Escaped

by Gary Urey

  Also by Gary Urey

  Secrets of the X-Point: Pursued

  Names: Urey, Gary, author. | Brundage, Scott, illustrator.

  Title: Escaped / Gary Urey; pictures by Scott Brundage.

  Description: Chicago, Illinois: Albert Whitman & Company, 2017. |

  Series: Secrets of the X-Point; 2 | Summary: “After Daisha and Axel destroy the permanent X-point, they must expose a new one in order to stabilize Earth’s magnetic field, all while evading a doomsday cult”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017039783 | ISBN 9780807566893 (paperback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. |

  BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / Survival Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Science & Technology. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Friendship.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.U67 Esc 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039783

  Text copyright © 2018 by Gary Urey

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Scott Brundage

  First published in the United States of America in 2018 by Albert Whitman & Company

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 LB 22 21 20 19 18

  Design by Jordan Kost

  For more information about Albert Whitman & Company, visit our website at www.albertwhitman.com.

  For Jill Corcoran

  Chapter One

  AXEL

  Hot, acrid smoke seared Axel Jack’s lungs as Jag carried him piggyback-style along a narrow footpath. Exploded chunks of satellite dishes, x-ray lasers, and dozens of other pieces of high-tech equipment rained down around them. A stab of intense pain surged through Axel’s leg. He looked down and saw blood soaking his pants, right where Doctor Lennon Hatch had plunged a knife at the Konanavlah Sun Temple.

  The maniacal billionaire and his Pursuers had chased Axel and his best friend, Daisha Tandala, around the globe for six months, trying to get their GeoPorts. The temple was supposed to be the new site of the Doctor’s Geographical Transportation hub. But fortunately for the world, things had not gone according to plan.

  “I’m going to need stitches,” Axel groaned.

  “You’ll have medical attention soon,” Jag said, hoisting Axel higher on his back.

  Jag’s large, quiet presence had given Axel the creeps when they had first met at the Sun Temple. Now, he felt indebted to the man. Without him and Megan, the Stanford research assistant who had helped his father and Daisha’s mother make Geographical Transportation possible, he’d probably be lying dead among the ruins right now.

  “Where are we going?” Megan asked, huffing for breath.

  “Bhimbetka rock shelters, just a few kilometers. That’s where the others from the Sun Temple have gone. We’ll be safe there.”

  The Konanavlah Sun Temple faded into the distance as Jag led them over a small stream and into a dense jungle. Screeching alarm calls from a troop of langur monkeys rang from treetops. Insects buzzed around Axel’s head; exotic birds flittered from branch to branch.

  Jag stopped in his tracks, and Axel felt all of the muscles in his friend’s back tighten. He cautiously peered over Jag’s shoulder and nearly passed out from what he saw. A five-hundred-pound Bengal tiger lay crouched behind a fallen tree just ten yards ahead. The animal stared at them, ears pinned back, tail swishing in the breeze.

  “Get behind me,” Jag ordered.

  “It probably smells my blood,” Axel said, heart pounding.

  “Should we run?” Megan whispered.

  Jag slowly edged them back. “That would be a death sentence,” he said. “Just like a house cat, tigers enjoy the thrill of the chase. Our only chance is to not act like its natural prey.”

  Fortunately, they didn’t have to test the tiger’s patience for very long. Another piece of the Doctor’s equipment blasted in the distance. The loud boom and ensuing black smoke made the animal leap five feet into the air and take off into the jungle.

  “We’re safe,” Jag said, leading them back up the path. “That cat is too frightened to stalk us now.”

  Axel wasn’t so sure. He kept looking over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure the tiger wasn’t following them. It had been hard enough to make it away from the exploding Sun Temple alive. The last thing they needed was another—deadlier—Pursuer.

  The jungle soon opened up into a vibrant green field dotted with palm trees. A well-traveled dirt road wound its way around a large body of water leading toward a village.

  Several noisy motorcycles whizzed past them, followed by a rusty truck stuffed with a load of green bananas. People and houses came into view. A young girl led a leashed cow to a water trough. Two men took turns pounding some kind of grain in a large mortar. Among the bustle of the village, it didn’t seem anyone knew of the chaos that had just taken place a few short kilometers away. If they had, they’d already moved on.

  The trio turned a corner and came to an open-air market. Jasmine and lavender incense wafted in the air. The spicy smells of cinnamon, saffron, coriander, curry, and freshly baked naan filled Axel’s nostrils. His stomach grumbled with hunger. He loved eating Indian food at the Amber Elephant back in Palo Alto, but this was the real thing.

  People stared at them as they made their way through the crowd.

  “I guess it’s not every day the locals see a tall Indian man carrying a wounded white boy on his back,” Axel said.

  “Everything smells so good,” Megan said. “I’m so—”

  “We must get to Bhimbetka first,” Jag said, reading her mind. “Then we will eat.”

  Axel gasped.

  Jag and Megan looked up and saw what had alarmed him.

  Pursuers.

  There were two of them, wearing their black jackets and white shirts, skulking around the market.

  “After all that’s happened, the Doctor’s still looking for us,” Megan whispered, her voice slightly trembling.

  “Well, if someone just thwarted my attempt at world domination, I would be searching for them too,” Axel whispered, mustering a slight grin.

  One of the men whipped out an eight-by-ten photo and showed it to a young girl standing among the baskets of okra, ginger, and red peppers.

  “Follow me,” Jag said, grabbing Megan’s arm.

  They hurried through the market and down a dark alley. A skinny cow rested in a bed of mud. A rat darted from behind a barrel and disappeared under a stack of wooden pallets. They were almost at the end of the alley when a middle-aged man with a suspicious look on his face stepped out of the shadows and blocked their way.

  “Why are you carrying the boy?” the man asked in choppy English. “Is he a cripple?”

  “Let us pass,” Jag said.

  The man stepped closer and stared at Axel’s face. “You’re the one in the picture—the one the two Europeans are showing around the market. They offered a reward for you!”

  Before the man could alert anyone, Jag charged into him. The man tumbled roughly to the ground. A set of keys fell from his hand. Megan scooped them up, and they ran from the alley. An old, rust-caked Honda motorcycle sat parked on the street. Jag slipped Axel off his back, hopped onto the motorcycle, and jammed the keys into the ignition. The engine roared to life.

  “We need to go!” Jag hollered. “Now!”

  Megan helped Axel onto the back of the seat, and she climbed on too. He wrapped his arms around Jag’s waist and held on tight. His jeans were completely blood soaked and stic
ky. With a shift of the gears, the motorcycle lurched forward, and they tore away from the village.

  Countryside, farm fields, and rolling hills filled Axel’s vision. Simple mud huts teetered on the side of a bumpy road. The thump of the motorcycle riding over potholes made the wound in Axel’s leg pulse with pain. His head started spinning, bright spots danced in front of his eyeballs, and all the strength ran out of his arms. He let go of Jag and slumped to one side.

  Megan grabbed Axel’s shoulders to keep him from falling off the speeding motorcycle.

  “He’s losing lots of blood!” she yelled over the sound of the motorcycle.

  Jag pulled to the side of the road. He took off his shirt and handed it to Megan. She tore it into strips, making a temporary tourniquet, and tied it several inches above Axel’s wound.

  A few moments later, Axel regained consciousness, feeling nauseous but slightly better. They continued riding for almost an hour until the motorcycle choked to a stop.

  “What’s the matter?” Megan asked.

  “Out of petrol,” Jag said.

  “What’s petrol?” Axel wondered aloud.

  Jag wheeled to the side of the road. “It’s another name for gasoline,” he said. “We must walk the rest of the way.”

  Jag helped Axel onto his back, and they hiked deep into the jungle. They came upon a sign that said Ratapani Tiger Reserve in both Hindi and English.

  “Please, no more tigers,” Axel groaned.

  A chuckle escaped from Jag’s lips. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The Bhimbetka rock shelters are within the reserve’s boundaries.”

  After hiking through more jungle, five massive sandstone outcrops surrounded by a wire fence came into view. Tourists crowded around a large information board.

  “We’re here,” Jag said, scooting Axel off his back and leaning against a tree to catch his breath.

  “Is this some kind of tourist attraction?” Axel asked. His head had started spinning again, making his vision blurry and stomach queasy.

  “It’s a lot more than just that,” Megan said, pointing toward a large inscribed brass plaque. “This is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

  “Come,” Jag said, lifting Axel onto his back. “Larraj will be waiting for us.”

  They followed behind a large tour group that stopped every few meters to gaze in awe at the prehistoric paintings. There were depictions that looked to be from the Stone Age of people hunting with bows and arrows. There were drawings of elephants, horses, tigers, and deer. When everyone stopped to look at a painted figure of a god believed to be Nataraja, Jag broke away from the group and Axel followed with Megan’s help. Jag led them through an extremely narrow cavern. The space was so tight, that in some points, Jag had to turn sideways to pass through. The cavern finally opened up to a pile of impenetrable boulders.

  “It’s a dead end,” Megan said.

  “Why’d you take us here?” Axel wondered aloud.

  Jag didn’t answer. He gripped a very large round stone and heaved it aside.

  Axel looked closer. “It’s a hole.”

  “More than a hole,” Jag said. “Larraj should be waiting for us below.”

  “Are you telling us we have to crawl into this snake pit?” Megan asked with a grimace.

  “Yes,” Jag answered. “This is the entrance to another cave, one not known to tourists or the local population. Its secret location was revealed to Larraj on one of the palm leaves. We have to go single file. You two first.”

  Megan reluctantly crawled into the opening, and Axel limped forward. Waves of claustrophobia surged through his veins. Searing pain burned through his wounded leg.

  “I really don’t want to do this,” he protested.

  “Go,” Jag commanded. “We’ll get help for your leg.”

  Axel took a deep breath and lowered into the hole.

  Chapter Two

  DAISHA

  Daisha and Boris the dog left the Stanford campus and jogged up Embarcadero Road. Streetlights burned bright, but because it was past midnight, nearly all of the houses were dark. The one she and her mother used to live in was only a couple blocks away on Byron Street. It was the little white bungalow with the powder-blue shutters in need of a paint job. A cascade of childhood memories flooded her mind. Playing hide-and-seek in the backyard, the traveling petting zoo party for her seventh birthday, and the cheap plastic swimming pool, always filled with freezing cold hose water.

  The rumble of a car engine ripped her back to the present. Boris let out a low growl. Daisha grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and gently pulled him behind a tree. She watched a blue pickup truck slowly cruise past them and pull into a driveway. When the driver parked the truck and disappeared into a house, Daisha and Boris continued down the sidewalk.

  “Axel, how in the world am I supposed to find you again?” she wondered aloud.

  Daisha wasn’t even sure if he was dead or alive. The last image she had of him was with the Doctor’s hand clamped around his neck.

  “You’re alive,” she muttered, a lump forming in her throat. “I know it.”

  Her eyes grew misty. Just thinking about him made her want to cry. She fought the urge, reached into her pocket, and felt something hard and round.

  “Axel’s GeoPort!” Daisha exclaimed. She remembered dropping hers and scooping his off the ground just as the Sun Temple was about to implode. The Warp had sucked her into the stratosphere so hard and fast she forgot all about the GeoPort.

  She cradled the unit in her palms, fingers trembling, thumbs frantically pressing buttons. There was nothing. The thing was dead. Tears streamed down her face. Without the X-Point, the biggest technological advancement of mankind was now as useless as a floppy disk. She and Axel had fulfilled their parents’ dying wish by keeping Geographical Transportation out of the Doctor’s grubby hands, but now finding Axel would be next to impossible.

  Unless.

  Maybe he was able to use his GeoPort one last time before everything shut down, she thought. If so, he’d go to one place—the Hoover Park Dog Run.

  Feelings of hope and fear tingled in her chest. The dog area wasn’t only their prearranged meeting place. It was also the location where her mother and Axel’s dad had been killed and where the Doctor’s henchman Loosha had almost captured her.

  Daisha wiped away tears and stroked Boris’s head. She did not want to go back there ever again, but she had no choice.

  “Let’s go, boy,” she said, taking a deep breath. “If Axel’s here, that’s where we’ll find him.”

  One question twirled in her mind as they turned up Cowper Street toward the park: Why am I still alive?

  Megan had set Axel’s GeoPort for the heart of the sun. The purpose had been to destroy the X-Point—the place where the Earth’s magnetic field connected to the sun’s and the key to the GeoPort’s power—in order to make the Doctor’s plan for Geographical Transportation impossible. And it seemed to have worked. After all, the GeoPort was dead. But if the plan had worked, how was she back in Palo Alto, unharmed and not one jot worse for the wear?

  Daisha shook the thoughts from her head. No matter how she was still alive, she needed to keep her wits about her. Even though she and Axel had thwarted the Doctor’s plan, he could still have people searching for them.

  Hoover Park was silent and empty. Tall trees cast long shadows over the green lawns from the streetlights. A swing’s chain creaked in the wind. The pungent smell from a skunk wafted in the air, making Boris’s tail wag and setting his nose to the ground.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Daisha warned the dog. “I don’t have tomato juice or a bathtub to clean you up.”

  They walked quietly across the softball field to the playground. Daisha’s heart pounded with every step. She stopped at a climbing web and leaned against the slide. The dog area was just beyond the basketball court and through a stand of trees.

  Horrifying memories of the place bubbled to the surface, and she quickly stamped them
down. She ran a nervous hand across her shorn scalp, all of her senses on high alert. Every ounce of her being wanted to turn around and run away as fast as she could. But the faint hope of a reunion with Axel was too strong. She nudged Boris with her foot and stepped closer to the trees. They walked down a small footpath, opened the gate, and stepped inside the Dog Run. Like the rest of the park, the fenced-off area was empty.

  Feelings of relief and sadness swept over her. She was happy that no Pursuers seemed to be hiding in the shadows ready to pounce—maybe the Doctor and his goons were finally off her back, after all. But that was a small comfort compared to the sadness of not seeing Axel there waiting.

  The sound of Boris moving around snapped her out of her trance. The dog was looking the other way with his ears perked up. He started to growl and gave a series of woofs.

  “What’s wrong?” Daisha whispered. “You better not mess with that skunk.”

  Satisfied there was no threat, Boris went back to sniffing and lifting a leg to mark his territory.

  Where should I go now? Daisha thought. And how do I find Axel?

  Thoughts of turning herself into the Palo Alto Police Department briefly passed through her mind, but she quickly dismissed them. She knew the police would never believe her story about the X-Point, Warping to the sun, the Doctor, or the murder of her mother and Axel’s father. Besides, with all the news coverage of her and Axel’s disappearances, if she resurfaced now, she’d be plastered across every news website and TV station across the country. That was the last thing she needed.

  Her faith in adults had disappeared many months ago. The only person in the world she could truly trust was Axel, and he was nowhere to be found.

  A round of loud barks from Boris again shattered the quiet. The dog had switched from aimless sniffing to full protection mode in the snap of a finger. His ears were pinned back, and his lips curled into a snarl, revealing razor-sharp teeth.

  “Who’s there?” Daisha called.

  There was no response.

  Crunching sounds came from the other side of the Dog Run. Boris growled louder and snapped his jaws.