X-plosion Page 2

  Erica was supercute, and smart, too—and she totally had a crush on Frank, which is probably why she was sticking up for him. Erica talking back to Tyrone totally made Frank blush. He’s not that smooth with the ladies (unlike me). It made Tyrone go red in the face too—but for different reasons.

  “Don’t you get started with me, Erica. I am your father and you will address me as such. Now go help your mother with Tyrone Junior.”

  That touched a nerve.

  “She’s not my mother!” Erica yelled back. She kicked her feet across the desk, spilling Tyrone’s papers everywhere. Then she ran out of the office. Looked like she had inherited some of her step-dad’s temper. I couldn’t see her face very well, but I was pretty sure she was crying. Nick was laughing out loud by this point, and Tyrone yelled for him to get out of the office as well. They certainly seemed like one big happy family. Not.

  “As for the two of you,” Tyrone said, pointing at Frank and me, “nothing had better happen during the Cody Zane Skate or Die Competition, you hear me? I have a lot of money riding on this. If you can’t handle it, I’ll hire some people who can.”

  Tyrone pulled his PDA out of his pocket and threw it at Frank, who caught it right before it hit him in the face.

  “Now take this and figure out who this Skater Hater is. I want results, not more excuses! Go on, get out!”

  He didn’t need to tell me twice. I was out of that office before you could count to three.

  “So, where to now?” I asked Frank.

  I could still hear Tyrone screaming inside his office, even though we’d left the building. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who got over things quickly. Thankfully, his office was in the part of the park that was off-limits to visitors, so no one except his family, Frank, and me had to hear him.

  Lucky us.

  “Well, Bret Johnston should be out of the hospital by now. Maybe we should go talk to him some more?” Frank suggested.

  “Ugh. The last thing I want to do is talk to him. He’s such a spoiled brat. Besides, I don’t really think he had anything to do with the explosion. He’s such an attention hog—I believe him when he says he was planning on skiing down the mountain to his song to impress his fans.”

  “Yeah,” Frank agreed. “It doesn’t make much sense for him to have blown up Mount McKenzie. But right now, he’s our only suspect. And he was around when most of the other ‘accidents’ happened, so who knows? I’ll ask ATAC to dig up any information they can find on him.”

  “You know what we need to do? One of us needs to enter the Skate or Die Competition. To keep an eye on things from the inside.”

  Frank quirked his eyebrow at me.

  “To keep an eye on things? Or because you’re obsessed with Cody Zane?”

  “I’m not obsessed with Cody Zane! I’m just pretty sure we could be friends, if we ever met in real life. He seems like a cool guy. And I didn’t say I had to be the one to enter the competition. It could be you. But I’ve been practicing, and I could totally win it.”

  Frank sighed and shook his head.

  “Come on,” he said. “You can enter the competition tomorrow. But for now, let’s go back up to Mount McKenzie and see if whoever did this left behind any clues.”

  Frank started walking back toward the park, when all of a sudden his pocket started buzzing.

  “ATAC?” I asked him.

  “No,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “It’s Tyrone’s PDA.”

  We both stared at it for a moment as it vibrated in Frank’s hand. Then I took it and flipped it open. I figured he’d given it to us—well, okay, thrown it at us—so he meant for us to look at it. And even if he didn’t, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  The screen blinked with an incoming message from someone named 4Real. I clicked on it.

  SK8 OR DIE? HOW ABOUT SK8 AND DIE? the screen read.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “Looks like Skater Hater has found a friend.”

  FRANK

  3

  Living on the Edge

  “Well, guess that changes our plans,” Joe said, staring at the message on Tyrone’s PDA device.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve got to go find Cody Zane right now and warn him. He’s clearly in danger.”

  “I’m sure he’s got bodyguards with him. Besides, who knows if this is directed at him, or just more threats at the park itself?” We needed to be ATAC agents, not fan boys. But there was no telling that to Joe. He just kept insisting that we needed to go make sure Cody was all right.

  Tyrone’s PDA started buzzing again. Joe opened up the new message.

  CODY ZANE & ALL THOSE OTHER SELLOUTS BETTER WATCH OUT!!

  4Real, it seemed, was a poet.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “We’ll go talk to Cody.”

  “Yes!” Joe jumped up in the air and pumped his fist.

  “You’re going to be like this the entire time we work on this case, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Yep. Probably.” Joe skipped a few steps and pounded his fist in the air again. He was going to drive me crazy.

  The whole way over to the VIP section of the park, Tyrone’s PDA kept going off with new threats from 4Real. They were all against Cody, the competition, and “sellouts,” “fakes,” and “phonies.” Whoever he was, 4Real definitely had a lot of anger issues. Tyrone was going to explode (again!) when he heard about this.

  The VIP section of Galaxy X was an area of luxurious private cabins just for celebrities. It was like a separate island in the middle of the park, with a moat surrounding it and only one way in, a long bridge made entirely out of clear plastic, so it looked like you were walking on air. It had all sorts of special attractions that were off-limits to ordinary park visitors. There was a restaurant that delivered around the clock and would fry anything—from chicken to candy bars. The water fountains all had buttons on them to choose among water, soda, lemonade, and iced tea. When it rained, a giant dome rose up to cover the entire area. To make the celebrities happy, Tyrone guaranteed that no reporters were allowed in the VIP area. There were also a number of rides and games that were open only to VIPs—a private pool, bumper cars with specially made luxury-brand cars, even a helicopter pad for celebrities wanting to avoid the rest of the park entirely. When Tyrone said something was exclusive, he meant it.

  We found Cody chilling by the VIP skate ramp with his whole entourage—photographers, bodyguards, and a host of skaters that made up the “Zaniacs,” his handpicked and trained skate team. The ramp itself was surrounded by palm trees, with hammocks strung in between them. There was even a hot tub hidden in the shade, where Cody, his girlfriend (the famous model/skater London), and his best friend and fellow skater David Sanders were all stretched out. Together, the three of them were the judges for the Skate or Die Competition. Even wet, Cody’s pitch-black hair managed to stick straight up in his infamous “porcupine” hairdo. In person, London was even more beautiful than she was in all the photos I’d seen. And David…David just looked like a normal guy. Right now, like a normal guy who was half-asleep in a hot tub.

  For all the skateboarders hanging out, no one seemed to have used the ramp yet. Everyone was sitting around, updating their blogs and surfing the web on little handheld computers, or posing for pictures, or just relaxing.

  Joe and I headed directly over to the hot tub, but Cody’s bodyguards stopped us before we got within fifteen feet. Two of them, dressed in matching gray suits and dark sunglasses, stood directly in our path.

  “Can we help you?” one of them asked. He was so tall, I was staring directly at the breast pocket of his suit. I couldn’t believe he was wearing a suit in this weather. They must have been really hot, but neither one of them looked like they were sweating or uncomfortable. In fact, for all the emotion they showed, they could have been carved from stone.

  “Hi. I’m Frank Hardy, and this is my brother, Joe. We need to talk to Cody.”

  “I’m afraid
Mr. Zane isn’t available at the moment,” the guard said in a firm voice.

  “What? But he’s right over there. I can see him!”

  “Hey, guys,” Cody’s voice rang out from the hot tub. “It’s cool. They’re those secret agent guys. Let ’em come over.”

  Well, that ruined any cover we might have had. I nearly had to run to keep up with Joe, who was so excited I’d swear he was skipping over to the hot tub.

  “Hi, Cody,” Joe said. For once, it wasn’t the hot girl who had his total attention. In fact, he barely seemed to notice that London and David were there.

  “Hey, guys, come on in! The water’s great.” Cody splashed his arm in the water, sending a hot wave flowing over the edge. London shrieked. David cracked his eyes open and then seemed to fall right back to sleep.

  “I wish we could, my man. But we’re here on business.”

  My man? Who was Joe trying to kid?

  “That’s cool. I hear that. I know how you secret agent types need to roll. So what’s the what?”

  “We’ve been getting some threats against you and the competition,” I broke in on their bro fest.

  “That’s cool, man,” Cody said. “I mean, not cool at all. But cool. You know what I mean?”

  Cody didn’t seem particularly concerned. I was going to have to make it clearer to him that this was a big deal.

  “Death threats, even. And there have been other strange things happening around the park. We think you might be in danger.”

  “Death threats!” yelled London. “Awesome! They’re totally a sign that you’ve made it. I remember my first death threats, when I was on the cover of Vague two years ago. You’re in the big leagues now, baby.” She hugged him, and Cody laughed.

  “Whoa, crazy,” he said. “Death threats.”

  “I got death threats in Japan during this competition I was just in.” David had opened his eyes again. “I’m kind of a big deal in Asia. In fact—”

  “Don’t worry, Cody,” Joe cut David off. “I’m entering the Skate or Die Competition to make sure nothing happens.”

  “Right on,” said Cody. He stretched out his hand, and he and Joe bumped fists. “Let’s see what you’ve got, man.”

  Cody snapped his fingers, and one of the Zaniacs came running over holding a board and a helmet. He handed them to Joe.

  “These, my friend, are a top-of-the-line Hubris skateboard and helmet,” Cody said. “Each board is handmade out of a special premium alloy blend invented by scientists at NASA. With Hubris, you feel like you’ll never fall. It’s got the Cody Zane seal of approval, so skate hard.”

  I nearly laughed. Cody sounded like he was reading off of a script. Joe was totally hypnotized, though. He buckled the helmet around his head while Cody and London got out of the hot tub and toweled off. David stayed behind. He huffed and rolled his eyes while Cody was talking, and then seemed to drift off back to sleep.

  We all walked over to the ramp. Cody, London, and I took seats on the special luxury recliners that were built around it, while Joe got ready to skate. Each recliner had a lever that could raise it up in the air, so that no one had a bad seat or a blocked view. Inside the arms of the recliners were little inset fridges filled with drinks and snacks. There was a pile of knee pads and elbow guards next to the ramp, and Joe put on a pair of each. He looked like he was in heaven.

  It didn’t look like we were going to learn anything here, and Cody’s bodyguards seemed to have everything pretty well in hand. I figured I’d watch Joe skate and then see if I could learn anything more about the explosion at Mount McKenzie or the other protesters that Wallace had been involved with. Joe could stay behind and play with Cody, but I wanted to find some answers. The competition started tomorrow, and we were still grasping at straws.

  Joe started out slowly, kicking off and heading up one side of the ramp and back down. After a few passes, he started to gain some real speed. He wasn’t kidding—he had been practicing. He started catching some air on each side, rising up above the lip of the ramp on every pass and then landing back on it. Finally, on his fifth pass, he got to the edge of the ramp and reached down to grab it and perform his first trick.

  Suddenly Joe screamed with pain. He rolled down the ramp in a ball, his board tumbling after him. Behind him was a thin trail of blood!

  JOE

  4

  Shredded

  My hands felt like they were burning, and my head was ringing from hitting the hard plastic of the ramp on my way down. I had no idea what had happened, except that as soon as I touched the ramp, my hands exploded in pain. Thanks to my ATAC training, I was able to pull away as soon as I realized something was wrong; otherwise I could have been seriously injured by whatever was up there.

  I heard people running and a sound like a tropical bird, somewhere between a scream and a laugh. It had to be London making that noise. I couldn’t let her, or any of the other Zaniacs, near the skate ramp—who knows what other dangers it might hold?

  “I’m all right!” I yelled out. “But nobody touch the ramp!”

  I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, and until Frank and I had a chance to figure out what had happened, everyone needed to stay back. I got to my feet and looked at my hands. Two straight cuts went down the palms of each, as though I had grabbed a knife by the blade instead of the handle.

  “What happened?” Frank was standing in front of me. Wordlessly I showed him my hands. Frank pulled a bottle of water out of his bag and poured it over my cuts to clean them. Then he pulled off his shirt and tore it into strips, which he tied into bandages around my cuts. It would keep them clean until I had a chance to have them looked at. Thankfully, I’d pulled away quickly enough that the cuts were shallow, and already the blood flow was beginning to slow.

  London laughed again and whistled at Frank, who was now shirtless. I just don’t get it—even when I’m the one who’s hurt, all the girls go for Frank. They must all be into that shy, blushing, TOTAL NERD type.

  “You all right, man?” Cody clapped me on the shoulder. He tossed a “Zaniac!” T-shirt in Frank’s direction, and Frank hurried to get dressed again.

  “Yeah,” I told Cody. “This is nothing—you should see some of the injuries I’ve gotten in other investigations.” Right now, I couldn’t think of one that had ever hurt worse than this, but I’m sure there’d been others. Probably.

  Frank rolled his eyes at me. “Come on, let’s see what happened.”

  The back of the ramp had a set of stairs leading up to the platform at the top. We climbed up and looked at the edge. Someone had installed a thin strip of razor-sharp metal across the lip of the ramp on both sides. If someone had put their entire weight down on it, they could have been seriously injured, maybe even lost a finger. For a professional skater like Cody, it could have spelled the end of his career. Looked like 4Real wasn’t kidding!

  Carefully Frank and I pulled the metal strips off and put them in our bags to check for fingerprints later. Already my hands had stopped bleeding, and the pain was lessening.

  Cody’s bodyguards were on high alert and had fanned out in a circle around the skate ramp, looking for trouble. Whoever had done this was probably long gone, though. That was why Cody needed an ATAC agent with him at all times—someone who could think through danger and really protect him. Like me. Certainly his friends weren’t going to do it. None of the Zaniacs seemed all that concerned. London found the whole thing hysterical. She couldn’t stop laughing the same high-pitched shriek of a laugh. And David hadn’t even gotten out of the hot tub yet.

  “Whoa,” Cody said when I showed him the metal strips.

  “This is the sort of thing we’re here to watch for,” I assured him.

  “Great, ’cause like…somebody could have gotten seriously hurt!”

  “Nah,” said David, who had finally woken up and joined everyone else. “It’s probably just some stupid prank. Or else some unfinished piece of construction.”

  “Yeah.” Cody laughed, so
unding relieved. “You’re totally right.”

  He was still a little freaked out, but since no one else seemed to think it was a big deal, he shook it off. Together, Cody, London, and David all headed back to the hammocks, already bored by the whole business of my near-death experience.

  “None of them seem worried at all,” Frank whispered to me.

  “I know. All the more reason I need to be in the Skate or Die Competition, right?”

  “What about your hands? You can’t skate with those.”

  “They’re just scratches. I’ll be fine.”

  Frank looked at me skeptically and poked my palm.

  “Ow!” I yelled. “Okay, so they’re a little more than scratches. But we need someone in that competition, and you don’t know how to skate.”

  “I like that attitude, man.” Without either of us noticing, Cody had drifted back over. “Spoken like a true Zaniac. Why don’t you stick around? I think we’re all going to do some practice skates later. You can join us. Get you ready for tomorrow’s competition.”

  Cody Zane had just invited me to hang out with him. This was officially our best mission ever. Now there was no way I was backing out of the competition. And once I won, I’d have to hang out with Cody while they made the video game, of course. And after that, maybe he’d want to join ATAC.

  In the back of my mind, I started to notice a strange noise. It was a long way off, but it sounded like a crowd of people shouting. Or laughing? I couldn’t make it out. Frank clearly heard it as well—his ears were perked up and his head cocked as he tried to make out what it could be.

  Suddenly a number of the park security guards went sprinting by, over the bridge and out of the VIP section. Frank and I scrambled up onto the ramp and looked out over the park. Crowds of people were running through the public area, all headed toward the entrance. There seemed to be some sort of riot going on.