THE DISCOVERY part 3

In a darkened room inside a large warehouse on the outskirts of Paris, a handful of had been tasked with one thing: To make sure that a handful of kids miles away are never once out of sight of the watchful eyes of James Fitzgerald.

Their every move was monitored, around the clock. Their calls to each other were tapped and recorded. Even their minds were not safe, as a pair of assigned psychologists, straight from a CIA Special Case Unit understood their every thought.

All of this impressed T-Bone, she had only sat in on a single meeting and spoken only once, but Texas' persuasive words had increased their funding and resources tenfold. It was also probably influenced by Politicians who feared the loss of any more important voters to mass coastal disappearances. Thousands had already bizarrely vanished without a trace, from their cars, beds, workplace. One second they were there, next they vanished in a blue-white light, literally where they sat.

The nations of the world watched those of the Caribbean in nervous anticipation. The island countries had all gone silent since the EM field had spread across the Southwest-Central Atlantic. Not a single radio or satellite signal could penetrate the field, and navigation was hazardous to the point of being impossible, as magnetic compasses went haywire and GPS navigation was scrambled. And flight was completely out of the question.

She began to realize the worst was still to come. With access to the Gulf Coast Refineries completely cut off, Tankers carrying precious crude could not reach their destinations. As a result, the price of gas had risen to unheard-of sums; in some places reaching eight dollars a gallon. And it would only rise.

T-Bone wondered how the grizzled man who sat next to her had become so influential, so powerful. All she knew for sure was that James Fitzgerald was on a whole other level. Her old ally for the past ten years had become more mysterious than she could have ever fathomed.

A very familiar face opened the door to the spacious office, a face she had known for since this began. Rocky walked in, carrying a tray filled with coffee mugs. The operators noticed this and each grabbed one, thankful for the insomniac's cure.

"Well, if it isn't our courageous top agent that T-Bone has so highly appraised," Texas waved him over.

Even though he was no longer part of the Navy, technically speaking, Rocky still crisply saluted him.

"Former Lieutenant Kent Perego. U.S. Navy Seals."

"At ease, soldier. I read your dossier on the flight over here. My associate here'" he said gesturing to T-Bone, "thinks highly of you. Tell me Rocky, do you understand children?"

"No sir. Not greatly. Speaking of kids, how about our little operation here? Why is it that we are placing so many resources on it?"

"Let's just say that too many cooks will spoil the pot. I believe you had something for me?"

"Ah, yes." Rocky went over to the now empty tray. On it was also a manila envelope. It had been stamped 'TOP SECRET', but that didn't matter. He handed it to Texas.

This is the list of mission specifics, the codewords and such among other things. Also includes the backgrounds of those kids we are watching."

Texas flipped the envelope open and quickly scanned the contents; one was a thick binded packet labeled 'PROJECT CARTHAGE.' Yet another was a list of currently active CIA personnel in the European Theater. Among these was a piece of paper labeled 'MAIN TGT CALLSIGNS'. It began with a correlation between names and colors:

MAIN:

Belpois, Jeremy-Blue

Stones/Hopper, Aelita-Pink

'Odd' Della-Robbia, Jaques -Purple

Ishiyama, Yumi-Yellow

Stern, Ulrich-Green

OTHER:

Xanadu-Black

Xana-Red

"I see you took the initiative and put both down." Texas said, looking up from reading.

"Yes, sir, I did."

"One is bad, two of them are worse."

Texas folded the folded and placed it in his coat pocket. "Indeed it is, soldier. Indeed it is."

"With your permission sir," asked Rocky, "Could I know how you got involved in this in the first place?"

The man turned out to face the window, overlooking the river. "That is a long story, not for this time and place. However, I can tell you I was one of the first to say hello to him."

"Which one, sir?"

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? Which one?"

Rocky hesitated for a moment. "I suppose you mean-"

"-The one that began this fine mess we are all now in so many years ago, yes, that one."

At that moment, a computer operator walked over to T-Bone, carrying a printout.

"Uh, sir, you may want to look at this," He handed the document to his CO, and then returned to his post.

T-Bone looked at the document. "Well, it looks like the kids have found something interesting." She then passed it to Texas, who read it himself. After the last line, Texas simply smiled.

"What would that be?" asked Rocky.

Texas glanced up from the paper. "It would seem my old friend Hopper left more than just memories to his daughter."

Jeremy had been working on the program on the disc they found for the better part of six hours, but and he had finally began to make progress cracking it. He had found that it was similar to Franz Hopper's almost legendary encryption, but different. It was different in the fact that it wasn't only multilayered, but it also required an almost titanic amount of computing power to crack. The single decryption program was taxing his custom computer to its limits.

This coding wasn't written by Franz Hopper, the blond boy thought. This code was a great deal more complex.

Another thing that both impressed and scared Jeremy at the same time was how the disc was revealed to the group in the first place. He could still imagine how the seemingly rock-solid concrete wall behaved like water for those few brief moments, how it flowed and retracted into itself. He was not aware of anything that could do that.

The boy could feel sleep creeping into his mind, the eye strain was beginning to take its toll. But he couldn't stop, he thought. This was all too incredible. It was-

There was a sudden knock at his door. His concentration had shattered in an instant.

"Come in," he said as he began to type again.

The door opened, and Ulrich walked in, already in his nightclothes.

"Hey, are you still awake?" he asked

"I'm not tired. That was too amazing, what that wall did. And this disc is even more amazing. This coding is unlike anything I have ever seen."

"It's nearly midnight, you should get some sleep."

"I'm almost done. It'll be a few more minutes."

"What are you working on, anyway?"

"The final layer of the encryption, I'm almost finished cracking it."

Ulrich walked over to what had his friend so engrossed. All he saw was lines and lines of binary code, all hopelessly confusing to most anyone except Jeremy or Aelita.

"It's too confusing for me, I think Ill just leave the complicated stuff to you." The brown haired boy turned around and left the room.

When he got to the doorway, He stopped. His right hand was looking strange, the texture morphing, just like it did in the bathroom a couple of days before. It seemed as if it was trying to form…scales.

But as sudden as it happened, it was gone. The flesh on his arm turned back to its normal appearance. He decided holding off telling Jeremy or the others he was seeing things, they'd probably think he was crazy. They already had enough to deal with, School, shape-shifting walls, and a maniacal computer program that was probably planning world annihilation. And on top of that he was in need of sleep.

He traced his way back to his and Odd's room. He barely made it through the door before collapsing on his bed, dead tired. Odd had fallen asleep nearly an hour ago, full of spaghetti and mystery meatballs from dinner. It was only moments before he too drifted off, exhausted from a day of discoveries.

Yumi awoke at a start, drenched in sweat, breathing hard. She had had a serious nightmare.

She had been running through the woods, as hard as she could. It was night, she could remember that much. She had been running from something, afraid, scared, fearful. A voice from the shadows called to her, taunting her. But it wasn't a normal voice, not in the audible sense. It was as if she hear it in her mind.

"Stop running, little girl, and accept what you are, what you have become!"

She ran harder, nearly tripping, stumbling but recovering. Tripping again, this time going down hard in pain, pulling or breaking her leg.

She had tried to get up but couldn't. She heard footsteps, crunching in the foliage.

"Turn around, little girl, and face yourself, your end."

Yumi could remember looking over her shoulder at her pursuer and-

She woke up. Just like that. She could still feel the pain from her injury, the fear of her pursuer. It had been so graphic, so real. She was drenched in a cold sweat, and almost felt nauseous.

The young woman shakily got out of bed, her head pounding suddenly. She remembered a bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. She walked out into the hall to the bathroom, unsteady on her feet.

Pulling open he cabinet door, she fumbled around inside, looking for the right bottle. Finding it, she promptly opened it, pouring out two small gel caps. Without the aid of water, she promptly swallowed them, feeling as they went down. Within seconds she began to feel them work. Relieved of the pain, she placed the bottle back in its respectful place on the shelf and closed the cabinet door-

-And Yumi almost shrieked when she saw her own reflection.

Her face was still normal, but her eyes had changed, radically. No longer were the irises round, they had become elliptical, shaped like a cat's. Then she noticed how everything was so clear, how she noticed almost everything, how she instantly saw every movement. She was somehow seeing color differently the bathroom seemed so crisp and bright. Her hand came to her face at an impulse and for a brief instant she noticed every ridge and crease in her palm.

But as how it was so sudden, it changed. Right before her eyes, literally, they changed back to normal, retracting into their original shape. Yumi pinched herself in the arm to make sure she really wasn't still dreaming. Then she remembered what that person had told her in her dream:

"Stop running, little girl, and accept what you are, what you have become!"

What? She thought. What is happening to her?