by M. E. Castle
She threw herself to the side as Fisher burst in the door with the others behind him, his trusty popcorn gun in his hands.
He felt like Vic Daring charging against the subterranean machine hordes of Mars, his movie snack–powered weapon jolting and bucking in his hands as it spat a steady stream of singeing-hot kernels at the Fisher-bots. The new, extra-butter rounds made the tile floor slick, and the bots slipped as they charged at Fisher and thudded to the ground.
It was easy enough for Dr. X, Amanda, and Alex to finish them off as Fisher coolly dropped the empty popcorn gun, breathing out in exultant triumph.
“You’re quite a tactician,” Amanda said to Veronica.
“Strategy has always been one of my favorite parts of history to study,” Veronica answered. “Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Ulysses S. Grant. I guess I picked up something from them.”
Fisher felt a warm flush in his chest. She was even more amazing than he’d ever known.
But as they turned to leave the King of Hollywood, a triumphal march filled their ears. They swiveled in unison. In one corner of the restaurant, one of Three’s holographic message pods activated, projecting his image into space. His eyes were hidden behind his cap brim.
“Hello again, dear citizens.” Three’s voice resonated from the speakers. “It has come to my attention that there are certain dangerous criminals on the loose among us. They seek to tear down the newly restored order, and plunge us once more into chaos. Rest assured, I am taking steps to quell these outbursts of uncivilized behavior.”
The image shifted. Three’s face broke apart, and the projector cut to a Palo Alto street, in which dozens of Fisher-bots were amassing.
“Fisher …,” Alex said. He raised a trembling finger to point.
Fisher felt as though he had inhaled a bag of dust.
“You can expect that, within the hour,” continued Three, “all remaining forces of chaos will be dealt with. Completely.”
The transmission winked out, but the last few seconds of footage kept playing in Fisher’s mind: easily a hundred Fisher-bots standing in tight ranks like a Roman legion, right outside his house.
“We have to go back,” said Alex, ghost white. “Mom and Dad are at home. They’ll never be able to fend off an attack.”
He was already headed to the door.
“Alex, wait!” Fisher said. Alex turned back, desperation in his eyes. “We have to take Three down. Don’t you see? That’s the best way to help Mom and Dad. Even if we went back now, how can we stop a hundred Fisher-bots?”
“We have to try,” Alex spat out, his words harsh like jets of flame. “What if we don’t get to Three in time? He said, ‘within the hour.’ They could be breaking through the Liquid Door right now!”
“And what if it’s a trap?” Fisher fired back. “Three’s been two steps ahead of us all this time. He knew we’d see the broadcast. And he must know we’re on the hunt. What if this is a setup to lure us back to the house, where he can crush us?”
“Well, what if Wompalog is a trap?” Alex said. “What if he knew that we’d want revenge after we saw what he had planned for Mom and Dad? What if we’re walking straight into his clutches?”
“Both ways are a trap,” Veronica’s voice cut in. She stepped between the brothers. “Either way, Three’s got something big waiting for us.” She turned to Alex and put a hand on his shoulder. “Fisher’s right. If we go back now, we’ll be fighting against impossible odds. But if we stop Three, we stop everything.”
Alex took a moment to stare at the floor. He composed himself and looked at Fisher with a much softer expression.
“I haven’t even gotten used to the feeling of having parents yet,” he said, nearly pleading. “I can’t lose them now.”
“You won’t,” said Fisher. “I promise. But we have to move, and we have to move fast.”
They ran out of the King of Hollywood.
“Any transportation ideas?” Amanda said.
“Maybe,” said Alex. “This road goes downhill all the way to Wompalog. Fisher, you still have that inflatable family thing?”
“The IRATE?” he said. “Yeah.”
“It’s on wheels, right?” said Alex.
Fisher allowed himself a small smile. “Well, this should be fun.”
“Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Ice cream!”
“I hate this place! Why can’t we go to Maui?”
“Everyone, calm down. I’m getting a migraine!”
“This castle is four hundred years old! Feel the history!”
The IRATE rolled along the downhill street at a frightening pace as Fisher, Alex, Amanda, Veronica, and Dr. X clung to it for dear life. The IRATE’s central control wasn’t much wider than a skateboard, and it leaned dangerously far left and right as its unexpected passengers adjusted their weight.
“Left!” Fisher said, holding on to the boy on the left side. “Lean toward me!” FP sat on top of the father’s head, his ears flattened back by the wind, squealing happily. Wally, who was nestled in the mother’s arms, just on top of one of the wailing babies, clamped his paws over his eyes.
“What?” shouted Alex. “I can’t hear you!”
“Doesn’t this have a volume control??” said Dr. X, his arm snaked around the mother’s waist.
“More speed, Alex!” shouted Amanda, clinging to the father. Alex unscrewed his Instant Ice thermos and tossed some of it onto the street in front of them. It froze the moment it struck asphalt, and the IRATE lurched forward.
The school was coming into view. Immediately, Fisher could tell that something was wrong. He didn’t know what, exactly—he was still too far away to make out more than the broad outlines of the building.
A tall hedge bordered the sidewalk to their right. He pointed to it wildly.
“Bail out! Bail out!!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Alex leaned as far out as he could to steer them to the right side of the street, and then leapt into the hedge. The rest of the group followed him. Fisher grabbed FP and tucked him under his arm like a football before jumping.
Fisher had the blissful, utterly free sensation of a soaring eagle for about one and a quarter seconds. Then he felt the enthusiastic embrace of dozens of bristly, spiny twigs, and found himself nose to formidable nose with Dr. X. The air went out of his chest at once. Suddenly, he felt more like a porcupine victim than an eagle.
“Everyone okay?” Amanda said, her voice muffled in the leaves. A series of grunts sounded in reply. In the background, the IRATE’s endless babbling went on as it careened toward Wompalog without them.
“Everyone, calm down. I’m getting a migraine!”
“This castle is four hundred years—”
BOOOOOOOM.
Fisher scrambled out of the hedge and peeked around it. The IRATE had rolled right up to Wompalog’s main entrance … and exploded. It was now a smoking heap of plastic and metal.
The others dug themselves free of the foliage and took a look themselves.
“Fisher …,” Veronica said, her voice tight with fear. She didn’t have to finish her sentence.
Overnight, Wompalog had become a fortress.
Two rows of tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the entire school. Several Fisher-bots were posted on the rooftop with binoculars, and dozens patrolled the grounds below. Some of them carried weapons that looked like the blade, club, and whip attachments Dr. X’s robots had used in LA. There were concrete fortifications on the sidewalks outside with even bigger weapons.
They had no time to reconsider their plan. The clock was ticking. Even now Fisher’s parents could be under attack.
“Do you think they know we’re here?” Amanda said, watching as several bots moved forward to inspect what was left of the IRATE.
“Probably not,” said Veronica. “But they know something’s wrong. We won’t be able to sneak past all those guards.”
“All right. But if you kids are all so smart, tell me: how do we get in?” sai
d Dr. X. “All we’ve got is an amateur wrestler, an even more amateur general, an evil genius, a pair of quadrupeds, and … you two,” he said, pointing at Fisher and Alex. Then he cocked his head, squinting slightly. “You two …”
“What is it?” said Alex. “What’re you thinking?”
“I am thinking,” said Dr. X, “of how you two would look in gray.”
We were pretty sure we’d found Three’s base.
But while finding a dragon’s cave is all well and good, you’ve still got to walk into it.
—Fisher Bas, Personal Notes
The Fisher-bots circled Wompalog endlessly, without tiring. The majority of the force stuck close to the school, but after the IRATE’s explosive crash, two of them were moving in wider and wider loops. Fisher had hastily calculated that within two minutes, the bots would pass between a school bus and the hedge that they were hiding behind. Then they would be out of sight from the rest of the bots for exactly six seconds.
It was almost time.
“That’s our opening,” said Fisher. “Amanda, are you ready?”
“Of course,” she said, cracking her knuckles. “Just tell me when.”
“Here they come,” said Alex, peering through a gap in the hedge. The patrolling Fisher-bots were crossing the street. Amanda inched forward. “Almost …” The bots moved down the sidewalk. In a few more seconds, they’d be behind the bus. She crouched, clenching and unclenching her fists. “Now!”
Amanda leapt out from the hedge, catching both Fisher-bots off guard. She threw one over her hip and levered the other down with an armlock. Alex, Fisher, and Veronica jumped out to help, but by the time they reached Amanda, she had both bots under control. Both were struggling on their stomachs. She had their hands bent up around her ankles.
“Nice hold,” Fisher said as he and Alex knelt down, opened the access panels on the Fisher-bots’ necks and pulled out their main control lines.
“It’s a medieval move,” Amanda said proudly. “Picked it up from a fifteenth-century German fighting book.”
“They clearly don’t communicate by wireless transmission, or they could instantly alert one another when attacked,” said Dr. X. “And the others would be swarming us by now.”
“But they must be receiving a master signal,” Fisher. “How else would Three coordinate them so fast?”
“Well, of course, dear boy,” said Dr. X, for a second sounding like the old Harold Granger. “They just cannot communicate with each other that way. It’s a way of ensuring loyalty and discouraging independent thinking. Trust me. I invented a similar system myself.”
FP approached the Fisher-bots cautiously, sniffed at one, and shrank away with a faint squeak.
“All right, let’s work quickly,” Alex said, stripping the bots of their uniforms. Underneath the clothing, they looked like store-bought mannequins. “When the patrol doesn’t report back in time, the other Fisher-bots will want to know why. Let’s make sure we’ve got an answer for them.”
Fisher pulled on one gray outfit and Alex climbed into the other. The uniforms were roomy enough to fit over the snug-fitting spy suits, and covered them completely.
“How do we look?” Fisher asked Amanda.
“Good. Just try to act emotionally uncertain and unable to relate to human beings,” she said. “Fisher, that shouldn’t be as hard for you.” She grinned.
Fisher stuck his tongue out in reply as he smoothed his sleeves. He knew she was only half joking, but he also knew that his ability to relate to human beings was far greater than it used to be. He’d gotten a lot of help from the clone formerly known as Two.
“Hang on,” said Veronica, taking a comb from her back pocket and fixing Fisher’s and Alex’s hair. Fisher nearly melted to a puddle when he felt her fingers in her hair. Alex pinched him sharply.
“There,” she said. “Now you look perfect.”
“Try to keep your voices flat and toneless,” Dr. X said.
“Fisher,” Amanda said, “that should be easy for—”
“Oh, shut up,” Fisher said, smiling. “And put these on.” He had found a bundle of ratcheting plastic zip ties in one pocket that would serve very well as simple handcuffs.
Two minutes later, Fisher and Alex emerged from behind the bus. Alex marched in front, carrying Dr. X’s staff, and Fisher took up the back. The rest of the crew was cuffed between them. Fisher tried to walk as stiffly as he could, and his nervousness definitely helped. He had FP under one arm and Wally under the other.
Alex led the group in the direction of the front door, keeping his knees straight and his face expressionless. Fisher was thankful that the animals under his own arms weren’t struggling. The other bots acknowledged them, but didn’t approach.
So far, their plan was working.
Alex raised an arm stiffly in the air, signaling to the other guards.
“Prisoners,” Alex said, in the deadest voice Fisher had ever heard him use. His expression was as perfectly rigid as those of the Fisher-bots. Maybe he’d picked up a few acting tricks while he’d been in LA.
There were several guards posted in front of the school’s double doors. One of the guards looked over Amanda, Veronica, and Dr. X.
A few seconds of silence passed. Beads of sweat started to form on Fisher’s skin. If he started to sweat, his robot disguise would be ruined. The thought wasn’t helping. He felt the diabolical camera eyes on him, sweeping, prying, evaluating.
“These are key targets,” the bot responded in an equally cold voice that made Fisher exert extra effort to keep from shuddering. “They may have important information. Detain them inside.”
Fisher swallowed back a sigh of relief.
The Fisher-bots at the front doors nodded and allowed the group to proceed.
Wompalog’s main hallway was totally silent. Most of the lights were off, and afternoon light fading from gold to orange streaked along the floor and left long, warped shadows across the gaping lockers and overturned garbage cans in the hall. The notes of the on-strike teachers still clung to classroom doors, and a single pencil rolled along the floor, disturbed by the sound of the doors slamming shut.
Veronica walked up to what Fisher remembered was the door to her fifth-period French class. He knew it well, because he’d tried to be at his locker nearby every day when the class got out, just so he could see her. Back then he could barely gibber out a hello to her before tripping over his own shins.
Now they were saving the world together.
“It’s so creepy in here,” she said in a whisper.
Alex took out a small pocketknife and used it to cut the zip ties. He handed Dr. X back his staff. Fisher put down the animals, who started sniffing around the hall immediately. But they didn’t turn up anything more interesting than a crumpled, empty bag of Bugles.
“Let’s go get him,” said Amanda. The others instinctively turned to Veronica after a moment, as she seemed to have become the group’s tactician.
“Okay,” Veronica said. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us, so we should always stay in shouting distance of each other. We need to search quickly. Amanda, Dr. X, and I will patrol the hall and look for signs of unusual activity. As we go, Fisher and Alex can split off and search the classrooms we pass.”
“Maybe we should each take an animal with us,” said Fisher. “In case they pick up any scents.”
“Good thinking,” said Veronica, with the smile that could still make heat ripples flow from the top of Fisher’s head. Even if he was better at controlling his gibbers, he could still feel them whenever he looked at her.
“Let’s go,” said Alex. “Keep your eyes open, everyone.”
They paced their way slowly along the hall, searching lockers, scanning the floors, walls, and ceiling. Fisher couldn’t help but imagine his mom and dad, dragged out of the house by mechanical monsters bearing his own face. The image fueled him with anger. He had to remind himself that being thorough was just as important as being quick.
At the first set of classrooms, Fisher and Alex peeled off from the group. Fisher and FP went left. It was an eighth-grade classroom, but it looked pretty much like all the others. A few desks had books on them and Fisher turned each over in case some small clue might pop up. FP sniffed along the floor and around the chairs and desks.
The blackboard was covered with writing in thick chalk. There was so much of it overlapping that he couldn’t tell what any of it had once said.
“Keep looking around, boy,” he said as he approached the board. He puzzled at it, eyebrows furrowed. Could there be a message here? He took hold of the eraser in the center of the board’s shelf.
And he heard a click.
He barely had time to dive away from the board as its entire surface began to vibrate faster than a dentist’s drill. The vibration threw the whole thick coat of chalk on its surface into the air as a dense, suffocating cloud. Fisher grabbed FP by the tail and scrambled out of the room, his hand clamped over his mouth and nose. He collapsed outside the door, gasping for breath, FP next to him, sneezing nonstop.
“Fisher!” Veronica said, dropping to his side. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Fisher said, with a slight cough. “I don’t think it was poisoned. Just regular chalk dust. But there was an awful lot of it.”
He stood up and brushed himself off as Alex and Wally emerged from the room across the hall unscathed.
“Everything all right?” he said.
“Yeah,” Fisher said. “I think that one was just to scare me. And it worked.”
The next few classrooms yielded nothing. The quiet was starting to weigh heavily on them. Halfway down the hall, they came to the old, wooden double doors of the library.
“I’ll go first,” Amanda said, easing the door open.
Fisher realized he’d never actually heard the library quiet before. There weren’t any kids throwing small objects and bits of petrified food back and forth; nobody was trying to climb the bookshelves; nobody was dropping dictionaries on his head from above.
The library was a big, circular room. Dust swam in the sunlight that got through the old, chipped windows. Rows of shelves, arranged in a semicircle, dominated most of the room.