Operation Sherlock (14 page)

Operation Sherlock began to progress rapidly as each of them added to it from his or her own strengths. Before long they had the computer conversing with them in a limited fashion—in much the same manner as Paracelsus, though with more serious intent. (It was Roger's idea to give the computer's voice a British accent in order to make its speech patterns reflect the way the original Sherlock Holmes would have sounded. It was Ray who got his movie-buff father to loan them a voice pattern for Basil Rathbone, the actor who had played Holmes in so many old films.)

Each of them contributed to the project in his or her own fashion. The Gamma Ray, for example, turned out to be a superb “glitch spotter.” When an addition to the program seemed perfect but just wouldn't run, more often than not it was Ray who could find the tiny mistake that was causing the major problem. Before long he had pinned a score sheet on the wall next to his workstation where he kept a tally of the glitches he had successfully zapped.

Roger and Rachel were the primary information programmers. Drawing on their own vast pool of knowledge, they spent much of their time simply adding to Sherlock's store of general information. When the others found out how many hard facts the twins carried in their heads, they came to be considered the gang's walking data base. It was a rare occasion when someone asked a factual question that one or the other of them couldn't answer.

Trip tended to work with spurts of inspiration, leaping past logic to unconventional solutions that were often highly effective. The thrill of those moments made up for the long, frustrating hours that he spent staring at the keyboard or some manual without making any progress at all.

Sometimes he alleviated the frustration of those dry spells by going out on a “scrounge” to turn up materials the gang needed for various aspects of their project. Ray usually accompanied him, and the two of them were remarkably adept at turning up all kinds of useful junk.

As for Wendy and Hap, to everyone's surprise they quickly formed a good working team. By pooling the Wonderchild's ability to miniaturize with Hap's skills at putting things together, they were able to make highly effective additions to the abandoned terminal. In a short time it was a far more sophisticated piece of hardware than any of the ones that had been installed in their own homes.

They found themselves falling into a pleasant schedule. They would work like crazy all morning, then around noon each day jump into their dune buggies and head for the beach, where they would have a picnic and take a leisurely swim before returning to the project. They gained a new pleasure when Hap found a security guard named Max who was willing to give them scuba lessons. Soon they were meeting Max every other day—usually late in the afternoon—for instruction.

They even discovered a cavern one day when they were hiking in the steep hills at the north end of the island. It was at the base of one of the hills, about a quarter of a mile in from the coast. “This is so cool!” said Trip enthusiastically as they began to clear brush from the entrance. “I bet no one else even knows this is here.”

“You're probably right,” agreed Hap as they stepped inside. “I'm pretty sure I would have heard about this if anyone did know it was here.” He looked around admiringly. “This would be a great place to hide out!”

Evenings they gathered at the canteen to plan their next day's work and play a few rounds of Gamma Ball. Once they even organized a tournament with some of the island staffers.

All in all it was a happy time for the gang—save for one thing: Even though nothing unusual had happened for some time, none of them could escape the nagging feeling that they were working against a deadline.

That feeling was made all the more frustrating because they didn't know when the deadline was.

They found out the night Hap, Trip, and Ray crossed paths with the fanatic.

 

The Bomb

It had started out to be a good day. Wendy and Hap, wanting a break from their work on Sherlock, had combined their skills to put together something else they felt the gang needed: a personal communication system.

“Hey, you guys, come get a load of this!” yelled Wendy, late in the morning.

“It's only a prototype,” said Hap modestly when the others had gathered around them. “But if it works we'll clean up the design a bit and make one for each of us.”

“Make one what?” asked Trip. “I still don't know what it is.”

“A miniaturized walkie-talkie, you towering turkey,” said Wendy. “You wear it on your wrist.”

“Shades of Dick Tracy!” cried Roger.

“If you're going to make fun of them, you don't have to wear one,” snapped Wendy. She looked hurt.

“Who's making fun?” asked Roger. “I love that comic strip. But you have to admit they had the idea first. Which is no reason for
us
not to have them. I think it's a great idea, especially since we can't have cell phones here. We really need something like this.”

Wendy searched Roger's face for any sign of sarcasm. “Okay,” she said finally. A little suspicion still clung to her voice. She had already had enough teasing in her life from people who didn't matter. She really didn't want it from these kids to whom she had, to her own surprise, come to feel so close to.

“So how does it work?” asked Trip, deciding it was time to change the subject.

“To begin with, it operates underneath the island's electronic shield,” said Wendy.

“We built in a pretty wide range of options,” continued Hap. “For example, you can ring up someone else if you have their code number. Actually, in some ways its more like a wristwatch-sized telephone than the old Dick Tracy wrist radios. The biggest problem right now is that their range is only about a mile and a half. But we figured they might come in handy anyway.”

“Miniaturizing them has been brutal,” said Wendy. “We've only got two finished so far. But that's enough for a trial run. Want to go see if they work?”

The suggestion met with instant approval, and within five minutes the gang had divided into two groups. Leaving their headquarters, they started in opposite directions to test the clarity and range of the new devices.

Trip and the twins headed north. The trio's heads made a color-coordinated triangle, with Trip's close-cropped brown hair centered between about a foot above Roger and Rachel's fiery crowns.

Wendy, Hap, and Ray headed south, Wendy and Ray as short compared to Hap as the twins were to Trip. Since they would be passing the recreation area, Ray was clutching his basketball, which he brought to headquarters each morning, even though he couldn't get anyone to play with him. He was trying to dribble the ball as they walked, without notable success.

“Why don't you take up a new game?” asked Wendy. “One where you don't have anything you can drop so often. Checkers, for example.”

“Laugh,” said Ray. “Make fun. But when I get the hang of this, I'll be terribly short but great on the court. You'll just be short.”

“Whoa!” cried Hap, grabbing Wendy as she launched herself at the Gamma Ray. “Let's keep it cerebral.”

“Okay, okay,” said Wendy, squirming her way out of Hap's grasp. “But I'm not in a very good mood today. Another short joke and the Gamma Ray is gonna hit a lead wall.”

“Who's making short jokes?” asked a voice behind them. It didn't stay behind them long, because its owner was jogging, and in another second had run past them. It was Dr. Fontana. Jogging along next to her, ebony pigtails flouncing back and forth, was the beautiful Dr. Ling.

Ray dropped his basketball.

“Watch the short jokes!” cried Dr. Fontana over her shoulder. “We little people have to stick together!”

“Yeah,” said Ray bitterly, picking up his basketball. “Stick enough of us together and you can make a regular-size person.”

“I feel like I've been stranded in a world of pygmies,” said Hap, once the women were out of hearing range.

“Watch the short jokes!” cried Wendy and Ray together.

Before Hap could respond, the device strapped to his wrist began to crackle. “All in!” said a voice that sounded vaguely like Roger's. “All in!”

“All in?” asked Wendy. “What the heck is he talking about?”

Hap pressed a couple of buttons on the side of the device. “Hap to Roger. Hap to Roger. What are you saying?”

“Aunt Eeroo,” replied Roger.

“Now he's talking about his relatives,” said Wendy. “Here, give me that.”

“All right, all right!” said Hap, peeling Wendy's hand off his wrist. “Let me keep some skin, will you?”

“Aunt Eeroo,” said Roger again.

Hap passed the wrist radio to Wendy, who fiddled with some of the buttons.

“Roger, this is Wendy. Come in, Roger.”

“Ill Aunt Eeroo,” crackled back Roger's voice. “Now his aunt's sick,” said Wendy, her voice thick with disgust. “These things are worthless. Come on, let's head back to the house.”

“Maybe that's what he meant by ‘All in!' ” suggested Ray.

Hap shrugged. Wendy said nothing. She had worked hard on the communicators, and though she didn't want to show it, she was bitterly disappointed that they functioned so poorly.

“What in heaven's name were you trying to say to us?” asked Hap when they rejoined the others at the house.

“Well, I started with ‘Calling in,' ” said Roger. “But all I got back was a bunch of static from your device.”

“We kept hearing ‘All in!' ” said Ray. “I thought you were trying to get us to come back to headquarters. And who's your Aunt Eeroo?”

Roger began to laugh. “Probably that's what you got when I kept shouting, ‘Can't hear you!' ”

“Give me those things,” snapped Wendy. “I've got work to do.”

Snatching the wrist radios from Roger and Hap, she stationed herself at her corner desk, where she began working on the devices with the help of a screwdriver no bigger than a sewing needle. She punctuated her efforts with several words that probably didn't have any effect at all, but seemed to make her feel better.

Instead of gathering at the canteen that night, or watching a film at Ray's house, as they often did (Ray's father being a notorious fan of monster movies), the gang met again at their hideout.

After a few more hours of fiddling with the communicators, Wendy came over to where the others were working on Sherlock.

“Ask it a question,” said Roger proudly.

Wendy shrugged. “How many square miles on Anza-bora Island?”

The computer made no response.

“Oops,” said Roger. “I forgot to tell you, you have to start a question with ‘Sherlock.' That's the access code—it let's the computer know you're talking to it.”

“Okay,” said Wendy. “Sherlock, how many square miles in Anza-bora Island?”

“The answer is elementary,” said the computer in a crisp British accent.

“Listen to that voice!” cried Roger. “Those tones, that accent! Isn't it great? He sounds just like Sherlock Holmes would have.”

“Impressive,” said Wendy. “But I notice I still didn't get an answer to my question.”

Roger shrugged. “You can't have everything.”

“Well, given my choice, I'd go for silent but useful,” snapped Wendy.

“It's been a long day,” said Rachel, sensing trouble. “Maybe we'd better call it quits for now.”

Wendy flopped into a beanbag chair one of them had brought from their home. “You're right, Rach. I couldn't get those wrist things to work the way I want and it's made me nasty. I apologize to all of you. Even you, Sherlock.”

“Thank you,” said the computer. “It was elementary.”

Hap and Trip moved fast enough to grab Wendy before she could throw the beanbag chair at the terminal.

Operation Sherlock was being created at a terminal tied to the island's main computer.

Even as the gang worked at that terminal, tapping into the computer's power and abilities, a woman with glittering eyes crouched at the frozen heart of the computer itself. Holding her breath, she made one final adjustment to a small timer, and then began to grin.

With the bomb finally in place, the fanatic felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from the weary shoulders that had carried it for so long. She let out a sigh that bloomed into a small cloud of steam.

It was hard to understand how everyone else could be so blind. Why didn't they see what a menace this computer was? Why didn't they see that someone had to take action?

That knowledge was a terrible weight to carry alone. It was so hard being the only one who could see clearly, the only one who could sense the danger. That understanding had preyed heavily on the fanatic's sense of responsibility.

Now those worries were gone.

“I have to save the world from the computer,” was the phrase most often repeated in her journal. “I have to save the world.”

Now, at last, the world
was
saved. Or at least, soon would be.

The fanatic patted the bulky package that would do the job. It hadn't really been necessary to plant the bomb right here at the heart of the computer. It was such an improvement over her first feeble attempts that if it went off anywhere on the island, it would destroy the evil mechanical brain. Yet somehow it seemed appropriate—poetic, almost—to position the bomb right inside the vile machine.

Trying to move the deadly package more securely into place, she pushed aside a handful of cables and wires. Four of them were connected to the secret transmitter Black Glove had previously attached to the other side of the support post where the bomb was now being installed.

The fanatic frowned. The bomb still wasn't sitting properly. Shivering now, impatient, she moved the wires again. In the process, she completely disconnected Black Glove's secret device.