Three pointed at Darcy. “Don’t forget what I told you last time.”
The memory was clear. He’d told her to hack into her own file at the bureau. But now she wondered if he had gotten there first and tampered with it. Would she be playing directly into some plan of his?
Then he pointed at Nora. “When you’re tired of being held back, I’ll find the right teacher for you. It’s a shame to see someone so talented get treated so—”
“That’s enough, Hiro,” said Steve’s mom. “Leave.”
He pulled back the long sleeve of his overcoat and revealed his watch. Soon enough, the usual river of glowing ones and zeroes spilled out of it and formed a portal on the ground. Three stepped into it and was gone.
This time, Darcy was close enough to get a good glimpse of the watch face. The display was nearly identical to all of those given out by the Bureau of Sneakery. Had Three once been an agent?
“You called him ‘Hiro,’” said Darcy.
“When he was in elementary ninja school, the other kids used to call him ‘Zero,’” said Steve’s mom.
Darcy was careful about her next words. This was an opportunity she didn’t want to lose.
She said, “He’s a ninja, then.”
Steve’s parents looked at each other.
“Well,” said Steve’s dad, “he was a ninja.”
As they continued on their hoverboards, the only sound that broke the silence was the occasional drip of water from somewhere ahead of them.
It was Nora who spoke next. “I fought him, Mom. He’s not a ninja.”
“You what?! When was this?” Steve’s mom said.
“It was before I left for Botsylvania. He followed me home, wouldn’t leave me alone, so I—”
“He got inside the house, Nora used the spell of dragon breath, and he blocked it,” Steve said.
Darcy could sense the growing horror from Steve’s parents. Their posture went rigid and their fingers curled into fists. She didn’t have to see their eyes to know what they were feeling.
“I will keep this short,” said Steve’s mom. “Hiro came to us from the Bureau of Sneakery. There was something not quite right about him, and the bureau felt that some time in Ninjastoria would help. Instead, he got picked on by the other ninjas. I think it got to him.”
Darcy thought of Ninja Steph and Ninja Kelly, the way they were treating her. She knew that if she hadn’t been connected with Steve and Sam and Nora and Gertie, there was a chance it would have damaged her severely.
“Hiro went down the wrong path. He took Vanessa with him. He pursued the forbidden level four techniques—the ones that are so powerful that they will eventually drive you mad—but Vanessa was the one who really became addicted. It turned her against us,” said Steve’s mom.
Darcy bit her lower lip. “Vanessa?”
Steve’s dad answered. “President Ninja’s sister.”
STEVE
Steve recalled his breakfast with President Ninja. The president had spoken about Vanessa then, how she was talented like Nora, how her talent had overshadowed his.
There was more to the story, though, than he had realized. There was a twist, a break in the family tree.
“Where is President Ninja’s sister these days?” asked Steve as they continued to walk through the mine.
“We don’t know,” said Steve’s mom.
There was a dip in the mineshaft and then a serpentine curve. Steve noticed a glimmering line running along the wall, like a strand of a spider’s web. This one was neon orange. Eventually, it crossed paths with a swirling strand of yellow. There were more and more of the colorful strands, some jagged, some gentle.
There were so many of them that the mineshaft began to glow with multicolored light.
“Whoa,” said Steve. “What is this?”
“Bivvite” said Darcy and Nora at the same time.
“It’s named after the guy who discovered it, Roy G. Biv,” Nora added.
“What can you do with it?” Steve asked.
“You turn it into ink or paint,” said Darcy.
The glowing streaks of light thinned out and faded.
“Stop here,” said Darcy.
There was a single lantern hanging from a spike on the wall. Darcy pressed on the spike. A mine cart came wheeling toward them.
Painted on its side were the words, “Mario’s Carts.”
Steve’s dad looked at it and said, “I remember seeing commercials for these. That Mario guy really loved two things: carts and mushrooms.”
“The cart is a decoy, but pushing the spike unlocks something farther down the path,” said Darcy. “Follow me.”
Steve watched as she walked straight through the wall.
He stood right in front of it. When he touched his hand against it, it felt solid. But when he pressed harder, it gave way. The texture reminded Steve of wet sand.
Darcy had gotten off of her hoverboard. She was standing in front of a mirror. Her face was smudged with dust, as were all of theirs, but Steve thought that Darcy wore it better than any of them.
The mirror filled with dark blue text, lines of ones and zeroes. Darcy pressed her thumb against it and held it there.
“UNRECOGNIZED.”
She frowned and pressed again.
“UNRECOGNIZED.”
“They really did wipe me out of the system,” said Darcy, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry.”
Steve’s mom put a hand on her shoulder. “They made a terrible mistake.”
Then, Steve’s mom pulled off her black glove and pressed her thumb against the mirror. The blue text flashed white.
“RECOGNIZED.”
The mirror turned sideways, revealing a walkway that continued on. Steve saw Darcy’s face scrunch up in confusion, so he asked the question that he knew both of them were thinking about.
“Mom,” said Steve. “Is there something you need to tell us?”
“No,” said his mother. “Marcy, please lead the way.”
The moment they went past the mirror, their hoverboards shut down.
Steve had just picked his up when the floor dropped out from underneath them.
DARCY
One moment she was picking up a hoverboard. The next moment she was plummeting fifty feet toward a pit full of emergency landing gel.
Darcy did the landing trick that Ninja Steve had taught her. When she hit, instead of breaking through the surface of the blue-green gel, she landed as softly as a shadow. The ninjas had all done the same.
She tried reactivating her hoverboard. It was no use. All of the boards had stopped responding.
“We’ll have to find a different way out of the bureau,” said Nora, leaving her board behind with everyone else’s.
By the edge of the gel pit, there was a single purple button. Darcy pressed it and the rock wall split apart, revealing a long dirt ramp leading up and away from the gel pit.
They all followed her up the ramp until they came to a set of stairs. At the top was a metal hatch that Darcy popped open.
She poked her head out and she breathed a sigh of relief when she heard crashing waves. They were somewhere inside of the coastal mission simulation zone, far from the center of campus.
She looked back. “It’s clear.”
Darcy hadn’t been to the coastal mission simulation zone since she was ten. The ocean section of it went out for four hundred yards, with a coastline that was three hundred yards long. Her practice mission had been to approach on kayak, hide the kayak in the dunes, and search the area to find a defendable observation point for monitoring the water.
This time she wanted to find an observation point that looked toward campus, not toward the water.
“We’re near the main campus,” Darcy said. “With hoverboards, we could get there in twenty five minutes. Where exactly are we supposed to go?”
“President Ninja’s information said that the most likely place to check would be The Giga Squad’s lab,” said Ninja Steve’s mom.
Darcy nodded. “That’s near the edge of this zone.”
“Since it’s full of agent technology, our best bet is to consider it fully guarded and occupied,” said Steve’s dad. “Especially if it turns out they’re keeping Nexus keys there.”
Darcy nodded, but she wasn’t listening. She was feeling the sand beneath her boots and hearing the waves lapping against the shore. It took her back to when she was an agent, when she felt safe on campus, when she felt like she knew where her life was going. She was going to become the best agent and she was going to find her parents.
She touched her wrist where her watch should have been. In her head, she was headed back to her dorm, where she could shower, change into a fresh uniform, and see Matilda in the café. Later, she’d have a lesson with Evelyn, and then she’d study until she fell asleep.
“That was the past,” Darcy muttered. “The past is gone and this is your life now.”
“Hey,” said Steve, poking her on the shoulder.
Back to reality. Back to being not-an-agent and not-a-ninja.
“Okay, so let’s talk approaches. The Giga Squad lab has four entrances,” Darcy said. “Like a plus sign. Those are the only ways in, unless the moles did some tunneling.”
“Could we go in through the roof?” Nora asked.
“No. The lab is built with extra thick reinforced concrete and steeltanium, just in case something goes wrong and blows up,” Darcy said.
A siren blared. The sky darkened in a matter of seconds. Darcy jumped.
“Oh no,” she said.
“What?” asked Steve.
Darcy turned and looked back at the water. A giant wave was rising up. The ninjas saw it, too.
“They know we’re here,” said Darcy.
STEVE
They all started running across the sand. Ahead of them was a brush forest: nothing but prickly bushes and low, leafy plants. Steve looked back once and saw that the wave was twenty, maybe thirty feet high and rising.
“Why would that be a part of your training simulator?!” Steve yelled.
“All of our training grounds function as defense, in case someone were to infiltrate the bureau,” she said.
“That wave is going to crash before it reaches us,” said Steve’s mom.
“Then I have just the thing,” said Nora.
The wave curled like a closing fist and it pounded the coast. A spray of water shot up like a geyser and there was a roar that reminded Steve of Toran the Tiger. Floodwaters rushed forward, faster than even Hussain Bolt, the greatest ninja sprinter, could have run.
Nora pulled a blue marble out of a hidden pocket. She flicked it ahead of them and there was a puff of smoke. When it cleared, there was an orange rubber raft and two black paddles. They all leaped in.
The waters came surging, kicking the raft forward. The raft took off and Steve fell on his butt. Nora had one paddle, Darcy had the other, and they were rowing furiously.
“We’re headed straight for the lab,” said Darcy.
So much for a stealthy approach. Steve saw the lab, though it was still distant. True to what Darcy had said, it looked like a plus sign. Steve could also see small dots spreading out. The mecha-moles were preparing for their arrival.
Beyond that, he saw part of the campus. A tall, cone-shaped building that had chunks knocked out of it. A blue metal structure in the shape of a hexagon with shattered windows. All of these were places that Darcy might have known or cared for. All of them had been damaged. He saw the empty expression on her face as she took it all in, and he had no clue how to help her.
“What’s the plan?” asked Nora.
“We’re going right through the front door,” said Steve’s mom. “Follow your father’s lead. He’s an expert in situations like this.”
Steve nodded. He felt the weight of the wooden baseball bat slung across his back. He told himself that it was time to hit some homeruns like Hall-of-Famer Babe Ruthless.
The flood began to thin out, though their raft kept zooming onward. There were plenty of scout and brute mecha-moles waiting for them.
Steve watched his dad move to the front of the raft. He held his baseball bat up high.
“We come in peace!” he shouted.
Then, while the raft was still moving, he jumped off of it and planted a heel kick right into a brute mecha-mole’s chest. It grunted and went flying back.
“Did I mention that it’s opposite day?!” Steve’s dad yelled.
Nora shouted that he was so cheesy, but Steve thought that his dad was the coolest. There was no time for talking, though.
Steve went with Darcy, who had drawn her chromega dagger. The mecha-moles sniffed the air.
“Metal!” said one of the brute mecha-moles, holding a big axe. “How careless.”
Even though it was nearly twice as big as Darcy, she didn’t flinch when it got near. A scout mecha-mole was also targeting Darcy, and Steve slipped away to meet it, head-on.
He ducked the mecha-mole’s claw swipe, spun like a top, and used the baseball bat to knock its legs out from under it. Then, Steve swung the bat like a golf club and struck the mecha-mole right on its butt, knocking it out of commission.
He turned just in time to see Darcy’s chromega dagger cut the brute mecha-mole’s axe in half. The mecha-mole was shocked and let its guard down. Darcy jumped up and punched it in the stomach, then Steve swung his bat and knocked the mehca-mole over.
“Let’s go!” said Nora.
She snapped her fingers, made a clicking sound with her tongue, and knelt.
“Cover your eyes!” yelled Steve.
The spell of raging lightning caused a brilliant flash of light. Steve suspected that the mecha-moles, who lived mostly underground, were in a lot of pain from seeing that.
“To the door,” said Nora.
Steve’s parents were already at the door, which was an intimidating slab of gray metal. His mother, father, and Nora all performed the spell of dragon breath in quick succession, melting a hole right through the middle.
One by one, they all dived through.
Steve ran past door after door. Sometimes there was a big, wide window and he could see black tables, robotic arms, and all kinds of microscopes. There were machines he had never seen: ones with spindly legs, ones with lots of wrenches and screwdrivers, and one that looked like a nacho cheese fountain that was actually running.
Steve was so focused on making it to the next chamber that he didn’t notice the mecha-mole that dropped down from the ceiling, right behind him.
He didn’t notice until his mom yanked him out of the way and took the kick instead of him. Then, a black net shot out of the mecha-mole’s claw and sealed Steve’s mom inside.
“It’s been a while,” said the mecha-mole, who Steve recognized at once.
DARCY
“Drogar,” said Darcy.
Drogar stepped over the net that had pinned down Steve’s mom. Like her brother, Prince Eldin, Princess Drogar was twice the height of most ninjas. Darcy saw that Drogar was the shorter of the two royal siblings, maybe eleven feet tall. Her mechanical claws had been enhanced since the last time and now they were a deep, polished green.
“No one picks on my girlfriend and gets away with it,” said Steve’s dad.
“Isn’t she your wife?” said Drogar.
“Yeah, but she’s my girlfriend, too,” said Steve’s dad.
“You’re pretty mouthy for a ninja,” said Drogar, standing as tall as she could.
Darcy wondered if there was anything she could do to de-escalate the situation. There had been a time when Drogar had been her ally, when they had looked out for each other. Now that there was open war between the mecha-moles and the ninjas, that option was gone.
When she looked around, Darcy noticed that Nora was nowhere to be found. That was a good thing, and the more Darcy could stall for time, the more chances there were that Nora would find the Nexus key.
“You’ve ruined my home,” said Darcy.<
br />
Drogar huffed. “It was ours to take.”
“That’s a lie,” said Darcy. “You have no more right to take this place than we would have to take The Mole Republic from you.”
Darcy sheathed her chromega dagger. She needed more to say, something that would keep Drogar distracted from the fact that Nora was missing.
“This is about your father, isn’t it?” said Darcy.
“Stop pretending that you know anything about me,” said Drogar.
Darcy smiled. This was a good sign. Whenever a target insisted that you didn’t know her, you were on the right path to making her seriously annoyed.
“I know more about you than you think. I know that you’d really like to fight Sensei Raheem. Yet, for some odd reason, you’ve been ordered to stay here. Your brother, Prince Eldin, is part of the siege of Ninjastoria,” Darcy said. “Is it because you’re a princess? Is it because your country values males more than females?”
“No more talking,” said Drogar.
The mecha-mole’s claws began to hum, and they transformed into wide, flat squares with spikes bristling out of them.
“I don’t want to fight you,” said Darcy. “None of us do.”
“I want to,” said Steve’s dad.
“So do I,” said Steve’s mom, still struggling in the net.
Darcy clenched her fists. This wasn’t going to work. Steve’s parents were too worked up, too eager to fight.
Drogar wasn’t expecting Steve’s dad to take the offensive against her. The moment he was in motion, Steve’s mom rolled herself behind Drogar and, despite being stuck in the net, managed to get into a table pose. Steve’s dad dodged Drogar’s big swing and drove his palms straight into her abdomen. The impact sent her reeling back, and she tripped over Steve’s mom.
Without missing a beat, Steve’s dad sliced open the net with a throwing dagger, and Steve’s mom burst free.
“We’ve got this,” said Steve’s mom. “You two know what to do!”
Agent Darcy and Ninja Steve in...Mecha-Mole Mayhem! Page 8
