“Worked on Mission Impossible.”
“Did Andy give you cables and harnesses so you could hang from the ceiling to avoid the laser beams?”
“This is high school, Kathryn. There are no laser beams.”
I didn’t tell Kathryn about the mineshaft that wasn’t on the drawing. Andy told me it came up under the school right smack in the middle of a hidden wall in the boiler room. I love Kathryn, but there are some things even she couldn’t know.
Even if I could tell her everything, she couldn’t help me. I was surrounded by jerktarts and drug dealers, and somewhere hidden in their midst, a Walpurgis Knight. All I had to do was find out who he was and what he was looking for—easy solution, if I could storm the battlefield dressed in my mask and armor, scan Mason, and see which of his nasty memories and filth-stained thoughts would lead me to Scallion. But I couldn’t. That was my dilemma.
Mental Arts were completely out of the question; if Scallion were close by like the Kilodan suspected, he would sense me. I couldn’t do kung fu, either: detention, fines, being grounded for fighting in school. I had trained for ten years to develop martial arts skills few others in the world had, and Mental Arts skills most of the world didn’t even realize existed. But at the moment, all I could be was a sneaky kid. Where was the glamour in that?
“Rinnie, look.” Kathryn pointed through the window to the library entrance. Erica and Tish walked in. Erica lumbered around like a zombie. It was heartbreaking to watch. She had made a clean break from the Red Team, and stopped taking their drugs. Or supplements. Whatever. I would look into that later. But right now, her little sister Christie was still missing.
Scallion would know where she was.
“Time to spy,” I said. “Meet me back here at the end of the day.”
I crept from the library and went straight to the boiler room. The halls were empty, so I tried the door. It swung open with a high-pitched squeal. Inside, a maze of pipes banged and rattled mercilessly. I eased the door closed behind me. Above the boiler, massive ductwork went in four directions like a gigantic “X” across the ceiling. Each section had a screened intake panel, hinged on one side, big enough to crawl through. According to Andy, all I had to do was pull and the screen would open like a door. Then I would be free to spy uninterrupted on the entire school.
One down.
Next, the electrical panel. It was in plain sight against the wall beside the boiler. Andy told me the electrode plate that unlocked the secret opening to the mine shaft was hidden near there. It would take me straight to the Academy. I searched, but couldn’t find anything except a sign that said, “Danger! Shock Hazard! Do Not Touch!” That, and a gajillion spiderwebs. Yeah, maybe that one could wait.
As I reached to open the ductwork screen, I heard sharp voices in the hall. Curious, I stepped quietly toward the door. The bottom half was vented, so I bent down, hoping I could see through. Art Rubric and Chuckie Cuff stood across the hall, Tish’s boyfriend Whatsisface trapped between them.
Kathryn never used animals to describe Chuckie and Art. She said that God wouldn’t make animals that cruel or mindless. Chuckie was the oldest kid in the school, and looked like Scooby-Doo’s buddy Shaggy. Rumored to be in his mid-thirties, he was massively strong and amazingly dumb. He had been a senior longer than any student in history. Art Rubric was a junior, and looked like Fred Flintstone on heroin. His whole life revolved around pleasing Mason. Rumor was that Mason could get the police to back off whenever Art needed it, and he supposedly needed it often. Mason was proud of his own drug-free lifestyle, but surprisingly tolerant of people who weren’t so squeaky clean.
Art was huge, and could have played on the varsity football team, except that every time he tackled someone, he’d hold the guy down and punch his face. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been on the opposing team.
“Pay the toll, dweeb,” Rubric said.
Poor Whatsisface reached into his pockets.
“I told you before, I don’t have any money.” He turned both pockets inside out.
“No problem,” Rubric said. “We’ll put you on a payment plan. Chuckie, give him the bill.”
Chuckie smiled and slammed his fist into Whatsisface’s stomach. Whatsisface buckled to his knees, gagging, gasping for breath. I fought a terrible urge to charge through the door and use Chuckie’s head as a toilet plunger. Rubric laughed and turned away. As he and Chuckie disappeared from my view, I heard Art say, “Come on, Mason’s waiting.”
Whatsisface dragged himself to his feet. His face was pale, and his lower lip trembled like he was trying not to cry. He turned and punched the locker. I could feel his humiliation as he waddled away, rubbing his hand. “One day,” he muttered.