How to Save the Universe in Ten Easy Steps Read online

  Um, yeah. No wonder I wasn’t allowed underneath the house. Poison was the least of my worries as it turns out. ‘But hasn’t Dad …’ I start.

  Hale waves a hand. ‘No. He has no idea. It’s a special sort of lock. Your dad opens it and his version of the storage area is revealed.’

  ‘Oh, right. I guess …’ It’s only then that someone steps out of the shadows in the corner. ‘Gah!’ I yelp. I hadn’t realised anyone was there. But when I see it’s Mr Gregory, I calm down a bit. His food is generally scarier than he is.

  He nods his head as he approaches us, emitting one of his usual grunts.

  ‘Do you have it?’ Hale asks him.

  Grunt. He passes something over to Hale – a not very dangerous-looking small shiny silver knob with what looks like three horns.

  ‘Lovely. Yes, this should do the trick, though I’m hoping we won’t need it.’ Hale inspects the … whatever it is, before turning to me. ‘Mr Gregory managed to secure this for me. He’s quite the arms dealer, you know.’

  Grunt.

  But I think Mr Gregory might actually like being complimented, because he kind of flicks what’s left of the hair on his balding head at this. I laugh nervously. ‘Yeah, so I hear. So, what does this thing do?’

  Hale passes the device over to Mr Gregory, who suddenly flies into action. In his hand, he twists the knob expertly and it sort of explodes, the horns flying upwards with a whoosh and embedding themselves in the ceiling. Meanwhile, some kind of pulse reverberates around us. ‘Um,’ I stare up at the embedded sharp objects. ‘You do realise that’s the kitchen up there, don’t you?’ Here’s hoping Mum is still alive.

  ‘Oh,’ Hale waves a hand. ‘It’s harmless to humans. But Terlaedians? Let’s just say that if there’s one thing a Terlaedian doesn’t like, it’s a repletor.’

  Grunt, Mr Gregory grunts in an amused fashion this time. He then proceeds to retract the device, sucking everything back into its tight ball, which he hands to Hale, before disappearing into the shadows once more.

  Could this place be any weirder?

  ‘Right, then.’ Hale looks as if he’s perfectly fine with all of this. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Ready for what?’ I don’t think I’ve ever been so confused in my life. ‘Look, I have no idea what’s going on here. Where’s Jack? And what about this extraction? What are they extracting?’ I mean, let’s face it, an extraction of any kind is never good, is it?

  ‘He’s with the Terlaedians, of course. Now, are we going to go and save him or not?’

  I stare at Hale. He seriously looks quite calm about this. As if what he’s suggesting all makes complete sense.

  ‘Wait, so, you’re telling me that the Terlaedians, who apparently want me dead, have Jack. And that we should walk right into their trap, or whatever it is, and save him? When they’re busy extracting something from him?’

  Hale nods. ‘That about covers it. Yes.’

  I laugh. ‘And I’m supposed to believe you, because …?’

  Hale looks surprised at this. ‘I hadn’t thought about it that way.’

  ‘No. I guess not.’ I cross my arms. ‘I mean, Molly doesn’t trust you. Why should I? Why did you leave, anyway? Wasn’t this your mission as well?’

  ‘As I said – a difference of opinion,’ Hale shrugged. ‘I thought you should know everything about your existence right from the start. Molly thought you should live a more Earth-like existence. We couldn’t agree. And, so, I left. In the interim, she seems to have concocted all kinds of interesting theories. That I have been working for the Terlaedians. That I am against her. None of this is true.’

  I don’t uncross my arms. ‘Isn’t it?’

  Hale pauses for a minute and closes his eyes in a spookily Molly-like fashion. ‘I do believe it might be time to rescue Jack. I could use your help, if you’re willing?’

  ‘My help?’ I ask, dubiously.

  ‘Yes. You will be most useful.’

  ‘As bait?’

  He ignores this. ‘The thing is,’ he continues, ‘I have a little theory about you.’

  ‘A theory?’

  ‘Yes. I thought we could test it out now.’

  ‘Now? When Jack needs saving. From the Terlaedians. Who want to kill me.’

  Hale shrugs.

  I snort. ‘Listen, Shruggy McShruggerson, it’s my life you’re shrugging away here and I’m sort of fond of it.’

  ‘Oh, it’ll be fine.’ Hale waves a hand.

  ‘If you’re right. What if your theory about me is wrong? And don’t you dare shrug again.’ Wow. I’m almost beginning to sound like Molly. Which reminds me of something. ‘Anyway, if you have some theory, how come Molly hasn’t thought of it yet after spending all this time with me?’

  Hale pauses for a moment. ‘I think she may have suspected, but has no proof. She has most likely not been willing to test out her theory.’

  ‘Because it would put me in danger?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But of course she wouldn’t put my life in danger. She’s my sister.’

  ‘But she’s not, is she?’ Hale counters quickly.

  We stare at each other.

  Finally, I sigh. ‘Okay. Let’s go get Jack.’ I don’t sound half as freaked out as I am.

  It’s like I blink and I’m somewhere else. I don’t feel, or hear a thing as I’m moved, but I’m instantly in Peregrination’s main street again – just metres from where I’d stood with Molly, talking to Mr Gregson. Or what I thought was Mr Gregson, before he suddenly shrank and turned blue and extra nasty.

  ‘I don’t get it. Where’s Jack?’ I ask, before I see it – the tsunami-like wave of slugs coming straight for us. ‘What is …’

  ‘I thought I should show you this first. These, as you know, are the Rewluts. They’re envoys,’ Hale answers my unasked question. ‘Sent by the Terlaedians. They sent the Ecens and didn’t get what they wanted. Namely, you. So, now they’re hiring someone else as well. The Terlaedians see themselves as much too important to participate in hide and seek themselves. And anyway, they’re too busy watching the Wokwok rematch. They send their little friends the Ecens and the Rewluts out to do their dirty work.’

  ‘The Rewluts, Molly said you had something to do with—’ My eyes flick sideways.

  ‘She’s simply angry because she didn’t sense them. My guess is they weren’t here for long enough. Jack couldn’t hold back his dog tendencies.’

  ‘You mean he ate one?’ My nose wrinkles in distaste.

  ‘Sniffed, ate …’ Hale shrugs.

  ‘I thought Molly was supposed to know everything that’s going on here?’

  Hale smiles a mysterious smile. ‘No one knows everything, Cooper.’

  ‘No?’ I start to panic. If Molly and Hale don’t know everything, I’m in real trouble, because all I’ve learnt recently is that I know diddly-squat. ‘Right,’ I say, watching the slugs multiply before my very eyes. ‘Well, they’re kind of coming this way and I’m guessing Molly made that dome thing for a reason.’ I’m getting pretty worried now about the approaching slug wall, though no one else seems to think it’s that big a deal. Several of the town’s residents are actually talking amongst themselves and approaching the slugs. Which seems … well, kind of crazy.

  ‘Yes, yes. We’ll go back there in a moment. I just thought you might like to see this first.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ I laugh nervously. ‘Yes, it’s great. I wish I had my camera. But let’s go back now. Or somewhere else. Anywhere, really.’ That wave just looks unstoppable. And awfully like it’s headed this way. The dome within the bubble sounds pretty good to me right now.

  Hale simply waves my concerns away. ‘It’s fine. Stop worrying.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s not going to happen anytime soon.’ I’m starting to feel a bit panicky. Those things look … majorly unfriendly. ‘So, tell me more about these Rewluts?’ I ask cautiously, keeping my eyes on their relentless progress. ‘What do they do when they’re not kidnapping dogs?’r />
  ‘Yes, well … what can I say? Not much. They have only one purpose.’ Hale’s mouth twists. ‘Let’s put it this way – they find people. For other people. And they’re very good at it. Very … thorough.’

  I gulp again, guessing this might be an understatement. ‘Okay,’ my eyes flick back to the wall of slugs inching forward and growing higher at a concerning rate. It’s almost doubled in height since I first saw it, which was under a minute ago. Still, none of the town residents run away. ‘Um, they do know that gigantic black wall of ooze is coming, right? They can see it?’ I can’t believe there hasn’t been a stampede, but everyone is still just standing and watching and waiting.

  ‘Oh, yes. That’s what they’re talking about – better to get it over and done with and all that. They’re familiar with the Rewluts.’

  ‘Over and done with?’ I frown. ‘So these slug things – they don’t actually kill anybody?’

  ‘Oh, no. Well, only you, or anyone who has recently been in direct contact with you.’

  Hale says this so matter-of-factly that it takes me a couple of seconds to register what he’s telling me. ‘Only me?’

  ‘Yes, everyone else they’ll just decode and spit them out the back. It’s all quite harmless.’

  ‘Unless you’re me. Or Jack.’ Oh, man. I hadn’t touched Ethan lately. Had I?

  ‘Yes. Exactly. The first one to find you, or someone who has been in contact with you, will release an organ, hidden inside itself for just this purpose, which it will swiftly impale you with. It’s relatively painless. They’re very good at finding any species’ vital organs.’ He sounds as if he’s describing what they like to eat for breakfast.

  I completely freak out then. ‘What are you saying? That Jack’s dead? They’ve impaled him?’

  ‘Oh, no. He’s quite unharmed. They’ve taken him for … questioning.’

  A movement catches my eye and I turn to watch as Mrs Tippler starts up her mobility scooter and drives straight into the path of the slugs. ‘Oh, my g—’ I never finish my sentence as I see her begin to be consumed. Her body begins to change and about twelve huge, knobbly, elbowy, fleshy tentacles flail about outside the wave, before they’re slowly sucked in.

  ‘Yes, the Meleks aren’t the prettiest species, are they? Not the easiest on the eye.’

  Or the stomach. I actually feel like vomiting.

  ‘Great navigators, though. The best. Mrs Tippler there, as you like to call her, has been invaluable to Molly, helping her to navigate her way through time and space.’

  A couple of people wander off, but Mr Henderson, my teacher, remains. I wonder what he’ll turn into – maybe I was right about the gills – and for a moment my curiosity stops me freaking out. He walks into the wave of slugs far more hesitantly than Mrs Tippler had driven in, that’s for sure.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, surprised, when I see what Mr Henderson turns into – a smallish arc of blue light – ‘weird.’

  ‘That’s only his three-dimensional form. His kind exist in over eleven dimensional planes. They’re very evolved. They have knowledge concerning almost any species you might want to know about. That’s his specialty.’

  ‘Wow. So he’s not some sweaty ocean-dweller after all.’

  Hale laughs. ‘So eloquent. I can see his excellent teaching has truly rubbed off on you.’

  I shrug. ‘So all of these super-evolved aliens have helped Molly do what she has to do over the last ten years?’

  Hale eyes me for a second as if I’ve hit upon something. ‘To a point.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well …’ he begins, choosing his words carefully. ‘I think she might have been hoping to rely on their skills entirely.’

  Suddenly, I get what he means. ‘Instead of me. The skill-less.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘No. You didn’t need to.’ I can see exactly what’s going on here. My so-called sister has attempted to surround herself with a team of alien experts because she didn’t consider me up to the job.

  And who can blame her? I don’t even consider myself up to the job.

  I go to open my mouth to say as much, but before I can, the ticking starts in my head again and it’s like I can’t wait any longer, even though I want to delay this next thing forever. Before I know what I’m doing, the words come blurting out of my mouth. ‘Jack,’ I say to Hale. ‘We need to go and get him. Right now.’

  CHAPTER 20

  ‘Good idea.’ Hale nods and, in another blink, we’re somewhere else completely. It’s quiet – an eerie, forced quiet. The kind of quiet that you get before something happens. Generally not something good. Instead of standing, we’re now floating a few metres above the floor in what seems to be a vast, empty room. The floor is red and shiny, the walls are black and there are a bunch of white symbols on the floor that look like they might be writing of some sort – dots and lines bunched together in triangles – completely unreadable to me.

  The only object in the gigantic hangar-like room is a large, clear sphere, which hovers above a round platform.

  And in the middle of the sphere is Jack.

  He doesn’t look his happy-go-lucky self – there’s not a lot of tongue-lolling or tail-wagging going on.

  I go to open my mouth but Hale holds a finger up and shakes his head. No. We’ll only have a short window of time. I hear his voice in my head. They can’t see us. Best to keep quiet and let me get on with it. Like I told you before, the Terlaedians aren’t very nice. And not nearly as stupid as the Ecens. Now, brace yourself for the alarm.

  I nod, too freaked out to even think a reply. Not to mention the fact that when Molly finds out about this, she is going to kill me. Maybe for real.

  I don’t have long to worry, though, because what must be the alarm starts up then. There’s no actual noise, just this sort of pulsing, which gets stronger with each passing second. I can feel it inside my chest cavity as it builds in intensity, vying for my attention alongside the ticking in my head, which just won’t quit. And, as it does, my whole body begins to clench with it. In fear, I think. I catch something out of the corner of my eye – the symbols on the floor changing. And that’s when the sphere begins to move, opening up from inside, like an impossible jellyfish.

  You were right about your timing. They’re about to start the extraction, Hale explains. They could tell that he’d been in contact with you and now they’re going to draw out of him all the information he has concerning you.

  Unable to move, apart from the vibrations of the alarm throbbing through my body, I don’t ask exactly what this means, or how it’s going to happen. There’s that extraction word again. Always gulpworthy.

  In front of us, the sphere continues to unravel, layer upon layer. Security, it seems, is good here. Maybe too good. Can you get Jack out of there? I ask, beginning to panic. Can’t you use that … repletor thing?

  We’ll see. Ah, here we go …

  As Hale says this, a panel magically appears within one of the black walls, solid only a moment before. A drawbridge slides out, right at the same height as Jack. I’m guessing they’re going to remove him from the sphere and take him somewhere – somewhere worse, judging from what Hale has just told me. The drawbridge pauses halfway across the void as the sphere continues to retract its internal layers.

  And that’s when I see them – the Terlaedians. I’ve only ever seen the one playing Wokwok, but now there’s a bunch of them and they all look identical. They’re hanging about the drawbridge opening, watching the goings-on with the sphere.

  Just like before, I can’t get over their pastel-coloured fur. The thing is, if an alien species is going to wipe you out, it’s much less embarrassing if they aren’t short, tubby and cute. They really shouldn’t look like household pets whose main concern is their next meal. No, they should be tall and maybe slimy, with green goop for blood and open jaws that contain sharp teeth and overflow with drool.

  Still, even with their pastel-coloured
fur, I begin to feel more nervous, if that’s possible, as I watch the to-ing and fro-ing of the Terlaedians at the end of the drawbridge. There’s really something going on now, I think to myself, as if the ticking in my head wasn’t already telling me that.

  Yes. That’s probably because they suspect I’m here … Hale says, slowly.

  WHAT?! I’m sure my eyes almost pop out of my head. Why don’t you get Jack out and we can go, then?

  Because I can’t. The sphere really is a jail. A very sophisticated one. When he’s in it, I can’t get him out.

  I gulp. You can’t get him out? Yet again, I realise Molly, and even Hale, can’t do everything. Not even close. I am so stuffed.

  We need to wait, Hale continues.

  For?

  For the smallest of openings in the sphere. They need one, you see. For the extraction.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  I’m about to respond when I see the symbols on the floor changing once more. My eyes lift to the sphere to see what’s changing. I freeze. The sphere has paused. The inside open, the outside still closed. Something starts to emerge from the drawbridge. Something long and thin and needle-like. It approaches the sphere at Jack’s height. In fact, at the height of his head. Which is when I realise what it is. The Terlaedians want information. And this is how they intend to get it. By extracting it with that … probe. That long, thin needle is going to go into Jack’s brain. And I seriously doubt he’ll come out alive.

  That’s when it hits me, right in the gut. Bad things are going to happen. Despite Molly. Despite Hale. Up until this point I’ve been worried, but not that worried. I thought Molly had everything covered, that she’d just step in and help out with whatever I couldn’t do. That, at the important moment, she’d say, ‘Hey, Cooper, do this’, or ‘Don’t do that’ and everything would be all right. Yay! The universe would be saved! We’d all live long happy lives back on Earth. But now I see it’s not that easy. Molly and Hale don’t know everything. What’s worse, they think that somehow, someway, at the critical moment at the end of the universe, I’m going to step up and save everything and everyone. Oh, yes. It’s only now that I really truly get it. This is happening. Really happening. All of it. There are big, bad aliens out there who want to destroy our universe – all because they lost some dumb game with a dumb name. They’d really do that and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. I’m helpless. Completely, utterly and totally helpless, we’re all going to die and—