The seats were plush leather, there was a huge screen in the dashboard and there had to be like a million buttons all over the place. Now that Jeff had decided to use this as his getaway car, he wasn’t sure how to make it go.
But how complicated could it be?
He got himself settled behind the wheel but found that his feet could not quite reach the pedals. That Daggert guy was a lot taller than Jeff. He reached under the front seat, looking for a lever to pull the seat forward, but there was nothing there. Then he ran his hand down the side of the seat and found a whole bunch more buttons. He pressed one and the back of the seat began to vibrate.
“What the—”
He tried another button and the seat began to lower. He did not want that! He could barely see over the dash as it was. He slid the button the other way and the seat went higher. He kept it going until he had a good view of the hood. Finally, he found the button that moved the seat forward and gave the gas pedal a nudge.
The car was so well sound-insulated that Jeff barely heard the engine respond. But respond it did. He was good to go.
The gearshift was in the console. Jeff pressed on the brake, moved the shift lever into reverse so he could back far enough away from Flo’s pickup to turn around, and even though he felt he’d barely nudged the gas pedal, the SUV shot back like a rocket, pitching his head towards the steering wheel.
His foot found the brake and hit it hard. The SUV stopped abruptly, this time throwing Jeff’s head into the headrest.
Jeff saw Daggert charge out the front door of the house and lock eyes on the SUV.
Jeff tromped on the gas and turned the wheel as sharply as it would go, clipping the corner of the pickup with a huge crashing noise. The car lurched hard to one side but Jeff kept pushing down on the accelerator. The back end fishtailed and it took him a second to get the SUV going in a straight line, but before he knew it, he was tearing back down the driveway and headed for the highway.
All Jeff had to do now was figure out what to do next.
Daggert’s fists clenched at his side as he watched his SUV disappear beyond a ridge of trees. Bailey and Crawford burst out the door of the house several seconds later.
“Where’s the car?” Bailey asked.
Daggert said nothing.
Crawford said, in a voice that sounded like he was trying to be helpful, “I think, when you got out, you might have left the key in it.”
Daggert, turning slowly and giving the two of them a murderous look, said, “Get the pickup.”
Bailey and Crawford glanced at each other, unsure which of them had been given the order, then both ran towards the truck.
“Just Bailey!” Daggert said.
Crawford stopped.
“How did you let him get out of the house?” Daggert asked.
“Huh?”
“He must have been in the house, snuck out, and now he’s taken our ride,” Daggert said, shaking his head. “I don’t know who’s more incompetent. You, or Bailey.”
“At least neither of us left the key in the car,” he said.
Daggert went to reach for the weapon he’d used on Flo, debating whether to use it on Crawford, but he was distracted by a shout from Bailey.
“There’s no key!” she said, holding open the door of the pickup.
Daggert scanned the cabins that dotted the lakeside. “There must be another car around somewhere. See what you can find,” he told Bailey and Crawford.
Crawford said, “Even if we get a car, we don’t know which way the kid went.”
Daggert again resisted the impulse to shoot him, deciding a phone call he had to make was more pressing. While he was speaking to someone back at The Institute, a rusted old van pulled up alongside him with Bailey behind the wheel.
“Some idiot left the keys in it,” she said through the rolled-down window.
Daggert, phone to ear, raised a finger in the air to silence her.
“I need you to lock in on our car,” Daggert said to someone at the other end. “No, I do not wish to explain why I don’t know where it is.”
Crawford opened the side door of the van, waiting for Daggert to finish.
“You have it?” he said. “Fine, now send me the coordinates. And if you breathe a word of this to Madam Director, I shall personally pull your heart out of your chest. Also, there’s a possibility we may need backup transportation out of this area if the police get wind of what’s been going on. There could be roadblocks. Maybe a chopper or—what? Yes, a boat would work. So long as it’s fast.”
Daggert listened for a few more seconds. “Yes, an hour would be about right. That’s good. And have you sent the coordinates? Fine.”
He took the phone away from his ear but did not return it to his jacket. He was waiting for something to show up on his screen, and when it did, he smiled.
“Interesting,” Daggert said, opening the van’s passenger door and getting inside. “The SUV is stopped. The boy hasn’t gone far at all.”
He pointed. “That way,” he told Bailey.
When Jeff had left the train station to drop off the garbage at the dump and had got to where the driveway met the main road, he’d made a point of closing the metal and wire gate behind him.
But this time, in the stolen black SUV, he didn’t feel he had the time to get out, swing back the gate, drive in, get out again and close the gate behind himself. He had to get off the main road as quickly as possible before Daggert and his pals found a way to come after him. They wouldn’t be able to use his aunt’s truck, but they struck Jeff as a resourceful bunch who wouldn’t be delayed long.
So when he swung the big, lumbering SUV off the road, he drove his foot to the floor and smashed his way through the gate. It made such a huge crashing noise he worried they’d hear it back at the camp. The gate crumpled as it was torn off its hinges, slid across the hood and bounced off the windshield. The glass suffered some cracks, but did not shatter.
Jeff wondered if the glass might be bulletproof.
He barreled down the narrow, bumpy lane and hit the brakes when the trees opened and the old train station came into view. He turned off the engine, snatched the key, jumped out of the SUV and ran for the building, shouting, “They’ve found us! We have to get out of here!” as he raced up the stairs.
Chipper whipped his head around and Emily was wide-eyed as Jeff’s head appeared behind the banister.
“What’s happened?” Emily asked.
“They got Aunt Flo!” he shouted. “They—they shot her or zapped her or something! I hid in the house! I snuck out the window!”
Chipper got off the beanbag chair and went to him—not so far as to disconnect his collar from Emily’s laptop—and nuzzled the side of his leg with his snout in a bid to offer comfort. But Jeff was too panicked to notice.
“Who are you talking about?” Emily asked, now nearly as frightened as Jeff.
“Them!” he said, and pointed to Chipper. “Whoever’s after him!”
Emily’s jaw dropped.
“We’re not safe here!” Jeff said. “We have to go!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Emily said. “What do you mean they shot Flo? Are you kidding me?”
Jeff saw words coming up on the laptop screen, and on the phone in Emily’s hand. “He’s saying something,” Jeff said.
Emily looked at her phone and Jeff took a step closer to read the laptop.
I am sorry.
“Sorry?” Emily said.
I made a mistake coming here. I was wrong.
There was a brief pause, and then:
Run.
Emily’s eyes met Jeff’s. He hadn’t known her very long, but he sure had never seen her look that scared.
“Run where?” Emily asked.
Thinking.
“Yeah, well, you better think fast,” she said.
Jeff was feeling so frantic he thought he’d burst out of his skin. They had to do something right now, but he wasn’t sure what. At least he had the bad guys’
car. He and Emily and Chipper could get in it and take off.
But then what?
Where would they go? What would they do when the car ran out of gas? He didn’t know about Emily, but he sure didn’t have any money or credit cards. How long would they last?
Not long.
The thing was, they’d last even less time if they stayed here.
Jeff said, “Emily, they don’t know anything about you.”
“What?” she said distractedly. She had gone back to fiddling with her phone and the laptop. She disconnected the cables, including the one that went to Chipper’s collar. “We’re wireless,” she said triumphantly. “What did you say?”
“They know about me, they’ve figured out somehow I know about Chipper, but they don’t know about you. You’re safe. Take the dog’s advice. Run.”
“I can’t just— I mean, I’m not going to leave you here and—”
“Go,” he said.
She was struggling with a decision, even though she knew it made a lot of sense.
“Give me your phone,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“Give it to me!”
Jeff handed it over. She connected it to her laptop and began frantically clicking and tapping away.
“I’m setting you up,” she said. “So you and Chipper can talk. If I leave you with the laptop, they’ll be able to trace it to me, and it’s too much to carry if you’re on the move.”
“Okay,” Jeff said, glancing every few seconds down the stairs.
Tap tap, tap tap tap, tap, click click, tap.
Chipper made an anxious whining noise and was shifting his weight from one side of his body to the other. When The Institute programmed him, they were supposed to make him less susceptible to fear and anxiety.
They didn’t do such a good job where he was concerned.
“Okay,” Emily said, disconnecting Jeff’s phone from her computer and handing it back to him. “Now you two can chat.”
Jeff looked at his phone’s screen.
I am worried.
“Yeah, you and me both,” he said, looking from the phone’s screen to the dog.
Emily was stuffing her laptop into its case. “I don’t care what anyone says, I’m telling my dad. He has to know what’s going on. He might be able to help. He’s not going to rat anybody out.” Something occurred to her, and she asked for the phone back.
“What?”
“I want to set it up so you guys can talk, but your phone can’t be traced. The connection between you two is on, but your phone—as an actual phone—is dead. That should make it harder to find you.”
Jeff wanted Emily to get out of there, but he was going to miss her technical expertise. She handed the phone back to him, slung the computer case over her shoulder, and took a step towards him.
“Be careful,” Emily said. “When you can, let me know you’re okay.”
Jeff nodded. She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
It was the first time a girl had ever kissed him.
Emily said, “There’s something he wants to tell you.”
Jeff blinked. “What?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But it sounds serious. Jeff, he was looking for you. From the moment he escaped.”
“That makes no sense.” He looked at Chipper. “Why is she saying that?” He studied Chipper’s face, then looked at his phone.
It can wait. Make Emily go now.
“You better do what he says,” Jeff told her.
Emily scooted down the stairs. Jeff watched from the top as she peered outside first to make sure no one was there, then slipped out the door and was gone.
Jeff looked at Chipper and said, “I hope you have a plan.”
I do.
“Seriously?”
Chipper nodded.
“Well, out with it then.”
Let them come to us.
“Let them come to us?” Jeff said. “That doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”
Chipper circled the beanbag chair, the nails of his paws clicking softly on the wood floor. If he were a person, Jeff thought, this would be pacing and thinking.
Which was exactly what Chipper was doing. Pacing and thinking.
Let them catch us.
“I’m just a dumb kid,” Jeff said, “but is your dog brain kicking in a bit too much?”
If a dog could scowl, Chipper scowled. The White Coats had installed more than a few tricks into Chipper, and while he knew they were there, he had never before used them and he didn’t know whether they would work. But if they did, he and the boy might have a way out of this.
Or, maybe he should just save the boy. Let the White Coats recapture him. He’d let that happen before he allowed anything bad to happen to Jeff.
You go. I will take care of myself. If they catch me I will be okay.
Jeff swallowed hard. “That’s no plan. I don’t want to leave you behind. And anyway, like they say in the movies—don’t I know too much?”
I have never seen a movie. But yes, you know too much.
“Then we definitely need a different strategy.”
Chipper’s ears stood up. He heard the engine a few seconds before Jeff did. He ran to the small dormer window and looked out. Coming down the rutted road through the trees was a van. Jeff recognized it immediately as Harry Green’s car.
Who is it?
“It’s okay,” Jeff said, glancing back at Chipper. “It’s a friend of mine. He’s parking behind the bad guys’ SUV, getting out…Oh, no.”
You stole their car?
“Yeah.”
It can be tracked. They can find their cars. They are outfitted with GPS which
“I know what GPS is!” Jeff shouted, slamming the palm of his hand into his forehead. “I led them right here!” How many times could he be an idiot in one hour? They’d stolen Harry’s van and come right after him.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Chipper. “I’m not really cut out for this.”
He looked out the window again to confirm his fears. But in the time he’d talked with Chipper, the doors of the van had opened, and he couldn’t see anyone left inside. Daggert and his helpers, Bailey and Crawford, probably had the train station surrounded, getting ready to break in at any moment.
Chipper sniffed the air, confirming to himself that they had visitors. He was picking up three distinct scents. One of them was wearing a flowery perfume.
“We’re trapped!” Jeff said. “There’s no way out except to go down the stairs!”
Chipper took a nervous step to the right, a step to the left, then back again. He was worried about whether his plan would work.
We will be okay.
Chipper was not accustomed to giving false hope. He wasn’t sure that he had ever been wired to do such a thing, but was that what he was doing now? Was that his canine nature kicking in? Did a dog have the capacity to hope for the best? Were dogs by nature optimistic?
It had been so long since he’d been a simple mutt that he did not know for sure.
And Chipper knew that there was more than one reason he was feeling nervous. It wasn’t just the bad people from The Institute closing in on them that was making him anxious. It was the information he had been waiting to share with Jeff.
There are things you should know. Things I have been waiting to tell you.
“Like what?”
Wanted to tell you when we were safe.
“Yeah, well, like my dad used to say, that ship has sailed.”
Chipper glanced about nervously, moved to the top of the stairs so that he could see the entrance.
Years ago, at the beginning of the program when they were turning me from an ordinary dog into
Someone was kicking at the door.
into what I am now, there were many people involved in the process. White Coats. Some were very mean but some were
The door burst open. Jeff looked down the stairwell and his eyes met Daggert’s. Coming in behind
him were the other two.
Daggert smiled.
Jeff took one last look at his phone.
nice. More later. Jeff, when I look sleepy, plug your ears. Now put your phone away.
“What?” Jeff said.
Chipper had nothing else to say.
Jeff stuffed the phone into the front pocket of his jeans as Daggert and Co. climbed the stairs. They were careful about it, stepping gingerly on the steps that looked weak.
“Well, look who’s here,” Daggert said as he reached the top. He fixed his eyes on Chipper. “You’ve had us running all over the place. I’m starting to think maybe terminating you is a mistake. You might be one of our smartest pooches. You’ve been outsmarting us for some time now.”
His grin grew bigger. “But not anymore.”
His eyes returned to Jeff. “Thanks for leading us here, kid. Smart move, stealing our car. You might as well have fired off a flare, it was so easy to find you. I’m surprised your legs were long enough to reach the pedals. By the way, I’d like my keys back.”
Jeff dug into his other pocket for them and tossed them at Daggert, who snatched them out of the air as easily as a bat grabbing a bug in mid-flight. The smug look on his face was fueling the rage Jeff felt growing within him.
And suddenly, Jeff felt himself explode into action, launching himself at the man.
“You killed my aunt!” Jeff shrieked, hammering his fists into Daggert’s chest.
The other two grabbed him instantly and hauled him off their boss. Daggert casually brushed off his jacket. Jeff was still carrying some of the dust bunnies from under his aunt’s bed.
“Relax, kid,” Daggert said. “She’s not dead. She’s out cold, and probably will be for another half an hour or so. We don’t kill people unless it’s absolutely necessary.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “Which I believe it will be, in your case. Your aunt won’t remember much when she wakes up, and she didn’t know that much to begin with. But you, I think, you may know quite a bit.”
Daggert reached into his jacket and took out the device he’d used on Aunt Flo. It had a small dial on the side. He waved it around the room, then focused it on Chipper.