by Sechin Tower
“Oh. And what’s that?” I pointed to a steel cylinder about the size of a can of soda.
“Resonating oscillator,” Nikki told me. “We call ‘em earthquake grenades because they can crumble buildings.”
“Oh. And what’s that?” I pointed to what appeared to be a metal box sprouting nozzles and tubes in all directions.
“That’s our espresso machine,” Nikki smirked. “Why don’t you come over here and take a look at our computer pavilion.”
She led me into an elevated area that contained dozens of computers on two long tables. Most of the machines were standard desktop PCs, but others were customized and assembled from what must have been experimental pieces. One of them had a clear case that allowed me to see that the motherboard was submerged in a bath of what looked like vegetable oil. Another one sprouted fiber-optic cables that lit up like little rainbows.
Nikki showed me that I could use my regular school log-in and password to access the system. Once logged on, I could control the security cameras placed all over Topsy or even access the records in the sheriff’s department, but for starters she just told me how to call up a catalogue of the inventions housed down in this secret lab. I scrolled through the list for a while and was pretty impressed by what I saw. If even half of this stuff actually worked, then the Mechanical Science Institute was decades ahead of the rest of the world.
“There’s something I don’t get,” I said to Nikki, who was busy fiddling with the security camera feedback. “Everything here is really power-intensive. Like that rail gun back there—it would need a battery big enough to run a car.”
Nikki swiveled slowly in her chair towards me. She studied me for a moment as if deciding whether to trust me.
“The Institute has a pair of secrets,” she finally said.
“Only a pair? I would have thought digging machines and insect-mounted cameras and all this other stuff counts as more than two secrets.”
“Oh, those things are nifty, all right” she said. “But none of it would be possible without our two secret ingredients. The first of which is a room-temperature superconductor.”
My mouth dropped open. Superconductors were amazing materials that could store and transfer electricity much more efficiently than typical batteries and wires. The problem was that the best recorded superconductors only work at temperatures less than 150 below zero degrees Fahrenheit. With a room-temperature superconductor, it wouldn’t be too difficult to do all kinds of amazing things, like make a belt that would let you fly around like Superman. No wonder the Institute had invented such cool toys.
“If you can make a room-temperature superconductor,” I said. “Why don’t you patent it and get rich?”
“Well, there’s the problem,” Nikki leaned back in her chair and made a steeple with her fingers. “We have some of it, but we don’t know how to make more of it.”
Victor joined us in the computer pavilion where he began checking up on some kind of analytical software he’d been running. He obviously heard what we were talking about, though, because he joined in the conversation.
“For lack of a better name, we call the superconductor teslanium after its inventor. It’s not clear whether Tesla actually created it or just found it somewhere, but if he knew how to make more, he took the secret to his grave. Hey—did you know there’s somebody at the door?”
Victor leaned over and tapped the monitor with the video feed from the front gate. I could see that there was a crowd of people gathering on Topsy’s front steps, but I couldn’t see much more in the thumbnail image.
“That’s just the new dean,” Nikki said without looking. “He got here about ten minutes ago and went up to the residence.”
“No, that’s not the new dean,” Victor rose and clicked some keys that made the video feed full screen. Now I could see that the people at the front door were a mean-looking bunch. Many had shaven heads or grizzly beards. A lot of them had black leather jackets, and one of them was shirtless. I shuddered as I thought back to the creeper who had sought me out on the train. It was hard to tell from the video, but it looked like the same guy.
Nikki was out of her seat and at the monitor to get a better look. “They look like the same bunch who stomped on our new dean yesterday. What do they want with us?”
“I don’t know,” said Victor. “But I’m betting it has something to do with Professor McKenzie.”
I leaned to the right and the left, but the two of them blocked off my line of sight to the screen. “Are they going to break in or something?” I asked. “You don’t think they can find us down here, do you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nikki said. “This place is tougher than it looks. All those old-looking bricks are actually carbon nanotubes, built for toughness. We’re a fortress. A bunker. Even the glass is better than bullet proof. So don’t worry, the only way to get in here is to have a key with the right frequency—”
The screen showed the shirtless guy step forward and hold up a box—and the doors opened.
Immediately both Nikki and Victor exploded into a flurry of panicked activity.
“Where’d they get a key? Where’d they get a key?” Nikki said repeatedly, her voice high pitched with fear.
“Defenses!” Victor yelled. “Start the defenses!” He lunged for a keyboard, but so did Nikki, and they bumped each other out of the way.
I backed away, feeling numb as I watched my fellow students panic while the bikers poured in through the front doors. Right then, my phone buzzed.
“Sophia,” said the Professor’s smooth voice. “I need you to do some more research. Right now.”
“I’m kind of having an emergency at the moment,” I said. “Can I call you back?”
“No,” he said, and he sounded really determined. “Are you at a computer? Log in now, right now. Find the application titled Topsy Security.”
I looked back at Nikki and Victor, who were still swarming around the computers on the other table. It really didn’t look like there was any way for me to help them, and the bikers were already inside the ground-floor lab, smashing everything in their path. Most of them had baseball bats, and one guy was throwing firebombs made out of wine bottles.
I turned back to my computer. Maybe the Professor would give me some way to help. After all, he was the guy who told me about the elevator. I was already logged on so it didn’t take me more than a second to open the Topsy Security application.
“I’m in,” I said, pinning the phone to my shoulder with the side of my head while I typed.
“Good,” said the Professor, his voice sticky-sweet. “Now: turn it off.”
My fingers froze on the keyboard. I had no idea what the security system could do, but I knew if I shut it off, even for only a few seconds, there would be nothing to stop the mob upstairs. And if the Professor had told me about the secret elevator, then he must have told the creepers as well.
“Sophia,” hissed the Professor. “This is the moment of truth. If you turn it off and let my men get what they came for, I promise I won’t let them harm you. If you don’t, I will punish you. And I will punish your father. Do you understand?”
Chapter 17 ~ Dean
When Dean heard raised voices at the entrance below, he went to the edge of the roof to see what was happening. The Blitzkriegers must have arrived while he was inside, because the parking lot was crowded with at least two dozen motorcycles, and their owners were down below, charging through the open front doors of Topsy as if they had an invitation. Brick was among them. The giant tilted his head back to look up at the roof, saw Dean, and extended a single finger upwards. Then he disappeared into the building.
Dean spun and raced back across the roof garden, but stopped short. There, on the ledge in front of him over the door, was a gargoyle that hadn’t been there before. And it was moving.
It skittered along like an insect, belly to the wall. Suddenly, it stopped and reared up on its hind legs. It was the size of a mountain lion, but it looked lik
e a giant lizard with gray, pebbled skin and hooked barbs projecting from its spine and protruding from its elbows and knees. Dean didn’t know much about the Minnesota wildlife, but he knew this was nothing that belonged here.
Dean hesitated. If he ran inside, all it had to do was jump down on him, and he wasn’t eager to find out what those claws could do.
Suddenly, the creature opened its mouth and hissed at him.
“You must be the new Dean of Students,” a voice came from nowhere.
Dean took a step back in surprise. It sounded as if the voice had come from the monster.
“Who are you?” Dean spoke because he was unsure of what else to do.
“I’m the Professor.” The voice was tinny and slightly distorted, sounding as if it were coming through a speakerphone.
“You’re the Professor? You’re a lot uglier than I was expecting.”
“And you’re a lot stupider than I was expecting,” the Professor said. “I control this animal, but I am speaking to you through a remote relay. I can see you, but I prefer that you not see me.”
Without taking his eyes off the creature, Dean inched towards the residence. From his new angle, he could see that it wore a thick, black collar that blinked a single green LED light with each syllable that the voice uttered.
“Is this how you killed McKenzie?” Dean called. “Did you send your little gecko here to take care of your dirty work?”
“We wanted to take Professor McKenzie alive,” the Professor said. “I was unaware of her heart condition. When my men kicked open your door to find her there, it was… a regrettable accident.”
“An accident you caused,” Dean inched closer. From where the creature was perched, it could easily grab him if he tried to dash through. There was, however, a small tool shed on the side wall that might contain something to help even the odds against those vicious claws.
“I want you to help me find something,” the Professor said. “I’ll make a deal with you.”
“Deal with this!” Dean lunged sideways, plowing his right shoulder hard into the tool shed. Wood snapped and nails tore free, and Dean fell into the midst of an assortment of spades, weed whackers, and hedge trimmers. He grabbed a shovel and pulled it back, ready to hurl it at the creature.
“Get him,” the Professor commanded his creature.
There was a crackling sound as the creature’s neck was ringed in skeletal fingers of blue lightning. The electrical discharge caused it to tense its body in sudden pain, but it did not attack. A second and a third shock jolted its neck. Disoriented, the thing stumbled, lost its grip, and fell off the roof to land directly in front of the open door.
This was clearly not the reaction the Professor had hoped to induce in his creature, but Dean wasn’t about to miss his advantage. He charged in, but the creature was quicker. It darted backwards, through the doorway to the apartment. When it turned to face him, one of the spines on its tail snagged the door, swinging it closed with a small but audible click.
Intending to break the door’s casement window and drive the shards towards the creature like a storm of razor blades, Dean slammed his shovel into the glass. The blow didn’t leave even a scratch. He struck another blow, and another, each one harder than the last. His hands ached from the impact and his rib burned from the exertion, but the glass remained. In all his years of firefighting, he had broken out plenty of windows but he had never seen anything like this.
The creature glanced back over its shoulder as he pounded, but then scuttled away into the dark interior of the apartment. Dean pulled in vain at the locked door handle and then cupped his hands to the glass so that he could watch the creature as it tracked a scent up the wall to a large ventilation grate. In a single flash of claws, it pried the grate away, and then it slithered into the hole, kicking its back feet behind it as it disappeared down the ventilation shaft.
All Dean could do was to watch it go.
Chapter 18 ~ Soap
“Make up your mind, Sophia,” the Professor’s voice hissed in my ear, urging me to shut down the security system. No, not urging—threatening.
Victor and Nikki were setting up some kind of surprise for the bikers storming through the upstairs lab and I was one click of a mouse away from stopping it. If I did, maybe the creepers upstairs would take whatever it was they came to get, break a few things on the way, and then they would leave us alone. On the other hand, if I didn’t, then my Dad would become a target for the Professor’s anger. I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he could deliver ten thousand dollars on two day’s notice, which suggested that he was serious.
I glanced over at Victor and Nikki again, who were working intently. They had been so nice to me. I enjoyed how Nikki always called me “sugar” and Victor—well, Victor had been a bit rude at first, but I would be a hypocrite if I complained about someone else’s lack of social graces. The Professor had promised that the bikers wouldn’t hurt me if I let them in, but he never said anything about what would happen to my fellow students.
I left the security system running and hung up the phone without another word.
“Soap, honey, come look at this,” Nikki said with a smile. “We’ve set up a little game of hotfoot for our guests.”
She stepped aside so I could join them at the monitor. The video feed from upstairs showed the shirtless guy leading a charge up the spiral staircase when something flashed under his feet. There was no audio, but I could tell from the way his mouth opened wide that he yelped really loud. He fell backwards, knocking two other guys down like they were bowling pins. One second later, there was another sparking flash under the next guy’s foot, and he dropped to his knees and rolled away.
“We electrified an expandin’ area of the floor,” Nikki said. “With each pulse, the shocks will drive them farther and farther back.”
“It’s classic behaviorism,” Victor said, folding his arms and surveying his work. “They’re being punished for going in any direction except out the door.”
I watched as the electrified area spread like the incoming tide across the floor of the lab. The bikers were thrown into confusion, trying to run in different directions but getting zapped for going the wrong way. A few turned and bolted out the door, and then more followed. There was one guy who stood head-and-shoulders above the rest, and it seemed that the shocks didn’t hurt him quite as much as they hurt the others due to his colossal size. Still, he winced with each flash under his feet, and as his companions fled past him he decided to turn and leave with them. One biker hurled a firebomb over his shoulder as a parting shot, but the walls and tables of the lab were so perfectly fireproof that all he achieved was a little blackening around the edges.
In the computer pavilion, the three of us cheered at our victory. My cheer, though, was shorter than theirs, because I was wondering if the Professor would punish me for this humiliation. I felt betrayed that he had lied to me, but mostly I was getting frightened.
“Hold up,” Victor said, his voice serious. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Look at this—we have an intruder in the ventilation system.”
Victor shifted the display to show a darkened, square tunnel. It was shadowy in there, and all I could see was something, maybe a tail, disappearing around a corner. He shifted to another camera feed and then another in an attempt to get a good view of the thing, but the best image he could capture was a flash of what looked like lizard eyes.
“Looks like a giant iguana,” I said. “Except uglier.”
“We don’t have great video coverage inside those airways,” Victor said. “But it looks like the Professor has sent us a chupacabra.”
“A what?” Nikki asked, and it made me glad that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what he meant.
“A chupacabra,” Victor repeated. “At least, that’s what Professor McKenzie called it. Before she pulled her disappearing act this summer, she told me she had spotted it spying on her a few times. Maybe that’s why she left, I don’t know, but now it
looks like the Professor designed a two-pronged attack to increase his chances of getting in.”
I spun around to look at him. I’d never heard either of them mention the Professor before, but it was obvious they knew him.
“Where’d the Professor get that thing?” Nikki asked.
“Who knows,” Victor shrugged. “Genetically engineered it? Got it from outer space? There’s no telling, but every mad scientist creates a monster sooner or later.”
I shuddered at the sight of the shadowy creature slinking around through the vents.
“Where is it right now?” I asked. “Where’s it going?”
To answer my question, Victor pulled up a schematic of the air ducts. This was the first time I had seen the full extent of Topsy House. I could see that the lab in which we stood was ten feet below ground. The maze of air ducts, however, went way, way deep, twisting and branching off like tunnels inside an ant hill.
“Who designed these ducts, M. C. Escher?” I asked. “And why did they make them just perfectly big enough for a lizard monster to travel around inside the walls?”
“The ducts need to be that big to get air down to the reactor room,” Nikki said.
I shot her a glance. “Reactor room?” I said cautiously. Nikki had mentioned that the Institute had two secret ingredients for their inventions. One was the superconductor. This reactor must’ve been the second one.
“It’s nuclear, isn’t it,” I concluded. “No wonder Brett was afraid of you guys!”
Nikki and Victor gave each other a long look, as though they were having a silent conversation about whether they could trust me.
“It isn’t nuclear,” Victor finally said.
“A fusion reactor, then?” I asked. Fusion was as far beyond nuclear as nuclear was beyond gasoline, but all the other inventions here were a few decades ahead of the rest of the world, so it stood to reason that their power source might be, too.
