I might as well be in deep space, minus the stars.
He fumbled for his phone, whispering aloud, “Don’t drop it … don’t drop it … don’t drop it.” The device would be his only source of light in this suffocating black. If he lost it, he would never find it again.
When the screen lit up, his sense of relief almost brought tears to his eyes. He activated the flashlight app and explored his surroundings. The truck’s payload was stacked high with hundreds of cartons piled on wooden skids. The boxes were unmarked except for a stamp: FOODSTUFFS. Well, at least he wouldn’t starve in here. There was something to eat. He devoutly hoped it wasn’t Brussels sprouts. Axel Braintree had once scolded Jax for trying to implant Mom with a post-hypnotic suggestion that Brussels sprouts could only be eaten in Belgium.
The thought of his mother brought a lump to his throat. In a few hours, she and Dad would be waking up to the fact that he was gone.
He squeezed behind a skid, moved a stack of boxes, and made a hiding place for himself. If the troopers opened the payload, at least they wouldn’t see him outright. They’d have to search the whole truck to find him. He was reasonably sure they wouldn’t do that.
For the next five minutes or so, the semi inched forward in start-and-stop motion. Jax knew they were making their way to the roadblock itself, but the effect on an unofficial passenger was stomach-churning. At last, they must have been waved through because the engine roared louder and the vehicle began to pick up speed. Jax stepped out of his hiding place, relieved that this first hurdle had been cleared.
The next order of business was to get himself to New York. But since he couldn’t exactly climb out of a speeding truck, he had to wait until the driver made a pit stop somewhere. In the meantime, keeping his strength up was priority one. It was time to learn what “foodstuffs” meant.
He tore into one of the cartons. Inside he found one hundred forty-four individual packets of Skittles. It managed to restore a little of his mood. No, not Brussels sprouts — candy. Without hesitation, he banged down eight small bags. Mom might find this even more disturbing than the fact that he was going to New York in the first place. It was a seriously unbalanced breakfast, but the sugar would keep him awake and alert. In fact, after a few minutes, it was all he could do to keep himself from bouncing off the sides of the trailer.
In spite of it all, he actually managed to doze a little. In the end, it was the truck noise that brought him back to life — the big motor grinding as the Skittle-mobile geared down, veering onto an off ramp. Jax could feel the vehicle slowing, and he noticed something else, too. Light was entering the payload via cracks at the side of the gate. It was morning, and the driver was probably stopping for breakfast.
Good. Jax had to meet this man face-to-face.
The huge tires crunched to a halt and the big engine fell silent. A moment later, Jax heard the slam of the cab door.
He reached down to throw open the gate and nearly pulled every muscle in his back. For some reason, the heavy door was a lot harder to move from the inside. At last, he raised it just enough to squeeze out. He hit the pavement running and identified his driver en route to the restaurant of a large truck stop. Black-and-red-checked jacket — that was him.
Oops — her. So much for his plan to hypnotize her in the bathroom.
Well, he would just have to try to do it out in the open. Luckily, people didn’t usually notice what they didn’t expect to see — like a twelve-year-old bending a lady trucker at a rest stop.
He caught up with her at the lunch counter and took the stool beside hers. “Coffee, huh?”
“Yep. Can’t be too hot or too strong.” She turned to smile at him and he froze her with blazing eyes.
“You’re enjoying your coffee, and when your breakfast comes, it will be delicious, too. When you pay your bill, you will forget this conversation. All you will remember is that the final destination for your cargo is New York City.”
For an instant, the PIP image — himself from her perspective — flickered. A hint of rebellion, perhaps. She frowned and said uncertainly, “Erie, Pennsylvania.”
Jax felt a stirring of respect for this trucker’s devotion to her schedule and cargo. But this was no time to give in. “New York,” he repeated firmly. “Manhattan. Look into my eyes. You can read it on your manifest. New York City. They love Skittles in New York.”
“New York City,” she echoed.
“Good,” Jax approved. “You’ll be driving alone. It might look like I’ll be in the passenger seat beside you. But I’m not there.”
“I drive alone,” she droned.
The waitress behind the counter approached Jax. “What can I get you, hon?”
“Burger and fries to go.” He considered adding “Put it on her tab,” but for some reason, that didn’t seem right.
Funny, he reflected. He had no problem taking her and her shipment of Skittles to the wrong city. But he couldn’t bring himself to stick her with his tab.
New York.
It was after one AM, but the instant the familiar skyline appeared across the dark Hudson River, Jax knew the emotion of coming home.
“You want to take the Holland Tunnel,” he said almost automatically. “There’s always night construction at the Lincoln this time of year.”
The driver didn’t hear him. He was, after all, not there. He waited until the semi was safely stopped in traffic, then bent her again. “Your destination is in lower Manhattan, east side,” he instructed, giving the address.
With a grinding of gears, the truck headed into the tunnel. Jax wasn’t sure why he’d chosen this particular endpoint. Mostly, he couldn’t think of any other place to go. The Sandman’s Guild had fallen apart after Axel’s death, so there was no point in visiting their old meeting place, the Laundromat. And Mako’s Sentia Institute had shut down when its founder had gone to prison. Now that he was a fugitive, Mako wasn’t likely to be hanging out at his old headquarters.
Fugitive. The word reverberated in Jax’s brain. I’m a fugitive, too — from the US Army. Colonel Brassmeyer wasn’t going to let him go just like that. Jax knew too much about HoWaRD and the military’s development of hypnotic warfare.
Jax had no home in this city anymore — not since his family had fled Dr. Mako many months before. He had no apartment here, no life. Only one connection still remained, the person he’d always been able to count on.
At last, the familiar block appeared in the front window of the semi. Jax had never loved this row of low walk-up apartment buildings before, but, oh, how he loved it now. The neighborhood was a beautiful sight, unremarkable as it was in this city of towering skyscrapers.
“This is where I get off,” he told the driver. “Don’t get used to it. You’re going to forget it in a minute. Change of plan — your new destination is your old destination in Erie, Pennsylvania. It’s on your GPS. Sorry to take you out of your way. Good thing Skittles don’t go bad.”
Standing on the sidewalk, he watched the truck disappear around the corner, and hoped the driver could find her way all right. Then he walked into the shadowy alley and stopped behind the third building in from the avenue.
The wrought iron fire escape was in the “up” position, which meant that the ladder was completely out of reach. Even balanced atop a garbage can, his grasping fingers were well below the bottom rung.
Well, he hadn’t escaped the army and come all the way from Oklahoma to be turned away because the stupid ladder was too high. He was a New Yorker, and New Yorkers knew how to make things happen.
Two garbage cans, then. Plus a third to use to climb to the top of the two. Teetering dangerously at the summit of his creation, he experienced a moment of dread as he contemplated the impact of his skull on the concrete of the alley.
Don’t think about it.
He leaped and felt his hands close on the bottom rung. He’d done it!
His triumph was instantly replaced by dismay as his weight pulled the ladder all the way to the “down” position
with an ear-splitting screech of ancient iron. At the bottom, his flailing feet kicked over his structure of garbage cans. In the quiet of the night, the racket seemed twice as loud, echoing off the brick walls. He fully expected half the city to descend on this disturber of the peace. Instead, not a single voice protested his presence. That was another thing about New Yorkers: It took a lot to get their attention.
Once on the fire escape, he paused only to raise the ladder back into place. It was an easy climb to the third floor. He could see through the opening in the curtains — the familiar movie posters, the beanbag chair held together with duct tape, the Eli Manning bobblehead.
He knocked on the window, timidly at first, then louder. The dark tousled head on the pillow stirred, although the sleeper did not awaken.
He shrugged out of his backpack and rapped the buckle against the glass.
It did the trick. Tommy Cicerelli sat bolt upright and stared at the figure at his window. His mouth formed one word: Opus?
Jax grinned in spite of himself. He hadn’t been sure Tommy would even recognize him. Jax’s last act before leaving New York had been to hypnotize Tommy and make him forget that the two of them had been anything more than casual acquaintances. It had been for Tommy’s own protection — Mako wouldn’t care who he had to chew up and spit out in order to get to Jax. Still, it was one of the saddest things Jax had ever been forced to do.
Tommy opened the window a crack, staring in confused recognition. “What are you doing here?”
Jax bit his lip to stifle his rising emotion. “How’s it going, Tommy?”
Tommy blinked the sleep out of his eyes. “You disappeared, man! Nobody had any idea what happened to you!”
Jax was caught off guard. “I had to get out of town suddenly,” he managed. “It was a family thing. Can I please come in? I’ve had a long trip.”
Tommy opened the window and helped him inside, but his agitation only seemed to grow. “You were missing! It was like one day you were here, and the next —”
Jax watched in amazement as two big tears spilled out of Tommy’s dark eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Why was Tommy so upset about this? Had something gone wrong with the post-hypnotic suggestion? He was way too emotionally involved over the random classmate Jax was supposed to be. Jax had been absolutely clear about that. His exact words had been: You and Jackson Opus were never very close. It really doesn’t bother you that he’s not around anymore.
Tommy was embarrassed. “I’m sorry, man. I hardly know you. But for some reason, I thought maybe you were, like, dead —”
Standing in the darkness of one forty-five AM, Jax felt a surge of warmth toward this boy who had been his best friend since kindergarten. Yes, you could use hypnotism to change the details of their relationship in his memory. But the attachment and the loyalty were both still there. It was comforting to know that mesmerism — as powerful as it was — couldn’t wipe away everything. Not even the combined powers of Opus and Sparks could make a stranger out of the world’s greatest friend.
But Tommy was entitled to remember the whole thing. He deserved the truth.
Jax fixed him with a double-barreled stare. It wasn’t easy to bend Tommy. The kid was color-blind, and therefore incapable of seeing Jax’s eyes change color. Tommy’s world was black and white, with shades of gray.
“What’s going on, Opus? What are you doing?”
“Look into my eyes!” Jax commanded.
“I am. It’s getting weird.”
“Concentrate, Tommy!” Jax stared harder. Color-blind or no, he had bent the guy before, and he could do it again. Especially now, with the benefit of training from Axel Braintree and the United States Department of Defense.
Finally, the PIP image began to appear. Jax knew it had to be Tommy, since it was like an old black-and-white movie. Jax’s eyes, normally a sunburst of color, swirled with gray smoke.
“It’s coming back to you,” Jax told him. It was normally complicated to undo a previous mesmeric command, but Tommy sort of remembered anyway — the emotion, if not the specifics. “All our history together. Except maybe that love poem to Amy Biltmore in fifth grade. You can keep on forgetting about that. I wish I could. I’m going to snap my fingers now, and you’ll wake up.”
Tommy blinked three times. When he returned to himself, his first impulse was anger.
“How could you do that to me?” he raged, shoving Jax backward into the beanbag.
“Shhh! You’ll wake your folks!”
“You jerk! What would make you disappear without so much as a good-bye?”
“Think, Tommy! Remember Dr. Mako?” Step by step, Jax brought his friend up to speed on why the Opus family had run away from New York, and these last few months at Fort Calhoun. “Now Mako’s on the loose again, and he’s got his hooks into this Stanley kid. If I can’t find a way to stop it, on October Twenty-Fourth, there’s going to be another Operation Aurora. And this one won’t be some isolated fake town. It’s going worldwide! You can’t believe what happens when everything grinds to a halt!”
Tommy was appalled. “But that’s, like, a day and a half away!”
Jax nodded miserably. “And I can’t even be sure that Mako’s in New York. I just didn’t know where else to start. The only thing I knew was I couldn’t just sit back and let it happen.”
Tommy looked thoughtful. “Well, where was Mako last seen?”
“Stanley’s custody hearing,” Jax replied readily. “And jail before that. The one place he has a long-term connection to is here in New York — the Sentia Institute uptown. I used to go for training there, remember? But it’s closed now.”
“What about the building management?” Tommy persisted.
“Building management?”
“My dad’s company renovates offices all over the city,” Tommy explained. “Every building is run by a company that handles the maintenance and insurance and stuff like that. Who manages Sentia’s building?”
Jax had no answer. Yet he felt a faint stirring of hope at the idea that the trail might not have gone completely cold. “I don’t know. How can we find out?”
Tommy shrugged. “There has to be a sign somewhere. It’s the law.”
“You’re a lifesaver!” Jax exclaimed. “Can I crash here tonight? I promise to be out of your way first thing in the morning. I’ll contact the management company as soon as they open.”
“You’re doing it again,” Tommy accused. “You’re closing me out. Of course you’ll stay here tonight. And tomorrow, we go to Sentia together.”
“This is my problem, not yours,” Jax pointed out.
Tommy was insulted. “Your problem is my problem — always was, always will be. And if you’re right about this Aurora thing, it’s everybody’s problem. Besides, I have a math test tomorrow, which makes it an excellent day to be someplace else.”
For the first time since stepping out of the little cottage in Fort Calhoun, Jax felt that he was no longer alone.
It was after three AM. Jax was padding barefoot down the hall on his way back from the bathroom when he suddenly came face-to-face with Tommy’s father.
“ ’Scuse me,” Mr. Cicerelli mumbled, and then stopped dead. “Jax? What are you doing here?”
Jax had already decided how he was going to respond if he accidentally bumped into one of Tommy’s parents. After his unexplained disappearance, the Cicerellis were going to have a lot of questions, and Jax wasn’t prepared to answer any of them. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with his mission here in New York — even if that meant bending the people who had been like second parents to him.
He held Tommy’s father with a magnetic gaze until a very bleary PIP image appeared. “You’re still asleep,” he said quietly. “You didn’t see anybody. Go back to bed and get a good night’s rest.”
In answer, Mr. Cicerelli yawned hugely and the two went their separate ways. As he let himself back into Tommy’s room, Jax couldn’t help wondering if this would be the last good night’s slee
p Mr. Cicarelli would enjoy before Elias Mako turned all of humanity inside out.
After the Cicerellis both left for work, the boys allowed themselves the luxury of a quick bowl of cereal before setting out on their quest.
“Same old kitchen,” Jax observed. “Even the chocolate-milk stain on the ceiling.”
“Sorry to bore you,” Tommy said sarcastically. “Some of us have been living our regular lives while the army was turning you into their secret weapon.”
“I don’t want to be a secret weapon. I don’t want to be any kind of weapon.”
“You were always a weapon, Opus.” Tommy countered, blotting at a dribble of milk on his chin. “Even before we knew about this hypnotism thing. You think the girls stared at your googly eyes because of your manliness? And remember that social studies essay? You got a two-week extension and I got a detention for asking!”
Jax grimaced. “I’m nothing compared with the weapon Mako’s turning Stanley into.”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Tommy suggested hopefully. “I mean, doing nothing — what’s the downside? We used to suffer through a whole year of school so we could get to summer and lie around doing nothing.”
Jax tried to explain. “When you’re driving a car, and you shut down, the car keeps going. If you’re filling your bathtub, the water runs until you flood your apartment, and the one downstairs, too. If you’re cooking, the stove stays on, and the fire isn’t over until there’s nothing left to burn. Now picture that happening all over the city. And the first responders, like police and firemen, they’re not moving either. Not that they could get to you if they wanted to — the streets are full of crashed cars and debris from burning buildings. But even the people who aren’t in danger will be soon enough, because they can’t eat or drink. And the ones who are unaffected by the post-hypnotic suggestion are losing their minds trying to help the ones who are. Need to hear more?”
“Let’s go to Sentia,” Tommy decided. “I’m getting a stomachache.”
In spite of their serious mission, Jax enjoyed the crowded train ride uptown, trading banter with Tommy and inventing creative meanings for the unreadable subway graffiti.