Clones vs. Aliens (6 page)

His parents moved closer to the Gemini. The crowd unconsciously inched backward, as though worried about another explosion, but both Bas parents seemed entirely at ease.

“As the creators of the Magnetic Modulation Mechanism, the instrument that signaled our readiness to meet you, we’d like to formally welcome you to Earth,” said Mrs. Bas to Anna and Bee. The two aliens turned to regard Fisher’s parents with their vibrant green eyes, their expressions unreadable.

“Your engineering work is excellent,” Bee said. Her voice was much flatter than it had been before, much more formal. “We regret that our landing telemetry had a slight inaccuracy and our ship caused damage.”

“Damage” was a bit understated. What had been the Magnetic Modulation Mechanism looked like an abstract sculpture built by hurling the chopped-up pieces of a skyscraper out of planes. The perfect lawns and flawlessly polished rides surrounding it only emphasized how utterly demolished it was.

“It can be rebuilt,” said Mrs. Bas. “What matters is that it worked.” She paused and took Anna’s hand in her own, giving it a motherly squeeze. Anna gave Mrs. Bas’s hand a confused look. “Imagine what we can learn from one another,” Mrs. Bas continued with a sincere smile.

“Yes,” said Anna. “We wish to begin an exchange with your two diplomats promptly.” She indicated Fisher and Alex.

Mr. and Mrs. Bas glanced at each other.

“Well,” Mrs. Bas said, “
diplomats
may be a bit of an exaggeration.”

“That is how we are prepared to work,” Bee said. She and Anna crossed their arms. “Now that we have established contact, it would be an unnecessary hitch in the process if someone else took their place.”

The Gemini looked stern.

“And this ‘exchange.’ An exchange of what, exactly?” Amanda said, raising an eyebrow.

“Knowledge,” said Anna. “Information, history, culture.
We, of course, have years of data about you. But there are many questions that only a face-to-face discussion can properly answer.”

“Of course,” Veronica said, narrowing her eyes. “Face-to-face.”

It was increasingly obvious to Fisher that neither Veronica nor Amanda were fans of the female extraterrestrials. Fisher had just stopped World War III from happening. He wasn’t ready for it to begin again.

“That sounds great,” Fisher said. “But”—he hurried on, in response to a glance from Veronica, to whom he was after all very loyal—“as much as I’d like to be the head of an interstellar conference, well … we have to go to school.”

“School,” said Bee instantly, tilting her head, a motion Anna copied exactly. “An institution of learning, the place where young human spawn are fashioned into adults. We can think of no better place to begin further study of your kind.”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” Mr. Bas said. “A school is a busy, unsterile, and unpredictable environment; it might be bewildering or even dangerous for you.”

“I don’t know,” Fisher said, spirals of technological possibilities from contact with aliens twirling through his mind. “I think that could be a really good idea. They know about our culture, they speak our language, and
they don’t seem vulnerable to Earth bacteria. Letting them learn in our fully human environment might be the best idea!”

“As exciting as that sounds,” Mr. Bas, “it still sounds risky. I think it would make more sense to study them more before we allow them to fully integrate into a situation like that.”

Anna and Bee stared at Mr. Bas for an uncomfortably large number of seconds. They crossed their arms, exactly mirroring the pose of a teenage girl determined to go out on a Saturday night with her friends.

In perfect synch, all of the other Gemini crossed their arms, too.

“We will attend your school,” Anna stated flatly.

“You don’t understand,” Mrs. Bas said, “for your own safety, that really isn’t a good … er …” The Gemini had started to glow again. A sound like the beginning of a forest fire filled the air.

“We will attend your school,” Bee said.

“Could …” Mrs. Bas said, “could we maybe discuss this in more detail elsewhe—”

“DOWN!” Amanda screamed, and dove, tackling Warren to the ground, as Ellie and Fae turned into a cloud of superheated vapor. In a second, their long limbs and radiant red hair turned into green explosive goop. Veronica ducked. Mr. and Mrs. Bas grabbed Fisher and Alex and
pulled them both to the ground. Screams went up from the crowd.

FP barely managed to take wing and fly from the explosion. The edge of the fireball caught him and he sailed into Fisher’s arms as Fisher sat up, and his right side was peppered with first-degree burns. His right ear was raw from the heat, and a distinct bacon scent wafted from him.

The guards dropped into firing crouches, weapons trained on the Gemini.

“Say the word,” the sergeant said, closing one eye and aiming. The crackling got louder and louder.

“Everyone stop it! This instant,” Mr. Bas said as he leapt back to his feet. He gave the Gemini a parental stare. “All right,” he said, “if school is how you want to begin our diplomatic relationship, school it is.”

Slowly, the crackling subsided, and the Gemini’s glowing skin dimmed and went back to normal. The sergeant indicated that the guards should stand down.

Mr. and Mrs. Bas turned to the ten or twelve scientists clustered around the security barrier. After a minute of urgent, whispered conversation, Fisher’s mom returned to face the Gemini.

“If you’d just come this way,” Mrs. Bas said in the most lighthearted tone she could muster. She pointed to a futuristic-looking bus that was even now making its
lumbering way through the park, “we have a vehicle prepared for you specially. This will be your temporary home. For the moment, you’ll be stationed at a facility just next to our home. And, beginning Monday, you can all attend school … somehow.”

The twenty-two Gemini filed onto the bus without another word, gliding through the crowd like a blowtorch through butter, escorted by a group of overeager scientists and members of the security SWAT team. As the last two Gemini boarded—Fisher couldn’t remember their names—they paused, turned, smiled slyly at him with the exact same tilt to their heads, and gave a small wave.

Fisher found that he’d been holding his breath. As soon
as the bus began to pull away, he felt the beginnings of a throbbing headache. Could he have done anything to have made the interaction go better, or at least less explosive? History—or random chance, if he was being honest—had placed him at the forefront of human–Gemini relations.

And now the aliens wanted to go to Wompalog.

The prospect was terrifying. It was also the most exciting thing he’d ever imagined.

“Hey,” Alex said to Fisher quietly, “you think maybe we should call Agent Mason?”

FBI Special Agent Syd Mason had originally been tasked with recovering any traces of Mrs. Bas’s Accelerated Growth Hormone, which included Alex. After an unfortunate beginning Fisher, Alex, and Mason had eventually formed an alliance against Dr. X. Mason had even shown up at the last second to rescue them from the collapsing school after the final battle with Three. If there was ever a time to involve him, the surprise presence of alien life on Earth seemed appropriate.

“I doubt we need to,” Fisher said. “He probably knew about the Gemini weeks ago like our parents. I bet he’s here right now. He’ll probably jump out from behind that tree any second,” he went on, pointing to one of the few decorative elms around the coaster that hadn’t been pulverized. Fisher and Alex stared at it expectantly. Agent Mason did not jump out from behind it.

“Hm,” Fisher said. “Well, I can’t imagine he’s not involved in this somehow. If he doesn’t turn up soon, we’ll give him a call.”

The Bas parents were still deep in conversation with their scientific colleagues. Fisher couldn’t make out what they were saying, but from the expansiveness of their hand gestures, he knew they felt the same nervous excitement as he did about their new visitors.

FP, on the other hand, looked decidedly unenthusiastic. Fisher scooped up his squealing pig, examining the burn on FP’s right ear. Fortunately, it looked superficial.

“Uh, Fisher?” Fisher felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and nearly dropped FP in surprise. Willard stood in front of him, his left arm in a sling and his face bandaged up. He was looking at the ground, almost as if he were embarrassed.

“I wanted to, uh …” He looked around quickly. Brody and Leroy were nowhere to be seen. “… apologize,” he mumbled.

“Oh,” Fisher said, and couldn’t find another word in his head. This was almost as big a shock as the explosion of the roller coaster. Maybe almost getting blown across Loopity Land in several million smithereens had finally humbled Willard. Fisher cleared his throat. “I mean, that’s okay. I’m just … relieved … you weren’t seriously hurt.”
Happy
would have been a bit of an overstatement.
“So, uh, how did you guys get in here, anyway?”

“We were t-tagging along with my d-dad,” Willard replied, still staring at the space between his feet.

“How did your
dad
get in?” said Fisher, picturing a larger and even more gargoyle-shaped version of Willard. Maybe his dad worked for one of the scientists as a paperweight, or a standard for measuring density.

“H-he’s on the team that’s working with your parents,” Willard said. “The Mission for Organized Retrieval of Objects from Nearby Space.”

“MORONS?” Fisher said.

“Uh, y-yeah,” Willard said. “They say they get that a lot from NASA. My dad’s a p-propulsion research engineer.”

Fisher felt like a pair of electric eels had just kissed his temples.

“Your father is a
rocket scientist
?” he said, not even trying to conceal his shock. Willard nodded, then made a second, awkward good-bye nod and hurried off. Fisher stared off after Willard, shaking his head. The surprises were piling high today.

“Hey, Fisher,” said Veronica. FP wiggled in Fisher’s arms and Veronica held up a tube of burn ointment she must have procured from an EMT. Gratefully, Fisher took it from her. For a moment, they stood in awkward silence as Fisher tried to figure out how Veronica must be feeling. After a minute, he remembered that he could, in
fact,
ask
her. Some of the finer points of socializing were still solidifying in his mind.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Veronica took the tube back from Fisher’s hand and carefully applied the burn ointment onto FP’s ear.

“I’m not sure,” she said slowly, without looking up. “I mean, I understand this is a momentous event. I want to be happy. I want to welcome the Gemini with open arms. I just can’t quite bring myself to trust them. I can’t figure them out at all. What do they really want? Why are they so interested in Wompalog and not the UN or NASA?”

“I don’t know,” Fisher said, watching larger work crews move in to begin carting off the rubble and debris from the M3. “But the Gemini are far more advanced than we are. Given the kind of technology needed for long-range interstellar flight, I’d put them at least four or five hundred years ahead of us. Imagine what they’ve seen. What they must have discovered out there. And their technology! If they’d meant us harm, we’d all be dead by now.”

“I hope so,” said Veronica. “But not everything that glitters is gold. And if they don’t even bat an eye when one of their own goes up in flames, I can’t imagine they’d put much value on a human life.”

Her normally brilliant eyes were dark, as if they’d been
smudged with ash. Her golden hair was frizzy from the explosion. And there was an urgency to her voice, a warning he struggled to understand.

“Are you saying that if I make a mistake, something bad could happen to me?” he asked.

“No,” she said quietly. “I’m saying that if you make a mistake, something bad could happen to all of us.”

WEL … COME … TO … SCHOOL

WEL … COME … TO … SCHOOL

“Hey, Fisher?” Veronica said, looking up at the huge scrolling LED sign Fisher had put above one of Wompalog’s main trailers. “Think you might be missing something?”