BAM! BAM! BAM! Mattie bounced down those stairs. Whump! Whump! Whump! His head thumped against the steps and then the wall and then the steps. Clump! Mattie landed on his butt.
Clump! Clump! Eliot and Caroline landed beside him.
“Ow,” Mattie muttered and rolled on his side so he could see his friends. Above them, the tomb slid shut. “What happened?”
“We ran after you,” Caroline said. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“And now?” Mattie asked as they stared up the dark staircase and at the tomb’s smooth stone bottom.
“I’m not so sure,” Caroline answered. She craned her head. Above them, an orange light flickered to life. “How many secrets can this stupid school have?”
The three friends got to their feet and straightened their clothes. They were in a large circular room with a low ceiling and lots of boxes covered in sheets. To Eliot’s right was a metal desk and computer with multiple monitors.
Security, Mattie thought. He recognized the grainy images of the cemetery above them. “Well, at least we’ll be able to see who’s coming,” Mattie said, jutting his chin toward the monitors.
“Oh, goody,” Caroline said, dusting off her shirt. She paused. “Wait. Tell me those aren’t new coffins!” She jammed one finger in the direction of the boxes. “Tell me right now!”
Mattie couldn’t. They looked exactly like new coffins. Long and thin, the closest had a white sheet draped across the top. Mattie lifted one corner. There was a glass top underneath the sheet. He leaned closer to the surface until he could see something fuzzy underneath the glass. Something fuzzy and round and—it was a head!
It was a human head! Mattie jumped backward. “Ah!” he yelped.
“What?”
Mattie’s sneakers squeaked as he kicked himself away from the box. “It’s a head!”
Eliot and Caroline crept to Mattie’s side. The head wasn’t just any human head. It was Doyle’s head.
Actually, Mattie tugged the sheet farther back and breathed a sigh of relief when he realized it wasn’t just a head, it was Doyle. All of him. Doyle’s hands were folded neatly on his stomach and his eyes were closed. He looked like he was sleeping.
“Is he dead?” Caroline breathed. She sounded scared and the dim orange light made her eyes shiny as plastic.
“I don’t think so?” Mattie smushed his nose against the glass. Doyle’s face never moved, but his chest lifted and fell ever so gently. “I think he’s asleep.”
“It’s like he’s in a glass coffin,” Caroline whispered.
Doyle was lying on a white satin cushion inside the glass box. White, flexible tubes pumped air across Doyle’s face, making his caterpillar eyebrows flutter. Mattie listened closely and could hear faint music being played inside the box. It was almost…nice.
“Maybe it’s more like a toy box,” Mattie suggested because it sounded less scary and Caroline looked awfully close to tears. “You know, like they put action figures in—wait, do you think these are the pods the teachers were talking about?”
“Probably,” Eliot said as he examined the control panel attached to Doyle’s pod. “I think they’re frozen.”
Mattie pulled back. “What?”
“Cryogenic freezing.” Eliot peered into Doyle’s pod. “It slows everything down. The teachers wouldn’t need to feed the kids or anything.”
“It can also help with wrinkles,” Caroline added. “Our parents are testing it in their laboratories.”
“Seriously?” Mattie wondered.
The Spencers shrugged and Mattie jumped down. “Help me find Carter?”
Caroline hugged both arms around herself and nodded. They trailed from pod to pod. There was Marcus. There was Jay. There was Maxwell.
And there was Carter.
Mattie was so relieved that his knees shook. He’d found his brother! And his brother was okay!
Now we just have to get out of here, Mattie thought and rapped on the glass top with his knuckles, hoping Carter would wake up. He didn’t. Mattie knocked harder.
“Would you stop that?” Caroline whispered fiercely. “We’re making enough noise as it is!”
Mattie stopped and Carter still didn’t move. Mattie wiped away a bit of the dust and then realized he was leaving fingerprints everywhere. He started to clean away the fingerprints and realized it was too late. If anyone came into the room after them, it would be obvious someone had been wiping the dust from the tops of the pods to look at the students inside.
Mattie’s thumb ran across an indentation in the metal on the side of Carter’s pod. He recognized the symbol. It was the Larimore Corporation logo.
In fact, the more Mattie looked around, the more he realized that almost everything here was made by the Larimore Corporation. Mattie felt bad—like he had personally done this, and he knew that was dumb. He hadn’t forced Headmaster Rooney to buy this stuff. It wasn’t his fault his dad’s company made this kind of equipment. You didn’t blame the pencil for misspelling words. So why did Mattie feel so anxious?
“Look at all the empty pods,” Caroline said, clutching Beezus. Mattie swallowed. He knew Rooney meant to clone all the students, but seeing the pods in person and knowing what they were meant for, well, it was scary all over again.
“Hey, look at this!” Eliot knelt close to the far wall, peering at some thick metal pipes. The pipes went from Doyle’s pod to the wall above. If they were very quiet, they could hear the soft, soft whir of air being pumped through them.
“What if they’re keeping him asleep?” Eliot asked. “What if it helps the clones somehow?”
“How would it help the clones?” Caroline wanted to know.
“How should I know?” Eliot stood and started to follow a line of electrical cables. They were fat and heavy and lay like snakes on a summer day. “It’s almost like…”
Caroline and Mattie climbed down as Eliot squeezed between Doyle’s pod and the wall. They followed him and found Eliot on the other side, peering into a metal cabinet filled with electronic boards and wires.
“What’s that?” Mattie asked.
“A gigantic computer tower,” Eliot said, sticking two fingers into the computer’s insides. He tugged at one wire and then another. “It’s simply fascinating.”
Caroline rolled her eyes. “What’s fascinating?”
Eliot dug around a bit more. “These are network cables.” He leaned back, studying how the electrical lines left the cabinet and followed the wall. “And the network cables are hooked up to the machines, and the machines—” Eliot jumped to his feet and traced the cables as they snaked across the floor. He scrambled on top of Doyle’s pod again and stared down at Doyle. “The machines are hooked up to the students!”
“Well, that explains everything,” Mattie said.
“Totally,” Caroline agreed with another eye roll. “I feel so much smarter.”
Eliot blinked at both of them. His mouth hung open a little as if he couldn’t believe they were being so stupid. “Think of Doyle’s brain like a hard drive,” Eliot finally explained. “That’s where a computer stores all its data, and if Doyle’s brain is the hard drive then Doyle’s clone can pull all his memories from him.”
Mattie gasped. “That’s why they know so much! They’re just pulling their memories from the real students!”
“Exactly.” Eliot dusted off his hands and stared down at Doyle. “They pull just enough information so they can pass as Doyle or Carter or Marcus and override the bad stuff with the Rooster’s files.”
“Kind of like saving over the old files?” Caroline asked.
“More like only accessing what he wants and”—Eliot snapped his fingers—“that’s why they won’t let us have electronics!”
“What?” Mattie stared at him.
“Electronics could interfere with the computers and that would screw up the clones!” Eliot explained. “Pretty smart—and with all those pods? Think of how many students they could clone! They really could
do all of us!”
Mattie thought Eliot sounded a little too excited by the prospect. “Eliot.”
Eliot was oblivious. “I want to take some stuff,” he said, his eyes glassy like he’d been eating candy for days. “Think anyone would notice?”
“YES!” Caroline and Mattie said.
“Fine. Whatever.” Eliot scowled and slid off Doyle’s pod. He put both hands on his hips and stared at the students, the boxes, and all the wires and cables dangling around them. “It’s just all so beautiful,” Eliot whispered and dabbed his eyes.
Caroline gave Mattie an anxious look. “Do something,” she hissed.
Mattie stared at her. What was he supposed to do?
Caroline planted one hand between his shoulder blades and shoved him forward. “We have to get out of here! Someone could come back any minute!”
Well, Mattie could definitely agree with Caroline on that.
“So, Eliot,” Mattie said, glancing around the room. “If we unplug Doyle and Carter, will the clones forget who they’re supposed to be?”
“Maybe? I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Mattie looked at the Larimore Corporation logo stamped on the closest metal panel and shook his head. “Yeah, me neither.”
“I mean, we could try. It might not hurt anything. Of course, it might also be like unplugging a thumb drive while you’re still using it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you did that in real life to a thumb drive, you could hang up your computer and lose whatever you were working on.”
“Oh.” Mattie looked at his brother and tried to decide what parts of Carter he might lose if they just yanked out the plug.
“Maybe we should try!” Eliot ran to the nearest box—Doyle’s—and started to tug on the biggest networking cable. “Let’s see what happens!”
“No!” Caroline cried. “You can’t just start yanking on stuff!”
“Why not?”
“Because those are people!”
Eliot stared at her. “No, they’re not. This one’s…” Eliot looked down. “This one’s Doyle.”
“You can’t do it!”
Eliot gave the big networking cable a jerk. “Actually, I can.”
“You can’t do it because I said so!” Caroline’s hair stood up even higher and her eyes bugged even more and Mattie took a step back. And then another.
“Fine,” Eliot grumbled and dropped the cable. “But we need a plan. We need to do something.”
“We need to get out of here,” Caroline added. “We can figure out a plan later, but if we stay here, we’re going to get caught and then we’ll end up just like them!”
And, as if they were starring in their very own scary movie, the computer began to beep.
“Oh, no.” Caroline swallowed. “What does that mean?”
Mattie dashed to the closest monitor and his heart double-thumped. “Karloff. He’s heading for the cemetery.”
“We have to run!” Eliot grabbed his sister’s arm and hauled both of them toward the stairs. “Open the tomb!”
“Wait!”
The Spencers stopped, turned, and stared at Mattie. “Don’t run. Let’s hide.”
“But Mattie, we can still get away,” Caroline panted.
Mattie shook his head. “If we leave now, we won’t get to see what they’re up to.”
“HIDE!” MATTIE WHISPERED. Eliot and Caroline scattered, and Mattie dashed after them. They ran right. They ran left. They ran ever so briefly around in a circle and then Caroline jumped into an empty pod and the boys dove underneath it.
Caroline closed the pod’s top with a click as Mattie wedged himself next to Eliot and all three of them held their breath as the tomb scraped open.
A pair of shoes came into view.
“C’mon,” Mr. Karloff snapped. They were his shoes and Mattie realized it as soon as the teacher spoke—although he probably should’ve realized it when he saw the super-shiny loafers. Mr. Karloff did love polishing his shoes. Mattie could see the overhead lights reflected on the toes. “Hurry up, Marcus!”
Marcus’s shoes appeared. Or, at least, Mattie assumed they were Marcus’s shoes. They were standard black Munchem-approved loafers, so technically they could have belonged to almost any student. Then the loafers jerked. They danced to the right and started doing some sort of tap dance to the left.
Tap dance? Mattie stared. Yep, the clone was definitely tap-dancing—and he was good at it.
“Oh, for heavens’ sake!” Mr. Karloff fumed and stomped closer to Marcus. Marcus kept dancing.
Beep! Beep! Bloop!
Marcus stopped dancing.
“Finally,” Mr. Karloff said. “Now c’mon, Marcus. I don’t have all day to reset you.”
Mattie and Eliot watched the teacher’s feet shuffle past.
“Stand over here, Marcus,” Mr. Karloff instructed. Mattie couldn’t see the teacher’s feet anymore, but he could still see Marcus’s. The clone stood next to the real Marcus’s pod. There was the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard and then something went whoosh, whoosh.
Eliot nudged Mattie’s elbow and pointed at Marcus’s pod. Mattie didn’t understand. What did Eliot want? What—oh.
Oh, no, Mattie thought.
A cable had been knocked loose from the pod. It lay on the floor, the end pointed accusingly in their direction. If Mr. Karloff noticed, he would plug the cable in again. If he plugged the cable in again, he would have to lean down. If he leaned down…Mattie gulped. If Mr. Karloff leaned down, they would be spotted for sure.
“Ah!” Mr. Karloff’s shiny shoes rushed into view. “This is what your problem is!”
Mr. Karloff knelt to grab the disconnected cable and spent several moments trying to jam the connector back into the socket.
Jam! Mattie watched and started to sweat.
Jam! Jam! Eliot watched and his hands started to shake.
“There!” Mr. Karloff cried as the connector finally connected and Marcus the Clone started dancing again. He pirouetted toward Mr. Karloff, and Mr. Karloff jumped to his feet, swearing.
“No!” Mr. Karloff yelled. “Stop it!”
He wrestled with the clone again and pushed more buttons. Finally, Marcus the Clone stopped dancing. Mr. Karloff slumped against the pod, trying to catch his breath. “Stupid clones,” he muttered. “Stupid computers. Stupid pods. Stupid…” Mr. Karloff’s voice trailed off. Mattie assumed he didn’t know the proper name for the cable he was cursing.
“This will be so much easier when we get better equipment, Marcus.” Mr. Karloff got to his feet and tapped away on the keyboard once more. He sounded like he was trying to beat it to death. “No more having to fix you every time a rat knocks something loose. No more traipsing across campus every time you have to be reset. No more getting your system overloaded all the time.”
What was Karloff talking about? Mattie looked at Eliot, hoping Eliot understood, but Eliot was staring into space, his lips mashed into a thin line like he was thinking.
“There!” Mr. Karloff said again. He sounded satisfied and banged on the keyboard a bit more. “Now you should be fixed and I can get back to my tea.”
“Thank you, Mr. Karloff,” Marcus the Clone said. He sounded extra chipper. “I feel much better!”
“Well, good,” Mr. Karloff returned. “Now let’s get back. You can clean my bathroom before you go to dinner.”
“That sounds great!” Marcus said, following Mr. Karloff across the room, up the stairs, and out of the tomb.
Mattie and Eliot waited in the dark until they were sure Mr. Karloff and Marcus the Clone were long gone. The waiting was even harder than the hiding. Mattie counted and counted, trying to keep track of the seconds so he could add them into minutes, but after the three-minute mark, he lost track and just lay on his belly, feeling his heartbeat slow back down to normal.
It took a while.
“No wonder the whole place is looking cleaner,” Eliot whispered.
“That’s what you can’t believe about this?” Mattie asked. Under the pod, it smelled like new plastic and cold concrete. Mattie’s nose prickled like he wanted to sneeze. He rubbed it with one hand.
“Well, yeah,” Eliot whispered back. “Furthermore, if they have the clones, they shouldn’t need me to clean those crusty toilets. It’s gross.” He craned his head, trying to get a better look at the stairs. “Do you think they’re gone?”
“I hope so.” Mattie dragged himself forward on his elbows and peeked around the pod’s edge. In the dark, the stairs were just a solid blob and the tomb door was completely invisible. Both boys listened and listened, but they didn’t hear the scuff scuff of shoes or the whisper of incoming voices. “I think we’re okay,” Mattie whispered.
“Then why are you still whispering?”
Mattie cleared his throat. “Better?”
“No. Your foot is in my face.”
“Oh.” Mattie scooted to one side. “Now?”
“Now it’s in my ear.”
Mattie dragged himself out from under the pod and the overhead lights flickered on, making the room look eerie and greenish. “Caroline?”
Caroline said nothing. Eliot popped up next to Mattie and brushed himself off.
“Caroline?” Eliot tapped on the pod’s glass.
There was still no response.
“Ugh,” Eliot muttered, glaring up at the lights. “It’s like the Rooster wants to make the whole thing creepy.”
“It’s already creepy,” Mattie said.
“Fine. Creepier. Happy?”
“No.” Mattie wasn’t happy at all. He’d found his brother, but had no idea how to wake him up. He was stuck underneath a tomb, and now Caroline was ignoring them. Mattie knocked harder on the tinted glass, and that’s when he noticed the lights.
There were three of them. They were green. They were blinking. And they most certainly had not been green or blinking before Mr. Karloff arrived.
“Is this thing on?” Mattie asked. His voice skidded so high he sounded like a Martha or a Matilda or a Mary. But Eliot didn’t notice. Eliot was banging on the glass now too.
“Caroline? Caroline!”
Caroline lay on her side, one hand curled by her hip, the other curled in a fist. She looked like she was fast asleep, and she wasn’t waking up.
The Boy Who Knew Too Much Page 17
