Synced

Chapter 8- Hyrum

All I could do was stare at him.

"Did you say Mafia," asked Hannah, reaching over to close my mouth, "as in, a criminally minded organization who kill people and blow things up?"

"Yup," he said. "Well, we're not the criminal part. And the second part happens more than we want it to."

"So you're saying that Carter is apart of a German Mafia that sent him to recruit us?" I said.

"Pretty much," he said.

This was getting weird. First the incident with first chair, then the thing that happened in the library, and then this. It was a little too much.

"To help you with this, you know that camera that appeared at your house, Hyrum? That was sent by Carter," Isaac said.

"How do you know about that?" I said. Him knowing about the cafeteria heist was still hard for me to believe. I was pretty sure that email was untraceable.

"I told you, I was watching you before they were," he said, " I had sent a drone to check on what you guys were doing when the camera was dropped off."

"So, you're stalking us?" asked Hannah.

"Weeeellll, you could look at it that way, but it was to keep you safe. Like I said, I'm planning on helping you."

This was getting weird for me. If he was going to kidnap us, this was a strange way to do it. And he was totally relaxed. He had been leaning against the wall the whole time, occasionally glancing at Hannah's burger.

"Can we get a few minutes to talk this through?" I asked.

"Actually, I'll give the rest of school. This is taking a little too long, and I don't want to risk Carter finding me," he said.

"Why do you not want him to find you?" Hannah asked.

"It doesn't end well when we meet," Isaac said.

"What, do you guys knock each other out?" I said.

"Let's just say that Wolfwood High won't be used for awhile."

I was looking at this guy closer now. He was calm and relaxed. But there was something else. I needed to think about this.

"Alright then, after school?"

He nodded. "After school." His phone started ringing.

"I gotta take this, see you later."

I watched him walk away.

"That was interesting," said Hannah.

"We just got told a mafia wants us, the kid that told us could level the school in a fight, and you say it's interesting? That's an understatement."

"I know, but there's something that's bothering me and I can't put my finger on it."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, it was something about his phone."

"What do you mean?"

Suddenly, she snapped her fingers.

"That's it!" she shouted, earning a few looks from the people sitting at the tables we were walking by.

"Keep your voice down," I said, rubbing my ear, "we don't want a lot of attention, remember?"

"His phone, I couldn't see any familiar hardware on it. It wasn't apple or android or anything."

"Really." I paused. "This is getting interesting. We need to get this figured out quick."

"Right. Did your watch pick anything up?"

I glanced down at my wrist.

"What the friken heck?!"

"What is it?"

"My watch is saying it picked up this weird electro-magnetic field a while ago."

"Where's it coming from?"

"It can't identify it with anything and it's saying unknown source."

"Ok, that's weird."

I had no idea what was going on. My watch was always able to match up frequencies and find where they came from. Once we got to our usual table, I immediately pulled out my laptop and started going through the data my watch was pulling up, trying to find something. I was kinda thinking of what happened in the library.

"Hey, can you find the time when the signal was picked up?" asked Hannah.

"Oh, right, duh."

"That's why I'm here."

"Uh-huh."

I looked through the timestamps of signals getting picked up, and nearly choked on my sandwhich.

"Geez, don't hurt yourself," said Hannah.

"The signal was picked up when we were talking with that kid Isaac."

"You know, with what we learned today, I'm not surprised," she said.

"Right."

"Hey can you check something."

"Uh sure, what is it?"

"This probably random, but could you check the cameras by the area we were at?"

"You're right, that is random."

She reached over to slap me. "Just do it," she said.

"Ok, ok, fine," I said, ducking away from her.

I hacked into the school's security system and went to the cameras.

"Ok, lets-a-see, Camera 13. Where do you want me to start it?"

"Go to the start of lunch and speed up the run time," she replied.

"Ok, here you go."

We started watching. I was so focused on seeing us show up that I didn't know it had finished until the live symbol showed back up on the screen.

"What the frik-," we both said at the same time

"How are we not there?" said Hannah.

I looked through the recording.

"Nothing's coming up as being deleted or anything. This is wierd."

"Hey," she said, " your watch recorded when it received the weird signal, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Set the camera to just before that time and slow the video down."

"Ok, I see where you're going."

I went to the video and set it up.

"All right, here we go."

I pushed play and watch. I didn't see anything happen, but Hannah, of course, found something.

"There!" she shouted, pointing

"Where?"

"Go back to the start and I'll show you."

I went back and pushed play.

"See, right there, those are hazy lines."

I looked to where she was pointing, and noticed faint, hazy lines in the air.

"Yeah there are," I said.

"Zoom in and focus on them," she said.

I pulled the laptop back over to me and did what she said. I couldn't believe what I saw next.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I think Isaac was was somehow generating some kind of invisible force field."

She looked over at the screen and saw what I meant. The hazy lines could be seen more clearly now as the faint outlines of three people having a conversation.