Tuesday, May 29

  Fordross Base

  Mission: N/A

  7:06

  We entered Director Chavez’s office—or what looked like an electrical closet that accidentally got promoted. Same unlabeled door, same gray walls, except this one had a chandelier and carpet pretending to be fancy.

  The room had a warm hue to it—pinkish, though the bulbs were clearly white—like the light was embarrassed to be there. Papers, folders, and a box of pizza spread across his desk, arranged in stacks that suggested chaos trying to cosplay as organization.

  Chavez, wearing a gray t-shirt and pajama pants, stared at us like we had just crawled out of a sewer drain.

  “Have you ever discovered indoor plumbing?” he asked. “You look like you fought a porta-potty and lost.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  “You’re welcome—also, do you want pizza? Actually—Stephanie, order two more boxes. The good kind. And not that pineapple war-crime nonsense.”

  “On it,” Stephanie said as she left.

  He snapped his fingers a few times, trying to remember something. “Connor. Right. Connor Kid.”

  “Yep.”

  He pulled a thin tablet from under a folder, mumbling in three different languages as he wrestled it free. With a few aggressive taps and one near-spill of pizza grease, a dark blue map flickered to life.

  “Agent D7 got the message to HQ,” he said. “They’re thrilled you're alive. Shocked, but thrilled. But now your little escape has the TSA scrambling. They’ve confirmed their transport got hit, and that somebody ran off with you—which means—”

  “They’re coming for him,” September affirmed, “we already know this.”

  “Good,” Chavez nodded. “So instead of hiding you—we make them think they’ve found you and use that as a distraction. We leak a location. A controlled location. They’ll think they’re closing in on Prodigal.”

  “Prodigal?” I repeated.

  “That’s your codename now,” he said. “Don’t argue. It’s already printed on things.”

  I stared at the map. “So, where will I be?”

  “At a location farther away from the controlled area,” he said, leaning back. “Calvary will come to your location and once we send the coordinates to the headquarters, Captain Drails will teleport you out. No trade. No surrender. Just extraction after engagement.”

  “And Mari?” I asked. My voice came out smaller than expected.

  He paused—not mocking, not joking now. “Mari went dark. She escaped on her own route. And we can’t guarantee that she’ll show up at the meeting. If anything, we don’t need her to.”

  So Agent D7 didn’t manage to find a way to bait Mari—for a good reason—but it was still disheartening.

  “We stabilize first,” he said quietly. “Then we find her.”

  Silence stretched for a moment.

  Then, he zoomed the map out, showing Maine. “We stage here, on the outskirts of Brickford Ridge. TSA would arrive at an estimate by ground between five-thirty and six—standard approach. Captain Drails can teleport small teams, sure, but not entire task units. You’ll be positioned in sight of the perimeter but out of reach. We open comms. We inform HQ. Then we vanish.”

  “And if it goes badly?” September asked.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “We can retreat back to Fordross. This base stretches all the way to Vermont,” Chavez said. “Underground routes, checkpoints, extraction nodes. If we move fast, we can stay ahead of them. Worst case—we wait out in base for rescue.”

  I slumped back in the chair as he continued.

  “Listen. We don’t have all the information, or all the time. But we do have something they want. And that’s enough to make them slow down. Enough to open a channel. September saving you…that gave us a shot.”

  The two doors opened. A guard walked in, stacked boxes of pizza in his arms, fully geared like he was going into war instead of delivering mozzarella. Stephanie kept the door open.

  “Finally,” Chavez sighed. “And hey—interesting choice to fall asleep together after watching that movie. Very platonic of you.”

  My jaw dropped. September covered her face.

  Director Chavez grinned and pushed a pizza box toward us.

  “Come on,” he said. “Didn’t make this for nothing.”

  As we opened up a box of pepperoni (I hate pepperoni) pizza, I asked, “Y’all planned all this yesterday?”

  “What we’re trained to do,” he said, devouring his last slice of pizza. “Besides, this isn’t even a great plan. It’s more of a hail mary than anything.”

  ***

  The break room wasn’t a very good distraction from the racing ball of stress circulating around my mind. It wasn’t as if I was scared of fumbling anything—rather I was excited to just get back to the YMPA. But, what scared me the most was after.

  What happens?

  We now know that the TSA has been chasing me for some odd reason, although I have no idea as to why. What if I’m just at home with my family, enjoying Thanksgiving and suddenly the TSA busts down the door and hurts them? What if they go for Greg? Tisiah, Nikki, or September?

  They’ll probably be gunning for September too, because she keeps having to pick up my marbles after every attempt on my life. She has to be tired of the whole charade.

  Oh, Connor’s danger—gotta go help him. How does that present me? A pathetic drumstick that can’t save his own life, nonetheless hers. At least I didn’t look like a dirty pig. If anything, I looked much better. I was given this black long-sleeve t-shirt with these beige pants and black nonslip shoes. The shirt was super tight though, and I had no abs or juiced-up muscles to make up for it.

  “You gonna play?”

  I glanced up, seeing Stephanie face me with concerned glare. It was my turn at the pool, whereas September stood by the side and was watching.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, playing my turn and getting zero balls anywhere. I could tell that my form was a complete mess, but I played this game once five years ago. I barely even understand all the rules.

  “How did they even estimate when the TSA’s gonna show up?” September asked.

  “Probably means they already managed to access the whereabouts of the entire TSA task team,” Stephanie answered, lining up the pole to absolute perfection.

  “But how can you even do that if the TSA hacked into our communications?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m thinking this—it’s weird, but it’s one thing the YMPA knows how to do very well—when the TSA managed to infiltrate our system, they also exposed themselves too. By being in our system, it basically gave a pathway for the YMPA to get into theirs. Besides, the YMPA have already begun to recover most of our comms,” September explained. “I just figured the TSA would know.”

  “Well, we haven’t done anything,” Stephanie said. “You gonna go?”

  “Oh—” I cleared my throat, trying to copy the exact same form. But based on Stephanie’s curled-in mouth, I could imagine I was doing it completely wrong. I thrust the pole. No balls.

  “You need help, Connor—” September tried to ask.

  “Nah, nah, nah,” I chuckled, my teeth probably showing a lot more than they ever had the permission to do.

  “Which reminded me—what were you guys doing?” Stephanie asked. “Other than watching a movie?”

  “Watching a movie…” I replied. I mean what else were we doing… or at least look like we were doing? It wasn’t explained but definitely hinted by Stephanie’s skeptical smirk. “I’m just saying…”

  “Saying what?” September asked, brows furrowed.

  Stephanie glanced between two of us, then lined up her shot. “Corner pocket,” she said. She hit the 8 ball by September, looked at me and swung her head in her direction. “Pocket.”

  September stayed clueless, which I’m almost certain she was just acting the part. But I mean hey, I wouldn’t expect her to confess things around other people. I wouldn’t either.

  ***

  The night came, as me and September made our way to our room. “At four, we need to wake up and get ready. Eat your breakfast, that way you can at least return back on a full stomach,” September said, closing the door of our room. “And stay by me, always.”

  “What if one of the guys on the rescue team tells me to follow him?”

  “Then I’m following him too,” she replied. “My point stands alright?”

  She put her hand on my forearm, her face beaming with emphasis. “Remember, you are a target. You can’t just be anywhere. You need to be with somebody that you trust. Do you trust me?” she asked.

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

  “So stay by me at all times. All times.”

  With that, she presumed control of the bottom bed, whereas I climbed up to the top. The light was off, and darkness had developed the rooms, leaving me into a confrontation with my thoughts and fears.

  What could go wrong?