Project X-Calibur (12 page)

24

096:01:48

TWO HOURS LATER,
my footsteps echoed as I moved into the gloomy and deserted hallway. I looked out into the dim space to see a light glowing from the ceiling up ahead of me. Waiting. It felt familiar. I had done this before, I remembered, in a dream. I slowly kept walking, and the light suddenly went dark. The one just beyond it then began to glow, waiting for me to continue. I lifted my foot, but hesitated: If I took one more step, something big would happen. I could feel it. But even though my mouth was as dry as chalk and my insides were twisted into nervous pretzels, I had to find out what.

BAM!
As my foot hit the floor, it echoed like a bomb detonating. In a flash, I was magnetized to the floor. The hallway took off at a blistering speed, taking me with it. Deeper and deeper into HQ I went, past the room that held the big black box, past the room full of TV screens, until everything around me blurred and I had to close my eyes. All at once, the floor came to a stop. I opened my eyes and looked up at . . . X-Calibur. I had somehow found my way into the underground hangar.

The ship was spotlighted from above, while everything around it was pitch black. I could feel warmth coming from it and hear its gentle hum. I had no idea why I had been brought here, or what I was supposed to do.

The side of the ship shimmered in a pulsing wave of brilliance. I reached out and lay my hand against it. The hum intensified, warmth moving into my hand and up my arm. I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. Not yet.

The ship's surface glistened like water, and the metal began to feel soft against my palm. I pressed into it until my hand went
through
the ship's wall. Then my wrist entered it, then my elbow, as the ship hummed louder, and the warmth crept into my chest. I panicked. I wasn't sure I was ready for this—whatever “this” was—so I tried to pull my arm out of the ship's metallic goo. But something inside X-Calibur
grabbed
me and yanked, my head and shoulders pulled into the swirling metal until—

I woke up in my bed, gasping for air.
Another dream.

I looked over at the other beds. Malcolm, Kwan, and Tyler slept soundly. I couldn't remember hearing them come back from the gym, but I'd probably passed out in my day clothes and slept through their return. The countdown clock glowed sharply—but then the numbers suddenly disappeared.
What the heck?
Was I dreaming again? I sat up and squinted at the screen.

Letters
popped up, one at a time.

B . . . E . . . N . . .

R . . . U . . . AWAKE?

I stifled a cry of confusion.

MEET . . . ME . . . AT . . . THE . . . B . . . S . . . R.

The letters disappeared and the countdown returned, good as new. I pinched myself. Still awake.

Meet me at the BSR.

“Okay,” I whispered.

I tiptoed out of bed and into the hall. HQ looked deserted, even though every now and then I could hear voices behind closed doors. I turned a couple of corners, then a couple more, trying to remember how to get to the BSR. It wasn't easy, especially without the luxury of the moving sidewalks to whisk me along.

Eventually I found the place, but I stopped several feet from its doors. I peered suspiciously up and down the halls. This could be some kind of test. Or . . . a trap. There was only one way to find out. I moved in closer.

“They're locked,” came a voice from above me. I whirled around, tripped backward, and landed on my butt. I was staring up at Ivy, who was looking down at me from an open ceiling panel.

“What's up?” She grinned. “Besides me, I mean.”

“
You
called me on the countdown clock?” I asked in shock. I stood up and brushed myself off hastily.

“Sure. Who else would call you like that?”

Good question.

“How did you, uh, do that?” I asked. She dropped a rope from the open ceiling panel and slid down it effortlessly. She landed beside me with a soft thud.

“I know this place inside and out,” she shrugged. “My father brought me here all the time when I was a little kid. I guess he assumed I wouldn't remember it, but I did.” She held her chin up. It was the first time I noticed a true resemblance to her father. “I remember
everything.
Plus, I'm pretty good at sneaking around in places I'm not supposed to. It's a gift.” She laughed.

I couldn't say anything in return. Now that she was standing in front of me I was distracted by how great she smelled: like flowery apples.

“What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?” she snapped. “Well . . . listen, thanks for not telling my father about me in Barrington's class.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. “That's why I called you here. To say thanks.”

“Oh, no prob—” I began, but she held up a finger to cut me off. She'd noticed something down the hall.

“Hold that thought,” she said.

She hurried to a hallway door that had light coming from beneath it, then put her ear to the metal. Curious, I made my way over.

“What's going on?” I whispered. I was growing nervous about all this. Not just because Ivy smelled so great and had the greenest eyes I'd ever seen, but also because finding me in the middle of the night with his daughter would give Pellinore a solid reason to kick my scrawny butt back to Texas.

Ivy curled a finger toward the door and carefully opened it. The room looked like an office, with telephones, a copy machine, printers, and a few computers. It was the least amazing room I'd seen at HQ. Ivy pointed to the corner where a tech was bent over a desk, fast asleep, his face sideways on his computer keyboard.

“That's Arlo,” Ivy whispered to me with a pitying head shake. “Happens almost every night. My father overworks them,” she said regretfully.

As we moved closer, I recognized the tech. He was the flustered, disheveled guy who had delivered the uniforms to our room. As he snored softly, I could see he was definitely much younger than everyone else who worked here, twenty or twenty-one years old at the most.

Ivy watched him sleep, then sighed. She looked around and spotted a jacket draped over another chair, so she grabbed it.

“Lift Arlo's head for me, okay?
Carefully,
” she whispered.

I looked over at Arlo doubtfully. “You know, if he wakes up, we're kind of screwed,” I said softly. “Should we really even be here?” I'd worked so hard to prove myself here, and I already felt like I was inches away from being kicked out the back door. I didn't want to mess things up any more than I already had.

But Ivy just rolled her eyes. “He's
exhausted,
and even if he did wake up, he's not going to give us away. We're friends.” She brushed off the jacket, looked up at me, and grinned wryly. “You've got to have a little faith, Ben.”

I sighed, grabbed Arlo's head, and lifted his cheek off the keyboard.

“Move him to the right,” Ivy whispered, and I did. The chair swiveled to help me. Ivy folded up the jacket like a pillow and placed it on the desk, next to the keyboard.

“Okay, put him down.”

I did, with his cheek on the folded jacket. He stirred briefly, then resumed his slumber. Ivy gave me a smile. “Better. If he slept on the keyboard all night, his cheek would look like a waffle in the morning.”

We made our way back into the hall and closed the door.

I pointed to the open ceiling panel with the rope still hanging down. “Aren't you afraid someone'll see that?”

“Nah. Things are on a pretty set schedule around here at night. There's usually no one walking the halls for another five hours.”

“Do you live here or something? Your dad said you were taken home.”

She walked over to the rope as I followed.

“My father is so focused on his work that it's easy to pull one over on him.
Too
easy, actually. But no, technically I don't live here.”

“Technically?”

She contemplated whether or not to tell me more. Those blazing green eyes of hers locked on mine, her expression firm. “I'll show you. But it's top secret, okay? Under normal circumstances—like if the world wasn't potentially going to end—I'd have to kill you afterward.” She smirked and grabbed the rope. “Follow me.”

I began to climb. The ceiling was only twelve feet high, so thankfully I didn't have far to go. But a foot away from the ceiling, my arms trembled under the strain. I had an empty stomach, so I was even weaker than usual. I reached up to grab the edge of the open panel, but instead of grabbing metal, I grabbed Ivy's
hand.
She had gotten down on her stomach to help me up with a grunt.

“Thanks,” I panted, and climbed into the ceiling. She yanked the rope up and put the panel back in place.

The inside of the ceiling was only lit through thin slits in the paneling. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Everything was a dizzying network of steel beams and pipes and wires, the guts of this amazing HQ. It was like being inside a massive machine.

“Now what?” I whispered.

Ivy pointed up. I tilted my head back for a look at ladder rungs that had been bolted to the side of a steel beam.

“What's up there?”

“My home away from home.” Then she was off again, climbing higher and higher into the darkness.

“Note to self,” I muttered. “Next time someone calls me on a countdown clock, don't answer.” I grabbed the first ladder rung and began to climb.

25

095:13:02

IVY HIT THE SWITCH
on a power strip, and two small lamps came on with a soft click. The floor we stood on was a solid sheet of metal that stretched as far as I could see. It had a slight curve to it, bending down at the edges, like we were standing atop an enormous ball.

I cautiously stepped forward. “Are we on top of the zero-g arena?”

“It's the top of the BSR,” Ivy corrected me. “But the construction is similar.”

I looked up at the intersecting beams and wires and pipes, which also stretched as far as I could see. The inner workings of HQ seemed to go on for miles.

“Are you hungry?” Ivy walked over to the nest of her things: a sleeping bag, headphones, a few bottles of water, a laptop, and a backpack and duffel bag.

“A little, yeah.” I was starving.

“Help yourself.” She tossed me the backpack, hard, and I wasn't quite ready for it. It practically knocked me over, but I tried to look casual. Inside was everything from potato chips to candy to brownies wrapped in plastic.

“Try the brownies,” Ivy suggested. “Emma made them. They're fantastic.”

“Emma?”

“The woman who watches me. At home.”

Emma isn't doing a very good job,
I thought.

I bit into one of the brownies. My stomach, which had been growling a moment ago, was now doing backflips and screaming for more.

“Wow,” I mumbled through a full mouth. “These
are
good.”

“Have all you want. I've got plenty. Water?”

Before I could answer, she hurled a bottled water my way. I barely stopped it from taking off half my face. As I ate, Ivy sat down on her sleeping bag and opened her laptop. I walked over and kneeled a few inches from the sleeping bag, keeping my distance. She glanced my way, considered me for a moment, then went back to her laptop.

“I picked this spot because the Wi-Fi signal is strongest here. Download speeds off the charts,” she explained, typing away.

I fumbled for something to say. “I uh, think the coffee shop where I live is getting Wi-Fi soon.”

“Oh, yeah? Starbucks?”

I shook my head.

“Coffee Bean?”

“No. Joe's Coffee.” I wiped a chocolate smudge on my shirt.

“Hmm. I've never heard of that one.”

“The guy who owns it is named Joe.”

She smiled as if I were joking, but when I didn't smile back, she murmured “oh” and went back to her screen. To her left I noticed a green iPod.

“That's an old one,” she said when she saw me eyeing it. “I use it up here so if it falls over the side and breaks, I won't miss it.”

“But it looks brand new,” I said, leaning in for a closer look.

She handed it to me. “It's nine months old. They make a much better one now. I have a couple of them at home. I usually listen to music on my iPad or iPhone now, anyway.”

“Sure. Makes sense,” I muttered, eyeing the iPod. My parents had planned to buy me a
used
iPod for Christmas the year before Dad died, but by the time they went to Smiley's Pawn Shop, someone else had offered a better price for it.

“What do you like to listen to?” she asked.

“Mostly CDs.” I couldn't look Ivy in the eye because I was remembering the sound of Dad singing in the mirror each day before work.

“You can have that iPod if you want it.” She said it like she was offering me a potato chip. But I handed it back to her.

“That's okay, but thanks. I will take a second brownie, though.” I dug into another delicious mouthful. “Does your mom cook too?”

Ivy scoffed. “No way. Mother's skills are going on exotic vacations and spending insane amounts of money.”

“Like family vacations?” I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of Percival Pellinore sitting on a beach and sipping a drink with a little paper umbrella in it.

“No. My parents are separated.”

“Is that like . . . divorced?”

“They might as well be.” Ivy sighed. “Do you know my father never even intended to tell me he was
the
Percival Pellinore? I only found out because I spied on him and my mother when they had
the
conversation.”

“What's
the
conversation?”

“The one where he told her he'd been alive for hundreds of years already. You should have seen her face.” Ivy gave a harsh laugh and pushed the laptop away. “She was ready to have him hauled off to the loony bin. But then he proved it to her. He had everything ready—documents, photos. It's funny, it would be so simple for just about anyone to discover who he really is, but nobody would ever believe it. He can hide out in the open.”

At least Pellinore was trying to do something good with all his money and power, and I respected that. He'd give anything to protect Earth.

“If my father had his way, I'd be locked in a stone tower like some fairy tale. It's maddening. Just because he's immortal doesn't mean I am. I've got one
normal
life. I think I should be allowed to make the most of it, don't you?”

“Totally.” I nodded, then leaned back on my hands, getting comfortable. I had forgotten all about our amazing surroundings. The endless pipes, the top of the BSR sphere, all of it. All that mattered was Ivy.

“By the way, I thought it was big of you to call Kwan out earlier for not taking all this seriously. And how you pushed Tyler to participate in class, too. He's not Einstein, but he's got more smarts than he gives himself credit for,” Ivy said with a little smile.

“Thanks.” My cheeks got warm.

She nodded to her laptop. “I know everything there is to know about Tyler. And Kwan, and Darla, and Malcolm, too. I've been hacking into my father's secret files for years. If he knows it, I know it.
You're
the only one who's still a mystery. Because Merlin brought you here.”

“I guess I'm just not sure
why
Merlin picked me. If you've read about the other knights, then you already know they've been . . . special. Champions at something. And Malcolm . . .” I just shook my head, unable (or unwilling) to put Malcolm's apparent greatness into words.

Ivy held up a hand. “You don't have to say a thing about Malcolm, believe me. All the girls at the school we attend think he's the greatest thing since popcorn.”

“But you don't?” I dared to ask.

She reached for a chip and popped it in her mouth with a satisfied crunch. “He's a little too . . . serious. I suppose I respect him more than I like him.”

I couldn't suppress a tiny grin. But she was staring at me again, trying to figure me out. I wondered if I was here, in her “home away from home,” because I was the only mystery left for her to solve.

She shrugged. “Anyway, I'm sure Merlin had his reasons for bringing you here. Don't pull a Tyler and sell yourself short, okay? You do that and you're sure to fail miserably.”

I nodded. “Thanks. I better go back now, though. Your dad's having us fly the prototypes soon.”

“I know. It's been pushed back,” she said, pointing to a schedule on the laptop. “Something about the training course needing a few more obstacles.”

I headed to the ladder but stopped. “You're already a pro up there. Any flying tips?” I hoped.

“Yeah. Never forget that your brain can do several things at once if you allow it to. You've got to trust your mind. Don't strangle whatever skills you have by getting too worked up over any one detail.”

“So you're telling me not to
think
too much, huh?”

She smiled. “Exactly. And whatever you do, keep your steering measured and controlled, or you'll find yourself in a spin. I'm going to assume you're not interested in vomiting again.”

I winced. “You saw that?”

“I heard it. I was listening in on the comm system channel.”

She performed an unflattering impression of me right before I puked—“No, no, no, no . . .”—then punctuated it with a “SPLAT!”

“Very funny.” I scowled, and we both laughed. “You know, it's crazy you're not going to be flying a ship,” I added.

The look in her eyes was heartbreaking. “Princess in a stone tower,” she said softly. “That's me.”