In the morning, groggy and irritable, Lydia visited Brentle’s office under the guise of needing a brace check. She knocked on his door three times before entering. An alarm clattered and a bell rang as she opened the door. Brentle popped up from behind his desk, clapped his hands, cried, “A-ha!,” leapt over the junk on the floor with amazing agility, and yanked her inside the office. “What are you doing here?”
Bewildered, Lydia shrugged him off and shoved him back. “Watch it! I need you to check my braces.”
He narrowed his eyes and looked at her arms. “That’s all?”
“What else would I be here for?”
He lifted her arm, running his twitchy fingers over the braces. “I don’t know. To discover something? Steal my things? Someone has been sneaking into my office lately.”
That explained the alarm. Someone had snuck into Barrett’s office, too. They must have stolen the plans from both Barrett and Brentle, and then passed them along to Whyte to rebuild the device the two created. “Did you tell Arthur about it?”
“He came down here a couple of days ago. Asked if anything had been stolen.”
“Has anything been stolen?”
He shook his head. “Nothing that I can see. But things feel off. Little things moved around. Like files slightly more open than when I left them. Or my things on the floor a little out of place.”
Then the person must have copied the plans instead. Makes more sense and explains why Barrett didn’t notice anything missing either. She looked at the junk on the floor as he checked her other arm. How did he manage to even stay organized, much less realize when something was amiss?
“What do you think they were trying to steal?” He paused, staring hard at her. For once, his jitters left him and he was stock still.
“It’s not me,” she said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t know what to find in all this. And what would I do with any of it anyway? I can’t even leave the Cave unless it’s on a mission.”
That satisfied him. Brentle finished with her arm braces and beckoned her to the sheet dividing the room. “Sorry. I can’t be too cautious, although I suppose this wouldn’t hurt now. I’ve already sent the patent in today.” He drew back the sheet. On a metal table lay a deflated vinyl ball, spilling over the sides. He folded his arms, looking to her for an appraisal.
“Nice beach ball,” she said.
“Not quite.” He picked up one side and stretched open a hole large enough for a body to squeeze through. “The person enters through here and it automatically inflates, molding around the body until it leaves a few inches of room on all sides.” He stuck his arm in and against the vinyl. The invention hissed, blowing up and shaping around his hand and fingers into replicated digits. He picked up a knife and stabbed the skin, but the vinyl held firm. Brentle pulled his arm out and the invention deflated. He tugged at the vinyl. “Using a combination of—” he eyed Lydia suspiciously again. “Using a special modification to the vinyl, it can withstand penetration and combat damage. Bullets, knives, anything short of an explosion, all while allowing the user to move and function normally.”
“Wow,” Lydia said, fingering the invention. “That’s handy.”
“It is,” he said, puffing out his chest and pulling on his coat.
“What’s it called?”
“The Bubble Body for now. Not a good name, I know.” He shut the curtain and shooed Lydia from the office. “I’ve been so busy. Others are trying to steal my design. Claim it for themselves,” he said, poking his head out first and scanning the other offices and labs in the hallway with thoughtful pursed lips, as if there were too many rivals to single one out. “That’s why I’ve had to be careful until I got it right and the patent sent in. So, good day. Much work still to do.” She stumbled out and he slammed the door.
So much for that lead, but he could be faking his paranoia. Her hunch said Brentle was being honest though. Besides, he hardly leaves his office these days, so how could he do much sneaking around? She supposed the real mole could be using Brentle as an accomplice to draw attention away from the mole, but he would be too obvious. She added Brentle to Barrett’s name at the bottom of her mental list.
Lydia headed for Cooper’s pool. Aidan stood outside, watching Gary’s session with the swimmer. Lydia waited beside him. “Anything?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Few technicians. Harper stopped by a little while ago. I assume that’s significant?” She stared at him and he smirked. “Sylvia’s right. You’re still too obvious.”
“Spying on me?” she asked.
“Noticing a pattern of who you often follow,” he said. “Secret’s safe with me.”
She yawned. “Maybe I should switch up when I tail them. Haven’t thought about it. Been too sleepy.” She clonked her head on his shoulder.
“Remember your—”
“Yeah, training. I got it, Sylvia.”
He chuckled. “So, he or Morella leaked some information?” he asked. “On purpose?”
She shrugged. “Someone did.”
“And they’re the most likely suspects.” She nodded. “Great. Bad enough we’re dealing with Whyte. Found anything yet?”
“No,” she said. Gary packed up his folder and chair and left, waving at the two on his way out. They waved back and Lydia pushed off of Aidan. “Which is why we need to try something different.” She headed for the pool’s edge, Aidan right behind her.
Cooper greeted them and called them over. “Hey, you two. What’s up?”
Lydia kneeled down. “Cooper, is there any way you can fail your test tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “Lydia, I’ve told you I can’t.”
“Any possible way?”
“No.” He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Screw what Arthur and Heather believed. She had to come clean with him. At least partly. “You’re in danger,” she said. “As soon as you leave here, some rogue BEPs are going to come for you.”
His eyes widened. “What? What about Nina? Is she in danger, too?”
“Not that we can tell,” she said. “Look, Arthur will assign you a security detail and agents to watch you, but I don’t think that will be enough. So, last time: is there any way you could fail your test and make it seem natural or look like an accident?”
He pondered the question for a while, searching for an answer in the water’s ripples. “They’re planning to have me swim through these underwater nets with holes in them during the test. Then walk around a bit, try to handle easy tasks above water, like eating, picking things up, getting around by myself. Pretty simple stuff to make sure I can control these.” He splashed his fins. “The above ground stuff would be impossible to fail. Maybe if I got tangled up in the nets? Some of the nets are attached to these machines and move up and down. The rest are weighted down on the edge of the pool and stay still.”
He pointed to a pile of nets, race lane markers, and wide machines against the wall. Lydia examined the machines. They were as tall as the pool was deep and looked like rail-thin water buoys. The nets came out of a slit in the side, while the machine controlled the speed and how high and low the nets moved. “Think we could rig it?” Aidan asked over her shoulder.
“But that would be a mechanical problem, not his,” Lydia said. “They would fix it and run him through again.”
“Maybe he could accidentally stab himself with a fork while eating,” he joked.
She racked her brain. There was a solution here, she just wasn’t seeing it. “Okay,” she said. “We have nets, some of which move, and Cooper has to swim through them.” She picked up one of the nets, pushing the white and blue race markers off of it and spreading it out. A rectangular hole was fashioned in the middle, large enough for a person to swim through.
She ran through her previous ideas from the cell. Almost as soon as she thought of it, Aidan said it for her. “He could fake an injury.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Pretend to twist something.” In the water, nobody would notice if he truly injured himself.
“I could dive in, break the net off him, and no one would be the wiser.” She turned to Cooper. “All you have to do is fake it.”
“Sounds easy,” he said.
“Here, we’ll practice.” Lydia threw one of the nets into the water. “I’ll dive in and pretend to rip the net. Then I’ll carry you to the surface.” She hovered over the edge.
“Aren’t you going to take your clothes off?” Aidan asked. Lydia raised an eyebrow and his cheeks reddened. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” She put her hands on her hips and jutted them. “Eager to see that?”
“Jando’s rubbing off on you,” he said, sitting and hiding his face in his knees.
“Don’t be shy, Aidan,” Cooper said, patting his knee and laughing. “It’s completely natural for a healthy, growing boy.”
Lydia chuckled and pushed Aidan’s shoulder. “You’ll get your clothes wet,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “But I may as well practice for tomorrow. Have to jump in quick to make it look like he’s really in trouble, clothes and all. All right, Cooper. Go ahead.”
The boy swam to one end of the pool, flipped around, and darted through the water, straight for the net. He crashed into it, wrapping himself in the net and taking it with him to the floor of the pool. Lydia took a deep breath and dove in. However, she sank faster than she’d expected. But it wasn’t because of her clothes or sneakers. Her whole body plummeted like a stone. She gasped, inhaling water and choking on it. Panic set in as her feet hit the bottom of the pool and her breath shortened, urging her to inhale further.
Lydia clamped her mouth tight and covered her nose, saving what little breath she had left. She had to “save” Cooper and fast. Deal with whatever was happening. She pushed off the floor, swimming for him. It was hard going, as she continued sinking back toward the bottom. She had to kick and propel herself at an angle to barely scrape the ground.
When she reached him, her lungs felt full of water, and they burned to spit it up. She untangled Cooper from the net and wrapped an arm around his waist, her feet on the floor again. She bent her knees and pushed, swimming hard against gravity, her chest burning with every little exertion. Cooper, sensing something was wrong, helped her, and she latched onto the wall, climbing and kicking along with him.
With some effort, she broke the surface and threw Cooper’s arms onto the edge of the pool. Then she sputtered and coughed up water, her throat rough and the nasty taste of chlorine coating her tongue. Aidan kneeled over both of them. “What happened?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Cooper said. “You can’t swim?”
“No, I can,” she said, wiping the water from her eyes. “I don’t know. I felt really heavy. Like someone tied bowling balls to my feet.”
Aidan scratched his head, and then snapped his fingers. “Density.” She wiped her face and shook her head. “Your muscles are denser than a normal person’s. That must be why you sank.”
Density? It made sense. She hadn’t swum since she’d gained her strength, and with her increased muscle mass she would drop quickly. She could get a leaping start from the pool floor, but it would be difficult to swim. She sighed and lifted herself out of the water, wringing out her shirt. For every use of her ability, there was always a burden to match.
“I guess I’ll be okay tomorrow,” she said. “Bit tougher than I thought, but no worry. He comes out, fakes it, and that should buy us a couple more days. A week if we’re lucky. The real problem will be how do we get Cooper caught in the net.” She looked to both of them for ideas. “He can’t just swim into it. He’s too good and they know that. If we tamper with the machines or the nets, they’ll know. It has to look like a complete freak accident.”
They brainstormed while her clothes dried, but they came up empty. By then, it was dinnertime, and Aidan suggested they grab something to eat. “Won’t do us any good thinking on empty stomachs.”
“Guess you’re right,” she said, helping Cooper out. “Don’t worry,” she said to him. “We’ll come up with something.”
“Yeah,” Cooper said, his voice a little high pitched. He cleared his throat. “Yeah. We have tonight and tomorrow morning.”
In the cafeteria, their friends had saved them seats. Nina fussed that Cooper hardly ate his dinner— “You need your strength for tomorrow,”— but she didn’t seem to notice his preoccupied mind. Lydia was glad of that, as Nina may have wrung out of her brother what was wrong. Instead, she absentmindedly asked questions now and then, only looking at her food and picking through it, the same way he was doing.
Lydia took the end seat away from the others opposite Wren, who giggled and laughed as a puppy dachshund licked food off her chin. “Stop it, Petey! Stop!”
“Petey?” Lydia asked, setting her tray down.
Wren immediately stopped laughing and the puppy settled down. It crawled off her lap and into Janice’s beside her. “Yeah,” she said, rather terse. She dug into her food, focusing hard on it.
“How are you two getting along?” she asked, bringing Janice in.
“Good,” Janice said, looking at the dachshund and never making eye contact with Lydia. “Real good.”
“Wren, I’m sorry again.”
Wren set down her fork and wiped her mouth. “Did you do it yet?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Why not? Just tell him all at once. Like ripping off a BAND-AID.”
“We had to do something else. I will though.” Wren narrowed her eyes. “Look, after tomorrow, I’ll have some more free time. It’s just,” Lydia began, scratching her nose and avoiding looking at Cooper down the line. She lowered her voice. “Someone is in big trouble. And I think they’ll die.” She mouthed the last word and added, “If I don’t help them. Jando’s involved, too, so we really have to give this our all. None of us are thinking about anything else, and it wouldn’t help bringing up what we talked about now.”
“Is this the mission you told me about?”
“Yes,” she said. “Look, I know I screwed up. Yesterday, I was trying to not show any interest in him. That didn’t work, yes,” she said, reading Wren’s look loud and clear. “I shouldn’t have ever done this. You were right that he doesn’t deserve it. It’s wrong and I’ll fix it. Just give me a little longer.”
Wren sighed and nodded. “All right. Good.” She finished off her dessert and left the table. Lydia scooped a helping of peas into her mouth. They tasted dry and awful, killing her already small appetite. She pushed her food away and held her chin in her hands. From down the table, Aidan gave her a curious look, but she shook her head at him and buried her face in her palms, offering a silent prayer for advice on what to do about Aidan, Jando, Wren, and Cooper.
At that time, Donny returned with a second plate of food. Petey jumped out of Janice’s lap and ran to him. “No, Petey!” Janice said.
“I got him!” Ryan hopped up in his seat and spit out his tongue at Petey. It was too late. Donny tripped over Petey, spilling his food and face-planting in a pile of mashed potatoes. A fruit cup upturned onto Ryan’s tongue and he retracted his tongue, disgusted and chugging a milk carton. “Ugh! Pineapple!” he yelled as the fruit fell on Donny’s head.
Those nearby laughed and Lydia helped Donny up, a small chuckle bubbling up. The potatoes formed two bushy eyebrows and a thin beard on his face. He sneezed, spraying mashed potatoes everywhere, and a pair of green lasers bounced off the floor, barely missing Petey.
A spark burst into Lydia’s mind as Donny picked up his tray and Petey ran to him again, barking and pawing at his legs. Janice scooped him up in her arms, wagging a finger. “No, Petey. That was very bad. If you want food, ask me.”
“Hey, Janice,” Lydia said. “Do all the dogs in the Center obey you?”
“Most do,” she said, stroking Petey. “This little guy’s still learning to behave.” He calmed down and snuffled into her arm. “Why?”
Lydia eyed Aidan and he caught on. “Would you mind helping us with
something?”
Rogues of Overwatch Page 52