Brainboy and the Deathmaster (10 page)

The new boy jumped to his feet, his napkin drifting to the floor.

“You’ve probably seen him around, but for those of you who haven’t met him yet, this is Darryl Kirby, your newest colleague.”

“Hi, Darryl,” came a chorus from around the table.

“Hi,” Darryl said.

“Darryl, this is Ruthie Katz,” Mr. Masterly said, and then he went around the table, naming everyone. “And last but not least,” he concluded, “Nina Rizniak. Nina’s only a few months older than you.”

Darryl gave her such a strange look that Nina wiped her lips with her napkin, thinking maybe they had blue-berry on them.

“Darryl’s going to be an invaluable addition to the team,” Mr. Masterly went on. “I have high hopes for a breakthrough on the G-17 project in the next few weeks. Tell them what you know about G-17, Darryl.”

“G-17 is a complex polymer that modifies the human DNA chain so that certain cells don’t degenerate and other cells that don’t normally replicate will.”

“And what is the problem we’re having with it?”

“It’s not a totally stable compound. Its structure is kind of fragile, so it breaks down when exposed to certain amino acids in the DNA. Then it stops working.”

“Thank you, Darryl. I’ve got some business to attend to now, but I’ll be joining you later down on L.”

“See you, sir,” came a chorus from the table as Mr. Masterly left by the door to the hall.

“Sounds like you enjoyed the mall,” Nina murmured as Darryl sat back down.

“The mall?”

“Orientation. I call it that because, you know, it’s all about molecules. Get it? Mall, molecules.”

But Darryl didn’t laugh, not seeming to get the joke.

A
s soon as BJ got home from the shelter, he grabbed the phone and phone book and led a parade of cats down to the basement. He looked up a number in the business pages and dialed it.

“Good afternoon, Bellevue Imports,” a woman said.

“Could I have the sales department, please?” BJ said, trying to sound grown-up.

He must have succeeded, for the woman said, “Certainly, sir.”

A syrupy-voiced man came on the line. “Good morning. Jerry McPherson here, what can I do for you?”

“I’m calling about the Mercedes we bought from you recently,” BJ said, plunking down on the bottom bunk. “We’ve only put two hundred miles on it and there’s already a rattle.”

“A rattle? That’s unusual—highly unusual. What’s your name?”

“Grimsley”

“Grimsley, Grimsley … with a G?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see any Grimsley. Are you sure you bought it here?”

It had definitely said Bellevue Imports on the license-plate frames of the sleek new Mercedes Boris had just shown him in the shelter’s garage. Maybe it hadn’t been bought in Ms. Grimsley’s name.

“This is North Seattle Imports, isn’t it?” BJ said.

“This is Bellevue Imports.”

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry.”

After hanging up, he lay down on the bunk and thought so hard, he barely felt it when Booker T and Aristotle jumped up and started kneading his T-shirt. After about five minutes he jerked back into a sitting position and hit the redial button.

“Good afternoon, Bellevue Imports,” said the same woman’s voice.

“Hello, this is Sergeant Walker from the Seattle Police Department,” BJ said, making his voice extra deep. “We stopped a speeder this morning and it turned out he had no registration for the car he was driving. We suspect it’s stolen, but nobody’s reported it missing yet. It’s a brand-new Mercedes from Bellevue Imports. Forest-green sedan, tan upholstery, S-GPS 600. We were hoping to get the owner’s name from you.”

“Let me see, forest-green S-GPS 600. According to our records, the only forest-green sedan we’ve sold
recently was … good grief, I wonder if this can be right.”

“You have the buyer’s name?”

“Well, it
says
Keith Masterly. Do you suppose it’s
the
Keith Masterly? But didn’t he report the missing car to you? It
is
an S-GPS Special.”

BJ grunted as if he knew what this meant, thanked her, and hung up, wondering why in the world Keith Masterly would buy Ms. Grimsley a car. She worked at a Masterly Children’s Shelter, true—but a new Mercedes 600?

The two whizzes.
GameMasters, MondoGameMasters, Masterly Children’s Shelters. And now Keith Masterly himself!

BJ popped up, sending Booker T sprawling. Among the articles pasted up over his table was one including a picture of Keith Masterly with his son, Keith Jr. According to the caption, Keith Jr. was sixteen, but the article was two years old. He would now be eighteen—on the verge of leaving home, most likely. Could it be that Keith Masterly liked having a son around and had adopted Darryl? Maybe he’d heard how good Darryl was at GameMaster through the person in Darryl’s family who’d worked for MasterTech. If Darryl was living in that fabulous place across the lake, who could blame him for not calling!

“I’ve got to find out, Confucius,” BJ said to the runty cat rubbing the side of his head against his ankle.

A
fter breakfast Darryl followed the rest of the team down to L, his first visit there since Mr. Masterly’s guided tour. During his month of orientation he’d made a daily trip to E to get some exercise with Abs, but the rest of his time had been spent in room eight with Mr. Masterly—or, more accurately, with Mr. Masterly’s voice and image.

Every morning had begun the same way, the rosy glow brightening as Mr. Masterly’s voice filled the room:

“Rise and shine, friend and colleague. It’s a new day—the day you may well make the discovery that will change human history. Of course brilliant minds have been trying to outfox Time for years. So why should I think you can succeed where older and more experienced minds have failed? For that very reason: You’re
not
old and experienced. Your mind is still young and supple, unset in its ways. Experience can be a hindrance as well as a help. It can narrow your scope, blind you to possibilities. I believe it will be a truly open mind, a young and fertile and vigorous mind, that will make the
great connection, take the great leap. Imagine, living without the sword of Time hanging over your head! And imagine being more famous, more acclaimed, more celebrated than Thomas Edison and Isaac Newton and Christopher Columbus rolled into one! That will be your fate if you solve the mystery. And I truly believe
you
can be the one to do it.”

By the time Darryl washed his face and brushed his teeth and decided which color jumpsuit he felt like wearing, Hedderly would have rolled in breakfast on a cart. It was always scrumptious. Once Darryl cleaned his plate, Mr. Masterly’s face would appear on the wide screen.

“Sleep well?” he would say with a smile.

“Like a rock,” Darryl would reply, not thinking it the least bit silly to talk to a screen.

“Enjoy your breakfast?”

“It was great!”

“Take your vitamin?”

“Yes!”

Then Mr. Masterly would say, “Ready to dip into the periodic table?” or “Ready to learn more biochemistry?” or “Ready to move on to theories of gene therapy?” Whereupon Darryl would say, “Sure!” and sit there like a human sponge, absorbing every word, every concept, every equation.

The final few sessions had been about G-17, and now that he was down on L with the others, he was eager to see the interesting molecule for himself. He asked Ruthie if he could look at it under a microscope.

“
Snoodles!
” she cried.

Ruthie had a shrill, penetrating voice, and Snoodles quickly came shuffling out of his quarters.

“S-s-sorry!” he cried. “S-s-snoozing again!”

“Prepare a slide of G-17 and set up the electron microscope for Darryl.”

“Right away, miss!”

Darryl followed the stooped, stuttering man into the rear of Chem and watched him attach a hose to the nozzle of a gray tank and start filling the mixing tank. When the big sunken bathtub was about a third full of a grayish liquid, Snoodles turned the valve and hooked the hose up to an orange tank and started adding an orange liquid to the gray. Soon the vat was two thirds full of a liquid the color of root beer. Then he unscrewed the lids of three brown-glass jars and, using a long-handled measuring spoon, dumped eight cups of a white powder and six cups of canary-yellow granules into the vat. With tongs he pulled a crystal out of the third jar and tossed it in with the rest. Next, he switched the hose to another tank and injected some gaseous bubbles; then he flipped a wall switch and a
gigantic version of the mixing blade on Darryl’s grandmother’s mixer descended from the ceiling and whipped the contents of the vat into a froth. When the mixing was done and the froth settled, the liquid in the tank was as green as a frog’s back—except for one tiny blue freckle that kept popping around the surface like a drop of grease in a scalding saucepan. Snoodles leaned over the tub with an eyedropper, and when the tiny blue freckle scooted over near him, he sucked it up. He then flipped a switch on the side of the vat, and the vat turned into an oversized version of an airplane toilet, the bottom dropping out like a trapdoor and cleanser swirling around the sides, flushing out all the green liquid. Once the vat was empty, the bottom flipped back into place.

Snoodles shuffled over to the counter and squeezed the tiny blue freckle of liquid out of the eyedropper onto a slide, over which he placed an ultra-thin strip of glass. Carrying the slide before him like a candle, he shuffled from Chem to Bio and slipped it in place in an electron microscope.

“There you go, young s-s-sir.”

In spite of all the work that had gone into producing the slide, Darryl climbed onto the tall stool and peered into the microscope without bothering to thank the elderly man. At first all he could see were his own
eyelashes magnified. But when he adjusted the focus knob, he caught his breath. There it was, in all its glory—G-17! He’d memorized its molecular structure in orientation, but this was the thing itself, the actual constellation of atoms.

He could have marveled at its complexities all day, but after a while he heard Mr. Masterly’s voice and jumped off his stool and dashed out into the octagon. It was deserted: everyone was crowded into Chem.

“Ah, Darryl, thank you for joining us,” said Mr. Masterly, who was standing at a stainless-steel counter, his right hand resting on a small chest. It hadn’t been there when Snoodles was preparing the slide. “I was just saying how even though I’m well past my mental prime—”

“No, you’re not!” a chorus of young voices protested.

Mr. Masterly smiled. “It’s sad but true. Nevertheless, I did have an idea of sorts the other day. We’re looking to find a durable structure for G-17, one that doesn’t disintegrate over time. So why shouldn’t we study the most durable thing to occur naturally on earth?”

“Iron?” Ruthie piped up.

“Even more durable than iron.”

“Titanium?” said Suki.

“Good guess. But … ”

Mr. Masterly opened the lid of the chest, and everyone gasped.

“Diamonds!” they said in hushed unison.

Mr. Masterly dug out a handful of the glittering gems and let them sift back into the chest as if they were grains of wheat. “Highest quality. Feel free to play around with them. Who knows, something in their molecular structure may give us a hint.’’ With that Mr. Masterly went out into the octagon, and they all followed as if he was the Pied Piper. “Sadly, I have to head back to town. But before I go, I want to congratulate Mario for coming up with an original and ingenious approach to G-17. Mario had the idea of freezing the molecule at minus one hundred degrees Celsius before injecting it into the DNA. Unfortunately, once the G-17 thawed out, it broke down again. But it worked for a little while—and it’s the kind of innovative thinking I like. Before I came down here, I put a Mario trophy in the case.”

Everybody applauded and clapped Mario on the back.

“Ah,” Mr. Masterly said. “I see we have a player.”

The red globe mounted on the pole atop the computer console had started flashing like the cherry on a police car.

“I’ll take it,” said Greg Birtwissel, manning one of the computers.

The flashing red light gave Darryl a weird, hollow
feeling in his gut—but only for a moment. “What’s it mean?” he asked.

“Someone made it through the maze,” Mr. Masterly said.

The maze, Darryl thought, hazily remembering the MondoGameMaster in the shelter.

“What’s their poison, Greg?” Mr. Masterly asked.

“MasterTrek,” Greg said.

They all gathered around and watched as Greg typed in “Want to play?” A
Yes
soon appeared on the screen. Greg identified himself as FastFingers. The player identified herself as Rosalie_W But Rosalie_W was no match for FastFingers. Greg was soon levels ahead.

“Pity,” Mr. Masterly said. “But of course people as bright as you come along only once in a blue moon.”

“Can anyone play?” Darryl asked.

“Sure.”

“What happens if they beat us?”

“Ask Nina.”

“You beat me at StarMaster,” Nina said. “Two out of three.”

“That was you?” Darryl said. “What did you call yourself?”

“NABATW,” Nina said.

“What is that?”

“My handle. And you’re MDK, right?”

Darryl nodded.

“If somebody gives you a real run for your money, hit control D,” Mr. Masterly said. “Simple as that.”

“I’ve been here for ages and I’ve never got to do it,” Ruthie said with a sniff. “They’re always so dumb and slow.”

“Most are, sadly, but now and then we get an exception,” Mr. Masterly said, bringing a glow to Darryl’s face by patting him on the shoulder. “I’m afraid I’m off—much as I’d prefer to stay here and work on G-17 with you. Tell me. What’s the worst thing we can do?”

“Waste time!” everyone said.

“Exactly.”

As soon as Mr. Masterly left, Darryl dashed back into Bio to continue his scrutiny of G-17. He’d learned in orientation that the mysteries of life are locked up in DNA, the genetic building block, and that DNA is made up of various combinations of twenty-one different amino acids. For a year or two the work at Paradise Lab had been devoted to attempts to modify these amino acids, but their molecules had proven too complex to work with. G-17 wasn’t quite so complex, but it was complex enough.