by Tracy Deebs
“Go left here,” Seth tells them.
“Don’t you think they’ll be looking for that?” Harper asks.
“Not if the second elevator is standing still.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t worry about it, Ezra. Just trust me.”
I wait for him to make a snarky comment, to tell me that trusting me is how they got in this mess in the first place. But he doesn’t say anything, and neither do the others. At least not until they make it to the freight elevators.
“Get on,” I tell them, and shoot it straight to the roof. “Tell me the eighteenth floor is clear, Seth.”
“Give me a second.”
“We don’t have a second.”
The elevator stops at the twentieth floor, but I don’t open the doors. “Owen, I need you to get into the panel underneath the numbers.”
“I just unlooped the cameras,” Seth says. “The coast is clear. It looks like everyone is back down in the lobby or on the ninth floor. But they’re running for the stairs now.”
“Good, let them tire themselves out.”
Just then I hear a shout, and I turn and see three armed guards racing toward the building. Five or six more are behind them.
Okay, think, Issa. Think. I turn to Seth. “Kiss me.”
“What?” he asks, turning a little white.
“What?” Ezra squawks.
I ignore them both. “Kiss me, now,” I tell Seth. When he still makes no move, I slide my laptop under my backpack, grab his shoulders, and pull him against me before planting one on him.
“Are you kidding me with this right now?” Ezra shouts. “We’re trapped in a damn elevator and you’re—”
Seth doesn’t kiss me back at first, but then he seems to realize what I’m doing and his mouth moves enthusiastically on mine for several long seconds. He’s a decent kisser, but to be honest, I’m not paying too much attention to that part of it. I’m more worried about what we look like to the guards running by us. The last thing I want is for them to come over here and start investigating what Seth and I are up to.
“Anytime now!” Ezra says testily, and as I pull away from Seth I can’t help feeling a little tingly at the annoyance in his voice. Not that I’m into Ezra or anything, but still… it’s interesting to know he doesn’t like me kissing Seth.
“They’re not paying any attention to us,” Seth reports.
“Who?” Ezra asks.
“The guards who just ran by us,” Seth answers. “I know it’s hard to believe that Issa wasn’t overcome with lust for my manly form, but alas, she was just using me to throw the Po-Po off the scent.”
“Please don’t ever say Po-Po again,” Owen tells him.
“I can’t make that promise,” Seth answers.
“Can we focus, people? Owen, I need you to—”
“Already done. I hacked into the control system for this elevator. That’s what you wanted me to do, right?”
“That’s exactly what I wanted you to do!” I tell him.
“So now what?”
“Now we send this elevator back down, and we hold you there. Two minutes later, we get the other elevator moving back up so they think you’re going up, while you’re actually going down—”
“But without them knowing it,” Owen concludes. “Hence the hack job on the control system.”
“Exactly. It will look like this elevator is holding steady at seven, when really you’ll be getting off on…” I look at Seth inquiringly.
“The second floor.”
“What’s on the second floor?” Harper asks.
“The cafeteria—including a large outdoor terrace. You can jump from there,” Seth explains.
“Did you say jump?” Harper asks. “From the second story of a commercial building? Are you nuts? That’s higher than the second story of a regular house, FYI. Just in case you didn’t already know that.”
“I do know that, actually.” I stop the elevator on the seventh floor. “Okay, Owen, do your thing.”
I wait impatiently for him to override the system that tells the building’s security where the elevator is.
“Got it,” he says after exactly one minute and twelve seconds. Not that I’m counting.
“Fantastic.” I take them down, while at the same time sending the other freight elevator back up. Then I switch to the other system. I plunge all six of the glass elevators into darkness while simultaneously starting them all up and assigning each one to a different floor. If we’re lucky, that should drive security crazy for at least a couple of minutes as they try to figure out who is where.
“Okay, we’re out,” Ezra says.
“Go to your right,” Seth tells him. “Follow the hallway all the way to the end and then turn right again. It should take you to the front of the cafeteria.”
“It did,” Harper says about thirty seconds later.
“How do we—” Owen starts, but then there’s a triple-beeping sound.
“Good idea!” Seth says as we watch Harper finish swiping the badge we stole from Talia. The cafeteria doors slide open.
“Except you just alerted the system that someone’s on two,” I tell them grimly.
“There was no other way,” Owen answers.
“You’re going to need to move fast now,” Seth says.
“We’re moving, we’re moving,” Owen snarls. “The doors to the terrace are locked. The swipe card’s not working.”
“They’ve probably got them locked like all the other outside doors,” Seth says.
“So what are we going to do?” Harper asks. “We’re not just going to wait here like sitting ducks—”
I glance around, thinking, and that’s when I see Alika barreling toward us in the SUV. She’s driving the speed limit, doing her best not to draw attention to the big black vehicle, but I’m pretty sure no one’s supposed to be driving down here right now. I figure we’ve only got a minute or two before she attracts attention.
“Come on!” I tell Seth, shoving my laptop in my bag and climbing to my feet. “Our ride is here.”
“What ride?” Ezra asks.
“You’ve got to find a way out, guys. Can you maybe jimmy the doors—” I break off as a loud crash sounds.
Seconds later, Harper says, “Owen slammed a chair through the glass door. We’re out.”
“Good. Now get to the edge.”
“Next time, you guys are so going in the building,” Harper mutters.
“I really hope there isn’t a next time,” I answer.
Alika pulls up beside us, stopping just long enough for Seth and me to dive into the back seat. “Where?” she demands as she hits the gas.
“Around that corner.” Seth points. And sure enough, two of the guards racing toward the building have noticed the SUV and are currently flagging us down.
“Ignore them,” Seth tells her.
“I intend to.” She takes the curve to the back of the building at close to fifty, and I swear I feel the SUV’s right tires leave the pavement.
“There they are!” I point to where Harper is climbing over the terrace railing.
“We’re coming!” Seth shouts. “Do you see us?”
“I see you!” Harper answers.
I glance out the back window, watch a security car barrel around a corner several hundred yards back. It’s coming straight at us.
“Hurry up!” I shout at Alika, who then does something I never in a million years saw coming. She pulls the hand brake on the SUV and sends us careening into a spin—one that ends only when the back of the SUV is right below the terrace and the front is facing the road we just raced down.
“Wow! That’s some Fast and Furious stuff right there!” Seth crows.
“I took an evasive driving class before I got my license,” she says. “Part of the whole daughter-of-the-secretary-of-state—”
Suddenly there’s a loud thump as something hits the roof. “That’s Harper,” Owen says grimly. Seconds later there’s another,
bigger thump, and the roof above our head buckles a little.
“And that’s me,” he continues.
There’s a pounding up front, and Alika shouts, “Open the sunroof!”
I scooch forward and slam my hand against the button. Seconds later, Harper falls in headfirst. I try to break her fall, but Seth beats me to it.
As soon as she’s out of the way, Owen’s legs appear in the opening. At the same time, there’s another big thump as Ezra hits the roof.
“Hurry up, get in!” I say to Owen, but Alika’s not waiting. The second she confirms Ezra made it onto the SUV, she hits the gas—leaving Owen and Ezra clinging to the luggage rack as we speed toward the exit.
20
Owen
(1nf1n173 5h4d3)
“Hey!” Ezra shouts as he tries to pull himself farther up the luggage rack. “You could give a guy some warning.”
“No time!” Alika yells through the open sunroof as we careen around a corner going way too fast. As she does, another security car falls in behind us, which only makes her go faster.
“She’s going to kill us!” Ezra complains, and I’m not exactly in a position to argue. The only reason I haven’t flown off the roof is because Issa and Seth are holding my legs, which are currently dangling inside the car.
“Give me your hand!” I tell him, holding mine out so that I can pull him toward the sunroof and, hopefully, inside the SUV as I slide into a seat.
He takes a few seconds to think about it—not that I blame him, considering the death grip he’s currently rocking on that luggage rack, but in the end he nods. Seconds later, he’s pulling himself forward with one hand and making a grab for me with the other.
As my fingers lock around his wrist, I’m grateful for football—and the incessant weight training it’s put me through for the last five years.
“I’ve got him,” I shout to the others. “Pull me in!”
They start tugging and so do I, grabbing Ezra’s other wrist and yanking him toward me with every ounce of strength I have. Seconds later, we tumble through the sunroof.
I’ve got about half a second to register landing on something warm and soft—Issa—before Ezra’s weight is on top of me. Issa makes a short, strangled sound before I feel her stop breathing altogether.
“Sorry, sorry!” I say, shoving a dazed Ezra off me. He lands in a heap on the floor in front of us.
For long seconds, we’re all too stunned to say anything. Except for Alika, who’s cursing like a sailor in the front seat as she barrels toward the exit gate.
“Don’t stop!” Harper yells as the red-and-white bar stays firmly down.
“I wasn’t planning on it!” Alika guns the engine and plows straight through the EXIT sign and continues racing down the road, three Jacento security cars hot on our heels.
“A little warning would be nice the next time you plan on auditioning for freaking NASCAR,” Ezra says when he finally gets his breath back.
He starts to push himself up from his spot between the seats, but Alika takes another turn at crazy speed, and he ends up back on the floor in an even more jackknifed position.
“Dude, maybe you should just stay down,” I tell him.
“You think?” He doesn’t sound impressed.
“Which way do I go?” Alika screams as we finally approach the main road that runs in front of Jacento’s headquarters.
Before anyone can answer, an automated voice says, “Turn left in one thousand feet.”
“You’re seriously Google Mapping this?” I ask Seth.
“You got a better idea?” he shoots back. “I don’t know my way around here. And Ezra was hanging off the roof, so it seemed like the best bet at the time.”
“Hang on!” Alika calls, and then we’re all falling against the right side of the car as she makes the turn without slowing down.
“We’re all going to die,” Ezra grumbles as he rubs his head where he bumped it when we all went flying.
“Stop being such a drama queen,” Alika tells him as Google Maps instructs her to make yet another turn. “We’re not going to die.”
“No, but we are going to prison,” Issa says, pointing out the back window.
I try to see what she’s pointing at, but I can’t see much from my place on the floor, wedged between the front and back seats. Shoving myself up, hard, I crane my neck to try to get a view of what’s happening behind us. And then curse up a storm as I realize she’s right.
Because not only is Jacento security in pursuit of us, we’ve now added a string of cop cars to the chase as well.
“I’m on it,” Harper says, and for the first time I notice her bent over her laptop in the front passenger seat. “When I get to three, swerve around that red Prius,” she tells Alika.
“It’s going too fast—”
“Just do it. One, two, three.”
Alika screams as the Prius stops dead in front of us. She swerves at the last second and barely misses slamming into the Prius’s back bumper.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ezra yells, but I get it. Oh yeah, baby, do I get it.
“The green Tesla,” I shout to her as I shrug out of my backpack and reach for my laptop, hoping it hasn’t been damaged in all the rocking and rolling we’ve been doing.
“It’s a different hack,” she shouts back. “I haven’t got it yet!” Then she tells Alika, “Blue Prius V in three, two, one.”
Alika swerves as the Prius screeches to a halt. Seconds later, one of the cop cars plows straight into it.
“Oh God! Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Alika cries. But she’s already back at work.
“I’m on the Teslas,” I tell her, racing to pull up their diagnostics.
“Jesus.” Seth whistles long and low. “You guys are actually hacking the cars on the road with us?”
“Harper is. I’m just trying to.”
And that’s when it hits me. It’s not only the Priuses and Teslas we need to be thinking about here. Any vehicle that’s got an onboard diagnostics port can be hacked—meaning any car made in the last few years is vulnerable. Which gives me a crazy idea that just might work.
“Silver Prius,” Harper shouts. “Then the black one next to it. Three, two, one.”
Alika swerves to the left, then back to the right so fast that the SUV goes up on two wheels, nearly flipping over. She manages to wrestle it back to the ground just as a huge crash echoes behind us.
I take two seconds to glance out the window at the disaster we’re leaving in our wake. One of the cop cars got caught in it, but the others are still with us.
“Turn left in one thousand feet.” The automated voice lends a surreal quality to this whole mess.
“Another red Prius!” Harper says. “Now!”
Alika swerves, but pulls too hard on the wheel this time, and we end up spinning. Once, twice—she pulls us out before we complete a third circle and then hits the gas again.
“Turn left in fifty feet. Rerouting. Rerouting. Turn left in two hundred feet. Rerouting.”
“The gray Prius. Now!”
Another swerve, another crash behind us. But I’m barely paying attention anymore because I’m in. I’m freaking in!
“Turn right in two hundred feet.”
“Hold on!” Alika says, and then we’re turning. Seconds later, we’re slamming the undercarriage of the SUV against the pavement as we race down a bumpy-ass hill.
“Why the hell are there so many hills around here anyway?” Alika complains as she races around a set of hairpin curves way too fast.
I glance behind us to see how we’re doing. We lost the last of the Jacento security cars in the latest crash, but now we’ve got five police Interceptor sedans and three black SUVs on our tail.
“I really hate to be the voice of reason here,” Ezra drawls from where he’s still on the floor, “but does anyone know where the hell we’re going?”
“I’m following the GPS!” Alika says.
“Red Prius,” Harper interjects. “
Three, two, one, go!”
I brace for the swerve, pressing my legs against the back of the seat, and this time I barely move. Huh. Looks like I’m getting the hang of this high-speed-chase thing, after all.
“And where, exactly, is the GPS leading us?” Ezra asks.
“I programmed in your address,” Seth tells him as brakes squeal behind us.
“Seriously? You really think leading them straight to my house is a good idea?”
“You were on the roof of the damn car! I didn’t know where else to go!”
“Turn left in eight hundred feet.”
“Ignore that!” Ezra barks as he shoves himself up to look out the closest window. It takes him a second to get his bearings, but then he says, “Okay, you’re going to want to stay on this road about another half mile, and then you need to turn right, or we’re going to end up stuck in really bad traffic.”
“I can do that.” Alika reaches up and shoves a few pieces of hair out of her face. “But we’ve got to figure out how to get away from these cop cars. I can’t drive forever.”
“I’m working on that,” Ezra says. “Just keep going for now.”
“Turn left in—”
“And turn that damn thing off before I toss your phone out the window!” he barks at Seth.
I write a few more lines of code, then send a quick prayer out into the universe as I hit Send. Seconds later, brakes squeal behind us as the Interceptor slams to a stop, and I peer through the window just in time to see one of the black SUVs plow straight into the side of one of the police Interceptors.
“Hell, yeah!” I say as I pull up the diagnostics for the second police car.
“Turn here,” Ezra tells Alika, and she does, just as I hit Send.
More squealing brakes and an even bigger crash ensues, one that sets off a chain reaction of smaller crashes right down the line.
“Holy crap! Are you hacking the police cars?” Issa cries as she flops into the seat beside me.
“No,” Harper says.
“Yes,” I tell her as I send code flying toward a third one.
“How are you doing that?” Seth twists around in his seat to watch the carnage out the back window.
“The same way Harper got the Priuses. I hacked my radar-detector app to get the IP addresses of the cars chasing us, then I exploited a zero day in the Inteceptor’s control system and sent in some malicious code. It actually wasn’t that hard,” I say as I hit Send and take out the last three police cars. We’re down to the two big SUVs chasing us.
