Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon (17 page)

There was 103. Ray grabbed a knob of chitin, pulling himself to a stop in front of the doorway. I took his hand, letting him anchor me, while Claire climbed around the doorframe herself.

The announcer had been right. There was someone or something strapped to the exam table. She definitely was not human, not with that elongated head, the horns, the fur running down the back of her neck or the knobby, thick fingers. She did have a human female shape, although her thick shirt, poufy knee-length bloomers, and hospital gown over both kept that vague.

As we watched, she whispered, “Not again. I don’t want to wake up.”

The first monster had talked. None of us wanted to move in too fast. She clenched her four eyes tighter shut, curling her head down. Long, white-and-black splotchy hair floated weightlessly around her head. “It isn’t… he’s lying to you, Harvey. It’s only another trick.”

Claire swallowed, hard, and whispered, “I don’t think that’s a recording.”

She pushed away from the doorframe, floating into the room. Ray made to move us after her, but Claire waved him off. I lifted Archimedes, just in case.

“Are you Juliet?” Claire asked.

The thing on the bed’s muscles tensed, trying to curl up, but its wrists and neck and ankles had all been strapped down. After a second of that, she relaxed just enough to turn her head and open her eyes. She had four, two regular brown eyes in front, above where her face started to bulge forward goatishly. The other two sat farther up on the sides of her head, and shined the same ruby color as Archimedes’.

The brown eyes looked up at Claire’s face, as wondering as if she had just seen an angel. With Claire’s golden hair shining under the incandescent ceiling bulb, that wasn’t a bad description. “Y-yes, I am. Did Harvey send you?” the thing asked, with a perfectly normal adult woman’s voice, if nervous and shy.

“I think so. He didn’t tell us his name. We killed the monster in the basement, and he told us to come save you.” Claire reached up very slowly and carefully to Juliet’s neck, unfastening the buckle there. I wasn’t thrilled with her hands being so close to that extended mouth and its mismatched teeth, but it did seem like we’d found a real human survivor. Badly scarred, but human.

“He’s really, truly dead? “ Juliet asked, her voice hushed. “I know, you’ve never lied to me. It’s just so very hard to believe. Can I trust them?”

She wasn’t talking to Claire. She looked past Claire, talking to an empty chair in the corner. Um. Okay.

You know what? I wasn’t going to say anything. Being trapped in this place would drive anyone crazy.

Claire clearly felt the same way. She moved on to unbuckling the straps around Juliet’s wrists, then her ankles. Juliet herself lay back with a heavy sigh, satisfied by whatever the voice only she could hear told her.

We’d heard that voice quite clearly when it used the speaker system, Penny. Keep that in mind. Maybe Juliet wasn’t crazy.

When the ankle buckles came free, Juliet floated upwards. Claire held onto the foot of the table, and held out her hand. Juliet gripped it, and Claire towed them both gently towards the door.

“What is that?” Juliet asked, peering curiously at Vera.

My spine went cold. Vera had just gone completely genocidal on the monsters in this place. The flash of ice faded immediately as Vera gave Juliet just as peacefully quizzical a stare. Whatever set Vera off, Juliet wasn’t it.

Good evidence Juliet wasn’t going to kill us, actually. That was reassurance I’d needed.

“Out. We’re getting out of here.”

“Watch out for the doctors. And the other patients. Harvey―I was the only one Harvey could save.” Juliet warned us.

“I think we got them all,” I promised. “If not, Vera will take care of them.”

We were a lot less cautious climbing back up the hall towards the stairs. Juliet shrank away from me and Ray at first, but clearly trusted Claire to pull her along. By the time we reached the door, Juliet was helping Claire climb.

Ray held the door open again, and we crawled out. Juliet stared wide-eyed at the crumbling grey shapes on the stairwell.

Hanging around wouldn’t help. I held out a hand to Claire. She took it. I held out my other hand to Ray. He took it. He held out his other hand to Juliet and, hesitantly, she took it.

“Vera, can you pull us to the door?” I asked. Vera grabbed my collar, and floated us down the stairs and across the lobby. When Ray opened up the door to the reception room, the sucking sound made me realize something I hadn’t the first time we visited. The reception room was also an airlock.

We wouldn’t need those services. The Red Herring’s gill hatch was safely clamped around the outer door. I had my freaky bat spacesuits, just in case. Ray pushed against the wall with his feet, floating us over to the outer door. When he opened it, Juliet let out a squeak.

I looked back at her. She stared at the entrance to the Red Herring with undisguised horror. I followed her gaze, and saw… a giant, obviously living space fish made out of chitin and rubbery flesh exactly the color of the abominations inside the clinic.

What had I made? Had Mourning Dove known something about my power after all?

No. The Red Herring was harmless. It just used the same biotech principles as the Red Panacea Clinic. Juliet calmed down immediately, so I had to be right. She even smiled, and asked, “Oh. Really?” Pushing past us, she followed someone we couldn’t see into the ship.

Of course, when she passed through the doorway, the Red Herring’s artificial gravity pulled her to the floor, but she caught herself like she’d been expecting it.

My turn, but I paused at the door. I had one last thing to take care of before I left.

Pointing at the plaque on the desk, I ordered, “Vera. Erase that.”

A pink ray wandered over the brass plate, until the words ‘We are in the midst of an enlightened summoning of health that will remove the barriers to the universe itself.’ disappeared in a dripping mass of glowing metal slag. The desk behind it was so old it didn’t catch fire, just blackened and dropped orange embers on the floor.

I felt better. I felt better still when I stepped into the tube and could suddenly tell up from down. I staggered more than Juliet did. More than anyone, since my superhumanly boosted friends of course had no trouble at all.

Ray gave the airlock’s rim a hard tug. Red Herring got the message, and closed the door. Unsteady or not, I rushed over to the monitor, pressed my hand to it, and gave a shove. “Get us away from here.”

The long tunnel that made up the Red Herring’s interior rippled. The asteroid and walls of the clinic slid out of view. I pushed harder, hoping the Red Herring understood I wanted some speed. It was hard to tell how fast we were going without anything in view but stars.

That ought to be enough. I turned us around. We were close enough I could still pick out which dot was the asteroid, but that was about it.

I took a deep breath, and let it out. “All in favor of annihilation?” I asked loudly.

“Aye,” Claire answered, just as emphatically.

“I vote Aye eleven times,” Ray joked, but his hard tone meant what he said.

Vera gave the three dings she made when she first saw the place.

“Oh. Wow!” Juliet said to, presumably, Harvey. She stared past me at the monitor.

“Does this ship have weapons?” Claire gave me a cautious look.

“No,” I answered. “Vera! You’re in communication with the Orb of the Heavens. Can you give it targeting information?”

Vera nodded, and let out a little chime.

I pointed at the little blob of the Red Panacea Clinic. “Teleport that asteroid into the sun.”

Ray’s eyes widened. It would work. I could see it in my head, the whole―

“Evasive maneuvers!” I yelled. Archimedes yowled. Thought was faster than speech, and the Red Herring curled up into a ball before the words got out.

A white flash blotted out the monitor, and the eyelid clenched shut. The Red Herring rippled and shook, not from impact, but from whatever it used to protect us from acceleration taking damage.

The shaking stopped. We still had light. We still had heat. We still had gravity.

My poor space fish. Was it okay? I wasn’t sure how to check.

“What just happened?” Claire’s voice fluttered up and down as she unclasped her hands from over her head.

Aaaaaand my cheeks suddenly burned. Feeling like the moron who just came within inches of getting us killed, I explained, “I opened up a tiny gate directly into the sun, sucking the asteroid into it with gravity thousands of times greater than anything we can imagine, but also momentarily exposing a plume of pure nuclear fusion.” My superpower hadn’t really explained that to me in detail, but I’d gotten the message. It did love showing me bombs going off. Not fast enough, this time.

Ray held his hands out to his sides, and asked slowly, “What kind of cancer risk are we talking?”

Oh, boy. I winced. “I think the Red Herring got badly burned, but absorbed most of it. That’s a guess. I don’t know.”

“Why?” Juliet suddenly asked. Then she nodded to an empty wall. “Oh, that makes sense. Harvey can answer that question. He says you can’t yet hear him directly.”

We all looked at her helplessly. Closing her human eyes, she turned her head, looking us over with one shiny red eye on the side of her skull. I felt a weird deja vu. She was doing what I’d just been doing with Archimedes.

Smiling widely, Juliet reported, “Everyone is safe. You both―” and she pointed at Ray and Claire, “―had spots of corruption, but something added to your body taught it to find those cells and eat them. You―” she indicated me, “―are wearing a radiation resistant suit.”

So, my jumpsuit blocked radiation after all. That was nice.

“If anyone ever tells you radiation can cure sickness, don’t listen to them,” Juliet added.

Ray grimaced. “That’s―science has figured that out since the clinic kidnapped you. How long were you there? I am Reviled, by the way. We are supervillains, but we moonlight hero work.”

“E-Claire,” Claire echoed.

I nodded my head. “Bad Penny.”

Juliet let out a sigh, and sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. “I don’t know. Harvey took away my memories to protect me, and I don’t want them back.”

Yup. Woulda said the same thing myself.

Ray took a step forward, peering down at Juliet, and exclaimed, “Watch out. You’re sticking to the floor!”

He started to reach for her, but she shook her head. One hand pulled up with a sound like ripping off duct tape, and she waved him away. “It’s fine. I quite like it.” The ship uncurled and wagged its back end. Juliet giggled. “I feel like I am the ship. It’s alive, and I believe smarter than me, but it can’t think for itself. Does that make sense?”

Ray hooked his thumbs into his belt, and we all stared at her. He answered first with an amicable shrug. “It does, indeed. As long as you are okay.”

“Oh, I am.” Juliet’s smile widened. “I believe I can tell it to heal itself. I shall try. Do let me know if I do anything wrong, please, Harvey?”

She leaned her head against the wall, and sure enough, some of the red chitin latched onto her horns.

I shrugged, too. I guess I had to let her get on with it.

Anyway, I had another responsibility. “Can you send a message to Spider through the Orb of the Heavens, Vera?”

Vera nodded, watching me attentively.

I cleared my throat and tried to organize my thoughts. “Spider, this is the Inscrutable Machine. We are still in the asteroid belt, and the explosion that just happened may be visible from Earth. Be careful out here. We’ve seen signs that someone fought a war in the asteroid belt, and then disappeared. Further, anything unusual found out here is bad news, with high risk of biological contamination. Stick to bare rocks. It is not worth the risk. Finally, I have accidentally tested the Orb of the Heavens’ weapon capability. It does not have a setting below ‘wipe out all life on Earth’, which I know you’re not crazy enough to do. The Inscrutable Machine has had enough of the asteroid belt and is heading to Jupiter. End message.”

Vera dinged, which hopefully meant she’d finished transmitting. I let out a sigh. “Hopefully. If the Red Herring still works. I don’t want to take Juliet back to Spider.”

Claire reached one hand back to toy with her ponytail thoughtfully. “Mourning Dove might help her? I’ll think of someone by the time we head home. You get us moving.”

I prepared to do just that. Turning around, I gave the big eyeball monitor a worried look. With the lid closed, I saw no damage, but something was missing. The penny I’d used to activate the Red Herring had fallen out.

Picking the penny off the floor, I pressed it back into the slot. It didn’t stick. It had run out of juice? Well, maybe I didn’t need it now. I gave the eyelid a tentative push.

“Hmmm? Please, allow me!” Juliet called out behind me.

The eyelid opened, and the domed monitor showed a starscape once more. I laid my hand against its smooth, slightly squishy surface and moved around. The Red Herring turned obediently, until I saw a definitively bigger dot among the stars.

Pressing it hard, I instructed, “Full speed for Jupiter, and give me a distance reading.”

The numbers were already counting down, and spun faster as I watched. The Red Herring still worked. We were on our way!

And missing Geometry class, I noted with considerable satisfaction.