Jupiter grinned. “Listening to you two Romeos!”
Twenty minutes later the Investigators found the Reasoner Corporation on a dusty, little-used street in Rocky Beach’s industrial area. The top of an old wooden warehouse, painted gray, showed beyond a tall wall. A faded, painted wood sign just under the warehouse’s domed roofline named the company but gave no information about what it did or produced.
“It looks like the joint!” Pete slowed his Aries in front of the old building. “I mean, it could be Alcatraz!”
The warehouse stood back on a huge parcel that appeared to be completely enclosed by a tall concrete block wall. Rolled barbed wire topped the wall. Nothing but a few trees could be seen inside.
“No wonder this place spooked Ty,” said Bob as they drove by. “Check out the security!”
Pete turned the car, and they coasted past again. The entrance and exits were blocked by solid steel gates that stood two feet taller than the walls. Next to one was an electronic sentry box.
“Uncle Titus’s bank has a sentry arm with an electronic box on the employee parking lot,” Jupiter informed the others as he studied the steel gate. “The only way you can drive in is if you have a plastic employee ID card. You stick the card in a slot, an electronic eye ‘reads’ the numbers, and if you’re for real, the gate opens. Of course, that’s just the entrance.”
“What do you mean,
“I’ve got a feeling there’s a point to this,” Pete told Bob. “Come on, Jupe. Give!”
“The Reasoner Corporation,” Jupiter said with maddening logic, “wants not only to keep people from driving in but also from
“Sure. With an open security exit,” Bob figured, “people can just walk around the prongs to get in.”
“Right.” Jupe nodded, peering toward the gate and its electronic sentry box. “Probably there’s an intercom on the box for outsiders to try to talk their way in. But you get the message from the tight security and the out-of-the-way location that the Reasoner Corporation does not want visitors.”
“What kind of work do you suppose they do?” Pete wondered.
“Check in on the intercom and ask,” Bob said. “Be my guest!”
“No thanks.” Pete shook his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the guards here carry Uzis!”
As they passed a stand of eucalyptus trees, Jupe said, “Park in there. It’s good cover.” No curb blocked the street, and behind the trees was an open field.
“Cover for what?” Pete said. “A break-in? You go first, Jupe. I’ll lend you my wire cutters.”
“Big of you.”
Pete parked in the field. The Investigators got out of the car and slipped among the tree trunks. Bark crunched under their feet, seeming very loud on the silent street. From the trees they stared at the prison-style warehouse.
“Maybe they do something illegal,” Pete said.
Bob said, “Yeah. Maybe it’s a weapons dump for terrorists… or a factory for illegal drugs.”
“Or maybe… ” Jupe said slowly, “all the security is designed not only to keep people out but also to keep them
“Help! Help!” Pleading voices floated across the street.
The Investigators were too stunned to move.
Anguished cries rose again.
Pete snapped into action. “Someone’s in trouble in there!” He ran to the trunk of his car, where he kept — his tools.
For a moment Jupiter thought about Ty’s warning to take it easy, not to rush in. But Pete raced past, wire cutters in hand, and Bob was right behind him.
“Please help us!”
Jupiter dashed after his friends.
As Jupiter at last reached the top, a pitiful voice cried, “No! Help us!”
“It’s coming from there!” Pete shouted. He pointed at an open garage-size door in the old warehouse.
The guys jumped off the wall and raced across a lawn toward the door. Pete got there first and skidded to a halt in the doorway. Bob and Jupiter slid in next to him. The Investigators stared at the weird scene in the barren two-story room.
Two human-size brown lumps spotted with green fungus writhed across the concrete floor. Slithering with them was an inky black blob smeared with slime. “Oh Yuk!” Pete said. “Gross!” Bob agreed.
Suddenly the three things rose up on human legs that were encased in tights colored to match each costume. Alarmed, the things huddled together.
“No!” screamed one. “No, no!”
“Save us!” screeched a second.
They were the voices the guys had heard outside!
Just then a big cylinder of Hallenbeck’s Space Age Scouring Powder danced into view. It sang in a deep bass voice:
The dirtiest dirt
Is always hurt
By Hallenbeck’s Scouring Powder.
If you want your house clean,
You’ve gotta be mean
With Hallenbeck’s Scouring Powder!
As soon as it finished the song, the cylinder bent over, aimed its top, and exploded clouds of white powder onto the whimpering dirt clods.
“Out of sight,” Pete said in awe.
At that moment an enraged voice bellowed behind the Investigators. “This is a closed set! What do you think you’re doing busting into a rehearsal!”
The guys turned. A short man with a whistle dangling from his bull neck pushed them aside and strode into the warehouse. “You step out to answer a question, and look what happens!” he muttered as he picked up a wall telephone and dialed. “Security!”
As he talked into the telephone, the dirt clumps and the scouring powder encircled the Investigators.
“How’d you guys get in?” asked the first dirt clod curiously.
“We never have visitors,” explained the second.
“That’s right,” the third added. “Not since the last batch of kids broke in and stole the old Grim Speaker masks and capes out of the garbage.”
Like E.T. and Batman, the Grim Speaker was a classic character loved by millions of viewers around the world. The difference was that the Grim Speaker appeared not in entertainment movies but in commercials to save the environment.
“Wait a minute,” Jupiter said. “What do you guys have to do with the Grim Speaker?”
“Our company made him. He’s manufactured, acted, and filmed here.”
“I don’t get it,” Jupe said with a puzzled frown. “I thought Oracle Light and Magic owned the Grim Speaker. They’re in L.A.”
“That’s us!” said the first dirt clod proudly. “We moved. We’re Oracle Light and Magic!”
“You’re the famous special-effects company?” Bob cried. “You did
Meanwhile the short man with the whistle ran to keep up with the one in the glasses. “Throw them out!” he said, pointing at the Investigators.
“Who are you?” the severe-faced man demanded as he closed in. “You’d better have a good reason for being here, or your next stop will be jail.”
The scouring powder leaned toward the Investigators. They backed away quickly, remembering the white spray that had erupted from its top. But the powder simply wanted to talk. “Meet Silas Ek,” it said. “Chief of security. And Cole Paciano, our director.”
Jupiter took in the situation quickly and said smoothly, “Mr. Ek. Just the man we wanted to talk to.”
In a crisis, Jupe often drew on his childhood acting experience. Now he slipped into the role of a polished diplomat, introducing the guys and describing the cries for help they’d heard.
“We rushed in to the rescue,” Jupe said, laying it on thick. “We thought we were heroes, but it seems instead we were
!”
The Three Investigators and the costumed actors laughed.
Silas Ek didn’t. “What were you doing outside?” he growled.
“As a matter of fact, we were looking for one of your programmers,” Jupe said. “Norton Rome.”
“Nort!” the first dirt lump said. “Now that’s one wacky guy. I mean strange. He’s the one who… ”
“Harold!” Silas Ek warned.
“Oops! Sorry, Silas.” The dirt clod backed away.
Cole Paciano, who had been impatiently watching the proceedings, stuck the whistle in his mouth and blew. “Back to work!” he ordered.
As the actors scurried to the center of the room and resumed their roles, Silas Ek studied the Investigators once more. Ek’s face seemed even more severe, the lines deeper. Jupe sensed he’d hit a nerve with Norton Rome’s name, and it was making Ek change his tactics. The security chief became friendlier.
“Come with me,” he invited. “We’ll talk in my office.”
“Great!” Pete said, pleased. “Can we see some of Oracle Light and Magic? You guys are fantastic. Wait till I tell Kelly — that’s my girlfriend!” And he’d blow his dad’s mind too. Mr. Crenshaw was in special effects himself, though nothing as high-octane as Oracle.
“That’s just what we
“That’s why you operate under a false name, the Reasoner Corporation?” Jupe asked.
Ek nodded. “In L.A. we had to have guards everywhere to keep people from sneaking in and stealing souvenirs.’ We don’t want the public to know where we are now.”
“We heard about the Grim Speaker stuff,” Bob told him.
“That was the final straw,” Ek agreed.
On Jupiter’s left, rows of computers crammed an enormous glassed-in room. The sign on the door said computer graphics department. All but three of the computers were dark, but at those three, programmers hunched over their keyboards, working feverishly. Jupe stopped abruptly to stare at the screens. They were filled with nonsense numbers and letters — garbage!
Bob, who had been following Jupe, bumped smack into him. Stout Jupe hardly budged, so intent was he on what he saw.
“Come on, Jupe,” Bob complained. “Get the lead out.”
“Keep moving,” Ek insisted.
Jupe asked Ek, “Oracle does a lot of computer graphics?”
“One of our specialties,” Ek said, increasing his pace so that the guys had to trot to keep up, “The animated computer graphics on
Star Wars
“I’ve seen that movie eighteen times,” Pete said. “At least. I thought all the spaceship battles were animated on computers!”
“That’s what everyone thinks. But no drawings were animated. They just shot models.”
Ek climbed a flight of stairs up to a wide landing. There a full-length painting of a smiling woman in a fashion spacesuit peered down on them.
“Hey, isn’t that Phyllis Hyem?” asked Jupe.
“The lady who founded Oracle!” Bob said.
“She’s famous,” added Pete.
“Yes, that’s Ms. Hyem.” Ek opened the first door on the left. They entered a long office with a picture window on one side that looked out over the Oracle complex. Ek had a good view of the small buildings and sheds that dotted the grounds. A dozen security monitors covered the far wall of the office. They showed views of Oracle’s exterior, studios, and production rooms.
“You guys really stay on top of things in security,” Bob said, impressed with the monitors.
“Sit down,” Ek said pleasantly, and gestured at three canvas chairs in front of his desk. He sat down behind his desk, facing the guys and the video monitors.
“You asked about Nort Rome,” the security chief said. “Mind telling me why?”
“Sure,” Jupe answered. “He came to talk to my computer club and left behind something I want to return. But he wasn’t home yesterday or today.”
“He’s on an extended vacation,” Ek said promptly. “Why don’t you leave whatever it is with me? I’ll see that he gets it.”
“You don’t want what he left behind!” Pete warned the security chief.
“Not unless you want a computer virus!” Bob added.
Jupiter nodded. “But it looks to me as if Oracle’s already infected with a computer virus.”
“What?” Bob and Pete said. Silas Ek frowned angrily and picked up a paper-weight in the shape of a
Jupe went on logically. “Your whole computer graphics department is closed down, even though you’ve got probably the busiest one in the nation. The only three computers that you’ve got on aren’t working — their screens are filled with the same junk that’s on our PC at home.”
Silas Ek stood up. “Our discussion is at an end. Let me warn you that Oracle can file trespassing charges against you anytime we wish. If we hear you’ve told anyone about our location or about any alleged ‘computer virus,’ we will be forced to do exactly that… ”
Just then Ek’s eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. He stared unspeaking over the heads of the guys at the bank of security monitors.
The Investigators turned around. Sparks were shooting out from the monitors. Loud crackling and snapping noises followed.
Pete saw smoke billow toward them.
“Fire!”
Pete ran for the door, “I saw fire extinguishers downstairs!” Silas Ek grabbed his telephone and punched buttons. “Maintenance? Ek here. I’ve got an electrical fire! Cut off the power and get up here with fire extinguishers!” As the lights went out, Ek called the Rocky Beach Fire Department.
Suddenly a few fingers of flames licked out from the video monitors.
“Uh — oh!” Bob said, sweating. “Every monitor’s hit!” Jupe cried. “Why would they all catch fire at the same time?”
“Who cares?” Bob said. “We’ve got to put out the fire before we turn into fried chicken!”
Pete slammed back in and tossed extinguishers to Bob and Jupe.
Jupe checked that they were dry-chemical fire extinguishers — the kind to use on burning paper, wood, textiles, liquids, gases, vehicles, and, most especially, electricity.
The three guys pulled the extinguishers’ safety pins, pressed down the top levers, and aimed the high-velocity streams of powder.
Just then the Oracle maintenance crew burst in with their own extinguishers. They lined up with the guys and smothered the blaze with a thick blanket of dry chemicals. At last the fire was dead.
“Those monitors look like they’ve been in a blizzard!” Pete laughed with relief. The white powder mounded over the monitors like snowdrifts.
“Thanks, fellows,” the crew chief told the Investigators. “You caught the fire before it spread into the building’s support timbers.”
As the crew chief moved his men out to fetch their cleanup equipment, Silas Ek phoned the fire department and told them to call back their engines.
When Ek hung up, Jupe suggested, “Now why don’t you phone downstairs for the head of your virus control team?”