Chapter 2: Looking for Trouble.
June 2, 1998
"Why does he still have that water bottle in there? He has been avoiding it."
"What do you mean?"
"The water bottle in the Mogwai cage, Doctor Wilcox. It needs to be removed. He refuses to go near it, wont drink from it. He prefers juice and milk and only drinks that."
"Your, correct Val—Doctor Cordova. Sorry I don't know why none of us have removed it."
"It's okay, you can call me Val, or Valerie. I thought this was a bit more laid back like the gastronomy lab below."
"Okay, past formalities, folks. There is a little footnote here about how we are not supposed to give the mogwai any water at all."
"Why are we now just being informed, Doctor Bivens?"
"Doesn't matter now. Let me just get this out of here. Excuse me, buddy. And…damn it's stuck."
"What do you mean it's stuck?"
"I mean…it's just really…tight…inside and I got—oh shit."
"What happened?!"
"It spilled…and I think it got on him."
"He's screaming in pain! Someone get him a towel."
"Doctor Cordova what are you doing?"
"Getting him—Que Dominos!"
"What was that?"
"It just jumped off his back."
"There it is. It's like a little pompom."
"He is still crying."
"Its…growing."
"Two more just shot out of him."
"What?"
"There are three, no four, no five little puffs."
"Um the first one just stopped growing."
"And"
"It turned into another mogwai."
"I think we should let Doctor Friedrich know about this."
"Shhh, shh little one. It's over, Valarie is here. I won't let anything happen to you."
June 26th, Carey's Glade, New York.
Billy Peltzer had a feeling the alarm was about to go off soon. He was awake and wish he wasn't, but he had a feeling it was about to ring, maybe it was because his second child was lying on top of him with her pink stuffed fox tucked under her arm. She had a tendency to wake up first, at least ten minutes before he was ready and she would always come into their room and climb into their bed, sometimes she would lay between them and other times it would be on top of him.
The silence was broken by Aerosmith singing their song from that asteroid movie and Billy opened his eyes and peered into the green eyes of his daughter. She had his green eyes, his curly hair and smile and the rest looked like Kate.
"Are you going to turn it off?" Kate asked from her side of the bed.
"I can't," Billy answered. "I'm being immobilized by a small giggling child."
"Daddy," Sarah giggled.
"It's always a child or a cat," Kate said as she slid off the bed and walked around to turn off the alarm before she turned to face them. "Okay short stack, what do you want for breakfast?"
"Donuts," Sarah answered as her mother helped her down.
"We don't have donuts," Kate told her. "We have cereal and pop-tarts."
"Thanks," Billy muttered before he rolled out of bed and headed to the shower. After a quick clean and shave he dressed in a purple button down and slapped on his khakis. Today was a half day at work and that meant it was a business casual kind of day.
He entered the kitchen to find his family seated at the small round kitchen table with glasses of milk, cups of coffee, two bowls of cereal and an English muffin and cup of yogurt for his wife and a large bowl of Waffle Crisp for himself. He still had one more thing to do and that was to toast a pop tart for his little friend.
"Can I give Gizmo his breakfast today?" Benny asked. He was their six year old son and was an almost spitting image of Billy at that age, except he had his mother's eyes.
"We'll give him his breakfast together," Billy told his son with a smile.
Once the breakfast pastry was toasted Billy placed it on a small saucer and placed that on a small tray along with a napkin, and a small carton of chocolate milk with a straw. He handed the tray to his son to carry it through the house to the extra closet in the hall
"Morning, Giz," Billy greeted as he opened the door. The closet was a walk in and had everything set up, including a small bed an end table with a small TV and a few shelves that were covered with toys, and coloring books, papers and crayons.
"Hi Billy, Hi Benny," The brown and white mogwai greeted them. Gizmo was perched at the end of his bed while Snowy, their rag doll cat was curled up next to him.
"Did Snowy sleep with you?" Billy asked.
Gizmo nodded and pet the cat who responded with a purr before stretching out his legs. This was part of their usual morning routine. Billy would usually give Gizmo his breakfast and his little friend would eat it while watching his television.
"No cartoons?" Benny asked in a disappointed tone as he stared at the television. "Just the news?"
"News," Gizmo answered before he took a bite from his pop tart.
"News is important," Billy said before gently petting the top of Gizmo's head. "Looks like they still have those wild fires down there in Florida." He watched as they talked about the destruction the fires were causing. "Don't worry I'm sure it will rain soon…it is Florida in the summer after all." He stood back up. "Good news is today is a half day and that means I'll get off around lunch and I'm going to do a few errands." His car was being worked on, just a simple tune up and his car pool was going to drop him off at the Blockbuster and he was going to take the bus to the mall and back home. "Sorry that I can't pick you and your sister up."
"That's okay, daddy," Benny said. "I don't want to go home early. We are having a water balloon party at daycare."
"Right I nearly forgot about that. I want you to have fun but don't get anything wet near Gizmo, okay?" They had spent the last eight years to do everything they can to keep their mogwai dry. "Okay I'm going to take care of a few errands and come back here and spend the afternoon with you Giz, but until then you have fresh batteries in your Gameboy, right?"
"Gameboy all ready," Gizmo replied.
"I see you soon." Billy said in the language Gizmo had taught him. It wasn't a dialect of a Chinese but a language that Gizmo said all mogwai knew as well as gremlins and Billy had spent the last eight years learning.
"Now," Billy said and picked up his son. "Let's get some breakfast into us and then make sure your bag has everything, bathing suit, towel, and sun screen." He closed the door half way and headed back to the breakfast table. The day was planned he would drop the kids off at day care, go to work, drop off the videos at Blockbuster and stop by the mall. He needed new shoes and he could pick up cough drops from his favorite pharmacy.
Was he dreaming? Gerald kept staring at the white walls of the room, or he tried to but everything was still blurry. He tried to raise a hand but his arm was too heavy, no it was strapped down. Where was he and what was going on? He looked around but all he could see were a few machines making beeping sounds and there were clear bags with tubes running down to his arms.
"Awake are we?" a vibrating voice asked as the blurred figure of the same gray haired scientist walked in. "Oh no you are only half awake? Are you awake or are you asleep? Ah perhaps are you dead or alive, such as Schrodinger's cat."
"Who—what?"
"No my dear Mr. Hopkins, don't talk." He was holding something in his hands, something small and furry with large ears.
"Uh what am I do—"
"What are you? Well that is a good question. You have already started to change, not a whole lot, but once the solution is fully absorbed you will complete your transformation. I can see that it is working and you are mutating as I hoped. Oh is this where you will tell me I will never get away with it and people will be looking for you? I'm sure that will be soon and we took care of your car and covered our tracks, not all of us just Tim, Hector and I. The others don't know, oh and Razor here knows but he won't tell anyone."
"Wanna sleep more." He had no idea what was going on or what the other man was saying. He felt the void pulling him back.
"Good, you go back to sleep and continue your metamorphosis."
Why was it always so easy for Billy to find a good pair of shoes for work but it took forever for his wife to find ones she likes? It was best not to dwell on the subject and instead make his way towards the pharmacy.
As he passed by the pretzel stand he caught a whiff of fresh baked pretzels and even though he finished lunch a little over an hour ago he could use a small snack and those parmesan flavored ones looked delicious.
"Quick bite and then get the cough drops," Billy said as he waited in the short line. He didn't have to wait long and soon had a tasty fresh toasted treat to munch on, along with small lemonade.
He had his snack half eaten when he noticed one of the mall cops. The guy looked young, maybe late teens or early twenties and had medium brown hair under his hat. The kid had warm brown eyes and a squarish jawline ending in a short curved chin. He also had the far away looks on his face, but he wasn't day dreaming. Billy knew that smile and turned to face what the security guard was facing and sure enough there was a woman. He knew it. He had often made that face when he was mustering up the courage to ask Kate out when they were working at the Kingston Fall's bank.
The security guard wasn't watching where he was going and he took one step and bam, right into a pillar, causing Billy to cringe and breathe out through his teeth.
"Hey, you okay?" He asked as he ran up towards the kid. "That looked like it hurt."
"Uh a little," the mall cop said as he rubbed his head. "I've had worse before."
"Do you need any help?"
"I'm fine." He ran his fingers through his hair and replaced his hat. "I have to do a sweep on the next floor and I spent too much time here." He had turned pink before he headed over to the escalator and Billy glanced over to where the lady in the lab coat was and yes she had seen it.
'Poor guy,' Billy had thought as he finished his snack. He had been there before and wished him luck.
Finding a pair of shoes for work was easy, but choosing a flavor of cough drops was not. Did he want the soothing honey lemon or the cooling effects of cherry ice? He pointed at the two bags and closed his eyes and played eeny meeny and finally decided on the honey lemon.
"And that is done." He grabbed the bag and headed to the register and paused when he heard a whistling. "No that can't be right." He handed the bag to the cashier and heard it again. It was Gizmo's song.
"Two-fifty sir," the cashier said.
"Here." He handed her the cash while not paying attention. Why was he hearing Gizmo's song out here? None of the goofy merchandise that Clamp had made around Gizmo featured the song. "That song."
"Yeah it's that new song from Savage Garden," the cashier answered while she handed Billy his change and purchase.
"No not from the speaker overhead. The whistling." He held up his finger when he heard it again. "There it is."
"Yeah some of the guys in lab coats have been whistling it, must be one of their in jokes or whatever."
"You are probably right." And that is a bad thing. Last he checked Giz was home and the only possible explanation was that there was another mogwai somewhere in the building, but that was impossible, was it? Humans didn't know that song and Gizmo had told him all mogwai knew it, but only those like him would sing it. Damn it. He had to make sure it didn't happen again.
The directory for the labs was next to the elevator and Billy shook his head and scowled when he saw that on the top floor was a genetics lab. It was just like last time. He sucked in his breath and pressed the button for eight.
Nobody was around to greet him or tell him he had the wrong floor when he entered. He looked around and could not see anyone. He had to make his move and was not going to wait another second before he bolted and ran to the first door. It was locked. He went to the next door and it was open and of course it was just a closet with a few extra lab coats hanging. Without a second thought he donned one as he ran through the halls checking each door and holding an ear to them, hoping to hear the chittering babel of a mogwai.
"I think your idea for this hereditary website could work, Gary." Two men exited one of the rooms and Billy turned to face the wall. "Sure it is not high on Doc Freddy's agenda, but I can see a lot of people would be into that."
Billy turned his head and could see them out of the corner of his eye. One was in his early forties and had his dark brown hair cut into a buzz and the other was tall and an albino.
"I don't think he would be happy if you called him that," the albino said
"I won't to his face. Hey you want to break out the rock em and sock ems. Your Garrison verses my Chuckles?"
"Sure, why not?" He unlocked one of the doors and the two went inside.
Billy let out his breath as he continued his way around the floor. He had to find that mogwai and to his frustration every door was locked and the few that weren't locked were just offices. He was going to have to risk getting in trouble and confront someone and ask them. He was certain if he called Clamp his boss would get him off the hook.
He froze when he heard the doors of an elevator opening and noticed that there was second and smaller one. Once again he turned to a wall and waited for whoever it was to leave. Once the ginger hair man had left the area Billy ran towards it and pushed down. Maybe there was more going on to the building than it had appeared.
"Just two buttons?" He muttered as he pressed down. What was he going to find, a secret storage? A secret lab run by the government? A mysterious underground Mogwai breeder?
The elevator reached its destination and opened the doors revealing a gray room with two doors on opposite ends. He raced to the one on the right and tried to open it and found that just like the other doors he had recently tried it was also locked.
"I bet this one is also locked." He fiddled with the knob and to his surprise it was unlocked. Inside was a large room with three doors. The one without a window was locked of course. He rolled his eyes and looked into the second room. There were medical machines and an empty chair that resembled a dentist's chair. The third room was same as the first, except it had something on the chair. It looked a little like a Mogwai but it was too big.
The door was not locked for some reason.
"Hellloo?" The slurred voice asked as Billy stepped inside. It didn't sound like a Mogwai. It almost sounded human, albeit with a high voice, similar to what he remembered from watching Smurfs and it sounded drunk.
"Hello?" Billy greeted back as he observed the creature. It was strapped down, however it looked like the straps were adjusted and it was larger than a Mogwai, over three feet in height. It also looked like it was wearing human clothes that were much too large for it. The face was furry, except there was no fur over the human like nose and mouth.
"Who you?" The creature asked
"Um I'm Billy, well William, William Peltzer." He wasn't sure why he was introducing himself to this creature but he wanted to know what it was and if it can communicate then he could try to learn more about it.
"Bill-Billy Pelt…Pelt-Peltzer?" The creature blinked and looked like it was trying to study him. "Peltzer, Peltzer…Captain Clip on?"
The answer caused Billy's heart to sink. Only one person in the world called him that. Gerald Hopkins? That thing was Gerald Hopkins? His former co worker and ass kisser? He hadn't seen the man since the first gremlin attack. Gerald went to psychiatric care and Billy nor Kate had heard much from him since. This couldn't be him, but no one else called them that.
"Jerry?" He decided to do a simple test.
"Gerald, don't call me, Jerry." It was him alright.
"Jesus, what…what?" He had to pause and lick his lips. "What happened? Who did this to you?"
"Gonna shut em down, report them," Gerald answered before he closed his eyes. There was no way he was going to be able to sneak out in his sedated state.
"I'm going to get help." He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. "I'm going to make sure they will find some way to turn you back." He stepped back and felt something sharp prick him in his back.
"Isn't that sweet, Hector?" The man standing behind Billy was older with gray hair and black framed glasses. "They know each other."
"Did you do this?" Billy pointed at Gerald. "What did you do to him?" As he talked he felt the room move and everything in his view grew blurry.
"Hector saw you enter the elevator and notified me," the older man said with a smug grin. "I had a feeling you were looking for trouble so I unlocked these two doors for you. I had no idea that you two were friends."
"Nooot frieeendsss," Billy slurred. "Not Reallly."
"I think you two might be, get ready to catch him."
"Nighty night," the larger man said before the world went dark.