Bill and I raced across the catwalk, through a bubble room, past Boov and more Boov, down a slide, and to the elevator, and now I noticed that Emerson was following. He got into the elevator with us and took up his elevator pose, standing stock-still and facing front.
“Um,” I said. “Are you going on this rescue with us?”
Emerson looked at me and flushed. “Yeah! I mean, if that’s okay.”
YES.
I said, “Well. You know if we’re going to be rescuing my friend from anyone, it’ll be your dad. Smek too, maybe, but—your dad.”
Emerson faced forward again. The elevator slowed. “I know. I mean, if you don’t trust me, I can take this elevator back up to our room...”
That stung, like my own thoughts were coming back to me in the form of this weird little blond kid. The elevator door shooshed open, and Bill and I exited. Emerson stayed in there, watching us.
I held the door. “Trusting people more is this new thing I’m gonna try from now on,” I said. “Don’t make me regret it, okay?”
Emerson grinned and practically pranced out of the elevator, then tried to look cool, then grinned again. “Where now?”
“Garbage pit,” I said.
After I slid down through tubes and past the wrecked chomper and landed in the trash next to Emerson, I saw his pained face looking back at me.
“When you said ‘garbage pit,’ I thought it was a figure of speech,” he said.
“It wasn’t.”
“Like when people say they’re ‘in the belly of the whale’ but they’re not really in the belly of a whale.”
“Nope, literal garbage pit.”
We slogged and waded toward the pagoda.
“Bill!” I sort of shout-whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me there was another bluzzer on my back?”
Bill spelled out all kinds of complicated stuff. Emerson squinted at it.
“Um...” he said. “Well, I’ve only been studying Boovish for like a year, but it’s like he thought you knew it was there. I don’t think he understands how a human could have something like that on them and not know it. He thought you’d made a new bee friend and he got jealous? Or something?”
I sighed. “Oh, Bill. I didn’t know, I swear. You’re the only bee for me.”
YES.
We crept up to the pagoda, the three of us, and peeked inside. Nothing. But the door to the basement was open, and I hadn’t left it that way.
“Follow me,” I whispered.
I stepped lightly into Funsize’s home and cast about for some kind of weapon. The gun I’d had earlier was out of juice, and besides, I didn’t want to erase anyone. Instead I found a couple of heavy tools, like a cross between a pipe wrench and those little wooden things you use to serve honey. One of them was larger than the other, so I gave Emerson the small one. Then we started down the ramp to the basement.
Turning and turning we descended, until I threw out an arm and stopped us both about halfway down. I’d heard something. Voices. I crept closer, carefully.
“What are they saying?” whispered Dan Landry, below. “Was that the Squealer or the one with the mask and gun?”
Gun? I gasped. The assassin?
“I do not know and also I do not care,” said Captain Smek. “Just keep the camera on them. Not on me, on them!”
“Sorry,” said Landry.
There was another voice, a distant voice. It sounded like J.Lo, sort of.
“I invented a time machine too, you see,” this voice was saying. “And when I fired it up, there was then a rumble, and terrible heat, and I saw the planet’s core go CRITICAL-NOVA! And start to EXPLORE!”
“Did he say ‘time machine’?” whispered Landry over the sounds of more distant conversation.
“Quiet and keep videoing,” said Smek. “And do not point the camera at me when I put the waveform device on the stabilizers!”
“But this is definitely safe,” Landry said. “Of course.”
“Of course. It will cause momentary tremors and then I will take it off. And our video will show what looks like the Squealer trying to destroy New Boovworld.”
I turned, and waved for Emerson and Bill to head back up the ramp. When we were farther up I explained what I wanted to do, and Bill flew back down.
Emerson and I waited on either side of the basement door with our weird tools. He was breathing hard. I guess I was too.
“When they appear...” I said. “When they appear, do you want to hit Smek, or your dad? I’d understand if you’d rather hit Sm—”
“I want to hit my dad,” said Emerson.
