Invisible Enemies
By LaughingInvisibleShadow
Chapter 1
17-year-old Amy grinned, a thing she virtually never did anymore. She held, in her ordinary Boston-originated hands, the 38th Clue in the hunt for the 39 Clues. She felt her feet quivering with excitement, (or maybe it was the cold from standing in Antarctica at Vostok Station, where the temperature reached below 120 degrees Fahrenheit,) and she allowed her feet to lead her body in a small happy dance.
"Amy! Did you get the Clue?" Dan, her little, soon-to-be 14 year old brother cried out, still quite far down, trying to fight the harsh winds.
"Dan! YES! I have it! I have i-" She broke off as she saw a dark figure approaching. From her left, opposite of the way Dan was coming. She ran through possibilities in her head. Maybe it was just a scientist. Vostok Station, a Russian research station, where 15-25 scientists reside year-round, established in 1957, and-. She mentally slapped herself. Why would the clue be placed in some ordinary research station? She ran outside, and stopped at the porch. Her eyes combed every inch of the doorway and the area surrounding it. To an ordinary person, the medium sized faint stain on the right top next to the door would just be some mildew stain or something.
But she knew better. She ran closer, and scrutinized it. It was-oh, no. They had to get out of here. The sign was a large "M". The Madrigal symbol. She corrected herself. OUR symbol. True, she and Dan WERE Madrigals, but still, she didn't want to take a chance. And the dark figure was getting slowly closer. She stuffed the small box containing the Clue into her coat pocket, and ran to Dan. She got to him quickly, and pulled him up, dragging him back to the tent where they were camping with Nellie, their au pair. They arrived the tent in record time, struggling against the fierce snowstorm and battling the wind.
"Whoa, little dudes! What happened?" Nellie said, her iPod earbuds dangling from the inside of her fur-lined parka.
"Well, Amy went psycho on me, and dragged me through the snow back here." Dan told her, looking at Amy with an amused expression on his face.
"I-saw-man-black," Amy told them both, huffing and panting from her run. She glanced outside of the tent, looking for the person clad in black. She couldn't see them, but that didn't mean it wasn't safe.
"Okay, I got the clue, now we have to get out of here. It's not safe. Vostok Station is a Madrigal stronghold, we have to leave." Amy told them both, trying to remain calm.
"Okay, guys, I was going to tell you this later, but I'm going to tell you now. I've been feeling like you two are getting really stressed out, so I booked three tickets for Boston where you two are going to take a well deserved break." Nellie looked at them, her nose ring not helping her look gentler, and she had a fierce expression on her face that even Dan didn't want to argue with.
"Come on. We have to get to Sky Blu."
* * * * *
Sky Blu, was, in all aspects, virtually the only airstrip in Antarctica where their plane would take them back to the US. They had boarded the plane, where they had learned that they would be trapped on the small piece of metal for 6 hours until they reached some small city in Venezuela to refuel, then in Boston. They had not seen the pilot at all; he had simply retreated to the cabin and taken off without a word to any of his three passengers. She had caught a glimpse of his size, and he looked about as tall as Amy, maybe a few inches taller.
They were only 2 hours in and Dan was already bored. Nellie had confiscated the small box containing the clue, and had demanded that Dan and Amy get some rest. She had promptly fallen asleep, her iPod on full blast, sleeping through it all. The box was resting in her lap, with her hands clutching it like she was a drowning woman and the box was her life preserver. She had warned them both that if either of them touched the box she would cut off their hands and feed them to her pet goldfish.
Nellie scared them at times.
Both of them had looked at the box for thirty minutes, trying to figure out the best way to get the box from her without her waking up. They couldn't afford to grab it because for the past one and a half hours, the plane had been going through turbulence, and shaking Nellie some more would not help the mission.
Dan, after analyzing the situation, took something out of his back pocket and crept towards Nellie. The object was a small feather, which he used to tickle Nellie's nose. As a reflex, her hands went up to her face, with her still asleep. Quick as a flash, Dan grabbed the box from her lap and ran back to his seat.
Amy let out the breath she had been holding, and tip-toed over to Dan, who was scrutinizing the small metal box. He pulled something from his bottomless pit-like pockets, which turned out to be a chocolate bar and his Swiss Army knife.
"Hey, where did you get that chocolate bar?" Amy asked her brother, her stomach growling.
"I picked it up in Switzerland. I doubt there's going to be a flight attendant on his crummy plane, so I'm going to eat it right now." He broke the bar into half and stuffed his half into his mouth, and gave Amy the other half.
He fit his Swiss Army knife into the crack of the box, and inserted pressure on it.
After a few tries, the box popped open, and the two stared at what was inside. A small box containing several clumps of some green plant were inside, as well as a yellow piece of paper. The paper had the Ekaterina symbol on it, and the words: 3 clumps of Antarctic Moss were written in beautiful handwriting. "ALRIGHT!" Dan cried out, then quickly hushed it as Nellie stirred. "Hold on, there's writing on the back of this paper." Amy pointed out before Dan accidentally lost it in all the garbage on the floor.
"Yes, Daniel, you stupid oaf, hold on." A silky British voice assaulted their ears, and they both looked up from the piece of paper to see Ian and Natalie Kabra, holding identical guns and both having wicked grins on their faces. The same thought occurred to Dan and Amy at exactly the same time. Who was steering the plane?
Oooh...Cliffy! Well, I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter, the next one will be posted very soon...But anyway, I am a totally new author, and very nervous of what you all will think, so please give me your honest opinion on my story. Thanks!