Inside home base, as Mrs. Wilde and the four kids were entering the surveillance room, Mac went to the screens and muttered under his breath.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mrs. Wilde. The rest of them set down their supplies and hurried over to the monitors.
“There’s Miko on the cardinal cam, climbing down the side of our building. Did anyone see her?”
“No,” said Charlie. “We were extra careful.”
“She saw us, though, I’ll bet.”
“Oh no,” murmured Maria. “What are we going to do?” Then she glanced at her backside as her tail pushed out. She sighed. “Here we go again.”
“This is not good.” Mrs. Wilde’s expression flickered with deep concern and doubt. “I wasn’t planning on them being able to find us. Now Miko’s going to alert everybody over there. This changes everything.” She went to the window and looked up at the building across the street, but of course she wasn’t able to see anything. “Kids, we might have to relocate. I’ll call Erica. If her component arrived as planned, she should already be on her way to the airport. While I do that, why don’t you check the footage from last night and this morning?”
“Already on it,” said Mac. He rolled through the footage in reverse.
Charlie stood over his shoulder, straining to see if anything unusual had happened in the early hours of the day. “Wait—stop. They’re all gathered in the lab.” She swallowed hard. “Gray knows about Kelly. He must know!”
Mac stopped rewinding and they watched, while Mrs. Wilde stayed by the windows to talk to Ms. Sabbith.
“Mom!” Charlie called out. “He saw the show.”
They continued watching through the rest of the footage, listening to Dr. Gray’s new orders, and then caught a rare moment when the three scientists had had time to speak freely.
They were talking about a noon escape today instead of on Monday, from the lab instead of Gray’s office, and the kids began to realize that Mrs. Wilde hadn’t yet explained what the plan was going to be. And then they remembered that Ms. Sabbith wasn’t there yet to help enact it.
And finally they realized that noon, the hour of escape, was exactly twelve minutes away.
“Mom!” Charlie called out in a panic.
Her mom put the phone down. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“They going to try to escape today! Like, now. We have to go!”
“But—” said Mrs. Wilde. “But Erica says we need to pack up and get out of here because of Miko—she says we have to protect ourselves first or no one’s left to do the rescue!” She ran over to where the kids stood around the monitor just as Miko was walking with Charles into the hallway on the video from earlier.
“Quiet, everybody,” said Mac. “He’s going to tell us their plan.”
Charlie looked at the time and jiggled her foot. “Eight minutes till noon,” she said. She could feel her bracelet grow warm. Maria was fully transformed.
Finally Mr. Wilde was alone. He held the dragonfly up to his face and whispered, “The first shift of soldiers goes to lunch at noon with Dr. Gray on the eighth floor. We’ll be in the lab with the rest of them—Prowl, Miko, Zed, and a couple of new soldiers that Dr. Gray has been training and experimenting on. We won’t make a move until we see you, just in case you aren’t able to pull this off. But once you show up, we’ll help fight them off, grab as much of the technology as we can to slow Gray down, and get out of here. Take the elevator for the surprise effect—the soldiers use the stairs for lunch.” He hesitated and looked around, then gave a strained smile. “We can do this. Today’s our best chance.”
“Six minutes, Mom,” said Charlie. “You heard him. We have to go.”
“Charlie, just wait a second.” Mrs. Wilde took a breath. “Listen to me. Our home base is compromised. Erica’s not here yet. This is all very sudden.” She put her face in her hands for a moment, then looked up. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave Andy here alone—not now that Miko found our building. And we can’t take him with us because it’s not safe.” She raked her fingers through her hair, her expression filled with indecision.
“Mom,” said Charlie again. “Maria and I know the floor plans. You’ve seen us train—you know how good we are. We can do this.” She jiggled her foot. Mac took a hit on his inhaler, and Maria clicked to the Turbo screen and waited to see what Charlie’s mom would say.
Mrs. Wilde’s expression was agonized. She cringed and shook her head. “Kids,” she said, “I’m calling off the rescue operation. We have a new huge threat to us. Ms. Sabbith said we need to get ourselves and the equipment out of here. This whole thing—it’s just too big. Too dangerous. I’m sorry.”
“What?” cried Charlie. “But what about Dad?”
“Charlie, please try to understand. Dad said they wouldn’t try anything if they don’t hear us coming—he knows this is a big change in plans and that we might not be able to pull it off. And I’ve made my decision. This isn’t smart. Let’s just . . . gather up the computer and screens and our other stuff before Miko comes back here with her friends. Erika will be here by tonight. Then we’ll regroup and try this again—from a safe location.” She turned and went over to Dr. Sharma’s desk and started piling things up. “Get the blueprints,” she called to them. “Save the electronics for last so we can keep an eye out for Miko. Andy, come help me get some empty boxes.” She went back to the partitioned area where the boxes were. Andy followed, looking over his shoulder wide-eyed at Charlie, afraid to say anything.
Charlie stared after them, shocked. Her mom had gone full-on coward, just like that—just because of Miko, who might have seen them go into a building. But she didn’t know where in the building they were, did she? She’d have to go through six floors to find them, and even if she did manage to suspect there was something different going on in the Water and Sewage Treatment Complaints Office, she’d meet up with a locked door. Charlie watched the video, which Mac had switched to live. On the ladybug screen she could see her dad checking the clock, and Dr. Sharma biting her lip anxiously and glancing at the ladybug camera. Her heart twisted. Charlie looked at Mac and Maria, and they looked back at her, disappointment clear in their eyes. “I’m sorry about my mom.”
Maria touched her arm. “It’s okay.” She hesitated, then added, “I didn’t realize just how much I wanted to rescue the scientists until your mom told us we can’t. I mean, here we have these abilities. . . . We can save your dad.”
“And we have a responsibility,” Mac added. “Not just to rescue them but to stop Dr. Gray.”
“And we’ve been training for this,” said Charlie passionately. “Ms. Sabbith is pretty smart and tough, but we don’t need her.” She glanced over toward the partitioned area, then looked at her dad once more, who was now reaching under his workstation counter and slipping the secret thing he’d been working on into his pocket. He was preparing to go. This was their best chance, he’d said. Charlie couldn’t let him down.
She eyed the partitioned area. Her mom was still back there with Andy. She leaned in. “We have to do this without her,” she said in a low voice. “Now’s our only chance. But we’ve got to scram. Right now. Are you with me?”
Mac and Maria stared at Charlie. Their faces lit up and they nodded.
“Let’s go.” Charlie led, with Mac and Maria right behind.
By the time Mrs. Wilde came back, they were gone.