The security bot buzzed back to life and thundered after us.
The balcony was wide and empty. There was plenty of room to run, but nowhere to hide. We reached the far railing. The lights of Slick City spread out below us all the way to Fang Harbor.
Aleetha peered over the railing and pulled her head back quickly.
“Too high to jump,” she said.
The security bot stomped closer.
Tank fumbled with her tool belt, searching for something. She pulled a small brass ball out of one of the pockets.
My stomach dropped like it had been tossed off the balcony.
“What are you doing, Tank?” I said.
“Saving our butts.”
She tossed the ball into the air.
The police van smelled like stale coffee. Or maybe it was just Detective Hordish.
The ogre police officer scowled at the three of us from the back door. We huddled together inside the van on a narrow bench, wrapped in itchy blankets. Mom was there too. From the way she chewed her fangs, I knew I was in trouble.
“I thought you were with Tank’s family, doing homework,” she said. “But it turns out you three were running around the mayor’s mansion, disguised as waiters. I’m upset, Fizz.”
“The mayor is very upset too,” Hordish said.
“He’s upset?” Aleetha jumped to her feet. “He nearly killed us with that security bot!”
Hordish scowled. “The mayor tells a different story. He thinks you are the Codex.”
“What?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mom said. “Just because the kids crashed his party doesn’t mean they are the Codex.”
“Just like how the kids crashed the mayor’s press conference?” Hordish said. “When you little monsters show up, the Codex is never far behind. The mayor thinks that is suspicious. And I agree with him.”
“It’s a coincidence!” I said.
“Police officers don’t believe in coincidences,” Hordish said. “The mayor sent us here to watch out for the Codex. And then you three land right in our laps.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Aleetha said.
“Go on,” Hordish said.
Aleetha’s eyes met mine. I knew what she was thinking. She took a deep breath and started talking.
“It all started with this book we found in the library,” she said.
Aleetha told my mom and Detective Hordish about the guardian in the book and about Az, the demon. She explained how the hacker known as the Codex was using the demon’s face to scare the mayor. I added the bit about the ancient goblin map with the weird oval shape right where Slurp Stadium was built. And Tank told them about the security bot we’d chased along the rooftops.
Mom was silent while she digested the fact that her only son had nearly been eaten by a demon and a security bot in one night.
“And that troll Sanzin is the one controlling the battle bot!” Tank said. “He sent the bot to spy on us at the library.”
“Slow down there, young troll,” Detective Hordish said. “Sanzin Balazar runs the biggest company in Rockfall Mountain. Without SlurpCo Industries, there would be no jobs in Slick City. Sanzin is a leader. Watch what you say about him.”
“He’s a sneak and he’s up to something.” Tank crossed her arms and scowled at the floor of the van.
Detective Hordish tugged on the collar of his shirt. “There’s a lot you’re not thinking about. The mayor also claims you somehow opened the balcony doors after the whole mansion was in lockdown.”
“We didn’t do that!” Tank said. “They just unlocked themselves.”
“Or you had help.” Hordish smiled. “From a mysterious computer hacker terrorizing our city. If you aren’t the Codex, then you are friends with the Codex. That makes you suspects.”
My tail went into twitch overload. We came out here to solve the mystery of the Codex. Now, we were all suspects. The police thought we were the Codex. Detective Hordish was definitely wrong about that. But he raised a good point. Who had unlocked the doors to the balcony? Did the Codex help us escape?
My thoughts were shattered by a blinding flash of light coming from the mayor’s house.
After the Codex’s light show, Mom declared us officially off the case. Detective Hordish reluctantly agreed we weren’t the Codex and let us go home. But the old ogre wasn’t fully convinced we weren’t wrapped up in this Codex mess. Mom told me to forget the hacker and focus on solving the Mystery of the Unfinished Homework piling up in my schoolbag.
The next day, she kept me within tail’s reach like I was a toddler. It was the weekend, but I was stuck following her around town, getting groceries and a thousand other totally boring errands. The highlight was swinging by the Bouncing Bugbear for an end-of-shopping treat.
Outside the café, Mom handed me the box of Rita’s cookies.
“Take these to Tank,” she said. “Her mom sent me a message. Tank has been in her workshop all morning and won’t come out.”
I took the box of cookies. They were still warm.
“She’s sad because we’re banned from investigating the Codex.”
“Think about that next time you decide to jump off the mayor’s balcony, Fizz.” Mom’s words were stern, but her eyes held a mischievous twinkle. “I’m not a fan of Mayor Grimlock, but I am a fan of keeping my little goblin in one piece. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. Let’s catch our bus. You can drop by Tank’s house. Cheer her up, but no more Codex snooping! Leave that to Detective Hordish.”
Mom scratched the scales behind my ears, and I felt as warm as the cookies in the box.
Tank didn’t even grunt hello when I came down the stairs into her workshop. Gadgets and gear were spread all through the small basement room. Wires, diodes and doodads covered her workbench. It was a tinkering troll’s paradise, but Tank looked sadder than a slime with no garbage to eat. She sat hunched over, silently poking a screwdriver at a damaged circuit board.
I slid the box of cookies across her workbench.
“Have one,” I said. “Rita baked them just for you. They won’t help us solve this mystery, but they will cheer you up.”
My best friend took a cookie and munched in silence. I took one and joined her in quiet chewing.
This whole case had started out with Rizzo Rawlins and his illegal battle-bot parts. Now we were wrapped up in a battle between the mayor of Slick City and a mysterious hacker known only as the Codex.
My mom and Detective Hordish might have wanted us off the case, but that wasn’t happening. Unsolved cases are like itches that must be scratched. And Tank and I weren’t done scratching.
“The Battle Bot Cup is tonight, Fizz,” Tank said. The cookies must have helped her find her voice. “And we still haven’t proven Rizzo is cheating.”
“True, but if we don’t stop the Codex from his big hack tonight, it won’t matter what parts Rizzo has running in his battle bot.”
“How can we stop the Codex? The cops have no idea who he is or what
he is planning to do,” Tank said. “I’ll be happy if we can bust Rizzo for cheating and have the Troll Patrol represent Gravelmuck in tonight’s battle.”
“Is that why you’re still looking at those spybot photos?”
Images from our disastrous snooping with the spybot covered the large screen hanging above Tank’s workbench. I had looked at the photos a dozen times. There were pictures of Rizzo and the Gutro twins talking to the Codex on the billboard, and photos of Rizzo with the strange equipment that even the Troll Patrol guys couldn’t identify.
“I know it’s useless, but I don’t know what else to do,” she said. “These photos don’t prove Rizzo is cheating. We need a picture of the Codex’s equipment actually inside Rizzo’s battle bot.”
“And that’s not going to happen,” I said. “We tried that already, remember.”
Tank scrolled through the photos on the screen. The spybot had taken a lot of pictures. Most of them were of the ground or the buildings around the parking lot where Rizzo had met the Codex.
One photo jumped out at me.
“Scroll back,” I said. Tank rolled the photos back across the screen until I saw the one that had caught my eye. “There. Zoom in on that one.”
“The spybot was just warming up when it took this one, Fizz. It’s nothing.”
“Wrong,” I said. “It’s definitely something, and it’s been staring at us the whole time.”
It was a photo taken from very high in the air, showing the parking lot. Rizzo and the twins were just dots on the ground. But, across the street, the image showed something else: Slurp Stadium.
The stadium looked totally different seen from that high in the air. Its retractable roof was open. I could see right down to the battle-bot field. Except there wasn’t a field. It was a giant hole. Slurp Stadium had a retractable field as well as a retractable roof.
In the hole was something I had seen before.
My tail twitched like it was swatting at a swarm of nipticks. Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, but I didn’t like what I was beginning to see.
“We need to talk to Aleetha,” I said. “I think I know why the Codex wants Slurp Stadium closed. And I hope I’m wrong.”
Slurp Stadium was bursting with monsters.
Every troll, goblin and ogre in Slick City had come here to be part of the grand opening celebrations. Music blasted from loudspeakers. Smells from the food vendors wafted through the air. Crowds of monsters gawked at the new stadium and watched young coders showing off their battle-bot skills in the battle-bot playground.
The playground was a big open area in the stadium, just outside the actual battle-bot arena. Battle bots were everywhere, running, jumping, flying and buzzing in the air. Every battle-bot team that hadn’t made the finals was here. But only a few lucky teams would compete in tonight’s battle.
The opening party had begun, but we had no reason to celebrate. We still had no idea what the Codex had planned with his army, and we were no closer to proving Rizzo was a cheat. We found the Troll Patrol putting their bot, Thrasher, through an obstacle course. The bot looked good, but our troll friends were in no mood to celebrate.
“Somebody needs to teach that kobold a lesson,” Ryla growled after Rizzo had left.
“I think it’s too late for that,” said Zarkof. “Rizzo has everyone fooled. All we can do is sit back and try to enjoy the show.”
“I’m not ready to sit back,” I said. “And the only thing I want to enjoy is watching Rizzo get busted.”
Daztan arched a bushy eyebrow. “You two have a plan?”
“Calling it a plan is a stretch,” Tank said. “Just keep your bot batteries charged and ready for battle.”
“We’ll be ready,” Ryla said with a wide grin.
Tank was right. We didn’t have a plan. I’d mashed together a few ideas on how to stop the Codex and reveal Rizzo as a cheat. Before that mash-up of ideas could become a plan, we needed to find Aleetha.
The wizards’ work area was easy to spot. It was the only one popping with magic. The telltale sparkle of spells floated in the air around their bot, like smoke rising from a fire.
“I still don’t think it’s fair that the Shadow Tower gets to compete,” Tank said.
“You heard Aleetha, Tank. Their battle bots are the same. They’re just powered with magic instead of computer code.”
“It’s still creepy,” she said.
“Keep that to yourself,” I said. “There are enough battles going on tonight without adding magic versus technology to the list.”
I spotted Aleetha with the wizards’ bot crew. Four lava elves in long dark robes huddled around their battle bot. I could see flashes of the bot as the mages moved around it.
“Their bot looks totally normal to me,” I said.
Tank snorted. “It’s not the bot, Fizz. It’s how they make the bot work. Do you notice they have no tools? No wrenches or hammers or even circuit boards. Never trust a bot builder that has no tools, Fizz.”
“They just do things differently.” I sighed. “They use magic instead of tools. If you ask me, technology is as dangerous as magic. Just look at what the Codex has done so far.”
Before Tank could answer, Aleetha ran up to us. She took us each by an arm and led us away from the wizards tinkering with the bot.
“We better talk over here. My friends don’t trust trolls and their tech.”
I shot Tank a “don’t say anything” look that, thankfully, she understood.
“Did you bring it?” I asked, quickly changing the topic.
She nodded. “I got your message.”
We found a spot away from the running, jumping bots. Aleetha pulled a long scroll from her bag and spread it on the ground.
“Is that the map from the library? The one from the time before the ogres arrived?” Tank asked.
“It’s a copy,” Aleetha said. “I ordered one from the library after our little adventure in the map room.”
I studied the old goblin map. All around Fang Harbor was an open field of glowshrooms and boulder bushes. Goblins had lived along the water’s edge, catching haggle fish and harvesting mushrooms. No roads, no buildings and no Slurp Stadium. But there was that one thing marked on the map. And it was exactly what I was looking for.
“Tank, give me your phone,” I said.
I scrolled through Tank’s photos. My tail tingled when I found the one I needed.
There was no denying it. The shape on the goblin map matched the shape in the ground under the stadium. I had no idea what that meant, but it got my tail wagging.
“We’re finally getting closer to figuring out what the Codex is up to,” I said.
“Don’t start your victory dance just yet, Fizz,” Aleetha said. “It’s not all good news.”
She pulled another scroll from her robes and unrolled it on the ground beside the map.
“That’s the page from the goblin history book,” Tank said. “The one you showed us at the library.”
Aleetha ran her hand along the stick-figure drawing of the goblin.
“I finally found a teacher at school who would help me translate the words from ancient goblin,” she said. Her voice went quiet as she spoke. “It is a set of instructions.”
Tank looked up from the map. “Instructions? For what?”
“I don’t know. The teacher could only recognize some of the words. Ancient goblin isn’t a popular subject in the Shadow Tower.” Aleetha glanced at me. “Sorry, Fizz.”
“No worries.” I shrugged. “Magic isn’t a popular subject at Gravelmuck Elementary.”
“Very true.” Aleetha grinned. She turned back to the page on the ground. “My teacher did recognize the shapes on the page and map. She called them flowstones.”
“Flowstones?” I said, remembering my chat with Mom at the Bouncing Bugbear Café. “I thought flowstones weren’t real.”
“They are very real and very powerful,” Aleetha said.
My brain puzzled through it all. If the shape on the map was a flowstone, and it matched the shape in Tank’s photo, that could only mean one thing. “There is a flowstone buried under Slurp Stadium,” I said.
“So what?” Tank said. She stared at the map. Her ears drooped like they always did when she was working out a difficult math problem. “What’s so special about a bunch of rocks?”
Aleetha looked over her shoulder. Around us, the battle-bot preparations carried on. Technicians fine-tuned their contraptions, and battle-bot fans checked out the new machines. No one paid any attention to three kids in a quiet corner, huddled around an old map. Convinced no one was listening, Aleetha leaned in close.
“When activated, a flowstone can be transformed,” she said.
“Transformed into what?” Tank said.
“A gateway to the world of demons,” Aleetha said.
The Case of the Battling Bots Page 6
