Cragbridge Hall, Volume 2: The Avatar Battle (31 page)

Abby looked at Carol, who had the keys in her hand. “Run, Carol!” Abby called out. It was a long shot. If Abby could slow Mackleprank down, if Carol could use one key to open the door and get out of there, there might be a chance. Abby leapt at Mackleprank’s feet, hoping to trip him up, hoping to latch on and not let go until her friend had escaped.

Carol took off with the keys.

• • •

“I can only imagine,” Rafa said, lowering his visor again, “that whoever has kidnapped my mom had to be prepared to fight avatars in order to do it. They probably have enough of a team and weapons to take on a small army. If I can gain access, we might be up for a fight trying to rescue her.”

Derick gulped. He had a thought he didn’t want to say. “What if, um, I mean, do you think there’s a chance that they . . .” he couldn’t finish his sentence.

“Killed my mother?” Rafa finished.

“Yes,” Derick said.

Rafa shook his head. “She is too valuable. She knows how to make the avatars.”

Rafa moved his fingers over and over again. Then he scrolled and selected something. “Come on,” he whispered. “She would always leave me access. That was our deal.” His fingers moved some more and Derick watched in suspense. They were trying to log onto avatars on the other side of the world. The whole idea was fantastic. Derick could move his arm here and something else, thousands of miles away, would move. It almost seemed like magic.

“I—I think I’m almost there,” Rafa said. “
Por favor,
” he pleaded. “
Por favor.
” Then after a celebratory fist punch in the air, Derick knew Rafa had access. “I’m in,” he said. “And there are several avatars on the registry.” He paused, obviously looking them over. “The problem is,” he continued, “that my mom gave them names, but not an animal description. She always did that last. So we can get in, but we won’t know what kind of avatar we’re stepping into.”

Great. Derick was probably about to go against a team of guys with weapons and he had no idea what kind of avatar he was about to enter. It could be anything from a rhino to a monkey. In fact, it could be a fish or a bird, neither of which Derick knew how to work.

“We also don’t know where the avatars are kept,” Rafa explained. “Well, we don’t really know the layout at all. But they are likely locked up. Hopefully I’ll be able to override the codes to get our avatars out. I’ll check into it.”

Derick waited for what felt like forever. Derick wondered what avatar he might get, how many enemies they might face, and how they were ever going to save Rafa’s mom. He wondered what was happening with his parents, grandpa, and sister in the basement. He even wondered if Carol was okay.

“
Muito bem,
” Rafa said. “You ready to come with me?”

How could he possibly be ready? He had no idea what situation and which form he was about to enter. But of course Derick said yes anyway and lowered his visor. He was ready to log in.

“Do you see the registry?” Rafa asked.

“Yeah.”

“Just pick something and let’s go.” Rafa breathed several times fast then selected something with his finger. A moment later, he swiveled his head from side to side. He must have been checking out the situation.

“Okay, I’m in. It’s pretty dark, no one around.”

Derick selected the avatar named
Jorginho
, hoping for a lion or something fierce. He felt the usual wave of nausea, and then he looked through different eyes. He blinked several times and looked down at his body. He needed to know what he was and if he would have any chance against armed soldiers.

• • •

Abby stared at Dr. Mackleprank approaching the console of the Bridge. It had only taken him moments to throttle her to the ground and overtake Carol. Now Abby was tied up on the floor. Mackleprank had used Abby’s father’s belt to harness her. After he made Carol put the keys back and twist them again, Carol joined her.

Mackleprank stepped across the middle of the room into the Sahara Desert hundreds of years ago. Several of the soldiers gasped and even shouted, triggering their guns. Abby couldn’t blame them. It must very strange to suddenly see someone step into your reality out of nowhere. After a gesture from Mackleprank indicating where they could enter, the men crossed from the desert in the past and flooded into the basement of Cragbridge Hall. Muns had an army right where he wanted them.

“I need two of you to stay here,” Mackleprank commanded, selecting two of the soldiers. “The rest of you have several more soldiers to rescue in cells in the basement. I have sent you the coordinates. Use whatever means necessary to free them. Arm them and give them more instructions. I’ve also sent you information about teachers I suspect have keys for you to capture and bring back. I believe most of them keep them on their person. I’ve sent you each files showing you who they are and where their quarters are.”

No! He knew about members of the other council. With an ability to use various avatars to spy, there was no telling how many he had discovered.

“Bring the teachers back here as soon as you can,” Mackleprank said.

“But we had a different rendezvous point,” one of the soldiers objected.

“Yes, we did,” Mackleprank said. “But I have discovered something. We will no longer have to fight our way out of here. I will explain later.”

What had he discovered? What was their way out?

“But your first worry is that outside this door are two avatar gorillas,” Mackleprank explained. “Be ready for them. You will take them by surprise, but after that, they will be a force to reckon with. Though it is always a shame to damage such brilliant inventions, you may need to destroy them. They will likely be the only force you face. Any security above will be something you can easily handle with your extensive training.”

Mackleprank used one of the keys to open the massive door. Covering one another, eight soldiers ran out of the room. Abby prayed that somehow Derick and Rafa could defeat them, but with the soldiers’ weapons, it didn’t seem likely. Abby waited to hear guns firing and gorilla grunts, but she never did.

“The gorillas are here, but no one is in them,” a soldier called back.

Abby felt dizzy. That was their only chance to stop the men—the soldiers who were going to hunt down the other teachers. Where were Derick and Rafa? Had they received her message?

Mackleprank thought for a moment. “It looks like they decided to run. Smart boys.” He called to the soldiers in the hallway. “Act quickly in case they have raised the alarm with anyone.”

He turned to the last two soldiers. “As for you two, we need to deliver the keys we already have to Muns. That is our first priority.” Mackleprank reached his hand into his pocket and after a few seconds of jingling pulled it out again. Abby counted in her head, figuring out how many keys Mackleprank had: Grandpa’s, Mom’s and Dad’s, the two coaches’, the Trinhouses’, and hers—eight. Not only would that give Muns more than enough to start changing history without having to store up energy bursts, but if they grabbed more keys from the other teachers, then it was over. The only other key she knew about was Derick’s—and one key could not operate the Bridge. As far as Abby knew, there would be no more ways to stop Muns. He would have them trapped—checkmate.

31

Capybara

Derick looked down at his avatar—definitely not what he expected. Stubby legs and a thick middle. He caught his reflection in a sheet of metal leaning up against the wall. He looked like a giant chunky squirrel with no tail.

He heard a quiet laugh. Not in the room somewhere in Brazil, but in the avatar lab at Cragbridge Hall.

“A capybara,” Rafa said. “Looks like my mom has spent some time making the largest rodent in the world.”

They needed to go face a group of elite warriors and Derick was a rodent. He was probably just under four feet long and two feet tall, but he was still a rodent. How come Rafa’s mother couldn’t have been working on a mountain lion or an elephant? Heck, he would even have taken a giraffe.

Derick looked up at Rafa. He was in some sort of human avatar, but it wasn’t finished. It didn’t have a shirt, and metal plating and even a databoard were exposed on portions of its face and chest. They stood in a dimly lit room. It was long and rounded on the corner—maybe a trailer. A few rows of avatars stood in the room. At a glance Derick saw a tiger, a frog, two birds, a large beetle, and a crocodile.

Derick moved over toward a door, his large paws scuffling over the hard floor.

“Shhhhh,” Rafa whispered. “I think we’re in some sort of trailer. But there could be soldiers anywhere around here. I’d guard it right outside.”

“What do we do?” Derick asked.

“We’ll have to check it out.”

“Can I change into something better first?” Derick asked, moving again to see what other avatars were in the room.

“We both might want to,” Rafa said. “Look around. With the codes I passed on to you, we should be able to access any of it. It just may take a few tries to figure out which is which. “

That was what Derick wanted to hear. He looked over at the crocodile. He could control that, right?

The lock on the door twisted. That was not what Derick wanted to hear. He whirled around to see someone crack open the door. The enemy had heard them.

• • •

Mackleprank turned back to the two soldiers in the room. “I have discovered that there is a way to use the Bridge to travel through the present.”

Oh no.

“Through a little spying,” Mackleprank said as he approached Grandpa. He pressed Grandpa’s thumb at the bottom of the Cragbridge Hall insignia on Grandpa’s blazer. The insignia shifted forward, showing a secret compartment behind. Mackleprank pulled out a small sphere. No wonder Grandpa wore his blazer all the time; it kept his sphere. “I discovered that with this disc one can see the recent past or even the present. I watched as Oscar Cragbridge used it to find out where Muns had sent his men in the
Hindenburg
.” He then plucked two more spheres from Abby’s parents.

Mackleprank put three keys in the console and then selected the three arms to collect the spheres. A soldier helped him twist the keys.

“This is bad. So bad. So very, very, very bad,” Carol mumbled.

Mackleprank moved quickly to select his place. The other half of the room changed. It became a study with screens covering the walls, a few desks, and a variety of gadgets on top of the desks. There was a chess set on the corner of the largest desk, and Charles Muns sat behind it. Two guards flanked him. Abby hated the sight of him. He had masterminded this whole thing and was going to win—he was going to be able to play with history as he saw fit. This could be the moment that changed the world’s future from its potential to its destruction.

Mackleprank instructed a soldier to watch the keys and then approached the threshold from the basement to Muns’s study. Abby held her breath. This was it. There was little hope left. Unless someone could come crashing in right now, Muns probably would win this war; he would get everything he wanted.

No one came crashing in.

Mackleprank stepped into Muns’s study.

The two men beside Muns quickly engaged their guns, which slid out of their sleeves and lined up with their index fingers. They were fast on the draw. It took less than a second.

“Stand down,” Muns commanded his guards, a huge grin passing over his face. He looked at Mackleprank. “You have done well, so marvelously well. I knew you could discover who had the keys and where they kept them. And you confirmed my suspicions that the Bridge can also be used in the present. Splendid.”

The Bridge started to shake under the pressure of entering into somewhere else in the present. It hadn’t taken long at all.

Mackleprank reached out and dropped the keys into Muns’s palm.

The Bridge rattled stronger.

“You will have all that I promised,” Muns said. “And more.”

The Bridge shook violently, as if a mini-earthquake had hit just the one spot in the basement of Cragbridge Hall. She expected it to blow apart at any moment.

Mackleprank simply nodded and stepped back into the basement, quickly signaling for the soldier to twist the keys back.

It took several seconds for the Bridge to stop its quaking. As she watched it settle, Abby realized that three keys still rested in the console. Mackleprank had to leave three keys in this Bridge, using them to cross over to Muns’s office. Maybe Abby could somehow get those keys back—maybe there was hope.

“I’m glad the Bridge could take the stress,” Dr. Mackleprank said. “We still need to transfer one more group of keys and the rest of you. After that I can stay behind in this avatar to make sure the Bridge rattles itself into oblivion and then destroy the three remaining keys.”

• • •

As soon as the man in the jungle camouflage saw him, Derick did the only thing he knew how to do; he raced forward. Of course, in a large rodent it didn’t quite feel as much like racing as he would have hoped.

“What the—?” the man cried out. Another soldier was soon by his side. Guns rose out of their sleeves and aligned with their pointer fingers. They fired at Derick, who quickly decided to try to weave through the trailer to avoid getting shot. Because the men were distracted by Derick’s capybara, it took them a moment to see the unfinished human avatar sprinting toward them. A moment was all Rafa needed. He grabbed one man and threw him against the wall. With a follow-up strike, the man was soon unconscious on the floor.