Clueless

Phase Twenty-One

Phase Twenty-One

      

            “Worst terrors?” I heard someone ask. An image of the Annoying Orange popped into my head before I recognized the voice.

            “Angeletta!” I burst, opening my eyes. Next to me, I noticed someone screaming and looking around anxiously. I felt a rope around my hands and feet, so it took me quite a while to turn myself around to see that it was Wayne who was freaking out.

            “I see that your friends are of the least use,” a creepy man slurred. The creepy man had hair that looked like a rotten, decapitated turnip and eyes that reminded me of ice.

            “Who are you?” I asked. It was the only thing I could think of, so I ignored Angeletta’s furious glare and Wayne’s whimpering.

            “Oh, my ignorant friend, I am Jean-Claude De Vitry. Your worst nightmare,” the creep stated.

            Panic seized me, but for some reason, I felt no fear, I felt like it was almost a dream or something. It reminded me of that feeling of long ago on that first day of training.

            “B-b-but…” I sputtered. I was going to say that my worst nightmare was of the Annoying Orange chasing me but decided not to, “But that’s so long. Can I call you ‘DV’ for short?” I battered my eyelashes.

            “Elodie!” Angeletta hissed.

            “There are only eight electrons on the outer shell!” Wayne cried in panic, “Mold is a form of organic weathering!”

            “I can’t stand this any longer,” De Vitry made a weird sound in his throat, “You, guards. Don’t kill or hurt them—they’re mine.” With that, he entered some confusing code on a pad, pressed his finger on, and left us alone in the room with several guards.

            “What’s wrong with you guys?” Angeletta asked aloud, “Elodie, you just made it possible for us to get killed. And Wayne…Wayne!”

            “I’m so scared!” Wayne wailed, wriggling around, “Help me! Someone, help!” 

            “That guy is so annoying,” I heard one of the guards mutter. And then, of course, I had an idea…

            “I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves, everybody’s nerve’s everybody’s nerves,” I sang over Wayne’s scientific rants and cries. Angeletta soon got the idea and joined in with her own game of Make Random Noises.

            “I know a…”—“A to the third!”—“Merp!” Our three chants ricocheted off the walls of the dark room, and the guards soon began to look thoroughly annoyed.

            “I can’t take this!” one spat, pacing back and forth, “That boy is so annoying! I hate these stupid hostages…”

            What? Hating Wayne was like…hating puppies. It just didn’t happen.

            “…everybody’s nerves, everybody’s nerves…” I bellowed.

            “…fossils and layers!” Wayne shouted.

            “Balooga!” Angeletta piped.

            “You think they know how to get out?” one guard asked.

            “No way, not tied up like that,” one answered. I followed their exchange as well as I could while singing. Eventually, they all got up and told us not to move, leaving us alone in the room.

            “It worked,” Angeletta said, breaking our cacophonous symphony, “Now we just need to figure out how to get out.”

            “You know, if I could just unti—” Wayne began before being interrupted by someone stumbling into the room.

            “Philippe!” Angeletta cried, “Help us out!” Philippe looked like a mess himself, his hair quite messy and his body full of bruises and cuts. A few tears and ripping seams were scattered about his clothes, adding to the overall tortured look.

            “Shh,” Philippe hushed, “They’ll hear you.” He looked like he was in a lot of pain, then again…

            Could I trust him? His name had been on the screen. Philippe Jacques Peltier. Then again, it looked like he’d gone through a lot to get here.

            I imagined needles poking and coals burning…

            “You traitor!” Philippe hissed, turning to Wayne, “How could you do this to me? Framing me with the tracker stuff?”

            Wayne was the one who had cross-referenced everything…

            “You’re the traitor!” Wayne spat, wriggling, “How could you double-cross us like that? We trusted you. You drugged Elodie and wiped her memory out! And you call me the traitor?”

            But Philippe had given me those drugged chocolates…

            “What’s going on?” Angeletta’s eyes looked suspiciously from one boy to the other. I bit my lip, not quite sure what to do. Who was I supposed to trust?

            “Me!” Philippe spat, “How could you ever be so dumb as to trust him?”

            “But your name appeared on the screen for double agents,” I choked.

            “You set me up again, huh, Wayne?” Philippe let out a half-laugh, “I have to give it to you, allying with them? Since when? Since the basement? Does the code ‘DVI27’ ring a bell?”

            The basement? Did this mean Philippe knew about Wayne’s past? But what was “DVI27”? Wayne never mentioned that…

            “You,” Wayne whispered, paling, “You’re…him?”

            “Phi—” Angeletta began, getting cut off as the door to our prison opened once more.

            “I congratulate you, Agent C-10,” De Vitry stepped in, his guards following and yanking Angeletta up, “You’ve been of the utmost assistance. As for the rest of them, have them executed.”

            “Let me go!” Angeletta wriggled, but a guard pulled harshly on her arm, and I heard a snap.

            “You’ve found your double agent, children,” De Vitry laughed evilly.

            “No!” I screamed in a panic. Was Angeletta double-crossing us? No way! “No! Angeletta, please. Say you’re not!”

            “I’m not! I’m not!” Angeletta sobbed. The guard holding her pressed a cloth to her mouth, and she fell to the ground.

            Angeletta was not a double agent. There was hope, somewhere in me, that Wayne and Philippe weren’t either.

           “Execute. All of them,” De Vitry turned, glaring at his guards. He pressed a button on some sort of remote, and the left wall lifted, revealing a guillotine. They moved hesitantly towards us, stopping after a few steps.

            “Even your son?” one asked.

            De Vitry’s son? De Vitry’s son was in this room?

            “You can’t do that to your own son!” Wayne hissed.

            Wayne. Sweet, pretty-eyed, innocent Wayne. Or so we’d thought.

            Wayne. Double agent. De Vitry’s son. The hope that I had had before faded into darkness. I felt a large hand grab me, but my body wouldn’t fight it.