Rowan pointed to the security station computer. “Can’t you just unlock everything?” he asked. “End the quarantine?”
Noah smiled and raised his hands. “Not that I tried something like that. But if I had, then I might’ve figured out that it can only be done from the main security console. Not one like this.”
I laughed. “Not that you would’ve tried anything like that.”
Noah shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no.”
Sam rolled her eyes.
Noah led the way as we jogged down the corridors. After a couple of turns, Noah checked his app again and looked up. “Okay, the entrance is right around here, two floors above us.”
I turned to Rowan. “All right. You’re up.”
Rowan grinned and darted to the nearest B-bot hole. He crawled through and disappeared inside. The three of us glanced around, wondering where the hidden door would be.
When I was little, my mom and dad used to read me stories about castles full of hidden passageways and secret rooms. I wonder if my dad had any of that in mind when he helped design this place.
It seemed as if Rowan was gone for too long. I began to wonder if he had run off again when part of the wall swung open a few meters away.
“Sorry,” he said. “I had trouble finding this one.”
“No problem,” I said. “And great job.”
He held the door open as Sam and I followed Noah inside. When the door clicked shut behind us, Noah checked his phone and headed back in the direction where we had been waiting and searched for an access ladder. Luckily, we found one nearby, and climbed up to the next level.
When we reached the next floor, everyone scanned the area for another ladder. They seemed to be staggered on each floor, so there wasn’t one in plain sight. We carefully stepped over parked B-bots while looking for the next one. Noah kept his eyes on the map, keeping track of how far we strayed from our objective.
Just then a growl echoed through the thin passage.
“What was that?” Sam whispered.
“Sounds like an animal,” I replied.
“Does your dad do animal experiments?” asked Rowan.
“No way,” I replied.
The growl grew louder.
“Look,” Noah whispered. He pointed to a nearby corner.
The shape of an animal was projected on the opposite wall. It bared sharp teeth as the shadow grew larger.
11 The Abduction Deduction
“WHAT IS THAT?” ROWAN ASKED as he sidestepped behind me.
The growling grew louder and then something darted around the corner. I stopped short, confused, when one of the B-bots wheeled into view. Was something wrong with its motor? And what had made the shadow?
Then something else tore around the corner. It was Otis! The little Chihuahua ran after the robot, teeth bared, with a low growl rising from his throat. The little dog’s back legs were suspended off the ground as his back end rode inside a bright green cart.
“Otis!” Rowan shouted as he moved ahead of me.
The Chihuahua skidded to a stop and cocked his head. Then he panted and ran toward Rowan, the B-bot all but forgotten. His cart’s wheels whirred behind him.
Rowan knelt and stroked the excited dog. “Amy fixed you up good, huh, boy?”
“How did he get here?” asked Sam.
“Otis!” called Amy’s distant voice.
Sam, Noah, and I looked at one another. Then we scooted past Rowan and Otis and ran down the tiny corridor. We rounded the corner and spotted Amy’s head poking through one of the robot holes. When she saw us, she squeaked in surprise and ducked out of sight.
“Amy!” Sam shouted. “It’s okay, it’s us.”
We crouched around the opening and Amy slowly poked her head back through. “How did you get in there?” she asked. Then her eyes widened. “Did you see Otis?”
“Yeah, he’s with Rowan,” Noah replied.
“Rowan’s in there too?”
I stood and glanced around. Luckily, one of the access doors was nearby. I pushed it open and found myself in the 3-D printing lab. Amy got to her feet when Sam and Noah followed me out. Noah grabbed a nearby stool and propped open the door.
Usually, Amy didn’t have a hair out of place or a wrinkled garment in sight. Now, however, her hair was frizzed while her face and clothes were covered with dirt.
“What happed to you?” I asked. “Are you all right?”
Amy tightened her lips as she tried to smooth down her hair. “Oh… Otis had been giving those robots the stink eye all day,” she explained. “And when I finally finished his cart and got him all set up, was he grateful?” She threw her hands up. “No! The first thing he did was go after one. He chased it into the wall and wouldn’t come back no matter how much I called him.” She shook her head. “I tried to go in after him…” Then she let out a long breath. “I didn’t fit.”
Amy must have been really upset. That’s the most she had ever blurted out at once.
Amy opened her mouth to continue and then stopped. She squinted at us. “What were you doing in there?”
We quickly explained our theory of the fake lockdown, how we found the access tunnels, and where we were headed.
Amy pointed to the robot hole in the wall. “But if you can go anywhere you want now, shouldn’t you go to the cafeteria and warn someone?”
“We will,” I said. “But I want to go up to the server room to be sure.”
“Otherwise the quarantine is real, and we might be spreading some kind of virus to everyone else,” Noah said with a chuckle.
Amy’s eyes darted between the three of us before slowly pulling her shirt collar over her mouth and nose.
“Otis seems so happy,” Rowan said as he stepped out of the access tunnel. Otis panted as he proudly trotted out behind the boy. “Good job, Amy.”
Amy knelt and scratched the little dog behind the ears. “I still have some adjustments to make.”
I anxiously glanced at the open doorway. Who knew how long we’d have to find out who was in the server room?
“What do you think, Amy?” I asked. “You in?”
My shyest friend, who always followed the rules and tried her best to not draw attention to herself, gave a devious grin and nodded. “Oh yeah.”
Amy gently unstrapped Otis from his new cart and placed him back into his carrying pouch. Once the pouch was secure, she strapped the little cart to one of her belt loops and followed us into the tunnel.
Noah led the way with his app and quickly spotted another access ladder. When we reached the next level, the temperature was considerably cooler. As Noah then led us around another corner, the white noise of cooling fans grew louder and the temperature dropped.
Noah checked his phone and then pointed to the wall on our left. “This should be the server room.”
“That’s why it’s so cold?” Sam remarked.
All the spinning hard drives in one room generated a lot of heat. Lots of places had entire air-conditioning systems dedicated to keeping them cool. Swift Enterprises seemed to be no exception. Thanks to a mishap with a missing drone, Noah and I knew firsthand that the academy used a similar system.
“Look,” Amy said, pointing to the bottom of the wall.
Another B-bot rolled through another access hatch that had clear plastic strips hanging over it. The strips helped keep most of the cool air in the server room while letting the robots easily push through.
The robot pulled to a stop over this area’s trash chute, and the trapdoor fell away just before the robot dumped its payload.
But this time, there was a sound of something big and heavy going down the chute. It clanked and thudded, bouncing off the sides as it went down. My friends and I glanced at one another.
“What was that?” asked Sam.
“Sounded big,” said Noah.
The robot left the chute and parked at a nearby charging station. As soon as its red light appeared, another B-bot pulled away from the wall. It rolled
into the server room through another hatch, easily pushing through the plastic flaps.
I got to the floor and peered through the tiny doorway. Noah crawled over and stuck his head next to mine. Sam, Rowan, and Amy crouched near another doorway.
“I can’t see anyone,” he said.
“Me either,” I agreed.
All I could see were the seemingly endless racks of hard drives. An organized web of cables attached them to each other. The many cooling fans going at once made it impossible to hear footsteps of any kind. But I did hear something else.
“Is that whistling?” whispered Noah.
“Yeah,” I replied. Someone was in the server room, all right. And he or she was whistling.
Then I caught some movement. A shadow moved between two of the server racks. The glimpse was so brief that I couldn’t make out any of the person’s features. And even though the plastic flaps on the robot ports were clear, they were scuffed and cloudy, making it even harder to catch any detail.
Suddenly something blocked my view.
“Uh-oh, look out,” I said, pulling my face away from the opening.
Noah and I had barely kept from being rammed by one of the B-bots. It trundled through and headed for the trash chute.
“Grab it,” Noah ordered.
I had the exact same idea. My hands were already on it, and I lifted it off the ground. Its wheels spun helplessly.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
I flipped the robot onto its back. “Let’s see what these things are dumping.”
The robot had a curved suction vent near its front and two large doors covering most of its middle. They looked like mini bomb-bay doors, hinged on the outside with a slit down the middle. I tried to pry them open but I couldn’t get any leverage.
I looked up at the others. “Does anybody have a—”
Before I could finish the question, Amy knelt beside me and reached into Otis’s pouch. “Excuse me, Otis,” she said as she pulled out what looked like a rolled-up piece of black canvas. She untied a cord and unrolled the cloth on the floor. Several thin pockets were sewn into the canvas, and each held a small tool.
Amy fished out a screwdriver and jammed it between the doors. After some effort, they snapped open to reveal an odd-shaped package inside.
“What is it?” asked Rowan.
I removed the package and turned it over in my hands. It was something wrapped tight in Bubble Wrap and clear packing tape.
“I don’t suppose you have a knife in…”
Amy already had a craft knife removed from the tool pouch and held it out to me, handle first.
I took the knife and gently slit the packing tape. Then I unrolled the Bubble Wrap to reveal a thick gray box about the size of a large phone.
Noah gasped. “Dude, that’s a hard drive,” he said. “Someone’s stealing data from your dad’s company.”
A knot tightened in my stomach. Not only had someone faked a quarantine, but that same person was using the distraction to steal from my father. There was no telling what kind of secrets were on this drive.
“Stealing?” asked Rowan. He pointed to the trash chute. “Aren’t they just getting thrown away?”
“Exactly,” said Sam. “Why smuggle these through security when you can pick them out of the trash later?”
Rowan’s eyes widened. “Whoa.”
A familiar clunking sound got everyone’s attention. We turned to see that another B-bot had just dropped its payload into the garbage chute. And from the sound of it going down, it was yet another hard drive.
“We have to tell someone,” Amy said.
Of course I didn’t know every person in my father’s company, but I knew a lot of them. Most were friendly, cheerful people who seemed to truly enjoy their jobs. From what I had heard over the years, Swift Enterprises was a cool company to work for. Everyone thought my dad was a great boss who treated people fairly. I couldn’t believe one of his employees would betray him like that. I felt my mouth harden as I shook my head in disgust.
I handed Amy the hard drive. “Hold this, will you?” Then I crawled back to the robot hatch, but I still only caught movement near the bottom of the server racks.
I turned to my friends, who were already back at their own openings. “Can anyone see who’s in there?”
Sam and Amy shook their heads. “The angle is too low,” Sam said.
“I’ll find out,” said Rowan. He climbed toward the hatch and shimmied through before I realized what he was talking about.
“Rowan, no!” I said to him. But by that time, I was just talking to his sneakers. Then they, too, disappeared into the server room.
Sam and Amy crowded around one hatch while Noah and I looked through the other. From our angle, we could see Rowan crawling along one of the outside racks, and we could still hear the faint whistling, so we knew his cover wasn’t blown. Then Rowan turned a corner and scrambled out of sight between the racks.
“That kid’s crazy,” I said, shaking my head.
“Hmm… he acts first and thinks later,” Noah added. “Remind you of anyone?”
I cut Noah a quick glare before shuffling over to Sam and Amy. “Can you see him?” I asked.
“Not anymore,” said Amy.
I could still hear the whistling amid the steady roar of the fans.
“I see movement,” Sam reported. “But I can’t tell if it’s Rowan or not.”
“Oh, yeah,” Amy pointed. “Over there… nope. It’s gone.”
I couldn’t stand to watch anymore, so I paced nervously behind them. What if this thief was violent? What if Rowan was discovered and the thief didn’t want any witnesses?
Suddenly the flaps flew up from one of the openings and we all jumped with a start. Then Rowan grinned as he poked his head through. “I saw him,” he announced as he began to shimmy back in.
We ran over and gathered around him.
“Okay, it’s a him,” Noah said, crouching beside the opening. “Did you recognize him?”
“No,” Rowan replied.
Then the whistling stopped.
Sam cocked her head. “Uh, guys…”
“It’s okay,” Rowan said. “I can go back and…” His eyes widened and his arms flailed as he was jerked back into the server room.
12 The Observation Complication
I DOVE FOR THE OPENING and just caught Rowan’s hand before it disappeared. Noah reached in and grabbed the other one. We pulled until Rowan’s face was through the opening again.
“He’s got me! He’s got me!” Rowan shouted.
Sam and Amy crowded in and grabbed on to his arms as well. Otis barked and Rowan yelled as we played tug-of-war with whoever was on the other side of the wall.
When more of Rowan had been pulled through, I reached down and grabbed his belt. I placed my feet against the wall to get more leverage. I grunted as I pushed with my legs and pulled with my arms. Once Noah got into a similar position, we made better progress. With all four of us pulling, Rowan finally came all the way through. We landed in a heap against the opposite wall.
“Are you okay?” Amy asked Rowan as we scrambled to our feet.
He shivered and his lower lip trembled. “I… I just want my dad.”
“Okay, let’s get out of here!” I said. I didn’t know if the thief knew how to get into the service tunnel, so I wanted to put as much distance between him and us as possible.
I led the way as we took off down the narrow corridor. I hopped over a robot, darted around the corner, and hit the access ladder, practically sliding down it to the floor below.
Once everyone was down the ladder, we stopped panting. “Can you find the shortest route to the cafeteria?” I asked Noah.
“Working on it,” Noah replied as he swiped at his phone. He led the way down the narrow tunnel. “This way… ow!” He tripped over a B-bot.
We followed Noah to the next ladder and then through more twisting service tunnels. After we descended yet another ladder, No
ah stopped to get his bearings. He consulted his app again.
“We’re almost there,” he announced.
After two more turns, Noah stopped and pointed to the robot opening in front of him. “If I’m right, this should be near the back of the cafeteria.”
I scanned the wall and quickly found the door. I hit the push bar and swung it open. Noah was right, we were at the back of the cafeteria, near the vending machines.
“Eep!” cried a startled Maggie Ortiz, her dollar nearly falling from her outstretched hand.
“Hi,” I said, giving her a small wave.
She stared blankly as the rest of us filed into the cafeteria. Other than Maggie, no one else noticed our arrival. Everyone was just as we saw them on the monitors, sitting at tables, milling around, and just generally looking bored. What a fun field trip this had turned out to be.
“Okay, who do we report this to?” asked Sam.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Someone in security? Or that guy my dad left in charge, Mr. Brodigan?”
“What if one of them is in on it?” asked Noah.
Rowan pushed past me. “I’m going to go find my dad.”
“Wait,” I said, but it was too late. He disappeared into the crowd of kids.
“You know he’s our only eyewitness, right?” asked Noah.
I nodded. “I’ll find him. But everyone else split up, okay?” I asked. “We should all report it to someone different, just in case.”
“Got it,” said Sam.
“Okay,” said Amy.
“On it,” said Noah.
We separated and I made my way through the crowded cafeteria. It wasn’t long before I spotted Rowan, his eyes scanning the room. I caught his eye and waved him over.
“I can’t find my dad,” he said.
“Maybe he was in another part of the building when everything locked down, like we were,” I suggested. “But I’ll help you look. Just stick with me for now.”
Rowan moved away but I kept an eye him while I scanned the group for his dad. But then I spotted Mr. Brodigan. “Mr. Brodigan!” I called, waving him over.
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