Free The Live-Forever Machine by Kenneth Oppel

air crashed into the chill of the air-conditioned apartment. He gazed out over the vast, hazy city. From this height, it looked strange andunfamiliar to him, as though everything were on an angle, crazily tilted.
    Chris stepped out to join him and they stood in silence for a few minutes.
    “He’s not a repairman,” Eric said. “I mean, he works as one, but it’s like some kind of act.”
    “So who is he then?” Chris asked doubtfully.
    “I don’t know. He’s terrified of something though. When the lights went out the second time he looked really horrible; he was shaking. And he said it was the guy in black.”
    “He never said that,” Chris corrected him. “You said he didn’t have time to answer.”
    “But I’m sure that’s who he meant,” Eric said impatiently. The heat pounded against face, seemed to steal away his breath.
    “How could this other guy control the electricity?” replied Chris. “Doesn’t make sense. Your buddy’s intensely crazy.”
    “What’s Alexander hiding from him?” Eric said distractedly. He pushed his hair away from his damp forehead. “If I went back, I could maybe find out.”
    “Oh, geez,” muttered Chris. “Listen, why don’t you tell your Dad? See what he says.”
    Eric snorted. “Dad’s been too tired lately,” he said unhappily. “He sleeps most of the time he’s not on shift.”
    “Hey, that reminds me; there was something I was going to show you. This’ll cheer you up.”
    Eric squinted into the sky. “Is this thing ever going to break?”
    “It’s the blueprints for the new mall,” Chris explained. “Mom left on her latest business trip without the diskette.”
    A detailed technical diagram glowed on the computer screen: a tight, geometrical weave of green lines and symbols.
    “Hmmm,” Eric said. Why was Chris showing him this? Eric wasn’t interested in the new mall, and Chris knew that.
    “This is the good part,” Chris said.
    He touched the keyboard and a section of the diagram enlarged to fill the screen.
    “This is where we were the other day. When we went down that manhole.”
    “Really?” Eric leaned in closer to the screen, trying to decipher the electronic maze. Chris manoeuvred a blinking red triangle to a spot on the blueprint.
    “That’s the manhole, and this is the tunnel, and this must be the platform thing we got to.”
    “This is really neat,” Eric said, and then curbed the enthusiasm in his voice. He didn’t want Chris to know he was impressed. But headmired the way his friend’s broad fingers travelled deftly over the keyboard while his eyes remained fixed on the monitor.
    “Intense, huh?” Chris said.
    “Does it show what’s down there?” Eric wanted to know.
    “Not on this one. But maybe …”
    Chris flashed a series of maps onto the screen until he found the one he was looking for.
    “I think this is as deep as it goes. Hang on.” He punched a couple of keys and the first diagram they’d looked at reappeared in red, superimposed over the second.
    Eric peered into the screen. “So we were standing here, right? Where’s the subway tunnel?”
    “Can’t see it on this map. It runs almost underneath the mall. I was looking at it earlier. It’s not far down. Only a couple of storeys: three, maybe four. Amazing thing is, everything’s connected down there—the subway tunnels, the manhole shafts, the storm drains, the sewers.”
    Eric’s eyes moved carefully over the map.
    “That must be the foundation of the museum, over there,” he said, pointing.
    “Uh-huh. It’s deep as hell,” Chris muttered.
    “That’s what Alexander said. Can you make that part bigger?”
    Chris’s fingers flew over the keys and the map re-drew itself on the screen.
    “Goes down twenty storeys,” Chris said.
    “He wasn’t lying, then,” Eric said. “Remember, he was telling me about the storage rooms, and the two empty floors at the very bottom.”
    “The main storm drain is down there,” Chris said, peering at the