It was 11:32 am. Desmond showed up at ‘Milk Kingdom,’ his place of work. It was Saturday, the most perfect day of the week to carry out his plan with no school to keep him back.

Zofia, his coworker, was already there in her cow costume complete with the horns. 

“I got your text.” she said. “I’m a little confused. What’s LONG ENDS. INC?”

“The worst government organization in the history of the universe,” Desmond answered. “So I’m thinking 

we could use that new routine we were working on to distract them. Is that cool?”

“Where’s that Jim guy you were talking about?”

“Oh yeah, he should be here in a bit.”

“He better be compatible.”

“He is kind of…I can’t find the word. He yells a lot. That’s what he did to me and my friends when we tied him up in the theater.”

“Why did you tie him up?”

“Because he broke in.”

“Why did he break into a theater?”

“Because he’s a brother of a director-in-chief at LONG ENDS. INC, he calls himself Gemini. He thought that my friend Imogen had kidnapped a Greek princess, so he kidnapped her to get her to admit that she kidnapped the Greek princess. His best friend then hacked into her personal files and kidnapped my other two friends, Stefan and Ellis.” Desmond wished he could provide a more detailed explanation, but he was in a hurry.

Zofia just stared blankly up at him. “What’s a director-in-chief?”

“It’s what they call a commander-in-chief at LONG ENDS. INC.”

“Why is your life so weird?”

“There’s Jim!” Desmond pointed his finger out the window.

Jim pushed the door open. A little bell dinged as he entered the shop. He held up his phone. “Okay, so I got your text. About the plan…”

He said some words. Not some good ones.

“Bro!” Zofia scolded.

“It was not my plan,” Desmond said, like Jim could read his mind. “It was a mix of Sadie’s, Daisy’s, Finian’s, Magnolia’s, Sharon’s, Jaime’s, Fiona’s, Grace’s, Milo’s, Ilyas’, Lale’s, Zelda’s, Marina’s, some Bryan action here and there…yeah,  I only contributed a little bit. We’re just the distraction.”

“Why do I have to be the distraction? Can’t I just get into the action part of the plan?” Jim asked.

“No, because when your brother sees you, he will be distracted from his work, and be all over you which is exactly what we need. And since he is one of the commanders, or directors, or whatever you call them, everyone else will have to stay behind!” Desmond replied.

“Wait, what do you mean by ‘everyone else’?” Zofia asked.

“LONG ENDS. INC has sixty workers.” Desmond explained. “Those members are divided into five groups. Each group has a leader. That leader is called the ‘director-in-chief.’ All sixty members take their lunch break together.”

Jim shook his head. “Fine. I’m guessing there is more to this distraction?” He made sarcastic jazz hands.

“Wear this.” Zofia threw a black garbage bag at Jim.

He caught it, opened it, took a sniff, took the contents out, and cringed.

“I’m not wearing this.” he said, shaking his head in reluctance.

“Hey, a Moo-Moo’s milk cow costume is nothing to be ashamed of.” said Zofia.

“It’s nothing to be proud of either. It smells like my teenage years.”

“You can complain, or you can help rescue my friends.” said Desmond.

“Is this how you defeated Mildred and Marge?”

“No. We were wearing elephant costumes.”

“Can I ask a question?” Zofia asked.

“Sure.” said Desmond.

“What type of government organization has only sixty members? And what type of government organization has all sixty members go out on a lunch break at the same time?”

“Who cares?” Desmond asked.

“All that matters is that their HQ is empty then.” Jim said, pulling his costume on. “Their lunch break is in ten minutes. They’re probably at ‘Bucket World’ today.”

Jim pointed his fingers to the West. “Let’s roll.”

Zofia raised her hand.

“Yes?” asked Desmond

“Do you want me to bring out my choir group as an extra distraction?”

“We’ll call that plan C.”

“Plan C?”

“We already have a plan B.”

***

All sixty members of LE. INC piled out of the HQ building like raw sewage spilling out of a pipe. As Jim predicted, they all went to Bucket World for lunch, home of the buckets of mac n’ cheese and fried chicken. There were plenty of outdoor seating by the fast food restaurant with metal folding chairs and tables on both sides of the wide sidewalk. All sixty members sat on one of those folding chairs, taking up all the available seats. They were always lucky like that.

In the middle of their meal, Jim, Desmond, and Zofia were hiding behind a car parked at the corner of the street, waiting for the right moment.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to bring my choir group? They can be pretty distracting.” Zofia persisted.

“I think a teenager, a ten year old, and a college student dancing around in cow costumes rapping about milk is distracting enough.” Jim assured her.

“3…2…1! Go, go, go!” Desmond whisper-shouted.

All three cows popped out from behind the car to run to the eating area where the LE. INC members were sitting and struck their opening poses. Jim turned on a boom box. A heavy beat emitted from the speakers, shaking the ground like a heartbeat in a ribcage. That prompted Zofia to start rapping, 

“Moo-Moo’s milk is straight from fiction, it’s a non-alcoholic, drug-free addiction!”

Desmond texted Magnolia:

“Dwiththeglasses direct message to MagnoliaWantsPeace: distraction in place. Start picking the lock.”

“Let me hear you scream ‘calcium’!”  Zofia continued with the rap. “Vitamin D!”

Meanwhile, Sadie, Daisy, Finian, Magnolia, Sharon, Jaime, Fiona, Grace, Milo, Ilyas, Lale, Zelda, Marina, and Bryan were waiting in the alley a block away from the LE. INC HQ building, or what they called ‘the loony bird nest’.

“Desmond gave the signal!” Magnolia shouted. “Let’s go!”

Sadie was fastening her harness. “Fiona, you got the rope?”

“Check. And the carabiners, too.” Fiona nodded. “Finian! I need your baseball bat.”

Finian handed it over. “Do not get it dirty.”

“No promises.”

They all ran to the front of the building. Magnolia was about to pick the lock, but Sharon picked up her leg, drew back, and with a running leap, kicked the door. It flew open.

“Lifting those weights really paid off!” she said, rubbing her arms to feel some toned muscle.

“The door was unlocked,” Sadie said.

“Oh. Enable the Blossom phase!” Sharon said in her anime voice.

Everyone rushed inside the building. There were cubicle offices, papers everywhere, and the whole typical corporate office shebang. The lights were off. A single switch controlled all the lights in the building. They didn’t turn them on so they didn’t attract attention.

Fiona and Sadie set up their gear. It was the gear you use when you want to hang from the ceiling to spy on people. Sadie was wearing a rock-climbing harness. Fiona slid a thick rope through a metal ring attached to a part of the harness on Sadie’s back. Sadie, wanting to remain incognito, wore a black t-shirt and black jogger pants to blend in with the shadows on the ceiling. Fiona was wearing a white hoodie and white cargo pants to blend in with the walls she would be leaning against. Fiona secured the rope, rummaged through her backpack, and took out a bow & arrow. She took an archery class last summer, and she hoped her aim was good enough for the plan.

There were various metal bars on the ceiling, all evenly spaced. Enough space to make a shot with an arrow. Jim had told Fiona that those bars were for safety measures. If the ceiling had collapsed, they would fall on the bars first, giving everyone in the building enough time to escape. Fiona tied the rope to the end of the arrow. It was a very long rope. She hoped it was long enough.

She aimed, took a deep breath, and let physics do its job.

The arrow shot up like a rocket, soaring through the bars, ricocheting off the wall, and dived down, hitting Fiona’s target on a wall opposite from where she was standing. Her target was a thin space between the wall and a large filing cabinet.

She reached into her pocket. “Crap!” she snapped her fingers.

“What? asked Sadie.

“I told Sharon to get me the counterweight. Where is it?”

“Right here!” Sharon said, carrying over a cow’s head.

Fiona screamed. So did Sadie.

“Shhhhh! Do you want us to get caught? This is fake,” Sharon said, turning it around and knocking on it. 

It was made of what seemed to be a mix of plastic and cement.

“Is this heavy enough?” Sadie asked.

Sharon dropped it on the floor. “Yeah, pretty sure.”

Fiona bent over to pick it up, but she groaned and grunted as the fake cow head barely moved. 

“I have so many questions.”

“You can ask them if you want,” said Sharon.

“First, where the hell did you get a fake cow head? Second, why the hell do you have a fake cow head? Third, have you been lifting weights or lifting—this? Fourth, why—WHY—does it look so realistic?”

Sharon had tied the end of the rope to the fake cow head securely and set it behind a stack of paper, out of view. She then left to do some other stuff. Fiona shook off her feelings about the cow head and got to work. She walked to the opposite end of the rope, the one that wasn’t tied to a cow head, and pulled it.

It was secure.

She turned to Sadie, gripping the rope. “My life is in your hands, and I just want you to know that I will never let go of this rope.”

“Are you sure you’re strong enough?” Sadie asked. “I mean, I am two years older than you.”

“I can carry my brother with one hand. I can handle you. He’s like, nine years older than me.” 

Sadie knew that this was true. She had seen it with her own eyes.

Fiona backed away and wedged herself in between two filing cabinets. She pulled the rope hard. It was now as tight as a guitar string. The rope was aligned to look like an upside-down ‘V,’ with the corner hanging by a metal bar. Sadie grabbed Finian’s baseball bat, bit the handle, and started to climb up the rope to the metal bar-infested ceiling. She didn’t stop until she reached the top. She grabbed one of the metal bars and took out the baseball bat from the grasp from her teeth. Finian had the most sweaty hands out of all the boys. She gagged thinking about what disease she had just put in her mouth. She was now hanging from the ceiling fifty feet off the floor. If there was any type of attack in the building, she could slide down the rope and hit someone with the baseball bat.

Magnolia, Zelda, and Bryan rushed to the room where Jim had told them to go. They ran down a dim hallway. Every ten steps, there was a different door with an eccentric poster on it. Only one door fit Jim’s description: the one with the poster of a guacamole pun.

‘Guac this way’.

Magnolia read the pun as she turned the door handle. It was unlocked.

“For a government organization headquarters, this building has low security levels.” Zelda stated.

Magnolia pushed the door open. Inside the room, there were three monitors sharing the same keyboard on one side. On the other side was a row of iron bars. Behind those bars was her missing friends: Stefan, Imogen, and Ellis.

“Holy crap! You’re alive!” Magnolia yelled.

“Magnolia?” Imogen shouted in both relief, surprise, and the verge of crying happy tears.

Bryan waved. “I was Tarzan when you were missing!”

“I trapped him with a glass of milk!” Zelda said. “For your cause!” she added.

Ellis rolled his eyes. He missed his little sister’s spunk.

“Bryan! What are you doing here?” asked Imogen. “You should be at home with mom and dad!”

“I came to see you!” Bryan replied. “I thought you would like to feast your eyes upon your hunky brother.” Ellis and Stefan broke out into a laugh. They started rolling around on the floor, clutching their stomachs.

“Sooo…I’m going to pick the lock now.” Magnolia said, holding up a bunch of differently shaped metal strips.

Stefan and Ellis stopped laughing. They got up and started to rapidly nod their heads. “Get us out of this metal prison!”

Magnolia shoved the metal strips inside the lock of the ‘metal prison’s’ door. The art of lock-picking was tedious, and it made a lot of noise. “Did you actually kidnap a Greek Princess?” she asked.

“No!” Stefan, Ellis, and Imogen said in unison.

As Magnolia picked the lock, Daisy and Finian were shuffling through the file cabinets. “I’m sure they keep records of who they take in for questioning.” Daisy said.

“You mean kidnap,” said Finian.

“Yeah. If we can find those records, then we have evidence of a failing government organization. We can take it to court, then LONG ENDS. INC will close down!”

“That would be nice. Or we could burn it to the ground. That would be quicker.”

“Not while Sadie’s hanging from the ceiling.” Daisy pointed out.

Grace, who had a plan of her own, looked around for vents. She found a loose vent cover. She tugged at it until it came off. There was quite a lot of space in the vents, big enough for her. She climbed inside, carrying a pocket knife with her. If anyone tried to do something to her friends, she could pop out of the vent quickly and threaten the attacker with a corkscrew or something. 

Milo saw her. He placed the vent cover to hide her face. Grace was lying on her belly.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “You better find a place to hide.”

Milo didn’t feel the need to hurry. All the lights were off. He could just shut himself in a supply closet at the last minute. Jaime and Ilyas went into a room with a sign on the door that said ‘Director in Chief #5 Office,’ and hid under a desk. Jaime turned on the recording app on his phone. They might be able to get some oral evidence from the man that was the whole reason they were there.

The whole reason their friends got kidnapped.

The whole reason why their lives were in danger.

It all started with one man’s stupid idea that a teenager captured a Greek princess.

A single moment of misused thinking.

All because of this man.

Jaime and Ilyas were fuming under the desk. They wanted revenge on this man as soon as possible.

Lale followed them in and looked down at them. “Guys, I don’t think you’ll get any oral evidence—” she started lecturing.

“I want to shut this place down!” Ilyas said angrily.

“—we need to leave in ten minutes! If we get caught, we’ll end up getting locked in here like our friends!” Lale explained. “Finian and Daisy should have found the right file by now. We can get out of here soon.”

Jaime nodded. He always liked listening to Lale’s powerful reasoning with Ilyas. In the back of Jaime’s brain, he could hear a doorknob being turned. He jumped. 

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Ilyas asked. “C’mon, J, let’s get out of he—” 

But before Ilyas could finish his sentence, something happened that brought fear to everyone’s hearts. The lights switched on. Director-in-Chief #5 entered the building.

Gemini.