“Either way, he’s a liability,” he answered.
CHAPTER 7
As evening became night and the sun rested on the horizon, the desert was at its most beautiful and peaceful. Jack wasn’t so concerned with the beauty, but he certainly appreciated the peace. It was a welcome change after the game of demolition derby that had just been played out on the highway.
“We’re here, Jack Bruno,” Sara said, breaking into Jack’s thoughts.
Jack eased his foot off the accelerator and looked around. He didn’t see anything but desert. “Here?” he asked, puzzled. “There’s nothing here.”
Sara motioned ahead of them, and Jack noticed a small dirt road about twenty yards away.
“Go figure,” he said, somewhat surprised. “You really do know your way.” He turned, and the cab rattled and bounced along the dirt road for about half a mile. Finally, they reached a dark, deserted cabin.
“There’s someone expecting you two, right?” Jack asked as he warily eyed the building.“’Cause it doesn’t look like they’re home.”
The sun had completely set, and long shadows dominated the landscape. The beautiful desert had suddenly turned ominous and threatening.
“Do not worry, Jack Bruno,” Sara reassured him. “We will soon be reunited with relatives.”
Jack put the car in park and turned to the kids.
“All right, the fare comes to $721.80,” he told them. “But after everything that went down today, how about I knock twenty-five percent off ?”
In response, Seth shoved all of his money into Jack’s hand. Neither of the kids said a word as they hurried out of the cab and toward the cabin.
“Okay, then, good-bye to you, too,” Jack said to himself. It was only fitting that the strangest fare of his life had ended in a decidedly unusual way.
Looking at his reflection in the rearview mirror, he thought back on the day. He was totally exhausted.
“I’ve got to get another job,” he told himself.
Sighing, he looked down at the money and began to count it. “I got a fifteen-thousand-dollar tip,” he said when he had finished counting. “That seems reasonable.”
Part of Jack just wanted to take the money and race back to Vegas. But he knew that wasn’t reasonable. None of this was reasonable. And, for some reason, he felt that he needed to look after Seth and Sara. He got out of the taxi and headed to the cabin, determined to do the right thing.
“Hey, you guys overpaid . . . by a lot,” he called out. He looked around, but there was no sign of Seth or Sara. It was as if they had vanished into the night. Just then he heard the sound of glass shattering.
“Hello,” he called out, a little louder this time. “Everything okay in there?”
The closer he got to the cabin, the scarier it seemed. It was very dark, and most of the windows were boarded up. He looked at the porch and saw the cause of the noise. Broken glass lay on the wooden planks. Something was strange about it. It looked as if someone had broken the window from the inside.
Jack wasn’t easily scared. But nevertheless, he was cautious as he entered. The door was partially open, and he was able to slip in without making a sound.
The inside of the cabin was spookier than the outside. A light fixture hung from the ceiling and swung back and forth, sweeping the room with a solitary shaft of light.
With each swing, Jack could make out a little more detail in the ransacked room. Furniture was tipped over in every direction, and there were broken plates and glasses scattered across the floor.
Jack heard something moving ahead of him, but before he could check it out someone grabbed his jacket and pulled him to the floor. Jack picked up a long piece of wood and swung . . . right through Seth. Jack brought his arm down and stared at Seth. He and Sara were hiding behind a couch.
“What’s going—” Jack began to ask.
Seth signaled him to be quiet and started to fiddle with his compass.
“Jack Bruno,” Sara whispered, “you should not have jeopardized your life by following us.”
Seth’s compass was now emitting a series of lights and beeps.
“What sort of trouble are you two in?” Jack asked in a hushed whisper.
“This is neither your concern nor battle,” Seth said.
“Seth,” Sara observed, “he’s just trying to help.”
But Seth didn’t want to hear it. Just then, his compass seemed to lock on a heading. He signaled for Sara to follow him into the next room.
Jack was so focused on the kids, he didn’t notice that when the light swung by, it momentarily illuminated another figure in the room. This figure wore a frightening mask and black armor. What Jack didn’t know was that it was a Siphon—an alien assassin.
As suddenly as he had arrived, the Siphon disappeared. He was not interested in Jack. He wanted Seth and Sara.
Oblivious to the threat, Jack watched as Seth snuck up to an old refrigerator and opened it. Seth attached the compass to the back of the refrigerator. It suddenly lit up and spun into action, first one way and then another, like the dial on a high-tech safe.
Suddenly, the back of the refrigerator opened to reveal a secret passageway. Seth and Sara quickly disappeared through the door.
Jack couldn’t believe what he was seeing.“Don’t go in the pimped-out fridge,” he told himself as he took a deep breath. But he knew he had no choice. He had to follow them. He couldn’t just leave the kids alone, but there was no way he would go unarmed. Grabbing a fireplace poker, he walked into the fridge.
The door led to a stone staircase which in turn went down into a lush, beautiful underground garden. There were large multicolored orbs that pulsed with swirling gases among the plants and trees.
“What exactly is this place?” Jack asked as he looked around in astonishment.
Seth and Sara did not respond.They had followed the compass to a large glowing orb. Sara slipped the pendant off her neck and slid it into the orb like a key into a lock. Amazingly, the object opened to reveal a small device. For the first time since he had met them, Jack saw both Sara and Seth smile.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
“It is what we came for, Jack Bruno,” Sara told him.
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he asked. “Would anyone else be looking for it . . . like, say the person who trashed upstairs?”
Seth answered. “It is very valuable,” he said matter-of-factly.
Suddenly, they were startled by a noise from above. Someone else was coming through the secret passageway!
Jack tightened his grip on the poker. Beside him, Sara removed the device from the glowing orb. As quietly as possible, they moved into the dense foliage of the garden and waited.
They could not see the intruder, but they could see the rustling of leaves and swaying of trees as whatever it was moved through the garden looking for them. It was the Siphon!
His heart racing, Jack tried to figure out a plan. If they made a run for it, they’d give away their position and might not be able to make it to the stairway in time. But they couldn’t just wait. The Siphon was getting closer.
“Run!” Jack cried.
As Seth and Sara leaped out of the foliage, the Siphon’s eyes locked on them. The chase was on!
Sara and Seth sprinted for the passageway, but there was no way they’d be able to outrun the Siphon. It quickly charged to cut them off. Just as the Siphon was about to reach them, Jack popped out from behind the bushes and smashed the creature on the head with the poker.
Much to Jack’s amazement, the rod did virtually no damage. But the backhand slap the Siphon gave him did do damage to Jack. He went flying backward and landed with a thud on the hard ground. Rolling over, Jack took refuge in the foliage.
Not to be distracted, the Siphon held out his arm, and a gun materialized from his armor. He fired . . . right into one of the gas orbs! The blast struck true, causing the orb to explode in a burst of fire. This set off a chain reaction of explosions and fireba
lls. In a matter of seconds, the garden was engulfed in flames.
Jumping to his feet, Jack scanned the garden. He didn’t see Seth or Sara . . . or the invader. Suddenly, his eyes landed on the kids. They were surrounded by a ring of fire!
As fast as he could, Jack raced to them. But just then, the Siphon burst from the flames and grabbed the device from Sara’s hand. She screamed. Turning, Seth saw what had happened and attacked the Siphon. With the attacker distracted, Sara was able to snatch back the device. Then she used her powers to uproot a burning tree and slam it into the Siphon’s body.
It knocked the invader off balance long enough for the trio to hurry toward the stairs. But just as they reached them, Seth looked back and saw that the Siphon was firing his weapon—a sonic cannon that sent out a massive shock wave. Jack could see the air ripple as the concussive energy came closer and closer.
“We gotta move!” Jack yelled.
But Seth had turned and begun to dematerialize and expand his body so that it formed a shield to protect his sister. He absorbed most of the energy from the shock wave, but it still knocked the others to the ground and sent an earthquakelike tremor through the entire garden.
“Seth!” Sara cried out as his body fell to the now-crumbling steps.
Jack picked up Seth and ran upstairs. They burst through the passageway into the cabin, which was now filled with fire and smoke. Jack kept running, Seth in his arms and Sara right behind him. He kicked out the door, and they raced to the taxi just as the burning cabin started to collapse into a hole in the earth.
CHAPTER 8
With the fire climbing high into the night sky behind it, Jack’s taxi hurtled down the dirt road and onto the highway.
“How’s your brother doing?” he asked Sara once he’d caught his breath.
“I will be fine,” Seth answered for her. “It is important that we gain much distance from this location.”
“Glad you’re feeling better,” Jack said, trying to stay calm. The adrenaline was no longer pumping through his veins. He now felt mainly disbelief, not to mention quite a bit of anger. “You’ll need your strength to explain to me . . . WHAT JUST HAPPENED BACK THERE!?”
Jack waited for a response, but there was only silence.
“Feel free to just dive on in,” he continued. “We can start with whose cabin it was. Or what was growing underground?”
He paused.“Or, hey, I got a fun one. Maybe you could tell me who the guy in the robot suit trying to kill us was?”
Sara and Seth remained silent.
Jack had had enough. Slamming on the brakes, he brought the taxi to a screeching halt. He spun around.
“Here’s the deal,” he informed them. “The cab doesn’t move until your mouths do. Start talking.”
“The information you are seeking is not within your grasp of understanding,” Seth said.
Jack felt as if he were about to explode. “I saved your life, and now you’re calling me stupid?”
“My brother means no disrespect, Jack Bruno,” Sara said gently. “But we are dealing with issues outside the realm of . . . your world.”
“I’m a cabdriver,” he shot back. “I’ve had plenty of worldly . . .” His words trailed off as he saw some rather unearthly lights rising from the smoke. “. . . Experiences . . .”
Sara and Seth looked out the back window and saw the lights, too.
“Jack Bruno, I suggest you drive now,” Sara pleaded.
“What is that?” Jack asked, transfixed by the lights.
“Just drive!” Seth yelled.
As the lights drew closer, Jack was still trying to figure out what they were. Maybe they were coming from a small airplane. But why would a plane be coming so close?
Seth turned to his sister. “Sara, we have to go.”
Sara concentrated her energy on the gas pedal, and the cab started speeding forward.
“Hey!” Jack yelled as he was thrown back against his seat.
But the taxi just kept increasing speed. Jack tried to gain control of the vehicle and outrun the lights, which now seemed to be in full pursuit of them.
And they were. The lights were coming from a small spaceship piloted by the Siphon. He had escaped the fiery inferno and would not stop until he caught his target.
“What is it?” Jack yelled as the Siphon fired off a sonic blast.
A huge chunk of asphalt exploded right in front of the cab. Jack had regained full control of the cab and jerked the wheel to avoid the explosion. But as a result, the cab careened down a steep incline.
The taxi raced down the hill. It didn’t help that a fog bank had rolled in, making it nearly impossible to see where they were going.
Looking through the rear window, Sara saw the lights casting an eerie glow in the fog.
“He’s coming!” she warned them.
They reached the bottom of the hill, and jumped onto some train tracks. A few minutes later they raced headlong into a dark tunnel.
Cutting the lights, Jack slowed the taxi to a crawl. Maybe they would be safe in here. . . .
“We can’t let him destroy it,” Seth said to Sara. She was clutching the device they had retrieved from the garden.
“Who is he?” Jack demanded. “And this time I need real answers.”
“A Siphon,” Sara told him.
“A what?”
“He’s an assassin,” Seth answered. “Trained to pursue his target until his mission is completed.”
“And his mission is . . . ?” Jack wanted to know.
“Us,” Sara responded in a serious whisper.
Just then, the tunnel filled with light. The Siphon was back! They waited. Was this the end? Then, just when it seemed they were doomed, the lights zipped back out of the tunnel and into the night sky.
Jack let out a sigh of relief. But he didn’t for a moment think they were out of danger. “We can’t just sit here,” he said. Cautiously, he began to drive the cab out of the tunnel. Safely outside, Jack was about to gun the engine when he noticed that the tracks ran along a cliff. On the other side was nothing but a nasty drop-off. Ahead was an iron bridge over a river.
He had barely registered the situation when a sonic blast ripped through the air. The Siphon had returned! For one terrifying moment, the taxi—and Jack, Seth, and Sara—were airborne. Then, the taxi bounced off one of the iron girders on the bridge and somehow ended up back on the tracks. But the Siphon followed them, hitting the bridge with blast after blast.
Jack clutched the wheel. His only hope was to get into the tunnel at the far end of the bridge. He pushed the pedal to the metal and with moments to spare, they entered the safety of the tunnel. There was no way an airplane could follow them, Jack thought.
But he was wrong.
The Siphon flew into the tunnel in hot pursuit.
Jack gunned the engine again and started to pull away from the Siphon. The Siphon’s vehicle barely fit in the tunnel and couldn’t maneuver well. Sparks shot off when the edges struck the tunnel’s rocky walls.
“We can do this! We can do this!” Jack yelled to himself—and his cab—in encouragement. Just then he heard the whistle of an approaching train.
“Oh, come on!” Jack wailed. Was he never going to catch a break?
They were trapped, the Siphon pushing them from behind and a freight train coming at them from in front. Jack was driving as fast as the taxi would go, but it didn’t seem possible for them to reach the end of the tunnel before the train blocked them off.
Inside the locomotive, the engineer was startled to see the two sets of lights approaching. He yanked on the brakes and blasted the horn. The train’s wheels locked up and sent a shower of sparks flying in every direction.
“Faster!” Seth screamed.
“It won’t go any faster,” Jack yelled, his foot pressed all the way down to the floorboard.
Sara focused her concentration on the engine, giving it an extra burst of energy. The taxi rocketed out of the tunnel inches from the hurtlin
g train.
The instant they were clear, Jack wrenched the wheel hard to the right. They slid off the tracks and down an embankment.
Behind them, the train slammed into the Siphon’s spacecraft, producing a giant fireball that exploded throughout the tunnel.
CHAPTER 9
Inside a mobile command center, Henry Burke stared intently at a photo on the monitor in front of him. It was a police mug shot of Jack, taken two years earlier. Beside Burke, Pope and Matheson read Jack’s file.
“Jack Bruno,” Matheson said, motioning at the photo. “In and out of juvie and state pens since he was a kid.” He clicked a button on his remote, and a quick series of photos of Jack skimmed across the screen.
“Grew up poor in Midland, Texas,” he continued. “Showed promise driving demolition derby and dirt tracks. Ironically, at sixteen, his parents died in a car wreck.” A handful of newspaper clippings appeared on the screen. A couple had pictures of Jack as a young driver. Others detailed the automobile accident that killed his parents.
Pope picked up the commentary about Jack. “Seventeen, ran away from his foster home. Came to Vegas with hopes of going from stock car to NASCAR. Instead, he found work as a wheelman for Allen Wolfe,Vegas crime boss.”
Burke nodded. As the wheelman, Jack would have driven the getaway car for Wolfe and his crew. That explained why he did so well driving on the highway.
“Last bust, two years ago, grand theft auto,” Pope continued. “Got out and went legit. He’s been driving a cab ever since.”
As Pope finished, Carson hurried into the room. “I just spoke to Dominick Firenze, dispatch at Yellow Cab Taxi,” he informed them.“Bruno took a fare a significant distance out of the city. Dispatcher claims that he’s been unable to make radio contact for several hours.”
“Does the cab have a tracking device?” Burke asked hopefully.
Carson nodded. “Until it stopped transmitting twenty-eight minutes ago. Last location was on train tracks.”
Pope raised an eyebrow. “Interestingly enough, I’ve been monitoring a recent report of a massive explosion on some train tracks.”