Amanda appeared among the mass of students crowding the hallway, wearing a look of fierce determination. Charlene knew what they were about to do went against everything Amanda held dear. Knew that for Amanda this was about friendship and loyalty and her dedication to Finn and the Keepers. Knew that she was, like Charlene, dying inside with anticipation.
“Follow me,” Amanda said, all business.
Charlene stepped into line behind her. Amanda made her way to the stairway. They held close to the banister and hurried down, passing other students. They reached the ground floor and continued down to the basement level.
“It’s all about timing,” Amanda said, over her shoulder. “You remember your assignment?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“You have the stockings?”
Charlene held up her balled fist.
The basement level was far less crowded. They walked together down a hallway and turned to the right.
“She’ll be coming by here any minute,” Amanda said, pulling open a door. “Band room. Empty this period.”
“Okay,” said Charlene.
“We’ll be expelled if we do this wrong.”
“I know. So let’s not do it wrong.”
“I’m in the hall. You’re inside, but out of sight,” instructed Amanda.
“I remember.”
“I’ll cough.”
“I know.”
Charlene turned into the darkened room and tucked around the corner, her chest ready to explode. There was a bass drum on a metal stand. Risers with chairs and music stands. An upright piano. She left the lights off, bracing herself for what was to come. She pulled the piece of panty hose down over her hair and head, obscuring her face.
* * *
Amanda wore the section of rolled panty hose on her head like a winter cap, kneeling with her face to the wall, her hands in her computer bag, digging around as if looking for something.
Sally Ringwald came down the hall with two girlfriends. Now came the tricky part.
Without turning, without showing her face, Amanda said, “Hey, Sally, got a minute?”
“I’ll catch up,” Sally told her friends.
As predicted, the two girls turned up the stairs. Amanda had chosen this spot for a reason.
“What’s up?” Sally said to Amanda’s back.
Amanda coughed and pulled the stocking down over her face and turned around, looking like something from a slasher movie.
“What the—”
But Sally didn’t have time to complete her exclamation.
Amanda lifted her hands and pushed. Sally lifted off her feet and flew backward through the doorway, skidding on her bottom across the floor. Amanda stepped through and Charlene pulled the door shut.
When Sally jumped off the floor, she wasn’t even human. She sprang like a mountain lion, crashing into Amanda, her green eyes flashing in the dim light. She and Amanda smacked into the wall by the piano.
Charlene came at her from the side, grabbing an arm. Sally tossed her off like she was a stuffed animal. Charlene landed hard.
Amanda pushed for a second time. Sally lifted off her feet and crashed into a music stand, taking it down as she knocked some folding metal chairs out of the way, landing in a heap. Amanda pushed again. Sally slid on her bottom and was pinned to the riser. Amanda held her there, still pushing, arms extended.
Charlene crossed the room and was slammed to the floor as if a ninety-mile-per-hour wind had struck her. Groaning, she rose, and with Amanda still pushing, Charlene wrestled Sally’s arms behind her back and tangled their legs together, keeping Sally down.
Amanda released her push.
The three girls were panting, out of breath.
Charlene said coarsely, “What do they want?”
Sally wrestled, but couldn’t get free of Charlene’s hold.
“Power,” Sally said through clenched teeth. “What’s anybody want?”
“From us?” Amanda said.
“You’re insignificant. Don’t flatter yourselves.”
“So insignificant that you’re spying on us,” Charlene said, pulling the girl’s arms back harder to make her point. “What’s that make you?”
“Busy,” she said, snickering.
“Who…are…you?” Amanda asked, for the girl’s eyes were wide and evil-looking.
Sally Ringwald laughed. But it wasn’t a girl’s laugh. It was a woman’s. “The future,” she said.
“Not my future,” Charlene said, gasping. It was taking all her considerable strength to restrain Sally’s arms. Both she and Amanda feared what Sally might be capable of if she could get free.
“There is no yours or mine where the future’s concerned. It’s ours. You can either be on the right side or the wrong side,” Sally said.
“There is no side to the future, only to the things we do with it, the choices we make,” Amanda said.
“What do you know? The future always arrives before you can stop it,” said Sally. “Talk to me Saturday morning.”
To Amanda it sounded like a recruiting line. She felt slightly light-headed. The pushing had drained her. Charlene looked as bad as she felt. They were out of time.
“How many of you are there?” This had been the question Philby most wanted asked.
“More each day,” Sally answered. “More than you can possibly imagine.”
“We have big imaginations,” Charlene said, increasing her hold, and winning a wince of pain on Sally’s face.
“Your kind think ‘dreams really do come true’? Then dream on.”
Charlene flashed Amanda a look—her signal she couldn’t hold on much longer. Amanda had been expecting it. She nodded.
“Now!” Amanda called out.
Charlene let go and rolled.
Amanda pushed, sending Sally into a back somersault and into another music stand and more chairs. She and Charlene ran for the door. They got into the hall, and both girls grabbed the door handle together and held on.
The door was struck from the other side by what sounded like a truck. The entire jamb dislocated in the masonry wall.
“On three,” Amanda said. “One…two…three!”
They let go of the door handle, stripped off the panty hose masks, and ran as fast as they’d ever run for the stairway. They heard an enormous crash behind them as they climbed the stairs out of breath.
Reaching the mob scene of students, they slowed, hooked elbows, and walked calmly into the surge of bodies. They heard footsteps flying up the stairs behind them, but never looked back. They were deep enough into the mob that their clothes could not be seen to be identified. They turned into the lunchroom packed with other students.
Amanda looked around for Finn.
He wasn’t there.
FINN SAW GREG LUOWSKI down the school hallway standing at a locker, and recalled their strange encounter on the street. An agent for the Overtakers? Was it possible? Did Wayne’s Kim Possible message about friends turning their backs on you have something to do with Luowski, or only Charlene’s erratic behavior? Luowski could never be considered a friend to Finn, but did Wayne know that?
Next he spotted a woman, wearing a visitor’s sticker, down the hall. She was staring at him, her face vaguely familiar yet unknown to him. The way her gaze locked onto him he had no doubt she was there to see him. Worse, she was upset. Any kid knew that look on the face of a grown-up.
That was when he realized how a stranger could look so familiar: behind the crinkly eyes and puckered lips, Willa looked back at him.
The woman started toward him at the same time Luowski caught Finn staring. Luowski’s menacing expression seemed to say, “You want something?”
Finn looked away rather than provoke the bulldog. He didn’t need Luowski in his face.
“Finn Whitman,” the woman said, now upon him. “I’m—”
“Willa’s mom,” Finn said.
“Yes. We’ve met before but it was some time ago. I need a word with you.”
/> Perfect! What had he done now?
“You have a class in five minutes, so it needs to be now. Right now. That, or we can do this with your parents after school.”
His father? No way! “Next period’s my lunch period,” Finn said. “I’m okay.” Anything but his father.
“Is there someplace we can talk?”
Gulp.
Finn checked out a classroom. Then another. He held the door for her, hoping it might score some points. They entered.
She studied the classroom as if making sure they were alone.
Double gulp.
She ran her tongue into her upper teeth. When his mom did that it was to bite back her words, to keep herself from saying the first thing that came to mind.
“I don’t know where to begin,” she said. “Whatever’s going on, young man, whatever you’re up to, you had better stop it, you had better fix it right now.”
Finn’s heart beat so powerfully that it occupied his entire torso. He was having trouble breathing. He could tell she was just getting warmed up. He held back the wisecracks, wondering why they always came to mind when he found himself in trouble.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m in no mood to play games.”
She’d been crying. He understood that now. Red eyes. Fatigue.
“Say something!” she insisted.
He shrugged. She hadn’t left him many options: he had no idea what she was talking about, but had warned him not to say so.
“Willa is not in school today, in case you haven’t heard.” Her eyes had narrowed to little lasers.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“No, of course you didn’t,” she said sarcastically, making him feel like a liar. His parents did this all the time—answered their own question before giving Finn a chance to speak.
“She doesn’t go here,” he reminded her. How was he supposed to know that Willa had skipped school? Why was he suddenly responsible?
“She’s in bed. Asleep.” Willa’s mother puckered her lips as if about to cry. “Asleep, as in unable to wake up. Like Terrence Maybeck that time. You all have a name for it, I believe? Sleeping Beauty? Something like that.”
He felt like he’d been punched. “The Syndrome,” Finn croaked out. “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.” It had to be something else—anything else. The flu? Food poisoning? The panic started in his legs as a painful chill and ruptured through the rest of him. THE SYNDROME? Did Willa’s mom have any idea of what she was suggesting? For Willa to be in SBS, Philby would have had to cross her over. For Philby to cross her over, he would have at least told Finn, if not all the Keepers. Philby had not told Finn. So either Philby had turned traitor—he recalled Wayne’s Kim Possible warning!—or someone else had crossed her over. Exactly as had happened to Charlene. Both considerations were…terrifying. Which only drove the cold all the deeper into his bones.
“Now, you listen to me, young man.”
Finn felt himself go rigid.
“The Imagineers supposedly repaired the DHI program. They met with us—the parents—and told us that this kind of thing—this crossing over, or whatever you all call it—couldn’t happen again. Wouldn’t happen again. But now it has—to my daughter—and I want some answers.” She sniffled back some tears. “I want Willa back. She’s always said you were the leader. I have several options: the police, the Imagineers, the hospital. Willa made me promise that if anything like this ever happened I would come to you first. So I have. She told me that the Imagineers couldn’t help Terrence, and doctors only made things worse for Dell Philby. So before I take the next step—here I am, awaiting your explanation.”
Finn could barely believe what he was hearing. What if other Keepers were in the Syndrome and he didn’t know about it? What if he was the only one not in the Syndrome? He hadn’t even seen Amanda this morning at school. The cold panic owned him.
“Well, young man?”
“I…ah…The thing is…” What was he supposed to say? He had more questions than she had. All he wanted to do was start texting—but he had Willa’s mom to contend with, and texting was illegal in school. He looked around, considering leaving her standing there and skipping out of school. He muttered, “Yes, it’s true they…the Imagineers…fixed the DHI server.” At least he thought they had. “But there’ve been some glitches in the past couple days. A week, maybe.” His mouth uttered the explanations but his mind was elsewhere—Wayne’s warning, the photo of the Evil Queen with Luowski and others. Did she have the kids working for her? A spell would explain Luowski’s supernatural strength.
He continued, “The Imagineers—Wayne—warned Philby that stuff was happening. If you contact them—the Imagineers—they’ll back that up. As for stopping it? If she’s really crossed over—”
“If? Are you calling me a liar, young man?”
“Oh, come on!” Finn said, suddenly annoyed. He was half-crazed with a mind that couldn’t stop thinking about a million things at once. Why wouldn’t she just go away? “Listen: the same thing happened to Charlene two nights ago. We have no idea what’s going on.” That came out wrong. “We got Charlene back. We can get Willa back. But this is not us. Okay?”
She crossed her arms defiantly. “If you think I am going to stand idly by while my daughter is in a coma, you are gravely mistaken.”
He’d seen his own mother this way. Unpredictable, terror-ridden. Poor Willa! he thought. Stuck in some Park, not knowing how she’d gotten there. Did the Overtakers have her? Why? What did they want?
Just go away, would you? he felt like shouting.
“I will cross over tonight and find her. I’ll bring her back. Promise.” He was promising something he couldn’t necessarily deliver, and he thought they both knew it. The police? That had been mentioned as her first option.
He thought about Wanda being arrested, and now it made so much sense: if the Overtakers wanted to eliminate the competition, where would they start? With Wayne. With Wayne’s daughter. And then, one by one, the Keepers.
He thought about the photo—the green-eyed students with the Evil Queen.
He felt a shiver down to his toes. They were under attack. He’d said that to her, but only now did he fully grasp his own words. It was all-out war, and the Keepers were late to the party.
He needed to settle down, to project confidence. Instead, he felt paranoid. Terrified. Spooked. But he had to keep her from complaining to the police, or even to the Imagineers. The Syndrome was nothing to mess with—not even the Imagineers understood it the way the Keepers did.
He tried to explain: “If you go to the Imagineers, the first thing they’ll do is shut down the DHI servers in each Park. That’s why she told you to come to me first. If the servers are shut down she’s done.” Was that what the OTs wanted? he wondered. To take the Keepers out of the picture by getting the entire DHI system shut down? “She’s in the Syndrome. She wanted you to come to me so that we’d go get her. Let me do that. PLEASE! It’s what she wants to happen.”
“Do not tell me what my daughter wants,” she said, though he could see her processing everything he’d told her. She appraised him with a searching, skeptical eye. She said, “You have one night. Understand? After that, it’s the police, the Imagineers, and the doctors.”
“Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”
“One night. And I’ll tell you something: this is going to be the longest night of my life.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. Her lips trembled. She looked so afraid.
“For what it’s worth, she’s gonna be okay.”
The woman sobbed.
“Go to lunch,” she said, in her motherly way.
Lunch? Finn thought. “Right,” he said, knowing he would head straight to his locker and start sending texts.
* * *
Wlla=SBS Return her asap
Phones weren’t allowed in class, but you could use them outside once school was dismissed. The workaround for the students was to keep their
phones on vibrate in their lockers, where they would check them between classes without being seen. For the ten minutes between classes, the hallways were now less crowded. Instead of mass confusion, a hundred kids had their faces planted inside their lockers as they sent and received texts. Bullies and jocks would take plastic rulers and run down the hallway slapping bottoms, an unpleasant but tolerated punishment for the right to communicate. If a teacher approached, the phone was replaced by a textbook, and the locker was closed. It was almost impossible for them to bust a kid.
When Philby read Finn’s text, he believed it a mistake, or worse, a prank sent by one of the green-eyes. He’d double checked the number: it was Finn.
Willa couldn’t be stuck in the Syndrome because, like Charlene, he’d never crossed her over. More to the point: he’d been monitoring the server’s bandwidth. He had an alarm set. There had been no alarm last night—therefore, Willa had not crossed into the Parks as her hologram. But then he remembered finding Elvis asleep on his laptop. Late for the bus, he’d pushed Elvis off and had shut the laptop’s lid, scooped it off his desk, and stuffed it into his backpack without a second thought.
He felt sick to his stomach. When he’d reopened the laptop at school had the DHI monitoring program been open? He couldn’t remember. He was the last line of defense against the Overtakers. Had he messed up? Had he failed Willa, of all people?
He raced down the hall to Hugo’s locker, his head ready to explode. Willa?
“I’ve gotta borrow your laptop,” he said. He wasn’t asking.
“No, you don’t,” Hugo said. “I need it for science.” Hugo didn’t even look like Hugo. Something was different about him. But everything looked different: The school hallway seemed about two feet wide. Philby’s world was all backward.
“I’ll trade you. You can use mine,” he offered. “You have a data card. I don’t. I need Internet access. I can’t be on the school server. Please!”
“What’s up?”
“Keepers stuff.”
“Such as?”
“Later. I gotta do this now. I’ve got a class. Please.”
Hugo exchanged laptops.
Philby hurried into the boys’ room, locked himself in a stall, and set up Hugo’s computer on his lap while sitting on a toilet seat. He used Hugo’s wireless data card to connect to the Internet, entered the URL for the back door into the DHI server, and typed his log-in password.
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