Science Fair

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

  “What’re you doing?” said Tamara.

  Toby turned around to look at her. “We’re going to stop by my house just for a second.”

  “What? I thought we were going to the science fair!”

  “We are,” said Toby. “But we’re right near my house. I just want to stop by, in case the Star Wars guys are there.”

  “What if they are?” said Tamara. “What’re we going to do about it?”

  “I could throw up on them,” said Micah.

  “Turn right here,” said Toby to Vrsk.

  From the backseat, Drmtsi said to Vrsk, “Where are we going now?”

  “We are going to the boy’s house to stop there on the way to the school,” Vrsk answered.

  “Why?” said Drmtsi.

  “I am not certain, but I think the boy said that people from Star Wars are coming to his house.”

  “Excellent!” said Drmtsi. It did not surprise him that, in this amazing and rich country, show-business celebrities would be abundant. In English, he declared: “May this Force is with you!”

  Toby, Tamara, and Micah looked at him.

  “These guys are weird,” whispered Tamara.

  “Turn left,” said Toby to Vrsk. “We’re almost there.”

  “Good,” said Micah, suppressing a burp. “Because I’m almost there, too.”

  NOW THAT THE POWER WAS BACK, the anxiety level in the Hubble gym had ratcheted down a few notches—from panicky to merely nervous. The big room roared with the sound of a thousand excited voices; rumors swirled everywhere as the crowd, half of whom held mobile phones pressed to their ears, tried to work out what, exactly, had happened.

  So far they’d learned little, other than that the blackout had hit a large area around Washington and that there was no official explanation yet. Somebody had just picked up a rumor that the Northeast, including New York City, had also been hit by a blackout; hearing this, parents exchanged worried looks and a few whispered the feared word…terrorism. This particular buzz was spreading quickly across the gym when the PA system came to life.

  “Attention! May I have everybody’s attention, please!”

  As always, The Hornet’s commanding voice quickly quieted the room. All eyes turned toward the small stage, where The Hornet stood with Lance Swingle, her prim, pursed lips close to the microphone.

  “As I’m sure you all know by now,” said The Hornet, “the blackout we experienced here at Hubble was widespread. I am sure the authorities are taking whatever steps are needed to deal with any, ah, problems that may have arisen. But for the time being, the police have ordered all nonemergency traffic to stay off the roads. So since we’re temporarily confined here anyway, and since Mr. Swingle has very graciously agreed to remain with us, we are going to continue with the science fair.”

  The crowd applauded. Swingle waved and smiled, as if he were absolutely thrilled. He was not. The second the lights had gone out, he had grabbed his nearest lackey and said he wanted to get out of there immediately. The lackey had run out to the ball field to inform the helicopter pilot, who had informed the lackey that the Federal Aviation Administration was not allowing any civilian aircraft to take off, even one owned by a billionaire. This was the only reason Swingle remained in the gym.

  After acknowledging the applause, Swingle shouldered The Hornet off the microphone and said, “We’re not going to let a little blackout worry us, are we?”

  “Nooo,” answered the crowd, somewhat unconvinced.

  “Of course we’re not!” said Swingle. “So let’s have a look at these projects!”

  With that, he joined The Hornet and a gaggle of teachers.

  “Ready?” he said to The Hornet.

  The Hornet frowned and looked around. “Where’s Mr. Pzyrbovich?” she asked.

  “He was here a few minutes ago,” answered one of the teachers.

  Swingle looked pointedly at his watch. The Hornet looked around some more, but saw no sign of Mr. P. She did not look pleased.

  “We’ll just have to do this without him,” she said.

  “Good idea,” said Swingle, leading the way, as the group set out once again to judge the science fair.

  A few feet away, inside the utility room just off the gym, Prmkt was watching his computer screen. He had four windows open. Two were showing him the efforts—still futile—of the power companies to regain control over their systems. One was showing the statuses of various communications satellites. The fourth window was showing CNN. There were several people on the screen, all frowning deeply; one was described on the screen as a terrorism expert. They were saying that the president of the United States would soon be addressing the nation.

  Prmkt smiled at that. He began tapping the keys again.

  He would give the president something more to talk about.

  NOBODY HAD EVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT anywhere, ever. Somebody, somehow, was turning the power off, and then back on, over huge sections of North America, like a child flicking switches in a living room. A few minutes earlier the power had been returned to the Northeast, but at that same moment the Midwest, including Chicago, had gone dark. Then the Midwest came back and California went down. Right now Texas was dark.

  Every available technician in North America was working frantically to find answers. But as yet nobody had a clue who or what was causing the blackouts or where the next one would strike.

  The U.S. military was now on high alert all over the world—a world becoming more tense by the second as the chaos spread across America. Financial markets were severely disrupted as critical computer systems lost power, threatening huge amounts of data. Backups were holding; but for how long? Planes were making emergency landings everywhere as the FAA, not knowing which airports would be affected next, struggled to halt commercial air travel. Telecommunications, including the Internet and e-mail, had become highly erratic and unreliable, as had radio and TV transmissions. Many cities were paralyzed by horrendous traffic jams; tens of thousands of drivers were abandoning their cars on freeways and trying to get home on foot.

  This disruption had already—in less than an hour—cost the country billions of dollars. But that was a pittance compared to the devastating price to be paid if the mysterious blackouts were not stopped soon. Americans depended on electrical technology for every element of their lives—their economy, their government, their food, their shelter, their communication, their transportation, their medical care—everything. Without that technology, American society would plunge into a primitive, desperate, fearful, and dangerous state from which the country might never recover.

  Panic was spreading, particularly in the big cities. There already were reports of supermarkets being looted by mobs of people who feared that the food would soon run out. Gunshots had been reported in some areas. Rumors swirled everywhere about who, or what, was causing the blackouts. Most of the rumors involved terrorists, but there were many other theories, including some that blamed extraterrestrial beings.

  Americans were scared. They felt their comfortable world crumbling around them. They wanted the blackouts to stop, and they wanted somebody to assure them that everything would be all right again. The person they most wanted to hear these assurances from was the president, who was scheduled to address the nation “in a matter of minutes.” The networks had been saying that for the last half hour.

  The problem was that, at the moment, the president didn’t know any more about the blackouts than anybody else did. The president was very angry about this. He was running for re-election, and he did NOT want to tell the nation he didn’t know what was happening. He wanted to tell the nation he had everything under control. So he was putting extreme pressure on his people to get him some answers RIGHT NOW. His people were, in turn, putting extreme pressure on power-industry officials, who were putting extreme pressure on their staffs.

  This was why Bernard Kosar was currently holding a phone to each of his ears. In each ear was the shouting voice of a high-level executive of Mid
-Atlantic Power. Kosar had tried to explain that his people were already working as hard as they could, but this didn’t stop the executives from shouting; they had been shouted at by the people above them, and they felt a need to shout at the people below.

  Kosar heard a tap on his doorframe and looked up to see Robert Joseph gesturing to indicate he wanted to tell Kosar something. Kosar put the two phones down on his desk.

  “What?” he said to Joseph.

  “It’s coming from around here,” Joseph said.

  “What is?’

  “The hack,” said Joseph. “It’s coming from Maryland.”

  Kosar waved his arms. “For everything? The whole country?”

  “I think so,” said Joseph.

  Kosar was on his feet. “How do you know that?”

  Joseph started to answer, but he was using computer terms so technical that to Kosar it might as well have been Chinese. Worse, actually, because Kosar spoke a little Chinese. He waved an arm to make Joseph stop.

  “Okay, never mind,” he said. “Where, exactly, are they in Maryland?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Joseph.

  “Find out,” said Kosar.

  Joseph started to say something, but then he saw the look in Kosar’s eyes.

  “Okay,” he said and left.

  Kosar picked up the phones. The executives were still shouting. He gently put the phones back down, a few inches apart. He’d let the executives shout at each other, while the nerdy kid in the other room tried to save the world.

  BAM BAM BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

  The men in the basement were trying to break down the door. They’d been pounding on it with their fists, but the door proved to be too solid. Now, however, they’d found something heavier to bludgeon it with—a chair, maybe, or a baseball bat. They were hitting the door hard; from what Toby’s parents had seen, one of them was huge.

  Roger stood by the door, watching it warily as it shook with each blow. Fawn was at the kitchen telephone; she’d just dialed 911 yet again. She hung up in frustration.

  “It’s still busy!” she said. “How can 911 be busy?”

  “It’s the blackout,” said Roger.

  BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

  “Roger,” said Fawn, “they’re going to knock it down. We should go.”

  “You go,” he said. “I’m staying. I’m not letting them take the collection.”

  She went to him, put a hand on his arm. “Roger,” she said softly, “it’s just some old movie props.”

  He turned from the door, took her hands in his, and looked into her eyes. “Fawn,” he said, “do you remember how we met? Do you?”

  She nodded, but he answered anyway: “We met in a movie theater, Fawn. We met because we were the only two people who went to every single showing of The Empire Strikes Back. Every single one, for three days, until the movie theater called the police. People said we were crazy, but we didn’t care, because we knew we were part of something great, something that would last.

  “And it did last, Fawn. We were right, and those people were wrong, just like they were wrong when we quit our jobs and spent all our time and money scavenging for those props. That collection is worth a fortune today, Fawn.”

  BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

  “What does it matter what it’s worth?” said Fawn. “You’ll never sell it.”

  “That’s right,” said Roger. “I won’t sell it because it’s part of me—part of us. Star Wars brought us together, Fawn. It gave us a purpose when we didn’t have one. It taught us that there is good and evil in the universe, and if good doesn’t stand up to evil and fight back, then evil will win.”

  He pointed at the door. “And right now, somebody dressed as Darth Vader, the very embodiment of evil, is trying to take our collection.”

  “But the big one looks like Chewbacca,” said Fawn. “Isn’t he supposed to be good?”

  “Maybe he switched sides,” said Roger.

  BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM—CRACK

  The door was giving way.

  “You go,” said Roger. “Maybe you can find help. I’m going to stay and fight.”

  “With what?” said Fawn. “You don’t have a weapon.”

  “I do too have a weapon,” said Roger. He turned and strode down the hall to their bedroom, with Fawn following. He went to the closet and reached up to the top shelf.

  “Are you insane?” she said. “It’s a movie prop!”

  Roger brought down a custom-made case and set it on the bed. He flipped the latches and opened the lid.

  BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM

  “It may be a movie prop to you,” he said. “To me, it is the weapon Luke Skywalker used in the greatest duel of all—the duel with Vader in the freezing chamber on Cloud City.” He pulled out a battered-looking light saber.

  “But Luke lost that duel,” said Fawn. “Vader cut off his hand.”

  “Yes, but Luke lived to fight again,” said Roger.

  “I think you’re better off with the barbecue tongs,” said Fawn.

  Ignoring her, Roger put the light saber on the bed and went back into the closet, emerging a moment later with a black Jedi Knight uniform on a hanger. He quickly stripped down to his underwear and shrugged into the black top.

  BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM

  “You’re wearing that?” said Fawn.

  “I want him to know what he’s fighting,” said Roger.

  “A lunatic?” said Fawn.

  “He’s fighting the Force,” said Roger. “The good side of the Force. And there is no power in the universe more powerful. Help me with my pants.” Roger had put on a few pounds since the last time he had been a Jedi Knight. The black pants were stuck midway up his thighs.

  BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM CRACK CRACK CRACK

  “Roger!” said Fawn, “they’re breaking through the door!”

  There was no time now for pants. Roger grabbed the light saber and, hindered by his halfway-up pants, waddled into the hallway to do battle with evil.

  LANCE SWINGLE—TRAILED BY THE HORNET, a gaggle of science teachers, and a crowd of spectators—walked slowly through the Hubble Middle gymnasium, pretending to be interested in the science fair. What he was really interested in was getting out of there. The mysterious blackouts had made him very nervous; he’d told his lackeys to let him know as soon as the TranScent helicopter could take off.

  Meanwhile, though, he was looking with fake fascination at science-fair projects. He had just reached the one submitted by Brad Pitt Wemplemeyer, who stood next to it, beaming with pride. His project consisted of a fifty-five-gallon drum containing a brown liquid. Suspended over this, hanging from a wire, was a large, multicolored disc, about the size of a small car tire. Next to the project was a sign that said THE POWER OF SURFACE TENSION.

  Swingle stopped, looking at the disc.

  “What is that thing?” he said.

  “It’s a giant Mentos,” said BPW.

  “A what?” said Swingle.

  “A Mentos,” said BPW. “The candy. Actually I made it by gluing a whole bunch of regular Mentos together. It took, like, a week.”

  Swingle leaned closer to the disc and saw that it was, in fact, made of thousands of Mentos.

  “And why did you do that?” he asked Brad.

  “To see what happens when you drop it in Diet Coke,” said Brad, pointing at the drum.

  “You filled a fifty-five-gallon drum with Diet Coke?” said Swingle.

  “Yeah,” said Brad. “We had to get it from the beverage distributor. My dad says this project better win the prize, because he spent my college tuition on Diet Coke.”

  “Perhaps we should move on,” said The Hornet, glaring at BPW.

  “Not yet,” said Swingle. To BPW he said, “I have to know. What, exactly, will happen when you drop that thing into the Diet Coke?”

  “I’m not totally sure,” said Brad. “For the actual experiment, I’m going to move it outside. They won’t let me do it in here. You want to see it happen?”

  “Not really,�
�� said Swingle.

  There was a loud Ribbit! and a sudden motion next to Brad’s project. The group turned to see a large frog inside a glass globe rise several inches off a metal plate. It hovered in the air, looking nervous even by frog standards.

  “What is THAT?” said Swingle.

  “It’s Fester,” said BPW. “He’s a frog.”

  “I see it’s a frog,” said Swingle. “But what…what…”

  “It’s Mucus’s project,” said Brad.

  “Mucus?” said Swingle.

  “Micah Porter,” said BPW. “It works on magnets or something. Micah has it on a timer. He’s not here because he got kicked out of school for…”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Wemplemeyer,” snapped The Hornet.

  “Okay,” said BPW. “But I think Fester’s getting hungry.”

  “Why don’t we move on?” said The Hornet.

  “Why don’t we?” said Swingle.

  Ribbit! said Fester the floating frog. But nobody was listening.

  The judges came next to a row of impressive-looking projects, all submitted by ME kids. The Hornet perked up, as did the teachers with her; one of these projects, they were sure, would be Swingle’s choice for first prize. This was also the opinion of the group of ME kids and their parents—including Harmonee, Haley, Jason, and The Ferret, all of whom were smiling with varying degrees of smugness.

  But The Ferret’s smugness turned to fear when Swingle pointed at his project and said, “This looks interesting. Can someone tell me what it’s about?”

  “Go ahead, Farrel,” Harmonee said to The Ferret, her smiling face radiating sweetness. “Explain your project to Mr. Swingle.” The other ME kids snickered, knowing that The Ferret could no more explain his project than he could produce frozen yogurt from his ear.

  “Is this your project, young man?” said Swingle.

  “Um,” said The Ferret, adding, “um.”

  “Yes?” said Swingle.

  “Um,” said The Ferret.

  “He means yes,” said Harmonee, batting her eyelashes at Swingle.