Mr. Oddley moved beside Liza and whispered, “The crystals are affecting his mind, amplifying his need for power.”
“Don’t help him, Oscar” she whispered back, “He’s gone mad.” Mr. Oddley sighed, “Yes, but here we are. He’s got us.”
Slowly, Merless walked over to Liza, all the while staring intently at Mr. Oddley. He looked down, gripped an arm of her chair and, with a snap, ripped it cleanly off. Everyone gasped, and he laughed, as he sauntered from the room calling over his shoulder, “Now, was that an implied threat, Oddley? Maybe, maybe not. But take my advice and don’t wait to find out. Make the crystals work.”
Stopping abruptly in the doorway, Merless turned and clapped his hands hard. The resulting shockwave slammed through the air and created a sonic boom, knocking everyone and everything to the ground. In the resulting confusion, no one noticed his eyes had taken on a crystalline quality and had turned a purplish hue.
***
That wave knocked Maggie painfully to the ground. Tim yelped. She had been standing on his shoulders watching this crazy drama unfold. No damage. She stood up and dusted herself off.
“Well, what did you see that made you say, ‘Oh, my’ in that Maggie way of yours?” demanded Molly, as Tim rubbed his sore neck.
“Hey, what do you mean by that Maggie way of mine... oh, forget it. Guys, I just saw something really weird. There’s a guy in there, along with Mr. Oddley and Liza, and his hands are like hammers.”
“You mean h-he h-has h-hammers for h-hands? asked a nervous Tim.
“Not quite that scary, but just as dangerous. He smashed what looked like a strong wooden table to pieces with his fist, right in front of Liza. And that loud bang you just heard... that was him clapping his hands.”
“You’re joking, right? OK, you’re not joking, but then how are we going to help Mr. Oddley and Liza escape with Mallet-Man in there?” demanded Molly.
“He’s not in there right now,” said Maggie, “He left. Some of his people, wearing lab coats, are in there though. We need to create a diversion.”
Tim reached into his backpack and said with a grin, “Maybe t-this will help.” He held up two pairs of anti-gravity shoes.
“Genius,” cried Molly.
Maggie agreed and said, “OK, so you guys hide, I’ll throw a rock through the window, someone will come out to see what’s going on, they’ll see me, and come after me; then you two can jump in through the door and cause enough confusion to allow Mr. Oddley and Liza to get out. Bang, bang, in and out. Easy as pie.”
You know something... in spite of that flippant idiom, pie is not all that easy to make. The crust alone is... anyway, it was a great plan, except that it didn’t work. What actually happened was: Maggie broke a window. Someone came out. Molly and Tim jumped through the now open door and bounced around the room while everyone stood and watched. Mr. Oddley shouted their names. But the bouncing didn’t have the intended effect. Instead of creating confusion, all the bouncing did was entertain. The two kids continued to bounce until they were so exhausted they had to bounce their way back out the door. The rescue attempt was a dismal failure. The kids ran.
“What the heck was that?” asked one of Merless’ men.
“A new circus act, maybe,” snickered someone.
“But not a very good one,” said someone else.
They shut the door.
Hugh Merless, hearing all the commotion, burst back into the room. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
“Some kids broke a window and ran, and it appears Mr. Oddley knows them,” said one of the men. “He called them by name.”
Merless considered this. He had absolutely no interest in the kids or the broken window, but as a businessman he knew an opportunity when he saw one. Turning, he said, “Think long and hard on this, Oddley, do you want those brats involved in our little situation? They can be, if need be, that is, if you don’t cooperate. So... will you help me or not?”
“Yes, of course, of course,” said Mr. Oddley. He wasn’t about to let anything happen to the children.
Chapter 23
Maggie was agitated. She sat on the floor in a corner of her room drumming her fingers and tapping her toes, while her kitten, Miny Moe, attacked a loose thread dangling from her sock with the ferocity of a jungle cat. He was primed and ready to play. She was not.
She sighed and decided she needed to give him something to do, so she tossed one of Mr. Oddley’s high bounce balls over his head. It ricocheted from wall to wall and up to the ceiling, back and forth, up and down, faster and faster. Miny Moe gave chase to this new nemesis of his, but couldn’t grab hold of it. Then Maggie tossed a second ball and watched as Miny Moe the hunter, suddenly became Miny Moe the hunted, as he frantically dodged both these bouncing spheres. And finally, he admitted defeat and fled under the bed. Most of him, anyway. Very ostrich like, his tail still poked out.
Maggie smiled, because it dawned on her that Tim had been on the right track. He just hadn’t taken it far enough. They had everything they needed at their disposal to free Mr. Oddley and Liza.
Suddenly, Mom was knocking at the door. “Maggie, what are you doing in there? It sounds like the walls are going to fall in.”
“Sorry Mom,” she responded. Then she stopped the balls with her blanket, lifted and cradled a shivering Miny Moe, and picked up the phone.
***
Hugh Merless’ lab had been tidied up and the broken window fixed. The tainted crystals had been swept up and placed in a metal box with a sturdy latch. Wearing protective gloves, Mr. Oddley examined them while engaged in a whispered conversation with Liza. “Years ago when I made the mistake of touching the crystals I was almost killed. But now, these altered crystals are not as physically damaging and seem to affect the mind as well. They seem to behave like... like... a mutated virus, now less destructive and better adapted to coexist within a human host.”
“Oscar, are you saying these crystals are alive?” gasped Liza.
“First Liza, viruses are not exactly alive, as they depend upon a host to replicate. And to complicate matters, there are ongoing debates as to whether certain types of crystals represent a unique and separate form of life that differs from our idea of what represents life. The inscriptions on the box I found in the cave explained only that the Pandorans were masters of growing various types of crystals for all kinds of uses. It ended with a warning of how these particular ones became an addiction that eventually destroyed their civilization. But was it an infection or...”
“Or what, Oscar?”
“I don’t know Liza, But there were other inscriptions on the cave walls. Ones I never had a chance to study. I wonder what they might tell us?”
“Hmm, yes indeed, what might they tell us?” came the loud sneering voice of Hugh Merless. Mr. Oddley and Liza had become so engrossed in their conversation that they never heard him enter the room, which created quite an unfortunate spilling of the beans.
Mr. Oddley and Liza fell silent, waiting for what they knew was about to come. And sure enough, it came.
“We’re going to take a little trip, just you and me, Oddley, up into the mountains and into that little cave of yours.”
Mr. Oddley sputtered, “But it’s winter and the trails are snow-packed. Be reasonable, look at me, I couldn’t hike up that mountain on a clear summer’s day.”
“Reasonable?” chuckled Merless. “Yes, I am able to reason. And my ability to reason is telling me there may be secrets locked away in that cave that could make me millions. So you see... making millions is my reason. And by the way, we won’t be climbing that mountain, we’ll be flying to it in a helicopter.”
***
In another workshop, only a mile or so away, three kids were having a heated discussion over what appeared to be a random collection of toys and toy parts. But there was nothing random about it; it was all part of plotting and executing a rescue mission.
“OK,” acknowledged Molly, “I think using the Hi-Fly balls a
nd the springs and the canned spray-string are all great ideas, but what are we going to do with the Twirly-bird Spinners? After you hand launch them, they fly up to the ceiling for a couple of minutes and fall down. Big deal, what’s that gonna do?”
“OK, no Twirly-b-b-bird Spinners, but we need the Play-Glop,” countered Tim.
“And the Bubble-Blasters,” huffed Molly.
“Yes,” offered a peace-keeping Maggie, “We need the Play-Glop, even though it feels kind of creepy, and the Bubble-Blasters.”
“And, don’t forget the ski goggles,” thrusted Molly.
“Well, of course, the g-goggles and helmets, too,” parried Tim, as Maggie resorted to Yoga breathing to calm herself. Then, thankfully, after only a few more minutes of this babbling, it was all settled. Whew, getting a group of people to settle on a plan of action is hard work!
As the reality of what they were about to attempt filled their thoughts, they filled their backpacks.
***
The three stood outside the Universi-Toy building. “Quiet,” said Maggie. “We can’t let them hear us. Does everyone understand the plan?” Molly and Tim nodded anxiously. It was time to move. It was now or never, before they were discovered, or... more to the point, before they lost their nerve.
Now, curiously enough, with all the jabbering they’d done working out their plan, there was one bothersome little item they once again never addressed. How were they going to get in? They had no idea. So, in frustration, they argued, their voices getting louder and louder, until they were making quite a racket, and then... some clown on stilts opened the door.
The kids looked at each other in astonishment, then quickly ran past and through his baggy pants while they tugged at their backpacks and slipped on their goggles. And once inside they saw several others clowns milling about; and there was Liza. Mr. Oddley, however, was not in the room.
Tim whipped out one Hi-Fly ball after another after another, and flung them every which way as hard as he could. They bounced as they had in Maggie’s bedroom, picking up speed and zig-zagging threateningly around the room.
Molly slammed a handfuls of springs onto the floor. They bounced in a more haphazard way, but they too picked up speed as they zinged about in menacingly unexpected directions.
Maggie pulled out a Bubble-Blaster and started shooting a barrage of blinding bubbles into the room.
Next came the Spray-String. Molly and Tim, with an aerosol can in each hand, fired fountains of sticky plastic streamers into the air. The overall effect of these items was a kid-made blizzard. Everyone in the room was desperately dodging balls and springs while trying to see through the dizzying storm of bubbles and streamers.
The clowns, in their oversized shoes, were tripping over themselves and each other, while their puffy purple and orange wigs swept through the air like mops collecting blinding masses of the Spray-String.
Maggie ran over to Liza and slipped a pair of goggles over her eyes. “Where’s Mr. Oddley?” she asked nervously.
Even behind the goggles, Maggie could see the fear in Liza’s eyes. “They’ve taken him to the mountain cave where he first found the crystals.”
Maggie could not process that statement. How could Mr. Oddley climb... Later, Margaret, she said to herself. Then yelled, “Let’s get out of here,” to Molly and Tim,” as she half dragged Liza toward the door.
Just outside the lab, the kids stopped to execute the final step in their plan. Out came the Play-Glop, which they squirted out of plastic tubes onto the floor. And just in time, because one of the clowns suddenly made a mad dash toward them, only to get a foot stuck in the Glop. He came crashing to the ground with a grunt. The rescue team and Liza flung off their goggles and ran back to town as fast as their eight little legs could manage.
On the way home, Liza filled them in on all that had happened, including Merless’ crazy idea to go back to the Pandoran cave.
Chapter 24
Above the early morning mist, the copter hovered and droned over the trees like an enormous angry bee, its rotors scattering the snow that had settled on their boughs. If anyone had been watching, they would have seen what looked like a tiny and impossibly localized Nor’easter.
But on this brisk day, the people who were out and about were more interested in following their cold noses to a warm sanctuary than in looking to the sky. So, while in plain sight, no one noticed what looked like a helicopter rescue basket being lowered slowly to the ground. The occupants, a jubilant Hugh Merless and a much less so Mr. Oddley, looked like two people trapped in a malevolent snow globe.
As they descended, Merless was in radio contact with the pilot, and in shouting contact with Mr. Oddley, in the hopes of getting the basket lowered as close as possible to the cave. Oddley wasn’t much help at first: it was early winter and he had last seen this place during the summer. Everything looked so different from how he remembered it. Then, he saw a familiar outcropping of rocks and pointed to what appeared as a small slit in the mountainside. They set down about 20 yards below the opening, stepped out of their enclosure, with their climbing gear and supplies, and worked their way over to a reasonably level spot where they watched the chopper raise its basket and fly off. “He’ll be back in 2 hours,” said Merless flatly. “Let’s get moving.”
With ease, Merless stabbed his climbing pick into the frozen earth and pulled himself along, while Mr. Oddley, walking stick in hand, slipped and slid and struggled behind him. Then about 10 yards up, Mr. Oddley fell, tumbled, and rolled down the slope. He lay there, his head spinning and his body a monument to pain, not daring to move.
Next, a most disturbing thing happened. In an angry flurry, Merless came bounding down upon him, growling something about this idiot’s wasting my time, and with one hand grabbed Mr. Oddley by the lapel and effortlessly dragged him up the mountainside using his free hand to claw his way up. No climbing pick, just the brute strength of his bare hand. A hand that was now looking more like it had been chiseled from granite than that it was made of flesh and bone.
After a few grueling minutes, they arrived at the cave opening and, after Mr. Oddley caught his run-away breath, they squeezed their way in. When Mr. Oddley had first entered this chamber years ago, it had been illuminated by the glowing crystals, but now, except for a thin stream of light spilling through its entrance, the cave was dark. A curiously spiced dark, however, possessed by an intriguing violet hue.
They broke out the professional strength spelunking headlamps which, according to Merless, would light their way for about 10 hours.
As Mr. Oddley’s lamp swept the room, its light fell upon something that made him gasp. It was the skeleton of the dead raccoon he had seen years before. And directly behind it stood the old stone table where he had first found the box of crystals.
But there was more. Directly behind the table, tucked away in the shadows, was an opening, a passageway, that in his anxiety to hurry back down the mountain and beat the setting sun, had gone unnoticed the last time he was here. The old familiar fever of curiosity rose within him and beckoned him forward. Frankly, it was good to have it back.
The entrance zigged to the left and zagged to the right, then zigged once more to the left. This led to a long corridor that was jam-packed from floor to ceiling with wall paintings (presumably by the Pandorans) and adorned with crystals of every imaginable color. And the end of this hallway opened up into what might have been a cathedral of some sort. It was the length, width, and height of a large aircraft hangar. Stone benches were laid out in a circular pattern in the middle of this room and faced what might have been an alter of some sort. The whole arrangement had a religious air about it, anyway. Several other hallways led off from the perimeter of this huge area.
Scores of large crystals were suspended overhead like light fixtures, and indeed they did generate light. Colors from these alternating gems of red, green, and blue combined to fill the room with what we call natural or white light.
“What do you suppose
makes those things work?” mused Mr. Oddley.
“Who gives a rat’s behind?” rasped Merless. “Let’s see if we can find something useful. Meaning, something that will make me money!”
Mr. Oddley was astonished. How could Merless not appreciate the wonder of lights that had been burning for thousands of years? And how could he not see that they too could make him lots of money?
So they kept searching, looking into every nook and cranny, down every hallway, and into every room... until Mr. Oddley found what, perhaps, was a file room. It was filled with hundreds of ultra thin mineral-like tablets containing the same sanskrit writing he had found on the box lid, and when deciphered had spelled out a stern warning not to open. But which, unfortunately, in his eagerness, he had.
After an hour of knuckle skinning, nail breaking, finger bleeding rummaging, with Merless breathing down his neck... literally breathing down his neck, as some brutish force had been asserting itself since he had first slammed his fists into the rogue crystals... he found something. A tablet with markings that roughly translated as Confidential. It appeared to be a report on testing conducted in secret by a group of scientists who were attempting to amplify the power of the crystals. Ten tablets in all made up this document, but the last lay shattered and scattered in dozens of small pieces.
“So, is this what we’re looking for?” asked a wide-eyed Merless in a throaty whisper filled with urgency and greed. “Dammit, say something already. We don’t have time to waste!”
Mr. Oddley hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was wise to hand over what amounted to an instruction manual that would allow someone to duplicate the Pandoran experiments. That research, after all, had led to the destruction of their entire tribe. But then he thought of Liza. “Yes,” he said. “This explains how the Pandorans were able to manipulate the crystals.”