Chapter 2

Chapter 2 DON'T FORGET TO STOP AND SMELL THE RAINBONS! THOUGH YOU MIGHT NEED TO BRING A STEPLADDER." The next morning, Morgan awoke feeling anxious. There were too many unanswered questions about what he and his friends would face the next time they put on their VR headsets. Morgan's science teacher, Doc Culpepper, had invented those headsets, and she had asked Morgan and his friends to test them. She seemed to have mostly forgotten about them since then. Doc

liked to hop from one project to the next. For an adult, her attention span seemed awfully short. The kids had told Doc that her headsets were amazing, which was true. Through some advanced science that even Harper didn't understand, the goggles seemed to transport their minds to another world. A world that looked and acted almost exactly like Minecraft. But Morgan and his friends had soon realized they weren't alone in that virtual world. They shared it with a menacing being known as the Evoker King…and a helpful entity who called herself the Librarian. The kids had decided not to share those particular details with Doc. The last thing they wanted was for her to take the headsets away to dissect them. On their walk to school, Jodi quickly picked up on Morgan's mood. "What's eating you today, big brother?" she asked. Morgan sighed. "I'm just going over everything in my head. We never found Doc's missing sixth

headset, you know…." "And you thought that whoever had the headset was secretly the Evoker King." "But the Evoker King turned out to be an artificial intelligence," Morgan said. "He's one hundred percent digital. It's the Librarian who has the headset…and a secret identity." "Do you have a theory about who she might be?" Jodi asked. "I don't," he admitted. "But she obviously knows more than she's told us. If we can find her, she might be able to tell us what the Evoker King is really up to. Or what the Foundation Stone does." "In the past, the Librarian has always found us," Jodi reminded him. "Not the other way around." "Maybe that needs to change," said Morgan.

By now, the siblings had arrived at the front lawn of the school. Morgan saw Harper and Po, but Ash wasn't there. That was unusual. Ash was often the first to arrive. "Where's Ash?" he asked. "We need to make a plan." "Haven't seen her," Harper said. Po shrugged. Jodi peered down the sidewalk. "I'm sure she'll be here soon," she said. But Ash never showed up on the lawn. Morgan couldn't find her at her locker, either. She slipped into homeroom mere seconds before the late bell rang. She gave him a little wave, and Morgan noticed she had dark circles under her eyes.

It looked as if she hadn't gotten any sleep. He wanted to ask her about that. But Ms. Minerva, their homeroom teacher, had already started taking attendance, and talking wasn't allowed during attendance. Apparently, no one had ever mentioned that rule to Doc. The science teacher burst into the classroom in a fit of excitement. "Class!" she said. "Look! Look outside the window!"

Morgan turned his head in the direction she was pointing. It was easy to understand why Doc was so excited. Stretching across the sky was the most magnificent rainbow Morgan had ever seen. He'd seen small rainbows before. But this one looked like a drawing out of a storybook. It seemed to spring from the trees and spread through the blue above before arcing back down to the ground. He could clearly make out each color, from red to violet. The whole class oohed and aahed, Morgan loudest of all. "Can anyone tell me what causes a rainbow to appear?" Doc asked. Morgan didn't know the answer, but others did.