Science Fair (37 page)

“It smel s like what?”

“Coke, sir.”

“Coke? As in…Coca-Cola?”

“They say it also could be Pepsi, sir,” said the chief of staff. “They’re not sure.”

The president stared at his chief of staff for five ful seconds. “Are you saying,” he said, “that our people have been DRIVEN OFF BY A SOFT DRINK??” One of the military men snorted. The president silenced him with a glare.

“Um, apparently, yes,” said the chief of staff. “The school building has been evacuated.”

“WELL TELL THEM TO PUT ON GAS MASKS OR SOMETHING AND GET BACK IN THERE!” said the president.

“Yes, sir,” said the chief of staff, back on the phone.

The president looked at the map of the country, now total y gray. Then he looked at the circle of people gathered around him.

“Coke?” he said.

Nobody had an answer.

P
RMKT CHECKED HIS SCREEN
. The power grid, except for Hubble Middle, was completely shut down. This left the country’s huge power-transmission network free of electrical charge, ready for the Pulse. He checked the capacitor bank, which stored the electrical voltage he would use; it was ful y charged and ready to go. The Pulse would travel through the empty grid and every wire plugged into the grid. It would attack any magnetic medium—including computer chips and hard drives; the data stored on them would be erased or permanently corrupted.

Anything that used these media would instantly become junk. Computers would be useless, as would telephones, televisions, elevators, microwave ovens, refrigerators, even some toasters.

One more command to enter. Prmkt typed it slowly, careful y. He checked to make sure it was correct. He put his finger on the ENTER key, took a breath, and thought for a moment about Gmygmy.

Then he pushed ENTER.

Nothing happened.

Prmkt cursed in Krpsht. Swiftly he retyped the command and again pressed ENTER.

Nothing.

Prmkt clicked on a diagnostics program and ran it. In a few seconds, he saw the problem—a cable had come unplugged from Farrel Plinkett’s project. Prmkt had heard shouts and the sounds of a struggle outside; apparently, the cable had been knocked loose in the commotion.

Prmkt didn’t panic; he never did. This was a setback, but a minor one, easily corrected. Plinkett’s project had been set up close to the utility door. Prmkt would simply slip out, reattach the cable, return to the utility room, and proceed with the Pulse.

He went to the door, unlocked it, and careful y opened it a crack. A spray of brown foam shot through the opening. Prmkt quickly shut the door and staggered back, sputtering and frantical y wiping the foam from his face. His first fear—that it was a chemical attack—dissolved when he realized that the foam was a cola-flavored soft drink. He didn’t know
why
the gym was suddenly fil ed with cola foam, and he didn’t much care: al he knew was that he had to get to the cable.

Prmkt stood for a moment with his hand on the doorknob, visualizing the layout of the science-fair projects outside. Then he took a breath, opened the door, and stepped through the surge of incoming foam. He closed the door behind him, electing not to lock it, so he’d be able to get back in quickly. He dropped to his hands and knees. He found that, even though he was engulfed in foam, if he kept his head down, he could create enough of a pocket so that he could breathe foam-free air.

Slowly, surrounded by the swirling, blinding foam, Prmkt began crawling across the gym floor.

T
OBY WAITED ANXIOUSLY
in the smal air pocket formed by the doorway, cut off from the world by the wal of Diet Coke fizz. A dim, brown-colored light filtered through the foam from the gym lights, which, somehow, were stil burning.

Toby wiped off the face of his watch: Sternabite had been gone for five minutes now. He’d told Toby to stay in the doorway, while he’d crawled off through the foam to try to disable the ME kids’ projects. Toby had offered to go with him, but Sternabite had said no.

“You don’t know what to look for,” he said. “You might touch the wrong thing and kil yourself.” Toby looked at the foam, stil thick, stil surging. He wondered how Sternabite could breathe in that stuff.
If
he could breathe.

He jumped as he felt something touch his leg. With relief he saw that it was Sternabite, returning from his mission. He got to his feet, sputtering and dripping foam from head to toe.

He stil had his sunglasses on.

“From now on,” Sternabite said, “I am drinking Mountain Dew.”

“Did you find the projects?” said Toby.

“I found one,” said Sternabite. “I pul ed out a cable. I wanted to do more, but the foam is real y thick by the floor; I was starting to drown out there. For now we’re okay. He can’t launch the EMP without that cable. Now we need to find him.”

“How do we do that?” said Toby.

“He has to be nearby,” said Sternabite. “He could be in a classroom or in a room right off the gym, like this one.” He tapped the door they were standing next to, which they had already determined opened to a smal supply closet.

“So what do we do?”

“We start with the gym,” said Sternabite. “We go along the wal s—the foam’s not as bad there—and we open every door we come to. If we don’t find him, we start looking in the rest of the school.”

“How do we know what he looks like?”

“We don’t,” said Sternabite. “But he’l have a computer, and it’l be near some gear that’s hardwired into the school electrical system. He won’t be able to move it. We’l know when we see him.”

“But then what do we do?”

“We point him out to these moron FBI agents who want to arrest everybody in the world except the guy causing the problem.”

“Okay,” said Toby.

“I’l go this way,” said Sternabite, pointing to the left. “You go that way. Stay against the wal . If you see the guy, run in my direction and yel .”

“Okay,” said Toby.

“Good luck,” said Sternabite. He stepped into the foam and was gone.

“You, too,” said Toby, to the foam. He took a breath, stepped out of the doorway, and felt the foam surround him. He turned and pressed his face against the wal , then began sidestepping along it, keeping his head turned to give himself a breathing space. He counted his steps, figuring that might help him find his way back.

He’d gone twenty-seven steps when he came to another doorway. He stepped into it and tried the knob. The door opened. He stepped inside and found himself in a room considerably larger than the supply closet. It was lit by fluorescent lights, with plumbing, air-conditioning, and electrical conduits running along the wal s and ceiling. Toby’s eyes quickly scanned the room; there was nobody else there.

Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him. His eyes fel on a workbench at the far end of the room. He took a few quick steps toward it.

The workbench held some electronic gear and a laptop computer.

The laptop’s screen was glowing.

Cables ran between the gear and some kind of electrical box on the wal .

This is it.

Toby turned to run back and alert Sternabite.

Then he heard it: click.

The door was about to open.

T
OBY LOOKED FRANTICALLY
around the utility room.

In the gloomy far corner stood a large tank with pipes running to it. Toby, on tiptoe, hurried over to the tank and squeezed behind it just as the door swung open. This was fol owed by the sound of the door closing, a key sliding into a keyhole, and the disturbing finality of a
click
as the door was locked from the inside. Then he heard footsteps come across the room.

Toby crouched low to the floor and peered around the tank. From here, hidden in shadows, he could see the workbench and computer.

A figure appeared. It was a man, but his features were obscured by a head-to-toe coating of brown foam. He turned away from Toby and began brushing himself off. Toby considered making a break for the door. If he could get outside, he could find Sternabite, maybe the FBI agents. But he’d have to unsqueeze himself from behind the tank, then run right past where the man was standing; even if he reached the door, he couldn’t unlock it without the key. So he stayed crouched where he was, watching, waiting to see the face of the man who had caused so much trouble and was about to cause so much more.

The man looked vaguely familiar from the back: his build, his hair, the shape of his head. Toby was pretty sure he’d seen him before. But where? He frowned, studying the man, who was stil brushing himself off, the foam spattering onto the concrete floor. The man said something harsh in a foreign language—apparently a curse word. It reminded Toby of how the two weird smel y foreign guys talked.

Then the man turned, his face final y coming into view. Toby cupped his hand over his mouth, stifling a gasp as he recognized the man—a man he’d seen around Hubble Middle School hundreds of times.

Janitor Dude.

Toby shook his head in disbelief.
Could it possibly be?
He thought he must be mistaken—J.D. had come into the utility room for some other reason, like escaping the foam.

But then why did he lock the door?

As Toby watched, J.D. stepped to the computer and tapped a key, bringing the screen to life. That did it. Toby realized there was no mistake. The school janitor—the guy everybody saw as a complete loser—was about to cripple the United States government. And there was nobody to stop him.

Except Toby.

He was looking around for something to use as a weapon. To his right he saw nothing. To his left, a few feet away, a thick pipe ran from floor to ceiling. Scattered on the floor around the pipe were some filthy rags and a bunch of old paint cans. There was nothing else. Toby decided a paint can would have to do. As quietly as he could, he slipped from behind the water tank, took a step, then another, and then slowly reached down for the wire handle of the nearest paint can.

He never touched it. There was a sound, and before Toby could turn toward it, he felt his head slam into the concrete-block wal . The next thing he knew he was on his back, with J.D. leaning over him. J.D.’s face was the same, but the look in his eyes was profoundly different. It was no longer slack and listless; now this total loser appeared utterly focused and intense.

And scary.

“I thought I got rid of you,” said J.D., his deep voice calm, cold.

Toby said nothing; he could barely think, let alone talk. The left side of his head throbbed viciously. He felt blood seeping from his scalp.

“How did you know to come here?” said J.D.

Toby shook his head. That was a mistake; a wave of pain surged through his body.

“Doesn’t matter,” said J.D. “You’re too late anyway.”

Quickly, J.D. snatched a fat rol of duct tape from the workbench. He took Toby by the shoulders and yanked him up to a sitting position. Toby moaned as another wave of pain engulfed him. J.D. dragged him backward, pushed him up against the thick pipe, and yanked his arms around the pole and behind his back. Toby heard tape being ripped off the rol , then felt his wrists being wrapped very tightly with the sticky tape.

“That wil hold you long enough,” said J.D. He started toward the workbench and the computer. Toby yanked on the tape, but it was too tight. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.