imperfect
you going to
help Jack with the hijack? I know I am. Darrel is too. Jack says he
needs enough people to overwhelm the system for
tomorrow.”
    “ Can’t,” said Troop.
“Tutor session tomorrow right after school.”
    Troop could almost see Bruno wrinkling his
nose when he replied, “Oh, I see. Is it one of those fancy private
lessons?”
    “ I suppose you could say
so.”
    “ Ludus High isn’t good
enough for you, is it? Nope—you’ve got to have one-on-one classes
even though you already attend the second best high school in the
United Regions.” There was a hint of taunting in Bruno’s tone.
“Only the best for—”
    “ Bruno,” Troop said. He
kept his voice even.
    Bruno immediately realized he was walking on
a fine line. “Sorry.” He didn’t sound the least bit apologetic.
    Troop let it slide, but
decided to keep a close eye on Bruno’s behavior over the next few
days. Bruno would be more than happy to stab him in the back given
the chance; it was common knowledge at school that Bruno hungered
after Troop’s power at Ludus.
     
     

chapter nine
     
    [ Kristi ]
     
     
     
    “ I see five watchtowers.
How about you?”
    Kristi replied to Chelsa, “Same.”
    Her left leg was going numb from crouching
behind a bush.
    “ Stay here and count how
many guards there are for each entrance and watchtower. I’ll go
check out the patrols, alarms, cameras, trip wires, lasers, heat
sensors, droids, pressure pads—”
    Kristi interrupted Chelsa, ”I get the
point.”
    With that, Chelsa was gone in a blink.
Kristi hunkered in the bushes, tallying the guards while Ghost
drifted around nearby in case she needed help. She tripled checked
to make sure she had counted right: two per entrance and three per
watchtower. This equaled to nineteen guards in total and two droid
German shepherd watchdogs (one per entrance).
    Hopefully Chelsa would be back soon. She was
eager to start moving and find Jaiden. Both of her legs were
seriously going numb now.
    “ One little stretch won’t
hurt anyone,” Kristi said.
    She straightened her back. Ghost hissed.
    “ Okay, okay. Keep your
hair on.”
    The droid-leopard didn’t stop the
threatening sounds until Kristi lowered herself back behind the
shrub.
    “ Did Ghost see something?”
Chelsa returned from her brief scout.
    “ No. He just started
hissing all of a sudden.” Kristi failed to mention chances were
that Ghost was trying to stop her from standing up and potentially
end up being seen by the guards. “So, find any useful
information?”
    “ Breaking in shouldn’t be
too much of a problem. Breaking out once we’re in is the bigger
issue. I checked out the perimeter and found a couple of options on
getting into the building. We can either go through the window on
the north side of the building, through the delivery chute or
through the fire escape that leads to the exit on the
roof.
    “ Patrols of five guards
pass every ten minutes or so. There are some cameras and lasers
though, so we’ll have to watch out for those. I don’t know what the
security is like inside, which may pose a problem later on. On the
bright side, I found out your brother is being held in cell three,
which saves us a lot of time from having to check every
cell.”
    “ How did you get all of
that information so fast?”
    Chelsa smirked. “Practice. Lots of it.”
    Ghost padded over and rumbled his chest.
    “ We’re getting off track,”
Chelsa said. “We better start moving. So here’s the plan: we’re
going to sneak in by means of the window I mentioned. The north
side window is the only one that isn’t locked; I guess one of the
workers here wanted to have a smoke without setting off the fire
alarm, but forgot to close the window properly.
    “ There are four cameras
and one laser that we have to watch out for. Ghost will take care
of the cameras, which leaves only the guards and laser for you and
me to deal with. The laser shouldn’t be too difficult to avoid; it
seems like the

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