The Secret of Sigma Seven Read online

  “What’s it about?” Joe asked. “I thought you said he was a professor at Boston Tech?”

  “He is,” Brian said, “so the presentation must have something to do with his specialty, computer science. Want to come watch?”

  Joe frowned. “We really ought to be checking out Feinbetter’s room to see if he’s got the stolen tapes hidden there.”

  “Except that Feinbetter’s in his room right now,” Frank said. “So let’s go to the lecture. We might actually learn something.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Joe joked.

  The three teenagers went back downstairs and through the lobby to one of the conference rooms. The room was already crowded with people, but the Hardys and Brian managed to find three seats together in the front row.

  At the front of the room Joe saw Pete Amchick fiddling with a monitor attached to a video recorder. A variety of electronic instruments were strewn across the table next to the recorder. Finally the computer scientist stepped up to a microphone and cleared his throat.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I’m Pete Amchick. I know that a lot of you science fiction fans are interested in the subject of computer graphics. I’ve been doing a lot of work in that area, and I’ve brought along a presentation of some of my work. I’ll be playing a short videotape for you. All of the images that you’ll be seeing were generated by a computer.”

  Joe stifled a yawn. “This sounds about as fascinating as watching grass grow.”

  “We all know computers aren’t your strong point,” Frank said to his brother. “But try to stay awake, okay?”

  Pete Amchick signaled to someone standing next to the door, and the lights began to dim. Then he pushed a button on the video recorder, and an image appeared on the monitor behind him.

  Frank stared at the image, trying to decide exactly what it was. The truth was, he thought, that it didn’t look like much of anything, just a white misty cloud swirling in front of a purple background. But then he noticed a small object in the center of the picture, growing rapidly larger, as though it were moving directly toward the viewer. As it grew, he saw that it was the planet Earth, spinning in space. It grew larger and larger until it filled the entire screen, and it kept right on growing.

  Frank leaned forward in his seat and watched with growing fascination. It was as though he were in a spaceship hurtling down toward the surface of Earth. The ship zoomed directly in on the North American continent. Mountains and rivers began to appear, and then trees and roads and even buildings.

  Frank turned to see his brother staring wide-eyed at the picture, too. “Wow!” Joe exclaimed. “Did he say he did this whole thing with a computer? It looks real.”

  Frank turned back to the monitor. His brother was right. It did look real. All the colors were brighter than he had ever seen before in a movie. The images were so clear they seemed to jump right off the screen at the audience.

  The film was now rushing along the ground, past trees and mountains. But Frank could see something else in the distance, something large and green. As it grew closer, he realized that it was a giant dinosaur—a fifty-story-tall Tyrannosaurus rex with green scales and dripping fangs. As the spaceship approached it, it seemed to sense their presence. It turned away from its meal and reached out toward the viewers with its slavering mouth and . . .

  The spaceship suddenly took off into outer space, leaving the Tyrannosaurus far below. The blue sky changed to black, and stars began to twinkle. And then it appeared as though the viewers were racing through the stars, as if they were in a starship with a warp drive.

  “This is better than a roller coaster,” Joe whispered. “You didn’t tell us your uncle was into wild stuff like this, Brian.”

  “He never mentioned it,” Brian said. “I told you, Uncle Pete isn’t very talkative.”

  “Hey, look,” Frank said, his eyes never leaving the monitor. “It’s a spaceship. Like the ones in the Galactic Saga movies.”

  A large silver spacecraft had appeared on the monitor. It was a saucerlike shape and had large engines shooting out streams of red particles to its rear. As the viewers flew toward it, the spaceship began to change shape. Like a lump of clay being molded in the hands of a sculptor, the spaceship became rounder. At one end a face appeared, while at the other end the craft seemed to grow feet. Fiery eyes stared out from the monitor, and a mouth full of fangs appeared where the bridge of the spaceship had been.

  The gaping mouth seemed to lunge at the viewers, and then they were inside the space monster, hurtling down into its metal gullet, sailing through its throat and into its stomach.

  Then the picture went black, and large computer-style letters appeared, SORRY, YOUR JOURNEY HAS ENDED. YOU HAVE BEEN SWALLOWED BY A VORACIOUS GALACTIC TRANSFORMER DISGUISED AS A SPACESHIP. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME.

  Pete Amchick pushed a button, and the words vanished from the monitor. Somebody turned up the lights. There was a moment of silence, then the audience began to applaud loudly.

  “That was terrific!” Joe shouted, jumping to his feet and clapping.

  “I thought this was going to be as fascinating as watching grass grow,” his brother said, looking up at him.

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly what I expected,” Joe said.

  Pete Amchick stepped up to the microphone, and the audience quieted down. He gave a brief speech, explaining that he was studying computer graphics techniques in order to create realistic images, and that this film was his most recent work.

  “Can you produce any kind of image?” Frank asked. “Absolutely anything you want?”

  “Pretty much,” Pete answered. “We can show anything that we know how to write a program for. All we have to do is feed the right data into the computer, and out pop images like the ones you just saw.”

  “Pretty impressive,” Frank said.

  Pete answered some more questions and demonstrated some of the electronic devices that were arrayed on the table. Finally the session came to an end, and the Hardys stood up to leave.

  “Your uncle is a real whiz,” Frank said to Brian.

  “He sure is,” Brian said. “Ever since I was a kid, I remember him building things. He has a robot that can travel around his apartment. It can even bring in the newspaper.”

  Joe led the way out of the room and into the hallway. He noticed that the afternoon crowd was getting larger and there were more and more people around in costume.

  He turned to the others. “Anybody for lunch?” he asked.

  “The motel coffee shop is right down this way,” Brian said. “Follow me.”

  The coffee shop was large and about two-thirds filled with fans. Joe got a hamburger, and Frank and Brian bought subs. When they finished eating, they headed back toward the lobby.

  “Speaking of lunch,” Frank said, “weren’t we supposed to be meeting Chet sometime soon?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said, looking around. “Maybe he decided to get into his costume for the masquerade contest later. I wonder if he—”

  Joe stopped in midsentence, his gaze caught by something in the hallway. Frank turned to see what his brother was looking at, but he saw only a fan in costume walking down the hallway toward them. The fan was dressed as a magician or sorcerer, with a pointed hat perched on his head and long, flowing black robes. His face was covered with a small mask and a long white beard.

  Frank gasped when he saw there was a green medallion around his neck with a moon and star on it.

  “That’s him!” Joe shouted. “That’s the guy who tricked me into using that broken elevator last night.”

  Joe shot forward, running toward the costumed fan. The magician stopped short, reached inside his robes, and pulled out a small object, which he threw directly at Joe’s feet.

  “What’s going on?” Frank shouted.

  With a loud poof a cloud of red and blue smoke filled the air, obscuring the Hardys’ view of the costumed fan. Joe tried to run right through the smoke.

  �
��Don’t!” Frank cried. “That stuff might be poisonous.” But his warning came too late. Joe was already in the middle of the smoke.

  Suddenly the younger Hardy began to choke. He clutched a hand over his mouth and doubled over. With a strangling noise, Joe collapsed to the floor.

  7 Maker of Worlds

  * * *

  Joe felt as if his lungs were going to burn right out of his chest. The brightly colored smoke had worked its way into his nose and mouth. He coughed desperately to push it back out, at the same time waving the smoke away from his face with his hand. Tears formed in his eyes, leaving him temporarily blinded.

  He could hear the sound of the costumed fan running down the hallway toward the lobby, but there was nothing he could do to stop him.

  Frank rushed to his brother’s side and pulled him to his feet, out of the smoke.

  “I got a—a real lungful of that stuff!” Joe exclaimed between coughs.

  “Don’t try to talk,” his brother advised. “Cough it out. That must have been some kind of smoke bomb.”

  “Catch that guy in the magician’s outfit,” Joe sputtered, “before he gets away.”

  Frank looked through the thinning clouds, but there was no sign of the person who had thrown the smoke bomb.

  “I’m going to try to find him,” Frank said. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

  Waving the smoke away from his own face, Frank ran down the hallway in pursuit of Joe’s attacker. When he reached the lobby, he saw that one of the elevator doors was just closing. He rushed over and banged on the button, trying to make the elevator door reopen, but it was no use. He watched the flashing lights above the elevator go all the way to the fourth floor, then stop. For a moment he considered running up the stairs in pursuit of the man with the medallion, but he knew that by the time he had climbed four flights of stairs, the magician would have disappeared. Feeling disgruntled, Frank headed back to the hallway, where Joe was waiting.

  Brian was helping Joe stand up. “Are you okay, Joe?” he asked. “It looked like he got you pretty good with that stuff.”

  “I think I’ll live,” Joe said, straightening up with a groan. “Long enough to get revenge on that guy with the green medallion.”

  “I lost him again,” Frank said, joining them. “Every time we meet that guy, he’s in a different costume and manages to give us the slip.” He looked at his brother and Brian. “So, what do we do next?”

  “We could check out Morwood,” Joe said. “If we can find out what room he’s staying in, we can look around for the missing film.”

  “I hate to suggest something frivolous,” Brian said. “But Jack Gillis has been setting up an exhibit of props from the Galactic Saga movies out in the parking lot. It should be open by now.”

  “Oh, right,” Frank said. “We saw him in his hovercar this morning.”

  “Well, I guess we can take a few minutes off from detective work and look at it,” Joe said. “Anyway, I need some fresh air. Let’s go.”

  The Hardys and Brian headed out to the parking lot, toward the green canvas tent. They saw a crowd of fans milling around the tent, going in and out of the open flap at one end.

  Frank stepped through the flap and into the tent. The hovercar he had seen that morning was sitting on the ground, with a second hovercar next to it. Surrounding the hovercars were a number of items Frank recognized instantly from the Galactic Saga films, including scale models of various starships.

  Suddenly a loud bellow caught Frank’s attention. A live elephant dressed in battle gear stood to the rear of the tent. A masklike helmet draped over its head made it look like some kind of alien monster.

  There was a stir of excitement from the fans. Frank looked over and saw Jack Gillis enter the tent and walk over to the elephant. “Hello, everybody,” he said. “I see you’ve already met Bruno. He may look like an elephant, but actually he’s a Surriband, one of the giant creatures that live in the desert of the planet Regnay. It’s from the latest movie, The Secret of Sigma Seven. The one that you unfortunately didn’t get to see last night.”

  “Is this the elephant that actually plays the part in the film?” someone asked.

  Gillis laughed. “No, it’s not. This is an elephant we borrowed from a local zoo. We’re a little too far from Hollywood to bring the real elephant along with us. They’d probably charge us an extra fare on the airplane. But this is the actual costume that the elephant wears in the movie.”

  Frank began examining one of the scale model spaceships. It was remarkably detailed, with tiny windows that even had lights inside them and complex machinery poking out of the engines. It appeared to be made out of wood and plastic, though it had been painted to give it a metallic look.

  “Are these models of the ships that you use in the Galactic Saga films?” Frank asked the special-effects director.

  “No,” Gillis replied. “Those are the actual ships. We use special camera techniques to make them look larger in the films.”

  “Incredible,” Joe said. “They look so big in the movies.”

  “That’s the magic of special effects,” Gillis said, spreading his hands to indicate all the exhibits in the tent. “It’s an art that I’ve been learning all my life, ever since I was making home movies as a kid. Something can look quite ordinary off camera, but if you photograph it right, it can look as if it’s literally out of this world. A spaceship, for instance.”

  “Or an alien monster,” Frank suggested.

  “Or a whole planet,” Joe said.

  “Absolutely right.” Gillis nodded his head. “I think of my job as the creation of worlds, and those worlds come alive on the movie screen.”

  “That must be a lot of fun,” Frank said.

  “Oh, it is,” Gillis said, a warm grin spreading across his face. “I can’t imagine doing anything else for a living.”

  “It must be quite an honor to work on the Galactic Saga movies,” Brian said. “Some science fiction fans consider them the greatest SF movies ever made.”

  “Unless you talk to Arlen Hennessy,” Joe said.

  “I’m very honored to work on these films,” Gillis said. “In many ways I regard them as my own creations as much as Simon Devoreaux’s. Simon may be the one who puts the actors through their paces, but I get to build the universe around them.”

  “I’d like to know more about these hovercars,” Joe said. “I don’t suppose you can take one of them apart to show us how they work.”

  “No,” Gillis said, chuckling. “But perhaps I can do you one better. Would you like to go for a ride with me in one of these cars?”

  “You bet,” Joe said.

  “Then come on,” Gillis said, walking to one of the cars and hopping inside. “We’ll take a turn around the parking lot.”

  Joe climbed in on the other side and sat down next to Gillis. The hovercar had bucket seats with padding that seemed to mold itself to Joe’s body as he settled in. The dashboard looked to Joe like that of a sports car. Joe saw a key dangling out of the hovercar’s ignition. Gillis reached up and turned the key. The hovercar jumped to life, rising into the air. Joe was surprised at how smooth it felt.

  “Right now we’re just hovering,” Gillis said to Joe. “A high-speed column of air blows out of the bottom of this vehicle, holding us aloft. To make the car move, we need to use this.”

  Gillis put his hand on a rod that stuck up from the floor of the car and yanked it gently toward the rear. Joe felt a gentle vibration shoot through the car as it started moving backward toward the end of the tent.

  “This looks like a gearshift,” Gillis said. “But actually it’s more like a joystick. I push it in the direction I want the car to go and . . . it goes.”

  He pulled it back more sharply, and the hovercar moved in the direction he pushed it, through the open flap of the tent. Joe felt himself bucked forward in his seat as Gillis guided the car into the parking lot, barely missing a group of fans who were coming in to see the exhibition.

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p; Gillis laughed as he nimbly guided the car around them. “Now we’ll go forward,” he said, pushing the joystick toward the front of the vehicle. The car reversed direction, and Joe was thrown backward into the soft padding of the seat. Gillis raced ahead into an empty area of the parking lot. Joe threw his head back and laughed out loud. Gillis rocketed around a group of parked cars, then swung the hovercar back in the direction of the tent. Joe was swung from side to side in his seat as Gillis changed direction, and it felt as though he were moving at a very high speed. But when Joe looked around, he realized that was an illusion. They probably weren’t going any faster than thirty miles per hour.

  “I love it!” he cried, the wind blowing through his hair. “This is it. I’m buying one of these as soon as it hits the market.”

  “You’ll have to wait only about a hundred years,” Gillis said, guiding the car back to the flap of the tent. “We don’t have any plans to market these things, unfortunately. It’s not a very practical vehicle, I’m afraid.”

  Gillis turned off the engine and let the car settle back to the ground just outside the tent. A crowd of fans immediately gathered around it as Joe climbed out.

  “That was a blast and a half,” Joe declared, rejoining Frank. “What happened to Brian?” he asked.

  “He had to meet some friends inside the motel,” Frank explained. “He’ll catch up with us later.”

  Several other fans were clustered around Gillis, asking to be given a ride around the parking lot. But the special-effects director begged off.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait until later,” he said. “I’m knocking off now to get a late lunch. I’ll be back in about an hour, with free rides for all.”

  “But you just got here,” Joe said.

  “I’ve had a busy day,” Gillis said. “The con committee has been asking me to put in appearances all over the convention.”

  Gillis chased the last fans out of the tent, then closed the flap and latched it shut. As the crowd of fans thinned out, Gillis started heading back toward the motel. Frank and Joe glanced at each other, then back at the director.