As she spoke, I instinctively reached towards my back pocket. Of course, the memory stick wasn’t there – it had been in my other pants. But, upon reflection, I suddenly realized that it hadn’t been there either, because I’d checked my pockets before showering. (Truth be told, I had practically forgotten about it.)
“I got the memory stick from your pocket,” she went on, “and then pecked around until I found a laptop. I hope that was okay.”
“How’d you get it out without waking me?” I asked.
“The memory stick?” Electra queried with a laugh. “You were practically in a coma. I could have had a brass band playing in here and you wouldn’t have woken up. I guess you were dead tired.”
Rather than respond, I turned my attention to the laptop screen, noting that Electra had paused the video.
“So, did anything leap out at you?” I asked.
“Not really,” she admitted. “But you can take a look and see what you think, since you were going to watch it again anyway.”
“Might as well,” I said, stepping towards the laptop. “But I need to get you home soon so you can change and do whatever, because Alpha Prime will be here shortly.”
“In case you didn’t notice, I’ve already changed, genius.”
I blinked, then looked her up and down. I suddenly realized that she was indeed wearing different clothes.
“What...?” I muttered. “How…?”
“Your mom,” she stated, giggling.
I had trouble hiding my incredulity. “Excuse me?”
“You remember that charity auction I went to with your mom about a month ago?”
I nodded. My mom and Electra had actually had a great relationship – which seemingly continued even after she broke up with me. It wasn’t unusual for them to go to lunch together, go shopping, etcetera.
“Anyway,” she went on, “if you remember, I actually came over here to change and we left together. However, I never came back and got the clothes I originally wore. Your mom told me that she’d washed them and put them in a bag for me, but I never actually got around to picking them up.”
“So you just poked around this morning until you found them.”
“Guess that was providence, huh?” she stated with a smile.
“I suppose,” I muttered, then turned my attention to the laptop. I hit Play and the video resumed. I watched for about ten seconds, and then my eyes went wide and I drew in a sharp breath.
“What is it?” Electra asked in sudden alarm.
“This isn’t the same video,” I said woodenly.
Chapter 38
It turned out that the video wasn’t just a single clip; it was multiple clips combined back-to-back into a single file. More specifically, it appeared to be the footage from Mouse’s lab, but from various camera angles.
When I had first played it on the monitor in the lab, the segment of footage I’d seen was the same thing Alpha Prime and the others had shown me. Thus, I had – wrongfully – assumed that the entire file was something I’d seen before. However, what Electra was watching when I found her in my mother’s office was footage of the same scene, but from a different perspective. Luckily, it only took a few seconds of viewing for me to realize that.
After I understood what I was looking at, I watched the entire video file from beginning to end. Thankfully, it was relatively short – maybe two minutes altogether – but unfortunately, nothing in any of the footage stood out to me. I watched it a second time (with Electra looking over my shoulder), eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. However, it wasn’t until I watched it a third time, at the juncture when the myriad holograms were running around Mouse’s lab, that I noticed something unusual.
“There!” I said excitedly, pausing the footage and pointing.
Electra narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. “I’m not sure what you’re seeing.”
“Right there,” I reiterated, tapping the screen. “That guy doesn’t have a backpack on.”
“Okay,” Electra muttered without a lot of conviction. “One out of a billion holograms isn’t wearing a backpack. So what?”
“It’s not just a backpack,” I explained. “It’s his bug-out bag.”
“Again, so what?”
I debated trying to explain the significance of it in greater detail, but didn’t want to waste time.
“Just hang out here for a second,” I said. “I need to go check something out.”
“Not without me,” Electra stated fiercely.
From the look on her face, it was clear that she was serious. Rather than argue, I simply teleported us.
Chapter 39
Our destination was Mouse’s lab. As before, it was dark when we appeared. I switched my vision over to the infrared and made a beeline for one of the nearby worktables. There was a cabinet underneath it, which I opened. A moment later, the lights in the lab started coming on, and I switched my vision back to normal as I pulled out the contents of the cabinet: Mouse’s bug-out bag.
Electra began walking towards me as I set the bag on top of the worktable.
“It’s still here,” I muttered, more to myself than Electra. I hadn’t even thought to check for it previously; after viewing all the holograms in the video wearing it, I had just assumed it was gone.
“What’s the big deal about this thing?” she asked.
“Don’t you get it?” I asked. “It’s his bug-out bag. This is the bag Mouse takes when he has to go on the run.”
To emphasize my point, I opened up the bag and pulled out a couple of its contents: a computer tablet, a sat phone, and a small wad of cash.
“I guess he didn’t have time to take it,” Electra surmised. “He did leave in a bit of a rush.”
I shook my head as I began putting everything back in the backpack. “That just doesn’t sound like Mouse. The whole point of the bag is to provide him with resources he’ll need. He wouldn’t just leave it.”
“Maybe the Mouse you knew wouldn’t,” she countered. “But this seems to be the all-new, screw-loose version.”
“Nice,” I
