The Undertakers (19 page)

“Tom wouldn't tell me.”

“Guy's a jerk,” the Burgermeister spat.

“No, he's not!” Helene replied impatiently. Then to me: “He's just trying to protect you.”

“I know,” I said. I met Helene's pretty hazel eyes. “Know anybody on the Hackers crew?”

My question surprised her. “A couple of kids.”

“Anybody named Heather?”

“Sure. Heather DiSalvino. We went through First Stop together. Why?”

I hesitated. Helene was my friend, but she was also an Undertaker and loyal to Tom, despite her promise that if I left, she'd go with me. Still, I couldn't pull off what I was planning alone, could I? “Think you can find out from her where Booth's going one Sunday night a month?”

Now it was her turn to hesitate. She looked worried. “Will…” she began.

“I'm not saying I'm going to
do
anything. I'm just curious,” I insisted. It was a lie, and we both knew it.

Dave frowned, clearly confused.

“Will…” she repeated.

“Come on, Helene. Please?”

She blew out a long sigh and reluctantly said, “I'll try.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

She smiled back. “Sure.”

Conspiracy

Assembling a radio watch is all about patience and the right tools.”

I was in the Brain Factory, and Steve had just removed the back from a cheap digital watch. As I looked on—the dutiful student—he used a pair of tweezers to expertly fit a tiny transmitter/receiver and an even smaller GPS chip into a space only slightly roomier than a pea. “It's actually easier than it looks. You just solder the TR and the GPS right onto that silver prong beside the battery.”

“What about a speaker and microphone?” I asked.

“That's why I picked this brand. It has a memo function so the wearer can record voice messages. The TR chip simply taps into that.”

“Cool,” I said.

“You try the next one,” Steve suggested.

So I did, taking the tweezers and miniature soldering pen. I flubbed the first one but nailed the second. Steve had been right. It wasn't hard.

“Good! Just add it to the stockpile. The Angels are always breaking them. Sometimes it's all I can do to keep up. Come on, the new batch of saltwater should be ready.”

As we crossed the Factory, the four other Brains treated me to curious, sidelong glances. Everyone at Haven had been doing that all week, ever since news had spread about that last night at First Stop.

Being a reluctant celebrity was something else I'd gotten used to.

As we
passed one of the Brain Factory tables, a crewer named Zack showed up with a box in his arms. This he unceremoniously dumped onto the tabletop, spilling an assortment of gadgets.

“These are broken,” Zack reported.

The pile included two Super Soakers, a dozen or more water pistols, a bunch of radio watches—and something that looked a bit like a small crossbow. Maybe a foot long, it was made mostly of wood with a steel cable stretched between its tips.

“What's that?” I asked.

“Grappling gun,” Steve replied. “What happened to it this time?” he asked Zack.

The boy shrugged. “Jammed when firing. We still don't have the launching coil right.”

Steve groaned, picking up the crossbow and eyeing it from different angles. “Got banged around too much,” he pronounced. “You can see it. Here—the seam in the wood is cracked.”

“A grappling gun?” I asked. “Seriously?”

“When it works,” the crewer replied. “Which isn't often.”

“And who broke it?”

“Angels,” Zack replied. “Who else?”

“It's for scaling walls,” Steve added. “Fires a three-pronged grappling hook up to fifty feet straight up. The Angels use it for recon. So far it's a prototype—the only one we've got.” He sighed. “Okay, log them and scrap them. Except the bow. Let's look that one over again. I still think it's got potential.”

Zack nodded. “If you say so.” He didn't sound convinced.

Moving on, Steve and I next stopped in front of a big pot sitting atop a lab table's hot plate. “Check the timer and temperature,” the Brain Boss told me.

I obediently examined the contents of the pot—five gallons of tap water with seven ounces of sea salt mixed carefully into it. The concoction smelled—well, salty. A thermometer that floated inside read just over one hundred degrees.

“Temp's right,” I reported. “And it's been brewing for half an hour.”

“Then it's ready,” replied Steve.

We spent the next ten minutes funneling the water into a dozen old soda bottles for storage.

“Where'd you learn to do this?” I asked.

“Make saltwater?” Steve said. “It's not exactly difficult.”

“No. I mean, how did you find out that saltwater worked on the Corpses?”

“Oh…” He grinned. “You really want to know?”

“Sure.”

The other Brains groaned. Apparently they'd heard the story before.

“Know what
serendipity
means?” Steve asked me.

I shook my head.

“It means ‘lucky accident.' It happens sometimes in science. In the nineteenth century, an English doctor named Edward Jenner discovered—by accident—that people who came down with a mild bug called cowpox never got the much nastier smallpox. This resulted in the development of the first vaccination. In fact, the word
vaccination
, comes from the Latin word
vacca
…which means ‘cow.'”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly feeling like I was back in science class. “But what's that got to do with Corpses and saltwater?”

“It was discovered the same way.”

“By accident?” I asked. “Serendipity?”

“Right. Back in school I got this idea for a science fair. I did a salinity test.”

“A what?”

He looked at me as if astonished that I didn't know. “Salinity: the dissolved salt content in a body of water. I did a study. I used sea salt to manufacture four types of water: brine, seawater, brackish water, and fresh.”

“But—fresh water doesn't have salt.”

“Sure it does,” Steve said. “Just very little. Less than five hundred parts per million.”

I shrugged. “Okay. So where do the Corpses come in?”

Steve replied, “While I was working on my science project, I started Seeing them.”

“Huh?”

“He was in the school lab after hours,” one of the Brains, a girl named Lisa, said with a sigh.

“It was two days before the science fair,” a boy called Andrew added.

“A janitor came in, and he was a Corpse!” Zack chimed in.

“Steve freaked out, giving himself away immediately, so the dead janitor attacked him!” said another girl whose name I didn't know.

“Quit it!” Steve snapped. “I'm telling the story!” Then to me, he said, “I kept my cool.”

“He freaked,” the girl said again.

“Quit it, Kelly! Anyway, I grabbed the only weapon I could find—a beaker filled with the seawater I'd made—and threw it in the Corpse's face. All of a sudden he started twitching and just kind of fell over. Then I ran the hell out of there!”

“I'll bet you did,” I remarked.

“Later on, after Burt hooked me up with the Undertakers, I suggested to Karl—your dad—that we try the same thing again. And it worked! Something about saltwater disrupts a Corpse's control over its host body.” He laughed. “Serendipity!”

I didn't quite get the joke, but I laughed along anyhow. “Cool! So your brother brought you into the Undertakers?”

Steve's smile faded. “Yeah.”

“But isn't he younger than you?”

For a long moment, Steve didn't answer. Then Zack did. “He is—by almost a year. But Burt had already started Seeing and had run away from home before Steve got into the science fair.”

Frowning, Steve muttered, “Not everybody gets the Sight at the same age.”

“Because some go into puberty later than others, huh, boss?” Andrew chimed in. They all laughed a little. Steve blushed a deep scarlet. This was obviously an old joke in the Brain Factory—a little bit of fun at the head guy's expense.

A couple weeks ago, I might have joined in.

Not anymore.

“I don't know,” I said casually. “Seems to me that a lot of kids would be
dead
if Steve had started Seeing when he was supposed to.”

The laughter faded. Steve looked at me, surprised.

I continued, “I mean, if Steve hadn't gotten into that science fair, we wouldn't know about the salt thing. And without that, the Corpses would've killed a lot more Seers than they have—including me.” I offered my hand to the boy. “Sharyn's right. You
are
a genius.”

Steve stared at the hand. Then he shook it. “Thanks,” he said, and something told me that he meant it in more ways than one.

Everyone else went back to their work, looking a bit embarrassed. Steve cleared his throat. “Um…you want to get another batch started?”

“You got it, boss.”

As I washed out and refilled the pot, Steve fetched the big bottle of sea salt, which the Undertakers bought in bulk.

“Think you can manage this on your own?” Steve asked me. “I've got a little work to do.”

“I'm good.”

I watched Steve leave, walking tall, and smiled to myself. Then I set about grinding up some of the big chunks of salt by using a special ceramic bowl and a knobby handheld gadget combo that Steve called a mortar and pestle. The idea was to pound the salt crystals as small as possible. That helped them dissolve faster in the hot water.

Once I finished pounding, I weighed the salt carefully, making sure I was using the right amount. Too much and the mixture would gunk up the guns. Too little and there wouldn't be enough salt in the water to affect the Corpses.

“Psst!” said a voice.

I looked up, startled.

Dave stood just beyond the limits of the Brain Factory, waving frantically. I glanced over my shoulder. Steve was busy at one of the lab tables, messing around with what looked like little chunks of Styrofoam. Thankfully none of the other Brains were looking my way just now.

“What?” I asked the Burgermeister, keeping my voice low.

“Helene wants to see you. She's got something.”

I felt a twinge of excitement. At last! We were running out of time. Tomorrow was Sunday. “Where?”

“In the TV room.”

“I'll be there soon,” I said. “Now beat it.”

“Right.” And off he went, big hands in his pockets and whistling, drawing odd stares from everyone he passed.

I sighed and went back to work.

Shortly afterward I asked Steve for a bathroom break.

“No problem,” he told me.

It was two o'clock, and the Rec Hall was largely empty, most of the crews being busy elsewhere. In fact, the only kids on hand were Moms, who mostly pulled morning and evening duty. A group of them, including Maria, Ethan, and Harleen, was watching a soap opera.

“Will!” Harleen called.

I waved. “Seen Dave?”

“He and that Helene girl went back into the arcade,” Ethan reported.

Beside him, Maria giggled. “I think they like each other.”

I smiled halfheartedly and headed down the short hall to the video game room. It was empty—except for Dave and Helene.

The two of them stood close together, the boy towering over the girl. Both were studying a sheet of paper that Helene held in her hands.

“What's going on?” I asked.

They looked up.

“Fort Mifflin,” Helene said.

“I still don't get it,” Dave complained. “What the hell is Fort Mifflin?”

Helene shook the paper impatiently. “
This
is Fort Mifflin!”

“Well, duh! But what
is
Fort Mifflin?”

“Slow down, will you?” I demanded. “What about Fort Mifflin?”

“That's where Kenny Booth's going tomorrow night,” she replied. “That's where he goes about once a month.”

“How'd you find out?”

“It wasn't easy. Heather wouldn't tell me a thing, and just try to pry something out of Elisha once Tom's told her to keep quiet. The thing is, there's this other Hacker named Justin. I think he…” Helene's voice trailed off, her face reddening.

Dave chimed right in. “He kind of likes her!”

Helene shot him a look that would have melted stone.

“Yeah?” I said. All of a sudden, I felt strange—almost sick to my stomach. I didn't know what the feeling was, but I absolutely knew what it wasn't.

It wasn't jealousy.

No way.

“He wants to be her boyfriend!” Dave continued cheerfully.

“Um…so this Justin kid told you that Booth goes to Fort Mifflin?” I asked, starving for a change of subject.

“Yeah,” Helene said sourly.

“The old Fort Mifflin?”

“Uh-huh.”

Dave interrupted, “Will somebody please tell me what the heck Fort Mifflin is?”

“It's an old Revolutionary War fort,” I told him. “It's down near the airport.”

“And that's where Booth is going tomorrow night?” asked the Burgermeister.

Helene nodded. “Around midnight.”

As it happened, I knew something about Fort Mifflin. It stood south of the city, right on the banks of the Delaware River—a walled fort that once defended Philly against the British. A century later, during the Civil War, it became a military prison. Now it was a museum—one that I'd visited on a class trip. Actually I remembered it as being pretty cool.

“What does Booth do at Fort Mifflin in the middle of the night?” I wondered aloud.

Helene replied, “That's what Tom and Sharyn want to know. The Angels are heading there to keep an eye on the comings and goings.”

“From inside the walls or outside?” I asked.

“Outside. A safe distance away—at least according to Justin.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. I'd expected as much. “So what's the paper?”

“A map of the fort,” Dave replied. “Helene's boyfriend printed it out.”

She groaned and handed me the sheet.

It was a color map, pretty rough, labeled with the words
Walking Tour of Fort Mifflin
. It showed the sharply angled walls of the roughly star-shaped fort encircling a handful of rectangular buildings identified with labels like
Artillery Shed
,
Parade Grounds
, and
Commandant's House
. The entire compound was surrounded by a genuine moat with just three bridges.

Booth'll be there.

I thought about Kyle and Tara, and that now-familiar anger flared up again inside me.

And so will I
.

“Thanks, Helene.”

“Sure,” she replied with an embarrassed shrug.

I turned to leave.

“Whoa, dude!” Dave said quickly. “What's the plan?”

“I'm going there tomorrow night.”

“Not without me you're not!” the Burgermeister insisted.