Psi Another Day (Psi Fighter Academy)

by D. R. Rosensteel

  A line of kids in handcuffs paraded across the stage. I recognized most of them. Birdie Fort, Andrea Johnson, Kent Gable. All known drug users. All kids who had recently turned nasty. Some lanky girl I’d never seen before. The last boy in the lineup shuffled across the stage with his head down, face hidden against his shoulder. He didn’t look at anyone on stage or in the audience. Must be possession charges. Guess the insider didn’t get the memo. Looked like Art Rubric and Chuckie were tipped off, though.

  As the line stopped, Dalrymple turned to them and barked, “I announce my mission to this fine student body. Here and now, in this hour, I am launching my War on Drugs in Greensburg. This student body is under my personal protection. Let all predators know that I will hunt them down. Let all drug dealers know that they cannot hide from Maximilian Dalrymple. I have eyes everywhere. Think of me as your own personal Santa Claus. I see you when you’re sleeping. I know when you’re awake. I know if you’ve been bad or good, so your freedom I will take.”

  “Poor guy just took a hard right on Batty Boulevard,” Kathryn said.

  “Okay, maybe he’s a little off the deep end, but I like him.” Andy had told me about the new police chief. He’d said he was well-meaning but totally unconcerned with political correctness. “He just wants to send a message.”

  “I guess so. Looks like the rumor about the informant is real. Must be how he knew to bring the dogs in. He hit the jackpot.”

  “When did this rumor start?” I asked.

  “After the last assembly. I told you.”

  “Did not.”

  “Meant to.”

  Dalrymple faced the students in cuffs and drew a circle in the air with his finger. “Turn and show your faces to the students of Greensburg High School. Show them the face of the enemy. Show them what happens when you go up against Maximilian Dalrymple.”

  Just like puppets, the line of captives turned and lifted their faces to the auditorium. The boy at the end of the line looked up, and I gasped.

  “Bobby,” Kathryn whispered.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Hall Monitor

  “He was set up,” Kathryn said. “And I’m going to find out whodunit. Deputize me. Give me one of your Psi Fighter badges.”

  “We don’t have badges.”

  “Okay, a mask then. A nasty-looking mask. Something to instill fear in the hearts of the evildoers who set my Bobby up. Maybe a pink one.” Every one of Dalrymple’s captives had been suspended, except Bobby. Mrs. Bagley had argued that he was a model student, and that his locker had been broken into. She forced the police to pull the packet of drugs they had discovered in Bobby’s locker and dust it for prints. They found Kent Gable’s fingerprints, but not Bobby’s.

  I did a mental eyebrow raise. “What we need is surveillance. We know that Gable wasn’t the brains behind this. We just have to snoop around a bit to find out who was.”

  “Exactly,” Kathryn said. “You can’t use ‘brains’ and ‘Gable’ in the same sentence.” Kathryn and I had skipped out of lunch. We sat in the library huddled behind a closed door at a round table in the small, soundproof study room at the back, hidden by rows of books. I plucked the maps Andy had given me from my backpack.

  “Let’s get to work.” I unrolled Andy’s maps on the library table. “Andy says you can hear everything from the ductwork. He installed sensors. They transmit to this.” I held up a small earpiece.

  “Looks like the earbud for my iPhone,” Kathryn said.

  “Yeah, Andy has a thing for iPhones.”

  Kathryn pointed to the block in the center of the diagram. “Looks like the boiler room is the center of the whole school. Exits out all four sides, each into a different hallway. And look, the ventilator system is wide enough to crawl through. Takes you everywhere. Four intake vents, one on each side of the boiler. Looks like that’s your way in. I wonder if it’s strong enough to hold you.”

  “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,” Rubr
ic 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.

  Guess I didn’t need the ductwork. Art and Chuckie were being kind enough to take me straight to Mason. Academy training, don’t fail me now!

  I slipped silently from the boiler room and trailed Rubric and Chuckie. As they approached the chemistry lab, Mason joined them. I disappeared into a doorway.

  “Mase, dude, halls are secure,” Chuckie said. “Cash is flowing. Let’s celebrate. I’m starving.”

  “You’re always starving,” Mason said. “Stupid people have a fast metabolism.”

  “Dude,” Chuckie said. “That’s harsh.”

  “Truth hurts, buddy. Go eat. I gotta make a phone call.”

  “The Big Chalupa?” Chuckie asked.

  “He’d kill you if he heard you call him that.” Mason shook his head. “I got something lined up for tonight. I’ll catch up.” He turned and ambled away.

  How convenient. Mason might be calling Scallion. His Friday night nice guy points had just dipped way below zero. A little eavesdropping should quickly tell me what Mason was up to. I let him round the corner, then started to follow. Rubric and Chuckie were ahead of me, yakking about their exciting new source of income, walking too slowly. I needed to get around them without being seen. Fortunately, Psi Fighters train for just this sort of thing.

  I stepped silently, carefully positioning myself behind Rubric as he walked. It was a tricky move, but I had practiced it for years with Andy. He called it the art of invisibility. I called it being sneaky. I could sneak past anybody at the Academy, and they were trained to have heightened awareness.

  Silent as a shadow, I moved and weaved and ducked my way around the Duncely Duo, very pleased with my mad ninja skills. I was so close I could have slapped them, and they didn’t have a clue. A few more seconds, and I would be on my way to eavesdrop on Mason. Getting around these oblivious bozoids was easy sailing.

  Suddenly, my neck tickled. I reached back to scratch, and pulled a prickly something off my collar. When I looked to see what it was, a monstrous spider crawled across my palm, at which time I let out the most impressive scream of my career. It echoed down the hall and into the next galaxy. I spun and shook my hand and jumped up and down until I bounced right off of Rubric and onto my butt. Anchors away.

  “What have we here?” Rubric smiled down at me. “An empty hall, a very loud bleach blond, and a new source of cash.”

  “It’s not bleached,” I mumbled, pulling myself to my feet. A shudder shot down my spine as the spider disappeared under a doorway. I was never going in that boiler room again.

  “Pay the toll to the troll, Peroxide.”

  I didn’t have time for this. On one hand, I could easily clobber these two bozoids and escape to follow Mason. On the other hand, clobbering said bozoids would look very suspicious and would draw mundo attention. That would be mundo bad. Then a brilliant plan popped into my mind.

  Run.

  “TTFN,” I said, and sprinted after Mason, ignoring Rubric’s calls for me to stop and pay my bills. As I rounded the bend, I caught a glimpse of Mason ducking into the last place I would have ever dreamed of spying on him. Now I was faced with another dilemma, this one much more interesting than the last.

  …

  “You followed him into the boy’s locker room?” Kathryn squealed when we met up at the end of the day. “You are absolutely my hero! I want to be a Psi Fighter. Where’s the application?”

  I grinned. The school library was empty, as usual, and Kathryn and I were back at our table in the study room with Andy’s map unrolled. “Okay, I didn’t actually walk in after him. I used the ductwork.”

  “The front door would have been a ton easier.”

  “True. But I’m pretty sure a girl walking into the boy’s locker room would be noticed.”

  “Details,” Kathryn demanded. “I need details. What was it like? Wait, let me guess. Boys are gross. It smelled like butt fumes and old gym socks.”

  “Actually, it smelled like the girl’s locker room.”

  “Like I said, butt fumes and old gym socks. Okay, so you’re hanging out in the boy’s locker room. And?”

  “Well, I could see everything from the main ventilator shaft opening, but I couldn’t hear much. I think I broke the earbud when I bounced off Rubric.”

  “I assume by see everything you mean see everything. That would have been good enough for me.”

  “Yeah, except that I wanted to hear Mason’s phone call. Anyway, I peeked out and saw him standing alone. He whipped out his cell and headed into a toilet stall. So I backed away from the opening and followed the ductwork to the stalls.”

  “You had to pass over the showers,” Kathryn said, pointing to the map. “Speak to me.”

  “Umm, yeah, well…”

  “Did you see any—”

  “They were empty.”

  Kathryn shook her head. “Disappointing.”

  “I know.” I didn’t tell Kathryn, but my feelings about spying into the boys’ shower had been a mixture of wild curiosity at what I might see and abject terror at the thought of my dad finding out. Or the Kilodan. Or Andy. Only Kathryn would be proud. “Anyway, I pulled open a vent cover and dropped into the stall next to Mason.”

  “Personally, I would have waited over the showers. But, hey, that’s just me. So, which end of him was making noise?”

  “The end with the mouth,” I said. “It was whispering. ‘Tonight, just like I told you,’ he said. Then he said, ‘Home. I’ll bring your package. Of course, ten.’ Then he hung up.”

  “So he’s meeting somebody at ten o’clock tonight. Who?”

  “I wonder if this is the delivery Scallion talked about in LaReau’s memory. Mason used the same word as LaReau—package.” A terrible thought flipped through my head. “Does this mean Mason is involved in the kidnapping? I have to tell Andy. We need a stakeout.”

  “Home.” Kathryn frowned and shook her head. “Not sure how anybody could call the Shadow Passage home.”

  “What, he meant the Shadow Passage? Not his house? Are you sure?”

  “Definitely. He calls it his home-away-from-home.”

  Made sense. He hung out there, ate there, did who knows what else there…maybe there was more to that SSA back room than he told me. I thought for a minute. “I have to get back to the Academy. I need building plans for the Shadow Passage.”

  I put my map away, and we started out of the library.

  “Here’s the deal,” I told Kathryn. “I’ll go to the Academy, memorize the Shadow Passage layout, and hide myself somewhere in the building before Mason shows up. Once he arrives, I’ll find out who he kidnapped, rescue her, beat him into wombat butter, and meet you for ice cream. Sound good?”

  “Except for one tiny detail,” Kathryn said as we stepped into the hall. Art Rubric and Chuckie blocked the path. Apparently waiting for me.

  “Five small dollars.” Chuckie grinned like a hyena. He spread his hands wide and gazed out onto some imaginary horizon. “Then you are free to roam these hallowed halls. Such a pittance for liberation.”

  “I didn’t know you could use big words, Chuckie.” Kathryn batted her eyes. “I’m so proud of you!”

  “I saw it on a wall in town,” Chuckie said. His grin grew bigger and he blushed.

  Kathryn turned to Rubric. “We have someplace to be. Touch either of us, and you’ll learn what getting beat up by
a girl feels like.”

  “We don’t accept MasterCard or threats,” Rubric said. “Cash only.”

  “I don’t have any money,” I told him.

  “That’s okay,” Rubric said. “You qualify for our payment plan. Chuckles, give her the bill.”

  Chuckie’s grin disappeared. “Dude, she’s a girl.”

  “No exceptions!” Rubric shoved Chuckie aside and drew back his huge fist. “I’ll collect.”

  I grimaced and tightened my stomach, hoping I was strong enough to take his punch. Suddenly, I felt a powerful arm around my waist pulling me backward.

  “Maybe you’d like to collect from me,” a quiet voice said. “Yeah, that’s a dandy idea. Because, you know, collecting from her could really hurt your life expectancy.”

  “Egon.” Rubric raised his hands and backed away. “What up, bro?”

  Forcing me behind him, Egon pulled a huge wad of cash from his pocket. He slapped Rubric across the face with it, and tucked it away. “Oh, terribly sorry. I don’t seem to have any money either.” His emotionless face dared Rubric to disagree. “Whatever shall we do now, bro?” Egon slammed Art into the lockers. They banged like thunder.

  “Dude!” Chuckie sputtered, apparently amazed that anyone could slam Rubric. He squirmed like a little girl on a candy binge. “I heard you’re the secret informant!”

  “Is that the rumor?” Egon crossed his arms. “If I admitted it, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?”

  Chuckie’s eyes opened wide, like he just had an epiphany. “No, I guess not. Dude!”

  Rubric stared, seemingly unsure what to do. Then he turned and grabbed Chuckie by the shoulder. “No problem, man. We gotta go.”

  Egon stood motionless, radiating a cloud of gorgeous.

  “That’s the second time you saved me,” I said.

  He turned toward me. His eyes became bright and he smiled. “We should make this a regular thing.”

  “Every girl needs a hero.” And he was absolutely mine. A regular thing—the thought made me gooey.

  “Are you up for anything tonight? I have a night off from practice, and thought maybe we could study together.”