Early the next morning, Sokka left with Jet and two others in a smelly old van. After fifteen minutes or so, they pulled over and Jet told Sokka to get in the trunk with him.
"Why?"
"We'll be passing into the fire nation neighborhoods soon and they check all passengers for a flame card at the gate."
"Why are we going there? What even is this mission?"
"It's a supply mission."
Sokka hesitated, then went ahead and climbed in the trunk with Jet following after him. The Duke closed the trunk on them and the darkness surrounded them. He felt the van begin to move again and the floor vibrated beneath him. Neither of them made a sound and without being able to see Jet, Sokka felt that bad feeling stronger than ever. His instincts told him to get out of the van and run as far away as possible. This Jet guy was bad news, he just knew it.
The van came to a slow stop and they heard the soft muffled sound of talking. Sokka could just make out Jet's figure a foot away from him making a symbol to stay quiet. Sokka nodded to show he understood. Another sound replaced the talking and the van began to move again. The van stopped and a minute later, the trunk opened to reveal the Duke's big smiling head.
Jet gave a thumbs up and climbed out first, followed by Sokka. They didn't close the trunk but went straight to the nearest house. It was clearly fire nation, with the red sloping roof and tidy garden of bright red firelillies and pure white orchids.
Smellerbee put her ear up against the door and carefully stuck a lock pick inside the keyhole. She tinkered with it for a minute until finding the right position and the door swung open. All four quickly went inside and closed the door shut.
Sokka whispered "That was too easy for a fire nation house."
Jet whispered back. "The owner is an old man who's lived here all his life so his house was never upgraded with security systems like the recruit houses were."
"Where is he now?"
"Traveling, to see his grandchildren in Shu Jing. Everyone split up. Remember, we're looking for the computer."
Each one wandered around the house looking for the computer. Sokka found it in a small study on the second floor. "I found it!"
Jet and the others found him. "Good work, Sokka." He sat down at the computer and powered it up. It was a very old model, the kind Sokka's family had in the south pole.
They didn't really have that much of a need for a computer up there so they never bothered to buy a new one. Sokka used to play games on it while Katara helped Mom with dinner. She would start complaining about him never helping and then he would say 'warriors don't cook, that's a girl's job' and mom would smile and break up the fight before Katara could drench him in water. The thought made Sokka happy, and then it made him sad. He wondered how many times he and Katara had fought after Mom died, they never knew when to stop because Mom had always been there to stop them before. Mom once told Sokka that she and Dad wouldn't be there forever. He never really thought about what that would mean to have no parents. He wanted to sit down at that computer and play some stupid game with the sound of water boiling and pots and pans clinking in the background and swing his legs back and forth because he was too short for the chair and he wanted to snack on popcorn hidden in his lap because Mom didn't like him eating before dinner and then he wanted Mom to tell him to come sit down and all four of them would sit at the dining room table like a family and Mom would make sure he and Katara got enough veggies and then get mad when Dad refused to eat his own veggies.
Sokka's thoughts were interrupted as Jet cursed under his breath. "Where is it?" Jet was trying to fit a flash drive into the old computer but couldn't find where to plug it in. Sokka took the flash drive from him and showed him that it was in the back. "Thanks, Sokka."
A little message popped up on the monitor. "WARNING: All data on hard drive will be permanently erased in 5 minutes"
Sokka looked at Jet, whose face was lit up from the screen light. "What are you doing?"
Jet didn't answer him and started opening documents and downloading them on his flash drive. He was downloading the information for the old man's flame card, bank account, house deed, everything a person needed to prove fire nation citizenship and keep out of the slums.
"Stop, Jet! He's just an old man!"
"He's fire nation. Now he'll get to see what it's like to be one of us."
The timer reached less than a minute and started flashing red. "This doesn't feel right. We can't just take his whole lively hood."
"Why not? They took ours."
Thirty seconds. "Jet, this isn't funny!" Twenty seconds. "Jet, stop it!" Ten seconds.
Sokka tried to reach to the back of the computer and pull out the flash drive and Jet punched him hard in the stomach. Sokka stumbled backwards and the screen went black. Jet took out the flash drive and gave it to Smellerbee. He looked down at Sokka in silence. "Let's go."
Jet, Smellerbee, and the Duke left the room. Jet waited in the hallway for Sokka to walk out holding his stomach.
"You can still return …"
Jet ignored him and walked down the stairs. They got in the trunk silently and drove out of the neighborhood. When they were clear Jet went in the passenger seat and Sokka sat next to Smellerbee in the back, no one said a word.
Katara took the old water bending scroll out of her bag carefully and showed it to Aang.
"Whoa. Where'd you get that?"
Katara smiled. "I stole it. I nearly got in a lot of trouble because of it. I just got caught by the right person I guess. With this we can finally learn waterbending!"
Aang smiled. "Show me!"
Katara unrolled the scroll gently and began reading the old text. "Here. Hold it for me while I try to copy it."
Aang held it up for Katara to see the pictures and Katara spread her hands out above the tub of water. She moved her body rigidly to match the pictures and the water made a little bubble in response. Katara tried again and her face was sprayed. She gritted her teeth in frustration and began thrashing her arms around.
Aang looked at Katara from behind the scroll. "Uh, Katara, you're not …"
Sokka yelled in frustration as he stood in front of Katara and Aang, splashed with the water bending and not happy. "Why is it that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked?!"
Katara threw up her hands in anger and shouted for the whole warehouse to hear. "It's not 'magic water', it's WATERBENDING!"
Jet laughed quietly from across the room as Katara and Sokka went at it fighting with Aang carefully trying to break it up. "They sure do fight a lot. I wonder if we can use that to our advantage."
Haru eyed Jet carefully. "How?"
"Well, neither of them know what we're planning, and as long as they can't agree on anything, Katara's not likely to believe anything Sokka says about us, and it looks like the avatar is on Katara's side. We just need to get them angry enough for Katara to alienate her brother. He'd never tell anyone anything in case someone should find out about her bending." Jet laughed to himself again. "With Katara blinded by anger, we'll use her and the avatar to bring down the colony."
