The little boy padded quietly down the stark gray halls, glancing nervously behind him every few seconds. If they caught him out of his quarters again he’d be in real trouble. He considered turning around and going back. He was tired and it was cold- the harsh, bare, metal walls of the passageway seemed to be sucking up what little heat was pumped into the mostly disused corridor. The lights were dimmed to simulate night, but for all the boy knew it might be high noon outside the dome.
He shivered and hugged himself for warmth, the slap-slap of his bare feet echoing slightly in the gloom. He’d forgotten his slippers again.
Suddenly he heard several sets of footsteps coming from behind him. It sounded like they were marching. He gasped and darted for the nearest doorway, grinding his teeth anxiously for the half second it took the pressure mat to acknowledge his existence and slide the panel open. The instant he was inside, he grabbed the knob that would kill power to the door and waited, twisting it only when there was barely a crack left between the door and the wall. He pressed his eye to the crack, breathless from fear and excitement.
He was right. They had been marching. It was a detail from the Palace Guard, out patrolling the halls. He wondered if more of the dropouts from beyond the dome had snuck in, hoping to recruit new members for their tribe.
He watched in awe as the group marched past, their red and white uniforms clashing with the drab, gray surroundings. He and his best friend had already decided that was one of the things they wanted to be when they grew up. Crashing around the dome with stun guns, protecting everyone from the dangerous dropouts and criminals- and no one would tell them not to run in the halls if they had on one of those great, red and white uniforms with their flowing capes and helmets.
He waited until the last of the echoes of their marching faded away and then slipped back into the hall, hurrying far more quickly through the gloom now, the cold mostly forgotten in the excitement.
He had to duck into a few more hiding places on the way to avoid being caught, but he finally reached his destination, glancing around carefully before stepping through a seemingly random sliding door. It’s soft whooshing sound blended with that of another patrol, marching determinedly down the hall.
The door closed firmly behind him and he sighed in relief, sagging against a cold metal wall. He closed his eyes, waiting for his hearts to settle back down to a normal rhythm and decided that he defiantly wasn’t looking forward to the long walk back to his quarters.
“Boo!”
The boy gasped, his eyes flying back open in surprise. His already weak knees gave out from under him and he fell with a startled cry onto the hard metal floor.
Above him, another boy, slightly older than he was, laughed that disconcerting laugh the first child had always disliked so much.
“What’s the big idea?!” he stormed angrily, scrambling back to his feet.
The second boy, still chuckling, shook his head in mock disapproval, brushing back the dark curls that always seemed to be falling into his face.
“You’ve been reading those Earth books again,” he said, smoothly changing the subject from his own nasty trick.
“What?” his friend started to ask innocently, fully prepared to deny it until he remembered that, “what’s the big idea,” was a phrase out of one of them. Instead he shrugged self-consciously.
“So?”
“So why are you so obsessed with that back water, nowheresville planet?”
He tried to come up with a suitable answer but couldn’t, finally just shrugging again, determined to change the subject.
“Did you get it?” he asked, stepping away from the wall and surveying the small room carefully. He didn’t see anything and his spirits sank slightly. If his friend hadn’t managed to grab the security code pad they’d have to sneak out all over again tomorrow night.
“Naturally,” the dark haired boy said, waving the small electronic pad in front of his friend’s face. “You didn’t ever have any doubt, did you?”
“Of course not,” he said quickly, grabbing the pad and sharing a quick, lopsided grin of anticipation with his co-conspirator, his dread of the long walk home momentarily forgotten.
He started tapping away at the touch sensitive pad, working for what seemed like ages (but probably was really only minutes) to get the stubborn thing to display the Presidential Codes up on the screen. He wished he could just memorize the numbers, but they changed every two days as a security measure. Finally, the code popped up on the screen and he hurried across the room, his friend close at his bare heels.
“3, 9, 7,” he mumbled under his breath as he punched the code into a numbered pad beside yet another gray, metal door. “4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 1, 2!”
With a hiss, the vacuum tight door swooshed open, revealing a tiny, gray, metal room.
–An air lock
Outside, in the corridor, another detail of guards marched by. The two boys heard the commander order his troops to start searching the rooms. They were both frozen with fear for a single, horrible moment before the dark haired boy grabbed his friend’s arm and darted into the air lock, hearing it hiss shut behind them seconds before the door across the room slid open.
They waited for a few minutes, too scared to dare moving, the sound of their frightened panting amplified in the small metal space.
Finally, the first boy crawled over to the door and sat on his knees, bracing his hands against the cool surface. He signaled that his friend should climb up on his shoulders and look through the tiny peep-hole three quarters of the way up the door. A perfect height for adults to look though…
The boy nodded shakily, and climbed, unsteadily, onto the other boy’s shoulders, wavering precariously for a few seconds, and finally managing to press his eye against the small hole.
The guard was gone. He sighed in relief and slowly climbed back down to the floor, whispering in a hushed voice that the coast was clear.
That’s an Earth phrase, the first boy thought a bit suspiciously, but finally realized that his friend had probably picked it up from listening to him.
Only then did the pair remember the reason for this nocturnal expedition. Two sets of eyes darted quickly to the other side of the small space, and they were relieved to see that their tiny trap was still sitting right where they had left it. And better yet, the door had fallen! Maybe they had finally caught something.
Together, the scrambled over to the small square box, covered with holes to let air in and were amazed to see a small six legged rodent with red beady eyes peering up at them from inside the container, squeaking miserably and clawing at the sides.
They grinned happily at each other, not quite believing their good luck. They hadn’t been so sure that the sweet, hard little balls called “candy” the off-worlders often gave them to eat would tempt any of the creatures outside the dome.
The pair had often seen animals, being led around on leashes, the off-worlders had brought from home. They were certainly never allowed to touch the strange, many legged things, even if the owners offered to let them “pet” them, whatever that meant. Then, about a week and a half ago, they had learned in class that outside the dome there were many animals, of all shapes and sizes- mostly with large teeth. The wording in the holographic book was meant to scare, convince the children that they didn’t want to join the dropouts beyond the dome. But the two boys, already well known as over curious troublemakers, had been intrigued. At first, a way to catch one of the creatures had eluded them. But then the first boy had remembered the air locks.
They were used to supply air to the dome. During the day the outer door was opened and vents inside the small chamber were used to suck in the air, which was piped to the decontamination center, purified, scented, and released into the dome. It was impossible to open the inner door while the outer door was open. The outer door was closed every twelve hours. Officially because of ‘safety measures’. Unofficially, both boys were sure, because the pay for night shift work was almost twice that of day shift work, and it took about ten people to run the equipment required. But whatever the reason, it had given the boys a chance to slip into the air lock and set up a crude trap with plenty of the little hard candies inside. It had been terribly hard not to eat the sweet little treats; they were so much better than the boring purple tablets that made up most of their diet. But they had done it and been rewarded with actually catching a little creature.
Excitedly, the dark haired boy grabbed the box and sat it so the rodent couldn’t dart out when the top was open. Hands shaking slightly, he pried the trap door open and glanced at his friend for a second before reaching inside. The little creature hissed and squeaked unhappily, snapping at the boy with his tiny pointed teeth. He snatched his hand back out, millimeters from loosing a chunk of skin.
They tried for a few minutes to calm it down, but had no luck. Just as the first boy was resigning himself to the fact that he might never get to ‘pet’ one of these amazing things, the dark haired boy sat up with a gasp, the expression in his eyes plainly saying that he had thought of something.
“What?” asked his friend hopefully.
“Why don’t you do that hypnotizing thing your father showed you? You know, where you spin that shiny little necklace and sing?”
The boy hesitated before replying, wondering if he could still do it. It had been almost a year since he had last seen his father- he was an ambassador to some far off planet- and he had never tried the hypnosis trick without him there to supervise.
Finally, he decided that it couldn’t do any harm to try, and slipped the precious necklace over his head. It took him a few tries to get his fingers working right, but finally managed to get the jewel at the end spinning correctly and started to sing an old Venusian lullaby, his young, tiny voice cracking a bit at the hard notes.
Slowly, the rodent started hissing and squeaking less; his six little legs, that had been constantly propelling him around his tiny cage, stopped moving. The boy could see a red, beady eye staring, unblinking, at the spinning necklace.
“That is so amazing!” the dark haired boy breathed, reaching slowly for the top of the box. The two boys shared another nervous glance before he put his hand back inside. This time the creature didn’t snap at him. It didn’t even move. With a sweaty palm, the boy slowly ran his hand down the creatures back, starting at the tail and ending at the head. It squeaked in protest and darted away, but didn’t snap at the boy.
He glanced up at his friend, looking a little hurt. “That’s not what the ones the off-worlders have do,” he said disappointedly. “They usually make that sound in the back of their throat and lay down.”
His friend grinned and tried not to laugh. “You, uh, you petted him the wrong way round,” he informed him. Petted, he thought. Was that right?
“Petted,” he said again, and then laughed. It felt funny in his mouth.
“What do you mean, ‘the wrong way round’?” his friend asked.
“You start at the head and go to the tail. At least that’s what the off-worlders do.”
“Oh.”
He tried again, this time with considerably more success. The little creature rubbed against his hand and turned around a few times before lying down.
“Wow…” the boy breathed, withdrawing his hand a little reluctantly to let his friend have a go.
He grinned at the feel of the fur. It was the softest thing he thought he had ever touched. The creature suddenly nuzzled his hand with it’s nose and the boy laughed. It was cold and wet.
The pair took turns petting it for a few minutes, until it fell asleep. Then they sat back against the walls, yawning a little themselves.
“That hypnotizing thing is so cool,” the dark haired boy said, pulling his knees up under his chin.
“I could show you how to do it,” his friend offered. “It isn’t hard.”
“I’m going to learn how to really hypnotize people one day,” he boasted, brushing the curls out of his face again. “I’m just going to look at them and say, ‘You will obey me,’ and they’ll do whatever I say.”
His friend smiled indulgently at this show of bravado. He was always talking like this.
“You’re going to rule the Universe, right?”
“Right!”
“Can I be your second in command?”
His friend considered this for a second. “Sure. You can help me rule my large and powerful army.”
“Great!”
“The first thing we’re going to do when we take over the Universe is make sure all the kids have a pet,” he said thoughtfully. It was obviously just the first of many changes the boy had planned. “Everyone will have to call me ‘master’, of course.”
“Of course,” his friend replied.
“But no matter how great and powerful I get, we’ll always be friends, right?” he asked.
“Best friends?”
“Right,” he assured him. “Best friends forever.”
They were both quiet for a few minutes, smiling happily at the wonderful future they had predicted for themselves.
“It’s going to take me a while to conquer the whole Universe,” the dark haired boy admitted after a little while. “You’d better have something planed to do until I get through.”
“Yeah, I probably should.”
“So,” he said, brushing the infuriating curls off his forehead again. “What are you going to be till then?”
His friend considered this for a few moments and then grinned broadly.
“I’m going to be a Doctor.”
