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If you were standing within a six-foot radius of the center of the gyed, you fell down and landed on the world’s largest trampoline in the middle of the Quad Lucky for ly quick—otherwise, I would have fallen, too, and if I’d fallen with Psycho Mom and the bots, I’d be dead

“They can’t get through the floor, can they?” I asked

Brooke gave me a look “Puh-lease,” she said “You think we’re not equipped for nanoattacks? What do you think we are, amateurs?”

Her hands shaking, Brooke lowered the gun to her side even as she seneral direction

“Shouldn’t soot this funny fondness of living”

“Yeah,” Zee said, ht face “You have a real love of life It’s afactor to that sunny disposition of yours”

Considering she’d just saved

“And we don’t need to go down there,” Brooke said

“The others are already there Chloe’s working on so to catch the bots, and the others are all ambush-ready”

“All of them?” I asked Brooke nodded

“How?” I opted to stick with simple, one-syllable questions As the reality of the situation sank in, I couldn’t handle much more

“Aht down We took her down It was all very food chain–like”

Zee picked up where Brooke left off “Then we confiscated the weapon”

“Did you realize it was a decoy?” I asked After all, Brooke had never seen the real deal Mrs McCall had stolen it before she’d had the chance

“Not at first,” Brooke said, “but then Connors-Wright ca about how ht to kill his father, and we realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t nearly as ed for the real deal”

“Of course, the fact that the pay tip-off, too,” Zee added “So we started thinking about what you said, about it being a rogue operative, and then it finally occurred to us to look at things fro the nanobots was personal What if the enemy operative’s was, too?”

“What if,” Brooke said, “that person just really didn’t like you?”

Oddly enough, this was apparently a really easy idea for Brooke to wrap her mind around

“What if Kann was never the target?” Brooke continued

“What if you were? What if the whole purpose of stealing the weapon from Ross’s office was to discredit you?” She paused “And then there was that minivan that tried to run you off the road…”

“If you were the target all along, and the eneed “We hurried back”