Cragbridge Hall, Book One: The Inventor's Secret (8 page)

He guided the students into the adjoining room. Hooks lined the wall, holding what looked like masks and dangling black strands of thick fabric. “These are your avatar guidance systems,” he said, gesturing to the items hanging from clasps on the wall. Not every clasp held gear. Perhaps they didn’t have enough, or perhaps some were being repaired. “I will show you how to put them on. Then we’ll issue one to each of you.”

Dr. Mackleprank pressed his finger against a sensor, and the clasps opened, allowing him to pull the gear free. He stepped into a series of straps like he would into a pair of pants.

Two slipper-like ends went on his feet. Several thin black strands wrapped around his legs. Thicker straps crossed his ankles, knees and waist. Dr. Mackleprank threaded his arms through another series of straps with gloves at the ends. He had straps over his wrists, above his elbows, and on his shoulders. He attached a series of thicker straps across his chest. Finally, he put on a mesh mask with a reflective visor.

“Now it’s your turn,” Dr. Mackleprank said. “Please, wait patiently until you receive yours.” Both Rafa and Dr. Mackleprank quickly went to work assigning each of the students their equipment and helping them put it on. Once he was outfitted, Derick felt like he was wearing some sort of Halloween costume.

“I know they feel uncomfortable at first,” Dr. Mackleprank said, “but eventually you get used to the suits. There have been attempts to use visual sensors without a suit and have the avatar mirror your movements, much like the video game units that came out in the early 2000s, but they simply aren’t sensitive enough.” He surveyed the room. “Are we ready?”

“Yes,” Derick said, several others echoing his enthusiasm.

“Not likely,
rapaz,
” Rafa said quietly, standing close to Derick.

Dr. Mackleprank led them into a long hall, segmented into small booths. It reminded Derick a bit of the Bridge.

“Everyone line up so that you can see this one booth,” Dr. Mackleprank said. “Rafael, would you mind demonstrating in a moment?”

“Not at all,” Rafa said. “
Meu prazer
.”

“Let me explain how you control an avatar. First, we suspend you in the air.” He pulled a cord from the ceiling and hooked it to the back of Rafa’s harness. “The harness makes you lighter on your feet. In this case, we’ll rig it to tip you forward slightly to compensate for the squirrel monkey’s tail. You need to be free to move your appendages in every direction, but it is the fact that you can feel what the avatar feels that makes this successful. As you walk, it walks, but you will feel your feet hit the ground. Without that feeling, all of you would fall. If you reach up and grab a tree branch, the avatar will as well, and you will feel the branch in your hand. If this sensation did not happen, it would be nearly impossible to accurately control an avatar.

“Once you’re ready, you initiate the system by pressing the button behind your neck. You will only have access to squirrel monkey avatars for now, so you don’t have to worry about choosing an animal. The avatar will be placed by our program into your private practice room, and then you can begin.”

“But there are no windows. How do we see the avatar?” a girl, with what Derick thought was an Asian accent, asked. Derick had also noticed that the booths were solid walls.

“You don’t have to see the avatar from the outside,” Dr. Mackleprank said. “You will be seeing the world through its eyes. Oh, and to end a session, simply press on the same button on the back of your neck.”

After a few minutes, Derick was hooked up. He pressed the button at the back of his neck to log on. A quick pain behind his eyes forced them closed. His head ached. Derick recoiled for a moment, then slowly opened his eyes.

It was like nothing he had ever experienced before.

The most massive tree Derick had ever seen stood in the middle of a space the size of a soccer field. It must have been ten stories tall. Derick turned his head, which made him lose his balance and nearly fall over. Pesky tail. Plus, his head felt off balance. Maybe it was larger in proportion to his body than he was used to. He looked down at his hands—furry. He rubbed them against his chest—furry. He rubbed them on the top of his head—furry. He felt like a walking rug. His nose, however, was cold and clammy. Derick was a squirrel monkey.

“Students,” he heard Dr. Mackleprank’s voice saying, “I’m speaking through a sound system that your ears pick up in your booths, not the monkeys’. That will be important for when you want to join the real monkeys. We can’t have them hearing our instructions and being wary of new visitors.

“You’ll notice that many things look very large to you. Squirrel monkeys are only twenty-five to thirty-five centimeters tall, so, as you can imagine, you’re looking at the world from a whole new perspective. Everything will seem much larger.”

Derick began to take a few steps. It felt good—completely strange, awkward, and imbalanced, but also agile and light. He nearly fell to the left, but after spreading his arms as a counterbalance, he managed to stay upright. He was learning to walk all over again.

Derick heard Mackleprank again. “Off to one side of the room are a series of bars you can use to practice climbing and swinging from branches. Squirrel monkeys live in the canopy of tropical forests in Central and South America. So obviously, much of their lives is among trees.

Derick turned toward the bars and toppled onto his side. Getting up was a bit of a chore.

“I’m sure you’ve now felt the imbalance a tail causes. I’ve seen several of you already fall over. Don’t worry; the tail takes getting used to. Squirrel monkeys don’t use their tail for climbing, so you won’t have to worry about learning to control an entirely new appendage that way. Just use it for balance. Once you are in a tree, you’ll find it to be quite an asset. Balance is everything in a tree. When you become more advanced in your skills, you may learn to use the tail as a sort of tool, but that won’t come for a while.”

Derick walked forward again. After a few moments, he began to increase his speed, leaning forward a little farther than he was used to. He turned to the left and had to compensate for the tail, but continued his jog.

“Practice, practice, practice. We isolate you for now, but you’ll need to be good enough that you can move fast. Squirrel monkeys are prey for falcons, snakes, and felids. They also live in large groups of up to five hundred, which means you must be able to keep control of the avatar despite the chaos of the other monkeys.

Derick reached the bars. He jumped and sailed higher than he expected. He wasn’t sure if a squirrel monkey’s muscles were stronger, or if his body was lighter, or a combination of both, but soaring through the air was a pleasant surprise. Until he caught the bar in the belly, which nearly knocked the wind out of him. He managed to hold himself there while he regained his breath, and then pulled himself up and jumped to the next bar.

“Start with major movements now, and we’ll gradually work our way to fine motor skills, which squirrel monkeys use to eat fruits, insects, seeds, leaves, and nuts, among other things.”

Derick leapt for the bar above him, and then the next. He felt limber, quick. Being a little monkey was addictive. He could feel the air through his fur, which he thought might make him feel like he was going faster than he really was. He jumped higher and higher. Then, one bar from the top, he lost his grip. He flailed his limbs in a panic as his avatar fell toward the ground.

9

Gym

Abby’s father walked down a hall of the ship with doors on both sides, his wife a few steps behind. He tried every door handle. He needed just one to be unlocked. He had found one earlier, but discovered someone else inside.

“Sorry,” he’d apologized. “Wrong cabin.” He hoped they didn’t realize he didn’t belong there at all.

Wrong cabin. Wrong floor. Wrong ship. Wrong everything.

It had taken the two of them a few hours to realize how bad it truly was—to figure out where they were. And when they did ... he could still feel the paralyzing fear. He couldn’t think about it. He had to do what he could.

Now in a different hall, he twisted another knob. It didn’t give, but when he pushed, the door swung open. Whoever’s cabin this was, they’d locked the door, but they hadn’t pulled it completely closed. He quickly stepped in and looked around. No one. He motioned for his wife, Hailey, to follow him in.

“I don’t want to be a criminal,” she said.

“Me, neither,” Jefferson Cragbridge responded. “But we can’t walk on the decks dressed like this. People will ask questions we can’t answer.”

They still wore their pajamas from last night, when a group of men somehow got through all the security in their house and took them hostage. Jefferson had fought with everything he had, and so had his wife. A few of the men would have a couple of dark bruises and deep scratches for the next couple of weeks.

But in the end, both of Abby’s parents were tranquilized. They woke up on this ship—one of the very worst places to be.

“Even speaking with someone could have terrible repercussions,” Jefferson said. “We have to blend in.” He opened a suitcase and carefully rifled through the clothes.

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be better just to hide in the boiler room?” Hailey asked. “We only have to avoid a few maintenance men there.”

“We’ve stewed over this enough,” he answered, pulling out a shirt and then a pair of khaki pants. “I don’t know how they trapped us here, but I know this is dangerous—not just for us, but for everyone, everywhere. Our only hope is that those with the lockets will discover us, and for that to happen, we have to get up on the deck where they are most likely to search for us.” He changed into the shirt from the suitcase.

“Do you think our kidnappers found
our
lockets?” she asked, a quiver in her voice.

“No,” Jefferson responded. “We were smart to hide them where we did.”

“But even for the others that have them, the lockets probably haven’t even—”

“They will soon,” he interrupted.

Hailey finally surrendered and looked in the woman’s suitcase on the other side of the room. After pulling out a simple dress, she asked, “What about your dad? Do you think he’s okay?”

“He’s safe, if that’s what you mean,” he answered, now buttoning a pair of pants. “But I’m sure they’re holding us here as collateral. If he wants to save us, he’ll have to tell them his secret.”

“There’s no chance he’d do that.”

“No,” he said, folding his old clothes. He paused for a moment, “Not even to save us. Though it will rip at his heart, there is too much on the line.”

Hailey, now wearing the dress and holding her nightgown, looked back at him. He could tell she was thinking. “Jeff?”

“Just a moment,” he said. “Let’s get out of this room first.” They put the suitcases back exactly how they found them and left the cabin, locking the door behind them. With a little luck, the owners wouldn’t even realize their clothes were missing, or they’d think they had just forgotten to pack that dress or that shirt. Then again, unless the owners were going to wear the clothes very soon, it didn’t really matter.

As they climbed the stairs, Hailey began again, “But there are others with lockets. They could follow the clues to save us.”

“Yes. And that’s what we have to hope for. But they’d have to work fast and—against all odds—find out where we are. It’s our only chance, and it’s a long shot.”

“The twins have lockets.”

Abby’s father didn’t speak until after they emerged onto one of the decks of the ship. He leaned on the railing and spoke softly. “For them to figure everything out and face all the challenges needed to reach us would take everything they have,” he admitted. “And there are obviously those who would try to stop them. Whoever these guys are, they won’t give in easily. I’m not sure Derick and Abby stand much of a chance. They probably have no idea how much is at stake or how much their lives are about to change.” He dropped his pajamas over the edge of the ship.

His wife looked down at the ship’s sleek floorboards. “How much time do we have?”

“Two and a half days, and then ...” He didn’t finish the thought; he didn’t have to. They both knew that they, along with over a thousand others, would be dead. He grabbed his wife’s nightgown from her hand, threw it over the railing, and watched it fall into the ocean.

• • •

After Abby received her school-issued gold-colored T-shirt and blue shorts with gold trim, she found a locker. She changed and stepped into the largest room she had ever seen. It was like several gymnasiums combined. Most of the room looked like a regular gym. The south wall, however, did not. It was a mountain. Trees sprouted out sporadically along the rocky terrain, and stone steps carved a trail up the face.

As Abby gazed in awe at the gymnasium, she heard a voice. “Hey there.”

Abby turned to see a smiling blonde girl—Carol from English who had imagined a buffalo with an afro in a tutu. She used the vast majority of her arm to give an enthusiastic wave to Abby.

“Hey,” Abby answered simply.

“Sorry about Ms. Entrese. It was mean of her to suggest that you think about secrets. I couldn’t tell what they were, but I could tell it bothered you. I would have stood up from the Chair too. I mean, I probably would have thought of the time when I secretly borrowed my sister’s training bra and wore it to school when I was nine. Or maybe when I hacked into my school’s computer system and changed my file so my birthday was listed every other month. I know I probably shouldn’t have done that, but they gave out those king-sized candy bars, and I’m a sucker for chocolate. Or maybe when I purposely messed up this scene in acting class about six times. Brian Colfer had to hold me for the whole scene, and I didn’t mind the practice.” Carol spoke even faster now that she wasn’t in front of the class.

Abby smiled. “I guess they aren’t secrets anymore.”

“Oh, I don’t really care if they’re secrets. It’s just what I thought of,” Carol said. Anyone who spoke as much as Carol probably couldn’t keep many secrets. “So are you excited for gym? I can’t wait. It’s good to get up and move around, you know. Plus, all the guys are wearing these cute gym shorts. Can’t complain about that. I mean, I guess you could, if you were blind or something.”