As it turns out, Ty had been clowning around. At least that's the way it looked when we found him in a parking garage, nine hours later.

We decided to regroup in Gwinn, Michigan. By the time we stashed our helicopter in the Airport and circled back, Ty would be reaching this town.

Our car pulled up beside the black rental car. I peered into the front seat to find Ty dressed in a yellow shirt with red pom-pom buttons. His face was all white, except for red around in his lips, painted in an exaggerated smile. A red, frizzy whig sat on top of his normally short, brown hair.

I got out of the car and walked to the front seat of the car. Ty rolled the window down.

"I thought you said that you weren't clowning around," I said.

"Not when you asked."

I sighed. "Why are you dressed like a clown?"

"After our conversation, I remembered that I had just so happened to bring a few disguises with me. I threw one on..."

"When?" I demanded.

Ty held up his hands. "Patience, my dear. As I was saying, I threw one on in the car..."

"You put on that disguise while you were driving!"

"Please let me finish. I put it on in the car while we were stuck in traffic." He paused.

"Is that it?" I said.

"Yup. We got stuck in traffic, and I threw on a clown's disguise. There were tons of other cars that looked like mine."

"But what about the license plate?" I asked.

Ty's grin widened. "I changed it."

"How?"

"While we were in traffic."

"I didn't ask when, I asked how."

"I took the old license plate off and put on a new one."

"You got out of the car in the middle of traffic?"

"Yup."

This is what I meant when I hoped Ty wouldn't do anything stupid. Rules of the driving 101: don't get out of your car while you are on the road.

"Now I have some questions for you," Ty said. "What happened?"

I explained what had happened, that Dawn was a double agent and betrayed us. Ty's eyes widened, but a sense of understanding fell over him. For once, he sat quietly in his seat, hands folded in his lap. He wasn't loud or interrupting. It was like everything was falling into place for him. He must be realizing that this is the reason I've been acting kind of off lately.

"I can't believe she did that," Jef muttered from the car. "I've worked with her for decades. Decades!"

"It's crazy," Ty said. "I would have never guessed that Dawn, my former trainer at the IIA, would betray us."

"Neither would I," I added.

"And neither would the real Xara." His eyes met mine as if to stamp his statement in my mind. I hadn't said anything, I hadn't even been thinking about how the real Xara would have reacted. But Ty was being proactive now. He was trying to make sure that I didn't feel bad about not recognizing the enemy agent.

Thanks for trying, Ty. I wasn't sure if I believed him yet.

I felt foolish for doubting my friends. They were always there to support me, especially Ty. And how had I repaid them? By shutting them out. It was per the Director's orders, but I didn't need to be so harsh.

"None of us would have known," Dari sighed.

"Not even Director Rokmond," Finn chimed in.

I let out a chuckle. Yes, even he had been wrong. It was debatable, though, as to whether he had more knowledge than the real Xara.

What a stupid thing to think. Of course he knows more than the real Xara! She doesn't even know that you exist.

"I think we need to regroup," I said. I glanced around the vacant parking garage. My voice dropped to a whisper. "Do you think WAOIC might be anywhere around here?"

Ty opened his mouth to speak, but Finn beat him to it.

"We ought to go to a hotel."

"Good thinking," I said. "Dari, try to call in a reservation to a hotel, one that's less conspicuous."

"On it."

"Ty, follow our car. And get out of that clown's costume before someone sees you in it. I'm shocked you haven't taken it off yet."

"What do you mean? I kind of like the new look." Ty grinned, eyes creepily wide.

I remained deadpan. "Take. It. Off."

"Fine," Ty sighed. He wiggled his fingers under the sides of the mask. The adhesive slowly peeled away from his skin.

I shook my head and got back inside the car.

Dari's sense of an inconspicuous place was very different from mine. To me, an inconspicuous place was small and off the road. I didn't think 'right in the middle of town,' 'run down,' and 'very, very sketchy.'

The Two Traveler's Inn looked like it had been around for centuries. The single story building had shingles falling off the roof, boards falling off the front door, broken windows, and graffiti on the sides.

"Uh, Dari," I began. "Is this place even safe?"

"Of course," she replied. "It has a five star rating."

I snorted. "Are you kidding me? Out of how many stars? Five million?"

"Five out of five stars for safety," Dari stated, staring down at her phone. "At least, according to the official IIA directory of hotels."

"This was vetted by the IIA?"

"Yup. They said it was so rundown that few WAOIC agents would actually think to look for us here."

Unless they followed us...

I wasn't going to go there. Not now. Even though I probably should...it was my job to be aware of those things.

"How about in terms of sanitation?" Ty asked. He had gotten out of the other car, and now stood by the passenger seat.

"The rooms have a five star rating too," Dari stated. "Actually the whole complex has a four point five average rating. It only lacks in one area."

"And what's that?" Ty asked. "Functionality?"

"Consumer satisfaction. It has a one star rating."

I laughed. It was ironic that a place could be rated with four point five stars and still be given one star in consumer satisfaction.

"How long ago was that review done?" Ty asked. He leaned forward to look at Dari's phone.

Dari rolled her eyes and tapped a few times on her phone. Her grin faded. Ty leaned through the open window to look at her phone. Dari glared at him and turned her phone screen off.

"Hey! What's the date?" he cried. "Given the look on your face, it must be pretty far in the past."

"What is it, Dari?" I asked. "We need to know what we're getting ourselves into."

Dari sighed. "Fine. It was 2020."

Ty facepalmed. "We're staying in a place that had one star for consumer satisfaction more than twenty years ago?"

Finn groaned from the front seat. "That sounds awful. Prepare for instant termination."

"It's all of the creepy insects crawling around in there that will need to be terminated, not us," Ty said.

"Now everyone hold up," I said. "Maybe it won't be so bad. In fact, maybe they've improved."

"Xara, look at it! Does that look like it's improved?"

No.

"Of course!" I lied cheerily.

Everyone, even Dari, rolled their eyes.

"Come on, Dari already made the reservations. And she's right, WAOIC probably won't think to look for us here."

The inside wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Aside from the cobwebs, the occasional scuttling of tiny creatures across the floor, the dirt, and the outdated decorating, the place wasn't terrible. Two chairs formed a make-shift sitting area in the entrance way. Other than a man reading a magazine in one of the chairs, there wasn't a sole in sight.

I walked to the front desk. A silver bell rested on the counter. I rang it, and a man hurried out of a room behind the counter.

"Hello, how may I help you?" he asked.

"We made a reservation for two rooms under the name 'Oclen.'"

"Ah, yes, I remember speaking with you over the phone." He reached into a box behind the desk and pulled out two rusted-copper room keys. I forced myself to not recoil as he placed them in my hand. "You already took care of payment over the phone, so you're all set for the night. Your room is right down the hall."

He pointed down a narrow corridor to the right.

"Thank you," I said. I grabbed my bag and started towards the room.

The room was tidy, though a little bit bold for my taste. The comforters and lamp shades were a mixture of zebra and cheetah print. The green walls had long strips of animal print running from top to bottom, forming a striped pattern. It looked like it hadn't been redecorated since the 2020s.

I inspected the room, half worried that I would find some critter, or worse, a WAOIC agent. Once I was certain that everything was safe, I plopped my stuff down on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed closest to the door. Dari sat beside me, Jef and Finn took the other bed, and Ty sat on the floor.

"So...we have some things to discuss," I began.

"Why does that lowkey sound creepy?" Ty said, plopping onto the other bed.

"Because you let it sound creepy," I quipped. "It's only creepy because you think it is." I cleared my throat. "Okay, so we have to figure out some stuff. We need a new plan."

"First of all, how far away are we from WAOIC headquarters?" Finn asked. "It'll probably take a while to get there."

"Dari?" I asked.

"We are nine hours away," she said.

I groaned. "Gosh. That's far. And we only have tomorrow to try to get Xara out of the prison."

"What?" Ty exclaimed. "Can't the Director give us an extension?"

I shook my head. "No. And this is probably going to be our last chance to try to get in there."

The room sighed under the weight of our task. Now, it really did seem impossible. Our window of opportunity had drastically closed. WAOIC now was on guard for an attack. They were ready for us.

They already were ready for you, I reminded myself. Dawn probably told them all our plans.

Whichever way we chose to do it, it had to be drastically different from our first attempt.

Suddenly, the door crashed open. Adrenaline spiked in my blood. Two men and a woman in black suits stormed into the room.

"Put your hands in the air and don't move!" the woman yelled. I instinctively put my hands up.

What's going on? What's happening?

My eyes fell on the faces of the intruders. The female was Agent Fox, and one of the male agents I recognized as being Agent Bone from WAOIC. The final man I couldn't trace to a WAOIC agent, but I recognized him as being the man in the lounge. He had an angular face, black hair and matching eyes.

They were waiting for us.

Dari made the reservation. She must have tipped them off.

I glanced at Dari in the corner of my eye, but she looked just as horrified as I felt, her face pale and her jaw slack.

"Everyone, get down on the ground," Agent Fox declared.

My knees gave out from under me. I landed on the floor with a muffled thump.

"How?" I asked. My eyes met Agent Fox's arrogant stare.

"Wouldn't you like to know," she crowed.

My gaze shifted to Dari for a moment, then returned to Agent Fox.

"Oh, don't worry. You weren't betrayed again, if that's what you're thinking," Fox said. "It's actually quite insulting that you don't think we can track you on our own, without assistance from someone on the inside."

"Well it seems like that's the only reason you were able to capture Xara in the first place," I countered.

Ty nudged me and shook his head. I know what he was thinking, it's best not to make them mad. It certainly wasn't a Xara move to make. But I didn't care.

"So you took a lucky guess and managed to find us," I stated.

Agent Fox glared down at me. "Really, you think a license plate change fooled us?"

"Yes."

"For your information, we hit the car with a tracking dart."

Ty's face turned pink. He had been so sure that he lost them.

It's okay Ty, we all make mistakes.

The man I didn't recognize coughed. He was probably telling her to shut up.

"What?" Agent Fox said. "We're going to kill them anyways. Well, most of them at least..."

"Most?" I said.

Agent Fox grinned. "Yes. I'm sure you can guess which one of you is staying alive."

I glanced around the room at the others. Ty, Finn, Dari...

I nearly did a double take. Where is Jax? He was so quiet that I often forgot that he was around. Now, I had assumed that he was with us when he really wasn't.

Agent Bone collected weapons from Ty and Finn while Agent Fox removed Dari's and my weapons. The final WAOIC agent remained at the front of the room, gun trained on all of us. They didn't make any comments about Jax being gone. They mustn't have noticed. And now, it was my job to divert their attention. He was our only hope.

"Me?" I asked.

Ordinarily, I would have said 'Dari,' 'Ty,' 'Finn,' or even 'Jax.' But I had to keep the attention on myself, not on the people who may or may not have been there.

"Yes, you," the unknown agent said. He grinned, but he seemed more creepy than happy. His left ear twitched. I narrowed my eyes. A name popped into my head from a file. Agent Smog.

"Why, Agent Smog?" I demanded. My companions turned to me, confused. Even Agent Fox and Agent Bone seemed surprised that I saw through his disguise. But Agent Smog was not.

"I had a feeling you'd recognize me," Smog chuckled. "You know, you and Xara are smart cookies. If you're anything like the real Xara, then you're quite the character."

"You haven't killed her yet?" Ty said, perhaps with a little bit too much enthusiasm.

"Not yet," Smog said thoughtfully. "Though she might kill herself if she doesn't start to take care of herself."

The bathroom door behind them slowly opened. Jax crept out and went straight for his bag by the door. Please, don't let them see Jax.

I needed to distract them more. "How do you know about Xara?"

"I'm her caregiver," Smog said. I snorted.

"Yeah right. And what are you going to do to me?"

This earned another creepy smile. "We're going to conduct a few...experiments."

I wasn't sure if the pause was to make it more dramatic or because he was replacing a different word with 'experiment.'

I opened my mouth to say something in return, but Smog threw up his hands to his neck. His eyes rolled back, his body falling backwards with a thud. I whipped my head to look at Agent Fox and Agent Bone just as they crumpled to the floor as well. Jax stood behind the unconscious Agent Smog, holding a short, wooden pipe.

"Good thinking!" I said.

Jax grunted. Not the talking type, I reminded myself.

"Wait, how did you get over there without being seen?" Ty asked.

"I was in the bathroom when they came in," Jax said.

"Wow, I didn't hear anything," Ty commented. "How did you get the toilet to flush quietly?"

I stifled a laugh.

"I still need to do that," Jax stated, deadpan.

"What about washing your hands?"

"I didn't turn the sink on all the way so that it was quieter."

"Okay guys, this is getting a little weird," I cut in. I looked at Ty. "No more questions. Let's deal with these WAOIC agents."

We pushed the three WAOIC agents to the side of the room while Jax flushed the toilet and washed his hands a second time. I plopped onto the bed with Dari, Ty, Finn, and Jef. Jax hovered over the WAOIC agents in the corner of the room, gun in hand.

"Okay, well that was... interesting," I began. "I guess we should get back to planning how to break into WAOIC headquarters."

"Wait, what if they have radios on them?" Dari asked. "What if WAOIC can hear our entire conversation?"

I groaned. Why does WAOIC suddenly have the upper hand? Would this have happened if Xara was here? I considered just stashing the other agents in a closet and talking quietly, but an even worse thought popped into my head.

"What if Dawn placed radios on all of us?" I said.

"Ugh!" Ty groaned. He fell off the bed dramatically, his head hitting the floor with a light thump. "Ouch."

"Sit back up," I told him with a sigh. "I guess what we need to do is a thorough search of all our clothes and bags to see if we find any radios. Dari, do you have a device that can assist in our search?"

Dari hopped off the bed and darted to her bag. She pulled out a small device that looked like a baton. She pressed it on the side, and it lit up with a tiny, red LED light.

"Maybe a metal detector?" she said. She glanced down at her bag again, deep in thought. She reached down again and pulled out a plastic box with a thin piece of metal poking from the top. "And maybe a sound wave detector."

"A sound wave detector?" I said.

"Yeah, it'll detect if something is emitting or absorbing sound waves. Based on the frequency and a lot of other technical details, it can determine if something is a radio or not."

"Let's start out by checking ourselves and our belongings over then," I said.

After twenty minutes, we had gone through all of our stuff and found a total of five radios, all ones that were not IIA issued. I realized how Agents Fox, Smog, and Bone were able to track us down so easily. They could just listen in on our conversations and figure out where we were going. We stuck the radios in a bag and discarded them in a trashcan in the hotel lobby. I would have kept them to give to IIA headquarters, but I wasn't sure if they had honing devices in them as well. We couldn't take that chance of having WAOIC find us again.

Dari took very detailed scans of each model, however, just for future reference. We also checked the WAOIC agents and didn't find any listening devices on them, at least none that were turned on.

"Maybe we should switch hotels," Finn suggested. "You know, since WAOIC knows where we are."

"It might not be necessary," I said. "I doubt we're going to be able to sleep tonight given all the preparations we have to make."

I glanced at my watch. It was already past seven p.m. We were running out of time.

"I'm out of ideas," Finn declared.

"Me too," Ty said. "My brain hurts."

I glanced at Dari, Jef, and Jax. All three shook their heads.

"To be honest, Xara is usually the person who comes up with all of the ideas in these situations," Dari said slowly.

"Yeah, I figured about as much," I said. I rested my chin in my hands. Think, Xara, think! There's got to be some way to break in there. There has to be!

On the other side of the room, I heard a static crackle. I lifted my head. What? There's another radio? I thought we got them all!

"Agent Fox, this is Greer. Come in Agent Fox."

Greer...that was the codename for one of the WAOIC agents in charge of field operations. He must be trying to contact her. They don't realize that we captured the agents.

An idea began to form in my head. I slid off the bed and crossed the room. My head replayed the voice of Agent Fox. It was kind of high-pitched and haughty. I whispered 'hello' to myself, trying out her voice. It sounded about right. I picked up the radio attached to Agent Fox's belt.

"I read you, Greer," I said. The others stared at me, eyebrows knit together. I placed a finger to my lips.

"Did you get the Agents?" Greer asked.

"They're right here," I said.

"Are they still alive?"

"Yes, but we had to knock them out." Greer was silent for a moment. I held my breath. Was he buying the act?

"Why didn't you kill them?"

"There were too many people around," I lied smoothly. "We wanted to make sure it was safe to do so."

Greer seemed to approve of this. "Alright, that works. Just terminate the others as soon as you can. We just want the clone. And remember, we need her before daybreak so we have time to prepare her to be sent to the lab.

I gulped. I did not like the sound of that. That's all I am to you? A clone? I forced myself to not think about it. "Will do. Over and out."

"Over and out," Greer said. I waited a moment, half expecting him to come back over the speaker and say 'caught you!'

But that was the end of it.

"Wow, you were marvelous!" Ty said. "A true impersonator."

"Thanks," I murmured.

"Wait, so why did you do that?" Dari asked.

I paused. I hadn't really thought anything through. I just figured that it was best if WAOIC thought that their plans had succeeded.

"I, uh, don't know," I said.

"What? But..." Finn stopped mid sentence, but I already knew what he was going to say.

"I know, I know, Xara would never have acted so impulsively," I said.

I ran my hand through my short hair. What had I been planning? I glanced down at Fox, Smog, and Bone. I was about the same height as Fox, especially if I threw on a pair of heeled boots. We had the same physique, too. I just needed her face and hair. Bone was tall and broad shouldered, like Jax. And Smog was tall and thin, like Ty.

"I've got it!" I exclaimed. "We can impersonate these three in WAOIC headquarters!"

"You mean go into headquarters dressed like them?" Ty said.

"Yeah. Ty, I need you to get four disguises."

"Woah, hold on there," Ty said. "I'm not a disguise printer, I need time to make these things."

"Um, X, do you think Rokmond is going to want us entering headquarters? We'd be in danger, especially if they found out," Dari said.

"Do you have a better idea?" I snapped. She froze at the intensity in my voice. But I wasn't in the mood to dilly-dally. We needed a plan, and we needed it quickly.

"No," she admitted. "Whatever you say goes."

I sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm just getting kind of stressed out."

"I understand that, but we still need a plan," Dari said.

"We also need to rest," Finn said.

"You're right." I plopped onto the soft bedding. "Okay, so this is what I'm thinking. I will dress up as Agent Fox, Jax will dress as Bone, and Ty will be Smog. Dari, I need you to try to find out what sort of security they have at the building, whether it be fingerprint id, or just a simple face recognition."

"Maybe we can interrogate the agents," Finn suggested.

"Good idea," I said. "By the way, what should we do with them? Jef, can you watch them here? There isn't enough time to take them anywhere else."

Jef nodded. "Sounds good, but what about Fox?"

"We need to take her to WAOIC headquarters. We're going to dress her up as me."

"What? Are you crazy?" Ty exclaimed. "What if she wakes up?"

"Yeah, X, I kind of agree with Ty," Dari said.

Ty smirked. "You're siding with me?"

Dari rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know it's a first, but still. Ty makes a good point."

"But the WAOIC agents were sent to get me," I argued. "If Jax, Ty, and I show up without a clone Xara, they'll know we are lying."

"We could just make up some excuse, like clone Xara got away or something like that," Ty said.

I shook my head. "That's going to arouse more suspicion."

"Xara makes a good point..." Finn said.

"What do you think, Jax?" Dari asked. All eyes fell on Jax, standing in the corner. His face was placid, exuding an incredible amount of calm under the circumstances.

"I think we should follow The Lead," he stated. My heart sank.

They really do follow me blindly. They think that I know what is best all of the time, even if they have doubts.

But Jax wasn't finished. "Xara has come up with a genius plan, something that WAOIC wouldn't be expecting. If we can get all of the disguises in time, I think we should go for it. It's our only shot."

Pride swelled in my chest. I came up with a genius plan? I wasn't sure if I would go that far, but I would agree that it was our only chance at getting inside WAOIC headquarters.

"Then I'm in," Ty said. "I'll get four disguises ready. I have my face making kit in my suitcase, and if there are any materials I'm missing, we can run to the store. Finn will take me, right?"

"I got you, buddy," Finn said.

"Jax, do you have a sedative that will keep Agent Fox knocked out while she's in WAOIC headquarters?"

"Yes."

"Dari, you're figuring—"

"Out the identification needed to get into WAOIC headquarters? Yup." She had already pulled out her laptop and was starting her research."

"And set up some fingerprint cards just in case," I told her. "Jef, you need to interrogate Smog and Bone when they wake up. Get as much useful information from them as possible, then knock them out and drive to the Appleton Airport. We'll join you when we get Xara.

"We need to arrive at the time of the guard change. I'm hoping that they'll be too distracted with changing shifts to notice us. In order to arrive by eight p.m., we have to leave by eleven p.m. tonight. Finn, you're going to be driving through the night. Get lots of coffee and maybe catch some sleep beforehand."

"Don't worry, I'm used to it," Finn said. "But I'll take you up on your offer to catch some zs."

Who wouldn't accept that offer?

I paused. I was sure that I was missing something, but that was all I could think of.

"I think that's it so let's get going," I said. "This is going to be an intense night."