Once the real Chris was untied, Zoe started typing away at one of the keyboards. After a few seconds, she placed the memory chip into a small slot on the computer. The computer beeped some, and some numbers flashed across the screen. Then it went silent.
We waited for a little while. Finally, Zoe started typing again, rather frustrated.
"It's not reading the chip," she said. "I don't understand it. The data isn't corrupted or anything, it's just blank."
She kept trying things for several minutes. I looked down at the desk and saw the scanner that the fake Chris was wanting me to use. I looked down at my right hand. Just then I noticed something on my thumb. There was a small area of skin that was shinier than then rest, like it had a film over it. I rubbed it with my other fingers, but it didn't come off. I looked again at the scanner.
"Zoe, I think I know where the information is." I said. "It's on my hand."
I showed her what I had seen. She gave a quick nod and started typing some more.
"Of course," she said. "It would be too easy to get if it was on the chip itself. They put it on a film on the outside of the chip, so when someone touched it the data would transfer onto their hand! Alright, put your hand on the scanner."
As soon as I did, the scanner lit up and more numbers flashed across the screen.
Zoe let out a sigh of relief. She put a disk into the computer and transfered the data onto it.
"Yep, that should do it," she said.


Within a few days, I was sitting in an airplane ready to head back home. Everything had happened rather quickly after that last day. I had said goodbye to Zoe and was quickly transported to a base where they kept me until they'd arranged for me to be flown back home.
It was going to be a long trip, and as soon as I got into the plane I started writing this down. This is to let everyone know where I've been the last couple weeks. Despite common belief, I was not at camp. Anybody who says they saw me there have been paid to say that. I did not just write this to win the "My Cool Summer" contest our newspaper is having, though I'll definitely enter it.
Well, I'm about to land so I guess I'll stop here. Have a great day everyone!

P.S. Yes I do know the data that was on the chip, but that knowledge could destroy the world if it got in the wrong hands, so don't ask.

"Who are you?" I asked the man.
Jade answered, "This is the real Chris."
I was very confused, but they explained it to me as we got the real Chris untied. This is what had happened:

The real Chris was an agent working for an international group of spies and soldiers called REBEL (I can't remember what it stands for). Their job is to break up rings of terrorists threatening the lives of civilians around the world. Chris has been assigned to look into some rumors about a large weapon being created somewhere in Hawaii. Before he was able to reach his destination, he was kidnapped and almost killed by enemy spies, but managed to escape with one of two almost identical memory chips that the enemy was carrying. These two chips each contained a piece of some valuable information. The information could only be retrieved once the two parts were put back together. One chip was no good without the other.
In order to escape he had to jump out of a third story window into a dumpster. He hit his head while landing, dropped the memory chip, and was knocked out. Some REBEL agents that had been following his kidnappers took him to a witness protection center. They didn't know who he was except that he was one of their agents. When he woke up, he didn't remember anything. The blow to the head had washed his memory. His fake ID said his name was Bert, so that's what they called him.
Meanwhile, the enemy agents took advantage of the fact that none of the REBEL agents in Hawaii knew what Chris looked like. They sent someone to pose as Chris to ensure that REBEL didn't learn anything else about their plan. However, they ran into unforeseen problems when a couple of their agents bailed out of action and disappeared, leaving behind something they were supposed to deliver: the second memory chip.
The enemy traced the memory chip to my house (thanks to the email I sent to them). They sent one of their agents to check it out. REBEL caught on to what was happening and took me to the same witness protection place that the real Chris was at. They were going to take me somewhere else from there, but I was intercepted by some bounty hunters. After I escaped from them, the enemy agent still posing as Chris found me. He was pretending to spy on enemy agents, when he was actually transferring information to them about REBEL agents. That's what he was going to do at the warehouse before it exploded. (I'm not sure who blew it up. Probably bounty hunters.)
Around that time, REBEL agent Zoe Nelson undercover as Jade Nikia was sent to Hawaii to investigate rumors that Chris was leaking information to the enemy. That's when she met up with "Chris" and me. The fake Chris knew that a big enemy meeting was taking place at the Halekuni resort, so he diverted attention to a different resort. While we were there, the real Chris recovered from his memory loss and REBEL instantly let Zoe AKA "Jade" know that the Chris she was working with wasn't the real Chris. The real Chris was somehow kidnapped again and taken to an enemy base.
Before Zoe could respond, the fake Chris had taken me to the same enemy base that the real Chris was at. She got help and arrived as quickly as she could.

I think I got all of that straight. It was very confusing, and I still had a lot of questions that needed answering.

I looked up. Jade was standing at the door with a gun in her hand.
"Jade, what's going on?" I asked.
She didn't answer. Two men walked in, one of whom I recognized as the man I saw in the window at the hotel. They handcuffed Chris and led him out of the room.
Jade lowered her gun. "Are you alright?" she asked.
"I'm fine, I think." I slowly stood back up. I was a little confused about what was happening. I noticed my camcorder in Jade's hand.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
"We've had it ever since we knocked you out that first day."
"Wait a minute," I said. "You mean that you were the one that first kidnapped me?"
"No, not me personally. Our organization knew that the enemy needed you for something, and that they'd probably kill you after getting it. We needed to protect you and whatever it was you had that they wanted."
I pointed at the scrape on my face that I'd gotten in the explosion at the warehouse. "You call that protection?!"
"Sam, we didn't mean for you to ever leave the cabin. But there was some leakage of information and we had to evacuate you before the enemy got there. We were a little too late."
"I see," I said, trying to get things straight in my mind. "So what about Chris?"
Bert straightened up in his chair.
"What about me?" he asked.

It was about that time that the guy in the other chair woke up. I had almost forgotten that he was even in the room, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard him speak.
"Where am I?" he asked in a slightly slurred voice.
It must have scared Chris, too. He spun and pointed his gun at the man. In that moment, everything I had experienced in the past few weeks screamed at me to seize the opportunity. Before I could think, I threw my whole body forward and slammed into Chris, bringing him to the ground. The gun slipped out of his hand and slid under one of the counters. Within a couple seconds we had both gotten up again. I knew I couldn't beat him in a hand-to-hand fight, but, now that his gun was gone, he couldn't hurt me as long as I stayed away from him.
I ran across the room, near the chair that the other guy was tied up in. As soon as I saw him up close, I remembered where I'd seen him before. He was the guy called Bert from the cabin I had been taken to when I was first kidnapped! I was very confused, but I didn't have time to try to figure it out. Chris was running towards me, and he looked very angry. I dodged him and ran back to the other side of the room. I tripped halfway and fell to the ground.
My leg was hurt, and I couldn't stand back up. I looked up to see Chris still rushing towards me. He was about 2 steps away when I heard the door slam open.
A voice hollered, "Chris, don't make another move!"

I thought about the message that had flashed accross the computer screen.
If only I knew what was going on, I thought to myself. If only I knew who I can trust.
I stood there for what seemed like ages, holding my hand over the scanner. I could feel Chris watching me out of the corner of his eye. My face felt hot and I started getting dizzy. Somehow everything important seemed to depend on what I did next. For once I wished somebody would knock me unconscious.
Whether it was because of that wish or because I had decided to stall for time, I don't know. Either way, my knees gave out and I fell to the ground. I felt like I was paralyzed, but I didn't try to move anyway so I didn't know for sure. I just laid there, pretending that I wasn't aware of anything that was happening.
"Sam, get up," said Chris. I heard him walk over near where I was. "I know you can hear me. Get up. I told you, this will be much easier with your cooperation."
I stayed completely still.
Things were quiet for a few seconds. Then I heard the click of a gun being loaded.
"Sam, this is your last warning. Get up."
I figured he was bluffing, but I didn't want to take that chance. I tried moving and, surprisingly enough, was able to stand without much difficulty. Chris was standing in front of me holding a gun. I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I just said the first thing that came into my mind.
"What happened?"
Chris just stared at me. I stared back at him.
"Put your right hand on the scanner," he said.
I slowly turned around and started moving my hand towards the scanner again. I was right back where I'd started.
At least I gained some time, I thought, realizing that I didn't even know what I needed to gain time for. Hopefully it had done some good.

"Chris, what's going on? What am I doing here? What makes you think I'd run away?"
Chris didn't say anything. He just walked around the room, looking at the various screens and pressing buttons. After a couple minutes he started walking out of the room.
"Don't go away; I'll be right back," he said with a half smile.
As soon as he walked out I started looking around the room again. There was a table against the wall to my right. There was another door against the wall opposite me. Next to the door was the other sleeping guy. Against the wall to the left of me was a large counter covered with several computer screens and keyboards. While I was looking at the screens, one of them started blinking. It blinked a few times, then stopped. Then some words appeared on it. It said, "SAM STALL CHRIS AS LONG AS POSS." The words stayed there for a few seconds, then disappeared.
It was so strange that I hardly noticed when Chris walked back into the room.
"Alright, Sam," he said as he unlocked my handcuffs, "if you cooperate things will move much easier."
I didn't say anything.
He motioned for me to go over to the computer screens. I had already decided what to do as soon as I was free of the chair. I walked slowly a few steps, then quickly turned and tried to run out the door. It was locked.
"I told you," said Chris, "I need your help." He motioned again for me to walk accross the room.
I walked, very slowly and very carefully, to where he was pointing, keeping my eye on Chris the whole time.
"Now put your hand on that panel and leave it there for a few moments."
He was pointing to a small scanner on the counter. I started lifting my hand towards it, unsure of what to do...

I woke up in a very dark room. I was sitting on the floor, my feet and hands tied up. A few feet in front of me I could see the outline of a door. Other than that, I couldn't see anything. For a few minutes I tried wriggling out of the ropes around my wrists, but it was clear that whoever tied me knew what they were doing. There was nothing I could do but sit and wait.
After a few minutes the door opened and light flooded in. For a few seconds it was too bright for me to see anything.
"Awake now, I see," said an unfamiliar voice. "Just in time." I felt someone cut the ropes around my ankles. "Come on, stand up. We don't have all day."
My feet were numb from being tied, so it was difficult for me to keep my balance. Once I steadied myself I tried to get a good look at the man who was talking to me. Before I could see him he'd turned around and started walking out the door.
"Follow me," he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me along. I tried to concentrate on where we were going. I wanted to get an idea of the layout of wherever I was, but my feet were hurting too much for me to think about anything else. After walking down several hallways we turned into a room that looked like someting out of Star Trek. There were computer screens everywhere. The man shoved me into a chair and told me to stay there. After that he quickly handcuffed me to the arm of the chair and walked out. With my hands tied and my arm stuck to the chair it was clear that I wasn't going anywhere. I looked around the room, wondering what all this stuff was for and why I'd been taken here. That's when I noticed someone else sitting in a chair against the opposite wall. He was also tied up and handcuffed, and he seemed to be sleeping. He looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't remember where I'd seen him.
Just then I heard a very familiar voice
"Hey, Sam. Nice to see you awake. Sorry about the ropes, but I can't have you running off."
It was Chris.

I stared at the camera in disbelief. Thoughts were rushing through my head, mostly muddled and incoherent, but through it all one fact became quite obvious. As I struggled to think through what it all meant, I realized that I should probably get out of Jade's room. I started to turn to leave and my heart nearly jumped into my throat. The curtains were just slightly open and there, staring at me from outside the window, was the window washer I had seen earlier. I tried to conceal my shock and walked out of the room as casually as possible. As soon as I closed the door I rushed down the hall as fast as I could. I turned a corner towards the elevators and nearly ran over someone who had just come up.
"Woah! Slow down, buddy. Where's the fire?"
I looked up. It was Chris!
"Chris! Where have you been?"
"I've been busy," he said. "Come with me. There's someone I want you to meet."
I followed him into the elevator. What happened next went by so fast I didn't have time to react. The elevator stopped but didn't open, Chris pulled out an oxygen mask from somewhere and threw something onto the ground, the elevator filled with a yellowish gas and I started getting dizzy. I was getting tired of being knocked out all the time and fought to stay awake, but within a few seconds everything went black.

"Maybe it's all a misunderstanding." I could hear Jade talking in the room. I held my breath and tried to stay as quiet as possible.
"Maybe so," said an unfamiliar voice, "but we can't afford to take that chance. We can't let him go anywhere until we're sure. Do you have the paper?"
"It's around here somewhere," said Jade. I could hear her walking towards the closet. I scooted as far back as I could, pressing my back into the wall. I could see a shadow just outside the door.
"Oh, wait!" she said. "There it is on the table." She walked away from the closet. "Yeah, that's it. It's a map of some place. We're not sure where. Chris said he knew someone who could help us with it. I just hope we have time to get in touch him. This incident has really slowed things down."
"So once Chris gets back what are you going to do about the kid?" asked the other voice.
"We'll have to take him with us. Like you said, we can't afford to take chances."
I heard some other sounds. Someone typing on a computer, curtains being closed and, after a few minutes, two sets of footsteps leaving the room. After the door shut, I waited a few seconds. Satisfied that I was once again alone, I slowly opened the closet door. Just before leaving the room I took one last look around. Everything was just like it was before, except for one something sitting on a table near the closet. At first I thought I was imagining things. I examined it closer and almost yelled with surprise.
It was my old digital camcorder!

I waited around for a few minutes, allowing my mind to run off in all directions. Before long I had pieced together all sorts of scenarios explaining why Chris had left so suddenly. None of them satisfied my curiosity, though, and I decided to ask Jade if she could tell me anything more about it.
I walked down to her room and knocked on the door. Nobody answered. The door was slightly open, so I pushed my head in and looked around. I didn't see anyone and I was about to leave when I noticed something on the floor inside the closet. It was a piece of paper. I normally wouldn't have been so interested, but something about this paper caught my attention. I quietly walked in and picked it up. It took me a minute to realize what it was. It was the paper that I had found in the debris from the exploding warehouse! The one about the Halekuni Resort. The one with Jade's name on it. I had had it in my pocket the day we arrived at the hotel, but I had forgotten about it by the time I changed clothes. I figured Chris must have found it and shown it to Jade. I wondered if it could've somehow been linked to Chris' mysterious disappearance. It certainly didn't look good for me to be keeping secret papers with Jade's name on them.
Suddenly I heard Jade talking to someone in the hall. I didn't have time to get out of the room, so I ducked into the closet and closed the door. Within a few seconds, Jade walked in.

Chris and I stayed in a room on the 12th floor. Jade was in a room down the hall. I hadn't seen the older guy since we arrived at the hotel.
Jade figured it would look weird for me to wear the same clothes every day, so she took me shopping as soon as we got settled into our rooms. By the end of the day I got a whole new wardrobe.
Chris said that for the next few days I was supposed to act like I was on vacation. Which was pretty easy. The resort was awesome! I spent most of my time in the game room or in one of the many swimming pools.
On the fourth day I was on my way back to our room after a late lunch when Jade met me in the hall. She seemed a little agitated.
"Chris had to leave," she said. "He'll be gone for a few days. Just keep doing what you've been doing."
That was all she said. She turned and walked back into her room. I stood there for a moment, wondering what could have happened that made Chris have to leave so suddenly. That's when I noticed something out the window at the end of the hallway. I looked and saw a window washer standing outside staring at me. As soon as he saw that I noticed him, he turned and started washing the window. The incident made me slightly uneasy and I walked quickly back into my room. Most of Chris' things were still out. I walked over to the window. It was facing the parking lot and I could see Chris' car still parked outside.
Something wasn't right.

Jade Nikia

We drove for a few minutes before arriving at what I assumed was the resort that Chris had mentioned. We drove into the gate and stopped in a parking lot in front of the main building.
"Stay here," said Chris. He got out of the car and walked into the building followed by the old man from the other car.
Jade Nikia stayed behind. She walked around the parking lot some, and then started walking towards where I was. Once she reached the car she opened the door and sat down in the driver's seat next to me.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi, uh, Miss Nikia," I said, more than a little uncomfortable.
"Call me Jade," she said, smiling. "So you're the kid everyone's talking about. It's great to finally meet you."
I wasn't sure what to say. After an awkward silence, she spoke to me in a lower voice.
"Look," she said. "I know you probably don't have a clue about what's going on. I'm sorry you have to go through all this trauma. But there's more on the line here than you can imagine." She turned, as if to make sure no one was around. "Also, you need to be careful around Chris. He's a good guy, but he's a control freak. He's only supposed to play a small part in this, but he isn't content unless he knows everything."
I cut her off. "What part is he supposed to play?"
"Well," she said, "he's supposed to gather information and pass it on to his superiors. Unfortunately, he sometimes tries to decide what action to take without consulting others."
"And what part do you play?" I asked.
"I play sort of the same part," she said, "only it's a little more," she paused searching for the right word. "Interactive."
"You mean you're a double agent?"
She laughed. "And remember one other thing. Try not to be too smart. Anything else you need to know?"
I thought for a moment. "What part do I play, Jade?"
She looked at me for a while. "I don't know yet," she said. "I don't know what you're doing here. Chris is probably the only guy who knows why you're so valuable. And you'll have a hard time learning anything from him."
Just then, Chris walked out of the building.
"Well," Jade said, "I guess I'd better go. It was nice talking to you."
"Yeah, you too," I said as she got out of the car. After a moment Chris opened my door.
"Alright," he said, "you can get on out now. What were you and Jade talking about?"
"Not much. When do we eat?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
Chris laughed. "Soon enough," he said. "Help me unload the luggage."

We split up into two cars. Jade and the other guy were in one and Chris and I were in another. I was slightly disappointed with this arrangement, as I was hoping to get to talk with someone other than Chris. It had been a while since I had really talked with somebody. It seemed Chris couldn't talk about anything for very long. But since he was the only person near me at the time, I decided to try and start a conversation.
"So. Who exactly is Jade Nikia?"
"Just a colleague of mine," was all he said.
A few seconds passed. I decided to ask him something I'd been meaning to ask him for a long time.
"What's that memory chip that you made for, and how did it end up with me?"
"Well," he said, "the chip itself holds coded information. Very valuable information that I stumbled across. I gave the chip to a couple of our agents who were supposed to hold it for us. They were supposed to find an obscure location and hide. Well, they somehow found out what was on the chip and decided to get rid of it and disappear.
"Fortunately, they contacted me first. I gave them directions with what to do with the chip. They were to leave it with another agent that would take their place. From what I can figure, they got confused and left it in the wrong house. Either that or they didn't receive my directions and decided to just leave it wherever.
"Anyway, as soon as I found out that it was missing, I enabled the tracking device. I was about to come get it when I found out you were taken by the enemy."
It seemed like a logical explanation, but I felt like there was something he wasn't telling me.
Oh, well, I thought. I'll think about it later. It looks like we're getting close to a town.

When I heard him mention that we were going to a resort, I assumed that we would be end up at the Halekuni Resort. I didn't want to say anything, though, since I hadn't told Chris about the paper that I found, and I didn't know how to explain it to him. He would probably ask me why I hadn't told him about it, and what else I knew that I hadn't told him. His friendship had really helped me out so far, and I didn't want him to be suspicious of me. So I kept quiet.
We got into the small airplane. I sat in the copilot's seat, but was told not to touch anything. Chris was able to fly the plane himself, and soon we were flying over the ocean. I remembered that Hawaii was made of several different islands, and I figured that we were going to one of them. That's when I realized that we couldn't be going to the Halekuni Resort. The Halekuni was near Honolulu, and we'd just left from there. I turned to Chris.
"Where did you say we were going?" I asked.
"A small resort on the Kauai Island," he said, "in a town called Kapaa. It's come to my attention that there's going to be a meeting of different enemy agents that will take place in a hotel somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands, and there's been rumors of some activity in Kapaa, so I'm going to check it out."
The rest of the flight was spent in relative silence. Chris seemed to be preoccupied by the plane, and I was thinking furiously. I hardly even noticed the plane landing. We touched down in a field very similar to the one we had taken off from. We got out and were greeted by two people. One was a man, probably around 60 years old, and the other was a lady who looked to be in her early twenties. Chris shook hands with them and they all greeted each other like they were old friends. The lady turned to me.
"And who is this?" she asked.
"Oh, this is Sam," Chris said. "Sam, this is Jade Nikia."

We drove for quite a while, and I was able to spend some time getting my thoughts straightened out. I asked Chris for a paper and pencil, and starting writing down the names of everyone that I could remember meeting recently (or giving names to those I didn't know) and what I knew about them. What I ended up with was something like this:

Carl: The first guy that I saw. He came to my house and showed me a picture of some guy that he was looking for. I later saw him in the warehouse right before it exploded.

Bald guy: I don't know his name. He was in the picture that Carl showed me. He has a Russian accent. He showed up a few days after I met Carl. He hit me over the head and knocked me out. I woke up later in the trunk of a car.

Black-Haired Lady, Bert and Businessman-like Guy (or BBB): I saw these people when I woke up from the sleep that Bald Guy had knocked me into. They were staying at a cabin in the woods. They seemed nice, and I have no clue what side they're on. The Businessman-like Guy seemed to know almost everything about everything. They put me in a limo and were going to take me somewhere.

Ski-mask guys: These guys attacked the BBB people and "kidnapped" me. They took me to an airport, but I was able to get away from them. I took a taxi to a hotel.

Chris: I met Chris at the hotel. He paid for my taxi. He said that he was the one who made the memory chip. He seemed impressed about how many people I'd seen and gave me a job. My job was to recognize people and tell him who they were. He took me to a warehouse. The warehouse exploded and I was knocked out. When I woke up, I everyone was gone.

Truck Driver: I really don't know anything about this guy. He showed up at the warehouse after it blew up. He didn't see me, and I managed to stowaway in his truck as he drove away. He took me to a parking garage in Honolulu. After he got out of the car, Chris showed up and now I'm with him on the way to an airport somewhere.

Jade Nikia: I haven't met this person, but this name is circled on the paper that I found in the debris left by the exploding warehouse, so it must be important.

Well, my story was definitely confusing, but at least it was written out in front of me.
The car began slowing to a stop. I looked out the window. We weren't at an airport at all. Just a big, wide open field with a really small airplane sitting a few yards away.
Chris got out of the car.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"You'll like it," he said. "It's a seaside resort."

It was Chris!
He was about as startled to see me as I was to see him.
"Sam! What are you doing in there?!"
I explained to him what happened to me after the explosion at the warehouse and asked what had happened to him. He wouldn't tell me.
"Let's just say that I don't want anybody to know I'm still around. And since you've seen me, you're gonna have to stick with me for a while. Now help me look."
I watched him rummage through some of the junk in the back of the truck. I thought about running, but I realized that I had nowhere to run to.
"What are you looking for?" I asked
"Oh, anything," he said, without looking up. "I don't really know. Anything that might give me some idea of what this guy is up to. Check the front, will you?"
I slowly walked to the front of the truck. I pulled the door handle, but the door didn't open.
"It's locked," I called out. Chris tossed me an odd looking key. I unlocked the door and started looking around. I couldn't find much. No identification, no briefcase, nothing. Obviously, whoever this truck belonged to was careful not to leave anything behind that could identify him.
"Alright, kid,"Chris called. "We gotta go. Leave everything like you found it."
I locked the door and followed Chris to a car that was parked a few yards away.
"Get in,' he said. "We've got a plane to catch."

I was able to uncover the tarp just enough to get some light. I pulled out the paper I had shoved in my pocket and began reading.
As I noted before, it was information about a hotel in Honolulu. It was called the Halekuni
Resort. It was near the beach, and it looked like a pretty nice place. There were some pictures of the outside of the building, and a list of names. One of them, "Jade Nikia," was circled.
I could tell by the sounds that we were entering a city. We had been driving for about 20 minutes, and I was getting very hot under the tarp. I carefully poked my head out to get some air. I blinked as the bright sun shined into my eyes. As I opened them, I found myself looking at downtown Honolulu. It had been a long time since I had seen a large city. The buildings moving past made me dizzy at first and I closed my eyes again. After a few seconds, we turned into a parking garage. I hid back under the tarp.
Soon, the truck was parked and I heard the door open and close again. I waited several minutes, but nothing happened. Just as I was about to get out, I heard someone walk up to the truck. I could tell by the footsteps that it wasn't the same guy who drove me here. Whoever it was walked up to the back of the truck and pulled the tarp off me.