With everything Andy had witnessed over the past few days, Mrs. Wilde seemed relieved to have him spend time with Juan’s family for a while. When Charlie got home from school, she and her mom helped him pack. Then they grabbed his sleeping bag and pillow and threw everything into the car. Charlie and her mom waited while Andy gave extended hugs to Fat Princess and Jessie and a short hug to Big Kitty, who didn’t care for the extended kind. Finally he declared he was ready to go to Juan’s house. He climbed into their Subaru.
Charlie got in, too, since she and her mom were going to pick up Maria and Mac and head straight to home base after they dropped Andy off.
“Just remember not to talk about any of this,” Mrs. Wilde told him as they neared Juan’s house.
“I know,” said Andy. “I haven’t told anybody. Text me if anything happens with Dad.”
“I will,” Mrs. Wilde promised. “And if you get worried and need to talk about it, you can tell Juan you want some private time and you can FaceTime me or Charlie. But just try to have fun.”
Andy smiled. “Okay, Mom.”
Mrs. Wilde pulled up to the curb in front of Juan’s house. She leaned over to kiss Andy good-bye in the privacy of the car, then she and Charlie got out and helped bring his gear over to the camper in the driveway. Juan’s mom, Alejandra, was loading groceries from her car into the camper, and Juan was climbing inside carrying a stack of board games. As they greeted Alejandra, Juan set his pile down and came bouncing out to help Andy carry his stuff inside.
“Thank you so much for inviting Andy,” said Mrs. Wilde.
“Juan is so excited Andy could come after all,” said Alejandra, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear and grinning as the boys disappeared into the camper, talking a mile a minute. “I’ll text you our campsite location once we get to Sedona. We’re not quite sure when we’re coming back. If the weather is good and the boys are having fun, we won’t return until next weekend sometime.”
“Plan on that!” called Juan from the camper. The moms laughed.
“Anything works for us,” said Mrs. Wilde. “Just text me when you roll back into town. I’ll come pick him up.”
“Sounds great. I’ll keep you posted.” Alejandra turned as the boys came tripping out again.
Andy wore an impish grin that Charlie hadn’t seen in a while. It made her feel even better about him getting away from the seriousness. “Text us some cool photos,” she said. She gave her brother a side hug, and then he hugged their mom too.
“Bye!” he called as he and Juan went back inside the camper. Charlie and Mrs. Wilde waved and headed back to the car.
“Whew,” said Mrs. Wilde when they were on their way again. “I’m glad for him.”
“Me too,” said Charlie. “One less person to worry about.”
“That’s exactly how it feels.”
They picked up Mac and Maria and finally the four of them were heading to the business park.
As they pulled into the lot behind home base, they spotted two black-suited soldiers in the shadows of the deserted alleyway next to the bank building, sneaking cautiously out of the white van and carrying in a few boxes. Everyone stayed in the car until the coast was clear. Then they hurried inside. They took the elevator up to the sixth floor and went down the hall to the home base office. “We did a lot of work in here today while you were in school,” Mrs. Wilde told Charlie.
The reception area looked the same as before, but the surveillance area had been transformed. One part of it had been partitioned off as a sleeping room with two cots. In the remainder of the space all the tables, chairs, equipment, and supplies were set up and organized. The monitors hung on the wall between the windows, with the large one in the center, each screen displaying a different drone’s view. Instead of the temporary shade that Ms. Sabbith had put up the previous day, all the windows now had some sort of shaded film on them. There was a table for the bank building’s blueprints, and Dr. Sharma’s desk was covered in research papers and files. The woman sat there organizing things, the drawer standing open. And there was the surveillance control table, where Ms. Sabbith had set up the laptop computer that was tied to the drones.
“Welcome back,” said Dr. Sharma, standing up. As she closed the desk drawer, Charlie caught sight of the two devices inside. Dr. Sharma locked the drawer and put the key into her pocket. She went over to the surveillance area. “Erica’s been teaching me how to control the drones. She’ll be flying back to Chicago this afternoon to start gathering up the supplies we need.”
That seemed to cheer Maria a bit. The three kids and Mrs. Wilde went over to the control table to watch. Mac was instantly glued to the lesson and Maria looked on eagerly as well. After a while Charlie grew bored and discovered the pile of blueprints on the table nearby. She went to check them out.
Mrs. Wilde studied the monitors for a moment. “Anything new happening over there?”
“A lot since you left,” said Dr. Sharma. “We were right about our hunch. Charles and Jack are working on something along with Victor. Look.” She hesitated, looking at the keyboard, then typed a few commands as Ms. Sabbith pointed them out to her. The large center screen switched to give them the ladybug’s view through the lab window. It was extra grainy because of the dust powdered on the window—an Arizona desert staple—but the scene was easy enough to make out. Dr. Goldstein sat in a chair at a low workstation, hunched over it and looking terribly weak. Charlie’s dad was standing at a lab table next to him, working on something very small with a tweezers-like instrument. Dr. Gray stood across the table from him, examining something. A female soldier was working with them as well. Occasionally they appeared to be chatting. Scattered around the room were a few more soldiers.
“Kids, do you recognize this brute guarding the door?” asked Dr. Sharma, pointing to the lab’s entrance on the wall opposite the windows.
“That’s Cyke,” said Charlie and Maria in unison. Cyke was unmistakable. He stood several inches taller than most people, and his shoulders were huge and broad and muscular. His mouth and nose protruded slightly more than an average person’s. Watching him up close on the monitor, they could see he had an occasional nervous tic in the form of a full body shudder that sent his muscles rippling under the fabric. Every now and then he moved side to side a bit restlessly.
“Tell me about him.”
Ms. Sabbith showed Dr. Sharma how to zoom in on the soldier and take electronic measurements and screenshots of the man.
“He’s huge,” said Charlie.
“Yeah, and really strong,” said Maria.
Charlie nodded. “He can run pretty fast but not like, you know, a cheetah.”
“But the dude cannot climb trees,” said Maria, shaking her head.
“Right,” said Charlie. “Not at all! Thank goodness.” She recalled Tuesday after school when she’d had Maria on her back, climbing the palm trees by the church near Maria’s house, with Cyke chasing them. They’d thought for sure they were goners, but Charlie had scrambled up and out of reach, and Cyke had failed to shimmy up the tree even a short distance. He’d stayed on the ground and resorted to shaking the trunk instead.
“Interesting,” mused Dr. Sharma, straining her eyes at the screen. Then, with Ms. Sabbith’s guidance, she tapped a few keys on the computer to try to get a clearer closeup shot. “It looks like his face is unusually shaped. Any idea what hybrid he is? I’d like to start figuring out all the soldiers so we know what abilities they might have.”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie, “but he snorts.”
Mac looked at her. “He snorts?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.” Dr. Sharma reviewed her notes and then, looking at the screenshots she’d taken, pausing on one where they could see Cyke’s profile. She zoomed in on his face, and they could see the outline of huge nostrils and teeth. “What has nostrils like this?” Dr. Sharma asked to herself more than to the children.
But Mac was totally on it. “Seems like a horse to me,” he said. “Look at him when he does that shuddering thing. It’s like when a fly lands on a horse and he can’t swipe it away with his tail.”
“I think you might be right, Mac,” said Maria, thinking it through. “He’s very horselike. Running at a gallop, the strength . . .”
“And not being able to climb a tree,” said Charlie.
“Good call,” said Dr. Sharma. She began putting the screenshots and measurements into a desktop folder and labeled it “Cyke: Horse-Human Hybrid.” “I wonder why he picked a horse? Seems like an odd choice.”
“Easy access to DNA?” guessed Ms. Sabbith. No one else had an answer.
“Which insect cams have microphones again?” asked Mac.
“The roach,” said Ms. Sabbith, “which is currently stationed in the hallway, and the dragonfly, which we have positioned in Dr. Gray’s office. That’s where Charles and Jack sleep at night. I’m hoping we’ll catch some of their conversations now that Jack seems to be conscious and moving around. Gray isn’t gagging them anymore, but he still ties them up at night.” She paused. “I think we’ve got eyes on everything, though I’m not sure where the soldiers sleep or eat. Maybe on the other floors. But I don’t care about those rooms. We’re focusing on the places where the doctors spend time. At the moment I’m waiting for an opportunity to get the roach into the lab so we can hear what’s going on in there. But because it’s big, and because it’s a roach and everybody hates them, I have to be very careful to keep it hidden. We don’t want anybody freaking out and stomping on it, trying to kill it.”
“Can’t you sneak it under the door like you did in that other room off the hallway?” asked Charlie.
“I tried last night after you left. But the lab door is sealed too tightly and the roach doesn’t fit underneath. So I’ve got to go in when the door is open.”
Mac frowned. “Can you take the roach in through the air ducts like you did with the dragonfly?”
“Not really. It’s a little heavy because of the microphone, and I don’t trust it to climb walls or walk on ceilings or balance on vents. It does better on the floor.”
“I know you’re still working out a few problems,” said Mac, “but this is seriously so cool I can’t stand it.” His eyes gleamed as he watched everything Ms. Sabbith was showing Dr. Sharma.
“Did you happen to see the soldiers bringing in boxes?” Mrs. Wilde asked Dr. Sharma. “We saw them when we got here.”
The scientist pointed to the spider’s camera view, which was from the rear upper corner of the elevator. “Yes, I was watching them pile things up at the door on the cardinal cam. They’ll be calling the elevator down soon. Let’s see if Spidey here can get a look at what’s in the boxes.” She adjusted the spider cam slightly and waited.
Soon they saw the elevator door open. The two soldiers started piling boxes inside. One was a small female soldier who was bouncing around a little from one foot to the other. She was definitely familiar. Now that Charlie wasn’t under attack, she could study her a bit better and noticed that her arms were especially long for a woman her size. Charlie leaned forward. “That’s Miko,” she said. “She’s the chimp who was with Cyke and the catlike soldier.”
“Catlike—are you talking about Prowl?” asked Dr. Sharma. “The leopard man you told us about from the warehouse?”
“No, there was another kind of cat in the first fight Maria and I had. Smaller but her claws were really sharp. I think she’s that woman by the lab table with my dad and the others. I don’t know her name. Do you, Maria?”
“I don’t remember anybody saying it,” said Maria.
With Miko in the elevator was the beefy, slow-moving man who had been in the warehouse with the beefy, not-quite-as-slow-moving woman and Prowl.
“What animal is that woman supposed to be?” Dr. Sharma asked.
“I’m not sure, but that guy is a cow,” said Charlie, wrinkling her nose.
“Charlie,” reprimanded her mother.
“No—literally, I mean,” said Charlie. “When I fought him before, he started lowing like a sick cow. Or a bull, I guess he must be. Right, Mac?”
Mac sighed. “That would be my guess. I wish I could look it up. I just . . . I really miss my tablet and phone so much.”
Mrs. Wilde grew concerned. “You don’t have a cell phone, Mac? What happened to it?”
Mac glanced at Charlie, and Charlie quickly looked down. She hadn’t mentioned this part to her mom originally, and she’d sort of forgotten about it. “The soldiers—they stole his iPad and iPhone,” Charlie told her mother. “We all chipped in to help him get new ones, but he hasn’t dared to tell his mother yet because she was mad about the simulators.”
“I’m not sure how to tell her they got stolen without her freaking out,” said Mac. “And I don’t think I can buy a cell phone without a grown-up there because of the monthly charges and junk—I don’t know how to do all that billing stuff.”
Ms. Sabbith turned to Dr. Sharma. “I can hook him up with some new equipment before I head to Chicago, Quinn.”
“Please do—that would be great.”
“What’s your phone number, Mac?”
Mac blinked. “What? What’s happening?”
“We can’t have you without a cell phone in case something happens,” said Dr. Sharma. “And what if your mother tries to reach you and finds out what happened? You need to act normally, remember? Respond to text messages and phone calls. Be seen working on your iPad if that’s your thing.”
“Whoa,” said Mac, his eyes growing wide. Maria actually broke out of her somber mood and exchanged a smile with Charlie.
Mac told Ms. Sabbith his cell phone number. “I can bring money tomorrow,” he said, “but you’ll be gone by then. Do you want me to send it in the mail?”
Ms. Sabbith smiled and headed for the door. “Don’t worry about it. I figure Talos Global owes you one after all you went through. Or two, in this case.” With a wink she headed to the exit. “Back in a bit. Then I’m off to the airport.”
Somehow the promise of a new phone and iPad for Mac lightened everyone’s mood, even Maria’s. She almost seemed to forget she could turn into a monkey at any moment.
Dr. Sharma stayed at the cameras to practice what she’d learned. She zoomed the spider cam in the elevator toward the side of one of the boxes, trying to focus, but the picture quality suffered. “One of the downsides to having a camera lens the size of a pinpoint, I suppose,” she muttered.
Mac nodded sympathetically.
Dr. Sharma leaned forward and squinted, trying to make out the word on the side of the box. “What does that say?”
Maria glanced at the screen. “‘Titanium,’” she said.
“Yep,” Mac agreed.
“Ah, yes. I think you’re right, kids,” said the scientist. “No wonder it’s taking them so long to move those boxes. They should have used Cyke to drag them around.”
“What are they going to do with so much titanium?” asked Charlie’s mom.
Dr. Sharma glanced at her. “Make more devices, I imagine.” She switched her attention to the hallway roach cam, putting its view in the large center screen, and watched as the soldiers carried boxes down the corridor. She quickly checked the computer’s volume to make sure they could hear if the roach picked up any conversation, then maneuvered the vermin down the side of the hallway in the shadows, following them. They stopped at a door and knocked.
“That’s the lab door,” Dr. Sharma whispered. She strained to listen.
A moment later Cyke opened the door, eyed the soldiers, then let them inside the laboratory.
“All that material headed into the lab—that’s not a good sign,” muttered Dr. Sharma. She tensed, looking for her chance to slip the roach inside, but there were too many feet shuffling around.
“It’s not?” asked Charlie.
“Nope.” The scientist moved the roach back to the doorway across the hall from the lab. “The only reason they’d need that much is if they have plans to make a lot of devices.”
Ms. Sabbith returned from the store with a new iPhone and iPad and presented them to Mac. “All set up,” she said a bit mysteriously, but Mac wasn’t about to question his good luck. Then, unceremoniously, she packed up her duffel bag and said good-bye. “Good luck,” she said earnestly, turning to Dr. Sharma, Mrs. Wilde, and the children. “If all goes well, I’ll be back sometime next week with everything we need to make you better, Maria. Quinn, call me if you think of anything else you need. Are you good with the camera controls?”
“I’m good,” said Dr. Sharma. “And Mac probably picked up more from the lesson than I did, so he can help.”
Mac nodded confidently.
“Thank you for all you’ve done to help us,” said Mrs. Wilde. The kids thanked her too.
With a wave Erica Sabbith was gone, leaving a scientist, an ER doctor, and three twelve-year-olds to navigate the next steps of their rescue mission.
A short while later Mac was happily jailbreaking his new phone. Dr. Sharma worked at the camera controls, going over all the commands Ms. Sabbith had taught her. Every now and then she’d mutter, “Now how do I . . . ?” and Mac would look up and remind her what to do.
Dusk settled and they grew hungry. “Sooo, dinner, then?” said Mac.
“I’ll go pick something up,” said Mrs. Wilde, tearing her eyes off the ladybug camera screen. “I could stand to do something useful.”
“Thank you, Diana.” Dr. Sharma told her where to find the restaurant nearby, whose cooking Charlie had smelled a few days before.
“I’ll go with you,” said Charlie, who was growing bored with looking at blueprints and watching the screens—not much was happening, and they couldn’t hear anything in the lab. And though it was nice to see her father moving around, it was also sort of hard watching him, knowing he didn’t have a clue they were right across the street.
“I’ll stay here and help Dr. Sharma,” said Mac. He set his phone down and picked up his new iPad and looked at it lovingly, then turned it on for the first time. He was in heaven.
Maria looked sidelong at Mac, then at Charlie. “I guess I’ll go with you, Charlie.”
Charlie looked up the menu online and took sandwich orders from Mac and Dr. Sharma, then her mom placed the takeout order through the website. They got ready to go.
“Stay aware of your surroundings,” Dr. Sharma said. “This part of town is quiet, and the soldiers don’t seem to venture out much on foot from what we’ve witnessed the past two days, but just in case they do, you don’t want them to catch sight of you.”
“We’ll be careful,” Charlie promised.
“I’ll make sure of it,” said Mrs. Wilde.
Mrs. Wilde and the girls went out through the reception area and set off down the hallway to the stairwell, passing a business woman plodding up the stairs along the way, looking annoyed. “Elevator’s out again,” she complained.
Mrs. Wilde nodded sympathetically. Soon they reached the main floor and exited the back door so they wouldn’t be seen by any of Dr. Gray’s people in the bank building. Under the cover of darkness Mrs. Wilde led them to a small restaurant, which had its door propped open to let in the natural air and perhaps attract a customer or two. The place was empty except for a single worker standing behind a cash wrap and some noise coming from the kitchen. Mrs. Wilde asked about their order, and they waited.
Suddenly Maria cocked her head to one side as if she could hear something, then turned sharply and stared out the shop window. “Did you hear that?” She ran to the open doorway and peered out to the right, then to the left.
Charlie could faintly hear a sad, out-of-tune jingle. She joined Maria. Her mom came over too. “What is it?” she asked.
Maria’s face fell as the sound disappeared. “It was an ice cream truck. And now it’s gone.”
Charlie laughed and shook her head, then realized she hadn’t seen a single food truck since she’d left Chicago, so maybe they were a bigger deal out here. And Maria took ice cream very seriously. It made sense, living out here in the desert. She went to the door. “Are you sure it’s gone? Maybe it just stopped.” If an ice cream truck would cheer Maria up, Charlie was determined to find it. Impulsively she went out the door, checking her pocket to make sure she had money, and ignored her mother’s calls for her to return—if she didn’t see the truck, she’d come right back. Then she rounded the corner and nearly ran into somebody under the streetlamp.
Two somebodies, actually.
Two very big, beefy somebodies.