Edison's Alley by Shusterman Neal & Elfman Eric

Author:Shusterman, Neal & Elfman, Eric [Shusterman, Neal & Elfman, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, Adventure, Mystery, Humour, Childrens
ISBN: 9781423148067
Amazon: 1423148061
Goodreads: 20875669
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Published: 2015-02-10T08:00:00+00:00

When it came to the Accelerati, form was far more important than function. They were all about style, elegance, and panache. Their evil designs were truly about design.

For instance, if they determined that there was a need to end your life, they wouldn’t just end it. They would first have you end the life of someone else who needed ending, who in turn had just ended the life of someone else for them, and so on, like a procession of fishes in which the smaller one is always swallowed by the larger one behind it.

Thus, the Accelerati member who designed the bowling-pin combination lock had been applauded and received the organization’s highest honors before he was killed—by someone else who needed to be killed.

Their lodge predated the bowling alley by several years. When a local businessman decided to build the recreation spot directly above their underground lair, the Accelerati saw it as an opportunity. For who would ever imagine that humanity’s greatest minds were hiding underneath a bowling alley? And although it was called Atomic Lanes, the Accelerati’s secret experiments made it only slightly radioactive.

Petula knew none of this. All she knew was that she was required to take a picture every day, showing what the bowling alley would look like one day in the future. Since the Accelerati had no enemies powerful enough to attack them, the photos weren’t to warn them of outside threats—but rather to let them know if, over the next twenty-four hours, they would accidentally blow themselves up.

“Welcome to the Great Hall,” Ms. Planck said, throwing open a pair of ornately sculpted bronze doors. The room before them, however, seemed no larger than a closet.

“That’s some Great Hall,” Petula said, with her familiar flatness.

“Have you ever heard of Zeno’s paradoxes?”

Petula did not answer, because admitting that she did not know something was not part of her chosen lifestyle.

“One of them is the concept on which the Great Hall is based.”

Petula stepped forward, only to find that with each step the other end of the room seemed twice as far away as before; it expanded until she found herself standing in a cathedral-like library. Huge windows seemed to be looking out on seventeenth-century Venice, with gondolas gliding gracefully by outside.

“Ah,” said Ms. Planck, “Italian Renaissance Day. Each day of the month a different holographic theme is projected. We’re in negotiations to sell the technology to Apple.”

On the walls were artworks by great artists, familiar in style if not in composition.

“Most of the pieces in this room were presumed lost in fires and other natural, and not-so-natural, disasters.”

Petula didn’t want to think about how they came to be in the Accelerati’s possession.

Just beyond the Great Hall they reached a rotunda where a larger-than-life-size statue of Thomas Edison held up a lightbulb, his expression grim.

“Our founder,” Ms. Planck noted as they passed it. “Obviously.”

Several hallways led to other wings of what seemed to be a sprawling underground complex. It didn’t actually appear to be underground, but instead woven into the infrastructure of Venice.

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