The Great Brain Robbery, page 20
“Well, I don’t think that was too bad for a first attempt, do you?” The dust cleared, revealing that the aircraft now occupied half the lounge. The glass of its windshield was broken, and through it, they could see Mr. Trellis peering out. He was grinning from ear to ear.
“Hello, everyone,” he called. “Sorry about the mess.”
Gertrude burst into the lounge. Her usual reserve had slipped—her hair had come unpinned, and she was short of breath. She looked at the group in bemusement and only did the briefest of double takes when she saw Crepuscula, who greeted her with a wave.
“Wilmot!” Gertrude panted. “Is he with you?”
Suzy’s blood ran cold. “You mean he hasn’t evacuated with everyone else?” She and Gertrude shared a look of dawning horror.
“He went out on some sort of ‘scouting mission’ last night and didn’t come back,” said Gertrude. “I’ve been searching the streets. I can’t find him anywhere! Mr. Trellis is missing, too.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Trellis. “Sorry about that, Mrs. Grunt. Hello.”
Gertrude stared up the length of the nose cone at him. “Do you know where Wilmot is?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I know exactly where he is.”
They were interrupted by a bellowing roar from Ursel, which shut everyone up.
“What is it?” said Suzy.
Ursel pointed at what, to Suzy, simply looked like an empty patch of floor. It took her a moment to realize what should have been occupying it.
“Oh no!” she said. “Aybek! He’s gone!”
“Blast!” said Crepuscula. “I should have been paying more attention.” Her shadow stretched and snaked out through the door, and the lights in the lobby dimmed. She closed her eyes, as if listening for some distant sound, and grunted with annoyance. “He’s not in the building anymore,” she said. She recalled her shadow and brushed some dust from her shoulder. “If you’ll all excuse me, I need to go and retrieve him.”
“Gruuunf,” said Ursel. “Hrrrrk rrnf.”
“His scent? From here? Are you sure?” said Crepuscula.
“Hrumph,” said Ursel.
“I wouldn’t argue,” said Stonker. “Bears have excellent noses. If Ursel can’t track him down, nobody can.”
“Very well,” said Crepuscula. “I accept.”
Ursel nodded and stopped to sniff the air briefly. A second later, she was on the move, and shouldered her way out of the lounge.
“Should anything happen before we get back,” said Crepuscula, pausing in the doorway, “don’t wait for us. We’ll make our own arrangements.”
“Take good care of her, please,” said Stonker, his face set. Crepuscula nodded and left.
“Will someone please tell me where Wilmot is!” said Gertrude. There were tears in her eyes.
“He’s in one of the ancient caverns, deep underground,” said Mr. Trellis. “He’s being held captive by the same criminal fraternity that attacked the young deputy postal operative here. And the boy from the snow globe is with him, too.”
“Frederick?” said Suzy. “He’s all right?”
“Apart from being held captive, yes,” said Mr. Trellis. “They’re both in the pink of health.”
“But how can we reach them?” she asked.
“The Postmaster and I put our heads together and found a way in through the Hobb’s End mine,” said Mr. Trellis. “But we ran into a slight catastrophe and it’s all blocked off now. I borrowed this beauty from a landing pad below in the Uncanny Valley. There’s another entrance down there. Just head straight down and you’ll soon find it.”
“Then I’m going after them,” said Gertrude.
“No,” said Suzy. “You need to get Mr. Trellis to safety while there’s still time. Stonker, the Cloudwright, and I will go after Wilmot and Frederick and see if we can find some way to stop the drill.”
“We’ll what?” said Rayleigh. Suzy shushed him.
“But I can’t just leave him there,” Gertrude said.
“And you won’t be, Mrs. Grunt,” said Stonker. “But someone has to get Mr. Trellis to safety and report everything he knows to the police. Ask if they can send any spare officers to help us. But we have to act now if we’re to save the city. The Postmaster is already down there, and we won’t leave him behind. You have my word.”
It was clear from Gertrude’s face that she wanted to argue with them, but she turned once again to Mr. Trellis. “Can this thing still fly?” she asked.
“Possibly,” he said. “The control panel’s still flashing, and only a few of the lights are red.”
“Excellent,” said Gertrude, who, to everyone’s surprise, took a running jump and landed on the craft’s nose. She shimmied up it, slipped in through the broken windshield, and seized the joystick from him. “It’s been a while since I’ve flown,” she said, “but I used to own a Nocturn Swift RX when I was a girl. Let’s see if I’ve still got the knack.” She flipped a few switches, and the craft’s engines growled into life. She gave a smile of grim satisfaction. “Please bring my boy back safely,” she called.
Then, with a blast of the engines that almost knocked the others over, she guided the craft backward out of the lounge. Mr. Trellis waved good-bye as the Swoop hovered uncertainly beyond the broken balcony for a few seconds before peeling away into the night.
“She really does have the knack,” said Stonker, but Suzy already had her mind on the job.
“Our turn,” she said. “Cloudwright? We need Bertha.”
“What?” Rayleigh stammered. “Yes, but … but you can’t possibly mean to … can you? Down there?”
“We can’t stay here,” said Suzy. “And the longer we wait, the more dangerous it gets.”
No sooner had she finished speaking than the floor began to shake, stirring up the plaster dust that had fallen. Cracks zigzagged up the walls and ceiling, and to Suzy’s horror, the whole house began to lean to one side. A dull roaring sound filled the air, making it throb in her ears until she could barely think. Distantly, through the dirge, she heard the crash and splinter of buildings falling.
“We’re too late!” she cried. “They’ve started the drill again! Trollville is collapsing!”
21
THE DRILL
Wilmot had thought the drill was loud when it started—a bellow of engines and a scream of whirling metal—but it was nothing compared to the sound the dome made. He could feel it rising up through the soles of his feet. It was a constant, ongoing note, like the tolling of a gigantic bell, and it made his very bones shake.
“Wilmot!” cried Frederick, his voice distorted by the throbbing air. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know!” Wilmot cried back.
Above them, cracks opened in the cave roof, and a few stalactites broke free.
A shadow passed over them, and Wilmot saw Tenebrae circling above, supervising the drilling operation.
“More power!” Tenebrae cried. Wilmot heard someone—probably Reggie—shout something in return, but the words were lost within the cacophony. “I said, more power!” Tenebrae cried. A few seconds later, the whine of the drill increased in pitch. Wilmot’s vision started to blur.
This is it, he thought. The end of Trollville. Unless I can do something.
But what?
22
THE ONLY WAY IS DOWN
“We have to get out of here!” shouted Suzy as the quake shook the rest home to its foundations. Rayleigh tried to bolt for the door, but she grabbed him by the collar. “Not through the streets,” she said. “We have to go down!” She picked up his briefcase from where he had dropped it and pushed it into his shaking hands. “We’re all getting out of here in Bertha!”
She dragged him toward the balcony. Stonker hurried after them, but not without a worried look in the direction that Ursel and Crepuscula had taken.
The room—or possibly the building, or possibly even the whole of Trollville—lurched suddenly to one side, spilling them all to the ground. With a crunching and grinding of stone, a crack opened up across the middle of the floor.
“Quickly!” Suzy shouted. Rayleigh threw down his briefcase and struck it with his thermometer. It sprang open and the basket began unfolding, while the colorful envelope of the balloon swelled and rose from its center. But the room was rapidly coming apart around them as the crack widened and spread, sending jagged tendrils up the walls. Part of the ceiling fell in, driving them right to the edge of the balcony, which was itself beginning to crumble. Suzy braved a glance over the edge and saw the yawning gulf of the Uncanny Valley below.
“Get in,” ordered Rayleigh the moment the basket was fully formed. Suzy and Stonker threw themselves in and watched as Bertha’s envelope slowly took shape above them.
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” said Stonker.
“No,” said Rayleigh. “She’s a balloon. She’s meant to be dignified and relaxing.”
The envelope continued to expand, until it was scraping against the side of the building. Rayleigh raised his thermometer and the basket lifted clear of the balcony a second before it fractured into rubble. They rose up, away from the rest home, and suddenly Suzy was able to look out across the whole of the Underside. She felt something shrivel up inside her: It was a scene of devastation. Plumes of dust mushroomed into the air across the city as more houses succumbed to the quake. She watched the roof of the rest home split open, revealing the colorful landscape of Wilmot’s model railway. Then that, too, splintered and broke up as, with a loud crash, the rest home collapsed in on itself. Suzy, stunned, watched it fall away into the abyss. Wilmot’s home—a place where she had been made welcome—was gone. At least we got everyone out, she thought.
“Do you think Ursel’s all right?” asked Stonker, his voice strained. He was scanning the swaying walkways as Bertha sailed out over the chasm of the Uncanny Valley.
“Crepuscula won’t let anything happen to her,” said Suzy, and hoped that it was true. As powerful as Crepuscula was, what could she possibly do to escape disaster on this scale?
They leaned over the edge of the basket and looked down into the blackness below as Rayleigh began their descent.
“Mr. Trellis said there was a platform,” said Stonker.
Suzy strained her eyes. “I can’t see anything yet. Can you take us down faster, please, Cloudwright?” Rayleigh gave the depths of the Valley a nervous look but didn’t argue. With a prompt of his thermometer, the balloon began dropping at twice the speed. It made Suzy’s stomach do a little flip.
All around them was a sound like gigantic teeth being ground together, as the walls of the Valley shook and cracked. Chunks of rock fell away and plunged into the darkness far below. Suzy listened for the crash of their impact but heard nothing.
She looked up and, beyond the curve of the balloon, saw Trollville receding into the distance. Plumes of smoke and dust blossomed from the Underside. The streetlights flickered, waned, then winked out altogether.
“Great Scott,” said Stonker, his face a haggard mask.
They dropped farther into the Valley, and the darkness closed in on all sides like a fist. But as the visibility faded, Suzy became aware of something new. It was a sound—a rich, ringing note behind the grumble of the quake.
“What’s that noise?” she said.
“It sounds like C sharp,” said Rayleigh.
Stonker’s pointed ears twitched. He shut his eyes. “It’s coming from down there,” he said, pointing over the side of the basket into the darkness. “About fifteen hundred feet to our right. Almost three thousand feet down.”
“How can you tell?” said Rayleigh.
“Because I’m a troll,” said Stonker. “Noses and ears, my good chap. They’re our specialties.”
Rayleigh gestured with his thermometer again, and they dropped ever faster.
The note grew clearer, and Rayleigh steered their course toward it. Then they saw a dim circle of light in the rock face and, in front of it, the platform jutting out into the Valley.
“There it is!” said Suzy.
Rayleigh slowed their descent and brought them in as delicately as he could. More rocks fell from above, tumbling into the abyss or crashing onto the platform, which bowed and shook beneath the impacts.
On Rayleigh’s first attempt at a landing, the platform simply flicked the balloon back up into the air, almost dashing it against the cliff face. The Cloudwright wrestled with his thermometer, taking evasive maneuvers against a large boulder that came whistling down out of the darkness and missed them by an inch.
“This is madness!” he cried. “We’re going to get pulverized if we stay out here.”
“Then get us in, man!” said Stonker. “And quickly!”
Suzy saw doubt pass like a cloud across Rayleigh’s face. When it cleared, his eyes had hardened and his jaw was set.
“Brace yourselves!” he said. “And be ready to jump when I say so!”
He angled Bertha down quickly, and Suzy realized, too late, that he was aiming to overshoot the platform and crash into the mouth of the tunnel. She shut her eyes and threw her hands up to protect her face.
“Jump!” Rayleigh shouted as he struck the basket with his thermometer. Suzy threw herself clear, turning a somersault in the air before she came down hard.
Luckily her satchel absorbed most of the impact, and she rolled to a panting, shaking stop a few yards into the tunnel. She staggered to her feet and clapped her hands to her ears: The ringing note was unbearably loud here. The air seemed to ripple with it.
She turned toward the tunnel mouth and saw that both Stonker and Rayleigh had survived the crash unharmed, although they, too, were grimacing under the onslaught of sound. Bertha was already retracting into her briefcase.
There was no point trying to speak, so Suzy gestured up the tunnel with her elbows. She could already see the entrance to the cavern ahead. The others nodded, Rayleigh picked up Bertha, and together they started toward it.
It was like walking into a strong wind. The noise rushed through the tunnel like an invisible force, trying to hold them back.
But then they emerged into the cavern and she got her first sight of the drill and the huge copper-colored dome of the vault. The air around them shimmered with sound, and the cave roof was a constellation of brightly glowing mushrooms, which, Suzy was almost certain, were rushing about on spindly legs.
At least the noise had the advantage of covering their approach. They crept around the base of the vault, taking cover in the forest of stalagmites, until they saw Reggie and the other trolls, clad in ear protectors, clustered around a small control panel that Suzy guessed controlled the drill.
Behind them, she spotted Frederick and Wilmot, lashed to another stalagmite.
She gestured to Stonker and Rayleigh to stay hidden, then, keeping one eye on Tenebrae, she hurried through the stalagmites. She wasn’t worried about the trolls spotting her, but she knew those eyes of his would be able to pick out movement in a second if he happened to look down. But he was as obsessed with the vault as the others, and she reached Frederick and Wilmot without incident.
She tapped them each on the shoulder and motioned for them to be quiet. The knots were well tied, and it took her a moment to undo them. The ropes slipped free, and they followed her away from the vault, deeper into the cover of the cave floor.
“It’s such a relief to see you!” Wilmot shouted into her ear. “I’m afraid my plan B didn’t quite work.”
“Neither did plan A!” she shouted back.
“Never mind that!” put in Frederick. “We need a plan C! What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Suzy. “But we absolutely have to stop that drill. Trollville’s being shaken to pieces.”
Wilmot’s face looked drawn. Frederick’s face … well, she couldn’t quite tell what Frederick’s face was doing, because it was caked in dry mud. In fact his whole body was covered in it, from his hair down to his …
An idea struck Suzy like a jolt of energy. It was so fierce she actually twitched.
“Wait here,” she said. “And don’t do anything until I tell you to.” Then she turned and ran across the cave, right up to Reggie and the other trolls. She threw her hands up. “Stop!” she shouted.
There was a moment of confusion during which the trolls around Reggie drew their wands. Gary and Barry lumbered toward her, hands outstretched. Then Reggie slapped a large red button on the control panel, and the drill fell silent.
The sudden absence of noise was so profound that even Gary and Barry sighed with relief. It was short-lived, however, as Tenebrae swooped down with a fierce screech and sent the drill team scattering.
“What are you doing, you idiot?” he said, pointing an accusing talon at Reggie. “Start this drill again, or I’ll—”
“I know how to open the vault!” said Suzy. Tenebrae rounded on her.
“You!” he cried. “I don’t know how you got here, but you’ve interfered for the last time.” He advanced on her.
“I can get you into the vault,” she said simply, without flinching. “And you won’t even need the drill.”
Tenebrae stood over her, one claw raised, but he didn’t strike. “Why should I trust you?”
“Because I want you to leave and never come back,” she said. “And you won’t do that until you open the vault. But I’m warning you now, you might not like what you find inside it.”
“Never you mind what I’ll like,” said Tenebrae. “Now talk.”
Suzy swallowed the lump of tension that had built in her throat. “Okay. You can’t go through the vault, because it’s reflecting all the energy you put into it with the drill. Right?”
“It does more than just reflect it,” said Reggie. “It amplifies it. Anything we throw at it, it throws straight back at us, but ten times stronger.”
“Exactly,” said Suzy. “That’s been causing the earthquakes, and it’s what’s going to get everyone killed if you carry on.”
“So?” said Tenebrae pointedly.
“So what if you didn’t have to break into the vault at all? What if someone opened it for you from the inside? After all, if a door isn’t designed to open from one side, it must open from the other, right?”
