by Chad Morris
“Don’t be sorry. Be better,” Anjum said, “or you’re off the team.”
• • •
Walking down the hall had never been such a thrill ride. Only an inch tall, Derick clutched the laces of Carol’s shoe. Rafa rode on the imitation leather face. Each step Carol took felt like an amusement park ride, her foot rising high and moving forward with a rush of momentum.
Carol moved to the side of the hall, and pretended to tie her shoe. “All right, guys, you’re just a door away,” she whispered. “I can’t believe I’m talking to spiders. And I can’t believe I’m hoping they think I’m cute.” She shook her head. “All right, I’m going to help Abby out in Grandpa’s lab. Well, not my grandpa’s, but yours.” She pointed at a spider. “Or yours. I can’t really tell which one of you is Derick. Sorry. You’re equally hairy and creepy.”
Derick wished he could also be in his grandfather’s lab. If the Bridge could show the future, it might save his life. It might save the whole world from the Ash. But for now, he and Rafa had to investigate. He tried to wave at Carol with a spider leg to signal which was him. He wasn’t sure it worked.
The spider avatars were a secret. Derick hadn’t even known they existed until they discovered that Katarina had used one to spy on them a few months ago. Rafa’s mother had made them recently. There were only two.
And this was the perfect opportunity. The teachers had all been called to a meeting, probably to report the inventory they’d taken to see if anything had been stolen or to report if anyone had seen anything suspicious. Rafa’s mother agreed this would be a good time to look into Mr. Silverton’s room.
It was Carol’s idea to give them a ride and it was a good one—much easier than trying to weave their way through the halls as spider avatars and not have any students hanging around after school notice them, or maybe squash them. When using such new and delicate avatars, getting squashed would be a very bad thing.
Rafa jumped down off Carol’s shoe. Derick tried to follow, but slid off her toe, caught a leg on the sole of her shoe, and flopped onto his back. His legs wriggled as he tried to get himself upright again.
“Oh, so that one’s Derick,” Carol said. She put her finger to his legs so that he could grip it and flip back over. Derick blushed. Thankfully, his robot spider couldn’t. “Good luck,” she whispered. “Message me if you want a ride back. Or if you want to chat. Or if you want to meet up for lunch tomorrow. Whatever.”
The two spiders crept along the hallway where the wall met the floor. Derick followed Rafa, but it was extremely awkward with eight legs. He had to think about each leg, and the others sometimes felt like they were in the way. There was a rhythm to it, though, and once he got going, it got easier.
They eventually scrambled under the door to Mr. Silverton’s room.
“Looks empty,” Derick said, “but it’s hard to tell when you can only see from the floor.”
Rafa scurried up the wall.
“So amazing,” Derick said.
“Give it a shot,” Rafa said. “Your avatar has the same gripping hairs that real spider legs have. And that is a huge deal. My mom is a genius.”
Derick took his first step up the wall and was surprised how easily he stuck. As he took several more steps, he realized that grip was not the only thing that felt different. It was surreal to feel gravity tug at him as he climbed so easily. And it was strange to spend so much time climbing a wall that he’d normally think was an average height. By the time he was to the level of the light switch, it felt like he was several stories in the air. It was a good thing he wasn’t afraid of heights.
Derick gazed out at the room. There were plenty of desks and screens, but no people. A large oak desk stood in the corner for the teacher, and behind it, an office door.
“It looks like there’s only one place to hide anything in this room,” Derick said.
“Let’s go,” Rafa said, and moved up the wall and across the ceiling.
Derick followed suit, though he took his time moving from the wall to the ceiling. A slipup there could send him all the way to the ground. “It’s funny that I don’t like spiders as a human,” Derick said, “but being a spider is so amazing!” It felt like the blood rushed to his head a little, but Derick knew that his real body was still suspended right side up in a harness in the avatar lab.
They crawled down the wall on the other side and under the door to the office.
Flames
It was the first time I’ve ever been okay with spiders on my shoe,” Carol said. “Normally, I’d probably do a crazy freak-out dance.” She threw her arms in the air, stamped her feet, and pretended to scream. “But that would be terrible if I stomped one of Rafa’s mom’s best avatars. Bad move.”
“Well, it was a good idea,” Abby said, looking down at the display of the metal shop machine. She was shaping another object inside her grandfather’s lab. “I meant carrying the spiders to the room. Not the stomp-on-expensive-robots part.” She paused to watch the metal form into a sun, then drop into water and sizzle and steam. “I hope we’re getting closer,” she said. “I’ve made so many of these, I don’t know what to do.” She lifted up her heart necklace, then looked down at a collection of orbs, bracelets, and rings. After they were remade into something else, none of them shocked or froze as they had before.
“I know,” Carol said. “I wonder if there’s like a certain design he wants us to make. I’ve made some killer ones, but I just don’t get why we have to keep going.”
“Diligence and patience,” Abby repeated, starting another design. She decided to make another version of her first necklace. She liked it, but she had learned a lot in making design after design. She made another heart, this one slimmer and a little smaller. She thought it would look better that way. And she placed the star on the front of the heart, but a little off-center. She made her own chain, with links that were more oval than round. Then she used a glove to find another object that tried to shock her. It wasn’t a surprise anymore. She was ready for it. She put the object in the machine and began the process. Several minutes later, steam rose off her new heartstone. She let it cool in the pile of other creations she had finished.
She started in on a crescent moon.
Clank.
Carol must have finished another creation.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
“Um, Abby, you should see this,” Carol said.
Abby looked over at her creations resting on a table. One object was moving, pushing the others out of the way.
“It’s like it’s alive,” Carol said. “And it’s separating itself from the others.”
It moved one direction, then another, creating a circle clear of anything else metal. Then it stopped in the middle.
The new heartstone.
“This is just a crazy guess, but I think we’re supposed to pay attention to that one,” Carol said.
Abby picked it up with a glove first, just to be sure. When she tried it with her fingers, there was a small vibration, but no shock. It must have identified Abby somehow, because her grandpa immediately appeared again. Seeing his wrinkled face was a great relief after so much work.
“You have done very well,” Grandpa said, in his usual khakis, button-up shirt, and blazer. “You have made enough objects to prove your determination and patience, which are both great allies when preparing for the future. Please remember that.” Abby didn’t know how he knew that she had made so many. Perhaps the machine that made them had been tracking it somehow.
The screens lowered throughout the room again. “Yet patience and diligence are not enough.” A girl appeared, wearing armor and sitting astride a horse. An army of soldiers marched with her. They started in the corner of the lab and made their way front and center, as if they were marching toward the girls. “This is Joan of Arc,” Grandpa said. She looked young, a teenager with dark hair. She was probably the same age as some students in the older grades at Cragbridge Hall.
Scenes flashed one after
the other of the teenage girl: Joan before a king, then Joan speaking with military officers, and finally, Joan in full armor marching into war. “She tried to help France in a time of great need,” Grandpa explained. “She tried to help free it. She made the siege of Orléans successful faster than anyone anticipated. And she was in the heat of the fray.” Joan charged with other soldiers and was struck by an arrow between her neck and shoulder. Abby cringed. That must have hurt like crazy, but it didn’t look fatal. “She has been used as an example of courage throughout history. She was remarkable.”
Grandpa’s brow furrowed. “Joan was captured.” The screens showed her in chains and imprisoned in a few different locations. The last was a tower. “She was feisty and even leaped out of a seventy-foot tower trying to escape.” The screens showed Joan falling from her tower and slamming into the moist ground below. A moat had made it softer than most. “She was caught and interrogated several times, then stood trial.” Joan stood before a series of men. “Do you know how her story ends?”
Abby wasn’t sure.
Grandpa fell silent, letting the action speak for itself.
Guards tied Joan to a pillar, a large pile of sticks prepared beneath. A mocking crowd had gathered, screaming and spitting.
A soldier dropped a torch on the sticks beneath the teenage girl.
Smoke.
Embers.
Crackling.
Flames.
Abby could only imagine how it would feel to be Joan: the crowd jeering, smoke rising to her nostrils, flames licking her feet, then up her ankles. The flames grew higher and higher. Joan clenched her teeth.
Two clergymen held a cross in front of her, and Joan gazed at it fiercely. She cried out in pain, and then again. The flames lapped higher, feeding off the wood. She yelled again.
Thankfully, the screens went black. Abby didn’t have to watch anymore. She didn’t think she could have.
“After she died,” Grandpa said, “her body was burned twice more to reduce it to ashes. Those ashes were thrown in the river.”
The screens lit back to life to show rushing blue water with black specks floating on it.
The image of Grandpa sat down and leaned forward on his cane. “When I showed you Nikola Tesla, I asked you if you would work as hard if you knew the future held difficulty and sorrow. You have proven that you can work diligently and patiently. And now I ask a harder question: What if doing what you believe is right requires you to give it all? If Joan of Arc could have seen her future, would she have made the same choices?” Grandpa paused, letting his words sink in. “She was a remarkable young woman and is remembered for great reason. Would she have faltered? I like to think that she wouldn’t have, but she did not face that choice.” He looked forward, his eyes piercing. “If you would like to gaze into the future, you have to be willing to do what is right, no matter what you see. You cannot back down from a challenge or a difficulty even when it looks as though you may fail. You act. You move deliberately and then let the future happen.”
Abby’s heartstone vibrated.
“Take your most recent creation to the simulator,” Grandpa instructed, and pointed at the door out of his laboratory. “Before I trust you with the power to look into the future, I must know that you will do what is right no matter the cost.”
“Oh, no,” Carol said. “I hope we don’t have to go through what Joan did. I really don’t want to feel what it’s like to be a human shish kebab.”
“Me neither,” Abby admitted. “But we need to know. We need to be able to save Derick. We need to save who knows how many people from the Ash. We probably need to save ourselves.” She clutched her heartstone in her hand. “I’m going.”
• • •
Mr. Silverton’s office was messy, filled with different screens, replacement parts for rings and contact lenses, equipment used to fix such small pieces, and a few moving posters for old movies on the wall. They looked divided between epic fantasy and space travel.
Rafa and Derick used their spiders to search through the office for a few minutes. “Unless this picture of a wizard with a blue sword wasn’t originally his, I’m not sure he stole anything,” Rafa said.
“What about that closet?” Derick asked.
“Sim,” Rafa agreed in Portuguese. “I think that’s our most likely bet.”
“But there isn’t any room under the door. It’s sealed up really well,” Derick pointed out. “So what do we do?”
“We do what real spiders do,” Rafa said. “Look for any imperfections and push our bodies through.”
“Isn’t there like a vent or something we could go through?” Derick asked.
“It’s a closet, Derick. Most people don’t run vents into closets.”
“Right,” Derick said, feeling stupid.
They found a spot about halfway between the hinges and Rafa was able to squeeze the spider avatar through. Derick followed, seeing a light flicker on inside the closet. Rafa must have walked near a motion sensor. For a moment Derick got stuck and thought about how embarrassing it would be to have lodged an expensive spider robot inside a closet door hinge. There would be no easy way of explaining that. But he wiggled his torso, got two legs through the other side, and pulled his body the rest of the way.
“So far, it’s just more supplies,” Rafa said, scurrying across the top shelves.
Derick decided to start at the bottom. The ground was dusty around the edges, which made for rough going, as small as he was. But he noticed a spot where the dust had been pushed back, and black marks on the floor like something had been shoved along the ground in a hurry. Derick followed the trails to a large white case. It lay on its belly and had large latches. Derick climbed over them to the top and saw a label:
Chemistry room property. Use only under teacher supervision.
“Can you think of a reason why Mr. Silverton would have a large chemistry case?” Derick asked.
“Maybe it’s a hobby,” Rafa suggested.
“By the looks of this trail through the dust, it was put here recently,” Derick said.
“I guess it depends on what chemicals it holds,” Rafa said. “It could be acid, or something to make poisons or gases to put people to sleep. Unfortunately, as spiders, I don’t think we can flip those latches.”
“Do you think we found our guy?” Derick asked.
“We might have,” Rafa said. “But we can’t just tell Mr. Sul. There’s a chance he may be in on it.”
“Good point,” Derick said. “Let’s leave an anonymous tip with security that there is a chemistry case missing and it’s in Mr. Silverton’s closet.”
“That’s not enough for them to search his private space,” Rafa said. “He’ll have to give them permission.”
“He’s already a suspect,” Rafa said. “If he doesn’t say yes, he’ll move to the top of their list.”
Derick closed his eyes and exhaled long. Maybe he had just caught Muns’s undercover agent. Maybe his life was no longer in danger. Maybe.
The Gallows
Abby stood in front of the simulator, Carol by her side. She wore a suit similar to those used with the avatars and the virtual booths. She would feel what someone in history felt.
Abby knew that she would face a challenge in history. She had done it before. And that was precisely why she faltered now. She knew how much grit it took. She knew the difficulty. But in the challenge she had faced before, the person in history had survived. She wasn’t sure that was the case this time. Would she be like Joan of Arc? Would she have to face death?
The idea of dying, even virtually, was terrifying. She didn’t know how Derick could handle it.
Derick. He knew what it was like to think death wasn’t too far away. If he could face the threat, so could she.
Abby took a deep breath, unlocked the thick metal door, and stepped into the simulator. As she entered, her heartstone vibrated. It was communicating with the simulator somehow.
And then she was in a small shoemaki
ng shop. Shelves full of shoes and the smell of leather filled the room. A middle-aged lady with short curly hair and a work apron was speaking in a language Abby didn’t understand. Abby turned on her translator. It sensed Dutch and translated the dialogue.
“You see,” the woman said, “you are such brave boys. Good boys. I need your help.” Abby obviously was in a boy’s place in history. “There are a hundred Jewish babies in an orphanage that will die if we don’t save them. Will you help me?”
Someone was going to kill babies? Why? Abby couldn’t think of anything much worse. The babies couldn’t have done anything wrong. Of course they hadn’t done anything right either. They hadn’t had a chance yet.
“If we get caught, they may arrest us,” one boy said.
Abby nearly jumped. She hadn’t realized the other boys stood just behind her. She looked over her shoulder and found several boys, all teenagers.
“And kill us,” another added.
Who would arrest and kill those who were trying to save babies?
“That is true,” the shoemaker woman said, “but, God willing, you may also save one hundred precious babies, one hundred souls of our Lord.” Something about the way the woman spoke carried hope with her words. She honestly believed they could do it.
“But how would we save them?” another boy asked. “Helping Jews escape is a crime, and I don’t think the Nazis will miss us smuggling a hundred babies.”
Nazis. That was it. Under Hitler the Nazis had systematically killed millions of Jews. And somewhere in Abby’s mind, she thought they had occupied several of the countries close to Germany. One of those countries must have spoken Dutch.
The woman smiled. “The Lord has prepared a way,” she said and walked behind a desk. She pulled out a tan jacket with large buttons down the middle. A bright red band was wrapped around the left arm, a swastika on it. She also pulled out a matching hat and pants. “You will be wearing these.” They were Nazi soldier uniforms.