A Toaster on Mars (15 page)

‘You're welcome, partner,' Woodsman Elvis said. ‘And you've shown us a way out too.' They shook hands. ‘Thank you—thank you very much.'

The king quietened the crowd as Nicki climbed onto a high rock to speak. The numbers had swelled in the last few minutes and there were now tens of thousands of Elvises spread all the way into town and onto the beach. Blake felt unnerved seeing so many versions of the same face.

‘We are going to need a High C!' Nicki yelled to those who could hear her. ‘And you need to sustain it for as long as possible!'

The instruction spread through the crowd like a wave.

Nicki climbed down from the rock and the king took her place.

‘We're going to send our guests off in style,' he said, raising an arm. ‘You heard the lady. High C for as long as we can hold it. On a count of three. One…two…'

He dropped his arm.

‘Three!'

‘Ahhhhhhhhh!'

The wall of sound struck Blake. He peered over the edge of the cliff. Nothing was happening. Nicki signalled to the king to increase the volume—and within seconds the sound grew deafening.

Gripping Blake's arm, Nicki pointed at a spot fifty feet below where a swirling mist had begun to form. A black line appeared in the middle.

‘It's working!' Blake shouted. He nodded encouragement to the king and the sound grew even louder.

The hole widened. Grabbing Astrid and Nicki, Blake led them to the edge. If they missed the hole, they would plummet to their deaths. Blake swallowed the lump in his throat.

How do I get into these situations?

Taking a deep breath, he prepared to jump. Then, remembering some unfinished business, he turned back to Woodsman Elvis.

‘
It's now or never!
' Blake cried. ‘Get it?
It's now or never!
'

They jumped.

22

‘Here's your chicken,' Badde said peevishly. ‘The Game Prism's on order. It won't arrive till Friday.'

Lisa sighed. ‘I suppose that'll have to do.'

A whole day had passed and Lisa was starving. She had even begun to wonder if Badde had abandoned her. She ate three pieces of chicken without looking up once. Finally, chewing on a drumstick, she noticed Badde staring at her through the bars.

‘Do you want some?' she offered. ‘There's plenty.'

‘No, thanks,' Badde said. ‘I'm trying to watch my weight. Evil geniuses always have to look their best.'

‘For when you get caught?'

‘I won't get caught. Nobody knows my real name or what I look like.'

‘Bartholomew Badde isn't your real name?'

‘I'm afraid not. I needed something catchy, something that would roll off the tongue, something that would resonate with the newsreaders, and my real name wasn't it.'

Lisa took a sip of Hypergo. ‘So what's happening in the outside world?'

‘The usual. Delgar Five won the Interleague Baseball Pennant. The president of Rastarus has resigned due to corruption charges.'

‘So nothing's changed.'

‘Not really,' he agreed. ‘There's one odd story, though—a fifty-foot cheese sandwich is rampaging through the lower east side of Neo City.'

‘No kidding?' Lisa's eyes angled to the single window. It looked like it was getting dark out there. ‘Only in Neo City.'

An agreeable silence played out between them. Badde had seemed like a badass in the beginning when he made her watch the
Brady Bunch
episodes, but now he seemed almost companionable.

‘You could always let me go,' Lisa said.

‘I could, but I won't. You're a very small but important cog in my plans to destroy the human race. While my actions have resulted in terrible destruction over the years, I've never actually caused the ruination of an entire planet. Can you imagine how I'll be remembered?'

‘As a fruitcake?'

He ignored her. ‘When I'm done, they will speak about Earth in glowing terms: of the rise of life here, the evolution of the human species, the development of civilisation, and then—
kapow
!'

‘
Kapow?
'

‘The end of the world.' Badde sniffed. ‘Doesn't happen every day.'

Lisa frowned. ‘Why do you do such awful things?'

‘It's a long and involved story,' Badde said, not meeting her eye now. ‘I'm just made that way.'

‘That's a load of sprot! You can choose to be whoever you want!'

Oh God
, Lisa thought.
I sound just like my mother!

‘You don't have to be an evil villain,' she continued. ‘What if you used your superpowers for good rather than evil?'

‘I don't have any superpowers.'

‘You know what I mean,' Lisa said. ‘What made you become a villain?'

‘A terrible childhood. I was beaten and made to eat rats for dinner.'

‘Really?'

‘No, I just like being evil.'

Badde seemed ready to keep talking, but then he froze. For a full five seconds he stared blankly into space, as if listening to some inner voice. Finally he broke out of it and glared at her.

‘I don't have to answer your questions,' he said. ‘You're the hostage and I'm the, er, hostage-taker.'

‘I was only trying—'

He strode to the door. ‘We shouldn't become too friendly.'

‘Why?'

‘If your father doesn't retrieve Maria for me, I'll be forced to hurt you,' he said. ‘Badly.' He paused. ‘No pun intended.'

After he had left, Lisa sat in the silent cell, a cold piece of chicken in her hand.

Oh dear
, she thought.
This might get really grim. He might even have episodes of
Gungler's Planet.

I've got to get out of here
, Lisa thought.

Discarding the chicken, she began searching her cell for a way out. It didn't take long. The floor was concrete. Building materials had come a long way, but good old-fashioned concrete just seemed to stick around. Using her fingernails, she could probably scratch a tunnel through in about a century.

The ceiling looked the same, but she shinnied up the bars and checked the roof anyway.
Sprot!
She tried shaking the bars. They didn't budge. Unless she grew metal teeth, there was no way to get through.

This left only the back wall.

Lisa tapped the wall. Surprisingly, it sounded hollow. She glanced back towards the door. Hiding an enormous hole wouldn't be easy. Shame she didn't have a painting to hang over it. If only there was a way for it not to be seen…

Peering under the bed, she realised there was enough room for her to slide under. Each time Badde had come to her cell, she had heard his footsteps echoing down
the corridor. It took the best part of thirty seconds. That would be long enough to jump back onto the bed and start filing her nails or humming a happy tune.

Badde had given her a knife and fork for the chicken. For an evil genius, he wasn't very bright. She retrieved these and started to scrape at the wall with the knife. Like most things these days, the wall was made from plastic. It only took a minute to make a coin-sized hole. Half an hour later, it was the size of her head.

But it was starting to get dark.
Sprot.
She needed light. Badde had taken her wristcomm, but at least she still had her hairclip. It had a built-in light and a music player.

She flicked a switch, and it started to flash blue and white.
Great.
She poked the hairclip through the gap and saw another barrier made of the same plastic.

Here goes…

She dug at the second wall with the knife. After several minutes, she managed to poke her fist through.

Yes!

Cold air flowed across her fingers.

A sound came from behind.
Footsteps!

Scrambling out from under the bed, Lisa threw herself onto the mattress and started humming.

Badde came to the door, carrying a bag.

‘Everything okay?' he asked.

‘Fine,' she said, frowning. ‘Why?'

‘No reason.' He eyed her suspiciously. ‘What's that in your hand?'

‘Oh, this?' She was still holding the hairclip. At least the light was off. ‘Just a little thing I use to keep my hair under control.' She gathered her hair up into a bun. ‘What do you think looks best? Up? Or down?'

‘I have absolutely no idea,' Badde hissed. ‘I'm an evil genius, not a hairdresser! Anyway, I just wanted to drop something off.'

He passed the bag through the bars.

‘More Hypergo!' Lisa said. ‘Thanks.'

‘Enjoy it while you can,' Badde said. ‘Time's running out.'

23

Blake Carter was confused.

After falling through the inter-dimensional gap in Elvisworld, he'd expected simply to leap back into the general vicinity of GADO. Instead he found himself falling down an endless black tunnel—and was now somehow looking at the back of his own head.

I'm getting a bald spot
, he thought.
I should do something about that.

Blinking, he realised he was looking at a version of himself who was looking at the back of another Blake Carter who was, in turn, looking at the one before him… His fall was being repeated ad infinitum.

It was very strange.

‘What's going on?' infinite numbers of himself asked.

Suddenly Nicki's disembodied head floated past. ‘It looks like there's an irregularity of the inter-dimensional rift,' she explained. ‘Like a piece of food stuck in your throat.'

‘This is odd.' Astrid's voice seemed to come from nowhere.

Blake looked down and realised that Astrid was floating through his torso.

‘What the hell are you doing?' he demanded.

‘I can't help it. And since when did you start wearing boxer shorts?'

‘Mind your own business.'

He hoped his underwear was clean. Looking down the tunnel, he saw a pinpoint of light, growing larger every second. At its centre was a man sitting at a very untidy desk. Trays of paper on both sides of the desk were overflowing. He had a map of the Earth pinned to the wall behind him.

The man looked like a dishevelled poodle. His white hair and beard lurched in all directions as if it hadn't seen a comb in twenty years. On the desk before him were piles of paper two feet high. This man, completely unaware of what was heading towards him, was in fact Colonel Walter Lichenstein. He was in charge of the western security division of GADO.

Some at GADO said that the colonel was past it, but they never said it loudly. Those who voiced such opinions usually found themselves guarding ice in Siberia
or manning a station on Pluto, courtesy of Walter's brother-in-law, Sam Feldspar, GADO's director.

Those who knew Walter well sometimes tactfully suggested to him that he might be happier playing golf at the Silver Links course on Risa Three, or holidaying with a blue-rinsed companion on the beaches of Palamarus.

He was, after all, 107 years old.

Walter Lichenstein ignored such advice. That would have been a dereliction of duty, and Walter was nothing if not a dedicated soldier. He could trace his heritage back to the time of Nelson. A cousin, many times removed, had fought and died bravely at the Battle of Trafalgar.

As far as Lichenstein was concerned, good soldiers did not leave their post. He turned up for work every day at 8am without fail, drank a cup of Siberian tea, ate a piece of reconstituted bread (no butter) and proceeded to issue orders for the day to the multitude of subordinates operating in his section.

He would have been most surprised to learn that few of those orders were ever followed. ‘Shoot everyone with blue eyes' or ‘Hand me a pair of boxer shorts—I'm
feeling hungry' or ‘Let's declare war on Germany! I don't like their sausages!' were, wisely, ignored.

His life in the military had taken him to strange places where he had seen strange things and done strange things. So he was not too worried when, peering over a pile of paperwork, he saw three people flying down an inter-dimensional tunnel towards him.

They crashed into his desk, sent papers flying and knocked over a filing cabinet.

‘New recruits, eh what?' Colonel Lichenstein snapped.

‘Pardon?' Blake said, as they scrambled to their feet.

‘New recruits? First day on the job, eh?'

‘Yes,' Blake said, looking sideways at Nicki and Astrid. ‘Absolutely.'

‘Names!'

‘Smith,' Blake said.