I wasn’t surprised my mom was here. She is a reporter for the city’s biggest newspaper. She’s always following Mayor Grimlock to press conferences like this one.
“What are you two doing here?” she said once she’d decided nothing was broken.
“It’s a long story, Mom,” I said, wriggling free. Don’t get me wrong. Mom’s hugs are great. But the way Tank was giggling, I knew I’d be hearing about the whole “Fizzy” business for the next week.
“Tank!” Mom said, as if noticing her for the first time. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Ms. Marlow,” she said.
Beside us, Rufus adjusted the mayor’s jacket and gave him a final check for broken bones. Mayor Grimlock pushed his assistant aside and glared at the three of us.
The smooth-talking troll ushered us away from the mayor.
“If mother-son time is over, Rana, we have a press conference to get started.” Sanzin’s words were colder than an ice dragon’s sneeze.
“All right, Sanzin, don’t pop a wart,” Mom snapped.
Everything the tall troll wore was black. His expensive-looking business suit with its sharp-angled shoulders was dark like his hair and eyes. The only sign of color was the purple jewel in the pendant around his neck. Even in the dimming glowshroom light, the stone sparkled brightly. It was as if it had its own source of energy.
“You’re not in charge, remember?” my mom said. She wasn’t done with Sanzin. “Your precious mayor will get his chance to brag about his new stadium after I make sure he didn’t hurt these innocent children.”
Before the troll could respond, Mom dragged us back into the crowd of reporters.
“What are you two doing here?” she said when we got to the back of the pack.
We quickly told Mom about Rizzo, the battle bots and the weird face on the billboard.
“That does sound strange,” she said when we were finished. “Lucky for you, my editor sent me down here to cover this press conference.”
“I thought you weren’t covering fluff stories about the mayor anymore, Mom.”
Mom’s eyes flashed the way they do when she’s on to a big story.
“We got a tip from a mysterious source that this press conference could get interesting,” she said.
My mom has been a reporter for as long as I can remember. Like me, she has a tail for mysteries. She turns her mysteries into stories for her editors at the Rockfall Times.
“What’s all this about anyway?” Tank said.
“Mayor Grimlock wants to show off his shiny new stadium,” said a goblin holding an extend-o-camera. Mom shared a knowing smile with the reporter.
“Any chance for him to look good for the cameras, right, Lex?” she said.
Lex fiddled with the focus controls on his camera. “It’s hard to make an ogre that ugly look good.”
That got a chuckle out of the other reporters around us. Trolls, goblins and ogres from the big TV companies stood with their cameras, waiting for the mayor’s big announcement. There must have been reporters from all the major news organizations in Rockfall Mountain here. There were even a few bug-eyed critters from the smaller newspapers based deep in the mountain near the Dark Depths.
“Grimlock has been bragging about this stadium for months,” Mom said. “Many people in Slick City didn’t want it built. They said it would cost too much money.”
“But he built it anyway?” Tank asked.
“Yep,” Mom said. “He paved over a park, knocked down a few buildings and moved some monsters out of their homes just to build it right here.”
“Why not build it somewhere else?”
“SlurpCo Industries,” Lex said. “And their fearless leader, Sanzin Balazar.”
Lex pointed his camera at the troll in black and snapped a picture.
“That’s the company that owns all those slick-drilling rigs in the harbor,” Mom said.
“It also owns the construction company that built the stadium and the security company that patrols it at night,” Lex said. “The company paid a lot of money to get the stadium built. They insisted it be built right on this spot.”
“So that’s why it’s called Slurp Stadium,” I said.
The screech of a microphone stopped the chatter of the other reporters. All eyes went to the podium at the top of the steps leading to the stadium.
Mayor Grimlock stood at the podium. He flashed that election-winning smile we had all seen on screens across the city. From this close, I could see just how sharp the mayor’s fangs really were.
“Greetings! And many thanks for coming out this afternoon,” he crooned. Although an ugly ogre, Mayor Grimlock spoke with words as sweet as nectar on a stack of hollowberry cakes. Hearing him talk, it was no surprise he had been elected mayor three times in a row. He knew how to pour on the charm. “Today is a day to be remembered! Slurp Stadium is nearly complete. Next week, during the grand opening, another jewel will be added to beautiful Slick City!”
“Beautiful Slick City? Mayor Grimlock needs to get out more,” Lex said under his breath.
Slick City is built on one thing—slick. Mucky, black liquid sucked from rocks and used to run everything from our cars to our phones. It is messy and stinky, but it has made a few monsters very rich. Slick City has been called many things, but only a monster who couldn’t see, smell or taste would call it beautiful. Or a mayor who will say anything to get reelected.
“Thanks to our partners at SlurpCo Industries,” Mayor Grimlock continued, “this stadium will be a beacon of sport and entertainment. To mark the grand opening, the Slick City Battle Bot Cup will be held here. Just watch the screen above me and feast your eyes on what Slurp Stadium has to offer!”
The mayor swept his fat arm up to the jumbo screen hanging over the stadium’s main entrance.
The screen jumped to life in a whirl of flashing colors. The SlurpCo Industries logo swirled onto the screen. The logo faded away, replaced by the wide, grinning face of Mayor Grimlock. He stood in the middle of the stadium playing field where the battle-bot arena had been set up.
“Hello from the heart of Slurp Stadium!” his voice crooned from the screen’s speakers.
The live Mayor Grimlock looked up at his likeness on-screen. He grinned like a rust hound after an all-you-can eat junkyard buffet.
The mayor on the screen led the viewers on a tour of the brand-new stadium. He piloted a shiny new battle bot around the battle-bot field. Then he was at the concession stand, chomping on a spicy lizard dog smothered in glowshroom mustard.
My stomach rumbled. I thought about the plate of choco-slug cookies waiting for me at home.
Mayor Grimlock was in mid-bite when the screen went black. A second later, it buzzed back to life with a new image.
The press went into snapshot overload. Mayor Grimlock looked like he was ready to explode. He swatted at Rufus, who was doing his best to regain control of the stadium’s giant screen.
“Finally this press conference gets interesting,” Lex said as he captured the chaos with his camera.
“Looks like your tip was right, Mom,” I said
.
Mom wrote in her notebook as fast as her pen would move. She had her story for the next day’s paper.
This wasn’t the first time the Codex had messed with the mayor. The mysterious Codex had appeared shortly after construction on Slurp Stadium began. He’d demanded that the mayor close down the stadium. Grimlock refused, and the Codex had been making life miserable for the mayor and all Slurp Stadium supporters ever since.
The Codex was a master computer hacker. In the past few months, he had hijacked all the computers at city hall, where the mayor works, and locked everyone out of their phones and vizpaper tablets. Grimlock had to shut down city hall for two days until they got control of their computers again. And about a month ago, the Codex took over all the TV channels in the city. Everyone’s screens went blank for over three hours and were replaced with a sign that read Close Slurp Stadium.
The Codex had never been caught. And no one knew who he was. Or even if it was a he. It could be a she. No one knew who the Codex was, but everyone in Slick City had felt his—or her—power.
Rufus scrambled around the podium, frantically pulling out power cords and wires. Nothing he did turned off the large screen or made the smiling face of the Codex disappear. Mayor Grimlock chased his assistant around the controls, barking at the poor goblin to pull the cords out faster. In the chaos on the stage, only Sanzin Balazar looked in control. The troll stood perfectly still and glared at the image of the Codex as if he could melt the jumbo screen with his eyes.
Lex adjusted the settings on his camera, chuckling at the images he was catching. My mom kept grinning and scribbling the story into her notepad.
They might have been feeling good about the mayor’s disaster, but I felt like I’d eaten a boulder sandwich. Tank couldn’t take her eyes off the screen either.
“You recognize that face?” I asked.
She nodded. “It’s the guy Rizzo was talking to earlier.”
“Rizzo Rawlins is dealing with the Codex.”
Our little task of catching a cheat had just gotten as big as the stadium in front of us.
The Bouncing Bugbear was packed.
Young monsters from all over Slick City came to the diner to meet friends, complain about school and enjoy one of Rita the bugbear’s delicious fungi-fruit smoothies.
Today, Rita wasn’t actually bouncing. She was rolling, and so were her waiters. The fat rollers on their feet let them zip from table to table, bringing burgers, shakes and delicious cakes to hungry trolls, ogres, goblins and elves.
“Howdy, little detectives,” Rita called when she spotted Tank and me coming through the front door. She rolled right up to us, balancing a large tray of basilisk burgers in one hand. “There’s a booth at the back with your name on it.”
“Thanks, R!” Tank said.
“Anytime, T!” Rita rolled away to deliver the burgers to a table of hungry ogres.
Tank and I found the booth and got to work. We had been stuck in school all day with no time to talk about the previous day’s press conference or Rizzo’s meeting with the mysterious Codex.
Tank spread a thin sheet of vizpaper on the table.
“I salvaged the hard drive from my spybot last night,” she said. She tapped the paper and it lit up, filling our booth with a soft green glow.
“The bot Rizzo stepped on?” I said. “I thought it was lost forever in that parking lot.”
“Thankfully, he didn’t damage its homing circuits,” she said with a smile. “The little bot flew back home. It barely made it. Dreena and Draana found it stuck on a glowshroom outside our front door.”
“Hooray for little sisters,” I said.
Tank smiled and tapped the paper again. A series of images appeared on the thin sheet of glass.
“I couldn’t get the video out of the hard drive, thanks to Rizzo’s boot. But I salvaged these screen shots.”
The photos showed Rizzo and the Gutro brothers talking to the Codex. The mysterious stranger’s mask loomed over them from the billboard.
“I still can’t believe that Rizzo is working with the Codex,” I said.
Rita rolled up to our table. She dropped two large bugberry smoothies in front of us.
“Here’s your usual, detectives,” she said with a smile. “I knew you would be too busy solving your latest mystery to actually remember to order!”
“Thanks, Rita!” I said. Rita rolled away with a wave over her shoulder.
I slurped up some bugberry smoothie. The icy drink sent a chill along my scales and froze my brain. I always think better after a good bugberry brain freeze.
Tank sipped on her frosty drink as she swiped through the images on the vizpaper. She stopped on a close-up of Rizzo talking to the Codex on the billboard. “How does a kid in the fourth grade get in contact with a mysterious hacker tormenting the mayor?” she said.
“Ratso Rawlins is Rizzo’s dad. That old kobold knows all the bigwigs in the city,” I said after my brain had thawed. “Maybe Rizzo met the Codex at one of the Rawlins family’s night-howl parties?”
“Maybe, but Ratso Rawlins is also one of Mayor Grimlock’s biggest supporters,” Tank said. “The Codex doesn’t like the mayor or Slurp Stadium. I don’t think Ratso Rawlins would be happy to hear his son is friends with the mayor’s enemies.”
Tank and I finished our smoothies in silence. My mind chased questions as I fished out the last goopy drops of my smoothie.
“Who is the Codex?” I said finally. “Why does he want Slurp Stadium closed?”
A shadow fell across our table.
“Because that stadium is an ugly pile of concrete?”
Aleetha used to be in our class at Gravelmuck Elementary. Now she goes to the wizard’s school in the Shadow Tower. All lava elves apply to the Shadow Tower when they’re our age. Not many get accepted, but Aleetha did. She’s been studying magic ever since and is destined to be a great wizard someday. She’s already a pretty good detective. Her magical knowledge has helped Tank and me in the past. Now that the Codex was part of this mystery, we needed all the help we could get.
Aleetha slid into the booth beside Tank.
“What’s Rizzo up to now?”
After yesterday’s press conference, Tank sent a message to Aleetha telling her about Rizzo and the Codex. We had so many questions, we needed Aleetha’s brainpower to get some answers. It turned out she had just as many questions as we did.
“Why is Rizzo talking to weird faces on billboards?” Aleetha thumbed through the photos on Tank’s vizpaper.
“That’s the Codex,” I said. “The guy who took over the press conference.”
“Interesting,” Aleetha said. “His face looks familiar.”
“It looks like a mask to me,” Tank said. “It’s drawn with computer graphics, like a video-game character.”
“He’s hiding his real identity,” I said.
“Or her real identity.” Aleetha zoomed in on the photo of the Codex’s face. “I’ve seen that mask somewhere before.”
“He was all over the TV in last night’s news,” Tank said.
Aleetha s
hook her head. “TVS don’t work inside the Shadow Tower. I’ve seen this somewhere else.”
“Whoever he or she is, the Codex doesn’t want Slurp Stadium to open,” I said.
“He’s not alone,” Aleetha said. “A lot of people are upset about that stadium. It’s ugly, for one thing. It also cost a lot of money to build, and Mayor Grimlock kicked a lot of people out of their homes just to make space for it.”
“So the Codex could be just about anyone in Slick City?” Tank said.
“Anyone with the technical skills to take over the mayor’s computers,” Aleetha said. “How did you end up on the trail of the Codex?”
“Technically we’re not,” I said. “We’re trying to prove Rizzo is cheating in the battle-bot fights.”
“How’s he doing that?”
“With this,” Tank said. She tapped the vizpaper and brought up a photo of Rizzo fishing the Codex’s computer equipment out of a garbage can.
“Whatever that is,” I said.
Aleetha scrunched up her nose at the sight of the equipment in the photo.
“Don’t look at me to help you,” she said. “That’s got technology written all over it. You need to talk to a troll.”
“My troll is stumped,” I said.
That got me a swat across the head from Tank, but it was worth it.
“I am not stumped,” Tank said. “It’s a processor unit. A high-quality one. Just the thing to make his battle bot move fast. We need to prove that Rizzo installed it in his battle bot.”
“He’s already busted me for snooping twice,” I said. “I’m not eager to try for a third time.”
Aleetha scrolled through the other photos on the vizpaper. “I could ask our battle-bot team. They might know something.”
The Case of the Battling Bots Page 3