“Jagger,” she said.
“She’s the one who drugged me in the ER,” he said, “and she’s the one that wanted to get me to the ghost town.”
The highway banked past another gray debris field giving him time to contemplate his theory further, but all he could think of was how helpless he’d become. Somehow he’d been turned into a witness to his own life, events unfolding before him without any control over what was happening.
She laid her head on his shoulder, ending his rumination. “Thanks.”
“For what?” Drew asked.
“For helping me get outta that ghost town,” she said, “not every guy woulda done it.”
He tried to keep his eye on the highway but her narcotic scent made concentrating impossible. “You’re welcome.”
She pulled closer, and she was already very close to begin with. She turned his head toward her, and slid her soft, slippery lips over his. It wasn’t his first kiss, but it might have been the best.
The highway led them past a fractured ridge line, and the obedient monocycle climbed, gracefully passing the plateau in just a few seconds.
She laid her head on his shoulder and made a sound like a kitten purring, so he growled like a dog. A dog?
“Sorry…sore throat,” he explained.
His clumsy response made her giggle. He turned his head to finish what she’d started but felt her tense up.
“What’s goin’ on over there?” she asked.
Another lens came into focus high above the looming crater, joined by another and then another. They aligned their facets before fusing, multiplying in size and complexity with the addition of each smaller lens.
“If one of those things can whip us from the earth to the moon in just a few seconds, wonder what something that size can do?” he said.
The highway curved past the monolithic crater, leading them to an open expanse where his answer lay.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
Mammoth wheels the size of a city block pulled the spiral carapace across the emptiness in slow motion, leaving dust plumes in its wake stretching for miles. Dilating valves cut into the spiny shell gave them a glimpse of the alien clockworks functioning within. The grinding gears and pumping pistons must have been making a terrible racket, but Drew couldn’t hear anything except his own labored breathing.
“There’s no air in space,” Mr. Birdsong once told him, “that’s why you can’t hear anything, because the sound waves need something to travel through.”
Deneese snapped him out of his daze with a tap on the shoulder.
Another highway materialized beside them, arcing over the ridge and connecting with one of the Hive’s open ports. The new highway brought a new Stinger, decelerating from a blur to a slow roll in less than a second, orange running lights flashing in sequence.
“You gonna answer?” Deneese asked.
The monocycle lingered for a second, and then rolled past them toward the Hive. If it was a signal, they’d know soon enough.
“We gotta get back,” he said. “We gotta tell somebody about all this.”
“Tell ‘em what?”
“They blew up the school,” he said.
“We blew up the school.”
“You know what I mean,” he said.
“Our story’s gonna be hard to believe without proof,” she said. “And who we gonna tell?
“We gotta try,” he insisted, and pulled out his cell phone.
Deneese leaned over his shoulder. “How many bars ya think you can get all the way out here?”
“I’m having trouble remembering stuff because of the chair,” he said, “but I won’t have to remember nothing if I get pictures.”
Each flash of his camera flooded the cockpit with harsh white light bright enough to make him squint, bright enough to be seen at a distance. He’d clicked off almost a dozen shots when another highway appeared, curving out from the Hive before stabilizing a few feet away from them.
The third Stinger pulled up behind them on the adjacent highway, flashing red running lights like a cop jumping a speeder.
“What do we do?” Drew asked, but Deneese didn’t answer.
The Red Stinger’s maneuver felt like a threat, and ratcheted his anxiety up another notch. “We gotta get outta here.”
She agreed. “Punch it.”
But the dashboard presented countless options. One button might break the autopilot’s control, another might open the canopy. He ran his index finger over the buttons, praying it would twitch like a divining rod when he passed over the right one. “Gotta be this one…”
He wiggled the handlebars. The highway responded, the link broken.
Drew made the turn back toward earth. He pushed the handlebars forward and the highway coiled, giving them a chance to brace themselves. They slid backwards, pausing for a split second while their Stinger charged itself--and then the highway whipped out, slingshotting them back the way they came.
***
The garage was on the dark side of the amphitheater, connected to the rest of Sandcastle City via tunnel. They should have turned back and tried another way, but because the Botkin’s blood trail went up the Speaker Wall, they did too.
Clementine didn’t expect the climb to be so arduous, but the supporting scaffolding rattled whenever she put her foot on a crossbeam. Stadium lights on top of the Wall faced the stage, cloaking their advance in darkness, but the same darkness complicated the already treacherous climb.
“Step, plant, climb,” she reminded herself, “step, plant, climb.”
“What?” Newton shouted.
“Nothing!” she shouted back. They’d spaced themselves across the Wall’s length, and the distance between them made for strained conversations.
She paused to plant her foot between crossbeams and looked down. The pyramidal Wall narrowed as they climbed, each row of speakers set back a few inches deeper than the row beneath. Moisture creeping up through the cracked ground misted the base, perpetuating the illusion that the Wall emerged out of the pale nothingness.
“Looks like something outta the freaking Twilight Zone,” she muttered.
Afraid to look down, afraid to look up, she kept her eyes focused on the black blocks right in front of her. “Wonder if I’d die or just turn into a paraplegic falling from this high up?”
“What?” Newton shouted.
She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Who knew it got so cold in the freakin’ desert?”
Newton did, that’s who. He’d kept his coat and gloves while they’d shed their winter gear against his warnings. “Gets cold in the desert at night,” he’d said, “literally freezing.”
“He was right…Never shoulda got off the train,” she said. “Because if I stayed on the train I’d be in a D.C. hotel room warm and toasty.”
Her complaints drifted into the ether.
She checked Newton’s progress, to her left and one level below. “Poor kid…afraid of heights and gotta make this kinda climb…Serves ‘im right.”
Clementine stuck her sneaker between speakers…her foot slipped.
She clawed at the scaffolding but couldn’t get any traction. “Help!”
Clementine slid down a level before catching a crossbeam.
“Hang on!” she heard one of the others shout.
“What else am I gonna do?” she shouted back.
She tried pulling herself up but wasn’t strong enough. “Why’d they let me get away with girl push-ups in gym…”
“Almost there!” Newton shouted, but he wasn’t anywhere close.
She felt her fingers slipping…“Hurry!”
“Coming!” Newton shouted.
Too late…
Her fingers unfolded and she fell. She felt herself become weightless for a split second before jerking like a rag doll, her momentum reversed in an instant.
Pain blazed from wrist to shoulder, from shoulder to spine, and then she went numb. She’d closed her
eyes in anticipation of hitting the ground. They fluttered open of their own accord when she didn’t. “Hi…”
If the Botkin was going to kill her, he wasn’t going to do it right away. Instead, Clark Bent dangled her above the Wall’s base like a baby trying to decide what to do with his favorite toy.
Newton kept coming, but if climbing up the Wall was tough, sliding sideways was even tougher, complicated by the gusting wind and the urgency of the situation.
The Botkin pulled Clementine in against the Wall and held her there until she regained her footing.
Newton waited until she started climbing again, and followed her to the top of the Wall.
***
Spider studied the convocation below them from the safety of the lighting rig. Industrial size spotlights positioned every few feet along the Wall’s top row provided additional cover, something he hoped they wouldn’t need.
“Too many of ‘em to fight straight up,” Spider said. “Gotta come up with another way.”
Clementine checked for herself. Blue Berets stationed throughout the amphitheater blocked every way in or out. Getting in would be tough, getting out impossible.
“We gotta get down there,” she insisted, “Lazy-Eye Susan is down there…maybe even Drew.”
He spied her from the corner of his eye for a moment before speaking. “Ya up for this?”
“What?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Ya almost died back there,” he said. But he was really trying to tell her she could turn back and nobody would blame her.
“Yeah. I mean I’m still shaking but I’m okay.”
“Bet ya wish ya went on the class trip instead,” Spider said.
“Are ya kidding?” she said. “And miss all this?”
“We need to put our heads together and come up with something,” Spider said.
They crawled along the scaffolding toward the camp they’d set-up where the Wall met the canyon rock.
“How is he?” Clementine asked.
The Botkin’s wound smelled like fresh-cut grass, characteristic of the chlorophyll bleeding with each languid breath. Cuts that deep took time to heal, even for plants, and the rough ride aboard the Moonclipper didn’t help.
Newton reached for his backpack, grabbing a sandwich from inside one of the pockets.
“You’re gonna feed ‘im?” Spider asked.
Newton threw the bread away and dangled the limp lettuce leaf over Clark Bent’s wound.
“You ain’t gonna do what I think you’re gonna do are ya?” Spider asked.
He was. Newton put the lettuce over the wound and pressed down. The Botkin squirmed, but didn’t fight back.
“Think he gets it,” Clementine said.
The Botkin’s jaw extended, sending Clementine scurrying backward. “What’s goin’ on?”
The teeth shifted up and down, clicking against each other in controlled intervals.
“It’s a message!” Clementine said, “He’s getting a message!”
Newton closed his eyes, concentrating on the tones and frequency.
“What’s he saying?” Spider asked.
“Beepity-beep-beep…beep…”
Clementine clamped her hand over Grady’s mouth. “You ain’t even funny!”
They cut the chatter, letting Newton concentrate on the rest of the message.
“Well?” Spider said.
“Could only make out one word,” Newton said. “Transformer. I think it was transformer.”
They peered over the edge at the patchwork tower casting a shadow across the stage and suddenly the Botkin’s message made sense.
“Dude, he must be here to take it out,” Grady said. “He’s like some kinda commando or secret agent or something.”
“Explains why he didn’t smoke us when he had the chance,” Clementine said. “He needed us to get him here.”
Newton traced the cables from the transformer to the pods. He recognized the familiar profiles suspended in the viscous blue fluid even at a distance. “Clones.”
“Dude, Lazy-Eye Susan said they weren’t alive,” Grady reminded him. “Said they was just meat-suits.”
“And what was Jamphibian?” Clementine asked. “Remember how she brought ‘im to life?”
Grady looked up at the clear night sky. “Dawg, unless they’re gonna do some kinda rain dance, it ain’t happening.”
“They’d know that,” Newton said, “and they’d plan for it, or whatever.”
“But they still need the souls,” Spider reminded them.
“The turntables,” Clementine said. “Bet that’s what those turntables was recording in the hospital.”
“What do ya mean?” Newton asked.
“There was a buncha turntables attached to the EKG machines,” Clementine said. “They musta been recording their souls just like Grimsby did back in the day.”
“Ya didn’t say that before,” Newton said.
“Wasn’t sure that’s what they were ‘til now,” Clementine said.
Newton put the scheme together for them. “The EZ8 in the chocolate must put a certain percentage of users in just the right kind of coma. Then they can pick and choose which souls they wanna harvest.”
Spider looked back at the wounded Botkin. “Why’s he care if the Clones live or die?”
“Competition,” Grady said, “Maybe there ain’t room in the jungle for more than one kinda Crypto.”
“He saved Clem. Guess that puts him on our side,” Spider said. “Let ‘im do what he’s gotta do.”
His argument didn’t convince Newton. The Botkin’s heroics earned his gratitude, but not his trust.
“Dude, we don’t have to trust him,” Grady said.
Newton didn’t get it. “Whaddya mean?”
“He wants to take out the tower, we let ‘im,” Grady said. “He takes out the tower and the Blueberries go after him instead of us. We sneak in and sneak out in the confusion.”
Spider wasn’t buying it. “But we don’t even know where Lazy-Eye Susan’s at.”
“What do ya think is gonna happen when the fireworks start?” Grady asked.
Newton played out the scenario in his head. “The Blueberries will be all over him.”
“Not all of ‘em,” Grady said. “At least one of ‘em will be guarding Lazy-Eye Susan. He’s gonna stay at his post, no matter what happens.”
Newton took another look at the layout below. “There’s a Blueberry on guard in front of that tent.”
“But someone’s on guard,” Clementine said, “which means someone’s in there.”
Newton felt the consensus building against him. Grady’s plan should have made him nervous because it was Grady’s plan, but there was an elegant logic to it he couldn’t deny. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Grady said.
“Okay,” Newton repeated. “But first we gotta let our partner in on our plan.”
“How?” Clementine asked.
He crawled toward their newfound ally, slowly reaching for the bionic keyboard. “Same way he told us ‘bout his.”
“What are ya gonna tell ‘im?” Spider asked.
Newton started typing. “Gonna tell ‘im that we’re gonna help him take out the transformer.”
“Step away from that abomination!”
Newton reached for his cutlass but by then, the Acolytes were already on them.
He slid to the left, but the first Acolyte waved her hand, pinning him against the scaffolding.
“Do something!” he shouted, but none of them could move either. Whatever mojo she’d unleashed left them hanging from the scaffolding like laundry.
The Botkin was unaffected. He assumed a defensive posture but the second Acolyte fired her weapon from below, punching a swirling arm of silver needles through his chest.
The impact spun him three-hundred and sixty degrees, chlorophyll spurting from his wound painting the black speakers green.
The Botkin fell backward, clutching and grasping at the slippery sc
affolding before disappearing into the mist below.
The invisible hand gripping Newton weakened until the feeling in his extremities returned. The paralysis faded but he didn’t move. Instead, he sat there staring at the hole Clark Bent cut through the mist. “You killed ‘im…He saved Clem’s life…He was gonna help us…”
The first Acolyte climbed toward them while the second pumped her gun’s bellows.
“We shoulda hid in the Moonclipper ‘til Lazy-Eye Susan came back for us,” Newton mumbled.
The first Acolyte lowered her weapon and pulled off her mask. And though he didn’t recognize her, there was something hauntingly familiar about her aged face.
“Just who are ya young’uns, anyhow?” Penelope asked.
CHAPTER 16
Tasha watched the Acolytes load the records into the platter array. “Careful,” she said, and careful they were, wearing white linen gloves to handle the gleaming black vinyl.
She entered the DJ booth behind the stage and checked the set-up, working the sliders to make sure their action was smooth and frictionless. She lifted her mask and gave the master platter a spin. The slaves in the network answered, replaying her move to within one-one-hundredth of an inch.
Doctor Camaro connected the cables from the transformer to the terminals on the Clone pods. More wires connected the pods to the array, one record per pod.
Nancy watched the preparations from the edge of the amphitheater. Even after weeks of rehearsals, she insisted on supervising every aspect of the performance, knowing she’d only get one chance to perform the ritual.
“How’s the ear?” she asked.
“The surgeon thinks he reattached it in time.”
“I told ya not to get too close,” she said.
He kept his eye on the manacled Thingamajig lurking around her feet. “I had to see for myself.”
She lifted the snarling stuffed toy up into her arms like a baby. “You wanted proof, you got it.”
Camaro stepped back to let a gaggle of costumed performers pass. “Bringing that thing to life is one thing…”
“You still don’t think this is gonna work?”
“Just get the Clones working,” he said. “That’s what I’m paying you for.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she insisted. “The opera is a complex series of mathematical equations unifying disparate biological frequencies into a harmonious...”
“…into a harmonious algorithm that triggers the phase shift between quantum states of existence.”
She shot him a quizzical stare. “Don’t hear Gulliver quoted much these days.”