The Limit (24 page)

The question was,
would
she do the important thing I had asked her to do?

HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID
?
I
should be the one on the first floor if I was dumb enough to hand over every last bit of evidence that existed to a little girl who probably had no idea what a flash drive even was. Ten long days passed on the top floor. I did my schoolwork. I did my paying work. I played paddle-wall-ball and video games and swam in the pool. Nothing was fun or challenging or exciting.

I sat in my cubicle, my eyelids drooping as I tried to answer ambiguous questions about a William Faulkner short story for my personalized online English class. How much longer until lunch break? I checked the clock on my screen.
Groan.
Three and a half more hours.

And then my screen went blank.

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

From almost every cubicle.

Coop’s head peered around our shared cubie wall. “Your screen black out too, bro?”

I sat there, tapping keys and pushing buttons on the monitor. Nothing. This was really weird. I heard a soft chirpy beep below me, on the ground at the base of my chair. The edge of my jeans rode up an inch as I leaned over to investigate. The dull yellow light on my ankle monitor had gone out. Something in my gut told me it was more than an electrical glitch. I spun a half circle in my chair and stood up to walk over to him. “What do you think’s going on?”

“Who cares?” Coop shrugged.

Isaac shuffled out of his cubicle, stretching his arms high over his head. “I’m going back to bed. Somebody get me when the system reboots.”

Coop slapped the back of my shoulder. “The gym is calling our names.”

“Isaac! You lazy dork. Don’t go back to bed!” Kia’s head hovered over the wall between her cubicle and Isaac’s. He waved her off as he entered the boys’ hallway.

“What about water jousting?” asked Jeffery, popping out of his cubie to join me and Coop.

“Naw,” said Coop. “The computers could be up and running any time. We’d be all wet and drippy when they called us back.”

“Has this happened before?” I asked.

“Never,” said Coop.

“Then you really have no idea when—”

“Hey, guys!” Isaac reappeared at the opening to the hallway. “Something’s going on outside. I saw it out my window.”

Coop, Jeffery, and I looked one another in the eye for half a second before we headed for Isaac.

“Hold up,” said Kia, dropping out of sight.

Paige and Madeline huddled together at the end of the girls’ cubicles.

“Are you coming?” I asked, reaching out my hand.

Madeline stuck her nose in the air. “Into the boys’ rooms? No way.”

“Won’t we get in trouble?” Paige twisted her fingers together.

“Are you kidding? No one’s going to notice with everything else that’s going on right now.”

She smiled and raced to catch up with us.

After plowing a path through several hundred spaceships and aliens on the floor and shoving Isaac’s table to one side, the six of us lined up at his big window.

“It looks like a SWAT team,” said Kia. “What in the world would they be doing here?”

My heart thumped hard and fast in my chest. Only one thing I knew of would cause a crackdown on the workhouse. Paige gave my arm a quick
squeeze. She thought so too. Somehow that little first-floor girl had gotten our flash drive into the hands of someone who could do something about it. Every nerve in my body tingled. This was it. We’d done it! We’d stopped Honey Lady. She wouldn’t be able to hurt the lower-floor kids anymore, and maybe someone would fix the mess she’d made of our accounts.

“Nothing’s happening,” said Jeffery. My breath caught in the back of my throat. He was right. Something was wrong down there. “They’re standing around—they’re armed and ready, but no one’s coming inside.”

“Miss Smoot must be putting up a fight.” Coop blurted out a laugh. “Can’t you just see her and that receptionist lady hunkered down behind a sofa in the lobby?”

“Maybe the SWAT team will have to laser-blast their way inside,” said Isaac, bouncing on his toes at the thought.

I didn’t even crack a smile at their jokes.

“I’m going down.” I made for the door before the last of my words came out. “I can sneak them inside through the emergency exit, if nothing else.”

Kia and Isaac stayed at the window, waiting for the SWAT team to break out the laser guns, I guess. Paige sprinted for her bedroom to retrieve her butane candle lighter and met up with me, Coop, and Jeffery in the elevator hallway a few seconds later. I’d just crumpled a piece of paper and lifted it up for Paige to touch with
the flame when we heard the ding of the elevator.
No! Not now when we’re only seconds away from slipping into the stairwell!
The click-click of high heels against the hard floor boomed so loudly through the closed space that I wanted to cover my ears.

The clicks stopped, and a gravelly voice spoke. “Just the four people I need.”

Crab Woman?
She stood at the end of the hallway, her reading glasses swaying from the chain around her neck, holding a—whoa!—gun in her hand. My arms shot straight out at my sides in a wimpy attempt to shield Paige and Jeffery.

“All right, come along,” she said.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see when we get there. I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I won’t unless you force me to.”

I tried to stall. “But why . . .”

“No more questions. Move!” She twitched the gun, directing us into the elevator.

Obediently, the four of us shuffled inside and huddled together in one corner. Crab Woman took some sort of remote out of her pocket and pressed a button that started our descent. She hadn’t said a word.

Coop was silent too, for once in his life. Paige and Jeffery both clung to my arms, trembling enough to register on the Richter scale.

When the doors swooshed open, we found ourselves looking at a much larger space than the hallways we were used to on the other floors.

“Out,” said Crab Woman.

Tripping over one another’s feet, we moved out of the elevator.

“Basement,” said Coop. He had to be right. We walked through a dim space full of exposed pipes and wires lining the unfinished ceiling and walls.

“Stop here.” Keeping the gun trained on us, Crab Woman circled around from behind and stepped up to a closed door. She entered a number code into a keypad and held still for an eye scan. The door swished open, and she nodded us through. It turned out to be some sort of windowless storage room, full of electronic equipment. This, at least, was well lit. Before we had the chance to get a good look around us, the door slid shut. Crab Woman settled herself at the one small table and chair in a corner by the door.

“Have a seat,” she said. “We’re going to be here for a while.”

The four of us twisted around, trying to spot another chair or bench or something.

“On the floor,” said Crab Woman, flicking a pointed finger toward the far side of the room. “Against that wall. No one’s going to get hurt if you just sit there quiet.”

The room was about the size of one of our bedrooms upstairs. Three long rows of freestanding, open-sided metal shelves full of computers, monitors, and all sorts of other wire-dripping equipment took up much of the space. When we slumped down on the floor, we had a clear view of Crab Woman but were far enough away to be able to talk softly amongst ourselves without her overhearing.

Keeping her eyes on us, she stood up and pulled a laptop off a nearby shelf.

“What do you think is going on?” asked Jeffery.

“This has to be about the flash drive. The SWAT team, the blanking out computers—it’s all related.” I thunked the back of my head softly and repeatedly against the wall behind me.

“She’s in on it with Smoot.” Coop spoke quietly to us, then louder to Crab Woman. “Aren’t you? You and Smoot are together on this whole scheme.”

Crab Woman didn’t have to say a word for me to know Coop was right. I should have figured her into my calculations when she brought Honey Lady the wiped laptop that day in the First Floors’ room. She probably helped her destroy all the files.

“Who else?” I asked her. “Are the guards in on it too?”

Crab Woman’s eyes were focused on her laptop. “Splitting the money two ways is hard enough. We have
a good security team here—every one of them does exactly what he’s told without questions.”

“Maybe there’s hope,” I whispered. “Maybe one of the guards will come down here and find us.”

“What would bring one of them down here?” asked Jeffery.

Coop slumped deeper into his slouch on the floor. “Hate to burst your bubble, bro, but I’m not holding my breath for that one.”

“Why go to the trouble of locking us down here at all?” asked Paige, her eyes wet. “What’s the point?”

None of us could answer.

Crab Woman sat at the table, the gun lying next to the open laptop. We couldn’t see the screen, but she had the sound turned up really loud. When my friends and I were quiet, we could hear the audio from the laptop. Interesting that she had wireless Internet down in the basement. The building must have zones, blocking cell phone and unscreened Internet access in all areas where kids might use it and allowing it everywhere else. Crab Woman settled on a news feed, sitting back in her chair and frowning at the screen.

“Kent Kearsley, reporting live from outside the Midwest Federal Debt Rehabilitation Agency workhouse,” came the slightly crackled-with-static voice from the laptop.

“He’s outside, dude,” whispered Coop. “Right here. Right now.”

The rest of us shushed him. We wanted to listen.

“Shockwaves are still rippling through the country,” continued Kent Kearsley, “as the people of this nation ask the question: Are abuses occurring in a place the government billed to us as ‘a safe home-away-from-home where children can become a great asset to their families and the community at large’? The answer is still unclear at this time. At this very moment authorities are waiting to gain access to the building and find out whether the children inside are victims—or if some of those very children have played an elaborate hoax on us all.”

“Hoax? What is he talking about?”

I shushed Jeffery and leaned forward, straining to catch every one of Kent Kearsley’s words.

“As you can imagine, with all the children in residence, authorities are proceeding with extreme caution. The word I’ve received is that the director of this facility, Sharlene Smoot, will gladly allow them in as soon as she has accounted for and can assure the safety of each and every one of the children under her care.”

“Uh, yoo-hoo!” Coop raised one long arm over his head. “I think she missed four of us.”

Crab Woman shot him a crusty glare, while I elbowed him hard in the ribs.

“Quiet! Don’t make her mad.” Paige’s soft words mixed with her muffled sobs.

“While we’re waiting, let me recap,” said Kent Kearsley. “Twelve-year-old Jessica Richards of Ravenna, Ohio, smuggled allegedly condemning information on a flash drive out of this very workhouse just over one week ago. She then passed the flash drive to Nicole Hopkins—a sales representative for Great Lakes Organics—in the restroom of the Speedy Spot convenience store off Interstate 94. Unaware of what she possessed, Ms. Hopkins let the flash drive sit in her purse until yesterday afternoon, when she took a look at the files. Ms. Hopkins immediately turned the flash drive over to authorities.”

Unbelievable. Jessica had handed the flash drive to the first non-FDRA person she met. It could have easily gotten lost or destroyed or forgotten. I couldn’t dwell on the huge risk I’d taken by trusting Jessica, because Kent Kearsley wasn’t taking a break.

“Now, we have not been informed what specific incriminating evidence the flash drive contains, nor are we clear about the exact nature of the abuses allegedly committed against the children of the Midwest FDRA workhouse. What’s more, when first contacted earlier today, Ms. Smoot insisted the contents of the flash drive are fabrications—completely untrue and created by a group of highly intelligent children who live in this facility.
As you can see from the security team surrounding the building behind me, authorities are prepared for whichever scenario turns out to be correct. As soon as permission is given, a team will enter the building and begin an inspection of files and interviews with the children in residence.”

The turned-off light on my ankle monitor caught my eye. Oh. I got it now. It all made sense.

“No interviewers are going to make it to the basement, are they?” I called across the room to Crab Woman. “Nobody will know we’re hidden away down here. We’re the only people in the workhouse who know the truth. You’re not going to give us the chance to defend ourselves.”

The four of us had decided not to tell the other Top Floors the truth about the workhouse until we learned whether the flash drive got out or not. We couldn’t see the point in getting Kia, Madeline, and Isaac all angry and excited unless something was actually going to come of it. That had been a mistake. A big one.

“Hey,” said Coop, catching on now too. “Miss Smoot is going to convince the good-guy dudes that we’re a bunch of punk pranksters, setting out to cause a country-wide jaw-dropper by making up the stuff on that flash drive. That’s totally fried, man!”