by Katrina Cope
Images flashed before his eyes of seeing himself expelled, the dreams of his fulfilling future squashed. In the panic to try to save himself from that disturbing future, he hastily spun around, needing to warn his friends. In the process, his lack of coordination and his two left feet led him to whack his nose on the wall beside him. He grabbed the injured nose with his left hand and the device in his right and sprinted back toward his friends. A warm trickle of blood ran down to his hand. Not giving up due to a bit of crimson flowing down onto his T-shirt, he made it to the room.
The three students looked at Liam.
“What happened to you?” Dryden stared at his nose.
“Never mind that,” Liam hissed. He reached up and flicked off the light. “Quick, turn everything off!” He indicated the computer.
“What’s going on?” Brendan asked, while spinning around to start the process.
“It’s Dr. Ernest! He’s down here!” Liam was trying to keep his voice down, and the words came out in a yelled whisper.
“Damnit! What are we going to do?” Hayley’s panicked face disappeared in the darkness. Brendan had turned the computer off, and it took the last of the light with it. When their eyes adjusted, there was enough light to see things only vaguely.
“We’re going to have to hide.” Dryden sounded panicked.
“Where?” Hayley whisper-screamed.
“Don’t know, but do your best,” Liam said, “’cause this could mean the end of our schooling here.”
“Der, genius!” Hayley said sarcastically. There was a tissue box sitting on one of the benches, and she grabbed it then handed him a few. “You’re starting to drip on the floor.” She pointed out a dark patch on the white floor. He bent down, cleaned up the blood, and held more tissues to his nose to prevent the blood from flowing freely.
Brendan spoke, bringing their attention back to the trouble at hand. “Hey, guys. There’s a cupboard here.” He had it opened so that they could look in. It looked just big enough and empty enough for them to be able to fit in, so they all scrambled over to climb in and shut the door behind them.
“Ouch! That’s my foot, you big heifer,” Hayley complained to Brendan.
“Sorry.” Brendan sounded sincere.
They quieted themselves and listened intently for every noise within the room and out in the corridor. The intensity of the situation made the time tick by slowly. However, they knew it was not the case. Eventually, they heard some sounds outside the cupboard. The sounds were faint and came across as the soft shuffling of shoes on the hard, sterile lab floor. Liam’s ears strained, taking in all the noises while he crossed his fingers and prayed they wouldn’t be found.
The click of a light switch sounded within the room. Slivers of light shone through the cracks between the cupboard’s doors, illuminating a look of panic on their faces.
Liam took the tissues away from his nose to have a look at the damage and the amount of blood that had gathered on them. When he did that, though, he didn’t realize that it was still bleeding profusely. Blood trickled down his face like a waterfall, splashing off his skin and landing on Hayley’s face. Hayley retreated quickly in panic, and in the process, she knocked her arm against a cupboard door. The sound rang loudly against Liam’s ear, and he was sure that it also echoed into the room.
Almost immediately, the soft footsteps approached the cupboard. Liam closed his eyes in silent prayer and waited. The worst day of his life was about to dawn.
- Chapter Twelve -
The Big Secret
In the little over a year that Liam, Hayley, and Dryden had been at Ernest State College, they had never seen Dr. Ernest angry or upset. That day was an entirely different story. To say that Dr. Ernest had steam coming out of his ears would’ve been an understatement. His kind face and caring deep-brown eyes were full of rage, annoyance, and hurt from being disrespected and betrayed. And to make things worse, Liam felt every bit the traitor.
After the doctor had dragged them out of the cupboard, he made them sit on chairs in the corridor, away from all the secret equipment. The students watched him pace up and down in front of them, deciding how to punish them.
Liam looked around the room at the friends who had been caught with him. Nearly all of them were wearing the same expression of worry combined with suspicion, and Liam was sure it was because they were curious about what Dr. Ernest was up to. They all sat in silence, waiting for their judgment to be handed to them.
“I can’t believe that I have found you down here! I’ve had my eye on you four. I thought you all had a bright future here.” The doctor paced the corridor some more, rubbing his bald head in thought. The silent seconds seemed like hours. “What are you all doing wandering around the school in the middle of the night and breaking into rooms? Hmm?” He looked directly at Liam and said, “One of my brightest young students. Is your sister involved in this too?”
Liam shook his head. “No, Dr. Ernest. She isn’t.” Although Liam knew that if Gemma had any hint of what was going on here, she would have been involved, he was not going to jeopardize her bright future.
“Well, that’s good to know.” Relief passed over Dr. Ernest’s face. “But are you going to be able to keep this a secret from her?”
Liam looked the doctor straight in the eyes, showing the most sincerity and truthfulness he could muster. “Yes, Dr. Ernest. Your secret is safe with me.” He forgot to inform the doctor of the fingers he had crossed behind his back. Keeping anything from his sister was difficult to do.
“The problem is, young man and the rest of you”—he glanced around at the rest of the students—“this is not just my secret. You aren’t just protecting me.”
A look of curiosity and shock passed between the students.
“Whose secret is it?” Hayley asked the question dancing on the tips of everyone’s tongues. Deep down, Liam dreaded that they were about to find out that the school was involved in terrorism, though the curiosity was too much. They had to know.
“Well, the government’s, of course. Whose secret did you think it was?” Dr. Ernest looked around at their faces in the corridor.
Liam felt relief. Surely the government won’t be instigating terrorism.
Dr. Ernest must have picked up on their thoughts. “You didn’t think I was working for someone bad, did you? Surely you knew that I wasn’t working for a terrorist group or something?” He studied their faces while the students glanced from side to side, looking at each other with half guilty expressions. The doctor burst out laughing and shook his head. “You really did think I was working for someone bad.” He straightened and rubbed his head. “Rest assured. I’m not.” He raised an eyebrow as he looked down at them. “But I would have thought that you had a little more trust in me.” Sadness flicked through his dark eyes. “However, now I know why you’re spying down here. It is all making sense, and I can see that your hearts are in the right places.”
Liam’s stomach twisted in knots. “We’re really sorry, Dr. Ernest. We only started investigating because the last few times we ran into you, you seemed to be acting a little weird. So I guess you could say that curiosity got the better of us, especially after you were so worried and desperate to find that person you were chasing the other week. It just seemed so out of character, and after last year’s close call with the bombing, we’ve been very suspicious and curious overall.”
The other four students nodded in agreement.
Dr. Ernest stood back and studied their faces intently. “So what are we going to do with you four? You have broken major rules of the school. Rules that should easily get you expelled.” He continued to pace the room with worry on his face. “Not only that, you have discovered top-secret government property. In the normal world, this would get you locked up in a maximum-security asylum for the rest of your lives, with a claim of insanity over your characters. You would then be away from anyone and everyone, which would stop you from exposing serious government information.”
“But Dr. Ernest, this lab is too big for one person. Surely you must have other people working with you who also know about this secret?” Brendan said. “I have seen William hanging around here a lot, which would also make me believe, or at least suspect, that he is also working with you. And to top it off, he came running out of the admin building with you the other week, desperately chasing that person you had asked us to look for.”
“You four are an inquisitive lot, aren’t you? This is good, but you need to be more careful with your curiosity.” Slowly, the anger and frustration of being betrayed were giving way to understanding, which brought back the Dr. Ernest that the children were familiar with. “Yes, what you say is true. Other people know, but these people are top-of-the-line students even for this school. Added to that, they have gone through stringent background tests and had to prove themselves before being let into here.”
Not wanting to face time in jail or the possibility of being removed from the school, Liam said, “Why don’t you do these background tests on us? We know our history is clean.” He looked around the room and at his friends for reassurance and agreement. He was pleased to see them all nodding. “Not only that, we are some of the best students in our grade.”
“Yes, I am aware of your grades,” Dr. Ernest agreed. “Which is why I was extra upset about the four of you being down here. What you’re suggesting, though, is not out of the question. I don’t like expelling top students, and I especially don’t like sending them to be locked up in a maximum-security prison or asylum.”
The students breathed a united sigh of relief.
“That’s good to know. I’m curious, though… How did you find out that we were here, Dr. Ernest?” Brendan asked.
“You may have been disturbing all the video feeds, but you managed to set off an alarm from an additional sensor we have set up on the lift when the labs are empty. Naturally, this is set to alert me immediately, and although I don’t like being awakened in the middle of the night, I had to come and check out what was going on.” His face looked troubled and deep in thought. “I’m puzzled, though. How did you manage to find your way down here? I understand that you are curious because I was acting strange, but that wouldn’t have led you to the locked garden or down into the secret room.” He looked intently back at them, his deep-brown eyes boring into them as though trying to read their minds.
Without hesitation, Hayley ratted out the culprit. “It was Brendan, Dr. Ernest. He was the one who found the locked door in the admin building and managed to get the code. Somehow, he even managed to find the button to bring us down here in the lift.”
The doctor turned around and focused on Brendan. “Hmm. It was, was it?”
Brendan cowered under the look yet appeared to be putting on a brave face.
“Interesting!” Dr. Ernest continued to eye Brendan up and down while deep in thought. At the same time, he tapped his pouted lips with his finger. He placed his hands inside his pants pockets then walked around the back of Brendan. He pulled a hand out of a pocket and placed it on the back of Brendan’s neck affectionately. “Looks like I am going to have to keep an eye on you.” He continued moving along behind the students, pacing slowly along the floor, removing his hand from Brendan’s neck. “All of you, really.” He glanced back at Brendan with the suspicious look returning to his face. “But definitely you.” He pointed at Brendan.
Brendan’s face was blank. “That’s okay! I have nothing to hide.”
“Uh huh!” Dr. Ernest said as he turned away from them to turn off one of the lab lights. “If that’s the case, then you do have nothing to worry about. For now though, we are all leaving here, and we are going to try to get a good night’s sleep for what remains of it.” He looked at them all sullenly. “No one is to ring outside of this school or tell anyone about what happened tonight and what you have found.” In a final warning, he raised a stern finger. “Mark my words, if I find that you have done this, I will be notifying the government, and naturally you will instantly be expelled. Understand?”
Liam gulped, and they all nodded in agreement.
“Right, then.” He continued turning lights off while speaking to them. “Let’s all leave and get some sleep.”
The students stood up and started making their way down the corridor toward the exit. Dr. Ernest followed behind. They left by the only exit, via the chairlift, out through the locked garden, and finally through the admin building.
Once they were outside, Dr. Ernest repeated, “Now remember, not a word.”
The students nodded again in agreement, and they parted ways.
~~~~~
WHEN THE STUDENTS were out of sight, Dr. Ernest reached his hand into his left pants pocket. He had another quick look around to confirm that the students were gone. Once satisfied, he pulled his hand back out of his pocket, and with it, he pulled out a tracking monitor then switched it on. Immediately, a little flashing light showed on the screen inside an electronic map of the school. Unbeknownst to Brendan, when Dr. Ernest touched the back of his neck in what seemed like a sign of affection, he was actually planting a tracking device.
The dot on the screen was moving in the right direction toward Brendan’s room. Dr. Ernest smiled to himself at the result as he continued to his own quarters. He was not happy though, as it was more than likely he would not be getting much sleep. When he returned to his room, he would have to start immediate background checks on the four students.
~~~~~
JAYDEN’S BROW WAS deeply creased with concern. He was worried sick. The knot in his stomach was churning, becoming tighter and tighter. He was trying ever so hard to concentrate on the lesson at hand, but it was proving impossible, and his attempts had failed for the past half hour. The lesson was science, of all things.
He glanced over at Eva and Robert to see how they were doing. They were also having trouble concentrating even though they loved science.
Professor Anna was wandering around the room. She was wearing her lab coat over her everyday clothes. Her long dark-brown hair was tied safely and securely into a bun away from her face. Her shoes clip-clopped on the floor as she wandered around, peering over the students’ shoulders. As she did this, she held her hands behind her back, careful not to knock or bump anyone. Knowing her better and knowing what was going on, Jayden assumed he also saw concern spreading across her face at certain moments in time.
Aaron was not with them. He was in the computer tech room operating his surrogate at Ernest State College. As he already knew his way around the operation that was taking place with no codes that needed breaking, they deemed it not necessary for all of them to be there, missing out on the science lesson. This did not stop them from worrying. They all worried about him being caught. Technically Aaron himself wouldn’t be caught—his surrogate would, but even though Aaron would be safe, it was still a cause for great concern.
Robert had a pair of glasses sitting next to him on the lab bench. He kept picking them up and peering through them, hoping he would find something useful inside of them. They looked like an ordinary pair of glasses, though in fact, they showed what Shelly was seeing. The reason why it was so important was because Robert had left Shelly to watch over Aaron in the computer tech room as he operated his surrogate. The problem was that the feed had gone dead about half an hour before. Shelly was supposed to run in and tell Robert if anything had gone wrong, and this had not happened. He hoped that meant everything except for Shelly’s video feed was still running smoothly. She hadn’t been completed for long, and there were a few glitches that still needed discovering and fixing.
Professor Anna asked the class, “So, can anyone tell me what a rheostat is or does?”
Usually, Eva or Robert would be one of the first ones to answer the questions. That day, however, they seemed to be as affected as Jayden was and had trouble piecing together their thoughts, let alone answering technical questions. Their faces remained distant, and their mouths stayed shut, as though they hadn’t even hea
rd the question.
Instead, the first to put up her hand was Ashley.
“Yes, Ashley?” Professor Anna nodded in her direction.
“A rheostat is a small device that controls the voltage flow by a dial or knob.”
“Excellent, Ashley,” Professor Anna said. “As you can see in front of you, there is a flashlight bulb and socket, two D-cell batteries, just over a foot of wire, two pieces of wire about two and a half inches long, a very long spring, and a pair of wire cutters.” Professor Anna continued moving slowly around the room. She made her way around and stood in between Eva and Jayden, with Robert not far away. Noting the stressed looks on their faces, she put an arm around them and reached out to touch Robert on the back with a comforting gesture. The three students smiled at her. She smiled in return and continued around the room.
“Right,” Professor Anna continued, “we need to connect the two batteries. To do this, you need to take the short wire and attach the positive pole of one battery to the negative pole of the other.” She paced the room some more, giving them time to do so.
“Now, take the wire just over a foot long and cut it in half. When you’ve done this, attach one piece of wire to the battery end that is free.”
The students progressed as instructed.
“You need to grab your light-socket terminal and connect it to one of the straight wires. Then you need to connect the other half of the wire to the end of the spring.”
She glanced at her watch. She looked nervous, as though she was thinking about Aaron and his mission at the other school. Then she continued her instructions. “Take the last wire of two and a half inches and attach it to the terminal of the light socket. Then take the other end of the wire and attach it to where the other wire is.”