The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3 Page 18

  “If you are referring to the kind that can beat you silly, then yes,” Jenkins said.

  Carol giggled.

  They played for another ten minutes. Sometimes, Jenkins would slow up and let Malcolm return a few, but then he would strike the ball with such speed that Malcolm didn’t stand a chance.

  “Wow, you’re good,” Malcolm told the bot. “Have you ever thrown a football?”

  “No,” Jenkins said.

  “I’ll bring one in tomorrow,” Malcolm promised. “And a baseball bat too. I bet you could smash a ball.”

  “I would be happy to play,” Jenkins said, nodding at the Southerner.

  “I’m ready to show you what I have,” Jess said. She waved the group over to the other side of the lab. She lifted up a small robot, about the size of a fist, with a propeller on top. “I know you’ve been involved in the planning, but this is one of the robots I’ve designed for the challenge. I built a simple prototype.”

  “In two days?” Derick asked.

  “Yeah,” Jess said. “I was able to adapt some previous designs. Everyone has to. Plus, we were required to turn in our designs. We get points for them, and the Race doesn’t give us much time. And Anjum and I talked. We thought we should design quickly and use our time practicing. I can make adjustments as needed.”

  “She is quite amazing,” Anjum said in everyone’s ears. “But we need amazing.”

  Jess continued, “We’ll use a few of them for the initial stages of the challenge, to get the cameras set up and linked to the elevators. They aren’t large enough to carry anything substantial though.” She pointed to a screen. “You’ll use a virtual cockpit like this one.” The screen showed several levers, controls, and dials. “I’ll let Anjum decide who drives what.”

  “I will be interested in any history or talent any of you have with robots or games similar to these,” Anjum added over the sync.

  Jess moved over and pulled out what looked like a car about the size of a shoe. “I think for most of the challenge we should use these. I’ve adapted a previous design and made about four of them. They’ve got wheels for speed. We shouldn’t have any uneven terrain. They also have arms.” She flicked her finger and the metal over the wheels extended. They were like two slender steel hands with three long fingers. They rose on thin arms. “They can extend up to six feet, so we should be able to reach anything we need. Also, they have a pair of drills.” Jess flicked her finger and two thick drills came out of the front of the car and spun, moving back and forth. “They can create enough of a space for the vehicle itself to get through.”

  “That’s nice. We don’t have to worry about doors,” Nia said.

  Jess blushed.

  “And they have these.” She flicked a finger and two tiny cannons emerged from the sides of the vehicle. They rotated in every direction. “The details for the challenge said we might need them. So they are there, just in case. I don’t really have much you can shoot for practice, other than these nuts and bolts. The virtual ones will shoot tranquilizers.”

  “Have I ever told you how much I like to shoot things?” Malcolm asked.

  “It sounds like you may get your chance to show us,” Piper said.

  “The cars also have suction tubes on the bottom,” Jess explained, “enough they can drive up walls. However, you can’t move super fast or the suction isn’t enough to keep you attached to the wall.”

  “You are a genius,” Anjum said.

  “I’m so glad you know how to do this,” Abby said. “The best thing I’ve ever engineered was my entry in the egg-drop contest.”

  Everyone looked at her.

  “You know, that contest where they give you, like, bags and paper and straws and you have to create something to protect your egg from breaking when it’s dropped off the school roof?”

  No one immediately answered.

  “I remember,” Derick said. “And I think I beat you.”

  “I got second,” Abby said. “But that’s beside the point. Sorry for interrupting.”

  “Anjum will assign you your robots, and then you need to practice using the virtual cockpits to control them,” Jess explained. “I think their designs are solid, so winning is going to depend on our ability to control them and work together.”

  They had to win. They had caught Mr. Silverton and Mr. Sul. Now the primary job was to finish the Race, get the key, and protect the secret. That is, if they had caught the right guys, and they both hadn’t been set up.

  Walled In

  Abby approached the Mold, the visor from her grandfather in her hand. She had left robot practice early. That hadn’t thrilled Anjum, but she had waited for two days to schedule a time in the Mold. The administration had opened it to anyone who wanted to try the minotaur challenge, and it had been completely booked up.

  She didn’t really know what to do. Abby walked into an outer room attached to the Mold, the control center. Her rings were scanned and her identity checked against her reservation time, then she was admitted. She approached a console with two screens. She could choose one of several preset molds, or create one of her own. In some ways, it was similar to the machine she used to create the array of metal objects.

  Her heartstone began to vibrate, somehow communicating with the Mold. Abby heard muffled words and quickly pulled the visor over her head.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” her grandfather said, inside the visor. It was just him, standing in his usual blazer in front of a completely blank, white background. “Using the Mold is going to require a bit of preparation.” Her heartstone continued to vibrate and settings on the display of the Mold began to change. They were moving to Grandpa’s presets.

  Abby removed her visor to take a look. Through a large window, she could see inside the Mold. First the floor and sides heated up. She could see them turning a dark red. The plastic that had been molded there began to melt.

  “While this environment forms,” Grandpa said, as Abby hurried to put her visor back on, “I want you to think of your past. What challenges have you overcome?” He waited. This seemed weird. Was this some sort of therapy? Remembering her last year, Abby thought of several difficult experiences.

  “Now,” Grandpa continued, “think about the challenges you currently face.” A series of quick and vivid thoughts jumped to the surface at that prompt.

  “How do you hope these challenges will end?” Grandpa asked. That was easy. Abby thought of her successes: stopping Muns, winning the Race, gaining the key, saving the secret, and saving her brother.

  “How do you fear these challenges may end?”

  That also came quickly to mind, unfortunately.

  Abby lifted the visor to peek at the Mold. All of the plastic had melted and covered the floor of the Mold. A large mechanical plow moved across the floor, shoveling the plastic into a large bin at one end.

  Thick steel rebar rose out of the floor. Mechanical arms on tracks lowered from the ceiling and twisted and moved the rods into holes in the foundation. She could see them twist in to be secure. Then came whirring and clinking. Hundreds of machines ran across more tracks, releasing plastic and sculpting it around the metal foundations. It was a symphony of creation. They had only been at their work for a few minutes when the metal window coverings lowered. Abby tried several times to sync up to the machine to raise them, but they would not move. Perhaps Grandpa didn’t want her to see what she was about to face.

  After a long wait, the screens indicated that the environment was ready. Abby had no idea what to expect, but she made sure her visor was on tight and stepped in.

  She had moved from a control room to a wide open field. The grass was long and green, a collection of trees reached high with their branches and leaves. The sun brought a warmth, but not a brutal summer heat. Perfect.

  “Abby,” Grandpa said, walking in the long grass beside her, “you have endless possibilities.” He pointed to a beautiful horizon. “Those endless possibilities are your future.” He took a few mor
e steps, leaning on his cane. “But the strange part about endless possibilities is that they do not always look beautiful. Sometimes they are disguised.”

  In an instant, the field was gone and Abby stood in her home. “At times they look like this,” Grandpa said, though she could no longer see him. He wasn’t walking beside her anymore. She saw her old living room: the screens on the wall and the couch and lamps in the corner. There was a painting of a beautiful harbor on the wall. A rush of homesickness fell over her. “Look around,” Grandpa said. “Feel it. Remember.”

  Abby reached out and touched the screen. It showed picture after picture of her, her parents, and Derick. Many included Grandpa as well. She took a deep breath. She hoped her parents and her grandpa would be back soon. Back to help her. She didn’t want to do this on her own anymore. And Derick. She had to keep him with her.

  “This is where you learned a lot about yourself. Where you learned to keep trying.” She saw herself in several spots of the room, one after the other. She sat on the couch struggling with math homework; then she came down the stairs and paused to tie her running shoes before leaving through the front door; and then she paced, teared up, and rushed up the stairs after receiving her rejection message from Cragbridge Hall. Of course, her grandpa had switched that.

  “But sooner rather than later, it was time to move on,” Grandpa’s voice explained. The room went gray and a light shone on the doorway. Abby followed it, and as she did, she stepped out of her old living room and into the halls at Cragbridge Hall. “Your endless possibilities looked like this. Do you remember walking the halls on your first day here? Go ahead.”

  Abby began to walk, taking in the virtual environment that was so familiar to her. She knew some of the people who passed by, but others were almost as if they weren’t complete; their faces were blurred or completely blank. Perhaps Grandpa hadn’t finished his work. She couldn’t blame him. If she stopped to think of all the work he had done to lead her to the secrets, she wondered how he’d ever have had the time. She knew he had a great work ethic, but he accomplished more than anyone else she knew.

  An announcement through the halls indicated it was time for first period. Abby turned from one hall to another to get to her class. She sat in her desk. She could feel the real plastic desk beneath her.

  “You faced some difficulties at this time in your past, didn’t you?” On the screen at the front of the room, Abby saw glimpses of the trials she went through in her first few months at Cragbridge Hall: Jacqueline kicking her out of her room, her father and her parents being kidnapped, trying to find the secret, and leaping onto the Titanic as it sunk. It had been the hardest time of her life up to that point. How had her grandfather put all these images together?

  “But life continued,” Grandpa said. “And it didn’t get any easier.”

  Another bell rang and Abby got up to leave with the crowd of students. She thought of other challenges she had faced since the Titanic: seeing those she loved tranquilized, crossing into the past and onto the flaming Hindenburg to save her family.

  As she stepped out into the hallway, it changed. There were no longer classrooms on either side, but a dark corridor in dim torchlight. “And you face challenges now,” Grandpa said.

  Flapping.

  Abby turned to see a stymphalian bird gliding toward her through the black. It seemed just as real and mean as the one that had shot her with a metallic feather a few days ago in the labyrinth. She ran. With the bird right behind her, she darted and turned through the maze. She took a flight of stairs two at a time and then hid around a corner. The bird couldn’t turn that sharply and passed her. Abby sprinted farther away.

  How had Grandpa engineered this? It was so personal; it included her own experiences. She thought of how the Mold itself had been formed to be a journey from her home, through her school, and now into part of the labyrinth.

  Abby moved ahead through more twists and turns. She had no idea where she was supposed to go. She hoped she wasn’t about to face the minotaur. After another corner, the labyrinth gave way to grass and an open sky. Relief swept over Abby as she stepped out into the sunshine.

  But that same relief disappeared as the ground rumbled. Abby turned to see two massive creatures—a Giganotosaurus snapped at an Argentinosaurus. Abby looked back at the maze, but knew that wasn’t where she was supposed to go. She couldn’t go backward to understand her grandfather’s message. Plus, she didn’t want to face the metal-beaked bird again. She saw an opening on the other side of the dinosaur battle.

  She sighed. It was never easy.

  Abby raced toward the opening, the fighting dinosaurs biting and swinging their tails at each other in front of her. Abby veered to circle around them, but at one point, the Argentinosaurus backed up quickly and nearly stepped on Abby.

  After crossing by the dinosaurs, there was a wall with an opening. Abby walked in only to be greeted with an image of the girl from the future and a man fallen with the Ash. And then the bright light. She heard Derick scream.

  She would rather face the bird or the dinosaurs than see that.

  “And now, how will it turn out?” Grandpa asked, his voice coming through the visor. “What should you do?”

  Three paths opened in front of her. “You must make choices,” Grandpa said. “And see what the future brings.” She had walked through her past. Now it was all about the future.

  Apparently Abby had to try one of the passages. Knowing that her grandfather often would test and try her didn’t make the decision easy. She picked the hall on the right.

  Abby walked forward and around a corner into a dead end. There a screen portrayed Jacqueline and her team on stage in the school auditorium. “Congratulations on winning the Race,” Landon said in his blue blazer. “Please press your fingers to the box.” Jacqueline’s team did and the box opened. She retrieved the key and held it up in front of a cheering crowd. The message explaining what the key did and how it allowed those who controlled the Bridge to actually time travel would have been automatically sent.

  The scene changed and Jacqueline shared the secret online and spoke with the news. Then hundreds of soldiers and government people in suits and uniforms arrived at the Cragbridge Hall gates. They showed badges and forms. They passed security. They dismissed the administration. And the children left. The school was no longer operational. Were they going to use it to experiment, to train soldiers? Abby didn’t know.

  Was her grandpa saying this would happen? Was she seeing the future now?

  Abby didn’t want to look anymore. She wanted to pick a different path. She turned to run back the way she had come, but the hall was no longer there. The way she had come had been replaced with a wall and another screen. When—how—had the wall moved?

  On the screen, Abby saw Muns in a bed, unconscious. And then his eyelids popped open. He struggled to his feet and left his bed, assistants speaking to him as he tried to leave his room. He grabbed onto the corner of a desk to steady himself. Someone handed him a collection of keys. He got on his rings and began speaking with several people, the government agents and administrators that had taken over the school. Muns was behind it all. He had bribed and worked until his people were in all the right places. And now he was ready to change time. Muns smiled wide. “I will need some assistance at the Bridge.”

  Abby turned, looking for a way out. A third wall and screen had blocked her path, pressed against the other two. She was trapped, entirely closed in! She saw a coffin—black, glossy, and cold. Her parents stood by it, awake, tears streaming down their faces. Grandfather stood next to them, his chin quivering. And Abby. She saw herself, clutching her mom’s waist and sobbing uncontrollably. The Crash stood behind them. Rafa’s hair completely hid his face. Carol was curled in a ball on the ground, and Anjum and Jess looked on from behind.

  She didn’t need to look in the coffin. Trapped inside the Mold, Abby’s breaths became short and her mind foggy. She had to get out of there. She didn’t want thi
s future. She couldn’t even stand to see it, to think about it. She whirled in every direction, but only saw her worst worries portrayed on the screens, her greatest fears coming to life. She was completely walled in. She had nowhere to go.

  Abby wanted to scream. Why had she chosen this hall? Why was her grandfather doing this to her?

  “This is the future,” Grandpa said simply. “And you are trapped in it. There is nothing you can do.”

  Abby looked at the walls again. How could she have known that her choices would lead to this?

  “There is nothing you can do,” Grandpa repeated, “unless you choose not to believe it.”

  Abby had to calm herself and repeat what her grandpa had just said. Choose not to believe it? What did that mean?

  Abby looked at the screens and her fears again. How would not believing what she was seeing, denying her own fears, help her? She saw herself sobbing next to the coffin. How could choosing not to believe that her brother was going to die get her out of this trap? It wouldn’t change the fact that she was walled in.

  But she had to try.

  Abby closed her eyes and willed the walls away. When she opened them, she saw her brother’s coffin, the school fallen, and Muns awake and with the keys. Nothing had changed.

  It didn’t matter what she believed. Her grandfather had trapped her with his crazy experiment. She saw her nightmares, but was also stuck in the Mold. Abby wondered how they would get her out of here. Would they have to cut through the plastic walls? Would she have to explain why she was here?

  She saw the images of her failure one more time, and couldn’t take it anymore. She ripped the visor from her head, and nearly flung it to the ground. But she stopped, completely taken by surprise. When the visor was away from her eyes, she saw something she didn’t expect—open space. No walls. She wasn’t boxed in. She looked back behind to see the path she had come down. It was real, but it gave way to a wide open area. Through the visor, she’d seen walls that weren’t really there.