Notes

Chapter V

SHANNA

Music: Bowser's Galaxy Generator from Super Mario Galaxy 2

Once I saw the details of the main PAC headquarters coming into sight, I sighed in relief, knowing that we were safe now. No one could harm us here if they tried.

We found the leader in his office. He was drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. When he noticed our presence (a good portion of us, myself included, had our arms crossed and were tapping our feet impatiently), he sat up in his chair and said, "Hey there, adventurers. You guys ready?"

"Actually, we came to talk to you about something," Skylar explained to him.

"What is there to talk about? You've got a mission to go on! Are you guys even ready yet?"

"No, we're not," Ariana sighed. "We've just been captured by Russian soldiers and taken to a cave."

"Where they ambushed us with snakes," Jack added.

"But we escaped, thanks to our powers," I added.

"Those blasted damn Russians!" the PAC leader yelled, slamming his fist on the table. He may or may not have spilled coffee on his suit in the process. Then he cursed under his breath and looked at us.

"Kids, you're not safe here anymore. It is quite obvious that N.O.T.E.S is after you, and they will stop at nothing to eliminate you."

"My question is, how do they know about us?" Sean asked.

"Yeah! They sent us notes, sort of as warnings, about a week before this happened," I explained.

The PAC leader shrugged. "THAT I can't say for sure, but rumor around here has it that they hacked a government computer to show them files with information about each of you, likely from your encounter with PWEI."

"Which would explain why Libby, Anastasia, Chomata, and Joseph aren't here," Sam said to himself.

"No matter how they found out about you guys, one thing's for certain: You need to get out of here, and we're going to help you do it."

LUKE

We stared at the man oddly. Heath asked what I'm sure all of us were going to ask anyways: "What are you getting at, sir?"

The PAC leader stood up and told us, "Kids, PAC is going to take you to our hidden base in Russia. That is where you will start your mission." Immediately, we all began uttering words of complaint.

"Are you CRAZY!?" Elle screamed, throwing her hands in the air.

"Yeah, that's putting us closer to the enemy- and in even more danger- than we already are!" I yelled.

The PAC leader shrugged. "Right now, it's the best plan we've got. This way, you can both be in hiding AND stop N.O.T.E.S quicker. Now, I'm going to call our private jet to take us to Russia. Until then, you kids stay here and don't leave this building," he instructed. Then he left the room.

We all stared at each other in both confusion and worry.

---

Music: Stage 5 from Gradius PC-Engine

Alfanzo is sitting with his informant at the monitor, watching as soldiers were rounding up groups of kids from the middle school and loading them into vans. He laughed evilly to himself. "All going according to plan, eh?" he smirks to his informant.

"Yes, sir. Let's hope we got those meddling kids out of the way," the informant replies. Then a nearby phone rings, and Alfanzo says to himself, "And that's probably the news we've been hoping for." Grinning like a little kid who just received a Snickers bar at Target, he got up and answered the phone.

"This is Alfanzo. What do you have for me?" he asks. A scratchy but understandable voice replies, "This is Lieutenant Colonel. The kids have been eliminated."

"Are you sure?"

"We left them in a cave to die with a bunch of snakes. Our soldiers here took care of them."

Alfanzo laughs to himself, then puts the phone back to his ear and asks, "How about the rest of the plan? How's that going?"

"Still gathering up the rest of those damn teenagers. I don't know if it's their age or if it's just the United States as a whole, but these bitchy-ass attitudes are beginning to piss us off."

"How many of them did you have to kill?"

"Only a dozen. I've gotta go."

Alfanzo hangs up the phone, then laughs evilly to himself once again- and then he begins coughing because he was laughing too hard.

Alfanzo, however, didn't know the truth...