Disruption

by Whibley, Steven

  Table of Contents

  Disruption

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  About the Author

  But Wait, There’s More!

  For More Heart-Pounding Adventures Check Out These Titles

  Disruption

  by Steven Whibley

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Steven B. Whibley

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact Steven Whibley at stevewhibley@gmail.com

  Published by Steven Whibley Publishing

  Victoria, British Columbia

  www.stevenwhibley.com

  Publisher: Steven Whibley Publishing

  Editing: Maya Packard; Ricki Ewings

  Cover Design: Pintado (rogerdespi.8229@gmail.com)

  Interior Layout and Design: Tammy Desnoyers (www.tammydesign.ca)

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Whibley, Steven, 1978-, author

  Disruption / Steven Whibley.

  (The Cambridge files ; bk. 1)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-927905-03-6 (bound).—ISBN978-1-927905-05-0 (pbk.).—

  ISBN 978-1-927905-04-3 (pdf)

  I. Title. II. Series: Whibley, Steven, 1978- . Cambridge files ; bk. 1.

  PS8645.H46D57 2014 jC813’.6 C2014-900207-6

  C2014-900208-4

  Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Steven Whibley was aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters.

  For Isaiah and Aubree

  Chapter 1

  Every year, Marksville Middle School’s graduating class puts on a farewell talent show, and every year there are dorks who sing, dorks who dance, and dorks who juggle or do magic. Some of the really dorky dorks recite poetry or act out scenes from something stupid and Shakespearean.

  The show was a tradition that me and the other non-dork students had to endure. For three years, we’d sat on the gym’s bleachers and watched as untalented fourteen-year-olds performed and thought they were special. But there we were, at the last talent show I’d ever have to sit through. There was only one thing I needed to do to this tradition before I left.

  Destroy it.

  My best friend, Jason and I stood like rock stars, bumping fists, and making hand signs at the crowd in front of us. We wanted to start already, but clearly Principal Bartlett needed a bit more time to realize his attempt at a humorous introduction to the talent show was failing. It didn’t matter because no one was going to remember his monologue after we were done. He cleared his throat and glanced over his shoulder at us to see if we were ready.

  Jason held his cardboard guitar in the air to signal that we were.

  “I’ve made you all wait long enough,” Principal Bartlett said into the microphone. “I present the first act by two of your graduating eighth graders, Jason Cole and Matt Cambridge!”

  The kids in the bleachers erupted with cheers, and Jason nodded to the seventh grader at the control box. A rock song I’d never heard blasted through the speakers, and Jason and I started jumping around pretending to sing along.

  Fifteen seconds in, just as we’d planned, I dropped to one knee, lit the match that had been taped to the back of my cardboard guitar, and dropped it into the bucket.

  Before I’d taken three steps back, there was a whoosh, and a funnel of thick white smoke rose up from the bucket like a giant twisting snake. Everyone in the gym went silent, then all the teachers suddenly lurched to their feet. I stopped moving and gave Jason an is it supposed to do that? look.

  When the smoke column hit the ceiling of the gym and spread out into a giant cloud, the cheers of the student body were reignited. The teachers looked around at their colleagues, uncertain, it seemed, as to whether they should evacuate or sit back down. That uncertainty lasted only a few more seconds.

  The heavy white cloud hovering below the ceiling thirty feet above us started to fall. At first, people thought it was fun. Quite a few started cheering. But then they started to cough, and the cheers became screams and cries for help.

  “I can’t breathe!” someone screamed, which was stupid since you need to breathe in order to scream. The smoke didn’t sting my eyes or throat, and it wasn’t so thick that you couldn’t see. Still, that bit of panic, combined with the white smoke circulating through the air, was enough to send the entire place into a frenzy.

  Panic, in that tightly packed gym, spread like flames, and in seconds, students rushed for the exits in a mad stampede, which caused even more panic. Everywhere I looked people were running or crying or both. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the fire alarm clanged overhead and the sprinklers burst to life.

  Jason stepped up beside me and after a few moments of watching the mayhem, said, “This isn’t going exactly like we’d planned.”

  By then the sprinklers had managed to pull the remaining smoke out of the air, and a milky liquid dripped off everything around us.

  I took a deep breath and sighed as the mob thinned out and the remaining students hobbled for the exits.

  “Yeah,” I said, “we might have overshot a bit.”

  We thought our prank would simply end the talent show and that we’d all be sent home. We really hadn’t intended to hurt people. But people were hurt, and the police showed up and hauled us to the station to call our parents. Jason’s dad showed up first with a couple of lawyers in tow. Jason and I sat outside the conference room and watched through the windows as the adults in suits and the men in uniform talked it out. “It’ll be okay,” Jason said.

  And it was … sort of. I’m not sure what Jason’s dad said, but he’s disgustingly rich, and I guess the kids of rich people get away with stuff. The f
act that I was with a rich kid meant I got away with stuff too.

  My mom showed up at the station a few minutes after we’d been released. She talked to the officer in charge and then marched me to the car. She didn’t speak to me the whole way home, though she tried to a couple of times. Her mouth would open, and she’d inhale, but then her lips would become thin lines and she wouldn’t speak. That’s how my mom was. She never yelled and never lost her temper. She taught first graders; maybe that was why she always seemed to have so much patience.

  She pulled the car into the driveway and shut off the engine. I could tell by the way she was breathing that I wasn’t supposed to get out yet.

  She turned. “I’m so disappointed in you,” she said finally. Moisture had gathered in her eyes, and I thought she might actually cry.

  My stomach knotted. “We didn’t think—”

  “That’s right,” she snapped. “You didn’t think. You didn’t think at all.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and took a long, slow breath. “Go to your room. I don’t want to see you right now.”

  When my dad came home later that evening, things really went downhill. My dad was a janitor for a company called Sledge Industries. He was bald and nearly six feet tall, with rope-like muscles and broad shoulders. He always walked a bit hunched, not like he had bad posture, more like he was always a second away from charging at something. My friends said that in another life my dad had probably been one of those Italian mob enforcers—you know, the guy you get to break legs or threaten people. Usually Dad was a pretty peaceful guy, unless I did something wrong. Then he became a rottweiler.

  As he stood in the doorway of my room, I realized that he actually kind of looked like a rottweiler too—only scarier. He spent the better part of an hour screaming at me about stupidity and damages and recklessness, and then he just stopped.

  And that was it. For nearly two days.

  I’d said I was sorry. And I was kind of sorry. I mean, no one had been seriously hurt. It was all just skinned knees and a few bruises. Yes, a few kids had asthma flare-ups, but they’d be fine. I was sorry, but I also felt like everyone was kind of overreacting. It was just smoke.

  So when my dad stepped into my room on that last day and told me what my punishment was, I wasn’t sure how to react.

  “It’s going to strengthen my moral compass?” I asked. “What kind of Kool-aid- drinking camp is it?”

  “I told you not to speak,” my dad said in a low warning tone. “Don’t argue. Don’t whine. Don’t say anything. Or I swear, Matt, I’ll send you to Alaska. It’s this camp, or it’s Alaska with your aunt, because clearly we’re not getting through to you.”

  I swallowed. I’d seen my dad angry before. He’d even threatened to send me to my aunt’s place in Alaska before, but this was different. This was some kind of angry desperation I’d never seen before.

  “You’ll go to this camp,” he said. “You’ll listen. You’ll learn. Because it wasn’t easy getting you into this place.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away from me, almost as if he was ashamed about something. “You’re not… exactly supposed to be there. So for three weeks, just blend in.”

  “Blend in how? What does that even m—”

  His fist slammed against the surface of my desk, knocking everything on it to the floor. “Do. Not. Talk.”

  I put my lips together.

  “You leave the day after tomorrow.” He shook his head, then turned and stepped out of the room looking very tired.

  And as much as I didn’t like the idea of losing three weeks of summer to this stupid camp, I liked the idea of Alaska even less. It could’ve been worse.

  I was such an idiot.

  Chapter 2

  “Summer camp?” Jason asked while we walked home after school. “I mean, that’s your punishment? Camp? And you thought my parents were soft.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s not going to be a sit-around-the-campfire-and-eat-marshmallows kind of camp,” I said. “It’s probably some kind of military camp. My dad keeps saying I basically tried to kill a couple hundred middle schoolers.” I hadn’t told Jason about my dad acting weird about it, or warning me to blend in. If there was a chance he could get in trouble over it, I figured it would be better if I didn’t tell anyone else.

  Jason laughed. “Please. We did everyone a favor, and we made the last week of school a memorable one.”

  He held out his fist and I bumped it with mine.

  “The good news,” Jason added, “is I did some digging online, and there’s only a handful of camps just outside the city. They’re all your run-of-the-mill, let’s-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya type places. So I don’t think you’re gonna be doing any marching drills.”

  “I sincerely doubt that,” I said. “Not if it was my dad’s idea.” No way he’d let me off that easy. “He’s really mad,” I said after a few minutes. “He just keeps telling me that if I mess up at camp, he’s sending me to live with my aunt next year. In Alaska.”

  Jason nodded. “He probably means it this time. Better just fly under the radar, Matt. Make a tie-dyed T-shirt, shoot some arrows, and learn what a moose turd looks like. Then get back here so we can plan some pranks for high school.”

  I laughed. “Moose turd?”

  “I know what goes on in those summer camps,” Jason said. “It’s a bunch of dorks running around the woods smelling animal turds.”

  I laughed again. “And if it is a military camp?”

  “Then shoot some guns and learn how to do military stuff.” He kicked a stone. “Then come back and teach me.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  “While you’re gone,” Jason said, “I’ll think up some truly epic pranks for us to pull when you get back. Things we’ve never done. Things that will make grown men weep.”

  “That might be tough,” I said with a smile. “We’ve done a lot.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from TV,” Jason said, “it’s that there’s always something bigger and better. Maybe we can finally pull that train-station one.”

  I laughed. The train-station prank was an ongoing plan of ours that involved a boatload of fireworks and a train station. It wasn’t a real detailed plan.

  Jason reached into his backpack. “Hey, that reminds me. Here.” He pulled out a small black object and tossed it over to me. “It’s just a cell phone. I know your parents won’t let you have one, but at least you can use this while you’re gone.”

  “You got me a phone?”

  “It’s my old one.”

  Jason’s old phone was about a million times better than most people’s new ones.

  “Just don’t pocket-dial me while you’re having a sing-along.” He pretended to vomit into a bush.

  “Thanks, man.”

  He waved his hand. “It’s not a big deal. Hey, what time do you leave tomorrow?”

  I groaned. “Buses leave at six o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  I nodded.

  He grimaced. “Maybe it is an army camp.”

  Chapter 3

  Dad pulled the car into an alley, just close enough for me to see the parking lot in the distance and the five yellow school buses parked in the lot. Dozens of kids marched around loading suitcases and backpacks into the storage compartments and hugging parents goodbye. The ones I could see looked like total losers. Their idiotic smiles and almost comically awestruck expressions made me shake my head. I had a feeling it was going to be a very long summer.

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “Follow instructions at camp, Matt. Don’t get into trouble. And try to learn something.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Or you’ll send me to Alaska. I get it.”

  Dad sighed. “Matt, these kids come from wealthy families, successful families who can give them all the advantages in life. You could really benefit from what they can teach you.”

  “Clearly not if I’m going to the camp too,” I said. I knew my comment would hurt him, but I didn’t
care.

  Dad closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he gripped my shoulder tighter. “Son, don’t mess up. There’s a lot riding on your ability to fly under the radar in there. Plus, you know your mom will be disappointed if you don’t take advantage of this opportunity.”

  I nodded. Mom would be disappointed? Either he realized it wouldn’t be much of a deterrent to tell me he’d be disappointed, or he was already as disillusioned as he could get.

  It had taken my mom the better part of an hour to say goodbye to me. She’d sniffled and wiped her eyes as if I were going off to war. I glanced up the street at the parking lot again. Unless war was being fought by a bunch of nerdy kids, I wasn’t going to be on any front lines.

  “I get it, Dad. I’ll blend in.” I gestured out of the car. “Do you think I haven’t noticed how far away we are? I get that you don’t want them to see that I’m your kid.”

  “That’s not it, Matt,” my dad said. “This camp is associated with my work. It’s only supposed to be for the children of executives. It’s not a camp we’d be able to afford.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “And yet here I am, about to go in.”

  There was more to this story. My dad looked genuinely ashamed, and the fact that he was telling me any of this meant he was worried.