The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3

by Chad Morris

  Abby and Anjum backtracked to a classroom. “They are guarding the entrance to the basement with a bunch of security bots, and they aren’t going to move.” She spoke over the sync so the rest of her friends could hear.

  It hit Abby all at once—security. Whoever was pretending to be Anjum had sent security bots after all the Spartans, and a corps of security bots guarded the way to the basement. There had to be an undercover traitor in security.

  The officer with the blond beard.

  He was an expert in tracking messages; he would probably also be an expert in hacking in and leaving untraceable ones. With that expertise, he could also hack into a virtual booth and give another of Muns’s men access to impersonate Anjum. The person who would have been most likely to discover him was Mr. Silverton, so he framed him first. And then he framed both Mr. Sul and his own supervisor to make sure he wasn’t detected. Now he headed all of security—and he was the problem.

  Abby explained her theory and the fact that the real Anjum was next to her over her sync.

  “You may be right,” Rafa said. “Let’s use the avatars. We can use them to break through their line of security bots.”

  “The avatars are blocked,” Rafa’s mother said. She had joined the sync. “They caught me once. Thankfully, I managed to escape. But when I got back to the lab there was a large group of security bots guarding it.”

  “Great,” Carol said. “So we just have to find a way into the basement, and into the avatar lab, and find a tranquilizer bomb in like the next twenty minutes or we are all unconscious for months and Muns wins. No problem.”

  “We won the Race,” Abby said. “We came together. We beat a minotaur and a dragon and zombies. We can do this.”

  “But those were games,” Malcolm said.

  “They were practice,” Abby answered, her voice bold and sure. “Now it’s the real thing.”

  Attack

  It’s a pleasure to be leading you for real,” Anjum said over their new sync. “I have watched all of your challenges with envy. I must admit that I personally would never have chosen to join your team from the beginning. No offense. But having witnessed what you are capable of now, it is a grand pleasure to lead you, especially since it really counts.”

  “The real Anjum is a little nicer than the imposter one,” Carol said.

  “Not really,” Anjum answered. “That’s all you get. We’ll need your best. Your very best. I’m sorry we don’t have more time to plan, but we can do this. Now let’s trash some robots.”

  Abby tensed, knowing that the dead-end hallway was coming up. Carol was right behind her. This had to work—and work quickly.

  “Watch out! Security bot,” Anjum warned. “Derick, Piper, Maria, and Malcolm, get back!” He waited for them to comply, then continued, “Remember that as soon as they see us, we’re in trouble. Not only will they know where we are, but they may also send reinforcements.” He let out a short laugh. “It is quite similar to the zombie challenge. Let’s do it again.”

  After a few minutes and a few more instructions, Abby saw the dead-end hallway. It was time to pick a fight with security bots.

  “All right,” Anjum said through Abby’s earpiece. “On the count of three I want the first wave to attack. And I want to lead this one personally.”

  Abby was in the first wave. She took a deep breath.

  “One, two,” Anjum counted, “three! Go! Go! Go!”

  Abby turned the corner. As the security bots reacted, pulling their stun guns up, Abby was very glad she wasn’t there in the flesh. She and the rest of the team had decided to fight robots with robots. From the robotics lab, Abby drove her robot car, one of the four prototypes Jess had made, around the corner and began to shoot nuts and bolts wildly.

  Anjum drove another bot back and forth, shooting with impressive accuracy. The only one better was Malcolm.

  “It’s about time I got to shoot stuff!” Malcolm yelled. “Oh, yeah!” His bot hit security bot after security bot in the face with its metal pellets. “I think mama would be okay with me shooting in this situation.”

  The security bots jumped into action, reeling on their wheels toward them, their stun guns firing. Of course, the stuns didn’t have the same effect on other robots. It would take several direct hits—at least—to make any kind of difference.

  “They’re pretty good at attacking back,” Malcolm said, veering to the side to dodge a stun shot.

  “Pull back!” Anjum said. All of the Spartans’ bots pulled back around their corners. The security bots split up and came out to attack. Some had minor dents in their faces and bodies from the metal pellets.

  “Release the mowers!” Anjum screamed. “Second wave of attack!”

  A mower bot shot by Abby’s car. Its protective shield had been removed, leaving its churning blades exposed. It crashed into a security bot’s legs, rattling and chomping at the metal. The security bot toppled over, knocking down another. One by one, several bots fell. The others were quick enough to get out of the way.

  “Now the welders!” Anjum cried out.

  Derick and Rafa flew in with the choppers, the welders strapped beneath them. Flames spurted out of small welder bots, thin machines designed to attach metal to metal. Jess controlled the arms, pointing the fire at different bots as they drove through. More bots toppled over. Anjum drove with his drills on and out in front of him. He took the legs off of several bots.

  “Would you mind if I joined the excitement?” a polite voice asked.

  Anjum let out a loud and obnoxious laugh. “I think now would be perfect.”

  “Thank you,” Jenkins answered. “I would like that very much.”

  A quad lurched forward; the robot bench with legs carried a load. On its table was Jenkins’s large shell, the torso of a humanoid bot. Jenkins sat in the cockpit in its face. His torso swung a large baseball bat, smashing it into the security bots. “Thank you so much for lending me your equipment, Malcolm,” Jenkins said, swinging at a bot and knocking its arm straight off its body.

  “I told you that you’d like baseball!” Malcolm called back.

  “It isn’t Ping-Pong, but for what we are trying to accomplish, I think it is working rather well.” Jenkins knocked two more bots out with another swing.

  “Boys,” Carol sighed, now shooting forward with her drills out. Abby had also joined the fray.

  In less than another minute, the security bots were out of commission.

  “Abby, Derick, and Carol, surrender control of your robots to Jess and run from the lab to the basement,” Anjum commanded. “Jenkins, stay there and make sure the entryway stays open. We don’t want more bots coming back before the three of them can get there.” His voice rose. “The rest of you, let’s go open the avatar lab. We’ll need the avatars to defend our real bodies at the robotics lab. My guess is that security is coming after us here as we speak and these robots will only defend us for so long.”

  “And when you have the Crash with you,” Nia said, “you might as well let them do their stuff.”

  • • •

  Derick opened the door from the inside of the robotics lab, then promptly closed it. “They were faster than we thought,” he said. “We’ve got security bots outside the lab.” He was so sick of them.

  “We can bring our robots back to the lab and fight our way through,” Anjum said.

  “We don’t have time,” Derick said. He started to pace the room.

  “What if we send out something before you?” Jess suggested, leaving her robots for a moment. “Would that work?” She brushed aside her blonde hair as she waited for a response.

  “What do you mean?” Derick asked.

  Jess moved her fingers and several more walking benches emerged from lab storage. “Let’s send two quads out to pave the way, and have the rest of you ride on the other two.”

  “Like we bowl them over?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Carol said. “Bowling robots!”

  “It’s worth a sho
t,” Abby said.

  Four quads approached the door in a line. Derick got on the third and Abby and Carol shared the fourth. The quads’ surfaces were ridged, no doubt to help grip whatever they carried. But it didn’t make them comfortable.

  “Hold this sheet metal up, in case they try to stun you,” Jess said, handing them each a sheet. It was wobbly and they could bend it around themselves.

  “All right,” Derick said, hoping this was going to work. They only had sixteen minutes left until the bomb covered all of campus in tranquilizer.

  “Are you ready?” Jess asked.

  “We’re wrapped up like metal burritos and we’re ready to plow over some robots!” Carol squealed.

  “Let’s do it,” Derick added.

  They opened the door and the two quads barreled out against the security bots, knocking many of them over. Jess had programmed them to turn as they rode, so their wide side could take out more bots. One of the quads tripped up enough on the fallen security bots that it toppled entirely, but it crushed another bot on the way down. The other quad continued on in the opposite direction of the dead-end hallway. Several security bots followed the distraction.

  “Let’s go,” Derick said, and pulled the sheet of metal tighter around him. He felt the lurch of the quad beneath him. It felt more like riding a horse than a robot. Each limb moved up and down in succession, but Derick didn’t have a saddle. He tried to better balance himself as it picked up speed. He was out the door, rushing through the middle of the remaining robots and on his way to the dead-end hallway in no time. He slipped his leg out from under the sheet metal to kick over one of the bots. He quickly pulled it back in and felt the sheet metal being hit with stun blasts from the bots.

  He looked behind him, risking a peek through the sheet metal, to see Abby and Carol only a few paces back.

  The quads could move faster than Derick had expected. Great. They needed all the time they could get.

  Without warning, Derick’s quad tipped and tumbled over. He crashed onto the floor, the sheet metal fumbling and rolling out of his grip with a thunderous clap. His quad had been tripped. A security bot grabbed his wrist. Derick pulled against it, but it was like wearing a pair of living handcuffs. “You need to evacuate,” it said, and started to pull him down the hallway. Another pair of bots waited for Abby and Carol.

  “No!” Derick cried out. He kicked again, toppling the security bot before it could knock into the other quad. Abby and Carol moved past.

  Derick tried to wrench free, but the bot held strong. Abby and Carol had to make it even if he couldn’t. But without him they would only have two keys and two spheres. That wouldn’t be enough to do anything. With his free hand, he reached inside the secret compartment in his pocket and pulled out his key and sphere. “Abby!” he yelled, and threw them. It was an awkward throw, but the two precious items arced toward the moving quad.

  Abby caught the sphere, but the key had veered too far to the left and out of reach. She had to jump off the quad to retrieve it.

  A security bot raised its gun to fire at Abby. Derick lunged to get in the way.

  His world went black.

  • • •

  “No!” Abby yelled. She tried to race back to Derick, but Carol had come back for her.

  Carol grabbed Abby and with a grunt and a yank pulled her back onto the quad. “I’m being the meanie friend right now, but look at all those security bots.” She pointed to a small crowd of bots that had gathered and started to fire on them. “Aaah!” Carol pulled the sheet of metal over them just in time. “So rude.” She shook her head.

  Abby squirmed again. She had caught a glimpse of one robot towing a limp Derick down the hall. It was taking him away, out of the building, toward the gates—toward Muns.

  “He’s not dead,” Carol said. “He’s just unconscious. In fact, this will probably make it so he’s safer than he would have been.”

  It was nothing like the scene from the little saturn. There was no explosion of light. Maybe Carol was right. Maybe they had already changed everything and Derick would be safe.

  “They caught Derick,” Abby said over the sync to the others. “A security bot is taking him out of the school.”

  “We’ll get on that,” Anjum said. “I’m glad the two of you made it. We’re probably almost to you on our way to the avatar lab.”

  “Just save him,” Abby said.

  “You take care of the bomb,” Anjum said. “I’ll make sure we get Derick back.”

  The quad raced down the hall much faster than Abby could have. It turned the corner and they passed by the array of robots controlled by Anjum and the others. Several of them raised their robot arms, cheering for them. They traveled farther down to see Jenkins swing and hit two more security bots. He waved with his free hand. “I thought I should keep the way open for you, madams.” He did a small robot bow inside his cockpit.

  “Thank you, Jenkins,” Carol said. “Just saying that makes me feel like a rich lady at a manor.” She giggled.

  “You’re very welcome,” Jenkins responded.

  Carol giggled again. “Of course, the fact that you’re knocking down robots for me doesn’t make me feel much like a lady in a manor.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jenkins admitted.

  “Never mind,” Carol said.

  Abby jumped off the quad and hit the secret point on the wall that opened the doorway into the basement. It was a specific spot on the crown molding against the ceiling. The two friends hurried down the corridors and ladders until they used a key to open up the entrance to the Bridge.

  “We’ve got eight minutes,” Carol said. “Nothing like cutting it close.”

  “Quick. The keys,” Abby said, motioning for Carol to join her.

  Carol followed suit and they put their three keys in the Bridge. Abby also put in a sphere. It only required one sphere to see the present, but three to enter it. One would put less stress on the Bridge for now.

  Thankfully, the Bridge seemed to be working fine. There were no initial side effects or consequences from looking into the future a little over twenty-four hours ago. Abby moved the controls on the Bridge and found two days before. She thought back. What time had the officers spoken with her? It had been late afternoon. She plugged in her best guess for a time and moved the perspective of the great invention to show the security gates. They were tall concrete walls, with a booth beside them for security guards and bots. Someone coming out or in had to pass through two large sets of doors, and be approved both times.

  Abby had to scroll back and forth through time before she found the police officers entering campus. They walked beside the blond-bearded assistant from the gates to the doors to the Hall. He opened the door for them.

  “Wait,” Carol said. “Right there.”

  “Where?” Abby asked, rewinding.

  “Right when the blond-bearded terrible dude opens the door. Watch his pockets.”

  Abby gritted her teeth when she saw a police officer pass by the blond-bearded officer and drop a package into his pocket. “There it is,” Abby said.

  “Now fast-forward,” Carol said. “Follow him.”

  Abby knew she didn’t have much time. The Bridge couldn’t handle it. She sped through their hours of interrogation. She saw him speaking with other security officers, filing reports on Chief Shar, and finally going back to his quarters, where he pulled out the device. He’d had it on him the whole time he had been accusing his superior officer.

  The security officer pulled out the chemicals he had stashed in a supply closet. Abby didn’t have time to find out when he stole them, but it really didn’t matter. The message at the end of the Race had said he used one of the robots in the lab. With his hacking skills, he could have stolen a bot out of the robotics room and slipped into the chemistry lab. He probably would have taken the time to make it look like another teacher, or Landon, was using the robot too—just in case anyone discovered him. He could have even programmed the security bot
on duty to simply be in the wrong place. He could take care of any security footage. He could have even done it while he was assigned to watch over that hall.

  He pulled out the package the police officer had smuggled in for him and unwrapped a vial. Carefully he assembled the tranquilizer bomb. And then he reached for more supplies. Abby’s heart sank.

  “He made two bombs?” Carol blurted out, and palmed her forehead. “We stole three from Ruminex. He made two fakes and only returned one.”

  “Now we have to find and stop two,” Abby said, her heart pounding.

  “Double the work. Double the pressure.” Carol synced up with the rest of the team. “The freakshow made two bombs. This is going to go down to the wire.”

  Anjum responded, “How can we help? We should be into the avatar lab in a few minutes. We can use the avatars to retrieve whatever bombs there are. Or we can retreat and try to retrieve them with these bots.”

  “We should be able to get them with the Bridge,” Carol said. “But we’ll let you know if we need you.”

  Abby used the Bridge to follow the blond-bearded security guard through the next day, but at night, he returned, grabbed one of the bombs and walked through the halls of the school. He said hello to all the security guards, and checked on all the bots. He did a thorough inspection of the auditorium. Bots lined the walls, making sure there was no foul play. But of course, he had probably programmed them. Underneath one of the seats about ten rows from the front, he strapped down a tranquilizer bomb.

  Muns always had to make his revenge fitting. Derick and Rafa had first saved Abby’s grandfather in an auditorium. He had been held hostage there. And now the Spartans were supposed to be locked inside a virtual booth in this auditorium. Abby and all of her team would have been the first to be tranquilized.

  “It’s time to get that bomb,” Abby said. She moved the setting on the Bridge to the present. There were a few security bots still on duty, rolling through the aisles. It looked like they were simply looking for any stray students, but the blond-bearded security officer had probably set them to guard the tranquilizer bomb.