The Assassin Game (15 page)

I stay silent for a while and trace a pattern on the table with my finger. This is all rather bizarre, because despite our closeness, this is the first time Mr. Flynn has offered up any kind of personal history beyond insignificant fun facts. And also, it's not relevant. Vaughan and I were not kissing, and we are not in love or lust or in any danger of being…that way.

Even as I think this thought, I feel guilty, because I'm not sure that it's…one hundred percent accurate. And I cannot allow myself to pursue that thought, not at the moment. Mr. Flynn is right. I can't lose focus, and the Game is the thing threatening to do that, not some boy. Probably.

“Are you still with her?” I say finally.

“What?” Mr. Flynn says. “Oh, the girlfriend? No!” He laughs. “That was a million years ago. She's a police officer now, down south somewhere, I think. Wife to Rob someone, mother of three chubby boys, according to Facebook. But that's the point: when you're sixteen, you don't realize how you'll change and how the decisions you make now can alter the course of your life.”

I nod sagely at the table. “Well,” I say slowly. “I'm glad you did do the teacher thing, or you wouldn't be here at Umfraville now, would you?”

“Don't suck up to me, Cate,” he says. “It won't work.” But there's a note of humor in his voice. “You should be glad I'm here because nobody else would be letting you and that brass-balled boyfriend of yours off the hook so easily.”

“Not my boyfriend,” I say.

“Glad to hear it,” he says. “Now get to tea and if Churley gives you any rubbish tell him I kept you back.”

I get up. “Thanks.” I point at the chair behind his desk. “Your jacket. Thanks for the lend. And by the way, nobody saw me wearing it.”

“I should hope not. Now get lost.” Mr. Flynn rises too and walks to his desk. “And, Cate? If your work drops off at all, remember, I'll be on you like a ton of bricks.”

I let that one hang in the air as I skedaddle out of the door as fast as my lucky legs will carry me and race to tea.

Later, I hit the library for my scheduled hour of Internet study time.

Housed in the mock-Tudor clock tower that dominates the quad, the Umfraville library consists of one very large room filled with floor-to-ceiling book stacks and a couple long, oak reading tables in the middle. There's a mezzanine level above, with twenty or so small desks interspersed with shorter stacks on wheels. These desks are the best place to sit, because you don't have any pesky teachers or librarians looking over your shoulder unless they come right up behind you. The desks have outlets, and you can even push the stacks around you a little to give yourself a degree of privacy. I bag one of the last desks with my back to the stairs—not too private, but it gives me a good view of the room, including the reading tables on the main floor below. Firing up my laptop, I take a quick glance around me and log on to Crypt.

Ooh. Everyone has registered! There's a complete user list on the news feed:

Grand Master

CharlotteCorday

DeadMcTavish

I_did_it

Banana Hammock

AllKillerNoFiller

13*is*my*lucky*number

IceColdBlond

General Disarray

Clouseau

Skulk

Smee

Becky_is_Dead

RAW

sooperdooper

Nimrod

Hmm…this Game just got even more crazy—crazy good. I chew on a thumbnail and study my screen. Who's who? Grand Master is obviously Alex. I think sooperdooper is Anvi, because she's always saying “sooper”…unless it's a bluff. Becky_is_Dead is clearly a bluff; Becky herself would never do that in a million years. I suspect RAW is Becky, because it's her initials, and I doubt she would bother putting much effort into her username now she's dead and effectively out of the Game.

But other than those two, I haven't got a clue who everyone is. Apart from me, of course.

Wait—I count the names: sixteen of them. That's not right. Thirteen Guild members and one Grand Master, that's how it should be—oh no. There's Vaughan now too. But that still only makes fifteen in total. Somebody has registered twice. Is that allowed? Some kind of error? I make a mental note to ask Vaughan later.

Right, better get on with some actual homework.

I'm only minutes into researching art nouveau when Guild IMs begin to pop up.

Smee

Who got a wristband, then?

sooperdooper

Yeah, fess up!!!

Grand Master

No telling online, folks. Otherwise, we can connect usernames to Guild members and your covers will be blown.

sooperdooper

Oh yeah, never thought of that!! Or perhaps it was all part of my plan…mwah–ha-ha-ha!!!

Yeah, sooperdooper is definitely Anvi; all those headache-inducing exclamation marks. I read the messages as they come in and write a couple. It feels totally decadent. Then Alex messages us again.

Grand Master

Check out my new posting on Crypt for details on the lucky winners.

Ack. I glance at the clock on my laptop and reluctantly log out. I'm longing to read who my fellow invincibles are, but I've only got forty minutes of Internet time remaining and a lot of work to do. I was checking Guild members out at tea, looking for another red snake, but I couldn't see anyone wearing one. I had pushed mine up my sleeve because I didn't know if it was wise to have it on display yet. After tea, I exited the hall and Alex whispered in my ear—no, in fact, he hissed, nothing else, just one long “hissssss!” Just like a snake. I nodded at him, and he left, grinning.

Damn. I have to log in to Crypt again. Just a peek. With a quick glance to see that no one is looking my way, I type in my password and go to the home page. Sure enough, there's a new post:

INVINCIBILITY CLAIMED!

I AM ECSTATIC TO ANNOUNCE THAT ALL OF THE RED WRISTBANDS HAVE NOW BEEN DUG UP FROM THEIR SANDY GRAVES! THERE ARE THREE IN PLAY AND THREE ONLY. THE LUCKY PLAYERS ARE:

ANVI

MARTIN

CATE

WEAR YOUR BANDS. WEAR THEM WITH PRIDE. YOU HAVE THE WEEK TO RELAX…BUT USE THIS TIME TO GATHER INTEL ON YOUR FELLOW PLAYERS FOR THE VOTE NEXT WEEKEND.

AND REMEMBER…JUST BECAUSE THE PLAYERS ABOVE HAVE BANDS, IT DOESN'T MEAN THEY'RE NOT THE KILLER!!!

LOVE, YOUR GRAND MASTER XOXOX

Martin! The little weasel. Said he didn't have a band when I met him at the caves. Was he telling the truth? Or is it possible he found it afterward?

I go back to my art homework but keep logged in, and the IMs ping every few seconds. Everyone is excited, chatting about who found the bands and who didn't, but trying not to reveal identities at the same time. It's really distracting, because I want to study the chatter, try and guess who everyone is from the personalities emerging. sooperdooper is excitable; Smee is a character of few words; General Disarray is sarcastic, superior. And of course, I'm checking out who is at the other computer terminals around me in the library, watching who is typing and when, and if anyone is giggling or making faces at the messages. All the Guild members are here—except Vaughan… I haven't seen him—but on another night, we could all be in our studies or elsewhere on the map, online. I see now how this tracking thing is going to be invaluable to guess who's who. As far as I can make out, all users are contributing to the conversation, including the extra user, whoever that might be. The only one who isn't posting is me. I write a couple quick IMs to avoid standing out.

Suddenly, I sense a pressure change in the room; a teacher has walked into the library.

A couple teachers are on duty every evening, and they do the rounds to check that everybody is actually working. It's Ms. Lasillo tonight. Head of computer studies. Damn. If anyone is going to notice something amiss with the IMs, it's her. A palpable wave of dread runs through the room. IMs ping out, like little birds warning each other of the arrival of a sparrow hawk. And that's a good description of Ms. Lasillo. Small, sharp, with quick eyes and a quicker brain. She does a lap of the main room, past the workers at the reading tables, barely seeming to look at everyone's screens, but you can bet that she's checking what everyone is looking at, and if anything extracurricular is going on, she will strike. I've seen it in action: someone pulls a hack and logs on to a social media site, and they are toast. It's Lasillo's job to police all of this; she puts the gatekeepers in place, and when someone finds a crack in her coding, she comes down hard on them.

Click-clack, click-clack.

Suddenly, Lasillo's heels are on the stairs behind me. I quickly log out of Crypt and return to my work.

“Arse!” Carl mutters under his breath. He's my nearest neighbor, at a desk to the left of me, but still a good three or four yards away.

I see him try to hit a few keys, but by the look on his face something has gone wrong. I can't see his screen from my seat, but Ms. Lasillo will be able to in a few seconds.

I get up, a book in hand. Then, as I pass the back of his desk, I fumble and drop it on the floor. As I duck down, Ms. Lasillo approaches from the top of the stairs. I quickly pull the cable out of the screen of the desktop. Ms. Lasillo is passing behind Carl. She stops in her tracks.

“Carl?” she says. “Is there something wrong with your machine?”

“What?” Carl looks up, as if disturbed from some deep thought. “Oh, sorry, Ms. Lasillo, no—I just switched the screen off to avoid the glare while I was reading.”

Ms. Lasillo frowns. “Fine. Well, remember to switch it on again for the next person when you're finished, yes?”

Carl smiles. “Of course. Thank you.”

Ms. Lasillo peers over at me, where I'm still crouching on the floor. “Have you fainted, Cate?”

“No, Ms. Lasillo.” Something about her always makes me prickle. “Just dropped my book.”

She tuts and shakes her head, like I'm the clumsiest oaf in the world. “I'm sure you have some work to be doing, Cate. Please get up and get back to it.”

I'm sorely tempted to tell her to go jump out of the window, but there has been enough blood spilt in the quad…for now. Plus, she's pals with Mr. Flynn, and if he finds out I've given her lip, I won't hear the end of it from him.

I nod my head and straighten up, and she trots off to the next workstation.

“Thank you,” mouths Carl. I wink at him, then return to my desk. Lasillo is still walking around, but I can't resist logging back in to Crypt.

Skulk

Nice work, Cate.

My hands hover over the keys, ready to shoot off a reply—argh! I stop myself in time. If I respond, everyone will know my username.

So, Skulk saw what went down with Carl? I fight the urge to look around the room but visualize where everyone is sitting. Who would have a good enough view of what just happened? Is Skulk Carl? He's the only one who could actually know what I did. I glance at him. He seems preoccupied with a book, not even looking at his screen. The cable I unplugged is still on the floor. He's not risking fiddling with it until Ms. Lasillo is out of the room. So that means Skulk can't be him, doesn't it? I suppose he could, in theory, write an IM with no working screen—the computer itself is still on, the keyboard connected—but it's a bit of a stretch.

Nobody is responding to Skulk's message, too afraid that whatever they write will identify them, in the very least as Not Carl and Not Cate.

Another message pops up:

Skulk

*slow clap*

I take a breath. He or she is trying to taunt me now, trying to make me say something. They're also running the risk that Ms. Lasillo will see an IM, because she's still here, although currently rummaging through some oversized books in the back corner. Any moment now and she'll probably be making her way back toward the stairs and past the workstations.

“What did I miss?”

Vaughan plops down on the seat beside me.

“God, I wish people would stop doing that,” I mutter, hand on my heart.

“What, talking to you?” Vaughan whispers. “I'm sure it can be arranged.”

I turn around in my seat and look at him. “When you said you can't tell who users are, were you telling me the truth?”

Vaughan looks surprised. “Of course. Why would I lie to you?”

I sigh. “Oh, to save me from myself, perhaps. Because you would know that at some point I'd start asking you who everyone was.”

“Sorry, mate.” He chuckles at me, leans over, and ruffles my hair. It's supremely annoying, just like it was when we were eight. “Other than using my excellent powers of deduction, I really can't tell who each user is.” He nods at my screen. “Who do you want to know about?”

I shake my head, move my hand to the mouse, and close my IM down quickly. “Nobody. It doesn't matter.”

Vaughan looks disappointed. “Aw. Don't want to share any more theories?” He bats his eyelashes at me. “I was so looking forward to you being Watson to my Holmes.”

“Yeah, I can see that you would be.” I hesitate. “You've noticed, of course, that there's one too many users.”

He nods, green eyes smiling. “Adds an extra something, doesn't it?”

I frown. “People can do that? Make more than one profile?”

He pulls a face. “I didn't put any limit on it initially. Somebody took advantage, and now they have an alter ego.” He runs his hands through his black curls. “But the Elders noticed and asked me to change things so that no one else can do that. Makes sense, I guess. After all, only one of us is living a double life in the Game.”

“You think the person with two usernames is the Killer?”

He shrugs. “Would be a good move, wouldn't it?”

I don't answer, but inside I'm thinking: Skulk, Skulk…it has to be. I pack my bag, giving up any hope of achieving anything more on my computer. I'll work in my study and do the rest of the online stuff tomorrow. As I stand up, Vaughan grabs my hand.