The Secret Society

by Hannah Hopkins

  Reaching the exclusive third floor of their dormitory, they parted ways, Lois and Finley retreating into the latter’s room, their arms were laden with I-Books and tablets as they prepared for an evening of hard work. Once the others had left, Emily disappeared into her own bedroom, changing into her pyjamas and diving into the depths of her bed. Her body sighed gratefully at the invitation to sleep, and she burrowed under the covers, her mind drifting into unconsciousness seconds after her head had hit the pillow.

  The alarm she had set on her Personal Device began to screech, rousing her from her dreams and informing her through its persistent beeping that it was nine thirty p.m. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the grogginess that had fogged up her brain to lift as she struggled with the turmoil of having to leave her bed. Remembering that Will was waiting for her, she dragged herself reluctantly to her feet, Bertie the Bot whizzing about the floor with excitement as he awaited his instructions.

  “Bertie, get my dark clothes please,” Emily yawned, waiting as the little robot zoomed over to her wardrobe, picking out her black jumpsuit in his small, metal hands and bringing it back over to her.

  She dressed hastily, stepping outside into the corridor where Will was already waiting, kitted out in his own inconspicuous attire. They exchanged a brief greeting and began to walk towards the lift, both equally keen to get to their mission for the evening. Neither of them spoke until they were out on the school grounds, the eerie silence causing adrenaline to surge through Emily’s body. Despite the fact they were allowed to be there, being out after curfew still provided Emily and Will with a certain thrill, the exhilaration causing them to move at a swift pace as they made their way towards the main school building.

  “I hope you’re right about Mr. Mayhem being involved in all this,” Will said as they passed under the giant statue of Novum, using their special privileges to open the buildings main entrance.

  “I have a really strong feeling that he is,” Emily replied. “The way he kept looking over his shoulder in the Tech Lab makes me think he’s paranoid that someone’s coming to break in. Maybe he’s keeping something important in his classroom.”

  “In that case, we’ll have to make sure we pass by the Lab every night on our patrol. Otherwise, we might miss something.” Will concluded.

  “Agreed,” Emily nodded,

  Entering the school, they navigated their way across the dark Reception Hall, the torchlight from Will’s Personal Device shining on the face of the no-eyed man, illuminating the curves of his bronze features. Emily continued to check behind her shoulder as their footsteps echoed noisily on the tiled floor, a chill shooting down her spine as her instinct told her they were not alone.

  They ascended to the second floor, every whir and click of the lift’s mechanisms audible in the quiet of the night. When they reached the corridor, they were plunged into an impenetrable gloom that seemed to swallow up everything around them, their passage through the black lit only by the pinprick of torchlight still glowing from Will’s wrist. They moved ahead slowly, running their hands along the wall to stop themselves from bumping into it.

  They rounded the corner and came to an abrupt halt, startled by the sight of a light on in one of the classrooms.

  “Is that the Tech Lab?” Emily whispered.

  “I think so,” Will whispered back, jumping as a loud clattering noise emitted from the room.

  “What should we do?” Emily breathed.

  “Wait a minute,” Will instructed her, putting his arm out to block her from making any impulsive movements.

  The two of them froze, listening intently as they waited to see if whoever was responsible for the racket would reveal themselves.

  “I’m sure it was here somewhere,” they heard Mr. Mayhem exclaim. “I’m certain of it.”

  There was the sound of desks scraping and chairs overturning as he searched frantically for whatever it was he was looking for. Will and Emily looked at each other in bewilderment, convinced that their Technology teacher had finally gone insane.

  “Aha!” he cried victoriously. “I knew I’d find it. I just need to make some repairs…”

  His voice trailed off as he began to mutter incoherently to himself, tinkering with bits of noisy machinery that screeched and squealed as he made his alterations to the mystery item.

  “What do you think he’s doing?” Emily asked Will over the clattering.

  “I don’t know,” Will frowned. “Let’s wait and see what happens.”

  They stood still for several minutes, lingering in the shadows while Mr. Mayhem continued to potter about in his classroom, crying out with triumph then cursing with frustration only moments later. Emily stole several glances at Will from the corner of their eye as they waited, wondering whether he would choose to speak to her again before the night was over. Eventually, she worked up the courage to bring up the conversation she’d been wanting to have with him since the start of the year.

  “How are things going with you and Matina?” she asked casually, avoiding making eye contact with Will as the question hung in the air.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” he replied, his voice warped with confusion.

  “Nothing, I was only wondering,” Emily shrugged.

  “Well, if you must know, it’s going really well,” he answered with a grin, his face reddening slightly at the confession.

  “Oh,” Emily said stupidly, her heart sinking into her stomach.

  “That wasn’t what you were expecting me to say, was it?” Will observed.

  “I just never would have put the two of you together, that’s all,” Emily admitted.

  “Neither would I before I got to know her,” Will agreed, “but she really understands me. I can talk to her about anything.”

  “Like what?” Emily demanded, anger taking over her cool façade. “What can you talk to her about that you can’t tell anyone else?”

  “All kinds of things,” Will shrugged. “I talk to her about my dad sometimes. She doesn’t get along with her mum, so she sympathises. She says she knows what it’s like to feel like you’ve only got one parent.”

  “And I don’t?” Emily snapped.

  “That’s not what I mean,” Will defended himself. “It’s different with Matina, though. She knows what to say.”

  “Well, good for her,” Emily said sarcastically, unable to help herself. Before Will could respond, they were interrupted by a loud bang coming from Mr. Mayhem’s classroom, followed by the sound of the teacher crying out. Without a moment’s hesitation, they ran in the direction of the commotion, bursting into the Tech Lab to see Mr. Mayhem buried under a pile of robotic limbs.

  Leaning forward, Emily and Will each took one of Mr. Mayhem’s arms, pulling him out from the heap and helping him to his feet. He staggered backwards, brushing imaginary dust from his perfectly clean lab coat and blinking as he looked dazedly around the Tech Lab

  “Are you alright, Sir?” Emily asked him, watching with concern as he started searching his own pockets in a frenzy.

  “Yes, yes, I’m-” he paused, blinking as Emily and Will’s presence registered in his mind for the first time. “Hang on a minute, what are you two doing here? Isn’t it past curfew?”

  “Miss Fortem has granted us special permission to be out of bed after hours,” Will explained. “She wants us to try and find out what’s been going on at the school, what with all the weird occurrences and things going missing.”

  “She has sent children to investigate?” Mr. Mayhem said with horror. “What in the Universe is she thinking? This isn’t a game, you know.”

  “We know, Sir,” Emily re-assured him. “We want to get to the bottom of it. We know something serious is going on.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help you?” Will asked, as Mr. Mayhem hunted desperately around the room, throwing expensive gadgets onto the floor whenever they got in his way.

  “If you want to be useful, you can help me find it,”
Mr. Mayhem replied, without stopping to look round.

  “Help you find, what?” Emily pressed him.

  “It doesn’t have a name yet,” Mr. Mayhem sighed, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. “It’s one of my most recent inventions. I created it when I-Tech started rolling out their robot minions. I don’t trust that company. I know what they’re real agenda is. Power. They’ll do anything they can to get it. All these lies about the robot Guards being installed to keep us safe from the Vacuous… It’s a ploy. They’re just trying to enforce more ways of controlling the passengers on the Mayfly. I know this. But I’m not the only one. The Secret Society know it too, and that’s why they want my invention.”

  “What invention, Sir?” Will asked.

  “It’s a small device that can be used to override the programming of any piece of artificial intelligence from a remote distance,” he answered, his eyes roaming the floor for the missing piece of technology.

  “Er- I don’t follow,” Will replied.

  “So…it’s basically a remote that can control any robot?” Emily interjected. “It can be used to give orders to them, even if it goes against the orders they have ingrained in their system?”

  “Yes, yes, exactly,” Mr. Mayhem nodded. “The only problem is, there’s still a lot of glitches. I’ve been trying to get it to work properly but, so far, all that I’ve succeeded in doing is deleting the most recent orders the robots have received, allowing them to act on free will. It’s my fault that German girl got attacked the other day. I was testing the device out, trying to see if I could get the security bots to leave their stations guarding the stadium. However, unfortunately, all that happened was that I enabled them to do whatever they wanted to do, which for some reason turned out to be trying to attack Weltraumschule’s Rocket Racing captain.”

  “That was you!” Will exclaimed. “Does anyone know about this?”

  “No, no one knows anything,” he replied. “I’d prefer if it was kept that way, too.”

  “Why did the robots want to attack Heidi?” Emily asked with unease. “She wasn’t exactly a threat to them.”

  “Who knows?” Mr. Mayhem replied. “Perhaps they had developed some kind of loyalty to the school and wanted our team to win the race. Or maybe they see everybody who’s not from the Mayfly as a danger. There’s no way to be certain. The only thing we can safely conclude from the event is the importance of keeping my device out of the wrong hands.”

  “You think the Society of the Enlightened wants the device,” Wil surmised. “So that they can disable all the security on the Mayfly and take over?”

  “Precisely,” Mr. Mayhem nodded. “All the signs indicate that's their plan. Once word had spread about the invention I had created, I started noticing things. People I had never met before started staring at me from metres away, thinking I wouldn’t notice. There was a man, constantly on my tail, diving into the shadows every time I turned around to look at him. Things started to move around in my apartment. The changes were subtle enough, but I knew somebody other than myself had been in there. Whoever was in there must have an aptitude for technology to be able to get past my security system. At first, I thought the incidences simply meant that someone had a vendetta against me, but then I saw a man in a red cloak, running around the corner of the hallway where I live. It was the same attire worn by the man in the broadcast the day the Society of the Enlightened hijacked the screen in the lobby. That’s when I realised it’s them who are after me.”

  “If you know they want your robot-controlling device, why didn’t you just destroy it?” Will frowned. “Why bring it here to the Academy if you know that it’s dangerous?”

  “My boy, I can’t destroy it,” he shook his head vigorously. “We may well need to be able to stop the AI on the Mayfly one day. The best I can do is try and get it to work properly. At least then if the Society does succeed in taking it from me, it won’t cause the mass pandemonium that would ensue should it be used on the Guards before it’s properly functioning.”

  “Is that what all this is?” Will asked him, gesturing to the pile of dismembered robot limbs they had rescued him from. “You’ve been testing it out?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Mayhem nodded. “I stole a few of Miss Fortem’s security bots before they were returned to I-Tech. I was trying to use it on one of them, but it caused the thing to attack me. I had to use an Obliterator Gun to defend myself, and, well, you can see the consequences of that for yourselves.”

  “We’d better find your device quickly,” Emily proposed. “If it causes all the bots it’s used on to act on free will, we need to make sure it stays in your possession before there’s a repeat of what happened on Earth during the War against A.I.”

  “My thoughts precisely,” Mr. Mayhem agreed. “It must be around here somewhere…”

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” a cold, male voice called from the doorway. The three of them started, whipping their heads in the direction of the speaker, who was leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe. His identity was disguised by the thick, red hood of his cloak, which threw his face into shadow. In his hands was a small, black, rectangular object, which he tossed arrogantly into the air, catching it again as he taunted Mr. Mayhem with his possession of the item.

  “That’s it!” Mr. Mayhem shouted. “Give it back, right now! You don’t know what you’re doing!”.

  The hooded man laughed mirthlessly.

  “Oh, you foolish old man,” he chuckled. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Get him!” Will yelled, running towards the figure at full pelt and crashing into him with force. The man pushed Will to the ground in one, easy motion, withdrawing a weapon from his back pocket and pointing it in his direction. Will flung his hands into the air, shuffling backwards across the floor as fast as he could muster.

  “Don’t try and stop me!” the man shouted. “Or I’ll shoot.”

  He pointed the weapon from Will to Emily and then back again.

  “As for you, old man,” he continued, aiming the weapon at Mr. Mayhem. “You have no idea how useful you have been, inventing this ingenious device. That usefulness is the only reason you’re still alive. I have what I need now. I suggest you let me take it before I run out of reasons not to kill you.”

  Mr. Mayhem swallowed hard, dithering between risking his life and allowing the safety of every passenger on the Mayfly to be put in jeopardy. Before he could decide how to act, the man spoke again, his voice full of unconcealed joy.

  “Our day is here,” he said with triumph, turning and running from the door as fast as he could manage, the bottom of his cloak sweeping against the floor as he went.

  15.

  The Stolen Girl

  Veronica dipped her toe into the steaming, hot bath water, submerging herself in her metal tub as she prepared to unwind after yet another long, hard day. The warm water enveloped her body, and she sighed, allowing the many stresses that came with being Headmistress of the school to seep away. Relaxation softening her mind, she reached over and tapped on the small touch screen at the edge of the I-Bath, ordering herself a glass of red wine, which promptly appeared from a small hatch beside the taps. She heaved herself upwards, retrieving the glass before lying back down into a cloud of soapy bubbles. A combination of the wine and the heat sent her mind into a pleasant reverie, protecting her thoughts from wandering back to the disastrous Rocket Race, which she had been fixating on since the security bot fiasco had occurred.

  She had planned to stay in her bath all evening, instructing the friendly, male persona who narrated the I-Bath to top the hot water up every half an hour until she became too tired to stay there any longer. It seemed, however, that fate had other plans for her, a loud knock on the door bringing her jolting back to reality. She looked at the time on her Personal Device, which revealed that it was quarter to eleven in the evening. Wondering who would come to call at such a late hour, she sprung from the bathtub and strode across the room, dressing swift
ly in a long, blue nightgown and matching silk robe. Pulling on a pair of sturdy shoes, she moved seamlessly across her apartment, weaving through her expensive white and grey furnishings with care, making sure not to bump into her coffee table, where her rose gold ornaments were perching delicately on the surface.

  When she reached the front door, she flung it open, surprised to see a shaken Mr. Mayhem standing on the other side, flanked by Emily and Will.

  “Is everything alright?” she demanded, wrapping her gown tightly around herself and folding her arms.

  “No, not really, Miss,” Emily replied. “Can we come in?”

  Taken aback by the girl’s boldness, Veronica stepped back, allowing them into her apartment. Mr. Mayhem walked forward on wobbling legs, clutching onto the side of her plush, cream sofa to stop himself from losing his balance. Feeling courteous, Veronica strode over to her drinks machine, providing a cold glass of icy water for each of her guests. They each sipped their beverages gratefully, seeming to calm down from whatever event had clearly had them riled a few minutes previously. Once they had all settled in, Veronica stood before them, pacing the room as she insisted they explain what in the Universe was going on.

  “They stole it,” Mr. Mayhem said gravely, his eyes unfocused as he replayed the traumatic incident in his mind.

  “Somebody has stolen from you?” Veronica questioned him, irritated by the mysterious delivery of his answer.

  “We think it was The Society of the Enlightened,” Will replied, the words tumbling out of his mouth in his haste to explain.

  “What are you talking about?” Veronica sighed, fast becoming exasperated by their story.