Walter was just behind his mom. His skin was a particularly feminine shade of purple, like the color of fancy eye makeup or expensive flowers. Walter scowled at me and continued on after his mother; just as he reached the door that led out of the administrative sector, he stopped. I saw him argue with himself for a moment, looking at the ceiling and tapping his toes. Eventually, he glanced over his shoulder at me.
“Uh, I’m . . . I’m real sorry to hear about your parents, Hale,” he said swiftly.
“Thanks.” It wasn’t until the word left my mouth that I realized I was saying it, and it hung in the air between us, inflated by ten years of being friends and one of being mortal enemies. It felt like one of us should say something else, but what? We’d already fought about Walter ditching me. We’d had shouting match after shouting match about how “people change” and “it’s not like we wanted to be best friends, we just ended up that way.”
So there was nothing left, really. Walter pulled open the door and shut it behind him.
I puzzled in the quiet for a second, but then the door to Fishburn’s office swung open. The nutritionist stepped out cradling her cookbooks and sniffling to herself. I rose and walked in; Otter was sitting in a chair by Fishburn’s desk.
“Sit down,” Otter said, rubbing his temples like he couldn’t bear to look at me.
I lowered myself into one of the metal chairs across from Fishburn’s desk. It wasn’t until I was sitting down that I felt my stomach drop a little. They weren’t just Otter and Fishburn, my teacher and director, anymore. Now they were Otter and Fishburn, my . . . enemies? That word seemed too strong, but it was true. Otter might’ve been too low-ranking to know my parents were In the Weeds, but Fishburn definitely knew. Fishburn was the one who’d called for it, in fact—he was the director, after all. How could he? This was his fault, everything was his fault . . .
I took a sharp breath and forced my thoughts to a halt. If I let my emotions get the best of me, Otter and Fishburn would see it on my face, and my whole plan would be ruined.
“Hale,” Fishburn said carefully as he rolled his fingers across a pencil. “As you know, today we had a little bit of . . . what would you call it, Agent Otter?”
“Pandemonium? A total breakdown of a basic ordering-and-delivery system? A potential poisoning—”
“Drama,” Fishburn said tartly. “Let’s say we had a bit of drama today in the cafeteria.” Fishburn paused to double-check that the pencils on his desk were all lined up correctly. “We had a mission scheduled for tomorrow morning—an important one, one that only a junior agent can help with. But from the looks of things, whatever drama happened in the cafeteria today has turned all our junior agents purple. We can’t exactly send purple people on a mission. They’d attract all sorts of attention.”
“Right.”
“So, we’ve changed a few of the parameters and streamlined things. And we would like you to go instead.”
Step 7: Become the last resort
I blinked. I mean, this was what I’d wanted. This was what I’d planned for. Yet actually hearing Fishburn say it? My mind felt all blank and soggy. I stared. I knew my mouth was hanging open, but I couldn’t remember how to shut it.
“To be clear, you’re not a junior agent. We just don’t want to scrap the mission—it’s really very simple, anyway. Planting a small bit of software onto the computers at a children’s hospital. We’ve got a folder for you here.” He paused to lift a blue folder from his desk and hand it to me. “Tomorrow, zero eight hundred, you’ll meet Agent Otter by the elevators. Okay?”
“Got it,” I said.
Fishburn gave me a kind smile, but it was a little forced. Otter didn’t bother trying; instead he sucked at his teeth and shook his head. I thanked them both a few times, then left. Once I was alone in the hallway, I took a big breath and closed my eyes. A balloon had been inflating in my stomach, and now it felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.
Finally I was being sent on a mission. A real mission, not some stupid errand. I was being trusted, I was a spy, a real spy, and now everyone would know it. I thought about how Kennedy would react, how Mom and Dad would react . . .
The balloon in my stomach deflated. I’d imagined this day hundreds and hundreds of times before—literally dreamed about it, even. And in every single version, I ran home to tell my parents. They celebrated and cheered and beamed like the sun and brought out ice cream and told me, We always knew you could do it, Hale! In every single version, I was working for the good guys, not the criminals.
This wasn’t the way I’d planned on it happening.
But real spies can deal with a change of plans.
As expected, Kennedy lost her mind when she heard the news of the mission. She bounded and rebounded off all the furniture, talking quickly about how excited she was, how excited I should be, had I thought about what form of martial arts I would use? Had SRS provided me with a cover character? Because if not, she could help me think of one. Ms. Elma regarded Kennedy’s enthusiasm with a horrified look, like my sister was some sort of lab experiment gone wrong—though that might have just been because she was still a little lavender around the ears.
Eventually Kennedy’s boiling glee reduced to a simmer. I said I was going to study the folder of mission details, then go to sleep early—I had to be up at zero eight hundred, after all. That was partially true—I did study the mission details, going over them again and again. I didn’t, however, go to sleep early. I listened to Kennedy go to bed, then Ms. Elma creak down the hall to my parents’ bedroom, where I didn’t like to think about her sleeping. It was only then that I opened my bedroom door to retrieve the League com unit.
It’s hard to hide things in a building full of spies, especially when one such spy is your kid sister who isn’t afraid to mess with your stuff. Plus, I didn’t trust Ms. Elma not to snoop around in my room while I was away in class. But . . . there was a linen closet directly opposite my bedroom, full of towels and sheets but also full of fat winter blankets that we wouldn’t need anytime soon. I’d carefully tucked the jewelry away in the folds of the largest one; I darted my hand between the folds, retrieved the com, and—feeling somewhat smug about my hiding spot—went back to my bedroom. I holed myself up in my closet with the com and the mission folder Fishburn had given me, then lifted the earring to my ear. I could hear faint static through it.
“Clatterbuck,” I whispered into the bracelet’s enormous ruby centerpiece. “It’s me.” I began to wish we’d come up with call names on the odd chance someone at SRS was hacking into the com.
“Hale? Hale?” Clatterbuck said on the other end almost immediately. “Hold on, my earring isn’t on right.”
There was a rustling sound. When it stopped, I continued. “I’m going on a mission tomorrow,” I said.
Clatterbuck’s voice was loud now, so loud that I worried this ancient com unit had some sort of speakerphone setting. “Really? What kind of mission?”
“It’s not for Groundcover,” I said with a sigh—that’d been the first thing I’d checked for in the folder. “It’s part of something called Operation Evergreen. Another agent and I are going to a children’s hospital in Fairview—I’ll be undercover as a sick kid named Clifton Harris, and another agent will be playing my father. The objective is for us to install a program on the hospital’s servers.”
“Like a . . . like a computer program?” Clatterbuck said. He sounded like he was trying to speak a foreign language.
“Yes! Of course. I don’t know what it does, though. I mean, I can’t see them intentionally crashing the servers in a children’s hospital, but—”
“Hale?” a new voice said. I frowned, confused for a moment.
“Beatrix?” I asked.
“Hey. My uncle isn’t really a computer person—he was an agent back when computers were the size of a suitcase, you know? But I can help you.”
“How?”
“I can write a program to go on top of whatever they’ve created. I’m
guessing they’ll have it on a flash drive, right?” Beatrix’s voice was bright and cheery, like we were talking about sharing a photo collection.
“I’m leaving at zero eight hundred. There’s no time to write a program.”
Beatrix made a little noise of indignation, and I heard her lean away from the receiver—from the bracelet, I guess. “He thinks I can’t write one before eight in the morning! I know!” She was back and loud in my ear. “I can write the program; I just need to figure out how the children’s hospital wrote their program, and then figure out what the most obvious way would be for SRS to write their program, and then reverse. You know what? Just . . . I can do it. It’ll be ready by eight.”
I wasn’t totally convinced, but seeing as how her brother had already proven himself a pretty excellent inventor, I had no reason to think Beatrix wasn’t equally talented.
“Great,” I said. “SRS’s program has to work—if they don’t get whatever information they need, I’m sure they’ll find a way to blame me and that’ll be the end of me going on missions.”
“Got it!” Beatrix said excitedly. “I’ll work on it tonight, and then tomorrow I’ll get it—”
We both stopped. How could Beatrix get me the program before tomorrow morning? It wasn’t like she could just send it to me in an envelope, and the HITS guys would definitely catch a rogue program if she tried to e-mail it. I’d have to get a hard copy from her tomorrow at the hospital. Otter would be able to spot a brush pass a mile away, so she’d have to drop it somewhere, somewhere only I would be able to pick it up. But I couldn’t just root through a potted plant or in a light fixture with Otter standing right there . . .
“Are Ben and your uncle nearby?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Great. I’m going to need everyone’s help with this.”
Chapter Fifteen
Otter and I stepped into the elevator lobby at exactly eight o’clock. He gave me a bitter look, like he’d hoped I’d overslept. We cut down a short hallway and emerged in a parking lot behind the substitute teaching school. There Otter unlocked a boxy-looking car with faded paint. I brushed some crumbs off the fabric seats before sitting down.
Otter turned on the radio to a truly terrible country station, and drove us out of Castlebury, toward Fairview. It wasn’t until the city—complete with The League’s tower—came into view that we spoke.
“So, I’m Clifton Harris, and the file said I live in southern Oregon,” I said.
“That’s right. And I’m your dad. Don’t make that face—I don’t like it any more than you do. The doctors will do your exam in a room with computers that require a fingerprint scan every time they wake up from sleep mode. So, when the doctor steps out of the room to go get your test results, I’ll install the program. You just sit there, got it?” Otter said.
“Sure thing.”
The children’s hospital was an enormous building in the center of the city, just a few blocks over from The League’s tower. It was mostly white, but windows on the top floors were decked out in red, yellow, and blue curtains, and there was a giant fountain with a teddy bear in the center in the front courtyard. Otter pulled into a parking spot, then stalled there while he shut his eyes, preparing for his character, I guessed. I checked my watch for the millionth time. This was going to be close—we were a little bit early.
“Let’s go, Clifton.” Otter turned the car off, pulled the parking brake, and then we both opened our doors. As Otter stepped out, he tapped the Lock button on the driver’s side. The locks obediently popped down. As I went to shut my door, I quickly flipped mine back so the car was left unlocked.
Otter didn’t notice.
I rubbed my temple and drooped my head in mock pain. When I reached the trunk of the car, Otter met me and put an arm around my shoulders, guiding his ill son toward the main hospital doors. When we crossed through them, the blast of cool air and the smell of flowers layered over antiseptic hit me. The lobby was decked out in paper butterflies and rainbow-colored rugs. This was the section for everyday illnesses, rather than superserious stuff, and you could tell—even the paper butterflies looked sort of bored.
“Slow down,” I whined to Otter in what I hoped was a Clifton Harris voice. “It’s freezing in here.”
“That’s just ’cause your temperature is so high. Here—take a seat and I’ll sign us in,” Otter said, ushering me over to a turquoise chair. My stomach clenched—were we early? We couldn’t be early. I chanced lifting my eyes and glanced around the waiting room, then held in a sigh of relief. There were a few infants, some harried mothers with young children, and there, off to the side, were Clatterbuck and Ben.
Mission: Install dual spy programs without
Otter noticing, turning me in to SRS,
and putting me In the Weeds
Step 1: Ben and Clatterbuck get to the hospital first
I let my eyes graze over them, but I quickly looked back down at my hands when Ben grinned at me. I was sure he wasn’t trying to blow my cover, but he was going to if he kept this up. I saw Clatterbuck elbow him through my peripheral vision. Ben’s face crumpled and he went back to pretending to have a terrible stomach bug just as Otter finished with the sign-in sheet and rejoined me.
Step 1a: Ben gets called to go back first
“Benjamin Smith?” a voice called. I didn’t look, but I heard Clatterbuck and Ben rise across the room. Smith? Seriously, Clatterbuck? No, no, it’ll work—it’s so obvious, it’s forgettable. A door clicked shut, and now . . . I had to wait. Ben had one job, and no matter how small or easy it was, it was important. So much of this mission relied on everyone else doing their parts. As scary as it was, I think I preferred breaking into The League. At least there I had to rely on only myself.
“Clifton Harris?” the same voice called several minutes later. I let Otter spring up before me, then I rose slowly and dragged my feet behind him. The nurse who called my name smiled at me, then ushered me through the door.
I’d actually never been to a real hospital before. SRS had its own medical staff, of course, and they oversaw everything from allergies to knee-replacement surgery. I badly wanted to look around at the bustle of nurses and doctors, study the bulletin board of notes, and listen in on conversations in case I ever needed to replicate them someday for a disguise. The nurse brought me around a corner and took my weight, then measured my height, just like at SRS. And then, also like SRS . . .
“We’ll need a urine sample, of course,” she said brightly, like asking someone for pee was a happy thing.
“Right,” I said, keeping my voice low and sickly. I plucked the plastic cup from her fingers.
Otter made small talk with the nurse while I stepped into the little bathroom and shut the door, crossing my fingers that Ben hadn’t been taken to some other bathroom after he’d been checked in. I hurried over to the toilet and very carefully took the lid off the back of the tank.
Step 2: Ben plants the flash drive in the bathroom
I grinned—there, floating in a sealed sandwich bag, was a chipped and ancient-looking purple flash drive. I fished it from the tank and pocketed the drive. It took me a few seconds more to fill the cup, and then I rejoined Otter in the hall. It was so seamless that I almost felt uneasy, like the bottom would fall out of the whole thing.
The nurse led Otter and me to a small exam room, the kind with paper bedding. Cartoon characters had been painted on the walls, and there, in the corner, was the computer, complete with fingerprint scanner. I took note that the USB ports were on the side of the monitor.
“Clifton!” a cheery voice said. A male doctor with red-and-gray speckled hair stepped in. He shook Otter’s hand, then mine, and went through a dance of small talk while he pressed a stethoscope to my chest and asked me to take deep breaths. He looked in my eyes and my ears, listened while I told him I felt tired and my head hurt and how I hadn’t missed any school yet, but worried I might, and I really couldn’t because I wasn’t getting a good grade in
language arts. Not that it really mattered, since I wanted to be a music producer anyway.
Clifton Harris was a complex creature.
“Well, your results should be finishing up shortly—but I wouldn’t worry too much,” the doctor said, sliding onto a low stool and facing the computer. He pressed his finger against a reader; the computer obeyed, popping up a form for him to input new patient info. He typed up all my stats, and even made a note about how I wanted to be a music producer—for future doctor small talk times, I supposed. “Looks good! Give me just a moment, Clifton, to go grab your chart.” He rose. I saw Otter’s hand move toward his pocket, where the flash drive with SRS’s program was.
Footsteps in the hall—heels, running, clacking loudly on the tile floor. The doctor lifted his eyebrows, and then he was nearly smacked in the face as the door to the exam room flung open. A wide-eyed nurse stood on the other side, pointing emphatically at Otter.
“Your car!” she said, panting, out of breath. “It’s in the road!”
Step 3: Clatterbuck forces Otter to leave the room
“Huh?” Otter said.
“It’s in the road—it rolled. It’s in the intersection!” she said, stepping back.
I gritted my teeth in excitement. Clatterbuck had come through and done his part.
“Oh!” Otter’s jaw locked, his eyes panicked. He looked from me to the doctor and back again and again.
“Go!” the doctor said swiftly. “Hurry!”
“I can’t—Clifton—”
“I’ll be fine, Dad, go!” I said urgently, biting my tongue when I finished, punishing myself for calling Otter “Dad.” Otter gave me a mean look, but he didn’t have a choice unless he wanted to totally blow our cover—what kind of man just lets his car sit in an intersection? He patted me on the shoulder swiftly and then took off down the hallway. I folded my arms over my chest nervously, catching the flash drive Otter had seamlessly tucked into my T-shirt collar before it fell all the way through to the floor. The doctor looked back at me.
“Wow! Well, let’s hope everything goes fine with that. While he’s saving the car, I’ll go grab your results. Be back shortly!” He slipped out the door, closing it behind him.