Chapter Twenty-One
The Pit of Pan Gu
Evelyn grabbed the enormous bolt that kept the door locked, and she muscled it into the open position. Warm air wafted from within, as the door swung outward. Evelyn brushed back a strand that had come loose from her tightly woven hair, readjusted her eyeglasses, and strode forward.
The sisters followed, and they saw that they had entered an enormous, oval chamber, illuminated with giant spotlights that blazed overhead. It was filled with the greatest assortment of technology they had ever seen, making their eyes bulge in wonder.
Even Lefty’s laboratory, which had been stocked with marvelous inventions and devices, was tiny by comparison. This was an operation that vastly exceeded anything the sisters could have imagined, and they stared about in awe.
Lining the walls of the oval-shaped room, there were stacks of beeping computer servers, shiny terminals, and flashing monitors. Lights blinked, machines whirred, and hardware hummed.
Additionally, there was a great quantity of strange and curious items sprinkled throughout the area, as well as workbenches, lockers, tool chests, and laboratory equipment. The large number of machines was undoubtedly the source of the increased temperature – combined, they put out an enormous amount of heat.
Across the chamber, there was a series of particularly large monitors, perhaps sixty inches in diameter apiece, which were rapidly cycling through a series of figures and diagrams. Directly below these monitors, there was a terminal that housed an astounding array of buttons, switches, and gauges, as well as one particularly shiny lever, which tended to draw the eye.
Before this terminal, an empty chair sat, perfectly positioned for the manipulation of these varied inputs.
It was worth noting that there was also a collection of meticulously ordered cleaning supplies, carefully arranged not far from the chamber’s door. There were mops, buckets, and dozens of bottles of solution. This, the sisters knew, was a telltale sign of Jasper’s involvement with this dubious operation.
Evil though he may have been, his obsessive compulsion to rigorously clean was mighty impressive. The chamber, though enormous in stature, was free of dust and dirt, and every last electronic component had been polished to a high shine, gleaming beneath the bright beams of the spotlights.
“What you see before you is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world. This,” Evelyn told the sisters, “is the stronghold of the Black Hats. Nobody outside of their tight circle – other than you, of course – has ever laid eyes upon this place.”
“It certainly looks nefarious, I’ll give you that,” Maria said, as she and her sister walked farther into the chamber, ogling at all the strange sights that surrounded them.
“This is an alarming amount of resources,” Sara said. “What have they been doing with all this stuff?”
“Oh, all sorts of questionable activities,” Evelyn replied. She paused in her stride and pointed toward the center of the chamber, where the floor had been neatly cut away. “But most of their efforts have been focused on this.”
Maria and Sara walked to the place where Evelyn had directed their attention. The entire center of the room was a hole, surrounded by a steel railing three feet in height. As they approached, the sisters rested their hands upon the barrier and peered over the edge.
“What… what are we looking at?” Sara asked.
“That’s Pan Gu, of course,” Evelyn said, as she came to stand beside them. She sighed deeply, filled with wonder, as she always was, when gazing upon the ancient creature. “It’s quite magnificent, isn’t it?”
There was a long silence of several seconds, as Maria and Sara tried to digest what they had been told, and to wrap their brains around what they were looking at. It was enough to beggar their minds, it so thoroughly defied their notions of what was possible, despite all the wonders they had previously witnessed.
“Gears and sprockets!” Maria exclaimed. “That’s Pan Gu? It’s huge!”
Below them, the pit descended for about thirty feet. Inside, there was something that looked as though it had been carved from a massive slab of dark, gray stone, shaped into a sleeping beast. If the sisters hadn’t been told otherwise, they would have simply assumed that it was an enormous, skillfully rendered statue.
The petrified creature was curled into a ball, as if it had hunkered down for a long nap, and it had tucked its head beneath one of its forelegs. It reminded the sisters of the way Jack’s Labradoodle, Nibbler, oftentimes lay when he was snoozing.
This reduced position that Pan Gu held made it difficult to fully ascertain the beast’s features and true size. Even curled up as it was, however, it was clear to the observers that the thing was gigantic.
Though much of its form was hidden and coiled, the creature appeared to have a long, lithe body, four powerful legs, and a tail that wrapped around, further concealing its face and head.
Gazing upon the awe-inspiring sight, the sisters were reminded of the symbol they had seen upon the door to this chamber. It was the Chinese character for dragon, Evelyn had told them. Now, they could understand why it had been chosen. Based on its appearance, the petrified creature was exactly that: a dragon, one that looked something like what they had seen on the paper placemats at Chinese restaurants.
“When Magellan discovered the hidden society where Pan Gu lay in slumber, in a remote region of China, the creature had already been resting for over one thousand years, frozen in this form. The people of that land told him that Pan Gu was of ancient origins, and that it had previously looked over their ancestors. The dragon has great power, they said, so much so that they believed it could control the winds themselves, dictating rainfall and storms. It was also a herald of good luck, blessing their society with health and happiness,” Evelyn explained.
“However, Pan Gu is still a wild thing, or so they claimed, and its motives are far beyond the comprehension of humans. It is primal, and powerful, and temperamental, like the elements. Just as it could bring good fortune, it also could bring destruction. Perhaps not by malevolent intention, but by the very nature of its being.”
“What do you mean?” Maria asked. “How could something cause destruction without meaning to do it?”
Evelyn shrugged. “Does a violent storm or a hurricane have malicious intent, when it destroys that which lies in its path? Certainly not. It is simply within part of the storm’s very nature… a power that can result in great destruction, not as a consequence of malicious intent, but simply as a consequence of being. The elders of this society that Magellan discovered claimed that Pan Gu is not just a creature, but a force of nature. It was also said that such was the dragon’s power… mortal men could very easily go mad, simply by looking upon its awesome presence.”
“And they mean to waken this thing? Why?” Sara demanded.
“Vanity, mostly,” Evelyn said. “Jasper and Mr. Weatherbee do seem to relish the notion that they are the masterminds of the universe, after all. I’ve tried debating their theory that this powerful being will jump through hoops on their say-so, but they’ll hear none of it. Any possibility of failure completely eludes them, and they’ve got their cronies marching lockstep beside them. Of course, I didn’t think that the Black Hats would actually be able to achieve their lofty goal of waking Pan Gu, but now that they’ve acquired this remarkable power cell you’ve told me about… I fear it may be possible, after all. At the very least, I’m sure they’re going to try their best.”
“Gobstoppers... This can’t possibly end well, can it?” Sara asked.
“That’s why we’ve got to prevent it from even beginning. Come! We mustn’t dally any longer!”
With that assertion, Evelyn pushed herself away from the railing, tearing her gaze from the mesmerizing sight of Pan Gu. She marched toward the series of large computer monitors, where the master terminal and chair lay waiting.
“We should check to see if the new power cell is in place. If so, we’ll simply grab it and
be on our way, while Jasper remains trapped in the air ducts and powerless to stop us. If we can’t find the power cell, we can still sabotage the systems here, rendering them useless.”
But before Evelyn could reach the terminal, music began blasting, startling her to a stop.
The sisters likewise came up short, bumping into the curator with an oof! They looked about, trying to identify the source of the music. It seemed that powerful speakers had been strategically placed throughout the chamber, creating a surround sound effect as the tunes were pumped out.
The song that was being played, they realized, was Eye of the Tiger, a catchy tune designed to psyche up its listeners. It was a popular selection, oftentimes played before sporting events.
“What’s going on?” Maria asked, shouting to be heard over the music.
It was then that the three of them saw that the empty chair, which had its back toward them, was slowly revolving. As it came to face them, they saw with astonishment that the chair was, in fact, not empty.
An individual sat within it, but he was so diminutive in nature, Evelyn and the sisters had not even been able to see him while the chair had faced away from them. He was too short for his head to have cleared the back of the chair, and his feet dangled from the floor.
As he slowly swung about to face them, the man smiled widely, threw back his head, and cackled diabolically. It was none other than Mr. Weatherbee, the unassuming, boring man who had posed as the assistant curator to the museum.
“Oh, dear,” Evelyn lamented. “I’m afraid this may complicate matters.”