by Scott Jarol
“They won’t believe that,” said Mr. Bruder. “We’ll never get in that way.”
Cynthia shot him one of her patented generous smiles. “You don’t have to get inside. I do. You keep them busy while I find a back door. If this card worked for Zeke, then it’ll work for me.”
“I’m with Cynthia,” said Thomas.
She shook her head. “I think I’d better go by myself. If Zeke and his Ag friends are already in there, I can just pretend to be one of them.”
Thomas removed a device from his pocket. “Cynthia, this is a telephone.”
She smiled mildly. “I know. My dad has one.”
He ignored the barb. “Push this button, and it will connect instantly.”
Cynthia waited for him to fold himself back into the snowcat before turning back to the laboratory and her next task. Wasn’t it incredibly lucky they had her help?
As Chuck and Mr. Bruder headed off to distract the entry guards with their fake delivery, Cynthia found the loading door behind the building. It opened with a touch of the keycard.
“That was easy,” she said to herself. “Maybe too easy.”
She used the card again to open the inner doors and followed the tunnel down to a steel platform suspended inside a shaft by several cables. After testing the platform for stability with one foot, she stepped aboard and slid the gate closed behind her. The control panel had two buttons, one green and one red. She pushed the green button and the elevator, unenclosed except for a guard railing, started downward. The walls glided up past her, and if she stared at them, sometimes it seemed like the building was moving up instead of the elevator moving down. She counted twenty more openings on the long way down.
The elevator stopped at another long, doorless passageway. The end was a T-junction with another corridor that curved out of sight in both directions.
“Does this place go on forever?” she asked herself out loud.
She looked both ways and picked the left side, for no reason in particular.
Chapter 22
Triton Tunnels, North Star Laboratory
Ezekiel led the others into a curved, tubular tunnel dimly lit by a dotted line of small turquoise lamps running along the ceiling. Most of the space on the floor was occupied by a series of polished stainless steel cylinders, each about twelve feet long and two feet in diameter, lying end to end on cradles bolted to the concrete floor along the inside wall, leaving a narrow footpath about three feet wide. A low hum emanated from all directions, and the air smelled faintly metallic.
Ezekiel touched the nearest cylinder. “Cold,” he squeaked, quickly retracting his hand. Each cylinder was labeled with a gamma symbol and a number; γ-879, γ-880, and so on. The tunnel curved out of sight in both directions. Ezekiel felt his father’s watch tugging to escape from his pocket. He snatched it from midair just before it smashed into the closest cylinder. “Superconducting magnets.”
“We’re still breathing helium,” bleated Nate. “I hope there’s enough oxygen.”
“I wonder how far this tunnel goes,” said Margaux.
“I think it’s a circle,” said Ezekiel, running his hand along the wall to feel the curvature. He counted the number of lights he could see before they disappeared around the bend and made some quick calculations in his head, drawing numbers in the air with his knuckle because his mother had taught him it was impolite to point. “I think it’s about ten miles in diameter . . . times pi, 3.14 . . . that makes it maybe thirty miles all the way around. This thing runs under the whole town.”
Imitating him, Margaux and Nate tugged off their gloves to feel the chilly, smooth concrete walls of the tubular tunnel with their bare palms, as if they could divine its secrets by touch.
“It can’t just be an endless circle,” said Nate. “It must come out somewhere. But how are we supposed to know which way to go?”
A series of yellow rotating beacons turned on, each about five feet above the floor, alternating along the left and right sides of the tunnel at twenty-foot intervals. Their beams swept across the tube, crossing each other.
“I think we’re in a particle accelerator ring,” said Ezekiel. “Super-cold liquid helium chills superconducting magnets to guide the particles while they speed up.”
Margaux looked anxious again. “Radiation?”
“No,” said Ezekiel. “It’s all inside that tube, surrounded by those big magnets. Helium must be leaking, which is why we’re talking funny.”
“Maybe we should go back,” said his mother.
“I don’t think we can,” said Margaux.
“We’re not going back.” Ezekiel had been dealing with his mother’s babbling ever since he could remember, but there was no time to coddle her now. “Just do what we do,” he barked at her.
She stiffened, and he could see she was fighting back tears. At least she got the message.
“He’s right,” said Nate, “even if he’s not being very nice about it. By now, the whole school’s on fire. We have to keep going.”
“Maybe David can help us,” said Ezekiel’s mother.
“Who’s David?” asked Nate.
“Doc,” said Margaux. “His first name is really David.”
“Dr. David Freeman,” said Ezekiel’s mom.
Nate looked more confused than informed. “Doc the janitor? He’s actually some kind of doctor?”
Ezekiel made a sour face at Nate. “You didn’t know? It’s kind of obvious.”
“You mean he’s not the janitor?”
“He’s a physicist,” said Ezekiel’s mom, “like Zekie’s daddy.”
Ezekiel shook his head in disbelief at Nate’s confusion and turned back to contemplate the tunnel before them. Margaux scurried closer to Nate to explain.
Schrödinger barked impatiently.
“Don’t know which way,” Ezekiel said.
“Right before the fire, Doc told me to find Zeke and to follow Schrödinger,” said Margaux.
Ezekiel adjusted the weight of the QuARC over his shoulders. “Then I sure hope this dog knows where he’s going.”
The pinwheeling rays of the beacons swept through their steaming breath and rushed their bent shadows along the tunnel walls. Short blasts of steam spouted from the plumbing.
“And we’d better hurry,” urged Nate. “Liquid helium is only two degrees above absolute zero. Whatever you do, don’t touch those pipes—instant frostbite.”
“No wonder it’s so cold in here,” said Margaux.
“Okay, so which way, Schrödinger?” asked Ezekiel.
Schrödinger headed off in the clockwise direction.
“We can’t really get lost,” he said. “It’s a circle; it’s got to be going somewhere.”
Nate was slapping his head with both hands. “Hey, did you feel that? I think the air is moving.”
Ezekiel hadn’t, but Margaux’s hair was not only standing on end from static electricity but undulating in a breeze. He held up his hand to feel for the source of the draft.
“What’s that noise?” he asked.
Everyone held their breath to listen. A low rumble rose from far down the tunnel.
“It’s getting louder,” he added.
The sound churned into a roar as it raced closer. It sounded like a train, but there weren’t any trains anymore, and this was no subway because there were no train tracks.
Ezekiel leaned against the outer wall to get the longest view possible around the tunnel’s bend. His mother followed his example and pressed herself close to the wall.
“High-speed transport,” he said.
“Move!” Nate shouted, tugging Margaux off to the side and off her feet.
Schrödinger stood right in the middle of the path.
A series of three hanging chairs rounded the curve of the dimly lit tunnel, suspended from a rail that ran along the ceiling. The chairs raced toward them, raking a turbulent wake of wind over Schrödinger’s little head, fluttering his ears, as they coasted to a stop just past the group.
Margaux ungracefully rolled to a sitting position. “Why did you knock me over?”
“Sorry, it was about to hit you,” said Nate. He helped her back to her feet.
The chairs rotated and dropped down to make it easy for them to climb aboard, two to each seat.
“Someone obviously knows we’re here,” Margaux said. “Creepy.”
“Should we get on?” asked Ezekiel’s mom.
As far as Ezekiel was concerned, things were all coming together. “I think I know the guy who runs this place. It must be connected to the lab.”
His mother looked at him in surprise. “North Star Lab? Have you been here before?”
He tried to paint a neutral expression on his face.
“This place is very dangerous. You must never come here. None of you. We should go.” She turned around and made as if to return the way they’d come.
“Mrs. K.,” said Margaux, “we can’t go back. The fire.”
“I don’t care what the rest of you do, but I need to keep going,” said Ezekiel. “I have stuff to do here.”
“Besides,” said Nate, “I’m tired, and thirty miles is really far.”
In silent agreement, they began boarding the transport chairs.
Ezekiel took the front car alone, placing the QuARC beside him. Margaux reluctantly climbed into the second swinging chair with Schrödinger in her lap.
Nate took the third one.
“Come on, Mrs. K.”
She joined Margaux instead, hooking elbows with her.
As soon as they had all pulled down their safety bars, the three chairs swiveled 180 degrees and accelerated quickly, pulled to one side by centrifugal force as they raced around the curved tunnel. Ezekiel resisted the outward pull on his legs, worried that his left foot would hit the wall even though it was at least three feet away. The revolving yellow beacons swept the tubular walls, their beams flexing and contracting as they rolled around the concave surface. Their movement created the illusion that the chairs were continually changing speed, faster as the beams swept toward them and slower after each beam had passed.
He looked back at the others. Nate had thrown his arms in the air to enjoy the ride, but Margaux was clutching his mother’s left arm with her eyes closed. Lucy hid inside Margaux’s coat, while Schrödinger stood on her lap with his nose in the air, sniffing for anything familiar. His ears fluttered behind him and his doggy lips blew back, baring his teeth and making him look about as vicious as he could ever have hoped.
Ezekiel’s mom noticed Margaux’s discomfort. “Close your eyes and focus on your breath,” she shouted in Margaux’s ear over the roar of the speeding chairs. “That’s what I used to do whenever Dimitris would make me ride a rollercoaster.”
“Where do you think we’re going?” shouted Nate. The rushing air practically whisked his words away.
Ezekiel was too distracted to reply. No one else knew. No one dreaded the answer as much as his mother. No one replied.
The cylindrical magnets flashed past Ezekiel’s feet like a speeding train. He imagined himself as a tiny particle, infinitesimal, racing around the thirty miles of tunnel at almost the speed of light, gaining mass, slowing time to a near standstill, everything around him frozen in position, from jostling air molecules to people.
Chapter 23
Triton Tunnels, North Star Laboratory
After an hour of jogging, Zeke and Doc could barely breathe. The air in the tunnel was low on oxygen, as if they were high on a mountain, and the tunnel seemed to go on forever. Doc looked pale to Zeke, even in the blue light.
“Do you need to rest?” Zeke asked.
“No time,” said Doc. They slowed to a walk but kept moving. “Should be there soon.”
Zeke dropped his head and continued trudging along behind Doc. They came to a junction where the tunnel crossed another. A roaring noise rose in the tunnel opposite them.
“Maintenance tram,” said Doc, still catching his breath. “Better go this way.”
They turned the corner into a cross tunnel. Doc was yelling something at Zeke, but the noise of the tram had grown so loud that Zeke could no longer hear him.
Zeke peeked around the corner to see what was coming. The front chair of the approaching tram held one occupant, holding something close by on the adjacent seat. In the middle chair, Margaux’s cloak-like coat billowed and fluttered around her. Her scarf trailed in the wind, and Schrödinger poked his nose into the oncoming breeze from her lap. Beside Margaux sat his mom. Nate trailed behind them in the last chair.
But who was in front with the frayed hat and knotty bootlaces?
“That looks like me,” he called to Doc. He blinked hard, thinking he needed to clear his eyes.
Ezekiel’s foot swept past Zeke’s cheek as Doc tugged Zeke back out of sight.
“That was too close,” said Doc.
The hanging chairs slowed and swung around the opposite corner into a cross tunnel. A long howl from Schrödinger faded as the tram raced away on its new trajectory.
Zeke had been holding his breath. He finally sucked in the metallic air. “That was me? How could that be me? Are we in some kind of time warp down here?”
“No time warp,” said Doc. “Worse. It’s a bad scene. Never supposed to happen. But we’ll fix it.”
Doc looked pale and anxious.
“What was never supposed to happen?” Zeke asked.
“Last night,” said Doc. “Do you remember anything about it?”
“Sure. I mean, I think so. I fell asleep at your place, and when I woke up, Margaux was there. There was this big explosion.” He tried to string it all together, but pieces were missing.
“Do you remember why you were at my pad?”
“I probably came to visit,” said Zeke.
“You came for the QuARC,” said Doc. “You must’ve seen me taking it after Principal Fairchild told me to destroy it.”
“What’s the QuARC?”
“It’s something you invented,” said Doc. “You don’t remember?”
“Is that what made me this way? I mean, made two of me?”
Doc didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he stared deeply into Zeke’s eyes as if he were probing his mind. Zeke searched his own memory, but nothing made sense.
“Not exactly. It helped, but it’s more complicated than that. I was waiting for this guy named Willis,” said Doc. “I had something planned for him, but then you showed up instead.”
“But I feel okay,” said Zeke.
“That’s good, but not good enough. The good news is that your invention may make it possible to put you back together the way you’re supposed to be. Right before you showed up, we tested it, me and Schrödinger. Worked pretty good.”
“But then the explosion destroyed everything?”
Doc nodded. “Mostly. That’s why we’re here.”
“So we’re going to follow them?”
“Too dangerous—and no need. We’re all invited to the same dance. Let’s keep moving.”
They pushed on through a maze of tunnels and vertical shafts. How did Doc know his way through all of this? He must have been here before. Doc was leading him through an underground complex he never knew existed. Exhausted, they finally reached an opening into a large chamber and stepped out on to a steel platform. Zeke could see Doc’s expression change as he surveyed the contents of the room.
“This is going to be a little more complicated than I’d expected,” said Doc.
Chapter 24
Triton Tunnels, North Star Laboratory
The endlessly curving wall glided by, swept by the stretching and contracting beams of revolving warning beacons. Conflicting motion racing through his left and right peripheral vision tried to trick Ezekiel’s brain into thinking he was rocking side to side while rolling over one wave after another. He was beginning to wonder how the others were handling it when the rail-chairs shot out of the tunnel into a cavernous, circular chamber. The wide-open space made it feel as i
f they had slowed, though they hadn’t. They sped between several monolithic structures some fifty feet high, as if flying among the buildings of a small underground city. Hundreds of white lights blazed down from the ceiling. Technicians wearing cleansuits swarmed over scaffolding among pipes and conduits.
The rail-chairs crossed the chamber, glided into a passageway far above the floor, and eased to a stop. The chairs swiveled ninety degrees to face a platform as the safety bars unlatched and tilted up.
“Wherever we are,” said Ezekiel’s mom, “we’re here.”
“That was awesome,” said Nate. “I closed my eyes for a minute. It was like flying.”
Ezekiel hopped down and unloaded the QuARC while his mother helped Margaux slither out of the chair. Margaux bent over at the waist, breathing hard through her mouth.
The man standing on the platform sensed her discomfort. “It can be a little challenging—I still find it unsettling. Perhaps you can imagine taking that ride when you have no vision and therefore no sense of location to hold your attention.”
Ezekiel straightened as Dr. Willis stepped closer to their little group.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle anyone,” Dr. Willis said. “You’ve brought the device?”
Ezekiel nodded, but then remembered that Dr. Willis was blind. “Yes, I have it. It was damaged in the explosion at Doc’s, but I repaired it.”
Dr. Willis’s face relaxed a bit, although Ezekiel got the impression he never really smiled much. “Well, then. Welcome to Triton. I’m the director of this facility, the chief scientist. You may call me Dr. Willis.”
Ezekiel glanced at his mother. She was squeezing Margaux’s arm so tightly that Margaux was wincing in pain. She had frozen like a statue, her face pale. Apparently thinking she was about to faint, Nate rushed over to help her, but she shook her head and touched Nate and Margaux’s hands to let them know she was fine. Ezekiel hesitated, doubtful, while Schrödinger padded back and forth in front of the students as if protecting them.
