The Drone Pursuit

by Victor Appleton

  This didn’t seem to make Amy feel any better. She groaned again.

  Sam leaned forward. “I was the distraction,” she explained. “I went up to Mr. Conway to apologize for spilling the soda, which I really did feel bad about, by the way. And while I was talking to him, Amy slipped the badge off his cart.” Sam shook Amy by the shoulder. “You should’ve seen her. She was amazing.”

  “And he didn’t see you?” Noah grinned and glanced at Sam and me. “Wow.”

  “I’ve always been very good at not being noticed.” Amy sighed. “It’s a gift.”

  Noah laughed. “So you decided to use your powers for evil instead of good?”

  Amy groaned again and dropped her head to the tabletop. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.” She bumped her forehead on the table a couple of times.

  I uncovered the badge and turned it over in my hands. The entire thing was a slim plastic case that held Mr. Conway’s ID badge on one side and the security key card on the other.

  “Come on,” said Sam. “Let’s go change out the battery. We may be able to get this back to him before he notices it’s missing.”

  Noah stood. “The heck with that, let’s get our drone back.”

  I stood and slid the badge into my hip pocket. “Come on, man. We need to see what’s going on in there.”

  Amy shook her head without lifting it from the table. “I can’t add breaking and entering to my rap sheet, guys.”

  “Technically it’s just entering at this point,” said Sam. She patted Amy on the back. “They can handle this. We’ll just find out where Mr. Conway is to make sure he’s not already in the basement.”

  Amy dragged herself to her feet. “So I’m a lookout now, huh?” she asked. “Is there no end to my life of crime?”

  “Earpieces in phones, guys,” Sam said as she pulled Amy out of the library. Sam seemed absolutely giddy. I had no idea she had such a devious side.

  “Come on, Tom,” said Noah. “Let’s just get the thing out of there.”

  “What do you think Mr. Conway’s going to think when the drone just suddenly vanishes?” I asked.

  “He probably forgot all about it,” Noah replied. “Just something he found and set on an old shelf. I bet he finds tons of stuff around the school.”

  Noah had a point. If Mr. Conway wasn’t a notorious hacker then he probably wouldn’t notice. We could just drop all of this and get back to school, back to our invention. But what if Conway really was Shadow Hawk? What if he was already onto us somehow and was sending those texts to me? He’d probably forgotten all about the drone, making it our secret weapon. We couldn’t let that go to waste.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said accordingly. “We sneak into the basement and look around. If we don’t find anything suspicious, we get the drone and get out of there.”

  Noah squinted. “Really?”

  “Really,” I answered.

  “Deal,” said Noah. “Let’s go.”

  We pulled out our phones and connected them to our earpieces as we headed toward the stairs. Sam called me and Amy called Noah. We were now in constant contact as we made our way toward the stairwell.

  We slowed as we reached the bottom of the stairs. The last thing we wanted to do was run into Mr. Conway as he entered or exited the basement. Everything was quiet, so we kept going to the bottom.

  “Wait a minute,” Noah said as he stepped off the last stair. “Why are we being so cautious? We have his key card. He can’t get into the basement.”

  I put a finger to my lips in reply. Then I took that finger and pointed at the security door—actually, beside the door. “There’s a keypad beside the card reader,” I whispered. “I’m sure he knows the code if he ever loses his key card.”

  Noah cringed. “Right.”

  We crouched under the stairs and waited. Mr. Conway might already be in the basement, so we weren’t making a move until we heard otherwise.

  “Got him,” Sam’s voice said in my earpiece. “His cart is outside the second-floor boys’ bathroom. I hear noises in there so I bet he’s cleaning it. You’ll excuse me for not checking it out personally.”

  “No problem,” I replied. “I’m sure that’s him.”

  “She find him?” whispered Noah.

  I gave him a thumbs-up. “Let’s go.”

  We left the stairs and crossed to the security door. Looking through the glass window, the hallway beyond seemed deserted. I dug out the key card and placed it flat on the reader. The tiny red light turned green and the lock disengaged with a small click. Noah pulled the door open.

  We crept down the hallway. The main hall was as long as the ones in the floors above but didn’t have as many doors. We slowly opened the first door we came to. The room was pitch-black beyond the threshold. Then I remembered the motion-sensor switch from before and reached in and waved my arm around. The lights flickered on to reveal a large storeroom packed with storage boxes and old equipment.

  The next room was heating and air-conditioning. The room roared with the large cooling unit, and huge vents extended from machines and crisscrossed around the room.

  My heart was racing. Even though the lighting wasn’t as bright on the lowest level, it felt as if Noah and I were in the spotlight. We were alone in the wide corridor and I felt very exposed. We hadn’t seen anyone but Mr. Conway go down to the basement, but that didn’t mean he was the only one with access. For all I knew, every one of the faculty members had access through the security door. It wasn’t like we had twenty-four-hour surveillance on the basement entrance. We didn’t know who else came down here on occasion. If someone entered the basement while we were down there, we would have very little time, if any, to find a place to hide. We kept out of the center of the hallway just in case. Even though the temperature was cool, beads of sweat began appearing on my forehead.

  We came across another storeroom, and then we opened a door and were hit with a wall of cold air. I reached into a chilled, dark room and waved my arm. The lights snapped on to reveal a familiar setting.

  “This is it,” I told Noah.

  The room looked just like it did in the video, but I wasn’t expecting the sound and temperature difference. The small space was filled with the white noise of fans cooling the server farm. There was also a deeper rumble coming from behind the small closet door. I didn’t know what the door was when I saw it on video but I figured it out now.

  “It’s freezing in here,” Noah said over the whirring fans.

  I opened the door to confirm my suspicions. “The servers have their own air-conditioning unit.” I pointed to the machine that nearly filled the small closet-like space. “To cool them.”

  “Of course,” Noah replied. He turned and spotted the drone. “There it is.”

  As Noah grabbed the drone, I moved to the small computer desk. Just as before, the geometric screen saver animated the screen. I tapped the space bar and the shapes disappeared. The school’s log-in page appeared in its place.

  “Isn’t that suspicious?” I asked Noah. “Every computer tied into the school system is offline but this one.”

  Noah shook his head. “Maybe it’s not part of the system.”

  I pointed to the screen. “It has the school’s log-in screen.”

  Everyone knew that the Swift Academy faculty members had their own user names and passwords to log in to the system.

  Then I noticed something tucked under the keyboard. I pulled out two colorful slips of paper. They were entry tickets to something called none other than “Hackapalooza.”

  I held up the tickets triumphantly. “Dude. I mean, come on.”

  Noah barely registered the tickets. “Yeah? So?” he asked. “I’m going to that next month too.”

  I waved the tickets. “You don’t think this is enough evidence for our deal?”

  “What, just because it has ‘hack’ in the name?” asked Noah. “It’s a programming convention. Mostly about games and stuff. It’s no big deal.”
/>   I sighed. “Look. I thought it was a crazy idea that Mr. Conway was this Shadow Hawk guy,” I admitted. “I really did. And maybe he’s not. But you have to admit that everything we’ve seen seems a little suspicious. It certainly warrants more investigation.”

  “Okay, fine. I can see it,” said Noah. “So tell your dad or tell the FBI. Let them do it.” He clutched the drone to his chest. “But leave our drone out of it. We have too much work to do on it.”

  I could tell there was no convincing him. I knew my friend too well.

  “All right,” I said. I replaced the tickets and turned to leave. “A deal’s a deal.”

  “Wait,” said Noah. “Drop Mr. Conway’s key card on the floor. He’ll think it fell off here.”

  “Good idea.” I pulled out the ID badge and placed it faceup on the floor, right where he couldn’t miss it.

  “Hello? Guys?” Sam’s voice crackled in my ear.

  “Sam?” I asked. “Can you hear me?”

  Noah touched his earpiece. “Amy’s trying to talk to me, but I’m only getting every other word.”

  “It must be interference from all the power cables on the servers,” I said.

  “. . . he’s . . . to you . . . someone . . . him,” Sam’s garbled voice said.

  “I didn’t get that,” I told her. “Say it again.”

  Noah’s eyes widened. “Amy says Conway’s coming.”

  “. . . asement . . . someone with him,” Sam’s voice said.

  “Oh, man,” I said. I opened the door and peeked outside. I could see Mr. Conway at the other side of the door. A tall thin man in a blue shirt stood behind him. I could just make out Mr. Conway searching through his pockets.

  “Can you see him?” asked Noah.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “And he definitely knows he’s missing his key card now.”

  I watched as Mr. Conway poked at the keypad beside the door. Then they walked in. I eased the server room door shut. My heart raced.

  “They’re coming,” I said. “We have to hide.”

  Noah glanced around and shook his head. “Where?”

  I scanned the room. The racks of servers were too close to the wall to hide behind. The shelves were too full to hide on or under. That just left one place.

  I opened the door to the air-conditioning unit. “In here.”

  Noah shook his head. “How are we going to fit in there?”

  “We will,” I replied. “Put the drone back and come on.”

  Noah held the drone tighter. “No way.”

  “You want him to find it missing while we’re still here?” I asked.

  Noah thought about it for a second—way too long, if you ask me—and then finally put the drone back on the shelf. Then we both backed into the small closet. My back pressed against the air-conditioning unit and Noah pressed against me. It was a really tight fit.

  “Close the door,” I told Noah.

  “I’m trying,” he said.

  His body pushed against mine as he pulled the door shut. He got it to latch on the third try.

  The roar of the unit was deafening. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear when Mr. Conway and the other man entered the server room. I could only tell they were inside when they began speaking.

  “There it is,” Mr. Conway said. “I’m always losing . . .” And that’s all I got. I assumed that he had just found his key card.

  I strained to listen over the roaring unit, but I heard only murmurs and the occasional laugh. Every now and then I could make out familiar phrases like “Swift Enterprises,” “virus,” and “firewall.”

  It sounded as if Mr. Conway had an accomplice. Noah was closer to the door. Maybe he could make out more of what they were saying.

  I didn’t know how long we could stay cooped up in such a tight space. I’ve never been claustrophobic but I could see how it could get to some people. I could see even more so now. I tried not to think about it. Instead I concentrated on making out what Mr. Conway and his accomplice were saying.

  I heard more of the murmuring voices but nothing I could make out. And then . . . nothing at all for quite a while. I gasped when a shaft of light hit my face. I thought for sure that Mr. Conway had opened the door to discover us hiding inside. Instead it was Noah. He slowly cracked open the door to peek outside.

  “Are they gone?” I whispered. Then I realized that there was no way he could hear me over the roaring unit.

  Noah opened the door more and poked his head out. I breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped all the way out. I was right behind him. We had the server room to ourselves once again.

  “Okay, two things,” said Noah. “One . . .” He pointed to the air-conditioning closet. “I don’t ever want to do that again.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “And two . . .” He snatched the drone off the shelf. “We have to replace this battery and put it back.”

  “Really?” I asked. I dug into my pocket to retrieve the fresh battery.

  “Yeah, Tom.” Noah nodded. “I didn’t catch everything, but they were talking about Swift Enterprises and its security. I think . . . I think they’re both in on it.”

  10

  The Communication Escalation

  “TOM?” SAM ASKED THROUGH MY earpiece. “Are you there?”

  “We’re here,” I whispered as we left the server room. “Where’s Mr. Conway?”

  “He and that guy are now in the computer lab,” she replied.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Noah. “Amy’s coming to meet us.”

  We jogged through the hallway and I saw Amy run down the stairs as we approached the security door. She ran up to the door and punched a code into the keypad outside. The door unlocked and we stepped out.

  “If you knew the code, why did you swipe the key card?” asked Noah.

  “I didn’t before,” Amy replied. “I followed Mr. Conway down and I watched him enter it. Eight-three-eight-four, by the way.”

  “Cool.” Noah grinned. “When all this is over, we can get our drone back.”

  “How did you keep from getting caught down there?” Amy asked.

  Noah and I exchanged a look. “That’s another one of those the-less-you-know-the-better things.”

  The three of us ran upstairs and met Sam on the first floor.

  “Is everything set?” she asked.

  “The hacker tracker is good to go,” said Noah.

  “Hacker tracker?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s what I’m calling our drone,” Noah replied.

  “Oh, so now you’re all on board?” asked Sam. “I thought you didn’t believe Conway was Shadow Hawk.”

  Noah raised his hands. “And I still don’t know for sure. But I heard that guy with him mention Swift Enterprises’ security system and something about the computer virus. I don’t know what they’re up to, but they sure weren’t in there talking about custodial stuff.”

  I smiled and nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s get here early tomorrow and see what the . . . hacker tracker picks up.”

  “We can see what they’re up to in the computer lab right now,” said Sam.

  I looked around. The school was nearly deserted by this time. “I think it’ll be pretty obvious if we’re snooping now.”

  “Yeah, all right,” said Noah. He pulled out his phone and began to type. “I’ll text my mom for a ride.” He looked up. “You all need a ride, too?”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Amy and Sam.

  “I’m good,” I said. “My dad’s just next door. I told him I was staying late, so he’s working late.”

  The three of them took off and I dug my phone out to text my dad. Before I did, I seriously wondered if I should tell him about what we had discovered. After all, this was the security of his company. The bits and pieces we had picked up were enough to pique Noah’s interest. But was there enough for my dad to take seriously? And to tell him what we had learned so far, I would have to tell him everything we did to get that in
formation: “borrowing” Mr. Conway’s badge, sneaking into the basement past a security door, eavesdropping in the server room. We looked more like criminals than Mr. Conway. There was no way to get away with all that stuff without solid proof.

  Then again, for all I knew, Mr. Conway and his accomplice could be stealing company secrets right now. Maybe I should just swing by the computer lab and check up on them. If I was careful, they wouldn’t even know I was there.

  Ping.

  My phone chimed in my hand. I glanced down and saw that I had received another mystery text.

  Why are you still in school, Tom? the text asked.

  Ping.

  I told you to let it go.

  Ping.

  You’re going to be sorry.

  I looked up from my phone and scanned the hallway. I was completely alone. How did this person know I was still here?

  Then I saw something.

  A figure peeked around the corner at the end of the hallway. I froze. Was that Mr. Conway? The height was about right but I couldn’t make out the face from this distance. The person was hidden behind the corner.

  My heart pounded as I stared at the mystery figure. I didn’t know what to do. Was I busted? Was it Conway, and he’d been onto us the entire time? If so, why the weird taunting-text game?

  This person obviously knew who I was. There was no point in holding back. I gathered my courage and took a step forward.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Who are you?”

  The figure ducked back behind the corner.

  “Wait!” I shouted, running after the mystery person.

  I made it to the end of the hall and turned toward the stairs. I heard footsteps from above, so I followed. I dashed up the stairs and spotted the person running down the second-floor hallway. He wore a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. I couldn’t see who it was, but the body shape didn’t match the heavyset Mr. Conway or the tall, thinner man I had glimpsed in the basement.

  There was a third hacker? This was a bit overwhelming. How many people were in on this conspiracy?

  I had to know who else was in on this. I poured on the speed and almost forgot that the computer lab was just on the left.

  “What’s going on out there?” Mr. Conway asked from inside the lab.