There's, like, three actual chapters left after this. What could possibly change now?
This Chapter: An awkward pool party to end Spring Break, more Prom talk, speculation about the baddie Sark, and a countdown to everyone's favourite Cliffhanger Monsters
Chapter Genre: Anxiety and apprehension.
Suggested Soundtrack: "Welcome to Paradise" by Green Day, "Addicted" by Simple Plan, "All Kinds of Time" by Fountains of Wayne, "Warning" by Incubus, and silence for the end.
Author's Note: This chapter, as the title suggests, is pretty much filler, but it serves to draw out tension, and it was fun to write, but it seemed to take forever. As originally written, the dates were pretty close to actual events, but to make it even more Alias-like, I played around with some dates in previous chapters. Just believe me: everything checks out. Enjoy!
Seventeen Again
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Waiting Game
Day 6
"Okay, whose bright idea was this?"
"Allyson."
"Allyson."
"Allyson."
"What! It was totally my mom's idea!"
"Since when do you listen to Mom, Allyson?"
Silence. Then, "Shut up! It was hot this morning when we went to Greg's first baseball game. How was I to know the water was only...seventy-two degrees? Screw that! I'm getting out." She tried to exit the pool via the ladder, but both Matt and Mike grabbed an arm and hauled her back into the cold water, effectively splashing Anne. She clung to the ladder for dear life and gasped, shaking her hair and splashing Syd, who sat a few feet down the edge. Everyone laughed as Allyson wiped the hair out of her eyes, attempting to avoid the drowned rat look, and threatened, "You know, I remember where the hot dogs are. I could conveniently forget at any moment." Her boyfriend paused in thought before proceeding to dunk her in the deep end.
Syd giggled again as Vaughn treaded water beside her legs. It was the second to last day before Spring Break ended, and after watching the first game of Weiss's double-header, Syd, Vaughn, Anne, Henry, Allyson, Matt, Mike, Joe, and John Wakowski decided to go swimming at the twins' house. After the mission in Russia, it had been increasingly hard to maintain her cover, what with ideas of Sark kicking down the door at any minute swimming through her mind constantly. Sydney tried to keep time spent in large groups down to a minimum, but when Anne called her up and invited her to go swimming after Weiss's baseball game, she literally could not refuse: her friend would not take 'no' for an answer.
Sydney, Anne, and the other student/agents hung out practically every day: shooting pool at Weiss's house, watching movies at Syd's, making music videos at the elementary school by Anne's house. The respective pairs looked as cozy as ever, Anne and Weiss teasing about PDA's and playful innuendo from Sydney and Vaughn. Anne never mentioned her pseudo-lunch date with Henry, and Sydney never asked; she did not deem it her place, although she was dying to know what happened. (Vaughn diagnosed her with an unhealthy case of High School-Induced Gossipitis. She tried to shove a pillow down his throat.)
The guilt, however, began eating at her, slowly disintegrating her body from the inside out. Sark knew of the agents' presence now, and their association with students — especially one who was almost recruited by his organization — could jeopardize all of them.
And a recruiting school? What the...How...Ah! The idea was too asinine for her mind to comprehend. A fully-functional school of evil out in the middle of an American suburb? It was impractical, faulty, crazy, stupid...but so much so that it just might have worked. If he phased the new 'teachers' in gradually as he planned, no one would ever notice. And the kids would be ripe for the taking, all at different stages of development.
But they interrupted that plan: he could no longer introduce his plants gradually. With any luck, he could not take over the school. But that was the problem; trying to predict Sark's next move always proved more treacherous than it sounded. His plans for Glenfield's future were as uncertain as before they went to Russia.
So while Sydney pushed the nauseating thoughts to the back of her mind, she tried to enjoy the rest of Spring Break. The one day Anne could not do anything ("Mom cornered me last night, and as a result, I'm at the bike shop right now. Pray for me"), Weiss and Marshall established another video conference with Will and Francie. After the latter squealed happily in a voice only dogs could hear about some meaningless trinket from the Eiffel Tower — Sydney marveled yet again at the CIA's thoroughness — the agents talked about meaningless fluff for two hours. Syd found herself wanting to relate side-splitting anecdotes about Anne and her friends: Francie would have been rolling around on the floor after learning of their escapades in Target after a half day of school. But she gave in to her conscience and bit her tongue, laughing heartily instead at a story about one of Francie's new waiter/actors at the restaurant. On cue, Weiss called Fran's cell phone from the first floor of his house posing as an emergency at the restaurant; she had to leave immediately, allowing Will a few moments alone with the field agents.
After congratulating them on their success in Russia (and asking about Sydney's health), he proceeded to blatantly voice Syd's inner thoughts and fears. By putting them into words, he unwittingly validated and solidified them, sinking Sydney's stomach to an impossibly new depth. If he — an analyst with all the information at his fingertips and the time to put it together — could not fathom a prediction as to the next chapter of events, what hope was there for them?
To close the overall depressing video conference, Will clapped his hands together and concluded, "Basically, we have no idea what's coming or when it's going to arrive. Good luck!"
Her stomach flip-flopped just thinking about the entire situation.
But that all changed as she noticed Henry sneaking up on her best friend. She almost called out to Anne, but a hand on her calf laid to rest any protests. Mike and Joe were trying to convince her to enter on her own accord while desperately keeping their eyes away from the extremely obvious amateur spy. Joe splashed her with a large wave and coaxed, "See? You're already wet. Why not just hop in?"
Anne shook her head adamantly, wet hair sticking to her neck as she folded her arms across her chest. She indignantly raised her nose at all of them. "Not on your under-sexed life, buddy. A million dollars could not get me into this pool."
Henry chose that time to strike. "How 'bout a push?" He planted his foot squarely in the middle of her back and kicked, making sure she did not hit the ladder with guiding hands on her shoulders. But that generosity cost him: even as she fell forward, she grasped onto those hands and pulled him in right on top of her. Sydney and Vaughn could not help but laugh as the two teens floundered and sputtered in the water, a tangled concoction of limbs as Henry tried to keep her under, and she executed a sweeping kick underwater.
The latter finally surfaced in victory and swam to the lip of the oval pool. "Do y'all really think I'm that stupid?" She queried incredulously, still trying to regain her breath. "I totally saw that coming a mile away! Great job, Henry. Don't try out for the CIA anytime soon. Please. For the good of the country."
Sydney and Vaughn gulped self-consciously.
Henry shook his long hair like a dog in Anne's direction before turning his roving gaze back onto his friends. "Okay. So who's next?" Everyone glared at Sydney, the only other person not yet in the pool.
She held up her hands in surrender as she quickly slid into the frigid water. "Alright, alright. I'm in. Just don't let Rover touch me." Huddling against Vaughn's broad, bare chest for warmth, she shuddered as the sun went behind yet another fluffy cumulus cloud.
"Hey Allyson?" Anne asked, voice echoing over the water. "How deep does this pool go?" She clung to the edge, warily watching Henry with one eye while beseeching her friend with the other. Her friend laughed and said that it went down to about six feet, but it was still raised around the lip. So Anne began inching around to the point farthest away from Sydney to where the heater pumped precious warmth into the pool.
The conversation continued around them, advancing from the phallic symbol cloud to summer jobs to stupid things Joe's ancient dog Coco would do to a person's leg if it remained immobile for long enough. Joe glanced back up at the sky and moaned. "Man! Our penis cloud deflated. It's now a — hey Anne, what're you doing?"
She had not moved from her spot since the beginning of the conversation. Shrugging, she kept her arms tightly hugging her chest. "Advanced calculus — what do you think?"
"Speaking of which," Henry butted in, attempting to provoke Matt by poking him in the back of the head with a foam noodle, "has anyone done any of their homework?"
Even Sydney could not confess to cracking a book open during the week, despite the fact that she had a lab write-up due the following Monday in AP Chemistry among other assignments. She figured either Anne or John Motz would bail her out before school on Monday. That scenario looked increasingly unlikely as they all peered at Anne, who shook her head slowly with chattering teeth. "Nope," She stated, clapping her bluish lips together as if to conserve breath. "It seems like I've been getting lazier and lazier. One day I'm going to turn into Allyson."
"What, an extension of Matt?" Mike quipped. Allyson's boyfriend promptly dunked him.
Allyson threw her female friend a Look. "Define 'lazier.' Does that mean you don't do your homework at home? You leave it until the morning it's due?"
Anne's eyes darted about in exaggerated thought before she pouted, "Shut up!"
"Hate to break it to ya," Joe said, "but that's not lazy. See, at least you're still doing homework, unlike the rest of us. I haven't opened my math book since first semester finals, if that."
"Sad," Vaughn finally contributed in his accent, proudly smiling at his use of the American teen slang. Sydney grinned up at him in amusement, and he wrapped his arms around her to shield her from the sudden gust of wind.
"Yeah, Senioritis hit me bad," Joe continued, bobbing like a cork in the shallow end. "I think it also ate my will to work. ALLYSON: work for me tonight, and I'll work for you on Thursday."
"No way! I don't want to deal with Jessica tonight."
"Where do you guys work?" Sydney asked, a bit perturbed at the notion that she did not know every small detail about everyone she befriended.
The twins gave each other a withering look. "White Castle," They answered in unison, their tones matching their façades. Allyson elaborated, "They suck ass. Hard. But it's the best that's out there right now. Getting a job without experience isn't possible."
"But then how do you get experience?" Syd was truly interested in this topic, as opposed to the erectile dysfunction disorder (pending true diagnosis) of the penis cloud.
"That the thing!" Henry exclaimed, serious for once. "You can't get the experience until you get a job, and you can't get a job until you've got the experience. It doesn't make sense. You just gotta hope like hell that someone's nice and takes a chance on you." He threw a sidelong glance at Anne out the corner of his eyes. "Anne, seriously, what the hell are you doing?"
She peered furtively into the water at her feet. "Standing by the heater..." She looked up and met his gaze "...and blocking it from you." Her confident tone melted into peels of sharp laughter as Rover/Henry began chasing her around the pool, attempting to corner her in the deep end where she could not touch the bottom. But despite her less-than-sleek appearance, she escaped his grasp, lithely diving out of reach every time he thought he caught her.
Vaughn rested his chin on his girlfriend's shoulder near her ear. After his tongue darted out to taste her earlobe, he whispered in his normal voice, "We'd be short a friend if Weiss were here right now."
Sighing, Sydney silently agreed. "I have no idea what's going on in this twisted triangle, and frankly, they're all adult enough to eventually figure it out." Henry surfaced and spit water in Anne's ear. "Maybe. God, sometimes I think I should swear off men forever — they're too complicated, too needy."
"What about me?" Vaughn queried, adding his accent as he allowed his volume to rise.
She bit back a smile by continuing to watch the soap opera before them. "You're not a man, Michael; you're my boyfriend."
Even Anne and Henry paused in order to have a good chuckle at Vaughn's expense, but as the former flashed her friend the 'rock on' hand symbol, Henry finally captured her with the noodle so that he hugged her close to his chest. He began dragging her towards the deep end, kicking and screaming all the way; but as the bottom dropped out, her feet floundered, and she eventually stopped thrashing and merely sulked in his grip. Lowering his massive head next to hers, he whispered something only she could hear, and Sydney turned to face her boyfriend with a raised eyebrow and worried countenance.
"Innocent, or bedroom-worthy?"
Vaughn discreetly assessed the two of them over Sydney's shoulder. "I don't know. She's practically unreadable. I just hope Weiss doesn't—"
"Am I interrupting anything?" Weiss, in a pair of orange swimming trunks and carrying a towel, paused at the edge of the deck, his toes curling in anger over the weathered wood. As if privy to his inner thoughts, she believed she saw his countenance change from surprised to angry to betrayed to calm and collected. No one else but Vaughn would notice, of course, as they knew their best friend better than anyone, and...well, they were spies. Weiss climbed up onto the wood around the raised pool and dropped his towel on top of Anne's on a deck chair and removed his cell phone from a pocket.
Sydney's gaze shot immediately to Anne, waiting in curious anticipation for her unpredictable reaction. But despite the girl's inexperience in dealing with unexpected turns of events, her features remained abnormally schooled and consistent. If anything, her grin brightened and felt more inviting. "About time your lazy ass decided to show up. A doubleheader is no excuse to be late. Dude, jump in! The water's gr—oh, who the hell am I kidding? It's fricking freezing. Run! Run while you can still move your joints!" To punctuate her point, she pretended to have trouble bending her fingers, never mind the fact that she had to extricate her arm from Henry's grip in order to make the point.
"Why don't you just get out then?" Joe mocked, splashing her and giving Henry a reason to relinquish his hold on her.
She floundered for a moment in the deep end before eventually finding her way back to the side (and the heater, miraculously). Seeming to think about the proposition for a moment, she shook her head. "Meh. Too lazy."
Weiss cannonballed right in, taking away the initial shock and delivering a nice wave to Henry's face at the same time. Sidling over to his fellow agents, he sank into the water so that only his head showed and surveyed the teens through narrowed eyes. "What has he done to her?"
"Whoa, down boy," Sydney whispered, discreetly placing a hand on his shoulder. "It doesn't matter. You need to calm down before you talk to anyone else. I don't want to bail your ass out of jail after you're court-martialed."
Her friend sighed heavily, his head falling backwards to thump against the vinyl siding. "I just don't understand this kid. Why can't he, I don't know, leave her alone?"
"It's not like she has 'property of Greg' stamped across her forehead," Sydney quipped, rolling her eyes as Matt brought up the flaccid penis cloud again.
Vaughn offered an echoing laugh to maintain cover. "Don't give him any ideas, dear." Shifting his girlfriend so that he leaned against the edge closer to his best friend, Vaughn murmured tersely, "Who did she go out with on Valentine's Day?"
"Me," Weiss responded meekly.
"Who is she going to Prom with?"
"Me."
"Who did she spend most of the week with in his basement?"
"That's borderline-kinky, Agent Vaughn." A stern look. "Alright, alright. Me. I get it. I'll shut up now."
A cloud passed over the sun yet again, and the entire group groaned and migrated towards the ladder of salvation. They piled out and sprawled over the deck and connected porch in various positions, trying in vain to warm up in what little sun was available. Matt and Allyson remained near the pool, citing that no one was likely to roll Matt in and that "it's cooler lakeside." Joe and John Wakowski lounged on chairs, their wet suits dripping profusely onto the deck. Vaughn, head resting on a towel on a wooden step, laid out with Sydney's head on his stomach, rising and falling with each deep breath he took. Anne sprawled face-down on a plastic bench perfectly suited to her height while Weiss stretched out between two stools, his feet practically in her face. Henry occupied himself with attempting to roll up and down the stairs like a log.
As the uncomfortable cloud passed and the sun emerged once again, Sydney's skin tingled from more than just the warmth. Again, a feeling of overwhelming belonging flooded her veins. They laid around, saying nothing, and she would still classify this day as one of the most fun in her entire life. Even Sark could not touch this moment; or so she thought.
"Hey, didja know Reynolds's retiring this year?" Anne asked no one in particular, not even bothering to lift her head.
"'Take a wight at the wight' Reynolds? Drivers' Ed Reynolds?" Joe asked, lisping his first question in an imitation of the teacher. "Shit. That makes three, 'cause Striker from Business Tech and Larson from English are retiring. Is there something in the water?"
Anne shrugged, and Henry stopped tumbling halfway down the stairs in order to throw in his two cents. "Didn't a bunch of teachers retire last year? Like Reed and Powers and Cayman?"
"Yeah," Anne said, nodding into the bench. "Dude, they're either getting pregnant or leaving. What's up with that?"
Despite themselves, the three agents exchanged worried glances. The replacement plan in action. He already implemented it last year? Not for the first time, Sydney wondered whether they were called in too late.
But her rumbling stomach interrupted her thoughts and their lack of conversation, and everyone chuckled lightly. At the same time, the majority of the teens called out, "Allyson, get us food!"
"Screw you!"
"Allyson!" Anne whined, throwing the noodle at her friend's head and missing horribly. "If you get food, I promise that the next time Matt attacks you, I won't just sit and laugh."
"You won't cheer him on or help either?"
"Nope. Food. Go. Now,"
"Fine." As Allyson went to find the food, Joe and Mike started building a fire with which to cook.
Everyone began moving towards them very slowly, and as Weiss toweled himself off, he asked, "Hey, whose bright idea was this, anyway?"
"Allyson."
"Allyson."
"Allyson."
"Okay, that's getting really old now."
Day 8
If Sydney thought handling Spring Break was hard, then school was the ninth ring of Hell. Going through the all-too-familiar motions — ones she long ago perfected — served as daily torture. Which teachers were already plants, already under Sark's control? She honestly could not tell. Maybe her young American History teacher Bretts supplied arms to the Negro/Azuls after school. Or could Vaughn's Geometry teacher, Mr. Babel, be whispering school board secrets to the other side? As far as she could tell, no intelligence they received so far indicated what the planted teachers would teach once they reached the school. Did Sark order them to launch their programs right away, or wait until their leaders secured the entire building? Both held obvious disadvantages and bonuses for the team of agents.
If the pseudo-teachers already incorporated gang doctrine into their lesson plans, then certain students walked the halls like mini sleeper cells with too little information to actually be aware of it, but just enough to be assets to the Negro/Azuls. So it may have been too late for some teenagers. But on the other hand, if the agents recognized suspicious inconsistencies in new teachers' lessons, they could take them out without alerting anyone. Their different thinking and fresh-out-of-the-box status singled them out.
The alternative, however, seemed much more likely to Sydney. If the teachers lay in waiting, listening for confirmation from Sark, the sweeping changes would be made and blamed merely on a new administration. Many changes equaled no net change. If the transition took long enough, some of the plants could achieve the coveted tenure, therefore leaving them nearly untouchable to the school board or Parent/Teacher Organization — if those had not been infiltrated by now. This plan both helped and harmed the agents, because while it hurt no innocent teenagers, it would be much harder to root out the offending teachers.
Sydney's stomach twisted into one of the tightest sailor's knots whenever she combed over the scenarios in her head. Both had problems, risks, losses that she just did not want to deal with at the time. Maybe the Senioritis affected her, too, but all she wanted to do when she thought of Sark or the Negro/Azuls or the new intelligence gathered in Russia was stick her fingers in her ears and run around in circles singing "Pop! Goes the Weasel" at the top of her lungs. Could she not be settled, content, happy for once in her life? Just for one day?
Apparently not.
Sark and Sloane and her mother would always see to that—
"—And I think Jane can handle the pictures. Is that good for everyone? Awesome. Okay, one more time: Taylor and Allyson are working on getting either two stretch limos for eight or an SUV limo for eighteen. Make sure it doesn't cost more than the actual Prom ticket, please? Then Abby's working on some spa/nail salon dealie for the day or weekend before. If you can't figure anything out, then whose sister can do it? Motz's brother's fiancée? Whoa, hold on...Okay, I got it. That's cool. I'll figure out some choices for the weekend after Prom and All Night Long — everyone's got their tickets for that, right? It's at Gameworks this year, can you believe it! Yeah anyways...I'll figure something out. And Jane, you've gotta pick a spot for pictures. And don't say Katie Goode's house, because we don't like her anymore. Long story; tell ya later. Or that park in Jaynestown or the gazeebo in Sugarville; those places are popular this year."
"Are we free to go, O' Mighty Mistress of All Things Prom?"
"No. Does anyone else absolutely hate the theme this year?"
"Heh, yeah!"
"Yes."
"Definitely."
"So hate it."
"We-Go to Hollywood. First they taint Homecoming, and now this! I mean, seriously! Come on! Clearly someone needs to grow an imagination, here."
That was another thing.
Prom.
Immediately — on their first day back to school — talking and planning and hyping Prom erupted and simply would not abate. During her own high school years, Sydney never attended Prom: no one asked her, and she did not have enough friends to feel confident about going alone. She always wanted to go, but if she had known how much work the event involved...She could not guarantee that the dream would have survived the nineties.
But whenever Anne smiled or conspired with her about dresses or a possible double breakfast date the morning after, the ordeal seemed somewhat bearable.
And so time elapsed, both on the back of a winged chariot and dragging behind a turtle, enormously slowing its pace. Days flipped by quickly while hours stretched on into eternity. The time before school spent planning Senior Ditch Day (the Monday after Prom weekend) seemed a fraction of the time spent in Dance class. They finally settled on going to the Children's Museum in Chicago and acting like three-year-olds during the day and a bonfire at Henry's house at night.
Day 17
The second and last Government simulation came and went with few notable surprises. It lasted all day, and as a result, Sydney spent most of the day in the balcony hanging on every word. Only her Band, French One, and American History classes did not attend: they were comprised of students other than seniors. Henry and Tom Link ran through Senior Hall just as the bell rang signaling the passing period between zero and first hours, Henry dressed in an entirely purple ensemble while Tom donned green. Sydney nearly regurgitated her Coke in surprise, and was about to question Anne, but realized that she already sat in the auditorium. Her friend finally clued Sydney in to the two males' new clothing habits during lunch sixth hour: the Government students' only break. Anne explained that Tom and Henry had apparently taken a trip to the Salvation Army store and bought the ugliest matching clothing they could find. Neither of the girls could stop laughing for five straight minutes.
Day 31
Sydney lost focus again for another two weeks until the ACTs and PSAEs (Prairie State Achievement Exams). A dreaded two half-days for juniors, they felt like heaven to the seniors, who reveled in the misfortune of the 'yungins.' The agents had no idea how Jack and the C.I.A. managed to get them out of the tests mandatory for graduation — both Florida and California took the SATs while France offered neither, and only residents of Illinois took the PSAEs — but all three were willing to pray in the direction of the senior Bristow's house for excusing them. Seniors only had to attend the first day of testing; the second, they were free from waking up early for class. During their lunch outing after the first day (Matt Herbert's mother offered to cook fourteen of them a smorgasbord lunch), Sydney excused herself to take a phone call from her father.
"Dad, I'm kind of busy right now," She gritted, the open window next to her and the slight breeze making her wary. "Don't you think it's a little suspicious if I step out for a call when the people who are most likely to call me are in the same room?"
"Say I'm your father calling from Paris to check up on your money situation," He said, brushing off her concern as if it were of no importance. "Have you heard anything about Sark or the Negro/Azuls? Has Vaughn said anything to you about structure changes or implications from superiors?"
"You just saw all three of us two hours ago," She stated in exasperation, still peeved, "and you couldn't have asked us then?"
At first, only frustrated silence met her ear, and then he ground out, "Talk now, pout later. Have you heard any rumblings that might suggest anything?"
Rolling her eyes and glancing again at the cracked window, through which flowed jovial laughter and delectable smells, she ducked her head and admitted, "Nothing. I don't know about Vaughn, but I've found nothing so far. He supposedly had a meeting in Chicago last night, but we haven't had a chance to talk privately yet. We'll call you again as soon as we get home."
"You'll do better than that." She could practically hear the cogs in his brain spin. "Tomorrow, you three will attend school. Park in the church parking lot across the street from Lincoln and come in through Entrance C: there are no cameras there. Walk down the hallway past the fieldhouse to the corridor before Entrance E. Walk down the stairs to the math wing, and then use the stairs at the other end—"
"—To avoid the camera," She finished, feeling somewhat insulted. "I know where the cameras are and how to avoid them, Dad, but I don't understand why we need to."
"Sark knows you're here. If you show up on tape on a day that you're not supposed to be here...Well, let's just say that it's trouble that we don't need right about now."
A cheer rose up from inside the tiny house (she had no idea how Matt fit in there, let alone with the rest of his family) signaling the arrival of lunch. "Alright, we'll be there," She sighed. 'As if there were any other option.' "But it better be worth waking up early for."
Day 32
"Whoa. You look a whole lot scarier at seven in the morning, Jack."
"I would just like to say that Agent Weiss does not speak for—"
"Sit down, Agent Vaughn. Agent Weiss, shut the door before someone sees you." Sydney almost felt sorry for her father as he tried to wrangle all five agents near the crack of dawn. Once everyone settled into a seat, Jack folded his hands on his tall desk and glared at them gravely. "The C.I.A. has been monitoring both of Sark's compounds, and there has been little to no movement from either. Echelon has intercepted nothing over the wires. We have no leads. Right now, we are stagnant. Do we have anything new to report?"
Everyone's eyes shifted immediately to Vaughn, and he fidgeted minutely. "Well, no one really said anything at the meet on Tuesday," He began, and Sydney swore she heard a groan from her father. "But," He added hastily, "I haven't been demoted yet, or even followed. If they suspected me in the least, I would have known about it immediately. Hell, I might not even be here."
"Which means Sark hasn't told the Negro/Azuls yet," Dixon interpreted with a nod. "Maybe he's keeping the information to himself, sending a different faction to take us out."
"Maybe," Jack agreed.
"Sark doesn't know our endgame," Syd offered, leaning forward in her chair. "Maybe he thinks we already pulled out of Glenfield."
"Or maybe he pulled out himself," Marshall said. His proud smile disappeared as silence filled the room. "What? It was just a suggestion."
"Obviously no one knows Sark's agenda," Jack summed up, sitting back and sighing heavily. "So all we can do is, wait for a sign."
Day 36
Sydney only had two AP tests.
Two.
One of them was the English Literature and Composition test!
And she felt like the entire world would come crashing down on her head if she even thought about closing a book.
Being a grad of both college and graduate school, she thought she should be able to deal with two measly tests that, in her case, eventually meant nothing. She did not need the college credit, and she definitely did not need the stress. But Jane Porter did, and therefore so did Sydney, in order to maintain her cover.
Everyone began panicking about the feared advanced placement tests, and mass studying broke out all over Senior Hall, dispelling near-fatal cases of Senioritis. Juniors and seniors alike clumped together around Physics and Chemistry books. Tyce Raji, the student who dealt Lara's study drugs, delivered lectures on Calculus shortcuts in the library's classroom while Anne answered even the most obscure questions about both English and Government. Even though the school did not offer AP American Government, the administration gave certain qualified and interested students the opportunity to take the test. As Anne's sights were fixed on Georgetown, she positively leapt at the chance. Other study groups blossomed in the library as well, prompting the librarians to tear their hair out with fury: they had to remind more students than normal to use their 'inside voices.'
But this panic began a little late: the day of the first advanced placement test. 'Better late than never, I guess,' Sydney thought wryly as she poured over a list of calculator programs available from various students. The stress began to get to her, even though it was only supposed to be 'pretend' studying. Her competitive nature kicked in, and she wanted to do well on the tests, so she lost sleep reviewing solubility rules and the properties of metalloids versus alloys. She even second-guessed her English literature knowledge, speed-reading through the Cliff's Notes for Wuthering Heights, Hamlet, King Lear, Frankenstein, and The Canterbury Tales. Vaughn usually aided her with the utmost patience, drilling her with flashcards and true or false quiz sheets, but he drew the line at acting out various scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream complete with tights for Puck and Oberon.
"Sydney, you know I love you with my whole heart, and I would do almost anything for you," He assured while backing out the front door. "Except that."
For a time, Sydney placed the problem of Sark on the back burner in favor of worrying about school, a tradeoff she made more than once during her college days. But, unfortunately for her conscience, her AP tests finished within the first three days of the two-week testing period. With Anne taking four AP exams (English, Calculus BC, Government, and Chemistry), and the rest of her friends taking a minimum of two, Sydney racked up quite a few hours during which she could twiddle her thumbs and contemplate Sark and the Negro/Azuls.
He had been quiet. Too quiet. Nauseously quiet. Almost a month and a half of inactivity began to lull Sydney into an admittedly false sense of security.
'Maybe Marshall was right,' She thought with a sense of unease. 'Maybe Sark really did abandon this project.'
Day 47
"So I was thinking the four of us could pull an all-nighter, and as soon as we get back from Gameworks, we go to IHOP for breakfast, then back to my house to sleep for a few hours. Go home, shower, change, then go to Motz's house for a bonfire lunch. If you want to come, a couple of us are gonna buy some provisions at Aldi's first. After that, we're going to Greg's house to watch movies. His parents said they'd stay over at a friend's for the night, so we're free for as long as the movies hold out. Sunday...I don't know. I think a lot of people might have homework to do or whatever, so I'm thinkin' the zoo. It's cheap, it's easy, and if people need to leave early, they can just catch the train. I know we're going to the Children's Museum on Senior Ditch Day, but I'm still not sure if I'm going."
"Why?"
"Almost all of my classes are offering extra credit if we come that day! How can I pass that up?"
Sydney shook her head in amazement as she finished up an assignment she just received in American History. Her bag lunch sat neglected next to her massive book. "You have high A's in almost all of your classes. I think you can afford to do without the extra credit."
Anne sat back in her chair and chugged from an indestructible Nalgene bottle, the newest craze at the high school. A smug, self-satisfied smile spread across her face as she posed with the bottle. "I wanna be able to practically sleep through finals and still keep my A's. If that means skipping Senior Ditch Day, then so be it."
"Whatever..." Sydney replied flippantly, snapping her book closed and filing away her homework. She check her watch against the digital clock on the wall by the lunch lines on the other side of Commons. 12:02. Good. She could still eat her sandwich if she hurried.
"You're gonna do the same thing, aren't you?" Anne abruptly prophesied. Sydney gave her a look and continued to unpack her lunch. "Jane, don't gimme that crap. You're not gonna ditch. You can't ditch; it's totally not you."
The agent frowned playfully. "Yeah, yeah, I know. 'You've got a little something on your—'"
Gunshots, shouting, and rapid Russian-tinged Spanish cut through the usual lunchtime din. Both Sydney and Anne sat up straighter as about ten men clad entirely in black and toting automatics and AK-47's entered at a jog with their weapons raised. One pair marched directly to the fire doors, another to the bookstore by Entrance H, and two others dispersed themselves throughout a thoroughly confused and scared student body. The last man strode confidently to the centre of Commons, directly into Sydney's line of vision, and buried three shots in the ceiling for silence. "Hello," He quipped behind a wool mask. "We're here to take over your school. And everyone is going to cooperate."
Sydney's face blanched as she saw the mercenaries begin searching the students for, presumably, her or her fellow agents. Her thoughts immediately poured out her mouth.
"They're here."
TBC . . .
