Project X-Calibur (6 page)

9

133:46:26

FULL DISCLOSURE:
I'll never again hear the word “g-force” without practically wetting my shorts.

After the first test, the chairs—including the floor panels below them—suddenly rose up higher and higher, until the five of us were forty feet above the floor. Sourpuss's voice came through speakers in the corners of the ceiling. “Your directive for this second part of the test couldn't be simpler:
Hold on.
”

I gulped. I wasn't overly afraid of heights, but I was afraid of
falling.

“You going to be okay this time, Earnhardt?” Kwan asked.

“I was fine on the first part, Kwan,” I shot back. “I just—”

I didn't get to finish, because we all reclined backward until the five of us were parallel with the ceiling. I knew from science class that heat rises, and that was certainly the case now. Forget an elevator shaft, the room now felt like a warm chimney. The ceiling was just a few feet away from us. It was a network of pipes, giving off more heat.

“I've got a bad feeling about this,” Tyler murmured.

“Yeah, it's called the
end of the world,
” Kwan quipped.

WHOOOSHHH!!!
It felt like my stomach and everything else inside me was going to come out of my mouth. My cheeks and lips and hair felt like they were being pulled upward as the rest of me, fastened to the chair, plummeted. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting to smash into the floor and be turned into oatmeal.

We came to an immediate stop just a foot above the floor, all five of us still in reclined positions. Our chairs rose up on their columns again. Within seconds, we were again staring at the ceiling.

“I went on a ride like this at a state fair once,” Tyler groaned to nobody in particular. “I barfed afterward. Fried cucumbers and corn on the cob. Not pretty.”

That image made my stomach lurch, and just as Kwan yelled “Yee-ha!!” we all dropped again. I waited desperately to hear Sourpuss's voice—hopefully saying,
They all passed; help the kids out of those torture devices ASAP.

“Good, now let's flip them around,” she said instead.

I did
not
like the sound of that.

This time, when we got to the top, the chairs continued to recline backward and
kept going,
slowly turning all the way upside down until we were facing the floor, forty feet below. I had thought this couldn't get worse. Wrong: Not being able to see the ground was
way
better than this.

We dropped again, and the ground came rushing at us at lightning speed. I was overcome by a crushing fear that we'd plunge through the floor, deeper and deeper into HQ, never to be seen again. We stopped a foot from the floor again, my heart thrashing against the strap around my chest.

“That should do it,” Pellinore called. “Get them out.” The techs helped us out of our chairs. I tried to walk with confidence, but I felt like I had just taken a ride inside a washing machine on the spin cycle.

“How do we feel?” Pellinore asked exuberantly.

We?
I'm sure
he
felt fine. I, however, practically had my intestines stuck between my teeth.

“Never better,” Malcolm grunted, standing tall and looking good as new. The dude was seriously getting on my nerves. Sourpuss scanned me, Tyler, Kwan, and Darla with her eagle eyes. “Any soreness or pain I should know about? Withstanding g-forces of this magnitude will be essential to your success. Speak up now or suffer the consequences later.”

The four of us gave each other quick glances. Kwan and Malcolm were all smiles, Tyler and Darla looked a ghostly shade of white, and I was crossing my arms, trying to hide my sweat-soaked armpits.

None of us said a word.

• • •

Later in the bathrooms, I stood at the sink and splashed cold water in my face. I had some lingering nausea, and I was exhausted. Malcolm stood next to me at another faucet, washing his hands. He stole a quick glance at me in the mirror.

“Rough start, eh?” he asked casually. I nodded.

Kwan came up behind us after flushing in a stall. “They probably hit us with the tough stuff right away to see if we could handle it, that's all. From here on out, I bet it's smooth sailing.”

Tyler joined us. “Defending the world against
aliens
is going to be ‘smooth sailing'?” he asked dubiously. For once, Kwan didn't have a wisecrack.

“Did Merlin already tell you what we're going to be doing? How exactly we're going to fight them?” Kwan asked me eagerly, then leaned over the sink to wash his hands.

“He must have told
you,
right?” Tyler pressed. “You're his
champion.
”

I grabbed paper towels and dried my face. “No. I don't know any more than you do, I swear.” In the mirror, I noticed Kwan and Tyler exchange a look, like they were considering whether or not I was lying. I didn't like it. And Malcolm was just watching me again, leaning up against the bathroom wall.
Examining
me.

“Whatever.” Malcolm shrugged it off. “We should get back outside.”

A few minutes later, we all gathered in the atrium again. “From this point forward, knights, think of headquarters as your Camelot,” Pellinore boomed. “We're a
team,
with a duty like no other in the history of time. And speaking of time—”

He snapped his fingers and five techs approached, each holding a shiny metal contraption with a hole about five inches across. “Your arms, please,” said Pellinore, pointing to the holes.

Malcolm stepped forward and fearlessly stuck his arm into the box nearest to him. I saw Merlin watching me, so I also stepped up. I slid my arm into the metal tube. There was a sound like a high-powered hydraulic pump and a
clack
of two metal pieces coming together, and then I felt something warm around my wrist.

“All done,” the tech said, so I pulled my arm out. I had a strange-looking wristwatch installed on my arm. The band was solid metal, with no clasp, and had been melded together to fit me perfectly. The digital watch face was large, but simple. No buttons, no extraneous readouts like the temperature or date. In fact, it wasn't even giving me the
time.
It was a countdown watch, to match the clock on the atrium ceiling.

“We have a problem, sir,” one of the techs said to Pellinore. “I'm terribly sorry, but we seem to have miscalibrated one of the devices.”

It was Tyler. His thick forearm had gotten
stuck
inside his watch installer. With five techs yanking on the box at the same time, Tyler's arm finally came out with a loud pop. But his countdown watch was in place and unscathed.

“It's imperative that everyone's first priority here is the task at hand,” Pellinore explained. “The countdown until the aliens' arrival should be foremost in all our thoughts.”

I looked around and realized that all the techs were wearing countdown watches too, mostly covered by their lab coats. Pellinore and Merlin were the only two people not wearing one.

“Merlin, would you care to escort the knights to their rooms for the night, or shall I?”

Merlin nodded. “I'll take them.”

“Wait,” Malcolm interrupted. I tensed.
Now what?

“I hope I'm not out of line for asking, sirs, but is there a gym I can use for an hour or so? I'm not ready to sleep yet.”

“Not out of line at all, my dear boy!” Pellinore replied happily. “I had planned to show you the exercise facilities in the morning, but no time like the present! Come, knights! What we've got is far better than any gym you've ever seen!”

10

132:26:08

AT FIRST,
the gym looked like an empty room, with a shiny black tile floor and padded white walls. But if there was one lesson I had learned in my short time at HQ, it was this: Never take anything at face value.

Pellinore walked into the room and held out his arms. “Maintaining prime physical condition is vital to the success of any warrior,” he said. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Tyler discreetly suck in his gut. “Strength, agility, endurance—all essential for each of you. But time is of the essence, and we are
knights
! We have our own methods of preparing for battle!”

I looked around at the padded walls in confusion. Was he going to make us fight each other?

Pellinore walked over to a wall and opened a hidden panel. My eyes widened. There were
swords
lined up in a rack. The thought of swordfighting in the same room with
the
Percival Pellinore, an original knight of the Round Table, was beyond exciting.

Pellinore took off his suit jacket, revealing muscles clearly visible beneath his shirt and tie. For a dude who was hundreds of years old, he was in awesome shape. As he pulled a sword from the rack, the blade began to pulse blue in three places—near the tip, in the middle, and at the base. It wasn't a regular metal sword: It was constructed out of a heavy-duty plastic of some sort, with sensors built into the blade.

Pellinore, sword in hand, walked over to stand in front of the opposite wall. He flashed us a grin, then announced to the wall, “Prepare to fight!”

The five of us looked at each other. Was he going to attack
us
now?

A panel in the wall slid up, revealing a sight that made us all gasp—even Malcolm's jaw dropped.

A robot stood inside the nook, holding a sword of its own.

“I . . . am . . . Iron Man,”
Kwan growled in amazement and stiffly moved his arms up and down like a robot. I couldn't help but grin.

The robot stepped out and waited silently. It was six feet tall, with arms and legs made of steel rods that had glowing blue sensors everywhere. The droid's face was flat, with nothing except two blue glowing eyes and a blank expression. But there was still something unsettling about its stare.

“Knights, this is a spar-bot,” Pellinore explained. “A mechanized sparring partner used to stay in shape. Not only is he able to fight, but he can score the performance of his opponent by recording his or her moves with his eyes.” Pellinore circled around the spar-bot, pointing to different sensors as he moved. “In addition, he tallies the hits he receives, so keeping track of your progress as a warrior is effortless.”

Pellinore loosened his tie, then faced the spar-bot and lifted his sword, assuming a fighting stance.
“En garde!”
he shouted, and the spar-bot sprang to life. I hadn't been prepared for how well it
would
move—just like a person, and fast. Kwan's stiff robot impression had been
way
off.

“Pay attention, knights!” Pellinore shouted as he sprang into action. “This is called a
lunge
!” He jabbed the tip of his sword into one of the spar-bot's torso sensors. There was a beep, and the sensors flashed from yellow to orange to red, depending on the power and accuracy of the blow. Pellinore whirled impressively and bounced a few steps back.

That's what a real knight looks like,
I thought.

“This is a retreat! And then . . . a
fleche
!” he shouted as he flung himself at the spar-bot again, arm outstretched, scoring another hit, then continuing
past
it. The spar-bot struggled to find its target. Even though the mechanical fighter moved fast, Pellinore was faster.

“And now a
beat,
” he barked. Sweat flew from his brow as he struck his blade against the spar-bot's blade, over and over.

The spar-bot took a wild lunge at him, but Pellinore blocked the attack with his sword and shouted to us, “A parry!” He pushed the spar-bot back with a heavy grunt, muscles flexing. The steel fighter toppled backward and hit the ground. Pellinore wasted no time. He jumped onto the spar-bot, one knee on its chest, and held the tip of his sword to a sensor at the spar-bot's throat. There was a long
BEEEEP
and the spar-bot's eyes and all of its sensors flashed bright red before going dark and lifeless.

Pellinore turned to wink at us, entirely in command. “And I win.”

We clapped wildly.

“I'm next!” Malcolm called.

“Then I'm after Malcolm!” Kwan followed, but Pellinore held up a hand.

“Relax, knights. There's no need to take turns.”
Four more
wall panels slid up to reveal four more spar-bots.

“Whoa,” Tyler gaped. “Iron Man has brothers.”

The new spar-bots were identical to the one Pellinore had just fought. They stepped forward in perfect sync and then froze—a tiny spar-bot army. Malcolm lit up and turned toward the rack of swords, but Pellinore held out an arm and looked across the room, where a couple of techs had entered.

“Are the knights' sparring uniforms completed yet?” Pellinore asked the techs, but they shook their heads.

“Your instructions were that the knights wouldn't need spar gear before morning, sir,” one explained anxiously.

Pellinore nodded. “Very well.” He turned back to us. “It'll have to wait until tomorrow, Malcolm, although I admire your enthusiasm.”

“Can't I just spar in my regular clothes?” Malcolm countered.

Pellinore shook his head. “The risk of injury is too great.” He put a hand on Malcolm's shoulder. “We need you. Don't forget that.”

Malcolm beamed, and I now understood why the others had been so interested in my connection with Merlin. Even though our cause was greater than any one of us, I couldn't help but feel jealous of Pellinore's apparent fondness for Malcolm. Most of my life had played out like that stupid obstacle course in gym class: I'd give my all, taste the possibility of winning and being special, and then fail in a blaze of glory, once again proving that I wasn't cut out to be anything except average. I did not want that to happen again.

I glanced at Merlin. He was watching me, his expression hard to read. If I was ever going to be a hero, it was now or never.