 |
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||||
CHAPTER 1
Winners and Losers, or Not
Every B12 student at the Academy of Superior Learning, otherwise known as the Clone Academy, wanted to witness the fight between the 12-year-old clones, Vlas and Dar, and the ute-baby—uterus born—twins, Elsie and Everest Basker. Well before the 13:00 fight time, the spectator area in the B12 fight room was jammed with kids, all jostling for a better view. Plenty of the twelve-year-olds were forced to wait in the recreation room outside, hoping to hear reports on the action. Students from other age groups were denied admittance due to space limitations, but they still participated in the betting. Virtual currency had been placed on various outcomes, despite such activities being expressly forbidden on campus.
It was exactly a month to the day since Elsie and Everest had come to stay at their uncle’s boarding school for clones; one month since they had beaten the reigning 12-year-old champions in an impromptu fight match. Despite the recent adventures that had united the clones with Everest and Elsie against a dangerous smuggler, Dar and Vlas still waited impatiently for a chance to kick the twins’ keisters all the way to Glagcha (that irritating world that consistently beat Earth as best planet for raising a family in the Milky Way galaxy.)
Whoever lost the fight was honor bound to treat the winner with respect for a full month, which meant no insults or aggressive behavior. In addition, the loser was expected to protect the winner from other challenges.
Because it was a half-day for students, they were able to hold the fight early. Elsie was nervous about the competition. For no apparent reason, her jellach bodysuit felt unusually snug and hotter than a Krustak volcano. Tugging at her outfit, she glanced over at her brother. Quiet as usual, he took in the room with a serious expression. Elsie would have bet zetta virtual currency that he was as nervous as she was. But he would never show it.
She was a big fan of the school’s zeller B12 fight space. A ten-meter ceiling left plenty of room for jumping. Strong ropes hung from the ceiling and hooks climbed the walls. A thick pad covered the floor. Her only complaint was the room’s disgusting odor. While pico-brownies kept the room immaculate via their nighttime cleaning, there still were years of accumulated adolescent sweat that no quantity of pico-brownies could erase.
Would life at the clone academy be better or worse if they won? A couple of weeks ago, Elsie had confessed to Dar that she had spied on her and learned her secret: every night the tough-as-a-cyborg girl cared for the babies and toddlers who lived at the academy. Dar had been furious when she’d found out that Elsie knew, and she’d promised payback. Maybe if they lost, the girl would finally get off her back. But it was much more likely that Dar would decide she had license to torture her for the entire month.
Besides, Baskers didn’t throw competitions.
“Hey, ute-twins, time to blast-off,” Dar called from across the room. Her thick golden hair was pulled back into a tight pony-tail with her trademark cap neatly settled on top. Even after a month of rooming with Dar at clone-ville, Elsie still couldn’t get over how weird it was to be confronted with a Shadara copy. Shadara had been the most beautiful woman in the universe before her tragic and mysterious death at a young age. And Dar was equally as beautiful though she did everything she could to hide that inescapable fact.
“What are you staring at?” Dar called out, a frown creasing, but not marring, her perfect features.
Elsie glared back. “Nothing!”
“Hey is this a fight or a tea party?” Larry Knight asked from behind the see-through pad that protected spectators from the action. “Are you aliens ever getting this freak show on the road?”
He was the twenty-first-century boy who they had smuggled to the thirty-first century, and then, against all school and galactic rules, had kept. His skin was a rich shade of chocolate, and he had shiny, curly black hair. Through some zetta fancy holoputer work and a little help from Dar’s sponsor, Adriatic Mink, they had convinced everyone that he was a clone who had been living off-world until coming to their boarding school.
Vlas snickered. “Yeah, we’re going to get started—and finished—at light speed.”
“Don’t be so down on yourself,” Elsie said cheerfully. “I’m sure you’ll last at least a couple of minutes before we flaser you.”
She couldn’t believe it when Everest scowled at her like she’d said something wrong. Just because he wasn’t going to stick up for them didn’t mean she wouldn’t. She made a face back.
Dar ignored the verbal jab and strode barefoot to the middle of the padded room. Like their first fight, they had agreed to no skyboots since the clones owned older models, and therefore, might be at a disadvantage.
“Referee,” Dar called then groaned when the same Clegl humanoid who had officiated at their last match appeared. “What are you doing here?”
The short, bald, black and white, striped holographic creature blinked the eyes in both the front and the back of his head. “You called me.” His voice was high-pitched and whiny.
“Aren’t we supposed to get a random referee? You officiated last time.”
“Look missy, I didn’t write the program, I just show where I’m programmed to show.” The man visibly bristled.
“And we appreciate the excellent job that you do.” Wiry, ridiculously clever, and often charming, Vlas stepped forward so that he flanked Dar who grimaced at his obvious brown-nosing. She looked as if she’d swallowed a limonino fruit from Bandogiar, the sourest fruit in the universe.
“Don’t think I didn’t see your expression, missy,” the Clegl referee screeched at Dar. He waved irritably at Elsie and Everest who quickly joined them in the middle of the floor.
The Clegl referee moved between the two sides. Using both sets of eyes, he stared fiercely and simultaneously at both teams. “This time, no funny business.”
Dar was the picture of innocence. “Of course not.”
The referee had not been happy with Dar’s behavior at the beginning of their last fight. Exactly one month ago, Elsie’s inadvertent use of Dar’s full name had caused the girl to break the rules and start the match without the required pomp and circumstance.
“Humph.” He blinked again as he planted his feet apart, fisted his hands on his hips, and stuck his chin in the air. “Today, May 12, 3002, it brings me great pleasure to announce and officiate this match that pits the honorable clones, Shadara and Vlas, against the equally honorable twins, Elsie and Everest Basker.”
His high-pitched screeching reverberated in Elsie’s ears, making them ache. The avatar had to know exactly how much Dar hated to be called Shadara. Was he testing her?
Elsie always found it a bit disturbing to be subjected to a Clegl’s eyes on the back of his head since both nose and mouth were missing. But there was no arguing that Clegls were zeller referees.
“Can’t we get on with this?” Dar muttered.
It became apparent that Clegls also had excellent hearing because he flasered Dar with another furious look.
“This competition,” he continued, “will adhere strictly to the rules set forth by the United Nations of Earth in the year 2800, most prominent of which is the rule prohibiting any attack to the face. Do you agree to abide by this and all other rules detailed by this noble group?”
“Yes, yes, of course we do,” said Dar impatiently as the others murmured their assent more politely.
The Clegl bristled. “I can and will disqualify fight contestants for rude behavior, Shadara. After your disgraceful performance last time, I won’t need much provocation.”
Though her expression tightened, Dar managed to refrain from comment, nodding her understanding instead.
The Clegl cleared his throat, and continued to screech. “Do you agree to abide by the rules set forth by the United Nations of Earth?”
“We do,” they all chorused.
“Excellent.” He pivoted around on his short legs so that Elsie and Everest were now treated to eyes, nose and mouth as well as a particularly stubby chin.
“And do you agree to the rules that govern the behavior of the winners and the losers of the competition?”
“We do.”
He stared for several moments then turned and with the back of his head stared again. “Very well, you may bow to your opponents.”
Dar’s bow was curt whereas Vlas added a flourish. He grinned as if he were having the time of his life. With years of practice, Elsie and Everest bowed in precise unison.
The Clegl referee stepped back a few paces to give the fighters room, then declared in his screeching voice, “Match begin.”
Dar and Vlas jumped simultaneously, grabbed ropes and twirled around, kicking out so they each made contact—Dar with Everest’s solar plexus and Vlas with Elsie’s. Their speed was unsettling, but both Elsie and Everest managed to go with the blows into back flips so they barely felt the strikes. In unison, they popped out of the series of moves and leapt onto the ropes. Since Vlas and Dar were swinging toward them, the twins kicked off of each other and swung their ropes in a wide arc, capturing the cord of their competitors and whipping around in circles, entangling Dar and Vlas and forcing them to drop to the ground. Elsie jumped and landed on Vlas’s back, making him twirl and buck crazily in an attempt to unbalance her. The B12s shouted and booed as she refused to be bucked off. One lone clapper had to be Larry, the only other non-clone in the bunch. She barely registered that Everest had landed a few feet away from Dar and now fought against her in earnest.
Elsie was hard-pressed to hang on to Vlas. The boy was as fast as a flaser beam and as slippery as a Nurubian fire eel. Sliding off as he went into a somersault, Elsie sensed someone behind her and whirled. Dar flew at her with a double kick and landed Elsie on her back. She rolled just in time as Dar leapt to pin her. Scrambling to her feet and beating a fast retreat, Elsie now found Everest in combat with Vlas. She groaned when Vlas sent Everest to the ground with a low reverse roundhouse kick.
But Everest immediately rolled sideways and found his feet again. Elsie was too busy evading Dar to be sure that her brother was okay. She hoped for the best.
Only minutes had passed, but it already felt like hours. The Clegl referee kept up a steady stream of screeched commentary while she and Dar exchanged a series of blows, both on the ground and in mid-air, with Elsie mostly blocking Dar’s assault. The girl was a demon on the fight mat. Both were breathing hard, and Elsie was sweating like a rabid cooligrar. She didn’t think Dar was as winded as she was. If they didn’t somehow shut down this fight early, Dar inevitably would wear them out.
“Basker Bling!” Elsie yelled and shot into a series of handsprings. Within a heartbeat, Everest followed suit. They moved toward each other so that by the time they reached the end of the room, they were side by side. Everest gave her a look as if to say that he was going to kick her keister if this didn’t work. Then, yelling at the top of their lungs, they charged Vlas who stared as if they were lunatics from the asylum planet of Dementurnum.
“Deng, stop spinning into space,” Vlas yelled.
At the last minute he tried to evade them, but they double-teamed him, using every two-person move they knew. Like a fury, Dar joined the mix: kicking, striking, blocking and parrying. Since she reached Everest first, he took the brunt of her attack.
He fought well, but Elsie could sense he was tiring. Who knew how much longer she could keep up the pace? Her legs and arms were the consistency of jellach. She’d hoped their choreographed attack would shake up their opponents enough to reverse the tide, but it didn’t seem to have done the trick.
Then a voice rose above all the yelling and stomping.
“END MATCH!” it said with amplification.
Elsie, Everest, Vlas and Dar swung around as one and shouted, “What?”
The speaker was one of their uncle’s holograms, an enhanced copy of the director with excessive height and hunched shoulders, pinched nose, sunken cheeks and dirty brown eyes. Director Lester-Hauffer ran the clone academy, but his two holograms did most of the work. While their parents were off-world, he was also Elsie and Everest’s guardian, one of the main reasons their fellow students had automatically mistrusted and disliked them.
Dar strode up to the hologram, her fists clenched. “No way.”
The hologram flinched. “Director Lester-Hauffer requires Elsie and Everest’s presence immediately.” He pivoted to the Clegl referee. “Is there a clear winner?”
“No, sir,” the Clegl replied.
“Then I suggest we call it a draw.”
There was a collective gasp, then pandemonium, a cacophony of jeering and yelling.
Dar lunged for the hologram, and it was all Vlas could do to pull her back. She strained against him and broke free, but by then she seemed to have remembered that there wasn’t anything physical she could do to a hologram.
Sniffing his disapproval, the hologram maneuvered his way around so that he was behind Elsie and Everest. Now they could smell the slight odor of rotting vegetables that was the director’s signature scent. It was zetta alien that a hologram could exude the same disgusting odor.
“Come along, no dawdling. Your uncle expects you immediately.”
Elsie wished she could crawl into a dark cave and never come out. Even Larry looked angry, as if somehow she and Everest were responsible for this outcome.
“Hey,” she said, “we forfeit; we lose; we don’t agree to a draw.”
The look on Dar’s face would have terrified a Vlemutz. She crowded Elsie and poked her in the chest with her forefinger. “We beat you fair and square or you beat us, but we will never accept a forfeit.” She turned her back on Elsie and strode off to pick up her gray vlatex towel. The fight room roared with silence.
The Clegl referee blinked all four eyes. “This is highly irregular—”
The hologram straightened so that he was slightly less stooped. “This is highly necessary and not open to debate. Baskers, with me.” He executed a brisk turn and marched out of the room.
The Clegl referee began to screech in several languages that the match was officially a draw.
Elsie glanced at her twin. His jaw was rigid, and he seemed ready to do someone damage. She raced to keep up with the hologram, snatching up her skyboots along the way. There wasn’t much they could do about the protective jellach gear. They would have to change out of it later.
All the B12s booed and hissed as they passed as if it was Elsie and Everest’s fault that the director had shut down the match.
“Coming through, move aside, make way.” The director’s hologram parted the B12s just enough for Elsie to feel as if they were in ancient times, running the gauntlet. It was all she could do to ignore the glares and hostile language.
As they rushed to the nanovator to rocket down to the second floor, Elsie asked, “What’s going on?”
The hologram sniffed. “Your uncle requires your presence in his office immediately. He has a very important guest waiting for you there.”
Elsie couldn’t imagine who would want to see them. Could it have something to do with their parents? Could there be news? Their parents were on a secret mission in another galaxy, and there had been no communication from them for two full weeks. That was longer than expected. It would be so zeller if there was news.
She leaned over to her brother and whispered, “Maybe it’s about Mom and Dad?”