A Stranger Thing (The Ever-Expanding Universe) (25 page)

Marsden, you mother
fucker
.

“Okay, so . . . ,” I say as the Devastator bares its creepy teeth once more, in what I can only imagine passes for an evil grin in Devastator Town.

“Bok Choy?” I ask my naked little buddy, setting the kid’s feet down firmly on the ground. “You want to learn a new word?”

“Bok choy?”

“Run!”

I take off down the hallway, grasping Bok Choy by the arm. Thankfully, he seems to have no problem following me. Our only hope is if the north stairwell is still passable. Even if it is, it’s all the way at the far end of the deck. And I don’t know if we can outrun this monster.

The Devastator starts galloping after us, and I seriously
wish I did
not
turn around to look, because as he runs, his two strong middle arms come down to the ground and serve as a
second set of legs
, allowing him to move at tremendous speed. We’ve got a decent head start, but the stairwell is so far away. We are, to put it bluntly, screwed.

And then the whole ship rocks, sending us careening into the wall.

What was that? The ice breaking? One of Marsden’s explosions?

No time to think. The shock has caused the Devastator to slip and fall, giving us a momentary break as he scrambles to right himself. With a burst of speed I didn’t know I had, I make it to the north stairwell and exit the hallway. Bok Choy sprints along easily beside me, seeming to enjoy this game of chase quite a bit.

As soon as we enter the stairwell, however, I discover that the stairs on this level and all those below have completely collapsed. I skate right off the edge and am a hair’s breadth away from falling to my doom, but I just manage to reach out and catch the edge of the last stair above my head and hang on by my fingertips, dangling over a two-hundred-meter drop.

Bok Choy deftly leaps over me and lands high up on the stairs right above me. He bends down and grabs my wrists.

“Careful!” I shout, knowing that he can’t understand me. Fortunately, he
does
seem to understand that
GIANT FLIPPING HOLES = BAD
. Even more fortunately, these Jin’Kai fellows apparently gain their strength at a very young age. With minimal effort the little bugger pulls me up onto the stair, saving my life.

At least for the moment.

The Devastator crashes through the doorway, and Bok Choy and I book it up the stairs in the only direction we can go. The ship is starting to shift and turn. It
is
sinking. Why now, I don’t know, but the way it’s pitching means that the stairs are starting to level out straight, so that climbing them is like running across a ridged floor. It also means the next flight is practically pointed straight up. Impassable.

“Looks like this is our floor!” I shout as we make a run for the door.

We’re on one of the old entertaining decks, which was left abandoned when the ship was turned into the Hanover School. It’s mostly halls of shops and gimmicky restaurants, creating the feel of a chintzy shopping mall. The floor slants steeply downward, too steep to go in any other direction. We skim down the hallway with the Devastator still in pursuit.

Past all the empty store stalls at the end of the hallway lies the battered remains of an ornate set of swinging doors, one of which hangs loosely from its hinges while the other has broken away completely. It’s the old ballroom. I’ve only been in there once, when the Hanover faculty thought the girls might enjoy a salsa dancing program in lieu of our normal aerobics regimen. That lasted about half an hour before it became clear that when both dance partners are sporting big old pregnant bellies, it’s hard to successfully pull off a full dip.

I forgot how enormous the parquet ballroom floor was. It’s easily half the size of a soccer field. Currently it’s scattered with debris—overturned chairs and tables, fallen chandeliers, and assorted bits of caved-in ceiling. There are huge rows of aluminum windows on this level, so that dancers back in the day got
a good look at the stars while they tangoed and waltzed. The sun is streaming in, and as my eyes adjust to the sudden brightness, I can see the ice rotate as the ship continues to move. We are very clearly sinking under the surface. Very soon this ship is going to bite it, and it looks like it’s going to take every bit of ingenuity I have to get out alive.

Gee, I could’ve sworn I’ve been here before.

Again, Bok Choy and I have no choice but to follow the slope of the room. Judging by the view out the windows, however, a maneuver like that is going to put us below sea level, and I don’t know how we’re going to make it back out. But I guess we’ll just have to cross that ice bridge when we come to it.

A deafening roar behind us clues us in that the Devastator has discovered our whereabouts. I spin around quick and watch as the behemoth barrels into the room, bringing the remaining door off its hinge. The Devastator stands up on just his hind legs and reaches behind his back with his middle two limbs. When he pulls them around again, he is wielding two enormous blades—straight along the back, rounded at the bottom, and running to a sharp point. Each blade is about the size of Bok Choy.

Nice craftsmanship, though.

The Devastator moves toward us, brandishing his weapons, just as the ship is suddenly jolted again. And then again. Two big blasts, one after another. The first blast shatters the windows along the side of the room. The second sends the ship lurching once more, and in a move so serendipitous it seems preposterous, a chandelier that was still hanging from the ceiling breaks free and crashes down right on top of our
would-be assailant, covering him completely in rubble.

“Bok Choy,” I say, “I’m starting to think that someone up there likes me.”

“Bok choy,”
Bok Choy replies. He’s kind of a one-note conversationalist.

I turn back around, and my stomach drops. Water is pouring into the ballroom at the far end, and more is sure to follow as the ship continues its vertical realignment.

“We have to get out of here,” I tell my cabbage-obsessed friend. We start back toward the door we came in . . .

And the chandelier lying in front of us flies up into the air. Underneath, the Devastator rears up, fanning his arms out and leaning toward us, gnashing and flexing his grotesque teeth.

The ship bucks sharply and we
sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide
down the steep incline to the side of the room that is rapidly filling with water. The Devastator loses purchase on the ground again (guess those big honking claw feet weren’t built for smooth, slick surfaces) and rolls along with us. Just as suddenly, the ship lurches back down horizontally, shuddering with intense force as the aft section slams into the ice. When I manage to lift myself to my feet once more, I find myself standing ankle-deep in the water—which is rising rapidly.

While Bok Choy squats easily in the water behind me, I wince at the icy pain in my feet, looking around for anything I can use to defend myself. But even if there was something nearby, it probably wouldn’t do much good against . . .

Against a monster who has stopped just a few meters from us, and looks . . .
nervous
.

The water, I realize. The cold.

They have very durable exoskeletons,
Marsden said,
but no internal mechanisms to generate sufficient body heat to survive the climate here.

I turn to look at the water. At the point where the windows meet sea level, the force of the incoming stream is severe. Past that, it shouldn’t be too bad. Weak enough for us to swim out, at least. To where, I’m not sure.

But anywhere is better than here.

I turn to Bok Choy and make an exaggerated, cartoony gesture of holding my breath. He cocks his head but very quickly mimics the gesture. The Devastator catches on too, roaring again and pitching forward with blades extended. Before the blades can find their intended target (i.e., my head), I dive under the surface, clutching Bok Choy by the wrist. Right off the bat the blast of water coming in feels like the strongest undertow ever, pushing us sideways away from the windows. I swim forward at an angle, letting the push guide me deeper into the well, until we’re past the worst of it. The razor-blade pain of being underwater has subsided, but it’s too fast a shift to mean I’ve adapted. More likely I’m going into shock. I make a conscious effort not to pass out (
always
works), and head for the broken window port that leads outside. Beside me, Bok Choy does an impressive breaststroke, even with my grip on his arm. And as we swim, it becomes evident that he’s guiding us even more than I am. Seems this kid is a bit of a water baby.

I don’t look behind us as we push forward. There’s no point. If the Devastator is there, we’re dead. If he’s not, I’m most likely dead anyway. So why risk having the last thing I ever see be that douchebag’s ugly puss?

We swim through the window and immediately push upward. There is a strong pull on us from behind as the
Echidna
continues to sink, slowing our ascent. We’re only a few meters from the surface, but it seems like we’re swimming in place. My lungs feel ready to burst, and I’m starting to see spots in my vision. After several moments the ship is completely submerged and well below us. There is a swell underneath us as the ocean swoops in to fill the space, and we get pushed upward and break through to the surface. I inhale deeply—sharp, painful air filling my chest. Blinking the icy water from my eyes, I spot a large, seemingly steady ice floe and swim for it. Bok Choy races ahead and climbs on top, pulling me up after him.

“Bok choy,”
he says sympathetically, and rubs my face with both his hands.

“You said it, buddy,” I tell him. My whole body is quivering. Those weirdos in the Polar Bear Club are friggin
nuts
.

I push myself up onto my hands and knees and look around. There’s nothing to see on the horizon, just ice and water. No sign of Dad, Mom, Cole, or Marsden. I do my best to concoct a scenario in which they might still be all right, but the odds are looking slim.

My reverie is broken by the rudest (and, seriously,
still
not dead?) Devastator to ever live, when he shoots out of the water and lands on the edge of our ice floe.

“Oh, for the love of God!” I scream. “How come no one around here just has the good grace to die?”

The creature roars, but it’s a far weaker cry than his previous attempts. I also note that he’s moving quite slowly as
he approaches us. Creaky, like a
geriatric
alien monster. The cold really must be screwing with his system. Sadly, though, it’s not screwing it up quickly enough to save us. I back away to the edge of the floe, the Devastator slowly dragging himself toward us, still brandishing one of his two swords. I glance around desperately. I honestly don’t know how much more of being submerged in that water I can take. My head is soaked and numb. The ice around us is completely broken up in the wake of the
Echidna
’s sinking, and there are no ice floes close enough to move to. Actually, looking at them, it appears that what few ice floes were relatively nearby seem to be moving away from us.

No, those floes aren’t moving.

We
are.

The ice floe on which we currently find ourselves perched is actually slicing through the water with surprising speed, away from any other solid ice, as if it were being steered. The Devastator seems to have noted this too, and turns from us to look over the side. I look around as well, and after a few moments I realize where we’re getting our propulsion from. A series of water spouts shoot into the air at the edge of the floe.

And you know the old saying: where there’s water spouts, there’s a group of killer whales who have been tracking you for days, trying to eat you.

There they are—four snouts just below the water to our left, pushing the ice floe out into no-man’s-land. I grab Bok Choy’s hand and run to the other side of the floe. The Devastator decides to take a more proactive approach—he lunges at
the whales, slashing the water with his blade. And I guess that tactic was a pretty good one, because in a matter of seconds the water turns red and the whales disappear.

Which is awesome news and all, but I’m not exactly ready to throw a celebratory party, since there’s still a
frigging monster with flexible teeth
standing right in front of me.

The Devastator turns his attention back to us, the matter at hand. However, he must not be as good a whaler as he thought, because suddenly I spot, behind him in the water, four dorsal fins, heading right for us. I try to think back to every Nature Channel special Ducky’s ever made me watch, searching the recesses of my brain for some tidbit of useful information. Unfortunately, there’s not much time, because the whales are going to be on us in a matter of seconds. The only thing that springs to mind is a vague sense that we should not stay on the edge. But I don’t want to get too close to Toothy McTootherson, either. I decide to split the difference and take three steps toward the Devastator. He opens his jaws wide and winds up with his blade to make a—excuse the pun—
devastating
downward cut.

That’s when the whales, swimming at full force, suddenly dive, right before hitting the ice. The result is a mini–tidal wave that sweeps across the top of the floe and sends all three of us sprawling. The Devastator loses the grip on his sword as his stroke meets the ice and slides backward to the very edge of the floe. His blade remains wedged in the ice.

They’re trying to flush us off, I realize. They’re trying to force us into the water.

I see the whales now, repositioned and speeding in our
direction again at full tilt. I grab Bok Choy’s arm and start running
toward
the Devastator and the whales. The Devastator, now panicked, has the opposite idea, and passes us as he tries to run to the far side. He takes a vicious swipe at us, but I drop to my knees and lean back so that my head is practically on the ice, sliding past the alien warrior and toward the native Earthborn killing machines. As I slide by, I grab hold of the blade stuck in the ice, jolting me to a stop. Bok Choy’s momentum takes him past me, and there’s a wrenching tug on my arm as I stop him from sliding completely into the water.