He strode over. “How can I help you, Mr.…” He snapped his fingers. “T! That’s right. Mr. T.” He laughed and then scowled. “I pity the fool who puts me in quarantine!”
I stared at him blankly for a second before ignoring whatever reference he was trying to make. I’m telling you—adults can be so weird. “There’s been a security breach,” I said. “In the server room.”
Mr. Brodigan’s brow furrowed. “What? How would you know that?”
“Because I have a witness,” I said. I turned and spotted Rowan. “Rowan! Come here for a minute.”
Rowan turned to face me and gasped when he saw Mr. Brodigan. His wide eyes filled with fear.
Rowan recognized him.
13 The Apprehension Contention
ROWAN SPUN AROUND AND TOOK off. He zigzagged into the nearby crowd.
“Rowan!” I shouted.
I turned to chase after him but Mr. Brodigan caught my arm. “Listen, kid. I don’t know what that boy told you, but it sounds as if someone has an overly active imagination.”
I glared at him. “I don’t think so.”
“Hey, who would believe the crazy stories of some little kid?” Mr. Brodigan scoffed.
“I believe him,” I said.
Mr. Brodigan shook my arm. “And who’s going to believe you?”
“May I have your attention, please?” asked the automated female PA voice from before. “Quarantine is now lifted. Quarantine is now lifted.”
The cafeteria was filled with applause and cheers.
The doors flew open and my father marched in. He glanced around. “What is going on here?”
Mr. Brodigan kept his tight grip as he dragged me over to my father. “Thank goodness you’re here, boss,” he said. “I think a quarantine drill was wrongly scheduled and the lock-in became a, well… a lockdown.” He laughed nervously.
“So that’s why I was locked out of my own building,” my dad said. Then he crossed his arms and nodded down at me. “And what’s this about?”
Mr. Brodigan jumped in before I could answer. “Oh, nothing to concern yourself with, sir.” He rolled his eyes and gave another nervous laugh. “A couple of the kids came up with this wild conspiracy theory about the quarantine.” He shook his head. “Crazy stuff.”
I smiled up at Mr. Brodigan. “You asked who would believe me?” I nodded up at my father. “My dad would.”
“Your… what?” Realization flickered in Mr. Brodigan’s wide eyes. He gasped and released me as if my arm were red-hot.
A security guard emerged from the crowd. Amy marched right behind him. “Mr. Swift, sir? I think you ought to hear this.”
Sam and Noah arrived with security guards of their own.
Mr. Brodigan eyed me nervously as I explained how we were all trapped outside of the cafeteria during the lockdown. I told him how we found the B-bot tunnels, discovered that the security cameras had been bypassed, and saw what the robots were dumping down the trash chutes.
Amy dug out the recovered hard drive and handed it to my father. He turned it over in his hands. “This is one of the company backup drives,” he explained. “It might’ve been days before we discovered they were missing.”
I pointed to Mr. Brodigan. “And he would’ve been long gone by then.”
Noah’s eyes widened. “Oh man. It was this guy?”
“No, it couldn’t have been me,” said Mr. Brodigan. “I’ve been locked up here with everyone else.” He turned to me. “You found me here, remember?” he pleaded. “Before the quarantine was lifted.”
“Except he was able to bypass the lockdown to sneak out,” Sam explained. “Wouldn’t be too hard to sneak back in.”
“He bypassed the security cameras and had access to the elevator, too,” Noah added. “If you play back the video, Mr. Swift, I bet you’ll find a convenient glitch leading from here all the way to the server room.”
All eyes were on Mr. Brodigan. He looked around, mouth agape. “Uh—! I mean, come on. All this because one little kid says he saw me?”
“You know he saw you,” I said. “Because you tried to pull him back into the server room with you.”
“Pull him… what? This is crazy!” Mr. Brodigan threw up his hands and glanced around. “Where is this kid, huh?”
That was a good question. I scanned the cafeteria but there was no sign of Rowan. Our star witness had vanished. Did Mr. Brodigan have an accomplice after all? Did that accomplice now have Rowan because he could identify Mr. Brodigan? Was Mr. Kavner actually in on it? And keeping his son from saying anything? My chest felt heavy, as if all of this would have been for—
No, wait! I spotted him. Rowan and his father walked into the cafeteria and strolled up to us.
“You know, the wind tunnel sounds like a cool place to be trapped for a couple of hours,” said Mr. Kavner. “But let me tell you, it gets boring real quick.” He smiled at everyone. “Rowan tells me you had quite an adventure.”
Mr. Brodigan leaned forward. “Ah, there he is,” the man said in a syrupy tone.
Rowan pushed in against his father.
“That wasn’t me you saw, was it, kiddo?” Mr. Brodigan’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, to a kid your age, all grown-ups look alike, right?”
Rowan didn’t tremble this time. Instead, he glared back at Mr. Brodigan and reached into his T-shirt pocket.
“What’s that?” asked Mr. Brodigan. “Whatcha got there, sport?”
Rowan pulled out the tiny body cam and handed it to his dad.
“Just my personal body cam,” said Mr. Kavner. “Very cool device. Records hours and hours of video.”
“And… that’s been on the whole time, huh?” asked Mr. Brodigan.
Rowan tightened his lips and nodded.
My dad turned to one of the security guards. “Hank, please detain Mr. Brodigan and call the police.”
Mr. Brodigan didn’t have anything else to say as two guards escorted him out of the cafeteria.
My dad addressed the remaining guard. “And, Wayne, take the police to the basement when they get here. It sounds as if they’ll find plenty of evidence in the company trash receptacles.”
“Don’t forget this,” Mr. Kavner said as he handed my dad the body cam. “But I’ll need that back for my research.” He gave a wide grin. “I have a new angle for my story: Junior reporter stops corporate espionage!”
Finally, I wasn’t the focus of the story anymore. I exhaled as a wave of relief crashed over me.
“Uh, remember,” said Noah. “Tom helped, too.”
I glared at him. “Dude!”
“We all did,” Rowan added, smiling up at us.
After the security guards were gone, my dad crossed his arms and cocked his head. “So, tell me if I have this right,” he said. “None of you were locked in with the others and were able to help catch the bad guy because… you’re essentially workaholics?”
Sam cringed. “Well, it sounds kinda bad when you put it like that.”
Amy nodded. “No, that’s about right.”
“Well, they were working,” I said, putting a hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “I was just hanging out with a friend.”
Rowan grinned up at me.
“Ah,” my dad said, raising one eyebrow. “So, I guess you’re a Formidable Fivesome now.”
“Still good alliteration,” Sam pointed out.
“Oh yeah,” I agreed. “I think Rowan will make an excellent Swift Academy student.”
* * *
Luckily, the quarantine didn’t put a damper on the events of the evening. Everyone went back to his or her projects while my friends and I gave statements to the police. After that, my dad and I showed Rowan and Mr. Kavner the rest of the facility—using the regular hallways this time. When we were finished, everyone met up with Sam at the test track.
Once the air-conditioning vent was closed and the mats were returned to the wall, Sam had the chance to make her fastest run yet: 46.3 kph. I also got the chance to redeem myself on her new skate
s.
After I was strapped head-to-toe with safety gear, I sat and put on the skates.
“He’s got this,” my dad said confidently. “We Rollerblade all the time.”
Yeah, no pressure, I thought. Thanks, Dad.
When I was all set, Sam and Noah each took one of my arms and helped me to my feet. I wobbled a bit at first, but then felt the gyroscopes do their thing. I quickly leveled out.
“You can do this, dude,” said Noah.
“Easy-peasy,” Sam agreed.
Rowan cupped his hands around his mouth. “Remember, don’t fight it!” he yelled from the sidelines.
“What, you’re an expert now?” Mr. Kavner asked him.
“Oh yeah,” Amy replied. She sat on the ground next to Otis. “He’s a natural.”
I swayed just once more as I rolled down the track. I kicked out ever so slightly with my right foot to gain speed, and it worked! I didn’t fall down. I repeated the motion with my left foot and everything was fine. Feeling better, I leaned forward to go faster.
“Woo-hoo!” Sam yelled.
“You got it now!” shouted Noah.
My confidence grew along with my speed. I was doing it! No invention was going to get the better of me. I felt as if I could conquer anything.
As I came up to the curve, I began to lean into it. The trouble was, I leaned too much. My right foot moved too far out and the skates automatically compensated. Even though I knew it was coming, the movement still surprised me. I naturally fought it before I realized what I was doing. I tried to relax and go with the flow as I’d been told.
By then it was too late.
The skates went out from under me and I landed, once again, on the only part of my body that wasn’t covered in safety gear.
“Oh!” Noah shouted. “Wipeout!”
I laughed and rubbed my sore backside. Man, I missed that spongy track at the school.
More from this Series
The Virtual Vandal
Book 4
The Drone Pursuit
Book 1
The Sonic Breach
Book 2
More from the Author
On Top of the World
Rocket Racers
Keep reading for a preview of
The Virtual Vandal
by
Victor Appleton
The Simulation Demonstration
THE THREE OF US SLOWLY made our way up the dark steps. I led the way, followed by my friends Amy Hsu and Samantha Watson. As we stepped out onto the third floor, I aimed my flashlight into the empty corridor. I could feel my heart beating faster with anticipation.
“This is really creepy,” Amy whispered. “Cool, but creepy.”
“Why are you whispering?” Sam asked. “We’re the only ones here.”
“Because we’re creeping around the school at night,” Amy replied. “Even if it’s not really…” She trailed off as she whipped her flashlight back down the stairs. Sam and I froze, listening.
Then Amy relaxed, and we continued down the hall. “Besides—” She went back to a whisper. “Noah might be spying on us.”
“Of course he’s spying on us,” I said with a chuckle. “He worked too hard on this not to spy on us.” I glanced around. “Isn’t that right, dude?”
There was no reply.
“That would’ve been too easy, Swift,” Sam said as she led the way down the dark corridor.
Noah Newton, my best friend, had created a special scavenger hunt for us. And the setting for this hunt? Our school, the Swift Academy of Science and Technology. At night, of course.
If the name of our school sounds familiar, it’s because it was named after my father, Tom Swift Sr. He founded the academy with profits from his company, Swift Enterprises. If you think it would be cool to have all these places with your last name on them, you’d be wrong. Honestly, it just means I have to work harder to be a regular student like everyone else.
A flash of light burst through a nearby window. Soon after, the walls seemed to rattle with the deep boom of thunder.
“The thunderstorm is a nice touch,” I said to Noah, wherever he was. He still didn’t reply.
Sam stopped moving forward. “What was the clue again?”
Amy responded automatically. Having a photographic memory, she had already memorized it when she had first read it. “ ‘Once on the third floor, don’t be afraid of the dark,’ ” she replied. “ ‘Find not the king of the jungle, but the king of the park.’ ”
“Who’s the king of the park?” I asked.
“A lion is supposed to be the king of the jungle,” Sam replied. “Even though they technically don’t live in jungles.”
“What about in Mrs. Livingston’s classroom?” asked Amy. “She has a lion poster in there.”
“It’s worth a shot,” I said.
We glided down the hallway toward our biology classroom. I swung open the door and reached for the light switch. I heard the switch click but the overhead lights didn’t come on. The only light came through the windows and barely illuminated the room.
The three of us poured in and made our way to the wall behind Mrs. Livingston’s desk. Hung there was a motivational poster about courage, sporting a large lion with a thick, shaggy mane. I’m not sure if Mrs. Livingston had it up there to remind us to be courageous and ask questions, or because of her notoriously difficult exams.
“Wait a minute,” said Sam. She stopped moving. “The clue said not the king of the jungle.”
“That’s right,” I agreed, glancing around. “But who would be king of the park?”
Amy pointed to a poster on the other side of the classroom. “What about that one?”
I turned and squinted across the room. I had completely forgotten that Mrs. Livingston also had a tyrannosaurus rex poster at the back of the classroom. It wasn’t a motivational poster or anything; it was just part of a cool dinosaur display she had created. The exhibition also included a fossilized megalodon tooth, the fossilized femur of an Edmontosaurus, and a cast Mrs. Livingston made of a real dinosaur footprint (a small theropod of some kind).
“King of the park,” Sam said, excitement rising in her voice. “Like Jurassic Park.”
“Even though the T. rex really lived during the Cretaceous period,” Amy added.
“Yeah, but Cretaceous Park doesn’t have the same ring to it,” I said as I made my way toward the poster.
We all gathered around it. On it, a huge T. rex stood in the clearing of a prehistoric forest. It grinned at us, its mouth full of jagged teeth.
“The poster is exactly the same,” Amy observed. “Noah didn’t add anything to it.”
“Maybe he hid something behind it,” Sam suggested. She reached out and grabbed the bottom left corner of the poster. But when she lifted up the flap, the corner jerked itself away from her and snapped back to the wall.
“What the…,” Sam began.
Then the entire poster began to expand. We stood back as the bottom of the picture slid down the wall and onto the baseboards. The top of the poster stretched up toward the ceiling as the entire thing grew. Soon, the image of the terrifying dinosaur covered the whole wall.
“What’s going on?” asked Amy.
The dinosaur was now life-size. My heart raced as it glared down at us. Then, as if it couldn’t get any stranger than that, the T. rex moved. Just a blink of an eye at first, and then one of its two-clawed hands closed.
“Did you just see that?!” Sam asked in an entire octave above her normal speaking voice.
Before anyone could answer, one of the dinosaur’s huge feet stepped out of the poster. It scattered the fossil display and crashed down on a nearby desk. We moved back as the desk shattered.
Above us, the T. rex leaned out of the poster! Its long snout stretched and contorted as 2-D slowly became 3-D. As it loomed over us, it cocked its head and examined us with one large eye. Its mouth opened wider, long tendrils of saliva dripping down from above.
“Run!” I shouted.
The three of us bolted toward the door as the T. rex roared. I chanced a glance back to see the full-size tyrannosaurus rex on our tails, crashing through desks as it chased after us.
My heart raced faster as we ran out of the classroom and headed toward the closest stairwell. Amy and Sam shot past me as I checked behind us. There was no way that huge dinosaur would fit through the classroom door.…
Boy, was I wrong. The T. rex burst through the wall. Shattered cinderblocks and splintered wood ricocheted down the empty corridor as the creature skidded to a stop in the middle of the hallway. It sniffed and whipped its head in our direction. My blood turned to ice.
I flew down the stairs and caught up to my friends as they entered the first floor. I could hear the dinosaur barreling down the stairwell behind us. There probably wouldn’t be any steps left by the time it reached the bottom.
“Unbelievable,” Sam said as she glanced back.
We darted down the main corridor, toward the gym.
“What’s that?” Amy asked, pointing ahead.
There was a small wooden box on the floor ahead of us. It sat conspicuously in the middle of the hallway, right in front of the open gym doors. We came to a stop next to it and I lifted the lid. Several long red cylinders lined the box.
“Is that dynamite?” Amy asked.
“We’re supposed to stop a dinosaur with dynamite?” asked Sam.
As if on cue, the huge T. rex crashed to the bottom of the stairwell. Dust and debris filled the air as the dinosaur lumbered through the entryway and stomped into the first-floor hallway. It paused to give another bone-chilling roar before moving in our direction.
I pulled out one of the sticks of dynamite and turned it over in my hands.
“It doesn’t have a fuse,” I said disarmingly.
“Does anyone have matches or a lighter?” asked Sam. “How could we light it even if it did have a fuse?”
The T. rex roared again as it ran closer.
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