“ARE YOU SURE WE’RE STILL ON ZOO DUTY?” AMY ASKED. “I didn’t see Rigby at school.”
“I really don’t know for sure,” Archer said. He led them up Rigby’s front walk to the porch. “Rigby didn’t text me.”
“He better be here,” Kaylie said. “I want to see the animals.”
Archer shrugged and rapped lightly on the front door. The Rigby who opened the door that Friday afternoon looked tired. No, Archer thought. Tired would be an understatement. The young man who usually oozed cool and roguish charm had dark circles under bloodshot eyes, frizzy hair, and rumpled clothing.
“Whoa,” Archer said. “Aren’t you a portrait of stunning good health.”
“That’s why I stayed home from school today,” Rigby muttered. “Guess I’ve come down with something.”
“I can see that,” Archer said.
“Should we come back another day?” Amy asked.
“Noooo,” Kaylie whined quietly.
Rigby held the door open wide. “No, no,” he said. “It’s nothing that bad. Please, come in. You’re doing me even more of a favor by takin’ this off my hands.”
“You sure?” Archer said.
“Yeah, yeah, come on in,” Rigby said, stepping back. “But, ah, we’re fresh out of cookies, I’m afraid.”
“No big deal,” Archer said. “Let’s hit the zoo, gang.”
“Ha,” Rigby said. “You’re callin’ it a zoo now, are you?”
“It’s better than a zoo,” Kaylie said. “Zoos are so mundane. Your animals are so diverse and magnificent.”
“Quite the vocabulary you have, Miss Kaylie,” Rigby said, his charm turned up a notch.
“I’m kind of smart,” she said, blushing.
“So I’ve noticed,” he said. “From what I’ve heard, I’m surprised you’re not a GIFT kid.”
“Yeah, well . . . we should probably get to work,” Archer said, avoiding an awkward conversation about money. He moved quickly toward the basement door. Amy and Kaylie followed. Then, Archer called back, “Rigby, you . . . uh . . . you going out or just crashing?”
“Actually,” he said, “I’m feeling a little better now. I might just go out. Yeah, can’t let the lads down, now can I?”
“Lads?”
“The club, Archer,” Rigby said. “I mentioned it to you before. We’ll have a talk about it sometime. I think it might be right up your alley.”
Okay, Archer thought as he led the way to the basement, what was that? He was used to Rigby looking sly or smug, but this look was different. Rigby had a gleam in his eye, an eagerness that bordered on hunger.
They’d been working diligently on the animal care for about thirty minutes when Archer heard footsteps overhead. He thought he tracked them pacing across the kitchen, up the hall, and to the front door. He wasn’t positive, but he thought he heard the front door open and close.
So Rigby decided to go out after all, Archer thought. Doctor Who, in her usual spot on his shoulder, cocked her head sideways. Archer knelt to scoop some feed into the angora rabbit’s hutch. He heard Kaylie and Amy talking a row or two over.
“Buster was stupid not to come,” Kaylie was saying. “Video games are stupid.”
“He’s a boy,” Amy said. “He’s wired differently, yep.”
“You mean he’s stupid?”
“No,” Amy said, giggling. “Buster’s quite smart. Not as smart as you and not in the same ways, but still smart. He just, well . . . boys find the action in those games stimulating.”
“I find these animals stimulating,” Kaylie said. They laughed.
Archer was only half listening. His thoughts turned to the strange metal door on the other side of the basement. It wasn’t just simple curiosity. In some ways, Archer really didn’t want to know what was behind the door. There was a very strong sense of foreboding related to the door. Everything from the strange pulsing vibrations felt through the metal to the odd shooshing sound to the faint, thin regular beeping—it all felt wrong. Dangerous, even. But, for whatever reason, this felt like a danger he should know something about. Like knowing a rattlesnake waited a few feet away, it was better to know it was there, rather than stumbling onto it later.
Archer finished feeding the rabbits and went on to the next task. He tried not to think about the door.
“I guess that wraps things up, yep,” Amy said.
Archer didn’t reply. He sat on a stool near the meerkat pen, deep in thought.
“Archer, you ready to go?” Amy asked.
“What, huh?”
“Where’s your head?” Amy asked. “I said, I think we’re finished here. Ready to go.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Archer said, knowing that he couldn’t have sounded any more reluctant if he’d tried. He stood, trudged slowly to Doctor Who’s cage and let the barn owl hop onto its perch.
They left the basement, but Archer stopped in the kitchen. “Rigby?” he called. “You back yet?” There was no answer. “Rigby?” Still no answer.
“Archer, what are you doing?” Amy asked.
“Actually, Amy, there’s something else Kaylie and I need to do,” he said. “But you can go on home.”
“You sure?” she asked. “I don’t mind staying to help.”
“You’ve been a huge help, seriously,” he said. “But I’ll catch up with you in school on Monday.”
Amy shrugged. “Okay, then. See ya.”
With Amy gone, Archer turned back to the basement steps.
“You want me to open that door,” Kaylie said. “Don’t you?”
“Kaylie, I would never ask you to do something that might get you into trouble,” he said. “But this door . . . there’s something about it that worries me.”
“Curiosity killed the meerkat,” Kaylie said, looking over her shoulder back at the zoo.
“Don’t remind me,” he said. “But it’s really more than curiosity.” He led Kaylie back down the stairs. “There’s something suspicious about Rigby. He lives in this big house with his mom, he says. But I’ve never seen her. He leaves GIFT in May? No one changes schools in May. And honestly, I wonder about his uncle. The circumstances around his uncle’s death are peculiar.”
“Think Rigby killed him?” Kaylie asked.
Archer looked at his sister. “Have you been sneaking peeks when Dad’s watching murder mysteries?”
“No,” Kaylie replied, half pouting. “I’ve been reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”
“Okay, Sherlock,” Archer said, “I don’t know what it all adds up to, but it feels wrong. My gut tells me there’s something important behind this door. I mean, who has a door like this in their basement? It looks like a hatch to a space station.”
They turned left and came to the door. Archer put his ear to the metal. Same vibration. Same shoosh. Same faint beeps. “Think you can do it?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, nodding. She went to the keypad and stared at it for a long time, several minutes at least. Then she started pushing buttons. After each sequence, the keypad made a tone, and a little red light blinked once. “You might want to sit down for a bit, Archer,” she said. “It might take me a little while.”
Archer sat on the bottom step and tried to listen for any sign that Rigby might be returning. He watched Kaylie working and let his mind roam.
Then he heard a muted buzz.
“Yes!” Kaylie said.
Archer was up in an instant. The keypad light now shone bright green. “Kaylie, how on earth did you figure it out?”
“This is where Sherlock would say, ‘Elementary, Watson,’ ” she giggled. “See, look at the keypad. The numbers that are most worn out are 1, 3, 7, and 5. At first, I thought for sure the code would be at least six numbers, so I tried all kinds of doubles. But nothing worked. Then I thought, well, he’s a boy. He wouldn’t want a long combination, so I went to five numbers. And then just the four. He’s tall, so I figured the higher numbers first. I was right. It was 3-1-5-7.”
Archer nodded, impressed. “Stay behind me. No idea what’s in here.” When Kaylie stepped back, Archer turned the latch handle and pushed the door inward. There was a faint hiss of compressed air, and all the sounds from within grew much louder. The shoosh, the beep, and a light tip-tapping that he hadn’t heard before. The door was open now a few inches, but other than a few small lights, it was totally dark inside.
Archer swallowed and pushed the door again. It swung slowly away from him. There was a faint plinking sound, and fluorescent lights snapped on overhead. In that moment, several things happened in quick succession:
There came a terrible ruckus from above.
Heavy footfalls pounded down the steps.
Kaylie screamed.
Someone yelled from behind, “What have you done?”
Kaylie screamed again, and Archer nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around and put Kaylie protectively at his side. “Rigby? I . . . I thought—”
“You thought I was gone, so you hack in, is it?” His face turned blistering red. “What, you got your little sister to crack the code, did you? Could’na been you. You’re not smart enough.”
“It’s not her fault, Rigby,” he said.
Rigby’s face churned between exhaustion, rage, and anguish. His voice sounded weak when he said, “You shouldn’t ’ave opened that door.”
“You wanna explain what I’m seeing?” Archer demanded, pointing inside the room.
It was a laboratory, but medical in nature. There were all kinds of machines and monitors, keeping track of various vital signs. And in the room’s center, lying on a mechanically adjustable examination bed, was a very tall man. He was much older. His straggly wisps of hair were white, and his skin was wrinkled and very stretched. He wore a plain hospital-style gown. His arms, legs, and head were all strapped down.
“Well, Rigby?” Archer yelled. “What is this?”
Rigby sighed. “This is my Uncle Scoville.”