“Metro is ten minutes out, sir,” one of the SUV drivers reported.
“Can you walk, Mykl?” Jack asked.
“No, but I can limp pretty well.” Mykl yelled for James to come back. Then to Jack he said, “Before we go, can I talk to Lori for a second?”
“Sure. Just keep your distance.”
“Do I look stupid?”
Jack opened his mouth to respond, but Mykl raised a hand to cut him off. “Don’t answer that. I’ll keep back.”
Mykl hobbled over to Lori and stopped beyond her reach. Her hair had slipped out of its bun, creating a wet curtain across her face. Kneeling in a puddle, she reminded him of a nightmare creature from a video game. He expected her to lash out at him, to berate him, to do anything other than what she did.
She smiled. “Hello, Mykl,” she said softly.
Her surprising demeanor momentarily robbed him of words.
“Angel got your tongue?”
“No. James kept you from getting that far down the list.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not done yet.”
“How do you figure?”
“I’m insane. Doesn’t it show?”
Mykl understood why she smiled, and it caused a thread of fear to weave into his subconscious.
“Come now, Mykl. They don’t execute the insane these days. They lock them up in institutions where they can be cared for—and rehabilitated. Think about it: what sane person would go around killing helpless children? No, they won’t kill me. They’ll make me better. You’ll see. They’ll all see.”
Mykl had heard enough. “Goodbye, Lori,” he said, and he turned to leave.
“Goodbye, sweetie. See you later,” she said in a serrated voice.
It took every ounce of concentration Mykl could muster to not shiver from the demon’s icy-clawed words raking down his spine.
The SUV had two rows of bench seats behind the driver. James had already belted himself into the rearmost seat, leaving a place for Mykl to sit next to him. But Mykl stood by the door, feeling small; the bottom of the frame came up to his chest. It would require extra effort to get in with two good legs, let alone one gimped up with a corkscrew puncture.
Two strong hands slid under his armpits and lifted him inside.
“Sorry about that, son,” said the driver. Son. He had called him son. No man had ever called him that before. It made him feel warm inside. Mykl turned to smile and salute the man. He returned the salute with a wink and a reminder to buckle up as he closed the door.
As Mykl buckled in, the helicopter on the hill lifted off and disappeared quickly into the night. It had no navigation lights and made so little noise that it virtually disappeared the second it lifted off.
Jack climbed into the passenger seat. “Let’s move,” he said to the driver.
“We’re not waiting for the police to show up?” Mykl looked through the back window at Lawrence, who stood talking to Lori.
“No, the ranger can handle things from here,” Jack replied.
“What will happen to Lori?”
“I wouldn’t worry about her. Society still has enough redeeming qualities to take care of the likes of her.”
The three SUVs left the campground without even turning on their headlights. The driver wore some kind of goggles; they must have allowed him to see in the dark. They drove on for a few minutes, then all three SUVs pulled off to the side of the road. And for a moment, Mykl felt a strange sensation: like being lightheaded and disoriented. James tilted his head and closed his eyes.
A minute later, a small caravan of police cruisers, laser strobes flashing and sirens wailing, came flying along the crumbling asphalt road. Air pressure waves from the speeding cars rocked the SUV as they passed. None bothered to stop and check on them.
Mykl leaned back in his seat. Thoughts of returning to life in the Box dampened his spirit almost as much as the prospect of getting a tetanus shot.
***
The police took Lori into custody and secured her in the uncomfortably molded seat of a transport cruiser.
“Good job, Ranger,” said the Metro sergeant. “The children of the asylums should sleep better once news of the Angel’s capture gets out.”
“Just doing my job, Officer.”
“Where are the FBI agents?”
“They left a few minutes ago in three black SUVs. Didn’t you pass by them on your way in?”
“No. We were the only vehicles on the road between here and Vegas.”
“Well you must have missed them. Perhaps they took the long way back to town?”
“I suppose so.”
Lawrence shrugged and walked back to his truck, looking back in the direction the helicopter had disappeared. Under his breath, he muttered: “FBI, my ass.”
CHAPTER 25
They rode in silence all the way back to the Box. It was after midnight, and the wet streets gleamed with distorted colors from stoplights and neon signs. James patiently fiddled with his fingers and never once looked up to peer at the city.
When they arrived, Jack helped Mykl step down to the curb by the entrance to the interview lounge.
“Is this where we say goodbye?” Mykl asked, feeling disappointed.
“Goodbye?” Jack looked amused. “Hardly. This is where you go gather your personal belongings before we leave for your new home.”
“But I thought…”
Mykl trailed off when he looked at the three SUVs parked at the curb. They were no longer black, nor did they have government plates. The one Mykl had gotten out of was now gray. The other two were white and red, respectively. Mykl pointed to the gray SUV and looked back at Jack, his mouth attempting to compose a question.
Jack touched a finger to his lips and said, “There are a few things we need to talk about, but this is not the place.”
Mykl furrowed his brow in confusion. A color-changing vehicle? He had never heard of such a thing before. It seemed like the kind of technology that would be used by some sort of unknown secret government agency…
The fairytales about smart kids being appropriated by secret agencies suddenly crystallized into reality. I’m being saved from one embodiment of hell, and now I’m on the verge of being sent to another.
James stumbled out of the SUV. “Dawn comes with us?” he asked. Apparently he’d heard everything.
“Hang on, James,” Mykl said. “I need to talk with Jack. You can go tell Dawn that I’m okay, if that’s okay with Jack?”
“That’s fine,” Jack said. “We need to get someone to let us inside first.”
“Linda should be in there sleeping on the couch at this time of night. Push the button on the wall. She’ll get up—eventually.”
They waited five minutes before Linda finally responded to the buzzer. An irritated, sleepy voice spoke through the intercom. “Do you have any idea what goddamned time it is?”
“I sincerely hope I didn’t wake you. My name is Jack Green, from Child Protective Services. I have two of your charges here with me, one of whom seems to have escaped within the last four hours, and I would very much like to discuss the matter with you.” Jack’s voice burned with sarcasm, and his last comment came out as a threat.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Linda muttered. “Come right in.” A click announced the unlocking of the door.
Mykl followed Jack into the interview room, where Mykl’s abduction remained vivid in his mind. Linda met them and paled noticeably when Jack showed her his credentials. The identities he had portrayed in the last hour had Mykl on edge: Jack Grey, Jack Green, FBI, Child Protective Services… Who was this person, and how many other aliases did he go by?
“Linda? Is that your name?” Jack asked.
She flushed and stammered, “Y-Yes.” She spared a glance at Mykl, and the expression on her face made him suddenly conscious of how he must look, wearing an oversized green park service jacket with ripped and bloody pants showing through the jacket opening. “Mykl? What in the world happened to you?” But it wa
s Jack she looked to for an answer.
“Mykl here has been through a bit of an ordeal and will be taken into our protective custody. You need not concern yourself about his well-being any longer. You will probably find that you are going to be shorthanded in the morning, so you should plan accordingly. As for right now, you may wish to make sure all the rest of your children are present and accounted for.”
“Hi, Lindas,” James sang, as if on cue.
“Um, yes, okay.” She turned as if in a daze and drifted back inside.
“Kyle, go with her, check to make sure they aren’t missing any more kids.”
“Yes, sir,” said the SUV’s driver, who had joined them in the interview room.
“James go say hi to Dawn?”
“Go ahead, James,” said Jack. “And you might want to get some dry clothes on while you’re at it.”
Jack and Mykl stood alone, Mykl leaning against a chair to take weight off his injured leg. The man and the boy appraised each other, trying to read the other’s secrets by their facial expressions.
Mykl spoke first. “You’re from the government, aren’t you? I’ve heard stories about smart kids being taken and made to work in sensitive areas doing the drudge work that no one else wants to. That we’re regarded as expendable.”
Jack smiled down at Mykl. “I am from the government. That much I can tell you. The specifics will have to wait. As far as kidnapping children to take out the trash and then disposing of them, well, think about it: do you really think we would go to all this effort just to find a janitor?”
Mykl scratched his ear as he realized how silly and farfetched that sounded. “Then why?”
“Mykl, I designed that test to find the best minds in the world. You’re the first person who ever came remotely close to finishing the test in its entirety. Do you know how special that makes you? Not to mention how effectively you’ve managed to hide your true intelligence for so long. It takes an exceptional mind to pull that off. To put you to work as a drudge would be almost as great a crime as Lori attempted to commit. Although,” Jack paused dramatically, “you will be expected to clean your own room.”
Mykl paid attention not only to this man’s words, but also his tone and body language. In Mykl’s opinion, Jack resonated sincerity—and Dawn had always claimed he was a good judge of character.
“So this is like an adoption interview? I don’t have to go with you if I don’t want to?”
“I would rather have you come with me of your own free will. So, if you wish, yes, we can treat this as an interview.”
Mykl’s features became hard and cold. “Are you going to—”
Jack interrupted before Mykl could finish his standard opening question. “No one will ever hit you.”
Mykl narrowed his eyes and paused to reflect on how Jack could have anticipated his question. He glanced at the spider-webbed camera in the corner. Having reasoned it out, he followed up with, “Do you swear to God?”
“Do you believe in God, Mykl?”
“No.”
“Then why would you want me to swear to someone you don’t believe in?”
“You’re not the only one who can test people.”
Jack knelt to place a hand on Mykl’s shoulder and spoke in a fatherly tone. “I swear on my life, and my love of it, that you will be treated with kindness.”
Mykl felt his throat tighten. He chastised himself for being so childish. “Will… will I be able to go to school?”
“Absolutely. You will learn everything you desire, and more.”
“Are…” Mykl wiped his eye. “Are you going to be my dad?”
It was Jack’s turn to swallow a lump in his throat. “Not exactly. But I promise, I will treat you as if you were my son.”
That was good enough for Mykl. He released the chair so that he could, for the first time he could recall, hug an adult other than his mom. He felt that he had now been delivered from evil.
Jack returned the hug and willed the boy to be strong, for he had yet to show him all the evil that existed in the world.
CHAPTER 26
Calculating the implications of what Jack had told him, Mykl stepped back with a mischievous gleam in his eye. If he thinks I’m so valuable that he’s willing go to such extreme efforts to get me, then perhaps he’s prepared to go a bit further to keep me.
“I’ll go on one condition.”
Jack folded his arms across his chest. “And what might that be?”
“James and Dawn have to come with me.” Mykl folded his arms in imitation of Jack. “They are my friends, and they both played roles in saving my life. They deserve the same opportunities I do.”
Jack looked to the ceiling as if he were deliberating. What he was really doing was trying to keep from bursting out laughing at the precocious five-year-old posturing in front of him. The kid had spunk. And Jack would take every child in the asylum if that’s what it took to have this boy agree to go.
But Jack couldn’t afford to show weakness and simply give in. “Very well then, we will trade value for value. Promise to keep your room clean and we have a deal.” He tried to keep a serious expression, but failed. Mykl, too, cracked a smile.
“Done!” Mykl just hoped he had it in him to actually follow through on his promise.
“Of course, your friends have to be willing to go with us,” Jack added.
“Leave that to me. Here,” Mykl entrusted Lawrence’s jacket to Jack, “I’ll go change and let them know.”
Mykl limp-skipped to his room in barely contained exuberance. Not only was he about to be free of this soul-sucking hellhole, he had finagled his friends’ rescue in the bargain.
He changed clothes as quickly as he could, being careful of his injury. The frayed and faded old clothes felt downright luxurious against his skin compared to the wet garments he peeled off. Unfortunately, he only had the one pair of shoes, and they still squished when he walked, so he carried them, and grabbed an extra pair of socks. In the event he had to put on the shoes, he would have a dry pair for later.
There was no use in trying to pack anything. He didn’t have a suitcase or even a trash bag to toss personal belongings into, which was fine, because he had no personal belongings—unless he counted the jacket Lawrence had given him. He really should get that back to the ranger somehow.
He sensed a draft coming from the window and went to close it. The hinged security bars were slightly ajar. That explained how James had gotten into the quad, anyway; how he got over the razor wire was still a mystery.
Carrying his drippy shoes, an extra pair of dry socks, and nothing else, he made his way to the dayroom. A cockroach raced him down the hall and disappeared around the corner.
Linda labored at the office computer with Kyle hovering over her shoulder. Poor Linda; she’s going to actually have to do some work to earn her pay now. Mykl crept past them both and went to the stairs to the girls’ dorm. He wanted to leap up the stairs, but thanks to his wounded leg, he had to climb the stairs slowly, gingerly.
When he reached the top, he could hear James excitedly recounting the story of Lori’s capture and Mykl’s rescue by the park ranger. James was completely downplaying his own part in the tale.
Mykl tapped at the open door. “Did I miss anything while I was gone?”
“Sees! Myyykll backs!”
“Mykl, what is James babbling about?” Dawn said in muzzy-headed exasperation. “He claims Lori is the Ass Angel, she almost killed you, you both got struck by lightning, and then there’s something about cars that change color!”
“Well, Dawn, it’s all true. Every bit. Except James is leaving out the part where he escaped and took a taxi to come to my rescue.”
Dawn buried her face in her hands. “I am soooo confused.”
Mykl took that as an opening to drop his bomb on her. “You can be confused later. Right now there’s a man downstairs who wants to adopt us. All three of us.”
Dawn dropped her hands a few inches.
&
nbsp; “He’s from the government,” Mykl continued, “but you said I was a good judge of character, and I think he’s okay. And he’s gobs nicer than any other adult I’ve ever met. We can even go to school!”
Dawn sat back on her bunk. Whether it was because she needed to concentrate or was simply unable to remain standing, Mykl couldn’t tell.
“Before I agree to anything, I have to talk to him myself,” she said. “Take James with you. I’ll dress and come down.”
James and Mykl walked down the hall together to the stairs. James had to mince his steps to maintain pace with his injured friend.
“James carries?”
“Oh, no, James, that would cause my leg to bend too much. Thanks, but no.”
Still, when they reached the stairs, James lost his patience. He wrapped his arms around Mykl from behind, grasping him high on his rib cage, and lifted him up so that Mykl’s legs dangled. Then he carefully walked down the stairs.
“Well, that works.”
“Weeelcomes, Myyykll.”
They found Jack wandering about the dayroom, his eyes taking a visual inventory of the place.
“James,” Mykl asked, “do you have anything you would want to take with you if we go with Jack?”
“Dots.”
Mykl peered up at him. He should have guessed it. His pages of dots were the only thing James ever bothered to save. “Well, you might want to go get them. And change into some dry clothes while you’re at it. Yours are starting to smell a bit gamey.”
“Okays.” But instead of heading for the boy’s dorms, James shuffled over to Jack. “Jacks wants dry clothes too? James has more clean ones.”
Jack examined his suit as if he just now realized it was soaked through. He smiled up at James. “Thank you, James, I would appreciate that very much. It looks like your clothes are going to be a little too big for me, but I can live with that for a while.”
James flashed a bright smile and grabbed Jack by the hand to lead him to the dorms.
Well, that’s two out of three votes for Jack, Mykl thought. He hoped Dawn found him acceptable too.
The Prometheus Effect Page 12
