by The Eurostar, GoozX, Tobias Christopher and Danny
Edulcore Cicciotto:
"Jason, wait!" I exclaim, when the kid has just been swallowed by the darkness. How can I have been so rude? Sometimes this job gets to my nerves. The kid turns back. "I was just, uh... testing you," I say, while all my friends watch me, perplexed.
"What? You want to admit me into the team?"
"Well, I'm sorry, but there is a rule. To be in the team you must be at least seventeen. I can't bend the rule just for you, you see... but, um... you could be our mascot."
The kid's face turns red, his eyes begins to tear, and he turns back and runs away. "What have I said?" I ask.
"You spoke well... the first time," says Nowhereman. "Why did you want to ruin everything?"
"Because, when he was going away, I remembered that he knows our secret. We have to keep that kid around us. We can't have him take part in the missions, but he must be one of us. It would be too dangerous to have him selling us out to TriVext or something else, unless..."
Marv Velo interrupts, "Well, I think he now has much more willingness to sell us out than before, Cicciotto."
"...unless, as I was saying," I continue, "you don't have a mind-wiper ray or something like that, Mr. Velo." I smile.
"Well, I was working on it, I must admit, but I haven't one completed yet, Eurostar," he responds with an ironic expression.
"Well, there is no time to talk to him right now. I hope tomorrow will not be too late. Okay, one more thing before we start the mission," I say, and come back inside the van.
At the door is Danny, with a sad expression. "Don't be afraid for the future, Dan," I whisper. "If we are really changing the future, your memories will change with it. If you still remember your family, it means they still exist where you have come from." The young man nods his head. Then a nearly unnoticeable smile appears on his mouth.
I enter the van and grab a big box. "Everybody, put on these costumes. If someone with a camera spots us, we must be different from the stunt at the Zoo. I don't want anyone to discover a connection between our team and the circus."
All of my friends look at the costumes with eyes wide open. Only Velo mutters, "No way!"
But Nowhereman says, "It could be a good idea," so our newest recruit reluctantly agrees to dress like us.
And a Santa Claus, one reindeer and five Santa's helpers disappear in the darkness, heading toward the bay.
A mascot. The jerk wanted me to be a mascot? I'm too young to join the team? I'll show him, I'll show them all! I can be a hero too. And, from the shadows, Jason followed the team on their first real mission. I'll show them all right!
On the shoreline of the bay, the team saw, at half a mile out of the water, the Citadel, the TriVext Corporation's tower.
"How can we get there?" asked Tobias.
M'xy said, "I can..."
Eurostar cut him off, saying, "No, M'xy, you will open a portal for our return. We can't have you exhausting yourself now. Tobias, go and find a boat." A few seconds later, Eurostar asked Tobias, "Couldn't you have found something a little more... safe?"
The speedster took a look at the rickety old boat that he had found. "What's wrong with it?" Tobias asked.
"As long as it gets us from point A to point B," Naecken said. "Let's get some supplies and meet back here in two minutes."
As the team split up, Jason snuck aboard the boat and hid below deck. The team returned after a couple of minutes and pushed off in the leaky old boat, heading out into the bay toward the tower, toward TriVext.
The team was silent during the voyage, giving Danny time to think. What was it Eurostar had said? "If we are really changing the future, your memories will change with it. If you still remember your family, it means they still exist where you have come from." I know he was trying to be reassuring, but... all that means is, I can't trust my own memories.
Maybe we've changed the future already. Maybe my memories have changed with it. Maybe all the things I remember... my childhood. My family. Maybe none of that ever happened to me.