“We won’t be coming back here, so get your things packed up and have them waiting by the door. Once we have Welch, we’ll be going directly back to the airport to leave the country. Any questions?”
Tanner raised his hand. “If we don’t rescue Welch, are we still going to try to steal the Joule?”
Gervaso looked at him. “As of now, the plan is to steal the Joule no matter what.”
“Even if it’s impossible?”
Gervaso looked angry. “Of course not. None of us has a death wish. Now go get your things. You’re dismissed.”
As we turned to walk away, Ostin said, “I wish Tanner would keep his mouth shut.”
Tanner overheard him. “Maybe I’m trying to save your little life, Einstein.”
“Knock it off,” I said.
“Why did you even come?” Zeus asked.
“Yeah,” Tessa said. “If you’re already chickening out, you should just go home to your family.”
Tanner looked at us all sadly, then said softly, “You guys are my family.” He turned and went up the stairs alone.
None of us knew what to say to that.
* * *
An hour later we all met back downstairs. McKenna was dressed in a schoolgirl uniform that looked like a sailor outfit: a navy-blue skirt, knee-high white stockings, and a white blouse with a broad blue-and-white collar, with a matching navy tie. There were Chinese characters above her left breast, presumably the name of the high school. She didn’t look happy about being in uniform.
“If anyone says anything, I’ll melt you,” she said.
Ostin shrugged. “I think you look cute.”
I walked up to Gervaso. “I need to tell you something. Alone.”
“All right.” We walked into his bedroom and he shut the door. “What’s up?”
“This is going to sound a little weird, but Taylor’s been having these premonitions that come true.”
“What kind of premonitions?”
“Like she had a dream that Timepiece Ranch was attacked by fire-breathing dragons just before the Elgen torched it. She also dreamed that her father was shot by deer hunters the day before it happened.”
Gervaso looked at me with concern. “Did she have a dream about what we’re doing today?”
“Yeah. She dreamed that we went for Welch in front of a school and that McKenna was dressed up like one of the students.”
“. . . Just like we are planning.”
“Yeah.”
“Did she see anything else?”
“The Elgen found us.”
Gervaso looked even more concerned. “How did her dream end?”
“This is the part that was most weird. She said that suddenly everyone was frozen like statues. Everyone but me.”
“Frozen? As in dead?”
“She didn’t say ‘dead.’”
Gervaso looked down a moment to think. When he looked back up, he asked, “What do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know. We need Welch.”
“Yeah, we do.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then I said, “I just wanted to warn you that we need to be careful. If her dream is real, we’re going to run into Elgen.”
He slowly nodded. “All right. Thank you. I’ll keep Ian especially close.” He took a deep breath. “Now we better go. We’re running out of time.”
* * *
We climbed back into the same vans we had arrived in and quickly drove off.
“How far to the school?” I asked.
“Not far,” Ben said. “Maybe just fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes,” I repeated. I wondered if we were driving into a trap.
The traffic was relatively light as we made our way downtown. When we were a block from the school, Ben said, “There is the school ahead of us. We are going to first drive pass the school . . .” He hesitated. “No, past the school, then drive around the block and park the van on the north side of the school. Gervaso will park across the street near the Yin Hang.”
“The what?” I asked.
“The bank,” Ostin said.
As we continued ahead, I looked back to see Gervaso turn left into the bank’s parking lot. A moment later we passed a four-story, ivory-colored stone-facade building in the middle of the block.
“That is the Cheng Gung Gau Sywe,” Ben said. “Success High School.”
“I hope it is,” McKenna said.
I looked around but saw no one other than the people walking on the sidewalk in front of the school. I turned to Taylor. “Look familiar?”
She frowned. “This is the same place.”
“Ian sees nothing,” Gervaso said over our radio.
“Okay,” Ben said. We drove past the school, then took a right on the next street, drove to the corner, then took another right, driving past the back of the school. The grounds were empty. No sign of Elgen, at least.
A moment later Ben pulled the van up to the north side of the school. He killed the engine and looked back. “McKenna, the bell will ring in just six minutes. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Welch is tall and the only American, I think. He will stand next to the flagpole. It is pass that food truck.” He pointed to a large white truck parked to the north of the school’s front doors. It had Chinese writing on it. “He is wearing a light blue shirt. When you see him, do not look at him, just walk pass him and tell him to follow you.”
“Wait, we’re not sending her alone,” I said.
“Yes, that is the plan. It is most safe that way.”
“It’s not safest for her,” Ostin said.
“That’s not going to work for me, either,” Taylor said. “I’m going with her.”
“But they will see you,” Ben said, his voice rising. “That is why we have McKenna in a uniform.”
“We won’t be with her,” I said. “We’ll just keep in the background.”
“You are not Chinese. You will stand out.” Ben glanced at his watch. “We are almost out of time.”
I slid open the van door. “Ben, it’s okay. I promise.”
Ben looked frustrated but helpless. “I do not like this. Do not get caught. You have thirty seconds until bell. Twenty seconds. Ten seconds.” The school bell rang. “McKenna, go now!”
McKenna glanced at Ostin. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” Ostin said to her.
* * *
The front doors of the school opened, and students dressed in matching uniforms poured out like water. McKenna was dressed exactly like them, and we quickly lost track of her, which, I suppose, was the point.
We continued walking toward the flagpole. I felt like a salmon trying to swim upstream against the current of kids. Ben was right, we didn’t look like them. Still we were lost in the sheer number of bodies.
As we got closer to the school, I saw a tall American man walking out from the shadow of the school. I don’t know where he came from, but seeing him gave me chills. He was taller than I expected, more powerfully built. He wore slacks and a light blue, short-sleeved linen shirt.
He fell in with a stream of students that were walking toward an aluminum flagpole with a Taiwanese flag. He suddenly stopped, casually looked around, and then began walking toward us.
“There’s McKenna,” Ostin said. “They must have connected. She’s about ten feet in front of him.”
“Keep your eye on her,” I said.
“Look at him,” Taylor said. “It’s like looking at the devil.”
“Hatch is the devil,” I said. “Welch is just his henchman.”
“His chief henchman,” Ostin said. “The right hand of the devil.” He turned to me. “Do you think it’s a trap?”
“I wouldn’t be here if it was,” I said. “Taylor, does any of this seem familiar?”
“Something’s not right,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Where are the Elgen?”
Suddenly McKenna froze. She clutch
ed her chest, then fell to the ground.
“Do you feel that?” I asked.
Taylor was trembling. “Yes. How can they do that?”
“What is it?” Ostin asked.
Taylor looked at him with pain in her eyes. “RESATs.”
Apparently, the Elgen had developed a new way to RESAT us without darts or boxes. “This just keeps getting better,” I mumbled.
McKenna dropped to her knees, then fell to her side on the asphalt, moaning and clutching her ribs. Three Taiwanese policemen walked up behind her and Welch.
“Cops!” Ostin said.
I’m pretty sure that Welch didn’t see the police as he stopped to help McKenna.
“They’re after them,” Ostin said. “We’ve got to help her.”
“We’re walking into RESATs,” Taylor said. “We’ll be worthless.”
“They won’t affect me,” Ostin said.
“I think I can do it,” I said. “I’m getting so electric. Go tell Ben to call Gervaso.”
“Okay.” As Taylor ran back toward our van, Gervaso and his group began moving toward Welch as well.
“Ian must have already spotted them,” Ostin said.
“We’ll need help,” I said. “Especially Jack’s and Gervaso’s. Let’s go.”
Ostin and I ran toward McKenna. When we were about twenty yards away from her, the back door of the food truck we were hiding behind slid open. More than a dozen Elgen guards jumped out the back.
“This way,” I said. We dropped to our hands and knees, and Ostin and I crawled under the truck toward McKenna.
“Déjà vu,” Ostin said. “Just like Peru.”
We stopped at the back of the truck just a few yards from the Elgen guards.
Then two other guards, one of them in the uniform of an EGG and wearing a mind helmet, walked up from a different direction. He took out a gun and held it to Welch’s head.
“Did you really think you could escape us?”
Welch said nothing.
The other Elgen guard was dressed in the uniform of a Zone Captain and also wore a mind helmet. He pointed a gun at McKenna. “Tell your friends to give themselves up.”
In spite of her pain McKenna said, “Tell them yourself, loser.”
The guard took a small control from his pocket and turned a knob. McKenna screamed out.
“I can make it worse,” he said.
Ostin started crawling forward.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“I’ve got to stop them.” He stood and ran toward them, waving his arms. “Stop it! Leave her alone.”
“That was stupid,” I said.
The guard, with an amused expression, pointed his gun at Ostin. “You must be Ostin.”
“Let her go!” Ostin shouted.
“This isn’t catch and release,” he said. “It’s finders keepers. Now kneel down next to her, or I’ll kill you both.”
“Yes, sir,” Ostin said as he knelt on the ground.
I watched the rest of our group slowly creep forward. I had no way to warn them about the RESATs.
“They’re coming, sir,” one of the guards said.
“We’ve got them covered,” the first guard replied.
That’s when I saw the full regiment of guards coming from outside the school grounds. There were at least a hundred of them. It was a trap, and we’d walked right into it.
When Gervaso’s group was within thirty yards all the electrics fell to their knees. I could feel a wave of RESAT wash over me, powerful enough to jolt me, like a slipped dental drill. But just for a second. It didn’t stop me.
“You are completely surrounded!” a Squad Captain shouted. “Don’t try to escape or we’ll kill your friends. Hands on your heads. You there!” he shouted at Gervaso. He pointed his gun at McKenna. “Bring everyone in, or I start shooting.”
Gervaso looked furious but obeyed. “Come on, everyone. Put your hands up.”
Everyone had been captured except for me, Taylor, and Ben. The EGG looked pleased. “Look at this. I swung for a base hit and got a grand slam. The general will be celebrating tonight.”
It was a trap, only Welch wasn’t a part of it. They had set the trap for him, and we had foolishly rushed into it.
“Let them go,” Welch said. “I’m the one you want.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to do that,” Daines said.
“How did you find me?” Welch asked.
The EGG looked at Welch with disdain. “It wasn’t easy, after you sent us on all those goose chases with your different phones. But in the end it was your cleverness that was your undoing. It occurred to me that you might still have more phones.
“We traced the phone we captured back to the shop in Kangshan where you purchased them, and with a little persuasion, we got all the phone numbers you had. Then I programmed our systems to look for the ones you hadn’t used yet. The very second you activated one, we were notified. It still took a while to find you, since you don’t stay in the same place long, but this time we were close, just patiently waiting.”
“So now what?” Welch asked.
“General Hatch will be so happy to see you.” He looked around. “All of you.”
“I thought there was a death order,” Welch said.
“There is. But I couldn’t exactly open fire around all these schoolchildren. We might accidentally hit a few of them, and you know what kind of negative press that would generate. So we’re going to take you back alive, and I’m going to give the general the pleasure of—”
Daines froze midsentence. Actually, everyone around him froze: Welch, the students, the guards, everyone on the entire street. A car driving by slammed into a stopped car, and cars began stacking up behind them. A stuck car horn blared.
Everyone was frozen except for me. My electricity just amplified. It took me a moment to realize that I wasn’t the only one unaffected.
A young, blond woman about my age walked confidently through the midst of the people, looking as calm as if she were walking through a museum’s statuary.
As I climbed out from under the truck, she turned and looked at me. She wore a large smile on her face. “Michael Vey, I presume. I wondered if it would work on you.”
I intensified my electricity. “Who are you?”
“Don’t shock me,” she said. “We’re on the same team.”
“I know my team. I don’t know you.”
“But I know you. And I’m a huge fan. My name is Cassy. The voice sent me.”
“We’ve got to turn off the RESATs,” I said.
“It’s coming from those two,” Cassy said, pointing at the EGG and the Zone Captain.
I walked over and pried the RESAT devices from their frozen hands as they just stared at me helplessly. I pulsed hard enough to make the RESATs blow, then tossed them onto the ground.
“Where’s Tessa?” Cassy asked.
I looked around. Tessa was frozen next to Zeus. “She’s over there,” I said, pointing to her.
“I’m holding a lot of people right now. I could use a little help.”
“She’s the one with the light red hair.”
“Of course,” Cassy said. “I’ve only seen pictures of her. But she was a lot younger in them.” Cassy reached out toward Tessa, who suddenly moved, falling over.
“Okay, that hurt,” Tessa said, getting to her feet.
“I’m sorry. I just froze everyone until I could figure out who was who. Could you give me a hand?”
Tessa’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you? And how do you know what I can do?”
“I’m with the voice. Electroclan 101. I know everything about all of you.” She looked back at me. “We need to hurry this up. People are watching.”
I glanced at the buildings around us. People were hanging out their windows pointing.
“Okay,” I said. I looked in EGG Daines’s frightened face. He could only move his eyes. I lifted my hand in front of him and let my electricity spark loudly.
“I
could just electrocute you,” I said. “And be done with you. That’s what you or Hatch or the rest of you Elgen losers would do. Isn’t it?”
He blinked.
“. . . But there are better ways of dealing with Elgen.” I turned back to Cassy. “Unfreeze the rest of my people.”
“No problem.”
Suddenly everyone started moving again. Ostin groaned out as he fell over to the ground next to McKenna. I helped them both up.
“Are you okay?” I asked McKenna.
She looked to still be in pain but nodded. “It just took the wind out of me.”
Cassy said, “Michael, is that . . . Taylor?”
I looked behind me as Taylor and Ben ran up to us.
“Yes. And Ben.”
“I know Ben,” she said.
When Taylor was at my side, Cassy extended her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Taylor. I’m Cassy. I’m with the voice.”
“Hi,” Taylor said, looking at her warily.
“Hello, Cassy,” Ben said.
“Benjamin, what’s up?”
“Same old crazy.”
She laughed. It’s like she had forgotten we were in the middle of a crisis.
“Taylor, I need your help,” I said. I removed Daines’s and the Zone Captain’s mind helmets. Not surprisingly, neither of the men seemed very happy about this. I think they would have bitten me if they could. Definitely would have.
I turned back to Taylor. “Remember what you did to the hunters?”
“Yes.”
“Do it again. Scramble them. Permanently.”
“With pleasure.”
Taylor looked at Daines, then reached her hand out until it was an inch from his forehead, and concentrated. In spite of his still being frozen, he began to tremble. When Taylor finished, the look in Daines’s eyes was different. Vacant.
Taylor touched his shoulder, then turned back to me. “We don’t need to worry about him anymore. He doesn’t even know his own name.”
“As long as we’ve got a blank slate here, you might as well program him,” I said.
“For what?”