Vince knew that Nick was on the premises when the house disappeared. He’d been standing right at the front door. The woman inside had possessed one of Tesla’s devices, although Nick hadn’t known which one.
Vince made his way around the crater to the garage. The front half of the structure had been sheared clean away, and inside he could see half of an old refrigerator, half of a lawn mower, and half of a bunch of other things you’d find in a garage. Lucky for Nick, thought Vince, that the Teslanoid Object had been positioned toward the back of the house so its field extended only to the front door. Had it been any closer, half of Nick might have been taken instead of half the garage.
Vince knocked on the doors of a few surrounding homes.
At the first few houses, no one answered. Either the owners weren’t home, or they didn’t want to deal with the creepy dude on their front step.
Finally one door opened for him. The woman at the threshold looked somewhat like a dried apple, with big hair the color of faded cotton candy.
“Wha’cha sellin’?” she asked, and before Vince could answer, she added, “Whatever it is, I don’t need it anyway, but I’ve got a couple bagels in the toaster, so you might as well come in.” She led him to her kitchen. “The only visitors I get,” she noted, “are people who want my money.”
“Is that so?” Vince asked politely.
“Including my relatives,” she added as she served him the bagel with a dollop of whipped cream cheese. Vince wondered fleetingly how well he would digest it before he decided his undead intestines would just have to deal.
“Okay, give me your pitch,” the old woman said, “and it better be good.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not selling anything and I don’t want your money. I just want to pick your brain.”
“Not much left to pick, sorry to say,” she told him with a laugh. “That field’s gone to seed.”
Vince suspected she had more up there than she gave herself credit for. “I’d love to know about the person who owned the house,” he said. “The one that disappeared.”
The old woman took a bite of her bagel and chewed it slowly. “That would be Sheila McNee,” she said finally. “Used to play bridge with her until she got too high-and-mighty for the rest of us.”
“So you’re not in touch?” Vince asked.
The old woman shook her head. “I haven’t heard hide nor hair from her since…the incident. These strange G-men in funny suits came by asking questions. Told us her house went up in a freak quantum event.” Then she leaned a little closer. “But there was nothing freak about it. It was the globe.”
Vince’s ears perked up. Immediately he remembered a globe at the garage sale. Metallic, with the landmasses engraved into it. He might have considered buying it himself, had the battery not been calling out to him, for what turned out to be obvious reasons.
“The globe…” he repeated, prompting her to continue.
“I never told them about it, if that’s what you’re asking. But something tells me you’re the one who needs to know.” She took another thoughtful bite. “She said it took her places.”
“Where?” Vince asked.
“Anywhere,” the old woman said, “everywhere. I thought she was nuts. Right until the day she vanished along with that dust trap of a house.”
“Do you know where she might have gone?” Vince asked.
“Well,” said the old woman, “she was always threatening to go back to Scotland, where she grew up. Said we Americans had grown ‘a wee bit tiresome.’”
Vince took the last bite of his bagel, thanked her, and left. There was no doubt in his mind that what the woman had told him was true. And if he did have any doubts, all he had to do was take out his own copy of the Planetary Times and turn to page 17. Next to the article about the new alien Mafia was a grainy, blurry photograph of a suburban house, much like the other houses on this block, that had been spotted by scuba-diving monster hunters at the very bottom of Loch Ness.
Vince returned home with an uncharacteristic bounce in his step. Just because he knew where the globe was didn’t mean Nick had to know. And as long as it remained lost at the bottom of a lake a continent away, Nick could never complete Tesla’s machine.
Which meant he’d never come to Vince for the battery.
While Vince spent the rest of his day luxuriating in the secret knowledge that he was safe, Nick was trying to avoid busy intersections and hospitals and any other place where a sudden loss of electricity might be a serious problem. He was forced to take a weaving path back home.
Had he thought about the power station, he would have avoided it as well. But, as fate would have it, he rode his bicycle within ten feet of its largest transformer, which was obscured by an ivy trellis. When Nick got too close, all of the nearby homes and businesses went dark. And, with the sudden overload of stolen energy, Nick’s left shoe burst into flames.
He leaped from his bicycle, rolled in the grass, ripped off his shoe, and flung it into the street—where it stalled every car that attempted to pass.
Now that the shoe was far enough away from the transformer, the area lights blinked back on. Nick approached the smoking remains of his poor Converse. Gingerly he picked it up, and he found the most damaged spot on the left side of the sole.
He bent the sneaker back, cracking the rubber open, and pulled out a small, shiny microchip that had been underfoot all day.
Getting the chip onto Nick’s person had been Petula’s crowning achievement of the week.
She knew she couldn’t hide it anywhere in his clothes, because boys do occasionally change their clothes. She couldn’t embed it under his skin, because he would have noticed the excruciating pain. Then, when they were in the attic, Nick took off his sneakers, finally giving Petula her opportunity. Shoving it into one of the soles while everyone else was watching Mitch turn into the Incredible Hulk had been a stroke of genius.
She had no idea what the chip would do when she activated it later, using a remote code.
“It won’t damage him,” the Grand Acceleratus had assured her. “It will just remind him that we are ever-present, and ever-watching.”
After she had successfully planted the device, she reported to Ms. Planck, as instructed.
“If you continue to impress Dr. Jorgenson,” Ms. Planck told Petula as they unloaded buckets of foodstuff from her minivan and wheeled them to the cafeteria, “you’ll rise in the ranks in no time.” Then she smiled at her. “I’m proud of you, Petula. You’ll make a difference in this world.”
The foodstuff, Ms. Planck explained, was pressed plankton, which took on the flavor of whatever you mixed it with.
“Isn’t there an old sci-fi movie where everyone’s eating pressed plankton—but it turns out to be made out of people?” Petula asked.
“Don’t worry,” the lunch lady said with a laugh, “people are currently much more expensive than plankton.”
Petula wondered to herself if “currently” implied there would be a time when they weren’t. She decided it was best not to entertain that line of thought. She concluded that if they ever did start serving people, Ms. Planck might be the first to go, since her name was halfway to plankton already.
Petula watched as the green foodstuff magically became beef ragout and chicken a la king. “It’s twice as nutritious,” Ms. Planck told her. “A better world through proprietary technology,” she intoned. “In other words, technology that we own.”
This was one of the Accelerati’s many, many mottos.
“What do you suppose the Grand Acceleratus will want me to do next?” Petula asked, anxious for an answer, but fearing it as well.
“Whatever it is,” Ms. Planck said, with a penetrating look, “you’ll do it.” Then she smiled and handed her a healthy portion of plankton à la king.
Theo was no idiot. He was as clever as he needed to be, when it served him to be so—and when it came to the grand buffet of revenge, Petula was not the only one in line. Th
eo was ready to dish himself up a heaping serving of “chow mean.”
His relationship with Caitlin, which was never all that great to begin with, had finally ended, formally and officially. He was relieved, really—the world almost ending had given him pause for thought. Why cling to one girl just because she was beautiful and popular? Who needed a trophy girlfriend when he had a shelf full of actual trophies? The problem was the undeniable sense of humiliation. To be dumped for Nick Slate was unbearable. It was, as they say, adding insulin to injury. It simply could not stand.
Being a thorn in Slate’s side was not enough—he had to be the entire rosebush. He had to surround Slate in so many thorny brambles that the slightest move would slash him to bits.
Theo knew there was some secret business going on with Nick. The way he always spoke in hushed whispers to his friends. The way odd things had started happening as soon as he moved into the neighborhood. If Theo could get to the bottom of it, and find some key bit of information, he knew it would be worthy of blackmail. Then he’d have Nick exactly where he wanted him.
So Theo kept his eyes and ears open, and he finally struck gold when Nick’s friend Vince walked away from his locker without remembering to lock it. Once the hallway had cleared, Theo scavenged through the locker, looking for something incriminating. He hadn’t really expected to find anything, because Vince was on the periphery of Nick’s circle of friends. Then he saw the official-looking document that was taped inside the locker the way other people put up posters. Theo didn’t know what to make of it at first, but when he pulled it out and read it, the truth became alarmingly clear.
It was Vince’s death certificate.
Not a fake either, but the real deal, with an embossed government stamp and everything. Theo knew this could only mean one thing:
Zombie apocalypse.
While Nick’s left shoe was bursting into flames, Theo was hiding behind a tree at Nick’s house, waiting to pounce. Unfortunately, Theo had grown bored and was playing a game on his phone. When it suddenly flickered out, lifeless, as it had so many times at school that day, Theo became preoccupied with it, and Nick caught him by surprise instead of the other way around.
“Theo, what are you doing here?”
Startled, Theo fumbled his phone. It bounced off of Nick’s oddly bare foot.
“Ouch,” Nick said.
Nick only had one shoe on. The other was a melted mess in his hand.
“Aha!” Theo said. He wasn’t sure what his Aha! was about, but anyone holding a melted shoe had to be up to something blackmail-able.
“If you’re here to talk baseball with my dad, he’s not home. Come back later. Like after the next ice age.” Nick limped into his house. He tried to close the door behind him, but Theo wedged his foot in.
“You think I don’t have a clue,” Theo said. “But I know everything.”
That satisfyingly stopped Nick in his tracks. He turned back to Theo. “What, exactly, do you know?”
And Theo pulled out his exhibit A. “One death certificate, sealed and signed by the county recorder, for—drum roll—Vincent LaRue.”
Nick stepped closer, gazed at the death certificate with what seemed an acceptable level of worry, then said, “So what?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Theo said. “You’re behind a zombie apocalypse!”
Nick looked at him with horror. At least Theo thought it was horror, until Nick impatiently pointed out, “You can’t have a zombie apocalypse with only one zombie.”
“Aha!” Theo shouted, finally having a reason to shout it. “So you admit it! Vince is a zombie!”
“Not exactly,” Nick said. “Zombies rot continually. Vince only rotted once, and he’s getting over it.” He held up the melted shoe. “Look, I’ve got other stuff to deal with right now, okay?”
But Theo had Nick where he wanted him. “Of course, I could keep this whole zombie thing to myself…under one condition…” Theo paused for dramatic effect, and then, to his own surprise, kept on pausing.
“Well,” asked Nick, “what do you want?”
What do I want? Theo wondered. What do I really want? Telling Nick to stay away from Caitlin wasn’t enough. Telling him to disappear off the face of the earth was getting close, but on the other hand, what a waste of a good blackmailing that would be. The skilled extortionist could keep his prey on the end of a string like a yo-yo, yanking at will. Nick could be that yo-yo.
“Just do what I tell you,” he managed, “when I tell you to do it.” Theo figured that would allow him enough time to figure out what he wanted from Nick, and to learn proper blackmail skills.
Nick shook his head. “I really don’t have time for this.”
Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his keys, and pushed a button on a little oval fob; it glowed soft blue. It was the only electronic device in the house that seemed to be working at the moment.
“Could I see that death certificate?” Nick asked.
For an instant Theo hesitated, thinking he shouldn’t hand it over. But then the thought changed to Why not? There was nothing unusual about giving his one piece of crucial evidence to Nick. Nothing unusual at all. In fact, come to think of it, there was nothing odd about Vince having his own death certificate hanging in his school locker. At the moment it seemed like the most natural, normal thing in the world.
“Sure thing,” said Theo, putting it in Nick’s hand.
Nick’s eyes scanned the document, then he folded up the paper and stuffed it in his back pocket. “Can I ask you a favor?” Nick asked.
Why would I do a favor for you? was Theo’s first thought, but he heard himself say instead, “Sure, okay.” He wondered why he said that, but then wondered why he was wondering, and wondered why he was wondering why he was wondering, and before long he was dizzy from the spiraling mental feedback and had to sit down.
“I need you to give a message to Caitlin,” Nick said. “Here, let me write it on your forehead.”
Nick came toward him with a ballpoint pen, but Theo shook his head and said, “No.”
Nick stopped, surprised. “No?”
“You should use a Sharpie instead,” Theo said. “Easier to read, and it won’t come off.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” said Nick, grabbing one from a kitchen counter.
“Because there are two types of people in the world,” Theo put forth. “The ones like me…and the ones like you.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Nick wrote his message, which required more forehead space than Theo had, so it curved around his left eyebrow and down to his cheek. Through all of it, Theo had the nagging sensation that allowing your sworn enemy to write on your face with a permanent marker wasn’t the best choice, but it was crushed by a much more powerful feeling that assured him everything was perfectly all right, and he was overthinking it.
When Nick was done, he gave Theo the key chain with the glowing fob. “Give this to Caitlin, too. Just make sure you keep it in your pocket until you get to her house.” Then Nick reached over toward a laundry basket. “Oh—and can you wear this pair of underwear on your head, too?”
Theo had to admit it seemed like a reasonable request.
Caitlin was glad she was the one who had answered the door. Had it been her mother or father, she would have had a whole lot of explaining to do, because, though Theo could be monumentally obtuse, he’d never before arrived at her house wearing a Fruit of the Loom beret.
“Hi, Caitlin,” he said brightly. “There’s a message for you on my forehead.”
Even before reading it, she knew this was Nick’s doing. Theo handed her the key chain with the Accelerati’s mind-numbing fob, which explained it all. She considered turning it off, but then decided the only way for poor Theo to retain his dignity was to not know he had lost it. She removed the wayward underwear, which, mercifully, appeared to be clean, and brought Theo in.
The message on his forehead, written in clear block letters, w
as simple. It said:
FOUND THE POWER DRAIN.
CALL YOU TONIGHT. THEO’S AN IDIOT.
“Is everything okay?” Theo asked, a little vaguely. “Because…I feel like things might not be totally okay, and I don’t know why.”
Caitlin sighed. “Everything will be fine in a minute,” she said. Then she got her art supplies, sat him down, and began scrubbing Theo’s forehead with paint thinner.
When the power went out in the University of Colorado’s Physics Building, darkening Dr. Alan Jorgenson’s office, he looked up from a plate of flavorless takeout sushi on his desk. He knew that Nick Slate was now close.
Jorgenson pulled up his venetian blinds, letting in the remaining light of early dusk, and sat down. He took one more piece of bland albacore draped over blander rice, then leaned back in his chair to chew and wait. Should the boy be on the offensive, Jorgenson was well equipped to defend himself with any number of Accelerati devices at his immediate disposal. A quantum eviscerator that would transport the boy’s intestines to a spot precisely halfway between the earth and the moon. A tungsten particle beam that would blast him to the Canadian border. And if all else failed, there was the old-fashioned revolver in his pocket.
His secretary came to his office door a moment later.
“I’d buzz you,” she said, with the slightest cringe, “but…the power outage…”
“Yes, yes,” Jorgenson said dismissively. “Send the boy in.”
His secretary was astonished. “How did you know?”
“For the same reason I am in this office and you are outside of it, answering my calls,” he told her.
She turned and left, and a moment later Nick entered.
He looked beaten. That was Jorgenson’s first impression, and his first impressions were usually correct. He had an air of absolute defeat about him that made Jorgenson want to gloat, but he suppressed the urge. He’d have plenty of time for that later. Instead he continued to eat his sushi, which suddenly tasted a whole lot better. It tasted almost as fine as victory.