The Paladin Prophecy

INSTANT MESSAGE

Robbins left the ward and moments later Nick and Ajay trundled in, regarding Will with more than a little awe.

“So are the rumors true, Will?” asked Ajay. “They’re saying you nearly got hit by that flying telephone pole!”

“Well, let’s just say I was in the room at the time,” said Will.

“Dude, no way, that had to be ill,” said Nick, giving Will a fist bump.

“I’ll tell you later,” said Will quietly, leading them out the door. “I told Robbins we’d meet her in the lobby. I want to look for something first.”

Will led them through the lab where the rescue crews were working and snuck out the door that led to the back stairs. They went down the empty, echoing stairwell to the second floor.

“What are we looking for?” asked Ajay.

“Evidence,” said Will.

“Of what?” asked Nick.

Will opened a utility closet, flicked on a light, and started searching. There were brooms, mops, and cleaning supplies on shelves. Stashed in a recycling bin, Will found what he was looking for: a long black mesh metal box the size of a baguette.

“Lyle tried to kill me,” said Will. He used a rag to lift out the box. “With what was in this.”

“Dude, oh my God … Lyle sicced his ferrets on you?!”

“Not ferrets,” said Will. “Worms, crossed with centipedes as long as this box, that bled acid. They crawled up my body when I was in the MRI machine.”

“I may vomit,” said Ajay, leaning against a wall.

“Did anybody else see ’em?” asked Nick.

“No. Not a word to anybody,” said Will as he slipped the box into a plastic trash bag. Nick slung it over his shoulder as they hurried down to the lobby.

They found Robbins huddled near the front doors with Eloni and a woman who looked like his female twin. Eloni introduced her as his cousin Tika.

“Eloni will drive you back to Greenwood,” said Robbins. “I want you in your quarters for the rest of the day, Will. I’ll pick you up myself once your parents arrive. Call me immediately if anything else occurs to you.” She gave Will one last stern look.

The boys followed Eloni and Tika out to a dark blue Ford Flex, parked and idling outside. Snow was still falling heavily. They climbed in and Eloni took the wheel. No one spoke on the ride to Greenwood Hall. They parked in front; Eloni and Tika walked them inside.

Eloni stopped and knocked on Lyle’s door; Nick and Will exchanged an anxious look. When there was no answer, Eloni gave Tika an order in their native language. She went inside and opened the inner door. A moment later she came back and shook her head.

“Stay here,” said Eloni to her, and then to the boys, in a no-messing-around voice, he said, “Upstairs. Now.”

“You looking for Lyle, Eloni?” asked Nick.

“You could say that,” he said.

Once on the third floor, he followed them into the pod and checked each bedroom. Brooke’s and Elise’s rooms were empty.

“I’ll be just outside if you need me,” said Eloni, heading for the door. He closed the door, and his heavy footsteps padded into the hall.

“So the school’s put out an APB on Lyle?” asked Nick.

“I said just enough to get them interested,” said Will.

Ajay put an eye to the peephole and saw Eloni outside, arms folded, standing guard. “He’s planted,” said Ajay. “Like a potted palm.”

“We need to work fast,” said Will. “Have you seen Brooke or Elise?”

“Not since this morning,” said Nick.

“Robbins said she paged them when she called you guys, so they’re probably on their way. Try them again, Nick, just to be sure.”

Nick picked up the phone and asked the operator to page both girls.

“Ajay, is it safe to use our tablets?” asked Will.

“As safe as I can make them. I’ve got something else to show you as well.”

“Meet in your room,” said Will, heading for his. “Two minutes.”

As Will entered, his tablet turned on. His syn-app stood on-screen, waiting. He looked more lifelike now, fleshed out with detail, and even more unsettling.

“Is everything all right, Will?” asked his syn-app.

He even sounds more like me. He must be recording and sampling my voice.

“Yes,” said Will. “I want you to look for photographs of ANZAC Special Forces helicopter units that served in Vietnam. Look for a chopper with the call letters Alpha Tango Delta three nine Zebra.”

“Are you looking for any person in particular?” asked “Will.”

“I’m trying to find out what happened to an old friend,” said Will. “His name was Dave Gunner.”

“I’m on it,” said the syn-app. “You have a video message from Nando.”

The syn-app opened a video of Nando in his taxi, speaking into the lens of his camera phone. “Wills. Had a badass nightmare about bugs last night, but aside from that I’m okay. Listen, we ran this down on that National Scholastic Whatever Program.” In his other hand, Nando held a BlackBerry. He read from it: “Corporate HQ in DC. Branch offices: LA, New York, Miami, Chi-Town, the ATL, and Denver. All in federal buildings, so it has some kind of relationship with government. But it’s a nonprofit, privately owned by something called the Greenwood Foundation. Catch you later. Peace.”

Will couldn’t move for a moment. “The Greenwood Foundation,” he repeated as it sank in.

“Yes, Will?” asked his syn-app.

“The Greenwood Foundation is the trust that runs the Center,” said Will.

“That’s correct,” said his syn-app.

Will picked up his tablet and hurried to Ajay’s room. Ajay was standing over something at his desk. Nick was on the phone.

“Brooke and Elise still haven’t checked in,” said Nick, hanging up. “Elise is on the equestrian team. She usually rides on Saturday afternoon.”

“In this weather?” asked Will.

“There’s an indoor ring near the stables,” said Nick.

“She probably isn’t wearing her pager,” said Ajay. “I had time for a closer look at your bird, Will.” The dismantled pieces were spread out on his desk. “Check out the eyes.” Ajay picked up the eyes, twin buttons connected by strands of gold wire to a silver box. He held the intricate apparatus underneath a framed magnifier.

“Two sophisticated lenses,” said Ajay, pointing with a stylus, “that, properly synchronized, deliver three-dimensional optics to here.” Ajay pointed to the silver box. “A central processor equipped with advanced facial recognition software and a high-powered wireless transmitter. The real mystery is there’s no power source. I can’t figure out what was driving it, and I’ve never seen robotics this advanced.”

“Aphotic technology,” said Will softly.

“What’s that?” asked Ajay.

“The name for this, and that gear we saw in Ronnie’s video; the Carver and the glowing metal sheet,” said Will. “You’d better sit down for a second, guys.”

Looking apprehensive, Ajay and Nick sat down. Will took a deep breath.

Make it as simple as possible, and don’t mention Dave or the Hierarchy.…

“The Black Caps and Knights work for a race of beings called the Other Team,” Will said. “The Other Team is originally from here, but they’ve been trapped in the Never-Was since before humans were on the planet. And they want back in. They created all the monsters we’ve seen as part of their plan to break out.”

Ajay and Nick looked at each other. “Uh, okay,” said Nick.

“Speaking of which,” said Will, “did you check out the bug from my computer?”

Ajay blinked, then picked up the Altoids tin from his desk and opened it, revealing a thin layer of black goo inside. “I’m afraid it’s decomposed,” Ajay said. “I’ve examined what’s left and can’t find anything that resembles biological DNA.”

“That’s because these creatures from the Never-Was have a different biology,” said Will. “The Other Team needs help from people here, using technology that they gave them to bring them over.”

“That’s where the Caps and Knights come in,” said Nick.

“Yes,” said Will. “And the truth is, while we’ve uncovered a lot, in some ways we’re only at the beginning of what we need to know.”

Ajay’s eyes were wide. “So this Other Team wants to break out of the Never-Was … in order to do what?”

“To, uh, take over the world,” said Will, mumbling slightly. “And in so doing, capture, enslave, and destroy all of humanity.”

Ajay and Nick looked at each other again. “How do you know this, Will?” asked Ajay cautiously.

“I have a source on the inside,” said Will. “That I can’t talk about.”

“Although your end-of-the-world scenario strains credulity,” said Ajay, swallowing hard, “our faith in you to date has not been misplaced. So I think I speak for both of us—”

“Dude,” said Nick firmly, holding out his fist. “Whatever it takes.”

Feeling greatly relieved, Will gave them both a fist bump.

Will’s syn-app announced, “You have a message from Brooke, Will.”

“There she is,” said Will. “Ajay, put her on the big screen.”

Ajay merged their tablets to his wall screen, and Will told his syn-app to play the message. Brooke appeared in the library, whispering to her tablet camera. “Will, I ran a global search through school histories, yearbooks, and newspapers for anything on the Knights of Charlemagne. I got several hits.”

Brooke read from the articles as she browsed through them on her screen.

“The earliest mention of the Knights is in the 1928 yearbook. It was a newly formed social club limited to twelve members per year, all seniors. Their motto was ‘Making Better Men for the Benefit of Man.’ It doesn’t seem that they were involved in anything more sinister than croquet tournaments and amateur productions of Gilbert and Sullivan. In 1937, the Knights appear in a photo with a distinguished visitor, Henry Wallace, then secretary of agriculture under President Franklin Roosevelt. Take a look.”

A black-and-white photo came up on-screen, showing that year’s twelve-man Knights of Charlemagne group and their guest of honor, Henry Wallace, around a long table in an ornately decorated dining room, raising glasses in a toast to the camera.

“Pause,” said Will, and the image froze. Will pointed at one of the students. “I could swear I’ve seen that kid before.”

“How is that possible?” asked Nick. “It’s from over seventy years ago.”

“I don’t know,” said Will. “Maybe I saw his picture somewhere. Where was this taken?”

“It looks like the formal dining room,” said Ajay. “Strange. A big shot like the secretary of agriculture visits the Center, and no school officials, not even the headmaster, get invited to this dinner?”

“Continue,” said Will.

Brooke’s message resumed. “This event seems to have been the Knights’ high-water mark. There are only a few more mentions of them; by 1941, they disappear completely. It seems that they were disbanded, some kind of disciplinary action, but I can’t find any explanation.”

“What happened in 1941?” asked Nick.

Ajay paused Brooke’s message again. “America entered World War Two,” he said. “It also happens to be the year that former secretary of agriculture Henry Wallace became vice president of the United States.”

“The guy in the photo became the vice president?” said Nick, wide-eyed. “That’s big. I have no idea what it means, but that’s huge.”

“It’s not nothing,” said Will.

“Search for Henry Wallace and the Knights together,” said Ajay to his syn-app.

“That information is not available online,” said Ajay’s syn-app.

“Which means there is some,” said Will. “Where do we find it?”

“Probably the Rare Book Archive,” Ajay said. “You need a signed request from a teacher to get in.” He continued Brooke’s message.

“I also found this about the Crag,” said Brooke; then she read from a book: “ ‘The castle on the island was built by Ian Lemuel Cornish, a New England munitions manufacturer, who made his fortune during the Civil War … and it was later bought by Franklin Greenwood, the second headmaster of the Center, who used it as his personal residence.’ ”

“Franklin Greenwood,” said Ajay. “Son of Thomas, the founder.”

“And it’s currently owned by Stan Haxley, an alum who’s on the board of the Greenwood Foundation. That’s all for now. Later,” Brooke said, then winked at the camera. The message ended, the screen went blank, and their syn-apps reappeared.

“Get me what you can find on Lyle Ogilvy,” Will said to his syn-app.

In seconds, Will’s syn-app showed them a color yearbook photo of Lyle Ogilvy as a freshman. He was sallow, pimply, and unattractive but hardly the dark-visaged troll they knew. In his school blazer and tie he looked almost innocent. Vital statistics scrolled alongside the image.

“Ogilvy, Lyle,” said Ajay. “Born in Boston, October fourteenth, 1992. The only child of a senior oil company exec and a prominent dermatologist.”

“Which one of them went to the Center?” asked Will.

“Dad, class of seventy-four, then Princeton, class of seventy-eight,” said Ajay.

Lyle’s sophomore picture replaced the last one. He wore a fake smile and the same outfit but looked older and heavier, a year deeper into a perilous adolescence. The dark circles under his eyes had started to blossom.

“Something’s happened to him,” said Will, studying the photo closely. “He looks frightened. Let’s see his junior year photo.”

Another photo appeared over the previous one. Lyle’s transformation into the fearsome figure they knew appeared complete. His smile had warped into a sneer, and the fear in his eyes had been replaced by imperious contempt.

“Whatever happened to the bastard just hit critical mass,” said Ajay.

“My guess is he’s been recruited by the Knights by now,” said Will. “And he’s probably had a visit from the Bald Man.”

A blinking icon of a black telephone mushroomed on-screen, accompanied by an ominous bass note.

“You have an instant message,” said Will’s syn-app. “Someone wants to speak with you. Would you like to open a conversation screen?”

“Maybe it’s Brooke checking in,” said Will. “Yes.”

The phone icon expanded to a large frame. A signal connected; the image seemed to be from the point of view of an embedded tablet camera, but whatever it was pointed at was so dark no detail appeared. Then the image moved; they saw the surface of a gently shimmering fabric.

Will whispered to Ajay, “Record this.”

The fabric swept to the side and a face swooped down to the camera. They saw dark eyes glinting through narrow slits in an armored mask. It was the Paladin who’d chased them through the tunnels.

“Will West,” he said in a raspy growl, electronically filtered to disguise the voice. Will gestured for Nick and Ajay to move away from their camera.

“What do you want?” asked Will.

The Paladin tilted his head to the side, disdainful. “Your head. On a stick.”

Will swallowed. “You’re going to have to come and get it, then.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I know who you are,” said Will.

“You don’t even know who you are,” said the Paladin.

Will stared at the screen and listened hard. He heard faint sounds in the background of wherever this was—natural sounds that he subconsciously knew went together—and tried to identify them.

“At least I’m not hiding behind a mask,” said Will.

“No. You’re just hiding in your room.”

“I’m not hiding anywhere. You know where I am.”

“We are going to meet … and you’re going to come to me,” said the Paladin. “Right now. Alone.”

The Paladin stepped to the side. Behind him, deeper back in the middle of the dark room, was Brooke. She was sitting on a plain wooden chair, her ankles tied to its legs with rope, her wrists secured behind her through the slats. She had a blindfold over her eyes and a gag in her mouth. Thick headphones covered her ears. Her whole body was tensed, coiled. She was clearly terrified.

“Son of a bitch,” said Nick.

Nick stepped toward the screen. Will put both hands out to hold him back.

The Paladin’s face swooped back in front of his camera, obscuring Brooke. “You’ll come to me, or there’s going to be a lot of this.”

The Paladin raised a gloved hand; he was holding a black device the size of a cell phone with buttons on it. He stepped aside so that Will could see Brooke again. Then he touched one of the buttons.

Brooke’s entire body jerked taut and she cried out, muffled by the gag.

“Stop!” said Will. “Please, don’t—”

The Paladin lifted his finger off the button. Brooke gasped for breath.

Will closed his eyes. To keep anger from overwhelming his mind, he focused on the background sounds again. This time it clicked: lapping water, the creak of ropes and wood.

I know where you are.

The Paladin’s face filled the frame again. “Come alone, West,” he said.

“Where?” asked Will. He felt sweat beading on his forehead.

“If you want to find me, look behind me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Will.

“You have fifteen minutes to figure it out,” said the figure. “If you’re one second late, if I see that you’ve brought anyone with you or that you’ve alerted authorities—and trust me, I’ll know—it’s going to get a whole lot worse for her.”

He pushed the button again; this time Brooke screamed through the gag. The Paladin reached toward the camera and cut off the feed.

“Oh my God, Will,” said Ajay. “They must have grabbed her as she was leaving the library.”

“I’ll kill him. I’ll freakin’ kill him!” shouted Nick at the screen.

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