I wait a few seconds. “Ogre? How you doing, buddy?”
“This,” it answers, “is a worrisome situation.”
“Can you get a read on where the hell we are?”
“According to my GPS signals, we are 81.4 miles southwest of Tucson.”
“Stop talking,” yells the guard.
We do as we’re told, and I try to think of a plan. Ogre has an internal comm and could summon help. But help from where? The police? I don’t trust them.
I hate waiting and being passive. This time, I whisper, knowing the android can turn up its audio tracking parameters. “Joanie’s an old friend of mine.”
I check over my shoulder. The guard seems preoccupied with what’s happening outside and keeps peering out a large slat in the door. Meanwhile, Ogre casts a beam of light from his visor onto the drab wall in front of me that reads: Do human friends typically hold each other hostage?
“Shut up, smart ass,” I whisper. “I don’t know why she’s so angry and cold to me. We were best friends once, when we were young. She’s gone through a lot. I don’t want to attack or pull any stunts.”
Ogre pauses, then beams: I could break free from my restraints and seize one of the guns. The hostiles are quite young for humans.
“No, absolutely not. We have to be patient. I’m trying to gain Joanie’s trust.”
Ping me when that works out for you.
I sigh and am about to whisper back when the door flies open. I turn to see Joanie, her wild mane of curls silhouetted against the darkening desert sky.
“Up,” she points at me. “Just you.”
I climb to my feet, and she ushers me out the door and says, “Walk with me.”
Outside, the desert air smells sweet, dusty, and alive. To the west, the sun sets on the horizon, punctuated by three jagged mountain tops.
We pass the young soldiers lingering around a campfire. They open cans of food and ready pots and pans to cook.
“It’s beautiful here,” I say, hoping to lighten the mood.
Joanie keeps marching, and I scramble to keep up with her. “You mind telling me where we’re heading?”
“Just out a ways.” She glances at the campfire. “Away from the others.”
I follow in silence another three minutes up a hill and into a clearing where we can still see her gang’s hideout. Around us, darkness settles.
Joanie halts and faces me. “Back in the warehouse, you told me you want to find Kenmore and punish him. What did you mean by that?”
Do I tell her I want to kill him with my bare hands? Somehow, I don’t think that’ll go over well. “I want to confront him and make him admit the terrible crimes he committed.”
She smirks. “Right, and I’m actually a Heavy disguised in human flesh. That’s bullshit, Ida. Tell me the truth about what you really intend to do if you meet him.”
Still cuffed, I clench my fists behind my back. “The man hurt innocent people. He hurt children like you and me. He needs to pay.”
“Do you want to hurt him? Is that it? If you touch him, you’ll kill him.”
I meet her gaze. “Yes.” My pulse races.
She frowns and bites her lip.
“Do you have a problem with that?” I continue. “He hurt me and countless others—”
“You don’t think I know that?” she lashes out, spit flying from her mouth. “I was there. In his lab. See all those kids over there? I escaped and took them with me. We were the only ones to escape that I know of.”
My chest feels heavy. Kenmore hurt Joanie. “What did he do to you?”
She stares into the distance, and the setting sun frames her profile in orange and red flame.
“If I told you…you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me. You don’t know the shit I’ve been through in the last few years.”
She regards me with feisty eyes. “Turn around.”
Stepping behind me, she tells me to hold out my arms.
“What are you—?” Intense heat spreads around my wrists, and a flash lights up the desert floor. Twisting, I pull my hands forward, surprised to find them free. “How’d you—?” At my feet, the cuffs have melted into a steaming heap of metal.
Joanie’s palms glow a fiery yellow.
I stagger back, and my mouth hangs open.
Her flat smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “My hands... are a weapon, too.”
Eighteen
I stare at Joanie and her glowing hands, at a loss for words.
“Now, you know,” she says and gazes at the campfire in the distance.
“Guess nobody better mess with you.”
“Damn straight,” she smirks.
“That would’ve come in handy back in Hell’s Kitchen,” I say, chuckling.
She crosses her arms and grows serious again. “Back to the subject…the mad scientist who changed our lives forever.”
I rub my wrists and stretch my cramped arms now that they’re free. Nodding at the gang, I say, “He messed with them too?”
“Yes.”
I think back to Colin levitating a ball. That was no trick. “And they all have abilities?”
“Yes,” she says.
“You said you were the only ones to escape. So, there are more besides them? I guess I assumed Kenmore would keep hurting people. That he’d keep doing what he did to me…”
I shiver when I think of Colin, Joanie, and the others trapped in tiny cells like I was. Every day, waking up and checking for any new bandages or scars from Kenmore’s experiments. I want to retch.
“You okay?” Joanie asks.
I reel a few steps, struggling for breath, willing myself to calm down. “Give me a minute.”
She kicks at dirt and stuffs her hands in her hoodie pockets.
Bending over, I place my head between my knees. After a few seconds, the dizziness passes. I think of Joanie’s glowing hands melting steel in seconds. Now, her flesh has returned to its normal hue.
All these years, Kenmore has been experimenting on young people. It never stopped. What could he possibly be up to?
“Do you think I can kill him?” I ask.
“You could. If you got close enough.” She hesitates. “But…”
I tilt my head, waiting, but she grows silent. “I’ll stop him, Joanie. Free anyone else he’s captured. I’ll stop him for good.”
Her eyes water as she says, “What if his death meant others would die?”
“I don’t understand. The people he’s tortured will be set free.”
“No.” She edges closer. “Those boys and girls over there—my gang—will die if you kill Kenmore.” She paces the small clearing. “In New York, a few neighborhood creeps were taking street kids. One day, I followed and caught them drugging a boy. I pulled a gun on them and tried to get them to talk—tell me where they were taking them.” Her eyes are cold and distant.
“But my plan backfired. The men overpowered me. I was drugged, carried onto a plane with the kids, and wound up in Kenmore’s lab.”
I rest my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Joanie.”
She wipes a tear from her cheek. “You know how it went from there…experimented on and given this ability. I rarely use it, and I’m careful what I touch. I don’t want to hurt people.”
“Did Kenmore make you hurt people?”
Her mouth twists into a frown. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Sorry.” I lower my head.
“I lived in the lab for over two years. Kenmore grew to trust me. He put me in charge of other kids—the rowdiest, rebellious kids.”
“How many of you were there?”
“It’s hard to say. I couldn’t tell at the lab because he didn’t share everything with me. Eventually, we outgrew the lab and moved to an underground compound.”
“Underground?” What had Cassie called the city? “Who are the man and woman from the warehouse?”
“I’m getting to that,” she says.
“Sorry. Go on.”
“The underground compound, or city, I guess you could call it, is Terranus. The entrance is hidden and it’s off the grid. The local authorities are paid to keep away.”
“Kenmore’s there?”
“He’s there all right. He started the place. Kenmore took all his test subjects there. There are hundreds living in Terranus.”
“Why would he do this? Go underground?”
“I’m not sure. I suppose so he could carry on his experiments, undisturbed.”
“How long were you there? How did you escape?”
“I decided to bail three years ago. Some risked everything and came along, and they’ve been with me ever since.”
“Did Kenmore come looking for you?”
“Yes, that’s where Max and Cassie come in. He sent them to look for us because, otherwise, we would’ve died…I didn’t know it when we escaped.”
I search her troubled eyes and glimpse raw pain.
“Kenmore has a failsafe for his lab rats. He infected us with nanobots that will kill us unless we’re injected with a serum every week.”
“What? How do you know he’s not lying to you?”
She pauses, her face somber. “Because I watched a fifteen-year-old girl die in my arms.” She gazes skyward. “I was an idiot. Thought I could call Kenmore’s bluff, and Bella paid the price.”
My heart sinks. Joanie has gone through so much. Is there no end to Kenmore’s deadly manipulation?
Her voice is scratchy as she says, “Cassie and Max travel above ground every week and drop off a bag with the serum. We have various rendezvous points. The warehouse is just one. It’s an unspoken deal we have with Kenmore, I guess. He keeps us alive. Cassie and Max keep tabs on us. Maybe this way, we can’t travel too far away from him.”
“It-it’s unspeakable,” I manage to say. “He’s a monster.”
She kicks a stone at her feet, sending it careening into the desert brush. “So, you murdering Kenmore puts a damper on my plans for staying alive.”
I can’t comprehend how anyone could do such horrific things—
especially to young people—kids who have barely lived at all. Imagining myself in Joanie’s place, dread grips my insides. She’s chained to this desert. Kenmore has trapped her despite her escape.
“There must be a way to stop him,” I say. “We could invade the city, take him hostage, and get the serum. Reed Reynolds runs Space Squad and he could send geneticists here—”
“To find a cure for us? Yeah, all those thoughts have run through my head. Trust me, I’d kill Kenmore myself if I thought there was a way. But he’s protected by hundreds of people—all mutated with extreme abilities.” Her eyes grow wide. “Think about it. You can kill with a touch, and I can melt someone’s brains. Now imagine that times a hundred. You wouldn’t last a day in Terranus.”
“Protected—how can that be? Don’t the people in Terranus hate Kenmore as much as we do?”
“He’s brainwashed them. They’ll protect him. At least, that’s how it was three years ago.”
Facing a legion of people with abilities like Joanie and Max is daunting. The situation sounds dangerous. “I have Ogre. He’s strong, perhaps—”
“It won’t matter, Ida.” Her pupils glimmer in the moonlight. “He has an army behind him.”
Nineteen
Night has settled on the desert. Toads and crickets serenade the group of teens hanging around the campfire.
I check my biocuff now that I’m free from the restraints. Four messages from Reed. I scan them. First: Thinking of you. Then four hours later: Ida, comm me. I’m worried. Followed by: Are you okay??
I don’t bother to read the last one because my heart is heavy. I swipe them away, archiving them, and then type a simple reply: I’m fine. Busy.
I consider deleting it and starting over. Should I tell him about finding Joanie? But that would only lead to more questions. I press send.
Of course, I miss Reed. But the last twenty-four hours have been intense. And for some reason, I can’t stop thinking about Gatz. With the skin barrier serum, could I touch him? How would it feel to be held in his arms? Will I survive long enough to find out given that Kenmore has an army behind him? All this thinking makes my head spin.
After everyone finishes eating, I ask Joanie’s permission to address the gang. Standing at the edge of the fire, heat licking at my shins, I say, “I know we got off on the wrong foot today, but Joanie and I have talked and we’re good now…” I check her expression for reassurance, and she nods.
Ogre stands beside me, having been released from its cuffs as well. They wouldn’t have been effective, but I keep that to myself.
“I want to introduce you properly to Ogre. It—he—is an android from Spark City.” Mouths and eyes grow wide, and a few of the kids, including Colin, lean forward, betraying their adolescent indifference.
“If you’ll allow it, Ogre would like to stay out and sit among you.” I pause, checking for reactions and finding curious stares. “Okay…” I clear my throat. “Ogre is friendly, when it wants to be. He likes to answer questions and play games.”
I’m greeted with silence.
“So, is it cool if Ogre sits out here? Joanie told me you can take care of yourselves. You have nothing to be afraid of with Ogre.”
“We’re not afraid,” says crewcut guy, defiantly. I haven’t managed to learn everyone’s names, given I wasn’t exactly shown the red carpet.
“Easy, Ricardo,” says Joanie. She steps up beside me, facing the gathering. “I know you’re not afraid that robot will hurt you.” She paces next to the fire, capturing their attention. “What you’re afraid of is that the robot is different. Something you’ve never seen before. But you know better than that. Truth is we’re not much different from Ogre and the hybrids living in Spark City—discriminated against in many places. Did you know that people have free reign to assassinate hybrids in Rome? That’s how bad it’s becoming.”
Frowns spread like wildfire across the young faces. Joanie continues, “If you’re smart, you’ll make an alliance with the robot. You never know, you might need its help one day—”
“If we ever go anyplace but this stinking desert,” gripes Ricardo.
Joanie glares at him and clenches her teeth. “You know we can’t do that, Ricardo. Not now.”
He rises to his feet, points at me, then faces his leader. “She wants to go hunt Kenmore with her robot and destroy him. I say, let it happen! Better that than wait around like a bunch of lame ducks, waiting for Kenmore’s minions to drop off our medicine each week.”
Joanie stands her ground with balled fists. Ricardo appears to be the oldest of the gang members next to her. Several kids nod at his fiery words.
“Get out of my face,” hisses Joanie.
Ricardo glowers at her before stomping away from the fire toward one of the abandoned wooden structures. Two others—the pink-haired girl who drove earlier and another boy, climb to their feet and follow him.
“What say the rest of you?” Joanie asks. The fight has fled her voice.
Colin speaks up, “I’d like to meet the robot.” He stares at me. “Please, ma’am.”
“Holy crap,” I say, laughing. “Don’t ever call me ma’am again, kid. I’m not that much older than all of you.”
I glimpse a smile flicker across Joanie’s face as Colin clears a seat for Ogre on a low wooden bench.
“What tricks can you do?” asks a girl with buzzed purple hair.
“Tricks?” says Ogre. “Why would I do tricks?”
“Because tricks are fun,” she says. “You know, like when I do cartwheels and jumps.”
Ogre considers. “Cart…wheel?”
“I’ll show you.” The slender girl climbs to her feet, spreads her legs wide, stretches her arms high above her head, and plants her hands on the ground, turning over in a perfect cartwheel twice. “See?” she beams.
A few of her tired friends clap half-hearted
ly.
“That’s nothing.” Colin gets up and stands next to her. “Can you do this?” He takes a running start, then leaps onto a large picnic table. Grinning, he does a 180-degree spin and then back flips off the table, sticking his landing perfectly on two feet. “Ta-da!”
More applause and some hoots this time.
“Big deal,” says the purple-haired girl.
“What can you do, Ogre?” asks Colin.
Ogre rises. “Tricks.” The android walks to a dirt clearing just next to the firepit. It bends its knees with a hydraulic whine, extends its arms, and leaps a foot in the air, landing with a thud.
“Hey, not bad,” says Colin.
Ogre gives a thumbs up. “Not bad,” it repeats. Then the android approaches the picnic table and easily clears the three feet to reach the tabletop, landing with arms outstretched for balance.
“Careful,” I say, wondering whether Ogre has ever tried jumping before.
“Cartwheel,” Ogre announces in a monotone voice. Someone gasps as the tall android spreads its arms high and hinges at the waist, planting its hands on the table top. Like a gymnast, Ogre spins its legs up and over, landing feet-first on the ground. But then it shifts its balance between one foot and the other, stomping them quickly to stay upright. Just as I think Ogre has settled, the android falls onto the ground face first.
“Whoa!” Colin rushes over to check on Ogre. “You okay, buddy?”
The others around the campfire are now alert. Concerned, they watch as Ogre climbs onto all fours and then stands up.
“I am fine,” announces Ogre, and a rousing chorus of cheers, laughter, and applause lights up Joanie’s gang.
Shaking my head, I wander over to Joanie who lingers a few yards away from the group.
“Satisfied?” She raises an eyebrow, but her eyes reveal amusement.
“Yeah. Thanks for letting Ogre out. He’s a real charmer.”
“I can see.”
“Does Ricardo cause trouble a lot?” I ask.
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