Michael Ford - Z

“Tell you what,” Firecracker said. “If you do the written paper, I’ll do all the presentation stuff. Maps. An animated timeline. Maybe a holographic model. How’s that sound?”

“Sure,” Josh said. “You’re better at the talking part anyway.”

“And you’re the word guy,” Firecracker agreed. “Between us, we’re looking at an A.”

“A-plus,” said Josh.

“So what’s going on?” Firecracker asked a moment later. “You’ve been weird all day.”

“No, I haven’t!” Josh objected. “I’m just… thinking.”

“Don’t think too hard,” said Firecracker. “You’ll wear your brain out.”

Josh laughed. “You should talk,” he fired back.

“It’s your mom, right?” said Firecracker. “You feel guilty about her catching you the other night when we were playing the game.” He popped a potato chip into his mouth and chewed loudly.

Josh hesitated a moment before answering. Firecracker often had a weird way of knowing what Josh was thinking, but this time he was wrong. Although it was a good guess, what was really bothering Josh was that he couldn’t tell Firecracker about his meeting with Charlie. If Firecracker knew the live games were real, he would be even more excited than Josh. But Josh couldn’t do anything that would risk Charlie telling him to forget it.

“I guess I feel a little guilty,” he lied. “She was really upset.”

“Maybe we should lay off for a while,” said Firecracker.

“What?” Josh said, shocked to hear Firecracker suggest such a thing.

“Just for a while,” said Firecracker. “A week. Maybe two. Long enough for her to forget about it. It’s not like we’ll die if we don’t play.” He upended the bag of chips and tapped the remaining crumbs into his mouth.

Josh was about to protest when he realized that Firecracker had just given him the perfect way to hide what he was doing—not from his mother, but from his best friend. Still, he felt like the worst friend in the world as he said, “You’re sure you’re okay with that?”

Firecracker nodded. “It’s no big deal,” he said. “Besides, you’d do it for me.”

Josh’s heart sank. “Thanks,” he said as he got up. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“You got it,” Firecracker said. “You want to check out the new mechaspiders at the Menagerie after school? I’m thinking of getting a tarantula.”

“Sorry,” Josh said. “That would be cool, but I’ve got a dentist’s appointment.”

“Gotcha. I’ll call you later tonight, then.”

The rest of the day seemed to crawl by, but finally the last class was over and Josh hurried out of school. He avoided his usual route to the subway, taking the long way so he wouldn’t run into Firecracker. Only when he was on the train heading downtown did he relax a little bit.

Charlie was waiting for him at the statue of Drax Jittrund. She was wearing pink pants and a bright orange leather jacket over an aqua-blue turtleneck. Her hair was done up in pigtails.

“I thought we were trying to be inconspicuous,” Josh said.

“In case you haven’t noticed, this is inconspicuous in the Docklands,” said Charlie. “You ready to go?”

“I don’t know,” Josh replied sarcastically. “I think I’d rather be doing homework.”

Charlie laughed. “Well, I’d hate to lose you to the thrill of working out math equations. Come on.”

They left the park and headed into the heart of the Docklands. As they walked through the narrow streets, the shops became more and more unusual. Windows filled with shoes and clothes turned into windows filled with real books and antique toys. Josh stopped to look at an old video-game system. “My grandfather had one of those,” he told Charlie. “Can you believe the games used to come on cartridges?”

“You can find pretty much anything in the Docklands,” Charlie told him, taking him by the arm and pulling him away from the window. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

After about ten minutes of walking, they came to the docks that gave the area its name. This was where the huge ships came to unload their cargo. Josh was a little bit nervous about being in what he’d always been told was a dangerous part of the city.

“Don’t worry,” Charlie told him. “No one’s going to bother us.”

Josh started to ask her how she could be so sure about that, but something stopped him. Charlie had a confidence about her that seemed to grow the deeper they moved into the Docklands. It was like she’d lived there her whole life, and it occurred to Josh that maybe she had. After all, he didn’t know anything about her.

“Down here,” Charlie said, pulling Josh into a narrow alleyway that ran between two buildings. Josh, growing more and more nervous, followed her.

When they reached the end of the alley, Josh realized that one wall had a door set into it. Charlie pulled a key on a chain from inside her turtleneck. She inserted the key into the door’s rusted lock and turned it. Josh heard something grind inside the door, and then it swung inward.

“After you,” Charlie said with a sweep of her hand.

Josh stepped inside and found himself on a small metal platform. Stairs ran down from it to another landing, and then more stairs continued down from that. Light came in from a dirty skylight revealing a series of platforms and stairs going down seemingly forever. Josh felt a shiver of anxiety pass through him, and he gripped the railing that ran along the exposed side of the platform.

“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Charlie asked as she stepped inside, closed the door, and locked it.

“Maybe a little,” Josh admitted.

“Just don’t look down,” said Charlie as she started to descend.

Josh followed her as Charlie went down and down and down. “What is this place?” he asked Charlie.

“A playing field,” Charlie answered. “You’ll see.”

Finally they reached the end of the stairs. They were in a concrete passageway. The walls were damp, and here and there water trickled down from the low ceiling. The air was cold and smelled slightly sour. Josh looked up and noticed that there were video cameras every thirty feet or so.

“Looks like someone is keeping an eye on us,” he remarked.

Charlie followed his gaze. “Those are left over from when this place was used by the shipping company,” she said quickly. “They haven’t worked in years.”

The cameras didn’t look that old to Josh, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to get into a disagreement with Charlie over something so stupid.

They came to another set of steps and went up this time. Suddenly the narrow hallway opened into a cavernous space filled with rusted pieces of metal. Lights somewhere far above them illuminated the skeleton of a huge ship occupying the center of the room, and several other smaller ships in various stages of completion were strewn throughout the enormous space. Scaffolding covered them, although it was obvious that no one had worked on the ships in years. Tools of all kinds littered the floor, and thick chains hung from the rafters like gigantic vines.

“Cool, huh?” Charlie said.

“This is amazing,” Josh said, turning around and around as he tried to take in everything there was to see. “But we’ve got to be, what, a couple hundred feet underground? How did this all get down here?”

“They used to build ships here,” Charlie explained. “Way back when, before they invented hydrogen-cell technology.”

“Yeah,” said Josh, eyeing the wooden planks. “These are definitely old school.”

“These weren’t just regular ships,” Charlie explained. “They were used for smuggling. People would secretly build and fill the ships here. Then, when they were done, they flooded the room and the ships were raised up to the surface. There are big doors up there"—she pointed up into the dark—"that open into channels that run to the ocean.”