Domination (A C.H.A.O.S. Novel) - By Jon Lewis Page 0,42

with a sigh. “Look, I know this is going to sound rude—and I’m sorry about that—”

“Then why say it?” Oz asked, mischief dancing in his eyes.

“Seriously?” Danielle said as she spun around to glare at him, but the smile never left his face. She sighed and shook her head. “We need to focus on finding the gateway, so if you’re not here to help, maybe you should find something else to do.”

“About that . . . ,” Jonas said, his cheeks flushing red as he stared at the floor.

“I wasn’t talking about you,” Danielle said.

Jonas went to put his hands in his pockets, but since cadet uniforms didn’t have pockets, his hands slid down his thighs. His face turned an even deeper shade of red as he pushed his glasses up off the end of his round nose. “Look, I probably should have said something earlier, but we got a package from a courier this morning.”

“A courier?” Oz said. “Like those guys on the bikes with the little bells on the handlebars?”

“Sometimes I wonder how you made it past second grade,” Danielle said.

“Charm.”

She rolled her eyes.

“He was actually riding an armored ultralight.” Jonas unzipped the top of his backpack and pulled out a large manila envelope. “What is it?” Danielle asked.

“Coordinates.”

“From the Tesla Society?”

Jonas nodded.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Danielle asked, looking both tired and frustrated at the same time.

“It’s just that Stacy told me you were still asleep, and I know you haven’t been sleeping much lately, so I told her not to wake you up.”

Danielle turned to Stacy. “You knew about this?”

“Don’t look at me,” Stacy said. “I didn’t know what he wanted. And even if I had, I wouldn’t have told you. He’s right. You need sleep.”

“Am I the only one who realizes that we’re all going to die if we don’t find a way to shut down the gateway?” Danielle asked as she ran her hand over her head and tugged at her ponytail.

“You’re not serious, right?” Oz said.

“Yes, I’m serious!”

“Come on, Danielle,” Colt said.

“Somebody has to take this seriously.”

“What do you think we’ve been doing the last two months?” Oz said. “I mean, while you were sleeping I ran ten miles, went to the gym and lifted, took an hour of target practice, and then ran through a simulated combat session with Lohr—all before breakfast.”

“Guys, stop,” Colt said.

“The only reason I was sleeping is because I was up until three in the morning trying to fix the particle analyzer that you broke.”

“Who cares about measuring the wind?”

“We aren’t measuring the wind,” Danielle said, her face bright red. She jumped out of her chair and stood in front of Oz, fists clenched at her sides. “It uses photon correlation spectroscopy to analyze anomalies in the atmosphere—as in detecting the submicron particles that are the precursors to portal formation.”

Oz crossed his arms over his chest as he looked down at her. “Did you know that your nostrils flare when you’re angry? It’s kinda cute.”

Danielle opened her mouth, then closed it again. It was the first time in recent memory that Colt had seen her at a loss for words, and he was doing his best to keep from laughing.

“This is my fault,” Jonas said, his soft voice filling the silence. “I know I should have told you, but I think I found the coordinates for the gateway.”

“Seriously?” Danielle asked, suddenly able to speak again. “Show me.”

Jonas pulled out his tablet and opened a spreadsheet that was filled with what looked like a series of random numbers. “Okay, these two columns are the longitude and latitude of all known portals that have been reported since the inception of the CHAOS program in June of 1938. And these columns? They’re soft spots. You know, where the lining that separates our atmosphere from the atmosphere of another world has started to deteriorate.”

“We’re not stupid,” Oz said.

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. He’s just trying to get under your skin,” Danielle said, her eyes never leaving the monitor. “Can we map it?”

“Way ahead of you.” Jonas entered a series of commands, and a moment later they were all looking at a map that was buried beneath thousands of dots. “The portals are green and soft spots are blue.”

Danielle’s eyes flitted back and forth, up and down. “I don’t get it,” she said. “I thought there was a pattern.”

“There is,” Jonas said. “Watch.” He entered another series of commands, and red dots started to appear all across the map.

“What are those supposed to be?” Oz asked.

“Neutronic