“Great,” he said. “You three are in here unwinding. That’s good. It’s important that you don’t dwell too much on things like the attack earlier.”
“If I’m being honest,” I countered, “I’m still thinking about it. Basically, nothing hurts me when I’m phased, but Mouse was able to. It’s hard for me to just put that out of my mind.”
“You’re going to have to try,” my father stressed. “Just put some effort into learning from it, so you’ll be better prepared next time.”
I nodded in response to his comment as if it were sage advice. Frankly speaking, however, it sounded like anemic psychobabble, but I recognized it as an attempt to help me deal with what was bothering me.
“So exactly what happened on the helipad?” Smokey asked.
My father seemed to ruminate on the question for a moment, then said, “The three of you already know that Mouse took the component for a destructive device from the Vault yesterday. In an effort to throw a monkey wrench in any plans he might have, we were going to move some of the other items he might need to disparate locations. Somehow he found out and staged an attack as we were loading them on the chopper.”
“And the rest we essentially know,” I interjected. “He foiled the League’s plans, took the components, and got away clean.”
Alpha Prime nodded. “That essentially sums it up.”
“So what now?” asked Smokey.
“Mouse still doesn’t have everything he needs – at least, according to our experts. We still don’t know exactly what he’s building, but we know he doesn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle yet.”
“So there’s going to be another attack?” I concluded.
“Bingo,” Alpha Prime said, pointing at me.
“So we don’t necessarily have to find him,” I surmised. “He’ll come to us.”
“True,” said my father, scratching his temple, “but we’d still rather go on the offensive.”
“So you want to keep looking for him,” summed up Smokey.
“More specifically, we want Jim to keep looking for him,” Alpha Prime stated, then looked at me. “After all, son, you know him better than anybody. Your insight about the bug-out bag shows that.”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m all out of ideas in the Mouse-hunting department, to be honest.”
“Well, as I keep saying, try to relax,” my father said. “Play some video games, hang out with your friends, throw some darts… Give your mind an opportunity to unwind – to rest – and maybe something new will occur to you.”
My instinctive reaction was to shake my head in disdain at the thought. Maybe relaxing at the end of the day (the way we’d played board games the night before) would be sensible, but it wasn’t even noon yet. Hanging out and playing games with my friends now, when I needed to be looking for my mentor, seemed…I don’t know – callous, maybe? I looked at Smokey, my expression making it clear his opinion was welcome.
“Doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Smokey asserted.
“Plus, you’re putting yourself under a lot of pressure because you feel you owe Mouse,” Alpha Prime added. “But if you don’t do something to occasionally ease the strain, you’re going to wear yourself to a frazzle and burn out, and that won’t do him or you any good.”
“It might already be happening,” Electra chimed in. “You’ve practically passed out the last two nights.”
I spent a moment looking at all three of their faces, then said, “It feels like I’m getting ganged up on here.”
“Well, there’s an easy way to avoid that,” Electra declared. “Just take our advice.”
She then looped her arm into mine and, smiling, began dragging me to the billiards table.
Chapter 45
Unsurprisingly, hanging out with Electra and Smokey served its intended purpose and helped me relax. It wasn’t long before we were laughing and joking – much as we would have been doing if we weren’t in the middle of a crisis.
After a while, we broke for lunch. I volunteered to teleport to Jackman’s – a grill that was one of our favorite places – to pick up some burgers and fries. Smokey, however, insisted on treating so he came with me. Upon our return, the three of us went to one of the tables in the lounge and quickly dove in.
“So,” Smokey droned as we began eating, “where do you suppose Mouse might be?”
“I’m really not sure,” I admitted. “The thing with the bug-out bag raises a lot of questions.”
“Well,” Electra said, “maybe that’s–”
The sound of my phone ringing cut her off. Pulling it out of my pocket, I saw that it was Kenyon calling. I was tempted to let it go to voicemail, but he was responding to a request that I had made, so it didn’t seem right to blow him off.
Standing up and stepping away, I hit the Answer button and said, “Hello.”
“Good afternoon, sir,” Kenyon greeted me in response. “I trust you’ve been well?”
“I have, Kenyon – thanks for asking. And you?”
“Well enough, sir; well enough. Anyway, you asked about the alarm. Fortunately, the paperwork giving me authority to speak for you is still on file with the alarm service, so they were happy to answer my questions.”
“So what did they say?”
“As far as they could tell, there was no glitch. According to their analysis, the system was explicitly activated during the time frame you asked about – meaning that someone turned it on – and a few seconds afterwards, the alarm was tripped. However, the system was properly deactivated just a few moments later, before the alarm went off audibly.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What do they mean the alarm never went off? It was blaring at full volume when I got home.”
“Not according to their data, sir,” Kenyon retorted. “If they had registered the alarm going off, they would have called to make sure everything was okay.”
“Right,” I said, suddenly remembering. “They’re supposed to call if it goes off, and then I’m supposed to give them a code word to indicate that everything is okay.”
Mentally, I kicked myself.
