“Well,” Rick said, “this is certainly not a great way to spend a Tuesday.”
He and Oliver were dangling in separate cages over the most powerful thermal geyser in Yellowstone—one so destructive that tourists weren’t allowed anywhere near it. Only someone as rich as McAllister could get access. (“I told them it was for a private wedding,” he’d cackled as the cages were brought in.) According to a placard that Rick and Oliver had been marched past, there was a scalding eruption due in exactly ten minutes.
“We should have gone to Yosemite,” Oliver mumbled.
“I shouldn’t have sent those postcards,” Rick mumbled back. How else could they have been tracked?
McAllister put on his monocle to look at his pocket watch.
“You’re running out of time and I’m running out of patience,” he said. “I assure you, if you don’t hand over the Code in the next few minutes, it won’t be my blood that’s boiling.”
Rick and Oliver exchanged looks.
Rick’s said: Don’t you dare tell him.
Oliver’s said: Don’t you dare think I’d even consider telling him.
Rick leaned back on the bars of his cage, satisfied.
He remembered the first time he and Oliver had met. They’d both been sent to Mrs. Lindstrom’s Finishing School for Youth of Particularly Good Manners, and for their first three months there, they’d had no idea it was really a front for Mrs. Lindstrom’s Adventurers Academy. So their first encounter hadn’t been at fencing practice or on the camouflage course. No, their friendship began with a dodgeball incident.
Both Rick and Oliver had thought it a little strange that a Finishing School for Youth of Particularly Good Manners would spend so much time on dodgeball. (Later, they’d see it was part of the testing mechanism that separated future Adventurers from future non-Adventurers.)
A student named Agnes Grue had taken a particularly unholy shot at a student named Dieter Diatrix. Later, Agnes would swear she hadn’t been aiming at Dieter’s head, but the results were incontestable: Not only had the dodgeball slammed into Dieter’s face, but it had somehow become completely ensnarled by his braces. He cried out for help, and received a mouthful of red rubber in response.
It was a mess.
A brawl broke out between Agnes’s allies and Dieter’s defenders—Rick and Oliver were the only students in the gymnasium who remained neutral. As gym clothes were yanked and more than one head of hair was pulled, Rick and Oliver quietly made their way to Dieter, who was in quite a state. Without needing to say a word, Rick and Oliver decided on a course of action: As Rick kept Dieter from asphyxiating, Oliver determinedly disentangled the rubber from the wire, without even needing to deflate the ball. Within a minute, Dieter was freed. The teacher, busy disentangling the brawl, didn’t even notice until Oliver passed the ball back to her.
After the ball had been returned, Oliver walked over to where Rick was leaning against a gymnasium wall.
“Excellent work,” he told Rick. “I’m Oliver.”
“Your work was likewise excellent,” Rick replied. “I’m Rick.”
Rick’s parents had perished only four months before. Oliver’s own origins were shrouded in mystery. Neither Rick nor Oliver had realized how badly they’d needed a friend until their connection had been made.
It was impossible for Rick to imagine a life without Oliver. They had become Adventurers together, and had learned the world together.
Now, alas, they would be boiled together.
But not without a fight. Rick might not have been able to remember facts and figures, but he was very good at calculations. And Oliver? Well, Oliver was good at understanding what Rick was calculating.
They sent each other another round of looks.
Rick’s said: Do you understand what we’re about to do?
Oliver’s said: I can’t wait.
On a silent count of two, both boys lunged from one side of their respective cages to the other. In response, Rick’s cage went swinging toward Oliver’s, and Oliver’s went swinging toward Rick’s. The second time they did this, the cages clanged together. The third time, Rick and Oliver reached out and Oliver’s left hand caught Rick’s right hand. Then, with their free hands, they began to pick each other’s locks.
“No!” McAllister cried, motioning to his henchmen, who started to lower the cages into the boiling geyser.
“Yes!” Melody cried out, revving the motor of the cycle she’d kept in the shadows. Using McAllister’s platform as a ramp, she launched herself into the air. The cage doors sprang open and Rick and Oliver pushed the cages apart to give Melody an opening just as the geyser began to erupt….