Griffin Rock's Secret: A Cody Burns Fanfiction

Chapter 18

     Cody was stunned at the sight of Doc's lab. Or rather, the lack of one. The early morning light had yet to disapate the light fog that had laid over the town, the chilly vapor making Cody pull his jacket a bit tighter to his body. Graham and Boulder had taken him to the place where it appeared that the lab had once been.

     "Hello Cody!" Doc Green walked up to the three, holding a small remote in his hands. "Do you like my new invention?" He spread his arms out towards the area of the missing lab.

     "Um, is it the one where it makes buildings stop existing?" Cody asked, confused at Doc's excitement. Doc laughed, shaking his head.

     "No, it makes them invisible!" He clicked a button on the remote, and the lab shimmered into view. "This remote here let's me control the device inside the lab. So, I only need a button click to make the building invisible!"

     "It's a cloaking device!" Graham deduced, leaning back a little to look at the now visible lab.

     "Exactly!" Doc beckoned Cody, Graham and Boulder towards the lab doors. "Now, that's not the only thing I have to show you. Come this way Cody, Frankie's waiting for you in here."

     Inside the lab, Doc lead Cody over to Frankie, who asked if she could see his hoverboard.

     "Also, how's the book?" She questioned as she started to tinker here and there with the gadget. Cody pulled it out from underneath his jacket, the pages now crinkled here and there with how much he used them.

     "I did fall asleep on it once or twice," He admitted, handing the fascinating book to his friend. She paused tinkering to take the book back and grin at him.

     "Did you find anything else about the Aed Mau?" The hoverboard sparked suddenly, and Frankie jumped a bit before quickly fixing the problem.  Cody sat down and started to tell Frankie everything he had found about the Aed Mau in the book, which was surprisingly little.

     "There was much more information about griffins and sea creatures," He admitted a little sadly. "But the pictures were pretty close to what the Aed Mau looked like when I saw it."

     "Well, maybe there isn't a lot in the book about it because it didn't do much. I mean, the book did say that it went to sleep when the morning came." Frankie finished screwing the last piece on for the hoverboard. She handed the gadget back to Cody, who looked at it questioningly.

     "Use it like you normally would," Frankie advised, grinning. Cody stood up, held the small comtab, and turned it to hoverboard mode. The device complied, hovering a good six inches off the ground. As Cody balanced on the board, he didn't feel anything different.

     "Nothing's happening," he said.

     "Try jumping," she replied, crossing her arms and grinning. Cody did as she said, and as he jumped, the board went with him, so that as he came back down, he landed on the board a good foot higher than before. Standing still, the hoverboard slowly drifted back down to the six inches.

     "Noble!" Cody cried, zooming around the room. "You gave it a jump boost?!"

     "And a speed boost. You're going faster now." Frankie watched her friend speed around the room, and she grinned, happy that her friend was feeling much better.

     Cody jumped off the board as it stopped, and let the comtab fly back to his hand as it transformed. He gave Frankie a big grin, and knew that he was going to have a lot of fun using the upgraded gadget. A yell from Doc Green in another room caused both kids to run towards him and Graham.

     Graham was helping Doc Green off the floor, a small cubic device smoking and hissing. Frankie rushed over to help her father, while Cody went over to look at the cube thing.

     "Oh, ah, don't touch that!" Doc warned Cody. "That's the cloaking device. I'm trying to have it voice automated so if the remote stops working, I can still turn it off or on. However, wiring that is proving difficult, and you can see." Cody pulled his hand away from the cube, which was still smoking and looked over towards the window outside. The fog had dispersed now, and he could see the forest below. The deep green trees swayed in an outside breeze, and Cody wanted to explore the outdoors.

     "Graham, could you have your robot bring over some of that metal over there? I have an idea," Doc asked the engineer, who nodded and called Boulder over to start helping. Cody pulled Frankie over.

     "Do you wanna go with me and explore the woods near the lab?" He asked, adventure exploding in his mind. Frankie looked a little worried.

     "What if something happens to you? We still don't know where Quarry is, and he could still be on the island. I don't think it's a good idea if we go by ourselves."

     "Then we can ask Doc if he'll come with us!" Cody said, dragging Frankie over to her father. He and Graham were working on the device inside a small metal area that Boulder had constructed, wearing rubber suits to keep from conducting any runaway electricity. Cody and Frankie stopped before they got too close to the room, watching as Doc tried to fix the cloaking device. After what seemed like hours, with a few electrical mishaps, Graham and Doc Green exited the room, holding the device proudly.

     "I've got it to work!" Doc exclaimed, removing his suit and placing the device on the table, next to Frankie's leather book. "It is now voice activated, along with the connection to the remote. Also, it can make specific things invisible, not just an entire building with everything and everyone in it. Watch!"

     He turned to face the cube, and, holding his arms out to keep anyone from walking past him, spoke in a clear voice, "Activate cloaking on table!" The device hummed for a brief moment, then shimmered and vanished, along with the table and book. Doc then told the cube to deactivate the cloaking and turned to the three humans.

     "Technically, the objects are not invisible, but they seem that way. If a human were to become invisible, then they would be unable to see. However, with the device, a person could be "invisible" and still see themselves and everything around them normally, although no one else could."

     "Doc, can we go and explore the forest around the lab?" Cody asked, his curious nature perking up even though he knew the woods around the lab very well.

     "Well, I, uh," Doc Green tried to figure out a way to say no when Graham stepped in.

     "We can go together," He said. "Doc, you and I can go with Frankie and Cody, while Boulder can help us if something were to happen."

     "That sounds like a solid plan," Doc agreed, and with that, the five of them headed off into the woods.