Rise of the Elgen (10 page)

J
ack pulled off at the next exit and drove to the far side of a Flying J truck stop. A long row of trucks was parked next to the mini-mart, and Jack parked the crippled van between two long semis and shut off the engine.

Jack smiled at me as I walked up to the front. “Just another day in the life of a superhero,” he said.

I grinned. “You’re having fun, aren’t you?”

“As long as we’re winning, bro,” Jack said. “As long as we’re winning.”

“We’ve got to find somewhere safe to finish uploading Grace’s info,” I said. “Any ideas?”

Jack thought for a moment, then said, “I know where we can go. Do you still have that phone?”

“It doesn’t dial out,” I said. “Besides, I’m sure the Elgen would be listening in on it if it did.”

“There’s probably a pay phone at the mini-mart,” Ostin said, walking up to us.

“Come on,” Jack said, climbing out of the van.

I turned to Taylor, who had just walked up to the front. “Keep everyone inside until we get back.”

“Where are you going?”

“Jack’s calling someone to pick us up. We’ll be right back.”

“Hey, Michael!” McKenna shouted. “Would you get me something to drink—like water or Gatorade? I’m really thirsty.”

“Got it,” I said.

“I need a lot. Like a gallon.”

“A gallon?”

“I’m really thirsty.”

By the time I got out of the truck, Jack and Wade were already standing next to a pay phone outside of the truck stop. As I approached I heard Jack say, “I don’t have time to tell you right now. Just shut up and listen. . . . I’ll tell you when you get here. Get your mom’s Suburban and come to the Flying J truck stop off I-Eighty-Four West. It’s just south of Meridian. You can’t miss it. . . . Hurry. Yes, I know it’s late. Yes, Wade is with me. . . . Because you weren’t invited, that’s why. Consider yourself lucky. Now hurry. . . . No, I told you, bring the Suburban. . . . There’s a bunch of us. I said I’ll tell you when you get here.” Jack hung up the phone. “Man, what a baby.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Mitchell,” Wade said.

“He’s mad we left him,” Jack said. “He has no idea what he missed.”

“Lucky him,” Wade said.

“Does Mitchell have a computer?” I asked.

“Mitchell has everything,” Wade said, shaking his head. “His old man’s loaded.”

“He’ll be here in fifteen,” Jack said.

“I’m going inside the truck stop,” I said. “McKenna needs something to drink. We might as well get something to eat. Everyone’s starving.”

“Yeah, the pizza didn’t quite make it,” Jack said.

Fortunately the guards hadn’t taken my money. The three of us
went inside the mini-mart, and I grabbed a plastic tote and filled it with six bottles of water and a six-pack of Gatorade. I also got two boxes of powdered jelly doughnuts, licorice, and a handful of Power-Bars while Wade put together a dozen hot dogs. Jack grabbed a bag of beef jerky and pork rinds.

We paid for the food, then brought it back to the van. Jack stayed outside to wait for Mitchell while Wade and I carried everything in through the front cab.

“Thank goodness,” Ostin said as we came in. I handed him the box of doughnuts. He tore it open, shoved a doughnut in his mouth, coughed from the powdered sugar, then grabbed a second doughnut and passed the box along to Ian.

McKenna took two bottles of Gatorade from me and, to all of our surprise, downed both of them, stopping only twice to breathe. After she’d emptied both bottles she sighed with relief. “Sorry. Heating up dehydrates me like crazy.”

I sat down on the bench and opened my licorice. I offered some to Taylor.

“Thanks,” she said, taking a strand. She pulled her knees up to her chest. “So what’s going on?”

“Jack called his friend Mitchell. He’s coming to pick us up.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll hide out at his place until we’ve uploaded the rest of Grace’s information. Once we know where my mother is, we’ll make our plan.”

“What if there’s no information about her?”

I frowned. “I don’t know. I have to hope there is.”

“Hey,” shouted a voice from the back of the truck. “How about some water?”

It was the guard Wes. Zeus stood up, carrying one of the bottles with him. “You want some water, Wes?”

The guard looked at Zeus in horror. Zeus poured what was left in his bottle over the guard’s head. The guard sputtered a little as it washed over his nose and mouth.

“See, Wes. I haven’t lost my sense of humor,” Zeus said, electricity
sparking between his hands. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”

The guard’s eyes widened.

“Zeus,” I said.

Zeus looked back at me.

“Don’t.”

“What? You didn’t see what he did to me?”

“Yeah, I did.” I looked Wes in the face. “It was cruel. But we’re not like them. We’re better than them.”

“Maybe you are,” Zeus said. “But I’m not.” He lifted his hands, and Wes shut his eyes, preparing to be shocked. But it never happened. Zeus had caught sight of Abigail, who looked horrified. Zeus sighed. “All right,” he said. “All right.” He looked at the guard. “You’re lucky these guys are better than us.”

I leaned back on the bench, closing my eyes.

“What’s that?” Ostin asked.

“What’s what?”

“That.” He pointed to my butt.

Taylor started laughing as she pulled something off me. It was a refrigerator magnet in the shape of an Idaho Spud with the words
IDAHO COUCH POTATO
printed across it. “How is that sticking to you?” she said.

“Wait,” I said, taking it back from her. I put it on my stomach. It stuck. Then she peeled it off me and placed it against my cheek. It stuck there too.

“Wow,” Taylor said. “You’re like a magnet.”

Ostin stared in amazement. “Not
like
. He
is
a magnet. Doesn’t surprise me with all that electricity running through him.”

“But I’ve had electricity in me my whole life. Why am I suddenly magnetic, too?”

“You must still be getting more electric.”

The words hit me like a bucket of ice water. I felt as if I’d just been told I had less time to live.

“But why is he becoming magnetic?” Taylor asked.

Ostin rubbed his chin. “Let’s see,” he said slowly. “How do I explain this to a cheerleader?”

Taylor bristled. “How would you like a
cheerleader
to permanently scramble your brain?”

“No, don’t!” Ostin said, holding his hands in front of him as if he could block her waves.

“She’s not going to do that,” I said.

“Don’t count on it,” Taylor said.

Ostin still looked terrified. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

I shook my head. “Just explain the magnetism.”

“Okay,” he said. “It works like this. Electric currents are magnetic. When you coil an electrical current around a core, the magnetism becomes stronger. In your case, your body is the core, and as you have millions of nerves and veins, which are carrying your electricity, it creates a massive coil. So it makes sense that you’re becoming magnetic.”

“Great. So now I’m going to have things sticking to me?”

“Like me,” Taylor said, taking my hand.

I couldn’t help but smile.

Just then Jack shouted through the front door, “Come on, our ride is here!”

“What do we do with the guards?” Taylor asked.

“Leave them,” I said.

“Tied up?”

“Yeah. Someone will find them eventually.”

Outside, Mitchell was standing next to Jack, watching everyone climb out of the truck. “Who are all these people?”

“Friends of mine,” Jack said.

He pointed at me. “You’re the kid who shocked us.”

“His name is Michael,” Jack said.

He turned back to Jack. “You took him instead of me?”

“Listen, Mitch. I’ll tell you what’s going on later. But right now we’ve got to get out of here before they find us.”

“Before
who
finds you?” Mitchell asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get to your house.”

“We’re going to my house?”

“Yeah. We need a place to hide out for a few days. Are your parents home?”

“They’re never home.”

A large FedEx truck pulled in next to us.

“We gotta go, Mitch,” Jack said. “C’mon, everyone. Get in.”

Jack and Mitchell climbed in the front, and Jack rolled down the window. “Hey, Abi. Want to sit up here?”

She smiled at him. “Thanks, but I better sit next to Zeus. He’s still in pain.”

“Right,” Jack said, sounding disappointed.

“I’ll sit up front,” Wade said. “The three amigos ride again.”

“Nah,” Jack said. “You’re too big. How about you, Grace?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

Zeus opened the tailgate and climbed into the narrow space between the backseat and the door. Abigail walked up next to him. “Do you mind if I sit here with you?”

His eyes brightened. “No, of course not.” He scooted back as Abigail climbed in.

As I shut the tailgate, I noticed that two truck drivers were standing in the dark near the back of the van, examining the shredded lift. One of them pointed to the bullet holes.

“Really, it’s time to go, guys,” I said, climbing into the middle seat with Ian and Taylor. Ostin, Wade, and McKenna were in the row behind us.

“Hit it,” Jack said.

Mitchell pulled out of the truck stop and headed east toward the freeway.

As we were climbing the freeway on-ramp, I said, “Hey, McKenna saved the day back there. Give it up for McKenna.”

Everyone clapped.

“Thanks,” McKenna said. “But everyone helped. Ostin distracted the guard.”

“Thanks,” Ostin said, looking pretty pleased. “I just saw an oppor—”

“And how about Jack’s driving?” Taylor said, interrupting Ostin’s speech.

“All in a day’s work,” Jack said.

Ostin turned to McKenna. “That really was awesome how you did that. How hot can you get?”

“At the Elgen laboratory they measured me at about two thousand Kelvin.”

“Holy cannoli,” Ostin said. “Two thousand Kelvin!”

“Who’s Kelvin?” Wade asked.

Ostin rolled his eyes. “Kelvin is a thermodynamic temperature scale. Two thousand Kelvin is more than three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That’s almost twice as hot as fire.” He turned back to McKenna. “You
are
hot. In more ways than one.”

“Thanks,” she said, smiling.

I didn’t have to turn back to know Ostin was blushing.

“So much for your ‘voice,’” Jack said.

I frowned. “I know. I’m sorry, everyone. He seemed legit.”

“I believed him too,” Taylor said.

“I would have put money on it,” Ostin said. “I mean, it still makes no sense. Why would they have gone to the trouble of getting us cars, leaving money for us, and then attacking us? Why didn’t they just trap us at the salon or along the road?”

“Maybe it was too public,” Taylor said.

“True,” I said. “But they could have attacked us when we got the cars. There was no one around.”

Ostin added, “And those guards acted like they’d never seen your cell phone before.”

“And why did they ask where we got the Hummers?” Abigail said.

“What are you guys talking about?” Mitchell asked.

“You have no idea how much you don’t know,” Jack said.

I
t was nearly midnight when we reached Mitchell’s house. Even though Wade had said that Mitchell’s dad was “loaded,” I didn’t realize just how well-off his family was until I saw his place. He lived in a massive, well-lit two-story Colonial-style house with tall gothic columns in front, wings on each side, and a cobblestone driveway that wound past a carefully manicured yard up to a fountain and front door.

“This is Mitchell’s house?” I said.

“It looks like the White House,” Ostin said.

“Is the butler going to answer the door?” McKenna said.

“We don’t have a butler,” Mitchell said. “He quit.”

Jack said, “We’re going to be hanging out in the pool house.”

“You have a pool?” Ostin asked.

“He’s got a pool
and
a pool house,” Wade replied.

There was a four-car garage to the side of the house, and Mitchell
opened the third door by remote and pulled in. When the door had shut behind us, Mitchell said to Jack, “Okay, what’s going on? You said you’d tell me.”

“Let’s go inside first,” Jack said. “We don’t know if we were followed.”

Mitchell looked afraid. “Who’s following you?”

“Bad people you don’t want to meet,” Jack said.

“They won’t come here, will they?”

“Only if they find out we’re here,” Grace said.

Mitchell turned to Jack. “She’s kidding, right?”

Jack shook his head. “Nope.”

We got out of the car, and I opened the tailgate for Zeus and Abigail. As they got out, Zeus put his hand on Abigail’s back. “Thanks, Abi.”

She smiled. “Anytime.”

Jack was standing on the other side of the car looking at them. I could tell he was bothered.

“This way,” Mitchell said. “The pool house is in back.”

The pool house was located behind the main home, next to a large barbecue area with an atrium and a rock fountain. The backyard looked like something out of a
Better Homes and Gardens
magazine. I didn’t know Idaho even had places like that.