Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies (18 page)

Muirin looked from Loch to Burke and back again. “You both just had a chance to get out of here practically shoved in your faces, and you turned it down,” she said incredulously.
“Why?”

Burke scratched his chin. “You want the logical reason or the illogical reason?” he asked.

“Logic first,” Muirin said. “Convince me.”

“We know there’s someone inside Oakhurst that’s helping the Shadow Knights.”

“Shadow Knights?” Spirit interrupted. Burke blushed.

“That’s—just what I call them. Stupid, I know, it sounds like a bad fantasy movie or a video game.”

“No, it fits, go on,” she urged, smiling at him. Burke blushed a little more.

“Okay, so, we know there’s someone at Oakhurst working with the Shadow Knights, and we don’t know who it is. We just know there’s a good chance it’s a teacher, and so far,
who
are the people that have managed to get in the way?”

Muirin chewed her lip. “Us.”

“So what’s the best way to get us out of the way? Break us up. Separate us.” Burke nodded as Muirin hissed a little. “You know, the whole bundle of sticks routine. So
maybe
Ms. Holland knows what’s going on and is trying to help us out. And
maybe
she’s the inside man, or one of them. So okay, we’ve been warned and it isn’t Spirit being paranoid. We’re better off sticking where we know the territory and can maybe put up a bunker somehow.”

Muirin pondered that for a while. “Okay. So what’s the not-logical reason?”

Burke gazed earnestly at her. “Because you’re all my friends. And I don’t bail on my friends.”

“What he said,” said Loch.

ELEVEN

The cars came to pick them all up; when they got to the train, a third and fourth railcar had been added. One was a sleek metal thing with no windows and a big double door. It didn’t look like a baggage car, more like something meant to hold a lot of cargo. And behind that was one of those container cars stacked two high. There were people loading the cargo car when they arrived, but it looked as if they had just started—and they were packing it tight.

The townies were already there, waiting; Mr. Krandal unlocked the doors to the passenger cars; he went into the rear car, and they all settled into their seats, but the train showed no signs of moving as the light faded.

The townies stirred restlessly, and Spirit was beginning to feel hungry. That was when Mr. Krandal came into their car from the rear car.

He rubbed his hand unconsciously over his bald spot. “As you can see, we’re taking this opportunity to get in some supplies for the school, and in addition, a generous Alumnus is getting us some new equipment we’re sure you’ll appreciate. However, since this is causing something of a delay in leaving, I’ve unlocked a game feed to your seat consoles, and…” A pizza delivery van pulled up to the platform. “… ah, there we are, right on time. We have some hot food for you.”

There were cheers at that, and a tall stack of pizza boxes was unloaded into each car. There was a little grumbling from the townies to discover that most of the toppings were “healthy”—a lot of veggies were involved, including shredded broccoli and “pepperoni” made of tofu. But there wasn’t
too
much complaining. Everyone was very hungry. These were gourmet pizzas, not stuff from a chain, delivered so hot the cheese was still bubbling. Spirit overheard Adam saying with awe that he’d heard one of these pies cost more than he made in two days at his job. That couldn’t be true, but it impressed the townies. There was contented silence, broken only when someone got up to get another slice. Then there was more silence as people put on headsets and plugged into the promised video game.

Out of curiosity, Spirit called it up, and was unsurprised to see that it was from Breakthrough. The game didn’t interest her; it was a futuristic combat game, and you were fighting what looked like alien Nazis in powered armor, big spherical flying things with tentacles and energy beams, and robotic wolves and eagles. It allowed several players to form a team and either take on things in the game or fight one another. You could be either some kind of soldier, or people in black bodysuits with all kinds of powers. Soldiers could only fight the Nazis or the people in the black bodysuits; people in black bodysuits could only fight the Nazis or the soldiers. Or both could team up to fight the Nazis. Interestingly, a lot of the powers involved magic that seemed to work exactly like the magic being taught at Oakhurst. It was
very
pretty, very fast moving, and as far as she could tell, very inventive, but she wasn’t in the mood to fight anything. Judging by the antics of most of the others, though, it was immediately popular with everyone playing.

The car was warm, the seat was comfortable, and Loch, Burke, and even Muirin were deep in the game. Elizabeth wasn’t playing, but she was staring at the screen, watching the others. With a mental shrug, Spirit pulled out one of her carefully considered purchases—a book—and pulled out her iPod, glad that she’d loaded it with music
she
liked, not the Music Appreciation stuff.

It was nearly 8
P.M.
by the time the train lurched into motion. Spirit looked up when it did, but the others didn’t notice. She pulled up the game briefly to see what had them so immersed, but couldn’t tell which little figure was which person and shut it off again.

They had to detour to a siding halfway to Oakhurst to let an express freight go by and that delayed them further. By the time they got to the school, it was almost midnight and Spirit was too tired to think. The others were even more tired than she was, and they all shuffled like zombies into the tiny train station, where there were four more teachers waiting to check their purchases. The three chaperones didn’t stop at the station, and she was pretty sure they’d gone straight to their own quarters. She waited with the others while her purchases were examined for contraband—she half expected someone to say something about all the thumb drives, but no one did; they didn’t even give more than a cursory look inside the little white plastic bag from the computer store. She was really glad when they sent her off to the main building.

Muirin tailed her all the way to her room, chattering about nothing; as soon as they were out of sight of teachers and proctors, she held out her hand and Spirit passed her the white bag. Muirin blew her a kiss, and dashed off with it. Spirit got into her room and dumped her purchases on the bed.

A red sweater, some candy, a lipstick, two books, and a magazine. Everything but the magazine had been on sale, but she’d always been used to shopping carefully. Before.

She frowned and picked up yet another thumb drive. She hadn’t bought
this.
And it wasn’t anything like the thumb drives Muirin had bought. For one thing, this wasn’t in a blister pack. For another, it was in a brushed-metal case, not plastic. There was a little logo and a single word across the bottom just above the indicator light.
IRONKEY.

Maybe it was already in the bag at the computer store.
But she’d handed the whole bag to Muirin.
It must have fallen out.
If so, it was too late to return it, and there was no way to tell them she had it. Well, she was too tired to look at it now. She tossed it in a drawer and went to bed.

She woke to someone banging on her door; blearily she opened her eyes and saw it was just two minutes before her alarm was going to go off. “What?” she yelled, fighting her way out of the blankets.

Kelly opened the door and stuck her head in. “Special Assembly before class, in the Auditorium,” the Proctor said, and closed the door again.

Special Assembly?

She dressed with a little more care than usual—this might be a kind of inspection, and she didn’t want to take the chance on failing it; that left her a little behind, and the others must have already gotten breakfast, because there wasn’t any sign of them in the Refectory. She ate in a hurry—everyone else was bolting their food, so she figured that was a sign she’d better, too. The cold air hit her like a hammer as she went outside and hurried toward the Auditorium. And it was dark. She couldn’t help but think that if there was going to be an ambush by the bad guys, this would be a good time for it; either while they were all in the open, scuttling to the Auditorium, or even better, once they were all
in
the Auditorium.

When she got there, she got another surprise; no “free seating” this time, they all had assigned seats in alphabetical order. A proctor consulted a list and sent her to hers just as Doctor Ambrosius came out on the stage, and the house lights dimmed.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, casting his gaze around the room. “Some of you are already aware of our generous Alumnus donor, although you don’t yet know what he is giving us. I won’t spoil his surprise, but I will tell you this. After the incursion of those unwelcome visitors last week, Oakhurst put out a call for help, and the generous Oakhurst family has responded. We will be receiving both visitors and new residents today; I would like you to be on your best behavior and prove to them that the quality of Oakhurst students has not diminished over the years.” He cleared his throat, and scanned the audience again. “We will be playing host to students who graduated and went on to greatness, experts in protection and defense both arcane and—well, given the level of technology involved, I could not in good conscience call it
mundane,
so let us just say arcane and physical.” He smiled, grimly. “And let those who oppose Oakhurst beware.”

Well, everyone was surely awake by now. Spirit found herself sitting bolt upright in her seat.

“Now, if I may, let me introduce our benefactors: the CEOs of Breakthrough Adventure Systems and graduates of Oakhurst, Mr. Mark Rider and Master Theodore Rider. The microphone is yours, Mark.”

Astonished applause broke out across the room as two men in suits so perfectly tailored to them that they looked like second skins strode across the stage and took over the microphone that Doctor Ambrosius had relinquished. One was older than the other by at least a decade, dark-haired and powerful, though he could not by any stretch of the imagination be called handsome; he was the one who took over the mic. The other was blond, tall, and catlike; the way he moved gave Spirit the impression that he never stirred an inch without planning every step in advance.

“Good morning, fellow dwellers in the halls of Oakhurst,” the older man said genially. He had a deep, gravelly voice. “I’ll be sure and make this short enough so that you don’t get bored, and stretch it out long enough that you get to skip your first classes.”

There was a scattering of laughs. Spirit frowned a little as she watched and listened. The man reminded her of something or someone—but what, or who? He spoke without any “ums” or hesitations, however, so he was obviously used to speaking for an audience.

“I’m Mark Rider. Some of you may already know Breakthrough, or at least, know our products. Thanks to Oakhurst, when Teddy and I graduated from here, we had everything we needed to make ourselves into as big a success as we wanted—and we dreamed big.” Rider nodded a little at the murmur of appreciation. “We were grateful. So today we’re bringing that success back to the people that gave it to us. Now, what the outside world will know is this: Breakthrough is moving its HQ to Radial and entering into an historic partnership with Oakhurst Academy. We’ll be building and installing a brand-new, state-of-the-art computer facility here, and Oakhurst will be adding game design courses to the curriculum. Those of you with free time will be invited to become beta testers for Breakthrough, and for any of you who want a job with us after you graduate Oakhurst, or after you graduate from college, it will be there waiting for you.”

There was an outburst of wild applause at that, and Spirit could hear people whispering excitedly to each other. Mark Rider held up his hand. His class ring glinted brightly.

“Of course, that’s just what the ordinary world will see. But—as we all know—Oakhurst transcends the ordinary world. The first skirmishes of the war we’ve anticipated for so long, the war that Doctor Ambrosius trained us for, have broken out. Here. The enemy has come to the place where the next generation of magicians is trained and hardened. Obviously, his plan is to kill our future.” Rider’s face lost that professional smile. “We aren’t going to let him. And we’ve come back to Oakhurst to make sure that
our side
wins this thing. Our first order of business is to make sure that Oakhurst Academy is safer than the Vice President’s ‘undisclosed location.’”

There was a nervous laugh. Rider put his smile back on again. “This is not our first rodeo, kids. Breakthrough has security on its campus that would make the Secret Service bleed with envy, and we’re going to duplicate it here. We’ll be putting in new protections, and we’ve designed a whole new set of computer games to help train you—the world’s first Magic Simulator. The time is at hand; and when the enemy shows up for the first real battle, Oakhurst
will
be ready!”

More cheering.

“Of course this means that your classes will be changing; some will be dropped, others added. For the time being, we’ll keep up your academic and career classes—my hope is that we won’t have to change to full combat training for you, that we Alumni will be able to handle things and keep you safe, and this will all be over in time for me to welcome the next generation of Oakhurst graduates to my Developer Teams.” He grinned. His teeth were extremely white; somehow they looked like wolf teeth. “So now I’ll introduce to you some of my staff and family who will be the ones implementing that change. First, my lovely wife, Madison Lane-Rider, who will be replacing Ms. Lindsay Holland.”

He made a little beckoning gesture as Spirit blinked in surprise at the abrupt announcement that Ms. Holland was—gone. A supermodel-beautiful red-haired woman in a tailored suit moved across the stage in a catwalk strut, giving a professional smile to the audience, and ended up at Mark Rider’s side. She didn’t take Mark’s hand, nor did they kiss, which Spirit had half expected. She took a pose with all her weight on one foot, one hand on one hip, the other relaxed at her side.

“My brother Teddy, of course, who will be directing the new computer-training courses.”

Teddy Rider gave a little wave; he was as blond as Mark was dark, and had the most penetrating blue eyes Spirit had ever seen. He seemed to be looking through the students for someone.

“Anastus Leontivich Ovcharenko, who will be directing some of the new defense courses and supervising the installation of new defenses here at Oakhurst.” Another blond, this one
very
Russian looking, stalked like a prowling tiger across the stage to join the others. Spirit was startled to see he was wearing body armor under his suit jacket, and was openly carrying some sort of large firearm in a shoulder holster. “Anastus has been head of Breakthrough’s security division for the last year. He’ll be joined by Mia Singleton and Zachary York, who will be taking over the defenses here once the new installations are complete, as well as assisting him with martial arts and other classes. Ms. Singleton and Mr. York should be arriving this afternoon.” Mark Rider paused significantly; Doctor Ambrosius signaled what was expected by beginning the applause.

When it died down again, Rider leaned over the podium. “Make no mistake about this, kids. This is going to be a war, and it might last longer than we hope. We’re not sure if it will break out into the open or not, but even if it doesn’t, when it’s over, the world is likely to be a very different place, because this
will
spill out into the world. But we’re going to keep you all safe until you have the strength and the skill to stand with us. And we aren’t the only ones who will be doing so. There are more of us out there than any of you guess, and we aren’t going to let you down. As they can free themselves up, the rest of the Oakhurst family will be coming here to answer the call to arms. But for right now? When we’re done, only an idiot would try attacking this place.” He grinned. “So you can turn the watch over to us. And when you’re ready, we are
all
going to kick some serious ass!”