Trace

Thirteen

Jay felt clumsy in his new body. His mind constantly worried that he would mess up or let something as minor as correcting his name to Jay rather than Splinter give him and Daniel away. So far, they were doing alright but that was thanks to the instructions Cunningham had given and was giving him.

Cunningham had explained every inch of the plan in painstaking detail, never forgetting to mention every tiny detail of every single phase the Government had planned out. It had taken at least 24 hours just to explain and then an added 18 for the boys to readjust to the new bodies their minds had been uploaded into.

So is the life of a Destiny-Child, he thought, as he ran forwards to wear Trace lay in the mud.

M and Glint were already by her side, frantically trying to calm her spasming body. Her body shuddered and jerked like it had been possessed, just inside the borders of the Barrier. Jay placed one hand on the shimmering creation and felt it pass straight through. Unlike Trace, he'd had his Monitor removed before- during the Readjustment. He and Daniel could pass through the Barrier like it wasn't even there but Trace, M and Glint were in a different boat.

None of them could go through it without going into the same state Trace was in.

He knelt next to her body, placing a hand on her body, feeling for the solid, square object that would identify where the Monitor was.

'Left leg. About ten centimetres below her hip.' Cunningham's calm voice invaded his mind and Jay inwardly sighed.

'That's easy for you to say. You aren't trying to do this with a girl who has suddenly decided to go into some sort of fit!' He shot back and immediately regretted it.

'That'd be the Monitor at work.' Cunningham returned, never once breaking from his calm persona but Jay could almost feel the man's seething anger. 'Get it out of her the way I said. It should make her a little more docile.'

'Should?' He frowned as he moved his hands to the middle of Trace's thighs and continued feeling for the solid object beneath her skin.

'Should.'

"Splinter, what's going on?" Glint asked, her grip on Trace's arm making the skin turn white beneath the streaking mud.

"She ran into the Barrier." He replied, glancing up at Glint's wide green eyes.

"The what?" M said, looking around.

"You'll see later." Daniel smiled and pulled a knife out of his pocket, twirling it between his fingers and making the air twist with the silver metal.

Jay's fingers struck the Monitor and he growled beneath his breath. Just where Cunningham said. He sucked in a breath before releasing it.

"M, hold her down. This may sting." Jay took the knife from Daniel's hand and raised it as M's grip tightened and Glint said, "Wait, what are you doing?"

Trace screamed when the knife plunged into her skin and drove the Monitor out of her body.

***

M jumped back and Glint yelled as the knife came out of the wound, bloody and fabricated and a severed metal prism through the blade. The blood began to pour from the laceration, gushing down Trace's leg and turning the mud-crust into a wet, blood-and-dirt mixture. Trace screamed again, her eyes flying open this time before closing, her body going limp.

"You've killed her!" Glint yelled.

M scrambled to sit up but his eyes were locked on the square of metal skewered through the blade of the knife. "What the heck is that?" He pointed at the metal square.