Psi Another Day (Psi Fighter Academy) (14 page)

Chapter Sixteen

The Class Project

I woke up tired. Mostly because I couldn’t stop dreaming about Walpurgis Knights sneaking through my house, capturing my family, and making us eat egg drop soup. Don’t ask. Exhaustion makes my brain malfunction. Fortunately, I had chemistry the next morning, and that particular class didn’t require a functioning brain. We were getting our introduction to the Class Project.

I have to say, chem lab always disappointed me. I kept wanting it to look like a mad scientist’s laboratory. But alas, there were no flasks spewing green smoke. No body parts in jars. No brains labeled
Abnormal
. Nothing freakish at all. Instead, sparkling glassware neatly lined the polished shelves, and petri dishes, stacked and dusted like fine china, rested on the bench tops. Major yawn. If linen tablecloths and candles had covered the lab benches, we could have been learning chemistry in Rachael Ray’s kitchen. Okay,
that
was freakish.

Kathryn and I had strategically placed ourselves at the smallest bench in the lab, off to the side, where we could discuss life without being overheard.

“Let me get this straight,” Kathryn whispered as she plopped her chemistry book open on the bench. “Short-Fat-and-Squatty-All-Butt-and-No-Body saved Christie Jasmine? The man is not exactly a poster boy for fitness. I thought cops had to be in better shape.”

“Kathryn! If you say a word, I’ll never tell you anything again.”

“Dude, open the dictionary to the word ‘clandestine’ and there’s my picture. By the way, you look like poodle poo. Why don’t you nap through class? Miliron’ll never notice. I sleep in Math Club all the time.”

“Not a bad idea.”

Just as I was about to lay my head on a test tube, the lab door opened and Dr. Miliron, resident mad scientist, promenaded in. He stopped at the front of the room, grinning as though he had won a prize.

“For those of you who may be a tad curious,” he said, bouncing on his toes and making his fingers do pushups against each other, “today we’ll get a taste of the chemistry Class Project. I know you’ve all been waiting for it. I haven’t mentioned it to you yet, but I hear about it all over the school. I must say, the excitement is contagious!”

I sighed. Dr. Miliron was one of the most likable teachers in the school. And one of the most clueless.

“The Project includes many captivating experiments, but today you are especially lucky! We’re making an absolutely fascinating sixteen-carbon structure of fashionable hexagons. Technically, it’s 6-Methyl-9,10-didehydro-ergoline-8-carboxylic acid, with a molecular mass 268.31 grams per mole.” Dr. Miliron laughed quietly and shook his head as he passed around a lab handout. “Of course, in everyday language, it’s simply C
16
H
16
N
2
O
2
. So, slap on your goggliers and let’s get cooking, gang!”

Dr. Miliron held the title for spewing the incomprehensible. He spoke in long, chemically abundant phrases that apparently excited him, but completely confazzled those of us who only spoke English. I put on goggles and measured out some odd-colored powder labeled
Ergot
.

“Okay, so about Egon,” Kathryn whispered. She shot a sly glance at me. “Did he ask you to the Spring Fling yet?”

“How did that come up?” I felt my face getting warm.

“Well, he
did
offer to be your bodyguard, and the Spring Fling is next week. It’s the perfect place for guarding.” She did a finger quote around “guarding.” “Two and two, Rinster.”

The Spring Fling. Biggest event of the school year. And Kathryn’s area of expertise, not mine. She’d been on a gajillion dates. I had a grand total of one under my belt, and it was technically a fact-finding mission. “Must have slipped his mind. You should probably check your math. You going?”

“Not sure.” Kathryn blushed. “Mark and John and Matt and Luke and Hank and Jeremy asked. But, you know, I’m not sure I’m right for them. They’re such sweethearts, but I told them I probably wouldn’t be able to go.”

“All four Gospels
and
the captains of the football and track teams? Amazing. Holding out for Bobby, are we?”

“Could be. However, Ms. Noelle, it seems to me that
you
have two major hitters at the moment.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you, or did you not turn your bodyguard down so you could go out with Mason?”

“No,
you
told Egon I wasn’t allowed out on school nights. And I didn’t go out with Mason. I spied on him.”

“And learned that the evil wombat hangs out with the wrong crowd as suspected. Correct?”

“He does. And let me tell you, Scallion is
super
creepy.”

“Like the Sith, they are,” Kathryn said in a first-rate Yoda voice. “Two there should be— no more, no less. Master and apprentice.”

I shook my head. “Not exactly. You don’t get an army with two.” I pulled an envelope from my backpack and took a piece of paper from inside. “I found a sort of…something…at the police station. I think it may be information Andy’s looking for. It’s from Mr. Munificent.” I had tried to pull the image of Scallion from it again, but that required mundo concentration, and I was just too out of it.

“The dead dude?” Kathryn’s eyes widened. She snatched the paper from me. “Did he write to you from the Great Beyond?”

“No, from the police station.”

“That is just weird.” Kathryn turned the page upside down. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. A sketch, I guess. He wasn’t a very good artist.”

Dr. Miliron clapped his hands and I nearly sullied my undies. “Okay, let’s continue! This is really an intriguing project, class. Those of you who can produce a successful chemical reaction will not only get an A, you will be helping medical research. Our work will benefit the production of an experimental drug used at the Old Torrents Mental Facility.”

“Look at all the pretty colors,” Kathryn squealed, pointing to a group of glass bottles. “Hey, what’s this?” She plucked a bottle labeled DMSO off the workstation shelf and popped the glass stopper. The powerful stench of rotten eggs wafted out. Kathryn touched two fingers to her lips and said in a giggly voice, “Excuse me, I fluffed.”

I choked back a laugh.

“I see you have discovered an important dipolar aprotic solvent from another experiment!” Dr. Miliron sniffed at the air. “It appears our last class failed to put away their dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO, also known as methylsulfinylmethane, an all-natural substance derived from the normal decomposition of plants. This wonderful, colorless liquid is readily miscible in water
and
a wide range of organic compounds, making it extremely useful. Isn’t that exciting? The disadvantage, as you may have guessed, is a rather foul odor, likely due to catabolic processes which reduce DMSO to dimethyl sulfide.”

“What did he say?” Kathryn asked me.

“It stinks.”

Kathryn held the bottle up to the light. “Do we have to use it in the Class Project, Dr. M? It clashes with my Bath and Body Works.”

“Heavens, no, dear,” Dr. Miliron said, prancing across the lab to plant himself at Kathryn’s shoulder. “A single drop of DMSO would contaminate our compounds, rendering them completely useless for the medical field.”

“Our ergot is ready to be boiled,” I whispered to Kathryn. “What’s ergot?”

“Ergot,” Dr. Miliron whispered back, “is the common name of a saprophyte in the genus Claviceps. This particular saprophyte is parasitic on certain grains and grasses. It is, in fact, a sclerotium! This small structure is usually referred to as ergot, although,” he put his hand over his mouth and laughed quietly, “referring to
any
member of the Claviceps genus as ergot is also correct. Claviceps can affect a number of cereals including rye, wheat, barley, and triticale. It affects oats only rarely.”

“I see,” I said, although I didn’t.

“What did he say?” Kathryn asked when Dr. Miliron had moved on to the next group.

“We’re boiling gookem puckey.”

“I prefer lobster. But I’m flexible.”

As our gookem puckey boiled happily away, Dr. Miliron sprang from group to group explaining in extremely long words how the gunk we were making would be taken to Old Torrents Labs for final processing, then used to help the mentally ill. I personally didn’t see how it would help them do anything but smell like mildew. After what seemed like hours, the bubbling glop at our workstation turned reddish and became thick, like syrup.

“Nice work, Miss Noelle,” a charming voice said from over my shoulder. Mason stood right next to me, staring intently at my beaker. “I had hoped you were this talented.”

“How did you get in here?” My first instinct was to tackle him and tactfully beat out a confession about what happened in the little room beside the SSA after I left. Then I remembered my cover. I needed to be friendly and caring so I could stay close to the filthy wombat.

“I’m the lab assistant. I told you. I thought you knew.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I said, smiling. “I knew.”

“I knew you were an egotistical megalomaniac,” Kathryn said.

“I don’t know what that means, but I like the sound of it.” Mason glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Dr. Miliron, I think we have a successful experiment.”

Dr. Miliron danced his way across the lab and planted himself between Kathryn and me. Rubbing his hands together, he said, “Now observe the reflux condenser. That’s the key to this experiment. You’ll notice that the condensate progresses up the inner cylinder, then cascades back into the elixir, which, of course, is home to a chemical reaction that will alter the carbon chain.” He smiled and shook his head. “Once again, I get carried away.” He turned to me and winked. “We’re really only hydrolyzing lysergamides. A simple process, actually. Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Go ahead and analyze this one, Mr. Draudimon.”

Dr. Miliron pranced over to the next experiment, whistling the Star Wars theme song.

“What did he say?” Kathryn asked me.

“We’re done boiling gookem puckey.”

“Ladies,” Mason said, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to show you the analytical tests we use.”

I faked a sweet smile and handed Mason my beaker.

Kathryn and I followed him to the other end of the lab where a heap of equipment sat blinking and flashing. I’m sure Dr. Miliron had a techno term for it, but to me, it was a silver and black doohickey with curly metal tubes. Next to it were shelves with sealed bottles labeled
pass
and
rework
. Much more mad scientist lab-ish.

“This,” Mason said, swishing his hand like a game show host, “is a gas chromatograph.”

“It has a name,” I said.

“It does.”

“Just a sec’.” Kathryn stepped close to Mason, took him by the face and tilted his head up, then sideways, like she was checking him for fleas.

“What are you doing?” Mason asked quietly.

Kathryn released his face. “You’re confusing me, Mason. You’re being nice. I thought maybe you had been replaced by an alien.”

“Sorry, it’s the real me.” Mason opened a drawer under the chromatohickey, pulled out a thin glass syringe with a long needle, and filled it with solution from my beaker.

His eye caught mine, and he smiled. “I fake being nice pretty well, don’t I?”

Half truthfully, I said, “You have your moments.”

“Do you like it?”

“Maybe.”

“Careful, it might become a habit.”

I’ll believe that when I see it.

Mason’s deep blue eyes sparkled, but behind them lay the pain I saw Friday night, and a tenderness I had never noticed before.

“It’s you, all right.” Kathryn suddenly shoved me behind her and dropped into what I could only assume was a fighting stance, although it looked more like SpongeBob doing the Jellyfish Jam. “Come near us with that needle and I’ll kick you so hard your mother will feel it.”

Mason looked hurt. “Hey, it’s me.”

“Hence my defensive posture,” Kathryn said.

“I told you she doesn’t like me,” Mason said to me.

“What’s to like?” Kathryn said, shuffling her feet, apparently adjusting her fighting stance. “You pick on skinny blonds who don’t stand a chance against you, you’re nasty to any teacher who hasn’t had the benefit of a doctoral dissertation, and you abuse smaller boys who are too polite to slam you into oblivion.”

Mason dropped his eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I get carried away when my friends let me down. I’ll talk to Bobby. And for the record? My mother’s dead. But she had no feelings when she was alive.”

For the first time since I had known Kathryn, she was totally speechless. She just shook her head slowly and stared at Mason. “I’m so sorry,” she finally whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“Nobody does,” Mason said. “Don’t worry about it. Hey, do you want to see how the chromatograph works? Watch, this is cool!” He stuck the syringe into the front of the machine, pushed a button, and it started to hum quietly. A narrow strip of paper with a jaggedy line emerged. Something beeped, and Mason ripped off the printout.

“Another good one, Dr. Miliron. Chromatogram looks excellent. These two ladies have perfect peaks.” He poured my experiment into a new bottle, sealed it and placed it on the shelf labeled
pass
.

Mason grinned at Kathryn, but the twinkle in his eye was gone. “It was a long time ago, and I’ve moved on.” He turned to me and the twinkle reappeared. “Rinnie, I would like you to consider donating some time after school to help continue this project. It would mean a lot to me, and it’s for a very good cause. Please think about it. For me.” Then he nudged me gently with his shoulder and went to the front of the lab. I stood in a mild state of shock, gaping at Mason as he glided to the next finished experiment.

Then I turned toward Kathryn. “Hey, what’s with the skinny blond crack?”

“Just covering your trail, girl. When he pulled the needle, I was afraid you might kick his wombat butt with one chromatogram tied behind your back.” Kathryn smiled. “I’m practicing to be a Whisperer.”

Chapter Seventeen

The Strange Nature of Gookem Puckey

“Absolutely not,” Kathryn said as we exited the lab.

“You don’t think it’s weird that I noticed Mason has a nice side?”

“Weird, no. Blind, definitely. Mason only has one side, and nice it’s not.”

“Maybe he just had a bad childhood. Maybe he’s trying to change.”

“Maybe he’s an evil wombat. Be afraid. Be very—” Kathryn must have sensed a disturbance in the Force or something, because she suddenly spun on her heels. Bobby rounded the corner down the hall.

And I was supposed to be the psychic one.

“Okay, Bobby,” Kathryn sang as he approached. “What’s your secret? You’re smiling!”

I didn’t see any smile.

“S-s-secret?” he stammered.

“You know, Bobby, the Spring Fling is coming. I think you’re out here deciding who to ask.”

Bobby turned a morbid shade of purple. His scalp glowed under his buzz cut. His eyes went wide with fear.

“You are as subtle as a pipe bomb,” I told her.

“Hey, I was simply inquiring as to what was on Bobby’s brilliant mind while we were in chemistry boiling gookem puckey. I mean, it’s not like he’s
only
an awe-inspiring specimen of virility. He has a mind, too, Rinnie. I utter a gasp of dismay that you only see his outward hunkness. That’s just shallow.”

Bobby scowled. His eyes narrowed. “Gookem puckey? They’re making lysergic acid in that lab!”

“May I inquire as to what your brilliant hunkness means?” I asked. Kathryn elbowed me.

Bobby shook his head. “I wasn’t certain before, but now I know. You hydrolyze ergot to make lysergic acid. That’s what Miliron sends to Old Torrents. He’s too harebrained to realize what they’re doing. Lysergic acid is only one step away from LSD, which was originally developed to treat mental patients. But in the lab at the Old Torrents Mental Facility, they change the chemical structure to make it do things LSD was never meant to do.”

“And you know this how?”

“Plenty of research. And I overheard Tammy Angel bragging about how she made Kent Gable stash it in my locker for the cops to find. The real thing, not the harmless stuff from the Class Project. Angel is smart. She knows somebody at the Old Torrents lab. Now she has Chuckie and Art pushing this poison on us. It turns people nasty. Look at what it did to Erica Jasmine before she quit. And Agatha Chew. Chuckie Cuff has always been weird, but now he’s just mean. And it’s not because he hangs out with Rubric.”

Suddenly a light went on in my head, and my stomach knotted. I remembered Andy’s words.
The Walpurgis Knights kidnap children and train them to be Knights. They use mutated hallucinogens to change their personalities. Nice people can’t be Knights.

“See?” Kathryn said. “I told you he’s brilliant.”

Yes, Bobby was brilliant. How could I have missed it? The Knights were making Psychedone 10 right under our noses. And Mason had just invited me to help, although I wasn’t convinced that he knew what he was asking.

…

The next morning, lost in thought, I drifted down the hall to meet Kathryn for language arts. I was pretty sure I finally understood, and I didn’t like it at all. The Knights were manufacturing Psychedone 10. The Class Project was the precursor. And, if what Bobby said about Angel was true, the Red Team was in charge of distribution. Angel’s stash in the SSA was actual vitamin supplements, a nice ruse to cover her if anyone questioned the garbage she was pushing in school. But judging from Mason’s sincerity when he talked about helping the mentally ill, it was unlikely that he knew anything about the Class Project other than what he had told me. He really believed he was producing the first stages of a miracle cure.

According to the
Book of Lore
, the real truth about Psychedone was frightening—after extended use, it caused physical addiction and altered the users’ personalities, breaking down their mental defenses. They couldn’t think for themselves, and became almost totally unable to disobey the commands of a stronger personality. It was a very powerful mind-control drug. And the formula had advanced over the years.

When I was kidnapped, it was called Psychedone 5. Each version became more deadly. The Knights forced their victims to take the drug, then trained the strongest to become Knights. The rest were used as scapegoats for the Knights’ crimes.

I also now understood how Captious knew of the Walpurgi. I was worried that Munificent had let secrets slip, so I asked during practice. Andy assured me it wasn’t so. Apparently Munificent had told the police force that the Knights were a powerful street gang called ‘The Walpurgi.’ And even if Captious had knowledge of the Psi Fighters’ existence like I feared, that didn’t automatically guarantee our destruction. The Whisperers spread rumors about us on purpose. That’s how we let the Knights and the rest of Greensburg’s underworld know that they were being watched. By the time we were done talking, Andy had confirmed what I already knew. In my exhausted state, I let my real fear surface—the fear that I would lose my family. Again. Andy told me that the time would come, probably sooner than I wanted, when I would have to stop suppressing my past. All well and good, Dr. Phil, but first, I needed to figure out Mason’s part in all this.

My assumptions had been totally wrong. I assumed Mason and Captious were in this together. But when Captious took Christie, Mason was angry. It seemed that Mason was as surprised by Christie’s kidnapping as he was clueless about the Class Project.

A strained voice around the corner broke into my thoughts. I flattened myself against the lockers and listened.

“No, it’s illegal and I’m not doing it.”

“It’s not. I think you should reconsider, little guy. You are the best we’ve ever had.”

“You never had me. Did you make Gable plant that stuff in my locker? Angel said it wouldn’t have happened if I had listened.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a liar. I’m outa here. Leave me alone.”

“Please, Bobby, this is important. The work we do here is completed at Old Torrents. They have equipment we don’t. They use our product to make medicine that helps the mentally ill. I doubt that you can understand it, but this means a lot to me. My mother was mentally ill. If I can help people like her, I will do whatever is necessary. Please reconsider. We really need you.”

“No,
you
don’t understand. Talk to Angel. She’ll tell you. I’m done.”

A dull clang, like the striking of a gong with a stale loaf of bread, echoed down the hall. I sprinted around the corner. Bobby crouched on the floor in front of a dented locker, holding his forehead, Mason towering over him. Mason turned at the sound of my footsteps.

“Lucky you, Bobbykins,” he said, smiling at me. “It appears that it’s time for me to go to class. We’ll have to reschedule. Have a lovely day.”

As Mason turned to leave, Bobby leapt to his feet, grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him. Mason’s face brightened with an admiring expression that said,
You are extremely cool for a four-eyed dweeb, but I can’t honestly believe you did that and expect to live!

“Touch me again and I’ll knock your teeth out,” Bobby growled. He looked tiny next to Mason, but I had never seen such fire in his eyes. He was shaking with the force of his anger, both hands tightly clenched, and his chin raised, daring Mason to hit him.

“Ooh,” Mason said, reaching out with his pinky. “How tempting. But I think I’ll have to decline for now. I have other duties at the moment.”

“Like pushing drugs?” Bobby snarled.

Mason cocked his head like a bird and looked sideways at me. “Wherever does Roberto get his imagination, Miss Noelle?”

Mason was acting like a jerk, but Bobby was off base. I thought maybe this one time Mason deserved the benefit of the doubt. “I’ll talk to him.” Then I pointed at Mason, not in a mean way, but so he would know I meant it. “But you’d better stop hurting him. There is no excuse for it. You told me you liked Bobby. You told me that being nice would become a habit. I’d like to see it. Please?”

Mason bit his lower lip. He looked right into my eyes, and said, “For you.” He turned to Bobby and extended his hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. Can you forgive me?”

Bobby glared at Mason, but didn’t say a word.

Mason’s eyes flashed sadness, but he smiled, dropped his hand, and walked away. As he rounded the corner, I heard him mumble, “Everybody deserves a second chance. Even me.”

“I’ll give him a second chance. Next time he touches me, I’ll knock his teeth out,” Bobby whispered, still glaring as Mason disappeared. “Twice.” Then he turned to me and smiled. I noticed the swelling redness on his forehead. “Kathryn says you do kung fu. I’ve been researching on the Internet and already know a little. I need you to teach me a little more. Just one punch? Or a death ray. That’s all I need. Pretty please?”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Kathryn waltzed down the hall toward us. “What did I miss? Fill me in!”

“Hi, Kitty,” Bobby whispered. Except for the red bump on his forehead, his face had lost all color. He appeared to have forgotten Mason and acted like he was about to barf.

“Hi,” Kathryn said quietly, looking at the floor, smiling like a Barbie who had just discovered she was a real girl. She shuffled her feet and slouched slightly, like she was trying not to be taller than Bobby. For the second time since I had known her, Kathryn appeared speechless. Something was up, and she had not told me about it.

To my complete astonishment, Bobby turned to me, and looked straight into my eyes. He tried to speak, then stopped. He tried again, and this time succeeded with all the grace of a person in mid-vomit.

“Ummm, would you…ga…ga…ack!…go-to-the-Spring-Fling-with-me?”

“Huh?” I said. I felt my face flush. I turned to Kathryn. She stared dreamily at Bobby like I wasn’t even there.

“I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s okay.” Bobby continued to stare right at me.

“But—” I desperately needed my armor’s Shimmer mode, or someone to beam me up.

“It’s just that, well, you mentioned that the Spring Fling is coming, and you thought I was deciding who to ask, and I
was
, deciding I mean, so I was wondering, you know…”

Oh. Relief flooded me like a long overdue bathroom break. I reached out, took Bobby by the chin, and turned his head. “She’s over there.”

Kathryn squealed like a hamster who had run too many circles on its exercise wheel. “Oh, Bobby! Oh, Bobby! Oh, Bobby!”

“I believe you can take that as a yes,” I said.

Bobby suddenly appeared very calm. Color returned to his face and one corner of his mouth smiled slightly at Kathryn. “Cool. Umm, would it be okay to meet you there?”

“No driver’s license?” I asked.

“Can’t afford insurance.”

“I feel your pain.” Same reason I didn’t have one. Fortunately for me, Kathryn did.

The bell rang, and people popped out of nowhere like cockroaches.

“Seven-thirty?” Bobby asked.

“She’ll be there!” I took Kathryn by the hand. “Come on, we’ll be late for class.”

Kathryn squealed again as we skipped along the hall. “Bobby asked me! Bobby asked me! I’m going to the Spring Fling with Bobbyyyyyy! Rinnie, I didn’t think I would get to go at all.”

“You turned down six other guys.”

Kathryn giggled.

“You’re obsessed.”

“I am,” she sighed. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

Suddenly the crowd of students parted, and a blond head made its way toward us.

“Rinnie, wait up!”

Egon waded through the pack and stopped right in front of me. Breathing suddenly became difficult, and everything started to fog up.

“Hi,” he said, smiling.

My legs turned to noodles. “Hi.”

The late bell rang. Egon looked at the clock, then at me. “You. Me. Spring Fling. You in?”

My tongue suddenly became a mass of stupid. “Blahr,” I said.

Kathryn burst out laughing. I punched her in the arm, blushed, and smiled at Egon.