I know I haven't updated in ages…but I really like to finish this story. So, thank you for the reviews and for reading so far. I can't really say when I will post the next chapter but for now enjoy reading! I hope you have a great week ?
After Penny regains some of her composure she quickly gets dressed and follows Kayla through a couple of rooms into what seems to be a meeting room. In fact, not all of her dream has been her imagination. She truly was in a zeppelin above the camp. Kayla probably told her yesterday and that is why she dreamed about it. The meeting room was very simple with a big wooden table in the middle of the room and some chairs around it but quite spacious and with big windows. Once they are in the room, Kayla turns around to face Penny.
"Those are the remaining agents, those who aren't bitten", Kayla informs Penny. Ben comes over and kisses Kayla on the cheek. "And me", he remarks. "And you", she confirms smiling up at him.
Kayla raises her voice "Ok everyone, gather up please, we have plenty of work to do."
All agents sit down at the table and Ben pulls out a chair for Kayla and Penny. "So, first things first" Kayla begins while sitting down. "The good news is we have found a way to get rid of the ticks once someone has been bitten…"
"And how do we do that exactly?" an agent in the back of the room asks, suspiciously eying Ben.
"Well, as we know once someone has been bitten, the ticks vanish under the skin. I hoped – and as far as I know now, was right with my assumption – that they stay right under the skin. That makes it easier for us to detect them and remove them with a syringe." Kayla starts her explanation.
Penny furrows her brows. "And how did you manage to detect the tick, that has bitten Ben?"
Once she finished her question her face lights up. "Wait a minute. The ticks are little robots, controlled via Talon's bracelet cuff, so we should be able to detect the signals that are transmitted from the bracelet to the ticks and visa versa, correct?" Penny asks excitedly. Finally some good news after what she has been through the last couple of hours.
Kayla nods. "You're right." She smiles broadly at Penny.
"But it took me forever to figure out the way the signals are encoded. Talon has done quiet an impressive job. Plus the ticks seem to change their encoding every few minutes. Once I removed the tick it stopped doing that. So we absolutely have to mimic this behaviour or else Talon knows that the ticks have been removed…" Kayla stops talking as soon as she notices the expression on Penny's face.
She puts an arm on her friends' shoulder.
"P, I'm so sorry." she whispers so only Penny can hear her.
Penny straightens her posture and looks at the remaining agents around the table.
"Now that we know how to get rid of those ticks our main goal is to capture one agent after the other and free them of those little robots. Then when we have enough agents back on our side, we must confront Talon and get his bracelet cuff. I'm sure we can deactivate all the remaining ticks or maybe even destroy them with it." Penny announces, her voice slightly shaking.
Ben speaks up, realising it's hard for Penny to continue talking.
"We're going to need teams to capture our agents, we best start with Jim, he can hopefully tell us what to do next. And to keep up our charade all agents we free from the ticks, including me, have to pretend that we are still under the control of those nasty robots and listen to Talon's every command."
They talk for a couple of hours until they elaborated a plan how to systematically catch and free the other agents. Once everyone agreed, they started putting their plan into motion.
A couple of days later
"Are you alright Jim?" Penny asks nervously.
Kayla has just removed his tick and put it to the others in a small containment box. After they removed Ben's tick, she has finished to write a program that mimics the encoding of the ticks, so all they had to do now was remove them, register them in her program and obviously keep them contained.
Thanks to Kayla's program the last days the small group of remaining agents has become bigger and bigger without anyone noticing that some of the agents were no longer controlled by the ticks. And now with Jim on their side, they were ready to go after Talon. Unfortunately, they also found out that there are still some ticks running loose around the treehouses and everyone can get bitten any time, so they had to be super cautious.
Jim blinks several times "Yeah, I'm fine now, thank you."
After Kayla and Penny filled him in on what happened on their side the past couple of days, Jim immediately goes to the meeting room.
He clears is throat and all heads turn towards him. "Hey everybody, thanks for saving me" he starts.
"Unfortunately, this is the first time we have had a disaster of this magnitude. But as I see, the months here in the camp have paid off. Together you have elaborated a brilliant strategy and if I am informed correctly tonight will be the final battle against these nasty ticks."
After he finished the sentence he looks towards Kayla and Penny and the two nod.
"We will strike when it's dark. Talon usually is in his treehouse after a last short patrol. Ben and I will be there with him. Ah, that reminds me…" he walks over to the wooden table and presses his hand to a darker part of the wood. A green light blinks and a hidden control panel slides up. Intrigued the agents come closer to the table, their faces showing surprise.
"What's that?" Kayla asks surprised.
Jim turns around. "You managed to find the zeppelin, as in a super secret hideout, and you think the meeting room is only equipped with a plain wooden table and chairs?" he asks laughing, shaking his head.
Kayla only shrugs and looks at the control panel.
"What is it for?" Penny asks leaning in closer.
Jim presses a few keys on the keyboard, slowly the windowpanes of the room darken, and a map of the whole camp appears with little dots with names attached to them.
"Wow." Ben exclaims. "Now that is super awesome!"
Kayla slaps him on the shoulder. "You are way too loud, idiot. Do you want them to hear us?" she says supressing laughter.
"Quite impressive, I know" Jim speaks up a little proud.
"Ok, that will make it a 100% easier to find out where Talon is and if he is keeping and bodyguards around." Penny says, a grim look on her face, scanning the map for the dot 'named' Talon.
Just as Jim said, she finds his dot in his treehouse. "There he is" she announces, as her finger traces the letters of Talon's name.
Once again Jim presses a few keys and Talons dot turns from blue to red. Startled Penny pulls back her finger and looks back at Jim.
"This way we can always spot him easily" he says.
Penny nods and pulls back her shoulders "Jim, I want to be the one who brings Talon down" she says firmly, "Please."
