Countdown Zero

by Chris Rylander

  “But, killing millions of people,” Danielle said. “Trust isn’t worth millions of innocent lives, is it?”

  “Think about it,” he said. “Your best friend told you dozens of lies to your face because the Agency ordered him to. What kind of world is it that we lie to one another constantly? With such ease that we sometimes don’t even realize we’re doing it? You tell me, what are trust and honesty worth?”

  “Not this!” Danielle shouted.

  “Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that point,” he said. “Anyway, we need to move, time is of the essence.”

  He steadied the gun and motioned toward the woods.

  I froze, unsure what to do next. Phil’s words had jumbled up everything in my mind. But before I could decide what to do, I heard a whine. It was high-pitched, yet guttural, kind of like a cross between a dog’s bark and a cat’s meow. And it was coming from directly above Phil.

  “What now,” he muttered and looked up at the tree next to him.

  There was a small baby bear slung over a branch. It looked like it had maybe been asleep up there until we’d woken it. It let out another moaning whine. It wasn’t quite a roar. It sounded more like a cry for help.

  “How cute,” Phil said, turning back to us.

  And that’s when the baby bear’s mother rose up behind Phil from out of the darkness. At full height, it towered above him. Its brown fur bristled as it let out a gut-wrenching roar.

  Phil’s eyes went wide and he spun around to face the bear. That’s when the bear struck at Phil with a massive paw. The gun flew from his hand as he fell to the ground. I quickly picked up Agent Blue’s gun and pointed it at the bear as it loomed over Phil.

  “What are you doing?” Danielle asked.

  “We’ve got to stop this,” I said. “If the bear kills him, the virus is lost. We have no idea where Jake is, or any other bad guys who might have been with them. And besides, even given everything we heard right now, I’m not going to let a bear kill him right here!”

  I turned back to the fight. The thing was, I didn’t really want to shoot a mother bear that was just trying to protect her cub, either. The bear roared again and batted at Phil’s body. It didn’t strike him very hard, but the bear was so large and powerful that Phil’s limp body rolled across the ground several times as if it had been hit by a car.

  He moaned and tried to get to his feet. The bear knocked him back down with another swipe of its paw.

  I aimed the gun at the bear. I had to do it. I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  I pulled the trigger again, expecting a bang.

  Click.

  It was empty. I tossed the gun aside. Then I noticed a second bear approaching us from the side. It was another large brown bear.

  “Uh, we should go, Carson,” Danielle said.

  “But, Phil!” I said. “The virus!”

  “We have to try to find the other person we saw. There’s nothing we can do for Phil now!”

  She was right. As we spoke, the mother bear grabbed Phil’s pant leg in her mouth and dragged his lifeless body into the shadows behind her.

  I nodded at Danielle.

  We started walking backward slowly, away from the two bears. The second bear watched us go and for a moment I was certain it was going to chase us. But then it turned its attention away and headed back into the darkness. As we kept walking, the baby bear climbed down the trunk of the tree. It would have been adorable if we were normal kids here on vacation.

  But that was not important.

  What was important was getting to that virus before it was released. Phil had said someone was making his way to an evacuation vehicle with the virus in fifteen minutes. That meant we had only about ten minutes before the virus was gone. If Medlock got his hands on it, we’d never find it before it was too late. Our only chance was to catch this guy before he escaped.

  Great. Yet another countdown to disaster.

  Wasn’t two in one day enough?

  DANIELLE AND I RAN TOWARD THE GROVE OF TREES PHIL HAD pointed out earlier. We reached it a lot faster than I expected, even with us being careful to avoid what looked like possible bear dens in the mostly open hillside around us.

  By the time we got there, we likely had only a few minutes to spare.

  Most of the land within Bear Country was stripped of trees, which made sense when you considered it was a drive-thru bear zoo and people would want to see bears and not brown shapes hidden by trees. But this particular spot had been left intact, I guess to give the bears at least a little bit of a natural forest habitat.

  “Come on out,” I said to the patch of dark trees.

  “Where’s Phil?” a voice said from within the shadows. A kid’s voice. Jake’s voice.

  “Jake?” I said.

  There was a long pause.

  “Carson?” he finally said. “How are you still alive?”

  “That doesn’t matter. Just come on out so we can talk,” I said.

  “Where’s Phil?” he asked again.

  “He won’t . . . ,” I started, and then stopped and considered whether that was the best thing to say.

  “He’s not coming,” Danielle finished for me, apparently not as worried about how Jake might take the news. Apparently, she’d had it with telling lies.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Jake said. “An escape vehicle is going to be here in a few minutes, and there’s no way you’re getting this virus back before then.”

  “WAIT!” DANIELLE SHOUTED. “JAKE, IT’S DANIELLE.”

  “I don’t care,” he said. “You never liked me anyway.”

  “At least come out and talk to us first,” she said. “We won’t try anything, I promise.”

  “Yeah?” Jake scoffed. “What good is a promise from you?”

  “Who told you that?” I said. “Phil? Medlock? Well, you got the wrong idea. It’s not like they say it is. The information the Agency withholds is for our own protection. It’s not about lying, it’s about security. The secrets are meant to protect us from what we shouldn’t know.”

  “I’m tired of lies, too,” Danielle said. “So to that effect, yeah, I admit I never really liked you. But it was justified. You’ve been deceiving us all along. So you should be able to recognize a real promise when you hear it. We just want to talk. We won’t try anything funny. Trust me.”

  “Whatever,” Jake said from the darkness. “I don’t care about that stuff. All I care about is helping my dad fix things. He’ll fix everything. He’s the only one I trust.”

  I exchanged a look with Danielle, who looked just as confused as I did. As far as I knew, his dad was just some big-shot orthodontist who made tons of money but was never around and so bought Jake whatever he wanted to make up for never being there for him.

  “Your dad?” I said. “Is he not a real orthodontist then?”

  “No, not him!” Jake said. “Dr. Gulley isn’t my real dad. I mean, he thinks he is, but he’s not. Which is all for the better.”

  “Come on out so we can talk about this face-to-face,” Danielle said. “We aren’t even armed. Surely you can see that’s true from in there.”

  Jake didn’t answer for what felt like hours. And I was convinced that the little backstabbing psycho had just released the virus or something. But then a hand emerged from the shadows beneath the trees. A hand holding a small vial.

  Then Jake stepped completely out into the clearing, holding the virus up in the air.

  “If you take one step toward me, I swear I’ll smash this thing,” he said. “Though, if I were you, I’d run now while you still can. Medlock and his men will be here in three minutes to get me, and once they’re here you’ll both be in serious trouble.”

  “We’ll take our chances,” I said.

  “So, if Dr. Gulley isn’t your dad, then who is?” Danielle asked.

  “Why should I tell you?” Jake said.

  But at the same time, I think he had to know that we had a d
ecent guess as to who his real dad was.

  “It’s Phil, isn’t it?” I said, growing more and more uneasy knowing Phil’s fate. “I thought you guys had similar smiles.”

  “No, it’s not Phil.” Jake scoffed as if that was the worst person who could be his dad.

  If it wasn’t Phil, then who could it possibly . . .

  “Medlock,” I said quietly. “Mule Medlock is your dad?”

  “Yeah,” Jake said, clearly proud. “Medlock is my real dad. And the Agency tore him away from me when I was just a little kid. He was the only one who ever cared about me. My mom and Dr. Gulley, all they care about is things and money and how everyone else perceives them. But Medlock actually cares about me. He cares about everyone. He just wants to fix the world.”

  It was some sob story. But I didn’t point out that there were dozens of kids at our school who didn’t have parents at all, let alone all the money and stuff that Jake did. Yeah, maybe his situation wasn’t the best, but it also could have been a lot worse. Nobody had a perfect life. Then again, I definitely didn’t want to antagonize him, not while he still had the virus. So I said nothing.

  “Where’s Phil?” Jake asked. “I told you something, now you tell me.”

  “That’s not important,” I said. “What matters is that he’s not coming back and he won’t be able to punish you for doing the right thing and giving us the virus.”

  “You killed him!” Jake shouted, pointing a finger at us.

  “No, we didn’t,” I said. “I promise!”

  “Oh, yeah?” he said. “Oh, well, Carson promises me, so it must be true. Yeah, Carson never lies. What good is a promise from Carson Fender, the kid who flat-out lies to his best friends about important things on a daily basis? Huh?”

  He sort of had me there.

  “You lied worse than I did,” I said.

  “So? I’m not making any promises right now,” he said. “I never claimed to be an honest or good person.”

  “We didn’t kill Phil,” Danielle said bluntly. “The bears did.”

  “Bears?” Jake said, looking around.

  He seemed to be truly disoriented. How could he not have realized he was in the middle of an open-cage bear zoo? There were literally bears everywhere. Then again, most of them were sleeping, mostly out of sight, in the darkness and shelter away from the rain and sleet. But still.

  “Yeah, we’re in Bear Country,” I said.

  Jake seemed shocked for a few seconds, and then he shrugged it off. “It doesn’t matter. My dad should be here any second now. I’m telling you, this is your last chance to get away.”

  “When were they supposed to be here?” I asked.

  Jake looked at a small device in the hand not holding the virus. His face fell a little bit and worry flashed across his eyes briefly.

  “They’ll be here,” he said.

  “They’re not coming,” I said. “Your dad just left you here. He abandoned you. How much can he really care about you?”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Jake said, shaking his head.

  “You know as well as I do that if he were coming, he’d already be here,” I said.

  Danielle took my lead and added, “Now you can do the right thing. There’s still time to be the hero instead of a villain.”

  “It’s your choice,” I said. “You can make the right one right here and now.”

  I held out my hand for the virus.

  Jake didn’t say anything. Instead he seemed to search for the answer in the dirt at his feet. Then in the stars above him. Then he looked at Danielle, and then at me in turn while fighting off tears. I was sure he was moments away from giving in. Then he did something I truly never expected him to do. I had honestly believed we would be able to talk him down. But we’d clearly failed.

  “If my dad isn’t here, then there’s a reason for it,” he said quietly. Too calmly. “And so if he isn’t here to carry out his plan, then I will.”

  Jake lifted up the vial containing the virus and then threw it as hard as he could onto the hard ground in front of him.

  IN THE EXACT MOMENT IN WHICH HE THREW THE VIAL ONTO THE ground, I saw it. I saw it in his eyes: He had completely checked out as a real person. We never had a chance to talk him down. Jake had clearly lost all his marbles. If he ever had any to begin with.

  And now the world was over.

  Or was it?

  Instead of shattering and instantly releasing the virus into the air like we’d all expected, the vial merely bounced into the dirt, landing a few feet away from Jake’s sneakers.

  “Jake, no!” Danielle yelled, perhaps a little late.

  But it was still definitely a better reaction than mine. Which was to just stand there and gape at the vial. Jake probably took the most active and drastic next step of all of us. He took a step forward and then started stomping on the vial repeatedly.

  That’s what finally kicked me into action.

  I ran forward and dived at him. My shoulder slammed into his chest and we both went flying backward toward the trees. I landed on top of him and then rolled off immediately. I glanced up and saw Danielle picking up the vial.

  In that split second that I’d looked away, Jake had gotten to his feet. And so by the time I looked back he was already in the process of kicking me in the ribs. I didn’t have time to dodge or block it.

  His kick caught me squarely in the side and pain erupted where his foot had connected. I rolled away and groaned. But in a fraction of a second he was on top of me, bringing his fists down wildly and indiscriminately. Which probably helped me out a lot since he connected very few punches with anything too vital, like my nose or eyes.

  “Why did you do that? You ruined it!” he shouted. “You ruined it!”

  At the same time I became vaguely aware of the sound of a helicopter nearby. Then a bright spotlight was on us. Jake looked up at the sky. The light got brighter and wind whipped around us as the helicopter lowered.

  At first, I wasn’t sure if the chopper was Agency backup or Medlock. But then Jake jumped off me and started running away. There was no way he was escaping. I was done with chases. Done with countdowns. Done with all of this today. I sat up and took off my shoe. Then, without really thinking about it too much or even really trying to aim, I threw it at Jake.

  The shoe flew through the air like a perfectly spiraling football and connected pretty squarely with his head. He flew off his feet and then slammed into a tree. I flinched the way people do at scary parts in horror movies, or when watching people fall in YouTube videos.

  “That’s how to throw,” I said to him as he rolled lazily on the ground in dazed pain.

  I climbed to my feet just as the helicopter touched down in an open spot within Bear Country. Several people climbed out of the cabin, their hair blowing wildly under the helicopter blades.

  All three wore suits. One of them ran toward Jake. I saw him crouch down and put on handcuffs. Another of them ran back toward where the car we’d hijacked was parked with Agents Nineteen and Blue still inside and hopefully still alive.

  The third man who exited the helicopter was more a giant beast of mythical proportions than a simple human being. He almost looked at home in Bear Country. And he walked directly toward Danielle and me.

  “Agent Zero,” Director Isadoris said, “did you secure the Romero Virus?”

  I pointed at Danielle. “She’s got it.”

  Danielle handed him the vial. He put it inside his coat rather calmly, all things considered. As if he were merely putting away a handkerchief after blowing his nose or something. Then he smiled at me.

  He didn’t question who Danielle was or why she was there. He didn’t yell at me for almost blowing the whole thing again. Twice. He just smiled. After a few moments, he finally spoke again.

  “Nice work, you two. You saved a lot of lives,” he said. “But I bet you’re both ready to get out of here and back to Minnow, North Dakota, yes?”

  He was right. For the first time in my
life, I was actually excited to be going back to Minnow, North Dakota.

  “When can we leave?” I asked.

  “IT’S REMARKABLE WHAT YOU KIDS DID,” DIRECTOR ISADORIS said. “Remarkable.”

  It was almost twenty-four hours later and we were back in Minnow. Miles underground, inside Agency Headquarters, to be precise. Danielle and I sat across from Director Isadoris in his office. But we still didn’t have any answers. The last twenty-four hours had been frustrating to say the least.

  After we’d told Director Isadoris about Jake being Medlock’s son and their planned rendezvous at House of Scandinavia, he’d dispatched several agents in search of Medlock. Then he’d arranged for us to be brought back to the field trip group. I don’t know what the Agency said to Mr. Gist and Ms. Pearson to convince them that Jake and Mr. Jensen, aka Agent Blue, were both fine despite the fact that they’d be traveling back separately from the group. But whatever it was, and whoever said it, it apparently worked. We saw the Crazy Horse Memorial the next morning, and then rode back to North Dakota on the bus like hardly anything weird or unusual had happened at all during the trip.

  And it was torture. To have to endure a ten-hour bus trip, just sitting there wondering if Agents Nineteen and Blue were okay or dead or alive but still not really okay, was awful. Not knowing if the Agency ever found Medlock at the House of Scandinavia. Not to mention the billions of other questions I had.

  Danielle seemed to be handling it slightly better.

  But either way it had been kind of a nice distraction to have Dillon pestering us both for answers of our own regarding where we’d disappeared to the second time. Listening to his various theories as to where we’d gone almost distracted me from my own burning questions.

  Almost.

  Then Sunday evening had rolled around and my family was at the table eating dinner. We had individual chicken potpies that night, one of my favorite meals. Except that on my third bite I got a mouthful of something that wasn’t chicken, or vegetables, or crust. I discreetly took the slip of paper from my mouth and unfurled it under the table.