24 The Infinity Room

Chapter 24 The Infinity Room The twins stood frozen for a moment. Finally, after all they had heard about this man, they were face-to-face with the genius behind The Genius Files. "Are you really Dr. Warsaw?" Pep asked hesitantly. "Would you like to see my driver's license, Pepsi?" he said, a smile curving the ends of his lips up. "It's him," Bones said. "Believe me, it's him." "I almost thought you were, like, a fictional character or something," Coke said. "Aren't we all, Coke?" Dr. Warsaw replied. "Ultimately, who's to say what's real or imaginary?"

"Thank God you're here, Dr. Warsaw!" Pep said excitedly. "These crazy people have been trying to kill us!" Bones and Mya groaned. Dr. Warsaw let out a small chuckle. "Yes. I'm so glad you two accepted my, uh, invitations to come here today," he said. "So you're the one who's been sending us all those ciphers?" Pep asked. "Guilty as charged," Dr. Warsaw admitted. "I needed to test your mental ability. To see if you were worthy. To see if you were as smart as I thought you were. Congratulations. You passed. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be here, obviously." "He's insane!" Bones called out from behind. "He's going to kill you. He's going to kill us all!" "We believed in you!" Mya yelled. "We believed in The Genius Files!" "I know you did," Dr. Warsaw said sadly. "So did I." "Why did you bring us here?" Coke demanded.

"Be patient, Coke," Dr. Warsaw said. "What's the rush? You've waited this long. What do you think of The House on the Rock? Pretty amazing place, eh? The unusual is commonplace here." "We kind of... rushed through," Coke said. Dr. Warsaw ignored the remark. He spread his arms wide. "Alex Jordan is my hero, my role model," he told them. "This citadel of sandstone had endured millions of years of rain, wind, and glaciers when Jordan found it sixty years ago. He knew he couldn't improve upon nature, so he put a cherry on top. He took this slab of rock and turned it into a retreat where he could build his dream. And he did it almost single-handedly, carrying the stone and mortar up to the top in wicker baskets strapped to his back." "What does that have to do with us?" Pep shouted. But Dr. Warsaw ignored her. "Alex Jordan was a buildaholic. A genius. A crazy genius, maybe. But a genius nevertheless.

He was a lot like us, really, don't you think, Coke?" Dr. Warsaw took a drag on his cigarette. "Yeah, he must have been a real genius," Coke replied. He moved his eyes up, down, left, and right without moving his head. There had to be a way out. This guy was crazier than Alex Jordan. Alex Jordan never tried to kill anyone. There was no telling what Dr. Warsaw had in mind for them. "Let them go!" Bones shouted. "They're just kids! It's not their fault that your grand plan to save the world failed!" "It did fail, didn't it?" mumbled Dr. Warsaw. "It failed miserably. Now I have to start all over again. Sometimes you can't fix things. You have to replace them." Coke tried desperately to think of a plan. With the help of Bones and Mya, the twins could overpower Dr. Warsaw, no problem. But tied up with rope, Bones and Mya were helpless. Without them, it was still two against one. Coke

calculated the odds that Dr. Warsaw had some kind of a weapon in his pocket. The madman kept sticking his hand in there. "The Infinity Room is the fourteenth—and final—room of The House on the Rock," Dr. Warsaw informed them. "Right now we're hanging in midair over the valley, like the beak of a giant bird. Just steel and glass. There are no hidden pillars, no suspension cables holding us up. The Infinity Room relies entirely on its own internal structure for support. Quite remarkable, don't you think?" "Quite," Coke replied, nervously fingering the deck of cards in his pocket. I can take this guy all by myself if I have to,

Coke thought. He's frail. He would probably go down with one punch. While Dr. Warsaw's attention was on her brother, Pep slowly slipped her backpack off one shoulder. Maybe she could throw it at him, she figured, and distract him for a few seconds while Coke did the Ace Fist stuff. "Look over here," Dr. Warsaw said, beckoning the twins to follow him deeper into The Infinity Room. "Beautiful view, isn't it? On a clear day, you can see thirty miles or more." "Don't do it!" Mya warned. "Don't do anything he tells you!" The twins took a few tentative steps forward but stopped short of the glass box. Dr. Warsaw leaned over and removed the top of the box, placing the sheet of glass against the wall behind it. That left a large hole in the bottom of The Infinity Room. Large enough for somebody to fall through. "That's one hundred and fifty feet straight down," Dr. Warsaw continued. "A long way to