Installment 16

            Man, oh man, oh man, oh man…

            How long has it been now?

            I promise, it’s not my fault. Okay, I guess it is…partly. I haven’t had…

            It’s a bad idea to talk about it.

            Okay, so, it’s probably time for a recap. I was coming home from school one day, and I found a bunch of police officers in my living room. They took me to the police station and I met a mysterious guy named Travis Thatcher who accused me of hacking into his “system,” and trying to steal some top secret computer program called Back Door – and then he practically admitted that he was framing me. He had me try to hack into the system “again” (I never did it the first time), and when I deleted the program instead of succeeding, he just laughed. Anyway, so a girl named Clara Stone helped me get out and we headed off to a bus station to escape the town. Oh, yeah, and Clara’s parents were somehow involved with this whole thing, but we don’t know how or anything like that. We got into Base 13 of the bad guys and looked around on their computer system. And then someone named Pseudonym contacted us and told us that we needed to go to the White House to get inside Base 21.

            Anyway, back to where I was last time…the White House. Yeah. Here we go.

            Clara and I took a train this time. Less possibility that we would be stopped – plus, we managed to sneak onto the luggage car. We sat cross-legged in the middle of mountains of suitcases and played a game of chess on her phone. She was a fantastic chess player, by the way. A better opponent than any I had ever faced, and at the risk of sounding conceited, I’m pretty good. The game ended in a draw, incidentally, with both of us arguing about whether a certain move was legal. (I’m pretty sure I was right.)

            When we arrived in Washington…

            Oh, yeah.

            You’re probably wondering why I can tell you that we went to Washington. That’s because Washington, D.C. is way too well known, and besides, I know that no one saw me. But since I haven’t given you a very good description of myself (practically none), and the only people who saw me in Washington are people who want me dead anyway, I don’t see any harm in telling you a location that everybody already knows.

            Back to the story.

            So when we arrived, we stood outside the train station, a little bit bewildered by the bustling crowds. Neither of us had ever been anywhere this huge – or this crowded – before. And part of me thought that there was no way we would ever be found in someplace with this many people.

            Finally Clara spoke. “What if it’s a trap?”

            I looked at her incredulously. “A trap?” I shrugged. “Maybe. But what other choice do we have?”

            “We could just hide here,” she pointed out. “Find a hole somewhere and stay there.”

            “For how long?” I asked. “No, we have to trust Pseudonym.”

            “Trust a guy whose name means that he won’t tell us his name,” she muttered. But she said nothing further, and we walked down the street.

            We made a few turns, did our best to keep our heads down – not that anyone would notice us, anyway, even though we were two kids wearing shades and a ridiculously heavy purple backpack – and finally decided to head into a little coffee shop. (Not Starbucks, I can tell you that.)

            After hanging out around the corner for a minute, inspecting the room for anything useful, Clara motioned me toward the door – a door right behind the counter and next to the kitchen marked Office.

            “Why there?” I whispered.

            Clara motioned around. “It’s a coffee shop, Einstein,” she retorted. “Since when does a coffee shop have an office for the manager? Besides, I’m guessing that this particular coffee shop has only been in business for about a month.” She gestured toward a menu sitting on a table, a menu with an outdated ad for a Grand Opening special. “They probably don’t even use the office. It was probably here from the last business that was here, so we can probably hide out there.”

            I stared at her. “When did you get this smart?”

            Clara smiled. “Now and then.”

            But when I tried to casually open the door when the waitress wasn’t looking, it wouldn’t open. I caught Clara’s eyes.

            Locked.

            The plan was formulated in seconds – neither of us had to say anything. We both knew what the other was going to do. I guess it was a little bit like back in the alleyway when Clara had pulled out the explosive. We just worked as one unit.

            I think it was then that I knew Clara and I would make a good team.

            Clara walked casually over toward one of the tables and picked up the menu. Then, she gave an exaggerated gasp, looking down at it. Then, waving the menu with raised eyebrows and indignation etched on her features, she marched up to the counter.

            “Excuse me?” she asked.

            The waitress glanced up. “Yes?”

            “Can I talk to your manager?”

            She looked surprised. “If you have a question, I’m sure I can answer it.”

            Clara barked a short laugh. “Ha! As if.”

            “As if…what?” the waitress asked, looking bewildered.

            “Why,” Clara began, shoving the menu into her face, “does the menu have a Grand Opening special on it? I assume you don’t offer it anymore.”

            The waitress glanced at the menu. “Well, no…”

            “So that’s false advertising, isn’t it?”

            “Well, the owner is trying to catch up with things, and we’re a small firm, and our designer is sick, and – ”

            “Is that really an excuse?” she retorted.

            Meanwhile, I was sneaking into the back kitchen. The keys weren’t hard to find. The ring underneath the word “office” was empty, but I found the key knocked underneath the table. In the background, Clara was rambling on and on about false advertising and integrity in work. When I grabbed the key and slipped out again, I gave her the signal and she stopped abruptly.

            “On second thought,” she said, “I guess it’s not all that bad. By the way, I hear someone calling you from the kitchen. Your boss is probably angry.”

            The waitress retreated into the back – probably more out of a desire to escape the crazy girl than a willingness to obey Clara. I opened the office quickly and we slipped inside, locking the door behind us.

            It was a good situation. We had the key, and the door could be unlocked from both the inside and outside. This way, since the room had already been locked, our only problem would be getting inside without anyone noticing. But by the looks of it, the café was not very busy.

            Just then, I got a beep on my phone. I glanced down, not surprised to find another text from Pseudonym waiting for me.

     Password is “crevice”.

     I looked up at Clara. “He’s giving us an entry password.”

            Without hesitating, I responded to his message.

            Any hints on where to get in? Base 21 is the White House, right?

     He answered right away. Man, this guy was a fast typist.

            In a manner of speaking. I think you’d say it’s a little bit…lower than the White House.

     I was pretty sure I knew what he meant.

            Underneath the White House? Like Base 13 under the library?

     You got it.

     “Are you asking him where the entrance is?” Clara asked. I looked down at the incoming text message.

            “He’s got it covered,” I assured her.

            There’s an entrance outside. Find the panel in the middle of the wall and type in the password. You’ll get in – and I promise you’ll find some interesting information as well.

     Won’t they care that we’re there? I asked. I’m pretty sure it won’t be deserted like 13 was.

     I have to interrupt really quickly here to clear something up. Number one, he didn’t actually tell us to look for a panel in the wall any more than my name is Nathan T. Dalton. But I can’t give you the real location of the entrance or else you might go looking for it, and we definitely can’t have that. Anyway, back to the conversation.

            Pseudonym’s answer was swift.

            This is a highly crowded base – which is exactly why you won’t be noticed, especially if you’re wearing sunglasses. Get in and out, ten minutes tops, and you should be fine. Use the same pass code you used to get in to access a computer. Download extra files onto a flash drive. Got that?

     Clara pulled a flash drive from her backpack and nodded.

            Got it, I typed.

            I waited for another text from Pseudonym, but he said nothing. Finally, I put the phone back in my pocket.

            “I guess we’re going to Base 21,” I told Clara. “And breaking in. Again.”

            But this mission was bound to be different from Base 13 – whether harder or easier, I wasn’t sure.

-Nathan T. Dalton

Installment 15

            Seconds after the message appeared on the screen, it disappeared again. Pseudonym was gone, and no more IM’s came through.

            “He’s the one I’m being framed for,” I said quietly.

            Clara frowned. “So Travis is blaming you for what this Pseudonym guy did?”

            I held my forehead in my hands, trying to figure this out. “He hacked into Travis’ system, and tried to steal Back Door. For some reason or other it didn’t work.”

            This much was obvious. There was a missing piece, though.

            “Why frame me?” I asked, turning to Clara for an answer. She shook her head.

            “I don’t know. There’s no real reason. It seems like Travis is taking too much trouble for this framing business.”

            “Wait…” I started, thinking back. “Didn’t he tell Larson that I was just a cover up? A name so that the real name didn’t get out?”

            Clara stared at me. “You’re right. That’s why he didn’t try to capture you -- you’re better on the run. They can blame you, try to chase you down, and any further hacks would be chalked down to you still being at large.”

            “But why wouldn’t they call…call Pseudonym out on it? Why frame me?”

            Clara answered quickly. The answer was obvious.

            “Because Travis is trying to protect him.”

            Of course. Whether under orders or not, Travis had framed me in order to keep everyone in the dark about Pseudonym -- whoever he was. But why me in particular, and why would Travis want to protect Pseudonym?

            “He’s a potential enemy. Do we do what he says?”

            Clara bit her lip. “You mean…go to Base 21?”

            I nodded.

            “I think…” Clara began.

            But I never got to hear what she thought, because we discovered at that very moment that you can never be too careful -- a lesson we had yet to learn properly.

            “Okay, hands up.”

            Neither Clara or I turned around. Slowly and simultaneously, we lifted our hands into the air.

            “Don’t move.”

            I didn’t recognize the voice -- it wasn’t Travis or Larson. Someone new. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then I heard muttering that I couldn’t make out. It wasn’t being addressed to us.

            “Nathan,” Clara said in a soft whisper.

            “What?” I breathed back.

            “I think it’s time to try to get into another one of those folders.”

            I lowered my eyebrows, trying to figure out what that would do. Then it hit me.

            I reached down and clicked on another folder, one in the main center of things.

            Several things happened. First, the man behind us shouted, “Don’t move!” Then, a screen popped up requesting a level four password. But instead of typing double agent, I typed a random string of letters: sdklfjalskdfja. Then, I pressed Enter.

            “Don’t move!” the guy shouted again, taking a few steps toward us.

            Suddenly, a piercing alarm went off. At that moment, I whirled around, and so did Clara. In one swift, determined motion, Clara hurled her backpack at the man standing only about three feet away by this time.

            Surprised by the suddenness of the alarm, the man didn’t counter the backpack quickly enough, and all the gadgets accumulated in Clara Stone’s purple backpack clonked him squarely on the head. A look of pure shock crossed his face before he toppled over backward.

            “Oh!” Clara exclaimed, mortified, as her hands flew to her mouth. “Did I kill him?”

            I examined the man. He was dressed all in black, and he wore a small headset -- probably what he had been talking into. He didn’t look all that different from an average guy off the street, except for the headset and his pair of sunglasses.

            Wait a minute…those sunglasses looked familiar.

            I snatched them off the man’s closed eyes and tapped the side of the glasses.

            “He’s not dead,” I informed Clara. I blinked a few times. “Clara, this is another pair of your tracking sunglasses.

            Clara took her hands away from her mouth. “Really? You mean my parents had a pair of sunglasses…”

            “Owned by the enemy, yes,” I finished.

            “Operation 497,” Clara corrected.

            “Whatever you want,” I agreed.

            And with that, we crossed the room by unspoken consent, Clara glancing back at the fallen man briefly, grabbing her backpack as we passed. The alarms were still blaring, a loud, accusing sound.

            “If we’re lucky,” I told her, “No one else is here.”

            “And if we’re not,” Clara continued nervously, “There’s no way out.”

            “There has to be.”

            I made my way through the doorway. Clara followed cautiously, glancing about her. The next room was small, filled with boxes. A computer took up the corner, but this one was small and newer. It was unlike any design I had ever seen before, largely because the screen was built into the wall and I couldn’t see the inner workings. I assumed it was a touch screen. At the moment, however, its screen was red with the words CODE 6 displayed in white across it.

            “Let’s not look at this one,” I muttered as Clara and I passed it. There was another door, unmarked, but this one was closed. Without giving myself time to second guess my decision, I pulled it open and slipped through. Clara followed me.

            It was an elevator.

            Seriously, it was a pretty standard elevator. A lot like the kind you ride in a dentist or doctor’s office. Not that I’ve been to the dentist or doctor a whole lot, anyway. Mostly when I have, it’s either been to a demon dentist who enjoys inflicting pain by drilling holes in your teeth, or to sneak some information out of a doctor’s SD card stored in his pocket. But that’s beside the point.

            I pressed the only button available -- up.

            “The alarms are still going,” Clara whispered, sounding about as worried as I felt. I tried not to let it show.

            “No one else is here,” I assured her. “If there was, the guy wouldn’t have had to call for help on his wireless -- someone would’ve come already. He’s the only one here.”

            “Why?” Clara asked. Leave it to her to ask the questions while we’re still trying to escape.

             I didn’t know, but I did realize this. The bad guys were very well organized…and they definitely were not a part of the government, even if Travis and Larson did work for the government.

            Within a few seconds, the door opened again into an alleyway. I barely had time to recognize it as the one we had crossed in order to reach the library before I heard shouting.

            “There they are!”

            “Duck!” I shouted to Clara. We both threw ourselves down just as the sound of a gunshot split the air.

            “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” screamed a voice I identified as Larson.

            “Clara, get something out of your backpack now!”

            “What?”

            “Anything!”

            She unzipped it and rummaged around. Crouching on the ground, she was so close that I could feel her quick breathing. That was when they reached us. I thought about shouting, but I knew before I ever opened my mouth that it wouldn’t help. At the moment, I didn’t want to get caught by anyone. The bad guys wanted to frame me for a crime I didn’t commit, and the government was going along with that just fine. Everyone wanted me caught.

            No…that wasn’t true. Travis didn’t want me caught.

He had been right about the fact that we should have left.

            I couldn’t stand the idea that Travis was right.

            Two strong men grabbed both my arms and pinned them behind me. I kicked wildly behind me, and managed to land a blow in exactly the right spot. The guy doubled over, wheezing, as I tried to twist out of the grasp of the other one, but without the power and luck of the kick, I couldn’t pull out. But at least for a moment, one arm was free.

            During the chaos, Clara slipped something in my hand.

            I closed my fingers around it. Whatever it was, it was small and smooth and metal. It also had a button on it. I vaguely remembered spotting it before in the backpack, but never examining it closely among all the other shinier, more interesting objects in there.

            Suddenly a thought crossed my brain.

            What if it’s…

            No. It couldn’t be. I couldn’t do that, then I really would be guilty of something. Besides, how would Clara have an explosive in her backpack and we never noticed?

            But I could bluff it…

            “Stand back!” I yelled. The man had grasped both my arms now and was pressing them together. Another couple of guys had grabbed Clara. There seemed to be about seven of them, all dressed in black like the guy we had knocked out, all wearing the same earpiece, and all wearing those same sunglasses. Except for Larson, of course. He was still wearing his policeman’s uniform.

            “Stand back!” I repeated, shouting at the top of my lungs now to get their attention. “I have a bomb!”

            A murmur rippled through them.

            “You won’t kill yourself,” Larson said, somewhat nervously.

            “I’ve got it on a timer,” I said, trying to sound confident. “If you take me anywhere, then it’ll blow up that place. If you stay with me, it’ll kill you, too. If you leave me, I’ll disarm it and we all live happily ever after.”

            “And if I think you’re lying?”

            “Let go of me and I’ll prove I’m not.”

            Larson glanced at the guys holding on to me, then nodded. “Loosen up on him.”

            The men in black holding on to me let go, but just barely. If I made the slightest move, they would pounce on me again. I noticed they weren’t letting Clara get anywhere, but I decided not to push my luck. There was no point – I couldn’t go anywhere without her, and we weren’t about to escape by our muscle power.

            “Okay,” I began, wondering if I would really be able to talk us out of this. “This is a bomb, and it’s on a timer. I’m not going to tell you how long the timer is, but just know that it won’t be too long before it blows us all sky high. If you let us go, I’ll disarm it. If you don’t, we’re all going to die.”

            “That still doesn’t prove you’re not lying,” Larson pointed out.

            “Are you willing to take the chance? I’m assuming none of you are explosive experts?”

            Larson laughed. “These men are trained agents, Mr. Dalton. They know how to disarm bombs.”

            I swallowed. This put a kink into my plan.

            But to my surprise, Clara kicked the man holding her viciously in the shin. As he winced in shock, she dived across the few feet between us, dragging the other guy along with her. In one swift movement, before anyone could do anything, she grabbed the little metal box and pressed her thumb against the button. To keep her other hand free, she shoved the backpack at me.

            Clara displayed her hand and the box to everyone. “If you try to grab either of us, I’ll let go of the button, and it’ll go off.”

            Everyone simultaneously took a step backward. Larson glanced around angrily.

            “Listen, girl, give me – ”

            “You don’t want me to do that,” she said breathlessly. “If I let go, it’ll blow up.”

            “I don’t believe you,” Larson insisted, but his eyes darting back and forth between us told a different story.

            “My parents were agents,” Clara told him. “I took things out of their house, including this explosive. I didn’t think I would have to use it, but I will if I have to. I’ll do what I have to to find out who killed them.”

            “I didn’t kill your parents, Miss Stone,” Larson said, somewhat sarcastically.

            “Then who did?”

            Drew Larson didn’t answer. Instead, he glanced at his comrades.

            If he chose to take the risk and assume we were lying, we were sunk. But if he decided he didn’t want to risk his own skin…there were too many ifs. Our saving grace would probably be Larson’s own sense of self-preservation, as long as there wasn’t someone putting a lot of pressure on him from higher up.

            After several seconds, he smiled wryly. “Very well, then. Have it your way.”

            Clara and I looked at one another in astonishment. “We can go?”

            “No,” Larson said slowly. “You can go ahead and use your little explosive. We’re taking you whether you like it or not.”

            “I’ll let go and kill us all!”

            “No, you won’t. You don’t have the nerve.”

            “Then it’ll blow up and destroy your secret location!”

            “Not a chance. Do you think we hide out in clubhouses in the woods that can just be blown to smithereens by a firecracker?”

            He had a point. I shrugged at Clara, saying silently, It was a good try.

            But Clara hadn’t given up. I could see it in her eyes, even if Larson couldn’t.

            And I realized what she was planning only a fraction of a second before we did it.

            At the same time, we both took advantage of the fact that no one was holding on to us, and we sprinted back down the alley. There was an outlet, but I knew we would get caught. There was no point.

            They had started to follow, but we were both fast runners and had taken them by surprise – plus, I think they felt the same way I did. They were going to catch up eventually, so why worry? But as soon as there was about twenty feet between us and them, Clara whirled around, flung the little box toward them, grabbed my arm and shouted “Run!”

            I didn’t hesitate. We both sprinted out of there as fast as we could, rounding the corner and dashing as far away from that spot as we could in about three seconds.

            And behind me, I heard an ear-deafening explosion.

            I could feel the force of it, even from around the corner. It wasn’t big enough to break down concrete wall, which was why we were still running, but I knew that it had destroyed the alley. Not broken down the walls, but cracked them and the ground, surely. With the force of that explosion…

            “Clara,” I said, slowing down, “We killed them.”

            Clara’s face was white. “No, we didn’t. They survived. They had to. We just…”

            “Incapacitated them! Probably took out a leg or two!”

            “Don’t think about it! Please, Nathan, don’t think about it!”

            I swung the backpack up onto my shoulder, and we kept on running. We sprinted, dashing down the alleys, turning corners, getting lost and not thinking about it.

            I still don’t think about it.

I know that it was necessary, I know that it was self-defense. But I still can’t erase the memory from my mind. It’s impossible to forget that first moment that I was forced to seriously injure someone. Even though I didn’t throw the bomb, I knew that I hadn’t stopped her, and deep down, I had known what she was planning.

            We kept on running until finally I decided that we were good and lost enough. If we didn’t know where we were, they didn’t, and I didn’t think they would be coming after us for at least the rest of the day. We ran into a department store – basically a little mall. Here we could blend in with the crowd.

            We ducked into a store and slipped into the back corner where no one was shopping. Here, Clara sank to the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees.

            And, burying her head in her knees, she started sobbing.

            “I didn’t want to hurt them!” she moaned. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody!”

            I said nothing, but only leaned back against the wall, closing my eyes and feeling the wood, pleasantly cool against my skin. I agreed with her, but I couldn’t see how I could say so. I didn’t want her to see it. I had to be stronger than her – strong enough for both of us.

            But I couldn’t say anything.

            I let her cry.

            Then, suddenly, I heard a beeping from the backpack I still had over my shoulder.

            “What’s that?” I asked slowly, cautiously placing the backpack down onto the floor.

            Clara looked up, tears still rolling down her face. “My phone, I think,” she said shakily.

            I didn’t know she had a phone. I pulled it out. It was a silver smartphone. My first thought was that someone had somehow used it to track us.

            But no, that was ridiculous. They would have caught up to us already if we were being tracked that closely.

            I looked at the screen. “It’s a text message.”

            “From?” Clara asked.

            I looked up into her blue eyes.

            “Pseudonym,” I replied.

            Clara held her breath. “And?”

            I looked back down and read the message off the phone’s screen.

Base 21: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC

If you’re smart, and I know you are, you’ll be there.

     “Washington D.C.? Is that the address for Base 21?”

            I realized what the message meant, and I instantly knew we had a lot of trouble in store for the two of us.

            “We’re going to the White House, Clara.”

-Nathan T. Dalton

Installment 14

            It’s been a long time since Clara and I broke into Base 13.

            Yeah, I know that you don’t know that it was Base 13 below the library. I know I’m ruining the story. I know that I’m spilling info that you really shouldn’t hear -- stuff that I should reveal slowly. Well, okay, maybe not this info, since you’re about to hear about Base 13 anyway, but still. Honestly, right now, I’m tired of hiding everything, and I’m tired of keeping all these secrets, and I’m tired of being scared that someone’s going to hear me and I’ll get caught…again.

            By now I’m used to it, though. I know that I’m going to get caught again sometime. It might be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, but it’s going to happen. And I always hope I’ll get out again, but it’s never a surefire thing that I’ll make it.

            That’s really why I keep writing. If something happens to me, and you’re the right person reading this at the right time, then maybe, just maybe, you can take over. Maybe you can prove what I still haven’t proven -- that I didn’t do it.

            Or maybe you can even accomplish my final goal. Maybe you can stop them once and for all.

            Or maybe I’d better get on with the story. It’s been over a month, after all. Incidentally, I’m sorry about that -- I ran into problems. Maybe that’s why I’m so paranoid at the moment. I’m afraid that I’ll suddenly disappear, and no one will ever know what happened.

            Anyway…back to Base 13.

            Clara and I had to figure out how to break in, first of all. We both decided that, under the circumstances, it was obvious where this base was. It was below the library, but the question was how to get there and what would be inside. We walked around for half an hour, searching for some hidden passageway or something. Finally, we both stopped in the D section.

            “Forget it, Clara, this isn’t working,” I complained, leaning up against the shelf.

            “It’s got to be somewhere!” she insisted. “Come on, you’re a hacker -- let’s try their computer system.”

            “I’m not a hacker!” I protested.

            Clara raised her eyebrows. “Nathan, they never would have picked you unless you had some experience in the field. They needed someone who they could say was a budding criminal. They needed people to believe that you could hack in. So you must have some skill in it.”

            I was silenced by her logic. It was true, I was good with computers, and fairly confident that I could deal with hacking pretty well. But for Clara to figure that out with the information she had…

            It was my first conscious taste of Clara’s brilliance.

            “What computer do I hack into, anyway?” I sputtered, trying to regain some measure of dignity. “We’re in a library!”

            Clara shrugged. “Use the main system.”

            “Just search? What, Operation 497? That’s not going to be a book!”

            Clara sighed a long, weary sigh. “Nathan. Hack. Into. The. System.”

            A few minutes later, I was seated at the computer with Clara keeping a lookout.

            “This is nuts,” I muttered under my breath.

            Again, I can’t describe exactly what I did without causing problems. But it wasn’t very difficult -- much easier than figuring out how to get into Travis’ system.

            Eventually, I made it into the main databanks. I glanced through the folders, looking for something that looked mildly interesting.

The words “Base 13” jumped out at me after scrolling down.

“Do we want Base 13?” I asked quietly.

“What?” Clara glanced back. “Yes!”

            I clicked on the folder. A little message box popped up:

            Password protected. Please enter password now.

     A text box appeared, waiting patiently for the password.

            “It wants a password!” I whispered as loudly as I dared.

            “Guess!” Clara said frantically. “We don’t want to get caught!”

            I reached in my brain for some phrase that might work. I typed the first thing that popped into my head.

            Operation 497.

     Immediately, another box appeared.

            Access granted.

     “Yes!” I cheered, almost forgetting to keep my voice down. “We’re in!” I continued to read the message box as Clara came to stand by me. We were hidden by bookshelves, and no librarian had passed by yet.

           

            Please enter your computer number, the message box continued.

            Clara glanced down. “Number 6,” she read off of the keyboard.

            I typed in the number. The computer bleeped in approval.

            “Please hold on,” said the computer, apparently using text to speech.

            A moment later, the floor began to drop below us.

            Clara grabbed my arm. I quickly stood up.

            Slowly, we were being lowered through the floor, computer and all, as if through a trap door. I glanced around to see if anybody -- like a librarian -- was watching us. No one had appeared.

            “I guess the Q section isn’t very popular,” I muttered, hiding my alarm and, I must admit, exuberance.

            Base 13.

            What the heck was Base 13?

            “Nathan,” Clara said, sounding terrified, “What did you do?”

            I looked down just as we were enveloped in darkness.

            “Got us in?”

            For a minute, we couldn’t see anything, but we could feel ourselves moving. I reached out and felt glass. No, not glass, just very hard plastic. Or maybe something else.

            Finally, light began to creep in, and I began to be able to see through the tube we were in.

            We were being lowered into a warehouse. Boxes were stacked all along the walls, and in the middle of the room. One wall, however, was covered in computers.

            “Base 13,” I whispered.

            “What is Base 13?” Clara whispered back.

            “I don’t know,” I murmured, taking in the large room. There was a door or two along a couple of walls, so there were other rooms. In this room, however, there were no people.

            “I think…I think Operation 497 is run from here,” Clara said quietly.

            “I think you’re right,” I agreed.

            At this point, the small cubicle touched down, and the door slid open.

            I immediately grabbed Clara and pulled her behind a box. We huddled there for a moment.

            No one appeared. We heard no sound.

            “No one’s here,” I finally admitted.

            “Yeah,” Clara said in an annoyed voice, “So you don’t have to drag me anywhere.”

            “Sorry,” I said, letting go of her. I hadn’t realized that I had been tightly gripping her arm. “Let’s check out the computers.”

            We made our way cautiously over to one of the computers on the wall.

            I knew any false move could alert someone to my presence.

            I took a seat.

            “I can’t do any hacking here,” I told Clara. “I haven’t really done it before this whole thing started, and I might do something wrong and seriously mess things up.”

            “Don’t hack,” Clara advised. “Just look around for something useful. Don’t click on anything you might need a password for.”

            I agreed. Carefully, I looked around on the computer. At first, I was too scared to click on anything at all, but as I looked through and nothing happened, I tentatively began to click through folders. I looked at some document names, but they were mostly coded -- just seemingly random strings of letters and numbers.

            “I don’t know -- ” I began.

            I never finished that sentence.

            A message had just appeared on the screen.

            “Clara,” I said slowly. “We have an instant message.”

            “From whom?” she asked, showing an incredible preciseness with grammar under pressure.

            I glanced at the screen.

            “It says it’s from...Pseudonym.”

            Clara gasped. “Pseudonym? As in the guy who emailed my dad before he died?”

            I nodded. “Maybe. It’s the same name. Do we take the message?”

            Clara hung back, hesitating, then nodded. “Yes. We have to. It’s a lead. Pretend you’re someone working here or something, so they don’t find out we’re here.”

            I complied, clicking on the message.

            Hello, Nathan.

     I frowned. “Nathan? How does he know my name?”

            A follow up message appeared.

            And Clara.

     Clara gasped. “How does he know my name?”

            I stared at the screen, too shocked to answer. Before too long, another message popped up.

            I see you made it in. Congratulations.

     Finally, I began typing, my fingers flying across the keyboard. I spoke the words out loud as I wrote.

            “Who are you?” I asked slowly as I typed out the phrase and pressed enter.

            The answer appeared almost immediately.

            Not an enemy.

     I typed a reply.

            Are you Travis Thatcher?

     There was a short hesitation before Pseudonym replied.

            No.

     I was about to repeat my original message -- “Who are you?” -- but then paused. After a moment I typed in a different reply.

            Prove it.

     Clara was breathing down my neck, staring at the screen. “Do you really think it’s Travis?” she asked in a hushed voice.

            “Don’t know,” I answered. “But I don’t know who else it would be.”

            After a bit, the answer popped up.

            You’re going to have to trust me. I’m not on Travis’ side.

     Are you on our side? I typed back.

            The reply came swiftly.  Wrong question, Nathan. The question is, are you on my side?

     I didn’t want to answer this. I didn’t know, and I had had enough of these games. At the moment, I wasn’t on anyone’s side.

            So I typed three words again, slowly, and pressed enter.

            Who are you?

     “He won’t tell us,” Clara said softly. “He’ll never tell us.”

            “I know,” I admitted, “But if he has something to say, he’ll tell us. He sent us the message first -- I’m not going to jump on board with him.”

            Clara nodded. “Good plan.”

            A longer reply came.

            If you want to know what Back Door is, you’ll head to Base 21. With the information you find on this computer, it shouldn’t be difficult. Use the Level 4 password -- “double agent”. In Base 21 you’ll find out the answers to your questions: Like why you were framed.

     I decided to test how much this guy knew.

            Framed for what? I typed.

            Nathan, I know more than you seem to give me credit for. I know that Travis Thatcher framed you for my crime.

     I didn’t turn around to look at Clara, but I knew that her eyes were wide as she stared over my shoulder at the message.

            What did I say? What could I say?

            Nothing but what I had already said.

            Who are you? I typed desperately, one final time.

            There was a short pause before the final reply came.

            According to the government, Nathan T. Dalton…I am you.

-Nathan T. Dalton