The sights and smells barraged him from all angles, whipping his mere hunger into complete starvation. But then severe weakness followed, threatening to put an end to his fun before it even started. Being captured by Archer Savage, all that time in the lab, his harrowing escape, stowing away in Doug’s delivery truck, and having to play the dead game half the night—it became too much for a simple creature from the woods.
Feeling defeated, he sighed and rested against a display of packages which crinkled at his touch. Then his nose twitched. He perked up, noticing a wonderful smell. The fatigue melted away when he ripped open one of the tiny bags, releasing its multicolored contents onto the floor.
He picked up a green one and popped it in his mouth, allowing it to hit every taste bud on his tongue. The flavor exploded. A slight tingle cascaded into an avalanche of sweet delight, hard on the outside, smooth and sugary on the inside. After a few more mouthfuls, the pieces were gone and he contemplated eating the package, too. Instead, he licked it profusely, then examined the brightly decorated markings. ‘M&M’s,’ it read. There it was. M&M’s. His new favorite food.
He jumped to the floor and got a rush of energy from the candy. Before he knew it he was running wild, hooting and hollering up and down each aisle. He ran past mountains of aluminum cans, paperboard packages, meaty treats in airtight wrappers, towers of encasements filled to the top with all types of edibles.
He kept moving, through the area with fresh fruits and vegetables (he hijacked an apple, took a few bites then dropped the core), past the aisles with boxes, cans and other packages of food, and into different parts of the store.
He came upon a place with large letters on the wall which spelled out, ‘Electronics.’ There he saw rows and rows of thin, various-sized boxes, lined and stacked on shelves. When he spotted one glowing, he slid to a stop. He felt confused. Inside the shiny box, he saw another Tanakee, only it appeared flat and unnatural. He slanted his head, so did the other Tanakee. He reached his hand, so did the other Tanakee. Then he thrust and thrashed his arms at the intruder, hoping to drive it off. Instead, the other Tanakee did the same thing. That was enough for Takota. He sprinted away, swearing he’d never return to that haunted spot.
It didn’t matter. He had no time to play, anyway. The future of his entire race depended on him. That terrible man, Archer Savage, was after him, and he couldn’t stick around long. Still, with so many choices to dine on, it would have been a shame not to sample at least a few things.
But what to eat first?
He went back to what he knew best—fruit. After another apple (a red one this time), a few cherries and a bite of a pear, he got impatient and went for the stuff he’d never seen before. Such a dazzling array of magnificent colors, shapes and sizes, all ripe for the picking. He grabbed some yellow thing that made his mouth pucker. He tossed it aside and tried a green one. More puckering. The orange things were much sweeter, and he took the time to eat a whole one, though he found it cumbersome getting past the bitter peel.
By the time he’d made it through all the produce, his nose became sidetracked by several shelves of bags with delicious pictures on them. He didn’t know what they were, though they looked amazing. He ripped one open to taste its contents. Crispy, salty. Ambrosia, each thin, delectable bite. So many flavors. Each one had to be tested.
At the rear of the store, he found several large glass cases heaped with all manner of seafood and meat. The slabs of beef were massive, almost bigger than Takota, himself. And when he bit into one, the flavor left him in a semi-trance. He sampled it happily, along with many others, all while swaying to some internal melody.
As he finished with his newest culinary find, he began to experience some discomfort in his gut, a bloated feeling which endangered his dining. He moaned and rubbed his belly, wanting to crawl into a dark place next to something warm and sleep off what he feared would soon become a terrible food hangover. What was he thinking? Stupid! Stupid!
However, he forgot about the ache in his stomach when, on the rack next to him, he found heaps of colored packets inscribed boldly with the words, ‘M&M’s’. Ahhh, always room for his favorite. One thing he noticed, though. M&M’s made him thirsty.
Two aisles over, he found a whole section of containers filled with liquids ranging in hue from red to blue to dark brown. Stacks and stacks of cold, wet beverages waiting for him, never mind if many of them might have been questionable.
He came to the end of the long machine which kept the containers cold, and didn’t find a drop of plain old water. Yet the more he scanned the beverage aisle, the more intrigued he became at the incredible color contrasts, the bold, sharp lettering and, of course, the vast amount of choices. Such a dizzying array of drinks.
Randomly he chose a can, its cold sides moist with condensation. He knew he might have made a mistake when he saw the painted silver horns and menacing glare. Emblazoned along the sides were the words, ‘Bull’s Horns.’ He didn’t know what was in it. He didn’t want to know. His instinct told him to put the can down and run, but since when had he started listening to instinct?
With a sharp claw, he poked open the can’s top and gulped down nearly half its contents. He would have guzzled it all if not for the burning. At first it wasn’t a concern, just a little discomfort in his throat. Then the small flame of unease became a wildfire of raw, anxious energy, tearing through him, racing up his spine and scorching his brain.
He rattled his skull, the only way to release some of the intensity surging through him. It gave him a little relief, though not enough, so he jumped once, then again, this time higher. He leapt over the drink cooler, landing smack in the middle of the canned peas and corn section.
Not for long.
Another tidal wave of vigor propelled him into the air so high it frightened him. After he came down, surrounded by tiny jars with pictures of human babies on them, he vowed never to do that again. That unnatural concoction he’d drunk had other plans, though. Internal lightning bolts forced involuntary spasms in his legs. One tiny twitch and Bang! he went airborne again.
In fast-motion, impossible to stop, he began ricocheting throughout the store. He found it great fun to curl up and roll into boxes stacked at the ends of aisles, sending them flying in all directions. After a half dozen, he made a slight miscalculation and barreled into a heap of canned baked beans—the tall cans.
In an act of revenge, it seemed each and every metal container somehow found a way to come down squarely on top of him. The initial direct hit, he might have been able to handle, even the second and third. When the fourth crash-landed, it was all he could take. The formerly soaring energy vanished. An ugly, empty queasiness filled the void. He tried to get to his feet and failed. A dark halo invaded the corners of his vision, growing and growing, filling his senses with silent blackness.
Then, voices.
FOUR
SAVAGE’S KNUCKLES BEGAN to swell. The beating he was delivering to the punching bag this time surprised even him. He’d never gone this long before. It was those two imbeciles. They frustrated him to no end!
Finally winded, he ceased his hostility toward the black leather bag, pulled off the sparring gloves and examined his wounds. A few lacerations. A little blood. Nothing compared to what he wanted to do to those two men. He took a deep breath from his diaphragm and grabbed the towel off a rack of sterling silver dumbbells. Dabbing his forehead, he sauntered across the floor.
“Let me get this straight,” he streaked his hand along a touchscreen, collapsing the data. “Because if you did what this report says, then you two have to be the STUPIDEST IDIOTS IN THE HISTORY OF IDIOTS!”
He swept a bottle of purified water off the bar, sending a geyser into the air. The men flinched to avoid the flying plastic. Savage breathed deep again, dropped his towel and mopped the spill with his foot.
“Apologies, gentlemen. Occasionally my anger gets the better of me. Doctor says exercise is supposed to help alleviate my stress, but…”<
br />
He searched for something in their body language.
“Tell me in your own words what happened.”
He expected an anxious pause and an awkward volley of innocence, each man attempting to stall the other into talking first. Instead, Scudder, the more obtuse-looking of the two, cleared his throat and presented their defense.
“Sir, we were preparing specimen number T1 for a full…”
Savage cut in. “Specimen T1? Tell me, what security protocol was specimen T1?”
Finally, the pause he’d anticipated. The men shifted in their seats, glancing at each other. Savage saw wheels of deception spinning in their heads. Along with something else. It wouldn’t be long until they started to turn on one another. That’s when the real fun would begin. That’s when he’d get to the bottom of this.
And Savage would get to the bottom of this.
“Gentlemen?” he grew weary.
“Protocol level five, sir,” answered the other man, Diaz.
“Level five,” he paced across the granite tiles. “Level five.”
The men once more adjusted their seating postures. They coughed, fidgeted, stared at their laps—anything to avoid eye contact.
“And what protocol level were you using at the time of the escape?”
“Sir,” Scudder again came to their defense. “We were preparing the specimen for brain surgery. We were employing the highest protocol suited for that work.”
Savage clapped his hands and two large men in dark suits entered, each taking a place behind one of the scientists. Scudder attempted to get up. Instead, a thug palmed his head and forced him into his seat again.
Diaz employed a little more subtle, reasoned approach by trying to talk his way out of it. “Listen, this is totally unnecessary.”
“On the contrary,” Savage offered a bit of his own reasoning. “I think it’s totally necessary. You see, I’m in quite a little dilemma here. This is highly sensitive and highly profitable material.”
He stopped at a series of wall mounted flatscreens and touched an icon on the uppermost one, triggering a sequence of flickering on each monitor until the grainy images from a security camera appeared. Footage from the lab. Scudder was alone with the creature. He moved his lips as if talking to it. Then he pressed his thumb on the locking mechanism, opening the small, hardened acrylic and steel enclosure. He walked out of the room. The cage door opened and the creature hopped onto the floor. The footage went to static.
Savage strode toward the two scientists with a hasty purpose.
“Who do you work for? Greenpeace? Animal Liberation Front? Or maybe one of my rivals? Answer me!”
“No, I work for you!” Scudder didn’t blink.
Savage gave a subtle nod and one of the suited men threw a swift uppercut in the middle of Scudder’s gut. He doubled over in his chair, moaning. Then he made another escape attempt, only to have it squelched by the other gorilla in a three-piece, who grabbed his collar and held him like a puppet, his feet brushing the stone floor.
“Please let me go!” he squeaked. “I swear I don’t remember doing that. I don’t remember doing anything like it! I didn’t do it, I…”
A slap to the face by the guard forced him into quiet submission.
Savage wanted to slap him, too. Actually he wanted to pounce on Scudder’s throat. Of course he knew that would have been wrong. Not for any moral or legal reasons. Savage laughed at morals, and he could buy the law. Nothing was out of bounds and everything had its price. However, he knew his own temper, and he knew the scientists had to stay alive in order to tell him what had happened to the Tanakee. That was the priority, to recover that invaluable creature. And right now, the scientists were his only lead. It killed him to not kill them, though he knew it would have gotten him nowhere. Worse than nowhere. That’s why he hired the guards, so he let them do their job. They seemed to love their job.
“The time for excuses and alibis is over,” Savage tried with all his inner strength to put aside the idea of snuffing them out right then and there. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this…oh, what am I saying? Of course I was hoping it would come to this.”
Again he gave the two goons a quick, inconspicuous nod. They obeyed by slugging the scientists, tossing them over a shoulder, and hauling them, fighting and kicking, out of the office.
Savage slumped and sighed. Then he spoke to the video monitors, fully aware he was being watched.
“I assume you’ll want to see the next phase of our interrogation?”
“Of course,” Davos was nothing more than a shadowy shape on every screen. He sounded almost amused. Almost. “But those two bumbling fools better not be your solitary lead.”
“Oh, no,” Savage tried to be reassuring. “We’ve got multiple teams in the field right now. We’ll retrieve this thing, you can count on that.”
“You’d better. I’d hate to have to take my business elsewhere. Maybe one of your competitors might…”
“Sir, I assure you. We’re as committed today as we were when you first became our client, which was and still is one thousand percent. I’m not going to let this get out of hand, and I’m not going to disappoint you. Just don’t bring up my competitors ever again, deal?”
“Savage, you get that creature back and we’ll talk. Until then, I can’t make any promises.”
The shadowy likenesses vanished from the plasma screens.
Swearing up a storm, he hurried to the polished steel weight rack, lifted a 45 pound plate, and was about to let it loose on a monitor when a buzzer sounded.
“Mr. Savage. We’ve got that data on the toy deliveries. Do you want it now?”
Chest heaving, forehead trickling with sweat, he hugged the rounded weight to his heart. He smiled again.
“Hmm, gee. Let’s see. Do I want to see it now? Hmm. How about…YES!”
The data flashed on each screen. He dropped the weight. Clank! it scraped against his shin, but he didn’t notice. He engrossed himself in the file, holding one of the monitors and studying each word single-mindedly.
“Yes, YES!” he clenched his fist and let the display swing free on its wall mount. “This is it! This has to be it!”
FIVE
JACK SAT AT his little desk, in his little room, in the little apartment where he, his mom, and his kid sister lived. Releasing a long, melancholy sigh, his attention drifted out the window to a rain-soaked parking lot crowded with dented, rusting vehicles. He wondered how he came to find himself in such a place. The neighbors were loud, the apartment smelled musty, and the high-speed internet went out on a regular basis. It would have been intolerable if it weren’t for one redeeming quality—Amelia lived there. Even that, though, had become tainted. The incident after school changed the way he saw her, possibly for good. Now there seemed to be nothing left for him to do but busy his mind with the things he enjoyed truly.
Intent on initiating an analysis of a new galaxy he might have discovered, he brushed the mouse aside to wipe away his computer’s Nicola Tesla screensaver. Butterflies raged in his stomach when he saw the message on the screen.
You have a video chat request from: Amelia.
He didn’t want to accept. The message flashed once more, revealing Amelia’s custom-made avatar, a gorgeous portrait of her inside a triangle of feathers and surrounded by ancient zodiac symbols.
He clicked the icon and Amelia’s webcam opened. She wore a mournful expression.
“You hate me, don’t you?” she eyed the camera.
“Yep,” he turned away.
“What! You do? Really?”
He smiled. “No. I don’t hate you. I just wish…”
“Listen, Jack. Don’t say another word. Don’t you think I’m ashamed of how I behaved today? Just let me say I’m sorry,” she leaned in closer. “I know this isn’t an excuse, but you’ve got to try to understand. My family, we’ve moved around a lot. I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to make any friends, and the ones I did get to know ended
up turning on me. I’ve been teased and made fun of and cast out, just like you. But when Wendy and the girls started treating me like one of them, I…I can’t describe the feeling.”
“Believe me, I know what it’s like,” he told her. “When you go along with the crowd, you feel safe.”
The guilt on her face was clear. “You’re gonna torture me with this forever, aren’t you?”
He realized he might have been too harsh. “I guess not.”
“Jack, I can tell something’s wrong, and it’s more than those kids teasing you, isn’t it?”
She waited for him to say something. He avoided the camera.
“Listen, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I just don’t feel like talking about this over the internet. It’s a little too sensitive. You never know who might be hacking in.”
“Silly,” she had a hint of pixie playfulness. “I knew that. That’s why…”
He sat straight, startled by three rapid knocks outside his bedroom. On his computer, Amelia barely seemed able to contain an ear to ear grin. He got up and opened the door. Sure enough, she stood in the hall, showing him her smartphone and curling her fingers, ‘hello.’ She seemed out of place for the weather in her flowing, vividly-colored dress.
“That’s why I came over.”
Jack’s mom peeked from the top of the stairs and flashed a concerned frown.
“Mom!” Jack felt his cheeks heat up.
“Just keep the door open, all right?” she tiptoed down the stairs.
Amelia sat on the only uncluttered chair in the room, crossed her arms and stared at him. Then she raised her head, smiling. “Hey, what’s that thing?”
“Huh? What thing?”
“Behind you.”
“Oh that,” he shrugged. “That’s nothing.”
Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear Page 4