by Amy Hopkins
The only professors who didn't give her any quarter were Glass and Steele.
Glass pushed her harder than ever. Penny didn't mind. The physical nature of his classes numbed her mind and worked her body to exhaustion. He insisted distraction was no excuse for sloppiness, and that out in the real world, this was something his students would simply have to learn to deal with.
Penny knew he was right. She welcomed the chance to hone her skills in preparation for the day when she would finally catch up with those who had taken her friend. She welcomed his brisk manner and lack of sympathy. After each fitness and defense lesson, she came out bone-weary and dripping with sweat, her mind finally too tired to focus on the needling anxiety she otherwise felt.
Though she welcomed Glass's strictness, Steele's rankled her. The New Zealander constantly prodded her with questions about Boots—her diet, her habits, her intelligence. More and more, Penny found herself holding back answers, especially regarding the extent to which Boots understood the world around her.
"You need to study her more thoroughly," Steele repeated for about the third time that lesson. "Your grades depend upon it."
Penny's irritation bubbled over. "I thought my grades depended on a thorough knowledge of myth and Legend across the Australasian regions. Not the shitting habits of my pet snake."
Steele's eyes narrowed, but she turned away. "Fine. We'll focus on Balinese archaeology instead."
Penny guessed that the topic was supposed to be a form of punishment. The history behind various ancient sculptures and statues was something she would normally find tedious. Today, she was just glad that the topic was no longer her friend.
When the final bell sounded for the evening, Penny didn't wait for her instructor’s permission to pack up her things and leave. She slammed her books into her bag and stalked out without a goodbye.
She met Amelia in the dining room. "Thank God that's over."
Amelia passed Penny Boots’ bag. "That bad?"
Penny peeked in the bag. Boots was either sleeping soundly or doing a really good job of pretending. She had asked Amelia to watch the serpent during her class since the idea of subjecting Boots to Steele's probing questions made her feel sick. "Thanks for watching her."
"It was hardly difficult." Amelia shoved her head into the bag and cooed. "You're such a precious girl, aren't you?"
Boots finally roused at this, sleepily emerging to flick a tongue at Amelia's nose.
"Suck up." Penny took the bag and headed for a table. "How are you going with that research?"
Amelia groaned and flopped into her seat with a dramatic flounce. "I hate research. Seriously, trawling these ancient message boards full of stuff I don't understand is a whole kind of hell in itself. I mean, there was this whole thing about camping! Cool, I thought, I love camping. But they weren't talking about camping, but some kind of cheat. Or maybe it was just a clever strategy, I don't really know." Amelia pulled a notebook out of her bag and tossed it toward Penny. "This is all I got on Polybius."
Penny flicked the cover open. The book was crammed with neat, tiny handwriting with occasional notes in the margin. A dozen pages in, however, and the rest was blank.
Rather than feel deflated, Penny mustered a grin. "It's better than nothing, and loads better than I could have done, mate."
"Don't get excited until you read it," Amelia warned. “The most interesting thing about the whole damn thing is that there is no information."
"I'm sure it's not that bad." Penny had read Amelia's class notes before and knew her friend was meticulous and concise.
“No, I mean it.” Amelia drummed her fingers on the table. “Whoever this organization is, they’re sneaky. Like, really sneaky. I mean, they’ve been operating for what, four or five months at least? Any other Myther event would have hundreds of posts online about it. This?” Amelia shook her head, solemn. “It’s just not talked about, to the point where it’s like the information has been wiped.”
“How would you even know that?” Penny asked dubiously. If information isn’t there, it simply isn’t there, right?
Amelia opened the notebook and flicked through a few pages. She jabbed a finger at one entry. HunterX: no log entries on relevant days.
“Hunter posts daily, even if nothing new is going on. All the dates I looked up, the days those boys were both reported missing, the days they re-appeared—nothing. Nada, zilch, zero. That’s a giant red flag, Penny.”
“Maybe he was just busy?” Penny suggested. “Did you ask him?”
“Her,” Amelia clarified. “I’m pretty sure it is, anyway. And yeah, I sent her an email.” She fiddled with her phone, reflexively waking it up to check her notifications. “She hasn’t responded yet.”
“That’s because email isn’t safe.” A small girl with black hair slammed a stack of folders on the dining table beside Penny. She lifted a pierced eyebrow and jutted her chin at Amelia. “Seriously, these guys are everywhere, tracking digital footprints and hacking into servers at the drop of a hat to delete information. Why on earth would you think your email is secure?” She tilted her head up and regarded Amelia through narrowed eyes. “What’s your interest in Polybius, anyway?”
Penny opened her mouth to answer but Amelia got in first.
“You’re Hunter X? Little Jessie Grey is Hunter X?” Amelia hastily wiped her grin away when the girl scowled.
Jessie folded her arms and lifted her eyebrows haughtily. “Yeah? So what if I am?”
Amelia pulled a chair out and gestured for the girl to sit. “If you are, we’re in the company of greatness. Hunter X is the online source for all things Myther. No one else is better at sniffing out a mystery or busting a hoax.” She glanced around, then leaned closer. “How’d you get in here? If you get caught sneaking into this academy, they’ll—”
Jessie snorted. “I’m a student, thank you. Cybermyth track.”
“I haven’t seen you in Prof Anand’s class,” Penny pointed out. “What year are you?”
“First.” Jessie grimaced. “They won’t actually let me take Cyber until third semester, but I’ve already got my name down. Trevor was sneaking me notes so I could get a head start on the class. In return, I agreed to help him with his case.”
Penny’s stomach dropped. “You said ‘was.’”
Rolling her eyes, Jessie slapped a hand on the files. “Duh. He disappeared. Taken by those goons who kidnapped the other two geeks, only they haven’t brought Trevor back.”
“But why?” Penny demanded. “Why not drop Trevor back with a bit of mind voodoo?”
“Because he knows too much. And because the three weeks aren’t up. That’s probably relevant.” Jessie leaned forward in her seat. “Look, I know I’m not as old as you guys, or as pretty or cool.” Somehow the look on her face suggested she thought she was actually quite a bit more “pretty and cool” than Penny and Amelia. “And I’m not trained to go out in the field yet. But Trevor was my friend, and he knew something was up with that game. He linked me all the rumors that started in the eighties, and it gets so much weirder.”
She waited for Penny and Amelia to ask before continuing. “Every time I post about it on my boards, the posts disappear a few hours later. There were the two disappearances, and now Trevor...” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Whoever these guys are, they’re smart.” Jessie’s eyes darted around and she stood. “The green folder is the one you want,” she hissed, then added loudly. “Like, yeah, girls. We should totally party this weekend.” Rolling her eyes, she stalked off.
“Who… What?” Penny watched her go, trying not to let her jaw hang open.
“I used to babysit that kid,” Amelia told Penny. “She hasn’t changed a bit.”
“You babysat her?” Penny asked.
Amelia nodded. “She’d probably kill me if she knew I told you, but yeah. She lived at the other end of my street. Her mom was worried her tiny little goth baby wasn’t ‘integrating into society’ enough so she would pay me to watch
her after school.”
“I bet that was a blast.” Penny reached for the green folder. “Did she always have so much attitude?”
Amelia chortled. “No. She probably got it off me, in fact. I’m the one who taught her how to apply that eyeliner and how to stand up to her mom.”
“Oh.” Penny tipped her head to one side, thinking. “How old is she?”
“There are four years between us,” Amelia explained. “So, almost eighteen?”
Penny raised her eyebrows. Eighteen, and Crenel told me they only take the best, the ones with a bit of life experience. “If the Academy brought Jessie in at such a young age, she must have been an outstanding candidate.”
“That, or she blackmailed them.” Amelia didn’t seem to be joking. “But hey, she’s given us a bunch of information. Maybe it’ll help us to find Trevor.”
Penny skipped classes the next day. She holed up in her room with Boots and Amelia, combing through Jessie’s stack of research. It contained lists of arcade machine appearances, dates of disappearances and reappearances, and the address Penny had visited with Red and Amelia. That had been circled in red pen with a post-it note stuck on top that said ‘likely trap.’ Penny snorted at that, then crossed out “likely” and penciled in “definitely.”
It seemed the goons always traveled in pairs and drove nondescript black SUVs. They would always arrive to collect the machine data on schedule, and the money was always left with the owner of the location.
Penny learned that both men who had been kidnapped had interacted with the goons. The younger one who’d disappeared from the pool had argued with one when he was in the middle of a game. They had wanted to “run their update” and clean out the cash box, but he’d insisted on finishing his turn. When they offered him a handful of quarters as “compensation,” he had refused. That day, the goons had simply walked out, climbed in their van, and, according to the dashcam footage of a car that had driven past, radioed someone before driving off.
“How did she even get access to this stuff?” Penny asked. “Let alone track it down in the first place.”
“When she was six, she rigged up her nanny-cam to a looping still so she could sneak into the kitchen and raid the snacks,” Amelia told her proudly. “This was probably a piece of cake.”
What Jessie hadn’t figured out—and what Penny needed to know most—was where the hell they came from. The vans, the machines… All of it must be stored in a location, and that location was more than likely where they were holding Trevor.
“There’s just one more thing to try,” Penny muttered.
“You’re gonna do something really dumb, aren’t you?” Amelia asked.
Penny shrugged one shoulder. “Is it really that dumb if it works?”
Chapter Nineteen
Penny leaned forward to peek around the corner. “There they are!”
Cisco tossed her a helmet and started his bike engine. “Let’s go.”
The low rumble made Penny wince, but she threw a leg over the bike and wrapped her arms around Cisco’s waist. The bike rolled forward smoothly, out of the alley and into the street. Cisco faced the bike away from Tony’s coffee shop, parking it two spaces behind the shiny black SUV instead. Two men were just yanking the front doors open to get into the van.
“You don’t think we’re a little close?” Penny asked him. “This is supposed to be a stealth mission.”
“Best place to hide is in plain sight,” Cisco told her. “Don’t worry. I’ll put some distance between us when they go.”
Ahead, the van’s brake lights glowed, then dimmed as it pulled out into the traffic beside them. Cisco waited for a few cars to pass, then did the same.
“Don’t lose them.” Despite her concerns that they were too close just moments ago, Penny couldn’t help feeling a flare of worry that they would lose their mark. If they did, it would be seven whole days before they’d have another chance.
Cisco nodded, carefully turning into a side lane after the van. He let another car pass at the next corner, but two more peeled away at an intersection, leaving only a garbage truck between the two students and their quarry.
The van picked up speed while the truck lagged behind on the small incline. Then, brake lights glowed as the truck came to a sensible halt at a traffic light that had just turned yellow.
“Shit!” Penny cursed their bad luck. “They’re turning. We’re going to lose them!”
Cisco shook his head and waited patiently for the light to turn green. As soon as it did, he took off, zooming into the turning lane beside them. He wove through traffic, taking a left, then a hard right.
Penny’s head spun but she clung tight to Cisco, trusting him to find his way through the narrow streets and heavy traffic.
“Ha!” The bike stopped abruptly at a red light, and Cisco tapped the side mirror. Penny craned her head over his shoulder to look. The van was behind them, yellow indicator flashing steadily on the left.
Cisco took the corner and the van followed. When it took a second turn, this time without the telltale signal, he almost missed it. “I think they’ve seen us,” he called over the engine. “Time for a costume change.”
He swung the bike around and onto the sidewalk. He kicked out the stand and tore off his helmet and jacket. “The street they took comes around this way. If we run through the park, we should be able to catch them.”
Penny shed her black jacket to reveal a hot pink crop and grabbed one of the skateboards off the bike. She shook out her hair to complete the transformation. To a casual passerby, the two helmeted, black-clad bikers had no resemblance to the brightly dressed skateboarders who sprinted through the tiny green space in the middle of Portland.
“Let’s go!” On the other side of the park, Penny threw her board down and jumped on, crouching low to keep her balance. The van slipped into a side street ahead. She reached into a pocket and depressed the small remote to bring the board—a high-tech electric version capable of matching the traffic around them—up to full speed. Penny gave mental thanks to Mack, who had not only provided the skateboards but spent the morning making sure Penny and Cisco could use them capably.
Penny dodged a cluster of pedestrians, taking a driveway onto the road before racing across it. She flicked the end of the board up, skidding to a halt as Cisco caught up. “That way!” she called. The van was directly ahead, trundling toward an industrial estate. “We’re not gonna have a lot of cover down there.”
“You think?” Cisco pointed at a group of five teenagers flipping boards outside an abandoned building. One tossed a ball of wadded paper at the van as it passed and it bounced off, rolling into the gutter. “We’ll be fine.”
“Sure.” Penny eyed the group. All wore dirty black jeans and monochrome t-shirts. “We’ll totally blend in.”
Tugging her vibrant top down self-consciously, she kicked off again using foot power to propel the skateboard down the broken pavement. The van slowed, and without indicating this time it turned into a gated driveway. Outside, one of two armed guards barked orders into a radio.
Penny casually rode past, watching the slow metal panel pull back. The guards ignored her, focusing instead on the vehicle. She pretended to stumble and trip off the front of the skateboard, and slowly dusted herself off when she’d recovered her footing.
The building loomed over the worn and dusty factories and warehouses around it, standing tall and sharp-edged with expansive mirrored windows cladding the exterior. The compound was surrounded by concrete walls that obfuscated the lower floors, except for Penny’s glimpse as the van rolled through the gate.
Penny stepped back on her board and cruised past, her need for secrecy overriding her desire for a closer look. She had glimpsed several black military-style vehicles and a row of identical white vans inside, but little of the ground floor of the building itself.
“That place is locked down tighter than a leprechaun’s wallet.” Cisco gestured for Penny to keep moving. “And I spotted at le
ast four security cameras pointing at that gate as we went past.”
“Did you see all those guards inside?” she whispered back. “At least a half dozen right at the gates, and a few more scattered near the building. Cisco, how the hell are we going to sneak past them?”
“We?” Cisco shook his head. “You’re kidding, right? We can’t do this ourselves.”
The sudden realization that their job was over made Penny’s knees weak with relief. Of course. She yanked her phone out and called Agent Crenel.
Penny tapped her foot nervously. The chain of black FBI vehicles had passed them at least five minutes ago. “Where is he?”
“He’ll be here,” Cisco assured her confidently.
Crenel had been very clear on his instructions to Penny. “At least three blocks away. I don’t want you anywhere near that place when SWAT gets there, understand? I’ll pick you up on the way.”
Finally, one last black car came cruising around the corner and stopped in front of Penny and Cisco. A door flew open and Crenel barked, “In. Now.”
Penny didn’t wait to be told twice. She jumped in the car and slid across the back seat to make room for Cisco. “Have they found Trevor yet?” she asked eagerly.
Crenel didn’t respond for a moment. When he did, it was in a hard and angry voice. “You kids better have a damn good explanation for leading us on this wild goose chase.”
“Wild… what?” Penny looked at Cisco, who shrugged. “You mean Trevor wasn’t there?”
“Where?” Crenel snapped. “In that empty paddock?”
Penny let out a growl of frustration. “You got the wrong address? How? You track my phone, for crying out loud!”
“Don’t you try and weasel out of this one,” Crenel told her. “My team went to your exact location. Which, yes, matched up to the address you left me.”
Penny pressed a hand against the window. “Why the hell are you driving back to the Academy?”