CHAPTER 9: THE CONFRONTATION
Clover soon found herself standing in the middle of the vast outskirts of Poland. She looked left and right, surveyed the ground to search for the jet ski Johannesburg has been talking about, and finally saw it about 5 feet away from her. Trudging down the thick snow, she walked as quickly as possible towards the jet ski, started the engine and, within seconds, could bee seen driving down the snowy field to the west.
The flight to Poland was pretty smooth. When she landed at Beverly Hills Airport with her jetpack backpack, it was fairly easy to spot which plane she was going to take judging by the fact that there was only one jet plane among all the airplanes at the airport. And to top it all up, it's the only plane that was black and bore the symbol of Poland. She thought it weird that no one even try to get on board the plane or even notice it. She crept as nifty as possible without being seen and climbed up the stairs into the plane. As soon as she set foot on the plane floor and closed the door, the jet plane immediately took off without warning. She realized that the plane was on auto-pilot and was quite impressed to see that this plane was programmed to react specifically on her body heat and chemistry, which is why it took off as soon as she was on board. There was food and drinks in a compartment but she wasn't in a mood to dine.
While she was driving the jet ski down west, she started to contemplate again what would've happened if she hadn't stood up that grudge-holder Johannesburg. She could've just had a simple dance with him or so, strike up a good conversation and maybe even become good friends if not a couple. She could've just go with the 'first come, first serve' basis and avoid all this from happening. None of this would've happened if it weren't for her 'innocent fun'. Sam and Alex wouldn't be into this mess if she had just gone to that silly Winter Prom Night with him. If only she could…
Her thoughts were cut short when she noticed a few cabins a couple of feet in front of her. She stopped the jet ski and got off to check them out. She remembered Johannesburg's message saying that she was to enter the first cabin she saw, but she had seen both cabins at the same time. She decided to check the cabins inside. She crept towards one of the cabins and noticed that it was pretty much abandoned with frost almost everywhere and the furniture inside seemed like it had been there for the last century or so. She went to the other cabin and could see that this cabin looked pretty homey and warm, as if someone was living in it and was out for skiing or something. Both cabins were unoccupied and she wasn't sure which one was the real cabin Johannesburg could be hiding in. Both of them seemed like they could be disguised to distract people.
Just when she thought she wasn't able to figure it out, she noticed something out of the ordinary. She could feel a slight rumbling under her feet, like machines running tediously. She walked towards the abandoned-looking cabin and felt the same rumbling too. It was as if they were in line and connected to each other. She took a look at the homey cabin and the abandoned one and back again before she took a few steps to the middle, locating herself between the two cabins. There, she felt the rumbling solely focused there and was the most distinctive. She knew she had finally reached Johannesburg's hideout.
"I'm here."
As if by cue, the whole earth shook and the snow around her parted. The cabins descended into the snowy earth and in their place was a huge iron plate which Clover was standing on that stretched as far as the distance of the cabins. A glass compartment came out from around where Clover was standing and engulfed her, keeping her in like a glass prison. Not that Clover was perturbed about all this; she was, after all, an Ice Queen. It descended down, taking Clover with it. As the so-called lift brought her lower and lower into the depths of Poland underground, she could see Johannesburg's secret lab clearer. When her ride down finally stopped, she noticed that she was surrounded by huge hunks of gadgets and scientific stuff so advanced that I myself can't even explain. Even WOOHPS's gadgets seemed like toddlers' toys here.
"Welcome! Welcome to my humble home, Clover!"
Clover turned towards the voice and saw that it was Johannesburg Robert Wilkinson, in the flesh. His Ron-like red hair and green eyes hadn't changed a bit, and he looked just as handsome as he was during Georgia High. He was wearing a nice long-sleeved shirt with a vest to match, and a pair of branded-looking trousers. He went over to a huge keyboard and pressed a few buttons and immediately, the glass compartment disappeared back into the iron plate. Clover stepped out of the iron plate and gave a sideways glance at it.
"Nice toy. Jerry could use one of these."
"Sorry for the mess, sweet Clover," Johannesburg said, smiling politely. "I was kinda hooked up on things."
"Where are Sam and Alex?" Clover got right down to business.
"Why the rush? Don't worry, they're pretty fine. No need to be in such a hurry about things. Come, let's have some tea while we talk. Oh, and lose the spy clothes. No need for formality."
So saying, another glass compartment slammed itself around Clover and she was immediately engulfed by white steam. After a few minutes later, the glass compartment ascended back where it came from and Clover found herself dressed in a sky-blue one piece dress that had sparkles on the lower half of it. She recognized it as the dress she wore during the Winter Prom Night in Georgia High. Johannesburg smiled with pride.
"Brings back memories, does it? You looked so pretty in that dress, and you still do now."
"You seriously have a thing for glass containers now, don't you, Johannesburg?"
"Please, call me Joe. Everyone in the centre calls me that. Come, let's chat."
Clover followed Johannesburg—Joe—up an escalator and went all the way into a room that looked exactly like the homey-looking cabin she just saw. She looked out of the window and could see the plain outskirts of Poland. Before she could ask, Joe had already answered her.
"What you see here right now is my private quarters—the original items of everything you saw at the cabin. What you saw at the cabin is a photographic version. There's a photographic projectile system connected to this room and the cabin. Whatever is here will be projected into that cabin just to keep away prying people. And it is break-in proof. The best part is even though we're here, the projectile system will still maintain its main photographic program. No one will ever know who's here and see what's happening."
"What about the abandoned-looking one?" Clover asked.
"Oh, that is an abandoned cabin. I just built another one next to it. Please, have a seat."
Clover gave him a cold sideways glance before sitting on the sofa opposite him. The atmosphere was pretty calm save the background playing a love song out of nowhere. Another gadget of Joe, she presumed. Joe poured some tea for the both of them and took a sip from his.
"How long has it been, Clover? 4 years?"
"Yeah, about that long," Clover replied, sipping her tea. "You've grown slightly taller after all these years."
"Had a growth spurt when I was in college. How are you doing right now?"
"Pretty much cold and bland, thanks to you."
"My virus worked pretty well, didn't it?" Joe grinned with satisfaction.
"Too well, I suppose. You almost killed me and you made me lose my normal life and my friends. Why do you have to do this, Joe?" Clover asked, her icy tone not having any effect on Joe one bit.
"You know perfectly well why I'm doing this," Joe replied, his polite face replaced with a dark aura in his green eyes.
"It was just a lousy prom night. Lots of my friends stood up their boys on prom nights and the boys didn't exactly react the way you did."
"Well, everyone is different and so am I," Joe hissed. "I'm not the kind of guy who would just take everything in and let people like you get away with murder! You should be taught a lesson!"
"All for a lost date on prom night? You are sick, Joe," Clover huffed, her cold tone finally getting into Joe. Joe stood up abruptly.
"It's not just a prom night! This is my pride we're talking about! I ditched all the other girls just to ask you out for that prom night! I had a crush on you ever since I came into Georgia High and met you! I wanted to make you my prom date and probably even my girlfriend, and I have ignored all potential girls just for you! And yet you stood me up for some Hawaiian transfer kid! You agreed to go to the prom night with me and yet you changed your mind at the last minute! You have betrayed my trust and my love, Clover! You didn't care about my feelings one bit! Do you even realize that?!"
Clover just stared quietly and coldly at Joe, although inside she just wanted to defend her side of the tale.
"Since you're being so icy cold to me that prom night, I thought of making you an Ice Queen literally. I was the one who sneaked into the room that kept the secret anti-depression medicine and stole it. It wasn't too hard. I only had to stay back after work and wait until no one even notices me, then break some codes on the security cameras, wear certain clothes that won't leave any clues that'll link to me and just simply play innocent when they interrogate me."
"I can see that you've done a slight modification on the anti-depression medicine," Clover commented. "You've made it so anti-depressant that not a single emotion can go through me."
"Of course. This has been my greatest work yet," Joe said smugly. "During that prom night, I stole the cup you used to drink punch from and kept it in my house, using your DNA to perform loads of experiments. Most of them failed, until that anti-depression medicine came along. First, I stole some pills from the medicine and did a very in-depth research. I carefully tried different methods and different experiments and I even multiplied your DNA so that it'll be enough for me to experiment on.
"When your little friend Mandy called in for her little science project, I knew the time was right to put my experiment to use. I stole the rest of medicine later and brought it to Mandy's house and fixed everything. She had no idea I was putting the hush-hush anti-depression medicine into her stink gas. The rest is history."
"Judging by Mandy's IQ level, I can tell she doesn't have a clue of what you're doing," Clover muttered. "I get the idea. You've succeeded. You got what you wanted. Now where's Sam and Alex?"
"Correction. I only got half of what I wanted," Joe said as he pushed a button that activated the wall behind him to slide into the floor. In its place revealed a room as advanced as the underground lab she first set foot in and she could see Sam and Alex looking just like the picture attachment from her Com-powder. The only thing different was that their faces were getting bluer and the water at their lower half was frozen with the ice slowly climbing up their hips. Alex was the first to be awakened by the noise of the sliding wall and strained to open her eyes.
"C…Clo…ver…? Clover?" Alex breathed in astonishment.
Sam opened her eyes as well and was also surprised to see Clover standing there looking at them with her ever familiar cold eyes, but she was too numb with cold to say a word.
"You see, Clover? You've caused all this. If you hadn't stood me up, none of this would've happened. Your friends could be at home enjoying popcorn and movie instead of here. It's all your fault!"
Clover looked at Sam and Alex tied to the pole. Her eyes trailed along the long cables that connected to the controls of the freezer-like machine she saw in the picture attachment. The generator was on and the digital screen that showed the temperature of the ice was reading -15 and the number increased—she counted mentally—every 20 seconds.
"Let them go," Clover ordered coldly. "They've got nothing to do with this."
"Oh, I will, don't you worry," Joe replied as he walked over towards the controls. "Only if you do something for me."
"No…No, Clover, don't make any deals with him…" Sam finally was able to breathe out her words. Her tone was quivering badly due to the cold.
"We came here…to find a cure…Don't worry about us…" Alex begged, her body slightly shaking. Clover could see that as soon as Sam and Alex regained consciousness, so did their senses become alert towards the coldness around them. She had to do something quick.
"Just let them go, Joe. They're not worth to be sacrificed for me," Clover tried her luck in reasoning again.
"No," Joe replied indignantly. "Not unless you do something for me."
Clover shifted her gaze from Sam and Alex at the pole (who were shaking their heads weakly in protest) to Joe and back again. She knew what she had to do and what she had to say.
"Alright. Name your price. Just let them go."
Joe chuckled triumphantly before saying, "I want you to go down on your knees and apologize to me."
"That's it?" Clover asked, her face a stony cold but her mind quizzical.
"And don't give me that face. I want you to beg for my forgiveness and I want you to mean it. Really, really mean it, you get me?"
"No! No, Clover, don't do it! Don't apologize to him!" Alex exclaimed in horror.
"She's right! You can't apologize to him now, not when the virus is still in you!" Sam exclaimed too, fearing the worse. "You can't show any emotion unless you're cured, or else you'll…"
"Shut up, you bitch!" Joe snapped at her as he pressed the button to increase the speeding process of the freezing, causing the girls to groan in biting cold pain. "This is her decision, not yours!"
"Clover, please, don't do it! I beg you! You'll die! It's not worth it!" Alex begged, hoping that Clover would change her mind. Clover continued to stare at her best friends with her cold expression. She knew it would be the death of her if she ever show the least bit of her emotion, since she's been emotionless for so long. But her best friends, the only best spy friends she could ever have in the entire world, had risked their lives and their necks just to help her find a cure and to come all the way down here for an antidote. It was time for her to return that favour to them.
"Sorry, Sam, Alex," Clover said as her cold face slowly softened into a sad, lost look. "I have to do this."
With that, Clover fell onto her knees and went on all fours before she started apologizing. She apologized for standing Joe up and apologized for all the nasty things she said to him when she told him about going with the Hawaiian guy. She apologized for being so stupid and admitted that she had caused all this trouble. She admitted that if it weren't for her, none of this would've happened. She apologized truly from the bottom of her heart and apologized like she had never apologized before.
And as she apologized for the last time, she shed a tear.
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