The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3

by Chad Morris

  Everyone clinked glasses. Finally something had gone as planned. The win had put them in second place overall. A decent showing on the last event and they would take the whole competition. Of course, only the best six teams were left for the final challenge, and Jacqueline’s team, the Argonauts, was still in the running.

  “And,” Malcolm said, raising his glass again, “nobody shot a zombie, even though that sounds really fun.”

  Everyone clinked again.

  “Why do . . .” Carol began, coming up for air from her milkshake. “Oh wait! Brain freeze!” She shook her hands and then slapped her own head. “Oh. Ug. Um. Oh. Almost.” She shook her head back and forth. “There it goes. You’d think your grandpa would come up with an invention to get rid of brain freeze.” She tapped Abby. “Have him put that on his list. Anyway. Why do people like the shoot-’em-up games? Instead, why don’t they make a game where you shoot rainbows to form bridges so puppies can cross chocolate fountains?”

  “You just don’t get it,” Malcolm said, setting down his vanilla-chocolate cookie blend. “Maybe if you made a game that would shoot puppies over rainbows into chocolate fountains. That could be fun.”

  “You can’t shoot puppies out of guns,” Piper said. “That’s definitely not okay.”

  “But what if they like it?” Malcolm said. “What if they’re a bunch of little adventure-loving puppies?”

  “You can shoot me out of a cannon if I can land in the chocolate fountain,” Carol volunteered.

  “That’s enough creativity,” Maria said. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “Back to our victory,” Nia said. “Here’s to Abby, and jumping virtual robots out of windows.” Nia raised her glass.

  Everyone clinked again.

  “And to finding out a secret soon,” Malcolm said, and nudged Abby.

  They deserved it. They had worked hard for it. Hopefully they could handle it and they had the character to be wise with it. Abby imagined that she felt somewhat like her grandfather had when he had made the first challenges to get the keys. She liked her friends. She trusted them. But there was little that could tell her how they would react. Perhaps her grandfather thought the same about his friends. Perhaps he even thought it about her.

  “All right, everyone,” Anjum said in their ears. “You deserve a little celebration, but I’ve got some more information about the clue for the final event.”

  The final event. Two days away. March 29. That’s when they would find out if they had stopped Muns. And if Derick stayed alive.

  After they had announced that the Spartans had won the last challenge, Sarah had shown a picture of a man in a navy uniform, two rows of gold buttons down the front of his dark blue jacket, a sword at his side. He had a commanding stare, a prominent nose, and dark hair. Then she gave the clue: “A virtual Charles Wilkes.”

  No one knew who that was.

  “I went to the Bridge and recorded some footage of Charles Wilkes. Here it is,” Anjum said, showing them a video file of a man sailing.

  Wow. Anjum was intense. While they had been ordering milkshakes and ice cream, he had been researching.

  “Wilkes was called the sailing scientist and was the first commander of the United States Exploring Expedition. He visited the Antarctic coast, did experiments at one of the volcanoes in Hawaii, and mapped and surveyed the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Northwest.”

  “Do you think those places are important for the next challenge?” Nia asked.

  “Or could it have something to do with exploring in general?” Derick suggested.

  “Don’t be too quick to come to conclusions,” Anjum said. “You’ll notice that his expeditions were very experimental, and very educational. I really don’t know what to expect.”

  Abby just hoped it wasn’t a challenge for the Bridge.

  • • •

  His old, wrinkled eyes cracked open and then closed again.

  Derick just stared, but his sister hugged him tightly. Tears of relief streamed down her face. Seeing hers somehow helped him not to cry his own.

  “Hello, Grandpa,” Abby said, dropping to kneel by the bed and taking her grandfather’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re waking up.” She choked on her words. “We need you.”

  Derick put an arm on his sister’s shoulder. It wasn’t out of tenderness, though those feelings welled up inside him. The nurse was in the room. Abby had to be careful not to say too much.

  They had both come as soon as they got the news, grateful to have been excused from the last minutes of class.

  Derick looked over at both his parents. “Their eyes are closed now,” the nurse said, “but they were opening earlier today, earlier than your grandfather’s.” She smiled big. “I’m thrilled, but I’m sure this is a huge relief for you.” She pointed toward the next room. “The coaches spent about twenty minutes awake each.” She shook her head. “Well, at least half-awake. Mr. Trinhouse appears to be coming around too.”

  Abby stood and squeezed Derick again. There had definitely been a time in his life when Derick would not have let her. Now he hugged her back.

  Things were looking up. With last night’s win, they stood a decent chance at gaining the key and protecting the secret. And now this.

  Because they didn’t know exactly what to expect in the final challenge, Anjum couldn’t rationalize practice at every free moment as he had with the robot challenge. Derick and Abby had planned to join Carol and Rafa in the basement as soon as school was out. They were going to spy on Muns one more time. He was probably awake. They had to see if they could gain any clues about what was happening.

  And they were going to look into the future. But that could wait just a few more minutes.

  “Excuse me,” a voice said behind them. Two security guards stood in the entrance of the med unit room. “We know this is terrible timing, but we need you two to come with us immediately.”

  “Chief Shar wants to meet with you,” the other guard said.

  They didn’t really have a choice.

  It was a somber walk to the security office. Before Derick and his sister were ushered in, they saw Malcolm, Piper, and Anjum, all being escorted by other security officers. It was Anjum who took Derick most by surprise. Derick hadn’t seen him in person before. He was a few inches shorter than he had made himself in the virtual worlds they’d met in. His eyes darted everywhere as he walked, and one of his arms constantly twitched.

  “Hey, Anjum,” Derick said. “It’s nice to meet you face to face.”

  “I . . . I,” he stammered. “Yes. Sorry, I . . . get nervous.”

  Derick couldn’t understand it. How could someone so smart and so confident in one situation be timid and nervous in another? Perhaps Derick was that way too, a little. He had times where he wasn’t very sure of himself.

  “What’s the problem?” Malcolm asked as they were all escorted to a desk. Carol, Nia, Maria, and Rafa were already seated. Chief Shar and a man with short white hair stood at the head of the table. The man wore a different uniform. He wasn’t from Cragbridge Hall security.

  “I am going to tell you a story,” Chief Shar said, leaning forward, her hands on the table. “You tell me when it sounds familiar.”

  Weird beginning.

  “There is a company a few hours away from here called Ruminex. It is involved in very high-level scientific research and in building sophisticated devices.”

  Even weirder.

  “Most of what they do is advanced and some of it even dangerous,” Chief Shar stared into each of their eyes one by one. She was searching for something, for someone to give something away with an expression or gesture.

  “It doesn’t sound familiar,” Rafa said. “Should it?” Everyone still looked really confused.

  Anjum shifted in his seat.

  “Last night, someone broke in,” Chief Shar said. “Several someones.”

  “Is this supposed to sound familiar?” Maria asked.

  “Are you accusing us?” Nia add
ed. “Because we were busy winning first place at the Race.” Her tone was a little defiant, more than Derick expected.

  “Keep listening,” Chief Shar demanded, her face tight. “We know the criminals were in Ruminex because they drilled holes in the walls, a hole in a safe, and a hole in a window. Plus there were drill marks on the floor above the safe. And there were signs that the security cameras had been tapped and looped, and the elevators controlled.”

  Mouths dropped open as the group realized what Chief Shar was saying.

  “It couldn’t have been us!” Carol blurted out. “Everything we did was virtual.”

  “Yes, for the Race it was,” Chief Shar said. “But it appears that you were doing double duty.”

  Derick couldn’t process it all. They were being accused of controlling robots that had committed an actual crime. It hadn’t been just an event in the Race. “But that would mean the virtual building we broke into matched Ruminex exactly. The whole event was designed to do this.”

  “I did not program the challenge for that.” Derick looked behind him and saw a tall student, probably three or four years older than him. Derick hadn’t noticed him before. Maybe he had been escorted in early. “I made the challenge, and the building I designed was different from Ruminex.”

  “You’re the brain behind the zombie challenge?” Malcolm said. “Awesome work, man!” Then he looked at the officer. “I mean, never mind. Potentially terrible game.”

  “I’m serious,” the student said. “You need to look at their file because I invented a building. I didn’t even use one of the preset patterns. My building and Ruminex couldn’t be the same.”

  “We’d like to look at all your files,” Chief Shar stated sharply.

  It was him. Whoever had been sending strange messages in Muns’s name. Whoever had been behind the thefts. It was him. He was still free and working. He had changed the files.

  “Even the original idea wasn’t mine,” the boy said. “I got a message from someone who had seen some of my work online. He suggested it. I thought it would be fantastic and started designing.”

  “We’d like to see that one too,” Chief Shar repeated.

  “We did have to turn in our virtual designs a day early,” Jess said. “If someone was really determined they could have made the robots for real.”

  “This is so not good,” Carol said. “I didn’t even know I was a criminal.”

  “My mama is not going to like this,” Malcolm said.

  “What did we steal?” Abby asked.

  Chief Shar looked at the man with short white hair dressed in a different uniform. He took over. “You stole a small device, or more accurately, three copies of the same device. It controls the amount of chemicals that can be released and the speed at which they react. It has some practical uses, like being able to spread insecticide on an entire crop in minutes. The device creates a quick explosion and it can control with surprising accuracy how far the chemicals spread. It could be used to cover a farm and not the neighboring forests or highways.”

  “But,” the man with the short white hair said, leaning over the table, “it could also be used for dangerous purposes, to spread very harmful chemicals very quickly. It has been waiting for government approval because of this potential and it has not yet received it.”

  Derick’s head ached.

  “The devices were dropped out of a window, which could have been extremely dangerous,” Chief Shar said.

  Abby winced. She had had no idea that she was really dropping important experiments.

  “You don’t think we did it on purpose, do you?” Derick asked.

  “In fact, I think dropping the vials is testimony that we had no idea what we were doing,” Rafa defended.

  Chief Shar looked at them closely. “We aren’t ruling anything out. We haven’t been able to find whoever recovered the real robots you didn’t know you were controlling, or the vials. The search is still on. We will have several questions for each of you.”

  “But the vials couldn’t be here, right?” Derick asked. “I mean, there’s no way anyone could get them into Cragbridge Hall.” He didn’t want to think about what someone loyal to Muns could do with them.

  “No,” Chief Shar said. “Security is too high, and nothing comes in or out without inspection. Frankly, fewer and fewer people are able to go in and out.”

  The door opened and the assistant security guard with the blond beard stepped in. He was flanked by several other officers wearing the same kind of uniform as the man with white hair—police from outside of Cragbridge Hall.

  “We can’t be interrupted now,” Chief Shar said. “Unless you have new and pressing information.”

  “We do,” the assistant with the blond beard said. “But before I get to that, I have to ask, were you involved in the committee for the Race?” He spoke directly to Chief Shar.

  “No,” Chief Shar answered. “And that’s beside the point. I’m in the middle of an investigation.”

  “Wait,” the assistant said. “Would you have any reason to have touched the key that unlocks the prize for the Race?”

  “The key in the box? No—” Chief Shar answered, opening her mouth to continue.

  “None at all?” the assistant interrupted.

  “No. None at all. Now please excuse me,” she said.

  “The police found the three vials,” the assistant announced. “They have been returned to Ruminex.”

  Chief Shar stood straighter in surprise. “Where did they find them?”

  “In a security box, downtown,” the assistant said. “One we think you have access to.” Several of the officers flanked Chief Shar. One slapped handcuffs on her.

  “You are under arrest,” one of the uniformed officers said.

  “What? This is slander and insubordination!” Chief Shar blurted out, her eyes fiery.

  The blond-bearded assistant took a step forward. “I did my due diligence on Mr. Sul. He insisted that he had been set up. Part of me believed him. So I searched again for the message he claimed to have received. I didn’t find anything, but something was still strange. I looked a third time, and a fourth. I didn’t find a message, but I did discover a ghost file, cloaked in the most impressive way I have seen yet.”

  Chief Shar tilted her head, listening carefully.

  “Once I opened up the file, it took me hours to decrypt it,” the officer with the blond beard said. “When I could read it, I discovered details of a plot. Just pieces. But it included switching one challenge in the Race and stealing items from Ruminex.”

  “If this is true, the file was not from me,” Chief Shar said. Her expression hadn’t changed. “I want to see the evidence.”

  “Let me finish,” the assistant said. He scratched his beard nervously. “Instead of proving Mr. Sul’s innocence, finding the file further implicated him. Then I turned to Mr. Silverton’s files. It took me a while to find it, but now that I knew what I was looking for, I discovered a similar ghost file. It included another message with the same digital signature as the one sent to Mr. Sul. It’s certain it is from the same sender. Both Mr. Sul and Mr. Silverton were communicating with the same person. The message spoke of Mr. Silverton putting a key in the prize box for the Race.” He paused. “That was somehow part of the plan. But the person who sent the message was the one who would bring him the key.”

  The assistant looked at his superior. “It is possible and even likely that you are part of it all. After decrypting the ghost files and following their digital trail, you are the prime suspect who could have sent the messages. Between the three of you, you tried to steal chemicals, a robot, and now experiments from Ruminex.” The assistant scratched his beard. “And it may have been you who wrote to Derick and led him to discover Mr. Sul in the robotics lab. You may have double-crossed your own team. I’m not entirely sure what you planned, but it could not have been good.”

  “No,” Chief Shar said. “I didn’t do any of—”

  “The way we prove
your innocence or guilt depends on the key in that box,” the assistant interrupted. “When the Race is over, if there is any trace of your fingerprints or fibers from your clothing, anything we can track back to you on that key, it will corroborate my theory.”

  Derick wanted to pump his fist and scream in celebration. He wanted to high-five and hug the officer with the blond beard. He had caught the person who stole the vials, and she was the head of security. She could have had a terrible plan. And maybe the officer had just saved Derick’s life. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Chief Shar was escorted out of the room in cuffs. She would be held on campus until they could prove her involvement or innocence.

  The outside police officers asked more questions, got access to the equipment they had used during the virtual zombie race, and made the group of students stay in the room for an uncomfortably long time. Eventually the blond-bearded officer stood in front of them again. “Our searches confirm that you had nothing to do with the alterations. You didn’t know you were stealing. You are innocent. But, as you can imagine, we need to be cautious. I’m still in the process of double-checking all of it.” He was taking the lead of the whole process.

  “Perhaps we should postpone or even cancel the last event in the Race,” one of the other officers suggested.

  “No,” the man with the blond beard said. “Mr. Sul and Mr. Silverton and Chief Shar are detained. The only other suspects were Landon and Mrs. Flink, who I have discovered could not be involved. The vials have been recovered and returned. There is no danger. Now, we just have to prove whether or not Chief Shar is guilty.”

  The Future

  Abby rushed down the cold metal ladders and through the thick metal doors in the basement. She wanted to feel completely relieved, but couldn’t. Chief Shar had come close. And as head of security, she could have done a lot of damage. Abby didn’t even want to think about what she could have had planned with the vials.

  There were still loose ends. They still had to try to get the key and protect the secret. Tomorrow was the day that the saturn had prophesied Derick would die. And Muns was probably awake.