“Heathcliff?”
“Benjamin! Boy, am I glad to hear your voice. You were damaged, but I repaired you, and I’ve got a million questions.”
“Ms. Holiday is—”
Benjamin’s blue light turned red and there was a loud POP! Black smoke seeped through the casing, and the ball fell to the floor.
Heathcliff cried out. How could he have been so stupid? His eagerness to know the truth had gotten the best of him, and now he’d probably made Benjamin worse. He picked up the robot and gingerly opened the cover. Much of the circuitry he had installed was melted.
“Any luck?” Jackson asked. The boy stood a few feet away, watching Heathcliff curiously.
Heathcliff grunted. He might have been lonely, but he wasn’t about to get chummy with his archenemy. A million atomic wedgies flashed in his memory.
“That’s great. We could use Benjamin’s help. And we could use yours, too,” Jackson said.
Heathcliff wanted to tell him to jump off a bridge. He wanted to laugh in his face. He wanted to spit at him. How dare Jackson come to him for help when he and the others shunned him every day? Oh, the indignity! He felt the rage coursing through every vein, and in that anger was something familiar, something comfortable—like a pair of fluffy socks or his stuffed penguin. That anger would protect him from heartbreak and humiliation.
“Unless you still need a little time on your own,” Jackson said.
Heathcliff blinked. “You think I want to be alone?”
Jackson shrugged. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure how you felt. I know how I would feel if my dad didn’t remember me and the only thing that would fix him was buried in cement. I’d want to be alone for a while. And then I’d want a friend.”
“You want to be my friend?” Heathcliff asked.
Jackson nodded. “When you’re ready. I know I have a lot to make up for.”
Heathcliff felt the anger drain out of him like water in a spaghetti strainer. He wasn’t ready to throw his arms around Jackson and forgive him, but his armor of hate felt claustrophobic.
“Listen, I know you’re bummed about that formula, but the scientist who was working on it wasn’t buried in the Playground. He’s here somewhere, probably making breadsticks or cleaning the grease traps. He can start over. That’s the cool thing about life. If you want, you can start all over. So, can you give us a hand or should I call you a whaa-mbulance?”
Heathcliff smiled. “Lead the way.”
It was late, and the restaurant was closed. The team members were busy working on the various arcade games scattered about the room. Flinch was completely hypnotized by a game called Dig Dug, while Matilda was at a game called Donkey Kong.
“Glad you could join us,” the principal told Heathcliff as he stuffed a fistful of gold tokens into his hand.
Heathcliff found a console called Joust that appeared to be a nonsensical game where knights rode flying ostriches over a river of lava. He sank a coin into the slot and a green light appeared on the screen. Instinctively, he placed his hand on it.
The game vanished, replaced by a list of the computer’s applications. He scanned the list line by line. The game had the most advanced Web-browsing program he had ever seen. He could read through classified materials from the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, and something called Project Blue Book. He could use facial recognition technology, every satellite circling the world, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the onboard computers of the International Space Station. The list went on and on, and for the first time since he had awakened without his memories he felt like a spy—a real spy!
“What’s our priority?” Heathcliff asked.
“We have to find Miss Information,” Ruby said. “She’s within a hundred miles of the White House.”
“How do you know that?”
“I did some calculations on that flying bus of hers. A machine that size and shape could only hold so much fuel. They could get about five hundred miles out of it, assuming it flies as fast as a passenger plane.”
“They flew west, too. I’ve been searching satellites for an appropriate landing site,” Duncan said.
“There’s an easier way to track them,” Heathcliff said. He called them over to his game, where he’d accessed a government weather-tracking site. “We can track their exhaust. The fumes left behind will stay in the air for at least a day afterward.”
He showed them a satellite image of Washington, D.C., at the time of the attack, then ran it through a pollution filter until a green band crossed from one side of the screen to the other.
“Like a trail of bread crumbs,” he said. “We need a higher-res picture, but once I get that, this will tell us exactly where the ship went.”
The principal nodded. “That’s good work, Hodges. Keep us in the loop.”
Heathcliff’s proud grin felt like it was stretching his face so wide it might not return to normal.
“If you find her, we can go home,” Duncan said.
“Who wants to go home?” Flinch cried while munching on cold pizza.
“I’ll automate the search. If we’re lucky, we might have an address by tomorrow morning,” Heathcliff said. “What else can I do?”
The principal smiled. “You can help Ruby with surveillance. Miss Information and Tessa must have been captured on video somewhere. It might help us narrow down their location faster.”
“And what are you going to do, boss?” Matilda said.
“I’m going to make some calls. You and your families are going to need new identities. I have friends in the FBI who will do me some favors.”
Heathcliff took a chair and sat next to Ruby, who was busy on a Ms. Pac-Man machine. “Thanks,” he said.
Ruby cringed. “For?”
“Letting me help. Most of the time you guys won’t even look at me. Nice to know I’m not invisible.”
“You’re not invisible,” Ruby said.
“Are you OK? You look worried.”
“I’ve decided not to tell my parents where I am. It’s going to hurt them a lot, but it’s going to keep them safe, too. I feel terrible,” she said as she flipped through several screens of footage.
“I’m sorry,” Heathcliff said. “Families are important, and it’s hard when you can’t protect them. Especially from something you’re responsible for.”
Ruby looked at him suspiciously. “Jackson told you what you did?”
He shook his head. “No, but I know it was something bad.”
He silently prayed that she would deny it, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned her attention back to the screen.
“Are you monitoring wiretaps, too—you know, cell phone chatter?”
“Yes, and I haven’t heard a peep,” she said. “But I suspect Ms. Holiday’s too smart to use a phone.”
“You’re probably right,” Heathcliff said. There were so many cameras to monitor. It was like trying to find a specific seashell on a beach. “I can make an adjustment that will make all of this much easier.”
Ruby stepped back and let him work. Heathcliff pushed buttons so furiously the game rattled. Being a part of the team again gave him a joy and excitement that made him feel like a pot boiling over with water. When he was finished, the screen had three images on it: Ms. Holiday, with and without the mask, and Tessa Lipton.
“This surveillance program has facial recognition, but it’s sort of lame.”
“It’s state-of-the-art,” Ruby objected.
“I’d hardly call what it does ‘art.’ It takes six facial features and tries to pinpoint them from grainy video. I’m stunned it ever works. I increased its parameters and now it’s searching for one hundred fifteen thousand different elements, as well as vocal cues. I’m accessing Ms. Holiday’s employee files so we can add in her favorite foods, authors, television shows, actors, whatever. We can link these things to the search and cross-reference receipts from every purchase in the world. Getting more detailed actually makes it simpler. Tessa Lipton is even easier. She’s famous. Sooner or later they are going to be seen. They’re girls.”