The Battle

The morning after the accident at Whit's End, Richard Maxwell storms into Dr. Blackgaard's office with a newspaper in his hand. The front page says Whit's End has closed after a child was injured in one of its inventions, and Richard is furious, because the injured child is Lucy Cunningham-Schultz and she is lying in a hospital bed. Dr. Blackgaard barely blinks. He offers to send flowers, calls the whole thing business, and tells Richard that if a person wants success, sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

Richard has made plenty of sacrifices already. He has lied for Blackgaard, manipulated people for him, tried to steal a computer program for him, and even burned down Tom Riley's barn for him. Putting a kid in the hospital, he says, goes too far. Blackgaard only laughs. Whom would Richard tell? The police, who know his record? Mr. Whittaker? And if he did tell, Blackgaard would simply inform on him, and everyone would believe a respected businessman over a teenager with a criminal past. Then the doctor lets something slip. He has spent five years working his way into Odyssey. He once tried to buy Mr. Whittaker's building, and Mr. Whittaker and his wife stopped him. Settling that old score is nothing, though, next to Applesauce, a program with power and potential Richard cannot begin to imagine. Get in the way, Blackgaard warns, and he will be squashed like a bug. Richard says nothing until the doctor has gone. Then, quietly, he promises they will see who squashes who.

Across town, Mr. Whittaker and Eugene are combing through Whit's End for answers. Eugene has finished checking the train set, and like every other display, it works perfectly. Nothing is broken. Mr. Whittaker is tired and discouraged. He wishes he were at the hospital with Lucy, and he wonders out loud whether he should just let Whit's End close for good. Eugene hopes he will not, and then he asks a question that changes everything: does Mabel, the shop computer, keep a log of Applesauce too? She does. The log shows that someone has broken into the program twice from the outside.

Whoever it is, Eugene reasons, would not risk so much for level one. They must be after level two. So Mr. Whittaker finally tells him the secret he has been keeping. Several years ago his company was approached by the government to build a computer program that would help with national security and defense, and because of his inventing background he was deeply involved in creating it. That program is Applesauce, and until now it has been top secret. Whoever is after it has little regard for the law and a great deal of skill with computers. Two names come up: Richard Maxwell, and, harder to believe, Dr. Blackgaard. Before they can decide anything, the phone rings. Lucy is awake, and she is asking for Mr. Whittaker.

At the hospital, Connie is already at Lucy's bedside. Lucy aches inside and out, and she is full of regret. She admits she got tired of being Little Miss Perfect, the girl who never does anything wrong, and wanted to be daring for once. Instead she caused problems all summer, and she thinks she got exactly what she deserved. Connie will not let her talk that way. Nobody expects her to be perfect. Everyone stumbles and falls, because everyone is human. Connie apologizes too, for being blunt when she should have been gentle, admitting she has all the tact of a bulldozer. Lucy forgives her and says the strange new feeling she has must be called growing up. What she wants now is to tell Mr. Whittaker everything, especially about Richard.

Right then, Richard walks in.

He sends Connie out into the hall and tells Lucy he is sorry she is in the hospital. Lucy already knows far more than he expects. She overheard him talking with Dr. Blackgaard just before the Imagination Station blew up. She knows he has been trying to steal Applesauce, and that he used her to get the information he needed. Richard admits he lied, but insists he tried to stop the sabotage and never wanted anyone hurt, least of all her. He promises to make it up to everybody. Lucy tells him exactly how: stay, wait for Mr. Whittaker, and tell him the truth. It is his chance to do the right thing for a change. Richard cannot do it. "You coward," Lucy says, and he agrees with her. Then he leaves, saying he has business to take care of at Blackgaard's castle.

Blackgaard is at the castle on the telephone, lining up buyers for Applesauce and telling them to bring lots of money. All he lacks is the password to level two. When Richard strolls in and announces that he has it, the doctor can hardly sit still. Richard sets up the computer, skipping past level one, and invites Blackgaard to type the password himself. The word is destruct. Blackgaard grumbles that Mr. Whittaker could have come up with something more creative, types it out, and hits return.

The word turns out to be perfectly chosen. Richard has rigged the castle so that typing destruct sends a power surge through every machine in the building. Machines blow, alarms shriek, and a fire starts. The game is over, Richard tells him, and Blackgaard has destroyed his own castle with his own hands. But the victory costs Richard dearly. A toppling Zapazoid machine pins his legs, and when he begs for help, Blackgaard looks down at him, tells him every victory has its price, says goodbye, and walks away.

It is Mr. Whittaker who comes through the smoke. He lifts the machine so Richard can pull himself free, and the two of them shout for Blackgaard, who has gone downstairs into a part of the building the flames have already blocked. They have to run. Outside, they watch Blackgaard's castle burn. Richard asks why Mr. Whittaker saved him. For one thing, Mr. Whittaker says, he has a lot of explaining to do. And for another, his life is worth saving.

By the time the police arrive, Richard has confessed to a long list of wrongs, including setting fire to Tom Riley's barn, though Mr. Whittaker doubts the idea was Richard's own. Dr. Blackgaard is never found. No trace of him turns up in the rubble, so everyone can only assume he got away.

Back in the computer room at Whit's End, Mr. Whittaker gathers Connie and Eugene and asks Mabel to erase Applesauce. Eugene protests, thinking of all that hard work, but Mr. Whittaker has decided the risk is too great. He created the program to help people, and this summer has convinced him that something with an incredible potential for good can also be twisted and used for incredible evil. Mabel reports the command complete, and that is that.

Connie brings word that Lucy will be up and hopping around in no time, then wonders whether Lucy will have anywhere to hop to. Mr. Whittaker says he does not see how he can possibly reopen Whit's End in anything less than a week. Everything needs restocking, the place needs new wiring, and he wants to know why those two are standing around when there is work to do. Before he follows them upstairs, he stops to thank God for seeing them through the summer, for protecting them, and for Lucy getting better, and to ask for help trusting him and getting things back to normal.