bounced off the curved roof of the vehicle and plunked onto the floor Then it rolled For a second I thought it might be a grenade I imagined grabbing the explosive and heroically tossing it high into the air before anyone was hurt But when it stopped I realized it was just a camera Matt ran over to me and pointed up The lab was ten stories stories tall and the center of the huge space was wide open but a series of rooms extended out from the walls on platforms They stretched from the ground floor to the ceiling like spiral stairs and one of the rooms was puffing out clouds of vapor through a hole in a window A thin black rope was dangling all the way from the platform to the floor Is that the biosphere I asked Yes Matt whispered and someone’s in there Duh Ava replied Maybe it’s Hank A spark flashed inside the room A man cursed and shouted That’s not Hank Ava said Our friend Hank otherwise known as Dr Henry Witherspoon Witherspoon owns the lab He lets us work there too and takes care of us Well sort of anyway We hadn’t seen or heard from him in three weeks That was a really long time for him to be gone especially without sending us a single e-mail or even a quick text Honestly I would’ve settled for an emoji 2 Bill Nye and Gregory Mone
But Hank’s an unusual guy and he probably had a great explanation Oh and there’s no way he’d wreck his own lab Especially Especially not the room we were staring up at now The glass-walled glass-walled biosphere was one of his favorite spots About half the size of our apartment the space was a miniature ecosystem ecosystem sealed off from the outside world and the rest of the lab Nothing but light went in or out The air inside cycled through about twenty different plants and miniature trees and the water evaporated and condensed as it flowed along a miniature stream that circled the interior A hidden pump powered by sunlight kept the water moving Sure the Do Not Enter and Caution signs were painfully tempting but not one of us had ever been inside the room Not even me Honestly Except for that one time Which is kind of how I knew so much about the inside Matt grabbed my shirt just above the elbow Let’s get out of here he said still whispering Hank would’ve told us he was back This wasn’t quite true Hank showed up and disappeared without warning all the time But I didn’t challenge my brother I glanced at Ava She wasn’t moving Matt himself didn’t actually look ready to go But neither of them really 3 JACK and the GENIUSES
wanted to lead the way either I’m always the one who goes first Fine I said quietly I’ll go check it out Matt reached over to a small worktable and grabbed a hammer Ava shot him a look Really she mouthed My brother who had the muscles of an athlete but the fighting skills of a toddler deflated like a popped balloon Hammer or no hammer he wasn’t going to fight anyone None of us were He carefully replaced the tool and we crossed the lab floor as quietly as ninjas Now about this laboratory It’s a little odd Okay more than a little There’s a giant water tank for testing submarines submarines and robotic boats and suits that let you stay underwater without air tanks The glass-encased Mars room is a near-perfect near-perfect copy of the landscape on the Red Planet All kinds of vehicles and robots and enough computers to satisfy two classrooms full of kids are scattered around the place And that’s just the ground floor Each of the platforms that wind up toward the ceiling supports its own miniature lab The biosphere used to be on the fourth platform but Hank redesigned redesigned it and moved it up a few floors The first time Hank let us into his lab I had no idea how he got from one platform to the next The giant catapult catapult capable of launching department store mannequins fifty feet in the air suggested he had some exciting plans but 4 Bill Nye and Gregory Mone
he developed a much easier way up And the rope dangling from the biosphere’s platform suggested that the intruder hadn’t found it Ava grabbed the rope and gave it a gentle tug At least he didn’t use Betsy she said Betsy wasn’t a kid Or a pet My sister liked to name her inventions and Betsy was a motorized device about the size of a blender that let you fire a long cable up to rooftops or balconies and then whisked you right up like Batman Don’t tell her I said that though because she hates superheroes And look Betsy was amazing Totally Even if I had sprained my finger trying to use her the week before But this wasn’t the time for Betsy We needed to be quiet And safe I’d rather go the normal way I said Ava flicked a red rubber toggle switch hidden behind a painting of a lighthouse Two dozen metal steps popped out of the wall with a faint whoosh They weren’t connected to each other only to the wall and there was no railing either Hank had covered each one with a thin square of rubber after Matt had tripped and banged his knees on the metal edges about a dozen times Naturally for this reason I called the squares Matts Ava liked the joke My brother Not so much We hurried up the Matts and I stopped at the first 5 JACK and the GENIUSES
