Spy School: Zoe or Erica?

Arrival

The second the plane set down on the ground, Jayden pushed past all of us and exited the plane. I couldn't blame him, though. The ride was a nightmare.

First of all, the seats weren't cushioned. That ruined my back.

Then, there were no portable TV's. And we were on a private plane. 

Lastly, the room wasn't even big enough to support two people. I was surprised that it even was a private plane, considering the size. For the whole ride, I was squeezed next to Mike and Chip, who, as you probably heard, has a cold.

That didn't help.

"I'm outa here!" Jayden said, landing on the ground outside of the plane. "Ahh, I never thought that hard ground would such a relief!"

"C'mon, Jay- we've got to go save Ben's ex and future girlfriend," Mike said, winking at me as he slid by. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "Zoe's not my ex. We weren't even together in the first place."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Jawa said. He whispered something to Mike and they giggled like a group of girls. I gritted my teeth and walked up to the front of the group, where Catherine and Cyrus were. 

"Benjamin!" Catherine said when I reached the front of the group. "Do you have any specific place where Erica is? South Berlin is giant!"

Cyrus shook his head. "Even though my grandaughter Erica is much more talented than 99% of the normal society, I doubt she got a specific place."

"I think she did," I said. "And I know where she is."

Catherine and Cyrus rounded on me, screeching to a stop and making Emma and Jayden crash into me at the sudden stop. I promptly fell to the ground and banged my head onto the hard concrete.

"I was kidding!" I said, rubbing my head. "Your reaction was a little overdone- much more dramatic than I thought it would be."

"Well, what did you expect?" Catherine said. "If you knew where our daughter was, we would head over there right now!"

"Not just Ice Queen," Mike said, strolling by us and casting a wolfish grin. "Don't forget Ben's ex!"

"Shut it!" I said. "Enough with that nickname!"

"Naaahh," Mike called back. Jawa laughed and pushed me onto the ground again as he passed by.

"If you guys weren't my partner-in-spying, then I would've punched all of you by now," I muttered under my breath.

"Try me," Jayden said. "You'd be on the ground before you can move your fist."

"Enough of this!" Cyrus snapped. "Are all of you clueless when it comes to finding the right place? My grandaughter's life is on the line right now!"

"Um, seeing that we have zero clues, then probably not," Emma said.

"Then find clues!"

"How!?"

"Just do it!"

"Calm down, guys!" I said. "What we need to do is narrow down the places to the ones that we think are the most suspicious, then try to deal with the ones that are the most likely where Erica and Zoe are held."

"South Berlin doesn't have many suspicious places. And by what we know now, SPYDER doesn't usually place their hideout in suspicious places. They hide in plain sight, remember? So for all we know, they're hiding under us right now," Mike said.

"They aren't," Catherine said, stomping on the ground. "I don't sense any hollow spaces underneath us."

"But for all we know, they've blocked out space directly underneath us, then created a hollow space underneath that. So the technique of sensing hollow spaces wouldn't work. The only thing we can do is drill down underground."

"Drop the 'SPYDER is hiding underneath us' idea," I said. "It's probably now true."

"Who knows?" Jawa said. "SPYDER is literally the most unexpected group we've ever encountered- you never know."

"In the meantime, let's head over to get a tour of South Berlin," Cyrus said. "By doing so, we can probably narrow down the choices to a few places."

"Or not. SPYDER could be everywhere," I said. 

"Don't play the pessimist here, Benjamin," Catherine said. "We've got to save my daughter."

Cyrus pointed over to a blue SUV skidding over to our area in the airport parking lot. "Our ride's here. Let's go begin the tour."

"I hope we won't get our lives threatened," Mike said as we piled into the car.

"They probably will," Jawa put in.

"And die in the process," Chip added.

I sighed. The sad thing was, they were probably right.