Dinosaur Boy Saves Mars (8 page)

“Nug time!” exclaimed Chancellor Fontana, quieting her watch and pulling a Nutri Nugget out of her purse.

Every Martian around us (except for Sylvie) was doing the same thing. There was a great crinkling of plastic as everyone opened their nuggets at once.

Sylvie wrinkled her nose.

“I can't believe those got popular,” she sniffed. “They're disgusting!”

“You're right about that,” Venetio muttered. Then he pursed his lips, looking mildly horrified that he had agreed with Sylvie about something.

“The one I had this morning wasn't too bad,” I admitted. And I realized, to my amazement, that my stomach had been quiet for some time. I hadn't even thought about food since shoving the nugget into my mouth that morning. Now that I did think about it, I realized that I still felt full. But in a weird, hollow sort of a way. Like I could still eat a giant meal at any moment but I just didn't want to.

“I have extras,” Chancellor Fontana offered, reaching into her purse again and handing me several different flavors. There was a chocolate-flavored nugget like the one I had eaten that morning. There was also a strawberry-flavored one, a root beer–flavored one, and a chocolate-peanut-butter-swirl one.

“What are they?” Elliot asked, looking doubtfully at the packages in my hand. He had slept too late that morning to hear anything about the nuggets.

“They're a revelation,” Chancellor Fontana replied, licking her fingers. “Do you have any idea how much time and energy is wasted in the growing of food? To say nothing of harvesting, preparing, and then consuming elaborate meals three times every day?”

“Of course they don't,” Ms. Helen reminded her, taking a bite of her own nugget. “Plants and animals grow by accident on their planet, remember?”

“Oh right,” Chancellor Fontana said. “Well, just take my word for it. You'd be amazed at how freeing it is to not have to worry about preparing food. I don't know how we ever got along without these things! They've quite revolutionized Martian culture.”

Despite Chancellor Fontana's enthusiasm, Elliot was looking doubtfully at the brown rectangle in his hand.

“It kind of reminds me of something,” he said, turning it around in his hands. “I'm trying to think of what…”

“If you don't like the texture, then I have just the thing,” Chancellor Fontana said, reaching into her purse again and handing Elliot a small bottle.

“Nutri Juice,” Elliot read.

“The next generation of condensed nutrition. Same thing as the nuggets, but in liquid form!” Chancellor Fontana explained, taking a quick glance around us. “Don't let on that I gave you that. They're not on the market yet. The plan is to reveal them for the first time during the toast after the Friendship and Goodwill Game.”

“The toast?” I asked.

“There's a toast at the end of every Intergalactic Soccer Federation game,” Venetio told us. “The winners pour the losers a drink, and the losers have to toast the winners while they take a sip. It's about sportsmanship and stuff. The drink is supposed to be something special and meaningful from the winner's home planet.”

“But,” Sylvie cut in, “since the losers have to drink it and the winners don't, it usually ends up being the most disgusting drink the winning team can think of.”

“Really?” I asked.

Sylvie nodded solemnly.

“Oh yeah. After we won the '14 Finals, we poured the Plutonians raw Bruno egg whites. Some of them actually threw up on camera.”

“Nutri Juice isn't too bad,” Ms. Helen admitted. “I think the Plutonians will get off easy this time.”

Everyone looked expectantly at Elliot.

Elliot grinned sheepishly and handed me the Nutri Juice.

“Maybe I'm not quite as hungry as I thought.”

• • •

We eventually made it out toward the outskirts of the city. We started walking through caverns that weren't quite as tall with walls that weren't quite as smooth. In some places, the walls were covered in thin wire mesh and I could see orangey-red Martian dirt peeking through.

“Central is constantly expanding,” Chancellor Fontana droned on. “Our population rises at a steady rate each year, and engineers work around the clock to create more livable areas.”

We passed a wall that had three large, gaping holes in it. I couldn't see too far inside any of them, but I could hear the hum of working machinery. There was also a touch of reddish dust in the air.

Elliot sneezed loudly.

“What's that?” Sylvie asked, pointing at a fourth hole. It was smaller than the others, and it had strips of red tape crisscrossing its entrance.

“Oh, the engineers must have hit a vein of iron ore,” our guide explained. “Or possibly peridotite. Those are the densest kinds of rocks on Mars. They're great if you're looking to mine them, but they're not really cost effective to dig through. We tunnel around them when we can.”

“You mean you can't get through them?” Sylvie asked.

“We can,” Chancellor Fontana replied, sounding a bit miffed at the suggestion that they couldn't. “But it takes longer and it costs more. Not really worth doing when so much of Mars is made up of sediments and siltstone.”

“Huh,” Sylvie said thoughtfully, as our guide steered us away from the tunnels and back toward the larger caverns of downtown Central.

• • •

As we walked back toward Sylvie's apartment, we passed the big screen again. A large crowd was gathered underneath it now, and a tight circle of Martian police ringed a temporary stage.

Three people were on the stage. One was a red-faced Martian who was yelling and shaking his fist at a Plutonian with a spiky black Mohawk. Between them was the nearly bald Martian who I recognized from TV as Chancellor Gio, the Martian in charge of the summit.

“Thank you. Now if we could just hear from the opposing side—” Chancellor Gio was saying, trying to get a word in edgewise as the Martian continued to gesture violently at his blue counterpart on the other side of the stage.

“It's simple! The Interplanetary Soccer Federation is an organization for planets. And Pluto is no longer a planet. That's why I am urging the Martian Council to vote YES on the measure to ban Pluto from the ISF.”

There was a roar of approval from the crowd, even as the Plutonian shook his head vigorously.

“Pluto
is
a planet,” he argued. “We're a dwarf planet. That's still a planet. And besides, the ISF is the only league of its kind in the galaxy. Our team would have nowhere to play! Soccer is our biggest export. It's essential to our planetary identity!”

“Then why don't you start a dwarf planet soccer league?” the Martian suggested. “One that would be better suited for an orbiting body of your size and limited gravitational pull!”

The crowd roared with laughter, and I leaned over toward Ms. Helen.

“They're trying to ban Plutonians from the soccer federation?” I asked.

She nodded grimly.

“That's what the summit is all about,” she said. She had to practically shout to be heard over the crowd. “The vote is in two days, right after the Friendship and Goodwill Game. If it passes, Pluto will be permanently banned. The Kuiper Kickers will be disbanded.”

I looked worriedly over at Venetio. His eyes were locked on the sweaty Martian onstage. His hands had curled up into small, blue fists at his sides.

“That seems really unfair,” I said.

The Plutonian onstage seemed to agree.

“First, you downgrade our planetary status,” he accused the Martian. “Now you want to kick us out of the ISF. What's next? When will it end? Your prejudice against Pluto is baseless and—”

“This isn't about prejudice!” the Martian exclaimed. “This is about safety! Where the Kuiper Kickers go, the BURPSers follow. ISF fans have a right to be safe. No one should have to risk their lives in order to enjoy a soccer game! Booting the Plutonians will make the games safer. We haven't forgotten what you tried to do on Neptune—”

“What the
BURPSers
tried to do on Neptune,” the Plutonian corrected him angrily. “As I've said before, the BURPSers do not represent the interests of the majority of the gentle, peace-loving people of Pluto who—”

“The ‘gentle' and ‘peace-loving' thugs who tried to blow up the planetary core of their nearest neighbor?” the Martian demanded.

“Thank you both for expressing your views!” Chancellor Gio jumped in, trying to put himself between the two debaters. “Now, I'd like to move on to the question-and-answer portion of the—”

“That is a ridiculous overstatement of the facts,” the Plutonian debater shouted over Chancellor Gio's head. “The BURPSers do not have anywhere near the capacity to blow up an entire planet—”

“And how would you know that,” the Martian countered, a giant grin spilling over his face, “unless you were a BURPSer
yourself
!”

The crowd gasped, and the Plutonian looked affronted.

“I'm an adopted Martian citizen! I was born and raised here!”

“BURPSer!” the Martian yelled, pointing. “BURPSer!”

The crowd took up the chant.

“BURPSer! BURPSer!”

“This is insanity,” Ms. Helen muttered, pulling me backward and out of the path of several black-clad Martian police officers who were headed toward the stage.

The Plutonian onstage was still loudly denying the Martian debater's allegations, but it was impossible to hear him over the yelling of the crowd. Chancellor Gio was waving his arms frantically.

“Quiet!” he ordered. “Quiet! If we're going to have a meaningful debate—”

The yelling basically drowned the chancellor out. But he kept talking. I couldn't understand his words anymore, but we all heard the groan of pain that came out of his lips next.

The crowd fell silent as Chancellor Gio sank to his knees. A larger-than-life picture of him appeared on the huge screen. He was clutching the left side of his neck, which had started to swell. There was a lump there, which was pulsing slightly. As though there was something underneath his skin, trying to get out.

The chancellor's groan turned into a strangled yell. Then the skin split beneath his hand and something came out. Something with hair. And a face.

Everyone in the square froze in shock as the chancellor's second head slowly emerged out of its neck. Its eyes blinked fiercely as its mouth opened up in a huge yawn, like it was waking up from a long nap.

“It's called gene-ing,” my grandfather explained after Chancellor Fontana and Ms. Helen managed to extract us from the crowd in the square and returned us to the Juarezes' apartment.

We had found my grandfather exactly where we had left him: in the kitchen, fighting with the long-range DNA scanner.

“Gene-ing?” I asked.

“Infecting someone with a virus that contains foreign genetic material,” he explained, jabbing at the scanner with a screwdriver. “Usually there's also some sort of accelerator involved to make the genetic mutation happen faster than it would normally.”

“Is it like what happened at Amalgam Labs?” I asked. “Like the virus that turned some of the scientists into dinosaur-human hybrids?”

“Very like,” my grandfather admitted. “Only that was an accident. Officially anyway. These ones however…”

“These ones are clearly being done on purpose,” Ms. Helen finished, putting down the untouched cup of coffee my grandfather had poured for her.

“These
ones
?” Elliot and I said together.

Ms. Helen looked over at Chancellor Fontana, who sighed.

“Chancellor Gio was the third Chancellor to get gened in the last week,” she admitted. “Now the committee will have to elect a new chancellor and hope he or she can avoid being gened for long enough to get through the summit.”

“Who will they elect?” Elliot asked.

“I'm not sure,” Ms. Helen admitted. “But it's getting harder to find volunteers.”

When everybody else made their way to the living room, I stayed behind with my grandfather.

“Did you know the summit was about kicking the Plutonians out of the Intergalactic Soccer Federation?” I asked him.

My grandfather scratched an itchy spot on the back of his neck and stretched, grunting.

“That's what I meant when I told you about the local politics. It's not something you need to worry about, Sawyer.”

“But doesn't it seem unfair to you? Why should the Martians be able to decide if the Plutonians get to play soccer or not? Aren't there other planets in the federation?”

“Yes, but control of the ISF rotates among its members. This year, Mars is in charge. Which means they get to speak for everybody. The Martian Council gets to have the final word at the summit.”

“It sounds to me like they've just been waiting for their year to get rid of their biggest rival,” I muttered.

My grandfather nodded. “You might be right. It probably is unfair, Sawyer. But who are we to say anything about it? It's nothing to do with us. So let's not get involved. OK?”

My grandfather turned away and started hacking at the scanner again.

I sat down at the kitchen table, opened my notebook, and added: “Reinstate Pluto's Planetary Status?” right underneath the polar bear entry on my Possible Passions list.

• • •

As they were leaving, Chancellor Fontana and Ms. Helen mentioned that they thought it would be a “good idea” for us to “stick close to the apartment” for a while. Just to be safe.

I'm sure the two Martian police officers they posted outside the door were just a formality.

Sylvie retreated to her room, muttering something about getting more beauty rest. I could have sworn she had my grandfather's iPad hidden underneath her sweatshirt, but she shut and locked the door behind her before I could make sure.

My grandfather spent the rest of the day muttering at the DNA scanner and occasionally throwing things across the kitchen. Which meant that I had nothing to do but play soccer with Elliot and Venetio in the living room.

Soccer is nearly impossible when you have a tail. By the time I finally gave up, I had shattered two lamps and both of my palms had rug burn from having to break my fall so often.

I sat down on the couch to watch Venetio teach Elliot the basics of being a soccer goalie.

Venetio was not particularly athletic. And even with his cold suit, he was constantly overheating and having to take breaks. But still, he seemed to know what he was talking about. He ran Elliot through a series of drills and then installed him in front of a makeshift goal, consisting of an overturned couch with two armchairs on top of it.

“A good goalie knows how to anticipate a shot,” Venetio explained, dribbling a soccer ball toward Elliot. When he pulled his foot back and kicked, the shot went right into the goal before Elliot had even moved.

“Anticipate? How do I do that?” Elliot asked, retrieving the ball and tossing it back.

“You've got to guess where I'm going to kick it,” Venetio answered, coming toward the goal again, this time faking to the left before he cut right. “And you've got to make your move before I even kick the ball, or it'll be too late.”

This time, Elliot dove to the left and barely managed to swat Venetio's shot away from the goal before landing facedown on the carpet.

“Better,” Venetio said.

“Thanks,” Elliot gasped from the floor.

“It's really a pity you could never play for Pluto,” Venetio added.

“Because of the DNA tests?” I asked, remembering what Sylvie had said.

“Yeah. Everybody's so nuts about gene-ing these days that they test a drop of every player's blood before he or she takes the field,” Venetio explained. “If your DNA isn't fifty-one percent from the planet you're representing, you can't play.”

A second soccer ball sailed past Venetio's head and toward the goal. It hit one of the armchairs with a solid
thunk
and sent it spinning.

Then a third ball hit the second armchair, sending it spinning in the opposite direction.

“Wow,” Elliot said, still on the floor. “You're not bad.”

“Not bad?” Sylvie repeated from the doorway. She was keeping a third ball up in the air, bouncing it on her knee, then the inside of her foot, then the top of her other foot, then back again. She made it look easy. “I'm way better than not bad. I was a phenom! I was the youngest member of the Red Razers in Martian history. They had to rewrite laws so I could play. I'm awesome.”

“You're OK,” Elliot allowed, standing up and assuming what Venetio had called the “ready stance”: legs apart, hands up.

Sylvie just laughed and switched legs, keeping the ball bouncing.

“Venetio's right about anticipating. When it doubt, go to your right. Most soccer players are right-footed. And most right-footed players tend to kick to their left—which is your right. And lefties tend to shoot to their right, your left.”

“But you're left-footed,” Elliot pointed out. “And you just shot in both directions.”

“I said we
tend
to do certain things. Not that we
always
do.”

And as if to prove her point, she did a blink-and-you'd-miss-it jump kick, firing the ball directly at Elliot's middle.

He caught it and doubled over, grunting loudly.

“Ugh,” Elliot grunted. “Soccer's a lot rougher than I thought it would be.”

Sylvie giggled.

“I'll bet Venetio hasn't even told you about sudden death yet.”

“Sudden…what?” I asked.

“Death,” Venetio said calmly. “It's not really what it sounds like. In every ISF game, there are two random, one-minute periods when if anybody makes a goal, their team wins the game. Regardless of what the score was before the period started.”

“It's supposed to make the game more exciting,” Sylvie explained.

“If the sudden death periods are random, how do you know when you're in one?” I asked.

Sylvie and Venetio both snorted with laughter. Elliot and I exchanged puzzled looks.

“Trust me,” Sylvie said finally. “You know when you're in sudden death.”

“Great news!” my grandfather interrupted, running in from the kitchen. “I've gotten a little bit more range on the scanner. A few more hours, I think, and I'll have it up and running so we can find out where that lab is.”

“No need,” Sylvie said, holding up the iPad. “I already found it.”