Knight Moves

by Julie Moffett

  OMG! He’s shooting at us!

  I took a hard left the first chance I could, Frankie and Wally right behind me. We tore around another corner, a second ping hitting the wall just above my head. The second I turned the corner, I saw an old-fashioned wooden door with a small iron window and a latch handle. I slammed into it, pressing down on the handle, but it was locked. We ran on, taking the first turn we could. Another door was there, and I pushed on it. To my relief, this one opened, and the three of us tumbled in, nearly taking each other down. I slammed it shut behind me, but there was no lock.

  “Hurry,” I gasped, tearing off down a hallway, not knowing or caring where I was going, so long as it was away from the guy with the gun.

  Wally and Frankie followed me. Our harsh breathing and tennis shoes hitting the tile floor echoed in the empty hallways. To my dismay, no security guard, military escort, or adults of any kind to help us appeared.

  My heart was pounding so frantically, I thought I might have a heart attack. I took a hard left down another corridor and tried the first door on my right. It opened, and I pushed Wally and Frankie inside. There was no lock on this door, either, so I grabbed a chair and jammed it under the door handle to keep it from being opened. Slowly, I backed up, holding a finger to my lips.

  A quick glance around indicated we were in a staff break room with a few round tables and a vending machine. Wally was already looking through the drawers for a weapon or anything that might offer protection. He held up a metal cake cutter and a couple of plastic forks. Frankie pulled out a bottle of bleach. I did my own quiet search, finally pouring a handful of salt into both hands. It wasn’t much, but it was either that or trying to brain the attacker with a paper plate.

  The three of us huddled together in a corner, hoping the attacker would pass us by. Moments later we could hear the handle on the door being jiggled. It was silent, and then a loud crash sounded.

  Frankie screamed as the door flung open and the shooter, dressed in black, stepped over the chair I’d jammed beneath the handle.

  To my utter shock, Wally acted first, shouting a battle cry and hurtling the cake cutter like a knife, right at the guy’s head. To my astonishment, the guy caught it one-handed just before it reached his head. Before I could react, Frankie jumped toward him, throwing the open bottle of bleach at his head. While he was busy swatting the bottle away, I launched myself forward, latching onto his arm with the gun and tossing the salt directly into his face.

  I must have gotten some in his eyes, at least partially, because he cursed and stumbled. I struggled with his arm, trying to get him to release the gun. I leaned over to bite his arm, using the only weapon I had left at my disposal, when he snaked an arm around my neck, holding me tight against him and rendering me immobile. If I struggled, he tightened his hold on my neck, cutting off my breath. For a moment, we all stilled, looking at each other. The acrid smell of bleach permeated the air, making me gag. Wally and Frankie, out of weapons and options, froze and watched me with frightened eyes.

  Slowly, the guy lifted his gun and pointed it at them. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the shots.

  They never came.

  “Bang,” he said. “You’re all dead.”

  Chapter Nine

  ANGEL SINCLAIR

  To my astonishment, the shooter suddenly released me. I staggered backward, grabbing my neck as our driver—apparently not dead—entered the room, climbing over the discarded chair. He patted our attacker on the shoulder. The attacker pulled the ski mask off his head. He was young, blond, and had a friendly smile. He gave us a quick smile and salute, disappearing out the door.

  Frankie, Wally, and I stared in shock.

  “Y-you’re not shot,” Wally finally stammered, stating the obvious.

  “I am not. Let me introduce myself.” He took of his sunglasses and tucked them neatly into the pocket on his white dress shirt. “I am Dexter Donovan, training director of UTOP.”

  He held out a hand, but none of us stepped forward to shake it.

  “Wait. None of this was real?” I exclaimed, looking around. “This was some kind of test?”

  He turned his attention to me. “That’s correct, Ms. Sinclair. We like to have a baseline for every potential candidate before they receive any actual training.”

  “A baseline?” I repeated, still trying to wrap my head around the situation. We hadn’t even been on the campus for five freaking minutes and they threw us into the middle of an active-shooter drill? What kind of baseline did they expect from three kids?

  “Wow.” Wally pushed a hand through his hair. He was still shaking. “Okay, so we’re all technically dead. What does that mean? We failed our first test?”

  “There’s no winning or losing at UTOP, Mr. Harris,” he said. “There’s only response and counterresponse. We’re simply collecting data.”

  “But…he said we were all dead,” Frankie exclaimed.

  “Oh, he was right. If this was real, you’d all be dead.” He wrinkled his nose at the bleach smell and motioned with his hand. “Let’s move to more comfortable quarters. The smell is getting to be too much in here.”

  He turned and left the room while Wally, Frankie, and I exchanged worried glances. How was this possible? We’d just arrived on campus and had already failed at something? I wasn’t used to failing, and I didn’t like how this had played out. Swallowing my anger and frustration, I followed Mr. Donovan. I should have suspected something like this. It was a spy school, after all.

  Mr. Donovan led us down a corridor and up two flights of stairs before he stopped in front of a door. A plaque on the wall near the office read Dexter Donovan, Director, UTOP. He pressed his thumb to a pad on the door and then tapped in a code before the door swung open. He motioned for us to enter, so we did.

  A huge wooden desk dominated his office. Three chairs were placed side by side in front of his desk, and he indicated we were to sit, so we did, like three obedient children, with Frankie in the middle. Mr. Donovan didn’t sit but leaned back against his desk, folding his arms and studying us like lab specimens. I wondered if he were going to tell us he’d be driving us home now.

  He didn’t speak for some time, presumably giving us time to reflect on our failure. We sat in silence, awaiting our fate.

  Finally, he asked us a question. “What do you think was your first mistake?”

  “Leaving the car?” Frankie immediately volunteered. She glanced uneasily at me, then Wally. In my opinion, she got bonus points for having the courage to answer first. “You told us to stay put, after all.”

  “But the shooter was coming toward the car,” Wally countered. “We could have been trapped with no easy exit, if he came to investigate it.”

  “What if the car windows were bulletproof?” she suggested.

  “What if they weren’t?” Wally’s fingers drummed anxiously on his thigh, something I noticed he sometimes did when he was upset. Clearly, he didn’t like failing, either. “We’d be trapped and dead.”

  “True, but we ended up dead anyway. Right, Mr. Donovan?” Frankie looked at him for confirmation, but he just asked us another question.

  “What else did you do wrong?”

  Another stretch of silence ensued before I finally spoke. “We went into the buildings. The woods would have been safer.”

  Wally and Frankie gaped at me in astonishment.

  “But going toward the buildings was your idea,” Frankie finally said.

  “I know.” I wished I could take my decision back, but I couldn’t. What had been done, was done. “In hindsight, it was a mistake. I ended up trapping us in a room, which was basically the same thing as trapping us in the car. We should have headed into the woods just like Wally suggested.”

  “Anything else, Ms. Sinclair?”

  I hated these feeling of inadequacy. It was a direct hit to my intelligence, the one thing I thought I had going for me. “We should have split up.”

  “Ah, hindsight is quite useful, isn’t
it? Why would it have been better to separate?”

  “Because three targets moving in different directions are harder to track down and hit. We lost any advantage by sticking together.”

  “Exactly. Now, let’s examine your actions once you were trapped inside the staff room. While it was admirable you all found items with which to protect yourself, you didn’t have a cohesive plan of action.”

  We didn’t respond. What could we say? He was right. We’d been three scared kids.

  Mr. Donovan pushed off the desk and walked in front of us. “For example, Ms. Chang, you chose a bottle of bleach, which was perhaps the most useful weapon gathered between the three of you. But you were too far away to use it properly. If you would have stood closer to the door, you might have been able to disarm your attacker when he crashed into the room. The same with you, Mr. Harris. While your aim with the serrated cake cutter was surprisingly accurate, the distance gave your attacker plenty of time to be prepared to catch it. It likely wouldn’t have taken him down, either. Just annoyed him more.”

  He paused and looked at me. My cheeks were still burning with embarrassment. His scrutiny only made me flush more. “You, Ms. Sinclair, were the only one to use your so-called weapon correctly. You waited until you were close enough to get the salt in his eyes. However, if Jonas had been a real attacker, you would have been shot as soon you lunged at him. So, you would have been dead, too.”

  I looked down, clenching my hands in my lap, mad at myself for not anticipating any of this. If I got another chance, it wouldn’t happen again.

  “But it happened so fast,” Frankie protested. “It wasn’t fair. We weren’t expecting it.”

  “I’m aware of that, Ms. Chang.” Mr. Donovan stood and walked over to the window, looking down at the grassy quadrangle area. “That’s part of your training here at UTOP. An operative must always be expecting it.”

  He stood there quietly for a long time. Finally, he turned around.

  “You’re dismissed. Jonas is outside, ready to take you to your dorms. You’re located in the special KIT area, which is in the back of the campus. You’ll have everything you need there, including a library, a gaming room, television, a gym with a swimming pool and a basketball court, an open field for sports, a walking garden, and your own cafeteria. Other areas of the campus are restricted to current UTOP students only, unless you’re specifically guided there by a staff member. Fraternization with other UTOP students is forbidden for obvious reasons. They’re future US operatives. But you’re not prisoners here. Once a week, on Saturday, we’ll take you into town for a few hours to hang out, shop, and decompress. I don’t need to repeat that you’re not allowed to talk about any of your activities here to anyone outside the establishment. You can, however, discuss normal activities, classes, friends, course load, etc., with your friends and family, of course.”

  “Is there even cell service here?” Wally asked. “We were going to call for help when we were in the car, but we couldn’t get any bars.”

  “We blocked it for the purposes of the exercise. It should be fine now.” He walked to the door, opened it. “As I mentioned before, we wanted a baseline—to see how you handled yourselves in an emergency. You’re free to call your parents to let them know you arrived. However, before you do that, I want to offer you a chance to go home. I assure you, it only gets harder.”

  “You want us to go home?” Frankie asked, puzzled. “We just got here.”

  “I’m offering you the option, no questions asked. An exercise, like the one we just conducted, can be quite traumatic for some students. If you feel uncomfortable with this kind of thing, now is the time to say so. Therefore, I’m offering you a chance to go home. I would completely understand if you feel this kind of thing isn’t for you.”

  Wally glanced at me with questioning eyes. Frankie looked between both of us. I lifted my chin, gritted my teeth and said nothing. Neither did Frankie and Wally.

  Silence stretched on.

  “Well, does your silence mean all three of you wish to continue?” Mr. Donovan asked.

  We nodded.

  “Then it’s settled. Please spend the afternoon unpacking, making yourself familiar with the KIT compound, and meeting your fellow UTOP nominees.”

  “There are other nominees?” I asked.

  “There are, indeed.” He shook each of our hands gravely. “Welcome to the UTOP trials. I wish you all the best of luck.”

  Chapter Ten

  SLASH

  As soon as the kids were dismissed and had left the office, Slash stepped into the office through an adjoining door. He knew what was coming and had prepared his arguments.

  Dexter returned to his desk and sat down, a disappointed look on his face. “She didn’t do as well as you expected. I was hoping for a more instinctive response from her and from all of them.”

  Slash shrugged, careful not to sound too invested. “I wouldn’t presume to contradict your impression as to what’s important, but Angel took the leadership role, and they followed.”

  “She would have killed them. Strong leaders who make bad decisions often lose more people than weak leaders who are fearful to do anything.”

  “Perhaps, but she used salt and was the only one of the three to actually score a hit,” Slash pointed out.

  “Her instincts were off.”

  “We’re looking for different kinds of instincts.” He approached Dexter’s desk and put both hands on it, leaning forward a bit. “Perhaps it’s time to consider the relevancy of the assessment tools given today’s rapidly evolving security environment.”

  “It’s always about computers to you.”

  “Not always, but it’s where the future of espionage is headed.” As the newest director of the Information Assurance Directorate at the NSA, the hardest part of his job was helping the current leadership understand and integrate technology into espionage. It had been a difficult challenge to convince many of the old-timers to move forward on this. While progress was being made, it was happening at a far slower rate than he liked.

  “Our intelligence agencies are in transition,” Slash continued, keeping his tone light. He didn’t want to aggravate Dexter, just make a point. “We need to be prepared, and these kids are a step in the right direction.”

  Dexter didn’t look convinced, but at least he didn’t openly argue. A clever man and an excellent agent in his own right, Dexter had been in the business long enough to understand the impact technology was having on intelligence activities. How to integrate the old to the new was the stumbling block. Slash’s job was helping to smooth the way.

  “I understand what you’re saying,” Dexter said. “Regardless, none of them are what I expected.” Dexter shifted in his chair. “They’re different than our usual candidate.”

  “That’s a good thing.”

  “How? No matter how skilled they are in the virtual world, we both know the base qualifications for an operative remain the same. They need to have real-world smarts, too.”

  Dexter was only partially right. While Slash couldn’t speak to the kids’ real-world capabilities, he had full faith in their brainpower, technical capability, and creative thinking. Whether they could withstand the pressure, psychological testing, and competition would be the real test. But he was certain that kids like Angel, Wally and Frankie were the kind of talent the agencies needed to cultivate.

  “As the requirements for the operative evolve, so must our criteria,” Slash said. “We not only need to update the assessment tools we use in looking for the right candidate, but adjust the challenges and trials, too. I’m comfortable in saying the coming challenges will be more in line with their instincts.”

  Dexter shook a finger at him. “I’m warning you, Slash, computer skills will not be enough. They’ll have to show a lot more intellectual flexibility, emotional depth and psychological potential than they just did.”

  “They will. Give them time to adapt. They’re all smart, and not just in computers.”
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  “They’d better show those smarts soon or they’ll be the first to wash out,” Donovan warned.

  “They won’t.”

  “You really have faith in them.” Dexter studied Slash for a long moment, then let out a sigh and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms against his chest. “I do have to give them credit for agreeing to stick it out. I just hope you’re right about them.”

  “I am.” Slash smiled, showing Dexter his confidence. “You’ll see.”

  ANGEL SINCLAIR

  We followed Jonas, aka the masked shooter, to our dorm rooms. Without the ski mask, he seemed normal. I put him at about nineteen or twenty years old, and he had blond hair and a nice smile. Frankie apologized twice for throwing the bleach container at him, even though we’d thought he’d been trying to kill us. Wally nervously asked him questions like how long he’d been at UTOP and how often he was required to portray an active shooter methodically hunting down kids.

  Jonas laughed and brushed off most of the questions with ease. Exactly how an operative should act.

  I thought the whole situation was exceptionally awkward, so I kept my mouth shut. We walked past the main buildings and down a brick pathway through the woods. I didn’t see another person and wondered if the other nominees had already come in.

  “What does KIT stand for?” I asked.

  Jonas stopped, perhaps because it was the first thing I’d said since we’d left Mr. Donovan’s office.

  “Kids in Training,” he said. “KIT.”

  “Oh. Did you train here?” Frankie asked.

  He grinned. “I’m not a kid.”

  She put her hands on her hips, gave him a little frown. I think she wasn’t used to having to work so hard to charm anyone. “And that’s not an answer.”

  “That’s because the answer is classified, Miss Chang.” He pointed in front of him. “Here we are. Welcome to your new home.”