Operation Sherlock

by Bruce Coville

  “Shut up and think!” snapped Rachel.

  The list continued to fill the screen, now using two letter prefixes for the second word: DOUR CHANT, DOUR GRANT…

  “I can’t wait until we get to elephant,” said Roger.

  “Wait a minute!” cried Rachel. “Maybe I should be messing with our. How many ways can you spell that sound?”

  Roger thought for a second. “There’s a-u-r,” he said, beginning to tick them off on his fingers. “And a-u-e-r. O-u-r, of course, but you’ve already used that. O-w-e-r, if you want to stretch the point—”

  “That’s it!” shrieked Rachel, before she even typed it into the computer. “P-o-w-e-r. Power! They’re at the power plant!”

  She grabbed the phone. “Where’s Dad?” she asked as she punched in Wendy’s number.

  “Either he’s still at the lab or he snuck off with some of the others for an all-night poker game.”

  “What’s the fastest way for us to get to the power plant? Wait a minute—Wendy? This is Rachel. They’re at the power plant. Meet us there!”

  She hung up.

  “It’s not more than half a mile,” said Roger. “Our best bet is probably just to run.”

  His twin nodded. “Then let’s get going!”

  “I’m scared,” said Trip.

  “You’d be a fool if you weren’t,” replied Hap. They were standing side by side against the west wall of the cube, watching the water pour over the side. It had reached their waists and was rising fast.

  Trip had a picture in his mind that he kept trying to push out. But it wouldn’t go. No matter how hard he tried, all he could think of was the cube he had seen the night Dr. Standish had showed him and Ray the plant—the cube sitting at the bottom of a fifty-foot shaft.

  Except there was one difference. That cube had held nothing but water. The cube his mind kept showing him also held two dead bodies.

  He smashed his head back against the wall, trying to drive out the vision.

  The cube lurched downward again.

  Trip knew that before long, when the weight was great enough, their journey down the shaft would begin in earnest. There would be no fits and starts then. Just a slow, steady descent into the earth, with the ocean pouring through the grille above them.

  In some ways the slowness was the worst thing of all. Being hit by a truck—one sudden blinding burst of pain, and then nothing—began to seem merciful in comparison. This waiting, this slow ride to oblivion while his mind and body were free to act but helpless to do anything was driving him crazy.

  Hap nudged him. “You ever think about dying before?”

  “Not much. I was planning to put it off for a while.”

  “I think your plans got messed up, buddy. Now, me, I figured—”

  Hap never did tell Trip what he figured. He cut off his words as the cube moved again—and kept moving.

  The boys locked eyes. The weight had reached the critical stage. The cube was beginning its descent.

  Roger and Rachel had just reached the fence that guarded the power plant when Wendy came roaring up in her parents’ Volkswagen.

  “Wendy!” cried Rachel. “What have you done?”

  “What are you worried about?” asked the Wonderchild. “This is an emergency, isn’t it?”

  “I hope not,” said Rachel. “I’d be much happier if it was a false alarm.”

  “Well, don’t count on it,” said Wendy. “None of them have made it home yet. I called the Swensons, but Hap’s mom isn’t too worried—she said he likes to sit on the beach at night. There was no sense in calling the others—Mrs. Swenson told me Trip and Ray were supposed to be spending the night with Hap. She thinks they’re all just out stargazing.”

  “They may be,” said Roger.

  “So much the better,” said Wendy. “Then I can have the pleasure of killing them myself for disturbing my sleep. But if you had heard that message, I don’t think you’d believe that. It was a little too desperate to be a fake. Open the gate, will you?”

  Roger swung it open just wide enough to let the Volkswagen pass through. He and Rachel climbed into the car. A moment later it was jouncing down the bumpy road leading to the power plant.

  When they reached the front entrance they scurried out. But the door that had been open for Trip, Hap, and Ray was now securely locked.

  The Fanatic

  The black-gloved fist smashed onto the table so hard that several pens and pencils flew into the air.

  The transmitter had failed!

  How was it possible? The scientists who had put it together were the best in the world—with the exception of those gathered for this project, of course.

  The installation had been correct, of that Black Glove was certain. So what could have gone wrong?

  Whatever it was, the failure was disastrous. No other transmitter could get information past the electronic shield that blanketed the island.

  The trembling figure sat breathing heavily for a moment. Slowly the clenched fist began to ease open.

  All right, the transmitter was malfunctioning. But what good would anger do? The fundamental uselessness of anger was one of the most basic elements of the training. Energy wasted on anger could be better used elsewhere.

  Black Glove took three deep breaths. The anger began to dissolve. With its passing, the answer became clear, if not pleasant. It would be necessary to make one more trip into the computer, to try to discover and repair the problem.

  The idea was dangerous. Every illicit foray into the great machine carried some risk of discovery. But the alternative was even worse. For the alternative was failure and disgrace, and Black Glove could not, would not, allow that to happen.

  Trip had no idea how long he had been treading water. It seemed as if it might have been forever.

  “You know, people pay a lot of money for a sensation like this,” said Hap.

  “Waiting to die?”

  “No—floating in warm saltwater. If it wasn’t for the sound of the water splashing over the edge, this would be a perfect sensory deprivation tank. You know, one of those places where you float in silent darkness to get in touch with your inner self.”

  “I’m in touch,” said Trip bitterly. “My inner self is asking my outer self what it did to deserve this. In fact, it’s screaming, ‘How could you do this to me? How could you get me into this mess?’ I don’t think I want to be in touch with my inner self any more than I have to right now. It’s too mad at me.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Hap. “But you’re missing a golden opportunity.” He began doing a backstroke toward the other wall of the cube.

  “How can you be so calm?” screamed Trip.

  “They don’t call me Hap for nothing.”

  Trip was silent. Hap stopped swimming. “A couple of other things to consider,” he said. “To begin with, maybe I’m not as calm as I look. Second, assuming I actually am, what’s the point of being otherwise? Look at you. You’re in a state of panic. Is it doing you any good? Is your mind clearer? Are your thoughts sharper? You know what my old man told me once? He said, ‘Hap, my boy, when it’s time to go, make sure you go in style.’ ”

  “I always preferred comfort to style,” said Trip.

  They were silent for a little while. The cube, which had been moving slowly but steadily down the shaft for the last several minutes, seemed to be picking up speed.

  The water was pouring in faster than ever.

  “How long do you think we have?” asked Trip.

  “Five minutes,” said Hap. “Give or take a miracle.”

  “Hurry!” said Roger. He was bouncing from one foot to the other in his anxiety.

  “I’m working as fast as I can!” snapped Rachel, who was busy taking the hinges out of the door. Two of them already lay on the ground next to her. The third was being stubborn. “Damn!” she said suddenly.

  Roger looked down and groaned. The screwdriver Rachel had been using—which they had spent several precious minutes trying to
locate in Wendy’s car—had just broken off at the handle.

  Rachel leaned her head against the wall. “I don’t know what else to do,” she said.

  “Let me try something,” said Wendy.

  “What?”

  “Just stand back. I don’t know if this will work; I stopped taking lessons two years ago. But I got pretty good before I quit.”

  Without another word, the Wonderchild let out a bloodcurdling scream and launched herself through the air.

  She slammed feet first into the door. It fell into the building as if it had been hit by a battering ram.

  “Are you all right?” asked Roger, rushing in to the office.

  Wendy lay atop the broken door. “We’ll worry about me later,” she said, picking herself up and brushing away some splinters. “Come on, we may not have any time to waste!”

  They barreled through the office, on into the power plant itself, where an amazing sound greeted their ears: two tenor voices harmonizing on “Many Brave Souls Are Asleep in the Deep.”

  “That’s them!” cried Rachel.

  “Light!” shouted Wendy. “We need some light.”

  The singing broke off. “Wendy! Rachel! Is that you?” The voices sounded far away.

  “Where are you guys?” shouted Roger.

  “We’re trapped in one of the tide boxes! Be careful—there might be someone out there!”

  At this warning the twins and Wendy bunched together. They looked around suspiciously, but it was too dark to see anything.

  “I think they’re over that way,” said Roger, who had been trying to remember what Trip and Ray had told him about the power plant.

  Moving together, the three began to inch their way through the darkness. Suddenly Rachel tripped over something and fell to the floor.

  “Are you all right?” asked Roger.

  “I’m not sure. I think I just fell over someone’s body.”

  “Dead, or alive?” asked Wendy.

  After a pause, she answered, “Alive—I think.”

  As if in confirmation, the still figure Rachel had fallen over began to moan.

  “It’s Ray!” she said. “Give me a hand, somebody.”

  Wendy knelt at Rachel’s side and helped her bring Ray to a sitting position. Meanwhile, Roger continued to inch his way forward.

  “Hurry!” cried Trip. His voice sounded desperate. “We can’t last much longer!”

  “Style, chum,” whispered Hap. “Style.”

  Just as Roger made it to the edge of the floor, the lights came on above him.

  “Found it!” cried Wendy triumphantly, standing next to the light switch.

  Roger was too horrified by what he saw to congratulate her. He was kneeling at the edge of a ten-foot-square shaft. The rising tide was pouring over the far edge of the shaft like a waterfall. And eight or nine feet below him Trip Davis and Hap Swenson were clinging to the underside of a plastic grille that held them trapped in some kind of a box.

  Less than a foot of space separated the water in the box from the grille. At the rate the surf was pouring in, that space would be filled in less than two minutes.

  When it was, Hap and Trip would be gone.

  His friends stared up at him, and Roger could see the look of death in their eyes.

  There had to be some way to get them out of there!

  He remembered Trip and Ray mentioning that Dr. Standish had spent considerable time explaining the control panel. Maybe Ray would know what to do!

  “Ray!” cried Roger, running back to where his sister crouched beside the small, unconscious figure. “Ray, wake up! WAKE UP! Hap and Trip will die if you don’t!”

  He grabbed Ray by the shoulders and shook him.

  The unconscious boy’s head lolled to the side.

  “Careful!” cried Rachel. “You’re hurting him!”

  “Hurting him?” screamed Roger. “Go take a look over there! If I can’t snap him out of this fast, those two have had it!”

  Rachel scurried across the floor to where Roger had stood and began to scream.

  Below her, Trip and Hap were pressed almost to the grille. Their fingers were locked through the plastic grid, their bodies supported by the water. They didn’t have more than nine inches of airspace left.

  “Oh, jeez,” said Wendy, coming up to Rachel’s side.

  “Water!” yelled Roger. “I need water to wake him up!”

  In the back of his mind he saw the bitter irony of the situation: Tons of water were pouring into the shaft where his friends were trapped—and he couldn’t wake the one person who might be able to save them because he couldn’t find a way to splash some water on his face and rouse him from his stupor.

  How strange if Hap and Trip should drown for lack of a cup of water!

  “For God’s sake, Roger, do something!” cried Trip.

  The terror in his friend’s voice sliced through Roger like a knife.

  Wendy had returned to the control panel. But she didn’t dare touch it for fear she would push the wrong button and send the boys plummeting to the bottom of the shaft. Then she spotted it: a mottled brown mug, half filled with cold coffee.

  “I’ve got it!” she cried, running to Roger’s side. Before she could reach him, she tripped. The coffee cup flew out of her hand and sailed through the air.

  “No!” screamed Roger.

  Even as he cried out, the cup smashed to the floor beside Ray’s head. It shattered, splashing him with cold coffee.

  “What?” he spluttered, pushing himself to his elbows. “What’s going on?”

  Roger dragged the smaller boy to his feet. “Snap out of it, Ray. You’ve got to save Hap and Trip.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Ray, stumbling along as Roger pulled him to the control panel. “I don’t understand.”

  “Hap and Trip are locked in one of those tide boxes. It’s sinking fast. You’ve got to get them out.”

  Ray’s eyes grew wide as the words finally penetrated. “My God!” he cried. The stupor fell away from him and he ran to the control panel. “Gotta remember,” he muttered, scanning the buttons and levers. “Gotta remember.”

  “Hurry!” cried Rachel, who was kneeling at the edge of the shaft where the boys were trapped. “They’re almost under.”

  Hap and Trip were pressed so tightly to the grille they couldn’t even turn their heads to talk to each other.

  “Hap, I don’t want to die,” whispered Trip.

  “Neither do I, pal. But we’re not gone yet. Looks like we may even get our miracle.”

  “What if we don’t?”

  “Then we go in style. Hold on! It’s all up to—”

  His last words were cut off as the water washed over them.

  The box was completely submerged.

  Trip wanted to scream. Style! he told himself. Hold on to the last instant.

  The thought helped him keep that last precious breath.

  “They’re gone!” screamed Rachel.

  “Ray, do something!” cried Wendy.

  Ray punched a button, then another and another. The machinery began to whir, then to whine. A burning sound filled the air.

  “Those are recall buttons,” he said. “I don’t know which shaft the guys are in, so I tried a bunch of them.”

  “Nothing’s happening!” cried Rachel. “Roger, they’re drowning!”

  Looking down that shaft at the faces of her friends trapped beneath the grille was probably the worst moment of Rachel’s life. It would haunt her nightmares for years to come. They were so close—she could have jumped into the shaft and reached through the grille to touch them. Yet they were too far away to save.

  She couldn’t stand to watch, yet she couldn’t move away. To do so would have been to leave them alone. “Do something!” she cried, beating her hands against the marble floor. “Do something!” But the tide continued to pour over the edge of the shaft, the box to sink farther and farther away.

  “It’s too heavy!” cried Ray. “Th
ose arms aren’t meant to lift the boxes when they’re full.” Suddenly he heard a voice in the back of his head saying, “If you can’t do everything, do what you can.”

  “Wait a minute!” he cried. “I’ve got an idea!” He scanned the board, then pushed several buttons.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Wendy.

  “I’m hoping those buttons work the grilles,” replied Ray. “If we can’t lift the boxes, maybe we can lift their lids!”

  Again the whir of machinery. For a long moment nothing happened. Then a cry of triumph from Rachel lifted their hearts. “He did it! RAY DID IT!”

  The three youngsters sprinted from the control panel to the edge of the floor. Slowly, slowly, five of the great grilles were rising through the water. The boxes were already so low in the shafts that the upper edge of the grilles would barely break the surface of the water. But they were coming up. Clinging to the center grille were Hap and Trip, their bodies thrashing with the agony of trying to hold their breath.

  Suddenly the whine of the machinery grew more intense. Again, the burning smell filled the air.

  The grilles stopped moving.

  “What happened?” cried Wendy.

  “It’s too much for the motor!” cried Ray, racing back to the control panel. “I’ve got to cut out the other grilles!”

  His finger stabbed forward like a striking snake. Four jabs, and four work lights went out.

  The center grille began to rise again. As it broke the surface, Hap and Trip scrambled to its upper edge. Their heads broke through the water and they sucked in air with great, sobbing gasps.

  The box was continuing to descend. With the last of their strength, they got themselves onto the upper edge of the grille. Trip’s hands barely reached the edge of the floor. Roger pulled him over, then, with Rachel holding his legs, leaned over to draw Hap up.

  He was still hauling his friend over the lip of the floor when someone shouted, “What in heaven’s name is going on here?”

  The voice, coming unexpectedly from behind them, was so startling that Roger almost dropped Hap back into the cube. Once he was safely up, they saw that the shout had come from Dr. Standish.