by Stuart Gibbs
“Er . . . no.”
“None whatsoever?” I could actually hear Erica frowning.
“Everyone’s being very secretive around me,” I explained. “I did hear one thing, though. Joshua wanted Murray to check out something they called ‘fifty-six’ today.”
“And what is that?”
“Um . . . I was hoping you would know.”
Erica sighed. “I’ll run it past Granddad. He’s pretty sharp when it comes to this stuff.”
“Whatever it is, I think it’s down at Sandy Hook. Murray was taking pictures like crazy down there.”
“No kidding. He snapped a couple hundred of my bottom, the scumbag.”
“I think maybe he was only pretending to look like a scumbag to take pictures of what was really important.”
“We both know Murray. When it comes to being a scumbag, he’s the real deal.”
“Still,” I said. “There were some buildings behind a hill near the beach, but I never got a chance to see what they were. Murray took some pictures of them, too.”
“He did,” Erica admitted. “I saw that. We’ll look into it. Now, even though you don’t know what the plot is, do you know who’s in on it?”
“Joshua and Murray are, but I doubt they’re really in charge . . . .”
“No. The real puppet masters are keeping to the shadows. How about your fellow students?”
“I don’t think either of them knows what the plan is.”
“Either?” Erica sounded surprised, which was a rare occasion. “You mean there’s only two?”
“Yes. They were both at the beach with us today.”
“That’s the entire school?”
“You didn’t know? I thought you were keeping a close eye on us.”
“We’re doing our best. It’s not easy with only the three of us. And a wall surrounding the whole community. We figured we’d missed a few students.”
“Well, you didn’t.”
“Who was the pasty one in the body stocking?”
“Nefarious Jones.”
“Cute code name.”
“No, that’s real.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. He says it’s why he turned to crime. Though I think there might be other reasons. I’m guessing he got picked on a lot back home before he came to SPYDER.”
“Makes sense. Social pariahs are good targets for an organization like SPYDER. Kids who grow up thinking the whole world is their enemy and wanting revenge. What’s his specialty?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He spends most of his time playing video games. Although he indicated today that there might be a reason for it all.”
“I suppose there could be. And the other student? The munchkin who kept dunking you? That was Ashley Sparks, the gymnast, right?”
“You recognized her?”
“Are you asking if I’m a fan of competitive gymnastics? No. But Granddad took some photos and we ran an Internet search. Let me guess: She got disgruntled after not making the cut for the Olympics and turned to crime.”
“Yes. Kind of crazy, huh?”
“Frankly, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more. Having high expectations placed on you at a young age can create a lot of emotional strain.” There was something in Erica’s voice that made me think this statement was based on experience rather than guesswork. “Let me guess. They’ve got her doing martial arts.”
“Exactly. SPYDER’s developed this gymnastics-based kung fu kind of thing for her. I saw her use it when she and Nefarious sprang Murray. It’s really amazing.”
“Amazing?” Erica repeated. “Do you have a crush on this girl?”
“Of course not!”
“Sounds like you do. And, frankly, it kind of looked like it today, the way you two were frolicking in the surf together . . . .”
“I thought I was supposed to be getting close to the enemy.”
“You’re supposed to be finding out what they’re up to, not falling in love with them.”
“I’m not in love!” I snapped, a little too quickly.
“Well, keep it that way. Just remember, Ashley Sparks might seem nice and friendly, but she willingly chose to go work for SPYDER. Under that cute, sparkly exterior, she’s evil.”
“At least she didn’t get me expelled from school and force me to go undercover for the enemy without even caring to ask if I wanted to.”
My own words surprised me. It wasn’t until I said them that I realized how angry I was at Erica. She had made decisions that put me in danger before, but that had generally been to protect me from even greater danger. This time, she’d gone much further, manipulating me—and my future—for her own agenda. Or her grandfather’s agenda, at least. And she didn’t even seem to care.
Erica let the words hang there for a while, then decided to pretend as though they’d never been said. “We should wrap this up. You’ve been in the shower too long as it is.”
I looked at my hands. My fingertips were so pruned, they looked like tiny versions of the Himalayas. “Are you going to stay in contact with me, or am I going to be left on my own again?”
“I’ll be in contact, but we have to be careful. Can you check in at oh-two-hundred hours tomorrow night?”
“I think so.”
“Good. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do about getting you a break-and-enter kit.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to break into the underground lair and enter it. And then find out what’s in that safe.”
I gulped. “That’s going to be dangerous.”
“Well, you need to do it—unless you’d prefer that Operation Bedbug run for another few months.”
“I’d prefer that Operation Bedbug had never run at all,” I said, then thought to ask, “Why’s it called Operation Bedbug?”
“Think about it.”
I did, then understood. “Because I’m undercover.”
“Bingo,” Erica said. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
And then she was gone.
I turned off the shower, toweled myself dry, and took the radio out of my ear. Then I cased the bathroom for a good place to hide it, spotting the bar of soap on the shower floor. It had been sitting in the water so long, it had turned mushy. I gouged out a divot in the bottom with my thumb, dropped the radio inside, then took the soap I’d removed and spackled the hole back up. After a minute rolling it around in my hands, the soap looked good as new. No one would ever guess the radio was hidden inside.
Pleased with my own cleverness, I slipped into my SPYDER bathrobe, entered my room . . .
And found Ashley sitting on my bed.
“Who were you just talking to?” she demanded.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so clever anymore.
OBFUSCATION
SPYDER Agent Training Facility
Student Housing
September 15
2145 hours
“Who was I talking to?” I repeated, doing my best to appear sarcastic rather than terrified. “I was in the shower. How could I have been talking to anyone?”
“You tell me.” Ashley narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She was surprisingly intimidating, even though she was dressed in a pink nightgown with unicorns on it. “Because it sure sounded like you were talking to someone.”
I pretended to have a sudden flash of understanding. “Oh! I know what you heard! I was talking, but only to myself. Sometimes, I practice math when I’m in the shower. Multiplication tables. Long division. That sort of thing.”
Ashley’s hard stare softened. “You practice that stuff? Your file said you were naturally gifted at it.”
“I’m naturally gifted because I practice. A lot.” This was a massive lie. I’d never had to practice math in my life.
Ashley bought it. Her cheeks flushed as pink as her nightgown. “Oh. Sorry for being so distrustful. It’s just that I can hear your shower going from my room, and you were in there forever . . . .”
“I
had sand everywhere,” I explained. “Thanks to you. Every time you sneak attacked me, I got a pound of it up my ears.”
“Oh.” Ashley turned even pinker. “I wasn’t really trying to spy on you. Your shower was running so long, I thought maybe something was wrong, like you’d passed out in there, so I came in here and then I heard you talking and . . .” She trailed off, then frowned. “This place gets to you sometimes. Joshua always says we’re not supposed to trust anybody.”
“Even our fellow students?”
“Well, you’re new. And you did work for the enemy . . . .”
“And look how they treated me. They kicked me out.” It wasn’t hard to fake the bitterness in my voice. “After all I did for them. At least this school gives us some respect.”
“When they’re not keeping us prisoner here.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, Ashley seemed to regret them. “Not that I don’t like it here,” she said quickly. “I do.”
“So do I,” I said.
Ashley glanced toward the door furtively, then lowered her voice. “It’s just that it’s not quite what I expected. When I heard SPYDER had a secret headquarters, I kind of figured it’d be on some remote tropical island somewhere. Not New Jersey.”
“Yeah. I was pretty surprised by that too,” I said. “I was really hoping for the tropics myself. But at least they take good care of us here. My room at spy school wasn’t nearly as nice as my room is here. And the food was terrible. And our rec center wasn’t anywhere as amazing as this one.”
Ashley nodded agreement. Her suspicions appeared to be gone. “You’re right. They gave me that whole gymnastics setup. For free. When I was training for the Olympics, my parents had to pay for all my equipment themselves—and when I got sixth place, the U.S. Olympic team didn’t give me so much as a certificate.” Ashley’s gaze hardened again. She unwittingly clenched my bedsheets in her fists, knuckles turning white with anger. “Even though I was robbed. That judge was blind. I stuck that landing!”
“I’m sure you did,” I said.
Ashley snapped back to reality and looked embarrassed again. “Oh boy,” she said. “I went crycho there for a moment, didn’t I?”
“Crazy plus psycho?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe a little,” I teased.
“Well, that’s the last time. I promise.” Ashley took a deep breath and then smiled. “Who needs some stupid gold medal, right? SPYDER’s gonna make us all so stinking rich, we’ll be able to buy our own tropical islands.”
I sat on the bed next to Ashley, intrigued. “Who told you that? Joshua?”
“Yeah. When he recruited me. He didn’t promise to make you rich?”
“He only said I’d make a lot more than I would in the CIA. I didn’t think to ask how much. I was really more interested in revenge.”
Ashley laughed. “You’re gonna make more than the CIA would pay you, all right. Joshua told me that SPYDER’s newest scheme is going to make billions.”
This struck me as important. As far as I knew, SPYDER was an evil organization that caused chaos and mayhem for a price—and while that price was often very good, it was only in the millions, if that. Not billions. Who had billions to spend on causing chaos?
“Do you have any idea what this new scheme is?” I asked, as innocently as I could manage.
Ashley shook her head. “No. Nefarious said it might have something to do with mineral rights in Indonesia, but I have no idea where he even got that from.”
“Think they’re going to tell us soon?”
“Oh sure. They have to. We’re going to do whatever it is in the next few days.”
I almost tumbled off the bed in surprise. “The next few days?!”
Ashley signaled me to keep my voice down. “Yes.”
“When? This weekend? Next week?”
“I don’t know. Why are you so freaked out?”
“Because this thing is happening a lot sooner than I thought it was!” I snapped to my feet and started pacing. “I thought it was going to be months away. Years, maybe.”
“Why?”
“Because I just started here. I thought we’d need a long time to train to do whatever it is that they need us to do.”
“Well, we don’t. Or, at least, you don’t, you lucky duck. Nefarious and I have been here more than a year, working our bottoms off. You get to come in at the tail end, study for only a few weeks, and then hit the jackpot like the rest of us. You should be thrilled, not worried.”
I stopped pacing, trying to pull myself together. “You’re right. That is pretty cool. But I still don’t have any idea what SPYDER even expects me to do in this scheme.”
“I’ll bet it has something to do with that big old computer brain of yours.” Ashley grinned. “Maybe I ought to start doing math problems in the shower. I’ll need a mind like yours to count all my money.”
I turned back to her. “So, once we’ve done this . . . What happens then? Do we stay here?”
“I doubt it. What’s the point of going to school when you’re crazy rich?”
“Where do we go, then?”
“Anywhere we want. I was thinking of Disney World. My family could never afford to go after shelling out for all my training. And now I’ll be able to get the biggest suite they have!”
“You don’t think we’ll have to go into hiding?”
“Nope. Not if we do this right. Know what Joshua always says the perfect crime is?”
“One you get really rich from?”
“No. One that nobody knows you’ve committed. If no one knows we’ve pulled this crime off, then no one will be looking for us. We’ll be able to keep up our lives just like usual—only, we’ll have a ton more money.”
“So . . . That’ll be it for evil spy school? We’ll never see each other again?”
“Not necessarily. You could come to Disney World with me.” Ashley blushed suddenly upon saying this, then turned away. “Not like a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. I just had fun with you today . . . and Disney’s probably not that great alone. Seeing as we’ve cut ties with all our old friends, I figured, as long as we’re lying low, we might as well do it together, right?”
“Nefarious too?”
Ashley made a face. “King of the Misfits? Nefarious isn’t exactly Mr. Fun. He’d spend all day playing video games if he didn’t have to eat or poop. Thank goodness you showed up. Nefarious would never have thought to talk Murray into springing us for a day.”
“I thought Nefarious said there was a reason for all his gaming.”
“Yeah. He’s addicted to it.”
I studied Ashley for a moment. Despite what Erica had said, she didn’t seem to be the slightest bit evil. Bitter, yes. But not evil. If anything, she seemed to be a pawn in Joshua’s plans, just like me.
“So we’d just hop on a plane and go down there?”
“Yeah! For a couple weeks! We could stay at the nicest resort, take all the VIP tours, maybe go on one of those cruises they have.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’d be happy to go with you.”
Ashley gave a whoop and leapt off the bed. “Swawesome! We’re gonna have so much fun!” She threw her arms around me and gave me a surprisingly strong hug.
Her hair was still wet from the shower and smelled like strawberry shampoo. For a few moments, I found myself thinking that it wouldn’t be so bad to score a billion dollars and then go hide out at Disney World with her.
Then I winced, realizing Erica had been right.
I did have a crush on an enemy agent.
AQUATICS
SPYDER Agent Training Facility
Recreation Center
September 16
1000 hours
The next day, right after I woke up, I went looking for Murray.
It was well past breakfast time. I’d had trouble getting to sleep after my conversations with Erica and Ashley the night before. Too many thoughts had been rattling around in my brain. What was SPYDER’s plan? When were m
y fellow students and I going to be told about it? Or were we not going to be told at all? What role was I going to play in it? Could I do what Erica and her family expected of me? What was “fifty-six” and why was it so important?
When I came downstairs, Nefarious was in his usual spot on the couch, but both Ashley and Murray were gone. “Have you seen Murray this morning?” I asked.
Nefarious pointed toward the recreation center and said, “Mneh.”
I grabbed a handful of Lucky Charms and set off. Although the Rec was quite large, it didn’t take me long to find Murray. He was doing the only thing there that required no physical activity at all: soaking in the hot tub in the pool room. If that wasn’t lazy enough, he also had a sandwich, two corn dogs, a Coke, and a bag of Nefarious’s Cheetos within arm’s reach.
Ashley was in the pool room too, though she was actually exerting herself, doing flips off the high dive. “Hey, sleepyhead!” she yelled as I arrived. “Check this out!” Then she launched herself into a triple somersault with a pike. If I had tried something like that, I probably would have belly flopped hard enough to snap my neck, but she sliced through the water’s surface with barely even a splash.
Murray applauded, then waved me over. The hot tub jets were on full force, churning the water so much he had to raise his voice to be heard over them. “Plenty of room in here. Want to join me?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. I didn’t bring my bathing suit.”
“Neither did I.”
I glanced warily into the hot tub. I couldn’t see Murray’s private parts through all the bubbles, but knowing he was naked in there made me even less inclined to join him. “Is whatever SPYDER’s plotting happening soon?”
Murray shot me a sideways glance. “Who told you that?”
“I figured it out on my own.”
“It was Princess Glitterpants, wasn’t it?” Murray looked across the room, to where Ashley was climbing out of the pool.
“No.”
“Yeah, it was. She likes you, you know.”
I felt my ears turning red from embarrassment. “She does not.”
“If there’s one thing I know, it’s women,” Murray proclaimed. “I was watching you two at the beach yesterday. Trust me, she’s into you.”
