The Ultimate Rescue

Chapter XIII

AVERY

Music: Stage 6 arrangement from Gradius Galaxies

When we locate the other two members of our team, Shanna is patiently waiting for us at the edge of the forest, with the hovercraft sitting down next to her feet. Just a few feet behind her is Mia, who's sitting criss-crossed on the floor with her back turned to us and her arms crossed.

"Guys! Where's Mackenzie?" Shanna asks, looking worried when she doesn't see Mackenzie with us.

Sean sighs. "Mrs. Smith had already left with her by the time we made it in there."

"You should've seen Elle, though. She kicked some serious ass," Luke smirks, nudging Elle. Elle giggles and flips her hair to show her appreciation. Sam must figure that Luke's not trying to make a move (which, even with all the times he's tried it on me, I doubt he is), so he doesn't say anything.

"We all did, Luke," Elle replies, laughing.

I, however, decide to have a little fun. "Luke, let's not start that with Elle, okay?"

"Avery, I'm perfectly aware that she's dating Sam. No need to worry," Luke chuckles.

"Guys, focus!" Shanna urges. "Do you know where Mrs. Smith took her?"

"Uh, of course not! Why the hell would you think we do?!" Skylar sighs, giving a "duh" look to Shanna.

"Lemme guess: The human GPS isn't back on the hovercraft yet?" Heath asks, gesturing to the piece of machinery resting by Shanna's feet.

Shanna presses a button on the keyboard to turn the hovercraft's monitor on. The progress bar for the file recovery is at a measily 14%. For reference, an hour ago, it was only at 1%. So, a steadily increase, but nowhere near good enough for our purposes. With Sam's help, she pulls up the list of programs installed on the hovercraft. The human GPS is not on the list. "Nope," she and Sam say at the same time.

"Figures as much," I mutter.

"I'm pretty sure the human GPS is on the other flash drive anyways. The one currently running contains the more recently installed programs," Sam says.

"Do we at least have the map of all the established illuminati locations?" Luke asks.

"I have it saved in an email Mackenzie sent to me, so yes," Sam replies.

"But there's so many of them! She could be anywhere by now!" Shanna complains.

"Then we're just going to have to do what we always do: Check each one of them until we find her," I say determinedly. "Besides, if we can clear out the illuminati's presence at each location, that might help our cause either way." We all know that's not the best option for us, but it's the only real one we have. A trial-and-error search like our usual searches is really the only way we can still go about this.

"Then we should probably get moving," Skylar sighs. Sam powers on the hovercraft and gets it set up for flight. Everybody else hops on... except for Mia, who remains sitting in the same spot in the dirt. She's the only one who hasn't said a word since she arrived.

I tap Shanna's shoulder to get her attention, point at Mia, and whisper, "Is she okay?"

"She refused to speak to me when I found her, and she had already stopped crying by then. I don't know," she answers.

I make eye contact with Sam and nod in Mia's direction. He gets it and calls out to her. "Hey, Mia! You coming or what?"

Mia turns around to face Sam, but doesn't say anything. Her eyes are narrowed into small slits and her mouth is an almost perfectly straight line. Her face is still red and tear streaked from when she was crying, though there is no remaining sign of moisture.