Now, however, I just concentrated on losing Andrew and the twins. I zipped down every side trail I came across, trying to throw them off.

  I turned a corner and spotted a fallen tree a couple of yards off the trail. I hopped off the path and ran for it as fast as I could. The trunk wasn’t as wide as I would’ve liked, but I hoped it would be big enough to hide my bright yellow Swift Academy T-shirt. I jumped over the tree and threw myself to the ground. I listened carefully for footsteps.

  It wasn’t long before I heard the three of them run past. Their footsteps faded, and I counted off fifteen seconds before I slowly peeked out from behind the tree.

  I was completely alone. Carefully and quietly, I made my way back to the trail. Once safely on the well-worn path, I ran back the way I had come. Hopefully, I had bought myself enough time to find help.

  It was hard to believe that Andrew had arranged to have everyone’s projects vandalized simply to win the grant. Maybe his father wasn’t as well off as Andrew had made him out to be. Or, more than likely, Andrew was simply targeting the Swift Academy because of my father and me. He certainly was the type to hold a grudge. But what was really unbelievable was the fact he could talk someone in the academy into doing his dirty work. I didn’t want to believe Andrew, but how else could the projects have been vandalized before we arrived at camp?

  I put that out of my head and concentrated on the path, trying to retrace my exact route. I slowed when I reached a split in the trail. Coming from the other direction, I couldn’t tell from which side I had come. I came to a complete stop, concentrating on every tree, every log, looking for something familiar.

  My gut tightened. I was wasting too much time. They could double back at any second.

  Then I saw something on the left trail that made my decision for me. I took that trail and ran. Up ahead, through the trees, I saw a swatch of bright yellow floating through the forest. Another Swift Academy student was on the path ahead of me.

  I closed the distance between us as fast as I could. I rounded another corner and spotted the student at the end of a long straightaway.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  The student turned. It was Jenna Davis, hiking as always.

  Jenna stopped to let me catch up. I was out of breath by the time I got to her, and she waited patiently while I bent over and panted.

  “Can I borrow… your phone real quick?” I asked between breaths.

  “Sure,” Jenna said. She dug into her pocket and pulled out her cell. “I don’t know if you’ll get a signal, though. The best places that I’ve found are in the main parking lot and near the boathouse.”

  “Wow, you have been all over this place,” I said as I took her phone and examined the signal strength. No bars. I handed the phone back to her.

  “Excellent Wi-Fi, though,” she said.

  “Can you e-mail Noah for me?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Jenna replied. She pulled up her mail program.

  I gave her Noah’s e-mail address and then began my message. “Tell him to find Mr. Edge or Mr. Alexander.” She typed while I bent over again to catch my breath. “Tell him that Andrew is the one behind the vandalism. And he has an accomplice. Someone from our school is helping him.”

  Immediately, it felt like I breathed a little easier, both from catching my breath and finally getting a message out about Andrew.

  But then Jenna stopped typing. She simply stared at me with wide eyes, terrified.

  Had Andrew caught up with me? I glanced over my shoulder, but there was nothing there. I turned back to Jenna, and that’s when it hit me.

  “Oh man,” I muttered. “You’re the accomplice.”

  13 The Surreptitious Surveillance

  “I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY,” JENNA said, tears welling in her eyes.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Why?” I asked.

  Jenna wrung her hands and stared at the ground. “My stepbrother goes to Bradley. When Andrew found out that Patrick had a stepsister at the Swift, he made Patrick’s life miserable. This was the only way I could get him to leave my brother alone.”

  “Didn’t your stepbrother just report him?” I asked.

  Jenna nodded. “It didn’t matter. Because of his father, Andrew’s basically untouchable if there isn’t any physical evidence against him.”

  So that was why Andrew was so confident about his word against mine. Andrew didn’t sabotage anything himself, he had someone to do it for him—his very own virtual vandal. So there was no physical evidence against Andrew in this case, either.

  “I tried to only do little things,” Jenna explained. “Things that could be easily repaired. I hid in the back of the panel truck and messed with everyone’s projects on the way to the camp.”

  My lips tightened. “Except for Sam and Amy’s project.”

  Jenna nodded. “I didn’t mean to start that rumor, really. But once Andrew found out about it, he spread it some more. And he told me not to damage her invention.”

  “He said if he went down, he was bringing Sam with him,” I told her. “You can’t let that happen. You have to tell people what really happened.”

  Jenna closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I have to help my brother.”

  “Look, I’ll back you up,” I said. “My dad has some pull too, you know.”

  I never liked using my name or my father for any special treatment. For Sam’s sake, however, I would make an exception. After all, it seemed as if Andrew didn’t have any reservations about using his father to get what he wanted.

  Jenna wiped her eyes. “Do you think it’ll actually…” Then she looked over my shoulder and gasped.

  I spun around and saw three green shirts growing larger through the foliage. Three Bradley students were coming up the trail, and I had a feeling who those students were.

  “Come on,” I said, grabbing her hand. I got Jenna moving as we ran up the trail away from the approaching bullies.

  “Can you get us back to the main road?” I asked.

  “This way,” she said as she pulled forward, taking the lead. Her hiking boots must have been charging on overdrive while we ran up the winding trail.

  The trail dumped out onto the main road very close to Andrew’s cabin. I stopped and bent over again, panting. After all that, I’d ended up right back where I started.

  I glanced around and, just as before, the main road was deserted. We couldn’t find anyone to help and we couldn’t keep running.

  “Quick, send that e-mail to Noah,” I told her.

  “Okay,” Jenna said. She pulled out her phone and began tapping at the screen.

  “Tell him to get to Andrew’s cabin quick,” I added.

  I glanced back and saw Andrew and the twins getting closer. I just hoped that Jenna would send the e-mail out before Andrew got there and talked her out of it. I knew firsthand just how intimidating he could be.

  “Done,” Jenna said.

  “Is this quick enough for you?” asked a familiar voice.

  I gasped in surprise as Noah, Sam, and Amy exited Andrew’s cabin.

  “How did you get here so quickly?” I asked.

  “We got your note,” Sam replied. “Well, Amy got your note.”

  I laughed with surprise. I had completely forgotten about my spray-painted message in the virtual basement.

  “You’ve been playing the game, Amy?” I asked.

  “We both have,” Sam said. “Once our digger gets going, it’s pretty low-maintenance.”

  “When did you find my message?” I asked.

  “I was there when you wrote it,” Amy replied.

  “Really?” I asked. Then I turned to Noah. “You gave her the invisibility hack and not me?”

  “I wasn’t invisible,” Amy said. “I was right there.”

  “Wait, you weren’t…” I knew exactly who she was. “You were the Valkyrie.”

  Amy nodded. “And when your avatar stopped moving, I figured you had left the game. But I could still hear everything through your headset microphone.”

  I grinned. “You heard all that?”

  “Not only that…” She tapped a button on her phone and Andrew’s voice emitted from the speaker. “ ‘I wanted Bradley to get the grant this year. And since your dad is too good to work for my dad, I wanted every invention in your stupid school to fail.’ ”

  “Hey,” said Andrew’s voice. Everyone turned to see him and the twins strolling across the road, all out of breath.

  “Don’t worry,” Amy said. “I e-mailed an audio file to Mr. Edge and Mr. Alexander.”

  “Nice touch, Ames,” Noah said, giving her a fist bump.

  “How?” Andrew asked between breaths. “How did she get that?”

  “Well,” I said with a wide grin, “that’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  14 The Aqueous Engagement

  “INCOMING!” I SHOUTED.

  Noah glanced around. “Where?”

  Before I could reply, a blue water balloon smashed into Noah’s chest. It exploded on impact, drenching his entire upper body.

  Noah gave out a loud gasp. “That’s freezing! Are they chilling those things?!”

  “Oh man. I think so,” I replied.

  When Liniford had set up across the field, I noticed that they carried their water balloons in ice chests. I thought they just used the chests to store them, but clearly they had employed extreme tactics.

  The large field was divided into three sections, with each school controlling a third. Like us, many of the students seemed to put just as much thought into their water-balloon siege weapons as they did their conservation projects. There were catapults, trebuchets, and even a huge slingshot-crossbow design from Liniford—the very same one that had just drenched Noah.

  Noah shivered. “Lame, lame, lame!”

  Of course, that wasn’t the first time Noah was wet that weekend. As far as our experiment went, it was a good news-bad news sort of thing. The bad news was we were unable to replicate our findings because all of our rockets were warped during the first test. The good news was that rain and cardboard rockets don’t mix.

  That’s right. If I hadn’t kept going after Mark (or was it Mike?) then I would’ve seen the complete success of our cloud-seeding project! The rockets ejected their payloads into the targeted cloud and a positive reaction was attained. In other words, we created a very localized rainstorm—eight milliliters’ worth! With the data we collected, we theorized ways to scale up the rockets for bigger and better results that would still remain portable.

  FOOMP!

  Sam fired one of our launchers at the group of Bradley students. “Now?” she asked as she reloaded.

  I looked down at Amy. She sat on the ground and worked under the large tarp covering our secret weapon. “Not yet,” Amy said from beneath the tarp.

  Even though Andrew and the twins weren’t among the Bradley students, Sam seemed to target them the most. It turned out that Amy’s audio evidence was enough to get Andrew and his lackeys sent home. A large truck pulling a flatbed trailer drove in and hauled away Andrew’s cabin soon after. I didn’t know if the three of them were going to be expelled from Bradley or not. I guessed Andrew would find out just how much pull his father really has.

  FOOMP!

  I fired a balloon at a group of Liniford students. It soared toward them, but they easily sidestepped it.

  For her part, Jenna Davis was sent home too. I had no idea how Mr. Davenport would punish her for sabotaging everyone’s projects. Hopefully he’d take into account that the damage was minimal, as well as the extenuating circumstances involving her brother.

  “Look out!” Sam shouted. She darted out of the way just as Bradley’s slingshot fired another round.

  Noah was busy lining up a shot at Liniford, so he didn’t see the incoming balloon.

  SPLAT!

  “Yee-ow!” It hit him in the back of the thigh.

  Sam grinned at me, trying to hold in a laugh.

  I was glad Sam wasn’t angry with me anymore. It turns out that she wasn’t mad at me for starting the rumor. She was angry that I didn’t immediately tell her when I first heard about it. That’s what she was talking about that day. I really should’ve just told her right away, instead of trying to stop it behind her back.

  FOOMP!

  I lobbed another round toward Bradley. I didn’t even keep watching to see if it hit anyone. After all, it was mainly a distraction, anyway. I reloaded and checked on Amy again.

  “What do you think?” I asked her.

  “Almost there,” she replied, looking down the field and then back under the tarp. I could see her mind racing through the calculations. She was in her element.

  Amy and Sam’s project ended up coming in third place. Their well digger had only dug down six feet, but it proved to be an inexpensive and effective way to dig wells for those in need of clean drinking water.

  A Bradley invention, the Litterbot 3000, came in second place. It was pretty much an automated outdoor vacuum cleaner. With all the leaves and twigs on the ground, I never would have thought something like that was possible. But it had a ninety-to-ten ratio of litter to natural debris.

  But the coolest surprise was first place going to Jason’s Tree of Charge. All ten of his installations had been a success. They worked so well that Mr. Alexander even compensated him so the charging stations could stay up throughout the next summer camp season.

  FOOMP!

  Noah launched another round at Liniford. “Anytime, Ames,” he said.

  “You know I don’t work well under pressure,” she said as she dug under the tarp.

  Luckily, she looked up just in time to see another incoming round. She squeaked and flattened to the ground as the speeding water balloon zipped over her head and—you guessed it—hit Noah instead.

  “Oh, come on!” he shouted. “Freezing!”

  The main flaw with most everyone’s water balloon machines was the speed. The catapults, trebuchets, and even our pneumatic launchers—they all lobbed water balloons. By the time the balloon made it to the other side of the field, people could easily dodge the slow-moving round.

  Liniford’s slingshot, on the other hand, did not lob. It shot balloons straight across the field, making them extremely difficult to dodge. Add that to the fact that the Liniford students chilled their water balloons, and they quickly became everyone’s prime target.

  “Okay, all set,” Amy announced. She stood and unwound the long remote cord. Then she pulled off the tarp to reveal our secret weapon.

  Just like our rockets, we had twelve launchers mounted to a sheet of plywood. It looked intimidating with twelve PVC pipes aimed almost straight up. Each pipe was loaded with yellow water balloons, nestled in our specially designed shuttles. The entire thing was powered by a large air tank, also hidden under the tarp until ready.

  “Oh yeah,” said Sam.

  “Let’s do this,” Noah added.

  “Fire when ready,” I ordered.

  “Okay,” Amy said as she pressed the firing button.

  F-F-Foo-Foo-F-Foo-Foom! Foo-F-F-Foo-Foo-Foom!

  The sound was so strange that everyone on the battlefield paused to see what had just gone off. The next moment couldn’t have been more perfect. The entire Liniford slingshot crew was center stage when they were suddenly pummeled by twelve water balloons from above. Sam, Noah, and I lobbed three more over to them while they were distracted.

  All the Swift and Bradley students cheered as Liniford got drenched.

  “Nice shooting, Amy!” Sam said.

  “Perfect!” Noah added.

  Amy smiled at me. “What do you say, Tom?”

  “I say…” I grinned at my team. “Reload!”

  More from this Series

  The Spybot Invasion

  Book 5

  The Drone Pursuit

  Book 1

  The Sonic Breach

  Book 2

  Restricted Access

  Book 3

  More from the Author

  On Top of the World

  Rocket Racers

  Keep reading for a preview of

  The Spybot Invasion

  by

  Victor Appleton

  The Recovery Discovery

  “ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE NOT going to be sick?” Ms. Ramos asked. She held out a kidney-shaped plastic basin.

  I waved it away with the fingers on my right hand. “No, I’m okay.” Even though I still felt a little queasy, the container looked way too small to do any good if I got sick.

  I sat hunched over on the edge of the exam table in the nurse’s office. My entire airbag suit was still inflated, so I was more propped on the edge than sitting.

  Ms. Ramos eyed me suspiciously as she pulled out a pair of medical shears. “You still look a little green.” She took the shears and carefully cut the clear plastic airbag helmet surrounding most of my head. Air hissed out as she moved on to my right arm. Once she pulled the deflated plastic away from my body, she produced an instant cold pack. She squeezed the pack and gave it a shake before placing it into my free hand. “Hold this to your forehead,” she said. “It’ll help.”

  As I placed the cool pack against my skin, Ms. Ramos put the shears to work again. She carefully deflated more airbag sections, and I let out a deep breath. The ice pack did work; I felt less nauseated.

  “What were you thinking, Tom?” Ms. Ramos asked. “You could’ve seriously hurt yourself.”

  “We already tested it on a dummy,” I explained. “It was time to test it on a real person.”

  Ms. Ramos shook her head. “Do you remember when I went to every class and showed you how to perform CPR?”

  “Yeah?” I said. I didn’t know where she was going with this.

  She continued to deflate more airbags. “Well, I didn’t demonstrate CPR on real people, did I?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9