Cragbridge Hall, Volume 2: The Avatar Battle (5 page)

Oh. These were old-time muskets that had to be reloaded after every shot. He ducked further behind the rocks and felt them shake as bullets collided into the other side of the wall. What a nightmare.

Derick watched the soldier next to him as he loaded gunpowder, a metal ball, and rammed it down the barrel before shooting again. He found he was carrying the same tools and mimicked as best he could.

He raised up and readied himself to fire again, looking down to see hundreds of men charging up the hill at him and his regiment. Hundreds. It looked as though his enemies had twice as many men. Not fair.

“C’mon,” he heard a soldier next to him say. “I don’t want to die. Not today. Not at Gettysburg. Not anywhere.”

Gettysburg? He was in one of the most important battles of the Civil War. The North needed this victory. It was one of the events that kept the United States of America together, united as a nation. Derick fired, this time holding the gun tighter against his shoulder. It still hurt, but not nearly as much. He didn’t hit anyone.

The smoke and smell of gunshots became stronger and stronger. A scream tore through the air off to his left. Derick wanted out of there.

5

The Basement, Bullets, and Bayonets

Abby walked down the hall as fast as she could without drawing any attention to herself.

Carol wasn’t helping by talking the whole way. “Not only is Muns up to something, but he killed our dance party before it could even get started. Preemptive dance party murderer!” Carol shuddered. “Oh, that man is evil.”

Abby was too nervous to respond. She knew what Muns was capable of and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to find out what he had done this time.

“Do you think he kidnapped someone else and put them in the past to die?” Carol asked.

“I hope not.” Abby knew her parents were safe. Cragbridge Hall was one of the safest places in the world. No one got in or out without passing by guards and through several stations through a thick, guarded wall. Still, her stomach felt like it had turned to stone. She was back in the basement, the place where it had all happened months ago.

The two girls entered the basement and approached two doors. One was to the simulator, which Abby thankfully didn’t have to go through again. One tribe of Native American braves chasing her down with spears was enough for her. She moved toward the other door. It would bypass the simulator, but only with the key she had gained from going through it.

She reached down and gave a distinct pull on the upper rim of her belt buckle. The buckle shifted, revealing a small metal compartment underneath. Abby touched the metal, knowing that it would read her fingerprint and open. Her grandpa had designed it. She could always keep her key with her but keep it secret and protected as well.

As Abby took another step toward the door, something moved out of the shadows. Carol gasped. Abby wanted to shriek but her fear stole the sound. A hulking gorilla stood in front of her, its thick hairy body only feet away.

“All right, I know you’re an avatar,” Carol said, trying to regain her breath. “I’m guessing a real gorilla wouldn’t live down here. At least I’m really hoping. Really
really
hoping.”

Abby looked at the gorilla. It had to be an avatar. It could be her own brother and she would have no idea. “Can we please pass?” There was no time to talk; they had to move on. Grandpa needed them.

The gorilla moved aside, his fingers . . . typing? Whoever controlled it must have just used their rings—though it looked very strange. A message came in on Abby’s rings. She saw that it also had been sent to Carol.

It’s me, Rafa.

“Thanks, Rafa,” Abby said over her shoulder as she continued toward the door. She felt better. If Muns somehow could get his men back into Cragbridge Hall and they tried to ambush their meeting, they would have to tangle with quite the opponent. A robot gorilla can do some damage.

“Rafa,” Carol said, following Abby. “Remind me that I owe
you
something scary. Unless you teach me how to samba, or you tell me the secret to that healthy shine to your hair, then I’ll call it even. Really, a boy shouldn’t have prettier hair than most of the girls in this school. It isn’t fair. I’m referring to your human hair, of course, and not your gorilla hair. No offense.”

Abby slid her key into the door and twisted it, sending the gears and levers into motion. Soon the massive door whirred open.

“Since I technically wasn’t invited, I probably shouldn’t go in any further,” Carol said, staring at the giant door. The message had only come to Abby. Abby had a key. Carol did not. “I’ll just wait in the creepy dark hall with the gorilla.”

“Though that sounds strange, it’s probably best,” Abby admitted. “Once I find out what this is all about, I’ll tell you . . . if I can.” She waved, twisted her hair into a ponytail, and descended down another ladder into another dark, twisting corridor. She wondered if Derick had also been invited. He didn’t have a key, but he had been instrumental in her efforts to get one. She hoped he would be there. She eventually heard Grandpa’s voice in the distance.

Abby stepped into a giant room. In the middle was what looked like a massive metal tree, its limbs sprawling up into the ceiling: the original Bridge. The branches contained connections that wove through the floor of the school to hundreds of Bridge stations. Every student knew that the Bridge could portray logged and charted moments of history from any angle they chose. But they couldn’t go back further than four thousand years and no more recently than fifty years ago. And, of course, they could not interact with history. It was simply a faded image of what had happened. What most students didn’t know was that if three people with keys placed them in the original Bridge, they could enter history itself.

Four people already stood in the room. No Derick. Abby wasn’t surprised by three of them—Grandpa and coaches Adonavich and Horne, her gym coaches from the last semester. She knew she could trust them. It was the fourth person Abby hadn’t expected: a tall, thin man with blondish white hair—Dr. Mackleprank. He had been her zoology teacher, but unlike Derick, she had no natural talent in the avatars. She had fallen down so many times as a squirrel monkey she was convinced she had real bruises.

“Abby,” Grandpa greeted her. “Quickly.” He motioned for her to enter. “Muns has used another energy burst.”

“Where . . . ,” Abby began to ask, but shook her head, “I mean
when
did he go in? Where is he in time?”

• • •

“Hold the line!” Derick heard an officer behind him call out. Derick bit the end off the package of gunpowder and poured it down the barrel. He noticed his hands were black and sooty. He was sure his face and arms were too—the signs of a black powder war.

Another musket ball whizzed by him. In a simulator or not, he would never get used to it. He tried to steady his heart and his hands as he dropped the metal ball in the barrel and used the rod to push it down. After readying the spot on the gun where the spark would hit the powder, he lifted his gun to aim. The other soldiers could shoot nearly three times in a minute. Derick was grateful to get off a shot and be halfway into loading the second in the same amount of time.

A man to his left cursed and fell to the ground clutching his arm. Someone to his right seemed to be mumbling a prayer. Derick was surprised he noticed it, surprised his brain even worked under the circumstances. How long would he have to endure this?

Derick thought of the others meeting in the basement right now. They could have to go into the past and keep Muns from altering it. Muns might even be trying to change something like the Civil War, and that would have ramifications to billions of people. He needed a key. He needed to be able to help.

A musket ball thudded as it pierced a tree several feet away. It sounded so flat and powerful, haunting and threatening. Derick ducked behind the small rock wall and fished another packet of gunpowder out of his satchel. He rose and shot again, but most of the soldiers had retreated and the rest were quickly following.

Did they do it? Had they won? Derick waited for celebration. Nothing. “They’ll be back,” another soldier said.

Derick’s heart sank. He couldn’t take much more. The shooting. The death. Being in a war was brutal, so much more difficult than just reading about it. He wanted to back out, to be done, but he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t fail.

Resolving to be ready, he searched for more powder. Nothing. He must have fired nearly sixty times and apparently that was all that he had. As he surveyed the other soldiers, he noticed many of them in the same predicament.

Some of the leaders were gathered behind him. One man had a long bushy mustache, long overdue for a trim, and Derick thought he overheard someone call him Chamberlain. Derick couldn’t make out most of it, but when he casually wandered back a few feet, he heard phrases like “no more ammunition,” “tired,” “wounded,” and “pull back.”

Then Chamberlain spoke. “No. We hold,” he commanded. “We are the extreme left flank.” If they retreated, the other army could creep around the rest of the North’s army and attack it from behind. The results would be disastrous.

Derick heard commotion down the hill. He saw glimpses of gray. They were coming. Then he heard a word that sent shivers down his back, a word from Chamberlain commanding his men to action. “Bayonets!” Derick had noticed a bayonet blade hooked at the gun’s side. In war vids, when fights got to close quarters, soldiers would hook the blade onto the front of the gun and use it like a combination of a spear and a sword.

A soldier came to their front. “Fasten bayonets, men. We’re going to charge.”

What? Charge down the hill when they didn’t have ammo? Sure, they’d have their bayonets on their guns, but the grays had bullets. Hadn’t they ever heard that you’re not supposed to bring a knife to a gunfight? Just because the knives are bigger doesn’t make much difference. And the other army outnumbered them. This was crazy—this was suicide!

He watched closely as the solider next to him placed his bayonet at the front of his gun and fastened it down. Was he shaking? Derick couldn’t blame him.

He attached his own bayonet the best he could, copying the other man. They had to do this. They had to defend the line and protect the far left flank to keep the enemy from getting behind them. But did all these men die? Was Derick about to? He knew he wouldn’t really die, but he would still feel it. Was he willing to do that? He watched as soldier after soldier stood at the ready. They faced death for real. There was no simulator. There would be no waking up safe for them. Could he face death with them?

A coronet blasted, loud and brassy. It was time.

6

The Charge

We need to use the keys in the Bridge,” Grandpa said, his face stern. As usual, he wore his blazer with the Cragbridge Hall crest.

“How do we know he used another burst?” Abby asked. The thought sent chills through her. Though she didn’t know exactly how an energy burst worked, last semester Abby learned what Muns could do with one. He had figured out that a burst of highly focused energy could, for a few short seconds, make a hole in the shield Grandpa had invented between the present and the past. It was the same shield the keys allowed them to bypass. With the burst, Muns had a quick window of opportunity to travel into history—or send someone else.