Eniola and Zaira didn’t talk once to each other, and that was maybe okay.

They were crowded once again in the dining room with all the PSEUDO members surrounding them on tables. There was no lively conversation, there never was, but this time a veil of silence seemed to fall over to the room in a threatening hush. Everyone was still on their toes about the breach last night. The breach technically didn’t happen.

Eniola wanted to say something, but not when people who could all kill her differently were in earshot. So instead, she sat there and munched on their sausage at the table with all her friends.

“The food feels weird,” Zaira said. She only picked at it and took little sips of water.

“I think to food here is great,” Theo said awkwardly. “Whoever cooked this did a good job of frying the sausage well and sauteing it.”

“Says this culinary master himself,” Jay teased.

Theo was right. But Eniola wasn’t sure the sausage would make it down and stay there. Especially not when Kain had such a disturbing conversation last night. Eniola knew they weren’t just some misunderstood criminals with a Robin Hood complex. There was always an ulterior motive.

The PSEUDO wanted Zaira. They knew about her and threatened her. Something still threatened them about Zaira and what she could do. Maybe Rogue was just baited for her to stay. But Zaira didn’t even know them like that. To her, they were just teenagers along for the ride.

Eniola hated to be the one to admit, but Bee was right. The PSEUDO were dangerous people.

Eniola quickly looked up at Lucia and gave her two eyebrow raises. Lucia froze and stared back at Eniola with wide eyes. It had been a long time since they had used that code. It was some version of SOS they made back in the 7th grade after Eniola got her period for the first time in math class. Chaos ensued.

“What?” she mouthed.

“The PSEUDO,” Eniola whispered back. Lucia nodded and went back to eating.

“So who’s ready to kill themselves over training today?” Lucia asked.

“Hey!” Iris cut in. “Look on the bright side.”

“And that is?” Theo said. “We haven’t been killed yet?”

“No,” Iris sighed. “We’re still all together, at least.”

We may not be. The PSEUDO wants to control Zaira. They’re going to use us.

“Kain would like to see you now,” a loud voice came from behind them. Eniola swiftly turned back to see Sasha looming over them. “Come with me.”

All of them stood up and followed Sasha out of the dining room and down into the sketchy hallways that had been run through during the fake breach. Eniola still couldn’t believe people thought it was severe. Maybe Zaira could through them off again so that they could escape.

But this time, Eniola looked forward. Sasha took them all down the hallways until he turned into the one familiar one. He pressed open one door, and it opened to an elevator. They were going to the basement. The elevator stopped and let them off into the darkroom, which was only lit up by screens.

Kain was already there and so was Josanne, but that wasn’t a surprise. He stood around an immense round table with screens floating above it.

“Hello,” Kain said. “We’re here to discuss security. We need your help to find Paradox and we’re trying to track him down, but it’s too vague.”

Is that all you want?

“How vague?” Theo asked.

“The location we get says ‘the world’,” Sasha spat.

“I wonder where that could be,” Jay grumbled. Sasha glared at him.

They all followed her command as they gathered around. Sasha toggled with some screens, before they instantly morphed into world maps, with red marks on them.

“We’ve tracked him multiple times all over the world and he’s still been steps ahead of us,” Zaira argued. “He still has the other half of the device, which gives him just enough power. All the hacking, and we still can’t properly take him down.”

“She’s right,” Lucia replied. “We’ve done so much, but he’s still steps ahead of us.”

Kain looked down. “Can I see this device?”

“We have to extend this computer with another one, and then will encrypt the data so that we can track Paradox, but he can’t track us,” Kain said, extending a bunch of code.

“And this will really work?” Eniola asked.

Kain made lingering eye contact with Eniola that seemed weird, especially considering Lucia and Iris’ ramble yesterday. She wanted to recoil into the air.

Kain continued. “It will be fine. I know for sure.”

“Where do the rest of us come in?” Theo asked.

“When we get a location on Paradox, we’re going to have to perform some type of heist to successfully retrieve the computers,” Kain explained.

“Then I destroy them,” Zaira finished for him. “There’s a specific way I have coded which will destroy the computers for good and everything that comes from it or made it.”

“That won’t mess up reality or something?” Iris wondered. “Destroying something like Enigma feels like a huge gamble.”

Kain stopped in his tracks then looked at Zaira. She glared at him back. “Yes. We’ll destroy them.” He said it aloofly, which made Eniola‘s spine tingle in fear.

“And then we use our special encryption to make sure he can’t track you,” Kain said before the room was swarming with more hackers that seemed to come on command.

“While we’re doing that, we need to create a plan,” Kain said.

“We’ve used the computers to cloak ourselves and then we go wherever he goes,” Theo explained. “It has to be like a sneak attack on him.”

Kain nodded. “Noted. We’ve noticed that he visits two random cities from each continent, and then leaves,” Kain explained. “North America. Calgary and Portland. South America. Buenos Aires and Panama City. Europe. Stockholm and London. Africa. Lagos and Johannesburg. Asia. Seoul and Beijing.”

“He’s releasing signals at each point for the SCOPEverse to connect to,” Zaira instantly concluded. “He’s visited 5 out of 7 seven continents.”

“Doesn’t that leave us Australia and Antarctica?” Jay mentioned.

“It does,” Iris replied. “But we can’t just gamble like that.”

“No one lives in Antarctica like that,” Jay said.

“But how do you know he won’t go there? Paradox is very unpredictable,” Iris said. “How long will it take to hack the computer?”

“A couple of days,” Kain said. “Hacking isn’t just one and done.”

Iris smirked for a second. Eniola knew that face.

“We have to be one step ahead of him,” Iris said. “We have to find out where he is.”

“Why can’t we just destroy the computer and wait to destroy the other one?” Kain asked. “Paradox can’t come for us if he knows we don’t have it.”

“If you destroy one half of the computer, it’s programmed to create Enigma. We cannot do that,” Zaira explained. “Keone will get Enigma and we’ll have worked for nothing.”

Kain’s eyes widen. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Zaira mumbled. “But for now, let’s focus on finding a stable connection to him so that we can track it.”

“I have an idea,” Iris said. “I can hack into it.”

“With what?” Sasha said after being silent for so long.

“My mind,” she says, before moving on to the PSEUDO members that toggle with the computer. Iris pressed her hand to the synthetic Enigma. It glowed for a good second green before a small ray of light surrounded her handprint.

Jay leaned down to whisper at Eniola. “This is both fascinating and freaky at the same time. Why didn’t she think of this earlier?”

Iris pulled away, and the light disappeared from around her hand. Kain narrowed his eyes at her.

“Found him,” she said smugly.

“Where?” Kain said, almost demandingly. “Tell us.”

“Sydney,” Iris said. “He’s in Sydney, Australia.”