256

Chapter 4

They were in a room lined with computers along the walls. Rodrigo went up to one of them and clicked several times, queuing something up. Suddenly, white tubes in the corners of the room lit up, shooting green light into the center. Cindy flinched.

The light evened out into a holographic grid. "Marc first noticed it a couple weeks ago. Almost every file ICE has-- that's us, we're ICE-- has one thing in common. 256. It's everywhere. No one knows why," Rodrigo said.

He pulled up an image of the earth, spinning slowly. "These are the places we have found it so far." Dots appeared across the globe, slowly at first, then more rapidly. Almost every country had at least one, but the bigger ones were getting into the thirties and forties.

"Have you considered that this might all be a coincidence? I mean, its a number. People are gonna use it. I'm surprised there aren't more dots, honestly," Cindy said.

"We aren't highlighting every time the number is used. We're highlighting every time something really weird happens and it is used," Marc said.

"San Francisco, California. Three teens go into a bedroom on the second story of one of their houses. They lock the door and window and close the blinds. A bright light is seen a few minutes later. None of the teens are seen again for nine months, then suddenly they appear back in the room, insisting they have memory loss and failing polygraphs. They were missing for 256 days," Rodrigo read.

"A girl sporting wings, antennae, and extra arms crashes the Super Bowl. She announces that she is X-256 and is tired of lies and secrets. The coverup on that one was a ton of work."

"I heard about that," Cindy mused. "Didn't she end up being a crazy drug addict in rehab? She wasn't actually an alien, right?"

"She was," Death said excitedly. "I got to meet her! It was so cool."

"Also, her little brother through a tantrum that destroyed a large part of a nature reserve. 256 trees, to be exact," Rodrigo said.

"Ooh, tell her about the school," Marc said. Rodrigo pulled up the file.

"ICE opened a school for telekinetics a while ago, along with a few other students who have similar circumstances. As you would imagine, the student body isn't very large. Only 256 students so far, but whenever we lose one another is found within a week."

"There are more, but if we told you all of them we'd be here for days," Marc said. "So, when do you want to get to work?"

"Never! I'm not helping you people. You're all insane. And yes, that's a professional opinion," Cindy said.

Marc and Death shared a look. "Okay," Death said. "We'll just work around you then."

"Wait, you still aren't letting me go? Even though I refuse to help?"

Marc shrugged. "If Death says so. She must see something in you. Take it as a compliment."

"I don't know if you realize this, but someone saying that Death sees something in me sounds more like a threat than a compliment," she said.