The day was finally here. Thursday night, when they would be going on their mission to track down the Blue Viper gang. Earlier that evening, Mr. Girvan had gone to their rooms one by one to elaborate on the details of the assignment, then told them that the drop ship would be waiting for them at 9:00 sharp.

Harold was excited for the mission, as it was another chance to leave the grounds and bask in the world beyond their green-and-white walls. But he was also indignant, as he remembered too that they would not be alone on this task. It was outrageous. An insult. And yet, of course, something Mr. Girvan would most definitely do.

Students failed many times at Helix, and they were more often than not given the opportunity to redeem themselves. If not, then they would simply have to move on, wait for another chance. But this was different.

Mr. Girvan was treating them as though they couldn't handle the mission, assigning them backup. Harold would have preferred not to go at all than to be deemed incompetent by the year-coordinator of all people. But he knew that he had to. The chances of leaving Helix this many times in a row for a mission were scarce. And also, the rules were the rules, no matter how inconvenient. Besides, Harold was interested in finding out more about this gang.

A knock on the door sounded while he was packing. Not turning his attention away from his task, he called for the person to enter.

Jimmy came in dressed in his field uniform: a black jumpsuit with red markings streaked across the torso and a large H in the center of the chest. It was different from their school uniform in that it was more formfitting and flexible, as well as more resistant to heat, water, and air pressure. Harold too was already dressed in his. It was the first thing he'd done after ensuring that his parachute was secure in his bag.

"They're ready," Jimmy said.

Harold nodded, snapping his bag shut with rather more force than was necessary and heaving it onto his back.

"Got your parachute?" Jimmy asked, in a transparent attempt at lightening the mood. Harold shot him an annoyed look.

Jimmy sighed. "I know you're upset," he said. "You don't think I am too? Or Helen? Because we are. But we can't let that bother us. We didn't know what we were getting into last time. This time we do."

Harold sighed deeply. "Yeah, you're right."

"I usually am," Jimmy said, with a cheeky grin. Harold couldn't stop the smile that forced itself across his lips. The mood lightened considerably, they made their way through the school, which, given the hour, was near deserted, and towards the front gates. Ripley let them through, acknowledging them with only a single nod. Together they strode down the path towards the beach while Ripley closed the lock on the gates, Harold for only the fourth time in several months. The drop ship was, as usual, waiting for them near the shore, and as they hurried inside, they met Helen, along with their mission partners.

The first was someone from the Poseidon Dorm, a tall, light-skinned boy with ink-black hair that grew wildly around his head like a worn-out mop. Harold had learned his name only hours before: Ezra Morris. And Kierra Hale, Harold's partner from their last Gym lesson.

No one said anything as they entered. Harold and Jimmy took their places beside Helen, who was sitting apart from the other two, eyes glued to a sheaf of documents stapled together.

"What's the news?" Harold asked.

"I'm doing a little last-minute research on the Blue Viper gang," she said.

"Anything interesting?" Jimmy asked, sliding to the floor on her other side.

"Not really, no. There isn't much on them here. But apparently they've had several run-ins with the police and have managed to escape custody every time."

"Pretty good at running away, aren't they?" Harold growled, remembering how Girvan had stated that they'd disappeared from the forest before Mr. Dreyfus could reach them.

"It looks like they always had other associates posted around the place who came through at the nick of time."

"What could they be doing at the mining field, though?" Jimmy asked. "What kind of operation could they have set up there?"

"Maybe they found a mineral that the old miners didn't," said Ezra. "Something expensive, and they're going to sell it."

None of the other three answered.

"Come on," Ezra said, rolling his eyes. "You think we want to be here? I could be in bed right now, sleeping, like I was supposed to be. Mr. Girvan is the one who assigned me to this mission, I didn't volunteer. But we're here anyway. So the least you could do is share the necessary information."

Helen exhaled through her nose. "Yes, that is a possibility. But it seems unlikely."

"How so?" Kierra asked.

"When we met the group in the forest, their objective was to capture and sell the Gargantuan—"

"The what?"

"It's what she calls the Enhanced gorilla," Jimmy explained. "Since she doesn't like when it's called a monster."

"Because it's not a monster!" Helen snapped.

"Hmm...Evidence you're wrong," said Harold, holding one arm above his head, "and evidence you're right," he said, holding the other towards the ground to form a heavily lopsided scale.

"The point is," she went on doggedly, "that they were in the forest looking to sell it. I don't know who they could possibly sell the gorilla to, but clearly it wasn't some random zoo."

"So what, you think they found something just as valuable in the mining site and are looking for it?" Kierra asked.

"Again, it's a possibility, but we won't know for sure until we get there."

They lapsed into silence. Minutes passed while Harold stared out at the darkened world flashing by the window, the moon hanging above them in the midnight-blue sky. Still no one talked. At last, however, he felt the ship slowing.

Looking around through the window, he caught his first glimpse of the minefield in question down below.

"We're here," O'Riley called from the front.

"Ready?" said Helen, replacing her notes on the Blue Vipers inside her bag and slinging it over her back.

"If you mean, do I have a parachute, then yes," Harold said.

Jimmy grinned, punching him playfully on the shoulder. The ship came to a complete halt, hovering in the air, and the cargo bay door slid open. All five of them gathered at the edge, preparing to jump. Just before they did, Ezra looked at Jimmy's back, frowning.

"Aren't you wearing a parachute?"

Jimmy grinned again. "Don't need one." And he leapt out of the ship, soaring towards the ground. However, unlike Harold, who had been flailing wildly in the air last time, screaming in terror, Jimmy seemed perfectly at ease. He twisted gracefully in the air, then with a swift hand movement, increased his speed, propelling himself downwards like a torpedo. A few feet from the ground, he stirred the wind below him to slow his descent, and he landed as lightly as a leaf.

"Showoff," Harold said, though he too was grinning. He exchanged a look with Helen, who shrugged, and both dived out of the ship. Air rushed up past them, so forceful that he could hardly hear Helen's shrill screeches beside him. His hair blew wildly about his head, and he was only vaguely aware of the other two behind him. When the ground was close enough, he reached for the chord and pulled.

The parachute erupted outwards in a sudden explosion of nylon. The updraft bracing against the dome of fabric above him slowed him down, and he began his steady drift towards the floor, along with the other three.

They touched down at last beside Jimmy, who was observing his watch with an impatient expression. "Wow, that was horrendously slow. Thank goodness I didn't need a parachute."

"We get it!" Harold and Helen snapped, as they folded up their parachutes. Jimmy held up his hands in surrender, though he was still smiling. When they had finished, he said, "This way," and turned off down a path northwest of their position.

"How did you do that?" Ezra asked Jimmy eagerly, minutes after they began to walk, as if he could no longer contain himself. "Land the way you did?"

"Oh, it's simple, I can control the air currents around me," Jimmy said. "I can use them to fly, or slow myself down."

"Really?" Ezra sounded like a child who'd been promised a present. "That's incredib—"

"Quiet!" Kierra hissed suddenly, and they all froze, looking at her.

"What?" Harold demanded.

"Over there!" Kierra pointed to their left. Through the trees ahead, they could see two tall, burly men standing near the entrance of the mines, with what looked like guns in their hands.

"How are we going to get past them?" Ezra asked.

"Where's a giant gorilla when you actually need one?" Harold said bitterly.

"I have an idea," Jimmy said eagerly. He shimmied up towards the front of the group, then flicked his wrist sharply. Harold heard rather than saw a gust of wind leave his hands: it whistled through the air and hit the trees on their right, rustling the leaves.

The men's attention was caught at once. They stopped talking immediately and looked around with their guns raised.

"That's it, be a good boy and check it out," Harold said, watching them intently. One of the men spoke: the words were indistinct from this distance, but the other nodded, and the first strode off slowly and carefully towards the area Jimmy had disturbed.

"What do we do about this one?" Helen asked, nodding at the man that had remained behind.

"Give me a minute," Harold said.

"Wait," Helen whispered urgently, "what are you going to—?"

But he was already gone. He found the man a little ways ahead, rifle still poised, looking among the trees. The moment Harold approached him, he opened fire, but all the bullets bounced off of him as he advanced casually upon the shooter. He stopped right in front of him, and the man stopped firing, looking terrified. "You're one of them, aren't you?" he said, in a surprisingly level voice. "An—an Enhanced?"

There it was again. That tone of voice. Enhanced.

Abomination.

Harold ripped the gun out of the man's hands and slammed the wooden barrel into his face. The man fell unconscious on impact, and Harold took to surveying the gun with mild curiosity. He had never held one before, but it seemed easy enough: aim and—

The resounding explosion of gunpowder echoed through the forest, sending a nest of birds scattering into the sky. And he waited. Nearly five minutes passed. Then a rustle of leaves, and a timid voice drifted through the darkness: "Will? Are you all right in there...? Where are you? Will,"

He emerged into the clearing. He saw Harold—then he saw his friend, Will, unconscious and bound to a tree trunk.

"Will's a little preoccupied at the moment," Harold said pleasantly, and he bent Will's rifle, then tossed it to the ground at his partner's feet. Unlike his friend, he didn't try to retaliate. He simply ran. But Harold was faster. He caught up to him before he had gone five paces, smashed his fist atop his head, and he crumpled on the spot. A few minutes later, Harold returned to the others.

"What happened? We heard gunshots!" Helen said, looking aghast.

"Where are the men?" Kierra said, with a dubious look.

"Relax. They're fine. I just tied them up," Harold said. "And with that, our way forward is clear. So—" He gestured ahead with a flourish. They climbed out of the bush, Jimmy in the lead, and hurried forward into the mouth of the cave, where they were promptly swallowed by darkness.

"Flashlights," Harold said.

Ezra called, "I got it." They heard him rummaging around in his bag, and then a soft blue light suddenly erupted through the darkness. He was holding one of the Photofractite crystals from their last Weapons and Equipment classes, and its light was casting a large glow over the ground. "Thought it might come in handy."

They continued forward at a quick pace, keeping their eyes trained around them for anything that seemed amiss. Footprints lined the ground, but apart from that, they saw nothing worth noting.

"In your research, did it ever say why this place was abandoned?" Jimmy asked Helen.

"Actually, no," she said thoughtfully. "The story itself wasn't really that big, so the newspaper coverage was small. But what was written about it was vague."

"You think the Blue Vipers could have chased them out?" Harold asked.

"It's possible."

"That's the third 'it's possible' we've had all night. When do we get an actual answer?" Ezra said angrily.

"How about now?" Jimmy came to a halt, gesturing ahead. Tracks spread out in three directions in front of them, winding through the deep-looking tunnels ahead, each headed by a cart.

They approached the carts and looked inside. Two of them were filled with dirt, glittering with gems buried here and there in the mud. The last was empty.

"We should split up," Ezra said. "Cover more ground."

"That's a good ide—" Kierra began.

"No it's not," Harold said firmly, taking everyone, including himself, by surprise. "We shouldn't separate. Isn't that the whole point of Girvan putting us together? Besides, we don't know how many of them there are, and these people have guns."

"And we have powers," Ezra said defiantly.

"And last time I checked, none of those powers made any of you impervious to bullets," Harold snapped.

"I think he's right," Jimmy chimed in quickly, before Ezra could respond. "We have to work together. Besides the Blue Viper, there's no telling what else we could find. This place is abandoned for a reason."

"Fine," Ezra said through gritted teeth.

"Well, I didn't have a cart ride planned for this afternoon, but I guess it'll have to do!" Jimmy said brightly, clapping his hands together.

They filed into the empty cart, which was surprisingly spacious, and Harold pulled back the lever at the base of the track: the cart rattled into motion, trundling along the tracks.

"Uh..." Ezra said, as they wheeled along at a speed barely faster than their walking pace. "I think this thing is broken."

Helen turned to Jimmy. "Well?" she said, grinning.

Jimmy stood up in the cart, towering over all of them, and began to move his arms in wide sweeping motions to the sides. They heard the wind pick up around them, and the cart picked up speed along with it—then the wind began to rage, and the cart shot along the tracks like a torpedo. Cries of excitement and terror alike rose from the cart, but they were quickly extinguished by Helen's hisses of "Shhh!"

But even Harold had to resist the urge to roar with delight. The cart was moving at breakneck speed, guided by the raging winds. They covered swathes of the tracks in mere seconds, their hair whipping about. Deeper and deeper into the maze-like tunnels they rode, twisting and turning like some vast rollercoaster. Something glinted above them and Harold looked up: huge stalactites lined almost every inch of the ceiling overhead. Harold felt his first prickle of apprehension. Did that one look a little lower than the others?

As enjoyable as the trip was, they still had a mission. While Jimmy propelled them along, they looked out for any sign of activity, but even as the end of the track appeared in sight, and Jimmy settled the winds around them so that they slowed to a smooth halt, they saw nothing.

"I guess we took the wrong path," Helen said as they climbed out, sounding disappointed

"I'm not so sure about that," Kierra said. As everyone turned to look at her, she pointed at the ground ahead. Ezra held up the shard of Photofractite so that the glow of blue light illuminated an unsteady stream of odd-looking footprints. They looked as if they had been made from the webbed feet of frogs, with some made of four digits, others five, and all of them quite large.

"Not necessarily a cause for disquiet," Helen said, bending lower and tracing one of the outlines with her finger. "The size is a little disconcerting, but a lot of things live in caves. Bats, insects, amphibians—"

She paused. Something had dripped onto her shoulder. Something bright blue and luminous.

"What was that?" Helen's voice was completely calm. She hadn't even moved.

It dripped on her again. Harold slowly raised his eyes to the ceiling. Something was hanging from it, but it wasn't a stalactite. It was large and slick-looking, with a long, smooth body the same colour as the fluid that had dripped onto Helen's back, spotted with black, with a number of porous holes in its back in which bubbled a bright blue liquid. Its feet, four of them, stuck out from its body at right angles, and they were all webbed. Its eyes were big, bright, and black, and staring unblinkingly down at them while its huge tail writhed around.

It was a massive salamander. Another Gargantuan.

Kierra uttered a little shriek, and Ezra quickly covered her mouth with his hands. But it was too late. The salamander pounced.