Benjamin Franklinstein Meets Thomas Deadison Read online

  “Absolutely! It was his idea,” said Franklin. “How could you tell?”

  “My dad knows all about costumes,” explained Scott. “Once he dressed up as a gorilla for my cousin’s birthday and she didn’t recognize him, even when the police came.”

  Victor sat down on the bench and turned to Jaime. “And how exactly is this supposed to get us into the factory?”

  “It’s the best we could come up with on short notice,” Jaime said with a sigh. “Here, put these on.” She handed Victor two small bundles of cloth.

  “What are they?”

  “Black pants and T-shirt, for disappearing into the shadows once we get inside. You can change behind the tree over there.”

  Victor examined the clothes skeptically. “These look too small. Where did you get them?”

  “Just put them on,” said Jaime.

  “Hey, look!” said Scott. He held up a pair of Liberty Bell–shaped sunglasses. “I get a costume too.”

  “We’re all in costume—it’s part of the plan!” said Franklin proudly. “Now do hurry, Victor. We haven’t much time.”

  Victor hated changing clothes in public. But he really hated changing into girls’ clothes in public. As Victor had feared, these clearly belonged to Jaime. And they were several sizes too small.

  He inched out from behind the tree.

  “I can see your belly button,” said Scott. “And your ankles. My mom has pants like that.”

  “I’m changing back,” said Victor. “Where’s Jaime?”

  “She is already in position,” said Franklin.

  Victor took a step back. “What do you mean, she’s ‘in position’?”

  Scott pointed to one of the suitcases, which looked considerably fuller than it had a moment before.

  At least no one could see him in his ridiculous costume.

  Still, Victor would have gladly traded places with Scott. Pulling a suitcase down the street was infinitely better than being pulled down the street inside a suitcase. Victor’s knees were pressed up against his nose, and his foot was twisted at a painful angle. The air was growing hotter by the second, and he was finding it a little tough to breathe. He wondered how Jaime was faring.

  Thud!

  “Oops! Sorry, Jaime,” whispered Scott. “Didn’t see that hole.”

  Victor guessed that she was not faring well, either.

  It seemed to take Franklin and Scott an unusually long time to find the entrance to the factory. More than once Victor had to fight the urge to jump out and direct the situation. Finally, the ground beneath him became very smooth, and he guessed they had made it inside.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” he heard Franklin say. “My nephew and I are from out of the town and we’re a little lost. Can you help?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but this is private property.” It was a woman’s voice, very official. “Do you have business here?”

  “We’re looking for the bus station,” said Scott.

  “Just down the block to your right,” said the woman. “Is that all?”

  “I mean the train station,” said Scott. “Where’s that?”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” said the woman. “As I said, this is private—”

  “My dad needs to sit down,” said Scott. “Do you have anything to drink?”

  “I am a bit parched,” added Franklin.

  “No, we don’t have anything to drink. And I thought this man said he was your uncle.”

  “Uncle Dad, that’s what I call him,” said Scott.

  Victor heard the sound of a button clicking. “Security?” said the woman. “I think we have a situation here in the lobby.”

  “A situation? Where?” said Franklin. Victor heard footsteps, and Franklin’s voice grew softer. “Let’s see if we can help!”

  “They’re probably bringing us drinks,” said Scott. It sounded like he was walking away too. “I hope they have root beer.”

  “Gentlemen,” said the woman, “you’re trespassing on private property. If you don’t leave immediately, I’ll call the police.”

  “The police! Maybe they could take us to the train station!” said Franklin.

  “My feet hurt,” said Scott. “I’m going to lie down for a minute to rest.”

  “Excellent idea!” said Franklin. “Wake us in a half hour, will you, ma’am?”

  “Gentlemen, security is on its way!” Victor could hear the clip-clop of her footsteps as she followed Franklin and Scott.

  “Now!” whispered Jaime.

  Victor unzipped his suitcase and tumbled out onto the floor. Jaime climbed out of her suitcase beside him.

  Franklin and Scott had chosen the perfect place to leave the bags. The main lobby of Infinity Unlimited was tall and open, but Victor and Jaime were safely hidden behind a row of large potted plants that decorated the edges.

  Jaime gave Victor a nudge. She put her finger to her lips, then pointed toward a door behind the reception desk.

  Victor nodded. Quickly, they zipped the suitcases back up.

  In the distance, he could hear Franklin and Scott begin to sing “Yankee Doodle,” the signal that the coast was clear.

  SECRET SIGNAL SONGS AND WHAT THEY MEAN

  “Yankee Doodle”................ The coast is clear.

  “America the Beautiful”........... Danger—someone’s coming.

  “Happy Birthday to You”......... We’ve been spotted! Run for your life!

  “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”.... Secret meeting tonight at headquarters.

  “The Hokey Pokey”............. Enemy nearby. Be careful what you say.

  “Mary Had a Little Lamb”........ Your fly is open

  “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”..... I’m hungry. Let’s stop for some tacos.

  “London Bridge Is Falling Down”... Warning! London Bridge is falling down!

  Jaime took off first, with Victor close at her heels. They kept low, following the row of plants for as far as they could. When they reached the end, they sprinted the final fifteen feet out in the open, then ducked behind the reception desk.

  “Do you think anyone saw us?” panted Victor.

  “I don’t think so.” For a moment, the two of them sat perfectly still, listening for any sign that they had been spotted. From the sound of things, the security guards had arrived to escort Franklin and Scott out of the building. To Victor’s amazement, the plan was working.

  “Ready?” said Jaime. She grabbed something from a shelf beneath the desk, then reached up for the doorknob.

  “Hang on,” said Victor. His heart was still racing. “I just need to catch my breath.”

  But Jaime was already gone.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Inside Infinity Unlimited

  Victor hadn’t expected it to look so ordinary.

  Infinity Unlimited was just a big, busy office filled with cubicles. Men and women in business suits sat at computers, talking on phones and doing paperwork.

  “Here, put this on,” said Jaime. She slipped Victor a visitor’s pass, then clipped one on her own shirt.

  “Good thinking,” said Victor. He glanced around the room. “What do we do next?”

  Jaime started walking. “Act like you belong here. And keep an eye out for a door to the factory floor.”

  They passed rows and rows of desks. Most of the office workers were too busy to notice two kids passing by. Occasionally, though, one would look up and smile at Victor’s outfit.

  “I can’t believe you made me wear this,” whispered Victor.

  “Wait until we get inside the factory,” said Jaime. “You’ll thank me then. Remember, stick to the shadows.”

  At the end of the room, they found what they were looking for: a door with a sign that said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  “You think this goes to the factory?” said Victor.

  Jaime shrugged. “It goes somewhere. If it’s the wrong door, we’ll just pretend to be two kids who got lost. Be prepared, you might nee
d to cry.”

  “Me? Why don’t you do it?”

  INFINITY UNLIMITED VISITOR’S PASS

  “I don’t cry,” said Jaime matter-of-factly. “Besides, I’m wearing sunglasses.”

  She opened the door and they slipped inside.

  It felt like stepping out into a bright, snowy winter day. Everything was white: the enormous walls, the floor, the strange machinery, even the workers’ uniforms.

  “Get down!” hissed Jaime. She tugged at his shirt.

  Victor dropped to the floor beside her. They huddled behind a pair of white garbage cans, observing the factory in action. Just a few feet in front of them, conveyor belts delivered a never-ending stream of Infinity Bulbs to a line of workers. The workers boxed them and placed them on different belts, sending the bulbs farther down the line.

  “We have to get out of here,” said Jaime. “We’ll be spotted any second.”

  “Definitely.” Victor scanned the factory floor. Every inch of it glowed, as if they were inside an enormous lightbulb. “You know, I’m thinking maybe these black costumes weren’t such—”

  “Finish that sentence and I’ll kill you.”

  “I’m just saying that—”

  “Seriously. I will.”

  Victor pointed to a door about fifty feet down the wall, marked with a symbol of a staircase. “We could try that one.”

  “How?”

  “In these.” Victor reached up and very slowly tipped the garbage can toward him. To his relief, it was nearly empty, except for a few papers. “We’ll hide underneath and work our way along the wall. If we move slowly enough, they won’t notice us.”

  “And if they do?”

  “I’ll cry,” said Victor.

  “Deal.”

  Victor tipped the garbage can over his head and ducked underneath. He could hear Jaime struggling with hers, then cursing. Evidently, her can was a little more full than his.

  It took them ten minutes to cross the fifty feet to the door. Every time they heard footsteps approach, they froze, hoping that it wasn’t a janitor. Then, once the footsteps had safely passed, they would inch forward again. Finally, Victor felt the doorjamb.

  “We’re here.”

  Once through the door, Victor’s eyes strained to adjust to the darkness of the stairwell. He could see that it went several stories above and below ground level.

  “Up or down?” he asked.

  “Do you hear that?” said Jaime.

  Victor listened. A low hum was coming from somewhere deep beneath his feet. “Whatever’s making that sound, it’s pretty big.”

  “Exactly,” said Jaime. “I say we head down and investigate.”

  With each set of stairs, the noise grew louder. Three floors down, they came to a thick, red metal door. Victor put his ear to it. The hum was strong now. He could feel it in his bones.

  “If someone sees us, are we still two kids who got lost?”

  “If someone sees us, we run,” said Jaime. “Fast.” She turned the knob and inched the door open a crack. Cautiously, they stepped through.

  Victor had never seen such a big room. Perfectly round, its walls were taller than his house. Machines and computer panels with blinking lights lined the walls. All around, giant brass wheels spun beside twenty-foot coils that buzzed and sparked. And in the center of it all, a giant tower stretched upward through the high ceiling.

  “What is it?” whispered Jaime.

  “Some kind of giant antenna,” whispered Victor. “The Emperor probably uses it to send his commands to the Infinity Bulbs.”

  “It’s so big! I bet it runs straight up through the factory to the roof,” said Jaime.

  The tower stood on an island, separated from the rest of the room by a deep pit. Inside the pit, an enormous fan steadily spun like a merry-go-round. Its blades gave off a crackling blue glow. A narrow footbridge connected the island to the outer rim of the room where Jaime and Victor stood.

  “Should we get a closer look?” whispered Jaime.

  Victor nodded.

  As they crept across the footbridge, Victor looked down at the blades whirring beneath him. The humming energy he had felt outside the door was strong now. A strange electrical breeze brushed across his skin.

  “It’s a huge electrical turbine,” Jaime said. “This must be the main power plant.”

  “Yeah,” said Victor. “I can feel the energy, and I’m not even touching it. Creepy.”

  Cautiously, they stepped onto the island at the center of the room. As they circled it, they could see scaffolding rising up the back side of the antenna.

  “The Emperor hasn’t quite finished it yet,” whispered Victor, observing some loose cables hanging from above.

  “And we can’t let him finish,” whispered Jaime. “How do we break it?”

  “That’s usually Scott’s job.” Victor studied the machinery. “But if we can sever the main power line—”

  Jaime clapped a hand over Victor’s mouth and pointed. On the far side of the room, four scientists in lab coats were fixing a machine. Jaime and Victor ducked around to the other side of the antenna and crept back across the bridge.

  “I recognize them!” whispered Jaime. “They’re Prometheans. They disappeared a month ago.”

  “The Emperor must be controlling them,” said Victor. He hurried toward the red exit door. “He probably made them build all this stuff.”

  THE EMPEROR’S HARMONIC TURBINE/ANTENNA

  “That makes sense,” said Jaime. “I wonder if—”

  The red exit door suddenly swung open in front of them. Two scientists—a man and a woman—stepped into the room.

  There was nowhere to hide.

  “Quick!” said Victor. “Let’s try a different door.”

  He turned and began to run the other way. But when he glanced back, Jaime wasn’t behind him. Instead she stood, frozen in place, as the two scientists approached her.

  “Jaime, come on! What’s the matter with you?”

  “They’re…they’re…”

  “Coming this way—I know!” He ran back to her. “Come on!”

  “You don’t understand,” said Jaime.

  “I understand we need to go,” said Victor. Why wasn’t she cooperating?

  “Those people…they’re my parents!”

  THINGS SCOTT KNOWS HOW TO BREAK

  Precisely calibrated scientific equipment

  The washing machine

  Skip Weaver’s “Loudest Forecast” trophy, 2010

  His left thumb

  That thing at the museum

  Wind

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Family Reunion

  Victor had no idea what to do.

  “Mom! Dad! It’s me, Jaime!”

  Jaime’s parents stopped and looked at her. Then, without warning, her mother reached out and grabbed her by the arms.

  “Mom?” Jaime said, struggling. “What are you doing? You’re hurting me!”

  Her father took Victor by the wrist, dragged him to a console, and pressed a large button. Around the room, red lights flashed.

  “Mom! Dad!” Jaime shrieked. “What’s going on here?”

  Victor struggled to break free. “Let go of me!” He lurched forward and stomped down hard on Mr. Winters’s foot. Mr. Winters cried out in pain and stumbled backward.

  Victor ran to Jaime and yanked her free from her mother.

  “They’re under the Emperor’s control,” he said, leading Jaime toward the door.

  “But I can help them!”

  The shriek of a siren pierced the air.

  “Jaime, they’ve sounded the alarm! They’re turning us in! ”

  Like a splash of cold water, the noise shook her back to her senses. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  Three flights up the stairwell, Jaime paused at the door to the factory floor. “We’ll be spotted if we go back into the factory. Let’s try that way instead.”

  They ran down a long cement hallway. By the time they reach
ed the end, the sound of the alarms had faded. Victor listened at a door. “I hear beeping, like a truck backing up. I think we’re at the rear of the building.”

  “That could be good.” Jaime reached for the doorknob. “If we see an opening, we run for it, no looking back.”

  “Got it,” said Victor. “And remember to stick to the shadows.”

  Jaime scowled, then eased the door open.

  They were at the end of a loading area filled with row after row of large cardboard boxes, each marked with the Infinity Unlimited logo. At one end of the room, workers rapidly filled the boxes with lightbulbs from a conveyor belt. Just as quickly, the boxes were stacked on pallets, and at the other end, forklifts loaded the pallets onto trucks.

  Victor and Jaime watched the operation for a moment, taking it all in.

  “There are too many people,” said Victor. “We’ll be spotted for sure.”

  “Then we’ll have to hide,” said Jaime.

  “Where?”

  “There.” She pointed to a stack of boxes sitting on a pallet. “The forklift is working its way down the line. In a few minutes, it will pick up that stack. We’ll be inside.”

  “Yeah, and then we’ll be trapped in a truck, driving to who-knows-where,” said Victor. “How is that better?”

  “You want to stay here? Come on.”

  Keeping low to the floor, they crawled over to the stack of boxes. Jaime pulled out a pocketknife and cut open a flap in the side of one of them. Then, as quickly as they could, she and Victor began to remove the Infinity Bulbs.

  “We’re going to be a lot heavier than a box of lightbulbs,” said Victor.

  “The forklift won’t notice,” said Jaime.

  Victor climbed in first and tried to make himself as small as possible. Jaime squeezed in after him and pulled the flap shut.

  “Let me borrow the knife for a second,” whispered Victor.

  “What for?”

  “Airholes.” Victor jabbed the knife into the bottom of the box, searching for gaps in the pallet below. Wherever he found one, he cut a small round vent.

  “Good thinking,” said Jaime.

  “What now?”