by Lubar, David
“I’ve heard of them, too,” Cheater said. “Aren’t there a couple former senators connected with them?”
I nodded. “Yeah. They’re one of the biggest government contractors around. Bowdler is providing them with a way to make a ton of money. And he’s making out nicely himself. He sells them the equipment. And he charges a fee for analyzing the results, along with a monthly consulting fee. As far as I can see, it’s all pretty worthless research.” I looked over at Martin, who knew more than any of us about psychic phenomena. He’d been studying it ever since he first suspected we had talents back at Edgeview.
“Yeah, those experiments sound sketchy,” he said. “They were doing that Kirlian stuff more than half a century ago. There’s supposed to be some sort of mystical aura around people when you take a picture with a special camera. Nothing ever came of it. But I still don’t see how this helps us get Lucky back.”
I tapped the sheet. “About half of these experiments are in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware. A couple are right in Philly. We can get to a lot of them. If there’s one thing I know, it’s business people. I sat through plenty of dinners with company presidents, board chairmen, and majority shareholders when Dad brought them home. The guys who own companies—there’s only one thing they understand.”
“A free meal?” Flinch said.
“Nope.” I rubbed my thumb and fingers together. “Money. If Bowdler’s experiments start going wrong, and costing those companies a lot of money, they’re going to stop doing business with him. Right now, he has a nice little scam going. If all of that starts to disappear, he’ll be happy to release Lucky just to get rid of us and patch things up with Roth-Bullani.”
“So you’re saying we should start destroying stuff?” Martin asked.
“Especially anything with this on it.” I pointed to the last sheet, where I’d pasted a JPEG of the Psibertronix logo at the end of the list.
“I’m in,” Flinch said. “Not that I have any way to wreck stuff, but I’ll be happy to watch you and Torchie cause some damage.”
I glanced out the window. “We just don’t want anyone else watching us. We’d better wait until dark.”
“Which means we have time for some food,” Martin said. “Right?”
“Yeah. We might as well eat. It’s going to be a long night.”
“I’ll see if Livy wants to join us.” Martin ran out the door.
“I’m not sure if that’s really sweet or really sad,” Flinch said.
“Maybe both.” We went down to dinner, but I behaved this time. I figured Martin had it tough enough without getting splattered by food. If he really wanted to try to get Livy to like him, I wasn’t going to mess things up for him. But even without my help, he managed to knock over his water glass twice.
When we got back to the apartment, I picked up the list of experiments. “He’s got something running on a cargo ship in the port. I’ll start with that. There’s a warehouse just south of the city. How about Flinch and Torchie go there while I go to the piers with Martin. Cheater can stay here in case we need to get in touch.”
Cheater and Martin nodded.
Flinch looked at the address on the printout. “No problem. I can find that.”
Torchie stared at me. “What do you want me to do at the warehouse?”
I grinned. “Do what you do best.”
“You want me to burn it?”
“Just whatever area has the experiment. You need to be quick. We have to make sure the fire is over with before any firefighters get there. I don’t want innocent people hurt. That’s rule number one.”
“But how will I know what area to burn?” Torchie asked.
I looked over at Cheater. “Got any binoculars?”
“Nope. But you can buy them cheap all around here.”
“Great.” I knew from my own experiments that I could move stuff I saw in the distance. I wondered whether Torchie could use his power the same way. “Guess we’d better get two pair.”
“Let me get them,” Cheater said. “I know where the best prices are.”
I gave him some money and he dashed off again.
When Cheater returned with the binoculars, I took them and handed a pair to Torchie.
He headed toward the window, then raised the binoculars in the direction of the building with the fireworks.
“No!” I grabbed his wrist. “Not in here. Take them with you.”
“Yeah,” Martin said. “Go out and destroy.”
“But I’m trying not to start fires,” he said.
Cheater patted him on the back. “Just do it. I’ll explain Utilitarianism to you when you get back.”
“Well, that gives us one good reason not to come back,” Flinch said.
We headed out the door and down the steps. “Be careful,” I said to Torchie and Flinch as they walked off toward the corner. “People are looking for us.”
“You, too,” Flinch said.
“Yeah, us, too,” Martin said. “So, we’re going to go destroy a ship?”
“For starters.”
first blood
AROUND 9:00 PM, we caught a bus toward Columbus Boulevard, which runs along the piers. “You really think this will work?” Martin asked.
“It will definitely get some attention.”
“Speaking of attention, I think Livy likes me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She keeps coming over.”
“Maybe that’s because you keep knocking on her door.”
“But do you think she likes me?”
“Hard to tell. You could always use your talent to make her like you.”
“I sort of tried that. She doesn’t seem to care about compliments. Besides, it would be nice if she liked me for myself. What do you think?”
“I imagine it’s possible she could like you for yourself.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He nodded and sat back. A moment later, he said, “I hope Lucky’s okay.”
“Me, too. I think he was in bad shape even before Bowdler grabbed him. It’s only going to get worse. Bowdler’s medicine cabinet contains all kinds of nasty stuff.”
“How can people do things like that?”
I shrugged. “Ever read a history book?”
“Not unless there was a gun at my head,” Martin said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I guess I do. We’ve been killing each other ever since we figured out how to throw rocks.”
We changed buses and made our way to the piers. We couldn’t get too close to the ships, but I spotted the one that was on my list. It was a cargo ship. Bowdler was running an experiment that was supposed to try to detect any form of aggressive attack before it happened—I guess like an electronic version of Flinch. There were parts of the world where cargo ships were at the mercy of modern-day pirates. The first phase of the experiment involved using a bunch of different instruments to record measurements. It was total nonsense.
As we studied the ship, Martin laughed.
“What?”
“We’re about to attack something designed to detect attacks. Don’t you just love that?”
“Almost as much as pancakes.”
I spotted a metal box about the size of a small car at the front of the ship. The side of the box had Bowdler’s Psibertronix logo painted on it. There were a couple different types of antennas sticking out of the top.
“We have to damage the ship,” I told Martin, “and make it look like that instrument did it. Any ideas?”
“Fire would be good,” he said.
“It would. Too bad Torchie isn’t here.”
“You could rub two sticks together really fast.”
“I knew I could count on you for great suggestions.” I studied the box. Even without using the binoculars, I could see a couple thick power cables running to it. Reaching across the pier with my mind, I pulled one of the cables from the box. I jumped as sparks danced in the air.
“You okay?” Marti
n asked.
“Yeah. I just sort of expected a shock. Like when I grab something hot with my mind, I always expect to get burned.”
Another arc of sparks shot from the cable. I turned my attention back to the ship.
“Awesome,” Martin said. “This could work out.”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything. I was concentrating on pulling out the other cable. When I had them both under control, I touched one to the deck and the other to the railing. I could sense the power pulsing through them, like they were giant tentacles. Lights inside the ship dimmed, then flickered.
Pop-pop-pop!
I ducked in panic when I heard gunfire. “Someone’s shooting at us!” I lost control of the cables and they both fell to the deck.
Behind me, Martin laughed. “Light bulbs,” he said.
I realized he was right. It was just bulbs bursting. That was a good sign that I was on the right track. I thrust the ends of the cables back to the railing and deck. There were more pops, and then one huge WHUMPF! The cables went dead.
“Generator, I’ll bet,” Martin said. “Remind me never to play Battleship with you.”
Smoke drifted from beneath the deck. Even back where we were, thirty or forty yards away, it burned my nose. I could hear people farther down the pier running toward the ship.
“Well, that’s not going to look too good for Bowdler,” Martin said.
“Nope. And we’re just getting warmed up.” I headed back to the street.
PHONE CONVERSATI ON BETWEEN
MAJOR BOWDLER AND A FREELANCE
OPERATIVE KNOWN ONLY
AS “SANTEE”
SANTEE: The targets are still in Philadelphia.
BOWDLER: You’ve located them?
SANTEE: Negative. Two were picked up by a red-light camera thirty minutes ago.
BOWDLER: On foot?
SANTEE: Exiting a bus.
BOWDLER: Good work. Tighten the noose.
SANTEE: Consider it done.
night missions
“NEXT?” MARTIN ASKED.
“Office building,” I told him. “Bowdler has a system set up in an employee interview room at Tichborne and Fawkes. It records Kirlian images of people who apply for jobs. They’re going to take people who get caught stealing from the company or cheating or anything, and compare their scans to everyone else’s, so they can figure out ahead of time who might be dishonest.”
Martin shrugged. “I could tell them that. So could Cheater. Your average five-year-old can spot a crook, for that matter. But this scanning stuff is just nonsense.”
“Yeah. And the scanner is about to malfunction big time.”
We managed to get a cab and took it over to the building, which wasn’t near any of the bus routes. It was a little after ten when we got there. The place was closed. I looked through the front doors and spotted a numeric keypad mounted on the wall. A tiny red light flashed on its upper right corner. For once, I was happy to see an alarm.
“Let’s go over here.” I headed across the street and moved behind a parked van.
“What’s the plan?” Martin asked.
“I saw this in a movie,” I told him. As we hunched behind the van, I unlocked the door to the building and pulled it open. Then I pulled it closed and locked it. I didn’t hear anything, but I figured an alarm was going off somewhere.
Two minutes later, a car from a private security force came screeching up to the curb. The guard checked the door. Then he unlocked it and walked inside. After he fiddled with the alarm, he walked down the hallway. About ten minutes later, he came back out, shaking his head. He locked the door and left.
I waited a couple minutes and set off the alarm again. It took three more tries before the guard didn’t bother going down the hall. Five minutes after he left, I did it again. But this time, we went inside before I re-locked the door. We waited in a corridor until we heard the guard come in and turn off the alarm.
We searched for half an hour before we found the scanning gear. It was set up in a room with a two-way mirror—the kind they used for police line-ups—and looked like a large, modified movie camera. There was a Psibertronix logo on the side. According to the documents I’d read, Bowdler had charged Tichborne and Fawkes $340,000 for the equipment alone, along with all sorts of charges for analyzing the data. The company had probably billed the government at least twice that much.
“Fire?” Martin asked.
I shook my head. “Nope. We need variety. Maybe if it exploded.”
“Got bombs?”
“Sadly, no.”
“Then how are you going to do that?”
Good question. Like most guys, I wasn’t unfamiliar with things that went boom. I’d played around with firecrackers, and tried a couple experiments that I was lucky to have survived. But I didn’t think I could whip up a batch of gunpowder right now.
“It doesn’t actually have to explode,” I said. “It just has to look like it. Stand back.” I pushed Martin into the hallway. Then I turned toward the scanner and started pulling small pieces off it and flinging them into the walls, ceiling, and floor. By the time I was done with the scanner, it looked like a bomb had gone off inside of it.
I stood there, panting. I could feel my pulse thudding in my veins.
“Man, remind me never to get on your bad side,” Martin said. “And I thought I had anger issues.”
“I guess I was a bit angry,” I said. “But that sure felt good.”
“What if nobody comes in here for a while?” Martin asked. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. We can’t wait until Monday to get Lucky back.”
“Some people never take a day off.” I could remember lots of times when my dad worked all weekend.
“But what if nobody goes into this room? They just use it when there are interviews. Right?”
“Good point. So let’s leave a couple small hints that something is wrong.” I lifted one of the larger pieces from the floor and hurled it through the two-way mirror. I shot another piece through the window between the room and the hallway.
“That should do the trick,” Martin said. “As long as you don’t mind seven years bad luck.”
“I think I’ve already had twice that much.”
We left the building, setting off the alarm one last time, and walked around to the side so the guard wouldn’t see us. While we waited for him to leave, I checked the street. It didn’t look like a great spot to get a cab. We’d probably have to hike five or six blocks before we could flag one down. It was after eleven, and I was getting tired of walking. I glanced over at the parking lot behind the building. It was empty except for a car and two vans, each with TICHBORNE AND FAWKES painted on the driver’s door.
“You know how to drive?” I asked Martin.
“Sure. Sort of… My sister took me out a couple times. Why?”
“Let’s get some wheels.” I unlocked the car, opened the doors, and switched on the ignition.
“Cool.” Martin slipped behind the wheel. “You’ve done this before.”
“Yeah. I never took a car, but I figured out how to start them. You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Absolutely. I was born to drive.” After almost backing into a wall, Martin got us out of the lot and onto the street. “I like this,” he said. “It’s almost as good as a video game.” He turned the wheel left, then right, weaving in his lane. He started swaying from side to side, moving his body in synch with the car. Two blocks later, he said, “Oh boy. We’ve got trouble.”
I glanced over my shoulder. A cop car had slipped behind us. I couldn’t tell if they were checking us out or just cruising.
“You think they know I don’t have a license?” Martin asked.
“I think they know you can’t drive straight. But I wouldn’t worry about it.” I reached under their hood with my mind, pressed down on their radiator cap, and gave it a twist. Steam shot out as the cap came loose. They pulled over to the curb and we drove on.
“I could get used to this,�
�� Martin said.
“Me, too.” I glanced ahead. “Stop sign!”
Martin stomped on the brakes and skidded to a stop, throwing me forward against the shoulder belt.
“Chill out. I saw it.” He looked both ways, twice, then drove on. “We really could have anything we want, couldn’t we?”
“Maybe.”
“I guess the problem is I really don’t know what I want. I mean, in the future. Right now, I want Livy to like me. And I want to rescue your sorry, trouble-seeking butt. But all of that rest-of-my-life stuff, I don’t know.”
“Me, either.” I knew I wanted my life back. I wanted to save Lucky and destroy Bowdler. But beyond that, I didn’t have any quick answers.
“Wait,” Martin said, “that’s not true. I know what I want. I want to drive. I want to drive everywhere. All the time. This is way too much fun to stop.” He turned the corner smoothly enough that I barely had to hold on.
I knew what he meant. Driving was power. You could go where you wanted, when you wanted. No schedules. No routes. No waiting for a bus or a parent.
“I got it! Let’s go to Las Vegas,” Martin said. “Imagine you at a dice table.” He shook one fist like he was shaking a pair of dice, then tossed the imaginary dice toward the windshield. “Winner!”
“Imagine me with a bullet in my brain. I’m not messing with those casino guys.”
“Okay, so it’s not a perfect idea. But you have to admit, it’s fun to imagine.” He took one hand off the wheel and tapped the sheet on my lap. “What’s next?”
I checked the list. “There’s an experiment on the Petain International corporate jet.”
“Where’s the jet?”
“Philly airport.”
Martin stomped on the brakes again. Behind us, someone hit the horn, then screeched around our car, the horn still blaring. “Are you crazy?” Martin shouted. “An airport? You know what kind of security they have there?”
“That’s why we have to do it. There’s no way anyone could get near the jet, so they’ll know it had to be one of the experiments messing up. They’ll blame Bowdler.”
“Forget it,” Martin said. “We’ll end up in some tiny room, getting searched in places I’d never dream of hiding anything. I don’t know about you, but I have absolutely no desire to have my body cavities explored by some guy with a bad attitude and hairy arms.”