“No,” she said. She lowered her head into her hands, her coffee-brown hair falling in front of her like a veil. “All of this is my fault. And now Ostin’s parents are gone, and Jack’s house is burned down. If I hadn’t looked for the Elgen online . . .”
I sat down next to her on the floor. “Taylor, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. You’ve seen how high-tech the Elgen are. It was just a matter of time before they found us.”
“What if they take my family?”
“Then we’ll rescue them,” I said. “Just like we’re going to rescue my mother.”
She looked at me, forcing a smile. “Thank you. I’m glad . . .”
I waited for her to finish but she didn’t. “You’re glad . . . what?”
“Can’t you read my mind?” she asked sadly. “You could before.”
“There’s got to be a lot of electricity between us,” I said.
She looked into my eyes. “And there’s not?”
I smiled, restraining my impulse to tic. “That’s a different kind.”
She put her arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder. “What I was going to say was, I’m glad I have you for my boyfriend.”
“Me too,” I said. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself.”
She pinched my arm and smiled. “You’re so cute.”
We sat there for several minutes, and my thoughts drifted to something I’d been hiding since my first meeting with Hatch. I forgot Taylor could read my mind.
She jerked back, her eyes wide. “Why are you thinking that?”
“Thinking what?”
“You know what. About dying.”
“It’s nothing,” I said.
“Dying isn’t nothing. It’s a very big something.”
“Why were you listening to my thoughts?”
“It just happens. Sometimes I don’t even know I’m doing it.” She squeezed my hand. “Why were you thinking that?”
“It’s just something Hatch said. I don’t know if it’s even true. . . .”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said four of the other kids have already died from cancer caused by our electricity, and I have more electricity than they did.” I looked into her eyes. “He said I might be dying.”
Taylor looked as if she didn’t know how to respond. “Was he lying?”
“I don’t know. You know him better than I do.”
Her eyes started to well up with tears. “You can’t die, Michael.”
“Believe me, it’s not something I’m trying to do,” I said.
She put her head back on my shoulder, and I held her for several minutes until Ostin barged into the room. “Hey, guys. You’ll never guess what I just discovered.” He stopped and looked at us. “What’s going on?”
Taylor sat up, pulling her hair back from her face. “Nothing,” she said, her eyes still red.
“What did you discover?” I asked.
He looked back and forth between us, then said, “I figured out what the ER20 and ER21 are. Dudes, you’re never going to believe it.”
Taylor held my hand as we followed Ostin back into the front room. Everyone was gathered around the computer.
Wade was sitting in a beanbag chair, still looking angry that Jack had left him. “C’mon, already,” he said. “What’s the big announcement? What’s an ER?”
One thing I know about Ostin is that it’s impossible for him to just tell you the solution to a problem—he has to tell you how he solved the problem. It’s annoying sometimes—actually, it’s annoying all the time—but I’m pretty sure he can’t help it.
Ostin’s face was pink with excitement. “So I started searching for ER, ER20, ER21, ER22, but it just led to that old TV series and other stuff. Then I searched the location mentioned in the memo: Puerto Maldonado.
“Puerto Maldonado is a Peruvian city in the Amazon jungle near Cuzco. The memo said that the outbreak occurred during the rainy season, which is between November and March, so I started to scan through their local newspaper for anything unusual. Look what I found.” He clicked a link and an article appeared on the screen. The headline read:
Las Ratas Abrasadoras Destruyen El Pueblo
“Isn’t that crazy!” Ostin said.
I looked at him blankly. “What language is that, Spanish?”
“Yeah, unbelievable, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know; I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Oh, sorry,” Ostin said. “I forgot.”
Ostin was born in Austin, Texas (hence his name), where he had a Mexican nanny. Average human babies pick up second languages remarkably fast, but with Ostin’s IQ, I’m sure he was reciting Shakespeare in Spanish by the time he was five.
“ Las ratas abrasadoras is Spanish for ‘fiery rats.’”
“What’s a fiery rat?” Taylor asked.
“Exactly,” Ostin said. “There’s no such thing.” His voice lowered. “Or is there?” He sounded ridiculously dramatic, like the host of some UFO show on the Discovery Channel. “Check this out,” he said, scrolling down the screen. “According to this article, there was a plague of rats in Peru that nearly wiped out a small village. The town’s mayor said that the rats started fires everywhere they went.”
“What were they doing?” McKenna asked. “Smoking?”
Ostin didn’t catch that she was joking. “No, I think they do it the same way you do. Or, at least, Michael and Zeus.”
“They’re electric?” I asked.
Ostin touched his finger to his nose. “Bingo. One eyewitness said that these rats glowed at night, like they were on fire. And when he tried to kill one with a crowbar, he said ‘me dio una descarga como anguila eléctrica.’”
“Translate,” I said.
“It shocked him like an electric eel.”
“Like an electric eel?” Ian repeated. “They’ve discovered a new breed of rat?”
“No,” I said. “The Elgen have made a new breed of rat. They’ve electrified rats.”
“It makes perfect sense,” Ostin said. “They’re having trouble creating more electric kids, but they’ve learned how to make electric rodents.”
“Why would they do that?” Taylor asked.
“It was probably just an accident at first,” Ostin replied. “I mean, we test everything on rats, right? Drugs, cosmetics, shampoo. Makes sense they were testing rats in the MEI. Voila, electric rats.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“Yeah, but what are they good for?” Taylor asked.
“That was my next question,” Ostin said. “So I scanned the Internet for any other stories about fiery or electric rats. I came up with mentions in Saint Barths, the Cook Islands, and Anguilla.” He looked at me, grinning. “Sound familiar?”
“No,” I said.
“Remember what we read earlier? That’s where the Elgen have built their Starxource plants.”
It took me a moment to make the connection. “You mean their power plants are rat powered?”
Ostin was so excited he almost jumped up from his chair. “Exactly!”
“Why rats?” Taylor asked.
“Why not!” Ostin exclaimed. “They’re perfect! The problem with most of our current energy sources is what?”
“They’re expensive,” Taylor said, turning to me. “My dad’s always complaining about how much it costs when I leave lights on.”
“Yes, but more importantly, they’re exhaustible. They’re limited. You can’t make more oil, unless you can wait around a few hundred million years. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. The big search is for renewable energy, and the Elgen found it. Actually, they made it. Rats are super-renewable. They’re practically breeding machines! Think about it. Rats are mature at five weeks, their gestation period is just three weeks, and the average litter is eight to ten babies. If you started with just two rats and they had an average of ten offspring every three weeks, then they had babies, and so on, in one year you could have . . .” He did the math in his head. “Holy roden
t. Under ideal circumstances and lacking natural predators, like in a laboratory, you could breed billions of rats in one year.”
“That’s crazy,” McKenna said.
“And if each one of those rats could generate even a tenth the electricity that one of us does . . . ,” I said.
“You could power entire cities,” Ostin said. “Enough rats, you could power the entire world.”
I shook my head. “They’re making rat power. The Elgen are making rat power. That’s why they’re afraid of them escaping. If they breed, anyone could use them.”
“They could also be like those killer bees that escaped from South America,” McKenna said.
“You mean the band?” Wade asked.
“What band?” McKenna said.
“The Killer Bees.”
McKenna shook her head. “I’m not talking about some stupid band.”
“She means Africanized bees,” Ostin said. “In the fifties some scientists took African bees to Brazil to create a better honeybee, but the African bees escaped and starting breeding with local—”
“Good job, Ostin,” I said, cutting him off. “You did it.”
“Thanks,” he said proudly. “It’s amazing, they’re creating these power plants and no one knows how they’re doing it, but the answer is right in front of them. Apparently the Elgen have a sense of humor after all.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The name of their plants . . . Starxource. It makes their power plants sound like they run off thermonuclear fusion, since that’s where stars get their energy from.” He turned around and looked at me. “But ‘star’ is just ‘rats’ spelled backward.”
Rat power. In a bizarre way it made sense. Like my mother was fond of saying, “whatever works.” The ramifications of this discovery made sense as well. If the world became dependent on Elgen energy, the Elgen would control the world.
“Man, all this thinking has made me hungry,” Ostin said. “Where’s the pizza?” I was glad to see he had his appetite back. He looked at the clock on the wall. “What’s taking them so long?”
“They’re probably kissing,” Wade said, still bitter about being left behind.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Ian said. “Both Hummers are in the driveway. But they’re not in them.” His expression fell. “Oh no.”
Just then something crashed through the home’s front window. Before we could see what it was, there were two loud explosions, and the room was filled with an overpowering stench. My eyes watered and I covered my nose and mouth with my hand and yelled for everyone to run.
Suddenly the door burst open, and a man shouted, “Everyone on the ground. Put your hands in front of you. Do it! Do it now!” He ran inside the front room, flanked by two other guards.
Zeus was the first to react. He extended his hands and blasted the man standing in the doorway, knocking him back against the wall. But before Zeus could hit anyone else, two darts struck him in the side. Zeus cried out and fell to the ground, screaming and writhing in pain. The darts were peculiar looking, fat like a cigar, tapered at one end, and yellow with red stripes.
Elgen guards poured into the room through the front and back doors, shouting as they entered. They were wearing black rubberized jumpsuits with helmets, masks, and gloves, which made them look more like machines than humans. Each of them carried a chrome weapon I’d never seen before. It looked like a handgun, only broader and without the barrel.
I pulsed while Taylor was trying to reboot the guards, but neither of us seemed to have any effect on them. Darts hit us almost simultaneously, one in her chest and one in her knee, and three on me, two hitting me in the side, the third just below my collarbone. We both collapsed, as if our bones had suddenly turned to rubber. The experience was similar to what we felt when Nichelle, one of Hatch’s electric kids, would use her powers to drain the electricity out of us. Except this new machine was even worse.
I began to shake uncontrollably, and I wondered if I was having a heart attack. A moment later a man wearing a purple uniform walked in through the front door. He was followed by a guard nearly six inches taller than him. The guard in purple held an electronic tablet, which he studied as he approached Zeus.
“Frank,” he said to Zeus.
“I’m Zeus,” Zeus said.
“Yes,” the man said. “Dr. Hatch said you suffered from delusions of grandeur. You know he’s looking forward to your reunion. He has something very special in mind for you. He said a pool party was in order.”
Zeus turned pale.
I looked over to see Ostin on the ground with one of the guards standing above him. The guard’s boot was on Ostin’s neck, pushing his face into the carpet. There were four darts in Ostin’s back. “Captain, the darts don’t work on him,” the guard shouted.
“Idiot, he’s not electric,” the captain replied.
“What do I do with them?”
“Same as the ugly kid over there,” he said, pointing at Wade. “Take them to the van.”
The captain walked over to Ian, who had three darts in him. He was on his knees and holding his side. “So you’re Ian,” the captain said. “How’s the vision?”
“Perfect,” Ian said defiantly, turning toward the man’s voice.
“Really? Perfect?”
“Yeah, I can’t see your ugly face.”
He kicked Ian in the stomach. Ian fell to his side, gasping.
“Too bad you didn’t see that coming.” He shouted to the guards, “Get them all into the van. Move it!”
At least Jack and Abi got away, I thought.
The captain looked over at Taylor and me, then walked up to Taylor, his stooge following closely behind him. “You must be Taylor,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “The reason we wear these uncomfortable helmets. Let’s remedy that.” He turned to his guard. “Belt.”
“Here, sir,” he said, handing the captain a long strap with blinking green LEDs.
He cinched the belt over Taylor’s head and chin. It looked like some kind of orthodontic headgear except with a lot of wires and lights. Taylor gasped. “It hurts.”
“Does it?” he asked. He shouted to the guards who were still in the room, “You can take your helmets off now.” Then he grabbed Taylor by the chin and forced her to look at him. “I heard Tara had a carbon copy.”
“I’m nothing like her,” Taylor said, wincing in pain.
“You’re just as beautiful as she is.” He ran his finger across her face.
“Don’t touch her, you creep,” I said.
The man turned to me, his eyes narrowing with contempt. “And you must be the famous Mr. Vey. Dr. Hatch was very specific about you.” He touched something on the tablet he was carrying, and the pain in my body increased. I screamed out, gasping for air. If you have dental fillings and have chewed aluminum foil, you have an idea what it felt like—except spread throughout my whole body.
“Stop it!” Taylor shouted. “Please.”
I rolled over onto my back, struggling for breath. The pain continued to pulse through my body—a wild, agonizing throb followed by a sharp, crisp sting. “Stop it!” I shouted.
“I don’t take orders from little boys.”
After another thirty seconds Taylor screamed, “Please stop it! Please. You’re killing him. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Don’t be dramatic, sweetie. I’m not killing him. I’m just making him wish he were dead. Dr. Hatch gave us instructions to bring him back alive—like an animal to be put in a zoo. And yes, Miss Ridley, you will do whatever I want.”
He pushed something on the tablet and the pain eased. “There’s an app for everything these days, isn’t there?” He looked at me. “We underestimated you, Mr. Vey. But it won’t happen again. Trust me, there are worse things in this world than Cell 25.”
I was carried by a guard out to the backyard, where the guards had parked their truck—a large van emblazoned with the name of a moving company. The darts were still in me, and the guards h
ad special hooks with which they secured them. I don’t know what the darts were, but they seemed to suck the life out of me, twisting my thoughts with pain.
Everything seemed to be happening around me in quick, staccato flashes, like I was surfing TV channels with a remote.
I saw Ian being dragged off by three men. McKenna was crying. Ostin had a bloody nose and was calling a guard a dumb gorilla. Two guards were standing near the garage taking pictures of the Hummers. I heard their conversation, or at least some of it—one guard was asking the other where we’d gotten the cars.
My mind flashed, and I remembered that Ian had said both Hummers were in the garage—where were Jack and Abigail? Then I noticed three pizza boxes on the ground.
Connected to the back of the truck was a motorized platform that the guards used to lift us into the cargo bay. The inside of the truck looked like a laboratory and was filled with long rows of blinking diodes and pale green monitors. On one side of the truck were horizontal cots, stacked above one another like shelves. Zeus and Ian were already strapped down on the bottom two cots.
On the opposite side of the truck was a white, rubber-coated bench with rubber shackles every three or four feet.
Jack and Abigail were both strapped to the bench, their arms fastened above their heads, with belts across their waists, thighs, and calves. Abigail was crying, and I could see that Jack was bleeding from his nose and forehead. He hadn’t gone without a fight.
On both sides, near the center of the truck, were narrow, lockerlike cabinets. Behind those was a console with digital readouts and rows of switches and more flashing lights. A guard was seated at the console, watching as we were brought in. Waiting for us.
One of the guards pulled a cot out like a drawer, and I was laid on it, then strapped down at my ankles, waist, chest, and arms. Last, a wire was fastened around my neck, holding me fast and making it difficult to breathe.
“C is connected,” a guard shouted to the man near the console.
Through my peripheral vision I saw the man push a lever and I immediately felt a tingling in my neck followed by stinging pain throughout my body. I felt nauseous, as if I might throw up, but fought the urge.