Details

Chapter 14: What if?

"Their network is like a safe," he grumbled, rubbing his eyes, "and I don't have the combination to open it yet."

"Then crack the damn safe."

Vic shot out of his chair and glared at Mr. Brawn by the door. "If it's that simple, North, why don't you do it, hmm?" he hissed. I didn't often see him that angry, but I could hardly blame him; we were all frustrated. "Go ahead! See if your brute force is more effective. Yell at it some more! Or maybe you can beat the screen until it tells you what you want to know!"

I closed my eyes and silently counted down from three, waiting for North to explode on schedule. When my ears survived the deadline, I opened my eyes again and saw him being held back by Si. Whispers of nonsense hummed through the room.

I was surprised that he'd managed to calm North down so quickly. Usually, Si just left him to his tantrums. He must've been just as tense as the rest of us to interfere. Of course he was—no one was immune to Sang.

Vic had been typing his hands numb ever since Doc told them what had happened outside. After Mr. B had finally sent North to sit in a corner and think, the room had calmed down and everyone had started doing what our team did best: solve the problem.

At least, we'd tried.

It was beyond ridiculous. We were one of the most successful teams in the Academy. We had received and accepted countless impossible assignments, had managed get an awesome reputation as a retrieval team, and we hardly ever failed at completing our missions. Hell, we were on the short track to early graduation with the next assignment!

Why the fúck, then, were we incapable of find Sang?

Unless she'd disappeared into another dimension, we should've been able to find her. Not only were we failing miserably at locating her, but we hadn't even been able to find any proof of her existence. What the hell was she? A figment of our imagination?

Even with new leads, it was impossible. Both the Doc and I had remembered to check the plates as the car had raced away, despite our panic, and had passed the information on to our brothers, hoping that Vic could do something with it.

Mr. B and Vic had suspected that they had been working with the wrong name when they had looked into her earlier, as they hadn't been able to find any records for a 'Sang Sorenson' at all. They hadn't even been able to find her name on Ashley Water's school records, even though she'd told us that she'd be attending. After all that nothing, they'd been relieved to finally have a clue in the form of a license plate.

In a spin on what I guessed must have been Mr. B's thoughts at the moment, 'it was unfortunate that after diligent research, this lead in the investigation had revealed itself to be a dead—fúcking—end.'

Instead of following the license registration to her father, and finding his name and address, we found an electrical engineering company.

Figures that the guy had a company car. Why make it easy for us?

It wouldn't have been a problem, if the company wasn't so damn secretive. Victor was one of the best in the world of computer whizzes, but even he was having trouble getting any information. What the fúck were they hiding, and how the hell were they doing it?

"This is not getting us anywhere," Si intoned, his voice low and serious. Finally someone said it. It made sense for it to be Si; the dude was calmer than Mr. Boss.

"Mr. Korba is right," Mr. B said, and I could swear he sounded embarrassed. Clearing his throat, he continued, "We don't have the luxury of losing ourselves to our emotions right now. Miss Sorenson needs us to focus, not bicker pointlessly. Mr. Morgan?"