Ash Ketchum: Rise of Galactic

Ch. 17 Clemont's Discovery

"Ash."

I opened my eyes to see Clemont standing over me. I had fallen asleep on the couch on the main floor of the pool house, and sunlight was streaming in through the blinds above me.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Morning," Clemont said, looking very tired.

I rubbed my eyes. "Did you stay up all night?"

"I found your mother."

Suddenly I was awake. "You found her?"

"She's in Peru. I found her file on the computer."

"Peru? Show me." I pulled on my T-shirt and grabbed the cell phone.

We were walking to the front door when Serena called to me. "Ash."

I looked up. She was leaning over the loft railing. "What's going on?"

"Clemont found my mother," I said.

"I'll be right there." Serena hurried down the stairs and joined us at the door. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure she was there when Lillie downloaded the information," Clemont said. "They could have moved her."

"How did you find her?" I asked.

"I tracked her through their internal travel logs. I started with the date she disappeared, then went from there."

Serena and I followed Clemont back to Wally's room.

"Is anyone else awake yet?" I asked Serena.

"No. Everyone was exhausted."

"They should be," I said.

We walked into Wally's room.

"I've got a feeling things are going to get even crazier," Clemont said, pointing to a picture of my mother on the screen.

My heart froze at the sight of her. She looked tired and frightened and was wearing a prisoner jumpsuit. "She is at the Galactic Starxource plant in Puerto Maldonado, Peru."

"Isn't that where the fire rats escaped?" Serena asked.

"Exactly," Clemont said. "It's a jungle town in the Amazon rain forest."

"How long has she been there?" I asked. I noticed I was ticking but didn't bother to try to control it.

"The travel records show that she was transported to Peru directly from Idaho."

"How do we get to Peru?" Serena asked. "Can we drive?"

"I'm not sure. We'd have to go through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador and halfway through Peru."

Serena just stared at him. "How do you know all that?"

"Geography is my strong subject," Clemont said.

"Everything is your strong subject," Serena said.

"We're going to have to fly," I said.

"All of us?"

"We might have enough money," I said.

"You can't just fly into a foreign country," Clemont said. "There's customs and border control. Do you even have a passport?"

I had never traveled outside the country, so I hadn't thought of any of that. "That will be a problem."

"Not our biggest one," Clemont said. "The compound she's being held in is a fortress. It's more prison than energy plant. It's build on a twenty-five-thousand-acre ranch, and it has hundreds of guards. At least ten times more than what we faced at the academy."

All the excitement I felt at locating my mother vanished in a puff of impossibility. What good was knowing where she was if we couldn't reach her? She might as well be on the moon.

I put my head in my hands.

"What do we do now?" Serena asked.

"I don't know," I said. I turned to Clemont. "Do you have any ideas?"

"I think . . . ," Clemont said. He thought for a moment. "I think I need some sleep."

I exhaled heavily. "Yeah, get some sleep. Thanks for staying up."

"No problem," Clemont said. He lay down on Wally's bed. A feeling of despair permeated the room.

Serena said, "I know what we should do."

"What?"

"Get bagels. I need to get out of here."

After all we'd been through, something as normal as going out for bagels sounded fantastic.

"Maybe Calem or Drew are up by now."

I looked at Clemont. He had already shut his eyes.

"Do you want something from the bagel place?" I asked.

"Sleep," he said.

"Wow, you are tired," Serena said.

"And a blueberry bagel," Clemont added. "Or chocolate chip if they have it. With strawberry cream cheese."

"You got it," I said. I started for the door, then suddenly stopped and turned back. The picture of my mother was still on the screen.

Serena took my hand. "Things have a way of working out. Don't give up till it's over."

I looked at her. "My mother used to say that."

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