"What do you mean you have some disturbing information?" Bex asks once they were all seated on the couch. Liz and Jonas stood in front of the group in the middle of the living room, looking at each other nervously.
"Well…," Liz begins, "There really isn't any easy way to say this, so I'm just going to come out and say it. Apparently the terrorist group was further along than we thought. According to Mrs. Hemlock, they were already over halfway done with the nuclear weapon and are now tying up the last few strings, which will be the easier part of their operation."
"So what are we going to do?" Bex asks.
"We don't know," Jonas answers nervously. "That was why we were gonna run this by you all to try to figure out our next move. But whatever we do, we have to do it fast."
Zach stands up and starts pacing the room with his hands deep in his pockets. "Okay, first thing we need to do is find where the nuclear weapon is stored so we can start planning an attack. Jonas, what did Mrs. Hemlock say about where the weapon was being stored?" he asks.
Jonas sighs and replies, "She didn't know. Apparently she was only in charge of getting the supplies for the nuclear weapon, and other people came to take them to the warehouse, or wherever it's being stored."
"Okay, then. Do you know who came to pick up the supplies?"
"Even Mrs. Hemlock didn't know them. All she knew was to leave the supplies in a warehouse and leave the code carved under a plant pot, then they came to take the supplies to the people working on the nuclear weapon."
"They're running quite the elaborate scheme here," Bex comments. Jonas nods in agreement, and Zach just runs his hands through his hair in frustration.
"What about the people who she got the supplies from? Does Mrs. Hemlock know them?" Zach asks, desperate to be getting some sort of lead.
"Actually," Liz butts in, "She does. It's only one person though, a guy named Mr. Montejo."
"Great. Jonas, find a Mr. Montejo somewhere in the Miami area. I have a feeling that name isn't so popular, so he'll be easy to find," Zach orders, "And Liz? You can get started on searching for high concentrations of uranium and hydrogen in Miami areas."
"On it," Liz replies, hunching over her own laptop next to Jonas at the kitchen counter. Immediately after Liz sits down on a stool, Jonas' head snaps up.
"Found him," Jonas exclaims.
"Damn, how'd you do that so bloody quickly?" Bex asks, her British accent even more apparent than usual.
But Jonas just shrugs modestly and says, "According to this website I hacked into, Mr. Montejo has signed up to be on the VIP list at the Spanish nightclub called Bailando Sucio."
"Bailando Sucio? That's a weird name for a club. Who would name a club 'Dirty Dancing'?" Grant points out.
"It's appropriately named, I'm guessing."
"True."
"Okay, can we focus here?" Jonas asks. "Mr. Montejo will be in the VIP room of Bailando Sucio at ten o'clock tonight. We have to get there early, though, to be able to find him when he walks in."
"Well, everybody, we have a little over ten hours to get ready for the mission," Liz announces. "So I'd suggest you all go shopping for new dresses or tuxedos to wear while Jonas and I go drive around Miami a bit to try to track down any concentrations of uranium and hydrogen."
The group disperses, all heading in different directions, and Bex walks up to Liz with Cammie in tow.
"So I'm guessing sex appeal will come into play in this?" Bex asks.
"Most likely," Liz says.
"Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got
and fifty percent what people think you've got."
- Sophia Loren
"That's what I thought. I'm taking Cammie to the gym to teach her how to dirty dance so she won't look out of place at the club, since Cammie has about as much sex appeal as a potato," Bex replies. Liz bursts out laughing, and Cammie just glares at her friends.
"What? I'm not that bad, am I?"
"Only at dirty dancing, Cam," Liz excuses through her tears from laughing so hard. Cammie grimaces and Bex drags her out of the apartment to the street, where they quickly hail a cab.
Bex tells the cab driver to take them to the nearest gym, and they walk inside. After Bex and Cammie both buy day passes, Bex leads the way into an empty ballet-studio-looking room with dark hardwood floors and glass mirrors all around the walls.
"You know what reggaeton is, right?" Bex asks, attaching her iPod to a handy boom-box in the corner of the room. When Cammie doesn't answer, Bex looks up at her friend with an exasperated look on her face. "Reggaeton is a kind of Spanish rap mixed with tons of bass and techno-ish kinda, um, sounds. I don't know. You just have to listen."
Bex turns on her iPod and then turns up the boom-box as loud as it can go without Cammie not being able to hear Bex's instructions. "Okay!" Bex says over the music, "For the majority of reggaeton songs, you'll either have your hands in the air, in your hair, or on your thighs."
Bex goes and stands next to Cammie, facing the mirror, where they look at their reflections. As she puts her hands in the air, Bex starts swinging her hips side to side along with the booming bass beat that they could feel vibrating in their chests. Bex was glad the dance room was sound-proof.
"Now, move your hips side to side. But you can also move them back and forth, or in a clockwise motion. Vary the speed at which you're moving your hips, either faster or slower, for variation so your dance doesn't get boring," Bex explains.
Cammie begins following Bex's lead and starts swinging her hips back and forth to the beat. She curls her lip at the way her reflection looks.
"Move your hips more fluidly. You want them to flow from side to side so it looks natural. And you don't want to look like a snake by moving your whole body. Focus on keeping the upper part of your body still, except for your arms, while you move your hips," Bex instructs.
Cammie struggles to control the upper portion of her body as Bex looks on. Finally, she controls her upper body from moving along with her hips.
"Good!" Bex exclaims. "Now keep your hips going and lean your upper body forward. Shake your shoulders forwards and back and, well, I think you know how to shimmy."
Both girls lean forwards and shimmy towards the mirror.
"You can also put some variation into your dance by bending your knees to go lower or higher. When you're already low enough, though, and you want to get higher again, arch your tailbone and stand up quick. Like this," Bex says, demonstrating in the mirror.
Cammie tries to copy, but Bex begins laughing.
"You look like a retarded kangaroo!"
"Gee, thanks."
"Sorry. Remember, keep your movements fluid-like and natural. Don't make very many sudden harsh movements that might mess up the sex factor. Just bend down, slowly arch your tailbone, and straighten your legs," Bex elaborates."
Bex heads over to her iPod while Cammie practices in the mirror, and Bex bends down to change the song. As she returns to in front of the mirror, her iPod shuffles to En Sus Marcas Listos Fuera by Daddy Yankee, a ridiculously fast-paced song with loud bass beats.
"I can't move my hips this fast!" Cammie complains.
"Of course you can!" Bex insists. "But this time you'll have to move your hips forwards and backwards instead of side to side. Just stand with your knees slightly bent, and arc your lower back. Then curl it in as much as you can without looking hunch-backed. Curl it out, then back in, and out, in, out in, faster and faster until you're practically bouncing your butt up and down," Bex elaborates.
Cammie just stares at Bex, who shrugs.
"Hey, it's called dirty dancing, right? Now you go," she orders. Cammie starts dancing just like Bex explained, except… a lot worse. "Faster!" Bex exclaims. Cammie struggles to go faster, then Bex continues, "Faster! Faster! Faster! WHAT DON'T YOU GET ABOUT THE WORD FASTER?"
Soon Cammie gets to a suitable speed where she's actually dancing along to the beat. In a minute, however, Cammie's body totally slumps. "Ohmygod! I can't take any more of that!" she exclaims.
"Exactly. Only save that move for the fastest part of the song, which should only last about twenty seconds at max. Now come on, you gotta practice. By tonight, we have to be Spanish-speaking beauties who know how to bailando sucio!" Bex replies.
In two hours, Bex and Cammie leave the gym as two sore blobs of flesh. After practicing to sixty of Bex's favorite reggaeton songs on her iPod, they were both sweaty beyond belief, so they had taken a shower in the women's locker room. Now, their hair was flat and lifeless.
"How about we hit the salon?" Bex asks. "After all, we do have a massive budget for this mission."
"Sounds good to me," Cammie agrees.
In another hour, both of them had salon-styled hair. Bex had her dark brown hair curled into large bouncing curls, and Cammie had her lighter hair curled into loose, sexy curls.
Being girls, Bex and Cammie couldn't help but stop by the spa right next to the salon to get manicures and to put on their makeup in the large mirror in the spa bathroom. They leave the spa with glistening French-tipped nails and smokey eye shadow. Their next trip was to a dress store in the mall for new dresses for tonight, and both Bex and Cammie grab a handful to take into a shared dressing room with each other. As Cammie was helping to zip Bex up into a dark red dress, Cammie's cellphone buzzes and she abandons Bex to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Gallagher Girl. Grant and I will be right over to pick you two up. Buy your dresses and we'll be on our way to bring you back to Grant's apartment to change," Zach says, hanging up immediately after speaking. Cammie hangs up her phone in a daze, like she always was after one of Zach's confusing phone conversations.
"Who was that?" Bex asks, examining her reflection in the mirror.
"Zach. He says he's coming with Grant right now to come pick us up to take us to the apartment so we can change and get to Bailando Sucio right now," Cammie asks, quickly stepping out of the dress she's decided on and unzipping Bex's dress for her.
The girls manage to swiftly change into their regular clothes, since they had mastered the Quick Change portion of Madame Dabney's C&A class. They bring their dresses up to the counter and check out, half-running out of the store to get outside, where Zach's Lamborghini has already pulled up to the curb.
Outside, Cammie was surprised it was already dark out. They had apparently spent all day dancing and shopping that she barely had time to notice what time it was. The sky was lit up with lights from all the skyscrapers around and the roads were packed full of cars.
Bex climbs into the backseat next to Grant and Cammie takes a seat in the passenger's seat next to Zach. The guys were already dressed in their tuxedos. They were only a few blocks away from Grant's apartment, but it would be much faster to drive than walk through all the nightlife traffic. The Lamborghini pulls up to Grant's apartment building.
"You ladies have fifteen minutes to get dressed and get down here," Zach orders, "Starting now." Bex and Cammie scramble out of the car and up to Grant's apartment, where they let themselves in and head to the guest room to change.
In the guest room, Mrs. Hemlock's interrogation chair is empty. Bex and Cammie quickly strip down into near nothing then throw on their dresses.
Cammie is wearing a shimmery cream-colored silk dress that had thin spaghetti straps and a V-neck. The dress went down to her knees and had a split in it that crept up her thigh. Then she put on a pair of strappy metallic gold stiletto heels to complete the look.
Bex puts on her own red dress and silver heels and they quickly leave the guest room with seven minutes to spare. "Hey, the Miami police came to take Mrs. Hemlock into custody," Liz explains as they rush past her in the kitchen.
"Great. How's the search for uranium and hydrogen deposits coming along?" Cammie asks.
"Okay, I guess. But it would be much quicker to find the nuclear weapon by just interrogating Mr. Montejo about it. By the way, here's some comms units to keep in contact. Keep us up-to-date on everything going on," Liz explains, handing Cammie three comms units and Bex her own.
"Alright, see you, Bookworm! Good luck!" Cammie exclaims, leaving the apartment with Bex. They both have comms units in their ears, and when Cammie gets into the Lamborghini, she hands out the other two comms units to Grant and Zach.
"Ready for Bailando Sucio?" Grant asks slyly, eyeing Bex's dress.
"As ready as we'll ever be."
(Author's Note: Haha, hope you enjoyed my dancing tips I incorporated into there. I can't wait to write the next chapter, so that may be up relatively quickly, but I can't guarantee much. Sorry this chapter was kinda rushed, but there wasn't much going on and I had to hurry to get to the intense part, which will be in the next chapter. If you actually like reggaeton music, like me, I also have a few songs I'd recommend:
La Vita E by Nek
Calabria by Enur Feat. Natasja
Go Girl by Pitbull
Te Regalo Amores by Rakin Y Ken
Ojos Que No Vien by Alexis & Fido
No Te Veo by Alex Perez
Soy Igual Que Tú by Alexis & Fido
Ella Y Yo by Aventura
Virtual Diva by Don Omar
Baby Te Quiero by Dj Flex Feat. Belinda)