by Lisa McMann
CHAPTER 21
Defense Mode
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlie asked. “Chimera Mark Five? Defense mode? Access code? What?”
“Mark Five,” mused Maria. “Like Iron Man and his suits! I wonder if that means there’s a version four out there somewhere? And a three?”
Charlie didn’t know much about Iron Man, but she too wondered why the bracelet would be called a Mark Five. “Yeah—maybe it’s like how new versions of phones and programs are named. Like iPhone 7 or Windows 10.”
“So, you think there might be other bracelets out there?” asked Maria, eyes widening.
Charlie thought about it. “Don’t people just get rid of their old phones when they get an upgrade?”
Maria shrugged. “I guess.”
“Hmm.” Mac had been studying the phrases as they flashed across the bracelet’s screen, and while the girls discussed the meaning of Mark Five, he turned to his tablet, typed “Chimera Mark Five,” and hit Enter, then sat back and frowned as the search engine produced no results. “Nothing? Seriously?” He shrugged and deleted the last two words, then hit Enter again.
“Chimera,” he said, reading the page in front of him, and then he clicked on the audible pronunciation. “ki-MEER-ah,” it said.
Mac read the description and summarized, “Basically, it’s a creature from Greek mythology made up of different animal parts.”
Maria looked horrified. “Different animal parts? Sorry, but that’s just gross.”
Mac glanced at her, confused at first. “What? No! Not chopped-off limbs glued together, Maria.”
Charlie laughed out loud as Mac continued. “The parts are, like, naturally grown or whatever. A chimera is a supercreature with the most powerful features of a bunch of—” He stopped abruptly and looked at the bracelet.
Charlie leaned over his shoulder and read the tablet screen. “The most powerful features of a bunch of animals,” she finished softly. The shed was dead silent.
Maria’s eyes widened. “Oh. You mean like the speed of one animal.”
“And the strength of another,” Mac said slowly, looking at Maria.
“And the healing power of one too,” Maria said. The two turned to stare at Charlie.
“That’s insane,” Charlie said. Her heart raced, and a wave of panic moved through her. “Really insane.” She stood up and shook her arm in front of Mac’s face. “You have to get this thing off me. Now.”
“I can’t,” Mac said. “Like the message says, we need a code to do that. Did it come with a code? Any instructions? Anything?”
“No, I didn’t see any code. Nothing like that,” Charlie said. “Just a note.” She scrambled to produce it and held it out to Maria. “Here.”
Maria unfolded it and read aloud: “‘Charlie, it’s time. You know what to do.’” She turned it over, saw that side was blank, and looked at Mac. “There’s no signature. No code. Nothing. That’s it.”
“I thought it was about soccer,” Charlie said, agitated. “But now I’m sure I don’t have a clue what to do.” She pulled her arm away, but Mac grabbed it.
“Hang on,” he said. He tapped on the screen, and a number keypad came up. Below the numbers was a Shift key and a space bar. He pushed the Shift key, and a new keypad came up, this time with the first half of the alphabet. Once again Mac pushed the Shift key, and the second half of the alphabet appeared.
He hit the Enter key.
An ERROR screen popped up, then disappeared, returning him to the scrolling words asking for an access code.
“Okay,” he muttered. “But how many characters?”
Charlie gave Maria a tortured look.
Mac let go and turned to his iPad and started a new search. “I’m going to need time to figure out this code. It could be all numbers, all letters, or a combination. And I can’t figure out how long it is.”
“How much time?” Charlie asked anxiously.
“I don’t know. Since we have no idea who sent it, we can’t start with the usual common passwords: family and pet names, birth dates, and stuff like that.” He looked at Charlie. “Can I see it again?”
Charlie held out her arm, and he tried entering a few random combinations and hitting the Enter key. All of them resulted in the ERROR screen, giving him no further indication of how many characters the ID code had. When he let go, Charlie got up and started pacing. A chimera bracelet? Thinking about it was really unsettling.
Maria hopped off the table and went to Charlie’s side. “It’s going to be okay, Charlie. Nothing has changed—you just know more about it now. I get that it’s stuck on you, but you’ve been surviving all right with it on you this long, so maybe take a few deep breaths, okay? And you’re not a chimera, or whatever that thing is. You just have the powers of some animals, right? Which is actually extremely cool, if you think about it.”
“It’s still creepy.” Charlie took a deep breath, almost afraid to let it out in case fire burst from her mouth or something, but nothing happened. She felt human, like always.
“You look totally normal,” Maria assured her.
“Except for your fangs,” Mac added.
“Fangs?” Charlie cried, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Mac!” Maria said. “Not cool. Can’t you see Charlie is freaking out?” She looked at Charlie. “You don’t have fangs. You look the same as you did your first day of school. And seriously, you have great powers. I mean, think about it.”
Charlie glared at the back of Mac’s head, but he was looking at his phone, flipping through his code-hacking apps. After a minute she relaxed a little. “Maybe it’s not so bad,” she conceded. Mac’s joke was kind of funny. And having these powers didn’t actually make her an animal.
“Not so bad?” Mac said. “What are you talking about? It’s terrific.” He sounded a bit envious.
Charlie pursed her lips. “Maybe. I’d like it a lot more if I could take it off when I wanted to, though.”
“Mac will figure that out,” Maria said. “Don’t worry.”
“Yeah,” warned Mac, “I hope so anyway. I’ve got to let these programs run and see what codes they come up with. And then I’ll have to enter them one at a time, since there’s no way to hook the bracelet up to my tablet. So it’ll take a while.”
“That sounds . . . exciting,” said Charlie with zero enthusiasm.
“Hmm,” said Maria, an impish smile playing at her lips. “Maybe it’s time for the fun part.”
Mac shrugged, then nodded.
Charlie eyed Maria suspiciously. “What fun part?”
“You’ll see. Come with me.” Maria smiled and put her hands on Charlie’s shoulders, turned her in the direction of the door, and gently pushed her toward it. Mac, still working on his phone, got up, grabbed his iPad, and followed them.
“Where are we going?” Charlie asked. She stooped to pick up her soccer ball as they went.
“To the soccer field.”
Charlie stopped and frowned. “Why?”
Maria’s eyes twinkled. “Because, my friend, I think it’s time to see exactly what this sweet bracelet can do.”
CHAPTER 22
Figuring Out the Trigger
“No way!” Charlie said, planting her feet in the doorway of the shed and blocking Maria and Mac from getting past her. “Tell me what you’re planning or I am out of here. I mean it.”
“Tell her, Maria,” Mac said. “She’s right. She’s not our test subject.”
Charlie was glad to have Mac backing her up, but then she did a double take. “Your test subject?”
“Bad choice of words,” Mac said. “What I meant was that you’re not a chimera. You’re a person, so you decide things about your own . . . self. About your own powers. Whatever we’re calling them.”
“You’re totally right,” Maria said sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking that since it’ll take some time to crack the code, maybe we could learn more, you know? Test your abilities. See how fast you
can run, how much you can lift. Stuff like that. And who knows—maybe we’ll accidentally figure out how to control the powers, too.”
Charlie narrowed her eyes. “That’s it?”
“Yep. That’s all I had in mind. I mean, aren’t you curious to find out?”
Maria was pretty convincing. It would be cool to know how fast she could run. “I guess so,” said Charlie. “Yeah.” She stepped through the doorway, and the three started walking toward school. “But I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it to do anything,” she added. “The bracelet doesn’t work all the time. Sometimes it doesn’t do anything for hours.”
Mac looked up from his cell phone. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it gives me powers sometimes and not others. I tried running fast the other night, and I couldn’t get it to work. It’s like . . . like a lightbulb that’s not screwed in all the way, you know? Sometimes it’s on, sometimes it flickers and goes off. . . .” It wasn’t the best way to describe it, but it was the only thing Charlie could think of.
“So . . . do you think there’s a short circuit in the bracelet or something?” Mac wondered. “Some sort of glitch?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Hmm.” Mac lifted Charlie’s arm once more and pushed a few buttons on the bracelet, but the message continued scrolling as before. He shook his head, puzzled, and gave up—for the moment, at least.
At the field, Maria had Charlie stand at the boundary line behind one goal, ready to run as fast as she could to midfield, which was forty yards away. Mac stood prepared to film the run on his phone so he could be absolutely precise with calculating speed. He wasn’t looking for Charlie’s average speed over the forty yards—he wanted her top speed. Once he broke down the footage and analyzed it, he’d be able to pinpoint the exact number.
“Ready over here,” Mac said. He started recording.
Maria looked at Charlie. “Ready?”
Charlie nodded.
“Go!” Maria said.
Charlie sprinted over the grass as fast as she could go. She crossed the line and slowed down, breathing hard, then circled back to where Mac stood.
“Well?” she asked.
Mac watched the replay and did some quick calculations in his head. “Well, you run a decent forty-yard dash, but you’re not breaking any records.”
“So you’re saying it didn’t work.”
Mac smiled patronizingly. “I’m going to go with no. Try again.”
“That’s what I thought.” Charlie walked back to where Maria stood and got ready to run.
Maria waited for Charlie to signal that she was ready and shouted, “Go!”
Charlie dug her feet into the ground and pushed off, putting everything she had into the sprint. But when she crossed the line, she knew instinctively that her running power just wasn’t there.
“Meeting!” she called between breaths, and Maria came running over.
“Are you still running normally?” Maria asked, though it was clear from her face that she could tell it was just average.
“Yeah. And I’m not sure how long I want to do this. It’s great conditioning and all, but I already had my workout today.”
“I hear you,” Mac said. “But I’m not sure what to do. I mean, can you give us any hints? What happens when you do have the strength or speed? Do you feel different? Did you shake your wrist a certain way or push the buttons or . . .” He trailed off, trying to think of anything that could possibly trigger the device.
“It gets warm when it’s working,” Charlie said. She clasped her other hand over the bracelet and moved the bracelet up her arm. It was cold.
“Well, that’s something,” Mac said, typing notes into his phone.
“I don’t always notice it, though. Not right away, anyway. I guess I’m usually distracted when it happens.”
“Distracted,” Maria repeated, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm. Let’s talk through all the times when the bracelet actually gave you powers. When was the first one?”
“I’m not positive, but I think the first time something felt a little off was when I rushed to my seat in first period a few days ago after the late bell rang, and I sent my desk skidding into the aisle. Do you remember that, Mac?”
“Yeah, actually, I do,” Mac said slowly. He tilted his head, thinking. “I mean, those desks are heavy. Something like that might happen with a big kid. So it surprised me. Of course I forgot all about it five seconds later.”
Charlie nodded. “The first major thing I remember happening was during soccer tryouts,” she said. “Not during warm-ups or even in my first round on the field in the scrimmage, though, because I started out pretty sluggish, and I was kind of jittery and anxious. The ball went sailing my way. I trapped it and started dribbling at a normal speed, I think.” She tapped her chin. “Nothing much happened until after Coach subbed me out.”
“So when did an ability kick in?” Mac asked.
Charlie thought back to the scrimmage. “A little while after I went back in to play. I dribbled a bit, and then saw the opposition coming at me from all sides. I remember getting that scared thrill I get when I have a challenge and the defense is chasing me. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Not really,” said Mac, but Maria nodded.
“And . . . I don’t know,” Charlie continued, “it just happened. I started flying across the field, and I left the defense behind.”
“In a big way,” Maria added.
“Was the bracelet warm?” asked Mac.
“I—I don’t remember. I suppose so.”
“It was a really impressive run,” Maria added. “And later in the game—was it the same? You got the ball, and it just clicked sometime after that?”
“When I was surrounded by defense, yeah. I had to get out of there or be trampled—that’s about when it happened, I guess.”
“Hmm,” Mac said, typing furiously. Then he raised an eyebrow. “What about strength? Maria told me you picked up an entire bed by yourself. How would you even know to try that?”
“I didn’t pick it up myself,” said Charlie. “I was helping Kelly move it. I had the headboard side, and we were carrying it backstage, and then she got distracted and just dropped her end without any warning and ran out to see some high school guy.”
“And it didn’t fall to the ground?” Mac asked.
“Right, it didn’t. I just held it like it was no big deal, and then I realized that I was holding an entire bed by myself, and I started freaking out. That’s when I dropped it.”
“And you ran to the bathroom?” asked Maria.
“Yes.”
“Superspeed run?” Mac asked. “Or normal?”
“I don’t know. I was really freaking out.”
“And you tore the bathroom apart,” Mac said, still typing.
“Not the whole bathroom.”
“Right. Part of the bathroom.” Mac looked at Charlie, fingers hovering over the keys, waiting for her to go on.
“Aren’t you going to change that in your notes?” Charlie asked him. “I don’t want anybody thinking I wrecked the entire bathroom.”
“Nobody’s going to even see this, remember? I’m sworn to secrecy,” Mac said.
Charlie put her hands on her hips and stared.
Mac stared back at her, and then reluctantly changed it in his notes. “Fine,” he said. “What else?”
“My alarm went off, and I broke my phone screen just by touching it.”
Maria studied Charlie intently. “Did the alarm surprise you? Or were you sort of awake already?”
“It scared the heck out of me,” Charlie said, remembering. “The volume was on full blast. And the bracelet got warm then, I remember.” She thought through all the instances, trying to find a common theme. Mac and Maria were silent, doing the same thing.
After a minute Maria held her finger in the air, closed her eyes, opened them again, and said, “I’ve got it.”
Charlie and Mac looked
expectantly at her.
“Well?” Charlie prompted.
Maria lifted her chin. “Necessity,” she said. “And fear, in a way. Like with animals. The chimera thing.”
“Um, what?” Charlie asked. “You lost me.”
“Sorry,” Maria said, laughing. “I mean, when the device somehow senses you are in trouble, or in danger, it activates and gives you the powers you need to deal with the situation.”
“Aha,” Mac said, nodding at Maria. “I get it. Like when Charlie was being surrounded by the other team in the scrimmage—she needed to get out of there, like an animal that feels trapped. Fear stimulates necessity. So the bracelet sensed Charlie’s change in adrenaline or whatever and gave her the ability to flee—the power of speed kicked in.”
“Exactly,” said Maria. “And Kelly dropping her end of the bed gave Charlie an immediate sense of urgency to stop the bed from falling. Her strength turned on so she could keep holding it.”
Charlie looked skeptical. “That makes sense for those instances, but what about the bathroom? Are you saying I had an urgent need to rip out that sink?”
“No,” Maria said, growing excited, “but the ability was already activated from the bed incident, and you didn’t know to be careful until it turned off. And it probably doesn’t turn off until your body’s natural indicators tell the bracelet that you are safe. Like your heart rate and pulse going back to resting levels.”
“It’s like when you move cats across the country and when you let them loose they bolt and hide behind the stove in your new house for a whole day until they feel safe,” Charlie murmured.
“Yes, like that!” said Maria.
“And,” Mac said, “maybe the bracelet went into overdrive because you freaked out about it—so it didn’t know to turn off when you started destroying the whole bathroom.”
“Part of the bathroom.”
Mac just looked at her. “Okay, look. You broke a toilet seat, a stall door, pulled the sink from the wall and then smashed it. . . . I’m just saying that’s a heck of a lot of destruction to call it ‘part’ of the bathroom.”
