• Even though Celica knew Anders wasn't a bad kid, he definitely had some problems. ADD? Aspergers? Who knew? It didn't matter. He was fun to be around, Celica thought as she descended the stairs a bit slower and with more caution.

    Creaky stairs were her biggest fear, and she always imagined them breaking out from under her and letting her fall. These stairs were very creaky, and Celica held her breath as she climbed down, leaning heavily on the railing so that she wouldn't be so heavy on the whining steps.

    With a sigh of relief, she jumped the last few steps and landed with a slight thump on the carpeted floor. To her left was the front door, and to her right was a hallway which led to a kitchen with many windows. She walked casually into the room, and glanced around for signs of Anders.

    Seeing nothing, she took a right and descended only three more, perfectly solid, stairs, into a well-furnished living room. Anders' parents must have been filthy rich, because everything in the house looked more expensive than her own life. On the right wall, there was a door where the sound of a washing machine could be heard. She walked over to it and placed her fingers tenderly on the handle, contemplating whether or not she should revenge his scare only moments earlier.

    Deciding against it, she turned the handle and entered the dim room. At first, she saw nothing, and then, as her eyes adjusted, she still saw nothing. The room was abandoned except for the rattling, whirling machine cleaning her clothes. She turned around and left again, but before she did, her eyes caught something shiny and silver on the ground.

    She picked it up, and upon closer inspection, it was a round, silver button. It had the symbol of a flame, and there was a maple leaf in the center. It looked as though it had popped off of something, but not a shirt, it was too large and heavy for that. She looked around the walls and the ceiling, searching for something from which an item such as this may have been separated, but all the walls were bare, the the Mother Goose wallpaper exposed in every corner.

    Pocketing the silver button, she stepped back out into the living room and looked to the left, back into the kitchen, where Anders now sat, eating a bowl of cereal and reading the comics in the newspaper.

    At the sound of the washing-room door closing, he looked down at her and smiled. "Want some breakfast?" He held up his half empty bowl, implying that there was more like it.

    Celica suddenly realized how hungry she was. Stepping over the three stairs entirely, she came up and faced Anders. "Yes, please."

    He looked eager to prepare something for her, and he swung open a large pantry to reveal more food than could fit in her entire bedroom. "Wow." She said in awe, stepping into the pantry and scanning the shelves for something to eat. "How do you get all this stuff?"

    "Oh, my pay is pretty good." Anders said modestly. "The POCC always has tons of cash to spare, and-"

    Celica forgot her hunger instantly and stared at Anders. "You work for the POCC?" Her voice cracked and sounded faint.

    Anders looked concerned, and a bit hurt. "Yes, I'm a recruiter. I go around town and ask people if-" Again, Celica interrupted him mid-sentence and sprinted across the kitchen, but before she could reach the hallway to escape, Anders said something.

    "Wait, but you're a Jumper! You're on our side!" Celica froze, in an action so abrupt that she nearly toppled over.

    She whirled around and asked incredulously, "What? What are you talking about?"

    "Jumpers work for the government, I thought." Anders said, now sounding a bit sheepish. "I just thought that since you're a Jumper, and all dirty, you had just gotten back from a mission or something. Maybe taking out an Unknown."

    "What?" Celica asked, now getting angry. "Why would I do that? They're innocent people! You're exterminating them for no reason! For, for-" She spluttered. "For potential danger! Not actual danger! If you gave them a chance, maybe none of this would be necessary!" She waved her arms around, indicating everything around them.

    "Celica, listen." Anders said calmly. "I don't know where you heard that they're innocent, but you heard wrong." Celica opened her mouth to speak, but Anders hushed her. "Just listen. The Unknown are a fraternity, or a cult, if you will. They don't simply lose control, like they say they do. They've been trying to overthrow the government, and whenever they went on a rampage, they blamed us for it. It almost worked, except the POCC was formed and we rounded them up."

    Celica couldn't understand. She didn't want to understand. This was all a lie, this was a dream, a terrible nightmare. Peter was the bad guy? The black-covered beasts that had attacked them multiple times were actually the heroes?

    "No, you're wrong!" Celica yelled, denying herself more than anything else. "Peter was a good person! He'd never hurt a fly! His guardian was captured by the POCC, what choice did he have but to fight back?"

    It was Anders' turn to look shocked. "You know Peter? The Unknown that was found with Amos Torpin? He was apprehended yesterday, wasn't he? Late last night! How did you know him?"

    "I was helping him rescue Amos so Peter could have a safe place to live." She struggled pitifully to keep her voice level and quiet, but she failed miseraby. "I can't just leave them, I can't! I got them into all this trouble, and now I have to fix it!"

    She panted slightly, and Anders suddenly made a connection. "You're the girl that Peter was talking about!" He sounded excited. "When we caught him, an interrogator got out of him that he was traveling with a Jumper girl and they were going to infiltrate POCC headquarters. When the POCC officers who had arrested Peter realized that they could have easily taken you, too, they were disappointed. But I knew you weren't traveling with him. You were going undercover to catch him! It all makes sense now!"

    "What are you talking about?" Celica shouted, not caring about the volume of her voice any longer. "I was his friend! We were going to infiltrate the POCC together! To get Amos back!"

    "Peter wasn't trying to get his guardian back, Celica." Anders looked concerned again. "He said that he was trying to find a weapon that his friends were building to destroy the headquarters. The weapon he was talking about? We investigated and discovered that it was a bomb. We found him by your DNA. Jumpers can be detected using a certain device that the government invented. You led us to him."

    Celica suddenly felt weak in the knees. She reached for one of the nearby chairs at the kitchen table, but before she could get it under herself, she fell over, lying on the linoleum flooring.

    "Peter... bomb? But... I don't..." She said weakly, trying to fit it all together. It all made sense. The police showing up at Peter's house directly after she had showed up. They had tracked her to find him. She had been with him the entire time, and she had led them right to Peter. Peter's hesitation to explain what the weapon did also fit. If he had said, "Oh, nothing. Just a nuke." Celica would have just left. He needed her help to get there, and that's why he never left her behind, why he saved her from the poison, why he let her tag along instead of ditching her like he had so opportunities to do.

    "Celica? Are you okay?" Anders' voice sounded fuzzy, and far away. Peter had tricked her. HE had tricked her into wanting to destroy the government of this world, and she had almost done it. He was the bad guy. He was the bad guy. He was the bad guy... Peter was.

    She said it over and over in her head, and it sounded correct, even as she recalled his charming smile, his perfect laugh, his determination...

    She stood up abruptly. "Anders, I'm joining the POCC. Where do I sign?"