The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3 (41 page)

“But we don’t know about any armed soldiers,” Malcolm said.

“Malcolm, I just came from the future,” Derick said. “Trust me.” The falcon that was in the basement cocked its head. It was controlled by Derick of the past. He was obviously trying to comprehend what was going on. “And, Derick?” Derick added. “I mean, Derick in the past that is still in the falcon? Go help. I really wanted to last time and didn’t get the chance.”

“I’m not sure my mama is going to believe this,” Malcolm said.

Abby had joined the sync as well. “Let’s just hope this works,” she said. “And then you’ll get to talk to your mama about everything.” She cleared her throat. “Jess, we need your robots in the basement, but you have to be quick.” She turned to herself from the past and Carol. “Do you think you two could run to the lab and help her control them?”

“Yeah,” Abby from the past said. “I guess I should trust myself.” She put her hair in a temporary ponytail and ran with Carol out of the room.

“Watch out for the security bots!” Derick yelled behind them.

“Okay,” Jess said. “We’re on it.”

Abby began to explain over the sync. “The guard with the blond beard is either traveling or about to travel to Muns’s estate to give him the keys and the spheres. We can transfer the robots through the Bridge and bring them back as well, but the rest is up to you.” She filled in more of the details of the plan.

“And, Anjum,” Derick said, “we need you down in the basement as well. We need you to put together the best virtual world you’ve ever made.”

“Is there a virtuality machine down there to make one?” Anjum asked.

“Sort of,” Derick said.

“But you said Muns is going to win in the next fifteen minutes,” Anjum said. “I can’t make it that fast.”

“Oh,” Derick said, “once my grandfather gets down here, I’ve got a way that you can have all the time in the world.”

Returning the Favor

Good work,” the man with the blond beard said, and shook a lady’s hand. As she exited the plane, he put one more key with the others he had recently collected inside a steel briefcase. The lady had stolen the key from Mr. Silverton, the oaf he had framed for his own theft of chemicals from the lab. Over the last few minutes Muns’s loyals had brought him the keys they had taken from those who had been evacuated from Cragbridge Hall.

“Put it up in the air, but hover for a few moments,” the man with the blond beard said to the pilot. “I want to see the explosion.” He had worked too hard for this not to see it finished. He was capable of amazing strategy and accomplishment. Muns had seen it. He had seen it years ago when the officer was only a student coming out of Cragbridge Hall. The school had claimed he would go on to do great things, but he hadn’t. None of his opportunities had panned out, none of his interviews had brought the job he’d so desperately wanted. Especially not Ruminex. They had called him back several times, but at the last minute had denied him. His dream of developing complex programs for experimental machines had slipped right out of his reach. And Muns had been there every step of the way to console him and tell him that he deserved better. Once this was all over, Muns would change the past. He would have the opportunities he should have had. He would get the life that should have been his.

The fastest private jet in the world fired up and lifted several feet off the top of a hotel near Cragbridge Hall, ready to rocket forward whenever the security officer gave the word. It would travel the four hundred and sixty-three miles to Muns’s mansion in just under twelve minutes.

The officer checked the time. The tranquilizer bombs should have gone off by now.

He looked at the keys one more time, then locked the suitcase. All the dials were set to his prints. Unless someone melted the case or cut through it with some pretty heavy-duty equipment, the only one that could open it was him.

The plane hovered for another several minutes while he waited for the giant chemical cloud that would leave anyone in Cragbridge Hall unconscious for weeks. Perhaps he hadn’t timed them right. No. He was sure he had. Why hadn’t they gone off?

Vvvvvvvch.

What was that? He stood. Had he heard something, or was it some part of the plane just doing what it was supposed to do?

Vvvvvch. Vvvvvch.

It was definitely something. It almost sounded like someone was doing maintenance work on the plane. He followed the sound.

Vvvvvch. Vvvvvch.

It led him farther into the plane. The ceiling of the bathroom. He tilted his head and listened well. It sounded like drilling. The sound moved. He moved with it. At first it went farther into the bathroom, and then it came back the other way. He stepped back into the main cabin to see that a door to the plane was open. The wind was blowing into the hovering plane.

Something moved across the floor.

A robot car. It had the suitcase with the keys inside it gripped in its robotic arms.

“
No!
” he shouted, diving for the car.

The robot car shot away easily. It drove out of the open door.

The man scrambled to the open hatch. Both the case and the robot car fell for several stories and then simply disappeared.

Then Derick Cragbridge stepped into the plane out of thin air, holding a stun gun. “This is for Carol,” he said, and pulled the trigger, stunning the guard. His world started to go black. “If you ever try to explode tranquilizer bombs on innocent people again,” Derick said, “you can fully expect someone to appear out of nowhere and shoot your evil backside.” Derick shot again and stepped backward, mysteriously disappearing.

• • •

Charles Muns stood at the Bridge he had stolen months ago. He was ready to use its power, its endless possibilities. He was flanked by armed guards.

Any minute now his inside man would arrive in his private plane and deliver his keys and his spheres. Muns had worked for years to prepare him. When he’d discovered Oscar Cragbridge’s secret, he had known he would need someone like the boy to infiltrate Cragbridge Hall. Muns had told the boy of his talent, told him he could have a great future. He had lied and told the boy that he had no opening in his own companies, but that he would help him get interviews with other successful businesses. He had blackmailed or threatened the companies to keep them from hiring him. He had needed the boy wanting. He had suggested applying for a security job at Cragbridge Hall to build his experience for a few years. Muns had needed him there. And he’d needed him to be desperate for more.

As soon as the young man arrived today, Muns would send in his army. They were at the ready. He couldn’t allow others to have access to the only other Bridge in existence. He would be in control. He could change it all. The man who had, years ago, conned Charles Muns out of much of his college savings would be destitute for his entire life. The woman who had fired him when he didn’t call in late for work, because he was weeping on his mother’s grave on the anniversary of her death, would lose every job she ever got. All those who had mocked him as a child would feel the sting of harsh words about them being broadcast to the whole world. Those who had refused to adopt him would lose their own children. And his father would drink alone. Always alone. He would drive alone. Muns would never let his father near his mother after Charles was born. And he would never let his mother ride in the car with him. Never. Especially when his father was drinking. And she would never trust him. He wouldn’t be around. The greatest tragedy would never happen. Everything would be different. Finally.

But first, the Cragbridges would need to be out of the way. He would use Oscar’s own invention to travel to the recent past and then kill them. It would simply catch up to them. He would take Oscar first, then the parents. He would leave Abby and Derick utterly alone and terrified for a few moments before he took them too. They had to feel it. They had been too much trouble to die easily.

He pressed his fingers against the console of the Bridge, thinking through his plans again, waiting for the keys.

A person appeared out of nowhere.

Two people.

Flashes from guns.

Muns’s guards fell.

It all happened in under a second.

But in that time Muns recognized the two people, the two kids who had invaded his estate: Abby and Derick Cragbridge.

“You imbecilic cretins!” Muns screamed, his insides boiling with hatred. He reached out for the twins. He would give up all his plans to strangle them now.

Abby fired.

As Muns’s world went dark, he heard more guards rushing down the hall toward him.

A few minutes later, Muns awoke, slightly disoriented, and looked around. He was in his own study.

“Are you okay?” one large guard asked him.

“Mostly,” he spat. “Why did it take you so long?”

“We came as fast as we could,” another guard explained.

“We’re sorry they stunned you,” the first guard said, “but we got them.” The guard pointed toward the floor.

Muns looked down. There on the ground were the bodies of Abby and Derick Cragbridge, completely still. The two pests. The two surprises that had done so much to ruin his plans.

“They won’t wake up for several minutes,” the guard said.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I believe you want something I have,” a man with a blond beard said. He smiled and opened a locked steel case. Inside it was a collection of keys and spheres. “This cost me more trouble than I thought it would.”

Muns let out a breathy growl. He wanted this so badly. He grabbed the keys and the spheres, feeling them between his fingers. They were control, power.

Muns activated a sync with his rings. “Send in the army,” he commanded. “I want that Bridge destroyed. And don’t let anyone stop you.”

Now was his time. All of time was his.

Muns looked at the guards. “I want several soldiers in this room in one minute!” One quickly began to communicate on his rings. “First we get rid of the Cragbridge family, then we send soldiers directly into the basement of Cragbridge Hall. They won’t be able to stop us.”

Muns looked again at the motionless bodies of Abby and Derick. He grabbed a guard’s gun and stunned both children several more times. Then he changed his mind. He didn’t want to kill them quickly. He would devise something special for them. Perhaps the
Titanic
—or the
Hindenburg
again. Perhaps he would put them in a concentration camp and let Hitler’s men torture them. Perhaps he would simply drop them in the desert and let the life gradually choke out of them.

He would decide later.

He watched in sheer delight as his plan unfolded. In a matter of minutes, Oscar Cragbridge and his son and daughter-in-law had been taken care of. The soldiers crossing the grounds of Cragbridge Hall had to fight off avatars and robots, but eventually made their way to the basement. When they got there, the soldiers Muns had sent in through his Bridge had already done their job. They had met some resistance, but eventually destroyed the Bridge and those who were trying to use it.

Finally.

And now he got to decide what he would do with Abby and Derick. And what he would do with all of time.

The End of the Year

Grandpa laughed. He laughed a hearty, full-belly, can’t-stop laugh. “Abby and Derick, though I always admired your heart and your determination, I think you may be complete geniuses.”

A large group stood outside of a virtual booth: It was Grandpa, Coach Horne, Coach Adonavich, Mr. Trinhouse, Abby’s mother, Abby, Derick, Carol, and the rest of the Spartans. And Abby’s and Derick’s father had just joined them.

“Sorry, I’m a little late,” Abby’s father said. “Apparently I slept through most of the action. Why are we all looking at a virtual booth?”

“Because,” Grandpa said, “we have a most distinguished guest inside.” He pointed at the booth with his cane.

“Who?” Abby’s father asked.

“Charles Muns,” Grandpa chuckled.

Abby’s father’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t understand.”

“He doesn’t either,” Grandpa said, still giggling. “You see, your daughter and your son used the Bridge to sneak into Muns’s home and stun him. Then they brought him here, where a bright student with quite a talent for making virtual worlds had prepared everything. When Muns woke up, he thought he had won. In his own virtual world, he is still going forward with his plan. That kept him from sending in more of his men, or trying anything else desperate. And we will let him stay in the booth until the authorities arrive.” Grandpa tossed his cane in the air and caught it. “Then he’ll have to answer a lot of questions, about why someone he hired stole dangerous bombs and why he hired an army to try to attack my school.”