Michael Vey 3 ~ Battle of the Ampere (35 page)

“Ten feet!” Jack shouted. “Blow it!”

McKenna took a deep breath, then said to Ostin, “Good-bye.” Then she closed her eyes and her skin began to turn red.

Taylor and I embraced each other tightly. “I’m so scared,” she said.

“I’ve got you,” I said.

“I love you, Michael.”

That’s when we heard the explosion.

T
he
Ampere
rocked from the explosion’s shock wave. At first I thought the massive blast was from our own explosive, but when I realized that we were all still there, I figured that something else must have happened.

“Holy crap!” Jack shouted. “What was that?”

Sirens from the dock began wailing.

Ostin ran to the portal and looked out. “It’s the
Watt
!” he shouted.

I ran over to look for myself.

From the light of the fires I could see that the top deck of the
Watt
was mostly blown off and smoke and fire was billowing up into the black sky. What was left of the boat was disappearing into the sea.

“It’s sinking,” I said.

“Michael, you’re glowing,” Taylor said.

I looked down. My skin was glowing a pale white and electricity
was sparking between my legs and arms and fingers. “What’s happening?”

“What should I do with the bomb?” McKenna shouted. She had cooled down, but her arms were still wrapped around the explosive.

“Hold on,” I said. “Jack, where are the guards?”

“Mostly on their faces!” he shouted.

Suddenly a massive bolt of lightning burst past our door, illuminating the engine room like the flash of an arc welder. Then there was another.

“The corridor’s clear!” Jack shouted. “The guards are down.”

Suddenly someone pounded on the engine room door. Tessa’s face appeared in the window. “Come on, you idiots!” she shouted. “Let’s go!”

Jack opened the door. “Where’d you come from?”

“Someplace a lot better than this,” she said.

Then Zeus stuck his head in the doorway. “Hey, where did you get the nifty sailor duds?”

“You came back,” I said.

“You thought we’d let you have all the fun? Let’s get out of here.”

“Wait,” I said. “McKenna, how much time do we have on the bomb?”

McKenna pulled back the flap. “Eighteen minutes and twelve seconds.”

“Hide it!”

“I’ll do it,” Ostin said. He took the pack to the back of the engine room and shoved it behind the engine, then returned. “We’re good.”

*

Outside the engine room door a handful of guards started to rally.

“Tessa!” I shouted. “A little help.”

“You got it,” she said.

“I’ve got them,” Taylor said.

I looked back out and the guards were standing in the corridor, looking around in different directions. I made a lightning ball about the size of a watermelon and threw it down the hall. It blew up around them like a grenade, scattering them like bowling pins.

“Vámonos!”
Tessa said.

We followed Zeus and Tessa out of the engine room, then back up the utility stairway to the deck, which was crowded with sailors who had been woken by the
Watt
’s explosion and had rushed to the deck to see what was happening. In the darkness and commotion, few of them even noticed us, and Zeus and I easily took care of those who did. We ran to the side of the boat where we had left our rope.

Zeus looked over the railing. “I hate water,” he said.

“Someone better go down first,” I said, “and make sure our raft’s still there.”

“We brought a boat,” Tessa said.

“I’ll go first,” McKenna said. “I’ll flash if it’s okay.”

She grabbed the rope and slid down into the darkness. A moment later we saw a flash of light.

“That’s your cue,” Jack said. “Go!”

Zeus climbed over, followed by Tessa, Ostin, and Jack, leaving just Taylor and me.

“Your turn,” I said to Taylor.

“No,” she said. “I’m not taking another chance of you staying behind.”

There was no time for discussion, so I climbed over the railing. I grabbed the rope and slid down a few yards, then looked back up. “Coming?”

Taylor grabbed the railing and was throwing her leg over the side when someone grabbed her. It was one of the Elgen guards. Taylor tried to reboot him, but he was wearing a copper helmet. “Caught you,” he said.

“Catch this,” I said. I threw a lightning ball at him, striking him on the copper of his helmet. Electricity sparked and sizzled around on his head, then he fell forward unconscious, dropping Taylor over the side of the boat.

“Michael!” she shouted.

I jumped out and grabbed her—both of us free-falling in the dark. Then I reached out toward the
Ampere
and magnetized, which pulled us up against the boat’s metal hull. I amped up my magnetism
until we came to a sliding stop about twenty feet from the water. Below us was an idling speedboat with all our friends. Jaime was at the wheel.

“That was cool,” I heard Ostin say.

“I think my heart just stopped,” Taylor said.

“Come on!” Jack shouted. “We only have four minutes to get clear!”

I reached over and grabbed the rope, and handed it to Taylor. “Go.”

She slid down the rope until she was low enough that Jack reached up and grabbed her, helping her into the boat. I reduced my magnetism and slid down the hull until I was just a few feet above the boat. Jack grabbed my hand and pulled me in, then shouted to Jaime, “We’re all here! Go, go, go!”

“Everyone hold on,” Jaime said. He leaned on the throttle and the boat shot forward out to sea. By the time Jaime cut back on the throttle the
Ampere
looked like a toy boat in the distance.

I looked around the crowded speedboat. Everyone was there except for Abigail. I smiled at Ian. He just shook his head. “Michael, my man, you know how to make trouble.”

“And you know how to find it,” I replied.

“We have thirty seconds,” Jack said.

We all looked back to watch the explosion. Jack started counting down and we all joined with him. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one . . .” Nothing.

“It didn’t blow,” Jack said.

“Did you set the timer right?” Ostin asked.

“I did exactly what Dodds told me to do,” Jack said. “You saw the detonator, it was counting down.”

“Maybe they disarmed it,” Taylor said.

Suddenly there was a massive explosion. Even as far away as we were, the sound made my ears ring, reverberating throughout the bay and throwing up tons of shredded debris that showered down on the shore and water. The sky turned orange and yellow as a giant fireball engulfed the
Ampere
. There were two more explosions; the third one was even larger than the first, and the ship broke in two and collapsed into the sea.

“We did it!” Taylor shouted.

“Veni, vidi, vici!”
Ostin shouted. “We came, we saw, we kicked Elgen butt!” He shook his fist at the boat. “You’re shark chum now, Hatch. You stinking, maniac, sicko freak of nature. You’re shark chum.” He turned to me, out of breath. “Man, I hated that guy.”

F
or several minutes Jaime just stared at the burning wreckage of the
Ampere,
as if he were in a trance. Our speedboat started to rock more as the waves from the explosion’s shock waves caught up to us. The first streaks of dawn had begun to brighten the indigo sky. Set against the gradient horizon, the
Ampere
’s orange-red flames and sparkling cinders looked oddly beautiful.

Then Jaime said, “You did it,
hermanos
.” He turned back to us. “We now must go before the
guardacostas
arrives.”

“Dodds is about a mile up the coast,” Ian said. “It looks safe.”

“You know Dodds?” I asked.

“How do you think we got here?” Ian replied.

“Everyone hold on,” Jaime said, and he hit the throttle again. The boat lunged forward, gaining speed until we were bouncing from crest to crest. I looked over at Zeus. He was wearing a hoodie and
wrapped completely in towels, sitting on the floor in the center near the front of the boat. For Zeus, even the refreshing ocean spray was dangerous to him. We might as well have been floating on a sea of acid. I couldn’t help but think how courageous he was.

“What happened to the
Watt
?” I asked.

“Zeus did that,” Tessa said. “From the deck of the
Ampere
.”

“It was a fluke,” Zeus said. “They were loading torpedoes on top and I couldn’t resist. I didn’t think it would go up like that. Ka-boom.”

“Ka-boom is right,” Taylor said.

“You rock, dude,” Jack said. Jack went to high-five Zeus, but Zeus quickly pulled back.

“Sorry, man,” he said. “Your hands are wet.”

“My bad,” Jack said. He wiped his hands on his shirt, then they high-fived.

*

Ten minutes later Jaime careened the boat toward shore, which was now visible in the early light. As we approached the dock, I could see a white van in the distance with two figures leaning against it.

“Who’s that with Dodds?” I asked.

“It’s Abi,” Ian said.

“Abi came back?”

“It was her idea to come back,” Ian said. “But we were all thinking it. None of us could stand the idea of you guys doing this alone. We tried to radio you the same day we landed, but there was a communication problem.”

“That’s because we were compromised,” Ostin said. “We lost radio contact.”

“So you touched the States,” I said.

“For a day,” Ian said.

“More like a few hours,” Tessa said.

“Did you meet the voice?” I asked.

“No. But I saw your mother,” Ian said.

“You did?”

He nodded. “She gave me a hug. She looked good. Probably because she was eating something better than rat biscuits. She asked
me to tell you that she loves you and to be careful.” He grinned. “I didn’t tell her that you were planning on blowing up the Elgen’s main boat.”

“Probably for the best,” I said.

“I thought so,” he replied. He turned to Ostin. “I met your parents too.”

Ostin’s eyes opened wide. “You saw my mom and dad?”

“Yes. They were very proud of you. Your mom said something like, ‘I always knew he would make a difference in this world.’ ”

“Awesome,” Ostin said. He was grinning from ear to ear. “Totally awesome.”

*

As we pulled up to the dock, we could clearly see two massive pillars of black smoke rising from the port a mile south of us. Dodds and Abigail walked out to meet us. Abigail was frantically counting heads on the boat.

Jaime said, “Jack, please throw out the rope.”

“Got it,” he said, climbing to the front.

Dodds caught the rope, pulled the boat up to the dock, and tied the rope to a metal cleat. Then he stood and raised his arms out to us. “The warriors return.”

“You’re all here,” Abigail said.

“We thought of dying,” Tessa said. “But no one wanted to miss the after party.”

Jack climbed out first, then helped everyone else out. Taylor and I were the last to disembark.

“Michael Vey,” Dodds said. “Your Electroclan has lived up to its reputation.”

“We survived,” I said.

“That’s good too,” he said. We embraced.

Then Dodds stepped back, leaving Taylor and me standing next to Abigail.

“Welcome back,” she said.

“You too,” I said. “What brought you back?”

“Something you said.”

“What was that?”

“You said not to regret my decision. I couldn’t. If something had happened to you, I would have regretted it the rest of my life.” She put her arms around me. “You were right to stay. But mostly I’m just glad you’re safe.”

When we parted, Taylor hugged her as well. “You saved our lives.”

Abigail held her tight. “They were worth saving.”

*

The ride back to the villa at Miraflores was happily crowded, with Taylor and Abigail sitting across our laps. As we pulled up the villa’s palm-tree-lined drive, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful everything looked. I remembered wondering as we drove off if I’d ever see it again.

Jaime pulled the van up to the front of the house and everyone piled out.