Liam looked around and saw no one in sight, which he’d worried about. He had never given any thought before about suddenly popping out of space, so to speak, if people were around. What might they think? Would he startle them, create a commotion, and draw attention to himself? He'd have to ask his father or Gran about it...if he ever saw them again! Shoving that thought to his mental "To Do" basket, he began walking in the direction of the car rental place. As he passed a parked car by the curb, he glanced at its window and saw a reflection in it. He paused, assessing the image, and decided that the countenance staring back at him was a darn good clone of his uncle Gene. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Opening it he found a Maryland driver’s license with his uncle's picture and information on it. Of course, most of it was bogus, all the info except St. Mary’s, Maryland, was false, as he never memorized his uncle's address, as well as a credit card. He figured he may need more ID than just the two, so he thought he'd create another credit card just for insurance. Insurance! He'd forgotten about proof of auto insurance! As he conjured up what was needed he also realized that if he could get a car they'd need money for food, gas, and whatever else. Looking at his wallet again, Liam could see that he had everything he'd imagined.
By now, there were many people walking about, and traffic had picked up as well. He hurried his pace to get behind a group walking in his direction to blend into the scenery and not be so obvious to any watching eyes. He realized it was just paranoia, but thought it might be wise anyway. Can't be too cautious, Liam, in our business! he thought to himself, with a smirk.
He parted company with his fellow pedestrians as he reached the car rental. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he walked in. There were already several business-like men, and a family, in a queue waiting to be served by the lone agent, who looked frazzled already so early in the morning. Liam noticed that the agent was so harried that be barely looked at the other's licenses or credit cards as he hurriedly entered the necessary information into his computer, handed the keys over, and directed the customer to where the car was waiting.
"Next!" he heard the agent say, as he realized it was his turn.
He walked up, clearing his throat with a small cough, trying to deepen his adolescent voice, and told the man that he needed a car.
"’Economy. One with a comfortable backseat. For the week.”
"No such thing as an 'economy' with a comfortable backseat. If you want comfort you'll need at least a mid-size," he told Liam, without looking up.
"That'll do," Liam told him as he laid his license and credit card on the counter.
The agent started to look at them just as several more people entered. "Geeze, is the whole world traveling today?" he muttered in exasperation. He then quickly entered all of Liam's — Gene’s — card's data into his computer. It printed out the rental contract, and he handed it over to Liam to sign. Liam was just about to sign his own name, but fortunately caught himself at the last moment. Having signed and handing it back, the agent gave Liam his copy along with the key.
"The Maroon one, just outside the door," the agent told him, as he said, "Next!"
Liam quickly walked out the door, thinking to himself how easy that had been. He got into the car, started the engine, adjusted the seat and mirrors, and slowly exited the parking lot, turning towards the church. When he got there, he turned down the street where he had parked his father's car the night before. It wasn't there. He wasn't surprised.
He pulled over to the curb and, putting the transmission into neutral, and looked in the glove box to see if it contained a map. From here he had no idea how to get back to the house in Georgetown. Fortunately, it did. He didn't know the exact address but figured he could get in the general vicinity, remember where he parked the car, envision himself back to the panic room, and they could all walk to the car. After, they'd have to figure out where to go and what to do.
Traffic was light and he managed to get to Georgetown without getting lost or having a mishap, quite a feat for his driving skills as the residential streets there were narrow cobblestone. If there were cars parked at the curb on both sides, it barely allowed two cars in the center to pass each other in opposite directions, and if one were a truck or large SUV, the smaller vehicle would have to back up to a point where the other could get around. The streets had been laid back in the horse and carriage days and had never been widened for automobiles.
He got to where he thought might be close. He couldn't be sure as all the row house-lined streets looked remarkably the same, so he found a place to park along a curb, managing to parallel park, something they didn't teach him in Driver's Ed, without hitting the car in front or rear, and close enough to the curb so the car wouldn't get side-swiped. Hopefully. He stuck the map in his pocket and looked in all directions, noted the street sign just ahead of him to find the names of the cross-streets, and then to see if anyone was around that might see him go "poof" into thin air as he returned to the panic room.
He opened his eyes and saw Carol and the brothers sprawled out on the floor asleep. He hadn't felt tired himself as yet, but seeing them he realized how fatigued he was. He hadn’t any proper rest in almost twenty four hours, not counting the few hours’ sleep he had during the night, or for the little sleep he'd got in the car, and had exhausted a lot of energy creating and maintaining his vision, not to mention the toll taken on his mind and body from all the excitement so far. He knew the adrenaline that had kept him going this long was bound to cause him to crash eventually, but there was no time for that now. He wondered if he should wake them, or let them rest a little longer, but he was afraid if he did, he'd fall asleep himself. Looking at them laying there he saw that Drew had an eye open, looking at him.
In a whisper, Drew said, "You're back?"
"Yeah, miss me?"
"Yeah, I was getting concerned."
"We need to see if we can get out of here."
"The front door has been boarded up. We'd have to tear it down and we don't have any tools. Unless we want to leave vision-wise, we'd also make too much noise. I looked and didn't see anyone out back, so we could go that way except we'd just be facing the backyard behind us and nowhere to go."
"You…looked?"
“Did a little recon," Drew confessed, grinning from ear to ear.
"That was dangerous. What if you'd been caught?"
"I'da just popped us back in here."
"What do you mean, 'popped...us’?”
"I visioned me and Scott out."
"By yourself?"
"Yup."
Their voices must have gotten louder than the whispers they began with because both Carol and Scott had their eyes opened now, listening. Carol sat up.
"Aren’t you surprised, Liam? Drew's a real Master now, isn’t he?"
"I guess he is, at that," he nodded, happy for his friend. He glanced at Scott and said to him, "How about that, Scott?"
Scott's expression was blank as he just shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, how about that.”
Liam sensed a little jealousy there. He knew that if he said anything, like "You will, too, soon," that it would be patronizing and offend Scott. He didn't need hard feelings between the brothers right now, so he chose not to give a response.
Instead he told them all, "I’ve got us a car. I'm not sure how far away from here I parked it since I don't know where 'here' is, exactly. But I know where I left it, and I have a street map, so if we can figure out how to get past the cops we can get outta here."
"You didn't steal it, did you?" Carol asked with a frown on her face.
"No. Well, not like you mean. However, I did acquire it under less than what could be called legal methods. Fraud might be a better term."
"Explain!" Carol said.
"Later. No time now. How are we going to get out?"
"There's always the front window in the living room," Scott offered.
"Don't you think it might l
ook a little suspicious to someone if they should see four kids jumping out a window of a boarded-up house in broad daylight?" Carol suggested.
"Right," Liam acknowledged. "If that's the only way out, we'll just have to wait for dark. Besides, I need to rest, I'm spent, and I'm gonna need to recharge my battery. I'm not like that old TV commercial rabbit that 'just keeps on going'."
He woke with a start. He felt drugged, and it took him several moments before he remembered where he was. He sat up and looked at his watch. It was nine pm already. He saw the others had apparently followed his example, at some point, and gone to sleep as well. How they’d managed to occupy themselves during the day and evening was something to ask them another time. He gently shook Carol's shoulder.
"Carol?"
"Huh? Oh. Hi, Liam."
"Its nine o'clock. I think it's safe, or as safe as it's going to get. So let's wake the others and leave."
As soon as the brothers were awake, he told them it was time to leave. He pulled the map from his pocket and opened it up. He located where he'd left the car. Once they were on the street, they would check the first street sign they came to and find out if they were headed in the right direction.
"Everybody ready?" he asked as he pushed the handle and the wall hissed open. He felt his heart — or all his organs, it felt like — in his throat. Gingerly they all stepped out into the kitchen. It was dark, but the lamp on the timer in the living room partially lit the room enough so that they could see.
"We'll have to kill that light before we pull the curtain," Scott warned.
Drew turned its switch and the room became engulfed in pitch-black darkness. Carol pulled the cord that drew back the heavy curtain as Liam looked out the window to see if anyone was about. Seeing no one, he unlatched the casement window, opened it, and looked down to a good ten-foot drop to the ground behind a five-to-six foot hedge-like plant. He mounted the ledge, turned back outward, and slowly slid down the outer wall until he was hanging from the frame by his hands. He let go.
"Carol you're next. Drew, help her. Carol, do as I did it and tell me when you're ready to let go and I'll catch you!" he whispered up.
Carol climbed up onto the sill and turned around, with her rear end poking through the window. Watching from below, he found the sight humorous. The normally prim and proper Carol looked, albeit clothed, to be mooning the world. As she lowered herself to hang onto the frame, Carol was thankful, realizing Liam was standing directly below her, that she chose to wear pants yesterday morning instead of a skirt. She realized she wasn't strong enough to hold on for long, so she whispered down to Liam.
"Here I come!" she warned as she let loose.
He reached out and caught her about the waist just before her feet hit the ground. Together they moved to the side as first Scott, and then Drew, made the drop.
“Which direction?" Drew asked as they all stepped out from behind the bush.
"Got no idea. Six of one, half dozen of the other. You choose," Liam told him.
"I got a feeling it's left."
"Okay, Gran, if you 'feel' it, left it is."
"Ha, ha, you one funny guy, Liam," Drew responded, as the four began walking down the street.
At the corner, Liam looked up at the street sign, barely making out the names of the intersecting streets in the dark. You'd think they'd put up a street lamp so it could be seen, he thought. He pulled out his city map and saw they were headed in the wrong direction.
"Wrong way," he told them. "Turn around."
Just as they did they saw a patrol car come up the street in their direction. No siren, but lights flashing. It stopped right in front of Gran's and they watched as it's side-mounted spot light illuminated and panned across the front of the house, stopping on the window they'd just exited.
"Crap! Somebody saw us!" Scott exclaimed.
Carol looked around and noticed bushes next to the house on the corner they were standing on.
"Quick! In here," she whispered as she ran over and got behind them.
The others followed just as an officer got out of the passenger side and walked up to the window and then back to the car. He leaned over to the driver and they could tell the cops were discussing something. The officer then turned, pulled out a flashlight, and began walking away from the house back in the direction the patrol car had come from, while the car itself started to slowly come in their direction, with its search light panning the street, side to side.
The shrubbery was barely high and wide enough to hide them, if they crunched together and squatted down as low as they could get. It was dense enough that they couldn't see through it, but they watched as the spot light lit up the building behind them and heard the car pass, turning at the corner, probably to circle the block and meet up with the other officer.
"Now what?" Carol asked.
"According to the map, the car is three blocks to the west and up one street north," Liam explained. "We could go a roundabout way to put some space between us and that squad car, but it would mean us having to be out in the open and exposed for too long. Now that somebody has reported to the police that they've seen some kids leaving that address, I'm sure it will get back to Smith, if it hasn't already, and I'm sure he or his henchmen will be back in the area looking for us too. We'll just have to get to the car as fast as we can and get outta here."
They got up and turned at the corner, looking first to see if the cop was still on the street. He wasn't, so they began a fast walk up the street to the next corner, still couldn't see the cop or the squad car in either direction, and continued, unmolested, and hopefully unseen, until they reached the car.
They got in; Liam started it up. Luckily, the cars that had been there before, forcing him to parallel park, were gone. He was relieved that he wouldn't have to try to parallel unpark. He'd been lucky not to have hit either of them getting in and he wasn't sure he'd have had the same luck getting out. He started to pull away from the curb when he noticed a piece of paper under the wiper on the windshield. Stopping and retrieving it, he laughed when he saw it was a parking ticket.
"This'll be one fine the city won't collect," he said as he passed it to Drew in the passenger seat, who laughed as he wadded it up into a ball and dropped it on the floor.
He handed Drew the map. "Okay, navigator, get me to M Street and the Key Bridge into Arlington."
"Where we going?" Scott asked.
With a grin, Liam merely said, "Home!"
Chapter Twenty Four: Council of War
“Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.”