Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb (28 page)

“He has a bad choice or a worse choice,” observed Nina. “Maybe they could try to stop the bomb from getting here.”

“Remember, Sparks, no one even knows what the thing looks like. Franklin Fforbes and the other two scientists never saw the actual bomb. Neither did Bao. Bigger or smaller than a bread box? It’s anyone’s guess. It might even be here already.”

Nina’s black eyes widened. “Johnny, maybe we ought to get out of town!”

Johnny stared at his friend, surprised. “But what if we’re the only ones with a chance to stop it, Sparks? What if everyone in Zenith is depending on us? Maybe the government’s doing a bang-up job of hunting for the bomb. But what if it isn’t?”

Frowning miserably, Nina whispered, “I don’t want to lose my family again.”

“Me neither,” groaned Johnny. The possibility that his parents might still be alive had been on his mind a lot lately. And this blasted bomb business was preventing any efforts to go searching for them. Johnny could never forgive Percy Rathbone for the huge mess he had made.

Johnny figured they looked awfully gloomy as they headed out of the soda shop. That didn’t stop a giggling, scrawny girl—slouching in a booth by herself—from hollering, “Be sure to invite us to the wedding!
Ha-ha-ha!”

Johnny was approaching the door when he heard the loud slap of a hand on skin. He pivoted around to see the scrawny girl looking this way and that, her cheek rapidly turning red. She angrily sputtered, “Who did that? Who did that?”

Out of the corner of his eye Johnny spotted Bao flying up through the ceiling—shaking her hand as if something had just hurt it.

Johnny groaned. What was that all about? He needed to have a serious talk with that little girl ghost.

Chapter 55

Friday, December 13, 1935

Zenith

In the days following his conversation with Nina, Johnny felt almost as if the encounter with Ozzie the zombie had never actually happened. The idea that all of Zenith could get blown up into a giant mushroom cloud seemed bizarre. Ridiculous. Absurd.

Because wherever Johnny went, the city looked perfectly normal—no different than he had seen it in any other holiday season of his young life. People bustled about in their winter hats and gloves and overcoats, lugging shopping bags full of holiday gifts. On the street corners bell-ringers collected nickels and dimes for the poor. Jolly holiday music filled the air. Colorful decorations and lights hung on every downtown street lamp. Kids all over town looked almost giddy, longing for the presents that awaited them in a few short days. Even the adults were smiling.

But, of course, Ozzie
wasn’t
just just a figment of Johnny’s imagination. He was as real as real could be. And if the odd-smelling little creature had told them the truth, a second etheric bomb could be here in Zenith
right now
.

For the first time since he’d finished school, Johnny wondered if maybe some secrets were too big for a twelve-and-a-half-year-old. He knew he wasn’t the only one feeling the weight of this dreadful knowledge.

Nina—usually bright and upbeat—had become uncharacteristically glum. Everyone had figured out that she knew about the ultimatum. But like Johnny, they all trusted her to keep the secret.

Uncle Louie’s big, square, happy face had gone gray and sad. He hadn’t cracked a joke in ages.

Dame Honoria tried to look and sound cheerful, but couldn’t quite pull it off. No matter what she did, her guilt about Percy was there for everyone to see. But still, she seemed relieved that her son was safely locked up in the bowels of the National Building.

Mel kept to her room, except when she joined them to eat. Danny had been in town between flights, but she wouldn’t even go down to the Babbitt Aeroboat Port to see him. She just talked to him on the phone for a minute in a dull, flat voice, then dashed back upstairs to work on her equations. She was desperate to figure out what the bomb might look like and how it might be disarmed.

Johnny and Mel were also making plans for a winter trip to the Old Continent to hunt down the Contessa di Altamonta. She was the ghost painter who had made that mysterious drawing of their parents in captivity. Since Percy had clammed up utterly, the contessa’s knowledge was vital to shedding some light on what happened during that fateful expedition on Okkatek Island.

For her part, Bao had confessed to Johnny that she had been eavesdropping on him and Nina at the malt shop. She had hovered right behind him during the entire top-secret conversation. And she had slapped the girl who wanted to come to Johnny’s “wedding.”

The only good laugh Johnny had had lately was when Bao had asked him a very solemn question. “Little Brother, you aren’t really getting married, are you?”

The girl in the malt shop was just making a bad joke, he explained. Heckfire, he was only twelve and a half. Besides, who would want to marry him? Then the thought occurred that maybe centuries ago, in Bao’s tribe, twelve-and-a-half-year-olds actually did get married. Now that was
really
scary.

Johnny made the little ghost promise to never spy on him again, adding that “Being dead is no excuse for being rude.” Bao nodded earnestly and swore that she was a good girl, she really was. Then she started to cry—a quiet, tearless sob—which made Johnny feel like a mean old bully.

Later, Johnny asked Mel about Bao’s strange behavior. His sister rolled her eyes. “You big dope,” she laughed. “She has a huge crush on you.”

* * *

Johnny tramped up Birchwood’s long driveway in the chilly drizzle, after an assignment at city hall. In his head he went over what he needed to say to everyone. Normally, he wouldn’t feel comfortable ordering around Uncle Louie or Dame Honoria or even Mel. But these sure weren’t normal times. He had to do something—even if it proved to be in vain. Let no one ever say that John Joshua Graphic would allow his favorite place in the world to get blown up without a good fight.

He went up the front stairs and stepped inside the big brick house—vigorously wiping his soaked shoes, setting down his camera pack, and throwing off his wet raincoat and hat.

“Hello, Master Johnny,” said Mrs. Lundgren, from the front hallway.

Too preoccupied to even say hello, Johnny asked, “Is everyone home?”

“Yes, indeed,” the ghost housekeeper said. “Even Dame Honoria and Sir Chauncey.”

Within five minutes Johnny had gathered family and friends around the kitchen table. Mel looked irritated at being dragged away from her research.

“What’s up, sport?” Uncle Louie asked.

“Yeah, Johnny, where’s the fire?” Nina added.

Dame Honoria was sphinx-like, revealing none of her thoughts. Colonel MacFarlane stood by the refrigerator, at ease.

“After I dropped off my film of the mayor’s press conference, I had a word with Mr. Cargill,” explained Johnny.

“About the bomb threat?” Mel said.

Johnny nodded.

“Any good news?” asked Nina, sounding faintly hopeful.

Johnny shook his head. “Mr. Cargill can’t even get Mr. Crider to return his calls. Miss Beale says none of her sources in Capital City shows any sign of even knowing about the ultimatum. It’s clear everyone’s being kept in the dark, or otherwise we’d be hearing rumblings about something big coming down the pike.

“Mr. Cargill thinks that if the government was gonna do anything, they’d have done it by now. He thinks they plan to call Ozzie’s bluff. They won’t evacuate Zenith. It’s like they’re daring Percy’s gang to set off the etheric bomb!”

The minute he said “Percy’s gang,” Johnny regretted it. Not that it wasn’t true, the way he referred to Percy Rathbone. He was the boss of a gang of criminals, terrorists. But he knew how it hurt Dame Honoria. She gave a little shudder when he spoke that phrase.

Everyone around the table looked helpless.

“As you know,” Dame Honoria said, her gaze downcast, “I have visited with Percy several times, down in the prison cells of the National Building. He remains stubbornly uncommunicative.”

“Did you mention Ozzie’s ultimatum?” Johnny asked.

“Yes. I told him about the demand for a ghost-only city. At that, Percy smiled and nodded, as if he thought it a capital idea. Then I added that unless the city was evacuated by the end of the year, an etheric bomb would be detonated and Zenith wiped off the face of the earth.”

Dame Honoria paused for a moment and looked Johnny right in the eye.

“A curious thing, though. While he seemed pleased about the ultimatum, he was genuinely surprised when I mentioned that Zenith is the target. It’s almost as if he had previous knowledge of the plan, but not that it would be carried out here.”

“Maybe the plan changed, once he was captured,” said Johnny.

“That was my thought, too,” said Dame Honoria. “I wonder if, by bringing Percy here, we have unwittingly brought the bomb to Zenith, as well.”

Johnny was thinking the same exact thing and now he had to push hard for some action.

“Then we have to find the bomb and destroy it,” he said grimly. “Before it destroys us.”

Frowning fiercely, Mel shook her head. “I wish we could, Johnny. But it would make looking for a needle in a haystack seem like child’s play. The city’s way too big; they could hide the bomb anywhere. We don’t even know what it looks like.”

Johnny frowned back and slammed his hand on the table, rattling the cups and saucers sitting on it. “
But we have to try!
If Mom and Pop are alive, I don’t want them coming back here to find us dead and Zenith a smoking wasteland.”

“What do we do then?” asked Nina.

“It’s a long shot, maybe, but I have an idea,” Johnny responded.

“Okay, John,” said Uncle Louie. “Shoot.”

“We have the colonel and the Zenith Brigade on our side,” Johnny said. “What we’ve gotta do is send them out to recruit as many other ghosts as possible and then hunt through every house, every office, every factory, every building in Zenith. They can go anywhere. Nothing can stop them. We get a big map of the city and coordinate the search from here.

“We don’t tell the other ghosts about the bomb itself. Word could get out and start a panic among the living. But we direct them to hunt for Steppe Warriors or other suspicious ghosts. Seek out weird devices that have been hidden away.”

Everyone else at the table suddenly looked deep in thought.

Then Uncle Louie said, “I like it. It might work.”

“We have to do something,” said Nina.

“I agree with Nina,” Dame Honoria pronounced. “We have to make an effort.”

Mel didn’t look convinced, but she twisted around and looked at Colonel MacFarlane. She simply said, “Colonel?”

Johnny stared eagerly at the Border War cavalryman, knowing full well that he was the key to the whole enterprise. If he didn’t think it would work, it would never happen.

The ghost officer drew himself up a little taller as a slight grin showed itself among his whiskers. To Johnny he looked almost alive again.

“When would you like us to start, ma’am?”

Chapter 56

Wednesday, December 18, 1935

Zenith

While Commander Graphic, Dame Honoria, and Johnny mapped out the bomb hunt, the colonel, Finn, and Clegg recruited ghostly searchers. The number of wraiths who volunteered surprised the colonel. More than ninety came just from the ghost ghetto out at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Given the chance to do something useful—though not told exactly why—hundreds of ghosts eagerly pitched in.

One such willing recruit, called Sakima, was a native of the region, having lived and died there centuries before the white men came. The colonel figured that Sakima would have an eagle eye for spotting dodgy types such as Steppe Warriors. Unfortunately, when it came to looking for the bomb, the dead native seemed quite bewildered. Asked to alert the colonel if he found any suspicious metallic objects, Sakima led the horse soldier first to a typewriter, then to a sewing machine, and finally to a waffle iron.

The colonel found an eager troop of recruits up on the dusty, unused top floor of a bicycle factory. A dead teacher named Mrs. Hokkanen held class there every day of the week for a clutch of ghost children. Mrs. Hokkanen enthusiastically took up the colonel’s assignment as an opportunity to instruct the dead youngsters about technology and science—by leading daily field trips in search of “peculiar devices and machinery.”

Perhaps the most enthusiastic and well-qualified searcher was none other than Franklin Fforbes. No one had thought to tell the young ghost about the planned citywide hunt until the colonel ran into him in the garage behind Birchwood.

In the end, all manner of ghosts answered the colonel’s call—from longshoremen and lumberjacks to nuns and nurses.

* * *

Once all the plans were laid out, the colonel spent twenty-four hours a day riding slowly through every part of the Bowery, his assigned territory. Through basements and boiler rooms. Garages and warehouses. Filthy old tunnels full of pipes for steam, electric power cables, and water, with many rats scurrying about. He asked every wraith he came across the same questions: “Seen any strange new ghosts about? Any peculiar machinery? Anything at all odd?”

Not one of the scores of ghosts whom the colonel talked to knew anything about suspicious new spooks. Nor bizarre technology that might signify a plot. Some lacked any interest whatsoever, muttering answers such as, “Nah, don’t know nothin’” or “What’s it matter, we’re all dead anyway.” But more than a few wraiths were curious.

A drowning victim from the end of the last century—still dripping ghostly lake water and draped with aquatic weeds—seemed particularly interested. To her bosom she clasped the specter of a baby, who cried softly but incessantly.

“Why do you want to know, sir?” she asked eagerly. “Is there some danger to the living?”

The colonel knew he couldn’t say too much. “Very possibly, ma’am. Any clues or inklings could end up saving lives.”

“What is the danger, exactly?”