Sven Carter & the Android Army

by Rob Vlock

  His head bobbed in a series of quick little nods. “Okay, fine,” he said in a small voice. He stooped down to pick up the mail scattered all over the floor.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Today’s fan mail,” he explained. “You don’t expect me to leave my fan mail behind, do you? I read it every day. Sometimes people send me presents.”

  Alicia sighed. “Whatever. Take your stupid fan mail. Just be quick about it. If more Ticks get here before we leave, we’ll never get out of here alive.”

  CHAPTER 15.0:

  < value= [Smells Kinda Fishy to Me] >

  “WHAT DO WE DO NOW?” Will asked as soon as we climbed into Sam’s parked RV. “I mean, it’s great that we stopped Dix from singing tonight and all, but aren’t there still five more Ticks we have to worry about?”

  I nodded somberly. “Yeah. And they could be anywhere. Anyone have any ideas?”

  “Well . . .” Sam, who was now largely covered by the bodyguards’ sketched tattoo designs, held up a cable.

  I stopped him. “I mean ideas that don’t involve cutting open the back of my neck and hooking me up to something that might fry my brain.”

  Sam fell silent and shrugged.

  Alicia shook her head.

  Will tapped his fingers on the wall, his lips pressed into a thin line.

  “So we have no clues at all?” I sighed.

  My question was met with blank stares.

  Except from Dix. He was completely absorbed in tearing through his fan mail. “Ooh, candy!” he cried, stuffing his mouth with chocolate truffles. “I love when they send me candy!”

  I watched as he ripped open envelope after envelope, box after box, chirping in delight at every single gift, love letter, and piece of fan art.

  Until he came to one package in particular. He frowned at the brown cardboard box before sliding open a window and heaving it out.

  “What was wrong with that one?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said casually as he ripped open another letter.

  Alicia threw herself into the passenger seat and thumped her fist against the dashboard. “Darn it! What now? Where are those other Ticks? There has to be some way to find them!”

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. But there’s no point in sticking around here. The Ticks will know we have Dixon. We should stay on the move.”

  He started the RV and pulled onto Thirty-Third Street.

  As I watched Madison Square Garden fall away behind us, I kept replaying the image of Dix throwing that package out the window. Why would he do that?

  When we had traveled about three blocks, it hit me.

  “Stop!” I shouted.

  Sam slowed the RV to a halt.

  I ran for the door. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Without waiting for a response, I jumped down to the sidewalk and sprinted back to where we had parked.

  After a minute or two of frantic searching, I found the package underneath a parked minivan. I dropped to my stomach and retrieved it. As I stood up, a dark form streaked just over my head. But before my eyes could lock onto it, it was gone.

  “What was that all about?” Will asked as I climbed into the RV.

  “This.” I held the box up for everyone to see.

  Dix’s eyes grew wide. He shifted in his seat. The envelope he was holding slipped through his fingers and fell to the floor.

  I stepped toward him. “You didn’t want us to see this, did you? What’s in it? Why were you so eager to get rid of it?”

  “What are you talking about, Sven?” Alicia asked.

  “I’ve never seen anyone so excited to get mail,” I explained. “So what is it about this box that made him want to ditch it?”

  Sam raised one bushy eyebrow. “I’m guessing you have an idea?”

  I nodded. “I think Dixon hasn’t been completely honest with us. And I bet this package is going to tell us why.”

  Dixon shook his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to open that!”

  Alicia scoffed. “Sven, open it.”

  I tore the cardboard flaps open and was immediately met with a smell so horrific that it nearly made my knees buckle—a stench somewhere between the beach at low tide and the inside of a garbage can stuffed with rotten meat.

  I recoiled and dropped the box onto the dining table. It landed with a slightly moist thump. I held my breath and peeked inside.

  Nestled in the box was a dead fish about eight inches long. Written on a tag attached to its tail were the words: You sing even worse than this smells!

  “Seriously, Sven? This was your big ‘aha’ moment?” Alicia said. “It’s a fish.”

  “And it’s stinking up my RV!” Sam added.

  I scratched my head. “Why would someone send you a dead fish?”

  “Who sent it?” Will added.

  Dixon sighed. “Ivy. Her name is Ivy. And she seems to get a real kick out of telling me how much she hates my singing. I recognized the handwriting on the box, so I tossed it out.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Three days ago, she sent me a bag full of chopped onions with note that said, ‘Your voice makes me cry more than these.’ Two days ago, it was a lump of stinky cheese that said, ‘Like a fine cheese, your singing gets smellier with age.’ And yesterday, she sent me a can of fart powder.”

  “What did the note with that one say?” Will scratched his chin.

  “It said, ‘I’ve met farts that sounded better than you.’ ”

  Somebody laughed. It might have been me.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Sven,” Dix mumbled. “Your big lead is nothing more than hate mail.”

  I was about to step outside to find a garbage can for the fish when it hit me. “No, it’s not. This fish is going to lead us to a Tick!”

  CHAPTER 16.0:

  < value= [We Get Lunch] >

  “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Will argued. “It’s just some hate mail.”

  I nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly!”

  “And?” Alicia prompted.

  I smiled. “Whoever sent this must be a Tick! If they had been human, they would have loved Dix’s singing, right? Every human does! So all we have to do is find the person who sent this fish to him!”

  Alicia’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “That’s pretty good,” she said with just a hint of admiration in her voice. “So where did it come from?”

  I looked on the box and my heart sank. “There’s no return address here. All I can find is a postmark. Look.”

  “Colorado Springs,” she read aloud, straining against the smell. “Fine, so we have a name and a city. But there must be a million people in Colorado Springs.”

  “Actually,” Will corrected, “there are about four hundred fifty-six thousand.”

  We stared at him.

  He shrugged. “What? So I happen to know the population of the top fifty cities in the US. Is that a crime?”

  Alicia snorted. “It might as well be a million. How are we ever going to find one Tick hiding in a city with four hundred fifty thousand residents?”

  “We don’t have to find her,” Dix said suddenly.

  “Why not?” Will asked.

  “Because she’ll find me. Now, who has a phone?”

  Alicia handed him her phone.

  After a quick Google search, Dix dialed and pressed the phone to his ear. “Hi there. Am I speaking with the Happy Hog Barbecue Emporium in Colorado Springs? Great. This is Eugene Rosebottom, Dixon Watts’s personal bodyguard. I’m calling because Mr. Watts is going to be making an unannounced visit to Colorado Springs and wants to stop by the Happy Hog for lunch tomorrow. We’d like to reserve a table at noon.”

  He waited for a reply.

  “No, this isn’t a hoax,” he continued. “Mr. Watts specifically mentioned your establishment and asked me to contact you. Can you make a table available for Mr. Watts or should he take his business elsewhere?”

  Anoth
er pause.

  “Thank you. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but we’d appreciate it if you didn’t make it widely known that we’ll be there. We’d hate to have a huge crowd show up at your restaurant.”

  After a few more seconds, Dixon hung up.

  Will furrowed his brow. “Wait, if the plan was to spread word that we were coming so we’d have a chance of finding Ivy, why’d you tell them you didn’t want anybody to know?”

  Dix smiled. “When was the last time you met anyone who could keep a secret?”

  * * *

  The Happy Hog Barbecue Emporium was not a fine dining establishment. Normally, it would be the type of place I would have gone out of my way to avoid. But after the twenty-seven-hour journey to Colorado Springs—punctuated by nothing but nondescript highway rest areas that all seemed to serve variations on the same semi-edible food—my mouth was practically watering just looking at the restaurant’s dirty gray concrete exterior. Neon signs glowed from every window. Not that it was easy to see the place at all. It was largely obscured by the thousands of people milling about in the parking lot.

  Every single one of them was there to see Dix.

  My mind reeled at the thought. He was a Tick programmed to destroy the human race, just like me. But instead of being shunned by everyone he met because he did really gross things, he was adored by pretty much the whole planet.

  I sighed and slouched in my seat. I was Seven Omicron. He was Six Omicron. We were separated by just one model number. Yet it felt like we couldn’t be further apart. He had everything. Fame. Money. Success. He was tall. He was muscular. Handsome. Popular. I had nothing. I was nothing.

  Hot flames of jealousy licked at the inside of my chest. It’s so unfair! Why couldn’t I be the popular one? Why couldn’t I be him?

  In an instant, envy transformed into rage. And a tiny, cold voice rang out from the dark recesses of my mind. Kill them. Do it. Do it now.

  “Sven?” Alicia said gingerly.

  Sitting bolt upright, I fixed her with a wild stare. “What?” I snapped furiously. My entire body tensed. For the briefest moment, I was overcome by an almost uncontrollable urge to punch her in the face.

  “Whoa,” she replied with an almost imperceptible flinch. “Easy, Sven. I just wanted to see if you’re coming with us. You okay?”

  I noticed the others looking at me with concern.

  The anger drained away as quickly and inexplicably as it had arrived. “Uh, yeah,” I muttered. “Sorry. I’m okay.”

  I got up shakily from my seat and flashed my friends what was probably a pretty unconvincing smile.

  What the heck was happening? These moments of fury coming out of nowhere. That voice in my head saying things I didn’t even want to think about. It didn’t feel like me. Except that it kind of did. When the anger took over, it felt like it was spreading from a solid ball of radioactive rage right in the center of my body.

  What if that’s who I really was? What if when you got right down to it, all that was inside of me was a deep preprogrammed loathing of every human on the planet?

  Will’s stomach rumbled loudly, shaking me out of my miserable thoughts. “I’ve never been so happy to not be a vegetarian in my entire life! I’m starving!”

  The sound of Will being so . . . well, Will helped shake me out of my mood.

  We stepped out of the dingy RV and found ourselves under an immense blue sky, with rugged mountains jutting up on the horizon.

  The fans, who were packed into the parking lot, must have expected the great Dixon Watts to arrive in some sort of fancy limo or helicopter or decked-out tour bus instead of a rusted crud bucket of an RV. Because it took a full twelve seconds before the screams started.

  “It’s him! It’s Dixon!”

  The roar that followed seemed to distort the air around us with its volume. My eardrums were on the verge of tearing themselves to shreds.

  Dix shouted in my ear to make himself heard over the crowd. “Sucks, right? I can’t go out for a walk without being mobbed.”

  I rolled my eyes. Oh, boo-hoo! Try spending a few days in my shoes!

  Still, I thought, as the noise of the crowd washed over us, he did have a point. The starstruck fans were a little overwhelming. “Hold on a second!” I yelled. “I’m going to go on ahead. I’ll meet you inside the restaurant.”

  I pushed through the throng of screaming fanatics, trying to avoid getting trampled. Eventually, I made it to the front door of the barbecue joint and pushed my way inside.

  * * *

  “We’re eating in here?” Will asked as he sat down in front of a massive slab of ribs and licked his lips hungrily. “I mean, I’m not complaining, but this place is definitely lacking in the ambience department.”

  He was right about that. We were seated at a plastic folding table in the middle of a storage room. Steel shelving units crammed with cans, bottles, and boxes lined the walls. Hard-edged shadows morphed and wobbled with the gentle swaying of a single naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

  “I think it’s perfect!” Dix smiled at me. “Thanks for setting this up, Sven.”

  “I just figured we could use a little peace and quiet while we ate. And the owner of the place was happy to help.”

  As if on cue, the latch on the room’s steel door clunked loudly and a large gray-bearded man wearing a red bandana on his head entered. “Hi, everyone. I’m Earl, owner of the Happy Hog. But everyone just calls me Porkbutt. Can’t say I love the nickname. But it’s mine. Anyhoo, Mr. Watts, sorry to seat you here in the storage room. But when yer friend Sven said you wanted privacy, it was all I could think of. If there’s anything else I can bring you, just say the word.”

  “Thanks, Porkbutt,” Alicia replied with a warm smile. She gestured toward the metric ton of ribs, brisket, chicken wings, corn bread, baked beans, collard greens, coleslaw, pulled pork, and mashed potatoes spread out in front of us. “I’d say we’re good.”

  The man left us alone with our mountain of meat.

  Dixon belched. “This is great! It’s the first time I’ve had a meal outside of a dressing room or tour bus in ages. I think—”

  Whatever Dix was thinking was interrupted by something exploding against his forehead.

  CHAPTER 17.0:

  < value= [Something’s Rotten in the State of Colorado] >

  THE ROOM FILLED WITH THE smell of sulfur.

  “We’re under attack!” Alicia cried, rolling out of her chair and dropping into a combat stance.

  Sam peered around the room anxiously. “I don’t see anything. Maybe it was just—”

  Another projectile burst across Dixon’s chest.

  It was white and yellow. And incredibly stinky. It . . . it was . . . a rotten egg.

  Just as I came to that realization, two more eggs found their mark—the face of the world’s most popular singer.

  “Where are they coming from?” Will asked.

  Another egg struck home.

  “You like that, Dixon?” The taunt was delivered in a high-pitched voice. “Now you know how I feel when I listen to you sing. Only, these eggs? They’re a lot less rotten than your songs!”

  “It’s . . . it’s . . . it’s . . . you!” Dixon said, his words dripping with dread. “Ivy.”

  The voice tittered. “Aw, that’s so sweet. I guess that means you got my presents.”

  “I don’t see anyone here! Where are you?” Alicia snarled. “Show yourself!”

  “I’m right in front of you,” the voice answered.

  I squinted in the direction of the voice, but I couldn’t see anyone . . . until I realized I was staring at a little girl. Even though I could see her, I couldn’t see her see her. I knew she was standing there. And that she was short and skinny. Beyond that, I couldn’t really say what she looked like. It was like my eyes just seemed to, well . . . slide off her and focus on something else.

  I tried to make out the color of her eyes, but I found myself looking at a box of bread crumb
s on the shelf next to her instead. When I tried to see what her hair looked like, my eyeballs seemed to skip right over her and come to rest on a bucket and mop propped by the side of the door.

  Another egg splatted against Dix’s shoulder.

  “Can you please stop throwing eggs at me?” Dix begged.

  After a pause, Ivy replied. “Sure. I’ll stop. As long as you promise to stop singing. Forever.”

  “You really don’t like his singing, huh?” I asked her.

  “Are you kidding? He sounds like when my third foster dad would use the bathroom after eating too many nachos. Only worse. He sounds like . . . like . . .”

  “Like an old man sitting in the park hawking up a big mouthful of phlegm?” I suggested.

  “Yes! Exactly!” the girl chirped. “And then spitting it right into your earhole! Thank goodness someone gets it!”

  I stifled a laugh.

  “But how did you get in here without us seeing you?” Will scratched his head. “There’s only one door. And no windows.”

  “Yet here I am, carrot top.” Ivy tossed a rotten egg into the air with her left hand and caught it deftly between her right finger and thumb. “I’m sneaky, like a ninja. You chumps never even noticed me! I was standing here for ten minutes before the egg-stravaganza! Get it?”

  Alicia groaned. “So, how old are you, anyway? Like five? Six?”

  “No! I’m ten! Almost. In eight months.”

  The longer Ivy talked, the clearer I could see her. She had curly blond hair. And, I realized as they came into focus, pale blue eyes that were magnified by a large pair of glasses with round frames. A smattering of freckles dotted her face. Her clothes were drab and shapeless. She was the type of girl you’d pass on the street a million times and never even notice she was there. Still, as my eyes finally focused on her, I knew that I had seen her before.

  “I saw her in the pond when I interfaced with that Synthetic deer. She must be an Omicron!”

  She turned to face me and sneered. “What are you talking about, jerkface? My name is Ivy Grissom, not Anne Omi-whatever the snot you said.”