"The forbidden hall ofthe East Wing is almost directly beneath us," I began slowly. "All wehave to do is access the dumbwaiter shaft on the fourth floor, maneuver throughthe heating vents by the Culture and Assimilation classroom, and rappel fiftyor so feet through the ductwork." But even as I said it, I knew itcouldn't be nearly as easy as it sounded.

"So…" Macey said,"what are we waiting for?" She jumped to her feet and started for thedoor.

"Macey! Wait!"Everyone looked at me. "The security department did a lot of work over thebreak." I pulled my legs closer, wrapped my arms tighter. "I don'tknow what kind of upgrades they made, what they might have changed. They wereall over those tunnels and passageways, and …" I trailed off, gratefulthat Bex was there to finish for me.

"We don't know what's inthere, Macey," she said, even though the fact that we didn't know what laywaiting in the East Wing was kind of the point, and I could tell by the look onher face that Macey was getting ready to say so.

"Surprises," Ifinished slowly, "as a rule … are bad."

Macey sank to the floor besideme while I told myself that everything I'd said was true. After all, it was arisky operation. We didn't have adequate intel or nearly enough time to prep. Ican list a dozen perfectly logical reasons why I stayed on that stone floor,but the one I didn't tell my friends was that I had promised my mother that mydays of sneaking around and breaking rules were over. And I'd kind of hoped myvow would last longer than twenty-four hours.

"So, what do we donow?" Liz asked.

Bex smiled. "Oh,"she said mischievously, "we'll think of something."

 Covert Operations ReportSummary of Surveillance By Cameron Morgan, Rebecca Baxter, Elizabeth Sutton,and Macey McHenry (hereafter referred to as "The Operatives")

 When faced with the knowledgethat faculty members of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women wereplanning a rogue operation, The Operatives began a research and recognizancemission to determine the following: