The X-Factor

by Franklin W. Dixon

  “All right, enough with the coffee klatch, people,” Tyrone broke in impatiently. “If you boys don’t have anything else to tell me, we all might as well get back to work.”

  I opened my mouth to mention our suspicions of Sprat. But it was too late. McKenzie was gone. Delfina gave us a little wave and hurried out after him.

  “Guess we’ve been dismissed,” Frank commented, heading for the door. “Let’s get back out there.”

  Soon we were wandering through GX again. There was still an hour until closing, and the place was pretty crowded.

  “Hard to believe McKenzie would even consider shutting down,” I said as we walked along the main path, dodging hordes of park-goers. “It’s not like anything that’s happened is keeping people away.”

  Frank nodded. “It does seem strange that he’d suddenly be all over the idea of closing his cash cow. What did Erica call it that time? His baby, right?” He thought a moment. “Then again, what if that’s been the real plan all along?”

  “You mean this could all be some kind of big insurance scam or something?” I thought about that as we wandered down another path. “Guess it’s possible.”

  A shout went up somewhere ahead. Suddenly a whole bunch of people starting rushing in that direction.

  “Looks like something’s going on,” said Frank.

  “Let’s go see what.” I took off at a jog, following the crowd.

  We found ourselves swept along toward the auditorium. People crowded in from every direction. Once we entered, we could see the stage—every spot in the place had a great view.

  “Is that Zana the Bret fan?” Frank said.

  It was. She was up on the stage. Well, actually, she was up over the stage. Zana was perched on the metal scaffolding that held the stage’s backdrop and overhead lights and stuff.

  “I’m going to do it!” she cried out dramatically. “I’m going to jump. Life without Bret isn’t worth living. I want to die in the same spot as my beloved!”

  Tanks a Lot

  “Grab the curtain!” Joe yelled, pelting toward the stage. I elbowed some curious onlookers aside and followed. Okay, so it wasn’t too likely that Zana could actually kill herself by jumping from that relatively low height onto a wooden stage—if she even planned to actually follow through on her threat. She seemed like the overdramatic attention-seeking type to me.

  Still, no point in taking any chances. Even if Zana just broke her arm or something, it might give McKenzie the excuse he was looking for to shut down. And then we’d never find the bad guy.

  At first I wasn’t sure what plan Joe had in mind. Then I saw him yank the stage curtain sideways. He maneuvered it over beneath where Zana was standing.

  Now I got it. I grabbed the other corner and did likewise. Now we had a fabric safety net beneath her, covering half the stage. Of course, if she truly wanted to harm herself, all she had to do was scoot over and jump down onto the other half.…

  “Good-bye, cruel world,” she wailed. “Bret, I’m coming! Aaaaaaaaaah!”

  With that, she jumped. Or, rather, sort of toppled.

  WHOOOMP!

  “Oof !” I grunted as I leaned back, doing my best to balance the impact of her weight landing square in the middle of our makeshift safety net.

  The watching crowd let out a cheer. “Is she dead?” some kid yelled. Nice.

  “Guess it’s okay to set it down now,” Joe commented, letting his corner of the curtain drop. I did the same.

  THUMP.

  “Hey!” Zana complained, sitting up and brushing herself off. “You could be a little gentler, you know. Can’t you see I’m in deep psychic pain here? I don’t need a twisted ankle on top of that.”

  She didn’t sound too grateful. Luckily, some guards and a medic rushed up to take over, saving us from coming up with a response. Joe and I backed off and watched as the medic did her thing.

  “You’re welcome,” Joe muttered sarcastically as Zana started complaining loudly about her twisted ankle. “This proves she’s nutty enough to pull some of those stunts. But is she maybe a little too nutty?”

  I’d just been wondering the same thing. Whoever was messing with GX was good. Really good. Most of the sabotage had gone off without a hitch, despite the fact that the place had tons of guards around 24/7. Not to mention Joe and me on the case. Could someone like Zana really pull that off?

  We watched the scene for a little longer. Eventually Ox Oliver showed up and ordered the guards to escort Zana off the property.

  “And don’t let her back in,” he added in his deep, rumbly voice. “As of now, Ms. Johnston, you’re no longer welcome at Galaxy X.”

  “What?” Zana screeched, outraged. “You can’t ban me! This is sacred ground! Blah, blah, blah!”

  Okay, the “blah blah blah” part isn’t a direct quote. But at that point her voice got so high-pitched that only dogs could tell what she was screaming about. A second later she grabbed a nearby microphone stand and swung it at Ox’s head.

  “Look out!” Joe shouted.

  But Ox had seen the attack coming. He caught the mike stand easily in one meaty fist and wrenched it out of Zana’s grasp. She collapsed on the ground, sobbing.

  “I’d call that attempted assault, wouldn’t you, boys?” one of the guards commented.

  Another guard nodded. “Should be able to get her locked up for that,” he agreed. “At least overnight.”

  “Take her away,” Ox ordered, tossing the mike stand aside.

  The guards grabbed Zana and dragged her off. By the time the sounds of her screaming and wailing faded away, most of the onlookers had dispersed. Ox was still there, pushing the curtain back into place.

  “Come on,” Joe murmured in my ear. “Let’s go talk to him.”

  I nodded. McKenzie had seemed pretty confident that Ox didn’t have anything to do with the sabotage. But Joe didn’t seem convinced, and neither was I.

  Ox glanced up as we approached. “Hi there,” he rumbled. “You two the ones who caught that wacko?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just in the right place at the right time, I guess.”

  “So,” Joe put in. “Is it true that you used to be a pro stuntman?”

  That’s my brother for you. Mr. Subtle.

  Ox glanced up sharply. Then he quickly returned his attention to the curtain. He didn’t say a word.

  “Look.” I decided to play good cop. “We don’t mean to be nosy. It’s just that a lot of stuff has been going wrong around here, and we’re trying to figure out who might have a reason to cause trouble for Mr. McKenzie.”

  “Can’t help you.” Ox shrugged. “If I knew who it was, I’d deal with them myself.”

  “Really? Why?” Joe asked. “I mean, I know you like the job and all. But I bet you wouldn’t mind seeing McKenzie taken down a peg, huh? Nobody would blame you for having it in for the guy.”

  Ox blinked at him. His expression seemed genuinely perplexed. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I don’t have it in for Tyrone. He saved me!” Suddenly he scowled and shot us a look we’d seen plenty of times from suspects before. Joe calls it the oops-I’ve-said-too-much look.

  I pressed on before he could recover. “Saved you? What do you mean?”

  Ox just glowered at me for a second. To be honest, it was a little scary. The guy is huge, remember?

  Then he sort of deflated. “Look, you guys are secret agents. That means you can keep a secret, right?”

  “Sure,” said Joe.

  “Okay, then it’s true—I was a stuntman.” Ox sighed, wandering away from the curtain. “At least until I got injured and had to quit. Had some debt and no other skills, and well… I pretty much hit rock bottom. Was living out of my car, the whole deal. Tyrone heard about it. I’d done some work for him back in the day and we always got along, you know? He loaned me some dough, gave me a job working for him and a chance to start over.”

  “Okay, nice story,” Joe said. “But if Tyrone’s such a great guy, why’d you look l
ike you wanted to kill him yesterday?”

  “What are you talking about?” Once again Ox seemed confused.

  “It was right after the photo op at Bomber Pilot,” I reminded him. “Remember? You were working the smoke machine or whatever it was.”

  “Oh, that!” Ox’s expression cleared. “Right. Have to admit I wasn’t feeling too happy just then. See, I told Tyrone we shouldn’t try to open that ride yet. The crew finished things up in too much of a rush, the safety inspectors hadn’t even had their final look at it yet.… There was just too much risk of an accident.” He shook his head sadly. “Wish I’d been wrong about that.”

  Okay. By now I was pretty convinced that Ox wasn’t our culprit. Beneath all that brawn, he was really a pretty nice guy.

  “By the way,” I said, deciding it was time for a change of subject. Even if Ox wasn’t our bad guy, maybe he could help us. “We were wondering about that whole tractor incident. Do you have any idea who might have run it off the cliff?”

  “Not a clue,” Ox said. “Forgot to mention it before, but I had the start-up key in my pocket the whole time it was parked. Didn’t want any guests coming across it and thinking it was part of the fun, you know?” He glanced toward some park guests wandering through the mostly empty auditorium. “So whoever did it must’ve hot-wired it.”

  Interesting. I traded a quick look with Joe, guessing he might be thinking the same thing I was. There was at least one person on our suspect list who was known for his ability to hot-wire stuff. Famous for it, actually.

  We excused ourselves from Ox and headed back outside. “Think we should try to talk to Sprat again?” I asked as soon as we were alone.

  “Definitely.” Joe looked excited. “Let’s go find him!”

  “And fast,” I added, glancing at my watch. “We don’t have much time. The park closes in, like, half an hour.”

  We started searching. A bored-looking guard who’d just come on duty outside the arcade told us he’d seen some celebrities over in the Wild Wild West section. We headed that way at a brisk jog.

  “Maybe that’s him.” Joe pointed to a small crowd gathered around the shooting gallery.

  However, when we pushed our way through the crowd, we found that it wasn’t Sprat who was showing off his skills. It was Erica. We waited as she sighted down the fake rifle, which shot lasers at a bunch of targets. She squeezed the trigger half a dozen times in a row, confidently and accurately taking out a cactus, several tin cans, and a fake cowboy’s ten-gallon hat.

  “Nice shooting,” Joe said, stepping up as she lowered the gun to whoops and hollers from the watching crowd. “Where’d a nice girl like you learn to do that?”

  I rolled my eyes. Joe never gives it a rest.

  Erica glanced at him, not cracking a smile. “My dad taught me to shoot when I was little.” She set the fake rifle back in its holder. “I try to keep in practice. I think he’d like that.”

  Even Joe didn’t have anything to say after that. It was pretty clear that Erica wasn’t doing this to impress Joe or the other guys. She’d done it for herself. And her dad.

  “Last call, people!” the worker manning the shooting gallery yelled. “We close in ten minutes, so shoot ’em while you got ’em.”

  The watching guys started shoving forward and grabbing all the available rifles. Joe and I were shuffled away from the front along with Erica.

  “So what are you guys up to?” she asked us as we found ourselves out on the cobblestone square that formed the center of the Wild Wild West section of the park.

  “Looking for someone,” I said.

  “Yeah. That Sprat dude,” Joe added. “Seen him lately?”

  “Actually, yeah.” Erica pointed at the area just across the square on the far side of the saloon. “He went past here a few minutes ago. Heading over there, I think.”

  “Thanks.” There wasn’t much time until closing, so I didn’t waste any time heading the way she’d pointed. Joe followed.

  “Hey,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “Your girlfriend isn’t tagging along. Wonder if that means she finally realized what a loser you really are? Still, you’d think she’d want to come along and get to know me better.…”

  Ignoring his babble, I put on a burst of speed. I’d just spotted Sprat outside GX’s Western-themed bumper car attraction, which was called Whiplash. He was sort of dancing around, waving his arms at a young man in a GX employee uniform. Three other guys were standing there too. Two of them were minor actors, and the third was a popular VJ from one of the music channels. Guess that meant not all the other celebrities had left yet after all.

  “There he is,” I said.

  Joe nodded, suddenly all business again. “Let’s go.”

  We reached the little group just in time to see the GX employee shrug. “Sorry, dude,” he said. “I can’t let you on. I’ll get in trouble. Each ride is supposed to be ten minutes, and it’s less than that to closing now.”

  “Are you deaf, bro?” Sprat exclaimed. “I already told you, my friends here are leaving GX after today.” He waved a hand at the other celebs, who all looked bored and indifferent. “They just want one last fun time before they split this scene, you dig?”

  “Wish I could help you,” said the employee, looking as if he wished anything but. “Can’t do it.”

  “You could if you wanted to.” Sprat glared at him, stabbing one finger into his chest. “You must be a hater, huh? Or a power tripper? Is that it? Does it make you feel cool to deny us big bad celebrities our fun?”

  He was rapidly shooting past obnoxious to outrageous. I opened my mouth, ready to intervene. But at that moment the employee shrugged again.

  “Whatever,” he said irritably. “Just go ahead. But you’ll only get a five-minute ride, okay?”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to play that by ear.” Sprat grinned, slapping the employee on the shoulder. “Come on, guys. Let’s roll!”

  “Wait!” Joe called. But it was no use. Sprat and his friends were already racing into the bumper car arena.

  “Never mind,” I said. “We’ll catch him when he comes out. He won’t have anywhere else to go at that point—park’ll be closing down.”

  We watched as the celebrities whooped it up on the bumper cars. They raced around, crashing into one another as hard as they could.

  “No wonder they call it Whiplash,” I commented, wincing as Sprat slammed into one of the others with a howl of triumph.

  “Yeah,” said Joe eagerly. “It looks like fun! Maybe we should hop in too—you know, try to talk to Sprat while we’re out there.…”

  I shot him a look. “Nice try, bro.”

  We kept watching. And watching. And then watching some more. Way more than five minutes passed—more like twenty. Finally I glanced at the employee. He was standing outside the control hut, looking disgruntled.

  “I wonder why he’s not shutting them down,” I said. “Even if he doesn’t control the individual cars, there must be some kind of override button for emergencies.”

  “Maybe he called McKenzie to let him know what was happening.” Joe suggested. “McKenzie might’ve told him to go ahead and let them have their fun.”

  “Could be.” I smirked. “Looks like the employee’s having his own fun, though. He isn’t bothering to turn on the lights.” I’d noticed it was getting darker and darker out there. If it wasn’t for the lines of running lights along the bottom of each bumper car, we’d barely be able to see them at all soon.

  “Yeah,” Joe said wistfully. “Bumper cars in the dark—how cool is that?”

  I leaned back against a handy railing, ready to wait as long as it took for Sprat and his friends to finally get tired of the game. Meanwhile I started turning over the case in my mind. Something about it wasn’t sitting quite right, though I wasn’t sure what or why. It was just a funny little feeling. Like there was a clue right in front of our faces; something we’d missed…

  CRRRRUNCH!

  The ear-shattering noise o
f metal crunching over splintering wood yanked me out of my thoughts. “What’s that?” I cried, whirling toward the source of the sound.

  Joe and the GX employee were already staring that way. “Whoa!” Joe shouted. “It’s a tank!”

  He was right. Even in the darkness, it was easy to see the enormous metal tank as it crashed through the wall separating the bumper cars from the attraction next door. The top was flipped open, making it obvious that there was no one inside controlling the thing as it rumbled forward, bearing down on the bumper cars.

  “Look out!” one of the celebrities cried, steering his car out of the way. “Sprat, it’s coming right at you!”

  Sprat was trapped in a corner of the arena. He tried to steer away, but it was too late—a couple of empty bumper cars were blocking his only escape route. He cowered in his bumper car, staring up in fear as the tank rumbled toward him.

  In the Dark

  “Get out!” I shouted, racing toward the edge of the arena. “Sprat, you’ve got to run for it!” That seemed to snap Sprat out of his terror. He pushed himself out of the car, almost tripping over the edge.

  “Go! Go!” the GX employee yelped.

  Sprat caught himself and leaped over the other empty cars. His foot caught inside one of them and he started to trip again. I winced, glancing at the tank. It was almost on him by now. Could he make it? Or were we going to see him crushed in front of our eyes?

  “Aaaaaaah!” Sprat howled, shoving himself back to his feet and making one last wild leap over the remaining car. He landed hard but stayed upright, sprinting out of the way just as the tank crunched over the front edges of the cars. Seconds later it crashed into the padded cement wall and finally came to a stop.

  “Whoa!” one of the other celebrities exclaimed as Sprat staggered toward us. “That was close, dude!”

  Yeah. Too close. “Come on,” Frank said to me. “Let’s check out that tank.”

  We raced over. “Think someone could be crouched down inside?” I panted.

  “We’ll see.”