Domination (A C.H.A.O.S. Novel) - By Jon Lewis Page 0,23
Colt said, and for once Pierce stopped talking.
“It’s not what you think,” Jonas finally said.
“Okay, then what is it?”
“If I tell you, they won’t help me anymore.”
“If you don’t, you’re going to end up in one of those underground prisons,” Colt said. “The choice is yours.”
Jonas sighed. “Have any of you heard of the Tesla Society?”
None of them had.
“What about you?” Jonas asked, looking directly at Colt. “Has your grandfather ever mentioned it?”
“Not that I remember.”
“It’s kind of like the Illuminati, only most of the members are scientists and inventors. You know, people like Einstein and Steve Jobs. Anyway, the government wrote them a blank check and asked them to find a way to predict where the Thule are going to open the gateway, and then shut it down.”
“What does that have to do with the guy on the armored ultralight?” Colt asked.
Jonas closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as though what he was about to say was going to be painful. “I know one of the members. He has a theory that he can’t prove, so he asked me to help.”
“You?” Pierce asked. “Yeah, right.”
“Leave him alone,” Stacy said.
“My contact can’t send the data over e-mail, so he has it delivered,” Jonas said. “And since the information is . . . well, sensitive, he prefers to deliver it whenever we’re on patrol. That way it doesn’t go through inspection at the front desk.”
“What kind of data?” Colt asked.
“The coordinates for every active portal since we started tracking them back in 1956.”
: :
CHAPTER 16 : :
Phantom Squad didn’t get back to campus until after ten the next night, and Colt rolled his eyes when he saw the Phantasmic . . . March to Victory posters already hanging on one of the kiosks.
He offered to walk Stacy back to her dorm under the auspices that he didn’t trust Pierce, which was partially true.
“Can I ask you something?” he said as his boots crunched on the freshly fallen snow.
“Sure.”
“You and Pierce . . . you weren’t actually . . . well, you know . . .”
“What, dating?” Stacy laughed, breaking the tension. “I don’t know what you would call it, but we were close—at least for a while.”
“Sorry, it’s none of my business.” Colt turned his attention to a squirrel that scampered up a tree. He hoped she didn’t notice he was blushing.
“It’s fine,” Stacy said. “There’s a reason I didn’t tell anyone that we knew each other back home. Most people think he’s an arrogant, spoiled-rotten jerk.”
“No comment.”
Stacy smiled. “He wasn’t always like that. I mean, yeah, I suppose you could say he was always . . . well, confident.”
“Confident?”
“Things just come easy for him. I’d study for hours and end up with a B on a chemistry test, and he’d blow it off and end up with an A. It was infuriating, but I’m pretty sure he has a photographic memory. It was the same with sports—he was the star on our basketball team even though he never took it seriously. But everything changed when he found out his dad cheated on his mom. He got angry.”
“Is that when you guys broke up?”
“Something like that. There’s a part of me that still likes him, as strange as that may sound. It’s just that I know how much it hurts when your parents get divorced, so I guess that’s why I’m not as hard on him as I should be.”
“I’m sorry,” Colt said. “I had no idea.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. You’re not the one who had an affair with one of my teachers.”
Colt stopped, his jaw hanging open. “Wait, are you serious?”
Stacy nodded. “Crazy, isn’t it? I was so embarrassed that if I hadn’t gotten the invitation from CHAOS, I would have emptied my savings account and moved to a remote jungle in South America.”
“I don’t even know what to say.”
“Danielle was right—you’re not so bad,” Stacy said with a grin.
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“What if I told you that she sneaked out the other night to go and see Oz?”
“Now you’re just messing with me.”
Stacy raised a single eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
Colt couldn’t imagine Danielle breaking the rules like that, especially after everything that happened with Oz and his dad. Then again, it was only a matter of time before they admitted to the rest of the world that they were more than friends.
“She’s liked him for a long time,” Stacy said as she cut across the lawn toward a bridge that led to