“Please,” Simmons said as he continued chewing. “I’m going to make this right. I am. You don’t have to…put me…to sleep.”
Madam Director waved a finger in his face. “It’s not nice to talk with your mouth full.” She smiled. “As you’ve probably guessed, that little morsel is a lot more powerful than the one your dog failed to eat.”
Simmons could already feel himself growing weary.
“Swallow,” she said.
Simmons chewed the last of the treat and allowed it to move down his throat. The room began to sway. He reached for the desk to try and steady himself.
His legs grew weak and he collapsed to the floor. Daggert strode further into the room and knelt beside Simmons. He tested the syringe, shooting a couple of drops out the end of the needle, then plunged it through Simmons’s white sleeve and into his arm.
“Thank you, Daggert.” Madam Director returned to her chair. “Remove him. He clashes with my décor. And Daggert?”
“Yes, Madam.”
“We have people in the field already, but I’m putting you in charge of getting that dog back. Take Bailey and Crawford with you.”
“With pleasure,” he said, dragging Simmons from the room.
Chipper remained crouched under the seat in the subway car, wondering when they would start moving again. He knew the car couldn’t sit in the tunnel indefinitely.
The train began to move.
Chipper thought back to what had been said over the intercom. When they came into the next station, the doors would not be opening immediately. That meant the authorities would be able to board the train and go through it car by car, looking for him.
He had to get off the train.
The wheels squealed and the lights flickered.
That voice came on again.
“Attention, passengers. We are almost at the station. Please remain seated. We will be opening the doors one car at a time while security moves through the train. Please do not be alarmed. This is a standard security precaution.”
Someone said, “I wonder what’s going on?”
The cello player stopped playing. The homeless man continued to ask people for money.
If they were opening the cars one at a time, that had to mean these so-called “security” people would be starting their search at one end of the train, and as they passed through each car, they’d release the passengers. Which meant Chipper wouldn’t be able to get out of this car until it had been searched.
The dog was in the third car from the front.
The wheels squealed again. Much louder this time.
The lights flickered.
And then went out.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
The lights came back on.
The dog was gone.
Moments later, the train rolled into the station. People on the platform crowded up to the doors, expecting them to open, but they did not.
The three men who boarded through the front door of the first car didn’t look like transit police. They wore dark suits, white shirts and ties, and very stern expressions. And if one looked closely, one could see a slight bulge under their jackets, just below their shoulders. Each man had a wire coming up out of his jacket connected to a small device tucked into his ear.
“Everyone remain calm,” the first man shouted to the anxious passengers. The three men scanned the car as they walked through it. They looked mostly at the floor and under the seats.
They went from one end of the car to the other, at which point the first man touched the device in his ear and said, “First car clear.”
The doors opened and the passengers who wanted off at this station bolted for the platform.
The three men moved slowly through the second car, and when they did not find what they were looking for, the all-clear was given for those doors to be opened. Again, some people disembarked, and others got on.
Now, here they were in car number three.
The homeless man, who was standing at the far end of the car near the woman with the cello, approached, bearing a toothless grin.
“You guys got any spare change?” he asked.
The first man pushed him aside and he toppled into an empty seat. If any of the other passengers in this car had thought about asking what was going on, that was enough to dissuade them.
The three men in suits stopped in the middle of the car, scanned their eyes from one end to the other, then bent to check under the seats. Nothing.
The second man asked the first, “How many cars are there?”
“Seven.”
“He must be further up.”
They proceeded to the end of the car, and just before they passed through into the fourth, the first man touched his ear again and said, “Clear car three.”
The doors opened.
Several people exited the train. The thick-legged woman who had taken a seat above Chipper grabbed her bag and headed for the door.
But this was not the stop for the woman who had been playing her cello. She hadn’t wanted the homeless man to take the few coins that had been tossed into her case when the lights went out, so she had gently tapped the lid and closed it when everything had gone dark.
Intending to resume playing, and with any luck, take in some more money to help her pay for her music lessons, she leaned to open the case once more.
Like a jack-in-the-box, Chipper sprang from the case and slipped between the doors to the subway platform in the instant before they closed.
But he was not quite quick enough.
The doors had closed on his tail. Three inches of Chipper was still in the train. He went to run and was stopped short. He looked back and saw the problem.
Some of the passengers who’d remained on the car could see his predicament, and were shouting. Chipper couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he was worried all the noise they were making was going to draw those black-suited men, now searching car number four, back to car number three.
And what if the train began to move?
Chipper would be dragged by the train into the tunnel, dangling from the door, slammed up against the walls.
One of the passengers filled the windows of the double doors. It was the homeless guy! He dug his fingers in between the doors and struggled to pry them apart.
Chipper tugged hard, but his tail remained trapped.
The man grimaced, his eyes squeezed shut, and he put everything he had into pulling the doors apart.
For a second they parted no more than a fraction of an inch. But Chipper was pulling with everything he had at that moment, and he tumbled forward and rolled as his tail came free.
He was stunned, briefly, but then he was on his feet again. But before Chipper ran for the stairs, he looked back at the man in the subway car window and gave him a wag of thanks with his slightly mangled tail.
Jeff was heading down towards the lake, thinking maybe he could sneak away for a few minutes in his boat, when he heard a woman shouting, “Fire!” That was followed quickly by a man yelling, “Oh, no! Oh, no!”
All the commotion sounded like it was coming from around cabins Four or Five. He started running in that direction. When he came around to the side of the cabins, he saw what was going on.
The couple renting Cabin Four had set up a barbecue on a picnic table just under the overhanging branches of a big pine tree. There were flames shooting three feet into the air, licking at the branches. Both the man and the woman were standing several feet back, frozen, unsure what to do.
Jeff knew one thing was for sure. Something had to be done quickly, because once those flames caught those pine needles, that tree would go up in a flash. And once it was on fire, how many seconds would it take for it to spread to other, nearby trees and the cabin itself? The whole camp could be burned to the ground before the closest fire department—which was miles away in Canfield—could get here.
Jeff’s mind raced. He glanced at the lake, which was only about
thirty feet away. There was a whole lot of water there. The question was, how would he get it to the barbecue?
Jeff’s boat had a bailing can in it. An old coffee can, like his aunt had put into all the rental boats. One large can of water might be enough to douse that barbecue. Jeff ran to the dock, jumped into the boat, grabbed the can, dipped it into the lake and filled it to the brim. Then he leapt back onto the dock and started running towards the flames.
And promptly tripped over his own feet.
Jeff hit the ground hard, the coffee can slipping from his hand, the water spilling out.
The flames were inches from the pine branch. Jeff chastised himself for his clumsiness and stupidity. He was going to have to grab the empty can, run back to the lake, fill it a second time, and—
“Stand back!”
It was Mr. Green, the man who rented Cabin Eight for the entire summer. In his hand was a red fire extinguisher. Not as big as one you might find in a school hallway behind glass, but big enough. The couple took several steps back as Mr. Green raised the extinguisher, pointed it at the out-of-control barbecue, and buried it in foam with a loud Froosshhh!
The flames vanished instantly.
Jeff got to his feet as the woman shouted at Mr. Green, “You just put chemicals all over our hot dogs!”
That made Jeff crazy. Before Mr. Green could say anything, Jeff unloaded with, “You nearly set that tree on fire! Are you people nuts? You set up a barbecue under a tree?” The couple looked at Jeff, stunned that a kid would talk to them that way.
The man said, “We’re going to have a word with your aunt, young man. You talk to us like that, we’ve got a good mind not to come here ever again!”
“Good!” Jeff said. “That means our camp might not burn to the ground!”
“Hey,” Mr. Green said, gently putting a hand on Jeff’s shoulder. To the couple, he said, “I think now that everything’s under control, we can all go back to what we were doing. Sorry about those hot dogs. I might have a few extra in my fridge.”
The couple grumbled something about having more wieners of their own. The woman went back into the cabin while the man dragged the table out from under the tree.
Mr. Green said to Jeff, “You okay?”
“I guess.”
“Come join me on the porch.”
He led Jeff to his cabin, opened the spring-loaded screen door, and pointed to a folding aluminum chair with fraying canvas webbing. “Sit.”
Jeff sat.
“You’re way too young for me to offer you a beer. How about a Coke?”
Jeff said he’d like that, thanks. He was feeling kind of shaky. He didn’t yell at grown-ups very often.
Mr. Green came back out of the cabin with a can of pop and a bottle of beer. The man was probably in his sixties, and from what Jeff knew, was a retired construction worker whose wife had died a few years ago. He was enjoying his summer here, fishing and reading books and just taking it easy. He was a short, stocky man, with a few wisps of hair around the side of his head, and he wore glasses with thin, wire frames.
“You okay?” he asked, sitting next to Jeff in another folding chair.
“I guess.” The truth was—and he was embarrassed to be feeling this way—he felt like he was going to cry.
“If those people rat you out to your aunt, I’ll tell her what really happened,” he said. “Those two, putting a barbecue under a tree—they’re dumb as a pair of old boots.”
Jeff sniffed. “Thanks, Mr. Green.”
“How many times this summer have I told you to call me Harry?”
“My aunt says it’s disrespectful because I’m a kid and you’re, well, you’re sort of old.”
“Well, your aunt ain’t here right now, so you call me Harry.”
Jeff smiled. “Okay…Harry. Thanks for the Coke, and for putting out the fire. I might have been able to do it if I hadn’t tripped on my own stupid feet.”
“Good thing I keep an extinguisher in my truck. I was sitting on the porch here, reading my John Grisham book, when I saw that idiot putting half a can of lighter fluid on that thing and then poof! Up it went. I ran to my truck about the same time you showed up.”
Jeff nodded. He was feeling a lump in his throat.
“You okay, son?” Harry asked.
“It’s just…it’s, it’s…”
“You know what I think? I think you’re something.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, here you are, just a kid, helping your aunt run this place. Not having—you know—a mom and dad any more. That was a terrible thing, them dying in a plane crash and all.”
Jeff looked at him. “You know about that?”
“Your aunt told me.”
“Oh,” he said.
“That’s a pretty tough thing to go through. That’s why I think you’re something. I don’t know that I could have dealt with all this when I was your age. How old are you, anyway?”
Jeff wasn’t going to lie to Harry Green the way he had tried with Emily. “Twelve.”
“Ha!” he said. “The way I seen you driving around in your aunt’s truck, I figured you might be a bit older, but not old enough to be driving legally. You’re a good driver.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve got a son, you know,” he said. “But he’s all grown up, got kids of his own now. Lives clear across the country. Haven’t seen him in years.” His eyes softened. “When he was your age, we did lots of things together.”
Harry sat back in his chair and drank his beer. “I know I’ve asked you before, but you should come fishing with me some time. But you don’t care much for it, do you?”
“Not really,” Jeff said. “It’s boring, just sitting in a boat all day.”
Harry laughed. “I suppose. But when you’re an old guy like me, boring can be kind of nice. Well, if you ever change your mind and want to come out with me one day before the end of summer, you just let me know.”
“Okay.” Even though Jeff didn’t care about fishing, he thought hanging out with Harry Green might be nice. It would be good having someone like him to talk to. Jeff missed both his parents, but he missed them in different ways. He had liked to talk to his mom when he had trouble with his friends, or needed advice about school. With his father, it was more guy stuff. Cars and action movies and baseball and hockey. Things his mom wasn’t as interested in. Well, except hockey. His mom had loved hockey. She’d had an uncle who’d once played for Boston. Maybe, Jeff thought, if he went fishing with Harry, if he got to know him a bit, they could talk about those kinds of things, so that it didn’t get so boring waiting for a fish to bite the hook.
“You want something to eat?” Harry asked. “I got some of the sticky buns from that bakery in town.”
“No, thank you. I better go. I was going to go for a boat ride, but I don’t think there’s time now. I’ve got to cut some grass.”
Harry Green nodded. “Your aunt, she works you hard.”
“I guess.”
“It may seem like she’s being mean to you, but she’s making you tough. You need to be tough in this world.”
“I guess.”
“You guess, you guess, you guess.” He pointed his finger into Jeff’s chest, gave it a nudge. “You have to know.”
“Know what?”
“You have to know that you are being the best that you can be. That you’re living up to your potential.”
“Okay.”
Harry Green grinned and rubbed the top of his head, mussing the boy’s hair. “Go on with you, then. You ever need help with anything, you just come get me.” He smiled. “I’m gonna keep my eye on you.”
The dog ran.
And ran.
Chipper was moving so quickly his body had moved aerodynamically lower to the ground, like a race car. The fur on his stomach brushed the surface of the subway concourse floor.
At first, all he wanted to do was get away. Get out of the subway station. Put some distance between him
self and those people from The Institute searching the train.
But once he’d emerged from below ground and slipped in among the hundreds of people walking on the pavement, he headed northeast. He had to get to his destination, a place where he thought he might be safe.
A place where he could set things right, too.
He had dipped into his memory files long enough to know that the place he wanted to get to was a considerable distance from here. Well beyond the city’s limits. He’d do the trip on his paws if he had to, but it would take days, if not weeks. It would be better if he could travel in some kind of vehicle.
But a dog, even a dog as advanced as he, could not exactly rent a car and get behind the wheel, or even walk along the side of the highway and stick out his paw to hitch a ride. And while his software allowed him to think in ways that other dogs could not—by using actual words and language—he did not have the power of speech. He could not go up to someone and say, “Can I get a lift?”
Imagine if he could. The sensation it would cause. Just as well he couldn’t utter anything more than a bark. He’d be on the six o’clock news, or sold to a circus.
So even though he couldn’t go up to the counter at the bus station and ask for a ticket, it didn’t mean he couldn’t get a ride on a bus. He just couldn’t expect to get a seat. But maybe he could ride with the luggage.
He consulted his database, went into the map program, and found a location for a terminal that dispatched buses to places outside the city. It was only ten blocks away. At the next corner he made a left, then a right three blocks after that. Within fifteen minutes he was across the street from the bus station. He watched as the vehicles pulled in and out, diesel exhaust spewing from under the back bumpers. Even from across the street, the diesel fumes found their way into his nose. Chipper loved distinguishing between the thousands of smells the world presented him, but diesel exhaust was one he could do without.
He looked at the destinations over the front windshield. There was BUFFALO and PITTSBURGH and OTTAWA and NEW YORK and plenty of other places, but none of those cities was close to where he was going.
Chipper needed to see the schedule.