The Magic Factory

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Oliver’s head spun. Had Lucas sold his bomb to the Nazis?

Oliver noticed then that amidst the paperwork was a photo of Lucas. Not the young boy version of this timeline, but as the old man Oliver knew. And more chilling than seeing the elderly Lucas in the past where he did not belong was what he was wearing in the photo: a Nazi uniform.

The army in his dream. The uniforms matched!

Oliver drew back and gasped. But he had no time to let anything sink in, because suddenly he heard the sound of a revving engine. From the window, he saw a truck entering the shadowy lot of the factory. It drew to a halt and several men jumped out. They streaked across the courtyard. A small shadowy figure ushered them inside the factory. It was the young Lucas.

Oliver grabbed all the paperwork, shoving it hurriedly into his overall pockets. Then he darted out of the room, clattering down the spiral staircase.

He was just in the nick of time. The sound of heavy boots echoed down the corridor as Oliver backed into an alcove. He could hear whispering voices speaking in sharp, hurried German.

Up ahead, the exit stood open, letting in a sliver of moonlight. The men were coming out of another corridor. They were wheeling a large crate across the factory floor, heading for the exit. Lucas was guiding them.

Oliver’s heart clenched. Was the bomb inside the crate?

Just then, Oliver heard the sound of thudding coming from the other end of the corridor, quickly followed by a muffled cry. Armando. Lucas must have locked him in his office!

Oliver felt immediately torn between freeing Armando and following the crate. As the men maneuvered the crate through the exit, he stood on the spot, glancing first down the corridor toward the pounding sound, then back out at the exit.

Sorry, Armando, Oliver muttered under his breath.

He made his move, heading not toward his trapped hero, but streaking instead across the forecourt, following the bomb. He slunk discreetly through the door, letting the darkness of the moonlit evening provide cover.

Oliver ducked down behind a stack of trash cans and watched the scene unfold before him. It was happening so fast; the men loading up their truck with cargo taken from the factory. He had to do something.

Oliver closed his eyes, focusing his mind in the way he needed to, to summon his powers. But a sudden a noise beside him broke his concentration.

He turned sharply to see a silhouette emerging from the shadows. The first thing that struck Oliver was the unearthly shade of blue eyes. The eyes of a cobalt Seer. Of his enemy.

The shadowy figure moved further into the moonlight. Oliver gasped. It was Lucas.

Lucas was a Seer! But he was a rogue one, an evil one with unmistakable flashing blue eyes.

“What have you done?” Oliver cried to the boy.

Lucas just smirked. “He told me everything. The man from the future. About you and how you become Armando’s favorite. How you take my place. He said all I had to do to win back Armando’s favor was deliver this crate.”

All the pieces fell into place in Oliver’s mind. Lucas from the future had gotten young Lucas to do his bidding, to sell his bomb to the Nazis, the only people crazy enough to actually set it off.

“He tricked you!” Oliver cried. “Can’t you see? These men are German soldiers! That’s a bomb inside!”

Lucas frowned. “Don’t be stupid. The Germans are the enemies.”

“That man from the future,” Oliver stammered. “He’s YOU. He’s tricked you into handing a bomb over to Hitler!”

But Lucas wasn’t going to be convinced. There was no time to explain it either. Oliver had to stop the bomb from reaching its destination.

Thinking nothing of his own safety, he ran. But Lucas lunged for him. Oliver dodged, leaping left, and felt Lucas’s fingertips brush his overalls.

“Stop!” the boy screamed. “You’re ruining everything!”

Recovering, Oliver darted forward, his feet pounding the asphalt. His legs ached from the effort of sprinting. But Lucas was right behind him. So close.

The engine of the truck was already running. Fumes came from the exhaust. Oliver pounced through the acrid cloud, using all his strength to leap through the air.

He landed with a hard thump onto the back of the truck, his feet balancing precariously on a small ledge. He tried to open the door but it was locked. He felt the engine rumbling beneath him as the truck accelerated. Oliver held on tightly as the truck began to pull out of the lot. Pebbles crunched beneath the tires, just a foot below him.

Oliver clutched on with all his might, still trying to prize open the lock. Lucas was bearing down on him. But the truck was picking up speed. The distance between them grew.

Suddenly, the lock yielded. Oliver heaved the door of the truck open and swung his body inside. Wind whipped through his hair as he looked out the back of the open truck at Lucas’s figure shrinking into the distance.

Oliver had no time to feel relieved. Lucas was a mere inconvenience, a small hurdle to overcome. The real challenge was the crate and the bomb it contained. He slammed the door shut behind him and turned to face it.

The truck picked up speed, surging forward and flinging Oliver backward. His back thudded against the closed doors. He sunk to his knees, winded. The truck jerked him roughly side to side, making his stomach flip. But he gritted his teeth and forced the unpleasant sensations away. He’d been on the back of an ostreagle, after all. This sensation was nothing in comparison to that. Switchit practice had been good training, he realized.

Drawing himself to unsteady knees, Oliver staggered through the truck toward the crate that contained the weapon. He had to get inside somehow. He was certain that if he could get his hands on the machine, he’d work out a way to dismantle it.

Oliver took hold of one of the planks of wood in his hands. He heaved as hard as he could. But no success. The planks were fixed in place with nails. He’d need a wrench to get inside.

He looked around the truck frantically, searching for a tool that could help him in his endeavor. But the truck was moving too quickly. He kept getting tossed from side to side. Try as he might, he couldn’t get to his feet long enough to fully search the inside of the truck for anything he may be able to use.

Suddenly, Oliver felt the sensation of moving upward. The truck was being driven up a ramp.

He ran to the back and looked out the small, blacked out window in the door. To his shock he saw that they had driven right up inside the back of a big military cargo plane!

With complete terror, Oliver realized what was happening. The truck containing the weapon was on its way to Nazi-controlled Germany. And he was going with it.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Oliver’s heart hammered with terror. It was very noisy in the back of the plane with the engines roaring. It was also very dark. So dark, Oliver could hardly see his hands in front of his face.

He tried to collect this thoughts. But there was no time because Oliver suddenly felt the horrible swooshing sensation of the plane gaining speed along the runway. All around him, everything began to shake. There was nothing to hold on to, no seat to clip himself into. He was going to take to the sky in the back of a truck! Panic overcame him.

From beneath he felt the angle change. The plane was beginning to lift from the runway. Oliver started to slide backward and felt the strange heavy sensation of lift as the plane’s wings countered the effects of gravity. He groped forward, searching for some kind of handhold. But there was nothing. He rolled, colliding with the back doors of the truck. There was nothing to do but close his eyes, grit his teeth, and wait for the plane’s rapid ascension to be complete.

It seemed to last forever. The plane kept climbing and climbing, turning as it went in a sort of rollercoaster-like fashion. Unlike the passenger planes Oliver was used to, this military cargo plane had no need to make passengers comfortable, and the pilot was clearly pushing it to the very edge of its physical capabilities. Its steep angle remained, pushing Oliver into an uncomfortable, sprawled position against the locked back doors of the truck. It must be ascending to a very high altitude, he realized, far, far above the clouds in order to avoid detection from the enemies below.

But finally, he felt it even out. At last, Oliver was able to collect himself.

He peeled himself from the uncomfortable position he’d been forced into against the back of the truck doors and heaved himself up on to unsteady legs. The plane was actually much smoother than it had been bumping around in the back of the truck.

Once more, he stood face to face with the crate. Inside was its dangerous cargo. The bomb. He had to get inside and destroy the bomb.

He searched around in the back of the truck, through the gloom, looking for some kind of tool to help him. Wedged amongst the other wooden boxes in the truck, he found a crowbar. He grabbed it, relieved.

Oliver hurried to the crate and squinted to find the nails. It was hard in the darkness to find the small glint of metal, but finally he did, and he worked quickly, prizing out the nails and discarding the planks to the side. He worked feverishly, the darkness making his task even harder. But one by one he managed to tear off the planks. Until, finally, he stepped back.

He was staring at the bomb.

Seeing it in reality was more bone-chilling than he’d ever expected. This wasn’t just a plan or design anymore. This was the real thing. The real bomb. A complex machine of burnished metal. Six feet tall. Egg-shaped. Covered in wires. Filled with deathly power.

Oliver shuddered at the thought of the twisted mind that had created it—Lucas. Oliver’s determination to destroy the bomb before it could destroy anyone grew even stronger.

Quickly, he reached into his overalls pocket and pulled out all the plans he’d stolen from Lucas’s secret room. It was so dark he had to hold them very close to his face. He studied them, comparing what was on the page to what he was looking at, trying to figure out how it had been designed and in turn, how it could be dismantled.

To his distress he found that it had been extremely well designed. Impeccably. Clearly, Lucas had poached ideas from Armando and twisted them for his dark means. The bomb was born not from the mind of a brilliant human, but from the disturbed mind of a terrifyingly evil Seer. It was filled with tricks—extra wires and switches—that made it near impossible to decipher, as well as shields like Esther’s and the invisible wall around the school. One wrong move and the whole thing would blow right here, right now.

Oliver would need days to decipher it. But it would only be hours before the plane reached Germany. He felt overwhelmed and suddenly desperately alone. If only he had the support of his friends, the wisdom of Armando, and the experience of Professor Amethyst and the other teachers at the School for Seers.

But no sooner had he thought it, than Oliver realized that he did. All those people had given something to him over the time he’d known them; their encouragement, their knowledge, their experience. This was a quest designed for him. In him, all that information converged. Other than Lucas, he was the only Seer who’d been trained by Armando Illstrom. The person most able to dismantle this bomb was Oliver himself. That was why the universe had called to him in the first place.

Buoyed by the revelation, Oliver got to work, focusing on the task at hand. He may not have days at his disposal, but there was still a chance he’d be able to do enough with the hours ahead of him to stop the bomb from working. He became engrossed, just as he had done when making the periscope, when creating the invisibility coat. He drew on every scrap of knowledge he had about inventions, losing himself in theory and physics, focusing his entire mind on dismantling the weapon.

He lost track of everything around him, his mind homing in on this one thing.

*

Suddenly, Oliver felt the engines change beneath him. They were losing speed. He knew what that meant. The plane was preparing to begin its descent.

He blinked with surprise and checked his timetable. Indeed, several hours had passed. In fact, his timetable was flashing red now fully, warning him he was out of bounds and off course. That meant Esther’s opening would now be closed and his chance of ever returning to the school completely vanquished. He’d been so engrossed with the bomb that he’d lost track not just of time but of his own personal sacrifice; the school. He’d become so focused that every other distraction had quit his mind. And yet the bomb was still very much intact, still ready to enact its destruction on the world. Panic took hold of him.

Oliver felt the plane’s angle change. He grasped out for any kind of handhold, but failed to find anything. He slid, this time toward the front of the truck, to the part behind the driver’s cabby. He hit the wall hard and curled up, gritting his teeth, his stomach in knots. The pressure changed rapidly, making his ears pop painfully. The descent was terrifyingly fast, the pilot pushing the plane into a descent just as rapid as its ascension had been.

Then there was a horrible jolting sensation as the plane touched its wheels to the ground.

They’d landed. They’d touched down in Germany.

Oliver was tossed from side to side as the plane careened down the runway. As he bounced around in the back of the truck, teeth rattling, Oliver heard the plane’s engines begin to slow. Beneath him, he felt the deceleration. Soon they’d halt entirely.

Things were getting desperate now. He had to do something. Had to think of something. But everything was happening so fast he couldn’t even begin to formulate a plan.

The plane became slower and slower until suddenly it stopped. Oliver heard the engines whine as they were switched off and began to slow. Then scraping noises told him the cargo doors were being opened. He heard footsteps approaching, the scrape of a key in a lock and then the slam of the truck door being closed. The driver of the truck was back.

The engine suddenly rumbled beneath him and revved. Then with some jerking and juddering, daylight started to stream in through the window. They were outside.

Oliver leapt up and looked out the back. The sight that confronted him sent icicles down his spine.

1940s Germany was filled with swastikas.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Oliver gasped at the sight through the window. On every gray building hung a flag with a swastika. On every road sign, on every car window. It was like a jubilee, but instead of colorful bunting there were flags with the hateful symbol upon them. Oliver swallowed, anguished by the sight of them, by the sea of red and black.

The streets were more or less empty, with just a few passing cars and other military trucks. Oliver watched as they drove through a checkpoint manned by the German army and past a truck at the side of the road with soldiers standing beside it, guns at the ready. He felt sick at the sight of it all.

He tore his gaze from the window, turning back to the bomb. He would have to make a decision, take a risk. If he chose the wrong wire the bomb would explode and the world would end. But if he did nothing, Hitler would detonate the bomb and the world would end anyway.

Oliver tried to approach the bomb, but the truck was jostling him too much. He was flung sideways as the truck made a sharp left turn, falling to his knees painfully. No sooner had he drawn himself to his feet than another sharp turn flung him to the floor again. Beneath him, speed bumps made him bounce up and crash back down. His teeth crunched together, over and over, as the truck careened over them.

Then suddenly they stopped. Oliver hauled himself to standing and hurried to the window. They’d reached an imposing-looking gray building, surrounded by barbed wire. Oliver realized with dread that this could be none other than Hitler’s headquarters.

The truck began to move again, passing them through the checkpoint. Guard towers cast dark shadows over everything. Oliver gazed up at them, trembling at the sight of the heavily armed soldiers patrolling back and forth upon them.

Then the truck shuddered to a final stop, the sound of its engine cutting out. It was too late. They’d arrived. Time was up and Oliver hadn’t had a chance to pull a wire. He hurried to hide behind the crate, some instinct of self-preservation forcing him to flee rather than be caught.

He heard the sound of scraping metal as the back doors of the truck were opened from the outside. He peeped out from his hiding place and saw, with terror, a very familiar face. A face known and feared by every human on the planet. Hitler.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Oliver’s breath stopped in his lungs. He couldn’t quite believe he was looking at Hitler himself, at the most evil human who’d ever lived. He watched on, frozen with shock, as the terrifying Nazi leader looked into the truck.

Hitler did not seem to notice the strewn pieces of wooden planks. His dark gaze was too fixated on the bomb to realize.

He examined it, his beady eyes scanning what was before him. Oliver could see the sheer delight flashing behind his eyes at the sight of the advanced future technology, of Lucas’s creation.

Hitler seemed thrilled by what was in front of him. He spoke in excited, rapid German to someone out of Oliver’s eyeline. Then he marched off.

Suddenly, Oliver had an opportunity. Hitler would soon be back to collect his weapon. But in the seconds suddenly available to him, Oliver had to do something. It was now or never. He had to take the risk. Make the choice.

But then, as if planted into his mind by the universe itself, Oliver suddenly realized what he had to do to dismantle the bomb. He’d been going about it all wrong, like a bomb disposal expert rather than a Seer. He didn’t need to cut a wire to stop the bomb; he needed to worm inside of it with his mind and use his atomic specialism to rearrange the very atoms within it. Like the objects in Armando’s office, he had to turn the atoms from one state to another. And then he had to hold them there.

Oliver unfocused his eyes and relaxed his brain, inviting in the now familiar sensations needed to summon his powers. This time, they came to him rapidly, easily, far more quickly than ever before, as if fueled by his fear. They flooded his mind with their blinding strength, making his heart pound from the force.

He visualized the bomb in minuscule detail, complete precision, not just every single wire or bolt or metal plating, but every single atom. He could see it all, in crystal-clear, perfect precision, from the sonar shield Lucas had surrounding it to the very chemicals deep inside it that would cause the blast.

Oliver immediately visualized what he needed—the dangerous, volatile chemicals inside turning into water—then he pushed out with his mind. Immediately he felt resistance as his own Seer power counteracted with Lucas’s shield. But he could sense it was working, almost as if he could somehow feel the atoms inside reconfiguring themselves in line with his commands.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps. His time was up. They’d come back for the bomb. He had to hold on to his visualization. Which meant he couldn’t get caught. He had to hide himself. He ducked behind a stack of smaller wooden boxes.

Hitler was back, several soldiers beside him.

He watched as the bomb was unloaded from the back of the truck. From his hiding place, Oliver watched on as the bomb was set up, mounted onto the rocket launcher that would propel it into the atmosphere. There were many Nazi soldiers standing around, each looking as menacing as the next. The tension was almost too much to bear. It was compounded by the strain of holding onto the changed atoms within the bomb.

He watched them mount the weapon onto a vertical gurney, its pointed tip directed into the sky. It was ready for launch.

A figure approached. His stance formidable, his aura bone-chilling. The desire to press the button was written all over his face. Now was his moment of glory.

With an evil grin, Hitler reached for the big red button.