• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Just then the lights did come back, flickering on one after another down the length of the corridor.

“There we go,” grinned Scant. “Panic over. Maybe now they’ll buy us some new circuits, eh, brother?”

Dr. Argon came barrelling down the passageway, almost keeping pace with the flickering lights.

“Your hip is better, then, Jerry?” said Merv.

Argon ignored the pixies, his eyes wide, his breath ragged.

“Corporal Kelp,” he panted. “Koboi, is she? Has she ...”

Grub rolled his eyes. “Calm yourself, doctor. Miss Koboi is still suspended where you left her. Take a look.”

Argon flattened his palms against the wall, first checking the vitals.

“Okay, no change. No change. A two-minute lapse, but that’s okay.”

“I told you,” said Grub. “And while you’re here, I need to talk to you about these headaches I’ve been having.”

Argon brushed him aside. “I need a cotton ball. Scant, do you have any?”

Scant slapped his pockets. “Sorry, Jerry. Not on me.”

“Don’t call me Jerry!” howled Jerbal Argon, ripping the lid from the cleaning trolley. “There must be cotton balls in here somewhere,” he said, sweat pasting thin hair across his wide gnome’s forehead. “It’s a janitor’s box, for heaven’s sake.” His blunt fingers scrabbled through the trolley’s contents, scraping across the false bottom.

Merv elbowed him out of the way before he could discover the secret compartment or spy screens. “Here we are, doctor,” he said, grabbing a tub of cotton balls. “A month’s supply. Knock yourself out.”

Argon fumbled a single ball from the pack, discarding the rest.

“DNA never lies,” he muttered, punching his code into the keypad. “DNA never lies.”

He rushed into the room and roughly swabbed the inside of the clone’s mouth. The Brill brothers held their breath. They had expected to be out of the clinic before this happened. Argon rolled the cotton ball’s head across the sponge pad on his clipboard. A moment later, Opal Koboi’s name flashed onto the board’s miniplasma screen.

Argon heaved a massive sigh, resting his hands on both knees. He threw the observers a shamefaced grin. “Sorry. I panicked. If we lost Koboi, the clinic would never live it down. I’m just a little paranoid, I suppose. Faces can be altered, but . . .”

“DNA never lies,” said Merv and Scant simultaneously.

Grub reset his video goggles. “I think Dr. Argon needs a little vacation.”

“You’re telling me,” sniggered Merv, rolling the trolley toward the maintenance elevator. “Anyway, we’d better get going, brother. We need to isolate the cause of the power failure.”

Scant followed him down the corridor. “Any idea where the problem could be?”

“I have a hunch. Let’s try the parking lot, or maybe the basement.”

“Whatever you say. After all, you are the older brother.”

“And wiser,” added Merv. “Don’t forget that.”

The pixies continued down the corridor, their brisk banter masking the fact that their knees were shaking and their hearts were battering their rib cages. It wasn’t until they had removed the evidence of their acid bombs, and were well on their way home in the van, that they began to breathe normally again.

Back in the apartment he shared with Scant, Merv unzipped Koboi from her sealed hiding place. Any worries they’d had about Opal’s IQ taking a dip immediately vanished. Their employer’s eyes were bright and aware.

“Bring me up to speed,” she said, climbing shakily from the trolley. Even though her mind was fully functioning, it would take a couple of days in an electromassager to get her muscles back to normal.

Merv helped her onto a low sofa. “Everything is in place. The funds, the surgeon, everything.”

Opal drank greedily straight from a jug of core water on the coffee table. “Good, good. And what of my enemies?”

Scant stood beside his brother. They were almost identical except for a slight wideness in Merv’s brow. Merv had always been the smart one.

“We have kept tabs on them, as you asked,” said Scant.

Opal stopped drinking. “Asked?”

“Instructed,”