A Dastardly Plot

  “That is why I gave you a superpowered exoskeleton,” said Rector.

  The thin man in the emerald overcoat and shimmery top hat held his captives at arm’s length. “Emmett,” he said. “Miss von Venturesworth. Normally, ah dinnae care fur crushin’ the noggins o’ wee bairns, but fur ye pair, I’ll mak’ an exception.”

  Molly tried scratching at MacDougal’s hands, but her fingernails clinked against the metal beneath his green gloves. Then she heard a voice from behind her.

  “Blink, kids!”

  Sarah! She must have gotten her hands on some earplugs! Had any of the others? Molly shut her eyes tight and heard the click-pop of George Eastman’s camera. Oogie MacDougal dropped the children and staggered, blinded by the flash.

  “Come on,” Sarah said, tossing the camera.

  They scrambled away from the masses of unmoving people toward the eerily still snack kiosks on the edge of the plaza. Oogie tromped after them, blindly swiping his fists through the air. One wild swing bent a steel lamppost in half. Molly dove through the gangster’s gangly legs, snatching the tail of his long coat and yanking it right off his back. Steel bands encircled Oogie’s bony chest, shoulders, arms, and neck. Hinges squealed at every joint, and a shiny power pack hummed on his back.

  “Mah favrit jaiket!” the gang lord howled, blinking as his sight cleared.

  He raised an entire candy corn stand overhead, ready to drop it on Molly. Oh, the irony, she thought.

  And then someone yanked her out of the way—quite painfully, by her braid—as the snack kiosk was smashed into splinters. “Hi, kid,” said Margaret Knight, standing over her. “Sorry about the hair, but, you know, better than dying, right?”

  Molly nodded.

  “Get with Sarah,” Margaret urged. “I’ll take care of this tin-plated string bean.” In her hand was one of Tesla’s sparking glass spheres.

  “I knew we should’ve taken one of those,” Molly said.

  “Go!” Margaret yelled as Oogie crashed through what was left of the candy stand and curled a mechanized arm around her.

  “This day isnae endin’ wi’oot me crushin’ soombody,” Oogie growled.

  “You’re gonna regret your choice of wardrobe,” Margaret said as she shattered the globe against MacDougal’s steel-encased chest, sending sparks up and down his body. Oogie collapsed. But the jolt also blew Margaret across the plaza. She landed among the other unmoving fairgoers.

  “No!” Emmett screamed.

  Sarah and Molly scrambled to Margaret’s side. Sarah felt for a pulse. “She’s alive. But we can’t help her now.”

  Molly was about to protest when she noticed who Margaret was lying next to. “Jasper,” she said sadly, gently patting the immobile ashman. “Why did you come here, you big fool? You knew what was going to happen. Were you trying to help us? Now how are you going to find out what happens to Phileas Fogg?”

  Emmett tapped her shoulder and pointed to the stage. Rector was throwing a foot-stomping tantrum. He stopped only when he spotted Hertha skulking onto the platform from behind. Hertha froze. She was still a good twenty feet from the Mind-Melter. But Rector was even farther, at the opposite end of the platform.

  “Ah, Miss Marks,” the villain said coolly. “You’ll never reach it, you know.”

  “Expecting some Green Onion Boys to come to your aid?” Hertha said. She fluffed her collar. “Your minions are on the ground with everybody else. My women and I saw to that. Thank you for the earplugs, by the way.”

  Rector waved his hand dismissively. “First rule of world domination: never pin your hopes for success on henchmen. No, I’m going to stop you myself. Because, you see, like the badger who has cleared the bees from a honeycomb only to have his paw stung by a deadly scorpion, you too have tragically failed to anticipate the true danger.”

  “Why is there a scorpion in a beehive?” Hertha said. “You know, the children were right about—”

  “You, Miss Marks, have not met my Magneta-Ray!” He drew his glowing orange weapon and aimed it at a set of wrought-iron steps that led up to the stage. A humming filled the air and the steps levitated. Rector then flicked his wrist, and the iron stairs hurled themselves at Hertha, sending her tumbling off the back of the stage.

  Molly gasped. Rector smiled as he hopped down and started walking toward her, making no attempt to avoid stepping on the immobile people in his path.

  “Run!” Sarah yelled, and they raced back toward the Big Wheel.

  They heard the hum, and a metal chair crashed to the ground right next to Molly. A bench whipped by. And then a trash can. Each projectile missed them by mere inches.

  “If he doesn’t kill us with that stuff, he’s going to kill some poor person on the ground,” Sarah said as they ran. “The things he throws keep dropping right before they can reach us. We need to stay out of range!”

  “He’ll just keep coming closer, though,” Emmett said as they reached the silently spinning Ferris Wheel. “We need to keep him away somehow.”

  Molly cupped her hands by her mouth and yelled, “Now, Mother! We’ve lured him away from the machine! Turn it off now!”

  Rector paused, but did not turn around. “You’re bluffing,” he scoffed. “If your mother weren’t a lifeless lump on the floor like the rest of these meatbags, she would have already made her move.”

  “You sure about that?” Molly asked slyly. “Believe me, it’s going to be a member of the Pepper family who dismantles your machine.”

  Rector snuck a quick peek over his shoulder. It was working.

  “How many gangsters did you hire, Rector?” Emmett asked. “’Cause that’s how many pairs of earplugs are floating around for the taking.”

  Rector pursed his lips and started backing toward the stage. But as he did, an ear-piercing shriek of rending metal rang out above their heads. Rector was using his Magneta-Ray to pull the Ferris Wheel off its frame.

  “Move!” Sarah pushed the children ahead of her as the gigantic wheel broke free of its moorings and rolled after them. As Rector directed the wheel with his ray, Sarah and the kids ran along the far edge of the plaza, trying to keep the runaway amusement ride from flattening scores of people. But within seconds they hit a dead end.

  Seeing no alternative, Molly started to climb into a Polynesian fruit stand. But Sarah pulled her back. “No, it’ll be crushed!” she yelled. Sarah shoved both children aside as the Ferris Wheel toppled onto its side and demolished the tropical food stand. Dust choked the air. Minutes passed before Molly was able to see and breathe.

  “Sarah!” she called between coughs.

  “Molly! I’m trapped!” Sarah’s voice came from beneath one of the wheel’s gondolas. It was lying upside down atop the splintered ruins of the fish stand. Emmett tapped Molly’s shoulder and pointed out the unmoving passengers who had flopped out of that very car: Crikes and Tusk. From the pained looks on their faces, Molly knew the fools had tried to share one pair of earplugs.

  She turned back to see Rector, pacing onstage. Then, suddenly, a ringing. Rector picked up the phone. “Ahoy! Ah, yes . . . Wonderful! First order of business—round up everyone who didn’t vote for me and throw them in the congressional dungeon. . . . What’s that? Okay, first order of business—build a congressional dungeon.”

  The children began hauling splintered beams from the rubble. “We’ll get you out, Sarah,” Molly said.

  “It’ll take forever,” Sarah replied from beneath the debris. “I’ll dig out through the back. You two need to stop Rector. I believe in you!”

  They glanced over to see Rector twisting a knob on his ray gun. He aimed it at a lamppost, which blew off its foundation and spun through the air, far out of the plaza, landing in the thatched roof of the Congo Pavilion.

  “Hey, guess what I just figured out?” Rector said. “Magnets have two ends—one that attracts and one that repels. And when I reverse the polarity of my ray—voilà! More range! Gotta love science!”

  He positioned himself behind a
metallic urn with a large fern in it. Hummm! The planter hurtled toward the children at a terrifying speed. Molly and Emmett pushed each other to the ground as it zipped over their heads.

  Molly didn’t know what to do. She’d made one mistake after another, and now she was facing the end of her country. Possibly the entire world. Maybe if she hadn’t fed their evidence to a llama. If she hadn’t given herself over to the Jägerman. Or if she’d gotten a better look at those robots. Or trusted the MOI from the start, like Emmett wanted her to. Maybe if she’d never dragged Emmett into her ridiculous schemes. Or if she’d just told her mother she didn’t want to be an inventor.

  She threw her head back in despair, and visions of all her mistakes appeared before her eyes, hovering in the air above her. Her mother. Bell. Edison. Even the robots. She blinked, but the visions remained.

  Then she noticed that Emmett was looking up too.

  43

  Help from Above

  “THE ICARUS CHARIOT!” Molly couldn’t believe her eyes. And she was instantly jealous that Bell and Edison got to ride it before she did. As soon as this was all over, she told herself, she was taking a turn on that thing. And having some candy corn.

  As the flying machine’s motor purred, Cassandra, in the pilot’s seat, pulled the steering levers to angle the canvas wings and begin their descent. The other three seats that circled the central mast held Alexander Graham Bell (gripping his safety straps for dear life), Thomas Edison (waving his hat in the air), and Mary Walton (who looked cozy enough to fall asleep).

  As surprised as Molly was to see the chariot and its passengers, she was even more shocked by its cargo. In a large bin that dangled by chains from the bottom of the craft stood four of Bell’s singing automatons—the original prototypes from his office, Molly assumed.

  Cassandra flew low enough for the cargo bin to touch ground and flipped a switch to release the chains. She then brought the Icarus Chariot down next to it on the empty concrete base where the Ferris Wheel once stood. Molly’s arms were around Cassandra before the woman could disembark. From the stage across the plaza, Rector simply crossed his arms and watched.

  “That was one heck of a ride,” Edison hooted, jumping from the Chariot. The smile fled his face the moment he saw the carpet of bodies covering the plaza. “Those are people . . .”

  “Dear God, the devastation,” Bell muttered.

  “They’re alive,” Emmett said. “They just can’t move, because of the waves from Rector’s machine. Speaking of which, why can you move?”

  “Oh,” said Cassandra. “Turned out the bad guy had stationed a quartet of goons back at the Guild to guard these three. After I took them out, I found some gadgety bizwits in their ears, and we borrowed them.”

  “You took down four guys by yourself?” Molly gaped. “How?”

  “Three words,” said Cassandra. “Corn cob boomerang. Or is corncob one word?”

  “We can fill each other in later,” said Mary. “Right now, we need to help these people, which means cutting the power to that contraption. Where are Hertha and the others?”

  Emmett shook his head.

  “Oh, dear,” Mary muttered. “We must waste no time, then. Cass, let’s put your plan into action.”

  “Rector’s got a magnet ray,” Molly warned. “We can’t get any closer without him hurling a big hunk of metal at us.” CRACK! A cash register crashed through a nearby wall. “Like that.”

  “No fear, Molls,” Cassandra said. “We needn’t move one step closer to the man.”

  Bell and Edison were hoisting the automatons out of the bin. “Let’s hope your adjustments work, Mrs. Pepper,” Bell said as he handed small black boxes to Cassandra, Mary, and Edison.

  “Rector’s got a Mind-Melter, so I thought we could use some allies who didn’t have any minds to melt,” Cassandra explained. “I did some retooling on Mr. Bell’s metal friends here. No reason they couldn’t do more than just sing.”

  “You turned them into warrior robots?” Molly asked, agog with excitement.

  “Well, I taught them to walk and grab things,” her mother replied. “Which is basically all they need to do: Grab a lever and pull, right?”

  “But the Magneta-Ray,” said Emmett. “Rector will—”

  “He will be annoyed to all heck when he finds out his magnet doesn’t work on these fellas,” Edison said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

  “In order to ship these fellows nationwide, I wanted them to be lightweight,” said Bell. “So I constructed them entirely from aluminum—a metal which, as luck would have it, is not magnetic.”

  Cassandra clapped her hands together. “Let’s get to work.”

  Each of the four inventors opened the chest plate of their assigned automaton and wound the key inside. Pectoral hatches closed once more, Cassandra stepped back, held her little black box to her mouth, and said, “Robot, walk.” At her command, the automaton Bell had dubbed Robert began taking big, clunky steps into the plaza.

  “You added the vocal recognition from the automated secretary,” Molly said, swelling with pride. “I can’t believe you did it that fast!”

  “Charles, walk,” Edison said into his controller.

  “William, walk,” said Bell.

  “James, walk,” said Mary.

  The others joined their aluminum brother on the field.

  “You didn’t call yours Robert,” Molly said to her mother.

  “Robot is a better name,” Cassandra said with a wink.

  Across the plaza, Rector stood onstage and watched the four shining figures march toward him. “Looks like this finally got interesting,” he said smugly.

  For years, Molly had awaited the moment the Inventors’ Guild would recognize her mother’s genius. Now, here were its two most accomplished members standing by her side, using her technology. To save the world.

  “Oh, I went down south, to see my pal Sal, singing polly wolly doodle all the day!” The voices of the marching automatons rang out in perfect four-part harmony.

  “They still sing?” Edison asked incredulously.

  “Of course!” Cassandra replied. “I love this song.”

  “Aaaaargh!” Rector howled. “I hate that song!” He aimed his ray at the approaching robots and pulled the trigger. Nothing. “Aluminum, I assume,” Rector grumbled. “Well, like the Egyptian asp that thinks it’s found a safe perch upon the brow of a mighty river horse—”

  “No more metaphors!” Cassandra screamed.

  “Fine!” Rector barked back. “My point was going to be that aluminum is a very thin metal!” He turned his ray on the telephone, which ripped from its cord, flew through the air, and caved in the shiny skull of one of the automatons. The robot collapsed onto its back and ceased moving.

  “Not my William!” Bell cried out.

  “You monster!” Cassandra cried. “The song sounds all wrong now without the bass!”

  “Split them up,” instructed Mary. “He can’t attack all three at once. James, left!”

  “Robot, right,” Cassandra commanded.

  “Charles, you keep doing what you’re doing, you beautiful piece of manly machinery,” said Edison.

  The automatons avoided the signposts, frying pans, and storage cases that Rector hurled at them, and Mary guided James to the sole remaining set of steps that led to the stage.

  “James, climb,” Mary said.

  Bell wrung his hands. “I can’t watch.”

  A dozen metal skewers flew from a nearby kebab stand and impaled the poor robot like a pincushion. James toppled down the steps and fell still.

  “Are there really only two more?” Rector called out. “’Cause this is fun!”

  “Your fun is about to end, imposter!” Edison bellowed. “Prepare for the wrath of . . . Charles!”

  And with that, Automaton Charles stopped and stood completely still.

  “Move, Charles,” Edison shouted into his controller. “Walk! Bell, what’s wrong with your stupid, defective toy? Why did it
stop?”

  “Looks like the motor ran down,” Bell said. “You didn’t wind it enough.”

  “If I’d built the thing, that would’ve been enough winding for hours.”

  “Gentlemen,” Cassandra interrupted. “I programmed them to re-wind themselves.”

  Edison looked skeptical, but lifted his controller. “Charles, wind yourself.”

  The automaton opened its chest plate, turned its motor key several times, and resumed marching on Rector. The inventors cheered. And then Rector used his ray to hoist the skewered body of James and hammer it down onto Charles. The two robots ended up one pierced, dented mass of metal. Rector did a victory dance.

  “You stink, Bell. Everything you make stinks.” Edison threw his controller to the ground. “If we survive this, I’m gonna make a much, much better version of these things.”

  “Mother, where’s yours?” Molly asked.

  “Shhh!”

  Onstage, Robot was approaching the Mind-Melter behind the obliviously tap-dancing Rector.

  “Robot, grab,” Cassandra said.

  The automaton reached out for the Mind-Melter’s long, red lever.

  “Robot, pull!”

  Crunch! The robot tore the lever straight out of the machine. Across the plaza, six people slapped their foreheads.

  Rector cackled. He plucked the broken lever from the robot’s hand and held it aloft like a victorious knight thrusting his sword to the heavens. “No lever, no off!” he shouted with wicked glee. “And how about no annoying inventors either?” He aimed his ray at the mangle-tangle mess that once was James and Charles, and launched it across the plaza.

  “Look out!” Cassandra cried as the mass of arms, legs, and pointy iron skewers flew at them. She pushed the children down seconds before the soaring automatons sent her sailing through the fake palm tree entryway of the Tahiti Pavilion. The broken robots cracked the fake trees in half and the building began to shudder.

  “Mrs. Pepper!” Bell and Edison both rushed inside to aid her.

  “Stay down,” Mary warned the children before racing after them herself. She was just about to step across the threshold when the pavilion collapsed.