I sat on a handsome armchair around a small card table. Cannon was next to me, Glory was across from me, and Delta was to my other side.
"So, what's the contest then?" I asked.
"I have no idea. It could be a series of challenges, or a huge challenge. This is probably going to be really competitive." Glory sighed.
"And." Cannon laughed. "To all the guys, there will only be a few girls. I imagine that in the 'voting' system a lot of the star-10 girls got left out."
I creased my brow. "I don't know what it's going to be like. But I'm excited. I think we can win it. We're the best SITs around."
Cannon nodded in agreement.
"Anyway. Our ETA is in five hours. We should have some sort of plan." Delta chewed his bottom lip.
"How about we wait till we find out what we're doing first. I mean, it would probably help somewhat."
"Guess so." Glory leaned back and propped his legs in the table casually.
"I'm gonna check out the mini-bar back there. Anyone want anything?" Delta stood.
"Yeah. Get me a root beer float. Anyone want anything to eat?" Cannon joined Delta and the two squeezed through the small door into the kitchen area and shut the door behind them.
Glory looked at me. "You changed a lot since last year."
I nodded slightly. "Guess so."
"I don't see a lot of the 16 year olds."
"True." I picked up Maxell and popped it in my laptop.
"So, how will Maxell help us in the best points?"
"Well, I just updated something that will help tons."
"What?"
I hit a button sequence, then hit enter.
A blue ray shot around the plane, then returned into the laptop with a quick flash.
"What was that?" He leaned over my shoulder and peered down in the screen.
A map of the whole plane was now on the screen. I hit a few keys and the screen of my laptop folded back and it all glowed up, on a holographic, 3D film.
It showed the temperature, weather, it showed a heat map of where life was. It showed Cannon and Delta in the kitchen. I zoomed in to the kitchen and showed Glory a close up on Cannon's hands. He was fixing ice cream sundaes and adding goopy chocolate syrup.
Glory raised his eyes. "Wow."
"Yep. It's the best addition to Maxell if you ask me. Watch this." I rotated the map and spoke faintly in the mike. "Tell me when life form one is in a four foot radius."
Cannon chose that moment to open the door. A little alarm beeped and said "Life form one, aka SIT Cannon is within dart gun range Silver."
Glory gave a low whistle.
"What, do you have that thing on stud alert?" Cannon smirked, handing around the sundaes.
"You wish." I retorted. "So, if we're camping or anything, and we need to know if anyone is sneaking around near us, we'll know where they are at all times."
Glory pulled his chair around and sat next to me, "what else can this do?"
"Look." I held the thin laptop to Cannon. "Hey Cannon, did you try to break into my video diary last night?"
"No."
"Negative." Maxell replied.
Glory grinned in delight, and Cannon laughed.
"And." I pecked a few buttons and PacMan popped up. I began playing. "And I got boredom busters."
Glory nodded appreciatively. "We have this in the bag!"
I looked up at Glory's...glorious-ness. "You like it then?"
"Dude, Agent One doesn't even have these new hook-ups you got on it!"
"I haven't made them public yet."
"Good thing." Cannon began surveying the map and nodding approvingly.
"Anyway, we can't get too cocky, that would kill us. We just got to take the curveballs."
"And hit a home run." Delta came in and passed around Cokes.
I sipped my Coke and grinned. I'm in a jet on the way to a huge SIT competition and I'm with the three hottest guys at school.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
"Hey Beautiful, wake up!" Cannon spun my chair around dizzily.
I opened my eyes and felt the jolt of a not-too-smooth jet landing.
"Who landed that?" I asked with a grin.
"The computer. Grab your stuff, we're here!" Delta was giddy, I could tell just hearing him.
I took a breath and looked out the small window. SITs were milling around the
runway, watching others come off the planes. I spotted two girls. One was a skinny red head with a pair of baggy work out sweats and a pair of aviator sunglasses. The other was a tall, big breasted, heavily made up girl in a too tight skirt and strapless top.
I took in a breath and smoothed my top.
"We got to look ready. Judgements are all ready being made." Glory hissed.
We walked to the door and it lowered into steps.
Cannon walked down, casting his gaze down in a suave way. Delta took slow careful steps, despite his little grin. I stepped off and paused a minute, letting my eyes adjust from the cool darkness of the jet to the scorching sun. Glory put a hand on my shoulder, telling me to hurry down.
I bounded the last step and hurried where Cannon was pretending to know where he was going.
We stopped by the table where bags were being checked.
"Hey! How did an SIT bring a Maxell!"
A booming voice made everyone turn their attention from the next jet.
I stepped forward confidently.
"That's mine."
"What makes you think you can bring an expensive rare piece of equipment like this to Spy Wars!" He roared.
A demoted agent does bag checks. Obviously a two-star SIT in the old days.
"Listen..." I checked his name tag, "Justice, I invented Maxell. And if you'll
excuse me, it says here we can bring an invention of our own creation. Since I created it, I assume it's ok for me to bring it?"
He looked at me in renewed interest. "SIT Silver?"
"That's me." I pressed my thumb against the verification plate and the light turned green in admittance.
I took the black bag.
He remained speechless.
I turned to realize that most of the crowd was staring at me too.
Cannon stepped through it towards me. "C'mon Silver."
I caught snatches of conversation as I walked by.
"-she's the best female SIT in America-"
"wow, I'd never seen her before, she's beautiful-"
"Check out the guy with her!"
Cannon pretended not to hear any of this and walked over where Glory and Delta were all ready scanning a portfolio of papers.
"What's going on?"
"We're boarding one of the trams to camp, and getting settled in our cabins."
I looked over the busy crowd. Some people were looking at me, some were milling around in their own conversations.
I leaned over to Glory and pointed to where the tram was leaving. "Let's get out of here."
Delta shrugged. "We don't really need to scope out the competition, we met a lot of these people at the banquet. I'm hoping my pen pall Gizmo will be here."
We moved through the thinning crowd toward the tram, which was really a long rocket car.
I condensed my bag to the size of a purse with the push of a button. I pushed into the pew like benches and Cannon settled next to me.
"Not a lot in the female gender around here." He muttered.
"That could give us an advantage. Agent One likes teams that take a dare." Delta smiled at me. "Not that picking you was a big risk."
"Gee thanks." I looked over the filling car.
"This is gonna be tight." Cannon sighed. "This totally beats one of Agent Force's boring lectures."
"Anything beats Agent Force's lectures." Glory laughed, throwing a teasing glance to Delta.
"I fell asleep once and Agent Force nearly blew his top." Delta explained with chuckle.
"Hey! Silver? From the Washington compound?" The boy in front of me had turned. He had a flat top and hazel eyes framed by owlish, coke-bottle glasses.
"That's me."
"Can I get your autograph? Once when our compound chief had me come into his room, I got a look at his Maxell. It looked awesome. I've never been amazed by a computer program before, but Maxell totally blew me away. Are any upgrades in the making?"
He said all of this really fast. He bobbed his head, shoving a notepad and pen to me.
I signed it quickly and returned it. I'd never been asked my autograph before.
"You're practically an idol in the SIT computer clubs. A lot of the kids wish they could get a good look at Maxell, of course, SITs aren't allowed to have equipment that advanced."
Cannon looked amused. "And to think I've been hacking into first class information since 14."
"Trying to hack." I corrected.
"I'm Chip. That's short for ComputerChip. I'm a big fan. I'm from the Ohio compound! Yep! I'm 16. I was the first pick by our bracket because I'm one of the best computer whizzes there."
Cannon was holding in a laugh. I could tell.
"That's really cool." Delta was obviously trying to help de-tangle me from this 'chip' guy.
"Yeah! I bet you were first pick too! Right Silver?" The words tumbled over each other clumsily. It's hard to believe that such a fast talking guy was a ten-star agent.
"No, I wasn't. Glory and Delta are much better then me. Older too. But I'll let you get back to your team." I shifted my bag.
He didn't get the hint. "Wow! Do you have a Maxell in that bag? WOW! I'm in touching distance of the Maxell and it's creator!"
"Are you a new ten-star?" Cannon couldn't help sounding a little sarcastic.
"Oh, I'm not a ten star."
I paused. "I thought you had to be a ten star to come."
"Nope. You have to have at least two. The third and fourth can be filled in by anyone that you want. I'm only a six-star, but I'm good on computers. My best friend is a ten star, he's the one who picked me for the team."
That explains a lot.
"Well, talk to you later Silver!" He piped up and turned around to tell his bench who he'd just talked too.
"So I guess we have an advantage having four ten-stars." Delta looked over the rest of the tram. "I was going to say, a lot of the SITs here don't look like ten-stars. Anyway. I don't know what the cabin arrangements are, but I imagine there will be major spying on other people's plans. So first order of business on free time is to totally spy-proof our cabins. With the help of Maxell's heat censored map, it should be cake."
"What if they wear ice suits?" Cannon asked.
"No good. Maxell also picks up voice patterns, DNA, and has built in metal and ion detectors. I just had it set on heat sensor when I showed Glory."
Glory shook his head. "And to think I was close to picking Heat and his solar powered air board over you."
I blushed happily and put my arm protectively over my bag. "Maxell is like a fifth
ten-star on our team."
We all remained upright, even with the hard jolt of the tram stopping. Cat like reflexes are mandatory for a ten-star.
We all shifted out and I stared in wonderment at where we were.
Camp.
