“Damaged!” screamed One, her face scarlet. “My ship has been blasted to pieces because of your stupid girlfriend! But you’ll be happy to hear that my weapons and defenses are working now.” She wiped the trickle of blood from her eye. “That won’t bring back my research. You destroyed everything that I worked for!”
Philip pointed a finger at her. “You destroyed everything I love!”
“So what? Find a new girlfriend. I could have given you ten more exactly like her. The dimensions are full of them.”
“There was nobody like Amy,” shouted Sunflower. “Nobody!”
“Right,” barked Betsy. “She was the best!”
Philip backed slowly toward the edge of the damaged room, the fierce air current whipping his brown hair around his head. He glanced at the ocean sparkling in the morning sun, far, far below.
“What are you doing?” shouted One. “You can’t survive that jump. You can’t kill yourself before I kill you!”
Philip took Nick out of his pocket and carefully set her on the deck.
“Farewell, my friends!”
He placed both hands over his heart and fell backwards into the open sky.
“No!” squealed Nick.
Betsy leaped forward and grabbed the tiny woman in his jaws before she could follow Philip over the edge.
“Why did he do that? Why?” sobbed Nick.
“Mmph phrbdn nmmm,” mumbled Betsy with the sprite in his mouth.
Sunflower turned to Andy Nakamura. “Shall we?”
She hugged him tearfully and nodded. The two cats ran to the edge and leaped over the side.
“Sunflower!” yelled Betsy, opening his mouth.
Nick buzzed toward the edge. Shocked by the multiple suicides, MacGuffin made a clumsy grab for her and slipped. Both the Siamese cat and the sprite tumbled into the open sky.
Wilson sprinted up to the edge, the strong air current blowing through his black fur.
“Stop it!” he shouted. “Stop it, all of you. This is madness!”
Betsy looked down at the ocean, and then turned back to One and the black cat.
“There’s my ride!” he shouted. “See ya, suckers!”
The brown-and-white terrier leaped off, his little legs flailing and tail wagging.
One screamed and tossed her blood-covered pistol after the dog. “Just great! I’m not going to have anyone to torture!”
Wilson crawled to the edge and looked down, searching for any sign of those who had jumped. He turned to One, stood on his hind legs, and saluted with his right paw to his furry black forehead.
“You won’t even have me!” he shouted. “I quit!”
One watched the black cat tumble backwards into the strong air current and fall out of sight. She sighed and turned to leave, but a movement in the clear blue sky forced her to stop and stare in wide-eyed horror at a rapidly-approaching shape.
“No!”
The maroon and gray prow of the Wits Hater rammed into the observation deck and drove through its sister ship with the sound of a locomotive hitting another locomotive and both falling down an elevator shaft of the Sears Tower. A series of huge explosions ripped through both ships. The pieces fell a thousand meters into the ocean, smoking and burning like a massive, slow-motion fireworks display that had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Chapter Sixteen
The light burned Amy from the top of her blonde head to the tips of her toes.
She floated through a dream of waves breaking on a beach. Faces floated above the spray: Three, Philip, Sunflower, her stepmother Lucia.
Amy opened her eyes to a cloudless blue sky and the soft murmuring sounds of a baby. She lay at the bottom of a crater of sand, the curved sides as smooth and shiny as a glass bowl. Baby Three lay wrapped in her old nightgown next to Amy, sucking on her fist and looking around with bright blue eyes.
“Mum mum,” she said, and waved at Amy. “Mummumum.”
Amy smiled and kissed the baby on the cheek. “You’re a cute little monster, but I’m definitely not your mommy.”
She hugged the baby to her chest. As she stood up, the glassy surface of the crater shattered under her boots like thin sugar candy. The sand poured through, and Amy pumped her legs to climb out of the crater before the walls could collapse.
The clear blue waves of a tropical ocean foamed and hissed away from her feet on a beach of white sand that spread left and right as far as she could see. A breeze whirled her hair from behind, full of the humid, earthy smells of plants and wet earth. Amy turned and saw a thick forest of palm trees towering over the beach, heavy with clumps of green coconuts. Behind the jungle, the sheer cliffs of a mountain rose hundreds of meters into the sky. Palm trees and scrubby bushes clung to the black volcanic rock, their leaves spread to catch every scrap of sunshine, and thick vines looped and slithered up the cliffs and across the vertical rock at impossible angles.
“So … heaven is Hawai’i?” murmured Amy. “That’s impossible––even God can’t afford to buy property there.”
“Mumum,” said baby Three.
“Exactly. I’m just going to assume that we’re both alive and castaways on this island. Do you think I dreamed all that stuff about talking cats and traveling through dimensions? Maybe I went on a three-hour tour and the boat sank. Nah, that’s too corny and also I’m not wet. Maybe I was trying to get a tan and fell asleep on the beach.”
“Mumum.”
Amy looked down at her cotton nightgown covered with mud, redwood splinters, and streaks of orange brick dust. The lace hem had ripped off, and the loose threads floated lazily over her sand-covered boots.
“Sunbathing in this outfit? It’s easier to believe in talking cats. I’d also never take a baby sunbathing. I may not be your mommy, but I know that much about babies.”
A gleam at the top of the mountain caught her attention. Amy used a hand to shade her eyes from the hot sun and walked further down the beach with baby Three to get a better look.
“Is that a radio tower? That means people are here. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad.”
“Mumum,” said baby Three.
Amy spotted a narrow trail that rose above the jungle, cut across the mountain, and led to the summit. She walked a kilometer down the beach to a muddy trail through the leafy green vegetation, frightening a large yellow bird that cawed like a crow and flew away. A pair of bamboo poles covered in strange symbols stood on either side of the opening to the jungle, the black paint faded from the sun and rain. Every twenty meters identical poles lined the trail hacked through the thick bushes. Birds woke from afternoon naps and cackled down at Amy as she followed the muddy path, swatting with her free hand at buzzing clouds of blue-green flies that tried to land on baby Three’s face. After fifteen minutes of walking the path met the base of the mountain, where crude steps had been chipped out of the black, volcanic rock.
Amy sighed and looked at the sleeping baby in her arms.
“Godspeed, Amy Armstrong,” she murmured. “We’re going to be murdered at the top and eaten by cannibals, or murdered at the top and eaten by crazy alien robots. Either way, something bad is going to happen.”
She climbed the steps carefully with the baby, stepping over vines, fallen rocks, and jumbled wreaths of stick and mud that were probably nests for the handful of white birds circling overhead. The path gradually rose above the humid cloud of birdcalls and buzzing insects that was the jungle, and into a cool breeze that smelled of clouds and the ocean.
When she reached the halfway point up the side of the mountain, Amy stopped to take a break. She shaded her eyes and scanned the sky and the endless blue ocean.
“I don’t see any other land,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to call this place Gilligan’s Island. So what if it’s not original? Yes, baby, you should get used to me talking to myself. I’ll be Ginger and you can be Mary Ann. You’re a tomboy, not a movie star.”
Baby Three squirmed and began to cry.
“Sorry! You c
an be Ginger.”
The infant continued to cry, no matter what Amy did. She gave up trying and continued to climb up the dangerous steps with the baby.
At last a pair of massive wooden pillars marked the summit and the end of the path. Painted red, ten meters tall, and as wide as a man’s shoulders, the large posts were linked at the top by a square beam, also painted red. An angled line of black symbols coiled around each pillar, rising like a scroll from the bottom to the top.
Amy passed between the pillars and walked over the orange-brown bricks of a small plaza. Round concrete bunkers covered in leafy vines framed the plaza on the left and right. Directly ahead, an aluminum antenna soared into the sky from the roof of a much wider concrete bunker––this was the “radio tower” she’d seen from the beach. Around the edges of the plaza, tropical flowers sprouted from dozens of wooden planter boxes. A hand trowel lay beside a box full of pink blooms with hexagonal petals, and a straw broom leaned in a concrete doorway.
“At least these cannibals like gardening,” said Amy. “Well, let’s go meet them. With all the noise you’re making, I’m sure they’re already breaking out the spices and heating the water. Do I want to be boiled to death or barbecued? Choices, choices.”
Amy walked toward the wide bunker that supported the radio tower. A pair of windows stood on either side of a green metal door decorated with a wreath of vines and white flowers.
She was within arms-reach of the door when it clanked and squealed open on rusty hinges. A young woman stepped out. She wore a silky white gown, a garland of purple flowers in her long blonde hair, and was the spitting image of a twenty-something Amy Armstrong.
The woman clapped her hands and hopped up and down on her bare feet. “Ooo, a baby! I haven’t seen a baby in years!”
Amy wrapped both arms around baby Three and backed away.
“Another copy of me? Stay back––I won’t let you hurt us!”
The young woman held up her hands. “Don’t be scared! I came here the same way as you.”
“You’re not working for One or her flunkies?”
“Who do you mean? I help the Keeper with his hobbies and stuff, but that’s not really like working for him. We’re married and it’s a partnership. Do you understand these things? Do you have marriage in your dimension?”
“Of course we do!”
The young woman lowered her hands. “Sorry. I meet so many girls from other dimensions. Some of them don’t even understand basic things from my culture.”
“So many girls? What are you talking about?”
Baby Three coughed and wailed again, and her screams echoed across the plaza. A door opened in one of the smaller bunkers. A pale girl stuck her head out and sprinted toward Amy and the girl in the white dress, her bare feet slapping the bricks. Her blonde hair was split into braids and curled on top of her head, and she wore a short dress of sheer blue material that whipped around her bare arms and legs. This new, skinny arrival was another identical copy of Amy, only a few years younger.
She dashed up to them in her bare feet and stared at Three.
“A baby!” she squealed, and danced in a circle. “Baby! Baby! Baby!”
Baby Three stared at the newcomer for a moment, and then started to scream even louder.
“There’s something wrong with her,” said the twenty-something Amy.
The Amy in the blue dress pouted. “No, there’s not! She’s a perfect little cutie pie.”
Amy shrugged. “I’m not going to argue with either of you, because that would be like arguing with myself and that’s the point when I’ve actually lost my marbles. If I think about it too hard, I have to admit I probably went crazy a long time ago, way before One shot us with that death ray.”
“You’re not crazy––that’s how everyone comes here,” said the skinny copy. “I think she’s just hungry. I’ll get some coconut milk.”
She ran back across the plaza.
“I can feel a question on your lips,” said the twenty-something copy. “I am Blanca. The other girl is Lannie.”
“I’m Amy.”
Blanca smiled. “Of course you are. All of us are Amy Armstrong. If you decide to stay with us you’ll have to take a new name. All of that is up to you, of course.”
“I’m getting a very creepy vibe from this place,” said Amy. “You’re not going to chain me in the basement or chop me into little pieces, are you?”
Blanca laughed. “No, no, no! You’re a funny one. I hope you decide to stay, because I think we’d be great friends.”
A door slammed. Lannie sprinted across the plaza, the skirt of her blue dress flapping over her bare legs and a large coconut in both hands.
“Baby food!”
Amy switched the crying Three to her other arm. “How’s she supposed to eat that?”
“All right, all right,” said the young girl Lannie. “Keep your raspberries in your pockets.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
Lannie shrugged. The girl took a thin silver tube from a pocket in her dress, held it on the brick plaza with her toes, and rammed the coconut down onto the tube. Liquid seeped from the end of the tube and dribbled a small, dark patch onto the bricks. Lannie turned the coconut over and held the end of the tube over Baby Three’s face. After a few drops fell inside her mouth, the infant stopped crying and began to suck on the tube.
“I guess babies are smarter than I thought,” said Amy. “Now we’ve solved that problem, can someone please in the name of Captain Crunch tell me where I am?”
Blanca smiled and curtseyed, spreading the filmy white fabric of her skirt with both hands as she bowed.
“Welcome to Fiji, the island paradise.”
“We’re on Earth? That’s great! I always wanted to visit the South Pacific.”
“Not that Fiji,” said Lannie. “Fiji is the name of this planet.”
“Great,” said Amy, and let out a deep sigh. “Are we even in the Milky Way galaxy?”
Blanca nodded. “Yes, and on the same spiral arm as Earth, just closer to the galactic center.”
“Okay,” said Amy. “I’m going to ask a question that has probably never been asked in the history of the English language. If I’m not dead or dreaming this, how did I and my dimensional copies end up on this planet?”
Blanca giggled. “That’s actually a very common question around here.”
“Everyone asks that,” said Lannie. “Even me! I think baby needs a burp.”
“A what? How do I do that?”
“Hold her up to your shoulder and lean back a little––that’s it––and pat her on the back.”
Amy followed Lannie’s instructions and Baby Three let out a series of tiny burps.
“Mumum,” she said.
Blanca clapped her hands. “She’s so cute!”
“Can someone please answer my question?” asked Amy.
Blanca touched the baby’s tiny fingers. “The Keeper should be back from fishing soon. He likes to explain these things himself.”
Lannie flipped the skirt of her blue dress up and down like a fan. “Keeper, shmeeper,” said the girl. “It’s just Philip.”
BABY THREE became fussy after her meal of coconut water. A horrifying smell coming from the nightgown in which the infant was wrapped forced the two young women to create a makeshift diaper from a bath towel. After a bit of rocking, the baby fell asleep in a box padded with old clothes.
Amy wandered through one of the concrete bunkers with Blanca, as the young woman talked a steady stream about her flower collection, the types of migratory birds that visited the island, and the household uses for lava rock. The bunker coiled down into the mountain like an underground skyscraper, each level warmed by the earth, given light by a circular shaft open to the sky, and watered by spring-fed pipes in the walls.
All of the rooms curved around the open, atrium-like shaft in the center. Blanca led Amy to a curved concrete barrier topped by a railing and pointed over the edge.
“It just keeps on going,” she said. “I’m too scared to go past the sixth level. There’s no point, anyway––we have everything we need on the first two floors.”
Amy leaned over the railing and stared into a circle of deep, pitch-black nothing. The light that streamed from the round hole in the roof of the bunker faded out of existence forty meters down, below the seventh floor. A trickle of water rolled out of the level below her and plummeted into the darkness, spreading out into a misty rain as it fell. Amy listened for the smack of drops hitting the bottom, and heard nothing but the moan of a breeze from outside the bunker.
“Creepy,” whispered Amy. “What’s down there?”
“Nothing important. Just Keeper––I mean, Philip––stuff. He takes a trip to the lower levels every few days.”
“Fishing?”
Blanca giggled. “Oh, no! He does that on the other side of the island, sometimes in his boat.”
“So what exactly is this place?”
“I showed you. It’s where I live with Philip and Lannie.”
“Not THIS place.” Amy spread her arms. “This PLACE.”
“You mean the island,” said Blanca. “I like to think of it as an airship station.”
“A what?”
“Sorry. You probably don’t have airships where you come from. Let’s see … it’s like an old-timey port with boats and everything. People are coming and going all the time, but very few stay. There are lots of things to do, but I can understand why they leave. If she didn’t have me to talk to, Lannie would have left, too.”
“But how did any of us get here?”
“I’ll let Philip talk about that. It’s not a big secret or anything, it’s just that he’s much better at explaining things. I’m not good at science––I barely passed theoretical astrophysics in elementary school.”
Amy watched the water cascade into the abyss below.
“Theoretical astrophysics in elementary school,” she said. “Wow.”
“I know; it’s embarrassing,” said Blanca. “But don’t bring it up with Lannie. She came from a dimension where they didn’t even have it in school! Like, ever.”
SpaceBook Awakens (Amy Armstrong 3) Page 22
