by Stuart Gibbs
Meanwhile, Ashley’s eyes flared with rage. “You love her?” she screamed. “I thought you loved me!”
Warren backed away fearfully, realizing he’d just made a big mistake. “Um . . . well . . . I really like you.”
I glanced around the patio uncomfortably. I wasn’t crazy about dying, but if I had to go, hearing Warren deal with his romantic problems was pretty much the last way I wanted to spend my final seconds. The last time I had thought I was going to die, Erica had kissed me, which was an infinitely better experience.
I looked toward Erica, wondering if maybe she was going to lunge across the patio and kiss me again. Even with all our friends and enemies around.
She wasn’t even looking at me. She was staring intently at Joshua, looking for her chance to attack him and wrest the detonator away.
Which, come to think of it, was probably what I should have been doing, rather than getting all wrapped up in my own romantic issues.
There was no way Erica could get to Joshua, though. Dane and the other bodyguards still loomed over her. If she so much as twitched a muscle in Joshua’s direction, they’d flatten her.
And despite my best efforts, I still couldn’t get romance off my mind. I realized Zoe was staring at me, watching me watch Erica. I looked her way, and we locked eyes. I could tell she was upset that I’d looked to Erica first and not to her, which made me realize that maybe she’d been hoping that I would have spent my last few seconds alive kissing her, rather than pining for Erica. Now she seemed to realize that I’d realized this, and things grew even more awkward than before.
Which was also not a great way to spend my final seconds on earth.
Murray took a piece of bacon from his pocket and crammed it into his mouth. It was greasy and had lint stuck to it, but he didn’t care.
“Murray!” Zoe gasped. “Where’d you get that?”
“From the buffet last night,” Murray replied. “I always like to keep some bacon handy for emergencies like this. If I’m going to die, at least I’m going to die happy.”
Warren and Ashley were still bickering.
Paul Lee was curled in the fetal position in a patio chair, gibbering in fear.
And Joshua was watching us all, laughing at us, his thumb poised over the big red button on his detonator.
My potential last minute on earth wasn’t going very well at all.
Then I caught Mike looking my way.
“Hey,” he said. “If this is the end, I’m glad we got to be friends.”
That made everything better. Not much, but enough.
“Me too,” I said.
Erica suddenly sprang at Joshua. She didn’t have a chance, but she wasn’t going to just sit still.
Dane Brammage was ready for her. He caught her in the chest with one of his huge arms and sent her flying. She skidded across the patio and crashed into a potted palm tree.
The counter on the computer clicked to zero. The final red lights came on in Antarctica.
Catherine Hale hadn’t fired a grenade at us. We were all still alive.
“I told you she wouldn’t do it,” Joshua said.
And then he pushed the button on the detonator.
20
HIGH-TECH ELECTRONICS
Penthouse Suite
Aquarius Resort
March 30
0930 hours
I cringed, expecting something horrible to happen. Beside me, Mike and Zoe did the same thing.
Nothing horrible happened, though.
Joshua Hallal’s cockiness shifted to annoyance. He pressed the button on the detonator a few more times. Then he pounded on it with his fist.
Dane looked at him curiously. “Isn’t it working?”
“If it was working, this satellite image of Antarctica would have just lit up like a disco ball!” Joshua pointed to his computer. “Do you see anything like that happening?”
On the computer, Antarctica looked exactly the same as it had for the past few minutes.
“Did you put fresh batteries in the detonator?” Dane suggested.
“Of course I did!” Joshua snapped. “Do I look like an amateur to you?”
“I’m just asking,” Dane said. “There’s no need to be a jerk about it.”
Joshua pounded the button more times, taking out his frustration on it. He no longer looked like a suave and debonair evil genius. Instead, he looked more like my father trying to get the universal TV remote to work. “Stupid detonator!” he roared. “How am I supposed to blow up Antarctica when all my tech is crap?”
“Maybe you should stop punching the button,” Ashley suggested. “Before you break it.”
“It’s already broken!” Joshua screamed. “Lousy piece of garbage! I don’t understand! It was working just fine when I tested it yesterday. . . .” He trailed off as a thought occurred to him.
The exact same thought occurred to me. It had seemed rather suspicious that the detonator didn’t work at the very moment Joshua needed it to. Lucky, for sure. But still suspicious.
And, for that matter, it had also seemed suspicious that Dane Brammage had been able to knock Erica for a loop the way he had. Erica might not have been able to overpower him, but it seemed unlikely that she would have ever let him beat her to a punch. . . .
Unless she wanted him to.
I spun around toward where I had last seen Erica.
She was no longer there. Instead, she was on the far side of the patio, about to slip over the border wall, the real detonator clutched in her hand.
Catherine Hale had owned the exact same detonator as Joshua. Erica had taken several things out of her mother’s luggage earlier that day. Apparently, one of them had been the detonator. And then she’d swapped it out while pretending to attack Joshua Hallal. Which meant she hadn’t surrendered to SPYDER to save our friends at all; she had merely wanted SPYDER to think that so she could get close enough to switch the detonators. This time, she’d been one step ahead of SPYDER, rather than SPYDER being one step ahead of us.
Unfortunately, Joshua had figured Erica’s plan out as quickly as I had. He aimed his metal hand at her, and I heard something click ominously inside it.
“Erica!” I yelled. “Look out!”
Erica dove to the floor as Joshua fired. It turned out his metal hand was also a weapon. A small explosive charge rocketed out of his palm. It missed Erica by inches and blasted a gaping hole in the wall right where she had been a second before.
“Holy cow,” Mike gasped. “Talk about being heavily armed.”
Erica scrambled behind a potted ficus tree for cover. It was the only thing close by, but it didn’t look big enough to protect her from another attack by Joshua.
Joshua aimed his hand at her again.
Zoe lunged at him. She was much smaller than him, but she was surprisingly strong for her size. She knocked him off his feet as a second explosive launched from his palm, bowling him into Dane, who also lost his balance and fell on the other bodyguards. All the bad guys went down in a heap. Joshua’s shot went far wide of Erica and blew up Ashley’s trampoline instead.
Ashley shrieked in horror.
Dane’s gun tumbled from his grasp and slid across the floor. Mike snatched it and ran.
Zoe was right behind him.
I started to follow, but Warren sprang into my path, clutching his knife, still resembling the world’s angriest topiary.
Before I even could think about what I was doing, I punched him in the face. Maybe my self-defense classes were finally starting to sink in. Or maybe I needed an outlet for all my anger at Warren for his betrayal. Whatever the case, it was a good, solid punch that my professors would have all been proud of.
“Ouch!” he whined, and then dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Behind us, Murray Hill hadn’t moved. Even though SPYDER had tried to kill him, he was staying by Joshua’s side.
Paul Lee hadn’t moved either. This wasn’t because he had chosen sides, however. He simply appeared inc
apable of making a decision to run or not.
Joshua and his bodyguards were struggling to their feet. Mike might have had Dane’s gun, but they still had plenty of other weapons.
I spotted the real detonator lying on the patio by the hole in the wall. Erica had dropped it while diving for her life. A few steps ahead of me, Zoe saw it too. She raced to pick it up.
But Ashley got to her first. She slammed into Zoe, wailing like a banshee. Both girls tumbled across the patio. The detonator skittered across the ground . . . and through the hole in the wall. It sailed off the penthouse level and tumbled out of sight.
Mike came to Zoe’s rescue, yanking Ashley off of Zoe and flinging her into the remains of the trampoline. We all followed Erica around the corner of the penthouse suite as Joshua and his bodyguards opened fire on us again.
A long, narrow stretch of patio ran along the penthouse. Erica snatched the gun from Mike and ordered, “Get downstairs and secure that detonator! I’ll hold the others off!”
“But . . . ,” I began.
“Just do it!” Erica yelled with such vehemence that I knew I’d better save my breath.
I glanced over the wall as I ran onward.
The detonator was lying on a scenic walkway at the base of the building ten stories below. It seemed to still be intact—and therefore possibly still functional. A group of people in neon-pink T-shirts was standing around it. Farkles.
“Don’t touch that!” I yelled, but I was too high up for them to hear me.
One of them bent down and picked it up anyhow.
Ahead of us was a door marked EMERGENCY EXIT. Our current situation seemed to qualify as an emergency. We burst through the door into a stairwell and raced downward as quickly as we could. Our entry triggered the alarm, which clanged loudly.
From above us came the sound of gunfire and another loud blast from one of Joshua’s palm-launched explosives.
“How many of those do you think he’s got?” Zoe asked breathlessly.
“There can’t be too many left,” I said. “That hand wasn’t big enough to hold very many.”
“You don’t think he’s got extras?” Mike asked.
None of us dared to ask what we were really worried about: Could Erica possibly hold off everyone else long enough for us to escape—and survive herself?
We reached the bottom of the staircase in less than a minute and barged through the fire door to find ourselves on the scenic walkway that we had seen from above. The spot where the Farkles had all been gathered around the detonator was only a few feet away from us, but the crowd—and the detonator—was all gone.
“Lousy Farkles,” Zoe cursed under her breath.
Around us, three separate groups of Farkles were heading off in different directions, one toward the water park, one toward the lobby, and one toward the beach. There was no way to know which one had the detonator. There wasn’t time to work out a plan, either. We simply split up, each racing after a separate group.
Mike headed for the beach. Zoe headed for the water park. I headed for the lobby.
From behind us, in the stairwell, I heard what sounded like someone very big tumbling downward in a very painful fashion. I could only hope it was Dane.
I raced along the scenic walkway, leaping over a few wayward iguanas, and skidded into the lobby. A large clump of Farkles was headed out toward the front drive, where it looked like they were about to begin an ATV tour. A dozen mud-splattered ATVs were idling there, while a mud-splattered tour guide was telling them how epic their morning’s adventure was going to be.
Meanwhile, Emma Mathes stood at the front desk, holding the detonator.
“Is there a lost and found?” she was asking. “I found this outside and it looks important.”
“That’s mine!” I yelled, far louder than I’d intended. I was too amped on adrenaline to modulate my voice. I raced across the lobby and rudely grabbed the detonator from Emma.
There was a cry and a thud from the lobby behind me. Dane Brammage and Joshua Hallal were chasing me and had bowled over a hapless Farkle grandmother in their haste.
I didn’t think they would open fire on me in front of a bunch of tourists, but I didn’t wait around to find out. I dodged through the crowd of Farkles and out into the front drive.
There was only one option for escape. I jumped onto the lead ATV, gunned the engine, and sped away.
“Hey!” the tour guide yelled after me. “You’re not allowed to use that unless you sign a waiver first!” He then yelped in surprise as Dane Brammage casually swatted him aside. Dane and Joshua stole two more ATVs and set off after me.
A rugged, twisting ATV track peeled off the main drive and led into the jungle around the hotel. I veered onto it.
Unfortunately, I had never driven an ATV before. Evasive Driving classes at spy school didn’t start until we were sixteen, and even then, they focused on normal things like cars and motorcycles. Meanwhile, the track twisted like a snake and was filled with gnarled roots, large chunks of limestone, and belligerent iguanas. I did my best to avoid as many obstacles as I could, but then an iguana the size of a schnauzer lurched in front of me, and I lost control while trying not to pancake it. I skidded off the track, crashed through a cheap wooden fence, and suddenly found myself racing through the water park.
I emerged underneath a tangle of waterslides. Six tubes twirled around one another like a serving of spaghetti, accessed by a five-story tower and supported by a spindly framework of metal beams. Even though it was rather early in the morning, dozens of gung-ho teenagers were already in line at the top of the tower, eager to get some rides in before the crowds showed up. Quite a few were recognizable as Farkles, wearing their neon-pink shirts, which were now sopping wet after a few rides.
I swerved through the support beams, splashing through murky puddles of water that had sloshed out of the slides. Joshua and Dane followed me, although Dane was having even more trouble controlling his ATV than I was. Since he weighed as much as a baby elephant, the ATV didn’t corner well with him atop it. He banged off several of the supports, severely bending each one, until the entire structure began to buckle under its own weight. The metal shrieked ominously, and the tubes trembled like Jell-O in an earthquake. The teens waiting for the slides realized they needed to bail out quickly. While many stampeded back down the stairs, others launched themselves onto the slides en masse, resulting in six separate clumps of humanity careening downward at once. None of this was good for the structural integrity of the ride.
With a final groan of rending metal, the whole thing crashed into the plunge pool, creating a tidal wave that swept a contingent of Farkle mothers into the lazy river.
Joshua Hallal barely escaped being crushed by detouring directly through a smoothie shack. Meanwhile, a large chunk of waterslide came down right on Dane’s head. A normal human would have ended up in a coma, but Dane shook it off as though he’d merely been beaned with a baseball.
The water park erupted into chaos. The walkways quickly clogged with panicked tourists.
I did my best to avoid them, while behind me, Dane and Joshua showed no such courtesy. They sped right at the guests, forcing them to dive into various pools for cover. Patio furniture and seventeen-dollar fruit plates were crumpled beneath their wheels.
I was wondering how I was ever going to shake these guys when I heard a familiar yell. “Ben! Heads up! Incoming!”
Zoe Zibbell was racing down a zip-line toward me with something long and shiny slung across her back. The zip-line ran low to the ground, designed to drop swimmers into the main pool. I swerved under it, and Zoe deftly dropped onto the ATV in the seat behind me. “Looks like you could use some help!” she announced.
“Is that a speargun?” I asked, nodding toward the object slung over her shoulder.
“Yes!” she proclaimed excitedly. “I got it from the activity shack. I was hoping for a machine gun, but they didn’t have any of those, so we’ll have to make do!” She plunged a spear dow
n the barrel, then wrapped an arm around me to steady herself as she aimed back at Dane. “Try not to make any sudden movements now!”
That was far easier said than done. Ahead of me, sunblock-smeared tourists were running every which way. Dozens had crashed into one another and were now sprawled on the lido deck. As Zoe took aim, a small child raced across my path, forcing me to swerve into a shallow kiddie pool. I plowed through it, sending up a spray of water that was probably 50 percent toddler urine.
Zoe’s shot went wide, missing Dane and puncturing an inflatable water slide in the kiddie area instead. With a flatulent blast of air, the slide promptly deflated, withering into a candy-colored pile of latex.
“We need to get out of this park or someone’s going to get hurt,” Zoe warned, then thought to add, “besides us.”
“I’m working on it,” I told her. Not far ahead, I spotted a four-wheel-drive road with a spindly gate stretched across it and a RESTRICTED ACCESS sign. A security guard slumped in a plastic chair beside it, sound asleep. I swerved that way, flattening the gate beneath my thick tires.
“Much better.” Zoe locked in another spear, then swiveled around and fired.
This time, her aim was spot-on. The spear pegged one of Dane’s front tires, which burst like a popped balloon. The ATV dipped forward and plowed into the turf, catapulting Dane into the main pool. His enormous body plunged into the water like a depth charge, dousing dozens of tanning teenage girls.
Now only Joshua Hallal remained on our tail. He veered onto the four-wheel-drive road behind us, glaring at us hatefully with his one good eye.
“I need to explain why I didn’t kiss you this morning,” I told Zoe.
“Now?” she gasped.
“There hasn’t been a good time since then,” I said. “And given that we might die soon, I didn’t want you to die thinking I don’t like you. Because I do. I think you’re amazing.”
“Really?” Zoe locked another spear into place.
“Yes!” I splashed through a large puddle that soaked both of us in brown glop. “You’re smart and beautiful and you’re a really talented spy, and I’m an idiot for never noticing it before.”