256

Chapter 6

Zora burst into the room. "We've got a lead in Augusta, Maine. There's a kid up there who's going crazy, saying he can see things no one else can."

Marc sprang into action. "What kind of things? Did he describe it like a spiderweb, strings...? Death and I once worked together on a case like that."

"Sorry, no. His exact words were 'The light is talking. I can hear it! I can hear the light talking!'" she said.

"That could still be something," Death said hopefully.

"Worth a shot," Marc agreed.

"Let's hope he isn't just another crazy person," Rodrigo said.

"What about the shrink?" Zora nodded at Cindy.

"Uh... She'll have to come with us. I'm not leaving her alone at the base and you are all too indispensable to leave behind on babysitting duty. Zora, make sure she doesn't cause a scene. There'll probably be cops all over the place by the time we get there."

Everyone grabbed a silver briefcase from their work station and hurriedly finished up what they were doing, sealing test tubes, saving documents, and scribbling down one last idea. Packing one last concealed sleeping gas grenade, in Zora's case.

She grabbed Cindy by the arm and hissed quietly in her ear. "Look, I don't know if you think you can pull a fast one in the chaos, escape or talk to a cop or whatever. Not that anyone would believe you anyway. But say you somehow do. Remember who you're running from. Me. And if you're as good as Marc says, than you already know what that means. Don't blow this for us."

Cindy followed timidly into a small hangar that held an even smaller plane. It was jet black, and most of it seemed to be the wings and cockpit, the passenger section so small it had only three windows.

Rodrigo clamored into the cockpit and started the jet. It was a specialty model that only required one pilot. There are a few others that are single pilot, but definitely none this fast.

The others tumbled into the passenger section, rushing to click on seatbelts before the plane took off at a breakneck speed.

"What's with the rush?" Cindy panted, untangling her silky brown hair.

"You never know what to expect with these people. We've gotten there five minutes late one too many times," Zora said.

"And we want to one up the New York branch," Rodrigo called.

"We were the ones who came up with the idea for a school in the first place, and now we only get week old samples from the students with underdeveloped powers. It's not fair," Death said.

"So its only right that we steal their case. And we're keeping 256 a secret until we understand it. I think this is something big, and they're going to look like idiots for not noticing," Marc said.

"That's not at all petty or immature," Cindy said sarcastically.

Death pulled out two bags of peanuts from the snack box, tossing one casually to Marc and keeping the other for herself. "Peanuts, anyone?" she looked around at the rest of us.