“John Dart!” a strident voice warned, and Katie Sung sprang into view, wearing a black turtleneck and gray slacks. Through the doorway, beyond John and Katie, Pigeon saw a multitude of wax figures.
Katie blocked John from progressing into the room. For a moment they faced each other motionlessly. Then Katie pounced. John raised his bat to block her punch, and her fist broke it in half. Ducking, Katie spun and delivered a low, sweeping kick with impossible speed. John’s feet were whipped out from under him so hard that he landed almost upside down.
Pigeon charged through the doorway and crushed the eggshell in his hand. Tiny bubbles floated free, no larger than peas. The air in the sanctum was much cooler than the air out in the corridor. Pigeon recognized many of the wax figures—he saw himself, his friends, and also figures of Katie, Cleon, Todd, and some of the other henchmen. Jonas White stood at the far side of the room. He looked enraged by the intrusion.
From his position on the ground, John kicked at Katie’s legs, but she nimbly sprang away. He started to rise.
Katie pointed to Pigeon. “It’s our lost Sub!”
“I can see,” Jonas White said as he toddled toward a life-sized wax replica of John Dart. “Jeanine, if you will.”
A slight, youngish girl whom Pigeon had never noticed before stepped forward, palms facing him. Suddenly Pigeon was falling upward. Desperately twisting to avoid smashing his head, Pigeon slammed sideways against the ceiling; then gravity went back to normal, and he fell to the floor, landing hard, the breath crushed out of him.
John Dart was back on his feet. Jeanine held her palm toward him. John flipped as he fell upward, landing in a crouch on the ceiling, then flipped again, landing smoothly on the floor.
Scowling, Jeanine extended both palms at John. He hunched as if under the weight of an invisible burden. He took a couple of shaky steps to one side, his knees quivering unsteadily. “She’s a Crusher,” John panted. “Very rare. Can manipulate gravitational fields.”
John fell upward again, landing roughly against the ceiling. When he dropped back to the ground, he hit hard.
Pigeon looked to where his bubbles were collecting against a jade urn upon a recessed shelf on the far side of the room. There appeared to be more bubbles than had come from his egg, which led him to conclude John must have released his bubbles as well.
Jonas White reached the wax figure of John Dart and inserted a needle at the back of the neck. John instantly went rigid.
Katie Sung relaxed, turning her attention to Pigeon. “You sided with the wrong team,” she said.
Victor Battiato burst into the room and skidded to a halt. “What the devil?” he asked, taking in the scene.
“The urn is his power source,” Pigeon blurted, pointing. “The green one in the niche. We’re up against a ComKin and a Crusher.”
Victor aimed his tranquilizer pistol but fell upward before he fired. He smacked against the ceiling on his side. As he dropped back toward the floor, Katie interrupted his fall with a brutal flying kick that made him land in a painful tumble. His pistol clattered to the floor.
The bear Pigeon had glimpsed earlier loped into the room, its shaggy fur matted in some places, ruffled in others. Katie dove to recover the tranquilizer pistol. She rapidly unloaded the gun into the bear.
The bulky bear staggered. “Uh-oh,” it said in a very humanlike voice.
“The urn in the niche,” Victor urged, rising and pointing.
Katie attacked, kicking the bear in the side hard enough to knock it over. After skidding to a stop, the bear flew up to the ceiling, then flopped back to the floor.
Pigeon crawled toward the urn. Everybody seemed distracted by the fight. He worried that if he got up and ran he might draw attention. He was getting close. Behind him, Victor was fighting Katie. The bear no longer moved. Jeanine sat down, rubbing her temples, her brow glistening with perspiration.
Slowly but steadily, Pigeon kept crawling. He was almost there. The jade urn was less than five yards away. He rose to his feet and charged. His body abruptly went rigid and he fell onto his side, landing just shy of the niche. As he went down, out of the corner of his eye, Pigeon glimpsed Jonas White near a wax figure of an eleven-year-old boy in a black leather jacket.
Trapped on his side, Pigeon couldn’t move his eyes. He couldn’t move his lips. He found himself staring at the paralyzed form of John Dart. Behind John, Katie had subdued Victor Battiato.
The attempt to destroy the Source was over. They had failed. Immobilized and utterly helpless, Pigeon dreaded what might come next.
Chapter Twenty
Desperate Measures
A hundred feet above Arcadeland, Nate pulled up beside Lindy. As they hovered together in the darkness, a lone car motored along the dark street. A few other vehicles hibernated in the parking lot below.
They had not caught up with Chris and Risa on the way back from the bay. Nate assumed the other Jets had been flying at full throttle to ensure the Protector would make it back safely.
“See any Tanks?” Nate asked.
“All clear,” Lindy confirmed, eyes sweeping the area. “Chris and Risa are waiting for us inside, just beyond the main doors. I would guess they only beat us here by a minute or two. They’re with Katie Sung and Cleon.”
“Can you see anyone else?”
“No. Some people are probably in the basement or the other rooms and halls that I can’t perceive.”
“Chris and Risa have the Protector? We won?”
“Right.”
Nate sighed. Jonas White now had everything he needed to go after Uweya. If he and Lindy wanted to trip him up, they needed to act now. Nate worried that he might have already waited too long.
“We need to start putting up more of a fight,” Nate said. “We keep waiting for the right opportunity, and it never comes. Jonas has what he wanted. He might send us to go after Uweya, and then again he might not. What if he quits using us? What if he tries to keep us here?”
“You think he might send his own people after Uweya?”
“Maybe,” Nate said. “Or he might hold us here until he sends us. He’s so close to winning, he won’t want to risk blowing it. We can’t get stuck here. Jonas has already proven that he doesn’t mind making kids disappear. I should probably take off. I need to try to get a plan together. We’re the last line of defense.”
“Should I come with you?” Lindy asked.
Nate hesitated, trying to think through the best strategy. “Somebody should stay at Arcadeland,” he decided. “There’s a chance Jonas will go after Uweya right away. Just like we can’t afford to get trapped at Arcadeland, we also can’t afford to leave Jonas or the other Jets alone.”