Just like that, Will was back at the western shore, fifty yards from the dock. The dock was empty, his pursuers scattered all over the woods behind him. Without breaking stride, Will angled toward the dock.
He “saw” the move before he made it: leaping onto the pier from over ten feet away. As he ran, he pulled out his Swiss Army knife and flicked open its longest blade. Reaching the end of the dock, he soared out over the water. The blade sliced cleanly through the securing line as he landed, perfectly balanced, in the bow of the motorboat. Cut loose from the dock, the boat shot into open water, propelled by his momentum. Two steps to the stern, one pull on the starter, a rev of the throttle, and he was off, banking hard left.
Nick and Ajay splashed out to their knees as Will sluiced a path toward them. He slowed enough for the boys to haul themselves over the gunnels. Will ruddered hard right and zoomed off for the western shore.
Will felt his heightened state of awareness recede as they made their way across in silence. He felt shaky inside, similar to how he felt after “pushing pictures.”
So they’re related, he thought. The speed, the stamina, pushing pictures, and now this. I can do more. I can do a lot more.
Their pursuers didn’t reach the water until they’d nearly crossed the lake. By the time they heard a powerboat behind them, Will had gunned the tender up onto a stretch of mainland beach. They ditched the boat as it stopped in the sand. With the flashlights, they quickly found the running track.
“What time is it?” asked Ajay.
“Ten-fifty. We’ll never make it back before curfew,” said Nick, panting. “Well, Will could make it.”
“We’ll make it,” said Will. “Guys, I just saw Lyle on the island.”
“What?” said Ajay.
“I don’t know if he was in the tunnels or with the guards that came from the Crag, but he was looking for us.”
“Busted,” said Nick, pumping his fist.
“Whatever the hell’s going on,” said Will, “Lyle’s right in the middle of it.”
They ran in silence, fiercely. Will hung behind, pushing their pace as he listened for signs of pursuit. He heard a powerboat sweep by near where they’d landed, but it didn’t come ashore. They passed the Barn without incident.
Minutes later, they passed a security guard driving back in his cart outside Greenwood Hall—for once without a friendly smile—who watched them plow through the front doors, breathless, at exactly 10:59 p.m.
“First things first,” said Will as they ran upstairs. “We’re going to need a lot of coffee.”
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“These are French names,” said Elise, looking at the list.
“Duh,” said Nick.
“Eat your cake, Nick,” said Elise with a withering look.
“Lees, babe, I think we figured out they were French already, okay?” said Nick. “Except for that first one. Orlando.”
“And, pray tell, what kind of name is Orlando?” she asked.
“Hello?” said Nick. “It’s from Florida?”
Four of the roommates sat around the dining table; Ajay had gone to work on something in his room. Everyone but Will had their tablet on in front of them, although Nick was more focused on a slice of chocolate cake. They’d woken Elise and Brooke as soon as they returned and made coffee, and Will told them the whole story about the Peers and the Paladin, Lyle, and the tunnels to the Crag. Minus the monsters—Will thought it best to leave out any supernatural details until he was sure the girls were on board, and Nick and Ajay agreed. When Will was finished, Ajay transferred the photos Will had taken of the masks onto everyone’s tablets. Elise had lit up with interest throughout their account, but Brooke looked and acted remote. At least she was at the table, studying the photographs.
“You’re not here on scholarship, are you, Nick?” asked Will.
“I am totally on scholarship,” said Nick, taking another bite. “Man, I loves me some chocolate cake.”
“For gymnastics, not geography,” said Elise. “I’m half French, you nitwit. I speak and read French. My father’s French.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, what about your mom? She’s not French.”
“She’s Vietnamese, and she speaks French, and these are all, take my word for it, French names. Or more specifically, Frankish. From the Middle Ages.”
“Wicked,” said Nick. “So we know this much, then: They’re a bunch of middle-aged French dudes.”
Brooke touched Nick’s arm gently. “Please don’t talk anymore.”
“Guys,” said Will. “Concentrate. Once we figure out who the rest of the Peers are and what they’re up to, we may have the whole picture.”
“But it’s safe to say they’re not a bunch of middle-aged French dudes,” said Elise, glowering at Nick.
“Let’s focus on this insignia at the top of the list,” said Will, pointing to the photo he’d taken of it on Brooke’s tablet.
Brooke studied the image closely. “These look like they might be white chrysanthemums. We need a reference book on flowers.”
“Where will we get that at this time of night?” said Will.
“I’ll go to the library,” said Brooke, but she made no move to get up.
“How?” asked Will, puzzled.
“On my tablet,” she said.
“I thought they put the clamps on Internet access,” said Will.
“To outside servers,” said Brooke. “Not the ones on campus.”
“You still haven’t taken the tutorial?” asked Elise, incredulous.
“I haven’t had time,” said Will.
“Show him,” said Elise.
Brooke angled her tablet around for Will to see. The image on-screen—a high-def re-creation of their pod’s great room—didn’t startle him. He was getting used to these vastly superior graphics. This was something else.
Around the table sat three incredibly lifelike versions—virtual doubles—of Brooke, Elise, and Nick. And they were looking at him with all the poise and attention and—he didn’t know how else to put it—personality of their living counterparts.
“What in the world …,” said Will.
Elise, Brooke, and Nick laughed. The figures on-screen laughed along with them. None of their actions exactly synchronized with their real-life counterparts’ but they seemed eerily similar; it was like watching three pairs of big/small identical twins.
“What are those things?” asked Will.
“They’re called syn-apps,” said Brooke.
“Short for ‘synchronized synthetic applications,’ ” said Elise.
The fourth chair, where Will was sitting in real life—and where a version of “Will” would have completed the group—sat empty.
“So where am I?” asked Will.
“You haven’t taken the tutorial yet, dummy,” said Elise.
“Go to the library,” said Brooke to her screen. Brooke’s syn-app stood up from the table. The walls of their pod on her screen morphed seamlessly into towering stacks of a vast library. “Find a book on the symbolic significance of flowers.”
Her syn-app waved okay, in a way that seemed utterly Brookeian. Then she walked toward the stacks to find her objective. Will guessed that he was seeing nothing more than a sophisticated “waiting” screen while the computer searched a database, but the effect still floored him.
“Is that the real library?” asked Will.
“A virtually real one,” said Brooke. “A replica of the Archer Library, the main one on campus. With digital versions of all its books and archives.”