Curioddity (40 page)

“I'm not falling for such an obvious diversionary tactic, you buffoon.”

“Glad to hear it. That means you won't notice when it sneaks up on you.”

What—?”

*   *   *

T
O
W
IL,
the next few moments seemed almost frozen, like they had been written into a book and could be stopped or reversed with the simple application of a bookmark. He'd carefully judged the measure of his opponent's resolve, and knew that a man as greedy and weak willed as Marcus James would always be the one to crack first under duress. That is why it was to no one's surprise—not even Marcus James himself—that the TV pitchman cracked first.

Marcus turned to look in the direction of the growing black mass, which at this point simply could not be ignored. At the exact moment it was being detected, the black mass suddenly folded in on itself and vanished from Marcus James's awareness, leaving only a residual impression of something extremely nightmarish and unpleasant. Using this momentary distraction to his advantage, Wil did the most arbitrary (and, frankly, pointless) thing he could think of: he threw his cup of hot chocolate over Marcus's blue exoskeleton suit.

Absolutely nothing happened.

Wil blinked. That had not gone at all as planned, despite his absolute lack of preplanning. Slowly—in the incredulous manner of a lion that has just been bitten by a small deer—Marcus blinked. He looked at Wil, astonished, and burst into as genuine a fit of giggles as a man of his minimal capacity for humor could be expected.

“Did you…” Marcus tried to gather himself. “Did you just throw coffee all over me?”

“It was hot chocolate.”

“Ah, I see. So hot chocolate is more likely to short-circuit an Industricorp Hammerhead A27 military-grade exoskeleton?” Marcus was trying hard to contain his delight, which made him seem all the more obnoxious.

“I don't know,” replied Wil, defiantly. He couldn't help but pout a little bit, given that his expectations of success had been so sorely dented. It had been a day full of triumphs, and this sudden setback was the last thing he might have thought would happen.

Marcus James's hand cannon began to whine as it came to a full charge. At that moment, the tiny will-o'-the-wisp carrying Wil's paper clip floated in on the scene and fluttered toward Marcus's position.

“I'm going to have my evidence back,” said Marcus with a villain's flourish. “But since my people have this museum on lockdown, I'm not entirely sure I'll need you to help me get it. Goodbye and good riddance, Mr. Morgan.”

Marcus began to depress the built-in trigger for his hand cannon, which initiated yet another wave of sparking electricity that floated across the area, like rippling water. At that moment, the little globule of plasma moved to a position directly above Marcus, just as a small puddle of hot chocolate dripped down the exoskeleton's leg and made contact with a few of the remaining discarded paper clips.

With a resigned shrug, Wil flipped the small lump of clay he'd been holding. It narrowly missed the will-o'-the-wisp, causing the fairy-like creature to flutter a little and drop its precious cargo. Almost immediately, the discarded paper clip landed in the puddle of hot chocolate just as the wave of sparks flew over it, and from what Wil could tell as the resultant explosion threw him backward across the counter, it completed a full circuit that fried the operating systems of everything in the vicinity. By happy coincidence, the immediate vicinity happened to contain a large number of very surprised ninja-bots who until the moment of their demise had been programmed to believe they were invulnerable. The first of the bots exploded with a vigor normally reserved for a dynamited mine shaft, while the rest of the creatures took this opportunity to whirl about in frantic circles, blasting their cannons in whichever direction they happened to feel was worth obliterating. Outside, a number of presumably tank-fueled explosions rocked the front of the building. Marcus James screamed loudly as his exoskeleton went into full “armor” mode, locking up his faceplate and rendering him temporarily immobile as bullets spattered off his chest and limbs. Thinking quickly, Wil grabbed the Sequitur from the counter and made a beeline for the stairs, ducking underneath stray hollow-points as he made his escape. And to the forlorn sounds of Marcus's yells of anger, he made his way up the stairs and into the hallway leading back into the museum.

*   *   *

A
T THE
top of the stairs, Mr. Dinsdale and Mary Gold were moving quickly in Wil's direction. At the far end of the hall, Lucy and Barry were also making their way up from the temporal exhibit with little Engelbert in tow, clutching a bundle of important-looking papers.

“Wil!” called Lucy with a look of relief spreading across her face. “We heard those explosions! I thought—”

“It's okay! I'm okay!” interrupted Wil so that Lucy wouldn't have to complete her thought. “Everything's not okay, though: I think Marcus James will be up here any second now! He's a bit miffed at me!”

“What did you do?”

“I don't know but you would've liked it!”

The little museum curator made his way breathlessly to Wil's side, with Mary Gold gliding alongside him. “I'm glad to see you made it out alive, Wil! I never doubted you, of course!”

“Gee thanks!” yelled Wil in response as he took stock of the moment. “Where are we at with that electricity bill?”

“Wil, you're never going to believe this!” cried Barry Morgan as he, Engelbert, and Lucy made their way rapidly along the hall. “There was a discrepancy in the Edison Company's accounting! It's a miracle!”

“No! Dad, Lucy … we have to go back the other way!”

“What?” Barry didn't seem to “getting it” quite as quickly as Wil might have liked. And this would only lead him to “getting it” in a far less pleasant way within moments.

“Go back! Marcus James! Explosions! Ninja-bots!” yelled Wil, breathless. His protestations, however, did not seem to be having much effect. Luckily (at least for the point Wil was trying to make), the atrium below was rocked by a huge explosion, which sent strange blue flames shooting up the stairs and into the hallway.

Barry and Lucy slowed, so that Engelbert bumped into them from behind. Wil quickly turned to Mary and Dinsdale. “We've got to get to the perpetual motion machines! Hurry!”

“Why on Earth would we go in there?” asked Dinsdale with a look of genuine confusion. “Those machines are practically useless beyond just whirring about and violating the first law of thermodynamics.”

“Because SARA told us to from the future!” called Wil as he set off toward the room full of pointless machines. “Come on! Hurry!”

Farther down the hall, Barry, Lucy, and Engelbert were now shuffling about and looking confused. Barry seemed to be taking the fact that Wil wasn't interested in his heroic accounting conclusions to heart. “Wil,” he said, halfheartedly. “I did as you asked. We've made a major breakthrough.”

“That's nice, Dad. Can we please go now?”

“Why? We have all the proof we need to end this thing once and for all.”

“I have a feeling we might find something like heavy machine guns or bulletproof armor more useful, Dad!”

As if to help Wil make his point, the building was suddenly rocked by another tremendous explosion and all of the lights went out. A blue glow suddenly appeared at the far end of the hall in the direction of the atrium stairs. “That'll be imminent death,” said Wil as he gently pushed his father in the direction of the perpetual exhibits. “He's not really all that interested in proof right now.”

“I drew up a very nice legal agreement!” said Engelbert, hopefully. “We'll certainly be able to get this sorted out once both parties have reviewed and signed!”

“Again, wonderful,” agreed Wil. “But I tend to think one of the parties isn't really going to be very accommodating right now.” He gently shoved Cousin Engelbert through the near-darkness toward the perpetual motion exhibition room.

“Ah! I think I'm beginning to understand!” called Dinsdale as he and Mary now hustled in the direction Wil wanted everyone to go. “The perpetual motion machines … of course!”

“Oh yeah?” Wil was beginning to pick up a head of steam—partly fueled by his general sense of agitation but mostly fueled by a sense of self-preservation. “Would you mind explaining to the rest of us, Mr. Dinsdale?”

“The perpetual exhibits don't need electricity!” cried the old man. “They work just fine by themselves!”

“Doing what?”

“It doesn't matter! I'm sure you'll think of something!” And having satisfied his cryptic urges, Mr. Dinsdale forged toward the perpetual exhibition room just as the far end of the hallway caved in and a very testy blue monstrosity came through it, yelling profanities.

Not to lose the momentum he had so recently gained, Barry Morgan found Wil in the hallway as the group clattered toward the room with hollow-point bullets whizzing above their heads. “As it turns out, Wil, there was a clerical error!” he yelled above the noise of bullets clattering into the walls.

“What?”

“A clerical error! The old electricity bill was paid in full a century ago! Plus the thirteen-cent late fee!”

“That's nice, Dad! Can we please take this up later?”

“What?”

The conversation was getting out of hand in more ways than one. “I'd like to focus on survival, if you don't mind, Dad!” yelled Wil above the whine of Marcus James's laser weapons. “It's just that I've met a very nice girl who I think could be the one and I'd like to be around to find out if our second official date is as interesting as the first one!”

“Oh!”

Nearby, Lucy was enjoying herself thoroughly. “Is this still our first date?” she asked, impishly, as a nearby shelf carrying combine harvester parts from ancient Sumeria clattered to the floor by her feet. “Only I'm beginning to have second thoughts!”

*   *   *

W
IL AND
his group managed to round a corner into the perpetual exhibition room just as a final spattering of bullets went across the wall next to them. At the far end of the hall, the guns fell silent, and only an ominous blue glow now remained, which grew in intensity as the exoskeleton approached. Marcus was considering his options, which seemed limited to shooting hollow-point bullets or blasting people with his lasers.

A quick glance about the room revealed a disturbing scarcity of additional exits. But Wil already knew that escape was not an option—he was going to follow the random set of instructions about to be given to him by his future dad. Mary Gold glided her way to the back of the exhibits and stood next to a shelf, while Dinsdale and Engelbert chose the relative safety of a perpetual motion machine that looked like an egg and had supposedly been a gift to Sir Winston Churchill from a race of aliens from Sixty-one Cygni. Wil and Lucy set up shop across the room behind a device that looked like a pinball machine, which—upon further inspection—turned out to be a pinball machine.

“Now what?” asked Lucy, who in Wil's opinion was acting a little too wide-eyed and enthusiastic, considering the probabilities facing her.

“I don't know—
wait
!” Suddenly remembering the museum's logic, Wil fished the Lemon phone from his pocket.

“
Greetings, Wil Morgan,
” said SARA cautiously. “
Would you like the latest stock market projections for Marcus James Industries, Incorporated?
”

“Not right now, SARA, but thank you anyway. I'm sure that'll be fun later. For the moment, please dial the Museum of Curioddity's main number.”

“
Dialing…”

SARA's rudimentary cell phone function—almost an afterthought to the Lemon phone's designers, it seemed—now sent out its request into the ether. Down the hallway in Mr. Dinsdale's office, a phone began to ring.

“What are you doing?” hissed Lucy, who was finally beginning to get a more accurate sense of her predicament as the bluish glow of Marcus's exoskeleton closed in on the entrance to her hiding spot.

“I'm not doing anything,” whispered Wil through gritted teeth. “I think it's doing it all by itself. Whatever ‘it' is! Dad! Here!”

Wil tossed the Lemon phone to his father across the room. Barry picked it up and listened as, presumably, Mr. Dinsdale's odd little message repeated itself once more.

“There's no one answering!” wailed Barry.

“Dad, that's not important right now! What's important is that you do exactly as I say, okay?”

“Okay!”

“And don't hang up!”

*   *   *

W
IL PONDERED
for a moment, for a moment was all he was going to get. Outside the room, the blue glow was increasing in intensity: this suggested not only that Marcus James was getting closer, but also that he was not going to be arriving in a very good mood at all.

Next to Wil, Lucy breathed heavily with anticipation. She either had a death wish, or a delusional belief that she and the group were going to come out of this unscathed, no matter the certainty that they were all going to die at the hands of an angry maniac.

The Sequitur beeped inside his pocket. Without his trusty Air-Max 4000, Wil wasn't sure he'd be able to concentrate on relaxing properly. He had a terrible feeling the strange device was about as useful to him right now as a screen door on a submarine.

All in all, things were not looking entirely positive. And yet despite all of this, Wil felt a sort of exhilaration, as if he were transported in time and headed down a snow-covered hill on the back of a tea tray. Across the room, his father seemed genuinely excited to be involved in something life threatening. Today was the first time Wil had seen his dad enthusiastic since he was seven years old and had accurately recited his nine-times table in front of some relatives at Thanksgiving.