Flashback Four #4

by Dan Gutman

  CHAPTER 4

  KEEPING SECRETS

  SECRETS ARE HARD TO KEEP. THAT’S WHY THEY’RE called secrets. When you know something that you know somebody else doesn’t know, it’s really tough to pretend you don’t know! And it’s even harder to keep a secret when it’s so easy to just click that SEND button.

  After the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Museum of Historical Photography, Luke, Isabel, Julia, and David went back to their regular lives—school, sports, other friends. Isabel joined a club at school called Kids Against Violence. Julia returned to the issues that matter to her—makeup, hairstyles, and clothing.

  None of the Flashback Four told their parents they had attended the museum opening. None of the parents asked any tough questions about that night. But the story was all over the local news and in the Boston papers the following days. It was impossible to avoid the screaming headlines. . . .

  FAKE MUSEUM OPENS AT WATERFRONT

  DELUSIONAL BILLIONAIRE CLAIMS TO HAVE TIME MACHINE

  CRAZY RICH LADY CLOSE TO DEATH

  The kids felt terrible, of course. Those stories weren’t just mean and insulting. They were lies. The Museum of Historical Photography wasn’t a fake. The pictures were all real. Miss Z wasn’t delusional or crazy. If she hadn’t included that final gallery in the museum with the two photos from Pompeii and the Titanic, the press would have been hailing her as a great educator and humanitarian.

  The one headline that was hardest to avoid was the one that shouted WHO IS FLASHBACK FOUR? People love a good mystery. When word got around that the two photos were credited to somebody called “Flashback Four,” it just about set off a national manhunt. Everybody wanted to know the identity of Flashback Four. This editorial appeared in the Boston Tribune. . . .

  The day after that editorial appeared, Isabel, Luke, Julia, and David each received this text message at exactly the same moment . . .

  PLEASE COME TO THE PC OFFICE AT 4PM TOMORROW

  PC. Pasture Company. It had to be important. So at four o’clock the next day, all four showed up at the Hancock Building. Before the kids could go through the revolving door, Mrs. Vader met them outside. A few bored-looking photographers and video crews were hanging around the front steps.

  “Come with me,” Mrs. Vader whispered. “Quickly!”

  The kids followed her around the back of the building, where a door led to a separate elevator that was only used for celebrities, criminals, cops, and others who don’t want to deal with press people pestering them.

  “What’s going on?” asked Luke.

  “Sorry about this cloak-and-dagger stuff,” Mrs. Vader replied once they were inside. “Miss Z thinks it would be best if you were not seen by the media.”

  She hustled the kids upstairs and offered them tea and cookies while they waited for Miss Z to make her usual grand entrance.

  Finally, she did. She looked tired. It had been a rough week for her, both physically and emotionally.

  “Thank you for coming in,” she told the kids. “I’m sure there are more fun things you could be doing today.”

  “Any time,” David replied. “What is it? Is everything okay?”

  “We’re so sorry about what happened at the museum the other night,” said Isabel. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  “Yeah, those people were really mean to you,” added Julia.

  “Everything is fine,” Miss Z assured them. “Stuff happens. Don’t worry about me. Worry about people who can’t pay their rent or put food on the table. I’ll be fine. If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s to not let stuff like this bother me. I’m more concerned about the four of you.”

  “Us?” asked Isabel. “What about us?”

  “If word gets out that you’re the Flashback Four and that you took those photos,” said Miss Z, “things could get very difficult for you.”

  “Difficult?” asked David. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not exactly sure what I mean,” Miss Z replied. “But I will promise this. I will never reveal your names. You can count on it. And I will not send you on another mission. It’s just too dangerous, especially now, when I’m being watched like a hawk. I feel it’s time that we put this all behind us and move on with our lives.”

  “What about the museum?” asked Julia.

  Miss Z let out a sigh and bowed her head.

  “Tomorrow,” she said, “the museum will be shut down ‘until further notice.’ The mayor is putting out the story that I’m insane, and he’s using that as an excuse to shut the museum down. Here, look at this.”

  She pulled a newspaper out of her desk drawer.

  “Oh, that’s bull,” said Luke.

  “That’s not fair!” Isabel said. “You’ve worked your whole life to make the museum happen!”

  “The press love to build somebody up, create a new celebrity out of them, and then tear them down,” Miss Z said. “I must admit, people love that story. It sells newspapers. It grabs you by the eyeballs. I know how the game works.”

  “It wasn’t your fault that people freaked out at the photos,” David said.

  “No, it was my fault,” Miss Z replied. “I never should have included those two photos in the museum.”

  “But those photos are real!” Luke said. “I took them myself.”

  “Yes, but the public isn’t ready for them, I suppose,” said Miss Z. “I should have given it more thought. It was a mistake, maybe the biggest mistake of my life. But it’s okay. I’ve lived a good life. You can’t win ’em all, right?”

  “There must be something we can do,” Isabel said. “What if we did a public demonstration of the Board? Then people would have to believe it works.”

  “Yeah,” agreed the others.

  “No,” said Miss Z. “I’ve meddled in your lives enough. This will be our last meeting. I think it’s best if we don’t see each other anymore.”

  “What about the Board?” asked Julia. “Who’s going to get it when you’re . . . uh, no longer here?”

  “Nobody,” Miss Z told her. “I have given Mrs. Vader instructions to destroy it. If this technology should fall into the wrong hands, it could be disastrous. As it is, I feel like I’m being watched. My phone may be tapped.”

  “Really?” David asked. “By who?”

  “I don’t know,” Miss Z replied. “The FBI? The CIA? The NSA? It could be anybody.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just being paranoid?” asked Luke.

  “I’m just being careful,” Miss Z said. “I don’t want you kids to get into any trouble as a result of my mistake. So let’s just pretend that none of this ever happened, shall we? Chalk it up to experience.”

  The kids bade a tearful good-bye to Miss Z and Mrs. Vader, who helped them sneak out the back elevator again.

  So that was it. The Flashback Four were finished. They would never see Miss Z again, and they would never travel through time again. Time to move on to the next phase of life.

  On Sunday night, Julia (JuliaRockStar) was at her computer, as she was most nights, tweeting, Facebooking, and chatting online with some friends from her school. . . .

  MistYou: U HEAR ABOUT THAT CRAZY LADY WITH THE MUSEUM?

  PartyGrl: SHE SHOULD BE IN A LOONY BIN

  Hisdudeness: She’s nutz.

  JuliaRockStar: No she isn’t

  MistYou: HOW DO U KNOW SHE’S NOT INSANE?

  JuliaRockStar: I just do, ok?

  Hisdudeness: What? U no her?

  JuliaRockStar: Yeah

  MistYou: HOW?

  JuliaRockStar: It’s a long story. Not allowed to say.

  PartyGrl: SO WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THOSE FAKE PICTURES?

  Hisdudeness: Yeah? Pompeii? Come on.

  JuliaRockStar: They’re not fake.

  MistYou: HOW DO YOU KNOW?

  JuliaRockStar: I just do.

  Hisdudeness: Is she your friend?

  JuliaRockStar: They’re real.

  MistYou: REPEAT. HOW DO YOU KNOW?

 
JuliaRockStar: Because I was there, okay? Me and some friends took ’em. Don’t. Tell. Anybody.

  MistYou: SO YOU’RE FLASHBACK FOUR???!!!

  Julia didn’t respond after that. She knew she had already said too much. She logged off her computer. And just to be on the safe side, she cleared her browser history and didn’t send any other emails, texts, or comments for the rest of the night.

  Too late. The next morning, precisely at ten o’clock, four identical Lincoln Town Cars pulled up at four Boston schools.

  CHAPTER 5

  NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS

  LUKE WAS DOING HIS BEST TO PAY ATTENTION IN Mr. Wolf’s math class when an announcement came over the loudspeaker. . . .

  “Mr. Wolf, please send Luke Borowicz to the office.”

  “Oooooh!” whispered the boy sitting behind Luke. “What did you do now?”

  “Nothin’!” Luke replied as he got up from his seat.

  “You’re in trouble, man.”

  When he got to the office, Luke was ushered into the large conference room, where he expected to see the principal, Mrs. Weissblum. Instead, a well-dressed man was sitting alone at one end of the long table with a yellow legal pad in front of him, tapping a pencil in one hand. He had a black briefcase on the floor next to him and a serious look on his face. The guy looked like it had been years since he last cracked a smile.

  “Take a seat, Luke.”

  “Who are you?” Luke asked before sitting down. The guy was wearing a visitor’s pass, but there was no name on it.

  “You can call me Agent Holland.”

  “Agent? What are you, with the FBI or something?”

  “No. Sit down, Luke.”

  Luke sat down.

  “What do you want?” Luke said, a certain tone in his voice.

  “I just want to ask you a few questions,” Agent Holland replied.

  “Don’t you need to have a search warrant or something like that before you can question people?” asked Luke.

  “Yes, we do,” Agent Holland replied. “Here it is.”

  He pushed a piece of paper across the table. Luke scanned it long enough to see it was written in legalese that would be impossible for him to understand. He noticed his own name at the top.

  “Shouldn’t I have a lawyer?” asked Luke. “I don’t feel comfortable with this.”

  “How about I ask the questions, Luke, and you answer them?” said Agent Holland. “For starters, are you acquainted with Miss Chris Zandergoth?”

  Luke didn’t reply. Agent Holland jotted a note on the pad in front of him.

  “Let me put it this way,” Holland said. “We know you’re acquainted with Chris Zandergoth.”

  “So what?” Luke asked. “Is she a criminal?”

  “We know all about what Miss Zandergoth has been doing with the Board, Luke.”

  “Okay,” Luke said. “What does this have to do with me?”

  Agent Holland put down his pencil and looked Luke in the eyes.

  “I’ll get to the point,” he said. “Are you part of the Flashback Four?”

  That took Luke by surprise. He asked himself, how did this guy track him down? Did he find Julia, Isabel, and David too? Were any laws broken? What was going to happen to him?

  “I’m guessing you already know the answer to that question too,” Luke replied.

  “Yes, we do,” Agent Holland said. “And in fact, I’m pretty sure that you were the photographer of those two photos Miss Zandergoth had on display the other night at the Museum of Historical Photography.”

  “What if I was?” said Luke. “Is that a crime? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, quite the opposite, actually,” said Agent Holland. He put his pad and papers into his briefcase. “You did a nice job on those photos. I’d like you to come with me, Luke. We’re going to take a little ride.”

  “This is the middle of my math class,” Luke said.

  “Don’t worry about your class,” said Agent Holland. “I’ll write you a note.”

  Luke thought about his options. He could just sit there and hope the principal would come in and rescue him. He could punch the guy. He could make a run for it. None of those seemed like smart choices. His cell phone was in his pocket. He wondered what would happen if he called 911.

  “Don’t reach for your cell, Luke,” advised Agent Holland. “That would be a big mistake.”

  In the end, Luke decided to do as Agent Holland said. He followed the man out of the office and got into the black car waiting at the curb.

  Agent Holland got into the driver’s seat. Before turning on the ignition, he handed Luke a black piece of cloth.

  “I’m going to ask you to wear this hood over your head, Luke,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want you to know where we’re going.”

  Well, at least the guy was honest.

  David, Isabel, and Julia each had a similar experience to Luke’s that morning. A black car pulled up to their schools. They were sent to the office. There was a meeting with an unsmiling man and a ride to an undisclosed location.

  Each member of the Flashback Four was helped out of the car, into a building, up an elevator, and into a room. There, they were instructed to take off their hoods.

  “David!” exclaimed Luke.

  “Luke!” exclaimed David.

  “Isabel!” exclaimed Julia.

  “Julia!” exclaimed Isabel.

  Isabel was crying. She had never broken a rule in her life. She had never been in any kind of trouble. She had always assumed that if she simply followed the rules and worked as hard as she possibly could, bad things would not happen to her. The others were freaked out by the experience too, but to some degree they were comforted by the fact that they were together.

  “Where are we?” asked Julia, looking around the room.

  “We couldn’t have gone very far,” David said. “The drive over here was only a few minutes.”

  “I think they know everything,” said Luke, as he went over to pull on the door. It was locked. “What do you think they’re going to do to us?”

  “I’m afraid,” Isabel whimpered. “They told me not to tell my parents anything.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Julia, pulling out her cell phone. “Well, I’m going to tell my dad right now. He works for Verizon and he’ll track my phone and get his lawyer over here in a minute. These people are going to get into so much trouble.”

  Julia punched a few buttons on her cell phone to call her father, but she couldn’t get through.

  “I can’t get a signal,” she finally said.

  “These walls must be lined with lead or something,” said David.

  “What are we gonna do?” asked Julia.

  “Let’s just tell them the truth,” Isabel said. “I don’t want to get in more trouble than we’re already in.”

  “Look, we didn’t do anything wrong,” Luke insisted. “We’re innocent. We can’t be in trouble.”

  “That’s what you think,” David told his friend. As the only African American in the group, David knew what it was like to be in trouble even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Miss Z always told us to expect the unexpected,” said Isabel. “I don’t think she expected this.”

  A minute passed before the door opened and a woman came in. The kids were a little relieved, assuming a woman would not be as rough on them as a man.

  “Good morning,” the woman said. “My name is Ms. Gunner.” She looked to be in her fifties, with short dark hair and a business suit. She had a briefcase. The kids, of course, would soon be calling her “the Gunner.”

  “My name is Isabel—”

  “I know all your names already,” interrupted Ms. Gunner. “I know how old you are, where you live, where you go to school, and the names of your pets. I probably know more about you than you know about you.”

  “Are you with the FBI or the CIA?” asked David.

  “No.”

  “The NSA
?” asked Julia.

  “I’m with NOYB,” said Ms. Gunner. “We are a top-secret organization. Even the FBI and CIA don’t know we exist.”

  “What does NOYB stand for?” asked Luke.

  “That’s none of your business,” Ms. Gunner replied.

  “Wow,” said David. “This place is top secret.”

  “Can you tell us where we are?” asked Isabel.

  “Isabel, if I wanted you to know where you are,” said Ms. Gunner, “I wouldn’t have covered your face on the way over here.”

  Ms. Gunner took four sheets of paper out of her briefcase and gave one to each of the kids. Then she handed out four pens.

  “Sign, please.”

  “We’re not adults,” Julia said. “Our signature isn’t legally binding.”

  Julia’s dad was a high-powered corporate executive, so she knew a thing or two about contracts and legal documents.

  “It’s just a formality,” said Ms. Gunner.

  “I don’t want to get in trouble,” Isabel said, signing her name. “If my parents ever found out about this . . .”

  Few people enjoy conflict, least of all Isabel. She had recently decided that she was going to be a pacifist—a person who rejects all wars and violence. In her bedroom at home, she had posters of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, and John Lennon on the walls.

  “Are you going to torture us?” David asked, signing his paper.

  “No,” said Ms. Gunner. “Please calm down. You are not in trouble and we’re not going to torture you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You will not suffer any negative consequences, as long as you do what I tell you.”

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Julia.

  “Before I tell you that, I need to make one thing perfectly clear,” Ms. Gunner told the group. “Nobody must know what we are about to discuss. Not your classmates. Not your parents. You will tell nobody about this meeting today or any subsequent meetings we might have. Understand?”

  “Understand,” all four repeated.

  “That means no tweeting, no texting, no emailing,” Ms. Gunner continued. “No Facebooking, no Snapchatting, no Instagramming, or whatever silly new social media you’re into this week. None of it. And no phone calling, even though I’m aware that your generation rarely talks on the phone, for reasons I’ll never understand. Got it? I’m looking at you, Julia.”