Infiltration Read Online Free PDF Page B

of a fridge. The living room was perfect, like a set from a tv show. No mess. No clutter. No sign of what the Ridgeways were like. Maybe they hadn’t had time to really settle in yet. Mr. Ridgeway returned with Kieran. He looked like he’d been up all night. His hair was tangled, and his black T-shirt was wrinkled. He had huge bags under his eyes. He nodded at me. “Hey.”
    â€œBoys,” Mr. Ridgeway said, “I’d appreciate it if you kept the noise down. I’ll be in my office.” It bugged me how he was looking at Kieran. Like he was something that smelled bad.
    Kieran didn’t reply. We waited until his dad left.
    A few minutes later we were upstairs in Kieran’s room. Like the living room, it looked as if it came straight from a furniture store. A cheap generic poster of a sailboat was neatly framed on one wall. The single bed was perfectly made up. Looking at Kieran, I guessed that he hadn’t slept in it recently.
    â€œDude,” I said. “You have the cleanest room I’ve ever seen. Do you actually live here or just visit?” I was trying to make a joke, but Kieran didn’t smile. He slumped into an office chair beside an empty wooden desk.
    â€œIt doesn’t feel like my room,” he said. “When we moved here, my dad paid someone to decorate the house. He bought everything new and left all our old stuff behind. I think he might have left me behind as well if he could have.” Kieran pulled out a battered black laptop from under the desk. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not planning on staying here for too long.” He jammed a memory stick into the laptop and typed.
    I looked out the bedroom window at the sun setting behind the identical houses marching down the street, like an army of clones. This wasn’t a place I would want to stay in either. Before I could ask any more questions, Kieran spun the laptop around so I could see the screen.
    â€œHere,” he said. “Like I said, I’ve got a bunch of blueprints and maps of the DMA site in here. It’s not complete. My dad nearly busted me copying this stuff off his computer, so I had to rush it. But there was enough for me to see that there’s no way in. That I could find.”
    I sat down on the bed, taking his laptop with me. As I scrolled through the computer files, the screen filled with digital pictures and maps. I realized that this was going to be like breaking into a bank. There were security cameras, fences, guard posts—the works. Instead of getting frustrated, though, I was getting more excited. It was a puzzle waiting to be cracked. Kieran watched over my shoulder.
    â€œYou know, there are rumors about you at school,” I said to him, while I worked my way through the files. “Did you guys move here because of something you did?”
    I turned and saw Kieran’s face tighten up. It looked the same as when he screamed at Mr. Kurtzia in the science lab. But he kept his voice steady.
    â€œIt wasn’t my fault that we moved,” he said. “It all started when my mom died.”
    My hands froze on the keyboard.
    â€œWhat happened to her? Like, an accident or something?” It sounded awkward as I said it. I should have kept my mouth shut.
    â€œNo,” said Kieran. “Suicide.” I felt so bad for him right then. He said the word flatly, like it didn’t mean anything. He stared at his hands in his lap, fiddling with a chunky ring on one finger. Then suddenly he looked at me, that hard look back in his eyes.
    â€œI’m trusting you, right? You never repeat this shit that I’m telling you, get it?” I just nodded. Kieran went back to looking at his ring.
    â€œI had a hard time with it. But my dad…” Kieran’s voice trailed off. “My dad wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, like we had to hide her death or something. I couldn’t talk about it with him.” Kieran’s voice