Chapter 7: The Power of Imagination
Wilt carefully stepped through the milling crowd of imaginary friends, balancing a large tray of brownies. Adopt-a-Thought Saturday had one again rolled around, and preparations were in full swing. Everywhere, the friends were primping, making sure they looked their best, whether covered in fur, feathers, scales, slime, or, in one case, nacho cheese.
Here and there, Mac fluttered, setting up the signs, balloons, streamers (Mr. Herriman INSISTED on streamers) and other paraphernalia. "Hey, Wilt," he said, waving.
"Hey. You seen Frankie around?"
"No... I think she's still playing with that crystal shard she picked up."
"Oh, yeah, I saw that last night. She just kinda... fingers it and stares at it."
"Yeah... I guess she sees something in it. Or something." Mac set down. "I'd better remind her to get moving."
He headed inside, his hoofbeats masking the sound of yellow clogs sneaking up behind him. And so, he was taken completely unawares when someone tackled him from behind.
"Hiiiiiiiiii, Mac!"
Mac squirmed in the grasp of his assailant, looking up into two huge eyes set in a medium-brown face, her curly black hair done up in three unruly braids that bounced around her head. Yes, Goo Barron had arrived, in her own inimitable fashion.
"Uh... hi..." Mac said, nervously. He hadn't yet told Goo about his change... she'd been away during Halloween with her archeologist parents. So how'd she even know? "How was Mexico?" he asked, forcing a change of the subject.
"It was okay, I got to explore an ancient temple an' there was a funny statue and a weird crystal but Oooh! You look really awesome. Those're such cool wings, kinda like an albatross's or maybe a red-crested booby, which is a funny name, birds really have the funniest names, why d'you think that is, other animals don't have funny names, well maybe some of them do, but not as many as birds... but I'm getting kinda off topic here..." As usual, Goo's stream-of-consciousness chatter was going in every direction but the point.
"Yeah, uh... you don't sound surprised to see me like this."
"Yeah, don't worry about that, I caught the report on Halloween on CNN, an' I thought you looked really awesome, jus' like Frankie looks really awesome, an' I wish I looked awesome like you and Frankie looked, but your color scheme's kinda dull, I mean, if I was gonna give myself fur, I'd make it magenta, 'cause that's a great name for a color, magenta, I jus' like saying magenta..."
Mac's eyes widened as the first bristles of fur began forming on Goo's skin. At first, he'd thought he was seeing things, but as they began to spread, he realized... Goo was somehow starting to undergo the same change he'd gone through.
"An' it wouldn't be plain, I'd have spots, like a leopard's, an' maybe the facial markings of a cheetah... for the hair, I'd go with purple... an' my eyes, I never knew why eyes always had to be the same color, I'd make the left one yellow an' the right one red an' the top one blue..."
As she described each of her features, they took form... her clogs shattered to reveal hooves, a tail snaked from her backside, her already large ears tapered to a point... finally, wings took shape on her back, sprouting feathers in every color of the rainbow.
"But that'd never happen, right?"
"Uh..." stammered Mac...
"Geez, Mac, you look like horns just popped outta my head or something!" Goo said, confused.
"They... kinda did. Little ones."
"Are you feeling all right?" Goo asked, scratching the furry nape of her neck. "You're talking all crazy, an' I know crazy."
"I'm serious, Goo!" Mac said. "You just... well, look in the mirror if you don't believe me!"
"Okay, fine... if you say sWHOA is that ME?" Goo exclaimed upon seeing her new reflection. "This is so COOL!"
"Yeah..." Mac said unenthusiastically, "pretty cool..."
How did this HAPPEN?
-Oh, Frankie...- Mac sent telepathically.
In her room, Frankie continued to finger the shard that the old woman had given her back in Orchid Bay City. Try as she might, she hadn't found a way to access its secrets. Occasionally, she got tiny flashes of... something. But they were vague, unclear flickers. The real secrets remained tantalizingly out of reach.
She sighed and put the shard down. Clearly, just sitting there playing with it was a waste of time. She had other things to do. There were floors to mop, meals to prepare, and... that's right, it was Saturday! The backyard was about to be choked with kids seeking friends to adopt, and things would be out of control! She had to get her tails in gear immediately.
Mentally, she reassembled the molecules of her nightie into her usual tee and skirt. No time for a shower... just a quick brush of her mane.
She was about halfway down the stairs when she got Mac's mental flash.
-Oh, Frankie... we kinda have a pro-
+Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh, are you using telepathy? I gotta try that! Testing, testing, one two three... Hiiiiii, Frankie+
The mental voice was unexpected, but instantly recognizable. GOO!
+Isn't this telepathy so cool? I mean sometimes I wanna say stuff but my mouth isn't fast enough so I can't get it all out an' then my tongue gets tired an' my throat's all sore but this way I can just think an' everything I ever wanna say gets said an'+
Frankie immediately abandoned her hooves and kicked her wings into high gear, following Goo's mental signal. If what she thought had happened had actually happened, this could be really troublesome.
When she arrived in the backyard, she found Mac talking to a brand-new, magenta-furred, purple-braided, rainbow-winged Valix.
"...look," he was saying, "I don't know how you managed to do this to yourself, but you should try to turn yourself back right now."
"Um, why would I wanna do that for? I like being like this! I like being able to fly an' having a tail an' hooves an' super depth perception and telepathic powers an' a pouch, did I show you the pouch yet? It's kinda hard to get to 'cause its under my dress..."
"Because, number one, your parents are gonna freak when they see you, and they're gonna blame me!"
"Pfft. They're fine with this. I just told them about it. With my BRAIN. My mom said that she supports me 'cause this is really self expression an' sculpting your own body is the same as sculpting clay an' stuff..."
"Goo," Frankie said, "Mac's right. You need to change back."
Goo's face contorted as she concentrated. "I don't think I can."
"But... you're the one who changed yourself in the first place!" protested Mac.
"What're you talking about? I didn't do this. Didn't you do this, cause," her voice switched to a teasing tone, "you kinda like me?"
"What!" Mac said, shocked. "I didn't..."
"I'm just joking, really, lighten up, anyway, no, I didn't do it an' I dunno how it happened, really, but I like how I turned out an' I wanna stay this way."
Frankie sighed to herself. Right now, the crystal was the least of her worries... there were way more questions that needed answering, starting with what, exactly, had just happened.
"Am I done yet, Frankie?" asked the talking screen.
"Just about, X-Ray-Jay Johnson." Frankie scanned Goo's results, comparing them to her own. She compared... the seven-chambered heart, the glowing energy-based "blood", the crystalline bones, the segmented lungs, the three stomachs, the pouch, the three undeveloped mammary glands, the branching intestines, the glands that didn't match anything known to medical science, and the five-lobed brain... the two of them were exact anatomical matches. Inside and out, through and through, Goo was a Valix.
Now, even more questions had been raised. There was no way Goo could have duplicated her internals in such excruciating detail simply by imagining it. Something else was at play here.
"Is THAT what I look like inside?" Goo asked, craning her neck over the edge of X-Ray-Jay. "Is that corkscrew thing there my liver?"
"A combination liver/pancreas, actually," corrected Frankie. "I guess this isn't just a cosmetic change. How'd you manage it?"
"I said I didn't do it!" Goo replied. "It just happened!" She stuck out her tongue, extending it to scratch a spot between her wings, then, retracting it (Frankie had been aware of this particular aspect of her transformation, but preferred not to take advantage of it... the rest of her was weird enough). "I didn't even know it happened 'til it was over!"
"But you started changing the moment you started talking about wanting to change," reminded Mac. "Maybe you did it with your subconscious imagination."
"Nah," Goo said, now hanging by her tail upside-down from one of the light-fixtures; the girl got around. "If it was my subconscious I woulda been aware of it."
"Hmmm..." Frankie said. "There's one other thing I wanna see. C'mon... it's back in my room."
Upstairs, Frankie fished the shard out of her jewelry box. So far, the shard had only lit up when touched by herself or Mac. She handed it over to Goo; sure enough, the thing lit up.
"Hey, how'd you get this?" Goo said, confused. "I thought I left it back at the temple!"
"...wait, what?" Frankie replied, equally confused.
"You know, back at the temple in Mexico."
"What temple?" asked Mac.
Goo sighed in exasperation, clearly annoyed that she was dealing with inferior intellects. "The temple in Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula, that I explored when me an' my parents went there last week. Inside, there was a big statue of a goddess an' this crystal-thing with these hieroglyphics was in one of its hands."
"Wait," Mac said, "didn't you tell me your crystal came from India?"
"Yeah... at least, that's where the person who gave it to me said it was from. And, when I first took it, I got a flash of another Valix's life, and it definitely looked like it was happening in India." She turned back towards the newest addition to her clan. "The statue... what'd it look like?"
"Hmm..." muttered Goo as she backstroked past them in mid-air. "Now that I think about it, she kinda looked a lot like you, but with an extra pair of arms."
"Just like the Indian Valix," Frankie interjected.
"Maybe they were the same one?" asked Mac.
"Maybe," agreed Frankie. "But, if we were both Valixes, why was she different?" She got up from the bed. "Goo, where's this temple of yours? I think I should take a look at it."
"Sorry!" Goo said, grinning. "Can't tell you!"
"Please... it's important. It could answer the question of why this happened... and if there's any way of undoing it!"
"Nuh uh! I'm not telling!" She flutterd down from the ceiling, setting herself on Frankie's shoulders and grasping hold of her horns. "Not unless you bring me an' Mac along with you!"
"I can't do that, Goo... it's way too dangerous."
"Then I guess you don't get to see the temple." Goo replied, looking like the Valix that ate the canary.
"C'mon," Mac said. "She's been in there once before, how dangerous could it be?"
"But—well... okay..." Frankie relented.
Yucatan Peninsula
Frankie descended through the dense jungle canopy, branches scratching her outspread wings. "Are you sure that this was where the Temple was?" she asked her small companion.
"Uh huh. I think anyway. This way!" Goo darted off deeper into the jungle.
Mac floated down beside his senior. "You know this probably won't be as easy as she thinks," he remarked.
"Yeah, but when has that ever stopped us?" replied Frankie. "Jungle's pretty thick here, I dunno how useful my wings'll be. You two are small, you shouldn't have much trouble... but it looks like I'll have to walk."
Mac nodded, and the two forged ahead, Frankie on hoof and Mac floating beside her.
The Forest was thick with insects, most of which were very intent on making a meal of the two. They were victims of many, many bug bites, but healed from them nearly instantly, so it was only a minor annoyance.
They found Goo up ahead, questioning a troop of howler monkeys. After several rounds of screeching, she said, "They say the "Ugly Cave" is that way," pointing with both finger and tail. She and the monkeys continued screeching at each other.
"You can talk to animals?" Frankie asked.
"You can't?" Goo said, confused.
"Well, I didn't KNOW I could..."
"Well, what you have to do is use telepathy to link minds so you can download his language in like a second, an' then all it really is, is trying to get the context right, 'cause it can get very confusing, 'cause the Howler Monkey word for "banana" is the same as the one for "maul my face off," an' that's a mistake you don't wanna make, let me tell you.
The three forged on now, Goo pausing to have a conversation with a tapir.
What the heck, thought Frankie, Let's try it.
She scanned for another animal, linking with a jaguar dozing in a nearby tree.
"How's it going?" she growled at the feline.
"Can I eat the small ones?" was its reply.
Whoa. Conversation over. Frankie hurried her charges along, eager to get far away from the hungry kitty.
They finally came upon the temple in a small clearing. It was overgrown by vines, and there didn't seem to be a way in. The only way in was blocked by an enormous boulder that seemed beyond even Frankie's ability to budge it.
"Are you sure this is the right one?" Frankie asked of Goo. "How'd you get in?"
"Oh, right," answered Goo. "I went through the hole in the side. Follow me!" She darted off.
"Huh." Goo muttered, measuring herself against the gap. "It was bigger last week."
"No," Mac corrected. "You were smaller."
On the north side of the temple, there was a small gap in the wall where a small child could squeeze through. However, Goo's wings made in considerably harder for her to slip through now.
"Well, so much for that," Mac said. "I guess we're not getting in."
"I don't see why not," Frankie said. "The three of us working together are probably strong enough to get some more of these blocks out."
And so, the three got to widening the hole. After a few hours, they had finally widened it enough for even Frankie to wriggle through if she folded her wings. Soon, they found themselves in a huge chamber, filled with statuary.
"Are we in, Goo?" Frankie asked.
"Pfft, no, there's more than this. There's a secret entrance to hidden catacombs somewhere in this room, you just have to step on the right floor tiles in the right order and if you don't, the walls shoot needles filled with deadly poison."
Mac's eyes widened in horror. "And you were just playing around in here?"
"Well, DUH, obviously I didn't trigger the poison needles, 'cause I'm alive, an' anyway it was really easy to guess the right tiles..." Before the others could stop her, she was hopscotching across the floor. "Tada!" she said, landing on the last one. Across from her, a larger floor panel slid open, revealing a staircase. "C'mon!"
The three drifted down the stairs and found themselves in a series of labyrinthine passageways. "This way!" insisted Goo, leading them on a twisty path through the tunnels.
At the end, they found, not a doorway, but a hole. "My first time down I used the rope in my backpack but this time we don't need it," Goo said, leaping downward, her wings slowing her descent.
They found themselves in another labyrinth, only, this time much darker. "How much more of this is there?" asked Frankie, exasperated.
"This is the last maze, promise!" answered Goo, leading them ahead. Frankie was amazed at how quickly Goo had adapted to her transformation... already, she was more nimble on her hooves than Frankie had been for weeks after her own change. And she was flying like a pro after only a few hours of practice.
Finally, the three found themselves in front of an ornate door.
Frankie stared at the figure engraved on it; she'd had flashes of one like it, but this one was there, tangible, able to be examined at leisure. This was not the same figure from her flashes, though; this one was dressed in the manner of the Mayans that once inhabited the area. Other than that, she could have passed for the other. Or, indeed, for Frankie herself, except for the matter of having a second pair of arms.
Frankie found herself reaching for a block to the left of the door and pushing it in. The door slid open before her.
Inside was a chamber even more massive and ornate than the one on the top level. The centerpiece of this room was a huge, detailed statue of the creature on the door.
Frankie floated upward to take a closer look. She could see, now, this was a very different figure from herself... its fur was a dark maroon, its "mane" and wings fire-orange, and its eyes deep violet. There were other differences... besides the obvious difference of the extra arms, this one had a second pair of horns that grew from the top of her head and curved sharply backward. In addition, each of the hands had a second thumb, growing out of what would normally be the "pinky" side of the hand. Its upper-right hand held a spear, and its upper left a shield.
Pondering the various odd differences between the figure and herself, her eye was drawn to the object in its lower-left hand. It was a dark-blue crystal, just as Goo had said. It looked to be the same shape as the one she'd already had, a rough diamond, and it, too, had hieroglyphs.
She reached for the crystal, but Mac yelled "No! These things are always booby-trapped! If you take that crystal, a huge boulder's gonna fall and chase us down a long hallway!"
"Aw, c'mon... you've seen way too many movies, Mac," Frankie said. "Besides... I figure that, as the first Valix in thousands of years, I'm entitled to Valix artifacts. Jasmine said as much when she gave me the first shard."
She scooped up the crystal and fluttered down toward the others. "Is that piece giving you any flashes?" asked Mac.
"Not yet," Frankie answered. "I guess they're not always auto-" She stopped. A grinding noise was coming from the statue. She looked up to see the hand that the crystal had been in slowly rising.
"Here it comes," Mac said nervously. "Let's get out of here!"
But instead of the boulder of Mac's imaginary boobytrap rolling, out, the statue itself began to move. It shifted to a fighting stance, its spear poised to strike.
"ONLY ONE OF v'HALYXX BLOOD IS WORTHY TO RECEIVE THE FRAGMENT," bellowed the statue. "COME FORWARD, AND PROVE YOUR MERIT."
Oddly compelled, Frankie stepped before the monolith.
"STATE YOUR NAME," the statue demanded.
"Frankie Foster," replied the smaller of the two adult Valixes.
"YOU ARE OF v'HALYXX STOCK," the statue said. "THOUGH INCOMPLETE. AND NOT FROM BIRTH. HOW DO YOU COME BY YOUR FORM?"
"I was accidentally transformed. By this crystal," Frankie replied, exposing the gem.
"YOUR GEM IS BUT A SHARD OF THE TRUE HEART, AND DAMAGED AS WELL. ONLY THE TRUE HEART CAN COMPLETE YOUR METAMORPHOSIS."
"True Heart?" asked Frankie.
"THE TRUE HEART IS MANY THINGS... TEACHER, HEALER, POWER SOURCE. ONLY WITH ALL FRAGMENTS ASSEMBLED CAN IT SERVE ITS FUNCTION. WHEN IT HAS BEEN ASSEMBLED, ALL QUESTIONS SHALL BE ANSWERED."
"Where are these fragments?"
"THIS I CANNOT TELL YOU. IF YOU ARE A TRUE DAUGHTER OF THE v'HALYXX, THEN YOU WILL FIND THEM."
With that, the statue shut down. "Well, that told me almost nothing. We don't know how many other shards there are, where they can be found, how to assemble them, or what they do," complained Frankie.
"Did you know you weren't talking in English? You were talking in a whole different language that sounded kinda like a cross between Italian an' Japanese with a little Navajo thrown in, or maybe it was Ashanti crossed with Russian an' Farsi, an' like I couldn't really understand any of it, cause to me it all sounded like blah blah blah blah blah..."
"Let's just get this piece home, and we'll continue from there," Mac advised.
The three Valixes set down in the Fosters' back yard. Imaginary friends were busy clearing away the detritus from Adopt-a-Thought Saturday; the three of them had managed to miss the entire event.
"The badger's really gonna be steamed when he gets a hold of us," Goo said dolefully.
"I don't know," replied Frankie, "Herriman's a micromanager. He used to handle every aspect of Adopt-a-Thought Saturday, and I think he actually preferred it that way."
"At least we can help with the cleanup," Mac suggested, atomizing some of the trash.
"Agreed," Frankie said, and the three pitched in until the backyard was clear. "There," Frankie said when they were done. "With any luck, Herriman won't have no-"
"MISS FRANCIS!" bellowed an upper-crusty British voice. A large, irate rabbit in a waistcoat, monocle, and top hat hopped out. "Your absence this afternoon was most vexing! In penance for your di- GOOD HEAVENS, THEY'RE MULTIPLYING!" His eye had fallen on the latest member of the clan.
"Hiiiiiiii, badger!" trilled the magenta-furred girl. "I got changed into a Valix just like Frankie did a while ago and Mac did less of a while ago and I dunno how it happened but none of us did it an' none of us know how it happened so don't ask 'cause we don't know, okay?"
"Wait," said Herriman measuredly. "Let me see if I have determined the situation correctly. Miss Goo, already rambunctious, irrepressible... let's face it, hyperactive... has been transformed into a mystical creature of potentially enormous power. Yes. Very well then."
He fainted dead away.
"I really, REALLY shouldn't find this funny," Frankie said, barely repressing a giggle.
After Herriman had been roused, and had decided that a stiff carrot toddy and a long night's rest were required before this situation could be processed, the three retreated to Frankie's room.
"Okay," Frankie said, removing the shard from her pouch, "Let's have a look at this thing."
"Hey," Mac said, "The glyphs are glowing!"
"That's really weird, 'cause they didn't glow before, maybe we should look at the other piece now an' see if it's also glowing, huh?" Goo suggested.
"All right," Frankie said, opening the drawer in which she'd been keeping it. Suddenly, the shard she was already holding began to heat up. "Whoa!" she said, losing her grip on it.
Instead of falling, though, the shard simply... floated there. As they all stared, they were treated to an even odder sight as the shard in the drawer floated upward and over to the one already floating. The two touched, and there was a blinding flash of light. When it cleared, the two shards, fused together, fell to the ground.
"Again... whoa." Frankie said, picking it up. The two shards had combined to form a single shape, like two mountains overlapping each other.
"Weird," commented Mac. "Is it any different?"
Frankie fingered the crystalline mass. "It doesn't seem to be," she said.
"Oooh! Lemme take a look!" half-asked, half-demanded Goo, grabbing it.
"Sure. Go ahead," replied Frankie semi-sarcastically.
Goo fiddled with the item. As she tapped each glyph, it glowed for a moment, then faded. "I think I'm onto something here, 'cause some of 'em glow longer than the other ones, although maybe it's which finger does the touching or for how long, anyway I bet you have to do it in some kind of order or sequence, or maybe say some kinda magic words like 'abracapocus' or 'hocuscadabra' or 'geya tem fai t'harmagai'..."
The fused shards suddenly lit up, all the glyphs blinking in sequence. "Performing self-diagnostic," it said, in that same odd language that Frankie had found herself speaking in earlier.
"You did it!" Frankie said, hugging Goo. "How did you know those words would activate it?"
Goo shrugged. "They kinda just jumped into my head from nowhere, cause I know I never heard any words like those, not in any language anywhere, but I just know them, an' I know 'geya' means 'activate' an' the rest is a password but I don't know how I know that, I just kinda do..." She smiled up at her elder.
"Self-diagnostic completed," the device said. "Core Fragment 3 not found. Power Module not found. Functionality of True Heart severely limited."
"What CAN you do?" asked Frankie, again slipping into the Valix native tongue.
"Accessing..." the Heart said. "List of available functions follows. v'Halyxx historical database. v'Halyxx biological database. v'Hallyx cultural database. Note: Some information may not be available without Core Fragment 3. Visual playback not possible without Power Module."
"Whoa, jackpot!" Frankie said to the others. "Maybe now we'll get some answers!" She turned back to the Heart. "Okay... so, first question: What are the v'Halyxx?"
"Accessing... v'Halyxx: native of planet Halyxxin."
"Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh we're ALIENS?" asked an incredulous Goo.
"I thought you didn't understand the language," Frankie said, her eyebrow rising.
"Yeah, I didn't, at least I thought I didn't, but now I can!"
The Heart continued. "The v'Halyxx were an ancient and long-lived race, and had made great advances in both science and magic, blending the two into a single discipline known as technomancy. They achieved great strides in the arts, with distinction in the field of humor. The v'Halyxx were governed by the Council, members of which were elected every hundred years by telepathic consensus. Head of state was the Unarch, who was elected separately on a one-hundred-fifty year cycle. v'Halyxx life expectancy was roughly five hundred thousand years. The population of the planet, at its peak, was approximately 40 million. Population growth was extremely slow, as females usually did not choose to have children until well over the age of 100,000, and no more than two or three. v'Halyxx mate for life, usually in groups of up to eight. Most adult v'Halyxx were bisexual-"
"Whoa, end playback! Little too much info there..." Frankie said, nervously.
"What's the big problem?" asked Mac. "My aunt's married to a girl, so I know it's okay."
Heh. And we're so worried about the younger generation, They've got it more together than we do. "Okay, um... tell me about v'Halyxx biology."
"Accessing... warning, power level critical... v'Halyxx are an oviparous, marsupial, mammalian, bipedal, tetramandial race. v'halyxx have prehensile hands, dual opposable thumbs, digitrade, ungulate legs, triocular vision, avian wings, and regenerative physiology. Infants are hatched blind, deaf, furless, wingless, and tailless, and develop further within the parent's marsupium. Children are weaned at two and reach full maturity at 20. v'Halyxx are capable of regenerating from crippling damage, as long as their heads are intact. v'Halyxx are omnivorous, though many prefer a vegetarian diet... power at 0.01, shutdown sequence initated."
With that, the Heart went dark once again. Frankie tried tapping glyphs again, but they would no longer light up. "Well, I guess that's all we're getting out of this thing, until we find the other two modules. Wherever those are."
"It's cool!" Mac said, eagerly. "We learned way more than we knew! Like that we're aliens, not demons, and there's a whole planet like us out there somewhere..."
"Yeah, Frankie!" gushed Goo. "An' I bet that they're probably hidden on the planet somewhere secretly watching humanity so that we don't blow ourselves up and we can get to the stars one day and meet all kinds of aliens except that they're right here already and we're already them kinda only not quite..."
"I guess you're right," Frankie said. "Still, I wouldn't mind getting my paws on those other fragments. I have a feeling that once we get those, we'll have all the answers we're looking for."
And maybe, just maybe, she added, some way of making ourselves normal again.
NEXT: Rogue agents of the DPI want Mac and Goo... and not for "Take Your Species-Mates to Work Day"! Can Frankie and Melissa uncover the dark side of their organization in time to save them?