Samantha Smart (16 page)

It was Saturday again. One week had passed since Samantha had walked out of her front door and into a world of mystery and adventure. It seemed like a year. Polly was up early as usual, licking her and whining for a walk, and Samantha groggily got up and staggered into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. Her mother had already gone to work, it being officially the holiday season, a time which was particularly busy at the museum and hence required overtime hours to be put in by its employees. They had made a plan at dinner last night that they would meet at the ticket counter at four o’clock today, after Samantha and her friends had finished their “study group” (this was Professor Smythe’s excuse for them to meet at the museum), down in the basement. Her mother was off work at that time, and they would take the train with Brianna or Suki (whomever Samantha wanted to bring) to a pizza place downtown and have some slices before going to the Heatwavvve
concert at seven-thirty. Jason, apparently, would be meeting them somewhere along the way.

Pulling on her most stylish pair of jeans, Samantha looked into her full-length mirror and tried to smile, telling herself that she was attractive as well as bright and that even if Jordan Anderson–or Jordan Slane–was some evil, time-traveling villain, she might still meet some boy at the show who was at least as worthy of her affections. She experimentally applied some of her mom’s lipstick, making kissy faces at herself until she finally wiped it off as her mother still didn’t allow her to wear make-up outside of the house. Polly sat staring inquisitively, wondering what all the fuss was about and patiently awaiting her walk.

Unfortunately for the little terrier, it was a short one, just up to the park and back, with just enough time to do her business. Samantha still had to shower, eat some brunch and wake up her brother. They had to catch a twelve-ten train into the city, a ride on which Todd had to accompany her according to Cindy Smart’s motherly directives. Todd, of course, was equally unenthusiastic about the situation, especially since he frequently slept until one or two in the afternoon on Saturdays. Needless to say, he was not much fun to wake up.

Nonetheless, off they went at about ten minutes to twelve, Polly abandoned once more to the brownstone’s big bay window, watching as the brother and sister departed for the F train through a chilly, misty Park Slope. The walk was quick and invigorating to Ninth Street and the train reasonably on time, and Samantha sat down in a corner seat and opened her school textbook to the page on Mayan civilization. Todd sat down next to her with his MP3 player on, blasting some horrid heavy metal noise through his earphones at what must have been an ear-damaging volume.

The book held her attention for most of the ride–there was even a little boxed-off section that was essentially a mini-dictionary of Mayan symbols. Samantha surveyed the ones that stood for
sun, moon, man, woman, day, night
and, most interestingly, a couple which stood for
true
and
false
. She was so into studying the symbols that she walked through the Fourteenth Street station with her eyes glued to the book, instinctively tracing a path to the platform for uptown trains. She was vaguely aware of her brother moseying along beside her, occasionally breaking into an embarrassing display of air guitar when his song came to some climactic moment.

She was still reading when they got off the C train at Seventy-second street, walking up the concrete stairs into the chill air that enveloped Central Park West, and by the time she looked up they were at the stairs to the Natural History Museum.
How odd,
she thought, remembering taking a taxi-boat less than a week ago to this very place. Having spent a while in an altered timeline, she decided, made this proper one somehow less real, no matter how she tried to tell herself that things were as they should be.

They walked up the stairs past Teddy Roosevelt, into the museum lobby and around the ever-present barosauraus, and arrived at the ticket counter where their mother was working, a somewhat long line of visitors stretching out from her ticket window. Cindy Smart saw them and quickly arranged for a short break, coming out to meet them.

“Hi, guys,” she said, smiling. “It’s really busy right now, I’m sorry. You know, tourists and everything.”

“Can I go home now?” Todd asked, momentarily removing his ear buds.

“Todd,” Cindy frowned, “thank you for coming here with Samantha. I guess you can go if you want, but call here as soon as you get home, capiche?”

“Yeah, okay,” Todd nodded, turning to leave.

“And don’t leave the house a mess!” their mother called after him. Todd lifted a lame hand to signal his promise not to.

“Hi, Mom,” Samantha smiled.

“Hey, honey,” Cindy smiled back. “You look really good. Is that what you’re wearing to the
Heatwavvve show?”

“Yeah,” Samantha replied, shifting somewhat uncomfortably. “Is it okay?”

Cindy eyed her daughter’s stylish but fairly conservative outfit, at last nodding an approval.

“Did my friends get here yet?” the younger Smart queried.

“Oh–yes, honey, they’re all downstairs with Professor Smythe. You can just go on down if you like, I think they’re waiting for you.”

“Cool,” Samantha grinned. “Um, thanks for letting me have this... study group, Mom. It means a lot to me.”

“I know, Samantha.” her mother stroked her hair for a minute. “Well, you have a great time. I have to get back to work, but you meet me back here at four, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Have you decided who you want to bring yet?”

“Oh–um, no, not yet. I need to talk to everyone first.”

“All right. I’ll see you at four, then.” Cindy Smart blew her daughter a kiss and walked back through the door in the glass-encased kiosk that formed the ticket sales counter. Samantha waved and headed for the stairs.

*

Professor Smythe’s office was abuzz with activity. All of Samantha’s friends were there; apparently they were becoming a crack team of secret agent time-travelers. Marvin and The Professor were at the computer, involved in testing some new device they had hooked up to it; Brianna was on the office phone to someone who sounded like her father and Suki was engrossed in some volume of the
Encyclopedia Organica,
one in a set of many huge books on all things alive or natural. Their heads all turned when Samantha entered, and Marvin was the first to speak.

“Sammy Smart, Brooklyn’s finest work of art! What up, home girl?”

“Hammering Hip-Hoppers!” Smythe shook his head. “Come in, Samantha, we’ve got a lot going on.”

Samantha sat down in the only empty chair in the room, getting a nod from Brianna and a ‘hello’ from Suki, and The Professor began to explain his latest plan to her.

“We’re going to need you to go that Heatwavvve
show, Samantha,” he said. “We’ve got a plan cooking to figure out these Slanes, and you and Brianna are going to be our agents of choice for this particular mission.”

“Okay,” Samantha shrugged, shooting a look at Brianna. “What’s up?”

“Well,” The Professor began, “we’ve been able to determine that Jordan Anderson–that is, Jordan Slane–is a bit of an email nut. That is to say, everywhere he goes, whether it be his home, a hotel room or backstage at a show, Jordan always carries a laptop computer. Mostly he seems to just answer fans’ emails, but we’re hoping that he’ll also be in touch with his father, especially if there’s something important going on.”

“Right,” Samantha nodded. “So... are you... tapping into his emails or something?”

“Not exactly,” The Professor continued, “but we’re hoping to, in a roundabout sort of way. Unfortunately, we can’t gather all the information we need from here–all Jordan’s transmissions are pretty well encrypted–but Marvin has brought us a wonderful device that I think will suit our needs perfectly, though it requires a bit of stealth and, ah, risk, shall we say.”

Samantha shifted her gaze to Marvin, who was grinning like the Cheshire Cat from
Alice In Wonderland.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, trying to sound like a professional adult, “ya see this little baby here?” He indicated a small flash drive with a USB input. “This is serious spy stuff, Samantha. This unit here captures keystroke information from the keyboard, that is, it records everything anyone types on it, up to three thousand characters. I got it from a P.I. guy I know back in the ’hood.”

“A... private investigator?” Samantha asked.

“Yeah,” Marvin replied proudly, “he owed me a favor for helping him find out some stuff about some people he was checkin’ out.”

“Cool,” Samantha smiled, genuinely impressed.

“We need to hook this device up to Jordan’s computer,” The Professor broke in. “It plugs right into a USB input, so you should be able to do it fairly quickly. Most laptops have at least a couple of those.”

Samantha nodded.

“It’s pretty much worked out,” Marvin chimed back in. “Professor Smythe even rigged it so it’ll transmit the recorded information straight to this
computer through the Internet, seconds after it captures what Jordan types.”

“Well,” Samantha said after a moment of silence. “It seems you two have come up with a pretty nifty plan. But... how do we get to Jordan’s computer?”

“Done,” Brianna smiled in that horribly precocious ‘little princess’ sort of way. “Daddy got me a backstage pass to the Heatwavvve
show. It should be waiting for me at the door.”

“Perfect!” The Professor cackled. He was starting to enjoy himself again, Samantha could tell. “Brianna, you are our main infiltrator. Samantha, I’m afraid that since–well, since Jordan already knows your face, and Marvin’s for that matter, you shouldn’t be directly involved.”

“Um... okay,” Samantha shrugged. “What do
you need me to do?”

“All right,” Smythe said seriously, “everybody listen to me for a moment. Tonight, Samantha and Brianna will go to the Heatwavvve concert with Samantha’s mother. There, Samantha, you will try to stay out of Jordan’s sight if at all possible unless Brianna specifically asks for help. I’m giving Marvin’s wrist-communicator to Brianna for now so you can both have a link to us and to each other.

“Brianna.” He turned to the spoiled little uptown girl, who now looked a bit frightened. “Your task is a more difficult one.” Brianna gulped and nodded. “You must use your pass to gain access to the backstage area, locate Jordan’s specific personal area and find his laptop, if it’s set up. If it’s not, we’re out of luck, but chances are it will be. You need to plug this,” he said, holding up the little box-shaped spy device, “into a USB port, whichever one’s easiest or least obvious. Understand?”

Brianna nodded again, smiling nervously.

“Here, try it once or twice with this computer–it’s really quite simple.” She obliged The Professor and found that it was
in fact a simple thing to do, and practiced it a few times to see if she could get the action down to within just a few seconds. The Professor continued detailing the plan:

“If you are successful, Suki, Marvin and I will be receiving signals from the recorder/transponder. If anyone types on that keyboard, we’ll be able to read the message only seconds later. We’ll also put a trace on any emails Jordan receives while our device is functioning. I have a program that can trace any email communication back to its root server–it’s rather handy, I must say. If he receives any messages from his father, we can figure out very nearly where he operates out of.

“Well,” Smythe concluded, “if we all know our assigned roles, we can relax until four o’clock. Does anyone have any questions?”

“I got a question, Prof,” Marvin spoke up. “Do we ‘home base’ operatives get any chow tonight? A man’s gotta eat, after all, y’all.”

“Of course, Marvin,” The Professor chuckled. “I’ll order something for you and I and Suki. I assume, Samantha, that your mother will be feeding you and Brianna before the show?”

“Ray’s Famous,” Samantha grinned, referring to the ubiquitous Manhattan chain of pizza shops that was known to almost everyone in New York City and beyond.

“Dog!” Marvin shook his head, looking jealous. Brianna smiled, too; everybody liked pizza.

*

The world seemed particularly crowded as they rode the C train downtown underneath the bustle of Eighth Avenue. Both Samantha and Brianna felt quite nervous, but Cindy Smart just assumed that they were excited about seeing Heatwavvve,
and was full of questions for the girls.

“So, you girls must be really psyched, huh?” she asked. Samantha and Brianna nodded and maintained what they hoped didn’t look too much like forced grins. “So, okay, who’s the really cute one you always talk about, Samantha? Justin? Um–Jared?”

“Jordan,” Samantha corrected her. “Jordan Sl–Anderson, I mean.”

“Yeah, Jordan,” her mom continued, acting herself like a young girl. “Maybe we can try to get an autograph for you guys or something. Wouldn’t that be
cool
?”

“Yeah, um, we’ve got that taken care of, Mom. Brianna has a backstage pass waiting for her at the door,” she gave a sideways glance to her friend, who nodded. “She’s going to try to get autographs for both of us.”

“Wow!” Cindy replied. “That’s great! Maybe, well, maybe we can
all
get backstage!”

Samantha and Brianna exchanged uncomfortable glances again.

“Um, actually, that’s okay,” Samantha fumbled with her words. “I think I’d rather just, ah, watch the show.”

“Really!?” Cindy was shocked. “Come on, honey, don’t be so shy. I’m sure Jordan’s a very nice person.”

“I’m sure he is,” Samantha lied. If only her mother knew how bad of a boy he really was. “I, uh, I just would rather sit down and watch the show. I’m, um, not feeling that great,” she lied again.

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry Samantha. Maybe a little pizza will perk you up.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Samantha smiled weakly.

They switched to an L train that was heading crosstown to Union Square Station. It seemed like the L was even more packed with people, early Christmas shoppers and regulars alike. At least the ride was shorter, and soon they were emerging on foot from the underground at the small but lively downtown park. After a two block walk, they had arrived at Irving Plaza, though it was still only about quarter to five.