G. H. Stone: Fatal Error

“So the third movie’s out already?” Ty asked Pete as he climbed behind the van’s wheel. Everyone knew about the megahit science fiction trilogy. The first two films had made Hack and his costar Qute den Zorn hot box-office stars. Qute — pronounced “cute” — was also Hack’s twin sister.

“Me, I’d go just to see Qute,” Pete confided. “She is one be — yoo — tiful babe.”

“Don’t let Kelly hear you say that,” Jupe advised.

Jupe went into his electronics workshop, a shack on the other side of the trailer from the grease pit. He pulled out a stool and sat in the doorway. Closing his eyes, he turned over in his mind the meaning of the CHAO$ message. Someone was in danger, and it had to be someone with a computer.

The van’s motor roared to life, and Pete stuck his head under the hood. Ty stepped on the gas. Every time he did, the engine pinged. Ty sped around the van to join Pete under the hood.

Just then the trailer door opened, and Bob emerged with a triumphant smile on his handsome face.

“We’re going with you to the movie tomorrow!” he shouted to Pete. “Jupe, you’ve got to come too. Elizabeth has a cousin she wants to set you up with!”

Jupe opened his eyes and rolled them. “I’m busy!”

“Come on, Jupe,” Pete encouraged. “If you don’t bore her to death with the theory of relativity, you’ll have a great time.”

Despite his big brain, Jupiter found girls a huge mystery. “I’ve got to clean up the virus,” he insisted.

“Okay, chicken, but you tell her!” Bob said. “I’m outta here. Got to help Sax with a gig tonight!” Leaving the phone dangling in the trailer doorway, he trotted off toward the junkyard entrance.

Slowly Jupe walked over and picked up the phone. He cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. Hello, Elizabeth.”

Pete watched, amused. How was Jupe going to get out of this one?

An idea glinted in Jupe’s eyes. “I’d love to go out with your cousin, but the only time I have open is dinner. She’s welcome to join me — for peanut butter and bananas.” Jupe paused, listening. He smiled. “Of course. I’m very sorry that she doesn’t do peanut butter. Maybe next time. Good-bye.”

Chuckling, Jupe hung up the telephone and returned to his stool to work on the CHAO$ question.

Pete laughed and shook his head. Now back to important things — like the van’s pinging. He asked Ty, “What’s the prob?”

“When fuel and air mix it up, you know, in the engine’s combustion chamber, they’re s’posed to burn smooth,” Ty explained. “But sometimes they don’t. Then you get little bursts or explosions. That’s what makes the pingin’.”

“Will it hurt anything?”

“You bet. Bad detonation can raise the combustion chamber temperatures so high that metals melt and kill the pistons and valves.”

“Oh, no!” Pete groaned.

“Relax, man.” Ty chuckled. “We’re in like Flynn. You were gonna do a tune-up on this baby anyway, right?”

“Yeah,” Pete said eagerly. “Do you mean a tune-up will take care of it?”

“Yup. Your ignition timin’s off, that’s all.” Jupe was getting nowhere fast with the CHAO$ problem. He headed into the trailer to work on cleaning up the Investigators’ PC. First he had to purge the system, then boot it back up using the original software. It could take days. After that he’d have to start reinventorying the junkyard. It looked as if they’d lost data on furniture, appliance parts, garden utensils…

Suddenly Bob bellowed across the yard. “Jupe! Pete!”

The guys turned. Bob was running toward them. He looked both surprised and alarmed.

“There’s a guy out there,” Bob panted. “He’s watching the salvage yard! He’s got on a green jacket and white high-tops!”

The investigators ran to the junkyard entrance. They looked up and down the shadowy street. There was no traffic and no one was in sight.

“Where is he?” Pete demanded.

“Down there,” Bob said, nodding toward a pepper tree growing next to a street light.

Suddenly the growl of a motorcycle erupted, then died.

“That’s him!” cried Bob.

The guys ran toward the motorcycle. The man in the green jacket stomped the starter again. This time the engine caught, and he took off.

“Back to my car!” Pete ordered.

The Investigators reversed directions and piled into Pete’s Aries, parked just inside the junkyard. They zoomed away.

“There he is!” Jupe pointed down a side street. But just then the motorcycle veered off around a corner.

Pete sped up to the corner of the next block, where the motorcycle appeared to be heading. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the guy. He turned the corner.

“We found him!” Bob exclaimed at the sight of the speeding motorcycle. “Good going, Pete!”

The Investigators leaned forward, excited to be closing in on the dangerous stranger. Now they’d get some questions answered.

Then the motorcycle turned again… and disappeared into the middle of the block! Pete accelerated to the spot. He turned too — right into an enclosed public parking lot.

“You sure he came in here?” Bob asked Pete. The parking lot was empty!

“Nowhere else he could’ve gone.” Pete touched the gas pedal, and the Aries rolled forward. The parking lot was eerily quiet.

“Man, this place is a tomb,” Bob said.

“Why can’t we hear his motorcycle?” Jupiter muttered. “Where’d he go?”

At last the Aries reached the opposite end of the lot. The Investigators were on edge, looking for a motorcycle that was suddenly invisible.

“He’s disappeared into thin air!” Bob exclaimed.

Then, like breaking glass, the motorcycle’s roar shattered the silence. The guys jumped.

“There he goes!” Pete shouted as a streak of light zipped from around a dumpster enclosure and roared behind them back across the lot. The cycle had been hiding in the dumpster’s shadows, its lights off.

Pete raced the Aries in a circle toward the exit. But the street was deserted, and Jupe was dizzy.

“So close,” Bob moaned.

“We haven’t lost him yet!” Pete said stubbornly. “Hang on!”

Pete pressed the gas feed and the souped-up Aries took off, crisscrossing the area’s streets.

“Let’s get that turkey!” Jupe urged, holding his stomach. Maybe he wasn’t dizzy, he decided, maybe he was hungry. He thought longingly of a ripe banana slathered with peanut butter.

Suddenly the sound of a motorcycle again pierced the twilight. The Investigators leaned forward eagerly as Pete raced toward it.

“We’re closing in!” Bob said, excited. The motorcycle sound was a roar.

And then they rounded a corner.

“Oh, boy! Hell’s Angels!” Pete groaned as they came in on the tail end of a pack of motorcyclists. The famous gang members wore leather vests, long hair in ponytails, and tattoos on their arms. They glanced disdainfully over their shoulders at Pete’s souped-up Aries, then resumed their ride as if the guys in the car didn’t exist.

“Good going, Pete.” Jupe shivered.

“Think that about does it,” Pete grumbled as he let the Angels roll far ahead. “We lost Greenjacket, I guess.”

Bob and Jupe nodded.

“I hate to wimp out on you guys,” Bob said, “but I’m going to be late for work.”

Pete turned the Aries back toward the salvage yard and wondered aloud, “Who is that guy?”

The Jones Salvage Yard was closed for the night. Pete dropped Bob off at his antique red Volkswagen beetle, which was parked on the street, and Bob drove away.

Inside the junkyard, light bathed only the grease pit where Ty was hard at work, finishing the tune-up on the Ford van.