The Vanished Read online

  As the Wakandan girls walk, careful to avoid bumping into anyone, Shuri wonders if there’s any rhyme or reason to the jumpsuit colors. They’ve come to a bend in the hallway that spits them around a corner to the right. Opposite the corner is a cross hallway that leads down to the left and dead-ends at a wall that looks like the fake-wood ones in the anteroom, and it seems like they’re headed for a second corner with an adjacent hallway just ahead.

  The wide hallway they’re traversing is lined with big windows that give view into a variety of rooms, all with brightly colored walls that appear to match the various jumpsuits. There are classrooms, traditional laboratories, and spaces where large-scale tests and experiments are in progress. In one such space, Shuri can see a group of girls using jetpacks, and in another, there’s a domed structure that looks like an antigravity pod (based on the person floating inside it). There’s also a virtual reality lab.

  Shuri and K’Marah continue forward behind Syd, and as they bank around the next corner, they can see inside a space Shuri would’ve never expected in a facility like this one: It’s … a spa. There are separate hair and nail salons, and set in the back wall is the entrance to a “Fitness Center,” according to the words that arch over the double doorway. “Whoa,” Shuri whispers beneath her breath, unable to help herself.

  As she stares at the girls moving about inside and breathes in the sweet fragrance of the air, the princess can’t deny that she’d really like to shed her invisibility suit and go in. To maybe … stay here. And though the thoughts feel only half-formed, Shuri can’t ignore the certainty of them. None of the girls they’ve seen so far are in any rush to leave …

  So why should the princess be?

  While on a fundamental level, this bizarre invisible hideaway is exceedingly creepy, the princess can’t deny understanding why a person—especially one like her—would want to stick around. A fully supplied research and experimentation facility, full of young people who have no problem whiling the days away in pursuit of knowledge and scientific advancement? Where can she sign up—

  A tug on her hand snatches Shuri back from “la-la land,” as the queen mother calls it, and her vision clears.

  Right on time, too: A pair of young ladies exit into the main hallway—a tall one in a red jumpsuit with brown skin and shoulder-length locs, and a short, curvy one in pink, also brown-skinned, but redheaded and freckled. The taller girl looks more familiar than Shuri is expressly comfortable with, and the princess’s pulse picks up pace. When the pair passes the two invisible Wakandans, Shuri catches sight of the tall one’s nails as she shows them to her friend. They’re painted with images of little gears.

  The word robotics pops to the top of Shuri’s mind, and recognition hits her like a M’Shindi blow to the sternum: Cici. Riri’s missing friend from Chicago.

  If she’s here, then …

  They have to get into that office.

  Shuri quickens her pace, pulling K’Marah along with her. But K’Marah trips. And while their basic movements and even her crash to the floor might be silent (at least Shuri thinks they are … she only knows K’Marah has gone down because she almost pulls the princess with her), the Dora-in-training’s yelp certainly is not.

  Syd whips around, and Shuri feels K’Marah scramble back to her feet.

  “Who’s there?” Syd says, face red. “I know you were in the elevator! You … you better show yourself!”

  The princess doesn’t even breathe.

  Syd shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. (Oh boy … What is she doing? Shuri thinks.) Then she shoves her hands out in front of her and begins moving in their direction.

  The princess is tempted to pull K’Marah to the side so they can flatten themselves against the window to the spa, but with the amount she’s perspiring right now, there’s a very good chance her body, though invisible, would fog the glass. Maybe she and K’Marah can separate for a second until Syd passes them by—

  “Uhhh, Syd?” comes a voice from behind them. Shuri risks a peek over her shoulder. It’s the girl in yellow from the entry hall. She’s just rounded the corner, and is frozen in place. Concern evident in her single raised eyebrow. “You … okay?”

  “There’s somebody there, Britt. I know there is.”

  “I … don’t see anybody?”

  “That’s because they’re invisible!”

  At this, Britt—who looks older than Shuri and K’Marah—sighs. “Come on,” she says, striding forward. Shuri spins to face K’Marah, moving out of Britt’s path just in time: If not for the mask, she’d be able to feel the air on her cheek as the girl in yellow breezes past. “I’ll walk the rest of the way to the office with you,” Britt says. “I know the whole elevator thing was disconcerting, but Lady N will get it fixed, okay?” She drapes an arm over the smaller girl’s shoulders, spinning her away from Shuri and K’Marah. They continue up the hall toward the next bend.

  “We have to catch up to them,” Shuri whispers to K’Marah before rotating away and pulling the shorter girl into stride.

  * * *

  When Shuri and K’Marah do catch up—they had a couple of dodge-necessary near encounters on the way—Britt and Syd are standing outside a closed door. “Hmm,” Britt says with her hands on her hips. “Looks like no one’s home, Syd. We’ll have to come back.”

  Syd’s shoulders droop before she looks in the direction of the hidden Wakandan girls. They’ve stopped about four meters away, across from the window to an astronomy lab, if the three massive telescopes along the back wall are any indication. It’s Shuri’s first time seeing a window in this place … which makes her wonder what floor they’re on. (How many floors even are there?)

  “Come on,” Britt goes on, snatching Shuri back. “I’ll walk you to your wing. You can show me your latest prototype for your hover train.” She extends an elbow, and after a beat of hesitation, Syd grabs on and allows herself to be pulled away from the door.

  Once they turn the next corner—and Shuri takes a peek to make sure the hallway is empty—she makes a move toward the door.

  And gets tugged back. “What are you doing?” K’Marah hisses. “We can’t just keep following—”

  “We need to get into the office,” Shuri whispers back.

  “They just said no one’s there.”

  “Which means it’s the perfect time to go in.” The princess tries to pull them forward again.

  K’Marah doesn’t budge. “What if there’s an alarm on the door?”

  “We’re invisible. They already think there’s a glitch because of the elevator. If there’s an alarm and they find no one, it’ll be lumped in with that.”

  “But what if there are, like … heat-sensitive cameras or something? They’ll notice us then!”

  At this, Shuri huffs. She leans her shoulder into K’Marah’s so she can get as close to her friend as possible. “Look: Last I checked, we’re only in this place because you insisted that we infiltrate. I saw Riri’s friend coming out of that spa area earlier, and while I have no idea if the others are here somewhere, we’re in now and might as well be thorough. You can either come with me, or you can stay here in the hall. Either way, I’m getting into that office. There’s no turning back now.”

  Shuri moves to release K’Marah’s hand, but K’Marah doesn’t let go. “Fine,” she hisses. “But if we get caught and used as test subjects for electricity experiments or something, I’m blaming you.”

  To Shuri’s shock, the door is unlocked and the light is on inside the room. Which, like the entryway and elevator, is shaped like a hexagon. There’s an array of six rectangular tables, each one parallel to the wall it’s in front of, and a hexagonal desk at the center of the space. (What is it with this place and hexagons?)

  Once both girls are inside with the door shut, Shuri stops whispering. “Okay, we’re going to split,” she says. “Gotta make this fast. You take that half, and I’ll take this one.” She points.

  “Uhhh … I take which half? I … can’t see yo
u.”

  Oh. Right, Shuri thinks. “If you’re facing the wall opposite the door, you take the right side of the room.”

  “Got it.”

  Shuri starts at a table with a set of tablets docked on it, but of course she doesn’t know the passcodes and can’t get any of them to unlock. Even trying to hack them is futile: They’re locked down tighter than T’Challa’s Kimoyo journal entries. A move to a different table proves beneficial: She finds a schematic diagram of the structure they’re in. The Garden, it says across the top.

  And Shuri can’t help but be awed. The place is a science lover’s paradise.

  The entire edifice is two floors: the one they’re on, and a living space with dorm-style rooms one level belowground. And all made up of multiple identical-size hexagons. The floor they’re on contains the entryway and elevator, and then beyond it, something called “Hydrogen Hall” that appears to be a theater-style meeting space. Then there are five hexagonal “wings”—biology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, and earth sciences. And all are color-coded. Colors that, if she had to guess, likely correlate with the girls’ different jumpsuit hues.

  These wings, with the theater as the sixth block, connect and surround a central seventh hexagon that contains mathematics and technology sections as well as something smack in the middle of the facility simply labeled The Hive.

  And yes: There is a whole spa.

  Shuri quickly slips out her Kimoyo card to take a photo.

  And then her eyes are drawn to the center of the room, where light is suddenly emanating from the surface of the desk.

  The only word Shuri can manage when she reaches the (hexagonal) thing is “Whoa.” There’s a large screen embedded in the wood, and on said screen—apart from the incoming message notification that caused the screen to illuminate in the first place—is a digitized schematic.

  One with labeled dots moving all around it.

  The labels include a single letter—an initial, Shuri quickly figures out—followed by a period and three other letters.

  Which, knowing what she knows, makes it difficult to shake the feeling that the C.Jen in the engineering and robotics section is Cici Jenkins, Riri’s friend Shuri thinks she spotted in the hall. The S.Reh currently bouncing about in optical astronomy is probably for Sharleen Rehmann, the planetary-system-discovering girl missing from Pakistan.

  Shuri’s eyes drift to the zoology department in the bio wing … and there it is: P.Bau.

  Pilar Bautista.

  “Hey, K’Marah? What is your French friend’s surna—”

  “We have to leave,” K’Marah says. There’s a sheet of paper seemingly floating in midair. “Like right, right now. Where are you?”

  “Huh?”

  The sheet slams down on the table. “I can’t see you. Where are you? We need to leave.”

  Shuri rolls her eyes. “Look, I know you’re scared, but—”

  “Please just tell me where you are!”

  “Fine! Jeez!” Shuri removes her Kimoyo card from the pocket of her suit and holds it in the air.

  “Okay, great,” K’Marah says, grabbing the paper, rushing over, and reaching for Shuri’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  “K’Marah, wait.” Shuri snatches away. “I need you to look at this map and tell me if you see your French friends—”

  “We need to go, Shuri!” K’Marah says. And something about the way she says it this time makes Shuri snap to attention. “Look!” K’Marah shoves the sheet of paper in Shuri’s direction, and the princess takes it.

  Then she drops it on the floor.

  It’s a list.

  Bright Futures is printed big and bold at the top.

  And three spaces down?

  Princess Shuri of Wakanda.

  With the map of the hexagon-centric facility in hand, locating the emergency exit that will place the Wakandan girls nearest to the Predator is easy. The door is at the back end of the purple-coded biology wing, and Shuri knows an alarm is likely to blare once they open it, but by the time anyone responds to the disturbance, she and K’Marah will have slipped out.

  But as the girls round the final corner and spot the hallway that will lead them to freedom, one of the girls they saw leaving the spa earlier steps into their path.

  Riri’s friend Cici.

  Shuri doesn’t realize she’s following the tall girl until she feels a pull on her arm so intense, it makes her suck in a breath. “What are you doing?” K’Marah hisses from behind her. “The exit is this way!”

  Shuri watches as Cici pauses to hug a friend in passing, and then walks through an automatic door on the right. Shuri peeks at the layout image on her phone. Cici has entered a washroom. “I have to talk to her,” she says.

  “Talk to whom?”

  “The girl in red.”

  “Shuri, I don’t think this is a good ide—”

  “Come on.” And Shuri pulls K’Marah forward.

  Once inside the space, Shuri slips into a stall and decloaks herself. When the princess hears the flush of the toilet next door and the zip of Cici’s jumpsuit, she takes a deep breath. The taller girl’s stall creaks open, and there’s a sound of footsteps before water is turned on.

  Shuri pulls her own stall door wide and steps out. She and Cici lock eyes in the mirror, and Cici’s go wide before they narrow. With suspicion.

  The princess has to talk fast.

  “Umm … hi,” Shuri says, launching herself forward. She sticks her hand out, and Cici looks down at it. Clearly grossed out.

  Shuri bets K’Marah is rolling her eyes right now.

  “Sorry, should probably wash that, eh?” Shuri steps up to the sink. “So I know you don’t know me, but I know who you are because I know a friend of yours? Riri Williams is her name—”

  “Wait, you know Riri?” Now the girl just looks confused.

  “Yes!” Shuri says, thinking she’s found an in. “I do! She’s … been looking for you.”

  Wrong thing to say. Cici’s face shutters instantly and suspicion crawls back into her eyebrows. “Who are you?” she says. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Which sci-dis do you belong to?”

  “Which …” Shuri’s vision has begun to go fuzzy at the edges. Is she that nervous? “Come again?”

  “Sci. Dis. As in scientific discipline?” Cici gives Shuri a once-over. “Why are you out of uniform?”

  The longer Shuri stands without her suit’s mask on, the harder it becomes to hold her thoughts together. It’s as if they all tumble apart into individual letters and leak out her ears.

  She actually smiles at the thought.

  What is going on?

  She shakes her head. The fog clears just enough for Shuri to remember what she’s doing here.

  “Okay,” she says. “I know this is likely very strange, being accosted in the washroom by a complete stranger within a maximum security facility in the middle of a salt desert, but you have to listen to me, Cici: You are in danger. Everyone here is. Lady N … she’s not a good person.”

  To Shuri’s utter shock, Cici looks genuinely concerned. And maybe a bit betrayed. “She’s not?”

  “Nope. Not at all. We have to get you and the others out of here. Before it’s too late.” (For what, exactly, Shuri isn’t sure, but she doesn’t say that.)

  “Wow!” Cici says. “That’s … wow! Have you told anyone else this? Some authorities have to know, right? Has Riri alerted anyone back home?”

  Shuri exhales. This is going better than she expected.

  “Ummm … Well, I wasn’t completely sure about things until we arrived.”

  Cici nods. “Good call,” she says.

  Shuri feels a tug on the back of her suit, but she ignores it. Gotta seal the deal. “So you’ll come?”

  “Oh, I definitely want to leave with you, but I need to let a friend know so she can cover for me until we get back with help. Can you wait here?”

  Another tug. Shuri ignores.

  “Of course, of course.” Shuri
nods so fervently, it’s a wonder her head doesn’t detach from her neck and roll across the floor.

  The moment Cici exits, Shuri rounds on K’Marah. “Why were you pulling on my suit? Are you trying to get us caught?”

  “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Shuri,” comes a disembodied voice from farther to the right than Shuri expects.

  “What has gotten into you? Aren’t I usually the overly cautious one?”

  “I’m wondering the same thing about you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  In truth, Shuri has a vague idea of precisely what K’Marah means, but she can’t seem to hold it in her head. All she can currently think about is how pretty the music is and how good the air smells.

  The princess would love to tour the engineering and tech sections of this place, and is sad that she won’t be able to. In fact, Shuri finds that she is mildly envious of anyone who gets to stay here.

  “I’ll admit that, yes, I have been feeling off, but you … you’ve been a bit rash since we entered this place,” K’Marah continues. “Frankly, I’m surprised that you trust that girl. She agreed a bit too swiftly, in my opinion … In fact, we should probably leave before she comes back. If she comes back.”

  “You are being such a … a Deckie Downer.”

  “It’s Debbie Downer. And I’m not trying to be, Shuri. I just … something isn’t right. At least go back invisible in case someone else comes in—”

  A siren sound begins to blare.

  “Warning: intruder alert. Building lockdown commencing.”

  K’Marah doesn’t say anything else, but she doesn’t have to. Shuri feel the waves of I told you so flowing off her invisible best friend in time with the alarm. The princess returns to invisibility …

  And just in time: The door to the bathroom swings open, and an older girl—maybe college-age?—sticks her head in. Her jumpsuit is black. “Don’t bother,” comes a voice from behind her. “I’m sure she fled the moment the alarm went off.”

  The older girl’s eyes sweep the room before she disappears back into the hallway. And then Shuri is yanked forward with so much force, she lets out a small yelp. (The alarm is still blaring, praise Bast.)