Strike of the Sweepers

by Tyler Whitesides

  Chapter 47

  “You . . .”

  Spencer and his dad actually reached the sixth floor much faster than anticipated. They came across only two Sweepers in the stairwell, one of which left a painful gash on Alan’s arm. Spencer had paused long enough to mist the wound with orange spray. Then they were kicking open the door and sprinting down an empty hallway.

  The bottommost floor of the BEM laboratory had been bustling with Sweepers yesterday, when Spencer had been caged and carried to his interview with Mr. Clean. Now the level was nearly vacant. It seemed that most of the fight had been drawn to the Rebels on the fourth floor.

  They took down only two more Sweepers before Spencer and his dad came to the double doors at the end of the hall. Only a day had passed since Spencer had seen the bronze nail in the wall above the round window. Spencer hoped with all his might that it hadn’t been moved since then.

  Spencer shoved against the doors and was surprised to find them unlocked. The two Zumbros stepped into the room, and Spencer noted that everything was just as he remembered it. A simple desk in the center of the room, empty except for the intercom that Mr. Clean had used to communicate with them in the elevator.

  On the far wall was that large sea window, taller than Spencer and perfectly round. He thought he saw a fish swim by, illuminated by an exterior deep-sea light.

  And above the window, a twinkle of bronze glittered in the room’s soft lamplight.

  Alan quietly shut the doors as Spencer crossed toward the nail. “Hope this doesn’t take long,” Alan said. “That portal’s only going to stay open for another ten minutes or so.”

  Back in September, Spencer had used Ninfa to pull out a bronze nail in Welcher. It had been a quick and rather effortless process. And Daisy hadn’t had any trouble using Holga to draw the nail in New Forest Academy. Spencer hoped this would be the same.

  Reaching into his belt pouch, Spencer used his gloved hand to withdraw Belzora. The hammer felt comfortable in his grip, but he could feel that it was much more powerful than its plain appearance would indicate.

  As he stepped around Mr. Clean’s desk, Spencer realized that he wouldn’t quite be able to reach the nail above the sea window. He grabbed the desk chair as he passed, pulling it over to the wall and stepping up onto the seat.

  Rising onto his tiptoes, Spencer stretched Belzora as high as he could until the blunt end of the hammer touched the small nail in the wall. A golden glow began to form between hammer and nail. Spencer felt the power surge down his arm as the magic began to extract the ancient nail.

  The small piece of metal slipped from the wall and fell to the floor with a tinkle. In his excitement, Spencer leapt off the chair, scooped up the nail, and tucked it into his belt pouch.

  “Got it!” Spencer said, turning to his dad. But Alan Zumbro was not wearing the same victorious expression as his son. He was standing in the center of the room, staring at the double doors, which had just flung open.

  There must have been at least twenty Sweepers crowding in the hallway outside the door. Spencer couldn’t count them, but he knew it was an impossible number to withstand. They were cornered. It was over.

  Alan began to take a step back toward his son, but froze as the crowd of Sweepers parted. A familiar figure slipped into view, white lab coat draped across his broad frame.

  It was Mr. Clean.

  Spencer tensed himself against the enemy warlock, but Alan went rigid. Spencer could tell his dad was trying to say something, but his mouth just kept opening and closing in total dismay.

  “You . . .” Alan finally mustered, as Mr. Clean came toward him. “You . . .”

  “Surprised to see me, old friend?” Mr. Clean asked. “The years have not been kind to you.”

  “Dad?” Spencer interrupted. “What’s going on? You . . . know him?”

  “Know him?” Alan said. “This man was my partner.” He swallowed hard. “This is Rod Grush.”

  Chapter 48

  “I don’t believe you will.”

  Spencer stood in stunned silence as Mr. Clean stepped closer to his dad. It made sense now. The reason Mr. Clean had sent Leslie Sharmelle to eliminate Alan instead of coming himself. The reason Mr. Clean had been so quick to use green spray when Alan seemed to recognize him on the night they met Professor DeFleur. The reason Clean had separated Alan from the rest of the Rebels. He didn’t want his true identity to be known.

  He was Rod Grush—the man who supposedly had sacrificed everything to solve the thirteen Auran clues with Alan.

  “I don’t understand,” Alan said. “I thought you were dead.”

  “You thought what I wanted you to think,” Mr. Clean said. “From the moment we met till the moment our partnership ended.”

  Alan shook his head. “You didn’t want me to find the thirteenth clue? You were behind the attack at the school? I thought they killed you!”

  “I was behind everything,” Mr. Clean said.

  “But the warlocks hired us to solve the clues. . . .”

  “I was the commanding warlock,” said Mr. Clean. “I opened the Warlocks Box and used your expertise to help me solve the Auran clues.”

  “No,” Alan said. “You wouldn’t do that. You were my friend.”

  Mr. Clean’s mouth curved in a belittling smile. “You were my puppet,” he said. “There is no such thing as a friend in this corrupted world.” Mr. Clean stepped swiftly forward and seized Alan by the wrist.

  “Dad!” Spencer shouted. Why didn’t he pull away from the Sweeper warlock? Alan was still wearing his latex glove.

  “It’s all right, Spence,” his dad said. His voice was surprisingly calm, considering the hopeless circumstances. “He won’t hurt me. This is Rod Grush.” He said it as if he were still trying to convince himself. “He was my friend.”

  Mr. Clean reached into his white lab coat and withdrew a dirty rag. He held the corner and gently twirled it, letting gravity wind the rag into a deadly weapon. Spencer had seen the warlock use it before. He was going to kill Alan, just as he’d killed Director Garcia. He was going to kill him the Clean Way, and not a trace would be left of Alan Zumbro.

  “Your faith in me is warming,” Mr. Clean said, “though poorly placed. I will do this and feel no regret. I will kill you, friend.”

  Alan squared his shoulders and looked the big man in the eyes. “I don’t believe you will.”

  Standing across the room, Spencer did not share an ounce of his dad’s hopeful belief in Mr. Clean’s mercy. The man holding his dad was Mr. Clean. As far as Spencer was concerned, Rod Grush no longer existed.

  The Sweeper warlock raised his deadly rag, and Spencer reacted without hesitation. He wielded Belzora like a war hammer, smashing the bronze tool into the circular deep-sea window as hard as he could. It struck the thick glass with a solid smack, instantly sending spiderweb cracks across the smooth surface.

  Mr. Clean froze as the insurmountable pressure of the Atlantic depths pressed against the weakened window. Spencer stepped aside just as the water pressure became too great. The glass shattered, and a horizontal column of ocean water shot into the BEM lab with unbelievable force.

  Spencer barely had time to draw a breath before the entire room was full of icy water. Swept off his feet, Spencer slammed into the wall, barely managing to hang onto the bronze hammer. The impact surely would have broken his bones if it weren’t for the protection of his Glopified coveralls. The lamps in the office exploded, plunging the room into darkness, with shadowy figures thrashing in the deep.

  It took Spencer a moment to orient himself. There was light coming from the hallway, though it too was completely underwater. He assumed that the entire sixth floor was already flooded. And it wouldn’t take long for the water to rise.

  Mr. Clean and the Sweepers were gone, knocked away by the violent rush of water. A few Sweepers bobbed unconscious, the Glop knocked out of them. But there was nothing Spencer could do about that. He had to find his dad and swim up to the fourth floor
before the squeegee portal closed.

  The rushing water whipped Spencer forward, tossing him into an eddy beside the doorway. He found his dad there, fighting to tread water and not get sucked into the current. Spencer assumed that the panicked look on his dad’s face was mirrored in his own. Smashing the window had been a thoughtless reaction to save his dad from Mr. Clean’s rag. The Sweeper warlock was nowhere in sight, swept away by the torrent.

  But Spencer and his dad were hardly safe! Now they were treading water deep under the ocean’s surface with nowhere to draw a breath. Spencer was a fairly good swimmer, but he knew there was no way he could make it to the portal when his lungs already felt like bursting!

  They needed oxygen. They had to get a breath of air before their lungs burst! Spencer’s hand plunged into his janitorial belt and closed around the dust mask. His chance of survival now rested on an item that Mr. Clean had given him when the chalkboard eraser had exploded in the elevator. But the Sweeper warlock had said that the mask would provide pure air under any circumstance.

  Spencer pulled the thin elastic band over his head and fit the mask snugly over his mouth and nose. Immediately, the water drained out of the mask and his lips felt dry. He parted them just slightly. Finding that no water filled his mouth, he took a gasping breath.

  It worked! Spencer found it ironic that Mr. Clean had given him the very thing he needed to survive the destruction of the BEM laboratory.

  Spencer dug in his belt for a second mask, the one Dez had handed him when he refused to wear it in the janitorial closet. In a flash, Alan had it on.

  “We’ve got to hurry!” his dad said. Spencer could understand every word, though Alan’s voice sounded distant and muffled through the mask and water. Bracing himself for the long swim, Spencer and his dad allowed themselves to get pulled through the doorway and out into the hall, whipped along by the rushing flood.

  It was strange to see the building underwater. Spencer was surprised to find that some of the lights still worked. It seemed as though the secret lab had been built with the knowledge that a total flood was possible. And if that was the case, then Spencer assumed the Sweepers would have some way to safely escape.

  The breakneck current pulled them helplessly down the hallway, the force making it impossible to swim against the rush.

  “We’ll never make it back!” Spencer yelled. They didn’t have much time before the portal closed, and Spencer knew he wasn’t a fast enough swimmer to make it against the current.

  “Plunger!” his dad yelled. Spencer scrambled for the handles on his janitorial belt. His dad’s tool was already out, and Alan slammed his toilet plunger against the wall, the rubber cup anchoring him in place.

  Spencer’s plunger snapped out of the U-clip, and he gripped the handle tightly. He tried twice to clamp onto the wall, but the fast water prevented a good suction. At last, the rubber end clamped tight to a wooden door.

  Spencer’s body trailed out behind him as he fought the current, struggling to keep a grip on the plunger handle. He could see his dad anchored a dozen yards ahead of him in the hallway. Before Spencer could wonder how to catch up, the wooden door cracked under the pressure of the water.

  Spencer let out of cry of alarm as the door ripped open on its hinges, loosening the plunger’s suction and sending the boy tumbling through the water once more, the contents of the room flooding out after him.

  Spencer pushed against a broom that bumped into his side. A dustpan clanked painfully against the side of his head, and he realized that he must have opened a janitorial supply closet. It wasn’t unlikely, since every other room at the BEM lab seemed to be full of Glopified gear.

  In the flood of waterlogged cleaning supplies, Spencer suddenly found his fingers wrapping around a familiar object. It was a toilet brush, with a plastic handle and bristly white scrubbers on one end.

  He had seen such an item only once before. The Aurans used toilet brushes to power their recycle-bin boats across the Glop lagoon. If this was anything like those, then a simple twist of the handle should set the brush twirling.

  Spencer felt the brush activate in his hand. The bristles spun like the propeller of a motorboat, instantly pushing him back up the hallway.

  Spencer grinned behind his dust mask. Tucking the toilet brush close to his body, he stretched out, streaming against the current with the ease of a fish.

  He reached his dad in no time. Alan popped his plunger off the wall and accepted Spencer’s outstretched hand. They idled in the hallway for a moment, Spencer twisting down on the throttle just enough to hold them against the current.

  “We can swim up the elevator shaft,” his dad said, gesturing across the hallway with his plunger. It would probably be a much faster and more direct route than winding up the stairwell, which was surely already full of water.

  Spencer towed his dad across the hallway, and Alan clamped his plunger to the elevator door. It slid open about two feet, a few trapped air bubbles gurgling upward as the passageway opened. Spencer was about to squeeze into the elevator shaft when his dad shouted.

  Spencer whirled around to find something swimming toward them at an alarming rate. It was a Grime Sweeper, moving through the water as though it had been born there. Spencer knew Grimes were amphibious, living comfortably on land or water. He’d hoped that characteristic hadn’t been passed to the Sweepers, but the one coming toward them looked to be in no need of air.

  “Is it Clean?” Alan asked.

  Spencer squinted through the water. “Nope. Just a random Sweeper. Let’s get out of here!” He opened the throttle on the toilet brush and squeezed through the opening. But his dad, whose shoulders were much broader than Spencer’s, caught in the narrow doorway.

  Before Spencer could tow him through, the Sweeper hit Alan, peeling him away from the elevator door and hurling him through the water.

  Spencer angled himself back through the door, twisting the toilet-brush handle and speeding through the water as fast as he could. Alan had managed to clamp onto the wall again, anchored helplessly against the attacking Grime.

  As Spencer torpedoed toward the enemy, his razorblade clicked out in his left hand. The blade’s sharp edge sliced through the water, nicking into the Sweeper’s shoulder.

  A pale, yellow goo oozed from the wound. It hung suspended in the seawater around the Sweeper as he let out a bubbly cry of pain. He turned toward Spencer, bulging eyes full of malice.

  Spencer leaned back, twisting the toilet brush into a full retreat. The Grime Sweeper leapt off the wall to dive for him but suddenly recoiled like a dog hitting the end of its leash.

  “Into the elevator!” Alan shouted through his mask. He released his plunger’s suction, and Spencer was there to pull his dad safely away from the Grime Sweeper.

  “What about him?” Spencer asked. The Sweeper was thrashing and swimming frantically but didn’t appear to be going anywhere.

  “Duct tape,” Alan explained. Spencer looked back just long enough to see that his dad had pasted a strip of tape across the Sweeper’s tail, pinning him to the wall. The enemy wouldn’t be following them now. Not unless he cut off his own tail.

  Spencer towed his dad, pressing through the narrow gap between the elevator doors and streaming straight up into the darkness of the flooded shaft. It was nearly pitch-black when Alan clamped his toilet plunger and hefted open the elevator door.

  They swam through the fourth floor of the BEM lab, finding no sign of the enemy in the flood. Spencer maneuvered them through the flotsam, dodging debris as the toilet brush pulled them along faster than any human could swim.

  The barricade came into view. Some of the material that had formed the Rebel shelter had drifted off, and Spencer was counting the seconds, unsure if they’d been fast enough. But as Spencer and his dad propelled around the overturned tables, they saw the portal, still intact. Its glowing border seemed to flicker, as though it might extinguish at any second.

  There was a new current here, sucking wat
er toward the opening into Welcher. Spencer let the toilet brush wind down, releasing his dad’s hand and allowing himself to get dragged in by the current. Ducking his head and putting his arms straight forward, Spencer passed through the portal. Once on the other side, he twisted the toilet brush and powered upward until his head rose above the waterline.

  His dad was right behind him, and not a moment too soon. Suddenly, the squeegee portal folded in on itself. For a second, the wall was made of glass. Then the Windex wore off and the wall became solid red brick.

  Spencer and his dad found themselves treading water in the Rebels’ janitorial closet. Boxes and bags bobbed all around them, and little waves lapped at the stairs where Walter and the others waited, watching the basement fill up.

  The flood was over now. The BEM laboratory was destroyed. And Spencer hoped they would never have to explain why the janitor’s closet at Welcher Elementary School was full of water from the Atlantic Ocean.

  Chapter 49

  “Tonight we turn the tables.”

  The Rebels were sitting in Mrs. Natcher’s room. It wasn’t the most secure location, but, seeing as how the janitorial closet was full of ocean water, it would have to suffice. Daisy had asked Bookworm to guard the door, and Spencer could see his garbage-pile silhouette in the doorway.

  It was nearing midnight in Welcher, but there was still so much to be done before they could sleep.

  “I can’t believe you used to be friends with that weirdo,” Dez said when Alan had finished explaining what had happened.

  “Rod Grush was nothing like Mr. Clean,” Alan said.

  “I thought you said Rod Grush was Mr. Clean,” said Daisy.

  “He is,” Alan admitted. “But I never thought my old partner could be capable of such crimes.”

  “Why do you suppose he tried so hard to keep his identity a secret from you?” Walter asked.

  Marv grunted. “Coward, is my guess.”

  But Alan shook his head. “Rod Grush was anything but a coward. I knew him better than anyone. We went through a lot together. I know how he acts and how he thinks. That’s probably why Mr. Clean didn’t want me to know who he really was.”