Chris was having a good day. Yellow Spot was back in sea-snake territory, he had done some great manta-boarding with Martin, Aviva had given them some awesome new creature powers, and the crew was stopping at the poles to see the aurora overhead! What was there not to like?
A shout from Koki. "GUYS! Come check out Aviva's new schematics!"
And the day was about to get even better! Chris vaulted off the top of the Tortuga, whooping as he stuck the landing. "Oooh, what is it?" demanded Martin excitedly as he jumped down beside him. Koki and Aviva knelt near a large circular device, wrenches and machinery scattered around them.
Aviva smiled. "Well, we finally fixed a little device we broke a bit ago." She gestured towards the machine. "Ta-da! The new and improved Time Trampoline!"
"It's back?!" squealed Martin, bouncing up and down, and in that moment Chris just about squealed with him. "We'll get to see Rocko the Dodo again! And Tasdad, and Tasmom, and Little X! And we can finally see the atlas bears!"
"Passenger pigeons!" added Chris.
"Golden toads!"
"Pyrenean ibex!"
"Xerxes blue butterflies!"
Martin reached towards the device.
Jimmy yanked the two brothers back from their advance. "Woah, woah, hold on guys," he said. "Aviva hasn't even done a test run yet."
"Just a little peek?" asked Chris pleadingly. Koki gave him an unimpressed look.
"Pleaaaase? Just a teensy, weensy one?" Martin jumped in, dialing up the puppy eyes. Koki stayed strong, but Aviva finally sighed.
"Only one," she said firmly. "No touching."
The new Time Trampoline had a long, colorful scale on it now, divided in small white lines.
"See here, that's the beginning of the Holocene," Aviva said, pointing at the white line of the ending purple segment. A slim, black arrow sat at the end of the purple, leading into white. "The arrow indicates where we are, which is the present right now."
"Look, here's the Cretaceous!" Martin made to tap the green section, but Aviva smacked his hand away. "Ow!"
"No touching!"
"Aw, c'mon," he whined, "it's just the display!"
"Wait, so we can go back to the Mesozoic era?" said Chris excitedly.
Koki and Aviva exchanged uncertain glances. "Technically," Aviva hedged, "yes, you could."
The Kratt brothers looked at each other excitedly, on the exact same wavelength.
"DINOSAURS!!!"
"Triceratops!"
"Ankylosaurus!"
"Iguanodon!"
"Archaeoptery-"
"Okay guys, okay! We get the point," laughed Aviva. "But all of that's going to have to wait until the day after tomorrow."
"What? Why?" Chris said, mind still firmly entrenched in sauropods and pterodactyls.
"Aurora, remember?" Jimmy waved a hand towards the top of the Tortuga. "And Aviva will need another day for testing." He grinned at the dejected twin shoulder slumps. "The past can wait a little longer; we've got some skywatching to do!"
"Can't we-"
"Nope!" said Koki, dragging the brothers away by the collar. "Everyone up to the sunroof!"
Of course, as soon as the next day dawned, the Kratt brothers were onto Aviva.
"C'mon, you've gotta need a test subject!" wheedled Martin, begging on his knees, Chris nodding furiously besides him. "How're you supposed to get any results otherwise?"
Aviva sighed, pulling up her goggles. "I don't need any test subjects. You guys really shouldn't be in the basement for this."
"But then how will you figure out what will happen to real, human people if you don't use real, human subjects?" Chris asked, reasonably enough.
"Aviva, please!"
She cringed at the puppy-eyes again. "Alright, alright, stop giving me that look! Let me see…"
Nibbling on her lip, Aviva plucked a tablet from a cluttered worktable and muttered something vaguely about proportions and bias and probabilities. Chris and Martin eagerly bounced in front of her.
"Okay," she said finally, looking up from the screen, and the brothers whooped. "I mean, the chances are one in ten-thousand, so it should be fine… But I'm sending only one of you, and only a minute back, understand?"
"I call it!" said Martin, and Chris instantly frowned. "No, I'm going," he replied. "You got to man the Amphi-sub last week. It's my turn now."
"Oh, you two, hush," said Aviva, digging a hand into her pockets, and tossed something small at them. Martin caught it, fumbling awkwardly.
It was a quarter.
Martin flipped the quarter into the air, expertly catching and covering it with his palm. "Well, Chris, heads or tails?"
"Heads."
Martin shrugged and removed his hand. Chris immediately grinned. "Yes!"
"Aww," groaned Martin, but quickly recovered. "So, how does the new Time Trampoline work now?"
"It should be about the same as before." Aviva slid a panel of the Time Trampoline to reveal a panel of buttons. "This time, though, I've made the input section directly on the machine, so it can be an on-the-go thing once I've straightened out the portable features."
Chris hopped up onto the Trampoline, his weight causing the stretchy material to dip slightly, and scrutinized the panel.
Aviva tapped on the rightmost button. "I'm setting you up for a minute now."
Martin peeked over Aviva's shoulder curiously. "So how do you figure out the location you have to go to?"
She flicked a switch, checking a bunch of fluctuating numbers on her tablet.
"Normally I'd use a coordinate system, but right now I'm going to use the current position of the Tortuga as the destination. Chris should end up in the bunkers. Chris, stay put until we get you; I'm not willing to deal with a paradox-created doppelganger if you interfere. It's too early in the morning for that. Here, Martin, you can activate it— press that button right there."
And that was when it all went horribly wrong.
Suddenly, the Tortuga swerved, abruptly sending the lab into chaos.
"Whoa!"
Martin stumbled. His arm knocked into Aviva's, which let go of the tablet—
—which smashed into the Time Trampoline control panel.
In a flash of blue, Chris was gone.
The speaker system crackled on.
"Sorry about the turbulence!" said Jimmy cheerfully over the intercoms, blissfully ignorant of the disaster he had caused. "Had to avoid a turkey vulture. Well, I think it was a turkey vulture. Condors aren't as scrawny, right?"
Martin and Aviva stared at the now-empty Time Trampoline. The eldest Kratt brother looked at the inventor, blue eyes wide and uncertain.
"It's okay, right? He'll be back in a minute. Right?"
Aviva stared at the broken control panel, face ashen. She did not respond.
Chris blinked slowly, vision murky. His mouth felt suspiciously similar to cotton. And not anything cool like the cottonmouth snake either; just a dry, rough texture. Which was a shame. Cottonmouths were cool.
Ugh. How long had he been out? It couldn't have been unconscious for too long; Aviva and Koki would have located him with his Creaturepod. He tested his arms, lifting each up before resting them onto something... soft.
Curious, he sat up and felt around. Sleek, cushy fabric ran under his fingers. So he was either on a sofa, or a bed. His vision slowly cleared as he raised a hand to his head, and Chris groaned, temples protesting.
He sat there, hands propped on his knees for stability, for a couple minutes, as the world slowly bent back into view.
He squinted, shapes forming more coherently —
— only to feel something cold and hard press against the small of his back.
Chris stiffened. "Uh. Woah there, easy." Raising his hands in a half placating, half 'look I'm unarmed' posture, he tilted away from what felt distinctly like a gun.
To his panic, the gun followed him as he inched away, jamming even closer to his spine. "Um, I'd really appreciate it if that thing was pointed away from me," he croaked out.
"And I," said a curt, female voice behind him, "would rather have 'that thing' stay where it is, so I think we're at an impasse."
He froze, not from the threat, but from an intense feeling of deja-vu— which was completely bizarre, considering that he had never heard this person before in his life. Before he knew it, the question tumbled from his mouth. "Who are you?"
A harsh, surprised laugh. "Like I'm falling for that," they said. Chris gulped, shrinking further as cold, sleek metal pushed forward with each of the stranger's emphasized words.
"You know perfectly well who I am, Christopher Kratt. Try a little harder."
And, uh, wow, nobody ever called him 'Christopher', or spat his name with that much pure hatred.
"No, really," he tried, one last time, and, vision finally clearing, looked over his shoulder. "I don't know—"
He stopped dead. The figure behind him was startlingly slim. Narrowed green eyes were the only contrast of color against pale skin and a dark, oversized sweater. Short black hair reached a couple inches past a pointed chin and abruptly ended before reaching shoulder length.
As soon as Chris turned to meet the eyes of the stranger, they pulled their weapon away from his back and aimed it straight at Chris's forehead.
Instead of a gun, like he had initially thought, the person wielded a blowtorch. A pair of goggles were clutched in the other hand, as if they had rushed out of a lab. Zachbots flanked their sidelines menacingly.
The figure was, undeniably, Zach Varmitech.
The figure was, also undeniably, a girl.
Chris promptly choked. "Zach?"
Zoe Varmitech was not having a good day.
To be fair, she had not had a good day since… well. A while.
She picked up her wrench, going over the new commission from Corcovado. It was yet another gene mod, this time a compact version for the field; in this aspect, Corcovado was nothing but predictable.
There had been a couple, rare instances, back at the very beginning of Zoe's business transactions, when Corcovado had ordered entire barracks of mind-bots. That had been a pain to model and make entirely from scratch. The gene mods, at the very least, were capable of being sold to laboratories and universities, and did so reasonably well. Animal mind-controlling technology?
Well. She shuddered to think of the PR nightmare that would be.
A V-bot abruptly flew in front of the half-assembled prototype, startling Zoe into dropping the delicate structures she was working on. The main hinge fell apart, machine parts hitting the tiled floor with a loud tinkle.
"What the hell!?" snapped Zoe, already kneeling under the table to fetch the now undoubtedly damaged pieces. "I told you not to interrupt me during work!"
Instead of beeping in the faux-apologetic way she had programmed the V-bot to, however, it shoved a screen in her face.
"Oh, don't get too mad, little Zoette. It seems that my orders were just more valued than yours, no?"
"Donita." If Zoe had been in a better mood, she might have humored her. As it was, though, her Donita-tolerance was at an all-time low. "I told you not to call during the weekdays. What if someone was here when you called?"
Donita waved a hand at her, silver bangles flashing the camera. "Relax, blackbird. That's what your delightful little early warning system is for, isn't it?"
"I've told you to stop calling me that. And the system is made to alert you about incoming threats, not to figure out if I'm free for a call. It's not infallible."
"Kratt and Corcovado don't keep tails on you, so I figured it would be fine. Are you free this weekend, perhaps? You would look marvelous in this lovely green cardigan-"
"No," said Zoe flatly. "Get to the point, Donita."
Donita frowned– or, at least, frowned as much as she dared without creating frown lines.
"Zoe, you've stayed locked in your place for almost five months. Are you sure you aren't up for anything?"
Her grip on the battered machinery tightened. "We've been through this. Get to the point."
A reluctant sigh. "All work and no play, hmm? Well, Paver's pinned down Corcovado's current destination. Maldives, Addu Atoll. She's probably going for the coral reefs."
Zoe pinched the bridge of her nose. "Message me the data and exact coordinates," she said roughly. "Next time, don't call."
With a frustrated swipe, she disconnected the call. The V-bot chirped in confusion.
"Next time, block her. When I say no disruptions at work, that takes precedence, alright? She can activate the Button if it's urgent."
She waited for the bot's lights to shine red in acknowledgement.
What she got instead was three rapid flashes in succession, a series of selected siren noises, and an assortment of colored lights.
Zoe immediately dropped her wrench for the second time of the day, snatched a blowtorch and ran upstairs, flinging the lab coat off her shoulders. "Which one is it?!" Terror gripped her stomach. Whichever one it was, the results would not be good.
The V-bots were only programmed to sound that alarm if she had been found out.
One of the V-bots flipped a panel on their front to reveal footage of the second bedroom. It took Zoe a moment to recognize the room; it had been a long time since she had last seen it in person.
It did not, however, take her any time to identify the green-dressed brunette in the footage, sitting casually on the bed.
Kratt.
A Kratt that was most decidedly not on his way to the Maldives, contrary to the intel she had just received.
"Scheiße," she cursed, mind racing. When had he figured it out? Yesterday? Last week? It didn't matter now. His arrival meant that he knew. Maybe not a majority of it, and certainly not all, but enough; enough damning information to come in person and put her down.
The room was a trap, but there was nothing Zoe could do about it. If Kratt knew, then Corcovado and JZ did, too. The jig was finally up, and things were coming to a head whether she confronted him or not.
She'd rather face him, then. She was tired of hiding.
"Initiate Protocol 17B. And tell Gourmando and Donata about the incident. V-bots, we're going in."
Her hand tightened around the blowtorch. If Zoe Varmitech had to go down, then she might as well try to take Christopher Kratt down with her too.
Chris was hallucinating. He had to be, because there was no way that Zach had suddenly swapped genders on him, and he knew for a fact that Zach didn't have any siblings.
Huh. Well, he had to give his brain credit; this definitely felt real. He patted himself over, checking for any bug bites or scorpion stings. Nothing.
"Maybe I'm dehydrated," he mused aloud.
The female-Zach's snarl lessened, a look of utter confusion crossing her face. "What are you doing?" she said incredulously, then promptly remembered herself and raised the blowtorch again threateningly.
He looked up and down the Zachbots closely, peering at the detail. "Man, I must have fought one too many battles if I can start replicating them down to the bolts!"
He reached out to the Zachbot, expecting his hand to pass straight through, but instead hit the metal body with a clink.
Chris frowned. "Tactile sensations? That's strange…"
There was a dead silence, then, slowly:
"Okay. I don't know what is going on, but I am certainly not leaving you here. V-bots, handcuff Kratt and bring him upstairs."
A long beep, which she seemed to take as a question. She pinched the bridge of her nose.
"No, 38 doesn't apply right now! Does he look like a guest right now? Pour him some water if he's dehydrated and bring him up!"
As soon as the V-bot's eyelights flickered in acknowledgement, she turned and stormed back upstairs.
The minute the Not-Zach left the room, the Zachbots (Not-Zachbots?) pulled out several pitchers and cups of liquid.
They then proceeded to empty the contents all over Chris.
"Argh!" Chris yelped, covering his face as water spilled over his shoulders. "Alright, alright, not a hallucination!"
But then, what in the world had happened earlier? He couldn't have met an ancestor or descendent, because the Female-Zach had clearly recognized him. It couldn't have been teleportation either, because, again, Female-Zach didn't exist when he had sat on the Time Trampoline.
Did… did Zach get into genetics or something? Holograms?
Chris touched his soaked hair and sighed as the Not-Zachbots forced his hands down into metal cuffs.
He had a sinking feeling that this was going to end up being far more complicated than it already seemed.
There was a full-blown headache waging war in Zoe's brain. She paced back and forth in front of her computers, head cradled in hands as she considered the situation before her.
"It could still be a trap," she muttered, raking a hand through her hair unconsciously— and then instantly regretting it as her bangs mussed up. Zoe grimaced; it was a slight annoyance, but it would bug her until it was fixed.
"It could be a trap," she repeated, quickening her pace, "but it's not Kratt's style. It sounds more like something Donita would do more than anything else, actually."
As Zoe paced, several V-bots began trailing behind her, almost like a line of ducklings following their mother. Zoe, crossing her arms, deep in thought, continued muttering without noticing.
"If this is all an act, then why? He could potentially be trying to get under my defences to obtain some more information out of me. But Protocol 17B would wipe all data as soon as anyone but me touches the computers, and I bet he knows I have some sort of contingency plan like that." She tapped her fingers together agitatedly.
"It's not like this is the best way to go about manipulating me either. Kratt knows that I know that he knows, so why would he pretend he didn't know that I knew that he knew, let alone pretend to not know anything?"
She suddenly stopped in confusion, trying to sort out the sentence she had just uttered. "Wait, that doesn't make any—"
Crash! The V-bot right behind her didn't stop quickly enough, and toppled over her. The next one didn't stop in time either. Or the next.
Bang! Thud! Clang!
Chris, who was being led up the stairs by another two V-bots, arrived in time to have the dubious honor of witnessing the last V-bot complete the trainwreck.
He stared. "Er…"
Before he did anything, however, an arm suddenly thrust itself out from under the pile.
"Stupid…" a hand gripped the bottom of a V-bot, "idiotic…" a leg slowly shimmied out under a tangle of metal arms, "robots!"
The robot closest to her let out a sad beep.
"Well? What are you waiting for? Get off me!"
The V-bots finally hovered off of Zoe, who slowly rose up with a hiss.
Chris watched her stand gingerly. "Do you, uh, need any help?" he asked slowly, edging closer.
Quickly recovering from her embarrassment, Zoe snarled, both at the offer and false kindness. She wasn't stupid enough to lower her guard like that.
"As if you could help me with a pair of handcuffs," she snapped.
Chris fidgeted. "I still don't get why I'm being handcuffed. Usually you'd toss me into some kind of cell or mind-control thing," he muttered. "Honestly, I'm not sure why I'm here at all."
None of that made any sense, but Zoe held her tongue. If Kratt was going to talk, and maybe reveal something underneath his words of rubbish, she wasn't about to interfere.
He looked at her sideways and coughed. "So. When'd you start, um, crossdressing?"
...did Zoe say something about waiting passively for Kratt to talk? That was a lie.
"Excuse me, what?" she said with a short, derisive laugh. Was this a woefully misguided attempt to unbalance her? "How is wearing the same clothes I have worn the past decade and a half considered 'crossdressing'?"
He winced. "Well… you see……"
"You're telling me," she said, slowly, "that you came here by a botched time machine experiment?"
The whole story sounded ridiculous, absurd, but it was the sole, slim reason that she was considering it; nobody could pull that much nonsense out of thin air and expect her to buy it, most of all Kratt.
Unless he was doing reverse psychology. Would he do that? wondered a voice inside Zoe's head. In all honesty, probably not. Even if he tried, Zoe suspected that the backstory was too ludicrous a story to even conjure. The possibility shrunk with every additional, obscure detail.
He shifted, metal grinding against his wrists uncomfortably. "Yeah, the Time Trampoline. Aviva accidentally dropped her tablet on the controls."
A trampoline as a device? For time-traveling? She left the questions in her head unspoken.
"And you're saying that you have never heard of Zoe Varmitech before."
"Well, I mean, there's Zach— wait, Zoe?"
Zoe ignored him, drumming her fingers against the tabletop thoughtfully. "How does it work?"
"How does it work?" he parroted, confused. "You just jump on it until you jump through the time portal."
Was he really that dense? "No, how does it work? What power source does it use? Do any actions in the past affect the present, or are paradoxes prevented by creating an alternate timeline? How is the portal sustained without it collapsing in upon itself?"
Kratt stared blankly at her. She closed her eyes, resisting the urge to rub them, and tried to suss out the little information she had.
It didn't matter how the machine worked, at the moment. What mattered was the effects.
And if it wasn't time, and it wasn't space, then…
"An alternate dimension." Her lips quirked as Kratt abruptly faltered, cut off during a frantic description of Aviva's gadgets.
Apparently, this Kratt didn't know anything. He hadn't told Corcovado. He hadn't told JZ. All he had done was drop in by pure, hilariously wild luck.
Her secrets were safe, then, as long as she kept this Kratt from spilling. There were several ways to accomplish that. But first…
"Kratt. I'll believe you."
He stared at her, still lost for words. His jaw worked for a minute. "Uh," he managed, "that—that's, uh, nice of you—"
"I'll believe you, as soon as we go to the Maldives."
"The Maldives?" Sitting in the back of a small black jet, Chris shifted as two bots hemmed in on him. He felt like his brain had been hit with a sledgehammer. Alternate dimensions? Multiverse travel?
He suddenly wished, very much so, for Martin. They'd figure out something together. Or Aviva. She would've explained everything and come up with a solution in seconds.
By himself, Chris was barely on the same book, let alone the same page. He continued to talk, letting his words fill the frigid tension.
"Don't get me wrong, the Maldives archipelago has some amazing wildlife, but what does that have to do with anything here?" He peered hopefully at Zoe, immersed in a sleek laptop, fingers flying away at the keyboard.
When she didn't answer, he pressed further. "Why are we leaving? Why are we leaving now? And your name is Zoe?"
Finally, Zoe looked up from her typing and glared. "Yes. That's my name, don't wear it out," she said impatiently. "And I don't need to tell you anything. We're going to the Maldives, simple as that. This isn't rocket science—"
The pilot bot crackled in confusion, a high whine emitting from the speakers. Almost immediately, she turned and dove for the pilot seat, cursing, face filled with irritation.
She wrested the controls away, knuckles stark white on the grips. "That was a figure of speech! It wasn't even addressed to you," she snarled at the robot, "now turn the autopilot back on."
He watched as the inventor sank back into the chair as the bot reoriented itself, a brooding look reappearing on her face. It was so inherently characteristic of Zach that Chris relaxed for the first time since the incident, shoulders drooping in relief at the familiarity despite the situation.
Something clicked in his head. Even with all of their differences, a part of Zoe was clearly shared with Zach. Their abilities, their mannerisms and habits; it was very nearly identical, like… like a species, Chris decided. A very moody, black loving, turtleneck wearing species.
Chris could deal with the Varmitech-species. He had known Zach since he was five. Out of all the people he could have been stuck with, this wasn't so bad.
Just treat her like a Zach, he told himself. Easy. Right?
…Well, if he had wanted information from Zach, all he had ever really had to do in the past was taunt the inventor, and then hurt pride would always come barging in to the rescue.
He hazarded an insult. "Sooo, are your robots always this bad?"
Immediate turn and death-glare. Ouch. "You try programming voice-commands and not run into problems, imbecile. The English language isn't exactly the pinnacle of communicative achievement." She opened her mouth as if to continue on a rant, but then crossed her arms over her chest instead and huffed. "And they are called V-bots. Surely you knew their name from your universe, considering that you recognized them from the beginning."
Okay, so maybe she was a bit more wary of him than Chris thought. And that was fair and all, but first— "Woah, Vee-bots? Not Zoebots or anything like that?"
"Zoebots? Where did you get that from?" Zoe considered it. "That would be a nightmare to say. Zoebots. Zo-ee-bots. Zoh-bots. Zoo-bots," she said, and immediately grimaced. "Nevermind."
"That's what Zach did, though. He called them Zachbots."
"Zachbots?" She tilted her head. "Zachbots. Yes, that does have a nice ring…" She narrowed her eyes, suddenly cagey. "You know, you never told me anything about your world except Corcovado's machine and this Zach-version of me."
"Oh." Chris shrugged, nonchalant. "There isn't much to say. We were going to head off to India to check on the elephant reserve after the aurora— ohhhh."
He sat up, beaming. "That's why we're going to the Maldives! That's where this universe's me is right now, isn't it?"
He grinned excitedly at Zoe, whose scowl had deepened. "Kratt…" she started warningly, but Chris barreled right over her, feeling reassured.
"So the crew's still here in this world right? I wonder what sort of amazing creature adventures we're having right now!" He glanced out the window, confidence entering his posture. "Aviva must have made a ton of different, amazing power discs here. Maybe we're manta-boarding right now! Or maybe it's a hike; we haven't done that in ages! I bet Jimmy and Koki—"
"Stop."
Zoe's voice suddenly steeled.
Chris stopped.
Her hands curled into tight fists, a silent struggle for control.
"I don't think," she said after a moment, words coiled sharply but much less forceful, "that we are on the same page. At all. Stop that," she snapped at a V-bot that had begun rifling through a book it had produced out of nowhere.
She turned back towards Chris. "Tell me everything. Don't leave anything out."
Donita was setting up for a wood frog shoot when her phone rang.
It was going to be a very nice shot, too; the frog wore grays and browns that weaved perfectly into the backdrop of fallen leaves she had found it in. It had sat there, waiting with its odd, buggy eyes, while she had stealthily readied the camera.
The color scheme would have never worked on a human, of course. Far too drab and ugly. But the frog made the dullness its own art. With its own mediocrity, it faded away into the forest floor, quietly merging into everything.
It was the sort of understated beauty that Donita couldn't replicate without botching the intention behind it. Oh, she could bring out her designs and rival the flamingos, the butterflies, the peacocks in their art. Their goals were to stand out, to draw attention, and Donita knew how to do that, how to shine. To disappear? To melt away, as softly as the snow did under sunlight?
The only way Donita could ever capture that magic was by meeting it in its own realm.
The trees swayed in the wind, spots of dappled sunlight shifting on damp peat and carpet moss. Somewhere in the distance, a bird chirped, trills blending in with the rustling of leaves and murmuring of cicadas. She found the perfect angle, finger resting on the shutter button.
DINGGG! DINGG!
Her phone rang, shattering the moment. The frog sprang away.
Donita ripped the phone out of her pocket, frustration making her movements crude. "What?"
"Donita," Gourmando said soberly, and she dropped her irritation. Gourmando never talked like that. Passionate, fervent, animated speech, yes. Somber, serious, grim monotones, no.
"Wherever you are, come back now. We gotta leave. I got a black code from Zoe."
Black code? Zoe had called a black code? But she had heard from the sullen inventor just this morning. Incomprehensive, she stood still for a heartbeat, once, twice.
Then, whirling into action, she stuffed her equipment into her coral canvas bag and (oh was she infinitely glad to be wearing fur boots and not high heels today) ran as if a brown bear was on her tail, beelining for her helicopter.
Black meant Zoe had been captured.
"What happened?" she demanded, leaping into the cockpit in one swift, almost frantic motion.
"I don't know." A huff. "We had a ping from one of her V-bots around five minutes ago, but nothing else."
Donita's voice was deadly calm as the helicopter blades began to twirl. "Have you tried contacting her?"
"I have, but I can't send anything through, much less a response."
She groaned. Curse Zoe and her stubborn isolation. Once the helicopter rose above the canopy of trees, she immediately yanked on the yoke, zooming away in the opposite direction of the base.
"Donita." She knew at this point Gourmando had noticed her movement. "That's not a good idea."
"I can get in and out. I'm only an hour away from Zoe's tower. It's better than me going back to base and delaying things further."
He didn't answer. "You know I'm right," she pushed further. "I have the emergency equipment." And then a final plea: "She needs us."
A beat. Then, "Get there and stay low. We'll be there as fast as I can."
"Thank you."
The helicopter sped on.
"Tell me."
"Nah," said Chris nonchalantly, arms behind his head. "I think I deserve to know a little of what's going on here, too."
"This is ridiculous. I can't send you back if I don't know anything."
Chris shrugged. "That's fine. Aviva can handle it," he said, far more confident than he actually was. He didn't doubt that Aviva could create some sort of multiverse-hopper, but from the little he knew, the multiverse was infinite... How would they be able to find him?
Not that his thoughts about this mattered right now. What mattered was that Za— er, Zoe believed his confidence, and acted accordingly. Like mimicry.
Zoe glared at him. Chris grinned back. "Besides," he said, "if you plan on me staying here for a while, shouldn't I know what this world is like?"
Her green eyes narrowed; in thoughtfulness or annoyance, he couldn't tell. But the slope of her shoulders lowered, and that was telling enough. One, two…
"You're not going to stop pestering me about this, are you," she stated.
He grinned. "Nope."
Zoe sighed.
Chris tried not to look too triumphant, but from Zoe's dark glare she could tell what was up. Which just made him smile more.
Man, Zoe really was as cranky as her counterpart, wasn't she?
There was silence for an uncomfortably long moment.
"Uh," said Chris in an attempt to break the silence, "I don't think this is much of an explanation."
"Quiet," said Zoe, not appreciating his humor in the slightest. "What do you want to know?"
"How about me?" Chris suggested. "I mean, you were really hung up on me appearing at your place. Uh. Not that you shouldn't be. People showing up randomly in your home isn't a good thing. But it seemed… excessive. You and I do know each other, right?"
She snorted at that. "Yes, I do know Christopher Kratt," she said, voice flat and acidic. "Regretfully."
Chris frowned at the venom that laced those words, but kept silent. He had figured that it was something like that, though he wondered why. It was a given that there was some hostility between the Kratts and Varmitech, yes, but Zoe's tone…
That was not a tone of hostility. That was a tone of pure hatred.
Something occurred to him then. Did Zoe also make animals into robots? He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before. His heart immediately sank. Zoe, despite the initial encounter and her prickly attitude, was trying to help him, and the thought of her enslaving animals stung unexpectedly of betrayal.
He… didn't want to know. Not now.
"Well. He, along with Corcovado and JZ, are currently in the Maldives," Zoe said. "We are going there to confirm that your testimony is accurate. You are correct on that part."
"So I get to meet them?"
She tensed. "No. You do not get to meet anybody. Corcovado ordered something from Varmitech Industries. I am merely delivering it."
That didn't explain much at all. And Aviva ordered from Varmitech here? But then... "Hold on, you're not telling Aviva? But if you two work together-"
"No," Zoe repeated. "Besides, whatever Corcovado was in your world does not apply here. She may be somewhat competent with other fields of science, but the breadth of her research lies entirely in genetics. She will offer no more insight to your situation than you yourself."
Chris blinked, distracted. "Genetics? What about engineering?"
"Engineering?"
"Yeah, you remember the Time Trampoline, right? Well, Aviva invented lots of other things. She made the Creature Suits and the Manta Boards— we raced only the other day; I swear Martin's unbeatable in those. She practically built the whole Tortuga herself and— wait, my Creaturepod!"
Chris jumped up and dug his hand into the pockets of his khakis. He had forgotten about it, and it was a relief when his fingers closed on the small, green device. Even though it was probably useless, it was comforting to know that he still had something.
"What is that?" said Zoe, eyebrow raised. Chris opened his mouth to respond, and then realized that, somehow, instead of Zoe explaining her world, the conversation had flipped back to his.
"Wait a second," he said, pointing a finger accusingly at Zoe. "You—"
That was definitely the shadow of a smirk on her face. "I?"
Chris groaned, but was glad that the atmosphere in the jet had lightened. "Nevermind," he said. "I practically handed those questions to you on a silver platter, didn't I?"
"You are an open book," she agreed, turning back to her computer. Her tone neutralized again. "So, from what I've surmised, your work is… focused, I suppose, around creatures?"
"Of course," said Chris proudly. "We're the Wild Kratts! Keeping animals free and in the wild!"
Zoe's expression closed off.
"Interesting," she said quietly. Her gaze flicked back up from her screen to watch Chris. "That's nothing at all like here."
"Really?"
Then what were they? Chris couldn't fathom them having any other job. He tried to picture Martin wearing a necktie and shuddered.
"Yes," said the inventor. "The latest incident was particularly remarkable, if I recall. Your crew is now wanted very badly by the Ecuadorian government for stealing those endangered Galapagos tortoises."She shrugged, face unreadable. "Just another international incident to the list, I suppose."
Silence.
"What," said Chris.
