by M. E. Castle
“What now?” said Alex.
“Well, I guess we can try the hard way,” Fisher said. “I think I can recover the files for a basic web browser and go online. It’ll be a lot slower, but it’s better than nothing.”
A few more seconds and Fisher was scouring the web for clues. And what he saw on news sites made him take in a breath so sharply, it hurt his throat. He felt a constriction in his chest like a fist squeezing his heart.
“What?” said Alex, stooping to look over his shoulder.
“It’s not just here,” Fisher said, scrolling through news stories. “It’s everywhere. Across the country. The stock market’s diving. Airlines are canceling flights. Record numbers of public disturbances, huge increases in all sorts of crime, lots of workers quitting or not showing up for no apparent reason … How could he possibly be controlling the entire country?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said, “but we have to stop it, and stop it now. So how do we find him?”
Just then Fisher’s chemical pollen analyzer beeped. He leapt up from his computer.
“Okay,” he said, exhaling. “We have a match right here in Palo Alto.”
“We don’t know for sure that Three tracked that grass into Stanford,” Alex said. “It could have been anyone.”
“I know it’s a long shot,” Fisher agreed. “But it’s the only lead we’ve got.”
As the sun was close to sinking, Fisher, Alex, and FP began to comb through the Baylands Nature Preserve. They discovered a brand-new tent city cobbled together by a bunch of people who’d given up on life in Palo Alto. Infighting and squabbling over park turf had broken it up into several warring micro-settlements. They were working through their differences by building siege weapons from leftover camping equipment and arming militias with grill tongs. But there was no sign of Three among them.
Two hours of searching the preserve, and they’d once again come up empty. They stood in the middle of a small clearing, just in front of the Palo Alto Duck Pond, worn out from the long search.
“Well, I guess that’s it,” said Alex. “We’ve been up and down the whole preserve. At least we tried.”
“Wait a minute,” Fisher said. “What did the latest note from Three say?”
“The dark side of humanity will soon rise from the deep,” Alex said, his head tilted in thought.
“From the deep,” Fisher repeated excitedly. “Sounds like water to me. Do you think …?”
“It’s a clue,” said Alex, “which means it may also be a trap.”
“Maybe,” Fisher said. “But Three’s turning all of Palo Alto into a trap. We’ve got to take a chance.”
“All right,” Alex said. “Did you come equipped for this?”
“I came equipped for everything,” said Fisher.
“I guess that explains the snowshoes in your bag,” said Alex.
Fisher smiled. He set his backpack down, and pulled out goggles and miniature breathing gear.
“You’re gonna have to wait here, okay, boy?” he said to FP. The little pig looked disappointed, but trotted over to a clump of high grass and curled up. Alex and Fisher stripped down to their boxer shorts.
“All right,” Fisher said, handing a pair of goggles and a breathing capsule to Alex. “For all we know, Three could have a submarine down there, or an underwater base, or maybe even a cave underneath the lake bottom.” He tossed a black bag to Alex. “There’s a crowbar and water-resistant dynamite in there. Also a stun stick. Should knock out Three with one jab if we run into him. It’s specially insulated to work underwater, as long as you make close contact with your target.” He pulled an identical bag from his backpack and strapped it around his waist.
The brothers nodded to each other solemnly and waded into the cool water.
The pond was not very big or deep, but the water was murky enough that they would have to search it carefully to make sure they’d covered it all.
As Fisher submerged, the muffled, gentle sensation of water all around him was almost a relief compared to the noise and chaos of the world above. He kicked off and started paddling toward the bottom, checking to his right every few seconds to make sure Alex was still with him.
The goggles had small lights built into them that clicked on automatically when conditions got dark. Their beams shot into the indigo expanse ahead of them. Minutes passed. Fisher slowly pushed his way through the water, his light moving along with his head, catching nothing but the normal-looking lake bed a little ways below and the occasional fish.
Then he saw Alex’s light start dancing crazily. He looked to the right and let out an inarticulate scream.
His brother was being carried through the water by a huge, dark shape.
Fisher turned and tore after it as fast as his skinny arms and legs could propel him. If it hadn’t been for the light on Alex’s goggles, Fisher would have lost him in the darkness. But he followed the zigzagging beam of light, all the way to the exact center of the lake bed.
Pulling his way down through the water, he finally got a good look at the thing. Its body was a black disk the size of a minivan, with a horrible greenish glow that pulsed out from somewhere inside it. Six or seven long, segmented metal tentacles extended from its center, and one of them was wrapped around Alex. His breathing gear was still in his mouth, and he jabbed his stun stick into the tentacle holding him, which slowed it down a little but didn’t loosen its grip.
Fisher frantically tore open his own tool bag as two of the tentacles sped toward him. He kicked up and out of the way of their thrashing as he searched through his kit. Alex stopped jabbing his tentacle for a moment and gestured anxiously to Fisher, pointing with the stun stick. Fisher looked and saw that a panel in the middle of the robot beast’s body was opening and shutting rhythmically. It looked like some kind of heat vent. When it was open, some of the thing’s machinery was exposed.
Fisher pulled a tiny laser torch from his tool kit. He waited until the timing was right, then swam down, dodging one tentacle, then another. A third clipped his left leg but he pulled away before it could grasp him.
Dodging and weaving, he landed on the beast’s body just as the vent opened. He cranked the torch up to maximum and jammed it inside. He pushed up and away as the horrible thing started to shake and rumble. The tentacle gripping Alex in place went slack, and Alex paddled up next to Fisher as the monster gave a final thrash before breaking to pieces.
Right before it disappeared into the dark, the metal monster released a rectangular box. A box that was about Fisher’s size.
An escape pod, Fisher thought, and pointed to it. The box started floating up to the surface, and Fisher and Alex followed it, grabbing it and hauling it along with them.
At last, they broke the surface, pulled the pod onto the shore, and collapsed in a gasping heap, spitting out their breathing gear and ripping their goggles off.
“Are … you … okay?” Fisher managed to get out between gasps.
“Yeah … you?” Alex said.
“I think so,” Fisher said, standing up and staring determinedly down at the pod. “I’m going to pop it. Be ready.”
Alex took a wrench out of his bag and hefted it like it was a club. Fisher found the pod’s latch and opened it. The top slid back. Fisher dropped to his knees and Alex let the wrench fall from his hands.
It was another double-billed yellow-bellied bilious duck costume. With a note written on it in thick black marker.
I hope you’ve been having fun. I certainly have.
They looked at each other, still recovering their breaths.
“He set this up,” Alex said. “This whole little scavenger hunt. The King of Hollywood, Stanford, here. He’s been leading us around by the nose to keep us busy while he gets ready.” He kicked over the duck in frustration.
“Gets ready for what?” said Fisher, feeling as if a wet tentacle were wrapped around his neck.
“I don’t know,” Alex said grimly. “But I bet we’re about to find out.”
Manners are imaginary.
Ethics are myth.
Contracts are words.
Only two things are real:
what you want,
and what you can use to get it.
—Three, Thoughts on Power
Fisher stood up from Principal Teed’s chair as a skinny sixth-grade boy walked in, clutching his hands together and trembling.
“Hi,” Fisher said. “What can I do for you?”
“I was … sent,” the boy said in a shaky voice.
“Oh …,” Fisher said. He sat back down and gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk. Even though he’d taken over as a temporary replacement principal of sorts, it hadn’t occurred to him that the “teachers” he’d assigned would send kids to him. “What’s your name?”
“Seth Cook,” the boy answered, looking awfully nervous for someone who’d been sent to a pretend principal.
“Okay, Seth, why were you sent here?”
“I … tapped my pencil too loudly,” Seth confessed in a whisper, as if he’d just confessed to clobbering someone to death with a frozen turkey leg.
“Seriously?” Fisher said, frowning. “Who sent you to the principal’s office for that?”
“Supreme General Cantrell,” Seth replied. A tremor ran through him as he spoke the name, as if his backbone were a major fault line.
Fisher put a hand to his forehead and sighed. “Supreme General Cantrell?” he repeated.
“Yeah,” said Seth, warming slightly. Maybe he was simply happy to be out of Amanda’s classroom. “It was Ms. Cantrell to begin with. Then it became Your Honor, then Professor-in-Chief, then Great Maestro … She declared herself Supreme General just a few minutes before she told me to come here.”
“How much class time does she waste brainstorming new titles for herself?” said Fisher.
“More than half of it,” said Seth. “But nobody dares say anything. She demonstrated some wrestling moves on a broom. Since then we’ve done whatever she says.”
Fisher sighed again and rubbed his forehead. He should’ve known Amanda might pull an act like this. She didn’t listen to him—or anyone—even when she was acting normal, and he didn’t imagine that being in the grips of the crazy pox would improve things.
“Well, just take the afternoon off,” he said to Seth. “Go to the library or something. I’ll talk to Amanda.”
“Thanks,” said Seth, whose twitching had subsided. He got up and scurried out. In reality, Fisher wasn’t about to talk to Amanda as long as she was in the middle of a military-style power trip. But maybe she’d listen to Alex.
He shivered a little, remembering their epic battle with the lake monster. It had been a trap, as they’d feared, but also a message. No one as smart as Three would design a machine that could be so easily disabled unless it was on purpose. So the bot wasn’t meant to finish them off, just scare them and let them know that they were always a step behind.
Maybe Three was starting to develop emotions, and a twisted sense of humor was the first one. He’d been five steps ahead of them all along. Everything Fisher and Alex had done had been planned out by Three in advance. It was as though Three were the director of a maniacal marionette show. Alex and Fisher were his puppets.
The bell rang, signaling the start of the next period. Fisher sprang up from his chair. It was his first chance to teach a class, and he was grateful for the distraction.
He set up in Ms. Snapper’s empty classroom. He arranged his notes carefully on the desk, set out his pencils, and waited eagerly for his class to arrive.
Twenty minutes later, he was still all alone.
He didn’t understand the complete lack of interest in his elective science class, the Structural Physics of Plant Cell Walls: A Marvel of Microscopic Masonry. He sighed dejectedly to himself as he crumpled up a page of notes and hurled it across the room, missing the wastepaper basket by a good seven feet.
Ms. Snapper opened the classroom door as Fisher was gathering his things to leave.
“Hi, Ms. Snapper,” he said. “How’s everything going?”
“Okay, under the circumstances,” she replied. “Fisher, I want to thank you for the creative way you’ve been dealing with this crisis.”
“That’s all right,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. “Have you heard much from the other teachers?”
“I’ve been trying,” Ms. Snapper said, with a sigh. “Most of them aren’t picking up their phones or responding to e-mails. The few I have touched base with don’t sound eager to come back. I don’t know what’s going on, Fisher. The whole country’s gone berserk. I guess we just have to hold on and ride it out.”
“Yeah,” Fisher said. “I guess so.” He wished he could ride it out, but Three’s existence was at least partly his fault. The ride wasn’t going to stop until he confronted him. “I’ll see you later, Ms. Snapper.”
He’d left the classroom and closed the door behind him when a breathless boy with dark, disheveled hair ran at him full tilt, barely catching himself before slamming into him.
“Principal Fisher!” he gasped out, breathless.
“Just call me Fisher,” he corrected him patiently. “What’s going on?”
“It’s gym class,” the boy said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s … I … You’ve … Please. Come quick.”
The kid tore back down the hall, and Fisher sprinted to keep up.
They careened into the gym, and Fisher skidded to a halt. The Vikings were teaching gym, and Fisher saw instantly that they had invented a new sport. It was a combination of dodgeball, tennis … and the piñata.
“Hey!” Fisher shouted, and Willard, Leroy, and Brody paused in the middle of hurling balls at five upside-down kids, whose ankles were secured with climbing ropes. The terrified kids swayed gently back and forth, their faces beet red.
“Well, well,” Brody said. “If it isn’t the little principal himself.”
“What are you doing?” Fisher burst out angrily.
Brody smiled. “What’s the matter? You got a problem with how we’re running our classroom?”
“We’re p-providing the c-cutting edge in phys ed,” said Willard.
“So don’t interfere with our, er, curry lumber,” said Leroy.
“Curr … cuh, uh … lesson plan,” Brody said, trying to correct Leroy, as usual, but unable to remember the word curriculum.
Fisher took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “I appreciate your enthusiasm,” he said through gritted teeth, “but target practice isn’t education. Take them down and play some real dodgeball. Unless you want to take a turn hanging from the ropes, too?”
“What right do you have to tell us how to teach?” Brody said, hulking toward Fisher. He stopped in front of him and crossed his arms. “What if we say no?”
Fisher drew himself up to his full four feet eleven inches. “Barbecue sauce,” he said coldly, staring Brody right in the eyes.
Brody took a quick step back, as though Fisher had punched him. Then he turned around to the other Vikings.
“Fine,” he growled. “Willard, Leroy, get ’em down.”
“Thank you,” said Fisher. The other kids moaned as the Vikings lowered them to the ground and untied their feet. All except Warren Deveraux, who, as usual, had fallen asleep even while upside down. When Brody lowered him to the ground, he popped up like a coiled spring.
“That was great! That was great!” he said. “Are we going to be climbing? Is there a climbing wall? I love to climb!”
Fisher exhaled as he exited the gym. One more crisis averted.
He hadn’t taken two steps back into the hallway when two familiar, fuzzy white blurs zipped past him. Alex tore after them.
“Fisher!” he shouted. “Little help?”
Fisher and Alex ran down the hall together as Einy and Berg turned a corner. Fisher and Alex stopped when they made the turn. The hallway was a dead end, but the mice had disappeared.
“Okay,” said Fishe
r. “They must have holed up somewhere. We’ll find them.” They walked slowly down the hallway, peeking into lockers and poking behind trash cans, squinting under classroom doors and looking in vents.
“What a day,” Alex groaned when yet another classroom turned up empty.
“Speaking of that,” Fisher said, “have you talked to Amanda today?”
“Not really,” said Alex. “She’s been … not so friendly lately. Like most people.”
“I heard,” said Fisher. “She’s turning her history class into Sparta. She’ll probably try to conquer first-period algebra tomorrow.”
“Well,” Alex said, peering through the vent of an unused locker. “I’ll see what I can do. Aha! Got ’em.”
Fisher looked through the vent and saw two small white spots sitting on top of a giant heap of bread scraps, pieces of cheese, and vegetables.
“Those tiny criminals,” he said. “They must’ve been stashing stuff here for days. Okay, you open it up and I’ll grab them.”
“I’ve got a little cage here,” Alex said, putting a shoe box–sized cage on the floor. “Just drop them in and shut it. One, two, three!”
Alex threw the door open, and Fisher grabbed Einy and Berg. They squirmed around in his hands. He was about to drop them into the cage when a barked shout made him spin around.
“So there you are!” Amanda yelled. Fisher hadn’t heard any footsteps. It was like she’d been hiding in a locker, just waiting to pop out. He reflexively straightened up, trying to give her a smile.
“You’re supposed to be running this show,” she said, pacing back and forth in front of the Bas boys. “But when I really need something, you’re just standing around with your hands full of mice.”
Fisher quickly dropped Einy and Berg into the cage. By that time, he had little bites on both his thumbs.
“Uh, hi, Amanda …,” he said.