After weeks of painstakingly hanging out on the plank, wondering if I should jump on the sea that is Season Three, something came to me that convinced me that I should go for it. So here I am, going for it! I know we're pretty late into the season; I think we're almost a quarter of a way in, but hey.

They won't come in weekly like before, however. Updates will be a bit more sporadic. Especially now that we're heading into summer (which means hectic schedule) and I'm in camp this April, there will be a stretch.

Quick thanks to the following wonderful people: KrisKat, BTRlover1122, WinnieCocoaFlip, Share11223344, Weesta, rockybluewigs, Lady Cougar-Trombone, LBozzie, and AngelGoneDevil69! Thanks for your support, guys!

Special thanks to 88keys, too! You know why ;)

I hope you enjoy the new entries!

Episode Tag to: Sink or Swim

Chronicle #026

"Zenith"

02/07/14

7:14 PM

You know how they say pen is mightier than the sword? Well, pen may be mightier than a sword, but I still prefer a keyboard over a pen with barely any ink. This stinks. If I had my old Chronicle, I probably would have already been writing about what had been happening these past two weeks instead of rewriting words where the ink skipped.

I probably shouldn't complain. At least I have something to write on and to write with. It's much better than nothing.

A bit of a recap on how it all started: we discovered that Adam, Bree and Chase had skipped town two Mondays ago because they thought that the FBI is onto them, courtesy of the one and only Principal Perry who I still think is partly to blame for what happened; Big D and I were quick to jump on the search wagon when a curveball was thrown our way: evil old Uncle Douglas had escaped his cryonic confines with the help of a bionic version of a Jabbawockee, and we found out that he'd been, all along, dismantling everything Big D has worked hard for; we also found out that he was planning to go after Adam, Bree and Chase but before we could stop him, he shook us off his trail by blowing up the lab.

Thankfully, the elevators were able to shield us from the blast, but that held us up for a while.

With the limited resources we have, we were able to narrow down the older sibs' location. Jumped on Big D's not-so-secret helicopter and set to sea. Unfortunately, Douglas beat us to the chase, and all we could do was wait. The best we—or, at least, Big D—could do was embed a message on the software update on Chase's chip. Which worked, of course, and it did send them back home, but what happened afterward… It was pretty scary.

Through the whirlwind of craziness, weirdly enough, what happened after they came home was one of the things I remembered the most.

I guess it's because it came when we least expected it. I mean, one moment, we were opening boxes of new kitchen appliances, the next moment, Big D, Mom and I were being hunted down like helpless little tributes in the Hunger Games. I don't think the three of us had been that aware of how many hiding spots we have in the house until that day. And, now that I think about it, I don't think I've seen Big D run that fast. You'd think he can only do something like that if there's money involved. Apparently, life threatening situations count.

I'm pretty sure it effectively beat my cold, too. For a day and a half.

What I can't seem to get out of my head was their eyes when they were under that Triton app. They weren't brown and brown and green like Adam's and Bree's and Chase's are. They were just…green. Mechanical green. They weren't warm or happy or even a teeny tiny condescending. They were just cold, factual and separate.

Their eyes weren't my siblings' eyes; their eyes were Marcus' eyes.

Whereas Eyebrows looked at me with recognition, even if only as a minor threat, when Chase moved that big crate to crush me, it's like I'm just an item that needed to get crossed off a list. It didn't make sense. I mean, considering who was controlling them, it does make sense, but I can't explain it. It's like our friendship and being family didn't mean anything to him.

I'm not a good person. That, I'll admit. But Chase is, and so are Adam and Bree. To see them become something they're not, be forced to be people they're not, still bothers me down to this day.

I think then I completely understood why Bree had nightmares about that happening.

Before Chase could let go of the crate, Big D made one last attempt to stop him. He told him that the app doesn't control all of him, that there was something he could do to defeat Douglas' control. I saw he was listening, so when I saw my chance to help, I took it. I tried to remind Chase of who the real Chase is and what makes him who he is. I reminded him that he is one of the kids Trent picks on, telling him, in a way, that even though he has the capacity to retaliate, he doesn't, because he's kind and he understands fairness. I reminded him that he's a good friend. I reminded him that he's a good older brother, to me, and that I know. He doesn't pick on me (well, much anyways), and even though he finds me pretty annoying at times, he's always game to do fun things.

He is, in each and every way I can think of, neither Douglas nor Marcus.

And it worked. (Thankfully, because I don't think Leo-style pancakes would be a pretty sight.) I saw the mechanical green blink out then short then completely vanish.

In the end, we were just left with plain green and Chase, and that was cool.

Getting Adam and Bree to come out of the app took a bit of a fight from Chase, but he was able to override and shut them down even while shielding himself from Adam, who seemed to have been forced to unleash his inner Cyclops.

After that battle, it took them a while to catch up. Adam and Bree were out cold for about an hour. Chase sat with me at the kitchen counter while Big D went out to find food and while Mom hunted down a bottle of painkillers in our luggage to end the migraine Chase seemed to be suffering from. When the three of them were ready, they talked about what happened while they were out at sea and when Douglas captured them.

Here's a shocker: there's another bad guy in the block, and he's bionic. According to Chase, he's also pretty rich, which means he has resources left and right.

It makes me wonder if this is going to be an annual spring tradition now. Last spring, Eyebrows. This spring, this new guy. They just bloom like dandelions. What makes it so bad is that, well, both guys spelled/spell trouble for us.

But, honestly? I'm not worried.

Still, I can't deny the fact that they were able to throw us off course. For one, the lab is destroyed. All the things that we need are gone. The look on Adam's, Bree's and Chase's faces, too, as they see up close how the place they knew to be their home had been eaten up by flames made it much worse. It was like they were looking for something they knew they wouldn't ever find anymore, and that just did something to me.

Another thing is the rut they stuck us in by wiping Big D's bank account clean and taking his company away from him, never minding the fact that he has a wife and children that he needed to take care of.

Really, I was not a big fan of Douglas Davenport at that moment.

Imagine my reaction when I tried to access the Chronicle and found out that it's been hacked, corrupted and erased clean.

It was probably why I was cranky one of the days when Big D, Adam, Bree, Chase and I were cleaning up the basement. All I thought about was how a line was crossed just by him accessing the files. Deleting everything I had—every thoughts, every private conversation, and even a copy of Joey Logano's signature!—was a clear strike to the gut.

I guess it made me so angry that I didn't notice that I was throwing things around with so much intensity that the other four people in the room had stopped and was just staring.

"Hey! Hey!" Big D stopped me while I was kicking in a stubborn piece of metal into one of the trash cans. "Leo! Leo. I can guarantee you that that trash can is not going to fight back."

I looked at him. Then, I looked back at them. Adam looked curious, Bree seemed amused, and Chase had his brows raised. "Oh. Sorry," I said. "It just wouldn't go in."

"Right," Big D said, but he seemed unconvinced.

I started sweeping the broken glass off the floor when Chase spoke up. "You sure it has nothing to do with you being asked to help us clean up down here?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Or Trent embarrassing you in gym class this afternoon?" Bree asked.

I laughed a little. "No."

"Or me eating the last of the peanut butter sandwich Tasha made for you?" Adam asked hopefully.

I shot him a look. "You were the one who ate it?" I asked.

Adam shrugged. "I was hungry," he said.

Knowing that didn't make me happy, but it was not anything big in comparison to what I was upset about.

Leave it to Big D to figure it out, and say something that he shouldn't say out loud. "It's the Chronicle, isn't it?" he asked.

Wide-eyes, I looked at him.

It didn't help my nervousness when Bree asked, "Chronicle? What's a chronicle?"

Big D opened his mouth to answer, but I cleared my throat out loud. I shook my head when he turned to me. He took my cue and didn't answer.

But Chase, being that he's Chase, put the pieces together without any further help. "Chronicle," he repeated. "It kinda sounds like a journal to me. It's not like a diary, is it?"

Busted.

Adam gasped as he grinned. "Oh! You have a diary?" he asked, laughing. "What are you, six?"

Bree and Chase also laughed, which didn't help my mood any. Big D, meanwhile, just looked apologetic.

Chase shook his head. He crossed his arms. "I didn't think you were a journal kind of guy, Leo," he commented. "Hate to break it to you, but it kinda ruined your street cred a bit."

Then they laughed some more.

"Ha, ha. Laugh all you want," I told them, "but if you had known what was in it, you wouldn't find it as funny."

"What was in it?" Bree asked, but I think she just did that to make fun of me.

I glared at them. Then, to Adam then to Bree then to Chase, "Day at the theme park, when we ditched the roller coasters. When we spent the night at Caitlin's. After the avalanche incident." Then, much calmly and indirectly to Big D, "When Pascal died."

No one was laughing after that.

Adam did look somewhat alarmed. "Wait. You had a notebook full of blackmail material?" he asked.

I sighed. "No. The Chronicle wasn't about blackmail," I said. "The Chronicle was about all of you. And me, but mostly you. That's probably why Douglas hacked into it and deleted everything. It has so much of you, and he can't have any of it interfering with whatever crazy plan he has."

The silence in the room after that told me I was right; it wasn't funny. Based on the expressions on their faces, which ran from brooding to being sorry, I took it that they understood why I was upset.

Still, the discovery of the Chronicle left me embarrassed. I mean, it was already kind of awkward when I had it, from time to time. I did realize that I'm a sixteen year-old dude that, basically, keeps a journal. To hear that spoken out loud, especially by people who can use it as ammo later, is certainly not one of the proudest moments of my life. "I think I'm done for the night, Big D," I said to him. "Can I just finish cleaning up tomorrow after school?"

Big D smiled a little then nodded.

I left. The rest of the night, I helped Mom with setting up everybody's room, which consisted of us unrolling huge sleeping bags and putting in pillows that Grandma had let us borrow for the meantime.

The following days were a blur of new furniture, new—well, some old—house stuff, lab chores and just getting situated back to school. Principal Perry's on us more than ever, and that seriously irritates me. And insults me. She seemed to have asked Trent to back off a bit from Adam, Bree and Chase, since, according to her, they were they 'keys to her treasure trove,' and I'm left with having to deal with Mr. Gym Teacher from Your Darkest Nightmares myself.

Five wedgies, three tackles to the ground and two hockey sticks to the face.

Tell me what I heard is just in my imagination.

At least, Wednesday wasn't too bad. I had Study Hall instead of Gym, so I got to hang out with Janelle a bit. Grandma also came by that afternoon to pick up what we borrowed from her, and she brought gifts. She bought the four of us new kicks. Big D also came to apologize for mentioning the chronicle, but I told him it's okay. It wasn't really that big of a deal anymore, and I think it's mostly because the others never spoke about it again after that day.

Then I apologized, too, for not taking better care of what he gave me.

Big D just shook his head. He told me that I did take good care of it, and it had served its purpose.

I asked him how.

Big D shot a quick glance at Mom, Adam, Bree and Chase, who were all working in the kitchen to prepare dinner. He looked back at me, and then he smiled.

When I understood, I smiled back.

The Chronicle existed to remind me and to teach me what mattered most, and he could see that it had done those.

What happened later that night made a stronger impact, I think. Big D and Mom had just gone upstairs to go to sleep when Bree called me over to go down to the lab with her. I was a little suspicious, so I asked her why. She told me that I shouldn't be such a party pooper. For all I know, it could have been a set up, so I told her I didn't want to go.

Before I could step into my room, she grabbed my arm then super sped to the lab.

"Man, Bree!" I started to complain. "I think you dislocated my shoulder!"

At that moment, I saw why she wanted me to come with her down there. There were four tents set up close together and each had a sleeping bag outside, the same ones we used the week before. In the middle of the site was a sizeable space heater, where Adam and Chase sat close to. In their hands were mugs of hot chocolate, while two more cups sat nearby. I also noticed a jar of marshmallow cream, a jar of Nutella and some graham crackers. I figured it was their sprinkler-safe version of a s'mores kit.

"You guys made a camp?" I asked after Bree and I sat down.

"Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?" Adam said. "It was my idea."

"Actually, it was our idea," Chase corrected Adam with a glance.

"Yeah," Bree agreed. "We used to set up camps like this here in the lab when we were younger."

"I see," I said.

Chase's brows rose some time later. "Well?"

"Well what?"

Bree laughed. "Well what do you think?" she said.

"It's pretty cool," I said. "Much better than the forts I built." Because, for one, there were actual people in it. "You know, not that I don't appreciate the force invite or anything, but why are we camping in the middle of the week? And in this time of the night?"

"Mr. Davenport has been talking about making way for a new lab. He's bringing in an old friend tomorrow to look it over. After that, it's off limits," Bree answered. "We just wanted to do something that we used to do here before everything in it changes."

I nodded. "Okay" was all I said. I understood. I remember Mom and I sitting on the floor of my old room, just talking, before we officially moved in with Big D, so I knew what they meant. "What's the usual line-up? What'd you guys normally do?"

"Many things," Adam said. "We eat, drink hot chocolate. We tell stories."

"But not horror stories," Chase added quickly.

"Oh. Well, what kind of stories do you tell, then?" I asked.

"What the world outside could be like," Bree answered. "Like, if we'll make good friends in school, what school is like." She chuckled. "Sometimes we talk about going to a real camp site and Adam getting dragged out by a grizzly bear."

Chase started chuckling along with her. I found myself doing the same.

Adam, on the other hand, wasn't very pleased.

"So, what? Do we eat synthetic s'mores first or drink microwaved hot cocoa or…?"

"Actually, we were thinking of stories first," Chase said.

They started turning around to get something from either inside their tents or under their sleeping bags, so I thought that they had prepared something and was going to read it. I leaned back. "Okay. I'm game."

Bree sat up, her hands covering what looked like a notebook. "What was the first entry in your
chronicle about?" she asked.

That made me feel uncomfortable. I really thought that they had forgotten all about it. I would have been upset and more humiliated if not for the honest looks on their faces. Bree didn't look like she meant any harm; she just wanted to know. Adam and Chase listened, and they seemed to feel the same way. "Uh, I don't know. When Marcus tried to off me, I think," I said.

"How many entries were in there?" Chase asked.

I shook my head. "Twenty-five, more or less," I said.

Chase nodded. "Do you mind telling our story again?"

I frowned. "From the Chronicles?" I asked. "It's destroyed."

"Not from that one. New ones," Adam said, close to laughing. Then, he placed a notebook in front of me, right by the glow of the space heater. The front cover featured Power Rangers.

Chase followed by putting down a Sesame Street notebook beside Adam's.

Bree finished, placing a Hello Kitty notebook beside Chase's.

"You remembered, when the Triton app was in effect, something that happened months ago, and that snapped me out," Chase said. "Mr. Davenport figured out that we could beat Douglas' control over us, and you helped me to be able to do that. You remembered when I couldn't."

I shrugged. "It's not really a big deal," I said.

"Yes, it is," Bree said. "We know we made fun of you for keeping that journal, and I admit that that was wrong. That I was wrong. What you had in there were probably things we took for granted. I mean, that weekend at Caitlin's? I've honestly forgotten that. But you didn't, which means that you thought of whatever we talked about as something important."

"Yeah," Adam agreed. "And the day at the theme park?"

"You broke the machine with that sledge hammer," I said.

"Oh, yeah," Adam grinned, nodding. "See? You remembered."

"I did," I said. I smiled. A little later, I remembered the notebooks in front of me and looked at them. "So, uh, what are these for?" I asked.

"For you. To write on," Adam answered.

I frowned.

Chase smiled at the one he gave. "Sesame Street was my favorite show when I was a kid. I just like the learning aspect. The letters, the numbers, the colors—you know," he said. "I also liked the gang."

"I just thought Hello Kitty was cute," Bree chimed in. "I think she's the reason why I asked Mr. Davenport for a pet cat when I was five. I kept asking and asking and he caved in, but the cat triggered Chase's bionics so we had to give her back. I was so upset over it, so Mr. Davenport bought me a huge Hello Kitty stuffed toy to make up for it." She smiled. "I was happy with that."

"I liked Power Rangers growing up. Thought it was cool," Adam said. "I was always Red Ranger every time Bree, Chase and I would play."

"I…liked…Buzz Lightyear?" I offered, because I had no idea what they were leading to. I thought it was just the storytelling part of camp, so I joined in. "I jumped off the kitchen counter once when I was four because I wanted to fly like him."

"No, we were just telling you why we chose these," Chase said with a grin. "Because we were wondering, if you wouldn't mind, if you could tell our story again in them."

"Wait, what? Is this a trick?" I asked. I glared. "Are you guys conning me into writing something so you can make fun of me again?"

"No! No, we're not!" Bree said. "Whatever you write in them will be off-limits to us, we promise."

"And each of us is keeping one, too," Chase added. "Whoever is caught looking in the ones you have will have to read what they have in his or hers out loud."

I didn't reply and eyed them instead. It sounded like a good deal. A promise is a promise, and I was somehow confident that they'd do as they said they would, but I had to acknowledge the fact that we're all teenagers who get bored and can change our minds anytime.

But, what they said next sealed the deal. "It seems like you remembered all these things about us because you recorded them," Chase said. "We know these notebooks can't replace the one that Mr. Davenport gave you, but we were hoping you'd give them a shot. You know. Just to prove to Douglas that he couldn't ever hack and delete who we are and what makes us who we are."

"And you know, we may be the brains, the brawn and the skills of the team, but you play an important role, too, Leo," Adam said.

"You're the one who was able to break the Triton app," Chase said. "I don't know how it will be the next time, but I think we're going to be okay. I think you can break it again." He smiled. "We're as strong as our memory, after all."

It took me a while to get it but soon I understood what they were telling me: they trust me to have their back when the time comes, because, as they see it, that's what I do best. They were confident in my ability to be their memory, which I thought was nice.

Bree leaned forward to gently poke my knee. "What say you?" she asked.

I nodded. "Alright. Okay. I'll do it," I said.

Bree grinned. "Good," she said.

I wanted to tell them that I appreciate their confidence, because I did. So I told them.

Then, the most humiliating thing happened.

My voice cracked.

At first, no one said anything or did anything, but I could see it was just because they were trying to ignore it. Ruins the moment a bit, so they didn't.

But Adam couldn't help it—and he went farther. "Uh oh. I hear Barry White coming," he said.

He started laughing. Chase tried not to, but soon he was laughing, too.

I was probably darting daggers at that moment.

Then, Bree jumped in. With a smirk and her eyebrows raised, she asked Adam, "This coming from a guy who sounded like James Earl Jones when he was fourteen?"

The laughter died a bit as the three of us tried to figure out what she meant.

Using her vocal manipulation to imitate Mufasa's voice, she said, "Simba!"

Then we fell out. Adam seemed offended at first, but he found it funny too so he laughed.

And that's what we did. We laughed, for a long time, about something that will probably seem dumb to others, the sound of us bouncing off the burnt walls, the broken glass and the ashes that surrounded the lab.

So, long, long, long story short, even though the Chronicle is destroyed, I have three new ones to use to write about the things that will happen from this point forward. I mean, it's super old school and takes longer to do and is frustrating at times, but I can use these to record about the team I belong to.

Zenith means the highest point something can reach, like 50,000 feet for cumulonimbus clouds, or 8:00 AM for Big D's and Mom's tempers, especially with no coffee and with none of their children ready for school.

Zenith also means the time when something—or maybe someone—is the most powerful. Douglas seemed to have created the Triton app as a bind, as a leash for Adam, Bree and Chase. He created it to control them. But, they're way above what he thinks they are. They're human, and they're very capable of breaking free from the limit he wants to confine them in. As far as the other guy, I don't know how he thinks things will work out, but he's going to be sadly mistaken and disappointed.

The team I'm in cannot and will not be defeated.

So, to them I say, bring it on.

Signed,

Leo Francis Dooley

02/07/14

10:01 PM

The Adam Chronicles

New chapter, new question! As revealed in Sink or Swim, what is the name of our new bad guy? Answers are optional, reviews are appreciated! Hope to see you guys soon!