Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7 "AHHHHHH!" Amy didn't feel much at all. The wind. The metallic shriek of the brakes, the horn blocking out all sound. She must have closed her eyes, because she didn't see anything, either. She felt. Her body wrenched upward and backward. She was flying. And then her shoulder hit solid, cold cement. When she opened her eyes, all was dark and silent. "I g-g-guess… I'm dead?" she heard her own voice call out, strangely high-pitched and thin. For a long time, she heard nothing else. And then:

"Hi, Dead. I'm Dan." The ssshhhhick of a lit match sounded, and a tremulous light outlined two faces. Amy sat up. Her left ankle ached, and her shoe was missing. "Uncle Alistair? Dan?" Dan's hair was standing on end, his face shadowed with black dust and his eyes the size of softballs. "He did it. Uncle Alistair. He saved our lives. Reached out. From the wall. How—?" Dan tottered toward her, his body bent over as he gawked at Amy's foot. "It's still there. He didn't amputate it when he—" With that, Dan's knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor. "Dan!" Amy shouted. As she reached out to grab his arm, her ankle screamed with pain. "It's all right," Dan said, sitting up. "I'm all right. Don't call nine-one-one. Did my hair turn white? Like in movies, like when people get really, really scared?" "You're both safe now," Alistair said, moving his match around to outline the contours of a large room. "Dan, your hair is not white— and you

were right about the hiding place. It is more or less where you thought it would be. There was a small graffito, an ancient-looking symbol on what looked like an electrical plate. Once I pressed it, the door swung open. I merely brought you both in with me." Amy lunged forward on her good foot, keeping the other one in the air, and flung her arms around him. "Thank you," she said. She felt him flinch. For a horrible moment she felt as if she'd done something terribly wrong. She could tell he was not the hugging type. Then, awkwardly, Alistair wrapped his arms around her. "I… owed you one," he said softly. "Or two," Dan said. Alistair nodded. "I suppose my record is not very good in life-threatening situations." "Well, you've made up for it now," Amy said, burying her head in the shoulder of Alistair's silk suit jacket, which still smelled of aftershave. Gently, Alistair pulled himself away, glancing downward with concern. "How does your foot feel?"

"Like it was jammed under a rail and then pulled out of its shoe," Amy said with a wince. "I can move it, but I think I sprained my ankle." "Bet you can't tap-dance," Dan said, still sounding a little shell-shocked. Amy smiled at her brother, never ever having imagined she would enjoy hearing his stupid humor. She felt a rush of warmth for him. "Oh, no, I see that look— no hugs!" Dan said, backing away. Numbly, he flicked on his flashlight and swept it slowly around the room, until the beam landed on a pile of old relics lying haphazardly on the floor and covered with thick, gray-black dust— clothing, strange tarnished metal things, a metal box, a globe, a hefty cylinder. As they all moved closer, Alistair remarked, "Well, the yakuza may control some kind of underground network, but it doesn't look like they've been here in a few centuries." "Hey," Dan piped up. "What does Jar Jar Binks say when he meets a member of the Japanese Mafia?"

Amy groaned. "You are recovering too quickly." "I'm game. Wait…" Alistair paused for a moment and smiled. "'You, sah? Yakuza?'" Dan's grin disappeared. "How did you know that? I just made it up out of my own head." "Puns are a sign of intelligence, deeply buried," Alistair replied, putting on his white gloves. He leaned into the pile of stuff and gingerly lifted a small, brittle garment. "Hard to tell how old this is under so many decades of metal dust." "Hey, check it out!" Dan said. He was unrolling a scroll that he'd pulled from behind a chest of drawers. "Careful!" Amy said. The scroll was open now, blackened around the edges but legible— three lines of stylized Japanese characters. "What's it say?" Dan asked. Alistair looked closely. "It's a haiku, I think. Wait, let me get the meter right…. 'To find the new home/Of Hideyoshi's treasure/Use geometry.'" "Treasure?" Amy said. "Does that include the swords?"

"We're rich!" Dan shouted. "Woo-hoo— I knew it! Okay, geometry. I'll get this one. Hang on, give me a minute…." "It could be anything…" Amy said, gazing around the room. "We're in a big room," Dan declared. "So… the volume of a parallelepiped, maybe?" "Beg pardon?" Alistair said. "A three-dimensional parallelogram, like this chamber," Dan explained. "How would that solve the problem?" Amy asked. "It's like trying to find a hypotenuse in a haystack." "Is that a joke?" Dan said. "Because if it is, you should give me a signal. Like, tap your head twice so I know when to laugh." He let go of the scroll with one hand. The snap of its shutting caromed off the walls into the silence. The dead silence. Amy glanced around nervously. "Um, shouldn't there have been another train by now…?"