex beamed. Alex let go of Amanda’s hand to give Fisher a hug. Fisher clapped his new brother on the back, noting how well a hug works between people of exactly the same size and shape. Veronica and Amanda hugged next to them, laughing happily.

  Sirens cut through their celebration, and Mason shouted to them from his unmarked black sedan.

  “Sounds like your antics attracted some attention!” he said, nodding toward the sound of the sirens. “I’m sure you could spend a few hours at the station explaining everything that happened to the police, but it might be easier just to vanish.” And he winked.

  “We were just leaving,” Fisher said. “Thanks for everything, Agent Mason!”

  “Call me Syd! And don’t worry, once we process these two, we’ll make sure the cops are up to speed about everything. Well … maybe not everything,” he said, with a wink at Alex. “Take care, all of you!”

  The FBI agents drove off with Dr. X and Three crammed into the back of their car.

  Veronica took Fisher’s hand, and little electric bolts raced up his arm. They walked off, FP at his heels and Alex and Amanda beside them, and Fisher breathed easily for what felt like the first time in weeks.

  I destroyed TechX and I was cool for a few weeks.

  I destroyed our school and I became a Wompalog legend.

  —Fisher Bas, Personal Notes

  “Part of me’s waiting for all of these people to start World War Three because of a dispute over spicy fries or something,” said Amanda.

  In the two weeks since Wompalog’s collapse, the school had brought in trailers to serve as temporary classrooms, but the school’s parking lot wasn’t big enough to hold them. The only establishment whose lot did have the space to accommodate fifty tractor trailers was the King of Hollywood on the former TechX site, which had graciously offered the school use of its parking lot.

  Suddenly, getting lunch at school wasn’t the daily parade of horrors that it used to be. There were whispered rumors that the rebuilding of the school would include updating and improving the cafeteria, but nobody wanted to get their hopes up too high.

  Fisher, Alex, Amanda, and Veronica sat around a table at the King of Hollywood. Fisher smiled across the table at Alex. It felt good to relax and not be checking every shadow for a new and monstrous threat to all humanity.

  “Don’t worry, the subliminal signal’s gone,” he said. “Agent Mason said it was basically sending Morse code directly to the brain during episodes of Family Feudalism. It was literally rewriting people’s behavior. Even machines could pick up the pulses as information packets, which had the same effect.”

  Veronica smiled. “Now reality TV can go back to destroying society in the less literal way.”

  FP was curled up next to Fisher’s chair, half sleeping, half chewing his way through a quadruple Kingburger the size of a basketball. As soon as Fisher and FP had arrived, the KOH’s manager had given it to Fisher “on the house.” FP’s reputation was starting to precede him, especially after the Rainforest Cafe incident.

  “Heard what they’re saying about Wompalog?” said Amanda, sipping at a massive soda. “It could take up to five or six months to repair the damage and inspect the whole building for safety.”

  “Three really rigged the place up,” said Alex, leaning back in his chair and letting the front legs come up off the ground. “He must have worked all night every night for weeks, with dozens of Fisher-bots to help him. I don’t mind the trailers, though.”

  “Hey!” said Ms. Snapper, walking up. She had to peek over the pile of spicy star fries on her tray. “Nice to see you all having a good time. What did you think of the experiment we did in bio this morning?”

  “Well,” Amanda said, “using spicy sauce as the food source to grow a bacterial colony might put me off those star fries for a while, but it was pretty cool.”

  “They must make that stuff with alchemy,” Fisher said, nodding to the tub of special sauce on Ms. Snapper’s tray. “I was never able to reproduce it, even in a lab.”

  “Well, I’m just relieved they got that fiend Dr. X,” said Ms. Snapper. “But I can’t believe he turned out to be Mr. Granger! I didn’t know him very well when he was at the school, but even so. It was bizarre when he just popped up on that show after disappearing from Wompalog, and I guess that was pretty suspicious. Still …”

  “I’m just happy to see him behind bars,” said Fisher.

  For now the truth about Three would remain with them. The FBI had released news of Dr. X’s capture. Everyone had seen him appear as Harold Granger on Family Feudalism, so his secret identity was now blown. It wasn’t difficult convincing the public that an already feared mastermind like him had been responsible for recent events. The official story was that Three had just been the head android, sending messages out in Dr. X’s place to mask who was really in charge. Given the way Three spoke, making him out to be a robot wasn’t too tough a sell.

  “I’ll let you get back to your food,” Ms. Snapper said, smiling. “See you tomorrow!”

  Fisher turned to Veronica as their teacher walked away.

  “Are you sure you’re all right with keeping the truth about Three to ourselves for a little while?” he said, glancing across the table at Alex with a little twinge of guilt. Secrets had caused an awful lot of trouble lately.

  “Yes,” Veronica said, after just a second’s hesitation. “In the aftermath, it’s more important to fix the damage, rebuild, and regroup. So long as we reveal the whole truth when the time is right.”

  “Absolutely,” Amanda said, putting her hand down in the center of the table. Alex put his on hers, Fisher put his on Alex’s, and Veronica put hers on his.

  “When the time is right, the truth,” said Alex, and everyone else nodded.

  “The truth,” they echoed. Fisher felt an extra little brush from Veronica’s thumb as they withdrew their hands, and his heart did a brief tap dance routine around his rib cage.

  “Hey, kids,” said a man in a sharply tailored gray suit and mirrored sunglasses, striding up to the table with a wombat by his side.

  “Agent Mason!” the kids cried simultaneously.

  They’d learned that Agent Mason had followed Dr. X to Palo Alto. Wally’s performance at the Rainforest Cafe hadn’t been a coincidence at all. Mason had sent the wombat in to scout ahead before he arrived. He’d been operating under absolute secrecy, undercover, posing as one of Harold Granger’s fans, which was why they’d never heard back from him.

  All along, he’d been keeping watch on the kids—and on Wally. But he’d had to wait until the last moment to reveal himself. If he hadn’t, Three might have hunted him down and eliminated him before he could act.

  “Is everything all right?” Fisher said. “Are Dr. X and Three secure?”

  “Very secure,” said Mason, taking off his shades and smiling. “We added a maximum-security, solitary wing to a juvenile hall for Three. We’re trying to find a way to bring him back into society somehow, but … it’s a little challenging. I’m sure we’ll think of something. And speaking of rejoining society …” He gave Wally a scratch around the ears. “Our little friend here may still be quick and bright eyed, but in wombat years, he’s due to retire. I’d take him in myself, but I have to travel so much for work that I don’t think I could take proper care of him.” He smiled at Amanda.

  “Ms. Cantrell, I would be honored if you would care to take in Wally for some long overdue R & R.”

  “I’d be happy to, Agent Mason,” Amanda said, smiling down at Wally. “It’s the least I can do to thank him.”

  “Agent Mason,” Alex said, with a gleam of powerful gratitude in his eyes, “thanks. You could’ve made life really difficult for me and you didn’t.”<
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  “The only people who deserve difficult lives,” said Mason, slipping his sunglasses back on, “are those who make life difficult for others. Take care, kids. I’ve no doubt I’ll see you again.”

  Fisher watched Mason walk away. He hoped that the next time they saw him would be for a victory party, and not because Dr. X’s dancing whales had developed higher consciousness and opposable thumbs.

  Then he looked down and saw Wally nudging FP awake. FP was so excited to see his furry friend that he started to chase him around the table.

  “Okay, FP,” Fisher said as the chase got faster. “Take it easy, boy.…”

  “Come on, Wally,” Amanda said. “Slow down a little!”

  Ignoring Fisher completely, FP chased Wally up onto the counter. Wally, being smarter than the average wombat, took cover behind an open cash register, and FP didn’t even slow down. FP landed with a crash in the paper tray. Dollar bills started flying, and customers ducked and shrieked.

  Fisher sighed.

  From cloning himself, to seeing his clone become popular, to blowing up TechX, to pursuing his clone to LA and fighting robotic dinosaurs, to saving the town from Three … it had been quite a start to the school year. But if he could get through the seventh grade, he could do anything.

  Alex and Amanda were already chasing after the two balls of mayhem.

  “Fisher!” Alex called as FP chased Wally past the condiments and sent a spray of mustard across the room. “A little help?”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said to Veronica.

  “I’ll be right here,” she said, and squeezed his hand and smiled.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Clone 3! Clone 3! When I heard that I would get to write the then-untitled third Clone book, I was extremely happy to get to explore what I’ve come to call the Cloniverse in greater depth. I actually slipped the name Game of Clones into a long list of suggestions, hoping they’d spot it and pick it out of the crowd as a favorite. Naturally, they did, and here we are.

  Thanks must go out to all the usual suspects, of course. Lauren and Lexa at Paper Lantern for unearthing me in the first place, dusting me off, and putting me on their specimen shelf. Beth, with whom I worked closely and has now moved onward to greater things. And, of course, Greg, for his vast editing prowess and truly spiffy eyeglasses. To all of my family and friends, you are wholly responsible for my continued sanity. So if I snap and run off into the woods and spend all day talking to dirt and painting trees blue, it’s your fault. No pressure.

  Finally, thank you to the people who stole my previous computer out of my bedroom for waiting until this book was mostly done and everything was backed up in multiple places. I hope whoever owns that machine now is unaware of its felonious origin and is using it to better humankind and send us to the stars.