by Ho, Jo
“Figured Bandit would use up any and all books we could buy him in seconds, but with an iPad, we’ll never run out. Plus there are the games and quizzes we can download.” Bandit barked, and I pretty much got the gist of his excitement. Books and quizzes, oh boy, oh boy!
I turned on the iPad and tapped some preloaded icons. “But best of all, there’s this little program…” and placed the device on the ground by Bandit’s feet. Sully crowded around us for a better look.
An app had been opened, called Speak, Spell, Read. I tapped a tab, and a chart of common words appeared next to a diagram illustrating the word. I pressed one word and the iPad said “hello” in a friendly male voice. I hit some more, and we heard “how are you today?” Bandit was so excited he couldn’t keep still. His whole body shook, and he had pretty much slobbered all over me by this point.
“When you want to read, you hit the “books” tab here and choose an age group for the correct reading level. Going by what you’ve read already, I’d say you’re what, five or six years?”
Sully nodded in fascinated agreement.
“So we tap five, and look, hundreds and hundreds of books appear for you to read. Then later, when you’re a little more advanced, there’s stuff like Peter Pan, Charlotte’s Web, Paddington Bear. Any word you don’t understand, you just have to input it like so and…” Chase touched the word “robot”.
The male voice explained, “Artificial life. A machine capable of carrying out a series of complicated commands automatically. In science fiction, it is a machine resembling a human being who is able to replicate certain human movements and functions automatically.”
“Wow.” Sully was blown away by the thing. “This is exactly what he needs to communicate with us.”
“I know, right?” I practically beamed. “We can even pick the voice that suits him best.” I pulled up a menu and started going through the options. The first was too clipped. The second, too mature. Another too corny. We went through what must have been twenty before the perfect voice materialized. It had a joyful tone, full of life and sounded young and excitable. Exactly how we thought of Bandit. He seemed to think it was right too as he laid his paw on my hand to stop me from moving to the next sample.
“But wait.” Sully suddenly had a thought. “How will he be able to touch those buttons? Have you seen the size of his paws?” Bandit moved his paw away as if embarrassed by the enormity of it.
“Aha!” I dived into the bag once more, reappearing with a box of plastic styluses. “Like the ones they use with the Nintendo game thingies,” I explained. But these things were tiny, something I had also given some thought to. I took out some cheap pens and some tape, and taped the stylus onto the pen. I then offered the stylus pen to Bandit who gripped it between his teeth.
Bandit lowered his head and tapped some buttons. “Hello. My name is…” There was a pause as Bandit tried to find his name, but it wasn’t on the most common words list. I reached down and toggled a few menus.
“You press this button — learn — then type in the word. B-A-N-D-I-T. Hit save and look, there it is!” At this, Sully looked almost as excited as Bandit.
Bandit snuck another great big lick at my face, dropping his stylus in the excitement of the moment. He picked it back up daintily and tried again. “Hello. My name is Bandit and I love you.”
Let’s not lie; I practically melted at this, but he wasn’t done. He looked pointedly at me then down at the screen. Then back up to me. I understood immediately what he wanted, even though neither he, nor the iPad, had voiced his thoughts.
Bandit pressed learn, then when the blank window appeared for my input, I spelled out my name. Bandit hit save, then his borrowed voice told me “Chase. You are my best friend.”
“And you mine, Muttface.”
I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his fur.
CHAPTER 64
SULLY
It was ironic. Here we were on the run, heading to the one place I had tried to escape from so many years ago, and yet I hadn’t felt this good since, well, since the day I’d married Emma.
The “kids” (as I was coming round to calling them) were lying on the floor having real conversations. In no time at all, Bandit’s vocabulary had shot up. I estimated he was now reading and conversing at the level of a ten year old. It was all too easy to forget he was a dog.
“Hold up, I need a minute.”
They looked up at me with such complete trust, I felt a pang in my chest. I lowered down to Bandit’s side and peeled back the bandage. The skin was beginning to knit together around the stitches. I was relieved to find there wasn’t a rotten smell — which would have indicated an infection. The wound was healing as well as it could under the circumstances. I would’ve preferred for Bandit to be resting in my clinic, not straining himself, but that wasn’t an option anymore. I changed the bandage quickly, meaning to let the kids continue, but I noticed Bandit’s eyes drooping. I sat back onto my seat and motioned to Chase.
“I think someone has had enough excitement and needs sixty winks.”
Chase immediately rose. “You sleep,” she told the dog. “We’ll talk later.”
“But I am not tired…” Bandit managed to get out before his chin sank onto the iPad and he closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 65
CHASE
Grinning, I removed the stylus, tucked it into the iPad’s case, and took a seat opposite Sully. Moments passed in companionable silence before I caught Sully staring at me. When I didn’t say anything, Sully bit the bullet and asked, “Do you have any siblings?”
I knew we would eventually get around to this, but even this simple question caused tension to flood my body. I stared out at the trees blurring past, hoping he wouldn’t pick up on it. “No. I’m an only child.”
“No other family?”
“None that I know. We weren’t exactly what you’d call close.”
Sensing Sully wanted to ask more but was too polite to push, I let out a deep breath, my face finally expressing the sadness I’d been holding onto all this time.
“When I was little, I used to love Christmas. Not for the food, or the decorations, or even the toys — I never really had many toys — but for the movies. I loved watching happy families gathering together, being together. Even liked it when they argued ‘cause that made them seem real, you know?” I took a breath before continuing.
“They were always such a unit. A real family. So different from my mom and me. I mean, we were OK. We never had enough money and I was always hungry, but we were doing OK. Until she met Tubs.”
Saying his name brought tension to my shoulders. Sully moved as if he wanted to reach out to me, but he didn’t want to break the spell. He stayed in his seat, saying nothing, but encouraging me to continue with his eyes.
“He was a trucker. She met him at the diner she was working at part-time. Said he swept her off her feet, but all he did was pay her a little compliment. Mom was so starved of attention, she lapped it up like a dog.” Bandit’s ear pricked up at the word “dog”, but his eyes stayed shut.
“Within a month he’d moved into our home. Mom doted on him, hand and foot. She loved that she now had a man paying the bills. I tried to have some kind of relationship with him, but Tubs was never interested in me. Far as I knew, he hated kids, and I was just one big annoyance. But then annoyance turned into out and out hate, especially when he was drunk — which he was becoming, more and more frequently. Seemed I couldn’t do anything right and everything I did wrong would send him into a rage. Got so that I cut my hair just so he couldn’t drag me by it anymore.”
Sully’s breath hissed out and I saw him bite his lip. I turned back to the window and shrugged. “Anyways, things stayed like that a while, until one day, I realized Tubs was paying a bit too much attention to me. He was always watching, always leering. I tried telling mom, but she wasn’t interested in hearing anything bad about him. I knew I wasn’t safe there anymore so I stole their savings —
which wasn’t much — and got outta there. Made do until I met Bandit. That’s my story really. Not very exciting.”
By now Bandit was softly snoring and had missed my tale. I was glad. I didn’t want him to lose the sweet naivety he had.
When Sully finally spoke, it was terse. “Some people just don’t deserve to have kids.”
“No, they don’t,” I agreed. I looked at him questioningly. “What about you and Emma? Did you guys ever want kids?”
Sully seemed to physically flinch at the question. “Yeah,” he managed to get out. “We did.”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out suddenly. “If I hadn’t come to you, they wouldn’t have destroyed your home. This is all my fault.”
Sully shook his head. “You wanted to save Bandit. You weren’t the thugs who burned my place down. You didn’t start this. They did.”
“But they wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t chosen you.”
“But you did choose me, and… I’m grateful for that.”
My eyes were misting over with tears, but I felt hopeful now too. “You are?”
Sully smiled. “I’ve been living a lie, Chase. The last year, I’ve barely managed to survive, but now, I’m beginning to feel alive again. So no, I don’t blame you for what happened.”
“So you’re not mad at me?” I had to get clarification, not being good at reading people at times.
Surprise broke over his face. “If I was, don’t you think I’d have said something by now?”
“Tubs didn’t,” I said. “He’d stew over things until they boiled over.”
Sully’s features hardened. “Yeah, well, don’t ever mistake me for that coward.”
He fell silent for a moment, thinking. “The only thing I’m angry about is that I don’t have anything left of Emma’s. I was hoarding her things, holding on to them as if that kept her alive, and now there’s nothing but my memories of us. Everything’s gone.”
I bit the side of my lip as I studied him, torn. Then silently, I opened my backpack and reached inside. “You should have this.” I handed a framed photograph to Sully. He stared down at the picture, overwhelmed to see Emma’s smiling face looking back up at him. In the picture, he had his arm around her and they were strolling down a beach. A captured moment of normality, but one that now meant the world to him.
Tears erupted, tears he didn’t even bother to hide. He ran a finger over Emma’s face. “Why did you take it?”
I could feel myself squirming, uncomfortable. “I don’t know. You both looked so happy.”
Sully looked like he didn’t know what he could, so he kept it simple. “Thank you, Chase. Thank you.”
CHAPTER 66
THE MERCENARY
The Mercenary wasn’t pleased.
After spending two hours listening to Armstrong drown his sorrows — the man really liked the sound of his own voice — one thing was clear: he had no idea where Sullivan had gone, and Sullivan himself was a ghost. No contacts listed under family outside of his wife, no mention of where he grew up. Digging through the national birth registry revealed some three hundred listings for a Jake Sullivan. The Mercenary was hitting a wall, and he didn’t like it one bit.
After he paid for lunch, an act that felt alien to The Mercenary, who wasn’t known for his generosity but would be something his “character” would do, The Mercenary retreated back into his van, where his men were scanning airwaves and the internet for signs of any activity that would match their perpetrators.
As per standard operating procedure, The Mercenary had put eyes and ears on Armstrong and the annoying old woman who had worked at the clinic. The busybody spent her entire time on the phone, calling everyone she knew, telling them of her concern over Sullivan. So far, they had tallied up twenty hours of recordings. Thank God The Mercenary wouldn’t need to listen to them himself. There wasn’t enough money in the world to make him endure that torture.
All he could do now was wait.
And that was the worst part of his job.
CHAPTER 67
CHASE
I’d never told anyone my sorry story before. It wasn’t something I liked to think about. I’m not one of those “woe is me” people, you know? I just deal with it and move on with my life. Besides, if I spent my time mulling over the past, I’d be a seriously depressed person… or a drunk. And neither of those were possibilities for me. You see, I had long decided that I’d prove mom and Tubs wrong. I was someone special. I was worthwhile. And if they didn’t want me, someone out there would.
Bandit snuck his head onto my lap, finally awake from his nap. A tuft of brown fur stood up messily on the top of his head, giving him a very human and comical look. Trust him to have bed head. I reached over and smoothed it down. His nose searched my pockets and fished out the stylus of his own accord. I watched him crawl eagerly to the charging iPad and turn it on. Don’t think I’d ever not get a thrill watching him use it. Judging by the sappy expression in Sully’s face, he was thinking the same thing. He always looked at the dog like it was Christmas morning. Like the kids on those heart-warming holiday movies.
Bandit tapped a few words. “Hello again friends! I am hungry.” Chase rubbed her stomach, feeling sympathy pangs.
“Do we have anything left?”
Sully rummaged around inside his bag but came up empty-handed. He shook his head. “We’ve got juice, water, and a few nuts, but that’s it. There’s a dining car on the train though. We could give that a try.”
I stood up and held out my hand for some cash. Sully opened up his wallet and forked over some more bills. I totally dug that. Getting money had never been this easy before.
Bandit nudged against my leg, wanting to come with me, but I figured we should keep a low profile. “No boy. Stay here. Keep out of sight.” He whined, unhappy to leave me alone, but said “OK.” I smiled. I would never get enough of his talking thing.
CHAPTER 68
CHASE
I stepped out of our cabin and closed the door behind me. Though I wasn’t anticipating any problems, it didn’t hurt to be safe. Gorgeous scenery flew past the window, so beautiful that even I had to stop and admire. Horses grazed on grassy fields beneath towering maple trees that arched over pockets of water. Every so often a quaint church or cluster of buildings interrupted the picturesque view, a reminder that even out here, in the most remote countryside, people could thrive. I wondered if we would find a place like this at the end of our travels. I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life lounging under a tree, playing fetch with Bandit. Briefly, I wondered if Sully would be there.
I wrapped my arms around myself and realized that for the first time since Tubs had appeared in my life, I felt hopeful. A smile snuck over my face. Humming to myself, I made my way to the dining car, which it turns out, sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is. Plastic tables and molded seats lined one side of the carriage, where an elderly couple sat, nursing cups of coffee and slabs of a pasty-looking cake. The other half of the carriage contained a kiosk housing vending machines, a grill, and a display of ready-made deli-like dishes. The elderly couple looked up on my approach. Seeing my smile, they smiled back, which was a whole new thing for me too. Usually they just grimaced, wrinkling their nose in disgust when they caught a whiff of me. I arrived at the display cabinet and surveyed the contents inside. There were tubs of potato salad, slaw, and salad, and platters lined with slices of chicken and ham, with a mound of pickles decorating the center.
The bored service girl looked up from the National Enquirer she was reading. “Let me know when you’ve decided,” she said, nosily popping a piece of gum. She didn’t wait for a response and went right back to reading.
“I’ve decided.”
She put the magazine down and came over. “That was quick.”
“I don’t mess around when it comes to food.”
“Apparently not. So what’re you having?”
I pointed at the tray of meat slices. “I’ll take those, some turk
ey and lettuce sandwiches. Those brownies and juice boxes. Four. Might as well throw in a bag of Cheetos too. The extra large.”
She looked at me, a pair of metal tongs in her gloved hand. “How many slices of the chicken and ham?”
“All of them.”
She blinked, pausing a beat. “Like, all all?”
I nodded. “Just put them in saran wrap. That’ll be great.” She didn’t respond, but looked at me like she thought this was all some kind of sorority stunt. I figured some clarification was in order. “They’re for my dog. We forgot to bring food for him.”
At that she unfroze. “I thought you were joking, but that makes sense now. I’ve got some nuggets in the fridge too. You think he’d want them?”
“Hell, I’d take ‘em just for me, but yeah, nuggets would be great too. He’s got a big appetite.”
She grabbed the platter, tipped it on one end, and slid the meat into a plastic baggie. “They all do. We have a tiny terrier at home; she’s smaller than a cat, but she can eat like a horse. Don’t know where they put it all.”
So we were sharing now. This was nice. I tried not to fidget, anxious to get back to Sully and Bandit. “So how much does that come to?”
She packed the rest of the items I’d ordered into a paper bag and rang up the total on a cash register. “Fourteen eighty-nine.”
I counted out three fives and handed them over. “Keep the change.” Although it gave me a bit of a thrill to say that, part of me already questioned my generosity. It wasn’t that long ago when my only source of food was from a dumpster.
She nodded thanks, then immediately went back to her tabloid rag. I’m guessing she gets tipped a lot and eleven cents wasn’t much of a big deal. Arms loaded up with supplies, I made my way back. I caught a few curious stares. One lady commented “you must have big appetites in your family.” I faked a laugh and nodded but didn’t stop or elaborate. She turned back to deal with her two kids, fighting over a PS Vita. I was pretty thrilled by her response. No suspicious stares, no worry that a cop was going to come along with questions. I was finally passing as a normal kid. I practically skipped back to our car, letting myself in with a clever use of my elbows since my hands were full.