Authors: Artist Arthur
It’s
after six by the time we get to the office building. It’s right across the street from the television station, so there are still some trucks and cameramen standing outside. In the building where the offices are, there’s no one, so Jake and I walk right through the glass doors. There’s a security guard at the desk.
We stop and look at each other. I don’t know what to do or say. For a minute, Jake doesn’t seem to either. Then he whispers, “I’ll handle it. Just be ready to head for the elevators.”
There’s a sign as soon as you come through the doors that lists all the offices in this building and the floor numbers. I already spied that Walter Bryant’s office is on the third floor. Sticking my hands in my pocket, I try to look casual as Jake walks toward the security guard.
Then I hear something fall and glass breaking. It’s the huge frame that holds the picture of Lincoln’s mayor. It was hung along the opposite wall from where the office directory is. Now it’s on the floor in a heap of broken glass. The security guard swears and heads right over in that direction.
Jake turns to me and, with a nod, says we should head for the elevators. We do, and once inside I touch his arm. “See, you’re learning how to use your powers.”
He just sighs. “It’s not easy.”
“Tell me about it,” I chime in just as the door opens to the third floor.
The carpet is this dark red color and is worn in some spots and just plain dirty in others. The hall seems to go only one way as the other end is just marked by a door and the bright green Exit sign. There are several offices on this floor, and luckily for us, they all have names on them. So we walk until we see Mr. Bryant’s. I quickly grab for the knob and turn.
“Locked,” Jake says sullenly.
I nod. “Should have figured that.”
“Move back,” he instructs.
I don’t ask, just do as he says and step aside.
Jake’s looking at the knob, he’s concentrating, but it’s hard to tell that’s what he’s doing. His face seems the same and so does his stance. I just notice the way his fingers are clenching and releasing at his sides. A clicking sound echoes in the hallway, and I watch in awe as the knob turns and the door opens while neither of us touch it.
I guess any other kid would think these things—our powers—were cool. I’m starting to believe they’re just necessary.
I step inside first, with Jake coming in afterwards and closing the door. We go in separate directions looking around the office.
“What are we looking for?” Jake asks finally.
“I don’t know. Anything that looks like it relates to a project about the weather.”
“He’s a weatherman, Sasha. Everything in here is going to relate to the weather.”
I am already behind his desk, lifting up papers and folders. “Don’t be so logical all the time,” I snap. “Just look at stuff. Look in those file cabinets over there.”
I hear the cabinets open and know Jake is doing what I say, even as I start opening the desk drawers. The search seems
to go on for hours, but I know it’s only been a few minutes. Frustrated, I turn away from the desk and lean on it a little too hard. Pictures fall over. As I’m picking them up, I notice one is of Franklin. Looks like a school photo of when he was normal. I mean, he’s wearing the clothes I’m used to seeing him in—khaki pants and polo shirts. He’s smiling at the camera like he’s happy the man behind it is asking him to say cheese. The other photo is of Franklin and his father. Mr. Bryant and Franklin look a lot alike, except for Mr. Bryant’s mustache. As I put them both next to each other, I think they both look normal. The same, I guess, as I do on my pictures. But I’m not normal. And something tells me neither are the Bryants.
“Got it!” Jake yells.
I abandon the pictures and walk across the office to where Jake has his hands in one of the file cabinets. He pulls out a folder and flips it so I can see the writing on the front.
“Project S,” I read. “That’s what he mentioned to my dad.”
“Let’s find out.” Jake opens the folder, and the first thing we see are what looks like reports.
“Majestic 12?” I read on one of the pages.
“Ever heard of that?” Jake asks.
I’m shaking my head. “I don’t know. I think it should sound familiar but I’m not sure.”
So we flip through some other pages. Photocopies of news articles. A tornado that hit Topeka, Kansas, in 1966. In 1992 a brush fire that ravaged the forests in California. Reported UFO sightings.
“Weather stuff,” Jake comments and flips through to the last page in the folder.
We both pause. There in the back of the folder, taped down,
is a plastic bag. Inside the bag is a secure flash drive that can’t be downloaded without being detected.
We look at each other and know what we want to do.
“Let’s just take it,” I say.
Jake is immediately shaking his head in the negative.
“No. He’ll notice it’s gone. We have to make a copy and replace it.”
“Well, I don’t know about you but I don’t usually run around town with a flash drive in my pocket.”
“Okay, you’re right. We’ve gotta come back then.”
“You mean leave it?”
“Yeah. We can’t let him know we know about this. So we’ll leave, go get another flash drive and come back and replace it.”
I’m biting on my lower lip, wondering at the logic of what Jake’s saying. I know he’s right, but really, I want to take that flash drive now. I want to know what’s on it, what Mr. Bryant is planning.
“Fine,” I say finally, as if my word makes it so. When actually, Jake had already closed up the file and was slipping it back into the cabinet as I spoke.
“Let’s get the others and tell them what’s going on,” he’s saying as we head to the door.
He looks around and nods for me to do the same. “Make sure nothing looks disturbed.”
I do and ask at the same time, “The others, as in Krystal and Lindsey?”
“You got any others in mind?” he says in his usual dry tone as he heads to the door.
We’re back in the hallway now, the door closing as Jake gives the knob another stare that pushes the lock back into place.
“No, it’s just that Krystal isn’t too happy with me at the moment.”
I stop at the elevator, but Jake pulls me along to the door marked Exit. “Yeah, I heard.”
After he pushes me through the door, I stop. “It’s not my fault. I had nothing to do with what Alyssa and Franklin did to her.”
Jake’s lips draw into a tight line. “She’s hurt over that idiot Franklin. Alyssa just pisses her off and I think she’d just as soon beat her ass than take any more crap from her. But Franklin’s really got her trippin’.”
I nod and sigh. “I know. I wish I could tell her he’s not worth it but she won’t even talk to me.”
Jake is already taking the steps. “I’ve tried to tell her but she doesn’t want to hear it. But yeah, you’re not on our favorites list right about now.”
About one flight down I stop and stomp my feet on the steps. “That is not my fault either. As a matter of fact, I was going to talk to my dad about your house when I overheard him talking to Mr. Bryant.”
He stops and turns to me. “You were?”
“Yes, I was.” I fold my arms across my chest. “You’re my best friend, Jake. I don’t want you to be shipped out of Lincoln, tossed out of your family home because my dad can’t find another piece of land to build on. I’m going to stop him,” I say confidently, even though I haven’t even talked to my dad about it yet.
So I don’t know what Jake’s thinking, but for a minute I wish I had Lindsey’s mind-reading power. He’s just looking at me, and then he’s looking at the floor, and then he finally says something. “Let’s get out of here.”
Not exactly what I was expecting, but then again, this is Jake, minimal words, more action. I guess the fact that he’s
still walking beside me, still talking to me means that he’s okay with my explanation.
I don’t really know, but now my mind’s full of other thoughts.
Of Project S and what it could mean to the Mystyx.
It takes another hour and three phone calls to Lindsey before she finally meets us at the end of the street where Mrs. Hampton lives. It’s not really a street, more like a long winding road that ends with this big dark house with windows that look like eerie golden eyes. It makes me shiver every time I see it.
Lindsey’s ponytail bounces as she walks fast to get to us. She’s wearing cutoff shorts and a black-and-purple striped tank top with black sneakers and no socks. She looks like she could be an elementary school student with her short stature and cutie-pie face.
“Okay, what’s the big emergency?”
“What took you so long?” Jake asks as soon as she slows in front of us.
She rolls her eyes but answers him anyway. “I couldn’t just walk out. I’m not…I don’t have…” She sighs, then pushes her bangs back from her forehead. “Look, it’s just not that simple for me. But I’m here now. So what’s up?”
The sky seems darker, darker than it should be for still so early in the evening. And I can’t see my moon at all. Not any parts of it. The full moon isn’t for a few days but I don’t even see the quarter moon. Nothing but blackness. I feel a little unsteady in its absence.
“Ah, maybe we should take this little meeting some place else,” I suggest, looking around and catching a tiny breeze against my neck. There’s a message on that breeze, a chilly warning that makes me tremble. All the while my
M
is still warming the skin at my side.
Jake reaches up, rubs his arm through his hoodie, and I know he’s feeling the warmth, too. I’ve never seen Lindsey react to her
M,
so I look down at her ankles. She’s moving, shuffling from one foot to the other like she’s nervous or something.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods her head, her ponytail bobbing along also. “Fine.”
“Let’s go in here,” Jake suggests.
“Here” is the old canning warehouse. They used to can sardines in there years and years ago. I guess they positioned the warehouse here so the stench wouldn’t filter throughout the entire town on a daily basis. We’re almost in no-man’s-land out here by Lindsey’s house. In fact, I’m guessing that if we walked through Mrs. Hampton’s house straight out the back door, we could step off the land and swim right in the Atlantic Ocean. Creepy.
Anyway, the company left long before I was born. But the smell stayed. My nose crinkles as we step inside the dark, damp space. There’s not much light in here as the only lamppost on the street is a distance away. But that’s okay. We don’t need light to talk.
Jake does the honors, giving Lindsey an abbreviated version of what we suspect. She listens closely before saying a word.
“You’ve gone up against this Darkness before. How do we fight it this time?”
I shrug. “We really didn’t know how to fight it the last time. It just sort of happened.”
Lindsey blows air out of her mouth, so hard it ruffles the hair on her forehead. “We’ve gotta be more prepared than that this time. My bet is it grows stronger every day, with every attack. And it wants something, it seems like it wants something from us.”
“Then why keep taking over other bodies?” Jake asks, pacing back and forth in what looks like an imaginary box. “Why not just come right at us?”
“It is,” I say. “It’s following me around town like a stalker. Every time I look up I see it. It knows who and what we are.”
“That’s why I said it wants something from us,” Lindsey adds. “But how does Mr. Bryant fit in?”
“He knows about us, too,” I say. “He knows that power is coming from those strange storms. Maybe he wants to harvest the power for himself.”
“Maybe he’s already harvested it and it’s inside of Franklin,” Jake offers.
“No.” Lindsey shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Not yet. If he did, wouldn’t he be broadcasting it? Trying to sell it or at least get credit for the discovery? No, I think he’s close to finding out about the power, but needs the Carrington money to get him there.”
Jake smirks. “And her dad will probably give it to him, then we’ll all be in deep trouble. Because you know what’ll happen once news of this gets out.”
As much as I want to counter what Jake’s saying, I can’t. The fact of the matter is it’s probably true. “Once news gets out, we’ll be outcasts,” I say quietly.
“Some of us are used to that already,” Jake tosses my way.
I open my mouth to speak, but Lindsey lifts a hand and steps between me and Jake. “Enough. We’re all outcasts. Think about it. Who’s gonna want to be around us when they find out we’ve got supernatural powers—except the wrong kind of people? It’s time we started thinking along those lines and stop letting all this other stuff interfere with what we need to do.”
Jake and I both look over at her, and I’m wondering again
where she came from and what her real purpose here is. Then I shrug, maybe she’s right. She belongs to our little group of outcasts just as much as the rest of us.
Then we hear the creaking of sorely unoiled hinges, and all three of us go still. Nobody knows we’re here, so who’s at the door?
In the next seconds, Krystal comes running inside, stopping only because Jake reaches out his arms and catches her against his chest. She’s breathing fast, almost like she ran all the way here from her house—which would be a really long run, and Krystal is not on the track team.
“They…know.” She tries to talk and catch her breath at the same time. “They…know…about…us,” she finally manages.
“Hold on, take a deep breath,” Jake tells her. She stands up straight but stays in Jake’s grasp as he rubs a hand down her back. “That’s it, take it slow.”
She swallows, blinks once or twice, then tries again. “They know about us. I saw them sitting in a room looking at a screen. Then he puts in a flash drive and on the screen appears a presentation called ‘Project S.’ It goes through several storms and well-known events in time. It explains how those events equate to something real, something potentially dangerous to the entire world. Only we’re not dangerous. Not us. The project isn’t just about us.”
“You had a vision,” I say, taking a step closer to her.
She looks at me like I’m the last person she wants to be talking to but then just rolls her eyes and admits, “Yeah.”