Out of This World Read online

  “It’s like a puzzle or something!” Thomas said, beaming. “I like puzzles!”

  “Why does he always have to mess with everything?” Mazzy sighed.

  Jack made an I dunno face. “Keeps him happy, I guess.”

  “Oh!” Mazzy blinked and raised her head as they heard the hum of something powering up. “Wait! I think I just did something!”

  “Indeed you did!” intoned a deep voice from behind them. They both yelped and spun around. Standing on the smaller pedestal was a sinister robed figure, its face covered by a heavy hood. “Who dares intrude on the forbidden sanctum of the Drax?”

  Jack wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. “Er … me!” he said uncertainly. Then he thumbed at Mazzy. “And her.”

  “And me!” Thomas squeaked from the far side of the hall.

  “Oh,” said the hooded figure. “Okay, then. Um … Welcome!”

  “Thanks. Are you a hologram?” Jack stepped closer and waved a hand through the figure’s legs.

  “Don’t do that! I’m an artificially intelligent projected entity, actually.”

  “Hologram,” Mazzy said wisely.

  “Look, what do you want?” the hooded figure asked, getting annoyed. “Do you have any questions? That’s why I’m here, to answer questions. It’s sort of my reason for existing. I don’t know why you activated me otherwise.”

  Jack thought for a moment. “Yeah, I do have a question. What happened to everyone?”

  “Ah! That is a good question.” The hologram regained its dignity now that it was back on familiar ground, and its voice deepened. “You stand in a temple built by the Drax, ancient wanderers among the stars! Their empire existed long ago, back when you humans were just a bunch of fish with big ideas. Once they ruled half the Nexus! But there was one thing they could never conquer.”

  “The other half?” Jack suggested.

  Somehow the hologram managed to give him an irritated glance even through its hood. “I speak of Death itself!” it boomed, raising its arms to reveal black-gloved hands. “The Drax realized they would never be truly free until they could live forever. For a thousand years the greatest minds of the empire struggled with the problem. Then came Gttht the Persuasive.”

  “Gttht?” Jack tried to pronounce it the way the hologram had. It made his tongue itch.

  “Gttht! Emphasis on the second t.”

  “GtTTTht!” Jack tried again, but only ended up spluttering all over Mazzy. She flinched and wiped away a mist of spittle from her cheek.

  “Ew! Just call him the Persuasive, okay? Anyway, so what did Gt … Mr. Persuasive do?”

  “Gttht knew of one being in all the galaxy that never aged and never died. The million-year-old Fangbeast of Arcturus Prime. So he persuaded our finest minds to build a temple here so that we might worship the Fangbeast and it could teach us the secret of its immortality.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Mazzy. “Worship the Fangbeast. How did that work out for you?”

  “Not well. It was, er, more interested in eating us, actually. In fact it ate almost everybody.”

  “When you say finest minds,” said Jack, “how fine are we talking?”

  “Guys! I get it now!” Thomas cried suddenly from the other side of the hall, where he was still playing with the glowing symbols on the black stone panel. “It’s kind of like Sudoku!”

  “What’s he doing over there?” The hologram craned to see.

  “Never mind him; he’s relatively harmless,” said Mazzy. “Hey, why do you all wear hoods?”

  “What?”

  “It’s just occurred to me. Every statue in here is wearing a hood. Why do you hide your faces?”

  “Because our faces are so terrible, so frightening, that the merest glimpse of them would send you screaming in—”

  “I wanna see!” Mazzy said eagerly. “Take off your hood!”

  “No,” the hologram said, pouting.

  “Go on. You’ve got nothing to lose. Your whole race is extinct; there’s no one left to care.”

  “That was a bit uncalled for,” the hologram complained. Then it sighed. “Oh, very well. Don’t say you weren’t warned, though. Behold the dreadful Drax!” With a dramatic sweep, the hologram threw back its hood.

  Jack and Mazzy stared at the creature revealed beneath. Huge soft eyes gazed out of a furry, whiskered face. Floppy ears hung to either side, and a little pink nose twitched and sniffed.

  “Aww!” said Jack. “Cute! You look kind of like a bunny rabbit!”

  “No!” the hologram cried. “We are the Drax! Scourge of the Red Nebula! Destroyers of the Idikan Empire! Seekers of Forbidden Knowledge!”

  “Adorbs!” Mazzy agreed. “You’re just a bunch of sweetie snuffle bunnies, aren’t you?”

  The hologram sagged. “See, this is why we wear hoods. It’s not easy ruling half a galaxy when no one takes you seriously. We’d meet with enemy leaders to negotiate, and they’d keep trying to pet us.”

  Mazzy quickly drew back her hand, which had been reaching out to scratch the hologram behind the ear. “So, er, what happened to the Fangbeast?” she asked.

  “In the end, we summoned our bravest warriors to battle the monster, and they succeeded in imprisoning it in this very temple. Then we retreated back through the rift gate in shame. All our greatest minds had been eaten. Our empire sort of fell apart after that, and the way to our homeworld was forgotten.”

  “You imprisoned it … in this very temple, you say?” Jack was suddenly wary. “And it’s a creature that lives forever?”

  “Yes, but fear not!” said the hologram. “Its prison was secured with a lock so fiendish that not even the cleverest Drax could hope to undo it.”

  “Oh. That’s all right, then.”

  “Yet there was one last thing. Before he died of his wounds, Gttht the Persuasive made a prophecy. In one hundred thousand years, he said, a mighty hero would appear, whose genius was so great that they would solve the impossible riddle and release the awful Fangbeast once again!”

  Jack looked uncertainly at Thomas, who was still fiddling with the puzzle at the end of the hall. “Er … And how long has it been since that prophecy was made?”

  “Let me check my data banks,” said the hologram. Its ears lifted in surprise. “Well, what are the chances? It was exactly one hundred thousand years ag—”

  There was a small ding, as if an elevator had just arrived. “Solved it!” Thomas declared proudly.

  Mazzy, Jack, and the hologram looked at one another as it dawned on them what had just happened.

  “Well, my work here is done!” said the hologram with nervous haste. “Farewell and good luck!” And it disappeared.

  Mazzy and Jack turned deadly glares onto Thomas. “What?” asked Thomas.

  There was a loud screeching noise as the enormous gate began to slide open behind him.

  “Why do you have to mess with everything?!” Jack shouted, waving his hands about angrily.

  “I can’t help it! I have an inquiring personality!” Thomas shouted back, waving his hands, too.

  “Boys, instead of yelling at each other, how about we leave now?” Mazzy suggested, pointing up the corridor they had come from.

  “Uh-uh! You won’t be going anywhere!” came the reply. From the shadows of the corridor, TOF-1 stepped into view, his blunderbuss slung over his shoulder. “I heard you all the way across the temple. Silence is a virtue you’d do well to learn.”

  He moved unhurriedly into the chamber. There was no way past him, and he knew it.

  “Now, who wants to get shot first?” he wondered.

  Jack turned and looked as the enormous gate clanged to a halt, now fully open. Beyond, the darkness was total.

  He heard a rattling growl, low and loud enough to make the room rumble. In the blackness, two huge eyes opened, each as big as Jack was, containing two hourglass-shaped pupils. Directly above them, another pair of eyes opened. And another pair above that.

  TOF-1 on one side. The Fangb
east on the other.

  “Told you,” Mazzy said in a small voice. “Doomed.”

  Thomas stared at the monster as it emerged, his mouth in an O, making a squealing noise so high-pitched it would have been audible only to bats and two-year-olds. The Fangbeast was the size of a building, six horrible eyes piled on top of an enormous mouth with teeth as big as lampposts. It waddled on six stumpy legs, somewhat like a leathery frog, if that frog had Godzilla for a dad. A long, thick tail snaked out behind it, ending in a knobbed club the size of a phone booth.

  “What, what?” TOF-1 cried as he laid eyes on it. “Can it be? The Fangbeast of Arcturus Prime?”

  The Hunter’s attention had been captured by the hideous creature. Jack caught Mazzy’s eye and thumbed urgently toward the side of the room. The two of them scampered out of the Fangbeast’s way. A moment later, Jack returned, and dragged Thomas—still squealing—off toward the side of the enormous chamber.

  TOF-1 was busy cranking up the power on his blunderbuss, his gaze fixed on the Fangbeast as it came thumping out from between the two massive hooded statues that flanked the gate. “The Fangbeast, by Jingo! The ultimate prize for the big game hunter! Oh, won’t the folks back at the club go green with envy when they see this on my wall!”

  “He is actually crazy,” whispered Jack in amazement.

  “Never mind that,” Mazzy said. “Try to get around behind him. We need to get out while he’s busy.”

  Jack’s reply was cut short by an earsplitting bellow that shook the room, and the Fangbeast broke into a charge, thundering across the chamber toward TOF-1, who was at the far end. TOF-1, having finished preparing his gun, was absolutely calm in the face of the onrushing monster. He cocked his top hat jauntily and raised his blunderbuss to his eye.

  “Maximum power, old boy,” he said. “Night night.”

  A bolt of energy screamed forth from the end of the blunderbuss, flew across the chamber, and struck the Fangbeast in the spot directly between all six of its eyes.

  The Fangbeast didn’t even slow down.

  “Ah,” said TOF-1. “My mistake.”

  The Fangbeast’s huge jaws slammed shut on him and crunched him down. Then it turned its many eyes toward the three remaining morsels that cowered against the wall nearby.

  “Run?” Jack suggested in a tiny voice.

  “Run,” Mazzy agreed.

  They fled in different directions, driven by blind panic. The Fangbeast swept its club-like tail through the air and brought it down toward Jack, but years of training with his dad had made him fast, and he darted out of the way. It smashed into the floor behind him, sending flagstones flying. He raced for cover, searching for something to hide behind, but the chamber was almost bare except for the pedestal in the center, where the cowardly hologram had stood. Frantically he looked for a way to get around the Fangbeast, back through the doorway that would lead to the outside, but the creature was just too big.

  It turned its attention to Thomas. Thomas, who was standing in the corner, frozen like a mouse caught in a cat’s gaze. He trembled as its six eyes fixed on him, one by one, and it gave a low snarl like the rumbling of a distant earthquake.

  The Fangbeast walked toward him with the slow confidence of a predator that knows its prey is caught. Mazzy tugged on Jack’s arm and pointed. Now that the Fangbeast had moved, the way out of the chamber was clear.

  But Jack couldn’t tear his eyes away from Thomas. He was waiting for him to make a break for it, to run and hide, to do something. Instead he was just standing there, sniffling. Jack realized that he wasn’t going to move. The sight of the monster had paralyzed him with fright.

  If Jack ran, Thomas would be next on the menu. He couldn’t let that happen. Thomas was a pest, but he was Jack’s pest. And … well … Jack had sort of grown used to him by now. He kind of liked having him around, in fact.

  So he cupped his hands to his mouth and hollered, “Hey! Over here!”

  The Fangbeast swung around and glared at Jack and Mazzy.

  “What are you doing?” Mazzy squealed through gritted teeth.

  Jack was wondering that himself, but it seemed too late to back out of it now. “Yeah, I’m talking to you!” Jack yelled at the beast. “Try picking on someone your own size!”

  “There is no one its own size,” Mazzy pointed out, doing her best not to be noticed as she shuffled away from Jack.

  The Fangbeast roared, sensing defiance from its tiny prey. It wasn’t used to people shouting at it.

  Jack flinched as he was hit by a wave of stinking breath. “And get some mouthwash down you as well! You smell like a pile of dead otters!”

  Whether it was the tone of his voice or the unlikely misfortune that the creature could understand English, that was too much. The beast roared again, and its tail lashed out. Jack flung himself to the ground as the crushing weight of it passed over his head, smashing into the wall behind him. Light flooded in from outside as the wall broke into pieces. Jack covered his head with his hands and scrunched himself up as small as he could as huge chunks of rubble rained down all around him.

  Why didn’t I keep my big mouth shut? he asked himself frantically. Why, why, why?

  But the pounding of falling stone petered out, and he raised his head, amazed to find himself still unhurt. Behind him, the wall to the chamber had mostly fallen away. Beyond was a cliff edge, plunging thousands of feet down to a scorched canyon below.

  The Fangbeast glared at him and bared its considerable teeth.

  “Uh-oh,” Jack muttered, sensing its intention.

  Then it bellowed and charged.

  Jack had nowhere to go. There was no way he could dodge something that size. Behind him was a fatal fall. All he could do was stand where he was, his pupils shrinking as he saw the end bearing down on him. All he could think of for his final word was: Oops. It would make for a very small gravestone.

  Then, from behind and below, a howl of engines. Wind blasted around him, making him stagger forward. He turned, a grin spreading on his face, expecting to see the Epsilon there, Boston Sark arriving for a last-minute save.

  It wasn’t the Epsilon. It was a small, light aircraft, looking something like a helicopter gunship, and crouched in its cockpit Jack saw …

  Himself.

  The pilot pressed his thumb down on a button. Rockets streaked out from under the gunship’s wings, screeching past Jack. They smashed into the Fangbeast, one, two, five, ten of them, a cascade of explosions that made Jack cringe and cover his face. The creature disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and flame.

  “Get in!” cried a voice over the gunship’s loudspeaker system. Gradius Clench swung the aircraft closer, and a door to the cargo hold opened in its side. “Jump!”

  “He sounds just like you!” Mazzy told Jack as she sprinted past and leaped out into the sky, clearing the gap with ease to tumble into the back of the gunship.

  “I do not sound like that!” Jack yelled at her.

  “Everyone says that when they hear their own voice! Now jump!”

  Jack looked back at the steadily clearing cloud of smoke. Still no sign of Thomas.

  “Jump!” Gradius urged him.

  Jack cursed under his breath and ran into the smoke.

  Where is he? Where is he? he thought. Something vast moved in the murk, the shifting of an enormous flank. Jack realized that the Fangbeast was not dead, was still standing, in fact. At any moment an enormous foot might descend through the smoke to stamp him flat, or a huge tail might swat him into next week. His heart pounded as he fought the urge to abandon Thomas to his fate. It was Thomas who’d activated the distress beacon, after all. Thomas’s fault his parents had died. Thomas’s fault he was being hunted.

  And it was Thomas’s fault he’d been torn from a dull life of exhausting work and constant tests and thrown into a world of adventure in the Nexus, the place he’d dreamed about all his life. That meant Jack owed him. Owed him big.

  He heard a hacking cough, the helple
ss wheeze of the sick-note kid. Thomas’s asthma was a beacon, leading Jack through the smoke. He stumbled in that direction, coughing into his fist, and bumped into something soft and pudgy that was definitely not a Fangbeast.

  Thomas clutched on to him. “Jack! Jack! Get me out of here!” he sniffled in blind panic.

  “What do you think I’m trying to do?” Jack cried. He grabbed hold of Thomas and pulled him into motion, dragging him in the direction of the sunlight, which he could just about make out through the thinning smoke.

  Something huge moved across the sun, blocking it out. The Fangbeast, its head swinging restlessly here and there. Looking for them.

  “Keep going!” Jack muttered as Thomas’s legs threatened to wobble again. He steered them around the Fangbeast, which had mercifully not spotted them yet. The Fangbeast’s club tail swung through the air, stirring the haze as it passed overhead, making them both duck. By now there was hardly any smoke left, and they could see the beast towering over them, and Gradius’s gunship still hovered uneasily just beyond the broken wall.

  Jack slapped Thomas on the shoulder. “Go!”

  Thomas was really not fast. He was the kind of kid you dreaded getting on your team in gym class. He waddled and puffed and snorted at such a lamentable pace that Jack wondered if he’d forgotten he was supposed to be running for his life. Jack could have cleared the distance with ease, but he had to lag back to keep level with Thomas.

  The Fangbeast spotted them before they’d even made it halfway. Its rubbery lips skinned back over its teeth.

  “It’s seen you! Move it!” cried Gradius through the loudspeaker. He opened up the gunship’s blasters, sending a volley of plasma fire into the monster, but though it roared in pain, the shots did little more than distract it.

  “We’re going to jump!” Jack told Thomas as Gradius turned the gunship side-on again and moved in as close as he dared.

  “I can’t!” Thomas wailed, eyeing the gap between the ledge and the gaping door of the gunship, where Mazzy waited, holding out her hand.