“They’re not going anywhere,” Tina said. “And she can’t have missed them.”
“Let’s find somewhere more private,” Brendan said.
He led Tina down and across the road out of view of the two boys. They found a large street-level electric transformer they could hide behind. Cigarette butts and beer cans littered the area, but it was a good place to not be seen by pedestrians or cars.
“Use your quietest one,” Tina said as Brendan unpacked a drone.
“They’re both the same, but neither is exactly silent.”
She held his tablet and opened the drone program. The tablet synced with the drone’s camera. He unfolded the drone and sent it straight up. It flew far above the surrounding homes. Hopefully at that height it couldn’t be seen through any windows. He oriented himself via the tablet screen and sent the drone over the house where Charlotte had entered. He saw both boys were still out front, each with their phones out. They elbowed one another and were laughing.
“They’re not even trying to be sneaky,” he said.
“She knows and doesn’t care,” Tina said. “Or she knows and might be afraid to do something. I don’t see why she wouldn’t just call the cops.”
“Hmm. I wonder what they want. If Lucille sent them, what could she be up to?”
Lucille had continued to alternate between being hostile and aloof with Brendan. The old Paul had been one of her constant followers and had tormented Brendan at every occasion, until Brendan had knocked him clean out in the school restaurant. Once the headmaster had replaced the boy with the new Paul, Lucille had sought the help of Brendan and the A.V. Club. With the imposter headmaster gone, she had gone back to being herself, and perhaps had even had a hand in revealing Brendan’s father’s identity to Tyler to stir up trouble.
Brendan leaned closer to the screen. “Maybe Lucille has them watching Charlotte as her own way of keeping tabs.”
He moved the drone around. The house was ordinary, painted a sage green, with water-sensible landscaping in the front yard. In the back was a small kidney-shaped pool, one of only two that Brendan could see on the block. The house had several sheds and some old lawn furniture on the rear slab deck. He noticed no car in the driveway and nothing to indicate young children or pets.
He brought the drone slowly down. Movement would attract attention. His deft handling of the remote paid off, as when he spotted Charlotte through a glass sliding door, the girl was oblivious to the drone’s presence. She was changing.
“No wonder you like these toys,” Tina said. “You going to give the girl some privacy or do you want me to take over?”
He ignored her proffered hand and sent the drone around the side of the house over by the garage. He saw a small orange electric car parked inside. The drone pivoted, taking in the rest of the side yard and the garbage cans and gate.
“Car’s here,” he said. “Maybe not their only one, so she may be alone.”
“Neighbor, neighbor, neighbor,” Tina said, pointing.
An older man was out in front of the next home down, his back to the drone. He was pushing a recycling bin to the curb. Brendan piloted the drone straight up. Once it was stable, he panned around. Charlotte had come out of the house and into the backyard wearing a black one-piece swimsuit. She dropped a towel on one of the lounge chairs.
“Well, it is hot,” Tina said. “She’s the smart one, while we sweat like pigs out here.”
Brendan had the drone climb further up and away from the house. He worried that Charlotte would spot or hear it if she lay down and was paying attention. But she walked to the edge of the pool and dove in. A rush of guilt filled him as he continued to watch, only compounded by the fact that Tina was right at his side.
“I’m feeling weird about staying here,” he said.
“We know where she goes. We can come back and try to track her, see if this is where she spends her time. The next step would be to get in the house while she’s away. Who knows? Maybe she robbed a bank with her glove and is renting the house outright. But we need to see if she has a workshop and if this house is anything more than a place where she rests her head and goes swimming.”
“All right. I’m bringing the drone back in. Let’s get out of here.”
As he began to pilot the drone back, Tina said, “Stop. Go back.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at the pool.”
He turned the drone and aimed the camera down at the yard, moving it so it traveled along the back fence. The water of the pool continued to ripple. But Charlotte was gone.
5. Twisting Poolside
“She must have gone inside,” Brendan said.
“Zoom in or get closer.”
The drone got lower. He had it travel in a circle to get an angle of every corner of the yard. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen. He checked the rear windows. Nothing.
“All right,” Brendan said. “She saw it and hid.”
“Think she’s that fast?”
“No.” He flew the drone up to look directly down into the pool. The red brick-colored coping wasn’t large enough to hide anyone. There was no diving board. He shook his head. “She didn’t get out of the pool. We would have seen it.”
Tina nodded. “No wet footprints. How is this possible?”
“Her towel is still there. She was planning on getting out of the pool. Did she do something or did something happen to her?”
“Bring the drone back. We need to go look for ourselves.” Tina picked up the tablet and started sorting through the footage. She paused on a frame showing Charlotte about to jump into the pool. “Charlotte’s not wearing her glove. So unless she has tech under her skin, something happened while she was in the water.”
Brendan’s mind raced as he returned the drone to their location. He put it away, trying to grasp what had happened.
“But she went to the pool,” he said. “First thing after getting here. If the headmaster was coming to get her, having a gate pop open in a swimming pool to swallow her up seems a bit precise. How would he know what she would do, assuming it was even him?”
“We don’t know what he knows. If he has some kind of targeting system, maybe he can scoop up anyone he wants. Maybe he has a new interworld gate machine two-point-oh.”
“If that’s the case, there’s no way to fight that.”
“Now look who’s giving up.”
He flushed.
“Relax, I’m teasing,” Tina said. “Let’s go see what we can see. We’ll be careful. If we have to, we call our headmaster. Or the cops.”
“What about Lucille’s bully boys?”
“It’s time for the time-honored fake-out of going in the back way.”
The drone’s camera picked up a concrete drainage ditch that ran behind the back fences of the homes along the cul-de-sac. Brendan and Tina kept low along its bottom and made it to the house where Charlotte had vanished only to find the back gate locked with an old padlock.
Brendan was about to hop the fence when Tina stopped him. “That’s going to attract attention if anyone sees. Right now, we’re just sneaking.”
“If anyone’s been watching, they’ve called the cops. You can wait here if you want.”
He pulled himself over the wooden fence and dropped down onto a bare soil bed. Tina had little trouble vaulting in right behind him. They moved across the backyard, Brendan giving the pool a careful look as they approached it. The plaster looked faded green in multiple spots, with several rusty blemishes. Charlotte’s towel still rested on the lounge chair. Little else suggested the pool or the backyard was ever used. He could hear the gentle hum of the pump around the side of the house.
“You kids supposed to be here?” a voice asked from the neighbor’s fence. They froze. The old man they had seen taking out the recycling was peering at them through wide gaps in the slats.
“Hi!” Tina said brightly. “We’re looking for Charlotte.”
The old man adjusted his view, shifting betwee
n Brendan and Tina. He had something in his hand that Brendan thought was a large cordless phone.
“Hmm. You mean the girl that stays here?” the man said. “Why not try the front door?”
“She said she’d be at the pool.”
“If you say so.” The man turned and walked back to a side door. He didn’t do anything with the object in his hand.
“Think he’s going to call the cops?” Brendan asked. He adjusted the grip of his pack, ready to run back to the fence.
“Maybe. But he was holding a TV remote.”
Brendan knocked on the glass slider. Waited. Knocked again. When no one answered, he pulled the door open.
“This would be the point where you say you tried to stop me,” he said.
“Hello?” Tina called, but no one answered.
They entered a family room with a television, couch, and a plush comfy chair. The family room was a step down from the kitchen and had a door that led to what Brendan guessed was the garage. He opened the door and confirmed that the car was still parked in there. The kitchen walls and counters were done in old white tiles. A dish rack was stacked with a couple of pans, a plate, and a single coffee cup. Four pieces of flatware were in the utensil rack. He checked inside the old dishwasher, but it was empty. When Brendan had lived with his mom in their New York apartment, they had produced way more dishes than this.
“I’d guess one person lives here,” Brendan said. “Maybe two if they eat out a lot.”
“Or eat at the student restaurant.”
A small laminate table was set with a red doily and a ceramic bowl holding a pair of spotted bananas. They saw a backpack on one of the chairs.
“That’s Charlotte’s,” Brendan said.
“Hello?” Tina called. “Charlotte?”
They searched the other rooms. No one was in the house.
Tina looked out front. “Looks like the boys have left.”
Brendan checked the hall bathroom. Charlotte’s clothes were on the floor by the sink.
“Weird that they were here in the first place,” Brendan said. “I bet they’re still nearby.” He opened the medicine cabinet and saw a few containers of cream and some other items. He moved on to the master bedroom. A large bed with massive wooden posts dominated the room. Sheer curtains filtered the sunlight, casting it all in a yellowish glow. The bathroom in the master bedroom had more toiletries, but it still felt like a single person lived in the home. He checked the closet by the bed. It was full of women’s clothes. On the left-hand side were hung three white lab coats. Embroidered on the front pocket was the name “Dreyfus R.N.”
He went to find Tina. “This is the nurse’s home.”
Tina was in the kitchen, holding Charlotte’s backpack. “Makes sense. We never figured out what their connection was, but if everything Charlotte told us was true, then this was her home for a while. Either here or some other place she vanished to downstream.” She lifted the backpack. “One thing we know is she left everything here before swimming.”
“Open it,” Brendan said.
Inside they found her tablet, a smaller pack that she used as a purse, and a bundle with a toothbrush, soap, shampoo, deodorant, a comb, and a hairbrush. There was also a pair of tool rolls that Brendan had seen her use in the electronics lab.
“It’s a bug-out bag,” Tina said.
“Here’s her tools. But no glove. When she was working on it, she left it in the electronics lab, but I don’t think she keeps things there anymore.”
“Then she has another location. Maybe that’s all at the headmaster’s house, and she just comes here to swim.”
“We’ve been here long enough. Let’s go.”
They put everything away. As Brendan led the way to the back door, he almost ran straight into Charlotte.
She was wet and rubbing her hair with her towel. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
The intruders were at a loss for words.
“I asked what you’re doing here.” Her green eyes narrowed as she considered both of them, finally settling on Brendan. “Did you follow me? You can’t break into someone’s house like this.”
Brendan wanted to run or shrink or vanish. “I’m sorry,” he blurted.
“When you left the coffee shop, we saw two boys follow you.” Tina said. “Paul and a boy named Tyler. We think they’re with Lucille. So, we followed them thinking they were up to no good.”
“Followed them here?” Charlotte asked.
Both Brendan and Tina nodded.
Charlotte shook her head. “I’d invite you in, but I see that’s not necessary. Let me get dressed.”
She pushed past them. They waited, neither saying a word. After a minute, Brendan went back outside to look at the pool. Charlotte’s wet trail led from the pool to the lounge chair, her footsteps already drying in the desert air.
“Tell me we didn’t just miss her while she was doing laps,” Tina said.
“We didn’t.”
They could hear a loud TV playing next door. They settled in on the back step and waited. After a few minutes Charlotte came out, her hair a frizzy mess. She worked at it with a comb.
“Congrats,” Charlotte said. “You found my hideout.”
“I’m sorry, but we got worried,” Brendan said. “It’s not like we’ve had many chances to talk. And when we saw them follow you, we wanted to know what they were up to. They hung around the front for a while…”
When Brendan stalled out, Tina took over. “So we went in the back to make sure you were okay. We let ourselves in, even talked to your neighbor.”
“You mean Ed?” Charlotte asked.
“Yeah. Nice guy.”
“He’s mental and nearly deaf. Mostly harmless. But why didn’t you just come to the front door and ring the bell? I know we have a history of breaking into school property, but you guys can’t let yourselves in here like this.”
“It’s my fault,” Brendan said. “I didn’t want to be seen by Lucille’s boys, so we hopped the fence and knocked on the back. When you didn’t answer, we found the slider was unlocked.”
Charlotte studied Brendan as he spoke. He knew he had tells. His mother could spot all of them when he wasn’t being completely forthcoming. He tried to stop himself from saying more to fill the silence. Again, Tina saved him.
“So, this is Nurse Dreyfus’s home. Humble digs compared to the headmaster’s house.”
Charlotte nodded. “Even though he’s never home, it feels more private here. Sperry always has gardeners, housekeepers, and contractors working at the house.”
“Hard to work on interdimensional gate machinery with all that happening,” Tina said with a smile.
Charlotte didn’t laugh. Brendan found some comfort in that. It meant her role in the disastrous opening of the door between their worlds still troubled her enough that she didn’t take it lightly.
“So, what’s in the pool?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“We came over the fence. You were swimming, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. I just got out. I did a hundred laps.”
“We didn’t see you there.”
“Well, I was there in the water. I did a few laps under the water holding my breath. Why are you interested in the pool?”
“I’m not. It’s just that you weren’t there. You vanished and went someplace else. You don’t have your glove on, so what is it?”
“You think there’s another gate in my backyard?” she asked with an edge to her voice.
“Maybe we just didn’t see you,” Tina said. “It’s been a long afternoon. We’re both around later if you want to meet up for dinner at the restaurant. We can compare notes and figure out what to do next.”
Charlotte nodded. “Maybe you can take the front door on your way out.”
She walked them to the street. The two boys were nowhere in sight.
“Telling you that I’m not working on another gate won’t do much to convince you, will it?” Charlott
e said.
Brendan sighed. “It’s not that. I get worried when I don’t know what you’re up to. This is too big a thing to not be careful with. Your father relied on the fact that no one would notice anything he was doing as long as we were distracted.”
“You still have the ring. I have to trust you as much as you have to trust me.”
“But Charlotte, you built two gloves and can no doubt build a machine like your dad’s eventually. I’m not going to be comfortable until we find everyone that was taken to your world and somehow make sure all the gates stay closed.”
“That’s what I’m working on.”
“When you’re ready to share, let me know.”
Charlotte nodded. Tina muttered a “See ya” as she and Brendan headed back to campus.
6. Table Service
Charlotte didn’t show up at the restaurant for dinner. Vlad and Soren joined them, and the A.V. Club was in session, with an empty seat left vacant in case Poser returned from his family visit.
Vlad told them he had just finished a phone call with his parents in Dallas. They had related news about his grandparents in Delhi: a super typhoon had slammed much of the subcontinent. All his extended family were fine, but a mounting death toll from the coastal region was turning the disaster into a true crisis.
They ate the night’s offering of homemade margherita pizza in relative silence.
Brendan made it through one piece before pushing his plate away. “We’re not going to watch the admin building tonight.”
He had everyone’s attention.
“Maybe we will need to resume our surveillance, but I think we have something else we need to check out.” He caught the boys up on what had happened at the nurse’s house.
“This gives us a few people we need to track. As weird as it sounds, one of us needs to jump in the pool, and I don’t want to do that when either the nurse or Charlotte is around. We need to find them and keep an eye on them.”
The Supervillain High Boxed Set: Books One - Three of the Supervillain High Series Page 27