How to Outsmart a Billion Robot Bees

by Paul Tobin

  “I can repair him,” Nate said.

  “Huh?”

  “Sir William. I just saw the worry in your eyes and calculated you were thinking of him, right?”

  “Uh, right.” Nate’s uncanny, sometimes, with his ability to know what’s going on in someone’s mind. I myself always find it hard to guess what people are thinking about, other than . . . just then . . . it didn’t look like Maculte was at all worried about being given to the police.

  “And you can repair Sir William?” I asked Nate.

  “I can. I will. I have some ideas for new capabilities that—”

  “The police sure are taking their time,” I said. It’s important to stop Nate before he starts talking too much about working on robots. He can go on for hours. And . . . what I’d said was true. The sirens were closer, maybe, but still a ways off. What was taking so long?

  Nate only smiled. Shrugged. I couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking.

  We were all standing there, together, on the sidewalk, in the sunlight. It was warm. Hot, even. I reached out to Nate, put a finger on his upper arm, and pushed him a couple of steps into the shade of his tree house. I did this because direct sunlight can actually be harmful to your skin, especially if it raises your body temperature enough to trigger the nuclear bomb you’re wearing.

  “You, uhh . . . sure you made that call?” I asked Nate. It seemed like the police should’ve already arrived.

  “The proper authorities are on their way,” Nate assured me. He scratched his chin. A bit of paint flaked off. I watched the flecks waft down to the sidewalk. They hit with a PFFFT! sound effect, like the sidewalk had been shot.

  “Probably shouldn’t scratch anymore,” I told Nate.

  “Probably not,” he agreed.

  A crow was in the street, pecking at nothing, barely moving aside as another car approached. It was Liz Morris and her mom. They slowed down, then stopped.

  “Hey, Delphine!” Liz yelled out.

  “Hi, Liz!”

  “What are you guys doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay. I asked because it seems like Nate is painted green and standing there in his underwear, so when I asked what you were doing I thought maybe your answer would be more interesting than you saying, ‘nothing.’ Is this something we can talk about later?”

  “This is something we can talk about never.”

  “Hmm,” Liz said.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Hmmmm,” Liz said.

  “Maybe next week,” I said.

  “I’ll call you later tonight,” she said, and the car drove off, startling the crow. I couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. Where had they gone?

  “This is useless, you know,” Maculte said. He was far more relaxed than I personally felt he should be. He should have been un-relaxed. Anti-relaxed.

  “Orgoble,” Luria said. Her word (words?) was unintelligible, thanks to all the bee stings distorting her lips. The only thing I could tell for sure was, she wasn’t nervous about the police, either.

  Maculte said, “It’s true you’ve caught us, but we’ll escape from police custody within two hours.” My eyes went up with this. Was he serious? Just two hours, and then the leaders of the Red Death Tea Society would be free again? No way!

  Nate said, “Less than two hours, by my estimate. I personally calculate one hour seventeen minutes and twelve seconds, but that’s of no matter. I never said I called the police. I said I called the proper authorities. I have someone else in mind.”

  “Someone . . . else?” There was the first hint of anxiety in Maculte’s voice.

  “Yes,” Nate said. “Someone else.”

  And it was at that moment that I heard the helicopter. It started with that distant whuum whuum whumm noise, but quickly changed to a WHUMM WHUMM WHUMM noise, and then the helicopter swept up over the rooftops, sending shingles sailing away from the Greans’ house, and then the helicopter was right above our heads, blowing dust all over the street. The crow in the street was buffeted by the strong winds and swept up into the air, tumbling for a bit before righting itself, squawking in indignation before flying off into the distance. Bosper was running around beneath the helicopter, barking at it. Betsy was parked on the street, but the helicopter clearly made her nervous, because she started her engine all by herself and drove halfway down the block before parking.

  The helicopter landed.

  It was huge, painted an unreflective black, and mostly looked like a prehistoric insect. There was a gunman with a mounted rifle that looked like it could shoot through a mountain, and I noticed it was glowing with electricity, sending out bright red sparks. The soldier in charge of the weapon was wearing thick rubber gloves.

  The weapon was trained on Maculte.

  “Ahh . . . them,” Maculte said. “I . . . see.”

  Seven soldiers dressed in tight-fitting black clothing came leaping out of the helicopter almost before it settled on the street. Bosper was occasionally barking at them, but mostly yelling about hoping he could have a ride in the helicopter. The soldiers quickly searched the surrounding area, looking everywhere, putting on a variety of oddly colored goggles, scanning each of the nearby yards. One of the men had a spray bottle that he used to spritz some sort of liquid into the air, a liquid that spread out in a thick mist. Another of the soldiers set up an antenna in the middle of the street, and it began to hum. One of the women opened a metal box, no more than a few inches square, and a metallic eyeball whooshed out of the box to hover in the air. Everything was quick and efficient. In less than a minute, their search was over and they fanned out in a line, facing us, their weapons trained on Maculte and Luria.

  “All clear!” one of the soldiers yelled.

  A gray-haired man in a bright green suit stepped out of the helicopter. He was chewing bubblegum. He blew a bubble. Looking at me.

  “Delphine Cooper,” he said.

  “Reggie Barnstorm,” I said. It was the leader of the League of Ostracized Fellows, the man who’d kidnapped me only that morning. I didn’t even try to hide my frown. I’m not one to hold a grudge, but it really had been a kidnapping, and it really had been only that morning.

  “Dog rides in helicopter?” Bosper said, jumping up and down. It ruined a lot of the drama, and drama there was, because Maculte had grown tense. Luria was fuming.

  “You’re giving me to them?” Maculte said, barking the words as loudly as Bosper was begging to ride in the helicopter.

  “I’m giving you to them,” Nate said. “And then I’m washing off this nuclear paint and putting on some pants.” The soldiers had surrounded Maculte and Luria and were snapping handcuffs on them, handcuffs made of metal, and a second pair of handcuffs made of circular beams of light (no idea what that was about), and the hovering metal eyeball had zoomed to a position only a few feet above their heads, keeping watch. Reggie strode purposefully over and used a strange device (it reminded me of a magnifying glass, but the lens was black) to look over both Maculte and Luria from a yard away. Several times the device flashed for a second, and Reggie would reach over and grab something from Maculte’s suit, or use a laser to cut away the cuff links, and so on. Then Reggie repeated the process on Luria, all while his soldiers were carrying the various unconscious assassins of the Red Death Tea Society away from Nate’s house and yard.

  “Dog?” Bosper said. “Helicopter?” Nobody was answering him. The poor terrier was almost pleading.

  Nate, talking to Reggie Barnstorm, said, “We didn’t have much of a chance to talk earlier.”

  “No. Your dramatic rescue of Delphine was—Wait a moment. Is that nuclear paint? Are you an active nuclear bomb?”

  “Sort of,” Nate said. He shrugged. Some of the paint flaked off his shoulder. The breeze wafted the paint chips a few feet into the grass, where they exploded like a string of firecrackers and started a small fire. I smiled at Reggie while stomping out the flames. No big deal. Just one of those things, like when a friend sneezes an
d needs a tissue, or when a friend accidentally farts and you pretend to agree with her that the noise was only a squeaky floorboard, or when nuclear paint peels away from a friend’s shoulder and you need to stomp out the resulting flames. You know, the basics of friendship.

  “Hmmm,” Reggie said. “Well, I won’t claim to know how your mind works, so if you felt the need to paint your body with nuclear material, I’ll assume it was necessary.”

  “Seventy-one percent necessary,” Nate said. “And forty-two percent fun.”

  “Umm,” I said. “I know I’m basically the only non-genius here, but, that’s more than a hundred percent, right?”

  “Of course,” Nate said. “But fun doesn’t play by math’s rules.” I thought Reggie and Maculte were going to faint when Nate said that, but I wanted to hug him. It was one of the main reasons why he was better than them, meaning that he wasn’t just some cold computerized version of a person, that he—

  “Delphine?” Nate said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m calculating a ninety-seven percent chance that you want to hug me now. Please don’t.”

  “Oh?” I was a little disappointed. He usually isn’t bothered by my hugs. Maybe he was growing more impersonal? Maybe being around these other geniuses would turn him into—

  “Because we’d explode if you hugged me,” Nate explained.

  “Oh, right. That.”

  “I assume this fulfills my obligation?” Nate asked Reggie. “I’ve given you Maculte.”

  “Just so,” Reggie smiled. “We at the League of Ostracized Fellows will no longer badger you to join us. Though, we’re having a dance mixer next Tuesday, and it would be grand if you and Delphine could attend. I’ll be reciting my poetry and playing the xylophone!”

  “Ooo,” I said. It was basically a verbal grimace.

  “The dog knows how to be in a helicopter,” Bosper pleaded. “The dog can show you!”

  By then, the soldiers had loaded all the members of the Red Death Tea Society into the helicopter. All of them except Maculte, who looked back to us just before stepping up into the vehicle.

  He said, “Nathan, a request, from one genius to another. I give you my word of honor that I’ll never bother you again, if . . . you tell me where you hid the Infinite Engine.”

  Nate, looking as proud as I’ve ever seen him, said, “Under my pillow, in my room.”

  “Ingenious!” Maculte said, with awe in his voice.

  “Brilliant!” Reggie Barnstorm said. More awe.

  “Really, guys?” I said. “It’s brilliant to hide something under a pillow? That’s really stupid! That’s . . . ahh, you know what? Forget it. Never mind. Maculte, it’s been horrible knowing you, but I guess we’ll never see you again.”

  “Yes, you will,” he said. “And next time, this ends differently.” With his smug smile in place, he stepped up into the helicopter.

  “Next time?” I said. “What? No! You promised you’d quit bothering Nate. You . . . you lied!”

  “Not really,” he said. “Nathan knew I wasn’t telling the truth, and if a lie isn’t believed, then it was never a lie in the first place.”

  “Don’t try philosophy on me. You promised on your honor!”

  “It’s fine,” Nate said. “I did know he was lying, and as far as Maculte promising on his honor, he has none. And I knew that, too.”

  With that, the sliding door on the helicopter began to shut. As it slid closed, I could see the usual smile of arrogant amusement on Maculte’s face. But, then, just before the door closed, and when he probably thought we couldn’t see him anymore, I saw the hate.

  Pure seething hate.

  And then the door closed, and the helicopter rose up into the sky and was gone.

  Poor Bosper was baying at the disappearing helicopter, like a dog barking at the moon.

  So we’re safe?” I asked as Nate and I were walking back to his house.

  “Safe? No. It’s true that the police couldn’t have held Maculte and Luria, but the League won’t be able to, either. Frankly, they’re out of their mental league. I calculate thirteen days, six hours, and fifteen minutes until Maculte and Luria escape.”

  “Guhh,” I said. I pulled out my phone and looked at it. I went to my alarm app and set the timer for thirteen days, six hours, and fourteen minutes. I showed it to Nate and said, “Really? Only this long before they escape?”

  He nodded.

  “Then . . . why even give Maculte to Reggie and the League? Why didn’t we just . . . send Maculte off into space or something?”

  “I thought about it, but sending someone into space requires several days’ notice.”

  “Are . . . are you being serious?”

  “Of course. You should never send someone into space without preparing.”

  “No, I mean . . . we really could have sent Maculte into space?”

  “Sure. But I couldn’t have done any of the necessary preparations while also keeping Maculte in custody. So I decided to do it this way, because giving Maculte to the League will allow us enough time to send the Infinite Engine into space, where it can’t hurt anyone. It’s simply too dangerous to have around, and I can’t destroy it without catastrophically releasing all the energy, but I can send it off into the deep, dark depths of the universe, where nobody can possibly steal it ever again.”

  “Oh,” I said, thinking it was good that the Infinite Engine would be safe, but not thinking it was good that we wouldn’t be safe, because I was looking at the timer on my phone, to a remaining countdown of thirteen days, six hours, and thirteen minutes.

  An hour later, Nate had used a bath of subatomic particles to wash away the nuclear paint. I wasn’t really sure what “a bath of subatomic particles” meant, other than it made Nate’s skin a bright pink, and for some reason he smelled like a lightning strike.

  Three hours later, Nate had repaired all the damage to Sir William. He was as good as new, or even better, because this time Sir William’s screech was a recording of my voice instead of Nate’s, and I do a much better imitation of a gull.

  Eight hours after Maculte was gone, it was the middle of the night and I was staring at my ceiling, trying to sleep. That is also what was happening nine hours after Maculte was gone, and ten hours after he was gone. Eleven hours after he was gone, I was having a dream about cake that I’d best not describe.

  Fifteen hours after Maculte had been taken away, I was back at Nate’s place, where he’d temporarily converted Betsy into a helicopter. We were soon flying high above Polt, whooshing through the skies, with Bosper hanging half out of the open door, and his tongue hanging all the way out of his mouth.

  “Good dog!” he was saying. “Good dog!”

  I felt sorry for everyone down below, because the weather report had a high probability of drool.

  Sixteen hours and one minute after we’d watched the League of Ostracized Fellows take Maculte away, Betsy was admitting defeat. Between all the bees that I’d stunned with my musical brilliance and the ones I’d turned into friends during the battle with Luria, I’d easily won our contest to see which of us could defeat the most bees, and therefore win the prize. And by “prize,” I mean the kiss from Nate.

  “It’s mine?” I asked.

  “I guess,” Nate said. He was confused. He hadn’t truly understood that Betsy and I had been in a competition, or that his kiss was the prize. It was . . . interesting to see Nate confused. He’s so smart that he almost always knows what’s going on. It made me almost sort of maybe want to kiss him.

  I said, “If the kiss is mine, then I can do whatever I want with it.”

  “True,” Nate said.

  I pointed to Betsy and said, “Kiss her.”

  Betsy’s paint turned bright red.

  “Ooo!” she said.

  Twenty-seven hours after Maculte was taken away by the League of Ostracized Fellows, Tommy Brilp called to ask if I wanted to go out with him. I said, “No.”

  Three days after we defeate
d the Red Death Tea Society, Melville landed on the windowsill outside my bedroom when I was doing my homework.

  “Bzzz?” she said, which I translated as, “I’m sorry that I flew off with all the other bees, but now I’m back and I hope you’ll forgive me and we can be friends, and if you need me to sting somebody that wouldn’t be any problem.”

  I opened the window. She flew inside and landed on my math homework. I went to the hallway and yelled downstairs, saying, “Mom! Can I have a pet bumblebee?”

  “Yes!” she called up.

  “Great! Thanks!”

  “Sure! Hey . . . were you serious?”

  “Yes!”

  “Oh. Huh. Well, what do bumblebees eat?”

  “Honey, I guess? Potato chips? Nectar? Pizza? I’m not sure. I know she likes sugar.”

  “Does she eat much?’

  “Mom! Her name is Melville and she’s my friend and she’s a bee. It would take her, like, ten days to eat a single sugar cube.”

  Silence.

  “Mom?”

  “Okay, Delphine. But make sure she doesn’t sting your father.”

  Ten days after Maculte went into custody, Nate was looking through my adventure kit and telling me there wasn’t enough.

  “Not enough adventure?” I said.

  “Not enough tools,” he said. “Let me work something up for you.”

  Twelve days after Maculte and Luria were gone, and only a little more than a day before Nate had predic­ted they would escape, Nate brought me a new and improved adventure kit. It still had my favorites, like the first aid kit, a few candy bars, my good luck charm, some bottled water, a jar of peanut butter, a compass and a whistle and a flashlight and so on, but now there was more.

  Much more.