I shook my head. “Did you go? We’re not taking bathroom breaks once we start.”
“Kiss my ass,” he grumbled, tapping some keys on his ever-present laptop. “I shut off my kidneys hours ago.”
With a false sigh of harassment, I slid behind the wheel and shut the door. The technocrat had set up camp in the minicab, complete with a cooler of Redbull, a fleece blanket depicting the Transformers, and a suction-cupped Batman bobble-head, a scant remnant of his vast collection. The computer was plugged into the cigarette lighter and in return was powering several other apparatuses.
Beside him sat an enthusiastically focused Ananda, wearing jeans and watching an iPad as if entranced. We had tried to send him back to the Guardians, but in his typical way, he had politely refused and said he would rather learn more stories to tell. Really, I was sure he just wanted to be back at Arthur’s side, to have one last chance of proving himself a friend, not a follower. I hoped for his sake that his mind could withstand the trauma.
With a long finger, he turned and poked Jinx in the shoulder lightly.
“This Yoda person seems very wise,” he said too loudly. “Why then does he insist that Skywalker avoid the dark side? With Jedi knowledge, they should be able to remain objective. For them, there would be no such thing as a Darth Vader.”
The boy snorted. “We’re not talking about chi, we’re talking about space bacteria.”
Ananda’s exotic features seemed to sharpen in intense thought. “Can bacteria live in space?”
Jinx rolled his eyes. “You have much to learn my young Padawan.” He leaned between the front seats. “I got our GPS position, Art. Do you know which road you wanna take?”
“Roads?” Arthur said, shutting his door. “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
I pulled away from the curb and glanced up in the rearview mirror, amused. The boy’s mouth was hanging open in abject shock. I could tell he was angry he hadn’t seen it coming so that he could snicker in superiority.
“Art . . . did you just quote Back to the—?”
“Future,” he chorused. “Yes, and you owe me a coke.”
With a giggle, I shook my head and reset the trip odometer. “That’ll teach you to go on a road trip with three living Buddhas.”
Deflated and flabbergasted, Jinx sank back and shot a glare in Ananda’s direction.
“Are we there yet?”
The End
Craving Page 41