Samantha Smart (32 page)

“
Never
point this thing anywhere near your friends. It would also be extremely prudent not to fire it toward any essential structural components of the base, windows or critical computer systems. Only use it at all in the most dire
circumstances. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Professor,” she replied responsibly.

“Good. I would have assigned this duty to Marvin, but I trust your judgement and I need him to handle the self-destruct on the Slanes’ time machine, as he is the only one with some experience in programming the controls.” He stood up very straight and surveyed his team like an army colonel about to send them into battle. “Any questions, Alpha Team?”

Brianna meekly raised her hand. “Um, how do we get out of there, Professor?” she asked.

“The same way you always do,” Smythe responded. “You will use the chalk to trace your feet upon arrival. When you’ve got their time machine programmed, return to your footsteps and cue me with a communicator. Make sure all of you are ready and in place–we may only have a few seconds.”

They stood solemnly. There were no more questions. It was time for action.

*

They stood on the time machine’s stone platform once again, feeling dwarfed by the vast dome that surrounded them. Marvin clutched the printouts that would show him the correct sequence for programming the self-destruct, and Samantha shouldered the weighty NEPTUNE-60, prepared to defend their mission’s success to the end. The Professor stood at the controls, Polly sitting nervously at his side.

“Ready?” he asked simply.

“Ready,” they all responded, taking deep breaths.

Smythe began the process, aligning the black glass beads in the necessary arrangements to alter the flow of space-time. Crackles of blue energy appeared, Mayan symbols flashing in the minds of the four young New Yorkers. They looked frightened this time, more than they ever had before; this was not some mystery to be solved or some scientific reconnaissance mission. They were transporting into the heart of enemy territory, into the enemy’s element, onto the enemy’s turf.

It was too much for Polly, who must have sensed their fear or uneasiness. In a heartbeat she launched herself at the platform, jumping up into Samantha’s arms and inexpertly straddling the NEPTUNE-60. Samantha staggered under the extra weight and opened her eyes just as The Professor was screaming Polly’s name, but it was too late.

They stood on the floor of a large, half-domed chamber, not nearly as large as the one they had just left, but sizable nonetheless. At one end of the room was a large control panel flanked by banks of electronic equipment, computers and a huge central video screen. At the other was the Slanes’ time machine, a near-perfect replica of their own. There were three doorways, evenly spaced around the room’s perimeter, which curved to follow the upward contour of the half-domed walls and ceiling. There was no one in sight.

Seeing Samantha’s plight with Polly, Suki immediately traced her teammate’s feet with the chalk before she toppled under the weight of terrier and spear-gun, then reached back to trace her own. The other team members did likewise before taking a step.

“Polly!” Samantha yelled as her dog scrambled off of her, then clapped her hand to her mouth. Silence would, of course, be advisable in the enemy’s citadel. “Bad dog!” she shout-whispered, looking around nervously.

Marvin was already at the time machine’s controls, moving obsidian pieces and referring to his notes on several sheets of paper that he’d brought to aid him in his task. Suki and Brianna, too, were quickly effective at locating the central computer and attaching their specially-fitted communicators to the appropriate ports after a brief discussion as to which ones were the correct ones. It looked like Polly was staying, for better or worse; there was no time to discuss a change in plans. Someone would have to scoop her up and hold her while they prepared to transport back.
If
they transported back...

“Okay, Professor,” Brianna spoke to no one, as her communicator was now in use, “here it comes.” She pushed the talk button.

Instantly, there was a huge
BOOM,
and they were all knocked off their feet as the entire building shook. Marvin swore as his arrangement of obsidian pieces was scattered onto the floor, leaping off of their pedestal, and he scrambled to his feet, trying to pick them all up and start over.

“Professor!” Samantha piped into her wrist-communicator, “what was that!?”

“Working on it,” his voice came back. Suki and Brianna’s communicators were still hooked into the central computer and presumably transmitting information to their leader.

Things got worse quickly, however. The temperature in the room was rising dramatically, and it looked as though cracks were forming in one area of the domed roof.

“All right,” Smythe’s voice came back through all the communicators (evidently Suki’s and Brianna’s could still receive). “Listen. You seem to have triggered something bad.”

“
No Duh!”
Brianna yelled.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit of a self-destruct mechanism for the entire base. I didn’t anticipate this, I–I’m sorry. According to some of these files, you can try to stop it by replacing a... wait a minute... a... crystal relay. That must be what we fried by tapping into their computer.”

“What’s happening!?” Samantha asked hurriedly.

“It’s–it’s opened a channel into the volcano. We can try to close it again with a new crystal relay. There’s–there should be one in a compartment–on the floor, ah, um, under the main control panel. Suki, I’m sending back a schematic of the circuit you’ll need to put it in–it should pop up on a screen there. Marvin, as soon as you could finish that, ah, well, that would be jolly good.”

“Yo, I’m goin’ as fast as I can! You want me to screw it up!?”

“
No!
I mean–take your time, then.”

“I’ve got the crystal–uh–relay-thingy! I found it!” Brianna beamed.

“Good. Suki - do you see the schematic?”

“Got it,” Suki replied. A diagram of the circuit board and its location appeared on the huge main video screen.

Another
BOOM
occurred, and everyone again went flying. Marvin managed to fling himself over the control panel so that most of his work was preserved, but the crystal relay flew out of Brianna’s hand and over toward the time machine’s central stone platform. The most ominous result of this latest blast, however, was that a chunk of ceiling had fallen in where the cracks had begun forming, and glowing, molten lava was now oozing into the chamber.

“Professor, there’s lava dripping through the ceiling!” Samantha spoke into her communicator, “and it’s getting really, really hot in here!” Marvin was dripping sweat at the time machine’s controls and Brianna looked as if she might pass out.

“Hmmm. Not good. How are you doing, Marvin?”

“I–I think I’m about halfway there, as long as there are no more quakes or explosions.”

“Cover your work, NOW,” Samantha said decisively, wiping sweat from her forehead, “there’s going to be one more.” She shouldered the NEPTUNE-60 and aimed it at one of the high windows in the domed ceiling. She gritted her teeth, released the safety as The Professor had showed her and squeezed the trigger.

The building shook again, and this time a major spurt of saltwater became a powerful, steady stream through a large crack in the window that Samantha had fired at. It was amazing to her that the entire window hadn’t shattered, the explosion had been so loud. She could see now, though, that it was made from glass or plastic that was at least eight inches thick, and only a chunk of about a foot square had been totally blown out by her explosive-tipped spear. The rest was still holding, for now.

“Samantha, what are you
doing!!?”
Suki screamed, almost fainting from the heat.

“She’s being resourceful,” Smythe’s voice came over the communicators, sounding pleased. Indeed, her idea had been a good one; the jet of water that was spraying across the room was cooling the lava–and the air–to a more tolerable level. The flow of lava was slowed and a large puddle began forming on the floor. Also, the room was filling with steam from where the water actually came in contact with the lava and evaporated, instantaneously. In a way this was good–it meant the base would take that much longer to fill with liquid water, which would eventually drown them, though the excess of steam did coat them all in condensation and was beginning to cause visibility problems.

There was, in addition, the fact that there is only so long that a team of adventurers will go unnoticed after breaking into an enemy’s central computer and triggering a self-destruct sequence for their entire evil undersea base. This amount of time had, sadly, run out.

“Uh-oh... ” Brianna shrank as all the sliding doors in the room slid down, sealing them in to either be encased in burning lava, drown in very warm water or scald their insides by breathing if the atmosphere in the chamber became too highly saturated with steam. And–they were no longer alone.

The circuit schematic disappeared from the main video screen and was replaced by the image of a shadowed figure, shark-like in profile but seated in what looked like a high-backed, Victorian armchair. It appeared to be smoking through a long, plastic cigarette filter, and wheezing or chuckling or something–it was a most unsettling sound, in any case.

“Welcome, humans,” a voice half-choked, half-hissed. “Rather inconsiderate of you to arrive in such a fashion, toting guns and making such a mess.” Its accent sounded British, but not like The Professor’s. Possibly it was Australian–though in fact it could hardly be called human at all. “I suppose I’ll have to leave you to your fates here–though I’m afraid I’m going to need that time machine, and any of that fabulous
chalk
I’m sure at least one of you is carrying. We’ve really had to ‘rough it’ without our own, as I’m sure you know.” Samantha shivered as she watched the gruesome silhouette through the steamy haze. She looked over at Marvin and gestured to him with the ‘let’s get it rolling’ hand motion, as he had become somewhat (understandably) distracted by the sinister onscreen presence.

“You’re not getting any chalk, and your time machine is minutes from being history,” Samantha said boldly. Somehow it was easier to be brave with an explosive-tipped spear-gun slung over one’s shoulder.

“Of course I am, tadpole,” the figure chuckled or gurgled. “Jordan will be by momentarily with some friends. They can be very persuasive, Jordan’s friends. I’d suggest you give them what they want, or else they might decide they want your legs instead.”

“Bring ’em on, Slane,” Samantha barked back at who must be Jordan’s mysterious father, Vassily, hardly believing it was she who was speaking the words. “The world is a place that evolves naturally–maybe the fact that your kind exists is even proof of this. But you can’t
force
it. You can’t make the world into something that only supports your kind. I know you think that’s what we humans do but, well, there are a lot
more
of us. You’re a freak, Slane, an evolutionary accident, one that knew it was it was a mistake and so cut off its own development.”

“You know nothing, child,” Vassily Slane’s voice grew angrier. “My kind is genetic perfection. There are only more of you because you are persistent little bacteria that must–and
will
be eradicated.” The screen went blank, to everyone’s shock. Samantha looked at her teammates and then back at the blank screen, indignant.

“He hung up on me,” Samantha said in disbelief. She nodded for a second and bit her lip a little, then slung her NEPTUNE-60 down and fired another projectile straight into the massive video monitor. It blew into tiny fragments and cracked the wall behind it slightly, and another chunk of thick glass broke through on the already damaged window, increasing the flow of high-pressure water into the now sealed room.

“Watch it with that thing!” Brianna yelled, getting up from a crouching position that she and Suki had assumed when their ‘cool, level-headed team leader’ suddenly decided to fire a rocket right over their heads.

“Yeah, jeez, Samantha!” Suki registered her astonishment, brushing debris off of her jacket.

“I
knew
I shouldn’t have given you a NEPTUNE-60. I
knew
it!” Professor Smythe’s voice piped in over the communicators.

“Sorry,” Samantha smiled a slightly crazed smile. “I’m better now.”

“Yo, da girl smells somethin’ fishy, her trigger-finger gets itchy on the NEPTUNE-60, the walls get crispy ’cause Sam Smart’s no sissy... ” Marvin broke into a nervous rap.

“Okay, Marvin, thanks,” Samantha said curtly.

“Almost there, girl,” Marvin said, feverishly shuffling through his reference sheets and comparing them with his own arrangement.

There were now at least a few inches of water covering the floor, and Polly, having an aversion to deep water, was starting to ‘bug out’ a little. The steady influx of ocean had mostly stopped the lava from flowing, though small cracks were opening in new spots in the domed roof that glowed with the orange intensity of molten rock. Suki was sliding out circuit-board panels, trying to locate the one they needed, from memory, since The Professor’s transmitted diagram had been cut off by Vassily Slane; there was also the fact that there was no video screen left to view it on now, thanks to Samantha’s unexpected cowboy assault. Brianna was over by the time machine trying to find the crystal relay, which now lay somewhere under four inches of water. Samantha held the NEPTUNE-60 at the ready, looking back and forth between the three doors in the chamber. They would have company soon, she wagered.

It was even sooner than she anticipated. They did have a few seconds of warning from The Professor, who was apparently still wired into the central computer and could presumably monitor the movements of anyone or anything within the base.

“Samantha, I’m reading several things in motion, just outside the chamber and closing in on you. They’re opening all the doors. Forget the crystal relay. Suki, Brianna, find your footprints and
stand in them.
Samantha, cover Marvin for as long as you can and then get to the footprints yourself.”