by Mark Crilley
But then there was a crackle and the voice continued.
“If you are an AFMEC agent and have misplaced or damaged your viddy-fone, please stay on the line.”
A click. A burst of static. Then a bit of soft dentist-office music, almost inaudible: about fifty violins playing the theme from a movie that must have been extremely long and sappy.
Piker leaped up and began pawing at Billy's legs. “Down!” Billy twisted his body as he tried to get away from her. “Doowww—”
“Mr. Clikk?”
The music had stopped. A man's voice was on the line. “Mr. Clikk?”
Piker looked on in horror. Billy held the phone with both hands and swallowed again.
“Jim Clikk? Is that you?”
Show time. “Yeah,” Billy said now as Piker gave up and dropped to the floor. “Yeah, uh… this is, uh, Jim Clikk here, that's right.” He winced, realizing he should have just left it at the yeah.
“You all right, Jim? You sound funny.”
Billy coughed loudly. A big, showy Broadway cough. “Got a cold. Uh… something I picked up in the Philippines…”
“So what's the deal, Jim?” the man said after a moment, apparently taking this as an acceptable explanation. “Can't find your viddy-fone?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“I'll have HQ send out a new one right away.” “Thanks.” “So how'd that creatch op turn out? I hear you ended up on the local news, Jim. Just can't resist being the center of attention, can you?” The man followed this with a knowing chuckle. Billy tried to laugh appropriately.
“Better watch out. You know how HQ feels about the media. Remember François Guilliarde? Did an interview with Le Monde and they demoted him to cleanup operations, poor guy.”
Billy felt it had been too long since he'd said something. So he said, “Right.”
“Anything else I can do for you, Jim?”
Stay calm. Talk the way Dad would. “Yeah, uh, any word on what my next… assignment is?” “Assignment?” A trace of suspicion had crept into the man's voice. “What, you mean your next creatch op?”
“Yeah, that's right. Next creatch op.” Billy was sweating. The voice part was going well, but he had to watch the vocabulary.
“Well, no, Jim,” said the man. “You know I don't have access to that kind of info. No one tells me what's happening until it's already happening.”
Okay. That's going nowhere. “Oh, right, of course. Um, say, I've got this receipt here… uh, for salmon heads I bought in Nome, Alaska, a couple weeks back….”
“Yeah?” Billy heard computer keys clacking away. “What about it?”
“Well, for my records, uh…I'm just hoping you can remind me of the, uh, creatch op that those salmon heads were, were…related to.”
A pause.
“You mean you…don't remember?” He's on to you. Play it off.
“Course I remember! Sure. It's just with, uh, all the different creatch ops we've been handling, you know …it's hard to… keep them all straight.”
There was a very long pause. Billy sensed that something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
“Who is this?”
Billy froze. His cover was blown. Completely.
He slammed the phone down. He was breathing hard and dripping with sweat.
Who is this? The words echoed in Billy's head.
Man oh man. I blew it. I'm in serious trouble now. Big time. Piker was glaring at him. Dogs aren't capable of saying things like “Look what you've gone and done, you fool.” Still, seeing the expression on Piker's face, Billy half expected her to say something along those lines.
“Look, I had to make that call,” Billy said, justifying his actions to a dog. “I found out some valuable information: that, that… that Mom and Dad were in the Philippines on some sort of mission or something called a creatch op. That people who do these creatch ops aren't supposed to allow themselves to be on TV or in the newspapers. That's all, you know, valuable information.”
Piker looked unconvinced.
Who is this?
All the information in the world, valuable or not, couldn't have made up for the awful thought that had crept into Billy's head as soon as he slammed that phone down. It was the thought that he'd crossed a line. A line he shouldn't have crossed. As if he had opened a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNELONLY and an alarm had gone off. Not an alarm he could hear. An alarm someone else could hear. Somewhere far away.
A terrible panic set in. The Billy from a moment ago—the one who had decided he was going to get to the bottom of this if it took all night—was gone. He had been replaced by a Billy who felt that, on the whole, getting halfway to the bottom of it was such an unpleasant experience that maybe going back up to the top wouldn't be such a bad idea.
But Billy knew it was too late to reverse course. He wasn't sure when his parents would be back. Judging from experience, he guessed he still had a few more hours to go: they usually came back from their skeeter gigs sometime between midnight and dawn. But what to do until then? He had to keep himself busy or his head would explode.
I'll just do the usual stuff. The nightly routine. It'll calm me down, get me breathing normally again.
So Billy did his English homework.
Popped some popcorn.
Ate it.
Brushed his teeth.
Climbed into bed.
Turned out the lights.
And closed his eyes.
He didn't go to sleep, though. The way he was feeling, he wondered if he'd ever be able to sleep again.
Something's going to happen, he thought. I'm going to get in trouble for that phone call. That guy on the phone will tell Mom and Dad what I did. Then what? Gotta have a plan. A plan for what I'll do when they come home…
Billy tried to imagine what was going to happen to him as a result of the phone call. He came up with a number of scenarios, all of which involved people being angry at him, and some of which involved the local police coming to the front door. None of the scenarios he came up with involved a five-member creatch containment squadron smashing through his bedroom window at 10:06 P.M.
That, however, was exactly what happened.
Glass flew everywhere. Billy jumped, sitting straight up in bed, and briefly considered (but quickly rejected) the possibility that this was nothing more than a curry-induced hallucination.
There in the darkness, tinted blue by the moonlight coming through the window, were five gray-suited figures: four men, one woman, each wearing a pair of wraparound sunglasses. They were all down on one knee, surrounding Billy's bed in a neat semicircle, arms extended, with strange pear-shaped pistols aimed squarely at Billy's head. Two or three of them were panting quietly.
“Don't move,” said one, a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed mustache. “We are placing you under arrest,” he continued, “for violations of AFMEC code 574, section six, paragraph two: impersonating an AFMEC member with the intent to subvert AFMEC operations.”
I did cross a line, thought Billy. A very, very, very big line. He wanted to ask a question but under the circumstances assumed he needed to request permission to do so. He raised his hand.
The mustached man removed his sunglasses. He had dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept for a few days.
“Yes?” the mustached man said. “What is it?” “Am I in any less trouble if my parents are members of… AFMEC?”
The man frowned. “I'm sure they'll take that into consideration, Billy. First we have to make sure you're not a cr—” He stopped himself. “We need to check you out a little first. Freud,” he said to one of the others. “Will you do the honors?”
“Certainly, Mr. Twain.”
Freud? Twain? As in Sigmund Freud and Mark Twain? Billy's eyes darted back and forth between the two men. Code names. They've gotta be.
The man called Freud moved quickly to Billy's side and swept the blanket off the bed in one fluid movement. Billy jumped back, knocking his head soundly against the
wall. His heart was beating like mad.
What's he going to do to me?
Freud had a small machine about the size and shape of a video camera, which he held just in front of Billy's face. It buzzed and beeped and gave off a weird odor of electrodes and circuits: the smell of a new appliance, fresh from the store. Two of the men and the woman moved closer to the bed, their pear pistols at near point-blank range.
Billy was terrified. He didn't know what the machine was for, but it was now producing a series of whirring, grinding noises that made him think it could cause him serious harm.
“Stick out your tongue,” said Freud.
“What?” “Now. Stick out your tongue.” Freud had an odd voice. It hissed a little, like an old phonograph.
He's going to cut off my tongue. It's punishment for making that phone call!
“I'm not going to hurt you. Just…do as you are told.” “No,” said Billy. “I don't know you people. You crash through my window. You point weird weapons at me. And now you stick a machine in front of my face and think I'm going to trust you? No way, man. No way.”
Freud shot Twain a quizzical glance. “Look, Billy,” said Twain. “You're …” He paused and exhaled, long and slow. “You're in way over your head here. If you don't cooperate, you're only going to make things worse for yourself. A lot worse.”
Billy examined Twain's face. The squinty eyes, the thin mustache. It wasn't the sort of face Billy wanted to trust. Still, what Twain said was true enough. Billy was in way over his head. And like it or not, these people seemed to be completely in charge, at least for the time being.
“Now,” said Twain, “are you going to stick out your tongue or not?”
Billy swallowed hard.
Gotta cooperate. There's no other choice right now.
He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue.
Freud raised the machine until it was just a few inches from Billy's tongue, then pushed one of the buttons.
Doors popped open. klik chik tzzzz
Things moved quickly just below Billy's field of vision. He felt, but did not see, something clamp onto his tongue, draw it out as far as it would go, and hold it in place. There was a brief stabbing sensation near the tip of his tongue: painful, but not excruciating. Billy tried to say “Ouch” but it came out as “Ahhhth.”
The machine let go of Billy's tongue, causing it to snap back into his mouth. There were three beeps, three kliks, and one loud boop. After a moment Freud's face was bathed with blue light from a small video screen on his side of the machine.
“He's a sape,” said Freud. “Twelve years old. Son of…Jim and Linda. Yes. He checks out.”
All five of Billy's captors breathed a sigh. Three of them stood up and stretched their arms, cracked their necks. They all took off their sunglasses. Billy noticed with horror that one of them—the woman—had enormous eyes, at least twice as large as normal.
Where's Mom and Dad? I can't believe they'd leave me alone with these freaks.
“Billy, Billy, Billy,” said Twain, pacing like a schoolteacher at the front of a classroom. “You're lucky we were the squadron assigned to you. Some guys are really trigger-happy. You could have been comalized. Or worse.”
Billy was furious. Here he was going through the most nightmarish evening of his entire life and this guy was telling him he was lucky.
Who do these people think they are? I ought to demand an apology. And a nice long explanation while we're at it.
He was furious. But he was also scared. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself down.
Better not push my luck. Who knows what these guys'll do to me if I make them angry? Mom and Dad will come home like they always do—they've got to eventually—and when they do I'll be safe. Safer than I am right now, anyway.
Billy decided to settle for just one more question. “Look,” he said, “the machine says I'm okay. So I'm not in trouble anymore, right?”
“Oh, you're in trouble,” said Twain. “Big trouble. And you're not the only one.” He turned his head and called in a loud voice, “Orzamo! Get in here!”
The door to Billy's bedroom creaked open and in came Piker: head down, tail between her legs.
Twain talked to the dog as if he were reprimanding a secretary. “What were you doing while he was on the phone? Where were you?”
The dog lowered her head farther. “What are you here for? I mean, come on, Orzamo. You've got a job. One simple job: to prevent things like this from happening.”
Billy's head was spinning. This man was calling Piker by a different name. Talking about her having a job. He was talking to her, and she was listening to him.
Billy stared at Piker, and suddenly his dog was not his dog anymore.
She's in on it. Piker's… one of them!
But she's a dog.
Have they been messing with her head somehow?
“I don't know, Orzamo,” continued Twain. “This is sloppy. Very sloppy. I expect more of you, and so does HQ.”
Billy was shaking. He'd seen some pretty weird things so far, but this just didn't seem possible.
No, no, no. There are explanations for all of this. Mom and Dad are going to explain everything. I just gotta cool down and stay in control till they—
DRIIIIIIING
All eyes turned to the phone. Then they turned to Twain. He was deep in thought and had obviously not expected this.
It's Mom and Dad, thought Billy. They're going to save me from these people.
DRIIIIIIING
“Answer the phone, Billy,” said Twain. “But remember: We're not here.” He pointed to all the other gray-suited figures in the room. “As far as the person on the other end of that line is concerned, we don't even exist.”
DRIIIIIIING
Billy grabbed the telephone and drew it to his ear. “Hello?” “Dude.”
Leo!
“You picked up. I like that. Let's make a habit of it.”
Billy glanced at Twain, who raised a finger, signaling him not to try any funny stuff.
“Hi, Leo,” said Billy, finding himself in the unusual position of doing an impersonation of himself—his calm, everyday, un-freaked-out self. “What's up?”
“Dude, you called me Leo. What's gotten into you? You must be having an excellent evening over there.”
Billy swallowed and said nothing.
“All right, dude. You're alive. My work is done.”
“Bye, Leo.” “Later.”
Billy hung up the phone. Leo's not in on it, he thought. Or else he's a very, very good actor.
“Well done, Billy,” said Twain. “See how smoothly things can go when you cooperate?”
Billy glanced at his shattered bedroom window. Yeah. Real smooth.
Twain smiled in a way that creeped Billy out. Do my parents and this guy really work for the same organization?
There was a piercing electronic tone:
TEEP Twain reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver rectangle identical to Jim Clikk's business card case. He opened it like a laptop computer. Billy could see that there was a tiny video screen on the inside of the lid.
So that's what a viddy-fone is. “Yes?” said Twain.
There was a high-pitched voice, too quiet for Billy to hear clearly.
“I see.” Twain frowned. More of the tinny voice. “But we're already here. Why don't we just bring him in and—”
The voice cut him off. Twain exhaled loudly through his nose.
“All right. All right.”
The voice said one or two more words. There was a staticky pop and Twain clicked the silver case shut. He turned to the others.
“We're being called off the job. They're going to let Jim and Linda handle it.” Two of the men groaned their disapproval.
Billy sighed his relief. They're putting Mom and Dad in charge? That I can deal with. At least I hope I can. It's like I don't even know them anymore. But they've gotta be cooler than Twain and his goon squad.
“Come on,�
� said Twain, returning to the window. “Back to the transport.”
Billy's heart rate began to slow back down as the five figures left his bedroom, stepped through his shattered window, and climbed a rope ladder up and out of sight.
Twain was the last one to go. He turned to Billy before he left.
“Get dressed, Billy. Go down to the living room and wait. Your parents will be back soon. They're going to take care of all this.” He jabbed a finger to make his final point. “You are in trouble. Don't forget that.”
A moment later he was gone.
Billy leaped out of bed, ran to the window, and stuck his head out. He looked up just in time to see the rope ladder shoot over the edge of the roof and disappear. Seconds later a brief flash of bright green light filled the air, illuminating the leaves of nearby trees and eliciting several loud yelps from a dog across the street. This was followed by a whooshing sound, which grew quieter and quieter, then ceased altogether. Whatever the “transport” was, it was gone now, taking the five gray-suited figures along with it.
Billy stayed there a moment longer, staring out at the trees and rooftops he'd seen from that window all his life. He sensed that his whole world was about to change. That in fact it had already changed, and would never, ever go back to being the way it had been before.
Billy was in the living room.
He was sitting on the couch in a way he had never sat on it before: legs directly in front of him, feet flat on the floor. His back was unnaturally straight and resting against nothing but the air behind it. He was looking at the television, or perhaps at a point in space somewhere on the other side of the television, or even on the other side of town. If he was looking at the television, he certainly wasn't seeing much, since the television wasn't switched on.
“Arzamo,” he said. It was the first thing he'd said in several minutes. “No. No, it was Or zamo, wasn't it?”
He finally tore his eyes away from whatever they'd been looking at and turned them in the direction of his dog. She was sitting in her usual spot: the recliner on the other side of the room. She looked extremely anxious, as if she were getting ready to be punished.
