Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,43
Nicholas jumped up.
“Camilla didn’t do drugs!” Nicholas said furiously. “I mean, look around—this is Oakhurst! It’s not like she could get any even if she wanted to do drugs—and she didn’t!”
“Mr. Bilderback?” Detective Carter asked. “Would you like to go next?”
By the time they’d worked their way through Nick, Sarah, Brendan, and Muirin, the questions the two detectives asked had started to change. Now they seemed to think that somebody might have abducted Camilla from the school grounds, maybe somebody she’d met in some Internet chatroom somewhere and arranged to go off with, or at least to meet.
And the horrible thing was, none of them could explain the real reason why that was impossible, even though Addie and Spirit both explained that none of them were just allowed to hang out in random Internet chatrooms. Access to the actual Internet—as opposed to the Oakhurst intraweb—was closely monitored and net-nannied, and all of the social media and chat sites were blocked.
And if Burke was right, the only stranger who could have gotten onto the campus without permission was another magician.
But they couldn’t say that.
“She wouldn’t have run away—and she wouldn’t have made arrangements to leave,” Loch said. “She’s an orphan. This is an orphanage. And she’s happy here.”
“Thank you, Mr. Spears,” Detective Mitchell said, getting to her feet. “You’ve all been very helpful. We have a few more people to talk to. We’d appreciate it if you don’t talk to anyone else, okay?”
Even if they’d wanted to, they didn’t have the chance. Gareth Stevenson—another of the proctors—was waiting for them outside the door. “C’mon guys. I’m supposed to take you back to your rooms. There’s a consolation prize, though.”
He led them through the Refectory on the way back to their rooms. Laid out on one of the tables were bowls of candy, trays of cupcakes, and cases of soda. The same treats they’d been supposed to get at the dance.
“I know it doesn’t make up for Camilla being gone,” he said, looking at them. “I’m not saying it does. But it would really suck for you to miss out on the goodies, too.”
Muirin was the first one to move toward the table. “Hey,” she said. “If we get cake every time somebody disappears around here, this place is going to start being livable!”
It was eleven-thirty by the time Spirit got back to her room. Oakhurst locked the students out of e-mail and IM at eleven sharp—lights out—though you could still get into the virtual libraries if you wanted to flout curfew and pull an all-night study session. She tried it tonight on the chance the Administration might have something else on its tiny minds, and she was right: IM and e-mail were still live—and best of all, none of the proctors were anywhere near a computer.
I wonder why they’ve never figured out what we do with this? Spirit thought in disbelief, as she flipped back and forth between half a dozen different chatrooms. About two-thirds of the students had just been held in the gym for an hour and then sent back to their rooms without being questioned. The cops were only talking to about thirty of them, and from what Spirit had seen when they questioned her, they’d already pretty much made up their minds. They were going to go chasing off after a mythical kidnapper, and ignore whatever had really happened to Camilla.
Despite the warning he’d gotten from the two detectives to not talk to anyone, Nicholas was telling everybody on IM everything that had happened when they’d been interviewed, and there was nobody online stopping him. Considering the draconian way Oakhurst ran things, it was hard to believe they let the students get around the rules this easily. Then Spirit remembered what Muirin had said when Seth vanished: Big Brother is watching you. How easy would it be for somebody with superuser privileges—that would probably be most of the faculty—to just pull the chat-logs off the servers and use them to figure out who their malcontents and troublemakers were? You didn’t need a network of spies among the student body. They were spying on themselves.
She shuddered at the thought. Just what were the penalties for being an online discipline problem—and how much of a problem did you have to be before you were punished?
Suddenly flouting this particular rule didn’t seem like so much fun anymore. She logged out of IM and e-mail. Now the only notifications of incoming messages she’d get would be from “Staff.”