The Warning

by Patterson, James

  “Nice to see you again, gentlemen,” I said, then shot a glance over at Luke. “Your ‘recruiters.’”

  He looked befuddled.

  Alpha and the suits took a couple of menacing steps toward me.

  “Everyone, go!” I ordered. “Maggie, go get help!”

  Alpha let out a wheezy laugh. “There’s no—ah—help for her to get, Rho. Don’t you understand?”

  What I understood was that I needed to get these innocent people away from these psychos. I crouched low in a ready stance, thinking I could keep them occupied while Maggie and everyone else fled.

  Silver flashed as Alpha’s sword sprang from his sleeve, prompting gasps from the onlookers. “I—ah—don’t mind dismantling you, Rho. You weren’t that—ah—difficult to put together in the first place.”

  “Hold on a sec,” I said, making a stop sign with my right hand, standing up straight, and turning my back on them to face Maggie. “Believe me now? You see what I’m talking about?”

  “Y-yes!” she said, obviously petrified.

  I was gambling that Alpha and the suits weren’t going to jump me from behind—or maybe it wasn’t a gamble but rather a keen instinct that they weren’t moving, even though I couldn’t see them.

  “‘Oh, no, a sword out of his arm, that’s so far-fetched!’” I mimicked in a high-pitched voice as I flailed my arms, then mouthed to her, “Run!”

  “Come on, Jordan,” she shot back. “I thought you said it was a big, sharp sword. That thing is puny and pathetic. I wouldn’t use it on butter.” Then she mouthed, “No.”

  Alpha and the suits were preparing their attack; I could feel it. I turned to the crowd as if I were about to juggle for money.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” I announced. “If you think things in town have been a little weird, here are the people with all the answers, and they’d be happy to take your questions.”

  “Ah—folks—sorry to disappoint, but the show is now over,” Alpha announced, and Scar and Goldie were suddenly on either side of me, holding down my arms. I could take these guys; I knew it. But it was better for me to go along than to instigate a bloody brawl here in the street.

  “Okay, okay,” I said as they led me toward the SUV.

  “Jordan!” Maggie cried out.

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  Scar opened the back door, and a montage of potential next moves flashed through my mind. But before I could do anything, I heard a roar and charging footsteps.

  “That’s my teammate!” Luke bellowed, and he swung his crutch into Goldie’s temple while Troy took down Scar in a vicious knee tackle that on the field would’ve been flagged for a personal foul but was quite welcome here. I swung free, elbows flying, and here came Tico, gunning for Alpha.

  “No!” I called to him, and Alpha’s sword came swinging down toward my friend’s ducked head.

  But Tico is an elusive dude, and he managed to sidestep the blade and get his arms wrapped around Alpha’s midsection to take him down with a clattering crunch. I stomped on the base of the blade, pinning Alpha to the pavement, and Luke, having incapacitated Goldie, threw his body over the grotesque scientist in an expert wrestling move.

  The onlookers shouted and screamed as if horrified but also invigorated by this scene. We’d fared well so far, but I knew what these guys were capable of, and we needed to extricate ourselves from this situation with as little bloodshed as possible.

  Suddenly, I heard a gasp and “Arrgh!” Alpha had sprouted a dagger out of his right foot à la Lotte Lenya in From Russia with Love and kicked it up into Luke’s side. Luke arched his back in pain, and that was enough to let Alpha back on his feet, and his blade came down swiftly on my former nemesis.

  “Lmmmph!” cried Troy through his shut mouth and charged Alpha, but Tico intercepted him and pushed him back toward the crowd as Alpha’s sword slashed downward again, drawing a red line down Tico’s back.

  “Go!” I shouted again at everyone, and this time they took my advice, fleeing in all directions. I caught Maggie’s eye, and we exchanged nods; when she committed to one direction, I would sprint in another, assuming that Alpha and his minions would pursue me and no one else. But first I locked eyes with Alpha, who was standing over Luke’s bloody body and grinning.

  Monster.

  I shook my head and shot out of there, and the guys in suits shot after me despite what had looked like significant injuries inflicted on them by Luke and Troy. I had no idea whether they could run as fast as I could, but I had no choice of action at that point.

  I pumped my arms and legs as hard as they would go down Main Street, across Chestnut, turning the corner at Greenville, flying past Prince. I looked back and saw the suits still on my tail a steady fifty feet back. There was no sign of Alpha, which unnerved me more than if there were. I did my best to lead these thugs out of town so no one would get caught in our fight, but the only options were north or south. I picked south.

  I kept running, my lungs strangely okay despite all the exertion I was putting them through. The men in suits had faded from view, but I kept going. The storefronts gave way to houses and then the industrial area before the bridge. Tall chain-link and barbed-wire fences ran alongside me and eventually disappeared. A rabbit scampered across an empty field, and I wondered whether it had been implanted, too, though it was doing nothing out of the ordinary.

  Finally, I reached the bridge and stopped. I was panting but still upright.

  I saw no sign of Alpha or the suits. Had they stopped following me, or were they tracking me in another way, such as from their car? Well, even if they were, Maggie probably was safe. That mattered most to me.

  I looked at the bridge. For something under construction for so long, not much appeared to have been accomplished. The supporting arch beneath the bridge was finished, so I might have been able to tightrope across, but there was no roadbed or even the beginning of one.

  Escape via the southern route was not happening.

  A few unfamiliar construction vehicles held piles of pipes for support, as well as bundles and bundles of steel cable. A bright yellow cabinet marked FLAMMABLE AND EXPLOSIVE sat on the roadside. Perhaps they needed to blast holes in the rock.

  All of a sudden I sensed I was being watched. I did a 360, my eyes working fine in the darkness. I knew what I was looking for.

  There he was: one of the black-suit guys, somehow visible to me. As I focused on him, I could see it was Goldie standing several yards away amid the trees, just watching.

  I decided to get his attention and set out to break into the explosives cabinet. I found a crowbar on one of the truck beds and went to work on the box. It was locked, but this was no safe, and I was strong enough to bend steel. I shoved the crowbar between the two doors and began to pry. The door didn’t budge, not even after the big yellow box started to shake.

  Goldie took off from the tree line toward me. I reminded myself that I’d incapacitated these guys once before. I kept yanking the crowbar and gouging the steel, but the door still wasn’t opening. With my supersensitive eyes, I could see in the cabinet reflection that he was getting close, and when I judged him to be at the right distance, I took a home-run swing in his direction.

  My judgment was off; my swing came too fast.

  Leading with his shoulder, he slammed me into the cabinet. I pushed him off me and struck out with the crowbar, but he ducked it easily.

  Man, he was fast.

  He threw a punch, but I blocked it with my arm and swung the crowbar again, this time into his hip. He was ready for me and grabbed the bar with his hand.

  “How do you do that?” I yelled.

  “By the power of Ishango,” he said, straight-faced.

  I put on a grin. “Like the power of Grayskull? He-Man?”

  No response.

  “Where’d the ring come from?” I asked as if chatting amiably as we circled each other. “Who’s the lucky bride? Alpha?”

  He stopped, pulled a gun from his suit jacke
t, and pointed it at my head.

  “Well, that’s not too sporting,” I said.

  “I don’t want to shoot you. Come with me quietly. Ishango wants to meet with you.”

  “So Ishango’s your old lady. I get it.”

  “We have ways of making you obey.”

  “No, it’s ‘Ve have vays of making you talk.’ If you’re going to sound like that, get the lingo right.”

  “Drop the bar and come with me, Rho, and no one will get hurt.”

  “Right. Except Deputy Ruby and Luke. You guys killed Luke! He’s a kid! Like me!” I couldn’t shake how someone who’d been such an asshole would turn out to do the noblest thing I’d ever seen. This couldn’t all be happening. High schoolers didn’t die. Neighbors didn’t get vaporized.

  “That was unfortunate.” The neutrality in Goldie’s voice enraged me. I willed myself to take a deep breath and changed the subject.

  “Why do you keep calling me Rho?”

  Goldie relaxed his stance but kept the gun aimed at me. “Rho is the seventeenth letter of the Grecian alphabet. You are the seventeenth version of the specimen that Ishango has spent decades developing.”

  “Let me guess: You’re Beta. And your real name is Max,” I goaded. “How many of you are there?”

  “No, I’m not Beta Max,” he said in the tone of a bored teacher. “As a child, your understanding of time is so compressed. I am Iota.”

  “Fitting, because you don’t make an iota of difference to me. So who’s your partner? Scintilla? Smidgen?”

  “Kappa.”

  “Ah, Kappa,” I said, somehow drawing from my mind’s deep recesses the Greek alphabet’s order. “So he’s one later than you. One better.”

  “I am close.”

  “Close? Close to what? Close to the edge? Closer to fine? You don’t get me closer to God.”

  “To human.”

  “Well,” I said with a big smile, “there’s a lot you don’t understand about humans yet. Like how crazy we can be.”

  I ran for the cliff where the bridge began.

  And jumped.

  Having gotten a glance at the cliff before he’d arrived, I noticed a narrow ledge jutting out just beneath its edge. So when I took my leap, I flailed my arms and sold the idea that I was taking the big plummet. In reality I dropped about five feet, then rolled onto my back against the cliff wall. There I waited for Iota to step up to the lip and peer down for me.

  The instant he did, I swung the curved end of the crowbar around his neck and yanked.

  The fall looked painful, with a couple of head bounces off the rocks on his way down. Then again, I wasn’t sure this dude could feel.

  “Hey, you okay?” I heard a familiar voice from above.

  I swung back the crowbar just in case, but when I saw Tico’s face peek over the cliff’s edge, I relaxed.

  “Yo, buddy, wassup?” I asked.

  “I was right behind you,” he said, panting. “But then that became way behind you. Where do I apply for one of your speed upgrades?”

  CHAPTER 43

  Maggie

  AT JORDAN’S COMMAND, everyone scattered as if a bomb had been dropped into the middle of the intersection. I instinctively fled toward home, then decided that might be a bad idea, so I zigzagged through several blocks while trying to figure out a game plan. Soon I heard steps behind me, getting louder, and I braced myself for attacking or being attacked. Neither of those options was my thing.

  “Maggie, wait up!” called out a high-pitched voice, and I turned around to see Suzanne’s approaching silhouette illuminated by the streetlights.

  “Whew, you scared me,” I said. “Where’s Tico?”

  “He went off to chase after your boyfriend. Pretty gallant, huh?”

  “He’s not my boyf—”

  “Maggie! No time for bullshit!” Suzanne cut me off. “We need to find them and make a plan—and see how bad Tico’s back wound is. And his concussion. That literally bloody fool.”

  We took a very circuitous route back to my house, cutting through yards, fields, and side paths while keeping an eye out for anyone following us. Mom’s pickup was parked in front. I didn’t want to enter the house in case anyone was waiting for me—and I didn’t want to involve my mom any more than I already had. The truck’s spare key was on my key ring.

  “Get in,” I said as I unlocked the pickup’s doors. Once inside, I grabbed the flashlight from the glove compartment, placed it between Suzanne and myself, and put the truck into gear.

  I drove slowly with the lights off, creeping up and down side streets while the two of us looked for Jordan and Tico—or anyone else we’d be less happy to encounter. I headed in the plant’s general direction, though I was hoping not to get too close.

  “Wait!” Suzanne shouted.

  A thick-set figure was standing ahead of us in the middle of the street, waving his arms over his head. It’s indicative of my frame of mind that I was ready to gun it and run this guy down—and my expression must’ve reflected my murderous impulse, because Suzanne barked, “No! Maggie! It’s okay!”

  I slowed to a stop, and none other than Troy Cameron came around to my side of the car.

  “Mmmph! Mmmph!” he said through his wired-shut jaw. His face was tear-streaked, his T-shirt soaked with sweat.

  I hooked my thumb toward the back of the pickup.

  “In,” I said.

  I thought he’d get into the back seat, but he climbed onto the cargo bed instead.

  My slow drive wound up into the hills. As I rounded a woodsy curve, there was a huge thunk on the car roof, and I slammed on the brakes.

  Jordan came tumbling onto the front hood, laughing.

  “What the fuck, Jordan!” I said as I huffed out of the car, flashlight in hand.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he said, rolling onto his back, still on the hood. “I’ve always wanted to jump onto a moving car like in the movies, and I figured this was my shot. Oh, hi, Suzanne. And … Troy?”

  “Mmmph!” Troy said from the back.

  Jordan walked up to Troy and gave him a firm handshake-hug. “Thanks,” he muttered into Troy’s ear, “teammate.”

  “You,” Suzanne barked, pointing at Jordan as she stepped out of the car, “are an idiot.” She turned to me to add, “Sorry.”

  “Oh, it’s okay,” I said. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  Tico emerged from the dark woods and strolled up to the car like a normal, not-insane person. “Hey, guys.”

  “Turn around,” Suzanne ordered as I shone the flashlight on him, and he revealed a thick bar of red running down the back of his shirt. Suzanne pulled up the shirt’s bottom flap and peered at the wound. “We need to get you to a hospital. Or to Maggie’s mom to stitch you up.”

  “Nah,” he said. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “‘It’s just a flesh wound,’” Jordan said in a British accent as he rolled off the hood.

  “What is wrong with you?” I asked him.

  “Nothing, aside from everything,” he said cheerfully. “I killed one of the suits, at least. Now Tico and I have decided it’s time to stay on offense.” He looked to Troy. “You up for that?”

  Troy nodded. “Mmmph!”

  For the first time, I noticed the heavy tan duffel bag hanging over Tico’s shoulder. The printing on the bag’s side read “Hogan Construction.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Candy-gram for Ishango,” Jordan said.

  An exasperated Suzanne threw her hands down to her sides. “Maggie, I don’t understand half the shit your boyfriend is saying.”

  “He’s not my boyf—”

  “I have a plan,” Jordan said to Suzanne, then turned to me. “Wait, I’m not your—”

  “What’s the plan, then?” Suzanne demanded.

  “Put it this way,” Tico said. “It’s an idea in search of a plan.”

  “And the idea is …?” I asked.

  “Supercomputer supernova,” Jorda
n said.

  I looked at Jordan, then Tico. “What’s actually in the bag?”

  “Explosives,” Jordan said.

  “What?” I shouted at him. “Where did you—why are you carrying around explosives? Did you not notice what happened to the Carters?”

  “These are all stable,” he said. “I don’t know how I know that, but I do.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Look, blowing up stuff isn’t plan A,” Jordan said. “Plan A is we get in to see Ishango, get a feel for where she’s coming from, maybe even reason with her.”

  “Who’s she?” Suzanne asked.

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “Did you not hear the part about how she wants to reprogram you so you’re under her command? You think you can appeal to some sense of computerly compassion after she’s killed all these innocent people? You’d be insane to go anywhere near her.”

  “Hence plan B,” Jordan said.

  “Oh, lordy.”

  “Look, if Ishango wanted to kill me, she would have by now. She’d have blown up your house while we were sleeping or commanded all her underlings to come after me. They probably even have a tracking device in me.”

  “You think?” I asked.

  “Well, I just thought of it, but if I were putting all sorts of implants into the new Six Million Dollar Man, a tracking device would be among them.”

  “Maybe you’re bugged, too, so they can listen to everything you say,” Suzanne said.

  We all went silent for a moment.

  “I guess that wouldn’t surprise me, either,” Jordan said softly.

  “So they may be listening to us making these plans?” Tico asked, shifting the explosives bag to his other shoulder.

  “I don’t actually think so,” Jordan said, “but you never know.”

  “Where do you think the mic would be?” I asked. “Not in his head—too loud, too much potential for distortion.”

  Suzanne crouched down in front of Jordan’s crotch. “Hey, assholes!” she yelled.

  “Honey!” Tico called.

  “It wouldn’t be there, either,” I said. “They wouldn’t want to amplify his bodily functions that much. My guess is they’d put it somewhere near those surgically repaired ribs.”