by Ho, Jo
And that terrified me.
If her mom knew he was special that opened up a whole host of questions I did not want to ask. Was it possible that someone else out there knew about him?
I focused on Bandit being the reason for the kidnapping rather than Chase, as there was a large part of me that refused to believe her own mother would hurt her. In all the stories Chase had told about her childhood, her mother was selfish and not particularly nice, but she had never hurt her. She seemed a victim herself. I desperately hoped Chase was okay. She had to be.
Sam yelled down the phone. She was trying to secure a helicopter that we could use to get to Bandit’s location faster but unfortunately, this required some red tape and her hands were tied. She couldn't reveal the helicopter would be to rescue a minor as that would instantly become an FBI issue, or mention anything about a super-smart-dog-that-had-been-created-in-a-lab either. It was looking more and more like we were on our own. We’d have to jump in the car and go after them.
It was a terrible idea and we all knew it.
As they had a six or seven hour head start, we could be playing catch-up forever. Unable to get anywhere, Sam slammed the phone down and marched over to me.
"I tried but there's nothing I can get us. There isn't a way to get help without telling anyone what we are doing." She sounded as desperate as I felt.
While Sam had been on the phone, Gideon had been impatiently watching over my shoulder while I kept my eye on the beacon announcing Bandit’s current location. He grabbed my arm and started pulling me away from the desk.
"We’re wasting time! Let’s just go after them ourselves." He looked at the two of us, pleadingly. Sam grabbed her gun and slid it into its holster securely as she nodded in agreement.
“You’re coming with us?” I asked her, shocked.
“I told you, you’re family,” she said.
I was so relieved by her answer that I almost broke down.
The three of us rushed outside and started after them.
64
Chase
I had been walking now for what seemed like hours.
My feet screamed from pain and I was sure I had developed blisters the size of ping pong balls. Branches tore at my arms covering me with scratches that itched one minute, then stung like crazy the next. Wind whistled through the tears in my thin cardigan and I knew it was only the exertion from the exercise that kept me from feeling the cold. I could still see the faraway sun, but it was barely a dot on the horizon. Night was fast approaching, and I had made no headway out of the forest.
Knowing it was highly unlikely that I was going to be rescued any time soon, I had to seriously consider my options for camping down for the night. There was a part of me that wondered if I'd be able to navigate by torchlight, but twisted tree roots shot up from the ground all around me, not forgetting those freaking branches. If I tried walking at night without being able to see much around me, I would run the risk of hurting myself — and that was the best case scenario. I was pretty convinced that, knowing my luck, I would end up dead in a ravine or blunder my way into the path of a bear, which they probably had in these parts, if only I knew where these parts were.
So no exploring in the dark. I would be sleeping here tonight.
I found myself a tree, one with a thick trunk and started gathering leaves beside it. It wasn't much but that trunk would offer some shelter in case of rain or wind. From my time on the streets I knew when sleeping rough, one of the worst things you had to deal with was the ground. If you didn't insulate yourself from it, the cold would creep into your bones causing a restless night so my priority was to find whatever I could to create a layer between myself and it, but seeing as there were only leaves and dirt and twigs, I didn't have much to work with.
Back at the ranch, one of my favorite hobbies was watching survival shows on television. You know, the ones where they left celebrities on an uninhabited island for a couple of days or weeks where they have to survive with nothing but a knife? Those were one of the few shows I loved to watch so I knew that finding water was of uber importance, as was creating shelter, and if I was going to be here more than one or two days, making a fire could be the difference in saving my life. Whilst whoever it was had left me here with a bottle of water, a fire would give me the light and heat that I would most likely need to see me through the night. I also knew that a fire helped psychologically, lifting the spirit so you wouldn’t give into despair.
I went through all the ways I knew of starting a fire without matches or a lighter. I could use the sun if I had a magnifying piece of glass of some kind, which of course, I didn’t. Trust me to be in the one wood where nobody littered. But when I glanced back at the sinking sun, I realized that even if I had a magnifying glass, the sun wouldn’t last long enough for me to get something started. I knew I could use batteries and aluminum foil or a cell phone and steel wool, while I was thinking along those lines, the right chemicals could also work, but I had none of those either. In the end, I realized my only possible option would be friction-based fire starting, in other words, rubbing some sticks or stones together which — going by what I remembered from those shows — was also the hardest way to do it, which was just great. I needed another challenge.
Feeling sorry for myself, I dug around the ground looking for a couple of sticks that might work. If you’re wondering how I knew all of this, I’ve that enormous photographic memory, remember? After searching for a while, I finally found two sticks that seemed like they would do the job. I was intending to use a technique called a Friction Drill where you have one stick standing vertically in the other stick, which would lay horizontally and have a groove cut inside. I was going to use my shoelaces to wrap around the vertical stick which I would use as a spindle. As the spindle rotates under the correct speed and friction, it should cause embers to appear. Feeling hopeful, I started rotating the spindle, but within seconds, the thing kept sliding out of place or the shoelaces would slip off. I reset it time and time again, but I couldn’t even get it to stay in place long enough to get any friction going.
It was hopeless.
Rage surged through me as I flung my hard-found sticks away. Inky blackness inched towards me as the sun began to set. I fixed my eyes on that sun, memorizing that glowing image, hoping that that would be enough to get me through the night. As it finally dipped out of sight, I found myself in a well of terrifying darkness. I fumbled for the torch, fingers sliding blindly around it until I was finally able to flip the switch on, but the beam that appeared was weak and only lit the area immediately before me.
By now, I was shivering from the cold, but that wasn’t why I was scared. Now that the sun had gone, it seemed the forest was alive. All around me I could hear rustling as creatures trod over leaves. Invisible things stirred in the branches overhead, causing the hair to stay permanently raised on the back of my neck. I was terrified that at any moment a scorpion or snake might drop down on me. Briefly the thought that scorpions provided a decent amount of calories entered my head before I almost retched. I’d die first.
I emptied out the bag and folded it before setting it down on the ground. Sitting on it, with my back against the tree trunk, I wrapped my arms around my legs and rested my chin on top of my knees. Only my butt touched the ground, so I hoped the rest of me would stay warm.
As I fought to fight the panic creeping along the edge of my mind, my thoughts drifted back to Bandit as a desperate gnawing ache appeared in my stomach.
Where was he?
Were they hurting him?
65
Bandit
Cold.
Why was it so cold?
Bandit opened his eyes to find he was in a place he had never been before. There were vertical lines in front of his eyes that he didn't understand, and the air smelt dusty. And old. Like this place, wherever it was, had not been cleaned in a century or more. His tongue felt thick with dryness and he smacked his lips together, looking for a water bowl. He s
hook his head, trying to clear away the fog that clung there.
He sniffed the air anxiously desperate to locate Chase's smell, but there was just that dust. It was so thick that he could not find his friend. Forcing himself onto his trembling paws, he tried to make out where he was. As he examined his surroundings more, he came to a terrible conclusion. The vertical lines in front of his eyes were bars.
He was trapped in a cage.
Bandit began to pant heavily as memories surfaced of his time spent before in places like this, and with them came the fear. How had this happened? How was he back in a cage?
He backed away from the bars but took only a few steps before his rear hit the back of his prison. This was a small cage, smaller than any he had been in before back where he was from.
Unable to control himself, he whined, a sound of pure fear as he turned around and pushed at the bars with his forehead.
"Now, now, none of that," came an annoyed voice.
Bandit looked up to see a man in front of him. He was not interesting to look at and he smelt like the liquids Sully liked to clean the bathroom with. It wasn't a nice smell and irritated his nose. Bandit pawed at it, disgusted when he suddenly realized that he had seen this man before, at Gideon’s workplace — and he hadn’t liked him much then. He had tried to warn Chase that something about him was wrong, when she and Gideon had been on the fire escape helping him move into the apartment above the garage, but as they had been out in public, he didn’t have his iPad on him at the time. And as the two had left the man soon after, Bandit had forgotten to tell them. Bandit whined now, feeling bad. Maybe if he had remembered to warn them, he and Chase would still be together now.
Wanting to speak, Bandit went for his iPad before he remembered it wasn’t in the pouch he wore around his neck: it was in Chase’s bag. He barked, deeply unhappy by this turn of events.
The man watched him in fascination. "My name is Xavier. You are probably wondering what you are doing here, yes? I am a scientist, a world-class scientist if you must know, and you are the key to my greatest experiment."
Bandit had heard this kind of talk before. Where he was from, people often spoke of him like he was a thing to be used, so this did not frighten him. No, what frightened him was the manic gleam in the strange man's eyes. Bandit barked at him, frustrated that the man could not understand him. Maybe if he could speak to him, the man would let him out? However, Xavier shrugged, unconcerned.
"I'm sorry, I do not understand what you are saying."
Bandit's eyes scanned the room until they found his iPad lying on a table in the far side. It wasn’t in Chase’s bag after all! He barked again, pawing in the direction of his iPad. Xavier saw the motion with interest and smiled.
"You want your iPad? You want to communicate with me?"
Bandit barked once for yes, but Xavier shook his head. "Despite how intelligent you are, I don't care what you have to say. I am only interested in what lies inside your head. I believe you knew my old partner Sebastien Forbes?
Hearing his name caused frightening memories to assault him. Bandit saw Forbes command the white-coats to do terrible things to his friends, things that had them foaming at the mouth and wetting themselves. Sometimes, after a Forbes visit, his friends wouldn’t be able to stand for several days and had to crawl around on their tummies.
Bad man. Bad man. Bad man.
Bandit shook, unable to stop the chill that raced through his body at the mere mention of the man who had tortured him for most of his life.
"I see that you do. Don't worry, he and I are very different people. Sebastien was obsessed with healing his own illness and cared nothing of the world, unlike me. What I do will change humanity forever. What I do, I do for all of mankind. So you see, Alpha, I'm not like him at all."
A sound came from the next room and with it, the smell of burgers and the sweet drink Chase liked called Coke. A young man came into the room. He was thin and there was a nervous air about him. Bandit could see he was younger than Xavier and he seemed excited. He bounded over to the cage and stared at Bandit.
“He's awake! He doesn’t look that smart, does he?” he said to Xavier.
“And how is a smart dog supposed to look, Dick?” Xavier said, barely able to contain his patience. Dick shrugged.
“I don’t know, I just thought he would look more special.” He wandered towards Xavier and stopped at the bench where the iPad sat. “Pretty clever of them to teach him how to speak using an iPad.” He stared at the tablet as if it were a mythical creature that would come alive at any moment.
Frowning, Xavier crossed the distance to him, snatched a heavy metal bar from the bench then violently smashed it onto the iPad. One, two, three times! The glass screen cracked and smoke rose from the destroyed tablet. Dick jumped back, startled… and a little afraid.
“Why did you do that? I was looking forward to using it with him!”
Xavier fixed cold eyes on him. “The last thing I need is for you to be communicating with this dog. I don’t want him filling your little head with any of his big ideas.”
Bandit had watched the two in silence, but now he barked louder and louder, until Dick covered his ears, cringing. “Why is he doing that! Stop it!”
Xavier studied Bandit shrewdly. “He is probably concerned for the girl, Chase?”
“Woof!”
“The girl is fine. We dumped her in a forest, but she’ll be OK so long as she figures out how to get out of there. We weren’t going to harm her. She was collateral damage, and we needed her out of the way.”
Hearing this, Bandit felt some of the panic lessen. She was safe! Chase was fine. Or at least, she would be. Squashing himself into a corner of his prison, Bandit sat and tried not to let the fear overwhelm him.
Chase would come for him.
He knew she would.
66
Sully
Hands gripped on the wheel, Sully watched the needle flirt dangerously towards eighty. It was against the law to drive any faster but Sully wondered if that still applied when one of its own representatives were in the car.
Gideon had fallen into an exhausted sleep on the backseat. When they had first left, Gideon had insisted upon driving. Wired with all that had happened, he’d had no other outlet so Sully had stepped aside. He’d let the younger guy drive for several hours until they stopped for a restroom break. It was Sam’s idea to switch drivers then as she had seen the younger boy’s eyelids drooping from weariness, now that his initial adrenaline had faded.
The three of them didn’t know what they were more concerned about. Having to leave Zeb while he was in intensive care at a hospital almost caused Gideon to break. The kid considered the old man his own father, and in the six months that they had lived together as a family, Sully thought of him as a younger brother though Sully wasn’t quite as ready to adopt him like he had Chase and Bandit. Although Bandit was only a year or two old his brain and intellect were on par with those of a teenager. Sully was only in his thirties and didn’t feel old enough to be a father of three grown kids. He felt a sudden sob rise in his throat and had to force himself not to give in to it. His own panic would not help the situation. He looked over at Sam, sitting stoically in the passenger seat and shot a prayer of thanks that her calming presence was here for this.
Her eyes were fixed on the screen on her phone which was tapped into the tracking website. The entire time we had driven, Sam called out instructions although as they had gotten quite far ahead of us, the directions mostly consisted along the lines of "stay on this road for another four hours."
It was impossible to believe that, even with all her contacts, there was no legal way for us to catch up to them any faster. Every option we brainstormed led to alerting the authorities, which was just too dangerous. I even toyed with the idea of stealing a helicopter like Chase had, but Sam had put an end to that fast enough. Licensed helicopters needed to file flight plans and get clearance, all of which took time that we didn’t have. Sam
warned us that if we tried to fly without them, we’d be caught soon enough. Chase had gotten lucky that the one aircraft she hijacked had been a stealth machine that didn’t play by the rules. Unfortunately, we couldn’t rely on the same good fortune.
Sam looked up from her phone and I could feel her eyes fix on me.
“You want me to take over?” she asked softly.
I shook my head. I needed the physicality of driving. Going through the motions grounded me and made me feel like I was doing something to save them.
She accepted my response but kept staring at me, something clearly on her mind. “Since we're stuck here anyway, I suppose we should talk about us?” she began.
Before she could say anything else, I stopped her with a hand. “I don’t want to be a jerk but I can’t do this right now. There’s only so much I can take, so can we drop this for another day when my family aren't in danger?” I probably sounded more bitter than I wanted to, but to hell with it. My heart was already broken, she didn’t need to stampede all over it too.
She nodded and fell silent.
I continued to drive.
67
Chase
I was up by the crack of dawn.
Even with all my preparations, I had barely slept at all. I hadn’t felt that icy, deep-in-my-bones-cold since when I had first left home. It was just after winter then and I had survived by sleeping huddled in archways and doorways, burning fires in trash cans to keep warm. But last night there was no fire or shelter from the cold, and the sounds of the forest woke me every time I had almost drifted off to sleep. I was exhausted and felt like the dead, but I knew I had to push on.