“They’ll be good for defensive purposes as well,” noted Luz. “Give somebody a good kick with one of those, and he’ll be feeling it for weeks.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Betty. “Do you think we’ll be kicking people?” she asked Kiki.
“Don’t worry. We’ll let Luz do all the kicking,” said Kiki. “Anything else?”
Betty struggled to recapture her train of thought. “Oh, right. The hard hats. I think a spin on the classic miner’s hat, with a flashlight in front, should work nicely. I’ll have to find small ones and adapt them to the size of our heads. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“I also thought it would be a good idea for the Irregulars to have a logo. You know, to give the outfits a little flare.” She flipped a page and revealed a drawing of a small golden i she had designed to look like a girl in motion.
“Fantastic,” said Kiki as the girls broke into a round of applause. “Great job, Betty. Oona?”
Oona stepped forward with the bag of locks and the two hangers, the ends of which had been bent into bizarre shapes.
“These old locks are a cinch,” she boasted. “If I had been around a hundred years ago, I could have made a killing as a thief. The only problem was that I tried to pick them with a bobby pin like you always see in the movies, and I ended up breaking all of my nails. Then I found these wire hangers.” She picked up a lock and inserted a wire hanger. “You can twist the wires into any shape you need. All you’ve got to do is listen closely and make sure all the tumblers are compressed.” She flicked her wrist, and the lock sprang open.
“Here, Fishbein. You try.” She closed the lock and tossed it to me. “I’ve already shaped the wire to fit that style of lock, so it won’t be too hard. Just put your ear as close as you can, and listen for three little clicks.” I turned the wire carefully. One by one, three little clicks sounded and the lock opened again.
“According to the books, there were only a few styles of lock in use back then,” said Oona. “I think we should make six small kits that will have wires shaped to fit each. That way, any of us can do the honors, and I won’t always have to be the one ruining my manicure.”
“Great,” said Kiki as Oona sat down and resumed filing her nails. “Ananka, are you ready to tell us about rats?”
“There are rats in the Shadow City?” squealed DeeDee.
“Don’t wet your pants, DeeDee,” said Kiki. “Rats are everywhere in New York. There’s probably a nest in this building somewhere.”
The other girls squirmed.
“It’s okay, I think I’ve found something that will make us all feel better,” I told them. “I was going through some of my grandfather’s old papers, and it turns out he invented a device that should get rid of the rats in the Shadow City.”
“Your grandfather was an inventor?” asked Luz.
“He was a lot of things, including a little strange. He probably liked rats more than people, but he understood that the rest of us prefer to stick with our own species. So he invented something he called ‘The Reverse Pied Piper.’ ” I explained the way the device worked, repelling rats without doing them any harm.
“That’s perfect,” said Kiki. “The last thing we need is to end up wading through a bunch of dead rats. Luz, do you think you could make a couple of these things?”
“Sure,” replied Luz as she studied a drawing of the Reverse Pied Piper. “I can have a working model in a couple of weeks.”
“Excellent. We’re making good progress,” Kiki said. “DeeDee, what about you?”
I saw Luz look up and catch DeeDee’s eye.
“It’s complicated,” replied DeeDee. “I mean, the explosives part is pretty easy. Just a simple mixture of a few household chemicals would be enough to blow a hole in a wall without taking the whole tunnel down. But there’s one little problem.”
“It’s hardly a little problem,” said Luz, taking over. “The Shadow City isn’t the only thing under New York. It’s a big mess down there. There are all sorts of wires— telephone, cable, you name it. I’ve even heard about abandoned underground highways and forgotten subway stations. But the real problems are the mains. They’re huge pipes filled with water or highly explosive natural gas. There’s no way to tell exactly where they are unless we have a map. We could use DeeDee’s explosives to blow a hole in a wall, but if we were anywhere near a gas main, we could destroy half the city.”
“Can’t we find a map of all the mains?” I asked.
“No,” said Luz with an air of finality.
“Yes, we can,” DeeDee jumped in.
Luz glared at her. “Maps like that are guarded like the Declaration of Independence. And anyway, there’s only one place we’d be sure to find one.”
“Where?” asked Kiki.
“The gas company,” said DeeDee.
“You mean Con Edison?” I cut in. “They’re not going to let us have something like that.”
The second I spoke, I noticed Betty begin feverishly drawing on her pad.
“Of course they won’t,” Luz agreed.
“We’d have to break in,” said DeeDee, surprising everyone but Luz. I had pegged DeeDee for the law-abiding type.
“We are not breaking into Con Edison,” said Luz firmly.
“Hold on a second,” said Kiki. “Oona, do you think you could hack into their computer system?”
“No,” Oona admitted. “Not from the outside. I’ve tried, believe me. But it might be easier if I were inside their building.”
“Have you ever seen the main Con Edison building? It’s a fortress,” said Luz.
“It has a door, doesn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah, but the security’s incredible. It has to be. Don’t you know what could happen if a terrorist got his hands on those maps?”
“Security passes are my specialty,” said Oona dismissively.
“Okay, genius, but do you think they’ll let a bunch of little girls with security passes through?” snapped Luz.
“I have an idea,” said Betty, who had been silently finishing her drawing as the rest of us fought. The room grew quiet and we all looked at Betty, who turned the color of a ripe pomegranate. She flipped her pad around to face us. On the page were elderly versions of Luz and Oona, both dressed in cleaning ladies’ uniforms.
“I don’t look like that!” cried Oona angrily, glaring at a wrinkled version of her twelve-year-old face.
“I c-could make you,” Betty stammered.
“What are you trying to say?” Oona threatened.
“A disguise … ,” Betty tried to explain.
“Brilliant,” said Kiki, ignoring Oona and beaming at Betty. “Absolutely brilliant.”
“No one would ever question you if you were disguised as little old ladies,” said DeeDee with admiration. For once, even Luz couldn’t argue.
• • •
Luz sulked for the rest of the evening. Clearly, she wasn’t accustomed to being wrong. As the rest of us plotted, she sat at the end of the sofa, her feet tucked beneath her, her right hand yanking her ponytail tighter and tighter. Even without her help, we had a plan in short order. Oona would make security passes and hack into the Con Edison computer system from the inside. Betty would provide the disguises. There was just one problem. Luz would have to go along. She was the only one who knew exactly what to look for.
“Forget it. There’s no way I’m going,” Luz insisted.
“You have to go,” Oona urged, looking a bit worried. “I can’t do it by myself.”
“We’ll get caught.”
“Are you worried about your probation?” asked Kiki.
“You’re on probation?” DeeDee asked.
Luz turned on her ferociously. “You don’t get it, do you, rich girl? Not all of us are lucky enough to have tons of money and our own private laboratories. Some of us have to make it on our own.”
DeeDee sat back in stunned silence. I tried to give her a reassuring look, but she was busy staring at the wall
in front of her, looking like she might cry.
“What did you do, Lopez? Steal something?” asked Oona.
“No, I didn’t steal anything,” said Luz. “I was walking down the street one day, and I saw a television sitting on the curb. I thought I could make something out of it. So I took it. I thought it was garbage. I didn’t know someone had left it on the sidewalk for a minute while they were moving into an apartment.”
“You got probation for that?” I scoffed.
“Yeah, and if I get caught doing anything else, they’ll ship my butt off to jail.”
“I’ll go to Con Edison instead,” offered DeeDee quietly, but Luz ignored her.
“Luz, we can’t do this without you,” said Kiki.
“No way. I can’t go to jail. And I don’t have the money to pay some fancy lawyer to get me out of trouble,” said Luz, sending another furious glance in DeeDee’s direction.
“When you joined the Irregulars, you knew there would be risks involved,” Kiki told her. “There’s no point in exploring the Shadow City unless we have the equipment we need. And if what you’ve said is true, we might not get very far without a map of the mains. But, Luz, if we’re able to map the tunnels, everything down there will belong to us. There’s a chance we could all walk out rich. If you do this one thing for the Irregulars, you may never have to go through other people’s garbage again.”
The rest of us waited for Luz’s response.
“My mother’s strict. She’ll never let me out of the house at night,” she announced.
“Tell her there’s a slumber party at my house,” said Kiki. “Verushka will cover for us.”
“Okay,” Luz reluctantly agreed. “But if we need to break any more laws, don’t expect me to do all the dirty work.”
We were all so relieved that Luz had decided to go along with the plan that none of us realized that we had skipped Kiki Strike’s presentation.
• • •
Two weeks later, Kiki Strike and I watched from a diner across the street from the gas company as Luz and Oona, in full disguise, mingled with the Con Edison night staff on their way into the building. I held my breath as the girls approached the security desk, and let out a sigh of relief as they sailed past without attracting any notice.
Not that Luz or Oona would have been in danger had anyone given them a good once-over. In the course of three hours, Betty had aged them fifty years and supplied both with cleaning ladies’ uniforms she had sewn herself. When we left for the gas company, Betty stayed behind in her apartment, cleaning up before her parents came home from work. DeeDee claimed to have schoolwork to finish, but I suspected that her feelings were still hurt by Luz’s outburst. Kiki had come along to make sure everything went as planned, and I had joined her only because I was too nervous to stay at home. I knew Oona would be fine, but I felt sorry for Luz, who had prepared for the operation as if she were headed for the guillotine.
Kiki and I waited at the diner for three long hours until Luz and Oona emerged with a half-dozen cleaning ladies, all taking a coffee break and chatting amongst themselves. When the coast was clear, Luz and Oona slipped away from the others and made their way to the diner. Earlier in the evening, I had hidden a bag of clothing and face soap in a trash can in the diner’s bathroom. There, Luz and Oona removed their disguises and washed the makeup from their faces. When they had finished, they met Kiki and me on the street.
Once we were a safe distance from Con Edison, Kiki broke the silence.
“Did everything go as planned?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” said Oona.
“We almost got caught,” Luz explained. “Another cleaning lady came in just as we were downloading the map.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“It was brilliant,” said Oona, and Luz smiled proudly. “Luz told her we’d spilled some cleaning fluid on the keyboard and that we turned the computer on to make sure it was still working.”
“She bought it?” asked Kiki.
“Yeah,” said Oona. “She said we were lucky. A maid got fired for accidentally destroying a computer last week.”
“So you found a map of the mains?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s on a CD,” replied Luz. “We should have everything we need. In fact …”
“What?”
“We hit the jackpot.” Luz paused before explaining.
“Do I look psychic to you? Do you expect me to guess what you found?” huffed Kiki.
“Go ahead and try,” Luz laughed. “You wouldn’t stand a chance. When Oona and I were going through the computer files, we found something. Something amazing. It’s called the nice map.”
“The nice map?” I asked. “What’s so nice about it?”
“No, that’s just how it’s pronounced,” said Luz. “It’s really N-Y-C-M-A-P. It stands for New York City Map. It’s a map of Manhattan, but in three layers. The bottom layer shows everything belowground. It has all the gas pipes and water mains. It even shows the location of all the sewers, electrical lines, and subway tunnels. The only thing it doesn’t have on it is the Shadow City. My guess is no one’s ever discovered the tunnels because they’re too far underground. In the part of town where you found the Shadow City, even the subway lines aren’t more than forty feet below the street.
“But that was just the layer of the NYCMap we could download. There were two other layers of the map that we couldn’t get to. We could only read the descriptions. Supposedly, the second layer of the NYCMap shows everything at street level—that means every fire hydrant, every manhole, every park bench, and every tree. And the third level of the map shows everything above the ground, including the floor plans of every building in the city. Every room in every building in New York City is on it.”
“So what? As long as it doesn’t show the Shadow City, who cares?” I asked.
“We care. There’s never been a map like this before. If you had all three layers, you could do just about anything. You could place a small bomb in just the right spot and blow up an entire city block. You could even plan a robbery without ever casing the building.”
“What stopped you from downloading the other two layers?” Kiki asked Oona.
“Whoever made the NYCMap won’t let Con Edison have access to all the layers,” she replied. “It’s that dangerous. They’re keeping it secret for a reason.”
“It’s the sort of map that terrorists dream about,” added Luz.
“So how can we get the whole thing?” asked Kiki.
“It’s impossible,” said Oona. “Don’t you think I’d have already tried?”
“Nothing’s impossible,” replied Kiki.
“Why do you want it?” I asked. It sounded like the sort of thing that should be left under lock and key.
“You never know when you might need a good map,” Kiki said with an evil grin.
• • •
Two months after the Con Edison break-in and a week before summer vacation began, the Irregulars were almost ready for the Shadow City. We met one last time to try on the jumpsuits Betty had designed. They were so flattering that Oona kept hers on for over an hour. When she saw me in mine, she nodded with approval.
“You could be kind of cute if you tried a bit harder,” she told me. I took a look in the full-length mirror in Betty’s bedroom and wondered where she thought I should start.
After our fitting, Luz and I spent the afternoon testing two Reverse Pied Pipers she had crafted from spare parts. (I didn’t dare ask where she had gotten them.) For the first time since I’d met her, she seemed genuinely happy as we traveled from alley to alley looking for rats to scare. The first test took place behind a seedy restaurant on the Lower East Side, a rat Shangri-la with overflowing garbage cans and a faint stench of sewage.
Luz put one of the Pipers up to her lips and gave a quick puff. We heard nothing, and for an uncomfortable second, it seemed as if the device had failed. Suddenly, dozens of frantic rats appeared out of nowhere, scurrying away from u
s as fast as their legs could carry them. A deliveryman happened to step out the back door of the restaurant and into the rat-filled alley. When he felt the swarm of rats weaving between his feet and trying to climb his legs, he issued a shrill scream and performed a dance not native to any country. Luz and I ran out of the alley and down the street, laughing so hard, we nearly threw up.
Within a week, each of the Irregulars had her own Reverse Pied Piper, uniform, and set of lock-picking wires enclosed in a pretty silk case. DeeDee had crafted several small but effective packets of explosives, and Kiki had used the CD that Luz and Oona had stolen from Con Edison to make a waterproof booklet out of the NYCMap.
We had all the supplies we needed, but there was one last obstacle to overcome. Our explorations were to take place under the cover of night. For most of us, this didn’t pose a problem. Kiki was an orphan, and none of us knew if Oona had a family or not. Betty’s parents were costume designers who worked nights at the Metropolitan Opera and rarely made it home before seven in the morning. My mother and father could sleep through a hurricane, which meant I’d be able to leave my apartment through the fire escape outside my bedroom window without fear of waking them. DeeDee made a deal with her beloved housekeeper to keep her parents away from her room at night. But Luz’s overprotective mother was going to be a problem.
Fortunately, Luz’s mother had insisted that Luz find a summer job, so we invented one for her. Posing as Luna Actias, a renowned entomologist, Verushka placed an ad in the paper, looking for a young person with a keen scientific mind to help her study the nocturnal behavior of moths. The pay was good, and the job suitably respectable, so after a two-hour meeting with the very persuasive Luna Actias, Luz’s mother reluctantly allowed her daughter to work the night shift.
With Luz finally free to roam the city, we chose the first day of summer break to enter the Shadow City. We truly believed we had thought of everything. Little did we know that exploring the Shadow City was like being on the first expedition to Mars. We did what we could to make ourselves feel better, but there was no way to prepare for what we would find.