"Right-o Beautiful."

"Why do you call me Beautiful?" I asked sharply, still a little annoyed at him. Anyway, yelling at him softened the painful sting of nerves. "It was bad enough with just Cannon."

He grinned cheekily, replacing his regular glued-on smirk. He had transformed to be more like Cannon since I met him. The cold dark exterior of the first conversation had softened to a more teasing persona.

"Never you mind, don't tell me." I looked out the window. "Believe you me, it's going to be hard to act natural with all those agents crawling around."

"Forget about it." He replied in a Bronx accent.

I licked my lips nervously. "Come on."

scene change

It was time. I stood in uniform lines, Cannon was to my right, and Delta and Glory were to my left.

We all marched in time towards the airfield, and did a neat about face, all facing the runway as a series of jets landed professionally. The doors opened and Chief's from every compound here came off, glancing happilly down at us.

I exchanged a glance from Cannon. He looked calm, cool and collected. Only his black eyes had a torrent of emotions spilling out from them. I was once told that the eyes are the window to a man's soul. (AN: That's wrong, the only way to a man's soul is through his stomach!...Oops. Ruined the dangerous, mytserious effect I had going...)

I think they were right. Cannon's eyes protrayed the fear I felt. We were so close. The good guys were here, we had a chance, we weren't hopelessly outnumbered as we once were.

I found the jet with our colors. It was silver with a long midnight blue stripe going down the wingspan. I let out a little sigh I'd been holding it, surprised to realize I'd been holding my breath. Chief Tiger's Eye walked professionally toward the line of other chiefs.

I joined everyone else's applause and grinned. The grin was fake.

"Please!" Agent One took a microphone. His hovorboard rose him above the heads and so we could see him on his self-made stage. "Please. Take your agents and talk to them about the events of the past month. Find out everything you have missed out on in your great adventure. tiy have two hours until the ceremony. We have some last minute points to deduct and add, so the winner may be a surprise."

I knew it would be, because of Cannon and My lack of concentration in the last challenges, we hadn't been picking up to many points. I hardly expected the trophy, but it didn't matter to me now.

I walked with the boys to Chief Tiger's Eye. "Well, well. I've heard some good things from the mass notices about you four. You got the key, eh?" He asked.

It was weird to talk on such a personal level with the chief of our compound, but I was too worried to notice.

"We need to tell you everything!" I put on a mask for the two boys beside me. I still didn't know if Delta or Glory had been replaced. It would be too big of a risk to blurt out our findings in front of them.

"We don't got much to say. Only we got this in the bag...and Silver snuck out with Midnight Sky in the middle of the night." Cannon replied coolly, shooting me a triumphant smirk.

"And Cannon did the same with some bimbo named Two lips."

"Tulip." Cannon corrected roughly.

Slipping into our usual banter of wits made it easier to soften the nerves once again.

Chief gave a wry chuckle. "I'll have you know there wasn't an ounce of trouble around the compound without you pranksters attacking each other at every turn. Though there was a time bomb that sent liquid nitrogen, freezing the entire locker of Cement! It looked much like your doing Ms. Silver."

I grinned. "I'd forgotten about that. How did it go?"

"Cement's ninja and stealth clothes fell out of the locker, and shattered all over the floor. They were too sharp to touch till they melted into shards of cloth."

I couldn't even hide the grin. I had slipped it in his locker, full blast, he had smeared gymnist chalk down my black leotard. "He had it coming."

"I doubt that. But ok.." Chief looked at me sternly. But I could tell he was in too good of a mood to punish me just yet. "I don't even want to know what's brimming in that evil little cranuim of yours." (A/N: My friends tell me that all the time, had to throw it in)

Wait till I tell him what's really on my mind.

"So. Tell me, how's it been."

"Delta hasn't done squat!" Cannon announced, picking at his nails.

"I have too!"

I smirked. "They've been at it all month."

"Believe you me." Glory agreed.

I tried to think of a way to get rid of Glory and Delta. The only thing I could think of would be sending them to get food, but even then. There wasn't much of a chance. Delta hated grunt work.

"I have an idea." Chief inturrupted suddenly. "Tell me what's going on, one at a time. I have to give an analysis of your attitudes at the end of the day anyway. It's kind of strange. But they wanted us to say whether your personalities have changed in the month. Whether this experiance has really changed you or not."

Aha! They want to know if the chief can spot the frauds.

"How about in twos. I don't want Silver spreading any bogus lies about me." Cannon suggested.

"Trust me, though they may be lies, they are not bogus."

The problem had been solved for me.

"Let's go over there." I walked with Cannon towards the tree grove, out of sight and ear shot.

As soon as the three of sat down I whipped out Maxell. "DNA him first." Cannon warned.

"Give me a hair." I insisted.

Chief raised his eyebrow, but ran his fingers through his head and handed me a hair that had shed in the swipe.

I slippped it in and began testing it. The blue of confirmation let me give a sigh of relief. "He's real."

"What did you think I was? A robot?" He chuckled.

"Close."

I began showing him facts, having little interjections of Cannon pointing out extra points.

I showed videos and tapes. His eyes grew as round as saucers in horror and hellish fear.

"What can we do?" I asked, checking my watch. We'd been at it for a good half hour.

"Well. Are Delta and Glory...?"

"We don't know. I don't want to run the risk. Midnight Sky is in on it too."

"He's a clone?"

"No. He's in with us. Me, Silver, and him are the only 100 safeties."

"I have to get back to the jet. We'll be safe there. From there we can take off and begin radioing for help."

"So we're safe?" I whispered

"Not really." The voice didn't come from Cannon.

Or Chief.

But behind us.