Cloneward Bound

by M. E. Castle

  They passed rows of stores that seemed miles long. Patrons at a sidewalk café gave them curious but brief looks as they passed. Fisher’s eyes constantly scanned the road for any sign of the black car.

  Two had been alive for less than a month. In that time he had been kidnapped, threatened with torture and death, had narrowly escaped vaporization in the explosion of TechX, and had been saved only by some ingenuity and a massive lucky break. Now, it seemed, he’d been abducted all over again, and could be in equal or even greater danger.

  All in the space of a few weeks.

  When Fisher had been making Two, he had thought of the clone entirely as a tool. A machine, like any of the gadgets in his lab, intended to serve a specific purpose. It had never really crossed his mind before Two came to life that the clone would truly have a life.

  Fisher felt a sharp stab of guilt. He remembered what the evil Dr. X had said to him just before the explosion at TechX: we’re not so different, you and me.

  Could Dr. X have been right?

  Fisher pushed the thought out of his mind as they passed into the massive complex of studio lots, their footsteps faint on the asphalt. Only a few security lights illuminated the area. There were no guards in sight. Fisher wondered if someone had deliberately arranged for the lot to be emptied, and shivered.

  Then: a new light clicked on in the distance. Fisher and Amanda both jumped a foot in the air. A small lamp protruded from of the side of the main studio structure, directly above a red side door.

  “I guess that’s our invitation,” Amanda said. Fisher thought she sounded nervous, but she kept walking. Even though Fisher’s legs felt leaden, it seemed that all too soon, he and Amanda had crossed the distance to the building. Above them were the blinking lights of a low-flying plane, and Fisher found himself wishing he were on it. He would rather be anywhere else but here—in this vacant lot, approaching a mysterious door.

  Amanda took a deep breath and eased the door open.

  The inside of the building was very dark, and they were just able to make out a narrow hallway. Amanda gestured for Fisher to follow her, and they began making their way down the dim corridor. Gradually, the environment grew more claustrophobic; Fisher sensed that the walls were pressing him from either side.

  Then the hallways dumped them suddenly into an enormous open space. A few low lights burned high in the vast ceiling above their heads and, in the half light, Fisher could just see an immense soundstage cluttered and stacked with what looked like heaps and mounds of scrap metal and junk, many of them nearly the size of a house.

  Amanda came to an abrupt halt, and Fisher almost crashed into her. She drew him into a crouch.

  “What?” he whispered into her ear.

  “Movement to our left,” she whispered, and then held her breath for a moment. “And right.”

  Barely visible figures—no more than looming shadows—emerged from the darkness: two from the left, one from the right. Henchmen?

  Midget henchmen? The figure on the right was very small.

  “Hello?” a man’s voice called out. It sounded familiar.

  “Who … who are you?” called the small person on the right, and Fisher found himself even more bewildered than he had been. This voice he definitely recognized. It was Kevin Keels.

  Keels stepped into a pool of light. Amanda let out a yelp of surprise.

  “Kevin?” said the third person, stepping forward. It was GG McGee. The man with her was Dr. Devilish.

  “What is going on??” said Amanda, losing her patience and climbing to her feet. Kevin Keels nearly fell over backward in surprise, and Dr. Devilish jumped behind GG McGee, who froze, eyes wide. She had what looked like a bucketful of mascara running down her face.

  “You!” Dr. Devilish said. “You’re the kid that tackled the vacuum.”

  “Basley?” chorused GG and Keels together as Fisher stepped forward.

  “What are you doing here?” Fisher demanded to no one in particular.

  “I received a threatening note,” said Dr. Devilish, looking around the room and squinting confusedly. “I was told that if I didn’t show up here, now, I’d be exposed.”

  “Exposed as what?” said Amanda, furrowing her brow.

  Even in the darkness, Dr. Devilish’s blush was visible. “What I meant to say is … my latest top secret research would be exposed,” Dr. Devilish said quickly, and coughed. “I’ve been working on a revolutionary new … protein, uh, sympathizer.”

  “You mean synthesizer?” Fisher raised an eyebrow.

  “Right, of course,” Dr. Devilish said quickly. “A nervous slip of the tongue.”

  GG McGee cut in. “My note said that they’d taken my little Molly!” she wailed, clenching her teeth as new tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. “And that I’d never see her again unless I showed up! She’s so young! She has a career of stardom and glory ahead of her! I can’t imagine going on without her!” As she began to sob, Dr. Devilish offered her a few weak pats on the back. “I bumped into Dr. Devilish as we were walking in,” she said, regaining control. “I almost knocked his teeth out with my handbag.”

  “Messing around in the Strange Science lab has made me very good at ducking,” he replied with a shallow smile, trying to lighten the mood.

  “What about you?” Fisher said, looking hard at Keels.

  “Oh, uh,” he started, reaching up and scratching the back of his head, “the note threatened blackmail.…” A whine crept into his voice, and he looked nervously at GG McGee. Fisher saw her give him a minute shake of the head.

  “That’s ridiculous,” GG said forcedly. “You have nothing to hide.”

  “No, no, of course not,” Kevin stammered eagerly. “I … really don’t have any idea what the note meant. I came here to find out.”

  Fisher’s eyes burned into Keels’s. He knew exactly what Kevin’s secret was. The only thing that kept him from pressing the pop singer to reveal the truth was the fact that he had an even bigger secret of his own.

  “How about you, Basley?” Keels asked as if on cue.

  He felt Amanda suck in a breath next to him.

  “I … like to conduct scientific experiments in my off time,” Fisher said. “One of them produced some … embarrassing results. I’d rather not have those results be public.” Fisher was getting very good at the not technically lying game.

  “Who could have brought us here?” said McGee, looking around at the cluttered soundstage. “Who would be so heartless as to kidnap poor Molly?”

  “And what in the world is this place?” Dr. Devilish demanded.

  Before anyone could answer, a heavy series of clanks gave them a half second’s warning before the lights blazed into full force. Fisher’s vision went temporarily white.

  Then, as his eyes adjusted, he found himself surrounded by reasons to wish the lights had just stayed off.

  CHAPTER 17

  Calm your hearts, my friends. This is not the proper time to panic.

  —Hal Torque, brief sidekick of Vic Daring, moments

  before being eaten by a space monster

  Fisher felt like he had stepped into a huge, gleaming nightmare. With hisses and creaks, undercut by the bass thrum of huge, electric motors, the soundstage began to unfold.

  No. To rebuild.

  There was the whirring of servos and the muted scream of metal scraping metal, and what had looked like huge piles of junk became, instead, towering mechanized monsters.

  Metal trees—thirty feet tall with razor wire–lined branches that whipped from side to side like the brushes of a demonic car wash—ringed the area where they were standing, extending into the distance as far as the eye could see, a forest of deadly steel. Rubber vines slithered along the ground, each studded with barbs whose tips were coated in a sickly green fluid. Giant, metal Venus flytraps sprang up from the ground, snapping their four-foot-wide jaws with bone-severing crashes.

  Robotic monsters prowled between the deadly metallic plants. A m
echanical Tyrannosaur stalked among the trees, swinging its car-sized head from side to side and searching out prey with glowing ruby-colored eyes. Anacondas made of dozens of flexing titanium segments rolled and slid through the branches, waiting for the right victim to walk beneath them to be smothered in thick, chrome-plated coils.

  There were human-looking robots as well, running around on legs or rolling on wheels, weaponry sprouting from arms and torsos. They had a strangely familiar look to them, but Fisher was too terrified to figure out why. His brain screamed at him to run, to run anywhere. But there was nowhere to run. The machines weren’t closing in yet, but Fisher didn’t imagine they had much time.

  All five members of the group—GG, Dr. Devilish, Kevin, Amanda, and Fisher—automatically formed a tight circle. Fisher was surprised to realize that he had instinctively balled up his fists. Since when did he have a fight—and not just a flight—instinct?

  “What … is this??” Dr. Devilish managed to squeak out.

  “I—I saw commercials for this.” Fisher was surprised he could still form a complete sentence. “It’s that new reality show: Sci-Fi: Survivor. It’s a giant obstacle course. Contestants have to solve puzzles and fight their way to the end. But—but the commercials made it look easy. Rubber darts. Pools of foam. This isn’t right.”

  “How big is this place?” Amanda squeaked.

  A faint crackle cut through the background hum of machinery.

  “I wouldn’t concern myself with such trivial questions, if I were you,” a man’s voice boomed over loudspeakers, making everyone jerk with surprise. “This place is exactly as big as it needs to be for my purposes.”

  Everyone turned to look at one another.

  “Oh,” the voice went on cheerfully as the robotic monsters continued to circle and prowl, “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I am the Producer. I brought you all here. Let me get you up to speed: put simply, you’re going to have a romp through my little playground, and I’m going to watch. And probably laugh a great deal.”

  “Why should we?” Amanda shouted up into the air. “Who are you? What do you want with us?”

  “To answer your questions in reverse order,” the Producer said, “my reasons are none of your business, knowing my identity won’t help you, and you will do what I say because if you don’t, you’ll all die. Of course, you will very likely die, anyway, but you certainly will if you refuse to cooperate. I have not yet given my … creations the order to attack. You have thirty seconds before I do.”

  “There’s a—there’s a dinosaur staring at me,” Dr. Devilish croaked.

  “Some wheelie thing has me in its sights,” said Amanda, her voice rising in panic, tugging on Fisher’s sleeve. He followed her panicked gaze. The robot looked like a motorcycle, but with a curved plastic chassis where its driver should be. A single, glaring blue eye stared Amanda down.

  “Ten seconds,” said the Producer.

  The trees began shivering and shaking, branches thrashing in the air. The flytraps clapped their jaws together like castanets.

  “Hold still,” muttered Fisher urgently. “Nobody move until I say go. Then scatter, okay?”

  “Got it,” Amanda said.

  “Right,” said Dr. Devilish. GG McGee whimpered something that sounded like a yes.

  “Kevin?” Fisher said. “Did you hear me? Kevin!”

  “Y-y-y-yess,” Keels managed to splutter.

  “Five, four, three, two … one,” the Producer said. A harsh laugh exploded through the speakers. For a second, Fisher felt an idea skirt the edge of his consciousness.… The laugh sounded familiar, too.…

  But he had no time to mull it over.

  The Tyranno-bot began to stomp forward, its body swaying low to the ground. The wheel-bot gunned its engine. Its tires squealed as it sped at Amanda.

  “Not yet,” Fisher said.

  “Fisher …” Amanda said nervously.

  “Not yet …” Fisher said.

  “Basley!” GG screeched.

  “Not yet …” Fisher forced himself to stay rooted in his spot.

  The mechanical dinosaur’s mouth yawned open, revealing rows of serrated steel teeth. The motorcycle raced forward, gunning to full speed … five feet away … four …

  “NOW!” Fisher shouted as he dove and tumbled forward. All five of them scattered in different directions, and the speeding motorcycle collided with the Tyranno-bot, shearing its control capsule off on the dinosaur’s teeth. Its sparking wheeled body sped right into the dinosaur’s legs, clipping them out from under it. The Tyranno-bot crashed heavily to the ground. Smoke and sparks began to spray from both machines.

  “All right,” Amanda cried, panting, over the noise of the other machines. “What now? Which way should we go?”

  Before anyone could answer, a fuzzy pink blur zipped out of the trees, shot between Fisher’s legs and off into the mechanical wilderness.

  “FP!” Fisher shouted, bolting after him. The others followed behind him, calling his name—“Fisher!” “Basley!”—and dodging swiping, bladed tree branches and twisting electrical vines.

  FP was charting his own course, scurrying ahead in a panic, weaving between the deadly animatronics. Fisher didn’t know how he’d escaped, but given the little guy’s heroic deeds at TechX, he was hardly surprised. Maybe he was trying to lead them to Two and Molly.

  An enormous android stepped out from behind a tree, each arm sprouting a ten-foot whip. Fisher stopped short, and his companions skidded to a halt around him.

  The android advanced on them, cracking its whips in turn. FP had paused ahead of them, whimpering and shaking.

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no …” Keels said over and over again.

  “Shut up,” snapped Amanda. “Everybody spread out. We need to give it multiple targets.” When nobody moved, she said impatiently, “Listen, I know what I’m doing. I watch a lot of action movies—ahhh!” No sooner had she pronounced the words before a whip lashed itself three times around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides and dragging her off her feet.

  “Amanda!” Fisher yelled. The other whip snapped out in a fluid motion, wrapping around Keels and pinning him to the ground. The pop star squealed in terror.

  The robot began to pace backward, dragging its two victims along the floor with it.

  “Come on!” Fisher rushed forward.

  He grabbed hold of the whip that had encircled Amanda, wrapping both arms around it. The whip was made of thick but flexible steel. Fisher couldn’t hope to uncoil it. But Fisher’s added weight made the android falter for a moment. It gave Fisher an idea. “Devilish, grab the other whip!”

  Dr. Devilish shook visibly, but he took two big steps forward and grabbed hold of the whip encircling the whimpering Keels and leaned backward. He was much larger than Fisher, and the added resistance stopped the robot short.

  “It’s stuck!” Fisher cried. “We’re too heavy!” He looked around wildly. “Turn it left!… Left, Doctor, left! Your other left.”

  With Fisher pulling one way and Dr. Devilish pulling the other, they were able to turn the struggling android. A few feet behind its back were the snapping jaws of a flytrap. “GG, push!”

  McGee took a few slow, halting steps forward, then planted her hands on the android’s body and added her effort to Fisher’s and Devilish’s.

  “This …” she began, gritting her teeth and starting to push, as Fisher and Dr. Devilish pulled, “is …” The android was forced to take a step back to stay on its feet, then two. “For …” Fisher strained with all the strength in his barely one-hundred-pound body. “Molly!”

  With a final shove from McGee, the android fell backward into the open jaws of the flytrap. The flytrap snapped shut, and a horrible crunching sound filled the air. The flytrap sparked and hissed as the android’s body was severed clean from its legs. The whips went slack, and Amanda, who had been fighting and straining all along, burst out of the loose grip. Kevin Keels lay still.

  “Kevin!” GG
cried out, falling to his side.

  “Is he dead?” Devilish asked, his eyes wide. “Badly hurt?”

  “No,” GG said, “just fainted.” She tapped her palm against his cheek a few times. “Kevin! Kevin! Wake up! That’s a good boy.”

  “I had the most awful dream,” Keels said, sounding groggy. “I dreamed that we were trapped in this horrible death maze that …” He sat up and looked around. “Aaauugh!” As if someone had unplugged him, he instantly passed out again, flopping flat on his back.

  Fisher had immediately darted over to FP and had scooped up his pet pig.

  “I was worried about you, boy,” he said.

  FP frantically nuzzled his face and even began to chew on Fisher’s ear, which Fisher assumed—rightly—was an expression of happiness. GG struggled to revive her pop sensation client until finally Kevin staggered to his feet again.

  A dull, rhythmic popping sound suddenly filled the air. After a moment Fisher realized that it was the sound of someone clapping slowly into a microphone.

  “Well done,” the Producer’s voice rang out. “Very noble and extremely thrilling. I’m sure your audience agrees.”

  “Audience?” Amanda wrinkled her nose. “We’re not actually being filmed right now, are we?”

  Fisher heard a dull crackling behind him and turned around.

  “Uh, guys …” he said. “The audience is behind us.…”

  The others turned. Dozens of fiendish machines had gathered in a rough semicircle behind them. Some had barrel-shaped bodies perched on two thick legs, with spherical heads sprouting antennae. There were more dinosaur-bots, in the shapes of Stegosaurs, Triceratops, and smaller birdlike beasts, all of them with strips of plastic imitation skin covering parts of their bodies, but with metal plating and exposed wires everywhere else. There were robots on wheels, treads, two legs, three legs, and four legs.

  “RUN!” Amanda screamed.

  Nobody needed to be told twice. The group tore off through the artificial foliage, ducking and weaving between the plants as the troupe of robots stomped after them in hot pursuit.