Spy School Invasion

Chapter 9 | Rescue

Armistead Dormitory

St. Smithen's Science Academy

Washington D.C.

May 18

1640 hours

I rushed outside, heading straight towards where Catherine was experimenting in the science lab. I opened the door and ran in, almost impaling myself on a huge green spike that someone had left there for some reason.

"Benjamin, be careful! That is the 2nd year's experiment on sulfuric acid and spikes!"

"Oops, sorry. But I have something important to give you." I handed her Erica's note. She looked at it and immediately paled.

"This is not Erica's handwriting," she said.

"What? Then who could it be?" I asked.

"I don't know, but I've noticed that Erica had been missing from campus for the past hour."

"So that means she actually might be captured, and it happened recently," I realized.

"But Erica is smart enough to leave a clue," I said.

"Maybe she dropped a line of objects in the direction she was going," Catherine said.

"Like Hansel and Gretel," I said. "But that'd be too obvious."

"Let's go outside and check," Catherine said. "Bring Mike, Zoe, and Trixie and tell them the news."

I ran to each of their rooms, filling them in on what was going on. They were just as surprised as I was but excited to finally do something interesting. We met Catherine outside of the school and followed her down the street. 

"Look! Erica left a trail," Catherine said, pointing to a trail of Cadbury's chocolates.

"But Erica never eats unhealthy food," I said.

"Before, when she was young, we agreed that if either one of us got captured, we would leave a trail of these," Catherine said, picking up one of the chocolate squares. We followed the squares, leading until they suddenly stopped at a forest. Catherine ran in, quickly followed by me, Mike, and Zoe.

Pretty soon, we emerged into a very small town. There were only about 50 houses, a supermarket, and a school. There also were a couple of office buildings scattered around. 

"Where could she be?" I asked Catherine. She didn't get to answer, since suddenly the ground fell out from under us.

We woke up inside a prison cell. A guard was sitting outside, playing Angry Birds on his phone. He sucked at it. Suddenly, Joshua Hallal walked into the room, with two guards holding Erica. She looked really weak, cause she couldn't even muster the energy to lift her head.

"What do you want?" Catherine asked.

"I want revenge," Joshua sat down outside our cell. "You know how much those missiles cost? And you just blew them up on their own stand like they only cost a couple of bucks!"

"Well, you were about to kill millions of people," I pointed out.

"NO, I WAS GOING TO EARN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!!!!" Joshua freaked out.

"Whoa, chill man," Mike said.

"NO, I WILL NOT CHILL OUT!!! YOU LOST ME A MILLION $%^& DOLLARS AHHH!!!"

"So you're just gonna yell at us until we die of old age?" I asked. Joshua yelled some more, but I wasn't listening to him. Instead, I was picking the lock. Soon, I had finished, and I alerted Catherine. She looked over, smiled, kicked the door open, and smashed Joshua. I went after the two guards holding Erica. One I knocked out with a reverse-roundhouse kick, and the other only needed a chop to the neck.

Erica went limp once the guards were taken out and fell into my arms. I hoisted her up onto my shoulders and took her to Catherine. She gasped at the sight of Erica.

"Is she okay?" I asked her.

"I hope so," Catherine said. "Let's get her to a hospital." The moment the words were out of her mouth, we were out of SPYDER's headquarters (after noting the location) and drove off to the nearest hospital.

Soon, we were there and we gave Erica to one of the nurses. The nurse loaded her onto a stretcher and took her to an ER. We waited outside, Catherine pacing anxiously and Mike drinking a hot chocolate from the machine. Finally, after a couple of hours, the nurse came outside and told us that she was okay. Then she asked us if we wanted to see her. Catherine jumped at this, so the nurse led us to Erica's room.