Chapter 72

72 Cargo Rush (Part 1)

It was the next day, which didn’t really feel different at all to be honest. I walked to school and there was no sort of feeling of fear or anxiety, in fact, I felt completely normal.

I walked into the school, seeing Greg waiting there as usual for me. As I walked up, I said, “You know, you don’t have to do that every time you know.”

Greg said calmly as he began to walk towards class with me. He seemed to notice my expression had changed for some reason.

He asked, curious about my face. “Did something happen?”

I shook my head and sighed as he stopped walking in front of me and looked at me. “It’s not that big of a deal,” I said, but I could tell that it was a big deal from Greg’s expression.

“You look different somehow,” he said. Now, I’m not sure we’re seeing the same thing. I was way more collected than the other days and I was even smiling a little bit more as well, but apparently he didn’t see it like that at all.

I shrugged and continued forward with him, but as I reached my locker, Greg stopped walking again and grabbed my shoulder with his hand. I looked up at him, and he chuckled. “So I’m expecting my thank you,” he said.

“For what?” I asked.

Greg continued to look at me, as the realization finally came.

.....

“You were that big dude from the construction site?” I asked confusedly.

Greg nodded and began to chuckle even harder now.

I smiled in embarrassment at him and shook my head lightly as he finally let go of me and started walking again towards our class room. “So was all that whole FMA thing a lie?” I asked. He shook his head, “Of course not, but I never expected it to work this well.”

I raised an eyebrow in response at him before he grabbed my shoulder and said, “Don’t expect your thank you.”

I laughed and walked with him towards class before we sat down together at our usual desks before he spoke again. “I also heard your plans to get to Cargo Ship 2, just in case you know.”

I looked over at him before I shook my head and grinned at him. He seemed happy to see me grinning again like that. “Honestly, you’re something else man.”

He nodded as he looked down at his notebook and then glanced up at me.

I nodded in response and then chuckled a little bit at that before he spoke again.

“I know this is weird for me to say, but I’m really proud of you,” he said with a serious expression on his face.

I raised an eyebrow in response at him again.

He looked down at his notebook again before he looked back up at me. “Nothing...nothing.”

***

School passed, and now it was time for the real deal to start. Before I could even breathe outside I was sucked into the front of the YMPA building, which was quite weird. Usually I would be landing inside of Mr. Drails’s office with everybody else, but not this time.

Soon enough more portals showed up with Mari and the rest came out of them one by one with different looks on their faces as well. I was surprised that we weren’t teleported into Mr. Drails’s office with him but instead we were led outside into the back parking lot of the school before we could get inside.

We arrived in our disguises, somehow.

Mr. Drails looked around, for some reason, then he turned back to us. “Alright, everyone remembers the rules and steps. Repeat each one if you do.”

“Make it to the ship!” we all shouted.

Mr. Drails chuckled, “That’s what I’m talking about. All right, here we go.”

He opened up the portal to where it led somewhere that didn’t look anywhere close to the cargo port. “Good luck on your mission,” he said. We walked through the portal, as we arrived on a field, that seemed to be staring over the horizon.

The sun was shining beautifully, with no clouds in sight at all and it was so bright out there that you could barely see anything in front of us but you could hear birds chirping loudly as well.

“Wow, this is beautiful,” Mari muttered in awe as she began to walk around, taking in the beauty of this world that she had never been to before.

“Yeah, but where is the cargo port?” Malachi wondered, before he stopped. I don’t know why he stopped, but I was too afraid to ask him for some reason so I waited for someone else to answer for him.

Rin began to walk around as well, taking in the beauty of the world around us as well, but he seemed nervous. “Hey guys!” Malachi finally shouted. “I think I see it over there!”

He pointed out a little bit further from where we had been walking for quite some time.

It seemed probably five miles away from where we were at now. The closer we got, the more you could hear a ship’s engines as well as people talking, which made me feel like we were being watched. Probably if I’m being honest with myself, but I didn’t really mind it too much since I was able to relax more than usual like this.

This place was glorious and it was even better than what Mr. Drails’s office had been like as well, being that this place was so beautiful it took your breath away.

We soon got closer to Cargo Port 2, but now you could see the guards standing there menacingly, pointing their guns at us as well as us pointing ours back at them. We all walked into the cargo port area, where they had two different entrances: one for small vehicles and one for large ones.

“I really hope they accept these disguises,” Rin said quietly as he looked up at the guards that were now glaring at us angrily as we continued to walk towards them.

“Card?” one of them asked. I immediately gulped, but before I could say anything he continued. “Don’t bother trying to lie to me, kid.”

“Kid?” September asked with a chuckle, which seemed to annoy the guards even more than before as they continued to glare at us.

I swallowed again before I replied, “I’m sorry sirs, but I don’t know anything about kids being here.”

“Oh?” The guard asked with a serious look on his face. “And who are you supposed to be then?”

“We’ve been working here since the beginning, don’t even,” Mari responded, which seemed to be very surprising to the guards.

“But how could you have gotten a job here already if it just opened a month ago,” the guard asked.

Mari sighed, “As I said, since the beginning.”

The guards looked at us suspiciously before they turned back around and began to walk back towards the entrance they had been standing by. That was close, that was very close, but it could have gone either way it seemed. We still didn’t know what was going to happen yet though, since the guards didn’t even look happy with us as we walked towards the other side.

“Alright,” September said as we quickly huddled. “Matt and Mari, you’re a team, Rin and Malachi are a team, and me and Connor are a team.”

Uneasiness fell upon me and the others in the process as I began to get an uneasy feeling about this. Why did we have to be split up into groups?

Was us being a team altogether a problem? Everyone is safe together so why can’t we do this? Was this really necessary?

I was so confused at this point that I didn’t know what to do anymore.

“Find any TSA agents and take them down,” September said. “Let’s go.”

We all dispersed into our teams, as me and September began to walk towards the right. “Okay, just tell me if you see anything wrong,” September said, just like always.

I nodded my head as he kept walking beside me.

Soon enough, we had gotten closer to a large room filled with lots of different boxes. The walls were red, like they were made out of bricks and the floor was all cemented down. There was no way for anyone to be sneaking into here without us noticing.

“What is this place?” September muttered, walking closer towards it. I followed closely behind her as she stood at the entrance of the room as well as looking inside of it. She opened the door wide, and soon enough, we saw something we weren’t planning to see.

“Well, that’s a lot of boxes,” September said in disappointment, but there was something else besides all of those boxes that made her look even more upset and shocked than she already had been at the fact that she had just found this room filled with boxes.