Chapter 2: Nancy’s Power
Nancy once again awoke on a cold table, but this time, her head didn’t hurt. Surprisingly, nothing hurt, and her body was relaxed: She was calm—perhaps because she was emotionally spent.
She raised her head, half expecting to see Judy looming over her again. Instead, she saw Judy, eyes closed, lying on another table nearby. Her arms were by her side, and the mood ring on her left index finger had changed: The silver setting no longer looked like plastic but instead glinted like real metal, and its stone was a peaceful sea-green. It glowed faintly, throbbing like a heartbeat.
Nancy blinked, sat up, and touched her face. The puffiness around her eyes was gone. She swallowed. Her throat wasn’t dry. She felt as if she had just awoken from a full night of deep sleep.
Her dress, however, was ruined and hung open in tatters.
She gingerly touched her right hip, where Judy had stabbed her with the needle. She felt a small, tender bruise. That was the only thing that hurt.
She stood. At the same time, across the room, Junie B. sat up on another table and rubbed her eyes, after which she lowered her hands to the table’s lip and hopped to the floor.
She left behind a curious pair of handprints, and Nancy felt her heart quicken. Quietly, she stepped to Junie B.’s side to get a closer look and saw that Junie B.’s hands had left a deep impression in the steel, as if it were merely wet clay.
Nancy ran a finger over the indentations. The metal was hard, unyielding.
Junie B. frowned. She pushed her glasses up her nose and then opened and closed one hand, staring at it.
Groaning and muttering, Judy at last sat up. Her hair hung into her eyes and stuck out at the back of her head like a crazy set of spikes. Amelia, blinking and rubbing her temples, sat up, too. That left only Cam still out.
Cam moaned quietly in her sleep.
A door hissed open, and Jewel and Mrs. DeVine walked in. Mrs. DeVine had her eyes glued to a computer tablet. “Oh, good,” she said absently with hardly a glance, “most of you are up. I’ve got your readouts, and it looks like we’re five for five. The nanoprobes are replicating nicely, and we have full integration. How do you feel?”
Judy crossed her arms, and her ring went dark. Nancy simply turned her back.
She heard Mrs. DeVine laugh quietly. “Well, I didn’t expect you to be happy with me.”
Cam groaned again, rolled over, and fell heavily to the floor. Judy ran to her side and helped her rise shakily to her feet. “My head,” Cam whispered, putting a hand to her forehead and squinting against the light.
Mrs. DeVine ran a finger across her tablet. “How’s your memory?” she asked.
After another groan, Cam muttered, “Click.” Then she closed her eyes and said again, “Click.”
She was silent for a few seconds.
“Mrs. DeVine,” she said, leaning on Judy with eyes still closed, “the sole of your left shoe is coming off. Nancy is wearing two butterfly hairclips, and the right antenna on her fuzzy hairband is missing. Judy’s ring is black. Junie B.’s glasses are skewing slightly left. I can see the word ‘iteration’ on your tablet, but can’t see anything else because of the angle—”
“Looks like your photographic memory is working,” said Jewel. “That’s good news. There was a ten-percent chance you’d wake up psychotic, but since that didn’t happen, you should see a forty-percent increase in your I.Q.”
Cam rubbed her temples and winced. “When does the headache go away?”
“We don’t know,” Mrs. DeVine replied, “but you’d better not take anything for it until the process is complete.”
Cam leaned heavily against her table and nodded weakly.
Junie B. clutched Nancy’s hand, and Nancy gasped at Junie B.’s unexpectedly powerful grip.
“What happened?” Junie B. whispered.
“I don’t know,” Nancy whispered back through clenched teeth as she felt her knuckles crunch together. “They put something in us—”
“Tiny robots,” Amelia said, holding out her hands and staring at them with her mouth open in wonder. “Are we full of tiny robots?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. DeVine as she stared at her tablet.
“Why?” demanded Nancy.
Mrs. DeVine raised her eyes and tilted her head as if seeing Nancy for the first time. “You’re about to find out. Come.” She headed back toward the door.
“No!” Nancy shouted. She stamped a foot. “Tell us! Now!”
Mrs. DeVine turned and gave her a severe glare. For a moment, Nancy quailed. Mrs. DeVine had never looked at her like that before.
“Very well, Nancy,” Mrs. DeVine said evenly, “I will tell you: We did it so you can save the world.”
Again, they sat in the room with the computer banks. Again, they had tea. Nancy actually drank hers this time: It was Earl Grey tinged with lavender to take the edge off the bergamot, and it was one of her favorite blends. Junie B. sat beside her and slurped from her teacup.
Embarrassed, Nancy clutched her ruined dress around herself. She now had enough presence of mind to watch her manners: She sat up straight, and she was sure to stick her pinky out as she sipped.
Finally and Mouse were at the computer, sitting on tall stools and tapping buttons. Under happier circumstances, Nancy would have laughed at that image, but now she wasn’t in a laughing mood.
Mrs. DeVine, with her own saucer and cup of tea cradled in her hands, sat in an egg-shaped chair that somehow floated a few feet above the floor. She drifted back and forth as if carried on a breeze only she could feel.
“Two extraterrestrial species have colonized your planet,” she said. “Having adopted your language, we have chosen to call our race the Keplerians.” She paused to sip her tea, and her teacup clinked as she lowered it back to its saucer. “We are symbiotic—in a way. We use dead humans and sometimes animals as our hosts. Thus, we can pass unnoticed.”
Nancy swallowed. Her fingers trembled, and she almost spilled her tea again.
Mrs. DeVine offered her a small, sad smile. “I’m sorry, Nancy, but the real Mrs. DeVine died well before you were born, in the same accident that took her third husband. I repaired her body, absorbed her mind, and assumed her identity. Her memories and personality are mine—but she herself is gone.”
Judy squirmed in her seat and glanced at Mouse. “My cat—”
“You knew your cat when it was just a cat,” Mouse said, not looking up from the computer. “I took its body after the car hit it.”
“What?” Judy shouted as she jumped up. “What car?”
“The one you never knew about,” Mouse replied.
Judy slowly sank back into her chair.
Junie B. stuck out her tongue and tipped up her cup to get the last drop. As she reached over and dabbed a napkin on Junie B.’s chin, Nancy asked, “What’s the other species?”
“They’re parasites,” Mrs. DeVine replied. “They could take nonliving organisms as hosts, just as we do, but they prefer living ones. We have been in a shadow war with them for many years now, and until recently were able to keep them contained to a few isolated locales—remote, mountainous regions where they were certainly dangerous but couldn’t threaten humanity as a whole. Unfortunately, a new colony ship unexpectedly crash-landed in a densely populated area, so now the parasites have infected an especially resourceful host.”
“They seek out dedicated individuals,” Jewel explained from the middle of the table, where she lapped at a teacup of her own. “Fanatics, obsessives, monomaniacs. Such individuals usually have lower resistance.”
“I was watching over you, Nancy,” Mrs. DeVine added, “because, with your single-minded devotion to all things fancy, you appeared to be a prime candidate.”
Nancy felt her heart pound against her ribs.
“It so happens,” said Mouse as she flipped a series of switches, “that the epicenter of the infestation is someone with a psychological profile similar to our Nancy here.”
Junie B. rocked back and forth in her chair. “Yeah, only guess what?” she announced. “I don’t actually know what all those big words mean, so—”
“I’ll tell you later,” Nancy muttered, though she didn’t know all of those big words herself.
On one of the screens appeared an image of a little girl with brown pigtails. She wore a blazingly pink sundress and a sunbonnet of the same color. With a beatific smile on her face, she skipped through a field of pansies. In her right hand was a wand tipped with a bright yellow star.
“There she is,” said Finally with a nod, “our enemy. Formerly, her name was Pinkalicious. Unfortunately, the parasites have corrupted her mind—so she now goes by the name of Pink Vicious.”
“The parasites maintain the fanaticism of their hosts,” said Mrs. DeVine. “Because Pinkalicious loved all things pink, Pink Vicious is determined to turn the entire world pink.”
Finally hit a button, and a new image popped up: This was a city street, another place Nancy didn’t recognize. Rows and rows of houses, all of them pink, filled the screen. The street was pink, the grass was pink, the street signs and lampposts were pink. Even the sky overhead was a faint shade of pink.
“It … it is rather pretty,” Nancy whispered. She sipped her tea and considered. “But just one color is too plain.”
“This is in Slovakia,” said Mouse. “We managed to contain it. We evacuated the area on the premise of a biochemical spill. But we won’t be able to maintain this kind of secrecy for long.”
“Pink Vicious is the master of the robots that attacked you,” Mrs. DeVine said as her floating chair slowly settled to the floor.
“Why?” asked Nancy. “What could we do—?”
“Unfortunately,” said Jewel, “Pink Vicious has got word of our project. We have developed a new, synthetic symbiont that can combine with living humans without destroying or taking over their minds. However, it is very particular about the individuals it can successfully inhabit. We’ve been seeking viable hosts, and Pink Vicious has been trying to track us down. We have five prototypes so far—or, I should say, we did have them. They’re in your bodies now.”
Nancy’s heart beat faster, and her palms turned clammy. She quickly set her cup and saucer down so she wouldn’t drop them.
“We Keplerians are rather frail,” said Mrs. DeVine with a sigh. “Even after we’ve repaired our hosts, they are limited in function. It is a drawback of using the dead. These new, synthetic symbionts, however, if combined with individuals who are young, healthy, and most importantly, alive—”
“But we’re just kids!” Nancy cried.
“I’m afraid the prototypes are only compatible with children,” Mrs. DeVine answered. “Perhaps, in the future—”
“None of us agreed to this!” Nancy shouted as she rose from her chair.
“I did,” said Cam quietly. She sat against a wall with her head tipped back and an icepack over her eyes. “They explained everything to me already, and they told me the risks. But for the rest of you, there wasn’t time—”
Nancy clenched her fists. “Time! There’s been plenty of time! Mrs. DeVine, you could have told me everything—!”
Mrs. DeVine, with a small, sad smile, shook her head. “No, Nancy, I’m afraid I couldn’t.”
“What if I don’t want this? What if I say no?”
“We can’t afford to let you. The world can’t afford it.”
“But—!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Jewel said quietly. “You’re carrying the symbiotic nanoprobes now, the only ones of their kind. They will give you power, and you must use it: It is your duty to stop Pink Vicious—or not only your sister and your parents, but all the world, will die.”
Nancy collapsed back into her seat.
The teacup broke in Junie B.’s hand, leaving her holding a handle and blinking in confusion as the rest of her cup dropped to the tabletop and shattered. Some of the sherds landed in Nancy’s lap.
Junie B. turned the broken handle over in her hand, staring at it.
“You need to learn your own strength, Junie B.,” said Jewel.
A Klaxon blared, and a red light flashed in the ceiling. Everyone jumped up. Cam, with a grimace, let the icepack slide from her face.
The words “INTRUDER ALERT” flashed across the computer screens.
“Lockdown!” shouted Mrs. DeVine.
Nancy heard heavy clangs and thuds that reverberated through the floor.
“How did they find us so quickly?” yelled Jewel.
“They must have traced the tunnels,” Mrs. DeVine replied. “We need to get the children to the surface. Come!”
She rushed to a wall, touched it in some rapid, secret combination, and a hidden door whispered open, revealing a dark tunnel beyond. “Move!” Mrs. DeVine shouted, but in the next moment, she was on the floor, grasping her neck as blood spurted out. Nancy clapped her hands to her mouth.
Judy ran and dived across the floor in a baseball slide. She grabbed Mrs. DeVine’s arms and hauled her back from the doorway. Then she stuck her fingers in the hole in her neck and pinched her jugular closed.
Nancy thought she was going to gag, but she didn’t have long to think because the table exploded. Wood, fine china, and silverware rocketed throughthe room. Nancy was on her back, stunned. She could hear Junie B. howling.
Monsters burst out of the tunnel. With thick, shiny black bodies, four arms, and huge, jagged horns jutting from their heads, they were like enormous stag beetles that had taken on a vaguely human shape. In their hands were blunt rifles that glistened like chrome.
“Surrender or die,” one of them snarled. It squeezed its trigger, and the rifle barked. Nancy’s ears rang. The computers against the far wall shattered in a shower of sparks, and Finally and Mouse fell writhing to the floor.
Nancy crawled. Rubble bit into her hands, into her stomach. She didn’t know where she was going, and she was sure she’d be dead in a second.
“ROAR!” someone shouted, and Nancy dared to raise her head.
The roar came from Judy Moody. She was on her feet, fists clenched, with her tattered lab coat fluttering around her knees. She pointed her left fist at the open doorway, and a ball of blackness burst from her ring. It crackled as it whizzed across the room, struck one of the beetle-men, and burst.
Green guts, smelling like raw sewage, splattered Nancy’s clothes. Junie B.’s wailing got louder.
Nancy lowered her face to the floor and felt tears streaming down her nose. “Wake up!” she screamed, pounding a fist against the unyielding floor and cutting her hand on broken china. “Wake up! I just want to wake up!”
Jewel was at her side, and her wet nose tickled Nancy’s ear. “If you want to survive,” Jewel said, “you must use your power.”
“How?” Nancy sobbed.
“You know how. It’s in you now. It’s in your body, but also in your soul: It’s the power you’ve always had, Nancy, but now it’s amplified!”
Nancy blubbered, and more tears streamed down. “I don’t have any power! All I’m good at is dressing up! All I can do is wear fancy clothes and paint my nails and—”
“That’s it!” Jewel shouted. “That’s your power, Nancy!”
Something welled up in Nancy’s thudding heart, some great energy yearning to be unleashed. Trembling, she raised a hand. Strange words formed in her mind.
She cried out, “Habille-moi dans des vêtements de fantaisie!”
White light surrounded her as she floated into the air. She tipped her head back and gasped as a feeling of serenity flooded her chest. She was hardly aware as she languidly spun and, out of nowhere, new clothes materialized on her body: A pink skirt full of chiffon petticoats, lace-topped knee-high stockings, a laced-up bodice, and a white silk ascot. She could feel a hat sprouting out of her head.
Her feet touched the floor—or rather, her toes touched. She looked down and gasped when she saw that she was in ballet slippers—no, not just any ballet slippers, but pointe shoes. For years, Nancy had taken ballet lessons, but she had never danced en pointe. Yet here she was, balanced on the tips of her toes with no pain or trouble at all.
“Use your wand!” shouted Jewel.
Judy, still yelling the word “roar,” blasted more spheres of black energy from her mood ring.
“Hurry!” Jewel cried. “If Judy stays like this, the darkness will devour her!”
Nancy looked down to see she was holding an elaborate wand of ivory studded with diamonds and topped with a heart-shaped ruby that shimmered like water and glowed like fire. Her heart swelled again. She swung around in a pirouette and sang, “Sugar is sweet, but justice is sweeter! In the name of goodness and beauty, I am Magical Girl Fancy Nancy!”
She gasped, and her face grew hot. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “What did I just say?”
The beetle-men turned her way. With a snarl, one of them raised a rifle. “Surrender to the Pink One, Fancy Nancy!” it hissed.
Nancy pointed her wand and yelled, “La lumière de la beauté!”
Light burst from her wand and filled the room. Nancy felt energy drain from her, and her knees buckled. The light lasted only a second and then disappeared.
Her head swam. She collapsed.
“Nancy!” It was Judy who caught her and cradled her in her arms. Nancy blinked sleepily as warmth filled her.
“What happened?” Nancy whispered.
“I don’t know,” Judy whispered back as she hugged Nancy close, “but those monsters are gone. You did something, and they just evaporated!”
Nancy smiled, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open. As she slumped, she heard Jewel say, “Good work, Fancy Nancy. It appears that DeVine’s braincase is intact, so I’ll ship her out for repairs. She’ll live. Agent Parallax, Agent Apsides, transport these children to Base Delta and begin preparation for deployment.”
Before she fell asleep, Nancy realized with a sting of dread that the nightmare wasn’t over.
It was just beginning.
