Mystics 3-Book Collection (42 page)

“I don’t like that woman,” said Simon, “She
scares me. I get this uncontrollable urge to scratch when I see
her.”

Zoey stepped up to the mirror again. She had
memorized the name of the Hive on her mother’s file. She typed:
Hive # 212, New York, USA
.

The green light flicked on. The mirror
hummed, and its insides churned like water.

Zoey peered over her shoulder and saw Mrs.
Jenson on the phone. She turned to her friends.

“Come on, let’s go!” With a rush of
adrenaline, she closed her eyes and stepped into the mirror. A loud
“STOP RIGHT THERE!” from Mrs. Jenson was the last thing she
heard.

Immediately, her feet left the ground, and
she was floating. She twisted horizontally and vertically. Wind
rushed against her face. She smelled exhaust fumes and concrete.
Tires screeched loudly in her ears, and she heard honking. A few
seconds later, her feet touched solid ground again, and Zoey opened
her eyes.

She stood in the middle of a vast chamber
with tall windows and polished floors. Tall buildings sprouted on
every side, and Zoey could see the Hudson River below. She was in a
high-rise building. The air moved behind her as Simon and Tristan
stepped out.

When she glanced around again, the river had
disappeared and in its place was another high-rise. They were
moving. She looked around. They were standing on a circular
platform with mirrors around the edges. It turned slowly, like a
giant merry-go-round.

“If we don’t get off this thing I’m going to
puke,” said Simon, looking a little green.

Zoey jumped off the platform. Tristan and
Simon followed on shaky legs.

Unlike the Hive in Toronto, this Hive was
busy with agents and mystics. Dozens of them stepped out of the
merry-go-round mirrors. There were tall, yellow-skinned mystics
with purple spiked hair dressed in bright orange suits. A mystic
with the body of goat and the head of a woman galloped down from
the platform. Zoey heard a grunt, and an albino hamster with dragon
legs came out of a mirror beside her. It spoke to an agent with
curly blonde hair in that same mystic language that Agent Ward had
tried to teach her. Doors and halls branched out from the main
chamber in every direction.

“Zoey, this way.” Tristan made his way
towards a long polished desk.

A man in a black suit and red bowtie sat
behind the desk. He was nearly bald except for two patches of dark
hair above his great flappy ears. He had a large turned-up nose and
looked like an old hog in a suit. He didn’t look up from his
computer. The words ‘
Administrative assistant
,
Maurice at
your service!’
were written on a small card.

Simon snorted.

The man looked up with wet, sad eyes. “Yes?”
he said, in a rather sleepy, nasal kind of voice, as though he had
just woken up. “May I help you?”

Zoey flattened her hands on the desk.
“Excuse me, sir, but we’re looking for information about an agent
who was stationed here in New York a few years ago. Can you tell us
who to talk to?” She stopped and waited for him to reply.

“Hmmmm,” Maurice stared at Zoey through his
misty eyes, as though she wasn’t really there.

“Um - Mr. Maurice,” said Zoey, “we’ve come a
long way, and we really would like to speak to someone.”

“Yes,” answered Maurice, his lids slowly
closing over. “Of course…I’ll be right with you…two creams, two
sugars…”

Zoey waited. “Mr. Maurice?” she said, a
little irritated.

Maurice’s head dropped, and he began snoring
noisily.

“MR. MAURICE!” called Zoey loudly.

Maurice’s head flew back and his eyes opened
wide. “Hello. May I help you?” he said with the same sleepy voice.
He looked at them blankly as though he had only just met them.

“And I thought Mrs. Jenson was a little off
the wagon,” whispered Simon. “What’s the deal with him?”

Zoey elbowed Simon in the ribs and glared at
him.

She raised her voice a little. “Mr. Maurice,
sir, can you direct us to the persons in charge of records? Past
agent records?” she asked again, in her most pleasant voice.
“Pretty please?”

But the old man’s head drooped, and he
started to snore again.

“Can you believe this guy?” said Simon. He
and Tristan started to laugh.

Zoey was running out of patience. She leaned
over the desk and said very loudly in his ear, “MR. MAURICE!”

The old man screamed and fell off his chair.
“What? What’s the matter? Is there a fire? Are we in danger?” He
crawled around on the floor and then scrambled back up on his chair
with a wild look in his eyes.

“There’s no fire, old man,” said Tristan
kindly as he leaned over the counter and made sure not to lose eye
contact.

“What we need is
information
. Where
do you keep
records
on past agents?”

Maurice blinked his red, wet eyes, and
pointed. “In the archives, down the hall to your left. Door number
5A.”

Zoey smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Maurice.”

They turned and left. Within seconds they
could hear his snores again.

They walked in silence, and Zoey’s heart
hammered in her chest. The closer she got to the door, the more
panicked she felt. Door 5A stood ajar. The word ARCHIVES was
written above it in large black letters.

Zoey peeked through. The room was littered
with boxes, file cabinets, and old computers. Through the mountains
of papers and boxes she could see a counter at the other end of the
room. Zoey made for the counter.

A humanoid mystic with three eyes, a tiny
mouth, an elongated neck, and a large oval-shaped head typed on a
computer. He looked like a human lollipop.

“At least this guy looks awake,” breathed
Simon.

Zoey ignored him and address the mystic.

“Excuse me, I was wondering if you could
help me find records on my mother. She was an agent here at the New
York Hive a few years ago, and now she’s missing. I’m desperate to
find her.”

“Name?” said the mystic, his voice like a
bird’s chirp.

“Elizabeth Steele. She would have worked
here around fifteen or sixteen years ago. I’m not sure.”

The mystic began typing in his computer. His
three bulbous eyes never left the screen. With an expressionless
face he said, “Sorry, there are no records showing under that name.
Do you have another name?”

Zoey felt her blood drain away. “What? No,
that’s the only name I have. But…that’s impossible. She was
stationed here in New York. I know she was. I saw it in the
file.”

“Do you have this file?” asked the
mystic.

The file was hidden under her mattress back
at the Wander Inn. Her face fell. “No, it’s not with me right
now—”

“I’m sorry, miss,” The mystic shook his
head, “but I do not have anything with the name
Elizabeth
Steele
. The records of all active and past agents are in the
system. If it’s not on file, then I’m afraid she wasn’t an agent
here. Best of luck.”

And with that, the mystic returned to his
computer.

“But…” Zoey felt the room closing in on her.
“This can’t be! There has to be something here!” She raised her
voice angrily, “This is wrong! There has to be a record of her.
Look again!”

“If there are no records with that name,”
said the mystic irritably, “that’s because there are
no
records, and never were. Perhaps you have the wrong name.”

“No, that’s her name,” grumbled Zoey.

Simon leaned over the counter. “Is it
possible that someone lost or
erased
those records?” He
shared a look with Zoey and raised his brows.

The mystic looked up at him. “It’s possible,
but
very
unlikely. We here at the Archives treat every
single record with the utmost respect. We don’t lose or erase files
- we store them.”

“But it
is
still possible?” pressed
Simon.

The mystic didn’t respond.

“Well? Is it?” asked Zoey, aggravated.

“I’ve answered your questions, now please go
away,” said the mystic. “I’m very busy. Good day.”

Tristan took Zoey’s hand and squeezed it.
“Zoey, let’s go.”

Tristan steered her away from the
counter.

All this time she had thought New York was
going to be the answer to all her questions. The clues to her
mother’s whereabouts should have been here. She felt puzzled and
numb. Where were her mother’s records? Was Simon right? Could
someone have erased them?

They stood outside the Archives room in
silence. Tristan and Simon shared a look. They felt the pain on
Zoey’s face.

“This really sucks,” said Simon after a long
and very uncomfortable silence. “I seriously thought New York would
be golden. I thought for sure you’d find your answers here. I’m
really sorry, Zoey. I know how much you must be disappointed.”

“We’ll figure something out,” said Tristan,
“There’s gotta be an explanation.”

“Yes, and it starts with someone erasing
those records.” Zoey fought the tears that threatened to pour down
her cheeks.

She watched agents rushing across the
chamber. Her throat ached when she spoke next. “Someone didn’t want
us or anyone else to find them, I’m sure of it. They erased them,
so we couldn’t find out what happened to her. Someone from
this
Hive did it. There are traitors everywhere. My mother
said so in her message. Maybe it was someone she knew.”

“They did a good job leaving no traces,”
said Tristan. “Well, at least you still have real proof that she
was an agent back at our Hive.” He squeezed her hand gently.

When Zoey realized she was still holding his
hand, she let it go quickly.

“Yes, that’s right.” Her voice shook. She
felt like someone had carved out her heart and left a big dark hole
in its place instead.

“What do you want to do now?” asked Simon as
he jammed his hands in his pockets.

Zoey shrugged. “I guess we go back for now.
I’ll look at the file again. Maybe I missed something on it that’s
important. Maybe I missed a clue—”

Screams erupted throughout the chamber. The
floor trembled like an earthquake had hit the Hive. The hair on the
back of Zoey’s neck rose. They rushed back to the center of the
chamber. Agents and mystics were screaming frantically as they
pointed at the mirror-ports.

“Why are they all freaking out?” shouted
Simon over the hysterical frenzy. “It’s making
me
freak
out!”

And then Zoey saw what the fuss was
about.

Every single mirror-port mirror was turning
black. What looked like ink blots were spreading over all the
mirrored surfaces. Zoey watched in horror as every single mirror
was covered by the black substance. And then a black liquid like
oil spilled out of the mirrors and onto the floor, as though they
were vomiting their innards.

Zoey approached a middle-aged man who was
standing nearby.

“What just happened? Why did the mirrors
turn black like that? What is that black stuff?”

The man spoke without looking at her. He
watched the mirrors with a look of utter distress and shock.

“I—I don’t know. This has never happened
before…”

“So…what does this mean?” urged Zoey.

The man turned to her and spoke in a hoarse
whisper. “This is an attack! The mirrors have been destroyed!”

Z
oey felt warmth
inside her pocket. She pulled out her DSM and could see right away
that the same black oil oozed from its corners. She flipped it
open—the mirrors had been eaten away by the black oil. She felt
wetness on her fingers and saw that they were tainted with the
stuff, so she brought her fingers to her nose and sniffed.

“Gross, it smells like a mixture of alcohol
and pig manure,” she grimaced, and wiped the oil from her hands on
her jeans.

“What I’d like to know,” said Simon as he
held his DSM with two fingers and eyed it suspiciously, “is how you
know what pig manure smells like.”

“Whatever it is, we can all agree that it’s
seriously disgusting,” said Tristan. He tipped his DSM to the side
and watched the black oil drip to the floor.

“Never seen anything like it before—”

“This is just great! We’re stuck!” Simon
dropped his DSM into the puddle of black oil around his feet.

Zoey looked at him and frowned.

Simon let his arms fall to his sides. “The
mirror-port matter transfer is ruined. We can’t use the
mirror-port’s energy pattern to mirror us back to the Hive. We’re
stuck here! We’ll be in serious trouble if we don’t get back
soon.”

“He’s right,” said Tristan, wiping the oil
from his hands on his jeans but not doing a very good job of it.
“We’re totally screwed.”

Zoey turned her attention back to the
mirror-ports and saw the horror on the faces of the agents.

“…
Who
could do such a thing?” asked a
woman with tears in her eyes.

“…It’ll take months to repair, if we can
repair them at all,” said a defeated looking man with a black
hat.

“How will we manage now without proper
transport?” cried another woman. “We’ve never been without the use
of our mirrors.”

Zoey glowered.
Who would do something
like this to this Hive? Who would benefit from destroying the
mirrors?
And the answer came swiftly—
Mrs. Dupont
.

“Do you guys think
all
the mirrors
are destroyed?” said Zoey, feeling more and more sure that Mrs.
Dupont was behind this act of sabotage. “Even the ones from
our
Hive?”

“Yes,” said a man’s voice. “All of
them.”

Zoey turned around. A businessman with a
pinstriped navy suit, white tie and perfectly trimmed brown hair
stood behind them. He measured them curiously and then said, “This
black oil has affected every single mirror-port in our world. From
what we’ve gathered so far, the oil acts like a viral infection and
consumes the mirrors—killing them. We don’t know how it happened
but it appears deliberate. Someone poisoned the mirrors.”