The sudden silence that followed felt even more alarming than the sound of the phone ringing in the deserted grounds. Lil shot back into the shadows and gulped. ‘It didn’t ring for very long.’
Nedly peered down the length of the west wing. ‘Did someone answer it?’
‘Abe must have,’ Lil said confidently, and then faltered. ‘But if that was Minnie on the Haunting Hotline –’
‘– it means Ghostcatcher are on their way back.’
‘And the decoy didn’t work.’ Lil stuck the pencil in her mouth and bit down on it hard. ‘And we’re almost out of time. Come on!’
She started to run, skimming along beside the asylum wall. Nedly caught up with her at the corner, and as they rounded the side of the building the research facility came into view.
Powerful floodlights encircled a colony of white domed tents, like giant glowing jellyfish, their surfaces billowing in the breeze. Thick cables snaked across the grass and into the tents and the background hum of a generator drowned out the patter of raindrops.
Lil searched the scene for any signs of disturbance. ‘Where is Abe?’
She looked back to the darkness that held the lawn, the fence and the woods behind them. She couldn’t even make out the hill with the phone box.
‘We should find him and go,’ said Nedly, looking jumpy.
‘Not until we’ve done what we came here for,’ said Lil as a feeling of dread started to grow in the pit of her stomach. ‘Quit giving me the creeps, Nedly; I’m trying to concentrate.’
‘Sorry,’ he said miserably. ‘I just don’t like it here.’
‘I know,’ Lil replied. ‘So the sooner we take care of business and get out the better, right?’
‘Right,’ said Nedly, steeling himself for action. ‘I’ll go first.’
‘Wait!’ said Lil. ‘Not this time. If EGON is watching, then you might not be invisible. I’ll go first.’
The rain appeared white in the floodlights, a haze of water droplets falling through the dark around the tents. Lil stepped out towards them and then stopped. She could hear a strange pulsing sound like an electrical swell coming from the asylum and turned to locate it.
The white glare struck the wall with the severity of lightning, creating shadows between the crumbling bricks and behind the broken glass of the windows. At the bottom of the wall was a set of tilted wooden trapdoors – an old coal bunker. A thick red cable was pinched between them.
Lil’s shadow sharpened and shrank as she neared the building. She crouched before the bunker and the throbbing grew louder. ‘There’s something here!’ She took hold of one of the iron ring handles and felt the cold metal vibrating in her hands.
The trapdoor opened with a creak. Lil leant over, peering into the cave-like room.
‘What is it?’ Nedly appeared suddenly behind her.
Lil gasped, and let the door fall with a bang that echoed loudly.
‘Sorry,’ he winced.
Lil took a deep breath, opened the trapdoor again and this time, with Nedly standing guard, she took a couple of steps down into the bunker.
Inside was like a blue-lit grotto, cold, damp and smelling of fumes. A large cylindrical battery the size of a small car was suspended in the centre of the room between two huge brackets. Electric currents whiplashed across its surface and its sides were plastered with biohazard signs and warnings. Piles of shining black stones were heaped against each wall, glistening in the cold light.
‘It’s the tourmaline,’ whispered Nedly.
Lil looked at the stones and then at a thick red pipeline that was connected to the front of the battery.
‘They’re powering EGON with this stuff, aren’t they?’ Her eyes gleamed electric blue. ‘So if we follow the pipeline, it should lead us right to its door.’
‘Do you think Abe discovered all this too?’ said Nedly.
‘Probably,’ said Lil.
They followed the red cable on its path through the tents, stepping over wooden walkways that connected like extremely low bridges and hopscotching the smaller wires that hid in the grass, until she saw it disappear into a bell-shaped tent in the middle of the colony. ‘Pssst, Nedly,’ she whispered. ‘I think this is it.’
Lil flattened herself against the tent’s silk-thin walls. ‘Abe?’ she whispered.
No answer.
‘Abe?’ she tried again, more loudly this time
She stuck her head quickly through the tent flap. In the soft white sheen of the floodlights diffused by the tent material she saw immediately that Abe wasn’t there, but EGON was.
It was the size of a garden shed. A rectangle of brushed steel with rounded corners. Its surface was almost completely smooth except for at the centre where there was a dull black screen and beneath it a keyboard. A panel of dials and a single metal switch were on one side of the screen.
An empty operator chair on wheels was in front of the control panel. To the left was a card table, three folding chairs and a camp bed.
Nedly crept in behind her and they both stood staring.
‘Abe isn’t here.’ Nedly bit his lip.
‘He’s probably got lost, that’s all. I bet he’ll be here any minute,’ Lil lied, trying to keep her own panic in check. ‘So let’s get on with it, all right?’ She rolled up her sleeves. ‘What do we have to do?’
Nedly shrugged. ‘Starkey said that I could put a reverse surge of electromagnetic energy through EGON and melt its circuits.’
‘Right,’ said Lil, nodding. ‘Where do you think they are?’
‘Somewhere inside?’ Nedly eyed the large metal box apprehensively.
Lil gave it the Squint. ‘Only one way to find out.’
‘No way am I getting in there. What if EGON traps me?’ He shook his head. ‘What if I get in there but I can’t get out again?’
‘Good point,’ Lil agreed. ‘Stay out here, put your hands on the shell and melt them from the outside in.’
Nedly wriggled his shoulders and shook out his arms and at the end of his sweatshirt his hands started glowing. His fingertips turned orange, like he was shining a torch behind them, then they grew brighter, until they looked white hot. He rubbed them together briskly in a ready-for-business kind of way and then he flattened his palms and laid them squarely on EGON.
His body began trembling, his face fixed with concentration, his hair swaying in the spectral wind he was generating.
Lil watched him, fingers crossed, whispering ‘Come on!’ under her breath.
A few minutes later Nedly gasped, ‘Is it working?’
‘I can’t tell,’ she confessed. ‘It’s just blank.’
Nedly redoubled his efforts.
Lil paced back and forth a few times, blowing out her cheeks, and then, after Nedly glared at her, perched restlessly on one of the fold-up chairs. There was a book on the card table, a thick hardback with a bookmark stuck halfway in. There was something familiar about the book; it was lying face down but there was a photograph on the back cover of a man in a white lab coat, a man with deep-set eyes. Lil stared at it for a moment. ‘Can you feel its insides melting now?’ she asked distractedly.
Nedly grimaced and tried to shake the question out of his head. ‘One, I don’t want to think about melted insides. And two, I keep telling you: I can’t feel anything. Nothing is happening.’
He closed his eyes and bared his teeth with the prolonged effort. Lil crooked her elbow over her eyes to keep the spectral wind out of her face. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You can do it; I know you can.’
After a few more minutes Nedly disengaged and slumped, exhausted, onto his knees, drooping forward until his forehead touched the floor. ‘I can’t do it,’ he moaned.
There was a single switch on the panel, a small metal one. Lil flicked it on and off, on and off. Nothing happened. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, flicking buttons and turning dials. ‘It’s like EGON is already dead.’
Nedly collapsed onto his side and laid there recovering, with his eyes closed. ‘Maybe Abe did get to him first. Maybe we passed each other without noticing?’
‘Maybe,’ said Lil. ‘But how would Abe have taken EGON out without leaving a mark on it?’ She frisked EGON’s surface, looking for hidden buttons, switches or weaknesses, and found a thin circle cut into the metal on its side. ‘Wait, Nedly, I’ve got something!’
Lil scrabbled frantically at the impossibly narrow gap round the circle, trying to get a grip with her fingertips. She gave up and stuck a pencil in and broke the nib off. ‘Arrrggh!’ She kicked EGONs shell. ‘If only Abe was here, he could jemmy this with his Swiss Army hand – wait!’ she gasped. ‘I have a Swiss Army knife too.’ She started rummaging in her bag, unloading everything onto the floor. ‘Where is it?’
Nedly opened his eyes. From his position on the floor things looked different. There, just a few feet away from where he lay was the thing they had missed. ‘Lil!’ he called out. ‘I think I’ve worked out what the problem is.’
‘What?’ Lil looked up from her pile of stuff.
Nedly got back to his feet and Lil joined him. ‘The red pipeline. It’s the power source.’ He pointed at the cable, lying slack on the floor. ‘That’s why we couldn’t switch him on. It’s not plugged in, see? We just have to –’
They heard a sound, the snap of someone standing on a twig. Lil turned to see a shadow moving along the side of the tent. It wasn’t Abe. The shadow had wavy hair and was carrying something in front of it. Lil froze, then whispered, ‘Hide!’
‘No need.’ Lazlo Yossarian entered the tent behind the tray he was carrying, which was heavy with a cosied teapot and some cups. He was wearing a collarless shirt with an orange-silk cravat, baggy trousers, espadrilles and a large woollen cardigan. Instead of a belt a paisley sash was wrapped tightly round his waist.
He grinned broadly. ‘You don’t need to be afraid of me.’
Lil got to her feet, forced her eyes not to look at Nedly and said nothing.
‘Have you come from the orphanage?’
He hadn’t recognised her. Cautiously Lil reached for the suggestion. ‘That’s right,’ she said slowly. ‘I came from the orphanage and I got lost, then I saw the lights so I came here.’
Yossarian smiled. ‘You must have come through the perimeter fence. Someone deactivated the security system, I think – it’s not working anyway.
‘I bet you’ve been wondering what we’re up to out here. It’s OK, I understand; kids are curious, always sneaking around. I was the same when I was small, always asking questions. That’s why I became a scientist.’
Lil noticed there were three cups on the tray.
Yossarian saw her looking and smiled. ‘Oh, don’t worry it’s just me here – the others have been called out.’ He paused. ‘On a mission. But I knew I had company, so I made some tea. Enough for all three of us.’