“You ever play in the afternoon, sneak in a session?” I asked.
He seemed more like his normal self when he answered. “Sure. Excellent time to accumulate loot. Not as many people in our area on then.”
“Did you ever see the Warheads in the game at this time of day?”
“Not in a long time,” he said. “And I would have noticed.”
“If they’re not in the game, then what are they doing?” James asked.
I didn’t have an answer.
In the projection from the lab, the man asked, “How are you guys so much better today? Is it the new recruit? Whatever it is, the control room says this is going to affect the demo schedule.”
The Warheads were still playing—or whatever they were doing—as far as the heat signatures showed. None of them moved.
But they did answer him:
“We’re stronger. We’re going to keep getting stronger.”
The man held a hand up to his own forehead, as if he’d been struck by a sudden, shooting headache.
I had a suspicion what that might be. My hand pressed against my own temple in semi-sympathetic memory.
“Okay,” he said, subdued, “time to bring them out of the link. Nice and easy, guys.”
The eerie tones sounded again, repeating over and over, and once more the Warheads leaned forward like they were trying to get a closer look at something . . .
The overhead light popped on above us and I wasn’t the only one who jolted in surprise. The brrrring of the bell that signaled the end of the period followed.
Good timing, as far as I was concerned.
“Someone else has the room now,” Maddy said. She turned to me. “What were they doing? Did you find out what we needed to know?”
I reached out to turn off the receiver, considering how to answer. I’d wanted this to make everything clear. But there was no way they’d interpret what we witnessed—strange though it might be—as something more-than-strange. Strange Skies’ brand of strange. This wasn’t like what I had seen in Kansas. If I was in their place, I’d cling to the most normal explanation available.
And so I still couldn’t reveal my suspicions without them deciding that I was crazy. But I did know what I had to do next. I had to scheme my way inside the shiny headquarters of Advanced Research Labs.
SmallvilleGuy could have snooped out more details about the nature of the experiment over the weekend. I should get him the recording from the bug too.
Plus, I missed him. This was the longest we’d gone without chatting since we met.
“Almost,” I said. “I just need to talk to Perry later. Get him to give us a little more time.”
“Well, that’s no big deal then,” James said, not going light on the sarcasm.
Devin was staring where the receiver’s projection had been. I nudged his shoulder again as I stowed it, “Wake up, sleepy king. Time to go to class.”
“Oh, right.” He shot me a weak grin.
I wasn’t nearly far enough ahead of my bad luck. I was going to have to run faster, or I was afraid it would catch up with me.
With all of us.
*
When we left the library, I waved and hurried away . . . and then found a spot to lurk across from the entrance to the principal’s office. There was a bare blue patch of wall between a classroom door and a line of lockers that proved the perfect vantage point for my purposes. Principal Butler had a rep for not hanging around in his lair much in the afternoon, preferring to run his charm offensive in the halls.
I knew it was risky to keep skipping so much class. But, hey, I would go to this one, just a little late. If things worked out the way I wanted, I’d even have a note to cover it.
There were a lot of things I was worried about. Another call to my dad about problems at school was on the list, but not high enough to trump what had happened to Anavi and the experiment. Definitely not high enough to trump the possibility of me and my friends—yes, I was thinking of them that way, even James, whether they thought of me as theirs or not—losing the Scoop. Or Devin being targeted by the Warheads.
I waited a long, tense ten minutes, but finally Butler emerged. My bad luck kept a low profile, and he went in the opposite direction. I hadn’t made a contingency plan in case he had walked toward me, and, wow, that was sloppy amateur hour, wasn’t it?
Maybe I was more worried than I’d realized. Scattered.
This part I had to do exactly right. It started with nice blonde Ronda, who I turned a smile on for as I swept through the door to the reception area. I’d discovered that the other administrative staff were housed in a less centrally located office suite. Butler didn’t like anyone getting too close to his laurels.
“Is the principal around?” I asked, as if I didn’t have a clue.
Ronda was a smiler by nature, and returned mine automatically. But hers faltered at the question. “You set him off the other day.”