Against All Odds (9 page)

T
he sun was reaching over the treetops as the band of friends moved along the train tracks to the opening at the edge of the woods. Boney gestured for the troop to wait while he left the tracks and crouched in the shade at the foot of the path, looking for clues. The sunlight glinted through the leaves; a light breeze sighed in the tree branches. Boney looked around to be sure the coast was clear, then signalled for the gang to join him.

Squeak crouched beside Boney. “Any evidence of recent activity?” He pulled his telescope from his messenger bag and scanned the woods.

Boney pointed at a clump of bushes. “Some broken branches and about a thousand more footprints since yesterday.”

Sam produced the electro-node-a-metre from her knapsack and held it out in front of her, pressing the silver button. The thin wire arms rose from the sides of
the device and began to whirl around, the small glass globes at the ends of the arms firing up and reflecting like Christmas lights in the lenses of Squeak’s goggles. Itchy pulled a gigantic package of licorice from Henry’s sling and stripped a couple of pieces from the pack.

Boney stared at him incredulously. “You’re keeping your licorice in the sling next to Henry?”

“It’s easier to get to.” Itchy waved the licorice at Boney. “Want a piece?”

“Uh … no thanks.”

Itchy offered the licorice to Squeak, who raised an eyebrow and shook his head. Then he reluctantly turned to Sam, who politely refused. “Suit yourself,” he said, stuffing the pack back into Henry’s sling.

Sam continued to scan the area, moving the electro-node-a-metre along the ground and up toward the broken branches of the bushes, the arms spinning faster and faster. “The clones have definitely been busy.”

Itchy chewed on his licorice. “Doing what?”

“It’s anyone’s guess.” Sam turned off the device and stowed it safely in her pouch. “But I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

“It’s unusually quiet in the woods today,” Squeak observed. “I can’t hear any birds at all — or the humming.”

“What humming?” Itchy asked.

“The humming from the warehouse,” Boney said.

“The clones hum?” Itchy pulled another piece of licorice from the pack, gobbling it down.

“Not the clones, the warehouse,” Boney said.

Itchy swallowed. “The warehouse hums?”

“Not the warehouse, per se. The machine that makes the clones, I think.”

“But the clones themselves don’t hum?”

“They might hum. How should I know?” Boney said.

Itchy shrugged. “You seem to know everything else.”

Boney frowned. “What is wrong with you?”

“What?”

“This isn’t a joke, you know.”

“Do you see me laughing?”

“Gentlemen, please,” Squeak intervened.

Itchy and Boney turned to see Sam staring at them in disbelief. Itchy folded his arms self-consciously. Boney straightened his sling, Tiger purring inside. “Shall we continue?” Boney said.

The four friends skulked along the path, Itchy obsessively munching on licorice and practically walking on Squeak’s heels as Boney continued to point out indicators that the clones had been on the move.

“We should reach the warehouse any minute,” he said. “It should be just around this bend in the path.”
Boney walked ahead about fifty feet, and then backtracked. “It should be here,” he insisted. He turned around where he stood. “I can’t believe this. It’s gone.”

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Squeak asked.

“I’m positive!”

Squeak retrieved his telescope and searched the woods. “This is highly irregular.”

Itchy chewed on his licorice, looking hopeful. “Maybe the clones packed up their tent and left.”

“How could they just leave?” Boney said, pacing back and forth. “There was a giant warehouse here yesterday, with blue lights and a huge machine inside, and hundreds, maybe thousands, of clones!”

Itchy waved a piece of licorice at the empty spot. “Well, they’re not here now.”

“It does appear that the clones have left,” Squeak said. “The kittens aren’t at all alarmed—and neither is Henry.” The rooster snored in Itchy’s sling. “If the clones were here, wouldn’t our animal companions be concerned?”

“We don’t know how close we have to be to the clones before Henry and the kittens will respond to their presence,” Sam said. “We’ve only ever seen their response at close range. Besides, the electro-node-a-metre gave a strong positive reading that the clones are in the area.”
She pulled a pair of binoculars from her bag and began searching the site.

Squeak scoured the forest with his telescope.

“No movement of any kind on the west end,” Sam reported.

“The east side is also clear,” Squeak said.

Boney pulled on his chin. “Maybe they relocated the warehouse to avoid further detection. Let’s try moving deeper into the woods.” He motioned for the group to fall out, causing Sam and Squeak to turn abruptly, Squeak’s telescope hitting Sam’s binoculars and nearly knocking them from her hands.

His face turned instantly red. “Oh, sorry.” He clapped his telescope shut and placed it back in his bag.

Sam also blushed, fumbling with her binoculars as she placed them in her knapsack.

Seconds later, Henry woke with a start. He made a low clucking noise. This roused the kittens, who instantly growled as they trained their eyes on a point deep in the woods.

“Clone alert!” Boney whispered.

Itchy jumped behind him, peering over his shoulder. “I can’t see anything.”

“Over there! Ten o’clock!” Squeak pointed to a spot in the trees.

“I see them,” Sam said. “They seem to be on the move. Let’s go.”

“Do we have to?” Itchy whined, but Boney, Squeak, and Sam were already creeping through the trees. He groaned. “This can’t be a good idea.”

Boney pressed his finger to his lips. “Shhh … If they hear you, we’re in big trouble.”

Itchy imitated him, pressing his finger to his lips to show he understood. Then he crossed his heart and stuffed another piece of licorice into his mouth.

The friends crept forward, huddling in a tight group. They stopped behind a clump of bushes, watching. The kittens flattened their ears and hissed. Henry clucked low in his gizzard.

The clones moved single file through the forest, faces vacant, small meeping sounds emanating from their lips. Their feet seemed made of lead as they lumbered like sleepwalkers, their arms outstretched.

“There must be millions of them,” Itchy said. “And every one looks exactly like me!” He stepped on a twig, the sharp snap echoing through the forest. The four friends froze with fear as several clones whipped their heads around to discover the source of the sound, their empty eyes searching the woods. But they soon forgot what they were looking for and turned away, urged on by some invisible signal that seemed to control them.

“What’s wrong with them?” Itchy asked. “Where are they going and why are they all moving like that?”

“Hive mentality—like ants,” Squeak explained. “They’re likely being organized through some kind of electromagnetic impulse.”

“Mind control,” Sam said. “We were right.”

Squeak nodded. “It’s quite effective on less intelligent life forms.”

Itchy scoffed with amusement. “Stupid clones … thinking they can impersonate me …”

“What are they carrying?” Boney asked.

Sam studied the clones through her binoculars. “It’s food. They’re all carrying food.”

Itchy’s nose twitched. “Food?”

“So our theory was correct,” Squeak said. “The clones must have attacked Boney’s house in search of things to eat.”

“But why do they need all this food?” Boney wondered.

Itchy licked his lips. “What kind of food?”

“Sweets.” Sam adjusted the focus on her binoculars. “Doughnuts, cakes, chocolate, cream puffs, jars of caramel sauce … whole bags of sugar.”

Itchy drooled. “Really? Where are they going with all that amazing stuff?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Boney said. He signalled to Sam and Squeak to move to the right
and flank the clones. “Stay hidden. And under no circumstances should you engage the enemy. We just want to determine where they’re going at this point. Understood?”

Squeak and Sam saluted. Boney saluted back. He turned to speak to Itchy but found Henry instead, staring at him with his yellow eyes, his purple sling abandoned on the ground. Boney picked up the sling in shock. “Itchy’s gone!”

I
tchy moved through the woods as though hypnotized, his arms held out in front of him, his hands clutching the half-eaten package of red licorice.

“Itchy, NO!” Boney cried. He made to run, but Sam grabbed his shirt.

“It’s too dangerous.”

Boney pulled away from Sam’s grasp. “But we have to help him! His mind is being controlled!”

“We can’t just rush in,” Sam said. “If we alert the clones, then we’ll all be in trouble. We’ll follow him until we have a chance to get him back without attracting any attention.”

“That would be the best plan,” Squeak agreed.

Boney ran his hand through his hair. “But what if they discover he’s not one of them?”

“I don’t think that should be a problem,” Squeak said.

The three friends watched as Itchy plodded toward the clones and took his place at the back of the line. Henry clucked and fussed. The kittens growled. Itchy moved in rhythm with the rest of the clones, small meeping noises bubbling from his lips.

All at once, a whistle screeched, shattering the silence. Boney, Sam, and Squeak covered their ears, buckling in agony. Henry squawked in alarm while the kittens mewed with terror. Itchy and the clones turned their pale faces upward in one synchronized sweep, staring at something only they could see. After several excruciating seconds, the whistle stopped. The line of clones lurched forward as they began to march, their feet stomping on the forest floor, their motions exaggerated and rigid.

Boney lowered his hands from his ears. “What was that?”

“Some sort of signal.” Sam cleared her ears with her fingers, then checked to make sure Fluffy was okay.

Boney pulled Itchy’s sling over his other shoulder and placed Henry inside, positioning the two slings so they wouldn’t interfere with each other. “Let’s go,” he said. “And stay frosty. We can’t afford any mistakes.” He rushed off, Squeak and Sam following behind.

The three friends trailed Itchy and the rest of the clones, careful not to be seen. The kittens hissed, while Henry clucked angrily.

Squeak noted a group of clones that seemed to appear from nowhere in the woods. “There are more joining the procession.”

The clones took their position in line, marching mechanically. Sam jerked to a stop, grabbing Boney and Squeak by the sleeves. She pointed to a spot in the woods ahead. “I don’t see anything,” Boney whispered.

Sam continued to point. “See how the clones seem to just disappear …”

Boney squinted through the filtered light of the forest. Then he nodded. “Yeah, I see what you mean. The clones are fading into nothing.”

“Not fading,” Squeak corrected him. “They must be stepping into something we can’t see—probably hidden by some sort of cloaking device.”

Boney looked at him with confusion.

“The Mother Ship,” Squeak said.

The clones continued to vanish, one by one, until Itchy was third in line.

Boney clenched his jaw. “We have to stop him before he disappears.”

But it was too late. Itchy marched forward, vanishing into thin air. The remaining clones followed, until the three friends were alone in the woods.

“Come on,” Sam said. “We have to move or we may
lose him forever.” She raced toward the spot where Itchy had seemed to vapourize.

Boney streaked after her, Henry and Tiger bouncing in their slings. “Man, she’s fast.”

“Wait for me!” Squeak ran behind him, holding his sling with one hand like a football to prevent Spock from flying out.

Sam skidded on her feet, turned and waved Boney and Squeak on, hesitated, then stepped forward and vanished. Boney ran faster, but, in his haste, he caught his combat boot on a log and tripped. Flying through the air with a yelp, he somehow managed to twist mid-flight so as not to crush Tiger and Henry when he fell. The rooster squawked resentfully as they hit the ground. Tiger yowled with fright. Without missing a beat, Boney jumped to his feet with a grunt, just in time to see Squeak scuttle to a stop at the exact point in the woods where Sam had hesitated.

“Look!” Squeak said, retrieving Sam’s electro-node-a-metre from the ground. “She must have dropped it.”

Boney ran up and stumbled into him, sending Squeak crashing forward to disappear without a trace. “Whoa.” Boney stared at the spot of ground where Squeak had stood. The trail of footprints ended there. Henry and Tiger looked at him with serious faces, as though they understood the situation. Boney straightened himself.
“I guess it’s now or never.” He took a deep breath and stepped forward.

A strange buzzing sound filled his ears. The air pressed around him. He seemed to be passing through a mild electrical field that pulsed in waves through his body. The air felt thick and magnetized. Boney shouldered against the force, leaning heavily, until he popped out the other side. Staggering to regain his balance, he found Squeak blinking angrily up at him from a heap on the floor of the craft.

“You pushed me,” Squeak said, his voice strangely muffled and high-pitched.

“I didn’t mean to.” Boney’s hand flew to his throat when he heard the ridiculous pitch of his own voice. “Wow, this is totally freaky. We sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks.”

Tiger mewed a high-pitched little mew.

“Even the kitten is affected,” Boney said. “I hope this doesn’t hurt him.”

Squeak shook his head. “It’s okay. It’s just helium, I think. They must pipe it into the air to prevent the clones from getting the bends when they board the ship.”

Boney held his hand out to help Squeak up. “What’s ‘the bends’?”

“Decompression sickness.” Squeak stood and adjusted his goggles. “It happens when you move from
an area of high pressure to an area of lower pressure, like when a scuba diver rises to the surface of the water too quickly. The aliens must live in an environment with less gravity than ours, therefore requiring some kind of transitional chamber for non-alien visitors.”

Boney thought about this. “Non-alien visitors? As in, humans?”

“Or clones of humans,” Squeak said.

Boney looked around the chamber. They were standing on some kind of silver gangplank. The air was a strange blue colour, like the light they’d seen glowing through the warehouse windows. There was a tunnel of some kind at the top of the gangplank, with an eerie white mist swirling around inside. Rows of little lights ran along the length of the tunnel so that it looked like an airstrip illuminated in the fog. Boney shivered. “It’s cold in here.”

Squeak examined the wall of the ship. It appeared to be sweating, despite the cold temperature. “Helium conducts heat away from the body.”

Boney rubbed his arms to bring the warmth back to them. “Will we sound like the Chipmunks forever?”

“It’s temporary,” Squeak assured him. He gave Spock a scratch under the chin, then continued to inspect the wall. “I’d like to get a sample of this.”

“Where’s Sam?” Boney asked.

“She must have gone ahead.” Squeak ran his finger down the wall, and then lightly tasted the liquid on his fingertips.

“We should get going, too.” Boney walked to the top of the gangplank. He stopped and stared into the tunnel, listening to the muffled peeps and blips swirling around in the mist. As he stood there, he began feeling light in the head. He poked delicately at the mist with his finger. “What do you think it is?”

Squeak walked up the gangplank and studied the fog in the tunnel. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

Boney pushed his hand into the mist. “It feels okay.”

“It’s probably another transitional zone to help us acclimatize to the alien atmosphere,” Squeak said. “I’m sure it’s safe.”

The two boys looked at each other.

Boney swallowed. “Well … here goes …”

The boys stepped simultaneously into the tunnel.

“Hey, it’s kind of neat in here,” Squeak giggled.

Boney waved his arms up and down, making swirling patterns in the mist. The kittens chirped contentedly while Henry swayed happily back and forth in his sling. Boney looked at Squeak in surprise. “What is this stuff?”

Squeak twirled around, smiling. “I believe it’s nitrous oxide.”

“Nitrous what?”

“Ox-ide,” Squeak answered, emphasizing the syllables. “Otherwise known as EN-TWO-OH. Otherwise known as
laughing gas.”
He snorted and doubled over. “It enhances suggestibility and … and i-ma-gi-NA-tion.”

Boney pointed at him. “Hey, look at Mr. Spock, being all hilarious.” He started laughing like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Then he stopped and became serious. “Do you think the … ‘space people’” — he made exaggerated quotation marks with his fingers — “are trying to control our minds?”

Squeak stared at him soberly, then gave a huge, gap-toothed grin. “Naaah. Nitrous oxide is a natural … uhhh …
component
of the earth’s atmosphere.” He traced a big circle in the air with his hands. “This must be where the ‘space people’” — he mimicked Boney’s exaggerated quotation marks—“generate the atmosphere for the ship.” He cackled and jumped, kicking his feet in the air. “Look! I’m as light as a feather!” He floated several yards along the tunnel before touching down. “The gravity is really light in here.”

Boney’s eyes bulged with astonishment, and then he took a huge leap, turning a somersault before landing on his feet.

Squeak laughed hysterically.
“That
was really cool.”

“Yeah? Watch this!” Boney scuttled his feet, walking right up the side of the tunnel, flipping over, and scurrying down the other side.

The two boys giggled as they grabbed hands, waltzing together through the mist. They twirled each other around before stumbling out into a strange white vestibule. They stood, hand in hand, until their giddiness slowly lifted and they jumped away from each other with embarrassment.

“That was weird,” Boney said in a normal voice. “Hey! I have my voice back!”

“I told you it was temporary.” Squeak looked around the room.

The vestibule was some kind of hub, with a dozen identical corridors radiating from its centre. The entire room was seamless, like a giant mushroom, and blindingly white.

“Everything looks the same,” Boney said. “How are we supposed to know which way to go?”

Squeak reached into his bag and held up Sam’s electro-node-a-metre. “With this.” He depressed the button on the device. The arms rose and the little glass globes began to whirl and glow. Squeak slowly turned where he stood, testing the corridors for recent activity. The arms of the electro-node-a-metre whirled fast, then slow, alternating according to their position. Squeak
swept the unit back and forth several times. “This middle corridor seems to elicit the strongest response—if I’m reading the metre correctly.”

Boney shrugged. “It’s the best we’ve got. Come on.”

The two boys advanced along the corridor, eyes as big as searchlights. From time to time little bursts of mist puffed from small portals in the walls and ceiling, causing the boys to jump in alarm.

“This ship must be huge,” Boney said.

Squeak held his finger to his lips and nodded toward Spock. The kitten’s ears were flat; he growled deep in his chest. Tiger and Henry were also on red alert, their eyes wide and searching.

“We must be close,” Squeak whispered. He tilted his head, listening. “Do you hear that low thumping?”

Boney strained his ears. “Yeah, I can hear it. What do you think it is?”

Squeak pushed on the bridge of his goggles. “It sounds somewhat mechanical. Like a pump motor of some kind. I wonder where it’s coming from.”

“Over there!” Boney pointed down the corridor to a pool of green light wavering over the floor.