Chapter 6- That Old Familiar Feeling
Since she was excused from school, Lydia found herself with too much free time. First, she headed to Brentle to check her braces and make sure they were in perfect working order. His combination office and private lab was completely dark, save for the faint glow from his computer screen, and his window blinds were shut. When she entered, he glanced up from his hunched position in front of the computer and squinted at the door. “Someone there? Yes, who is it?” His phone rang and he picked it up. “Can’t talk now. Call back later.” He hung up.
“Uh, I could have my braces looked at?” Lydia asked. “Arthur’s sending me on a mission and I want to make sure there aren’t any problems.”
“Oh, of course, of course. Would you turn on the lights?” He stepped around his desk, tripping and crashing over strewn equipment and mechanical parts on the floor. “Oh, wait, wait!” Too late. She flipped on the light switch as he drew a curtain closed that cut the room in half. Lydia tried to check the gaps on the curtain’s edges, but he pulled them to. He grinned, wide and toothy, with that mad scientist glint in his eyes especially bright today.
“Now, please excuse the mess,” he said, uselessly flattening his wild hair, which sprung up the moment he stopped messing with it. His hands twitched, buzzing around, unsure what to do. “I’ve been busy. Haven’t had a chance to tidy up.” He picked up some small tools, dumping them in his lab coat pockets. Yet there was still hardly a clean spot to step on, and Lydia hopped, skipped, and jumped toward Brentle. She handed her braces to him and he set them down. “Did I hear you right? Arthur is sending you on a mission?”
“Yeah. Along with Jando and Aidan.” She shifted her balance, spreading her stance wide in the two spaces clear of junk.
“Splendid. Really moving up now. You’ll be a full-blown agent before you know it.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly. “When are you heading out?”
“This afternoon,” she said, eyeing the curtain. An amorphous blob rose out of the table beyond the white sheet.
“Where to?”
“I’m not sure if I should say.” Part of the blob dangled off the table’s edge.
“Right, right,” he said, digging a wrench out of a pile of parts. “Secrecy is important.” He caught her staring at the curtain and nodded. “I have a lot to do, but I’ll have these ready for you before you leave.”
“Sounds good. Thanks,” Lydia said. After she stumbled out, her stomach grumbled for breakfast. She stopped by the cafeteria, grabbed some fruit and a cereal bar, and decided to search for Cooper.
“I want to see a friend on the second floor,” Lydia told the guard at the elevator. Her request proved fruitless, however, until Sylvia exited and gave her permission, and the guard allowed Lydia to pass. Most of the second floor was a combination of the first and third floors. Nestled between experimentation chambers and labs sat middle-management offices and meeting rooms. Lydia never grew accustomed to the sudden change of blue light of the first level to the pure white of the upper levels.
Eventually, she came across one chamber with a pool. In the middle, a sunny blond boy poked his head out of the water, took a deep breath, and dived down, swimming laps underwater. She entered, bracing for the strong salty air. Instead, she inhaled pleasant fresh water. Oh, right, she remembered. Nina had to breathe salt water, not Cooper. To the side, a few technicians watched and appraised the swimmer.
Lydia waited until he finished the exercise and the technicians huddled together, talking amongst themselves. Cooper swam to Lydia, looking the part of a ghost-white dolphin. When he emerged, he shook his long corn-yellow hair and used his fleshy flipper arm to wipe the water out of his eyes. “Lydia! How’ve you been?” Unlike Nina’s dull ones, his bright-blue eyes shimmered like the pool. Also, unlike his twin, he possessed no gills on his neck, so he wasn’t limited to always submerging himself in water.
“I’ve been doing well. How are you doing?” She plopped down and crossed her legs.
“I’m doing all right,” he said. He folded one long arm on top of the other on the pool’s lip and kicked his flipper legs. “What brings you here?”
“Well, I talked to Nina.”
His countenance dropped. “Oh. So you know already.” He buried his mouth in his arms. “It was sudden. They just up and decided I qualified. Maybe they think all these years are enough for me to move on.”
“And Nina?” she asked. “What did they say about her?”
He shrugged. “That she’s not ready. It’s all they’ll tell me. I think Nina knows why, but she isn’t talking either.” Cooper puffed a sigh into the crook of his elbow and raised his head to the technicians. “They monitor me for hours, running me through exercises here and there, making sure I’m fit to leave and function in society. Only change is when Gary comes in for a session to ‘determine if I’m emotionally and mentally sound.’” Another sigh. “They let me go back to see Nina for a while most days. But often I’m up here.”
Lydia held up her hand. “Wait, why would Nina not be ready? She’s about on the same level as you. More withdrawn, yet maybe more ready. No offense.”
“None taken. And that’s what I told them, but who knows what the reason is?” Cooper bit his lip. “Is she as upset as I think she is?”
Lydia hung her head. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
He grumbled. “She always tries to act fine around me, but I know it’s eating her.”
“Couldn’t you just refuse or fail these exercises?”
“I don’t think so. They seem determined to get me out. Maybe they need to move some older BEPs so they can support new ones.”
Lydia tapped her chin, pondering the situation. “What about convincing Arthur to put Nina through?”
His smile returned, hopeful and wider than before. “You could do that?”
“Sure, I can try. I’m a BEP agent in training. That has to hold some kind of clout,” she said, standing. “But it’ll have to wait until I get back.”
“Where you going?”
“Got a mission with Jando and Aidan.”
“A real mission? Not one where you sneak out again?” he asked. She nodded and he clapped, spraying water on her. “Wow! Good luck! And thanks for this. It really means a lot.”
“No problem.” She slapped his flipper in a friendly farewell.
“Would you mind checking on Nina? If you’ve got the time, that is?” he asked as she left.
“Sure thing.” Outside, she watched for a moment while he dipped underwater and swam light and swift, jumping in the air to perform twists and spins.
Lydia grabbed a sandwich and soda for an early lunch before heading to see Nina. Once there, she found Gary, the BEP Division’s counselor, standing near her pool, calling into the water. He scratched his beard thoughtfully and batted a clipboard against his thigh. Lydia figured he must be doing the same with Nina as he did with Cooper, evaluating the effects the discharge had on her. When she entered, he lowered to his hands and knees and pressed his lips close to the water. “Ms. Sanders, won’t you please come here?”
Lydia tried to keep her thoughts and feelings in check. Gary’s ability was deeply affected by others’ emotions, which amplified his own emotions to an extreme version of theirs if he didn’t keep himself in check. One person wasn’t too much for him to handle, but strong emotions from two or more people could prove disastrous. No doubt Nina was still angry and depressed, and Lydia didn’t want to accidentally tip the scales with a second presence, throwing Gary into a fit like the last time he counseled her and her mother while they were grieving. However, he kept his empathetic ability at bay, not letting anyone sway him one way or another this time.
“Are you in a meeting?” Lydia asked him.
“She was scheduled for an appointment with me. But she refuses to surface, and I’m already late for a meeting with Arthur.” He shook his head and jotted on his clipboard. Then he talked to the water again. “I have an opening for an appointment this
afternoon. I’ll come back then, okay?” No answer besides the lapping waves. He nodded to Lydia and left her alone with the pool.
Lydia stayed by the pool, eating her sandwich and drinking her soda. She peered at the water, searching for Nina. “Nina?” The rippling and shifting water obscured anything below a few feet. However, once or twice, she thought she saw a shape on the bottom. “Nina?” Lydia knelt close to the pool. “Nina.” As she expected, still nothing. Why should she have better luck than Gary?
Looking around, she wondered if diving in to catch her would help. No, she could outswim me. Maybe calling her name repeatedly to annoy her? That’s what Wren would do. Eventually, she rested on her haunches and continued speaking to the never-ending sloshing water. “I visited Cooper,” she said, finishing her meal. “He’s worried about you.” Silence. She felt foolish talking to the water. “I told him I’d speak to Arthur, see if I could convince him to put you through to leave with Cooper.”
Minutes passed and Lydia saw no sign of her. So she left, heading to her dorm to pack. Yet as she passed the pool’s window, she thought she spotted Nina’s eyes in the water. In a flash, they disappeared.
At her dorm, Lydia found Wren in the hall, arms shoved down her shorts and waddling after a pug, pretending to chase it. Her hands had formed large, ice-shaped gloves. “I’m gonna getcha!” She grabbed at it several times. Their next-door neighbor, Janice, was attempting to calm the pug down. But being able to speak and understand dog speech couldn’t beat the threat of a cold, chilling hug. The dog barked and circled Janice’s legs, who shuffled her feet and apologized when she believed she’d stepped on the dog. Wren gave Lydia an upside-down, jerky wave.
“Where were you?” she asked. “Missed you at school.”
Lydia entered their dorm and started packing a change of clothes and a couple of books to read on the flight. Wren chased the dog past their room. “I got a mission,” Lydia said.
Thump! An ice-free hand and Wren’s head appeared, her face alight and glowing. “Really?” An ear-splitting squeal followed Lydia’s nod. She grabbed Janice, brought her into the room, and pulled the two girls into a group hug.
“Ah, cold, cold!” Lydia said, shrugging out of her grip.
Wren shook off the other ice glove and polished off one of her water bottles. “This is awesome! And you’re going today? What are you going to do? Track someone down? Capture some bad guys? Go under cover of darkness to infiltrate a high-security place? Does it have to do with Heather?”
The last question threw Lydia off-guard and she stiffened in shock, staring at her. How did she know about Heather? Oh, right. It’s Wren.
Wren gasped. “It does, doesn’t it? Going to find her, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think I can talk about it,” Lydia said.
Wren bobbed her head sagely. “Right, right. Got you. Mum’s the word, hush hush. Can’t have it leaking out.” Lydia finished packing and flopped on the bed. “Still, it’s great. Congrats!”
Janice finally coaxed the pug to her and scooped it into her arms. “Yes, good for you,” she said, looking at the ground when she spoke. The pug barked and nibbled on Janice’s long and floppy dog-like ears. She winced and tucked her ears behind her shoulders.
“He’s saying ‘Good luck,’” Wren said, scratching his scalp.
“Actually, he needs to be let out,” Janice said. She excused herself and left them alone.
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