Penny Wise and the League of St. Claire

Chapter 6

The next day, the members of the League met again in St. Clair Park near Arthur St. Clair’s monument.

“Our next adventure will take us to the Capital,” Penny told them. “We must access the security measures of the former CIA headquarters. That’s the purported location of the Antichrist a.k.a. Citizen Prime, a title that most people reject and still use Prime Minister.”

Jordan smiled. “Citizen Prime sounds like the main character of a psychedelic political thriller.”

“It doesn’t matter what they call him,” Penny said, frowning. “We have to locate and destroy him.”

“How am I going to know where to take us in the future?” Jordan asked. “I’m not that familiar with the Capital.”

“Washington’s monument is still intact but no one goes to it in the future. That should be a good location.”

Penny extended her hands and the others formed a ring with her. Jordan closed his eyes and imagined Washington’s monument in D.C. A sudden swirling wind blurred the actions that occurred around them, but when this stopped, they were standing next to the familiar monolith. The tall structure was still intact and had been painted blue for some strange reason.

“We must break up as before,” Milo said. “This place is off limits and is probably under surveillance. We could be seen.”

Jordan held a hand up. “Ah . . . I may be able to obviate that possibility.”

Penny tilted her head. “How?”

“I think I can make us all invisible.”

“You mean like the invisible man?” Carmen asked. “We’d have to take our clothes off.”

“I think I can make both us and our clothes invisible.”

 “Do it,” Penny said, her eyes exhibiting disbelief.

Jordan closed his eyes and they all became invisible, including their clothing.

“Fantastic, dude!” Milo said, his voice seemingly coming from nowhere. “How’d you discover that you could do this amazing trick?”

“I was in my bedroom and looking in a mirror when I realized that I had accidently made myself invisible. It scared the bejeebers out of me.”

Milo laughed. “I can appreciate that, my friend.”

“Keep it down you two,” Penny said in a loud whisper. “Let’s go to the former CIA headquarters. We may be able to enter it without interference.”

“What if they can detect motion?” Carmen asked.

“They’ll think it’s an equipment malfunction,” Penny replied with a confident smile that no one could see.

Jordan wasn’t as sure about that as she was.

They walked along the Reflecting Pool in single file in an attempt to avoid colliding with one another.

“I don’t like being invisible,” Carmen said. “I can’t see my body, and I have no idea where my feet are.”

“They’re at the bottom of your legs,” Milo said.

“Smart ass!”

“Now children,” Penny said, sounding like a mother. “Remember that we’re the antithesis of the old adage: children should be seen but not heard. If we were visible we could be confronted.”

“We could handle any confrontation,” Milo said.

“Yes, but we must find the puppet master, not his puppets.”

“It’s going to take too long to walk to the CIA headquarters,” Harriett said. “It’s in Langley Virginia.”

“I agree,” Carmen said. “We’ll waste too much time.”

“Could you take us there, Jordan?” Penny asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

They held hands--which was not easy while invisible--and Jordan visualized the location in his mind and they suddenly were standing outside of it.

The former CIA building had been torn down and replaced with a stone walled fortress with no windows. The entrance was impossible to detect.

“How are we going to get in there?” Carmen asked. “There’s no door.”

“I believe that the entrance is underground,” Penny said. “People drive into that multilevel garage over there and enter the building from an underground tunnel.”

“We’re not driving a car,” Carmen said.

“That’s true, but we’re invisible and should be able to slip in when someone enters.”

That sounded risky to Jordan, but he elected to remain silent.

Penny and her League members entered the garage and went to the entrance door to the tunnel in the lower level. They waited until a single individual, a woman dressed in a dark pantsuit, stood in front of a retinal scan device. After a few seconds the door opened and the woman entered a large corridor. The League members snuck in with her and kept out of her way so that she wouldn’t bump into them. The woman never knew that they were there.

Penny used a hand pat to alert her members to follow the woman in case there was another security door at tunnel’s entrance into the building. Each member patted another to make sure that everyone knew what was happening.

There was another door. They waited until the woman used a retinal scan to gain entry before sneaking in behind her as before. Once inside, Penny used the patting method to direct her group. They moved down a corridor past numerous offices, none of which indicated that it was the director’s office.

After searching for some time, Penny came to a conclusion, but she did it in a whisper. “The director is not in here. Obviously we have wasted our time.”

“What are we going to do next?” Harriett asked.

“We’re going to get out of here and go back to our time. We need to think this through.”

But, that wasn’t going to be that simple. An alarm klaxon sounded.

“Now what?” Carmen whispered rather loudly.

“I think they’ve detected our presence,” Penny said. “We have to get out of here. Hold hands everyone.”

They held hands and Jordan used his power of time displacement to get them out and back to Washington’s monument.

“Do you think they saw us?” Harriett asked, her heart still pounding in her chest.

“I’m not sure,” Penny said. “We now know that they can detect our motion even if we’re invisible. That’s going to make this a greater challenge.”

Suddenly, flying cars appeared in the sky and they appeared to be searching for the interlopers who had intruded into the CIA headquarters.

“We had better go,” Penny said.

They held hands again and Jordan transported them back to their own time.

“Why didn’t we stay and fight them?” Milo asked, sounding angry.

“That was not the time nor the place,” Penny said. “We can ill afford to risk ourselves in a battle that would not achieve our goal of destroying the Beast.”

Milo was not happy with her reasoning, but he realized that it was for the best.”

“We’ll meet here early tomorrow,” Penny said.

Everyone nodded his or her agreement.