Lab Rats in Space (11 page)

T
he Lab Rats gulped. They thought of all that had happened to them since they had escaped from the lab. They thought of Emm and Jay and how horrible it would be for them to wake up once again in those cold steel cages. They were determined that would not happen. Like a crystal clear vision they could all suddenly hear Miss Tennet's words when she first took them on the ladder.

‘Too right, Xanax, we are going home,' Dee shouted.

Zed waved his third hand goodbye and all three said at the same time, ‘Why can't a woman be more like a man!'.

The ladder moved, slowly for a second but then it charged off at high speed. Xanax disappeared.

They cheered as they went off.

‘I should have known,' said Dee, ‘it was such a stupid line, how could I forget it.'

‘We'll have to get some help in the Great Hall, he'll soon be after us,' Katy added.

As they sped along, XL hoped that Jay would not suddenly wake up and sneeze him out. He had thought of a back-up plan in case his dive into Jay's nose did not work. From his position he could connect with Jay's mind quite easily. He would talk to Jay in his dream and make him wake up. Jay was having a strange dream about smelling flowers that turned into chocolate, which he then ate. For now, XL wanted him to stay in that dream.

The ladder arrived at the Great Hall, which could not have looked more different than when they first passed through. Instead of hushed silence there was chaos. The librarians were still overloading with reality TV programs. Visitors to the library had all run away, scared by the mad behaviour.

The children gazed in disbelief at the bookcases, which had been turned over. Books were scattered over the floor. The librarians walked into walls, collided with each other and knocked things over. A computer had smashed, short-circuited and started a fire. Just as the children walked in, the automatic sprinkler system was set off. Water fell everywhere but the librarians didn't care. It was the final of
Race Round the Solar System
and there were only four contestants left. The noise echoing around the huge domed ceiling was deafening.

The only way to get across the Great Hall was to walk, but it was a long way to carry the two bodies. Too long.

‘We'll never do it,' shouted Katy as water ran down her face. They were exhausted.

‘I thought Libris was meant to be the easy option,' sighed Zed.

They sank down and sat on the nearest surface.

‘What are we going to do now?' moaned Dee. ‘Xanax will be here any second.'

They looked at the floor as it moved from side to side beneath their feet.

Zed looked puzzled. Why was the floor moving? He realised it wasn't the floor moving, it was them. They were sitting on a low book trolley on wheels.

‘Look!' he shouted. ‘Wheels. Come on, we can still make it.'

They dragged Emm's panel onto a trolley, draped Jay's body on top and began their way through the library. Dee and Zed pushed the trolley while Katy walked ahead, moving zombie librarians out of the way.

Halfway across Katy suddenly stopped.

‘I don't believe it!' she said.

Ahead of them, at the far end of the Great Hall stood Professor Xanax. The Typetor hovered by his side and they couldn't miss the pinched lips of Bumface.

‘This way!' Zed charged off to the left, heading for a side entrance.

They had not got very far when they stopped again.

‘That's impossible!' said Dee.

Xanax was in front of them again. They could not believe how quickly he had moved. They turned and
ran again but every time they got close to an exit, Xanax was there.

‘If we can't leave, we better hide in the middle,' Zed decided.

They ran back to the centre of the Great Hall, turning left and right and getting as lost as possible in the maze of bookcases and desks.

The water poured down around them. They were cold, wet and tired and looked more like drowned rats than Lab Rats, but nothing would make them give up.

‘If we can't escape,' said Katy, ‘we're going to have to defend ourselves. Lucky we did all that combat training!'

Zed smiled, remembering all their fights, and even Dee had to admit it had been a good idea.

‘We'll have to set up some defences to keep Jay and Emm safe,' said Zed.

They left the trolley with their unconscious friends in the centre. First up they leaned two bookcases together to form a shelter to help keep them dry. Next, they moved overturned bookcases and desks in a circle around them. Katy and Dee dragged furniture together and Zed pushed, pulled and threw it to form a circle. He had been exhausted after removing Emm's panel but somehow he found more strength.

Katy's hands were sore. Dee's hammer felt heavier than ever. They were amazed at how quickly Zed worked. He was like a demon he moved so quickly.

Dee saw a flash of white in the corner of her eye but it disappeared.

‘Did you see that?' Dee said to Katy.

She saw it again, turned and missed it. Through the showers of water she was sure they were glimpses of Xanax but he simply could not have moved around that quickly. She thought perhaps all the water was sinking into her head and affecting her brain.

Everything was soaking. The thick green carpet had absorbed so much water it was like a soggy marsh and there was still more water pouring down.

When they thought their defences were high and secure enough, the Rats climbed inside. Jay and Emm were laid under the bookcase shelter. Zed, Katy and Dee crawled into the shelter with them.

While the fort was being built, XL had decided it would be a good idea to wake up Jay. The Rats needed all the help they could get, so XL entered Jay's dream. Jay was still in the field of flowers. He had chocolate smeared all over his face.

‘XL!' said Jay in his dream, ‘how did you get here?'

‘I've come to collect you,' said XL.

‘Wow, you can talk!'

‘You're having a dream Jay, anything can happen.'

‘Cool.'

‘No, Jay, not cool. Everyone is in danger in the Great Hall. They need your help. You have to wake up.'

‘But it's so nice here. It smells so lovely.'

‘I'm stuck up your nose. Can you feel my fur tickling you? Doesn't it annoy you, make you want to sneeze?'

Jay thought for a moment and then shook his head.

‘No,' he said and ate another flower, ‘I haven't sneezed in ages, I like it here.'

‘Jay. We need you.'

XL remembered that this was Jay's dream so not only could he talk, he could move too. He lifted himself off the ground and hovered over to Jay's nose.

‘Are you sure this doesn't tickle?' he asked as he hovered around the entrance to Jay's nose. If he could make Jay sneeze in his dream then he might sneeze in real life and wake up.

‘Don't,' Jay tried to move back but XL moved with him, hovering under his nose, letting fur get carried up.

‘Arhh… arhhh.' It was working.

Back in the Great Hall, Jay's nose started to twitch.

‘Arhh… arhhh…'

‘He's waking up, he's going to sneeze,' said Dee.

‘Arrrhhh… arrrhhhh… arrrhhhh…'

‘It's going to be a huge one,' said Katy, ‘get him out of this shelter.' They dragged him into the open so he didn't blow their shelter down with his super-powered sneeze.

‘Block the other nostril to make sure XL comes out!' Dee suggested.

Katy pushed the side of the nostril that didn't have XL in it with both her hands.

‘Arhhh… arhhh… arrrgh… CCCHHHOOO!'

The massive sneeze, the biggest, strongest one Jay had ever sneezed, echoed around the Great Hall. Katy was thrown back with the force and XL shot out into the air.

‘Catch him!' Dee shouted.

Zed scrambled over their fort wall, keeping his eye on the flying XL, and sprinted after him.

XL flew higher and higher into the domed roof. As he looked down, he saw the mess that had once been the Great Hall. The librarians were useless, voting away on their programs. He could see the fort beneath him and thought how sensible the children had been. Then he looked beyond the fort.

‘That's impossible,' he said at the sight below him. Then the more immediate problem of falling from a great height took over. If he could have screamed he would have. He could see Zed running hard and hoped the boy could catch him.

As Zed ran, he fixed his eyes on XL. Without looking he crashed into someone and they both fell to the floor.

He tumbled but managed to turn his body and steady his third hand on the ground behind him. He held his front hands up just in time to catch XL.

He lay for a second catching his breath. The person he had crashed into groaned and tried to move. Zed looked over. It was Miss Tennet.

She was looking very dazed. Her hair had come out of its bun and was hanging around her face. Her special librarian glasses had been knocked off her head by the collision. She looked quite different with long wet hair and no glasses.

‘Wow, you're beautiful!' said Zed without thinking.

‘I'm soaking!' she said as she realised that she and everything in the library were drenched in water. ‘What has happened?'

‘The librarians have all gone mad, Xanax is approaching. We've made a fort out of overturned bookcases.' Zed filled her in as quickly as possible.

Miss Tennet stood up. She felt like she'd been fast asleep but had dreamt a very tiring dream. She raised her glasses to her head. As she got close she peered through them and suddenly stopped. Everything came back to her.

‘How sinister!' she declared. ‘Let's get to safety and then we can share information.'

In the fort, Jay had woken up.

‘I had the weirdest dream. XL was talking to me in this field of chocolate flowers.'

‘Never mind that, we've got an emergency,' said Dee.

‘The whole of Libris has gone mad, Xanax is just over there…' Katy started to tell Jay everything that had happened.

‘You've just fired XL up into the air with an almighty sneeze…' Dee added.

‘…and Emm is that big lump.'

‘Oh… where's Zed?' asked Jay.

‘I'm here!' Zed climbed over the top of the upturned bookshelves with XL under his arm.

‘XL, it's great to see you!' Jay was delighted to see the small furry creature. ‘I know you can't talk, but I had a dream that you could…'

‘Look who else I found out there,' Zed interrupted.

‘Miss Tennet!' the girls cried in unison.

‘Wow!' Dee looked at the librarian without her librarian glasses and with her loose hair. ‘You're beautiful.'

Miss Tennet blushed at all the compliments but moved on quickly.

‘No time for that,' she said, ‘I think I know what Xanax has been doing to us.'

Miss Tennet held up her glasses. The Rats all peered into them and saw myriad reality TV shows being blasted through them.

‘If we can block transmissions from all non-Libris sources, the librarians will return to normal.'

‘What then?' asked Katy. ‘Xanax is here in the Great Hall and moving really fast.'

‘I think you'll find that when librarians are functioning at their best, there's nothing we can't achieve,' Miss Tennet smiled.

They crammed into the shelter. Using one of the book computer interfaces, Miss Tennet began activating the emergency shutdown of all links with other worlds.

‘This was installed during the Intergalactic Computer Virus Epidemic of ten years ago. It threatened to destroy all our records. We built in a safety switch so that any senior librarian could shut down all links in an instant and protect our systems. As you can imagine it causes severe disruption. The fine for improper use is very considerable. However, I think we are justified on this occasion… Here!'

Miss Tennet entered the emergency code and the millions of reality TV broadcasts stopped. The librarians, dazed and exhausted, quickly came to their senses.

She continued tapping away at the terminal in the back of the book. The sprinkler system shut down and the noise stopped.

‘That's better,' said Miss Tennet. They climbed out of the shelter to savour the quiet dry air. They could not see the rest of the Great Hall beyond the wall of their fort, but they soon heard the sound of moaning and gasping. The librarians were taking in the terrible scene.

‘What about Professor Xanax?' asked Zed. ‘He could be anywhere.'

‘What about me indeed!'

They looked up to see Xanax standing on the wall of their bookcase fortress. He had been waiting for the water to stop to make his move. He had calculated the sprinklers had made conditions less controllable for him. Now he felt able to assume complete control.

Zed picked up a book and hurled it as hard as he could at the professor. It hit him in the chest. Xanax lost his balance, tipped and fell backward off the wall.

Katy, Dee and Jay gave him a high five on each of his three hands.

‘Great shot!' Katy said. Zed was worried. It had been just a bit too easy.

‘Not bad for a monkey,' a voice sneered behind them. They turned round and saw Xanax again.

‘But, that's…' Dee couldn't believe he could have moved around so quickly.

‘Impossible?' Xanax finished her sentence with his right eyebrow raised precisely.

‘I don't think so,' another voice said to the left of them. It was Xanax again. The children's mouths dropped. There were two Xanaxs.

‘Neither do I!' A third Xanax appeared on top of their newly made walls.

‘After all, nothing is impossible,' a fourth Xanax stepped up.

‘I agree!' Yet another one spoke. Soon they were surrounded by dozens of Xanaxs. Some had their arms folded, others stood with their hands on their hips. All stared down at them with the same icy cold eyes.

‘I always said I was my greatest asset,' said the first Xanax, ‘so what could be better than dozens of me?'