Mothership (29 page)

I step out through the hatch into the underbelly of the
Echidna
, leaving trails of Dumpster goo as I go. It’s hells cold. Not freezing like the hangar but cold enough, especially now that I’m covered in unmentionable soggy garbage. Twenty decks down from where I left Cole and the rest of the group, this area of the ship is about as bare bones as you can get. Instead of finished deck floors, a series of narrow catwalks crisscross the length of the ship. They’re so thin, they wobble as I walk, which is fairly unnerving, considering that they hang a good ten meters above the bottom hull. There doesn’t appear to be any damage down here, and the air seems breathable, so I busy myself with preparing for my escape. Let the other girls take off with Bob and Cole. This pregnant lady is taking the classy way home: Dumpster cruising.

I can hardly hear myself think over the chattering of my teeth as I pry the front panel off the Dumpster’s regulator module. The unit gauges the weight of the refuse in the Dumpster, and when it reaches, um, critical mass, it sends a
signal to the United Recycling HQ in New Jersey. Then HQ bounces back a response code that tells the regulator which of the hundreds of recycling centers across the globe are open for reception, at which point the Dumpster unit automatically disengages from the ship and moseys down to the designated center to have its contents emptied, cleaned, and recycled. Not the most convenient way to travel, but hey, it beats taking the local. I figure once the Dumpster lands on Earth I can hitch a ride back home. Ideal? No. God forbid I get dropped off in Mumbai or somewhere like that. But I’d rather ride down with the trash and risk what comes than await my fate with Captain Bob’s goons.

Still, it’s going to be a tricky ride. The Dumpster isn’t exactly designed for personnel transport, so it’s unlikely that there will be enough air inside to last the thirty-six hours or so it will take to get back to the surface—not to mention the fact that the temperature will probably drop to sub-subzero. Luckily, thanks to Papa Bear’s unyielding quizzing about the layout of the ship, I know that there is a maintenance locker not far from here. Once I’ve scrambled the regulator’s sensors to make it think it’s full, I’ll have roughly ten minutes to grab a thermal suit and an oxygen tank before the signal bounces back from Jersey. I’m thinking I won’t need any food for the trip. Despite my usual cravings, somehow I don’t believe I’ll be that hungry.

I fiddle around with the regulator’s wiring and cross the appropriate connections. Three seconds after I press the reset button, the regulator beeps and a code flashes across the display, indicating that it has registered the Dumpster as full and
is sending the signal back to Earth. With nothing left to do but grab a suit and O
₂
tank, I trot briskly toward the locker.

I try to push thoughts of Ramona and Natty out of my head. Somehow I feel like I’m ditching the two of them more than any of the others. Assuming they get off the
Echidna
safely—and, God, I hope they do—what will happen to them? Will these Almiri jokers just let them go after their precious babies are delivered? Or will they keep them prisoner so the Almiri can protect their identities? Or maybe . . . eliminate unneeded loose ends? And what will happen to Cole if Britta really does squeal on him?

I squash the thoughts in my brain.
I can’t worry about that,
I tell myself, trying not to look down as the metal of the catwalk wobbles underneath my sticky feet. I’m doing the only thing I can. I’m saving myself. And when I get back home safely, Dad and I can contact the authorities, inform them about this whole Almiri-Jin’Kai debacle. Save all the girls in one fell swoop.

The bowels of the ship echo with the irregular clanging and churning of failing systems, and the catwalk beneath my feet is making a fair amount of noise as well. So I almost don’t hear the beep. I stop immediately, eyes darting around to make sure I didn’t set off some kind of motion sensor. A few seconds pass, and I hear the beep again. It’s coming from my back pocket.

It’s my phone.

I let it slip out of my pocket and check it. Sure enough, there’s a signal, albeit a fairly weak one. The screen beeps again.

YOU HAVE 31 NEW BLINKS.

I tab through to my in-box. Thirty-one new blinks from Ducky
since this morning
. My God, it was just this morning, wasn’t it? When everything was normal? I scroll down and read:

thought u’d wanna see this: gulliver/monkey_target_pooping/html

hey do u remember my old jetman psswrd? have itch 2 play.

argh did u see oscar noms today? al grant robbed again! sooo mad.

what’d u think of monkey poop?

elvie u there?

drop ur phone in the toilet again? if so PLEASE disinfect this time.

where r u?

hellooo?????

And so on. Leave it to Ducky to realize something is wrong when we haven’t communicated in forty-five minutes.
I fumble for the return tab and quickly type as I continue my way down the catwalk.

Ned help!

Thank you, SmartText, for knowing how pressing my need for Ned is at this very moment. But like an old reliable Saint Bernard, Ducky replies anyway. I open his new blink to find:

Britta’s maternity look: gulliver/hippo_in_muumuu/farmfab

Dammit, Ducky. Although, I bet the vid is hilarious.

The phone’s signal is still weak, but I notice that the farther along I go, the stronger it gets. Strong enough that after a few moments I can get an actual call out. I hit Ducky’s speed dial tab. The phone doesn’t even ring one full time before I see his goofy, wonderful face pop up on the tiny screen. Finally, contact with the outside world!

“Well where . . . oody hell ha . . . you been?” he asks, breaking up a bit from static. He’s sitting at his desk in his pajamas, a bowl of cereal next to him. I can hear the tinny sounds of the original Jetman playing from his speakers. So I guess he found that password after all.

There’s so much I need to tell Ducky—about the attack, about Cole, about the Almiri, the Jin’Kai, my parasitic alien baby, nearly suffocating in the hangar, how he should call my dad, help me get off this junker, mobilize the freaking army, everything. But instead of any of that, what comes out of my
mouth is a sudden, and very unexpected, stream of bawling. I can’t stop. I just sob and sob. I’m completely unable to form words. When I try to get them out, it sounds like I’m storing marbles in my mouth.

Ducky raises an eyebrow. “Elvie, you okay? I think you’re breaking up or something. And, like, what the heck have you been doing?” His eyes drift down to examine the state of my clothes. “Mud wrestling?”

I force myself to stop crying and wipe my nose with my forearm, momentarily forgetting that it is covered in sewage. “I’m not breaking up, donktard,” I respond. “I’m crying.”

“I know you’re crying, but you’re also breaking up. What’d Britta do this time?”

“Ducky, listen very carefully to me.” I make my voice as ominous as one can while picking flecks of old egg off one’s upper lip. “The Hanover School is run by aliens.”

“Must be an epidemic,” Ducky says, attention drifting back to his video game. “I’m pretty sure my new Spanish sub is from Uranus.”

“Ducky!”
I shout at him. “Listen to me. I’m not pulling your leg. I’m not speaking in metaphor. I mean it. The Hanover School is run by a group of parasitic evil aliens, and there was an attack, and a lot of the girls are dead.”

And bless whatever inner fantasy nerdiness lies behind it, but Ducky looks at me, and I know that without any further explanation he believes me.

“Jesus, Elvie, are you all right?” There’s genuine concern in his voice.

“Well . . .” I think about how to answer that. “At the
moment. The
Echidna
is about to crash. I’m planning to hitch a ride back to Earth in the Dumpster.”

“Holy . . .” Apparently years of video games have not prepared Ducky for this scenario. And then he asks the one question I wish he wouldn’t. “Where’s everyone else? Are they escaping in the Dumpster too?”

“I . . . I had to get away,” I reply simply. “Look, I don’t have much time to talk. I only have”—I check my watch—“seven minutes to get what I need from the maintenance closet and make it back to the Dumpster.”

“Elvie, you can’t . . .Won’t you run out of air, or freeze, or something?”

“Thank you, Mr. Five Minutes Ago. I’m on it.” And then, because I can’t keep it to myself any longer, I tell him. “Ducky . . . Cole’s here.”

Ducky’s eyes go wide, whether in disbelief or jealousy, I don’t know. Funny how this seems to send him for a loop more than anything else.

“Cole
Archer
? What in the hell is he . . .
Oh my God he’s an alien!
”

I love Ducky.

“I always kind of suspected he was evil,” he continues.

“Cole’s not evil,” I correct him. “He’s . . . well, it’s a long story. There’s good aliens and—Ducky, turn off the damn Jetman. I’m in a life-and-death situation up here!”

“Sorry,” Ducky replies sheepishly as he flicks off the screen, eyes focusing on me once more. “I’m going to call your dad, okay? He’ll be able to help more than me.”

“Thanks. I . . .” Suddenly the thought of talking to my father is making me well up again. But I swallow the tears down. There’s no more time for
that
. “Don’t tell him about the aliens, though, okay? Just tell him the ship is in trouble and I’m escaping in a manner he would find incredibly ingenious. Oh, and maybe you guys can find out which recycling center the Dumpster’s programmed to . . .” I trail off as I turn the corner and reach my destination.

Inside the maintenance locker room is a desk that clearly doesn’t belong in such a tight space, and on top of it are several lap-pad computers, wired into the wall where the intercom panel once was. Each lap-pad’s screen is scrolling through a series of various ship functions: atmosphere, door locks, what have you. And sitting on a bench next to the lockers is a device I immediately recognize as a high-tech variation on a run-of-the-mill pulse emitter, not unlike the kind used by schools, cineplexes, or other institutions that want to block external phone signals. In my attempt to escape the Hanover School for Expecting Parasitic Host Mothers, I have stumbled directly into the saboteur’s center of operations.

“Elvie?” Ducky says. “What’s the matter? You’re making your
Oh, shit
face.”

Oh, shit
is right.

“Shhh, Ducky. Be quiet!” I whisper. The saboteur is nowhere in sight, but still. Ducky’d never forgive himself if I got a ray gun in the back because he was such a loudmouth. I need to get what I came here for and get out before the creep comes back.

I pick my way across the mess of wires to the lockers against the far wall. Hanging there are several thermal suits, with the oxygen tanks behind them. I pull out the first suit I can reach, set my phone and Cole’s ray gun down on the bench beside me, and then step into the thin silver mesh outfit one foot at a time. The zipper strains as I yank it over the not-Goober, but it holds. The suit is huge up top and comically tight around the middle—I probably look like a giant misshapen mirror ball—but it’ll do the trick for now. I flip up the hood, tuck Cole’s gun down the front of the suit so that it rests rather comically between my boobs, and scoop up my phone.

Ducky is peering out into the room via my phone’s cam. “What are those alien bastards up to?” he asks, pointing to the emitter on the bench in front of us.

“It blocks phone signals. That’s why mine didn’t work all day.” I check the time on my phone. “I gotta rocket, Ducky. I only have four minutes before the Dumpster heads down planet-side.”

“Well, what are you talking to me for? I’ve been trying to call your dad on my other line, but so far he’s not answering. I’ll patch you through as soon as I get him, okay?”

“Thanks.”

I grab an oxygen tank and lug it up under my armpit, then turn for the door, glancing down inadvertently at the lap-pads lying on the desk. And as soon as I look at the screens, my heart sinks. I had already figured out that the saboteur had his own little makeshift mainframe down here, each computer hacked into a different ship system, screwing with it in ways I can only assume are nefarious. But the one that gets my attention is the
lap-pad that
isn’t
hardwired into the wall. It’s running a remote program, wirelessly.

The boot-up program for the captain’s yacht.

Just by glancing at it I see that our villain has control of life support, internal sensors, even the doors. The creep is herding the girls toward the yacht, just like Bob suspected.