“Don’t do this, kid,” Runyon pleaded, but they ignored him and loaded up.
Drew grabbed Runyon’s prod and headed for the coaster.
“Hey, kid. What about me?” Runyon asked.
Drew clicked his heels and snapped a sarcastic salute. He turned his back and started climbing up the scaffolding with the others.
* * *
“Here. Stop here!” Cameraman shouted. The soldiers jumped from the back of the jeep before it even stopped, mushing through the slop to get to the coaster.
“This is where they took her,” Cameraman said, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of Molly. “You see anything?”
General Hyde shook his head. “No, but I can hear ’em.”
A troop carrier arrived immediately after, soldiers filing out of the back, one after another like a clown troupe.
Hyde deployed the men around the coaster, forming a perimeter around the base. “Where’s the explosives guy?” he asked.
The demolitions engineer snapped to attention, front and center, carrying a wooden box with “DANGER” stenciled across the lid.
“How fast can you rig this thing to blow?” Hyde asked.
The engineer looked up at the coaster and then back at Hyde, the ashes from his dangling cigarette falling onto the box. “Looks like the repair scaffolding is the only thing holdin’ that fossil up. Just gimme a few minutes. She’ll come down.”
Hyde checked his watch. “Hurry! We’re running outta time!”
The engineer took another slow drag. “Don’t wanna rush—safety first.”
“Just get over there and get started,” Hyde said in disgust.
Cameraman tugged at the General’s sleeve. “Molly’s up there. Ya can’t just start blowin’ stuff up!’
“Stand back, pork chop,” Hyde said. “This is the Army’s responsibility, and we—”
The gleaming silver crescent whistled past them just a few feet above the ground. Contrails formed around its leading edges, leaving long, spiraling streaks of vapor in its wake before the crescent pulled up at the last second.
“That was close!” Cameraman said, helping Hyde to his feet. “Looked like one of those old-time, man-in-the-moon profiles they used to...”
“Cancel that order to rig for detonation,” Hyde snapped.
“What was that thing?” Cameraman asked.
Hyde watched the airship climb into the heart of the tempest. At least now he knew where Frost had gone. “The vehicle’s Army designation is P-Seven-Ninety-Five. The code name is Moonclipper.”
CHAPTER 13
Lightning blew the scalloped edges of the clouds up like an x-ray, echoed by a thunderclap a split-second later. The howling wind pushed the stinging rain sideways, making it hard for Molly to see.
The power kicked back on, and entire sections of the park suddenly jolted back to life, blinking on and off in irregular patterns. She waited for the Cryptos to react, but they weren’t fazed by the commotion—in fact, they barely moved.
Clementine crept out from behind the Venus globe, headed for Mars. The distance between the globes wasn’t far, but she’d be out in the open and exposed for a few critical seconds.
She was almost halfway across when she took an errant step and the plank beneath her creaked.
Clementine stopped and waited for Mask to turn around but he didn’t react.
A few tense seconds passed before she had the courage to start again. She inched forward until she was just a few feet away from the gelatinous Crypto, and then ducked back out of sight.
Grady shuffled between the steel drums stacked across the deck, looping around Mask without arousing his suspicion. Once in position, he signaled Clementine that he was ready.
Spider climbed along the railing beneath the deck and stopped. If Molly looked down and saw him between the planks, she’d give him away for sure. He hung there, dangling almost one hundred feet above the pavement, trying to decide whether to keep going or not.
Then, she looked down.
He waited for her to say something--but she didn’t. Either she hadn’t seen him or she was playing along.
He started again, crawling along the rails until he was beneath Jupiter and had Howl lined up.
Newton scuttled along the exposed rails between the globes, timing his movements between lightning flashes. He came in behind Howl, sliding in behind Saturn.
He gave Spider the go sign.
The coaster cars clicked along the rails behind him, but Tusk ignored them, which was just what Drew was counting on. He lowered himself from the bottom of the approaching car, hanging upside down by his knees.
The car got closer and closer to the deck, the rusty wheels squeaking so loudly that he was sure Tusk would turn around any second. Drew shifted his weight back and forth, adjusting his grip on the prod until he was comfortable.
Click—click—click. The cars rolled closer.
Drew’s torso twisted, coiling like a cobra.
Tusk kept his back to the rails, watching the horizon, oblivious to the cars creeping toward him.
“Now!” Drew shouted. His body uncoiled and his prod connected with a satisfying “thwack” against the Crypto’s ridged skull.
Tusk’s elephantine legs buckled beneath him, and his massive head drooped against his chest.
Drew’s backswing caught Tusk under the chin as the cars pulled away, sending the stunned Crypto sprawling backward across the deck.
The fight was on.
Newton came at Howl from the left, Spider from the right.
Clementine whipped a length of chain around Mask’s legs, pulling it tight with both hands and bringing the Crypto to his knees.
Newton swung wide, but his mallet caught Howl’s rib cage on the rebound, folding the Crypto in half.
Spider’s spear followed a split second later from the opposite side, jabbing at the Crypto’s kidneys with quick, short strokes.
Grady charged from behind, bringing his wooden sword down with both hands against the base of Mask’s neck.
Newton swung, then Spider thrust—Newton, Spider, Newton, Spider—alternating shots until Howl collapsed facedown onto the Saturn globe.
Clementine let the chain around Mask go slack, then pulled it back and lashed out again. Grady followed, swinging from left to right and splintering his wooden blade between the Crypto’s shoulder blades.
Mask wobbled and then slumped between the gaps in the railing, down for the count.
Molly’s head jerked from side to side, trying to keep up with the action, but it was all over in a flash. “I’ve been rescued,” she muttered. She struggled to her feet, looking for the first soldier she could throw her arms around and kiss in gratitude.
The coaster cars made another complete circuit, bringing Drew back around. He jumped from the still-moving cars, throwing his helmet to the side and joining the others on top of the deck.
Molly immediately recognized him from their brief but memorable interlude at the studio. “Half-pint? What are you doing here?”
“Another class field trip,” he said with a grin.
The kids approached Tusk warily, schooling together like nervous fish for protection. They knew better than to assume the wounded Crypto was finished.
“Yeah. Yeah, Zero Avenue—represent!” Spider shouted.
“I can’t believe we did it!” Newton said, attempting a high-five with Grady and missing. “We’re like the Avengers or the X-Men or somethin’.”
“They ain’t so tough,” Clementine said. “Like any other bully, bloody their nose—or their snouts—and they go down!”
Molly peeked over them, trying to keep the dramatic scene inside the camera frame. “This is gonna make a great story. Maybe even get me my own talk show.”
Tusk lay before them moaning in agony, but Drew grabbed his prod with both hands and raised it up over his head—just in case.
“How come his hands are tied up?” Spider asked.
??
?Feet, too,” Grady said.
The rain was falling harder than ever, giant drops punching through the dome’s unfinished sections and exploding into mushroom clouds on impact. “The storm’s pretty bad, even inside,” Newton said. “Maybe they didn’t wanna get blown off the deck.”
What he said made a little sense—but only a little. Clementine traced the chain from Tusk’s ankle to the deck railing a few feet away. “Can’t move very far though. The chain ain’t long enough.”
Drew kneeled down beside the incapacitated Crypto. “Where’s his harness?”
“What are ya doin’?” Clementine asked. “He could be totally faking.”
But Drew ignored her, grabbing hold of Tusk’s head and pulling.
“Have ya lost yer mind?” Clementine yelled.
They tried pulling Drew away, but he fought them off. He kept twisting the Crypto’s neck until the head finally gave.
The others recoiled in horror as Drew staggered to his feet and hoisted the trophy up for them to see.
“It’s a mask!” Clementine gasped.
“The stuntmen,” Grady said. “They musta wandered into Cryptoville.”
Molly lowered the camera. “What’s going on?”
Drew ran his fingers over the bloody bandana wrapped around his head. Six Cryptos—not three. That’s what the little girl was trying to tell him. He’d been given a glimpse of tomorrow’s shadow—of what was going to happen—and he’d blown it.
“It’s a trap!” Drew shouted, but it was too late.
The rockets sprayed across the maintenance deck like buckshot and perforated the wooden planks in sequence.
* * *
Frost pulled his thumb off the fire button. “Think I got ’em.” He scanned the scene again from the safety of the cockpit windshield, waiting for the smoke to clear. “Yeah, I got ’em.”
The airship tilted and dipped while Frost figured out its flight profile through trial and error. Twin seats on either side of the cabin provided room for a pilot and navigator but not much else, though he did find room to hang a pine-scented air freshener from the rearview mirror.
Miss Croy struggled to buckle her seatbelt. “When you said let’s take your ride, I thought you meant the Caddie. Not whatever this thing is.”
Controlling the airship in the storm was like trying to break a bucking bronco, but Frost was getting the hang of it. “We made it so we could watch them without being watched ourselves. We’ve got one for each phase of the moon. We thought giving them some kind of supernatural entity to fear would help us control them during training and beyond.”
“It’s nice,” she said, fighting her growing nausea. “But the vanity plates are a little over the top—considering the face on this Thanksgiving Day float is yours.”
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. Bucket seats, AM-FM radio, cruise control, and only twenty thousand miles. What more could a girl want?”
Her stomach dropped to the floor as they banked steeply. “Yeah, that’s great, but what kinda gas mileage ya get?”
He laughed and pushed down hard on the yoke, plunging the airship into a steep dive before pulling up again just as abruptly.
Miss Croy slammed backward against the seat. “Are you crazy? What are you doing?”
“Relax. I just wanna get some souvenirs from our day at the park. I just wanna get some of their DNA splattered across the windshield!”
* * *
Drew tried to get up, but his legs had turned to rubber, and he collapsed back onto the deck. Shrapnel from the explosion had sliced his skin into thin, pink ribbons, but at least he was still conscious. He called out to the others, but the only replies he got were muffled moans and groans coming from their battered and bruised bodies scattered across the burning maintenance deck.
The Moonclipper spiraled up dramatically from beneath the deck and hung in the air before him, the flashing sky highlighting the contours of the airship’s sullen face. Speakers bolted to the twin rotors surged to life, hissing with feedback, and for the first time, Cryptoville’s silver god spoke. “Remember when I talked about survival of the fittest?” the baritone bellowed. “Remember what else I said?”
“There’s always the possibility of divine intervention to move things along,” Drew muttered.
“And here I am,” Frost roared, “here to move things along!”
Drew was an easy target on the deck, so retreated across the connecting rails toward Mercury.
If he could get to the globe, he could hide inside, but the track was slippery from the rain and the airship far more nimble than he would have guessed.
The Moonclipper closed the gap, weaving back and forth like a shark closing in for the kill, its jaws ratcheting open one notch at a time.
Drew turned around, but he’d run out of room. The coaster cars barreled toward him from behind and the track in front of him led to the airship’s gaping maw.
There was nowhere to go.
He closed his eyes and braced himself for the jaw’s inevitable crunch, but when it didn’t come right away, he opened his eyes and saw why.
Drew was right; the stuntmen were the bait in a trap—but they weren’t the prey, Frost was.
Mask lowered his shoulder and slammed into the airship, shockwaves rippling out across the Moonclipper’s latex skin.
Howl charged in behind him, battering the craft with a torrent of stinging tentacles that sounded like a round of applause. The barrage of heavy appendages didn’t do much damage but did give Mask time to flank.
Drew crawled back onto the maintenance deck, taking cover behind the Earth globe. He watched the action unfold, still woozy from the rocket attack. “They must have been hiding inside the globes,” he muttered.
But one of them was still missing.
“Where’s Tusk?”
Drew felt the weight of a deep purple shadow eclipsing him.
Tusk loomed over him, frothing at the mouth, ready to splatter him across the pavement below. He reared back, raising his taloned hand to strike, but hesitated at the last second.
The other remembered Drew, and because the other remembered, now Tusk did too. The other’s voice grew louder and stronger until the mission programming playing inside Tusk’s head faded to a whisper, growing softer and softer until he couldn’t hear it anymore.
Drew covered himself in anticipation, but Tusk didn’t strike. Instead, there was a split second of hesitation when Drew looked into Tusk’s bloodshot eyes and thought he saw Harley staring back at him.
“Harley,” Drew said, “gotta remember to call him Harley.”
Tusk—Harley--lowered his hand and turned his attention to the Moonclipper. He charged across the burning deck and launched himself at the airship.
His first punch ripped a gash in the airship’s shell, exposing the rigid aluminum skeleton beneath.
The next punch shredded cables and control rods buried beneath the skin, expelling gobs of thick hydraulic fluid across the sky.
The assault pushed the airship back against the railing. But like a wounded animal, the airship was most dangerous when cornered.
Mask staggered backward, caught off guard by the jolt of current surging from the airship’s side-mounted prods.
Mask stepped back, but the Moonclipper stung again.
Mask’s body seized. The paralyzed Crypto slipped through a gap in the railing and collapsed into an inanimate heap on the pavement below.
Howl swung again but missed, his tentacles cracking the empty air like a whip.
The Moonclipper pivoted, driving Howl backward across the deck toward the edge like a fly on a windshield.
Howl lashed out, wrapping a single tentacle around the craft as he slid toward the edge of the deck.
The tentacle stopped his fall, but the Moonclipper’s prods buzzed with current.
The voltage surged through Howl’s system and his tentacle fell limp. The flailing Crypto crashed through three levels of scaff
olding before a cement mixer broke his fall—and most of his bones.
The Moonclipper retreated, but Tusk—Harley—was undeterred. He banged away, landing blow after blow even as the airship pulled away, trying to shake the enraged Crypto loose.
Drew watched the titanic struggle unfold and realized something was wrong. The Cryptos were stronger and faster than this--Were Enzyme Seven’s side effects tilting the odds against them?
“Gotta do somethin,” Drew decided. He snapped out of his daze and pulled the prod out of the stuntman’s costume.
He reached into his hoodie and grabbed the lightning-in-a-bottle from inside his pocket. “Knew there was a reason I hung onto this.”
Uncorking the vial, he let a single drop of Lazy-Eye Susan’s potent concoction spill onto the prod’s tip.
The airship listed to starboard, threatening to capsize, but righted itself before turning over. The Moonclipper tried climbing, but Harley’s added weight made the craft’s controls sluggish.
Drew limped across the deck and jumped into the trailing car as the train passed by on its next circuit.
Harley clasped his hands together and brought them down like a sledgehammer. The Moonclipper hissed and twisted, bleeding helium from multiple wounds.
Leapfrogging from car to car, Drew scrambled toward the front of the train as it climbed the coaster’s steep initial slope.
“Gotta get into position before it’s too late,” he grunted.
The Moonclipper soared higher and higher, climbing into the churning black clouds above, angry god and rebellious angel locked in a death struggle from which there was no escape.
Drew struggled to his feet as the train reached the crest of the incline.
The cars balanced for a moment in midair, teetering on the edge of the precipice. He hoisted the prod, took aim, and launched…
Hit! The prod buried itself deep inside the airship’s rubber shell.
Lightning arced out from the main thunderhead, cutting across the sky like a blowtorch and connecting with the prod.
The jolt charged the airship’s skin and blasted Harley clear, but he didn’t fall. Instead, the raging wind lifted him higher and higher until he reached his zenith, and then time itself seemed to tick to a stop.
Harley hung in midair, frozen in time and space, balanced perfectly between heaven and earth.
For a moment it seemed that somehow, some way, the wind would keep him aloft.