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
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