This tunnel was so wide that it was hard not to get going too fast. I stretched out my legs and tried to put the brakes on with the rubber soles of my shoes. But then my feet actually got hot and I had to let us go into free fall again until they cooled down, so that was a pain. Plus all the screaming.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WE ARE GOING TO DIE NOW,” J.Lo said unhelpfully.
And I guess I could see how he’d think that when our tunnel sucked us to the right and then straightened out again and we could hear the crisp metal chomp of the chompers getting louder. I jammed my feet against the sides again, but we barely slowed. Bill flew on ahead and sprayed us with bubbles as we rounded another bend. Through all that carbonation I could just barely see the chomper’s sharp trap opening and closing in front of us.
But I still had one of the assassin’s guns, right? So I aimed to make a big cavity in those teeth.
“Bill!” I shouted. “Out of the way!” And when he moved, I fired. But nothing happened. I fired again.
“Why isn’t this working?!” I screamed.
“You have been to firing it a lot!” said J.Lo. “May be out of charge!”
I pulled the trigger again and again, then banged the whole gun a few times against the tunnel walls, and the chompers were about to take off my legs when I fired one final time and we dropped twenty feet into a pile of gray slop.
I looked up.
“Got ’em,” I said, jerking my chin above us at the big hole I’d made and the scraps of teeth that were left, jawing uselessly at nothing. “Good plan, amirite?”
“Meh,” said J.Lo.
“Any landing you can walk away from,” I began.
“Cannot walk. Stuck in slop.”
* * *
Turned out we could walk, but barely.
“I want ONE HUNDRED showers,” said J.Lo.
I’ve never really believed in hell, pardon my language. God has to have a better plan than an all-or-nothing reality game show. But if you wanted to imagine hell, you could do worse than trudging knee-deep through a hot subterranean swamp of liquid garbage while a thousand rusty metal mouths bite and bite endlessly above you.
“How far do you suppose we were from the palace when we crashed?” I asked.
“Mmmmaybies three miles.”
“And how far do you think we have left?”
“Also three miles.”
It was a long time before we saw Funsize’s death-ray pagoda in the distance. Bill scouted ahead to have a look at it.
“There,” I said. “That’s where he lives. See? He has solid garbage around his place ’cause the nearest chomper doesn’t work.”
“This is my life now,” said J.Lo. “I am all jazzed at the promise of solid garbage.”
“Okay,” I panted. “You’d better let me approach first, J.Lo. You’re not exactly his favorite person—”
But just then Bill returned and spelled something complicated in the air above us.
“What did that say?” I asked.
“Hm. It said that this Funsize is no at home.”
Then the garbage rumbled, and shifted, and the periscope of Funsize’s little submarine sprouted up between us.
Through the periscope his happy, muffled voice said, “It is you!”
We stepped back as the whole contraption surfaced and the bubble retracted.
“Yeah, hi, Funsize,” I said, “it’s me—”
But the little Boov drew up to J.Lo with anxious fingers. “The Squealer,” he whispered. “Right here in my home!”
“Yes hello,” said J.Lo, waving.
Funsize was actually a bit shorter than J.Lo, now that I saw them together. I couldn’t believe I’d once thought this weird little person was the assassin. But still—
“Uh,” I began, uncertain. “Now I know you’re upset with J.Lo, Funsize, but I think—”
“Upset by the Squealer? Well, yes—once,” he admitted, taking J.Lo’s hands. “But I heard you on the news. You were just a simple maintenance Boov. A Boov who made a mistake, and wanted to fix it. It is just like my story! You are me!”
“Aha,” said J.Lo. “Okaythen.”
“And soon you will be president HighBoov! It is very exciting. Come,” he said, leading J.Lo by the wrist. “Come to the pa-GOH-da.”
It was easier going here, where the garbage wasn’t slop. Funsize’s submarine was only a one-person vehicle, but he piloted it alongside us with the top open.
“Soooo, Funsize,” I said, trying to choose my words delicately. “This mistake you made—the one that got you sent here in the first place—do I want to know what it was?”
Funsize got a far-off look. “I loved...too much,” he sighed.
So the answer was no, I didn’t want to know what it was.
J.Lo craned back to look at Funsize’s home.
“Hm,” he said. “Death ray.”
Funsize clasped his hands and stepped forward. He was as big-eyed as a puppy. “Do you like it?”
“An interesting design,” J.Lo said, nodding. “But how could you power such a thing?”
Funsize waggled his hands. “I used one of the digger robots and tapped into the fiery core at the center of the moon!”
“Whoa,” said J.Lo, impressed. “Hm. Now that is an interesting idea.”
“Funsize,” I said, “my name isn’t Grace. It’s Gratuity. But you can call me Tip. I know that’s stupidly confusing and I’m sorry about that. Also, I lost your hoverbutt.”
“It is okay. I have two others.”
Funsize gave J.Lo a tour of his house. I was only interested in getting clean, so he showed me how his submarine doubled as a sort of dishwasher for people. After I was dry, I reentered the pagoda.
J.Lo was saying, “But I do not want to be president HighBoov. I do not want the power.”
“And that is just why everybody loves you!” said Funsize, bouncing in his chair. “Plus they saw on the NewsFeed the way Captain Smek tried to have you assassinated. To keep you from talking the truth!”
“Oh, man,” I said, coming in. “That guy was working for Smek?”
Funsize shrugged. “It is what everyBoov thinks.”
“Can they elect you anyway?” I asked J.Lo. “Even if you don’t want it?”
“I do not know. But I will not let them find me. I am going to stay here and work on my time machine.”
I winced. But Funsize nearly fell off his chair, he was so happy.
“You will live with me!” he squealed. “We can make garbage farts to sleep in!”
I touched my translator. “That should have been ‘forts,’ right?”
“Sadly, no,” said J.Lo.
“Sooo,” I said, “I thought the time machine idea was dead. Needed too much energy.”
“Ahyes! We have been talking, Funsize and I. The moon’s core can fuel my time machine, so long as you do not mind me stealing power from your death ray, Funsize.”
The garbage Boov waved a hand. “Oh, I was probably going to dismantle it,” he said. “A death ray in the home is more likely to be used against a loved one than on your enemies anyway. Statistically.”
I took a breath. “This plan...doesn’t sound like it would put us any closer to getting home,” I said.
I was feeling like a rubber band. I was feeling like a rubber band stretched all the way from Earth to this pagoda, and every time I thought it was time to snap back home, it got pulled just a little farther away. And I was going to break, I swear I was.
“Actualies,” said J.Lo, “if the trip is successful, it will be liketo you never left!”
I wasn’t ready to deal with this, so I said, “Hey, Funsize, do you have any idea if Dan Landry is still staying in the palace?”
“It is what they say on the NewsFeed, yes.”
“Okay, well, I totally wouldn’t blame you if you said no, but: Can I borrow another hoverbutt?”
“Heh,” said J.Lo. “Hoverbutt.”