by Sechin Tower
Angela’s eyes widened for just a second. He could see that she was trying to play it cool, but he had caught her off guard. He used her surprise as an opportunity to take another step.
Behind him, he heard Victor call out to Nikki. Evidently, Nikki had been searching the building below for something to help, because a moment later Dean heard the unmistakable FWOOSH of a fire extinguisher. He knew that an extinguisher couldn’t save the burning structure, but it could subdue the flames on the ramp enough for the two of them to join him. Dean rolled his eyes: he had told them to wait where it was safe, but he might as well have told moths to stay away from a candle.
“The Professor could only be one person,” Dean said, inching forward again. “He had to have intimate knowledge of the Institute’s secrets. He had to know about this whole EMP thing and design an EMP-bomb for the Blitzkriegers to use in their heists. Also, he must have had the information to know that there might be more of that special metal in the progenitor caverns.”
As the spurting sounds of fire extinguishers worked their way closer, something metallic climbed down from the scaffolding towards Soap and Angela. Dean’s mind raced to understand what he was seeing: a mechanical monster with eight spider legs, pincer arms, and flickering eyes. Thinking that this must be another of the Professor’s weapons, he went to dive forward to pull both of them away, but the gun Angela pressed against Soap’s head checked his action.
“Look out!” he called.
Angela and Soap both turned their heads to see where he was pointing.
“Rusty!” Soap exclaimed as the robot came to her like a well-heeled dog.
The angry look dropped from Angela’s face for just a moment as she studied the robot. “You designed that? Not bad.” Despite her compliment, she pushed Rusty back with the tip of her running shoe. During the distraction, Dean took one more step forward.
Victor and Nikki had now arrived at the top of the ramp, and Choop had joined them. They stopped at the edge of the platform when they saw the gun at Soap’s head. Choop made a birdcall, but then pushed his head into Victor’s side as if to hide in the pocket of his lab coat.
“Oh, how heartwarming,” Angela said sarcastically. “The whole Mad Science Institute is here at last. Hey, I got an idea. Let’s roast marshmallows and sing Kumbaya for the next two hours while my doomsday machine rips apart the magnetic balance of the planet.”
“For a little while, I thought the Professor might have been you,” Dean pressed on. “Except then I saw him speaking live on the big screen while you were there. Besides that, he needed contact with criminals to recruit his thugs.”
Dean was now on top of the cable. Without lowering his hands or dropping his gaze from her eyes, he placed one foot on each side of it, so that the severed ends pointed towards each other and protruded an inch past the melted soles of his shoes.
“Of course, I recognized the Professor’s voice almost as soon as I saw him up there on that big screen. I’d heard that voice before, when I’d video conferenced with a man in prison—what better place to get in touch with a gang of bank robbers?”
“Does this little lecture have a point?” Angela barked.
“It has two points,” Dean said. “The first is this: the Professor is actually Bill Helmholtz, former Dean of Students of the Mechanical Science Institute.”
“What?” Victor said in shock.
“I’ll kill him,” Nikki said flatly.
Angela sighed. “Pretty good detective work for a firefighter. But it doesn’t change the fact that tomorrow Professor Helmholtz is going to be the most powerful person in the history of the world. Unless your second point addresses that fact?”
“My second point is simply…this,” Dean twisted his feet together to drive the ends of the cables towards each other. His feet moved, but the cables didn’t stretch far enough. “I mean… this. No… this.” He re-positioned and tried again and again, but each time he achieved nothing. The closest he could get the ends was still a half-inch too far apart.
“That thing you’re doing with your feet,” Angela said, not bothering to look down. “Stop it.”
And then she shot him.
Chapter 46 ~ Soap
I saw my cousin crumple and fall right on top of the power cable. For a moment I thought he might be electrocuted on the severed ends, but when I saw the dark red stain spreading out along his thigh, I knew he had other troubles.
Victor made a move to get to his side, but Angela trained the gun on him.
“Back on your end of the platform, Vickey,” Angela said. “If I severed an artery, it’s his own fault.”
When she shifted her stance, I tried to worm free, but her arm was so tight around me I couldn’t get my arms away. Even if I managed to escape, she could have just gunned me down. I might have been able to lunge backwards and drive us both over the edge, but she had a flight pack and I didn’t, so that idea seemed seriously flawed. I was stuck, but at least I had managed to slip Rusty’s homing bracelet off my wrist, thread it through one of the buttonholes in Angela’s lab coat, and click it closed. I had another idea, but it would take good timing and even better luck to make it work.
“Why’re you doin’ this?” Nikki cried. “You’re goin’ to send the human race back to the dark ages.”
“No!” Angela shouted, suddenly furious. “I’m sending the human race ahead into a golden era! For too long we’ve sheltered ourselves from danger, and that means the weakest, stupidest individuals keep having more and more weak, stupid children. They’re breeding faster than their smarter, stronger counterparts. It’s a reversal of Darwin’s laws, and we need to get it under control if our species is going to advance.”
“What are you saying?” Victor asked in outrage. “You want to establish a master race? Is that it? There was a guy named Hitler who tried that, you know. It didn’t work out so well.”
Angela flicked her gun dismissively. “Science clearly shows that the Nazis were idiots. What I’m talking about doesn’t have anything to do with skin color. Every race has geniuses and morons. This Doomsday Machine is going to hit the reset button on the world so that the smartest and strongest among us will survive and the rest will die off. It’s nature’s law. By protecting the weak, we make ourselves unfit for survival.”
“Wrong,” Dean spoke up from where he lay on the ground. It sounded like his throat was all dried out, but his words came through strong and clear. “By protecting the weak, we make ourselves strong.”
By the end of his sentence, he was having trouble speaking. It was like he was being vibrated. Then I felt it, too, as the floorboards began to rattle under my feet. A crashing and a grinding of metal echoed down the tower as a huge cross-beam broke away high above and smashed through other beams as it plummeted.
Dean rolled slightly to one side and then I saw what he had done. As he had been covering the cable with his body, he had managed to work something in between the severed ends to close the circuit and activate the earthquake grenades. At first, it was too dark to see what he had used. Then a blue spark jumped across the gap and I saw how he had made the connection.
The break in the cable was filled with two golden engagement rings set side by side. Gold is a fantastic conductor.
Angela shrieked and threw me to the side. She raised her gun to shoot Dean again, but my finger was quicker.
“Rusty,” I said, pointing to her flight pack. “Blast this.”
Angela had set up the Doomsday Machine’s broadcast to affect almost everything except teslanium-based circuitry, which is why her flight pack, my robot, and the earthquake grenades had remained functional after the tower had been activated. Rusty’s beam had no such safeguard, and at my command he sent a swift EMP kick right up Angela’s backside.
Her rail gun spewed off the last of its ammunition harmlessly into open air as her flight pack flung her straight upwards. She shrieked and flailed her arms, but she was as helpless as a mouse in a tornado. Rusty maneuvered under her,
dutifully homing in on the bracelet that was looped through the buttonhole of Angela’s lab coat. Just like the autogyro I had once played with in my apartment back in New York, when Angela flew up to a certain height, she left the range of Rusty’s EMP and fell back down towards him. As she got closer and her pack got nearer to the magnifying transmitter again, she would go zooming back upwards, her arms and legs pin-wheeling helplessly as she careened through the air. Up and down, up and down she went, screaming and swearing as Rusty followed her bouncing trajectory down the ramp and out into the park.
We just made it off the platform as big chunks of wood and metal came crashing down. The whole tower tilted and then snapped in half, with the broken top part falling away to crush the Ferris wheel and a whole bunch of other rides. It was so loud and kicked up so much dust that I had to cover my ears and close my eyes.
When I looked again, the Doomsday Machine’s borealis effect was fading from the stratosphere and the stars were becoming visible again, bright and clear against the black sky.
September 20
(A Perfectly Normal day)
Chapter 47 ~ Soap
“Please, Soap, you have to forgive me.”
Brett sat on the corner of my dorm-room bed, leaning forward to talk to my back. I was trying to work: I wanted to develop a miniaturized version of Angela’s electrogravitic flight pack to install into Rusty so he could carry more weight.
“Sure, I forgive you,” I said as I wound a white wire around a power cell.
“I mean it; I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think I had that much to drink. For me to pass out like that and then for you to get kidnapped—you can’t even believe how sorry I am.”
It made me feel a bit guilty to think it was actually my tranquilizer injection and not his drinking that had caused him to pass out. But what could I tell him? I had to stick to the official story we had given to the police, the FBI, and the press. We told everyone that the Blitzkriegers stole Brett’s car with me in it and then my cousin Dean tracked us down to Happy Fun Land. In real life, we didn’t want any government interference with our own secret reactor, so we stripped all the teslanium out of everything in the park before we called anyone. Even without the whole doomsday thing, there was still plenty of evidence to arrest the entire gang and Angela, too. They were taken in on charges of larceny, abduction of a minor, criminal conspiracy, and more stuff I can’t remember, plus I think the FBI guys were working on an angle to get them classified as terrorists because of the way they used their EMP-bomb in their bank raids. Oh, and as far as anyone knew, they were also the ones who wrecked the transmission in Brett’s Camaro. (Sorry, Brett!) More importantly, the cops dropped all charges against my Dad and instead opened a huge investigation of the Professor—now known to be Professor Helmholtz—and his criminal conspiracy.
I had just about finished coiling the wire around the power core when the door to my dorm burst open and Hanna came in with a big white box in her hand. I could tell immediately it wasn’t a present for her because she had a very sour expression on her face. She’d been wearing that expression a lot during the last few days, ever since she found out that the charges against my Dad had been dropped, which meant President Hart had no choice but to reinstate me as a Langdon University student. My initial theory was that she was just jealous of the attention we had been getting. The Mechanical Science Institute was all over the blogs and news shows with stories about the star-crossed lovers, a firefighter and a college professor, and how he went on a quest for justice after her murder. People from Hollywood kept offering my cousin big money to make it into a movie, but he turned them all down, saying he didn’t care about that. I happen to know that there was something else he cared about, because I found a stack of printouts of news stories on his desk, and saw that he had gone through every single page and underlined the word “fiancé.” I don’t know why, but for some reason it made my cousin really happy that the whole world was now saying that McKenzie had been his fiancé instead of just his girlfriend.
Anyway, when Hanna walked into my room with the big box in her hands, she saw Brett sitting next to me and her frown got even deeper. She grumbled something about the box blocking the door, and then she dumped it on my bed and walked back out of the room.
The box was large enough to hold a sheet cake, and it was unmarked except for my name written in black ink in the middle of the lid. I opened it carefully and there inside was a lab coat. A long, black lab coat, made from thick fire-resistant fabric and lined with dozens and dozens of pockets. On the back, embroidered in glossy black thread just barely visible against the black cloth of the coat, was the crooked arrow in a triangle that represented the hazard warning for high voltage. Above that were the words “FUROR. EXITIUM. SCIENTIA.” There was a note in the pocket that said those words meant “Madness. Destruction. Knowledge.”
The coat was so beautiful that I almost started crying when I put it on.
And that wasn’t all. In the front pocket I found a phone. I was hesitant to turn it on after my ordeal with the Professor’s calls, but when I did I found a text message from Victor. I opened it up and read:
Victor: Look out ur window
I went over to the window and at the foot of the bridge that led to campus, there were two figures looking in my direction. One wore a long pink coat and one wore a long white coat. I waved, and they waved back. Then my phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Nikki: like the coat? I made it 4 u
Soap: Best! Coat! EVER!!!
Soap: Come up 2 my room
Victor: Need 2 get back 2 resrch
Soap: r u going to tell me what ur resrchng?
Victor: Not yet. The Institute still needs some secrets ;)
Nikki: Meet us @ topsy when ur ready
Victor: c u soon
The two of them turned and strolled back along the path. As they crossed over the bridge, a flock of ducks flapped out of the reeds and into the air above them.
“Yeah, so, anyway,” Brett cleared his throat. “How about you let me make it up to you? Let me take you out to dinner.”
“Sure, I guess,” I said, even though I wasn’t looking at him when I said it. I was looking out the window, watching a certain white lab coat disappear into the orange sunset.
Chapter 48 ~ Dean
There weren’t many people in the prisoner visitation room when Dean sat down to await Professor Helmholtz. He had been surprised when the Professor agreed to his visitation request, but perhaps the mad genius who hatched the scheme to destroy the world had been a little desperate for human contact. After all, he was now being held in solitary confinement as prosecutors and investigators unraveled his network of criminal influence that stretched across the country.
It was coming to light that he had been working on this scheme for years, originally using the money embezzled from the Institute to fund the construction of the Doomsday Machine at Happy Fun Land in order to disguise his device. After President Hart cut off his revenue source and had him arrested, Helmholtz had recruited from his fellow inmates and their friends to help steal the necessary funds to complete the project. President Hart was now spinning his actions as heroic, but at least he wasn’t inclined to hassle the now-famous Mechanical Science Institute now that the applications were pouring in. This meant Dean would soon be free to return to Los Angeles while someone better qualified took over as Dean of Students.
As he waited for the guards to bring out the prisoner, Dean drummed his fingers and wondered why he had wanted to speak to the man who had almost destroyed civilization. For starters, it would be his opportunity to gloat over his enemy’s downfall. But the truth, he realized, was because he needed to see that the Professor was suffering. Even if he were, it would be a small comfort to Dean: McKenzie was dead, and Helmholtz could never be punished enough for that crime.
At least he still had her memory. To remind himself of that, he touched the rings that hung from his neck. The electricity that had passed through t
hem had melted the metal, welding the rings together into a double-looped symbol for eternity. It was an appropriate symbol, Dean felt, for the unending bond he shared with McKenzie.
Two guards escorted Helmholtz into the visitation room. The Professor looked thinner now, and the orange jumpsuit hung from him like an oversized sack. Yet the man’s face was calm as he lifted his telephone receiver.
“Should I congratulate you?” Helmholtz asked. “Or would you prefer that I rant about how I would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids?”
“You can say anything you want,” Dean said. “You’re still getting life without parole.”
“On the contrary. Do you think I agreed to meet you because I longed for your sparkling conversation?” Helmholtz looked up at the clock and then leaned towards the glass, his smile transforming into a savage grimace. “Rather, it was to ensure that I would be brought to a certain visitation room at a precise time.”
As he spoke, the lights flickered violently. There was a flash and a pop, and then the visitation room went dark. The sounds of chaos swiftly followed: shouts in the distance. Someone screaming. The guards cursing their silent walkie-talkies.
Suddenly, muffled shouts and thumps erupted from the other side of the room. A series of electrical discharges allowed Dean to catch a glimpse of men using stun-sticks against the unprepared guards. These men wore night-vision goggles, and one of them was using a bolt-cutter to free Helmholtz from his chains.
Dean sprang from his seat and slammed the bottoms of his fists against the glass partition, but it was pointless. Somewhere above, helicopter blades beat the air, ready to carry the Professor safely away to freedom.
