She took my hand and pressed it against something at the base of the wall. It was ice cold. Metal.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s too dark to read it, but can you feel the numbers with your fingers?”
It was some kind of pipe jutting out of the cement, and I could tell there were raised bumps, but they were rough and uneven with rust and age. I couldn’t guess the numbers.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Eighteen ninety-three,” she said. “Around the bottom side of the pipe it says Steffen Metalworks, but you have to lie down in the garden to read it.”
“What does it mean?”
Becky stood, shivering now. “Let’s get back inside.”
I followed her. “Does that mean this place was built in 1893?”
“The pipe is from 1893,” she said.
“What was in New Mexico in 1893?”
“No idea,” she said, rubbing her arms to stay warm. “But there wasn’t much. There wasn’t much in Arizona in 1893—mining towns and Catholic missions and Native Americans. Probably the same for here.”
“Maybe they just used an old pipe when they were building this.”
We climbed the stairs, and the door unlocked for her. Warmth poured out of the foyer as we stepped inside.
“Maybe,” she said, turning to look at me. Her cheeks were red from cold. She lowered her voice, even though no one was in sight. “But either way, this building is really old, and it seems designed to be Maxfield Academy. Even the elevators don’t look like a recent addition.”
“What are you saying?”
“People have been here for a long time. A really long time.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Becky’s trademark smile came back. “Since when does anything here make sense?”
I almost told her, right there. I almost spit it all out.
But there’s a difference between believing that the building was really old and believing that one of our friends was a robot.
I needed to show her. I had to find a way.
I lay awake that night, staring at Mason’s bunk above me. I wasn’t going to be able to convince anyone with words. I knew that. And I wasn’t going to be able to figure things out by just observing.
I looked at my watch. 11:56 p.m.
Jumping out of bed, I hurried to my closet and pulled out my minicomputer. Bidding on the contracts ended at midnight.
I’d never bid on anything before. That was done by Curtis for the gang. But we all had access. I clicked on groundskeeping and entered a bid of one point. Then I clicked on security and did the same thing. I waited until 11:59, and hit Save.
There was going to be hell to pay in the morning.
Chapter Twenty-two
I was shaken awake. Curtis and Carrie were standing over me.
“What did you do?” Curtis whispered, his voice harsh and angry.
I looked to the window. It was still completely dark outside. My head was foggy from too little sleep.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Benson, do you realize what you’ve done?” Carrie said, her arms folded across her chest. She was still in her pajamas. Curtis was just wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
“The contracts,” I said, coming out of my sleepy daze.
“Yes, the contracts.” Curtis glanced toward the door.
“I bid on some contracts.”
I heard Mason shift on the upper bunk, and then his feet swung over the side. “You did what? Which ones?”
“Security,” Carrie said, “and groundskeeping.”
Mason whistled. “Please tell me he didn’t win the bid. Fish, you’re an idiot.”
“Of course he did,” she answered, taking a deep breath. “He bid one point for each.”
“Tell me it was an accident,” Curtis said, though in his voice I could hear that he knew it wasn’t. “Tell me that you hit the wrong thing, or you were goofing around and accidentally pressed Save.”
I stood and walked to my closet. I’d ordered more supplies last night, figuring this was my last chance. They hadn’t come. Crap.
“Well?” Carrie said.
I looked at her and shook my head. “No. Not an accident. How did you get in here?”
Curtis stepped toward me. “Benson, you don’t understand what you’ve done. Hasn’t anyone told you about the truce we have with the gangs? Haven’t they told you why we needed one?”
“I had to do it,” I said. “They can have the contracts back later. Heck, I have lots of points. I’ll buy them whatever they need.”
“No,” Curtis said again. “The truce wasn’t just like we got together at lunch and flipped a coin. There were fights. Riots. You’ve seen the graveyard.”
“People died,” Carrie said. She turned from me and walked to the window.
I looked up at Mason, but he just shook his head, his lips pursed.
“We have to get all the V’s up,” Curtis said. He pointed to Mason. “Start going around, but be quiet. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if Havoc or the Society had checked the bids before Carrie.”
Mason nodded and rubbed his face. “Where are we meeting?”
Curtis looked over at Carrie, but she was still staring out the window.
“Downstairs,” he finally said. “First floor, maintenance room.”
Mason understood something from Curtis’s words that I didn’t—his eyes went wide and he paused, thinking, before he hopped down from the bunk.
As Mason was pulling on a pair of socks, Curtis spoke. “Make sure they all get dressed. Jeans or something, not uniforms. And good shoes.” Mason nodded.
“What could happen?” I asked. I wanted to tell them what I was planning, but it was too soon—I had only one chance, and I didn’t dare blow it. I had to wait until the outside doors were unlocked—until I could open them. I had those contracts now.
Carrie turned back to me, her eyes burning. She didn’t say anything.
“We’ll go get the girls,” Curtis said. “You get to the maintenance room, Benson. We have to find a way to fix this.”
The two of them went for the door, but he turned back, looking me in the eyes. “If any of the V’s get hurt because of this it’s going to be on your head. Got that?”
I nodded.
I got dressed quickly, wearing my Steelers sweatshirt and the cargo pants—stuffing the pockets with everything I could. The radios, a little bit of food, the binoculars. The three pepper spray grenades. I wished I had more. As I quietly headed out into the hall, a few of the other V’s were groggily getting out of bed. Hector’s eyes met mine as I passed his door, but he didn’t look upset. Mason must not have told him.
Honestly, I hadn’t expected this. I knew that the other gangs would be mad, and I figured that I’d probably get a beating for it, but I wasn’t expecting gang war.
The door at the end of the hall was propped open with a book, so I didn’t make any noise as I opened it and left.
There were no lights on anywhere, only the faint glow of obscured moonlight coming in the windows. I hurried as quickly as I could in the dark and jogged to the front doors. They were still locked, even now that I owned the contracts that would let me outside. I held my watch up to the window to read it. It was almost five. I’d seen Mouse jogging on the track as early as six.