how they knew we were in trouble, but I didn’t care.
The water bullets they fired hit the walls and exploded, doing more damage than any bullet could.
“Drop your weapons!” shouted Yenza.
While Roder/Saint Dane and the other raiders ducked for cover, Uncle Press grabbed Spader and me and pulled us into the back room. The raiders were too busy defending themselves to come after us.
“Is there another way out?” Uncle Press shouted.
“There’s a ledge, all the way around the building,” gasped Spader, still trying to get his breath back from nearly being strangled.
“Show us!”
From the other room I heard the booming sounds of more water missiles hitting the walls. One shot blasted right through a wall and into the room we were in, missing me by a foot. These weren’t like any water pistols I’d ever played with!
Spader threw open a window and leaped out. Uncle Press pushed me toward the window to go next. I hesitated. I was never good with heights and we were on the fifth floor. Yikes. But there was no other choice. There were more raiders than aquaneers outside. As soon as the bad guys realized that, they’d be coming after us. So I put my fear aside and climbed out the window.
There was a two-foot-wide ledge that went all around the building. Normally two feet would be plenty wide enough to walk on. But when you’re five stories in the air, it feels more like two inches. I looked down and started getting dizzy.
“Go!” shouted Uncle Press. “He was already out behind me and pushing me to follow Spader.
Spader was moving quickly ahead of me, approaching the corner of the building. I took two steps and -
Boom! Apiece of wall blasted out in front of me, spewing splintered bits of building everywhere. Suddenly I wasn’t worried about the height anymore and started to run. More blasts of water missile blew out chunks of building just behind Uncle Press. If we stopped, we’d get blasted off the ledge.
Spader reached the corner and made the turn. I was right behind him. We were now on the far side of the building from where the battle was taking place. Spader found a window and jumped inside. For a moment I thought we were going to drop in on some unsuspecting guy taking a nap or something, but luckily we found ourselves in a stairwell.
“Go down the stairs!” Spader ordered. But rather than lead us down, he headed back toward the corridor where the fight was going on. Uncle Press grabbed him.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
“Going after Saint Dane!”
He tried to pull away from Uncle Press, but my uncle held him firm.
“Listen, Spader,” Uncle Press said. “You just had a taste of what we’ve been telling you about. Saint Dane has powers that you are no match for.”
“Not to mention the gunfight going on,” I added. “You go back there, you’re history.”
Spader was torn. His blood was boiling and he wanted a piece of Saint Dane — bad.
“We told you before,” Uncle Press continued with a calm voice, trying to talk Spader down. “There’s a bigger battle to be fought here. You heard what he said about Faar. It could be the last piece in the puzzle for destroying Cloral. Which do you think is more important? Going back in there and getting killed, or doing what your father wanted you to do?”
Spader looked up at my uncle with questioning eyes.
Uncle Press then said, “Let’s go find the Lost City of Faar.”
Boom! Like an exclamation point on his sentence, a water missile ripped through the door to the corridor. The raiders were coming after us. But Spader was with the program now. He knew what we had to do.
“C’mon!” he yelled, and bolted down the stairs. We all flew down, taking three stairs at a time. I thought I was going to take a tumble and break my neck, which would have been a really stupid thing to do at this point. But speed was everything now, so I kept going.
We blasted out a side door to the apartment building and went on a dead run for the canal and the skimmers. As we rounded the building, I saw that Yenza and the two aquaneers were backing out of the front door, still firing their water guns at the raiders. I really hoped there were no innocent bystanders in the way.
“Yenza!” yelled Uncle Press.
The chief aquaneer looked up and saw that we were out of the building. She immediately gave a command to the other aquaneers. They gave up on the fight and joined the sprint for the skimmers. As we ran across the grass toward the canal, small water bombs kicked up the dirt at our feet. I didn’t have to turn around to know the raiders were now out of the building and after us. I could only hope that we were far enough away that their guns wouldn’t be accurate enough to do any damage.
We all hit the canal at about the same time and jumped on the skimmers to make our escape. Nobody had to say a word. Uncle Press and I were on one, Spader and Yenza on another, the two aquaneers on a third.
The skimmers all whined to life. We were seconds away from blasting off. Then Spader turned around and actually gave me a smile.
“Last one back to the speeder buys the sniggers.” For a second, the old Spader had returned. He gunned the engine and took off. Uncle Press gunned ours, too, and the aquaneers were right behind. With the water around boiling from the incoming rain of water missiles, all three skimmers blasted off and away from the raiders.
The dash back to the dock was hairy, but not because of the raiders. As I wrote before, the canals were busy. But this time nobody cared. With Spader in the lead, we all flew over the water, dodging other skimmers like gates in a ski race. I wondered if there was a Panger City highway patrol that would pull us over for reckless skimming. Luckily, there weren’t any accidents, though we had a ton of close calls.
It wasn’t until we made it back to the canal near the docks that we could all finally take a breath. Or at least a half breath because this race was only just beginning. We tied up the skimmers and headed for the dock.
“How did you know to follow us?” Uncle Press asked Yenza as we ran.
“It was Nassi,” she answered. “I never trusted that woman. As soon as you left to follow Spader, she went after you.”
“You saved our lives, Yenza,” he said. “Thank you.”
Yenza then stopped on the side of the busy street and faced the three of us. The aquaneers stood behind her, ready for anything. Yenza was used to calling all the shots and I didn’t think she liked being out of the loop, especially when it meant having to battle raiders. “You were talking to Zy Roder like you knew him. What is going on?”
The three of us exchanged looks. How could we possibly explain any of this to her? It was Uncle Press who took a shot at it.
“Po Nassi was working with Zy Roder,” he explained.
Technically, Po NassiwasZy Roder, but Uncle Press made the wise decision not to go down that road. Good thinking.
“She knew exactly what she was doing,” he continued.
“She knew the fertilizer was poison. Spader’s father was working with me to investigate this horror… until he died.”
“Po Nassi was deliberately trying to poison Cloral?” she asked in shock. “Why?”
“That’s tougher to answer, but it’s true. We’ve got to leave Panger City right away. Where is Manoo?”
“I’m right here!”
The little elf-man hurried to us from the building that led to the docks. He looked all sorts of angry and upset.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
“Did you get to the Agronomy Society?” Yenza asked, ignoring his question.
“Yes,” Manoo answered nervously. “But it’s too late!”
“What do you mean?” Yenza demanded.
“The fertilizer,” whined Manoo. “It’s been sent all over Cloral. Almost every underwater farm is using it right now. Our entire food supply is going to be poisoned! It’s a total disaster!”
How’sthatfor a horrifying news item? Saint Dane’s plan had kicked into high gear and Manoo was out of his mind with worry.
