Young Heroes

Points

*Nathans POV*

  I stared at the paper, clenching it in my hand so hard my knuckles turned white. Behind me, Carson threw his arms in the air and leaned with his face to the wall. Sophia began weeping silent tears.
  "We were so close..." Sophia said quietly, running her hands over her face. I turned to face her and saw as her broken expression slowly turned to fury. "We were this damn close!" She yelled, kicking a stack of books on the ground.
  "Stay calm, Sophia." I said quietly. I looked down the hallway behind the bookcase door. I decided to explore for any scrap of a clue.
  I strode down the dark hall quickly, yet cautiously, and I soon heard Sophia and Carson's quick steps following mine.
  At the end of the hall there was a sharp turn to the left, then a sealed glass door. I stopped in my tracks and examined the door when Sophia and Carson appeared next to me.
  "There's a key pad." Carson said. "I couldn't try every possible code really fast—"
  He was interrupted when Sophia smashed through the glass door and strode inside.
  "Or you can do that." He muttered, stepping over the glass. 
  We jogged inside and we were met with a vast room of pitch black.
  "Anyone find the light switch?" I said, feeling along the walls for anything.
  I found what felt like a switch of some sort and flipped it. The room came to life and the lights hummed over head as the generator powered up.
"Seems like no ones been here in years. Are we sure she was even here...?" Sophia asked with a hint of hope, observing everything around us.
I walked to a round table in the middle of the room. The place almost looked like a giant conference room, and it reminded me of the one in the avengers. In the center of the table was Ashlyn's bow, black and silver, and still somehow in perfect condition.
"Oh she's been here." I said, turning around and holding up her bow. Sophia lost the hope in her eyes and got back to searching for clues.
On the table, I saw a button on a kind of a speaker box, and pressed it. A giant hologram of the earth illuminated itself right in front of me in the center of the table. The brilliant blue from the earth reflected in my eyes and was almost calming.
"Guys," I called.
Sophia and Carson came up to the table and peered at the globe.
"What is it?" Sophia asked.
"I'm not a NASA, but I think it's Earth." Carson said, and Sophia slapped him.
"There's a pin." I pointed out. On the globe, right above Japan, was a red, hologram of a pinpoint. "Maybe that's where they are."
"Wait, theres one right here." Carson spoke up from the other side of the table. I looked up and saw he was right. There was a red pin in Belgium.
"And over here too..." Sophia trailed off, raising her finger to point at another point. I looked around and there was a point in Alaska. I ran my hands over my face. She could be at any of these locations.
To make matters worse, after taking a minute to look over the whole map, there were about 7 more pins. They were playing a game with us.
"So how do we know which one is...just it?" Sophia asked, putting her hands on her hips.
We were silent for a moment and Carson tapped his earpiece, phoning Rianna and Alysa.

*Rianna's POV*

"Ok but honestly, what the actual fuck are papayas? Like...an orange, squishy fruit with a dump of seeds in the middle. What the fuck's that about?" I randomly thought of.
Alysa stared at me. "Do you...are you actually saying these words?"
I shrugged and swallowed my pizza. "Well come on. And I've never seen the inside of a green papaya..." I said wondrously.
"You know for a mental genius, you ask a lot of questions."
Just then Carson's contact appeared on the screen, attempting to call us.
"Ohhh, thank God." Alysa said, quickly answering it as I glared at her. "Hey Carson, whats up? Did you find her?"
"Not exactly." I glanced at Alysa and saw the shimmer of hope on her face quickly disappear, and her face became blank and unreadable once again. "We found where she was being kept though...we were just too late. But we found their conference room thing and there's a giant circle on it, and I'm pretty sure it's Earth—"
"You dumbass. Give me that!" I heard Nathan in the background. We heard them struggle back and forth with the speaker for a few moments, and me and Alysa glanced at each other.
"There's 10 points on this holographic globe, and she could be at any one of them. There's no way to know for sure. I mean, we could keep looking around for clues, but I really think she's gonna be at one of those locations." Nathan said firmly.
I pondered for a second, and a light bulb dinged in my head. "Or none of them..." I muttered to myself.
"What?" Nathan asked.
"Call you back." I said quickly.
"Wait wha—" Nathan said before his voice was cut off.
"Man, they upgraded to those international services quick." Alysa said nodding, satisfied.
I rushed off to the labs while my thoughts were still fresh in my mind.

*Ashlyn's POV*

  I had spent the last hours trying to concoct any idea in my mind of what I could do to escape.
  I had been kidnapped before, but usually by dimwits who had no idea how to even handcuff someone. This was a challenge. They either had even more advanced technology than what we'd seen before, or they were super humans of some kind. Without knowing what for sure, it'd be foolish to make a move of any kind. I honestly had no idea how they got me in and out of here when I was unconscious and being transported, because from what I could see, there's no door.
I looked around overhead. I couldn't see any cameras of any kind. But then again, that didn't mean they weren't there.
I came to two conclusions. Either there was a place in the wall, ceiling, or floor that gave, or there was just no way to escape.
I stopped looking about the room and took a look at my restraints. I frowned and turned them over, which was a challenge since I was restrained to the wall.
I strained my eyes trying to activate my x-ray mode, but they weren't working for some reason. In fact none of my powers were, and I didn't know why, because when I first got here they did. Unless something else effected them...
And then it hit me over the head. The nutrient pills they give me to substitute food. I bet they were somehow dampening my powers. I couldn't keep taking it if I wanted to have any chance of escaping, and it'd take a while for the drug to leave my system. There was only one way to do that.
I'd have to starve myself.

*Sophia's POV*

We waited impatiently for about half an hour, waiting for Rianna and Alysa to call back. We spent most of the time aimlessly sifting through the remains of whatever the SDI left. I felt like we were just walking around and twiddling our thumbs as the tension built.
I felt everyone breath out, relieved, when Rianna's name appeared on my phone.
"Hey Rianna what's up?" I asked immediately as everyone crowded me.
"She's in Colorado." She said, panting for breath. Why, I did not know.
"Why're you breathing like a lion?" Carson asked.
Nathan slapped him. "Is that really the most important question you could be asking right now?"
"Ok, fine I'll ask her a different question. Hey Rianna. Can you tell us what's up Nathan's ass?"
Nathan glared at him and Carson rose his eyebrows. "What? It's important. Not good for your health—"
"Rianna are you sure? The map had coordinates all over the world in the most exotic places, and you come back with Colorado." Nathan reasoned.
"If it ain't Colorado, then I'm not the genius everyone thinks I am."
"How did you come up with that location?" I asked, still confused.
"Very cryptic and complex math. Had to cross reference and graph it all out, but I won't bore you with details you cannot comprehend."
We all glanced at each other.
"Guys, I'm sending over the coordinates now. Get over there and get our girl back." Alysa said before the line went dead.
I slipped my phone back in the inside of my suit, and looked up.
"Ok, we need a plan." I said in all seriousness.
"Ok, how many days since she's been MIA?" Nathan asked first, starting to walk toward the exit.
  "You mean from the time she was kidnapped or from the time she was stranded in Russia?" I asked.
  "Good Lord, we need a vacation..." Carson mumbled.
  "Kidnapped." Nathan said.
  I pondered for a moment. So much has been happening lately, I didn't even know what day it was. "Four...almost five days?" I said, nodding.
  "It doesn't make any sense. She's been gone for nearly five days. We can't contact her, and Alysa can't even connect with her to see if she's even alive! How is that possible?! We're better then that!" Nathan shouted angrily, storming his way through the hall.
  "Yeah, ok, hot head. I get you're pissed here, but you aren't the only one who's lost someone. That's like my sister out there!" I shouted back.
  Nathan stopped in his tracks. "Then why am I the only one who seems urgent to find her?!"
  "We're just trying to keep it together while you throw a tantrum! Get your shit together, Shinagawa! If we lose our heads now, she's gone!"
  "SHE ALREADY IS GONE!"
  His last words rang through the hall and hung in the air between the three of us. Nathan slid to the floor with his hands on his head.
  "Bro...you really believe that?" Carson spoke up.
  "I don't know what to believe, man." He replied quietly. "This has never happened before. She always gets herself out of things. A lot of times without our help. How're we supposed to handle the SDI force? We've only been a team for a few years..."
  I leaned with my back to the wall, and slid to the floor beside him. "You're right. We only created this team a few years ago. But we've also been a team almost all of our lives."
  Nathan looked at me and almost cracked a small smile. "That was so cheesy."
  "I know. I really regret it." I said with a laugh.
  "I wanna punch both of you in the face." Carson said.
  We all laughed quietly and I stood up offering a hand to Nathan.
  He took it and rose to his feet. I looked up at him.
  "She was stupid, and stubborn, and bossy, and so weird," I chuckled. "But I miss her too. We all do."