The Dome Chronicles: Lies

Seventeen

After ten minutes, it's looking like we aren't making any progress until I hear Toby shouting from across the room.

"Hey Freaya, I think I'm onto something!"

I spin around in my chair. "Really? Let's hear it, then!"

"It has Benjamin listed here as an employee at a company called..." He squints at the screen of the tablet he's looking at. "3M?"

"3M? I've heard of that! They make all sorts of different things, like plastic hooks that stick on the wall and poster stickers!" Peyton exclaims, looking up from her notebook.

"You have? WELL THEN, why don't you make yourself useful and find out where it is?" I snort.

"Hey! That's not very nice." Peyton pouts, burying her head in her arms. "Say you're sorry and I'll do it."

I roll my eyes at her. "Are we seriously doing this right now?"

"Yes," she replies. "Yes, we are."

"Okay then. Sorr-yyyyy,"I mumble, looking down at the floor.

"I'll take it," Peyton nods her head once then turns around and picks her NikoTab up from the floor.

When Nicholas built this thing we call our home, he invented a type of tablet and named it after himself. As a thank you for putting up with his little project, everyone living in Nikotopia got a NikoTab. As the population grew, so did the amount of NikoTabs. When every child reaches the age of 5, they get a tablet. I guess it's just Nicholas' way of acknowledging children for being alive when they reach that age.

"I'm looking up the location of the 3M headquarters right now," Peyton informs us.

There's a pause.

"It's approximately a half an hour from here by car," She continues. "It wouldn't take us long to get there at all."

"But what about the security? Exactly how are we supposed to get in?" Toby asks. "This mission is impossible." He flops back down on the bed.

"Never say impossible. It's just...not very possible. There's a difference." I tell him, then turn to face both of them.

"Now. We have a way to get there, and we know where it is, but we just have to figure out a way to get in and locate Benjamin. Toby, could you work on figuring out what floor his office is on? Peyton, try and find out what they have for security. I will gather the supplies needed for this very prestigious and life-threatening mission. Nikotopia's survival is on the line here, people. We don't have much time."

After that, it's all business. The three of us are busy working, researching and snacking for a full hour.

Toby and Peyton are each on a device researching the layout of the 3M building and what floor Benjamin "works" on. Meanwhile, I'm running around like a maniac trying to figure out all the supplies needed for this mission.

"Flashlight? Check. Compass? Check? Snack bag? Check. Face masks? Definitely, need those," I mutter to myself as I put all the items in one of the snack bags that my mother brought.

"So...did you just happen to pack all of those items when we came to the hotel or were they here in the room?" Peyton looks up from her NikoTab and proceeds to interrogate me about what I usually pack on family vacations.

"Hey, don't judge," I put my hands up as if I'm being confronted by the police. "You never know what we might need. I mean, our dad's an evil scientist. I've just gotten used to this type of stuff."

"So what you're telling me is that you just brought all this stuff in case we happened to go on a mission," Toby gives me a blank stare.

"...Yes," I reply with slight hesitation. "Yes, I did."

He shrugs. "Okay then. I won't judge."

I narrow my eyes at him. "You're judging, aren't you?"

"Yes," he admits, twiddling his thumbs nervously.

"I knew it," I grumble. "Now get back to work."

"Guys! I've made some progress over here. It says on the 3M website that Benjamin's office is on the 13th floor." Peyton's eyes are still glued to her tablet, but lucky for us, she can scroll and talk at the same time.

"How'd you figure that out? It just tells you that his office is on the 13th floor? Seems sketchy." Toby's voice is muffled beneath the sound of him digging through the snack bag that's leaning up against the wall.

"Well, not exactly," Peyton murmurs, looking up from the tablet. "It has a map of the corporate building, which is the one we're going to. It shows all of Benjamin's co-workers up on the 13th floor, so I just kind of assumed..."

"How do you know that they're his co-workers?" Toby asks as he bites into his cookie.

"There are multiple different groups that the 3M workers are split into. And from the information I found earlier, which is all the members of his group, I'm making a conclusion that he works on the 13th floor," Peyton replies. "Are there any more questions I need to answer before I start writing all of this down?" She turns to face both of us.

We both shake our heads. Peyton starts scribbling the information she found online in her notebook, and Toby and I go back to what we were doing before.

Fifteen minutes later, the snack bag is packed, Peyton's notebook is filled, and Toby is laying on the bed in some sort of cookie-induced coma.

"So," Peyton starts, her eyes glued to the floor. "What now?"

"Don't...eat a whole package of chips ahoy...just sayin'." Toby groans.

Peyton rolls her eyes at him. "Why in the world would you even do that in the first place? That's so stupid!"

Toby abruptly thrusts the upper half of his body forward and narrows his eyebrows at her. "Because I like cookies, that's why."

"Well," I turn to Peyton in an effort to avoid Toby's comment, "What do you have in your notebook so far? Lay it on me."

Peyton clears her throat. "We only have six hours tomorrow to save the lives of our people and we're leaving at the beginning of free time tomorrow, which starts at 11 a.m. We're getting to the 3M building using one of the vans owned by the hotel, which are located in the parking garage we came through to get into this rust bucket. The security level of the building is not known, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Benjamin is located on the 13th floor, along with his coworkers. As of now, we're relying on our own wit and ability to distract security guards to get up there. To paraphrase, we're toast." She adds a smile in after she's done talking.

"So, is that it? Is there any more research we have to do?" I ask her.

Peyton shakes her head. "Not that I know of. We know what we need to know, so we should be fine," She pauses. "As long as we can pull together and work as a team, this should be easy as pie."

"Right, easy as very complicated pie," Toby scoffs.

"The key is to believe," I set my hand gently on his shoulder. "Peyton and I believe that we can do it. Why don't you?"

"When has believing ever done anybody any good?" He replies, getting up from his spot on the bed. "This isn't some fairy tale where you say 'bippidi boppidi boo' and everything goes as planned. What if it doesn't go as planned? What if we underestimate the amount of security in this place and one of us gets hurt? Huh? Have you ever thought of that?"

"So I guess your point is that this isn't Cinderella?" Peyton shoots back. "I think we all figured that out a long time ago, Toby! If it were Cinderella, we wouldn't even have to go on this mission because our town wouldn't have to be saved! Everything would be A-OK if this was Cinderella!"

"Cinderella believed that fairy godmother could turn a pumpkin into a carriage! She believed that four mice could be turned into people! Why don't you believe in us?" I add.

"I do," Toby says quietly, "But I guess I'm just a little scared."

"You don't have to be scared, Tobes," Peyton ruffles his hair, to which he responds by slapping her hand away. "As long as everything goes according to plan, we'll be fine."

"You really think so?" He asks, looking up at her.

"I really think so," She replies with a smile.

After a long, awkward pause, I check the time on my phone. "Wowee! Would ya look at the time? It's like... it's 3:00 already! Where did the time go? I mean, how long have we been sitting here?"

"Well, I would say it's been since about 10:30 because that's when our breakfast/conference call ended, so...four and a half hours?"

"Geez louise, the kids have really been swimming for that long? I refuse to believe this. I think something's up." Toby states with a confident nod.

"Well, do you wanna go check it out?" Peyton asks sarcastically.

"Let's do it," I tell them as I march confidently toward the door of the hotel room.

"I wasn't serious!" Peyton yells. "We should just chillax because we have a big day tomorrow."

"Fine," I grumble, walking back to the bed and plopping down on it.

"I think I'm going to just leave," Toby stands up and walks toward the door. "See y'all at breakfast tomorrow."

"Nikotopia's depending on us," I say, my eyes locked on his. "It's up to us."

"Adiós." Just like that, he's gone.

"I really hope we can pull this off," Peyton turns towards me. "You think we can, right? Or were you just acting?"

I let out a big puff of air. "I darn sure hope so. If not... then we're toast."