DNA

by Laurence Dahners

  “Oh!” Amy said in a high pitch, “I can’t hold it any longer!” She waddled across the room toward the closet, her thighs pressed together.

  Zage pulled the door open wide so she could go in. There wasn’t a light in the closet so he wondered if she would want the door closed. She settled the question by pulling it closed except for a small crack.

  To avoid listening, Zage moved across the room. After a bit, the door opened a little bit more, evidently to let in some light. Zage could hear the rustling of plastic. Some thumping followed. Finally Amy came back out, looking embarrassed. “This is… really terrible Zage,” she said. “At least there were a lot of bags in the bottom of the trashcan. I took mine out and… tied it off and put it back in the corner. There was a closet rod on the floor in there. I put it up where it belongs and hung the plastic bags over it so that they’re easier to get to without having to reach down into the trashcan.” She stepped all the way out and held the door, “I know it’s embarrassing, but I heard you say you had to go and I don’t know anything else we can do, at least right now.”

  Zage gave a sharp nod and stepped into the closet himself. Once he’d relieved himself, he came back out. Amy gave him a hug. Once again he found the human contact reassuring. “Um,” he said.

  Amy said, “Yes?” But then, without waiting for him to continue, she looked down at herself, patting around her coverall while she said, “I really don’t remember much. That man came in the car and I think he shot me?! Then I don’t remember anything until I woke up having to pee so badly. Do you know what’s going on?”

  “Um, he shot you with a Taser. Then an animal tranquilizer dart. I’ll tell you what I know,” he said, then lowered his voice to a whisper, “but can you get the closet rod back down and stand it in the corner where it was? My mom said we might be able to use it as a club, but I can’t reach it up there.”

  Amy’s eyes widened and she whispered back, “I’m… not sure we should try to hit those guys with it. It’d probably only piss them off.”

  Zage said, “That might be, but we need to keep our options open.”

  After a second, Amy shrugged and went over to take the rod back down. “I’m putting the plastic bags on the floor, okay?”

  “Sure.” Zage brought Amy up to date about the fact the men seemed to be holding them for ransom and that they didn’t seem to know that Zage and Amy would be able to communicate with the outside world through AI equipment in their ears, on their teeth, and in Zage’s contacts. Speaking very quietly, he said, “Did you know we have implanted GPS antennas?”

  Amy nodded.

  Zage continued, “But our AIs can’t get a GPS signal down here in the basement so we can’t tell anyone where we are.” Zage finished, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt.

  Amy rubbed his shoulder and gave it a little pat, “Don’t worry, your mom’ll get us out of here.”

  Zage felt a little surprised that Amy expected his mom, rather than his dad, to be the one to get them out. Quietly, he said “She’s the one that suggested using the closet rod as a club.” Zage also showed Amy the twisted coat hanger under the mattress that could be used as a whip and the bent wire that could be used to short out the circuit breakers. “And over here,” he said, moving to the corner and warming to his explanation, “Mom says we can cut a hole in the wall.” He leaned the table away from where he’d marked out the hole and started cutting one side of it. He looked back at Amy, “I’m sure my dad’ll have some great ideas too, he just hasn’t had much time to talk to me yet.”

  Amy blinked a couple of times. She kept her voice down as well and said, “Do we have any idea what’s on the other side of that wall?”

  “Osprey, send Amy and I the video record from when they carried me in.” He watched Amy and could tell when the image came up in her contact. “It’s a room where somebody seems to be storing a lot of junk. Look at all that stuff! Bicycles, fans! A shopping cart! Why would anybody keep so much junk in their basement?”

  Bemused, Amy said, “Some people never throw anything away.” She asked her AI to play the short run of video for her again. “You think we’d come out in that back right corner?”

  “I guess.” Zage said. “Dad says if we can get upstairs, our GPS receivers might be able to get a signal.”

  Amy nodded. “I think we might need to get near a window too, not just upstairs. It’d be even better if we can get outside.”

  Zage said, “Once we’re out of this room and up the stairs, it might not be too hard to get outside, or at least near a window.” He looked back at the corner, “Can you make some kind of noise that’ll cover up the sound of me trying to saw my way through the wall?”

  Amy looked around thoughtfully for a minute, then said, “I think the sound they might believe the easiest would be you crying. Can you show me how to saw through the wall?”

  “I don’t cry!” Zage said indignantly.

  Amy gave him an indulgent look, “They,” she pointed up at the ceiling, “don’t know that. They’ve probably hardly ever spent any time around five year olds, at least since they were that age themselves. They probably think kids your age cry all the time.”

  Zage rolled his eyes, “Okay.” He went over and got the shelf bracket out of the drawer. “This is what you do.” Zage scraped the bracket up and down twice, showing Amy how it dredged out a powdery stream of gypsum. He stopped, turning back to look and see if she had the idea. As soon as he stopped, however, he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs outside.

  Standing quickly, Zage stood the folding table back against the wall over the hole and stepped to the drawer to put the bracket back underneath the clothing. When the bolts started turning back, confirming that one of the men intended to enter, he panicked for a second over the thought that they were looking for the source of the noise. He fell to the floor, buried his face in his hands and began sobbing in a loud rasp that he hoped sounded something like the noise of the bracket on the sheet rock.

  Peering through a gap in his fingers, Zage saw the door open an inch, then push open wider. He could only see the man’s boots. “What’s wrong with the kid?” The man asked, sounding angry that he had to listen to the crying. Again, the voice wasn’t the man who’d been in the back of the van.

  Amy said indignantly, “He’s scared and misses his mommy, what did you expect?!”

  “Well, you guys better hope his Mommy and Daddy come through with the cash then,” the man said in an ugly tone. Then he barked, “You! Kid! Shut the hell up!”

  Zage sobbed one more time, but he could tell from the way the man’s boots moved that the guy had stepped toward him.

  A sudden violent blow rolled Zage over, “I said, shut up!” the man bellowed.

  Zage curled around himself and stopped making noise despite agonizing pain in his right side.

  The door closed and Zage heard the bolts being turned closed.

  Zage peered out. A pizza box and a six pack of water bottles had been left on the floor.

  Chapter Ten

  When she’d finished the call from Jamieson, Ell had tried to contact the detective she’d met earlier at the crime scene. He shunted her to an FBI agent who, since it was a kidnapping, had taken over the case. “Agent Calder?” she asked, wondering exactly what the detective had told the agent.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “This is Raquel Blandon Kinrais, Zage Kinrais’ mother?”

  “Wait,” the woman said, “I thought Ell Donsaii was the boy’s mother?”

  Changing her voice to Ell’s, Ell said, “Same person. I was hoping the Lieutenant told you that I live with my husband as Raquel Kinrais in order to protect my son from just the kind of thing that happened here this morning.”

  “Oh, yeah. He did tell me that.”

  “I’m hoping that you can make an effort to keep our secret as well?”

  “Yeah, I’ll try. But I won’t let it stand in the way of recovering your son…”

  “No
r would I ask you to. Getting him back is the most important thing. If blowing our secret is necessary, by all means do so. But if it’s not necessary, please consider that keeping it might help protect him in the future.”

  “Yeah… sure. What did you call about? I’ve got about a million things to do here.”

  Not impressed by the agent so far, Ell told her about the call from Jamieson. “Would you like me to forward you the audio record?”

  “Yeah, send it. Can’t hurt. You’re calling this guy ‘Jamieson’? Did he give you that name?”

  “No, but he applied for a job on my security team many years ago and didn’t get hired. Recently he’s been hanging around my little farm with surveillance gear. Even though he had his AI disguise his voice, I felt sure it was him.”

  “You mean he had the AI put some funny sound effect on his voice? Or did it take each of his words and substitute in another person’s recorded words in their place? That’s the way AIs usually disguise voices.”

  “The latter, but, he has a slight cadence to the way he speaks. That still came through.”

  “Oh,” the agent said, sounding dubious. Then, firmly, “If any further calls come from the kidnappers, forward them directly to me. I’ll deal with him.”

  For a second Ell said nothing; then she said, “Sorry, I can’t do that. I’ll connect you in on the call so you can listen and give advice, but I will talk to him myself.”

  “Look Ms. Donsaii, you need to leave this to the professionals.”

  “He’s my son…”

  Calder interrupted, “And I’m his best chance! You need someone with training and experience handling this!”

  Trying not to sound as irritated as she felt, Ell said, “I’ve got experience.”

  “What kind of experience?!” Calder asked, her voice full of disbelief.

  “I’ve been kidnapped four times. Well, two of them were only attempts.”

  There was a long silence, then Calder said, “And who got you out?” To Ell it sounded like she was hoping to hear that it was the FBI, thus proving her point.

  “I did. Now, I’ll let you get back to your work. When Jamieson calls again, I’ll connect you in to the call.” Ell cut the connection, hoping she hadn’t alienated the woman so much that she’d give away the Raquel Blandon secret out of spite. “Allan, connect me to Zage… Hi Zage.”

  To her horror, she heard Zage crying, though it didn’t sound much like normal crying. Instead, he was making a regularly spaced raspy squall. “Zage?” she asked with trepidation.

  “Hi Mom,” he said, then squalled again, then said, “I’m crying to cover,” he squalled again, “the sound of Amy sawing,” he squalled again, “through the sheet rock.” After one more squall, he said, “Just a sec… Amy, can you hold on for a minute? My mom’s calling.”

  Ell heard Amy’s voice coming from further away and asked Allan to connect Amy into the conversation.

  Now Amy came in clearly. She said, “I’m almost through the wall anyway.”

  Ell said, “Amy, sorry you got caught up in this mess. How are you holding up?”

  “So far, I’m doing okay. They drugged me and I slept through a lot of it. Zage thinks they only took me because they thought I was you.”

  “Yeah,” Ell wondered whether there was any chance that they could keep their secret from Zage anymore, but didn’t see any reason to just give it up by saying what the kidnappers were really after. “Two hostages were better than one, I guess.”

  Amy said, “Have they made their demands yet?”

  “Yeah, we’ll be able to give them what they want, don’t worry.”

  “But what if…” Amy stumbled to a stop. Ell thought she’d probably been about to ask, What if the kidnappers don’t release Zage and me? But then she’d realized that wasn’t something Ell would want Zage to hear.

  Zage said, “I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t have kidnapped some really rich kid! They could have gotten a lot more money than they could from you.”

  “They think they’re getting a lot. I don’t think they’re going to be very happy when they get it though,” Ell said grimly.

  “When’s the exchange supposed to happen?” Amy asked.

  “Don’t know yet. They’re probably trying to figure out how to make the exchange without getting caught.” After a moment’s pause, “He’s calling now, so I’ve got to go. Love you guys.”

  “Bye…”

  ***

  Steve chewed a fingernail as he watched the feeds from Zage and Amy’s cameras. Amy had scraped all the way through the gypsum of the sheet rock to the layer of cardboard on the far side and was trying to figure out what to do next. Steve spoke to his AI, “Connect me to Amy… Amy, this is Steve.”

  Even over the connection, Steve could feel Amy sagging with relief. She said, “Thank God! Are you guys about to pick us up?”

  “Um, no. We still don’t know where you are.” He sighed, “We’ve tried all kinds of human as well as computer analysis of the video stream of you guys riding in the back of that van, trying to figure out where it took you by turns, and estimated distance. We’ve even knocked on a few doors that we thought might have been the right place. No joy so far, though we’re still working. Ell’s having to deal with the guy about the ransom, so she asked me to watch you guys’ feeds and try to give you advice.” He paused, “If we can just figure out how to get you up out of that basement and get a GPS signal, we’ll be there pronto!”

  “Okay,” Amy said, disappointedly. “What do you suggest? This hole in the sheet rock is all the way through on the near side, and through to the cardboard on the far side. I think I can just kick out the piece on the far side.”

  “Rather than kick it, which’ll make a thump, I suggest you just push steadily in one corner so it very slowly rips out. Hopefully that’ll make a lot less noise.”

  “Okay, I’ll give it a try.” Amy sat down and put a heel against the lower left corner. Over a minute or two, she pushed steadily and the rectangular segment of sheet rock she’d sawn loose fairly quietly ripped through the cardboard around the lower edges on the other side. It tilted up on the hinge of the cardboard at the top. She said “That worked great Steve.”

  Steve heard Zage’s voice in the background asking Amy who she was talking to. Steve spoke to his AI again, “Connect me to Zage as well as Amy… Zage, this is Steve. I’m a friend of your mother’s. You’ve met me a few times, but they were a long time ago so you might not remember. She’s asked me to help you and Amy try to get upstairs so you can get a GPS signal.” He paused for a second, then said, “You guys have done a great job of cutting that hole. Amy, can you poke your head through so we can see whatever there is to see on the other side?”

  “Okay…” The view from Amy’s camera lowered down and went into the hole. “Damn, this is kind of tight,” she said, “I should’ve cut it bigger.” She did manage to poke her head through the hole and look around, giving a view of the back side of the room that hadn’t been visible in Zage’s video from when they’d carried him into the room. “The light’s pretty bad.” They couldn’t see very far and certainly not all the way to the front of the room because a lot of the old, probably broken, electrical appliances were piled back near the opening in the wall. “It’ll take me a while to squeeze through this hole Steve. I’m worried that if they come downstairs while I’m on the other side it’ll give away our secret. I think I should make the hole bigger first.”

  Zage said, “I know I’m fat, but I’m still a lot smaller than Amy. Let me try.”

  Amy had just pulled herself out of the hole. She sounded horrified, “We can’t let you do that Zage, it’s too dangerous!”

  Despite Amy’s words, Zage got down and started crawling into the hole. As he went, he said, “If we cut the hole bigger, the piece of sheet rock we cut out of the hole won’t fit it anymore and the hole’ll be a lot more obvious. Besides, I’m already through,” he said, easing the little sheet rock flap back down p
art way into its hole so it didn’t thump in noisily. “Wow, this is a lot of stuff!” he said gazing around. Even though there wasn’t much light, he could see fairly well because his AI contacts amplified what there was. He worked his way over and around the piles until he could see up the stairs. At the top was a door with a row of deadbolts like the door to their room. “It doesn’t look like I can get through that,” he said, disappointment obvious in his voice. He paused for a second, then said, “Maybe, if Amy calls for the guy, when he opens the door to come down I can trip him. Once he falls down the stairs, I can run up and out the door and try to get a GPS signal.”

  Amy said, “No! Absolutely not! Get back in here! I can hear men walking around upstairs!”

  Zage didn’t even acknowledge her demands. Instead, he said, “What do you think Steve?”

  Steve said, “Amy, they’ll be trying not to hurt Zage. I can’t say the same for you. And, because of his size, he’ll be able to do this better than you will.” After a moment’s pause, he said, “Zage, I don’t think you should do it right this second. First of all, you need to look around this basement and find something to trip the guy with.”

  “Oh!” Zage said, “There was all that wire back in the corner with the electronics. I could tie a piece of it across the stairs!”

  “Good idea.” Steve said, “You could also try to put something lower on the stairs that he’d land on after he tripped.”

  “You mean…” Zage said, sounding a little bit puzzled, “like that mattress, so he won’t get hurt so bad when he lands?”

  “Um, no,” Steve said, trying not to laugh, “I was thinking more of some sharp cornered metal things so he’ll get hurt worse.”

  “Oh… Okay. I don’t like those guys very much.”

  Zage went back to the back of the room where he sorted through the wire back there. When he started back toward the stairs, Steve said, “I think you should wait a while before you set your trap. They’ll probably bring you dinner this evening. When they bring it, they won’t be on guard like they might if Amy screams and yells to get them to come downstairs. Besides, if you do manage to get outside, it’d be a lot better if the sun was down and the light was dim. We’ll be coming as soon as we get your GPS info, but if they can’t find you, they won’t be able to move you to another location.”