City Spies

by James Ponti

  “The lines on this star don’t match up,” she said. “Everywhere else they’re perfect, but this side’s about half an inch higher than that.”

  “And this matters because?” she asked.

  “Because I think there’s a door hidden in the wall,” replied Brooklyn.

  They ran their fingers along the edge, and sure enough, covered by the paint was an old door. It didn’t have a handle, but Paris was able to reach under the bottom and pry it loose.

  It creaked opened to reveal a spiral stairway, covered with dust and grime. It looked as though no one had used it in decades.

  Paris turned to the others and smiled. “Maybe the rock giant did leave a section of the wall incomplete.”

  They quietly climbed the stairs until they reached a metal security door with a key card sensor. The light on the sensor blinked red, indicating that it was operational.

  “Look at that,” Brooklyn said, pointing at a sticker on top of the sensor.

  “What is it?” asked Paris.

  He hadn’t been with them on the train when Kat laid out her theories, so he didn’t recognize it.

  “The Asset Inventory Code,” said Sydney.

  The first four characters were SS2K, just like in the pictures Kat had shown them.

  “This is the door to Asgard,” Brooklyn said triumphantly.

  25. Bring It On

  IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT WHEN the trio returned to the Three Lions. The story of their adventure into the catacombs was evident from the dirt encrusted in their clothes and the smiles etched onto their faces. As always, Reggie was on duty at the check-in desk, and when they reached the door, he greeted them with a brusque, “Shoes!”

  “What?” asked Paris.

  “Take off your shoes,” he instructed. “No matter what you think about this hotel, I will not have you trudging all that muck through my lobby into your rooms.”

  Sydney started to protest. “But what about …”

  “Socks, too,” he said, cutting her off. “Just leave them at the door.”

  They could tell he was serious, so they stripped off their shoes and socks and left them in a pile. Brooklyn was relieved that she’d packed a second pair for the trip.

  “Alexandra’s waiting for you in her room,” Reggie said as they walked barefoot through the lobby.

  It took them a moment to realize that Alexandra was Monty.

  “Right,” Brooklyn said with a nod. “Thanks.”

  Monty wasn’t alone. Mother, Kat, and Rio were also there, eager to hear what they’d discovered in the catacombs. The three filled them in on everything from the wall of skulls and bones to the secret doorway into Asgard.

  “So we still should be able to hack into the mainframe,” said Brooklyn. “Just like Tru wanted.”

  “Of course, we’ll need an electronic key to get through the door,” added Sydney.

  “And I’m sure we’ll need one for the server room too,” said Paris.

  “Oh, and not just any electronic key,” said Brooklyn. “Juliette said that only members of the IT staff can access the server room, so we’ll have to get a key from one of them.”

  Suddenly the hack, once again, seemed nearly impossible. But Brooklyn had completed her first day of actual spying, and it had been thrilling.

  “We’ve got an early start tomorrow,” Monty reminded them. “So clean up, and it’s lights-out.”

  Brooklyn would’ve loved passing out on her bed, but she knew the memory of countless skulls staring at her would make that impossible. Instead, she showered and opened the Stavros Sinclair biography. She wanted to read until she fell asleep from exhaustion. Maybe that would keep the bad dreams at bay.

  It must’ve worked, because the next thing she remembered was Sydney leaning over her and shaking her by the shoulders. “Yo, Brookie the Rookie, time to wake up!”

  Brooklyn was still groggy as they walked from their hotel to Olympus, but by the time they’d gone through security, her adrenaline had kicked in and she was alert and ready to go.

  “Bonjour!” Juliette said, greeting them. “I hope you had a good night’s sleep. Follow me to the first station.”

  Once again everybody was separated into two groups, although this time Juliette led the team from FARM to the presentation room. Here they would go before a panel of judges who could ask them questions about their rainmaking proposals.

  The teams went up in threes, and FARM was in the last group. This was a huge advantage because they heard the questions multiple times before answering. This was especially helpful to Brooklyn. Each team member had to answer one question, and since she was new to the project, she didn’t know the science as well as the others. Hearing all of them let her pick the one she knew best.

  “I want to answer the question about what makes our proposal special,” she whispered to the others as they took the stage.

  “What are you going to say?” asked Paris.

  “I’m going to talk about the triple blend,” Brooklyn answered, referring to the special mix of chemicals used in their proposal.

  “Excellent,” he said. “You take that one. You’ll kill it.”

  Joining FARM on the stage were Kinloch Abbey and a team from Mumbai, India. The questions unfolded as they had the previous times, and Brooklyn stood back as her teammates gave answers about their proposal’s practicality, its environmental impact, how it compared to previous attempts at rainmaking, and the developmental steps that would be necessary before it could be enacted.

  Brooklyn stepped forward to answer the final question.

  “What makes your concept special?” asked the judge. “What is the inspiration that sets it apart from the others?”

  Brooklyn was still a bit tired from the previous night, so she closed her eyes for a moment to focus her thoughts. She wanted to give a concise and complete answer.

  “As you know, historically rainmaking has involved seeding clouds with one of three different chemicals: silver iodide, potassium iodide, and solid carbon dioxide. Each of these has advantages and disadvantages, which is why none has truly separated itself from the others. What makes our concept special, as you say, is that it uses a unique blend of all three chemicals. Our belief is that this blend maximizes the advantages of each.”

  The answer was concise, specific, and absolutely everything that Brooklyn wanted to say. The only problem was that she wasn’t the one who said it. When she paused to focus her thoughts, Charlotte jumped in and answered for Kinloch Abbey. She knew all about the triple blend from her time working with FARM. While she was walking up onto the stage, she’d heard Brooklyn tell the others that this was the answer she wanted to give.

  “That’s excellent,” said the judge who asked the question. “It’s a very interesting concept.”

  Brooklyn looked over at Charlotte, who smiled back at her with a devilish grin. She couldn’t give the same answer. That would look ridiculous—as if they were copying Kinloch, even though it was the other way around. But no one could come to her rescue. This was the last question, and she was the only one who hadn’t answered yet.

  Brooklyn’s mind raced as one of the students from Mumbai gave an answer that she didn’t even hear. It was drowned out by the voices in her head replaying everything she could remember about their project. Mostly she programmed the computer models; she didn’t know what made it work. She’d spent the entire last week trying to climb the wall while the rest of the team fine-tuned the proposal.

  She was totally lost.

  “What about you?” asked the judge.

  Brooklyn looked up and saw that the woman was now talking directly to her.

  “What?” asked Brooklyn.

  “What’s special about your proposal?” she asked. “What makes FARM’s idea different from all the others?”

  Brooklyn wasn’t sure how long she stood there not talking, but it felt like forever. Finally, she just spat out the only thing that came to mind.

  “Benito Viñes,” she said, r
eferring to the priest whose photograph hung above the supercomputer back at the FARM.

  It was such a random answer that the entire room fell silent except for Charlotte, who let out a laugh. She’d wanted to stick it to Brooklyn and the rest of the team, but she had no idea she’d be this successful.

  “I’m sorry, who?” asked the judge.

  “Benito Viñes,” Brooklyn answered again.

  “I’ve never heard of him,” said the judge. “Is he someone on your team?”

  “No,” said Brooklyn. “He was a priest who moved to Cuba in 1870. They called him Padre Huracán, or Father Hurricane, because he was the first person to successfully predict the path of tropical storms. Up until that point everyone treated the storms the same way, and as a result they acted too late. But Father Hurricane looked at the clouds that preceded the storms, searching for a pattern that no one else had seen. He saved countless lives because he broke the mold.”

  The more she answered, the more confident she became. Somewhere in the middle of it, she remembered a passage she’d read the night before about Stavros Sinclair’s first significant breakthrough.

  “It’s the same way that Stavros Sinclair approached the difficulty of solving big problems,” she said. “Up until that point, companies were trying to squeeze as much data as they could into a small space. But just as Father Hurricane looked to the clouds for information, Stavros Sinclair looked to the computing cloud to help bring together a vast array of computers working together.”

  She looked out at the eyes of the judges and knew they were eating this up.

  “So that’s what makes our proposal special,” said Brooklyn. “We embrace the spirit of Stavros Sinclair, for whom this prize is named, and that of Benito Viñes, who is such a role model for us that we keep his photograph on the wall of our workspace. We look to the clouds to find our inspiration. And we’ll see to it that those clouds will bring the rain.”

  There was applause from the judges, the other teams who were watching, and most of all from the team standing behind her. But for Brooklyn, the only reaction that mattered was the angry glare she got from Charlotte.

  You want to play hardball, Brooklyn thought as she looked at her rival. Bring it on.

  26. The Rainmakers

  CHARLOTTE’S DAY WAS GOING FROM bad to worse. First she’d set Brooklyn up for an epic fail only to see her turn it into a huge victory. And now, something was going wrong with the computer weather models she was using for Kinloch Abbey. She was inputting the different situations given to the team by the judges, but the results weren’t turning out like they’d predicted.

  “Are you sure you entered it correctly?” one of her teammates asked her.

  “Of course I am,” snapped Charlotte. “Are you sure you read the numbers correctly?”

  Across the room, Brooklyn struggled to mask her glee. She was the problem with Charlotte’s weather model. She’d hacked into the Kinloch computer and every so often would tweak some of its code. She made sure it wasn’t so much that it would attract attention, but just enough so that the results came out wrong.

  “Five minutes,” one of the judges announced. “All work needs to be completed in five minutes.”

  That was all the time that was left for the teams to vie for the top ten spots and advance to the final day of the competition. FARM didn’t need it. They’d already completed the scenarios and submitted their work for final judging. But the tension at the Kinloch table was escalating.

  “Look at Abir,” Paris said under his breath to the others. “I’ve never seen him so angry.”

  “Catriona, too,” whispered Sydney. “She looks like she’s going to take over the keyboard from Charlotte.”

  “Normally I wouldn’t enjoy this,” said Brooklyn, “but after what she did to me, I’m loving every second.”

  “Let that be a lesson for all of us,” Paris said to the others. “Do not mess with Brooklyn.”

  This brought a laugh even from Kat and Rio, which they had to stifle when Charlotte looked up and glared at them.

  A few minutes later a buzzer sounded, and the judges told the teams to stop working and submit their data. Brooklyn cracked a smile as Charlotte angrily clicked her send button.

  They broke for lunch in the dining commons, which was more like a nice restaurant then a typical office cafeteria, but they were all too nervous to enjoy the meal. Afterward, all the teams returned to the lab so that Stavros Sinclair could meet them and announce who’d advanced to the final round. This was the second of his three scheduled appearances and the one for which the team had trained the most at Pinewood.

  Unlike the previous day, Monty was across town participating in a symposium at the Pasteur Institute. In her absence, Paris was the alpha, a responsibility he took seriously.

  “Remember your assignments,” he said. “If the Purple Thumb attacks now, it won’t be one of the kids on the teams. It’ll be an adult. So look at faces for anyone who’s out of place.”

  “We’ve got it,” Rio said.

  “Good,” he responded. “Because this operation is hot. We are a go.”

  Once again Stavros Sinclair was wearing his customary black jeans, black boots, and gray T-shirt. As he went from station to station and mingled with the teams, he kept his hands clasped behind his back. This served two purposes. First, it made him lean forward, which gave the impression that he was interested in whatever someone was telling him. More important, it kept anyone from trying to shake his hand. Among his many eccentric traits, Sinclair was a germophobe.

  Two large bodyguards followed him on either side, and Brooklyn wondered if this was always the case or a response to the possible threat from the Purple Thumb.

  Even during this face-to-face “personal” time, many of Sinclair’s comments seemed scripted. There were variations of “Are you having a good time?” and “I think your proposal shows great promise” and “This is a very creative approach.”

  In fact, one of the only original interactions came when he reached the FARM table and smiled at Brooklyn. “Ah, Father Hurricane!” he said happily. “What did you say his name was again?”

  “Benito Viñes,” answered Brooklyn.

  “What a wonderful story,” said Sinclair. “How did you know about my breakthrough with the cloud?”

  “I read about it in your biography,” she said. “I found it very inspiring.”

  “Thank you,” he replied. “I find you very inspiring too. All of you.”

  For Brooklyn this was a heady moment. She was actually talking with Stavros Sinclair, someone who she’d read about and admired for years. It didn’t hurt that across the lab Charlotte was watching with uncontrolled envy.

  After Stavros completed his tour of the workstations, he moved to the front of the room to address everybody. Paris and the rest of the team scanned the faces in the crowd, looking for any possible threats. They were relieved that Sinclair had his bodyguards in tow. It would be difficult for anyone from the Purple Thumb to get past them.

  “First of all, I want to congratulate you all on your wonderful projects,” Sinclair said, addressing the room. “I’m afraid I came up with this on short notice, which didn’t give you much time to prepare. Still, your work has exceeded my expectations, so please, give yourselves a hand.”

  Polite applause rippled through the lab.

  “For centuries the idea of creating artificial rain has been mocked as pseudoscience,” he continued. “People say it’s hocus-pocus and make-believe. But you’ve shown that there’s much more to it than that. If we can manufacture rain, then we can help solve the problems of drought and famine around the world.”

  Sinclair continued to talk about the project, and the team kept their eyes moving, looking for anybody out of place. For some reason, Paris found himself focusing on the bodyguards. Who would be in a better position to hurt Sinclair than the people who were supposed to protect him? Of course, they must have passed through extensive background checks to get their p
ositions, but it was still possible.

  “Many people assume that nature and technology are working against each other, but nothing could be further from the truth,” Sinclair said as he continued his speech. “Right now in Sinclair Scientifica labs, our scientists are studying cloning methods to regrow the Great Barrier Reef. We’re developing prosthetic limbs so lifelike, they re-create a person’s fingerprints. And now, with your help, we’re trying to bring water to areas dying of thirst. At Sinclair Scientifica we are moving forward with our eyes set beyond the horizon.”

  The speech was inspiring, and the room erupted in applause.

  “Ten teams are about to advance to the final phase of the competition. There’s a lot of money at stake: a million euros to the winners. But more important, the future of our planet’s at stake. Together we must protect it.”

  Paris flinched and almost sprang into action as someone approached Sinclair, but he held back when he recognized that it was one of the judges bringing him the final results.

  “This is very exciting,” Sinclair said as he opened the envelope. “Here are the ten teams who will advance.”

  He read the names, and after each team was announced, there were muffled cheers from the one who’d just received the good news and applause from the others. The top ten came from around the world and included teams from China, India, South Africa, France, and the United States. Despite their difficulty with the computer, Kinloch Abbey had made the cut. He’d listed nine teams, however, without mentioning FARM.

  “And last,” he said. “The team from Aisling, Scotland, the Foundation for Atmospheric Research and Monitoring.”

  The team celebrated with high fives and hugs while Sinclair continued on to thank the teams who were not advancing.

  “Stay sharp,” Paris reminded them. “It’s in this chaos when he’s most vulnerable.”

  “Congratulations!” Juliette said when she came over to them. “We will get another day together.”

  Paris was focused on Sinclair when out of the corner of his eye he saw a man enter the room and head toward the tech guru.