TIME & TIED: AWARENESS

ARC 1.2 - Of Her Peers

PART 12a: THE CLARKE SIDE 1

Clarke moved closer to Julie, musing on the fact that he held the distinction of being the only person - aside from Julie herself - to have been allowed inside her so-called “play room”. Even the mansion staff, Jeeves and Mimi, weren’t allowed in.

He had considered it a victory of sorts at the time, though upon seeing the sheer volume of information Julie "played" with in here, it had been enough to make Clarke feel uneasy as well. At the time. He had to admit, almost six months later, he was getting used to it.

The room’s three filing cabinets contained information on what had to amount to at least half the students at school, plus information on annual school activities. The files dated from before Julie’s actual arrival, up until the middle of next year; Julie could well give the principal a run for his money in terms of bookkeeping.

She had told Clarke that she preferred having the paper copies, as opposed to making everything electronic. Something about things being both more tangible and more secure this way - though there was a computer on the table as well. Since becoming student council secretary, Julie had even started keeping copies of all their meeting minutes down here.

"I couldn't possibly guess, Jewels. What've you got?" Clarke inquired obligingly off her expectant expression.

"This,” Julie declared, picking up a tiny something from the central table, holding it aloft. "Retrieved through my dad's company. A miniature homing device, easy to track, difficult to see, and while it’s not quite as accurate as a GPS, it’s got enough power to run in hibernation mode for something like sixty years!"

"You're planning on tracking someone for the next sixty years?" Clarke said in surprise.

The brunette chuckled. "No," she explained patiently. "But the guarantee says it's good for that long, and I would assume they're not lying. At any rate, what I AM planning on doing is figuring out exactly where Carrie's been keeping herself, given her recent habit of turning up in the oddest places. Seemingly in duplicate." She half-smiled. "Pardon my enthusiasm. I couldn't resist showing this to someone else."

"I thought Carrie had explained her actions to you though,” Clarke said. "Or the visits to Frank at least."

"Yeah, math help. It doesn't explain why she must have left his place by sneaking through his backyard last Sunday," Julie noted.

"After all, Phil, according to you, she showed up at Frank's around two. Yet Carrie was back home again when I called her at five. And in the interim, no one else so much as stood on Frank's driveway."

"Except Luci," Clarke reminded her.

"Yes," admitted Julie her tone becoming mildly irritated. "Except Luci. But you said she didn't actually make it as far as the front door, and given how hard that girl's loyalties are to figure out, I’m going to invoke Occam’s Razor and say her presence was a broken study arrangement."

Clarke shrugged. "Whatever, I was just saying..."

"Yes, yes, she was there, thank you for going and keeping an eye on things for me,” Julie acknowledged. "My point is, Carrie has been acting weird and holding back from me ever since missing my party. By tracking her movements, it will be easier for me to catch her in a lie. Which is the best way to obtain the truth.”

"But what if she’s being truthful?" Clarke offered. "What if there is a reasonable explanation for everything? Aren't your measures getting a little extreme?"

"You have a better idea?" Julie challenged.

"Talk to her?"

"I have. Yet I can't say anything directly, because if she IS lying, those questions will tip her off," Julie rebuffed. "And Carrie is terribly good at thinking on the fly when she wants to – that’s why I much prefer when she’s not thinking. The real problem here is that none of my future plans can go anywhere so long as we're in this little stalemate. I need to know where Carrie’s loyalties lie, and I need to know as soon as possible."

One hand clenched into a fist. “If it turns out that she is conspiring against me, she must not be allowed to get away with it. I cannot let her destroy what I have now, not after I've worked so hard to get this far.” She brought her fist crashing down onto the table. “Julie LaMille will NOT be made a fool of twice!" she finished loudly.

"Twice?"

Julie paused, and Clarke could swear he saw a hint of colour creeping into her cheeks. "Never mind," she mumbled, quickly turning away and grabbing some papers to hide her face. “Something from before I moved here. Just... go get Jeeves to pour us some juice, would you? I need to finish inputting local landmark data into the receiver device."

Clarke paused, but decided any attempt to follow up on Julie's comment right now would only earn him a harsh rebuke. "Sure Jewels, whatever you say," he assured her, departing the room to head back upstairs.

Sometimes, he reflected, trying to figure out the mystery that was Julie LaMille was not unlike trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without the benefit of a picture... or even all of the pieces. Though of course, the mystery had been one of the reasons Clarke had approached her in the first place.

***

"Julie! Hey, Julie!"

The brunette turned to regard him, her eyes narrowing. "Yes?" she inquired, a hint of annoyance in her tone.

Clarke caught up to her. “Uhm, well, hi! I'm Clarke," he continued by way of introduction.

"I know that," Julie responded. "I've seen you in homeroom. Meaning I also know that Clarke is not even your first name, but your last name. What I do not know is what reason you have to be chasing me down in the hallway here, waving your arm like a maniac."

"Well... then I'll tell you," Clarke continued, only momentarily taken aback. "See, I've been trying to get a handle on this new school for the past two weeks, learn who's who, what's what... kind of a standard thing with me I guess, though this is the first time I've done it with a high school..."

"Please skip to the point."

"Uh, right," Clarke said, forging on undaunted. “So, I learned that you only recently started attending school in this town too. I figure, maybe it’s the same thing for you as it is with me? Neither of us knows others in the area all that well, so maybe there’s some way us Grade Nines can help each other out, swap stories or..."

"Why?" demanded Julie. And despite being taller than the brunette, Clarke now felt like she had him under a microscope.

"Uh, well, you know, I just thought that hey, I've met some people and, ah, maybe you've met some people, so between us we might, I dunno, get to know more people?" Clarke said, now fumbling for words. “I don’t know much about you but we are both in the same boat... right? Can’t we help each other out...?"

Was this really such a good idea after all? He had thought that maybe Julie was feeling the way he’d felt, that time back in middle school, when that basketball misunderstanding with Lance had caused people to shun him. That maybe, Julie had wanted someone else to make the first move here. But now...

"I see," she said. Julie concluded her scrutiny of Clarke and started to tap her foot on the ground. "Perhaps we can," she relented, her tone shifting. "For one thing, you learned I'm new to the area. Do you know what else people are saying about me?”

Clarke shrugged. “Relatively little," he admitted. "Mostly people are talking about how you don’t reveal much. They wonder why someone from a rich family is here in a public school, that sort of thing. Corry even thought you might’ve been thrown out of some private school overseas."

"Corry Veniti said that?" Julie said, pouncing on the name.

"Uh, yeah," Clarke confirmed. "But I figure, whether that's true or not, it's in the past. This is the present and it's important to make friends when coming to a new place. Right?" He smiled.

"Indeed," Julie said slowly. A pause. "Clarke, you make some interesting points. Perhaps we could meet up tomorrow at lunch to talk some more?"

"Sure, sounds good,” Clarke agreed. "See you then?"

"Indeed," Julie repeated. She regarded him silently for another moment before spinning on her heel and walking away.

***

A cry of "That should do it!" greeted Clarke as he re-entered the room in Julie's basement.

"Everything in order?" Clarke inquired, setting down the tray containing two glasses of orange juice. He proceeded to pick up one of them and take a sip, as Julie looked up from whatever she had in her hands.

"Oh, yes," she stated with a smile. "I've just input key town locations into the system, using Carrie's house as a reference point. Now all I need to do is attach the transmitter to her and I'll be able to locate our resident cheerleader any time I want to."

“Including how many of her there are?"

"Well, no," Julie admitted. "There is only one transmitting device. But if my records show her in one location when she says she was elsewhere, or I register her someplace while she is seen somewhere else, Carrie will have a lot of explaining to do."

Clarke gulped down more juice. "Seems as well thought out as all your plans," he congratulated.

"In fact," Julie continued with a hint of pride. "I've even determined the best object upon which to attach the tracker... Carrie's hairband! She's always wearing one and yet never looks at it very closely. Admittedly, she owns a few, but she wears that same blue one over 90 percent of the time, which I'm hoping is enough for my purposes."

"And I presume you've worked out how to attach it as well?"

Julie swept a few strands of her curly hair back off her shoulder. "Naturally. She has a dinner date with Bill after tomorrow’s football game, and will thus be showering at the school after cheerleading. Since she does not wear her hairband in the shower, this provides the perfect opportunity. Even if she stumbles upon the device later, there won't be anything linking it to me. In the meantime, all I have to do is flip this switch..." Julie paused to do just that. "...and I'll know exactly where she is by looking at this receiver screen."

Clarke moved to take a look at the screen in question. “Does a flashing light indicate where that transmitting thing is?" he questioned. Julie nodded, pursing her lips as they both examined the display. “And you said there's only one of these transmitter things? Which is in this room?” Julie nodded again.

Clarke cleared his throat. "So why are there two additional lights pulsing on your screen right now?" he finished.

"I don't know," Julie growled in a tone so harsh Clarke instinctively jumped away from her. "But I'm sure as hell going to find out," the brunette concluded, running for the door. "Come on!"

"Wait,” Clarke called out. “Don’t forget your juice! Also, if this is going to take much longer I need to give my mother a call to tell her I’ll be late for dinner.”