The Assassin Game (26 page)

“I see,” Mr. Flynn says, nodding sympathetically. “And why did you have to do that?”

“Because.” I bend down slowly, to pick up the tablet, and Mr. Flynn makes a dash for the knife, snatching it up from the floor. “James, chill.” I give him a look. “I am not going to stab you or your girlfriend.” I glance at Ms. Lasillo.

“Cate!” Mr. Flynn barks at me.

“Well, I'm not. Just crouching down, getting my tablet.” I wave it at him. “Anyway, to answer your question, I had to escape the sick bay because I got a message from Vaughan.”

Suddenly, they're listening.

“Explain,” Mr. Flynn says.

“An instant message,” I say. “And I came to you because I think I'm still in danger, and I was hoping that you can help us without instantly freaking out and calling the police on Vaughan.”

Mr. Flynn nods. “Fair enough. Of course I'll help you, Cate.” He puts the knife on a sideboard in some kind of show of trust. Well, out of my reach though, I note.

“And if it's anything to do with technology, I can help too,” Ms. Lasillo says.

“Sure,” I say evenly. “You can help me. Get your clothes on and make me a cup of tea.”

“Cate!” Mr. Flynn roars.

“Sorry, I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. It's been a long day.” I move to sit at the dining table, and they both follow slowly. I set up my tablet. “I took screenshots, because I knew no one would believe me. Vaughan is alive, and he's messaging me.”

“What is this?” Mr. Flynn sits down beside me, looking at the screen.

“Crypt,” says Ms. Lasillo, looking over my shoulder. “It is, isn't it? The social network connected to your assassin game? I've been looking for this for the last two days.” She bends down to examine the screenshots more closely. It's slightly embarrassing, because of the whole “I love you” thing from Vaughan, but considering what I've just caught these two up to, I can live with them seeing my sappy messages. Ms. Lasillo frowns. “But the time stamp is from today. That's impossible.”

I shake my head. “Yeah, that's the point. I can still log in. Let me show you.”

Mr. Flynn gives me his Wi-Fi password, and I connect to the school intranet. I hover over the school crest, press the right buttons, and the prompt box comes up.

“Every player gave me their username and password, and none of them worked,” Ms. Lasillo says. “We couldn't get any further than this.”

“Vaughan left the door open for me.” I type my password. Crypt springs up. I take them for a tour.

“This is incredible, the clever little toad.” Ms. Lasillo shakes her head. “Excuse me!” she says, catching herself. “Totally inappropriate, especially given the fact Vaughan has, er, passed.”

“Vaughan is a clever little toad, and guess what? He didn't croak,” I say firmly. “I believe he blocked everyone from Crypt after he went missing, at least everyone apart from me, and another user called Skulk. Skulk has been making threats against me all through the Game.” I rub my face. “Even twenty minutes ago. I was down at the art studio, looking for you”—I nod at Mr. Flynn—“and Skulk started messaging me, threatening me. At the last minute, Vaughan came online, and then they both disappeared.”

“May I?” Ms. Lasillo gestures to the tablet.

“Kill it.” I lean back and push it her way.

She gives me a look. “I'll be very careful.”

I laugh. “No
, k1ll1t
is my password. All one word, lowercase, ones instead of
I
s. You'll need it. Crypt logs you out every sixty seconds if you're inactive.”

Mr. Flynn puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Come into the kitchen. Let's have that cup of tea.”

I nod and follow him. He fills a black kettle and flicks a switch on the side.

“Thing is, Cate.” He gets three mugs out of the cupboard, and places a teabag in each. “The police seem very convinced of Vaughan's guilt. They discovered parts consistent with the construction of the spider robot in his study, hidden in the back of a piece of computer hardware, I believe.”

“No!” I say. “We found those spider pieces together—after you stomped on it!”

“All right, you can certainly tell the police that.” Flynn nods. “But you should know, Cate, there was also the poison; they found some kind of container in his study that had traces of belladonna in it.”

“Belladonna?”

“‘Beautiful woman,' quite literally.” He adds sugar to his mug. “Heard of deadly nightshade? The plant?”

I nod. “But I thought it was made up, like a triffid.”

Mr. Flynn puts sugar in Ms. Lasillo's mug; he obviously knows her well enough. He holds the sugar bowl up and looks at me. I shake my head. Hate that he never remembers that.

“Deadly nightshade is real and relatively common. Even grows here on the island. Every part of it is poisonous, apparently. A couple berries is enough to kill an adult. And they found some in Vaughan's room.”

He waits until the water is boiled and pours it into each mug. “Milk?”

I nod and try to put poison out of my mind. The tea feels good—reassuringly hot in my hands and warming to drink.

“Vaughan wouldn't hurt anyone. Someone must have planted that evidence,” I say. “The police told me he'd had some trouble at Cambridge, but there'll be a reason behind it, and it doesn't make him a killer.”

“James!” Ms. Lasillo calls from the sitting room. “There's something here!”

Mr. Flynn puts his cup down and shoots me a look.

“Told you,” I say, smiling. “He's out there.”

We go through to the living room. Ms. Lasillo is sitting in front of a laptop, my tablet beside her.

“I grabbed my machine from my bag,” she says. “And now I'm inside the site I can unbutton a little of the code. Just a little—he's got it sewn up pretty tight. It's extremely early days, but I'd hazard a guess that Crypt has some kind of automatic system that drops messages when you log in.”

I frown at her. “Meaning?”

“Sit down.” She sighs. “Cate, my guess is that Vaughan planned all of this well in advance. I think that what you read as responses to your messages are actually things that he wrote some time ago.” When I don't speak, she continues. “Vaughan isn't talking to you. Crypt is. He programmed it to respond to anything you say.” She shakes her head, looking through lines of code on her laptop. “It's hard to specify at this point, but it's possible that he programmed Crypt to pick up certain key words in your messages and ‘answer' you with prescripted responses.” She scrolls through some of my screenshots on the tablet. “Most of these responses he's written are terribly vague. They would have to be, to make them fit a number of possible conversations.”

I swallow. “When I was at the art studio, it wasn't just Vaughan who was online. Like I said, it was Skulk too. And Vaughan responded to Skulk. By name.”

Ms. Lasillo purses her lips. “Cate, ever think that Skulk might be Vaughan?”

Mr. Flynn sits down beside me. “The police asked Sophia—er, I mean Ms. Lasillo—to go through a list of Guild members and try all of their passwords in the prompt box to see if anything would work. Most of the Guild members mentioned this whole Skulk business, and no one would come forward to admit to being Skulk. So perhaps Vaughan created Skulk to juice things up a little? To scare everyone. And now he's trying to carry that on—posthumously, I suppose, as crazy as it seems—to continue the deception.”

I grip my fingers into my hands and say what I really never wanted to say out loud. “Daniel.”

Mr. Flynn leans toward me. “What about him?”

“Daniel is Skulk. I think I've known it all along at the back of my mind, but I kept trying to deny it because he's supposed to be my friend. This morning I realized. I realized just how screwed up he is, and I ripped that big sticker he has on his precious violin case, the one with the red cat, and I realized for the first time that it's a fox, not a cat, and what's the—what do you call it again?—the collective noun, for a group of foxes?”

“A skulk,” Ms. Lasillo says.

“Exactly.” I slap the table. “It's him, I'm sure of it. The things he said…there were notes too. Creepy. And some other stuff.” I look at Mr. Flynn. “I hate it, but it just makes sense.”

“OK,” Ms. Lasillo says. “Maybe you're right. Daniel was posting as Skulk. But it doesn't mean that's him posting now. This could still all be stuff that Vaughan has preprogrammed.”

I rub my hands over my head and smooth down my hair. “All right. Let's try it, then.”

“Huh?” Ms. Lasillo says.

“Let's talk to the ghost in the machine,” I say. I look at the clock. “In a short while, I'm supposed to be meeting Vaughan at the caves. So let's send him a message about that. See what he says back.”

Mr. Flynn nods. “OK. But, Cate, after that, I'm driving you back to the sick bay and we're letting the police know you're safe. We can't put it off forever.”

“Fine.” I move in front of Ms. Lasillo's laptop, and my fingers dangle over the keyboard. “Here goes.” I type.

Clouseau

Vaughan, are you OK?

Come on, Vaughan. Come through. Show them you're real, not some computer program.

We wait. I refresh the screen after a minute to keep us logged in. And again, after another minute.

“Try something else,” Mr. Flynn urges. I type again.

Clouseau

Vaughan, what happened with Skulk, at the studios?

We all sit there, watching. I refresh the page a few times, but nothing happens. I glance outside at the darkening skies, then look at the time in the corner of the screen.

Clouseau

Vee, I'm not going to make it to the cave by 6:00 p.m. And the police are looking for me. What shall I do?

I hold my breath.

And then, suddenly, a little red skull pops up on the map above the caves.

“There!” Ms. Lasillo cries, tapping on the screen lightly. I hardly dare move. Then it comes: the ping.

DeadMcTavish

Meet me at the causeway. Come now.

“You see?” I whisper, triumphant, turning to both of them. “It is him!”

Mr. Flynn shakes his head. “Not necessarily, Cate.”

“It's vague. It's the program,” Ms. Lasillo says.

I type some more.

Clouseau

They don't believe that you're alive, Vaughan. They think that you're a machine, that you've programmed Crypt to reply to me! How can I convince them?

We all wait. And then the ping comes.

DeadMcTavish

Come now.

My heart sinks. Ms. Lasillo holds her hands open as if to say, I told you so. Mr. Flynn puts his hand on my arm.

“Sorry, Cate,” he says.

Ping.

DeadMcTavish

Get Flynny to drive you in the car. And tell Ms. Lasillo that if she gets her sticky fingers out of my code, when I've got a second, I'll show her the back door in her intranet. Chop, chop! Xxx

I laugh out loud. Long and hard. It's difficult to stop.

Mr. Flynn says, “Car's in the garage. I'll get the keys.”

“We need to hurry!” I can't stop smiling.

Pacing up and down in the living room, I call to them again. Flynn is fetching his coat. Ms. Lasillo is upstairs getting dressed. Finally. Thank God. Don't want to think too much about that, because, you know, gross. But maybe she'll be a bit nicer to me now.

“The causeway.” Mr. Flynn reappears and grabs a couple flashlights from a shelf. “Why on earth does he want to meet us there, do you know?” He opens a drawer and starts to rifle through things. “Tide timetable. Where is it?”

“On the intranet.” I bring up the page on the Umfraville site. “Oh.” I read down the list of times for early October. “Interesting. Tide comes in soon.” I check the time. “Like, very soon.”

“Of course it does,” Mr. Flynn says. “Sophia, let's go!” He goes to the hall and shouts up the stairs, before turning to me again. “We'll get in the car. Come on.” He leads the way out of the front door and around the cottage to the little alley that runs between the house and the garage. We enter the cramped garage by a side door. He opens the car and flings the flashlights into the backseat. “Get that, will you?” He gestures to the garage door, one of those big up-and-over types. I nod and move around the car as he starts the engine. I turn the handle on the middle of the garage door and try to lift it up. It won't budge.

“Stuck?” Mr. Flynn opens the car window and shouts over the engine noise.

I try it again, not wanting to seem completely hopeless, but it's like something is caught in the mechanism up on the roof.

Mr. Flynn swears. “It does this sometimes. Hang on.” He cranks the window closed, gets out, the car still running, and starts to search around on the wall for something. “I keep a screwdriver handy to give the pulley a poke—can you see it anywhere?”

I shake my head, point to a crowbar. “This do it?”

“No, needs to be smaller. OK”—he smacks his forehead—“screwdriver's in the kitchen. Get in the car. I'll grab it and be right back.”

I do as he asks, and he leaves the garage, shutting the side door behind him. The car's engine is running, keys in the ignition, and as I sit in the passenger seat, I toy with the idea of sliding over to the driver's side, flooring the pedal, breaking the door down, and driving to the causeway myself. But then I can wave bye-bye to any kind of support from Mr. Flynn. I look at my watch. How long since Vaughan messaged us? Ten minutes? Fifteen? That would be just enough time for him to get there if he ran all the way from the caves. I glance toward the side door leading to the house; Mr. Flynn and Ms. Lasillo are taking their time. I feel a surge of impatience. Come on! Time is a-wasting.

I check my tablet. No skulls, no messages. Another couple minutes go by. Right, I'm going to give them a shout.

When I open the car door, the fumes from the exhaust burn my throat on the first breath. Yuk. I skip quickly to the side door to the alleyway and turn the handle. It doesn't move. I give it a shove; did Mr. Flynn lock it for some reason? He doesn't want me skipping out on them? I feel a rush of panic, as the fumes from the car make me start to cough. Bloody stupid of him to leave the engine running. I pull my parka over my nose, give up on the door, and go back to the car, but to the driver's door this time. I'll just turn off the engine and hope this stuff dissipates quickly.

The driver's door is locked. I try it again, looking at it as if I'm doing something wrong. I cough, moving around to the passenger side, and then the two back doors, but the car will not let me back in. I feel the vomit begin to move in my stomach, sweep my arm across my face, trying somehow to shield the air that goes into my lungs. I stagger across to the garage door again, thump it, but it's not moving. I look around wildly—the crowbar! It feels heavy and unfamiliar in my hands, but I thrust it into the bottom of the garage door and lean on one side. A gap to the outside appears, big enough to get an arm through, big enough to put my face down there and gulp clean, cold air, but not big enough to squeeze through.

“Mr. Flynn!” I scream through the gap. “Help me!”

But he doesn't come. Why not? As I lie there trying to pry the gap open farther, a crazy thought pops into my head.

Maybe Mr. Flynn doesn't want me to make it out of here alive.

Could he be involved in all of this, somehow? Mr. Flynn, hanging around the cliffs at the dead of night during Vaughan's initiation. Mr. Flynn, first to the stage when Emily collapsed, right there on hand when Rick was poisoned. I don't want to believe it, but maybe he despises us, the privileged superkids, when he was denied his own chance to make his mark on the world?

Wooziness moves over me like a large hand clamped over my face. I suck in some more air, fighting it. Could it be Ms. Lasillo's the one? She's jealous of me, the attention I get from Flynny. She's clever; she could have easily made that robot. She was with us when Rick ate the cupcake. She could have poisoned it, intending it for me. She's as uptight and annoying as hell, but is she really a killer?

Maybe the two of them are in it together?

I breathe deep, trying to chase the fumes from my head. Whatever. It's up to me to help myself. I lie there, head wedging the garage door open, gulping air. This is not a sustainable situation. It's not an attractive prospect, to give up my fresh air and go back in, but it's the only way I'm going to free myself. I take, one, two, three gulps more, then wiggle back and let the door seal me in again. Grabbing the crowbar, I head for Mr. Flynn's car. He's not going to be very pleased. Funnily enough, I couldn't give a monkey's about that right now. Wielding the crowbar like a battering ram, I get angry and take it out on the driver's side window, hammering the sharp end of the crowbar into the glass. The first time I swing, the glass just frosts over into a thousand little sugary pieces, but the pane stays intact. I pull the crowbar back again and yell as I smash it again. This time the glass shatters and falls out of the window. My hand moves in to release the door lock, and I feel a swoon of fumes start to overtake my body again. It will not be enough to simply turn off the engine; I have to get out of here.

I launch myself into the driver's seat and grab the gear stick. I've never driven in my life, and unless I can figure this out now, I never will. I crank the stick to the number one, and there's a grinding sound—oh crap, clutch. My feet stomp around, first finding the accelerator, making the engine roar. I find the clutch and try the gear change again, and the car bunny-hops forward.

“Hand brake,” I mutter, yanking the thing. It releases with a shudder. I press both pedals and the car makes an unholy screaming sound; this is a hell of a time to try and find the biting point. Oh holy greased lightning, please let me figure this out. I rev the engine again, easing off slowly, slowly, slowly…the wheels spin and the car leaps forward. I'm quick with stepping on the gas. No guts, no glory. Too late, I remember my seat belt. The front of the car smacks into the garage door and I jerk forward, my mouth smashing against the steering wheel. Despite the exploding pain and the taste of blood, I keep my foot down, and the car pushes the door, pushes, pushes…and stops.

But it's enough. Daylight—or what's left of it—is visible through the side of the door, enough for me to escape. On foot, but hey, I was never going to be able to drive this thing to the causeway. One hand carrying a flashlight and the other across my bloody mouth, I slide out of the car and stagger into the delicious cold air, my head spinning with carbon monoxide and the agony of smashed teeth. Once across the garden, I glance up at the cottage. What's going on in there? I'm not going to wait to find out. I don't know how that door got locked, but more fool me if it was Flynn or Lasillo who locked it.

As I set off across the field in the direction of the causeway, there's a high whine. Ducking behind a hedgerow, I see it: a police car, lights flashing, coming down the road. I haven't got much time. I run, keeping low and out of sight, and then I hit the woods, straighten up, and make a dash for it, leaping over undergrowth, swallowing blood and snot and tears and probably teeth too, but I don't care. I just have to get there. The woods give way to playing fields, and once I'm beyond the pavilion, there's nothing between me and the causeway except undulating dunes. Sometimes Mr. Churley makes us run up them, and it's ridiculously hard work, even on the days I'm not beaten-up and half-poisoned.