Cragbridge Hall, Book 1: The Inventor's Secret Hardcover

by Chad Morris

“You’ve got to try to help us, Derick,” Abby pleaded. “You’ve got to try—”

  “I can’t,” he said louder. “I can’t.”

  “Ple—”

  “I can’t!”

  There was a long moment of silence. Abby’s emotions rose within her. She couldn’t stand it. She needed her brother—she desperately needed him. He couldn’t give up.

  “Do you have any idea ...” Abby choked on the last word. “Do you have any idea how often . fail? Do you know how many times I try something and it doesn’t work, or I’m left in the crowd? Once again, I’m mediocre Abby. Every time report cards come out, I want to bury myself in a hole. I try and I try, but I still never come close to what you can do. Whenever we come to a place like this, it takes you two seconds to make new friends, but I ...” Tears were welling up in Abby’s eyes. “I try to be nice, I try to talk to people, and I don’t know if I get too nervous, or if I’m trying too hard, but it just doesn’t work. Or when you invent something, or when one of your theories blows some teacher’s mind, and someone finds out about it, I’m happy for you, I really am, but it’s also just one more reminder that even though I was only born two minutes after you, I’m years behind. And what’s worse, it feels like I’ll never, ever catch up. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to quit? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wanted to use the excuse that I’m just not as good as you to not try anymore?” Abby paused, surprised at how intensely she had come after her brother.

  No response.

  Abby looked back and saw both Carol and Rafa. How long had they been there? Long enough. Rafa looked away and Carol’s eyes were wide.

  “Look,” Abby said to the door. “I need you. I can keep trying, and I won’t quit, but I need you on this one. I need ...” She couldn’t finish. “Please, just open the door.”

  Abby waited for several minutes.

  “At least give me the key,” she said. “I have to try.”

  The door never opened, but the key slid out from beneath it.

  26

  Shock

  Abby sat through her last classes, fingering the key in her pocket. She couldn’t concentrate at all. She could think only about facing the simulator and wondering what to do with the information Rafa had given her about Charles Muns. Worse, she had to wait more than two hours for the halls to clear out enough that she could trigger the brick wall without being seen.

  Now Abby stood at the dead-end hallway. It was time.

  “Are you ready?” Carol asked. She had come from behind and startled Abby.

  “Yes,” she said, after regaining her composure. “At least as ready as I’m going to get.”

  “Wait!” a voice yelled from down the hall. Abby turned to see Rafa coming toward them. “You have to come with me.”

  “No,” Abby said, “I have to do this.”

  “Not yet,” Rafa said. “We have something to show you.”

  “‘We’?” Abby asked.

  “Yes,” Rafa said with a smile. “We—Derick and I.”

  Abby felt a wave of relief. Derick had helped. She followed Rafa down to the Bridge booths with Carol not far behind. Rafa pointed to a booth where a group could use the Bridge. Abby stepped inside, and there was Derick, still in his clothes from the day before and his hair wildly messed up. Abby threw her arms around him.

  “Hey, sis,” he said.

  “Thanks for helping,” Abby said. “I was so worried. You—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I shouldn’t have ... and I’m sorry I never stopped to realize how hard things must be for you too—”

  “Oh, never mind about that,” Abby said, not wanting to cry again. “Just ... thanks.”

  “Sure,” Derick said. “But I don’t know if you want to hear this. It’s bad.” He bit his bottom lip and rubbed the stress from the back of his neck. “It’s worse than you’ve ever imagined.”

  Abby and Carol looked at each other, then back at Derick.

  “After you left, and I decided to quit sulking and actually do something, I looked up Muns. I did all the research I could before school got out. I found something I think might help us—a long list of complaints against Muns. He has fired his fair share of people, and he always does it with a certain style. Once, one of his communications men was caught secretly filming decision meetings and posting them in chat rooms for people who paid to see them. So Muns secretly filmed himself firing that same man and streamed the video over the same channel. Another time, one of his financial advisors got a small website business for the company out in South Africa. The deal was a front to embezzle money. Muns had his advisor relocated to South Africa, and then he sold the company. He prosecuted the man internationally to keep the guy in South Africa for seven years. It wasted a ton of money. Sounds like Muns doesn’t cut corners on revenge.”

  “So what’s the point?” Carol asked. “Other than Muns really wanting to get even when he fires people. What’s he going to do with your grandpa? Hire him to fire him? That seems stupid.”

  “No,” Derick said. “Worse. The point is that Muns likes to do things in his own style, and we should study it. If he did something to Grandpa and our parents, then—”

  “Then it might fit with something—a meeting or a relationship—they had in the past,” Abby finished.

  “Right. I figured out why his name was so familiar to me,” Derick said. “I couldn’t believe I didn’t remember before.”

  “It didn’t sound familiar to me,” Abby said.

  “Rafa, will you show them?” Derick said. Then to Abby and Carol, he added, “I found this out by watching Grandpa’s journal. I’m not sure you can find it anywhere else.”

  Rafa found the date of the debate between Oscar Cragbridge and Charles Muns.

  Seeing her grandfather’s face again was hard for Abby.

  “One time, Grandpa and Charles Muns debated on the ethics of time travel,” Derick said.

  “Really?” Carol asked. “Time travel? That seems a bit out there. They’ve made some pretty good movies over the years, but it’s all fiction. Except for the one with Joey Noel—I wish that one were real. I’d let myself get trapped any time with him. But, I mean, your grandpa is the best inventor ever—why talk about something so crazy?”

  “At the time,” Derick said, “Both he and Muns believed that time travel was possible, but Grandpa was a bit wary of it. Just watch. This is the part I couldn’t stop thinking about.”

  All four students watched as the smooth billionaire and the inventor exchanged arguments. Clearly, they saw the issue completely differently.

  “Let me give you another example,” Muns said, moving from behind his podium. “What about the Titanic? What if you had the power to warn the captain and prevent more than fifteen hundred people from dying in the icy waters of the Atlantic? What would you do?”

  Cragbridge bowed his head. “Even if I could prevent the tragedy,” he said slowly, “I would not change it. I would sit in this room and cry all over again for the victims.” He raised his head. “We cannot change the past. We can learn from it and then look ahead. We make our own futures, building on the foundations of our past.”

  “No!” Muns said. “If my team discovers the secrets to time travel—and we will—we will right all wrongs. We will correct the mistakes of history.” He looked at Cragbridge for a reply.

  Cragbridge stood silently for a moment. Then he slowly licked his lips and spoke. “Then heaven help us that you never discover time travel.”

  Rafa paused the image.

  “Do you think this is the great secret?” Abby asked, twisting her hair into a temporary ponytail. “Did Grandpa discover time travel?”

  Derick looked somber. “This is all we had to go on. I asked myself, if Grandpa did discover time travel, and Muns wanted the secret to it, or if Muns discovered the secret and was afraid that Grandpa would get in the way, what would he do?”

  “It might have something to do
with the Titanic,” Abby said. “Maybe he’d trap them in a museum or a submarine down in the depths of the ocean, where the ship sank.”

  “Remember,” Derick said. “This may involve time travel.”

  “Right,” Carol said incredulously. “Wow.”

  Derick turned to Rafa and nodded. Rafa moved his fingers back and forth.

  A massive ship appeared, gliding over the dark ocean. The lamps on deck and in the hundreds of rooms lit up a portion of the night. It was larger than Abby’s apartment building, longer than Cragbridge Hall. It was more than a ship. It seemed like a town on the ocean.

  “Get ready for the shock,” Derick warned.

  Rafa moved the point of view onto the massive deck. Abby moved nearer, looking at the passengers.

  “This is the back of the boat, the part farthest from the side that hits the iceberg,” Derick said.

  Couples talked at tables, while other people lined the railings staring off into the darkness, listening to the ocean below. Abby looked from face to face while Rafa moved them through the crowd.

  Abby gasped, and she started to tremble.

  “What?” Carol asked. “What’s wrong? Sure, these people are heading for tragedy, but what?”

  Abby pointed to a man and woman leaning against the railing. “That’s my mom and dad.”

  The whole moment was entirely too surreal. She gazed over the span of a hundred and fifty years into history and saw her own mother and father.

  “But how did they get there?” Abby asked. “And why are they wearing the same kind of clothes as everybody else?”

  Carol chimed in. “Yeah, maybe you’re mistaken. Maybe they just look like—”

  “It’s them,” Derick said flatly. “Rewind the timeframe, Rafa.”

  Rafa nodded and rewound the image. For nearly two days, the twins’ parents had stood on the stern of the boat, taking only short breaks to eat and sleep. It was as though they wanted to be found—hoped to be found. Two bundles of clothes flew up from the ocean below into their father’s hand—they were watching this backward after all. Their parents walked backward into a cabin and changed clothes. They appeared a moment later in their modern clothes. Abby and Carol watched as the twins’ dad tried various door handles.

  Abby had to think back through the Bridge image. Her dad had found a cabin with clothes of the time in it. They snuck in and changed, and then they threw their modern clothes over the edge.

  Abby watched her parents as they walked backward down to one of the boiler rooms. Rafa zoomed in; there were fewer people down there. Her parents wandered in circles, sat and held their heads in their hands, paced back and forth and hugged. Then there was a low thud, and a circle of space seemed to deform. It was as if a portion of the air bulged and Derick’s parents were sucked into the bubble.

  “What was that?” Abby asked.

  “I think it’s how they got there,” Derick said. “Show it from the beginning.”

  Rafa stopped the footage and played it forward. Again the spot bulged, and Derick’s parents flew in, like someone had thrown them into a room.

  “Look,” Carol said, pointing to the screen on the Bridge. “They disappeared three days ago, in the middle of the night. It would have been our first night at Cragbridge.”

  “It all fits,” Abby said. “The next day is when we figured out that they were missing.”

  “Are they ...” Carol cleared her throat. “Are they going to be on it when it sinks?”

  “Fast-forward the image,” Derick said.

  As the people moved, talked, and ate in fast motion, Abby’s eyes grew wide. She kept track of her parents. She followed them to the cabin and then followed them back up to the end of the ship. Part of her didn’t want to watch anymore. Was she about to witness her own parents’ deaths on a ship that sank decades ago?

  Abby’s and Derick’s parents suddenly vanished from the scene.

  “What happened?” Abby asked.

  “Rewind it,” Derick commanded.

  Rafa rewound again. One second their parents were on the ship, and the next, they weren’t. He repeated the process a few more times, and each time Abby and Derick’s parents stayed in the picture a few seconds before vanishing.

  “That must be where they are in time,” Abby said.

  “Yeah,” Derick agreed. They’re moving along in time there, while we move forward here. Which means they haven’t sunk yet, but they will be on the Titanic when it sinks if we can’t find out how to get them out.”

  “When does it sink?” Abby asked.

  “For everyone else, 1912. For Mom and Dad, tonight,” Derick said.

  Abby felt a chill in her spine at the words. Her parents would die tonight unless she found a way to stop one of the greatest tragedies from happening over a century ago.

  “The ship runs into the iceberg at 11:40 tonight,” Derick said. “It’s sunk by 2:20 in the morning.” He let them ponder that for a moment. “It’s nearly six o’clock now, but where my parents are in time it is ten o’clock. We have a little over four hours to get them out before the ship is under water and it’s too late.”

  Silence. Abby didn’t know what to say. Not only had her parents been kidnapped, but they were about to die, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

  “But why would Muns do this?” Carol asked.

  “We don’t know,” Derick said. “We’ve been putting this together as we went. I can think of two options. Either Muns discovered time travel on his own and wants anyone who knows anything about it out of the way—which includes Grandpa, or he hasn’t mastered time travel yet, and he’s threatening our parents so Grandpa will give him the technology.”

  “Grandpa!” Abby burst out. “Is Grandpa on the Titanic too?”

  “I don’t think so,” Derick said. “At least, we couldn’t find him. But I have a theory about where he is.”

  “Where?” Abby asked.

  “Remember when Muns asked Grandpa what he would do if he had the power to warn the passengers on the Titanic?”

  “He said he would watch it and cry.”

  “Right,” Derick said. “But more specifically, he’d sit in that room and cry. If Muns is the terrible man I think he is, he is holding Grandpa there—in that very room they debated in, and making him watch his own son and daughter-in-law die, unless he gives Muns more information about time travel.”

  “But where is the room?” Carol asked.

  “A few hours away by car. It’s at the university where my grandpa taught. I found out that Muns donated a lot of money to renovate it two months ago. Right now, it’s closed to the public. I think that fits. I think Muns wants the room available just to hold Grandpa.”

  Abby’s mind spun. “So how are we going to save them?”

  Derick shrugged. “I have no idea. All I know is that we have to.”

  “If this isn’t presuming too much,” Rafa said, “I’d propose that Abby and Carol continue to follow your grandfather’s clues. That may be the only hope of saving your parents. Derick and I will go after your grandfather.”

  “But how could you get off campus?” Carol asked. “Let alone travel all the way there in time?”

  Derick smiled. “Maybe we can use the avatars again. We could fly there. Can we control them from here and go that far.”

  “The connection is strong enough that we could take the avatars halfway around the world, maybe all the way,” Rafa said. “But there are other reasons we can’t. There is no way you could learn to fly that fast, and besides, I believe that if Muns had help to kidnap your grandfather, then he won’t be left alone. There will probably be guards. Muns probably has a lot of people working for him, watching over him. I don’t think we’ll be able to do much good with bird avatars.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Derick said.

  “I know what we can try,” Rafa said. “But you’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Okay,” Derick agreed.

  “Meet me at the avatar lab in t
en minutes.”

  27

  Colter

  Derick waited outside the avatar lab for Rafa, wondering what the TA could possibly be thinking of. Rafa came down the hall with someone—Ms. Entrese.

  Derick wanted to run.

  “Calm down,” Rafa said. “It isn’t what you think. Let’s step into the lab, and I’ll explain.”

  Derick was still wary, but he followed Rafa and Ms. Entrese inside.

  “I’m the one who told Rafa about Charles Muns,” Ms. Entrese said after they were behind locked doors. Derick gaped. She was Rafa’s source?

  “I ...” Ms. Entrese bowed her head, then inhaled and raised it again. “I used to work for Muns.”

  “I thought he hired scientists,” Derick said.

  “He does. English was one of my degrees, but I have a PhD in physics,” Ms. Entrese explained. “Muns was on a mission to discover the secret to time travel. It was all very exciting. I loved the science; we all did.”

  Derick could see the excitement in her expression.

  “We tried everything,” she said. “Sometimes we felt we were near a breakthrough, but each time, we came up short. Then one of his scientists discovered something. It was all kept very hush-hush, but I stumbled onto some information that led me to believe that because of the discovery he had dangerous intentions toward your grandfather.” The excitement was gone, her tone serious.

  Derick wanted to ask if they had discovered that Grandpa invented time travel, but he didn’t know how much Ms. Entrese knew, and he wasn’t going to tell her anything he didn’t have to. Ms. Entrese continued, “Muns wanted something from your grandfather. He was soon taking the most elite of our scientists. Several secret projects started. But I saw fear in one of the scientists I knew. Muns is a shrewd man, and he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. He would break people and completely ruin their careers if they got in his way.”

  Derick’s heart beat faster. He thought about the burst that sent his parents back in time onto the Titanic. Was that one of the secret projects?