Sparks Fly [Book Two in the "Fire And Lighting" Series]

Chapter Sixteen- Searching

March 17, 2016. 15:55.

Mount Justice

Finch finishes changing into some civvies and some sunglasses and walks back into the mission room. Emma had promised to give her some private training before they went back for their new, weekly tradition of getting Kit-Kats at the local convenience store in Gotham right before a run around the city park.

Surprisingly to Mara, Emma and even Willow and Rick are nowhere in sight. It's not like Emma to break a promise like this. Unless it's vital to the team.

Finch sighs, and walks over to the computer. It doesn't matter anyway, she has a project to work on instead. What does she care if Nightingale showed up or not?

Emma was doing a lot better at paying more attention to Mara and her brother lately, but she wasn't perfect. No one was. Mara supposes that she can't complain. At least she has Emma.

"Whatcha working on?" Finch's best friend, Rachel, comes out of the side hallway with a wet towel around her neck, followed by new members Sarah and Bridget.

"Following a hunch," the eleven-year-old informs her comrades, not even looking up from her computer.

"What sort of hunch?" Sarah asks.

"Last month, Beast Girl and I went with Batgirl, Wonder Girl, Miss Martian, and Bumblebee to Bialya, where we intercepted a load of kidnapped teens from being delivered to an unknown "partner". The Kroloteans may be gone, but the Light still has an unknown and most likely alien partner." Finch explains. She loves knowing more than people who are older than her do.

"Are you trying to find the alien then?" Bridget asks, and Mara can hear her hiding something in her voice. "If so why aren't your brothers and sisters helping you?"

Finch shakes her head, "Batgirl, Nightwing, and Nightingale are working around the clock to discover the alien. I'm focusing on the teens that were kidnapped."

"What about them?" Beast Girl asks as Finch pulls up photos of all the teenagers that they liberated.

"Black Canary talked with every single kid that was on that airplane. Every single one of them was kidnapped after running away from home."

Sarah gasped, "So that means..."

Finch nods, "Every kid alone or abandoned in this world is in danger."

"Oh my gosh," Sarah holds her hand to her forehead, "My friend, Tye, Jaime said he ran away last month. We haven't been able to get in touch with him since!"

Finch nodded gravely. "There's a certain teen I've been working on. Her name is Tammy Agua, daughter of multi-millionare David and Lenna Agua, the co-founders of a very popular waterpark/theme park in southern California. Her parents said she ran away, but I found this footage from her bedroom."

Finch turns on a video, taken by a security camera at night. Out of nowhere, five soldiers wearing the Lexcorp symbol on their uniform jumped out and bound and gagged Tammy. A man, most likely Tammy's father, walked in. But instead of stopping the soldiers, like any good father would, Mr. Agua simply watched as the soldiers took Tammy away.

"Dude!" Bridget exclaims, "What kind of dad does that? That is so not crash!"

"Definitely," Rachel agrees.

"This was hidden under three levels of encryption and a video loop," Finch says.

"Well that's not suspicious at all," Sarah mutters angrily.

"We're looking for a thirteen-year-old girl with blue eyes, pale skin, blonde hair with the tips dyed blue, and about four feet ten inches tall."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Sarah protests, "What do you mean, we?"