THE ROAD CREW DIGGING UP THE STREET A HUNDRED yards from Babylon’s hilltop mansion was making a hell of a mess. At least the locals thought so. What with all the bulldozers, backhoes, dump trucks, and things with claws that no one had ever seen before but people were sure that, like the road, had been paid for with their precious tax dollars, the workers should really obey their commands, starting with “Get the hell out of the way.”
The crew had the road down to a single lane, and whoever was directing traffic didn’t seem to know or care what he was doing. Plus the hole they’d dug, you could lose a Hummer, an Escalade, and one of those demented stretch limos made from Mini Coopers down there and no one would ever know. None of the drivers suspected that that was exactly the idea.
Nelson hated this evening with a furious passion. Standing on the road in a stupid orange vest wearing a stupid hard hat, directing stupid people around the stupid goddamn hole the crew had dug for Coop. He was sure the whole thing was a put-up job. That Coop’s plan was either a crooked gambit to escape or part of his conspiracy with Giselle and Bayliss to waste the DOPS’s time, and his in particular.
They’d been working on the road since six, getting the hole into the local sewer system wide enough to hold the Stink Missile. That part at least delighted Nelson. Coop sailing through a tidal wave of shit and hopefully meeting a colorful and agonizingly awful fate at the other end. When traffic let up for a minute, Nelson pulled out his flask and had a drink. That part also delighted Nelson. It was almost time. The hole was wide enough and the flatbed with the Missile was ready to go. Nelson signaled for other DOPS agents disguised as road workers to hold traffic below the crest of the hills in both directions.
“You’re up, hotshot,” said Nelson into his vest mic.
“I just got a pep talk from Salzman. I don’t need another from you.”
“But I’ve got a load of sweet nothings to whisper in your ear.”
“Did I tell you you look great in that vest? Orange is really your color,” said Coop.
One of the men on the flatbed truck made a circular motion in the air and Nelson nodded.
“Get ready to get flushed, genius. Oh yeah, did anyone mention that there’s a bomb on board the Stink Missile? If you’re not back in two hours, chunks of you are going to be flowing to the Pacific with the organic lentils these canyon fruit bats flush down their solid-gold toilets.”
“Nelson, if I can’t finish the job in two hours, I’m tunneling right under your ass and you can join me in shit Valhalla.”
“Keep dreaming, sunshine. They’re getting ready to insert you. That pal of yours know how to run the Stink Missile yet?”
“You ready?” asked Coop.
“Yeah,” Morty’s voice said. “It’s just like driving a big truck. I’ve done it a million times.”
“We’re ready.”
“Strap in, smart-ass,” said Nelson. He signaled to the flatbed, and it began to tilt upward. It took a good thirty seconds to get the bed at a high enough angle that the Stink Missile slid off the back into the canyon sewer system. There wasn’t another vehicle in the world like the Missile. It moved at a staggering two miles an hour and resembled a matte-black stealth lobster with a titanium drill at the front and little pushing feet at the back.
All with three trapped rats in the middle.
Once it settled, Morty hit the power and the Missile ground forward. He bounced off the tunnel walls a few times before he got the hang of the controls, but then they smoothed out and crept along at a steady clip.
“How are we doing, Morty?” said Coop.
“Piece of cake,” he said. “Now that we’re moving, all I need to do is watch the screens. Most of it’s running on GPS autopilot.”
“Where do we start tunneling?”
“Here,” said Morty, pointing to a sewer map. “The pipe narrows as it gets near Babylon’s place. We punch through the sewer wall and dig our way straight through to his basement. Good plan, Coop. Simple as apple pie.”
“Of course, it sounds simple,” said Phil Spectre in their heads. “All plans sound simple at first, then shit hits the fan. Or in this case, us.”
“Hey, Phil,” said Morty. “I didn’t know the ride came with in-flight entertainment.”
“Don’t get him started,” said Coop.
“I’ve got one for you,” said Phil. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” said Morty.
“Stephen Hawking.”
“Stephen Hawking who?”
“Stephen Hawking who, if he was here, would be smart enough to steer us away from those DOPS cocks to somewhere safe and warm.”
Morty looked at Coop. “You’re right. He’s a riot.”
“You heard the man, Phil,” said Coop. “We’ve got a bomb on board. We can’t run very far underground in two hours.”
“Are you happy with yourself right now? Proud of your life choices?” said Phil. “You know what they call this thing we’re in?”
“Nelson said Stink Missile,” said Morty.
“That’s the nice name. It’s usually Turd in a Tube. The Brown Bullet. Mocha Express. I can go on if you like.”
“No, thanks,” said Morty.
“Ignore him,” said Coop. “He probably made up most of those himself.”
“Supersonic Suppository. The Flying Nun.”
“Okay. You definitely made up that last one,” said Morty.
“But it’s a good one. Admit it.”
“It’s all right. I might have gone with Roto-Rooter Rocket.”
“Not too awful. You’re more fun at this than Coop.”
“Pipe down, both of you,” said Coop. “How much farther to go?”
Morty looked at the GPS. “We’ll be at the cutoff point in another minute. You might want to strap yourself in. We’ll be digging through rock soon. It might get a little rough.”
Morty was right about most of those things.
The Missile turned on its own when the GPS indicated that it had reached the end of the usable tunnel. From its front end, the Missile extended a plasma cutter and activated its massive drill bit to begin cutting through the pipe and into the earth. When they’d made a large enough hole in the sewer pipe wall, insectlike scooping arms extended from the Missile’s front end, moving away the dirt the drill loosened. The Missile shook, gyrated, and shuddered. It was like riding a carousel made of jackhammers. For the first time in his life, Coop wondered if Phil was right and they should be tunneling away from here.
“This is nice. I’m glad you brought me along, Coop,” said Phil. “Anyone fancy a sing-along?”
Morty looked at Coop. “Is he serious?”
Coop nodded. “It’s what he does when he gets nervous, but he’d never admit it in front of you.”
“Like hell I won’t. Of course, I’m nervous,” said Phil. “I’m as stuck down here as you meat sticks. If you both die, without somewhere to jump to, I get to haunt this tuna can for the next few centuries. How does that sound to you? Scaring earthworms and prairie dogs? That is not what I aspire to. I’m a professional.”
“How did you end up with the DOPS?” said Coop, hoping to distract Phil.
“Like all the rest of you clowns. I got picked up on a job that didn’t go, let’s just say, exactly as planned.”
“No one sold you out, did they?” said Coop.
“No.”
“So who were you working with, Phil?”
“Fast Eddie Lansdale. You know him?”
Morty looked at Coop. “Yeah. We’re acquainted. But why were you working with Eddie? He already has a crew.”
“Why do you think? He was stepping out on them. We had what looked like an easy bank job, so the two of us were going to do it together.”
“An easy bank job,” said Coop. “Meaning it was a setup.”
“Give that man a rubber cigar,” said Phil. “Those DOPS creeps knew we were coming before I got to enjoy Eddie’s symphony of morning farts. He’s not a pleasant person to spend time with.”
“So I hear,” said Coop.
“But we just saw Eddie,” said Morty. “How did he get away?”
“He didn’t. We both got caught and the prick traded me to get himself cut loose. The DOPS didn’t need any trained baboons on the payroll, so they took the deal and here we are all together. The three amigos.”
The Missile shook and ground against something hard. Coop’s spine felt like it had grown teeth and was digging its way out of his doomed body. He was glad he was strapped in.
“So who wants to play Truth or Dare?” said Phil.
“Shut up, Phil,” said Coop.
“You’re very chatty for a ghost,” said Morty.
“I’m just a people person. Let’s talk about you, Morty.”
“No, thanks.”
“How much longer?” said Coop.
Morty looked at the GPS. “Another five minutes.”
“Do you have intimacy issues, Morty? Coop has massive ones.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Morty. “You should have seen him and Giselle at work. You’d never think she broke his heart and stomped all over it.”
“Morty . . .” said Coop.
“Giselle?” said Phil. “Dish, girlfriend.”
“Not another word.”
“Sorry,” said Morty.
“Don’t listen, Morty. I’m his therapist. Tell me everything.”
“Phil talks big now, but wait until we get inside,” said Coop. “He’s not bad at his job, but you’re going to see another side of him.”
“Really? He gets worse?”
“I’ll let you be the judge.”
“I’m right here, you know,” said Phil. “I can hear every word.”
“How much longer?” said Coop.
The Missile trembled. The grinding din from outside grew louder. They had to cover their ears. Then there was what sounded like a minor explosion. The Missile lurched forward and stopped. The drill on the front wound down. The digging arms retracted. Morty hit the outside lights. They were in a dark, open room, full of old furniture, paintings, and crates.
“Holy crap,” said Morty. “I think we’re here.” He checked the GPS. “We are. We’re in Babylon’s cellar.”
“I knew he wouldn’t bother with a lot of curses down here. Now we just have to get to his safe and get out. Everyone know what they’re doing?”
“I get you out of the basement and stay here, keep the Missile warmed up till you come back,” said Morty.
“Right.”
“And I make sure you don’t screw everything up,” said Phil.
“You sure you don’t want me to come along?” Morty said. “There might be more locks.”
“Not according to the blueprints,” said Coop. “Coming from the bottom of the house, we’re bypassing most of the worst traps. All we have to worry about is the room with the safe.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Coop,” said Phil. “The more the merrier, I say. Let’s bring ol’ Morty along. Nothing personal, but you can be a grumpopotamus.”
Morty said, “That’s not what Giselle says. She says—”
“Shut up. That’s what she says. Morty stays,” said Coop firmly.
“If you say so,” Morty said. “I’ll be ready to go the moment you get back.”
“That’s what I want to hear. Phil, you ready to go to work?”
“Before we go, consider this: there’s probably an antique box down here with all this junk. Why don’t we just take it instead of hopping on the Haunted Mansion ride? What are they going to know at headquarters?”
“There’s no way I’m going to go back to jail because you got cold feet. Just stay alert and look for traps. We’ll be back double-quick time.”
“Hey, Morty,” said Phil. “If we croak here tonight, be sure to give Nelson a kick in the balls for me.”
“You got it.”
“And give Giselle a kiss. A big one. You know the kind I mean.”
“I’ll take a pass on that, Phil. Coop is the one on kissing terms with Giselle.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m not,” said Coop.
“You’re not? What the hell is wrong with you? You could die out there.”
“I know.”
“You’re an idiot,” said Morty.
“I know.”
“Good. Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward your recovery.”
“Coop, listen to the man,” said Phil. “You could catch a terminal case of dead. Let’s just stay here in the basement and not die together.”
But Coop climbed out of the Missile and Morty followed. He went up the stairs ahead of Coop until he reached the door. Then he gently laid his hand over the lock and closed his eyes. A moment later, there was a click and the door swung open a few inches.
“Good luck,” he said.
“Thanks,” said Coop.
“Avenge me, Morty,” said Phil. “If this ignoramus gets me killed, avenge me.”
Morty got back into the Missile. “Shut up, Phil.”
Coop entered Babylon’s mansion wearing the same skintight suit he’d worn during the Bellicose Manor job. It hid his body heat from any biodetectors. Around his waist, he wore his utility sack of tools, and for this job he’d brought along a small backpack stuffed with expensive DOPS gear, most of which he had no idea what to do with, but it seemed smart to take everything they offered. The overall effect made him look like a hunchbacked hobo scuba diver. He hoped there were no cameras around to snap his picture. If future clients ever saw how silly he looked on the job, it would definitely hurt his work prospects. Of course, worrying about future work felt ridiculously optimistic considering everything that lay between him and the box. Still, it was better to concentrate on not losing his life or any body parts unlikely to grow back than to obsess over the dangers lurking on his journey to the heart of Babylon’s fun house.
Phil was already scratching around in Coop’s skull, looking for traps, illusions, and dead drops. So far, so good on that front. The first hard curse hit him as he passed a broom closet near the base of the staircase. A second hit as soon as he rounded the corner that led to the stairs. A third curse meant to rattle his bones until they cracked hit him at the bottom of the first step. They all passed right through him, evaporating or leaving scorch marks on the floor and walls.
In his head, Phil yelled “Geronimo!” each time a curse hit. Another one of his less charming nervous tics. Coop was about to tell him to pipe down when Phil said, “Trip wire on the third step.”
Coop knelt until he could see light reflecting off the monofilament, then stepped over it.
“Don’t stand up yet,” said Phil. “There’s another at throat level on the next step to get you if you spotted the first wire.”
“I see it,” said Coop, ducking.
“The rest of the stairs look clear. Just be ready for more curses. There are plenty more ahead.”
“Got it,” said Coop. “You’re not your usual chatty self, Phil. Anything wrong?”
“I’m just hurt is all. I try to give you advice on your life choices, your fear of intimacy, your fear of death, and here they come all wrapped together in one nice package and you don’t even mention it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Giselle. I always liked her name. She’s like someone Poe should have written a poem about. Something long and gloomy about a jilted lover spending his last miserable days eating sandwiches on her tomb.”
A curse hit Coop square in the stomach, bounced off, and melted a nearby Ming vase. Phil giggled. “Nice shot, cowboy.”
“That one burned a little,” said Coop.
“Just like love, if you get my drift.”
“A triceratops with a learning disability would get your drift.”
“Watch out for the peacock chair on your left. There’s a blowgun in the back,” said Phil.
Coop stopped and pulled a small graphite glider from a side panel on his backpack. He sailed it past the chair and a dozen spikes, like kitchen knives, shot from the back, embedding themselves in the wall.
“Ouch-a-rama. That would have been a good one, huh?” said Phil.
“Good call,” said Coop.
“How much farther to Goldfinger’s vault?”
“One more floor.”
“Uggghhh,” said Phil, like a six-year-old asked to do the nineteen-times multiplication table. “Doesn’t the DOPS have teleportation or something? Why can’t we fly past Babylon’s party tricks?”
“I forgot my jetpack.”
“If I believed that, I’d strangle you in your sleep.”
“You’ve been at the DOPS longer than I have. Why don’t you talk to management?”
“They don’t listen to ghosts. It’s complete ectoplasmic oppression over there.”
Coop stopped for a second. “Were you part of the bunch that possessed management a few weeks back? People are still talking about it.”
“Nope. It didn’t happen. I don’t know about it. I was haunting the squid tank at SeaWorld at the time.”
“You’re a lousy liar,” said Coop.
“Enough about me. Let’s talk about you and Giselle. How soon before you need heart surgery again?”
“Nope. We are not going to do this.”
“Come on. Throw me a bone. You in an emotional wood chipper is one of the few things I get to look forward to.”
“Sorry. It’s not going to happen this time.” Beams crisscrossed his vision, trying to cut him in half. Like the others, they passed through him, but one scorched his right boot, leaving him doing a clumsy Riverdance down the hall.
“Duck,” said Phil as a sword swung out from the back of a picture of ducks on a pond. “Duck. Did you get it? I said duck.”
“I got it, Phil. Can you spin plates? You’d have wowed them in vaudeville.”
“My guess is your heart goes back in the Cuisinart just about the time you finish this box job and hit the bricks.”
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re jealous. When’s the last time a lady ghost gave you the time of day?”
Phil didn’t say anything for a minute. “We’re almost there.”
The curses came harder and faster as they neared the study that held the safe. Two of the curses met at the edge of Coop’s waist sack and started to melt the nylon. Coop dove out of the way before he caught fire.
“Okay, that was scary,” said Phil. “It might be time for a song.”
“Don’t bother. We’re here,” said Coop. They stood before heavy wooden sliding doors, like something leading to a Victorian drawing room. “Do you see any traps?”
“Give me a minute,” said Phil. Then, “Nothing out here, but I bet there are oodles inside.”
“Here we go,” said Coop. He pushed the doors open and jumped back behind the hallway wall. Nothing came out of the room. No dragon fire. No spikes. No flying badgers with knives for feet. Coop peeked around the corner and looked into an entirely ordinary room. Ordinary except for one feature. A gray metal safe about three feet tall, like something you’d see in any business office, was floating several inches off the floor.
“Why haven’t you kissed her yet?” said Phil.
“Not now,” said Coop. “Because I didn’t want to and because I don’t think she wanted to kiss me. I mean, she might have at one point. But the moment passed.”
“Story of your life, huh?”
“Just do your job.”
“I have been,” said Phil. “Let’s be reasonable. From what we’ve both seen, most of the big curses are outside to keep people from getting in. We’ve made it all the way here with no casualties, so I think I’m going back to the Stink Missile and play Crazy Eights with Morty.”
“You’re not getting out of my brain until we’re out of this house. Now look around for traps.”
They both gazed around the room looking for trip wires and electronic sensors.
“See anything?” said Coop.
“Wait. Have you got a pencil or something? Toss it inside.”
Coop took a pen from his waist pack and threw it end over end through the door. Twin swords swung down from overhead, snapping the pen in half. They landed with a clatter on the floor.
“Okay. Is there anything else?”
“Nada,” said Phil. “Bupkis.”
Coop took a deep breath, trying not to think about the bisected pen in front of him. “I’m going in.”
“Relax, Pacino. It’s just me here. You don’t need to chew the scenery.”
Coop took a step. The floor squeaked.
“Stop!” screamed Phil. But it was too late. Coop’s body weight carried him forward onto the rigged board. There was a brief sound of gears winding in the walls, then a crack . . .
And then the whole floor fell away beneath them, dropping desks, tables, chairs, and potted plants down into what looked like a bottomless void. The only reason Coop hadn’t followed the mess down into the abyss was that he twisted and grabbed a wall sconce at just the last minute. He hung there now, too far from the hall to swing back, and there was nothing to jump onto but the safe, which was too far away.
“Get us out. Get us out. Get us out,” screamed Phil.
“You’re the one who got us into this. Where are we supposed to go?”
“Get us out. Get us out. Get us—”
“Pipe down. Why don’t you try helping?”
“You’re the one with all the Batman gear. You think of something.”
Coop reached into his backpack and took a small water pistol. He held it high and shot a stream toward the floating safe. The water evaporated before it got halfway there.
“Okay. If I follow that line, it looks like there’s just a heat curse. I can handle that. Do you see anything else?”
“I’m having a moment here, Coop. Can I catch my breath?”
“You don’t breathe, and this sconce isn’t going to hold forever. Are there any more traps?”
“I can’t see anything, but I get the feeling there are. Try something else.”
Coop pulled a paper airplane from his backpack and tossed it toward the safe. Metal scraped above them, and a steel pendulum with a razor-sharp blade that flared out at the bottom swung down from the ceiling, cutting across the width of the room.
Coop threw three more gliders, triggering three more pendulums. He could feel the breeze of their movement on his cheeks.
“Consider this my resignation,” said Phil. “It’s been swell working with you, but there’s this kitten puzzle I’ve been meaning to finish back home. I have all the corners done.”
“Shut up. You got me into this. Let me think. And don’t even dream about singing. I need to count these pendulums.”
“Why?”
“Because this wall sconce is loose and we’re going to fall in the next couple of minutes, unless I can . . .”
Coop leapt into the air as the first pendulum swung past. He just managed to grab the bottom and hold on as it moved in slow arcs, slicing through the air. Phil didn’t say a word. He just screamed.
Coop grabbed onto the shaft of the pendulum and pulled himself to the ceiling. There was a sort of axle there, running from the door straight across the room. From the top of the pendulum, he swung out onto the axle and climbed hand over hand across it, timing each handhold with the swinging of the pendulums.
It took several sweaty, painful, nerve-racking minutes to get there, but at the far end of the axle, he was finally able to swing down and drop onto the top of the safe.
Phil stopped screaming. “How did you know it would hold your weight?”
“I didn’t. But Babylon doesn’t want his safe falling to Shanghai, so whatever hocus-pocus he’s using on it must be strong.”
“That’s very reassuring,” said Phil. “Don’t mind me if I go back to screaming.”
“You can scream all the way home in the Missile. Right now, keep an eye out for more traps.”
“How are you going to open it?”
“I was cracking safes before I could microwave pizza. Besides, the DOPS smart guys gave me something to help.”
“Be careful.”
“What? Do you see something?”
“No, but I wouldn’t make getting in there as easy as guessing a combination.”
“Right.” Coop took out his collapsible grip and tapped it gently on the safe’s keypad. Something hissed.
“Gas!” screamed Phil.
“Thanks. I have ears,” said Coop as he took out a respirator and goggles from his backpack.
“You want me to scream it again? ’Cause I can do it louder.”
Coop touched the grip around the rest of the safe door, but nothing happened.
“We should have brought Morty with us,” said Phil. “He could get this thing open lickety-split.”
“Do you really think all three of us could have made it this far?”
“I think he and I could have made it. You would have lived on in our memory.”
Coop took a small black box just a little bigger than a cell phone and attached it with magnets over the safe’s keypad. “Okay,” he said. “Time to see if Peculiar Science lives up to its name.”
“What is that?” said Phil.
“Living numbers. Sort of like ants, ghosts, and binary code all rolled into one weird organism. If they can’t open the safe I’ll have to do it by hand.”
“Ten seconds ago you said you were a wiz at that.”
“I am, but not if the Missile’s going to blow up in two hours. We need it to work fast.”
“Yes. No blowing up. Good plan.”
Lights played across the outside of the box for several minutes. At first, they were all red. Then slowly, one by one, each light turned green. When the last one flashed, the box beeped and Coop pulled it off, stuffing it back in his pack.
“Come on, Tom Swift. Grab the goods and let’s blow this place,” said Phil.
“We’re almost there,” said Coop. When he pulled open the safe door, Phil began to scream again. Even Coop made a few funny noises he was glad no one else could hear.
Hundreds of spiders, large and small, hairy and sleek, poured from the open safe door, moving out in every direction—including up Coop’s arm.
“Abort! Abort!” screamed Phil. Coop tried brushing the spiders off, but they just kept coming. It wasn’t that Coop was particularly arachnophobic, but what he discovered at that moment was that he wasn’t not arachnophobic when covered by a whole army of multilegged, too-many-eyed, alien organisms, some of which he was pretty sure were viewing him as lunch. The only reason he didn’t jump off the safe, besides the dive to the bottomless pit and his inevitable, horrible death, was the tiny fraction of his brain that was still capable of rational thought reminding him that he was still in his protective suit, with both eye and face protection. This was just barely reassuring enough to push suicide to second place on his option list.
“What do we do now?” screamed Phil.
“You know the answer to that question.”
“Please. I’m asking you as a friend and colleague and complete and utter coward, don’t do it.”
“No choice,” said Cooper. He lay down on top of the safe and stuck his hand deep inside, pushing through the webbed opening and feeling around the writhing mass of legs for the box. A moment later, his hand fell on something hard and he pulled it out. At first it was so covered in spiders, he wasn’t sure what he’d found. He held it over the bottomless pit and shook it until enough of the creepy crawlers fell off that he recognized the box he’d stolen from the Blackmoore building. When he managed to clear away the last of the spiders, he stuffed the box into his backpack and zipped it closed. From his waist utility sack, he pulled out a small plastic spray bottle and spritzed himself all over. Spiders jumped off him by the dozens. Others fell off and scrambled back inside the safe.
“What is that stuff?” said Phil.
“Holy water, wolf piss, cayenne pepper, and garlic. Kind of my all-in-one bastard repellent.”
“Keep spraying it. It’s working.”
Coop couldn’t argue with that, so he spent a few more minutes coating himself in the stuff, until every spider he could see was gone.
“Please, Inspector Gadget, can we go home before someone drops rabid Easter bunnies on us?”
“Don’t worry—I’m already on the way,” said Coop. He jumped and grabbed the pendulum axle at the ceiling and began working his way hand over hand to the door. He was feeling particularly good about that maneuver . . . until something hissed and brushed his hand. Coop looked up and saw a tarantula that looked to be the size of a Cadillac hubcap rearing up on its hind legs and waving its front four legs in the air like it was going to pounce. Phil grunted like he’d been punched in his ectoplasmic gut. Coop remained silent, because he had lost not only the ability to speak but also his grip on the axle.
As he fell, Coop reached out and grabbed one of the swinging pendulums. That was the good news. The bad news was that he and Phil were now carried in dizzying arcs back and forth across the room. The hallway door was no more than twenty feet away, but there were three more pendulums between them and the way out. Coop looked up and saw the tarantula climbing down the pendulum he was clinging to and did the only semirational thing he could think of. He jumped to the next pendulum, catching it just as it passed by.
Phil didn’t scream this time. In fact, he felt like dead weight in Coop’s head. Can ghosts faint? Coop wondered. Deciding to explore that bit of trivia later, he leapt to the next pendulum. Just one more until he could jump back into the hall and the way out. As he checked his timing, preparing to jump, his goggles went black.
The tarantula had dropped down onto his head.
Coop screamed and jumped. Or jumped and screamed. Later, he was never entirely sure what happened beyond the fact that his body did something explosive and he didn’t die. He hit the last pendulum hard, sliding down to his knees on the top of the blade. Not being able to reach the bastard repellent from that position, he resorted to punching himself in the face until his goggles cleared. He didn’t wait for Phil or look for the spider or anything else. He just jumped, landed on the floor, rolled against the wall and lay curled in a fetal position for a moment, hoping he hadn’t set off any more traps.
After a couple of minutes had gone by, Coop got to his feet and ran back down the stairs the way he and Phil had come. Each killing curse—the heat ones, the cold ones, the ones meant to slice him in half—felt great, and not just because they reminded him he was alive. He knew there wasn’t a spider on Earth, even one the size of a wagon wheel (the tarantula was already getting bigger in his head) that could live through that much dark magic.
Coop made it back to the basement and dove through the Stink Missile’s hatch, locking it behind him.
“So, how did it go?” said Morty.
Coop tore off the respirator. “You didn’t hear?”
“For a while, but then you both kind of faded out.”
Coop tore off the goggles and pulled back the hood on his suit. “Just get us out of here. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Good. Start with why you smell like a wolf peed on you while you were eating linguine.”
Coop kept checking the timer on the Missile’s control panel. “Is this right? We’re almost at two hours. It didn’t feel like it took that long.”
“Relax. The tunnel’s already dug. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“You do remember the part where Nelson said we’d blow up if we didn’t get back soon?”
“Relax. I’ve been playing with the controls while you were gone. I can make it go faster this time.”
Coop looked at Morty as they started to move. “Is that a good idea? Why don’t we just go out like we came in?”
“Relax. It’ll be fine.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘relax’?”
Morty reached over and opened a small storage hatch to the side of the control panel. “I found these Xanax inside. They really make the trip easier. Want to try one?”
Coop leaned back in his seat. Is a drunk driver worse on the freeway or in a sewer pipe? he wondered.
Morty cocked his head. “Is that like one of those Zen koans?”
“Did I say that out loud? Yes. Contemplate it as we’re blown to Kitty Litter all over Laurel Canyon.”
Morty frowned and touched his head. “Where’s Phil?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him for a while. Can ghosts have an aneurysm?”
“You know, if you took a Xanax, maybe it would calm him down, too.”
“I’m not taking any pills. I just want out of this thing before we turn into the Fourth of July.”
“What shook you up so much back there?”
“Spiders. Lot and lots of spiders. There was a tarantula the size of a pickup truck. It reared up on its hind legs like a goddamn grizzly bear.”
Morty nodded. “Oh yeah. They call those bird-killing spiders. They’re all over the Amazon. I saw a documentary. You know, what’s really interesting about them—”
“Morty.”
“Yeah?”
“Give me a Xanax.”
They bumped through the ground back into the sewer pipe. Coop watched the GPS readout and the clock. The clock he understood. He wished he’d paid more attention to the GPS on the way in.
“How much longer?” he said.
“You’re really jumpy.”
“Morty. How much longer?”
The Missile shivered and stopped. Morty smiled at him. “We’re here. I told you it was faster back.”
Coop grabbed Morty in a big bear hug as they felt something hook onto the front of the Missile and pull it out of the ground. Coop looked at the countdown clock.
It read 1:58.
The moment the missile leveled out, Coop pushed the hatch open and jumped out. He looked around and ran to Nelson. “We’re back. Turn off the timer.”
Nelson looked at him. “What timer?”
“The two-hour timer. The bomb.”
Nelson laughed. “You poor dumb animal. You believed I was going to blow up federal property? I know Giselle thinks you’re a moron, but Bayliss kind of liked you. Wait till I tell her I made you piss yourself with the oldest gag in the spy game.”
Coop’s shoulders relaxed a little as the Xanax kicked in.
“Did you get the box?” said Nelson.
“Yeah,” said Coop. “It’s right here.” He turned and swung his whole body around, slamming a fist square into Nelson’s nose. Nelson fell back onto the asphalt. Coop unzipped his backpack and tossed the box onto Nelson’s lap.
He went back over to Morty and put an arm around his shoulder. “Thanks for the Xanax. I’m feeling a lot better.”