Criminal Destiny

by Gordon Korman

  As we wait, the bleeding stops.

  “The spot on your neck is turning black-and-blue, though,” Tori observes worriedly.

  I have a giddy vision—another to-do list:

  THINGS TO DO TODAY (UNPRIORITIZED)

  •Fire industrial staple into neck (0.1 seconds)

  I chuckle out loud at my own imagined joke.

  Tori stares at me. “What could you possibly have to laugh about?”

  Before I can answer, the nurse reappears. “You’re up, honey.”

  The doctor is young and super-busy, so he doesn’t question my itchy-neck story. He numbs me with some local anesthetic and removes the staple through a small incision. Then he pauses, puzzled, and says the words I’ve been waiting for:

  “What’s this . . . ?”

  He reaches in with tweezers and pulls out something the size of a tiny, flat pill. “Curious.” He examines it under a microscope and I lean in to share the view.

  It’s a miniature computer chip encased in clear plastic coating.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He dabs some antibiotic ointment onto the wound and covers it with a square bandage. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he says, frowning. “Maybe your mother should come in for this conversation.”

  “She’s not here,” I reply. “My friends and I were putting up posters when I had the, uh, accident. They brought me straight here.”

  “It looks like some kind of electronic tag,” he muses.

  “Tag?”

  “My fiancée works for the Forest Service. They track animal migration with chips like this. But no one would use it on a child.”

  Clearly, the doctor has never been to Serenity, New Mexico. Animals; clones; what’s the difference?

  “The location is also strange,” he goes on. “At the base of the skull, any implant would be close enough to interact with the body’s nerve and pain centers.”

  Right—strange. Unless the goal is to trigger an attack of agony and nausea so intense that your escaping clones are too sick to go on. There’s no place like home.

  The doctor is starting to look impatient. His beeper is going off about every eight seconds, and the nurse has been peering in through the curtain, making hurry-up gestures. “You need to see your regular physician tomorrow to have the dressing changed.”

  “Thanks.” I pluck the chip from his tweezers. “A souvenir,” I explain.

  He’s too harried to care. He’s already signaled the nurse to bring in the next victim.

  While she’s otherwise occupied, I sprint past Admitting, grab the others, and get out of there. It isn’t Serenity-style honesty. But if they expect me to wait around for my parents to fill out paperwork, it’s going to be a long night for all of us.

  The minute I step out of Walgreens, Malik snatches the bag from my arms, pokes through the contents, and comes up with a box cutter. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not using that on me!”

  “It has a razorblade,” I tell him. “The sharper it is, the less it’s going to hurt.”

  “How come you get to see a real doctor and the rest of us have to have meatball surgery?” he demands.

  Eli is patient. “Because if four kids in a row troop into emergency with the same chip in their necks—all from out of town, no parents, no ID—people are going to start asking questions. And we don’t have any answers—none that we can give them, anyway.”

  I show them the rest of my purchases: rubbing alcohol, Neosporin, a towel, tweezers, Band-Aids, and—

  “Hemorrhoid cream?” Tori queries. “For our necks?”

  “It’s a numbing agent,” I explain.

  “Yeah, for people’s butts!” Malik points out.

  “Just trust me, okay? The pharmacist says it’s the strongest you can get without a prescription. I didn’t want to go into too much detail.”

  We decide to do the deed in a secluded park at the edge of downtown. I say this is for privacy, but I’m secretly thinking it will be good to be near the creek just in case there’s a lot of blood to wash off. We’re cloned from criminals, not surgeons.

  As we dump our backpacks and establish our “operating room” at a picnic table by the water, another to-do list appears before me:

  THINGS TO DO TODAY (UNPRIORITIZED)

  •Carve up friends (unknown duration)

  “I’ll go last,” Malik volunteers.

  A tower of courage.

  Eli puts on a brave face, but he’s sweating like a horse as I rub hemorrhoid cream over the scar on his neck. Trust me, he can’t be more scared than I am. My hands tremble as I pour alcohol on the box cutter.

  This needs to be done, I tell myself. So just do it.

  Numbing agent or not, Eli winces when the razorblade pierces his skin, but he doesn’t cry out. I make a tiny U-shaped cut right below the faded scar. I wasn’t expecting the rush of blood. I try not to panic. The towel sops all that up.

  “You okay?” I ask Eli.

  “Peachy,” he replies in a strained voice. “Just get it over with.”

  Next I dip the tweezers in the alcohol and start digging around inside the hole I made. I don’t know if it’s the tweezers or me, but it’s hard to get a grip on such a little thing.

  I’m sweating worse than Eli now, and even Tori looks gray in the face knowing she’s next. Malik is on the bench, studying his sneakers. He doesn’t even glance in our direction.

  All at once, I feel something solid between the tweezers’ tips. I get a good hold and draw out the chip. It’s covered in pink ooze, but otherwise a perfect match for mine.

  I sop up the blood again, clean the wound with alcohol, and slather it with Neosporin. Then I slap the bandage on, sealing it as tight as I can. “Done,” I tell him in a shaky voice.

  He slides away from me down the bench, making room for Tori. Apparently, standing up is not an option. But within a few minutes, he’s back to normal. “You’re the worst doctor in the world,” he tells me.

  I manage a watery grin. “You’re welcome.”

  Tori’s “surgery” goes about the same as Eli’s—a little less blood, although I have a harder time finding the chip to pull it out. She hangs tough through the whole thing, silent, her jaw clenched. I’m proud of her. She’s the youngest, and artsy, but she’s as strong as any of us. It makes perfect sense if you think about what we come from.

  Then it’s Malik’s turn.

  “You know, maybe I’ll just leave mine in,” he muses casually. “It’s not like we have to escape from Serenity anymore.”

  He’s trying to sound nonchalant, but he looks absolutely terrified.

  “Come on, Malik,” Eli says gently.

  “And the transmitter that was generating the field is gone too—”

  “It has to come out,” I interrupt. “As long as it’s still inside you, it’ll always be a weakness our parents might be able to use against us one day.”

  As a patient, he’s as cooperative as a panther with a thorn in its paw. Eli and Tori have to hold his head steady or I might cut his throat by mistake.

  Or maybe it wouldn’t be by mistake.

  We finally shove the towel in his mouth and make him bite down on it just to shut him up. And still he’s jerking around so badly that splattered blood droplets are getting all over the three of us. When it’s done, we have to go down to the water and take turns helping one another clean up as best as we can.

  It’s a big job and a messy one. The stains come off our skin easily enough, but our clothes look bad, especially up around the collar. As for the towel—it’s a write-off. Good thing the weather’s warm, or we’d all have pneumonia, because we’re pretty wet.

  I take the four tiny electronic chips out of my pocket. “How about a watery grave for this stuff?”

  Tori has a point. “Maybe we should keep it for evidence.”

  Eli shrugs. “Chips like that come out of every electronic toy. We’d never prove what they do or even that they came from us.”

&nb
sp; Malik nods as vigorously as he can with a sore neck. “Pitch ’em.”

  “Maybe we should say a few words,” Tori says. “After all, this is the last piece of Serenity that was a part of us.”

  The pause that follows means we all know how wrong that is. The portion of us that doesn’t come from four horrible criminals will always be Serenity.

  Malik breaks the silence by whacking the back of my hand. The four chips go flying and disappear into the water.

  “Rest in pieces,” he growls.

  Eli’s first to turn back to the picnic table. He freezes. “Hey!”

  Someone’s there—a man in sunglasses. He’s got the backpacks, and he’s rifling through our stuff! My first notion is that he’s probably one of those poor homeless people like we saw in Denver. But he’s well dressed, with a dark suit and one of those blinking cell phone headpieces attached to his ear.

  “Get away from there!” Malik roars.

  He, Eli, and Tori are already charging up the embankment. I’m a half step behind them, my wet jeans slowing me down. The thief sees us coming and starts away. We’re younger, but he’s drier, and in good shape for an older guy.

  As I run, I look down and am shocked to see the box cutter in my hand. I must have taken it out of my pocket without thinking. Do I actually plan to cut this guy if I can catch him? It’s the most un-Serenity notion imaginable; it has to come from my DNA.

  I drop the box cutter like it’s burning my hand and devote all my energy to speed. I come up behind Eli and Malik, but I can’t pass them because the picnic table is in the way. The guy is almost to the paved path. If he gets that far, he’s as good as on the street and gone. We can’t very well take him down in the middle of town—not if we want to keep a low profile.

  Mustering all my ballet training, I get one foot on the bench, the other on the table, and then I’m airborne. I even do a grand jeté on the way—old habits are tough to break. The ballet move vaults me right up to the thief. My front foot gets tangled with his two fleeing ones. We both go down—me rolling across the soft grass; him sprawling through the underbrush. There’s a thwack as his head hits the base of a tree.

  We scramble up to prevent him from running away, but that turns out to be unnecessary. He’s not moving.

  “Is he dead?” pants Tori.

  I lean down close to the face. “He’s still breathing.”

  “Great,” says Malik. “He can testify at our trial. And when they bring out the evidence, everyone’s going to know I had a princess backpack!”

  “Who do you think he is?” Tori wonders.

  Eli shrugs. “If he’s a crook, he’s a lot higher class than the ones they have in Denver.”

  Malik is going through the man’s suit coat. “If he’s a crook, he’s a pretty lousy one. He didn’t steal anything.”

  “We don’t really have a whole lot to steal,” Eli reminds him.

  “Wait—here’s something.” Malik comes up with a set of car keys. The winged B logo of a Bentley gleams from the fob.

  “That’s why he looks familiar!” Tori exclaims. “It’s Tamara Dunleavy’s driver!”

  At the end of the path, we can see the aristocratic nose of the big car parked on the street.

  Malik is confused. “Why would a billionaire send her driver to rip off our stuff?”

  “To find out about us,” I conclude. “I never believed for a second that she knows nothing about Project Osiris, and here’s the proof!”

  “If that’s true,” Tori muses, “why didn’t she just ask us when we were standing right in front of her? Why send a guy to go through our bags?”

  “Osiris is a crime,” I reply. “She doesn’t want to admit she had anything to do with it.”

  “I don’t like it,” Eli says nervously. “She’s rich and powerful, and we’re a danger to her because of what we know.”

  “Do you think she’d try to hurt us?” asks Tori.

  “I wouldn’t put anything past someone who could dream up Project Osiris,” Eli replies grimly. “But she wouldn’t even have to. She could turn us over to the Purples. Or have us arrested.”

  “On what charge?” I demand.

  Malik indicates the unconscious chauffeur. “How’d you like to have to prove to the cops that we didn’t attack him?”

  “We have to get out of Jackson,” Eli decides. “Fast.”

  “Oh, right,” snorts Malik. “We’re on foot and we’ve got no money. An eight-year-old on a scooter could run us down, no problem.”

  I take his wrist and shake it so that the car keys jingle.

  Tori’s wide-eyed. “Steal her car?”

  “She helped create Osiris,” I reason. “She owes us. The cost turns out to be one Bentley.”

  13

  MALIK BRUDER

  We’re in the Bentley, headed out of town, with me behind the wheel. Yeah, that’s right—I know how to drive. Not just Frieden. Back in Serenity, when we were planning our escape, we both taught ourselves on video games. It just happens that, so far, Frieden has hogged all the driving.

  This is my first try, but it’s all good. Hey, for a new driver, a Bentley isn’t a half-bad car to break yourself in on. Glove leather seats practically form to your butt. The engine purrs like a kitten, with a ride as smooth as silk. The dashboard reminds me of a spaceship’s control panel. There’s even a touch screen with full internet, which is how we know that one of these costs $275,000, give or take, depending on the options—like internet, so your passengers have no trouble finding out how much you paid for the car. No sense being rich if nobody’s jealous.

  Tamara Dunleavy’s rich—although now I guess she’s technically poorer by one Bentley. But to her, that’s a drop in the bucket. Having a billionaire mad at you is almost as scary as having the Purples mad at you—anybody that wealthy and powerful has to be considered a bad enemy. We can’t know exactly what her intentions are, but she already sent her driver to spy on us. And when we knocked him out and stole the car, we can’t have bumped ourselves up on her list of BFFs.

  That’s why Eli reaches over and tunes the radio to a news station.

  I’m disgusted. “You’re kidding, right? We have satellite radio, DirecTV, streaming web video, and you want to listen to AM?”

  “AM is where we’re going to hear that the police are looking for a stolen Bentley,” he explains. “If they start talking about roadblocks, it’s time to ditch the car.”

  “And walk across Wyoming?” Amber asks incredulously.

  “It’s better than being caught,” Eli says firmly.

  “But not much better,” I add. “I really love this car.”

  So we listen to the news. An hour goes by. Nothing.

  In the rearview mirror, I see Tori frowning. “Surely that guy woke up by now. He bumped his head pretty hard, but he was only knocked out.”

  Amber sounds haunted. “If anything bad happens to him, it’s our fault. We could have gotten him a doctor. We just came from the hospital.”

  “Some criminal mastermind you are,” I snort. “You’re cloned from Clara Barton.”

  “I wish,” Amber shoots back.

  “The story’s not on the news because it’s no big deal,” I insist. “In the real world, some poor schnook probably brains himself every time the wind blows.”

  “Yeah, but this poor schnook works for a billionaire, who’s also one of the most prominent people in town,” Eli argues. “What affects Tamara Dunleavy is a big deal in Jackson Hole.”

  “Maybe he didn’t tell the police about us because he doesn’t remember,” Tori puts in. “He took a pretty major wallop.”

  I have to laugh. “Even if the guy has total amnesia, don’t you think his boss is going to notice she doesn’t have a Bentley anymore?”

  Tori is frowning again. “Why would Tamara Dunleavy want to hide the fact that her car’s been stolen?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” asks Amber. “We know too much about her and Project Osiris. If we get arrested, we might
blab.”

  “Big deal,” I comment. “You blabbed to the cops in Denver and all they did was send you to a shrink.”

  “This is different,” Eli says thoughtfully. “Amber was a random kid who came out of nowhere with a wild story. In this case, the cops would come after us, and we’d all be telling the same story. They may not believe us, but they’d definitely look into it.”

  “So she’s writing off a quarter-million-dollar car?” I challenge.

  “Unless,” Tori muses, “she’s got a way to find us anytime she wants.”

  “She’s rich, not magic.” I point out.

  “That chauffeur was messing with our bags!” Eli exclaims urgently. “What if he put tracking devices in them? Then she could come after us with private detectives or hired criminals—”

  “Or Purple People Eaters!” Amber adds. “We have to search the backpacks—now!”

  We pull over to the shoulder, pop the trunk, and fall on our bags. I snatch up the sparkly princess loser-pack and dump out the contents. No homing devices, no computer chips, no microphones—no technology. What we find is money. There are five crisp hundred-dollar bills in the side pocket of each knapsack.

  “All right,” I say, clutching the cash. “I don’t get it. Why would the old bat send her driver to sneak money into our bags?”

  “I do,” Tori puts in quietly. “She feels guilty. She’s trying to help.”

  “We came to her for help,” Eli argues. “She denied everything and sent us away.”

  Tori is patient. “She can’t give us the kind of help we need—not without admitting her part in Project Osiris. But she didn’t want to leave us lost and broke.”

  “She’s a saint,” Amber agrees. “Nothing like cash to say ‘Don’t go away mad; just go away.’” Contemptuously, she opens her hand and allows the five hundreds to flutter down to the soft shoulder.

  The rest of us practically break our necks chasing down every single bill.

  “You’re twice as crazy as the Denver cops think you are!” I rasp. “You don’t throw away five hundred bucks!”

  “As if all the money in the world could ever make up for what Osiris did to us.”