BookWorms

Dan looked everywhere for any signs of his friends and/or family. He looked in Amy’s room, in Nellie’s room, and in Ian’s room. He even looked in Command Central and the cellar. He was just about to give up and go play his video games, when he remembered that Cara needed to be rescued. He thought that perhaps Amy had told the others to leave witout him, but when he checked, all 10 of their vehicles were in the garage. Dan tried to look over the security camera videos, but something strange happened. One moment Nellie was on the couch, and the next, she was gone.

***
Dan went went to work building a metal detector. He felt extremely lonely while he was downloading the blueprints for a metal detector. Once he printed the blueprint out out, he set to work finding the materials that he needed to build it. The easiest to find was brass, and even that was difficult to find. The next thing on the list was an extra strong magnet. This took him a good 20 minutes. Then he had to find a bunch of different cables. By the time he found everything it was already morning. Dan just decided to keep working. He molded the brass into the right shape, attaching the wires to the magnet, the claxon, and his home made button. Before he tested it out, Dan decided to eat. He had been awake for over twelve hours now, and he was starving. While Dan ate he tried to stay awake, but he felt his eyes drooping. Then he fell face first into his food, fast asleep.

Locating the vault was difficult on it’s own, but geting to it was even more difficult. First of all, no charted roads led to it, so they had to guess what roads to go on. Their faces were set in grim determination. Everyone was anxious. Dan was anxious because he was sort of looking forward to seeing robots with plasma pistols, and hewanted to help save Cara as quickly as possible. Amy just wanted to save Cara without losing her life, Dan losing his, or Nellie losing hers. Ian just wabted to see Cara alive and well, since she was his girlfriend, and he didn’t want another person that he loved, to die (the first had been his little sister, Natalie). Nellie was just anxious for her kiddos (Dan and Amy) to survive. She was prepared to die for them. The crew had taken so mny wrong turns that they had to come back and refuel so many times that it turned out that they had spent over $500 only on gas. By the time they got to the end of the main uncherted road it was already bright outside, and they had still not found the vault, even after looking through each secondary road. By the time the got home they were so tired that they had just enough time to set an alarm for 9:00p.m. before they fell asleep.

***
Dan’s dreams were muddled, and he dreamt of magic, and about how magic is just illusions. He dreamt of buried treasure and landmines and how people found them with metal detectors. He also dreamt of the setting of a book he read, were a godess named Hekate lived in her shadowrealm that was hidden behind an illusion of trees.

***
As Dan woke up he realized that his dream had explained what to do. He ran downstairs to announce the news, but found himself alone.

At this fresh piece of news everyone’s hopes grew, but then shrunk as Ian continued his explanation, “She is kept in a well guarded vault nearby. Sadly, though, it’s well guarded by six robots with infra-red cameras and plasma pistols that will disintegrate you on the spot. Also, during the day they have motion sensor cameras. This being said it is impossible to attack by day, but by night, with the proper equipment, we could attempt a break out.” They set to work with their hopes up high. There was much to be done, and little time to do it. They had to make 4 alluminum suits, since alluminum could reflect body heat. Also, they would need a metal cutter to break through the chains that possibly held Cara. While they were working, Ian briefed them on the “mission” details, “When you get within 200 ft. of the vault put on your suits. Any sooner and you’ll cook yourself. Any later and you risk getting disintegrated. Once you get in, don’t close the vault door, or else you’ll be locked in there forever.”

Amy pointed the outline out to the others. As they zoomed in more, the outline became more vivid. It was unmistakeabley a menacing bear with its claws extracted and its toungue stuck out. “It could still be a red herring, though,” Nellie commented doubtfully. “It is our best lead, though, so why not follow it?” Dan replied. In the end they had decided to contact the the Tomas branch leaders about the problem. They made their way  back to Command Central. Command Central was a humungeous room with two computer databases. One database, containing all the Cahill files, was connected to a single 92″ monitor. The second, filled with Cahill cantact information, was connected to multiple 15″ screens. Amy powered up the second database, preparing to talk to the Tomas leaders. The moment the last Tomas leader connected Amy explained the situation to them. They were outraged, their faces turning tomato red with anger. “The Tomas would never do such a thing!” One man shouted angrily. It took all of twenty minutes and all of Amy’s diplomatic abillities to calm them down and to explain that she did not suspect that the leaders had done these atrocius deeds, but some renegade members of the Tomas branch. Amy explained that the places they were looking at the most were the Hawaiian section of the branch and the Boston section, were the attacks had happened. As Amy shut down the computers Ian burst into the room panting. “I know where Cara is,” He wheezed.

Dan, Amy, and Nellie tried to open the door but to no avail. Luckily the door opened towards the inside, so they kicked it open with ease. As soon as they got in they were faced by an iris scanner that had scanned each of their irises before retreating into the wall. as soon as it left, a voice scanner popped up, telling them tosay hello. Finally they were able togo up to command centre, where they found Ian consulting all of the Cahill leaders about something. As they walked into the room the other cahills started happily yelling in so many diferent langauges that it was impossible to understand what they were saying. “Dan, Amy!” Ian exclaimed.”Why are you here so early?” “Well…” Dan began. “Someone tried to kidnap me…” “And then omeone knocked Nellie unconcious.” “You too!?” Ian exclaimed, startled. “Wait a minute, was Cara kidnapped?” Ian told Dan and Amy what had happened to him. First, some men had come through the chimney, then they injected some sedative into Ian, and lastly they kidnaped Cara. Ian knew the last bit because of the security cameras installed all around the house. Amy got a brilliant idea. “Ian,” She commanded.”Zoom in on the kidnappers.” Ian did so, and Amy saw they Lucian crest, but underneath she saw a faint outline of the Tomas crest.

thankfully the cafe was unlocked, so Dan and Amy came in and brought Nellie to her senses by splashing cold water on her face. When she came to, Nellie almost broke Amy’s jaw with a solid front-snap kick. Then Nellie realized that it was just Dan and Amy and she told them them wat had happened. The man who claimed he was a Lucian was part of a group of Lucians called the voiders. They wanted to separate the Cahill branches once again and start another war. They had then injected something into Nellie that had knocked her out. Nellie had expected it to be poison, but it turned out to be just a minor sedative, which wasn’t a Lucian type of thing. Dan, Amy and Nellie walked back to command central while Dan and Amy explaind why they had come early. “this cant be a coincidence,”Nellie said. “the same people must be behind both of thes attacks.” “Yeah,” replied Dan. “But Lucians dont surf.” “Who else could it be?” “Dan, Nellie!” Amy exclaimed. “I figured it out! It’s a completely different branch. Now that I started thinking about it I remember that the guy on the surf board was buff. That means that he was deffinetely not Lucian.” Dan understood her logic, but felt frustrated that he couldnt figure it out. They were already at mansion door. They hit the intercom button outside and said,”Ian, Cara we’re home!” No one replied.

Dan and Amy ran for what seemed like an eternity. they were as tired as any one could ever be. luckily for them, though, they saw a taxidriving down the road fromthe beach. They hailed it down and told the driver to take them to the Mauna Loa hotel, wait for them outside while tyhey packed their bags, and then take them to the airport. packing was difficult for them, since they didn’t expect to be leaving so early. They were in a hurry, so they stuffed all they could into their suitcases and backpacks, and then stuffed the rest into empty grocery bags. When they arrived at the airportthey booked a flight to Boston, Massachusetts. then they repacked their clothes so that they would allfit in their suitcases. After they had passed customs Dan had decided to buy as many snacks as he could stuff in his backpack, which was quite alot, since it was empty except for his laptop. it was almost boarding time for their flight, so they walked down to their gate and began boarding. As soon as they got in their seats Dan turned on the TV and began watching cartoons. The flight was mostly uneventful except for the part when there was turbulence and Dan puked up half of his snacks, which made Amy laugh so hard that she almost rolled out of her seat. she told Dan that the next time they go on a flight he should buy a bit less snacks. Dan just glared at her and kept on vomiting. When they landed they texted Nellie, but because she wasn’t answering they decided that she must be at her cafe, busy. So they strolled down to the cafe and were surprised to see Nellie lying on the ground unconsious.

Nellie was excitedely running around her parisian cafe serving cofee, croissants, and more. There were two reasons for her excitment. First of all she was excited bacause it was her first day running her own cafe, and she was looking forward to seeing her kiddos the next day. It was only 3:00 p.m. but Nellie was already tired. Thankfully, 3 hours ago she had hired 13 people to help her with the business, so now she could sit down and rest if and when she wanted. one bonus of owning the cafe, as Nellie had noticed was that you could help yourself to the food at no expense. of course she did have to pay for the ingredients, but that was a minor detail. She was just beginning to enjoy her chamomile tea and croissant with strawberries and home-made whipped cream, when a man sat down beside her. he struck up a conversation and somehow within ten short minutes Nellie realized that they were talking about the Cahills. “you’re a Lucian right?” asked Nellie. “You caught me,” The man replied.”I just wanted to check if you really were Nellie.” “I see… So why did you come?” the man just pulled a hypodermic syringe out of his pocket, but as soon as she saw it, Nellie got up, and found herself suround by her employees.

Dan woke up from his nightmare drenched in sweat. He was only 13 and yet he new the way to make a serum that would make you the smartest and most powerful person in the world. It was also extremely dangerous in its original form, because it would kill you within a week of drinking it unless you took the antidote within that time period. These were the two reasons why neither Dan nor Amy wanted to tell someone the formula, or drink the serum itself. Amy had drunk it once, in a desperate situation, and had barely survived, taking the antidote just in time. Dan looked around the Hawaiian hotel room and saw Amy sitting up in her bed just like he was. They both knew that the other had a nightmare because they had begun having nightmares more and more, ever since they had defeated Pierce and went on a vacation to take a break from the Cahill family. They had become paranoid that there would be more people like Pierce who would figure out the serum formula and try to eliminate them because of that. Today was the last day of their trip around the world. They had stopped in every fun place they could think of, such as Egypt, Las Vegas, and Paris. Because neither of them could sleep could sleep they decided to get packed and go surfing. By the time they had finished packing and had breakfast it was 6:30a.m. so they hailed a taxi and headed to the beach. After about 30 minutes of surfing, the dread hit Amy full on. Today they were going to return to Boston, Massachusetts and retake control of the Cahills this thought quickly dissipated as Amy looked back and saw a man reaching for Dan. “Dan!” She yelled. “Look out! Duck!” Dan ducked just as the man reached for him. The man lost his balance and fell off his board. Dan and Amy surfed in, grabbed their boards and bags,( fortunately located by the shore) and ran.