Spy School: City Crisis

1 0 : l i e s

I hadn't truly realized how much I missed real food until I got a taste of the dinner at Darrow.

There were salad bars, tacos, steak, almost everything you could imagine. After staying here for a while, I wouldn't be able to go back to the Espionage.

After grabbing a plate and stacking it with almost everything, I headed to an empty table. Brandon had still not come back from calling the authorities, and it was beginning to get me worried. No. It began to make me suspicious. What was taking him so long that he missed the call for dinner?

I was too occupied in stuffing my face with the beef taco, and the thoughts that began to cloud my head, that I didn't realize someone had sat next to me until I heard a clearing of a throat. I looked up and saw that Addie had grabbed a plate of salad, and was now sitting across from me.

"H-hey," I mumbled as I tried to swallow my food.

"Hey. Have you gotten any intel on Brandon?" She asked quietly, looking around to see if anyone heard us.

I shook my head, "Haven't seen him since I told him to go to the authorities."

Addie bit her bottom lip and nodded her head slowly, "Got it. Chip and the rest of them are on the left side of the dining hall. They're still trying to find some info from the bug you put in the bathroom."

"Still?"

Addie nodded, "Yep. According to them, it's weirdly harder than they expected."

This made me question something. When we all went to Vail, Chip and Zoe were immediately able to hear some chatter. And this was the chatter coming from Leo Shang, the big meanie who knew his stuff. It was weird how they were having a heard time hearing stuff from just a regular high school. Shouldn't it be easier for them?

"I know that face. What are you thinking?" Addie said, interrupting my thoughts.

"Um...Addie. Do you know why they're having a hard time?"

Addie thought for a while, "Um...I think they said something about a long time period, how it's harder to track. I don't know, something like that."

Now that began to confuse me even more. 

"Addie..." I said slowly, "I bugged the bathroom at exactly 4:16, so it's only been two hours."

Addie suddenly looked concerned, "Wait...so Chip lied to me?"

Oh gosh. I didn't like the sound of where this was going.

"Addie, we have to tell Erica. If Chip's lying...this could mean something big."

Addie scrunched her forehead as if she was thinking. She then whispered under her breath, "He could be a mole."

Addie immediately nodded her head and got up from her seat, "I'm going to go see Erica. She's probably with Catherine in their dorm room."

Before I could reply, Addie walked swiftly out the dining hall, which got some weird looks from the students. Then they stared at me. I just tried to shrug nonchalantly, and started to eat the rest of my taco again. Soon enough, the students went back to doing their own thing.

However, my peaceful dinner was again interrupted by a loud thud. I looked to see that Brandon had finally come back.

"Took you long enough." I said humorously, trying to hide my suspicion. Brandon looked out of breath, as if he just ran a marathon. If that wasn't suspicious enough, he now had a new watch-looking thing on his wrist.

Brandon gave me a look of apology, "Sorry about that. When I got to the office, they started questioning me a bunch as if I was the one who did all that."

"It's fine." I responded. Brandon was either a really good liar, or was actually innocent. To be honest, I couldn't tell.

"You gonna eat?" I asked, motioning him to sit down.

"Nah, I actually have a soccer practice in five minutes. By the way, you're going to be staying in a dorm that Coach Rivera assigned." said Brandon before he got up from the table again, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Coach Rivera. Catherine. She must have assigned me the dorm room that everyone was staying in. 

I decided to finish my dinner quickly so I could get to the dorm. As I walked out, I saw that the table that Chip, Zoe, Mike, and Jawa were sitting at was empty. They must have headed back to the dorm.

After dumping out my tray, I exited the dining hall, and went up in the elevator to the third floor.

When the elevator door dinged open, I made my way to the girl's side of the dormitory, and kept walking until I reached the door of the room that I was brought into a few hours ago.

I knocked on the wooden surface. It was silent for a few moments. 

The door finally clicked open to reveal Catherine with her tracksuit, her hair still dyed red.

"Why hello Benjamin. You must have heard about the room change. Now, come on in." She said chirpily, then motioned me into the room.

Just like I expected, everyone was up here. Zoe and Chip were in one corner of the room with computers and headphone, probably listening for chatter that was caught on the bugs. I still couldn't keep my mind off of the lie that Chip told to Addie. Why would he be trying to make the chatter be harder to find, unless he was a...

"Ben! You're back!" 

I looked up to see Mike sitting on the bed with a tablet, "Hey." I responded.

Erica and Addie were in another corner of the room, typing furiously on a computer. They both looked very concerned, and I was wondering if Addie had told Erica about Chip yet.

"Ben, I want you to start memorizing Brandon's schedule with Mike. We're going to be keeping even more eyes on him. His sudden disappearance was very suspicious as well." Catherine said. What she said suddenly stirred a memory.

Before she could turn around and walk away, I tapped her. "Catherine? Brandon actually came back to the dining hall, but he was all out of breath, and had this weird watch on his wrist."

Catherine turned around to face me, "Really, is that so?"

I nodded, "He also left right away to go to his soccer practice. He didn't even sit around for dinner."

Catherine pondered on this for a moment before nodding curtly, "Thank you Benjamin. Now, go along and study those schedules. I'll take a look on what you said."

I said a silent thanks, then headed over to where Mike was sitting. Mike handed me another tablet with a time table on it.

"Go on and start studying. I've been staring at this for hours, but I still can't memorize the whole thing."

I took the tablet and looked at the time table.

However, something caught my eye as I skimmed over the schedule.

Something was off.

Brandon had left at exactly 6:25, and since he said that he had practice in five minutes, his soccer practice should have been at 6:30.

Then how come on his schedule, his practice was at 4?

Then it clicked.

Brandon had lied.