Kate

Kate was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. This was rather unlike her, and it stood to reason that she found this quite bothersome. Not to mention that the timing of all of this was extremely unfortunate. Of course she wanted to find Mr. Benedict; of course she cared about the Society and had even warmed to Cleo, even though it was abundantly clear that the poor girl had no clue what she was doing.

Then again, it was a bit rich of any of them to be thinking the same thing, since they were equally over their heads. But they were going to rescue their family - as she had come to refer to Mr. Benedict, Rhonda, Number Two, Miss Perumal, and the Washingtons - and that was just a fact, really.

Still... that was all good and nice and so on, yet she was distracted. Now, I am sure that we have all experienced the vicious cycle of being distracted, being frustrated with the fact that we are distracted, becoming further distracted by the thoughts about being distracted, and finally deciding to focus, only to discover that we cannot remember what we were doing before the cycle began. And then, lo and behold, after we wrack our brains to no avail, we decide to be responsible and start on another productive undertaking, only to be sidetracked once more, and the pattern continues.

Kate was feeling this way, the distraction being none other than Reynie Muldoon. She didn't like it one bit. It fell under the category of unfamiliar experiences, much like everything else in her current life, and this was most irritating.

Casting a furtive glance at Reynie and feeling a surge of some pesky emotion or other, she forced herself to concentrate. In fact, just to make absolute certain that she wouldn't let her absurd thoughts go haywire again, she muttered to herself, "Snap out of it!"

Snapping out of it - at least for the time being - was a relatively easy task, for at this point they were standing in the most peculiar-looking interior that they had ever seen - an interior that was strangely reminiscent of the Institute. Perhaps whoever had designed the architecture of L.I.V.E. had taken part in this project as well.

"Um... is it just me, or does this place -" began Sticky, surely about to comment on the eerie resemblance, but he was cut off by a brusque voice saying,

"What do you want?"

Cleo stepped forward. "I'm Cleopatra Valentine," she said, sounding, Kate noted, more confident than she had at the gate. Eyes darting to look anxiously at the others before facing front again, she added, "I'm, er... with McCracken."

The man, who had an imposing stature and was dressed in a ridiculous uniform consisting of a black and white striped top and matching pants, cocked an eyebrow. Admirably, the girl did not quail, and without missing a beat, clarified hurriedly,

"I'm - I work for him. I'm sure he'll be very interested in what I have to tell him." The man remained unimpressed. "He's assigned me a secret mission," she finally said in exasperation, as if he was quite dense - which, for all they knew, he was.

In any case, this seemed to satisfy him, and he led them down the empty hallway, past lines of suspiciously pristine, closed, and numbered doors, then took several swift turns and stopped. "Here is his office," he said loftily. "I don't know when he might return."

Cleo swallowed. "Please let him know that it is... urgent," she said, voice almost cracking. Kate watched this, feeling a rush of sympathy for the girl. At this point, she was no safer than the other children were: once McCracken inevitably recognized her betrayal, he would be as motivated to - for lack of a better word - terminate her as he already was in regards to the Society. However, if Kate was to play the role of slavishly obedient captive, she had to keep her mouth shut.

The man grunted something about high horses and spun around, marching back to his post in the strangely empty yet cavernous lobby.

This left the six of them standing dumbly before a heavy mahogany door. S.Q. shuffled his feet around in his schoolboy awkwardness.

"Should we open the door?" asked Reynie dubiously. "Is it locked?"

Sticky tugged the handle. "Stuck like glue."

"Hey, wait," said Kate, tapping a spot on the doorframe above their heads. "The paint here's different. Hold on." She extracted her pen knife from her bucket and wiggled it around the area which was indeed a slightly darker color than the surrounding paint - but so subtly that only Kate could have noticed it. After a few expert motions with the pen knife, she neatly peeled away what turned out to be a strip of some sort of rubbery material masquerading as paint.

Underneath this was a simple combination code pad set up just like a telephone's dial pad.

"I don't suppose anyone knows the password?" said S.Q. helpfully.

"Obviously not," Constance snapped. Taken aback, the others looked at her in surprise. Now that they thought of it, she had been exceptionally quiet through all of this. Reynie glanced at her, then at Kate, mouthing, Is she okay?

Kate raised her eyebrows in concern, I don't know. Reynie held her gaze for a beat too long and she looked away, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. "What's the matter, Connie-girl?" she asked hastily, kneeling down next to the girl.

"Nothing." Constance ducked her head, avoiding eye contact.

"What is it?" pressed Kate. Oh, if only all the answers lay within this stubborn, confused little girl.

"I can feel it," mumbled Constance.

"Feel what?"

"The thing - what's in his office - what McCracken is after, or developing, or - I don't know -" Becoming quite agitated, Constance buried her face in her hands, whimpering slightly. "It's here, I can feel it."

"What is it? Tell us!" urged Cleo. "Is it a weapon?"

Constance could barely shake or nod her head, even if she wanted to. Kate, to her surprise, winced, suddenly understanding what it must be like for Milligan to worry about his daughter. When someone that you care very much about is in pain, it goes without saying that you feel echoes of their suffering as well.

"It's alright," Kate said softly, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"So... what now?" asked Reynie. "Any guesses on the password?"

They all shook their heads mutely.

Kate was at a loss. The key, or at least part of the puzzle, lay with Constance, who was clearly in no position to talk. If only they could get into the office...

"Hold on a minute," she said, and almost smacked herself in the head. What in the world was wrong with her? Silently admonishing herself - if she hadn't been so distracted, this might have occurred to her much sooner - she tugged a bobby pin out of her hair and inserted into the lock. She deftly jiggled it around, head tilted, waiting to hear the telltale click.

But it didn't unlock. Frowning, she tried again. Nothing happened. She pulled it out, feeling rather embarrassed.

"It's not working," she said in confusion. "I don't know why."

"Are you sure? Try again," said Reynie, hoping fervently that they would be granted access and finally, finally get one step closer to rescuing Mr. Benedict.

"Well, okay, but I don't think it's going to work." She bit her lip, concentrating hard, and thought she'd almost gotten it when the flap over the dial pad suddenly flew shut and the lock sealed, trapping the bobby pin and snatching it out of Kate's fingers.

Yelping, Kate stumbled backwards. A small red light began to flash, accompanied by a low-pitched beeping, just as footsteps began echoing down the hallway. They all whirled around – Kate plunged her hand inside her bucket – and stood fearfully as the footsteps got louder and louder. For a split second that dragged on for eternity, they waited for them, whoever they may be, to turn the corner...

Cleo paled.

"Fancy seeing you here," said Mackenzie.

A/N:

So! There's that.

I thought I'd talk about something semi-quickly, just because, but if you're uninterested feel free to click the little x at the top of the tab/page now. Or scroll down, if you're a reviewer who wants to see my response.

Someone said in a past review that I basically gave the characters' personalities a growth spurt, and I certainly agree. The reviewer who said that was not saying it in a mean or menacing way whatsoever. I just wanted to let you all know that if any of you somehow feel cheated or annoyed that I did do this, I'm sorry.

It's crazy because I started this one day when I was feeling pathetic for having no love life and re-reading the MBS books and decided to pair Kate and Reynie. It was just going to be fluff at first, but I started getting quite attached to these characters, as you may be able to tell, and started developing them.

Basically, I just wanted to say that I hope you understand why I might have done that. And how crazy and wonderful it is and how lucky I am that I can experience the writing process like this.

I try to develop the story and the characters in more of a "real" setting, making them more three-dimensional, if you know what I mean. And I like putting some conflicts in and maybe a dash of angst, just because. But I also try to keep some of the elements of the original books like the tone of voice and the fact that they're always running into password-locked doors and all the things that made the books so delightful.

At any rate, sorry my author's notes are ridiculously long, but I like to talk about my writing as much as I like writing it.

To the reviewers…

Sam S: thank you so much! It really means the world to me when people say things like that, because I know it's a pain not having a fanfic account so the fact that you go out of your way to keep checking back makes me so ridiculously happy! I love to write and I love writing for you guys!

Starburst: They are trying to figure out what's going on in the hopes that it will help them figure out what's going on with McCracken's sudden reappearance and why they have taken Mr. Benedict and Number Two.

Shia F: Thanks for you continuous feedback! I definitely take your advice into account and I'm glad that you're helping me become a better writer! I hope my imagery in this chapter was more casual and less long blocks of descriptive text. In terms of active/passive sentences, I wasn't quite sure what you meant by that. I mean, I understand what they are, but I wasn't sure how to incorporate that into imagery, because there isn't much of a subject that can act upon another, when it comes to description. If that makes sense.

As always, let me know what you thought of this chapter! I worked long and hard and intermittently on this so I fervently hope you enjoyed it. I love lengthy reviews. But I also love the people who are like, "your story is awesome! update update update!" because it still makes my day. And if you have any questions... as you can see, I respond to most reviews in my author's notes. So if you have questions, or suggestions, or requests, go for it! I'm always super open!

I'm thinking of Mackenzie POV next, but let me know if you'd rather have Constance or Mr. Benedict or any other character, really.

Thanks, guys. You rock. :)