“Okay, okay, I promise, I’ll try not to leave you guys behind like that,” Pack informed her lizards as several of them crawled over her arms and shoulders. She was walking through the alley toward Wren’s shop. Her little buddies had insisted on showing her affection and protection almost nonstop ever since the night before, when she had gone off to break into that Ministry base without them. Well, without most of them. She’d had Holiday in one of her pockets, just as an emergency backup if things went really wrong. And yet, even she was very clearly giving her the riot act for going off without the others.
“Trust me,” Dani informed them, “you don’t want to be caught by those people. We definitely don’t want them to know we’re involved with that. And I think they might figure out that one person showing up with a bunch of mutated lizards might have some connection to the other person who runs around with mutated lizards. What am I supposed to do, put Groucho Marx glasses on you?”
She still wasn’t sure that her friends were ready to accept that just yet, while reaching out to hit the buzzer for the door. “Blame Paintball, he’s the one who keeps coming up with all these dangerous ideas and somehow convinces us to go through with them. He’s the one you should go be making those sad eyes at for being left out ”
Again, she wasn’t sure they were buying it, but before she could say anything else, Fred opened the back door and gestured for her to enter. “They’re already going through the stuff. Nothing groundbreaking yet.”
Coming through the door, Pack started to speak up. “I tell you, these guys must’ve been pretty upset about being left behind, because–what?” In mid-sentence, she had looked up, only to see a very familiar sight in front of her. Well, mostly familiar. Sure, the girl standing with the others had blonde hair instead of black with pink bangs, and she was wearing glasses along with clothes that didn’t totally hide that she did actually have something of a figure, but it was absolutely, positively, “Cassidy Evans?
“What the fuck?”
Those last two words came from three different sources simultaneously. Pack was the first, blurting them right on the heels of saying the rich girl’s name. The other two were Cassidy herself, and Paintball. The boy had lunged to his feet, adopting what Pack was pretty sure was a combative posture for some reason. Cassidy, meanwhile, was looking back and forth between Pack and the others, all of whom were staring as well.
“Uh.” Alloy started while pushing herself up. “Paris Hilton? Karla Noven? Are we just blurting out rich heiresses' names for some reason?”
“I wanna play!” Wren immediately announced, flying up closer to the ceiling excitedly. “Uhhh… umm…” She paused, head tilting. “Oh darn it, I can’t think of any rich girls. Wait, princesses are rich, right? Does it have to be a real person? How many points are movie characters worth?”
Wait, was Cassidy here in disguise? Wait again, did these people not know--wait, she hadn’t known what Cassidy looked like before meeting her at that fucking school. Shit! Somehow, Pack had managed to screw up seven ways from Sunday within two seconds of coming into the room. Why had she blurted out Cassidy‘s name? Fuck! She’d just… she saw her and it came out. How the hell was she supposed to fix that now?
With a cough, ‘Cassidy’ spoke up. “Well, I guess we all know what body this is now, don’t we?”
As soon as she said that, Pack abruptly realized the truth. She did a quick double take. “Wait, Raige?”
“It’s Sierra now, actually,” Not-Cassidy informed her. “Sierra Nevada. And this is uhh…” She glanced down at herself for a moment as though examining the body she was piloting before looking back up. “I guess the new me looks like Cassidy Evans, huh? Isn’t that weird, guys?”
“Super weird,” Paintball put in, his voice sounding incredibly strained. Apparently even he freaked out a bit upon discovering that the body he had helped procure for Raige-turned-Sierra was a dead ringer for the daughter of the richest people in the whole state. Which was fair. Pack was still freaking out about it and she actually knew the girl. At least somewhat.
Actually, speaking of which, Paige should’ve known what Cassidy looked like, right? She would’ve immediately recognized her. As would Sierra herself, if she had Paige’s memories. They were obviously faking not knowing her for… some reason?
“Okay, hold on, wait.” Murphy blurted while gesturing almost wildly. “Are you seriously saying that this body looks like Cassidy--wait. That Cassidy Evans? Rich--how would--” She stopped again, looking Sierra up and down. “That is not what I expected Cassidy Evans to look like. Aren’t you supposed to be taller? And have some big--”
“It’s okay!” Paintball piped up, hurriedly stepping over with a slightly lingering glance toward Pack. “I uhh, um, well at least we know who uhh, who she is. I mean who her body was based on. Which is probably important. You know, if we wanna look into what Pittman--”
“How did you know what Cassidy Evans looks like?” Roald put in, looking at Pack curiously. “You don’t really seem like the type to follow all that celebrity stuff. And I don’t think she’s even in much of that. I don’t remember ever seeing a magazine or whatever with her picture, do you guys?”
“Hey, yeah,” Murphy agreed. “How do we know you’re even right about this being Cassidy Evans’ body? She seriously does not look like Cassidy Evans to me.” Again, she looked Sierra up and down. “This does not scream billionaire heiress to me.”
Thinking quickly, while everyone else turned to look at her, Pack managed to mutter, “One of the other La Casa people brought up the idea of raiding the Evans’ estate the other day. He had photos of the family and stuff, tried to make it a whole presentation. But Blackjack vetoed it. Said going after them was too dangerous. It’d attract too much attention.”
“Uh, wait.” That was Roald again, turning toward Paige. “You’re rich too, right? Wouldn’t you like… recognize Cassidy Evans?”
With an audible sigh, the girl made a face before gesturing. “Yes, fine, I recognized her. We both did. But we were trying to maintain her privacy. It felt weird to tell you that Sierra is running around in a copy of Cassidy Evans’ body. I mean, it’s a weird sentence to even say out loud. We thought it was just going to be some anonymous body, and when we saw it was actually hers, we… we thought about not using it at all.”
“She thought about not using it at all,” Sierra corrected. “I was always going to. It might look like this Evans chick, but it’s me. One hundred percent me. If she, or any of you, or anyone else happens to have a problem with that--”
“Calm down,” Paige interrupted, before focusing on Pack. The other girl could feel her gaze boring through her. “Are you sure this teammate of yours isn’t going to try to hit the Evans on his own?”
“Uh, one, he’s not stupid enough to go against Blackjack,” Dani retorted, though she had no idea why she felt offended on behalf of the person she had literally made up. Maybe it was just the idea of any of her fellow La Casa people going against their leader? Yeah, that was probably it. “And two, why should you care?” Yet again, she almost blurted out the wrong thing. Dani knew that Paige and Cassidy Evans had been at odds basically forever. Several people in that school had informed her of that within her first couple days of attending. But Pack wasn’t supposed to know about it.
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So, instead of following up that sentence with anything related to how Paige felt about Cassidy, Dani added, “You don’t think he’s going to start targeting you instead, do you?”
“I’d love to see him try,” Paige shot back. “But no, that’s not what I’m worried about. I was worrying about him starting something with the Evans, getting them on the news, and having Cassidy Evans’ face all over everyone’s screens right as Sierra starts walking around like this. I mean sure, she changed her hair and all that, but still.”
“Just hold on a second,” Fred put in, having finally managed to recover a bit from his surprise. “Are you all seriously saying that the body right there, the body we went through all that to get, is actually a copy of Cassidy Evans? Really? Why?” Asking that blunt question, he waited until they were all looking at him before elaborating. “I mean why did he have her body? Come on, you said he was keeping it in some safe, hidden little tube thing, right? This wasn’t a spur the moment thing. He deliberately created this body and then had it grow in that tube the whole time he was gone. So, why did he make that body? What was he going to do with it? Aren’t these important questions you should all be asking? Because they seem pretty important to me.”
“Hey, yeah,” Alloy agreed, squinting at Sierra. “Why would your dad want to have a body of the--wait hang on. She’s like the daughter of the richest family in the state. Obviously, he wanted to abduct her and infiltrate their house. Do you have any idea how many secrets you could find out about a billionaire family by posing as their daughter? You could get, like, bank accounts, passwords, stock info, alarm codes…” She gave a low whistle then. “I bet a seriously dedicated intruder could get enough information out of one afternoon of posing as Cassidy Evans wandering around her family’s house and her dad’s office to make this entire thing worth it.”
Clearing his throat, Paintball started to speak up. “Yeah, I mean, maybe he was--”
“Wait,” Murphy objected, “How do we know they weren’t in on it? I mean, what if this whole thing was about having someone build immortal cyborg bodies so they could plug themselves into them. You said that’s what your dad wanted to do in the first place, right?” She was looking at Paige and Sierra. “So maybe he got funding from the Evans in exchange for that and this body was just the first one he finished before he got scooped up and thrown in prison.”
“Well, I don’t really think--” Paintball started again.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Roald blurted while looking at Paige. “You were saying your dad was all pissed at the Ministry, right? That’s like, how he got arrested in the first place or whatever, because he was plotting stuff against them. So what if this is part of that plot too? I mean, what if he wasn’t trying to steal money from the Evans or filling a contract for them? What if--”
“What if they’re the Ministry?!” Murphy finished, blurting that with wide eyes. “The richest family in the city running the city? Seriously, why didn’t we think of that before?”
Dani rocked backward on her heels while everyone else was reacting to that. Honestly, the thought of Cassidy Evans being part of some crime family was a mixture of incredibly weird and kind of hilarious. But then again, the thought of her being part of a rich billionaire family was weird and kind of hilarious too. She was not the type in either case, as far as Dani could tell.
Wren, still hovering in the air, piped up curiously, “I watched a TV thing about Mrs. Evans. She seemed nice.”
“Of course they seem nice,” Alloy retorted while her head shook, “that’s gotta be a front. I bet the real Sterling and Elena Evans like… bash puppies and drown them in rivers or something.”
“Oh come on,” Paintball protested immediately. “They’re not cartoon villains. I mean, even if they were part of the Ministry--I mean even if they--I mean…” He trailed off, clearly floundering.
Paige stepped in. “He’s right, we shouldn’t just all jump to conclusions immediately. Even if they did know about this extra body thing, maybe they were just being eccentric rich people listening to my father’s spiel about creating immortality and whatever. Then they started with their daughter. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they were deeper involved than that. After all, it’s not against the law to invest money into prototype Touched-Tech.”
Alloy spoke up in a dark tone, glancing toward Pack. “Yeah, and even if it was, they could just buy their way out of it. Money opens a lot of doors for the rich, and closes doors against investigators. Being rich has its privileges. You know all about that, right?” She glanced toward Paige, then turned back to Paintball. “Maybe we should look into them.”
“Sounds fun to me,” Pack put in. “I always wanted to try my hand at getting in that place.” She cracked her knuckles at the thought, already considering what sort of disguise she could use, and whether she could talk Eits into helping out. “In fact, I might have a friend who could get through their household security. Maybe if we--”
“Okay, whoa, whoa, wait,” Paintball interrupted anxiously. “Who said anything about getting in anywhere? You mean getting in the Evans’ house? That’s a bad idea. Trust me, you do not want to try to break in there. I know what you’re thinking, and even Eits can’t do that.”
“Yeah, you don’t know the security they’ve got in that place,” Sierra noted. “I’m not saying they’re supervillains, just that super or not, being a billionaire can buy an awful lot of protection. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got their own personal, prototype security stuff or even Sell-Touched on staff, posing as ordinary servants. That gardener you’re trying to sneak past might be, like, able to spy through plants, like the Sherwood guys. Or whatever. Maybe he spies through bricks, or maybe he’s super strong. I dunno. The point is, breaking into that place is a bad idea.”
Paige was nodding. “Yeah, I do know a lot about the security they might have, because the Banners have some of it themselves. And trust me, it’s not something you just use one teenage super hacker to get through. Using Eits to help sneak in that place is not going to work.”
With a sigh, Paintball gestured that way. “Yeah, see, like they said. We can’t just go breaking into the mansion and wander around like we own the place to see if they’ve got any secrets in there. It’s too dangerous. So we should just--”
Finally, Pack spoke up after having thought it through that. “Then it’s a good thing we don’t have to use Eits to break into that place. We don’t have to break in at all. Not when we have Cassidy Evans standing right here in front of us.”
Making a weird noise in the back of his throat, Paintball jerked that way, staring at Pack before blurting a confused, “We what? I don’t--what?”
“Dude, you really need to take a chill pill,” Pack informed him. “I don’t mean she’s hiding under the counter or something. Look.” Turning, she pointed straight at Sierra. “That’s our Cassidy Evans. I mean, sure, we’ve gotta get rid of the hair dye and all that. And fix her style to match, but seriously. If this Pittman jackass was building her out of the real Cassidy‘s DNA, which he has to have if she still looks like her even years later, she’s gotta match all the fingerprint and retinal scan shit they’ve got in that place, right? She’s perfect.”
“Ohhh,” Paige started hesitantly, “I don’t think that’s such--”
“Dude, that’s brilliant!” Murphy exclaimed while punching her fist into her other hand. “The Evans will never, ever suspect that their own daughter is spying on them. She can get through all their security and go right inside. She could wander through that whole house without anyone paying attention. Hell, I bet she visits her dad’s office all the time to ask for a new yacht, or plane, or whatever. Sierra could go right in there and tell his secretary she’s waiting for her daddy while he’s at lunch. Then she’d have free reign to jump on his computer.”
“G-guys, this is all moving really fast,” Paintball objected. “Seriously, we just found out about Sierra looking like this girl, and we just got done with breaking into the Ministry’s base. We need to slow down, or we’re gonna get caught.”
“He’s right,” Paige quickly put in. “It’s an… opportunity, sure. Absolutely. But this isn’t something you just rush into immediately. How do we know that Sierra won’t say something that tips them off immediately? We don’t know how Cassidy acts around them. What if she calls her father ‘Pops’ or something and calling him ‘Dad’ immediately tips him off?”
“Pops?” Paintball echoed before quickly gesturing. “I mean, yeah, like that. We don’t know anything about the relationship. What if she doesn’t visit her dad’s office and her showing up there would be really weird? Or what if they’ve got, like, codes inside the house that she should know?”
“So we find out that stuff,” Roald noted. “We take our time and find out everything we need to know for Sierra to pull off posing as the real Cassidy Evans so she can go through that house without tipping anyone off.”
Pack nodded slowly, smiling behind her mask as she stared at the girl in question. “Yeah, that could work. Paige, you go to school with her. You can give Sierra enough to get her started on being more like the real Cassidy Evans, then like… I dunno, talk to people who know the girl better or whatever. It might take awhile, but we can find out enough to help her get through a little trip through that house to see what she can find.”
Wren cheered at that, pumping her hands in the air. “Whoo, spy stuff! Isn’t this great, Paintball?”
“Oh… yeah,” the boy replied, voice sounding weird and strained.
“It’s totally freaking fantastic.”