(3rd Person POV)
Leo didn't remember much when he woke up. And he didn't know where he was when he woke up on a cement floor in a cage.
"Hello, Mr.Cruz. "Marcus stood just outside the bars. Now he remembered. Marcus knocked him out when he went to investigate the cave after dark, even when Hayley told him not too.
——
"Louis will you just take a look at these two?" Judy says looking at Brooke and Daniel. Louis was busy setting the table for dinner while Judy admired her work from the couch. "What a beautiful couple."
"Well, Judy, we were meant to be." Brooke says.
"That is music to my ears." Judy smiles, standing from her spot on the couch. Daniel gave Brooke a reassuring smile that she was playing her part just fine.
Max's plan was to have Brooke continuing to pretend to be hypnotized at dinner, so they could work together to get Emma's chess set back from Jason. Max set his plan in motion when he called Jason during dinner.
"Yeah?" Jason answers his Louie. "You found what?"
"Jason, is everything alright?" Judy asks.
"Sorry, admin stuff." Jason says. "Uh, I seem to have forgotten to send the email to the, uh, CDE."
"The California Department of Education is calling you now?" Louis asks.
"Sorry," Jason stands from the table. "It will just take a minute."
Brooke gave Daniel a look out of the corner of her eye. Daniel returned the look before reaching for the plate of bread, "accidentally" knocking over Brookes sparking water all over her white dress.
"Oh! I'm sorry, babe." Daniel says.
"I'm going to go clean this." Brooke stands as well. "I'll be right back."
Brooke followed Jason to his office, she walked in on him pulling the chess set from a secret spot on one of his shelves.
"What are you doing in here?" Jason asks.
"Looking for the stain remover." Brooke answers. "I thought I saw it in here earlier." Then she very intently, bumped into Jason, and he spilled the chess pieces all over the floor. "Oh, I'm sorry Jason, I'm sorry."
"It's okay I got it." Jason dives to the floor.
"No I want to help." Brooke joins him looking for the white knight pieces. She scooped them up, then dropped the duplicate pieces max had given her on the floor so they blended in with the rest. She dropped the original pieces in her dress pocket, and went on as normal.
————
After dinner, Brooke and Daniel met up with the three Ravens who waited for them outside the Biology lab. Brooke hands Max the two pieces with a happy smile on her face. Max takes them and runs off to his computer lab to start working.
"Yes, you guys did it!" Hayley cheers.
"Brooke did most the work." Daniel says.
"Hey, you are really good at fake spilling sparkling water." Brooke adds.
"I'm going to catch up with Max, I'll call if there's any news okay." Jackie says, then follows Max down the hall.
"Eagles and Ravens really do make a good team." Hayley says. "I'll see you guys when we have any news. Good job today."
"See ya Hayley." Daniel waves to her, he and Brooke continued back to the Eagles clubhouse.
"It's odd how I keep slowly remembering things from while I was hypnotized." Brooke says as they walked through the seemingly empty clubhouse door.
"Like what?" Daniel asks. "What do you remember."
"Like I'm slowly remembering actually saying the "Meant to be" line, and for some reason, I remember calling Judy every time I saw Kia and Alex together."
"That's... odd?" Daniel says, more like a question. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well, it definitely doesn't mean nothing." Brooke says. "I mean I wouldn't do that, unless Judy was telling me to do it. But why would she tell me to do that?"
"At this point, I don't know why my mom does anything she's done."
The clubhouse was not empty. It was except for Kiara who was in the kitchen area. Hearing this made her start panicking. She knows that Judy knows she kept talking with him. She knew Brooke was hypnotized, she could figure that out, but never thought Judy would use Brooke to spy on her. Now she knew they were really screwed.
—————
"Sorry I'm late guys." Hayley says walking into the Biology lab where she was meeting Brooke, Max, Jackie, Daniel and her brother. "Aspen was watching me, I had to make sure I wasn't being followed. Hey bro."
"Hey, sis."
"Show us what you got." Hayley says to Max. Max started to ramble.
"At first, I didn't find anything. I removed the felt from underneath the knight, nothing. I scanned it an then I used a Geiger counter to check for isotopes, 'cause you can-"
"Okay, okay," Jackie inserted herself. "It took you a long time to get the clue. Can you show us?"
"Oh sorry, so, then I checked the other night and found an encrypted microchip with a video on it." He types away on his computer. "Emma made a video, the night she left the greenhouse."
"Max!" Emma says through the video. "I lied to you and I'm so sorry for that. I don't have much time but I have to tell you everything I know, even though it's only these bits and pieces. Anyway, on the day of the satellite launch, the reason I was late to your picnic was because I was busy hacking into the NASA servers. I helped bring down the satellite, and I did this all from your laptop."
"What?" Hayley asks. Max paused the video to explain a bit.
"My laptop can access encrypted sires that normal laptops can't. I showed it off to Emma to impress her." He says.
"Bad idea." Jackie nods.
"It was Jason Osmond who told me to do all of this." Emmas video continued. "He told me was working with the government on a classified project, but I know he's lying. He never told me they were gonna shut down the satellite. And when I found out, I confronted him and he threatened to kick me out of the Greenhouse. I knew this would break my parents heart. So, today, when I tried to call NASA and tell them everything, Jason said he would turn me in. It was his word against mine. I'm so ashamed, Max. I couldn't risk my parents finding out, so I agreed to leave. I do think- I... I think you might be able to trust one person. She's an Eagle, her name is Kiara, I think she's in a similar position, but- I- I don't really know what these people want from her."
"Emma! You ready?" Jasons voice called out.
"I don't know for a fact you can trust her, and I know Jason isn't working alone, but I have to go, be careful Max." There was nothing after that.
"Okay you guys realize that this now criminal." Alex says. "We have to go to the police."
"With what?" His sisters asks.
"With this!" He points to the computer.
"All we have is Emma's confession." Jackie adds. "The first thing they'll do is arrest her, and you when they find out she used your laptop."
"It's Emma's word against Jason's." Hayley says. "Like she said."
"Why would my brother do this?" Brooke wonders.
"'Cause he''s working with my mom." Daniel says. "I saw the way she looked at him when Max called. I just know they're in this together."
"If we only knew what this was." Alex sighs.
"Well what ever it is, Alex, It has to do with Mom." Hayley adds. "I mean that satellite was part of her research."
"What was your mom's research about?" Jackie asks.
"She never really told us." Alex answers. "It was very top secret."
"And we never asked." Hayley adds.
"She had a PhD in geophysics at Caltech with highest honors, summa cum laude." Daniel reads off his Louie.
"Where'd you get this?" Hayley asks.
"LA Times. It's her obituary." He answers.
"I've never seen that." Hayley peers over his shoulder. "What's CSL?"
"Uh, Caltech Seismological Laboratory." Max says. "A lot of geophysicists study seismology."
"Seismology is the study of earthquakes, right." Jackie asks, Max nods while he reads from his own Louie.
"So your mother researched earthquakes?" Daniel says. "You think this had something to do with that satellite?"
"Wait, I remember over hearing Marcus talking about an earthquake in the cave!" Brooke adds.
"But, we obviously felt the same earthquake that they did." Jackie says.
"No. Wait. You returned a day before the actual earthquake happened." Daniel says to Brooke.
"You guys know what this means." Hayley says. "They somehow knew the earthquake was coming." Alex pulled out his Louie.
"Who are you calling?" Brooke asks.
"Brandon Thomas." He answers. "We have to tell him about the satellite."
"Hold on, we should tell my dad first."
"Remember, Emma says she doesn't know who we can trust." Hayley reminds her.
"You don't think my dad is working with them?"
"I don't. But I also didn't think that about Marcus. Or Judy. Or Jason." Hayley says.
"What if Kia's with them too?" Alex asks.
"No, there's no way." Daniel shakes his head.
"It would make sense, she started acting really weird right before all this started happening." Alex pulls his Louie back out, "I'm going to try dad, wait... Eric."
"Eric?" Hayley asks.
"Of course!" Brooke realizes. "How could we miss that?"
"He said he took you to the station, did he really?" Alex asks her.
"I'm starting to remember, um... It was Eric who took me to the cave, to Marcus. I'm sure." She answers.
"He's the one who turned you in!" Daniel says.
"Oh, I hated that guy ever since he forced me to take that polygraph test." Jackie says. "I knew there was something sketchy about him."
"Let me get this straight." Hayley says. "Your mom, Marcus and your brother, and our dad's best friend."
"Now I definitely calling dad."
Alex called twice with no answer. Hayley did the same, with again, no answer.
"He's not answering me either." Hayley sighed, sitting back down at the table.
"We're not crazy, right?" Jackie asks, "We aren't just imagining this."
"We know something terrible is going on." Brooke says. "We just don't have anyone to turn to."
"That's it." Daniel slammed his hands on the table as he stood. "I'm going there."
"Where are you going?" Brooke asks.
"To that cave, or whatever it is." Daniel says. "I'll stand there until they let me in and I'll tell my mom I know all about her."
"And then what?" Hayley questions. "You'll look he in the eye and she'll repent and do volunteer work at a soup kitchen?"
"Do you have a better idea, Hayley?" Daniel asks back.
"Emma was right, we can't trust anyone." Max adds, just before Hayley's Louie chimed, with a message from Leo.
"Is it dad?" Alex asks.
"No, it's Leo." Hayley answers.
"What does he want?"
"He wants to talk. Alone." Hayley responded, saying she was busy. He quickly sent another message, Hayley quickly changed her mind. "I'm going."
"I'll go with you." Daniel says.
"No, it's okay."
"What if it's a trap?"
"You think Leo is working with them too?" Hayley rolls her eyes.
"How do we know he's not?"
"I'm going, stay here!" Hayley says. "I'll be quick."