X-plosion

by Franklin W. Dixon

  Erica was crying harder now, and I reached out to pat her on the arm. She flung herself at me, crying on my shoulder. I didn’t know what to do, so I stroked her hair to calm her down. She cried for a minute more, and then started to pull herself together.

  “Joe, we need to get everyone away from the sound system and get the power turned off,” I yelled out, but Joe couldn’t hear me. He had his cell phone out, and it looked like he was requesting an ambulance from 911.

  “I can do that,” said Erica. Her face was still wet and her eyes red, but she had managed to stop crying.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah—I was here when they put the system in place. I know how it’s rigged up. It’ll just take me a minute.”

  She ran off toward the back of the stage, and I joined Joe at Bret’s side. Bret’s skin was gray, and he still wasn’t breathing. This close to him, I could smell singed hair and see the burn marks on his hands. The crowd of people was inching in closer, trying to see if Joe had managed to revive Bret.

  “Everyone back up!” I shouted. We needed some room. “And no one touch any of the wires!”

  Tyrone sent out some of his guards to quiet the crowd and start escorting people out of the stadium. A ragged chant of “Cody, Cody, Cody” went up for a while, but soon even the die-hard fans gave up and left.

  Soon Erica came running back.

  “The power’s shut off.”

  “Thanks.” I walked over to where the microphone had rolled from Bret’s limp, dead hand. I put the back of my hand against it, carefully, just to make sure there was no electricity running through it.

  “Careful!” Cody said. He had followed behind me and seemed horrified that I had touched the microphone.

  “It’s okay. When you get an electric shock, it causes your muscles to contract. If I touched it the normal way, with the tips of my fingers or the palm of my hand, the contraction would make me grab the microphone and be unable to let go. Then the electricity would go right through me. When I touch it with the back of my hand, if there is still electricity running through it, the current would cause my hand to contract, pushing it away from the microphone. That’s why you always touch electrical things with the back of your hand.”

  If Cody was to stay alive, we might have to teach him a few things. Not that it mattered in this case. Erica had done the job perfectly, and the microphone had no electricity going through it. I lifted it up and examined the place where the electrical cord met the base. There was no doubt about it. Someone had stripped the wires, leaving the copper underneath bare and dangerous to the touch. But there was something else. I had to squint to read it, but in small letters, someone had scratched the word “sellout” into the side of the microphone.

  Cody saw what I was looking at.

  “Dude…someone did this on purpose!”

  His face fell, and his skin took on a greenish color. He looked like he might throw up.

  “Frank—this is serious. Those messages weren’t kidding. I think someone might be trying to kill me!”

  JOE

  12

  Fired

  Once the ambulance had come and taken Bret Johnston’s body away, we grabbed Cody and pulled him to the back of the stage to ask him about the mysterious “messages” he had mentioned to Frank.

  “You’ve been getting what?” I asked, shocked at what Cody had told us.

  “Death threats,” he said. “For…I dunno. A month, maybe two.” Cody looked embarrassed when he said it. And well he should be. He knew about the accidents that had been happening, the investigation that was underway. It was crazy that he had kept this from us.

  “What did the threats say?” asked Frank.

  “Oh, man…all sorts of stuff. How I was a sellout, and I’d forgotten everything that used to matter to me, and I was so fake all the time. Really negative stuff, you know? Not nice at all.”

  “Mr. Zane, sir?”

  Two of Cody’s bodyguards came up while we were talking. They were like mountains in suits. Their shoulders were so big their heads looked like tiny little toys perched on top.

  “Eddie, Gilbert—how’s it going, guys?”

  Cody offered his hand for a high-five, and after an awkward pause, one of the two men very carefully touched his palm lightly. He had hands so large they made Cody look like a child.

  “We’ll have to ask you to come with us back to your hotel, sir. This area is not secure.”

  They could say that again! Tyrone was trying to get everyone out of the arena, but the lights hadn’t come back on yet, and Lenni was still out there somewhere. We needed to get Cody to safety, fast.

  “I’ll go with you,” I volunteered. “Frank, you stay here and—”

  “Mr. Zane will be coming with us by himself.”

  I looked at Cody. This was ridiculous! I was his friend. Moreover, ATAC had assigned me to this case. Surely I was better protection than some muscle-bound thug!

  “Sorry, Joe, they work for my manager. Got to listen to what they say.” Cody shrugged his shoulders regretfully, but he looked glad to be getting out of there. The two bodyguards walked on either side of him and whisked him off the stage and out of the arena double time.

  “Well, that all sounded pretty familiar,” Frank said.

  “Yeah. Those death threats have Lenni written all over them. I can’t believe she got away from us tonight!”

  “And how did she manage to get down on the stage to strip those wires without anyone noticing? Tyrone’s guards aren’t the best, but they’re not blind.”

  I shook my head. She was clever, that was for sure. I wasn’t looking forward to telling Tyrone about all this.

  “What? This girl was at the scene of the crime and you didn’t catch her?” Tyrone seemed upset, to put it mildly. Judging from the look of his office, we’d arrived shortly after he’d finished throwing things. His books were in heaps all over the floor, his cell phone was embedded in one wall, and his computer had been smashed into a million pieces. At first I thought someone had ransacked his office, but then I realized he had done it himself.

  He looked like he wanted to throw me right now. I’d just finished telling him about chasing Lenni through the rafters right before Bret Johnston was electrocuted. He grew really quiet for a second—scary quiet. Then he blew up again.

  “Those stupid protesters! Those—those—kids with their dinky little skateboard ramps! I built twenty ramps here, all of them bigger—all of them better—than the ones they had made. So what if they have to pay to get in! That’s how the world works. They should stop spending all their time skating and get jobs—then they could use the park just fine! They are ruining my profit margins!”

  I couldn’t believe it. Tyrone still seemed more concerned about his money than about the lives of the people visiting Galaxy X—including his own children. I still hadn’t forgotten that rock the protesters had thrown at Erica’s head when we first got here. She was lucky it hadn’t been something more serious. And Bret Johnston was dead. Didn’t Tyrone realize that this wasn’t a game anymore?

  “I think this makes things pretty obvious,” Frank said. “You need to call off the competition and shut down the park until we can catch Lenni.”

  “What?” Tyrone said. Then he started laughing. It was a mean laugh. “Shut the park down? Do you have any idea how much money I would lose?”

  “Well, you’ve at least got to put off the competition. Bret’s dead—Cody could be next.”

  “You’re out of your mind, kid. That’s what I have the two of you here for. To keep people like her from messing up my park! But you know what? You two can’t even handle that.”

  Tyrone paused for a moment. Then a look came over his face, like a lightbulb going off. He snapped his fingers.

  “Forget it. Don’t bother. You’re out of a job. Since you two can’t hack it, I’m bringing in private security. This is a job for men. I don’t know what I was thinking, hiring two boys to try to guard my investment.”r />
  “But—you can’t do that.” I couldn’t believe Tyrone was pulling us off the case. We’d already captured one of the people responsible for sabotaging the park, and we almost had the other. Taking us off the case now was just…stupid.

  Tyrone barely heard me. He was busy prying his cell phone out of the wall. He flipped it open to check if it still worked, then dialed a number.

  “Yeah,” he said into the phone. “Ox. We need to talk about additional security guards. I’m going to need, like, a hundred more—starting tomorrow.”

  He paused for a second, seeming to remember Frank and I were there.

  “You two can stay until tomorrow—but after that, I want you gone.”

  We stared at him, too shocked to say anything.

  “Get out!” he screamed, and we did.

  We walked back to our rooms in stunned silence. The last two hours were like a bad dream. Bret Johnston was dead. The concert was canceled. Lenni had somehow managed to get away from us in the dark. And now Tyrone was hiring a bunch of security guards to replace us!

  “I think we just got fired,” Frank said when we finally arrived.

  “Yeah. I can’t believe it.”

  “Those security guards aren’t going to be able to catch Lenni. She can ride rings around them.”

  I knew from going up against her in the competition that Lenni was an amazing athlete. She’d even managed to get away from us repeatedly, which is pretty impressive, considering how awesome I was. Frank too.

  “That’s why we’ve got to catch her. We’ve only got twenty-four hours to do it, so we’d better get started.”

  I called ATAC and told them we needed an immediate search run on “Lenni Wolff.” I gave them all the information we had, which wasn’t much. They’d let us know if she had a police record, or any other criminal history. We just had to hope that was her real name.

  “Take a look at this,” said Frank. He’d booted up the laptop ATAC had given us and done some searching on the Internet. One of the most frequent posters on StopGX.com went by the name “Sk8Wolff.” It wasn’t hard to figure out who that was.

  She also had her own blog, which was mostly pictures of her skating with the other skaters we’d seen at the first protest. There were some rants up there about Galaxy X and Tyrone as well. More of what we’d heard already, about how the skaters supporting Galaxy X were sellouts and phonies.

  “There’s a lot more, too. It looks like Lenni is as active on the Internet as she is at Galaxy X.”

  Frank pulled up a ton of other blogs, websites, and posts from Sk8Wolff. Seems like Lenni was pretty politically active. She had written stuff against animal cruelty and sweatshop labor, and a lot of stuff about how biking (and skateboarding) were better for the environment than cars. When she wasn’t screaming in all caps, she actually sounded pretty smart.

  My phone rang, and Frank and I both jumped, expecting more bad news from Tyrone. Instead it was ATAC on the line. Lenni had an arrest record—but all for peaceful protest activities. She was passionate about her beliefs, but she’d never been violent. At least, up until now.

  In fact, from everything we read, she seemed like a pretty cool person…except that all the evidence suggested she had just killed Bret Johnston.

  FRANK

  13

  Gorillas in Their Midst

  The morning after the Blastoff turned into the Blackout, the park was a different place. There had been one too many accidents for most people. On opening day, people had been lined up to get into the park. Now, they were lining up to get out. Whole areas of the park were nearly empty. Rides went around with only one or two people on them. Everyone seemed on edge.

  The new park guests who had arrived that morning were very different from the thrill seekers and athletes who had come for the opening. These were people attracted by the “cursed” reputation that was already growing around Galaxy X. Some of them seemed to be looking for trouble.

  And then there were Tyrone’s new guards. I didn’t think he’d be able to rustle up one hundred of them overnight, but I guess with enough money, anything was possible. Each one was larger, scarier, and dumber than the last. Most of them were so huge that they didn’t fit into the spare uniforms. They looked like adults wearing clothes from the toddler section: tiny shirts and miniature pants that ended above their ankles.

  “Look,” Joe said when we first saw them. “Tyrone’s cloned cavemen! Or are those just gorillas in uniforms?”

  We were walking toward the Skate or Die Competition when we first ran into them. Three of the guards had surrounded a group of guys who had been yelling and throwing popcorn at one another.

  “Chill, man,” one of the guys said. He was clearly one of the people who’d arrived looking for the park to be a disaster and was spoiling for a fight. He flicked some popcorn in the face of the guard who had been talking to him. Bad move to pull on a guy who’s six inches taller than you.

  The guard shoved the guy as hard as he could, sending him flying backward into his friends. The other two guards laughed as he sprawled on the ground. As he got up, his friends spread out, their hands curled into fists. One picked up a tree branch that was lying in the grass nearby. This wasn’t looking good.

  “That’s funny,” I said. “I thought the security guards were supposed to stop fights, not pick them.”

  “Looks like we’d better give them a hand. I’ve got an idea.”

  Joe ran over to them right before they started trading punches.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “I hear that the Fun House just caught fire! It’s insane. They want all security over there ASAP.”

  The guards looked like they’d rather fight than do their jobs. But they weren’t the ones Joe was really trying to convince.

  “A fire?” one of the visitors said. “That’s what I’m here for. Let’s go check it out!”

  Like that, the guys scattered, all wanting to see the disaster in action. Galaxy X seemed to have a way of bringing out the worst in people. The guards still seemed ready to start a fight, so Joe and I got out of the way as fast as we could. Soon we were over at the skate park, just in time for the start of the competition.

  There was still a crowd here. Even last night’s disaster couldn’t keep the top competitors from trying for a place in the new Skate or Die video game. But someone was missing. Up on the stage, I saw Cody and David, but there was no sign of London.

  “Joe—London’s gone!” I wondered if something had happened to her in the night.

  “Yeah, didn’t you guys hear?” The girl in front of us in the crowd turned around. “She had to go to Milan for, like, a modeling emergency. She flew out late last night. She is so committed. She’s my role model.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes. “Modeling emergency.” Yeah, right. But I couldn’t really blame her—Galaxy X was turning out to be a pretty dangerous place for celebrities. At least it was one less person we had to keep an eye on today.

  We headed toward the judges’ table, hoping to talk to Cody before the competition began. We made it as far as the gate.

  “Sorry, Mr. McKenzie’s orders,” said a mountain in a Galaxy X uniform. “You two are no longer allowed backstage.”

  “What? But we’re the ones who’ve been keeping Cody safe this entire time.” I couldn’t believe they were going to stop us from going back there.

  “Yeah, and you’ve been doing a great job at that.” The mountain laughed with a sound like an avalanche starting deep in his chest. Joe decided to try a different approach.

  “Look, Cody is a personal friend of mine, and—”

  The guard cut him off. “I don’t care if you’re his mother. You’re not getting backstage.”

  “Come on, Joe. The event’s about to start anyway. Let’s find someplace where we can at least see Cody.”

  I guess Tyrone was serious about wanting us gone. We got back to the crowd just in time to see Cody step up to the platform. There was no big speech this time. Cody looked scared
.

  “Good luck, guys!” he said. He waved to the crowd once, and a small cheer went up. Then he scurried back to the chair he had been sitting in, and his bodyguards surrounded him again.

  With that, the competition was officially on. There were only twenty-five contenders in this round, and so each one went separately. This was the trick portion of the competition. Each competitor had five minutes to show off the most impressive, interesting, and exciting moves in their arsenal. It was also their chance to show off their personal style. Cody was looking for someone who was not only a great skater, but also had a great personality—someone who would make a fun character to play in the game.

  Some of the competitors had gone to great lengths to stand out. One guy was skating in a giant chicken costume, which probably seemed like a brilliant idea until the mask covered his eyes mid-skate and he went down hard. A girl named Rose showered the crowd with rose petals while in the middle of a backflip on her board, which scored her big points with both the audience and the judges. Others skated while playing ukuleles, or with crazy face paint on, or on boards that were longer and thinner than usual.

  At the halfway point of the competition, a break was announced to allow the crowd to get some food and hang out with the contestants.

  “I’m going to get some curly fries,” I told Joe. “You want anything?”

  “No. I think I’m going to go introduce myself to Rose.”

  Joe had that look in his eye—the one that says he’s feeling particularly slick. Usually it lasted all of ten minutes before the girls shot him down, but Joe was nothing if not optimistic. I headed off to find some lunch while he worked his away over to the contestant area.

  The food stands surrounded the skating area, selling everything from milkshakes to pizza to hot dogs. I followed the smell of deep frying until I found the Fry Boy. I was just about to get in line when someone slammed into me from behind, hard. I fell down on my hands and knees.