An annoyingly loud beeping awoke me from my comforting sleep. I pried my eyes open to see Sofia stirring awake. She rubbed her eyes, looking around in confusion.

                Her eyes widened when she registered the beeping noise.

                “Oh no.” She whispered

                “What?” I asked sitting up. I could feel my hair sticking up in ways that it shouldn’t be. Sofia’s glanced from me to the window opposite me.

                “Quick!” She said “Get under the bench!”

                “Wh-what?” I asked, confused.

                She grabbed my shoulder, forcing me onto the ground. I hissed as my elbow roughly banged against the edge of the bench. Sofia ignored my cry of pain, forcing my body to roll underneath the bench I had laid on.

                “Keep your back to me.” She ordered, shoving me further in. The beeping sounded more urgent, louder. “Breathe as quietly as possible.”

                “Ok.” I said. I didn’t know if I could breathe at all in the tight space I was forced into.

                Confusion fogged my mind.       

                What was happening?

                “Sofia.” A deeper voice said. It was female, too high for a man’s, but definitely from someone much older than Sofia.

                I clamped a hand over my mouth, looking through the small view I had from under the bench. Sofia was sitting in the chair speaking with someone on the screen. I could make out few features from the girl Sofia was speaking to.

                She had long brown hair.

                That was about it.

                “Missy.” Sofia responded in a formal tone.

                “Where do you think you’re going with an unregistered Craft?” The new girl asked sternly. Sofia’s body cringed when she realized she had been caught.

                For a supposed genius, Sofia had made such a dumb move.

                No matter what kind of Craft you had, it needed to be registered with the government. This took a couple days to process and until then you weren’t allowed to drive it.

                It was because of the War that we needed this policy on both sides.

                To drive around in an unregistered Craft was clearly a stupid thing. Anyone who wanted to could check your information and when nothing came up, report you to the authorities.

                “I’m sorry, Missy, I have an emergency.” Sofia said innocently

                “Something so important that you’re traveling half way around the world with an unregistered Craft?” Missy asked, surprised “Don’t you think that’s a little risky?”

                “I know, I know” Sofia waved her off “But come on. Who actually goes around and checks to see if people are driving registered Crafts or not?”

                “Uh… that’s kind of my job, you dummy.” Missy laughed once “If I didn’t have this position, you’d be feeling the rather of Fen.”

                Sofia’s body shivered rapidly “I hate that creep.”

                “I made him report the Craft to me once I realized the model.” Missy said “You’re lucky I caught you. Look, I’m going to set you to red mode and I need you to turn around and head home until this Craft can get re-registered.”

                “Missy… I need a huge favor.” Sofia said quietly “I need you to turn me off of yellow mode and put me on green mode just for a little while.”

                “And why would I do that?”

                “Because you’re my sister and that’s what sisters do?”

                So the elder girl was Sofia’s sister. In the Boy’s Side, we barely kept relationships with our siblings once we were of age. It was surprising to see the two girls talking as if they had been best friends.

                “Sofia…”

                “Missy….”

                “I would if I could but that’s really risking my job.”

                “Please” Sofia begged “If they try to fire you, I’ll hack into the system and change the code. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

                Missy hesitated before speaking “Alright. I’m turning you to green. As soon as you stop though, it’s back to yellow.”

                “Thank you so much, Missy!” Sofia squealed. It was strange to hear how much higher Sofia’s squeals were compared to Ellie.

                The thought brought a rush of pain to my heart for a moment at the memory of Ellie’s excitement. I took a deep breath, exhaling as quietly as I could, and pushed the thought of Ellie out of my mind. I needed to pay attention to the conversation between the sisters.

                “Where are you headed, Sofia?” Missy asked

                “Uh… London…” Sofia mumbled.

                Missy sounded as if she was choking on something, “London? As in London, Tatiana? Why the hell are you headed there?”

                “Look, Missy, I’m starting to lose connection..”

                “Whatever, don’t answer me.” Missy scoffed “Just listen up, if you are going to London, Tatiana one of my friends, Zee, is from there. I’ll give you her code to look her up. I lost contact with her a few years ago and I just want to see if you could find her.”

                “I’ll do.” Sofia mumbled, “Wait… Zee, as in Ezra?”

                “The very one.”

                I froze in my spot at that. The Zee that we had killed all those years ago in our desperate attempt to escape my government facility?

                “Man, it’s been a while since I heard that name. What, four? Five years maybe?” Sofia said, her voice recalling a long forgotten memory.

                “I don’t know what happened to her.” Missy sighed “The government said she went on a mission to the Boy’s Side, but they haven’t given me her new contact information. Hopefully it’s still her old stuff. I’ll send you the codes later.”

                “Alright, I’ll definitely look into it.” Sofia promised.

                I bit my lip. Should I tell her we killed her sister’s friend? It seemed like Sofia actually liked that monster named Ezra.

                Of course, I could be horribly mistaken and this not be the same Ezra we had murdered all those years ago.

                But the coincidences… there would be so many of them.

                “Bye, Sofia.” Missy said.

                “Bye Missy.” Sofia signed off.

                The sound of her chair squeaked as she turned around, breathing a sigh of relief. I waited a moment before rolling out of my confined hiding place.

                I stretched out my body in relief, glad to be able to move once again.

                “Thank god she’s not very observant.” Sofia said happily. “You had the worst hiding spot we could have gotten.”

                “What would have been better?” I asked

                She motioned behind her where the window was. There was a cut out under the dash board for where feet could be comfortably put. It was large enough to fit me if I rolled into a tight ball.

                “That’s where you’re going if we get any more calls.” She instructed.

                I nodded, trying to change the subject away from that uncomfortable looking place. “Let me ask you something.”

                “Go ahead.”

                “What are these color modes you’re talking about?”

                “You mean red mode, yellow mode, and green mode?”

                I nodded.

                She sighed, thinking of how to explain them properly “Green mode is when you’re Craft is temporarily registered. Yellow mode is when you’re moving your unregistered Craft without any permission. And red mode is when the government has discovered your unregistered Craft and has ordered you to return to your origin. If you get red code, you have to restart the entire registration process.”

                “Oh, wow.” I said quietly.

                “That’s the simplified version, though.” She added “It can get a lot more complicated.”

                “This is a very strange system you have.” I muttered.

                She rolled her eyes “It’s more organized that you have.”

                “Touché.”

                Even I couldn’t deny that the Boy’s Side didn’t have a very well organized road system. While this was fairly complex, once you got it down, it seemed easy enough to live by.

                She laughed, rolling her eyes.

                “Who was the girl?”

                “Missy. She’s my sister” Sofia answered.

                I frowned, “Are you forced to stay in contact with her?”

                Sofia shook her head, “Not at all. I enjoy her company though, and she’s a useful person to know.”

                “Why?”

                “If I ever get into Craft trouble, she’s always there to bail me out.”

                “What if she gets caught?”

                “Look, Clay, I’m not an idiot. While I do stupid stuff like drive an unregistered Craft, I know the technology very well. I’m a hacker, actually, which means I can break into nearly every computer on this side of the globe.”

                I raised an eyebrow “You don’t look that smart…”           

                “Yeah well, you don’t look like you could walk on two legs and you do.”

                I frowned, offended by her insult.

                She smiled innocently “My point being is that we don’t always look like what we really are.”

                “I know that” I mumbled.

                “Oh, by the way, we have to make a pit stop before we find John.” Sofia said casually.

                “Where?”

                “You heard Missy.” She said “I need to find Zee and hopefully get her updated contact information for Missy. They used to be the best of friends until Zee joined the FIA.”

                “FIA?”

                “Female Intelligence Agency.”

                I snorted “On my side, we call it the FLIA.”

                “FLIA?”

                “Females lacking intelligence agency.”

                Sofia shot me a disapproving look.

                “What?” I asked innocently. In reality, I was actually glad that I had made her offended. She had been offending me the entire time; it was nice to give her a taste of her own medicine for once “I didn’t come up with it.”

                “Don’t go with it.”

                “I’m not saying that I do.”

                “Whatever.” Sofia rolled her eyes. “Look, the point being we just have to find Zee and then we can find John.”

                “And if we don’t find her…?” I asked, unable to say her name. I felt guilty knowing that we may have killed the girl that Sofia was looking for.

                “We’ll look for 24 hours. Then we’ll give up.” She promised.

                “Is this the favor?”

                She smirked at me “Not even close.”

                ****A/N: Just a reminder guys, Clayton is originally from Paces. That is on the BOY’S SIDE. That’s where he lived with Ellie and Blasé. Clayton traveled to Las Luces, New Barcelona which is on the GIRL’S SIDE. New Barcelona is a country, Las Luces is the city. Clayton and Sofia are now traveling to London, Tatiana [formerly known as England] where hopefully John will be.

  Hope you got all that ;D

Also, sorry for the wait!!!!*****