“I think you’re the dork.” He smiled at me and then reached over and took my hand.
Somehow dork never sounded so good.
“Knock it off,” Nancy said with a roll of her eyes, but I could tell she was happy for me. “Don’t let Bill see you do that.” She threw that in for measure, which made Ryan scoot in closer to me and made my stomach ache.
I still wasn’t sure how Bill felt about me, but I wasn’t an idiot. I could tell there was definitely more than friendship on his mind. And as much as I really liked Bill, I just didn’t feel the same kind of excitement and fire for him that I did for Ryan. How could I go from no prospects to two of the most sought after boys in my school liking me? And even after all the attention both of them had been giving me, there was still a part of me that didn’t believe they really liked me. Like it was some form of “primitive-animal-ape thing,” where as soon as one showed interest the other one got all territorial and mistook it for feelings for me. So really neither one of them liked me, they just needed to win the competition over my affection.
And then I was bummed again. That was probably it. I hated my mind sometimes. I always had to make a good situation turn into some logically horrible one. I never could believe that good things could happen to me and I didn’t know how to break that.
“I’m seriously impressed. I’m not freaked out or anything.” Ryan let go of my hand and put his arm around me and I literally had goose bumps. It was scary how much power he had over my physical being. I had to be careful I didn’t let him have that much control over my mind as well or I’d soon become one of those lame girls that did everything their boyfriend said.
I could tell Nancy was thinking the same thing as she shoved her reader in Ryan’s hands. “Do something useful, Ryan. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of genius? We need access to files that we can’t download from the public server.”
Ryan pulled his arm away from me and held the reader with both hands. “You mean restricted files from that study Mr. Alaster told us about?”
Nancy raised her eyebrow in interest. “That would be a great start. Yes.”
“Can you do that?” I asked. My interest was piqued. All Nancy and I could find was the article published in the Scientific Journal and there weren’t any details as to how the experiment was performed or any of the trials leading up to the actual resurrection. If we could read the entire report maybe we could get more accurate answers and figure out why I was the way I was.
“Yeah, no problem. What else do you need?” Ryan was eager to impress.
“We’re trying to figure out what kind of spell Mr. Vice President used to kill baby Chelsan, but all we’re coming up with is the basics.” Nancy was getting worked up now. If Ryan could do what he said he could we could potentially find out what happened to me.
“We need to be careful about what we hack into. If Turner is keeping an eye on Chelsan and you then he’s keeping an eye on Bill and me as well. We’re the only people that have been around you in the last twenty-four hours.” Ryan turned to me as if the next thing he was about to say was going to be difficult. “You need to tell Bill everything, too. He’s in danger now just by being your friend. And…” He paused and swallowed hard, “He’s a good guy.”
“Wow.” Nancy raised her eyebrow, impressed. “Look at you, all mature.” Nancy was serious as she looked at me, “He has a point, Chelsan.”
I knew they were right, but I felt like I was starting to lose control over the situation. If I ever had any control at all.
They would help me even if it meant they were in danger.
I couldn’t live with that.
And in that second I made a decision.
The only way to protect them was to leave them.
What was I thinking involving people I care about anyway? They could end up dead and it would be my fault. I’d never be able to live with myself. I was so selfish!
“You’re right. Why don’t you call him and have him come over.” Bill did have the right to know. He needed a heads up. “Be right back.” I stood up.
“Hang on. Your Chuck’s are untied.” Ryan said and reached down to tie the laces of my shoes.
For some reason it threw me off a bit, it was such a small gesture, but it made my heart skip a beat. I smiled at him and wanted to say good-bye but I walked to the bathroom instead. They couldn’t follow me in there and I knew it had a small window leading to the side yard. I would have to do this quick.
I entered the bathroom and took a deep breath. I was trying not to panic. I didn’t want to be alone. It was terrifying, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything were to happen my friends. I guess Jill was right to a certain degree, I didn’t belong with the students of Geoffrey Turner High. I was trouble.
The window was about twenty inches in height and twenty inches wide, so it would be a tight fit, but doable. Unlatching the lock, I slid the window open as quietly as was humanly possible. I squeezed my body through the opening with surprisingly no sound at all and dropped to the soft grass below. Half-crawling, half-running, I hurried out of Nancy’s side yard and once I was at a safe distance I ran full force down the grass street. It was still wet from watering and I almost slipped a few times, but I finally made it to a Hover-Shuttle station a few blocks away without any injury.
There were a few others waiting with me, but they didn’t pay me any mind. I just looked like a local kid waiting for a ride to the mall. Come on! Where was the stupid shuttle! I knew as soon as Nancy and Ryan found out I’d escaped they’d start an all out search for me, and I wanted to be as far away from them as possible. I had to go where they’d never guess I’d be. And I needed to find a phone to call Jason and make a new meeting place otherwise Nancy and Ryan were just going to show up at Alby’s and all this would be for nothing.
Finally! The Hover-Shuttle arrived at the station and I clambered inside it like the police were after me. I sat down on an aisle seat so no one could see me from the window. I wasn’t sure where I was going, I just wanted to GO! I knew that if Nancy and Ryan caught up to me, I wouldn’t be able to refuse their help. Especially if Ryan worked his Voodoo mojo on me. That’s what it felt like anyway. How could one person make my entire body and brain go completely numb! It was a little frustrating to say the least. I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave them again. I wasn’t strong enough. Jason was my only hope now. Hopefully, he would steer me to…
…to what? What exactly was I expecting from this guy? I was just trying to live moment to moment because if I actually sat down and thought about the future I’d get a little queasy. What could I possibly do to save myself from the most powerful man in the world? If Turner wanted me dead, I guess I’d be dead by now. So what was he waiting for? Maybe he was worried someone would find out he was my grandfather and tie him to the murder? Or maybe my dad’s death made him change and he really wanted me back in his life? I just didn’t know anything. I felt so lost and utterly alone, my choice or not, it sucked.
What if he knew about my power?
The thought had been flitting around my head since my mother’s visions, but it finally solidified itself in that moment. He could want me alive to use me, or study me, or I don’t know…. My mind was going a mile a minute. I needed to relax, take a deep breath and find a phone. Baby steps. The Hover-Shuttle was traveling into downtown Los Angeles. A surge of excitement flowed through me. I had never been to the city, I had never been anywhere because of Bruce. Everything I had ever seen on holo-tv, I could actually see with my own eyes. I felt like a hermit that finally decided to leave the house for the first time.
I looked over the shoulder of the person across from me to see out the shuttle’s window at the oncoming skyscrapers in the distance. Downtown Los Angeles. It was the most stunning view I had ever seen. It was an island of steel surrounded by an ocean of trees. At first glance, the buildings seemed clumped together in what appeared to be a chaotic mess, but on closer inspection there was meaning to the mad
ness. On the outer circle there were water dumping silos for all the hover-vehicles flying into the city to deposit their fuel cell tanks, making it easy to water the surrounding foliage that stretched for miles in every direction. Just past the silos the first set of steel and glass made up the smaller-sized outer ring of buildings that looked like a circle of miss-matched teeth. There were five other rings of varying sized skyscrapers leading to the center of Los Angeles, a giant, three-hundred foot in diameter, metal cylinder that was at least a thousand feet above all the other buildings. It was used as a hover-pad landing area, but how someone was to get down from the twenty-eight-hundred foot tall structure, was a mystery I was about to find out.
The Hover-Shuttle swooped up to the hover pad on top of the cylinder and landed with ease in its designated area. The door clunked open and everyone started to file out. I slowly stood up and walked out of the shuttle last.
I was expecting huge gusts of wind from the height we were at, but it was completely devoid of any draft or even a breeze. There were Hover-Shuttles and cars landing everywhere in a constant buzzing and whizzing of sound, but it was calm, like being in the eye of a storm. That’s when I noticed a slight blurring of sky every time a car or shuttle came in to land and realized it was a kind of force field set in place to protect people and vehicles from weather. I had only read about technology like that in school. I had never seen it in person.
I might never go to class again.
It hit me hard. I hadn’t thought about that.
But, if I’m supposed to stay hidden, it’s not like I can go back to school. Great. I’m officially a high school drop-out. As much as I used to complain about homework and class, I realized I was actually going to miss it. And even though my motivation to go to one of the best schools in the country was to keep Bruce alive, it still meant something to me that I was able to get accepted into a school like that. Now that was over. No. I couldn’t think like that. Maybe when I talked to Jason he’d be able to clear things up for me so I could go back. I didn’t know where I’d get the money for tuition, but I’d find a way somehow.
Focus. I needed to find a phone.
I watched where everyone was headed and saw several hundred mini-platforms all along the outer edge of the circled roof. I saw as someone would stand on the platform and be sucked down the building. It must be some kind of elevator tube. Another thing I had only heard of before, but had never been in. I took a deep breath, good thing I wasn’t scared of heights. I waited in line for my turn as I watched people pop out of view as soon as they stood on the platform. The lady in front of me was wearing her screaming daughter like a spider suit, the girl’s grip was so tight. I couldn’t blame the girl. We were essentially on top of a mountain about to be propelled down to the ground in a tiny vacuum tube. My stomach started to churn. I had to keep reminding myself that people did this everyday and I had never heard of any mishaps. I had seen one of these elevator tubes on holo-tv, but it always looked like fun. Or it was so quick I didn’t think much of it at all. But standing in line waiting to be sucked down the abyss, I really wanted to vomit.
The lady and her tormented child stepped onto the platform in front of me and…
WHHOOOMP!
They were gone, crying and all.
Me next.
I swallowed hard and shuffled forward.
“Come on, kid, we don’t have all day!” the jerk behind me yelled in my ear.
“You go.” I couldn’t do it yet.
He shoved past me and with a roll of his eyes…
WHHOOOMP!
He was gone.
“Are you waiting for someone?” the next woman in line asked me.
“No. I’m just… I’ve never done this before,” I confided.
“You want me to go with you? It’s better in pairs for your first time.” She looked like she was thirty so I knew she wasn’t a rich jerk.
“That would be great, thanks,” I sputtered.
“Move it, ladies!” The line was getting agitated.
The lady smiled at me, encouraging. “Don’t listen to them. Everyone is always in a hurry. Here.”
She grabbed my hand and moved me forward. “Gotta do it quick, or you’ll never do it.”
I nodded and squeezed her hand a little harder than I should have.
She looked at me and gave me a wink of confidence. “One, two, three.”
And we stepped on the square platform.
WHHOOOOSH!
We were flying down the tube at a ridiculous speed, but it was completely exhilarating! The wall in front of us was glass and the city whizzed by us in a blur of silver and black. And two seconds later a door slid open and we were street side. A digital clock was directly over the door and it was counting down from five.
“Quickly, unless you want to go back up.” The lady pulled me out of the tube and onto the crowded streets of Los Angeles.
“Thanks again,” I said to the lady and she nodded and waved.
“Any time, dear.” And she was off, heading up the street, pushing her way through the large throngs of people.
Cities were one of the only areas in the world where they actually kept the old pavement and concrete in tact. There wasn’t a lot of concrete in the world anymore. I could feel the heat from the sidewalk through my shoes, which was both comforting and weird, not like the cobblestone in front of Mel’s. It was like flooring with grit.
I decided to walk in the same direction as the lady that helped me and scanned the area for a pay phone. I didn’t have to go far. I found one on the corner of Olive and Sixth Street, right in front of Pershing Square. I had only read about the place, but it was far more impressive in person. Even the holos didn’t do it justice. It was lined with forty-foot pines acting like sentries to Los Angeles’ oldest park. It had its own water silo in the North West corner to keep the vegetation vibrant and breathtaking. Roses of every color imaginable, giant seven-foot sunflowers, red-orange hedging, plants and flowers I had never even seen before made up the inner square. In the dead center of the park was a perfectly coiffed square of the brightest green grass I had ever seen. According to what I’d read, every summer and spring they’d have outdoor concerts and in the winter they’d bring in an ice-rink for skating. It was also the one place I’d seen so far that wasn’t entirely packed with bodies. For some reason it seemed like everyone had a quiet respect for the place of beauty and didn’t want to see it trampled by foot traffic.
I picked up the phone and was about to place my thumb up to the money scanner when I realized that if Turner was looking for me I would be giving him a giant flag as to where I was. I put my thumb down and looked around for a volunteer. The large shuffling crowd of passer-bys looked like the last thing they wanted to do was stop, so I scanned the park. A man was sitting at a bench, head bent over his electronic reader. I walked over to him with as friendly a smile as I could muster.
“Hi. I don’t mean to bother you, but is there any way you could thumbscan the payphone for me? I’m all out of credit and I need to call my dad.”
The man sighed heavily as if I was asking him to lift one of the skyscrapers towering above us. “Yeah, fine,” he muttered, annoyed, but willing to help.
I’ll take it.
He walked over the payphone and scanned his thumb.
“Thanks,” I said, wanting him to leave, but he just continued to stand over me.
“Well, call your dad. I want to make sure this isn’t for drugs or some virtual reality bar scam,” he sneered at me.
Okay, so he was paranoid. I could understand that, but I hoped Jason would play along.
I pulled out his number and dialed. The man looked at me suspiciously, obviously upset I had to look at a number. I guess he figured if it were my dad I’d have the number memorized. I turned to him, “He just got a new cell phone.” I probably shouldn’t have tried to over-explain, but I tended to crack under pressure when I lied.
The phone rang once. “Hello?”
; “Dad? It’s Chelsan.” Please, please, please remember who I am.
“Smart girl. Is Harry Dalop standing over you?” Jason’s voice sounded amused and I was instantly relieved. Jason must have some kind of caller I.D. and the guy next to me, Harry, apparently, showed up on it.
“Yeah, I ran out of credit again. I can’t meet you at seven, can we meet at seven-thirty, somewhere closer?”
Evidently, Harry had heard enough of the conversation to feel content with his decision to help me out and went back to his reader on the bench.
“Okay, he’s gone,” I whispered.
“We have to go on the assumption that Turner has put out a voice recognition alert on your dear old pipes so let’s make this quick. Where are you?” Jason was all business, which put me ill at ease. I wanted to be the only person paranoid; I needed an anchor of calm if I were to get through this.
The Riser Saga Page 12
