went to bed at a reasonable time of night, (on the nights they weren't hunting for cherry bombs in fancy desserts, that is.)
"How do regular teenagers do this?" Bella moaned, forcing her eyes open with her hands. She looked at the clock, which promptly announced midnight. She crossed her arms on the table and rested her heavy head on them.
"It's only midnight," Ethan said. "I know this one kid from Crashton, he was my lab partner: he couldn't even consider falling sleep until one a.m."
"Seriously, I should be asleep," Bella grumbled. "I should be so asleep, an earthquake kissing a tornado and dancing the Macarena couldn't wake me up."
"Descriptive," Caleb commented as he read a student's file. He frowned. "You know, this kid is looking mighty suspicious now."
"Who?" Ty asked.
Caleb passed him the report. "His name is Lance Barton. He is a mutant and can create portals. As far as I've found, he's the only student who can do that. A police report from two months ago states a teen wearing a hooded jacket and dark jeans broke into a motor repair shop. He stole parts, tools, fuel and made away with a pick-up truck. The forensics were called in because, although the footage shows a break-in, it shows no break-in. Nothing was smashed, nothing was broken... this kid didn't even scratch something. There was no way he could have gotten in without a portal, that's what the report says."
"What about Dean Lightbody? Has anyone found anything on him?" Ty asked with a hint of fear in his voice.
"He doesn't want to kill you," Bella said, talking slowly as if she were talking to a slightly deaf person.
"So, what do we do?" Ethan asked. "About Lance, not Dean."
Jack leaned back in his chair, sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He was as tired as his friends. "Look, stalking worked with Mr Beta, mostly because he was innocent. But I think we're going to have to confront Lance differently. Face to face."
"He creates portals, you'll need all of us," Ethan pointed out.
"And I'm going to have all of you, by my side. We are going, as a team, to confront Lance and see what he knows. Are we all clear on this? Good? I'm going to bed: I couldn't keep my eyes open if I glued them, taped them and sprayed them with stiffener."
The party broke up and the teens left for their beds, falling asleep the instant their heads hit the motel pillows.
Tomorrow was going to be an exciting day, no doubts about that.
Now they just had to live through it...
21
Running on minimal sleep, the teens arrived at Hero High the next day, dead-set on their mission to bring down the hiding villains.
Jack sent his team to different ends of the school to search for the juvenile criminal and they spent the entire day searching for Lance Barton.
It came to home-going time, and they still hadn't found their target. Did he know they were onto him? Had he skipped school? Where was he?
With Rust gone, leaving them completely on their own and with only a day left until Urban Danger's arrival, the Accidents were determined, more so than ever before, to complete their original mission.
As their classmates rushed to leave school grounds, the Accidents fought the current and stood in the middle of the entrance hall, focussing on every face, struggling to find Lance Barton.
Jack scanned the surging crowd of students, searching for a tall, lean, senior student with black hair and Asian features.
"Is that him?" Caleb whispered as he pointed across the entrance hall to the locker-lined corridors.
Lance's eyes shifted, nervously, around the school as he emptied the contents of his locker into his backpack.
"Where does he think he's going?" Bella questioned, crossing her arms.
"Maybe we should go ask him," Jack suggested, taking the lead and weaving through the mass of students and teachers to reach Lance.
With Ethan and Ty on his right, Caleb and Bella on his left and Jack behind him, Lance was truly cornered.
"What's up, Barton?" Jack said, startling the senior.
He turned around, his eyes wide and frantic, as if he already knew the Gamma Accidents' secret mission.
"Wh-what do you guys want?" Lance demanded, turning his shock into anger.
"Take us to your leader!" Caleb ordered before he could help himself. Jack was about to tell him to stay quiet but realized there was no better way to phrase the demand now.
For a second, it looked as if Lance was considering it. Unfortunately, because none of the Accidents had mind-reading powers, it was hard to tell exactly what he was considering.
Without warning, Lance struck out and shoved Caleb to the ground, making a break for it. He ran as fast as he could for the exit, intending to put as much distance between him and the Accidents as he could.
Regrettably, Lance didn't stop to think. If he had, he may have chosen to knock a different Accident down. And wisely so, because Caleb involuntarily bounced off the blue and white linoleum and shot through the air, propelled by the force of his bounce, and knocked Lance to the ground before either of them could register what was happening.
Sitting on Lance's back, thus pinning him down, unable to move, Caleb leaned down. "Well, that was a dumb idea," he told his victim, quite smugly.
Lance Barton could not be pinned down so easily, however.
Before the other Accidents could reach their brother and friend, a portal appeared in the floor beneath Lance and Caleb. Lance immediately fell through the physical impossibility to the other side. The moment he was through, the portal evaporated, causing Caleb to land flat on his backside on well-worn linoleum.
Ty blinked. "That has to be the most eventful five minutes of my life," he said as his mind scrambled to make sense of what just happened.
Bella stomped her foot in frustration. "Oh no, we've worked too hard, we've done too much, he is not getting away that easily. To the car park, people!"
The boys followed the determined girl, though completely puzzled. "Why? He could be in Las Vegas, Hong Kong or Mars for all we know." Ty pointed out.
The warmth and brightness of the afternoon sun beating down on them the moment they exited the air-conditioned school building, the teens shielded their eyes with their hands and scanned the car park.
Parking spaces were emptying, fast. So many students wanted to get going, back home, to the city, to friends... who knows where half of them were heading, but they wanted to get there, fast.
"Last night, while you guys were reading police reports, I read up about mutants and I came across an interesting article on portal-creators and manipulators," Bella said, scanning the car park. "Unless his powers have grown stronger, in a panic, Lance can't portal too far away. He's still too young."
"Hey, Jack; is that him there, by the food delivery truck?" Ethan asked, squinting at the large truck that delivered food for the lunch-ladies to destroy and serve. He struggled to make out the figure as it was halfway across the vast car park.
Jack didn't have to squint; with his eyes, he could effortlessly see for miles. Across a school parking lot was a piece of cake. He easily saw it was Lance hanging around the driver's compartment.
"What's he doing?" Jack said more to himself than his team. He watched for a few seconds, confused, as Lance seemed to fiddle with something.
"Is he hot-wiring it?" Ethan asked.
"What are we doing standing around here for? Shouldn't we go over there and stop him?" Ty questioned, a frantic tone entering his voice.
Sure enough, as soon as Ty said that, Jack heard the engine kick into life.
"After the truck!" Jack ordered, snapping back into leader-mode.
His team sprang to action, instantly, just as the truck's wheels began spinning like a cartoon.
Ty leapt into the air, shrank and landed, squarely, on Caleb's shoulder as the shorter boy started bouncing after the hot-wired vehicle.
Ethan ran across the car park and latched onto the back of the white truck as it roared out the parking lot, his knuckles turning white as he gripped
onto the handles, hoping he didn't accidently open the truck's rear doors, which would send him flying off into traffic.
Jack grabbed Bella, bride-style, and dashed into the sky, maintaining an aerial-view of the speeding hot-wired truck.
He didn't really think about it then, what with a truck to chase, a potential villain to catch and traffic-goers to protect, but Jack could have sworn he saw somebody else join the frenzied pursuit...
22
"Get onto the truck and let me jump off!" Ty yelled in Caleb's ear, battling to be heard over the noise of traffic and wind.
"Got it!" Caleb replied, dutifully weaving through home-going traffic. Jumping and landing probably sounded simple to ordinary people, Caleb realized. However, there was a lot more involved, as he well knew, having been a super-jumper his whole life.
No one considered Caleb the smart one of the Black triplets. Ethan was smart, Ty was smart, but Caleb was a goofball. People saw short, dark-haired and tan-skinned Caleb as excitable, naive, a jokester, a clown or simply childish. Nothing they thought or said about him bothered him, though. Caleb loved life, and he was not about to let the hurtful, insignificant, trivial words of hurtful, insignificant, trivial people break that joy.
People thought he was oblivious or deaf to their words. He wasn't: he heard them all, and understood them, too. Nevertheless, he couldn't care less about proving himself to them.
Anyway, if they were in his head right now, they would eat their words.
Cars moved back and forth at varying speeds, spaces were created and taken in a matter of moments and random