 
Bonnie Synclaire

Rogue
First published by Black Ice Press 2018

Copyright (C) 2018 by Bonnie Synclaire

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

A Synclaire Productions publication. Learn more at www.bonniesynclaire.com.

Second edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy  
Find out more at reedsy.com

For Grandma Bonnie. I wish you could hold this.

And for my family.

#  Contents

  1. Announcement: Unpublishing & Revamping
  2. Praise for ROGUE
  3. Chapter 1
  4. Chapter 2
  5. Chapter 3
  6. Chapter 4
  7. Chapter 5
  8. Chapter 6
  9. Chapter 7
  10. Chapter 8
  11. Chapter 9
  12. Enjoy This Story?
  13. INCOGNITO Sneak Peek
  14. About the Author
  15. Also by Bonnie Synclaire

# Announcement: Unpublishing & Revamping

I _n Summer 2021, The Genesis Files series will undergo heavy revamping and expanding. Print books and ebooks will remain on the market until the new series is published, then they will be retired afterward. For status updates and information on the new series, visit www.bonniesynclaire.com._

# Praise for ROGUE

"Captivating, gripping, and dynamic...an intriguing story highlighting the unbreakable bond between two sisters."

**-- KERRI M., advanced reader**

"ROGUE is a riveting, fast-paced thriller that takes you into the shadowy world of spy agencies and criminal enterprises...Rich in detail, with a narrative that evokes both suspense and empathy, this book is a must-read..."

**-- KRISTEN R., advanced reader**

"Synclaire obviously has experience with writing, her words flowing well and with purpose. For anyone looking for a quick read with good action and great characters, I recommend ROGUE."

**-- J.L. WILLOW, author of THE SCAVENGER and MISSING HER**

"...I always love a thrilling, time-is-running-out book and wow...I enjoyed ROGUE and can't wait for the next book in the series!"

**-- JOY CHAPPELL, author of FARRYN**

"I love secret societies, and I can't resist a good underground organization, so I was bound to enjoy the concept of this story from the start...The very beginning surprised and intrigued me--I was hooked..."

**-- OLIVIA SCOTT, author of WINGS**

"I bought this book and the sequel, _INCOGNITO_ , for my fifth grade daughter and she has started circulating her copies throughout her classroom. Boys and girls alike are enjoying the story. They are doing dress-as-your-favorite-literary-character day next week, and she is planning to dress as Skye! High marks from her and her friends!!"

**-- Amazon review**

# Chapter 1

H **ARPER**

I knew something was wrong when my mother has been missing for four days.

The last time I saw her was Monday morning. I gave her my usual half-hearted goodbye before getting on the school bus that comes to our dead-end street, and I haven't seen her since.

My twin sister is crying beside me. Her name is Joanna, but I just call her Jo. My name is Harper. I'm not crying.

When Mom didn't come home Monday night, we decided not to go to school the next morning. Today is Friday. We've been sitting around for four days straight, wondering, waiting. "Stop crying." I mutter to Jo and nudge her off of my shoulder.

"Something happened to her," she says. "We need to call the police."

"No police, you know that." I say.

"Well, what are we going to do? We're not showing up to school, we ate all the food, and we don't have any other family."

I don't know how to respond, because she is right--the only other family member we know besides our mother is our aunt, Veronica. Even she is reserved and mysterious and won't tell us a thing about our family--

The doorbell rings.

The sound of it puts an unsettling feeling in my stomach; no one ever comes to our house, not even a mailman.

I slowly stand from the couch and walk into the foyer, Joanna right behind me. Looking through the peephole, a small part of me hopes to see Mom standing there, even though there's no reason for her to ring the doorbell of her own house.

But actually, _no one_ is there.

"Who is it?" Jo whispers.

"No one's here." I shrug, shocked.

"It was probably just a prank or something." Jo suggests, but I shake my head.

"We live in the middle of nowhere on a dead-end street. It wasn't a kid trying to pull a prank." We live in a five-bedroom estate in Reddings Mill, Pennsylvania, which is nothing but farmland, hundreds of acres of empty space, and a Walmart.

I cautiously open the front door and look around. There's not a person in sight, just miles of dying grass. I look down. A single piece of yellow notebook paper is taped to the cobblestone walkway. I snatch it up and lock the door.

"What is that?" Jo hovers over my shoulder.

"...It's a letter."

* * *

_Harper,_

_You don 't know who I am, and I don't think you ever will, so don't try to find me. I simply thought I should give you a heads-up._

_The Genesis Project is in danger, and so are you, your sister, and your mother. Your family 's past has caught up with us all, and no one will be able to escape what is about to happen. I can't tell you much right now, but I can tell you one thing: do not trust anyone after reading my letter. If you do, I cannot guarantee your survival in this. Nor my own._

_\- D_

"What's Project...Genesis?" Joanna asks.

"I...I don't know." I say. We sit back down in the living room, and I hold the letter between us. After rereading it a few times, I set it down on the coffee table. "We should call Aunt Veronica."

"Good idea." Jo nods.

I retrieve my cell phone from my hoodie pocket and dial Aunt Veronica's number. Last time I checked, she lives in the city and works with Mom every day. She picks up on the third ring, and I put her on speaker.

"Harper?" Her voice sounds a bit like my mother's.

"Aunt V, has Mom been at work at all this week?" I ask.

Aunt Veronica doesn't answer for a long time. "Actually, about your mother..."

"Wait, you know what's going on? Is she with you?"

"No one's seen her all week. But Harper, we can't talk about this over the phone. I'll be over as soon as I can--"

"What do you mean? What's going on?"

"I'm sorry, Harper. I'll explain everything to you in person--"

"Wait, you don't understand! A random letter just showed up on our doorstep. It says we're all in trouble--and what's the Genesis Project? Is that our family's company or something?"

"I can't answer that over the phone. Someone might be listening to us..."

I'm about to argue, to ask who in the world would care about our conversation right now, when the sound of a gunshot suddenly rips through the other end of the line, followed by a scream and muffled voices and shuffling feet. My chest tightens, and my blood runs cold.

"A-Aunt V?" I stammer, not quite processing what is happening. The last thing I hear is angry voices and more footsteps before the line goes dead.

* * *

I let my phone fall onto my lap, the screen still on Aunt Veronica's contact picture. Jo covers her mouth with her hand and starts to cry again. Did someone break into her house? Why did she say we can't talk over the phone? Did I hear a gun? Is she _alive_?

Just then, a text message pops up. I hurriedly tap it, and see that it's from a number I don't recognize.

_Sorry I didn 't warn you. You know, about Veronica. Don't worry, she's fine._

I quickly text back without thinking: _Who are you??_

He responds seconds later: _I 'm the one who sent you the letter._

**_Me_** _: How did you get my number?_

**_Unknown Number_** _: Connections._

**_Me_** _: You obviously know my own family better than I do. Where are my parents & my aunt?_

**_Unknown Number_** _: I 'm on your side here, just remember that._

I wait for the anonymous figure to send something else, but they never do.

* * *

Jo doesn't sleep through the night--but it's not just because of what just happened with Aunt Veronica. She's sick.

Her multiple sclerosis is escalating (again) and from what I'm witnessing now, she'll most likely have to go to the hospital for the umpeenth time this year. But the problem is, Mom isn't here to take her to the hospital, and I don't my driver's license. There's no way of getting her to the hospital in the next town over. I could call an ambulance, but after what happened this afternoon, I'm not about to draw any attention to this house, even though we live in the middle of nowhere.

It's 11:49 p.m. Almost midnight. My and Jo's bedrooms are right next to each other, so whenever Jo calls me, I'm at her bedside in seconds.

"Turn the heat _off_ ," Joanna grumbles. She's tossing and turning in her queen size bed, even though all of her blankets are abandoned on the floor. She wears shorts and a red T-shirt that has our school's mascot on it, but are damp with sweat. She's overheated and oversensitive.

"Jo, it's 73 degrees in the house. I'm not touching the thermostat." She makes a noise that's somewhere in between a growl and a cry, and I sigh. "I think you should take those medicines the doctor gave you." I suggest.

Jo stops tossing and turning and glares at me. "And be asleep for two days straight? No way."

"Well, I'm going to sleep. I need to find out what's going on and where Mom went. If you change your mind, the RiteAid bag is in the bathroom." I stand from the swivel chair at Jo's desk and walk back to my own room, leaving the door open. I'm about to crawl into bed when I see that my cell phone is glowing on my nightstand. There's a notification on my lock screen from the Channel One News app:

**_Today 's Featured News:_** _3 Armed Burglars Steal $5 Million in Jewelry | Reddings Mill School District Teachers Still Expecting a 10% Pay Raise | Local Reddings Mill Police Officer Confirmed Missing After Five Days_

The news sent this alert out this morning too, but I never bothered to look at it until now. That's when I see it: _Local Reddings Mill Police Officer Confirmed Missing After Five Days_.

_My_ mother hasn't been home in five days. She hasn't answered any of my calls or texts, her car is still in the garage, and her strangely heavily secured briefcases are still in her bedroom. Joanna was right, something probably happened to her at work.

"She's a _police officer_...?" I say to myself, but nothing is adding up in my head. Police officers don't have briefcases that are secured with several locks and keypads, or at least I don't think they do. And on the few occasions that I stayed home from school and watched my mother leave for work in the morning, she always wore suits or other professional attire, and her clothes were always black or gray or other boring colors. Never in my life have I seen her in a standard Reddings Mill police uniform.

Mom never discussed her job with Joanna and me, and all our lives she's kept us from doing certain things, like not going outside after five o'clock, not bringing any friends over, and not doing any extracurricular activity like ballet or soccer. We've never been on any kind of family vacation or trip. Also, I recall Mom not letting us ride the school bus until we reached middle school. She would drive us to our private school every single day--a half hour to and from.

In second grade, a classmate asked me what my parents' jobs were. I couldn't answer him because A) my mother would never tell me hers, and B) I don't know who my and Jo's father is. Of course he could answer, though, stating that his mother was an art teacher and his dad an engineer.

Does the Channel One News know more about what happened to my mother? Will they talk about it on TV, if they haven't already?

It's 11:56--almost time for the midnight recap of the day's news. I get comfortable in my lime-green bed, go to the news' website, and stream the day's recap from my phone.

# Chapter 2

S **KYE**

"Here is the scenario," my teacher, Mr. Cane, says. "You've found your target and have an eye on them, and you're scanning the area to see if you can make a move. But then you realize you're not the only agent here. Another agent from either another top-secret project or a regular agency has the same target as you. Their job is to most likely terminate your target before you can, or terminate _you_ before the target. Your mission immediately alters. You must fight off your opponent first, then deal with your target after."

"The scene?" I ask, my voice monotone. We're standing in a small gray training room, the fluorescent ceiling lights dimmed to the lowest setting. Mr. Cane is leaning against his desk in the corner of the room, iPad in hand, still taking notes on today's training session. I am standing in the middle of the room, two feet away from Jerry, a fellow Genesis agent who is role-playing as my opponent. He's tall, at least six-foot, with scraggly blonde hair and tattooed arms. We see each other around headquarters often. He's been working for Genesis for years now, whereas I'm just an agent in-training.

"City alleyway. Midnight. Post-rain and foggy. Minimal traffic. We'll say your target is in one of the buildings." Mr. Cane replies.

That's why the lights are dimmed so low. In this mock fight, it's nighttime. I have to be as quiet as possible; even though there aren't a lot of people or cars in this pretend location, one loud sound could trigger someone's attention. And that's the worst thing that could happen to an assassin on a mission.

"You have an estimated three minutes to fight off the other agent before your target notices what's going on and relocates." Mr. Cane adds. "Ready...set... _fight_."

Jerry lunges forward in an attempt to tackle me, but I quickly step to the side and raise my leg to swing and kick his head. But I'm too slow. Jerry sees me about to kick him, and he grabs my ankle and flips me over. I land hard on my back.

It's so dark in here I can barely see anything, and I squint to force my eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Jerry raises his fists in a defense pose, contemplating on whether to go easy on me or not. Probably because I'm a girl and a good ten years younger than him. I spring up and punch him right in the cheek. He cowards, but only for a second. Jerry's a tough guy, one of the project's best.

Now, we both stand in defense moves, just inches apart from each other, thinking. What is he doing? We'll never have this much time to think during a real-life mission--

"Don't go easy on her, Jerry, she's the only assassin trainee in her group." Mr. Cane says, irritated.

I glance at Mr. Cane while he speaks, which is a mistake. While I've temporarily lost my focus on Jerry, he pushes me and I stumble against the wall. He punches my left cheek and I cower in pain and fear, letting my body give up and sink to the floor.

"That's enough for today, Jerry." I hear Mr. Cane sigh. "The only thing holding her back from moving up to level five is her mediocre fighting skills."

Level 5 is the final level of training, whether you're training to be an assassin (me), undercover cop, special agent, or spy. Half of me is angry at myself for being so slow, but the other half of me is glad I'm not moving on to the final level of training; I don't know how much more of this I can tolerate.

The lights go back to normal, and Mr. Cane dismisses Jerry with a small wave of his hand. He spends a few moments jotting things down on his iPad before turning it off and placing it on his desk. "You're not progressing like you should be," he says. "Things only get harder from here. It's best if you accept this now and move on...Be right back here tomorrow morning, Ms. McCoy said you need to advance to the next level by next month."

McCoy. Right. The director of this top-secret, torturous program--the _Elite Training Program_ , to be exact. I remember the day she "recruited" me and nine others from our orphanage like it was yesterday.

**3 YEARS AGO**

Erin McCoy stepped out of the black van and peered up at the orphanage before her, located in Cape May, New Jersey. It was a square, red brick building with dirty window panes, dead grass and bushes, and silence--not even the sounds of children swept through the air. There was nothing happy or child-like about this place, which was just how McCoy liked it. FBI kids aren't happy, they're tough, intelligent, and emotionless.

McCoy's assistant, an agent in a black suit and sunglasses to conceal his identity, came out of the van. They walked up to the front double doors, and McCoy rang the doorbell. A rusted white sign bolted to the brick exterior read _Evergreen Orphanage_ in italicized letters.

Someone answered the door moments later--Sister Clarence, an old lady whom McCoy had been doing business with for a few years now. She smiled and made sure her nun outfit was clean before letting McCoy and her assistant inside.

"A few of them have come of age now, right?" McCoy asked quietly as Sister Clarence led them up to the second floor, where most of the bedrooms were. Orphans looked at her black pantsuit, shiny black heels, and FBI badge and watched her stride pass.

Sister Clarence nodded. "Yes--oh, and there's one in particular that I'd like you to see. No one is interested in adopting her, and I think her gift is perfect for your needs. She just turned thirteen." She lowered her voice and stopped at a bedroom door that was slightly ajar. McCoy peeked into the room to see a girl in a yellow dress sitting on the ground, hunched over an old boxy computer. She was typing furiously.

"She's hacking into the computer's system," Sister Clarence explained, her voice a faint whisper. "She's been getting her hands on almost all of the technology here since she was brought here. We have restrictions on the computers in the library, but she broke through them easily. We don't know how she learned to do this, but I think she has a rare talent..."

"Seriously?" McCoy whispered back, continuing to study the adolescent.

"When you are ready, we have nine others who are ready to go with you. They are all thirteen, too." Sister Clarence added.

"Alright. Let me talk to this one first." McCoy replied, standing up straighter so the girl wouldn't know they were watching her hack. Sister Clarence knocked on the door, and the girl startled, turning the computer off with just a few clicks. She pushed the computer aside and stood up quickly, brushing her hair away from her face. "Come in." her small voice said.

"Hello, Delilah. Someone is here to see you." Sister Clarence said sweetly, taking a few steps into the room and clasping her hands in front of her. "This is Ms. Erin McCoy. She is the director of an FBI program in..." McCoy didn't bother listening to the nun as she was motioned into the bedroom. Sister Clarence didn't know what McCoy really did with the orphans--no one did, if you weren't a part of the project.

The girl turned slowly to face them, and McCoy was suddenly speechless.

Those big, cerulean-blue eyes. Her hair that was so black McCoy couldn't believe that was her natural hair color. Her pale, majorly freckled face...

McCoy swore she'd seen this face before, except just an adult version--she _swore_ she did. But the question was, where? When?

McCoy cleared her throat and forced herself to focus. She couldn't stay at the orphanage for long, she needed to gather her newest group of trainees and drive them back to headquarters. "Hello, Delilah. I am Erin McCoy, director of the Elite Training Program. Congratulations. You and nine others are the first group to be chosen to train in the new and improved version of my program." McCoy awkwardly stuck out her hand for Delilah to shake, but she shied away from her.

McCoy's assistant checked the time on his expensive watch. "Twenty minutes." he reminded McCoy over her shoulder, and she nodded.

"My assistant will lead you to my car." McCoy urged the orphan to follow her assistant, who reluctantly did. Delilah looked back at Sister Clarence until she was was led down the hall and out of sight. As soon as they were gone, McCoy turned to Sister Clarence, suddenly feeling anxious. "Does she have any papers? Records? Belongings? I want to see everything, now." she said quickly.

"She only arrived with this..." Sister Clarence picked up a yellowed photograph from the nightstand and handed it to McCoy, who gasped when she saw it. "She was brought here when she was ten years old. That's an odd age to be orphaned, if you ask me. The woman said to call her Delilah, and she sped away in a black car without a license plate before I could ask her anything else."

The photo was of a younger, smiling Delilah and a woman who was no doubt her mother--and the face McCoy oddly recognized. They were sitting on a park bench, holding on to each other and smiling wide. Then McCoy knew.

McCoy knew exactly why the young orphan's face was so familiar: she was the daughter of Niamh MacGhabban, her ex-coworker and one of the FBI's best spies and assassins. But, why was her daughter here, of all places? Did she even know her mother worked for the FBI? It didn't seem like it; she no doubt would have recognized McCoy's FBI badge.

McCoy concluded that she wouldn't tell this realization to anyone, not even Delilah herself. Not until she knew why Niamh abandoned her.

"You know the drill: don't tell anyone outside this orphanage about us doing business. Also, I need to keep this picture." McCoy said, suddenly shaky. Sister Clarence nodded stiffly. McCoy gently slid the photograph inside her suit pocket and left to get the rest of the orphans.

Fifteen minutes later, McCoy, her assistant, and ten orphans were piled into the black van. The van roared to life, and McCoy began the long drive back to headquarters.

"Alright." the assistant said, swiveling his seat to face the orphans. "Do any of you know what's happening?" They all shook their heads. Most of them were silent with fear. "The ten of you are the newest editions to Project Genesis's Elite Training Program. This is your new life now."

"So, this is, like, the FBI or something?" a red-haired orphan asked.

"Project Genesis is a top-secret FBI project, yes." the assistant replied sternly. "From here on out, you will train to become an undercover cop, special agent, spy, or assassin. On your eighteenth birthdays, you will receive your earned titles and begin working for us, with a new public name and code names. You are not permitted to leave headquarters for any reason until you have received your titles. If you try to escape, or if you purposefully break one of the rules or threaten Genesis or the FBI in any way...the new protocol is to either kill you or banish you. This is a very secret operation--not even our president knows that this exists...No one can find out about the ETP's new way of running things. No one."

A few orphans fidgeted in their seats. "And why not, Mr. FBI?" the redhead said.

The man glared. "Because the new version of the program hasn't been legalized."

**PRESENT DAY**

**_SKYE_**

Instead of going to lunch at the dining hall, I go to my room, which is located in the Elite Training Program residence wing of headquarters.

There are twenty dorm rooms here for trainees, and I get dorm number 20 all to myself. It's all the way at the back of the hallway, tucked in the corner of the building. Even though I only get a full size bed, closet, and a desk, there's a large window that overlooks the ever-bustling city.

I don't think anyone notices that I'm not in the dining hall with the other orphan trainees; I usually go to lunch after everyone else because Mr. Cane makes me stay and train longer, so this is the perfect time to go over my escape plan.

There are no locks on my door, so I have to be careful. I open the closet door and sit on my knees, carefully and quietly lifting the floorboard I had turned into a makeshift hiding spot.

There is a blueprint of Genesis headquarters, right where I'd left it.

# Chapter 3

H **ARPER**

I wake up to my cell phone still in my hand, and my sister snoring loudly beside me.

Usually I would start an argument about Joanna being in my bed, let alone my room, but I don't want her to be moodier than she already is; that is one of her many side effects from her multiple sclerosis. I don't know what mood swings have to do with your immune system eating away at your nerves, but a lot of the other side affects I looked up on Google are random like that too.

The reporters didn't say much about the missing woman that is my mom. They just said that her name is Victoria Cambridge (they didn't provide any pictures), she hasn't done her usual rounds around the city earlier this week, and when the police station took note of this, the FBI immediately released a missing case for her. To me, it was pretty strange that the FBI already had a missing persons case for my mother already made. Watching the video stream, it looked to me like the FBI already knew my mother were missing, before anyone else did...

I plug in my phone to charge on my nightstand before heading downstairs and into the large kitchen. I scavenge for something--anything--to eat, but there's basically nothing here.

I think about what Mom said to do if she didn't come home: go to the basement and to the silver door, and type in the code to access the panic room. Joanna and I know the code by heart, but there was never a reason to go into the panic room until now. I can check it out while Jo is resting. There's probably food in there, and better yet, clues to help me find out more about my mother and why she's gone.

But I only make it to the living room before my phone buzzes in my hoodie pocket. It's a text from the unknown number again:

_I can 't tell you much right now, but you deserve to know the truth._

I sit down on the brown leather couch and think about how to respond. Should I even respond at all? What will I be getting myself into? Will this put my sister and I in danger along with our already absent mother? Maybe, but...what does this person mean, that I deserve to know the truth? The truth about why I don't know my own family? Why Mom won't tell me what she does for a living?

I cautiously reply: _What are you talking about?_

Another text comes moments later: _Do you promise not to tell anyone what I 'm about to send to you, except for your sister?_

_How do you know I have a sister?_ I think. Well, this person knew that something was going to happen to Aunt Veronica. They must somehow know I have a sister too.

**_Me_** _: I promise._

**_Unknown_** _: Good._

**_Me_** _: Tell me why the only other family member I have contact with is my aunt Veronica. What does my family do for a living? Is my family even alive?_

**_Unknown_** _: Your maternal grandfather owns an FBI project called Genesis. It recruits and trains the most elite spies, undercover cops, agents, and assassins in the country & the President doesn't know it exists, hence why I told you not to tell anyone besides your sister._

**_Me_** _: I don 't believe you._

**_Unknown_** _: Go to the panic room door and punch in the code 4-8-9-1. You 'll believe me then._

_How do_ you _know the code? Only my mother, Jo, and I know it!_ I think.

The unknown person doesn't send anything else after that.

* * *

Joanna and I are sitting in the living room, watching the six o'clock news. I want her to take her medicines, but I don't think it will do her any good on a severely empty stomach.

"If the police know Mom is gone, aren't they looking for her?" Jo asks.

"I mean, the FBI are the ones who set up the case a few days ago, not the police," I say. "which is kind of weird."

"Do you think the FBI will come here, then? You know, to investigate, like they do on TV? They have to know our address."

"Well--" The sound of the doorbell cuts me off. _Who could that be this time?_ I practically tiptoe into the foyer and look through the peephole, holding my breath.

A policeman and a woman in a gray suit are standing there. A police car sits in the driveway but it doesn't have the usual red and blue flashing lights, the barred windows, and the words CITY POLICE are on the sides in bold white letters. My hand reaches to open the door, but I hesitate. Why don't I have a good feeling about this?

Joanna comes into the foyer and stays close behind me. I take a shaky deep breath and open the door. "Good evening, miss. Is this the Cambridge residence?" the woman asks. I nod, a nervous lump forming in my throat, preventing me from speaking. The woman looks to be in her early forties, with frizzy black hair tucked into a bun, dark brown eyes, and a serious-looking face. I can tell she doesn't smile a lot. _KERRI WINTHROP, DETECTIVE_ is engraved on her silver metal name tag. "I'm Detective Winthrop, and this is Officer Barlow. May we come in?" I nod again, stepping aside as they step into the foyer, and I close the door behind them. Jo and I sit down on the couch, and Detective Winthrop and Officer Barlow sit across from us.

"Identical twins? Interesting." Officer Barlow says with a smile. He's younger than the detective, with spiky blond hair and a scruffy beard, hazel eyes, tanned skin even though it's winter in Pennsylvania, and muscular. He's dressed in the standard Reddings Mill Police Department uniform, but it doesn't have any badges or awards on it. Shouldn't he have came in a Reddings Mill cop car, and not a city one? Joanna and I don't smile back. We don't do anything. Jo takes my hand, and I let her lean on my shoulder.

The detective opens a small notepad to the first page and clicks her pen. "Is your mother Victoria Cambridge?" she asks, immediately getting started. I nod. "All right. I'm going to ask some questions, and you girls need to be a hundred percent honest with me. Understand?" I nod again. "Good. What are your names and ages?"

"Harper and Joanna Cambridge." I say. "We're sixteen."

"Where do you attend school?"

"Montpellier Academy..." I reply. What does this have to do with Mom?

"Victoria has been missing since Monday evening. Are you aware of this?"

"Our current evidence shows she hasn't buzzed into her jobs at the station Monday morning, so she probably went missing before then." Officer Barlow adds.

"Well, what's the current evidence?" I ask. "Did you investigate or do anything yet?"

"We just investigated where your mother works. We would like to investigate your home before we head back to the station." Detective Winthrop explains. "But first I'm going to finish asking questions. Is that alright?"

"I guess." I reply with a shrug.

"What were you doing on the morning of Monday, November second, 2018?"

"I don't know. It was just like any other day, I guess."

"Has anything strange happened since your mother's disappearance?"

I hesitate, hoping nobody notices. I don't meet Detective Winthrop's eyes. The only thing that's strange is the letter and the unknown number that texts me, but I'm not about to tell these people about that. The anonymous person may be the only way I can find out about my family and why I don't know anything about them or what they do. "Um...actually, nothing's been happening." I say. "We've been home all week."

"Alright, then." Detective Winthrop closes her notepad, and she and Officer Barlow stand from the couch.

"We're going to do a quick sweep of your house." Officer Barlow says. As he says this, he and the detective retrieve white cloth gloves from their pockets along with small flashlights. Joanna and I stay seated as they walk back into the foyer.

"What about that letter?" Jo whispers.

"It's in my pocket," I whisper back. "They won't know about it."

* * *

It takes them approximately an hour to search the entire estate. They come back into the living room with blank faces.

"I'm afraid you'll have to come with us back to the station," Officer Barlow announces, already preparing to leave.

"W-What?" I stammer, my heartbeat quickening with nerve. "Why?"

"There's nothing here that will help us with your mother's case," he continues. "The Reddings Mill Police Department is a safer and better place to conduct business anyway. But don't worry, it shouldn't take long."

"There are plenty of things that will help us right here!" I snap. "Her car, her laptop, her office--can't you use some of your special equipment and collect DNA or hair or _something_?"

"That's all back at the station," Detective Winthrop says flatly. "Please come with us--"

"No." I say sharply. Joanna's frail arm links through mine, and she holds on tight. "We're staying. You can't make us go with you."

Officer Barlow sighs and opens the front door. "Backup will be here in two minutes. If you're not in the police car by then, we'll have no choice but to force you out of here." And at that, him and his 'detective' leave. I watch them head back to their car, but they don't get in. I scramble to close the front door and lock it, my hands trembling, my chest tight.

"Jo, go to the den, _now_."

* * *

Instead of going down to the den, Joanna follows me to my bedroom. I grab my backpack and dump everything out of it, and fill it with things I think I'll need: cell phone, charger, the letter, all the money I have saved ($100). Jo copies me and goes down the hall to her room. She returns only minutes later with her own backpack filled. "How much money do you have?" I ask her.

"Two hundred. Why? What are we doing?" I can hear the growing panic in her voice. I put on some tennis shoes just as I hear the sound of a vehicle pulling into the driveway. We're out of time.

"Get some tennis shoes and let's go." I whisper, although I know nobody can possibly hear us; our house is nearly three thousand square feet of pure red brick. Jo nods and leaves. I take one last scan of my room to make sure I didn't forget anything, before I wait for Jo in the second-floor hallway. We then go to the den, and I close and lock the wooden door behind us.

The doorbell rings once again. The sound of it makes my heart clench.

"The silver door has to be here somewhere..." I say anxiously, but before I start searching, Joanna walks over to Mom's bookcase. She has shelves of one-thousand-page novels, encyclopedias, atlases, dictionaries and so on, mostly about technology and coding and money. She lingers for a moment, then knocks the fourth row of books to the ground. And then I see it: a silver doorknob.

"Sis, you're a genius!" I exclaim. Suddenly, someone knocks loudly on the front door, so loud I hear it all the way down here. "Open up!" Officer Barlow booms.

"This must be the door to the panic room. But how are we going to open it?" I say.

Joanna starts to push on the bookcase from its side. I sigh, but I don't argue. Mom will be pretty mad if she sees all her books are messed up-- _if_ she ever sees them again.

It takes a while to knock over the bookcase and move it over far enough to get to the silver door. There's a gray keypad right underneath the doorknob, and I punch in the code. Something beeps, and I'm able to open the door, letting Joanna go in first. There are no lights on and the air is stuffy, but I close the door and lock it behind us anyway. I use all of my strength to turn the lock because it's so heavy, and it secures with a firm _click_. Hopefully that means this is a quality lock, that we're safe.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding, my body not shaking as much. My sister and I are safe now.

I feel the wall for a light switch. I find one and flip it on, but it's dusty. Gross. The panic room is the same size as my bedroom, which is fairly big. All four walls are white and paneled, the floor gray concrete, and there's another door opposite of the one we just came in through.

"Where does that door lead?" Jo asks.

"I don't know. Should we open it? Maybe there's a year's worth of food and other stuff in there."

"Maybe..." Jo says. She lets her backpack fall from her shoulders and sits down with her back against the wall, taking deep, slow breaths. Her whole body is trembling. I take her backpack, open it, and see that she put her bag of medicines in here. Good. She might need this soon.

I hear footsteps above us--lots of them. There's probably a whole bunch of fake cops searching the whole estate for us now, but _why_? Why do they want me and my sister?

Then, as if on cue, my phone buzzes in my hoodie pocket. I take it out and look at the notification. It's a text from Unknown Number. Thank goodness.

**_Unknown_** _: I know someone who can get you in touch with your mother, and I know how to get us all to safety. We can all meet up tomorrow night. You can call me D, by the way._

There's poor cell service down here, but my message still manages to send:

**_Me_** _: A bunch of crooked cops are in our house. My sister and I are in the panic room now._

The unknown number--D--responds minutes later: I didn't think Scorpion would come after you today, but don't worry. Just stay put, and whatever you do, don't open that door for anyone. You might be down there for awhile.

**_Me_** _: Who 's Scorpion?_

**_D_** _: Scorpion was the FBI project before Genesis, that had to be shut down shortly before you were born. Now they 're ex-agents who want to get back at your grandfather for what he did to them all those years ago. Their plan is called Operation Zero. They are the ones at your house right now._

**_Me_** _: Do you know where my mother is? Is she OK? What about my aunt?_

My heart sinks at D's response: _I don 't know._

# Chapter 4

S **KYE**

My escape is going to be too easy.

Since the residence wing is on the first floor of the building, I can open my window and jump the five-foot drop to the ground. But the only thing that's preventing me from doing that is the alarm and the motion sensor tapped into the window. That's why I have Jerry.

" _Hey, kid, are you on?_ " Jerry's voice says through my intercom. He dropped it off at my dorm a few hours ago.

I don't trust Jerry--he'll probably tell Chief the minute I get out of the building--but he was my only option.

"I'm on," I say, adjusting the intercom in my left ear. It's nine-thirty. All of the other orphan trainees are fast asleep in their dorms. Eighty percent of the agents went home for the night, and the security guards have switched out for night patrol. Most of headquarters is dark and quiet.

"Where are you now?" I ask Jerry as I secure my small backpack over both shoulders. I'm wearing a black jacket, leggings, and tennis shoes that I usually wear to physical training.

"I told Doug I'll sit in the security room while he took a five minute coffee break." Jerry states. "That's all the time you have. Oh, and I already disabled the alarm on your window--dorm number twenty, right?"

"Right." I say. "Thanks again."

"I'm still waiting on my payment."

"I said I'll transfer the money to you when I get to an ATM." I hiss.

"Alright, alright. I'm just reminding you."

I huff and slowly creak open the large window. You can open it to a certain extent to get some fresh air, but once it opens wide enough the alarm will go off. I'm surprised these windows don't just have simple locks on them or are just glued shut.

I open it a little wider...then a little wider...no alarm.

A huge gust of frigid wind blows into the room, putting goosebumps on my skin. I peer out the window and see the frost-covered ground below me. The sky is navy blue with no clouds or stars anywhere. There's not a person in sight, but I can hear the noises of the bustling city nearby. I wiggle through the space in the window and soon am holding on to the ledge by my hands. I let go, hitting the ground feet first. I bend my knees so I don't shatter any bones, and land on my butt and then on my back and head. I'm dizzy for a few seconds, my head throbbing a little, but as soon as I recover I stand up. Time is running out. I have to get as far away from here as possible--

"So, I see you've escaped," a hoarse voice says behind me, and I whip around. I squint my eyes in the darkness to see a man in all black, hood pulled over his head.

"W-Who are you?" I ask, an edge in my voice.

The man takes a few steps closer to me and sticks out his hand. "Ex-agent Xi. And I have an offer for you." He also takes out a worn Genesis ID card and shows it to me.

I hesitate, but I shake his hand. It's rough and cold from the intense weather. "What do you want?" I ask.

"A simple favor. You can call me D. What did Genesis name you?" His voice is smooth and calm.

"Skye."

"Okay, Skye." Suddenly an ear-splitting alarm goes off behind me, and I jump. I knew I couldn't trust Jerry--I wasn't going to pay him anyway. I have to get out of here.

"To my truck, hurry." D motions me to follow him across the street to a big parking lot, and I do. Questioning or denying him is not an option right now.

We frantically climb into a rusted, beat-up white pickup truck with squeaky doors. D starts the engine, and we leave the parking lot in seconds, tire marks streaking the asphalt.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, we arrive in a small rural town outside the city, and we stop at a place called the Starr Motel. It looks just like any other sketchy, rundown motel would; it has large neon signs that have long lost their glow, a parking lot filled with potholes, the smell of cigarettes permeate the air, the once colorful exterior paint faded, the doors and windows are coated in bronze-colored rust.

"Swanee is a good friend of mine. She worked for Genesis too," D explains, killing the engine and hopping out of the truck. I follow him eagerly. We walk to the very first motel room that I guess is used to check people in and out. The room is tiny. One mustard-yellow wall holds thirty little gold keys. There are two sunken couches, a wooden front desk, and an old box-shaped TV that plays the news. A little gold bell like in all the old movies sits on the front desk, and D taps it in a sequence. Probably a code. Moments later, a woman appears.

"Good to see you, D." the woman says.

"Swanee, this is Skye, an ex-orphan trainee." D introduces me to the woman, and I smile meekly.

"I can't believe they're still taking orphans like that." Swanee says in disgust. She's tall, with a short black bob, olive skin, muscular body, and a sharp, defined face with brown eyes. She wears a wrinkled red flannel and jeans, and she smells of cheap bar soap. An ugly scar lines the side of her neck. "Let me guess. Spy?" Swanee says to me, looking me up and down.

"They tried to train me to be an assassin." I shrug.

"Dang--and you look so young too. Shame. Don't worry, you'll be safe here. D and I have known each other for decades." She snatches a key off of its hook and throws it to D, who catches it in a split second. Swanee grins. "You still have the best coordination, D."

"I know." D replies, but I can sense in his voice that he's smiling. He puts the key in his pocket. "Do you mind keeping Skye with you? I think she could use the company, especially from a woman and another former agent."

"Of course." Swanee opens the back door, and motions for me to follow her. I obey, and D nods to Swanee before heading to his own motel room. Swanee closes the door and locks it behind us. The room is actually decent. There are two queen size beds with sleek black comforters and pillows, a silver dresser with a massive flat screen TV that barely fits on it, a fluorescent blue fish tank in the corner housing a school of yellow fish, and all kinds of modern gadgets and electronics are scattered throughout the room. The walls have been painted black. Large framed pictures of women on motorcycles line one wall. Video game consoles and CDs are piled in a corner. One bed is unmade, so I'm guessing that one is Swanee's. I sit on the neater one and take off my tennis shoes.

"One thing I learned from that place is how to go unnoticed. I was a spy for the American embassy for ten years, and I was transferred to Genesis for a few years after I broke my back." Swanee says, slipping out of her flannel and shoes. "I used my ability to blend in to steal all this stuff from the Best Buy at the mall."

"Wow..." I say, not bothering hiding the amazement in my voice as my eyes land on an unopened Macbook Air. Swanee throws on a worn T-shirt and turns on the television.

"Go ahead," she says. "You can have it. Do you know how to take it off the system?"

"Of course." I say, already walking over to it. I sit down cross-legged on the floor, giddy with excitement, and begin unboxing it. Whenever I get my hands on technology I've never seen before, I can't help but get excited, like a little kid on Christmas Day. Just minutes later I'm hacking the system and removing the laptop from the grid, so no one, not even Genesis, can track it back to the Starr Motel or me.

"You're good at what you do." Swanee says, watching me from afar. "It's getting late, so I'm crashing for the night. If you're hungry there's food in the fridge, you can take whatever you want."

"Okay. Thanks."

"Mhm." But Swanee is already curled up in her bed, a heating pad on her once-broken back.

* * *

The next morning, I awake to large strips of sunlight peeking through the window curtains and onto my face. I sit up in bed and rub my eyes groggily, brushing my hair out of my face. At first I forget where I am, and I look around frantically. Then I remember. I'd escaped last night. I am free.

Now what? I have to do D a favor. Then I will be 100% free. What will I do with myself then? I have no idea. I don't know what kind of favor D wants me to do for him, but I hope it's nothing too major. I mean, what could he possibly want?

Swanee comes into the room then, holding two Styrofoam to-go boxes. The smell of cinnamon pervades the air. She turns on a lamp. Today she wears an orange flannel and sweatpants, her hair messy from sleep. She wears a black back brace. "I see you're up. I made French toast."

"Thanks." I say, taking one of the boxes from her and opening it.

"D said he wants to meet you in the lobby in an hour." Swanee adds.

"Okay." I reply. "Is there a bathroom I could freshen up in? And possibly some extra clothes?"

"My bathroom is right here." Swanee motions to the door beside her bed with her half-eaten slice of French toast. "You can go through my closet for something that fits you."

"Perfect." I get up and head into the bathroom, which is just as tricked out and modern as Swanee's bedroom.

* * *

An hour later, D waits for me in the lobby of the Starr Motel. He wears his usual attire. I wear a white sweater, black skinny jeans and black Vans with beige soles that are a size too big. I smell like jasmine instead of sweat thanks to Swanee.

We step outside. The sky is a bright baby blue with no clouds and a tiny white sun, and most of the snow has melted. The area around us is dead silent. The only cars in the parking lot are D's white pickup and a cherry-red Harley Davidson motorcycle, most likely Swanee's.

"Are you sure it's safe to talk out here?" I say. The air is thin and chilly, and I cross my arms over my chest.

"Probably not, but Scorpion only comes to this town twice a month to trade. There's no reason for Genesis agents to come here." D scrolls through something on his cell phone--text messages. _Harper Cambridge_ , the heading reads.

"Who's that?" I ask.

"The girl you're going to help," D explains. "Harper and her sister are in danger because of what Scorpion's about to do. Their lives may even be at risk..."

"Scorpion? You mean, the project that Genesis replaced?"

"Yes. They turned themselves into an illegal underground organization. They're getting into trading, mostly jewels and electronics and gadgets across the dark web and the black market, but also weapons and guns and illegally printed money. They're trying to--well, they _will_ --shut down Genesis and get revenge on the man who created it in just a few days. They're calling the process Operation Zero."

"And what does this Harper girl have to do with all this?"

"Harper and her twin sister Joanna don't know this yet, but their mother is lying to them. She's fully involved in the Scorpion ex-agents and Operation Zero; I saw her at the emergency meeting I attended yesterday. Her father--the twins' grandfather--created the Genesis Project, and I can't believe she's going to betray them...I need to get Harper and Joanna to safety, _today_."

"So, why can't they just save themselves?" I question.

D sighs. "Their mother never told them about the family business--they're oblivious to everything."

"Why do _you_ want to save them?"

"It's a good deed," he says simply. "Once their grandfather sees that I'm still on his side, he'll let me become a Genesis agent."

Without D approaching me during my escape, I don't know where I would be right now, so I guess I'll help him. "Alright. How can I help?"

# Chapter 5

H **ARPER**

I try calling Mom's cell phone. No answer. I try calling Aunt Veronica next, but she doesn't pick up, either. Part of me doesn't expect her to.

Joanna is barely awake. There are footsteps above us. Scorpion is probably all over the place, searching for us. I hear their muffled voices and their heavy, dramatic steps. If they come down here and see the bookcase tipped over, they'll most likely see the panic room door. But hopefully they won't be able to open it.

I check the time on my cell phone. 10:11 p.m. I yawn before shutting down my phone and shoving it into my pocket. It's still on full battery, but I want to be sure I'm saving its juice.

I look at the door opposite of the one we came in through. Maybe there's food and blankets and stuff in there? I stand and slowly walk over to the door. I reach out to open it, but there's no knob. Instead there is a screen that's the size of my head, with a blue button and a speaker below it. I press the button without thinking, and it glows a bright blue. "Good evening, Ms. Cambridge," a computerized male voice says. What the-- "All systems are updated and clear. What is your request?" Four options pop up on the small screen:

_Lockdown On/Off_

_Call Genesis_

_Open Escape Door_

_View All Cameras_

"Well, then," I mutter, tapping the fourth option. Twenty windows appear on the screen in rows of four, and I can see the entire house in eerie green night vision, interior and exterior. I see black Suburbans in the driveway. Scorpion is all over the house and the backyard, rummaging through the living room, kitchen, closets, bedrooms.

"Would you like to enable audio recording, Ms. Cambridge?" the computerized voice asks. "My motion sensors think there may be intruders in your home. Would you like to activate the alarm system as well?"

My heart is racing again, my palms clammy, and I take deep breaths. "Y-Yes?" I say. Hopefully this thing doesn't realize that I'm not my mother.

A few seconds later, I'm able to hear everything Scorpion is saying, but they're not talking as much as I'd like. Then the alarm goes off. It's high-pitched and so loud I can hear it all the way down here, without the audio. I watch as they startle and begin to scramble. One guy pulls out a walkie-talkie and shouts into it, " _Abort! Abort to the trucks_!" and they all run out of the house. There are seven people in each car, a total of twenty-one, and after a few moments they all speed away, nearly knocking over a street light. _Are they really this stupid?_ I think to myself. I look over all twenty cameras again. The house is empty. I leave the View All Cameras tab before pressing the Home Lockdown On/Off button. Then, all the doors that had been left open suddenly shut and lock on their own, along with the windows.

"The house is currently on lockdown." the voice announces. "I suggest calling your father or Genesis's emergency services for further aid."

I clear my throat. "No." I say sternly.

"Okay, Ms. Cambridge. Would you like me to start up the jet and search for a route to safety?"

"The... _what_?"

"Your jet. All systems are clear for flying, although it is due for routine inspection."

I press the Open Escape Door button, but nothing happens. The voice says, "Please place your right hand on the screen for identity verification." An outline of a hand, most likely my mother's, pops up and blinks at me.

"This is crazy," I mutter to myself, but I place my hand on the blue screen anyway. Moments later it buzzes, and a fat green check mark replaces the hand.

"You are Harper Violet Cambridge." the voice says, somehow happily. "My apologies. You sound very much like Victoria. How may I assist you?"

"Who does my mom work for?"

"Your grandfather, Ronaldo Cambridge, owns and operates the Genesis Project, a top-secret FBI project located in..."

I stop listening; D told me all this already...I believe him now, and trust him to help me find out where my mother went.

"Do you have a name?" I ask the voice.

"Victoria named me Mavis. I am here to help you and your sister in any situation and am programmed into all of your electronic devices." the voice--Mavis--replies.

"Wait, you're in my phone?"

"Yes. Go to your settings and scroll down to the bottom of the page. There will be a black icon underneath all of your other apps, with the title 'Mavis Services' beside it."

I sigh as I pull out my iPhone, reboot it, and follow Mavis's instructions. Mavis Services is definitely here. I tap on it. _How am I just now noticing all this?_ Suddenly the app opens, and the same four options along with a few extras and a virtual blue button pop up.

"I am going to unlock the escape door and turn off this screen now, but you have equal access to me on your cell phone, and so does Joanna." Mavis says, and I hear a faint click come from the knobless door, and the screen on the door goes black.

Joanna stirs then, and wakes up. She sees me standing in front of the door and furrows her eyebrows. "Do you know where that leads to?" she asks.

"A jet." I reply. Jo looks at me like she doesn't believe me. She rolls her eyes. "I'm serious," I add. "let me see your phone." Joanna hands me her cell phone. We have our thumbprints in each other's phones, so I unlock Jo's phone in seconds. I go to Mavis Services and hand it back to her.

"What did you do to my phone?" Joanna says, an edge in her voice.

"Nothing! Just tap a button, you'll see." She taps the Talk To Mavis button.

"Greetings, Joanna Lyra Cambridge." Mavis says cheerfully. Jo jumps with a shriek, her phone nearly slipping out of her hand. "My name is Mavis. I am here to help you and your sister in any situation. What is your request?"

"Harper, are you serious?" Jo hisses.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I retort.

"It's quite alright." Mavis says. "Harper and I have become acquainted. I am merely a computerized voice with many functions and connections with the guidance of artificial intelligence."

"You say we have a jet," Jo begins. "Is that true?"

"Yes." Mavis replies. "An Embraer Phenom 300. Your mother purchased it from Genesis's warehouse. It is complete with a bedroom, bathroom, and a fridge and microwave, and is equipped with autopilot. It's purpose is to fly you to safety and tend to your needs for long periods of time."

"Well, can we get on it and get out of here?" I ask. Maybe we can stay in the jet until we know exactly what's going on.

"Yes. I am also programmed into the jet's system, so I can guide you to anywhere you'd like. However, you need the key to activate it."

"Where's the key?" Jo asks.

"I can detect its tracking chip by taking a 3D scan of the house and scanning its blueprint...It's location is the master bedroom."

"Okay." I help Jo stand up and we walk to the panic room door. I put my phone in my pocket and slowly open the door.

The house isn't as messy as I thought it would be from when the fake cops were here just minutes ago, and we head upstairs to our mother's bedroom. The door is wide open, a few drawers have been left open, and the closet door is broken off its hinges.

"I'll text D and tell him we have a plan to leave. He said he wants to meet us soon." I tell Jo as I start searching the room.

"D? You mean the one who sent the letter?" she says.

"Yeah."

Our mother's bedroom is elegant and expensive. She has a king size bed with a comforter that looks like it's made of gold and silk, with a pile of fluffy long pillows on top. The dresser drawer has tiny gold wire mannequins that display Mom's designer jewelry, but half of them are gone--stolen. The flat screen TV is gone too, along with the box of intense workout equipment that I saw Mom use regularly.

I go to the nightstand on the right side of the bed and open it. The only thing that's in here is a small black box. I swipe it and open it. It's the key. The letters _EP_ are carved into the black leather. _Embraer Phenom_. I take out my phone and text D.

**_Me_** _: Can you still come over so we can discuss a plan? My mom has a small jet --an Embraer Phenom 300. We can definitely use that._

D answers about five minutes later: _Impressive. Embraer is one of the best private aircraft companies in the world. I 'm coming today with Skye, she's the one who's going to help you get in touch with your mother. How about 4:00 tomorrow?_

**_Me_** _: Sounds good. Is Skye a friend of yours or something?_

**_D_** _: She will explain herself when we arrive._

"I guess we don't have to stay in the panic room anymore, but I don't want you leaving my side, Jo. Okay?"

"I'm not dumb, Harper. I can take care of myself." Joanna retorts. At that, she walks down the hall to her bedroom, and closes the door behind her. Sighing, I go to my own room but leave the door slightly ajar.

* * *

I jolt awake to see my twin sister standing at my bedside, watching me.

"Jeez, I hate it when you do that." I mutter, pushing the blankets off of myself and sitting up. My bedroom is colorfully lit by my lava lamp collection in one corner of the room, although my magenta and neon green ones are gone, and my orange one is cracked. The magenta one was my favorite. I sigh.

"You've been asleep all last night and all day today...and I think they're here." Joanna says.

"Who's here? Mom?" I say. It takes a moment to figure out who exactly she's talking about. "...What time is it?"

"Four-thirty."

"Ugh." I get out of bed and walk over to my full-length mirror that rests against the wall. It has a new crack in the top corner. My outfit isn't too wrinkled. Jo hasn't changed clothes, either. I go to my window and ever so slowly peek out the thick green curtains. There in the driveway stands a man in all black, and a girl with jet-black hair. An old white pickup truck sits in the driveway. I grab my phone from its charger on my nightstand and turn it on. I have one new notification, a text message:

**_20 minutes ago_**

_D: Skye and I are here._

"Come on. D's here." I say, and Joanna follows me downstairs to the foyer. I cautiously unlock the front door and open it slowly. "Sorry we kept you out here. We were, uh, sleeping...Come inside?" I say, but it sounds more like a question than a greeting.

"Thank you for trusting me, Harper," D says sincerely. His voice is low and gravelly, like he's smoked for decades. He and the girl step into the foyer, and I hurry to shut and lock the door. "This is Skye, an ex-trainee from the Genesis Project--your family's business. She's going to help us."

"Help us with what? Getting my mom back?" I say as we all sit in the living room. The girl, Skye, looks around in awe, as if she's never stepped foot into an estate before. Well, I guess not a lot of people have. She and D sit across from my sister and me, and she gazes at the large family portrait on the wall, which looks like it came out of the Entrepreneur Weekly magazine. She's pretty, with long raven-black hair, tons of freckles along her face and arms, and blue eyes. D wears all black, his hood secure on his head.

"About your mother..." D says, rubbing his hands together. He sounds worried. "I don't think we can save her--I don't think she even needs saving."

"W-What do you mean?" Jo asks. She sounds worried.

"You are familiar with Scorpion now? They're the ones that came into your home?" D says. Joanna and I nod. "Well, I was at an emergency meeting yesterday, Boss needed to reanalyze some things, and...your mother was there. She's helping him make the final changes of Phase 1 in Operation Zero--the plan to destroy the Genesis Project for good. She's betraying the entire project and your grandfather in two weeks..."

I stop listening. D isn't making any sense. "That's impossible." I say angrily. "My mom is _missing_. She's been missing for days. You must have confused her with someone else."

D takes out his cell phone and turns it on. He shows me a picture, sighing matter-of-factly. Skye looks down at her shoes. It's Mom. I snatch the phone from him, taking a closer look. Mom and a few others are in a dim, brown paneled room. My mother and another woman are pointing at what looks to be a blueprint, talking.

"Who's he?" I say, pointing to the man standing next to my mother.

"Boss." D replies simply.

"And who's _that_?"

"Edward Bowser III. An ex-undercover cop from your grandfather's FBI projects. He's currently a crooked cop and the leader of the other rebelling ex-Scorpion agents."

"This is...this is _fake_." I retort. "My mom would never be a part of something like this. I want to see her as soon as possible, she can explain what's really going on."

"Harper, let's--" D starts, but I don't bother listening to what he has to say anymore. I stand from the couch and storm off.

# Chapter 6

H **ARPER**

I'm sitting in the screened-in porch overlooking the backyard, thinking.

Can I still trust D? Are all the things he said about my mother really true? Is she really going to betray everyone like this? _Why?_

There's a creak in the wooden floor behind me, and I whip around in my seat. Skye stands in the doorway. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you." she says. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," I reply tiredly. She steps onto the porch and sits in the outdoor loveseat across from me. "So, who are you, really?"

She hesitates. "Skye."

"Why do you sound like you don't know your own name?"

"Well, since your grandfather is Chief, do you know about the Elite Training Program?"

"No. I don't know anything about my family or their supposed top-secret business."

"Hm. Hey, how old are you?" Skye asks.

"Sixteen."

"Me too. I'm glad there's someone my age around here." she says. "Well, the Elite Training Program, or just the ETP, recruits orphans when they turn thirteen to train at the Genesis Project. When I was thirteen, they came to my orphanage and took me and nine others. They gave us numbers instead of names, mine was Nine. They began training us to become spies, undercover cops, special agents, or assassins. I was the only assassin trainee in my group. It didn't matter if we weren't healthy enough, smart enough, strong enough, they forced us to get better...I never felt right in that place. I spent the past three years of my life training to become an elite assassin, but I didn't know what would happen to me after that. After you graduate from training, the outside world will still never know about you. You either die during your first mission or are always undercover. It's like you don't even exist. And, I didn't want to spend my life killing people. So I escaped."

"Well, do you know why the ETP is doing those things?"

Skye sighs. "I wish I knew. Look, I'm sorry about your mom, but D is telling the truth. Something weird is going on at Genesis, and the ex-agents from the Scorpion project are going to destroy everything. It's best if we get far away from here and get help--"

"What about D? Is he one of them, too?" I question.

"The rebelling ex-agents thinks he's on their side, but he's actually been trying to escape from them for a while."

"I still want to see my mom. I don't know what's going on, but I still miss her regardless. Can't we just go spy on them or something? You know how to spy, right?"

"I don't know where Scorpion's secret headquarters are, but D does." Skye says. "I know he won't let us go over there, though, it's too dangerous--they're one of the most feared underground organizations in the east coast."

I huff. "I still don't know what I'm going to do about my sister. She needs to be hospitalized before something else happens to her, at least for one night. But without our mom, I don't know how that's going to happen."

"What's wrong with her?"

"She has multiple sclerosis."

"Ouch. It must be hard for her--for both of you."

I shake my head. "I have to get Jo out of here. I can deal with my mom later, she's is more important to me." I stand up. "Is D still in the living room?"

"Yeah." Skye stands up also. "We can all come up with a plan to leave town. D told me Scorpion's attempt to destroy Genesis is on Saturday, November seventeenth--that's less than two weeks." She follows me back into the living room, and we're all sitting down together again.

* * *

It only takes fifteen minutes to create a plan to leave town. It's fairly simple, and I write it down on a piece of notebook paper. Today is November third, a Saturday. We plan to leave tomorrow or the next day.

_1. Pack a week 's supply (maybe two?) of food, water, clothes, etc. into the jet--basic survival stuff. Most supplies are already in the panic room._

_2. Have Mavis check the jet 's systems and address any concerns._

_3. Fly to ?? @ 2:00 a.m., when it 's dark and there's the least amount of civilization outside._

"Why did you write us a letter instead of seeing us in person, anyway?" I ask D.

"I was scared to reveal my identity," D replies simply. "I delivered the letter before I'd convinced Boss to pull me from Operation Zero."

"Where are we going to fly to?" Jo asks.

"I don't know yet." I say.

"Can I see the jet we'll be using?" D asks.

"Yeah. Follow me." D, Skye, and Joanna follow me down to the basement, or what I call the den. The panic room door has been left open, and I pick up my and Jo's backpacks that we hastily packed last night. The escape door is now ajar, and I push it open some more.

Past the escape door is like an underground warehouse. The ceiling is low, but there are steep stairs that lead down to the floor that's now multiple feet below us. The floor is bare concrete, but the walls are a bright white, and there are rows and rows of things that I need to get a closer look at to fully see. The room seems to go on forever. This all must be under the two acres of land behind our house, and the reason why we live in the middle of nowhere.

And there, sitting just a few feet away, is the jet.

* * *

At nine-thirty, D proclaims that he wants to sleep. Skye agrees.

"D, you can have the main floor guest room. Skye, you can have the last room upstairs." I say.

"Actually, I'm going to take D's truck back to the motel we came from." Skye says, not looking at me.

"A _motel_? Why?" I ask, following her into the foyer.

"Genesis is searching for me. Since your grandfather is Chief, he might send people here to ask about me before searching town, and probably even the entire country."

"There aren't any motels here in Reddings Mill," I state.

"There's one in the next town over, but it's not on any maps. It's where people like me go to hide."

"What do you mean?"

"Ex-agents, escapees and whatnot...I'll see you tomorrow, Harper." Skye opens the front door and steps outside. She gets into D's rusted white pickup and starts the engine. I barely see her in the darkness of the night.

"Do you even know how to drive?" I call out, but I don't think she hears me. But she does.

"I think I figured it out," Skye replies, her voice sounding far away. She slowly backs out of the driveway, and in just seconds, she's gone. The last thing I hear are tires screeching on pavement.

* * *

The next day, I wake up feeling energized, and oddly prepared. I slept in until almost noon.

I find Joanna in the kitchen, eating a plain waffle. Prescribed multivitamins sit unopened in front of her. Her face is drained, pajamas wrinkled, hair messy. "Sleep well?" I ask as I open the fridge. Empty. I walk over to the pantry instead.

"No." Jo grumbles.

"Oh." I check the time on my phone. 11:52 a.m. I check to see if I have any new notifications, but there are none. Part of me wants to desperately call Mom, beg her to tell me everything. But the better part of me knows to wait, to get my sister and I to safety first. Who knows what Scorpion is up to this very minute--what Mom is supposedly up to this very minute? It was odd when Scorpion scrambled out of here two nights ago, and from the way D described them and their agendas, they couldn't possibly run away from the only opportunity to get me and Joanna like that. That's probably part of their plan, to seem stupid under pressure when they're really not, or something like that.

We wash up and get dressed in similar comfortable clothes, leggings and extremely soft flannels, and I tell Jo to bring a suitcase to my room. The first part of our plan is to pack a week's worth of stuff into the jet. We'll start with clothes. We shouldn't need much, but we still need to be prepared.

"So, are D and Skye are coming with us?" Jo asks, letting her white suitcase fall on the ground beside my red one.

"They should. We need to learn everything we can about Mom and our family." I reply, starting to pack, but am abruptly cut off by the doorbell. I groan and walk over to the window and slowly peel back the curtain. A Suburban similar to Scorpion's sits in the driveway, but this one is gray. I can't see who's at the door, so I pull out my phone and go to Mavis Services. I tap the blue speaker. "Mavis," I talk into it. "Bring up any cameras that show the front yard, and zoom in on the best one."

"Would you like to see who is at the front door?" Mavis says. "There is a camera in the peephole."

"Yes." I say, my heartbeat quickening with worry. My cell phone screen shows me the peephole's camera, and I nearly drop my phone, stunned.

"Joanna-- _look_." I whisper-shout. "It's Mom!"

" _What_?" Jo exclaims, already standing beside me.

"Mavis, doesn't Mom have access to you too?" I ask Mavis. "Can't she just take the house off lockdown and come inside?"

"I am afraid not. I am only programmed into your and Joanna's devices."

"But you thought I was my mother when I first went into the panic room. You listened to me then. Can't you listen to Mom now?"

"I only take Victoria's orders in emergency situations," Mavis explains. "I thought Victoria was experiencing an emergency. Otherwise, I was designed to help you and Joanna only."

I groan, snapping the curtain back in place. Joanna takes a closer look at my phone. "Wait...who's that man standing with her?"

I turn off my phone and toss it into my suitcase, and Jo and I dash into the foyer. But D is already there. He's squinting through the peephole, both hands pressed against the front door, completely still.

"Uh...what's wrong?" I say, standing next to him. Jo lingers on the stairwell, one hand on the rail.

"We can't open the door." D whispers, not moving.

"Why? That's our mom out there!"

"You don't understand!" he hisses. In my one whole day of personally knowing D, I can tell by his voice that he's scared for his life right now. "You see that man in the fur coat?" He moves over so I can look through the peephole, and I oblige. It's weird, seeing Mom just a few inches away from me after all of the turn of events, but she seems...different. A bad different. She wears a black leather jacket and black pants. The man standing behind her is tall, at least six feet. He has medium brown skin, a shiny bald head, and wears expensive-looking sunglasses even though it's winter. A tiny white scar lines his bottom lip. He stands straight and tall in his black shirt, brown fur coat, white pants, and big suede shoes. A fat gold chain hangs from his neck. A cursive letter S dangles off the chain and rests on his stomach.

"Is that...?" I start, but I think I already know who it is.

"Edward Bowser III--the leader of the ex-agents and the underground Scorpion."

I don't say anything else. I don't have the will to. D was right, and I refused to listen to him. Mom is simply betraying my grandfather and his project, Joanna, me--everyone. She was never really missing, she was with the Scorpion ex-agents this whole time. But _why_? Why is she doing this _now_?

"We have to hide," D says. "If Bowser finds out that I'm still trying to get out of the underground Scorpion and that I'm helping you guys, he'll definitely be out to get me."

"What about Skye?" I hear myself asking.

"I texted her as soon as I saw Bowser's truck pull into the driveway. I told her to stay at the motel and don't go anywhere."

The doorbell rings again.

" _Harper? Jo_?" It's Mom's voice. She sounds sweet and innocent--too sweet and innocent. Fake.

"H-How long has Mom been here?" Jo asks.

"Only a few minutes." D replies. "But they know you two are here. Bowser doesn't know where I go outside of Scorpion affairs."

"I know where we can hide," I say. "Jo, go to the panic room and make sure our backpacks are still there. I'll get our suitcases." I command, and Joanna leaves. I sigh. This was not part of the plan.

I grab our suitcases from my bedroom and take them down to the panic room, my stomach uneasy. D follows. I close and lock the door behind us, and the escape door is ajar. I urge Joanna and D to follow me down the multiple sets of stairs and to the jet. "Woah..." Joanna gapes at everything. As we walk, I finally see what's on the long rows of steel shelves in the warehouse-like space. Boxes, dozens of them, all labeled. _Handguns, canned goods, bottled water, distress signals, earpieces, hacking chips, bullets_. Where did all this come from? Has this been here since Jo and I were born? Before then? What else is being kept from us?

Mavis is right, the jet isn't big (what did I expect?), but it looks cozy. Just standing next to it makes my head spin; this is crazy, this whole week has been crazy. I pull out the jet's key from a tiny compartment inside my backpack and unlock the jet. All of the jet's lights turn on, and the oval-shaped door slides open vertically. Mavis is correct again, this is just like a modern, fancy hotel room. "You know how to fly this thing, right?" I ask D, tossing him the key to the jet.

"Of course. Part of my training was learning how to operate planes." D confirms, already discovering the cockpit. The room we just entered has beige walls, small circle lights in the ceiling, beige carpet. There's a fancy kitchenette in the corner, a black leather couch, and a flat screen TV bolted to the wall. The oval-shaped windows are tinted. There are two open doors to the left of the one we came in from leading to the bedroom and bathroom. I set the suitcases down on the ground with the backpacks. Jo sits down on the couch. She looks dazed. Then I realize she's crying.

I sit down beside my twin sister, but she looks away. My heart clenches. I don't like seeing her like this. "Jo, it's okay--"

"This isn't okay, Harper." she cries, her voice wobbling. "I want to see Mom. I want her to be here, with us."

"Jo, listen," I tell her, taking her hands. "I want to see Mom too, but something's wrong. I told myself that she was just missing, that none of this was really happening, but if I kept thinking that instead of getting answers, who knows where we would be right now. We have to face the truth, okay? We have to get out of here, just until we can figure out what's going on--"

The escape door slams shut with a loud _clash_. I peer out the window to see Skye. She casually walks down to the jet, a black tote bag slung over one shoulder. I let her in the jet, dumbfounded.

"What...? H-How did you...?" I stammer, but she only reveals a sly smile, her blue eyes sparkling. Skye sets her tote bag down with the rest of the luggage.

"Don't worry, I just drove D's truck to the intersection of Verdure Avenue and Woods Lane, and parked it in the woods. I walked up a dirt path that led me to the back of this street and used my hacking chip to open the porch door. I figured you all were down here when I saw some guy in a fur coat and a woman in all black at your door."

I take out my cell phone again. The house is still on lockdown. I open the security camera that's in the peephole and turn on the audio. Edward Bowser III and Mom are talking to one another.

" _I can 't be out in the open like this_." Bowser says angrily. " _Apparently my fake cop plan wasn 't enough to get them. I'll call some of my tech guys to get into the house's system_." I watch him pull out his cell phone and type swiftly into it. " _They 'll be here in a few minutes. Let's wait in the car_." And at that, he and Mom get back into the gray Chevy Suburban.

My hands curl into fists, infuriated. Why is Mom listening to _him_? Why is she doing this?

D reappears from the cockpit, anxious. "We have to leave _right now_. Once Edward Bowser's tech people get here, they can paralyze the jet's system and even the entire house, and we'll be trapped."

"So now how is this going to work?" I say. "The whole town is going to see us take off."

"No they won't; your house is in the middle of nowhere." D states. "I was taking a look at the cockpit and some of the jet's parts, and thankfully this thing is designed to be as silent as a mouse. Your mother and Bowser will see us, yes, but once we take off, they won't be able to stop us."

I take deep breaths to help clear my head so I can think clearly. "Alright." This is happening, _right now_.

Skye and I sit down on the couch next to Joanna, and the three of us observe the peephole's security camera on my phone. There are three seatbelts in between the cushions, and we fasten them.

# Chapter 7

H **ARPER**

D closes the door to the cockpit. There's a window in the door's center, so I can see him fasten his seat belt, press a few buttons, and put on a bulky headset. I can barely hear Mavis's voice, too, assisting him.

Suddenly, a massive bright light shines into the escape room and onto the jet, followed by a creaking sound--something's opening. When my eyes finally adjust, I see it. A rusted steel ramp has unfolded right onto the land behind our house. The jet rolls forward.

It accelerates faster and faster up the ramp, and my stomach flip-flops when we reach the sky. Out the window, I watch Edward Bowser III spring out of his car. Mom quickly follows. The last thing I see is them staring up at the sky in shock.

* * *

"We can go to a different agency or to an FBI branch," Skye is saying. Joanna had retreated to the bedroom as soon as D announced that we're on a steady, straight-line route.

"How many FBI projects like Genesis are in the U.S.?" I ask, messing with the TV remote.

"Ones that the president doesn't know about? Only a few." Skye stands and retrieves her cell phone from her tote bag. The icons and font on the screen are slightly different. I realize she probably hacked into it somehow, so whoever's searching for her can't track her down. That would make sense. "Thanks to my four years' worth of elite assassin training, I can help us lay low. I'm pretty sure D knows how to hide out, too, since he's been an ex-agent for years now. The FBI branch that's the most disguised is in..." But her voice trails off.

"Where?" I say.

"...Cape May, New Jersey."

"Is something wrong with that place?"

"No...no, not at all. It's just...nevermind. I'll tell D to fly there."

"How long will it take?"

"We should be there in an hour or so. It's 12:30 now." Skye goes into the cockpit. Once I finally get the TV to work, I go over to the mini refrigerator and open it. It's practically overflowing with fancy drinks, cereal bars, bottled water, fruits, canned and boxed goods. I grab two skinny bottles of sparkling water and a few cereal bars, and head into the bedroom. Jo could definitely use something to drink. But before I can open the door, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I set the food down on the couch and take it out.

**_Mom_** _: When did you find out about the jet? Where are you going with it?_

**_Mom_** _: Please call me._

My heart clenches. I yearn to answer her, to tell her everything that's happened to me and Joanna in the past forty-eight hours, because she's my _mother_ , but I know I can't. Not until I find out the truth. About her, our family--everyone and everything. And until then, I cannot trust her, nor talk to her, at all.

I grab the food and my hand grips the doorknob, so hard my knuckle turns from brown to white, and I breathe out through my nostrils, forcing my muscles to relax, before I open the door. The room is small, the beige queen size bed takes up almost all of the space, with a wide black dresser drawer, two black nightstands, a closet door in the corner, and a window. Jo is laying down on the bed.

"We won't be flying for long," I tell her. "We're flying to an FBI branch in New Jersey."

But Joanna doesn't respond. She's snoring.

I delete Mom's texts, throw my phone into my backpack, and collapse beside my sister, the soothing hum of the jet instantly putting me to sleep.

* * *

When I awake, the humming of the jet is ten times louder.

I sit up warily. I stretch and leave the bedroom to find Skye sitting on the couch, fiddling with her fingers anxiously. "Hey, what's wrong?" I ask, sitting down next to her. "Are we getting ready to land?"

"Yeah. D found a strip to land on. He's lowering the jet in five minutes." she replies quickly.

"Great...Are you alright? Are you scared of flying or something?"

"No." she says, but she doesn't continue.

"Well, what is it, then?"

Skye sighs. " _This_ is where I came from, an orphanage in Cape May, New Jersey. I was 'recruited' when I was thirteen. Whatever Genesis is doing with it, I want to find out. And I want to see if my birth parents are still alive and living there."

"Oh, I didn't know...I can help you. Since you're helping me and my sister, the least I can do is return the favor by helping you."

"Thank you, Harper, but I want to do this alone."

"Sure, if that's what you want."

Suddenly, light turbulence sways us back and forth. Skye peers out the window. "I see the strip of asphalt. We're here." The jet gradually swoops downward, making my stomach flip-flop again, and I grip the side of the couch. Skye doesn't seem bothered. We keep going down and down, until the jet roughly scrapes the ground and slows to a stop, and everything goes quiet. A few minutes later, D emerges from the cockpit.

"Well," he says. "we successfully made it to FBI Branch 109. The weather was clear, and we still have a full tank of fuel. All we have to do now is tell them our situation and ask to stay. But, once we explain Scorpion's plan to destroy Genesis, they'll surely allow us to hide out here." D makes sure his hood is still secured over his head before walking over to the window and looking out of it. It looks like we landed in the middle of nowhere.

"Get Joanna and all of your things." D orders. "Skye, do you know how to get to the entrance of Branch 109? Do you have any Genesis ID?"

"Yeah." Skye stands and types something into her phone. "I can lead the way."

She grabs her black tote bag and follows D out of the jet, and I go into the bedroom to wake up Jo. "Jo...Jo, wake up. We're here."

Joanna stirs and squints up at me. "Did we land?" she asks, tiredly standing from the bed.

"Yeah. Come on, we have to go." We grab our backpacks and put them on, leaving our suitcases in the jet, and we meet D and Skye a few feet away. I press a button on my key to lock the jet. Hopefully nothing will happen to it; it's kind of out in the open.

"The entrance is forty feet northwest. This way..." SKYE says, using her phone as a GPS and holding it up to the sky. We walk deeper into vast grasslands, the yellow grass and weeds getting taller until they reach our stomachs. The air is chilly. Soon, Skye stops. I look behind us to see that the jet is nowhere in sight.

"Zero feet. We're here." she states, her voice merely a whisper. But, where's _here_?

Then I see it. A metal rectangle-shaped bunker sticks out of the ground like a sore thumb. Skye walks up to its chipping red door and knocks on it in a sequence--a code. The door has a rectangular view slit reminds me of what underground clubs have in movies, and it slides open in a split second, deep brown eyes staring back at us. The person on the other side doesn't say a word.

"FBI Branch 109?" Skye says, though she sounds uncertain, unconfident.

The menacing eyes flicker. "Who are you? How did you get here?" the voice hisses.

"We're from the Genesis project," Skye adds, motioning to D, Joanna, and me. "I'm from their Elite Training Program, too."

"Let me see your Genesis ID."

Skye digs through her tote bag and retrieves a laminated card. She shows it to the guard.

"Hm. Alright. You can come in." And at that, the eyes are gone, the view slit snapping shut. The door opens.

Skye leads us inside. We walk down steep, dirty stairs, then down a long white hallway with bright lights in the ceiling and a white marble floor so clean we can see our hazed reflections in it. The hall is narrow; we can barely walk side by side. The person guarding the door is a skinny man with pale skin, a scruffy red beard, and large, jumpy eyes. He wears khaki pants and a black T-shirt with the FBI logo in the top corner. A walkie-talkie is clipped to his pants, an earpiece on his right ear. A gun sits deep in his back pocket, phone in the other.

Soon we reach a huge door that looks like it would be used for a vault or safe. It's made of thick steel, and has a silver wheel in the middle, with a glowing green screen on the side. The guard pushes past us and quickly types in the passcode. We hear two loud clicks, and the wheel spins into a blur until the door is about halfway open. "Your break isn't till two, Oscar," a voice on the other side calls, but the guard--Oscar--enters anyway. The rest of us follow, and we bump into a tall man. He's pale with dark brown hair, in a beige uniform with all kinds of badges and accolades on his chest. On his silver nameplate reads _CHIEF JOHN MACRYAN_.

"Oscar!" Chief John MacRyan exclaims. "Are you out of your mind? Who are these people?"

"One of them has a Genesis ID card. The Genesis Project is one of our partners, right?"

Mr. MacRyan looks at me and Joanna for a long time. "Aren't you Chief Ronaldo Cambridge's granddaughters?" he asks. We nod. "But...how did you two get here...?"

"Have you noticed any changes in Genesis's day-to-day activities?" D speaks up. "Are they still in full contact with your branch?"

"No...?" Mr. MacRyan replies, squinting at D. "Who are you?"

D takes off his hood without hesitation. "It's me, Chief MacRyan."

* * *

" _Demetrius_!" Mr. MacRyan exclaims happily. _That 's your name?_ I think, but then I realize I've said it out loud.

" _That 's_ your name?" I say to D. " _Demetrius_?"

"Demetrius Xi, son of one of the greatest assassins who ever lived, Don Lee Xi." Chief MacRyan explains. He pulls D--Demetrius, I guess--into a hug, smiling wide. D's scrunched up face says he's not very fond of hugs. "It's such an honor to see you again, son. What are you doing here?"

"It's a long story," D says, trying unsuccessfully to get out of Mr. MacRyan's hug. "But now, we need your help. Something bad is going to happen to the Genesis Project."

"What do you mean, something bad?" Chief John MacRyan takes a step back, letting D out of his hug. His face grows serious. "Everyone to my office. Oscar, you're still on duty till two."

* * *

When you first enter FBI Branch 109, the main level is nothing but boring gray office cubicles and a cafeteria. But when you step inside the elevator that's tucked at the very end of the dark hallway, that all changes. The elevator is shiny and white and can hold at least thirty people. There are five underground levels that you can go to with a push of a gold button:

_Main Level_

_U1: Training Rooms_

_U2: Weapons & Gadgets Center_

_U3: Residence Hall_

_U4: Technology & Vehicles Center_

_U5: Planning Center_

Mr. MacRyan takes us down to the Planning Center--floor U5. When the elevator doors open, I see an armed woman at the end of the long, wide hall. She wears a gray pantsuit and hat, black sunglasses hiding her eyes. The walls and ceiling are dark gray, the floor bare concrete, the lights above us dim. There are three doors on each side of us.

"This is where most of our plotting and meetings happen." Mr. MacRyan says, leading us to the last door on the right. He and the silent guard exchange nods, and he removes something from his neck--his ID card--and a thin red laser scans it, going up and down the card two times. The door beeps, unlocked. "These walls are soundproof, bulletproof. Twelve inches of pure stone." Mr. MacRyan goes on as the five of us gather inside the vacant planning room. It's not very spacious, but can fit eight chairs on each side of the big glass table that's in the middle of the room, with a large dominant black leather chair up front. A big flat screen TV is up on the wall, a few file cabinets and a water fountain sit in the corner. "Have a seat, everyone. Tell me, what brought all of you down here of all places?"

Joanna and Skye sit on either side of me, and D sits across from us, hood back on. Mr. MacRyan caters us all small cups of water. "Thank you." I say gratefully, just now noticing how dry my throat was. Drinking the water makes me feel much better.

"Harper, do you want to tell Chief MacRyan everything that's happened to you and your sister so far?" D asks me.

"S-Sure..." I set my cup down on the table.

"If you don't feel comfortable talking right now, it's okay. Not many sixteen-year-olds are in situations like this, even the ones who have been in the FBI business their whole lives. Chief, do you remember the Scorpion Project?" D says, all business now.

"Yes," Mr. MacRyan says slowly, sitting in the big leather chair before us.

"Well, the Scorpion ex-agents have been laying low, plotting, observing. Their next full attempt is in two weeks. Do you have files or records of them here?" D says.

"I'm afraid not. Only Genesis and an FBI branch outside of Pittsburgh have that stuff, and I'm not sure if they still have undercover cops and spies keeping an eye on their illegal activities. My branch isn't even close to there, and I have my own problems to deal with. How do you know so much about the ex-agents since the remaining agents rebelled?" Mr. MacRyan says to D, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table.

D sighs. "I was...one of the ones who decided to join Edward Bowser III."

Mr. MacRyan's eyebrows raise again, his face growing suspicious. " _You_ , Demetrius? With _him_? Why?"

"Well, Bowser still thinks I'm on his side, but he'll catch on that I'm still trying to escape very soon, if he hasn't already."

"So this is why you're all here? You want to stop the attack?" Mr. MacRyan questions. "There isn't much my branch can do."

"Not exactly. Harper and Joanna need shelter and protection; Edward Bowser III is after them for whatever reason. And soon he'll realize that I'm still trying to get out of Scorpion, and will no doubt send someone to kill me, if he hasn't already. And the ETP is searching for Skye as we speak." D explains. "Can we lay low here? Just until we get things straightened out?"

"I see. I never liked the new version of the ETP...But, why isn't Harper and Joanna's mother protecting them? Unless..." Mr. MacRyan's eyes widen with realization. "Well, of course you can stay here! This is the perfect place to lay low; we operate fully underground." Mr. MacRyan exclaims.

"Thank you for letting us stay." D says sincerely.

"So, Miss Cambridge," Mr. MacRyan turns to me. "What happened?"

* * *

By the time I finish telling Chief John MacRyan everything that's happened, starting from when I got D's letter, Joanna is snoring, Skye is dozing off, and D is...I can't tell. His hood is still covering half his face. Did I really take that long?

"Um, do you have the time, by any chance?" I ask. Mr. MacRyan checks his phone and rubs his eyes tiredly. "Six-thirty. You all can stay in the residence hall on the third floor, that's where most of my agents and employees live. We can talk more tomorrow afternoon, perhaps have a private meeting; I have a busy schedule right now."

"Sounds good." I stand, and everyone copies me in unison.

The five of us take the elevator up two floors. When the elevator doors open, I see that the residence hall is more elegant and warmer than the other floors. The walls are wallpaper: a red background with shiny gold flowers and dark green vines. The floor is brown carpet. People are chatting and going from place to place idly, all wearing plain, simple clothing. We seem to be standing in a lobby area. There is a wide hallway to our left, to our right, and one right behind a front desk.

Chief John MacRyan steps in front of us as we take in the scene. "Luxury apartments are to your left. 1 through 10 are single bedrooms, 11 through 20 are two and three bedrooms. Lounges and places to get basic necessities are to your right, and straight ahead is the cafe, which serves everything from breakfast to dinner and is open 24/7. If you have any questions or if you need to reach me right away, ask any one of the agents on duty. Miriam," he turns to the woman at the front desk. "Please get my guests settled. I need to rest." Mr. MacRyan says and heads back to the elevator. In just a few seconds, he's gone.

"Would you like a three-bedroom suite? There's one left." Miriam says, typing on her computer. She wears a plain gray T-shirt and khakis, just like a few other people walking around.

"I think we all need to stay together." Skye speaks up. "You and Joanna can take the first bedroom, and D and I can take the second and third."

"Perfect." I say. "We'll go with the three-bedroom."

"All right. You will be assigned to apartment twenty, the very last one. Do you each want a copy of the key?" Miriam says.

"Definitely." I say. Miriam gives us each a little gold key, the number 20 engraved in their centers. We turn left down the hall. It's much longer than I anticipated. Soon enough we reach our assigned apartment. I unlock the door, and we all step inside. "Wow," I whisper. The sleek, modern apartment is complete with a full kitchen, living room, dining table, and four doors. One is open to reveal a grand bathroom.

Skye and D claim the rooms they want, and Jo and I go into the unpicked one, putting our backpacks beside the dresser drawer. It's not until I've collapsed on the soft queen size bed when I realize how exhausted I am.

But tomorrow, I have work to do.

* * *

I wake up to total darkness.

Not remembering where I am or what had happened, I literally spring out of bed and look for a window to look out of. Then, yesterday's events start rolling in my head. _Mom and Bowser...Jet...Escape...FBI Branch 109...Underground_...There are no windows underground. I stop, take a deep breath, and sit down on the edge of the bed. How long have I been asleep? Probably not long enough.

I reach out to the nightstand and feel a lamp, and turn it on. A yellow glow illuminates most of the room. The room I'm in is modern and clean, the air cozy and warm despite the November chill outside. Two backpacks lean against the dresser drawer next to the the door. I hear heavy snoring, and turn to see my twin sister fast asleep. Small beads of sweat coat her forehead, and her skin is blotchy and red. Still sick. This place has to have some kind of medical clinic or a few doctors roaming around, right?

I find my phone and turn it on. It's on 82%, and I have four new notifications. The time reads 7:36 a.m. I can get a few more hours of sleep before I look for Mr. MacRyan in the afternoon and tell him my plan. I dismiss the notifications before going back to sleep. They're all from Mom.

If the stealthy plan I've been thinking about goes wrong, who knows what will happen to me and my sister? Who knows what Scorpion will do to us? And if my mom really is a traitor, what will _she_ do?

* * *

I wake up again three hours later, at eleven-thirty. I find Jo in the decent sized living room, watching TV and taking her medicines on the couch. "We have cable underground?" I ask, adjusting my light pink hoodie and jeans I'd changed into after showering.

"Apparently," Jo says, her voice hoarse. "but there's only four channels."

"We're supposed to be in hiding, so that's good enough. How you feeling?" I ask, standing beside her.

"Better. I think I just had a bad cold or something."

"I hope so. I don't know if there's a medical clinic down here or somewhere you could've gone to if you kept getting worse."

"Where are you going?" Joanna looks me up and down skeptically.

"Oh, uh, just giving myself a tour of the branch." I lie. Jo can usually tell when I'm lying versus telling the truth, but today she doesn't seem to pick up on anything. "We can all meet up with Chief MacRyan later, maybe after we have dinner. Are D and Skye still here?"

"I don't know, their doors are closed."

"Alright. I'm getting breakfast at the cafe. I'll be back later. Text me if anything's wrong." I make sure my phone is in my hoodie pocket along with the apartment key before I leave.

The halls are empty. I walk down to the cafe, and I'm the only one here. I scan the menu above my head and order French toast and hashbrowns with orange juice, and wait at a tiny circular table for two. Just minutes later, a plate of steaming hot food is set in front of me.

"Do I need to pay you or something?" I say, but the waiter shakes his head and disappears back into the kitchen.

**SKYE**

As soon as I awake, I bound into action.

As I wash up, I realize I didn't have any pajamas, that I wore the same clothes to bed. I can't get what I need looking and smelling like this; my hair is all over the place from being a wild sleeper, my sweater smells of light sweat, my jeans wrinkled. The time on my phone reads 6:22 a.m. I pocket the items I need and slip out of the apartment.

I stop at a clothing kiosk in the right wing of the residence hall, and ask for a new set of clothes. There are multiple kiosks and tables set up throughout the wing, selling all kinds of different things. There aren't many people here.

"Here." an elderly woman at the clothing kiosk says. She hands me a sheet of laminated paper to read.

_Items:_

_Long-sleeve Shirt -- $15_

_Short-sleeve Shirt -- $10_

_Long Pants -- $25_

_Shorts -- $10_

_Tank Top -- $5_

_Tennis Shoes -- $40_

_Sizes: S through XXXL_

_Colors: Gray Dark Blue Blue White Black_

"I'll buy a dark blue tank top and black long pants. Medium size." I say.

"Cash or ID card?" I hand her my Genesis ID card that's tucked in my back pocket. I see a table of small satchels in the corner of my eye. That can hold my personal belongings perfectly, without drawing too much attention to myself.

"What brings you to New Jersey at this time of year?" the woman asks, scanning my card before handing it back to me. About a year ago, I'd hacked into my Genesis ID card and transmitted money into it. I don't remember how much money I put on it, but apparently it's enough to get me new clothes from this place. Normally, agents just download money and information into their cards by a private bank or they have their Branch do it, but I like to do things differently. Clandestinely.

"Uh--apprenticeship?" I reply, praying this woman believes me.

"Oh, that's nice." the woman hands me a clear bag and my card.

"Thank you." I walk over to the table with the satchels. They come in all different colors and sizes, and I pick the smallest one. I run my hands along its rough surface. It's made of real brown leather. I purchase it and duck into the nearest bathroom.

I slide the new tank top over my head. It's a little too form-fitting for my liking, but it'll have to do. The pants are perfect, and I've gotten used to my black Vans being a size too big. I finger-comb my hair and pull it into a low ponytail, and place my old sweater and jeans in the clear bag. I put the contents of my back pocket into my new satchel: cell phone, Genesis identification card, apartment key, hacking chip, flash drive. Being an ex-assassin-in-training and a successful sneak in an orphanage, I know how to get away with looking like I don't have anything.

I drop off the clear bag at the apartment, which is still dark and silent, and go to the elevator. I step inside and press the gold button: _U4: Technology & Vehicles Center_. Although it is only one floor above me, the single minute it takes to get to the fourth floor feels like it's in super slow motion. The more I think about what I'm about to do, the more anxious and jittery I feel. It feels as if a hand is gripping my heart and squeezing it, causing my lungs to constrict. I have to take deep breaths to keep myself steady, and force my mind to clear so I can pull this off flawlessly. I stand up straight, adjust my satchel at my side, and my training kicks into gear, along with the self-taught skills I'd sharpened before coming to Genesis.

The elevator doors open smoothly and silently, and I step out. The Technology and Vehicles Center is oddly empty and dim, despite it being six-thirty in the morning. When will the agents arrive for their work? I can easily tap into the system and read all the schedules to find out.

This floor is packed with all kinds of modern electronics and gadgets and vehicles, spanning out dozens of yards in every direction. To me, this is a heaven. I look around for any hint of security cameras. The walls and ceiling are pure gray stone, with no cracks or crevices for any type of device, the floor sparkling black granite. But there could easily be cameras, lasers, sensors, disguised in the metal desks, the Hummers, even beneath the floor. Either way, I need to be alert--and quick.

My eyes land upon an open door, and I step through it without thinking. The room has rows and rows of black keyboards accompanied by the largest computer monitors I've ever seen, much bigger than the ones at Genesis headquarters. I close the door behind me, and run to the very last computer. My body practically buzzes with exhilaration as I sit down and let my fingers touch the cool keys. I've never touched technology so...new before. With this kind of tech, I can do anything I'd like. The room has one rectangular window that gives me a perfect view of the elevator and some of the Center. If any agents come before I'm finished, I can hide. But this should only take five minutes, max.

I tap the Enter button. The monitor's screen turns navy blue, followed by a white box with red text.

_Welcome back, Agent K. Andrews._

_Please enter your ID number and password below._

_ID: ___________________

_Password: ______________

I type the hacking sequence I know by heart, and the monitor beeps twice before it unlocks. I'm in.

I find the database for FBI Branch 109. Every single piece of information the Branch has ever obtained is right at my fingertips. I click on the search engine. My heart beats wildly in my chest as I type in the name:

_Delilah Anne MacGabhann._

# Chapter 8

S **KYE**

My hands tremble as I retrieve my white 20-gigabyte flash drive from my satchel and plug it into the computer. I drag my file to the corner of the screen so I can look at both the search results and my flash drive.

The first result reads: _Niamh Anne MacGabhann: ID Card_

I found exactly what I've been hoping for--and fearing. My birth mother.

The second search result is longer. If I click on it, a digital version of my own Genesis ID card will pop up:

_Delilah A. MacGabhann -- Genesis project; Elite Training Program- Assassin (Daughter of Russia-America Embassy Agents Niamh MacGabhann & Erich Stanislav)_

I click on my mother's name, and it brings up a digital version of her own identification card.

She looks just like me. Raven-black hair that's even longer than mine, pale skin, tons of freckles, muscular, but her eyes are a regular brown. Her information isn't what I had expected. Born in Russia, has dual citizenship in the United States and Russia, works for the Russia-America Embassy and FBI Branch 228 in Albany, New York, and...there's a death date in red below her date of birth. She's been dead for three weeks.

I copy and paste my mother's ID card into my flash drive as a PDF file. I go back to the search results page, unable to control my quivering bottom lip nor my glossy eyes, but I need to keep focused, I can think about my mother later. There are two results left. _Article: Beloved Embassy Agent Found Dead in Politician 's Mansion,_ and _Erich D. Stanislav: ID Card_.

Just as I copy and paste my father's identification card, the elevator door opens.

* * *

My body freezes in shock for half a second. I force myself to remain calm and focused as I hurry to transfer the article and turn off the computer. I gently wiggle out my flash drive, stuff it into my satchel, and drop to the ground, getting out of the window's view. The chair squeaks under my shifting weight.

" _Who 's there_?" a voice booms, echoing off the walls. I hold my breath as I scan the room for an exit. My well-trained ears hear heavy footsteps begin to walk, and I grow panicky. I spot a door opposite of the one I came in through, tall and white. It could lead somewhere, right?

I army crawl across the room to the door. I don't hear footsteps anymore. I reach up and grasp the silver doorknob. The door is unlocked. I open it just enough for my body to slide through, and the door shuts behind me with a faint _click_.

**HARPER**

I decide to wait to tell Mr. MacRyan about my plan. At the end of our meeting in the afternoon, I can pull him aside and hope he has time to talk to me privately.

I spend the day with my sister in the apartment. She seems to be getting better. We watch TV, discover room service and order a basket of fries and fish sandwiches and cream sodas for lunch, and just relax. Jo takes more of her medicines now that she doesn't have an empty stomach. We do not let ourselves think about Mom and her possible betrayal. We do not let ourselves think about the ex-agents from the shutdown Scorpion Project, Edward Bowser III, our house, Aunt V, all the things that were kept from us all our lives--well, at least I'm not thinking about those things. I don't know what Jo's thinking. Soon enough it's almost three o'clock. Now is a good time to go find Chief MacRyan.

I stand from the couch and knock on D's door. "Come in," a tired voice calls. I take one step into D's bedroom. He sits on the edge of his bed, slouched over his cell phone that lies his hands. His face is scrunched up, concentrating hard on whatever is on the screen. D isn't wearing his hood, and I can see his face again. He wears a plain black T-shirt with the same faded jeans and black tennis shoes. His thin black hair is stringy and wet, most likely from a shower.

"What happened to your dad?" I find myself asking. "MacRyan said he was an assassin--is that true?"

D glances at me from his phone. "Yes..." he says cautiously.

"Well, what happened to him?"

"He died just like a lot of other assassins did: a mission gone wrong."

"How come you aren't an assassin? Why'd you join the ex-agents?" I press.

"Some people don't want to follow in their parents' footsteps, Harper. But I didn't want to be a part of something like the underground Scorpion at first."

"Well, how come--"

"Aren't we going to see MacRyan later?"

"Oh, yeah, we are. That's what I came here to tell you. I guess I got sidetracked." D nods and grabs his beloved hoodie from beside him. "Is Skye still here? Have you seen her?"

"I haven't seen her since last night." D replies. "Maybe she's still sleeping?"

"I hope so. I want to hurry and find MacRyan just in case he forgot about our meeting." I say, walking over to Skye's bedroom. Her door is ajar, and I open it some more. The room is dark and empty.

"She's not here." I say. We're all in the living room now, ready to go.

"I'll give you her number so we can both try to reach her." D suggests.

"Okay." I say. I receive D's text message and put Skye's phone number in my contacts, then I text her:

_skye, it 's harper._

_we 're going to find macryan for our meeting. where r u?_

I wait about ten minutes for a response, but she never answers.

**SKYE**

"I thought you said the sensors detected something?" the voice says angrily. I can just barely hear it in here.

I realize I've backed myself into a storage room or a janitor's closet of some kind; the room is no bigger than a closet, with a shelf lined with chemicals and cleaning products. It's getting hotter by the minute, and it's pitch black in here. I don't think I can sit in here much longer, but I do not have a choice.

"What did you say? Hold on, I'm on my way back up." the voice says, and moments later I hear the elevator doors open and close. Then everything is silent, the only sound I hear is my own shallow breathing.

**HARPER**

"I think we should go without her." I say.

"Where could she be?" Joanna says.

"She has to be somewhere. Maybe Chief can find her in the security room when we see him." D says.

"Yeah, she couldn't have gone far." I add as we all leave the apartment. When we arrive at the elevator and step inside, I press the first button, Main Level. The ground beneath us shifts, and we project upward.

"What are we going to talk to Mr. MacRyan about?" Jo asks me.

"I don't know exactly. Maybe a plan to stop Scorpion, and to see if we can get the other FBI branches and agencies in Pennsylvania involved. And hopefully we can find out if Aunt Veronica is okay." I reply. Joanna nods, her eyes cast down. The elevator doors open, and the four of us step out.

"Where would MacRyan be...?" I ask myself, walking past the vault door we'd entered just hours ago, past the dull office cubicles where agents are busy typing and talking and analyzing, past the empty gray cafeteria. At the end of the main level is a door with a gold sign: CHIEF'S OFFICE.

I place my ear on the door to try to hear what's going on. Shuffling papers, ringing phones, and...Chief John MacRyan's voice. His voice is muffled, it sounds like he's on the phone. Should I knock? Should I wait? We have time. We have nearly fourteen days until Scorpion attacks, but who knows what they're really planning on doing. Before I can make a decision, the door opens, and Mr. MacRyan is standing before me.

"Good afternoon, Miss Cambridge." he says tiredly, exiting his office and closing the door behind him. He glances past me to see Joanna and D. "What are you all doing up here?"

"Can we talk?" I say. "About Scorpion's attack?"

"No. There's nothing my branch can do about that situation. I've already called two FBI branches that are the closest to Pittsburgh and told them what's going on. I haven't told them about you hiding here."

"But, there has to be something we can do--something _I_ can do. We can't just let this happen to my family's agency. Not when we have so much time to take Scorpion down once and for all--"

"Look, if you want to save Genesis, you're going to have to go back to Pennsylvania and team up with their branches. I have my own problems to deal with--"

" _Mr. MacRyan_!" a woman in a white button-down shirt and gray pencil skirt rushes up to Mr. MacRyan and hands him a paper. "There's been a change in the schedule. The boats will be at the docks tonight instead of this weekend."

MacRyan takes one look at the paper and grimaces, handing it back to the secretary. "The shipments aren't even close to being ready. Excuse me, Harper, but I have to go deal with this." He walks around us and disappears with the secretary.

"But, Mr. MacRyan, I..." I stammer, but he doesn't hear me.

"I think we should just let it go, Harper." Joanna speaks up. "Mr. MacRyan is right; there's nothing he can do about Scorpion destroying Genesis. This is out of his power--our parents kept this a secret from us for a reason. Let's just focus on finding Skye."

"I agree." D adds sadly. "Scorpion is now a growing underground circuit with deadly agendas. Not even I know what the ex-agents fully capable of. For now, let's just find Skye and take a day to think about what we want to do."

I sigh, a bit too dramatically. "Fine. But MacRyan's gone. How are we going to get to the security cameras to look around headquarters?"

"Just ask an agent." Jo shrugs. "Tell them Skye is missing and isn't answering her phone."

"Alright." I look around for any agents. The secretary Mr. MacRyan was just talking to is a few feet away, typing quickly on her phone. "Come on." I urge Joanna and D to walk with me over to her.

I clear my throat. "Um, excuse me?" The secretary glares at me with one raised manicured eyebrow. She's a bit shorter than me, with tanned skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. "Could you help us?"

"If you want to see Mr. MacRyan, he's not available today." the secretary says bluntly.

"I don't think we need to see him," I say. "We need to get into the security room; our friend is missing and she isn't answering her phone."

"I can't let you in Mr. MacRyan's office." the secretary replies. "That room is for authorized personnel only."

"We don't need to do anything serious, just take a look at the cameras." I say, getting annoyed. "Besides, we're MacRyan's guests, and this an emergency."

"Mr. MacRyan doesn't do guests. And I'm not letting you in his office." the secretary quips, and walks away.

"Now what?" I say.

"We don't need her to get into MacRyan's office." D states.

"What do you mean?" I ask, but he doesn't answer. He walks over to Mr. MacRyan's office door and kneels down on one knee. He wriggles something out of his hoodie sleeve--a bobby pin--and maneuvers it into the lock of the doorknob. He takes the bobby pin out and slides it back into his hoodie sleeve, and opens the door.

"We can't go in without an agent. We'll get in big trouble if MacRyan catches us in his office; he might even kick us out. Where will we go then?" I say.

"Well, let's hurry before he catches us." D says, stepping into the room. Joanna follows.

" _Jo_." I protest.

"Come on, Harper. This may be our only chance to look for Skye." Joanna calls from inside the office. I sigh and follow them inside, closing the door behind us.

# Chapter 9

S **KYE**

Everything is closing in around me.

I don't know how long I've been in here, but it's getting harder and harder to breathe. The air smells of chemicals. The Tech & Vehicles Center has been empty since I trapped myself in here; I haven't detected any footsteps, breathing, the elevator operating. Everything is silent, even my own hushed breathing.

Do Harper, Joanna, and D know I'm gone? Are they looking for me? Are they still resting in the apartment?

I wonder if they even care that I'm gone.

**HARPER**

The inside of Chief John MacRyan's office is modern and organized--so organized it looks like it's never been touched. The office is huge. There's a wide black-stained wooden desk in the center of the room, the wall behind his swivel chair lined with shelves and bookcases, file cabinets and an impressive fish tank sit on the opposite side, and a vending machine is in the corner. A massive computer monitor rests on the edge of MacRyan's desk with a white keyboard and wireless mouse. That _has_ to be hosting the security feed.

D walks over to the vending machine, uses his bobby pin to screw with the money collector, and swipes a bottle of red Mountain Dew from the dispenser, still ice-cold. He opens it and guzzles it down.

"D!" I hiss. "Stop breaking into things! We need to find Skye and get out of here, _now_."

"Can I have a drink, too?" Joanna asks D.

"No! MacRyan's definitely going to know something's not right when he comes back..." But Jo nor D seem to hear me. D steals a green Mountain Dew for Jo, and they enjoy their unlawful beverages together in the corner. I huff and sit down at MacRyan's fancy desk. In the corner of my eye are three picture frames, and I look at them. The first one is no doubt a young, twenty-something John MacRyan, posing in a blue Navy uniform with a few other people. The second one is of MacRyan getting married, carrying his beaming wife in his arms down the aisle. His wife is black, and they both wear Navy hats with their wedding attire. The third is of MacRyan, his wife, and four kids that all look the same, standing in what seems to be a park. His kids have light brown skin and curly auburn hair.

I turn my attention to the computer monitor. The security feed is already up on the screen, thirty cameras numbered and titled. I look at all of the screens over and over again, but I can't detect Skye's raven-black hair anywhere. I see a rewind button along with a few other buttons on the bottom left corner of the screen, and I click it.

I rewind to 6:00 a.m. today and double click on _Camera 15: Residence Hall_ , biting my bottom lip in apprehension. The window enlarges to fill the entire monitor as a panoramic video. I can see everything, the cafe, the hallways, except for the inside of the apartments.

I begin to watch. At 6:22, I see someone leave our apartment. Skye. I watch her as she goes to some kind of desk and get a bag of clothes. She then goes to another desk and gets a leather bag, and goes into a bathroom. I wait. Moments later she reemerges, this time wearing a tank top and leggings, her new bag at her side. She hurries into the elevator, and I hurry to switch to _Camera 2: Elevator_. She is still alone. She stops at level U4--the Technology & Vehicles Center--so I switch to the fourth camera to watch her there. She sits down at a computer, and I zoom in on her. She shakily retrieves a tiny object--a flash drive--out of her bag and puts it in the computer. She spends a few minutes clicking and reading before the elevator door opens. She scrambles to a nearby door and closes herself behind it. I fast-forward to the current time. She hasn't come out.

Where does that door lead? What was Skye doing? Is she okay?

"Guys," I call. "I know where Skye is, she's on floor U4. We have to get there before MacRyan catches us." I go back to the main screen of the security footage, right where it was before I touched it, and stand up. D and Joanna throw their now empty bottles in the silver garbage can and follow me out of the office. "Thanks for the help," I mutter to myself as we walk to the elevator.

Luckily, we're the only ones in the elevator. We head down to floor U4, and I hurriedly walk to the door I saw Skye go through, Jo and D a few steps behind me. The red sign on the door reads "CAUTION: ORGANIC FUEL INGREDIENTS INSIDE. KEEP AT 100.7 DEGREES AT ALL TIMES." I open the door. It doesn't lead anywhere, it's a storage room. And there is Skye, sitting on the ground with her back against the wall, her skin concealed with sheen sweat. Her eyes are half-closed, dozing off.

"Skye! Are you okay? Were you trapped in here?" I kneel down next to her and grasp her arm. She stirs.

"Harper...? W-What are you doing down here...? I..." she says, but trails off.

"It's okay, let's just get you out of here. D, help me." I say. D takes one of Skye's forearms and I grab the other. We help her stand up and walk out of the tiny storage room.

"Will she be okay?" Joanna asks softly, looking at Skye, who puts her arms around my and D's shoulders, breathing heavily.

"I'm sure she'll be fine. Hang in there, Skye. Hopefully MacRyan won't catch us now." I say.

"I'm alright...I just...my head hurts..." Skye says. We slowly head toward the elevator.

"When we get to the apartment--" D starts, but he doesn't finish his sentence; the elevator door suddenly opens. There stands Mr. MacRyan, four armed guards and his secretary at his sides.

"Stop right there!" he booms. We freeze. "There! Get them!" MacRyan says, pointing to us. The guards rush toward us while MacRyan and his secretary take their time exiting the elevator. One guard pries Skye away from us and forces her arms behind her back. Skye winces in pain, her eyes squinting shut.

"Get off of her, she's hurt!" I say, although I know they don't care. The guard only tightens his grip. The other three guards surround Joanna, D, and me.

" _You_." MacRyan stands directly in front of Skye. "What were you doing in my database?"

"P-Please, Mr. MacRyan...I-I can explain...I was...I was just..." Skye tries to explain, but MacRyan shakes his head in disapproval.

"I got an alert from my phone saying a hack has been detected on floor U4. So I pulled up the security feed on my phone to see you hacking into a computer and transferring information from it. So I'm going to ask you again: what were you doing on my database?" MacRyan says, taking another step closer to Skye, his jaw clenched. But for some reason, Skye doesn't answer him. She lets her head hang in defeat. What was she transfering?

"Hm. I would send you right back to Genesis and let them deal with you, but Chief Cambridge and I are two very busy people. So I'm going to call Ms. McCoy to see what she wants to do with you. I also saw _you_ ," MacRyan points at me, "snooping around in my office. What were you three trying to do there?"

" _I_ wasn't doing anything." I retort, feeling my blood begin to boil. "I was trying to look for Skye when your secretary refused to help us."

MacRyan scoffs. "That's no excuse. My office is for authorized personnel only--this entire facility is filled with things your eyes aren't supposed to see. In fact, I don't even know why I could trust you all enough to let you stay here. Demetrius, why are you hiding from Scorpion when they're not supposedly striking Genesis for another two weeks, and haven't shown their faces for over a decade? Why did your little friend here escape the ETP in the first place? Guards, take them all to my office."

The guards grab us and force us into the elevator. MacRyan and his secretary walk over to the computer Skye was using. The elevator doors close silently in front of us, leaving us to stare back at our hazy reflections.

"Skye, what the heck were you thinking?" D hisses.

"I was just trying to find my birth mother." Skye admits, her voice wobbling with fear.

"Why? You were going to be an _assassin_ , Skye! One time you disobey Genesis, one time you make a mistake and reveal your identity, and your birth mother is dead, along with the other people that are linked to you."

"She's been dead for a few weeks, D," Skye murmurs. "It doesn't matter what I do now, I'll never have the chance see her."

I take a shuddery breath. I look at Skye, but her hair purposely covers the side of her face. One of the guards still has both her arms wrenched behind her back, as if she's a criminal.

The elevator doors open, and we are guided into MacRyan's office. "Sit." one of the guards demands. There are only two chairs in the room, and Joanna and I sit in them. D and Skye sit on the floor in front of us. Two guards leave, and the other two stand in the corner, watching us. I can practically feel their cold stares from across the room.

About ten minutes later, MacRyan arrives. He sits down at his desk and clears his throat, resting his elbows on the desk. "I'm just going to cut to the chase: I'm kicking you all out. You have broken my trust and put classified information in danger. I already sent agents to your apartment to gather your belongings and bring them here." My heart sinks. Now where are we going to hide? Who is going to help us take down Scorpion? I know better than to argue with Chief John MacRyan, because he's somewhat right; I went into his office and on his computer, and Skye hacked into the database and stole information from it.

"I'm going to give Chief Cambridge a call." MacRyan continues, retrieving his black cell phone from his pocket. He dials and waits. It goes to voicemail. He tries again. Still nothing. "I'll send him an email. You will all wait here until the agents arrive with your things, then you'll be driven fifty miles away from my branch. I'm deeply disappointed in you, Demetrius, and Chief Cambridge's granddaughters. I don't know what I was expecting from you, but this certainly isn't it..."

"Don't expect anything out of me or my sister." I retort bitterly. "We may be Chief Cambridge's granddaughters, but we're not heirs to the family business--we've never met him because our mother kept everything from us. We don't even know our family's names."

"Well," MacRyan shrugs apathetically. "your family problems aren't my problems, are they?"

I huff through my nose, just like Jo does when she's mad or annoyed, and I stand, so sudden that the bottom of the chair screeches against the floor.

"We're not leaving with your agents," I state. "we have a jet. Where are our things?"

"They should be here any second now," MacRyan looks at the time on his phone. Just then the door opens, and three agents wearing all gray are here with our luggage. I snatch my backpack from one of them. "Get your things, guys. We're leaving." I order before leaving the room.

* * *

Joanna, D, and Skye meet me outside FBI Branch 109's bunker, luggage in hand. "Does anyone remember where we parked the jet?" D says.

"I remember when we got off the jet, the bunker was forty feet northwest." Skye says, turning around herself. "This way." She begins to trek through the high grass, and we follow her.

Thankfully, the jet is still right where we'd left it. We wait a few yards away from it while I retrieve the key from my backpack.

D's phone vibrates in his back pocket. But before he can answer it, I hear rustling in the grass. Then gunshots.

_Bang --bang--bang_. Three bullets whizz past us and hit the jet's door, and three figures emerge from the grass, holding handguns. They wear bulky black pants, black T-shirts, black boots, and black beanies. One breaks the door with his gun and enters the jet. The other two grab Joanna and take her inside too. I yell and try to run to her, but something--someone--holds me back. Two more men in all black appear, one has a grip on my upper arm, one is fighting Skye. I hear a high-pitched scream from inside the jet. " _Jo_!" I cry, trying to get out of the man's hold, but it's no use. I wrench my arm the opposite way, and pain shoots up my arm and shoulder. "Let go of me!" I hiss, but I am thrown to the ground, which only hurts my arm even more.

"D! Let's go!" one of the men peers out the jet's door and yells to D, who's standing in the middle of it all, shocked-still.

" _Gold_? What's going on?" D says, hood off. I look behind me to see Skye still fighting with one of the men. He punches her right in the stomach, and she falls. The man then grabs D and urges him into the jet, and D lets him take him. I realize that the jet is is slowly inching forward. I try to get up, but every time I move, an excruciating pain surges through my body. I cry out in despair; Jo is on the jet...

The jet is taking off. And all I can do is lay still in the grass and watch it leave.

Joanna is gone. D is gone, too.

I can only think of one plausible explanation: D betrayed me.

TO BE CONTINUED

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# INCOGNITO Sneak Peek

# HARPER

I don't know how long I've been sobbing, but soon enough my voice is gone, and I cannot cry anymore.

I'm in full panic-mode. Joanna is gone. She's not here with me. I don't know where she is or where she's going. I can't get to her. She's just gone...

I was stupid enough to trust D--Demetrius--whatever his name is. Part of me knew he was going to abandon us when the moment was just right. He had a vague reason for helping us, and I was stupid enough to let my guard down and let Jo out of my sight when he was with us. I vowed to stay by her side and protect her at all times to ensure that I would never come close to losing her, and now she's missing. This is all my fault.

I lay curled up in a ball on the asphalt, defeated. I'm crying and pleading for my twin sister to come back, even though I know this is all useless. Joanna isn't coming back.

"Harper?" Skye questions after a while.

"What?" I say bitterly, still curled up but not crying anymore. I realize then that maybe I shouldn't be so mean. This isn't Skye's fault, she has nothing to do with any of Scorpion's or Genesis's problems. I need to be grateful that she's here; she has ETP experience, she can help me find Joanna and get all of us to safety. I try to sit up, but the pain in my left arm is suddenly unbearable. I cry out in pain and lay back down on my back. The sky is a cloudless baby blue, fogged by my tears. I blink to clear my vision, and Skye sits close beside me. She watches me quietly, tending to her own wounds from her fight with the nameless enemy. There is a small rip in her leggings on her thigh, her tank top has a streak of blood and dirt. There's an ugly bruise on her cheek, her nose bloody but not too bad. A frigid wind blows past us, and she shivers, putting on her jean jacket.

"I saw what happened--you definitely broke your arm." Skye says. "Where does it hurt the most?"

"Just below my shoulder. It got twisted backward by that Scorpion guy." I reply angrily.

"Okay. Sit up and tell me how it feels," Skye grabs my left hand and my right arm, and she slowly pulls me upright. A shooting pain goes through my left arm and I wince, but I manage to get in a sitting position.

"It was, like, pain just shot through my arm. And it feels sore already. I don't know how else to describe it." I say.

"You probably tore the muscle that runs through your shoulder, I think it's called the deltoid. Your arm might be broken, but I don't want to go to a hospital and bring attention to ourselves--there's probably not a hospital for miles anyway. I'll bandage it so it won't get worse..." Skye retrieves her jeans from her clear bag that lies a few feet away, and she begins to bandage my shoulder and part of my arm with it. I wince and try to wriggle out of her grasp every now and then out of reflex, but I'm really glad Skye knows what she's doing. When she's finished, she ties the jeans in a knot and confirms, "This should be good enough until I find the right materials. But we should get going, we have to find shelter before dark."

"Thanks," I murmur. I wish I could help Skye somehow, her fight was no doubt worse than mine. I guess the least I can do is not take out my anger on her. "What about you? Are you okay?"

Skye shrugs. "I'm okay, I've fought people in training before. Right now I'm focused on getting you to safety..." She says the last part under her breath: "...You're more important than me."

"That's not true," I start, but she doesn't choose to hear me. Skye is already on her feet and putting our luggage in a pile: Joanna's and my backpacks, her tote, her satchel, and her clear bag. That makes five bags total. There's debri on our luggage from when the jet took off, and Skye wipes it all off. She then gets her cell phone from her tote and starts to type.

"I need to save Jo," I whisper sadly, more to myself than to both of us.

But Skye shakes her head. "We need to save her, together. And we will. We just need to make a plan of action."

"What do they want with her?" I say, my mind reeling. "Why did they take her and not me, or all of us? How did they even know we're here, at an FBI branch that's off grid?"

"Simple: D told them. We'll probably never know why, but we'll deal with him after we find Joanna."

Anger surges throughout my body. Half of me is angry at myself for putting my trust in D, and the other half of me is angry at D himself for abandoning us. "Who were those people that ganged up on us? Where are they going with the jet? Do you think they're going to Scorpion's hideout?"

"I have no idea, their faces were masked. But apparently D knew one of them. He called him...Gold?" The wind blows stronger then, even more colder than the previous one. I shudder. The weather is most likely in the thirties or forties, but at least it's not snowing. "We have to start looking for shelter. I'll help you up." Skye says. She puts her phone in her jean jacket pocket and helps me stand up. It doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would. Hopefully that means my injury isn't that bad.

"Where are we going to go? MacRyan kicked us out and I'm pretty sure he's not going to let us back in after what we did." I say.

Skye puts the contents of her satchel inside her tote bag, puts it over her shoulder, and hands me my backpack. "What's in these backpacks?" she asks.

I shrug. "Our phones, chargers, D's letter, money. Stuff like that."

"Alright, you can bring those. I'm just bringing my tote. The rest will be left behind."

"Okay." I haul my backpack on my good shoulder, and we start to walk in the direction of FBI Branch 109. "What were you doing in the database, anyway?" I ask. "You said you were looking for your birth mother, right? What kind of stuff were you transferring?"

"Just my parents' identification cards, which are harmless. If a normal citizen saw an agent's ID card, it wouldn't be the end of the world. But..." She hesitates. "...there was an article about my mother's death in the database too, and I transferred it."

"Really? What did it say?"

"I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing yet, but it said she died in some politician's mansion three weeks ago--killed, most likely."

"Seriously? Was your mother an assassin, like you?"

"I guess she was..."

"I'm, uh, sorry you never got to see her." I reply. "Do you think she was trying to assassinate someone? Who was she working for?"

"I don't know," Skye shakes her head. "can we talk about something else?"

"Sorry." What feels like centuries later we finally stop at the familiar bunker door. Skye knocks the sequence, and we wait. Nothing. She tries again. Still nothing. I groan. "Now what?"

"Hold on." Skye takes out her phone. "I have an idea. Sit down, it might take a while." I groan again with protest, but I sit and lean my back against the ice-cold bunker door. Sky sits down next to me. realize that I didn't think to pack one of my nice fur coats before leaving Reddings Mill. Skye starts to type, her phone screen's brightness turned down to the lowest setting. A few minutes later she explains in a hushed voice, "There are five Elite Training Programs in the U.S. They're all run by the CIA except for the one Genesis has, which is FBI-based. But, there are three groups referred to as 'resistance clans' of people who escaped the new version of the program, like me. They share one off-grid database so they can communicate from whatever technology they have, and somehow only trainees' emails can connect to them. I can get into the clans' database and ask them to help us."

"Wait, you're not the only one who escaped the ETP?" I ask.

"No. I found out about the resistance clans in Genesis's archives, about a week before I escaped. It was covered up by having its file name as 'Missing Trainees,' but I had a feeling something was up. Trainees don't just disappear, especially with the kind of guards and surveillance the other ETPs have. Nobody involved in the FBI or CIA simply disappears without a cause."

"Wait...how did you and D meet?"

"He was outside Genesis's building when I escaped. He introduced himself as ex-agent Xi, and he said he had an offer for me, and I took it. The offer was to help you get in touch with your mother without Scorpion tracing it."

"Scorpion and Genesis were the same thing at one point, right? FBI projects?"

"Yeah. The Scorpion Project had the same purpose as the Genesis Project: to create the best agents that could work for the CIA, FBI, or even agencies in foreign countries at as young as eighteen years old. Some classified info got leaked out, and your grandfather had to shut down Scorpion completely before deciding to start over and create Genesis."

"Well, what did my grandfather do that made the Scorpion agents want to rebel so bad?"

"He banished all one hundred Scorpion agents along with their families, that way he could successfully terminate the project. If you didn't comply, you were simply forced to leave anyway, and you were never heard from again. Most families didn't survive in the locations they were sent to, and the ex-agents thought Ronaldo was trying to kill them rather than send them away and take their identities."

"How can a hundred people just...disappear?"

"Well, agents are supposed to keep low profiles anyway, and seventy-five percent of them didn't have spouses or families, so I guess it was fairly easy for them to leave. But citizens noticed the remaining twenty-five percent of the agents with families; they lived in your town and surrounding places, and their kids attended public school with fake names. A whole cul-de-sac was even abandoned in one neighborhood."

"Wow...how do you know all this?"

"I liked to read archives in my spare time. And I learned about some of Genesis's history in my training."

"What did people do when they noticed the families were gone?"

"Not much, I don't think. But there was one columnist who wrote an article for Reddings Mill's Sunday paper. It was about the families who suddenly disappeared, and he linked it to the leaked information." Skye's face brightens then. "Okay, I just sent a message to the resistance clans. Now all we have to do is wait."

* * *

**THE ABANDONED CUL-DE-SAC: HOW THE MISSING FAMILIES FROM REDDINGS MILL ARE LINKED TO THE FBI FIELD OFFICE SCANDAL**

**by: Dan Oswald**

_What happened after classified information leaked from the City FBI Field Office on November 2, 2001? An entire six-house cul-de-sac in Reddings Mill, Pennsylvania was reported missing just two days after the leaked documents provoked intense CNN live discussions --5 inconspicuous families from Reddings Mill were reported missing on the morning of December 1, 2001, and families from surrounding areas were mysteriously reported missing as well._

_" The Auburn family was always so paranoid, in my opinion," Reddings Mill resident, Samuel Scott, said during an interview with Channel One News. "They never let their kids play with the other kids in the neighborhood, they never put Christmas decorations in their yard. Heck, I forget what they look like. And I mean, what kind of last name is Auburn? That has to be some kind of fake identity. I don't think they just disappeared..."_

_" Their kids were the sweetest things, but they never participated in school plays or extracurricular activities," Samuel Scott's wife and president of the Reddings Mill Elementary PTA, Jana Scott, added during the interview. "They didn't even dress up for the school's annual Halloween parade that we do around the school."_

_" Sarah Auburn was nice, but her clothes were always boring, and she took everything too seriously." Callie Scott, Samuel and Jana's seven-year-old daughter, said. "But I hope she's okay."_

_What was the leaked information, anyway? Why did it cause a heated national discussion? And how were the missing families involved?_

_It was a case file from an unnamed FBI agency, explaining a mission to expose the popular millionaire, actor, and politician Dom Pike. The file claimed that Pike, CEO of Pike Enterprises (a U.S. military weapons manufacturer and distributor) is "secretly selling its products to foreign governments for illegal use." But there was no evidence to prove this statement. Does Dom Pike have any alternative motives with his company? If so, where's the evidence? Where are the witnesses to these products being shipped off to addresses outside the U.S.?_

_Pike Enterprises is currently worth $20 billion. It invents, makes, and distributes latest-generation, high-tech military and defense weapons, and right now 95% of their products go to the U.S. military and troops stationed abroad, as stated by the New York Times in 2002._

_The leaked FBI agency case file claims that Pike "gives 5% of his products to foreign countries for unknown and undocumented use", "his latest product was seen being used by a leader of a war-torn village in Africa for a fear tactic, and there are no U.S. troops currently stationed there" and "PE products are supposed to be for U.S. military use only, but the products were seen on ships going to different countries absent of U.S. troops." The case file also claims that Dom Pike is "empowering corrupt leaders instead of bringing them to justice."_

_Of course no one believed that Pike could be doing such a thing; he was a governor for a decade, just married the famous actress and activist Antonia Smith-Pike, and is donating five percent of his profits to needy children and building new schools across the country. No one believed that Dom Pike was giving off weapons to corrupt governments for no given reason because an FBI agency case file provided no evidence or witnesses._

_So, what do the missing families have to do with this?_

_Their last names were on the leaked case file --some were given assignments to seek proof of Pike's wrongdoings on the exact date they'd disappeared, and the rest of the families were ordered to, quote, "follow protocol." And when the Reddings Mill Police Station released the names of all the missing families, it was the exact same list as the leaked file:_

_Missing Families:_

_Reddings Mill:_

_Auburn_

_Maxwell_

_Bamba_

_Odette_

_Hawke_

_Surrounding Areas:_

_Green_

_Monroe_

_Jennison_

_People are demanding answers, but the FBI Field Office is refusing to talk, nor give the identity of the unknown agency where the case file was created._

_[End of document]_

#  About the Author

**BONNIE SYNCLAIRE** 's books have appeared on the Lulu Top 100 chart, the Amazon #1 New Release chart, and the Kindle bestseller chart. Her short stories garnered several awards, one receiving a state title, and she retired from the PTA Reflections® circuit to move on to publishing when she was 16 years old.

She has written two Young Adult series: the _Blue Valley Nights_ realistic fiction series, and _The Genesis Files_ thriller series, which will undergo revamping in Summer 2021. She is featured in TribLive, Saturday Light Brigade's Youth Express Radio 2x, the Young Eager Writers Association, and Turn The Page Authors, and is a member of the Littsburgh literary roster.

Her storytelling trademarks are memorable characters, gripping plots, raw emotions, and many twists you won't see coming. She is a class of 2020 high school graduate and will study Writing at Clarion University with hopes to become a technical writer.

#  Also by Bonnie Synclaire

Want more from the worlds of Bonnie Synclaire? Visit www.bonniesynclaire.com!

##  INCOGNITO

**The Genesis Files #2**

**_The highly anticipated sequel to ROGUE..._**

The Cambridge twins learned their first lesson of espionage the hard way: trust no one. Will they reunite and save their family? Or has the end of Genesis already begun?

Available now in paperback on Lulu.com and Kindle ebook!

##  Promises We Break: A YA Realistic Fiction Novel

 https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/promises-we-break-1

**Blue Valley Nights #1**

**_Family, friendship, love, drama, adventure...Welcome to #BlueValleyNights_**

In Synclaire's tender and heartrending full-length novel debut, disconnected Zoe and popular Marley are two teens on opposites sides of the social ladder, but they find unexpected refuge (and love?) in each other while they try to protect their nonverbal-autistic siblings from their fears, Zoe from going away and Marley from their painful home life. But staying silent and not getting help will come back to haunt them both.

Available now in paperback and ebook on all major online retailers!
