by Phil Lollar
Lucy looked at him. “You know, if you really want to make it up to me, Richard, that’s how you can do it—stay here and talk to him. Tell him everything!”
He shook his head back and forth slowly. “Lucy—”
“It’s your chance to do the right thing for a change!”
Maxwell rubbed his forehead with his hand. “Lucy . . .”
“Please, Richard.”
There was a long pause. He lowered his hand. “I can’t.” He looked at her, and his eyes were pools of sorrow.
She didn’t care. She stared directly at him.
“You coward.”
Maxwell withered. “Yeah . . . yeah, I guess I am.” He took a deep breath and then rose. “Look, I gotta go. I have some business to take care of at Blackgaard’s Castle.”
She turned away from him again. “Whatever.”
He hesitated and then crossed to the door, where he stopped and turned back. There was nothing but heartfelt sincerity in his voice. “Lucy, I hope—”
She was having none of it. “Go!” she snapped, cutting him off. “Just go!”
Maxwell closed his eyes, pain etched in his face. He took another deep breath, opened his eyes, and said softly, “Good-bye, Lucy.” He then opened the door. Connie was right there. He snorted. “Come on in, Warden.” Then he scooted around her and walked down the hall.
“Very funny!” Connie called after him. She turned and moved quickly to Lucy’s bedside. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Lucy did her best to fight it. “Yeah, I’m all right.” She burst into tears. “Oh, Connie!” She sank into her friend’s arms and wept bitterly again. Connie rocked and comforted her.
Several minutes—or were they hours?—passed, and there was another light knock on the door. It opened, and Whit popped in. “Knock, knock!”
Lucy’s face lit up. “Mr. Whittaker!” And then she cried even harder.
Connie stroked Lucy’s hair and smiled warmly at her boss. “Hi, Whit.”
He crossed the room and set the flowers he carried on the bedside table. His eyes filled with emotion. “I hope those tears aren’t for me!” he said lightly.
Lucy looked up at him. “Oh, Mr. Whittaker! I’m glad you’re here! I have so many things I have to tell you!” She lapsed into sobs again.
Whit sat on the foot of the bed opposite Connie. “No hurry, Lucy. I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Thirteen
In the basement office of Blackgaard’s Castle that night, the tall, angular figure of Dr. Regis Blackgaard paced the floor triumphantly as he talked on the phone. Sasha lolled on the carpet at his feet and batted at his spats as he passed by her.
“Yes, yes . . . Now, listen. I want you to line up as many buyers as you can possibly get in touch with. Tell them this Applesauce program is the most fantastic thing they’ll ever see—and to make sure they bring lots of money . . . Well, no, I don’t have the full program yet—I still need the password to get into level two . . . Yes, I know time is short, but I expect to have the password very soon—”
He heard footsteps coming down the hallway toward the office, accompanied by whistling. He returned to the phone. “In fact, it may have just walked in my door. I’ll call you later.” He hung up.
The whistling got louder as Maxwell approached and entered the office, hands in his pockets. “Hiya, Doc. What’s up?”
“Richard . . .” Blackgaard said warily.
Maxwell removed a hand from his pocket and pointed upward. “Didja ever notice how spooky this place is without any kids in it?” He gave a little shiver.
Blackgaard smirked. “Well, I must say that your attitude this evening is far better than it was this morning. Any reason for the change?”
“Yeah—a couple of ’em, in fact.” Maxwell nodded cheerfully. “For one thing, I’ve been doin’ a lot of thinking about what you said.”
“I’m glad you took it to heart,” said Blackgaard, bowing slightly.
Maxwell gave him a thumbs-up. “Oh, I took it to heart, all right. But the second reason is even better: I’ve just been to see Lucy.”
Blackgaard licked his lips. “And?”
Maxwell polished his fingernails on his shirt cockily. “I got the password.” He sniffed.
Blackgaard’s face blossomed into a wide smile. “You did? Ha! I knew I could count on you, Richard!” He clapped the younger man on the shoulders and laughed joyfully. “Well done, well done! All is forgiven!” He motioned him toward the desk and the computer. “Well, don’t just stand there! Come and type it in!”
“Okay—if you want me to . . .” Maxwell sat at the desk and began punching keys on the keyboard. “Now, let’s see . . . I’ll bypass the system’s first level and get right to level two.”
Blips and whirs came from the computer. Blackgaard clapped his hands together again, overjoyed. “This is wonderful! Applesauce is finally within my reach! After all these years, I’m finally going to get it!”
“Got that right,” Maxwell muttered.
“Pardon?” said Blackgaard.
“I said, ‘I think we’re all right,’” Maxwell answered aloud. Blip! “Yeah, it’s all ready.”
Blackgaard looked at the screen and his brow furrowed. “It is? Are you certain? It looks . . . different somehow.”
“That’s ’cause it’s waiting for the password,” Maxwell explained, rising from the chair. “You want to do the honors?”
Blackgaard looked very pleased. “Yes . . . oh, yes!” He slid onto the chair and faced the keyboard. “What’s the word?”
“The word . . .” said Maxwell smugly, “is . . . destruct.”
“Ha! Destruct,” Blackgaard scoffed. “Couldn’t Whittaker come up with anything more creative than that?”
Maxwell shrugged. “Guess not. Well, what are you waitin’ for? Do it! Just type in destruct and hit Return.”
“Gladly!” said Blackgaard, looking very much like a kid on Christmas morning. He talked as he typed. “D - E - S - T - R - U - C - T . . . aaaaand . . .” He twirled his finger around the keyboard. “Return.” He punched the final key. “It’s just such an odd word, that’s all.”
In the distance, a low hum began and increased in intensity rapidly. “Not really,” Maxwell said. “It’s actually very appropriate—for what’s about to happen.”
The hum continued to gain in intensity, and suddenly the sounds of the machines and games in the main room above them wafted down the hall. Blackgaard looked at him sharply. “What’s going on, Richard?” He jumped up, shoved Maxwell aside, and bounded to the office door.
At the end of the hallway, he saw flashes from the main room at the top of the staircase, along with a cacophony of arcade sounds. He glared back at Maxwell. “Something’s wrong!” He took off down the hallway.
“Give the man a silver dollar!” barked Maxwell. He smirked, returned his hands to his pockets, resumed his whistling, and jauntily followed Blackgaard to the main room upstairs.
There, though no one was playing them, all of the games and machines had sprung to life—beeping, whirring, blipping, chirping, singing, flashing, pinging, dinging, and racking up points all by themselves. Madam Ouga was spitting out fortune cards by the dozens. Blackgaard took in the scene, his face illuminated by the flashing and pulsing lights of the machines. Maxwell sidled up behind him.
The games sped up and the sounds increased into a perfect crescendo of pandemonium. “Oh—my—goodness!” Maxwell exclaimed. “This has to be ten times worse than what happened at Whit’s End—they don’t have all of the substandard machines you have here!”
Blackgaard clenched his fists and roared. He wheeled on Maxwell. “Why is this happening, you sniveling toad? What have you done?!”
“Taken you to level two!” Maxwell shouted. “But here, the game is over, Blackgaard. You lose!”
“You gave me the wrong password!”
Maxwell gestured to the bedlam. “Not at all—it’s working beautifully! And it’s about to get e
ven better!”
At that moment, several of the machines reached their maximum electrical load capacity and began short-circuiting, some with miniexplosions. Sparks spewed out of them, and electrical surges shot around the room. Sasha raced around looking for cover and safety, and finding none, yowled mightily when sparks singed her tail. “Sasha!” cried Blackgaard.
“Now she knows how the horses felt at Riley’s barn!” Maxwell chuckled.
“You’re destroying my place!” Blackgaard bellowed.
Richard shook his head. “No, I’m not—you are!”
“What?!”
Maxwell moved to the soda counter, sat on the stool, linked his fingers and put his hands behind his head. “I rigged it so that a power surge would go through every machine in this building whenever the word destruct is entered into the computer downstairs. Works pretty good, eh?” He unlinked his fingers and gestured around the room. “You entered the word destruct. All this is your doing, not mine.”
Blackgaard turned back to the chaotic scene. “Stop it!” he thundered. “Please!”
Maxwell relinked his fingers behind his head and mimicked the computer voice. “Sorry, once engaged, the program can’t be stopped or reversed.”
More explosions, shorts, and sparks.
“Maxwellllll!” Blackgaard bawled.
Suddenly, the shriek of alarms was added to the din.
“Ah!” Maxwell raised a finger. “And now for your dining and listening enjoyment—the alarms have gone off! That can only mean one thing: The building’s on fire!”
“Nooooo!”
Smoke started filling the room, and small flames licked the backs of some of the machines. Maxwell bounced off the stool. “Y’know, if you want my advice, I think we’d better get outta here—this whole place could go up any minute!”
Blackgaard’s face contorted with rage. “You’re not going anywhere,” he snarled. He pounced on Maxwell, grabbed him by the shirt, and fairly hurled him into the sparking, spitting, flashing, smoking, flickering electrical mayhem that the main room had become.
Maxwell screamed in terror and slammed up against the Zappazoids machine. He slid to the floor next to it, but the machine rocked back and forth precariously.
Suddenly Madam Ouga, the machine next to Zappazoids, overloaded and exploded in a shower of sparks and fortune cards, and the force of it sent the Zappazoids machine toppling over onto Maxwell, pinning him underneath. He screamed in pain. “Aaahhh! Dr. Blackgaard!”
Blackgaard strolled up to Maxwell casually, holding Sasha. “Oh, look, Sasha,” he puckered in mock sympathy. “Poor Richard is trapped under the Zappazoids machine.” Sasha hissed.
Just then, the fire flared up in earnest and began spreading rapidly.
“Aaah!” Maxwell groaned. “My legs! I can’t get my legs out! Help me!”
Blackgaard chortled. “Help you? No, I don’t think so . . .”
The smoke got thicker, and Maxwell started coughing. “C’mon, man! . . . The fire is gettin’ closer!”
“Yes.” Blackgaard smiled, “And it will get closer still. You may have won, Richard, but every victory has its price. Unfortunately, yours will be much greater than you thought.”
Maxwell gasped for breath. “Dr. Blackgaard! . . . Please!”
Blackgaard smiled evilly. “Good-bye, Richard.” He waved Sasha’s paw. “Say good-bye, Sasha.” The cat meowed.
They backed away, but to Maxwell’s surprise, they did not head toward the front doors but toward the door marked Private.
“Hey!” he called after them. “Where’re ya goin’?! Don’t leave me! Don’t . . . leave . . .” A cloud of smoke obscured the man and the cat from his vision momentarily, but when it passed, they were gone.
Maxwell burst into a coughing spasm. He could feel the heat from the fire, and it was getting closer by the second. “Please . . .” he whimpered. “Pleeeease . . .” But no one was there. He laid his head on the floor, closed his eyes, and prepared to die, hoping it would be quick, knowing he deserved it.
“Maxwell!”
Now I’m hearing things . . . so this is what happens when you die.
“Maxwell! Richard Maxwell!”
That voice is familiar . . .
“Maxwell!”
. . . and it’s no hallucination!
He lifted his head and called out weakly, “Hey! Hey, over here! . . . Under Zappazoids!” He started hacking again.
“I see you! I’m coming!”
Maxwell looked up and saw a figure coming toward him through the smoke. He couldn’t make out who it was at first . . . but as the figure got closer, he recognized him. “Mr. Whittaker?”
Whit crouched down next to him. “Can you move? Are your legs broken?”
“I . . . don’t think so.”
“All right, I’m gonna lift the machine, and you pull yourself outta there! Ready?”
“Okay!”
“Lift!” Whit strained with the weight of the machine. It inched upward ever so slowly until Maxwell was able to scramble out from under it.
“Clear!”
Whit let go of the machine and it crashed to the floor. “C’mon, let’s go!”
Maxwell grabbed his arm. “Wait! Blackgaard’s . . . still in here! He went . . . downstairs!”
“What?!” Whit called out, “Dr. Blackgaard!”
They headed toward the door marked Private, but before they got too far, a large beam came crashing down in front of them, blocking the door.
“We can’t get by!” Whit yelled. “Dr. Blackgaard!” The fire roared about them, and the smoke billowed. “We have to go!” yelled Whit. “Now! C’mon!”
He grabbed Maxwell’s arm. They stumbled through the smoke to the front doors and plowed through them to the outside. Smoke poured out after them. Whit pulled Maxwell away from the structure into the parking lot, sat him down, and then plopped down beside him. They both coughed profusely for several minutes, gasping for air.
In the distance sirens screamed, getting louder as they approached Blackgaard’s Castle, now engulfed in flames. They watched the conflagration, and when he could speak again, Maxwell asked, “You think he got out?”
“I . . . don’t know . . .” Whit panted. “I couldn’t . . . see anyone.” More of the ceiling crashed down. “And so goes . . . Blackgaard’s Castle.”
Maxwell looked up at him, awe etched on his face. “You saved my life.”
Whit nodded. “I did.”
“But . . . why?”
Whit shrugged. “Well . . . two reasons, I suppose. For one thing, you have . . . a lot of explaining to do.”
Maxwell swallowed. “Yeah . . . What’s the other reason?”
Whit looked at him. “Your life is worth saving.”
The sirens were very close now, and the rescue vehicles pulled into the parking lot. Whit stood to signal for the ambulance and missed seeing the tears that ran down Richard Maxwell’s cheeks.
Chapter Fourteen
Whit, Connie, and Eugene stood in the computer room back at Whit’s End. The familiar low hum of the machines inside underscored Whit as he told his employees and friends what had happened in the aftermath of the conflagration at Blackgaard’s Castle the previous evening. “Anyway, by the time the police got there, Richard had confessed to a good many wrongdoings—including setting fire to Tom Riley’s barn.”
Connie crossed her arms. “So he was the one.”
“Well, yes.” Whit glanced at Eugene. “Though he claims it was an accident, and that he didn’t come up with the idea himself.”
Eugene nodded knowingly. “Speaking of which, what happened to Dr. Blackgaard?”
Whit shrugged. “No one knows. They didn’t find any—well, trace of him, or his cat, in the rubble at Blackgaard’s Castle, so we can only assume he got away.”
Connie shook her head slowly. “Wow . . . and to think, all this happened because of a computer program.”
“Yes,” Whit replied somberly, “and that’s one of the r
easons I wanted you two here. There’s something I want you to witness.” He turned to the computer. “Mabel?”
Mabel blipped and whirred to life. “Yes, John Avery Whittaker?”
“Erase Applesauce.”
“Yes, John Avery Whittaker. Deleting Applesauce program.” Mabel blipped and whirred rapidly.
Eugene and Connie nearly jumped out of their shoes.
“What?!”
“Really?!”
Eugene looked particularly distressed. “B-but why, Mr. Whittaker?”
Whit took a deep breath. “I created Applesauce to help people. But everything that’s happened with it has convinced me that, even though the program has incredible potential for good, it can also be twisted and used for incredible evil.”
“But all of your hard work—” Eugene moaned.
“Doesn’t mean anything if it hurts people,” Whit interrupted. “The risk is too great. I don’t want to take the chance that anything like this will ever happen here again.”
“Amen to that,” Connie agreed quietly.
Whit nodded. “All things considered, I thought it would be appropriate for both of you to see Applesauce put to rest.”
The computer beeped, and the whirring stopped. Mabel’s metallic voice announced, “Function complete. Applesauce deleted.”
“Thank you, Mabel,” Whit responded. “Shut down, please.”
“Shutting down.” Mabel’s screen went blank.
Whit took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “And that,” he said quietly, “is that.”
They all stood silently for a few moments. Eugene put his hand to his chest and looked as if he’d just found out the Pythagorean theorem had been disproved. Whit patted him on one shoulder and Connie on the other. Then they turned and went back into the office, Eugene bringing up the rear.
Whit closed the bookcase door.
Suddenly Connie piped up. “Oh, hey, I stopped by the hospital on my way in this morning and saw Lucy. She said to tell you they’re discharging her this afternoon, and she’ll be up and hopping around in no time.”
“That’s wonderful!” Whit replied, locking the door and replacing the key in The Last Battle.