Mystics 3-Book Collection (11 page)

Zoey opened her eyes. She was standing on
the exact same spot, as though nothing had just happened—as though
she had not just been eaten by a giant freaky mirror. The mirror
looked as it did before, but without the traces of the blue light
energy around it. It was still humming, but it was dimmed and
looked almost peaceful. She checked herself out in the mirror, and
her reflection moved with that same eerie one-second time delay.
She moved her arms, feet, and wiggled her fingers—all still
functional. It appeared that there had been no mirror-port
accident. She hoped there hadn’t.

“Can I move now?” she asked, feeling a
little dizzy.

Agent Franken removed his hood. “Yes, you
can move away from the M-Mat if you want.”

Zoey turned away from the mirror and walked
over to the cubicle faster than she had anticipated.

“Did it work? I mean, did the mirror-port
work properly on me? Is all my matter intact? There are no pieces
of me somewhere in Africa?”

She checked herself again. She looked normal
enough.

“More or less,” answered Agent Franken,
matter-of-factly.

Zoey couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
“What? What does that mean?”

Agent Franken ignored her. “Off you go now.
I’m a very busy man. I’ve got many pressing
matters
to
attend to.” He giggled at his own joke and began typing on his
computer, one finger at a time.

Before Zoey could ask more questions Agent
Vargas swung a duffel bag over his shoulders and steered her away
from the cubicle.

“You did just fine, Zoey,” said Agent
Vargas. “It takes lots of courage to face the M-Mat the first time,
and you did well. Now, we need to get a move on. Your fellow
operatives are waiting for us in the main hall,” he said and
pointed to her pocket. “Earplugs in.”

Zoey complied and twisted her earplugs back
in. She and Agent Vargas crossed the room through a variety of
explosions and blasts, and made for the exit.

All the students were waiting for them,
including Tristan and Simon.

Tristan ran up to her with half a smile, and
Zoey felt her face go red. She still couldn’t believe she had asked
him so bluntly about having a girlfriend.

“So…how did it go? Not too painful I hope?”
he asked, his smile widening. His dark eyes searched her. She
looked away quickly and pulled out the earplugs.

“It hurt a little, and for a moment I
thought I was going to die,” she said. “But it was more like weird
than painful. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“If you thought that was weird, it’s going
to get a whole lot weirder now,” said Simon as he joined them. He
stood chewing a mouthful of gum with his hands in his pockets.

Zoey frowned at them both. “What do you
mean?” She didn’t want to have to go through another M-Mat again,
one time was enough, at least for the day.

Simon opened his mouth to answer, but he was
cut short by Agent Vargas.

“All right people,” the Agent’s voice boomed
through the hall. “Into positions—you know the drill. Hurry up,
hurry up, you can do better than this.”

The students scurried and formed a line in
front of a large golden mirror. A flashing neon sign above the
mirror read:
Australia
. A small computerized panel to the
right of the mirror looked like an alarm control.

Following the example of the other
operatives, Zoey stood last in line behind Simon and Tristan. She
tried to act like this was totally normal for her, too, even though
she had no idea what was happening. She eyed the golden mirror
suspiciously, a feeling of dread growing in the pit of her stomach.
She knew she could never look at a mirror the same way
ever
again—not after her mirror-port experience.

Agent Vargas checked his watch. “Five
seconds too long. Marks will be deducted, ladies and gents.” The
disappointed students groaned.

He strolled along the line of students,
observing them intensely, and then he stopped beside Zoey.
“Here…this is your DSM.”

He handed her a round metal compact. She
immediately recognized that it was the same type of compact she had
seen Agent Lee and Tristan use before they disappeared.

She took it carefully and inspected it. Its
silver edges gleamed in the light. It had the same ring dial with
the engraved numbers on the surface, and a needle pivoting above a
map. It was surprisingly light and felt cool against her palm.

“It’s like a compass,” she said.

Agent Vargas smiled. “In a way yes, it is
very much like a compass, but better. The DSM or double-sided
mirror, is like a smaller portable version of the M-Mat. Operatives
and agents use them for transport. It reflects your
true
self on one side, and your
final
destination on the other.
It uses the mirror-port’s energy pattern, and your own fingerprint,
to mirror you to and from the hive. It takes years to make one DSM.
They are very valuable so don’t lose it.”

Zoey clasped her DSM tightly. “I won’t.”

She saw Stuart turn around at the head of
the line and give her an evil grin, like he was planning something.
She glowered back at him. She pocketed her DSM securely, in case he
tried to steal it. Maybe he would give her a reason to smack that
smile off his face…

“Good,” said Agent Vargas with a contended
smile.

“Each major city around the world has
mirror-port anchors, which are just like area codes. Just as Agent
Franken explained, mirror port anchors can be any reflective
surface—a glass window, a lake, a pond, or just another mirror—any
reflective object in a fixed location can be prearranged to be an
anchor point.”

He raised his arms and pointed to the wall
of mirrors. “Each mirror here in the main hall is a port to a
country around the world. Within these countries you’ll find their
major cities. If we need to mirror-port to a small town or to a new
location, then the hive in the nearest location will conjure up a
new or temporary anchor for the job. You following me so far?”

“Yes.” Zoey was aware that everyone’s eyes
were on her. She nodded her head, even though some of the
information was still a little cloudy.

“Please remember,” Agent Vargas raised his
voice, “—and this goes for all of you—be as
still
as you can
when you use your DSM. Movement can cause you to mirror-port to an
all-together
different
location. More importantly, be
careful not to
mix
your image in the DSM with reflections
from other
normal
mirrors. That can be catastrophic. This is
not a toy. Use it responsibly.”

He walked over to the golden mirror and
typed something into the small side panel. There was a loud
buzzing. Then a green light above the mirror lit up, and Zoey heard
a click. Agent Vargas stepped away. “Let’s go, operatives—we have a
job to do.”

One by one the operatives stepped into the
mirror and disappeared. The green light flashed each time, as
though it was giving them the okay to pass. Agent Vargas had
positioned himself near the front of the line and said, “GO! GO!
GO!” as each operative next in line came to the front.

Zoey watched Stuart step easily into the
mirror. He didn’t even flinch, and for some reason it made her
angry. When it came to Tristan’s turn, he turned around and said to
Zoey, “See you on the other side.” And with that, he walked into
the mirror. It rippled for a moment and then swallowed him
whole.

When it came to her turn, she halted in
front of the mirror. She was still frightened. She forced herself
to look at her reflection. Her movements were seconds off, just as
they had been in the great mirror in room 1B. She was still not
comfortable with the eerie time lag. She could feel Agent Vargas’s
eyes on her. The other operatives had all stepped through like it
was nothing. She couldn’t back down now.

Bracing herself, she closed her eyes, lifted
her right foot, and stepped into the mirror.

Immediately, she felt her body was being
pulled every which way like an elastic band. Then her feet left the
ground, and she was floating. She twisted horizontally and
vertically. Air flapped against her face. She smelled the ocean,
and then wet earth and hay. She strained to keep her eyes shut—she
didn’t dare open them, for fear of being sick.

And then as fast as it had started, it
stopped. Her feet touched solid ground again. Her heart beat widely
in her ears. Did someone call her name?

She opened her eyes. The world around her
was spinning. She recognized Tristan’s face. His lips were moving,
but she couldn’t hear him. Her ears rung as though an explosion had
gone off inside her head. Her surroundings spun faster and faster.
Her stomach twisted—she was going to be sick. She couldn’t be sick
in front of Tristan. She turned around quickly, took a few steps,
and puked.

As she was hunched over, a pair of black
shiny boots appeared next to her.

“Here, rinse your mouth with this,” said
Agent Vargas. “And don’t worry, everyone’s sick the first time,
even the best of agents—even me.”

He was smiling and holding out a bottle of
water. She was horrified that everyone had seen her be sick, but
she felt much better. A cold sweat trickled down her back, and she
gladly rinsed her mouth.

They stood in an open field. The low moon
cast gray light over everything, and a cool breeze refreshed her.
Tall power lines like giant metal T’s were arranged neatly in a
single row that spread out for miles on either side of a great
valley and melted into the darkness. She could hear pops and zaps
in the distance as a sequence of miniature blue lightning bolts
from the top of one of the power lines illuminated the night sky.
Then they stopped, and the sky was absolutely dark.

A lopsided old barn stood open under the
shadows of the power lines. Its doors lay on the ground in rotten
wood planks. Half the roof had caved in. All the windows were
smashed, except for one, which glinted in the moonlight. Zoey
recognized the glass as the reflective surface of the anchor point.
They had just mirror-ported through the old barn’s window. She felt
amazed and lucky to be part of something so extraordinary. Normal
kids didn’t travel the world using mirrors. She smiled. This beat
any fancy airplane ride. This was
awesome
.

“Take this,” said Agent Vargas. He took the
empty water bottle from Zoey and gave her a large canister
instead.

Zoey took the canister. It looked like a
large hairspray can. The label read,
Skedaddle Anti-Fairy Spray,
your # 1 repellent
.

She chuckled as she shook the canister.
“Seriously? We’re going to
spray
this on fairies?
Actual
fairies?” She shook the can again. “Does this stuff
actually work?”

Agent Vargas looked up towards the power
lines. “Of course it works! It’s the best fairy repellent there is.
You’re going to need it.”

“No way.” Zoey started laughing and only
stopped when she realized that he wasn’t kidding. She looked
around. Everyone else had canisters in their hands, too.

Stuart smiled at her confusion, and she did
her best to ignore him. Even though she had
no
idea what was
going on, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking
that he knew more than she did. Whatever the canisters were used
for, she would use them just like the others. She kept her mouth
shut and waited.

Agent Vargas had seen her confusion as well.
“Fairies are hostile mystics, Zoey. They sneak across into our
world illegally and plague us with mischief—nothing worse than
fairies, if you ask me. Nasty creatures.”

“What do they do that’s so terrible? Aren’t
fairies small and cute with colorful wings?” Zoey tried to imagine
evil fairies, but she couldn’t imagine beautiful creatures with
butterfly wings being evil. In all the stories she’d read, fairies
were
good
. Every girl wanted a fairy, even her.

Agent Vargas looked up towards the power
lines. “Have you ever experienced a black out? A power outage when
nothing electric works?”

Zoey remembered when they lost power at the
orphanage. It was always a treat. They would light up candles and
read spooky stories to each other until late at night. They were
her favorite memories.

“Yes,” she said finally. “Lots of
times.”

“Well, that’s fairies’ work,” said Agent
Vargas. “Although Mutes might think that power outages are caused
by storms or animals accidentally short circuiting the fuse box,
that’s not the case. Fairies love to cause power outages. Fairies
feed on electricity you see, and we need to stop them. They can
destroy an entire city’s main powerhouse in only a few hours. They
could wipe out a whole country’s power system in a week. Can you
image a world without power? Don’t be fooled. Fairies are hostiles
and extremely dangerous. It’s our job to spray them and bag
them.”

“Bag them?”

Agent Vargas dropped his duffel bag,
unzipped it, pulled out a large black garbage bag, and threw it to
Zoey.

She caught the bag easily. “Bag them with
this?”

She stood with the bag in her hand not
really knowing what to do with it.

“That’s right. We bag them and take them
back to the hive with us. Everyone, grab a bag.” He stepped back
and waited until everyone had a black bag.

“Operatives, we need to move fast. The
fairies are already
mutating,
and we all know what happens
when they do. Spray cans at the ready, boys and girls. There’s a
prize for the one with most bagged fairies. Move!”

He marched across the field towards the
power lines. With their spray cans in one hand and bags in the
other, the operatives traipsed across the field after the big
man.

Zoey walked alongside Tristan and Simon.
“Have you guys done this before? Spray and bag fairies?” She
noticed that Tristan had two more cans in his front jean
pockets.