Chapter 29
There was a rare break in the schedule before dinner the next night, so Phantom Squad decided to meet in the Agricultural Records Room to discuss everything they had learned over the past few days.
“Can you believe it? We’re actually full-fledged CHAOS agents,” Grey said, looking at his new uniform in the mirror.
“Junior agents,“ Oz said. “And for the record, it’s technically the Department of Alien Affairs now, not CHAOS. The agencies were officially merged, remember? CHAOS doesn’t exist.”
“Let him have his moment,” Danielle said, slapping Oz on the shoulder. “Besides, it isn’t the Phantom Flyer and his Agents of the Department of Alien Affairs. They’re still calling it the Agents of CHAOS.”
“You realize that’s just for show, right?” Oz said.
“Does that mean your reinstatement into the academy was just for show too?” Danielle asked.
“Not the same thing.”
“Would you two knock it off?” Colt said.
“Agreed,” Stacy said. “It’s kind of nauseating.”
Colt had been watching Danielle and Oz bicker, prod, tease, and pretend to be annoyed with each other for the better part of an hour. Just tell each other, he wanted to yell. Tell each other how you really feel, because who knows how much time we have left? Not that he was the shining example of putting himself out there. Sure, it seemed like he and Lily were at least kind of a thing, but then again, were they?
Then there was Stacy, who was sitting right next to him. She wasn’t a classic beauty like Lily, but she was still attractive. And she knew as much about comic books as he did. Check that. More. But maybe Danielle was right. Maybe he liked her because it made Pierce jealous. Or maybe he just liked her. Even Stacy thought that he should go for it with Lily, but did she mean it?
“This is driving me crazy!” Danielle shouted at her computer screen.
“Need some help?” Oz said.
“Yeah,” Danielle said. “What can you tell me about the Casmir effect? Or how about exotic matter and negative energy density? Know much about gravitational singularities? Cosmic strings? Quantum physics?”
Oz shrugged. “A little.”
“Seriously?” Jonas asked, his mouth agape as he stared at Oz. “That’s amazing. I had no idea you were interested in theoretical science.”
“He isn’t, so ignore him,” Danielle said, turning back to her computer screen. “He’s just a distraction.”
“Really? You think I’m a distraction?” Oz smiled as he raised a single eyebrow. “Not that I can blame you. I mean, with these dimples? You’re only human, right?”
“I’m going to need a barf bag,” Danielle said.
“Oh my, are you ill?” Glyph asked. “Perhaps you should lie down. There’s a terrible virus going around.”
“It’s a figure of speech,” Danielle said. “You know . . . because he’s annoying.”
Glyph frowned. “No, I’m afraid I don’t know.”
“Never mind,” she said with a sigh. “Look, I know this is going to sound rude—and I’m sorry about that—”
“Then why say it?” Oz asked, mischief dancing in his eyes.
“Seriously?” Danielle said as she spun around to glare at him, but the smile never left his face. She sighed and shook her head. “We need to focus on finding the gateway, so if you’re not here to help, maybe you should find something else to do.”
“About that . . . ,” Jonas said, his cheeks flushing red as he stared at the floor.
“I wasn’t talking about you,” Danielle said.
Jonas went to put his hands in his pockets, but since cadet uniforms didn’t have pockets, his hands slid down his thighs. His face turned an even deeper shade of red as he pushed his glasses up off the end of his round nose. “Look, I probably should have said something earlier, but we got a package from a courier this morning.”
“A courier?” Oz said. “Like those guys on the bikes with the little bells on the handlebars?”
“Sometimes I wonder how you made it past second grade,” Danielle said.
“Charm.”
She rolled her eyes.
“He was actually riding an armored ultralight.” Jonas unzipped the top of his backpack and pulled out a large manila envelope. “What is it?” Danielle asked.
“Coordinates.”
“From the Tesla Society?”
Jonas nodded.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Danielle asked, looking both tired and frustrated at the same time.
“It’s just that Stacy told me you were still asleep, and I know you haven’t been sleeping much lately, so I told her not to wake you up.”
Danielle turned to Stacy. “You knew about this?”
“Don’t look at me,” Stacy said. “I didn’t know what he wanted. And even if I had, I wouldn’t have told you. He’s right. You need sleep.”
“Am I the only one who realizes that we’re all going to die if we don’t find a way to shut down the gateway?” Danielle asked as she ran her hand over her head and tugged at her ponytail.
“You’re not serious, right?” Oz said.
“Yes, I’m serious!”
“Come on, Danielle,” Colt said.
“Somebody has to take this seriously.”
“What do you think we’ve been doing the last two months?” Oz said. “I mean, while you were sleeping I ran ten miles, went to the gym and lifted, took an hour of target practice, and then ran through a simulated combat session with Lohr—all before breakfast.”
“Guys, stop,” Colt said.
“The only reason I was sleeping is because I was up until three in the morning trying to fix the particle analyzer that you broke.”
“Who cares about measuring the wind?”
“We aren’t measuring the wind,” Danielle said, her face bright red. She jumped out of her chair and stood in front of Oz, fists clenched at her sides. “It uses photon correlation spectroscopy to analyze anomalies in the atmosphere—as in detecting the submicron particles that are the precursors to portal formation.”
Oz crossed his arms over his chest as he looked down at her. “Did you know that your nostrils flare when you’re angry? It’s kinda cute.”
Danielle opened her mouth, then closed it again. It was the first time in recent memory that Colt had seen her at a loss for words, and he was doing his best to keep from laughing.
“This is my fault,” Jonas said, his soft voice filling the silence. “I know I should have told you, but I think I found the coordinates for the gateway.”
“Seriously?” Danielle asked, suddenly able to speak again. “Show me.”
Jonas pulled out his tablet and opened a spreadsheet that was filled with what looked like a series of random numbers. “Okay, these two columns are the longitude and latitude of all known portals that have been reported since the inception of the CHAOS program in June of 1938. And these columns? They’re soft spots. You know, where the lining that separates our atmosphere from the atmosphere of another world has started to deteriorate.”
“We’re not stupid,” Oz said.
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. He’s just trying to get under your skin,” Danielle said, her eyes never leaving the monitor. “Can we map it?”
“Way ahead of you.” Jonas entered a series of commands, and a moment later they were all looking at a map that was buried beneath thousands of dots. “The portals are green and soft spots are blue.”
Danielle’s eyes flitted back and forth, up and down. “I don’t get it,” she said. “I thought there was a pattern.”
“There is,” Jonas said. “Watch.” He entered another series of commands, and red dots started to appear all across the map.
“What are those supposed to be?” Oz asked.
“Neutronic castoffs from actual portals.”
“You mean randoms?”
Jonas frowned, looking at Oz as though he was surprised. “Exactly,” he said.
Oz smiled. “I’m smarter than I look,” he said as he slapped Jonas on the back with enough force that his glasses nearly fell off of his face.
“I still don’t see a pattern,” Danielle said.
“Here, I’ll zoom in.” Jonas touched the screen with his thumb and index finger pinched together, and as he spread them apart the camera zoomed in. He did it two more times until the state of West Virginia filled the entire screen, then again until they were looking at a town called Sanctuary.
All of a sudden Colt’s head started to pound. It felt as though something was trying to escape his thoughts—something alien. Something Thule.
“I see the cluster. Is that a ring or something?” Danielle said, squinting as she moved until her nose was almost touching the screen.
“Watch this.” Jonas hit the Enter key, and lines started to appear between the red dots until it formed what looked like a three-dimensional hourglass lying on its side.
“Regression analysis,” Danielle said, as though she suddenly understood. “You found a pattern inside the subset. That’s amazing!” Without warning she turned and wrapped her arms around Jonas and kissed him on the cheek.
“Yeah,” Jonas said, his shoulders scrunched and his face puckered as though getting a kiss from Danielle was something akin to being kissed by a rotting zombie corpse.
“What’s wrong?” Oz said. “You’re, like, a hero. You found the gateway, which means we can stop the Thule. And one of the hottest girls on campus just kissed you. Are you sick or something?”
“One of?” Danielle asked, a single eyebrow raised.
For the first time that Colt could remember, Oz blushed. “Um . . . you know. I’m just saying.”
“What exactly are you saying?” Danielle said with overemphasis.
“Later,” Colt said. “Did you tell anyone that the portal opens there, in a Podunk town in West Virginia?”
Jonas lowered his eyes and shook his head slowly. “I . . . I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because that Podunk town is my home.”