by Lee Bacon
I opened my eyes, trying to shake away the memory.
“You okay?” Sophie asked. Even though her eyes were focused on the road, it felt like she was looking right at me.
I didn’t answer her question for a long time, just stared at the highway that stretched into the darkness. Finally I spoke in a voice that was barely loud enough to be heard over the howling wind.
“I could’ve saved her.”
Sophie gripped the steering wheel tighter. “You can’t blame yourself. You did everything you could.”
I shook my head. “If I’d held on just a little tighter, she wouldn’t have …”
I couldn’t say any more. But the words filled my mind anyway. Wouldn’t have slipped. Wouldn’t have fallen. Wouldn’t have died.
“You can’t save everyone, Joshua.”
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Sophie reached out with the other and took my hand. Our fingers looped together. Normally that kind of thing would’ve made both of us really awkward, but in that moment it actually made me feel better.
Neither of us spoke. The wind howled, whipping our hair around like crazy.
Right then, I wished we could drive the rest of the way like that. But I guess driver’s safety is more important because a couple of seconds later, Sophie let go and brought her hand back to the steering wheel.
“Sorry.” She let out a nervous chuckle. Was it my imagination, or had she started glowing—just a little—around the eyes? “I just thought … you know—”
“No. It was nice. I mean—not that kind of nice.” Suddenly my palms were sweaty. I wiped them against my shorts.
Remember how I said it wasn’t awkward? Well, never mind about that. Suddenly, there was enough awkwardness inside the MarvelousMobile to fill a football stadium.
We drove nearly the rest of the way in silence.
The sun was just beginning to peer over the treetops when we reached Bear Creek. The town was just like Dr. Fleming had described. Not much to it. Not even a traffic light. We passed a diner, a church, a hardware store. A few other shops with boarded-up windows. A couple of streets led to small homes with overgrown lawns. And that was pretty much it.
I glanced around warily. With the sun coming up, a vintage red, white, and blue superhero car with four kids inside was a lot more noticeable. Luckily, it was still early. The streets and sidewalks were empty.
Like Dr. Fleming had said, at the edge of town was a street sign with the words we were looking for:
NONAME RD.
Sophie turned onto the dirt road. When we bumped over a pothole, Milton jolted awake. Blinking drowsily, he seemed surprised to find Cassie sleeping peacefully on his shoulder. As he shifted in his seat, Cassie’s eyes flickered open. Pushing back her silver hair, she rose to an upright position.
“Hope I didn’t drool on your shoulder,” she mumbled.
“No big deal,” Milton said. “I can handle a little drool.”
“We’re getting close.” Sophie guided the car over another pothole. The MarvelousMobile lurched and groaned. “Safe house should be coming up.”
I remembered what Dr. Fleming had said. A dirt road that seems to go on forever without any sign of civilization. It was starting to feel that way. Trees, trees, bump in the road, more trees. At least we wouldn’t be spotted by anyone. But the isolation also gave me a weird nervous feeling. What if something happened out here? Something unexpected? Something bad?
I pushed the thought from my head. We were on our way to a safe house. And a safe house is supposed to be safe, right?
“We’re here!”
As we rounded a curve in the dirt road, I saw it. The log cabin. It looked exactly like the photograph. Sophie pulled the MarvelousMobile to the side of the road and we climbed out.
As we approached, I noticed that a few of the trees had been rigged with security cameras. A laser sensor poked up from the grass to scan our movements. If it weren’t for the fact that we had the exact same model on our own front lawn, I probably would’ve mistaken it for a sprinkler.
When we reached the front door, I looked around uncertainly.
“Uh … should we knock, or just—”
I went silent when I heard a sound.
Click.
The door swung open.
Dr. Fleming was standing in the doorway. I stared in amazement. Last we’d seen him, he’d been pale and weak from Winston’s attack, hunched inside the library with nothing but Milton’s shirt to stop the bleeding. Now he looked as healthy as ever.
“Welcome!” he said. “So glad you could make it!”
After another second or two of disbelief, our questions came tumbling out all at once.
“When’d you get here?”
“How’d you make it out of the school?”
“What about your injury?”
“Can I use your bathroom?”
The last question came from Milton. He was hopping from one foot to the other. Sophie shot him a look.
“What?” Milton shrugged. “It was a long car ride.”
“I’ll explain everything in due time,” Dr. Fleming said. “For now, please, come inside. Make yourselves at home.”
Once all of us had a chance to use the restroom and wash up, Dr. Fleming showed us to the dining room. On the way, I gaped at my surroundings. The outside of his safe house looked like the kind of place Abraham Lincoln might’ve grown up in, but the inside was more like a high-tech home of the future. Voice-activated appliances, a couch that slid across the floor depending on where you wanted to sit. An entire wall was lined with LCD monitors, showing highdefinition security footage of the grounds outside.
When we reached the dining room, Dr. Fleming ran a finger across a touch-screen pad on the wall. A blank section of the floor flipped open and out popped a dining room table and six chairs. The table was already set with bowls and cereal.
“Sorry there’s no milk,” Dr. Fleming said. “Didn’t have a chance to stop by the market on the—” He went silent when he noticed for the first time who was missing. “What happened to Miranda?”
My eyes dropped to the floor. “She … didn’t make it.”
Dr. Fleming lowered himself slowly into a chair. “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.”
Choking back tears, Cassie told him about how Daisy twisted out of control, how Miranda lost her grip and dropped into the darkness.
“We didn’t see what happened after that,” Sophie said. “For all we know, Miranda survived the fall and swam to shore.”
I tried to find hope in her words, but all I could think about was the dark, slashing rain. The crashing waves. The tall, sharp rocks that lined Alabaster Island. How could anyone survive that?
Even though all I’d had to eat in the last twelve hours was half a bowl of soup, talking about Miranda had caused my appetite to shrivel. I forced down a few bites of cereal as Dr. Fleming told us his side of the story.
“I waited inside the tunnel, pain searing my chest and shoulder, until I heard two voices on the other side of the shelf. One unmistakably belonged to that bratty girl we’d heard earlier. She kept screaming about how she’d gone blind—”
“Grifter,” I said. “She had a little run-in with a gigantic lightbulb.”
“The other voice was harder to place. A teenage boy complaining that all he had on were boxer shorts.”
“That would be Lunk. He doesn’t react well with water.”
“In any case, I overheard the girl say that you’d made it off the island. Unfortunately, this bit of good news was matched by some rather unfortunate news. According to the boy in boxer shorts, there were more Cyclaurs waiting on shore. I heard the static of a walkie-talkie. The girl alerted the Cyclaurs that their target would be riding a giant robotic duck. ‘Follow them!’ she commanded.”
“Yeah, they caught up with us a little later,” Sophie said.
“Luckily, we managed to escape in the MarvelousMobile,” Milton added.
Dr. Fleming wrinkled his brow.
“The what?”
“We’ll tell you later. What happened next?”
“Grifter and Lunk assumed I’d made it off the island as well. They gathered up the remaining Cyclaurs and headed in the direction of their boat. Once I was sure they were gone, I climbed out of the tunnel. Fortunately, it was a short walk to the office of Bernadette Oakley, the school nurse. Under most circumstances, I would’ve spent the next week in the hospital recovering. With Nurse Oakley, it took only an hour.”
“Nurse Oakley’s the best,” Cassie said. “She has the power of healing. When I broke my arm in the third grade, it was completely better by that night.”
“So then what happened?” Sophie set down her spoon, turning back to Dr. Fleming. “How’d you get here?”
“After Nurse Oakley patched me up, I hurried back to my office. I could scarcely believe what I saw on the way there. Alabaster Academy looked like a war zone. Children were in shock. So were teachers. I wanted to help, but I knew there were more important matters at hand. In my office, I dusted off the old hover scooter that I keep in the closet. A few minutes later, I was on my way.”
“But what about the Dominion Key?” I asked.
“Ah yes.” Dr. Fleming fixed me with an odd gaze. It reminded me of the looks he had given me at Alabaster. Like he knew something about me that even I didn’t know. “If you’re finished with your breakfast, I’ll be glad to fill you in on every last detail.”
I pushed away my bowl and stood from the table. “I’m ready.”
Milton took one last bite of his cereal. Still chewing, he said, “Me too.”
“Very well,” Dr. Fleming said. “Come with me.”
We followed him out of the dining room, up a flight of stairs, and through an open doorway. The room was nearly empty—no furniture, no windows—except for a built-in touch screen and a large silver ring that dangled from a hook.
Dr. Fleming plucked the ring off the wall and placed it over his forehead.
“What’s up with the headband?” Cassie asked.
“Oh, this?” Dr. Fleming adjusted the silver band. “You’ll find out in a moment.”
There was something strange about his tone. But I didn’t have a lot of time to wonder about it. Because right then, Dr. Fleming tapped the touch screen and the lights dimmed. In the center of the room, a 3-D holographic image appeared, a blue cluster slowly rotating halfway between the floor and the ceiling.
Dr. Fleming tapped the screen again. The image expanded. Then it broke apart into three different holograms, each bigger than me, that drifted around us like blue planets. They seemed to be diagrams. Technological designs, surrounded by equations and labels.
It was like being inside a science textbook.
I approached one of the holograms, reading the bold label that floated above it. Platinum-Sealed Alpha Capacitor. The same words I’d seen on nFinity’s list. The same object that Grifter and Lunk stole a few days earlier. The other two diagrams matched as well. Oscillating Particle Immobilizer. Neutron Flow Reversal Chamber.
“These are the objects that Phineas Vex has stolen so far.” Dr. Fleming gestured to the holograms. “All in his effort to build The Device. A weapon that can freeze time and space. That can turn every human on the planet into a perfectly still, helpless being. Like a mannequin in a department store. Armies toppled. The most secure bank vaults plundered. Entire continents falling under a single person’s control.”
“But where’s the Dominion Key?” Sophie asked. “Did you already destroy it?”
“Not exactly.” Dr. Fleming was standing inside one of the huge 3-D holograms. As the blue cloud swiveled around him, his features seemed to change, turning eerie and cold. The silver headband glimmered in the strange light. “You see, I couldn’t destroy the Dominion Key.”
Milton scrunched his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Yeah! What if Vex shows up?” Cassie asked.
“The truth is, I never possessed the Dominion Key.” The blue holographic cloud swirled and shifted around him. “Not until now.”
I was still trying to make sense of Dr. Fleming’s words when he tapped the touch screen again. The holograms vanished and the door beside him snapped shut.
Without the hazy blue veil over his face, I could see his expression clearly now. And it sent a chill down my spine.
“I truly am sorry about this,” he said. “But I had no other choice.”
Dr. Fleming tapped another key on his touch screen. All at once, I realized—coming here had been a huge mistake.
Before I could react, an invisible force knocked me off my feet. I felt myself snap backward as if I were flicked across the room by the world’s biggest rubber band. An instant later, my back slammed against the wall. Pain erupted through my entire body.
I was pinned to the wall. Unable to move. My arms and legs were spread like jumping jacks on pause. My head was tilted slightly to one side, so I could see the same had happened to my friends. They were sprawled out across different parts of the wall, each frozen in their own crazy poses. Cassie had hit the wall sideways. Even her hair was attached, spread around her head like a silver fan. Sophie was beside her. One arm above her head, the other close to her waist. Nearest to me was Milton. His eyes—the only part of his body he could move—darted back and forth.
We were stuck like insects in a spiderweb.
Only Dr. Fleming was left standing where he’d been before. His hand hovered over the touch screen. Light glinted off his silver headband.
“What’s going on?” Sophie’s skin glowed as she struggled to pull herself free. But even her superstrength was powerless against the unseen force. “What is this?”
“I call this my antimagnet room,” Dr. Fleming said. “I devised the technology myself. It works like a heavy-duty electromagnet. Except instead of attracting metallic objects, the wall attracts everything that isn’t metal. Like you, for example.”
Dr. Fleming loosened his sleeve and pulled it back. Silver gleamed underneath. He was wearing a metallic undershirt. He bent down and rolled up the bottoms of his pants. Same thing. Silver underneath.
All of a sudden, I understood why he’d put on the silver headband when we entered the room. It was to match the rest of the metallic outfit he had on under his regular clothes.
The magnetized gear was keeping him from sticking to the wall like the rest of us.
Meanwhile, my friends and I were pinned to the edges of the room like magnets against a fridge.
I concentrated on summoning my Gyft. Spontaneous combustion quivered through my veins, but it didn’t make any difference. I couldn’t move.
There was no point in screaming. We were in the middle of nowhere. You could detonate five hundred pounds of heavy artillery in my backyard and nobody would notice. That was what Fleming had said about his safe house yesterday.
We were completely alone.
“Have you lost your mind?” Cassie narrowed her eyes at Dr. Fleming. “Why are you doing this?”
“It’s quite simple, really.” A creepy smile spread across Dr. Fleming’s lips. “I saw an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. A chance to finally possess the Dominion Key.”
“What’re you talking about?” Milton asked. “I thought you already built it.”
“Not exactly. You see, my invention isn’t technically the Dominion Key. It’s actually”—Dr. Fleming squinted, searching for the right words—“an apparatus for harnessing the power of the Dominion Key. More like a big electrical socket. And the thing you plug into this socket—well, that’s the Dominion Key.”
“So why don’t you get something else to plug into your stupid socket?” Sophie said.
“It’s not that easy. The Dominion Key cannot be constructed of metal and circuitry. It’s not like the other parts of The Device at all. In fact, it’s right here in this room.”
Cassie glanced frantically at the blank walls and floor. “What do you mean? What is it?”
“Not what. Who.” Dr. Fleming�
��s gaze focused on me, and I felt every inch of my body turn to ice. “Joshua Dread—you are the Dominion Key.”
I felt like I’d just swallowed a hand grenade. Everything inside me shattered. Burst to pieces. And I was left with …
A memory.
Dr. Fleming’s words catapulted my brain to the last time I was face to face with Phineas Vex. Or maybe I should say face to knee. Vex had towered over me in his indestructible bionic suit. He was enormous. His booming voice had rattled my skull.
The only reason I’m sparing your life is because I have something much bigger in store for you.
The memory fast-forwarded past other events. The confrontation with nFinity and his goons in the food court. The attack on Alabaster. All along, I’d been unable to figure out why Vex was going to so much trouble to capture me. Vex wasn’t a guy who ordinarily valued human life. So why spare mine?
What did he want with me?
The question had been hanging over me for months. And finally, I had an answer. The reason Vex would stop at nothing to track me down and keep me alive.
I was the Dominion Key.
I was the one thing that could deliver Phineas Vex world domination.
Dr. Fleming was looking at me with a gleam in his eyes, as if he enjoyed watching me put it all together.
“And then yesterday, you kids came into my office with tales of rare components getting stolen from high-security labs,” he said. “Phineas Vex was after The Device. Naturally, I was afraid. I knew that my invention was essential to harnessing the Dominion Key. Which meant Vex would be coming after me. And then came our encounter with your wolfy classmate, Winston. At that moment, I recognized who you really are.”
After Winston’s attack, Dr. Fleming had stared at me in the strangest way. As if he knew something about me that I didn’t. Now I understood why.
“The power of spontaneous combustion is extremely rare, extremely volatile,” Dr. Fleming said. “And it comes with a little-known side effect called TPIS. Temporary Particle Immobilization Syndrome. The ability to freeze time and space. Usually accompanied by an illuminated string of pure energy capable of destruction on a massive scale.”
