Until this teachers meeting got underway and Michael did some detective work, he still had all his normal homework, plus make up work. It wasn’t just reading and writing itself, as his mother reminded him time and again. His grades were slipping. He knew it. He wasn’t even going to get out of LADCEMS, or he’d spend all summer in school instead, working and studying even more, not enjoying any of his free time out in the sun.

  He tried to get some work done, and for a while he succeeded. Math was hard, but most of it he could check by calculator, and Grandpa was always on hand to explain something again. But when it came to reading short stories about kids planting flowers on top of a building, he just couldn’t understand it. What was the point, and more than that, who decided that this was the important stuff? There was one story about a mechanical house after the nuclear bomb went off, and the house was always trying to feed the people that were dead and gone. And really, that story was incredible! What was all this other stuff?

  It generally took him two hours to get through a fifteen page short story, because of all the times he would get distracted. Philip Pullman would interrupt, or Neil Gaiman. They were far more interesting than this. He started wishing for another telepath who could fix his brain so he’d at least be able to concentrate and get this stupid book out from in front of him. He could answer the stupid questions and get to work forgetting all of it.

  The teachers’ meeting wasn’t for another few days. He met with Charlotte at lunch time and talked over the plan in the library while she pretended to help him study the extra stuff he was missing. After school, she would often show up and follow him along his paper route, changing into different people she’d seen in school, or their teachers. She did this great impression of, well, everybody, since she could mimic their voice completely.

  “How did... I mean, what happened?” he asked.

  “How I got Activated?” she asked. “Yeah, well, I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom one day getting ready for school, and I was looking down at the floor, right? There’s this pebbly glass window, it’s really not big, but the most amazing light comes through it. We had this little breeze, and the sunlight was shining in, and the pebbles were making these little rainbow sparklies all over the floor and up and down my bathroom. And, I mean, for a few days I was having a really great time hanging out with you, we were listening to Parliament Funkadelic, James Brown, you remember, right?”

  “Uh, right... and Stone and his family, right?” Michael hadn’t gotten into music with Charlotte for so long that he missed it. P-funk was from the 1970’s, all velvety smooth horns and really slick lyrics, fun stuff you always found yourself smiling at.

  “Sly and the Family Stone, the Meters, yeah,” she said. “I was really into it. More into it than the grunge stuff. And later was getting into the Afrobeat work, mostly Fela Kuti. Really organic and, just, wow sort of stuff. Anyway one of the twins came into the bathroom and said I looked like a rainbow. Must have been the glass and the music. I just went multicolored.”

  Of course she would. That was the thing about Charlotte that Michael would always appreciate and love, but never understand. If he Activated it would be all fire and screaming, he would be one of those who killed people when he went. But Charlotte, she was able to see the beauty in basically everything.

  “Then I got a headache and passed out. When I woke up I was in that room under Patterson.”

  “And you just do voices and, like, change into people.”

  She shook her head. “They don’t know. We did a lot of tests, but they’re still not sure. They think I don’t actually change into anybody, it’s more like a telepathic projection.”

  “You just appear like that in my head,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Even though my eyes pick up your real image.” This was a science concept from not long ago. “It’s like... what, a mirage?”

  She nodded. “We see things that aren’t really there all the time. Yeah, you can see liquid pavement on a hot day, it’s just the way the light hits the asphalt.”

  They stopped.

  “You see that?” she asked. He looked.

  About five blocks down, across the main street, an ambulance and three police cars were flashing their blue and reds. Michael couldn’t tell anything from this far off, but he knew the town well enough to know that three police cars was the limit. There probably weren’t five police cars in the whole town, so three was definitely sixty percent at least.

  “Hooray mental math,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Thinking out loud, sorry.”

  “Do you want to…” she asked, and gave him a careful look.

  “Um, no?”

  “Come on Michael. This could be really important!”

  “You know what’s going to happen to me if Jackson finds out?” he said. “Or my mom for that matter? I don’t know which one’s worse.” Oh man did he ever look like a whiny mama’s boy on this one. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t want to get into anymore trouble. This teachers meeting plan had him jumpy. One teacher at a time was plenty bad enough, but more than fifty teachers all in the same place, ugh.

  She smiled at him. “Okay, I’ll report back when I’m done. You’re headed to the library right now, right?”

  After a good ten seconds he said, “Oh all right.”

  It was still too far off when they saw the stretcher come out of the house, but Michael thought he saw a splash of red on the white cloth over the person. He didn’t think there was anything showing, nothing peeking out of the white cloth either. Like they’d draped it over the whole person.

  Or the whole body.

  Michael hadn’t seen his own mangled body when he fell from the ceiling of the gymnasium that day, and hadn’t been in the gym to see the horror show for the first assembly. He hadn’t seen Mr. Samuelson’s smoking shoulder burn when Trent attacked either. He hadn’t seen anybody dead. He didn’t want to. Nobody in his family had died except Nan and Gramps, his mother’s parents, but that didn’t count since he was like two when it happened.

  He probably wouldn’t get his chance here either.

  “Do you think they’re…” Charlotte didn’t ask.

  “Don’t know,” he lied. They were only three blocks off now, and these weren’t the long blocks either. He had this bad feeling like paramedics didn’t take their time with the live ones.

  “You ready to go yet?” he asked her.

  She wasn't, and instead of going, they got even closer. Another car showed up as they were only about a block away, and who got out but Grandpa.

  Charlotte squeezed his arm hard. He could understand her fear. Michael couldn't grasp how deeply into the town's workings his grandfather really was. Grandpa disappeared into the dead person's house as the ambulance pulled slowly away, lights off. Yep, whoever that was was dead.

  “We need to get you behind some cover,” Charlotte said.

  “What about you?” he said automatically.

  “Don't worry,” she said in a cracked, jovial voice. When he turned back she was replaced with an eighty year old woman Michael vaguely recognized as Charlotte's neighbor.

  “Gone now, git,” she said, and followed it with an old lady's cackle.

  Michael hopped a fence into somebody's backyard and began to shadow Charlotte as best he could. He didn't know these houses like he knew the ones on his route, but he'd learned enough in the past three years to know which houses had dogs. You just looked for the digging marks under the fences, or the scattered piles of poop. As for the people who were home, that was a little harder. Most people though, they had a real hard time seeing out their backyard windows. If they weren't already out there, they could ignore everything short of a crash landing jumbo jet. Finally he hopped the fence into the dead person's backyard. He had a sudden clear flash of his time under the library, and Mr. Z shouting into the phone that he didn't care if she swallowed a ton of sleeping pills to kill herself.

  He landed just behind th
e garage, and knew right away it was a woman's house. People didn't just have birdbaths tied with red ribbons or those gazebo things. This woman's yard was at least double the size of Michael's, though the garage was smaller. The hedges were too neatly cut, there were all together too many flowers, and, there was the clincher, a pink butterfly thermometer/barometer suctioned to the sliding glass doors.

  Grandpa came up to the sliding glass doors and poked his head out. “You sure nobody came in or out?”

  Another man arrived, and pushed his way out onto the flagstones. He quickly lit a cigarette and raked a hand through his thinning hair. He looked about forty, and probably wouldn't have any hair left by the time he hit fifty. What he lacked in hair he made up for in stomach. It was so big his belt was just a rumor.

  “You see what she did to herself?” the fat detective asked. “Whew.”

  “I’m aware of her condition, yes. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You know Zeus, he's got eyes and ears on this place all the time,” the fat man said.

  “I wasn't aware we made Zeus and his flunkies into detectives, detective.”

  The fat man sighed. “I'll look into it, sir.”

  “You do that,” Grandpa said. “I'm tired of this situation and not getting any answers out of it.”

  “What situation? Wait, you don't think this Lane woman has anything to do with what's going on at school, do you?”

  “I ain't prepared to take any chances, Ricardo. The timing is awfully bad.”

  Michael tried to think where he'd seen a Mrs. or Ms. Lane before, and couldn't. He wasn't a very friendly kid. He knew Frodo and Percy Jackson far better than he did the people who cut hair or sold his mother deli turkey.

  “Well you best have some answers for me,” Grandpa said. “I'm gettin' fed up with explaining patience to the regents.”

  “Yes sir,” Ricardo said.

  Michael made his way back over the fence when he was sure Grandpa and detective Ricardo Fatbelly were back inside and out of the dead lady's kitchen. Charlotte was a couple of blocks up, still as an old lady, still clucking her tongue and muttering about what a shame it was.

  “What'd you find out?” she asked him in her own voice.

  He told her about the late Lane woman, and how Grandpa thought it was connected to whatever was happening to all the kids at LADCEMS. He left out the part about Zeus and the keys. He didn't know why, but it just felt wrong to tell someone like Charlotte that there really was a secret conspiracy headquarters watching after everyone they thought was important. Like it would stain her somehow.

  She told him how she'd walked up and started talking about the poor, poor dear, the poor dear. The cops had told her that yes, it was a shame, and she needed to move on. Unfortunately she couldn't get a look in the lady's house, even when she said she was a friend of the deceased. But she did hear a couple of the cops inside talking about how messed up the lady was, never married, probably just time to do the deed.

  “What do you think that means, do the deed?” she asked.

  “Kill herself,” Michael said immediately, and went on quickly when he saw how Charlotte was looking at him. “People who are messed up, you know, sometimes they kill themselves. I've read it in books.”

  “Reading things in books doesn't make them true,” she said quietly. There it was, the subdued Charlotte he didn't like. Everything else she did was so vibrant, so real and true and happy, he didn't want to burden her with this black smudge of possible reality. He decided to change tactics.

  “Let's finish up the plan for the teachers meeting,” he said. “I've still got some issues with the plan and I need your ideas.”

  “Alright,” she sighed.

  After a few blocks, they turned back toward the library, and by the time they got there Charlotte was back to her old self. She was excited to see if they could find something at the meeting. Michael just hoped they didn't waste a whole lot of time, or get caught, but she was convinced the problem was there and they just had to work to find it. Michael just hoped he wouldn't get caught and killed by his mother and father.

  In the meantime he had to ask about the Lane woman. She had to be one of the Keys. After dropping Charlotte at home, Michael headed back to the library to have a chat with Lily.

  Her name was Johanna Lane, thirty-one years old, and for fifteen of those, an Active. She could read and control peoples’ dreams. Lily told him all this sadly, like Ms. Lane was a good friend. Perhaps she was. Michael didn’t know how to ask, how to try to comfort someone much older. From his mother at least, he expected that all adults built up some sort of layer of armor, and that they didn’t need anyone when things got tough. Then again, there was his father.

  He left wondering what it was about Johanna Lane that would make her a target. So she could read peoples’ dreams. So what? She couldn’t fry anybody with her laser vision or squish them into nothing with super strength.

  Yet the dreams weren’t under your control. Maybe Terrence knew that he wouldn’t have any power over Johanna Lane while he was asleep. Certainly if he was planning something, it would be in his dreams. Michael started to wonder just how much control Mr. Jackson had over his thoughts. It was possible he could wall off his own thoughts so they never came to the surface in his dreams. It was possible that this was well beyond him. After all, anybody could slap a band-aid on a cut, but not everybody could remove part of your kidney and sew you back up with no ill effects. By his experience with the gravity ability, Michael knew that control was something that was learned. The finer points of powers took years to master.

  So Terrence killed Johanna Lane, or made it look like she killed herself, and he did it because she might find out what sort of plan he had going on with the Omega Syndicate. Still, that didn’t answer the question: why now? If Johanna had months to find out Terrence, why hadn’t she found him out and blown the whistle?

  Michael didn’t have any answers to these questions, but he kept turning it over in his mind as he went about his homework and got ready for the teachers’ meeting. In the end, he told his mom he was going for a bike ride, and she demanded he be back before nine at night. And not to accept anything from strangers.

  The meeting was being held in the LADCEMS library, with its impressive size, its dozens of tables and scores of chairs, relaxed atmosphere and high speed wi-fi access. What it also had was a second and third floor, and those were the basis for their plan. They weren’t exactly floors. The second was just a ring overlooking the first floor, full of study desks and quiet tables for students who liked to draw comics, gossip amongst themselves, play card games, or play video games. The third floor was also ring shaped, but had a number of study computers. These were monitored so heavily and restricted so much the students never really used them. Michael didn’t like it because there was only one staircase and an elevator leading out, and both of those led straight into a mass of teachers who wouldn’t take it kindly if they found out they were being spied on. Charlotte loved it (of course she did) because of the way the desks were set up. They were right against the railing, discouraging stupid students from trying to jump the fifteen feet downward, and were perfect for remaining hidden behind.

  They arrived a full hour before the meeting was supposed to start, and searched around the place for anything they could find. Nothing. So they headed up the stairs twenty minutes early and settled down to wait, and watch.

  It wasn’t long before the teachers began to arrive in twos and threes and then clumps. Several teachers started bustling around with projector equipment while others brought in trays of refreshments. Michael didn’t really bother watching any of this.

  “What does it feel like?” he asked her. “When, you know, you change?”

  She considered it for so long he was starting to think he’d made her really upset. He was just about to apologize when she held up a finger.

  “It’s like slipping on a pair of gloves,” she said at last. “But each one’s different.
Some don’t fit well. Like if I wanted to be a pretty awful person, it wouldn’t be any fun for me, or if I know I have to lie. When I had to turn into your grandfather, you know, I had to lie to your mom, so it squeezes real tight.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s how it feels when you lie normally.”

  “But if I don’t like it, it’s harder. Changing is harder. Usually it’s really easy though.”

  “Like Santa Claus?”

  She blushed, and Michael had no idea why until he realized he had sat on her lap. They’d never shared any moments like that, and it made him confused. Did she like him? If she did like him, he had no idea what to do about it. Other boys were supposed to say ‘go out with me’ and then it all got very hazy. He had no idea of what was expected of him then, outside of hold hands and possibly sometime in the future, kiss. Like around the age of eighteen. He didn’t necessarily hate the idea, but he was almost thirteen years old. According to his mother, this was not too early to send himself on a beeline path toward Hell by doing things that were forbidden by the man upstairs.

  There was still the question: did she like him like that? He didn’t have any friends, only books to rely on, and they made the whole business of girls awfully complicated. Also, the boys were mostly heroes and had super strength or magic or whatever. Most of the girls wanted to be ‘just friends’. He never understood why they couldn’t do ‘just friends’ type stuff when they weren’t kissing.

  He told himself to forget about it. Charlotte kept explaining about her ability, how she had to keep her mind on her shape, like keep looking in a mirror or avoid talking. If she was just standing still, she could stay in someone else’s shape until the cows came home. If she was trying to be a world famous figure skater, it was better if she stayed off the ice. The other night as Grandpa hadn’t been easy for her, which was why she’d changed back as soon as she got in his room.

  She’d been in his room. Alone. It was another jolting thought. He supposed most of the kids at LADCEMS already thought she was his girlfriend, even though they didn’t hold hands in the halls or kiss next to her locker or anything. The other kids were pretty fixated on boys and girls being together at all.

  He promised himself that when things got back to normal, he was going to make sure everybody knew just how he and Charlotte fit together. First, he was going to figure out just how he and Charlotte fit together. Then, as soon as that was done, he would tell everyone. Maybe she knew how they fit together. Maybe he could ask her one day, when he stopped his mind from whirling in a million directions. For instance:

  She liked him. Clearly she liked him. Yet, no, that wasn’t true at all. Maybe she only liked him because they lived near each other. Plus, she had no other friends. Maybe their friendship was just a matter of convenience for her. If she moved to another part of town, they’d probably slowly stop talking and spending time with one another.

  The teachers started to appear in a steady flow, most of them talking and hovering around the refreshment tables that had been set up. He recognized Mr. L, Mr. Springfield, Nora the gravity control woman who had nearly gotten him killed, Mrs. Montgomery the healer, and Bob the unkillable man. Samuelson and Wozniak were there also, sipping their coffee like they weren’t surrounded by enough power to destroy the moon.

  “Where’s Jackson?” he whispered. He was pretty nervous already, and only about a dozen teachers stood below him. Maybe all of them together in one place would override all of his student senses and give him a heart attack.

  “Can’t see him,” she whispered back. “Don’t worry, he’ll show up sooner or later.”

  One by one, the blob of teachers began to ooze toward the tables, where a complicated seating ritual of friends and enemies was probably going on, same as in the cafeteria. He saw several of them nervously looking for a table, only to be beckoned over (to their visible relief) by a friend at a far table. He saw art teachers, in their Halloween-like paint-smeared clothes sitting together, only one Michael didn’t know sat apart. Michael kept himself entertained trying to imagine what the outcast had done to the other art teachers, like the one hadn’t shown up to a coffee shop rant meeting, or she said one of the other art teachers’ work wasn’t very good. Maybe they’d gone to high school together and had just hated each other.

  Michael realized he couldn’t do this while bored.

  “Guess what I found out?” he murmured. He always found these to be better than whispers. Whispers tended to carry too far.

  “What’s that?” Charlotte asked.

  “I asked around about Mrs. Lane, Johanna Lane by the way.” Boy did he feel great, knowing something of interest. “She was an Active. She could go into your dreams or something.”

  “Like determine what your dreams are going to be?”

  “…right.” He realized he actually had no idea the extent of Johanna Lane’s ability.

  “That would be so great,” she sighed. “You know, to fly. You can always fly in your dreams.”

  Maybe she could, but Michael’s dreams were more of the run-screaming-and-hide-from-the-bad-guy sort. There wasn’t much flying, unless you counted the times he flew after getting smashed by some super powered person or ability.

  “If I were Johanna, I’d fly all over the place in peoples’ dreams. Then I’d know all their desires, like if they wanted blueberry pancakes, I could show up at their house with blueberry pancakes.”

  Michael stared at her. Yes, he thought, the people of the world had these insignificant little dreams, like which pancakes to choose. But of course this was why he kept wanting to have her around. She quieted the bubbling evil voice that said, yes, and when she’s got all their secrets, she can blackmail ALL of them. Because that’s what villains did.

  Lily told him that Mrs. Lane had been the nurse at the high school, but the nurse’s job was really more like a psychiatrist’s than anything else. The counselors also filled in as head doctors. You couldn’t have a school half full of super weirdoes with super weird attitudes and super out-of-control hormones.

  “You could make all the flowers into little apple and lemon pies,” Charlotte went on, “and all the clouds into cotton candy. Really, you could do anything if you were in somebody’s dream.”

  “What is the matter with you? What are you doing!” someone shouted from below.

  Apparently a lot could happen when someone was dream. Or daydreaming. Michael snapped out of his to find his eyes locked with Terrence Jackson’s.

  “We’re in trouble,” he muttered.

  And that was the precise moment the Omega Syndicate took over the town.

  Chapter 15 - Poking the Hive