When the power went out in the University of Colorado’s Physics Building, darkening Dr. Alan Jorgenson’s office, he looked up from a plate of flavorless takeout sushi on his desk. He knew that Nick Slate was now close.

Jorgenson pulled up his venetian blinds, letting in the remaining light of early dusk, and sat down. He took one more piece of bland albacore draped over blander rice, then leaned back in his chair to chew and wait. Should the boy be on the offensive, Jorgenson was well equipped to defend himself with any number of Accelerati devices at his immediate disposal. A quantum eviscerator that would transport the boy’s intestines to a spot precisely halfway between the earth and the moon. A tungsten particle beam that would blast him to the Canadian border. And if all else failed, there was the old-fashioned revolver in his pocket.

His secretary came to his office door a moment later.

“I’d buzz you,” she said, with the slightest cringe, “but…the power outage…”

“Yes, yes,” Jorgenson said dismissively. “Send the boy in.”

His secretary was astonished. “How did you know?”

“For the same reason I am in this office and you are outside of it, answering my calls,” he told her.

She turned and left, and a moment later Nick entered.

He looked beaten. That was Jorgenson’s first impression, and his first impressions were usually correct. He had an air of absolute defeat about him that made Jorgenson want to gloat, but he suppressed the urge. He’d have plenty of time for that later. Instead he continued to eat his sushi, which suddenly tasted a whole lot better. It tasted almost as fine as victory.

“What did you do to me?” the boy demanded with delicious desperation. “Why does the power keep dying all around me?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” lied Jorgenson. “Perhaps it’s the effect of one of the inventions that you and your little playground friends have so blatantly abused.”

“You did it!” Nick shouted. “I know it was you! It had to be you! Make it stop!”

Jorgenson forced a false sigh, and got down to business. “Very well. I promise that your life will return to normal, and you will continue your lackluster existence without any further interference from me…on the condition that you surrender all of Tesla’s devices.”

He watched as Nick bit his lip, considered the proposal, and then, instead of speaking, put out his hand for Jorgenson to shake.

Instinctively, Jorgenson raised his own hand, but then he hesitated. He had lost the pinkie of his right hand and it was still painful. The memory made him hate Nick Slate even more.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake your hand,” he said, displaying his bandages. “You and your father shall give us unrestricted permission to retrieve the objects in your attic, and shall cease and desist in all efforts at recovering the others. Finding those objects will be our task now, as it should have been from the beginning.”

He turned and reached behind him for an expandable file folder that was growing far too fat for anyone’s good. He called it his “nuisance folder.” Mostly it held things relating to Nick Slate. After briefly leafing through it, he pulled out a simple yet comprehensive agreement.

“I took the liberty of preparing this document a few weeks ago, back when I believed you’d be sensible and would agree to it without causing unnecessary strife.”

When he turned back, Nick had the slightest smile on his face. Clearly the boy was relieved to have this over with.

“Here is the document,” Jorgenson continued, laying it on his desk. “As you are a minor, your surviving parent must sign it also. I expect it to be delivered by hand back to this office within the hour. You shall remain…‘powerless’…until it is done.”

“Of course,” Nick said, and he held out his hand. “Shake my hand, Dr. Jorgenson, and I promise to do what needs to be done with that piece of paper.”

Jorgenson kept his hand at his side. No doubt the boy wanted to give his injured hand a sadistic squeeze. “Just the signatures will be fine.”

“I’d feel a lot better,” the boy said, “with a handshake…”

Now Jorgenson was getting irritated. The twilight was fading, and the room was growing dark. The sooner Nick left, the sooner the lights would return. “A handshake implies respect,” Jorgenson said, keeping his hands by his side. “Need I say more?”

Nick held out his hand a moment longer, then his eyes narrowed. “Fine.” He picked up the paper. “Like I said, I’ll take this and do what needs to be done with it.” Then he left, closing the door behind him.

Jorgenson sat back down and popped the last piece of raw fish into his mouth as the diminishing sunlight sliced through the blinds. The boy was bitter. Not a surprise—abject defeat will do that to a person.

What was surprising, however, was the fact that the lights in the room did not return after the boy left. Was he lingering? Jorgenson walked into his outer office, where the lights were also off, and stopped at his secretary’s desk.

“Where’s the boy?” he barked.

“He left five minutes ago,” said the woman.

“No…that isn’t possible…” He stormed past her and into the hall.

Farther down the hallway, Jorgenson could see that the ceiling lights were still on. But as he walked closer, the fluorescents flickered out above him, matching his strides. He came to a sudden, slightly nauseated stop and he patted himself down, searching for the tiny chip. The little cretin must have found it before he arrived, and pretended not to know! Somehow he had placed it on Jorgenson—but how? The boy hadn’t even touched him.

And then Jorgenson remembered turning his back on Nick to pull the document from the file…and the smile—no, it was a grin—on Nick’s face…and the single piece of sushi sitting on the table between them.

That’s when Jorgenson understood the chip wasn’t on him. It was in him.

Jorgenson’s wail would have registered a ten on the fury scale, had such a measuring device worked within a twenty-foot radius.

There was nothing more satisfying than outsmarting a genius. Nick had embedded the tiny chip between the limp slab of fish and rice while Jorgenson’s back was turned. It was small enough, Nick hoped, to be swallowed whole. He was already on his bike, pedaling away across the lawn of the physics building when he heard Jorgenson yell from somewhere inside—indicating that the man had effectively swallowed his pride.

Now the chip was Jorgenson’s problem, and Nick hoped that his digestion was nice and slow. He had heard that the large intestine could, on occasion, trap things for years. It would serve Jorgenson right!

But Nick’s mission had only been a partial success. Mitch’s little prophesy-belch had said that their lives could be saved by shaking Jorgenson’s hand—but Nick knew how those little truth-burps worked: they implied no more than what they said. Nick didn’t necessarily have to surrender to the Accelerati—all he had to do was shake the man’s hand.

Unfortunately, that was going to be much more difficult than Nick had expected.

A few minutes later, when Nick felt he had put enough distance between himself and the Grand Acceleratus, he took a moment to stop at a street corner and throw the surrender document in a trash can, thereby fulfilling his promise to Jorgenson, by doing exactly what needed to be done with it.