by Magus Tor
They reached the street that led to the library and the robot slowed down. The crowd gathered at his side. The robot sent a few of his men into the library and a couple of minutes later they returned.
“The playhouse is empty,” one of the men said.
It was then that Drew realized they were looking for him. He slowly stepped back and turned slightly, hoping to make a clean break. Keeping the crowd in sight, Drew side-stepped over to a doorway, swung the door open silently and began to fire on the crowd. One after another the men dropped. The robot turned and moved toward the building Drew was now in. As he stepped closer, Drew heard one of the men shouting.
“He’s in here!”
Drew knew that he had to get out of there and fast. He worked his way to the back of the building but heard people coming through the alley. In the far corner he saw the sign for the stairs and ran for the door. As he made his way up the stairs, he could hear people shooting. At the top of the staircase, Drew barged through the door, ready to fire upon anyone in his way. He was alone. He had made it to the rooftop.
Just when he thought he had given them the slip he heard voices coming from the stairwell. He ran as fast as he could to the edge of the building and jumped. After floating through the air for what seemed like forever, Drew landed hard on the roof below. Though his ankles throbbed, he kept running. He was able to swing himself onto a fire escape and lower himself back to the ground. As he rounded the corner, he decided to head back toward the library; they had already looked there, so he figured he could be safe there while he made a plan.
Making sure nobody was following him, he worked his way to the back of the library. Once inside, he was able to stop at the information desk for the cologne he was now growing to hate. As he moved through the library, back to the children’s section, he heard what sounded like kids laughing. God, please tell me I am not going to have to kill a child tonight. Just thinking about it made Drew sick to his stomach.
Staying low, he slid behind a low bookshelf just inside the children’s room. He could now fully hear the children as they sat, huddled inside the playhouse. They were making a plan to attack the rest of the group that was traveling with the robot. That is when Drew’s mind went into overdrive. They are going after the people I am hiding from! If I can get them on my side, maybe I can protect them. How can I make them see I am not their enemy? He took a moment to think and then went to work.
Drew found a piece of paper and some crayons. Trying as hard as he could to write like a child, he drew out his message: Can I be in your group? I’m alone and I won’t hurt you. I need your help. After completing the note, he folded it into a paper airplane and hoped for the best. Without standing up, he threw the plane in the direction of the cardboard house and heard someone gasp.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“Something fell outside the house.”
One of the children poked his head out the little side window and saw the airplane. “It’s a paper airplane! There’s something written on it!”
“Well, grab it.”
Drew waited as they read the message. He could hear them talking, keeping their voices low enough that Drew couldn’t tell what they were saying. After a few minutes, one of the little voices seemed to yell in a whisper, “Come closer. Hands up over your head. We won’t shoot.”
Drew wearily did as he was told. He wanted to protect the children, but at the same time he really didn’t trust them. When he reached the end of the bookshelf he could clearly see the playhouse. He saw no children, but did see guns poking out of the windows.
“You’re an adult?”
“Yes,” Drew whispered back, “But I don’t want to hurt you. I need your help.”
“Come closer.”
Drew moved closer to the house and the little door opened. They were allowing him inside. Once inside, the little hand closed the door and Drew realized that all five of the small children were staring at him.
“Why do you want our help?”
“I just want to make sure you stay safe. I can protect you, and maybe we can get the robot together.” Drew hoped they would accept him.
“You can’t kill the robot. He won’t die. We have tried and tried. But we do like to take his men down. They aren’t too smart you know.” The little boy couldn’t have been more than 10 years old and yet he spoke as if he were 30.
“I have a friend. Her name is Max. She is a kindergarten teacher. If we can find her, she can help us get the robot’s men.” Drew was beginning to feel a little more comfortable being around these kids.
“A teacher? Does she come in here?”
“All the time.”
“She must be the one that cleans up the house. Every time we leave and come back, it’s clean in here.”
“That sounds like Max.” Drew could see Max cleaning the kids area, right in the middle of a shootout.
“How do we find her?” This question was asked by the cutest little girl Drew had ever seen.
“Well,” Drew started, “We could stay here for a little longer and see if she shows up.”
“Okay. I don’t want to go back out there. I don’t like this game,” the little girl said. It was then that he realized that she looked like a mini version of Max, only this girl had tiny freckles across her nose and cheeks.
As they waited, they heard shooting coming from outside. Drew hoped that it wasn’t someone shooting at Max as she worked her way to the library. He decided to go look around, hoping to thwart off an attack inside the building. He really didn’t want the children getting shot. He told the children to stay silent and not move and then he crawled out of the house. He was starting to cramp and needed to stand and stretch anyway.
Drew moved towards the front doors of the library. That’s where he saw the men coming up the stairs. Crouching low, Drew pulled out both of his weapons knowing this could get ugly. As they stepped inside, Drew picked them off one by one. He heard a noise behind him and spun on his heels, ready to fire. Once his back was to the doors, one of the men that went down shot Drew in the back.
Drew couldn’t move. It was getting harder and harder for him to breathe and he knew this wouldn’t end well. As he struggled for each breath, the room grew darker and darker.
***
This time when Drew woke up there was no coffee, no breakfast, and no warm greeting from Max. The only sound he heard was the buzzing of the alarm clock. He reached over and tapped the off button and rolled over towards Max. The spot next to him was empty. He got up and walked out into the kitchen but she wasn’t there either.
“Max?”
“I’m in here,” she called from the spare bedroom.
When Drew walked in he found Max sitting at the table with the newspaper spread open in front of her. The notepad lay next to it and she was tapping the pen on the table.
“What’s up?”
“You were sleeping so soundly, so I figured I would check the paper for any news on the deaths.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“Well, overnight there seemed to be a few more deaths, so I made a list of where everybody died. I figure we could mark all the locations on the map and see what we come up with.” She looked very proud of herself.
“Wanna run to The Bean with me and get some coffee? I can bring my laptop and we can map out your list.”
Max jumped on the offer for coffee and they were ready to go in five minutes. She was really beginning to love the location of his apartment. It was so close to everything. They walked over, holding hands, and when they entered the coffee shop, Adam was there but not his usual cheery self. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.
“Hey, Adam. You okay?”
“Yeah, just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“That’s too bad, but with everything going on around town lately, I can see why people would be losing sleep! We’ll have the usual.” Then he turned to Max, “You want anything to eat?”
“Make that the usual with two banana nut muffins.”
Max took Drew’s laptop over to the table in the back corner and waited. When Drew got to the table, Max slid over so that they both could sit and see the computer. As they enjoyed their coffee and muffins, they also mapped out all of the deaths in the news that had to do with brain hemorrhages. The number was rising fast, but as far as they could see, all the deaths were happening in about a three mile radius. Drew picked up his phone and began pecking away at the buttons.
“Whatcha doin’?”
“I sent a text to my office. I’m having them map out the deaths in the other cities as well. This seems too weird to just be coincidence. Look how close together everyone is.”
“I know. It’s scary. We’re right in the center of it.” Max’s face showed mixed emotions. On one hand, she looked like a frightened child, but on the other hand she looked happy.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I am just glad I have you with me. I don’t know how well I’d be doing on my own.”
“Well, no need to worry, Max. I’m not going anywhere without you.”
By the time they left the coffee shop the morning rush was over. Usually there are still plenty of people on the street, but today seemed eerily quiet. They decided to get back to the apartment. On the way there, Drew asked Max about the game.
“I didn’t play last night. Did you?”
“Yeah. It was a crazy night, too. Not only did I enter the game right in the middle of the robots crowd, but then I was chased, I jumped from the roof of one building to the roof of another, and I came across a small group of kids in your cardboard playhouse!”
“I knew it! Every time I go in there it’s a mess!”
“Yeah, well, they noticed that someone was cleaning it up after them,” Drew chuckled as he spoke. “I did get them to work with me. I figured that was the only way I could keep an eye out for them. I told them about you. You know, what you look like. They won’t hurt you.”
“I hope not. I really don’t want to have to shoot a child.”
“They will try to work their way to the library when they play. If you get there before I do, flash your little flashlight three times and they will know it’s one of us.”
“Okay.”
They walked up the steps to Drew’s place and locked the door behind them. They decided that they would work straight through and stop for dinner. Drew headed for the spare room and Max followed. They spent hours comparing the map from Chicago with the maps his office sent over. In each of the cities the deaths were happening in the same small circle.
“Drew?”
“Yeah?”
“How many times have you not played the game since you started?” Max’s question seemed to come out of the blue.
“I don’t know. A couple I guess, why?”
“Well, I didn’t play the game here. Both times. When didn’t you play?”
“Over the weekend, the night I decided to let myself sleep in. Then again the first night at your house. What are you thinking?” Drew was quite confused where Max was going with her questions.
“Hear me out,” Max started, “I didn’t play the game here, and you didn’t play the game at my house or when your alarm was off. Doesn’t it seem odd that we didn’t play when our alarm clocks were either not with us or off?”
She had a point and it took Drew by surprise. “You think the alarm clock has to do with the game?”
“I had never even heard of the game until about a month after I won my alarm clock.”
“Yeah, but I started the game the night I won my clock.”
“I didn’t plug mine in until about a month after I won it, though.”
They went back and forth about the clock and the game for quite a while. There were valid points for the idea that the clock had something to do with the game. Drew had one last question for Max.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, ask away.”
“What made your thoughts go back to the game? I thought we were trying to figure out why people were dying.”
“Not sure really. Maybe because T played the game and he died. Every time I think about the deaths my mind goes to him and then to the game. Could it just be coincidence?”
“I’m not too sure anymore.” Drew knew that they now had to look at this through new eyes.
*****
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Adam Howard, Jr. was now a person of interest in Drew and Max’s research. They both got the alarm clock from the coffee shop he worked for, and they knew that T had won a clock just like it. Drew did a general search in one of his databases and found that Adam had previously lived in Emeryville, CA, Cedar Crest, TX, Hoboken, NJ and Pinecrest, FL. He has no arrest record and no past due debts.
“He’s clean as a whistle.” Drew said the words, wondering where the term came from.
“Okay, but what about his father?”
“According to the information I got earlier, he has lived at the same residence in Silicon Valley for the past 15 years.” As if a light bulb went on, Drew immediately switched directions. “Wait a minute. Silicon Valley is close to San Francisco. That’s where another group of deaths has been occurring.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t live here, or in Dallas, Manhattan or Miami.”
Drew went to the map they had placed on the wall earlier and looked at it for a good long time. Max, as if knowing what he was thinking, also walked over to the map.
“Pinecrest is close to Miami,” Max shouted, startling Drew.
“And Hoboken is near Manhattan,” Drew didn’t sound nearly as excited as Max.
“Cedar Crest is just minutes from Dallas. Oh, my God, Drew. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I think so. Adam, Jr. and Adam, Sr. could be working together. With his father’s technology and skills, our Adam could be planting chips in people all over the country! But how?”
Drew explained to Max that they would have to gather contact information for the families of all the people who died. It was the only way to find out if any of the people who passed away also won bean alarm clocks. They would also have to do an employment search on Adam to find out if he worked in coffee shops in the other states affected.
“This could take days, you up for it Max?”
“Hell, yeah! This is the most interesting stuff I have ever encountered. Why haven’t the authorities figured this out yet, though?”
“Because it’s a big leap, and this is what I have trained for.”
“Can’t we just go to the police with what we have found?”
“No, no, no. They will either think we are crazy, or they will scare Adam into hiding before they have what they need to arrest him. Hell, we don’t even know if what we are thinking is right.”
***
Max looked at the clock on the wall and realized how late it was. They decided to make some sandwiches and keep researching, drew on his computer and Max on his laptop. As scary and confusing as the situation was, they both were enjoying working together. They made a great team. When they found information they were looking for, Max plugged it into a spreadsheet she made on Drew’s laptop. Periodically they took breaks from the research to laugh about something silly they came across while researching, making the time seem to fly.
After another five hours or so, they decided to call it a night. Before bed, Max thought about the game and the clock and they decided it was best if they went and got hers from her house. If she lost a life every day, she should be playing and not just letting those lives slip away. While at her place she grabbed a few more things and also packed up her laptop.
They were back at Drew’s place within the hour and, knowing they wouldn’t be able to sleep just yet, they decided to bring their laptops back to the bedroom. Sitting back against the headboard, both with their computers on their laps, Drew looked over at Max. He found the gl
asses she was wearing cute.
“I’ve never seen you in glasses.”
“Yeah, I don’t usually wear them, but all of the computer work was wreaking havoc on my contacts, so I figured I would give my eyes a rest.”
“I like them,” Drew said, and set his laptop on the nightstand. He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He then reached over and took her computer, placing it on the floor on his side of the bed. When he turned back toward her, the both leaned in for a kiss like none they had ever shared before.
After about an hour they both lay back, spent from their recent activities. Drew turned his head toward Max and found her looking at him. They both smiled. Deciding that maybe they should sleep, Drew closed both laptops and they set their alarm clocks. They moved closer to each other and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
***
Drew opened his eyes and quickly looked around to figure out where he had landed in the game. Knowing, now, that the mission for Max and himself was one of neither winning the game nor losing it, but staying in it as long as it took to figure out what was actually going on in real life, Drew had to act fast. He realized he was already at the back door of the library. Wasting no time, Drew went through the motion of finding the dreaded cologne and then working his way to the playhouse. He flashed his light three times and then made his way over.
The house was empty. Deciding it was best to wait there, Drew climbed behind the house, completely concealing himself. He could hear gunfire in the distance, a sound that no longer surprised him. It wasn’t long before he heard the pitter patter of little feet and flashed his light again. The children piled into the cardboard house and drew went to the window. He realized there were only four of them and they told him that they had lost one of their members.
