by Stuart Gibbs
Thank goodness Murray had saved a seat for me in the back row.
Class was in a large lecture hall, like on a college campus, rather than the type of small, boxy classroom I was used to from normal school. A tiered semicircle of seats faced a podium and blackboard. I’d entered late, having lost my way in the building, though thankfully, class hadn’t begun, as Crandall was late as well. My fellow students had shrewdly filled all the back rows, leaving the front rows a desert of open seats. I’d reluctantly started down to them when Murray yelled, “Ripley! Over here!”
He yanked his backpack off a back row seat and waved me over. “Never ever sit in the front row in a class here,” he warned. “Even if it means getting here early.”
“Why not?”
“Depends on the class. In Psychological Warfare, Miss Farnsworth has nasty halitosis. In Arms and Armaments, there’s shrapnel. In this one . . . well, it’s soporific. Crandall doesn’t appreciate seeing students passed out in the front row. Luckily, he can’t see much beyond that.”
Crandall had shuffled in shortly afterward, looking startled to find an entire lecture hall staring at him, as though perhaps he’d forgotten what he was coming to do. He spent the next three minutes searching his pockets for his notes and the two minutes after that searching for his reading glasses, after which he finally got around to the lecture, which wasn’t nearly as stimulating as I’d hoped. Crandall wasn’t the worst teacher I’d ever had—that’d have been Mr. Cochran, my fifth-grade history teacher, who hadn’t known when the War of 1812 took place—but his lecture style was dry as dust.
The general idea behind Intro to Self-Preservation turned out to be that the best way to stay alive was to not get into situations where you could be killed in the first place. This made sense in theory, but it wasn’t particularly helpful when you had assassins threatening to drop by your room on a regular basis. This morning’s lecture was on how to avoid ninjas, which might have been interesting if step one hadn’t been “Stay out of Japan.” Furthermore, Crandall had quickly become sidetracked, relating a rambling tale from his own Cold War days.
The next thing I knew, Murray was shaking me awake. “If you’re gonna snooze, try these,” he said, slipping something into my hand.
It was a pair of cheap glasses, though he’d cut out the eyes from a magazine photo and pasted them over the lenses. While I’d been unconscious, he’d slipped a similar pair on himself. They were ineffective and disconcerting at close range, but you could see how, to someone lecturing eighty feet away, you’d appear wide-eyed and rapt with attention, even while sound asleep.
“Thanks.” I accepted the glasses, though I didn’t put them on yet. I wanted to stay awake; it just wasn’t going to be easy. I tried to shake the cobwebs out of my head.
“Don’t fight it,” Murray said. “If we could weaponize Crandall’s lectures, we’d never have to worry about our enemies ever again. We could just bore them to death.”
Normally, I wouldn’t have pursued a conversation during a lecture, but half the class was doing it while Crandall droned on, completely unaware he was being ignored. “Didn’t you flunk this class last year?” I asked.
“Twice,” Murray replied.
“Don’t you think you should try staying awake through it this time?”
“Sure, if I were going to be a field agent. But the best way to avoid that is to be a guy who can’t even pass Self-Preservation 101. The Administration’s going to be so worried about me that they’ll assign me to the safest desk job in the Agency. Probably won’t even let me use a stapler. Plus, I kind of like repeating this class. I can catch up on my sleep.” With that, Murray slumped in his seat, rested his head against the back wall, and shut his eyes.
I tried to focus on Crandall’s lecture, but he’d veered off topic again and was blathering on about how much he’d hated the borscht in Russia. So I turned my attention to my surroundings, as Erica had ordered me to.
She’d laid out a plan for me in the Box the night before: “For right now there’s two parts,” she’d said. “First, we figure out who had access to your file.”
“It seems like everyone did,” I’d replied. “Everyone knew about Pinwheel. You, the assassin, Chip Schacter . . .”
“That’s only three people. There’s three hundred students at the school, fifty faculty, and seventy-five support staff.” Then she frowned. “Chip knew?”
“He showed up at my room right after I did, wanting me to hack into the mainframe for him.”
“Let me guess. To fudge his test scores.”
“Yes.”
“Wow. He’s an even bigger idiot than I thought.”
“Why?”
“You ever see those movies where some computer specialist hacks into any site they want in less than a minute?”
“Sure.”
“Total nonsense. The CIA has hacking specialists, and it can take them months to crack a mainframe. Then they take everything they know and use it to protect ours. Which means the CIA’s mainframe is virtually impossible to hack. And yet Chip thinks that just because you know something about codes, you can do it.”
“But the fact that he knew about my cryptographic abilities means something, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose. It’d be worth finding out how he got his hands on your file.”
“How did you?”
“How’d my father know so much about you when he came to recruit you?”
I nodded, understanding. “He was given a copy.”
“A dossier, yes. He didn’t keep a very good eye on it.”
“Wait. He was given a physical copy of my file? This isn’t all computerized?”
“At the Computer Illiterate Agency? Not exactly.”
“But you said there’s a mainframe.”
“That doesn’t mean everyone knows how to use it. Your file was probably written on a computer and stored on the mainframe. But then it was disseminated to various people to assess your fit for Creeping Badger. A lot of these guys are old school: terrified that someone will hack their e-mail but perfectly happy to leave a top secret dossier lying around their house. Hard copies got printed out . . . and one of them ended up in the hands of the mole.”
“So who was sent a copy besides your father?”
“I don’t know. The identities of the review panel members are classified. To find them, we’ll have to hack the mainframe.”
“What? You just said that was impossible.”
“No. I said it was virtually impossible. Nothing’s completely impossible.”
“So how do we do it?”
“Take advantage of the weakest link in the computer’s protection system. The human one.”
“You really enjoy being cryptic, don’t you?” I asked.
Erica gave me a hard look. “I’m still working on the details. In the meanwhile, you can work on part two of our plan: Keep your eyes open.”
“For what?”
“Anything of interest. Everything of interest. We know the mole knows who you are and is keeping an eye on you. So let’s try to catch them at it. If anyone’s following you, I want to know. If they’re watching you—or pretending like they’re not watching you—I want to know. Anything out of the ordinary happens, I want to know.”
“I just got here. As far as I’m concerned, everything that happens is out of the ordinary.”
“Okay, anything really out of the ordinary, then. Just be alert.”
So I did my best. I stayed as alert as possible for someone who’d weathered two attempts on his life the day before (one imagined, but still, it felt real enough at the time) and hadn’t managed a wink of sleep all night. The problem was, it was more difficult than I’d expected to tell who was paying attention to me . . .
Because the whole school was paying attention to me.
They were trying to act like they weren’t, but they were. Not just the clump of students I’d spied outside the building on the way to class. There’d been other clumps in the m
ess that morning and a gaggle in the hall on the way to class . . . and now, as I studied the class from the last row, there were an awful lot of students with their necks torqued around, studying me right back.
The girl sitting on the other side of Murray from me didn’t even try to hide it. She couldn’t at such close range. She was a fellow first year, still wearing her naiveté like a badge, so thin that her winter jacket seemed to swallow her, but with green eyes so bright and big that she looked like a cartoon character. “You’re Ben Ripley, right?” she asked. “The guy who fought off an assassin last night?”
The way she said it actually made me sound pretty cool. I had to stifle a smile. “Uh . . . yeah. That’s me.”
“Awesome.” The girl seemed legitimately excited to meet me. “Is that why they recruited you last minute? Because you’re some sort of martial arts expert?”
“No,” I admitted. “I’m really just good at math.”
“Right,” the girl said. “Coding and stuff. Everyone’s heard that. But it’s a smoke screen, right? Because Adam Zarembok’s a coding expert, and that guy can’t even fight off a mosquito. Meanwhile, there’s seniors majoring in martial arts here who haven’t defeated an assassin.”
“Well, none of them have ever been attacked by an assassin,” a weaselly boy sitting in the row in front of us countered. Now that the green-eyed girl had begun talking to me, everyone within earshot had turned their attention my way, blatantly ignoring Professor Crandall.
“I know,” Green Eyes said, then looked back to me and asked, “So why have you?”
“It wasn’t a real attack. It was part of my SACSAs.” I hated to lie, but Erica had warned me not let anyone know of the mole hunt.
“No it wasn’t. SACSAs are never run at night,” the weaselly kid announced. “And the word is, you tanked yours.”
“Or faked tanking them,” the green-eyed girl snapped, coming to my defense. “To make any assassins think you couldn’t defeat them. Which you then did. So, really, what was that all about?”
“Hey!” Murray chided, not even opening his eyes. “Let the guy be, will ya? Some of us are trying to sleep here.”
This didn’t deter anyone. More and more students were looking my way.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” I told them. It was all I could think of.
A lot of people frowned, disappointed.
“Of course you’re not,” the girl said, then extended a thin hand that was dwarfed by the sleeve of her jacket. “I’m Zoe. I think what you did was incredible.”
In my whole life I’d never had a girl introduce herself to me, let alone say that anything I had done was incredible. It felt good. So did having so many people impressed by me, whether I deserved it or not. Only a few hours before, I’d been mortified, embarrassed, frightened, and depressed by everything that had transpired at spy school. But for the time being, I’d gone from being a nobody to someone of interest.
“It’s nice to meet you.” I shook Zoe’s hand across Murray’s lap.
“Nice hands,” Zoe said. “Can you kill with them?”
“I haven’t tried yet,” I admitted, and Zoe giggled.
“I’m Warren,” the weaselly kid interjected. He didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that Zoe was giggling at something I’d said.
Several other of my fellow first years introduced themselves as well. I did my best to commit them and the faces they went with to memory. Dashiell, Violet, Coco, Marni, Buster, and a pair of Kiras . . .
“You’re all pathetic,” someone down the row snapped.
I leaned forward to see who it was—and found Greg Hauser, Chip Schacter’s mess hall goon, glaring back at me. “He’s a loser, and you’re all double losers for thinking he’s not.”
“He kicked an assassin’s ass last night,” Zoe shot back. “While you’ve flunked this class how many times? Four so far?”
Hauser’s giant brow furrowed deep enough to plant corn in. “Last night was all a fake. Chip told me. I mean, look at him.” He stabbed a meaty finger toward me. “He’s a dork. If that had been a real assassin, he’d be dead.”
“If it was a fake, why’d the administration go to DEFCON 4 last night?” Zoe asked. “The principal was freaking out in his bunny slippers. Face it, Ben’s the real deal. He could mop the floor with you.”
“Maybe he and I should put that to the test, then,” Hauser said. “In the gym, after lunch today.”
“You’re on,” said Zoe.
“Wait,” I said. Once again, I’d been stunned by how fast things could take a turn for the worse at spy school. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Why?” Hauser taunted. “You chicken?”
“Of course he’s not,” Zoe sneered.
Word that there might be a fight quickly rippled through the room. Now virtually the entire class was staring at me.
I looked to Murray, hopeful he might know how to get me out of this predicament. He was asleep. With his fake-eye glasses on, he appeared to be the only person still paying attention to the lecture.
So I tried my best to wing an answer. “I’d just prefer not to. I fought an assassin last night. I think I ought to rest up today.”
“Mr. Ripley!” Crandall snapped.
All eyes, including mine, turned back toward the podium.
Crandall had finally regained his focus—and turned it all on me. His unruly white eyebrows dipped over angry eyes. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Uh . . . yes.”
“Did you transfer here from a school where it was acceptable to hold court during a professor’s lecture?” Crandall asked.
“No, sir,” I replied.
“Ah. Then am I to presume from your ignorance of my lecture that you feel you have nothing more to learn about the art of self-preservation?”
The other students quickly shifted away from me. Zoe acted as though she’d had nothing to do with the conversation. Even Hauser feigned innocence.
“No, sir,” I repeated.
“Then it must just be today’s topic that bores you,” Crandall said. “I’m assuming you’ve read last night’s assignment, chapters 64 to 67 in Stern’s Basics of Self-Preservation?”
I hadn’t even been issued my books yet. It was something I’d planned on asking the professor about at the end of class. “Uh—well—,” I stammered. “I think there’s been a mistake.
“Perhaps,” Crandall said coolly. “Let’s see. Why don’t we test your knowledge with a little pop quiz?”
The moment he said these words, every one of my fellow students went wide-eyed with fear. And then they evacuated the room. The seats around me cleared out as though I’d suddenly turned poisonous. Even Murray snapped awake and bolted. “Nice knowing you,” he said.
Within seconds, the lecture hall was empty except for Crandall and me.
“What kind of a pop quiz is this?” I asked nervously.
“One on today’s topic: ninjas.” Crandall opened a door by the podium and three ninjas vaulted through. They were clad in black from head to toe and armed to the teeth.
You’ve got to be kidding, I thought. And then I bolted toward the exit. The doors automatically locked as I approached. My fellow students peered through the windows in them, watching with a mixture of concern and relief that it wasn’t them inside the room.
A throwing star embedded in the door. I spun to find the ninjas creeping slowly up the steps. The one in front spun a pair of razor-sharp sai knives. The other two twirled nunchucks. Crandall watched from the podium, already frowning at my performance. “Rule number one for fighting ninjas: Never turn your back on them,” he clucked.
I held my backpack in front of me. I didn’t think it would do much in the way of defense, but it was all I had. “Can I just take an F for this?” I asked. “I’m very sorry for talking during class. I’ll never do it again!”
“Let’s see what he’s made of,” Crandall said.
The ninjas whooped loud enough to shake
the room and charged.
I threw my backpack at them. The first sliced it in half in midair.
I ran. I went straight down the aisle between seats, thinking that this school was even crazier than I could have ever imagined, praying that this was merely another fake-out, that they wouldn’t ever really hurt a student. . . .
Something whistled through the air behind me.
I turned to find a nunchuck quickly closing the gap between the ninja who’d thrown it and my forehead.
This was followed by an absolutely incredible amount of pain.
And then everything went black.
ALLIANCE
The Eagle’s Nest
January 17
2000 hours
“Finally! The young agent awakes!”
I groaned. My head felt like it had been filled with rocks and then rolled down a hill. Even opening my eyes to the light hurt, though it was marginally preferable to going back to sleep again: The last few hours had been filled with nightmares of ninjas and assassins.
My first glimpse of my surroundings seemed light-years away from spy school. So far, everything I’d encountered at the academy had been cold and hard: industrial shades of gray and Cold War décor. But the room I lay in was warm and cozy. The walls were hung with hunting prints and lined with shelves full of leather-bound books. A fire crackled in a large stone fireplace. I was sprawled on a couch that was wonderfully soft and smelled like a pine forest.
Alexander Hale popped into view, swaddled in a burgundy smoking jacket and sipping a glass of neon green Gatorade. “How’s the noggin?”
“It hurts,” I said. My forehead right between my eyes was the worst. I touched it gingerly and found a lump the size of a robin’s egg.
“Don’t I know it. I remember the first time I was attacked by ninjas. North Korea. I’d only graduated from the academy a few months before. My martial arts skills weren’t what they are now, but thankfully, there were only two of them and I had an exploding belt buckle.” Alexander stared into the fire wistfully. “Ah, memories.”