Hamstersaurus Rex vs. the Cutepocalypse

by Tom O'Donnell

  I hesitated.

  “I—I don’t know,” I said.

  “Sam, he literally mind-controlled you,” said Serena. “He tried to drop a five-hundred-pound tiki god on your head. I could go on.”

  “Yeah, I know he’s rotten. Maybe evil,” I said. “But even he doesn’t deserve . . . this. I mean, look at him.”

  The Mind Mole was small and pitiful under the sickly glare of the computer monitor. His beady eyes twitched underneath his lids.

  “It was getting scientifically tortured by Gordon Renfro that warped his giant brain in the first place,” I said.

  “So . . . what exactly do you propose?” said Serena.

  “Follow me,” I said. “I think I have an idea.”

  We found the lab’s kitchenette. Sure enough, there was still a roll of aluminum foil in a drawer in the pantry. We each wrapped enough of the stuff around our heads to make Old Man Ohlman proud. Then we cautiously returned to the Mind Mole’s globe-prison.

  “You sure about this?” said Serena.

  “I am,” I said.

  I took a deep breath, and then I started to pull the wires and sensors off. At last, I carefully removed the Mind Mole’s IV sedative drip. The three of us ducked back behind a covered lab cart and waited.

  With a startled squeal, the Mind Mole sat upright. He blinked, and then his eyes darted around the dark lab, gleaming with malice. He looked furious. I got a familiar static-electricity feeling as the hairs of my arms started to stand up. With a flick of his paw, the lab cart we were hiding behind telekinetically shot across the room and slammed into the wall.

  I swallowed. “. . . Go on,” I said. “Shoo! Get out of here! Make your grand escape or whatever!”

  The Mind Mole didn’t budge.

  “You’re free!” I said. “You don’t need to hurt anyone today. Just go, okay?”

  “Sam, look!” whispered Serena.

  All around us flasks, clipboards, Bunsen burners, and other loose pieces of lab equipment started to shake and then to slowly float upward. The Mind Mole glared at me with his horrible eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to hypnotize me but I had to wonder if I had just made a colossal mistake. Our tinfoil hats wouldn’t protect us much if he dropped a centrifuge or an industrial freezer or maybe the whole building on our heads.

  Instead, the Mind Mole let the floating objects clatter to the floor. With another loud squeal he scurried in the direction of the exit.

  “. . . Wow. I don’t ever get scared of anything ever,” said Beefer, clutching his chest. “But if I did, that would have been the perfect time.”

  “Boo,” said Serena.

  Beefer leaped two feet into the air. “Don’t do that!”

  “Guys, look,” I said.

  The dusty tracks led away down a corridor. We followed them until at last we came to a familiar office. It was the room with the wall displaying the portraits of all the SmilesCorp lab chiefs, past and present. Among them was Gordon Renfro’s face, bald and menacing. I shuddered. But I wasn’t looking for him.

  “This is the one,” I said.

  I pointed to the portrait of Sue Sandoval, smiling slightly with a kindly twinkle in her eye.

  “My great-aunt Sue,” said Serena. “Man, I miss her so much.”

  Serena touched the painting. As she did, the frame spun ninety degrees clockwise. There was a click and then a low rumbling noise. The entire portrait wall slowly slid aside to reveal a heavy metal door. Beside the door was an electronic keypad.

  “This is where Hamstersaurus Rex is being held,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Serena. “Aunt Sue’s notes mentioned something like this—a top secret SmilesCorp lab that had a top top secret lab hidden inside it, where she used to work. Hang on. I’m pretty sure I know the combination.”

  Serena punched in a six-digit code. The light flashed green and the door’s mechanical lock unbolted.

  “What was it?” I said.

  Serena grinned. “My birthday.”

  We pushed the heavy door open, revealing stairs that led down.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE THREE OF us quietly crept down several long flights of stairs to a subbasement that must have been pretty far belowground. We followed a hallway to a windowed set of double doors. Cautiously I peeked through one of the windows.

  The room beyond was a large, brightly lit laboratory. It was filled with high-tech equipment, much of which looked like futuristic weaponry in various stages of development. There were various shelves lined with canisters labeled “PaleoGro” and “Huginex-G” and many other SmilesCorp chemicals I didn’t recognize. At the far side of the room was a bald man in a lab coat with his back to us, typing at a computer: Gordon Renfro!

  Beefer tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. Not far from Renfro was a clear plastic enclosure containing an odd device that almost looked like a piece of miniaturized gym equipment. Strapped into the device was Hamstersaurus Rex.

  As quietly as I could, I eased the door open. Serena pulled out the UltraLite SmartShot and started to record.

  “. . . Nine hundred fifty pounds,” said Renfro, logging it on his computer.

  Hamstersaurus Rex flexed his legs and the weight-lifting contraption moved. Behind the little guy, a stack of weights rose up a track.

  “Impressive,” said Renfro. “Increasing the load to a thousand pounds.”

  He was testing the limits of Hammie’s dinosaur superstrength. Renfro typed something on his computer. A mechanical arm added another weight to the device with a clank. Hamstersaurus Rex strained with effort.

  I had to save the little guy before he got hurt! I started to run to Hammie but I didn’t get more than half a step before Gordon Renfro hit a red button mounted on his desk.

  SHWOOP! A metal security gate slid shut in front of me, blocking the doorway and completely cutting us off from the laboratory. Red lights began to flash and a computerized voice spoke over the intercom: “Warning. Security breach in Subbasement Laboratory. . . . Warning. Security breach in Subbasement Laboratory. . . .”

  “Let us in!” I cried as I pounded on the gate.

  Beefer slammed his shoulder against it. It was no use. The gate was made of interlocking steel bars. I doubted even Hamstersaurus Rex could have broken through it.

  Gordon Renfro slowly swiveled in his chair and grinned at us. “Well, if it isn’t Sam Gibbs, the middle-school intellectual property thief.”

  “You’re the thief!” I yelled. “Give me my hamster back and then stop the Snuzzle virus from hurting anyone else!”

  Renfro laughed. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken on both counts. First, I had nothing to do with the Snuzzles, that was just a happy coincidence. And second, you cannot steal what you already own. The patent on Specimen Number 00001 belongs to SmilesCo—” Gordon Renfro corrected himself. “Pardon me, Pappy’s Beeswax of Maine.”

  “Keep on blabbing, tough guy,” said Serena as she filmed. “This is how we got you last time.”

  “Ah, and here we have Serena Sandoval, former intern turned investigative journalist,” said Renfro. “You know, I think I may like you even less than your great-aunt.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” said Serena.

  “Fortunately this time your footage will be confiscated and erased before it can be made public.” Gordon Renfro squinted at Beefer. “Ah, and I see now your little band is a trio. . . . Hang on, is that the kid from Epic Ninja 360-Degree Fail?”

  “Aw man,” said Beefer. “You saw that?”

  “Of course,” said Gordon Renfro. “Almost as hilarious as the three of you thinking you could sneak in here past all our security cameras. In any event, I have alerted the Pappy’s Beeswax of Maine elite security team, who will be arriving any moment. I’d say you have, oh, a minute and a half or so. I hope you don’t mind if I return to my work while we wait. . . .” He turned back toward his computer. “Now, shall we try eleven hundred pounds?” The mechanical arm added another weight
to the device. Hamstersaurus Rex squealed.

  “Why?” I said. “Why do you even want Hammie? What’s so important about him?”

  “My, my, that is the question, isn’t it?” said Renfro. “Specimen Number 00001 represents a true revolution in home security. The product is formidable yet compact enough to fit in your pocket. Imagine a Hamstersaurus Rex in every household! What burglar would want to face him? What mugger?”

  “That’s it?” I said. “So he’s just supposed to be a glorified guard dog?”

  “Not quite,” said Gordon Renfro. “In truth, we were working on something far more ambitious: we had secured a top secret military contract. But my predecessor, Dr. Sandoval, was shortsighted. She developed ethical qualms about what we were doing here. In the end, she tried to sabotage our work by sneaking 00001 out of this lab, depriving us of him at a critical juncture in our research.”

  “Why couldn’t you just repeat the experiment that created him?” I said.

  Gordon Renfro sputtered. “Because we were—we were focused on different—we didn’t have the precise—”

  “I get it,” I said. “It’s the same reason your colleague Rupert MacFarquhar couldn’t do it.”

  “You’re just not as good a scientist as my great-aunt Sue,” said Serena.

  “How dare you!” said Renfro. “I’m better because I’m rational. I don’t let my emotions get in the way!” He turned back to his console. “Fifteen hundred pounds!”

  The mechanical arm added five more of the large weights to Hamstersaurus Rex’s strength-tester. The little guy groaned in anguish. His legs were trembling. He couldn’t take it for that much longer.

  “Stop!” I cried. “You’re hurting him!”

  He ignored me. “Most importantly, I have the resolve to take us to the final stages of our project,” said Gordon Renfro. “You see, Specimen Number 00001 isn’t just a hamster-dinosaur. He’s a hamster and a dinosaur. You almost stumbled onto the right track when you gave him a dose of Huginex-G to fight Squirrel Kong. That, combined with an ultraconcentrated dose of PaleoGro”—he held up a vial of each—“and this little fellow will truly be combat ready! I cannot wait to witness him finally deployed on the field of battle—”

  “You like fights, huh? Well, that’s good, because you’re about to get one!” I cried. “Sic ’im, kids!”

  I reached into my backpack and pulled out three more mutant hamster-dinosaur hybrids: Stompy, Chompy, and Hatshepsut. Maybe I couldn’t get through the security door, but they sure could! The three tiny pups easily squeezed between the bars and scattered into the laboratory. Their dad was in trouble and they were fighting mad.

  “Ah, you’ve conveniently delivered me three more live specimens,” said Gordon Renfro. “Thank you, Sam, that’s very . . .”

  He trailed off as Hatshepsut leaped onto a shelf full of expensive-looking microscopes.

  “No . . . Don’t touch those. Bad hamster,” said Gordon Renfro, rising. “Bad hamster! Each of those phase-contrast fluorescence microscopes is worth over ten thousand—”

  Hatshepsut grinned and shoved one off the edge. Gordon Renfro had to make a flying dive to catch the falling microscope. And he did catch it. But unfortunately for him, this left his haunches wide open for a monster chomp by (you guessed it) Chompy.

  “AAAAAAH-ha-ha-hawabagogga!” shrieked Gordon Renfro as Chompy’s tiny, needlelike fangs sank in.

  CRASH! Another microscope hit the floor nearby, spraying parts and broken glass everywhere. Hatshepsut cackled.

  “Get off me! Don’t touch any more of those!” cried Gordon Renfro as he frantically tried to dislodge Chompy from his backside while squirming to position himself under the next microscope.

  That level of multitasking may explain why he never saw Stompy coming. The hamster pup landed on top of his head, dino-feet first, slamming it into the linoleum floor with a thud.

  “Oooooooh,” moaned Gordon Renfro. “Did I win Science Night?”

  At this point Chompy did dislodge his bite. He scrambled out of the way just before the entire shelf of phase-contrast fluorescence microscopes—which Hatshepsut had somehow managed to tip over—landed right on top of Gordon Renfro.

  Hatshepsut guffawed as Chompy started to chomp his way through a bundle of fiber-optic cables. Meanwhile, Stompy kept on stomping on things. She stomped on a rack of test tubes. She stomped on an external hard drive. She stomped on a small potted plant.

  “Stompy, the button!” I cried. “I need you to hit that red button!”

  At last she did, landing squarely on the panic button mounted to Gordon Renfro’s desk. SWHOOP! The security door slid open. Beefer, Serena, and I rushed into the lab. Using Renfro’s computer, we removed all the weights from the strength-tester and extricated Hamstersaurus Rex from the device.

  “Good to have you back, little guy,” I said as I hugged him close.

  Behind me, Gordon Renfro moaned and started to pull himself out from under the wreckage of the microscope shelf. Hammie roared with unbridled fury. If Gordon Renfro was awake, he wanted a piece of the guy.

  “No time, Hammie,” I said. “Security will be here any second!”

  I scooped up the pups, who had taken it upon themselves to destroy several more pieces of expensive-looking lab equipment in the meantime.

  “You kids did great, by the way,” I said. “I think you might even be better rampagers than your dad!”

  Hammie gave them each a proud nuzzle. I tucked the whole hamster family back into my backpack.

  “Ninja escape maneuver GO!” cried Beefer as he tossed a smoke bomb onto the floor.

  We ran for it.

  On our way up the stairs, Serena was already reviewing the footage on my camera. “Another Gordon Renfro confession plus excellent video of him getting his butt kicked by three adorable baby mutant hamsters,” she said. “I think I may just have just captured the most shareable web content of all time!”

  “Wait,” said Beefer. “You don’t think it’s going to get more hits than Epic Ninja 360-Degree Fail, do you?”

  “Yeah, probably!” said Serena.

  “Aw, come on!” said Beefer. “That’s no fair!”

  We reached the top of the stairs and ran through the hidden portrait door.

  “Stop!” called Renfro’s voice from the stairwell behind us. “Don’t let those children get away.”

  We rounded a corner and skidded to a halt. The hallway ahead was completely blocked by five security guards who looked more like a SWAT team.

  “Freeze!” bellowed the guard in front. “You three are trespassing on private property!”

  Hamstersaurus Rex snarled from inside my backpack.

  “Hi. I think there’s been a big misunderstanding,” said Serena. “See, I used to be an intern here so I can totally vouch for these two—”

  “Don’t move!” yelled the lead guard. “Put your hands up.”

  We were trapped. We may have been able to take a single arrogant scientist by surprise, but not five guards in riot gear.

  “Sam, what do we do?” said Beefer. “I don’t know if I can ninja this many guys.”

  I sighed and put my hands up. “It’s over,” I said. “They got us.”

  Gordon Renfro came up behind us, huffing and puffing. He doubled over to catch his breath.

  “I admire your resolve, Sam Gibbs. But you must understand you can’t be allowed to escape,” said Renfro. “SmilesCorp, ahem, I mean Pappy’s Beeswax of Maine, will always come after Specimen Number 00001. We will never rest until our project is rea—”

  WHANG! From out of nowhere a flying table pinned Gordon Renfro to the wall.

  “. . . What just happened?” said the lead security guard.

  Before anyone could answer, the five guards were scattered like bowling pins hit by an invisible ball. Standing behind them was a tiny rodent with an oversized head.

  “. . . The Mind Mole,” I whispered.

  One of the security guards rose and spoke to me in a gra
ting high-pitched voice. “Yes. Of course it is the Mind Mole. Did you think we would scurry away before we had our exquisite revenge?” The security guard gave a horrible, squealing laugh.

  “But we set you free,” I said. “We didn’t have to do that.”

  The Mind Mole squinted at me. “Not revenge against you insignificant worms,” he said through the mouth of his security guard puppet. “Revenge against the creator; the tormentor. Revenge against Gordon Renfro.”

  “Now—now, hang on just a minute,” said Renfro. “Let’s not be hasty! Specimen Number 4449, I fully intended to release you back into the wild once I ran a battery of routine tests—”

  “Balderdash!” screeched the hypnotized guard.

  Gordon Renfro flinched, still pinned behind the table.

  “Sam, you told us earlier that we need not hurt anybody. On this point, we disagree,” said the Mind Mole. “Now leave this place. And know that it is we, the Mind Mole, who have graciously freed you. This makes us even.”

  So Serena, Beefer, and I ran. Hamstersaurus Rex and his three pups were safe. I didn’t look back to see what the Mind Mole was about to do to Gordon Renfro but I started to feel the hairs on my arms stand on end. . . .

  CHAPTER 19

  “SORRY,” SAID PATRICIA, the ticket-taker at the Maple Bluffs Antique Doll Museum, “can’t let you in.”

  “But this is the secret Hamster Monitor emergency rendezvous point!” I said.

  “No idea what that means,” said Patricia. “All I know is that I’m on my lunch break.” She held up an egg salad wrap and pointed to a small handwritten note that was stuck to the window. It said “Out to Lunch.”

  “. . . But you’re not out to lunch,” said Serena.

  “You don’t know that,” said Patricia. She drew the blinds.

  Norton, the museum security guard, rapped on the glass with his flashlight. “Oh, for crying out loud, just let them in, Patricia,” he said, “or I’ll write you up for stealing all those thumbtacks.”

  Patricia pulled the blinds and squinted at Norton. Norton crossed his arms.