“HnnGAH!” the woman said.
Despite the situation, I had to laugh. But the whole scene became a bit less hilarious when I felt a hand grasp my shoulder.
I spun to see a security guard. “You think that’s funny?” he said. “Having your friend throw garbage all over some poor lady and her baby. Real funny. You filming this?”
“No!” I said. “It was an accident, and I like watching my friend fail. That’s all.”
That didn’t placate him at all. Another guard had grabbed Warner, and a third was handling Hypatia a little more roughly than he probably needed to. They brought us together into a small group. The rent-a-cops looked surly and bored, and at least one of them had a serious case of onion breath.
“So, kids, what’s the problem here?” the one holding Warner asked. He had a blond flattop haircut, a round face, and a thick neck. I named him the Thumb.
“No problem,” I said. “Just an accident. We’re actually late for our ride home.” I tried to pull away, but the guard behind me was stronger than I’d expected, and I couldn’t pull from his grasp. I turned to look at him. He was huge. His goatee and nose ring didn’t make him look any friendlier, either. I named him Biker because I suspected there was a leather jacket covered with skull patches hanging in his closet at home.
The guard by Hypatia spoke. I named this one Timmy, for no reason at all. “We’ve had some complaints of shoplifters. I think you three need to come with us for a moment. We just need to ask you a couple questions.”
“We’ve been sitting here for a while now,” I said, “and we have receipts for the tacos.”
Biker’s grip on my shoulders tightened to the point that it hurt. He leaned down to whisper in my ear, and the smell of his breath almost overwhelmed me. His breath wasn’t just bad; it was a symphony in decay and revulsion. It was like a chemical representation of just how bad the good things in the world can become when left in the hot sun for a month. Worse, it was wrong.
“I don’t think you understand the gravity of your situation, Nikola,” Biker said in a melodic but assertive woman’s voice. “You will accompany us for the time being. It shouldn’t take long, dear.”
I’d have known the voice anywhere because I’d listened to it insult me from inside my own head for upward of an hour not too long ago. It was Jakki. The security guards were a nice touch. Had I smelled like that when she was inside my mind? I couldn’t remember, but I must have. I might have thought about it more if keeping my lunch inside my stomach hadn’t suddenly become difficult.
“Your friends will need to accompany us as well. Shall we?” she said, pulling me hard, away from our escape route.
Warner, Hypatia, and I struggled without much effect as we were dragged toward an unmarked door on the edge of the food court.
I caught something almost unnoticeable from the corner of my eye. Dirac and Majorana, still wearing their distractors, had slipped behind the three guards. Dirac was digging in his pockets. They hadn’t taken note of them.
The other security guards had heard Jakki’s voice as well. “Ah, Dave? You got a cold or something, man?”
“Shut up!” she commanded. “Hold them. They’re known terrorists, and you’re certain to be rewarded for catching them.”
The guards’ expressions went suddenly blank, as if an important part of their minds had come unplugged. “Yes, sir!” said the Thumb and Timmy at the same time.
My mind raced, trying to size up the situation. We could make a scene, and someone might help. Unfortunately, we were five weird kids, three of whom bystanders could actually take notice of, and they were uniformed security guards. Who would an onlooker believe?
Behind the guards, still unnoticed, Dirac had opened his distractor and was poking a slender metal tool at its innards. He reached one of his long, thin fingers into its nest of wires and components. How long it would work on an Old One, I did not know. Maybe it only worked because the Old One was piloting a regular human’s brain from somewhere else at the moment.
I realized that was a good thing. Jakki was not with us. We were just dealing with someone she was controlling, which meant she couldn’t slip between dimensions or drive people mad by looking at them. Not yet.
As I thought this, Biker glanced suspiciously at Dirac—no, past him, but in his direction. The Old One driving Biker suspected something. Jakki wasn’t easily fooled.
The guards dragged us along toward their security station, which was conveniently located between the Chinese food restaurant and the bathrooms. Dirac and Majorana kept pace close behind. I started scanning the tables for weapons; maybe a hot cup of coffee to the face would . . .
Then I saw it: Chicken! Chicken! Chicken! was having a two-for-one sale on jumbo meganugget buckets! That would be a perfect way to feed a whole family on a budget. Fries and drink were included for just—
No, what did that matter? I needed to be looking for something. What was it?
Suddenly it was clear: Chicken! Chicken! Chicken! must be owned by the same people who run Candles! Candles! Candles! Maybe they sold some crossover chicken-scented—
No! That wasn’t it, either. I looked around. Some guys were with us. I didn’t recognize them. Where was I again? The guys had stopped in their tracks and were looking around as if they had all lost something.
A tall, silvery boy was pulling on my arm and leading me away from them. A girl with shiny hair—it was really pretty, but a little too well kept for my tastes—took the hands of another boy and girl who were with me. I wondered if I knew them; they seemed nice. They led us away, which was fine. I hadn’t been doing anything important.
As we walked, the name of the boy came back to me. Then I remembered the names of the others and what had been happening. “What was that?” I asked Dirac.
“I turned the distractor up to full power and stuck it in the big one’s back pocket. The battery won’t last long like that, so move quickly.”
Around us, the food court had become very distracted. People were setting drinks down on tables that weren’t there. A fast-food worker casually picked up a burger from a customer’s tray and took a bite, wrapper and all. The taco-covered young mother traded her baby for a nice smartphone and ten dollars cash.
Once my head cleared, I pointed out a service tunnel on the other side of the court, above which a red EXIT sign glowed warmly. “There!” I said.
We crashed through the exit doors, and relief turned to frustration when the “exit” turned out to be a long blank hallway that led to the actual exits, which were several hundred feet away. If the sounds of shoving and arguing behind us were any indication, the guards had come to their senses and were after us once again. We kept running.
A second later Majorana was at the exits. She’d shoved aside a mop bucket and was holding one of the doors open. God, she was fast. I glanced around—Hypatia was hurrying determinedly, and Warner . . . Warner looked absolutely terrified. He was sweating up a storm and doing his best to keep up. As for Dirac, he looked a bit like a cat about to spring bravely into a paper bag. All business.
We were almost to the doors. I could feel cold outside air rushing in. A bang sounded behind us as the access doors crashed open. Our friendly security guards were closing in.
“They have scooters!” Warner shouted as we passed through the doors into the parking lot and the almost-blinding brightness of midday sunlight on white snow.
Sure enough, each of the rent-a-cops, led by Biker, were standing atop those two-wheeled Segway scooters that must come attached to mall security uniforms. Timmy sneered. Geez, he had a lot of teeth. The Thumb drooled aggressively.
I stopped a few feet out and ran back toward the exit door.
Warner shouted, “Wrong way, wrong way!”
“Keep going!” I said.
The emergency exit stood open because the hydraulic mechanism that keeps t
he doors from slamming had latched. I reached around the opening frantically and found the long wooden mop handle standing just where I remembered. I pulled the mop over onto its side hard enough to tip the bucket of muddy water all over the floor. Then I ran like bees were after me.
I was almost around the first corner when an angry crash caught my attention. Just as I’d hoped, all three guards were on the concrete. Those two-wheeled scooters have a secret weakness: small bumps. There was no way they were getting over a mop stick at speed, especially if the floor was damp. A quick glance told me that not only had I caused a scooter pileup, but at least one of the scooters had also broken in half just below the handlebars.
That bought us a little time, but it wasn’t much. Fortunately, sheer terror is one heck of a motivator, and I was able to catch up with my friends before long. Well, not all of them. Dirac had run ahead at about forty-five miles an hour and was just rounding another corner several hundred feet away.
“How long before they get here, do you think?” Hypatia called.
Warner shook his head. “We don’t have long.”
The tablet in my pocket buzzed and spoke in unison with the others. “Hey, guys,” said Mr. Marconi’s voice, “Mr. Fermion has just joined us and has informed me you’ve managed to alert the Old Ones of your presence. We’ve advised the other students to conceal themselves where they are, and I’m having the bus brought around to pick you up. Keep moving in our direction if you can. Incidentally, I’m afraid this will count as a failing grade on the examination.”
Hypatia said a bad word then. I won’t repeat it here, mainly because when a person who does not normally curse says a bad word, it sounds ridiculous and fake. Warner appeared to be mortally embarrassed.
I tapped Majorana on the shoulder. “Run ahead and tell them to meet us. See if you can get some weapons.” She nodded and raced ahead, faster than I could have moved on a motorcycle. About twenty yards off, she stopped, looked around, and appeared to consider something. Then she scaled an ornamental tree like a monkey, leaped onto the roof of the building, and was gone.
Warner was almost out of breath. “I could . . . totally . . . do that if . . . I wanted to . . .”
Hypatia, who did not seem at all tired, ran ahead a little to take a look around the next corner. A few seconds after she’d moved out of sight, Majorana burst out from a department store’s revolving doors. She was looking pretty beat up and wasn’t moving as quickly as she had before. “The bus is stuck in traffic!” she called. “We have to cut through—come on!”
I turned to follow her, but something stopped me. Majorana looked sick—no, that wasn’t right—she looked uglier than usual, which made no sense. Where was Hypatia?
“She’s fine!” Majorana shouted when she saw me searching. “Leave her!”
Warner had no misgivings and took off toward the doors where Majorana was gesturing furiously. Just as I was about to follow, I took one last look for Hypatia and saw her and another Majorana sprinting back around the corner. The new Majorana, who I realized was the genuine one, was moving almost too fast to see. She was also carrying something in her hand where her tablet had been not long before.
“DOWN!” Hypatia yelled.
Something said, “BLOOOUUUMMMP.”
I hit the concrete as a wave of watery luminescence from her gravitational disruptor shot over my head. It barely missed Warner and knocked him against the wall of the building as it passed. It hit the shabby version of Majorana full force, just as she was reaching out to grab him. She was catapulted backward into the revolving doors, which should really be called shattering doors when you go through at ninety miles an hour.
“What are you doing?!” Warner screamed. “You killed her!”
“That wasn’t me! They’re HERE!” the real Majorana shouted as she lifted him to his feet and thrust her disruptor into his hands. “I’ll carry you. Shoot anything that looks suspicious. The bus isn’t far!”
She threw my own disruptor to me, and I snatched it out of the air.
“Thanks,” I huffed.
“The School opened an emergency wormhole in a bathroom stall, and the other students are all safe,” she said. “We’re closer to the bus, so as soon as we’re on, they’re going to get us out of here.”
As if in response, the bus grumbled and rattled somewhere close by. We were almost there.
Warner wasn’t looking so well. He had given that concrete wall a big hug and looked like he might fall off Majorana’s back before long. A deep scrape on his left arm was bleeding a trail behind us. I dropped my disruptor into my bag and grabbed an old sock that looked clean and hastily clapped it onto his arm.
He switched his disruptor to his left hand and held the sock against his wounded arm with his right while doing his best to keep an eye out for more trouble. “That wasn’t Majorana . . . who got killed?”
“No. I’m carrying you,” Majorana said.
“Oh,” he said intelligently.
His confusion seemed to fade. “Didn’t even look like her. God, it was horrible. It hurts . . . thinking about it. She’s a lot worse than the other one.”
I should have been looking where I was running, instead of trying to discern brain damage in Warner, because at that moment the bus pulled up in front of us and jumped the curb, and the four of us crashed right through the open door and onto the nearest leather seat. Someone shouted, “Get in! Fast! Hurry!”
Way ahead of you, I thought, helping Majorana set Warner onto the front bench seat before passing his weapon up to Mr. Marconi, who was gesturing for it urgently.
“Miss,” Mr. Marconi said coolly to Majorana, “I think you might be more trouble than I wish to deal with at the moment.”
Hypatia, who had taken the seat behind Warner and me, went pale. Her eyes went pure white. “No . . .”
“Mr. Marconi,” I said, spinning to see what he was doing, “don’t be—”
But he wasn’t listening to me. Mr. Marconi shot Majorana with Warner’s disruptor at point-blank range.
Majorana went flying dramatically back out the door and through the air like a rag doll carried upon an undulating cloud of warped gravitation. Her body smashed through a decorative tree planted by the curb about twenty feet away, breaking it in half. She tumbled to a stop not far from where the top half of the tree fell, hiding her body. From how close she had been—could a person survive that? I couldn’t think about it.
The doors slammed shut with a heavy-sounding metallic clunk. The bus was close, hot, and dark, nearly pitch black. Somehow the darkness made the interior seem a lot smaller; or maybe it actually was smaller.
And that smell. Someone must have vomited in the confusion. Or—
“We made that a lot more difficult than it needed to be, I think,” Mr. Marconi said from the front passenger seat in a throaty woman’s voice. The bus eased back onto the street and pulled away with a padded thump.
A small fluttering light on the ceiling went out, and I suddenly could not remember why I’d thought the black SUV around me had looked anything like a school bus in the first place. I was really starting to hate that feeling.
Then I saw her.
13
A REALLY FUN HUMAN ROAD TRIP!
At the wheel sat a slightly pudgy man in a rumpled suit with graying hair. He kept his head pointed resolutely forward, so I couldn’t get a better look at him. Next to him sat the Old One, Jakki. She looked to be a woman in her midforties, dressed in a smart gray pantsuit over an olive blouse, accented with a fine golden necklace and a pretty jeweled broach in the shape of a bonobo ape. Her brunette wedge haircut was just starting to show traces of gray, and her smile was warm, professional, and deeply troubling.
The familiar rotten-meat stench I’d come to expect from the Old Ones was still there, although this new specimen was different from Tabbabitha’s. There was something of a
synthetic chemical quality to it with a touch of gasoline, like someone had tried to burn a rotting pile of meat and excrement and failed to get things going. It was many times worse than I’d ever experienced, but surprisingly, it disappeared almost immediately, replaced by the scent of perfume.
That’s not quite correct. The stench hadn’t faded or disappeared. The moment I thought about it, I could smell it all over again. She was making it less noticeable somehow. Let me tell you, I didn’t mind at all.
“Hey, kids!” said Jakki. “I’m so sorry we had to meet this way. I hope nobody has been hurt. Is everyone okay?”
She looked to each of us in turn, her eyes wide with false concern. Hypatia slumped against her seat, insensate, and Warner drooled and toppled forward onto the floor of the vehicle.
“No complaints? That’s so great to hear. You all just relax. It’s been quite a day, I’m sure.” She turned to face forward, indicating an upcoming turn to her driver.
“What’s wrong with them?” I demanded.
She spoke without turning. “See that nifty gadget above your head?” I guessed she was referring to the light that had been flickering when the SUV had been a bus. “It gives a little boost to how convincing I can be. Probably took a lot out of them. They’ll be fine before long, poor dears.”
There was a moment of silence while I tried to figure out where we were going, until I realized the windows weren’t just tinted; they were completely black. I reached behind me and shook Hypatia, trying to rouse her. She was out cold.
Jakki returned her gaze to me. “Let’s not disturb them just yet. I’d introduce myself, but we’ve already met, haven’t we? You’re Nikola, right?”
She held a hand out for me to shake. I responded by trying to push myself backward through my seat.
Without warning, she slipped into my mind and forced me to reach my hand out to shake hers. The feeling was absolutely revolting, but familiar. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized it was happening at the library. Immediately, I tried the same trick. I latched onto her mind and tried to trap her.
The Unspeakable Unknown Page 15