Note: I'm getting married in the morning, ding dong the bells are going to chime!...or rather, on Saturday. Soooo, I'm posting up this epilogue and the final chapter at the same time, so if you've missed chapter 33, back up and read that first. Thank you everyone for your awesome feedback, you all ROCK!

Epilogue

As they were lifted off the roof of the school, the jubilant men in the back of the helicopter were congratulating and back slapping each other at the success of their mission – too distracted to notice the lonely figure of Joe Hardy run out from behind the tool shed to help his fallen brother Frank who'd obstructed them so many countless times in their quest to attain the Key.

One of the men began unpacking the laptop again to rig it up. Once he had power to the unit, he accessed the Internet and slotted the newly aquired memory stick into the USB port. Pandora immediately sauntered onto the screen with the box in her hands which she set down and opened. Four tiles flew out and settled in a line and she pointed at them invitingly and smiled.

Another one of the men unfolded a piece of paper and started to read numbers out to his comrade who deftly entered them into the tiles, four numbers in each. At the end he hit 'okay' and they waited…and waited…and waited some more…and then Pandora did something both unforeseen and startling – she stuck out her tongue and lifted her middle finger. "What the hell?" muttered the man with the computer and tried again. Getting the same naughty response.

The leader of the group yanked the memory stick from the computer and threw it down onto the floor. "Frank Hardy fooled us! He's still got the Key!" He punched the door. "I'm going to kill him!"

"He's already dead, remember?"

But man Number One wasn't thinking rationally anymore, the irony of his statement completely going over his head. He leaned forward to bang on the bulletproof perspex that seperated the rear of the helicopter from the pilot. "Turn back," he commanded loudly. Gaining no response, he banged more insistently, "HEY!"

The pilot indicated to his headphones, making it clear that he couldn't hear him.

So the man looked about the space until he found a spare headset hanging just above his head. He lifted it down, jammed it down over his ears and levered the microphone down in front of his mouth. "I said turn back!" he commanded again to the back of the pilot's head.

Finally hearing him, the pilot looked over his shoulder and saluted. It wasn't the man they were expecting to see, it was a small, bald man with glasses. Inconsquential in appearance, someone who wouldn't be noticed in a crowd. If a color could be considered a physical entity, they'd have been forgiven in describing him as being entirely constructed out of gray.

"If I was you, I'd buckle up tight," Mr Arthur Gray invited. "You're all in for one hell of a bumpy ride!"

THE END

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, to the lovely JD for being my BETA reader and putting up with my constant tinkering with this story and then forcing her to read, and re-read each chapter. And then for totally (I'm sure) annoying her by adding another whole 20,000 or so words to what I thought was a finished story, which turned out not to be.

Secondly, to my wonderful new husband who, as it turns out, is turning into quite a Hardy Boys fan (especially Nancy, for some reason) and is quite happy to sit and listen to me prattle on about plot ideas – quite often coming up with even better ideas! He's so great at brain storming, and he's so patient with me, AND, he actually read the thing! The biggest compliment I got was when Mat said "…it felt like I was reading a regular book..."

Lastly, to all you guys for reading Pandora and apparently enjoying it because you all gave me such wonderful feedback.