The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3

by Chad Morris

  In the Dark

  You have finished the first challenge,” Landon announced. The large screens flashed image after image from all the teams in the challenge. They must have had cameras everywhere. Abby even caught a glimpse of herself running to the feet of the Benjamin Franklin shrub.

  “You made it into the highlight video!” Carol squealed, and slapped Abby on the arm. “Lucky licorice sticks!”

  Abby thought her run looked funny. And she didn’t really like licorice, especially black licorice. It tasted like medicine. So it probably wasn’t very lucky.

  “In first place,” Sarah announced, “the Argonauts!” The screens showed footage of Jacqueline’s team. She had been in a music challenge. Abby knew that she designed her own clothes, but hadn’t known she was musical. The rest of the team seemed expert enough to bring them into the lead.

  “And in second place,” Landon announced, “the Spartans!” There was more footage of their team. Derick’s fish avatar swimming sideways made a lot of people laugh. Anjum tranquilizing a Giganotosaurus brought cheers. Thankfully, they only showed a glimpse of Abby running scared from the giant beasts.

  The announcers went on to list the top ten teams. “The other sixteen teams who made the cut are listed here.” The screen filled with team names. Tension filled the crowd as each team looked to see if they would continue or had been cut. Some teams celebrated; others dropped their heads. Abby’s team hadn’t won, but at least they were still in the competition.

  “Let’s give a round of applause for all our teams,” Landon said, and led the clapping.

  “And now your clue for the next round,” Sarah said. The words Greek mythology scrolled across the screens.

  The crowd murmured with excitement.

  It seemed like a broad topic. There could be a lot of different challenges around Greek mythology.

  Abby received a message. She moved her fingers to check it, hoping it was a response from Rafa’s mother or Mr. Sul about the mysterious power outage. Abby had sent questions to both of them as soon as she had finished her part of the event.

  The message wasn’t from either of them.

  It was a message from Muns himself.

  • • •

  Abby, Carol, Rafa, and Derick moved through the halls quickly. They had all received the message and they only had a few minutes before curfew, when the security bots would start sending kids to their dorms. They opened up the secret passageway and made their way toward the basement.

  “Has anyone opened the message yet?” Rafa asked.

  “I’m still putting it through another filter,” Derick answered.

  “I haven’t even tried,” Abby said. “I just have to know if he’s back.” The thought made her heart heavy. If Muns was awake, she knew he would want revenge. And he wouldn’t hold anything back.

  Derick was still making sure the message was safe when the group opened the huge door to the room with the original Bridge. What looked like a large metal tree stood in the center of the room, its branches shooting up into the ceiling. They retrieved their keys from their secret hiding spots and put them in the console. Abby added her sphere and began to search through the present.

  She could look anywhere. She could visit any place in the world in that very moment. But she wanted to see her old enemy.

  Abby moved the perspective of the Bridge through Charles Muns’s mansion. She first peered into his office, but he wasn’t there behind the large ornate desk. At least he wasn’t plotting in his comfortable chair.

  Abby went from room to room, surveying the rooms with elaborate rugs and artifacts in glass cases, but there was no sign of Muns. Finally, Abby found him in a room down the hall, his body on a bed, hooked up to several tubes and machines. It was the first time she had seen his hair flopped all over and not neatly slicked back.

  “Whew!” Carol breathed out in relief. “It doesn’t look like he’s awake. Not at all. And I hope he stays down.”

  “Me too,” Rafa said. “But then, who sent the message?”

  “Whoever it is has access to Muns’s messaging system,” Abby said.

  “I’ve got the message ready,” Derick said. “I’ll let you sync to me, so you can see it without going through all the filters yourself.”

  Abby, Carol, Rafa, and Derick,

  As Charles Muns is indisposed at the moment, I’m sending a message on his behalf.

  I admire your attempts to form a team and protect the secret. Since you once had to go through challenges to obtain the secret and a key, it is only fair that you should have to pass some more to protect them.

  The style was Muns’s. When he sought revenge, he always had to make it fit the offense he thought had been committed. Abby’s grandpa had once argued against Muns that if time travel were real, they should not use it go back in time and prevent tragedies. He specifically mentioned the Titanic. So Muns had threatened him by kidnapping Abby’s parents and placing them back in time on the Titanic. Muns had then held Grandpa hostage in the same auditorium where they had debated. And because Derick and Rafa had used avatars to stop Muns’s plan, he used an avatar to seek revenge. Then he placed Grandpa on the Hindenburg, the late–1930s dirigible, which had also been called the Titanic of the sky. Muns’s revenge plans always fit. The question was, who was sending messages for him?

  However, it looks as though you will have to do better if you want to succeed.

  Whoever was Muns’s spokesman had been watching them. He knew about their second-place finish.

  There will always be those who do what Muns asks, and one of them was with you in the halls tonight.

  It was obvious that someone within Cragbridge Hall was working for Muns, but reading the words still made Abby’s throat stiff and her stomach anxious. There had been hundreds of students and teachers in the halls. As far as she knew, it could be anyone. Maybe it was Mr. Silverton, Mrs. Flink, or Landon. No—Landon hadn’t been in the halls. He had been on stage the whole time. Or it might be someone else. Abby thought of Katarina. Sometimes Muns bribed or threatened people into loyalty.

  And they took something.

  Rafa said he would send a message to his mother and Mr. Sul immediately to notify them. This wasn’t good.

  The Bridge rattled under the pressure of showing the present. As Abby looked back at Muns on his bed, someone walked into the room. Likely a nurse, she checked several tubes and watched the readings on the machines.

  Tremors ran through the Bridge. Abby moved to take the sphere and the keys from the console, but decided to watch for another moment.

  “Hello, Mr. Muns,” the nurse said. “I believe you can probably hear me now. Perhaps some of our treatments have helped.”

  It made sense that a rich guy like Muns would have the best care available.

  The Bridge rattled again.

  The nurse spoke. “All the signs seem to point to the fact that you are going to wake up within a week or so, maybe sooner.”

  Abby turned the keys.

  This was not good at all.

  • • •

  “What happened when the power went out?” Derick asked. He was back in his room, talking in the bathroom with the fan on so his roommate couldn’t hear. The Cragbridge twins’ Council of the Keys couldn’t meet in person because it was past curfew and it would arouse unnecessary suspicion for them to be up and about.

  “Did anyone get attacked? Are their keys missing? Did someone steal something?” Carol rattled out her questions one after the other. “The anticipation is killing me. I mean, not literally. If I had to die, going because of anticipation just sounds wimpy. I’d rather die while skydiving into a volcano to save some hot guy from aliens or something.”

  Derick wished this wasn’t just a chat on their rings; he would love to elbow Carol right now.

  “Nothing has been reported missing,” Mr. Sul said. “I have met with my council and all of them have their keys.” Mr. Sul had agreed to answer their questions directly.

&nb
sp; Derick exhaled. Thankfully, they didn’t have a stalker in the darkness ready to attack. “All the keys we know of are safe too.”

  “I’ve instructed all teachers to check their equipment,” Mr. Sul said. “But nothing has come up missing yet. After the keys, our biggest concern are the avatars.”

  “They’re all there,” Rafa’s mom said. “I quadruple-checked. I also supervised the lab during the Race. Everything is in order. I have lists of everyone who used them. And I change all my security codes at random times during the day. There is no one else who could use them or take them without me knowing about it.”

  “That’s good to know,” Mr. Sul said, “and very wise. I just don’t know what else they would want to steal. In the same building are geography globes, copies of the Chair, the Bridge, chemistry labs, and virtual booths, but so far, nothing has been reported missing. Plus, the copies of the Bridge in the labs are not the original Bridge; their controls can’t let others go into the past.”

  “But we can’t be too careful with Muns,” Derick said. “Something did happen during the Race. Or so Muns’s message claimed.”

  “Oh, I assure you, we will take every precaution,” Mr. Sul promised. “I will continue to double-check with all the teachers. I will double security shifts, and perhaps add more during the next round of the Race.”

  “And,” Mr. Sul continued, “in the spirit of transparency, I should also show you the footage from our council’s meeting about the power outage. It just ended.” He typed quickly on his rings, sending the message.

  Derick opened the message and selected the video. He saw Mr. Sul, Mr. Silverton, Mrs. Flink, and two new figures, both in gray security uniforms. One was a woman, probably in her early forties, her dark hair cut just above the shoulder. The other was a younger guy, probably in his late twenties. He had blond hair and a trim beard, the kind male models wear to try to look more manly.

  Mr. Silverton cleared his throat. “Chief Shar,” he addressed the female officer, “your officer was quite helpful in the investigation.” Apparently the female was in charge—probably the head of security.

  “He is our expert on such matters,” Chief Shar said, nodding at the officer with the blond beard. “Because you yourself are a suspect, I thought it would be necessary to get a second opinion.”

  Once again Silverton showed a computer pathway. “Essentially someone hacked into our system and turned off all the power. The trail is a tangled mess.” His screen showed pathways that interweaved.

  “Though we cannot be sure of all the pathways this may have come from, our three suspects remain in the mix: myself, Mrs. Flink, and Landon Beane,” Mr. Silverton said.

  “That’s correct,” the young security officer with the blond beard said. “And . . .”

  “And,” Mr. Silverton said, “you, Mr. Sul.” He paused. “You just became a suspect. One of the paths shows that you could have caused the outage.”

  The security officer nodded.

  “That’s impossible,” Mr. Sul defended. “I was patrolling the halls. Plus, I wouldn’t know the first thing about hacking into our power system.”

  “That’s good information to know,” the officer said, “but you’re still a suspect.”

  The video ended.

  “I assure you that I am up to no foul play,” Mr. Sul testified. “I’ve even sent this same video to my Council of the Keys.”

  Great. Muns was waking up, Derick’s parents and his grandpa were still in a coma, and almost everyone they thought they could trust was a suspect.

  One-Inch Spies

  You did well,” Anjum told the Spartans. He stood at a beautiful virtual redwood podium in front of a screen. Behind the screen were steps to a large domed building. And above him, several towering streetlights illuminated the scene. They were bright enough that Abby could see the transparent ceiling over the whole city. The large thick bubble protected them from the rock above. It was another of Anjum’s worlds, this one a city under the crust of the earth.

  It was hard for Abby to concentrate. She had been thinking about the blackout the entire school day. They had to figure out what was stolen and who had done it. She had also thought a lot about Muns. She had stopped to visit her parents and her grandpa, but the nurse said there was still no sign of them coming to.

  “But we came in second,” Anjum continued. “And second is not good enough. Doing well is not good enough.” He stepped out from behind his podium. “Derick.” Anjum pointed at Abby’s twin, who sat on one of the plush couches in the city square. At first they had struck Abby as odd—nice furniture in the city square. But if the whole city was underground, nice furniture could be kept outside of houses. It wouldn’t get rained on. Everything was under shelter. “You obviously need to improve your fish skills. When I heard you were a member of the Crash I mistakenly assumed you could use all the avatars.”

  Derick raised his eyebrows, then bowed his head.

  Anjum went from person to person pointing out their weaknesses. “And Abby, you need to figure out the clues sooner, and run faster. You slowed when the darkness hit. If you’d done either of those, it could have meant first place for us.”

  “Wait a second,” Carol said, standing from her blue velvet couch. “I think we rocked it, and Abby was a big part of that.”

  “We came in second,” Anjum said, pounding his fist on the podium. “No one ever ‘rocks’ second place. Not good enough.”

  “Yeah, we already know we didn’t win,” Carol said. “So encourage us. Tell us we did a good job. Say stuff like, ‘You were better than my expectations. I’m so glad to have you on our team. Oh, and you looked so pretty while you did all sorts of challenges. You almost won!’”

  “I told you that you did well,” Anjum said. “But we need to do better.”

  “But let us be happy for a moment,” Maria said. She was braiding one of her exceptionally long strands of black hair as she listened. “We did really, really well.”

  “No,” Anjum said. “I don’t want you happy right now. I want you happy on the day of the final challenge. After that’s over, I want you to be the happiest people in the whole school. Happy because you rose to the occasion. Happy because you truly met and conquered the challenge.”

  “But we—” Nia started.

  “No. Stop right there,” Anjum interrupted. “A good leader settles for nothing but the best. You are only as good as your last decision, your last effort. We were second place. So let’s not waste time thinking about our ‘almosts.’ Let’s look forward and look at what we can be.”

  “Wow, intense,” Carol whispered.

  Anjum smiled. “Thank you.”

  Abby would have never wanted a leader like this under normal circumstances, but he seemed perfect for their situation. The secret was at stake. Second place wouldn’t protect it. Only a win would work.

  “I think Anjum’s right,” Malcolm said. He nodded at their team leader. “And I’m going to call you Coach from now on.”

  “Call me whatever you want as long as we are winning,” Anjum said. “Now, the clue was ‘Greek mythology.’ There could be several different challenges that would fit the theme.”

  “Maybe we’ll have to go into a virtual world and do something like the labors of Hercules,” Nia suggested.

  “Or try to kill Medusa without being turned to stone,” Maria said.

  “Put me in, Coach,” Carol said. “I’ll take care of Miss Snakehair.”

  “It may not be virtual at all. We may need to use the Bridge to study the culture where the myths come from,” Rafa suggested.

  The idea of a whole challenge where Abby would have to spearhead the Bridge made her stomach turn. She hadn’t been invited to the team for her skills. And she felt that. She was one bad decision from being kicked off the team. She wished she felt wanted, felt included, but there wasn’t much she could do.

  While the group continued to brainstorm, a message popped up on Abby’s rings. It wasn’t from Mr. Sul or Muns.
It said it was from ‘The Messenger.’ That was cryptic. She ran it through several file checks and opened it on a safe server online just to be careful.

  There was no video, no picture, no attachment. Just words:

  Abby and Derick,

  I’m sorry for reaching you anonymously, but I cannot tell you who I am for reasons you may understand. I cannot share this information with all of my council, for it may implicate at least one of them.

  Before he was tranquilized, Oscar Cragbridge assured me that I could trust you with any important information I found. In fact, of all those with keys, he said he trusts you the most. I believe something was stolen last night. I received a message from someone speaking for Muns that said as much. This was disturbing to me, for it solidifies the fact that he knows I have a key.

  I was monitoring the halls during the Race when the power went out. I tried to calm the screaming students down—it was rather pitch black inside a school without lights—but as I did, someone carrying something bumped me. I could feel a container of some sort against my arm. Then I heard a door open and close. I could have been mistaken, but I believe this was Mr. Silverton’s classroom door. I don’t want to involve security at this point just in case it pertains to secrets they should not know. Perhaps if we all pursue this further, we can find out the truth.

  The Messenger

  P.S. I hope your team wins. Your grandfather would be proud of your efforts and ingenuity.

  Abby thought through the message as best she could. It was probably from someone on another Council of the Keys, and he or she believed Mr. Silverton may have stolen something. Of course, she also didn’t know that she could trust the anonymous messenger.

  “Abby,” Anjum said. “You haven’t said anything. Are you focused?”

  “Sorry,” Abby said.