“Urian’s all right,” Nicole says.
I stand my ground. “I don’t know him.”
“Phoebe, this is Urian Nacus.” She nods at the dark-haired boy. “Urian, Phoebe Castro.”
Urian spins in his chair faster than an Olympic sprinter. “Castro?” he asks, brows raised. “The aponikos?”
“The what?” I asked, thinking I might need to get offended.
“Descendant of Nike,” Troy says quickly, as if he can sense I’m upset.
Urian leaps to his feet and bows politely. “A pleasure.” Flashing me a smarmy smile, he takes my hand—which I didn’t offer—and kisses my knuckles.
“Uh, thanks,” I say, retrieving my fingers.
I glare at Troy over Urian’s head. What has he gotten me into?
“Please,” Urian says, waving at the flickering computer screen. “Key in your user name and password. Your access codes shall remain your own.”
After giving Troy one more who-is-this-guy? look, I plop into the desk chair, and access my e-mail. A split second later, my in-box is on the screen.
“That was fast,” I say, impressed.
“I installed a signal enhancer,” Urian says, leaning over my shoulder to read the screen. “It quadrupled my connection speed.”
Figures. He probably spends all his time downloading episodes of Hercules and Xena.
Before Urian the Curious can read all my other messages, I click open the blocked e-mail.
“There it is,” I say, nodding at the screen.
Urian studies it for a minute. His bushy eyebrows keep scrunching and unscrunching, as if he’s physically processing with his forehead. Weird.
“May I?” he asks, nodding at the chair.
I shrug and get up.
“First, I need to access the Academy mail server,” he says. A new window opens up on the computer. “The original file might still contain the metadata from the—” He smacks his mouse down on the desk. “Blast! It’s blocked, as well.” More furious typing. “The source file didn’t even log the originating IP address.”
Before my eyes permanently roll back in my head from trying to follow the computer-speak, I ask, “What does that mean?”
“In plain English?” He glances up at me. “Whoever sent this is very, very smart.”
“Or very, very powerful,” Troy says. “Bypassing Academy e-mail security is anything but easy.”
“True.” Urian squints at the screen. “This isn’t a simple hack job. It’s going to take me a while.”
“Sometime before midnight Tuesday would be nice,” I say. “I’d like to know who I’m meeting.”
“You’re not seriously going?” Troy asks.
As if there was any doubt?
“Of course I’m going,” I say. “What other choice do I have?”
“Um . . . not going.”
“Troy, I have to find out what happened to my dad.”
“We know what happened to your dad. He got smoted. End of story.”
“Not,” I snap, “end of story. At least, not anymore. I can’t just let this go.”
“Fine.” Troy crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ll go with you.”
“Chill, Travatas,” Nicole says. Then to me she says, “I think what Tarzan here is trying to say is that whoever pulled off this e-mail stunt—and snuck into the secret archives—has to be pretty powerful. And pretty devious. You shouldn’t meet this person alone.”
“No.” I can’t believe she’s siding with him. “The e-mail says I have to come alone. I’m not going to blow this.”
Troy glares at me, looking like he really wants to say something more. But, instead, he turns to Urian and asks, “Can you find out before then?”
“One hundred and twenty hours, give or take?” He looks like he’s crunching numbers in his head—my brain hurts just thinking about it—and then finally says, “That’s cutting it close. Fifty-fifty chance.”
“Great,” I say.
“I copied the source file into my e-mail account,” Urian says. “But I may still need to access your—”
“No way.” He may be helping me out, but I still only met him like two minutes ago. Besides, a girl needs her privacy.
“Not a problem,” he says with a grin. “My computer recorded your keystrokes. If I need access, I have your codes.”
“Great,” I say, less enthusiastically than before.
“Let’s meet here on Tuesday night,” Nicole suggests. “Eleven o’clock?”
“Excellent,” Urian says.
“Fine by me,” I say, still annoyed at Troy. Since when did he become my guardian and protector?
“See you Tuesday,” Troy says as we leave.
“The countdown has begun,” Urian returns.
Geek melodrama. I roll my eyes.
“And, Urian,” Nicole says, “you might try doing laundry once in a while.”
As we step into the hall, she pulls the door shut with a slam.
“Phoebe,” Troy says as we walk back to his room, his voice low and serious, “if Urian hasn’t figured out who sent the e-mail in time, I will go to the courtyard with you.” Before I can argue, he adds, “You’re my friend and I couldn’t stand it if you got hurt.”
My argument dies on my tongue. It’s hard to be mad at concern like that. But that doesn’t change what I have to do.