Zeke Bartholomew (11 page)

I crept down the stairs. A pair of French doors separated the den from the rest of the house. We rarely closed them, only if we were watching a particularly cool action movie where we wanted to feel like we were closed off in our own theater. That's where dad had introduced me to James Bond. Simon Templar. Indiana Jones. Great memories that shaped me into the dork I am today. Sparrow and my dad were sitting on the couch with a large photo album splayed open between them.

“That's Zeke after he threw up an entire can of SpaghettiOs,” my dad said.

I cringed. Dad and I were going to have to have a long talk, assuming I made it through the day alive.

As they were facing the opposite direction, I gently closed the French door, squinting, waiting for a telltale creak that would give me away. Thankfully the doors closed without a sound. I allowed myself to breathe. Stealthily, like a ninja.

Then, when I turned around, my elbow knocked a small vase off a shelf, which fell to the floor and shattered into a thousand tiny, ornate pieces.

“Zeke?” my dad shouted from inside the room. “Everything okay out there?”

“Yeah!” I shouted. Just dropped an…ice cube tray.”

“Pick it up, will you? Don't want it to melt and warp the floor.”

“No problem!” I shouted back.

I ran into the kitchen, took the small dustpan and broom from the closet, swept up the pieces, and tossed them into a garbage bag. No harm, no foul. My dad wouldn't even notice it was gone. Oh, who was I kidding? He'd want to have a serious talk with me too. Assuming I made it through the day alive.

I went into the kitchen. Out came the batteries from the flashlight my dad kept under the sink. Out came the batteries from the cordless phone. I felt a little bad about that one. Grandma Betty called every night at eight o'clock. She would have to stick to email for a while.

I pillaged all the remote controls and electronic devices I could find and carried the batteries up to my room. Then I pulled out my roll of duct tape and set to sticking the whole contraption together. It wasn't easy; if one battery moved and disconnected it would disrupt the entire circuit. It took the whole roll of tape to get it all together and immobile.

When it was done, I went back downstairs and knocked on the door, just as I heard my dad say, “This is Zeke after a bird pooped on his head.”

Yes, he had taken a picture of it. My dad. Always classy.

“Um, guys?” I said, opening the door gently.

My dad looked up and smiled.

“Hey, bud, just showing Wendy here some of your greatest hits.”

I wasn't sure that “bird poop” and “greatest hits” belonged in the same thought, but there was no time to argue.

“Wendy, isn't it close to dinnertime? Don't your parents want you home?”

“Oh, right,” Sparrow said, pretending to look at her nonexistent watch. She stood up and extended her hand to my dad. He wasn't sure what to do with it. Not many twelve-year-old girls were so formal.

He took her hand, shook it.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bartholomew,” she said.

“It was nice to meet you too. Don't let Zeke show you his comic book collection,” he said with a grin.

My hand was beginning to hurt from all the mental slaps I was giving my dad.

Then, after they finished shaking hands, Sparrow curtsied. I snorted a laugh, unable to contain it.

“So proper!” he said. “You could learn some manners from Wendy, Zeke.”

“Right. I'll be sure to curtsy for Mr. Statler tomorrow. Come on, Wendy, I'll walk you home.”

“Oh, you live in the neighborhood?” my dad asked. “Where's your house?”

Sparrow looked at me, her eyes wide with panic.

“She, uh, her family is moving. Let's go. Just let me grab my wallet,” I said.

“Bye, Wendy!” my dad called out as we ascended the stairs.

Once upstairs, I grabbed my backpack and threw the HeatSeeker 4000 inside, along with a few other gadgets I thought might come in handy. It was a bulky contraption. I carefully carried the backpack downstairs and we left the house.

“Now what?” she said.

“Now let's see if our Duracell family picks up on Le Carré's hideout.”

Once in the driveway, I took the gadget out of my bag and turned it on. It grew warm in my hands. I hoped it wasn't frying my brain as I held it.

Red dots began to appear all over the screen. Small images, nothing too powerful.

“There's nothing there,” Sparrow said.

“Hold on,” I said. “Let me zoom out.”

I enlarged the search radius. Then, at the top of the screen, I noticed something.

It was very faint, but there. A smidge of red at the very top of the screen.

“See that?” I said to Sparrow.

“Looks like nothing. It's faint.”

“I'm not looking at the brightness; I'm looking at the width. It's at least three or four times wider than any other dot on the screen.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means there's something big out there.”

“Okay, so where is it?”

“I…I don't know. This is zoomed out as far as it goes. It's a fifty-mile radius. So it's somewhere within fifty miles of here.”

“Well, we're not going to find it by walking or taking the subway. How do we search within that radius?”

I looked around. I had no idea how we were supposed to travel.

Then my eyes fixated on the house next door. The Lance home. There were two cars in the driveway. I figured the family owed me one.

“Can you unlock and hot-wire a car?” I asked.

“Can you eat soggy cereal for breakfast?” she replied.

“Yes, I can.”

“Then let's go.”

We crept over to the Lance driveway. There were still security cameras everywhere, but we didn't have time to worry about them. I kept watch on the house as Sparrow sneaked up beside the sedan, and within seconds she was inside without having triggered the alarm.

Then she ducked her head under the steering column.

“Hurry up!” I whispered loudly.

She shot me a look. I shut up.

Thirty seconds later I heard the car rumble to life.

“Get in!” she shouted from behind the wheel.

I didn't hesitate. I sprinted over, jumped into the passenger seat, and seconds later we had hightailed it out of the driveway and out onto the road.

I held the HeatSeeker 4000 in front of me.

“Head north by northwest,” I said. “And do it fast.”

“You've got it.”

She sped out onto the highway.

“Don't go too much over the speed limit. Last thing we need is to get pulled over right now. Two underage kids driving a speeding stolen car won't look too good. My dad will think I'm a bad influence on you.”

Sparrow kept it at an even seventy as we sped along. Slowly but surely, the hazy red smudge at the top of the screen grew brighter, more distinct.

“That's gotta be it,” I said. “I've never seen anything come out that bright. It's got to be an incredible power source.”

“How long till we get there?” Sparrow asked.

“Not sure. All we can do is keep going, using this as our compass.”

And just as luck would have it, the moment I said that, the HeatSeeker 4000 shut off.

“Oh, crap,” I said.

“What happened?”

“It died,” I said.

“What the heck was the use of getting all those batteries?” she said. “And where should I go?”

“Just keep going straight. I can fix this.”

I rummaged around in my backpack and pulled out another GeekDen contraption. I pulled the plug out of the cigarette lighter and threw it in the backseat. Then I hooked a device into the socket and attached it to my battery circuit.

A second later the HeatSeeker came back on, the dots brighter than ever.

“Nice work,” she said.

“Never thought I'd be using it for this,” I said. “Okay, start veering more west.”

She followed my directions. Soon the smudge was fully visible. And it was impossibly bright.

“It's gotta be within about ten miles. This thing is hot. Keep going.”

Sparrow sped up. I was about to tell her to slow down, but then I saw the clock on the car dashboard. If our information was accurate, Operation Songbird was going to take effect within the hour. There was no time to lose. The fate of the world was in the hands of a kid who was once selected after a mop for a kickball team. (The gym teacher wouldn't let that stand—though he did get a laugh out of it.)

I had a hard time arguing that one. At the time.

I watched as the huge red orb grew agonizingly closer. Sparrow kept looking over to the HeatSeeker 4000 to see as well.

“We're getting close,” I said. She just nodded.

We had driven outside of the town limits, the highway passing numerous small strip malls and roadside diners. There were no signs of a super-villain hideout. Not that it would have exactly advertised itself. You wouldn't be a successful villain if you had a lair in the shape of a huge, evil trident, or surrounded your castle with a moat filled with floating dead bodies. Le Carré's crib was hidden. It made sense that it wasn't visible to the naked eye.

“Turn off at the next exit,” I told Sparrow. She complied.

We drove off the exit ramp and headed west until we were right smack in the middle of the red blob.

I looked back at the HeatSeeker 4000.

“Something's wrong,” I said.

“What?” Sparrow asked.

“We should be here. I don't understand.”

“Then where is it?” she asked.

“I…I don't know. Stop the car.”

Sparrow pulled over to the side of the road. On one side was a forest. On the other side was a strip mall.

“I don't see anything,” she said.

“Me either.” I looked toward the forest. Then the strip mall. Then at the device. The red blob was large enough that the radius was at least a mile in any direction. Which meant we could spend hours combing through leaves or wandering sidewalks and still find nothing.

“Zeke,” Sparrow said. I snapped to attention. Her eyes showed something I hadn't seen before: fear. We were running out of time and Sparrow knew it.

I had a vision in my head of Stefan Holt, seventh-grade newsman, standing in front of a camera with one of those wireless microphones in his hand.

Reporting
live
from
the
scene, where the world has been overrun by übervillain Le Carré. The streets are in chaos, and nothing will ever be the same again. I'm standing here with Ezekiel Bartholomew, the only person who had a chance to stop Le Carré and rescue his best friend, the gangly Kyle Quint. Zeke, what does it feel like to have failed miserably and let down millions of people?

I felt like I was going to throw up. And this time I didn't need ipecac.

There had to be something we'd missed. Le Carré was around here somewhere.

I scanned the trees. The roads. The strip mall. Looking for something, anything out of the ordinary.

“Zeke,” Sparrow said, a hitch in her voice. “What now…”

“Wait,” I said. “There.”

I spotted something. I took a few steps closer to make sure. Squinted. There was no reason for it to be there. I knew right then that I'd found Le Carré.

“What is it?” she asked.

“That coffee shop,” I said. “Look at it.”

“It looks like a coffee shop. I don't think a venti macchiato is what we're looking for.”

“No, not
at
the stop,
above
it.”

Sparrow moved closer. “Is that—?”

“An FTM Twenty/Four mobile. Commonly used by the military to set up communications.”

“Why the heck would there be a mobile military antenna above a coffee shop?”

“There's no reason for it to be there,” I said, “unless there's something inside that requires the kind of communications network that needs military operating power. Universal telecommunications power. The kind of power that—”

“Could broadcast all over the world,” Sparrow said with horror.

“Exactly,” I replied. “We found him.”

6:51 p.m.

One hour and nine minutes until a bunch of zombie kids with the IQs of a cucumber march all over the world. (Did Sparrow
really
pretend to be my girlfriend? Sorry, still shaking my head at that one. I mean, who does that? Wait, where was I…oh, yeah, the world's about to end. Priorities.)

When I was ten, I sneaked a swig of my dad's morning roast. I nearly threw up. It made my head swim and my heart beat what seemed like a thousand beats per minute. I knew coffee was a stimulant, but I had no idea it would make my heart feel like the Road Runner was galloping full speed inside my chest. I hate coffee. Hate the smell, hate the taste, hate the weird variations that people have come up with, hate coffee shops and bars, and even the word
barista
.

So naturally it made sense that Le Carré would use a coffee shop to disguise his base. Like I needed any more reasons to hate him.

I pulled my laptop out from my backpack and plugged in the wireless card. I ran a few quick searches and found that the shop had been purchased by new owners three years ago. The company name it was registered under?

“Ragnarok Industries,” I said.

“You've got to be kidding me,” Sparrow said.

“Come on,” I said, stepping out of the car and hitching the backpack over my shoulder. “We need to find out what's really going on in there.”

We jogged over to the coffee shop, threw open the door, and walked inside. Immediately the smell of ground beans and milk infused my nostrils and made me gag. And gag again.

“You okay?” Sparrow said.

“Yeah, it's just,” I said, hiccuping, “the smell of coffee makes me nauseous.”

“Wonderful. Is there anything that doesn't turn you into Jell-O?”

I threw her an evil glance.

We looked around the shop. About a dozen people were sitting at tables, sipping coffee, munching on pastries, or buried in their computers. Three baristas worked behind the counter, looking as excited to be there as I always was during my yearly physical.

Nothing looked out of the ordinary. It was a coffee shop. They served real coffee. If Le Carré wasn't here, I was going to be mighty peeved for putting my nostrils through this kind of agony.

“Let's take a look around,” I said.

“Will do,” said Sparrow.

I walked around the left side of the café; Sparrow took the right. I eyeballed the people sitting down, trying to see if they looked shady, if maybe they were working on some top-secret project having to do with world domination.

“Hey, kid, stop staring. You're creeping me out.”

I snapped out of it, realizing I'd been staring at one guy's computer while he perused what looked to be an online dating site.

“Everyone does it these days. Get a life. Go away.”

I obliged Mr. Hard Luck in Love and kept walking.

I walked around back. More tables, more coffee, more people. There was nothing here.

I knelt down and started to look underneath the tables, trying to see if there were any secret buttons, strange panels, or floorboards that could be pried up.

I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir?”

I stood up. “Yes?”

One of the baristas stood over me. He was a youngish guy with hideous chin hair that looked like the result of a particularly gruesome weed whacker experiment and enough facial rings and piercings to make getting through an airport metal detector a daylong activity.

“Some of the patrons have been complaining that you seem to be, um, peeping at them. Their words, not mine. I'm going to have to ask you to stop or to leave.”

“I'll stop,” I said. “Sorry. I'm looking for my dad, who's supposed to be meeting me here. He's late again as usual.”

I put on my best “poor me” face and the enemy of all metal detectors backed off.

“Oh, hey, listen, no problem. Take your time. Hope your dad gets here soon.”

“Thanks,” I said, wiping an imaginary tear from my cheek.

Once he was gone, I did another lap and headed over to meet Sparrow. I couldn't find her. I went around to the right side of the café and saw her standing in front of an elevator door.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I asked.

“Ever seen an elevator in a coffee shop before?” she said.

“No, but it could lead to a storage room.”

“No, the storage room is in the back. I saw one of these scary-looking bearded people bringing bags of beans from there. And there's a delivery door in the back as well. There's no reason for this to be here.”

I scratched my lip. She was right. There was something down there. But it still didn't fully add up. I just didn't picture Ragnarok—in his flame-retardant suit and jetpack, carrying my friend Kyle—waltzing into a coffee shop and calmly pressing the Down button.

“There's got to be another entrance,” I said. “Something that leads below. Just not in the shop. I was stupid. It's below us, but the real entrance wouldn't be so public. It'd be somewhere hidden. Somewhere in the thick of things. Somewhere…”

Suddenly I turned around and sprinted outside.

“Zeke!” Sparrow yelled, chasing after me. “Where are you going?”

I didn't have time to explain. She was a faster runner than me anyway, so I knew she'd keep up.

I zoomed through the parking lot, waited until traffic parted, and ran across two highway lanes until I reached the thick forest on the other side. Only twenty yards in and you could barely see the cars, and they sure couldn't see me. Another twenty yards and you wouldn't even know civilization was on the other side.

I stopped to catch my breath. My heart was pounding, and not just because I wasn't in very good shape.

“Zeke,” Sparrow said, pulling up next to me. Naturally she was totally cool while I was practically bent over, panting. “What are we doing?”

“Hold on.”

I looked around. For something. Anything. If I didn't find it soon, that Stefan Holt report would become a reality and something very, very bad would happen, even worse than the time I'd studied for an entire day's worth of wrong tests.

Then I found it. Not by sight, but by smell.

“You smell that?” I asked.

“Smell what?” Sparrow replied.

“A faint odor. Hydrogen peroxide. Just a trace.”

Sparrow took a whiff of the air. “I smell something. What makes you think it's a lead?”

I turned to her. “Ragnarok was wearing a jetpack. Jetpacks, or their first iterations, were invented by the Germans during World War Two. In nineteen fifty-nine, two American scientists attempted to harness the technology. They realized that the best fuel to use for jetpack propulsion was—”

“Hydrogen peroxide,” Sparrow replied.

“A hydrogen peroxide–based substance, yes. Ragnarok was here,” I said. “He landed somewhere around here. Let's follow the scent.”

We spent ten minutes trying to triangulate the location of the hydrogen peroxide smell. Not too easy, considering there was a faint breeze that made pinpointing it darn near impossible. Then I heard…

“Zeke!” It was Sparrow. I jogged over to where she was standing. And I saw why she'd called me over.

The smell was strong, but more important was a circular patch of grass on the ground, about four feet in diameter.

It was completely singed.

“He landed here,” Sparrow said.

I knelt down. There were matted imprints in the grass, a large boot print. It was definitely him.

We followed the boot prints until they stopped…right before a massive oak tree.

I walked up to the tree. Inspected it. It was huge, with branches filled with leafy green leaves spindling out in all different directions.

“This one,” Sparrow said. “Notice anything?”

I looked closer. At the very base of the branch was a very faint demarcation line.

“This branch has been sawed off and then put back on,” I said.

“Or,” Sparrow said, “it's not a branch at all.”

“Heck, it works in the movies. Here goes nothing.”

I reached forward, took the branch with both of my hands, and pulled.

The branch rotated in my hands. Smoothly, like it was on gears.

I nearly fell back. It continued to rotate even though I'd let go of my grip.

And as the branch turned, a panel in the wood slid open, revealing a shiny, gleaming metallic pod.

I heaved a breath, realizing I'd forgotten to exhale for nearly a minute. Sparrow turned to me, and I said, “Let's go save the world.”