The Falcon's Feather Page 2

  As Sailor and Cruz passed the security station next to the purser’s desk, a beefy guard with a thick dark mustache and a gold hoop earring caught Cruz’s eye. The gold ID tag on his massive chest read J. Wardicorn. He glanced at them but did not smile or nod. Turning down the corridor that led to the galley and classrooms, Cruz could feel the guard’s eyes boring into his back. More scrutiny.

  Sailor was studying his postcard as they walked. “Who is Peary’s first man?”

  “I know that one.” Cruz had just finished reading a book about explorers—a book Aunt Marisol had loaned him. Coincidence? Hardly. “It’s Matthew Henson. He was the first African-American explorer to go to the Arctic. He navigated a bunch of Robert Peary’s expeditions and that’s where he got the nickname ‘Peary’s first man.’ ” He glanced at her. “Read the clue again.”

  “ ‘Begin with the birth year of Peary’s first man.’ ”

  Okay, so you’d want to look up the year Henson was born, then go to the text of Twenty Thousand Leagues and search the book for the first mention of that year. Once you find it, you’d start counting the letters, according to the postcard. That’s what those sets of numbers are for. See how the first number is one? The means the letter you want is going to be the first letter after 1866.”

  “I get it,” said Sailor. “The next number is twelve, so I’d want to find the twelfth letter after 1866 and so on until I spell out a word.”

  “Right.”

  “And I bet each set of numbers is equal to one word in the message.”

  “Exactly.”

  Her face lit up. “Can I decode it?”

  Cruz could tell it was a short phrase, and Aunt Marisol never put anything personal in their postcards, so he didn’t see why not. “Be my guest.”

  They were at the galley entrance. Cruz held his gold Open Sesame wristband up to the security camera to open the door. Just inside the dining room, several baskets full of fruit, energy bars, and other snacks had been placed on a side table. Sailor grabbed an apple. Cruz chose a small bag of trail mix. They took their food and headed to the conference room down the passage. Emmett was already there. He’d saved three seats for Sailor, Cruz, and Bryndis. Letting Sailor have the first chair, Cruz slipped into the second, which also happened to be next to Dugan Marsh.

  Although they had trained together back at Academy headquarters and were now on Team Cousteau together, Cruz kept his distance from Dugan. The boy from Santa Fe, who was Ali Soliman’s roommate, had made it clear from the start he didn’t think Cruz belonged here. Dugan often made rude comments about Cruz getting special treatment because his aunt was their anthropology professor. It wasn’t true. If anything, Aunt Marisol had made Cruz work harder to prove himself. Still, that didn’t stop Dugan from needling Cruz every chance he got. It also hadn’t helped that Cruz had walloped Dugan in Monsieur Legrand’s Augmented Reality Challenge obstacle course—the ARC—in fitness and survival training class. Maybe being on the ship was the fresh start they needed. Cruz was certainly willing to give it a try. “How’s it going, Dugan?”

  “Wonderful,” said Dugan with about as much enthusiasm as a sick slug.

  Cruz opened his bag of trail mix and offered the bag to his teammate.

  “Are we supposed to eat in here?” snapped Dugan. “Or did you get your aunt to change the rules just for you?”

  Strike two. Cruz didn’t need a third strike to tell him Dugan wasn’t interested in a new beginning. He pivoted his chair toward friendlier territory, aka Emmett. Looking around, Cruz did not see a sign saying NO FOOD. Even so, he slid the bag into his lap and ate a little faster in case Dugan was right.

  Cruz tried to ask Emmett about his progress in the tech lab; however, with his mouth full, “How’d it go at the tech lab?” came out “Half hid a goat atheck lap?”

  A bewildered Emmett stared at him for a few seconds, his emoto-glasses changing from their usual solid lime green ovals to a rushing current of seafoam and sapphire. “Oh, I gotcha. Not so good. The nanoprocessors sync up on the computer sim runs, but in human trials, I can’t get the textile to respond to cerebral cortex functional reconstructive commands—or even basic pigmentation alterations, for that matter.”

  “So nothing happens?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Cruz was about to reassure Emmett that he would figure it out, when Sailor leaned behind Emmett. “Got it!” She was clutching her tablet and the postcard. “Henson was born in 1866, and fortunately, I didn’t have to read far—1866 is the third word in the book. Here you go.” She handed the postcard to Cruz.

  He saw she had assigned each of the numbers a letter, as he had instructed. Aunt Marisol’s message read: Welcome aboard.

  “Thanks for letting me be your cryptographer,” said Sailor. “That was fun.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Good afternoon, explorers!” Taryn Secliff breezed into the room.

  Taryn was their class adviser, and the “mom” of their group. She gave advice, helped solve problems, and made sure everyone was where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to be doing. As Taryn passed Cruz, he saw Hubbard, her West Highland white terrier, at her heels. The little dog was wearing a bright yellow life vest. Taryn took a seat at the head of the table. She searched their faces. “How are we all doing? Settling in? Getting your sea legs? Excited to explore the world?” Nudging Emmett, Cruz nodded to the empty seat across from him and whispered, “Bryndis isn’t here.”

  Bryndis Jónsdóttir, the fifth member of Team Cousteau, had come to Cruz’s rescue after he had been falsely accused of cheating and expelled from the Academy. Her detective work revealed it was Renshaw McKittrick, another team member, and not Cruz, who’d hacked into their CAVE training programs and altered them. Cruz owed Bryndis a lot. Plus, he liked her a lot. Cruz was starting to think maybe she liked him a little, too.

  Emmett and Cruz looked at each other. Should they say something about Bryndis?

  Taryn cleared her throat to signal they were starting. “On behalf of the faculty, staff, and crew of Explorer Academy, it’s my pleasure to welcome you aboard Orion, the flagship of the Academy’s fleet. For the remainder of your time with us, this will be home. And as such, we expect you to treat it with care. Please keep your cabin and the lounge areas clean. We also expect you to follow the same rules you did back at Academy headquarters. No leaving the ship without permission or adult supervision, no visitors on board without prior approval, and all issues with roommates, teammates, faculty, homework, health, and everything else are to be brought to my attention. Most of the ship is at your disposal, so if you haven’t already had a chance to take the tour and meet the crew, please do so when we finish here. Questions?” Taryn was searching their faces. “None? Moving on. Second order of business: Classes resume tomorrow two doors down in Manatee classroom at eight a.m.”

  There were a few groans—the biggest from Dugan.

  Taryn pursed her lips. “This is not a vacation cruise. While we’re at sea, you’ll be expected to follow the same school schedule you did at the Academy. First period, conservation; followed by anthropology, fitness and survival training, biology, world geography, and journalism. Whenever we dock, classes will be suspended during our time in port.” As they started to cheer, Taryn held up a hand. “Before you get too excited, this is because your professors and guest instructors will have missions for you to complete on shore. You’ll learn more about those as we go, but don’t expect a lot of free time. Questions? None? Moving on. Third item—”

  Cruz couldn’t take it anymore. He lifted his arm. “Taryn, Bryndis isn’t here.”

  “That is true,” she said evenly. “As I was saying, third item…”

  Cruz dropped his arm. Shouldn’t their adviser be more concerned that an explorer was missing? What if Bryndis had gotten lost? Or was sick? Or had fallen overboard?

 
Rising from her chair, Taryn moved toward a connecting door behind her. She grabbed the knob and flung the door wide open. “…your official Explorer Academy uniforms!”

  Cruz’s breath caught. Bryndis! The tall, fair-haired Icelander stood in the doorway, one knee bent, like a fashion model. She wore a light gray zippered jacket with a high collar. Dark gray fabric trimmed the square shoulders and cuffs. On the front of the jacket were four diagonal pockets—two on the chest and two on the hips. Pinned to the jacket above the top-right pocket was a black rectangle with the letters EA in gold. On the left collar was a button or pin that looked like planet Earth. Straight-legged pants matched the jacket, with light and dark shades of gray. A mock-turtleneck tee the color of moss poked out the top of the jacket. From her pinkie dangled a pair of round bronze sunglasses that looked like stacked machinery gears.

  A grinning Bryndis strolled into the conference room with two women trailing behind her. The first looked a few years older than Aunt Marisol. She wore a white lab coat, a light blue button-down shirt, a black knee-length skirt, and nurse’s shoes. She carried a tablet twice the size of the explorers’ standard-issue computer. The other woman, about Taryn’s age, shuffled in wearing shredded jeans, a faded pink tee, and red flip-flops. She’d tied a tiger-print scarf around her head and was dipping her hand into a bag of pink jelly beans.

  “Explorers, please meet our tech lab chief, Dr. Fanchon Quills, and her assistant, Dr. Sidril Vanderwick,” said Taryn. “They are the brains behind much of your wearable technology and are joining us to explain its main features. Fanchon?”

  Cruz turned toward the lady in the lab coat, her blondish brown hair pulled back into a bun so tight it was stretching her cheeks back.

  “Thank you, Taryn,” said the woman with the tiger-print head scarf.

  Cruz did a double take. That was Dr. Quills? The one who looked like a college student on her way to the beach and was eating candy?

  “Please, everyone, call me Fanchon.” Dr. Quills set her jelly beans on the table so she could gesture toward Bryndis. “Your Academy uniforms utilize state-of-the-art technology. The material is developed by our own Society scientists. It’s designed to help keep you cool in warm climates and blocks 99.9 percent of the sun’s harmful rays. It’s water-repellent, bug-repellent, reptile-repellent, and antibacterial. In your lower-left pocket, you’ll find a small charging port.” Bryndis unzipped the pocket and brought out a tiny plug. “This converts the heat from your body to electricity to power your tablet, cell phone, or any other digital device.”

  “Did you see that?” Cruz pounded Emmett on the shoulder.

  “I saw. I saw.” Emmett’s glasses were a kaleidoscope on hyperdrive.

  “Notice the EA pin on the top right,” continued the tech chief. “This is your communications system. Press it firmly once, then specify who you are and who you want to communicate with. You can reach a crew member, explorer, faculty member, or anyone with a similar pin within a twenty-five-mile radius of your location. The signal can be boosted, of course, if necessary. Press the EA pin twice, and it becomes a global translator, allowing you to understand and converse in more than six thousand languages. The planet Earth insignia activates your personal GPS system.” Bryndis tapped the round blue-and-green pin on her left collar. In an instant, it emitted a holographic overlay of the third deck of the ship in front of her!

  Cruz’s bag of trail mix hit the floor.

  “This will allow you to find your way around most anyplace in the world,” explained Fanchon. “Your holo-map includes augmented-reality features, such as museums, historical sites, restaurants, or pretty much whatever you request. As you move, the map and elements will change, according to your position. This view is public mode. Put on your sunglasses to switch to private mode so that only you will see the display.”

  Bryndis placed the cog-like sunglasses on her nose, and the holographic image instantly disappeared. “I can see everything perfectly,” she verified. The lenses looked cool, though Cruz wondered if Bryndis could see the real world as well as she could see the virtual one.

  “I am happy to take your questions.” Fanchon Quills scanned the room. The usually inquisitive explorers were speechless, including Cruz.

  “Not one question?” Taryn cocked an eyebrow. “Come on. The time to ask is now, not when you’re out on a mission. Speak up!”

  “Arf!” barked Hubbard.

  Everyone giggled.

  “You’ll find complete operating instructions for your uniform and its technology on your tablet,” explained Taryn. “Please carefully review them.” Her gaze settled on Cruz. “Because one day, this uniform might save your life.”

  Cruz understood. Only a few days ago, he had come as close to death as he’d ever been.

  Malcolm Rook, Explorer Academy’s librarian, had been secretly working for Nebula. Cornering Cruz and his dad in the special collections of the Academy’s library with a laser, Mr. Rook planned to steal the holo-journal and kill Cruz and his father. He might have succeeded, too, had Cruz not commanded Mell to attack at the last second. The persistent stings of the faithful drone caused Rook to misfire, and the laser had only grazed Cruz’s arm. He was lucky, he knew. Cruz slid the right sleeve of his tee up a few inches. The small football-shaped burn scar on his upper right arm was nearly gone.

  Everyone was lining up to get their uniforms. Cruz stood, too, and waited behind Emmett. However, while his 22 classmates were bubbling with excitement, Cruz remained quiet. He was worried. Fanchon had said their uniforms were every kind of “proof” imaginable: waterproof, sunproof, bugproof, reptileproof, even germproof. But she had left one very important “proof” off that list.

  Bulletproof.

  “ANOTHER perfect plan failed.” The tone was cool and controlled, yet the words sent a chill down Thorne Prescott’s spine. Hezekiah Brume was not a man who took disappointment well.

  “Uh…sorry, sir,” croaked Prescott, looking away from the holo-image. Not that he would have seen anything other than whatever his boss had his phone pointed toward—a vase of roses or an antique clock or, like this morning, a gold knife smoothly slicing through a fried egg.

  Brume never allowed himself to be photographed. Prescott had no clue why. The owner of Nebula Pharmaceuticals was as much of a mystery to Prescott as he was to the rest of the world. Although Prescott had worked for Brume for nearly five years, he had never met him. Today was supposed to be the day he finally did. Prescott had taken the red-eye flight from Washington, D.C., to London. He had arrived at Nebula headquarters at 8 a.m., only to discover Brume was not there. Brume’s executive assistant, Oona, had given him some explanation about an emergency in Beijing. And so Prescott found himself a thousand feet above the city, talking to his boss, who was five thousand miles away.

  Brume’s knife was tapping a gold-rimmed plate. He was waiting for an explanation. Prescott buried the heel of a snakeskin cowboy boot into the plush white carpet. “I had him cornered in the museum, but there was too much security.” He put a hand to his head. The lump was nearly gone. Prescott wasn’t sure who’d cracked him on the noggin when he was inches away from taking care of Cruz Coronado once and for all. He’d woken up on the floor in the basement of the museum with two guards handcuffing him and his intended target nowhere to be found. “We’re back on track. He’s within our grasp.”

  “That’s what you said about Hawaii, Cobra.” Brume never used his true identity, in case he was under surveillance by an enemy, and he required his field employees to do the same. Everyone had a code name. Prescott’s was Cobra, for his cowboy boots. Brume’s was Lion. Zebra, Wallaby, and Mongoose were on board Orion.

  “Hawaii was…unfortunate.” Prescott had to admit that trying to drown a kid who practically had fins was not his best idea. Suddenly, a strange sensation came over him. Prescott had the creepy feeling he was being watched. He let his gaze wander over the large of
fice. Everything dripped of money, from the tornado of a crystal chandelier to the smallest gold fleur-de-lis pull to the satin drapes. Not that Prescott cared about that kind of thing. Behind the tufted, gold velvet sofa, a shellacked ebony door etched with a large N was slightly open. It probably led to the bathroom. Now, a 14-karat-gold toilet, that would be something to see!

  “Perhaps Jaguar can be more helpful to us,” said his boss.

  “Jaguar?” Prescott did not recognize the code name.

  “We have someone new, someone who can get even closer to him.”

  Closer? The only person who could possibly get closer to Cruz than their current crop of contacts was…

  Prescott drew in a breath. An explorer. Brume had a spy among the explorers!

  There it was again—that feeling that he was being observed. He scanned the room, his eyes moving from the desk to the bookcases to the monogrammed bathroom door. There! In the sliver of space between the two doors, he caught a shadow. And was that an eye? It was! Someone was spying on him.

  “Is that all you have to report, Cobra?”

  Prescott knew he could put it off no longer. “There is one other thing, sir. She…left something for him…a journal.” He heard a fork hit porcelain and rushed on. “Probably filled with personal ramblings. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. It could tell him nothing.”

  “Or it could tell him everything,” growled his boss. “Get the journal. Take care of its owner. No loose ends. And do it before his thirteenth birthday, do you hear me?”

  “November twenty-ninth,” confirmed Prescott, though he didn’t understand the significance of the deadline. What difference did it make if he finished the job on the 29th or the 30th? It must have something to do with the number 13. Brume was a superstitious man. Maybe he thought dealing with the kid after he turned 13 would bring him bad luck. With Brume, who knew?