Winston Chase- The Complete Trilogy

by Bodhi St John

He heard the agents below him, just out of sight. They paused. Winston slowed to a walk to keep his footsteps silent. His heart raced, and his face was hot with exertion.

  The second-floor door banged shut, then Winston heard more footsteps climbing after him — but only one set. They had split up.

  Winston hauled himself at full speed up to the end of the stairway. Instead of a number three by the door, he found the word “ROOF.” Thankfully, this door was also open.

  Winston burst into the cool morning air. The eastern sky paled from pink into white, punctuated by patchy clouds edged in orange and rose. Gravel crunched under Winston’s shoes, and he paused, feeling disoriented. The roof’s blank expanse was broken only by an occasional ventilation pipe or exhaust fan.

  He cast about but found nothing that might lend itself to blocking the door in the next few seconds. Winston ran to the roof’s edge, desperate for some way down, but there were no ladders or even a drain pipe in sight. Cars and trucks droned by, oblivious to his plight.

  “Smith, he’s on the roof. I have him in sight.”

  The lead agent stood in the doorway, staring at him, radio raised to his mouth. That first glimpse through the windshield hadn’t been far off. This guy had a neck as big around as Winston’s thigh and biceps to match. He wore a dark suit and loafers, all very Men in Black, but he didn’t feel like a good guy. His small eyes locked on Winston with an eagerness that said he could do this cat and mouse game all day and never get bored.

  “That was a good run, kid,” he called in a dry rumble. “How about you just come quietly and not get hurt?”

  “Depends,” said Winston as he walked along the edge of the roof, searching for some way out of this trap. “Did you bring any doughnuts?”

  Finally, he spotted a fire escape — on the opposite corner of the building. No help there. He searched over the brink again for something, anything. Pavement. Street lamps. Traffic. Lots of empty air and not a single dumpster filled with plush garbage bags in sight.

  The agent grinned and casually clipped his radio back onto his belt as he sauntered forward. Winston wondered if he could lure him away from the doorway and then outrun him back to it. Not likely. This guy might be big, but he didn’t seem stupid, and he was obviously in great shape.

  “I’m FBI, kid, not police.”

  Winston had expected something like this, but hearing it confirmed still shocked him.

  “Why does the FBI want me? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “How about you set down that backpack and step away from it? Then we can talk.”

  His backpack. Did they know about the Alpha Machine?

  The agent’s partner, Smith, appeared in the doorway, breathing hard, face almost the same color as his curly red hair. At least five years younger than the lead agent, he wore a white polo and black slacks rather than the stereotypical suit.

  Smith spotted Winston and started forward, but the leader raised a hand and said, “Stay.”

  Smith’s glance traveled from Winston back to his partner, and Winston saw the expression of resentment cross his face. Apparently, this one didn’t appreciate being commanded like a dog, even if it was the strategically smart move. Now Winston had no escape route.

  He studied the street traffic, then gazed east toward the craggy triangle of Mt. Hood, knowing that even though he couldn’t see it, the MAX station waited only a few more blocks in that direction. Seconds ticked off in the back of his mind. He took a hesitant step toward the agent. This made the man stop, suddenly more cautious.

  “What do you want with me?” Winston asked.

  The agent squinted as he thought, obviously trying to figure out this change of direction in the pursuit. “Answers.”

  Seven seconds, maybe six. “Like what?”

  “That’s above my pay grade, kid. I’m just here to escort you in.”

  “Do you know what’s in my bag? Aside from underwear and stuff.” He took another couple of steps.

  The agent shook his head. “Don’t know, and don’t care.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked Winston to put the bag down.

  Three seconds. Just a little more room… If the agent made a dash before Winston turned around, he might be able to catch him. Winston had to move first. He took a deep breath.

  Now.

  In mid-step, Winston turned on his heel, crouched, and launched himself like a runner coming out of the blocks. He’d already covered three or four steps before he heard the agent recover from his surprise and start after him. But he was too late.

  Winston’s foot hit the raised rim around the roof’s edge. He only had a split second to look down, and with his next step he leaped into the empty nothing of space.

  As the wind whipped through his hair and gravity decided that he needed to move downward a lot faster than sideways, Winston thought, I had no choice. There was no more time. And Shade is waiting for me. Oh, God, I’m going to die.

  Winston saw the cement sidewalk far below race toward him. Then he was past the sidewalk, and his feet slammed into the white top of the parked delivery truck he’d seen from the roof. The vehicle’s driver stood by the back bumper, unloading boxes onto a hand truck. The man cried out in surprise as Winston hit the truck with a loud boom. He expected both legs to snap like twigs and pain to rip his head off, but his legs didn’t break, and there was no pain, at least not in that first instant.

  Winston landed feet first with his knees slightly bent. He hadn’t had any time to plan his landing, and he wasn’t sure he could have controlled it even if he had. All he knew was that if Bernie had bones reinforced with carbon-metal nanofibers, then maybe he did, too. He’d soon find out one way or the other.

  Momentum carried Winston’s body forward. His knees buckled and his hands smacked the truck’s roof as his body continued forward. Only half-intentionally, he went into a roll over one shoulder. The world spun. He felt himself go over his backpack, then he was falling again. This time, the pavement greeted him. Winston landed on his left side. Tires screeched. His body lay still, but the world continued to spin.

  Someone towered over him. Red shirt. Box held in one hand. Shocked expression.

  “Kid, are you OK?”

  Winston wanted to laugh. I just took a twenty-five-foot jump off a building and am probably bleeding out in the middle of the road. I’m totally dandy.

  He tried to sit up and was amazed to find that he could. Then the pain hit him. Both of his feet felt like someone had struck them with sledgehammers. His left arm tingled with numbness, but some invisible tormentor had set to work disassembling his shoulder with a blowtorch. Similarly, his hip roared with agony. He could sit, though. He was alive.

  “Kid, are you…” The driver trailed off. “Oh, man. You’re turning blue.”

  Winston checked his hands. Sure enough, his skin was starting to glow. Not just one spot, but all of him. Probably his face, too.

  He craned his neck up to see where he’d jumped from. The lead agent stared back at him, mouth hanging open. A second later, his partner appeared beside him, equally dumbfounded.

  Winston reached out a hand to the driver, and without thinking the man helped him to his feet.

  “Thanks,” said Winston. “Parkour training. I slipped.”

  “I guess!”

  Winston wanted to check himself for injuries, but there was no time. He could stand and move. That would have to do for now. He tried to run, but his left leg wouldn’t bend like he needed, so he went into a sort of half jog, half hobble as he crossed the street. A car honked and braked as Winston limped by. The agents wouldn’t be long in catching up.

  He limped along as fast as he could force his body to go. His left leg didn’t seem to be broken, but every movement sent a spear of agony up the side of his body. The phrase “waves of pain” came to mind, but that wasn’t it at all. Waves were soft. This felt like having blasts from a water cannon slam into his brain. Each step made him want to
gasp.

  By the end of the block, though, the edge of his excruciation started to fray. His arm swung a little more freely. Each step grew a pinch longer.

  Winston managed to extract his cell phone from his pants pocket and checked the time. The screen flashed from black to solid white, exposing a spider web of fracture lines emanating from one edge.

  With a groan, he clenched his fingers around the device and kept trying to run.

  At the end of the second block, he chanced a look back. There they were, just coming into sight. Someone honked, and the front end of a silver car came into view, nearly hitting the agents. Neither of them stopped to argue with the driver. The big agent had again taken the lead, head down like a charging bull. Smith struggled to keep up.

  Winston limped on. He wasn’t going fast enough, and he’d burned too much time in the supermarket.

  Finally, he came around a business complex and saw what he wanted. The MAX station was only four blocks ahead. A maroon pillar with a white circle in the center marked the entrance to the long platform. A snack and coffee shack stood off to one side. A train paused on the eastbound track, but he wasn’t worried about that one.

  He needed the westbound light-rail train, the one heading into downtown. The one that he guessed should have bazillions of people waiting on the platform for their ride into work.

  The one that, with two FBI agents only seconds behind him, he had obviously missed.

  12

  Mass Transit Marathon

  Winston’s pace fell off as despair threatened to cripple him. What now? They would be on him in only seconds. He could make a break for it, he realized. Just keep running. He’d lose Shade, but maybe that was unavoidable…and for the best. If Winston truly threatened his mother’s safety, wouldn’t the same be true for his friend?

  He paused and hunched over, hands on his knees, panting for breath, trying to use his last few moments to think clearly and make the right decision.

  An electronic tone chimed from the speaker in the station’s covered platform. Winston looked east and would have cried with relief if he weren’t so worried about the agents overtaking him. A white-muzzled train rounded a gentle curve, still mostly screened by a line of trees. Winston watched it approach as he straightened. He wasn’t sunk. Not yet.

  “Come on,” he growled at the train. “Come on!”

  The FBI agents struggled on less than two blocks away. Both clearly suffered, but the charging bull in front, his lips pulled back across clenched teeth, face now a deep crimson, showed every sign of running until his lungs burst. Winston suspected he logged loads of time on the Stairmaster but didn’t rack up many miles lugging all of that muscle around the track. His smaller companion lagged several steps behind, right hand pressed to his side.

  With one more glance at the oncoming train, Winston made up his mind. He would wait. His fingers clenched with impatience as the tip of the train entered the station.

  The lead agent clearly mouthed the word “no” just as the slowing train’s first car overtook Winston. The rush of air from its passing rustled the strings of his jacket and chilled the sweat on his face. He scooted closer to the edge of the platform, as if even inches might make the difference between capture and escape.

  The train glided to a crawl and finally stopped. For an agonizing couple of seconds, it did nothing, leaving Winston pinned and only dimly aware of a Nike advertisement running along the length of the train. Two or three people trotted quickly from the nearby parking lot. Then a pair of descending electronic tones rang out, bing-biinnnggg, and eight sets of doors swung out and pulled aside. Even as the doors started to move, Winston smacked impatiently at them.

  At last, he ducked into the third of four train cars, chanced one last peek at the agents, now barely a hundred yards away, and ducked out of sight. He crawled on his hands and knees as fast as he could. Only a few other passengers sat in this car, but he felt sure they were all staring at him. The corrugated texture of the car’s floor bit into his palms and knees, and he stifled a groan of disgust as his hand came down on a half-hard mound of gum.

  The two tones sounded again, this time in ascending order, just as he crossed over the circular hinge plate dividing the third and second cars.

  “Doors are closing,” announced the train in a pleasant female voice.

  Still moving forward, Winston rose from his knees to his feet, careful to stay in a low crouch below the level of the seat backs.

  The big agent came on at full speed. He was ten steps away. Eight. Six. His partner limped on fifty yards back, hobbling and clutching his side, face pinched into a mask of pain.

  The big agent would make it. Winston could hear his bellow of determination, a final, guttural, all-or-nothing “aaaaghhhh!”

  Winston lunged forward.

  Four steps. Two.

  A short, mechanical pop sounded as all of the train’s doors activated and began to swing shut.

  Winston’s left hand caught the nearest pole by the door. His body pivoted around it, accelerating, like a comet speeding up as it raced around the back of the sun. Keeping as low as he could, Winston dove between the closing doors just as the agent thudded onto the train’s floor.

  Winston resisted the urge to curl into a roll and managed to keep his feet under him as he scrambled the few yards across the platform and banged up against the side of the coffee shack. He heard the train doors snap shut as he whipped around the tiny building, trying to stay out of sight to both the agent on the train and his partner now stumbled onto the platform.

  With a rising buzz and two more chimes of its bell, the MAX train slid into motion and left the station. Winston chanced a glance around the coffee stand’s corner and made out the back of the burly agent, head turning from side to side as he searched for a boy who was no longer there.

  ***

  Winston crouched on one knee, palms flat on the ground, almost like a runner prepared to launch out of a race’s starting blocks. His chest burned with the need for more breath, but he didn’t dare gasp or pant. He felt the vibration of the train receding into the distance. Even though he couldn’t see Agent Smith from his position behind the snack stand, the man’s gasps and moans were almost dramatically loud as his thudding footfalls came to a halt.

  Winston heard a quick, high-pitched beep followed by a crackle of static.

  “Smith!” said a deep but nearly breathless voice from over the agent’s radio. “I don’t see him!”

  A moment passed as Smith continued to struggle for air.

  “Smith, do you copy?”

  Winston heard the click of a metal clip releasing, then a flash of static as Smith hit the transmit button.

  “I copy,” the agent panted. “Keep looking. No…sign of him…here.”

  In the silence, Winston imagined the large agent pacing up and down the MAX train. Had anyone noticed when he dove out of the door? Would anyone tell the agent?

  “Are you sure?”

  Smith groaned in exasperation. “Yes, Lynch…I’m sure! I can see…the whole platform.”

  “I hope your eyes work better than your legs,” growled Lynch. “You just got run into the pavement by a grade schooler.”

  Winston found that a bit offensive given that he hadn’t been a grade schooler for sixteen months.

  “Only because I stopped…to pick you up…off the linoleum.”

  “Any sign of the other kid?” asked Lynch.

  After a pause of ten or fifteen seconds, Smith said, “Moving west. He… I think he’s on the train with you.”

  “Roger that. I’ll sweep again and…”

  A passing truck obscured the agent’s words. Winston cupped a hand behind his ear, trying to hear better. Several seconds passed before he could make out the conversation again, although it seemed fainter now. Smith must be moving away from him.

  “…split up? Can you…”

  Winston dared to lean out just beyond the coffee stand’s corner until he could see Smith�
�s back. The agent limped badly as he shambled back to the parking lot.

  “…mother. Get back to…”

  Smith slowly made his way through the lot and jaywalked across the far intersection. Soon, he passed entirely out of both sight and hearing.

  “All clear!” said a woman’s voice right above Winston.

  He jumped and nearly fell over sideways. The woman appeared to be in her early twenties. Her hair was raven black with streaks of pink. A silver hoop pierced one eyebrow and a stud punctuated her face between her chin and lower lip. A basket brimming with plastic-wrapped pastries hung on one arm, and she held a ring of keys in her hand. As she inserted one of these into the stand’s side door, she said, “You can stand up now.”

  “Oh,” was all Winston could think to say. “Thanks.”

  She gave a small, one-sided smile and opened the door. “Parent problems?” she called from inside the shack.

  “Something like that.” Winston crossed back behind the little building and peered inside the open door. There wasn’t much to the store, just a coffee maker, espresso machine, small refrigerator, a stool, and several rows of snacks that would still be fresh ten years later.

  “I don’t open for another few minutes,” she said while shelving handfuls of muffins and scones. “But if you don’t want coffee and have cash, I can sell you something.”

  Winston’s stomach grumbled in answer. He heard sneakered footsteps slap the ground as they approached and saw Shade trot across the MAX tracks. His friend still panted from his long sprint, but his eyes were large with excitement.

  Shade waved and cried, “Food!”

  “Yeah, I guess I’ll have a few things,” said Winston.

  Shade walked up, threw his arms around Winston, and buried his face in Winston’s chest. “My phone!” he wailed. “My poor, lonely, lonely phone. I feel like half my brain is gone.”

  “Too bad that was your last half,” said Winston, prying his friend away. “I’ll take four apple juices, two bananas, and two blueberry muffins.”

  He paid for the food, realizing this was the first of what would probably become many slices out of his father’s only legacy to him. The woman gave him change and closed the door between them. As they stood there, Winston became keenly aware of the early morning stillness. The air was brisk, almost stinging Winston’s sweaty face, hinting at the autumn chill only a few weeks off.