The Nerdy Dozen (12 page)

MINUTES LATER, SAM, NEIL, TREVOR, AND BIGGS appeared from the back room of Penny's, all of them dressed in the uniforms graciously on loan from the Five-Piece Bandwidth team. They each wore a floppy mesh hat, too-large polo shirt, and baggy black cargo pants.

Neil pulled at the collar of the humongous shirt. He had a flashback to shopping with his mother, when he would walk out of the department-store dressing room wearing an outfit two sizes too big, and she would loudly reassure him—and everyone in the store—that he would “grow into it.” Sometimes Neil still woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, signs for the Junior Men's section burning marks into his brain.

“This just might work,” said one of the tech nerds, standing in his white undershirt and music-note-patterned boxer shorts. “They've never really looked us in the eye there, so I don't think they'll notice any difference. We should just make sure we teach you our latest song. It's sort of a razzle-dazzle piece loosely based on defragmenting a hard drive.”

“Oh,” Neil said. “Sorry, but I don't really sing.” Sometimes he sang Miley Cyrus in the shower, but no one needed to know that.

The tech guys all looked at him as if he'd just asked them what YouTube was. “Dude, that's our thing. You
have
to sing. Otherwise, he'll know you're total fakes. Our singing really sets him off. It engages the customer.”

“It's okay, I got it,” Biggs cut in. “I don't want to brag, but I did make it through one round of untelevised cuts on last season's
Sing the Songs of Others: America's Talent
. You can just harmonize off of me, Neil.”

“Thanks,” Neil said. Knowing Biggs, though, his song would be about something like the many alternate ways to capture rainwater. He turned to JP. “JP, are you sure you can take down the wireless?” They had to disable Harris's system first so that he'd call the local tech support in.

“Easy,” JP assured him. “I'll take a Chameleon and head over to the warehouse's electrical outpost. I saw it when we were there earlier. Everything technical and electrical seems to be run out of it.”

“Where was it?” asked Sam.

“It was just outside that courtyard, a small box sticking up from the bushes past the northwest corner. I'm thinking if we can knock out whatever's blocking our transmissions back to the base, we can get air support to come help us in no time. I'll just need a few minutes. First I can take out their internet so that he calls you in. And then, if you can buy me a few more seconds, I'll try to take down that grid or whatever they have blocking us.”

“You think you can do all that?” Neil asked.

“Please. I could've done all that three years ago. This thing is going to be one giant hot spot by the time I'm finished,” JP replied. “You'll be able to get a signal on the moon if you want. So who's coming with me?”

“I'll go with you, JP,” Trevor said, seeming eager to leave the rest of the group.

“Wait,” a tall member of the tech support said. His voice was a gravelly baritone, perfect for singing slow jams and binary beats. “I hate to break it to you, but they might notice if one of the guys is a girl, seeing as how they do
sort of
know us.”

“But my hair is up,” Sam protested, pointing to where her hair was pulled up into a bun under her cap.

“You still look girlie,” the tech guy said—cautiously, as though worried he was being offensive.

“Fine,” Sam said, taking off the cap and tossing it to Trevor. She grinned. “Hope that sweet falsetto of yours is ready, Grunsten.”

“Just don't crash the getaway plane, Samantha,” Trevor replied.

It was agreed that Sam would fly JP to circle the warehouse while he took out the internet connection. Then she would land in the courtyard and wait for Neil and the others to appear with the missing pilots and the rest of their team. As soon as Harris called for help with the internet, Trevor, Biggs, and Neil would enter, posing as the tech support.

“What should we do?” asked Dale. “We could ride along with somebody.”

“Actually,” Sam thought aloud, “we may need a little bit of a distraction. Anything you guys can do to take care of the guards, keep their focus away so that when we escape, they won't have time to react?”

Waffles smiled brightly. “Distraction is my middle name,” he said.

“Your middle name is Gary,” Dale corrected. “But, yeah, we're good at distractions. We've got that covered.”

Now that everyone knew their roles in the mission, they each ate a few more bites of omelet, then set out. JP and Sam went back to the barn to fly one of the Chameleons, while Neil and the others stayed put to determine the best distraction for the patrolling guards.

Sure enough, minutes later, a call was placed to Five-Piece Bandwidth tech support. The tallest tech support geek handed the phone to Biggs with a nod.

“Five-Piece Bandwidth tech support,” Biggs said. “How can I help you, or how can you help me? Or rather, how can we help the universe help each other?”

Neil made a slicing motion at his neck for Biggs to pull it back—he only had one simple job, and he was somehow Biggs-ing it up.

“Okay, right on. Sounds like a classic case of web leprosy,” Biggs said, nodding as if giving an official doctor's diagnosis. “We'll send a crew to come check it out in a few. We'll ring the doorbell at the entrance.”

Biggs kept nodding, listening to what Neil assumed were instructions on how to get in. “No problem. We'll be at the entrance in ten minutes,” Biggs said, winking and pumping his fist. “Goood byiyiyiyiii . . . ,” Biggs sang, trailing off.

“Okay, this guy is definitely in charge of singing,” one of the tech support nerds said, pointing at Biggs.

“Thanks,” Biggs said, blushing. “But just so you all know, I may have to start singing in my head voice once we get into some of the—”

“All right, team,” Neil said, cutting off Biggs. “You're all clear on your jobs, right?” He could see the glassy stare of nervousness reflected in their eyes.
What would Jones say?
he wondered.

“Recruits, I think this is what Jones was telling us about,” Neil started in a faltering tone. “We're—I'm—scared, and alone. But we've got each other. And the rest of our team needs us. We can do this!” Everyone looked at one another in silence for a moment.

“Nice, Neil. I sort of want to start a slow clap for you,” Biggs said, impressed.

“Wait, but we need a name!” Waffles exclaimed.

“Dude, I'm not sure we've got ti—”

“No way. We're doomed if we don't have the perfect name for this mission.” Waffles paused for a long second, looking into the distance as though fondly remembering game names from times past.

“I've got it: Operation Howling Lone Wolves,” he said with confidence.

“Eh, let's keep trying,” Dale said. “Isn't it bad grammar to pluralize a lone something, anyway?”

“Okay, maybe not my best. I'll keep at it,” Waffles called after the others.

 

The Five-Piece Bandwidth car was a cherry-red jeep, with the name of the group stenciled on the driver's-side door. Neil was behind the wheel, as it had been decided that driving duty would go to the person with the highest score on Six-Point Turn: Johnny Diesel's Driver's Ed.

“Okay,” JP said, radioing them from the Chameleon, which Sam was landing in the courtyard. “Internet's down. So once you're in, you'll . . . ,” he prompted.

“Let them know that we need to take down the power for a bit,” Neil answered from the driver's seat.

“Right. If their lock system is electronic, which I'm guessing it is, cutting out the power should disable the locks—so you can hopefully free our guys from wherever they're being held.”

“Okay,” Neil said, and started the engine, gripping the steering wheel tight.

“You've got this, Neil!” Sam encouraged. “It's all about your attitude. When you get to the gates, just drive right through. You've done it dozens of times before—well, virtually.”

Neil nodded and moved the gearshift to
R
. “Ready!” he exclaimed. The car lurched backward, and he quickly slammed on the brake. “I mean, reverse. Of course. Just making sure everybody's on their toes.”

Trevor and Biggs glanced down to make sure their seat belts were on tight.

SMALL ROCKS AND GRAVEL POPPED UNDER THE TREADS of the jeep as Neil drove forward—very, very slowly, with his right foot on the gas pedal and his left on the brake. The road he was on made a large loop around the remnants of the bonfire and funneled toward a rickety floating bridge connecting Brosiah Bay to Harris's island.

“Nice and easy,” advised Biggs from the passenger seat.

Trevor sat in the back, nervously bending the brim of his new hat. Their vehicle crawled out over the connecting bridge, which sank lower into the water from the weight of their car. Neil turned the wheel left and right, constantly making adjustments as if he were in a video game. Finally, he cleared the bridge, and their jeep's wheels clawed up the rocky incline at the threshold of the warehouse. At the gate, Neil slammed on the brake with both feet, tightening everyone's seat belts in the process.

“Jeez, Ashley. Easy on the whiplash.”

The doors ahead were maybe twenty feet high, and they opened into the base like a centuries-old castle wall. Neil rolled the jeep up the driveway and parked behind a battered Humvee and the glossy convertible Neil had seen earlier.

He jammed the gearshift forward to
P
then cautiously lifted his foot from the brake pedal.
Whew.
The sounds of flying seagulls and waves crashing against rocks floated through the half-open windows.

They all crept out of the car and looked up at the concrete monstrosity in front of them. The sun danced off the tinted glass at its top. Two giant stainless-steel doors marked the gateway to whatever lurked inside, and a camera turned a cold, metallic eye toward them from each corner. Neil gulped and started to walk as confidently as he could, Biggs and Trevor following behind.

Neil reached the doorway and wrapped his clammy hand around the sun-warmed handle. His hands vibrated with nerves, his mind reviewing and re-reviewing the haphazard plan they'd hatched only minutes before. “Okay,” he said in a voice just above a whisper. “Let's go rescue our friends.”

The group rang the doorbell, and when a buzz released the lock, they pushed forward into the dark foyer, pausing for a second to get acclimated. The door slammed shut behind them, and they all jumped in surprise.

As Neil's eyes adjusted, he looked down the hallway. It was cold and drab, the concrete floor etched with a logo—the same logo that he'd seen earlier on the sleeves of the guards. It was an ostrich, its head forward and wings back as it sprinted ahead. Feather Duster, the video game at Penny's! That was where the logo was from.
But why is it all over everything?

At the end of the corridor were two swinging metal doors, and on either side were doors with clear-glass windows revealing rooms full of empty desks and aged cardboard storage boxes. One of the office lights was turned on, the fluorescent bulb flickering overhead. Neil crept slowly toward it to look inside.

The first thing he saw was a poster for Feather Duster and a huge bulletin board crammed with dozens of magazine and newspaper clippings. While some of the print was too fine to read, the ones that stuck out to Neil said things like “worst game of the year,” “a must-not-play,” and “controls so unbelievably unintuitive, you'd think a real ostrich created this monstrosity.” At the center of the room was a barren desk that played host to scattered pens and paper clips, as well as a name tag with
VICE PRESIDENT
etched into white plastic.

“This must be the warehouse. Like, where they used to make the games,” Trevor muttered, looking over Neil's shoulder.

“I think you're right,” Neil agreed.

Behind Neil, something clattered loudly to the ground, and Neil and Trevor looked up sharply.

“Sorry,” Biggs whispered, having knocked a plaque off the wall that read
OSTRICH ACHIEVEMENT AWARD, FROM THE UNITED OSTRICH FARMERS ASSOCIATION
.

Neil cringed, but no one came to examine the source of the noise. “Come on. Let's go.”

The three fake technical assistants took quick, nervous steps toward the end of the hallway, glancing at the dented doors ahead. They reminded Neil of the doors in the deli of his grocery store, accustomed to fully packed dollies constantly bashing into them.

“It's like . . . it doesn't really
feel
like a bad guy's hideout,” Biggs said, sounding a bit disappointed. “I know this sounds weird, but a small part of me wanted to see a cool underground training facility. With dudes just goin' nuts on some punching bags and stuff.”

Neil, who had expected something similar, nodded. At last they reached the doors at the end of the hallway. With a deep breath, Biggs pushed them forward, and the hinges squeaked to announce their arrival.

Inside the warehouse itself, the ceiling was high, boasting exposed beams and silver scoops of floodlights. Forklifts sat dormant in the farthest corners of the room, with giant boxes filling most of the other space. They were stacked in uniform rows, and all had the Feather Duster logo inked onto their sides.

As they walked on, the room filled with the sound of Harris's gritty, impatient screams, and he soon came into view. “I don't care how it gets done—just do it. The wire transfer happens at four p.m. sharp. If you can't do it, you'll be replaced with someone who can!” he shouted at a geeky-looking guard glued to a laptop. “You're easily replaceable.”

At the sound of their footsteps, Harris looked up, noticing their arrival. “Good,” he sighed. “The singing IT fools are here.”

Neil tugged at the floppy mesh hat perched on his nest of shaggy hair. He averted his eyes with a whistle, glancing around all sides of the compound.

His whistling stopped, though, at the sight of a window-lined corner office labeled
MANAGER ON DUTY
. Two of the four walls of the office were glass, allowing the person in charge an unobstructed view of the warehouse floor.

Inside, the office looked much like the other abandoned workspaces they'd seen in the hallway outside—a desk littered with papers and framed pictures. One such photo, with a wooden frame, was a horizontal shot that showed two happy fathers hoisting smiling sons high on their shoulders. Their toothy grins were as white as the captain hats on their heads. But unlike the other offices, this one was full of people—Neil's friends.

Jones was strapped to the main chair behind the desk, looking extremely weathered and disheveled, his cheek somehow still full of sunflower seeds. He grimaced, and Neil realized that his hands were tied with a Feather Duster controller. From the looks of it, his punishment was being forced to play the now-extinct game.

The rest of the group—Wells and Lopez, as well as the two soldiers Neil assumed were the captured pilots, the Jasons, Yuri, Riley, and Corinne—were all tied to chairs, desks, and other office furniture. Two fat-faced guards stood outside, keeping watch, while a huge padlock secured the door.

Neil stared furiously into the room, but everyone was either fixated on Jones's score or the floor, their heads lolling with drowsiness. None of them met Neil's gaze, but Neil wished he could just run up and free them. While most of the guards were armed with nothing more than promotional ostrich claws—which Neil now remembered were from a failed fast-food promotion—those in charge of the prisoners held huge Taser-like pieces of equipment, specifically designed for larger animals.
Probably ostriches
, Neil thought. The gray-and-black weapons, whatever they were, hummed in a way that made Neil more than a little nervous.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Harris snapped. “The fiber optics are down. I need you to make them
not
down.”

Neil cleared his throat and began looking through the bag of tools he'd lugged in. Biggs started to hum, slowly turning it into a made-up song. He sang it like the classic rock Neil remembered from family vacations at his uncle Chet's house.

“
We will haaave to shut down your eleeeeectric system
,” Biggs crooned.

“
Shut it down! Shut it down!
” sang Trevor, in a high-pitched opera voice.

Neil smiled.
I can't believe they're pulling this off. Do I try to just free-jazz a few lines here?

“
Just for a one-ah-two, a one-to-ten min-utes
,” Biggs sang as his shoulders kept a rhythm.

“Yes, yes. That's fine. And you know the drill. Just keep that singing nonsense to yourselves. If I had any other options, believe me, I'd take them over having to listen to you all.”

“So, what I think we'll have to do is shut down the whole electrical system for a minute or two. That'll give us enough time to hack into the firewall and reroute the encryption codes for the database wavelength programming. All standard stuff,”
Biggs made into a pseudo-song, clearly uncertain what he was saying.

Neil watched Harris grab a nearby goon. “So, are you going to turn off the electricity, or do I have to turn
you
off?”

“Do you need the electricity off for a while, or just a minute?” the guard asked Neil nervously. “Should I wait out there?”

“Ah, yeah, power outage should be no more than five minutes. We just want to start, ah, bootlegging the ZIP files so we can do a sweep on the connection,” Neil said, his nerves causing him to spout any form of technical jargon he'd come across. He realized too late that he hadn't been singing.

Harris paused, his jaw clenched. “Wait,
say
that again,” he demanded.

Neil grew nervous. He was not good at lying, or singing, and his life now depended on him doing both.

But before he could even come up with a tune, he heard the thick outer doors of the main entrance open and abruptly close, just as they had when he and the others walked in. Neil began a long, deliberately phlegmy warm-up cough, hoping that whoever it was would distract Harris enough to make him forget his mistake.

“Penny's delivery. Have a large usual for you, Harris,” said the voice of a pizza-delivery driver, his hands holding a piping-hot pineapple pie. He walked confidently onto the huge floor of the warehouse, like he'd obviously done many times before, and dropped off the box on a control console in the center of the giant room. Turning back around on his way out, he caught sight of Neil, and his face lit up. “Whoa, hey, man! Didn't see you there!” he exclaimed. “You killed that game last night. Look, I even got your haircut!” He lifted his black hat to reveal two missing patches of sideburn hair.

“Wait. Game? What game?” Harris asked, looking back and forth from the driver to Neil. “
My
game?”

“Yeah!” said the driver, who then remembered who was asking. “I mean, yes, sir. Your game. He's the only one I've ever seen beat your score.”

Harris turned to Neil with a growl. “ManofNeil. I've been waiting for you to show up again. Not just anybody comes in and beats my game.”

“I didn't see your name on it,” Neil replied.

“Oh, no? Should be on the back, near the
trademark
. I
invented
the game. It's mine. And now you are, too.” He laughed. “Pretending to be part of Five-Piece Bandwidth? You should have stuck to gaming. At least that one can carry a tune,” he added, nodding to Biggs.

“Thanks, man,” Biggs said.

“Security!” Harris yelled, provoking a dozen khaki-sporting guards to burst out from every direction, dashing at Neil, Trevor, and Biggs.

“
Wait, what are you dooooooing?
” Biggs sang, somehow trying to keep the charade alive, or maybe just unable to stop singing. But Harris's men quickly had him tied up, squirming in their arms.

A guard unlocked the giant padlock on the manager's office door and shoved the three boys inside. Neil, Biggs, and Trevor were put in chairs and lashed down just like the others, their feet and legs restrained by zip ties and industrial-strength plastic wrap.

“No talking!” barked one of the guards—and no one argued, as the Taser over his shoulder probably had enough power to electrify a zoo.

Harris, flanked by a crew of his men, slammed the door shut and trudged toward the main entrance.

“They can't be alone. There were twelve of them at Penny's last night,” he yelled. “Find the other four!”

Neil cringed as an alarm began to blast throughout the vast complex, but he couldn't move to put his hands over his ears. Wrenching in his chair, tightly wrapped into submission, Neil quickly looked around the office-turned-prison. A TV blared at high volume. It showed one of the earlier levels of Feather Duster.

I hope Sam and the others are okay
, Neil thought. But he soon found out when all four of the remaining rescue-mission pilots—Sam, JP, Waffles, and Dale—were tossed into the office, too.

For some reason, Waffles and Dale were covered in multicolored body paint, with feathers sticking to them at various angles. They wore Halloween promotional ostrich hats that Neil had seen at the fire jam the night before.