Fiddle urged them on, then gathered Torquin, Cass, Aly, and me close. We could hear Massa reinforcements clattering in at the front of the building. “We don’t have much time before the goons figure out what just happened. I’ll stay here and get as many KI people to safety as I can. You guys get to work finding Bhegad’s EP assignment. Aly, you know where to go?”
“Building D,” Aly said.
Fiddle nodded. “Right. The systems control center. But I warn you, the info is encrypted beyond belief.”
“Depends on your definition of belief,” Aly said with a small grin.
“Radio me when you find him.” Fiddle fished a walkie-talkie from his pocket and threw it to me. “The uniforms will give you some cover. Be sure you find those Loculi. Bhegad will know where they are. Do you understand this? Good. I can meet you back at the plane. Where is it?”
“Enigma Cove,” Torquin said.
With a nod, Fiddle disappeared in the direction of the dorm. Cass, Aly, Torquin, and I bolted. We followed the perimeter of the campus toward Building D. I was scared out of my mind. The Massa knew our faces. In the light, we were toast. And the baggy uniforms didn’t help. But the gathering darkness might help us pass for Massa commandos.
As the alarm blared all over the compound, the chaos seemed to multiply in the quadrangle. Officers were screaming at subordinates, commandos were shoving KI staff toward the dorm. No one seemed to care about four more running people.
We crouched behind the squat, square building and peered into the window. Exactly two Massa were in there, pounding on keyboards. “Skeleton crew,” Cass commented.
Torquin stood, gesturing us to follow. He circled the building and strolled through the building’s front door, which had been blasted open. “I help, fellow Massa?” he boomed.
The two men turned. One of them nearly spit out his coffee. “Whoa, nice uniform! What have you been eating, dude?”
Torquin grabbed them by their collars, lifted them out of their seats, and butted their heads together. “Pound cake,” he said.
Aly slid into a seat in front of a console. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. Code flashed across the screen at impossible speed.
“You can actually read that?” I said.
“Shhh . . .” The scrolling stopped, and the screen filled with random letters and symbols. “Okay, there it is . . . House of Wenders, sublevel seven. That’s Bhegad’s EP.”
“That’s the underground lab, where they made Shelley the Loculus shell,” Cass exclaimed.
“Where do you read that, Aly?” I asked, staring at the gobbledygook.
“It’s in hexadecimal notation,” she said. “Those combinations each represent letters and characters.”
I stared at her. “You scare me.”
“Actually, I scare me, too.” She turned from the screen, a concerned look on her face. “I wouldn’t have been able to read that even a week ago. Hurray for G7W. Now let’s see if we can scare the Massa . . .” Swinging around back to the keyboard, she said, “They will have access to our trackers now, right? So before we get Bhegad, why don’t I just zap the KI’s tracking machine—along with some other choice equipment . . . hee-hee . . .”
“We can’t just run across the courtyard to the House of Wenders,” Cass said. “There are tons of Massa. Dark or not, someone will recognize us, just like that guard did.”
“Go the long way,” Torquin suggested.
“On it.” Aly’s fingers were a blur. “Overloading the Comestibule circuits . . . disabling the breakers . . . should cause a small explosion there. Okay. On the count of three, the lights should go out everywhere except the House of Wenders. The Massa goons who aren’t heading to the dorm will be drawn to the explosion in the Comestibule, buying us some space and time.”
“Wait. What if someone is actually in the kitchen?” I asked.
Torquin looked skeptical. “The long way is better.”
Aly sighed. “I figure that the kitchen-cafeteria is the one place people won’t be during a Massa attack. Let’s hope I’m right. Ready? One . . . three!”
She leaped from the seat. A distant blast rocked the earth. I staggered and fell to the floor. “I thought you said a small explosion!”
“There goes five fifty-pound sacks of chocolate chips,” Cass said mournfully.
Torquin pushed us all outside. We ducked into a shadow, watching smoke rise from the Comestibule.
Together we sprinted across the compound, which was now pitch-dark, save for the lights in the windows of the House of Wenders, directly across from us. It loomed over the campus, as solemn and stately as a courthouse, its wide marble stairs topped by seven columns. The KI flag that flew on a pole in front was now tattered and blackened. As a group of five Massa raced down the stairs in confusion, Torquin called out to them: “Attack! Comestibule! Go!”
They stomped off toward the commotion, and we headed into the grand entrance hall, racing around the statue of the dinosaur that had spooked me so much when I’d first walked in here. The elevator in the back of the hall was empty. We piled inside and plunged downward to subbasement 7. Torquin held tight to his rifle.
The door opened directly into an enormous domed chamber, lit by a string of buzzing fluorescent lights. Torquin stepped inside, his bare feet slapping on the concrete. The room was full of abandoned workstations, their monitors glowing with the KI symbol.
“Professor?” I called out.
My voice echoed, unanswered, into the dome.
“Empty,” Torquin announced.
“I think we all see that,” Aly remarked.
“Any other suggestions where to go?” Cass said.
With a soft whoosh, the elevator door shut behind us. As I turned instinctively, the room plunged into sudden darkness.
A low, focused hissss came from the ceiling. Three emergency lights flicked on, casting everything in a sickly bluish-white glow. I felt a tickle in my throat. Cass began coughing, then Aly.
Torquin fell to his knees, his eyes red. Quickly he began ripping apart sections of his already ripped pants, then throwing the pieces to us. “Put on . . . nose!” he said, gasping for breath.
“What’s happening?” Aly said, doubling over with violent coughs.
Torquin jammed the fabric over his face. “Tear . . . gas!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LOCATION D
I SANK TO the floor. My knees hit the concrete with a sharp crack, my eyes began to water, and I felt as if someone had crawled into my throat with a set of knives.
Torquin was struggling with his rifle, looking toward the back of the room. There, a lab room door was swinging open to reveal a figure wearing a white coat and a gas mask. As the person came closer, Torquin took aim.
I could see a black-and-gray ponytail protruding out from under the mask. As Torquin sneezed, the person bolted to the left.
Aly was wheezing, convulsed into a ball. Cass looked dead. I tried to keep my eyes open, breathing directly into the fabric. I crawled around, following the masked figure, who was grabbing at the wall as if looking for something. I managed to close my fingers around an ankle and pulled. As the person fell to the floor, I reached up and yanked off the mask.
“No!” screamed a voice. “Don’t!”
I was face-to-face with Dr. Bradley, Professor Bhegad’s personal physician.
And traitor.
“You’re”—I gasped—“one of them, too?”
I thought my lungs would ball up and burst. As I fell back, Dr. Bradley sank beside me, red-faced and choking, grasping desperately for her mask.
With a grunt, she yanked it from my fingers. Climbing to her feet, she slipped the mask back on and steadied herself by grabbing the wall.
I blinked like crazy but I was too weak to stand. Dr. Bradley was pulling open a metal panel on the wall, flipping a switch.
She swung around toward me. My eyes were fluttering shut. Tear gas? I didn’t think so. This was some other poison. I was drifting into unconscio
usness, fighting to stay alert.
The last thing I saw before blacking out was Dr. Bradley looming over me like a colossus, reaching down toward my head.
I awoke next to a corpse.
Or at least that’s what I assumed it was—a body draped under a white sheet on a slablike table. I was lying on the floor. Rows of fluorescent lights beamed overhead, buzzing softly. As I tried to sit up, my head pounded.
“Easy, Jack,” Dr. Bradley’s voice said. “We’re not quite done with Cass.”
Blinking, I turned. Her back was facing me as she leaned over another table. Her ponytail spilled over the back of her lab coat. I could see Cass’s shoes sticking out from one side.
“What happened?” I said.
“Dr. Bradley thought we were Massa,” Aly’s voice replied. I got to my feet to see her, and my head throbbed with pain. She was sitting with Torquin against the wall near the door. Both of them were red in the face. I figured I was, too, from the aftereffects of the poison gas. “That’s why she activated the gas. When she realized who we were, she turned off the jets.”
“I meant Cass,” I said. “What happened to Cass?”
“Treatment,” Torquin replied.
“But—but he’s not scheduled to need one yet,” I said.
“He’s early,” Dr. Bradley spoke up. “One possibility is that the poison gas brought it on. That’s what I’m hoping.”
“Hoping?” I asked.
Aly sighed. “Remember what Professor Bhegad told us way back when we first got here? As we get closer to age fourteen, the effects of G7W start to accelerate. The episodes are more frequent, and the effects are stronger.”
“When is Cass’s birthday?” I asked.
“He doesn’t know,” Dr. Bradley said softly. “Even the KI, with all their resources, couldn’t get hold of his birth records. They were misfiled in some city hospital and possibly destroyed.”
“So he may have less time than we do,” Aly said.
Dr. Bradley shrugged. “The good news is that the treatment worked. For now, at least, he will be functional.”
“Excellent . . . work,” said the corpse.
The voice startled me. It was unmistakably Professor Bhegad’s. As I took a closer look at the figure under the sheet, I saw that its head and face weren’t covered. But even so, I might not have known the old professor. He was almost unrecognizable, his face chalk white, his eyes watery and small, his hair like a tangled mass of straw. “Good to see all of you,” he said, a line of drool dribbling from his mouth as he spoke. “I don’t know . . . how this happened.”
As his eyes flickered and he drifted off, Dr. Bradley turned away from Cass. “Your friend should be fine for now. As for Professor Bhegad . . .” She took a washcloth from a nearby sink and placed it on the professor’s head. “He was thrown to the floor after an explosion. His lung collapsed, and it’s quite possible he has some internal injuries; I haven’t been able to do a full examination.”
“We have access to Slippy on the other side of the island,” I said. “Fiddle can help you get there with the professor and Cass, while Torquin, Aly, and I rescue the Loculi.”
“Professor Bhegad needs hospital care,” Dr. Bradley said.
“Can you bring what he needs—some kind of portable hospital?” I said. “We can’t risk keeping him here. If the Massa find him, they’ll torture him for information. I can give you a walkie-talkie if you need one.”
“I have my own,” Dr. Bradley said wearily. “I can reach Fiddle. I suppose this is our only choice.”
“Professor Bhegad,” Aly said, gently brushing a strand of wispy white hair from his forehead, “Dr. Bradley is going to take you away from here. Have the Massa taken the Loculi?”
“N . . . no . . .” Professor Bhegad shook his head and turned shakily toward Torquin. “They are in . . . location D . . . Go now . . . keep them safe.”
“Is that the same as Building D, the control center?” Aly asked.
“Not Building D,” Torquin said. “Location D.”
“Which is . . . ?” I prodded.
“Dump,” Torquin replied.
The smell and the Song hit me at the same time.
We were in a Jeep that Torquin had stolen at the edge of the compound. Well, stolen isn’t really the right word. It belonged to the KI, but two Massa guys were in it until Torquin pulled them out and threw them against a tree. Now we were careening across the airfield toward the Karai Institute landfill, aka dump. My head felt light, as if something had crawled into my brain. Not a sound, exactly, but a vibration that began in my ears and spread throughout my body. “I’m feeling it,” I said. “The Song of the Heptakiklos. That means the Loculi are nearby.”
“It sbells like subthigg died here.” Aly was holding her nose. The stench was acrid, foul, and growing fast as the Jeep pulled up to a smoking hill. “I’ll stay in the car.”
“Big help,” I replied, climbing out the backseat.
I held the end of my too-long sleeve over my nose, but Torquin was breathing normally. “Nice place,” he mumbled. “Come here to meditate.” We stopped in front of an enormous compost pile, which he carefully examined with his flashlight. Then, barehanded, he began digging out blackened banana peels, hairy mango pits, and globs of wilted vegetables.
The Loculi, it seemed, were buried in a pile of garbage.
Behind us, distant shouts resounded from the jungle. I squinted but all I could see was a small area around me, lit by moonlight and an old, dim streetlamp. Torquin turned, quickly handing me the flashlight. “Pah. Massa. I distract. You continue. Find door. Code is FLUFFY AND FIERCE.”
“But—” He stalked away before I could say another word.
I stared at the mound of rotten food and nearly puked. But the voices were getting closer, and they did not sound happy.
There was one spot that looked as if the garbage had been stirred around recently. I hoped it was the right spot, and not just some jungle animal’s favorite snack location. Holding my breath, I thrust my hand into the goop. It was clammy and cold. My fingers slipped. I felt a rodent scampering out from underneath, nearly running across my shoes.
Keep going . . .
My wrists were covered now. Liquid dribbled down my arm. Each movement brought a fresh whiff of horribleness.
There.
My knuckles knocked on something hard. Guided by my flashlight in one hand, I used the other hand to fling away big gobs until I could see a kind of hatch within:
CHAPTER NINE
EPIC FAIL
“JACK . . . WHAT ARE you doigg?” Aly cried out, racing toward me from the Jeep. “Torquid’s holdigg off sub Bassa. Do subthigg.”
I gestured toward the filthy screen. “Torquin said the code was ‘fluffy and fierce.’”
“We’ve seed those words before,” Aly said. “Whedd we first got to the isladd, I foud Torquid’s pass code id the codtrol buildigg—‘all thiggs fluffy and fierce.’ How does that help with this—‘Epic fail’? How cadd you fail before you evedd try? Add why ‘you rodett’? Add what’s with the LCD screed?”
“I don’t know!” I said. “Maybe it’s some kind of code. You’re the code person!”
The voices were getting louder. It sounded like Torquin was arguing.
“If it’s a code,” Aly said, “you should be able to edter subthigg. With a keyboard or dubber pad.”
Keyboard. Number pad.
I stared at the message closely. “The letters are in squares,” I said. “It looks like a keyboard.”
“But it’s dot,” Aly said, looking nervously over her shoulder. “It’s a bessage! Hagg odd. Let bee look at it . . .”
Together we stared at the dumb, insulting thing. I wasn’t seeing the words now, just the letters. They were swirling around in my head, arranging and rearranging. There was something about them . . .
I reached out and touched the F of Fail. The LCD screen changed.
“What did you just do?” Aly said.
“Fluffy and fierce . . .” I murmured, quickly spelling out the words—pressing the L of Fail, the U of You, the F of Fail twice, and so on . . . “I’m just tapping the letters, spelling out the words.”
“It would’t be that sibple!” Aly insisted.
The door beeped. I jumped back. “It’s a keyboard!”
Aly swallowed hard. “Subtibes,” she said, “it’s a gift to be sibple . . .”
I pushed hard on the door, but it didn’t budge.
“You’re dot puttigg your weight idto it!” Aly said.
“You try,” I said.
Aly recoiled. “Doe way!”
I pounded again. I could hear voices getting louder. Aly and I both turned to see Torquin arguing with three Massa. I shut off my flashlight, leaned back, then thrust my shoulder into the door.
A thick cake of hardened, putrid glop fell away, revealing a door handle in the shape of a pull-down lever.
Grabbing it in my slippery hand, I yanked it down. The door creaked open, outward. I thrust my flashlight into the space. It was wider and deeper than I expected—maybe four feet in all directions. I stuck my head inside to see the whole area. And there, resting against the left side, were two canvas bags, full and round and exactly the right size. They were cinched at the top with a rope. One was an olive color, the other brown. Both of them were ragged and full of holes. I guessed Bhegad had hidden these in a hurry.
Quickly I opened the olive sack and saw the glowing, whitish shape of the Loculus of Flight. With a smile, I cinched the bag closed and opened the other. Although I could feel the Loculus of Invisibility, I couldn’t see it.
“Yes! Got ’em.” Making sure both bags were tightly closed, I pulled them out. I braced myself to run and turned toward Aly. I came face-to-face with a superbright flashlight beam. “Aly, will you please lower that thing?”
A deep, guttural voice answered. “As you wish.”
I jumped back as the beam dropped downward, revealing a hooded man, his face concealed by a cowl. In the dim streetlamp light, I saw Aly a few feet beyond him. Torquin was with her now, too. Their faces were ashen, their hands in the air. Behind them stood three Massa.