Infiltration Read online

  Infiltration

  Sean Rodman

  Sean Rodman

  Infiltration

  Chapter One

  I don’t recommend breaking and entering on your first date. Wait until you can really trust them. Asha and I waited in the shadows of a closed convenience store. We sized up the building across the street. The cold drizzle was starting to soak us. She squeezed my hand and kissed my cheek.

  “Bex, this is going to be awesome,” she said.

  It was kind of romantic, I guess. We were looking over at the old Orpheus Theater. It was a tall, narrow building tucked between two ancient store-fronts. A tall neon sign crawled up the front of it, reading ORPHEUS. Smaller signs covered the ticket booth. A couple of big ones were marked Closed and Demolition Order.

  The April rain made me wish I had brought more than my black hoodie. We needed to get moving or we’d get uncomfortable. I checked to make sure the coast was clear. At this time of night, there was barely any traffic. Most people with any sense were tucked into bed. But we were just getting started.

  At my signal, Asha and I ran across the street. We headed straight into a narrow alley next to the Orpheus. We were on our way to meet up with my best friend Jake. We wanted to see what the theater looked like on the inside.

  My friends and I have a hobby. We like to explore old buildings in the city. But not on the official tour. We go where we’re not supposed to. In my opinion, a No Trespassing sign just means you’re on your own. We’re not the only ones. There’s a bunch of people in the city who do this. They call themselves urban explorers. We compare notes and brag about our illegal adventures online. It’s all anonymous, of course. On the urban exploration forums, I’m Urbex604. My real name is Taylor Bexhill. My friends just call me Bex.

  It’s a bit like being a superhero. In real life, I’m under the radar and keep to myself. I’ve never been into team sports. Never been cool enough to be part of the in crowd. As an urban explorer, though, I’m like a rock star. I’ve hacked more buildings in this city than almost anyone else. I look for old tunnels or abandoned buildings that nobody else can get into. Then I post some pictures from the inside. I’ve got a great slideshow of conquests now. The Orpheus Theater was one of the toughest sites in town. It had no easy entrances and some serious security guards. Now it was slated to be destroyed in a couple of weeks. I wanted to claim this one for my own before it went.

  Don’t get me wrong when I talk about breaking and entering. I’m not a criminal. I do this for fun. For bragging rights. I take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints. Asha says that I act like a cross between a Boy Scout and a young offender. I pulled her into urban exploration a little while ago. She totally got into it. Which was a bit of a surprise to me. She’s from a pretty strict family and comes across as really straight. But I’m not complaining.

  Jake was waiting halfway down the alley. He stayed in the shadows as we got closer. He was dressed like us- black hoodie, black jeans, work boots, backpack. Jake could never really pull off the urban ninja look though. With his baby face, he looked a lot younger than seventeen. Especially when he smiled.

  “Glad you two made it. I thought you might head to a real movie theater and leave me in the rain,” he said.

  “And let you to be the first one to crack the Orpheus? Dude. Bex might be my boyfriend, but he’s not worth missing this for,” Asha said. Jake laughed. I pulled a crowbar from my backpack and made a face at her.

  Jake and I looked at the big manhole in the middle of the alley. “You sure this is it?” he asked. I nodded. I was pretty certain that this was our ticket inside. There was a network of old tunnels under-neath these streets that led into the theater. I’d read that when the Orpheus was built back in the 1920s, it was too hot inside during the summer. So the theater owners built tunnels to bring in air from the outside. Sometimes they actually put ice in the tunnels to cool down the air. I’d spent a few afternoons looking at blueprints in the city archives. I figured that the tunnels were probably still there but sealed off. Like I said, I’m all about research and planning. It’s my secret power.

  It took us a few minutes, but we got the manhole cover off. We even did it without a lot of noise. Asha was on lookout, but nobody was out in the rain.

  Jake was first into the manhole. He flicked his headlamp on just before he disappeared. Asha was next, then me.

  The tunnel was lined with crumbling old brick. It was drier than I would have expected in this weather. We tried to move quickly but had to duck. The ceiling was just a little too short for us to stand up in. The light from our headlamps bobbed around the tunnel.

  After a few minutes, Asha turned to me. “Are you sure you know where we’re going? It seems like we’ve gone too far,” she whispered.

  “It’s all good. This is totally to plan,” I lied. I was pretty sure we should have found a ladder going up by now. “We better catch up to Jake.”

  A couple of minutes later, Jake pointed his lamp at the ceiling. Sure enough, there was a rusted ladder rising into the darkness.

  “Bex, you get the honor,” said Jake. “This was your idea.” He bowed a little and gestured up the ladder. I returned the bow and started climbing. The ladder felt a little funny with my weight on it. I hoped it would last long enough for all of us to get up.

  Reaching the top, I hooked one arm through a rung. I pulled the crowbar from my backpack again. The top of the ladder ended against a bunch of wooden planks. It looked like I’d have to pry up some of them to get through. I kept my head turned away as the wood splintered apart. Then the ladder let loose a small metal squeal and I stopped. I looked down. It was a good fifteen-foot drop to where Jake and Asha were. I wouldn’t die, but I might break something. The ladder groaned again. I needed to either get down or get through the planks, fast.

  I decided to go through. I squeezed the crowbar deep in between two planks and shoved it with all my strength. The plank cracked upward just as the ladder popped away from the wall. I scrambled and got both arms through the new hole above me. That left my legs dangling in the air, tangled in the now-useless ladder. Sweat stung my eyes. I could feel my arms start to shake as they held my full weight. Asha called my name from down below. I heard Jake tell her to stay quiet.

  Slowly, I inched up through the hole that I had made. Wiggling my legs, I got away from the ladder. Finally, I gave one big heave and yanked myself out of the tunnel. I rolled onto my back, breathing heavily. My headlamp barely illuminated the ceiling. It looked like it was maybe forty feet up. What I saw up there made me hold my breath. Then I scrambled back to the hole. I called down to Asha and Jake.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said. “We get pictures of this online, and we’ll be freaking famous.”

  Chapter Two

  I was rushing, but it still took a couple of minutes to drop a climbing rope down to the others, then get them up to the stage. Finally we stood together with our head-lamps sending little slivers of light across the gigantic hall. The wooden floor-boards creaked as Jake started to walk around, exploring. Ranks of red seats rose away from the stage into the darkness. I imagined hundreds of people in the audience, dressed up for a night at the theater.

  But it was the ceiling that kept catching my eye. It was covered with a huge mural, a gigantic painting of ancient gods or something. Jake took some pictures. Even the bright light from his camera flash seemed tiny in the cavernous space. I pulled Asha closer to me and pointed up at the mural.

  “This is why I do it.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Why I do this…what we do. The exploring. I like finding hidden treasures that are right in front of everyone. Beautiful things that most people take for granted.” I looked at her as I said
it. I didn’t mean to sound smooth, but it kind of worked out that way. She gave me a little smile.

  “That’s pretty sweet, Bex.”

  I decided to seize the opportunity. I leaned in for a kiss. But before we connected, I heard Jake swear and I froze. I looked in his direction and saw the problem. The bright beam of a flash-light was pointed right at us.

  “Hold it!” a deep voice barked out from the shadows.

  A guard.

  We scrambled back toward the hole that I’d ripped through to the stage. Jake got there first and dropped down the rope into the tunnel. Then I held the rope steady as Asha descended. By the time I was climbing backward down the hole, the guard was close. Too close. I let the rope slither fast through my hands and winced as I felt my fingers burn.

  With a thump, I hit the tunnel floor and rolled. Jake and Asha helped me up. Then we were moving fast through the tunnel, our footsteps echoing loudly in the tunnel. But the guard didn’t stand a chance of catching us.

  By the time we were back on the street, we were still hyped on adren-aline. All the way to the bus stop, we kept laughing and retelling the best bits of our adventure. All that adrenaline eventually crashed out of us. On the long bus ride back toward our neighborhood, I just felt tired and hollow. Asha was asleep on my shoulder. Jake was snoring too, his head against the bus window.

  The city at night scrolled by outside. I imagined we were floating along, sealed in a glass bubble. A perfect bubble. I had an awesome girlfriend. My best friend always, always had my back. I was even doing all right at school. And at night I was a superhero, able to go where no one else could. I didn’t want anything to change.

  I still had that feeling the next day when I met up with Asha again. We were in the first-period biology class at school. I’d first met Asha when she was assigned as my lab partner. Things had worked out pretty well. We’d been together for a couple of months now.

  I was good at the textbook part of biology. But I don’t have a high tolerance for gross. Asha, on the other hand, watched splatter films for fun. She wanted to go to med school and be a doctor. The dissection we were working on was particularly nasty, so she took the lead on it. Some sort of reptile was staked to a tray in front of us.

  “Pass me the scalpel,” she said. She smiled a little as she began carving away at the thing in front of us. I carefully kept my eyes on her and away from the green goo.

  “Bex, you are such a wuss,” she said without looking away from her work. There was a squelching sound from inside the thing’s body cavity. Ugh.

  “Hey, I can be brave. I’m good at dark tunnels. Spiders, totally fine,” I said. “Just not slimy dead things.”

  “Whatever,” she said. She paused to pin down a flap of reptile skin. “ So I heard back from Camp Kinnikee.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Was that the one up in the mountains or on the coast?”

  “The mountains. Turns out they decided to give me the head camp counselor job!” She waited for me to get all excited. When I didn’t, she seemed a little thrown. She started speaking faster. She still didn’t look at me.

  “Here, hold the tray for me. Anyways, the pay is way better than what I could make working at the cafe. I’ll make over four thousand dollars.”

  My stomach was squirming, and it wasn’t the dissection that was bugging me.

  “I won’t even have to spend money on food ’cause we eat in the cafeteria at the camp,” she kept going. “And because it’s in the middle of nowhere, I won’t be tempted to spend any money on movies or whatever. I’ll have my tuition saved in no time.”

  Money was a big deal to her right now. I knew that Asha’s parents had made it clear to her that if she wanted to go to university, she needed to work to raise the cash.

  “So you took the job?” I said.

  Asha finally put down the scalpel and looked at me. Her brown eyes locked on mine.

  “It’s not for too long, Bex. It’s just a couple of months. Maybe two and a half.”

  “So you took it.” I wanted to be happy for Asha, I really did. But there was no way I could be happy about a summer away from her. Suddenly I felt awkward and nervous. Asha finally put down her tools and looked at me. Her face was serious. Oh, crap. It hit me.

  Was this her way of breaking up with me? Was she going away just to get rid of me?

  There was a knock on the classroom door, and everyone in the class looked over. That’s when the new kid walked in. He had long blond hair in a pony-tail and wore a black T-shirt with baggy camo pants. Mr. Kurtzia, the teacher, introduced him.

  “Everyone, this is Kieran Ridgeway.” Kieran looked edgy, like he wanted out of the spotlight.

  Jake leaned back from the row in front of me.

  “I heard about this guy,” he whispered. “Bad stuff.” I’d heard it too. Kieran had only arrived at school yesterday, but there were already rumors about why he’d transferred from another school in the middle of term. Everybody knows that gossip is vicious in high school. But these rumors were bad even when you accounted for exaggeration. My friend Graham had said he’d heard that Kieran had hit a teacher at his last school. Someone else had said he’d started a fire in a chem lab.

  You could tell that the teachers knew something was up with this kid. Mr. Kurtzia was looking at Kieran like he was an animal that might bite if you got too close. Then I realized Mr. Kurtzia had led Kieran over to our lab bench.

  “Taylor, I want you to take Kieran around for his first day. You know, show him how things work. Asha, how about you join Jake for today’s lab?”

  Trapped. I just nodded at Mr. Kurtzia. This day was going downhill for me, fast. Asha piled up her books and moved away. She didn’t look back.

  “Kieran, listen to Taylor,” continued Mr. Kurtzia, turning to head back to his desk. “You can learn a lot from him- he’s a good kid.” Kieran looked me dead in the eye. His eyes were weird, a pale light blue like a husky dog.

  Sitting down, he checked out the dissection on the table. Then he passed the scalpel to me.

  “I’m not doing this,” he said. “You cut. I’ll watch.”

  “Yeah, well, I think you get the honor,” I said. “As the new guy.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Fine.”

  Kieran and I sat with our arms crossed, staring at the mangled thing on the dissection plate. Neither one of us moved. After few minutes, Mr. Kurtzia noticed and came back over. He looked concerned.

  “What seems to be the matter, gentlemen?” he asked. “Is Kieran causing a problem?” Before I could answer, Kieran slammed his palm on the table.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  “That language isn’t acceptable in my-,” Mr. Kurtzia started to say. But Kieran cut in.

  “You assume that I’m the problem? How long have I been in your class-room? What, ten whole minutes? Have you even given me a chance?” Kieran’s voice rose in volume. His face had gone all tight and white, his blue eyes squinting with rage. Then he stood up, spilling the stool over behind him.

  “Right now, you clearly are the problem. Calm down. Now,” said Mr. Kurtzia.

  “I won’t calm down! This is the same old shit as my old school,” shouted Kieran. “Screw you! I don’t need any of this.” Kieran dropped back into his seat. There was a sudden silence. Mr. Kurtzia took off his glasses and rubbed them slowly on his sweater.

  “Kieran, walk with me,” he said. “We’re going to visit the principal. Now.”

  Chapter Three

  Mr. Kurtzia still hadn’t returned by the time the bell rang. I packed up my binders and grabbed my backpack. I was about to leave when I realized that Kieran had left his cell phone on the bench. I picked it up and held the phone for a second, thinking about what to do. While I was holding it, I accidentally brushed the screen and turned it on. The screen showed a familiar website. Citycrawler. net was where I uploaded all my urban exploration photos. In fact, one of my photos from the other night at the Orpheus was featured on the homepage
.

  It wasn’t until the end of last period that I eventually found Kieran’s locker. He was there, pulling his books and jacket out just as I arrived.

  “Hey. This is yours,” I said. Kieran looked relieved as I handed over the phone.

  “Thanks, man.” He stared down at the phone. “Listen, about what I said back in the classroom. I kind of lose it sometimes.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “Must be kind of hard being the new guy.” Kieran just shrugged his shoulders.

  “Yeah, except I’m not allowed to be new. It’s the same old shit, same old reputation following me around.”

  He closed and snapped shut the locker. We started walking toward the school exit.

  “I don’t want to get into your business,” I said, “but I saw that you left this website, Citycrawler, open on your phone.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s an awesome site. I’m on there all the time.”

  “You?” said Kieran. “Weird.”

  “Why is it weird?” I asked. We had reached my locker. I undid the lock and put my books away.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem too nice to be breaking into buildings.”

  “Well,” I said, “there’s more to me than you think, I guess. Catch you later.” I slammed my locker shut and started to walk away.

  “Hold up,” said Kieran.

  I stopped and turned back. Students flowed around us like a noisy human river.

  “I just wanted to ask,” he said, “what’s your username on Citycrawler?”

  “Urbex604. You got one?”

  “Wait-you? You’re Urbex604?” Kieran looked both amused and a little shocked. “You’re a legend. I heard about you even before I moved here. You’ve gotten into everything. You did the Orpheus the other night, right? Those pictures were awesome.”

  I didn’t normally like talking too much about this stuff at school. But Kieran seemed like he was genuinely impressed. And I felt kind of bad about the scene in biology class. Maybe I had helped get him into trouble with the teacher-even though Kieran had totally gone ballistic. Still, I owed him a chance.