Chapter Five: Stakeout Fail! Part One

Yawwwnnnn!

Stakeouts can be terrifically dull sometimes…

Three weeks or so have passed since my mission here began and so far, the only major event that has happened to this plant is they are donating a lot to the Red Cross to rebuild Taiwan after their huge earthquake three days ago (1).

In those three or so weeks, I have been following Elise's every movement from her plant and home. The majority of which are, well, relatively mundane. She's either out with her family, housemates, or at home or her plant. There doesn't seem to be much else…

"What are you doing Saturday night?" If I hear ONE MORE PERSON throw her some lame pick-up line, I'm gonna scream. I gave up counting how many guys have flirted with Elise in the past week alone.

I sent that first report and dozens of photographs of the people entering and exiting her plant so OWCA could analyse them and see if they can pinpoint whoever is behind this. But so far all I've gotten back is messages saying they have received my reports. I wonder why? Typically we're so much better at communication. I glance up at Elise's office window. She's on the phone and even so, it doesn't look like she'll be leaving anytime soon. I know I'm taking a bit of a chance on this, but I decide to contact Kane.

After some fiddling and a lot of anxiety, I finally get through…only to hear someone else.

"Mavis? Is that you?" Carl the intern asks.

"Carl? What are you doing on this line?" Oh no, don't tell me this thing cross wired… Cross wiring is bad enough in MY time, so how am I-?

"Kane is out talking to Farren about other resistance members from the time he came from. He asked me to take over for the time being."

Oh, thank Heaven! I thought I was toast for a minute!

"There have been some pretty big developments since you've been gone, Mavis." He pauses. "And they're not exactly real encouraging."

Oh, man. I sit up straighter. "What do you mean?"

I hear him sigh. "Remember when those kids in the park collapsed? There's more of them now…including Ferb Fletcher."

I feel like I'm gonna gag. "Ferb Fletcher has been hit…?"

"Yes. As I heard, Phineas and he were doing some big thing in their bedroom and he went downstairs to get snacks. Agent P reports he and Phineas heard a bump after he went downstairs but didn't think much of it. A minute or so later, their fridge's alarm goes off so they go to find out what's taking Ferb so long-"

"And? And?" I'm so anxious to hear what's happened, I'm shaking a little.

"When the two get to the kitchen, they find the fridge wide open and Ferb's just sitting there staring at it. When Phineas shut the door and attempted to get him to respond, he flopped backward. He's unconscious and in the hospital as we speak."

Oh my gosh. Poor Agent P. I cannot imagine what he must be going through right now, as it's hard for animal agents not to get attached to their host families.

"And Ferb isn't the only one. Four of the Fireside Girls' troop, including their leader Isabella, are also in the hospital. Thankfully, no one official has managed to link it back to LOVEMUFFIN but we don't know how much longer that will last."

Oh man, this thing is spreading and it's spreading fast. "Have you found out what they're actually doing?"

He shrugs. "Not a whole lot. The closet thing I can come up with is that there's some sort of nanobot that will take over at a certain time or by remote. But even then, there's a snag: others who drink their products haven't felt, um, different."

My eyebrows rise a bit. "Really? Like who?"

"Like Candace Fletcher. She drinks SO much caffeine on an almost daily basis, but she's still her brother-busting self."

That earns a snicker from both of us. We know a LOT about Candace's attempts to 'bust' her two brothers from Perry.

"I don't understand, Carl. Why would Ferb and the Fireside Girls be affected and not Candace?"

"The best—and so far only—explanation I could come up with on that one is the same one that scientists use for viruses: That for every given virus, there is 1% of the population with a genetic immunity. Until we know for sure, all agents have been ordered not to consume anything from the company for the time being."

Oh…poor Marius and Meredith. Our younger twin siblings cannot LIVE without their daily fixes of Fanta Orange and Grape respectively (2). Normally I'd find this hilarious, but this has got to be the worst timing ever because with me being back in 1999, Kane maintaining contact, Mom watching both Dad and Monty, who are both out of commission, there's no one else to watch MY twins.

The antics of six-month-old babies bring smiles and laughter to everyone who isn't totally heartless, and Kaitlyn and Darcy are certainly no exceptions. Kane and I are still amazed that only a few months back, they were squirming newborns. The second we found out we were having twins, my dad took me off active duty and ordered immediate maternity leave. I would have gone bonkers at home alone but frequent visits by my mom, my younger siblings, and most of the female OWCA agents made it more bearable.

I grimace. Hmmm, thinking of how Dad might have saved me from having to endure a VERY premature delivery makes me feel guilty about how annoyed I was with him in the park nearly three weeks ago (3). He is worried about me, his oldest daughter, enough because of her job and then he is told she is carrying the first two of who knows how many grandchildren he is going to have.

"Mavis? Are you okay?" Carl's voice breaks me out of my thoughts.

"Oh! Oh, sorry, Carl. I was…..thinking." Really need to watch the daydreams…

"Well, I have more news. Do you want the misc. news or the bad news first?"

I groan. So helpful. "Might as well be the bad ne-" I cut off, realizing something that's been bugging me in the back of my head since he mentioned our agents' host families dropping like flies. "Carl, are-?"

"Yes…" he sighs, "We think someone might have tipped off LOVEMUFFIN to Farren's warning so now they're starting their world domination earlier by decades. But," his voice noticeably takes a lighter tone, "we've managed to go through most of the photos you sent us of people working at that plant. I don't know if this makes any easier or not but all of them are negative so far, including the six people who live in Elise's house."

I breathe a sigh of relief. If I had to sneak into her mansion and take whoever it is down, I would be in really big trouble.

"Did you manage to find all that other stuff? You know, her 'uniform' and all?"

"Yep, and you are totally right about her being a flight attendant. The only parts she was missing were her white gloves and the badges she'd earned on her hat and over her heart."

"Wait a minute! Are you telling me that's a GIRL SCOUT uniform?" (4)

"From the 1960s. It looks like their buses aren't the ONLY things that need some updating. And the quips about the Zak and having a brain and all that were from Dr. Seuss-"

"Dr. Seuss! Oh, duh!" I facepalm myself. "I KNEW that sounded familiar! Which ones were they?"

"The first one was the opening to the cartoon version of The Zak, and the quip about a brain is from Oh, the Places You'll Go!. (5) Did you know Dr. Seuss is this town's most favourite author? He's been voted in their top ten every year! Speaking of which, it might be a good idea to start making sure the twins begin to read soon. I'll bet they'll love some of Dr. Seuss's stories. My favourite one has always been Green Eggs and Ham-"

Ah, Carl! I love you dearly but sometimes you can ramble too much!

"Carl!" I snap, though not too harshly or loudly. "We'll work on book lists later; we still have a mission."

"Oh…right. Sorry. I tend to get carried away sometimes when it comes to books. Did you get that photo we sent of Elise's factory in a few years?"

"Sure did."

The photo comes from April of 2004 and even though it doesn't look like much has changed, the small space where I'm hiding is: there's no longer a telephone pole a jump away, the bushes are gone, and there are some wooden tables and bench seats in case someone wants to have lunch or something. Plus, there's also a statue of a horse. At least, I think it's a horse. It might be a Shetland pony but the mane is different and so is its size.

"I know you asked for some background information on the relationship between O'Hare Air and Elise's share of the Coke Empire. O'Hare has been trying to buy the plant for years, presumably to move his business in. He let it go for a while and only started up again the day after Elise took over."

"Hmmm…this explains a few things, but I have a feeling there's more to it than that. He specifically mentioned her 'escapade'; do you know what he meant?"

Carl sighed. "He could mean any number of things! Maybe she got in trouble somehow, and O'Hare had to bail her out although by way you described it, I doubt it could be something like that."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing." I glance up at the window…

…And to my horror, Elise is GONE. Holy moly, what am I gonna-?!

"HEY!"

...

#1: Mavis is referring to the 1999 Jiji earthquake (or locally, the 921 earthquake), a 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck Taiwan on September 21st, 1999. Over 2000 people were killed, over 11,000 were hurt, and did $3000 (in Taiwanese currency) of damage. It remains the second-deadliest earthquake in Taiwan today. Though the U.S. (where this story takes place) doesn't have official ties, an 85-person rescue team was sent in. I'm also sure The Red Cross would be asking for donations as well.

#2: From the Cola-Coca website. You can find brands and all their nutrition info there!

#3: To make Mavis's twins seem a bit different, I wanted to see if twins are able to be bought to full-term. They may not able to go ENTIRELY to full-term but there ARE ways you can lessen their pre-maturity. The info was found on Love To Know . com. (But of course, you should ALWAYS consult your doctor first!)

#4: Senior Girl Scouts had green flight attendant-like uniforms back in the early 1960s. You can find examples of their uniforms throughout their history on Google!

#5: Published in January of 1990, it was the last of Dr. Seuss's books to be published while he was alive. It concerns life's ups and downs, and makes a (very) popular graduation gift :D