Cautiously, Milo and Lucy crept along the cobblestone floor. They peeked through a small window in the first door on the left and spied a white-walled room filled with scientific equipment. Several people in lab coats worked diligently inside, fiddling with microscopes, test tubes and Bunsen burners.
A woman in a hairnet and goggles placed a beaker containing a dark, syrupy substance over one of the burners. She added a yellow liquid to the beaker with an eyedropper. The substance bubbled and emitted a plume of sky-blue smoke.
“What do you think they’re making in there?” whispered Lucy.
Just then, a pair of male scientists strolled from the back of the room towards the door.
Milo ducked below the window, pulling Lucy down with him. “Someone’s coming.”
They raced across the hall into an unused presentation room containing worktables and filing cabinets.
Now they could hear the men’s voices in the hallway: “The sap’s chemical structure is incredibly malleable,” said the first voice. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“And it’s so abundant,” said the second. “It’s coming from the trees, but surely it can’t all be coming FROM the trees.”
The men’s footsteps clacked across the stone corridor.
“They’re headed in here,” whispered Lucy. “Hide!”
They scurried under a table at the back of the room. A moment later, the men entered.
“It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” said the first man, the elder of the two. He had close-cropped white hair and sun-speckled skin. “There are still so many undiscovered treasures in the unkempt backwaters of this great nation.” He lowered himself stiffly into an ergonomic chair.
Lucy’s face contorted into a sneer. “That’s Doctor VINK,” she mouthed, then mimed sticking her finger down her throat.
According to Milo’s father, Vink was an expert in psychobiology, neurobotany and golf. Milo had met him a few times before. The last time had been under the factory, where the doctor had been performing experiments on the missing people.
“I still can’t wrap my head round the potential value of these resources,” said the younger man, whom Milo didn’t recognise. He was stout and bespectacled, with an impeccably groomed beard. Rifling through a drawer, he chose a file and handed it to Vink. “Fisher was right. This sap is miraculous. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Doctor Vink examined the file. “But before these resources can be fully exploited, Doctor Bell, the local threat must be eliminated.”
“Speaking of which,” said Bell, “have the tests begun on our new guest downstairs?”
Lucy gripped Milo’s wrist.
They’re talking about Thingus. Milo’s jaw clenched. He’s not on this floor.
Vink smirked. “The deviant organism is contained for now. Feisty things, these Pretenders.”
Lucy dug her nails into Milo’s skin. “Ouch,” he hissed.
Bell turned. “Did you hear something?”
A startled scream echoed down the hallway.
Vink stood up so fast both he and his chair nearly toppled over.
A small black-and-white animal scrabbled past their door and down the hallway, chased by a gaggle of people in white coats.
“Was that a cat?” asked Vink.
“We’re not lab-testing felines, are we?” said Doctor Bell.
Grumbling, the men hurried out into the hallway and followed the group to the right.
“Let’s go,” said Milo.
The pair raced out of the room in the opposite direction and hurtled into the elevator. Panting, Lucy’s hand hovered over the buttons. “Which floor?”
“I don’t know,” said Milo. “They just said he was downstairs.”
Lucy shrugged and pressed the button for the bottom level, “minus three”. The elevator kicked into action, continuing its downwards journey for what seemed like an age. Milo shifted anxiously. Come on, come on, come on. How far underground were they going?
The bell dinged and the elevator doors opened. A hot gust of sulphuric air smacked their faces. Guardedly, they exited the compartment into a vast cave of yellow stone illuminated by large portable spotlights. Its ceiling dripped with glittering stalactites.
“What is this place?” said Milo.
He and Lucy ventured into the strange cavern. They appeared to be alone, though a row of hard hats and heavy-duty boots lay on a bench near the elevators.
The cave’s rocky walls, easily three storeys tall, were decorated from top to bottom with countless ancient-looking carvings: hieroglyphic symbols, images of plants and trees, stellar constellations, and an array of animals from a lowly banana slug to a rhinoceros to a spindly human figure holding a spear. Intermingled with the images were depictions of bizarre creatures with jumbled features. Some had animal bodies with human heads. Some had the reverse arrangement. Milo recognised some of the uncanny hybrids from the mythological creatures described in his cryptozoology book.
“It’s like the Siren Stone,” murmured Lucy. “But MEGA.” She spun round to take in the immensity of the find.
“Do you think the Pretenders made all this?” he asked. There was so much to see it was almost overwhelming. “How long have they been here?”
“Over a hundred years, for sure,” said Lucy. “The Other Mrs Stricks is at least that old.”
“Are you serious?” said Milo, alarmed. “How is that possible?”
“I dunno. How is any of this possible?” Lucy adjusted her glasses and peered, wide-eyed, at a six-foot carving of a man with the head of a buffalo and flames where his eyes should have been. “That’s exactly what I want to find out.”
Milo approached a knobbly stone column covered in carvings of hand, paw and claw prints. He traced one of the prints with a finger. Were any of these made by Thingus? He tried to count them all, but there were too many. “How many Pretenders are there?”
“Nine that I know of, including Thingus.”
“But this cave is insane,” said Milo, feeling overwhelmed. “Either the Pretenders are way older than a hundred—”
“Or there are more of them than we think there are,” said Lucy, eagerly taking down a note.
“Doesn’t any of this worry you?”
“They’ve been my neighbours my whole life, Fish. Why would they worry me?”
“Because there’s so much about them that
