Max Quick

by Mark Jeffrey

  “How are you doing?” Max asked Casey.

  “Not good,” she answered.

  “I know,” Max answered. “At least we found other people not affected by the Pocket.”

  Casey shot him a look of pure ice: She was not amused.

  “I wish I was back home right now,” she said. “I wish we’d never left Starland.”

  Max was starting to agree.

  Somebody gave Max a soft kick. “Hey.”

  The red-haired kid. He bent down and studied Max, his face inches away from Max’s. Max glared back.

  A smaller boy emerged from behind the red-haired kid like a magic trick. He gave Max a good poke in the ribs with a stick. “Ow!” Max snarled.

  The red-headed kid laughed and tousled the other boy’s hair. “Good job, little Otis!” Then he stood up straight and yelled, “He’s awake!”

  Everyone turned and cheered.

  Max’s stomach flushed with ice.

  A hush fell over the arena.

  Three kids stepped onto the stage.

  The first was a big kid with long, dirty blond hair. He wore a trench coat and oversized sunglasses. He swaggered to the center with his hands on his hips.

  Next came a pretty, black-haired girl. She sat on an oversized red couch on the far right of the stage. Her eyes surveyed the crowd with conceited self-assurance.

  With a start, Max realized this was the Sasha girl who had chased them.

  Last came a third kid. This one had badly cut black hair and a well-worn prep school uniform, complete with a tie, loose at the throat. He was bone-scrawny and pale, and his large nose and ears didn’t seem to fit his head quite right.

  He folded and unfolded his arms several times, unsure how to pose himself.

  The big kid waved with an easy grin. Everyone started chanting his name: “Ace! Ace! Ace!”

  Ace waved them silent. “My fellow Serpents and Mermaids . . .” he began, and the crowd cheered like maniacs at the name.

  “Now, now . . . settle down. As you’ve heard by now, we have two . . . guests with us today.” He pointed at Max and Casey. The crowd turned in unison, a single beast.

  Max groaned.

  “In the year since the Time-stop, since we became free from school, from our parents, from all the rules . . .” He was interrupted by more wild cheering.

  But Max’s brain skipped a neuron-zap. What? A year?

  Did he just say a year?

  “In the year since the Serpents and Mermaids were founded, never have outsiders dared to come into our city. We’ve been happy!”

  The kids went berserk again. Ace scanned the crowd suspiciously, as though looking for anyone who wasn’t cheering. “Best time of our lives! No more pencils, no more books! But today two strangers had the nerve to enter our town.”

  Ace paused for dramatic effect and looked around. His lips tugged into a smug smile.

  Then he yelled at the top of his lungs, “BUT THEY SURE FOUND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO INVADE THE TURF OF THE SERPENTS AND MERMAIDS, DIDN’T THEY?”

  The crowd went nuts.

  “Now . . . ,” Ace said. “We want to ask them some questions. Don’t we?”

  The crowd laughed. A couple of kids went, “Ooooo!” in mock terror.

  The small kid gave Max another jab in the ribs with the twig.

  “Ow! Easy, stick boy, we’re going,” Max muttered.

  Max and Casey were lifted to their feet and pushed roughly through the crowd. Someone unlocked Max’s handcuffs and they fell away. He glanced at Casey; she rubbed her chafed wrists, free also.

  Ace peered down. Max met his gaze. And for a moment, Max thought he saw fear flash across Ace’s eyes.

  Fear?

  Why would Ace be afraid of them?

  Whatever it was, it was gone in a heartbeat.

  “What are your names?” Ace asked.

  “I’m Max. And this is Casey.”

  “Max what?”

  “Max Quick.”

  “Mix Quack?” someone shouted, to an eruption of laughter.

  Ace continued: “Brother and sister?”

  “No.”

  “Girlfriend and boyfriend?” The crowd whistled.

  “No!” Max replied, cheeks going red.

  “Where do you come from? Who sent you?”

  Max was surprised by the question. Sent? “Nobody sent us.”

  Ace studied him. “No?”

  “No. Nobody did,” Casey said.

  A new voiced interjected. “Well, aren’t you a little nothing.”

  It was the pretty, black-haired girl. Sasha. Casey gave her the dirt eye.

  Ace laughed. “This is Sasha. Sasha Fwa.”

  Sasha looked down her pug nose at them.

  “Sasha Fwa? Nice name,” Casey snarked back. Sasha glanced at Ace as if to say, I don’t have to put up with this, do I?

  But Casey didn’t back down. “Isn’t a fwa that thing in the dictionary? The stupid upside down e?”

  “No, actually, that’s a schwa,” piped up the prep school kid. He had a strong English accent.

  Sasha spun, livid. “Shut up, Ian!”

  “Hey, Beanpole. Zip it,” Ace added.

  Sasha returned her gaze to Casey, her eyes slits of fury.

  “Did your mom make those clothes?”

  Casey turned crimson and hatred licked her insides. Sasha was just like Liberty Johnson and the Fashion Police girls.

  Ace motioned for silence.

  “So. Where did you two come from?”

  “Starland, California,” Max answered. “It’s a couple hours west of here. Near the ocean.”

  Ace blinked in surprise. “And you were there this whole time?”

  Max nodded. “Yeah. Three days ago, when time stopped for us, we didn’t want to wait around. So we started—”

  Fear flashed again on Ace’s face. But Ian, strangely, took on a sudden look of interest.

  “Wait. What do you mean, three days?” Ace said.

  Max looked around nervously. “For us, time stopped three days ago.” The crowd snickered.

  Ace laughed. “Well that, at least, is a lie. And not a very good one.”

  Max took a deep breath. “I’m not lying. For us, the Time-stop happened three days ago.”

  Ace looked at Max like he was pathetic. “It’s been more than a year for us.”

  The words echoed in Max’s ears. More than a year . . .

  It certainly would explain how these kids were all so good with Pocket-powers. They’d had a long time to practice.

  “And I’m the only one who knows how it happened!” Ace continued smugly. “You might even say I caused it.”

  Max was simply dumbfounded for a moment.

  “What?” Max finally choked out.

  Ace wore a look of surprise. “Oh . . . you don’t know?”

  “No,” Max said flatly.

  This was impossible! Ace was a bully. That’s it. There was no way he had stopped time.

  And suddenly, Max realized that knowing that was exactly what Ace was terrified of. He’s afraid we’ll wreck all this.

  “YES!” Ace continued. “One year ago, I set us all free!” The kids cheered mindlessly. Ace shot a look of triumph at Max.

  “How’d you do it?” Max asked simply.

  “What?” Ace replied, blinking in surprise as if he wasn’t used to anyone asking him questions.

  “Stop time. How’d you do it?” Max said.

  Ace wagged a finger. “Oh, no. Nobody knows that. All I’ve ever said is that my dad worked on a secret government project. There was . . . kind of an accident. Something went wrong. But I had access to the whole thing. You could call it a backstage pass.”

  Ace high-fived some of the other kids as though he’d just said the most amazingly clever thing in the world.

  “C’mon,” Max said. “Be serious. You didn’t stop time.”

  Everyone gasped. Apparently, nobody talked to Ace like that!

  Even Ace was momentarily speech
less.

  Max turned to the crowd. “Everyone. Listen to me! Something did stop time, but it wasn’t Ace. Don’t you think you should be trying to find out what it was? Before something really bad happens?”

  Ace burned with anger. He jumped down from the stage. “No, they don’t. We don’t. We’re perfectly happy with things the way they are.”

  Ace shoved Max to the ground. Max landed in the dirt. The bruises of the last day throbbed.

  “I’ve had enough of you two already,” Ace spat. “Serp Cops! Throw them in jail. We’ll use them on a chase tomorrow morning.”

  Another chase? They can’t be serious, Max thought. He and Casey had barely survived the first one.

  Two kids with police badges pinned to their T-shirts stepped out of the crowd. They took Max and Casey by the elbows. Max didn’t resist: There were too many people loyal to Ace here.

  But the prep school kid, Ian, studied Max with a burning stare. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but held back. Max returned the stare, then he and Casey were hauled off to the local police station and locked in the jail cell.

  Chapter 8

  Ian

  Later that night, Max heard footsteps outside the cell.

  “Hey,” came a voice with an English accent.

  Max looked up, half awake.

  It was Ian. He stood on the other side of the bars, slim as a shadow and fidgeting. A backpack hung from his bony shoulder.

  Max didn’t answer.

  “Hey,” Ian repeated tentatively. “I, uh, came to talk with you two.”

  Max righted himself and leaned against the back wall of the cell.

  “Good for you,” Max snapped.

  Ian’s eyes darted around, fear flickering in their depths.

  “Look,” Ian whispered. “Ace doesn’t know I’m here.”

  Casey woke now, too, bleary-eyed and yawning.

  “Oh. Okay. Well, in that case, I guess we’ll just trust you,” Max said sarcastically.

  “Look,” Ian said. “I’m taking a big chance in even coming here. Ace would beat me silly if he found out. So the least you can do is give me a proper hearing.”

  Max exchanged a doubtful look with Casey. She shrugged.

  “We’re listening,” Max answered.

  Ian exhaled, and then nervously machine-gunned his words. “Okay. Here it is, then: I can get you out of that cell. I can get you around Ace’s patrols. But you have to take me with you. All three of us have to go together.”

  “No,” Max snapped.

  “Why not?” Ian asked. “You haven’t even heard the rest yet!”

  “Because I don’t trust you,” Max said. Casey gave him a pointed look and he quickly corrected himself. “Sorry. We don’t trust you.”

  Ian stared at his feet.

  “Look. You and your friends nearly killed us today,” Max said. “And then you stood up there with Ace and that Sasha girl and you—”

  Ian sputtered in protest: “But I had to act like that! Or Ace would have suspected!”

  Something in Ian’s voice clicked with Max. It reminded him of the fears in his own life. The fear of Mr. Blister. And before that, when he’d lived on the street, the fear of getting caught by the police or beaten up or not finding food. In his own way, Max, too, had been every bit as trapped as Ian.

  In fact, only the Pocket had freed him from that fear.

  Upon this realization, Max softened somewhat.

  “Okay.” Max sighed. “You want us to trust you? Fine. Answer a few questions.”

  Ian nodded slowly.

  “All right. How did this town—the Serpents and Mer-maids, Ace, everything—how did this all come to be?”

  Ian’s face brightened. “So all us kids found ourselves in the Time-stop, about a year ago. Everybody was spread out originally, of course. Some in Colorado, some in Nevada, all over. Everyone was scared out of their bloody minds. It seemed like the end of the world.

  “But before long, we all discovered we had these, like, superpowers . . . and I think I figured them out. See, force equals mass times acceleration and acceleration is related to time. But time is stopped. So the closer time gets to zero, the closer force gets to infinity.”

  Max turned to Casey. “Did you understand that?” Casey shook her head. “Me neither. Anyway. Keep talking.”

  Ian nodded. “Right. So the kids all started roaming. They formed gangs. And of course, turf wars started. Except now with their new powers, kids could throw each other across whole football fields, punch through brick walls, run as fast as cars—I mean, it was nuts. Everyone went crazy. There were even a couple of kids who died. We tried to—”

  “Died?” Max and Casey said at once, horrified.

  “Well . . . yeah. I mean, it was bound to happen—what, with no adults around and the superpowers and all.”

  “Sorry,” Max said, quietly realizing that Ian was right.

  “One kid simply needed some medication for an allergy, and when he didn’t take it, he died. We could go into any pharmacy we wanted and get any kind of medicine we needed, of course . . . but this kid didn’t even know what the medication was called or anything, and nobody could figure it out. I mean, none of us are doctors . . .

  “There’ve also been a few accidents—kids who used their superpowers stupidly. One went running right off a cliff before he could stop. Another slammed into a tree at high speed during a hunt—things like that.

  “Then along comes Ace, saying he knows why the Time-stop happened. Ace even says he can reverse it. No one else has to die. He just needs all the gangs to stop fighting one another and unify.

  “That actually worked and pretty soon Ace is leader of this united supergang. And a couple of months after that, Ace says we ought to just leave things alone. Why go back to our old lives?”

  “Of course. He loves it like this,” Casey sniffed.

  Ian nodded. “That’s right.”

  “So where do you fit in?” Max asked.

  “I’m smart,” Ian replied. “I’m good with science and computers. My hacker name is apoth3osys. You might have heard of me.”

  Ian looked as though he were waiting for Max and Casey to recognize him as someone famous. When they didn’t, he scowled and continued. “Anyway, I know Ace didn’t stop time like he says. And Ace knows I know it. So he gives me status with the Serps. I’m a VP. And I help him run things, figure things out.”

  “The Serps. The Serpents and Mermaids,” Max said.

  “Yeah. It was me who made up the name. Ace takes all the credit though.”

  “And you’re a . . . a what again?”

  “Vice President. Ace is the President of the Serps and there are four VPs. I’m one of them.”

  “Is that stupid Sasha girl a VP?” Casey asked.

  “Her?” Ian said. “No. She’s just Ace’s girlfriend. Or whatever.” Ian scowled as if he didn’t like to think about that.

  “So what do you think is going on?” Max asked Ian. “You say you understand science-y things. What is the Pocket? How did it happen? Why?”

  “The Pocket?” Ian repeated blankly.

  “Oh, that’s what I named the Time-stop,” Casey said.

  “The Pocket,” Ian repeated, nodding appreciatively. “Cool name.”

  “So, I have an idea about the . . . Pocket,” Ian said quietly. “Every week for the past year, I’ve seen these UFOs . . .”

  “We’ve seen them also,” Max cut him off. “Or one of them, anyway. It took off from Starland—”

  “And headed east,” Ian finished. “Right?”

  Max nodded.

  “They always come from the east, and then go back to the east,” Ian said.

  “So, what, you think UFOs are causing the Pocket?” Casey asked.

  Ian nodded.

  Look to our coming, Johnny Siren . . .

  “What do you think they’re up to?” Max asked.

  “Maybe they’re looking for something. Or someone. It would make sense to stop tim
e if you wanted to nose around.”

  “But what about us?” Max asked. “Why aren’t we affected? And why only kids?”

  Ian shook his head. “I don’t know. But I think that part’s an accident.”

  “An accident?” Casey said breathlessly.

  “Yeah. It’s a mistake. They don’t know about us. Not yet, anyway.”

  The hair on Max’s neck stood on end.

  “What happens if they find out?” Casey whispered.

  “Nothing good, I’d guess,” Ian said. “That’s why I’ve told Ace he should cool it on the bonfires and hunts. But he just laughs at me. He says I’m paranoid.” Ian exhaled. “The Serps are going to get spotted, sooner or later. And something really bad is going to happen once we are. That’s why I want to get out of here.”

  “Wait a sec,” Casey said, her intuition kicking in. “You said that the UFOs always come from the east, right?”

  “Yeah.” Ian nodded with a smile, realizing where Casey was going. “And for you two, only a few days have passed.”

  “So the more east you go,” Casey finished, “the more Time-stoppish the Pocket gets?”

  “Exactly!” Ian said, a little too loudly. He looked around sheepishly and then said more quietly, “I’m pretty sure the UFOs have some device that causes the Pocket. And the closer you get to it, the slower time gets.”

  “Wait,” Max said. “Do you know that for certain?”

  “I’ve done experiments,” Ian beamed. “I’ve synchronized two watches and then left one here while I take the other one and go east. But when I return, only a few minutes have passed here in town, even though hours have passed for me! In fact . . . I can even pinpoint exactly where the Pocket is originating from.”

  Max and Casey looked at each other, impressed, as Ian fished a map out of his backpack.

  It showed the United States. Hand drawn on top of the states were several concentric circles. Near each of these were multiple handwritten times.

  But the import was clear: The center circle—the bull’s-eye—was positioned squarely on New York City.

  “New York? That’s where the Pocket is coming from?” Casey said.

  Ian nodded proudly and folded his arms. “That’s what it looks like to me.”