Frek and the Elixir (55 page)

Suddenly something wriggled out of the puffball's flesh—a stubby grub-worm, pointed at one end—a space bug! The creature beat its three little wings to gain a few meters of altitude, then ignited the rear of its body, careless about scorching the puffball's crust. It rocketed straight toward Xondra's lifter beetle.

Before Frek had fully registered the danger, Gibby had shoved him and Renata out of the beetle. At the same time Xondra swung the beetle into a desperate futile evasive loop and Gibby—Gibby didn't get out in time.

The fireball flared up as Frek and Renata thumped down onto the doughy top of the puffball. Frek's ankle crunched, he fell flat. He could feel the broken bones rubbing against each other. Straining though the haze of pain, he craned his head, staring up into the smoke and flame. Something dark and writhing spun down and thudded onto the puffball a few meters off.

“Gibby!” wailed Renata. She'd landed well; she was still on her feet. She helped Frek crawl to his friend.

Gibby's tail was charred black, and one of his leg-arms was burnt down to a stub. Yet his other hand was still clutching his knife. “Always knew I'd never make it home,” muttered the Grulloo. Blood oozed from his blackened lips.

“We can patch you up, Gibby,” said Frek, wildly looking around. The haloed counselors' lifter beetles were touching down all over the top of the puffball. “Somebody help!” cried Frek. “He's hurt!”

“Frek,” said Gibby, fixing him with his eyes, seeing him one last time. “Look out for little Bili, will you? He'll take this mighty hard.” And then, just like that, he died.

Frek put his face in his hands, wanting to weep, but not yet able to. Gibby dead? It didn't make sense. Someone jolted him, sending a fire of agony up through his leg.

“Where we find Gov?” It was PhiPhi, hunkering down to wrap a strip of foamskin around Frek's ankle. The foamskin was covered with prickles that bore a numbing agent. It tightened itself around Frek's ankle to form a cast.

“We'll finish him off, Frek,” said Renata. “Just show us where.”

Gibby's remains lay inert at Frek's side. Still on his knees, Frek straightened out the twisted little body, arranged the worn suede jacket. Only half of Gibby's coat had been burned; the other half was the same rough reddish leather as before. Frek pushed down the eyelids of the Grulloo's staring eyes and took the knife from his stiffening hand.

“Over there,” said Frek, looking up at Renata. His voice was weak and cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again. “About twenty meters.” He pointed the way with Gibby's knife. “You should be able to cut through to a shaft there.” PhiPhi started forward. Frek wanted to follow, but even with the foamskin, he still couldn't stand.

“We'll get him, Frek,” said Renata, glancing back at him. She was holding a machete and an electric eel. For once her turkle was neglected, dangling from her waist. “Let's go, PhiPhi!”

Working fast, Renata and the counselors cut away a patch of the puffball's roof and found the shaft. Renata was the first one down into it, slashing footholds and handholds in the mushroom flesh of the walls. The counselors were quick to follow. Moving as fast as he could, Frek crawled over to stare down after them.

“Five meters from the top,” he called, remembering just where they'd found Gov before. “It's, like, the second highest floor. In a hidden room toward the outside of the puffball.”

“Here he is,” sang Renata, sweeping her machete to cut open a flap of fungus. A familiar stench wafted up. Frek saw the twitching gray coils of the immense worm. The counselors pressed around the opening, their electric eels crackling, their knives and machetes chopping away.

The worm's head appeared; he bared his feeble fangs. His dull gray eyes picked out Frek's silhouette at the top of the shaft.

“You'll regret this,” hissed the round wet mouth. “It's me who's kept you people going. You'll live like savages.”

“Finish him,” said Frek, feeling a sense of déjà vu. But this time would be different. This time they'd wipe out all Gov's clones.

With a single blow of her machete, Renata severed the erstwhile ruler's head. It tumbled down the shaft, bouncing from wall to wall.

Frek heard a slithering noise behind him on the puffball roof. It was a pair of space bugs. One of them had a person inside it—Yessica! Her pale unfriendly face was faintly visible through the creature's skin. The space bug righted itself, flapped into the air and blasted off, shooting high up into the sky.

But the other space bug wasn't leaving. It was writhing around to aim itself toward the crowd in the puffball square.

The foamskin had finally taken effect to the point where Frek could walk. Or maybe he was just too excited to feel the pain. Moving fast, he stumped over to the space bug and, using Gibby's knife, lopped off its three wings. The hapless kritter twitched; volatile yellow juice oozed from its wounds. Frek ended the creature's struggles with a stab of his knife to its brain. He dragged the space bug across the surface toward the shaft, pausing on the way by Gibby's body. There was still a matchbud in the red suede coat's intact pocket.

Meanwhile Renata and the counselors had emerged from the shaft. “Everyone in the lifter beetles!” called Frek. “Who's gonna take Renata and me?”

“I will,” said a dark-skinned counselor named Trina.

“Get Gibby!” Frek told Renata. “Please bring Gibby, too.”

Frek balanced the dead space bug at the edge of the open puffball shaft. He used Gibby's matchbud to fire up the space bug, then tipped it in. The flaming creature pinwheeled around, spewing fire in every direction and then, just as Frek had hoped, its head lodged in the chamber where Gov had lived. The steady blast of its rocket torch played across the opposite wall of the shaft, cutting deeper and deeper into the puffball's flesh.

“We're outa here!” yelled Frek, finally getting into Trina's beetle beside Renata and poor dead Gibby.

As Trina's beetle lifted them up, the space bug's torch found the bodies of the other space bugs hidden within the giant mushroom. And now, as the sun sank toward the horizon, the pale toroidal building began going off like a fireworks display. The puffball collapsed in upon itself, becoming an out-of-control inferno. Down at ground level a few last people were straggling out. The counselors closed in on them, coaxing the ooeys out of their heads.

“Where's my mother?” cried Renata. “Don't hurt Mom!”

“I saw her leave,” said Frek. “I didn't get a chance to tell you before. A space bug blasted off with her. I think maybe it was taking her back to Sick Hindu.”

“I'm alone,” said Renata, laughing and crying at the same time, one hand stroking Gibby's bloody cheek. The best friend Frek had ever known.

Frek put his arm around Renata's shoulders. Gov's backup clones were crawling out of the blazing puffball. The Nubbies handily crushed them, not missing a one. Word spread that all the other puffballs had been wiped out as well.

The Govs were gone for good.

“Wake up, Frek.” It was Lora. “You have a lot to do today.” She gave Frek's foot a cheerful shake. “I just fed the angelwings.”

Geneva poked her head in Frek's door. “Time to go see your girlfriend,” she cooed.

“Nosy pig,” muttered Frek, not bothering to look at her.

“I saw a real pig yesterday,” said Lora. “One of my music students lives outside of town on a little farm with all the old kinds of animals. I taught her how to use her trumpet to imitate a honking goose.”

“Did the farm stink?” asked Geneva.

“You get used to it,” said Lora. “Where there's filth, there's life, hey? Just like our house. The farm's by the river, Frek, a kilometer out of town. You'll fly right over it on your way to Stun City.”

“Renata has a goggy crush on Roarboy,” sang Geneva. Even though she'd been parroting this line for a whole year now, it still made Frek mad. He jumped out of bed and ran toward his sister, meaning to give her a thump in the ribs, but Geneva was too fast for him. She darted through the hall and disappeared down the stairs with a shriek and a giggle.

The sound of the Goob Dolls show came from below. It was another weekend morning in the Huggins home, Sunday, May 20, 3004.

“You and Renata are going to fly from Stun City to the Grulloo Woods, right?” said Lora, wanting to go over the day's plans.

“Yeah,” said Frek. “It's a year today since Gibby died. Bili's been building some kind of monument by his grave. I promised we'd visit.”

“Try to get home for supper,” said Mom. “Linz Martinez will be here. He's his old self again with his halo gone. With that halo on, all he ever wanted to do was pick fights, go flying, and watch cartoons.”

“I'll be home before dark,” said Frek, thinking of Okky. “Let me get dressed now, Mom.”

“Later, alligator,” said Lora, and went downstairs with the girls.

Frek's room was a mess, as usual. He was relieved that Mom hadn't started in on that old topic. All in all, she'd been nagging him less since his big adventure. Restoring the whole planet's biome—that had to count for something. Be that as it may, Frek was still going to school and still bringing home glypher slugs that wanted to crawl on the walls and show junk for Mom to worry about.

The floor was littered with the glyphers, with toys, board games, and clothes. There were hundreds of urlbuds lying around as well, many of them for toon games. Even though Frek's family treated him with no great respect, many citizens were grateful to Frek for what he'd done, and hardly a day went by without a gift package arriving at the Huggins home.

Not that everyone was happy. The people being run by Orpolese espers didn't have a very good life. The Orpolese got bored easily, and made their pawns take all kinds of risks: starting fistfights with strangers, winging their way to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, sleeplessly watching toons for days on end, clambering unprotected on rocky cliffs, dueling with guns and swords, diving to the sea floor for overlong periods of time, eating things that weren't really food, exploring volcanoes, and so on.

Frek felt bad about the way things had worked out. The only bright spot was that fewer and fewer people were being controlled by Orpolese. It seemed the espers were losing interest in the Humanity Channel Game.

In any case, many parts of life were still normal. The Orpolese loved toons, and they left the toonsmiths alone, for instance. Frek had been consulting off and on with Deanna the toonsmith all winter, learning the biz from the ground up. What a waste of time it was to still be in school.

Lucky Renata was actually living with Deanna. Though Frek and Renata remained close friends, having Renata live at Frek's house had quickly come to seem like too much. Fortunately, once Deanna got a load of Renata's turkle drawing skills, she was willing to take on Renata as an apprentice.

Frek rooted out a reasonably clean shirt and then, just to get the day started, he stuck the Skull Farmer urlbud to the wall. Gypsy Joker, Strummer, and Soul Soldier appeared.

“He give us the slip agin,” said Gypsy Joker, his dice swinging from the nail in the side of his skull. His goggy red eyes flickered. “We comin' closer to nabbin' him ever' time.”

Gypsy Joker was referring to Magic Pig. For the last few months Frek and his sisters had been seeing the Magic Pig in the toons, and Mom saw him once, too. Frek had asked Mom if the Pig looked familiar, but she denied having seen the Magic Pig in a dream all those years ago. She said that was just a silly story Carb liked to tell, and that, duh, the main thing that had happened that night was Frek getting born.

But Frek knew the Magic Pig was real. He wanted to ask the Pig how Dad was doing, and if there were some way that he could be saved. He also hoped for some suggestions about getting rid of all the espers.

Strummer twitched his bony fingers against the neck of his guitar and sang.

“Wheenk, wheenk, wheenk, all the way home,” rumbled Soul Soldier, nodding his black-burnt skull. “Seems like there might could be a way to follow him, Frek. Them Hub critters in the Planck brane ain't so different from us toons. We're all virtual realities, you know what I'm sayin'? Livin' ideas.”

“Glatt concept,” said Frek, pulling on his shirt. It was surprising how intelligent the toons were. You never knew what new notions they'd come up with, eternally evolving themselves into new levels of complexity. “I can't really talk now,” he continued. “I just wanted to say hi. I'm flying to Stun City and the Grulloo Woods.”

“Aloha later, Frekazoid,” said Gypsy Joker. He made a mystic pass with his skeletal right hand. The images of the Skull Farmers dwindled to a tiny disk that heeled over to one side and sped off into the furthest recesses of the space sketched upon Frek's wall skin.

Some crows outside Frek's window caught his attention. Three of them were cawing in the anyfruit tree, as personable and lively, in their own way, as the Skull Farmers. Frek leaned out to look things over. It was a nice day, in fact this had been the nicest spring Frek had ever seen. Violets peeked out from the lush grass and clover. Daffodils swayed in the breeze. The dark earth of mole hills marked the lawn. A robin was hopping about, pecking for worms. Higher in the air fluttered an orange butterfly with black patterns on its wings. If only the people of Earth could live as freely as the animals.

Here came Woo trotting across the yard from the old counselor hut—now the dog house—trailed by her three new puppies, the little dogs trying to catch up with her and fasten onto her milky dugs.

“Hi, Woo,” called Frek, hopping from foot to foot as he put on his socks.

“Frek,” squeaked Woo, then turned to nip an overbold puppy. Wow came into view, and the puppies went for their father. Playfully he rolled over on his back, yapping and wrestling with them. A rabbit bolted from his cover in a particularly high clump of clover, and Woo took off after him.

“Frek,” hollered Ida from downstairs. “I see the Magic Pig.”

Frek slipped on his shoes and ran to join his sisters.

The wall skin was tuned to the Goob Doll Home, with the imaginary pastel walls and cartoon furniture artfully arranged like an extension of the Huggins family room. Goob Doll Judy was pointing toward her curlicued front door, her hazel eyes big with excitement. Goob Dolls Tawni and LingLing beckoned to the Huggins children, LingLing in her glasses, Tawni with her bun.

“Go ahead,” said Ida. “Get him.” The Goob Dolls exited their house, with red, yellow, and blue pixie dust sparkling in their wake. The wall skins showed a rapidly scrolling street scene, with toon trees and toon houses on both sides. At the far end of the street was a bouncing pink ball with two ears and a curly tail.

“Faster!” urged Frek. “Let's finally make him talk!”

Goob Doll Judy windmilled her long arms and legs, bringing the pink dot of the pig closer. And then all at once she'd cornered him at the end of a brick-walled alley amid garbage cans with buzzing flies tracing curves in the air. The Magic Pig squatted beside a fish skeleton, glaring at them.

His gold aura was, if anything, larger than before. Plenty of wham. The economical curves of his body fit in well with the world of toons. The white bristles on his snout and the web of wrinkles around his eyes showed it was the same Rundy as before.

“Talk to me,” said Frek. “Tell me about Carb. Tell me how to get rid of the Orpolese.”

“Wheenk,”
said the Magic Pig, a mocking look in his eyes. “Wheenk, wheenk, wheenk.” He struck one of his trotters against the ground. A hole opened up and he was gone.

“Why does he keep coming around if he won't talk to us?” said Ida impatiently. “I hate him.”

“Don't say that,” said Frek. “He's my friend.”

“I don't
think
so,” said Goob Doll Judy, shaking her ponytails. “He looks old and geevey to me. An evil alien.”

“I'm gonna stand here taking advice from my sister's toons?” said Frek impatiently. Maybe the Skull Farmers were worth listening to, but Goob Doll Judy? Forget it. “I gotta go.” Anticipating a fresh round of teasing from Geneva, he clenched his fist and showed it to her. “You shut your trap, okay? Button your lip.”

Geneva gave him her most sickeningly sweet smile, stuck out her tongue, and whispered something to Ida that sent them both into giggles.

Frek hurried into the kitchen, said good-bye to Mom, and grabbed a slice of anymeat on grobread. People were pretty much still eating the same old things. The restoration of the biome hadn't adversely affected the conveniently tweaked kritters that the Nubbies had come to depend upon.

Just as Frek was laying out his angelwings on the lawn, Stoo Steiner came ambling up. He was wearing an Orpolese halo. He'd been sent to look at Frek. Frek had gotten so good at sky-air-comb that the Orpolese usually couldn't pick his brain. The best way for them to find out about Frek was to walk one of their slaves over to his house.

“Yubba, Frek,” said Stoo, wearing an artificial smile. “Where you off to?” He looked thin and worn. The Orpolese often forget to get their avatars enough to eat. It was sad to see him like this.

“I'm gonna visit some friends,” said Frek, feeling guilty. He had an exciting new life and Stoo—most days poor Stoo was locked up in his darkened room staring at the wall skin.

By now Frek was already lying down on his wings. The wings tightened their cushiony little legs around his upper arms and sank their hair-fine tendrils into his skin, taking hold of his ribs.

“Flying on Earth is boring,” said the Orpolese master through Stoo's mouth. “Not as good as watching toons.” Which was about all Stoo did anymore. “But those are getting boring too,” added the voice—and then all of a sudden Stoo's halo disappeared.

In that instant, Stoo's smile was replaced by an expression of despair. “Thank Buddha I'm free again,” he said from his heart. “But I bet they'll be back. You've ruined everything, Frek.”

Frek got to his feet, flexing his wings. He felt terrible about Stoo. But staying here would only make it worse. Time to go. He didn't want to disappoint Bili. A good jump and flap and he'd be in the air, out of Stoo's reach.

“Thanks to you, my father lost his good job,” continued Stoo. “Thanks to you, we're not ourselves most of the time, with those geevey Orpolese pushing us around like stuffed toys.” Far from threatening Frek, he dropped his hands to his side, looking sad and tired.

“I'd like to get rid of the Orpolese, too,” said Frek. Not a day went by that he didn't wonder if he'd made a big mistake. “But other than that, things are better now, aren't they?” He gestured at the flower-besprent lawn, at the butterflies and the birds in the trees. He could hear his voice taking on a pleading tone. “All the plants and animals—”

“Enjoy them while you can,” cut in Stoo. “You must know that the humanity channel audience share is way down. The Orpolese producers are looking for something new to liven things up. Kolder was talking to a couple of them, as a matter of fact. A black squid-thing and an orange donut. They gave Kolder the first interesting work he's had since you put him out of a job. Your crunchy-granola little biome won't be the same for long, you selfish gurp.” And with that, Stoo turned on his heel.

“You saw Vlan and Tagine?” cried Frek. For a whole year the two Orpolese had been lying low. Frek knew they were still on Earth because he heard rumors about them every now and then. “What else did they say? When did you see them? What did they ask Kolder to do?”

“None of your business,” said Stoo over his shoulder—and stalked off.

Frek watched Stoo go. He wished they could still be friends. It made him sick at heart to think of Stoo—and so many others—living as slaves of the alien gamers. And what was that about Kolder and the Orpolese? Sounded like it could be very bad news. But maybe it was just empty bragging. Frek hopped into the air and winged off, still thinking. Half an hour later, he was gliding into Stun City.

The first thing he noticed was that the Kritterworks was three times as big as before. A steady stream of little lifter beetles was buzzing out of it, continually spreading new creatures across the Earth. A couple of the beetles passed close by. Frek glimpsed porcupines in one of them, and a pile of snakes in the other. He wondered if the snakes were poisonous. With all the old animals back, people were having to relearn ancient caution.

Frek tipped his left wing and spiraled toward the aircoral dwellings clustered around the base of the Toonsmithy beanstalk. The giant helical stalk swayed ever so gently in the fitful spring breeze. Mild pulses of green and yellow light flowed up along its phosphorescent skin.