Strike of the Sweepers

  If Spencer had imagined the bowling ball, then the germs weren’t real. Right?

  Spencer took a deep breath and plunged his fingers into the holes. He lifted the ball, noticing the round depression left behind in the soft dust. Daisy was still working hard in his defense, so Spencer acted quickly now. He stepped up to the end of the lane and lifted the ball to eye level, just as he’d seen Marv do.

  Staring down the long lane at the ten pins made Spencer doubt. In his entire life, he had only ever bowled one strike. And that had been pure luck. He’d thrown the ball between his legs!

  Spencer exhaled slowly, trying to steady his nerves. He was actually feeling confident that he just might succeed when Dez suddenly bumped into him, wrenching the ball from his grasp.

  “No, Dez!” Spencer shouted, but it was too late. Dez had thrown the bowling ball.

  “You were taking too long,” Dez said.

  Spencer could have unimagined the ball in the blink of an eye, but it actually looked like it was on course for a strike. It slammed into the foremost pin and sent it clattering into the ones behind.

  “I told you,” Dez said, “strikes are easy.” He turned his back on the lane as the final pin wobbled. But instead of falling, as Dez was so sure it would, the last bowling pin steadied out and remained standing at the end of the lane.

  Marv’s fortress vanished in a puff of colorless dust. Months of mental construction were shattered in a single moment as walls, floor, and ceiling disintegrated without a sound.

  Chapter 40

  “Open up!”

  Dez turned around slowly, his face showing more surprise than Spencer could ever remember seeing.

  “What happened?” Marv yelled, tearing apart a toilet-paper mummy and scrambling through the dust where his fortress had once been. Nothing was left but a crumbling shell of Garth Hadley’s imagined paint, too flimsy and weak to provide them any protection from the enemy.

  “I . . . I . . .” For once, Dez was speechless.

  “You missed!” Spencer yelled. He didn’t admit the fact that he probably wouldn’t have done better. He didn’t admit that he was no good at bowling. Dez had acted out of line and his arrogance had cost them big.

  Daisy tumbled under the attack of a One-Ply. The mummy’s streamers tied around her ankles and dragged her through the dust. Spencer didn’t have time to draw a Glopified weapon from his belt. He squinted his eyes and imagined a wall. It was his bedroom wall from Aunt Avril’s house. Simple, but effective.

  The dust instantly formed into a Sheetrock barrier, severing the toilet-paper ribbons and temporarily protecting Daisy from harm. An angry Two-Ply threw itself against Spencer’s wall, striking angrily until it crumbled away.

  Spencer pulled Daisy back to where Marv and Dez were making a stand. The janitor’s arms were welted and swollen, but he didn’t slow down. Folded paper airplanes flew a tight circle around them, casting aside the particles to make a clean wake in which the TPs could not materialize.

  “Way to go!” Spencer said to the Sweeper boy.

  “Like you could do better!” yelled Dez. “That last one should’ve tipped over!”

  “Now we’ve got nowhere to hide!” said Spencer.

  Daisy reached out and touched the leaf blower strapped to Spencer’s back. “We’ll have to use it now. We’ll never survive!”

  She was right. Already the TPs were finding ways to swat down the folded airplanes.

  “It’s too soon!” Spencer said. “Bookworm won’t be ready. We’ll come out inside his lunchbox head!”

  “Who cares,” said Dez. “Just do it!”

  “Who is Bookworm?” Marv finally asked. “And what are we waiting for him to do?”

  “He’s my pet,” Daisy said. “He’s made of garbage.”

  Marv shook his head, as if frustrated that there wasn’t time to ask for clarification. “How long does he need?”

  Spencer checked his watch. “Another hour, if we want to be safe.”

  “There’s one more place we could go,” Marv said. Spencer knew exactly what the janitor meant, and he didn’t like it at all.

  “Garth Hadley’s fortress isn’t far from here,” said Marv.

  Spencer shook his head. “He’ll never let us in. He was the one who painted you out of your own school!”

  “Oh, he’ll let us in,” Marv said. “All we have to do is tell him we have a way out of here.”

  “We’re not taking him with us,” Spencer said firmly.

  “I never said we would,” Marv replied. “We just need him to let us in.”

  Spencer didn’t like it, but they were short on options. Using the leaf blower now and coming out of the Vortex before it was in position could ruin any chance to rescue Alan, Walter, Penny, and Bernard. Spencer knew they had to stick to the original plan, even if that meant seeing Garth Hadley again.

  “This way!” Marv gestured ahead, and the paper airplanes zoomed off in that direction, clearing a pathway through the dust. Without the flying defenses, the TPs closed in fast. But the Rebels were already running as quickly as their feet could churn through the soft ground.

  Garth’s fortress came into view much sooner than Spencer expected. It looked very different from Marv’s, though every bit as ordinary. Garth’s building was made of experiences and details drawn from his life as a man of the Bureau.

  The fortress seemed to be patterned after an office building, like the kind Spencer had seen in Washington, D.C., as he spied on Mr. Clean through bronze visions.

  It was built on a small foundation but towered at least ten stories high. Most of the exterior looked to be made of glass. Spencer didn’t think a fortress with a hundred windows would be very secure, but then he remembered that here, the glass was formed of pure imagination. He had a feeling it wouldn’t shatter easily.

  Marv didn’t even slow down as he came to the front door of the building. Any break in their pace would give the TPs an opportunity to catch up with them.

  “Hadley!” bellowed the big janitor. “Open up!” He waved his hand, and the paper airplanes that had been guiding them soared upward, knocking their points against the windows.

  “Well, well.” Garth Hadley’s charismatic voice drifted down to them. “If it isn’t my long lost friends . . .”

  Spencer felt his chest tighten with a surge of old memories. He scanned the tall building but couldn’t see the BEM rep anywhere.

  “This is going to play out better than I could ever have planned,” Garth Hadley continued from his unseen place. “When you left your fortress, Marv, I knew you’d come crawling back.”

  “You locked me out, Hadley!” Marv thundered.

  “Yes, well, what goes around, comes around,” said Garth. “Isn’t that what they say?”

  The Rebels had reached the front door of the building, a sea of TPs closing fast. “Open up!” Marv yelled again. “We have a way out. Let us in and we’ll take you with us!”

  It was silent for a whole two seconds that seemed like eternity as the TPs drew closer.

  “You’re lying!” shouted Garth.

  Spencer took a deep breath and pulled the leaf blower from his shoulder. “He’s telling the truth! All I have to do is fire this up and it will blast a way out of the Vortex!”

  Whether or not it was Spencer’s words that convinced Garth Hadley, the front doors to the office building suddenly opened. Dez was the first one inside, his wings brushing the metal door frame. Marv ushered Spencer and Daisy in before stepping through and pulling the doors shut behind him.

  No sooner had the lock clicked than the first of the TPs slammed into the door. There was a loud crack as the building seemed to kick back, pulverizing the first wave of mummies. One of the Two-Plys shouted a command, and the others came to a begrudging halt, their wrapped faces peering hungrily through the glass doors.

  Spencer clutched the leaf blower in his right hand as he turned to examine his surroundings. The Rebels were standing in a lobby with a dark tiled floor a
nd high hanging lights. The air inside the fortress was different. It was clean and dustless, much more like air should be.

  “Spencer Zumbro,” Garth Hadley’s voice echoed across the spacious lobby.

  Spencer whirled around to find Garth descending a staircase. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt, but it was tattered and bloodstained. His usual manicured appearance was slightly disheveled, though the dapper look on his square face was intact.

  The BEM rep reached the bottom of the stairs and strode toward the Rebels. “If someone had told me that Spencer Zumbro and his friends would come knocking on my fortress door, I’d never have believed it,” Garth continued. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad about this recent development. You deserve to wither away in the desolate prison of the Vortex.”

  “What?” Dez objected. “Spencer might deserve it, but not me. I don’t even know who you are!”

  “But I know you, Dezmond Rylie,” Garth said. “Though I see you’ve changed.”

  Spencer was a little surprised that Garth recognized the boy as a Sweeper. Garth Hadley and Leslie Sharmelle had used Dez to plant some pink soap in the boys’ bathroom for Spencer to use. That little trick had exposed Spencer’s eyes to Toxites and started this whole mess.

  Dez flexed his talons and fanned his large wings. “Don’t hate me because I’m awesome,” he said.

  Garth Hadley smirked. “I don’t,” he said. “I hate you because you’re with Spencer.”

  Hadley turned and took a step closer to Spencer. “Seven months, four days, and eighteen hours,” said the BEM rep. “Assuming my watch still works.”

  Spencer knew where this conversation was going. Garth was stating exactly how long he’d been trapped in the Dustbin, a misfortune for which he no doubt blamed Spencer.

  “I had no choice,” Spencer said, his memory freshly recalling the details that had led up to his decision to pierce the Vortex. “I had to protect the School Board.”

  “Protect it?” Garth scoffed. “The School Board is property of the Bureau of Educational Maintenance. You and your Rebel warlock stole it!”

  “We’re not the ones ruining education!” Daisy shouted.

  Garth’s gaze flicked over to her. “You should never have been involved,” he snapped. “Shut your mouth.”

  Spencer pulled the leaf blower up to his shoulder, aiming it at the man like a bazooka. Just months ago, he’d seen a leaf blower far less powerful than this one blast the jaw off an Extension Filth. Spencer wondered what kind of damage his would do if unleashed on Garth Hadley.

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” Spencer said. “If you’ve got a problem, settle it with me.”

  Garth’s cool nature never cracked. He slowly raised his broad hands in defeat. “Please,” he said. “You are guests in my fortress. I find it rather impolite to threaten your host.”

  Marv put a hand on the leaf blower, and Spencer reluctantly lowered the powerful weapon. “Cut the fake manners, Hadley,” Marv said. “We all know you’d rather have watched us get wiped out by the TPs.”

  Garth Hadley smiled tightly. “And I know that you’d rather have left me behind if you truly had a way to get back home. So my question is this—why did you come here?”

  “Shelter,” Marv said. “Spencer says we can’t use the leaf blower for another hour. Needed shelter from the TPs while we wait.”

  “Very well,” Garth said. “I will offer you shelter. But it comes on my terms.” Spencer didn’t like playing by Garth’s rules. But they were in his fortress, at the mercy of his limited hospitality.

  “Nobody carries a weapon,” said Garth. To prove that he was obeying his own rule, Garth patted his sides to show that he was defenseless. He pointed to the center of the floor in the lobby. “Put everything down slowly. You can pick it up again when we leave.”

  Spencer noticed how Garth said “we,” including himself in their departure plans. The very thing Spencer was trying to avoid.

  “Not fair,” Dez said. Spencer didn’t know why he was griping. Dez wasn’t even packing a Glopified weapon, and his Sweeper enhancements made him dangerous enough.

  “My rules,” Garth repeated, pointing at the floor.

  “But it’s not fair,” Dez said again. “You’re probably just waiting until we’re defenseless. Then you’ll imagine something out of the dust and attack us.”

  Garth Hadley shook his head. “This is a noncreative zone. There’s no dust in the air inside my building. No one can create anything here.”

  Spencer looked to Marv for affirmation. The janitor nodded. “My fortress was the same way,” Marv said. “We had to create a ventilation system that pumps the dust out and keeps the air clean inside. Otherwise those TPs would just re-form right inside our walls.”

  “So you see I’m only being honest and fair,” said Garth. Spencer scowled. The man was anything but that.

  Garth waited silently until Spencer and Daisy had finished depositing their janitorial belts on the floor. Spencer tried to hold onto the leaf blower, but Garth pointed firmly. Spencer hated leaving their only ticket home lying unprotected on the lobby floor. But it was still within sight, and Garth seemed to have no inclination to steal it.

  Spencer backed away from the weapons pile, his eyes on the BEM rep who stood motionless across from the Rebels.

  “There,” Garth said. “Now we can speak peaceably. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I’m not thirsty,” Spencer said, surprised to realize that it was true.

  “Of course you’re not,” Garth said. “In this world of dust, we have no need for food, drink, or sleep. The particles in the atmosphere rejuvenate our cells. I believe I could live forever down here.”

  Spencer didn’t mention that he’d already beaten Garth to the whole immortal thing. His Auran powers kept him suspended in a state of perpetual youth.

  “In fact,” Garth said, stepping over to Marv, “it seems that my abilities to form the dust have improved. I suppose I should thank you. As it turns out, I’m stronger on my own than I ever was with you.”

  Spencer turned to Marv, a look of betrayal on his face. “You two worked together?”

  Chapter 41

  “Where are your companions?”

  Spencer couldn’t imagine that Marv would work with Garth Hadley, but the janitor slowly nodded his shaggy head.

  “Had to stay alive,” said Marv.

  “How could you?” Spencer went on. “He’s a bad guy! He works for the BEM!”

  “There is no BEM down here, kid,” said Marv. “Just a whole bunch of toilet-paper mummies that want to wipe the skin off your bones. Didn’t really matter who was Rebel and who was BEM. Had to stay alive.”

  Spencer glanced around the lobby. He remembered more BEM workers getting sucked into the Vortex that night in September. At least half a dozen people. “Where are the others?” he asked, suddenly expecting an ambush.

  “Tell him, Hadley,” Marv said. “Where are your companions?”

  The smug look faded from Garth’s face for a moment. “Dead.” He spat out the word. “The TPs were onto us within minutes of our arrival. Porter and Barlow were dead before we realized what was happening. The rest of us ran blindly through the dust, but there was no refuge. Every way we turned, the devils were forming out of thin air.”

  Hadley clasped his hands behind him. “In our desperation, we discovered the power of the dust. It took nothing more than a perfect imagination—the things we needed would form before our eyes. But it wasn’t easy. It required immense amounts of mental focus. Our weapons were weak and our structures flawed,” Garth said. “So we banded together and built a shelter against the mummies. There were five of us. We worked together to perfect our shelter. We honed our minds, and the longer we remained in this dust world, the more complex our imaginings began to be. Soon we had created an impenetrable fortress.”

  “And the others would still be alive if we’d stopped there!” Marv cut in. His glare toward Garth Hadley was full of disgu
st. “We were living peacefully.”

  “We were prisoners in our own fortress!” Garth shouted back. “And while you might have been content with your silly bowling alley, the rest of us were seeking real freedom.”

  “That’s a lie, and you know it,” Marv said. “Your BEM coworkers didn’t care about finding the Instigators. They were just following your orders.”

  “You tried to find the Instigators?” Spencer said. That was precisely what Olin’s note had said not to do.

  “There’s someone else down here,” Garth said. “Another fortress out in the dust.”

  “You’ve seen it?” Daisy asked.

  He nodded. “Whoever is over there has tremendous power with the dust. They’ve created countless TPs in a nonstop effort to destroy us. Marv wasn’t interested in finding the Instigators. He thought that if we sat long enough in our fortress, the Rebels would send help. But as the weeks ticked by, I wasn’t convinced.”

  Garth Hadley took a deep breath, as if steadying himself for the next part of the story. “I decided to find the Instigators and destroy them. It was the only way to achieve peace down here. I sent Deakin to investigate. He found the enemy fortress and sent a message, but the TPs wiped him out before he could return.”

  “And you waited three whole days before you sent the next poor fellow to his death,” Marv said.

  “Bryson knew the odds,” Garth said. “He was loyal to the Bureau. And that can’t be said of all my workers.”

  “She was afraid of you,” Marv said. “You were a mad man. Obsessed! You’d just sent the others to their deaths, and she knew she was next.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Garth said. “I went out there with her to see the Instigators’ fortress for myself.”

  “But that’s as far as you went,” continued Marv. “And as soon as you ordered the girl to go inside, she turned against you.”

  “And I dealt with her the same way I’d deal with any traitor to the Bureau,” Garth said.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t give her a high five,” Daisy said.

  “I gave her to the TPs.” Garth said it without a trace of regret in his voice.