by Jeff Norton
“This is the gymnasium’s male biological evacuation chamber,” he said.
“Of course, school!” I said, finally recognizing the toilets as the ones attached to the locker room.
“We didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves in case the cops were watching us,” said Octo. “So we figured the can was the best place to hide.”
“You know it’s only girls who go to the bathroom together on this planet, right?”
“That’s crazy,” said Octo. “It’s way more fun to pee in pairs.”
“I prefer to change my oil in private,” said Houston.
The ventitent peeled the bracelet off the graffitied tiles, shrinking it back to size and slipping it on the tip of his bare tentacle.
“Don’t you need the other one?” I asked.
“Nah. If we collapse one side, it collapses the whole wormhole,” he explained. “It takes two to tango.”
Suddenly, the love ballad was drowned out by an air-raid siren. For a moment, I thought maybe it was Monday at ten o’clock and everything that had happened since I’d first arrived at Groom Lake had been just a dream. But dreams rarely smell of the boys’ locker room.
“It’s the NEDs,” I said. “They’re here. We’ve got to get Juliet back. Only she can stop this. Octo, can you zap us to the NED world?”
“If there was a corresponding bracelet already there, then yeah,” he said. “I could zip us there straight away. But there’s not.”
“So we’re stuck?” I said.
“We just gotta take the highway,” he said. “There’s a wormhole highway that runs straight past their planet. But we need to reach the on-ramp.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“Next to the moon,” he said.
I looked up, spotted the envious moon glowing down on us.
“Sherman, do you really think Juliet will come back?” Houston asked.
“I don’t know, but I have to try – and I have to tell her how I really feel.”
“Technically the racer can break orbit,” offered Houston.
“Let’s go!” I announced.
Octo eyeballed me – those big rectangular pupils of his bulging a little – then he clamped his beaks together, which completely failed to stop a cephalopod guffaw bursting out and echoing all over.
“Good for you, Romeo!” he laughed, opening the toilet door with one of his tentacles. “Let’s move, Metal Man. Let’s do it for love, baby!”
We stepped into the gym – and were transported to a scene of science-fictional Victorian destruction. With dancing.
Three giant Martian war machines towered over the dance floor, suspending disco balls that shone stars all over the gym walls. Beneath the tripods, the costumed aliens slow-danced to Air Supply, I guess assuming the siren was just part of the War of the Worlds ambiance. I suddenly realized Octo was, as always, naked as the day he was spawned.
“Hey, buddy,” I said to Octo, “no War of the Worlds costume?”
“According to H.G. Wells, I’m already dressed as a Martian.”
“Got it.”
“You think I’ve got time to ask your sister for a dance?” asked Octo.
My sister.
I spotted Jessica by the snack table, serving up Rilperdough and boxes of popcorn, and decided that if we were going off-world, I’d better take her with us in case my desperate plan failed.
“Jess, I’m so glad I found you.” Even as I uttered the words, I couldn’t quite believe I was saying them.
“What’s going on, Sherman?” As Prom committee boss-supremo, she had this event choreographed down to the last detail, and her pale face told me she knew the siren wasn’t part of the motif.
“It’s the NED invasion,” I said. “It’s coming … and it’s going to destroy the world!”
“Oh my god, Sherman. You ruin everything!”
“Come with us … that’s if you ever want to plan another Prom!”
“I’m not going anywhere with—”
Octo scooped her up, pausing her protest, until she yelled, “Put me down, you … you … GROSSOPUS!”
I grabbed a box of golden popcorn from the snack table and followed Octo into the main hallway, then out onto the moonlit steps of Groom Lake High. Up above, a giant fire burned in the night sky.
It had to be the NED ship, coming into the atmosphere.
“What is that?” whispered Jess.
“That’s what I’ve been warning Dad about,” I said. “And we’ve got to stop it.”
We piled into Octo’s Toyota and he revved us through the chaotic streets of Area 51 to our hangar. Octo had to scale pavements to avoid hitting military vehicles scurrying around the streets – all of the adults had clearly been called into work.
“It’s ventitent, not grossopus,” Octo complained. “Not octopus, either. How many more times, people?”
Above Groom Lake, the ship stopped burning and finally came into view. It was a massive isosceles triangle, blacking out the stars.
“It’s reached our atmosphere,” I said.
Houston focused his optical receptors, scanning the shape.
“It’s the tanker,” he confirmed. “The same one that destroyed my planet. My receptors tell me it’s big enough to hold ninety-eight-point-two per cent of the Earth’s magma.”
“I mean,” Octo went on, “no matter how cute she is, a gal should try to get a guy’s species right, you know?”
“OCTO!” I yelled. “Focus!”
With a booming, ultra-deep groaning sound that rumbled vibrations in my chest, a massive tube protruded from the belly of the spaceship and telescoped down towards the desert.
“What’s it doing?” Jess shouted.
“That,” Houston said gravely, “is the Magma Extractor.”
“A giant straw, baby-cakes,” Octo clarified.
“Don’t call me baby-cakes,” Jessica said. “And Sherman, does this mean all that invasion garbage you’ve been hassling Dad with is … true?”
“One hundred per cent true,” I said. “And you know what else? The only way we’re gonna survive is if I win back Juliet.”
“So we’re doomed,” Jessica groaned.
“Thanks for the encouragement, sis.”
By the time we reached the hangar the ground was shaking and sirens were blaring all over the base. I strapped myself into the cockpit and fired up the engine, as my crew piled into the cabin. All except Jessica.
“Jess!” I called over the engines. “Get in, please?”
“I’m not going near that thing,” she said. “Can’t you just let the Air Force handle this? I’m sure—”
A thunderous earthquake shook the hangar, sending tools rattling off the bench, corrugated iron panels crashing from the roof and Jessica tumbling backwards in her Victorian frock.
“Great, I’ve got dust all over—”
I could tell Jessica was really scared because she didn’t make a sound, didn’t even complain at all when Octo lifted her into the cabin.
I guided Carol towards the open door as the girders clanged onto the concrete all around us. I heard the scraping and screeching of tortured metal as the whole building was twisted out of shape behind us.
It was now or never. I had to win back Juliet or there wouldn’t be any planet to come home to.
“Hit the gas, Romeo,” Octo said, strapping himself into his seat.
I revved us out of the hangar and lifted us up into the air, just in time to see the hangar collapse from the tremors. Gazing down, something else struck me. Sonya’s Eggcraft was gone too.
My first instinct was relief that at least she was off- planet and would be safe, but then I remembered why she was off-planet. The Balleropera ritual.
With Houston’s navigation, I aimed for the stars and flashed the boosters.
“The wormhole on-ramp is just this side of the moon,” said Octo. Houston calculated the trajectory and I did my best to fly straight.
As we soared past the massive tank
er dominating the night sky, it was obvious it had a one-track mind for magma – it took no notice of us. I let out a sigh of relief. We flew past the immense black triangle, on our way to win back the Icon who could save the planet from its destruction.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Invading the NED World
As we cleared the atmosphere, I realized I was now in a very exclusive club: humans who’d slipped the surly bonds of Earth.
I thought of all the astronauts who’d made this journey before me. I was well past the Kármán Line and I thought of the men and women who’d died in this pursuit. The Apollo 1 astronauts who didn’t survive the launch pad, the Challenger crew who never made it to the Kármán Line, the Columbia astronauts thinking they were returning safely home, and of course George Clooney (no thanks to Sandra Bullock). As we were about to crash the royal wedding of intergalactic deities, I wondered if our fate was written in the stars.
“There it is,” said Houston. “Just follow the trajectory.”
It was invisible to the human eye, but Carol’s digital read-outs detected the anomaly – it looked like a plughole drain against the starscape.
“Ease off the throttle, buckaroo,” said Octo. “Take those hand-thingies of yours off the wheel, and the vortex’ll just suck us in.”
“Got it,” I said, secretly hoping he wasn’t sending us into a black hole of doom.
“The what’ll do what?!” Jessica blurted.
“It’s cool, baby-cakes.”
“Octo, don’t ever call me b—”
Suddenly the stars spun as we were sucked down the plughole drain of the galaxy. At first, there was only the silence of the spinning stars, but pretty quickly the negative space of the wormhole filled with Houston, Octo and Jessica’s screams. Like tourists on a rollercoaster.
“HERE C-C-COMES THE S-S-SWIRLINESS, B-B-BUCKAROO!!!”
The ventitent hadn’t been kidding. This was what traversing space and time should feel like: a breathtaking multi-colored space whirlpool whooshing into existence, yanking us along a zillion twists and turns with my heart somewhere in my throat.
“S-S-SPIN IT!” Octo said.
“S-S-SPIN YOURSELF, OCTOPUS!” Jessica replied.
We were going so fast I couldn’t think straight, let alone pull off aerobatics. I was overwhelmed by the star-lights swirling by, G-force pinning me to my seat, until I saw it: a smaller vortex ahead in the whirlpool’s wall.
“TH-TH-THAT’S OUR EXIT, DUDE!” Octo yelled. “RIGHT TURN! RIGHT TURN!”
I nudged the wheel to starboard and zipped Carol through the opening. Instantly the wormhole whooshed out of existence and we were back in normal space – above a massive, dazzling, white-and-blue planet that made Earth look like a marble.
“Nice flyin’, Sherman,” said Octo. “Welcome to the NED world, everyone.”
It looked – from fifty thousand feet, at least – kind of like Earth would look if someone painted all the continents eggshell white. The sky and ocean were blue as could be, but everything else had a white, matte finish.
“What’s with all the glaciers?” I asked.
“It’s Argosian megamarble,” said Houston. “And those are not glaciers, they are shopping precincts.”
“Shopping?” asked Jessica.
“Their planet,” Octo explained, “is basically one massive series of interconnected shopping malls.”
“How do you know?” Jessica asked.
“Am I the only one who pays attention in school?” huffed Octo.
I took us down until we were skimming waves and speeding towards the shore. Octo stretched his tentacles above his head.
“Not so low, Romeo!”
“Can’t you swim?” Jessica asked.
“I’m allergic to water.”
“An octop— sorry, a ventitent who’s allergic to water?” Jessica laughed. “So what happens if you get wet?”
“Well … er… it starts off feelin’ kinda sunburny, then…ah…some wicked dizzy spells kick in, followed by tingly tentacles, beak tremors, pop eye, puckered sucker syndrome – that kinda thing. After that, my skin starts to boil and if I’m really unlucky, you know … my hearts’ll explode.”
“Gross,” she said.
“Too much information?” asked Octo.
I flew us towards a glistening sandy beach lined with marble shopping malls.
“What’re all those screens?” I asked, trying to change the subject and give the squirming cephalopod a break. “They look like drive-ins.”
Houston zoomed his receptors. “Billboards,” he confirmed.
“And those big containers on stilts?” Octo asked. “They look a bit too much like water towers for my liking.”
“I’ll steer clear of them, big guy,” I said, gaining altitude as we reached the shoreline. I soared over the forest of water towers and the electric billboards advertising different versions of NED’s slow-motion trenchcoats, glow-in-the-dark jackets, designer sun-glasses and fancy goblets.
As far as I could see, stretching to the horizon under a cloudless blue sky, were a million more towers, a million more flashing billboards, and millions upon millions of low-rise white shopping centers.
And yet no sign of a single, solitary NED.
“Where is everybody?” I wondered aloud.
“Over there, maybe … ?” Octo said, his blue-and- yellow striped tentacle stretching into the cockpit and pointing to the horizon.
Above the skyline, in the distance, something floated. Something just as huge, I figured, as the magma-sucking tanker back on Earth. But it wasn’t a spaceship. It looked like hundreds of cathedrals jammed together, painted white, then somehow suspended in mid-air. Beaming from the vast, transparent dome at the summit was a light I would have recognized anywhere in the universe.
It was the unmistakable, ethereal blue glow of Juliet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Pairing Crashers
I flew towards the mega-cathedral and noticed that the streets below were empty. A NED-Icon royal wedding was clearly the social occasion of the millennium and a must-attend event in the NED world. I figured the NEDs piloting the magma-sucking isosceles hovering above Earth had been at the bottom of the guest list. Everyone else had to be inside the mega-cathedral for the happy day, or glued to whatever passed for television here.
Even as the racer – with its loud fusion engines – touched down on the marble platform surrounding the summit-dome, and even as the four of us strolled beneath the imposing, crystal-arched entrance (beneath which Houston pointed out a pink, shark-shaped Aristox cruiser, parked and silent), we didn’t see a soul.
I guess deities just don’t worry too much about security.
From inside, we heard music – really beautiful, eerie singing and percussion – and occasional bursts of stadium-volume applause.
“Are we sure this is the right place?” Jessica hissed.
Houston was zoned out, his head tilted as his listened to the music. “Pure perfection,” he said.
“Huh?” said Octo.
“That is the sound of Sonya’s Balleropera,” Houston explained.
I led us inside – cringing as every footstep and whisper echoed around a curved marble corridor with high, arched ceilings – until we finally found a type of backstage area that looked out onto a glass stage. There, Sonya and her two sisters danced for their lives.
In the vast stadium-like structure, millions of NED spectators looked down on the official wedding guests. Thousands of glowing, blue, sparkly-haired Icons on one side, thousands of designer-clothed, mannequin-faced NEDs on the other; all transfixed by the Aristox tribute dance.
And then I saw her.
Juliet sat on a floating throne beside NED. They hovered between the stage and the audience, flanked by their parents. Juliet looked stunning in a sleek, kimono- style dress with her hair pinned up. But she also looked sad, and her glow seemed faded.
NED wore a cheesy pale-blue tuxedo with no hint of irony, and s
miled smugly as he focused on the dance ritual, no doubt waiting for Sonya to trip up. He sipped a glowing orange liquid from a crystal goblet and licked his lips with satisfaction. His mother and father looked plump and pleased with themselves, clad in matching, slow-motion flowing robes and plastic hair (had to be genetic), and wearing rage-inducing smirks. Their kid was marrying up.
Juliet’s parents, however, looked stern and distant in their ice-blue glow; I guessed this was a well-worn look of utter superiority. Her dad was thin and gaunt, wearing an understated, tight-fitting gray robe, while her mom had a severe bob cut and wore a sparkling white-diamond dress that could have been her attempt to upstage the bride.
Below the floating Pairing party, I spotted the Mentor, who was still in the guise of my mom. She was a weeping mess, blowing her nose through a small forest’s worth of tissues. I wasn’t sure if she was happy or sad, but either way, her role of Appointed Mentor was about to come to an end.
The entire cathedral was focused on the stage; on the trio of pink lizards performing their life-risking Balleropera.
Now, dance has never been my entertainment of choice. And dancing plus singing equals musical, and well, that would normally make me think of Jessica – which is never a good thing – but this was different.
This was magical.
Sonya and her sisters, in black, flowing tunics, soared across the stage, immune to gravity. They became each pose, like ever-transforming sculptures, and sang with heavenly voices. Every step and kick and spin got its own harmonies and sometimes chimes too, from little cymbals on their wrists.
It was mesmerizing, even for a musical-hater like me.
The four of us stared from the wings. Octo grinned from all three beaks, tapping his twenty tentacles to the beat. Jessica swayed, entranced, twisting her hair round her fingers like she did when she was a little kid. And Houston was dancing with tiny gestures, matching Sonya’s performance move for move. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was clearly gaga for our favorite pink lizard and if his face wasn’t made of metal, I was pretty sure he’d be drooling.
Sonya held an impossible mid-air swan pose and Houston burst into applause. She glanced towards the tinny clapping and, with her concentration broken, lost her grip on the polished glass floor.
