Balance Keepers #1: The Fires of Calderon

“Hey! Don’t accuse my teammate of cheating!” Leroy shouted, and the two got into an argument as they circled round and round.

  I’m doing it! Albert thought. He scurried along the side of the wall, making his way closer to the top. Now the Peak was pouring green slime in channels all around him, but Albert expertly moved around every challenge.

  And there it was: an acorn the size of a basketball, sitting on the pathway in front of him, right near an opening at the top of the Peak.

  Albert scooped the acorn up and carried it with one hand. The barrels seemed to sense that he’d taken the prize, because they all started shooting fireballs in his direction. He ducked and dodged, sometimes leaping to avoid them. One final leap and he was right at the edge of the opening, standing on the last little bit of pathway, looking down as green sludge continued pouring out. Albert risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Slink was only a few feet away now. But what was he supposed to do with the acorn? Just toss it in? Crack it open like they did in Cedarfell? Where was Leroy with his Synapse Tile when Albert needed him? Three more steps and Slink would be on top of him. Time to make a decision. Three, two . . .

  Albert cracked the acorn on his own head, and out poured the milky liquid into the Peak’s opening.

  “Noooooo!” Slink screamed, knocking the acorn shell out of Albert’s hands. One second later, both Albert and Slink had grabbed onto the edge of the opening—the mountain was shaking like a volcano about to erupt. For a moment, Albert thought maybe he’d gotten it all wrong, and without another thought, he turned and leaped, grabbing onto a barrel as it raced by. Slink did the same. Albert rode the barrel once around the Peak, and then jumped, landing on the spongy floor of the Pit next to Leroy. The floor down here was shaking, too.

  It was like a science experiment on caffeine.

  “Uh-oh,” Leroy said, “I think it’s gonna blow.” Half a second later, the Peak spewed the brightest blue water Albert had ever seen. It doused the fireballs that shot from the barrels and put out the flames bursting from the walls.

  Albert was quickly getting soaked, but he turned to Leroy. “Did we just—”

  “Hydra wins!” Professor Flynn shouted into his MegaHorn.

  The crowd erupted into a roar of cheers, and the water explosion stopped as quickly as it had started. Leroy leaped into the air, tackling Albert with a big bear hug, then started wringing out his baseball cap. Albert shook himself off like a dog coming in from the rain. Across the way, Hoyt groaned and started yelling at Slink and Mo, blaming them for their loss.

  Albert and Leroy made their way to a platform, wringing out their T-shirts. When their platform arrived at the top, Professor Flynn was there to celebrate with them.

  “Well done, boys! Well done! You’ve just logged your very first victory in the Core.”

  “Where’s Birdie? Is she okay?” Albert and Leroy asked together.

  Professor Flynn pulled out three copper Medallions and passed them to Leroy and Albert. “One for Miss Howell,” he said. “You can visit her in the Infirmary after late lunch, down tunnel three. She’s banged up, but she’s tough. Birdie will be fine.”

  “For Birdie,” Albert said, holding up his Medallion.

  “For Birdie,” Leroy agreed.

  After the last meal of the day, the boys found the Infirmary. It was a small, warm room with real lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. An old man with one eye in the middle of his forehead scurried about, tending to several wounded Balance Keepers. A boy lay asleep in one of the beds, his leg in traction. He clearly wouldn’t be doing any Competitions for a while. It struck Albert as he walked around: This is serious business. People get hurt in the Core.

  Birdie was propped up in a bed in the back of the room, practicing playing Tiles. Farnsworth was there, his head on her lap, his eyes droopy and sad. There was a white bandage wrapped around Birdie’s head. A Floppywhippet flew around the bandage, chirping a little song, as if to make Birdie’s wound all better. When she saw Albert and Leroy, she groaned.

  “It’s totally my fault we lost,” she said. “I shouldn’t have been so careless.”

  Albert smirked and nudged Leroy. “No worries, right, Leroy?”

  “Yeah,” Leroy said. He pulled out a Medallion and flipped it onto Birdie’s lap. “Maybe you can use this to buy some chocolate or something.”

  At the sight of the Medallion, Birdie’s eyes went wide. “You guys won? If this is a bad joke, I’m so gonna pummel you both!”

  “It’s real,” Leroy said. “Made of copper, which is a chemical element, and its symbol on the periodic table is . . .”

  “Quit nerding out and hug me already!” Birdie screamed, pulling both boys in.

  She scooped up the Medallion and the one-eyed cyclops nurse arrived at the side of the bed.

  “Are these boys bothering you?” the old man asked.

  Birdie smiled. “No, sir,” she said. “I’m the best I’ve been in days!”

  The cyclops nurse turned to Albert and Leroy and pointed at them one at a time. “I’ve got my eye on you two.”

  No one could stop giggling when the nurse walked away. Leroy and Albert spent the rest of the evening telling Birdie the story of how they’d won. When Leroy got to the part about Albert’s megasuperhero moves, Birdie gasped. “I can’t believe I missed that! It’s your Tile, Albert! It has to be! I think it’s finally kicking in, big-time, just like it did the other day when you swam like me!”

  Albert nodded. “I think you’re right. I’ve been going over the simulation again and again. It’s like my Tile reacts to my thoughts or something.”

  “What do you mean?” Leroy asked. He plucked a cup of applesauce off Birdie’s bed table and peeled open the lid, then wolfed it down.

  Albert shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes, when I want something really bad, and I sort of picture it happening, it just happens.”

  “So you wanted to swim like me, and suddenly you just could? That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Birdie said. “Maybe you’re just a better swimmer than you thought you were.”

  “No—I could breathe underwater like you can. Nobody can do that without magic. And I definitely can’t run as fast as Hoyt does, but that happened, too, in the Pit today, while I was balancing like Slink. I asked my dad about it the other night—if my Tile could give me multiple powers at once. He said it was impossible.”

  “Well, it looks like maybe your dad’s wrong, doesn’t it?” Birdie replied. “We’ll just have to try harder to figure this out ourselves.”

  “But my dad’s a professor. He’s the one who helps everyone pick their Tiles out of the Waterfall of Fate. If anyone knew something, it would be him. I think he knows something . . . but he’s not saying it, for some reason.”

  “Well then, like I said, we’ll just have to figure it out ourselves,” Birdie said. Then she turned to Leroy, who was sneaking another cup of applesauce from a nearby sleeping patient. “Leroy! Don’t think I didn’t see you take mine, too!”

  The two of them started arguing like brother and sister. Albert, overwhelmed by them, turned his attention to the corner of the room, where an old TV was playing news from the outside world. Farnsworth hopped down from the bed and joined Albert in front of the screen.

  It crackled with fuzz, but Albert gave the TV a good slap, and the image cleared.

  It was New York City.

  “Guys! Come here and look at this,” Albert called over his shoulder.

  “It’s been showing the same story for the past couple of hours,” Birdie said. “Looks like trouble.”

  Leroy helped Birdie out of bed, and they settled down in front of the TV screen.

  “The volcanic ash clouds have taken over Staten Island,” the reporter said. “It seems the ash is coming right out of the Atlantic. All of New York City has shut down for the remainder of the week.”

  “That’s not good at all,” Birdie said. “Albert, I thought your mom said everything was fine?”

  “She probably didn’
t want to scare me.” Albert leaned forward to get a closer look. There were snowplows in the streets of Manhattan, scooping up piles and piles of ash. Cabs were stuck in the middle of the streets. Hot-dog stands were covered, and you couldn’t even see the fire hydrants anymore. This definitely wasn’t okay.

  The reporter continued:

  “If someone doesn’t find a solution to this, and fast, the residents of New York City could be in serious danger. Evacuation of the city is imminent.”

  “It’s Calderon,” Albert said. “We’re going to have to figure out the Means to Restore Balance, and soon. Or who knows what could happen up there?”

  “Grey, Aria, and Terran must be exhausted.” Birdie nodded. “We’ve barely seen them recently. And it’s only getting worse.”

  Leroy said what they were all thinking.

  “We need to be ready if the First Unit fails.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The Imbalance Grows

  The next morning after breakfast, Albert, Leroy, and Birdie made their way through the cave to Professor Flynn’s office for a specially scheduled lecture.

  They passed by the Waterfall of Fate, and Albert felt cool droplets of water on his face. The last time Albert had been here, he’d been completely disappointed by his Tile. But today, he felt like he was walking a little taller. Whatever his Tile actually did, it was starting to work. Maybe not all the time, but when it did, it seemed that it could make Albert do anything. And that made Albert feel stronger, like he was really becoming a Balance Keeper.

  As they rounded the Waterfall, about fifty or so students came into view. They were all seated on the floor in front of Professor Flynn’s desk. When he saw Albert, Professor Flynn winked.

  Albert smiled. His dad looked like he was still really proud of him for yesterday’s Pit win.

  “So, anyone know what this is about?” Birdie asked, as the three of them settled down in the back of the crowd. Petra was there, a big smile on his face, and a fat notebook on his lap.

  “Professor Flynn’s going to give us even more info on Calderon!” Petra squeaked. He had his pencil poised at the ready to take notes.

  “That’s exactly what we need,” Leroy said. “If there’s a chance we might be going into Calderon, we’ve gotta know more.”

  Albert grinned. “Yeah, and with you here, Birdie and I don’t even need to pay attention. You’ll remember everything.”

  Birdie rapped Albert across the shoulders anyway and narrowed her blue eyes. “Class is starting. We should all pay attention.”

  “Good morning, students. I’m glad you’re all here. Balance Keepers—as you know, it’s getting more and more likely the Calderon First Unit will need backup in Calderon. The information I’m sharing today will be vital if you have to enter the Realm. Other students—the Core is your home as much as it is the Balance Keepers’; you deserve to know this stuff, too.”

  Professor Flynn started off by showing them a hand-drawn map of Calderon. “We can’t take photographs there, of course. Most technology doesn’t work in the Realms.”

  Albert craned his neck to see better. It was a huge world, entirely different from his own. Calderon looked like it was laid out in giant rings, starting with a jungle around the edge, then an open field, then, judging by the big, black portion on the map labeled the Forest of Thorns, a rather scary forest—Leroy groaned when he saw that—and finally, in the middle, Calderon Peak.

  “In the Pit simulations, you’ve seen only a portion of the things a Balance Keeper might see in the actual Realm,” Professor Flynn said. He started talking about all the creatures the Balance Keepers might encounter—Hexabons, Hissengores, and some strange bird the size of a horse that would attack on sight.

  “I just love birds,” Birdie whispered to Albert and Leroy.

  “Not that kind of bird. No way!” Leroy shook his head.

  Albert laughed. It felt amazing to have these two friends by his side. Petra smiled at Albert and gave him a thumbs-up.

  Okay, three friends.

  He exhaled, and turned his focus back on Professor Flynn. His dad was just starting to tell the class about his first time in Calderon, when the alarm bell went off.

  The noise came so loud and strong that Albert had to clap his hands over his ears. He looked right at his dad, hoping this was just another drill.

  But by the look of horror on Professor Flynn’s face, Albert knew it wasn’t.

  Trey appeared, running around the Waterfall of Fate. His face was red, as if he’d been sprinting across the Core.

  “Professor! We need you at once in the Realm. It’s a class-four alert!”

  “What’s happening?” Leroy asked, or at least that’s what Albert thought he asked. The alarm was extremely loud and reading lips wasn’t his strong suit.

  “This is bad. Really, really bad!” Petra yelled. He stood up and ran from the room without another word.

  Albert got up and watched as his dad reached into his desk and pulled out his Tile. Professor Flynn strung it over his neck and stood up tall.

  “Class dismissed!” he said. “Trey, escort them back to their dorms at once.”

  Albert tried to break through to the front of the crowd, but everyone was pushing and shoving.

  “Dad!” Albert yelled as he watched Professor Flynn and Trey speaking to each other, the expressions on their faces quite grave.

  If Professor Flynn was going in, it meant the First Unit couldn’t handle whatever was happening on their own. And it meant they might need a training unit to go into the Realm soon, too. This was the worst of the worst. Albert’s heart was slamming in his chest, out of control.

  “Dad, wait!” Albert called out again, hoping to get a word with him before he left.

  Professor Flynn stopped at the sound of Albert’s voice. He turned, looked Albert in the eyes, and gave Albert one curt nod. Then he disappeared behind the Waterfall of Fate and out of sight.

  As Trey called the students to order, the alarm bell finally stopped. The room fell into a hush. No one said a word, but Albert could see the looks on his friends’ faces. At that moment, a horrible thought snuck its way into Albert’s mind.

  What if he never saw his dad again?

  CHAPTER 16

  Trouble Ensues

  Days passed and Albert still hadn’t been able to talk to his dad.

  News had come out that Core Researchers had identified three liquid-filled things in the Calderon Realm that could be the Means to Restore Balance: the pod of the Leafless Willow, the seeds of the Fireflowers, and the silver eggs of the Hissengores, though rumor had it that while the silver eggs lasted for centuries, an actual Hissengore nest hadn’t been found in generations of Balance Keepers.

  Professor Flynn and the Calderon First Unit had been spending their nights in Calderon, searching for these possible Means. Albert, Leroy, and Birdie waited by the door to Calderon every morning before breakfast, and Albert held his breath each time, only letting it out when he saw that his dad was back safely, though safely was a relative term.

  When his dad, Grey, Aria, and Terran got back each morning, stumbling through the door at the end of the Calderon river, they were covered in ash, dripping sweat, and so tired they were ready to drop. Professor Flynn looked worse and worse each day. His hair had developed a deeper sheen of gray, and his eyes were purple underneath, as if he hadn’t slept. Albert hated to see his dad that way. He knew the Realms took a toll on professors. But to see it in person gave Albert a lump in his throat that he could never quite swallow. Albert didn’t have the heart to bother his dad with questions when he knew all he wanted to do was rest.

  After a few weeks of failure in Calderon, an announcement was made: Terran was leaving the Core for good. Everyone was shocked. A First Unit member giving up on the Core, especially in such a time of Imbalance? Albert took it as a sign that things were worse than he thought. If Terran, as talented as she was, wanted to give up . . . what was stopping everyone else from doing the same thing?
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  After the announcement about Terran, the Pit practices intensified. From now on, the training units had to train twice as hard to prepare, in case they were needed. With only Grey and Aria left in the First Unit, it became even more important for the backup units to be ready. Trey took over the training, pushing them through head-on duels. They did underwater drills and climbed moss-covered trees that were as slick as Slip ‘N Slides. They swung from cables like Tarzan, side by side, while Hissengores tugged at their ankles. The intensity of the Competitions increased with each passing day.

  At night, Albert, Leroy, and Birdie spent time poring over books in the Library, trying to learn as much as they could about Calderon. They studied the creatures, the plants, the weather patterns—anything they could think of. They had to be ready.

  The Main Leaderboard remained in Argon’s favor at first, but Hydra and all the other teams were close behind. Ecco sustained a series of injuries that slowed them way down, and they were eliminated from the Competitions, which only made the seriousness of the situation increase. Now it was always Argon against Hydra. Hoyt’s team kept taunting, but their quips were getting less creative and more antagonistic by the day. Albert could tell: Argon was starting to see Hydra as a real threat.

  Albert, Leroy, and Birdie went to the Tiles room every afternoon to distract themselves. Leroy won games left and right. Even Slink tried to beat him once. Leroy won, of course, which only made the Pit Competitions rougher, more heated. Leroy eventually ran out of Tiles opponents—no one wanted to play someone they could never beat.

  One night, while the three of them sat watching an intense match between Jack and Ellery, the game was interrupted by an announcement over the Core loudspeaker.

  “Attention, please,” Trey’s voice rang out. “I have an update on the Calderon Realm. Today, Professor Flynn and the Calderon First Unit attempted to cure the Sea Inspire using the pod of the Leafless Willow, but unfortunately found that the pods were all dried up—there was no liquid inside. We can only assume this is further evidence of the Imbalance.”