The Eureka Key

by Sarah L. Thomson

  “Time me.”

  Sam pulled a T-shirt from his bag, tied it around his head to cover his eyes, and tuned out everything in the world except the cube in his hands.

  “Okay,” Martina said. “Go.”

  His fingers slid over its slick surface and started to twist. He couldn’t see the colors, but he didn’t need to. He watched them change in his mind’s eye—feeling them gathering, harmonizing. Three reds in a row here. A square of green there. One side was blue all over. Another turned orange.

  When it was done, Sam just knew. He pulled away the T-shirt blindfold to admire the solved cube in his hands, and he looked triumphantly at Martina. “How long?”

  She looked impressed, despite herself. “Thirty-five seconds.” Then she seemed to remember that Sam was a lower life-form. “So that’s what you can do. Is that how you won the American Dream Contest? With some parlor trick?”

  “Very skilled,” said a voice behind them. Evangeline was leaning forward. “You certainly scored highly in the memory and spatial awareness portions of the contest, Mr. Solomon.”

  Sam grinned.

  “Higher, even, than Miss Wright.”

  Sam grinned wider. He was starting to like the mysterious Evangeline Temple.

  “Like I said, it’s just a parlor trick,” mumbled Martina.

  “The whole contest entry was just like one big Rubik’s Cube,” Sam replied, warming to the theme. “The history stuff threw me a little, but once I got inside the puzzles and figured out how they worked—it was no problem to solve them. Why? How’d you win?”

  “Knowledge, of course,” Martina said, as if it were obvious. “Facts.” She tapped her temple with one finger. “I have a photographic memory. I remember everything I read. American history is a particular passion of mine, so this contest was right up my alley. I know it forward, backward, and sideways. And since I had all the facts, the puzzle part of it was just child’s play.”

  “A photographic memory, huh? I guess that’s handy,” Sam said. “Never needed it myself . . .”

  “Miss Wright is too modest,” said Evangeline. Sam turned and saw she was sitting back, a small smile on her face. “She demonstrates greater analytical skills than many mathematical doctoral students. And she excelled in the linguistic elements of the test.”

  Sam couldn’t help himself. He had to ask, even if he didn’t get the answer he wanted. “So . . . who scored highest, me or her?” He sensed Theo rolling his eyes behind his shades in the seat behind him. “And what’s your strong point?” Sam asked him. “I don’t remember the section about how much you could bench-press.”

  “Theodore has other attributes,” said Evangeline.

  Sam frowned. Couldn’t this guy speak for himself? It was almost as if she was protecting him. Like she knew him, even. Maybe his dad was her boss or something. It wouldn’t be the first time a kid won a contest because of preferential treatment.

  “And to answer your question,” Evangeline continued, “neither of you scored highest. In fact, there were several competitors who achieved individual scores above your own.”

  Sam shared a confused glance with Martina.

  “So why are we here?” she asked. “Did they turn it down?”

  “Oh, no,” said Evangeline, lacing her long, elegant fingers together. “You were chosen for your combined attributes. Believe it or not, you complement one another.”

  Sam snorted.

  “She means complement with an e,” said Martina. “You know that, right?”

  “I know what she means,” said Sam. He was still bristling from the news that he wasn’t the best of the best. Plus, it raised yet another question.

  “But why do you need two people to complement each—”

  “Water?”

  Sam jumped a little. The copilot was standing in front of them with some paper cups of water on a tiny tray. First-class service on this airline, for sure.

  Martina passed on the water, but Sam took a cup. The copilot moved on, handing out drinks to Evangeline and Theo before returning to the cockpit.

  Sam could have continued badgering Evangeline for answers, but a quick glance revealed both her and Theo lost in their own thoughts. Behind Martina, Evangeline was sipping from her cup and staring out the window. Across the tiny aisle from her, Theo, his sunglasses still on, swallowed his water in one mighty gulp and then crushed the paper cup in his hand as if it had insulted him somehow.

  There’ll be plenty of time for questions later, Sam thought, when we’re not trapped inside a rattling metal death trap thousands of feet in the air. He turned back and reached for his water, wishing it were Coke. Martina pulled a bottle of water from her backpack.

  “What’s wrong with what everyone else is drinking?” Sam asked. “Let me guess: you only drink water hauled by wild goats from the top of Mount Everest or something?”

  Martina took a tiny sip of water and cleared her throat. “On a plane like this,” she said, “the likelihood that this water is filtered is very small, so it may be contaminated with high levels of mercury, and with the air circulation system there’s a good chance that—”

  “Ugh, forget it. I’m sorry I asked,” Sam mumbled, and lifted the cup to his open mouth.

  At that moment, something bumped into his seat from behind, knocking the cup out of Sam’s hands. “Hey!” Sam exclaimed, trying to brush the water from his pants before it soaked in. Was Theo kicking his seat? Did every kid on this trip have it in for him?

  “Dude, what is your problem?” Sam demanded, turning around.

  But all he could see was the top of Theo’s head. The boy had slumped forward, and his face was pressed against the back of Sam’s seat.

  “Theo?” Sam yanked his seat belt loose and jumped to his feet. Theo wasn’t moving. “Uh, Marty? Maybe you were right about the water . . .”

  Sam looked over at Evangeline. Her face was pale, and she was looking at him strangely—almost through him. Then her eyelids drooped, and she keeled sideways. Her head hit the window.

  “I said, don’t call me—Oh, my God.” Martina got up and stared, open-mouthed, at their unconscious travel companions. She shared one shocked glance with Sam before she hurried to Evangeline’s side.

  Sam scrambled after her to shake Theo by the shoulder. “Theo! Theo! Wake up, man!” he said. But it was no use. Theo’s head lolled back, his mouth slack.

  “Help!” Martina shouted to the cockpit. “Please come quick!”

  The copilot staggered out of the cockpit a few seconds later. “What? What’s . . . wrong?” His words were slurred.

  “Our friends—something’s wrong with them!” Sam told him. He looked at the copilot a little more closely. The man had the same unfocused stare as Evangeline, and he was leaning heavily against the wall of the cabin. “Um, are you all right?” Sam asked.

  The copilot mumbled, “I do feel . . . a little strange . . . ,” before his knees crumpled and he collapsed at Sam’s feet.

  Sam stared dumbly at the copilot’s body and then at Martina.

  “The water . . . ,” he said at last.

  Both of them staggered as the plane lurched under their feet, tilting forward sharply. Sam managed to stay upright, then glanced toward the cockpit, still blocked by the thin little curtain. The engines screamed.

  Please, no!

  Sam slid toward the cockpit as if the aisle of the plane had turned into a great big slide, grabbing at anything he could reach to keep his balance. He half fell through the curtain and felt his stomach contract into a cold ball of dread.

  Just as he’d feared, the pilot’s unconscious form was slumped over the controls. All that Sam could see through the plane’s windshield was the ground. And it was getting closer.

  Martina stumbled up behind him. “We’re going to die,” she whispered.

  “No!” he shouted. Sam looked back at the prone copilot, and then at the ground rushing toward them. One of the instruments was beeping loudly, and red lights were flashing all
over the flight display. “Maybe!” he shouted again.

  Martina’s expression went from horror to determination. “You know what?” she said, pushing into the cockpit. “I’m not going to let this happen! I’m too smart to die!” She started to unbuckle the pilot from his seat belt. Panting with the effort, Sam helped her drag the heavy man out of his seat. Sam scrambled into his place as Martina clawed her way into the copilot’s chair.

  “Do you know how to do this?” she asked.

  Sam surveyed the dozens of dials, switches, and levers in front of him. Many of the little indicators were spinning wildly as the plane dived. Sam wiped some sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Well,” he said finally. “I’ve done the flight simulator on Xbox a lot . . .”

  “A video game? That’s it?”

  “Stop shouting!”

  “How about physics? Aeronautics?”

  “Seriously, stop shouting! You’re freaking me out!”

  “Okay, okay,” Martina said. Her voice was still tense but the volume was closer to normal. She studied some of the dials in front of her, trying to stay calm. “We’re two thousand feet above the ground and falling, and our airspeed is about one-fifty knots.”

  Sam took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m going to pull back on the joystick and try to level us out.”

  “It’s called a control wheel,” Martina told him.

  “Whatever.”

  He wrapped his hands around the two handles of the control wheel and pulled back slowly. The plane’s nose lifted sharply.

  “Not so fast!” shouted Martina.

  Sam pushed the wheel forward just a little, and the plane leveled, its nose pointing straight into the thin clouds ahead.

  “We’re alive!” A smile pulled at Sam’s mouth. He’d done it!

  “For now,” Martina said. “Put this on!” She popped the pilot’s headset over Sam’s ears. She was already wearing the copilot’s set herself. “Okay, Sam. Just keep it steady!”

  Just the thought of keeping it steady made Sam’s hands start to shake. The plane tipped forward.

  “Steady!” Martina insisted.

  Sam swallowed and gripped the controls harder, forcing himself to focus. Relax. He told himself. Don’t overcorrect. Don’t think about exploding in a fiery ball of death. Just breathe.

  “Radio frequency, radio frequency,” Martina was muttering, twiddling with some knobs next to her chair. “Okay, I think I’ve got something!” She pulled the microphone attached to her headset close to her mouth. “Mayday, mayday!” she said. “Is anyone there? We need help!”

  A woman’s voice crackled through the headsets into Sam’s ears. “This is air traffic control at Furnace Creek. What’s your status?”

  Sam could have fainted with relief, except that one more unconscious body was exactly what they didn’t need.

  “This is Flight 76 from Las Vegas—we have a problem!” Martina quickly explained their situation.

  “I understand,” the woman said. “I’ll talk you through this.” The air traffic controller didn’t seem nearly as terrified as Sam thought she should have been. It was as if this happened to her every day. No big deal. Pilots were always keeling over in midair. Kids were always landing planes. “First,” the woman said calmly, “don’t panic.”

  “Too late,” Sam muttered.

  “Sam, will you please concentrate?” Martina snapped.

  “I am concentrating! Stop nagging me!”

  “If you get me killed I’m going to come back as a ghost and nag you forever!”

  “Listen up!” the woman shouted, her calm broken. “What are you two, ten years old?”

  “Eleven and three-quarters,” Martina said haughtily, “thank you very much.”

  A moment of silence stretched out.

  “Oh, Lord,” the air traffic control woman muttered. “I knew I should have called in sick today.”

  “Hey, what’s that?” Sam asked, squinting down through the clouds at a long black strip cutting through the barren desert. He described it to the air traffic controller.

  “That’s the runway,” the woman answered. “I have you on my readings here in the control tower. You’ve got to land that plane. And you’ve got to do it now.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Trip of a lifetime, they said! Mind and spirit alike will be altered!

  Sure, if by “altered” they meant burned to a crisp after a fiery plane crash in the middle of the desert.

  “First of all,” said the air traffic controller, “you need to reduce air speed.”

  “How?” Martina sounded eerily calm.

  “The throttle. Do you know what that is?”

  “Got it!” Martina had her hand on a lever between their seats and was pulling it gently backward. The engine noise died down, and Sam tightened his grip on the control wheel and began to push it forward, away from his body.

  Sam’s stomach was doing somersaults as the plane dropped swiftly out of the sky.

  The woman helped Martina find the controls to lower the flaps and guided Sam in lining the plane up with the runway. All the time the ground got closer and closer. The very hard, entirely unforgiving ground.

  Sam risked the quickest glance he could manage at Martina. Her face was pale; her lips a tight line.

  “Sam, grab the throttle,” she said softly. “I’m going to lower the landing gear.”

  A moment later, Sam felt a thump through the skin of the airplane as the wheels went down.

  “Okay, kids. This is it, you’re almost there,” said the woman in Sam’s ear. “Bring her down as gently as you can.”

  The blood was hammering in Sam’s ears as they approached the runway. They were still going so fast.

  “Just hold her at that angle,” said the controller. “You’re doing well. Ease off the throttle a bit.”

  Sam’s hands wanted to tremble on the control wheel, but he fought to hold them rock steady as Martina pulled the throttle. He held his breath as they dropped down.

  The plane bounced wildly as the wheels hit the ground. Martina screamed as she was almost tossed from her seat, and adrenaline raced through Sam’s veins, sending his heart into a frantic tap dance against his ribs. The plane righted itself after a few seconds but kept barreling down the runway, straight for a cluster of other planes parked at gates nearby.

  “Brakes! Hit the brakes!” the air traffic controller was shouting.

  Sam slammed down on the pedals at his feet. The plane slewed and skidded, the wheels screeching. Martina’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm.

  But finally, the plane slowed and stopped.

  Sam blew out a long breath into the silence. “We did it,” he whispered. “We landed the plane.”

  Martina snatched back her hand and sagged in the seat.

  “Nicely done,” said a shaky voice from the floor. “Kind of rough on the landing. Got to take off a few points for that, but still . . .” Sam twisted around to see the pilot, a sheen of sweat across his head, half sitting but looking like he was about to throw up.

  Within moments, two fire engines were shooting down the runway toward them, sirens blaring.

  “You can let go of the controls now,” said Martina.

  Sam looked down at his hands, white-knuckled from his death grip on the control wheel. It took a conscious effort of will to make them release. He heard a sound behind them and spun round to see Evangeline standing in the cockpit just behind them. Her face was still ghostlike, and she was gripping the back of a seat with her free hand, but her eyes were intense as she regarded Sam and Martina.

  “Well done, Mr. Solomon, Miss Wright,” she said. Then she swayed slightly. “Oh, my . . .” Sam jumped out of the pilot’s seat quickly enough to grab her other arm. On his way he stepped on the copilot and heard the guy groan as he regained consciousness.

  “What—what happened? Are we on the ground?” the copilot mumbled.

  “These two resourceful children have landed the plane and saved us a
ll,” Evangeline said, gripping Sam’s shoulder for balance.

  The copilot managed to sit up, rubbing his face with both hands. “But—but I don’t understand. I was feeling just fine, and then—”

  “I think there was something wrong with the water,” Martina said. “Sam and I were the only ones who didn’t drink it.”

  “But what could possibly have been in the water?” the copilot asked, frowning.

  “Diphenhydramine, perhaps,” Evangeline said immediately. “Though at that dosage the water should have tasted quite bitter. Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid is another possibility.”

  Sam stared at her. Who is this lady?

  Evangeline smoothed her hair back with one hand and adjusted the string of black pearls around her neck as Theo got unsteadily to his feet. “Up you get, Theodore,” she said crisply. Theo had a nasty bruise across his forehead, and the big kid looked even more serious than usual. His eyes met Evangeline’s, and she nodded at him grimly.

  Sam looked back and forth between the two, feeling even more certain that they’d met before today. More important, though—why didn’t either of them look more surprised at being the target of an assassination attempt?

  Outside, the firefighters were gesticulating wildly.

  “I’d quite like to get off the plane now, if that’s all right?” said Martina.

  The copilot seemed to snap out of his confusion, and he and the pilot went about opening the doors.

  His mind spinning with questions, Sam allowed himself to be led off the plane by the firefighters, his backpack clutched in his arms. Evangeline stayed behind, speaking to the pilots as Theo joined them on the tarmac. A paramedic was trying to look at his head, but he insisted he was okay. After the paramedic left to check Martina for injuries, Sam turned to Theo.

  “So. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

  Theo jumped a little, as if he were shocked that someone was actually addressing him. “Who, me?” he said.

  “He can speak!” Sam crowed.

  Theo scowled. “Funny. Anyway, how should I know what’s going on? Your guess is as good as mine.”

  He turned away, but Sam grabbed his shoulder. “Look,” he said confidentially. “Someone just tried to kill all of us in that plane. And unlike you and Evangeline, who seem to think this is just another day of near-death-by-explosion, I’d like to know why.”