2: The Escape

Prologue 

Stellar the Blobwob slowly inched into the “genetic manipulation” section of the genetics laboratory. The genetics lab was where Stellar worked. She was interested in all the new technologies she was innovating, and introducing them to her daughter and soon-to-be-born child. Stellar sighed happily at the thought of having a young Blobwob nearby again. She was the only Blobwob in the lab since her daughter (Nova) had gone to Sun City and her husband had gone to get the milk (and divorced her). Stellar checked the results of her latest genetic/cloning experiments and found something was amiss. What was inside the giant test tube was a pinkish, humanoid baby. That was not what her bosses wanted. Stellar cautiously took the baby out of the giant test tube and tried to find some clothes that would fit it. Stellar didn’t know what to do. Her bosses would fire her or worse if they learned she did not “delete” this “mistake”. But she could not bring herself to do it. Stellar reasoned she simply couldn’t kill a helpless baby, and instead she would bring it up with her own child. It would do her child good to have a friend. She would, however, have to hide her mistake from her bosses for her and her family’s safety. Stellar immediately started deleting files on the project, hoping nobody would find them, ever.

Chapter 1, Trinity.

Me and my best friend Mistake have grown up together, raised by my mum Stellar. We live in a genetics lab, which is where Stellar works. The lab is very homely, thanks to Mum, and the we have never been anywhere else. 

The lab is located on the home planet of the Squiddles, which are a type of squid-like aliens. Stellar has a very important job, working for the leaders of the Squiddle government. However, every time she video calls them to discuss her work, she makes me and Mistake hide from sight. I don’t see why, she always says we’re absolutely safe here. But Mum always has good reasons for what she does, like when I was really little I thought her test tubes were shiny and wanted to touch them. She told me to stay away from them but I didn’t and got stuck inside one.

I was really little back then.

Anyways, today Stellar had another video meeting. Me and Mistake hid like we usually do, but after the meeting Stellar seemed worried. I heard her muttering something about “knowing they’re here”. I asked what happened and why she was so upset. I wanted to find out how I could cheer her up, but she didn’t reply and started stuffing things into a small bag. 

“Are we going on holiday?” Mistake asked. She seemed as confused as I was.

Stellar led us to the door and gave us the small bag.

“I’m very sorry about this, Trinity, Mistake,” Mum said sadly. “But you have to go. It’s not safe here anymore. You need to get as far away from here as you can, you hear? I apologize that this is so sudden, but it’s for your own safety.”

We were shocked by this instruction.

“But Stellar,” Mistake says, “Why do you say ‘you’? Aren’t you coming?”

Stellar hugs us. “I can’t come with you. There are bad people after us, and three people are easier to find than two. You should go to Sun City and stay with your sister Nova, you understand? She can protect you. Don’t trust any Squiddles, especially not police or soldiers. Now you need to go. Just remember, I will always love you.”

We didn’t know what to do. We were in shock when we were just turned out of our home and forced to go to a place we had never been to. We climbed a nearby hill to get one last look at the lab, to have a look at our surroundings. Only then did we notice how small our home looked, in the middle of a vast expanse of nothing. We sat there and looked.

“I can’t believe we’re leaving already!” I said with tears in my eyes. I was also confused. The way Mum told us we had to go. It was almost like we wouldn’t see her again. Surely we could still contact each other, even if we were living with Nova?

All of a sudden we heard a noise. It sounded sort of like a plane mixed with squelching noises.

“Look!” Mistake exclaimed. She pointed at a Squiddle army spaceship. “That’s where the noise is coming from!”

Before we left, Mum had taught me and Mistake a few different types of spaceships, so I could tell this was a bomber.

“Strange,” I said. “Why would a bomber be out here? There’s nothing here except Mum’s genetic lab.”

We looked at it, trying to figure out why it was here, when it dropped a bomb directly on top of the lab, our home! The force of the explosion was so large, it sent me and Mistake flying!

Thinking quickly, I stretched and enveloped Mistake. Blobwobs like me are immune to falling, but I wasn’t sure if Mistake could survive such a big fall.

We collided with the ground and bounced, colliding with the ground a second time. Then we stopped bouncing and I unstretched back to my original blobby shape.

Mistake hugged me. “Thanks, Trinity,” she whispered to me.

We looked around at our new surroundings, still unable to truly believe what had happened. Our home had been destroyed for no apparent reason and we were now miles away from the wreckage. We appeared to be in some sort of city, with colourful buildings reaching into the sky and bright neon signs. I gasped in awe and I heard Mistake do the same. It was so amazing! We walked down the street, marveling at the wonderful city sights. After a few minutes though, we remembered we were not here to gape at the local city and were supposed to go to the Sun City to find Nova. There was a large problem though, we realized. Sun city was on another planet and to get there, we needed a spaceship with a Portable Wormhole drive. Mum had once explained how the PW drive worked. It used a wormhole to go any distance within one light year and on the other end, somehow picked up the wormhole for reuse. It used a lot of power and was therefore only used by rich people and the interplanetary ferry. The ferry was very expensive though, so we had a look at what Mum had given us.

Inside the bag we found some clothes, some snacks, a book on Blobwob shapeshifting and a pouch with a couple of coins inside. Mistake shook the bag. Nothing else came out. She sat down on the pavement.

“Stellar means well, but that amount of money can’t even buy one ferry ticket to the Sun city, let alone two.” She groaned. “What do we do now?”

I had to check to make absolutely sure there wasn’t anything in the bag that we missed, so I ran my blobby hand along the bottom of the bag. To my surprise, there was a hole in the bag and a hole in the pouch that contained the coins.

“Look, Mis!” I said. Mis is my nickname for Mistake. I pointed at the holes. “Mum must have packed more money but it fell out of the bag! If we go back we might find it!”

We retraced our steps, carefully looking out for our missing money. We found a few more coins when we stopped dead. Some Squiddle police officers were picking up our dropped money!

“Ho ho, extra wages!” I heard one say.

“Some idiot Blobwob gave us his life savings!” Another one agreed.

Oh no, I thought. What do we do now?

Chapter 2, Mistake

I saw the Squiddle police stealing our money and didn’t know what to do. Without it, we couldn’t go to Sun City and find Trinity’s sister Nova. We’d be stuck here, without a home or parent, forever. But Stellar had told us to be careful and not trust Squiddles, so I slowly moved away from the police patrol. I shouldn’t have done that because the Squiddles noticed me and Trinity and gave chase.

“Hey! It’s the fugitives the Captain told us about!” One said as he ran after us. 

We twisted and turned, but we couldn’t shake them off our tail. We ran round corner after corner, but they still seemed to know which way we were going. Trinity started to get tired, so I put her on top of my head and continued running. I was starting to think we couldn’t get away when a tentacle grabbed us and hid us among some more tentacles. I was scared and confused, but the owner of the tentacles seemed to be helping us. I hugged Trinity and stayed quiet.

The Squiddles, hot in pursuit, ran round the next corner without even seeing us. Once the Squiddles had been gone for a while the tentacles pulled us out of our hiding spot and we got to see our savior for the first time.

Our savior resembled a large floating jellyfish with tentacles growing around a humanoid-ish body that was similar size to Trinity. She was wearing an ocean-blue dress and had a long tentacle like tail that split into two at the end. I was amazed. She certainly wasn’t a Blobwob or Squiddle, and definitely wasn’t a… me. 

Trinity saw me looking confused and whispered to me, “She’s a Jobble.”

I looked back blankly and tried to remember. 

Our rescuer spoke. She had a voice that sounded like the sea. “Sooooo,” she says, spinning around, “Why were the Squiddle police after a young Blobwob and a… ummm… something?”

I blush. “I’m not a something, I’m a mistake,” I say quietly. 

Our rescuer doesn’t hear me. She grins broadly. “This is by the most absolute far the most interesting thing that has ever happened to me! Tell me what happened and all that kind of thing!”

Me and Trinity look at each other. Then Trinity timidly explained all the events that had happened since we had to leave the lab. Our rescuer listened in wide eyed fascination. When Trinity finished, she was eager to help.

“Squiddles can’t attack innocent children for no reason,” she said, “And you guys want to go to Sun City, right? I can take you there after I go back to the planet Jellium. You can tag along.”

Trinity and I looked at each other again. I wasn’t sure we could trust this Jobble, but she did save us, and could it be worse than being attacked by the Squiddle police? Trinity seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“Okay,” I said at last. “We’re going with you.”

Our rescuer smiled. “Follow me!” She said, heading towards the spaceport.

After a long walk we arrived. I expected that we’d head towards the interplanetary ferry, but instead we were going towards the private spaceships.

“Woah, why aren’t we going to get the ferry?” Trinity asked.

Our rescuer looked back at us. “We don’t need to,” she said. “My spaceship has a PW drive.”

At this comment I almost stopped. Only the richest people could afford to have a private spaceship with a Portable Wormhole drive. Was our rescuer telling the truth?

Our rescuer stopped in front of a fancy jellyfish like spaceship.

“Aaaah, here we are.” She said.

Me and Trinity stepped inside the spaceship and gasped. The floor was crystal and the walls shone like gold. The light reflected off every surface with a beautiful ocean like harmony. Everything was neatly folded inside a marble box and the air smelled like the sea.

Our rescuer sniffed the air. “Sorry ‘bout the mess, I haven’t cleaned recently.” Then she saw me and Trinity staring at the impressive interior of the spaceship. “Make yourself at home,” she added. “I’m going to start up the wormhole drive.”

She pressed a few buttons, span in a circle and announced, “To the planet Jellium!”

I was excited. I had never left the planet Wobbia or experienced the PW drive firsthand. I knew Trinity hadn’t either. We looked out the window and saw a big and black hole in space. The spaceship was going towards it and before I knew what was happening, we were going through the wormhole. Trinity squealed with excitement. Everything went dark. After a few minutes we were out of the wormhole and going to a new planet, Jellium. I was very excited.

Our rescuer grinned at me and Trinity. “Want to see something cool?” She says.

Me and Trinity nodded. Trinity leaned closer to me and whispered, “Could it possibly be cooler than this spaceship?”

“Maybe,” I whispered back. “But we should keep our expectations low so we don’t get disappointed if it isn’t.”

Suddenly the spaceship dropped down sharply. Trinity screamed. I screamed too. Our rescuer yelled with glee.

With a huge splash, we plummeted into the sea. I screamed even more. Unlike Trinity, and, presumably, our rescuer, I couldn’t breathe underwater. Trinity knew that and was about to say something when we stopped falling and steered sharply up. What came into sight could only be described as the most impressive structure I had ever seen.

Made up of massive crystal pods connected by shiny gold and silver tubes, it gave off the effect of sunlight shining on sea foam. Inside were hundreds of Jobbles doing daily tasks. None of them seemed to be especially impressed by the huge structure they were inside of, but then again they probably hadn’t seen how drab other places were in comparison. Trinity gasped in awe.

Our rescuer looked at us smugly. “Welcome to Ocean Pearl City,” she said. “The capital of Jobble country and my home.”

Before I had time to take that in, we zoomed into the city so fast i fell on top of Trinity.

“Sorry,” I apologized.

“It’s fine,” Trinity assured me.

The spaceship flew (or swam? I don’t really know) into a giant airlock and emerged into the biggest and fanciest spaceship garage I had ever seen. To be fair I had not seen many spaceship garages but this was truly impressive. Gold and silver lined the walls and amethyst tiles adorned the ceiling. It was breathtaking.

Trinity prodded my shoulder. I looked, and she pointed at a huge Jobble coming towards us. She had a gold and ruby crown on her head and was almost twice the size of our rescuer.

“She’s the queen,” Trinity whispered.

The queen Jobble ignored us entirely and went towards our rescuer. She spoke with a deep voice that sounded like the sea.

“Pearl, why are you not wearing your crown? And why did you run off to the planet Wobbia when our grand monthly feast was planned today?”

Our rescuer, Pearl, stubbornly replied, “Mother, the crown is heavy and uncomfortable. Not to mention it draws awkward attention to me. And I felt I have really had one monthly feast too much and I needed a break. And where better to do that than the planet of Blobwobs who are always nice and welcoming?”

I blushed. Our rescuer, Pearl, was a Jobble princess all along? No wonder her spaceship was so fancy and had a PW drive. And really, she flatters the Blobwob species. Sure, their culture is all about being nice and kind, and Trinity, Stellar and Nova definitely are. But Trinity’s dad, Pento, ran away, divorced Stellar, took half her money and used getting the milk as an excuse. Blobwobs don’t really even use milk, and it’s very expensive since there aren’t many mammals in this system. That’s why Stellar had to accept a job from the Squiddle government, just to make a living. That was also how I came into existence, but Stellar wouldn’t tell me any more.

I guess I’ll never really know.

The queen Jobble glared at Pearl. “That is not the point. The feast is a tradition. You can’t continue your endless thrill seeking like this! You’re going to be the queen one day!”

I blushed even harder. Pearl was not only a princess, she was also the crown princess!

Pearl glared back. “Mother, I did come back eventually, didn’t I? And I also met some new interesting people. I will invite them to the feast or I’m not going!”

Oof. I felt so awkward being invited to a feast when really we were the ones asking for a favor. Trinity was sweating and squirming because of the awkwardness.

The next thing I knew, we were being swept into a large room. The aroma was beautiful. Trinity was sniffing the air really hard. We were directed to seats and everyone had a dish placed in front of them.

“You may eat!” The queen announced.

I sniffed the dish in front of me. It smelled delicious. I saw Pearl and Trinity tucking in, so I decided to do the same. I raised the spoon of food to my lips and swallowed.

Everything went black.

Chapter 3, Trinity

AAAAAAHHH!!! I was so! Worried! I hopped around in circles on the hospital floor. Mis still hadn’t woken up! Even though I had donated something to make medicine, she hadn’t woken up yet! I have no idea what happened, one minute everyone was starting to eat and the next Mis was unconscious. What even happened? If the food was poisoned, why didn’t anything happen to anyone else? If it wasn’t the food, what was it? I looked at the corner of the room. Pearl was just standing there. I was still kinda shocked she was actually royal but considering everything that’s happened today I shouldn’t really be surprised. I started jumping out of frustration. 

Pearl tapped me with one of her tentacles. She gestured towards the hospital bed Mis is currently in. I was confused for a second but then I realized that Mis was starting to get up!

I quickly rushed beside her. “Mis! Are you okay?” I ask with tears in my eyes. 

Mistake started to get up. “I suppose,” she mumbled.

I hug her really hard. “You scared me,” I whispered.

“What even happened?” Mis asked. “I blacked out.”

“I was hoping you would know,” I responded.

Mis rubs her forehead. “I really don’t know. It was just after I ate some of the food… Pearl, could my portion of the food have been poisoned?”

I look at Pearl, who is still just standing in the corner.

“No way,” Pearl replied. “The food was only put into different bowls at the last minute. If one bowl was poisoned, all of them would have been. And anyway, Mother is super paranoid so she has a taster. The taster is fine, so it can’t have been the food.” She grins. “I’m just glad I got to escape that stupid formal tradition thing.”

I didn’t know what else to say. Partly because I couldn’t believe Pearl’s attitude but mainly because of everything that has happened. “I just wish someone would come and explain,” I said aloud.

“That is what I’m here for!” A new voice exclaimed. I turn around. An unfamiliar Jobble has entered the room. I could tell he was male because his tail didn’t split into two at the end. I remembered Mum saying something like that and how rude it would be to misinterpret a Jobble’s gender. Luckily, Mis and I were very familiar with Jobble etiquette and anatomy. Remember my Mother is a geneticist. Was, I remembered sadly. With all our adventures I almost forgot. 

The newcomer came a bit closer and I could see more of him. Unlike Pearl, he had a sort of greenish hue and some sort of aquamarine goggles? He wore a lab coat that shimmered like the inside of a mussel shell. He looked drab compared to everything else, but I was sure if he had been on the planet Wobbia, for example, he would really stand out. 

The greenish Jobble cleared his throat. “My name is Dr. Kelp,” he said. “And I can explain everything.”

Dr. Kelp grinned nervously and started to explain. “I went to university on Wobbia with your mother. We both studied biology and were in the same class. She specialized in genetics but medicine was more my thing.

“Anyway, we became friends and enjoyed telling each other what our latest experiments were, to see if we could give each other advice. That was, of course, until I was given a job as doctor in Ocean Pearl City and Stellar got a job as geneticist on the outskirts of a not very famous city on Wobbia. We still contacted each other of course, but less often. Until Stellar contacted me that her husband had divorced her, taken most of her money and she was expecting a child. She had been offered a well paid job but it went against all her morals and she didn’t know what to do. I suggested she should focus on keeping herself and her baby alive over ethics.

“Well, that was the last I heard of the whole business. Or at least, until the Squiddle government leaked a deleted file on some sort of genetics project. You wouldn’t have heard of it, as far as I understand only a few of my colleagues and I know about this. It had some notes on the biology and characteristics of an unknown species. I did not know what to make of this, until you showed up.”

I gasped as I realized what Dr. Kelp was saying. I looked at Mis. 

“Me?” She asked with a shaky voice.

Dr. Kelp nodded gravely. “Among the other information, the file included a note about how you were deathly allergic to a rare kind of milk, produced by the animal known as a cow. As you may know, milk- especially cow milk is extremely rare, and despite how luxurious Ocean Pearl City is, we do not go out of our way to get milk for our feasts. In other words, someone with a lot of resources at their disposal and who also has that file must have deliberately tried to poison you. The taster or anyone else would not have noticed. It would have been the perfect assassination, had Trinity not donated some of her liquid.”

At hearing this I felt proud, then unsafe. I had indeed donated a thimbleful of my liquid (which was supposedly a cure all), but what Dr. Kelp was saying meant one of his colleagues was a baddie. Or… wait. The file was leaked from the Squiddle government… I tried to make sense of this. If the Squiddles were bad guys who wanted to kill me and Mis then it would make sense why Mum told us not to trust Squiddle police officers or soldiers- they take their orders directly from the Squiddle VIPs.

Mis looked at me and was about to ask me a question, but then saw me concentrating and decided to ask Dr. Kelp instead.

“So, ah, why would the Squiddles care so much about me? I know I’m a mistake made in a genetics lab but why would it concern the Squiddles? And why me not anyone else? There were so many more important people at the feast…”

“Like me,” Pearl interrupted. “And my Mother. The Squiddles have been trying to invade Ocean Pearl City for the longest time, so trying to bump my Mother off would be a smarter move wouldn’t it?”

Dr. Kelp sat in silent thought. He got up again and addressed Pearl. “Things are more complicated than simply an assassination attempt. Politics are the least concern in this matter. I have an idea of what…”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. A guard ran in, huffing and puffing. He desperately grabbed at Dr. Kelp. “The Squiddle army… invading… huff… Queen hostage… wheeze… we have to leave…” 

Almost immediately after a group of Squiddles charged through the doorway after him. The guard yelped and ran away through the back door. Dr. Kelp glanced round quickly, thrust a few crumpled pieces of paper into Mistake’s hand and tried to distract the Squiddle soldiers by stinging them with his tentacles. The rest of us quickly followed Pearl through the complex network of tunnels and glass domes in the city. I was struggling to keep up and I was already slowing down and out of breath. I felt like I was burning. Mistake stopped for a second, picked me up and ran even faster to keep up with Pearl. I managed to get on top of Mis’s head and hung on tight. I kept looking back to see if we had gained any distance from our pursuers but they always seemed to be just the same distance away.

“Faster,” I gasped.

“No need,” Pearl stated calmly. “We’re already here.” 

With one final sprint she charged inside her spaceship, Mis following closely behind. I had to hold on really tightly and once we were in, I shut and locked the door. Pearl quickly operated the controls and a few seconds later I was watching the Squiddles turn into smaller and smaller dots on the ground.

I jumped off Mistake’s head and sighed. I felt absolutely exhausted. So, so much had happened and Dr. Kelp was the only one who had explained anything. I sat in a soft and cushiony seat and tried to make sense of the situation. The Squiddles were baddies and after Mis, and this was somehow more important to them than their politics? Suddenly, everything went dark again. We were once again using the wormhole drive. It’s funny how you can spend your whole life not ever experiencing something, and then experience it twice in the same day. We came out of the wormhole and there was the smallest planet I had ever seen. To be fair I had so far only seen two planets but it was still small. It was entirely covered by city and did not look much. But it was Sun City, where my sister Nova had chosen to go to university. We started landing at the spaceport.

We stepped out of the spaceship and were greeted by huge skyscrapers that stretched as far as the eye could see and bright neon signs in contrast to the dull darkly colored buildings. It even had some signs that appeared to be floating in midair. If I had seen this when I first left the lab, I would have said it looked amazing and beautiful. After Ocean Pearl City though, it seemed dull and boring.

Pearl interrupted my thoughts. “So, you know what you’re looking for? I’m tagging along by the way, you can’t get away from me that easily.” She grinned.

Luckily, I had Nova’s address. We got there fairly easily, and when Nova opened the door we all grinned. I had never met Nova before in person, as she moved out before I was born. Nova ushered us all in eagerly.

“Trinity dearie, you and your lovely friends must have some of my homemade cookies,” Nova insisted. 

Pearl eagerly agreed and Nova went to the kitchen of her apartment to get them. Mis told Pearl she was being rude, but I had something else on my mind. I had never met Nova in person before, but she had wrote me letters and sent me pictures of herself and her friends. Something felt wrong about Nova today though. I thought about it quietly while Mis and Pearl discussed etiquette.

Nova came out of the kitchen with a plate of cookies, and the moment I saw her I realized what was wrong. Mum had once explained that Nova was slightly more melty than she should be because she was once accidentally exposed to some of the lab equipment. This Nova though, was as solid as I was. I knew something bad would happen if Pearl ate one of those cookies, and I wasn’t prepared to let that happen.

“No!” I said loudly. ‘Nova’ glared at me for a split second then recovered. Mum said the real Nova never glared. “This isn’t Nova! It’s an impostor!” I said, with more confidence. Pearl looked at me in a funny way. She instantly reached out with one of her tentacles and stung fake Nova so hard it melted into a kind of… black goop? You couldn’t do that to a Blobwob. That meant the impostor wasn’t even the same species as Nova. Pearl grinned. “Problem solved,” she said.

“Not quite!” Mis interrupted. “If that was not the real Nova, that means your sister is either stuck somewhere or…”

“Dead,” Pearl said bluntly. Mis glared at her. I really wanted to believe that Nova was fine, so I suggested we search the place. Everyone thought that was a pretty good idea. Especially when we found Nova, inside a glass box attached to the top of the wardrobe.

After we let her out, Nova hugged me very hard and told us what happened.

“So, I was baking a batch of my specialty cookies when I heard a knock at the door. Now I’m usually cautious enough to stay safe around here, but this was… different. When I opened the door…” she paused. “It was you, Trinity. Only not the real you. But it sad it’s name was Trinity and looked just like you, so I let it in.

“I was about to give it the batch of cookies I had been making, when it started to look angry. I asked what was wrong, it suddenly turned into some sort of big black thing and  that’s all I remember. After that I was in the glass box.” Nova shuddered and I hugged her tight. Nova gently patted my head.

“Who wants to bake cookies with me?” She asked.

She took us all back to the kitchen, all in heightened spirits. Until we all noticed the black goopy stuff was gone. Everything seemed more creepy. I saw from the corner of my eye the black goopy stuff… well it wasn’t so goopy anymore. It was like smoke, and it started to wind around us. Everyone else noticed it too.

“RUN!” Nova grabbed my hand, Mis’s hand and one of Pearl’s tentacles. Nova was pretty fast for a Blobwob, but soon Pearl was dragging all of us along, with Nova shrieking directions.

“There’s an escape pod on the roof!” Nova screamed. “It should be able to keep- whatever this is- out.”

With Pearl’s speed, we were soon at the top of the building. Nova shoved me, Mis and Pearl into the escape pod. It was only when she closed the lid when I realized she wasn’t inside.

“NOVA! WHY AREN’T YOU GETTING IN?” I said with tears in my eyes. Nova raised her finger to her lips.

“The launch button is on the outside!”

“But why are you launching it? You said we were just going to hide in here!”

“It’s dangerous with this thing here! Look, I studied this before. It looks like it could be a…”

The black thing emerged from the stairwell, more solid now. It was constantly changing shape, as if it had lost interest in that and was purely directing all its energy into chasing us. Nova quickly slammed her fist on the launch button, jettisoning us into space. I didn’t even have time to see what happened to my sister. As we left the planet Mis tried to comfort me, but I was too upset.

What will happen to us now?