Edison's Alley

by Neal Shusterman

  “I found the creeps who did this to you. They’re a secret society called the Accelerati, they wear suits made from spiderwebs, and I’m going to take them down.”

  There was complete silence on the line, and Mitch was afraid the call had dropped. Then he heard his father’s deep strangled gasp, like he’d been holding his breath in shock while Mitch was talking.

  “Mitch, don’t. Don’t even try,” his father said. “Just forget about them.”

  “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Mitch, listen to me.” His father’s voice was stern, sharp. “Stay away from them. They’re dangerous.”

  “I know. I don’t care.”

  “There are things you don’t understand! You don’t know what these people are capable of,” his father warned.

  “And they don’t know what I’m capable of,” Mitch told him.

  The truth was, Mitch himself didn’t know what he was capable of. He was now officially a loose cannon, and he liked that idea just fine.

  While Mitch planned vengeance, Caitlin became a news junkie. She found it amazing how much pointless drivel filled the airwaves and Internet when it came to current events. So much so that important things vanished in the loud camouflage of celebrity sightings and car chases.

  What Caitlin was able to tease out from the world soup offered glimpses of something very grim.

  Entire flocks of geese were freezing to death, flying into the Arctic Circle instead of toward warmer climates. A record number of ships were getting marooned—not sinking, just lost at sea, unable to get their bearings and find land before running out of fuel. Power plants were going off-line with no official explanation. Not enough of them to cause a panic, but enough to raise a red flag for anyone who wasn’t focused on the latest high-speed chase.

  Caitlin was too distracted in English that morning to write a coherent essay on Brave New World. Cowardly New World was more like it, considering how everyone seemed to be hiding from a truth that was becoming clearer and clearer to Caitlin: it was only a matter of time before the billions of little shocks ignited the atmosphere or electrocuted every living thing on the planet.

  She caught up with Nick between first and second period. His eyes were bloodshot, his manner skittish. He was filled with nervous energy. Just like the world, thought Caitlin. Sparking with no way to release the charge.

  She had come to realize that he was right—it was his task to assemble the machine. But he had to hold himself together in the process.

  “We can cross the washboard off the list,” Nick told her. “I got it back and added it to the rest.”

  “That leaves twelve things to find,” Caitlin said.

  “We just have to keep at it,” Nick said. “We’ll get them eventually, I know it.”

  Nick treated each find like a victory in a game, but eventually wasn’t good enough anymore. He had directed Caitlin’s attention to the big picture, but now there was an even bigger picture that he didn’t see. He was already obsessed with the machine—how much worse would he be if he knew they were running out of time?

  “Maybe we can’t do this on our own,” Caitlin dared to suggest. “Maybe we need to turn this over to—”

  “To who?” Nick stared at her as if she had just slapped him. “The Accelerati? The government? No! This landed in my hands for a reason. I was meant to do this, Caitlin. We were meant to do this.”

  His manner was getting increasingly intense whenever he spoke of his place in the workings of the mysterious machine. Nick saw himself as not just the steward of Tesla’s dream, but as an inheritor of it.

  “I’m just saying we need help.”

  The late bell rang, and Caitlin had the urge to race to class. How strange that mundane things like school schedules still held sway over her life when such larger things were brewing. She resisted the desire to leave, and pressed Nick one more time.

  “This is too much for us to do alone. Just promise you’ll think about it.”

  “All right,” Nick said. “I promise.”

  Nick resented the fact that Caitlin didn’t trust him to do this himself. But maybe she was right. He wasn’t all-knowing and all-powerful. When he stood close to the machine, he felt like he knew things—but he wasn’t sure what those things were. It wasn’t that the machine spoke to him. It was more like listening to music. Even if you’ve never heard the tune before, you can sense the next note. You can predict where it needs to go next. This instinctive sense inspired confidence. Maybe too much confidence. Perhaps he did need to take Caitlin’s advice.

  And so, during lunch, he lingered at the back of the line and approached the food counter after all the other kids had been served. He was a bit embarrassed to approach Ms. Planck after freaking out in the cafeteria for no reason the other morning, but he had unfinished business with her.

  “Ms. Planck?” he said, getting her attention. Then he slipped a folded piece of paper beneath the glass sneeze-protector. “Remember our conversation last week? Well, these are things I’m still trying to find. Anything you can do to help would mean the world to me.”

  Ms. Planck took the paper and carefully slipped it into her apron with a warm smile. “Of course, Nick. It’ll be my pleasure.” Then she gave him a double helping of lasagna.

  Vince didn’t have Nick’s uncanny ability to figure out where things went in Tesla’s invention—but it was pretty obvious to him that the globe would fit comfortably in the drum of the dryer. That would make it the centerpiece of the machine. Inconveniently, it was now at the bottom of an extremely deep, extremely murky Scottish lake. One that might or might not have a monster in it. As unfortunate as that was for Nick, it was very fortunate for Vince, who had no desire to give up his life so the contraption could be completed.

  He had no idea that Nick had just unknowingly handed the Accelerati a list of every missing item. But even if Vince had known, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. He doubted the Accelerati were readers of the Planetary Times. And even if they were, he doubted they would have caught the small photo on page 17 of the previous week’s issue. As long as Vince kept silent, no one would know where the globe was and no one would ever complete that machine.

  Wayne Slate’s interest in the electrical anomaly besieging the planet was mostly limited to its effect on the photocopy machines at NORAD. He repaired the older, analog variety, much more common than one might expect at such a high-tech, cutting-edge installation. These vintage copiers transferred toner through an electrostatic charge. Thanks to the atmospheric interference, all the pages were coming out completely black.

  What began to concern Wayne more than his additional workload, however, were the huge unmarked personnel carriers ferrying people into the massive stronghold under Cheyenne Mountain.

  Of course, this was the government—they always knew things no one else did. But the commotion seemed eerily similar to when, only a few weeks earlier, important people had scurried beneath the mountain to hide from the end of the world.

  Danny had grown up in Florida, where unexpected thunderstorms were a way of life; thus he found nothing unusual in the increased electrical activity. He actually enjoyed pranking his friends by shuffling his feet on the carpet, then sneaking up behind them and touching their earlobes, delivering a shock that would make them jump.

  He knew his brother was probably involved in something he shouldn’t have been, but he idolized Nick; therefore, while he sensed that Nick was in over his head, he chose to believe that Nick could handle it.

  Sure, maybe there were creepy inventions doing creepy things in their creepy attic. But hadn’t Nick just taken him and his new friend Seth out for ice cream? He wouldn’t do that if he were in any sort of real trouble, would he?

  So Danny continued to shock his friends and watch the non-northern lights, convinced that everything was fine and that in his next game he would finally catch a ball for real.

  Through all of this, some fifteen thousand miles away, Celestial Object Felicity Bonk wa
s growing excited—in the electrical sense. And she couldn’t wait to share some of that excitement with the planet below.

  To say that the world was caught unawares would be untrue. There was more than enough evidence that Felicity Bonk was ready to go bonkers. But the aurora was so beautiful, so heavenly, that most people had a hard time believing anything could be seriously wrong.

  The grounding of all aircraft due to severe navigational issues drove the reality home. A world without flight was unthinkable—almost as terrifying as a world without television—which seemed a possibility, too, because broadcasts were fading, and satellite dishes were searching for signals lost in the magnetic haze.

  People had panicked when Felicity Bonk was on a life-ending collision course with Earth, but most didn’t have the energy to panic again. They just waited for whatever miserable thing was coming next.

  Petula Grabowski-Jones was that miserable thing.

  On Sunday morning—when the first announcements were being made about the world’s grounded aircraft—Petula announced herself at Nick’s house with a door pounding that could wake the dead.

  The moment Nick opened the door, she grabbed him and shook him, until he knocked her arms away.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “It was coming eventually. I just wanted to get it over with.”

  Danny, eating breakfast, peered out from the kitchen. “Is that the weird girl with the braids? I thought you hated her,” he shouted.

  “Everything’s relative,” said Nick, which Petula seemed to take as a compliment.

  Nick knew Petula would barge in and make herself at home if given the chance, so he stood in the doorway, barring entry. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “The harp,” she said. “I know where it is.”

  That statement piqued Nick’s interest enough to allow her in the front door, at least as far as the foyer. “So the Accelerati don’t have it after all?”

  “No, they do,” said Petula, “but I found out where they’re keeping it.”

  And although this was great news, Nick had to wonder, “How did you find out?”

  “Never mind how,” Petula said. “That’s not important.”

  “If none of the rest of us have been able to find it, how did you?”

  Petula released something between a grunt and a sigh. “Okay, fine. I was at the mall and this lady in a pastel-blue pants suit got hit by a semi.”

  “She got hit by a semi? At the mall?”

  “In front of the mall!”

  “Which mall?”

  “It doesn’t matter! What matters is what came flying off her shattered body.” And Petula held out a pin—a tiny gold A with an infinity crossbar—the pin that every Accelerati wore. “When I realized she was one of them, I followed her.”

  “How could you follow her if she was killed by a truck?”

  “Not her! I mean her dog! She had a dog that didn’t get hit by the truck. I followed the dog.”

  “What kind of dog?” asked Danny, who had joined them in the foyer.

  “The kind of dog that knows how to return home after their master gets run over by a truck, okay?” Petula said with increasing frustration.

  “Go on,” said Nick. “What happened next?”

  “It led me right to the Accelerati’s lair.”

  Nick took a long look at Petula. There was something about her that seemed both sincere and devious at the same time. He didn’t know what to make of it.

  “Why should I believe any of this?” he asked.

  Petula reached over to shake him, but stopped, apparently realizing she had already gotten that over with. With her hands limp by her sides, she said, “Look, I know I’ve never given you a reason to trust me. But this time you have to. I do know where the Accelerati are hiding the harp, and we can get it back. If you don’t believe anything else, believe that.”

  And in that moment, Nick found the scale tipping in Petula’s favor. He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the others.”

  He was dialing as his father emerged from the kitchen. “Did you say someone got hit by a truck?”

  It was the first time that the five of them had been together since their summit meeting in Nick’s attic. Now they stood in the garage, where it all began, and Nick looked at each of them in turn. Vince, Mitch, Petula, and, of course, Caitlin. Now he just had to sell them on the mission and convince them they could succeed. It would be hard, because he wasn’t entirely convinced himself, but now that he knew the harp was within his reach, the risk didn’t seem to matter.

  “We can’t just walk into the Accelerati’s headquarters and take the harp,” Caitlin said.

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Nick said. “They won’t be expecting it—we’ll have the element of surprise on our side.”

  “Bring it on,” Mitch said, more emboldened than Nick had ever seen him.

  “There’s only five of us and a gazillion of them,” Caitlin pointed out.

  “I don’t think there’s all that many,” said Petula. “Especially not on a weekend.”

  “What,” said Caitlin, “are they all home watching sports?”

  “Maybe,” said Petula. “I mean, they must have normal lives when they’re not being Accelerati.”

  Each of them had their defensive item with them. Vince brought the narc-in-the-box, Mitch the windstorm bellows, and Petula had gone home to get the clarinet. Nick took the frost fan down from the attic, and Caitlin brought the force-field sifter, which would theoretically make them impervious to attack. They had jury-rigged the devices with carabiner clips so they could hang from their belts, freeing up their hands. Nick couldn’t help but think they looked like a pathetic pack of superhero wannabes.

  Through all of this Vince had been silent. This was nothing unusual—he was a kid of few words. So the words that came out of his mouth now caught them all by surprise.

  “Give me one reason why I would walk into the Accelerati’s hideout and bring them my battery,” Vince said. “I might as well just unplug myself now.”

  No one said anything for a moment. This was the first time Vince had drawn a line in the sand. Today was supposed to be a day for solidarity, but Nick found himself wanting to rip Vince’s dark glasses off of his face so he could look Vince in the eyes. Then he remembered that the glasses were connected to the battery, so he couldn’t do it.

  “Whose side are you on, Vince?”

  “I’ve never been on any side,” he told Nick. “I just bought something in your stupid garage sale and got sucked into something I never wanted to be a part of.”

  Caitlin stepped forward. “None of us wanted to be a part of this, Vince, but here we are.”

  “Here you are.”

  “Should I smack him?” Petula asked.

  “I don’t think it will make a difference,” Mitch said. “But smack him anyway.”

  Nick put up his hand to stop Petula.

  “Vince,” Nick reasoned, “this is a chance for you to do something that matters.”

  Vince shook his head. “None of this matters,” he said. “I know for a fact that you’ll never finish that machine!”

  Nick remained calm. “Because finishing it means you’d have to die? Maybe for good?”

  There. The truth was out in the open. He waited to see how Vince would react. Vince just shook his head, and Nick had the strange feeling that Vince knew something he didn’t.

  “You’ll never even get that far,” Vince said. “Trust me—even without my battery, you’re screwed.”

  It was hard to read Vince’s emotions through those dark glasses. Impossible to see where his eyes were focused. The standoff continued for a few more seconds, then Vince handed Nick the narc-in-the-box.

  “I’m not going,” he said. “I may be dead, but I’m not suicidal.” And he left. Just like that.

  “We don’t need him,” Mitch said.

  Oddly, it was Petula who was the most perturbed by Vince’s vanishin
g act. “But…but he has to be there!” she said.

  Nick hooked the narc-in-the-box onto his belt. “Forget him. We’ll do this without him.”

  Five minutes later, a pickup truck pulled into the driveway. Petula put aside her worries about Vince’s unexpected departure and took everyone over to meet the driver: her cousin Harley. She engaged in a very short negotiation with him, as he would do anyone’s evil, or non-evil, bidding for a price.

  Once the bargain was struck, Harley drove them in the back of his pickup, beneath unsettlingly troubled skies, to a rundown bowling alley in a questionable part of town.

  “Atomic Lanes?” said Caitlin. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “This is where the dog went,” Petula told them as she hopped out. “Let’s go inside.”

  Harley, who had no interest in their mission except that it had earned him twenty-five bucks plus lunch, was content to wait in the parking lot, blasting death metal—an appropriate sound track for their assault on the Accelerati.

  As it was Sunday, the alley was hopping with die-hard bowlers, families, and birthday parties.

  “Get shoes, pick a ball, and pretend like you’re here to bowl,” Petula told them.

  “You’re joking, right?” said Caitlin.

  “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves,” Petula whispered.

  “Uh—we’ve got a fan, a bellows, a flour sifter, a clarinet, and a jack-in-the-box clipped to our belts,” Nick pointed out. “How could we not draw attention to ourselves?”

  Petula ignored him, went to the counter, and requested lane five, even though it was already taken. “We’ll wait—it’s my lucky lane,” she said, batting her eyelashes at the disinterested clerk.

  “Lane five is a secret entrance,” Petula said softly to the others while they watched the other bowlers finish their game. “You have to knock down a certain combination of pins to get in.”

  “And you got all this from a dog?” Caitlin asked.

  Petula huffed. “The dog led me to the bowling alley, and inside a guy in a pastel suit was bowling here on lane five. I stayed long enough to see two different Accelerati bowl the exact same pattern and then disappear.”