Tess and Elisabeth found her hours after dinner was over, still tapping furiously away at the e-screen. They entered the room so quietly, and Michelle was so absorbed in what she was doing that she didn't notice them until Elisabeth said, "So, are you going to tell us your plan?" at which point she jumped half a foot into the air and spun around in shock.
"I- you guys- I mean- how'd you find me?"
Tess sniffed tetchily. "Well, after you abandoned us at lunch and didn't bother to show up to any training classes where we had to cover for you, we figured you probably went back to the dorm, so we checked before and after dinner, then searched every room in this compound that has an e-screen."
Michelle blinked at her. "Sorry, I just..." she sighed deeply, "got carried away. The good news is I have a plan now!"
"Really?" asked Tess sarcastically. "We hadn't noticed."
"She didn't eat much dinner," Elizabeth explained, seeing Michelle's puzzled expression. "Plus, she was worried sick that you'd been kidnapped or something."
From the icy look that Tess was shooting at Elisabeth, this information had not been willingly divulged. Michelle couldn't help being glad that she had mental protection against mind readers.
"D'you want to hear the plan or not?" Michelle asked a sulky Tess who nodded grudgingly.
Michelle took a deep breath. "It's a lot to explain. You might wanna sit down."
Elisabeth and Tess sat in the two empty chairs in the office, but Michelle remained standing.
"Where to begin?" she murmured, then, deciding to start with what had given her the idea, she began, first recounting the antics of the boys.
Elisabeth looked mildly impressed at the boys' ingenious ideas and methods. Tess, who seemed determined not to be interested, merely looked at Michelle.
"So, that gave me the idea to spring a trap on Maine," Michelle said excitedly. "Trick him into saying the wrong thing and giving himself up, in a similar way that those boys have been tricking the others into...being test subjects."
"How d'you plan to do that?" Elisabeth asked.
"We have to stage an attack. It'll require a lot of hacking - I've done most of that already - and Nikolas's help, of course." Tess shot her a disbelieving look, and Michelle remembered their banter from earlier in the afternoon. "We're not a couple," she said. "I just need someone on the inside is all, and Nikolas is the only person I can contact. And I want to hear his input on the plan, see if he thinks it'll work. Plus, it's his dad we're planning to take down. If anyone can help us, it's Nikolas. But basically, we have to lure Maine into a situation where he'll confess, but everyone'll hear. It won't be easy, that's for sure, but if we can control the circumstances, I think it's bound to work."
"You think?" Tess asked, finally speaking. "What happens if it doesn't work."
Michelle grimaced. "I'll probably die," she said matter-of-factly.
Elisabeth stared at her in horror, and even Tess looked upset now.
"How likely are you to succeed?" Elisabeth inquired.
"There's about a 58% chance I'll succeed," Michelle whispered. Elisabeth recoiled as though she'd been electric shocked, and Tess's brow creased, a sure sign of worry in her current state of unfed grumpiness. Michelle looked down. She hadn't told them all of the figures she'd worked out. There was only a 21% chance she'd meet her objective of getting General Maine to spill his secrets and walk away from it alive. Unharmed was even less likely. "Let's go talk to Nikolas," she said abruptly. "We can stop by the kitchen on the way."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After a quick stop for some leftover stew and bread, the trio continued on to the e-screen lab, Tess considerably more upbeat, and Michelle trying very hard not to think of all that could go wrong with her plan.
The sooner she talked to Nikolas the better, she thought, but unfortunately, Tess had gone back to teasing her about their relationship.
"For the last time," Michelle hissed as they stepped into the lab, "there is nothing romantic about my relationship with Nikolas!" Her nerves were strung thin, and Michelle's voice carried more venom than she'd meant it to.
Tess looked taken aback by the fierceness of the comment. "Okay, okay, geez."
They went to the nearest e-screen and Michelle slipped the port-chip out of her pocket and into the side of the screen. She quickly tapped on the comm-call icon, which took her to the same page as the night before, only without the partner chip option. Michelle frowned and glared at the screen. Her eyes caught on a flashing number 3 in a corner. She tapped it dubiously and a new screen popped up.
Three new comm messages:
10:47
11:10
11:31
Michelle tapped the first message:
Michelle, I think Dad's suspicious of something, you've got to be careful, okay? I don't think I can comm-call you tonight, you'll have to figure something out by yourself. Please be careful.
The second message was just as short:
Dad is definitely suspicious, and I heard him talking to Sergeant Knight. He's planning something big soon. You have to act fast, Michelle, or else it might be too late. I'm not sure what he's planning, but it's gonna be bad. BE CAREFUL.
And the third message was shortest still, and the most worrisome:
He found out about the chip. DO NOT USE IT AFTER YOU SEE THIS MESSAGE. Good luck, be safe.
Michelle felt like a fish out of water. Without Nikolas, her well thought out plan would have 0% of being successful. And if he was right, General Maine was planning some sort of attack, or possibly something worse, soon. And now that he knew about the chip... He might not know who Nikolas had been communicating with, but she was sure he would guess, and every second she left her chip in the e-screen was a second closer to Maine finding their location. She jerkily tore the small metal square from the side of the screen, then dropped it onto the floor. If Maine knew about the chip, he knew that Nikolas had been doing something against orders; soon he might even know that Nikolas knew he was a traitor. Maine had Nikolas. No one would question Nikolas's disappearance if he was with his father, no one would ever believe anything could be wrong, and Maine could do whatever he wanted to Nikolas.
A scream tore itself out of Michelle's mouth, and her foot lifted off the ground and slammed down hard onto the port-chip, crushing it. She lifted her foot up again and smashed the chip to smaller bits, all the while shouting curses at General Maine. She stomped until there was nothing but powder beneath her shoes, and Tess and Elisabeth were tugging at her arms, pulling her away from the crushed chip and the still on e-screen.
Michelle stopped shouting and was finally able to hear Tess's words.
"You'll wake the entire compound! Do you want to get caught in the e-screen lab in the dead of night? As if you're not in enough trouble already, if they find you out here they'll suspect you were...spying."
Elisabeth left Michelle's side and hurried to the door to see if anyone was coming. She came back pale and wide-eyed.
"There're about 15 people coming from every direction. There's nothing I can do about all of them at once. Michelle, come on."
Michelle had stood still, listening with dread settling in her stomach. There was nothing else to do.
"Go. If you go out the back right now, you can circle around and pretend to have come from the dorms-"
"Do we look like we just came from the dorms?" Tess said shrilly.
"Then hide!" Michelle hissed. "Or...or pretend you followed me, you caught me here and that's why I was yelling. We have to tell them I'm a spy."
Elisabeth gaped at her. "Why would we do that?"
"Because it's the only thing they'll believe when they find us all out of bed in the middle of the night, and if I take the fall for you, well, I'll probably be safer in prison here than doing anything out there, and you two will be able to stop the general from doing whatever he's going to do, and maybe I can still think up a plan - Oh!" she stopped, having hardly breathed through the long sentence, and took a breath as she considered the idea that had popped into her head. "Elisabeth, you could link our minds telepathically, couldn't you? Then we can communicate even when I'm locked up, and we can work out some kind of plan and it'll work out, I'm sure."
Elisabeth glanced at her. "Telepathic links only, well for me, anyway, they only work when the people connected are all within a hundred yards of each other. I'm sorry," she added, seeing the crestfallen look on Michelle's face. "We can do it now, though, and maybe I can follow you to where you're going to be...locked up, or whatever."
"Yeah, okay," Michelle said slowly. "That could work. Just be quick."
Michelle concentrated, then, for the second time in as many days, brought down her mental defences. She didn't feel anything, but almost immediately, she could here Elisabeth's voice in her head.
It's all set up. Don't make any signal that you've heard me, you can just think back.
This is so weird, said Tess's voice.
It works, thought Michelle. At least now we can communicate. You guys have to act like you found me, okay? Don't argue, she added, seeing her friends' expressions. Just do it.
Elisabeth sighed out loud, but grabbed Michelle's right arm, and Tess grabbed her left.
D'you have any cloth? Michelle asked. Stuff it in my mouth. That'll explain why I shut up
"I'm sorry," whispered Tess, pulling a small scarf out of her pocket. "And I'm sorry about earlier, the teasing and...I really was just worried about you."
"Shhh," Elisabeth chastised as Tess put the scarf into Michelle's mouth. Michelle had to suppress her gag reflex, and supposed, rather bitterly, that this must be why it's called a gag.
A few moments later, heavy footsteps outside the door announced the arrival of the guards. Michelle steeled herself for what she had to do, and she saw Elisabeth and Tess looking like they were doing the same.
The door burst open, and five soldiers marched in. They blinked in surprise when they saw Aspen, star student of the trainees, restrained and gagged by her only two friends at the academy.
"Oh th-thank goodness you're here!" Elisabeth wailed. "We s-saw her sneaking out of the dorm, so we f-followed her down here and saw her on o-one of the e-screens. We d-didn't know what to do, so we t-tried to confront her, but she made a hu-huge racket, and we had to put something in her mouth, or else she w-would've woken everyone up. We s-swear we didn't do anything," she added, a tear sliding down her cheek. The speech had been punctuated with sobs and hiccuping breaths of air, as though the girl had been crying a great deal.
The soldiers nodded and reached out to take hold of Aspen. Before she quite let go, however, Michelle slipped a small, hard object into Tess's hand - it was the drive-ware from the port-comm in her uniform and it contained all of the information Nikolas had sent them.
She heard Good luck in her mind, and then she was being dragged down the corridor towards a part of the compound she had not yet seen. She felt absolutely terrible. She had just abandoned two of her best friends to solve a near-impossible problem, and while she had certainly kept them out of trouble for now, she hadn't done much to help them in the long run. Her other best friend was most likely a prisoner just like her, and probably being treated way worse. And now there was about to be a huge, unlawful attack that she could do nothing to prevent. Her plan, which had depended on so many things going right, had gone horribly, horribly wrong.