The Octopus Effect (28 page)

A short, chubby Biology woman stepped forward and let out a massive belch aimed at Alysha. The result was a deafening boom of sound and, worse, a stench so bad it was almost visible. Caught head-on by this, Alysha rolled on the ground and covered her face . . . more her nose than her ears.

“Well done, Baharess,” Wanderby said. “Makes up for your failure in the cave. Now let's get rid of the rest of these trou blemakers.”

“No way,” Simon said. He used an old trick on Baharess, robbing her of friction to make her feet slide out from under her. When she crashed flat onto her back on the forest floor, Simon shifted friction so her arms, legs, and torso were stuck to the ground.

He saw Baharess taking a deep breath and guessed she was getting ready to let out another burp. “Owen, block her!”

Owen used velocity to yank a cluster of broad leaves from the nearest bush, covering her head and chest. The pile of platter-size leaves arrived just in time to make the woman's gaseous attack rebound back into her own face.

Baharess gagged and choked; still stuck to the ground, she couldn't even fan her face with her hands. “Is
that
what my burps smell like?” she moaned, then passed out.

“Alysha, you okay?” Simon called out.

Alysha sucked in clean air. “This might be the grossest day of my life.”

Simon, sharply attuned to every change in gravity, looked into the distance. “It's about to get worse.” The tree canopy shook and the leaves parted. Suddenly, a gigantic cloud of insects burst through from one side. And from the other direction, hooting loudly, a horde of gibbons swung in.

Owen suddenly became visible just a few feet above the ground. “There's no way I'm staying in the air with them!”

Alysha grit her teeth. “Any new ideas?”

“Can you do that plasma trick again?” Simon asked her.

“No way—I might burn down the whole jungle or blow us up!”

Simon nodded, having guessed as much. “Listen, if I keep your feet anchored, can you use your, um, nose as a weapon?”

Alysha frowned. “Ugh. Seriously, yuck. But yeah, I think I get what you mean.”

“Good.” He pointed at the insects. “Aim for the middle.”

“Now you'll pay the price for resisting,” Willoughby Wanderby shouted.

“Is he still here?” Owen asked.

“I have an idea that'll take care of him, too,” Simon said to Owen. “But first you need to stay close to the ground and follow my lead.”

“What can I do?” Targa asked.

“Just keep that epinephrine stuff coming,” Simon said. “I'm going to need it.”

Flangelo rose unsteadily to his feet, pivoting his emu head back and forth between the two approaching masses of creatures. He let out a loud emu grunt, as if to make sure Simon and the others were paying attention to the danger.

The attacking insects, in a thundercloud-size formation, zoomed down at the friends. “Alysha, now!” Simon said, shouting to be heard.

Alysha activated her jet-propulsion ability, aiming her nostrils at the center of the swarm. She was rocked backward by the powerful burst of air, but her feet were firmly planted and stayed that way thanks to Simon's friction formula.

Her air attack struck the middle of the collective, punching a beach ball-size hole into the front of the cluster. Those insects hit ones next to and behind them, leaving a gap in the back end the size of a small car. The impact wasn't fatal, though; the displaced bugs regrouped while the rest of the swarm, though slowed, didn't stop coming. But they were spreading out more and more.

At the same time, Simon reached out with his gravity arms, using them to grab at and scoop up as many gibbons as he could. There were hoots of dismay and surprise as the apes were suddenly snagged midswing or midjump and flung over their targets—the small gathering of people and emu—and to the insects beyond them.

Owen did the same with velocity, snaring gibbons in groups of six and seven and yanking them over to the insects. The two boys had to act quickly, so they just tossed the apes the few dozen feet to the target area. Soon the hundreds of hairy enemies were displaced to the far side of the battle site.

Alysha shot burst after burst of air through her nose, tilting her head slightly to scatter section after section of bugs. “Simon, I can't keep this up,” she yelled. “My nose is going to fall off, and I think I've pulled every muscle in my legs and butt!”

“You can stop,” Simon said with a smile. “It worked perfectly.” He pointed as the gibbon army desperately grasped at branches and vines around them, only to find themselves in the midst of the huge collection of flying bugs. Flying bugs which, it just so happened, gibbons liked to eat.

Gibbon and insect forces met in midair, and the result was mayhem. Gibbons used their hands and prehensile feet to snatch at the tasty, crunchy treats while the bugs stung and bit at their attackers. Simon, Alysha, Owen, Targa, and Flangelo—still in emu form—crouched beneath them, watching the strange, noisy war.

Demara put her hands to her head in dismay. “Najolo,” she screamed, “make your apes stop eating my insects!”

Najolo, in gibbon form, let out a loud hooting: clearly a scolding in gibbon-speak. The gibbons halted their feeding frenzy and leaped down after Simon and his friends.

Demara closed her eyes and sent a mental command to the bugs, making sure they backed off the gibbons and attacked the people below.

“Now comes the tricky part,” Simon muttered. He closed his eyes to focus his Targa-boosted thoughts, and then he shifted the gravitational pull of the area above his friends and him. Suddenly, the descending gibbons found themselves zooming in the reverse direction. The insects did, too, but they had wings and had no trouble resisting.

“Alysha,” Simon shouted, “bug zapper!”

Alysha glared at him for a moment. “This is going to be completely disgusting,” she muttered. Then she closed her eyes, held her arms outstretched to her sides, and surrounded herself with a field of bluish white electricity. She kept sucking electrons away from nearby atoms and channeled them into a steady flow of electrical charge.

The insects were drawn to her, much as they would be to someone's backyard bug zapper. And when they flew to that irresistible light, they met the same end. There were still many hundreds of the flying attackers, and the air was filled with the loud snap, crackle, and pop of their shocking deaths.

Unfortunately, this meant that Alysha was completely surrounded by the very creatures that she found so vile, their corpses piling up around her. And she did not sound happy about it.

“Siiiimmmmoooon!” she shrieked, loud enough to be heard over the buzzing and frying. “I'm going to get you for this!”

“Stop!” Demara shouted. She closed her eyes and concentrated, commanding the surviving insects to ignore that alluring blue-white light. The bugs obeyed and, finally, turned on their intended targets.

The cicadas weren't dangerous (they don't even have mouths), but they were loud and distracting. The bees had their nasty stings, while the flies, beetles, and mosquitoes could—and would—bite. Though Alysha was safe, the others were vulnerable.

But Simon wasn't done. He had a final stage to his plan that seemed crazy to him but, if it worked, might finish the job. And he was determined not to let doubt get in his way anymore. He twisted his gravity arms into a funnel, sucking the insects in and sending them speeding down a narrow path. He made the gravitational pull fierce along the borders of that route, so the insects were hard-pressed to fly anywhere but where he wanted them.

They streaked through that tunnel as Simon shifted it, forcing them away from his friends and him. Instead, it directed them right at his former gym teacher.

“Hey, Mr. Wanderby,” Simon shouted. “Catch!”

At that moment, Wanderby was staring open-mouthed as his battle plans fell apart. Suddenly, hundreds of insects came winging their way in a tight stream at him. He activated his rotational formula, spinning bugs away by the dozen, but more kept coming. Finally, the flow broke through Wanderby's defenses and slammed into him. He was thrown backward, his entire body coated in squashed bees, flies, beetles, mosquitoes, and cicadas. He was also knocked out, but that was almost beside the point.

The gibbons, unfortunately, were finding their way around the reverse-gravity zone. They used the branches of the trees to head down toward the enemy their leader ordered them after. Once past the gravity-twisting layer, they had no problem attacking.

Gibbons swung around Alysha, but after the first few were singed and stunned by her electrical field, they kept their distance. Owen and Simon were able to use velocity and gravity to keep most of the gibbons off Targa, Flangelo, and them, but there were too many apes for them to fully defeat.

Everyone—even the gibbons—turned in the direction of a tree-shaking roar. Grawley, in bear form, soared through the air in a wide arc, crashing through dozens of branches before smacking to the floor, hard. He half-rose to his feet but plopped back down with a whine. He changed from grizzly to human and lay there, unconscious.

Kender, his exoskeleton torn with many deep, claw- and tooth-shaped gouges, stomped out of a thicket and let out a triumphant yell that echoed across the suddenly quiet patch of jungle. “Okay, who's next?” he bellowed.

Dozens of gibbons piled onto Kender, slapping and biting at his shell. “Stupid question,” he said as he sagged to the ground under their assault.

Flangelo let out an angry honk—emu-speak for “enough is enough!”—as he ducked under a pair of leaping gibbons. He scanned the rampaging apes and found the one he was looking for: the only one hanging back and watching, occasionally giving a hoot of encouragement or command.

Flangelo-emu let out a booming cry and dashed forward, leaping and kicking his way through the gibbons that grasped at him. He delivered a spinning kick that sent the lead gibbon flying through the air and smacking into the ground, hard. It shifted back into human-Najolo form and did not rise.

The army of gibbons paused in their attack, hooting quietly and staring at their fallen leader. Kender grunted and spun around, flinging the distracted animals off him while Simon and Owen continued to toss the hairy primates around.

Flangelo turned back to human form. “It's okay, everyone; stop fighting them.”

There were many pained hoots and angry grunts from the gibbons, but they weren't violent by nature. With Najolo in human form, the gibbons' leader had suddenly vanished; they had no reason to attack the other humans (especially since attacking kept getting them hurt).

The next-largest gibbon, taking over in Najolo's absence, gave a command. As one, the gibbons went after the remaining insects and fed with even more eagerness than before. Then they dispersed, swinging and leaping back to their homes in the trees.

“My insects!” Demara shrieked. “But there's more where
they
came from.”

“No. More. Bugs,” Alysha snarled. She tackled Demara and discharged a jolt of electricity that left the insect-controlling woman out of commission.

For a long moment, nobody moved or spoke. Cassaro woozily got to his feet and looked around at the ruined stretch of jungle around him. “Did I just see a bunch of monkeys running away?” he asked.

“Apes,” Owen said. “They're gibbons; it's a type of ape, not monkey.”

“This is not the time or the place for a science lesson!” Alysha said. She paused and considered what she'd said. “Fine, it
is
the place, but not the time.”

“We won!” Targa crowed, raising her arms in the air in triumph.

“Not yet you haven't!” a man shouted. Two more adults burst out from behind some trees. One, a man with a mus tache, hurled a rock at Simon's head.

Owen grabbed it with velocity and sent it flying back at the man, conking him on the head and knocking him out.

A pale woman standing next to the fallen man stuck her hands up. “I surrender!”

A lean, dark-haired man stepped out next to her with his fists poised, ready to fight. He frowned at the woman. “Jaynu, you quitter!”

“What do you want me to do, Branto?” the woman said. “I'm bioluminescent: I can glow in the dark. I'm not cut out for this kind of fighting.”

“So? Cubec's ability only deals with tracking, but he's willing to fight!”

The woman pointed to where the mustachioed man, presumably Cubec, now lay unconscious. Branto followed her finger, sighed, and raised his own hands in surrender.