by Stuart Gibbs
Erica glared at Brandi as though she’d just been offered rat poison on a stick, but I accepted mine. We’d skipped breakfast that morning. The only diner in town hadn’t been open.
Brandi led us inside. The buildings of the facility were open and spacious, full of windows and light. We passed down a glass corridor, flanked by zen gardens on both sides. In one, a dozen students were doing yoga. In the other, another dozen were meditating.
“For a reformation facility, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of reformation going on,” I said.
“Oh, there is, I assure you!” Brandi chirped. “In fact, you’re seeing some right now. We here at Apple Valley strongly believe in ‘Reformation through Contemplation.’ The best way to make a child a productive member of society isn’t with the lash. It’s with love.” Brandi beamed happily at the thought of this, and for a moment I thought she might burst into song.
“I don’t see Murray in any of these classes,” Erica said.
“Well, no. Murray’s a bit of a special case,” Brandi told her. “He does participate in meditation and yoga, as well as some of our other classes—he’s shown quite an aptitude for sculpting, by the way—but due to the nature of his crimes, we do have to keep him under a bit tighter rein than most of our other guests here.”
I was actually pleased to hear this last bit. It had been driving me crazy to think that, after all he’d done, Murray was living the high life while I was suffering through spy school.
“What does that ‘tighter rein’ entail?” Erica asked.
“My, my, aren’t you children just full of questions?” Brandi said. “Well, for starters, Murray lives in our high-security wing, he is under constant video surveillance, and he only has permission to use the pool on weekends.”
“So . . . You haven’t noticed him missing anytime recently?” I asked.
Brandi looked at me askance, then laughed. “What a curious question. I guess you’re hoping to be a great agent like your father here.”
“Oh, yes,” Alexander said, giving my hair a paternal tousle. “The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, I’m afraid. But Benjamin here does ask a good question. Has Murray gone missing at all since he’s been here?”
“Heavens, no!” Brandi gasped dramatically. “He hasn’t left these premises since he was brought here five months ago. Except for our annual field trip to Six Flags, of course. Other than that, he hasn’t even gone close to the perimeter fence. I tell you, the boy has practically been a saint.”
“Saint Murray?” Erica muttered under her breath. “That’ll be the day.”
We stopped next to a door with a keypad entry. “Here we are!” Brandi announced. “The visitation room! Just wait until you see Murray. You’ll barely recognize him!”
She entered the code and flung the door open.
Once again, the room was nothing like what I predicted. Based on the many prison movies I had seen, I had expected a room with a partition of thick clear plastic in the middle, and that we’d sit on opposite sides and talk through handsets. Instead, the visitation room looked like a rich kid’s rec room. There were lots of plush chairs, shelves full of games and books, foosball, air hockey, and a pool table. The only thing that seemed out of place was the guard. For once, however, someone actually seemed to know what a person who worked in a prison should look like. The guard wore a khaki uniform and a belt loaded with weapons. He stood ramrod straight, keeping a watchful eye over his charge: a fourteen-year-old boy who sat on one of the couches, reading a Highlights magazine.
“There he is!” Brandi squealed, pointing to the boy. “Our Murray!”
She was right. I didn’t recognize him.
Because it wasn’t Murray Hill.
They both had brown, curly hair, but that was where the similarity ended.
“Uh . . . That’s not Murray,” I said.
Brandi and Alexander looked at me curiously. “It’s not?” Alexander asked.
“You don’t know?” Erica asked tartly. “That’s funny. I thought you captured him.”
Alexander grew pink around the ears. “Well, I’ve captured so many people in my time,” he said for Brandi’s sake. “It’s hard to keep track.” He wheeled on me and whispered. “Are you sure it’s not Murray?”
“Definitely,” I said. “For starters, this kid is about three inches too short. Also, he has different-colored eyes, his face is rounder, his ears are bigger, he has a mole on his neck, and frankly, given the kid’s blank expression, I’d say his IQ is around fifty points lower.”
Through all of this, the boy-who-wasn’t-Murray sat on the couch, smiling brightly at us, as if he found our confusion amusing.
Brandi, meanwhile, appeared to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her eyes darted back and forth rapidly between Murray and us. Sweat broke out on her brow. I’d seen the principal of spy school behave this way enough times to recognize it: It was the standard reaction of a government employee who’d just realized that a serious mistake had been made, and who was desperately looking for a way to pin the blame on someone else. “As far as I know, that is Murray Hill,” she said, pointing at the boy. “That’s what the government agents who brought him here told me.”
“But you never checked to make sure?” Erica asked.
“How would I do that?” Brandi demanded.
“Run his fingerprints,” Erica suggested. “Or maybe look up a photo of Murray Hill in the CIA database. Like you said, you’re not hicks. You’ve got a computer here.”
Brandi grew even more flustered. She violently flapped her hand in front of her face to cool herself off. “Why should it even occur to anyone to do such a thing? The CIA dropped him off here. They told me he was Murray Hill. Am I supposed to question the CIA?”
“Yes,” Erica said flatly. “They’ve been known to royally botch things up on occasion. Did you even check to see if the agents had official ID when they dropped this kid off? Because no one here checked ours just now.”
“This is ludicrous!” Brandi gasped, completely avoiding the question. “If that boy isn’t Murray Hill, why didn’t he ever say anything? Why didn’t he complain? Are you actually suggesting he willingly took the place of a prisoner and never made a peep about it?”
I looked back to the boy-who-wasn’t-Murray. He was laughing hysterically now.
“He doesn’t seem to be suffering here,” I said.
Erica stormed across the room and looked Not-Murray in the eye. “What did SPYDER offer you to take Murray’s place?”
“I don’t know who SPYDER is,” Not-Murray replied.
“Don’t play dumb with us,” Alexander threatened.
“I don’t think he’s playing,” Erica told him. “I think he really is dumb.” Then she asked the boy, “Did someone offer you something to come here?”
The boy giggled. “A hundred thousand dollars.”
“That’s it?” I asked, unable to control myself. “Murray’s sentence was five years! You allowed yourself to be incarcerated for only twenty-thousand dollars a year?”
The boy shrugged. “Still seems like a whole lot of money to me. And this place is a heck of a lot nicer than the juvenile hall where they found me.”
Alexander grabbed Erica and me by the arms and yanked us into a huddle away from Not-Murray and Brandi. “I’m a little confused here,” he admitted. “What, exactly, is going on?”
“It seems our friends at SPYDER outwitted the CIA yet again,” Erica sighed. “Once they found out that Murray had been assigned to this lame facility, they found a dupe at some juvie hall, sprang him, and swapped him out for Murray.”
“But how?” Alexander asked.
“The easiest way would be to corrupt the agents who were supposed to deliver Murray here,” Erica explained. “Maybe those guys were moles for SPYDER. Or maybe SPYDER just paid them off. Whatever the case, Apple Valley’s been babysitting the wrong guy for five months while the real Murray Hill’s been free as a bird.”
I glanced back towa
rd Not-Murray. The kid was still laughing, which struck me as odd. I could see how revealing that you’d hoodwinked the CIA for five months might be funny, but it didn’t seem that funny. It was like the boy knew there was more to the joke somehow . . .
A thought came to me that turned my stomach.
I wheeled back toward Erica. “Murray Hill wanted me to see him before. He wanted us to know he was out. Therefore, he must have wanted us to figure out how he’d done it. And since SPYDER is always one step ahead of us . . .”
Erica’s eyes went wide. “They probably know we’re here.”
With that, she spun on her heel and raced toward the door we’d come in through. I was right behind her.
However, Alexander wasn’t quite so quick. He stayed where he was, his face screwed up in concentration as though he was still trying to make sense of everything.
“Come on, Dad!” Erica screamed. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”
She yanked open the door.
At the far end of the hallway, down by the zen gardens, six heavily armed men were racing toward us.
We were too late. SPYDER was already there.
CONFRONTATION
Apple Valley Reformation Camp for Delinquent Teens
June 15
0830 hours
I’d never seen so many enemy agents at once before. In fact, I’d never confronted more than one SPYDER agent at a time. The thing that surprised me most about them was what they were wearing.
I’d obviously seen too many spy movies. Spies in the movies are always wearing suits—and well-tailored suits at that. But suits aren’t really that effective for physical activity, especially the shoes, which are almost impossible to run in.
These guys were dressed for action. They wore shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers. Half of them had baseball caps. If it hadn’t been for their weapons, they’d have looked like the coaching staff for a little league baseball team.
With the weapons, however, they looked really scary. When they saw us, they picked up their pace and charged down the hall.
Erica ducked back into the visitation room, slammed the door shut, and threw the dead bolt. “Help me get something in front of this!” she ordered.
Alexander and I got behind a couch and shoved it across the room to block the doors. There was a terrible screeching sound as it scraped along the floor.
Brandi let out a terrible screech herself. “Careful with the floor!” she cried. “That’s imported teak! We just had it stained!”
In her addled state, she did not seem to be grasping what was truly important at the moment.
“Get a hold of yourself, woman!” Alexander told her. “There’s been a security breach!”
“Surprise!” Not-Murray yelled, laughing even harder than before.
There was another door behind him, the only other way out of the room. The armed guard, who seemed to have far more sense than Brandi—as well as considerably less commitment to his job—was already running for it. Erica, Alexander, and I followed close behind him. Brandi brought up the rear, as she could only take mincing steps in her high-heeled shoes. “None of this is my fault!” she declared defensively. “I am not in charge of security at this facility!”
Behind us, the SPYDER agents slammed into the other door. The couch we’d placed in front of it held it closed but skidded a few inches across the floor. It obviously wouldn’t hold the enemy for long.
I raced out the other door right on Erica’s heels. We found ourselves in another window-lined hallway, this one looking out onto a perfectly manicured lawn where teenage inmates did tai chi. Beyond them, we could see the mountains that formed the end of the valley. They weren’t tall, but they were still quite steep. SPYDER had chosen a great place to ambush us. The valley was a natural dead end, and they were blocking the only road out.
The guard headed down the hall to the right. Erica started after him, then stopped so abruptly that I almost slammed into her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Erica didn’t answer. She was staring at something taped to the window.
It was a white envelope with a red arrow on it pointing to the left. Under it was a message written in red grease pencil: “E— Go this way. —K.”
Erica snapped the envelope off the glass and went left. Obviously, she trusted whoever had left it. I stayed with her. So did Alexander. Brandi scurried after us. “I expect full reimbursement from the CIA for any damages sustained in this attack!” she yelled.
From back in the visitation room, I could still hear Not-Murray laughing. And then I heard the sound of the far door being knocked off its hinges, followed by that of the six SPYDER agents taking up the chase.
We reached another fork in the hallway. There was another red arrow drawn on the wall, pointing right this time.
So we went right. The route took us down another hall, past the pottery studio and the squash courts.
Erica tore open the envelope as we ran. There was a letter inside. She yanked it out and read it. This didn’t take long, as it was only a few sentences, though whatever it said made Erica smile.
“Who’s that from?” I asked.
“A friend,” she replied. Then she pulled something else from the envelope. It was a small, thin plastic packet with some liquid inside.
Brandi had fallen far behind us. There was no way we could wait for her. And besides, SPYDER wasn’t after her anyhow. Our enemies rounded the corner into the hallway and overtook her quickly, barely giving her a glance.
“Please do not fire your weapons in this building!” she told them. “We just had the walls painted!”
“Why are they ambushing us now?” Alexander gasped. “We’ve got a hostage situation scheduled for tomorrow!”
“The element of surprise,” Erica told him. “Why wait until tomorrow if they can capture Ben today?”
Another red arrow pointed us through a doorway marked STAIRS. Inside the stairwell, yet another arrow pointed downward.
As we headed down, Erica bit the end off the plastic packet and squirted its contents onto the steps behind us. The liquid that came out shimmered in the light, though once on the ground, it was transparent and thus almost impossible to see.
“It’s DG-7,” Erica explained as we reached the basement level. A red arrow here directed us through a set of double doors. “It’s a liquid-polymer grease. The navy designed it to lubricate aircraft engines . . .”
From behind us came the startled yelp of the two lead SPYDER agents slipping on the grease, followed by the sound of them tumbling painfully down the stairs.
“ . . . although it’s also very effective for taking out your enemies,” Erica continued with a grin.
The basement was the polar opposite of the floor above. While everything above had been sunny, clean, and light, below was a dreary, tangled maze of dripping pipes and groaning machinery. There were only a few sporadic fluorescent lights to break up the darkness, and half of those were on the fritz, winking on and off. The cement floor was slick with puddles of standing water. Random valves around us occasionally coughed out bursts of steam.
In short, it was a very unappealing place to head into, but there was yet another red arrow on the floor, pointing us forward, so we headed into it.
Behind us, the remaining four SPYDER agents reached the bottom of the stairs and split up, fanning out into the labyrinth. Two stayed behind us while the others looked for a way to circle around and head us off at the pass.
There were more red arrows scrawled on random pieces of machinery. We obediently followed the path they indicated, heading deeper and deeper into the maze. We veered through the pipes, sloshed through the puddles, rounded a chugging hot-water heater . . .
Erica suddenly stopped.
This time, I did run into her. And Alexander ran into me.
“Why . . . ?” I began.
But Erica simply put a finger to her lips and pointed down.
There, whoever had left all the arrows for
us had scrawled STOP HERE in red on the floor.
I glanced around, worried. We seemed to be at the junction of several tunnels, although it was hard to tell, as the fluorescent light above us was flickering so badly it created a strobe effect. With all the steam venting around us and the pulsing lights, it was like being in the world’s spookiest dance club. Whoever had led us down there couldn’t have come up with a more unnerving place to sit tight while enemy agents bore down on us. I desperately wanted to ask Erica more about this person—who he was, why she trusted him so much, and what exactly she thought his plan was—only I didn’t want to make a noise and alert the enemy to our position.
Not that they weren’t aware of our position anyhow. They were just as capable of following the red arrows as we were. But still, it didn’t seem worth giving them any more help. I watched helplessly as two flashlight beams cut through the gloom behind us, letting us know that SPYDER was just around the corner. Agents one and two. Then two more beams appeared ahead of us. Agents three and four. We were now boxed in.
I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. There were lots of heavy iron things, but they were all connected to one another.
Erica grabbed my arm and pulled me back into a small space between two chugging pieces of machinery. Alexander tucked himself into another gap nearby. While these took us out of the open, they weren’t very good hiding places. Our enemies wouldn’t take long to find us, especially with STOP HERE helpfully written on the floor nearby.
The space Erica and I were in was extremely tight. We were pressed against each other, face-to-face. It was a position I would have been delighted to find myself in with Erica in some romantic spot, like a moonlit meadow or a fancy restaurant, but not in a dismal room full of clanking machinery with four armed enemy agents on our tail. If anything, being face-to-face with Erica now made me even more nervous. In addition to being terrified, I had to try not to appear terrified at all, for fear of looking lame. I did my best to look calm and collected, even though I felt like curling into a ball and whimpering. Plus, I really hoped that my breath didn’t stink.
