Dedicated to @purehoerine for adding this story to her reading list! Every little user icon under 'Who's Reading' makes my day, OMG. Thank you so much for spending time to read this!! =D
**
|| Sara ||
"Wait... was she there when I said to meet at eight?" I ask nervously, drumming my fingernails against the table.
"Yeah, she was. But give the girl a break, Sara. She's on a date!" Alicia tries to assure me. The others nod in agreement.
"But still..." I trail off, eyeing her bright purple iPhone, "Call her just to make sure, please?"
"Fine," Alicia sighs, dialing Hana's cellphone and putting it by her ear. The room is silent as we wait for her to answer. One second passes. Two. Three. Until six seconds tick by and I stare at Alicia expectantly. Instead, the girl presses the red 'disconnect' button and says, "Guys, she's not picking up."
**
|| Hana ||
"You guys done yet?" Shane calls, causing Kazuki and I to spring apart and stare at him.
"What?" I ask in confusion.
"You two have been sitting there for like, what; an hour? Are you guys done catching up yet, because it's like... fifteen minutes to nine."
"What the....! Oh shoot!" I exclaim, checking the time on my watch. 9:48. My friends are probably freaking out right now. I should probably explain why I'm late--"Oh shoot! My phone's dead!"
Kazuki grabs my iPhone and taps the screen a few times. "Maybe we can reboot it and give it a few minutes. This shouldn't be too hard--"
"Oh, give me a break, guys!" Shane exclaims exasperatedly from in front of us. How'd he get here so fast? "When it's dead, it's dead! You can't change that."
I'm about to retort in Kazuki's defense when suddenly something starts beeping loudly. The three of us freeze. Kazuki whispers frightenedly, "Time bomb?!"
**
|| Nikki ||
"I'm picking up her tracker code," Erin tells us, looking up from the tracker screen. "Give me a second... there."
A black window appears. Slowly, green dots start popping out, lines start drawing themselves, and street names start emerging. Erin zooms in near the school building and we can see a bunch of green dots all in one place.
"Where is that?" Alicia asks from beside me.
"Evergreen Park. She's at the roller rink," I read.
"Oh thank goodness," Sara breathes. Then her eyebrows scrunch together again and she points to the pair of green dots beside Hana's. "Erin, who're they?"
Erin taps the first dot, the one on the right. Shane's name pops up, and she says, "Don't worry. It's just Shane."
"Who's the other one?"
"Someone called Kazuki Harune," Erin replies. I look over her shoulder. "Do a body scan."
"On it." She taps his name again and a bar meter appears. I wait impatiently as it goes from 1% to 34% to 60% until finally, it slowly becomes 100%. His general profile pops up.
| Kazuki Harune
| Gender- M
| Age- 15 yrs
| Origin- Japan
| Physical Features- Red hair. Light skin. Black eyes. 5'8". [no known information]
"G-guys," Alicia stammers, "Hana... she might be hanging out with a killer."
**
|| Hana ||
"Can somebody shut that thing up?!" Shane exclaims, looking for where the noise is coming from. My hand finds itself in my pocket and I pull out the tracker. A small red light is beeping from the upper right hand corner of its screen, and the annoying noise is coming from it.
"Hey, what's that?" Kazuki asks, appearing behind me. Immediately, I stuff it back into my pocket.
"I-it's nothing," I stammer. Right on cue, the beeping noises stop and Shane must've collapsed on the bench beside me.
But things were going on in my head. Why was my tracker beeping? Is there danger nearby? If so, should I tell everyone to evacuate? Or are the others contacting me? Is there something important I need to know? Is this just a system glitch? Oh, the Jackets and their high-tech programming--
"Um, Hana, is everything okay?" Shane asks suddenly. I nod reassuringly and pretend to check my watch again. "It must've been my mom. I really should be home now. Can you bring me home? Thanks."
"Whoa, your mom calls and suddenly you want to go home now?" he asks, standing up. "Sure. Let me just get my jacket from the bar--"
Vroom! Vroom! Screeeeeccchh!
"What the--" Kazuki's eyes widen as four maroon motorcycles pull up right in front of us and the riders jump off, guns pointed straight at him. They're wearing spy attire; black shiny jeans, black tank top under the signature Maroon Jacket, and a mask covering their faces. Uh oh. What're my friends doing here?
"Hana, get away from him!" the right-most girl who I immediately recognize as Nikki orders, her long, black sniper trained on the place above his heart.
"What are you talking about?" I ask-yell over the sound of cars screeching to a stop outside the park to see what's going on.
"Yeah, w-what are you talking a-about?" Kazuki stammers, eyes never leading the red dot on his chest.
"We'll explain it all later," the girl holding a stun gun informs me. Her forced tone strikes me as Erin's. "Get behind us. Now."
Shooting Shane and Kazuki a mixed-emotioned glance, I run to Nikki's side and no sooner have I reached there she holsters her gun behind her back and jumps on in front of me. The other three riders follow suit and soon we're burning rubber down the highway.
**
|| Shane ||
"Dude, what just happened?" Kazuki asks slowly as the four motorcycles up and leave.
"Um, why don't you tell me what happened?! Four government cycles just appeared in the middle of a national park and four agents aimed their guns at your head. You tell me what happened!" I shout, unaware of the small crowd gathering to watch us.
"How should I know?!" Kazuki exclaims, collapsing on the bench and sighing. "Sore wa, Hana ga seifu no tame ni hataraku watashi no seide wanai*!"
"Do you expect me to understand a toot of what you just babbled out?" I exclaim.
"It means--forget it."
"It's that long to say two words?! Japan is complicated, man."
Kazuki just shakes his head in exasperation and lets out a sigh. "Whatever."
**
Dictionary:
*Sore wa, Hana ga seifu no tame ni hataraku watashi no seide wanai = It's not my fault Hana works for the government!
Whoa, another chapter published. It's just sad that my class number has the word 'illegal' in it but whatever. I still have tons to work on, and I'm used up.
Anyways, thanks so much for 4k+ reads!!! I could just die of happiness and overexcitement. And yeah, peeps die of overexcitement, you know. It triggers heart attacks, cardiac arrest and strokes, and I am too young to die of any of those.
But seriously, thanks!!! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!!
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The S.H.A.N.E. Game (editing)
Acción[ highest ranking: #43 Action ] Sara Williams, Hana Minami, Alicia Denver, Nikki Connor and Erin West – can you guess their acronym? – are not as girly and gentle as their names give away. They are the Maroon Jackets. They are the equivale...
