The Secret of Sigma Seven (9 page)

“What's it supposed to be?” Joe asked. “A radioactive rooster?”

“I don't know,” Chet said with a shrug of his feathered shoulders. “But it sure looks neat, doesn't it?”

“If you say so, Chet,” Frank said. He was having trouble keeping a straight face.

Suddenly Chet plunged forward, and Frank and Joe managed to catch him just before he struck the floor.

“Whoa!” Chet cried. “I'm still having a little trouble with these stilts. Can't keep my balance.”

“Are you really sure wearing this costume is a good idea?” Joe asked.

“Definitely,” Chet said, nodding. “The masquerade contest is at eight o'clock tonight. I'm sure to win in this outfit. You guys are coming, aren't you?”

Joe thought about it for a minute. “That's right after the panel this evening. I guess we can drop by.”

“Everybody's going to love this costume,” Chet said, “though it's pretty hot inside this one, too. In
fact, all this heat is making me hungry. You guys want to go for an early dinner?”

“Somehow I suspected you wouldn't forget dinner,” Frank said. “You're not going in that costume, though, are you?”

“I guess I can take off the stilts,” Chet said. “But it took me so long to get into this thing, I don't want to take it off so soon before the contest.”

Chet slipped the stilts out from inside the costume and slung them over his shoulder. He then took one step forward and plunged to the floor.

“Having a little trouble walking, Chet?” Joe asked, offering his friend a hand.

“I just tripped over my feathers,” Chet said.

“Maybe Joe could grab your feet and I could grab your shoulders,” Frank suggested, “and we'll haul you to dinner.”

• • •

Just before seven o'clock the Hardys and Chet met Brian at the door of the conference room where the panel was taking place.

“From what you guys tell me about Feinbetter and Devoreaux,” Brian said, “this should be quite a panel.”

“It'll be interesting seeing those two together, that's for sure,” Joe agreed.

The four teenagers entered the room. Frank looked around and saw that it was about two-thirds full. A long table with five chairs behind it had been set up at the front of the room. In front of each chair
was a microphone and a place card with a name on it. Frank, Joe, and Brian sat in the sixth row, along with Chet, who was still dressed in his giant bird costume.

At seven o'clock sharp Feinbetter and Hennessy entered the room and took seats behind the table. Frank watched as they were joined a moment later by a man and a woman. Frank didn't recognize them, but Brian seemed to be familiar with them.

The four panelists sat behind the table for a few moments as the clock ticked past seven. In one corner of the audience Frank saw Linda Klein look nervously at her watch, then glance at the door.

“I wonder if Devoreaux is going to show up,” Joe said. “Maybe he found out about that stolen master negative and blew his stack.”

“Linda Klein looks really nervous,” Frank said. “I would be, too, if I were in her shoes.”

“Jack Gillis is here,” said Joe, pointing toward the front row. “That's a good sign. He probably wouldn't bother to attend this if Devoreaux wasn't going to show.”

At that moment the door of the room burst open and Devoreaux walked in. Frank recognized the director's bodyguards and the rest of his entourage following directly behind him. As Devoreaux took a seat behind the table next to Arlen Hennessy, the bodyguards sat in the front row of seats directly opposite him. Frank saw Feinbetter lean forward and glare at the director, but Devoreaux completely ignored the writer.

“Hey, Uncle Pete's here,” Brian said, nodding toward the door. “I wondered if he was going to show up.”

Frank followed Brian's gaze. Pete Amchick was standing just inside the door. “Think he's still looking for a chance to talk with Simon Devoreaux?” Frank asked Joe.

“Good question,” Joe said. “I wonder what that's about, anyway? Devoreaux's bodyguards would probably turn him into hamburger meat if he tried to get anywhere near the great man.”

Arlen Hennessy, seated in the center of the table, began to speak. “I've been asked by Linda Klein to be the moderator of this panel,” he said. “The subject tonight is galactic empires. The writers— and director—at this table have been chosen for their expertise on that subject. I don't write books about galactic empires, so I'll let the others do the talking. For a change.”

There was an appreciative chuckle from the audience. Hennessy smiled in return and said, “We'll start with the man who has turned galactic empires into a multimillion-dollar industry. I'm sure that the director of the Galactic Saga movies needs no introduction to the fans in this room. Mr. Devoreaux, would you like to say a few words about what inspired you to create a series of movies about a perpetually warring galactic empire?”

“Uh-oh,” Joe whispered. “You don't suppose Hennessy is deliberately bringing up a subject that
will get Feinbetter and Devoreaux at each other's throats do you?”

“I bet that's exactly what he's doing,” Frank said. “We came here to watch some fireworks, and we're about to get them.”

Devoreaux cleared his throat and leaned forward, his deeply tanned face contrasting sharply with the pale white walls of the room. “This is a story I've told many times,” he said into his microphone. To Frank, the director's tone of voice sounded more than a little arrogant. “But I suppose there's no harm in telling it again. I was inspired to create the Galactic Saga after a particularly vivid dream I had one night, in which godlike powers were warring for control of the very stars themselves.”

“You didn't happen to have that dream after reading one of my books, did you?” Richard Feinbetter muttered.

“Excuse me, Mr. Feinbetter?” Devoreaux said, turning slowly toward the writer, who was seated on the other side of Hennessy. “Did you wish to make a comment?”

“I don't think any comments are necessary,” Feinbetter replied, looking Devoreaux in the eye. “You're such an obvious fraud, after all.”

Devoreaux's gaze remained steady. “I see you're still making your old accusations, Mr. Feinbetter,” he said. “I don't suppose you'd like to come right out and state your grievances?”

“I've stated them plenty of times before,”
Feinbetter snapped angrily. “I think you've plagiarized my novels, and you keep plagiarizing them every time you make a new Galactic Saga movie.”

“You realize that statement verges on libel, don't you?” Devoreaux accused.

“I don't care. It's the truth, and the truth can never be libelous,” Feinbetter said. “You're a thief and a liar, and there's no question in my mind about it.”

Devoreaux's face turned purple with rage. “Listen, Feinbetter,” he said, rising from his chair. “I've put up with your ridiculous accusations for the better part of a decade now, and I've had just about enough—”

As Frank watched in surprise, Simon Devoreaux suddenly lunged toward Richard Feinbetter. Arlen Hennessy stood up to block the sudden attack, but Devoreaux reached around him and grabbed Feinbetter's jacket.

At that moment the room filled with the sound of rolling thunder, which Frank realized was booming out of loudspeakers mounted on the ceiling overhead. Devoreaux froze in place as a deep voice rose above the thunder and began rumbling in sinister tones, “Simon Devoreaux, prepare to meet your maker!”

A crackling bolt of lightning appeared out of nowhere. It shot down from the ceiling, making a noise so loud that Frank instinctively covered his
ears. The bolt zipped right past Simon Devoreaux, singeing the hairs on his neck, and struck the chair where he had been sitting just a second before.

As Frank watched, startled, Devoreaux's chair burst into flames!

Frank and Joe leaped to their feet. The conference room was in an uproar. Frank saw the panelists throw their chairs aside and race for the aisle that ran down the center of the room, while the audience members vaulted out of their seats and looked around to see if any lightning bolts were likely to come flying in their direction. Frank heard a fire alarm go off as the smoke from Devoreaux's burning chair rose toward the ceiling. Suddenly a burst of water came spraying out of the sprinkler system on the ceiling, most of it raining down on the front of the room.

A number of people in the audience began to file noisily out of the room. Frank saw that Simon Devoreaux was still standing behind the table. The director was staring down at the burning chair
in which he had been sitting in only seconds before. Frank could see flames shooting upward from the scorched chair, but they were being quickly doused by the sprinklers. Water ran down Devoreaux's ashen face and onto his suit jacket.

Devoreaux's stunned bodyguards finally leaped into action. They rushed over to their employer and tried to shield him with their bodies, but there was nothing left to protect him from except the streams of water from the sprinkler. No more lightning came bolting out of the blue.

“Where did that bolt of lightning come from?” Joe asked, looking toward the table.

Frank pointed at the ceiling. “Look up there.”

Joe looked upward. In the center of the ceiling, partially hidden by a large chandelier, a small black box hung down. Thin black wires trailed off it. The other ends of the wires were connected to the electrical system at the base of the chandelier. Streams of smoke trailed away from the box and dissipated into the air.

“What is it?” Joe asked.

“Must be some sort of electrical device,” Frank said. “And look over there.”

He pointed at the floor near the panelists' table. Barely visible under the scorched remains of Simon Devoreaux's chair was a second black box.

“That must have been there all along,” Frank said, “but we didn't notice it. The lightning leaped from one box to the other, using the building's electrical
system as a power source. Those boxes have probably been building up an electrical charge for hours. Somebody pressed a button or something and released it.”

“Who do you suppose rigged up a device like that?” Joe asked. “He'd have to be a real electronics whiz.”

Frank's eye fell on a small table toward the back of the room. Several electronic gadgets, left over from Pete Amchick's earlier demonstration, were still sitting there. Amchick himself was sitting in the corner of the room, a calm expression on his face.

“I hate to say it, but . . .” Frank began.

Joe followed Frank's gaze. “You're not going to suggest that Pete Amchick was responsible for this, are you? Why would he want to kill Simon Devoreaux? Or Jack Gillis? For that matter, why would he want to steal the film?”

“Why did he want to talk to Devoreaux?” Frank asked. “Brian's uncle has been acting awfully mysterious, and he's an electronics wizard. Remember that Brian said he keeps a robot around his apartment? Maybe we should have been watching him a little more closely.”

Frank glanced at Brian, but the young man didn't seem to notice that Joe and Frank were talking about his uncle. Brian and Chet were busy discussing the strange events of the last few moments.

Just then two security guards rushed into the room. One was carrying a fire extinguisher, which he
sprayed at the pile of debris next to Simon Devoreaux, even though it was no longer on fire. The other guard turned to the people who remained and told them that the fire department would be arriving in a few minutes and that they should exit the room in an orderly fashion.

“We'd better get out of here,” Joe said.

“Maybe we can talk to Devoreaux out in the hall,” Frank suggested.

“I doubt it,” Joe said, nodding toward the front of the room, where the bodyguards were ushering the director down the center aisle. “Those two guys aren't letting anybody near him. But maybe we can talk to Pete Amchick, if he's willing to talk to us. He seemed like a pretty closemouthed fellow.”

Frank grabbed Chet's shoulder and found himself with a handful of feathers. “Come on, you guys,” he said, shaking off the feathers. “Let's go.”

“Uh, Brian,” Joe said as they headed for the door, “do you think your uncle Pete would mind talking to us?”

“I don't see why not,” Brian said. “What about?”

Joe briefly considered telling Brian the truth, then decided there was no reason to upset him as long as they had no concrete evidence against his uncle. “Oh, just about those computer graphics he showed us this afternoon,” he said. “We thought they were really great.”

“And I want to ask his opinion about that lightning device that almost zapped Simon Devoreaux back
there,” Frank said. “Maybe he knows a few things about how that might work.”

“I bet he does,” Brian said. “Uncle Pete's a real electrical genius.”

Joe saw Brian's uncle following Simon Devoreaux and his bodyguards out the door, but once again Amchick was unable to get anywhere near the director. Brian hurried after his uncle and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Uncle Pete?” he asked. “Got a minute? My friends here want to talk to you.”

“No time,” Pete muttered. “I've got to catch up with Simon Devoreaux. I've been trying to talk to him all day.” As Devoreaux and his entourage disappeared down the hallway, Pete Amchick hurried after him.

“That guy never gives up,” Frank said. “I wish I could figure out what he wants to talk to Devoreaux about.”

“Me, too,” Brian said. “I have to admit, he's acting even weirder than usual.”

By the time they reached the lobby, somebody had posted notices announcing that the costume party would be held at eight o'clock in a different conference room, because of the fire.