Piper paused, considering her next words carefully. “Conrad, there’s something else. I’ve been getting this strange feeling. . . .” Piper reached for phrases that could communicate the peculiar feeling of being watched and followed that had been steadily building inside of her over the last few weeks. It was as though just out of her line of sight there was a shadow lurking, ready at any moment to pounce upon her. Try as she might, Piper had never actually seen or heard anything. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn that it was exactly like that fateful morning in her bedroom at the farm, when she’d heard that man’s voice, the one Dr. Hellion had warned her about.
“What I’m getting at, Conrad,” Piper began again, “is that I’m being followed—”
“Finished!” Conrad, who, as per usual, hadn’t been paying any attention to what Piper had been saying, put down his pen and stepped away from his desk.
“You’re finished! You got the plan!” Piper shot upward several feet into the air.
“It’s a plan. I can’t guarantee it’ll work,” Conrad warned.
“It’ll work. We’ll make it work!”
Conrad didn’t share Piper’s wild enthusiasm, nor belief in many of his classmates’ random and ineffective talents. Nonetheless, twenty-four hours later he contrived to disable the security surveillance in the girls’ bathroom and arrange a midnight meeting that would be attended by all the residents of level thirteen. Conrad insisted that Piper be the one to break the truth to the others, since the whole plan was her idea in the first place. He warned her not to be disappointed if the kids were already too brainwashed to accept the reality of their situation. He also prepared her for the fact that even if they did believe her, they’d probably be too scared to even consider the idea of an escape, or worst-case scenario, lose their marbles completely.
In the early hours, Piper finished explaining everything to a wide-eyed audience who sat slack-jawed and immobile. “. . . so we’ve got to get out of here. All of us. Conrad’s thought up a right good plan and all we gotta do is follow it.”
“And do what once we get out?” Kimber wanted to know.
“Where are we supposed to go?”
“My parents don’t want me anymore. What am I gonna do?”
“But we can’t stay here. They’re putting poisons in us. Who wants that?” Piper reasoned. She tried her best to sound confident despite Conrad’s pessimism. “With all of us working together we’ll be out in no time. If you stay, the only way out is being normal.”
“But is it such a bad thing to be normal and like everyone else?” Myrtle had spent her life running away from conflict and was ready to accept any option that would exempt her from having to face a fight.
“You wanna be normal, Myrtle? And never again run like the wind? Is that what you want?” Piper challenged, unable to understand how Myrtle would even consider staying at I.N.S.A.N.E.
“But are you sure about all of this, Piper? Maybe you’re mistaken about Dr. Hellion or got confused,” Lily hoped.
“It’s even worse than the way Piper presented it. Much worse,” Conrad weighed in, and the children knew better than to question his intelligence.
“I dunno if this is such a good idea.” Kimber shook her head. “What if we’re caught?”
“Can’t be much worse than what they’re doing to us now. Right, Conrad?” Piper argued. Although the others didn’t notice, Conrad was strangely quiet on this point. Piper continued regardless. “C’mon, y’all. It’s not a crime to be scared but we can’t stay here if it’s bad for us. We got something to fight for. I heard what y’all told me. How you have things you gotta do in this world. Don’t tell me you don’t ’cause I know you do. Sure, they gave us nice beds and fed us fancy food, but that’s nothing. Not really. Not compared to going in tombs or floating in space or wrestling a tsunami or seeing our families. It’s not right what they’re doing to us. It just isn’t right and that’s the truth. I say we don’t stand for it anymore.”
Silence. Each child thought about this. It was a big decision.
While Conrad couldn’t believe how well things were going (after all, the kids were stunned, but not out of control, and none of them had gone ballistic), Piper was exceedingly disappointed. Now that they knew the truth, wasn’t it simply a matter of common sense that they would take action? Piper couldn’t fathom how—knowing that they were being slowly poisoned, not to mention brainwashed, and that the institute was not a school but a prison—that they wouldn’t immediately want to escape. And yet, they didn’t. Piper hadn’t realized what a difficult task it was trying to set a person free.
She dug deep and tried again. “My ma told me that there isn’t anything in this life worth having that comes easy. She told me that every road I walk down’s gonna have a price. But what she didn’t tell me and what I learned since I’ve been here is that if you don’t choose the road you’re gonna walk, sooner or later someone else’ll do that choosing for you. Now maybe Myrtle’s right and there’s nothing wrong with being normal like everyone else. But the truth is that we aren’t like everyone else. We’re like the way the good Lord made us and wouldn’t that be a terrible thing to turn our backs on? I can’t promise you that everything on this road is gonna be okay ’cause sure enough every road I’ve ever been on has got a bend or two and a few hills and valleys besides. I do know this, though—I know that I was meant to fly and I’m not gonna walk out of here, I’m gonna fly out. And I know what road I belong on ’cause I feel it here.” Piper pointed to her heart. “So you gotta choose your road right now. And you’ll know which one it is ’cause you’ll feel it here too.”
Piper held her breath while fears were considered and weighed against dreams. For some, it was dead even. For others, the fear spoke more loudly.
A small voice finally spoke up. “I think Piper’s right. I say we escape.” Violet shrank a good five inches from the effort.
Slowly, reticent heads began to nod.
“If we’re caught, I’ll electrocute you till you’re black and crispy.” Kimber wagged her finger at Piper.
Before anyone could change their minds, Conrad spread a schematic of the facility on the floor in front of them. “Alright, listen up. Here’s the plan.”
It was a brilliant plan, which surprised no one. It was complicated, though, depending heavily on precise timing and each kid using their talent. As most of the children had been unknowingly consuming the drugs for such a long time, some of them didn’t even know if they still had their ability.
Conrad set a rigorous seven-day schedule for preparation. He allowed a forty-eight-hour period to flush the drugs out of their bodies and budgeted seventy-two hours of practice and additional mental preparation. The escape was far from easy and he needed them at their best.
From that moment on, mealtimes brought a new challenge. Kids had to look as though they were eating so as not to arouse suspicion, while consuming only the list of foods that Conrad knew were incompatible with drugs. The list was extremely small: carrots, most fruits, potatoes, rice, and salad without dressing. As a result of their restricted diet, the kids dragged themselves about, starving and quietly complaining to one another.
“I’m so hungry I could just die,” Lily whined to Smitty.
“I’m so hungry I ate some of the leaves off Bella’s plant,” Smitty confessed. “With a bit of salt, they don’t taste half bad, either.”
“You think you could score some for me?”
In addition to this, Conrad had worked out a practice schedule so it would be possible for all of the kids to use and strengthen their talents, an absolute necessity if his plan was going to have any chance of working. Violet shrank at night in her room for a whole hour between nine and ten o’clock, and then again in the morning for another half hour. Daisy snuck into the gym and alternated between lifting the entire climbing apparatus and the trampoline. Smitty and Lily performed random acts of X-ray sightseeing or telekinesis throughout the day. Though many wished Lily
wouldn’t, she was unable to resist playing pranks. It was harder for Piper to fly since most of the ceilings were too low, and Conrad insisted that the atrium was too risky. Piper did what she could and saw to it her feet were off of the ground and in the air as much as possible. As for the Mustafa twins, a random hurricane above the facility or rain clouds in the shower was simply going to attract too much attention, and they were given strict instructions to restrict their preparation to mental planning.
The escape was set for Friday at midnight, and as the days passed, tension built and the kids got increasingly jumpy and snappy. By the Friday morning of the escape, the residents of the thirteenth level were roused from a restless and sleepless night and started what they hoped was their last day in the facility with frayed nerves and a wild look in their eyes.
“It’s the waiting that gets to you.” Smitty paced nervously in the library that afternoon.
“Sit down.” Smitty was getting on Kimber’s last nerve. “You’re attracting attention. Conrad said we’ve got to act like normal.”
“You’re one to talk. Like they didn’t notice that you shorted the gymnasium electrical grid and blew out a hundred and twenty lightbulbs this morning. Yeah, that was subtle, Sparky.”
Smitty and Kimber weren’t the only ones the pressure was affecting. At breakfast Daisy had somehow managed to break the dining table in half, even though it was made of steel and unbreakable Kwarx glass. A strange mist kept swirling around Nalen and Ahmed, and Violet had spent the entire day at half her size and her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t turn the page on the book she was pretending to read.
“Tomorrow morning we’ll all get to watch the sun rise,” Piper soothed them. “You’ll see. It’s gonna be as easy as pie.” Listening to her words and the conviction in her voice calmed them. Smitty nodded and sat down, Myrtle’s rhythmic rocking slowed, and Violet grew two inches.
“Piper’s right,” Conrad weighed in, convincingly. “Relax.”
“There isn’t a thing we have to worry about. Everything’s planned and it’ll go just as it’s supposed to. Nothing will go wrong now.”
“Harrington. Front and center.” Nurse Tolle’s booming voice startled the group from their discussion. He appeared out of nowhere, glowered at the door of the library. “Move it. Dr. Hellion wants to see you. Now.”
As nonchalantly as possible, Conrad strolled from the room, leaving behind nine kids, who accelerated from tentative relaxation to full panic in less than sixty seconds flat. It took Piper the better part of an hour to calm them so that Kimber stopped giving off spontaneous electrical sparks and Violet could return to something close to her normal size. Conrad returned just as the evening meal bell rang, much to everyone’s relief. He was relaxed and smiling and instantly put everyone at ease.
“We’re in the clear. Dr. Hellion knows nothing and suspects even less. It’s a go.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PLANNED COMPLETION OF ESCAPE
12:05 A.M.
PLANNED COMMENCEMENT OF ESCAPE
12:00 A.M.
CURRENT TIME
11:55 P.M.
ABOVE THE facility, a thunderstorm raged. Violent cracks of lightning stepped on the heels of booming thunder, courtesy of the Mustafa twins. Silently standing opposite each other in their room over one mile beneath the surface of the earth, they swayed to the rhythm of a music that only they could hear, while throwing an energy force, which only they could see, back and forth between their hands.
According to the plan, at 12:05 a.m. the residents of the thirteenth level would revel in their first breath of freedom. As it was only 11:55 p.m., eleven children lay stone-cold awake with nothing but sheer panic and terror coursing through their veins as they anticipated the five agonizing minutes they still had to wait, as well as the five demanding minutes that would follow.
There was only one person who waited with anticipation and not dread, and for that person failure wasn’t possible.
Lying on her bed, Piper imagined the stars that she would be gazing at in the night sky at exactly 12:05. And not just the stars but the bright futures that were awaiting each of them—Smitty solving his first case, Lily on the moon, Violet uncovering treasures from the past. She tingled from head to foot and, as her excitement and expectation ballooned, she had to hold herself down by gripping the sides of her mattress, or she would have floated right out of her room.
CURRENT TIME 12:00:01 A.M.
BOOM! CRACK! BOOM!
It was up to the Mustafa twins to knock out the exterior power conductors by hitting them with lightning. Hardly an easy task, particularly as it required a direct hit, and they were without the benefit of practice. This feat was supposed to be accomplished no later than twelve midnight, which made them officially behind schedule.
Nalen and Ahmed’s movements became frenzied. Outside of the facility, the thunderstorm was so intense that lightning pummeled the ground like grenades, and even thirteen levels below the surface, the chaos in the skies above was loud, violent, and ever present.
CRACK!!!!!!! A direct hit. The hallway lights in the dormitory flickered and died.
CURRENT TIME 12:00:20 A.M.
Nalen and Ahmed silently performed a victory dance. Auxiliary power kicked in. In sixty seconds the facility’s computers and security systems would reboot.
A flurry of motion erupted in each dormitory room. Kids shot out of their beds fully clothed, their feet hit the ground running. Myrtle flashed from room to room checking to make sure that each child was awake (as though they could still be asleep!). Deployment of the teams commenced immediately.
Omega Team, tasked with surveillance and security, depended upon the combined efforts of Smitty’s eyes to see and Myrtle’s speed to relay any pertinent information to the others. Smitty got into his lookout position on the third-tier balcony and began scanning for any possible threats. Myrtle took her first lap through every corridor of the thirteenth level. She had less than fifty seconds to complete each circuit, at which time she would report to Smitty with her reconnaissance and receive any messages.
Alpha Team consisted of Violet, Piper, and Jasper. As Conrad quietly and urgently pointed out to Piper, everything rested upon her. Piper had to fly up to the very top of the elevator shaft and manually reroute the elevator back down to the atrium. It was Violet’s task to shrink as small as possible and ride in Piper’s pocket, to assist with any unforeseen difficulties that might come up at the top of the elevator shaft. Jasper was tasked with waiting at the bottom of the atrium so that when Piper sent the elevator down, he could hold the doors until all of the others were safely aboard.
Lily, Kimber, and Daisy were on Team Mayhem. Each had to create a disturbance in a specific location at a specific time to distract attention away from the main thrust of the escape. Daisy headed for the security center, Kimber ran for the control room, and Lily’s job was to create blocks at critical entry points.
Conrad, as always, worked alone and was in charge of hacking into the computer and destroying data.
CURRENT TIME 12:01:19 A.M.
Myrtle completed her first lap and checked in with Smitty.
“All clear,” Smitty reported.
“Roger that.” Myrtle flashed off again.
Alpha Team was in position, Jasper waiting at the foot of the elevator, Violet shrunk down to the size of a Barbie doll. With Violet in her right pocket and Sebastian in her left, Piper took a running leap off of the balcony and shot up the elevator shaft.
Like clockwork, Daisy breached the security control room and locked the lone agent in a closet. Conrad arrived on Daisy’s heels and swiftly cracked into the computer mainframe, destroying the databases and deleting all information.
CURRENT TIME 12:02:45 A.M.
Nalen and Ahmed arrived in the atrium and began creating a thick fog cover so that the floors above would be unable to see their activities.
Conrad released security access on the control room just in time for K
imber to gain entry and locate the fuel cells. Taking several deep breaths, she generated what she hoped was one hundred thousand volts of electricity and pumped it into the cells.
Smitty caught sight of a maintenance crew on tier two and dispatched Myrtle to warn the others to keep clear of that area.
Piper reached the top of the elevator shaft and found the access space so tight that her hand became streaked with blood from straining to reach the red wire that would release the elevator.
“It’s no good. I can’t get at it.” She wiped the blood away on her skirt.
“Let me. I’ll do it.” Violet wiggled in Piper’s pocket.
Piper pulled Violet free and placed her on the ledge. Violet shimmied along the narrow strip of metal and then grabbed the red wire as hard as she could. “Uhhh, uhhh.”
BOOM! Kimber miscalculated her voltage, and so instead of just shorting out the fuel cells, she ignited them.
CURRENT TIME 12:03:30 A.M.
Jasper kept his eyes fixed on the elevator shaft but it was empty—the elevator nowhere to be seen. It required thirty seconds to make the journey from top to bottom, and according to the schedule it should have been arriving in the next fifteen seconds. Nalen and Ahmed had successfully created a thick fog cover.
“Pull, Violet. You’re nearly there,” Piper coached, floating back and forth.