“Not a navigational compass, a drafting compass. The kind architects and draftsmen use to draw circles,” said Elise, showing them her screen.
“All four objects could also be something else,” said Brooke, scrutinizing the insignia on her screen. “I think they might be letters.”
“What kind of letters?” asked Nick, trying to drink coffee while balancing upside down on one hand.
“Calligraphy of some kind,” said Brooke. “From an archaic alphabet.”
“Let’s check it out,” said Elise. She held the Peers list in front of her screen. Elise stood up from the table on-screen to study the page, then reached to the top of the screen and brought down an exact copy of the list.
“Okay, what the heck just happened?” asked Will.
“The tablet used its camera to scan the letter, rendered a virtual copy, and delivered it into the simulation,” said Elise. “So my syn-app could go find a match.”
Elise on-screen looked up at Will and said, “Pretty spooky, huh?”
Will fell over backward on his chair. “It talked!”
“Boo-yah,” said Nick.
“They all can,” said Brooke. “Once they get to know you.”
“Oh, they can do a lot more than talk,” said Nick, helping Will up while still walking on his hands. “If you know what I’m saying, wink, wink.”
“There’s a difference,” said Elise, “between using a tool and being a tool.”
“Touché, my lady,” said Nick, flipping back to his feet and giving a small bow.
Elise rolled her eyes, then spoke to her syn-app. “Library.”
The environment on-screen around Elise shifted to the same academic library. Elise started toward the stacks, and on the way passed Brooke, coming back with a large open book. The syn-apps waved to each other.
Will peeked over Brooke’s shoulder at her screen as her character ported back to the pod. She looked at them, held up a book about flowers, and moved close to the screen. Brooke read the entry her double had found: “The white mum is the city flower of Chicago … and the flower of the month of November.…”
“Step back now,” said Nick, snapping his fingers. “Dudes, we’re not that far from Chicago … and … it’s November right now.”
“Take a deep breath,” said Ajay slowly. “And try to prevent your mind from working altogether.”
“The white mum is also the emblem of a mysterious organization called the Fraternity of the Triangle,” said Brooke, still reading. “A secret society of scientists, architects, and engineers. Its origins reach back to the Middle Ages … and they’re aligned with the Freemasons.”
“Now you’re on to something,” said Ajay, excited. “The compass and builder’s square, which you found in this insignia, are both Masonic symbols.”
“Freemasons?” asked Nick. “Is that a fraternity, too?”
“Neither is a ‘fraternity,’ Nick,” said Brooke wearily. “At least not the kind you’re thinking of.”
“And what kind might that be?” asked Nick.
“College pledges, Greek Week,” said Brooke.
“Frat house keggers,” said Elise. “Horny knuckleheads projectile vomiting.”
“My point exactly,” said Nick, banging his fist on the table.
“Don’t be a nincompoop,” said Ajay. “These are centuries-old organizations with notorious reputations for secrecy and violence.”
“For real?” said Nick, sitting back down. “I am so stoked.”
“Okay, found it,” said Elise, swinging her tablet around. Her syn-app transported from the virtual library to their great room and held a leather-bound volume to the screen, displaying a page of calligraphic letters.
“The letters are from the Carolingian alphabet,” said Elise, reading from the screen. “The standard script used for handwriting in western Europe between about 800 and 1200 AD.”
“Carolingian means ‘under the leadership of Carolus,’ ” said Ajay. “The Latin name of the emperor Charlemagne, who united Europe for the first time since the Romans and was eventually crowned emperor by the pope.”
“Which suggests that whoever the Peers are, they were inspired by some group that originated during the reign of Charlemagne?” asked Brooke.
“Perhaps so,” said Ajay.
“So which letters are these?” asked Will.
Elise put the insignia next to the ancient alphabet and said, “T, k, o, c.”
Nick grabbed a pen and paper and wrote them down. On his screen, his syn-app did the same.
“Okay, I’m officially confusiated,” said Nick, scratching his head at what he’d written. “T-k-o-c doesn’t spell anything.”
“Maybe it’s an anagram,” said Brooke. “Mix up the letters.”
“Interestingly, although Charlemagne was exceptionally tall and imposing for that era,” continued Ajay, “roughly six foot two, his father was apparently a dwarf.”
“Dude … how can you possibly remember all that random stuff?”
Ajay glanced nervously at Will. “Well, I do study a great deal, and I take copious notes, and I guess I have above-average retention—”
“Okay, scoreboard,” said Nick, who triumphantly held up his list of words and pointed to the last one. “Check it out.”
“Tock,” said Brooke. “That’s the best you could do.”
“Tock could mean something,” said Nick.
“Yes. If you were a clock,” said Ajay.
“At least a clock can tell time,” said Elise, scowling.
Nick looked discouraged, but his on-screen counterpart held up to the screen the page he had written, whistled, and waved his arms excitedly to catch Nick’s eye.
“Hold on, hold on,” said Nick. He then tried to pronounce the variations on his syn-app’s page. “Ktoc, cokt, ockt … crap, I sound like a cat with a hairball—”
Nick started choking on-screen, like a cat.
“Amazing,” said Ajay, shaking his head. “Even his cartoon is a moron.”
“Somewhere,” said Elise, drumming her fingers on the table, “there’s a tiny little village that’s missing its idiot.”
“Screw it, where’d we stash the Scrabble set?” Nick got up and rifled through the kitchen. He returned with a bag of letter tiles, fishing out the four he needed.
“Have a look at this,” said Ajay as he laid his tablet on the table. A three-dimensional view of the campus appeared in midair, floating above his screen. Ajay used his hands to expand the image until it covered most of the table.
“Now let’s track the coordinates I entered.…” Using his fingers to scroll the image, Ajay moved their point of view until it hovered over the field house. The building turned transparent, revealing a detailed re-creation of the men’s locker room. “We entered the tunnel from the locker room … went down these stairs, turned hard left … and followed the hall to here.…”
He moved his finger down a long straightaway, outlining the path of the tunnel, until he reached another blinking point at the end.
“The door to the auxiliary locker room,” said Ajay. “Exactly one-quarter of a mile under the athletic fields.” He touched his screen again; the smaller locker room appeared, and inside it another doorway. “We entered the second tunnel here behind the lockers. Now watch.”
Their point of view rose back into a bird’s-eye view as he tracked the tunnel to the east. “By the time we moved through that large chamber and reached the T-intersection, we were over two hundred feet underground.”
Two corridors branched off at ninety degrees. The one to the right ran directly under the photo-real waters of Lake Waukoma.
“We followed the right fork to here,” said Ajay. The blinking spot moved under the lake to the island and came to a stop at the hatch behind the Crag.
“The Crag was built in the early 1870s,” said Ajay. “It’s my opinion that these tunnels were built at the same time. A rough geologic network of caves probably existed here already.”
??
?Like the ones on the bluff across the lake,” said Will.
“Correct,” said Ajay, “but it took enormous effort to extend and finish them, as we saw. The required resources would have been on hand when the castle was being built, and I believe only a person rich and eccentric enough to create such a folly in the first place could have built those tunnels. Therefore, I think whoever put up the Crag also created these tunnels. Over fifty years before the Center was built.”
“So who built the Crag?” asked Will.
“I’ll find out,” said Brooke. “But why were the tunnels built in the first place?”
“We can’t answer that yet,” said Will.
“Do you think the people who chased you from the castle have something to do with the Peers?” asked Elise, looking concerned.
“I’m not sure,” said Will. “We know the guy who owns it now, Haxley, keeps heavy security on the island. Maybe they were just guards reacting to the presence of intruders.”
“Will, they were practically waiting for us when we came up that ladder,” said Ajay.
“And that tunnel leads directly to the Peers’ meeting room,” said Elise. “There must be some connection.”
“I think she’s right, Will,” said Ajay.
“Then let’s keep looking for that,” said Will.
“Okay, all that’s awesome and totally sick,” said Nick, obsessing over the Scrabble tiles. “But these four frickin’ letters still don’t spell frickin’ anything.”
“That’s because they’re not an anagram,” said Brooke, excited, staring intently at her screen. “They’re an acronym.”
“You mean something that means the opposite of something?” asked Nick.
“No, that’s an antonym,” said Brooke. “An acronym means they’re the first letters of words or a phrase that mean something.” She rearranged Nick’s tiles to their original order. “T … K … O … C.”
“You mean like LOL?” asked Nick skeptically.
“Yes,” said Brooke. “Like an acronym.”
“LQTM,” said Nick.
“What’s that mean?” asked Ajay.
“Laughing quietly to myself,” said Nick.
“So what’s the phrase for TKOC?” asked Will.
Brooke turned her tablet around. Her syn-app opened another leather-bound book from the library and held it to the screen. They were looking at a lavish two-page color illustration, a heroic painting of twelve heavily armored knights on horseback.
“The Knights of Charlemagne,” said Brooke. “The twelve greatest warriors who served under Emperor Charlemagne. They called themselves the Peers, and every name on that list you found is here: Orlando, Renaldo, Namo—”
The others crowded around her to take a look.
“—Salomon, Turpin, Astolpho, Ogier, Malagigi, Padraig, Florismart, Ganelon, Guerin de Montglave—”
“Dude,” said Nick. “My head’s about to asplode.”
“That’s why the Peers used Frankish letters for this acronym,” said Ajay. “A hidden clue to their origin and identity, concealed in the insignia.”
“The first twelve names are here,” said Elise, scanning the list from the book. “But not the last one: the Old Gentleman.”
“So who is he, then?” asked Will.
“I have an idea about that,” said Brooke, paging through her online book. “Give me a second.”
“Let’s put this together,” said Will, pacing as he thought it through. “The locker room and those tunnels are being used by members of a group called the Knights of Charlemagne. A modern incarnation of an ancient order that may have some connection to the person who built that castle.”
“Or the person who lives there today,” said Elise.
“And the Knights are definitely connected to the Black Caps who came after me,” said Will.
“Maybe they’re all part of the same organization,” said Ajay.
“Maybe,” said Will.
“So what do we freakin’ do about it?” asked Nick, pacing opposite Will.
“Our mission hasn’t changed,” Ajay said. “We have to find out who the Peers are. Who did Will see down there with the hats and masks? Who chased us through the tunnels tonight?”
“We know who one of them is,” said Elise.
“Lyle,” said Will. “We’ll start with him.”
Brooke gasped and stood up abruptly, holding her tablet.
“Listen to this,” she said, alarmed.
“Don’t scare me like that,” said Nick.
Brook urgently read another passage from her syn-app’s book: “Charlemagne’s twelve knights accompanied him on two different crusades when the emperor led his army across Europe to capture Jerusalem and the Holy Land for the ‘civilized’ western kingdoms.”
“And what’s the significance of that?” asked Ajay.
“Charlemagne had another name for these guys,” said Brooke. “His twelve knights … were the original Paladins.”
I’d stopped dreaming about him as soon as he got here. But the danger he was in hadn’t vanished with the dreams. If anything, I sensed it was worse now, and drawing closer. Had he brought it with him, or had it been waiting for him all along?
He should be safe here. The school has ways. Should I tell him what I know? Maybe he hasn’t learned any of it. Would it help? How can I be sure that telling him won’t make it worse?
Sleep is becoming impossible.
THE TUTORIAL
The roommates packed it in after one in the morning, satisfied that they’d at least put a name to what they’d found. But Will lay awake worrying about the implications of the last piece Brooke had discovered: The original Knights were all Paladins. One of the contemporary Knights, dressed as a paladin, had come after them with an ax. The Paladin had been the school’s mascot since 1915.
Did this suggest that the school was somehow involved?
Then there was the even crazier stuff he hadn’t told them yet: The connection Nando had found between the Caps and the testing agency that had brought him to the school. The repeated appearances of his guardian angel, the monsters from the Never-Was, and this paranormal “war” that Dave said he was smack in the middle of.
Will heard a soft knock, moved to the door, and opened it a crack.
It was Brooke. “I need to ask you something,” she whispered. She was close enough for him to catch a sweet hint of peppermint on her breath. He stood aside, inviting her in. She wore an oversized white men’s dress shirt and floppy socks. She crossed to his bed and sat down, folding one bare leg underneath her. Will sat nearby, but not too close. She leaned toward him, her big eyes wide and bright with alarm, caught in a fragment of moonlight through the window.
“I’m lying there, staring at the ceiling,” she said, her voice low and trembling, “and I can’t stop asking myself, why did the Paladin show up down there?”
“Maybe he followed us,” said Will.
“But how did he know you were down there in the first place?”
“Maybe we set off a silent alarm—”
“I think Lyle has some way of watching you,” she said with conviction. “The same thing used to happen to Ronnie. Lyle always seemed to know where he was.”
Will shivered as he thought about it.
“And, Will, think about this.” Brooke put her hand on his. “If Lyle really is part of the Knights, and they’re working with the men who tried to kidnap you …”
Will felt a chill run down his spine. “Then there’s a good chance that word’s gotten back to them and they know I’m here.”
“I’m sorry if I haven’t been more supportive,” said Brooke sincerely. “I really don’t believe that rules are made to be broken. But this is different. You’re in real danger and I want to help in any way I can.”
“I’m really glad to hear that,” said Will. “There’s something I need to tell you, too. Chances are good that Todd’s part of this. With some of the other seniors from the cross-country team.”
She looked away and sighed. She seemed more saddened than surprised.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Whatever’s going on between you is none of my business.”
“Nothing’s going on between us,” she said, eyes flashing. “Our families are close, that’s all. We’ve known each other our whole lives.”
“If you need me to help, I will,” said Will.
She looked at him again, her eyes full of concern. “All this is going down, and you want to help me?”
Will got lost in her eyes for a second before he looked away. She reached out with her other hand and held his.
“Seriously, Will. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“But I am worried,” she said. “I knew you’d been through something awful the moment we met.”
“Well, I was lying there with stitches in my head.”
She punched his arm lightly. “The technical term is emotional intelligence? Give me some credit. I don’t want to help just because it’s the right thing to do. I want to because I like you. Because you’re smart and nice and kind of, well, brave.”
Will had to look away.
“You haven’t heard that a lot from other kids before?” she asked.
“No,” he said quietly.
She tried to meet his eyes. “What about friends back home? People you’re close to?”
Will shrugged. “Don’t have any.”
“Not ever?”
Will shook his head.
“Okay, that’s just wrong. And not because there’s something wrong with you,” she said gently. “What were your parents thinking? Your life should have been filled with friends. From now on it will be.”
He hoped she couldn’t hear his heart beating because it was about to bust through his ribs.
“And if you ever want to talk about … whatever you’ve been through or football or eighteenth-century English poetry, just know I’m up for that. Because that’s what friends are for.”
She said it like someone explaining the concept for the first time in human history. She squeezed his hand and headed for the door.
“I’ll work on Todd and see what I can find out,” she said at the door.
“You be careful, too.”