The Octopus Effect (27 page)

For a moment, Simon was lost in his head. Feeling stupid, feeling useless, feeling like the worst thing to ever happen to his friends. To the universe.
Wait a second,
he thought.
If I give up now, that's even worse.
He glared at Wanderby, fumed at the other Bio members who were moving forward around him, and raged at Sirabetta for putting his friends and him through this.
No. No more!

Simon used gravity to fling away the mud and decaying vegetation that held his legs, and then he used friction to slide out of the vines' grasp. Kushwindro sent more vines swinging and whipping after him, but Simon formed arms out of gravity and tore them apart. He did the same to the vines wrapped around Owen, freeing him, too.

“You never learn, Wanderby,” Alysha shouted. “Don't underestimate kids—especially us!”

“Do I look worried, lass?” Wanderby yelled back. He raised his hand and opened his mouth, but he paused when two more Bio members burst through the foliage, breathing hard as they slammed to a halt at the battle site: it was Targa and Cassaro.

Kender nodded his bug-eyed head at them and turned to Wanderby. “Those are my friends. They're here to help.” He chuckled, the sound echoing deep inside his exoskeleton as he cupped one fist in the other. He suddenly spun around and swung his fists at Grawley the Grizzly Bear, knocking him back into the trees with a shocked whine.

“Don't worry, kids,” Kender shouted. “We're on your side.”

Wanderby turned to look at Kender. “You traitor!”

“Traitor?” Kender laughed. “By betraying betrayers?” He shrugged his massive, gray-armored shoulders. “My friends and I only picked a fight with those kids so I could join your group and wreck your plans. We joined this Order to improve things, not to pull some conquer-the-world scheme!”

Flangelo shifted from sparrow to human form. “All right, Kender!” He turned to Alysha. “Okay, spark plug, as promised, I'm going into warrior mode. Prepare to be impressed.” With that, his body shimmered and once again changed shape into a bird. This time, however, he didn't become a sparrow.

Where slender, pale Flangelo once stood was now a huge bird. He had a two-foot-long, black-feathered neck; a head the size of a softball with a triangular black beak; and a light gray, fluffily feathered body. His legs were three feet long, each ending in a three-toed, sharp-clawed foot. He wiggled his head, rose to his full height—over six feet tall—and let out a few grunts from deep within his throat.

Wanderby grimaced. “You think we're scared of a few kids, three punks barely out of college, and an ostrich?”

The large bird shifted back to Flangelo's human form. “For your information, I'm an emu, not an ostrich.”

“This is a battle, not chatter time!” Alysha hissed. Flangelo blushed and returned to emu-form.

“Whatever type of bird he is, you should be scared, loud-mouth,” Kender said to Wanderby. “It's almost even numbers—seven versus eight—and we're gonna flatten you!”

A ferocious roar split the jungle, and Grawley burst back into the region. He tackled Kender, slamming him to the ground with a wet thud. Grawley swung softball-size paws tipped with three-inch-long claws and bit with a tooth-filled snout the size of a loaf of bread. Kender punched at the bear-man, and the two began rolling back and forth along the jungle floor, fighting fists against paws, teeth against head butt.

“I guess it's seven against nine again,” Alysha grumbled.

“Guess again,” Wanderby yelled. “Najolo, Demara, call your armies.”

Najolo, a tall, thin man with messy hair, shimmered and shook and turned into a gibbon—a three-foot-tall, black-haired ape. He inflated a grapefruit-shaped air sac on his throat and let out a piercingly loud gibbon hoot.

It wasn't a monkeylike “ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh” or the usual deeper, apelike “ooh ooh.” It was a high-pitched “wooooh, wooooh,” like a cowboy having fun. Answering hoots came from throughout the jungle, and distant trees shook with what must have been hundreds of gibbons approaching.

Demara, a blond, curly-haired woman, spoke some unintelligible words, and in response, the jungle began to vibrate with a buzzing sound.

“What's that?” Alysha asked, her voice quivering.

Demara grinned. “My army of insects: flying beetles, mosquitoes, cicadas, bees, and flies. Many thousands of them. And they'll be here in a few minutes.”

“Bugs?” Alysha shrieked. “You're fighting with bugs? I
hate
bugs!”

Zillafer the porcupine fish-woman stepped forward and triggered her Bio-power, inflating her body into a huge, spike-covered sphere. Kostaglos, the venom spitter, moved to her side, hissing as he opened his mouth wide to reveal his poison-shooting tubes. Two more female Biology members joined them with faces set in grim expressions, ready to unleash their own Biology abilities, too.

“Now do you see what you're up against?” Wanderby said.

“Simon,” Alysha hissed, “if you've got a plan, this would be a really good time to mention it.”

Simon looked from her to the assembled enemies, with the hoots and buzzing of more on the way ringing in his ears. “Yeah,” he said with a gulp. “I'm working on it.”

“Okay, team—get them!” Wanderby snarled. “Failure is not an option!”

“I didn't think anyone really talked like that,” Owen said as he used velocity to yank handful-size globs of mossy jungle-gunk, loose branches, and torn vines from the rain forest floor. He bombarded Wanderby with them, forcing his former gym teacher to back away while covering up as much as he could with his hands and arms.

Flangelo let loose with a booming sound—the emu equivalent of a roar—and rushed at the nearest enemy: Zillafer the porcupine fish-woman. Before she could react, Flangelo spun and kicked her hard, sending her bouncing off into the forest.

Cassaro stepped forward. “Nice shot! Let's see how they like this.” He spat a cloud of mushroom spores toward Wanderby and a cluster of enemy Order members; several attached themselves and began growing at an accelerated rate.

“This is going to be easy!” Targa cheered, throwing her fists into the air.

But she spoke far too soon. Kostaglos rushed forward and shot streams of well-aimed poison at most of the mushrooms growing on his friends. The fungi dissolved quickly, melting to the ground in bubbling puddles.

Kushwindro gestured, shifting the thick, long leaves of nearby bushes and trees to smack at the group. He also launched more vines from the canopy, sending them snaking down toward the heroes. Several wet leaves clung to Owen, revealing his location.

While Owen was busy tearing the leaves off, Wanderby used the break to turn his rotational formula on Flangelo. The fierce but goofy-looking bird crashed hard into Cassaro, knocking him unconscious; the remaining giant mushrooms stopped growing. Wanderby whirled Flangelo faster and faster, causing the emu to let out tormented honks.

Zillafer bounded back into the battle area, squashing some leftover mushrooms as she arrived. Chunks of torn fungus clung to some of her spikes. “I hate getting bounced around,” she bellowed. “I'm going to enjoy squashing these guys.”

“Here,” Kushwindro said. “Let me help you with that.” He gestured, and more vines grasped at his enemies. Zillafer aimed herself at Simon, Alysha, and Targa, who were standing near one another in a relatively clear part of the jungle.

Wanderby grinned cruelly as he spun Flangelo faster and faster. “Trurya, make sure they're defenseless for the attack.”

Trurya, a short, slender woman with extremely thick glasses, gestured at Simon, Alysha, and Targa.

Alysha reached into her pocket and brought out a handful of coins; she was about to fill them with electricity and throw them, but Trurya's attack had an instant effect. “I can't see the bad guys anymore!” Alysha gasped. “I've gone blind!”

“Me, too!” Targa yelled. She waved her hands in front of her own face. “No, wait—I can still see things close by, but not far away.” She slapped at some grabby nearby creepers, but once they got more than a foot away, she flailed helplessly at the air.

Simon knew what it was. “Myopia,” he whispered. “She made us nearsighted.” He strained to see past a foot, but everything was blurry. “Owen, can you still see?”

“Yes-but-I-can-only-see-jungle-attacking-me,” Owen yelled. He was flying back and forth, using velocity to tear away the vines, branches, and leaves that were coming at him from all directions. “Camouflage doesn't help when there's jungle everywhere!”

“This will be like bowling,” Zillafer said, aiming at Simon, Alysha, and Targa.

“We're sitting ducks like this,” Targa shouted. “Kender, we could use a hand!”

As they battled, Kender and Grawley went crashing through the foliage, rebounding off large trees and snapping smaller trees they smashed into. “Little busy right now!”

Not two minutes had passed since Alysha had called for Simon to think of something, and in that short time, everything had gone from bad to worse. Simon squinted but, try as he might, he couldn't see beyond a foot or so.

“I don't need to see like that,” he muttered. He closed his eyes tightly and extended his sense of gravity, letting him feel everything happening around him. Everything, moving or stationary, was being affected by the gravity around them. It may have been Kushwindro's rain forest, but it was all part of Simon's world.

There were so many enemies, though, and beyond them he could sense an enormous swarm of insects flying in from one direction and an army of gibbons swinging over from the other. It was too much for him to focus on.

“No,” he whispered. “I'm tired of worrying and I'm sick of being pushed around.” He might well be a terrible leader, he decided, but the others were looking to him for guidance. He'd gotten them into this mess—he'd get them out.

“Hey . . . adrenaline woman!” he shouted, sensing her nearby.

“Name's Targa,” she said.

“Can you reverse that sleepy trick? Make someone hy peralert and energetic?”

“Yeah, sure. Who?”

“Me.”

“When?”

“Now!” Simon shouted.

The effect was immediate: Simon's eyes immediately jolted wide open as Targa's epinephrine surged through his bloodstream. He felt as if he'd just chugged twelve cans of soda, but without having to pee after.

Every heartbeat was a gong-strike, every intake of breath was a cyclone in reverse, and every muscle was a contender for the be-like-Superman club. Most importantly, this triggered another chemical (called norepinephrine) in his body; it turned his mind into an Indy 500 of racing thoughts and sharp, precision calculations. His gravity-sensitivity was amplified, giving him hyperawareness of everything around him.

“Wow!” Simon said. “
That's
going to come in handy.”

Sensing Zillafer bounding toward them, Simon reached out with his gravity arms, using all four to grab at her. Rather than try to stop her, Simon took advantage of her mass and momentum. He swept her up off the ground and swung her in an arc, whipping her back the way she came. Back at his enemies.

Simon could tell which one was Trurya the same way he knew she'd caused shortsightedness . . . though he didn't yet understand what that way was. All that mattered, though, was he knew where to strike and he had a good weapon handy.

“What's happening?” Zillafer shouted as she streaked through the air.

“Kushwindro!” Wanderby shouted, taking his attention away from Flangelo. The dizzy, weakened emu stumbled and collapsed to his knees.

Kushwindro diverted all the vines in the area to grab at Zillafer, but she'd built up quite a bit of speed propelling her mass. She tore through the foliage, slowed but not stopped, and smacked into Trurya and Kostaglos.

They were flung far back, plowing through numerous large plants before landing with a splash into a lichen-covered puddle. They didn't get back up. As for Zillafer, she slammed into a particularly large tree. All the air she'd used to inflate herself burst out of her mouth, and she sank, unconscious, to the jungle floor.

“I can see!” Alysha shouted. “And I've had enough of
The Jungle Whisperer
over there.” She activated her jet propulsion, aiming her nose so she launched through the air and streaked toward him. Kushwindro sent branches and creepers at her, but that didn't stop her from flinging a handful of electrically charged metal pieces at him. They exploded around him, sending him senseless to the ground.

The grasping leaves, vines, and rain forest muck dropped harmlessly, freeing Owen. Alysha smiled. “Three down.” She glared at Wanderby. “Next!” She launched herself through the air toward him with another rocketlike nose-whoosh.