Zeke Bartholomew Read online

  But still, nothing of the magnitude that would have been needed to operate SirEebro.

  “Where is it?” Sparrow asked.

  “It’s not on the screen.”

  “I can see that. What’s wrong with your gizmo?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with my ‘gizmo,’” I said, letting my annoyance show. “It’s obviously outside the range we have enough power for.”

  “So we need—”

  “More batteries,” I said.

  “There aren’t any more. We emptied your room.”

  “I know.” I put my hand on Sparrow’s uninjured shoulder. “I need you to go distract my dad.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I need to go into the living room. He’s got, like, seventeen remote controls there. Ask him to give you a tour around the house or something.”

  “I…I can’t do that,” she said.

  I cocked my head. “You dive-bombed me from the sky. You survived a fire-controlled monster and a homemade bomb. You’re telling me you can’t engage my dad in small talk?”

  She looked at me like I’d asked her to translate ancient Greek into Sanskrit.

  “You know? Small talk?”

  Now she was figuring out how to turn the Sanskrit into pig Latin.

  “Just ask him normal things. To show you around. What his job is like. Baby pictures of me. Scratch that, there are some of me naked in the bathtub. Just anything!”

  “I—”

  “Suck it up, spy. Get down there and engage my father in small talk!”

  Sparrow hesitantly stood up. She looked at me, then at the door, then back at me. I thrust my finger toward the door.

  She walked toward it, opened it, and went down the stairs. Slowly.

  I crept to the top of the stairs and listened.

  “Hi…um…Zeke’s dad,” she said tentatively.

  “Oh, hey, there, Wendy!” my dad replied. “How are you two doing?”

  “We are doing just peachykins.”

  Peachykins? Had she never spoken to someone’s parents before? I banged my head against the banister.

  “Are you hungry? Thirsty? We have some diet soda and tomato juice.”

  “No. That’s all right. My thirst doesn’t need to be quenched.”

  This was getting painful. Get to the point, Sparrow, I thought.

  “I was wondering, Mr. Bartholomew, father of Zeke. Do you have any pictures of Zeke naked in the bath?”

  Thankfully my lungs stayed inside my body, because I almost coughed them out.

  “Um…yeah, I think so. You want to see photo albums?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “All right, then. Don’t tell Zeke I’m showing you these. He’d stop speaking to me for a week.”

  “I will not tell Ezekiel.”

  Okay, I had to concentrate before my head exploded. I heard footsteps as my father led Sparrow into the den, where he kept all of our old photo albums. I hadn’t looked through them in years. I always had a hard time with it. Mom was in them. Easier to keep them closed. Not to think about it.

  I crept down the stairs. A pair of French doors separated the den from the rest of the house. We rarely closed them, only if we were watching a particularly cool action movie where we wanted to feel like we were closed off in our own theater. That’s where dad had introduced me to James Bond. Simon Templar. Indiana Jones. Great memories that shaped me into the dork I am today. Sparrow and my dad were sitting on the couch with a large photo album splayed open between them.

  “That’s Zeke after he threw up an entire can of SpaghettiOs,” my dad said.

  I cringed. Dad and I were going to have to have a long talk, assuming I made it through the day alive.

  As they were facing the opposite direction, I gently closed the French door, squinting, waiting for a telltale creak that would give me away. Thankfully the doors closed without a sound. I allowed myself to breathe. Stealthily, like a ninja.

  Then, when I turned around, my elbow knocked a small vase off a shelf, which fell to the floor and shattered into a thousand tiny, ornate pieces.

  “Zeke?” my dad shouted from inside the room. “Everything okay out there?”

  “Yeah!” I shouted. Just dropped an…ice cube tray.”

  “Pick it up, will you? Don’t want it to melt and warp the floor.”

  “No problem!” I shouted back.

  I ran into the kitchen, took the small dustpan and broom from the closet, swept up the pieces, and tossed them into a garbage bag. No harm, no foul. My dad wouldn’t even notice it was gone. Oh, who was I kidding? He’d want to have a serious talk with me too. Assuming I made it through the day alive.

  I went into the kitchen. Out came the batteries from the flashlight my dad kept under the sink. Out came the batteries from the cordless phone. I felt a little bad about that one. Grandma Betty called every night at eight o’clock. She would have to stick to email for a while.

  I pillaged all the remote controls and electronic devices I could find and carried the batteries up to my room. Then I pulled out my roll of duct tape and set to sticking the whole contraption together. It wasn’t easy; if one battery moved and disconnected it would disrupt the entire circuit. It took the whole roll of tape to get it all together and immobile.

  When it was done, I went back downstairs and knocked on the door, just as I heard my dad say, “This is Zeke after a bird pooped on his head.”

  Yes, he had taken a picture of it. My dad. Always classy.

  “Um, guys?” I said, opening the door gently.

  My dad looked up and smiled.

  “Hey, bud, just showing Wendy here some of your greatest hits.”

  I wasn’t sure that “bird poop” and “greatest hits” belonged in the same thought, but there was no time to argue.

  “Wendy, isn’t it close to dinnertime? Don’t your parents want you home?”

  “Oh, right,” Sparrow said, pretending to look at her nonexistent watch. She stood up and extended her hand to my dad. He wasn’t sure what to do with it. Not many twelve-year-old girls were so formal.

  He took her hand, shook it.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bartholomew,” she said.

  “It was nice to meet you too. Don’t let Zeke show you his comic book collection,” he said with a grin.

  My hand was beginning to hurt from all the mental slaps I was giving my dad.

  Then, after they finished shaking hands, Sparrow curtsied. I snorted a laugh, unable to contain it.

  “So proper!” he said. “You could learn some manners from Wendy, Zeke.”

  “Right. I’ll be sure to curtsy for Mr. Statler tomorrow. Come on, Wendy, I’ll walk you home.”

  “Oh, you live in the neighborhood?” my dad asked. “Where’s your house?”

  Sparrow looked at me, her eyes wide with panic.

  “She, uh, her family is moving. Let’s go. Just let me grab my wallet,” I said.

  “Bye, Wendy!” my dad called out as we ascended the stairs.

  Once upstairs, I grabbed my backpack and threw the HeatSeeker 4000 inside, along with a few other gadgets I thought might come in handy. It was a bulky contraption. I carefully carried the backpack downstairs and we left the house.

  “Now what?” she said.

  “Now let’s see if our Duracell family picks up on Le Carré’s hideout.”

  Once in the driveway, I took the gadget out of my bag and turned it on. It grew warm in my hands. I hoped it wasn’t frying my brain as I held it.

  Red dots began to appear all over the screen. Small images, nothing too powerful.

  “There’s nothing there,” Sparrow said.

  “Hold on,” I said. “Let me zoom out.”

  I en
larged the search radius. Then, at the top of the screen, I noticed something.

  It was very faint, but there. A smidge of red at the very top of the screen.

  “See that?” I said to Sparrow.

  “Looks like nothing. It’s faint.”

  “I’m not looking at the brightness; I’m looking at the width. It’s at least three or four times wider than any other dot on the screen.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means there’s something big out there.”

  “Okay, so where is it?”

  “I…I don’t know. This is zoomed out as far as it goes. It’s a fifty-mile radius. So it’s somewhere within fifty miles of here.”

  “Well, we’re not going to find it by walking or taking the subway. How do we search within that radius?”

  I looked around. I had no idea how we were supposed to travel.

  Then my eyes fixated on the house next door. The Lance home. There were two cars in the driveway. I figured the family owed me one.

  “Can you unlock and hot-wire a car?” I asked.

  “Can you eat soggy cereal for breakfast?” she replied.

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  We crept over to the Lance driveway. There were still security cameras everywhere, but we didn’t have time to worry about them. I kept watch on the house as Sparrow sneaked up beside the sedan, and within seconds she was inside without having triggered the alarm.

  Then she ducked her head under the steering column.

  “Hurry up!” I whispered loudly.

  She shot me a look. I shut up.

  Thirty seconds later I heard the car rumble to life.

  “Get in!” she shouted from behind the wheel.

  I didn’t hesitate. I sprinted over, jumped into the passenger seat, and seconds later we had hightailed it out of the driveway and out onto the road.

  I held the HeatSeeker 4000 in front of me.

  “Head north by northwest,” I said. “And do it fast.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  She sped out onto the highway.

  “Don’t go too much over the speed limit. Last thing we need is to get pulled over right now. Two underage kids driving a speeding stolen car won’t look too good. My dad will think I’m a bad influence on you.”

  Sparrow kept it at an even seventy as we sped along. Slowly but surely, the hazy red smudge at the top of the screen grew brighter, more distinct.

  “That’s gotta be it,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything come out that bright. It’s got to be an incredible power source.”

  “How long till we get there?” Sparrow asked.

  “Not sure. All we can do is keep going, using this as our compass.”

  And just as luck would have it, the moment I said that, the HeatSeeker 4000 shut off.

  “Oh, crap,” I said.

  “What happened?”

  “It died,” I said.

  “What the heck was the use of getting all those batteries?” she said. “And where should I go?”

  “Just keep going straight. I can fix this.”

  I rummaged around in my backpack and pulled out another GeekDen contraption. I pulled the plug out of the cigarette lighter and threw it in the backseat. Then I hooked a device into the socket and attached it to my battery circuit.

  A second later the HeatSeeker came back on, the dots brighter than ever.

  “Nice work,” she said.

  “Never thought I’d be using it for this,” I said. “Okay, start veering more west.”

  She followed my directions. Soon the smudge was fully visible. And it was impossibly bright.

  “It’s gotta be within about ten miles. This thing is hot. Keep going.”

  Sparrow sped up. I was about to tell her to slow down, but then I saw the clock on the car dashboard. If our information was accurate, Operation Songbird was going to take effect within the hour. There was no time to lose. The fate of the world was in the hands of a kid who was once selected after a mop for a kickball team. (The gym teacher wouldn’t let that stand—though he did get a laugh out of it.)

  I had a hard time arguing that one. At the time.

  I watched as the huge red orb grew agonizingly closer. Sparrow kept looking over to the HeatSeeker 4000 to see as well.

  “We’re getting close,” I said. She just nodded.

  We had driven outside of the town limits, the highway passing numerous small strip malls and roadside diners. There were no signs of a super-villain hideout. Not that it would have exactly advertised itself. You wouldn’t be a successful villain if you had a lair in the shape of a huge, evil trident, or surrounded your castle with a moat filled with floating dead bodies. Le Carré’s crib was hidden. It made sense that it wasn’t visible to the naked eye.

  “Turn off at the next exit,” I told Sparrow. She complied.

  We drove off the exit ramp and headed west until we were right smack in the middle of the red blob.

  I looked back at the HeatSeeker 4000.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said.

  “What?” Sparrow asked.

  “We should be here. I don’t understand.”

  “Then where is it?” she asked.

  “I…I don’t know. Stop the car.”

  Sparrow pulled over to the side of the road. On one side was a forest. On the other side was a strip mall.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  “Me either.” I looked toward the forest. Then the strip mall. Then at the device. The red blob was large enough that the radius was at least a mile in any direction. Which meant we could spend hours combing through leaves or wandering sidewalks and still find nothing.

  “Zeke,” Sparrow said. I snapped to attention. Her eyes showed something I hadn’t seen before: fear. We were running out of time and Sparrow knew it.

  I had a vision in my head of Stefan Holt, seventh-grade newsman, standing in front of a camera with one of those wireless microphones in his hand.

  Reporting live from the scene, where the world has been overrun by übervillain Le Carré. The streets are in chaos, and nothing will ever be the same again. I’m standing here with Ezekiel Bartholomew, the only person who had a chance to stop Le Carré and rescue his best friend, the gangly Kyle Quint. Zeke, what does it feel like to have failed miserably and let down millions of people?

  I felt like I was going to throw up. And this time I didn’t need ipecac.

  There had to be something we’d missed. Le Carré was around here somewhere.

  I scanned the trees. The roads. The strip mall. Looking for something, anything out of the ordinary.

  “Zeke,” Sparrow said, a hitch in her voice. “What now…”

  “Wait,” I said. “There.”

  I spotted something. I took a few steps closer to make sure. Squinted. There was no reason for it to be there. I knew right then that I’d found Le Carré.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “That coffee shop,” I said. “Look at it.”

  “It looks like a coffee shop. I don’t think a venti macchiato is what we’re looking for.”

  “No, not at the stop, above it.”

  Sparrow moved closer. “Is that—?”

  “An FTM Twenty/Four mobile. Commonly used by the military to set up communications.”

  “Why the heck would there be a mobile military antenna above a coffee shop?”

  “There’s no reason for it to be there,” I said, “unless there’s something inside that requires the kind of communications network that needs military operating power. Universal telecommunications power. The kind of power that—”

  “Could broadcast all over the world,” Sparrow said with
horror.

  “Exactly,” I replied. “We found him.”

  6:51 p.m.

  One hour and nine minutes until a bunch of zombie kids with the IQs of a cucumber march all over the world. (Did Sparrow really pretend to be my girlfriend? Sorry, still shaking my head at that one. I mean, who does that? Wait, where was I…oh, yeah, the world’s about to end. Priorities.)

  When I was ten, I sneaked a swig of my dad’s morning roast. I nearly threw up. It made my head swim and my heart beat what seemed like a thousand beats per minute. I knew coffee was a stimulant, but I had no idea it would make my heart feel like the Road Runner was galloping full speed inside my chest. I hate coffee. Hate the smell, hate the taste, hate the weird variations that people have come up with, hate coffee shops and bars, and even the word barista.

  So naturally it made sense that Le Carré would use a coffee shop to disguise his base. Like I needed any more reasons to hate him.

  I pulled my laptop out from my backpack and plugged in the wireless card. I ran a few quick searches and found that the shop had been purchased by new owners three years ago. The company name it was registered under?

  “Ragnarok Industries,” I said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sparrow said.

  “Come on,” I said, stepping out of the car and hitching the backpack over my shoulder. “We need to find out what’s really going on in there.”

  We jogged over to the coffee shop, threw open the door, and walked inside. Immediately the smell of ground beans and milk infused my nostrils and made me gag. And gag again.

  “You okay?” Sparrow said.

  “Yeah, it’s just,” I said, hiccuping, “the smell of coffee makes me nauseous.”

  “Wonderful. Is there anything that doesn’t turn you into Jell-O?”

  I threw her an evil glance.

  We looked around the shop. About a dozen people were sitting at tables, sipping coffee, munching on pastries, or buried in their computers. Three baristas worked behind the counter, looking as excited to be there as I always was during my yearly physical.

  Nothing looked out of the ordinary. It was a coffee shop. They served real coffee. If Le Carré wasn’t here, I was going to be mighty peeved for putting my nostrils through this kind of agony.