19

Making the Call

BY THE TIME Strike had run down the length of the tunnel to the locker room, Rock was already out of his Ultrabot suit. Instead of neatly lining it up against the far wall like usual, it looked as if Rock had run right out of it, leaving the monstrous exoskeleton bent over into a crouch, its panels haphazardly flopped open. Rock was scratching madly onto a page of his notebook, so hard that he kept puncturing it. In ten years of being close friends, Strike had never seen Rock as frenzied.

All the Miners hovered over Rock’s shoulder, trying to see what Rock was doing. “SOS?” Strike said in alarm. “Boom sent you an SOS message?”

“I figured out the first three letters in my head,” Rock said. “That worried me enough. And then what Ion Storm said to me after the last play . . .” He slammed a fist into a wall before working on the rest of the message.

“What did he say?” Strike asked.

Rock mumbled to himself, stuck in a trance as he continued decoding the message. The rest of the Miners surrounded him, looking over his shoulder as Rock scrawled away.

Strike glanced at the clock on the wall of the locker room—just twenty-five minutes until halftime ended. Boom’s message might be important, containing critical information that would help the Miners win. But even though their surprise lineup had helped them build a lead, they still had a ton of work to do. The Neutrons were sure to make serious adjustments for the second half. Strike needed Rock’s help to outthink Zuna. “Hey,” he said as he placed a hand on Rock’s shoulder. “Second half. I’m thinking have Nitro run the rocket booster option more. And mix it up, with TNT in on some of the dual quarterback sets we practiced. What do you think?”

“Uh-huh,” Rock said. His focus was laser-locked onto his notebook.

Strike hesitated, but made a move to close up Rock’s notebook. With so little time left to prepare, someone had to take charge and organize the Miners.

Rock slapped Strike’s hand away in an uncharacteristic display of rage. “Stop,” he said. “I’m almost done.”

“We have to figure out what adjustments to make,” Strike said. “I need a game plan. I have to—”

“Say goodbye to your girlfriend,” Rock said.

“What?” Strike asked.

“That’s what Ion Storm told me,” Rock said. “Say goodbye to your girlfriend. All the Dark Siders will be dead in thirty minutes.”

Strike looked at the other Miners. Everyone gaped at each other as they processed the message. Strike shook his head, trying to snap out of his shock. “Maybe that was just Ion Storm running his mouth,” he said. “Trying to get inside your head.”

Rock shot up off the bench, spinning around to hold up his notebook. It read:

SOS IN MORTAL DANGER BOOM

“Mortal danger?” Strike said. “No. Zuna couldn’t have found her. Wraith said she’s hidden away. Safe.”

But if anyone could figure out a way to locate Boom and kill her, it’s Zuna, he thought.

Then it hit him. His eyes going wide, he grabbed Rock’s shoulders. “The Deathstrike Device,” he said.

“We can talk more about that later,” Rock said, shaking Strike off. “Right now, I need to figure out what this mortal danger is.”

“The Deathstrike Device is the mortal danger.”

Rock’s forehead creased, his lips pinching into a tight line. “That’s not possible. Didn’t Chain Reaction say that Zuna needs to win his big bets on the Ultrabowl in order to have enough money to build the Deathstrike Device?”

“I don’t know!” Strike shook Rock hard, willing him to listen. “Somehow, Zuna’s already built the Deathstrike Device. Maybe it’s just the first of many Deathstrike Devices. In just thirty minutes . . .”

In just thirty minutes, Raiden Zuna is going to wipe out all ten thousand people on the Dark Side of the moon, he thought.

“Call Boom,” Strike said.

“Really?” Rock tilted his head. “I thought you said I should never use the phone she gave me, unless it was an absolute—”

“This is an absolute emergency!”

Rock nodded. “You’re right.” He stuck his hand in his jumpsuit pocket and fished out the phone Boom had given him at the end of last season. He looked to Strike, still uncertain.

The threat Ion Storm had issued to Rock loomed large in Strike’s head. The Dark Siders were in mortal danger. “Make the call,” he said.

His fingers flying, Rock punched in the secret code Boom had given him last year. Static appeared on the screen, and for a long moment, nothing happened.

Then Boom appeared. She squinted, her face gaunt and pale. “Rock?” she asked.

“Boom,” Rock said. Although his face was still creased with tension, he smiled. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.” His eyes opened wide as he snapped out of his euphoria. “You’re in mortal danger?”

“I am?” Boom asked. “What do you mean?”

Rock glanced at Strike, confusion wrinkling his brow. “The scoreboard message,” Rock said. “Mortal danger.”

“What are you talking about?” Boom said. “And why haven’t you used any of the plays I’ve sent? A fourteen-point lead on the Neutrons is pretty good, but you could easily have been up twenty-eight if you had run TNT and Nitro on the alternating rocket booster option.”

“B-b-but . . .” Rock stuttered. “You have been sending us messages through the scoreboards, right?”

“Yes.” She lowered her head, averting her eyes. “After what happened last year, I owed it to the Miners to do anything I could to help deliver an Ultrabowl title. Especially considering how much money Zuna has bet on the Neutrons to win it all. You guys have to beat them. Run TNT and Nitro in the alternating rocket booster option. And swarm blitz White Lightning more, cornering him near the tornado zones. He’s starting to play tired.”

Rock and Strike stared at each other, dumbfounded. “But you sent an SOS,” Rock said.

“No, I didn’t. You really didn’t decode the plays I sent you at the start of the game?”

Rock shook his head. “I don’t get it. If you didn’t send the SOS, then who did?”

“And what about what Ion Storm said?” Strike added. “‘Say goodbye to your girlfriend. All the Dark Siders will be dead in thirty minutes.’”

Rock blushed, turning deep red.

Boom rolled her eyes. She was about to say something when someone in a white jumpsuit tapped her on the shoulder. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned over to listen. “Movement? What kind of movement?” She nodded as the person kept whispering. After a few seconds, she turned to Rock. “Something’s happening up on the surface of the moon. Something just launched.”

A horrible dread seeped into Strike’s bones. Chain Reaction’s cryptic messages were finally starting to make sense. He grabbed Rock’s shoulder, squeezing hard. “It’s the Deathstrike Device,” he said, his voice hollow.

Boom squinted at Strike. “What are you talking—”

“Zuna’s going to murder everyone on the Dark Side,” Strike yelled. “You have to get up to the surface of the moon to stop it.”

“We can’t get onto the surface of the moon. What are we supposed to do, waltz out the Dark Side airlock and hold our breath? Or how about we have a nice space picnic outside Moon Dock airlock?”

“You could get to the surface, if you were wearing an Ultrabot suit,” Rock said. “They’re essentially space suits, with self-contained oxygen generation.”

Boom stared at him, her eyebrows scrunching together. “Yeah, okay. But how would I get—”

Rock spluttered, coughing. Jumping off the bench, he spit out his words in a panic. “Moon Dock airlock! The door isn’t dusty because someone’s been using it.”

Strike and Rock stared at each other as the horrible truth materialized. “White Lightning,” Strike said. “Fusion said that White Lightning has been building some big weapon for Zuna. Sneaking out at night.”

“He’s been taking weapon components up to the surface of the moon, while in his Ultrabot suit,” Rock said. “The footprints reportedly seen in the Tunnel Ring late at night—they must have been White Lightning’s.”

Boom slowly processed everything, her jaw hanging low. “The thing that just launched. It is a weapon.”

“But where would Zuna have gotten all the nuclear components?” Rock asked.

“All those nuclear parts that have gone missing from North Pole Colony,” Boom said. “The thefts that Zuna’s been blaming on me. He must have stolen them himself.”

“And given them to White Lightning,” Strike said. “So he can assemble them into the Deathstrike Device.”

“And now it’s on its way to kill you,” Rock said in despair. “You have to evacuate—now.”

“But wait,” Strike said. “How could Zuna possibly know where Boom is? The Dark Side is an enormous place, half the entire moon . . .” He trailed off, the blood draining out of his face.

Boom finished his thought. “That thing up there launched shortly after you made this phone call. Zuna somehow used this very call to locate our position.”

“Oh no,” Strike said, a horrible dread churning his gut. “I was the one who made this possible. I told Rock to call you.”

“Zuna tricked me,” Rock said. “He somehow planted a fake message on the scoreboard. But how did he know? Did he notice me staring too hard at a scoreboard earlier in the season?” He swore under his breath. “That souvenir ball I accidentally drew the code on, after the Explorers game. Maybe Zuna got hold of it.” He swore again and clapped his palms to his head. “I’m such an idiot. This was the only message that didn’t start with B-O-O-M. I should have known it was a fake. You have to run. Get out of there. You might only have minutes left.”

“That’s impossible,” Boom said, shaking her head. “It’d take hours to evacuate so many people.”

“You have to try,” Rock said. “There has to be a way.”

“Can’t be done.”

“Maybe if—”

Boom whacked a button on the console in front of her. An image appeared on a giant screen behind her. It detailed a maze of underground passageways zigzagging everywhere, access codes displayed in tiny lettering. “See for yourself, genius. There’s no frakkin’ way.”

Rock was quiet for a long moment as he studied the map, his eyes furiously flicking back and forth. “You’re right,” he finally said. “It’s impossible.”

Boom clenched her jaw. “Forget about me. Go beat the Neutrons. Raiden Zuna must not win his Ultrabowl bets. With that much money, he’ll be unstoppable. He’ll take over the entire moon.” She squeezed her eyes tight. “This is all my fault. Sending secret messages through the scoreboards was a huge mistake.” Turning away, her voice cracked. “I was so sure I’d see you again one day. Goodbye, Rock.” The image blinked out.

Strike reeled, still trying to grasp it all. Could it really be possible that Raiden Zuna had pulled off such a devious plan? It was so complicated. Zuna had read and decoded the secret scoreboard messages that Boom had been sending? Then he had planted a fake one, tricking them into contacting Boom, thus giving away her position?

It seemed impossible. But Fusion had said that Zuna had ways of stealing other teams’ signals—maybe he had intercepted Boom’s messages.

And White Lightning would have had to spend a hundred hours carrying parts for the Deathstrike Device up to the surface of the moon—parts that Raiden Zuna had himself stolen from North Pole Colony.

Deep in his gut, Strike knew that’s exactly what had happened. The only people that had the code for Moon Dock airlock were the twenty-one colony governors. Zuna was one of them.

No wonder Zuna replaced Fusion with White Lightning, he thought. After his total humiliation during the one-on-one play with Boom last year, White Lightning had been desperate for a chance at survival. Desperate enough to do whatever Zuna ordered him to do.

And now the Deathstrike Device was on its way to murder the Dark Siders.

TNT pointed to the clock. “Second half starts in fifteen minutes.” He glanced at Rock uneasily. “You heard Boom. We have to stop Zuna from winning all the bets he placed on his Neutrons.” He leaned in toward Strike, pleading. “There is nothing more important than winning this game. We can’t do anything to help the Dark Siders, anyway.”

“Wait,” Strike said. A crazy notion swirled inside his head. “Maybe we can.” He looked over to their Ultrabot suits, lined up against the wall. “We could get up to the surface of the moon. In our suits. That map Boom brought up. One of those tunnels must lead to that Dark Side airlock she mentioned. Right, Rock? Did you record the call?”

The locker room went quiet. No one moved, except for Rock nodding in a daze. He raised the phone, scrolling through the recording until he found the giant map of the Dark Siders’ tunnels.

Then TNT exploded. “You want us to leave the game? No frakkin’ way. We’d forfeit. You heard Boom. She told us that we had to go defeat the Neutrons. Plus, who knows if that thing up there is a weapon or not? Maybe it’s just a communications satellite or something.”

“The nuclear spear that Zuna used to nuke Chain Reaction,” Strike said. Chain Reaction’s cryptic statements and the way he had raised his arms toward the ceiling—it was all making sense now. “The Deathstrike Device is an enormous version of that.” If that was the case, its focused beam might be able to shoot lethal radiation through tons of moon rock, nuking the Dark Siders to hell.

Rock grabbed the front of Strike’s jumpsuit with one hand, holding up his phone with the other. “There’s a hidden passageway to the Dark Side airlock, accessible through the Tunnel Ring. We can get to the surface. We have to go. Now.”

“Whoa, whoa,” TNT said. “Even if it is a weapon, we couldn’t stop it. Can’t you see how stupid it would be to abandon this game? We can’t forfeit.” He swallowed hard. “Please, Strike. We have to win this game.”

Strike’s gaze bounced back and forth between his two players, the opposing views smashing into each other. What if he led his Miners up to the surface of the moon, only to see something harmless, like TNT had said? The Miners would be a laughingstock, the butt of jokes everywhere. The Underground Ultraball League might even take away the franchise for forfeiting the Ultrabowl.

And there was the issue of Raiden Zuna betting his entire fortune on his Neutrons winning the Ultrabowl. No one but the Miners stood in the Neutrons’ way now.

A buzzer sounded through the stadium, echoing down the tunnel and into the locker room. All eyes were trained on Strike, waiting for him to make the biggest decision of his life. Whatever he decided, it might lead to Raiden Zuna taking over the moon. The fate of thousands of people rested upon his shoulders.

Gathering his resolve, Strike straightened his jumpsuit, hoping against hope that he hadn’t just doomed them all. “Everyone get suited up,” he said.