He turned to the coffin-shaped box wrapped in hamster tubes. Arthur noticed a tiny stream of silver particles flowing through them. As Milo lifted his hand over the centre of the box, a holographic dial appeared beneath it. He moved his fingers a quarter-turn anti-clockwise and then a half-turn clockwise. The dial spun and tiny red lasers scanned his fingertips. Then, with a hiss, a small window opened in the top. “Right where I left it,” he muttered cheerily, reaching in and pulling out an ornate metallic casket, the size of an egg box.
Arthur’s skin tingled with anticipation as he shared a weary smile with Ren and Cecily. After everything they’d been through, their journey was almost at an end. In a few minutes, the Wonderway would open and they’d step back into Number Twenty-Seven. He got butterflies at the thought of seeing his dad again, although that wouldn’t be till later. First he’d have to leave Peacepoint, get to school and try to explain to his form tutor why he was late. He couldn’t believe how desperate he was to have everything back, even the ordinary things that he usually moaned about.
Sliding aside a beaker of yellow liquid, Milo set the casket on the table and lifted open the hinged lid. His face drained of colour. “But … that’s impossible!”
Arthur craned his neck to see over the top, and felt his stomach crunch.
The casket was empty.
“What’s happened?” he said, going cold. “Where’s the time-key?”
Milo frantically felt around inside the casket, but it was no use. “I don’t know. I’m the only person with access to this box and no one – not even Cloud – knew it was here.”
Arthur gritted his teeth. Milo obviously wasn’t as clever as he thought he was, hiding the time-key there. A strange expression passed over Mary Shelley’s monster features, but with all the lumps, scars and stitches Arthur found it difficult to read. He wondered if she knew something more.
“What do we do now?” Ren asked. “We can’t have much time left.”
As Arthur went to check his watch, a rattle echoed around the theatre and the floor rumbled. Suddenly, a torrent of armed T-class mimics blasted through the upper door and came thundering towards them, their long black robes billowing like storm clouds. Arthur’s heart crawled into his throat as, one by one, more units appeared until they must have numbered over a hundred. Their long faces and ice-blue glares fixed on him and the others as they swiftly circled the room.
At the very end of the line strode Tiburon Nox himself; his chin held high, his oily black Wondercloak sweeping the floor by his ankles. “Congratulations, brother,” he spat as he descended the steps. “You’ve surprised me. I didn’t think you’d ever solve my Menlo puzzle. You really shouldn’t have ridden a dragon here, though. Even with the storm, you were easy to spot.”
Arthur felt a crawling sensation across the back of his neck as the ring of T-class mimics drew closer, smoke rising from their blades. He spotted Ren and Cecily edging in front of the chair covering Cloud, but Mary Shelley was nowhere to be seen…
Milo snatched a beaker of bubbling pink jelly off the closest table and lurched forwards. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else, Tiburon. Hand over the time-key.”
Two T-class units zoomed towards him and restrained his arms behind his back. Despite his considerable size, after a moment’s struggle, Milo’s jaw stiffened and he went still.
“Leave him alone!” Ren roared, reaching for her bow. Before she’d notched her final arrow, another T-class sped over, wrenched the weapon out of her hands and restrained her.
Arthur saw red and charged. Cecily rushed forwards too. Arthur had only made it a few paces when cold fingers dug into his shoulder and his arm was yanked back. “Argh!” he yelled, pain shooting down his spine. He kicked his foot backwards as hard as he could, but it only passed harmlessly through a hover-wheel. Too late. The strong arms of a T-class unit wrapped around his body.
Cecily was easily overpowered by another T-class, who lifted her off the ground while she screamed. As the three of them squirmed, their shadow patches were ripped from their wrists and their Wondercloaks removed.
With a gleeful smile, Tiburon lifted a dark time-key out from under his collar. It was fixed to a chain around his neck. It looked just like the time-key on Cloud’s collar and Arthur guessed it must be the other prototype that Tiburon had stolen from Milo years ago. But if Tiburon didn’t have the time-key that Milo had hidden in the lab, then who did?
“The trouble with you and your friends, Milo, is that you lack vision,” Tiburon said. “You would rather destroy this than use it. And then where would Hxperion be?” He shook his head and skulked towards the Wonderway. “I really wish there was another way, but you give me no choice. I can’t let you interfere again.” Crouching, he tampered with the keypad at the bottom.
“What are you doing?” Milo barked, struggling against the T-class.
Tiburon locked eyes with his brother. “I expect you’ve never tried inputting a fractional realm number into a Wonderway, have you? The thing is, it’s impossible to transport an object to two different places simultaneously. Not in one piece, anyway.”
“Tiburon, no!” Milo squirmed as the two T-classes hauled him towards the Wonderway.
“It was uncharacteristically short-sighted of me to dump you in a closed realm,” Tiburon added, fetching a realm-key from his pocket. “This is a much tidier long-term solution.”
Arthur’s pulse hammered in his ears. Not in one piece? That meant … Tiburon was going to kill Milo! Arthur knew he had to do something; he just wasn’t sure what. Never mind that without Milo, they had no chance of getting home. He had to save him.
Across the floor, the T-classes squeezed Ren and Cecily tighter as they struggled. Ren’s teeth were gritted and Cecily’s eyes shone with pain. Cloud, Arthur noticed, had retreated into the shadows under a table, trembling with fear. Arthur balled his fists and tried to remain calm. He couldn’t come up with an escape plan if he wasn’t thinking clearly…
Just then, the click of heels sounded in the stairwell outside and everyone, including Tiburon, looked towards the door. Arthur had a horrible sense of déjà vu as a mob of stylish security V-class units strutted through the doorway like models on a runway, followed at the rear by their fashion designer, Valeria Mal’fey. The mimics were dressed head to hover-wheel in green camouflage and equipped with the same make-up-themed weapons Arthur had seen them wielding at Tomoe Gozen’s house. “It’s true, then,” Valeria sneered, glaring at Milo. Her mirrored Wondercloak looked like armour as she marched into the centre of the theatre. “I always suspected you’d come sniffing back when business took an upward turn.”
“Valeria!” Tiburon’s expression faltered. “How did you—?”
“I have my spies too, brother,” she said smugly. She signalled to Arthur, Ren and Cecily. “I’ve been following these brats for two days. They’re working for Milo.”
It dawned on Arthur that Tiburon had not anticipated his sister’s arrival. He wondered if there was a way to use that to their advantage.
“Valeria, help me,” Milo wheezed, struggling to fill his lungs under the T-class’s bear-hug grip.
She folded her arms. “Why should I? I understand exactly why Tiburon’s angry with you – you abandoned us when the company was in trouble.” She thrust a glittery nail at her older brother. “If it hadn’t been for his new line of mimics and my PR genius, Hxperion wouldn’t exist now.” She turned her nose up at Milo’s filthy fairground outfit. “Where have you been, anyway? You look awful.”
Arthur realized Valeria had no clue Tiburon had been responsible for Milo going missing. He suspected that she didn’t know that Tiburon had been using one of Milo’s time-keys either, or she would have mentioned it. He saw Tiburon’s lips draw into a snarl as he whispered something to a nearby T-class. Realizing he might not get another opportunity, Arthur took a chance and yelled, “Tiburon trapped Milo in a closed realm! He’s been lying to you!”
“Silence!” Tiburon boomed, making the
smoke on the T-classes’ weapons flicker.
Before Arthur could utter another word, cold fingers covered his mouth. “Mmm!” he mumbled.
“Tiburon stole Milo’s techno—” Cecily managed, before she too was gagged. Ren hadn’t yet taken a breath when the T-class holding her clamped a hand over her face.
But it didn’t matter. Arthur could tell by Valeria’s expression that they’d said enough to plant a seed of doubt in her mind.
Valeria’s gaze slid across to her older brother. “Tiburon, what are they talking about? Do you know where Milo’s been?”
“Stay out of this,” Tiburon said curtly, signalling to the two T-class units holding Milo. “I did what was necessary. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
As the T-classes dragged Milo towards the Wonderway, Arthur made as much noise as he could, wriggling and kicking with all his strength.
Valeria’s green suede gloves curled into fists. “You mean … this is true? All this time you’ve been lying to me?”
“I have everything under control,” Tiburon growled. “Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Valeria’s cheeks flushed. “You’re the most devious person I know – I wouldn’t trust you if my life depended on it.” She signalled to her V-class units, who all reached for the hair-clip throwing stars on their weapons belts.
Tiburon’s jaw tightened. He motioned to his T-class army. “Valeria, I’m warning you…”
One by one, the T-class units raised their smoking swords. Peeking above the fingers of the T-class holding him, Arthur stared at Ren and Cecily. This might be their only chance to get away.
“You’re wrong, Tiburon,” Valeria said, lifting her chin. “You do have to explain yourself to me.” And with that, all hell broke loose.
The mob of V-class mimics surged towards the T-classes, launching their glittery throwing stars. Some stars were deflected by the T-classes’ blades; others made target, striking the Tiburon-lookalikes with such force they were thrown backwards. The T-classes slashed precisely, their smoking swords melting their opponents’ skin with a loud sizzle wherever they struck. The crack of splintering wood echoed around the room as mimics on both sides crashed into the theatre benches.
Two V-classes unpinned a couple of perfume grenades and rolled them onto the floor, where they burst into smoke. The theatre filled with fog, reminding Arthur spookily of his time in the maze. In all the commotion, he thrashed wildly, trying to break free.
Out of the mist a V-class came looming towards him, a barbed blow-dry brush in her slim hand. Arthur’s captor stiffened and tried to lift his sword but, still holding Arthur, he wasn’t able to. The V-class grinned and swung. Arthur sank his head into his neck and squeezed his eyes closed, anticipating the blow…
Instead, he felt his stomach shoot into his mouth as he slipped out from under the T-class’s arms, and landed with a jolt on the floor. Opening his eyes, he saw the T-class who had been restraining him zip past at his shoulder and spring into combat.
His heart rattling, Arthur scrambled under a nearby table and leaped to his feet on the other side. “Ren! Cecily!” Shadows whipped through the smoke, but he couldn’t tell if any of them were his friends.
Then he heard a breathless voice. “Arthur! Down here!”
Ren.
Down here? Arthur wondered what she meant. He scanned the floor and noticed wet paw prints leading towards the rear of the room. Shaking with nerves, he hurried through the mist after them.
He clambered over the remains of a couple of defunct V-class mimics and dodged the reach of a lame T-class who crawled out of the smoke, dragging his defunct hover-wheels behind him. The shattering snap of furniture, clash of weapons and angry shouts of mimics resounded all around.
The paw prints stopped at the edge of a circular hole. A rusty iron manhole cover sat on the concrete next to it. Arthur peered over the edge and saw Ren, Cecily and Cloud standing in a puddle of dark water, a few metres below. The rungs of a ladder glinted in the dim light.
Cloud wagged his tail and barked.
“Hurry!” Cecily called up.
Fast as he could, Arthur swung his legs into the opening and found the ladder with his foot. As he lowered himself down, he saw a figure creep out of the gloom in the anatomy theatre ahead.
Tiburon Nox’s long face was sweaty and streaked with blood, his upper lip curled into a snarl. “You and your friends have caused me a lot of trouble,” he said menacingly. “I don’t want you using the time-key around that dog’s neck to cause any more. Now you will give it to me.”
26
The splash of Cecily’s footsteps echoed as she ran. “Eurgh!” She tugged her T-shirt over her nose. “The air is one hundred per cent fart down here.”
Arthur coughed, trying to remove the foul stench from the back of his throat. They were hurrying along a wide, brick-built tunnel with openings on either side. Shafts of moonlight filtered through grates in the curved ceiling, illuminating the flooded floor below. “This must be a sewer under the city,” he said, recognizing the outline of a building overhead.
A clatter echoed behind and the rumble of a hundred hover-wheels filled the tunnel, sending ripples through the murky water at their feet.
“FIND THEM!” Tiburon Nox shouted.
“This way!” Cecily called, darting into a connecting passageway.
They sprinted – and, in some tunnels, waded – until their thighs burned and their shoes were soaked through. No matter how fast they went, the roar of Tiburon and his T-classes never sounded far off. Eventually, they came to a dry circular chamber with six tunnels leading off in different directions. “Which way now?” Cecily queried.
Cloud plodded around the edge of the room, sniffing the air in each passageway.
“I don’t think it matters,” Arthur said, panting. Their pursuers were close; he could hear it. “Tiburon designed this realm, so he probably knows the sewers inside out. We can’t outrun him.”
“We can’t outfight him either,” Ren said, feeling across her shoulder for where her bow and quiver used to rest. “We’ve lost all our Wonderskills.”
Now he had a moment to think about it, Arthur felt cold and empty. When he reached to the corners of his mind, Newton’s fountain of knowledge wasn’t there any more. He hadn’t realized how much he’d liked having it. He drew back the sleeve of his raincoat and almost stumbled over. “We’ve only got twenty-seven minutes left!”
Ren’s legs shuddered and Cecily covered her mouth like she might be sick.
There was no point asking what they were going to do next, because Arthur already knew the answer: there was nothing they could do. Cloud’s prototype time-key was broken (not that Tiburon knew that); Milo’s finished time-key was missing and the only other one they could possibly use to get home was hanging around the neck of a maniac with a robot army.
“Does that mean—?” Ren’s eyebrows knotted together as she struggled to say what they were all thinking.
“We’ve run out of time,” Cecily said gravely. With her shoulders against the wall, she slid to the floor and rested her head back on the bricks. Tears shone in her eyes. “This is it. We’ve come to the end.”
Cloud whimpered and butted his head against her knees, so she pulled him into her lap. Ren slumped beside them both.
Arthur swallowed down an ice cube of dread. “I don’t know what to say,” he admitted, joining them on the floor. He brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them tightly. After everything they’d overcome, they were going to die anyway. It seemed so unfair. Tiburon had won. He would keep stealing heroes from history and forcing them to work for him. He would continue to have the power to mess with time, however he liked.
They sat in silence for a short while. Arthur’s thoughts drifted to his dad, which made the back of his throat swell and his bottom lip wobble. He imagined the patchy lawn in his back garden; the shed with the window he’d broken playing football last summer; the blanket his mum had embroidered that l
ay on the couch in the front room. More than anything, he wished he could be there now and not in a dank sewer, four hundred years away.
“I can’t turn into slime,” Ren said, scowling. “I haven’t done anything in my life. Nothing important, at least.”
Arthur reflected on the things he’d achieved in his thirteen years on Earth. At the beginning he’d learned how to walk and talk – that was pretty momentous – but since then he’d just been … growing up.
He wanted to do so much more. He could do so much more. He considered the list of heroes’ names he’d seen in Milo’s headquarters. Each one of them had been his age once, and look what they’d gone on to accomplish. Arthur had the potential to be an inventor, a scientist, a campaigner, an explorer – the possibilities were endless.
Except, now he wouldn’t get the chance to find out.
As he dropped his chin into his knees, he spied lights flickering in one of the tunnels opposite, and stiffened. “Can you two see that?”
He pushed himself up just as Ren got to her feet beside him. “Tiburon must have found us,” she said bleakly.
“Well, I’m not going down without a fight,” Cecily decided, wiping her nose as she stood. “If we’re going to turn into snot, I hope we splatter all over those T-class units and mess up their circuits.” Shaking his coat dry, Cloud barked in agreement.
One last act of defiance, Arthur thought. Wangari Maathai would approve.
Nerves fizzed in his stomach as they crept towards the tunnel entrance. Several shadowy figures were drawing closer…
Arthur swung round his rucksack, planning to thump the first T-class with his maths textbook. After searching through her pockets, Ren brought out her key ring multi-tool and flicked open the corkscrew attachment. Cecily crouched to adjust Cloud’s collar. “Dragon or tiger?” she whispered.
Wonderscape Page 23
