The Cube was packed. O'Vidiya and I rushed into a crowded elevator and anxiously waited until we were on the fifth floor.
"116, 117, 118... Room 119!"
O'Vidiya zapped the door with an Unlock-inator (one of the only gadgets we Security agents were allowed to wield) and we barged into the room.
"Odd Squad, Odd Squad, stop right there!"
My eyesight isn't the greatest, even with glasses, but I still questioned why I was seeing double.
Oriel looked up from the gadget he was holding and glared at us. Another Oriel, the real one, was loosely bound to a wooden chair, his face glasses-less and... yikes.
"You look rough," O'Vidiya winced.
Oriel slipped his arms out of the ropes and pointed to a thin but long cut on his right cheek. "Paper-inator."
He pointed to his right foot, which was encased in a block of ice. "More-Precise-Freeze-inator."
Oriel sneezed and sniffled. "Pollen-inator."
My eyes were drawn to a small burn mark on his left cheek. "What's that...?"
"Oh, this? Fireworks-inator."
"What?!"
No... We should've solved it sooner...
"Explain yourself," O'Vidiya demanded to the other Oriel. "Who are you?"
He cleared his throat. "I'm Cedric."
He chuckled and took his lab coat off, breathing a sigh of relief. Relief?
"Don't you know how exhausting it was to be him?"
"I thought you'd have it easy since we're technically the same---" Oriel started to say.
"We're not!"
"The same what?" I asked.
"Since you're so eager to blab about it, why don't you explain what you did to me?"
The other Oriel's---Cedric's---voice dripped with venom potent enough to numb a bear.
a bear?
I'd be exaggerating if I said an elephant hehe. Just look at him ^w^
Oriel sighed. "You know how I test gadgets on myself? I thought it would be a great idea to use the Multiply-inator to have a bunch more of myself, but I went too far and he rebelled and it's all---"
"What?" O'Vidiya demanded.
"I was nine! I didn't think of the consequences!"
Cedric readied a gadget. "You never do."
I retrieved my riot shield and stood in Oriel's way. "Look out!"
The beam from Cedric's gadget ricocheted off my shield and froze part of the wall.
O'Vidiya retrieved her own shield. "Free Oriel. I'll handle this."
I untied Oriel and dragged him to a corner of the room.
"Get his gadgets!" Oriel called.
O'Vidiya slid down to grab a gadget on the floor.
"Way ahead of you!" she called back, throwing the gadget to me.
"Gadget 70's the Heat-inator," Oriel said. "That's gadget 48, the More-Precise-Freeze-inator!"
Cedric retrieved another gadget, bombarding O'Vidiya with fireworks.
"Fireworks-inator! 110!" Oriel shouted over the noise. "Too big!"
O'Vidiya put her cochlear implants in her pocket and faced the fireworks head-on with her shield.
dug into my scalp and took them off yeah👍🏾
The removable parts! You know what I mean >:(
Just as Cedric was about to fire another firework, O'Vidiya knocked the gadget out of his hand and threw it to me.
"We can't use that," Oriel said. "110 is greater than 70---"
I aimed at Oriel's foot with the Fireworks-inator. A firework the size of a cigar shattered enough of the ice to free him.
Oriel blinked. "...That works, too!"
Cedric gritted his teeth. "Why do you have to be so---"
"Shields up!" Oriel exclaimed as he retrieved his own round shield.
Cedric retrieved yet another gadget and covered us in a burst of pollen. I'm allergic to a lot of weird things, but pollen isn't one of them.
I zapped him with the only other gadget we Security agents were allowed to wield: the Handcuff-inator.
"You win this time," he spat. "But just you wait, Oriel!"
I returned the rest of the gadgets to Oriel. He retrieved more of Cedric's gadgets from his hammerspace somehow...
"How are you doing that?" I asked.
"We're technically the same person. Kinda..."
O'Vidiya took Oriel's glasses off of Cedric's face and returned them to him.
We took both of them into the tubes back to headquarters.