Torn Apart

The next four months proved to be rather uneventful compared to the first week of school. They didn't bother Lancaster or any adults again, but Miles and his newfound group of friends continued to try and crack the mystery of Ms. Lisa's loyalties. They hadn't found much more, but they didn't give up at any point. If anything, they continued to bond and grow closer over the shared suspicions. Miles, Caspar, Lilly, and Jason were now an inseparable group and no one except them knew why.

It was late December, which meant Christmas. Lancaster had been doing his best to provide a secure place for the kids to meet with their parents. Most of the teachers were gone as well; they had been given a vacation period for the holidays to reconnect with their families or do whatever teachers do when they're not teaching. This was on the occasion, of course, that the teachers and students told no one what was going on inside of Fandomania. Lancaster was really pushing for full secrecy, reasoning that the more people that knew what's going on, the more danger they could be in. It was a threat to the kids' safety, as well as their own.

Miles learned all of this from Caspar, of course, who had found the perfect spot outside of the house to spy on some of Lancaster's conversations. After a long conflict with Lilly behind the ethics of this, Caspar had reassured them that he would only listen to conversations concerning the kids at the academy. Lilly had seemed okay with this resolution. However, Caspar could only hear the conversations with other teachers. Private conversations stayed private, much to Caspar's annoyance.

Miles, Caspar, Lilly, and Jason had all agreed to stay in Fandomania over the holiday family-visiting period. It had actually probably been the quickest any of them had ever all agreed on one thing. Miles knew that seeing his mom for only several days wouldn't help the complicated situation any. It was easier to leave things be and try to explain it all in the end. Jason figured that seeing his parents would only make them worry about him more. Lilly thought that seeing her family would be too emotional knowing that in a few days, she would have to leave again. Caspar provided nothing more than a nod when asked if he was planning on staying. Apparently he had decided on staying before any of them, because he did not come when Miles, Jason, and Lilly went to inform Lancaster of their decision on meeting family.

Staying in Fandomania were Miles, Jason, Lilly, Caspar, Kane, and Dawn. Everyone else would be leaving on the 17th, which was the day after tomorrow. They would leave with Mr. Turner, Ms. Lukeson, and Ms. Lisa, with Lancaster staying. Miles was having a hard time imagining what he would do with himself at Fandomania all day with no classes, but he'd figure something out. There were, after all, many different activities in Fandomania that had been abandoned a little recently. With Miles and the group meeting to decipher the code, they hadn't had much time for basketball, archery, combat, cards, and things like that. Two weeks was more than enough time to get to everything, though, and then some.

The past few months had, Miles had been busy with school classes and homework (which was really just more school work since he didn't go home), but at least once a day, Miles, Jason, Caspar, and Lilly met in the basement room to look over what they were calling The Code. It had been months, but they still hadn't gotten far. One week they had spent hours trying to unscramble words from the code. So far they had gotten State Of The Beaver, which gave them absolutely nothing, and was probably wrong anyway. When they looked it up, "State Of The Beaver" came up with some non-profit organization helping beavers. So it was a dead end there. They also translated LBWOE GNEUEE into Below Eugene, which when searched came up with absolutely nothing. They had ended up translating all of the lines, because it was the only lead they had. TSAL GAPE turned out to be Salt Page. This merely came up as the Facebook pages for salt when searched on the internet. WNE REYAS VEE VEE they figured would be New Year's Eve Eve. The long one, DNIPOCMIALR took about a month to de-scramble as the word palindromic—a word only Lilly knew even existed—and MEIT was time. So, Palindromic Time. This meant that if the words really were meant to be unscrambled, they would get:

State Of The Beaver

Below Eugene

Salt Page

New Year's Eve Eve

Palindromic Time

Absolutely nothing. Great. Back to square one.

"It's not exactly square one," Caspar was arguing. "I mean, it can't be all rubbish. Every single line unscrambled into a couple real words. Like, what about Palendomic rhyme?"

"Palindromic time?" Lilly corrected.

"Yeah, that. What did you say that was?"

"Well palindromic is when something is the same backwards as it is forwards. Like the word madam," Lilly explained.

Caspar thought for a moment. "Or taco cat?"

"And here I was thinking you were going to contribute something intelligent to the conversation," Lilly groaned. "But yes, or the words taco cat."

Caspar grinned successfully.

"A palindromic number," Lilly continued as Miles, Jason, and Caspar stared at each other in boredom. "Is a number such as 11, which is when the number form can be written the same forwards and backwards. However, there are many palindromic times, so that clue gives us practically nothing."

"Like 12:21," said Jason.

"Or 7:07, or practically anything," Lilly said. "So, as I said, it gets us nowhere."

"We just have to keep thinking," said Miles. "There has to be something we're not seeing."

"What's the point?" Jason groaned. Miles gave him a funny look.

"No, I'm serious," Jason repeated. "What's the point? We've been looking over this for months now, and we've found nothing. We're looking for something that's not there. I mean, I get it. We're trying to find proof that Ms. Lisa is working with Necron, and is dangerous to us. But what if she's not working with Necron. What if this is just some junk you stole from her desk, and she's simply who she says she is. It started out as a conspiracy theory and now it's turning into a full-blown witch hunt! I get it, you all like playing detective. But there's a giant possibility that we're wasting our time sitting here everyday looking for absolutely nothing!"

Everyone was silent for a long moment, then Caspar spoke up. "Why don't you tell us what you really think, eh? Bloody hell."

Miles looked at Jason for a while. "I think that we're really on to something. And if we are, we need proof to warn Lancaster about it. What we're doing is worthwhile."

"What if he's right?" Lilly said softly, yet loud enough that three heads turned in her direction. She suddenly looked like she wished she'd never said anything at all. "What if we're chasing after nothing? I mean, it's not really our place to investigate anyway. We should be focusing on our work and training."

Caspar turned his nose up at the mention of work.

"So now you're all doubting me?" Miles asked, trying and failing to hide the look of hurt across his face.

"Of course not," Lilly said, glancing at Jason for support. Jason just shrugged, so Lilly continued. "We just think that this might not be the best use of our time."

"Well nobody's forcing anybody to come down here everyday. If your precious time is being wasted, then the door is right there," Caspar said, nodding to it for effect.

Nobody moved.

"No?" Caspar continued. "Because this here needs to be done by a team. And I'm not feeling the team spirit from either of you. I'm planning on cracking this code with Miles. And if we find the proof we think we're gonna find, we won't have time for doubt. This could be some serious stuff right here, and we are gonna get to the bottom of it. So either jump back aboard, or get out of the way. Make up your minds; the door is right behind you."

Miles felt Lilly look over at him, and he focused his gaze down to the floor. Jason and Caspar were still staring at each other, hard. Jason was trying to read Caspar, but Caspar was unblinking, his face set in stone.

"Whatever." Jason stood up and headed for the door.

"Don't remember the way down here," Caspar added.

Jason turned back for a moment, his face now as hard as Caspar's. "You don't have to worry about that."

Once Jason was gone, Lilly stood up. She looked guiltily between Caspar and Miles, trying desperately to catch Miles' eyes. Miles didn't look up, his eyes still fixed on the floor. He couldn't look up. He had become great friends with everyone in the group, and he couldn't bear to pick sides. Lilly sighed and shook her head, walking out the door.

Caspar cleared his throat once Lilly was gone. "Welp. Good riddance, yeah?"

Miles shook his head and looked up and Caspar. "What did you just do?"

"Cleared out the liabilities."

"They weren't liabilities," Miles argued. "They were our friends."

Caspar shrugged. "It's like Lincoln said, 'And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. Or was that Jesus?"

"I'm pretty sure it was both..." Miles suggested.

Caspar clapped his hands together. "Ah, well then it must be true."

"What if they were right?"

"Jesus and Abraham Lincoln? Of course they were!" Caspar exclaimed.

"No," Miles said. "I mean Jason and Lilly."

Caspar blinked. "Seriously? You're taking their side?"

"No. I'm not taking anyone's side. You, Lilly, and Jason are all my friends, and I don't want to continue with this until we have everyone together on it." Miles stood up to leave and go after Jason and Lilly.

"That's what I get for standing up for a friend, huh?"

"We'll all stand up for each other against Necron," Miles promised. "That's when it really matters. When we're all united, Necron won't be able to touch us. But that can't happen if we don't all completely trust each other. So I'm going to try and patch up what we've just broken with Lilly and Jason. I need both of their friendships to keep going. So, until everyone's cool with each other, I'm not going to work any more on this code."

"So what happens when Ms. Lisa brings her Necron pals over here to squash us like bugs?" Caspar asked.

"It's like Lilly said," said Miles. "There's nothing we can do about it until we have proof."

Caspar stood up. "So your plan is to abandon the search for that proof to try and reconnect with your girlfriend?"

"What?"

"C'mon. Like nobody's seen how you two have been looking at each other the past few months. It's honestly an introverted nightmare."

"Just because you don't need anybody in life, doesn't mean I don't either. I value the friendship I've made with Lilly and Jason over the past months, and I won't let you ruin that!"

Miles' tone or words didn't face Caspar in the slightest, or if it did, he didn't let it show.

"Of course, but just screw my friendship, right?" Caspar retorted. "As long as you have Jason and Lilly."

Miles sighed. Every word being said just messed things up even more, and it was killing him inside.

"I told you," Miles said. "I'm not picking—"

"Sides?" Caspar guessed. "Because that's what it's looking like."

Miles opened his mouth, but then closed it.

Caspar just nodded. "But, you know, that's alright. You pick out your friends, alright? And we'll all modify our lives around that."

Caspar left the room and didn't look back, leaving Miles by himself. It was the first time Miles had been alone in that room, and it no longer looked so warm and friendly. Miles fell back onto one of the couches. He was picturing everyone in the room together. All four of them were laughing. Lilly and Miles were talking, Jason and Caspar were throwing a ball back and forth, all of them having spent the past hour working on the code and unscrambling letters. Miles shook the image out of his head, knowing that it wouldn't be the last time they all sat in this room together. Papers were still scattered on the center table, showcasing all the time they'd spent on the code. Everything they had been doing for more than three months had been torn apart in minutes. But Miles refused to let it stay like that. Lilly, Jason, and Caspar were now his best friends, and it would take a whole lot more than a disagreement to take them away from him.

Miles felt a little better as he sat on the couch, knowing that he would reunite the group very soon, and they would be stronger than ever before.