Colt couldn't have been more obvious as he turned around to watch out the back window. The snow was falling more heavily, limiting visibility, but he could still see the Mercedes as it cut into the center lane.
“He's totally following us,” Ms. Skoglund said, sounding almost excited.
“You're not going to believe this,” Danielle said. “The car is registered to Aldrich Koenig.”
“As in the shape-shifting, six-armed alien who used to run Trident Biotech?” Colt asked. “Isn't he supposed to be locked up in an underground facility somewhere in the middle of the desert?”
“A little on the dramatic side, but yeah,” Danielle said.
“The guy driving that car doesn't look anything like him.”
“As you said, he's a shapeshifter. He can look like whoever he wants,” Danielle said. “Besides, just because the car is registered under his name, it doesn't mean that he's the one driving it. It could be his butler, or a friend, or anybody.”
“Or Krone,” Colt said.
“You have a camera on that phone, right?” Ms. Skoglund asked.
“Of course,” Danielle said.
“Give it to old blue eyes back there so he can take a picture of the guy, and then I think we'll ditch him.”
Colt snapped the picture as the Mercedes tore into the far left lane, cutting off a tow truck. The driver of the truck slammed on the brakes, and the back end started to swerve. He spun the steering wheel, trying to regain control, but the highway was slick from the snow. The truck flipped over, rolling at least seven times before Colt lost track. Tires screeched and horns blared as everyone tried to get out of the way.
“Hold tight,” Ms. Skoglund said. “Things are about to get interesting.” She started weaving in and out of traffic with the abandon of a New York City taxi driver. The van cut across two lanes, narrowly avoiding a collision with a school bus before she swerved back the other way.
“He's right behind us,” Colt said as he watched the Mercedes through the rear window. It looked like the driver was reaching over to grab something out of the glove compartment. “Please don't be a gun.”
“Get down!” Ms. Skoglund shouted.
The driver rolled down his window and fired three shots from a Walther P99 with tactical lights and a suppressor kit, each exploding from the barrel with a flash. The first missed, ricocheting off a road sign. The second hit the asphalt, but the third caught Ms. Skoglund's mirror. The glass shattered and she screamed as she took her hands off the wheel. The van cut hard to the right, barreling across the traffic and onto the shoulder. She slammed on the brakes and the van teetered, going on two wheels before it touched back down. “All right,” she said, sounding out of breath. “Time to end this.”
“Wait . . . are you going to shoot him?” Danielle asked.
“As much as I'd like to, I'm going to have to improvise,” she said. “They won't give me a gun.” She pressed the gas pedal to the floor and cut into the center lane. “Come on,” she said, watching the Mercedes through the rearview mirror. “You know you want me.”
It sped up until it was even with their van. The driver leveled the barrel of his Walther P99 at Ms. Skoglund, but she just smiled. “Got you!” She slammed the brakes and cranked the wheel to the left, clipping the back end of the Mercedes with her front bumper.
The sedan fishtailed and smashed into a pickup truck with oversized tires. The truck ran over the hood of the Mercedes before barreling across the median and into oncoming traffic. The Mercedes flipped over before skidding across the parkway, sparks flying as metal ground against asphalt.
Ms. Skoglund exited the George Washington Memorial Parkway and took back roads the rest of the way, hoping to avoid local law enforcement. Colt didn't mind the diversion. The Virginia countryside was beautiful, filled with rolling hills and thick trees, though most had lost their fall colors.
“This is it.” Ms. Skoglund pulled the van onto a nondescript road that cut through what looked like a forest. “If either of you wants to make a run for it, now's your chance. Because once we're inside the gates, there's no turning back. Your lives are going to become the property of the Central Headquarters Against the Occult and Supernatural for the next eighteen months. After that it only gets worse.”
Danielle looked at Colt through the rearview mirror. “Worse than sitting through another one of Mr. Pfeffer's lectures in world history? I don't think so.”
They laughed as they followed the winding road for about a mile before they came to an iron gate topped with spikes. Ms. Skoglund held up what she called an identicardâit looked a bit like the school ID they carried at Chandler High, only it was programmed with data like blood type, allergies, and level of security clearance.
The gate opened, and she drove up to a building that wasn't anything like what Colt had expected. There was no grassy lawn, towering pillars, or ivy creeping up the front of the façade. There wasn't even a flagpole. Nothing about this place screamed private school for the elite, but maybe that whole brick mansion thing was just in the movies.
“This is the CHAOS Academy?” Danielle asked, clearly as shocked as he was. She still hadn't unbuckled her seat belt, as though by doing so she would be committing to something that she wasn't quite ready for. “It's kind of . . . I don't know. I guess it's not what I expected.”
“Yeah, it has that whole psychiatric hospital vibe, but don't worry. They keep all the crazies locked up in the basement.”
Danielle looked at her, eyes wide and jaw hanging slightly open.
“It was a joke,” Ms. Skoglund said, patting her on the back of the hand. “Trust me, this place may not have much in the way of curb appeal, but inside it's amazingâespecially for a tech head like you.”
“Okay,” Danielle said, her voice weak.
Colt wasn't used to seeing her like this. Growing up, she hadn't been afraid of anything. He remembered the time when they were seven and her mom saw a scorpion on their kitchen tile. Colt was ready to climb up on the countertop, but Danielle trapped it beneath a glass bowl until the pest control team showed up.
“Don't worry, you'll be fine,” Ms. Skoglund said. “I'll see you at orientation tonight and try to sneak you into the computer lab for a private tour.”
Danielle tried to force a smile as her hand found the release for her seat belt.
“You better get going,” Ms. Skoglund said. “I'm supposed to pick up some of the other recruits in a half hour, and I still need to figure out how I'm going to explain what happened to the van.”
Colt slid his door open and stepped onto the sidewalk as a cold breeze burst across the school grounds. He waited as Danielle sat there an extra moment longer, then she joined him. “What about our luggage?”
“You'll get it soon enough.” Ms. Skoglund reached over, stretching her short arm as far as it could reach to shut Danielle's door. The lock clicked and she drove off, leaving them standing alone in the cold.
T
here was a set of double doors at the top of the stairs, but the glass was tinted so they couldn't see inside. Colt looked for a doorbell or some kind of buzzer, but he couldn't find anything.
“Just knock,” Danielle said, but before he could raise his hand there was a buzzing sound and one of the doors clicked open.
They walked into a foyer that was at least the size of the gymnasium back at Chandler High. The floor was covered in marble tiles, and the glass panes along the ceiling were streaked with condensation from the snow. There was no art on the walls or even an exit sign over the doors. In fact, there was no decor at all. It was sterile. Lifeless. Intimidating.
On the opposite end of the room was a reception area where a soldier stood in full combat uniform. He wore a ballistic vest and had a M4 Carbine that hung from a strap slung over his shoulder. The tag embroidered on his chest read Hayden.
“Um, hi,” Colt said. “We were wondering if this is where we're supposed to go . . . you know, for the CHAOS Academy?”
“Names, please.” Hayden's voice was rich and dark like his skin.
“I'm Colt McAlister, and this isâ”
“I know my own name,” Danielle whispered. She threw her shoulders back and stared the man straight in the eye. “I'm Danielle Selena Salazar. Do you need to see my invitation?”
“That won't be necessary,” he said. “Stand by for full body scan.”
“Excuse me?” Danielle asked.
“Initiate sequence 3-5-Alpha.”
Two metal spheres rose from behind the counter, each about the size of a bowling ball. Somehow they flew across the room until one hovered over Colt's head and the other was directly above Danielle. Apertures opened, bathing them in green light. A moment later they were looking at holographic replicas of themselves. They were green and slightly translucent, like an x-ray. And they were spot on.
“What's that hanging around your neck?” Hayden asked.
“It's just something my grandpa gave me,” Colt said, fingering the tarnished surface. “He wore it when he fought in World War II.”
“So it's true?” Hayden asked, his face stern and his voice measured. “Murdoch McAlister is your grandfather?”
“Yes, sir,” Colt said.
Hayden smiled. “You've been the only thing people around here have been talking about for weeks.”
Colt wasn't sure how to respond.
“Me and the fellas, we were impressed with what you did at Trident. You really went toe-to-toe with one of them lizards?”
“It's not like I knew what I was doing,” Colt said. “I just got lucky.”
“Ain't no such thing as luck,” Hayden said. “But you know that already, don't you?” He started to say something else, but he must have thought better of it. “Now, are either of you carrying a cell phone, camera, or any other type of recording device?”
“I left mine in the van,” Colt said.
“My phone is in my purse, butâ”
“I'm afraid you'll have to leave that with me,” he said.
“How am I supposed to call my parents?”
“You'll have to work that out with your commanding officer.”
Hayden entered a series of commands into a control panel, and their hologram replicas disappeared. A moment later the flying spheres returned to their docking stations behind the counter.
Danielle looked at Colt like she wanted him to intervene, but he just shrugged. “It's just a phone,” he said.
“My entire life is on that thingâall my pictures . . . contacts . . . a video of Wolfgang. How am I supposed to text anyone?”
Colt looked over his shoulder as a very irritated Danielle disappeared behind a set of double doors that led to the women's locker room. For the first time since the night his parents died, he felt completely and utterly alone, and it was almost more than he could bear.
“This way, please,” spoke the synthesized voice of a robot that stood patiently in the shadowsâthat is, if machines were capable of patience. It wasn't much taller than Colt, with glowing orange eyes set into a narrow head. Armored plates covered vital areas like its chest, shoulder joints, and pelvis, but the rest of the machine looked like a walking metal skeleton.
“I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the CHAOS Academy,” it said as it shuffled down the dimly lit corridor. A light pulsed like a heartbeat from somewhere inside its chest, and Colt wondered if that was a critical part of its programming or something the designer added to give it the illusion of life. “I understand that you have experience with robotic life forms?”
“Yeah,” Colt said, though he'd never heard that term before.
“Excellent.” Its eyes actually lit brighter, and the voice sounded genuinely pleased. “I am an SVC-9 service bot, assembled at the Yoshikawa Corporation in March of this year. My artificial intelligence programming is unparalleled, and I am able to converse in over three hundred and twelve languages.”
“I'm Colt, and I pretty much just speak one,” he said. “I was taking Spanish, though.”
The SVC-9 stopped at a door, and its eyes flickered in a rapid sequenceâlike some kind of combinationâbefore it opened. “After you,” it said, bowing slightly as Colt stepped through the threshold.
The room was about the size of Grandpa's garage, but instead of a lawn mower, spark plugs, or a rusted coffee can filled with mismatched nuts and bolts, there were hairbrushes and combs, shears, clippers, and three barber chairs that faced a giant mirror.
The door slid shut and Colt felt like an animal trapped in a cage.
“My sensors indicate that your heart rate is slightly elevated, and it would appear as though you have begun to perspire,” SVC-9 said without inflection. “Is there a problem?”
“No,” Colt said, but then he changed his mind. “Well, maybe.”
“Please explain.”
“It's just that . . . I mean . . .” He couldn't stop stammering. “Are you going to cut my hair or something?” It wasn't that Colt was vain. If anything, he really didn't care about his personal appearance. He was a good-looking kid, but his idea of fashion was anything that was comfortableâflip-flops, a worn T-shirt, board shorts or an old pair of jeans. But his hair? That was another story. He liked to wear it long, especially on top, but it looked like that was about to change.