Chapter 8

Kaitlyn Carter

February

HS: Kaitlin?

KC: it has a y in it :p

KC: Kaitlyn

HS: Oh! Sorry.

KC: don’t be sorry!

KC: my friends call me Kate!

KC: so you should too

KC: (because you are my friend)

KC: ;)

HS: Wow. Thanks.

HS: We just met. I’m guessing you have lots of friends?

KC: Only a few really

KC: and I only talk to them online like I’m talking to you now

KC: they are all an ocean away!

KC: two oceans in your case

KC: but they’re all great people! I can’t wait for you to meet them

HS: You want me to meet them?

KC: :o

KC: Of course!!!

KC: You want to, don’t you?? You don’t get to meet many people out on that island I bet :(

HS: I didn’t tell you I live on an island.

KC: I deduced it! Like Sherlock Holmes!!!

KC: ;)

HS: And how did you know about the two oceans thing?

KC: I’ve been talking to Mr. Sheppard

KC: he’s so cool!

HS: Well he is pretty cool.

HS: I guess.

HS: So you know what happened.

KC: only a little

KC: he got fired

KC: <:(

HS: He told me that he quit.

KC: I think it was a little of both

KC: how are things with him?

HS: He is acting like kind of a jerk right now.

KC: oh no!

HS: He’s not letting me leave or go anywhere, and he won’t tell me why.

KC: he is probably trying to do what’s best for you

KC: I bet he is worried about you!

HS: Of course he is. He’s just so over-protective. It’s really been getting on my nerves.

KC: I think most people would not consider him leaving you alone on an island for days at a time “overprotective,” but I respect your feelings about it!

HS: I am considering leaving anyway.

KC: !!!!

HS: Just for a while. Just to be on my own for a while.

KC: that sounds a bit drastic!

KC: are you sure you aren’t blowing it out of proportion?

HS: Maybe it would teach him a lesson. That I can take care of myself.

KC: now you’re just being dramatic

HS: I could even just hide away on an island for a while. Someplace he wouldn’t look.

KC: (DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA)

KC: also he would totally find you

HS: Well what would you do?

KC: what would I do if I had a loving guardian who treated me with respect and hung out with me and was concerned for me all the time and stuff?

KC: I don’t know

KC: it’s kind-of hard to imagine

HS: I’m sorry, Kaitlyn

HS: I mean, Kate.

HS: I didn’t mean it like that.

KC: well I shouldn’t make light of your problems either

KC: they’re just so...

KC: unlike mine

KC: oh, I got the packages!

KC: that’s what you wanted to talk about, right?

HS: Yes. Alan wants you to find out what they do.

KC: sir yes sir!

KC: I think I can do that :)

HS: You’re amazing. I couldn’t even begin to figure them out. I’ve never seen anything like them.

KC: <3

KC: they sure are weird!

HS: It’s lucky we started talking recently.

‎ KC: sure is!

KC: and don’t worry

KC: I’ll keep it all secret

KC: I won’t even tell my friends

KC: but maybe YOU should ;)

HS: You are really set on me meeting your friends.

KC: yes!!!

KC: pllllllllllleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaasssssssssse

HS: Okay.

KC: :D

HS: Tell me about your friends.

KC: I already told you about Eric. he plays drums and his little sister is super adorable! and he is adorable too (only don’t tell him that!) because he wants to be like a firefighter or somebody that saves people’s lives

KC: then there’s my best friend Liz! she dances and reads old books and she uses big words when she talks but she does it just because she loves words, not because she’s trying to impress anybody. It’s her birthday soon!

KC: Jimothy and Isaac are both weirdos :p

KC: Isaac is a silly goof who likes nerdy stuff and also he gets excited about making things like stories and music

KC: Jim is a great painter, and he’s really special! He really actually cares about everybody all the time, and there aren’t a lot of people like that

KC: and I also have this extra cool new friend...

HS: ...?

KC: she’s a computer genius and is adventurous and brave and lives in an exotic place and hunts dangerous animals and stuff

HS: Oh.

KC: it’s you!!!!

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

HS: It’s me.

HS: I’m not a computer genius.

KC: *she said, TOTALLY MISSING THE POINT

HS: Okay. I’ll talk to them.

HS: It does get a little boring here.

KC: yeah!

KC: oh!

KC: you should choose a text color!

HS: A text color?

KC: yes!

KC: we all have them in this chat client

KC: mine is blue!

HS: I don’t believe you.

KC: ?:\

HS: About the blue.

HS: It was a joke.

HS: A bad one.

HS: sorry

KC: ehehehe

HS: Why do you all have text colors?

KC: Because BANANA QUEST

HS: Okay. Thank you for the explanation.

KC: :D

KC: it’s for group chats

KC: to tell us apart

KC: and because it’s PRETTY

HS: You all have colors?

KC: yup!

HS: Then black will be fine for me.

KC: :\

HS: My text will still be easy to tell apart, right?

KC: i guess...

HS: I need to go soon.

KC: okay! See ya later!

KC: and Heidi?

HS: What?

KC: please try not to be too mad at Mr. Sheppard

KC: I’m sure he’s just trying to take care of you

KC: and maybe

KC: since he’s an adult and we’re still just kids

KC: you should listen to him!

HS: Okay.

KC: I’ll let you know as soon as I find out anything about the weird gadgets

KC: and I won’t blow myself up this time!

HS: This time?

KC: that was a joke

KC: hehehe

HS: Oh.

HS: Okay.

A girl leaned back in her pile of stuffed animals and grinned at the wall in front of her. What Heidi didn’t know was that she had almost blown herself up just last week! Luckily, her lab was in the old barn and Aunt Becky didn’t really care if it got blown up. Actually, Aunt Becky hadn’t seemed awfully concerned about Kate, either.

:(

Kate was tall and lanky. She wore a colorful dress and fuzzy blue boots and big round glasses that tinted in bright light and magnified her green eyes. Her long dark hair spread around her, always getting into things, but of course she bound it all up in a bun when she was working.

She liked to sit in a big pile of cute stuffed critters both real and fantastical when she was doing things on her Room Computer, the screen of which was projected onto a blank wall. Murals of clouds and skies and sunsets which she had done herself adorned the other walls. (They weren’t nearly as good as Jim’s, though!) Also on the walls were pictures of her heroes: Steve Irwin, Sherlock Holmes, James Jamerson, and Dr. Albert Einstein. These reflected her many interests, which included but were not limited to: chess, zoology, music, mechanics, and avuncular physics. Also in this room: her colorful and pillow-infested bed, her electric bass with its amp, an assortment of Christmas lights, lava lamps and snow globes, and a general chaotic frenzy of clothes and books and cute animals and scribbled-on index cards. It was cozy .

She unwrapped the bandages on left arm and inspected the wound. A week later, and it was probably okay now to go without the bandages. There was no blood on them. It would definitely leave a scar, though. Damn it! Well, it would just have to be a reminder for her to be more careful next time. A jagged spiderweb pattern, like the fracture lines of broken glass, ran from her left forearm up her shoulder and even up her neck onto her left cheek. It was extra bizarre because, while normally black, the scarring occasionally glimmered with faint colored lights—doubtless a result of the McFinnium involved in the explosion.

She cleared a snow globe off a hand mirror at her side and examined her face. She grimaced at what she saw. It didn’t hurt much anymore, but she wasn’t sure she liked the idea of her skin looking like it had shattered for the rest of her life. She had been wearing turtleneck sweaters lately, even though no one had been around to see her except Aunt Becky. And she hadn’t told anyone about it, or about the explosion. She had messed up, but she was fine. No need for them to worry. Jim and Liz would freak out! Eric would be all like “huh” but he’d secretly be worried too, and Isaac would be like “woah cool you blew up, that’s crazy.”

Kate also had no intention of explaining any of this to uncle McFinn, despite the fact that he certainly knew more about all this than she did. She would do it herself, thank you very much! She would show him that she could be like her father. The legacy of Nicholas Carter would live on!

Kate hopped to her feet, filled with determination. She turned to the three strange devices on her bed. They looked like props out of one of Isaac’s lame science fiction movies, but they were heavy and complicated and probably dangerous, and Alan Sheppard had asked her to find out more. The world was full of mysteries, but the one on her plate for now was this: What happened last week at October Industries?

Well, Kaitlyn Carter was going to find out! She would take these weird gizmos down to her lab and dissect them! The secrets of Mr. Sheppard’s shady former employer could not hide from her! She stuffed the three strange devices into her backpack, carefully , and slung it over her shoulder. She flipped a switch that would begin heating the lab. It sure did get cold in the winter, especially now with a big hole in it!

Kate had an entire wing of the estate mansion to herself. She could have spread out and taken up a bunch of different rooms with all her stuff, but that was just too much empty space! She liked her cozy, colorful room. But it was a long walk just to get to one of the many back doors. This mansion was just lousy with doors! Kind of like the place she’d been dreaming about lately.

She stopped and peeked out the back door’s window before exiting. The coast seemed to be clear. No eccentric and/or intoxicated aunt in sight—just the wild, wintery English countryside. Off in the distance rose a hill that marked the boundary of Wales. In that direction was a big old barn that nobody used anymore except her. It had sturdy stone walls on two sides that just last week had probably saved her from being blown to smithereens. A bunch of stitched-together blue tarps covered half of the roof and part of the north wall of the barn. It had been a real pain for Kaitlyn to climb up there and nail down the tarps, and she had nearly broken her arm doing it, but it was necessary to protect her lab from the elements. It was just a temporary measure, of course. She would pester her aunt until she hired a crew to come fix the roof. The repair crew wouldn’t ask silly questions like ‘what blew that big hole in your barn?’ That was one advantage of having a famous eccentric relative. Nobody asked questions. “Why are we shipping radioactive isotopes to a remote English estate? Oh, yeah, Rebecca Carter, right. Whatever.”

She stepped out the door, but instead of going to the lab, took a detour around the corner of the mansion to her left. She high-stepped through the ankle-deep snow in an effort to keep it out of her tennis shoes. Her multicolored dress of overlapping circular patterns dragged through the snow behind her. Around the corner was her butterfly house, or Lepidopterarium . It had lots of colorful flowers, but the flowers weren’t important (except the ones from Liz, the peonies, those were important). What really mattered was the panoply of Lepidoptera that she bred and cared for. Kate liked the butterflies better, but she would never say that out loud in front of the moths.

Her most recent addition was the rare and very beautiful Apollo Metalmark Butterfly ( Lyropteryx apollonia ), which she intended to breed. Kate’s knowledge of zoological taxonomy was vast, particularly when it came to Lepidoptera , but even she couldn’t know all of them. Ten percent of all species of described living organisms on Earth were Lepidoptera ! This was one of her favorite Butterfly Facts!

Callie liked to come into the butterfly house and chase the butterflies. Kate understood. She probably would do the same if she were a cat—even a weird white lynx like Callie. (Callie most closely resembled a Eurasian Lynx, scientific name Lynx lynx .) Nevertheless, Kate often had to reproach Callie for disturbing the butterflies .

But Callie was not in the lepidopterarium, and the humidity and temperature were normal, and the chrysalises looked healthy. Excellent! Back to work!

She stomped through the snow across the blank field. What a beautiful day! The sky was a low slate-grey void overhead, spread with wisps of white like cotton candy, and the air smelled fresh and free. No breeze, which was good because she thought her tarp flapping overhead might distract from her work in the lab. The snow made the world look like a blank canvas. It was so pretty! She loved snow!

Whiskey came running when she was partway across the field. Whiskey was a common wallaroo ( Macropus robustus) , which was like a small kangaroo. Aunt Becky theoretically kept Whiskey as a pet, although actually he just sort of ran around and did whatever he wanted, though he never stayed out long in the cold. Aunt Becky had brought it back from one of her adventures. Whiskey always seemed excited about something. The fact that he was out and about meant that Callie was probably in Pennsylvania.

She marched into her lab and slammed the door dramatically behind her. The interior of the barn was plain wooden planking and stone walls, with a few stalls along one side to her right and an old tack room to her left from when this barn had housed horses. There used to be a loft on the north side. Now there was a big patch of blue tarp, lit by the sun, making everything below look blue. And while Kate liked the new blue coloration of everything, such lighting was not conducive to Science . She flipped a switch, and bright fluorescents sterilized the atmosphere.

She’d had a rough time cleaning everything up last week, but it was finally back to its typical immaculate condition. The interior of the lab was spotless—everything neatly organized, in place, and free of dust or other outside contaminants. Kate took off her shoes at the door and slipped into her lab boots . She donned her cool lab coat that she had customized by painting awesome stuff all over it. She put on her lab safety goggles and tied her hair back into a lab bun . Finally, she put on her lab tool belt, which contained such important lab essentials as a magnifying glass, calipers, stopwatch, Geiger counter, Skittles, etc.

She took the three items from Mr. Sheppard to the workbench and set them each in a clear space on the stainless-steel surface. She gathered nearby all the tools she thought she might need for taking the things apart and testing them. She made sure the heating system was in working order. ( Brrr ! Still cold in here!) She double-checked the functionality of the emergency fire-extinguishers, the surge protectors, the video recording equipment, the mass spectrometer (which had been on the fritz since last week), and the sound system. She made sure that her McFinnium samples were in the lead vault, inert. Finally, she pushed a button on the Lab Computer , causing Eric’s ill beats to resound throughout the room. Her lab had great acoustics.

Kaitlyn Carter got to work, being extra-super-careful not to blow herself up. Again.