Crisis Zero by Chris Rylander

I needed your help with another prank?”
    He finally got the correct combination entered and pulled open his locker. And that’s when things started to get more suspicious. There was a black hoodie hanging inside it. There were a lot of black hooded sweatshirts out there, of course, but it was too much of a coincidence to ignore.
    As was his eventual response.
    â€œUh, well, yeah, sort of,” he said, suddenly seeming to be nervous. “I mean, I’ve got some stuff after school a lot lately. But I mean, yeah, I should be free.”
    He saw me eyeballing the hoodie and quickly slammed his locker shut.
    â€œHey, Junior, where were you yesterday at—” I started to ask, but he didn’t let me finish.
    â€œLook, man, I’d love to chat, but I gotta go,” he said, turning away. “I’m running late.”
    I stood there and watched him scamper nervously down the hall, suddenly realizing that I now had a lot more work ahead of me.
    But I also finally had a solid lead.

CHAPTER 23
HANDCUFFED IN DETENTION
    T HE WORST PART ABOUT THE DETENTION I’D GOTTEN FROM Ms. Pullman was that it kept me from being able to follow Junior to investigate his activities. Instead, I was stuck in a room with a few other kids, just sitting there and staring out the window into one of the school’s parking lots.
    A few minutes after I got there, two construction trucks rolled up and guys in overalls and hard hats began setting up orange cones. Moments later, one of them was hammering away at the pavement with a jackhammer.
    â€œI wonder what’s going on,” I muttered, more to myself than anything.
    But the kid next to me must have thought I was talking to him, because he answered me.
    â€œMy dad said it’s a controversial new project to install a solar-powered snow-melting system under the school’s parking lots that the new principal finally got pushed through,” he said. “Apparently, Gomez had been dragging his feet on it all year, worried about the construction causing a distraction and also thinking that all that solar-powered hippy crap never works. Anyway, now they have to hammer out the whole structural base of the east parking lot to try to get it installed in just a few days before winter really sets in.”
    I recognized my detention neighbor. It was Vance Wheeler. His dad was a sixth-grade teacher and had a big mouth at the dinner table, which meant that Vance always had the inside scoop on the school and other teachers.
    â€œHuh, interesting,” I said.
    â€œYeah, sure,” Vance said as if he thought I was being sarcastic. “It’s like watching a fireworks show with a sugar high.”
    But I had actually meant it. Perhaps that was whyGomez was framed? He wasn’t approving this project, which could very easily have something to do with the Agency headquarters located a few miles down from where they were breaking up the parking lot pavement. Then again, even if that was why Medlock framed Gomez, it didn’t necessarily mean that Pullman was in on it. Maybe Medlock simply knew that Ms. Pullman, who struck me as a lady who knew how to get stuff done and was way more willing to take chances on new things, would push the project through right away.
    This was getting complicated. I didn’t know what to think or believe anymore. And all I could think about as I sat there and watched the W Construction crew tear up the parking lot, was how much I missed having Agents Nineteen and Blue around to talk to. They had always been there for me, a kind of safety net that I could land in if I needed to.
    But now they were gone and I was on my own. Danielle was a great friend, but she was just as inexperienced as I was. There was no net anymore.
    I didn’t like being the last line of defense. Being a secret agent had been so much easier when there were other agents who knew what they were doing, when itfelt like there was a giant machine