“Um, hi,” he says awkwardly.
“Cole . . . ,” another says with a sigh.
And then, in perfect, horrific unison, the Brigade bursts into terrifying, synchronized smiles.
“Cole-eeeeeeee!”
As the Brittas swarm around Cole, chattering like Brittas are wont to do, I am reminded of an old recording we once watched in history class of a band called the Beatles trying to escape a rabid crowd of young female fans, who were chasing and pawing at them with unbridled passion. This is exactly like that, only 300 percent more vomit-inducing.
The Brittas engulf Cole like a school of piranhas. I’m half afraid that when they finally swim off, there will be nothing left but Cole’s head on top of a cleanly picked skeleton.
“Amazing,” Bok Choy says. I didn’t even notice him stepping into the room. “They know him.”
“Well, he did date her back on Earth,” I say. “I mean, one of them, at least.” Then I ask the obvious question. “How are there so many of them? Of her?”
Bok Choy winces as the Brigade squeals en masse, having just (re?)discovered how cute Cole’s butt is. “The doctor needed . . . a controlled environment,” he tells me. “To incubate his experiments. And he found himself with a limited number of hosts.”
That’s when I notice that one of the Brittas, sporting a thin tank top, has a dark letter K tattooed on her right shoulder.
Another sports a D.
And yet another, an H.
Clones.
“He couldn’t have cloned literally anyone else?” I ask. “Was Lizzie Borden not available?”
“We have to go,” Chloe reminds me, interrupting the shiver that is making its way down my spine. “Either you find some way to herd them, or we leave all their asses here. I won’t bother telling you which option I prefer.”
As much as I hate to argue for a world in which we actively attempt to rescue a dozen photocopies of my least favorite cheerleader, after my little “Everyone is worth it” speech earlier I don’t seem to have much choice.
“Excuse me!” I shout over the din. “Excuse me! Brittas? Hel-lo? Hey, dummies!”
But they clearly can’t hear/see/smell anything but Cole.
“Cole, flex your butt again!”
“Can I touch your butt, Cole?”
“No, I get to touch it. Cole, let me touch it.”
“Cole?”
“Hey, Cole?”
“Cole?”
“Cole?”
Cole.
“Cole!” I call, adding to the din of voices shouting his name. But I guess I manage to break through. Cole whips his head around to face me, completely shell-shocked, and I give him an expectant look. “I think you’re the shepherd we need for this particular herd of cats.”
It shouldn’t surprise me that Cole has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Huh?” he says.
I point down the hallway, in the direction where our ship (pleasepleasehopefully) lies. “Run!” I tell him.
“Ah,” Cole replies, finally getting it. And bless his dumb, doofy heart, he makes a break for it, knowing full well that the gaggle of screaming Brittas will follow.
“We’re right behind you!” I assure Cole—only to be elbowed in the stomach by a passing Britta.
“Hands off, lardo,” she snaps at me. “That butt is mine.”
I am too confounded and exhausted to even attempt a comeback.
“Okay,” I say to the others as the Britta Brigade pushes its way down the hall like a particularly unsavory hair ball down a drain. “Best get moving.”
And that’s when I notice that one of the Brittas is still in our midst.
Haggard, harried, dirtier than I’ve ever seen her, she stands stock-still, staring at the group receding around the corner. And I am certain, without even checking her shoulder, that this is the Britta I’ve known and hated for so long.
She turns to me and rolls her eyes. “Tell me I’m not that annoying,” she says, gesturing toward the others.
I laugh, despite myself. And something escapes my mouth that I never would’ve expected in the presence of Britta McVicker. “It’s nice to see you,” I tell her.
She regards me coolly. “Captivity’s been hell on your complexion,” she replies.
• • •
So far we haven’t passed a single Jin’Kai guard, but I’m not counting on our luck holding out. There’s a lot more hallway in this space station than I ever would’ve anticipated. If you’d told me two months ago precisely how much of my time I was going to spend running for my life through various hallways, I would’ve asked to see if your medical hallucinogen card had expired.
At least this time the Brittas are keeping things interesting.
“Has your hair always been so dreamy?” one asks Cole as we dash past several locked doors.
“Can I touch your biceps again?”
“No, me!”
“It’s my turn. You got to touch his butt.”
“It is a really nice butt.”
Chloe is clearly on her last nerve. “I have a blaster,” she reminds us.
“Go ahead,” says Original Britta, hustling to keep up beside me. “You didn’t have to share a room with those chromers.”
“You do realize that’s you you’re talking about,” Ducky puts in. Then he hesitates. “Isn’t it?”
All but the Brittas are silent for a few minutes, perhaps pondering this very question, when Marnie, in Bok Choy’s arms, at last begins to stir.
“Oh, thank God,” Ducky says. “Cole!” he calls up ahead. “Cole, hold on one sec. Marnie’s waking up. We have to make sure she’s okay before we— Oh, Marnie, you’re awake!”
Marnie blinks several times, as though testing her vision.
“How are you feeling?” Ducky asks her gently.
Marnie offers him a warm smile. “I’m fine, Donald, ye specky goose. I jes’ had a bit a the—” Her gaze travels down the hall to the lot of identical blond cheerleaders, all staring directly at her. “I must’ve hit me head harder ’n I thought,” she says. And with that, she’s out again.
The floor trembles beneath us, and the emergency runner lights flicker. Sirens start blaring.
And here I thought our luck would give out.
“Crap!” Ducky says. “They’re onto us.”
“No,” Chloe replies, pausing to listen to the muted honking. “Something’s . . . off. Those aren’t Jin’Kai alarms.”
“What do you think it could be?” I ask.
Chloe tilts her head. “Those are station-wide alarms,” she says. “Whatever’s going on, it’s going big.”
Which is precisely when one of the Brittas up ahead shouts, “Someone’s coming this way!”
“Get behind me!” instructs Bok Choy, passing the still-unconscious Marnie off to Ducky and crouching in a defensive stance with his weapon drawn. Chloe slides into position next to him, her weapon out as well.
A band of Jin’Kai guards comes rushing up the adjoining corridor, large rifle-size ray guns slung down from shoulder straps in a let’s-fuck-shit-up position. I count six of them. No way we survive this. No way.
Except they run right past us. Past all of us. All except the last one, who turns with a confused look on his face.
“What are you doing wasting your time with that lot?” he asks Bok Choy and Chloe, jerking his head toward the Brigade. “Get to your designated battle station. We’re under attack!”
“Attack?” Chloe asks. “Almiri?”
“No, the fleet,” he says as he runs after his compatriots. “They’re here.”
Well, if that don’t put the donkey on the carousel, or some other expression that actually makes sense. (Forgive me, but I’m way too terrified to string words into phrases right now.)
The fleet
.
The Jin’Kai invasion force that Marsden warned about.
They’re here.
If an armada of Devastators doesn’t make you stain your undies, I don’t know what in this world will.
Suddenly there’s an explosion from up ahead. Screams and gunfire. I race to the front and peer around the corner to get a look. The bodies of five guards lie motionless on the ground, while the sixth is dangling two meters above, held at the throat in a vise grip by a Devastator. This particular Devastator is bigger than the one I tussled with in Antarctica, if that’s possible, and wearing full battle armor, a gray, bug-shell-like muscle suit, complete with jagged metal edges at the joints. You know, because apparently its massive claws and spiky exoskeletal protrusions alone aren’t enough to eviscerate its prey. Three more Devastators, similarly armed, stand behind the leader, seemingly unscathed by the firefight. The leader barks something at them, and the three giant uggos run off in another direction.
The remaining Devastator speaks menacingly to the Jin’Kai guard in his grip, in a language that sounds a lot like spoons in a garbage disposal. The Jin’Kai, meanwhile, still alive but wounded and defenseless, whimpers something in response. But I guess his particular mangled spoon response is not what the Devastator wanted to hear, because the creature unsheathes a long, serrated blade from its back and in one smooth motion skewers the helpless guard like a shish kebab. The guard dangles, twitching, on the hilt of the weapon, the blade jutting out of his back.
There’s a shriek right in my ear. I turn to see Britta, white with fear, staring at the murder scene, still screaming.
“It’s them! Them!” she screams. Like, guess who just arrived at the party.
My initial impulse is to clock her in the head, because hello, alerting the freaky monsters to our existence much? Of course, then I remember that Britta has been tortured for who knows how long, and prior to that she actually witnessed a Devastator decapitating her best friend (who was kind of a bitch, but still). So, with our own impending head-from-neck removals imminent, I decide, rather magnanimously, not to pile on.
When the monster looks up and roars, a chill of memory washes over me. I really need to start reevaluating my life decisions, I think, given the number of times lately I’ve found myself face-to-face with monsters who want to kill me.
Unable to quickly dislodge the dead Jin’Kai from his sword, the Devastator tosses his weapon away and charges at us, equipped only with four armored monster arms, endless rows of fang-like teeth, and about half a dozen enormous guns strapped across its heavily protected chest.
I pull Britta back around the bend of the hallway, and the other Brittas, perhaps instinctively, squeeze in to form a protective barrier around us. I’m afraid Ducky’s going to go all noodle-boned on us again and collapse, but perhaps because he is holding Marnie, he remains upright, head held high.
Bok Choy exchanges a look with Chloe, who nods in agreement to something that he hasn’t actually said out loud. The Devastator comes into view, spinning its head around on its massive neck to spot us. Bok Choy and Chloe open fire immediately, but the blasters leave only harmless-looking scorch marks on the creature’s armor and exposed exoskeleton. The Devastator swings upward with its two upper arms, knocking the guns out of Bok Choy’s and Chloe’s hands, and then it kicks outward with its two heavier middle limbs, ramming Bok Choy and Chloe in their chests and sending them sprawling. The creeper looks up and spots me surrounded by the Brittas—which, I suddenly realize, makes me look a lot more like a valuable target than if an army of clones weren’t creating a human shield around me.
“Gargle, gargle, kim chee!” it growls. Or something close to that. I left my universal translator in my Comic-Con swag bag.
Even if I don’t speak monster, I’m picking up on the Devastator’s body language just fine. It pulls yet another nasty pointy sword thing from its side (seriously, how many swords does a giant six-limbed death monster need?) and starts plodding toward me. That’s when Cole decides to get heroically stupid and leaps with all his Almiri might right for the thing’s arm—inadvertently pulling an impressive parallel bars maneuver and flipping right past his attacker into a heap of hurt on the floor.
I’m going to assume that wasn’t the plan.
The Devastator clocks Cole with a nasty kick, and Cole is officially down for the count.
“Coooooooole!” the Brittas screech in unison. They all make to run toward their dashing leading man—I swear I hear one sob, “Is his butt okay?”—but then they seem to think better of it (because, one can only assume, of the scary-ass Devastator standing between said hunk and themselves). Together they whirl around and disperse down the length of the hall like cowardly little chicken shits, squealing in terror all the way.
Well, to be fair, some of them faint.
So my protective Britta-barrier has completely crumbled, and now the Devastator looms over me, ready for another shish-kebab-ing. But before I get the pointy end, Bok Choy leaps into the path of the blade.
It impales him, awkwardly, right in the side.
“No!” Chloe screams as Bok Choy cries out in pain. My heart constricts in my chest at the sound of Chloe’s wail. She scoops up her blaster and fires at the Devastator.
I feel a tug on my arm and realize that Ducky is pulling me out of the way. As Ducky, Marnie (still unconscious, lucky dog), Original Britta, and I huddle behind a protective pile of rubble the Jin’Kai so thoughtfully left for us during their previous firefight, we can only watch helplessly as the scene in front of us seems to play out in slow motion.
Chloe runs straight at the Devastator, clutching her ineffectual pistol in her fist more like you would a rock than a firearm.
“Chloe!” I scream at my only child. My throat is hot, burning, as I watch her charge headfirst into danger. Britta has to physically restrain me to keep me from leaping after my daughter. (She gets an elbow to the gut for her efforts, but she doesn’t let go.)
Chloe literally throws herself at the Devastator, and the creature opens its arms up wide, as if to catch her midleap. She crashes into his chest, and I can practically see the impact rippling through her. The monster’s gargantuan arms wrap around my daughter and squeeze. I watch her grimace in pain as the grip around her tightens. The creature opens its massive maw, the strange, jointed teeth flexing in and out on the exposed mouth tendons, and I realize with unavoidable certainty that this beast means to bite my child’s head off.
“Smile, you son of a bitch!” Chloe screams. After wiggling her arm free, she reels back and thrusts her fist deep into the Devastator’s open mouth, still clutching her gun. The creature chokes and staggers back. Then Chloe flattens her arms against her body, goes limp, and manages to slide out of her assailant’s grasp, rolling away as she hits the floor, shielding her face.
And then the Devastator’s head explodes.
The headless body collapses to the floor. Without missing a beat, Chloe has flown to Bok Choy’s side and cradles him in her lap. He winces in pain when she touches his side. Chloe, meanwhile, doesn’t even seem to notice that I’m checking her all over like a prize pig at the fair. “If you ever do something that reckless again, I’ll— You’re bleeding!”
Long jagged gashes snake up Chloe’s arm all the way to her elbow, bloody reminders that it can be hazardous to jam your entire arm down a space monster’s throat. I fumble in my tunic, for what feels like an eternity, until I am finally able to pull out the ratty cloth Marnie purchased for me. I wrap it around Chloe’s arm—the world’s least hygienic bandage.
But Chloe will have none of it.
“Get off me. I’m fine.” She yanks the rag off her arm and uses it instead to put pressure on Bok Choy’s side. He’s not looking good. He manages to sit up, but it obviously pains him. “We have to keep moving,” he tells Chloe through gritted teeth. “There will be more of them any minute.”
“He’s right.”
To my surprise this voice of reason belongs to none other than Original Britta. Even more surprising, she’s busy looting the Devastator’s body for weapons.
“What?” she says when she sees my look. “Some of this shit could come in handy.”
Uh, who is this chick, and why didn’t she take over Britta’s body sixteen years ago?
“Hand me one of those knives,” I tell Britta, reluctantly leaving my daughter’s side. I look around and see that Cole has, thankfully, roused himself, although Marnie is still unconscious. “Cole,” I say, “round up the Brittas.” Cole aye-ayes and runs off immediately.
“Donald, was it?” Britta says to Ducky.
He gulps. I can’t blame him—he went to school with Britta for twelve years, and this is the first she’s deigned to speak to him.
“How much can you carry?” she asks him. Then, without waiting for an answer, she proceeds to drape him in supplies from both the dead Devastator and the Jin’Kai guards, making him look like a cosplay enthusiast with no sense of scale.
“I have a question,” Ducky says as Cole returns with his flock of Brittas and scoops up Marnie. Britta shoves a blaster into Ducky’s hands, and he tries his best not to hold it like you would a dead cockroach. “That Devastator’s head just totally exploded.”
“Yeah,” I say. I’m scooping up my own share of weapons, whatever I can shove safely down the front of my jacket. “We were there, remember? And that wasn’t a question.”
“True,” Ducky replies. “But, um, how, exactly, did that happen?”
“I overloaded the power cell on the blaster,” Chloe says, still tending to Bok Choy.
“How’d you know how to do that?” Ducky asks. “Is that part of your training? Evil Alien Weaponry 101?”
“No,” Chloe answers. “I just figured it might work.”
Ducky smiles broadly at me. “I’d like to think of a clever way to say ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,’” he says, “but I think I’m too jacked up on adrenaline and unadulterated fear to be witty.”
The World Forgot Page 15
