Clones vs. Aliens (9 page)

Fisher deposited the fridge tree in a small cupboard in the hallway and tried to put together a plan to round everyone up and get them out the door.

The party was already in full swing. Fisher’s barely renewed hope was plunged back into arctic waters. The Gemini didn’t want to talk. They didn’t seem to want a cultural exchange at all. They just wanted to dress up and treat the human world like a dollhouse. An easily explodable, flammable dollhouse. Alex had his hands clasped behind his head in frustration.

“Fisher, even
I
don’t know a bunch of these kids,” Alex
said, turning in slow circles and taking in the crowd.

Fisher’s mind was racing. “A head-on confrontation is a bad idea,” he said, miming an explosion with his hands.

“No kidding,” Alex answered. “Let’s work on the kids first and get to the Gemini when everyone else is out the door.”

Fisher nodded. “You take the upstairs. I’ll stay down here.”

Alex gave him the thumbs-up and bolted up the stairs.

In the kitchen, the Gemini were setting out trays full of snacks. Fisher had no idea where they’d gotten more food, but if there was anything strange or untrustworthy about the choice of edibles, it was too late to warn the students, or FP, who was going through the party mix faster than fire through gasoline-soaked matchbooks.

Three eighth graders were marveling over the automatic self-setting dining table, whose instantly extracting arms could move with great speed and handle a variety of utensils. One of them had discovered the automated features by accident when he’d dropped his glass and the table shot out an arm to catch it. Now all three students were tossing plates and glasses in the air to watch the table grab at them.

It was only a matter of time before something broke—or worse, someone got clocked in the face by an overenthusiastic table arm. Fisher realized this might be just
the time for a field test of his newest device.

During the infiltration of TechX to hunt down the evil Dr. X, Fisher had used his Memory Loop serum to make a guard experience the same six seconds over and over. It was like replacing a live security camera feed with a repeating tape. Recently, Fisher had been experimenting on a new variety of the serum. Its purpose was to distract FP when Fisher had important work to do. Unfortunately, the serum was as of yet untested.

The kids laughed maniacally as they tossed more and more plates, forks, serving platters, and glasses at the table. Fisher knew the table was reaching its capacity. He had no choice. He would have to act fast. Soon, the arms would start missing, and plates—or bones—would start shattering.

Fisher pulled a small plastic pellet out of his pocket and hurled it at the kitchen floor. Its thin plastic shell broke open, releasing a fine powder in a cloud that Fisher was just outside of, as per his exact calculations.

Instantly, the kids stopped what they were doing, smiled, and sat down.

Fisher nearly laughed out loud. It was working! He knew that right now each kid was recalling the experience of eating a favorite food in such exquisite detail that he would stay occupied for at least another half hour … when the serum wore off.

But Fisher couldn’t relax yet. In the living room, Chance Barrows, the multisport star and glowing pinnacle of cool among seventh-grade boys, had just tripped over the release lever for the tank holding Mr. Bas’s collective-mind ants. The entire swarm shared a single mind, and it flowed out of the tank like a wave. Chance dove out of the way as the ants searched for food. The swarm moved in absolute unison, perfect coordination, taking sharp turns and twists as they headed for the kitchen.

Chance crushed a few dozen as he clambered out of the way, but the hive continued on like nothing had happened. Fisher raced for the pantry, holding his breath as he passed through the kitchen, where some of the memory serum powder was no doubt still lingering in the air. Finally, he found the emergency ant containment device: a Dustbuster with “Emergency Ant Containment Device” written on it in black Sharpie.

The ants preferred food but they didn’t mind consuming other things—much like the Gemini, Fisher thought. They’d already begun chewing up the living room carpet, and if left to their own devices would go straight through the hardwood floor. If they reached the outdoors, they could wreck the local environment.

“Sweet party trick!” said a short boy Fisher didn’t know, his eyes following the ant swarm like it was a light show. Chance had hopped up onto the couch.

NOTES ON

MEMORY SERUM PELLETS

PURPOSE: to distract FP

FORMULA: variation on Memory Loop serum

DELIVERY METHOD: PELLET

OBSERVATIONS and SIDE EFFECTS:

• need to program other foods for additional applications—not everyone likes popcorn as much as FP

• blissful state potentially entertaining for bystanders, therein a new distraction?

• too long-lasting, may dilute

“Yeah, thanks!” Fisher squawked out as he desperately grabbed a plate full of donuts off the coffee table and hurled it on the carpet. As the ants swarmed over the food, Fisher hopped back and forth with the E.A.C.D. on full power. Working as fast as he could, he was able to suck up most of insects. He marched back to the tank, made sure the lever was reset to “closed,” opened a small chute at the top, and knocked the ants back into their proper home.

“Master Fisher! Master Fisher!” came Burnside’s high voice from the kitchen, and Fisher ran to the aid of his loyal toaster and friend, once again keeping his hand cupped over his mouth as he passed the kitchen table.

He pushed his way through a throng of students crowded around the counter, where he found Yang and Zoe gnawing on Lord Burnside’s cord like it was a piece of licorice. Around them was a pile of partly eaten plates and mugs with huge bites taken out of them. Clearly, when the Gemini ran out of food in the kitchen they decided to cut out the middle step and just eat the kitchen.

“Hey!” Fisher said, yanking the toaster cord out of their hands. The two Gemini looked at him with mild confusion.

“We were eating that!” Yang said.

“We’re hungry,” Zoe said.

“I’m sorry,” Fisher said, trying to sound pleasant and not one second away from a total breakdown. “This is a part of Lord Burnside.” He patted the toaster. “He … helps prepare consumables. It would be a much better use of him to make toast.”

“Toast!” said Yang excitedly.

“What’s that?” said Zoe. The Gemini, Fisher noted, had some very significant gaps in their human knowledge.

“I’ll show you,” Fisher said.

There was a hidden cupboard that even the voracious Gemini hadn’t found. Lord Burnside got very antsy when the bread supply ran out, and so Mr. and Mrs. Bas kept an emergency stash. And this was definitely an emergency. Fisher reached in for the package of bread, put two slices into Lord Burnside, and pulled down his lever. “In a minute or two, those will be crispy.”

“Perfectly,” Burnside added in a slightly quivering voice. Clearly, he’d been traumatized by the fact that he’d very nearly been devoured.

“We shall consume your toast,” said Zoe, sounding less like a teen girl, and much more like Principal Teed trying to get control of the school after Ice Cream Day.

“
All
of it,” said Yang with an intensity normally reserved for serious medical diagnoses and
Hamlet
monologues.

Another crisis avoided, Fisher jogged out of the
kitchen and upstairs, where Alex was trying to keep everyone away from their parents’ personal labs. Their automatic security systems didn’t ask any questions before releasing a cloud of forty-eight-hour sleeping gas, and some of the kids were getting dangerously close to setting them off.

Something else was bothering him, too—he hadn’t kept an exact count, but he was positive not all of the Gemini were in the house. There were at least three or four pairs unaccounted for. What were the others up to? Was something even bigger coming?

Whatever it was, he’d have to deal with the Gemini one crisis at a time. The party had to be shut down. Alex took a moment to catch his breath when he saw Fisher running up.

“How’s it going up here?” Fisher said, mopping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

“Not great,” Alex said. “I’m shoving people toward the doors as fast as I can, but as soon as I move on to the next group they come right back. We need help.”

“Who’s gonna help us?” Fisher said. “Everyone loves the Gemini!”

Alex let out a long sigh.

“Not
everyone
,” he said pointedly.

Fisher blinked as Alex’s meaning settled on him like the cold, clammy touch of a wet bathing suit. But he knew
he had no choice. He swallowed. “I’ll ask,” he said.

“You’ll plead,” Alex corrected.

Fisher closed the upstairs bathroom door behind him and pulled out his phone, dialing Veronica’s number with shaking fingers.

Ten minutes later, Amanda kicked open the front door with such force that it smacked into Jacob Li, making him spill his fruit punch into a luckily placed bowl of corn chips. Amanda and Veronica stepped through the hallway and into the living room simultaneously, smoothly taking off identical pairs of sunglasses.

“All right,” Amanda said, cracking her knuckles. “This party is over.”

Five Gemini pairs turned to look at her with a unified swivel of their necks. Their silky hair fell gracefully across their shoulders.

Everyone else in the room also turned after a split second. All with the same blank, mysterious eyes.

Alien eyes, you could call them.

“Fisher …” Alex muttered.

“Yeah,” Fisher said. “I see it.”

The other kids
were
Gemini.

Fisher wanted to turn invisible, back out of the room, and seal it shut. He should have seen this coming. The Gemini could take any form they wanted. And it had become very clear that they’d started as beautiful girls because they knew it would make people like them more, trust them more, and pay less attention to all the strange things they’d started to do. But they could look like anything. They could blend in to the human population. They could do anything they wanted and nobody would know it was them.

“We do not wish to end the party,” said one of the Gemini in the corner, who looked sort of like Chance—a big, athletic boy with wavy blond hair.

“Well, this isn’t your house,” said Veronica. “Or, furthermore, your planet. We’ve tolerated your impish antics thus far, but you’re taxing our hospitality to its furthest extremes. Your welcome is wearing tenuously thin.”

The Gemini cocked their heads slightly at Veronica’s speech.

“Advanced vocabulary,” Anna muttered, shaking her head a little. “We’re having difficulty interpreting that statement.”

“Try interpreting
this
,” Amanda said, and in three large steps had reached the jock-looking Gemini. She put a foot into the side of his knee and he collapsed to the floor. Amanda stood over him and locked his left arm
behind his back with one hand, her other hand pulling his head back by the hair.

“Now,” Veronica said. “Go back to your little bus.”

“Very well,” one of the Gemini on the couch spoke up. But before she’d finished saying “well,” an explosion shook the windows. Fisher, Alex, Veronica, and Amanda turned to see a fireball pluming up from Mrs. Bas’s garden. The Gemini stood up, as one unit, and left, the disguised ones gradually shifting back into their original girl forms as they walked.

Alex rushed to the window.

“Nobody’s hurt,” he said. “Looks like one of the Gemini was exploring the garden—”

“Eating the garden, you mean?” Fisher interjected, gesturing to the giant cornstalk, which had been chewed to bits
and
flattened by a giant blast.

Alex nodded.

“Poor Fee,” Fisher sighed. Charred vegetable matter now mixed with Gemini glop in the smoking brown grass. He turned away from the window, frowning. Something wasn’t right. Or rather, something was even less right than the fact that a bunch of aliens had just thrown a party in his house and nearly incinerated his mom’s garden.