I Am Phantom Read online

“Clayton Carlyle. I’m the director of the program here. The students just call this place the Lab.” He chuckled, though it didn’t sound like he found it amusing. “So you’re one of the few kids we accepted this year, Cody?”

  “Yes, sir,” Cody mumbled, obviously not enjoying being singled out. Carlyle smiled more deeply at him.

  “Well I can hardly wait to see what talent you bring to the program. Congratulations!” Cody thanked him and Carlyle nodded to Melanie and then stepped back inside. Before the doors snapped shut his eyes focused on me so briefly I thought I had imagined it. And then he was gone. There was something off about him. Something disconcerting, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  The three of us all stood awkwardly for a second.

  “So what is the Lab?” I finally asked.

  “Cody knows,” Melanie said, motioning to him. When it appeared Cody had no intention of opening his mouth, Melanie said to me, “It’s an elite science and development program sponsored by the government. A select few get chosen each year to participate. Over the course of the year, participants are required to create a project that is original and advances science, then present that project at the end of the year.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  “It is cool,” Melanie agreed. She checked her watch.

  “I need to go, but I’m sure we’ll see each other again, Cody.”

  Cody mumbled something that might have been a ‘later’. The corner of Melanie’s mouth twitched. She went back inside. Cody and I spun away and headed to the dorms where we would hopefully meet with the tour group.

  “You ever met that Carlyle guy?”

  Cody glanced behind us, probably wondering why I had brought him up. “The director of the Lab? Nah. He was probably on the board of directors that chose me for the program, but I’ve never actually talked with him. Why?”

  “Nothing. Just curious.”

  I spied the group just ahead. They appeared to be finishing up.

  “So…the science program, huh?” I asked as we neared them.

  “Yep,” Cody said. “You look surprised.”

  “You don’t look the part,” I said.

  “That’s the point. I don’t want to look the part. I was so happy when I got in, though. My parents convinced me to do it. I just submitted my application and two months later got a response.”

  “So why aren’t you with the other science kids? I met a guy earlier that was with them.”

  “That’s the last thing I want. Trust me, I know how to get by being super smart as undetected as possible. I don’t feel like being labeled at Queensbury for the next four years because I’m part of their big shot program. That was high school. This,” he gestured grandly around us. “is a whole new level. It’s a place to rid the shackles of what was.”

  I wondered if Matt knew that. From what I could see he looked well on his way to being labeled, and that wasn’t just from being part of the science program. He needed to lose the bowtie.

  “So what do they let you create in the Lab?”

  “Anything, really.”

  “Anything?”

  “I mean, not anything. The government can give you most of the materials, a lot of them, actually, but not weapons and you have to have clearance and show them what you’re going to make before they’ll let you start.”

  “Still seems pretty free reign.”

  Cody grinned deviously. “Yeah, I guess it is. Maybe that’s why they only let a few kids in a year.”

  He looked so excited about the prospect of inventing, like a kid with a new toy. I guess having the backing of the U.S. government could make you feel like that.

  * * *

  We finally got to our rooms.

  “And here’s where the fish—I mean freshman—live!” Blondie said. “I’m sure your bags have already been moved in.” She directed us through the double doors and to a front desk where we were each handed our keys. Mine was 149.

  “Nice!” Cody said, holding up his key, number 150.

  Blondie led us to our hallway and we each found our rooms. I could hear heavy rock music coming from farther down the hall and Cody cocked an eyebrow.

  “Good luck with whoever’s your roommate,” he said. I opened my door. There were two sides, one in the front and one in back. Both were empty.

  “Excuse me,” I called to blondie who was still outside our room. “Where’s my roommate?”

  Her nose wrinkled in confusion and she checked over my shoulder, and then again on a piece of paper she was holding. “Huh. I’m not showing you have one. Oh well! I’m sure they’ll sort that out soon, but enjoy it while you can!” And then she was back off down the hall. I shrugged and found my stuff already in the room near the back. The walls and furniture was blank, bland and dirty. Better than I had expected.

  I dropped my backpack and took a seat. The bed squeaked dryly beneath me and some dust rolled on to the floor. I wanted to relax, to take a deep breath and calm down. But something that had been nagging me all day kept coming up: whoever had sent me the note was out there right now, maybe even somebody I had met today. They were out there and they were waiting and watching.

  Chapter Three

  The Lab

  The next morning it took me five minutes longer than I thought it would to get lost.

  Fortunately I had gotten up super early, and since classes didn’t start for another couple hours, I got ready and set out to explore the campus a little more. Outside was chilly. Everything was confusing. The street names were weird and misleading and I swore there were ten different libraries. I did manage to find the Lab on the outside of campus again. Up close it didn’t look like anything too elite, but if they had only let in six kids this semester then they meant business.

  Maybe that’s where the person who sent me my note was. A Lab sounded like a good place to uncover the truth about renegade super human abilities.

  By the time I was done trying to orient myself I realized it was almost time for my first class, Political science. Why I needed political science for a Psychology degree was anybody’s guess, but nevertheless I hurried to get un-lost, find the building and room and slide into a class of thirty something kids at exactly eight. I was pretty sure it was the right class. All the kids looked half dead and some had gone back to sleep, their heads on their backpacks. I didn’t know if that was because of the class being early or if this was how education in America looked.

  Our professor walked in, decided the brain-dead mass in front of him was his students, and started handing out a thing called a ‘syllabus’. I threw it into my backpack and tried to pay attention.

  I’ll admit, after the first ten minutes I began to grow disheartened. I knew the whole point of me coming to a university was to learn more, but this guy was making it difficult. His voice was so hypnotically boring I thought I was going to pass out if he kept talking. Back home, with my parents teaching me, it was way more interesting. Maybe because of the things I was learning or the fact that it was my parents and I felt obligated to listen. Or maybe it was my dad smacking me upside the head every time I tried to close my eyes.

  I almost wished my dad was here to smack this guy upside the head.

  “Hey!”

  What little part of my brain was still conscious roused a bit.

  “Hey! Drake!”

  I looked to my right. Cody John Brown sat three seats down from me. He grinned and mouthed ‘how boring is this?’. I glanced at the teacher to make sure he was distracted by his fascinating syllabus and scooted down to sit next to him.

  “I see you’re also stuck with the ever enlightening Mr. Bachman,” Cody said once I’d settled in. “I heard not to take him but he was the only one open and I need this class.” He finished a doodle on his syllabus. “Hey, meet my roommate.” He leaned back and I almost laughed aloud.

  “Hello, Drake,” Matt Warner grumbled. He scrunched his chin lower up against his bowtie.

  “You’re roommates?” I said.

&
nbsp; “Yeah,” Cody said. “Since we’re both in the science program and all that.” He stiffened as Mr. Bachman looked our way. “Tell you later.”

  With Cody, and yeah, even Matt—the kid was okay once you learned to ignore his complete lack of social skills—the class went by quick and we were finally released.

  “You find any clubs you may want to get involved in?” Cody asked as desks slammed and people grabbed their things and made for their next class.

  “I haven’t really had time to look.”

  Cody hefted his backpack over his shoulder and we walked down some stairs and outside. “What do you usually do for fun?”

  “I do a lot of Kung Fu.”

  Cody’s eyes grew wide. “No way! I’ve never met anybody that does that. You any good?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Cody scoffed. “That’s just modesty. I’ll bet you’re amazing. Tell you what, I saw a flyer for a gym just off campus. It said they teach a whole bunch of martial arts. I think the first class is tonight. I’m not gonna do it but you want to try that?”

  I would be lying if I had said I wasn’t a little interested in fighting again. I had actually enjoyed my ‘fight’ with Sonam. I was sure I could control my abilities enough to not draw any suspicion. The last thing I needed was people here to think I was a freak.

  “Sounds good.”

  Cody snapped his fingers. “Awesome! Sometime tonight. Matt, you’re coming with us.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Matt said. “I have more important things to do than physical activity.”

  “No you don’t,” Cody said. “I checked your planner. You have nothing written down.”

  We continued to our next class, Matt behind us, grumbling something about personal privacy.

  The second I had the time, I headed to the library to search for anybody with the initials L.S.. I was amazed at how easily accessible everything was here. Needed a computer? No problem. An excessive amount of caffeine? Easy. Space away from everyone? You could hide in the library for weeks and never be found. I logged in to a computer and started searching. Three hours later I had found nothing. Granted, a couple initials weren’t much to go off, but still.

  What was the point of the note bringing me here if whoever wrote it didn’t want to actually meet me? I gave up for the time being, logged off and wandered back onto campus.

  I eventually wound up on the campus green, just across from the Lab. With its tallness and onyx colored siding, it was a good reference point. A familiar figure hurried past, head down, eyes glued to the sidewalk.

  “Matt!”

  Matt looked to the sky as though some heavenly being had just called him.

  “Down here, Matt.”

  “Oh. Hello, Drake.”

  “Where you going?”

  Matt pulled the straps of his backpack up higher. “Forward.”

  “You mind if I join you?”

  Matt gave me a look like the very suggestion was foreign to him. “I…suppose. I’m going to the Lab.”

  “Great.”

  Matt stood there for a second longer, then heaved his pack up again and continued walking. We stopped at the front doors to the Lab. Matt had begun to awkwardly shift from foot to foot.

  “I don’t really know if I’m supposed to—but if you want you can come look inside—for a bit. Actually, I don’t really want you to, Cody just said I should try to be more friendly—”

  “That’d be cool,” I said. His blubbering was painful to watch.

  That seemed to make up Matt’s mind and he led me inside. The sliding doors clicked softly behind us. The inside floor and walls were a deep black marble inlaid with white chips of something. A reception desk sat on the left under glittering lights. Matt waited until the lady behind the desk wasn’t looking and shuffled quickly, head down, to a painting-lined corridor just beyond and into an elevator. He pressed a button. We started up and he let out a sigh of relief.

  “The things I do for friends,” he lamented.

  “Thanks?” I tried.

  “I make such noble sacrifices,” Matt continued, oblivious to me.

  Before he could congratulate himself anymore, the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

  We stepped into what I could only call a super secret science lab. Now, I didn’t get to read many comic books when I lived in Bhutan. The only one I saw was when a friend of my mom’s stowed Space Explorer Defeats Dr. Nefarious in one of the care packages. In one scene Space Explorer bursts into Dr. Nefarious’ lab, full of exotic gadgets, flashing lights and springy things. That’s pretty much what this place looked like.

  A long white hallway stretched before us, slicing straight between glass panes on either side. Rooms filled with mechanical arms, test tubes, bubbling beakers and kids in lab coats scurrying around behind glass sliding doors and broad windows. Before I could drift off and watch a kid moving a mechanical arm with only wires pasted to his skull, Matt led me towards one of the rooms near the back with a keypad panel on the wall.

  “We get our own rooms to work,” Matt said. “Good thing too. I couldn’t possibly work with those imbeciles.” He grimaced as the robotic arm swung around and knocked over another kid. “Imbeciles,” he repeated. He punched in a code and the door opened.

  There wasn’t much in their room. Parts to something littered one corner, a large black telescope sat in the middle, and piles of crumpled papers layered the floor. Posters of equations and famous scientists hung on the back walls.

  Cody looked up from working on something when we walked in. “Drake, my man! Welcome to our humble laboratory. Don’t mind the mess.”

  Matt didn’t say anything, but immediately put down his backpack and started working on the telescope thing.

  “He seems to like this place,” I said.

  Cody shrugged. “I’ve noticed he zones out when he works on something. Zones out more than normal, I mean. I swore I was having a conversation with him last night in our room. Turns out he was talking to himself.”

  “And if I adjust this…” Matt turned something on the telescope and it began to hum. Cody hurried over.

  “What’d you do? I ran full diagnostics on the front brace coupling. Scans showed up fine.”

  “Circuits for the rear molecular stabilizers were shot. I noticed it last night.”

  “And you didn’t leave a note?”

  “No. Stop talking and hand me—I’ll get it.” He reached over and grabbed a wrench off the table.

  “It looks cool,” I said.

  Matt paused in his work, then reemerged from under the telescope thing, his face scrunched in confusion.

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “What? No, I’m being honest. It looks cool.”

  Matt continued staring at me like if he did long enough I would say I was lying. Then he returned to tinkering with it. “Thanks,” he muttered, so quietly I almost missed it.

  “But…I didn’t know telescopes had rear pulse stabilizers,” I said. Cody shot me a guilty look, like a dog that had been caught doing something bad.

  “Try to keep this under wraps, but it’s not a telescope.”

  “I figured that. What is it?”

  “Technically it’s a—”

  At that moment the sliding door, well, slid open, and the same girl who had stopped us in front of the Lab during our tour came in. Now that she was closer I saw she was a couple years older than us. She still wore a strict lab coat and a clipboard dangled from one hand. The calming scent of pumpkin wafted in when she walked over and looked at me over her floral print glasses.

  “Hello. And you are?”

  “Drake,” Cody said, rushing to my side. “His name is Drake, Melanie. Drake, you’ve kind of met Melanie, our floor supervisor, and Melanie, this is Drake, our…scientist.”

  Melanie rolled her eyes. “Does he have permission to be up here?”

  “He does,” Cody said.

  “I don’t,” I said.

  Melanie opened the sliding
door and motioned towards the hallway. “I admire your honesty but as acting floor supervisor I’m going to have to ask you to leav—”

  “Come on, Melanie!” Cody said, giving me a playful punch. “This is Drake Sinclair.”

  Melanie didn’t move.

  “He’s from Bhutan,” Cody added.

  One of her eyebrows perked. “You’re a foreign exchange student?”

  “Very foreign,” Cody agreed, flashing a huge grin. “And he won’t touch anything while he’s here.”

  “No promises,” I said.

  “Not helping, Drake buddy,” Cody said out of the corner of his mouth, his smile never wavering. Melanie looked torn between throwing me out and giving in. Finally, she dropped her arm and the door shut.

  “Don’t make me regret this,” she said. “Dr. Carlyle, the director of this program, sometimes comes up here, so watch yourself. If you’re caught by anybody other than me then I can get in a lot of trouble.”

  I recalled the man with the face squashed like a bulldog’s who had greeted us during the tour. I would definitely try to stay out of his way.

  “I appreciate it,” I said. “You’re here to make sure nobody does anything too crazy?”

  Melanie adjusted her glasses and nodded. “Yeah. Since the people in the Lab are allowed to work on pretty much whatever they want then there’s got to be somebody to monitor.”

  Cody handed Matt a tool he was floundering for. “Every student has the entire year to work on a project and have something to show for it,” he said.

  “So what is yours?” I asked.

  Cody suddenly looked sheepish. Matt paused tinkering with the bottom of the not-telescope. “Ours is not finished yet,” Matt said.

  “I assumed that since you’re still working on it. What is it?”

  “Yes, enlighten us,” Melanie said, stepping beside me and focusing on them like a bloodhound who had found a criminal’s scent. “I don’t remember you two submitting a report on what you were going to be doing. I see you started it before the semester began.”

  “It’s my idea,” Matt said. “A practical application for my thesis.”

  “And what is your thesis?”