Myka closed her Farnsworth and exhaled slowly.
"What did Artie say about the Barrier?" Pete asked.
From her airplane seat, she looked up at him. "I didn't talk to Artie. Claudia says he's trying to catch the Scarab Artifact. It got loose in the Warehouse."
"How is he going to catch the Scarab without Trailer?" He stood in the aisle and shifted on his feet.
She shrugged. "The good news is, they're still tracking the plane and Sykes hasn't landed in Hong Kong yet. We still have time."
"But Sykes fired the cannon early. He activated the Warehouse Barrier early." He shook his head. "Bad news."
"True," she said. "But Claudia already set up security cameras, so they can monitor the Portal when people start coming through."
Pete shifted on his feet again. "The Portal, our Stargate to the Regent Sanctum, is the only way in or out of Warehouse 13. My mom is trapped inside again, plus Leena and Dr. Vanessa, and all those other people. Trapped in the Warehouse, with a bomb. This timeline is getting worse, isn't it?"
"Artie and Mrs. Frederic set up the Bunker with counter-measures," Myka said. "This time we're prepared to deal with the Artifact-Bomb."
"OK," he pointed at her, "but before that, we have to survive the Scary Sanctum." Pete shook his head quickly. "I do not want H.G. to hold a gun to your head."
"Helena didn't want to, either," she said. "She was terrified. Sykes used DeMille's Crop to make her do it, to make you do things, too."
Pete grimaced. "I do not want to point a gun at my own mother. I don't want to hit Artie in the head. Myka, I can't do that."
"You didn't do that," she said firmly. "Sykes did all that." She sighed. "Maybe this time, in the Warehouse, the confrontation with Artie can be minimized. Maybe the sooner Sykes gets the Collodi Bracelet, the sooner we can separate him from his wheelchair and snag the Artifact-Bomb."
He sat down in the seat beside her. "How do we know this timeline will end up better than before?"
"Because." Myka paused, her mind racing in search of an encouraging answer. "Because Claudia filled those waterguns with Purple Goo. When we get home, you get a new gun."
"Goo Guns." Pete arched one of his eyebrows. "Practical, portable, and awesome. Claudia is the best supply sergeant ever. Plus, she snagged Excalibur."
Myka stifled a laugh. "No, she didn't. Claudia mentioned Excalibur when she saw it in the inventory. No swords today."
"I would carry Excalibur," he said, "just in case. Swords are cool."
From her messenger bag, Myka retrieved the stacks of paper files. "This time," she said, "we've learned much more about Sykes and how this crisis happened. This time we learned that MacPherson Debronzed Helena to make her a pawn in his game against the Warehouse." She rubbed her forehead. "We know much more about MacPherson's plans."
"He set up Joshua with the Compass Artifact when Josh was a college student," Pete said. "I still think about that sometimes. You and I stood in the lab at the university, with the dimensional lights or whatever swirling around us, and waited for Artie and Claudia to reappear."
"MacPherson set up Sykes with the Collodi Bracelet when he was just a boy," she said. "Why did he give such dangerous artifacts to young people? How could MacPherson do that?"
"Yeah," he said slowly, "makes you wonder."
Myka sorted through the papers, looking for one of her notes. "Wonder what?"
"About the others," he said.
She frowned. "Others?"
"Other people," Pete said. "People we haven't discovered yet, who were set up with artifacts from MacPherson."
On the floor of Warehouse 13, the green Scarab stood still. Only a few inches away from the large beetle, purple Neutralizer flowed through the wide aqueduct in the floor.
From her vantage point behind some shelves, Mrs. Frederic glanced down at her open Farnsworth. "We hope the canal of Neutralizer functions as a barrier," she said to Mr. Kosan.
"Shhh," Artie whispered loudly.
Mrs. Frederic looked up. Ahead of her, Artie and Claudia stood behind the last shelving unit before the open floorspace along the aqueduct.
Across the aisle from them, in the corresponding row, Dr. Vanessa Calder stood behind the shelf, holding a large plastic watergun.
Artie held a watergun, too, and over his wrist, he wore a roll of duct tape. In one hand, Claudia held the handle of a large blue plastic cooler, and in her other hand, its lid.
Mrs. Frederic realized Artie was scowling at her. She closed her Farnsworth and gave him a nod.
From their positions on either side of the wide aisle, Artie and Vanessa formed a triangle with the Scarab at the head, about 12 feet away. They aimed their plastic guns at the beetle, and Vanessa nodded to him.
Mrs. Frederic held her breath. If a new Warehouse is needed, we must have the Scarab.
Briefly, the Scarab flickered one of its wings, but remained standing near the aqueduct.
Claudia spoke quietly. "Ready, set, go."
From their guns, Artie and Vanessa shot steady streams of Purple Goo directly onto the Scarab. Carrying the blue cooler, Claudia dashed toward the beetle.
Artie and Vanessa took a few steps toward the Scarab and kept it doused with Neutralizer. They stopped just as Claudia reached the inert beetle. She slammed down the plastic cooler, covering the Scarab. Quickly, she slid the cooler's lid underneath, boxing in the beetle.
Artie stood beside Claudia. "Ready?" he asked.
Carefully holding the cooler shut, Claudia tipped it up onto one end. Artie wrapped duct tape around the end of the cooler, then its middle, encircling it several times.
The Scarab is secure, Mrs. Frederic thought. If only we could contain all the imminent dangers so securely. She glanced toward a nearby red light that flashed its warning. The Warehouse Barrier serves as our container. But we are inside.
Vanessa approached them as Claudia stood up and handed Artie the cooler. "Nicely done," Vanessa said. "I knew Claudia made improvements to the Teslas." She held up the plastic watergun. "But now you have Purple Goo Guns, too?" Vanessa smiled at them. "I'm seriously tempted to return to fieldwork."
Artie opened his mouth to speak, but a loud bump from inside the cooler startled him. "See?" he said. "The Neutralizer's effect on the Scarab was short-lived."
Claudia pointed at the aqueduct. "The Scarab waited, like he couldn't go any farther. Do you think the Purple Goo prevented him from flying across the aqueduct?"
They turned to look at Mrs. Frederic.
"So it would seem," she said.
Artie hugged the cooler tightly as the Scarab bumped against the walls of its container. "I'm surprised MacPherson isn't here, taunting us."
"And haunting us." Claudia glanced around. "Can you sense him, Mrs. Frederic? Is MacPherson still hanging around?"
In the chaos, Mrs. Frederic had forgotten about the ghostly intruder. "No," she said slowly. "I don't sense him nearby." She searched down the aisle, but saw nothing.
"If the Neutralizer disrupts his ghostliness," Claudia said, "maybe MacPherson is avoiding the aqueducts. Maybe the Purple Goo stopped him, like it stopped the Scarab."
Mrs. Frederic scanned along the edge of the aqueduct in one direction, then the other. Despite all the activity and commotion, MacPherson is absent. Strange.
"Let's hope the Neutralizer limits his ability to roam," Artie said. "We don't need him following us everywhere."
"I doubt MacPherson will leave us in peace," Mrs. Frederic said.
Artie sighed. "We'll take the Scarab to Mr. Kosan. But I'm not sure how we can protect this artifact, or the Regents, under the circumstances."
Claudia and Vanessa replied, but Mrs. Frederic ignored their conversation as she turned back to stare at the aqueduct filled with purple liquid.
Why can't I sense him watching us? She searched for signs of movement among the rows of shelves. Where is MacPherson?
Helena turned the page and read the opening lines of another short story about Sherlock Holmes. At home on Baker Street, Holmes and Dr. Watson read over the newspapers when suddenly, a stranger called on them. The arrival of a new client, and the introduction of some troubling incident, she thought, present another puzzle only Sherlock Holmes can solve.
Across the airplane cabin, Sykes sat reading information from the screen of his laptop.
At the sound of the door opening, Sykes picked up the DeMille Crop.
"Mr. Sykes!" Tyler entered carrying his open laptop.
Sykes frowned at the young man. "You've decrypted the file?"
"Only one part," Tyler said. "But that's just the beginning."
"I need the information in that file," Sykes said grimly.
"Yes, I'm still working on it," he said quickly, "but this one part is really important. It's the personnel file with the codename Odysseus-74. I decrypted the page with the ID information."
"I'll decide what's important," Sykes said.
Tyler nodded. "It's a huge lead." He handed his laptop to Sykes. "It's that girl's brother. The file is about Joshua Donovan."
Donovan? Helena thought. Claudia has a brother?
She tried to recall the brief time she spent working with Claudia, at Warehouse 13. But what resurfaced were her feelings of despair and anger. The strongest voice in those earliest memories was that of her emancipator from the Bronze Sector. With a mixture of poisonous words and persuasion, James MacPherson set her onto a deadly path.
Helena shook her head to bring herself back to the present. No, she thought, it would be unwise to revisit my own turbulent memories. And quite unhelpful in this crisis.
"Joshua Donovan," Sykes said. "Physicist at CERN." He nodded at Tyler. "Keep working. If you can decrypt the entire file by the time we get to Hong Kong, you'll get a bonus. How about $100,000?"
Tyler smiled. "Yes!" He took the laptop and ran from the cabin.
Sykes retrieved his mobile phone. "Marcus," he said. "Have you found anyone?" He paused. "Well, if they're all at the Warehouse, they're trapped now."
Trapped inside Warehouse 13? Helena thought. Previously he mentioned a cannon.
"Good news," Sykes said to Marcus. "If we can't acquire Agent Donovan, I think I've found an alternative. She has a brother, Joshua. He's a physicist, working at CERN. After I close this deal from Hong Kong, we'll head to Geneva and offer Joshua Donovan a lucrative business opportunity."
She hugged her book, wishing she could not hear him. Sykes would make all of us pawns in his terrible game.
"Hold on," Sykes said as he shifted in his chair. "It bothers me that the Bed & Breakfast is empty."
"Look around the house and the garage," he said into the phone. "Find some accelerant." He nodded. "Yes, start a fire in the house. I want to give Jane Lattimer a preview." He smirked. "Burn down their house."
