January 16th Davenport House (Leo's POV)-
Through all of the panic and the tears Big D and I remembered that there is a manual switch on the outside of the top of the elevator. He boosted me up and I was able to climb on top of the elevator. I found the switch and the elevator started moving up. I jumped back down into the elevator before we got to the top.
"you hear me?" Mom asked through the doors before they opened and we rushed out. "Ah, finally!"
"Mom!" I ran into her arms and she hugged back.
"I was so worried!" She said releasing me and checking on Big D.
"I'm so glad you're okay." Big D said as he noticed the fire was contained to the lab.
"How did you fix the elevator?" She asked.
"Well, it was incredibly difficult, but in the face of great adversity-"
"I shimmied up the shaft and flipped the emergency switch while he cried." I explained with smirk.
"I coached him. At least my sprinkler system put the fire out before it spread to the rest of the house." Big D said but he still had a weight on his shoulders. Maddie.
"What about the lab?" My mom asked.
"We have to go try and find Maddie down there but we'll see the lab for ourselves." He said, his voice laced with dread.
"Maddie is still down there?!" My mom became filled with fear for Maddie and we all poured back into the elevator to get down to the lab.
We got to the lab to find Maddie but as soon as the doors opened it became difficult to look at anything else.
"It's worse than I thought." Big D said taking it all in.
"The blast took out everything." I said taking in the sight of my desk and Maddie's.
"Look at their capsules. There's nothing left." Big D looked around at his work. Destroyed.
"We need to find Maddie." Mom said, reminding us why we're down here. We started looking around closer to the elevator to find any sign of her. I moved closer to where the outcove used to be and found a boot that looked eerily familiar.
"I think I found something." Big D and my mom rushed over to help me move all the rubble. It took a little while but after moving the last big chunk of the wall we found her.
There was soot all over her and her suit was torn up a bit. She had a large gash reaching from her temple to her jaw. Her hair was a mess and it appeared that she lost a few inches leaving the bottom singed. There were heavy burn marks on her neck and hands being some of the oly revealed skin. The most concerning part was the large piece of scrap sticking out of her left leg.
"Oh my-" We were all speechless at the sight of her body when I noticed, it looked like she moved.
"Is she still alive?" I asked moving closer. Big D settled her down on a clear spot so we could look for a pulse.
"This can't be possible." He said in awe.
"What?" Mom asked with tears racing down her face.
"She's alive but her pulse is weak. We need to get her to the hospital. There's nothing we can do here. The house isn't even ours anymore."
"Speaking of which, the bank wants us out. I'll go gather what's left of our stuff and call Alex. He should know." She wiped the tears away as she left what was left of the lab.
"All your hard work. Millions of dollars' worth of equipment. Gone." I said as he carried Maddie to the elevator.
"All of this stuff can be replaced. Adam, Bree, and Chase can't. We have to find them before Douglas does." He looked down at Maddie. His eyes were full of worry. We couldn't replace her either.
"How? They disabled their GPS signals. They could be anywhere by now." I was starting to lose hope. We had no supplies, Maddie was down for the count, and Adam, Bree, and Chase were still nowhere to be seen.
Cargo ship (Bree's POV)-
"Well, after the last six hours, I can confidently say that there is no lady like way to sit on an anchor." We climbed on board after hiding on the anchor until all the crew was clear. The stupid anchor left me with a really bad wedgie the entire time.
"What are you complaining about?" Chase exclaimed as he pulled the feathers from his hair. "I had a seagull using my head as a nest."
"Where are we headed anyway?" I asked. I really did not want to go to another cold place.
"No idea. I can't pinpoint our coordinates without our GPS locators." Chase explained.
"I bet we're going to Acapulco. It's where all the cruise ships go." Clearly Adam was confused.
"Adam, we're not on a cruise ship. It's a cargo freighter" Chase grumbled. We were all tense after everything that went down but Chase had it the worst. He hated having to leave Maddie behind. In all fairness I missed Maddie but Maddie was his other half. I could understand if he was a bit off.
"Whatever it is, we're on vacation. Okay? I'm making the most out of it." Adam hummed.
"This is not a vacation. We're hiding from the FBI." I explained once again.
"And if they find out about us, we'll become government guinea pigs and Mr. Davenport will go to jail." Chase said but Adam just dismissed him and sat on a large pile of ropes and threw his sunglasses on.
"Oh, will you relax? Ah, it's nice to get away every once in a while, isn't it?" He lifted his glasses up before continuing. "And where is that waiter?"
Davenport House (Leo's POV)-
Once we got Maddie to the hospital Alex met us there and stayed with Maddie. We wouldn't know how she was doing for a while due to everything they had to treat. Big D thought it'd be better to stay occupied so we went home to get everything sorted.
Mom came down the stairs with another two suitcases. "Almost ready. Just three more bags."
"Tasha, we're homeless. Do you really need all these clothes?" Big D asked as he looked at all the suitcases.
"These are yours." She said dryly.
"I cannot believe they're kicking us out. Where are we gonna go?" I asked.
"Look, there is a five star hotel downtown. We can stay there until they can prove my account was hacked." He said but I quickly spotted the issue.
"How? You got no money, no credit cards, nothing." I explained.
"Well, yeah. I just thought we'd tap into your college fund." He explained and I was about to argue when someone knocked on the door. I went to open the door only to find a walking nightmare.
"'Sup, Dooley?" Perry said.
"Oh no!" I tried pushing the door shut but Perry overpowered me and pushed the door open.
"Well, I see you did your squats today." I said dryly.
"That's the power of protein." Perry flexed. "I eat three whole chickens a day."
"Ohhh! Principal Perry," My mom smiled before dropping her act. "What do you want?
"Nothin' from you, Betty blue." Perry moved past her and straight towards Big D. "I just came here to shake down old Donnie for my hush money. Keeping a bionic secret really takes it out of a gal."
"And here I thought you were just winded from walking up the driveway. Look, you know I'm broke." Big D said sadly.
"Well, then perhaps I'll have to find another way to get my money. Maybe a tell-all book. How one adorkable principal saved America from three bionic freaks!" Perry threatened but knowing her she'd be crazy enough to do anything.
"Look, I will get you your hush money, but first, we need a place to live. And then we have to find Adam, Bree and Chase." He explained.
"Who?" Perry asked, revealing her current priorities.
"The freaks." I explained in her twisted language.
"Oh. So, you're telling me the sooner you find a place, the sooner I get my money." Perry realized.
"That's right, T.P. You help us out, we help you out. You wash our back, we-" This analogy was going to a very disturbing place and I quickly cut myself off. "ughhh."
"Hmmm. All right, I'm in. You can stay at my place. As long as you don't mind sharing the john with eight cats and the occasional semi-pro bowler." Perry offered.
"What if we stay at the school temporarily? Like when you set up the shelter for people after the big storm last year." I'm so glad we have my mom otherwise we'd probably have to go with Perry.
"Oh! So that's why everyone was bangin' on the door trying to get in!" Man this woman is horrifying. "All right, you can stay at the school."
"Oh, good. Well, you wanna help us with our bags?" Big mistake Big D.
"My pleasure." Perry picked up a couple of our bags and took them to her car before driving away.
"We're never gonna see those bags again, are we?" He asked.
"What do you think?" I asked before I grabbed my bags and started towards the school.
Cargo ship (Bree's POV)-
"Okay, we're all clear. The crew just went to eat." Chase said as we came out from behind the crates.
"If it's veal shank, I'm giving us up." Adam said.
"Adam!" He couldn't be that dumb? Could he?
"So, what's our plan?" I asked Chase.
"Well, as soon as we get wherever we're going, I guess we just blend in and live normal lives." He said sadly.
"So does this mean we're done with missions forever?" Adam asked, finally having a sense of what was going on.
"We have to be. Using bionics will only get us caught. Man, if I'm not mission leader anymore, I don't know who I am." I could tell that Chase was covering his real feelings. It wasn't about mission leader it was about Maddie.
"Hey, don't worry, Chase. You'll have plenty of girlfriendless years ahead of you to figure it out." I knocked Adam over the head for his insensitivity.
"Yeah, and what are you gonna do besides move pianos and mouth kiss every dog you see?" Chase fought.
"You can't shake their paws! Those things are filthy." Adam explained.
"We're just gonna have to learn to live like regular people. Kind of sad, isn't it?" Chase realized.
"If by "sad" you mean "awesome, I finally get to move far away from you two," then yes, tragic." I said sarcastically.
"You can move wherever you want. We're still gonna have to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders."
Mission Creek High School (Leo's POV)-
It took a little while but I was able to find one old computer that could connect to the internet but it wasn't much.
"Good news, Big D. I got some of this stuff from the computer lab. Maybe you can use it to track Adam, Bree and Chase's last GPS location." I wheeled in the computer on a cart and blew the dust off the top.
"Or, judging by its age, the last location of King Tut." He said with a cough. "Sorry, Leo, I'm just frustrated. Without my stuff, without my lab, this is hopeless."
"Come on, Big D, you're a tech titan. You built an empire out of nothing." I tried to encourage him. I honestly didn't know what to do anymore.
"Yeah, but it was so hard." He whined.
"But you did it. And if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. You're brilliant." I tried and he picked himself up.
"You know what? You're right, Leo. I am handsome. And brilliant." He said confidently but I caught the added complement.
"Hold on, I didn't say-" I was about to correct him before he cut me off.
"I'm back!" He cheered.
Cargo Ship (Chase's POV)-
It had been four hours. Four hours since we got on this stupid ship. Four since I had to leave Maddie. I hated that I left her like that. I always imagined spending the rest of our lives together, not me knocking her out and going on the run. Knowing Maddie, she'd probably be pissed when she woke up and honestly Maddie is probably gonna be the hardest to hide from.
"Guys, we're in luck." Adam came over to Bree and I with a large crate in hand.
"You found food?" I asked, knowing we could be here for at least another day or two.
"Better. Crate full of boomerangs." Adam grinned.
"If he should mysteriously disappear at sea, it was me." I said to Bree.
"Time for target practice." Adam threw boomerangs out and used his heat vision to blow them up, but accidentally hit a seagull. "Hey well, good news, Chase, you don't have to worry about that seagull anymore." He laughed.
"Knock it off. You are making too much noise, and we all agreed we weren't gonna use bionics." If we used our bionics we could get caught. We all looked up to see a boomerang heading coming back towards us.
"Whoa!" We all ducked in time for the boomerang to sail right past us and through the window of the ship.
"Whoa. It's like that boomerang came right back at us!" Adam said dumbly. But right then the captain came out to find us.
"Freeze! Call the coast guard. We got ourselves some illegal stowaways." He called back to the crew.
"What are we gonna do?" Bree asked.
"Guys, I got this." Adam smiled and I knew that this would be bad. "Sir, we are not stowaways, we're cruisers. I'm Bob Dunwoody from Tampa, Florida, this is my wife, Joan, and our lovely daughter, Piper."
"Adam!" I can't believe him.
"Not now, Piper, the grown-ups are talking." He said sternly.
...
"Look, I don't know who you are or how you got on my ship, but the coast guard's coming, and they'll find out. Keep an eye on these criminals." The captain commanded.
"So, where you from?" Adam asked.
Bree pulls Adam and I aside. "Adam, I cannot believe you got us caught."
"When the coast guard gets here, they're gonna trace us back to Davenport and we'll be right back where we started, with the FBI knocking on our door." I can't believe we barely lasted a day on the run.
"Calm down. We'll just escape." Adam said calmly.
"We're in the middle of the ocean. Where are we gonna go?" Bree asked dryly.
"Well, we can't go home. Tampa's miserable this time of year." I was about to say something before a buzzer rang from the ship.
"Shh, hold on. Something's wrong." I said as the captain came back outside.
"Ah, listen up, men. Coast guard's gonna be a while. There's a submarine that's lost control speeding towards the ocean floor. If it hits, it'll wipe out the entire crew. Poor guys. Well, I gotta go up here and moisturize." Ugh was that really necessary to add?
"Okay. That bought us some time. I'll scan the ship to see if there's a life raft we can escape on." We could not go back, more people would be in danger because of us.
"Forget us. We have to rescue that sub."
"We can't. I'd have to enable my GPS, and if I did, it would give our location to the FBI." I explained but it was more for me than for her.
"But it's what we do." She kept pushing.
"No, it's what we used to do. Just let the coast guard handle it. We can't save the world anymore." I said sadly.
"What if Maddie was on that ship?" Adam asked more seriously than I've ever heard him.
"What?" I asked, still in shock.
"Maddie wouldn't want us doing this. She'd try and figure out another way. Maddie would tell you not to leave anyone behind." It was like looking at a completely different person.
"That's why I'm doing this in the first place. To protect Maddie." I sad trying to keep myself together.
MCHS Cafeteria (Leo's POV)-
"Principal Perry was hogging the Internet in her office, so I snuck in, plugged in our wire instead." Things were going a lot slower without Maddie but I needed to
keep moving forward. That's what she would want me to do. "Turns out she's a day trader for the Japanese stock market."
"That did it. We are now able to pinpoint their precise location when they turned off their GPS. You know, Leo, with my genius and your ability to follow wiring, we make a great team." Big D smiled and it was the first real smile he had given all day.
"Did you two snake my Internet?" Perry asked, not like accused, as she barged in.
"Principal Perry, look, we just-" I tried explaining things to her but nothing worked.
"Get out of my way, gym squatters. My online auction is about to close. Wahoo! I got it! Guess who owns a slaughterhouse? This stuff ain't cheap. Get me my money." The woman grunted before leaving.
Big D rushed back to the computer finally finding out the first clue. "Their last known location was at the port. They must have jumped on a ship."
I went ahead and check the shipyard schedule. "It says there were three freighters that left around the same time. They must be on one of them."
"Douglas may already have a jump on us. We have to act fast." Big D was hardly holding it together at this point. He just wanted his kids back.
"But even if we know which freighter it is, how are we gonna get to it?" I asked. I really hoped he had at least planned this part out.
"I have a secret," he said excitedly." I have a helicopter I keep stashed away for special occasions, and nobody knows about it! Ha!
"I have a secret too. I know. I use it on weekends." He rolled his eyes and pulled me out the door.
Cargo Ship (Chase's POV)-
"Good news. The coast guard's bringing another ship to arrest you. Well, good for us, bad for you. I guess I shoulda just said, "bad news!" Ha ha ha ha!" The captain turned to go back inside the ship.
"Wait. What about the submarine?" Bree asked.
"Doesn't look good. It's tough being this close and realizing there's nothing anyone can do to help." He said and I could feel a pain in my chest at his words.
"Chase, we have to do something." Bree said.
"Yeah, we're the only ones who can save 'em." Adam added and I was still a bit put off by his mature side.
"You do realize that we would be giving ourselves up. Our lives will be over." I still had to try with the rationale. Not for them anymore, more for me.
"We have no choice. People are in trouble, and I would rather rot in jail knowing that we did the right thing." Bree explained and I could feel any will against them fall.
"Me too." Adam added.
"Who am I kidding? Of course we have to help. Bree, how fast can you subdue the crew?" We jumped into mission mode once we knew this had to be done.
"Look who you're talking to. "Fast" is my middle name." Bree joked to lighten the situation.
"Lucky. Mine's "Charles"." Adam whined.
"Adam, once I give you the coordinates, use your strength to propel yourself deep enough to reach the sub, then you can divert it to the surface." Hopefully Adam could hold his breath for long enough.
"Got it. And you can boss people around like you usually do." Adam said, patting me on the back.
"I do not boss people around! I lead. I am a leader." I fought.
"Oh, yes you are, aren't you?" Adam said as if he was talking to a baby and I just hit him in the gut to get him to focus.
"Come on!" Bree grabbed a rope and sped around the crew, tying them up before dragging them away. "Okay. The crew's tied up below deck. Hurry."
"This is it. I'm activating my GPS." The coordinates came quickly and I knew it wouldn't be long before we were caught. "Got it. Okay, Adam, they're not far, but we're running out of time. I'll send you the coordinates wirelessly."
He squirmed for a second, "Ooh. Got 'em."
"Let's do this." Bree stopped us before we went forward.
"Wait. Chase, we've never trained for an underwater rescue mission." She said in concern.
"I know. We're just gonna have to take our chances." I said gravely. This was our last mission and there was a big chance things could go wrong.
"Cannonball!" Adam jumped into the water clearly not feeling any of the worry Bree and I were dealing with. "Whoo!"
"And right now I'm not really liking our chances." I sighed as we looked down in the water.
Davenport Helicopter (Leo's POV)-
"Well, searching that first ship was a bust. This is gonna take us all night!" How could things get this bad?
Before he could reply my phone buzzed. I grabbed it only to find the screen lit up with a text from Alex.
Maddie is out and we'll be dismissed from the hospital in the morning. Things aren't great. I'll explain more later. I read this and it felt like my heart was falling into my stomach.
"What is it?" Big D asked but I couldn't bring myself to tell him. Maddie was like another daughter to him and he had already faced losing Adam, Bree, and Chase today.
"Uh, Maddie is still in surgery. It'll be a while before we hear anything else. How is it that every time I have a bit of hope things get worse?"
"Well, at least we got the radio." He turned on the radio in hope.
"You're listening to another Donald Davenport audio book, How to Make a Billion Dollars" It's like the radio was taunting him.
"Oh, we need to turn this up. You could use a refresher." I teased and he pushed my had=nd away from the radio turning it off.
"It's Chase's GPS signal! It's back on!" I smiled. Finally something good.
"They turned on their GPS signals that means they're in trouble. Hang on, Leo." He sped up the helicopter as we headed towards the ship.
Cargo Ship (Chase's POV)-
"We can track the sub on my sonar scan." I activated it and scanned the water with my bionic eye, the one good thing about us most likely getting caught would be that I might get to see Maddie one more time.
"Come on, Adam." Bree encouraged but he wouldn't hear her.
"Five hundred feet to impact. The sub's about to hit!" I was hoping with everything I had that Adam would get those people to safety.
"Don't worry. He can do this." Bree said but I could tell that my sister was saying that more to herself than anyone else.
"Three hundred feet. Two hundred feet. One hundred feet. It's fifty feet away!" I read back, come on Adam! I saw that on my sonar the submarine was coming back up before we saw it above the water. "He did it! Look!"
"They're safe! Yes!" She hugged me in celebration. "You know, no matter what happens to us, it was worth it."
"Yeah. Mr. Davenport would be proud." I hummed.
"Hey, where's Adam? Adam?" Bree called out for our brother.
"Adam? Adam! He's been down there too long. No one can go that long without oxygen." I realized.
"This can't be happening." She mourned things were just beginning to look up/
"I should have never sent him down there. It's all my fault." How could I do something so stuipd we weren't prepared for this.
"What are we staring at?" Adam whispered from behind us.
"Adam!" She smacked his shoulder. "We thought you were dead!"
"How did you survive so long without oxygen?" I asked, in shock.
"By breathing under water." He explained before examining our reactions. "What, you guys can't? Wait, you didn't know that and you sent me down there without any oxygen?!" He panicked.
"Of course not!" Bree laughed, nervously.
"No! Congratulations, buddy!" I covered.
"You did it! Yay!" Bree cheered trying to cover our slip up. "Well, I guess we're back to using our bionics for missions."
"Oh, great. So now it's a working vacation. You just can't unplug anymore. I blame the Internet." Adam said dryly and I honestly couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
"Now it's time for our next mission: finding a life raft and getting off this ship." I said and we started to run to find some way off the ship before we were caught.
"Don't move!" The captain yelled and we turned around.
"I thought you tied them up." I asked Bree through my teeth.
"Well, I said I could tie fast, not well." She responded. A helicopter suddenly came to a hover over the ship. "It's Mr. Davenport!"
Mr. Davenport dropped down the rope ladder. "Quick! Climb on!"
"Later!" Bree called before using her speed to climb up the ladder.
"Get 'em! Come on men!" The captain commanded. Adam and I fought them off for a minute before he left me to climb the ladder.
"Adam, wait!" I called after him.
"You're not goin' anywhere!" The captain threatened but I just grabbed a rag threw it in his face and ran for the ladder.
As I began the climb the ladder the captain grabbed my leg trying to pull me back down. "Adam, help!"
"Well, I know you're pathetically weak, but can't you at least try kicking free?" Adam tried.
I listened to Adam and kicked myself free of the captain but he grabbed on to the ladder as Mr. Davenport began to fly the helicopter away. It wasn't long before he took the short fall into the water below us.
"Whoops. Hey, at least a shark broke his fall." Adam teased and I winced at the sight of the struggling captain.
Helicopter (Chase's POV)-
"It is so good to see you guys." Davenport said as we all climbed in to the back of the helicopter.
"Hey, Mr. Davenport, where's Maddie and Leo?" I asked.
"Oh, they're waiting for us at one of my offshore facilities. We're gonna have to hide out there since the FBI is on our tails. Relax, you're safe now." He reassured us. We all released the weight from our shoulders as we enjoyed the ride.
Mission Creek Hospital (Alex's POV)-
"Mr. Myers?" A nurse came out looking for me.
"That's me." I answered. My hands were sweating and I shifted my weight from foot to foot as I thought about what Maddie had to go through now.
"I have been told that you were already informed of your sister's condition." I nodded to confirm her statement. "Upon further inspection we have found that it will be long lasting and we can no longer treat her for it. We would like to keep her here for observation and to make sure the rest of her injuries are healing properly but after that the best thing for her would be to spend time around those she loves." The nurse explained.
"Will it be permanent?" I asked holding on to hope for Maddie.
"It shouldn't be but we don't know how long it could last." She said solemnly.
"Can I go see her?" She just nodded at me and pointed me towards Maddie's room. I found my sister waking up. "Hey Maddie."
"Uh... hi? Should I know you?"
A/N: Hi! sorry for putting this chapter out so late. Also there's another cliff hanger! Please keep reading, voting, and commenting I have a lot more coming for this series.
