“Where do you think they’re taking us?” DeMarco said.
“I don’t know,” replied Uncle Newt. “But they wouldn’t have taken us prisoner if they didn’t need us for some reason. And that means they aren’t going to hurt us.”
“For now,” muttered Nick.
Tesla launched an awkward kick into the darkness toward the sound of her brother’s voice. (It’s hard to be graceful when your ankles are tied together.) It felt like she connected with one of his shins.
“Ow!” Nick yipped.
“Keep it positive,” Tesla said.
“Gee, thanks for the reminder, Tez,” Nick said. “Physical abuse is just what I need to improve my attitude.”
“So,” Silas began, “did you guys catch up to Agent McIntyre and tell her that Agent Doyle’s a muskrat?”
Tesla silently cursed herself for not leaving Silas gagged when she had the chance.
“Excuse me?” said Uncle Newt.
“Did you tell Agent McIntyre that Agent Doyle’s a muskrat?” Silas said. “You know, a double agent.”
Tesla heard her brother heave a long-suffering sigh. This time she let his negative attitude slide. “You mean a mole, Silas,” Nick said. “And no. If we’d been able to tell her about Agent Doyle, we wouldn’t be here right now, would we?”
“How did you and DeMarco get caught, anyway?” Tesla asked.
“I was kinda mad at my dad, so I told him he could just go,” Silas said. “After he left, we decided to wait for you guys in Uncle Newt’s kitchen.”
“There’s usually Coke in the fridge,” DeMarco said, by way of explanation.
“Oooh. Ice-cold Coke,” Silas moaned.
There was a smacking sound—Silas licking his parched lips, apparently—then he continued his story.
“So there we were sipping our Cokes, minding our own business, and all of a sudden BAMMO! Julie Casserly and her granny goons come bustin’ in. We put up a pretty good fight, but they outnumbered us.”
“By ‘put up a pretty good fight,’ he means we managed to throw our Cokes at them before they slammed us to the floor and tied us up,” DeMarco said.
“Hey, that is putting up a pretty good fight!” Silas shot back. “Those old ladies are tough!”
“Anyway,” said DeMarco. “Now what?”
“I guess we should see if we can get our hands and feet free,” Nick said.
“That’s more like it!” said Tesla.
She stretched a foot toward her brother’s voice and ended up kicking him in the ear.
“Ow!”
“Sorry. That was supposed to be an approving pat on the shoulder.”
“Well, maybe you should hold off until you can do it with your hand.”
“Right.”
Tesla began struggling against the straps that Julie and her minions had wrapped around her wrists and ankles. She heard her brother and the others doing the same.
“These aren’t regular handcuffs,” Silas grunted.
“Yeah. They’re not metal,” said DeMarco. “They feel more like plastic.”
“Injection-molded nylon,” said Uncle Newt. “A lot of police departments use them these days. The military, too. They’re lighter than metal, and there’s no key to keep track of. When you’re ready to set your prisoner free, you just cut the nylon off. Do any of you kids have a pocket knife?”
All four said no.
“Really?” said Uncle Newt, flabbergasted. “No one carries a Swiss Army knife anymore?”
“My mom barely trusts me with a spoon,” said Silas.
“How about dental floss?” asked Uncle Newt.
Again, the kids all said no. “I must’ve left mine in my other pants,” DeMarco added sarcastically.
“Seems like a weird time to floss,” Silas whispered. “You think the heat’s getting to him?”
“I see what you’re thinking, Uncle Newt,” Nick said. “You want us to use—”
“Friction!” Tesla broke in. “If you can cut through the nylon, then you can saw through it, too!”
“Exactly,” said Uncle Newt. “If we had something long and thin, we could use it like a wire saw. It wouldn’t have to be as strong as the nylon—just strong enough to stay in one piece as the friction between it and the nylon creates heat energy.”
“A belt!” Silas suggested.
“Not thin enough,” said Uncle Newt.
“Hair!” Silas suggested.
“Not thick enough,” said Uncle Newt.
“Shoelaces!” Silas suggested.
“Not …” Uncle Newt’s voice trailed off. Then, after a long silence he said, “You know what? That might just work. Can anyone get Silas’s shoelaces off?”
“Oh, I don’t have laces on my shoes,” Silas said. “I only wear Vans slip-ons.”
Tesla heard her brother sigh again. “My shoes have laces,” she said.
“Mine, too,” said DeMarco.
“And mine,” said Nick.
“And mine, so we’ve got plenty to work with,” said Uncle Newt. “Let’s get to it!”
Another round of blind Twister followed, with everybody fumbling in the dark for one another’s shoes and struggling to untie the laces, sight unseen. Every so often the truck would hit a bump or turn sharply, and the imprisoned passengers would go bouncing across the metal floor and lose their place. Then, covered in new bruises they couldn’t even see, they had to refind one another’s feet and pick up where they’d left off.
It was slow, exhausting work, but eventually they all had shoelaces in their bound hands.
Then began the even slower, even more exhausting work of using the laces to free their hands and feet.
Two shoelaces broke as Nick tried to saw through his uncle’s restraints. Silas lost a couple more when a particularly big bump sent him flying.
But then DeMarco said, “I think it’s working!” as he awkwardly sawed at the restraints around Tesla’s wrists, his back to hers. A minute later, Tesla felt her hands pop free.
The process got a lot easier after that.
Tesla freed DeMarco’s hands, together they freed Uncle Newt and Nick and Silas’s hands, and then everybody started working to free their own feet. Eventually, all the laces but one had been torn apart by the friction and heat. But by that point one shoelace was all they needed.
The restraints around Silas’s ankles were the last to go.
Everyone was free.
“All right!” DeMarco said. “Now we can … umm … what are we going to do now?”
“I say when they open the back door, we jump them,” said Tesla. “It’ll be five against three. I think we can take them.”
“I say when they open the back door, we run for it,” said Nick. “They can’t catch us all. One of us will be able to get away and alert the authorities.”
“You know,” Silas said dreamily, “I’ve always wanted to alert the authorities about something. Besides alerting my dad that his car’s engine is on fire again.”
Everyone ignored him.
“What do you think, Uncle Newt?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know, Nick. Is there a way we can fight and run away?”
“Not really,” said Tesla.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” said Nick.
“OK. Well. Gosh. I guess as the adult here I should be more decisive, but … anyone have a coin we could flip?”
“How would we see it?” DeMarco asked.
“Oh. Good point.”
Suddenly a piercing metallic screech sounded beneath their feet—squealing brakes—and they all began rolling and sliding toward the front of the truck. A moment later, as they wriggled out of the heap they’d ended up in, Tesla pressed a palm against the floor.
For the first time since they left Half Moon Bay, it wasn’t vibrating.
“We’ve stopped,” Tesla said. “And I think they turned the engine off.”
“We’re here … wherever ‘here’ is,” Nick said softly.
“Time to de
cide,” said DeMarco. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to fight,” Uncle Newt announced. Tesla heard him stand up and walk toward the big metal door at the back of the truck. “And then run away if that doesn’t work. Who’s with me?”
Tesla pushed herself up and walked through the darkness to stand beside her uncle.
“Me,” she said.
She heard somebody step up beside her.
“And me,” said Nick. “I guess …”
More footsteps.
“And me,” said DeMarco.
Yet more footsteps echoed through the blackness—followed by a dull thud as someone walked into the side of the truck.
“Oof,” said Silas. “And me.”
“We’re over here,” DeMarco whispered.
Silas shuffled over to join the others.
“All right, kids,” Uncle Newt said. “The second they open that door, we’re going to AHHHHHHHH!”
Before he could finish his sentence, someone was opening the door—and fast. It rattled loudly as it slid and rolled up like a garage door, flooding the back of the truck with light.
Nick, Tesla, Silas, and DeMarco each did a version of Uncle Newt’s “AHHHHHHHH!” All five of them spun around and backed away, their hands pressed over their faces. They hadn’t realized what a sudden burst of bright light would feel like after spending so long in total darkness. The sun streaming into their eyes was very, very bright indeed. Blindingly bright. Literally.
They couldn’t fight. They couldn’t even run. All they could do was shield their eyes and wipe away tears and wait for their vision to return to normal.
“What have you done to them?” a woman’s anguished voice asked.
Tesla turned toward the voice—toward the blinding light—despite the new pain it brought her already hurting eyes.
“They’d better not be harmed,” a man’s voice said sternly.
Tesla heard someone else spin around beside her. She knew it had to be Nick.
Tesla blinked into the light and swiped away more tears; as she did so, the blank whiteness before her eyes began to fade. After a few more seconds, she was at last able to look into the bright opening of the back of the truck and, just beyond it, could see five hazy shapes.
Five people.
Two of the people immediately pulled themselves up into the truck and quickly walked—no, practically ran—the few steps to reach Nick and Tesla. These were the people whose voices Tesla and Nick had recognized: a plump woman with short blonde hair and cat’s-eye glasses and a tall, slender man with a neatly trimmed beard and a ponytail.
“Mom?” said Nick.
“Dad?” said Tesla.
“Yes,” said their father.
“We’re here,” said their mother.
Nick and Tesla bolted forward and threw themselves into their parents’ arms.
The pain in Tesla’s eyes was gone now, but her tears were flowing faster than ever.
Tesla was hugging her dad. Nick was hugging his mom. Then Uncle Newt’s long arms encircled them all, and suddenly it was a big group hug.
“Al! Martha!” Uncle Newt said. “We didn’t know if we’d ever see you again!”
After a few more seconds, yet another pair of arms wrapped themselves around the family and squeezed hard. A little too hard, actually.
The five Holts turned to look at Silas, who was bear-hugging them with all his might.
“Sorry,” he said, reluctantly letting go. “I just couldn’t resist.”
“All right, all right—that’s enough touchy-feely.” Julie Casserly’s sardonic voice broke up the happy reunion. “Come on, get out.” Nick and Tesla saw their nemesis standing outside the truck, along with her aging lackeys.
“I said come out,” Julie snapped. “Or else they come in.” She poked a thumb at Ethel and Gladys.
The old women grinned malevolently and cracked their ancient knuckles. The kids knew from experience that the threat was real.
“We’re coming,” Tesla said hurriedly.
She and the rest of the prisoners did as they were told, hopping out of the truck one by one. Nick and Tesla and their parents moved almost as a single unit, keeping close and separating only briefly as they jumped onto the ground.
“Whoa,” Silas said, taking in their surroundings.
The truck was parked in front of a large, dilapidated gray building. Nearby were other buildings—smaller but just as ramshackle—and what looked like abandoned airplane hangars. In the distance were a guard tower and a chain-link fence and, stretching around them all the way to the horizon, an immense, flat, featureless desert.
Wherever they were, one thing was obvious: it was the middle of nowhere.
“What is this place?” Tesla asked.
“We’re—” Mr. Holt started to explain, but then stopped short.
He threw Julie a questioning glance.
“Go ahead—tell them,” she said with an indifferent shrug. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Mr. Holt looked back to the kids and Uncle Newt.
“We’re in the Great Basin Desert,” he said. “At Brace Air Force Base.”
DeMarco glanced around at the decaying buildings, the empty sky, the pothole-pocked road that stretched straight west for miles and miles without a car in sight.
“This is an air force base?”
“It’s been closed for years,” Mr. Holt explained.
“How long have you been here?” Nick asked.
“Me? About a week.”
“They brought me here only yesterday,” said Mrs. Holt. “Until you found that office in Mountain View, they had us working on separate control systems for the—”
“OK, that’s enough,” Julie interrupted.
“You said it didn’t matter what they tell us now,” Tesla said.
Julie sneered at her. “It doesn’t. But Control will probably want to tell you that part of the story.”
“Control is here?” Nick asked.
Julie nodded at the big gray building. “Right in there. Waiting. Now let’s go.”
Ethel and Gladys stepped forward to give the nearest prisoners—Silas and Uncle Newt—a hard shove.
“No need to get pushy!” Tesla snapped at them. “We get the idea.”
She and the others headed toward the building. As she climbed the crumbling concrete steps, Tesla could make out sun-bleached words barely visible over the entrance.
BRACE A.F.B. AIR DEFENSE COMMAND HOME OF THE 52nd AIR DIVISION
The group entered a large, empty lobby and turned left. Mr. and Mrs. Holt led the way down a dark corridor, each keeping an arm around the twins nearly the whole way. Ethel, Gladys, and Julie brought up the rear.
“In here,” Mrs. Holt said when they reached an open door halfway down the hall.
They all filed into what looked like the Mission Control room that had handled a moon shot circa 1969—and that hadn’t been used, or cleaned, ever since. Rows of workstations were covered with clunky electronic panels and old-fashioned phones and desk chairs on wheels and lots and lots of dust.
At the far end of the room, a person was sitting in a black tall-backed chair at one of the workstations. Several nearby TV monitors, set into the walls and panels, were active. One showed a reporter standing in front of the White House, the words WORLD LEADERS GATHER TO RENEW “STAR WARS” BAN on the screen underneath her. Another screen displayed a familiar coastline half-covered with clouds—the East Coast of North America, viewed from space.
The person in the chair began to chortle. Then laugh. Then cackle demonically:
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa! BWA-HA-HA-HA- HA-HAAAAAAAA!”
The chair spun around, revealing not only the man seated in it but also the images on the screen in front of him.
He’d been watching an episode of The Simpsons.
At last, he noticed that he wasn’t alone.
“Oh. You’re here,” he said, his guffaws ceasing instantly. “Sorry, that show always cracks m
e up.”
The man in the chair was short, pudgy, and balding. He seemed to be in his late forties or early fifties, and he was dressed in a bright Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals.
He spread his arms in a welcoming gesture.
“Have a seat, everybody. Who wants Kool-Aid and cookies?”
DeMarco and Silas both said “Me!” as they sat down in the nearest chairs.
With their parents and uncle standing behind them, Nick and Tesla stayed on their feet, motionless, their stunned stares locked onto the little man.
“You?” said Tesla in disbelief.
“You’re Control?” said Nick.
The man grinned. “Oh, there’s no need for coy code names now,” he said. “Call me Bob.”
“Bob?” said Nick.
The man nodded, still grinning.
“The person who’s been hounding our parents and spying on us and trying to steal government secrets?” Tesla said.
Bob’s grin faded slightly. “Well,” he said, his voice a nasal whine, “I suppose you could look at it that way.”
“The man who broke up our family and terrorized us and had us kidnapped?” Tesla continued. “And you want us to call you Bob?”
“Control was cooler,” DeMarco pointed out.
“And Sun King was way cooler,” added Silas. He pointed a finger at DeMarco and made a pshew laser noise.
DeMarco spun his chair, leaned toward his friend, and dropped his voice to a whisper (although everyone in the room could still hear it). “I don’t think this guy’s got the pizzazz to pull off Sun King.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Silas “whispered” back. “Maybe if he lost a little weight and hid his bald spot under a helmet and put on a cape and …” He squinted at the man and then shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s much more of a Bob.”
As Silas and DeMarco debated, Tesla took a step toward Bob, her right fist clinched.
“I know a better name for you than Control or Bob,” she said. She took another step forward. “It’s lousy, stinking, no-good—”
Ethel (or maybe it was Gladys) moved quickly to block Tesla’s path. In her wrinkly hands was a plate of cookies.
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