10 BREAKING AND ENTERING

10 BREAKING AND ENTERING Lunar day 217 T minus 22 minutes to Capsule Drop I bounded out the gym door after Kira. "What are you doing?" "I'm not measuring the stupid gym anymore, that's for sure." Kira made a point of shoving her laser measuring device into her pocket. "That's only busy work Chang made up to get us out of the way." We passed the common room, which Dr. Janke and Dr. Balnikov were busily measuring. I pointed to them. "If it was busy work, would they be doing it?" Kira didn't even glance at them. "If we really want to know where Nina went, the answer isn't out here.

It's in her quarters." "Why?" Kira rolled her eyes. "That's the last place you saw her. And you were the last person to see her. So if somebody whacked her, they probably did it there." "Not necessarily." "Well, there's a better chance they did it there than anywhere else. And if they didn't, there could still be a clue to who the killer is in Nina's personal stuff." "Nina didn't have any personal stuff." Kira froze at the bottom of the staircase and fixed me with a withering stare, like she was getting annoyed. "Everyone has personal stuff. Nina just kept hers secret." I knew it was pointless to argue. Once Kira made up her mind to do something, she usually did it. Plus, she had a thing about entering places that were supposed to be off-limits to her. Back on earth, she'd trespassed a lot, going behind the scenes in places like museums, zoos, and movie theaters. She claimed she did this simply out of curiosity, but my parents suspected she was really trying to get attention. After all, her mother had died of cancer when she was young and her father tended to get

lost in his own thoughts for hours at a time. Causing trouble was a good way to get him to focus on her. Given this, I wondered if Kira truly believed there were any clues in Nina's residence—or if she was merely making an excuse to sneak into it. I followed her up the stairs to Nina's door. Normally, getting past the electronic entry system would have been impossible, but since Chang had kicked the door open earlier that day, it couldn't be locked again. When Kira pushed on it, it swung right open. "We shouldn't be doing this," I warned. "Who's gonna punish us?" Kira asked. "Nina's gone." "What are you doing?" a voice behind us asked. Kira and I spun around to find Violet peeking around the corner from the stairs. She'd apparently followed us from the gym. "Come inside and I'll tell you," Kira said, then slipped through the door before anyone else noticed us. Violet and I followed her into the room. Kira shut the door behind us, then explained to Violet, "We're on a top secret mission to investigate what happened to Nina."

"Okay!" Violet agreed happily. "But I thought she was made out of bananabots." "Nanobots," I corrected. "And no, she wasn't." "But Roddy said she was." "Roddy was wrong," Kira told her. "As usual. Now, you can help us if you want, but I need you to be very careful. You can touch things, but if you do, you have to put them right back where you found them. Understand?" Violet nodded so enthusiastically it looked as though her head might come off. "What are we looking for?" "I'm not sure," Kira admitted. "Anything unusual." She scanned the room, then frowned. "Though that might not take long. There's not much here." "I told you," I said. Kira ignored me and started poking through Nina's desk. The drawers were unlocked. Violet picked up the InflatiCubes and searched under them, as if anything important would have been hidden that way. I stayed by the door. I didn't feel comfortable rooting through Nina's room. Plus, I wasn't sure where else to look.

"This desk is almost empty," Kira said, sounding annoyed. I came over to see. So did Violet. The desk drawers had little in them, save for a few stray pencils and some other office supplies. In the right bottom drawer was a Moon Base Alpha commanders" guide. It looked very similar to the Moon Base Alpha residents" guide the rest of us had been issued, only it was a bit thicker. In the left bottom drawer was a toolbox, which was probably more useful on a moon base than any paperwork would have been. We opened it, but found only tools inside. "There's nothing personal in this room at all," Kira muttered. "No books. No pictures. No nothing. Maybe Nina really is a robot." "You just said she wasn't," Violet pointed out. Kira smiled at her. "What I mean is, she doesn't seem to have much of a personality." "Sometimes Mommy says I have too much personality," Violet reported. "I'm sure Nina had some books and photos and stuff," I said. "But it's probably all on her computer. I know she had a tablet, but I think Chang took it." "Still," Kira said. "It doesn't seem she had

anything in her life except running this base. Have you ever heard her talk about anyone in her family?" "I've never heard Nina talk about anything that wasn't work," I said, then walked over to Nina's tabletop SlimScreen. It was in dormant mode, displaying a fake marble tabletop. I tapped on it. It instantly displayed a new screen: PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD. I frowned. My family had never enabled the password protection on the SlimScreens in our room. "Any idea what Nina's password might be?" I asked. "Turnip!" Violet suggested. Kira said, "Knowing Nina, it's probably a twenty- digit string of random letters and numbers she's memorized." "Yeah," I agreed. I couldn't imagine Nina using anything personal, like a pet's name. In fact, I couldn't imagine Nina having a pet. "Platypus!" Violet shouted, still trying to come up with the password. "Snorkel! Tiddlywinks!" Kira got down on her back and scooted under the desk, looking up at the bottom of it. Violet imitated her, lying down under the desk as well. "What are we doing?" "Seeing if there's anything hidden under here."