The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3

by Chad Morris

  Abby ran to her grandfather, but paused at the last moment to be gentle as she hugged him. He embraced her in return, his arms weaker than usual. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Abby said.

  “By the look of things,” Grandpa answered, “I think it is I that should be glad that you are here. I believe you have quite a story to tell us.”

  Abby nodded. “I think we just barely escaped.” She began to tell them the essential points of what had just happened. Derick came in panting when she was nearly done. Rafa had used an avatar to make a way through the security bots so Derick could join them. Derick exchanged hugs with his grandpa and mom, holding them longer than usual. Carol also stood up and spread her arms wide. Derick reluctantly gave her a hug as well. He let go, but Carol didn’t. It took him three tries to free himself from the blonde seventh-grader. When Abby mentioned that everyone else had been evacuated, Grandpa’s face grew solemn.

  “So,” Grandpa said in a grave tone, “we must assume that Muns will shortly have a collection of keys, and perhaps spheres. It will only take as long as it takes someone to travel from here to Muns’s estate.” He took several short steps, leaning heavily on his cane.

  Abby nodded.

  “How long has it been since the bombs should have gone off?” Grandpa asked.

  Derick glanced at the time on his rings. “Almost fifteen minutes.” Time had passed quickly as they hugged and spoke to one another.

  “We may still have some time,” Grandpa said, and winced as he tried to take a few steps toward the Bridge. “With any luck, even in Muns’s fastest private plane, it may take another few minutes to travel to his estate.”

  “We’re sorry,” Derick apologized. “We tried to—”

  “Derick Cragbridge!” Grandpa interrupted, and slammed his cane against the hard floor of the basement. It looked like his strength was returning. “Don’t you dare apologize! You have done great feats of bravery and intellect. You too, Abby! In every way, you too.” He looked at both of them, his eyes intense. “And all your friends.” He leaned forward on his cane, perhaps having become too excited for his condition. “The world owes you a great debt. And as for Muns, we will face whatever comes together, and we will win.” His voice grew louder with the last three words.

  He spoke with such conviction that Abby believed him. She had always believed him, except for what he said about her. She hadn’t always believed that she had the great potential he claimed she did, but maybe he was a genius in more ways than she thought. Maybe he had seen things in her she hadn’t dared to believe of herself.

  “Um, guys,” Piper said through their sync, “I think we’ve got a problem. Let me show you what’s going on outside the gates.” An invitation for a live feed popped up and Abby clicked on it. Jumbled footage sprang into view. It showed the crowded scene outside the gates, where Piper had been dragged by a security bot.

  “Down! Get down!” someone yelled. As the crowd obeyed, a security guard pointed his stun gun, but someone else fired on him. He fell to the ground.

  “What’s going on?” someone asked.

  “Stay down,” a security officer barked, then was shot and fell limp.

  A woman moved through the crowd, expertly weaving between students and shooting down security officers. Two more soldiers joined her. Then several more. Her numbers were increasing. They shot security guards, policemen, and the bomb squad that had arrived on the scene. Security bots joined them, taking down all the officers who were there to protect the students and the school. The bots were obviously still under the control of the officer with the blond beard. The attackers made their way toward the campus gates, stunning anyone who opposed them. One of the men even stunned several students who were simply in his way, and walked over their unconscious bodies.

  “This is a full-on war out here!” Piper yelled over the shots.

  “Grandpa,” Abby said, “you need to see this.” She included everyone in the basement on the link.

  “Muns’s men,” Derick said. “It’s been too long and there are no signs that the bomb went off. They’re coming in.”

  Abby looked at her grandpa. “He’s sent all his men in now that security is down.”

  Immediately Grandpa called on his rings, “Security, this is Oscar Cragbridge. Secure the main doors. Do not let the attackers in! I repeat, do not let the attackers in!” He took a deep breath, still recovering from his time unconscious.

  “This is insane,” Carol blurted out.

  Abby looked back at the footage. Several security guards rallied to protect the gates.

  “Muns likely has his keys,” Grandpa said solemnly. “And now he wants to destroy the Bridge.” He began to explain why he thought the attack was happening, as all in the basement watched it unfold. “If he has enough keys and perhaps even spheres from the teachers who evacuated, he can use the copy of the Bridge he stole months ago. The Bridge here is the only thing that may be able to counteract anything he would do, anything he would change in time. If he can destroy it, he controls all of time.”

  “Uh,” Piper interrupted, “are you still watching this?”

  The security guards and soldiers shot at each other, a crowd of students and teachers ducking in the crossfire. Several on both sides cried out and fell to the ground, but the security guards were outnumbered and outgunned. One of the security guards flicked his fingers, initiating the close of both sets of the large metal doors. The doors lurched toward each other, surprisingly fast for their size and weight. Muns’s soldiers raced into action. Two ran to each set of doors and unpacked two cases. They quickly assembled hydraulic metal braces that clanked against the doors and pressed against them, keeping them from closing. During the process, the last of the security guards was stunned unconscious. The few remaining police officers and members of the bomb squad outside the gates fired away at Muns’s soldiers and the security bots, but they were hopelessly outmanned.

  The soldier in the lead simply stepped through the braces and onto the grounds of Cragbridge Hall. He surveyed the area, his gun pointed in one direction and then another. He eventually waved another soldier through behind him. They came one by one.

  But it didn’t end. A steady stream of soldiers came onto the grounds.

  “How many of them are there?” Carol asked. “This is a freaking army.”

  The soldiers at the head of the group pushed forward toward the building, as more poured through the opening.

  “There are hundreds of them,” Piper said. Abby remembered that Muns had asked for hundreds. He got what he wanted.

  “What do we do?” Abby’s mother asked.

  “We need to stop the army and use the Bridge to travel through the present, find Muns, and take back our keys,” Grandpa said, as matter-of-factly as if it was a simple to-do list.

  “They’ll be on us in minutes,” Coach Adonavich said.

  “I think I have a few friends who can help,” Derick suggested. He didn’t wait for approval. He commanded through his rings: “Crash, I need you. Let’s keep those soldiers away from our building. It’s time to do what you do best.”

  “I’m on it,” Rafa said through the group sync. “Vamos!”

  “I’m right behind you, son,” Rafa’s mother said.

  “Now we’re talking!” Malcolm joined in. “I’m gonna pick out something big and mean.”

  “I’m going to pick out something bigger and meaner than yours,” Nia added.

  “I have some stress I’d really like to work out,” Maria said. “And maybe some payback for having that stress in the first place.”

  “I really wish I was inside and could help,” Piper said.

  “You’ve done a ton, Piper, just keeping us informed,” Abby said. “Thank you.”

  “Anjum and Jess,” Derick said. “Get whatever robots you can out there. We need all the help we can get. I’ll grab an avatar and join you.” He began to run toward the door that led out of the basement.

  “No, you won’t,” Grandpa corre
cted. “I need you here. We’ll need to cross through time to get Muns’s keys. Find something you can both attack and defend yourself with.” Grandpa shuffled over to the Bridge, had Coach Adonavich help him turn the keys, inserted a sphere, and began searching the present.

  Mr. Trinhouse raised his stun gun. Abby’s mother picked up hers. Coach Horne grabbed a branch that had fallen from the Bridge and broke it. He kept the largest club-like piece, and gave the next biggest piece to Coach Adonavich. Derick, Abby, and Carol snatched the leftovers. They weren’t large, but were the size of short baseball bats and could do some damage.

  “Clever,” Grandpa grumbled, working the console. “Muns has moved his Bridge.” Grandpa searched from one room in Muns’s estate to the next. “It may take me a few more moments to find him. It is not easy to move and likely not out of his estate.”

  “I should be able to get us a better view of what’s going on outside,” Mr. Trinhouse said, moving his fingers, controlling his rings. He was an engineering teacher and very good with machines. Since Piper was outside the gates, they had only been able to see what was going on from her perspective. When the gates had partially closed, they had lost most of their view. “I helped design and install most of our security system; I should still have access or be able to override the protocols.” Abby couldn’t help but realize that had he been conscious during all that had happened, Mr. Trinhouse definitely would have been a suspect.

  Soon a glimpse of the outside appeared in Abby’s contacts. First she saw a falcon stoop. It let out a cry as it opened its talons and grabbed the barrel of a soldier’s gun. In a flash, it ripped the weapon from its place and used its momentum to slam the barrel against the helmet of the next soldier and two after that. It was enough to knock two of the three unconscious. The bird flung the barrel in the direction of a fourth soldier, and attacked a fifth. It grabbed the soldier’s shoulders with its talons, shifted its momentum, and flapped hard to one side. The man fell.

  The robot bird launched back up into the sky, only to be greeted by hundreds of bullets. Their guns were not set to stun anymore. Several pierced through the robot falcon body. Abby cringed, knowing that whoever was controlling the bird could feel all of the pain of the attack. They had just picked a fight with hundreds of armed men, and were paying the price.

  A rhino barreled out of the school and at the army. Two gorillas and a lion were only a pace behind. Another falcon stooped down from above. Anjum was barking orders over their sync, coordinating the attack.

  A few moments later, a series of robots joined the battle. Quads ran through the ranks. Mower bots were set loose. Small helicopters took to the sky. Even Jenkins came rushing out in his shell with his baseball bat.

  Abby glanced at her grandfather as he worked the Bridge. He still had not found Muns.

  “I can’t stand just watching as my friends do all the work,” Derick said, pacing the basement floor.

  Coach Horne put a large hand on Derick’s shoulder. “Just get ready to help here. We may have the more difficult assignment. We have to get the keys from Muns and he will have guards. All we have is a couple of stun guns and some broken pieces of metal.”

  Abby swallowed hard. Coach Horne was right. She looked back to the outside. A falcon fell. A lion jumped on several soldiers, pummeling them to the ground. Then the beast took so many bullets it could only knock out a couple more soldiers before crashing limp against the lawn. The rhino and the two gorillas did the most damage, rampaging through the attackers. Abby guessed that the rhino was Malcolm and the gorillas were Rafa and his mom. The rhino was so huge and powerful, and the gorillas moved quickly and, strangely, gracefully. But they too took on a barrage of bullets. Though they had stopped sixty to eighty soldiers, there were still a couple of hundred more.

  The robots did their part, causing chaos and knocking soldiers to the ground, but bullets could stop them too. The defense couldn’t hold out forever.

  “We can’t stop all of them,” Malcolm called out, breathing heavily. “There are too many.” He cried out; another bullet must have hit him.

  “Fall back,” Anjum said.

  “No,” Rafa rebutted. “We keep going. We never quit.”

  “Not to give up, but to be smarter,” Anjum explained. “Get inside the building and wait for them to enter the doors. No matter how many of them there are, they can only enter a few at a time. Then their numbers do not mean as much.”

  “Like the Spartans,” Maria said.

  “Yes,” Anjum agreed. “Just like the Spartans!” His voice grew. “We will make our own last stand!”

  Grandpa didn’t look over his shoulder, but called out, “Abby and Derick, I really like your friends.” The perspective of the Bridge moved to just outside a room. “This is the last place large enough,” Grandpa explained. “I believe Muns is inside with the Bridge.” He moved forward, but suddenly stopped. “Umph,” he gasped, and faltered. Then he stumbled to the ground.

  “You are trying to do too much too soon,” Abby’s mother said, running to his side. “You need to relax.”

  “No,” Grandpa said. He rolled over and tried to cough, but nothing came out. “This . . .” He stopped and struggled for breath. “This . . . is . . . something else. Something more.”

  “What do you mean?” Abby asked. She had followed right behind her mother. Derick hit his knees beside her.

  “I don’t know,” Grandpa admitted, rolling onto his back. He took short breaths, gasping them in like he couldn’t get enough. “Extreme . . . pain.” He gritted his teeth. “It’s running all through me.” He choked for more air.

  Abby stared at her grandfather and then the perspective just outside of Muns’s Bridge. It hit Abby hard. “The Ash,” she mumbled.

  “Oh, no,” Derick whispered.

  “What?” Abby’s mother asked.

  “I didn’t explain it,” Abby said. “Muns has . . .” Tears came. “He . . .” Her words caught in her throat.

  “He’s gone back in time,” Derick took over. “And he changed something. Maybe he killed Grandpa—he did something so he won’t exist anymore.” Derick took a deep breath. “And now, he’ll be gone within an hour.”

  “But if he dies sometime in the past, then the Bridge will have never existed,” Coach Adonavich pointed out.

  “Muns is too smart for that,” Derick said. “He must have attacked Grandpa after he had already invented the Bridge.”

  “We have to hurry and—” Abby’s mother started, but groaned. She opened her mouth to speak again, but gasped for air and fell to the ground.

  Abby screamed.

  Derick yelled.

  Abby knew what Muns had done as soon as he had gotten his keys. His first move had been to eliminate those who had tried to stop him. He had gotten Grandpa and Abby’s mom. Her father had probably already been struck also. It was just a matter of time before Abby and Derick also felt the Ash. It was very possible that Abby’s entire family had only an hour to live.

  Light

  Abby took over the controls of the Bridge. Grandpa wasn’t in a position to lead anymore. Now it was up to them. She didn’t know what she would see when she moved the perspective beyond the door and into Muns’s room. And she didn’t know what the others in the room would do as soon as they could see it. Would they want to rush in and try to take on Muns’s armed guards? Was that suicide?

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. A man. A soldier, with a giant barrel mounted on his arm, came into the basement room out of nowhere. He aimed at the Bridge. Abby turned to look down the barrel of a loaded cannon.

  “Soldier!” Derick yelled, and pointed at the intruder.

  The soldier flicked his finger, but before the barrel launched its small missile, Coach Adonavich lunged at him, knocking him to the side and causing the shot to fire off course. It slammed into the corner of the room and exploded, sending a thunderous boom echoing through the room. Several branches of the Bridge caught on fire, while others were blown
clean off.

  Muns must have used the keys and the spheres from his Bridge to send the soldier right into the basement. Muns wasn’t holding anything back.

  Another soldier entered, and Mr. Trinhouse and Coach Horne immediately jumped into the fray. Derick and Carol both raised their shards of metal from the Bridge and waited for any others to surprise them. There was no telling where they would come in. With Muns using his Bridge for the invasion he could use any angle. They had to be ready for anything.

  Abby moved the perspective from her Bridge to see Muns’s room. It was completely surreal. A small squad of soldiers was running in through Muns’s Bridge there and Abby could see them arriving where she was in the basement of Cragbridge Hall. It was like watching herself in a movie—a movie that was about to end in tragedy.

  Abby had no idea what to do. She could cross over into Muns’s room, but most of those on her side were already in a life-and-death battle with armed soldiers. She could try to take on Muns’s armed guards herself and fight for the keys. Derick and Carol would follow her. But would that do any good? Would those attacking her Bridge take over first?

  “Abby,” Grandpa choked out. He lifted up his cane. “The final . . . secret,” he whispered. “Put my cane . . .” His words failed, but he extended his cane and pressed his finger to the metal band. The outside covering of the cane sloughed off and Abby saw a wonder of mechanical pieces integrated and woven together. Grandpa pointed to the Bridge.

  Abby heard another large shot crash into a wall.

  “Keys, spheres, . . . your object, . . . and this,” he whispered.

  What would happen? Abby already knew how to go into the past, the present, and the future. What else could possibly be left? Abby obeyed though, putting her heartstone in the Bridge. Immediately it rumbled. Then she brought the cane close to the console. A small circular hole twisted open, just enough room for Abby to slide in her grandfather’s cane all the way up to the handle. Apparently there was more to this cane than Abby thought.

  The other side of the room did not fill with another scene. There were no great wars or figures from the past, no school or mansion from the present, no girl in trouble in the future. Everything was completely white. More than white. It was as if the other side of the basement of Cragbridge Hall were filled with light.