Pursued

by Gary Urey

  One particularly embarrassing moment had Chucky serenading him, out of tune and at the top of his lungs, to the howling high-school lunch crowd. The bully had sophomorically changed the words to “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix to Purple Stain.

  Purple Stain all over his face!

  Must be a freak from outer space!

  Stain’s mutated mug makes me wanna hide!

  ’Scuse me while I cover my eyes!

  Years later, the Doctor finally had the last laugh. When the eight-hundred acres of Central Valley farmland that had been in Chucky’s family for five generations went into foreclosure, the Doctor swooped in and bought the sprawling property. He then bribed several members of the Visalia City Council to rezone five hundred acres of the land from agriculture to commercial. When the Tulare County Sheriff served Chucky’s family with a final eviction notice, the Doctor was there to witness the teary-eyed scene. The Doctor Lennon Hatch Shopping Mall and Conference Center now stood where Chucky and his ancestors had once grown almonds and pistachios.

  A copy of the San Jose Mercury News sat on the Doctor’s desk. The crash was still front-page news. Not caring to read about his own misfortune, the Doctor flipped open the local news section and skimmed the police blotter. Tricycles stolen from a preschool in Sunnyvale; Burlingame caller reports a naked man walking down the street wearing a donkey mask; woman arrested after kicking Walmart employee; transient arrested after stealing purse from an unlocked vehicle; suspicious African American female snips off dreadlocks in bathroom and flees Palo Alto Main Library.

  The last entry made the Doctor’s heart stop. His men had been scouring Hoover Park and Palo Alto looking for Daisha. Was the suspicious African American female in the library really her? Did his men overlook her just because she had cut off her hair? These questions whizzed through the Doctor’s brain as he picked up his phone and dialed Pinchole.

  “The boy just told me an amazing tidbit concerning the Warp!” Pinchole gushed as he stepped into the Doctor’s office suite ten minutes later. “He claims the Warp has some kind of psychic ability to see directly into the past. If that’s true, then maybe it has the ability to see into the future!”

  “Fascinating, I’m sure,” the Doctor said. “But I didn’t call you up here to talk about him.” He handed Pinchole the newspaper. “Read today’s police blotter.”

  Pinchole mumbled aloud. “Suspicious African American female…snips off dreadlocks…flees library. It has to be her!”

  “It’s absolutely her. Our men are looking for a striking young black girl with long dreadlocks. If she’s cut off her hair, they could have easily passed her on the street without even realizing. Can we get a likeness of her?”

  “She was last seen in the Palo Alto Main Library. The library has digital video security cameras. A couple years ago, there was a lot of controversy over the installation of those cameras—a potential affront to intellectual freedom, privacy issues, and that kind of stuff. I can get someone to easily hack into their security system and retrieve footage of the girl. That way we will have an exact likeness of her.”

  The Doctor smiled. “Perfect. We’ll pick her up by the end of the day. I wonder what she was doing at the library. Using the computers for Internet access?”

  “That’s easy enough to find out. Hacking into a public library patron’s web-surfing habits is easy.”

  A loud chanting blasted outside the Doctor’s office window. He stood up from his chair and peered outside. A couple hundred protestors, waving signs with sayings like Google = Evil and obnoxiously pounding bongos, were marching outside Googleplex. The Doctor couldn’t help but chuckle. The activists were mostly college-aged kids with a sprinkling of gray-haired ex-hippies. To the outside world, Google was an innovative, cutting-edge technological leader, and to some, one to be feared. The Doctor knew otherwise. When he got his hands on the second GeoPort, he would tower over Google, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and everyone else on the Forbes top ten list of most powerful companies in the world.

  The Doctor drew the window shade. “What other tidbits did the boy reveal to you?” he asked Pinchole.

  “For one thing, he knows nothing of the mysterious Magnes Solace,” Pinchole answered. “Or so he says. I told him we already have the girl. He’ll want more proof she’s alive to give up anything else.”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “Sir?”

  “Now that we know she has altered her appearance, our men will pick her up soon enough. We’ll then have the second GeoPort and won’t have a need for Axel.”

  Pinchole shrugged. “This is true, but I’d still like to squeeze information from him. In a geographical transportation sense, he’s the equivalent to Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon. Plus, if he inherited any of his father’s tremendous genius in physics and mathematics, he’d be a great asset to our organization—after a thorough indoctrination, of course.”

  The Doctor shook his head. “I don’t want him around for any longer than is necessary. When we pick up the girl, I want him disposed of in good order.”

  “What do you mean by disposed of ?”

  The Doctor shot him a you-know-exactly-what-I’m-talking-about expression.

  Pinchole nodded. “What about the girl? Get rid of her too?”

  “Absolutely not,” the Doctor said. “She’s brilliant just like her mother. With the proper indoctrination, the girl could serve us well in the future.”

  Before Pinchole could respond, his cell phone rang. “Yes,” he said, answering. “I’m with the Doctor right now. What do you mean, the security camera went down? You have to be kidding me! Then lock everything down and secure the building. I’ll be down in a second.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” the Doctor demanded.

  Pinchole hung up the phone, his face ashen. “It’s the boy. He’s escaped from his room.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  AXEL

  The shocked expression on Pinchole’s face when Axel told him about the Warp’s ability to see into the past was priceless. The man’s eyes grew as wide as softballs, and his lips quivered. He then jumped out of his chair and paced around the room.

  “Must be something to do with photon acceleration…solar wind…traveling faster than the speed of light,” Pinchole mumbled excitedly. “This could change everything!”

  “Now let me see Daisha,” Axel demanded. “I gave you something. Now it’s your turn to give me something.”

  “Yes…right…of course. But she’s with…um…a medical doctor right now.”

  “Why does she need a doctor? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Remember? The Warp subjected both of you to small amounts of radiation that caused hallucinations. She’s just getting a clean bill of health from a medical professional, that’s all.”

  Pinchole’s cell phone rang, interrupting their conversation. “I’m on my way,” he said to the caller and then hung up. “I’ll be back shortly. What you told me was absolutely mind-blowing. I can’t wait to talk more!” He raced out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Axel heard the click-click sound of Pinchole locking the door. Everything fell silent except for the pounding of his captor’s nerdy Converse sneakers (emblazoned with a hand-drawn Batman logo on the toes) running down the hall toward the elevator. Axel took a swig from a water bottle and glanced up at the security camera mounted high on the far wall. The glass eye was watching his every move. As he capped the water bottle, he noticed a sliver of black on the otherwise white ceiling. One of the tiles in the drop ceiling was askew, as if someone had taken the handle of a broom and accidentally popped it out of place.

  What’s up there? Axel wondered.

  He looked closer and saw a ventilation shaft. He remembered watching a character in a science fiction movie escape from an alien spaceship by wiggling his way through something similar.

  The ceiling could be his way out, but he’d have to cover up the camera lens. The person on th
e other end would surely see him and send up an alert. He knew he just couldn’t walk over and throw a T-shirt over the lens. How could he disable the camera without anyone suspecting he was doing it on purpose? The answer came to him in an instant.

  Sock Football.

  The game Axel used to play by himself every football season popped into his thoughts. He was a hard-core 49ers fan and loved watching the games every Sunday while playing Sock Football at the same time. The football was just a bundle of dirty socks knotted into the shape of a ball. He was the quarterback. After dropping back to pass, he’d fire the ball to a wide receiver from across the living room. The wide receiver was a wicker basket tucked into a corner. If the ball landed in the basket, it was a touchdown. If the ball bounced onto the couch or recliner, it was an interception. After Axel broke two living room lamps and a handblown glass figurine of a hummingbird, his father had made him quit.

  Maybe I could play a game of Sock Football and accidentally break the camera, he thought. He knew that a balled-up sock would not disable a surveillance camera, but a Nike sneaker probably could do the trick. He quickly took off his shoes and placed the small wastebasket in the corner directly below the camera.

  It was time to put on a show.

  “I’m bored!” he said loudly, convinced there were also microphones hidden in the room. “I miss playing football. I wonder how the 49ers will do this year. Okay. I’m the quarterback. If the shoe lands in the wastebasket, it’s seven points. Down…set…hut…hut!”

  Axel reared back, pretended to elude a pass rusher, and then fired the sneaker toward the basket. “Score!” he shouted, raising his arms in the air. “Axel Jack to Jerry Rice for a touchdown!”

  The game continued like this for five minutes, with each successive throw getting closer to hitting the camera. Finally, Axel cocked his arm, aimed, and flung his sneaker as hard as he could at the intended target—a direct hit. The heel of the sneaker smacked violently against the camera’s wall mount, causing the lens to crack and the bracket bolts to loosen. Without support, the entire unit crashed to the floor.

  Not wasting a millisecond, Axel slipped on his shoes and positioned a chair under the crooked ceiling tile. He jumped up, using his fist to punch open the tile. Cautiously, he reached up and felt for a handhold. Two firm steel rods ran along the ceiling. He hoisted himself through the hole and into the ventilation shaft. Utter blackness engulfed him. After replacing the tile, he crawled army-style.

  The space was tight, barely big enough to fit his frame, and clogged with so much dust that his eyes watered and his nose tickled with an imminent sneeze. Then his shirtsleeve got stuck on something. He looked down and saw that it was caught on a jagged piece of metal sticking up between two sections of the shaft. After a quick tug, his shirtsleeve pulled free of the metal, but not before ripping off a huge hunk of the fabric.

  A claustrophobic cocktail of anxiety mixed with fear clawed at his thoughts as he wormed his way through the maze of ductwork. Sweat poured from his temples, and his heart pounded with adrenaline. Just when he thought he’d be crawling in the tunnel forever, he saw light.

  Bars of golden sunshine filtered through a series of grille slats in the wall. Axel wriggled another ten yards and peered through the openings. He smelled fresh air and saw a jacaranda tree in the distance. The vent led to the outside, and the drop was an easy ten feet to a delivery loading dock. Using his closed fist, he pounded at the grille, trying to pop it open. The thing didn’t budge. He ran his hands along the casing, hoping to find a weakness. A loose bolt on the bottom left corner offered a glimmer of hope. Using his thumb and index finger, he removed the bolt and pressed with all his might. The bottom half of the grille slowly gave way, but not enough for him to fit through the opening.

  “I could probably kick the vent open with my feet,” Axel mumbled. “But I’m headfirst. How am I going to turn around?”

  A chorus of muffled voices echoed down the shaft from the room he had just fled. One of them was Pinchole, for sure. The man had discovered him missing, and now his goons were hot on the trail. Axel rolled on his side, bringing his knees to his chest. The goal was to force his feet forward and upper body backward. His legs would then be in the correct position to kick out the grille.

  The pressure of the tight space was intense. His head throbbed, and his breath came in quick huffs. On a silent count of three, he twisted like a freak show contortionist before finally flip-flopping into the correct position. He then kicked at the grille with all his might. After several big blows, the barrier peeled away and crashed to the pavement below.

  Axel shimmied from the shaft and fell to the ground, every sense on high alert. He heard chanting and the sounds of drums and tambourines. He peeked around the corner of the building and saw a massive compound with a sign that read Googleplex—1545 Charleston Road 847. Hundreds of marchers were staging some kind of protest out front.

  They were his ticket to freedom. He rushed into the center of the crowd and disappeared out of sight from his captors.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  DAISHA

  Daisha spent the next day living like a great horned owl. She slept during the daytime in her empty old house (a real estate agent showing the property had almost caught her snoozing on the living room floor) and waited until night to hunt Axel. She figured a reversal of a normal schedule made her safer from the Doctor’s men, who were still scouring the streets looking for her.

  The hack job she had given herself in the library bathroom still felt weird. Her scalp was constantly dry, itchy, and flaky like she had the world’s worst case of dandruff. She had scratched at her head so much that dried blood caked her fingernails. Along with her hair, the two-sizes-too-small bandanna dress was now gone, compliments of a Salvation Army clothing drop on Pulgas Avenue in East Palo Alto. There she had ripped open a plastic bag and found a pair of pink sweatpants and a faded Cal Poly Mustangs T-shirt. The new duds had a musty smell and were a little too big, but they would do.

  Nearly two days had passed since she and Axel had frantically Warped away from the Vietnamese café. Where he’d landed was still a mystery to her, but one thing was certain: if Axel was alive, he’d eventually Warp back to the dog park.

  “Shut up!” she barked at her own thoughts. “Axel’s alive and well, and I’ll see him soon.”

  Her attempt at self-reassurance didn’t work. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and for the first time she imagined a life without Axel. The times they had spent Warping around the world filled her thoughts. She remembered soaking in a thermal pool in Iceland and watching the hypnotic northern lights; touching the crumbling marble ruins of the Roman Forum in Italy; riding the Wiener Riesenrad giant Ferris wheel in Vienna.

  As day melted into night, Daisha left her house and crept up the moonlit sidewalk. All of her senses were on high alert. Every person walking or jogging down the street was a potential Pursuer. The headlights of slowly cruising cars were the bright eyeballs of the Doctor on the hunt. Still, she headed straight to Hoover Park.

  The park was completely empty when she arrived there. She slipped over the chain-link fence surrounding the dog run and took position behind the trunk of a large tree. Here she waited patiently in the quiet darkness, praying for Axel to materialize through the Warp.

  An hour later, a barking dog broke the silence.

  “Boris, settle!” a man shouted in broken English. “Cichy, chłopak! I’ll spend the rest of my time off training you if I have to!” He then kicked the dog hard in the ribs to stop its barking.

  Daisha’s heart pounded, and she instantly regretted coming back to the park. She peeked from behind the tree and saw the figure of a tall man open the gate of the dog run. He was holding a leash attached to a large black-and-white dog with pointy ears and a bushy tail curling in a ring over its back. The accent was very familiar to her. Either it was an international Stanford student from an eastern European country, or it was a Pursuer. She hoped it was the former. The man and
his dog moved within ten yards of her. She watched as the dog lifted his back leg and took a pee. Every ounce of her being wanted to run, but if she moved a muscle, the man and dog would notice her for sure.

  There was the sound of a dog leash unsnapping. Two seconds later, the animal sauntered over to the tree where Daisha was hiding, took another pee, and then started to bark at her. She made a motion to run, but the man grabbed her from behind.

  “Where are you going, my sweet dziewczyna?” the man whispered in her ear, his hot breath foul with cigarette smoke. He flicked on a small penlight and shined it in her face. “Ha! I knew it was you, Daisha. You thought cutting your hair would fool us.”

  “Let me go!” Daisha cried out. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Shut up! I’m going to turn you over to Doctor Stain for a very large amount of pieniądze—cold, hard cash.”

  Daisha tried to get away, squirming and kicking with all her might, but it was no use. The man was too big and strong.

  “You’re a fighter, dziewczyna,” the man said, clamping down on her windpipe. “But not tough enough. You know, I was the one who shot your mother right through the heart in this very spot.”

  Fireworks danced in front of Daisha’s eyeballs. The blood vessels in her cheeks exploded under the skin. The black-and-white dog barked again, this time louder and more aggressively than before. She heard a loud crack. A spray of warm blood flicked across her face. The Pursuer screamed in pain. His fingers loosened around her neck, and then he collapsed into a limp heap on top of her.

  A rush of lifesaving air filled Daisha’s lungs. She gasped and pushed the heavy man off her. She sat up on her knees, taking deep breaths and wondering what had just happened. The Pursuer was lying unconscious in the dirt with a bloody gash in the back of his skull. The once-vicious dog was now cowering against the chain-link fence, tail between its legs.