Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,46

with another giant plate of pastries. Addie and Spirit rolled their eyes and got milk and tea. They put on another lame movie, and another. No one talked.

It was a relief to hear the summons to dinner; at least it got them out of the lounge.

They’d barely gotten their seats when Mr. Wallis came in; something about the way he moved made her think he wasn’t there just to eat. A moment later, when he picked up a glass and a fork and tapped the latter against the former to get their attention, she knew she was right.

“Just to forestall any rumors,” he said, once the room had quieted down, “we took Jack Croder, Susan Menners, and Judy King to the Infirmary last night. Ms. Carimar also went to the Infirmary under her own volition. After several hours in which their conditions worsened, it was determined they needed to see specialists. No one wanted to risk their health after such a shock, so they were on their way to Billings by sunrise. We took them by special rail as the fastest and safest means possible.”

Of course, Spirit mused, watching Mr. Wallis through narrowed eyes, there’s no way to prove you aren’t lying. Absolutely no one had been awake this morning at dawn, not after going to bed exhausted, knowing there was no reason to set your alarm because breakfast was going to be held open.

On the other hand, she knew that she had seen at least two of the four mentioned passed out cold, and she was pretty sure if she asked around, she’d find out that all four had been laid out. So it wasn’t completely insane to think that they might still be in bad shape. Ms. Carimar wasn’t young, and if you had any sort of heart issues, last night’s terror would have been enough to give you a heart attack.

“We’ll keep all of you posted,” Mr. Wallis said, wearing a look of concern that couldn’t go any deeper than the first layer of his skin. With that, he sat down, and slowly the buzz of conversation got back to hushed-normal.

Hushed enough that Spirit was able to pick out some threads of conversation at other tables. At least two of the students had left e-mails for their friends.

Interesting. If only she could see what had been in those e-mails!

Not a chance of that, of course. It wasn’t as if she was a hacker.

* * *

By common consent, they all went back to their own rooms after dinner. Too much time spent together was going to get attention they didn’t want. But as soon as Spirit got to her computer, she found a message from Addie.

Gym.

She bundled on her coat, peeked out the door of her room to make sure no one was watching, and slipped out. It was already dark, and really cold. She shivered her way to the gym, did another furtive check to make sure no one was around, and slipped inside. The foyer was dimly lit, the big room itself dark except for safety lights and still decorated for the dance.

Straining her ears, she heard the faintest of whispers and followed it. At the side of the gym proper was a kind of corridor; that was where the voices were coming from. The door, which had always been closed, and presumably locked, was slightly ajar. There was faint light at the far end of the corridor. She closed the door behind her, noticing as she did that there was tape over the dead bolt, keeping it from locking in place.

It smelled musty back here, the kind of aged-sweat-and-neglect sort of musty that made her think of her dad’s old athletic gear that had been stored in a box in the attic. And there were a lot of doorless rooms along this corridor. She peeked inside one, and made out some really wrecked gymnastics equipment in the dim glow of an exit light. So this was where the old stuff went to die?

She scuttled to the end of the corridor and stuck her head into the room.

It was the furnace room for the gym. The others were sitting on metal folding chairs in a huddle in the light from a single overhead fixture. Muirin and Loch both had little netbooks and were typing furiously. Muirin was talking as she typed.

“… all that might mean is Big Brother learned from the last time,” Muirin was saying. “Vanishing into nothing and telling us they ran away didn’t