Liz settled herself at the first computer she saw, pulled a disk from her pocket, and started uploading a spyware file that the NSA has been trying to buy from her for years. "One-hundred-and-sixteen-bit encryption?" she said, sounding shocked and a little disappointed when she reached the machine's firewall.
"Maybe they'll challenge you next time, sweetheart," Bex said as she ran to the first bathroom she saw, pulled a pair of tweezers from her utility belt, and started yanking bristles out of toothbrushes for DNA analysis (just in case the boys were really biologically engineered spying machines or something). I stared at the empty walls and the barren desks, looking for family pictures or letters from home—the things that, more than fingerprints and DNA, would tell us who these boys really were.
As I looked in the first closet, something dawned on me. "These pants are brand new," I said. "So are the shoes." I thought about my own closet—half of my school shirts had indiscreet stains somewhere on the white collars. My sweaters were all comfy and well-worn. I turned to Bex. "What are the odds that fifteen boys—all different ages—got their uniforms at the same time?"
She shrugged then fumbled in her bag for a pair of very tiny wires attached to small glass orbs, exactly the size and shape of the plastic buttons present in the Gallagher Academy smoke detectors.
"Bex," I cried, "we can't put cameras in their bedrooms."
"But a picture is worth a thousand words," she said, feigning innocence.
"Bugs only," I warned, because while I may be a highly inquisitive future government operative, I wasn't willing to go that far for my cause—yet.
"Fine," she sighed, putting the cameras back and retrieving the teeny tiny microphones that had bought me an A-minus on my freshman final. (They're currently being used by the Department of Homeland Security.)
There really is an art to planting bugs. Sadly, Mr. Solomon hadn't covered it yet, but we did all the obvious stuff like put trackers in their shoes and dust for prints. You know—the basics. Not even Dr. Steve's room—or shoes— were immune from our artistry. (Note to self: never volunteer to investigate Dr. Steve's underwear drawer ever again!) Ten minutes later I thought we were almost done; I walked down the passageway and Bex fed me wires through the electrical outlets.
I started back down the long, dusty corridor, wires trailing behind me as I made my way to our new observation post (aka the secret room I'd discovered during spring break of our freshman year). I was just starting to think that we might actually pull it off undetected, but then … I heard it.
"Oh, Ms. McHenry, that is an excellent idea, simply excellent!"
Dr. Steve. I could hear Dr. Steve's voice through the heating vents, which meant he was in the hallway right outside. The hallway leading to the boys' rooms. The rooms that Bex and Liz were still inside!
"We've got to go, guys," I said. "Abort!" Then I remembered the massive jammers that block any and all signals within the Gallagher grounds—that we weren't wearing comms units and Bex and Liz couldn't hear me. They'd have no idea what was happening unless they'd heard Dr. Steve and Macey in the hallway.
"But, Dr. Steve," Macey practically yelled, "I was hoping I could talk to you for a few minutes."
"Not now, Ms. McHenry," the man said. "I'm afraid I've only got a second to pop into my room before I get back to the boys."
I pressed against the bookshelf that serves as one of the entrances to the passageway and saw Dr. Steve reach for the door while Macey tried to block his path.
"But I only need a minute," she said, whining like the spoiled brat she's supposed to be.
"Perhaps we can talk tomorrow, Ms. McHenry," Dr. Steve said, giving her a pat on the shoulder.
He was stepping toward the door. He was getting closer.
I couldn't take the chance, so I dropped my utility belt where I stood, pushed against the bookshelf, and stepped into the hallway behind the teacher.
"Hello, Dr. Steve," I said. When he turned, Macey instantly stopped whining and gave me a "Is the coast clear?" look, but of course it wasn't.
"Oh, good," I said to Macey. "You found him."
This seemed to get the man's attention. "You ladies have been looking for me?"
"Actually, I have been looking for you."
"Yes," Macey said, catching on. "Cammie really needs to talk."
"So this is some sort of emergency?" Dr. Steve nodded as if this confirmed some deep, dark psychological profile that he'd seen about me somewhere. (Note to self: find out if there is a deep, dark psychological profile about me.) "I see," he said, in the manner of a man who doesn't really see anything.
The Operative was able to neutralize the immediate threat to the operation by feigning severe mental distress—which was easier than she'd thought, since she was feeling both distressed and mental.
Unfortunately, it's one of the basic laws of physics (as well as espionage) that every action will have an equal and opposite reaction, and I realized too late that Dr. Steve was expecting some kind of emergency. And I was going to have to give him one.
"So," I said, trying to sound as Bex-like and dramatic as possible. "I guess you know I have a broken heart."
Yes, it's true—I said that. Call it nerves or inadequate prep time, but for some reason that's the part of my soul I chose to bear to a man who insists we call him "Dr. Steve."
"Well, broken hearts are very common at your age, Ms. Morgan. Nothing to worry about there, I'm sure." He made another move toward the door, and I ran through all the ways of stopping him in my mind (nineteen), while Macey grabbed my arm.
"That's what I told her, Dr. Steve." Macey stepped away from the doorway. "Thank you."
I started to protest, to hang back and buy a few more seconds, but Macey grasped my shoulders and spun me around to see Bex. And Liz. Both of them were smiling.
Chapter Twenty
Summary of Surveillance Operatives: Cameron Morgan, Elizabeth Sutton, Rebecca Baxter, and Macey McHenry
In order to ascertain the nature of the Level Four security infraction that led to the Code Black, The Operatives undertook a routine reconnaissance mission that brought them deep into foreign territory (aka the East Wing) at which time they observed the following:
The students of Blackthorne Institute (hereafter referred to as The Subjects) have set up residence at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women.
Although nothing of an incriminating nature was found, The Subjects do exhibit questionable taste in leisure activity capacity, since a search of their residence revealed WO television and an excess of shoe polishing paraphernalia.
DNA analysis revealed that the subjects are, in fact, male and, apparently, are not the product of any sort of cloning experiment.
Fingerprint analysis, however, revealed that they are males who have no records in any governmental database—even the REALLY top secret ones. (Of course, neither do we.)
Known associates: The Subjects are presumed to associate with each other, as well as Dr. Steven Sanders (aka "Dr. Steve"), PhD.
If the whole spy thing doesn't work out, the students from Blackthorne will surely have futures in the housekeeping industry.
Analysis of the trash taken from the room revealed that The Subjects use entirely too much dental floss for fifteen teenage boys. (Are they possibly using it for clandestine purposes such as very thin, semitransparent rappelling cables?) Also, they totally don't recycle.
I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think many girls fantasize about being a fly on the wall of a boy's room. Well, let me tell you, the fantasy is seriously overrated. (And we've got 272 hours of audio surveillance to prove it.)
Other than the fact that we heard one of the eighth grade boys bragging that Macey had kissed him during the Code Black (a lie he seriously regretted during P&E), all we could do was wait. And watch. And remember that of all the qualities a good spy needs, the most important one is patience.
After all, it's easy to stay interested in a target when he's about to purchase some black market nuclear weapons. When he's going to the dentist? Not so much. So we listened to the boys debate about baseball players and types of sandwiches; we went to class, and we waited. After nearly two weeks of listening to wiretaps and testing DNA, we were back where we'd started. The only thing we knew was that the boys appeared to be ghosts, phantoms—smoke.
There was nothing we could do but trail the boys to CoveOps. Zach, Grant, and Jonas were walking twenty feet ahead of us as we left Madame Dabney's classroom and started downstairs. Liz blinked her eyes a few times and whispered, "They are real, aren't they? I didn't just dream them, right?"
"Oh, yeah," Bex said. "They're flesh and blood," she added, emphasizing the word flesh.
"Just because Grant calls you the British Bombshell—"
"Liz!" I warned. "Shhh!"
She lowered her voice. "Why can't we find out anything about them?" It wasn't just a matter of national security with Liz at that point. It was a matter of pride. Liz was a genius with a problem she couldn't solve.
And to tell you the truth, I couldn't understand it, either. After all, Liz can break any code; Bex can sweet talk anybody into anything; and I've been hiding in plain sight since I was old enough to walk: we are not without our covert ways!
But as Bex and I stopped at the elevator to Sublevel One and Liz started for the basement, I couldn't help but wonder how a school for boy spies can exist so covertly that even a group of girl spies can't find it.
"We have to do more," Bex whispered as the elevator opened into Sublevel One. "We have to go deeper!"
Before I could say a word, Mr. Solomon came into our classroom. "Assets." He pushed up his shirtsleeves and walked to the board. "Define the term, Ms. Alvarez."
"An asset is an individual recruited and utilized by an operative to gain covert information," Eva recited.
Our teacher acted like he hadn't heard her. His voice dropped. "Listen up and listen well," he said, as if a single person in the room was not paying attention to him. "The most important thing any of you will ever do is make people trust you. You will become someone you aren't in order to befriend someone you hate." He studied us all in turn.
"We develop assets, ladies and gentlemen. We find people who have information that we want and then we take it," he continued. "Or persuade them to give it to us. We find traitors." He paused and stared. "We lie."
I wish I could say the sick feeling in my stomach was because I'd signed up for a lifetime of deception and betrayal. But none of that was as terrifying as the look on Bex's face as she turned to me and mouthed the words: Phase Two.
That night, the secret room changed from an ancient, deserted space into a modern observation post. Evapopaper lined the walls. The sound of boys filled the air as my roommates and I listened to the bugs in the East Wing and made lists of boys and classes and opportunities to "develop a plausible pretext for a relationship," which is pretty basic spy stuff. And maybe pretty basic girl stuff, too. So it would have been fine—it would have been good—if there hadn't been a line marked Zach right next to an arrow marked Cammie.
