One Direction is After Us

Chapter 46

*Eleanor's POV*

We closed the door and secured it behind us. 

We turned around simultaneously and were not expecting to see Professor Calando right there.

He was right in front of me, leering into my face. I gasped. 

I looked to my right, and saw that someone else, who looked exactly like the Professor, was also leering at Cassandra. 

I backed up, and the room was full of them. Everywhere, there was another Calando. 

"So, One Direction has arrived," they said; only, it was only one voice speaking. All of the other mouths moved, but no noise came out of one specific Professor. "It was only a matter of time,"

They all chuckled with the same voice, each twitch and breath completely in sync with the other hundred. 

"Now," they said, "which one of us would you like to talk to?"

We stared. 

"You only get one choice,"

Each of us hesitated and then pointed to a different one. We looked at each other and sighed. 

We congregated in a clump to strategize. 

"Here's an idea," Margaret said before any of us could talk. She pulled out a piece of paper folded into quarters and showed it to us. We watched her. She unfolded the paper, and on it was a photo of the Professor.

"Where in the world did you get that?" I asked incredulously. 

"I drew it," she said. "I know, I know, it's terrible, but at least it's something to work with,"

I gaped at her. "That's amazing!"

She smiled a little, and then compared her sketch to the person in front of her. 

This Calando looked almost exactly like the drawing, only, on the sketch, there was a freckle on his forehead. On this Calando, there wasn't one. 

"This isn't the real one," she confirmed. She led him to the right side of the room. 

She walked to another one, whose hair was significantly lighter than everyone else's. She led him to the right as well. "Each one is slightly different from the real one," Margaret said. "Interesting, isn't it?"

"Hey!!" Kaya shouted, "Can you all line up against the left wall?"

No way in the world did I expect them to listen to her. Wouldn't it only make it easier for us? Doesn't he clearly want to make it as hard as possible for us to find him? He's our enemy! Our nemesis!

But no, I was wrong. All of the Calando clones lined up two by two against the left wall. My jaw dropped, and so did the jaws of a few of the others. 

Margaret held up her sketch, and the six of us pointed out differences and instructed the faulty clone to go to the right. The ones that could be the real one, or had subtle differences that might have been depicted wrongly in the sketch or could change (like the exact shade of blue of his eyes or the brand of shoe he was wearing) we kept behind, being held by Zayn, Louis and Liam. 

When we had weeded through all of them, we turned to observe the identical ones. At this point, we realized that no two had the same difference. Only one would have his hairstyle differently, only one would have brown eyes, and we would know they weren't the right one. 

This proved useful, as the final six Calando-potentials narrowed down to two instantly just by seeing one difference. 

If there was anything different about these two, it was impossible to tell. Comparing to the sketch, they both seemed spot-on. 

"Which one do we want?" asked Zayn, who had a hand on both of their shoulders. 

"I... I don't know," Margaret conceded, lowering her sketch. 

Zayn looked between the two of them. He swiftly put his hand on both of their heads and pulled their hair. 

The one on his left reacted a split-second before the rest of the Calandos in the room. "Gah!"

"This one," I said, marching over to the one who seemed to be leading the other Calandos in expression. "We want to talk to this one,"

"Very good," he said, and he snapped his fingers. All the other Calandos dissolved as if they had been holograms, though we had definitely been touching them before. We exchanged glances with each other behind his back, impressed. "You've proven yourselves smart. But this might not last as long as you'd like, as you will now understand what exactly it is that I do,"