CHAPTER 17

Code Word: Blend

By the time I got to the Quad, everyone else was already there.

“Hello, Toby.”

One look at the half smile on Tara’s face had me preparing myself for her trademarked understated form of teasing, but Tara didn’t get the chance to say whatever she’d planned to, because the others beat her to it.

“I hear that you love puppies.” Brittany stole Tara’s thunder.

“Yup, Toby just wuvs cute wittle bitty—”

“Shut up, Tiffany. Don’t you guys have something to glitter?” It occurred to me a second after I spoke that encouraging the twins to apply any sort of cosmetic product to anything was seldom a good idea—especially since there was at least a ninety percent chance they’d choose to apply it to me.

“What’s wrong with puppies?” Bubbles asked, mystified. Of all of the girls, Bubbles was the only one whose inner depths I’d never discovered. I was pretty sure that she didn’t actually have depths. She’d joined the Squad because of a freakish ability to contort herself into odd, but useful positions. It was an incredibly handy skill, and Bubbles was probably the single stealthiest person I’d ever met in my life, but she wasn’t exactly a rocket scientist.

“There’s nothing wrong with puppies,” I told Bubbles, shooting daggers at the twins with my eyes and daring them to say something else. “I’d just prefer it if the puppies of the world weren’t endorsing my candidacy for homecoming queen.”

Bubbles frowned. “The puppies are voting for you?”

She sounded equal parts confused and offended. Oh, Bubbles.

“Noah just sent this email thing around,” Lucy explained. “It had the cutest picture of a puppy in it. I think it’s sweet that he’s trying to help you, Toby.”

“He’s trying to drive me nuts,” I corrected her. “And it’s not sweet. It’s pathological. And in the future, please do not use the words Noah and sweet in the same sentence.”

Lucy chose to pretend I hadn’t spoken at all, forcing me to wonder what was going on in that cheerful little mind of hers. Was she actually into Noah?

Like I was actually into Jack….

“Are we going to get ready for our missions or what?” I cut off my own train of thought with a question. If I could just flip into spy mode, then I wouldn’t have to worry about anything that existed within the walls of this high school. I could concentrate on terrorists, biological weapons, and reconnaissance, which was a definite step up from boys, brothers, and homecoming.

“I agree with Toby.” At Brooke’s words, the world stopped spinning on its axis. “We may just be tailing the TCIs, but this mission is important. If we want Washington to deal us in on the action when things go down, we need to nail this.” She paused. “That means following orders. Don’t let the TCIs out of your sight, but don’t engage them. Get as much video and audio feed on them as you can, but don’t let them see you. The night shift will take over at 2100 hours, but until then, the TCIs are ours.”

The “don’t screw it up” on the end of Brooke’s sentence went just barely unstated.

“We’ll be working in three groups. Group one will be following Anthony Connors-Wright. Chloe and April, you’ll be working with Bubbles and Lucy on this one. Strategy is up to you, but we want as many angles of surveillance as possible. Same goes for team number two. Britt, Tiff, Tara, and Zee, you’ll be tailing Amelia Juarez.”

“What about me?” I narrowed my eyes at the captain. Tara was my partner. We worked as a team. So why had Brooke assigned Tara and Zee to work together? Shouldn’t Zee have been working with her partner?

“You’ll be with me.” Brooke’s words reminded me just who Zee’s partner normally was. “I want Zee in the field. The closer we can get her to the TCIs, the better she’ll be able to read their body language. You and I will be stationed near Peyton, Kaufman, and Gray, so that we can keep an eye out for anything there. As bad as having a biological weapon in Bayport is, it would be much worse if the firm got a hold of it. If we see something suspicious, the Big Guys will be sending a team in, but if they can’t get there fast enough, it may be up to us to make sure nothing goes down.”

Brooke dangled the chance of action in front of me like a carrot.

“Besides, I don’t trust you to stick to orders. If I sent you to tail one of the TCIs, you’d probably manage to get yourself killed.”

“I would not!”

“Get yourself killed or go against orders and engage your mark?”

She had me there. “The first one.”

“Says the girl who almost got blown up yesterday.” Brooke waved away any further objections on my part with a flick of her wrist. “Brittany, Tiffany, go prep the salon. Given the nature of our mission, all teams will be going with a B3 cover.”

Brittany nodded, and Tiffany—for reasons that eluded me—sighed. “We’ll be ready in five.” With that, the twins headed off to their torture chamber (or, as they preferred to think of it, their “beauty lab”).

“Chloe—”

“Cameras, video cameras, binoculars, communicators, and standard bug sets are ready to go.” Chloe didn’t give Brooke a chance to finish her order. “They’re already camouflaged to go with a B3.”

Brooke smiled in a way specifically designed to convey the fact that she was annoyed, but wasn’t going to say anything about it. “Great. Luce?”

“Yeah huh?” Lucy didn’t have quite the siblingesque rivalry with Brooke that Chloe did, and she docilely awaited her orders accordingly.

“I want Tasers and knockout patches, plus bulletproof push-up bras all around. We’re not engaging the enemy, but we’re not going to take any chances, either.”

“Awesome,” Lucy said. “I redid some of the knockout patches to look like stickers.” She turned her toothy grin on me. “You can have the puppy, Toby.”

Sometimes, it was really hard to tell when Lucy was being serious and when she was teasing, because she used the same earnest tone and expression for both.

Paying no heed to the puppy comment, Brooke continued dishing out orders. “Lucy, Chloe, get things set up in the guidepost, and then report to the salon. Everybody else, let’s get a move on. The TCIs aren’t going to tail themselves.”

There’s not much you can do to mentally prepare yourself for a makeover, especially a makeover of the scale and caliber the twins routinely pulled off. They’d pretty much single-handedly turned me from the slacker no one noticed to the reluctant teen goddess I was today. Since my initial transformation, I’d avoided their lab at all costs, but today, there was no way to avoid a B3. Whatever a B3 was.

“Care to explain?” I asked Tara. “About the B3 thing?”

“You’ll see.” Tara was less than forthcoming.

I knew that the twins’ job description included designing costuming for each mission that would play up whatever attributes would offer us the most advantages, but this was the first time I’d gone on a mission as anything other than my cheerleader self. The Squad worked because we hid in plain sight. Nine times out of ten, the stereotype was the only cover we needed.

Apparently, today’s mission was the tenth. I knew that it was ridiculous that car bombs didn’t scare me, and teenage fashion dictators did, but no amount of mental pep talking could convince me that giving the twins carte blanche to alter our appearances was anything less than bone-chilling.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for another makeover,” I muttered as we entered the twins’ lab. “I almost didn’t survive the first one.”

“Makeover?” Brittany said, wrinkling her nose. “Who said anything about a makeover?”

“Brooke did,” I replied. “You know, a B3.”

Tiffany joined her twin in giving me a blank look.

“You guys live for makeovers.” I stated the obvious. “It’s practically your middle name!”

“Silly Toby.” This was from Bubbles. As in, the girl who thought that puppies got to vote for homecoming queen. “A B3 isn’t a makeover. It’s a makeunder.”