Galaxy X Read online

  “Come on, people!” he shouted hoarsely as he lit up another poster. “Are we going to let them take over our home and destroy our lifestyle?”

  The frizzy-haired fortyish female protester sighed. “Don’t work yourself up so much, Frederick,” she said kindly. “It isn’t good for your health. This protest is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.”

  Another woman nodded. “We just need to stay strong and convince Mr. McKenzie to compromise on some of his plans, maybe get him to donate more to the groups trying to keep the remaining natural areas of these islands pristine.”

  “No!” the old man cried. “That’s not good enough. I’m going to shut this blight down if it’s the last thing I do!” He shook his fist, then coughed. Patting his shirt pocket, he scowled. “Where’s my durn heart medicine?” he muttered, searching his pants pockets. “Musta left it in the car. . . .”

  He hobbled off, leaning heavily on his cane, still cursing McKenzie and Galaxy X under his breath. “Wow,” Joe said as he watched him go. Then he glanced at the other protesters. “Who is that guy?”

  “Oh, that’s just Frederick,” Frizzy Hair said with another sigh. “W. Frederick Jackson, that is. He’s lived over on the next island from here his whole life. His family’s been here for generations.” She waved a hand in the direction of the shoreline beyond GX’s parking lot. “I suppose you could call him our local crusty old bachelor.”

  “He seems pretty intense,” I said. “I guess he really wants to shut this place down, huh?”

  The woman squinted up at the walls of the theme park. “He sees this place as a threat to the only way of life he’s ever known. I suppose we all do, really. But most of us are sort of resigned to it by now.”

  The second woman chuckled. “Yeah. Including most of Freddie’s relatives,” she put in. “They all felt a whole lot better once they realized the extra tourism stood to make ’em a bundle.”

  Interesting. Joe and I asked them a few more questions, then huddled near the entrance. “Well?” said Joe. “Think that Jackson dude could be our guy?”

  “He does seem to have the perfect motive,” I said. “But if he’s behind the mischief, he has to have an accomplice. There’s no way he could’ve pulled off most of it on his own.”

  Joe laughed. “Yeah. Even if he could figure out a way past security, I can’t picture him climbing up to loosen that handhold. Or even climbing the steps up into the space shuttle to plant that fake bomb!”

  “Maybe we should stick around and talk to him. And have the guys back at HQ look into him a little too,” I said. “Just in case.”

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: W. Frederick Jackson

  Hometown: Little Wave Island

  Physical description: Age 82, 5’7”, 150 lbs., white hair, blue eyes.

  Occupation: Retired

  Suspicious behavior: Picketing outside GX; claims to be willing to do anything to shut the place down.

  Suspected of: Sabotaging the park (with help from unknown accomplice/s) in order to shut it down.

  Possible motives: Desire to return island to its former state; revenge for GX changing the flavor of the islands.

  But before Jackson returned from his car, my cell phone rang. It was Tyrone.

  “Frank. I want an update on the case,” he said abruptly. “Meet me at the Summit.”

  “Okay, do you want—,” I began. But the little click on the line told me he’d already hung up. “McKenzie wants me to come give him an update,” I told Joe. “He didn’t say anything about you, so I guess you’re off the hook.”

  “Surprise, surprise.” Joe smirked.

  I rolled my eyes. His jokes were getting old. “Listen, why don’t you find an Internet connection and e-mail ATAC about this Jackson guy?” I suggested. “If they dig up any dirt on him, we can come interview him later.”

  “Will do. Have fun!”

  When I reached the base of the Summit, I found McKenzie suiting up in the equipment shack. “Er, are you planning to, you know, climb the wall?” I asked in surprise.

  “We’re going to climb it.” McKenzie tugged on one of his climbing shoes. “My son showed me that loose handhold. I had the guys go over it, but I want to test the wall myself and make sure it’s safe. You can swim, can’t you, my boy?” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Now suit up and let’s go!”

  What could I say? I suited up.

  The meeting was tough. So was the Summit. I’d already seen that it was modeled after a deepwater soloing wall, with no ropes or nets—just a deep lagoon at the far end of the wave pool to catch anyone who fell. The handholds were molded to resemble real rock as much as possible, and the surface was rough and uneven. Within ten minutes I was sweating and banged up, with a big scrape on one knee and another on my arm.

  Meanwhile McKenzie seemed to be having a ball. He was wearing long pants and sleeves, so he escaped most of the scrapes.

  While we climbed, I filled him in on our latest chat with the protesters. I also told him about W. Frederick Jackson.

  “That old loony tunes?” McKenzie responded with a derisive snort. “He’s just a sore loser, not any kind of threat.”

  “Perhaps.” I winced as my hand slipped and my knee banged into the wall—again. Luckily, I caught myself before I totally lost my grip. “But we’re checking him out just in case.”

  “Fine.” McKenzie sounded impatient as he hauled himself up another few feet. “What else have you got?”

  I clambered up until I was even with him again. Then I told him about the mysterious e-mail and our adventures at the space shuttle. He knew about the fake bomb, of course. But he seemed interested in the e-mail.

  “Think it’s from the same jerks who’ve been badmouthing GX all over the Internet?” he asked.

  “Could be. Our HQ computer geeks are doing their best to track down some answers.”

  Naturally, I didn’t tell him he was on our suspect list. I also left off Joe’s suspicions about Nick. Until we had more to go on, I didn’t want to say anything to make their relationship even worse than it already was. And of course, I skipped our earlier suspicion of Smith. There didn’t seem to be much point mentioning it now.

  Finally we reached the top of the wall. “Victory!” McKenzie crowed as he hoisted himself onto the platform.

  “Yeah,” I panted, clambering up after him. I couldn’t help being impressed by how fit McKenzie was. I guess he managed to work in some time at the gym between all his business meetings.

  He tossed his helmet to one of the employees working the platform. Then he strode to the edge and surveyed the park. The visiting celebrities and their hangers-on were scurrying around like insects. Rich, famous insects.

  “This is great,” McKenzie declared, rubbing his hands together. “We should be all over the entertainment shows tonight. Our grand opening is going to be massive! The fireworks company guarantees that the show is going to be the biggest blast anyone in this part of the world has ever seen.”

  “Sounds great, sir,” I said. But I couldn’t stop my eyes from straying downward—toward the pool where Smith had died. Had it been nothing more than a tragic accident? Or was whoever was sabotaging the park getting more and more desperate?

  Because if that’s the case, I thought grimly, this place might end up seeing more fireworks than anyone is expecting.

  A Need for Speed

  I tapped my fingers on the computer keyboard. I’d just sent an e-mail to ATAC HQ about W. Frederick Jackson. Now I was doing a little extra research at one of the park’s Internet kiosks.

  I know, I know. I usually leave that sort of thing to Frank. But I was still kind of stuck on my earlier thoughts about Nick. I just wanted to find out a little more about him.

  As it turned out, McKenzie’s family was incredibly easy to Google. There were all kinds of articles about them out there. I discovered that McKenzie and Nick’s mom had split in a bitter divorce when Nick was a kid. She was currently married to another successful bus
iness tycoon and living in Florida.

  Erica’s mother hadn’t been so lucky. McKenzie was actually her second marriage; her first husband was a Hollywood stuntman who’d died while shooting a video. Actually, that was how McKenzie met her—it was one of his artists’ videos. The two had married a year later, when Erica was about ten, and divorced when she was fifteen. Erica’s mother had died of cancer less than two years later, which was when Erica had gone to live with her stepfather.

  Then there was Delfina. She and McKenzie had been married for a little over a year. There were tons of pictures of their splashy New York society wedding on the Web. I even found out how much baby Tyrone Jr. had weighed when he was born. Yeah, I was sure that info was going to come in handy.

  None of my research did much for my suspicions one way or another. But I shot off another message to ATAC. My Google skills were okay. But I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have the real experts check into Nick a little more.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Nicholas Marsh McKenzie

  Hometown: New York City

  Physical description: 5’9”, 160 lbs., reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes.

  Occupation: Student, slacker, part-time club kid

  Suspicious behavior: Makes it obvious that there’s no love lost between him and Daddy. Only person to witness alleged handhold malfunction on climbing wall. Sabotaged UTV belonged to him.

  Suspected of: Sabotaging GX.

  Possible motive: A desperate cry for his father’s attention.

  I was about to sign off when my e-mail alert dinged. Clicking over to my in-box, I saw a new message. My eyes widened as I took in the return addy: Sk8rH8r.

  The message itself was short and not so sweet: Sk8r culture not 4 sale! B-ware or B sorry!

  “Interesting,” I murmured.

  I forwarded the message to ATAC. There wasn’t much else I could do about it right then, so I signed off and headed back outside. Now what? I figured Frank would call when he was out of his meeting. In the meantime, I decided to scout around for Cody Zane. I was still bummed that our tour had been cut short earlier—I was itching to do some skating with him. How cool would that be?

  I checked all the skateboarding fixtures, but there was no sign of him. Finally I spotted one of his bodyguards, a beefy dude with a purple and black striped Mohawk. He told me Cody had just headed over to try out bungee jumping.

  “He decided to go old school,” Mohawk said with a laugh. “You should be able to catch him there.”

  “Thanks.” I’d noticed the bungee-jumping spot earlier. It was a platform sticking out from the highest hill of one of the roller coasters.

  When I got there, I found Cody already up on the platform with a couple of other celebs. A photographer or two were up there too.

  “Hey,” I greeted Cody. “Remember me?”

  “Sure, bro.” He clapped me on the back. “You got here just in time. I’m about to inaugurate this sucker!”

  I glanced over at the employee working the attraction. He appeared to be trying to figure out the bungee cord’s harness system. “You mean nobody’s tried it yet?”

  “That’s what he said.” Cody jerked a thumb at the employee. “I don’t know why not. I can’t wait to fly, man!”

  “I call second go,” one of the other celebs spoke up. “Can you believe they’ve got this here? It’s totally retro!”

  I grinned, but I was a little distracted. Mainly because I couldn’t help recalling how taking the first spin on a GX attraction had played out for poor Mr. Smith. Glancing down, I saw that jumpers ended up dangling right over the seating area for one of the snack bars. No water landing there. I guess McKenzie and his designers counted on the cord never breaking. I could only hope they were right.

  For one crazy second I almost begged Cody not to do it. But I held my tongue. If I said anything like that, it would blow my cover. Not to mention make me look like a total dork if nothing happened. Instead I sidled over to check out that cord. It looked okay—no obvious cuts or thin spots that I could see. The harness appeared to be fully functional too.

  Still, I didn’t relax until Cody made his jump—and ended up dangling safely at the end of the cord, whooping and hollering happily. Whew!

  After that, the others started clamoring for their turn. “You gonna give it a go, man?” Cody asked me once they hauled him back up to the platform.

  “Maybe later,” I said. “Actually, I’d rather go try out some of those sweet skating spots. What do you say?”

  I expected Cody to be psyched for some skateboarding. But he just shrugged. “I’ll be doing plenty of skating once that contest gig starts,” he said. “Until then, I’d rather try out some of the other stuff here. You game?”

  “Sure.” I admit it, I was a little disappointed that we weren’t going to skate. But I figured just hanging with Cody was pretty cool all by itself. “Where do you want to start?”

  “How about ice climbing?” he said.

  After what had happened to Smith, climbing wasn’t exactly at the top of my to-do list. But I wasn’t about to say that to Cody.

  “Sounds fun,” I said instead. “Let’s hit it.”

  I was right. The ice climbing was fun. After that we tried out the street luge and the monster trucks. Both totally amazing.

  Finally we headed over to the motocross circuit. By then I’d practically forgotten I was on a mission. And why not? Everything at GX was running smoothly. Sure, there was that weird new e-mail from Sk8rH8r. But did it really mean anything? Or was it just some Internet cowboy tossing out idle threats from his mom’s basement?

  It seemed as possible a theory as any. After all, Smith’s fall could have been an accident. The busted UTV and the mechanical bull, too. Even the ice thing. That W. Frederick Jackson might be feeble, but even he probably could’ve managed to wield a can of spray paint. If he’d done the graffiti and maybe tossed that rock at Erica, that just about covered everything.

  Well, not everything. There was still the fake bomb at the space shuttle. It was hard to imagine the old man pulling that one off. And it was weird how Frank and I had gotten that e-mail afterward. But maybe Jackson had managed to arrange it somehow, even if he hadn’t done it himself. Or maybe that one had been Nick tossing in a little anti-Daddy tantrum.

  I’m starting to wonder if there’s really a serious mission here at all, or if ATAC sent us for nothing, I thought as I revved the engine of my bike and headed out onto the course. Not that I’m complaining . . .

  “Hey, wait up!” I shouted as Cody zoomed off ahead of me.

  He probably couldn’t hear me, what with the helmets and the roaring engines. But at that moment he glanced back and shot me a thumbs-up. Then he pointed ahead. The course split and went off a few different ways. The route Cody was pointing to had a bunch of pretty challenging-looking jumps.

  I grinned, gunning it after him. The first jump was a biggie. But I wasn’t too worried—Frank and I ride our motorcycles everywhere. I’d done a little off-roading with mine, and I was sure I could handle anything GX threw at me.

  My bike responded quickly as I hit the gas. I was just a few yards behind Cody as he reached the first jump. I was already leaning forward over the handlebars, preparing myself.

  But something made me look up just as Cody crested the jump and grabbed some serious air. I gasped as I saw the front wheel fly completely off his bike!

  Losing Grip

  I called Joe as soon as I escaped from my meeting with McKenzie. He didn’t answer. Probably turned off the ringer and forgot to turn it back on—pretty typical when he’s distracted. And my brother was definitely finding GX distracting.

  So I decided to track him down the old-fashioned way. It didn’t take long. A bunch of people had seen him palling around with Cody Zane. No surprise there, either.

  I caught up to them at the motocross course. As I stepped into the equipment shed, I was just in time to see the two of them take off onto the course.

  �
�Want to hop on a bike and go after them?” one of the guys working the shed asked.

  It was tempting. The course looked like fun. But we were supposed to be working, not playing. There was no time to lose if we wanted to close out this mission before GX opened to the public the next day.

  “No, thanks,” I told the guy.

  I stepped outside. Joe and Cody were speeding toward a line of jumps about a hundred yards away.

  Cody was in the lead. As his bike hit the arc of the first jump, my ATAC instincts kicked in. I started running as soon as I saw the wheel part ways with the rest of his bike.

  After that it all seemed to happen in slow motion. I was already picturing Cody’s bike crashing down and Joe landing on top of it. But Joe managed to skid to a stop at the crest of the hill.

  “Nice riding, bro,” I murmured, my gaze shifting back to Cody as I kept running.

  Cody seemed to realize something was wrong while he was still in midair. Probably his skater instincts, combined with the weight of the wheel coming off. He pushed himself off the handlebars as the bike fell back to earth. Hitting the dirt hard on one shoulder, he tucked and rolled. He was back on his feet almost before the bike crashed down nearby.

  “Are you okay?” I shouted as I ran up to him.

  Joe was already there. “Don’t move,” he said. “Is anything broken?”

  Cody ignored his advice. He was already brushing the dirt off his clothes.

  “Whoa,” he said breathlessly, his face pale. “Did you see that? What happened?”

  “Good question.” I traded a glance with Joe. It was pure luck that Cody had escaped a bad wreck. A less skilled athlete might have been seriously injured—or worse.

  Meanwhile the employees and other guests who had witnessed the accident were rushing over. “Are you hurt?” shouted one of them. The voice sounded familiar. I realized it was that pudgy security guard we’d met before, Wallace.

  “I think he’s okay,” I responded as the employees from the equipment shed swarmed around the crumpled bike.