Kyle and Melissa turned their heads slowly to their left. They saw nothing except the dense woods, at first. But then, from behind a tree, a man popped out. He was a young man who appeared to Kyle to be about twenty or so. He was tall and slim, but muscular too. His light brown, buzz-cut hair sat on top of his sharp featured face. Kyle did not know what to think of it. He half expected the guy to pull out a gun and order them to freeze. Yet something about his expression made Kyle feel that this guy was not with the killer.
The man looked a bit surprised at their terror. “You look like you just came out of a haunted house, or tunnel I should say.”
“You would too, if you saw someone get stabbed in the stomach like we did” responded Melissa. To that the man opened his mouth, and then raised his eyebrows, as if he remembered something.
Kyle heard him mutter something like, “So that was someone’s body.”
“I’m sorry, I haven’t properly introduced myself” said the man apologetically. “I’m Alex.” He stepped forward and extended his hand to introduce himself. Kyle hesitantly shook it, and Melissa followed his lead. “You two have gotten yourselves into a mess, I see. I’m in it too. Unfortunately this is bigger than you could have imagined.”
“If it’s anything to do with crashing the White House, yeah I understand” said Kyle. Alex stared at him briefly, again caught off guard by their knowledge. “Where did you learn that?!” he questioned in astonishment.
“In the letters inside the briefcase” replied Kyle. He had not yet decided whether or not he could trust this man.
Alex sensed this, and responded, “Allow me to explain myself. I was a normal citizen just like you are. But one day, I and my friends were out driving around Washington D.C., on vacation, exploring. We have a reputation of exploring in strange places. We ventured out of the city, along a primitive road going southeast. There were no other cars on this road. As we drove past some woods, we heard a small explosion, unlike any we had heard before. Being our over-curious selves, we parked the car in a small clearing, next to the road. We got out and started walking toward the place where we heard the explosion. Then we hiked through the dense woods for about twenty minutes. At last we saw a large clearing ahead. There was a large open field, and to the right of it was a smaller patch of shrubbery, small trees, and undergrowth. Across from the patch was more open space, which came up to the front of a huge building, ten stories high. In the field directly in front of us there were people swarming around a pile of ash and smoke. By the tone of their voices and their occasional laughter and patting on each others backs, we thought they looked as if they had accomplished something. Then one of them announced, with a slight accent, something like this: ‘Because of the success of this final experiment, the board has concluded, with the president’s consent, that this model will be used in multiple locations throughout the building for it’s self-destruction. In doing this we have absolute precision over the demolishing of this valuable information center. It will be programmed with a timer located on the third floor, in the Self-Destruct Control Chamber, which will be locked to all but our members, for maximum security. We have ingeniously planned it so that the timer will go off at precisely the same time as our “accident.” Let us congratulate ourselves in our success of planning this terror on the country.’ The speech was immediately followed by tremendous applause. Then they all filed inside. We just sat there for a few minutes, trying to put it all together. Finally I spoke up, ‘If those people meant what they said, something bad is going to happen. They wanted to terrify the country, and then blow up their information. We’ve got to do something.’
‘But what if it was all fake?’ asked Drew, one of my two friends that were with me.
‘They didn’t have a clue anyone was watching, out here in the wilderness” said Conor, my other friend.
‘He’s got a point. Anyways even if they were faking they would get in big trouble, for disturbing the peace, if nothing else” I agreed.
‘Can’t we tell the government then?’ asked Conor.
‘Unfortunately we don’t have any evidence’ I said. Then I had an idea. ‘Let’s come back tonight, and see if we can get any more info, to make sure this is serious.’ My friends agreed, and we hiked back to the car.
That night, we went back to the spot. We parked the car much further away this time, and left Conor there. ‘We need to have someone here, to drive by and pick us up if we are in a hurry. I’ll text you frequently’ I told him. We hiked a good hour before we came back to our spying spot. Drew and I looked around.
‘It’s a lot spookier here at night time’ he whispered to me. He was right. The trees, tall and slender, looked like huge whips waiting for someone to lash at. The grass was still; but when the wind blew over it, it seemed as if a ghost passed over threateningly, warning them not to enter. And in the middle of it all stood the building, looming over, dark and silent, staring down on them.
‘Let’s go’ I said. I lead the way, as normal. I decided to go left around to the back of the building, around the big fields. I lost my courage then, and I had no idea what to do. We went around the corner, and our distance from the building kept expanding, as we strayed off course. I was just about to head a little to the right again, when I saw something. It seemed to be a metal plate, like those on sewer entrances. I went up to it, and sure enough, it was. The question was: what was it doing there? Drew and I opened it, as quietly as possible. I switched on my flashlight, which I had not dared to use up to that point, and shone the beam down the hole. There was solid ground underneath, and it seemed to be part of a dry tunnel. Drew and I climbed inside, and I closed the lid over us. Just then I remembered to text Conor. I told him where we were. Then we continued our investigation. I shone the flashlight up, and saw that there were lights every yard or so on the ceiling, though they were not turned on. We marched through the tunnel to our right, and it never turned. After ten minutes or so we came to a small room, with a ladder in the middle. The room was completely empty. Above the ladder, ten feet from the ground was a concrete door with a metal hinge. With mad enticement, I climbed up. On the door was a large metal knob. I turned it, and pushed up on the door. It opened, but I had to push hard because it was heavy.
‘I think maybe you should stay here, and we’ll keep in touch’ I told Drew. I climbed through, and slowly shut the door below. The walls were shiny metallic, and seemed to be made of aluminum. Just then a breeze filled the tight area I was in. Then I realized I was in a ventilation system, taller than my head. I wandered through, for thirty minutes at least, texting my friends every 5 minutes or so. At many turns I found it a tight squeeze, and one time I scratched my arm sliding through. I began to despair, because this was a much bigger place than I had thought, and began to search frantically for the entrance I came from. But as I was looking for that, I found something else instead. Yet another ladder rose before me, and even with my flashlight I could not see the top. Of course, I texted my friends this news. I climbed, and I climbed. It kept rising above me, and now I was positive that this was the building. Finally I got to the top, which I know now was the tenth floor, by looking at the windows. I stepped out into the same ventilation walls. Ahead of me a few feet was a panel, which was the vent cover. I pushed it open, and turned off my flashlight, for the room was dimly lit. It appeared to be some kind of storage, like an attic. There were two windows in there, one by the vent and one on the other side of the room. That was how I later knew I was on the top floor. I reported my position to my friends again, and they were glad, but also afraid. But I knew this was my chance. I began to explore the numerous files in the room. I learned many things there, and it solidified our hypothesis. This is their overall plan: The people are terrorists, and their project is called the Capitol Terror Project. This is planned for some day in two or three weeks, unfortunately I don’t know exactly when. As we discovered at first, they will blow up this meaningful information building up, using a timer. They will then board the arriving helicopters, and crash into the White House. They are not afraid to die in the process. The planning for this has been done in this building, as well as making stealth helicopters that pass the code as ‘U.S.’ helicopters. I took many notes, and learned much more, but that is all that I will tell you for now.
Anyways my friends urged me to hurry and leave, because it was getting late. I got out of the building the way I came, met Conor at the road, and we drove back to the hotel.
We talked awhile that day, and finally came up with a plan. We had no evidence for the government, so they were of no use, not until after the tragedy struck. It was in our hands. I had found that the president of these terrorists was leaving somewhere in two days. It was point C, which I discovered was this place in this little town of Crystal Creek, Mississippi. We decided I should come here and see what happens, and they could stay behind and fix other stuff, like our hideout, weapons, etc. Then when the day of the plot comes, which, again, all we know now is that it is in about two or three weeks, someone will enter into the building through our secret entrance. He will get some extra uniforms from the attic and drop them below in garbage bags. He will set the self-destruct timer up to 1 minute, and then escape the building. He will meet the rest and watch the building blow up with its people inside. Then the three stealth helicopters will come, and we will tell the helicopters that there was an accident, and the building blew up prematurely. Then, in midflight, we will hijack the helicopters. Because of the explosion, the U.S. will soon see the helicopters, so we will have to get out quickly.”
“Wow” was all Kyle could say at first. Then he introduced himself. “My name is Kyle, and this is Melissa” he said, pointing beside him. “Would you like to hear our story?”
“Absolutely” Alex nodded.
“Well you see, I went to school this morning, just as always. In fact, I came a little bit late. When I was almost to our class room, our teacher’s son, Paul, came and knocked me over. Melissa was ahead in the hallway, and he did the same to her, and then ran into the classroom. Me and Melissa got to our room a few seconds late, and our teacher punished us by making us take all the school trash out. So after school, we took out the first load, and saw some people talking across that parking lot over there” he pointed. “We hid behind the garbage dumpster and watched, because it seemed pretty strange. Then, to our horror, we saw the more strangely dressed guy stab the other. We went into this here to hide. Then he came inside, carrying a briefcase that he had taken from the guy he killed. After downloading something to a flash drive, he went out and we heard him smashing the laptop. Then he came inside partly and waited, until a car came. He peeked carefully for a second then ran out. We heard the dumpster door slide open.”
“That was the two guys taking out a trash bag with the body in it” interrupted Alex. “I was watching from right there where you saw me in the woods.”
“Oh, I see! So then of course you saw the car drive off and come back” continued Kyle. “Well, while it was gone, I looked inside the briefcase that he left behind. I read one letter.”
“What did it say?” asked Alex, intrigued.
“Well, Um, It was to a Mr. Callahan. It said something about a building blowing up the same time as they crashed the White House. This guy writing this, Mr. Osloden, president of that project, said that he was willing to give Mr. Callahan half a million dollars for some information. Then he said he would meet him at point C on 10/10/08, today” Kyle explained.
“I see” replied Alex, deep in thought. “Mr. Callahan must be the guy he killed, since that was in his briefcase, and you said he downloaded something to a flash drive. It must have been important to offer half a million bucks. But as we have seen, that may have just been a trick to get him here, because these terrorists do not have an abundance of money at hand. But that’s the past; let’s talk about the present and future now. We could sure use more people in our mission.”
“But we are the only people who know. No one else would believe us” said Kyle.
“Exactly. You two would be perfect.”
“But what could we do?” asked Melissa.
“You two have good instincts, to sense the danger, hide, and get information. Also, it is harder for us to get through the ventilation system. You two could do it much faster that I could. I know this is asking a lot. Here is my cell phone number. I’ll be in this city until tomorrow afternoon. If you’re not sure, just come with me and you can decide later” said Alex.
Kyle and Melissa took the cards he handed them. “You mean one of us might go into the building and set the timer?!” Kyle suddenly felt like a ton of bricks were piled on his shoulders.
“Like I said, you don’t have to. Only if you chose to” answered Alex.
After a short pause, Kyle replied, “I will call you tomorrow and tell you what I decide.”
“Same here” agreed Melissa. “Here is my phone number, tell me as soon as you decide” she told Kyle, writing her number on his card. With that, Alex jogged off, turned, and waved. They waved back, and started back to their homes. Kyle hopped onto his bike, and began to pedal out of the school. As he biked out of the parking lot and onto the road, he looked around for Alex. He was nowhere in sight. The sun was now at the horizon, where the clouds had now drifted off; filling the western sky to Kyle’s right with orange and purple plumes. He turned left onto the road, as he slowly pedaled homewards.
“If I go with him, my friends and family will be devastated” he thought. “But this is a matter of national security, and it will be acceptable. “But why me? Why me of the billions of people in the world?!” he began to mutter out loud. But those words made him think. “Hundreds of those are in worse situations than I am” he realized. Suddenly he stopped pitying himself, and was thankful for this important chance he had been given. But he decided to sleep on it, and if he still didn’t change his mind, he would tell Alex and Melissa first thing in the morning.
I especially like the suggestion that Alex makes about Kyle and Melissa crawling into the building to set the timer. It would be perfect if somehow they got stuck in there and the bomb was about to go off! 
I'll make one criticism only: it seems a little odd that Alex would tell Kyle and Melissa so much about himself and the terrorists only minutes after meeting them. Maybe you could put a little more conversation and suspicion in there first. Overall, though, it AWESOME!!! 
