Chapter 12

"So Dilton, how come nobody at school knows that you're like a millionaire?" Sheila asked.

They were on the road to Six Flag Great Adventure and were about half way there.

"I figured that telling people would attract the wrong kind of attention," Dilton replied. "I want people to be my friends for who I am, not how much money I have."

"That's an excellent attitude to have Dilton," Alice commented from up front.

"So why are you still even bothering going to school though?" Jughead asked. "I mean you could just go run your own business."

"With the way technology is progressing I'm sure my app will be out dated and not making money in less than a decade, perhaps even less than five years," Dilton replied. "I really just made it as something to make money to put myself through college; getting a doctorate is expensive."

"So you know that you want to be a doctor?" Polly asked.

"Not a medical doctor," Dilton corrected her. "I want to get my doctorate in physics or mechanical engineering or something. What I really want to do is become an astronaut."

"An astronaut?" Betty asked.

"Oh yes, I've always been fascinated by space," Dilton replied. "Plus I've actually got a lot of things going my way that give me a leg up."

"Like what?" Sheila asked.

"Well I'm small which is often a benefit because weight always has an effect on a rocket's launch," Dilton replied. "Also years of being crammed into lockers have made me comfortable in tight spaces."

"So do you want to be part of one of those Mars missions?" Hal asked.

"Oh yes, I mean I don't think we are alone in the universe. I'm certain that there is life on other planets and that while it may be dead now that Mars once had life on it." Dilton said. "I would love to be the one that figures out what exactly happened."

There was a strange quiet amongst everyone in the car that left Sheila and Dilton a little confused.

"So uh, what do you think happened?" Betty asked.

"Well the most likely scenario is that an asteroid struck Mars, much like the one that hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs," Dilton replied. "However in the case of Mars since it is much smaller the explosion caused Mars to vent much of its atmosphere out into space. The atmosphere thinned so much that the oceans literally boiled away and over the years what remained has continued to gradually get thinner."

Dilton continued to give his thoughts on being an astronaut and Mars and other space related topics all the way to the amusement park. When they arrived at the gate Dilton paid for everybody's admission, even getting them the platinum flash passes so they could jump the lines of certain rides.

Hal and Alice split off and went to walk the main area and go on some of the gentler rides since Alice got vertigo from the rougher ones, while the teenagers all went to ride the faster ones. They immediately took advantage of the passes to go on all of the roller coasters in the park.

Several hours later they were in line for the Congo Rapids ride.

"Okay we've got room for three more," the ride attendant said.

"You guys go, I'll wait with Dilton," Betty said.

Polly, Jughead and Sheila all got on the ride while Betty and Dilton remained on the platform.

"I've been meaning to ask you something Betty," Dilton said. "It's about the other day when you pushed over Victor."

"Oh come on Dilton," Betty said.

"No, I have an eidetic memory," Dilton said. "I remember what happened perfectly. I've gone over what happened again and again. Betty there is no way that you should have been able to fend of Victor like you did."

"Dilton, I told you…" Betty said.

"That he was off-balance and you caught him by surprise," Dilton finished. "But that's only half true. You did catch him by surprise, but he wasn't off balance."

Betty was stunned and not sure how to respond.

"Then the next day Ambrose Pipp returns from the dead and for some reason he attacks Jughead," Dilton said. "And the two of you had just walked me to my house. Now I didn't see what happened until it was over but I did notice that Ambrose returned to his house for a second time, and that struck me as odd."

Betty wasn't sure where Dilton was going with this, but she was starting to get worried.

"Of course not long afterwards Ambrose disappears again, but not before the town is plunged into a temporary black out," Dilton said.

"Do you have a point here?" Betty asked anxiously.

"Well I don't think that Ambrose just left; I'm sure somebody stopped him. Somebody who knew that overloading his system with electricity just may work; which just happened to be my theory and I only mentioned that idea to three people, you, Jughead and Sheila." Dilton replied. "And I'm pretty sure it was Sheila because she was safely at home, which leaves either you or Jughead."

Betty fidgeted nervously.

"Now Jughead seemed absolutely terrified of Ambrose, so I doubt it was him, which leaves you Betty," Dilton continued. "With what you did to Victor demonstrating that you are clearly stronger than you look; well, all I want to know is how you did it."

Betty found herself caught, unsure of what to say. Fortunately before she had to she was interrupted by the ride attendant.

"Alright, next!" he shouted.

Betty and Dilton stepped forward and climbed into the ride car which was a large round tube with seating for twelve. They strapped in and waited as more people climbed on board.

"Look, I'm not going to out you or anything," Dilton whispered. "Obviously you've been keeping this a secret for a good reason; and the only times I suspected anything was when you stepped into help me and then Jughead. So obviously it's like you use your ability for nefarious purposes."

"Actually it is abilities," Betty whispered back. "And I'll explain when we're off the ride."

The two of them were awkwardly quiet for the rest of the ride, only really making any noise when they were surprised by a splash of water; something which a rather obnoxious girl who was around the same age loudly pointed out to everyone else on the ride.

Once they got off they headed down the exit queue. They saw Polly, Jughead and Sheila at the end waiting for them.

"So I'm guessing that Jughead knows, and your sister probably knows too," Dilton said. "What about Sheila?"

"She doesn't know," Betty said. "So I'd like to keep it that way."

Dilton nodded, "Okay I can respect that, Sheila can be a bit of a gossip."

He quickly dropped the conversation as they got within earshot of the others.

"I'm feeling hungry," Jughead said.

"No surprise there," Sheila commented.

"So do you guys want to go get something to eat now?" Jughead suggested ignoring Sheila's remark.

"I could eat," Betty said.

"Well it's your birthday so we're doing what you want," Polly said. "I'll text Mom and Dad and see if they want to meet up with us."

The group of friends talked about what rides they were going to go on after eating as they made their way towards the restaurants.

Cricket O'Dell was entirely surprised by what had occurred in the past three hours. In the morning she had been sitting in her underground cell back at Belle Reeve having just finished her meagre breakfast when two guards had come into her cell and taken her up to the new director's office.

Cricket had heard some chatter about a new director but was surprised to meet her. Veronica Lodge was only about a year older than Cricket was. However despite her young age and having only been director for less than a week Veronica seemed to know a great deal of what was going on in the facility and about Cricket herself.

Cricket had thought that perhaps she was just being introduced to the new director as a formality or something, but then Veronica had begun inquiring with Cricket about her ability. Ever since she had been a child Cricket had been absolutely fascinated to the point of obsession with money. She didn't like to spend it though she just liked to collect it, it was sort of a hoarding thing. The problem was she could never get enough.

But then Cricket had tried her hand at forging, her few attempts were abysmal failures. But then she'd come across a sizeable chunk of this green crystal meteor rock. Experimenting she had ground it down and used it to try and make her own ink and had been surprised that it seemed to perfectly replicate the colour she wanted. She'd gone on to make her own forged bills that were nearly impossible to detect.

However one day Cricket had been making a batch of ink when she had accidentally tipped over the large pot she was boiling the ground up meteor rocks in onto herself getting it all over her arms and burning herself. It took several months for her to heal and Cricket was just getting back to forging again. She had picked up a real twenty dollar bill to look over and suddenly it was absorbed into her arms appearing like a tattoo on her forearm.

After some experimentation Cricket soon found that she could absorb any money that she touched into her skin and it would appear like tattoos on her arms. But not only that she could also turn them back into bills, making them shoot out of her wrists with enough force to cut into a wooden door if she wanted.

Her first foray in using her powers was to rob a convenience store. However no sooner had she walked out the store with the unsuspecting cashier staring confused at his empty cash drawer than she was grabbed and loaded into an unmarked van and brought to Belle Reeve.

It seemed as if her parents had sold her out, literally. Whoever it was that ran the facility had paid them for turning her over. The scientists at Belle Reeve had done dozens of experiments on her when she had first arrived, but soon lost interest and she had been left to languish in her cell, until today.

Cricket pushed a lock of her orange hair away from her freckled face as she stood in the queue to get into the amusement park. She had been extremely surprised when Veronica had explained that what she wanted Cricket to do, was come to this amusement park and steal as much cash as she could. Veronica said if Cricket did well enough she was free to leave and do whatever she wanted.

Cricket couldn't help but feel like Veronica wasn't telling her something, or if this was some kind of setup. However she had been rotting in that cell for nearly at least a year; she'd lost track of time so she wasn't about to refuse the chance to get out, even if it was for a short time.

"Next," the attendant at the ticket window called.

Cricket stepped up.

"Just one today?" the attendant asked.

Cricket nodded.

"That'll be 48.75," the attendant said.

Cricket placed her hand on the counter. Before she had been sent, Veronica had given her a stack of 300 dollars in twenty dollar bills to absorb. The tattoos were currently hidden under the long sleeved grey and white V-neck t-shirt that Cricket was wearing. Cricket willed three of the bills to appear and they did under her hand and then she slid them across to the counter.

"That's an interesting trick," the attendant said. "11.25 is your change."

Unfortunately the attendant was on the other side of a glass partition so Cricket couldn't reach across and steal the money from the drawer as it opened. The attendant handed Cricket the change and as she pocketed the quarter she absorbed the ten and the one dollar bills.

Cricket entered the park and walked over to the nearest map and looked it over deciding what to hit first.

Veronica was sitting in her office when her cell phone rang and she picked it up and answered it.

"Yes?"

"Subject 207 is in the park," came the report.

"Thank you," Veronica said before hanging up.

Veronica had already hacked into the security cameras at the amusement park. Doing so had been child's play for her. But the ease with which she was able to gain access was likely because the cameras weren't of a particularly high quality. They were a bit choppy at perhaps a frame or two per second, although they were at least in colour and the image quality was decent, which let her run a facial recognition program to track Betty's movements through the park.

Veronica had been watching Betty through the day and saw that she had her friends were heading away from the rides now, possibly to get food or maybe to play some of the carnival games. It was rather fortunate since it made it more likely for Betty to learn about Cricket.

Veronica found calling Cricket, subject 207 was rather dehumanizing; it was something that one of the previous directors had mandated in an effort to treat the experiment subjects as though they weren't human. She could understand the idea of treating them as though they weren't people since it would make coping with what was being done to them easier to deal with, even if she didn't agree with it in practice.

Veronica watched as Cricket walked over to a ring toss game. There was a cash box that was kept just below the counter that could be seen from the camera Veronica was watching. Cricket paid for some rings and then as Veronica watched she intentionally misthrew them. The attendant was distracted by one of Cricket's terrible tosses which afforded Cricket the split second she needed to reach across the counter putting her hand in the cash box. Veronica saw all of the cash disappear in an instant, the attendant none the wiser. Cricket threw her last ring and then just turned and walked away. It was few minutes until the attendant realized he had been robbed.

Veronica wondered how long it would take and how many different places Cricket would have to rob before Betty intervened. She sat back and continued to watch the cameras.

We've got our introduction to Cricket as a character and we get a little more insight into what Veronica is capable of; I have to say even as the writer I find think of her hacking and doing all this science stuff a little different from the usual image of Veronicia Lodge that I have, but it's fun and I hope you guys enjoy it. Also it looks like Dilton has figured out Betty largely on his own, but how will he react when he learns the entire truth? Keep reading to find out and review to keep me motivated to keep writing.