# chapters

path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211211
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (3)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 3</div><br/>
FRANK AND JOE exchanged a quick glance. They had just rescued a girl from some mysterious hunters. She was sitting in their cabin, waiting for them. They felt a strong sense of responsibility for her.<br/>
<br/>
"With all due respect, Agent Wallis," Frank said. "I think we're on a case already."<br/>
<br/>
The agent frowned. "I was told you two were up here on vacation. If headquarters has bollixed things up again--" He rummaged through his pockets.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sure it's not headquarters' fault," Frank said. "We <i>were</i> on vacation, but trouble found us only an hour ago."<br/>
<br/>
"It always seems to find us," Joe added. He might have said it ruefully, but there was an excitement in his tone.<br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis raised an eyebrow. "Regardless, I think ATAC business takes precedence over whatever freelance cases you find--or which find you."<br/>
<br/>
"Of course," Frank said diplomatically. "I only meant that we've found a situation that might warrant ATAC's attention, and that ATAC might want to weigh that fact against the needs of the assignment you have brought to us."<br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis blinked, and Joe chuckled to himself. Frank was always wrong-footing people with the way he could smoothly unfurl such complicated sentences. "Maybe we should talk about it," Joe suggested, and indicated the door to the cabin.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe," said Agent Wallis. There was doubt in his voice. "It's not really my decision. I'm just the messenger here." But he followed the boys inside.<br/>
<br/>
Frank thought that the girl would be in the bathroom, so he was surprised to find her sitting on one of the twin beds with her knees tucked up under her chin. Her eyes, when she looked up, were bleary. She wore a sad expression, but Frank thought that now she just looked exhausted.<br/>
<br/>
He put out a shy hand to her. "We haven't been introduced, you know," he said. "My name is Frank Hardy. That's my brother, Joe." Joe grinned at her. "And this is agent Robert Wallis, of ATAC."<br/>
<br/>
"ATAC?" the girl said tonelessly. "What's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"American Teens Against Crime," said Frank. "It's a special organization that does what the name says. Joe and I are members of it." He felt his pants pockets, and then felt embarrassed to realize that he had left his own ID back at home. He and Joe didn't think they would need to bring any on this impromptu camping trip. He looked over at Joe, but he just shrugged back.<br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis smiled. "I can vouch for these boys," he said, and showed the girl his own ID. <br/>
<br/>
That seemed to perk her up a little, and she sat up. "Oh. Well, my name is Kelly Sanbourne. I have to thank you again for what you did back there." <i>As though she already hadn't when she hugged Frank,</i> Joe thought.<br/>
<br/>
"We found Kelly near one of the small lakes on the edge of the forest," Frank explained. He went on to describe their adventure. "We just got back, and were about to debrief her."<br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis crossed his arms gravely. "This is a very disturbing story," he said, "and it definitely needs investigating. But it sounds like something for the Forest Service to take in hand. It happened on lands for which they are responsible."<br/>
<br/>
Joe tried to hide his feelings of disappointment. Of course he was eager to help out ATAC with whatever assignment they had for him. But losing Kelly left him feeling like a dog whose bone has been taken away.<br/>
<br/>
Frank also looked disappointed, but he mustered on. "What is this new case?" he asked. He felt bad about having to ignore Kelly, and shot her a quick smile before turning back the ATAC agent.<br/>
<br/>
"There is a facility near here that we are concerned about," said Agent Wallis. Again he felt at all his pockets before extracting a thin envelope. "I have more material out in my car, but this is enough for the moment." From the envelope he gave twin sets of papers to Frank and Joe. "It's only been open for a year, but it's already generated a stink that's attracted our attention. Since you two were nearby, it was decided that you should be the ones to investigate it."<br/>
<br/>
"Camp Double Bluff," Joe said aloud, reading the top sheet of paper. It looked like a advertising flier, and it described a place that sounded like a high-class mountain resort.<br/>
<br/>
"Camp Double Bluff?" echoed Kelly with a gasp. "That's the camp where <i>I</i> was!"<br/>
<br/>
All eyes turned toward her. She stared back, wide-eyed. "Maybe we should hear some more about Kelly and her adventure," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
It was a small and very rude cabin they were standing in, with only two beds in the main room. Agent Wallis leaned against the door, while Frank and Joe sat down at Kelly's feet. The girl turned quite pink under the attention. "Tell us about Camp Double Bluff," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it's a camp, about--" She waved a hand vaguely.<br/>
<br/>
"It's about six miles from here," Agent Wallis said. "You have to go back down to the highway and skirt around the park area about fifteen miles before you come to the main entrance. It's not so much a camp as it is a high-end resort, isn't it, Miss-- Uh--"<br/>
<br/>
"Sanbourne," Frank said. "How did you come to be there?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, my parents heard about it. My father, he's a senator?" Her eyes fell, and she stiffened. "They showed me the literature, and I thought it sounded good--"<br/>
<br/>
"But what kind of camp <i>is</i> it," Frank interrupted her. He liked for people to come to the point.<br/>
<br/>
"It's a health and recreation camp," Agent Wallis said. "It caters to a very exclusive clientele, mostly young people. They promise a very strict regimen of diet and exercise, outdoor and indoor--"<br/>
<br/>
"It's not a 'fat camp'," Kelly said hotly, and blushed deeply. "Well, not for everyone."<br/>
<br/>
"Not if you don't want it to be," said Agent Wallis. "There's also a hospital on hand for surgical procedures of various kinds."<br/>
<br/>
Kelly blushed more deeply still. Frank and Joe kept their faces neutral. "When did you arrive there," Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"About four months ago," Kelly said. "I did an early withdrawal from my school. And there's lots to do there. Archery and horseback riding and swimming and canoeing and nature hikes--"<br/>
<br/>
"The usual stuff," said Frank. "But did you notice anything unusual about it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, not at first," Kelly said. "It was a lot of fun, and I made a lot of friends. There was this girl, Vanessa? She was my roommate, and she was really nice and interested in me. We talked a lot. I wound up telling her a <i>lot</i> of things about myself. Things I've never told a lot of my friends. Or my family." She shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "And we had a lot of fun. The doctors were really nice.<br/>
<br/>
"But then about a month ago I got a really bad bee sting on my face. Well, that's what they told me it was. I had to go to the hospital, and I was there for almost three weeks. They had to bandage my face all over because I'd reacted so badly to the sting. Which was strange, because I've been stung lots of times, but never had any reaction."<br/>
<br/>
Frank's eyes narrowed. It certainly seemed like a strange thing. Even if it had been a bad sting, they shouldn't have had to bandage her entire face.<br/>
<br/>
Kelly continued. "When they let me out a lot of my friends had left, including Vanessa. And when I got out, everything just felt wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it, but the whole camp felt different." She frowned. "And while I was in the hospital they'd put up a fence, a very tall fence, with that sharp wire along the top?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hurricane wire," Joe said. "Did you ask about it?"<br/>
<br/>
Kelly nodded. "They said it was because some bears had been spotted nearby, and they didn't want to have to shoot them."<br/>
<br/>
"An extraordinary expense for such a small thing," Frank mused aloud. "By the way, why are you dressed like this?" He pointed to the very thin white gown she had on. "Those aren't regular camp clothes."<br/>
<br/>
"They wouldn't give me my clothes back," she said, "which is what really scared me, finally. They made me stay like this, and kept me in the hospital."<br/>
<br/>
"It sounds more like she was a prisoner," Joe murmured in a low voice in Frank's ear. His brother nodded curtly.<br/>
<br/>
"Finally, this afternoon I couldn't take it anymore," Kelly said. "They let me go for a walk, and I saw a hole in the fence and crawled through. They saw me, so I took off into the hills to try to get away. And then they came after me with guns."<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe looked back at Agent Wallis. He looked very grave. "This is a lot worse than anything that we had heard," he said. "I wouldn't say you boys have a different case. It's pretty clearly the same case ATAC is interested in, and you've picked up a lot more information."<br/>
<br/>
"We're just lucky that way," Joe grinned.<br/>
<br/>
Frank turned to Kelly. "You should get cleaned up now." He pointed to a doorway at the other end of the room, which lead into a small bathroom.<br/>
<br/>
Kelly nodded and walked quietly toward it. The others waited until they heard the door close.<br/>
<br/>
"You'd better bring us the rest of--" Frank started, but then was interrupted by a scream from the bathroom. All three ran for it. Joe was the first through the door.<br/>
<br/>
Kelly was staring at the bathroom mirror and pointing, her face a mask of terror. "That's not my face!" she shrieked.<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (4)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 4</div><br/>
"THAT ISN'T ME!" Kelly shrieked again. She turned away from the mirror and buried her face in her hands.<br/>
<br/>
The boys and Agent Wallis looked at each other uncertainly, and then Joe delicately touched her on the shoulder. "Maybe you should lie down. It's been a hard day."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not crazy!" she shouted, raising her face again. It was very red, and her breath came in gasps. She pointed in the mirror, and flinched. "I'm not crazy," she could only repeat.<br/>
<br/>
Joe gently took her by the shoulders, and led her past the other two into the bedroom. He sat next to her on the bed. She didn't say anything more, and just started to cry softly. <br/>
<br/>
Frank felt a tug at his elbow, and reluctantly he followed Agent Wallis outside. He was afraid it would look bad for them to leave the girl for a private conversation. But it looked like the agent had something that needed saying out of her hearing. <br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis gave Frank a grave look when they were outside. "Don't take this the wrong way, kid," he said, and Frank felt a slight flutter of resentment at his condescension. "But whatever is going on in that cabin is above your pay grade." He sighed. "It's certainly above mine."<br/>
<br/>
The latter admission made Frank feel a little better, and asked what the agent had to say. <br/>
<br/>
"Let me take her with me," he replied. "ATAC will need to debrief her, and we'll need to do it a little more carefully and professionally than we can do here. You and your brother have done a terrific job, but we've got some female psychologists that can do a better job at what comes next."<br/>
<br/>
Frank nodded; it made sense. "I don't think she's crazy either," he said cautiously.<br/>
<br/>
"I wish I knew what she meant by that not being her face," Agent Wallis said. "She's been through a lot, and maybe she's just exhausted." He sighed sympathetically. "Let's get your brother, and I'll outfit you with more background, and the equipment you'll need. You are taking the assignment, aren't you?"<br/>
<br/>
"You couldn't keep us away from it," Frank said fervently.<br/>
<br/>
Together, they went back inside. Frank was amused to see that Joe had broken open their food pack and was feeding Kelly some of their Aunt Gertrude's marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies. Joe smiled. "I hope you don't mind that I'm giving Kelly your share of the treats, Frank."<br/>
<br/>
"How could you," Frank replied with an almost invisible layer of sarcasm. "You know they're my favorite." Actually, Frank hated the cookies, but had never had the heart to tell Aunt Gertrude how he felt. So she kept plying them with these treats, and it was Joe's job to scarf down both boys' share.<br/>
<br/>
"Miss Sanbourne?" Agent Wallis said. "I'm going to take you back to an ATAC field station with me. You can stay there, and we'll get you some clothes, and treat your scratches--"<br/>
<br/>
"I just want to see my parents!" the girl wailed.<br/>
<br/>
"And we can call your parents," Agent Wallis said. "We'll get to the bottom of this mystery." To Frank's eye, the agent was clearly uncomfortable trying to talk to the distraught teenager. "We'll take my car," he continued. "I'd like Frank and Joe to help me clean it out, though." <br/>
<br/>
He gave Joe a meaningful look. The latter gave Kelly an encouraging pat on the back and handed her the bag with the rest of the treats. Then he followed Frank and the agent out to his sedan. From its back seat Agent Wallis took a small suitcase. "Here's what we know about Camp Double Bluff," he said, and leaned against the trunk of the car.<br/>
<br/>
"It's basically a resort catering to the children of the well-off and the well-connected. I won't sugarcoat it like I did in front of her, but it's a place for kids who want to get in shape and look better. Lose weight, get exercise, athletic training. Plastic surgery." His face clouded over at that phrase. Joe and Frank had what was probably a similar thought: <i>Kelly's stint in a hospital with her face entirely bandaged was consistent with plastic surgery.</i><br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis shook himself. "Normally, a resort, especially one catering to such a clientele, wouldn't come to our attention. There hasn't been a whisper against the place since it's been opened. They've had lots of customers, and we've interviewed a few. Until Miss Sanbourne today, they all seemed very happy with the experience, and have been recommending it to their friends."<br/>
<br/>
"So why is ATAC interested?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"It's their hiring practices," Agent Wallis replied. "Most such places are extremely careful at screening their employees, at all levels. But as near as we can tell, Camp Double Bluff, though careful with their hiring, is careful in exactly the wrong way. No one seems to get hired unless they <i>have</i> a criminal background."<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe exchanged startled glances. <br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis continued. "We don't know anything about their physicians or their administrators, but the various athletic trainers and security personnel have <i>definitely</i> done prison time. Mostly for small-scale stuff, but it is still very odd. There are also the juvenile delinquents. The camp recruits a lot of such kids, with promises that seem very vague but more than a little sinister."<br/>
<br/>
Joe wanted to ask what made the promises "sinister," but Frank forestalled him with a different question. "Mixing those kind of people with--" He quickly glanced over his shoulder at the cabin. "With kids like Kelly? That seems like a very bad idea."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what we thought when we got wind of it," Agent Wallis agreed. "But that's how we're planning on getting the two of you inside." <br/>
<br/>
He opened the suitcase and showed them its contents: a set of clothes and a couple of file folders. Frank opened one, then handed it to Joe with a faint smile. "Looks like this one is for you, <i>Steve.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Joe blinked as he examined its contents. There were some official-looking documents, including, he noted, what looked like a rap sheet. He also grinned. On one of them was a photograph of himself, along with the name "Steve Bannock."<br/>
<br/>
"That's a complete set of identity papers," Agent Wallis said. "All real, though some of them, as you've noticed, have been doctored. Steve Bannock and Todd Salzmann are a couple of low-lifes who were interviewed last week by recruiters from Camp Double Bluff, and were accepted. We intercepted them--it's a long story about how we found about it--and since there is a passing resemblance between you two boys and those two we decided to give the job to you. Also," he added with a shrug, "you were nearby, which made it extra convenient."<br/>
<br/>
"This sounds highly improvised," Joe said, and didn't hide his excitement. He liked improvisation. "We'll do our best, of course--"<br/>
<br/>
"And you won't be alone," Agent Wallis said, "though I'm not sure how much help you'll be able to count on. There is another agent already in place."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you said ATAC had just found out about all this," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
A pained look crossed Agent Wallis's face, and he muttered something that sounded like an oath. "Bureaucracy," he said. "We talked to our brethren in another department. Up one chain and down another, then back up and down again." He shook his head. "This other agent wasn't <i>placed.</i> It's not even another agent, really, we gather. Someone on the inside is leaking information. Not a lot of information. They're not highly placed, and they are being very scrupulous about maintaining themselves deep undercover. I can't tell you who it is or where you might find them or contact them. But if you can find them, or if they find you, you might be able to get help or some kind of word out."<br/>
<br/>
"Won't we have a way of contacting ATAC?" Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"Probably not," Agent Wallis said. "People are going in, and if they're coming out again we're not hearing about it. It's also very secluded, and contact is closely supervised. It's one of the camp's selling points, part of the disciplinary regime."<br/>
<br/>
"Then how are <i>we</i> supposed to get out when we've figured out what is going on?" Frank asked. Unlike Joe, he liked to have a plan.<br/>
<br/>
"What we're hoping," said Agent Wallis, "is that you'll just blend in and exit whenever and however the camp decides to release you. Don't make waves. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Explore it from your vantage point--completely. When you're back in civilization you can report."<br/>
<br/>
"But if we need to use this other agent, how do we do it?" Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
The agent thought a moment. "Give me a pass phrase, something innocuous. I'll pass it along the hierarchy, get it to this other person. Use that phrase, and he or she will know who you are."<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe thought a moment, and then the latter laughed out loud. "I love marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies!" he chortled. "That's something either of us would say."<br/>
<br/>
Frank smiled too, and Agent Wallis blinked. "That sounds like it'll work. Maybe I'll take some of those cookies with <i>me.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Help yourself to the bag," Frank said encouragingly. "They really are delicious."<br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis clapped the boys on the shoulder, and went to the cabin door. When he was gone Joe grabbed Frank by the arm and hopped up and down in place. "Can you believe it, Frank? We're going undercover!"<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (5)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 5</div><br/>
"I REALLY HOPE I'm better looking than the guy I'm stepping in for," Joe said. He was studying the driver's license that had Steve Bannock's name but Joe Hardy's face on it.<br/>
<br/>
"I really hope they don't have photographs of the real Steve and Todd," his brother replied. He looked away from the road long enough to glance at the document his brother was holding.<br/>
<br/>
"I bet you'd have a lot of fun talking our way out of <i>that</i> kind of problem," Joe laughed. He returned to studying the other documents.<br/>
<br/>
It was review, and he felt like he had a good handle on it all. After Agent Wallis had left with Kelly, he and Frank had safely retrieved their gear from the wilderness and then spent the night studying the materials ATAC had left them. There wasn't much to go on except what was in the official records. Steve and Todd were both nasty characters, having been caught up in petty delinquencies of various kinds since childhood. Both had dropped out of school and sort of befriended each other not long afterward. "Only friends, huh," Joe had laughed. "It's a good thing we look like one of <i>us</i> got left by gypsies on Mom and Dad's doorstep." "They still have the basket they found you in," Frank had teased back.<br/>
<br/>
The really odd stuff had been in the interviews that ATAC had conducted with Todd and Steve after "intercepting" them. Joe could see now what Agent Wallis had meant about "sinister" promises. Though the recruiters had been very skimpy on details, they had promised to set Todd and Steve up with "new lives" that would be very "lucrative." There had even been promises of setting them up with girlfriends. At best, it sounded like they were being groomed for a spot in some kind of confidence game. But Frank and Joe agreed it sounded more like the delinquents were being given some kind of hustle, and being enticed with appealing but unfulfillable promises. Possibly Todd and Steve were to be victims just as much as Kelly had been.<br/>
<br/>
Now it was the next day, and the boys were on their way to the mysterious Camp Double Bluff.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't worry, Frank," Joe said in a teasing voice. "I won't let anything happen to you."<br/>
<br/>
"What makes you think I'll need protecting," his older brother asked with a frown.<br/>
<br/>
"If either of us is capable of acting like a hoodlum, I think it would be me," Joe replied.<br/>
<br/>
Frank said nothing except, "I think I can take care of myself."<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," Joe laughed. "You can be the tough but quiet one." He glanced down at the map Agent Wallis had given them. "You should get ready to turn, it's coming up in about a mile."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't tell me what to do," Frank growled, and followed it with a word that Joe had never heard his brother use before.<br/>
<br/>
Joe gasped. "I only meant--" he sputtered.<br/>
<br/>
Frank laughed. "I think I can play my part okay."<br/>
<br/>
Joe's eyes narrowed, though there was a gleam of admiration in them. He risked using bad word of his own, which left Frank chuckling. "Still, it's not a habit we should get into," Joe admitted. "If Aunt Gertrude heard us, let alone Mom or Dad--"<br/>
<br/>
"I should use that word the next time she gives us some of those cookies," Frank said. Agent Wallis had taken a few, but Joe had the bag and had been snacking on them as they drove along. "I love these marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies, even though they taste like--"<br/>
<br/>
"Watch it, Frank!" Joe shouted, and his brother slammed on the brakes. As they rounded a corner, a gate suddenly loomed into view. The boys jerked in their seats as the car shuddered to a stop.<br/>
<br/>
There was a small sentry post next to the gate, and a man in a uniform stepped out. "Welcome to Camp Double Bluff," he said with a pleasant smile. "Can I help you gentlemen?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe glanced at each other. Their new adventure was about to begin in earnest.<br/>
<br/>
Frank handed the man the identity cards that the recruiters had given Todd and Steve, and which ATAC had doctored for its own agents' use. "Todd Salzmann and Steve Bannock," he said in an insolent growl. "I think we're expected."<br/>
<br/>
A gleam came into the man's eye, and his smile tightened as he looked at the cards. "And so you are," he said. "Half a mile up, and take the left at the fork." He raised the gate.<br/>
<br/>
"And what happens if we take the right," Joe snarled from his seat. He didn't want Frank to have all the fun.<br/>
<br/>
"You can't," said the man. "You'll see."<br/>
<br/>
"Just ignore my friend," Frank said. "I do." The guard laughed. "Ten to one, whatever is going on, he knows about it," Frank added after they'd driven on.<br/>
<br/>
Ahead of them a large hill reared up, rising in steep bluffs to a crown topped with pine trees. The road split at its base, and the boys saw that each fork was blocked off by another gate and guard house. The gate on the left was raised--"Our friend must have called ahead," Joe said--and they didn't even slow as they passed it. "I wonder where that other road goes."<br/>
<br/>
"One of a lot of little mysteries to solve," Frank replied.<br/>
<br/>
The road skirted the side of hill for a mile or so before plunging into a deep, broad canyon. They hadn't gone far before they had to stop. "The gate and fence that Kelly said went up in the middle of the night," Frank pointed out as they pulled to stop. <br/>
<br/>
Two men in front of the gate gestured for them to get out. "Bannock and Salzmann?" one of them asked. His hair was red, and he had a small moustache. The boys nodded. "Through there, with Mike." He jerked his thumb at the other man. "Gimme your keys."<br/>
<br/>
"What about our stuff?" Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"You won't need it. Just take yourselves."<br/>
<br/>
The other man was shorter, and had a sallow look to him, and he only grunted when Frank gave him their fake names. He led them through the gates.<br/>
<br/>
<i>This doesn't look much like a resort,</i> Frank thought to himself as they went in. There seemed to be a single wide boulevard, unpaved, that led down its center between rude buildings that looked almost like army barracks. At its end was a large, three-story building that looked a little better than the others. "Administration," the man said curtly as he led them into it.<br/>
<br/>
Another surly-looking fellow manned the reception desk at the front. Joe wondered why none of these faces set off alarm bells in any of the guests. The man took their IDs, then picked up the phone. "Bannock, Salzmann," he said into the receiver.<br/>
<br/>
"You know, I'm getting really tired of them giving your name first," Frank suddenly said in a very loud voice. He shoved Joe. Joe shoved him back. The man who had led them in stepped between the boys. He was built like a fire plug, and with stout arms kept them firmly separated.<br/>
<br/>
"There they are!" a much more pleasant voice rang out. Frank and Joe looked around to see a new man, who had stepped into the reception area from a hallway. He clapped his hands. "If you boys will come with me." With a few muttered oaths at each other, Frank and Joe complied.<br/>
<br/>
They passed a few doors before the man opened one and motioned for Joe to go in. "Changing rooms," he said. He indicated his own jump suit. "We have standard uniforms. Yours will be in there."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh," Joe said. "I hadn't noticed," he said, even though of course he had.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you, blind," Frank said in a sarcastic voice.<br/>
<br/>
Joe pulled his fist back and made ready to spring, but their guide inserted himself as the other had done. "There will be time to rearrange each other's faces later," he said smoothly. "Mr. Bannock, if you will just go in there. I'll take Mr. Salzmann to his changing room." He sighed and frowned as he looked up and down the hallways. "You'd think we could improvise better, what with all the--" He seemed to catch himself, and smiled as he gently prodded Joe into the room.<br/>
<br/>
It was small, and contained a one-piece jumpsuit, all in orange, with the name "Camp Double Bluff" emblazoned on its back. Joe quickly changed, pausing only long enough to wonder what he should do with the card that Agent Wallis had given him. He decided it was better to leave it with his clothes, and stuffed it deeply into a pocket. <br/>
<br/>
He smiled wryly to himself as he finished changing, thinking about Frank. His older brother certainly had gotten into character, and he'd have to work to keep up. Actually, Frank had slipped so easily into that surly attitude that Joe found himself worrying that it was not all an act. Frank could be moody at times, and Joe briefly wondered if Frank didn't sometimes keep real negative feelings bottled up inside. He and his brother would have to be careful not to stir up any real animosities between them with their feigned personalities.<br/>
<br/>
When he was dressed, he grabbed the knob, but it wouldn't turn. He tried harder, but the door appeared to be locked. "Hey!" he hollered, and banged on it with the flat of his hand. "Lemme outta here! Hey!"<br/>
<br/>
There was no reply. He smiled and gave himself permission to act like a real hooligan. He kicked hard at the door and let loose a stream of profanity of the sort he'd never used.<br/>
<br/>
Then the door opened, and Joe gasped hard. Standing in the doorway was the hunter he had confronted with a rifle only yesterday.<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211211111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (6)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 6</div><br/>
JOE SWALLOWED HARD. It really was something he and Frank should have remembered: that they had fought off some of the people associated with Camp Double Bluff, and that they might run into them on site. <br/>
<br/>
But if the man recognized him, he gave no sign. Instead, he glanced down at a clipboard. "Bannock, Steve," he said. Joe grunted. "This way," the man said. Joe let out his breath and followed.<br/>
<br/>
They went up a stairwell to the second floor, and ended up in a conference room. It was small, and contained two tables. Joe took a seat and found himself facing a large white screen. "Your friend will be here in a moment," the man said, and left.<br/>
<br/>
The room was bare except for the desk and chairs and screen, which left Joe time to think. He didn't understand why the other man didn't seem to recognize him. The two of them had stared hard at each other for several minutes, more than enough time for Joe to memorize his features, and surely enough time for the other man to memorize his. He became progressively uneasy. It would be the worst luck of all if his and Frank's covers were blown before they had had a chance to learn anything at all.<br/>
<br/>
He didn't have long to stew, however. A few minutes later the door opened, and the same man ushered Frank in. Joe's brother was now dressed in the same jumpsuit as everyone else. Frank shot Joe a quick look as he took a seat, and with a subtle motion of his hand told him to keep quiet. A few moments later they were joined by a third man, who shut the door behind him, leaving him alone with the two boys.<br/>
<br/>
"Bannock and Salzmann," he said brusquely, and didn't extend a hand in greeting. "Glad to have you."<br/>
<br/>
"And what's your name," Frank asked in an insolent tone.<br/>
<br/>
The man smiled mirthlessly. "You may call me Mr. Apple." Joe thought there was nothing the least bit "apple-like" about his appearance. He was tall and thin and very severe-looking, with gray hair brushed back and a neatly trimmed moustache and beard that were equally grey. He also wore a jumper, but his was topped with a white lab coat. He tossed a folder onto the table opposite the boys and went around to sit directly in front of them. "So you accepted our invitation. And as you can see, we have accepted your application."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but application for what," Frank said in the same hard tone. "Your people weren't real clear on a lot of details."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what this orientation session is for," Mr. Apple said. "To give you the details. You should know, however, that you don't really have a choice about liking the details. You belong to us now. You will do as you're told."<br/>
<br/>
"And if we don't?" Frank's chin tilted. Joe liked his approach, and decided to let him keep speaking for the both of them.<br/>
<br/>
"Then no one will mourn you," Mr. Apple said flatly. He let the implication hang in the air. Then he smiled again. "Not that you have anything to fear. We wouldn't have invited you to join if we weren't sure you would be enthusiastic about your new job. Your new <i>lives.</i>" His smile widened over last word.<br/>
<br/>
Before Frank could ask about this last assurance, Mr. Apple took a small device from his pocket and pushed a button on it. The screen sprang to life, and Frank and Joe found themselves looking at a large photograph of a teenage boy. He looked to be about their age, and was relaxing against a wall. He had straight, brownish hair that had been ruffled by the wind, and was smiling happily into the camera. <br/>
<br/>
"This is Kevin Ferguson," said Mr. Apple. "He is seventeen years old, and is the youngest son of one Richard Ferguson. Don't let that shirt he's wearing fool you. His family is extremely rich. His father sits on the board of governors of one of the Federal Reserve Banks. He has a brother and a sister, who have since left home, leaving him alone with a father who is usually away on business and a mother who has thrown herself into charity work. That gives him the run of their house." He clicked the button again, and the image changed to an aerial shot of a very large mansion that looked to be sitting on several dozen acres. "Kevin is popular, on account of his personality and his wealth. He has a girlfriend." He clicked the button again, and the picture changed to a girl with long blonde hair. "Do you find her attractive, Mr. Salzmann?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's pretty hot," said Frank.<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple grunted, and he clicked the button again. Now the screen showed another youth. He was broadchested and dressed in a grey sweatshirt and jeans, and his blonde hair was cropped into a buzz cut. "This is Jason Gettier. Only child. The son of the attorney-general of Ohio. Football player, and last year president of the student council. He hasn't got a girlfriend, because he had a lot of them before he graduated. Mr. Bannock?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," said Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think he looks like a football player who had a lot of girlfriends."<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple smiled again. "Both these boys will be coming to Camp Double Bluff in a few weeks. Kevin wants to acquire some muscles. Jason is going to be a camp counselor. You, Mr. Salzmann, will become Kevin's best friend. Mr. Bannock, you will befriend Jason."<br/>
<br/>
"Why?" Frank asked. "Are we being paid to be their friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, you are being paid to learn everything you can about them. Not just their secrets, but the way they talk and move and act. By the time their session with us is done, you will be able to imitate them perfectly."<br/>
<br/>
Joe felt himself stiffen, and he restrained himself from looking at Frank. He didn't have to, though, to hear the strain in Frank's voice. "Why do we have to be able to imitate them?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Click.</i> Now the screen showed an operating room. "Because shortly before they are due home, you will undergo a surgical procedure that will turn you into their physical doubles. <i>Click.</i> Now the screen showed two boys. Both were red-heads, but the similarities ended there. One was fat in the face and deeply freckled. The other had pronounced cheekbones and lazy, confident eyes. "And then you will go home <i>as</i> them. Just as the boy on the left has gone home <i>as</i> the boy on the right."<br/>
<br/>
Joe fought to retain his equanimity even as his heart hammered in his chest. His mouth felt dry. He doubted he could speak even if he found the words. <br/>
<br/>
Frank spoke for both of them, however. "Okay," he said after taking a deep breath. "What's the scam?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you want a new life, Mr. Salzmann? A better life? A richer life?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, sure," said Frank. "But what's in it for you? Or are you running some kind of charity for guys like us?"<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple seemed to weigh his words carefully. "We hope to profit from your good fortune, eventually. We would like to have <i>agents</i> in these households, and the <i>children</i>-- Well, no one would ever expect the <i>children</i> of these men of playing a double game. Stealing secrets, acting as spies? Some people would pay a great deal of money to have the access that Kevin and Richard could provide them."<br/>
<br/>
"And what happens to Kevin and Richard," Joe blurted out. He kept thinking of Kelly Sanbourne, the daughter of an influential senator.<br/>
<br/>
"They will be given new faces of their own, and a--" Again, Mr. Apple hesitated over his words. "A psychological makeover that will leave them no threat to the new versions of themselves."<br/>
<br/>
Joe wanted to throw up. He jumped a little when he felt a strong hand on his wrist under the table, and he recovered himself. Frank was telling him to keep a grip on himself.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, this sounds pretty sweet," Frank said. "When do we start? When these guys arrive at the camp?"<br/>
<br/>
"That will be some weeks away," said Mr. Apple, and flicked the screen to a document containing lots of bullet points. "But your training starts today. Here is your regimen."<br/>
<br/>
There followed nearly an hour-long lecture, which Joe fought hard to concentrate on, in which Mr. Apple described what they would be doing over the next few weeks. It would involve a battery of physical tests; some initial light surgery on their faces and bodies; and a great deal of training in how to study and imitate the behavior of other people. When it was over, their supervisor summoned an escort and dismissed them.<br/>
<br/>
The boys were silent as they were led out of the administration building and to a kind of barracks, where they were put in separate rooms. Joe wondered a bit at this, since there were two beds in the room he was assigned to. He got his answer only a few minutes later when the door burst open, and another kid came in. But it wasn't his entrance that startled Joe, it was his face: Except for his eyes and the slit of a mouth, it seemed to be completely featureless. Even his nose had been obliterated under a puffy, mask-like mass that showed no color and no shape. Only the blue eyes blazed.<br/>
<br/>
"Give me twenty push ups," the new arrival barked, and pointed at the floor.<br/>
<br/>
"I beg your-- What did you say?" Joe snapped back, correcting himself in mid-sentence.<br/>
<br/>
The new arrival grabbed Joe by the hair. "No back talk," he snarled. "Fifty! Now!"<br/>
<br/>
It wasn't an act, it was pure anger, that led Joe to swing a hard fist at the other's horrible parody of a face.<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (7)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 7</div><br/>
JOE'S FIST CONNECTED with the other's jaw with a satisfying crunch. His roommate staggered back. Joe crouched, his fists cocked, hoping the other had learned his lesson. Instead, his roommate leaped at him with a growl. Joe easily deflected the blow, and caught him in the stomach with another punch. His assailant let out a soft "Oof!" but kept coming, grabbing Joe around the waist and pulling him down. They crashed into the room's small desk and knocked over the chair with a loud clatter.<br/>
<br/>
Joe slithered out from under the other and quickly put him in a headlock. "Had enough?" he snarled. "I don't do push ups for anyone."<br/>
<br/>
"You'll do anything he asks of you," a hard voice said behind him, and Joe felt a hand on his shoulder. Joe jerked away. Then a forearm closed around his neck, and he knew it was time to give up. He released the other boy.<br/>
<br/>
He felt himself pulled to his feet, and turned to stare into the face of the same "hunter" he had met earlier. The man frowned at him, then pushed him away and pulled Joe's roommate up.<br/>
<br/>
"You alright, Jenkins," he asked the other boy. Jenkins coughed and nodded, but his rescuer's frown deepened. He lightly touched Jenkins's jaw. "Get to the infirmary, have them take a look at that." Jenkins shot a black look at Joe and shambled out of the room.<br/>
<br/>
Joe saw Frank looking in at him from the doorway, but concentrated his attention on the hunter. "What happened here?" the man demanded.<br/>
<br/>
"Guy told me to do push ups. I don't do push ups."<br/>
<br/>
"New guys always do what they're told," the hunter said. "And they <i>don't</i> touch pre-op agents. If Jenkins's face has to be reset, you'll find yourself doing a lot worse than the punishment duty you're about to get."<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry," Joe said in a surly tone, and shoved his hands into his pockets. "No one told me."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, now they have. What's your name?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe blinked. There was no hint of recognition in the man's eyes. "Bannock," he said cautiously. "Don't you remember? From the administration building?"<br/>
<br/>
A faint smile came to the man's face. "You must have me confused with one of my brothers," he said. "There's about a dozen of us. Even I've lost track of how many guys around here look like me."<br/>
<br/>
"Brother?" Joe said, startled. "Your mom must have been in labor forever."<br/>
<br/>
The man's smile widened without growing any warmer. "We've got a nice set of doctors here. They can make anybody look like anybody else."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Interesting,</i> Joe thought. <i>And scary.</i> "So what do I call you?"<br/>
<br/>
"You can call me 'boss'," the man said. "You can call anyone who looks like me 'boss'. We all answer to it, and as far as you're concerned, we're all the same person." He looked Joe up and down. "I'll be back in ten minutes with your punishment." He turned around. "You," he said to Frank. "Back to your room. There's nothing to see here."<br/>
<br/>
Frank dutifully let him pass, but stepped back into Joe's room with a wry smile. "Getting in character?" he said with light sarcasm.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, let's go with that," Joe muttered. "What about your own roommate?"<br/>
<br/>
"He hasn't shown up yet. Thanks for showing me what not to do." He glanced over his shoulder. "Your roommate, though. Interesting face. Pre-op? They must have some revolutionary techniques here."<br/>
<br/>
"You can take notes for both of us, Fr--" Joe caught himself as his brother shot him a sharp look. "Todd. We need to get out of here," he said in a low voice<br/>
<br/>
"We need to do the job ATAC gave us, Joe." Now it was Frank's turn to catch himself, and sigh. "Don't make trouble. Follow and study their routine all the way to the end."<br/>
<br/>
"It <i>ends</i> with us having new faces," Joe hissed. "Maybe it's an improvement for you, but I've got girlfriends in Bayport who like my current look." Frank chuckled lightly at his brother's boast. "And even if you don't care about our faces, it also <i>ends</i> with two boys getting a much worse makeover."<br/>
<br/>
"You weren't paying attention to the schedule in the orientation," Frank said. "We've got several weeks before we reach a crisis point." He raised his hand to stop his brother's interruption. "Still, we can start dropping that pass phrase we gave Agent Wallis. I love marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies!" he suddenly said in a loud and enthusiastic voice.<br/>
<br/>
Joe stared at Frank in puzzlement, but the explanation came a few seconds later, when the "boss" materialized. "I don't care what you love, kid," he muttered at Frank. "I told you to get back to your room." Frank shrugged and disappeared. <br/>
<br/>
The boss beckoned, and Joe followed. They went out the barracks and past several more buildings until they arrived at something that looked like a cross between a hanger and a garage. It was full of vehicles. "Motor pool," the boss said brusquely. Joe took another look, and spotted his and Frank's truck. <br/>
<br/>
It suddenly occurred to him that it would be a bad idea if anyone at the camp searched it and found the insurance and registration documents, which were made out in Frank's name. He didn't have time to ponder this further, as the boss guided him into a separate room. It was dominated by a long porcelain trough and a toilet. Joe groaned inwardly.<br/>
<br/>
His temper wasn't improved when the boss handed him a canister of powdered cleanser and large brush. "It's been almost three weeks since this place got a touch up," he said with a malicious smile. "The boys have been complaining about the smell."<br/>
<br/>
"Only now?" Joe muttered. The stench was overpowering.<br/>
<br/>
"Given the chemicals they're breathing in and out all day, they've only just noticed." He left the teenager to his odiferous fate.<br/>
<br/>
But Joe was still thinking about the truck. He counted slowly to thirty and then peeked into the garage. It seemed to be deserted, though he could see people through the windows of an office on the far side. He ducked and waddled on his haunches around a small red sports car, then carefully reached up to open the passenger-side door of the truck. He crawled in and quietly pulled the door to. He sat in the floorboard and opened the glove compartment. It took only a minute to sort through the papers, and he silently thanked Frank for being such a neat freak. He stuffed the documents into his pockets.<br/>
<br/>
Before he could exit the truck, though, he heard a voice through the open window. "Vanessa!" a girl's voice called. "Vanessa!"<br/>
<br/>
Joe looked up fearfully. There, just outside the door, was a girl. Her back was to Joe, and he could only catch sight of her long, honey-blonde hair. As he watched, a second came panting up to her. "Van, didn't you hear me? I got you a little going away present."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know who you're talking about," the girl with the honey-blonde hair said airily. "My name is Kelly. Kelly Sanbourne."<br/>
<br/>
Joe stifled a gasp: It was the agent who had been trained and altered to replace the girl he and Frank had rescued!<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry, <i>Kelly,</i>" the other girl said in a sour voice. "I got this charm bracelet for <i>Vanessa,</i> but she--"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's so nice," the fake Kelly said in a sweet voice that set Joe's teeth on edge. "I met such great people here at camp. I can't wait to tell all my friends that they should <i>definitely</i> make a trip here."<br/>
<br/>
The girls continued to talk while Joe suppressed a shudder. Then the fake Kelly said, "What is taking so long with my keys? I have to meet my parents in an hour." The two girls moved off toward the office.<br/>
<br/>
He thought quickly. Maybe he could stop their departure, or at least delay it. He felt through the space behind the seat until he found the toolbox, and from it blindly grabbed a few tools. Then he exited the truck and crawled under the red sports car.<br/>
<br/>
He paused to consider his options. He didn't want to cut or damage anything that could cause a fatal accident.<br/>
<br/>
Before he could act, though, he looked over to see several pairs of feet materialize beside him. He pulled himself further under the car. That proved his undoing.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, who's under there," a rough voice said. One of the figures crouched, and Joe found himself staring into his boss's face. The man's eyes narrowed. "Get out of there," he said, and reached for Joe's collar.<br/>
<br/>
The younger Hardy turned and stuffed his tools down the front of his jumpsuit, then pulled himself from under the car. "Sorry," he muttered. "Just trying to see up the girls' skirts." He hung his head as the fake Kelly and her friend glared at him.<br/>
<br/>
His boss cracked him smartly across the cheek with a fist: just enough to hurt. Then he held out his hand. "Give me your brush?" He snatched it from Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"Am I getting a different job," Joe asked hopefully.<br/>
<br/>
The boss shook his head, and from his jumpsuit pocket extracted a toothbrush and handed it to Joe, then spun him around and pushed him back toward the bathroom.<br/>
<br/>
With a sinking sense of despair and frustration, Joe watched as the fake Kelly got in her car and drove away.<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (8)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 8</div><br/>
"IT WAS STUPID, JOE," Frank said. "You probably got off light."<br/>
<br/>
Joe glared back. Frank sometimes could be very aggravating.<br/>
<br/>
"I had to do <i>something,</i>" Joe retorted. "I had to stop that imposter from getting away."<br/>
<br/>
The boys were walking along the edge of the compound by the fence. It was not yet dusk, but the sun had fallen behind the canyon wall and a gloom was fast encroaching. Joe had only just finished the first day of his punishment duty, and had gone to find Frank immediately afterward to tell him of what he had seen and done in the garage. Frank had motioned him to follow him outside, where it would be safer to talk.<br/>
<br/>
"And what good would you have done if you <i>had</i> sabotaged the car?" Frank asked. "At best you would have delayed the fake Kelly. You might have even killed her." Joe bridled, because he knew his brother was right. "Anyway, what does it matter that she got away," Frank continued. "The real Kelly is safe at ATAC now. She'll know a million things that the imposter won't, and when this is done she'll have no trouble proving her identity."<br/>
<br/>
"But what will the imposter get up to in the meantime?" Joe argued. "They can cause a lot of mischief."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think they mean to cause mischief, at least not yet," Frank said. "While you were cleaning toilets I was studying the papers Mr. Apple gave us. Their advice to their agents is the same as Agent Wallis gave us. Blend in, don't provoke questions, let the friends and families get used to you so they'll stop noticing any little mistakes or slip ups. It will probably be weeks before the fake Kelly does anything worse than hang out at the mall and buy a lot of new clothes."<br/>
<br/>
"So we're just going to stay here for the next few weeks?" Joe asked. He wanted action. "It's our first day, and we've already learned more than enough shut this place down good and hard."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't disagree. But think about it. A place and scheme like this would need lots of money and organization behind it. We won't just spend our time blending in. We have to keep our eyes and ears open, to figure out the larger forces behind it."<br/>
<br/>
"Are they really going to tell us?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's what snooping is for, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
The turned a corner and continued to skirt the fence, walking toward the opposite canyon wall. Joe pointed to the high ridge. "Am I seeing things, or is there something like an old ranger station up there?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank peered up to where Joe indicated. "If you're seeing things, I'm seeing them too. They're probably using it as a watch tower."<br/>
<br/>
"If we could get up there, we could see what they're hiding on the other side."<br/>
<br/>
"The bear went over the mountain," Frank mused. "He may have had the right idea, but we've still got time for that, too."<br/>
<br/>
"So I guess we should head back in," Joe sighed. They had come to the camp's main thoroughfare. <br/>
<br/>
"Not yet. I want to finish this circuit. It wasn't just to talk to you that I came out here. I want to see if I can find that hole that Kelly slipped through. We might have to use it ourselves."<br/>
<br/>
"They've probably fixed it," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you always such a pessimist?" Frank teased.<br/>
<br/>
As it happened, they managed to find it, or a similar breach, in the fence that skirted the ridge that had the tower on it. There was a spot where the chain links had come away from one of the posts. Frank bent and briefly examined it. "Very useful," he said, "if we want to check out that tower and ridge." They continued until they had reached their starting point, and then returned to the barracks.<br/>
<br/>
Jenkins was at the desk when Joe came in, and he glared up at his roommate. "You still owe me fifty," he growled.<br/>
<br/>
With a sigh, Joe dropped to the floor and did the push ups. When he was halfway through, Jenkins stretched out his legs and planted his feet on Joe's back. The younger Hardy responded by raising one of his arms and finishing the set with one hand.<br/>
<br/>
"Not bad," Jenkins said when Joe returned to his feet.<br/>
<br/>
"Thank you sir, may I have twenty more?" Joe insolently retorted. <br/>
<br/>
"Knock yourself out." Jenkins turned his attention back to a school notebook he had been reading. Then from the desk he pulled out an identical notebook and began copying in it. <br/>
<br/>
Curiosity piqued, Joe looked over his shoulder. "What's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Homework. Handwriting practice. My target's been keeping a journal. They collect it every couple of days so I can read it and practice." He snorted. "What a milk sop. Poetry, mostly."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you going to be able to fake <i>that</i>?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"I won't have to. He keeps it a secret. He goes out for sports, which is good, but he also wants to be a writer."<br/>
<br/>
Joe sat on his bunk and pulled his knees up to his chest. "Why are you doing this, Jenkins?" <br/>
<br/>
The other boy glared back at him. "Why are <i>you</i> doing it? Was your life so wonderful?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe shrugged. "At least it was <i>mine.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, it'll still be your life after you've replaced your target, but it'll be a <i>better</i> life. Think of it as trading up to a better car."<br/>
<br/>
"But you're stealing it."<br/>
<br/>
"You never stole anything?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, sure. But this is stealing everything. Everything someone's had or ever going to have."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Makes it a lot better than just stealing a car."<br/>
<br/>
Joe sighed and let the conversation lapse. Instead he turned to the same set of notes that Frank had spent the day studying. His concentration wasn't on it, but he found it clarifying. Besides setting out in broad strokes how he was to behave after he had been "inserted" into his new life, it described how he was to be prepared for it. Among its contents he discovered the reasons for Jenkins's peculiar appearance: he was wearing a "temporary face" that protected a "foundation" of implants that would allow a totally new face to be grafted onto the front of his skull. That meant that Jenkins was almost ready for the final phase. After the final face went on, there would be a brief period of adjustment and then, as with the fake Kelly, he would be sent out to replace his target.<br/>
<br/>
"Who is your target?" Joe asked after almost forty minutes of silence.<br/>
<br/>
"Nobody. My dad's a lobbyist in Washington, though."<br/>
<br/>
His use of "my" caught Joe by surprise. "If you're so close to being done, shouldn't you be acting like your target?"<br/>
<br/>
"I am. Perfectly, too," Jenkins boasted. "You think I'm a jerk? So's Jack Preston."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jack Preston still doesn't deserve what's coming to him,</i> Joe thought.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
"It's a good thing these jumpsuits mostly blend into the scenery," Frank observed as he and Joe scrambled up the face of the ridge. It was covered with a reddish-brown earth with very little scrub, and it would be another hundred feet or so before they hit a line of trees and could hide from sight.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you have a plan for how to explain things if we <i>do</i> get spotted?" Joe asked. His foot slipped, sending a loose stream of earth rattling below.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course. You're a troublemaker, and you talked me into it."<br/>
<br/>
Joe grimaced. But he was actually happy that they were making an attempt at the ridge, and that it was Frank's idea.<br/>
<br/>
A week had passed since joining the camp, during which they had been given some preparatory work on infiltration techniques and various psychological ploys to use in order to befriend their targets once they arrived. The techniques did not work on the boys' own roommates--they knew them already and wouldn't respond--but that very morning Frank had teased Joe by saying he had been using them on his own brother and discovering lots of interesting things about him. He had just smiled knowingly when Joe had hotly challenged him to reveal what he had "learned" about the boy he had shared more than sixteen years with already.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I've learned that you <i>really</i> want to get to the top of that ridge," he'd finally said. "And since I want you to be my best friend--" He'd reached out to lightly touch Joe on the arm in a manner prescribed by the manual "--I've decided we should. Come on."<br/>
<br/>
They'd made a slow circuit of the perimeter, as they did several times a day, and then slipped through the hole in the fence. The boys were now about halfway up the ridge. <br/>
<br/>
"Any idea what we'll find at the top?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"I have a theory," Frank said. ("What else is new?" Joe grumbled.) "Everyone here is supposed to have a 'target' they are supposed to befriend. But have you noticed that there are no regular kids at the camp? Only agents and support staff?" He pulled Joe behind the first tree they had passed. "Well, I've an idea why that is, and it has to do with this ridge."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you going to tell me, or is it going to be a surprise?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"Wait till we get there," Frank said. "That way I can pretend I was right no matter what we find."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, is <i>that</i> how you do it," Joe said sarcastically. "Now I'm learning new stuff about <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
They continued through the trees until they reached the top, avoiding the watch tower. When the crossed the crest, Joe gasped.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I was right," Frank said. "But of course I would say that. It's another canyon with another camp. And look, it doesn't have a fence around it."<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211211111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (9)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 9</div><br/>
"DID YOU REALLY KNOW that place would be down there?" Joe asked his brother.<br/>
<br/>
Frank's smile was more than a trifle smug. "I had a pretty good idea it would be," he said. "It was pretty clear there had to be a second facility for the real kids. And then there was what Kelly said about when she got out of the hospital. The camp felt weird or wrong, but not in a way she could figure out." Frank pointed. "Look, it's the same buildings, laid out in the same way. But the canyon is different. At our camp, if you look east you'll see the watch tower." He pointed to the nearby ranger station. "But in this camp, you'll only see it if you look west. There's also that fence she mentioned going up. It made no sense that they would construct a new fence. Therefore, it must have always been there. So it must have been built around a different camp."<br/>
<br/>
Joe couldn't help but admire the deductive train Frank had laid out. "It still looks pretty Spartan. Any deductions about where all the fun stuff is?"<br/>
<br/>
"Probably on the other side of that far ridge," Frank said. "If they don't want kids to really spot the differences when they're moved into the other camp, they'd have to keep the big differences, like that, out of sight."<br/>
<br/>
Joe grunted, and started to descend the ridge.<br/>
<br/>
Frank grasped him by the arm. "What are you doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"We didn't come here just to turn back, did we?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course not. But we can't go in there dressed like this. Look at the people down there." Joe looked, and saw that only a few seemed to be in jumpsuits. "Exactly," Frank said when Joe mentioned this. "The kids are all in street clothes, or exercise gear. If anyone saw us down there, they'd know we didn't belong."<br/>
<br/>
"So what do we do?"<br/>
<br/>
"We wait until dark. And <i>then</i> we go snooping," Frank grinned.<br/>
<br/>
The boys made a brief reconnoiter of their position. They confirmed that the ranger station was abandoned, and hid in it. It contained an old, rickety table and some broken chairs, so they sat on the floor. They talked some more, speculating about where they should go when they broke into the other camp and what they should look for. "The administration building," Joe suggested.<br/>
<br/>
Frank nodded. "Definitely, though I suspect the really important stuff will be in the building back at our camp. I'd really like to find the hospital. It must be a world-class facility for the kind of work they do here."<br/>
<br/>
Joe asked if they should warn any of the kids down in the other camp. Frank hesitated before shaking his head, saying that they wouldn't want to risk putting any one's life in danger. "Besides," he added. "Many of their operatives are working under cover down there, being 'friends' with their targets." He spat out the word 'friends' like it had a bad taste. "We won't know which ones are real and which ones are fakes-to-be." Joe grudgingly admitted he had the superior argument, though he hated the idea of leaving the teens to their fates.<br/>
<br/>
Gradually dusk enfolded, and when it appeared to be dark enough, they left the station and descended the opposite hillside as quietly as they could. As they had noticed much earlier, there was no fence to traverse, and so they could sidle up directly against the wall of a nearby building. Joe was grimly amused to see that it was this camp's motor pool. He risked a look through one of the windows, and saw that it was filled with a much more expensive-looking set of vehicles.<br/>
<br/>
Frank tugged Joe's elbow, and the boys jogged quietly along several other buildings. There were outdoor lights everywhere, so they really couldn't keep to the shadows, but there didn't appear to be many people about, so they managed to stay out of sight. They stopped next to a building that appeared to be this camp's barracks and peeked out. There was a wide space between it and the administration building. Frank pointed: one of the windows on the lowest floor was open. But Joe pointed to something else: two men in orange-and-white jumpsuits, standing and facing where they would be sure to spot anyone going into or out of that window. The boys froze in place.<br/>
<br/>
A nearby window was open, and Joe could hear voices. At first he didn't pay much attention to them. But then one of them caught his ear. It took him a moment to place, and then he realized it sounded just like his own roommate, Jenkins. But he had left Jenkins back at the other camp, where he had been consumed in his "studies." Did that mean this was Preston? He took a step back so he could hear better.<br/>
<br/>
"I could buy you and your dad both three times over," said the voice that sounded like Jenkins's. It had the same sneering quality that scraped over a baritone like a metal file. <br/>
<br/>
Another voice said something indistinct. <br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's the market for you," Jenkins said. "Sometimes up and sometimes down. It's your bad luck it's been down. Or maybe your dad just doesn't know any better than a monkey with a dart and a page of stock market listings." <br/>
<br/>
He and the other speaker continued to talk, though Joe could only make out Jenkins's voice. "Markets go up and down. Regulatory agencies are forever. Now, you take <i>my</i> dad." The voice acquired an ugly, boastful quality. "Him and the chairman of the Finance Committee are like <i>that.</i> Went to school together, helped each other get jobs. My dad basically financed his pal's first campaign, though of course he had to push most of the money through hidden channels. Point is, people will pay my dad <i>anything</i> so he can put in a good word for them with the senator, and he'll tell them how much to contribute to his pal's campaigns. And the senator doesn't even have to do anything, he just has to drop hints about this reform or that change of regulation, and all the bedwetters on the street--like <i>your</i> dad--will scramble to do business with <i>my</i> dad." He chuckled. "It's all who knows who. Even the kids are tight. Senator Sanbourne's daughter, Kelly? She was here until just last week. Oh, she's hot, too."<br/>
<br/>
That led Joe to risk a peek through the window. Inside he saw a room very much like the one he and Jenkins shared. At the desk, leaning back with his legs stretched out, was a big kid, like Jenkins. His face was strong and arrogant, with an aquiline nose and full lips curled up in a sneer. He had fiery red hair, and about a week's worth of beard on his cheeks and throat. In front of him, Joe could barely make out, was a head going up and down. Someone doing push ups, with the other guy's feet resting on his back. As he watched, the other got up and mopped his brow, panting heavily.<br/>
<br/>
"Not bad," said the guy at the desk, who Joe now guessed was Jack Preston. "Still kind of weak, though. My last roommate, Jenkins? He could do twice that. He was almost as big as me."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Preston still doesn't deserve what he's going to be getting,</i> Joe thought again.<br/>
<br/>
Then he felt Frank tug at him: the two guards had moved on, and the boys sprinted quickly across the open space and dived through the window of the administration building.<br/>
<br/>
It was dark inside, and they didn't dare put on a light. Instead, they felt for the door and peeked out. The hall was deserted, and they crept out. A quick circuit of the first floor showed that all the doors were locked. The same proved true on the second floor. Joe probably would have given up, but Frank persisted and drew him up to the third floor. <br/>
<br/>
But as they peeked out of the stairwell, they saw that they wouldn't have the floor to themselves. They had heard a rumbling sound as they mounted the stairs, and now they saw a man in a jumpsuit running a floor polisher up and down the tiled floor. His back was to them, so Frank risked a quick look out. Excitedly, he gestured to Joe: There was a door open just on the other side. The man had run the electrical cord into the room beyond.<br/>
<br/>
The polisher was running very loudly, and the boys were wearing sneakers, so they risked the move, and quickly found themselves in what looked like a conference room. A very big table with almost a dozen leather chairs sat in front of a large screen. There was a door in the other wall, and Frank tried the handle. He grimaced at Joe. It was locked.<br/>
<br/>
They looked around, and then Joe pointed to the windows: there were three of them looking out over the camp. Frank lifted one and looked out. "There's a ledge," he whispered to Joe. "But it's very narrow."<br/>
<br/>
"Where does it go?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank looked again, but before he could answer, they heard the polisher shut off. The boys looked at each other, and looked back in the room: there was nowhere to hide if and when the janitor came to unplug his equipment.<br/>
<br/>
There was no time for any other choice. Frank quickly moved through the window to the ledge, and Joe followed. Even pressing against the wall with their heels, their toes stuck out past the ledge. They sidled along until they were out of sight of the conference room.<br/>
<br/>
Joe had turned to look back when he heard a gasp. He swung around just in time to see Frank vanish. Joe's hand shot out, but it was too late. Frank had fallen from the ledge!<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (10)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 10</div><br/>
JOE'S HEART HAMMERED in his ears as he waited for the sickening sound of a body hitting the ground. But he heard nothing.<br/>
<br/>
Cautiously he took another step to the side.<br/>
<br/>
"Watch it, Joe!" It was Frank, speaking in an urgent whisper. Joe looked down, and in the gloom saw his brother's face staring up at him, aghast with fear. Right by Joe's foot, Frank was grasping the ledge with white knuckles.<br/>
<br/>
Joe looked around, and tottered uneasily as his balance came and went, but there didn't seem to be any way to help Frank back onto the ledge, and his brother couldn't hang on forever.<br/>
<br/>
Joe took another step, and his heel tapped something that wasn't brick. He glanced behind, and saw that he was standing directly in front of a window. His heart leaped. If the window was unlocked--<br/>
<br/>
He pressed his palms against it and pulled upward, and he thought he felt it give a little. Gritting his teeth, he tried again. This time he definitely felt it move.<br/>
<br/>
"Could I get a <i>little</i> help here," Frank gasped.<br/>
<br/>
"Gimme a minute," Joe gasped back. Again, he pulled at the window. He felt behind him with his foot. There was now definitely a gap.<br/>
<br/>
Joe carefully pivoted until he was facing the wall. With his foot he raised the window until it wouldn't rise any further. Then he carefully lowered himself into a crouch, grasped the lower rim of the sill, and swung into the dark room.<br/>
<br/>
As soon as he was inside he reached back outside and grasped Frank by the wrists. He heard a scrambling sound as Frank helped by "walking" up the wall. Inside of only a few seconds he had pulled his brother to safety.<br/>
<br/>
Frank sagged on the floor, gasping. "That was a lot closer than I would have liked." He brushed his forehead against his shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
"You're usually more sure-footed than that, Frank," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
Frank just grunted. "I heard voices, and leaned over to have a look. It was a stupid thing to do on a ledge that narrow. I lost my balance." He put a hand on his chest, and grunted a little.<br/>
<br/>
"At least you caught yourself on the way down," Joe said. "Are you okay?" <br/>
<br/>
"I banged myself on the ledge, but it just feels like a bruise." He took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Where are we?"<br/>
<br/>
"That room next door. I guess they don't believe in locking the windows when they're this high up."<br/>
<br/>
"It must be an old place," Frank said. "Most new buildings are climate controlled and the windows don't open."<br/>
<br/>
"That's an odd thing, isn't it?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Agent Wallis said this place only opened a year ago."<br/>
<br/>
Frank thought a moment. "It could be that the buildings were part of an old government facility. The camp operators probably just bought the place as is."<br/>
<br/>
"That would be ironic, wouldn't it? A criminal organization operating out of former government buildings."<br/>
<br/>
"Ironic or not," Frank said, "it's something that needs stopping. Let's see where we are."<br/>
<br/>
They couldn't risk turning on any lights, so they had to feel their way. It was apparently an office, containing some chairs and a large desk, but they couldn't see anything. They listened at the door, and as all noises outside had ceased they risked unlocking it and looking out. The conference room was dark and deserted, and the hallway lights were off. When they crept out to investigate, they discovered that the janitor had left the floor.<br/>
<br/>
"There must be a supply closet around here," Frank said. "He wouldn't be lugging that thing up and down the stairs."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe there's an elevator," Joe said, but joined his brother in trying out the doors. Sure enough, they hadn't many to try before they found a storage room containing the polisher. On one of the shelves they found a large flashlight. Joe turned it on and held it under his chin, lighting up his face with a sinister gleam. "Want to hear something really scary, Frank," he chortled in a spooky voice. <br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"I almost wasn't able to save you back there."<br/>
<br/>
Frank's face tightened. "Too soon, Joe," he muttered.<br/>
<br/>
They made a complete circuit of the floor, but found that only the conference room and bathrooms had unlocked doors. A closer examination of the conference room showed it contained nothing they hadn't spotted before, so they moved back into the other room, which they had left unlocked. They carefully kept the beam of the flashlight away from the windows.<br/>
<br/>
It was a very large office, at the corner of the building, which suggested it belonged to someone important. One wall was dominated by a large map of North America, which was studded with colored pins. "Locations of their agents?" Joe wondered aloud. Frank could only shrug.<br/>
<br/>
The other wall was lined with file cabinets, but the boys turned to the desk first. It had a large computer on it, and Frank's eyes gleamed appreciatively. "There's probably lots of really good files on this machine," he said. "It's too bad we don't have any disks with us so we could copy its contents."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you think it's connected to the Internet?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"I bet it probably is," Frank said. "The kids at this camp would expect to have the latest technology, and the people who run it would also want to be connected." He felt around the computer. "Yeah, this feels like a modem."<br/>
<br/>
"We could contact ATAC through it," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"Good thinking, Joe," Frank said. "For once, you're faster than me." Joe stifled a grumble at the not-so-subtle dig. His brother pushed a button, and the computer chimed on.<br/>
<br/>
The boys perched together in the chair, waiting breathlessly for the computer to finish booting up. But when it did, their faces fell. "Of course it would have a password," Frank sighed. "Why didn't you think of <i>that</i>?" His brother's silence caused him to look up, and he smiled. "I'm just teasing, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"This place is beginning to wear on us," Joe sighed. "We're starting to get into character against our will."<br/>
<br/>
"We've been pretending an awful lot," Frank said. "It's important not to lose yourself in any kind of role."<br/>
<br/>
"Have you been telling everyone how much you love marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies?" Joe asked with a sly grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Everyone thinks I have a terrible sweet tooth."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, keep in practice so you can tell Aunt Gertrude. She'd <i>love</i> to hear you say it."<br/>
<br/>
But Frank didn't reply. Instead he turned slowly to look at the window with a frown. Then with a muttered curse--followed by a bashful "Oops!"--he powered the computer down. "Glare on the window. We shouldn't have been so careless."<br/>
<br/>
"So I guess we tackle the file cabinets now," Joe said. "I'd like to have another case involving smugglers. Smugglers don't have boring things like filing cabinets."<br/>
<br/>
"These days they do," Frank said. "Come on."<br/>
<br/>
With not-so-disguised reluctance the boys sat on the floor and tackled the lower drawers first. Few of the file labels made sense until they came to a set of folders labeled "Recruits." Joe leafed through them, and pulled out two folders. "Look at this, Frank. Steve Bannock and Todd Salzmann." <br/>
<br/>
They turned their flashlights onto the contents, which included two photographs. "So that's supposed to be us," Frank said. "It's not much of a resemblance."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't suppose they're onto us, do you," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"The recruiters gave Bannock and Salzmann IDs, and we gave those IDs--with our pictures--at the gate. If anyone has noticed the discrepancy, maybe they've put it down as a mistake in <i>these</i> files."<br/>
<br/>
"Slim hope, Frank," Joe said. "Just in case, though--" He pocketed the photographs before replacing the folders.<br/>
<br/>
They continued to dig. Joe grabbed Frank's shoulders when he found a folder with Kelly Sanbourne's name on it. "This must be the set of folders on their targets," he said in an excited whisper. "This is the jackpot."<br/>
<br/>
He sat back and studied the folder's contents. As he did so, Frank continued to search the same set of folders. But Joe was too absorbed in his find to notice when his brother paused and slowly drew out two more folders, and sank back to study them with a bowed head.<br/>
<br/>
"Look at this, Frank," Joe said. "It looks like they've been targeting Kelly for almost a year." He shuffled through more papers, and let out a low whistle. "They must have had spies scoping her out long before they invited her out." At the back he found medical charts and glossy photographs. "X-rays," he muttered. "And is this an MRI?"<br/>
<br/>
"Joe," Frank said in a deathly hollow voice.<br/>
<br/>
"And here," Joe continued, unmindful of Frank's interruption. "It's a letter from a South African bank, and it refers to a transfer of five million dollars as 'security against the Sanbourne project'. And another from a French-- What?"<br/>
<br/>
He had to ask, for Frank had grabbed the flashlight and was shining it down on the folders in his own lap. It took him a moment to recognize the photographs Frank had opened to. And then his jaw dropped.<br/>
<br/>
They were photographs of himself and his brother.<br/>
<br/>
"Joe," whispered Frank. "We're also targets! Camp Double Bluff is planning to replace <i>us</i> with their own agents!"<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (11)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 11</div><br/>
JOE BLINKED RAPIDLY. There seemed little doubt that Frank was right. The folders contained the same kind of information that he had found in Kelly's folder: Extensive biographical information; school records; even dental records and X-rays. Joe's hands felt numb as he leafed through them.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't understand, Frank," he said. "Why us? We're not like Kelly, or Kevin Ferguson or Jason Gettier. Our family isn't rich. We're not important."<br/>
<br/>
"Aren't we?" Frank said grimly. He pulled out a sheet from his own folder. <i>American Teens Against Crime,</i> it said along the top. "We're agents for a crime-fighting organization." <br/>
<br/>
Joe's blood ran cold. <br/>
<br/>
Frank closed the folders and put them back in the file cabinet. "We have to get out of here," he said. "Now it really is too dangerous for us to stay."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you think they're already on to us?" Joe said. "If they've got our information on file, and they know we don't match the real Steve and Todd--"<br/>
<br/>
"I think they probably would have already made their move if they knew about us," Frank said. "If I had to bet, I'd say they don't even suspect." He smiled at Joe's frown. "We didn't mean to, but we double bluffed them. We're inside their own camp, among their own recruits. This is the <i>last</i> place they would expect to find us."<br/>
<br/>
Joe had to grin back. Frank was right, they were in a very dangerous place. But he liked the idea that they were playing the camp's masterminds for chumps. But there was still a problem: "How are we going to get out. Steal a car?"<br/>
<br/>
"If we have to." Frank rubbed his mouth. "I'd rather contact ATAC directly. Telephone or internet." He glanced back at the computer. "Maybe there are terminals on the other floors that aren't password protected."<br/>
<br/>
It made sense. The boys tidied up what they could, so as to leave no traces behind, and crept out of the offices and down the stairwell. <br/>
<br/>
The stairs continued down to what was probably a basement, but they exited at the first floor. It was a duplicate of the administration building at their own camp, and there was a computer at the reception desk. But before they could turn it on, they had to duck down under the desk, for the front door abruptly opened.<br/>
<br/>
"--lights on the third floor," they heard a voice say. It sounded like their "boss" from the other camp.<br/>
<br/>
"You hit the second floor," said another voice, and if it hadn't overlapped the first the boys would have thought it was still the first speaker, for it was identical in timbre and intonation. "I'll make a circuit down here, make sure they haven't got past. Then we'll trap them up on the third if they're still there."<br/>
<br/>
Crouching in their hiding spot, the boys watched as two figures went by. Though it was very dark, they could still make out that the two men were as alike as peas in a pod, with the same "advertising model" faces. They heard doors opening and closing. Frank touched Joe on the shoulder and motioned him to follow. They peeked around the corner, just in time to see one of the figures disappear around corner. Joe raised his head and looked at the front door; through the glass pane he could see a third man standing guard with his back to the door. He shook his head at Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"Can't stay, get caught," Frank whispered, putting his lips close to Joe's ear. "Stairwell. Basement. Dodge." Joe nodded.<br/>
<br/>
Stepping as lightly as they could the boys went down the hall after their pursuers and silently opened the door to the stairwell. They let it shut just as silently, and stepped quietly down the stairs, rounding several bends, until they came to the bottom landing. Upon opening the door they found a long tunnel, lit from above by flickering fluorescent tubes. They glanced at each other and proceeded down it.<br/>
<br/>
It went for a very long way. "It's taking us back toward the other camp," Joe said. "It must lead under the ridge."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm glad you kept your sense of direction," Frank said. "I'll confess I wasn't paying attention. It would be convenient if it went all the way through."<br/>
<br/>
"It's probably how they get from one side to the other," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
They went for a couple of dozen yards, and then slowed up. Ahead of them they could make out a large room with long counter. They glanced at each other, and advanced cautiously.<br/>
<br/>
It was a reception area. At either end were hallways that continued in the same direction as they had been proceeding. Frank mimed flipping a coin, and they took the hallway on the left.<br/>
<br/>
It was a regular corridor, lined with tile and plastered walls, and punctuated by doors. The first one they tried led into a stairwell, but Frank closed the door. "If it goes all the way through to the other side, it will probably do so on this floor."<br/>
<br/>
He made as though to continue, but Joe opened the next door they came to. "Check it out, Frank," he said. "I think this is the hospital."<br/>
<br/>
Sure enough, inside was a bed of the sort commonly found in hospitals. It was empty and neatly made. Frank watched impatiently from the doorway as Joe opened a wardrobe. "Gowns and jumpsuits, like ours," he said. "This must be where they put agents after their surgeries."<br/>
<br/>
"Brilliant deduction, but kind of pointless at the moment," Frank said. "We need to get out of here."<br/>
<br/>
But Joe felt in his element, and insisted on opening each door that they passed. Each led to an identical but empty room. But after five doors they found one that was occupied.<br/>
<br/>
The dim light showed a gowned figure sitting up in bed with the covers pulled up to its chest. Its hands were folded across its lap. Its face was entirely swaddled in bandages, and only a thick thatch of blonde hair was visible.<br/>
<br/>
Joe started to pull the door closed, but the figure turned toward him. "Is that you, nurse?" it asked in a boy's voice.<br/>
<br/>
Joe swallowed and glanced at Frank, who made a face and shrugged. "Yes," said Joe. "Can I get you anything?"<br/>
<br/>
"Pour me some water?" he asked. "I tried before, but spilled it all over."<br/>
<br/>
Joe looked, and saw a pitcher and a glass on the stand next to the bed. Frank suppressed a sigh as Joe stepped in and poured some water for the figure. "Straw?" the patient asked.<br/>
<br/>
Joe picked a straw up off the table and put it in the glass, then guided the other end to the other's lips. He sucked long and thirstily, until it was dry. "Thanks," he said softly, and settled back.<br/>
<br/>
"Anything else?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
He shook his head. "Put out the lights? Maybe I can get some sleep now."<br/>
<br/>
Joe flicked his hand over the switch and closed the door.<br/>
<br/>
"That was nice of you," Frank said. "But let's not check on any more patients."<br/>
<br/>
"I bet they've got a doozy of a patient behind this one," Joe chuckled softly, indicating the next door. It was made of metal, and it had a large yellow "HAZARDOUS" sign hanging on it.<br/>
<br/>
And then they heard voices from behind. They flattened themselves against the wall and looked back. A silhouette showed against the far wall of the lobby.<br/>
<br/>
"Inside!" Frank hissed, and grasped the door knob. He and Joe ducked inside and shut the door with a hard click.<br/>
<br/>
The found themselves in hallway. Hoping to dodge pursuit, they followed it a short distance down, until they found themselves on a landing overlooking a large circular chamber, whose floor fell sharply away into a bowl. A short flight of steps led down to the surface below. At either end of the chamber was a large tunnel. The room thrummed with a vibration.<br/>
<br/>
"Joe, what are you doing," Frank asked as his brother descended the steps. "I don't like the looks of this place."<br/>
<br/>
"If they check in here we can hide in this tunnel," Joe said, indicating the exit that seemed to run parallel to the hallway outside.<br/>
<br/>
"We don't know where it goes," Frank started to say, but was interrupted by a sudden, loud roar. Both boys looked in alarm at the other tunnel. Before either could react, a great wall of water burst from it. "Joe!" Frank cried.<br/>
<br/>
Joe leaped back for the stairs, but the heavy, rushing tide knocked his feet out from under him. Frank ran down the steps, but he was too late to grab his brother. Joe was caught in a crashing vortex and was being pulled toward the tunnel he had wanted to explore. Under the crush of water, he would almost certainly drown.<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211211111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (12)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 12</div><br/>
FRANK DOVE INTO THE CHURNING WATER. His brother was already disappearing into the tunnel. Frank shot his hand out and grasped Joe by the wrist. He straightened himself as best he could, but his feet slipped on the floor as he tried to find a purchase, and he was dragged along too. But when he came to the mouth of the tunnel he braced himself against the top of it with his free hand.<br/>
<br/>
Using his brother as an anchor, Joe was able to put his own feet on the bottom, and Frank helped haul him out of the tunnel. Both boys edged slowly along the perimeter, crouching and grabbing the wall so as not to be knocked back down. Moving in this crab-wise fashion, they finally made it to the stairs, and Frank helped Joe back up to the landing.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess we're even now," Joe said. He bent and coughed some water out.<br/>
<br/>
"I'd rather I still owed you," Frank said. His lips compressed as he stared hard at Joe. "Come on, we're going to have to find some dry clothes in one of those rooms."<br/>
<br/>
"What if they're still searching?" Joe asked. He followed Frank back to the door. Their feet made squelching noises as they walked.<br/>
<br/>
"We're not going to be stupid and just charge out there," Frank said. He put his ear to the door, but frowned. "I can't hear anything. I'll have to risk a look."<br/>
<br/>
He opened the door and peered through the crack, then opened it wider. He stuck his head out. Joe tried looking over his shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess they must have moved past while we were down there," Frank said. "Finally, a little luck."<br/>
<br/>
"I think we've had quite a bit of luck," Joe growled. "Finding those folders on us, for a start."<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," Frank grumbled back. "That's a point." He looked at Joe. "I'm sorry, Joe. I guess I'm just still scared from back there. I didn't want to lose you."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't want to lose you off that ledge, Frank," Joe replied. "I won't be mad at you if you don't be mad at me."<br/>
<br/>
"It's a deal," Frank said with a smile. "Now let's get dried off. It looks like the coast is clear."<br/>
<br/>
They hopped back down the hall until they came to a door that they knew led to an empty room. Inside, they dried off as best they could using the spare gowns, and changed into fresh jumpsuits. They talked in low voices.<br/>
<br/>
"There were computers at the desk back at in that lobby," Joe said. "We might be able to send a message from them."<br/>
<br/>
"We were probably lucky that the nurse was away from her station," Frank replied. "I don't want to take a chance on running into anyone. Besides, I doubt the computers there have a connection to the Internet."<br/>
<br/>
"We could go back to that administration building," Joe suggested. "The search there is probably ended."<br/>
<br/>
Frank was silent for a few moments. "That's not a bad idea," he finally said. "But I'm thinking now that we should get back to our rooms. If we've been safe this far, we'll probably be safe for one more day." He motioned Joe not to interrupt. "We don't want to be missed. That's the most likely way we would blow our cover."<br/>
<br/>
"But we need to get a message back to ATAC!"<br/>
<br/>
"I know that, Joe," Frank said patiently. "But we can't run around half-cocked. If we can get between our camp and the other one via these tunnels, we can return tomorrow night and send an SOS. Or maybe we can find a computer connection back our camp." <br/>
<br/>
Joe grumbled but went along with his brother's plan. Frank had been right so far about almost everything.<br/>
<br/>
Again, they carefully scoped out the hallway, and then stole out. Their shoes were still damp, so they weren't nearly as quiet as they had been before. But they ran into no one, and this time they didn't waste any effort checking out additional rooms.<br/>
<br/>
When they came to the end of the hall they found themselves in another reception area. The desk here was deserted too. Joe tugged at Frank's shoulder, but Frank shook his head. Instead, he trotted quickly through the lobby to what looked to be a twin of the long hallway they had previously escaped down.<br/>
<br/>
But just as they reached it, two figures stepped out. Frank and Joe bolted to a stop. It was Jenkins and another one of the guards with the "boss" face. They also stopped short, and the latter frowned in puzzlement at the Hardys.<br/>
<br/>
But Jenkins just jerked his chin in greeting. "Bannock. Salzmann. What are you guys doing here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Snooping," Frank replied in an insolent tone. Joe had to keep himself from jumping. "We're getting tired of waiting around for things to happen, thought we'd have a little adventure. How about you?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank's confession seemed not to faze the others. Jenkins just pointed to his face and grinned as best he could through his blank, mask-like features. "Goin' in for the new face. Prep work tonight and the final surgery tomorrow." He sniggered and nudged the "boss." "Do I get to show it to Preston and see the look on his face when it's done?"<br/>
<br/>
But the boss ignored him. "I thought you two would have seen everything by now," he said to Frank. <br/>
<br/>
Joe's heart leaped in his chest. The words sounded accusatory. But the man's face was neutral, and his tone flat.<br/>
<br/>
"Not enough for our tastes," Frank smoothly replied. "There's always another corner with something around it."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I get it," the boss-man said. His smile turned knowing, and more than a little nasty. "Acting in character. Well, I guess it makes sense." His grin widened, and he clapped Frank hard on the shoulder. "But you just got caught, didn't you? That'll look bad on your junior detective records." He nudged his charge. "Come on, Jenkins. Let's get you up to the third floor. Doc's probably already waiting."<br/>
<br/>
The two moved on, but Frank and Joe paused to listen. "What's with them?" Jenkins asked. "Snooping?"<br/>
<br/>
"Couple of police kids," the boss-man replied. "A lot more important than you, and that's all you need to know." They disappeared around the corner, and Frank and Joe heard the stairwell door open and close.<br/>
<br/>
The boys looked at each other, and were both very pale. "Did you hear that," Joe said. "It sounds like--"<br/>
<br/>
"It sounds like they've already got duplicates of us made," Frank finished for him. He swallowed. "That's who he thought we were. I don't know how else we would have got past him. Come on." He grabbed at Joe's shirt and started running down the corridor.<br/>
<br/>
"But Frank," Joe panted. "If they've already got our doubles prepared, doesn't that mean they know who we are?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's a real possibility," Frank said. "It could be that ATAC unwittingly played into their hands by sending us here." He suddenly stopped in mid-stride, and Joe nearly plowed into him. But he stared past his brother.<br/>
<br/>
"We're going back, to try to get on a computer, right?" Joe said. He wasn't asking, either; he was making an urgent suggestion.<br/>
<br/>
Frank's eyes remained out of focus even as he turned toward his brother. "But that doesn't make sense," he muttered. Joe sighed. He knew that tone. It meant that Frank was talking to himself out loud again. "Their whole M.O. is to bring the targets here, study them, and then do the surgeries just before making the replacements. Why would they do the surgeries ahead of time?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because we're a special case?" Joe said impatiently. "We're not going to get an invitation to come out to place like this."<br/>
<br/>
"No, but we might be brought here as part of an <i>investigation,</i>" Frank said. He suddenly sucked his breath in sharply, and turned very bright eyes onto his partner. "I do love Aunt Gertrude's marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies. I'd hate to never taste them again."<br/>
<br/>
"What are you-- Ooohhh!" Joe gasped. <br/>
<br/>
It was the most horrible thought that Joe had ever had to entertain, and he staggered under it. Frank was suggesting that maybe one of <i>them</i> was already a duplicate--an enemy agent. And he was more or less demanding that Joe prove that he was really his brother.<br/>
<br/>
"I know you love them, Frank," Joe replied in a very measured tone. "It's all you can talk about when she brings them over."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm glad Kelly liked them," Frank replied in a tone just as measured as Joe's. "I liked Kelly."<br/>
<br/>
"I did too," Joe said, and wondered how long it would take him to convince his brother that he was who he said he was. "I liked her, even though <i>you</i> were the one she hugged after we rescued her."<br/>
<br/>
To his relief, Frank instantly relaxed. "I'm sorry, Joe. We really can't afford to get paranoid, but--"<br/>
<br/>
"I understand," Joe said. "Is it my turn now to ask <i>you</i> to--"<br/>
<br/>
Frank's face fell. "I thought that's what I was doing," he hissed. "Talking about Kelly and those cookies!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." Joe had to concede that Frank was right: with his challenges, Frank had already provided his own bona fides. "Okay, so we know who <i>we</i> are. Are we going back to that desk? If they think we're the duplicates--"<br/>
<br/>
But Frank pulled him along the way they had been running. "The way I figure it," he said, "they need us under observation for a long time. Even if they know who we are--and they probably do--we'll be safe as long as they don't think we've figured out what's going on. So let's get back to the barracks."<br/>
<br/>
But when they arrived--safely after more skulking in and around their own administration building--they found "the boss" waiting with a bright smile. "There's my boys," he said in a poisonous tone.<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (13)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 13</div><br/>
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" the boss demanded. His eyes were hard, and they slid back and forth between Joe and Frank in a narrow groove.<br/>
<br/>
"Out for a nature walk," Frank retorted. "You know the old expression about all work and no play."<br/>
<br/>
"This isn't summer camp," the boss replied. "Not for you two. I was about to sound the alarm."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean you haven't?" Frank asked. There was a cautiously hopeful note in the question.<br/>
<br/>
"No, and you should thank me for being patient. Mr. Apple's not that patient, though. Turn around. We're going to the briefing room."<br/>
<br/>
"What time is it?" Joe demanded. "Isn't it kind of late for--"<br/>
<br/>
"Stow it, Bannock," the boss said, and Joe suppressed the flooding feeling of relief in his chest. Despite the rough tone, it sounded like the camp was still buying his and Frank's cover story. "You attend a briefing when and where you're told." <br/>
<br/>
He grabbed their shoulders, spun them around, and forced them to march ahead of him, back through the darkness toward the administration building that they had just crept out of. Joe guessed that it was probably close to nine o'clock.<br/>
<br/>
The boss led them up to the third floor, to a twin of the conference room they had investigated at the other camp just an hour or so before. Mr. Apple was there, looking a little harried and distracted. He gave the boss a quick nod and dismissed him. He wordlessly jabbed a finger at two seats, and Frank and Joe took them. <br/>
<br/>
Frank crossed his arms truculently. "I need my beauty sleep. What's this about?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe expected the supervisor to react angrily, but instead he only became peevish. "Were you two in the hospital a little while ago?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe wondered what Frank would say. Either answer carried tremendous risks, and he was happy to let his brother take the responsibility. He held his breath when Frank said, "Yeah. Doing some snooping. Are we in trouble?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know yet," the doctor said with a frown. He seemed to hesitate, and looked hard at Frank. Neither said anything for a minute, and then the door opened. The boss--or another man who looked like him--entered long enough to hand Mr. Apple a set of folders. He quickly glanced through them, and his frown deepened. "Incompetents," he finally murmured, and then abruptly sat down. He drummed his fingers as he glared between the boys.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes?" Frank drawled.<br/>
<br/>
"Todd Salzmann and Steve Bannock," Mr. Apple muttered. "Well, I guess it's just the way it looks," he said with a sigh.<br/>
<br/>
"How does it look?" Frank said. "I'm good looking. Steve wouldn't win any beauty contests--"<br/>
<br/>
"I mean that you have those faces," Mr. Apple said. He pushed the first two folders aside. They were still open, and Joe let his eyes fall onto them long enough to see that they were the files for Bannock and Salzmann that he and Frank had found earlier in the other building. He laid a hand on his pocket, thankful that he'd had the presence of mind to remove the incriminating photos.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile, Mr. Apple was frowning over the other two folders the boss had handed him. Then he shrugged, turned them around, and pushed them toward Frank and Joe. "Take a look at those boys," he said.<br/>
<br/>
Joe was careful not to react: They were the files on him and Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"Joe Hardy," Frank said as he studied the files. "Frank Hardy. So?"<br/>
<br/>
"Notice anything about their faces?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe felt like he had to say something, and this seemed a safe place to insert himself. "This guy looks kind of like Todd," he said, tapping Frank's photo.<br/>
<br/>
"Lucky fella," Frank growled. "Luckier than his brother here." He tapped Joe's photo.<br/>
<br/>
"It's a remarkable resemblance," Mr. Apple said, and bit his lip. Then he grabbed the folders and pulled them back to himself. "We're going to change your assignments. Instead of Ferguson and Gettier, you two will be replacing the Hardy brothers."<br/>
<br/>
Joe wanted to laugh out loud at the idea of being trained to replace himself. Frank seemed to have the same thought, for a faint smile crept onto his face. "Looking to cut expenses?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, you'll have to have surgery anyway," Mr. Apple said. "It's a close resemblance, but far from exact. An expert eye like mine can spot dozens of places where your faces diverge from theirs."<br/>
<br/>
Joe was afraid that he would start giggling, and started talking rapidly in order to cover the mirth that was bubbling up from his chest. "But we've already started on our targets."<br/>
<br/>
"You'll change targets," Mr. Apple said in an irritated voice. "You've barely begun."<br/>
<br/>
Frank said, "Don't you already have two agents cut up to look like-- What were their names?" <br/>
<br/>
"Frank and Joe Hardy. Yes. And how did you know that?" His tone was sharp.<br/>
<br/>
"Probably the same way you knew we were in the hospital," Frank replied. "The boss saw us there when he was taking Steve's roommate in for his face job. He mistook us for guys who looked like those guys." He pointed to the folders containing his and Joe's information.<br/>
<br/>
"That's very shrewd of you, Salzmann," Mr. Apple said, and Joe feared from his tone that Frank had overplayed their hand. "Very shrewd indeed. Yes, you would make an excellent Frank Hardy."<br/>
<br/>
"So if the other guys are ready to go, why change things?" Frank demanded.<br/>
<br/>
"We have doubts about the two agents we've already prepped," Mr. Apple said, and he sounded uncomfortable with the admission. "The surgery went off perfectly, they are exact duplicates of the brothers. But they don't have the same--" He stopped and leaned forward, clasping his hands. "Normally you would be in a <i>lot</i> of trouble for crossing several red lines today. But you show a lot of spirit. A lot of nerve. You're very cool-headed. Especially you, Bannock," he said, turning a piercing eye on Joe. "Don't think I haven't been noticing how cool you're playing it over there."<br/>
<br/>
Joe was glad he had the doctor so fooled; his heart had been racing.<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple continued. "Spirit and nerve and cool under pressure. Some good guesswork by you, Salzmann. A propensity to snoop. That's a very good description of the Hardy brothers. You are <i>much</i> better fits for the job. And because so very little work has to be done--" He caught himself again, and a look of agonized doubt crept into his eyes. Then he shook his head. "No, we want this job for you. The other two can always get new faces."<br/>
<br/>
"Who are these Hardy brothers," Frank demanded. "How much money do they have?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not much," Dr. Apple admitted. "They are a policeman's sons--"<br/>
<br/>
"Then why do we want the job?" Frank said. "Your recruiters promised lots of money."<br/>
<br/>
"Girlfriends, too," Joe chimed in. "Does-- Does my Hardy brother have a girlfriend?"<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple reached for a folder, then stopped. "We could make a special arrangement. A hefty one-time fee. A very hefty one-time fee."<br/>
<br/>
"With Ferguson and Gettier we were set for life," Frank says.<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple sighed. "I'm no good as a negotiator," he said in a sulky tone. "A hefty one-time fee," he offered. "After awhile we pull you out. Give you a new job. No, not a new job. A new situation. Someplace rich, and you wouldn't have to do anything. No additional work."<br/>
<br/>
Frank looked at Joe. Joe looked at Frank, and shrugged. Frank turned back to Dr. Apple. "What's so special about this policeman's sons?"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't need to know--"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure we do." Frank was blunt with his interruption. "We need to know what we're getting in to. This sounds a lot more dangerous and a lot less lucrative than the work we signed up for."<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple got a very pinched look on his face. "Their father is more than a policeman, and Joe and Frank Hardy are more than just his sons. They are agents for a group called ATAC. That stands for 'American Teens Against Crime'."<br/>
<br/>
"Wow, I think I already hate them," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"They are agents for this group," Mr. Apple repeated. "Their father helped found it, so they are very high in its confidences. It is the law enforcement group most likely to become interested in our own activities, so we would like to penetrate them. 'Frank and Joe Hardy' would be unimpeachable aliases for our own operatives."<br/>
<br/>
Joe made a face. It reflected his own feelings of horror, but he hoped the doctor would take it as a lack of enthusiasm only.<br/>
<br/>
Frank grunted softly. "I like the sound of your scheme, doctor. Like Steve said, I think I hate these guys. I'd love to screw things up for them."<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple held Frank's eye, and then smiled thinly. "Good. You won't regret it." He stood up and actually extended his hand in a handshake. He then dismissed them by saying they could return to the barracks.<br/>
<br/>
"That was a real break," Joe murmured to Frank as they strode down the hall. "It looks like our cover is even more secure than before."<br/>
<br/>
"It was a lot of fast talk on both sides, Joe," Frank snapped. "Tomorrow night we find a way of getting a message to ATAC, or we die trying."<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a><br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (14)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 14</div><br/>
JOE FELT NERVOUS all the next day. But it was the nervousness that came from anticipating action. Frank had promised that they would make an attempt at contacting ATAC after nightfall, but until then there was nothing to do but wait. Joe's temper wasn't improved by the fact that he and Frank had been given the files on themselves and told to study them. The boys were appalled by how much Camp Double Bluff had been able to find out about them.<br/>
<br/>
But possession of the files gave Frank an excuse to go back into the administration building, where he surreptitiously slipped into a room and unlocked a window. So it was no great feat for the boys to get back down into the transit tunnels a little before midnight.<br/>
<br/>
First, though, they checked the computers at the reception desk of the administration building: "No point going all the way to the other camp if we can use these terminals," Frank pointed out. They were, alas, password protected.<br/>
<br/>
Having made the passage from one camp to the other already, Joe and Frank felt confident about getting through again. However, they had not counted on the hospital being more crowded than it had been. As they passed through the first reception area they heard voices coming from around the far corner, so rather than risk getting caught in the long hallway that connected the lobbies they ducked into a stairwell. <br/>
<br/>
It led them up to a second floor, which appeared to consist of a single very long hallway that looped about on itself in a big circle. They crept along it until they found a set of double doors. Frank grimaced when Joe grasped its handle, but acquiesced. <br/>
<br/>
Inside, they found a semi-circular amphitheater. Seats arranged like those in a movie theater fell away toward the floor. The bottom of the arena was filled with equipment, all centered on an operating table. Joe caught his breath. The operating theater wasn't empty: someone was sitting up on the bed, and three doctors were studying that person as one of them slowly unwound the bandages from his or her face. The boys watched entranced as they came off. From the hair Joe guessed it was the patient they had briefly met the night before. But the figure's back was to them.<br/>
<br/>
The patient started to touch his face, but one of the physicians gently restrained him. Instead, he seemed to question the boy, and from a jar he scooped out drops of paste or lotion and applied it in spots to the patient's face.<br/>
<br/>
It was interesting to watch, but they had something more important to do. Joe guessed that Frank was deeply engrossed in the spectacle below, but he let his eyes drift about the room. It didn't take him long to spot something interesting.<br/>
<br/>
He nudged Frank and pointed to the opposite wall. It was lined with dark windows. "That's probably an observation room," he said. "Let's see if they have a computer in there."<br/>
<br/>
"Joe, we should--" Frank started, but his brother was out the door before he could finish. He ran after him, but Joe had a head start, and was faster anyway. He only caught up to him when Joe had come to another set of double doors. He grasped at his brother's arm, but Joe had already pulled the door open.<br/>
<br/>
It was too bad for them that the room was already full of people. They were looking out the windows and down onto the operating floor, but they turned almost as one at the sound of the door.<br/>
<br/>
"I tried to tell you there were probably people in there," Frank muttered.<br/>
<br/>
The boys scrambled back, but it was too late. Joe instantly recognized Mr. Apple among the men in the room, and the camp supervisor returned Joe's startled look. Four of the other men were all duplicates of their own "boss," and again Joe had a chance to marvel at how exact the resemblance was between each man: the same broad forehead, high cheekbones, and stylishly cut hair. <br/>
<br/>
But it was the sixth man who commanded attention. He was half a head taller than the next tallest man in the room. His head was big and shaved, and he had a beard, very black and full, that swept along and around his jaw like a spade. He was wearing a business suit, but it couldn't hide his massive shoulders or his broad and very strong chest. Meaty hands flexed at the ends of his arms. "Who are you," he demanded.<br/>
<br/>
"Just a couple of guys who took a wrong turn," Frank said with a laugh. He bumped into Joe as he started to back out of the room. <br/>
<br/>
But the big man snapped his fingers and jabbed one at the floor, and such was his air of authority that the boys had to stop despite themselves. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" he demanded again in a heavy growl. He brushed away Mr. Apple, who was tapping him on the shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
Joe felt Frank stiffen. "Just a couple of agents," Frank said. "We're doing training, getting into character. And that involves a little innocent snooping. Ask Mr. Apple."<br/>
<br/>
Joe looked at the hard faces of the half-dozen men in front of them, and knew that Frank's desperate ploy wasn't going to work. Mr. Apple flinched when the big man turned on him with an air of open hostility. "What does he mean by that?" he demanded.<br/>
<br/>
Apple winced. "As he says, they are the new agents for one of the Alpha projects," he said. "We're having a hard time--"<br/>
<br/>
"So who <i>are</i> they?" the other man repeated, more harshly still.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Steve Bannock and Todd Salzmann," Dr. Apple said.<br/>
<br/>
"Until the surgeries," Frank said. "And then--"<br/>
<br/>
But the man had swung around to glare fiercely at him. "These aren't Salzmann and Bannock," he said bluntly. "I interviewed those two myself."<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Apple made an exclamation. "But-- But--"<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't you check their identifications?" The big man's voice was now a roar.<br/>
<br/>
"They had the passes--!" The two men argued back and forth hotly for several minutes, until Mr. Apple had to admit that he himself had had doubts about who Frank and Joe really were, and he too was soon peering suspiciously at the boys.<br/>
<br/>
The big man advanced on the boys, hands on hips, with a ferocious stare. "Who are you?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank smiled back at him. "I guess there's no point in pretending any more," he said softy. "My name is Frank Hardy, and this is my brother, Joe. We're agents with American Teens Against Crime, and we've been operating undercover to investigate this camp and its illegal operations." He let the impudent confession hang for a moment before adding: "You are all now under arrest. If you come quietly--"<br/>
<br/>
"Very funny," the man said. "I like a good joke. Here's the punch line to my favorite." He jammed a hard fist into Frank's midriff. "How do you like it?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe leaped to his brother's defense, but was quickly overwhelmed and held back by six other hands.<br/>
<br/>
Frank straightened himself with a gasp. "I like a good joke too," he said. "But I <i>love</i> marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies!"<br/>
<br/>
The man snorted. "Take them to Room 101."<br/>
<br/>
The boys had their arms pinned behind them and were hustled back along the hallway and down a side corridor, at the end of which was a very heavy door. They were thrust through, cast into a darkness which became pitch black when the door closed. A heavy lock sounded.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you okay, Frank?" Joe asked. He felt about in the dark.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Just angry with myself." <br/>
<br/>
Joe swung toward the sound of his brother's voice, and a moment later brushed his fingertips over Frank's face. "Why are you angry? We almost made it."<br/>
<br/>
"'Almost' is just another word for 'didn't'. Well," he added with a sigh. "There's no point moping. Let's figure out where we are."<br/>
<br/>
It was a just a bare room, without any kind of furniture or window. They felt a current of air from high up, which told them there was a ventilation duct somewhere, but even with Joe holding Frank aloft they couldn't find the ceiling. They made a circuit of the room--which wasn't very large--and found nothing but each other. <br/>
<br/>
"I like the way you tried arresting them," Joe said when they had finished. He could feel his brother's low spirits through the darkness, and wanted to make him feel better.<br/>
<br/>
"I think that's where I messed up," Frank said. "I should have come up with a different story. Maybe something about how we were cons who shoved the real Bannock and Salzmann aside to get a job at Camp Double Bluff."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think that guy was going to buy it anyway," Joe said. "And at least you got a chance to use the code phrase on some new guys. Maybe one of them--"<br/>
<br/>
"I wouldn't count on it," Frank said, and the bitterness in his tone was now unmistakable. "I'm beginning to think that--"<br/>
<br/>
Just then the door lock clicked, and the boys fell silent. It opened, and after the utter darkness, the gloom from the outside hall was nearly blinding. They couldn't make out the face of the figure that stood silhouetted in the doorway.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry I'm late," he said. "But you sure took your sweet time before using those magic words."<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a><br/>
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path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211211111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (15)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 15</div><br/>
JOE'S LAUGH WAS A BARK OF RELIEF. "Finally! We've only been repeating that stupid phrase everywhere we go!"<br/>
<br/>
"I've only seen you a couple of times since you've arrived," their rescuer admitted. "So you're the guys they sent to infiltrate this place."<br/>
<br/>
Joe blinked to see that it was one of the various "boss men" running around the place, and instantly deduced that he had been with the group that caught them.<br/>
<br/>
"I suppose you didn't need to hear that pass phrase to know who we were," Frank said. "My saying we were ATAC agents would have been enough."<br/>
<br/>
But the man shook his head. "I wouldn't have risked a rescue without that phrase. Any jerk can claim to be a government agent." Frank frowned at his words in a way that seemed a trifle sulky.<br/>
<br/>
"What can you tell us about the camp and what they're up to?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"Not a thing," the man shrugged. "I know it's creepy and they're up to no good. But beyond that I can't say."<br/>
<br/>
"You can't say anything about the way they're making duplicates of real people?" Frank asked with light sarcasm. Joe began to wonder why he was being so hostile to their benefactor.<br/>
<br/>
The man blinked. "I don't know anything about that. I know they perform plastic surgery on people--" He pointed to his own face, and grimaced. "But I don't know anything about making 'duplicates' of people. What do <i>you</i> mean by <i>that</i>?"<br/>
<br/>
But Frank ignored the challenge. "So why did you decide to turn informant?"<br/>
<br/>
Now the man began to lose his patience. "Listen, kid, I don't have to explain myself. I only know that I didn't much like the way I seen them treating kids around here. Sometimes it's more like an armed camp than a real one."<br/>
<br/>
Joe jerked a little in surprise, and a faint smile crossed his face. "Have you and me met before? I mean, before we came to this camp?"<br/>
<br/>
A gleam came into the man's eye. "Yeah. And I'd appreciate it if you never pointed a gun at me again." <br/>
<br/>
Joe ducked his head and snickered.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you armed now?" Frank asked. In reply, the man patted his chest near his shoulder. <br/>
<br/>
"Frank, you're not thinking of shooting our way out of here?" Joe asked incredulously.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course not," his brother snapped. "I'm just trying to figure out what resources we have." He turned back to their rescuer. "Okay, uh-- Can we know your name or something?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess you can call me 'Three'."<br/>
<br/>
"Were you the third one to get that face?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I was the third one in my family to carry my name," he replied. "My grandfather was 'Senior', my dad was 'Junior', and I was 'the Third'." He shuddered. "I hated 'the Third,' but I didn't mind--"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, okay," Frank said. "How do you communicate with your handlers, when you send information out?"<br/>
<br/>
"There's a guard room up on the third floor," Three replied. "It has a computer station with an Internet connection."<br/>
<br/>
"What's the password," Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"Double bluff," Three said. "One word, no capitals, no spaces."<br/>
<br/>
Joe groaned. "That's either the stupidest or the cleverest--"<br/>
<br/>
"We need to get a message to ATAC," Frank said. "Can we use that station to log in?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. But there will be a guy up there," said Three.<br/>
<br/>
"Can you get rid of him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course." He grinned. "We're always covering for each other, and no one can tell when it's the wrong guy on duty."<br/>
<br/>
Frank returned a mirthless smile. "Okay. Joe and I will wait back inside Room 101. Come get us when you've gotten rid of him."<br/>
<br/>
Three nodded and strode off. Frank and Joe returned to their erstwhile prison, but kept the door open so they could see.<br/>
<br/>
"Why are you being so nasty to him," Joe asked. He wanted to explode at Frank for the way he had treated their rescuer.<br/>
<br/>
Frank gave Joe a narrow look. "Has it occurred to you, Joe, that this whole case has been full of extremely lucky accidents and coincidences? People being exactly where they need to be, at exactly the moment they need to be there? People leaping to exactly the wrong conclusion when it's convenient for us for them to make such leaps?" He jerked his head down the hallway. "People rescuing us exactly when we need being rescued?"<br/>
<br/>
"Never look a gift horse in the mouth," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"Never let a wooden horse through your front door," Frank retorted. He rubbed his cheek. "I don't like finding things we shouldn't have found."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what we're supposed to do," said Joe. "And we've gotten pretty good at it over the years."<br/>
<br/>
"I still can't shake the feeling that there's something fishy about all this," Frank muttered.<br/>
<br/>
Joe had learned over the years to trust Frank's instincts. "So what do we do?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Joe could tell he was thinking furiously. "We told that guy we wanted to send a message to ATAC, but I've got a feeling we won't be able to do that." His voice was grim. "So I'm going to distract our benefactor. I want you to look on the computer and see if you can find some way of establishing a server-to-server connection with ATAC."<br/>
<br/>
"That's a high-level thing to try," Joe gasped. "Very risky, too."<br/>
<br/>
"I know, but we've got the ATAC passwords, so we can do it. And we need to make a Hail Mary play like that. This thing is bigger than just us, Joe. If I'm right, we need to make the most of this one last chance--if it is a real chance--to get word to ATAC. And since we're compromised, we have to give ATAC the keys to this place so they can get in whenever they want. A server-to-server connection will do that."<br/>
<br/>
Joe took a deep breath over the idea that they might not survive where a computer-to-computer connection might, and agreed to do as Frank requested.<br/>
<br/>
A few minutes later, Three reappeared. "This guard room you're taking us to," Frank asked. "It has monitors for security cameras?" Three grunted affirmatively. "Who was on duty last night?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was," Three said. He looked back at Frank. "Yeah, I saw you guys skulking around. I wasn't sure what was going on, but figured it was safest to play dumb, in case you were, uh--"<br/>
<br/>
"I see. And the cameras? They have some trained on Room 101, right? So the guard who was up there would have seen you rescuing us."<br/>
<br/>
"I took care of that," Three grumbled. "I'm not an idiot. I told him that Dr. Zebra--that's the big guy who had you thrown in there--wanted me to ask you a couple of questions." Frank grunted again.<br/>
<br/>
They soon arrived at a small room that contained a bank of security monitors and a large desktop computer. Frank pushed Joe toward it and murmured in his ear: "I'll take our friend outside. You log in like we talked about."<br/>
<br/>
Joe nodded and turned his full attention to the computer, and silently thanked Frank for insisting that the two of them take the special course on computer science that ATAC had offered. As the computer warmed up, he glanced at the monitors. They seemed to have the hospital completely covered, and he saw that there was no way that he and Frank could have gotten across it the previous night unobserved.<br/>
<br/>
First, he logged in through ATAC's secure website and sent a very quick message to the webmaster, describing what he was doing and why. ATAC was likely to notice the connection that Frank had asked him to set up, and he didn't want them shutting it down because they didn't know what it was or what it was supposed to do.<br/>
<br/>
After that, he found the program that would let him connect ATAC's computers directly to those of Camp Double Bluff. With that connection made and running silently in the background, ATAC's agents would be able to copy anything that they found in Camp Double Bluff's system. The risk came in logging onto ATAC's own servers, which Joe had to do in order to configure the transfers. But after that he logged out again, leaving only a one-way connection siphoning information back to the good guys.<br/>
<br/>
He typed quickly, and did his best to ignore the low murmur of voices from the hallway, where Frank was talking with Three. Joe felt he understood Frank's concerns, but he also felt that his brother was being overly paranoid. Yes, an astonishing number of things had broken their way, but that was due mostly to Frank and his ability to plan ahead and improvise their way out of a sticky situation. Joe allowed himself a slight amount of vexation: Except for his attempt at stopping Kelly's doppelganger, he had been much more passive on this case than Frank.<br/>
<br/>
He jumped a little as his brother came in. Frank leaned over his shoulder. "Are you done yet?"<br/>
<br/>
"Almost," Joe said. He typed in a few more commands, then closed the connection. "I also logged in to ATAC and left a note about what I was doing. That's one reason it took me so long."<br/>
<br/>
"Excellent thinking, Joe," Frank said. "Let's just double-check something." He slid the mouse over to an unfamiliar-looking icon and clicked on it. A small window opened on the monitor. Joe blinked: It contained every word and letter he had typed.<br/>
<br/>
"Good," said Frank. "They'll never see the double cross coming."<br/>
<br/>
Joe was about to ask what he meant, and then he heard a click and felt the muzzle of a gun barrel against the back of his head.<br/>
<br/>
"Step away from the computer, Joe," said Frank. "Neither of us wants your brains all over it."<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a><br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (16)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 16</div><br/>
"GET UP, JOE," Frank repeated.<br/>
<br/>
Joe felt his head spinning as he slowly stood. "Frank," he said. "I was doing what you told me--" His voice caught as he turned and caught sight of his brother's face. Frank's eyes gleamed with cold amusement. "I'm your brother, Frank. I thought we got that settled."<br/>
<br/>
"I know exactly who you are, Joe Hardy," Frank replied. "Too bad you didn't figure out who <i>I</i> was before it was too late. In here, guys!" he called over Joe's shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
Joe glanced back, to see four men--all looking exactly like Three--enter. One of them grasped Joe by the arms and slipped a cold pair of handcuffs around his wrists.<br/>
<br/>
Joe felt all the blood drain from his face, and his breath came in short gasps as he wheeled back on Frank. "When--? How long--?"<br/>
<br/>
"The very first day," Frank said, and his lips curled into a smirk. "We made the switch when you and Frank separated to change out of your street clothes. Maybe you don't know your own brother as well as you think you do. But I prefer to think it's because I'm just very good at my job."<br/>
<br/>
The room spun around Joe; he wanted to vomit. <i>For the past week he had been working with, cooperating with, taking direction from Camp Double Bluff's own surgically altered duplicate of Frank. How could he have been so blind?</i><br/>
<br/>
As if reading Joe's thoughts, the fake Frank continued to gloat. "I even dropped you lots of hints. Telling you that Camp Double Bluff had made up replacements for us. Testing your own identity with passwords and pass phrases. Pointing out how lucky we had been, and hinting that there was some kind of secret scheme that we weren't seeing." Frank shrugged, and now that Joe was securely bound he put the gun away. "But that's what double bluffs do. They trick you into ignoring the obvious."<br/>
<br/>
And yet Joe didn't care about any of that. "Where's Frank?" he demanded in a fierce whisper. He felt that he could burst his bonds and deflect bullets if something bad had happened to his brother.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, he's safe. For now," the fake Frank said. "He's off having fun with <i>your</i> duplicate, and he's just as clueless as you were. He's being a little more careful about spilling secrets, but we're not really pushing him. We knew that if we fed <i>you</i> the right bait, and pushed you in the right direction, you'd give up the really good stuff." He looked over Joe's shoulder. "Did you get those passwords saved?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe looked back: one of the other agents was sitting at the terminal and tapping away. "Yes," he said. "I'm uploading the viruses now."<br/>
<br/>
"ATAC will know what's going on," Joe said. "I told you, I sent them an email. They'll be on alert."<br/>
<br/>
"They would be, if they actually got your email," fake-Frank replied. "But it wasn't a live connection, only an emulation to capture your keystrokes. And with them, we've now been able to log in. We'll be downloading everything from ATAC's servers. It's what we specialize in, you know. Making copies of things."<br/>
<br/>
"One of your prisoner's escaped," Joe said. "Kelly Sanbourne. ATAC has her now." He wasn't even sure why he was arguing. He just felt the need to show this imposter that their plans weren't foolproof.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, yes," sighed fake-Frank. "That is a hole. As was your friend, Three. But we've taken care of Three, and we'll find a way to fix Kelly. But I'm not in the business of giving away all our secrets and plans. Not yet, anyway."<br/>
<br/>
He seized Joe by the shoulder and pushed him roughly backwards into the arms of the other two guards. "Take him back to Room 101," he said.<br/>
<br/>
Joe was hustled back down the hallway and locked in the same dark room he had recently escaped. He didn't have long to wait. Less than ten minutes later the door opened, and the guards came in, wheeling a gurney. They seized Joe and strapped him securely to it. Joe gasped as he felt a prick in his forearm, and the surge of some kind of injection. His muscles clenched. And then they left him, to lay alone in the dark, staring up at the ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
Joe felt himself sinking, and he struggled to retain consciousness. He began to list to the side, and it seemed that at any moment he would topple off the gurney and onto the floor. Then he realized it was just the drugs making him dizzy. He blinked and clenched his eyes, but in the dark he had nothing to focus on, and he soon felt his attention wandering. <br/>
<br/>
For more than a week, according to the person who had been pretending to be Frank, he had been working with an imposter. What had he told him or given away to him in that time? He found it hard to concentrate. He remembered Frank restraining him from certain adventures, and talking him into others. Or had it been the other way around? There was a girl, trying to drive away. Someone had tried to stop her. Joe was sure he had tried to stop her from leaving. But he had failed, hadn't he? Frank had been angry. Was he angry that Joe had tried, or that he had failed? Or was he angry because Joe had succeeded? It was a girl in a cotton dress, and she had been crying ...<br/>
<br/>
Joe jerked, and a sharp pain shot through his shoulder. "Who's there?" he shouted, but his voice sounded thick and indistinct. They had come back in and given him another injection. "You can't--! I won't--!" He could hear them breathing. They would leave in a moment and he would see the light from the doorway and the sound of the door closing. But it never came. They were sitting in the dark with him, watching him. Yes, he could hear them breathing. He held his own breath. They held theirs. He released his with a gasp, and they did the same. They were copying him.<br/>
<br/>
But Frank said they already had a copy of him.<br/>
<br/>
But Frank was a copy. Everything he said was a lie. So there wasn't a copy of Joe. That should have made him feel better, but it only made him feel worse, somehow. Maybe he wasn't important enough to make a copy of.<br/>
<br/>
The room spun and spun and spun. Someone was talking? He listened closely, and realized it was himself talking. He clapped his mouth shut. What had he been saying? He let out his breath, and before he could stop himself he began to murmur again. "Stop it, stop it, stop it," he said. <i>Or was it, Yes, I'll tell you everything you want to know</i>? "If you're going to talk, make it Longfellow," he heard a voice say. It was coming from near his own mouth, so he could only assume it was something he had said. But it made sense: better to recite nonsense than anything else. He began with "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."<br/>
<br/>
How long he chanted it, or what else he recited, he couldn't be sure. He was exhausted, but still his voice rose and fell tonelessly. "We're in so much trouble,"  he heard himself say. "We have to get back to ATAC. But who can we trust?"<br/>
<br/>
"Agent Wallis," he told himself after a moment's thought.<br/>
<br/>
"How will he know it's really me?" he asked himself with a groan.<br/>
<br/>
Joe's head was cloudy, but he rallied himself enough to sigh, "Ask him about Aunt Gertrude's cookies. Tell him to get Dad."<br/>
<br/>
"How will Dad know it's really me?" His tone was still grim.<br/>
<br/>
Joe talked quietly to himself, recalling details of his and Frank's childhoods. He caught himself making mistakes, mixing up himself and Frank and even some of their friends, like Chet. He fought to keep himself straight. He couldn't afford to lose track of who <i>he</i> was, not with doubles of everyone else running around. Maybe they would break him, convince him he was someone else. Wasn't that also part of Camp Double Bluff's plan? To give their victims new identities so they wouldn't interfere with their replacements.<br/>
<br/>
"We'll get out of this," he assured himself. "Somehow."<br/>
<br/>
He slept. He must have slept, for when he opened his eyes again he was in a lighted room. He turned over. He was no longer bound to the gurney. Three--or someone who looked just like him--was shaking him. "Get up, Hardy," he said.<br/>
<br/>
Joe's arms and legs didn't want to work, but he forced himself up. He didn't want to lay there anymore. He wanted to fight.<br/>
<br/>
But he had no strength, and could only stumble along the hall as he was led to another room. He didn't recognize it. Someone was waiting inside it, with his back to the door. His guide shoved him in, and closed the door.<br/>
<br/>
The figure turned. It was Frank. Joe glared at him, and Frank sighed softly. "Don't look at me like that, Joe. It's me. Your brother."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't believe it. Not for an instant," Joe mumbled.<br/>
<br/>
Frank looked wounded. And then his eyes hardened with amusement. "No, you wouldn't, and you shouldn't. Are you at least feeling well enough to change?" He tossed a bundle at Joe.<br/>
<br/>
It was a pile of clothes, and Joe recognized them as the clothes he was wearing when he and Frank arrived at Camp Double Bluff. He looked up, and saw that the other was dressed in Frank's street clothes.<br/>
<br/>
"We're leaving," the double said. "You talked enough in Room 101 to tell us a lot of what we needed to know. And Three has been helpful as well. We're going to meet Agent Wallis, you and me. We're going to get Kelly Sanbourne back before she can cause any problems for <i>her</i> duplicate."<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (17)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 17</div><br/>
"HOW LONG WAS I IN THAT ROOM?" Joe asked. He pawed at the clothes. He was in no hurry to help the enemy by changing back.<br/>
<br/>
"Forty-eight hours," fake-Frank said. "Or maybe it was seventy-two. Or maybe it was only six." He smiled. "It's hard to say, and it doesn't really matter." He pointed at the clothes. "You can change your own clothes, or we can give you another shot and change them for you."<br/>
<br/>
Joe glared, but he didn't want any more of that junk in his system. "Can I get a little privacy?"<br/>
<br/>
His brother's double returned an icy stare of his own. "I spent six months training with your own doppelganger," he said quietly. "You've no reason to be shy."<br/>
<br/>
Joe tried to think as he pulled the jumpsuit off and pulled his own clothes back on, but his head still felt woolly. He wondered why Camp Double Bluff would risk sending <i>him</i> along with the fake Frank to try retrieving Kelly. He could only figure that it was because they were afraid that their own agents wouldn't know enough to get into and out of one of ATAC's field headquarters without giving themselves away. Therefore, they were going to try to force him to work for them. He felt a small smile creep onto his face, then tried to force it back down: There were a hundred ways he could send small signals to his ATAC friends that something was wrong, and force them to detain him and this imposter. <br/>
<br/>
But Frank's double apparently understood the same thing: "Don't try to play smart with us," he said softly. "We get Kelly and we come back here. Remember, we have your brother. He's only safe as long as we want him to be safe. I don't like being crude, but I will be blunt. Frank is a hostage."<br/>
<br/>
Joe's grip on his shoes tightened, and it was only with a supreme act of self-control that he stopped himself from hurling himself onto the fake and beating him to a pulp.<br/>
<br/>
When he was done, the fake Frank gestured at the door and made a slight bow. "After you, little brother."<br/>
<br/>
They left the administration building--which is where they had been--and went to the motor pool, where the boys' truck was already waiting out front. Frank's double took the keys. "This is a nice set of wheels," he said as he put it in gear and sent it leaping ahead with a satisfying growl. "How long have we had it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Six months," Joe said. "We got it in January, with some of our Christmas money."<br/>
<br/>
"We got it last fall with birthday money," the fake retorted. "If you'd read the dossier we'd assembled on you, you'd know that we knew that. Aunt Gertrude had doubts, remember?" He pushed the visor down against the morning sun. "'You boys will drive off into the middle of nowhere and get stuck'." He glanced over at Joe, who was staring back with an aghast expression on his face. "You talked a lot while you were in Room 101."<br/>
<br/>
Joe wondered what would happen if he seized the wheel. Would it be worth trying to cause an accident?<br/>
<br/>
"And she was right," fake-Frank continued. "We did get stuck in the middle of nowhere. Just not the way she was worried about. And we'll get out of it. Well, two boys who look just like her nephews will get out of it. Return home like nothing happened. I can't wait to meet your dad. <i>My</i> dad."<br/>
<br/>
Joe balled his hands into fists.<br/>
<br/>
His tormentor ignored it, though, and pulled some papers out of the top pocket of his shirt. "Put these back in the glove compartment for me, will you, Joe?" he said. "We shouldn't be driving without insurance and registration. You certainly surprised me with your presence of thought there." Joe just stared. "If you're thinking I'm going to reach past you, so you can grab my arm," fake-Frank said softly, "you can stop. I'm supposed to call in every hour from a pay phone on the way. If I don't call, my minders back at camp will know something is wrong, and will act accordingly." He wafted the papers at his prisoner. "Put them back, Joe." <br/>
<br/>
Gritting his teeth, Joe complied. A plastic bag fell out of the compartment as he opened it.<br/>
<br/>
Fake-Frank gasped. "If I was the sort of boy who cursed I'd call you a very bad name, Joe," he said. "You were holding out on me. Those are some of Aunt Gertrude's famous cookies, aren't they? Have they been in there the whole time? Lemme have one."<br/>
<br/>
With a suppressed growl, Joe opened the bag. The smell was not pleasant, for the bag had been inside the truck for many days, and the cookies had definitely turned. Fake-Frank choked a little as took one of the slimy things, and he rolled down the window long enough to toss it out.<br/>
<br/>
"That's too bad," he said. "I wanted to try one. I've been very curious about them. I hope I like them. Oh, what am I saying. I <i>love</i> her marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies, don't I?" He laughed.<br/>
<br/>
Joe permitted himself a small glimmer of hope. Frank actually hated those cookies. It would be a small thing that this double couldn't know, and it could trip him up! But then the hope vanished as quickly as it had arisen: Only Joe and Frank knew how Frank felt about them.<br/>
<br/>
"You're not being much of a conversationalist," fake-Frank said. "Are you always this quiet when you're with your brother? I have the impression that <i>you're</i> the talkative one."<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't got anything to say to you," Joe growled back.<br/>
<br/>
"Being careful, are you?" fake-Frank sighed. "I don't blame you. You mind if I give you some advice? That's what Frank does. He's full of advice for your own double. I think our Joe Hardy is almost as sick of Frank as you are of me." Joe bit his tongue, and fake-Frank continued. "But if I were to give advice, I'd say you need to concentrate on not making trouble. You want to get back to Camp Double Bluff alive. The best chance for you and Frank is if the two of you get back together. You're much better together than you are apart. It's one of the things that makes you so impressive, and so hard to replace. It will be easier for our other agents, though."<br/>
<br/>
"Other agents?" Joe said, his ears pricking up.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, did I say something careless," fake-Frank said with a laugh. "Maybe that's why you're being so quiet. You want <i>me</i> to slip up and give something away. Well, why not? You were so helpful in getting us into ATAC." He chuckled, and to Joe it was like fingernails on a blackboard.<br/>
<br/>
"So, why did we start with you and Frank? Replacing brothers is very tricky. We like to replace single children where we can. Parents don't really understand their own kids, especially teenagers, which is why it is so surprisingly easy to slip imposters in. With siblings you can never be sure. But you and Frank have a very public presence. It was much easier to learn about you. And most of your medical records were in places we could access. It would have been much harder to duplicate any of the other ATAC agents. They tend to keep a much lower profile."<br/>
<br/>
They had been driving along the main highway, and fake-Frank guided the truck onto an exit ramp. <br/>
<br/>
"That will change, now that we have total access to ATAC's computers," fake-Frank said as he pulled into the parking lot of a gas station. "Soon, me and my brother--" He grinned over the word "brother"--"won't be the only double agents inside ATAC."<br/>
<br/>
Joe was beyond feeling horror by this point, so he just stared back. Fake-Frank seemed disappointed by this lack of reaction, and he made a sour face as he pulled a quarter and a slip of paper from his pocket. "You want to keep Frank safe, don't you?" he said. "Then <i>you</i> make the call back to camp. Tell them I'm safe and still in control."<br/>
<br/>
Joe slowly took the proffered items, and dismounted from the truck. He tottered over to a pay phone on the outside wall. He paused at it, and surreptitiously felt in own pockets: Agent Wallis's card was still there. He breathed a sigh of relief that his captors hadn't found it.<br/>
<br/>
His mind worked furiously. Whatever the fake-Frank said, he doubted the men at the camp would do anything to his brother without at least waiting for a second phone call. And this might be his only chance to get a warning in to ATAC.<br/>
<br/>
He dialed Agent Wallis. "This is Joe Hardy," he said when the man answered. "I'm on my way back in. I've got Frank with me, but you cannot let us leave. I can't explain now, but under no circumstances are you to let us leave." He hung up before Wallis could reply. He suspected the call to Camp Double Bluff was meant to be short.<br/>
<br/>
Fake-Frank smiled as he got back in the truck. "Any problems?" he asked. Joe shook his head. Fake-Frank continued to smile. He made no move to restart the truck. <br/>
<br/>
Finally, Joe had to ask: "What are we waiting for?"<br/>
<br/>
"For the call back," fake-Frank said. "Didn't they ask for the number of the phone there?" He pointed at the pay phone. "We wait until they call back. Oh, Joe," he said when Joe's face fell. "Don't tell me you called Agent Wallis instead." He clucked his tongue. "That was <i>very</i> foolish, thinking we <i>forgot</i> to get rid of his card before giving you your clothes back. Now we'll just have to call him back, and explain that we want him to meet us someplace. And that he needs to bring Kelly with him."<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211211111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (18)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 18</div><br/>
JOE WATCHED GRIMLY as fake-Frank made another call from the pay phone. He perked up a little, though, to see his captor return to the truck with a frown.<br/>
<br/>
"Bad news?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"Mixed," fake-Frank said. "He's being very cagey about meeting us. What did you say to him?" <br/>
<br/>
Joe smiled back sourly. "You think I'd tell the truth?"<br/>
<br/>
Fake-Frank snorted. "Then just tell me a lie. Oh, but you're not good at improvising lies, are you, Joe? You're a good boy, and you <i>always</i> tell the truth."<br/>
<br/>
That was the last straw. Joe swung at him. He swung so hard and so fast that he didn't even realize he'd swung until fake-Frank caught his fist, and then caught the other one when Joe tried following through with another blow. The two boys wrestled grimly. But fake-Frank gradually forced Joe back. <br/>
<br/>
He grinned at the younger Hardy brother. "You don't get it, do you, Joe? I'm better than Frank. I can play the good kid. The good son, the straight-arrow, the junior detective. But I can also play the bad kid. I've been training for months, and I can match your brother skill for skill and deduction for deduction. I'm stronger than him, too. Right?" He wrenched Joe's wrist, and the latter gasped. "He couldn't do <i>that</i> to you, could he? And just as I'm stronger than Frank, your replacement is smarter than you."<br/>
<br/>
He released Joe. Joe glared back at him hotly. "Then why are you doing this? If you're so smart and strong, why are you using these gifts for crime?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because we can!" the other spat back. "Were you expecting a sob story? Something about abusive parents and foster homes? Something that would make you feel <i>sorry</i> for me and Jenkins and Connors and Mandelbaum and all the others?" He sneered as Joe blinked. "Sure, some of us have hard-luck stories. But some kids are just <i>naturally</i> mean."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't believe that for an instant," Joe retorted. "I can't believe that anyone would want to just <i>take</i> things, not when they've got talents they can use to <i>give</i> things back."<br/>
<br/>
"The world doesn't give anyone anything, Hardy," fake-Frank sneered, and ropy spittle formed between his lips. "If you want anything you <i>have</i> to take it."<br/>
<br/>
"But why break the law, when there are legitimate ways--?"<br/>
<br/>
"Legitimate?" Fake-Frank's voice was almost a scream. "We should have put you in a room and let you listen to Preston talking about his dad and <i>his</i> 'legitimate' business. There are all kinds of scams and rackets. Some are legal and some aren't. And the biggest scam and racket is the one where honest crooks decide which scams and rackets get to be 'legal.' Camp Double Bluff is just another business. We didn't go into it <i>because</i> it's illegal. It's just an accident that some other businessmen, like Kelly Sanbourne's dad, have <i>made</i> it illegal."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think the business of kidnapping and impersonation would <i>ever</i> be legal," Joe shot back. He could hardly believe he had to say it.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe you're right," fake-Frank said, and he turned coldly amused. "But you asked me why I was doing it. And there's your answer: It's just a business. There's nothing personal in it. I don't hate you, Joe." Joe rolled his eyes. "I don't hate you and I don't hate your brother. I kind of like you guys. I have to like Frank, since that basically means liking myself. And I like you too. You're fun." <br/>
<br/>
The edge of his mouth curled up in a way that Joe didn't like. "You asked me why we didn't go straight," fake-Frank said softly. "But why don't you and Frank go crooked? You're smart and ambitious and talented. You'd make great agents for us. Why don't you join, for real, instead of under cover for ATAC? Let me and my partner take over for you guys. You and Frank take over for someone else. It's a lot of fun. It's like having two lives for the price of one."<br/>
<br/>
Joe stared at fake-Frank. He wasn't the least bit tempted, but he wondered if he could make a play for time--or for more--if he pretended to be. Fake-Frank stared back evenly. They held each other's gaze for what seemed like a small eternity.<br/>
<br/>
And then Joe looked away with a sigh. It wasn't any use, he realized. There was no way that fake-Frank would believe him.<br/>
<br/>
The other one grunted with the same sense of recognition. "It really is too bad we couldn't have been on the same side," he said, and started the truck.<br/>
<br/>
They drove, mostly in silence. When they did speak, it was in guarded tones and with carefully chosen words. Fake-Frank stopped several times to make the necessary phone calls. After one, he returned with an air of quiet satisfaction. "I finally got through to Agent Wallis," he said. "Think about what you'll say when we meet. It'll be your last chance to stop us."<br/>
<br/>
"Where are we meeting him?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm through giving you advantages, Joe," fake-Frank said. "I've given you enough, and you've messed them all up. You're going to have to improvise, and you'd better start doing a better job."<br/>
<br/>
And so Joe thought furiously all the way. He couldn't tell Agent Wallis that the teenager he was traveling with was a fake, or else the ATAC man would try to take him into custody. Instead, he had to plant a doubt in the agent's mind. He had to let him know that there were imposters on the loose. He had to give Agent Wallis a reason, an <i>intuition</i> that he had to keep Kelly close and not return her to the fake-Frank. And he had to do so in a way that wouldn't get fake-Frank detained.<br/>
<br/>
But he was distracted by their route, which was taking them toward the campgrounds where they had rescued Kelly. Sure enough, they turned into the park, driving up the dirt road until they came to the same cabins where they had met the agent. And there, in front of that same cabin, was Agent Wallis's car, and the man himself. <br/>
<br/>
Joe's heart beat rapidly, for he saw that Agent Wallis was hanging back, and looking at the boys with a guarded expression. <i>If he is already suspicious, maybe it won't be that hard,</i> Joe thought to himself.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm glad to see you boys," Agent Wallis said. "I wasn't sure you'd be able to get out of the camp."<br/>
<br/>
"They don't suspect a thing," fake-Frank said. "Turns out we can pretty much come and go as we please. We've got some news, so we took a break to find you." He pointed to Joe. "I'll let my brother tell you. He's the one who found out about it."<br/>
<br/>
Joe stared at fake-Frank. The other gazed back serenely. Joe thought he caught a look of expectant curiosity, as though he too was dying to know what Joe would say.<br/>
<br/>
"It's a giant scam," Joe said, and didn't bother to hide the quaver in his voice. Maybe Agent Wallis would pick up on it. "Remember how Kelly said that wasn't her face?" Agent Wallis nodded. "She was right. They changed her features. They made up an imposter, another girl to look like her. And they sent that girl back to replace her. They're doing it to all the kids that go in there."<br/>
<br/>
He glanced over at fake-Frank. To his surprise, he nodded serenely. "It's a devilish plot," fake-Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
To Joe's further surprise, Agent Wallis also nodded. "It confirms what we found out ourselves. That girl doesn't match the real Kelly Sanbourne physically, and the senator says his daughter returned from camp a week ago. But we've been trying to figure out which is the real girl and which is the fake."<br/>
<br/>
"You've got the fake," said fake-Frank. Joe swallowed, shocked by the audacity of the lie. "It's a double bluff," fake-Frank continued smoothly. "The real girl went back home, and they're trying to fool the parents into thinking she isn't who she says she is."<br/>
<br/>
"Clever," said Agent Wallis. "So what do we do with the girl we have?"<br/>
<br/>
"Joe and I should take her back," said fake-Frank. "They've already decided the ploy isn't working. If we rescue her from you, it'll solidify our own cover story."<br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis smiled mirthlessly. "But there's something you don't know, kid. The two girls aren't the only fakes we've been trying to sort out." He knocked on the cabin door. It opened.<br/>
<br/>
Now Joe gasped aloud. Frank Hardy--or someone who looked just like him--stepped out with a smile. <br/>
<br/>
And from behind him stepped a blonde-haired kid with a wicked grin, and Joe's vision misted over with red. It was his own double.<br/>
<br/>
"Just like we figured, Frank," the other Joe Hardy said. He balled his hands into fists. "They sent our doubles to retrieve Kelly."<br/>
<br/>
"You were right again, Joe," said the dark-haired boy. "Just like you've been right all along on this case."<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a><br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112111111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (19)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 19</div><br/>
"I HATE COUNTERFEITS," the other Joe Hardy hissed. "Especially counterfeit versions of <i>me!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
He leaped forward, but the Frank Hardy by his side shot out a strong arm and stopped him. "Cool it, Joe," he said. "Let's see how they talk their way out of it." He fixed gleaming eyes on the boys who stood before him.<br/>
<br/>
"It's another double bluff," fake-Frank said, returning Frank's smile. "Apparently they were planning on replacing <i>us</i> with duplicates as well. When we left camp they decided to make their play. Very clever."<br/>
<br/>
"We're the real Frank and Joe Hardy," the other Joe said. "You've got to believe us, Agent Wallis."<br/>
<br/>
"But if you're the real brothers," said fake-Frank, "why did they let you leave? They don't let the originals out."<br/>
<br/>
"Then why did they let <i>you</i> out," Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"I asked you first," fake-Frank smiled.<br/>
<br/>
"We tricked one of their agents into giving us a ride," Frank said. "Joe is good at making friends with girls, and their newest agent was very sweet on him."<br/>
<br/>
Joe trembled with rage as his own double grinned, and he took a step forward. But then it was fake-Frank's turn to restrain the "Joe Hardy" by his side. "I don't get the impression they're that careless at Camp Double Bluff. That's a very lame story, Agent Wallis."<br/>
<br/>
"So what's <i>your</i> story for getting out?" Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"They told us to go out and retrieve the fake Kelly from Agent Wallis, because she was in imminent danger of having her cover blown," fake-Frank said. "We assumed it was a straight job. I see now that it was a ploy to get rid of us, and to establish their own agents' bona fides by arranging for those agents to capture us. That's what I said at the start of this baffle of wits. It's a double bluff."<br/>
<br/>
"This is giving me a headache," Agent Wallis said. "I think I'm just going to have to take <i>all</i> of you in."<br/>
<br/>
"I think that would be best," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"I see my double and I are in complete agreement," fake-Frank said coolly.<br/>
<br/>
"I can straighten all this out," Joe heard himself say. For a moment he thought it was his own double talking, but then realized it was himself. The others looked at him curiously. He found strength in Frank's querying gaze. "I'm the real Joe Hardy. But this guy with me? He's a fake."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think you're doing, Joe?" fake-Frank asked in a dangerously quiet voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Trust me, Frank," said Joe, looking at the Frank Hardy opposite him. "You have to believe in me."<br/>
<br/>
The moment hung. And then fake-Frank dashed away, running hard for the woods.<br/>
<br/>
"After him, Joe," Frank cried. The other Joe sprang away. Joe tried to intercept him, but Frank grabbed him. "I got this fake, Agent Wallis," Frank cried. "Help Joe grab the other one!"<br/>
<br/>
Joe struggled as the ATAC agent sprinted away, but he couldn't struggle too hard. This had to be the real Frank. It had to be. He desperately wanted to believe that it was, and so he couldn't strike back at him, not with the force that he was capable of. At the same time, he had to struggle, for he couldn't be sure.<br/>
<br/>
He felt a foot twist around his ankle, and he tripped and fell to the ground, with Frank on top. His brother looked down at him, and for an instant Joe quailed: He had the same smirk he'd seen on fake-Frank's face.<br/>
<br/>
"Please, Frank," Joe said in a quiet voice. "You have to believe me. I'm really your brother."<br/>
<br/>
"Of course I believe you, you idiot," Frank said, and softly smiled down at Joe. "Do you really think I couldn't tell the difference between you and a cheap knockoff?" He glanced up as Joe's mouth fell open. "And now that we've gotten rid of our doubles, we can talk."<br/>
<br/>
"Frank?" Joe gasped. And then his suspicions crowded back. There had been so many counterfeits, so many bluffs, so many double-crosses already. Maybe the enemy had prepared multiple copies of him and his brother. "I love Aunt Gertrude's marshmallow-and-oatmeal cookies," he said.<br/>
<br/>
"I know you do, Joe," Frank said. "I wish I did too. But they're the most <i>disgusting</i> things I've ever tried to eat."<br/>
<br/>
All of Joe's muscles sagged in relief. But: "How do you know it's really me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how did you know that <i>your</i> partner was a fake?"<br/>
<br/>
"He told me so."<br/>
<br/>
Frank blinked. "He had to <i>tell</i> you? Oh, Joe," he said in a disappointed tone. "I spotted the switch-off the very first day. But I kept my mouth shut."<br/>
<br/>
"The first--? Oh, stop bragging, you big jerk!" he yelled up at his grinning brother. "But where were you?"<br/>
<br/>
"In the camp. The one for the real kids. Apparently you were in the camp on the other side of the ridge. They had me and the fake version of you 'studying' a couple of boys for replacement. Your double kept getting antsy, and I let him show me all the stuff he was supposed to show me while I put the pieces together."<br/>
<br/>
"So why did they bring us all together like this? Why blow their plans for replacing us in front of an ATAC agent?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's been double bluffs all the way down," Frank said. His tone became grim. "I'm pretty sure the 'Frank Hardy' with you was <i>supposed</i> to blow his cover, and take you down with him. Then I'd vouch for the identity of the fake Joe." His face hardened. "I would probably have been safe for only a few days. And then my own brother would have taken me off someplace lonely, and handed me over to Camp Double Bluff operatives, and a doppelganger would have stepped in for me."<br/>
<br/>
Joe exhaled deeply. "So what do we do now?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank got off his brother. "Agent Wallis gave each of us some handcuffs. Put your hands behind your back, so it looks like I've secured you. We'll take your double by surprise."<br/>
<br/>
Joe obliged. The boys didn't have long to wait. The other three came walking up a few minutes later. Fake-Frank looked angry; fake-Joe looked triumphant. Agent Wallis looked blank.<br/>
<br/>
"Good work, Joe," Frank said. "Lemme see your hands."<br/>
<br/>
Fake-Joe gave him a puzzled glance, then held out his hands. He jerked as Frank swiftly clapped the cuffs over him. "Frank! What are you doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Securing a dangerous imposter. You gave yourself away a dozen times every day, 'Joe'. You have no idea how hard it was for me to keep from slugging you."<br/>
<br/>
The fake Joe stared hard at Frank. The fury in his face was unmistakable. It was so strong that Agent Wallis was obliged to step between them. "It's okay, Frank," he said. "It's all over now." He looked at the two camp agents. "I'll take them in. You and Joe should talk about what you're going to do when you return to Camp Double Bluff in their place."<br/>
<br/>
"We're going back in?" Frank asked in surprise.<br/>
<br/>
Agent Wallis made a reply, but Joe wasn't paying attention. He had the feeling there was something very important that he and Frank had overlooked. Something very obvious was staring them in the face, and he had to figure it out before it was too late. He puzzled over it as he helped Agent Wallis put the imposters in the back of the sedan. As he did so, his eyes briefly met those of fake-Frank. <br/>
<br/>
And then he saw what he was looking for.<br/>
<br/>
There was another pair of handcuffs in the back. In something like a daze he picked them up and turned toward Agent Wallis. The ATAC agent was talking to Frank, urging him to continue the undercover investigation. He was gesturing with his hands, so it was very easy for Joe to slide his hands over the agent's and lock them inside the cuffs.<br/>
<br/>
"Joe," Frank exclaimed. "What are you doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"He's one of them, Frank," Joe said. "I'm certain of it. Your own double gave me the clue. He pointed out that this case has been full of coincidences. And the biggest coincidence of all was that an ATAC agent was here at the exact moment we found out about Camp Double Bluff, and was able to send us there without any kind of full briefing. From the very beginning it was a set-up to catch us."<br/>
<br/>
"This is absurd!" Agent Wallis exclaimed.<br/>
<br/>
"No it isn't. The fake Frank couldn't have fooled me so thoroughly if he didn't know the pass phrases, and about Kelly, and everything else that happened before Frank and me were separated. Someone had to have told him. And that could only have been you, Agent Wallis."<br/>
<br/>
"Joe," said Frank. "If you're wrong you're going to have to make one heck of an apology."<br/>
<br/>
"He's going to have to do more than that," a voice said. Joe and Frank swung around. Kelly Sanbourne--the girl they had rescued in the woods--had come out of the cabin, and she had a gun leveled at them. "Take the cuffs off him. I guess it's up to me to fix all this." Her eyes flashed with amusement. "Your only consolation, boys, is knowing that what Zebra does to <i>you</i> won't be <i>half</i> of what he does to these clowns. I <i>told</i> them it was way too risky and complicated--"<br/>
<br/>
But she didn't have a chance to finish. Quick as a panther, Joe ducked and leaped at her. She tried lowering the gun at him, but he already had his arms around her knees, and she fell back. The gun went off, sending a bullet into the tree above. Leaves fluttered uselessly down.<br/>
<br/>
"How about that?" Joe shook his head after he and Frank also had her bound. "The fake Frank was telling the truth. Kelly really <i>was</i> one of their agents."<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121111111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Secret of Camp Double Bluff (20)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter 20</div><br/>
"SO THE CON MEN were conning the con men?" Joe asked. He shook his head, but the fog of confusion refused to dissipate.<br/>
<br/>
"Sort of," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
He and Joe were in their bedroom, reviewing the preliminary report on the case of Camp Double Bluff. The camp had been raided and all the agents captured; the various duplicates had also been identified and quietly taken into custody. It was a mess, and it would still be several weeks before everything could be sorted out.<br/>
<br/>
"There was a power struggle inside the operation," Frank explained. "Zebra was in charge, and he wanted to continue the original plan, which was to concentrate on replacing the children of the wealthy and influential. ATAC was only supposed to be a sideshow. But Apple wanted to shift the focus onto ATAC. They were planning on replacing us anyway, but Apple was acting without authorization when he cooked up the scheme for doing the switch ahead of schedule. Apparently, he thought he would gain the upper hand internally if he could show he could stage and run a very ambitious rogue operation, and use its success to displace Zebra. Those times you and the fake Frank Hardy met with him, and with that guy who called himself Three?" Frank shook his head. "Play acting. Scenes to convince you that the camp wasn't onto you, and to set you up to give over ATAC's passwords." He sighed. "Basically, it was just half a dozen people in on the scheme. Apple, Wallis, Three, and those doubles of ourselves and Kelly. And she wasn't even supposed to be Kelly's double. She was just another agent they used to act as bait."<br/>
<br/>
"And who was holding the other end of the rod and reel?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"ATAC hasn't figured that part out yet," Frank said grimly. "For now, we just have to be content knowing that we've crippled their operation."<br/>
<br/>
Joe fell back on the bed. It felt strange--good but a little strange--to be back home again. Their dad, Fenton, had been fully briefed on what had happened. The boys' mother and Aunt Gertrude, of course, remained in the dark. Joe didn't like to think how they would react if they knew of the brush the Hardy boys had had with disaster.<br/>
<br/>
"I can't believe how close they came to replacing us," Joe said. "If you hadn't spotted the fake me--" He grimaced. <i>If I had only been better at spotting the fake Frank,</i> he thought. "I need to read something that isn't quite as creepy as what we just went through. Can you hand me that that collection of Edgar Alan Poe stories?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank started to get off the bed, then paused and turned to Joe with a frown. "We sold it in the yard sale last month. Don't you remember?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just checking," Joe grinned back.<br/>
<br/>
"Hmph," Frank snorted. "How about <i>you</i> fetch me that magazine Chet asked us to hide for him."<br/>
<br/>
"Just checking?" Joe asked. He felt at the poster he had hanging above his bed. His jaw dropped. It wasn't there. He looked at Frank.<br/>
<br/>
His brother grinned back. "As you said, just checking. I moved it before we left for the camping trip. It's inside that game of Mousetrap up in our closet. I didn't want anyone finding it."<br/>
<br/>
Joe shook his head, and his eye fell back onto the report. "Poor Steve Bannock," he sighed, referring to the kid who had been assigned the job of being "Joe Hardy." "He really didn't stand a chance, not against you."<br/>
<br/>
"You'd have seen through Todd Salzmann eventually," Frank said in a comforting voice. "And you <i>were</i> the one who figured it out about Agent Wallis. I didn't even see that twist. And it's a good thing, too. He could have just driven off with his fellow agents, and sent the two of us back to Camp Double Bluff, where they would have had another chance to replace us."<br/>
<br/>
And again, Joe wished to be distracted by something less unsettling.<br/>
<br/>
His wish came true a few minutes later with a knock at the door, and the boys scrambled to hide the reports as Aunt Gertrude stuck her head in. <br/>
<br/>
"Sorry for barging in like this," she said. "But it seems to me you boys have been acting very strange since you got back from that camping trip."<br/>
<br/>
Joe and Frank looked at each other in alarm. "How do you mean, Aunt Gertrude?" Frank stammered. He felt his heart beating very fast. For a week he had had to live with an imposter, and had gotten used to accusations and double-crosses. But it felt very queer to have their own aunt level a very similar charge here, in their own bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
"You've been back for more than a week, and not once have you asked me to make you any of your favorite cookies." She held out a plate.<br/>
<br/>
Joe laughed, and drank in the delicious aroma. He looked at Frank, and was amused to see that his brother was holding his breath.<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks, Aunt Gertrude," Joe exclaimed. He seized a handful for himself, and passed the plate on to Frank.<br/>
<br/>
Frank murmured his own words of thanks. "We didn't want to bother you," he said. <br/>
<br/>
She looked at him expectantly, until he carefully bit off a part of one, chewed it thoughtfully, and swallowed. "They're as delicious as ever. I <i>love</i> these things!"<br/>
<br/>
She beamed, then left the boys to themselves, closing the door behind her.<br/>
<br/>
"You're such a fraud, Frank," Joe chortled.<br/>
<br/>
To stop reading and go to bed: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 1510047">Equations with Multiple Solutions</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/1510047/action/view/chapter_map/11123122212212212111112221111221121222211222" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211212
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (1)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You lay the book aside with a sigh. It's certainly action-packed, but you've read it before and there are no surprises. You understand the story's appeal, but Frank and Joe Durras have had more exciting adventures. A story about them—<br/>
<br/>
You sit up straight. Joe actually did start writing a story based loosely on one of their adventures. He (and you) can barely remember it. He started it during one of their "vacation" periods back in Olympia, when Frank had challenged him to write something "better" after Joe had made some off-hand criticism about the low quality of the Hardy Boys books. Frank really liked them; Joe did too, but he had few illusions, even at the age of fourteen, about their merits.<br/>
<br/>
You pad into the living room and turn the laptop on, curious to know if the story is still on the drive. A few minutes searching turns it up in an obscure folder: <i>The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard.</i> You open it. As you read, you're amused to notice how bowdlerized the characters' language is, and for no reason you can see. Everyone who knows Joe and Frank knows how foul-mouthed they are in real life.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *<br/>
Chapter One<br/>
The Flying Sedan</div><br/>
"Watch where you're going, you jerk!" Joe Brennan yelled at the retreating automobile. He spun his motorcycle to a halt. "You moron! I oughta—!" He gunned his engine and leaned forward in the saddle. It would be the work of only a second to catch up to the daredevil driver who had almost forced him off the road.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't do it, Joe," his adoptive brother Frank warned. He pulled his own motor bike onto the shoulder and laid a firm hand on Joe's shoulder. "What would you do if you caught him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mess his face up for him!" Joe retorted. He tried pulling away, but Frank's hand was like iron. "Guys like that—"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up. He's probably bigger than you anyway."<br/>
<br/>
Joe glared at Frank. "Whose side are you on? He didn't almost knock you over the ravine, I noticed." Joe nodded his chin at the embankment, which lacked a guardrail even though it fell steeply away into the canyon below.<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't hotdogging in the middle of the highway, either," Frank retorted. "The driver's probably still yelling at his friend about the 'dumb kid' he almost ran over."<br/>
<br/>
Joe didn't bother to hide his sneer. "Some junior detective you are. There was only one guy in the car."<br/>
<br/>
Frank's smile was brittle. "You didn't get a good look, did you? There were two men in the front seat."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you high?" Joe cried. "He was coming right at me. I think I woulda noticed if there were two guys in that car."<br/>
<br/>
"Care to lay a small wager?" Frank put out his hand.<br/>
<br/>
Joe's eyes narrowed. "How much?"<br/>
<br/>
"Chores for a week."<br/>
<br/>
Joe snorted. "Dad won't go for that. Money or nothing."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, bragging rights."<br/>
<br/>
"Still got your eye on that weight set, huh?" Joe grinned. "I'll wager everything I got saved up for the telescope against everything you've saved up for that weight set."<br/>
<br/>
"The weights would be for both of us, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"Telescope could be for both of us too. Oh, I forgot, the only moon you're interested in looking at is Kimberley Reynolds', when she's—"<br/>
<br/>
Frank smacked his brother on the side of the head. "Just for that, smart guy, you're on." He spat into his palm, and crushed Joe's hand in his.<br/>
<br/>
The two boys raced off, winding back down the hill in the direction they had come. Joe pulled ahead of Frank, but his brother quickly caught up. "No speeding!" he shouted to Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"How are we supposed to catch him, then?" Joe shouted back over the onrushing wind.<br/>
<br/>
"The regular way! No tricks!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then you can't use any tricks when we catch up to him!"<br/>
<br/>
"Deal!"<br/>
<br/>
Joe grimaced. Sometimes Frank, despite himself, managed to outsmart him. It would be just the two boys, with only their fists and wits, against the reckless driver. <i>At least the driver will be alone,</i> Joe grinned to himself. He was sure of that.<br/>
<br/>
They were on the road that wound through the hills to connect the small mountain town of Olympia to the state highway below. It was a Sunday, and the boys were enjoying the day's respite from studying by taking a motorcycle run through the hills. They had been returning home when they had spotted the dark green sedan approaching from the direction of town, taking the hairpin turns at a reckless speed. Joe had had to veer sharply to avoid being tossed over its hood.<br/>
<br/>
"Pick up the pace," Joe shouted to his brother. "You got the better engine on your machine!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank gunned his motor and crept ahead of Joe. Joe pressed forward too, pushing his motorcycle as hard as he could without giving it any of the extra "juice" he could pour into it. Still, Frank managed to stay ahead.<br/>
<br/>
The road swung crazily in great arcs, and the boys had to slow occasionally when they approached a blind curve, but they met no other vehicles. Nor did they ever catch sight of their quarry. They raced along for several miles before they came to a spot where they could see the road spread out below them in great serpentine coils. It was empty.<br/>
<br/>
Frank veered to a halt. "What are you stopping for?" Joe demanded. "He's getting away!"<br/>
<br/>
"Use your eyes," Frank snapped. "Oh wait, we've already established you're blind." He nodded at the road ahead. "He's not down there."<br/>
<br/>
"He was going fast, and we were jerking around while he made off," Joe said. "Come on!"<br/>
<br/>
But Frank looked back up the road. "He must have turned off somewhere."<br/>
<br/>
"There aren't any turn offs, Frank," Joe said, sighing heavily. "Not between 101 and Crenshaw."<br/>
<br/>
"Then maybe he went over the edge," Frank said. "He was driving like the devil was after him. We should check the ground below, in case he had an accident."<br/>
<br/>
"Serve him right if he did," Joe grumbled. He was still unconvinced that their quarry wasn't putting more miles between them as he shot away from town, but he followed Frank as the latter went slowly back up the mountain, peering over the ravine in every place there wasn't a guardrail. <br/>
<br/>
Thirty minutes later they were back at their starting point without being any closer to finding the sedan or its occupants. Frank glared at the asphalt, as though trying to bore a hole in it.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's just go home," Joe sighed. "We're not catching him now."<br/>
<br/>
"There was an accident, Joe, I'm sure of it," Frank said. "Look at the skid marks where he swerved to miss you."<br/>
<br/>
"Swerved to hit me, you mean," Joe muttered. He could still see the face of the driver, and the maniacal gleam in his eyes. <i>The maniacal gleam in the eyes of the solitary occupant of the car.</i><br/>
<br/>
"People drive carefully around here," Frank said. "And these skid marks are fresh. We passed some other skid marks, but I wasn't paying attention." He turned around and went back down the hill.<br/>
<br/>
Joe growled and slapped at his own head in frustration. His older brother was like a bulldog when he got in these moods.<br/>
<br/>
"You're not getting any money out of me even if we find him and it's two guys," Joe said after he'd caught up. "I only have five dollars saved up for that telescope."<br/>
<br/>
"That's two dollars more than I've got saved for the weight set."<br/>
<br/>
"What? You told me you had almost a hundred!"<br/>
<br/>
"That was before Kimberley—" Frank abruptly snapped his mouth shut.<br/>
<br/>
"Before Kimberley what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Never mind!" Frank turned very red.<br/>
<br/>
Joe gaped. "You fat-head! You blind, blundering idiot! You—"<br/>
<br/>
Frank swung a fist at Joe. Almost six feet separated them, but Joe ducked and yelled as he felt something very cold and hard, like a mailed fist, brush his cheek. "You said no tricks!"<br/>
<br/>
"I said no tricks on the jerks we're chasing. No one said I couldn't use 'em on you." Frank flexed his fingers meaningfully.<br/>
<br/>
Joe felt his eyes begin to glow. "I should leave you here," he snarled. "I should run home and pee in your bed!"<br/>
<br/>
"You'd leave now?" Frank asked. "When we've found what we're looking for?" He cast his eyes downward at the road surface. Black streaks curved to the side and turned to tire tracks on the shoulder before disappearing over the edge.<br/>
<br/>
Joe gasped, for the tracks led to a terrible drop. He instantly leaped from his bike and began scrambling down the slope. Frank followed more carefully.<br/>
<br/>
But though the ground was open for nearly a mile around, they found no sign of the car: no wreck and no further marks on the ground. It was as though the car had taken wing and flown away.<br/>
<br/>
"These are definitely fresh marks," Joe said after they had clambered back up to their bikes and examined the evidence more closely. "It has to have been our guy."<br/>
<br/>
"Our guys," Frank corrected him.<br/>
<br/>
"There was only one!"<br/>
<br/>
"Two!"<br/>
<br/>
They continued to argue all the way back home. There was nothing else to discuss, for the mysterious sedan had gotten away without leaving any kind of clue behind.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It all reads very fresh to you, and you find yourself wondering what happens next, since the incident with the sedan is <i>not</i> something Frank and Joe experienced.</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112121
author_id: seuzz
title: "The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard" (2)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Two<br/>
The Bad-Tempered Visitor</div><br/>
<br/>
The boys argued all the way back to Olympia, and they argued all the way through it, for their house lay on the other side of town. Olympia had once been a thriving little city supported by mining and timber industries, but in recent decades the city had retreated into the shade of its former prosperity. But Frank and Joe lived with their adoptive father in a neat little bungalow in a part of Olympia that was still very tidy. <br/>
<br/>
The hot words that passed between them ceased, though, when they pulled around the corner and saw an enormous Buick—as old and grey and weather-beaten as a battleship—parked in front of the house.<br/>
<br/>
Joe groaned. "What's he doing here?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank's mouth was also grim. "I didn't want to tell you."<br/>
<br/>
Joe swung in surprise. "You knew?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's why I suggested we take the bikes out for a spin. He's only supposed to be here for the afternoon. I thought maybe he'd come and go while we were out."<br/>
<br/>
"Then let's go back out and try to find that guy."<br/>
<br/>
"It was two of them, Joe. And we'd better go in. If Father Ed is still here, it's probably because he wants to see us."<br/>
<br/>
"The desire is not reciprocated," Joe muttered. But he followed Frank into the front yard. They briefly greeted their pet mastiff, Galaxy, who wagged his tail and panted happily at them as they stowed their motorcycles and riding gear in the shed in the side yard. <br/>
<br/>
Now disencumbered of a helmet, Joe's brilliant blonde hair shone in the summer sun; Frank's dark hair gleamed at its tips. Frank, being a year older than his fourteen-year-old brother, was an inch taller than Joe, and his physique was already filling out with strong muscles; he gave every sign of becoming a tall and powerful athlete when he attained his majority. Joe was also strong for his age, but he was a sprinter and runner when on his feet, and a fidgeter when forced to sit. Their faces as they mounted the steps displayed quite a lot of their native personalities: Frank's expression was hard-eyed and wary; Joe's eyes glinted with ill-suppressed mischief.<br/>
<br/>
They went inside. "We're home," Joe hollered as he slammed the front door behind them. <br/>
<br/>
A dour figure stepped out of the parlor and glared at them from behind thick, square-rimmed glasses that perched between a turtle-like nose and mouth and a thick mop of grey hair. Despite the summer warmth he wore a thin wind-breaker and a heavy polo shirt. In concession to the season, though, he also wore the ugliest pair of Bermuda shorts that Joe and Frank had ever seen. They dropped almost to his knees, which gleamed so palely they were almost blue. They stuck out like misshapen knobs over black, calf-hugging socks.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't say anything, Joe," Frank muttered in an almost inaudible voice. But it was too late. Joe was already greeting Father Ed.<br/>
<br/>
"Hi, padre," he said in a deceptively mild voice. "We weren't expecting to see you. Or your knees. Nice tan."<br/>
<br/>
Father Ed's lips peeled back in a snarl. "Unlike some people," he said in his nasally, honking voice, "some of us have jobs that keep us inside during the summer!"<br/>
<br/>
"Did you ever see direct sunlight even as a kid?" Joe asked in a faux-innocent tone. "I had the impression you were always inside practicing the violin."<br/>
<br/>
Flames appeared in Father Ed's eyes. "Ha ha," he said mirthlessly. "Speaking of which, how are you keeping up on your fiddle lessons?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just fine," Joe said. "See?" Frank cringed as Joe held up his hand, scraping his index finger along the side of his thumb. <br/>
<br/>
"And what's that?" Father Ed growled. His lips twisted into a fierce frown.<br/>
<br/>
"It's me accompanying your song of lament on the world's smallest violin."<br/>
<br/>
Frank stepped back as Father Ed turned purple.<br/>
<br/>
"Chuck!" the priest yelled at the top of his lungs.<br/>
<br/>
"Joe!" a mildly reproving voice called from the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
"How come they always think it's me?" Joe yelled at the ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
"Because it always is you!" Father Ed bellowed. "It always is and it always will be, this time and forevermore, amen alleluia!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank fished a couple of bills from his pocket and handed them to an uncomprehending Joe. "Here you go," he said quietly, then turned to the enraged priest. "It's my fault, Father," he said. "I put him up to it."<br/>
<br/>
Joe blinked, but his surprise at Frank's false confession was drowned by the gasp from Father Ed. It sounded like an industrial furnace sucking in an entire atmosphere of oxygen, and the boys could practically hear the roar of the fire in his chest. "Don't think I don't know what this is about, you wisenheimer!" he barked at Frank.<br/>
<br/>
Joe raised his hand. "I'm the wisenheimer, padre. He's the sapientone. Deutsche e Italiano, remember?" he added, pointing to himself and then to Frank.<br/>
<br/>
But Father Ed spared Joe only a brief but ferocious glance. "You and I will have words when we have our retreat next month," he growled at Frank, leaning in close. "Don't think we won't have words, young man! Don't think we won't!" He brushed past the brothers, to stomp out the door, slamming it behind him.<br/>
<br/>
"That was brilliant, Joe," Frank said, and shoved his brother. "Thanks a lot."<br/>
<br/>
"I had him all to myself until you decided to jump in," Joe retorted, and shoved him back. <br/>
<br/>
The boys grabbed at and tussled hard with each other, but the fight lasted only a few seconds before they stepped apart, to bashfully turn toward the figure who had silently appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. "I'm sorry, Dad," Joe said, and hung his head.<br/>
<br/>
"What kept you boys?" Charles Brennan asked. "I've been trying to get rid of him for the last hour. The cavalry's never been this late before."<br/>
<br/>
His tone was kindly, and there was a twinkle in his eye, but the boys knew that his manner masked a sense of disappointment in them. <br/>
<br/>
"Is he really not coming back?" Joe carefully asked.<br/>
<br/>
"No, he'll be back," their father said, and beckoned them into the kitchen. "There's business that needs discussing."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, so that's why he's upset," Frank said. His voice was hollow. "It's because we're so late. I'm sorry, Dad. It was my idea to try avoiding him. I didn't know he wanted to talk to us, so I tried to keep out of his way until he left."<br/>
<br/>
Their father turned to look at them, and the twinkle in his eye deepened. "That was actually very considerate of you. If you explain to him that you were trying to keep your brother off him—" He winked at Joe, who blushed furiously. "I'm sure he'll instantly forgive you."<br/>
<br/>
The boys sat at the dining table while their father finished the little bit of washing up he was occupied with. He was a small man, with patchy white whiskers and only a little bit of hair still on his pate, but his cheeks were ruddy and his limbs strong. In all the years they had spent under his roof, they had never heard him raise his voice. He didn't have to, not because they were so good, but because he had such a powerful air of authority that he only had to speak a word to make them settle down.<br/>
<br/>
"What kind of business is he here on," Frank asked. He rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands. When Father Ed had business with the boys it usually wasn't good news.<br/>
<br/>
"A case," said their father. He wiped his hands on a towel, then sat at the table with them.<br/>
<br/>
Joe's eyes lit up even as Frank's face fell. <br/>
<br/>
Their differing reactions weren't hard to understand once you knew about the boys and their family. Even though their father looked like a retired department store Santa Claus, he was actually the head of a powerful secret society dedicated to investigating and fighting all manner of occult phenomena. Few people knew of the existence of the Stellae Errantes, and those that did kept their mouths shut. But Joe and Frank were training to join it.<br/>
<br/>
So Joe let out a soft "Whoop!" at the thought of a case; but Frank paled because he saw instantly how he and Joe had potentially messed things up. "Why does Father Ed want to discuss it with us present?" he asked guardedly, in case his deduction was wrong.<br/>
<br/>
"Because he wants our help with it, obviously," Joe exclaimed. He too had made the same deduction, but unlike his brother he didn't care that he had offended the cleric.<br/>
<br/>
"Possibly," their father said. "He did say that you boys might now be old enough to lend a hand, and that's why he thought you should be here to hear about it."<br/>
<br/>
"And now we've messed it up," Frank groaned.<br/>
<br/>
"You're always looking on the dark side of things, Frank. Dad makes these decisions." Joe's eyes glinted, for he was confident their father would brush aside Father Ed's hurt feelings.<br/>
<br/>
He flinched, though, at his father's next words: "But I always take Father Ed's advice into account."<br/>
<br/>
Joe returned Frank's dark, sidelong glance by sticking out his tongue at him. "Well, even if we don't wind up working on this new case, we've got one of our own, don't we, Frank?" he said.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh? Did a neighbor lose his dog?" the father asked with faint sarcasm. He was usually quite serious, but he wasn't above teasing Joe when he thought the boy could use a good needling. "Unless it involves a flying carpet, I think you'll find Father Ed's story more interesting."<br/>
<br/>
"Ours might involve a flying car," Joe quipped back. He briefly described their just-concluded adventure and the mystery of the disappearing car.<br/>
<br/>
"We probably just lost him on a switchback," Frank said. "Can you give us a little background on what Father Ed is going to tell us?"<br/>
<br/>
But their father leaned back with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Actually," he said, "your case sounds very interesting, and maybe you should pursue it. It's not every day that a car goes sailing off into the clouds and doesn't come down."</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121211
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (3)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Three<br/>
The Wizard of Zagreb</div><br/>
<br/>
"I don't think we were chasing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," Frank said. "The simplest hypothesis is that we just lost him on a switchback."<br/>
<br/>
"But what about the skid marks?" cried Joe. <br/>
<br/>
"They could have belonged to another car. Even if they were only a few days old, they would have looked fresh."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, what about the tire tracks on the highway shoulder? Someone went sailing over that ravine, and there was nothing below."<br/>
<br/>
"It was all clear?" their father asked when Frank remained silent. "No place where a car could have rolled away?" Joe shook his head. "Then either someone had an accident and the car has since been towed away, or it really did fly off into the clouds." <br/>
<br/>
"We should rule out the accident hypothesis first," Frank said. His tone was truculent.<br/>
<br/>
"You should do that tomorrow," their dad said. "At the latest, tomorrow's newspaper would have a story about an accident that bad."<br/>
<br/>
"You really think maybe it did fly away?" Joe asked excitedly.<br/>
<br/>
Their dad smiled faintly. "You boys know enough not to rule out that kind of possibility."<br/>
<br/>
"I'd like to think we would have seen a car flying off across the canyon," Frank said. He pulled his lower lip thoughtfully. "I don't want to think we were that unobservant."<br/>
<br/>
"Check on it tomorrow," their father said, in the tone of someone giving an order. "In the meantime, you can listen to what Father Ed has to say when he gets back. Are you boys hungry?"<br/>
<br/>
"You just cleaned up the kitchen," Joe said cautiously. He was hungry but didn't want to cause unnecessary bother.<br/>
<br/>
"And you can clean it up when you're done." Their father rose and left.<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe laid plans for how to investigate the mysterious automobile as they raided the refrigerator and pantry, preparing themselves plates of roast beef sandwiches and chips and dill pickles and wedges of sharp cheddar cheese; Frank had a cola and Joe drank an orange soda. They cleaned up after themselves before sitting down to eat.<br/>
<br/>
They were still munching on their early supper when they heard the front door open and close. They exchanged worried glances. Voices drifted from the other room. Then the speakers came into the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
Father Ed's eyes gleamed mischievously as he took in the two boys. "I hear you had a run in with Caractacus Potts this afternoon," he chortled. You had to give the man this much credit: though he didn't like being the butt of a joke, at least he could see and appreciate the humor in almost any situation.<br/>
<br/>
Joe took a deep breath. "Father, I—"<br/>
<br/>
But the cleric waved him to be quiet. "You just sit there and look cute. If you open your mouth you'll start being cute again, and then I'll have to take another walk to cool off."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm trying apologize, you big—!" Joe jerked in his chair as Frank kicked him under the table. "I'm sorry," he muttered.<br/>
<br/>
"Hmph. You could demonstrate your regret by making me a sandwich."<br/>
<br/>
Joe's mouth fell open, then closed grimly. He started to get up, but Father Ed told him to sit down. <br/>
<br/>
"The padre just got back from Europe last week—" the boys' father began.<br/>
<br/>
"By 747, not automobile," Father Ed cackled. Joe wondered how much needling he and Frank would have to endure before the priest felt satisfied.<br/>
<br/>
"He was at a medievalist conference in Vienna," their dad smoothly continued as he and Father Ed sat down. "While there, he heard some interesting news."<br/>
<br/>
"There was an art theft," Father Ed said. "Perpetrated by someone with a twisted sense of humor." His eyes glinted as he looked at Joe. "Vienna. That's your old stomping grounds, eh, Franz? Can you account for your whereabouts last week?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe bridled, not at the joking accusation that he might be mixed up in a theft, but at the use of his real name. Alone among the Stellae, Father Ed refused to call him and Giuseppe by their preferred aliases of "Joe" and "Frank."<br/>
<br/>
"Vienna is in Austria," Joe muttered, and crossed his arms. "I was born in Germany."<br/>
<br/>
Father Ed snorted and declined to follow up on his gibe. "Anyway, a painting got stolen and replaced by a forgery. Not a very good forgery, either. It was missing its subject."<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe exchanged a glance, then looked at their father. "Dad, can you take over the story," Frank asked in a faintly complaining tone.<br/>
<br/>
"It was a portrait of a man standing in his study," Father Ed said angrily. "It showed him standing by a bare table in front of a bookshelf. He was holding an astrolabe. The forgery that got put in showed the study and the bookshelf and the table. Sitting on the table was an astrolabe. But it didn't contain the man!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe again looked at each other, and each tried to visualize what Father Ed had described. Frank leaned forward. "So the thief stole the painting, then put up another painting that made it look like the man in the painting had put down the astrolabe and vanished?"<br/>
<br/>
Father Ed's laugh was like a hiss. "Quirky, isn't it? For all the world, it looks like the thief stole the man from inside the painting while leaving the painting itself behind! Of course, that's absurd. Everyone knows you can't steal something out of a painting." He looked puckish.<br/>
<br/>
"But you're saying that's exactly what happened," Frank said slowly. He knew the cleric well enough to guess he didn't accept the official explanation. "Who was it a portrait of?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hieronymus von Gerssdorff. He was a sixteenth-century alchemist and magician. Rather a nasty fellow, by all accounts. Rudolf the Second had him locked up a couple of times. You know all about him, eh, Franz? It was all part of Germany back then."<br/>
<br/>
"So it was a German magician, so what?" Joe said irritably. "I'm American now—"<br/>
<br/>
"Von Gerssdorff made his home in Zagreb," the boys' father said quietly, coming to Joe's aid.<br/>
<br/>
"Zagreb, Slovenia?" Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"No, Zagreb, Nebraska," Joe retorted sarcastically.<br/>
<br/>
Father Ed exploded in a honking laugh. "He's a lot more fun when it's someone else on the receiving end of his pointed bits, eh, Giuseppe?" he chortled.<br/>
<br/>
"As the catamite said when—" Joe started, then clapped his mouth shut. He looked around. Luckily, no one had heard him.<br/>
<br/>
"The point is," said his father, "that the magician subject has vanished from the only known portrait of the magician." He folded his hands. "Now, possibly this is only the work of pranksters with a knowledge of the esoteric. Or—" <br/>
<br/>
He didn't finish. He didn't have to. Or else it was a crime that only the Stellae Errantes would be equipped to handle. Possibly it was the start of something so sinister that only the Stellae Errantes would be able to forestall it.<br/>
<br/>
"So what do we know about von Gerssdorff?" Frank asked. It was the first step in any investigation: laying out all the known facts.<br/>
<br/>
"I've already asked John Reilly to put together a dossier," his father said. Reilly was the unofficial one-man research department for the Stellae. He knew an alarming lot about lots of alarming subjects, and he could find out a lot more on any subject with amazing speed. "The little he could tell me off the top of his head comports with what Father Ed has said. Von Gerssdorff was interested in the usual kind of thing. Immortality, transmutation of the elements. Vivisection, though not of the medical kind."<br/>
<br/>
Joe felt a chill down his back. There were lots of ways of taking a human being apart, and not all of them left a mark on the body. The forms of dissection that left people walking around with no apparent harm were far worse than the ones that left bits of flesh and bone scattered about. He glanced at Frank, and saw that he had also turned rather pale in the face.<br/>
<br/>
It seemed better to concentrate on the theft. "How would you steal something out of a painting?" Frank mused aloud.<br/>
<br/>
"No," said Joe. "The question is why they would steal something out of a painting. Figure out the why, and you figure out what they stole."<br/>
<br/>
"We know what they stole," Frank objected.<br/>
<br/>
"We know what it looks like they stole," Joe said. "Figure out what they really stole, and you'll see how they did it."<br/>
<br/>
"Frank isn't wrong, Joe," his father said. "If you figure out how they stole it, you can figure out what they stole, and then maybe you can figure out why they stole it." He smiled. "Any question will lead eventually to the answers we want. It's a matter of figuring out which questions will yield answers most easily."<br/>
<br/>
"So which one do we start with?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"All of them. But if you want my advice—" He raised an eyebrow. <br/>
<br/>
Joe and Frank squirmed in their chairs. This felt like a test, and it seemed wrong to begin it by asking for a hint. They said nothing, and their father said nothing either. He only grew more and more amused.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, Joe couldn't stand it any longer. "What would be your advice, Dad?" he blurted out.<br/>
<br/>
He chuckled. "My advice would be that you start with the police."<br/>
<br/>
"Interpol?" Frank asked. "The Vienna police?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, the Olympia police."<br/>
<br/>
Frank blinked. "What would they know about the case?"<br/>
<br/>
"About  on Gerssdorff? Nothing. But they could tell you pretty quickly whether there was a car wreck out in the hills within the last few days."<br/>
<br/>
Joe buried his face in his hands as the two men they called "Father" (in different senses) burst out laughing at the boys discomfort.</span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211212111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (4)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Four<br/>
Things That Aren't Where They Should Be</div><br/>
The next morning came, and there was no mention in the newspaper about a car wreck on the highway leading out of town, so Joe and Frank rode their motorbikes to the main police station downtown. "Let me do the talking, Joe," Frank said when they arrived.<br/>
<br/>
"Why, you think you're better at talking than me?"<br/>
<br/>
"They'll take me more seriously."<br/>
<br/>
"No, you <i>think</i> they'll take you more seriously."<br/>
<br/>
"It's the same thing."<br/>
<br/>
"No it isn't," Joe said. "One is at best an opinion and at worst a delusion. The other's a putative fact of doubtful truth." Frank just gave him a look.<br/>
<br/>
Despite their apprenticeship with a kind of crime-fighting league, the boys and their mentors had neither an official nor an unofficial connection with the local police, only the normal kind of contact that most citizens would have. Frank approached the desk sergeant with a deferential tilt of the head. "Excuse me, sir," he said. "Would you be able to—"<br/>
<br/>
"You have a crime or accident to report," the man asked brusquely.<br/>
<br/>
"No sir. We were wondering if a car accident has been reported."<br/>
<br/>
"Traffic detail, Room 37A."<br/>
<br/>
The boys thanked him and went off in the indicated direction. Inside Room 37A they found a few people filling out forms, and a police woman behind a counter. For a moment only Frank thought she was enormously fat, then he realized she was pregnant. "Is this the place to ask about accidents," he inquired of her.<br/>
<br/>
"Why, you want one?" she asked. "If you've just got your learning permits, one will probably find you."<br/>
<br/>
Frank looked discomfited, but Joe smiled brightly. "See, that's just what I told you, Frank!" He leaned in toward the policewoman. "He's so looking forward to his first one."<br/>
<br/>
She laughed. "Do you have an accident to report?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not exactly," Frank said, seizing control of the conversation again. "We would like to know if there was one yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"You're in luck," she said. "We've got at least a half dozen you can pick from. Would you like a fender bender, or were you in the market for a full vehicular roll?"<br/>
<br/>
"We were wondering if there'd been an accident on Road 57 yesterday afternoon, involving a green sedan."<br/>
<br/>
"How about a red sports coupe instead?"<br/>
<br/>
"Was there an accident out there with a red sports coupe?" Frank asked, his jaw dropping.<br/>
<br/>
"No, but green sedans are kind of boring, don't you think?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe jumped in. "How about an accident involving a giraffe?"<br/>
<br/>
"An escape from the zoo?" she asked.<br/>
<br/>
"No, the giraffe would have been driving."<br/>
<br/>
"Joe," Frank said in a tired voice, and rubbed his eye.<br/>
<br/>
"If you leave your name and number," the policewoman laughed. "I'll let you know if one comes in."<br/>
<br/>
"What about Road 57, yesterday afternoon, with a green sedan," Frank asked again.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry, but we don't have anything in that line," she said. Her expression turned serious. "Are you sure you don't have one to report?"<br/>
<br/>
"We're not sure, and that's why we're asking." Frank briefly described their encounter with the mystery car, though of course he left out the bit about the car possibly flying off into the clouds.<br/>
<br/>
The officer was sympathetic but couldn't help. "No, no one reported anything like that." She looked at them carefully. "If we do get a report, though, would you mind leaving some contact information?" The boys obliged, then left.<br/>
<br/>
"We should go back out there and look around some more," Frank said. "Even if there wasn't an accident at the spot where we checked, maybe it happened farther up or farther down."<br/>
<br/>
"Or maybe it just didn't happen at all," Joe said. "Anyway, I see something else I'd rather check out." He nodded at the building across the street.<br/>
<br/>
It was the animal shelter, and both boys recognized the car out front. Frank made a face. "Theresa doesn't like me," he groaned.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't care if she doesn't like you," Joe retorted. "I like her and she likes me. Come on."<br/>
<br/>
Joe and Frank homeschooled with their father, and with other Stellae who came through to extend their training, but they knew many of the kids in town. James Hopkins was a senior at Olympia High School, but his sister Theresa was a freshman, which made her about the same age as Frank and Joe. Like her brother, she was a red-head, but James had more freckles. As the boys were walking up to the shelter, the door opened and their two friends came out. Theresa smiled broadly at Joe, and greeted him in a warm, chirping voice. But her eye dimmed and her voice cooled a little when she greeted Frank. <br/>
<br/>
Joe sidled up to her with puppy dog eyes. "If you're looking for something to pet, Theresa, I'll let you scratch behind my ears."<br/>
<br/>
She turned a little pink, but her smile was tight, and her expression turned grave. "Actually, we're here looking for our dog. I don't think you can replace him, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"Buster is missing?" Frank asked, frowning with sympathy. "What happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"We don't know," James said. Like Frank, he was much more serious than his younger sibling, and he tilted his chin in a very adult way. "We let him roam free through the woods and hills, you know, and sometimes he's gone for days at a time. But this time he's been gone far too long."<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe nodded as they listened. The Hopkins lived in a big, rambling house outside of town. They had visited there many times, so they knew Buster well—a big Husky-like dog. He was a smart and athletic dog as well, perfectly at home in the forests and hills, so it seemed unlikely that an accident could have befallen him.<br/>
<br/>
"We should have checked with animal control earlier," Theresa said with a faint moan, "but we didn't really think about it until he'd been gone for a week."<br/>
<br/>
"Did they pick him up?" Frank asked, having made the obvious deduction.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," said James grimly. "And they said they gave him away yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
Joe's mouth dropped open. "Dude! That's messed up!" As Theresa gave a little snuffle, he drew her into a comforting embrace. "Didn't he have tags and a collar?" he asked James.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course. But animal control said he was caught without them. Which is—" He caught himself before he could say a bad word. "And then yesterday a man came in and claimed him."<br/>
<br/>
"Could you find out who it was?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"We asked, but they won't give out the information."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you sure it was Buster?" Frank asked. "You said this dog didn't have tags."<br/>
<br/>
"Buster is pretty distinctive, Brennan," James said stiffly. "Based on the way they described the dog they gave away, it was him."<br/>
<br/>
"If you want us to come out after school and help you look, we will," Joe offered. He squeezed Theresa a little more tightly.<br/>
<br/>
"We've already scoured the woods," James said. "But thanks for the offer. Come on, Theresa," he said, pulling his sister away from Joe. "We should back get to school."<br/>
<br/>
"I was wondering why you were skipping," Joe said. "I'm sorry this is the reason."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you going to Kayla and Cody's birthday party on Saturday?" Theresa called over her shoulder. She resisted her brother's tug.<br/>
<br/>
Frank shook his head. "We haven't gotten an invitation."<br/>
<br/>
"That's funny," Theresa said. "They were talking about— Well—" She turned a little pink. "They were talking about maybe asking if you guys could entertain at the party."<br/>
<br/>
Frank pressed his lips together, but Joe hissed a laugh through his teeth. He knew the suggestion bothered Frank, for the two of them had accidentally gotten a reputation with their peers as knowing how to do some magic tricks. And sure enough, Frank said, "You know, if we're going to be the entertainment, it would be nice to get paid for it."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be that way, bro," Joe said, and punched Frank in the shoulder. "Tell Cody and Kayla it'll be our present to them," he told Theresa. "If they ask us, that is."<br/>
<br/>
"I really would like to see you there, Joe," Theresa said with a blush. The four kids then called their goodbyes, and James and Theresa got in the boy's car while Frank and Joe returned to their motorbikes.<br/>
<br/>
"Way to volunteer us, Joe," Frank said peevishly. "I don't want to spend my free time— And besides, it's not a good idea, showing off our prodigies at parties."<br/>
<br/>
"No one knows they're prodigies," Joe retorted as he settled into the saddle of his bike. "They just think they're tricks."<br/>
<br/>
"They're serious gifts, which we've been given for a serious purpose—"<br/>
<br/>
"Like the way Dad materializes a whole tree at Christmas time?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's different. That's for the house party. Besides, he's talking about sending us out to chop one this year."<br/>
<br/>
"That'll be fun," Joe allowed, and with a quick jog of his leg started up the bike. "But I wanna have some fun pulling a rabbit out of a hat." He bit the inside of his cheek, and grinned. "It'd more fun if we could pull Buster out of a hat for Theresa, though."<br/>
<br/>
"We've got more important things to worry about than a missing dog," Frank said as he put his helmet on. <br/>
<br/>
"A missing wizard, a missing car, a missing dog," Joe mused. "I'd accuse you of having a missing sense of fun, but you never had one to lose."<br/>
<br/>
"Let's just go see Dad," Frank said. He and Joe carefully pulled out into the street before opening the throttles and racing off to their dad's workplace.</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112121111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (5)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Five<br/>
A Double Makes Trouble</div><br/>
"Yikes," Joe muttered as he and Frank walked in the front door of the Olympia Cultural Center. "Looks like it's Amy's day off, so I guess we're stuck with—" He jerked his chin at the sour-faced old woman at the front desk.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, keep your mouth shut," Frank muttered back. "Unless you want to try flirting with her. I'd love to see that. Good morning, Mrs. Rittenaur," he said much more pleasantly as the director of the museum stalked over. "Is our dad around?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hmph," the old woman snorted, and her prune-like features wrinkled up even more. "I suppose he is, though I've never seen a man who can disappear like he can."<br/>
<br/>
"If he can disappear, it stands to reason you never would see a man like him," Joe observed. <br/>
<br/>
Mrs. Rittenaur's eyes narrowed. "Sass and trouble, that's all I ever get out of you two. I think I saw your father—" She looked around slowly, as though expecting to find him lurking guiltily in a corner. "I sent him to clean the artifact room, but he slipped away on me. You can help me find him." She turned, and with a slight limp set off toward one of the wings.<br/>
<br/>
"Perhaps we'd better wash our hands first," Frank said. "We rode our motorbikes over."<br/>
<br/>
"Grease and filth," she replied with a shudder. "Be quick about it." She shadowed them as they ducked into the men's washroom.<br/>
<br/>
"What a horrible old fossil," Joe said as Frank turned the tap in the sink. "I bet when she dies she'll have herself stuffed and mounted by the front door so she can keep glaring at visitors."<br/>
<br/>
"Be nice, Joe," Frank said. "She's old and she's lonely."<br/>
<br/>
"Of course she's lonely. Who'd want to spend time with her?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank didn't argue. No one liked Mrs. Rittenaur, and only their father, who volunteered there as a custodian/handyman, ever had nice things to say about her. She was very good at terrorizing money out of the town council, he said, and over the years had done an excellent job stocking the tiny town's one museum with curiosities: bones dug out of the surrounding hills; shards of Indian pottery and arrowheads; tools and implements from the town's nineteenth century mining and timber industries. <br/>
<br/>
If only she had known about the many wonderful things hidden in a secret room accessible only through the basement. That's where Frank and Joe knew they would find their father.<br/>
<br/>
But they'd have to lose the snoopy old woman first.<br/>
<br/>
"Dad told me the other day that she's starting to get suspicious," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"It's about time. You'd have to be pretty stupid not to have picked up on the way Dad can 'disappear' when he wants to."<br/>
<br/>
"And she's not stupid. That's why she wants to go with us to find him." He smiled at his brother. "Someone needs to play decoy."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, so why do I gotta—" Joe started angrily, but then caught the gleam in Frank's eye. "Oh! You mean I should—"<br/>
<br/>
"You've been looking for an excuse, right? That's why you want to entertain at the twins' party."<br/>
<br/>
"This'll be great practice," Joe enthused. "Gimme a minute while I concentrate."<br/>
<br/>
Frank continued to let the water run while Joe closed his eyes. The latter let his consciousness sink deep within himself, as he'd learned to do a few summers ago when he and Frank went out to Los Angeles to train with another member of the Stellae. In his mind's eye Joe now saw it: a fast-whirring little ball of energy that hissed and fizzed like volatile chemicals that had been dropped in water. It was silvery in color, and as it spun it grew clearer and purer in aspect, until it was a rapidly spinning mirror.<br/>
<br/>
It was Viritrilbia, the planet most people call "Mercury." It and the other planets were the occult objects that gave Joe and Frank and their mentors their amazing prodigies, for associated with each planet was a kind of spirit—a silent but palpable intelligence—that could lend its esoteric powers to their terrestrial adepts. As part of their training, Joe and Frank were learning how to listen to these spiritual beings, how to meditate on them, and how to use their gifts for good. <br/>
<br/>
In the spinning surface of Viritrilbia, Joe saw his own face grinning back. This double grew more solid in appearance as Joe concentrated on it. And when it had attained a strong solidity, Joe opened his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
He and Frank were no longer alone in the bathroom. Now there was a third boy with them, one who looked and was dressed just like Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"That's real good," Frank said with warm enthusiasm. "Even better than— Have you been practicing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Naturally," Joe said. His lips barely moved as he spoke, and his words seemed to come from his twin, whose lips moved much more expressively. "I already caught you one or two times not being able to tell it wasn't me."<br/>
<br/>
"Just be sure you can fool Mrs. Rittenaur."<br/>
<br/>
"Open the door for me," Joe said. He slid his hand unimpeded through his twin. "Remember, sunlight and mercury vapor, that's all he is."<br/>
<br/>
So Frank, standing off to the side, pulled open the door, and Joe's holographic twin sauntered out. Joe closed his eyes again, and now he saw the world through the other's eyes. Mrs. Rittenaur, impatiently tapping her foot, was outside.<br/>
<br/>
"Where's your brother," she snapped, and looked past "Joe" to the washroom door.<br/>
<br/>
"He's taking a crap," Joe ventriloquised through his holographic twin, and relished the way the old crone wrinkled up at the word. "He'll catch up." He looked around. "Where's Dad?"<br/>
<br/>
"This way, I think," Mrs. Renaur growled, and turned on her heel. Joe imagined himself walked along behind her—so that's exactly what his vaporous twin did.<br/>
<br/>
But Joe also felt someone grasping his shoulder: that would be Frank, in the washroom. "Is it clear?" Joe heard his brother ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Joe said softly without opening his eyes. "But you're going to have to guide me. If I break my concentration for even a second—"<br/>
<br/>
"What are you muttering?" Mrs. Rittenaur demanded harshly.<br/>
<br/>
"I was just saying I like what you've done with the place," Joe made his twin reply. The director snorted as she led him around a display case containing some Indian blankets. "Okay, come on," Joe whispered to Frank.<br/>
<br/>
He felt his brother grasp him by the elbow and tug him along. He had the odd sensation of having four legs, all moving independently of each other, as Mrs. Rittenaur led him into another wing while Frank pulled him in a quick dash in the opposite direction.<br/>
<br/>
"Fingerprints and snotty noses," Mrs. Rittenaur hissed. "All over the front of these cases! Those little demons from the elementary school. Your father was supposed to be— Have you got a handkerchief?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, ma'am," Joe said, and pulled his twin back from her, lest she try grasping at him.<br/>
<br/>
"Never mind, I've got my own." The old woman shook it out and started wiping the glass while muttering angrily to herself.<br/>
<br/>
Joe seized the opportunity to send the decoy wandering away. Elsewhere, Frank was leading him along a carefully prescribed path through the other wing and then down some steps into the storeroom, where they seemed to make another pointless circuit. Finally, he heard Frank speak. "We're there. Can you get away?"<br/>
<br/>
"Gladly." Joe imagined his twin stepping behind a case that would block him from Mrs. Rittenaur's view, then opened his eyes. He felt his twin evaporate like a soap bubble.<br/>
<br/>
He and Frank were now in a dim basement lined closely with heavy shelves. One of these had swung away, revealing a secret door. The boys grinned at each other, then ducked inside and pulled it closed behind them.<br/>
<br/>
Lights sprang on. They were in another storeroom, but a far more wonderful one than the storeroom in the Olympia museum's basement.<br/>
<br/>
The ceiling sprang away, vaulting so high that mists could form under its arches. Tall shelves rose up around them, reachable only via catwalks and mad staircases, some of which seemed to be upside down and others of which vanished into blank walls. The floor was covered with crates and boxes, and as they walked along they even passed some mummy cases. Creatures sealed inside glass jars gazed balefully at them, but they passed between them in serene confidence.<br/>
<br/>
They were inside the secret archives of the Stellae Errantes, where all manner of occult and magical loot was collected, safely tucked away from mischievous hands. Time and space made no sense here, and as they walked they passed many strangely attired people, without speaking or being spoken to by them. Many of them, they understood, were long-dead members of their own order, pursuing tasks decades or centuries ago, just as Joe and Frank were pursuing their own now; others, they knew, were Stellae from the future, who ignored them as they themselves ignored those members from the past. Somewhere, in the distance, they heard—as they always did when they visited—a rumble of thunder, the explosive climax of a long-ago adventure, but one that concerned only those twelve men in monks' robes who were running around screaming.<br/>
<br/>
But Frank and Joe knew where they were going, and after fifteen minutes of walking they found it: a small room where their father liked to relax. He was sitting now in front of a low cabinet on which was laid a chess board and pieces. On the other side sat a mannequin dressed in the traditional habiliments of an Ottoman Turk. "Who's winning?" Joe asked as their father looked up.<br/>
<br/>
"He is, as always," their dad smiled back. "What did you learn from the police?"<br/>
<br/>
They told him of the dead end, and of the missing dog, and of the upcoming birthday party. "Do you mind if we show the guys a few of our tricks?" Joe asked hopefully.<br/>
<br/>
"Might be hard," he replied. "If you boys are going to be in San Diego with me on business."</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121211111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (6)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Six<br/>
Best-Laid Plans</div><br/>
"San Diego?" Frank asked. "What's in San Diego?"<br/>
<br/>
"Beaches and sunshine and hot girls in bikinis," Joe exclaimed. "When do we leave?"<br/>
<br/>
"This afternoon," their dad said. "But you won't have time for that kind of sight-seeing, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"As long as I get to sit by the window in the cab, I'll be okay," Joe said carelessly.<br/>
<br/>
"We'll be visiting an art institute," their dad continued. "Father Ed and John Reilly were able to pull a few strings, and the von Gerssdorff portrait is being sent there for examination. I'll be on hand as an art expert—" He winked knowingly "—so we can get a close look at it."<br/>
<br/>
"And who will Joe and I be?" Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"My sons, of course."<br/>
<br/>
He turned back toward the chess board at the sound of whirring machinery and grinding gears. With a jerky motion, the mannequin of the Turk lifted its hand, grasped a pawn, and moved it up two squares. "Interesting," his human opponent murmured.<br/>
<br/>
"I never understood how this thing was supposed to work," Frank said, transfixed by the chess-playing dummy.<br/>
<br/>
"No one ever has," his father replied as he tugged as his whiskers. "The mechanical Turk has kept his secrets for more than two hundred years now."<br/>
<br/>
"There's a hidden compartment, right?" Joe said. He opened some doors in the front of the cabinet, and peered in. "I read in a book that a chess whiz would hide inside it and—"<br/>
<br/>
"That was just misinformation our predecessors put out after they captured it and faked its destruction in a fire," his dad said. "I know for a fact there's no chess master hidden inside it now." He moved one of his pieces. <br/>
<br/>
The Turk instantly moved one of its knights. "<i>Echec!</i>" a grating mechanical voice exclaimed.<br/>
<br/>
His opponent sighed. "And it's no chess master playing against him now, either." He tipped his king over in token of surrender. The mechanical Turk jogged its head triumphantly.<br/>
<br/>
"Hasn't Nash taken it apart?" Frank asked. Nash Carnes was the Stellae's expert on magical mechanics.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, just like every Kenandandran Stellae since Trelawney has taken a stab at figuring out the Turk, and it baffled him too. To be honest, we're not even sure it is magical. It really just might be an extraordinarily advanced machine, a proto-computer. Oh well." He bowed with elaborate politeness to the Turk. "Where's Mrs. Rittenaur?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll go see!" Joe exclaimed, and closed his eyes again.<br/>
<br/>
"Never mind," said their father. "We'll go out the back door." He smiled wryly as Joe sagged with disappointment.<br/>
<br/>
So they took another route through the archives, up snaking spiral staircases and threading their way along catwalks. They passed through a series of hexagonal rooms whose walls were lined with books. Joe did a double-take inside one of these rooms: a young man with shaggy blonde hair was leaning against a bookshelf, grinning widely even as his eyes bored into the book he held. "Keep your head, Joe," he murmured as the company entered, but didn't lift his eyes from his reading.<br/>
<br/>
"What does that mean," Joe demanded of him, but the other just laughed softly, and still didn't look up.<br/>
<br/>
"No talking," his dad said brusquely. "Either of you. We don't need any temporal paradoxes."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, whatever he meant, I guess it'll work out," Joe said as they left the room behind. "If <i>he's</i> around to say things like that, I guess <i>I'll</i> come out of it in one piece." But he still looked a little shaken at the gnomic warning from a guy who looked like a ten-year-older version of himself.<br/>
<br/>
They finally passed through a metal door and emerged blinking in the alley behind the museum, where they parted from their father to return to their motor bikes. His final instruction to them was to start packing, for they'd be leaving for the airport in only a few hours.<br/>
<br/>
For Joe, packing was a whirlwind of activity. "I should've asked Dad how long we'd be there," he said as he tipped one set of shirts from his suitcase and replaced them with another. "Are you taking an extra set of swim trunks," he asked Frank. "Because if you are, I'm only going to pack one extra set of my own. If something happens to that extra set, you'll let me borrow one of yours, right?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank sat calmly on the foot of his bed. "I wasn't taking any swim trunks at all, Joe. Dad said there wouldn't be time for stuff like that, remember?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it's best to be prepared. We'll probably eat out at one nice restaurant, at least," he added to himself, and dug out a pair of dark wool pants from a bottom drawer, where they had lain undisturbed for nearly a year. "I'm borrowing some of your old pants if that's okay," he said to Frank.<br/>
<br/>
His brother only shrugged.<br/>
<br/>
"Socks, socks," Joe muttered. From the top drawer he pulled out tube socks, ankle socks, dark socks, and three pairs of beige socks with different patterns. He frowned over them and set them against the hems of the wool pants, the cargo pants and the four pairs of jeans—two of them nicely "distressed"—that he had already packed. Then he jammed all of them into a corner of the suitcase. He looked up at his bemused brother. "When are you going to start packing?"<br/>
<br/>
"I already finished," Frank said, and from under his bed pulled out a suitcase half the size of his brother's.<br/>
<br/>
Joe's jaw dropped. "When did—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Six months ago. Like you said, it's best to be prepared."<br/>
<br/>
"But those won't be appropriate for San Diego!" Joe's voice was shrill.<br/>
<br/>
"They're appropriate for a short trip anywhere, Joe. Three pairs each of pants, shirts, socks and underwear, plus toiletries."<br/>
<br/>
"Toiletries!" Joe shouted, and ran into the bathroom to start picking through all the possible shampoos, soaps, and conditioners he might need.<br/>
<br/>
By the time he had finished, Joe had packed a very large suitcase and also had a book bag slung over his shoulder. He had one pair of sunglasses perched atop his head, and another, more stylish pair—for nightlife, in case they ended up at a dance club with lots of hot, blinding strobe lights, he explained to Frank—in his shirt pocket. Frank, by contrast had the one very small overnight case.<br/>
<br/>
"We'll only be there two nights, son," their dad said after the car trunk had visibly slumped under the weight of Joe's suitcase. "I'm not sure General Eisenhower packed as much when he crossed the Channel, and he had an army with him."<br/>
<br/>
"I guess I could do a little more sorting," Joe said, and reached for his suitcase.<br/>
<br/>
"No time for that," his dad said, and Frank pulled Joe back and slammed the trunk shut. "The plane leaves in ninety minutes, and the airport's an hour away."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you want me to drive?" Joe's tone was hopeful.<br/>
<br/>
"I'd rather be an hour late than two days early." He even put Joe in the back as Frank slid into the front passenger's seat, but his younger son leaned so far forward with his head bobbing excitedly that he might as well have been in the front with them.<br/>
<br/>
Olympia was too small to have its own airfield, so they drove to Eagle City to catch a commuter flight to Las Vegas. "I wish we were spending the night in Vegas," Joe said as the three of them climbed the ramp into the tiny jet airplane. "Rick was telling me—"<br/>
<br/>
He didn't finish the sentence. "Rick was telling you what?" his dad asked.<br/>
<br/>
"Never mind," Joe murmured as he buckled himself in. "You don't like me playing cards."<br/>
<br/>
"Certainly not the kind of card games you tried playing with your brother when you were little. So that's what Rick was telling you. Did he also tell you what they would do to you if they caught you playing those kinds of games in their casinos?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wouldn't get caught, Dad. And we could use the money, couldn't we?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't push it, Joe," said Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you sore about? Dad made me give back all those Legos I won off you."<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't <i>win</i>, you little cheater."<br/>
<br/>
"That's enough," their dad said. "Under certain circumstances, Joe, I'd let you do something like that. But these are not those circumstances."<br/>
<br/>
And for most of the flight that was the only turbulence they suffered. But as they reached Las Vegas—<br/>
<br/>
"This is the third time we've circled the city," their dad murmured. The book in his lap had been sitting open to page 64 for almost twenty minutes as he gazed out the window.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe traffic is stacked up," Joe replied.<br/>
<br/>
"The stewardess doesn't look happy," Frank said in a low voice. He glanced over his shoulder at the six other passengers. "I don't think anyone else has noticed, though."<br/>
<br/>
"If there's something to be worried about, we'll hear about it soon," their dad said. "Just relax."<br/>
<br/>
But ten minutes later the captain spoke over the intercom. His tone was calm and reassuring, but his announcement wasn't. The front landing gear of the aircraft was refusing to descend, and the airport was preparing to receive them in an emergency landing.</span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211212111111
author_id: seuzz
title: "The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard" (7)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Seven<br/>
A Bumpy Arrival</div><br/>
"Emily will now lead you through the preparations for our emergency landing," the captain said over the intercom, and the stewardess, whose pretty face had become very drawn, stood up at the front of the small passenger cabin.<br/>
<br/>
Charles Brennan and his two sons watched and listened soberly as she outlined the procedures. But when she was done, Joe opened his in-flight magazine to a page showing an outline of their jet. He tapped it with his fingertip and whispered to Frank, "Do you think you could unstick the landing gear?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe was referring to one of Frank's prodigies. But his brother shook his head. "I don't know how the landing gear works. I might break something."<br/>
<br/>
The cabin bumped and jumped as the plane began dropping in altitude. "We wouldn't be any worse off if you did," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"It wouldn't work anyway. I'd have to reach through the cabin floor to the wheel. Do you want me tearing a hole in the floor while we're still up in the air?"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, maybe not," Joe said. He slid the magazine back into its seat pocket as the stewardess appeared at his side. She handed him and the other two members of his family each a pillow.<br/>
<br/>
The cabin was quiet as the jet descended. None of the passengers talked or made any other noises. Lower and lower the plane sank, and Joe's heart beat faster and faster. He was sure it was the same with everyone else, though he couldn't see any other faces except those of his brother and father. Frank had gone a little white, but his father looked as relaxed as if he were seated back in his own kitchen. That made Joe feel better.<br/>
<br/>
The stewardess called for everyone to brace themselves, and everyone buried themselves in the pillows. After what seemed a very long time, Joe felt a slight jolt, then a harder one, then the friction of the jet racing over the tarmac; the engines screamed to life. The nose of the plane hung in the air for a few seconds, then dipped. Joe felt himself being pulled forward and down as the nose of the plane, bereft of landing gear, dipped toward the ground. There came one more shuddering jolt and another hard roar. A sensation like a gigantic hand settled against Joe's back and head, shoving him forward, but the pressure lasted for only a few seconds before relaxing. A tremble passed through the frame of the plane, and the engines cut out.<br/>
<br/>
At once the stewardess called everyone up for the emergency evacuation. There was no talking, only a quiet kind of grunting as the passengers quickly got from their seats. The Brennans were seated nearest the front, and Joes was first behind the stewardess as she grasped the cabin door handle. She pulled at it.<br/>
<br/>
But it didn't move.<br/>
<br/>
Joe's heart, which had calmed, again started to race.<br/>
<br/>
She pulled harder, straining without result. She grasped it with both hands. It still didn't move. She made a low, soft moan.<br/>
<br/>
"Frank," Joe said in an almost inaudible tone.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm on it," his brother whispered back.<br/>
<br/>
Ever since Joe had mentioned it, Frank had been thinking about his prodigy and how it might help in this crisis. Joe had the ability to create an incorporeal twin, but Frank's prodigy was almost the opposite. He could manifest something like an invisible arm and hand: a large, strong, grasping claw that he could use to punch or pick up things. Joe called it his brother's "Jedi mind-crane power."<br/>
<br/>
Joe had suggested that he use it to reach into the jet plane's wheel well and unstick the landing gear, but Frank knew that wouldn't work. For a start, he had to be able to see the thing he was manipulating, because that giant invisible fist didn't have a sense of touch. For another, it was attached to him, and he couldn't just create it outside and under the plane. He would have had to pound a hole in the very floor of the jet, and reach through it, to get to the landing gear.<br/>
<br/>
But as the plane descended, Frank had found himself doing as Joe had done in the museum earlier that day. He had meditated on one of his ousiarchs, one of the two planets that he drew his prodigies from. In this case it was Malacandra, which many people call Mars. As the plane touched the ground, behind his clenched eyes he saw a hard globe that glowed dully like a ball of heated iron. Even after Frank opened his eyes and got behind Joe, waiting to evacuate the aircraft, he could see it every time he blinked.<br/>
<br/>
So he was ready when Joe spoke. He only had to will it.<br/>
<br/>
First he felt something like a little tickle on his chest, as though an extra arm had extended itself from his torso, then he imagined that he was grasping the handle to the cabin door with a powerful hand, and as he imagined it he knew that's exactly what he was doing. The stewardess got a funny expression on her face, and she wrestled with the door handle in a way that made Joe think she must have gotten her hands stuck onto it. Frank also noticed, and he realized that in grabbing ahold of the door he must have also accidentally grabbed ahold of her hands. So he imagined gripping the handle lower down. Instantly, the stewardess's hands flew from the handle, and she fell backward with a little scream.<br/>
<br/>
But Frank didn't let go. Voices were buzzing behind him. The other passengers were starting to panic. He concentrated on the handle, and on the impression that he had wrapped a strong fist around it. He imagined pulling it down, hard.<br/>
<br/>
The stewardess was just reaching to grasp it again when the handle jerked violently. She jumped as the door fell open and slid to the side. An inflatable slide unfurled. But she was too well-trained worry about an airplane door that got stuck and then opened itself. She grabbed Joe by the shoulder and pulled him toward the slide.<br/>
<br/>
But Joe hung back. He didn't want to give the impression that he was frightened and desperate to get off the plane.<br/>
<br/>
Then Frank punched him in the back, using that invisible fist.<br/>
<br/>
Joe popped out of the plane hatch like a cork popping out of a champagne bottle. He hit and went down the inflatable slide face-first with limbs splayed in all different directions. In fact, Frank bopped him so hard he even scraped and bumped over the asphalt before coming to a halt. He looked back with a sour expression as Frank, with a little smile on his face, came down the slide in a more dignified manner. Then came their father and everyone else.<br/>
<br/>
"That was more excitement than I think I want on a plane trip," Joe said later as they were hustling through the terminal to make their connecting flight to San Diego. "Do you think the accident had anything to do with the case we're investigating?"<br/>
<br/>
"We won't know until we have some idea what we're dealing with," his dad replied. "So let's not go losing our heads just yet."<br/>
<br/>
The rest of their journey was uneventful, and by nine o'clock they were checked into a two-bed hotel room halfway between the airport and the art institute they needed to visit. It wasn't a very cheap hotel—nothing in San Diego was very cheap, their dad said in a slightly worried voice—but it wasn't very expensive, either. Although the members of their society had some very powerful gifts, they didn't use them to make money, and everyone had a real-world job or some other source of income. Charles Brennan, for example, lived on a retirement pension, which supported him and his two growing boys.<br/>
<br/>
But they were getting other kinds of help from the other members of the Stellae Errantes. At the front desk, for instance, their dad picked up a package that had been express-delivered for them just that afternoon. In their room, from it he pulled some documents and bits of plastic.<br/>
<br/>
"Did Rick send those?" Joe asked. He was referring to Rick Bredon, one of their associates who worked as a private investigator, and who could rig up fake IDs at fast notice.<br/>
<br/>
His father nodded. "The institute is expecting me to show up under the name Geoffrey Wyckoff," he said as he examined a driver's license and a set of credit cards. "These are to help."<br/>
<br/>
"Why do you need a fake name?" Frank asked. Even though his real name was Giuseppe, and he only used "Frank" as a nickname, he didn't like falsehoods, and any kind of pretense made him uncomfortable.<br/>
<br/>
But Joe felt the opposite, and loved to improvise fake identities for himself when visiting new places. "Because it's cool!" he exclaimed.<br/>
<br/>
"Because it's necessary," said their father in a correcting tone. "Dr. Wyckoff is a real man, an expert on Renaissance art. If I showed up at the institute tomorrow as Charles Brennan, I probably wouldn't get in the door."<br/>
<br/>
"How will Frank and I get in?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
His father smiled faintly. "Don't you want to go swimming instead? You brought enough swim trunks."<br/>
<br/>
For a moment Joe looked like he wanted to tear himself in half, like Rumpelstiltskin. "I'll go with you," he finally said. "If they'll let us in."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sure we can find a way."<br/>
<br/>
They talked a little more about the next day, and how the boys would need to behave inside the institute, before they each took turns brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed. To his chagrin, Frank discovered that he wasn't as well-prepared as he'd thought, for he'd neglected to pack a pair of pajamas. Luckily, Joe was able to lend him a t-shirt, and even a pair of drawstring athletic pants he had brought along, "in case we go to a gym on a day it's unseasonably cold."<br/>
<br/>
The boys were used to sharing bunk space from all the traveling they did, so they didn't even fight over which side of the bed each one would occupy. And after the excitement and exhaustion of the day's travel, they all quickly fell asleep.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112121111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (8)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Eight<br/>
An Expert Pretense</div><br/>
"Wake up!" Joe shouted the next morning as he bounced onto the bed next to Frank's head.<br/>
<br/>
Frank bolted upright and swung a wild fist at his brother's head. "What the—?"<br/>
<br/>
"There's a breakfast buffet downstairs, with pancakes and cinnamon rolls and other stuff, and Dad says we can't start eating until you're down there with us!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank fell back with a groan and closed his eyes. "Is that all?"<br/>
<br/>
"Is that all? I said there's pancakes and cinnamon rolls—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't need the empty carbs, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"Fine. Then for you there's ham and bacon and scrambled eggs and cheese and—"<br/>
<br/>
"What time is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Seven-thirty!" Joe tootled a kind of reveille through his lips, and Frank swung at him again. "C'mon, Frank!" He beat on his brother's thigh. "It's eight-thirty back home, and you're usually up and out jogging by six!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank growled in the back of his throat. Joe was right. But he felt groggy, as though his head was stuffed with dry hay and old rags. "I think you must've kept me awake last night, kicking me or something." He ground the heel of his hand deep into an eye socket. "And there was all that excitement yesterday too."<br/>
<br/>
Joe groaned. "How much excitement are you going to have when we're out doing missions? Are you going to turn into a narcoleptic every time a chupacabra tries to kill you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Turn into a what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nar-co-lep-tic. I mean, are you going to fall into a coma every time there's a crisis?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know, Joe," Frank said. "All I know is that I feel like I was tied to the back of a horse and sent on a night-time gallop." He yawned hard, and it didn't feel good. "Lemme get a shower, then—"<br/>
<br/>
"But there were five fat women heading toward the dining room when I was coming back up here," Joe cried out. "If they eat everything while you're still shampooing your armpits—!"<br/>
<br/>
So Frank gave up and got dressed and followed Joe to the dining room. They didn't waste a lot of time eating—Joe gobbled his own food, and even ate a little off the plates of the others—then went back to their room to get ready for the day.<br/>
<br/>
That's when Frank discovered the flaw in his plan to pack early. It came as he pulled on a pair of fresh jeans. They were very tight around his thighs, and he had to suck in his gut when he buttoned them. "Oof," he said.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong, Frank?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think these pants shrank in the wash." With a gasp of relief he undid the button and peeled them off. But the same thing happened with the other two fresh pair. And when he tried on a button-up shirt—<br/>
<br/>
"It looks like you're trying to get into some of my old clothes, Frank," Joe laughed. It was true: the shirt bound him tightly about the shoulders and strained against his chest.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't understand. These were some of my best clothes, and when I packed them—"<br/>
<br/>
"When you packed them it was six months ago," Joe exclaimed. "You had a growth spurt in the meantime, on top of which you've been working out!" He fell back on the bed, and hooted long and loudly.<br/>
<br/>
"Then give me some of your stuff," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"But I'm even smaller than you!" Joe jumped to the floor and fell to his knees. "See? I don't even come up to your nipples! Guess you'll just have to put on yesterday's clothes. Phew!" He pinched his nose shut.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe you'd better stay here, son," their dad said. "Anyway, it might be easier to smuggle only one of you into the institute. You can take the morning off, maybe go swimming. Did you bring any—"<br/>
<br/>
Joe leaped to his feet with a howl. "But Dad! You said there wouldn't be any time for swimming!"<br/>
<br/>
"And now your brother hasn't got a choice. Would you like to stay with him?" Charles Brennan's voice was calm, but there was just the tiniest bit of impatience inside it.<br/>
<br/>
Joe instantly suspended his tantrum. "No sir. Well, yes sir, I would. But I'd rather go with you."<br/>
<br/>
So it was decided. But Joe still gave Frank a narrow glare over his shoulder when it came time to leave.<br/>
<br/>
The San Diego Institute of Art looked like brick that had been blown up to the size of a two-story building. Its windowless exterior was a brilliant white, but it was topped with a gently sloping roof of green copper. The front entrance was surrounded by something that looked like a glass arch. Joe studied it with close and appreciative interest as they approached.<br/>
<br/>
Just inside the door they met a tour guide, and Charles introduced himself and asked to see the museum director. He and Joe only had to wait a few minutes before a small, rumpled-looking man in a blue blazer appeared. He was nut brown and had lost most of his graying hair, but he grinned toothily at them from behind large glasses. "Dr. Wyckoff!" he said, and pumped Charles's hand enthusiastically. "Dale Jensen. He met in Kansas City last year at the art conservation conference."<br/>
<br/>
"Of course, how are you?" Charles said. Rick Bredon, in fashioning an alias for Charles, had chosen an eminent art expert with a passing physical resemblance to the head of the Stellae. "And this is my son J—"<br/>
<br/>
"Shapur," Joe interrupted, putting out his own hand and turning on his most brilliant smile. "Shapur Wyckoff," he added as his father's eyebrows shot up. "I hope you don't mind if Dad let me come along. I'm pretty keen on joining the family business, you know."<br/>
<br/>
Dr. Jensen beamed. "I thought most kids today wanted to be computer programmers. Or YouTube stars."<br/>
<br/>
"I actually do have my own channel," Joe said brightly. "It's a video blog devoted to smash metal music, but I use a lot of Renaissance religious art as a visual counterpoint to, er—" He stopped talking after catching his father's expression.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, let's take you back, shall we," Dr. Jensen said, and led them to an unmarked door that opened into a non-descript passage. Charles hung back a little as they went.<br/>
<br/>
"Shapur?" he said to Joe in a low voice. "I'm supposed to remember that your name is Shapur?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's Persian for 'King's son'," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"I know what it means. But I don't know why you need an alias. Another one," he added before his son could remind him that "Joe" was itself a kind of alias.<br/>
<br/>
But before Joe could make any reply, they had arrived at their destination.<br/>
<br/>
It was a large, windowless room of white walls under fluorescent lights. There was a large conference table in the middle of the room, and at the front was an easel. Resting on the easel was the mysteriously altered portrait of Hieronymus von Gerssdorff—the portrait that had lost its subject.<br/>
<br/>
"Here it is," Dr. Jensen said. "What exactly are you going to examine it for, may I ask? I mean, it's obviously a forgery."<br/>
	"Obviously," Charles Brennan replied. "I suppose I'm just curious to see how closely the thieves copied the other elements. It might provide a clue as to their identity."<br/>
<br/>
He started by setting up the laptop computer that Joe had been carrying, and opening up a large image of the painting in its original state. It showed a tall man with a long, thin face made even longer and thinner by a long, gray beard and drooping moustache. He was dressed in a dark robe and wore a thickly ruffled collar about his neck. His hair was entirely hidden under a kind of black cap. But it was the eyes that stood out. They gleamed with a manic wickedness that even Dr. Jensen noticed. "Looks like the kind of man who had fun burning people at the stake," he said.<br/>
<br/>
More like the kind of man that might have been burned at one, Joe thought to himself.<br/>
<br/>
All three immediately started pointing out interesting discrepancies between the pictures. "That wrinkle in the table cloth where he's resting his hand," Charles said. "It's smoothed out here in the forgery, but not all the way. It's as if his hand was bunching up the material, and it relaxed after he disappeared."<br/>
<br/>
"A fascinating touch," agreed Dr. Jensen. "What do you make of the doorway, though?" The absence of the alchemist now disclosed a half-open door which his torso had been blocking. "Odd that they'd insert such a detail."<br/>
<br/>
"Something to foster the illusion of an absurd kidnapping," said Charles. "Just as we can now see that there's a brass plate attached to the bottom of his astrolabe. We can't see that portion of the instrument in the original portrait because he's got his hand over it."<br/>
<br/>
"What's that?" Joe said, pointing to a white patch no bigger than a baby's fingernail. It was resting just inside the fraudulent doorway.<br/>
<br/>
"It looks like a piece of paper," said his father. "Now that is an odd detail." He peered very closely at it, then straightened up sharply. "Can you take a magnified photograph of this part of the canvas," he asked Dr. Jensen, "and have it blown up? It almost looks as though there's writing there!"<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121211111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (9)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Nine<br/>
A Very Small Clue</div><br/>
"It does look like writing," Dr. Jensen said, agreeing with Charles's assessment of the spot on the canvas. "But I don't see what good a magnification will do."<br/>
<br/>
"If it really is writing, it might be a kind of message left by the thieves," Charles said.<br/>
<br/>
Dr. Jensen looked skeptical, but took the canvas off the easel and departed with it.<br/>
<br/>
"What makes you think it's a message, Dad?" Joe asked.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think anything, Joe. I only said it might be a message. There's a difference, you know, between suggesting a hypothesis and believing it. But the way I look at it, there are two possibilities."<br/>
<br/>
He grunted softly as he sat in one of the chairs. "If this painting is a forgery left by pranksters, they might not have been able to resist leaving some kind of a clue behind. A riddle, or a cryptic signature. People who pull these kinds of pranks generally have a pretty big ego. They want people to notice them, and they badly want people to know who the genius was who pulled off the prank. They wouldn't leave their names behind, but they might try scratching that itch—that itch to be recognized—by intentionally leaving a clue behind, thinking it would be too difficult for the police to decipher."<br/>
<br/>
"That seems like a dumb risk to take," Joe said. "If they were really smart—"<br/>
<br/>
"Like you're really smart?" his dad asked with a puckish smile.<br/>
<br/>
"Well … Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"Like you were smart on that camping retreat last year? The one where each afternoon while Frank was out hiking you secretly moved all of his and your gear into the next dorm room down the hall, and moved the room numbers down too, until by the end of the week you'd slowly migrated everything to the far end of the hall you were staying on?" His eyes twinkled as Joe turned red. "And all that time Frank was saying he was sure that the rooms were moving, but you told him it was only his imagination? How did your brother figure out what was going on? What's that, what did you say? Speak up, Shapur."<br/>
<br/>
"In the last room I scribbled a picture of the solar system on the wall," Joe said. He stared up at the ceiling. "But I was just adding to the joke! I was going to pretend that scribble had always been there! I wasn't trying to—"<br/>
<br/>
"But why a solar system, son? You and Frank are studying to be Stellae. If you'd signed your name you couldn't have given yourself away more clearly." His dad sighed, then chuckled. "But now you understand why a very clever thief might not be able to resist taking a little credit for a very clever theft, and how he might unintentionally trip himself up. With a fine brush or other instrument, they might have left some kind of writing on that little patch of paint. And maybe they think that the riddle they left is very obscure, but it might be as obvious as their own names."<br/>
<br/>
Joe had to admit that his father was right. The next time he pranked Frank, he'd have to pay special care not to give anything away. But right now he had another objection: "But what if it wasn't a thief who stole a painting and put up a replacement? What if it's someone who stole von Gerssdorff out of the painting?"<br/>
<br/>
"Then it might be an even better clue he left behind. It might be something that would let us understand how the theft was done, which would probably tell us a great deal about what kind of thing we're dealing with."<br/>
<br/>
Joe and his father talked a little more about the case and the clues and the leads that might be followed. They had a lot of time to do so, for Dr. Jensen was a long time in returning. But when he did return, he was in a state of high excitement. "You were right, Wyckoff," he said, and laid out a small stack of printouts on the table. "Every time we magnified, we got more and clearer details. It will be fascinating to know what technique they used, because it looks almost like a photographic insertion into the paint. Look!" He pointed at the printouts after he'd spread them out.<br/>
<br/>
Each showed a close-up of the spot of the painting with the mysterious white spot, and in each one that spot was shown in larger and greater detail. It looked like a long, slim piece of paper that had fallen to the ground, and on it was writing that grew crisper and more readable as the magnification increased. On the last printout it was so clear that the words weren't at all hard to decipher. It was list of cities and dates.<br/>
<br/>
"It's an itinerary," Charles said. "And look. Vienna. May fifth to May ninth. The theft occurred on the eighth, didn't it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly. Congratulations, Wyckoff," Dr. Jensen said. "The police will be very happy with this result, even if it's a deliberate red herring left by the thieves. What do you suggest next?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think the next step is for me to take the painting home with me," Charles said. "If you'd be good enough to box it up, I might be able to catch an early flight." He checked his watch.<br/>
<br/>
Dr. Jensen looked as though he'd been slapped, and he turned quite scarlet. "What are you talking about? The police sent it here for examination."<br/>
<br/>
"The police also arranged for me to perform that examination," Charles said calmly. "To do that properly, I would need to use my own tools and techniques. It would be much easier for me to take this forgery to my office and lab than to bring those tools here."<br/>
<br/>
And as he spoke, Charles Brennan seemed to swell in size. He didn't grow any taller or bigger, and his voice didn't deepen or change. But the room seemed to fill with his presence, and his tone acquired a gravity and a quiet assurance that commanded deference. Joe smiled inwardly, for he recognized what was going on. Just as he had called on Viritrilbia to create his holographic twin, and Frank had called on Malacandra to open the jammed airplane door, his dad was calling on Glundandra, the king of the planets, to convince Dr. Jensen to part with the painting. Wielding that kind of influence, his father could talk almost anyone into doing almost anything, without bullying and without raising his voice.<br/>
<br/>
And in this case, as ever, it worked. Dr. Jensen didn't cower and he didn't even blink. He just nodded his head. "Of course. When you put it like that," he said with a slight chuckle. "Do you want us to express ship it to your department?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, why go through the bother and expense," said Charles. "Roll it up in a mailing tube and I'll take it on the airplane."<br/>
<br/>
With that the matter was settled, and within the hour he and Joe were strolling out the front door of the institute with the mysterious painting. "Is Dr. Jensen going to get in any trouble?" Joe asked his father. "I mean, no offense, Dad, but he let an imposter walk off with evidence in a criminal case."<br/>
<br/>
"Two imposters, Shapur," his father replied, and emphasized the name a little. "But I showed ID and signed releases," he continued. "If it comes to another investigation, Dr. Jensen will be able to prove that he was taken in by a very convincing fraud." He gave Joe a sidelong glance. "You like pretending and playing practical jokes, son. Doesn't it make you happy, pulling off a little confidence game like we just did?"<br/>
<br/>
But Joe was silent, even after they'd gotten a cab to take them back to the hotel. "It's different when I do it to Frank, or to any of the kids back home," he said, long after the cab had pulled into traffic. "It's just a joke with them, and I usually come clean afterward." He turned a little bashful. "I think you were right about why I sabotaged myself with the dorm room prank last summer. But it wasn't because I wanted to brag, it was because deep down I wanted Frank to figure it out so he'd know it was only a joke. But this isn't a joke, and Dr. Jensen isn't a bad guy, and he's legitimately trying to help the police. To help us, even, though he doesn't know it."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what makes it so tricky," said his father. "Dr. Jensen really does want to help, and if he knew all the facts then he would help us. That would be the best thing to happen, then, for him to know all the facts and for him to help us. But we can't tell him all the facts, because then we'd have to tell him all about ourselves. It would take a very long time to explain everything, and to convince him, and even when all that was done it would create many problems for us down the road. So we've got a choice. We can take the painting, even though it looks like we're cheating him, because that's what he would want if only he understood everything. Or we can leave the painting behind, which he wouldn't want if he really did know all the facts."<br/>
<br/>
"So it's better to cheat him?"<br/>
<br/>
"To be honest, I don't know, son. But I'm gambling that it's better to steal the painting from him than to leave it with him. But we have to do it in a way that doesn't hurt him, which is what I've tried to do. I don't think anyone will be able to blame him, so I don't think he's going to get in any trouble."<br/>
<br/>
He was thoughtful for a moment. "Of course, now we have to start worrying about whether it will turn out alright for us."<br/>
<br/>
He said this because of the cities he'd seen on that itinerary. In April, the it had recorded visits to Taos, New Mexico, and Kingsport, Massachusetts: cities that the Stellae knew from experience tended to attract troublemakers. Then came the visit to Vienna, at the same time that the art theft had been committed.<br/>
<br/>
But at the bottom of the list, after Vienna, and without a departure date, was the name of a town that Joe and his father knew very well.<br/>
<br/>
It was their own home town of Olympia.</span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211212111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (10)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Ten<br/>
A Magic Show</div><br/>
"Shut up, Joe," Frank snarled. He pulled the gag more tightly over his brother's mouth, muffling Joe's screams, and roughly jerked his brother's hands behind his back, locking them in a pair of handcuffs. "Now get in that box until you learn to behave!" Using the back of Joe's belt and neck as handholds, he hustled him into a tall cardboard container. Joe's ankles were also bound, so he could only bump uselessly against the sides of the box while Frank taped it shut on him.<br/>
<br/>
And all the spectators--Frank and Joe's friends--laughed and cheered and clapped their hands. Frank acknowledged their applause with a bow.<br/>
<br/>
It was the Saturday after their return from San Diego, and they were attending the birthday party for Kayla and Cody Henderson. The invitation had been waiting in the mailbox when they got back, and after a short flurry of phone calls Frank and Joe had accepted the invitation and agreed to put on a magic show as their gift to the twins.<br/>
<br/>
They were staging it on the back veranda of the Henderson's two-story house, and the partygoers had to crane their necks a little to look up at the act. It was nearing a climax. Frank had already levitated some items—using his invisible hand, of course—and Joe had used some regular sleight of hand and other tricks to pull various objects out of various hiding places. But now they had come to the penultimate part of the performance. Only one more act would follow this one.<br/>
<br/>
Joe was hidden inside a tall cardboard box, but Frank now obscured this box by hanging a long linen sheet between it and the audience, hiding not only the box but also a six-foot space in front of it. Once he had the sheet up, he called to Joe: "Have you learned your lesson?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mmhm-mmhm-mmhm!" a muffled Joe called back. Kayla and Cody and the others laughed.<br/>
<br/>
"I can't hear you, Joe," Frank yelled.<br/>
<br/>
"Mmhm-mmhm-mmhm!"<br/>
<br/>
"Speak up, Joe!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, for the love of Pete, I said 'Mmhm-mmhm-mmhm'! Are you deaf as well as dumb?"<br/>
<br/>
The audience gasped, then laughed long and hard.<br/>
<br/>
They couldn't see, but Joe had manifested his holographic twin outside the box and behind the sheet. He was speaking through it, and that's why his voice sounded so clearly. <br/>
<br/>
"Hmm, it doesn't sound like you've learned to behave," Frank said. "But you can come out now."<br/>
<br/>
The audience gasped and clapped as "Joe"—free of his bonds—stepped into view. "And what was the point of all that, Frank," he demanded.<br/>
<br/>
"To teach you a lesson," his brother replied. He turned his back on Joe as he hung up another sheet. "So what did you learn?"<br/>
<br/>
"That you don't know how to tie a good knot?" Joe said. The kids laughed.<br/>
<br/>
"No, try again."<br/>
<br/>
"That no prison can hold me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh-uh. One more chance."<br/>
<br/>
"That I can outsmart you any day of the week and twice on Saturdays?"<br/>
<br/>
"Three times and counting!" yelled Todd Fruhling from the back of the audience.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think so," said Frank. "Stand over there, please."<br/>
<br/>
There were now two sheets hanging on the veranda, with a ten-foot gap between them. "Joe" stepped behind the sheet opposite the one that hid the cardboard box.<br/>
<br/>
"Since you haven't learned your lesson, you have to go back in the box," Frank said. "Abraca—"<br/>
<br/>
"That's not the magic word, Frank!" said "Joe" from behind the sheet.<br/>
<br/>
"No? Then what is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"How stupid do you think I am? You think I'm going to tell you it's 'Cucamonga Cucumber'?" As soon as he said it, Joe's holographic twin vanished. Frank yanked the sheet down, revealing the now empty space.<br/>
<br/>
The audience gasped, and a nervous titter ran through it.<br/>
<br/>
Frank stepped over to the other sheet and yanked it down too. Kayla Henderson jumped a little as something banged around inside the refrigerator box. Frank ripped the tape from the makeshift door, reached in, and hauled out his brother, who was still bound and gagged.<br/>
<br/>
The crowd was silent for a moment, then broke into long and sustained applause. "You tricked me into telling you the magic word!" Joe shouted after Frank had the gag off him.<br/>
<br/>
"Like that's hard to do."<br/>
<br/>
There was only one more trick after Frank had freed his brother, but it was going to be the hardest one of them all. It would use the new prodigy Joe had developed over Christmas break.<br/>
<br/>
He and Frank started with a few fast, easy card tricks, then invited Kayla and Cody onto the veranda, where they let the twins shuffle the deck. "Pick a card, any card," Joe told them, and he and Frank kept off to the side while the twins sorted through the stack. "Show it to everyone else, but don't let us see." He and Frank covered their eyes while the twins took the six of hearts and showed it to their friends. "Now put it on top of the deck."<br/>
<br/>
Frank spoke: "Okay, now sh—"<br/>
<br/>
And here was where Joe kicked things into gear. As he had done inside the box, he closed his eyes and brought up an image of Viritrilbia, that spinning, reflective globe. But now as he concentrated on it he willed it to slow down, until it was hardly moving at all. Then he opened his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Frank, the twins, and all their friends stood perfectly still, with unmoving expressions. A branch, bent by the gust of wind, was frozen overhead. A fly that had just taken off from the porch railing hung unmoving in the middle of the air, as if it had been embedded in ice.<br/>
<br/>
Joe alone could move. He took the six of hearts off the top of the deck, glanced at it, and put it in his pocket.<br/>
<br/>
Then he walked very slowly through this frozen, silent scene. The air brushed thickly and crackled against his skin and clothes. He couldn't move too fast, or he might set off a peal of thunder by pushing the air away too quickly. Step by step he made his way to the back fence, where a picnic table stood, and it took him ten minutes of slow swimming to reach it. Carefully, he tugged the white-frosted cake from its container. Slowly, he used a frosting gun to decorate its surface with cherry-red designs. He slid it back into the box, and crept back to where he had been standing.<br/>
<br/>
Forty-five minutes (by his own reckoning) after freezing the moment, he closed his eyes and set Viritrilbia to spinning again.<br/>
<br/>
"—uffle the deck," Frank completed his command. He and Joe exchanged a very brief glance of understanding as the twins mixed up the cards.<br/>
<br/>
"Would you believe that your card is now on top of the deck again," Joe said after tapping it once with his finger. Kayla and Cody giggled. "Voila!" Joe exclaimed as he lifted the top card. "I give you the nine of clubs!" His expression was very smug.<br/>
<br/>
The twins fell against each other, laughing. "That's not it, Joe!"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course it is," he retorted. "Don't try to scam me!"<br/>
<br/>
But everyone in the audience hooted and jeered, and Joe, turning red, ordered the twins to shuffle the deck again. "Now your card is on top," he said. "Voila! The queen of diamonds!" More laughter. Joe had them try it again. "Voila! The four of spades!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank slapped Joe on the back of the head. "Way to mess up at the end, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to mess up something, I'll mess up your face!" Joe shouted back.<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna go back in the box?"<br/>
<br/>
"Aw, forget it," Joe muttered. He put out his hand to Kayla and Cody. "Sorry, guys," he said. "That was a new one, and I guess I need to practice it more."<br/>
<br/>
Everyone told him it was alright, that all the rest of the tricks had been really good, and that he shouldn't be embarrassed. Still, there were lots of private smiles and smirks as everyone moved back to the picnic table for cake and ice cream.<br/>
<br/>
But those smirks vanished when the cake came out of its box, for to everyone's astonishment its surface had been decorated to resemble a six of hearts. "Huh," said Joe, as everyone stared goggle-eyed at him. "I must've said the wrong magic word and accidentally turned the card into a cake." And when everyone went through the deck looking for the six of hearts, of course they couldn't find it, for he'd kept it in his pocket.<br/>
<br/>
The party was a great success, with lots of laughing and teasing and bits of food being flicked off the ends of spoons into other kids' faces. <br/>
<br/>
At least, it was a lot of fun until the end, when it was discovered that the Henderson's pet toy poodle had vanished from the enclosed front yard.</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112121111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (11)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Eleven<br/>
Something Lost, and Something Found</div><br/>
<br/>
"Another missing dog," said Joe. "I'm sure it doesn't mean anything." He whistled again. "Noodles! Noodles! Here boy!"<br/>
<br/>
"Noodles is a girl," Frank corrected him. "Didn't you pay attention to what the twins said? And if you're so sure it doesn't mean anything, why mention this is the second missing dog in a week?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because actually I'm not sure if it doesn't mean something," said Joe. He made no attempt to be quiet as he pushed through the bushes. "It was a high wall, the gate was closed, there were no holes next to the fence—"<br/>
<br/>
"It jumped the fence, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean she jumped the fence, right, Frank? You said it was a girl, not a neuter. And the twins are sure she didn't jump the fence. They say she's never jumped it before."<br/>
<br/>
"There's a first time for everything."<br/>
<br/>
"True. So there's hope for you. One of these days you might be right about something."<br/>
<br/>
Like James and Theresa Hopkins, the Henderson twins and their family lived in the hills outside Olympia. In fact, their house was only about half a mile from the Hopkins's, and was set back from a country road and surrounded by forest and scrub. There were only a handful of houses around here, and none of them were visible from each other.<br/>
<br/>
Insects buzzed in the late springtime heat, and under the scanty cover of the forest Joe and Frank had to shield their eyes from the sun. They heard other kids out searching for the lost dog, calling its name. <br/>
<br/>
Of the party-goers, only Kimberley Reynolds, who had been stuck in a wheelchair since a rock-climbing accident the month before, wasn't out helping with the search.<br/>
<br/>
So when Frank said, "This is useless. The dog will come back on its own. We'll find her sitting outside the gate when we get back," Joe was ready with a rejoinder.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, Frank. I'll keep looking, and you go back and keep Kimberley company. I bet she's— Ow!" He rubbed the back of his head, where his brother had smacked him, and glared. "What was that for?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not trying to weasel out of helping," Frank said angrily.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't say you were!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then why the wisecrack about me wanting to hang out with Kimberley?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because you like her. It was a serious suggestion. Don't you want to hang out with her?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank found he couldn't answer that question.<br/>
<br/>
"You had a hundred dollars saved up for a weight set," Joe reminded him. "But you said you spent it on her. How? What did you spend it on?"<br/>
<br/>
"I bought her some books."<br/>
<br/>
Joe's mouth fell open. "You spent a hundred dollars on books for her?" He whistled. "That's a lot of books!"<br/>
<br/>
"The doctor says she'll be in the wheelchair for a couple of weeks. So I figured she'd need a lot of entertainment. When I talked to her last, she said her parents didn't want her spending the summer with just her TV and iPhone and internet."<br/>
<br/>
"Awesome," Joe said. "So go talk to her about those books, find out if she's enjoying them." He whistled again. "I mean, for as much as you spent on her, I bet she'd got a lot of 'Thank yous' saved up. Okay, now what is it?" he asked as Frank turned red.<br/>
<br/>
"She doesn't know they're from me."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? How does she not know they're from you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I mailed them to her anonymously. I just put them in a box with an unsigned note."<br/>
<br/>
Joe almost exploded. "You moron! Why would you do that? What's the point of sending her that kind of present if you're not going to—?"<br/>
<br/>
"The point was to give her something to read," Frank said crossly, and his face was beet red by now. "The point wasn't to make her think that I— that I'm—"<br/>
<br/>
"That you're what, Frank? That you're sweet on her?" Joe clutched his head and danced around in the underbrush. "Oh, no, we can't have that!" he chanted sarcastically. "We can't have a girl thinking that Frank Brennan likes her! No, we should just drop a giant box of books on her, and not give her anyone to thank for it!"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want her thinking she owes me something!"<br/>
<br/>
"She already thinks she owes someone, Frank! What she doesn't know is that it's you, but right now she's definitely thinking that she owes someone something for giving her that huge present!"<br/>
<br/>
"Right. So that's why I can't tell her now." Frank frowned fiercely.<br/>
<br/>
Joe groaned. "No, I guess you can't. It would look weird if you crawled back to her now and said, 'Hi Kimberley, I'm the guy who secretly gave you that huge present and was too scared to—' What you should have done, you know, was to buy her one book at a time, give it to her, and talk and visit with her when you took it over."<br/>
<br/>
"How's that different from what I did?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, for a start, you'd be spending time with her, which you'd like, and she would have liked it too. I mean, if she's going to be stuck in a wheelchair, she would really like to have some company, and she'd like any guy who—"<br/>
<br/>
Frank's face was almost black with embarrassment now. "Like I said, the point was to give her something to read, not to get her to like me." He turned and stomped off through the brush.<br/>
<br/>
Joe wanted to scream. Instead, he buried his face in his hands.<br/>
<br/>
Joe didn't think he understood girls, but he didn't think he had to. All he knew was that he liked smiling at them and talking to them, and he really liked it when they talked and smiled back at him. And he understood that the more he smiled and talked to them, the more they talked to and smiled back. And, of course, the more they smiled and talked to him, the more he wanted to talk to and smile back at them. It was like a spiral that went up and up and up all by itself without any work on his part.<br/>
<br/>
And every once in a while he and a girl would wind up holding hands or hugging each other in a way that was very friendly but also kind of tingly. It didn't seem very complicated.<br/>
<br/>
So why did Frank like to make it complicated?<br/>
<br/>
He hurried after his brother. "Look, I'm sorry," he said as he hurried along because Frank didn't stop or pause. "It's just that I know you like Kimberley, and I think it's a real waste that you hardly ever seem to talk to her. You have so much in common, you know. Hiking and rock-climbing and fishing and hunting, all those things she likes that you like too."<br/>
<br/>
Frank hopped over a fallen log, and Joe scrambled after. <br/>
<br/>
"When she's back on her feet, you should invite her along on one of our camping trips," Joe said. "I wouldn't get in your way. I mean, I'm just your dumb little brother, you could even leave me behind." <br/>
<br/>
Frank pushed a tree branch aside. It whapped Joe in the face when he let go of it. <br/>
<br/>
"Come on, Frank, say you forgive me. I'm no good at begging."<br/>
<br/>
Frank stopped and stared into the distance with a thoughtful frown. Joe stood at his shoulder with a hurt expression on his face.<br/>
<br/>
"I know I give you a lot of crap about Kimberley and girls and stuff, but there are a lot of girls who really do like you. They're always asking me, 'Where's Frank?' and 'Is Frank coming?', and it's not because they think you're the mummy or anything and are scared you'll show up. It's because— What are you looking at?" <br/>
<br/>
Joe had finally noticed that his brother was staring at something with a very fixed expression. He turned to see what it was.<br/>
<br/>
It took him a minute to make it out, because it was screened in by a thick cluster of trees. There was a house—dark, well-camouflaged, but definitely a house—in the midst of the trees.<br/>
<br/>
But what caught his eye—what had caught Frank's eye, too—was the gleam of iridescent green paint through the spaces between the trees. They circled around until they saw what it was.<br/>
<br/>
It was a green sedan. They exchanged a glance.<br/>
<br/>
"I want a closer look," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"We can't just go snooping."<br/>
<br/>
"Who's snooping? It's sitting out in the open."<br/>
<br/>
"It's sitting on private property."<br/>
<br/>
"No, really? Okay, you can go home now and start looking into data entry as a lucrative career field. Me, I'm gonna play junior detective." He darted forward. <br/>
<br/>
Frank, with a grimace, followed. "If anyone asks, we're looking for a lost poodle," he said.<br/>
<br/>
"And if it's the guy who tried running me over, I'm gonna punch him in the nose."<br/>
<br/>
"It was two guys, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"One guy! And that bet's still on, even if you did spend all your savings on Kimberley."<br/>
<br/>
The trees and brush were close about the house, but when they got near they saw it was built out of dark stones—lava rocks, apparently—cemented closely together. It was roughly the shape of a two-story cube, and had a large, round tower, like a silo, attached to it. Joe thought it might be an old storage facility, for holding lumber maybe. There was a small greenhouse at its corner.<br/>
<br/>
The sedan was parked almost directly by the front door. Joe started to peer into it, but Frank pulled him back. "We'll get the license number, that's all," he said.<br/>
<br/>
But before he could make a note of it, Joe grasped his arm. "There's someone in the greenhouse," he said, and pointed. A blobbish figure, distorted by the glass, was moving about.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe a witness to a lost dog," said Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"Or someone I can punch," Joe said. He led the way to the greenhouse. Its panes seemed to darken as they got closer, so that the interior was quite opaque when Joe laid a hand on the door handle. "Hello?" he called as he went in. "Is anyone—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Watch out!" he heard Frank yell, and he felt his brother grab and push him down. As he twisted around he saw a bright flash.<br/>
<br/>
It was a sharp blade, and it was swinging right at him!</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121211111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (12)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Twelve<br/>
The Greenhouse and Its Gardener</div><br/>
"Watch out, Joe!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank grabbed his brother by the shoulders and pushed him out of the path of the hurtling blade. It swished through the air at just the right height and angle to have sliced clean through Joe's neck, and embedded itself in the wooden door frame.<br/>
<br/>
Joe's eyes were like saucers as he looked up from the ground. "Fast thinking, Frank," he said. "Faster than I could have-- How did you--?"<br/>
<br/>
"You tripped a lever on the door," Frank said, and pointed. Sure enough, there was little latch attached to the upper frame of the doorway, such that anyone who opened it would trip it. It was attached to a wire that was in turn attached to a hook that had been holding back a large, heavy scythe. That scythe was attached to a heavy spring, and that's what had given it such a terrific force--probably enough to have taken Joe's head clean off his shoulders! "I just happened to see that lever move," said Frank, "and instinct took over."<br/>
<br/>
He looked pale as he said it, and his eyes were very wide. Joe saw at once that his brother had had a very bad fright.<br/>
<br/>
"You know what this means," Joe said, and he stared at Frank with an angry, narrow-eyed expression. "It means Dad's going to give you some kind of dumb medal for being so good, and I'm gonna get yelled and have to extra chores--" His voice rose with mounting fury until he choked himself.<br/>
<br/>
Frank turned scarlet. "Is that all you can think about, you little pimple? What <i>Dad's</i> going to say?"<br/>
<br/>
"Is there anything more important than that?"<br/>
<br/>
"How about the fact that that knife just about took your head off?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's right, rub in," Joe jeered. "Make a big production of it so you can brag about how you-- <i>Urk!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Frank grabbed his brother by the throat and lifted him off the ground. He was very careful not to choke him, but he didn't mind it if Joe got a little bit hurt. "Do you ever stop thinking about yourself, and how to make yourself bigger and more important?" he said in a voice so thick and it was like he was strangling himself. "Do you ever think about me, and about--"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure I do," Joe said in a croak. "That's how come I'm trying to piss you off."<br/>
<br/>
Frank blinked hard. "What did you say?"<br/>
<br/>
"Are you feeling better, Frank?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm feeling--"<br/>
<br/>
"You're not feeling sad and scared because I almost got my head lopped off?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Good. Mission accomplished. Put me down."<br/>
<br/>
Frank obliged, but still frowned fiercely at Joe. "So what was that about?"<br/>
<br/>
"It was about getting to you stop feeling so sick, like you were about to throw up or faint."<br/>
<br/>
"That wasn't very nice, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, it made you forget to feel so awful, and until you grabbed me--" Joe rubbed his throat. "It was making me feel pretty good too."<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever. I suppose we should find--" He looked around. "Didn't we come in here because we thought we saw someone?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah." Joe glanced around.<br/>
<br/>
"But whoever it was, he didn't come running. That's funny."<br/>
<br/>
Frank was right. Though the boys had been raising a loud ruckus, no one had come to investigate. So they decided to find out what had happened to the shadowy figure they had glimpsed inside the greenhouse.<br/>
<br/>
They quickly decided they didn't much like the place. There was a thick, sickly sweet scent in the air near the entrance, and the glass walls were lined with towering ferns and some small trees bearing bulbous fruits and pods that they didn't want to look closely at. The interior was taken up with square crates that had been adapted into flower pots. In these were a variety of strangely shaped plants. Most of these were unfamiliar to the boys, but Joe pointed to a couple: "Pitcher plants," he said in a low voice. "Carnivorous."<br/>
<br/>
"Fits with a deadly booby trap on the door," Frank observed.<br/>
<br/>
As they neared the rear of the greenhouse the odor changed to one of rot and decay. "That'll be the orchids," Joe said as he tried not to breathe through his nose. He pointed at some lividly yellow flowers with long, narrow, drooping petals.<br/>
<br/>
"Those don't look like any orchids I've ever seen."<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Bulbophyllum,</i>" said Joe, and he covered his nose and mouth now, for the stench was overpowering. "They attract flies by smelling like--"<br/>
<br/>
He stopped. Frank was right. Though these looked superficially like the orchids he had referred to, Joe thought that these looked strange. The petals were very thick, for a start, and they didn't curve but instead bent in spots with something like joints.<br/>
<br/>
They looked almost like human fingers.<br/>
<br/>
And as he and Frank stared at them--<br/>
<br/>
"Who's in here?" a rough, hissing voice called.<br/>
<br/>
The boys whirled, then hurried back toward the doorway. A man was standing in it.<br/>
<br/>
He was tall and bony, with sunken cheeks and a pointed chin. He was wearing large, dark sunglasses that completely hid his eyes. Atop his head was a wide-brimmed hat made of roughly woven straw, which did little to correct the impression that he was either bald or closely shaved. He was wearing a green button-up shirt made of some thin material, and heavy, beige-colored trousers. He wore heavy canvas gloves.<br/>
<br/>
And in one of his hands was a machete.<br/>
<br/>
Still, this didn't frighten the boys, though of course it did make them wary. Joe briefly laid his hand on Frank's upper arm.<br/>
<br/>
It was a kind of private signal that they had developed. It meant that Joe would handle the talking while Frank quietly prepared for a fight, if that's what it came to.<br/>
<br/>
So while Joe put on his best smile and prepared to be charming, Frank lowered his eyes and thought of the planet Mars.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, we're really sorry about trespassing, sir," said Joe. "We really didn't mean to. But we're helping some friends look for their lost dog, and we thought we saw someone in here, so we came inside to talk, but I guess it was our imagination or something, because--" He looked around. "We didn't find anyone in here."<br/>
<br/>
The man said nothing immediately in reply, and Joe thought he felt a keen and malignant intelligence being turned on him and his brother. Then the man shifted his head by just a little, as though nodding at the blade still embedded in the door frame. "You don't scare easy, do you, kid?" His voice was a hoarse kind of whisper: fierce and grating on the ear.<br/>
<br/>
Joe grimaced bashfully and kicked at the ground. "Yeah, how about that? That's one kick-ass medieval security system you got on your greenhouse, Mr.-- Uh."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't like trespassers or snoopers," the man said. "I've got some very valuable plants in here, worth more than the heads of a couple of a rotten kids." The "s" at the end of "kids" slithered out in a rattling lisp.<br/>
<br/>
Joe ran his fingers through his hair. "Well, it nearly gave me a haircut, sir," he said. "But about the dog--"<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't seen any dogs around here," the man snapped. "Now get out." He stepped aside with a scowl.<br/>
<br/>
There didn't seem to be any reasoning with him, so Frank and Joe did as he requested, though they felt quite jumpy as they passed the machete, which the greenhouse's owner still half-brandished. Joe turned to say goodbye, but one look at the other's twisted-up face caused him to change his mind.<br/>
<br/>
But they hadn't gone more than a dozen steps before the man called to them, and they turned around. "What are your names?" he said.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, the dog belongs to Cody and Kayla Henderson," Joe started to say.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not interested in any dogs!" the man angrily retorted. "I want to know who to blame if any of my plants have been damaged. I'll swear out a police report on you, have you arrested and locked away if you've broken or even touched anything in there! So what are your names?" He was almost frothing.<br/>
<br/>
"My name's Bob Andrews, and my friend is Peter Crenshaw," Joe said in his most abashed manner. Those were aliases that he and Frank had sometimes used, being the names of some junior detectives in a book series that they had enjoyed reading as kids. "And please sir, we didn't touch anything, I swear, not after that booby trap almost--"<br/>
<br/>
Just be off with you," the man growled, and Frank and Joe hurried away.<br/>
<br/>
But they had just gotten inside the screen of trees when Frank pulled his brother to a halt. "Let's go back," he said. "I wanna see something."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I wanna see if that guy peels off his skin and turns into a lizard or a snake," Joe said. "I bet he's got alligator eyes or something behind those sunglasses."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to see <i>him,</i> Joe. You did a good job talking to him, but I think you missed something important. I think I almost missed it, and I want to double-check."<br/>
<br/>
Cautiously they crept back out into the open space where the house sat. The owner had apparently gone inside his greenhouse, but Frank ignored the latter, and craned his head all around. After a few seconds, he slapped Joe in the chest and pulled him back inside the woods.<br/>
<br/>
His brother was almost frantic with curiosity. "So what did you see?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's what I didn't see," said Frank with a gleam in his eye. "That car is parked in a dirt driveway, and there are tire tracks leading up to where it's parked."<br/>
<br/>
"Naturally."<br/>
<br/>
"But there's no path or road leading out of the driveway. That house is completely hemmed in by the woods on one side, and by a cliff on the other."<br/>
<br/>
Joe sucked in a sharp breath.<br/>
<br/>
Frank smiled mirthlessly. "So in the absence of a road leading to the house, how did that car get there?"</span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211212111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (13)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Thirteen<br/>
Invisible Pathways</div><br/>
The boys talked about it all the way back to Cody and Kayla's house: How could a car have gotten onto the driveway of that odd house when there was no path connecting it to the nearest road? "The house is completely screened in by trees," Frank said as they walked along. "Except on the side where it looks out into Colfax Canyon, and there's a steep drop on that side."<br/>
<br/>
"And you know what's on the other side of Colfax Canyon, right?" Joe said. "The road where a green sedan tried to run me over the other day."<br/>
<br/>
"It tried to run you over? You're making this very personal."<br/>
<br/>
"The way I look at it, Frank, someone's got it in for me. First, he tried running me over. Then he tried cutting my head off -- "<br/>
<br/>
"We don't know it's the same guy."<br/>
<br/>
"What are you suggesting, that I've got enemies, plural?"<br/>
<br/>
"Father Ed would be glad of the company," Frank said with a faint smile.<br/>
<br/>
Joe politely clapped. "Funny. But you'll need to work up some better material if you're thinking of auditioning at the Giggle Hut."<br/>
<br/>
There wasn't any good news at Cody and Kayla's house; their poodle was still missing. The boys gave Theresa Hopkins a ride back to her house -- or Joe did, for she clung to the back of his machine, hugging him tightly all the way as he grinned inside his helmet. She also didn't have any good news when they asked about her own dog, for it appeared that Buster was gone for good. "All these dogs disappearing," she said. "I hope it's not because there's a bear on the loose."<br/>
<br/>
"I doubt it's a bear," said Frank. "If a bear had taken Noodles out of the yard, we'd have heard a commotion."<br/>
<br/>
Theresa gasped. "I wasn't thinking of it getting into anyone's yard!" But now she was, and she looked around nervously.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's why we know it's not a bear," Frank stammered as Joe glared at him. "Noodles just got over the fence, that's all. She'll be back in a couple of hours, you'll see."<br/>
<br/>
"Unless there is a bear around," Theresa said. "And that's what got Buster and Noodles!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank frowned. "I thought you said animal control picked Buster up."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you said they made a mistake," she replied, and her own frown deepened.<br/>
<br/>
Joe pulled her into a comforting hug. "Never mind Frank," he said in a soothing voice. "He says lots of things that he only thinks he understands. Like, one time I asked him the definition of a triangle, and he said it was a musical instrument!"<br/>
<br/>
"It is a musical instrument!" Frank exclaimed. "You play it in an orchestra -- !"<br/>
<br/>
"That thing isn't a musical instrument," Joe said, rolling his eyes. "That's just something they give you to fool around with after they find out you don't have any talent. Anyway, I was asking about the mathematical object -- "<br/>
<br/>
Theresa pulled away from him. "I played the triangle in elementary school orchestra," she said in a hurt tone.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, well, it's not like they expect elementary students to know how to play a real instrument yet," Joe stammered in reply.<br/>
<br/>
But Theresa's lower lip was starting to tremble. "You're always bragging about how you could play the violin when you were five!"<br/>
<br/>
Joe looked hurt. "I brag?"<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks for the ride back," Theresa said. "I'll talk to you later." She turned toward her house.<br/>
<br/>
"Theresa!" Joe called.<br/>
<br/>
But Frank yanked him back. "We'll talk to you in a few days," he called after the girl as she mounted the porch, but she just walked inside without turning around. "Trust me as someone who's always saying the wrong thing to a girl," he told Joe as he pulled him over to the motorbikes. "Give her a couple of days to forget you acted like a jerk."<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't -- " Joe sputtered, but the rest of his words were lost in the roar of Frank's bike coming to life.<br/>
<br/>
They rode back into town, to the museum, where they knew they'd find their dad in the secret storeroom, for they wanted to tell him about the party, and about the vanishing dog, and about the house they found while searching. There was no one out front guarding the museum's front foyer so they found their way into the basement without being caught.<br/>
<br/>
The process of getting into the Stellae's archives was a very curious one, for you had to perform a ritual to get the door to work.<br/>
<br/>
So Frank and Joe walked up the center aisle of the basement past three rows of aluminum shelving, then turned left and marched to a shelf on a side aisle, where Frank rotated an Indian arrowhead three times clockwise and twice counterclockwise. Then they returned to the center aisle and hooked another left into another alcove where Frank pulled a cotton ball from inside a ceramic pot, wrapped a penny in it, and replaced it. Next, they marched to the main door to the collections room, and Frank traced his name on it with a fingertip. At the other end of the room -- "Oh, please, let me do it!" Joe begged. Frank shrugged, so Joe tapped a complicated, syncopated rhythm against the wall.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know why you always get so fancy with it," Frank grumbled. "It's just seven taps."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, Shave and a Haircut," Joe said, "because Father Ed can't remember anything more complicated than that. But when I'm in charge of the archives -- "<br/>
<br/>
"When you're in charge of the archives, we'll lock you inside so we never have to deal with you again."<br/>
<br/>
Just then the door to the collections rattled, and Frank and Joe had to jump out of sight before it opened. "Who's in here," a crow-like voice called out.<br/>
<br/>
But they were already gone. The coded knock was the last step in the ritual, and they were already on the other side of the secret door.<br/>
<br/>
Each time they entered, they found themselves in a different part of the archive, and when they looked around now, they saw they were in one of the hexagonal library rooms. Joe did a double-take at the blonde-haired figure on the other side of the room. "Hey, I did what you said and kept ahold of my head," he yelled at the guy.<br/>
<br/>
Frank grabbed him. "Shut up. Remember what Dad said about temporal paradoxes. Come on."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, they're always trying to get ahead of you," the figure chuckled in reply. Joe started to make a retort, but Frank dragged him out of the room first.<br/>
<br/>
It took them awhile to get out of the library portion of the archives because it was organized like a maze, and the corridors kept doubling back on themselves. They finally had to follow a man in knee breeches and an old-fashioned powdered wig at a discreet distance before they got out. Joe gasped at one point when their informal guide showed his face on turning a corner. "You know who that is, don't you?" he hissed to Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, but keep your mouth shut. Bad enough you can't keep quiet when you see yourself."<br/>
<br/>
Joe groaned. "If only I had my violin with me. Or even a harmonica."<br/>
<br/>
"Button it, Joe. I've heard he likes to throw his wig at troublemakers, and in your case he'd probably throw his shoes, too."<br/>
<br/>
After a journey of another fifteen minutes they had made their way into that part of the archives where their father could reliably be found working or relaxing. But he was nowhere about. "Do you suppose Mrs. Rittenaur caught him and put him to work?" Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"She was loitering near the door," Joe replied. "But if that were the case, she'd be supervising him, not looking for him."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you waiting for Charles," said someone directly behind them.<br/>
<br/>
They jumped and whirled. "Who are you?" Joe demanded suspiciously. He didn't recognize the speaker -- a young man dressed in desert-camo pants and a burgundy t-shirt -- and standard procedure in the archives was to ignore anyone you didn't know.<br/>
<br/>
"We haven't met yet," said the newcomer, who had crept up behind them without being heard.<br/>
<br/>
"In that case, we definitely shouldn't be talking," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"In this case there's no harm," the stranger replied, and his eyes twinkled with suppressed laughter. "Because Charles asked me to give you a message if you came looking." He lightly accented the name "Charles."<br/>
<br/>
It was one of the perks of the job that the head of Stellae always had permission to talk to other members of the order, whether from the past, present or future, so Frank and Joe relaxed and nodded expectantly.<br/>
<br/>
"He's at home making cupcakes," said the stranger.<br/>
<br/>
"That's the message?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Hey, what's that behind you?" the stranger shouted, and pointed.<br/>
<br/>
Joe and Frank spun about. But it was only a blank wall. When they looked around again, the stranger had vanished.<br/>
<br/>
"Hmph," Joe snorted. "I don't know what all this means, unless it's Dad's funny way of -- Waahhh!"<br/>
<br/>
He cried out as he fell, and he'd fallen as he'd take a step. When he turned over he discovered that his shoelaces had been tied together. "How did -- ? Oh!" he exclaimed angrily. "When that guy, whoever he is, joins the Stellae, I am so giving him an atomic wedgie!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sure he's just getting back at you for something you did to him," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"If I did -- ! I mean, if I do something to him, it'll be because of what he just did to me!" Joe bent to untie the laces, then froze.<br/>
<br/>
He had fallen in such a way that he could see through the open doorway of one of the other rooms, and he spotted something they had missed during their search: the chess-playing automaton that their father liked to relax with.<br/>
<br/>
He could also see something else. The Turk's head was missing.</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112121111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (14)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Fourteen<br/>
A Man's Home Is Sometimes His Castle</div><br/>
Joe impatiently kicked off his shoes -- still tied together -- and scrambled across the floor into the other room. Frank followed.<br/>
<br/>
Together they examined the automaton. Though the Turk's head was missing, the rest of the mechanism appeared unchanged and undamaged.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe Nash has been in, and he's taking another crack at figuring out how it works?" Frank suggested.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe," Joe said. He opened the cabinet doors to peer inside at the machinery.<br/>
<br/>
"I wonder if it still works without its head." Frank started setting the white pieces -- most of which were all lined up next to the board -- into position.<br/>
<br/>
"Frank," said Joe. "Frank!"<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe's head popped up, his mouth a perfect "o" of astonishment. "What did you do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing!"<br/>
<br/>
"You did something!" Joe stabbed an accusing finger at the short line of pawns Frank had set up. "Those weren't there before!"<br/>
<br/>
"So I put some -- " He stopped. "Did the machinery start moving?"<br/>
<br/>
But Joe didn't answer. He swept the pawns off the board and l peered with a frown back into the cabinet. "You messed it up!"<br/>
<br/>
"What did I mess up?" Frank felt his temper hotting up, and came around to squat beside his brother. He saw nothing very interesting inside the cabinet -- it just contained a lot of brass gears and rods.<br/>
<br/>
Joe stood up and studied the chessboard intently while pulling at his lip. He pointed at the black pieces. "I would bet anything that the king and rook got to those squares by castling," he said. "Maybe that's it!"<br/>
<br/>
"What's it? And what's castling?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know how to play chess."<br/>
<br/>
"Just the basics," Frank said. "It's you and Dad who really play."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, if it is castling," Joe said as he snapped his fingers, "I can explain it to you and maybe solve the mystery."<br/>
<br/>
"What mystery?" Frank cried out.<br/>
<br/>
But Joe ignored him and busily set the board back up again, pausing every once in awhile to check inside the cabinet. "You watch what happens inside there while I play a fast game against myself," he told his brother.<br/>
<br/>
"What's the point of that?"<br/>
<br/>
"To get the pieces back to where they were!" Joe calmed down after seeing the black bruise of impatience that appeared on Frank's forehead. "If I'm right, something very strange will happen when the black pieces castle. But castling isn't just a matter of putting the pieces on the right squares. It's how they get there. So I have to play a game that puts them there in the right way."<br/>
<br/>
Frank cocked a skeptical eyebrow, and bent beside the cabinet to watch the machinery. Joe then moved a pawn out, and waited for the Turk to make an answering move. But as he suspected, without its head the Turk was broken, so he moved a black piece himself.<br/>
<br/>
Quickly -- though without using his prodigious speed -- Joe played both sides of the tournament. He and his dad played a lot of chess when there was nothing else to do, and Joe was bright enough that even as a young boy he had mastered most of the classic chess playing moves. So he didn't have to ponder what moves to make, and all the time he was careful to keep the black king and one of the black rooks motionless, and to play so that a handful of other pieces -- both black and white -- came to rest on just those squares where he and Frank had found them.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, he saw that he was ready to make the experiment. "Has anything happened under there?" he asked Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"No," said Frank, and he sounded a little bored. "Are you almost done?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just one more move. Come watch if you want to see what 'castling' is."<br/>
<br/>
Frank raised up and watched with a mild curiosity.<br/>
<br/>
"You see the black king and black rook? Notice how there aren't any pieces between them? Also, they haven't moved the entire game. Now watch."<br/>
<br/>
Joe moved the king two squares toward the rook.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, you can't move the king two -- !"<br/>
<br/>
"You can when you castle," Joe said. "Here's the rest of the move. He moved the rook toward the king, jumped over it, and dropped the tower-shaped piece onto the square just on the other side of the king. "If you haven't moved those two pieces, and there's nothing between them, then you can do what I just did. That's called 'castling'. Oh, also, the king can't move from, through, or into check," Joe added, and he glanced around the board to make sure that he hadn't broken that rule.<br/>
<br/>
"If you say so," Frank said. "Can we go now?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's what we have to find out," Joe said. "This is what the board looked like when we came in, right?" He crossed his fingers and closed his eyes. "Now check out the inside of the cabinet again."<br/>
<br/>
Frank looked dubious, but squatted to peer into the cabinet. <br/>
<br/>
He froze. "Joe," he said.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Joe!"<br/>
<br/>
"It worked, didn't it?" Joe leaped over the board in his excitement, and crowed with triumph when he looked into the cabinet.<br/>
<br/>
All the gleaming metalwork -- the rods and gears and chains -- had vanished. Instead the cabinet was now taken up with -- <br/>
<br/>
"It's a secret passage," Frank said in an awed whisper.<br/>
<br/>
That was the only way to describe it. It was a duct, about thirty inches on each side, that was longer than the width of the cabinet. Frank scrambled around to examine the other side of Turk. It was closed up tight. But the secret duct looked like it ran all the way through the cabinet, and through the space and the wall on the other side, to end in a square of light almost thirty yards away. <br/>
<br/>
The boys looked at each other. "We should call Dad," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you crazy, you'll interrupt his cupcake making! I'm going in." Joe pushed his head and shoulders through the opening.<br/>
<br/>
But Frank grabbed him by the belt and pulled him back out. "We don't know what's on the other side!"<br/>
<br/>
"It can't be anything dangerous, Frank. Think about it! We're in the archives, and the only people who can get in are Stellae like us. If there's anyone on the other end, it'll be Nash or someone like that. He was probably playing around with the mechanism and found this secret passage, and he went through to check out what's on the other side."<br/>
<br/>
"It could still be dangerous."<br/>
<br/>
Joe rolled his eyes. "Aren't you studying to be the big, brave strong one?"<br/>
<br/>
"That doesn't mean I'm stupid or reckless!"<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway, if it is dangerous, and Nash is in trouble, we might be just who he needs to save him." Again Joe pushed himself into the passageway.<br/>
<br/>
But he paused at Frank's reply: "Except it might not be Nash in there," he said. "What if it's Father Ed on the other side?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe banged his head on the inside of the cabinet as he withdrew. "Yeah, maybe you're right and we should leave it alone."<br/>
<br/>
Now Frank was the one who rolled his eyes. "Why are you such a baby about him?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not the baby, he's the baby," Joe retorted hotly. "I'm totally level-headed, Frank, I'm mature! He's the one who goes around honking at everything!"<br/>
<br/>
"You know what? I'll go look and see what's on the other end," Frank said. "Anything to get away from you for a couple of minutes."<br/>
<br/>
Joe turned purple, but held his tongue. "What do you want me to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just stay here and watch. Keep the passage open."<br/>
<br/>
So Joe hunched and watched anxiously as Frank got down on all fours and crawled into the passageway. His body blocked the light from the other end of the duct until he'd gone all the way down and come out the opposite side. Joe saw his legs briefly as Frank stood up, but then they disappeared as he moved around to explore. "Hey," Joe called. "Hey! Frank!"<br/>
<br/>
A dark blob appeared at the other end. "What is it?" Frank's voice was distant and hollow sounding.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you see?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing, yet! Give me a minute, will you?"<br/>
<br/>
Again, Frank vanished, and Joe tapped his knee nervously with the side of his fist. Then Frank's head appeared again. "Okay, come on through!"<br/>
<br/>
Joe didn't have to ask again what Frank had found. He hurried along on hands and knees, puffing excitedly, until he came out the other end. Frank helped him up, and he looked around.<br/>
<br/>
There wasn't much to see. They were in a large, dimly lit room with a high ceiling and polished wood floors. Joe turned around, and saw to his surprise -- though he instantly felt he shouldn't have been surprised -- that he and Frank had emerged from another chess-playing Turkish automaton, the twin of the one they had crawled into.<br/>
<br/>
Only this one still had a head. "I didn't know there were two of them," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"There aren't!" Joe exclaimed. "It's a wormhole! This is incredible! There's only one automaton, and when you go inside it at one place, you pop out of the same automaton in another place!"<br/>
<br/>
"How can the Turk be in two places at once?"<br/>
<br/>
"We're in another time, too," Joe said. He stiffened with excitement. "Don't you feel it? This isn't the twenty-first century anymore!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank punched him in the shoulder. "How can you possibly tell what a 'century' feels like?"<br/>
<br/>
He knocked Joe back a step, and that's what led to disaster, for Joe bumped into the open door of the cabinet, and it banged shut. Instantly, the Turk lifted and moved a piece on the board. "Echec et mat!" it exclaimed in its grating, mechanical voice.<br/>
<br/>
Joe and Frank exchanged a horrified glance, and opened the cabinet. The duct had vanished, replaced by brass machinery.<br/>
<br/>
Checkmated indeed!</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121211111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (15)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Fifteen<br/>
Through Another Kind of Looking Glass</div><br/>
Frank and Joe looked at each other. "Can you use that same castling trick to open it up again?" Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"Beats me." Joe looked around. "But suddenly I don't want to stick around here for someone to find us. We should find another way out."<br/>
<br/>
"You said there was nothing to worry about," Frank reminded him. "You said it would be Nash in here."<br/>
<br/>
"I said it might be Nash. You said it might be Father Ed, and that's plenty to worry about. Besides," Joe added as he rubbed his arm. "Suddenly I'm not so sure."<br/>
<br/>
"The automaton is the only way we know to get out, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"We don't know that it will get us out, Frank! Look at the board." They studied it together. "There's no pattern there, like there was on the other end. I don't see any obvious 'gambit' in play here. The pieces are just spread out any which way."<br/>
<br/>
"So all of us might be stuck here," Frank said. "That's great, considering we don't even know where we are."<br/>
<br/>
"That's why we need to find another exit. How's your sense of direction, in case we need to find our way back to this room?"<br/>
<br/>
"How about I knock your teeth out and we leave them as a trail?"<br/>
<br/>
But there was only one door out of the room, so that's the one they took. It led into a long hallway with a very high ceiling. One wall was covered in ornate paneling, and the other with tall, narrow windows. These were pitch black. Joe pressed his hands and face against one, trying to peer out. But could see nothing, and shook his head in answer to Frank's querying eyebrow. <br/>
<br/>
At the end of the hallway they came out in another gallery, this one taller and wider than the last. Shadows clung to the corners, and as they looked around Joe nudged his brother. "Notice how there aren't any candles? No electric lights? Just an ambient glow? I got a feeling this place isn't actually a 'place', not like a place we could find by walking or driving up to it."<br/>
<br/>
"It's a world between worlds, you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, it's more like -- " Joe frowned. "I can't place it, but doesn't it feel real familiar to you? Like you've been here before?"<br/>
<br/>
"It looks kind of like that castle we visited in Poland."<br/>
<br/>
"You're just picking up on the Baroque architecture. I mean, don't you feel the atmosphere of the place?"<br/>
<br/>
"If I do, it's only because of the way you're talking. Which door do we try?" There were three of them, in addition to the one they had come in, leading in different directions.<br/>
<br/>
"In a maze, you always turn left," said Joe, and led the way to a set of double doors set in a very long wall.<br/>
<br/>
On and on they tracked their way through grandiose galleries and hallways and cathedral-like spaces. Some of the rooms had darkened windows, and others were windowless. Some of the passageways had low ceilings and others had high, vaulting ones. All were paneled with woodwork or plaster; the floors were sometimes made of wood and sometimes tiled with marble. But there were no rugs or carpets; no pictures or hangings; and not a stick of furniture. If they hadn't been wearing sneakers their footsteps would have echoed loudly, but even so the rustle of their clothes set off whispery echoes in the chilly, empty spaces.<br/>
<br/>
They never met anyone, either.<br/>
<br/>
They turned left every time they had a choice, for they had long since given up hope of finding their way back to the automaton unless they set a simple pattern that they could follow in reverse. Sometimes they worried they had accidentally backtracked on themselves, for some of the rooms they entered looked like ones they had already walked through. But neither of them actually groaned with worry until they walked onto a wide balcony overlooking what looked like a ballroom. On their left was a wide, sweeping staircase leading down, and the boys leaned wearily against each other when they realized that perhaps they had done no more than explore the top floor of a very big building.<br/>
<br/>
"Do we go back now?" Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess," Joe said. First, though, he opened the set of double doors that was the only other way off the balcony. Behind them was a short hallway leading to a junction of three more doors: another set of double doors just in front of them, and a single door each to the left and to the right. "Let's look in here first."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to get lost."<br/>
<br/>
"It's just three doors, Frank," Joe said as he opened the other set of double doors. He gasped at what was on the other side.<br/>
<br/>
It was a library, and what a library it was! It must have covered an acre of ground. Widely spaced shelves occupied most of the floor space, but here and there were tables and desks and chairs. In some of the alcoves stood suits of gleaming armor, and in the middle of a wide, open square near the middle was the skeleton of a four-legged beast with a long tail, outstretched wings, and the skull of a predator bird. Joe clutched Frank's arm. "That's a griffin!"<br/>
<br/>
"Just the place for one," Frank said. "I don't like it here."<br/>
<br/>
"I know, I know. Books make you nervous."<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up. I mean, this whole place does. Don't you feel it? The air's got that greasy feel you get when -- "<br/>
<br/>
"That's it, Frank!" Joe grabbed him again. "That's what this place reminds me of! The archives, the Stellae archives!" He looked around with shining eyes. "This isn't a world between worlds! It's a pocket world, like the archives. The Turk automaton is a door into this pocket world, like the door in the museum is a door into the Stellae archives!" He let out a low whistle. It's even got a crazy ritual to open it!"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, but whose archives are we in? It doesn't feel like ours, it feels a lot nastier."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but it's the same species," Joe muttered. "Like 'tails' to the coin that's got our archives as 'heads'." His eye fell onto a nearby writing desk. "Hey, lookit here, someone's doing some research." Sure enough, on the desk was an open book, a notebook and a pencil. Joe glanced through them. "I'm pretty sure I don't like the guy who's camping out here, and I definitely don't like that we found a way for him to get between here and our own archives," he said, and tucked the book and notebook under his arm. "So let's make his life harder."<br/>
<br/>
"If we can find a way out," said Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"There's got to be an exit close by. If not downstairs then just off this library. Whoever this guy is, I can't picture him traipsing all around this castle or whatever just to get to and from this writing desk."<br/>
<br/>
So the boys hunted all over the library, but without success. "Those two doors just outside," Joe said, and they returned to the junction. One of the other doors just opened into a closet. The other, though, opened into the crook of an L-shaped hallway. Open doorways were at the end of each short branch. As the corridors were so short, Frank and Joe split up to check out each one independently.<br/>
<br/>
Joe took the one to the left, and as he approached the doorway he thought there was something familiar about it. It was framed on two sides by thick, square-cut moldings, like pillars, that had been painted a brilliant white. On the floor just inside the doorway was a slip of paper. Joe picked it up as he stepped through into a small room furnished with a table covered in a short cloth. Resting on the table was an astrolabe.<br/>
<br/>
All the hair on Joe's body prickled.<br/>
<br/>
Just in front of him was a very large, clear window, big enough for him to step through if he wanted. That window didn't face an outside scene, however. It looked into another room -- the room in the Stellae archives where he and his father had deposited the altered portrait of Hieronymus von Gerssdorff.<br/>
<br/>
Joe looked down at the paper he'd picked up. It was an itinerary. The same itinerary they had photographed in San Diego.<br/>
<br/>
Joe turned and looked at the room he was standing in.<br/>
<br/>
Now he recognized it for sure. He was standing inside the portrait they had brought back from San Diego.<br/>
<br/>
But he didn't have long to ponder this surprise. A faint voice called his name.<br/>
<br/>
That was Frank. Joe dashed back down the hallway.<br/>
<br/>
The other corridor ended in a room whose farther wall was made of panes of glass. Frank was on the other side, pressing his palms against it as though trying to get back inside. <br/>
<br/>
"Frank! How did you get out there?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know." Frank's voice was very faint, as though coming from a great distance. "Where are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Right here!" Joe put his palm against Frank's. How the magic worked he didn't know, but the glass between them seemed to dissolve, and he fell into Frank's arms. When he turned around he saw himself and his brother reflected dimly in a dark mirror. They were standing in a greenhouse, and there was a nauseating stench in the air. "You know where we are, don't you, Joe?"<br/>
<br/>
"You bet I do. Let's get out of here!" They ran between buckets and crates holding large, flowering plants of evil shape. They ducked as they opened a door, dodging the scythe that swung over their heads. Only when they reached the edge of the woods did they look back. <br/>
<br/>
It was night, and the scene was very dark. A single light burned in the house beside the greenhouse, in the window of its tower. A man was standing at it, looking out and down at them.<br/>
<br/>
He was tall and thin, with a long, drooping moustache and beard. He wore a ruffled collar at his neck, and a black cap on his head.<br/>
<br/>
It was the missing magician!<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211212111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (16)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Sixteen<br/>
Time Out of Joint</div><br/>
The boys' motorbikes were still in town at the museum, so they hiked through the dark woods until they came to a road. "That's funny," said Frank as he checked his phone. "It's got to be at least nine o'clock, but my cell says it's only a little after seven."<br/>
<br/>
"Could be that time moves slower inside that pocket world than it does out here. You know, like in the Narnia books? Those kids went through a wardrobe and spent years on the other side, but when they came back only a few seconds had passed. Hang on!" Joe grabbed at Frank. "If time was moving slower inside that crazy castle than it was out here, it might be the same thing! It might not even be the same day or week or even year as when we left! We might be a hundred years in the future!"<br/>
<br/>
"We need to call Dad!" Frank said. His finger trembled as he tapped the screen of his phone.<br/>
<br/>
He let it buzz and buzz, but there was no answer.<br/>
<br/>
The boys began running, and didn't stop until they came to the Hopkins's house. They went up onto the porch, then stopped, gulping nervously. "Well, ring the bell," said Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"What if Theresa answers, and she's fifty years old?" Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"Then she'll have long since forgiven you for being a jerk to her this afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
"I mean, how will we explain -- ?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're always bragging about how good you are at talking your way out of a jam."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't brag, Frank! I just remind people I'm kind of awesome!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank rang the bell. From inside came a shrill barking. A moment later, a silhouette appeared in the glass of the door, and it opened.<br/>
<br/>
It was Theresa.<br/>
<br/>
The boys let out a sigh of relief, because she looked unchanged. She smiled brightly at them. "Hi Joe, Frank. What's going on? Down, Buster! Down!" She turned to yell at a Husky that was leaping and whirling behind her while yipping. "Bad dog!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, we were coming by to check on things," said Joe, who was glad to seize the opening. "When did you get Buster back?"<br/>
<br/>
"A couple of days ago." She stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. "You didn't hear?"<br/>
<br/>
"We've been out of town," Joe said. The dog was still yelping. "Is he okay? He sounds -- "<br/>
<br/>
"We don't know what's wrong with him," Theresa said, sounding exasperated. "He won't behave, he won't come when we call him, he's hyper all the time. He's lost all his training."<br/>
<br/>
"He sounds like he's not even the same dog," Frank said. "Are you sure it's Buster?"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course we are. He had his tags. He's just being weird."<br/>
<br/>
"How did he come back?"<br/>
<br/>
"Someone found him. It was the day after the party, you know, and we got back from driving into town, and he was tied up to a porch post with a bit of rope. Listen, I have to go," she said as an explosion of barks sounded inside. "It sounds like he found a mirror again."<br/>
<br/>
"Mirror?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, every time he sees himself in a mirror he just goes crazy. But thanks for stopping by."<br/>
<br/>
"At least it wasn't a bear," said Joe, nudging Frank. "By the way, what about Noodles? You know, Kayla and -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, he showed up again too, about the same time. Hey, I'll talk to you later, okay?" She ducked back inside the house, and Frank and Joe heard her yelling at Buster to be quiet, but without success.<br/>
<br/>
"Sounds like we missed almost a week," Frank said as they walked back to the road. "Dad'll be frantic."<br/>
<br/>
"No he won't. Dad's never frantic. He'll just be looking for us."<br/>
<br/>
"I told you we shouldn't have gone exploring inside the automaton. Hope you like week-old cupcakes," he added as he tried calling their father again.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, who was the first one through that secret passage?"<br/>
<br/>
"You were the first one inside it." Frank hung up. "Still no answer. I guess we walk home."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll run home, and if the car's there I'll come back for you."<br/>
<br/>
"You haven't got a license."<br/>
<br/>
"No one's going to catch me, Frank," Joe said in a scathing voice. "In fact, I'll run over to the museum and pick up our bikes, too, and be back here before you can touch that tree back there." He pointed.<br/>
<br/>
Frank looked back. "Why would I -- ?" And when he turned around again, Joe was nowhere to be seen. "You little bleeder!" he yelled into the darkness. He paced for a minute, then for a lack of anything better to do bent over to retie his laces. <br/>
<br/>
He was still working on the second shoe when, with a bang and a clatter, rocking on its chassis from a hard brake, their Dad's car appeared at his side. Joe grinned at him from behind the wheel. "Get in!"<br/>
<br/>
"Did you find Dad?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, the house was locked up tight, so I just got the spare keys from the shed and drove to the museum." Joe pressed the brake and accelerator simultaneously, and the engine roared and the tires shrieked. "Hang on, and I'll get us -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Drive normal!" Frank said. "Slow, so we don't get picked up."<br/>
<br/>
"If we don't want to get stopped by a cop, I should take it fast!"<br/>
<br/>
"We shouldn't be doing this at all," Frank said as he strapped himself in. "Take it slow, or I'll take the wheel. You already had your fun for tonight. Besides -- " he added as he took out his phone. "I want to talk to Rick, and I can't do that while you're pitching us along at a hundred and eighty thousand miles an hour."<br/>
<br/>
"Per second, Frank, but alright. You know," he said as he pushed the car slowly up to a sensible speed. "If it turns out this is Friday night, if Dad's gone, we could head downtown, cruise the strip, maybe pick up some -- uh, chili fries at the car hop," he said lamely as Frank turned a glare on him.<br/>
<br/>
Frank was calling Rick Bredon because Rick, in addition to being a Stellae, was also a private investigator, and Frank was certain that if he and Joe had gone missing, Rick would be the one that their Dad would send to look for them. But Frank was both subdued and puzzled when he hung up. "Rick didn't know anything about us being missing," he told Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"Did he say where Dad is?"<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't know. Well, actually, when I asked where Dad was, he said, 'Sitting on you two clowns, right?' Except he didn't say 'clowns,' he used a different word."<br/>
<br/>
Rick, being a tough-skinned citizen of the world, sometimes used harsh language, and he didn't mind using it around Frank and Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"So he assumes Dad's around town someplace?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess. He said he talked to Dad two nights ago, and Dad didn't say anything about us or about any crisis."<br/>
<br/>
They drove in silence for a bit.<br/>
<br/>
"This is very strange," said Joe. "Either something weird is going on, or else Dad -- " He broke off.<br/>
<br/>
"Or else Dad what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Or else Dad just assumes we're okay and can take care of ourselves? He doesn't micromanage Rick or anyone else who's working on a case."<br/>
<br/>
"I'd like to think that's what's going on," Frank said after a moment's thought. "But it's something I'd rather hear from Dad."<br/>
<br/>
They pulled up in front of their house about ten minutes later. They took their motorbikes from the back seat and trunk of the car and moved them into the shed. Their dog, Galaxy, wasn't around to greet them. "Hello? Dad?" Joe called when they were inside the darkened house.<br/>
<br/>
There was no answer.<br/>
<br/>
But when they went into the kitchen to get something to eat -- for they were both very hungry by now -- they found a small stack of twenty-dollar bills on the table along with a note in their father's neat handwriting. It said:<br/>
<br/>
<i>Gone fishing with Mike Duggan, be back Sunday night. Here's money for food. Cupcakes are in the freezer. Dad. PS. Took Galaxy with us.</i><br/>
<br/>
Neither boy thought the note mysterious, for Mike was an old friend of Dad's, and they liked to go fishing together up in the mountains a couple of times of a year. "I guess that's a relief," Frank said. "Sounds like he's not worried about us at all."<br/>
<br/>
Joe went to the freezer and stared into it thoughtfully. "Yep, and there are the cupcakes." He closed the door. "You know, I still think it's funny that he isn't worried. I mean, this is our first case, and we go missing for a couple of days, and he just goes fishing?"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you'd be happy, Joe. It shows he trusts us."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you'd be worried, Frank. You're such a worrier."<br/>
<br/>
Frank smiled tightly, and a gleam came into his eyes. "Maybe I'm just excited that we get to be independent. You're not?"<br/>
<br/>
But Joe hung his head. "Maybe I just want Dad watching, so he can see us being independent." He had the book and notebook they took from the strange library, and he dropped them on the table with a sigh. "After we eat, let's get started with these things. If Dad's going to let us do it all ourselves, it'd be nice to have things wrapped up when he comes back from fishing."</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112121111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (17)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Seventeen<br/>
New Clue Review</div><br/>
Frank and Joe fixed a supper of eggs, ham, and waffles for themselves, after which they got down to a serious discussion of the events of the day.<br/>
<br/>
"Events of the last six days," Joe corrected Frank, for they had checked the calendar on their laptop computer. "A lot happened to us, but a lot happened out here, too."<br/>
<br/>
"We should figure out our adventures first," Frank said. "It'll help us understand the rest." He stabbed a piece of ham with his fork. "That secret entrance through the Turk. What did you call that place we found on the other end?"<br/>
<br/>
"A pocket world," Joe said, and stuffed his mouth with a bite of waffle. "Like the pocket in your shirt, a little pouch with only one way in and out. It's like a tiny universe of its own, cut off from the rest of the world, and you can only get in and out of it by following a pathway. When you're inside it, you can't get back to the rest of the world except the way you came in, not even if you knocked down every wall or drove for a billion miles or drilled way down into the ground."<br/>
<br/>
"But that place had two doors," Frank said. "The Turk and the wall at the back of the greenhouse."<br/>
<br/>
"So there's two doors," said Joe. "That's allowed. There might be more."<br/>
<br/>
"Bad enough that there's one," said Frank. "If they got into that place, they could use the Turk to get into the archives, like the way thieves get into a bank by drilling a tunnel." He got up to get himself and Joe some milk. "And that room you found next to that library, you're sure it's the same room as is in the painting?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not the same as. The exact same! I mean, I was actually inside the painting! I picked up that piece of paper we saw inside the painting, and I could see out of it, into the archives, into the room where we put it, like I was looking out through the canvas."<br/>
<br/>
"I guess we can check tomorrow, see if that piece of paper is now missing from the painting. If you're right, that would explain how our thief managed to steal von Gerssdorff from inside it." Then he stopped with the refrigerator door still open. "Except it doesn't. What exactly did he steal? I mean, was it von Gerssdorff himself all that time inside the painting? Like, he was just standing there, like in a store window, trying not to move or blink?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," said Joe. "Maybe he was like a mannequin." He patted the book and notebook he'd taken from the library. "If we look at what the thief was researching, it might tell us what sort of thing he stole. I'll make that tonight's job."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you need from me?"<br/>
<br/>
"A steady supply of coffee?"<br/>
<br/>
Frank set a pot brewing while he and Joe finished eating. He had only one more question. "The thief. Do we think it was the guy at the greenhouse, with the machete?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who else could it be?"<br/>
<br/>
"We shouldn't jump to conclusions. It might be him, but it might be a different person at the house."<br/>
<br/>
"Fine. So long as we're agreed that the house with the car and the greenhouse are definitely mixed up in it.<br/>
<br/>
Frank easily accepted this, and he left Joe to pore over the book and notebook while he cleaned up the kitchen. After that, he sat with Joe to keep him company. But as his brother was concentrating very hard, he soon went back to their bedroom to read something of his own, something much lighter and easier on the brain.<br/>
<br/>
And Joe was still working when Frank fell asleep.<br/>
<br/>
He passed a restless night, for he kept thinking about -- and then dreaming about -- the day's events. He also missed having Joe in the next bed. Frank wasn't a light sleeper, but he had a special kind of sleep. It was another one of his prodigies, though one he had only started to develop recently. His mind, during sleep, would send out ephemeral things like roots or vines, to grasp onto things and people, so that if they moved -- or if something touched them -- he would wake up, instantly alert. He was used to having Joe nearby, and so he was troubled not to have his brother there to lightly grasp and protect.<br/>
<br/>
He woke at around six, and discovered that Joe had come to bed at some point without getting undressed, and was snoring heavily face-first into his pillow. Frank quietly got up and went for a long, hard run, and when he got back he took a short shower and changed into fresh clothes. There was a mess waiting for him in the kitchen: Joe had made himself either a very late second supper. Frank cleaned up, made himself some breakfast, then cleaned up again before sitting down to eat. He glanced at Joe's notes as he munched on toast, oatmeal, and a breakfast steak.<br/>
<br/>
The notes were all in Latin. Frank took a very deep breath and exhaled.<br/>
<br/>
Sometimes he couldn't help feeling very sorry for himself. It was one of his bad habits, one that Father Ed was always trying to break him of. It was very hard, though, because it was the bad side, the "tails" side, of one of his gifts. Frank could concentrate very thoroughly when he wanted to, shutting out the entire world and putting all his energy and mental power into thinking about things. He was constantly meditating, especially when exercising. But when he was alone with himself and his thoughts, it was very easy for him to think about all the things he was bad at, or which other people were better than him at.<br/>
<br/>
Take Joe, for instance. Frank was already a lot stronger than Joe, and he was going to get a lot stronger still. He was going to become one of the strongest men alive, his father had told him, and he was going to be able to do it without turning into a muscle-bound freak, because that strength was one of his prodigies. He was going to be a strong man, a great athlete, a skilled fighter, a powerful warrior.<br/>
<br/>
But what was all that next to what Joe could do? Joe could already speak a dozen languages fluently, and was learning more. Joe only had to read a book on a subject, and he could remember all that it said. And if it was a very complicated book on a very hard subject, like nuclear physics, he could still hold it in his head until he had read lots of other books that would help him understand it. Joe could go anywhere in all those books, could study and take apart and put together worlds that Frank couldn't even comprehend. He could play the violin and the piano, too, and he wrote music and poetry on the side. Everything Joe did was smart and graceful and beautiful, and he did it so easily. He could even talk to girls.<br/>
<br/>
Frank could pick up big rocks. If they weren't too big, he could throw them.<br/>
<br/>
He sighed deeply. Why should he be proud of being so strong? Which would he rather be, as strong as an elephant, or as smart as Joe? That was no contest. Who would want to be an elephant? So why would he want to be himself, when he wasn't even as strong as an elephant? <br/>
<br/>
At least he was smarter than an elephant.<br/>
<br/>
Barely, he grumbled to himself.<br/>
<br/>
If Frank could only have known: While he was sitting at the table feeling sorry for himself, Joe was in the bedroom wishing he was as strong as Frank. He was so tired from the night's efforts that he could barely get out of bed and into the bathroom. When he saw Frank's workout clothes, he mumbled to himself and almost fell over from feeling so weak.<br/>
<br/>
That was the thing about Frank. Yes, sometimes he could exhaust himself, and sometimes the exhaustion fell unexpectedly, as it did in San Diego. But the amazing thing about Frank was how persistent and dogged and disciplined he was. He would go jogging and work out in hot weather or cold weather, in dry weather or in a howling thunderstorm. When put his mind to anything intellectual, it might take him awhile to figure it out, but eventually he could break down the hardest brick wall with the power of his mind and the persistence of his will.<br/>
<br/>
For Joe, things came easily, but so did frustration. If he got baffled for even a few minutes, he could fly into a rage, shouting and yelling at the universe for being so hard to understand. Sometimes he could go into a long sulk when some problem or other didn't immediately dissolve, and more than once he'd made a mistake by grabbing onto an easy but bad solution when he got sick of trying to figure out a good but hard one.<br/>
<br/>
The book last night was a case in point. He doubted the book's subject was very hard, but the author wrote so badly in so many languages that it was almost impossible to figure out what he meant. Joe only got through it by thinking of Frank, and what Frank would do, and how he would never let himself get discouraged before wrestling it into submission. By four in the morning, Joe didn't feel victorious, exactly, but he at least felt on top of it.<br/>
<br/>
Now if only he could summon up the strength to wash up.<br/>
<br/>
But thirty minutes later, after Joe had had a shower and Frank had lifted some weights, they were both feeling restored to about ninety percent of their usual vigor. They sat in the living room to talk about the next phase of the investigation.</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121211111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (18)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Eighteen<br/>
Pieces and Parts</div><br/>
"What did you figure out last night," Frank asked Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't 'figure out' anything," Joe admitted. "But I do have some hypotheses. I think that our thief is interested in von Gerssdorff because he's interested in what von Gerssdorff was interested in."<br/>
<br/>
"Transmutation of lead into gold?" Frank asked.<br/>
<br/>
"We should be so lucky. Remember what Dad said about the alchemist, that he was interested in 'vivisection, but not the medical kind'?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, but I wasn't actually sure what he meant by that."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, vivisection is like dissection, except that dissection means you're cutting open something that's dead. Vivisection means you're cutting open something that's still alive."<br/>
<br/>
Frank turned very white. "Why would you want to do that?"<br/>
<br/>
"So you can see the machinery as it goes round and round. It's like when you're working on a car or motorbike. A diagram, like you get from dissecting a dead person, won't tell you everything about how things run. Sometimes you have to see the living stuff doing its thing before you understand how it works.<br/>
<br/>
"But in this case," Joe continued, "it's not medical vivisection, like a doctor cutting into a person or taking their organs out. It's metaphysical vivisection. It's chopping people up into a different set of parts."<br/>
<br/>
"Like what kind of parts?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like their soul," said Joe. "Instead of taking out their appendix and putting it in a jar, you put their soul in a jar. But you take it out in such a way that the body still works. So their body is one place, maybe still walking around and going to work or school and talking to people, but it's really just a robot made of meat. Meanwhile, their soul is sitting in a jar on a shelf."<br/>
<br/>
"You can do that?" Frank asked, and he looked even more horrified than when Joe was talking about cutting up living animals.<br/>
<br/>
"Me personally? No! But if you read the right books and learn the right techniques -- " Joe tapped the book he was holding in his lap. "It's a pretty black kind of black magic."<br/>
<br/>
He leaned forward. "And that's not the only kind of cutting up you can do. According to this book, there are at least three kinds of things you can cut out of a person. The first is their soul. The second is their essence."<br/>
<br/>
"What's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"More or less, it's the stuff that makes a thing the kind of thing that it is instead of some other kind of thing."<br/>
<br/>
Frank's face creased in puzzlement. Joe looked around, then pointed to a chair. "Okay, here's a kind of example. See that chair, how it's got four legs? Now suppose it only had three legs. Would it still be a chair?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," Frank said.<br/>
<br/>
"What if a chair had only one leg, in the middle. Would it still be a chair?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"What if it was made of metal, or ice? Would it still be a chair?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, see, it doesn't matter how many legs a chair has got, or what it's made of. That's not what makes a chair a chair. But now, what if it didn't have a seat? What if it was just a pole? Just a pole sticking out of the ground with no pad or seat or back or anything."<br/>
<br/>
"It's hard to sit on a pole," Frank said carefully.<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly! A pole isn't a chair, because you can't sit on a pole. The essence of being a chair is its, uh, sit-on-a-bility. That's essential to being a chair, because if you can't sit on it, then it isn't a chair. Now, most things have an essence. The essence of food is that it nourishes. The essence of light is that it illuminates. The essence of a person is that they are a rational animal."<br/>
<br/>
"So black magic can also pull the essence out of a person?"<br/>
<br/>
"According to this book, yes, though it doesn't say how. But just as you can cut out a person's soul, you can cut out their essence. Bottle them both separately."<br/>
<br/>
"What's the third thing you can cut out from them?"<br/>
<br/>
"Something called 'image'." <br/>
<br/>
"Like what a thing looks like?"<br/>
<br/>
"More than that." Again, Joe looked around the room, then he went into the kitchen and came back with an apple. "Okay, when you've got a thing, there are a lot of about it that you can sense, like its shape and its color and its weight and its taste. So for example, this apple. It's round. It's red. It weighs a couple of ounces. It's cold. It's smooth." Joe put it to his nose. "It smells a little musty." He bit into it. "It's crunchy and juicy and sweet and a little bit tart," he said with a full mouth. "All of those things are sensations that go with the apple. All of those, together, are the image of the apple. Not just what it looks like, but what it smells like and tastes like and feels like -- " Joe thumped the apple with his finger. "What it sounds like."<br/>
<br/>
He handed the apple to Frank. "You can't sense a soul or an essence. They don't look or feel like anything. They don't weigh anything. The only part of a thing that you can sense is its image. But according to this book, you can take away the image, too. You can take away the color and shape and texture and taste and weight and all the rest. It would be like destroying the apple but storing it as information."<br/>
<br/>
Joe let Frank study the apple thoughtfully for a moment, then continued when Frank didn't ask any questions.<br/>
<br/>
"This book says that you can do all that to a person. Take out their soul and put it in a jar. Take out the essence and put it in a jar. After that, I'm not sure what you have left, except maybe a corpse or a statue. But even after that you can strip off their image and store it someplace so you don't even have the corpse left."<br/>
<br/>
"What's left if you do all that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing worth talking about. Nothing at all, really, because there's no image to bump into or play with. But here's something else, if you cut a bunch of people apart this way, you can mix and match the pieces and put them back together again. Like stitching together Frankenstein's monster."<br/>
<br/>
Joe sat back, and gave Frank a very serious look. "I haven't 'figured' anything out. But my hypothesis is that that's what our thief is trying to do. Based on his notes, he's got a bunch of pieces and parts, and he's trying to stich them all together."<br/>
<br/>
"What pieces and parts has he got?"<br/>
<br/>
"The notebook doesn't say, but I think it was Gerssdorff's image that he stole from the painting. It wasn't just a painting of him, it was -- well, it was his actual body in there, inside the painting. The thief got inside the painting and stole what was left of his body." Joe pulled out a manila folder. "Dad left out the notes that John Reilly sent him. According to John, von Gerssdorff just vanished, and his body was never found. So that would fit in with the idea that he was, sort of, buried in that portrait."<br/>
<br/>
Joe ticked off one of his fingers, then a second. "Anyway, that's one thing our guy stole. It also looks like he stole the head off the Turk."<br/>
<br/>
"Does that contain another piece of von Gerssdorff? Maybe his soul or essence?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's a possibility. The Turk didn't show up until two hundred years after von Gerssdorff disappeared. But maybe the inventor recycled one of the old guy's pieces for his automaton. Everyone seems to have assumed the trick was inside the cabinet, but maybe it was inside the Turk himself, in his head. That would be a good place to bottle up someone's essence, and that's what you would use to make a chess playing automaton."<br/>
<br/>
"How do you figure that?"<br/>
<br/>
"A person's essence is that they are a 'rational animal'. That means they have life and rationality. How else would you describe the Turk? It's like a living computer, a thing that's alive and rational."<br/>
<br/>
"So if the thief is assembling something, he would have an image and an essence, maybe. All he'd need now would be a soul."<br/>
<br/>
"Unless that was the first thing he stole, and now he's got everything he needs."<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, let's get moving," Frank said as he stood up. "The museum opens in thirty minutes, and I want to check out that painting, see if you were right about being inside it. But call Nash before we head out and tell him your idea about the Turk having someone's essence inside it. He can tell us if we're on the right track or just chasing someone's smoke."<br/>
<br/>
Nash Carnes lived in New England, and he seemed to be out running errands already, for he didn't answer his phone. So Joe sent him a long text message describing their hypothesis about the Turk and asking if he had any advice.<br/>
<br/>
They didn't go directly to the museum after that, though. Frank took a detour out to the road where they had nearly gotten hit by the green sedan. More than a week had passed, and most of the signs they had investigated were gone. But after some careful searching they found the spot where a car had swerved toward the canyon and vanished. It took only a brief search for Frank to find something they had overlooked before: a couple of short wooden posts that had been driven into the ground about thirty feet apart from each other, flanking the spot where the tire marks went over the edge. "Looks like the bottom of a door frame, doesn't it?" Frank said. He had a pair of binoculars around his neck, and he gazed through them directly across the canyon. "Look," he told Joe as he handed over the glasses. "If you went in a straight line from here, where would you end up?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe focused the binoculars, and grinned at what he saw. There was an open patch of ground directly across. Parked on it, beside a house and tower made of black stone, was a gleaming, green sedan.</span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211212111111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (19)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Nineteen<br/>
Bad Behavior</div><br/>
"I got the idea after last night's adventure in the greenhouse," Frank told Joe. "I thought, if there's a door between the archives and that greenhouse, why couldn't there be a door between this road and that house?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe stepped between the stakes and slid a few feet down the side of the ravine. Nothing happened. "You think he has a magic garage door opener to get in and out?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know how these things work."<br/>
<br/>
"Neither do I. I guess they could work in a couple of different ways." Joe sucked thoughtfully on his lower lip. "The way he was weaving," he said. "You know, we have to cut a pretty complicated dance down in the museum basement in order to get into the archives. And we had to play a complicated game of chess to open the Turk."<br/>
<br/>
Frank smiled faintly. "So maybe that maniac wasn't trying to hit you when he swerved? Maybe he was just navigating an obstacle course to get the door to open?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe made a face. "Okay, so he probably wasn't trying to kill me. Though it would've been flattering to think he was trying to hit me."<br/>
<br/>
"I want to know more about him," Frank said as he kicked his motorbike back to life. "When we're done at the museum, let's go talk to Theresa and Kayla and Cody, see if they know anything about their neighbor."<br/>
<br/>
The ride to the museum was uneventful, and so was their trip into the basement and into the archives. They found their Dad's "office" without trouble, and the painting they'd brought back from San Diego. Joe touched it gingerly. "It looks and feels like regular canvas," he said. "But look what's missing -- that itinerary we spotted. That proves I was actually inside it." He peered at the painting, trying to see around the corner of the hallway beyond. "Funny to think that we were in there last night."<br/>
<br/>
"Six nights ago, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"But just to be sure, we could test it out again. I could go through the Turk, find my way there, wave at you."<br/>
<br/>
"And leave me waiting another six days for you to show up?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'd run through it fast."<br/>
<br/>
"How do we know your Flash act would work in there, or that it would work the same way? What if instead of taking six days, running fast made you take six years?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's a point," Joe admitted. "You know, we should roll this painting up and put it back in the mailing tube. Dad wouldn't like the idea that the bad guy could have been spying on us from inside it."<br/>
<br/>
"What bad guy could have been spying on you from inside it?" said a voice behind them.<br/>
<br/>
They whirled. It was that same guy again, and he was still wearing a burgundy shirt and desert-camo pants.<br/>
<br/>
"Unless you've got another message from our Dad," said Frank through gritted teeth, "we shouldn't be talking."<br/>
<br/>
"Sounds like you've got a message for him."<br/>
<br/>
"So?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I might be seeing him later."<br/>
<br/>
"We still shouldn't be talking," said Frank with an unmoving jaw.<br/>
<br/>
"How about this," said the guy. "You two stand there and gossip in a loud voice about the bad guy who might be spying on you. The rest will be up to me. You can even close your eyes and pretend I'm not here," he added when Frank started to glower at him.<br/>
<br/>
Joe nudged his brother. "Nothing much wrong with that," he said, and closed his eyes. "I sure hope no one has been spying on us from inside the painting," he shouted. "The guy, I mean, who we think got into a painting of Hieronymus von Gerssdorff and stole that dude from inside it, and who probably stole the head off the chess-playing Turk as part of some nefarious plot to use black magic to create a metaphysical Frankenstein monster!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank punched Joe in the shoulder. "Stop acting like a character in a dumb sitcom." He looked around. "Anyway, that jerk is gone. Looks like he didn't even stick around to listen to you. I'm going to report him to Dad."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be a nark," said Joe. "Sure, he's breaking the rules, but -- Waaaaahh!"<br/>
<br/>
"He's breaking a lot of rules," Frank said as Joe flailed about on the floor. "He's going to wind up breaking some of your bones if he keeps doing that to you."<br/>
<br/>
"I still don't want you to be a nark, Frank," said Joe fiercely as he pried at the knots in his laces. "Let me be the nark!"<br/>
<br/>
The boys got out of the museum unseen by Mrs. Rittenaur and took the painting back to their house where, just to be on the safe side, they stored it in the gardening shed and locked the door on it. Then they called Kayla and Cody and asked if they could stop by.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, you're talking about Dr. Bruce's house," said Mrs. Henderson an hour later. She was doting on Frank and Joe as they sat in the living room with the twins, bringing out a plate of packaged cookies and some drinks. The boys had spent almost twenty minutes accepting her praise for their magic show for the birthday party. "We just cannot figure out how you did that trick with the card and the cake," Mrs. Henderson had said about five times. "It was just a plain old white cake when I picked it up at the bakery that morning, but when we took it out of the box -- " She could only shake her head.<br/>
<br/>
"Dr. Bruce," said Frank. "Is that who lives there?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, we just call it the 'Bruce' house because Dr. Bruce lived there for ages and ages. He was a -- Oh, what was he?" Mrs. Henderson said, and frowned at the ceiling. "He was a professor of something or other, but he retired when he was young and moved into that house. That was even before we moved here. We used to see him around all the time, riding up and down the roads on one of those bicycles that puts you on your back instead of your stomach."<br/>
<br/>
"A recumbent bicycle?" said Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. I only know that they look funny. But Dr. Bruce had to move out because he was getting old, and the house was empty for a long time. It's so hard to get into and out of, because Dr. Bruce only had a bicycle and not a car, so he let the driveway get overgrown with trees and bushes. The place wouldn't sell because no buyer would take on the expense of putting in a new driveway."<br/>
<br/>
"When did it sell?"<br/>
<br/>
"A couple of months ago," said Mrs. Henderson. "Wesley Dennison, was the realtor, goes to our church, and he mentioned it to us. I actually went to say hello to the new owner, to bring him a housewarming gift, but I couldn't find my way through the trees. It's awfully grown up in there, and I got turned around and even a little frightened before I got back on the road again. I was about a quarter mile from where I started, too."<br/>
<br/>
"How is Noodles doing?" Frank asked a few minutes later, when the dog trotted into the room. She was panting in a very happy way, and placidly accepted a scratch behind the ears when Joe leaned forward.<br/>
<br/>
No one said anything for a moment. "She's doing fine," said Mrs. Henderson. "Except all the wind's been knocked out of her since her adventure."<br/>
<br/>
"Adventure?" Joe asked, and his ears pricked up.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I mean since she got out of the yard during the party."<br/>
<br/>
"How did you get her back?"<br/>
<br/>
"We didn't. We just found her tied to the fence with a bit of rope. Someone must have brought her back."<br/>
<br/>
Joe and Frank surreptitiously exchanged a glance. "What do you mean that all the wind's been knocked out of her?"<br/>
<br/>
Mrs. Henderson shrugged. "She's always been a very energetic pup. A little hyper, like most poodles. But she's been very calm since we got her back."<br/>
<br/>
Cody leaned in close to Frank and muttered, "I'm kind of glad."<br/>
<br/>
"Does she have any problems with mirrors," Joe asked. "Does she bark at the dog in the mirror," he explained when Mrs. Henderson looked puzzled.<br/>
<br/>
"We don't have any mirrors that she ever sees herself in."<br/>
<br/>
"She went kind of crazy a day or two ago when she saw herself in the French door," Kayla said. "You know how you can get a little bit of a reflection in the glass if the light is right. Silly dog," she said, and reached over to scratch her. Noodles rolled onto her side and showed her tongue.<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe looked at each other, and saw that they had the same idea. "Noodles! Hi Noodles," Joe said. "Aren't you a pretty girl!" The poodle just panted.<br/>
<br/>
"Buster! Hey Buster," said Frank. "Where are you?" The Hendersons looked at him a little strangely, but the dog sat up sharply with ears perked, and darted toward him with an eager, almost hungry expression on its face.</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112121111111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (20)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Twenty<br/>
In the Woods of Weirdness</div><br/>
"Who would want to body-swap two dogs?" said Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"It's not a body-swap, not technically," said Joe. "At least, not if it's the kind of thing our bad guy was researching. It's an image swap."<br/>
<br/>
The boys were forcing their way through thick, woody brush as they tried to find Dr. Bruce's house. They had been searching for a quarter hour, during which they had compared notes and had rapidly converged on a theory about why Noodles and Buster were behaving in a strange way: The dog that looked like Noodles was actually Buster, and the one that looked like Buster was actually Noodles. "Body swap, image swap," said Frank. "What's the difference?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not much, not in practice," Joe said. "But it's like -- Suppose you and I were invisible, and all they could see were our clothes. How would people know which one was me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Easy. They'd listen for you to make some kind of smart remark."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, one smarter than the smart remark you just tried to make," Joe retorted. "What I mean is, if all they could see was our clothes, they'd know I was me based on the clothes I was wearing, and you were you based on the clothes you were wearing."<br/>
<br/>
Frank looked Joe up and down, and glanced at his own clothes. He opened his mouth to observe that, since he and Joe were both wearing more or less identical sorts of jeans and interchangeable t-shirts, that would be a poor guide for telling them apart. But Joe was still talking.<br/>
<br/>
"But then, what if you and me changed clothes? I'd be me, but they'd think I was you, and vice versa, because all they could see was your clothes where I was standing and my clothes where you were standing."<br/>
<br/>
"And this has what to do with the dogs?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, the image is like the clothes. This guy stripped off their images and swapped them around. Buster is now done up to look like Noodles, and Noodles is done up to look like Buster."<br/>
<br/>
"So why isn't Buster a big poodle, and Noodles is a small Husky?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because size and shape and mass are part of the image. Anyway, I don't know why I'm making a big deal about this -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Because you can't help it," Frank said under his breath.<br/>
<br/>
" -- because it pretty much looks exactly like a classic 'body swap'. As for who would body-swap two dogs, that's pretty obvious, right? This Shadwell guy," he answered, using the name they had found on a lonely mailbox Mrs. Henderson had directed them toward. "What we want to know is why, and that's got an obvious answer too. It's the kind of thing you do when you're not sure you know what you're doing and want to run an experiment first."<br/>
<br/>
"And it looks like it was a success," said Frank. His mouth was set in a grim line. "He's had almost a week to move on to the next phase, whatever that is." He halted, and Joe bumped lightly into his back. "Where did his house get off to?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. We weren't looking for it when we stumbled on it before."<br/>
<br/>
"Mrs. Henderson said it would be within an easy walk of that mailbox."<br/>
<br/>
"Mrs. Henderson also said she got lost when she tried finding it." Joe put his hands on his hips and looked around. "Maybe we should look for some moss instead, because I'm all turned around."<br/>
<br/>
"It's pretty clear our Mr. Shadwell doesn't want his house found. Could he have put up some kind of enchantment to keep it hidden?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's the thing about this line of work, isn't it?" Joe sighed. "The bad guys can just be so stinking clever in so many stinking ways." He peered through the woods, trying to pick up a glint of glass or metal, but he saw nothing.<br/>
<br/>
Frank slapped him in the chest. "Let's find the edge of the canyon, then we can follow it along until we reach the house."<br/>
<br/>
It seemed like a good idea, but if there was an enchantment on the woods they were well caught up in it, for after twenty minutes of relentless searching they had only managed to find their way back to the road that wound through this part of the hills. Joe bit his tongue to keep some bad words back. <br/>
<br/>
"How did we manage to find it before?" Frank said again.<br/>
<br/>
"Like I said, we weren't looking for it then," Joe replied, then snapped his fingers. "Hey, maybe that's it, maybe it's like in Through the Looking Glass. In that book, you can't get to where you're trying to go, you can only get to where you don't want to go."<br/>
<br/>
"So to find the house we have to pretend we don't want to find it? How messed up is that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Plenty messed up, because that won't work either. We have to really and for true not want to find it."<br/>
<br/>
"But we do want to -- Oh, this is stupid!"<br/>
<br/>
"We could go back in through the Turk," Joe suggested.<br/>
<br/>
"And lose another six days? Try harder, Joe."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I know! Come on, let's find that mailbox again." Joe jogged off, and Frank ran after. They found it -- a black metal box affixed to a faded green post -- fifty yards down, just around a curve in the road. "Now give me your shirt and all your money," said Joe.<br/>
<br/>
"Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just hand it over." Joe snapped his fingers impatiently. <br/>
<br/>
With a dark look, Frank complied, stripping off his tee and handing over two of the twenties their father had left for them. <br/>
<br/>
"Wow, that was easy," Joe said. "I'll have to remember this trick the next time my clothes are all dirty and I want to buy ice cream." He trotted into the woods in the direction of the canyon.<br/>
<br/>
"Where are you going?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe looked back with an evil grin. "If you want your stuff back you gotta catch me, you dumb jock!" he jeered, and vanished behind a clump of trees.<br/>
<br/>
Frank permitted himself one of Rick's favorite words, and ran after.<br/>
<br/>
Wherever Joe had got to, he'd gotten there quickly, for Frank could see no sign of him. He darted around trees and pushed through bushes and bracken, and stopped every few seconds to listen for the crunch of Joe's feet on the forest floor. Once he thought he heard Joe's high laugh, but mostly all he heard was the wind in the branches.<br/>
<br/>
He wasn't paying any attention to the time or to where he was going -- he was intent on finding Joe and slapping some sobriety back into him, when he slipped on a fallen log, fell down a short but steep slope, and pitched almost directly into a large pane of glass.<br/>
<br/>
It was the greenhouse. Frank caught his breath and swallowed. Cautiously he moved around the back corner, and almost collided with Joe, who was coming the other way. Both of them exploded in muffled exclamations.<br/>
<br/>
"See, it worked," Joe said in a low voice. "I was trying to keep away from you, and you were trying to find me. We weren't trying to find the house, so -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, it was brilliant," Frank said sourly. "Now give me my shirt back. The money too, Joe. Both twenties." He caught himself before he could slap his brother, who was being very slow and reluctant at handing the three items over. "You know, what we're about to do is pretty illegal."<br/>
<br/>
"What are we about to do, Frank?"<br/>
<br/>
"Break into someone's property."<br/>
<br/>
"Just remember," Joe grinned. "You're the one who suggested it. Do we try the house or the greenhouse?"<br/>
<br/>
"The greenhouse." Frank put a restraining hand on Joe's shoulder. "After the last few days, I bet he's put a few more surprises on the front door. Let's make a door of our own." He found a sturdy stick, and quietly and carefully broke a large pane of glass and cleared it out. "I'll go first." Crouching low and pulling himself into as tight a space as he could, he pushed through the hole he'd made. Joe followed.<br/>
<br/>
The stench of the orchids -- they smelled like a cross between a rotting skunk and a sticky pile of dog crap -- filled their noses, and the boys quietly gagged as they looked around. Joe made a quick circuit of the place, and returned to tell Frank that they had it to themselves. "Let's look at that back wall," Frank said. "The one where we came out last night."<br/>
<br/>
They hadn't gone but a few steps, though, before they were distracted. On their first visit to the greenhouse they had noticed some peculiar orchids whose petals resembled fingers. Frank stopped Joe as they passed one of the tables holding these, and pointed. The flowers had grown since then, and changed shape and color. The stalks were now as thick as a child's arm, and were the pale and bloodless color of a drained corpse; the flowers had opened like outstretched palms whose five petals, of differing length, looked like gently curled fingers.<br/>
<br/>
Under the table was a large, square planter, and Joe tugged Frank down to examine it. Protruding from the soil, and drooping atop it, was a long, thick, tube-like fungus, like the stalk of an immense mushroom. It bent at one point like a knee, and at the end of the stalk was a narrow cap that was in the shape of a foot.<br/>
<br/>
Frank felt like he was going to be sick.<br/>
<br/>
But the worst they found at the back of the greenhouse.<br/>
<br/>
The back wall was an immense mirror, and as they were studying themselves in it and pressing their palms to it, looking for a way through, they saw a gruesome sight behind them.<br/>
<br/>
It was a flowerbox, roughly the size and shape of a coffin. Tall green shoots sprouted from it, and these were attached at the base to white lumps, like the tops of onions or turnips, but which were about the size of a bowling ball. Joe glimpsed one in the mirror, and whirled to stare at it intensely. "Frank," he said, and his brother turned around.<br/>
<br/>
The root of the vegetable had eyes -- pale blue eyes, unwinking -- and it was staring directly at them. The dome of the root was like a forehead, and the green stalk was sprouting from the top of a bald head.<br/>
<br/>
Behind them, someone laughed in a high, harsh voice.</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221221221211111222111122112122221121211111111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (21)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Twenty-One<br/>
Caught!</div><br/>
Frank and Joe whirled. The laugh had come from directly behind, but they saw nothing but their own bewildered faces in the mirrored back wall of the greenhouse.<br/>
<br/>
The laugh sounded again. Then a voice they'd heard before spoke in a fierce, whispering tone. "I should thank you snoops for coming back," it said. "I needed some test subjects, and you'll do nicely."<br/>
<br/>
"He's on the other side of the glass," Joe shouted, and rushed to the mirror. "If we can find the way through -- "<br/>
<br/>
As he pushed, a shiver ran through the mirror, and his and Frank's reflections vanished. With a gasp, Joe fell forward as the mirror seemed to dissolve. He fell through so fast he couldn't catch himself, and sprawled onto the floor beyond.<br/>
<br/>
Frank shouted, but another laugh attracted his attention. Standing a few feet from where Joe lay was the man they had met the day of the birthday party. His bald head was now uncovered, but he was still wearing sunglasses that obscured his eyes. For only an instant Frank saw him, then he and Joe both faded, replaced by Frank's own reflection.<br/>
<br/>
Before Frank could jump for the mirror, his feet suddenly plunged deeply into ground that had turned soft and wet, and as he struggled he sank more deeply still into earth that was now like foamy mud. Only by grabbing onto the leg of a nearby table with both hands did he manage to keep his neck above ground.<br/>
<br/>
"The other's a little faster than you," said a voice. Frank glowered at a pair of knees that had materialized in front of him. They bent, and the face of the gardener came close to his own. "I'd rather have both of you in my potting soil, but the other one will keep where he is." He looked over his shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
Frank followed his gaze. He and Mr. Shadwell were no longer showing a reflection in the mirror. But he saw Joe on the other side of the glass, pressing himself against it with a hard, fierce grimace.<br/>
<br/>
"Now you just stay here," said Shadwell, and he patted Frank's head, "while I go get a special weed whacker." He walked away.<br/>
<br/>
Frank waited until he heard the click of a door, then called Joe's name. "Are you okay?" Joe called back. His voice was muffled, distant.<br/>
<br/>
"No! Can't you see?"<br/>
<br/>
"I can't see anything, Frank, except myself. This whole wall is a mirror."<br/>
<br/>
"Can't you get back inside?" It looked like Joe was just outside the greenhouse. "Use the front door!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not outside, Frank, I'm back in that goofy pocket world. Except now this wall is a mirror and I can't get through. Can you see me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Perfectly. Oh, now I see. Yeah, that's the room I found last night. I touched the glass and fell through. Then I couldn't get back in and yelled for you."<br/>
<br/>
"And last night it was clear glass, but now it's a mirror. It was a mirror on your side when we came in just now, but it's not a mirror now?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, now it's clear glass. I can see you. You're picking your nose."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just scratching it! I'm thinking! Okay, I think I got it," Joe said a moment later. "It's a one-way mirror. The mirror side is solid and you can't go through. But the other side's permeable -- "<br/>
<br/>
"What's that word mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"It means things can go through it. That must be how Shadwell gets in and out. He can turn the mirror around somehow. It was a mirror when we came in, and he was on the other side watching us. Then he flipped it and I fell through. He flipped it again and he went out, then he flipped it again before I could follow." He rubbed his forehead. "I'm sorry, Frank. I banged my head when I fell in."<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay, I've got troubles of my own. I'm up to my chin in quicksand or something."<br/>
<br/>
Joe's face tightened. "If I could just get through," he muttered. "If I could -- Hey, can't you use your Jedi mind-crane to pull yourself free?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm buried up to my neck, I don't think I could get it free."<br/>
<br/>
"Can't you try?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can't <i>you</i> try something?"<br/>
<br/>
"So how about we both try!"<br/>
<br/>
Joe pressed against the panes of glass and shut his eyes. In his mind's eye he brought up the spinning globe of Viritrilbia. In it he saw his own face. His twin should materialize just a few feet in front of him, which would be on the other side of the glass.<br/>
<br/>
If there was anything a few feet on the other side of the glass. It was not a normal wall that separated him from his own world.<br/>
<br/>
As Joe was trying to manifest his twin, Frank also started to meditate. He tried to imagine a strong arm pushing up through the muck to grasp something; but all he could feel was thick mud all about him. He would have to get his chest free if he was going to use his prodigy. He tightened his grip on the table leg and pulled as hard as he could. He felt his shoulders and biceps bulge and tremble, and his arms shook, but he didn't feel himself move. He opened his eyes and drew a breath to try again. A pair of feet appeared just in front of him. <br/>
<br/>
For a moment he thought it was his captor returning. But these feet were in sneakers. Frank's eyes popped as Joe knelt beside him. "How did you -- ?" Then he saw another Joe, still on the other side of the glass. "Oh, it's you," he sighed. "You can't even open a door with that thing. How are you going to get me out of this?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll think of something," said Joe. "Boy, you're really deep in it now, aren't you?"<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't need to send the other guy out to make jokes."<br/>
<br/>
"No, but maybe I can distract the bad guy, make him think I got back through. Lemme just hide myself first." Frank watched his brother, still trapped on the other side of the mirror with his eyes closed, feel his way to a hiding place. <br/>
<br/>
He didn't get away too soon. From the front of the greenhouse came the sound of the door opening. Joe's twin also hid, the better to surprise the enemy.<br/>
<br/>
Frank shut his eyes and made one more rib-cracking attempt to pull himself from the trap. The blood pounded in his face, and for a moment he thought he felt himself rising -- <br/>
<br/>
"Tch, so much pain, so little gain," said a horrible voice. It broke Frank's concentration, and he slumped. Shadwell knelt beside him and pressed the tip of a wickedly curved sickle under Frank's chin. "Now hold still," he said. "These things have to be done delicately, as a certain wicked witch once said."<br/>
<br/>
Joe's feet appeared behind him. "Hey mister, watcha doin'?" he said.<br/>
<br/>
But Shadwell wasn't to be caught so easily. He swung around and swept the sickle through Joe's neck.<br/>
<br/>
"Glurck!" Joe gasped, and grabbed his throat. His eye bulged.<br/>
<br/>
Frank's heart pounded.<br/>
<br/>
Joe grinned as he lowered his hands. "Nice try, but I've had paper cuts that hurt worse than that!"<br/>
<br/>
"Got some tricks, do you, kid?" Shadwell hissed. "Let's see if I can -- "<br/>
<br/>
Frank wasn't sure what he was doing, but he let go of the table and grabbed the man's leg, tripping him. At the same time, he felt himself sink lower into the earth.<br/>
<br/>
He was being sucked down, but he was taking his captor with him.</span></div></div>


path: 11123122212212212111112221111221121222211212111111111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (22)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Twenty-Two<br/>
An Unexpected Rescue</div><br/>
"What are you doing?" Shadwell shrieked, and kicked Frank in the face. "Let go of me!"<br/>
<br/>
Frank tasted blood, but he didn't flinch. He kept hold of Shadwell's calf with one hand, and grabbed his other ankle. He also slid further into the ground, which was now pressing up against his chin.<br/>
<br/>
"Let go!" Shadwell howled again. "You'll pull us both in!"<br/>
<br/>
"Fine with me," Frank grunted. "Grab something if you don't wanna come with."<br/>
<br/>
Shadwell twisted around, but he was at a bad angle to grab the leg of the table. "There's nothing for me to hold!"<br/>
<br/>
"My brother," said Frank, and the earth was now pressing his jaw almost closed. "Let him out from behind the glass. Grab onto him."<br/>
<br/>
Shadwell grasped at Joe, but the illusion twin vanished. He screamed in rage and fear.<br/>
<br/>
But Joe -- the real Joe -- was in motion. He scrambled from his hiding place behind the glass and dove for the mirror. He could only see his own reflection, but he knelt where he knew Shadwell could see him, and pressed his fists against the glass.<br/>
<br/>
For a moment Shadwell hesitated.<br/>
<br/>
Frank's head slipped underground. Shadwell shot a hand out toward the glass. It went through, appearing before Joe as a hand coming through the mirror. He grabbed it, braced his feet against the mirror, and pulled the man's arm through all the way up to an elbow before he ran out of strength.<br/>
<br/>
That was enough to get Frank's head above ground again, but not enough to free him. "Frank!" Joe yelled. "I can't get you out any further!"<br/>
<br/>
"You've got to, Joe!"<br/>
<br/>
Joe dropped his feet to the ground, to try dragging Shadwell through, but his feet slid, and the others slipped back a few inches until Joe got his feet back against the mirror. "I can hold you here, but I can't pull you out more!"<br/>
<br/>
"What have you got him by?" Frank called.<br/>
<br/>
"His hand and wrist!"<br/>
<br/>
"Use him like a rope, you idiot! Grab his elbow and pull him in further!"<br/>
<br/>
"Derp," Joe muttered to himself. He grabbed Shadwell's elbow with first one hand, then the other, and pulled. More of him came through, including the other hand and his head. Joe made a desperate lunge for his armpits, caught them -- <br/>
<br/>
And found himself trapped in a hunched position. He wasn't strong enough to pull Shadwell in any further.<br/>
<br/>
But he couldn't let things end this way.<br/>
<br/>
Joe closed his eyes and thought of Frank: of his strength, his stamina, his discipline, the way he sternly did he duty no matter how hard it was. He thought of the sense of peace he felt knowing that Frank -- his big brother, who had looked after him ever since he was only seven years old and was new to America -- was in the room. He couldn't lose his brother. He refused to lose him.<br/>
<br/>
Joe pulled. It wasn't easy. It was the hardest thing he had ever done. He felt like he was tearing himself in half. But he pulled Shadwell up another two inches.<br/>
<br/>
But that was enough.<br/>
<br/>
As soon as Frank's chest was free of the earth he extended his invisible arm, grabbed the rafters of the greenhouse, and pulled. Most of the roof ceiling crashed down in ruin atop him, but he pulled himself free.<br/>
<br/>
Joe fell onto his back, and Shadwell fell atop him. For a moment there was a scramble, then -- "G'oohhh!"<br/>
<br/>
With a hysterical laugh, Shadwell pounded Joe in the gut a second time, then ran out the room. Joe turned over and rose, bending double. Tears streamed from his eyes and through them he saw Shadwell run down the corridor and turn left. Joe tried to follow, but stumbled and fell.<br/>
<br/>
A strong arm pulled him up. It was Frank. His clothes were covered in mud, but he was otherwise whole. "Thanks," he said. "I knew you could -- "<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah yeah, what are you standing here for? The bad guy's getting away!"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, you know I saved you from getting your head cut off, and now you saved me from -- "<br/>
<br/>
"We'll settle up scores later, Frank! Come on!" <br/>
<br/>
So Frank half-led, half-carried Joe along. "I don't know why you're so grumpy. I saw which way he went, and he can't get out."<br/>
<br/>
"We don't know that! The guy's been nothing but surprises since -- "<br/>
<br/>
They rounded the corner in time to see a door slam in their face. A lock clattered, and another maniacal laugh sounded on the other side.<br/>
<br/>
Frank and Joe looked at each other, then double-checked their position. They were standing in a three-way junction. At one end was the room leading to the greenhouse. At the second end was another junction leading to the library and the rest of a very large building. <br/>
<br/>
That meant the man must have had shut himself inside a painting that they had rolled up in a tube and locked in a shed.<br/>
<br/>
They put their ears to the door. For a moment they heard nothing. Then they heard a string of shouted curses.<br/>
<br/>
"Sounds like this door's the only way out for him," said Frank. "So you watch it while I get a couple of desks and maybe some bookcases from that library. We'll barricade him in.<br/>
<br/>
"That's great and all," said Joe. "But how do we get out? That mirror is blocking us from the greenhouse, and we don't know how to open the Turk from this end."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm usually the one who looks at the black side of things," Frank replied. "In this case, I say we let that guy get good and hungry. Then we'll let him tell us how to open the door to the greenhouse."<br/>
<br/>
"It could be days before that happens," said Joe. "Weeks or even months might pass in the outside world."<br/>
<br/>
"We could always look for another -- "<br/>
<br/>
But Frank broke off as there came from another room the last sound they expected to hear in that place. <br/>
<br/>
"Giuseppe? Franz?" a honking voice yelled. "Are you two jackanapes in here?"<br/>
<br/>
The boys' eyes widened. "Father Ed?" Joe gasped weakly.<br/>
<br/>
Around the corner came the priest. His nose was purple, which only ever happened when he was really angry at someone. <br/>
<br/>
His eyes lit up when he saw the boys, and he bared his teeth at them. "There you are! Come here!" He grabbed them each by an ear and hauled them onto the balcony that overlooked the ballroom.<br/>
<br/>
"I should've known it was you two at the back of it," he snarled. "Left turns! I've been making left turns for hours now! I didn't find any mirrors, but I do find you two cack-handed twerps at the end of this mud-colored rainbow! Where are we?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you know?" Joe squeaked. "You found your way here."<br/>
<br/>
"I was tricked into coming here!" the priest bellowed. "Shanghaied! I got a letter from Chuck telling me to meet someone in the archives, where he keeps that confounded chess machine! So I meet the guy and he tells me I gotta crawl inside the cabinet and make some repairs. Keep turning left, he says, until you find a mirror. Then smash it. Hours I've been looking for -- "<br/>
<br/>
"This guy," interrupted Joe. "Was he in his mid-twenties, in a red-purple shirt and tan camo pants?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, so he's one of your friends! I should've guessed when I found this taped onto my back!" Father Ed pulled a crumpled note from his pocket: <i>Kick me up Uranus,</i> it said.<br/>
<br/>
"Smash a mirror," Frank said to Joe. "I wonder if he means the mirror in the greenhouse."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know any other mirrors," Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what either of you are talking about," said Father Ed. "But you take me to whatever cuckoo thingamabob will get us out of this place and do it now! I'm missing my dinner!"<br/>
<br/>
"What's today," Joe asked the priest.<br/>
<br/>
"Sunday. Unlike some people, some of us have jobs that help us keep track of the days of the week!"<br/>
<br/>
"I think you've already missed dinner," said Joe, and ducked his head when the other glared.<br/>
<br/>
They led him into the other room, to the mirror that separated them from the regular world. "I think this is the mirror you're supposed to break," said Joe, and handed Father Ed a flower pot.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh no, you do the honors," he replied. "I broke a mirror the day before you walked into my life. I'm almost to the end of that seven years, and I'm not about to renew the lease on it!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll do it," said Frank when Joe hung back, and took the pot from him. "I sure hope this works." He threw it.<br/>
<br/>
There was a terrific crash, and silver shards fell like stars.</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122122121111122211112211212222112121111111111111111111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mystery of the Wandering Wizard (23)
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><div align="center">Chapter Twenty-Three<br/>
Report on the Mystery of the Wandering Wizard</div><br/>
"We got out of the greenhouse pretty easily after that," Frank said. "The mirror was just a backing that turned a two-way door into a one-way door. By smashing it, we opened up the door again. The back half of the greenhouse was a wreck, but that meant we could get out without risking the front door again."<br/>
<br/>
He and Joe were sitting on the sofa in the living room of their house, facing their father, who was rocking slowly back and forth in one of his favorite chairs. It was the Monday after their adventure, and he had returned with a bit of a sunburn and a string of trout, most of which they had fried up and eaten for lunch and dinner. After teasing the boys a bit by monopolizing the conversation with an account of his vacation, he'd sat back and asked if they'd made any progress on the "missing car" case during his absence. "Oh, a little," Joe had said, then busted out with a summary so excited and confused that his dad forced him to stop and turn the summation duties over to his brother. Frank had started by giving him the name of the thief they had caught -- Dominic Shadwell -- though they also found evidence that it was an alias.<br/>
<br/>
"Did you search the house itself?" their father asked after Frank described the escape from the greenhouse.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, and it was the jackpot," Joe said. He couldn't stop from making such interruptions, but he settled back when his dad raised a gentle hand and turned back to Frank.<br/>
<br/>
"We found Shadwell's notebooks," Frank said, "which told us his scheme, and we also found -- "<br/>
<br/>
"What as he trying to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"He was trying to resurrect von Gerssdorff. Over the years he had managed to collect most of von Gerssdorff's manuscripts, but there was a lot he still wanted to learn. So he thought if he could resurrect the man himself, he could become his pupil."<br/>
<br/>
"I suppose that makes sense, in a twisted sort of way," their father said. "Von Gerssdorff was a great intellect and a very learned man. Mr. Shadwell could have learned much from him -- if von Gerssdorff was willing to teach him. Most magicians are unwilling to share their secrets, though."<br/>
<br/>
Joe thought he saw a deep twinkle in his father's eye as he said that, and squirmed in his seat.<br/>
<br/>
"At any rate, he was collecting the bits and pieces he needed for the job," Frank continued. "He read that when von Gerssdorff was dying he had an apprentice use his own tricks on him, to separate his soul and essence and image. If he could bind the image together with an essence and a soul, he would have the old alchemist back complete."<br/>
<br/>
"Where were the pieces hidden?"<br/>
<br/>
"His image was in the painting," said Joe. "And his apprentice hid his essence in the head of the Turk, which up until that point was just a piece of furniture von Gerssdorff used as a secret door leading in and out of the pocket world he'd created. Putting his essence in it was what turned it into a chess-playing machine, though it was two hundred years before it got discovered and sent on tour. Oh, and based on what I've read, there's no real danger in having that essence inside the Turk," he hurriedly added. "The essence doesn't have a mind or anything. It's just fantastically good at playing chess, like a computer."<br/>
<br/>
"That's a slight relief, I suppose," said his father dryly. "But maybe I'll get a computer program instead. What about his soul?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shadwell was still hunting for that, and still experimenting with how to remove them." Frank swallowed. "I think he meant to use me and Joe as guinea pigs."<br/>
<br/>
"And those things you found in the greenhouse? Was there an account of those?"<br/>
<br/>
"He needed those things to tie all the other pieces together," said Frank. "The spell said that the image, the soul, and the essence had to be bound together in some sort of substance. He was growing some kind of vegetable plant men in the greenhouse. He was going to stitch them together into a kind of corpse, give it von Gerssdorff's image, then imbue it with essence and soul. Ta da! Then he'd have his teacher."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm-hmm," said their father. "One last thing puzzles me. He used the mirror in the greenhouse to get into the pocket universe. But where did he find it?"<br/>
<br/>
"In Massachusetts. It was originally set up in von Gerssdorff's house in Zagreb, but it had been stolen and taken to Kingsport at the end of the Second World. It's the entrance von Gerssdorff usually used to get into his pocket universe. The Turk was just a back door. I guess when you're an evil alchemist, you can't have enough bolt holes. But we had the Turk, so Shadwell stole the mirror and installed it in his greenhouse. First he used it to steal von Gerssdorff's image from inside the painting -- "<br/>
<br/>
"How did he do that? Was the image set up like a mannequin?"<br/>
<br/>
"No sir," said Frank. "It was like a hologram. We found it up in the tower of his house. It's stored a plate about the size of a manhole cover. You set it on the ground, and the image springs up. Except it's really a two-dimensional image and has to be turned just right -- or you have to be standing at the right angle -- otherwise it's invisible."<br/>
<br/>
"And that 2D trick is why Frank and I couldn't agree on whether there was one person or two in the sedan when we saw him last week," said Joe. "He had the plate in the seat next to him when we saw him, and from Frank's angle he could see von Gerssdorff, but from my angle I couldn't."<br/>
<br/>
"So he didn't go to Vienna to steal the painting?" their dad asked.<br/>
<br/>
The boys looked at each other, and shook their heads. This was a part of the story they had wanted to avoid telling.<br/>
<br/>
"But the itinerary. It said -- "<br/>
<br/>
"That was a trap, Dad," Frank broke in. "He intentionally wrote it up and dropped it there. He was counting on us -- the Stellae, I mean -- hearing about the theft. Then we'd examine the painting, and when we saw that itinerary we'd want to take it back to the archives for closer study. He wanted us to take it there."<br/>
<br/>
"Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because the painting is a third door out of the pocket world, a one-way door like the mirror. You can't go into the painting, but you can step out of it. That's why he ran into that room when he tried escaping from us. He wanted to jump out of the painting and run away. But we had rolled it up and put it in a mailing tube, so he couldn't."<br/>
<br/>
"But when it was sitting in our archives he could step out of it like a doorway?"<br/>
<br/>
Joe and Frank both nodded guiltily, even though they had no reason to feel guilty, except for the fact that they were telling their father he had fallen for a trick. "He came out of the painting, took the head off the Turk, then used the Turk to get back into the pocket world so he could get home through the mirror."<br/>
<br/>
"Why couldn't he use the Turk to get into the archives?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because it's also a one-way door. It only leads 'home'," Joe said. "That's why the 'castling' move -- the king moving into his castle -- opens the door in the Turk. There's no equivalent move when you're inside the pocket world, because you're already 'home'."<br/>
<br/>
"I see," said their father. "So he used the painting as a Trojan horse to get into the archives to steal the Turk." He shook his head. "I guess we are well-punished for stealing it from the San Diego Institute. Things could have gone very badly for us as a result of that mistake."<br/>
<br/>
He said this very calmly, and even with a trace of a smile. Joe could finally hold it in no longer, and blurted out a question that had been bothering him ever since they had been rescued by Father Ed.</span></div></div>


