Disruption by Steven Whibley Read Free Book Online

and, according to some people, nearly killed everyone inside.”
    Rylee, Yaakov, and Juno shot each other worried glances. Amara and Angie pursed their lips and nodded almost approvingly, though I couldn’t tell what exactly they approved of—my being punished for endangering a bunch of kids or my apparent attempt at mass murder.
    Rylee huffed and then turned to Yaakov and cleared her throat. Yaakov snapped out of his trance, glanced down at his computer and then back to Rylee, and shook his head.
    Amara caught their exchange. “You know something.” He pointed at Yaakov. “You figured something out on your little computer, didn’t you?”
    Yaakov shrugged.
    “C’mon, you little nerd,” Juno said. “Tell us already.”
    Yaakov gave me a nervous look and then glanced back to Rylee. Then he shook his head.
    “He’s scared,” Angie said.
    “I’m not scared ,” Yaakov said. He lowered his voice. “I’m cautious.”
    Angie looked back at me, one brow raised. “He’s scared.”
    “Of what?” I asked. “Me?” I laughed. “I didn’t actually kill anyone.” I cast my gaze around the room. “No one died, not even the kids with breathing problems.” I lowered my voice and mumbled, “The ones who got trampled in the stampede turned out okay.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t actually trying to kill anyone.”
    “You heard Dalson,” Angie said. “Deltas can kick teammates out of the program at any time, for any reason. Yaakov, the techno-nerd over there, must know something about you, something he thinks you don’t want other people to know. He thinks sharing it with the group will land him out on his butt.”
    I looked at Yaakov. The way his face was buried in his laptop all the time, it wasn’t hard to sort out he was probably some kind of hacker, but what could he possibly have looked up about me? My grades? I shook my head. I didn’t care if they knew I was garbage at math. Maybe that I’d gotten suspended for stealing some beakers from the science lab last year?
    I looked at Yaakov. “What do you think you know?”
    He shifted his glasses but said nothing.
    “I’m not going to kick anyone off the team.”
    “Or out of the program?” Angie asked.
    “Or out of the program,” I added, not really knowing what that meant anyway.Yaakov hesitated, chewed his lip for a moment, and then said, “It’s just . . . I’ve been trying to hack into the camp’s surveillance so we can get a look at our competition, and sometimes hacking means getting access to one system at a time—”
    “Oh, get on with it already,” Angie said. “Nobody cares how you figured it out. Just tell us something juicy about our little captain here.”
    Yaakov blew out a breath. “His scores.” He looked at me. “I accessed records and, um, stumbled upon your scores, for past missions. . . . They’re, well, they’re really good. Not the best in the whole camp, but really good. I mean, they’re better than Chase’s, and his are really good too.”
    “What?” I heard myself say it along with everyone else in the room. Their heads snapped around to stare at me in the same instant.
    “Let me see that,” Rylee said.
    She was joined at Yaakov’s bedside by the rest of the team, who murmured until I elbowed my way in and looked at the screen. It was a scan of what looked like a sign-up roster for the camp. My name was there. I even recognized my dad’s handwriting. But the numbers that filled the boxes beside my name were lower than almost all the numbers beside other names. When I looked up, my team was staring back at me. Rylee, more than the others, looked particularly dumbfounded. Her mouth gaped, and she kept glancing at Yaakov’s computer and then at me and then back to the computer. The others looked puzzled too . . . well, everyone except Angie. Angie had a huge grin and looked at me as if I was some big piece of chocolate.
    “I have no idea what those numbers mean,” I said, “but look at them. My scores,