Before any non-students entered the grounds of the High School, they must pass through a guarded checkpoint. Kylian resolved to visit Anaelle and Marielle. He planned to ask them the whereabouts of Viviane. Surely, if anyone knew what happened to Viviane, they would he figured. Whenever Viviane visited the uncanny twins, she would always be waved through inspection by the attendant guard, but now Kylian came by himself. It was up to him to get past the guard without Viviane’s help. An unpleasant STS Agent guarding the checkpoint saw Kylian approach.

“Halt and identify yourself!”

Kylian halted as ordered. As for identifying himself, he did that, too. “Um, yes, the name’s Kylian Bouche, officer.”

“Never seen you before. Submit for inspection.”

Having already been thoroughly molested in an earlier inspection this morning, Kylian was not looking forward to another one. He tried to sweet talk himself out of it.

“Never seen me before? Certainly, you remember Viviane Fox, the tall, attractive woman who comes to visit the High School often?”

“Yes, Viviane Fox I know of,” said the guard. Everyone knew Viviane after all.

“Surely then, you must remember me as I sometimes accompanied her and you always waved her through.”

The guard narrowed his eyes trying to remember Kylian. “I don’t remember you ever coming through with her. Submit for inspection!”

“Auggggh! Not again!” wailed Kylian.

The guard was caught off guard by Kylian’s strong reaction. “What’s the matter? Why not again?”

“I had to go through inspection this morning at the National Laboratory and the inspector there was really handsy,” whined Kylian.

The guard softened a bit hearing Kylian’s predicament. “So you’re saying you don’t want to be manhandled by another STS inspector again?”

Kylian celebrated! He had gotten through to the guard! “Correct!” he told the Agent hopeful he might avoid another molesting.

The guard, indeed, understood how Kylain felt. “Well, you’re in luck!” he was happy to say. “At this checkpoint you can opt for the TKD 2000 robotic search machine instead of an STS Inspector! How does that grab you?”

The TKD 2000??!! “Aaaaaaaa! Nooooooo!” yelled Kylian.

After another humiliating search of his person, Kylian was allowed to pass through the checkpoint to the High School grounds.

As soon as Kylian stepped over the threshold of the checkpoint gate and onto the school grounds, who happened to be right there to greet him? Why, it was Luc, the cynical STS Agent assigned to protect the High Schoolers and Kylian’s rival for Viviane’s affection. Kylian was not pleased.

“Have you been standing here this whole time? You could have vouched for me and saved me from my second whole body search inspection of the day, you know.” Kylian sounded annoyed. Luc, on the other hand, just shrugged his shoulders.

“Sorry, pal, I just got here a moment ago after you were done with inspection.”

Kylian did not think Luc told him the full truth. Part of Kylian’s brain thought that Luc just stood there this whole time watching and laughing while the TKD 2000 kneaded Kylian like pizza dough during inspection. However, since Kylian did not have any proof, he decided not to say anything further. Although Kylian was most curious to know what happened with Viviane, he decided to ask Luc the second most curious issue on his mind.

“So, Luc, anything you can tell me about why there are so many STS Agents everywhere all of the sudden?”

Luc lowered his voice so as not to be overheard. “Maybe it’ll be on the news tonight or maybe it won’t, but you didn’t hear it from me, OK?”

Seeing how Luc became all serious, Kylian, too, lowered his voice. “OK. Did you say something?”

“Good. That’s the way I like it,” replied Luc. With the cloak and dagger out of the way, Luc continued filling Kylian in. “Here’s the scoop you didn’t hear from me: It’s the Order. A female spy of theirs, code name Mariner-V, was uncovered and arrested in a pre-dawn raid today. She had somehow gotten a job working in the University’s Office of Administration and was trying to funnel secrets back to the Order.”

“Who’s the Order?” Kylian asked.

“Oh, sorry about that. You wouldn’t know,” apologized Luc, “They’re a secret society that operates underground, outside the law and in the shadows. They call themselves ‘The Order of One Justice.’ Their leader is an older man who we think is named Case Carswell and they have members from the UEN as well as the CoC. The fact that one of their spies was caught working right here at the University means that they’re interested in stealing advanced technologies, but what for we don’t know.”

Without warning, the twins Anaelle and Marielle busted in crying and distraught about something. Their eyes were wet and they kept wiping them with their sleeves. They headed straight for Luc and shoved Kylian aside.

Wailing together and in sync, “What will happen to Melina now that her mother’s been arrested?”

Having heard the situation from Luc, Kylian surmised that Melina must be the daughter of Mariner-V who was arrested this morning and that Melina must have been a friend and classmate of the twins’.

Luc did not sugar coat his words. “I’m sorry girls to tell you, but Melina’s mother will probably go to jail and your friend Melina will be placed in a foster home until she’s old enough to be considered an adult. She probably won’t be able to see much of her mom for a long long time.”

“That’s so awful!” cried the twins. They were heartbroken by the harsh truth and could do nothing but cry for their friend and classmate who just had her life ripped apart and now faced an uncertain future.

“I can’t imagine something like that,” started Anaelle. “Happening to us,” finished Marielle.

Kylian who had been listening to these two sad girls felt compelled to comfort them.

“Now, Anaelle, Marielle, that can’t possibly happen to the two of you! Your father is the Director of the National Laboratory and he’s the inventor of teleportation technology. He couldn’t possibly be up to anything criminal.”

Anaelle and Marielle sniffed their noses.

Anaelle was first to speak. “But Melina is so nice. She didn’t deserve this.”

Marielle spoke next. “No one suspected her mom at all!”

And at last together. “They seemed so normal!”

Luc turned to Kylian. “So as you can see, because this mole was discovered, everything and everyone is getting a thorough search and inquiry to see if we can find any leads back to the Order and figure out what secrets were leaked. You remember that day we went with Viviane to that goon’s photo studio so she could get her picture taken in that wedding dress?”

“Yes?”

“We already had intel that the Order had infiltrated the University somehow, but we didn’t know who it was or what their plan was at the time. That’s why I was guarding Viviane extra careful that day.”

As if struck by lightning, Kylian’s thoughts raced back to that day. Maybe Luc wasn’t being over-protective that day just to impress Viviane. Maybe he was just doing his job! Although that was what Kylian thought, he instead admitted to Luc only half of that. “Well, it would have been nice if you had told us why you were going overboard with your protective measures.”

“Sorry, pal. That kind of intel is on a ‘need to know’ basis,” explained Luc. “And you guys didn’t ‘need to know’ if you know what I’m sayin’.”

Kylian who had originally come to visit the twins to satisfy his burning need to know Viviane’s whereabouts, sensed that this was not the time for his selfish curiosity for gossip given the serious turn of events. He knew it would appear shallow of him to ask the crying twins about Viviane right now, so he decided to do the decent thing and put his curiosity on the back burner for now. Even though the twins probably did not think much of him, he still tried to comfort them.

“There’s been a lot of sad news today. Why don’t you two head back to school and try to go back to something that resembles normalcy. Maybe you’ll feel better.”

Anaelle and Marielle looked at each other and then looked back and said together, “OK. We will.” Still depressed and sad about the fate of their friend Melina, they dragged themselves away from the men and back to school.

Luc, who for the first time noticed how odd it was for Kylian to visit the High School by himself, asked him the pivotal question of the day.

“So what brought you here today? You don’t ever come here for any reason.”

Ack! Kylian had been caught! He tried to keep it secret from Luc this whole time, but he stiffened his back afraid of what Luc would think. Better just tell the truth he thought at that moment. He was a bad liar after all.

“Ah aha ha ha!” he laughed. “Funny you should ask. I was hoping to ask Anaelle and Marielle if they knew anything about what’s going on with Viviane since she hasn’t returned to work at the Lab.”

Luc grinned. Kylian had not set off Luc’s BS detector which was not one of the high-tech gadgets he kept in a secret pocket on his uniform. “Oh is that why you came here? Well, I can tell you that Viviane has only showed up once since that day of the photo shoot to show the twins the pictures from that day and she hasn’t been back since. Guess she’s been too busy modeling this past month. The only place you’re going to see her is on TV or the Internet.”

Kylian was disheartened to learn from Luc that no one really knew what had been happening with Viviane. Not even the twins with whom she loved to visit knew either. It had been so long since anyone saw her, she seemed to have just been a vision in a dream. She was a nice dream that blew into Kylian’s sleep one night and blew away just as quickly when he woke up and left him wondering if the girl in his dreams was real or not.