Made 4 you, p.14
Made 4 You, page 14
“You need to control your breathing,” he said.
I realized that I was almost gasping for air. I was also shaking, trembling. My thoughts were racing, and I could feel my pulse, the blood coursing through my chest and in my ears.
“I think I’m going to vomit.”
“You’re feeling the adrenaline rush starting to subside. The corn is sheltering us — just sit.” He offered me a hand, and I lowered myself to the ground. He sat beside me.
He pulled the pack off his back. He rummaged around and pulled out a bottle. “Drink this. It tastes like water, but it’s a mixture that’s infused with vitamins, minerals, and caffeine.”
“Caffeine, like coffee?”
“More like a hyperconcentrated espresso. Caffeine increases brain functioning, reduces muscle fatigue, and retards hunger.”
I took a sip. It did taste like water. I took a much deeper drink.
“Are these bags like tornado escape kits?” I asked. “We have three of them in our basement.”
“They are escape kits, but not for a tornado.” I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
Gene pulled out the wallets he’d taken from the two men. They were identical black leather. He started to go through one. He pulled out pieces of identification.
“Who is he?”
“According to his driver’s license his name is John Brown.” He showed me the ID, and the picture was of the man whom he’d gagged — the one who had been talking to me, the one who’d pretended to be a scout.
“I didn’t know who he was back in the gym or I wouldn’t have talked to him.”
“You would have had no way of knowing,” Gene said.
“But I told him things about you!”
“You didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know or he wouldn’t have been there to begin with. It’s not your fault.”
That made me feel better even if it wasn’t true. “Who is he?”
“He lives at 789 Eighth Avenue, New York, New York, but that wouldn’t be his real address or his real name. He also has a library card, health provider card, and three credit cards in that name.”
Gene pulled out a wad of bills — they all looked like crisp, new twenty-dollar bills — and some receipts. As he unfolded the receipts, I looked. They were from a hardware store, a grocery store, and a bookstore. Each had a prominent New York City address at the very top.
“He’s definitely from New York,” I said.
“Not necessarily.”
He dropped the wallet, ID, and money to the ground and opened up the second wallet. He went through it. This driver’s license showed a photo of the first man I’d hit with the stick. Aside from a different name and address — he lived in Chicago — he had the exact same pieces of ID, wad of new bills, and three receipts from three different stores in Chicago — one a hardware store, the second a grocery store, and the third a bookstore.
“These are cover identification provided by whoever they work for.”
“Who do they work for?”
“I don’t know. It could be a private company or a foreign government or —”
“Do you mean they could be spies?”
“Agents of some kind.”
“But they didn’t speak with any accent.”
“They could be double agents or sleepers, or even members or former members of one of our own government agencies.”
“It can’t be that. Our government doesn’t just go and kill people,” I said.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he asked a question. “If we go through this field in the direction we’re heading, where does it take us?”
“Out to Elm Street. If we get out there, we can still get to the police station and get help. We could even call them.”
I pulled out my phone. There was a signal!
He put his hand on my hand. “You can’t do that. The way they were able to block cellphones means that they’ll also be monitoring all calls. In fact, they’ll be able to triangulate your signal from the cell tower where your phone pings, and they’ll know exactly where we are.”
“They can do that?” I asked.
“That technology is more than a decade old.”
“But we have to let the police know. We need their help.”
“Even if we got in touch with the police, even if they believed us —”
“Why wouldn’t they believe us?” I demanded.
“You were there. You saw it all happen. Does it sound believable to you?”
Of course it didn’t.
“Even then, it still wouldn’t be safe. Nobody will be safe, not even the police.”
“But they’re the police. They have guns.”
“The people who are pursuing us will have bigger guns and more men.”
“But there’s only six of them, and two are injured. The Nobleton police department is five times that big.”
“Once they find I’ve slipped away, the area will be flooded with operatives. They’ll come and kill anybody who gets in the way. I’m so sorry for getting you into this.”
“It’s not your fault, but I still need to make at least one phone call … to my parents. Is that all right?”
“It has to be short. We can’t risk them finding us, and you really can’t tell them anything or it puts them at risk.”
“Do you mean they could harm my parents?”
He shook his head. “They want your parents alive in case you come back or send for them. As long as your parents know nothing, they’re safe.”
I felt a rush of relief.
“Becky, you’ve seen what they’re capable of doing, so we need to protect your parents by staying away. The call has to be short. Less than thirty seconds.”
“But what would I say to them? How can I explain this to my mother, to my father?”
“You can’t. Tell them you can’t come home. Tell them you had to run away.”
“How soon will I be able to call them again? How soon will I be able to go home?”
“I’m not sure. It could be a few days. It could be longer.”
I took the phone and called my mother’s cell. It rang once, then twice, then three times. Why wasn’t she picking up?
“I think it’s going to voice mail,” I said to Gene. “I’ll call my father or —”
“No, you can’t. One call. Leave a message.”
“I can’t just leave a message.”
“There’s no choice.”
And there was no time to argue. The message started to play.
“I’m not available. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” Her voice was so happy and warm and sweet. There was a beep.
“Mom, I love you. I’m so sorry. Something happened. I can’t come home right now. It’ll be days before you hear from me again. I’m fine. Gene is with me. He’s going to keep me safe. There was no choice. We had to run. I love you and Dad so much. Goodbye.”
I hung up and started to cry, and Gene wrapped his arms around me. There were tears in his eyes too.
23
“You need to turn your phone off now,” Gene said.
“I won’t use it.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s being used. Your phone is in continuous communication with the cell towers. A signal goes back and forth updating your apps, texts, and data. If somebody knows your number, they can access that data and discover which cell towers your phone is pinging off. The direction of movement can be mapped and your location discovered.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“In fact, your phone’s microphone and camera can be remotely turned on so what you’re saying and what you’re seeing can be monitored and recorded. It’s done all the time.”
“But those men can’t do that, can they?”
“If they could find me to begin with and can jam telecommunications networks, then I’m sure they can track us through our phones. I’m also concerned that within a few hours they’ll even be able to utilize satellite imagery to track us.”
“Now I’m even more lost.”
“There are keyhole satellites that are equipped with high-resolution cameras that are so powerful they can read the numbers on a license plate, so they’re capable of seeing us.”
I looked up at the clear blue sky. “But only governments have satellites.”
“Private companies have satellites, but what if this is a foreign government that we’re running from? What if it’s a branch of our government with satellite access?”
“I still don’t believe it could be our government.”
“It makes more sense if it is. It would explain why they knew so much about the project.”
Somehow that did make frightening sense — frightening that it could be our government, and frightening that they might be behind killing two innocent people.
“I know it sounds like fantasy, but you have to believe me,” Gene said.
“The strangest thing is that I do believe you.” I turned off my phone.
“Let’s put your phone inside of your bag,” he said, holding open the backpack.
I dropped it in.
“These packs are specially designed. They have lead linings that dampen any signal transmission.”
“But if the phone is turned off that shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”
“I’m not certain that there’s not a further internal tracking system embedded in phones that allows remote tracking that I’m not aware of.”
“That’s just being paranoid,” I said.
“There are so many levels of things going on that nobody’s aware of. Think about what just happened.”
With his pack still open, he removed the gun from his belt, and I took the second out of my pocket. We placed them both inside, and he zipped it up once more.
“I’m assuming they’ve untied and revived their operatives and know that you’re with me and that we’re gone. We have to get more distance between us and them. To the right is the town. What’s in the other direction?”
I had to think about it. “This is the McGregor farm. It goes on forever. It’s probably four hundred acres of corn.”
“And beyond that?”
“More corn and then more corn. Sometimes it seems like Indiana is nothing but corn.”
“Let’s stay in the corn.”
“Wait, shouldn’t we at least take the money?”
The ground was littered with the ID and money from the two wallets.
“Their money could be tagged with microprocessors to reveal location. Besides, each of these packs contain twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. It’s in small bills, twenties and tens. Untraceable.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much money in one place,” I said.
“Neither have I. Actually, before moving to Nobleton I’d never seen money at all.”
“That can’t be true.”
“I was raised in a compound. Everything I needed was provided. When you and Liv brought me to buy clothes, that was the first store I’d ever been inside.”
That made no sense and complete sense all at once. There were so many things that he had never done before, so many experiences that were new to him.
I looked at him. I looked into his eyes. He saw me staring, and he smiled. The same gentle smile I’d seen that first time in the guidance office. He reached out and took my hand, and I felt a little jolt of electricity. He was so very different from anybody else I’d ever known.
And then I thought about what that agent had said — about him being a different species. That was so ridiculous. It was all so ridiculous. It seemed more like a novel or a spy movie. The problem was that I couldn’t put the book down or walk out of the movie theater. This was real, and it was happening to me.
* * *
We moved row by row through the corn. I kept looking up for the unseen satellite in the sky and then glancing back and listening for anybody coming from behind. The only sound was the wind rustling through the cornstalks. The only sight was the blue sky and a few puffy white clouds. The sun had gotten so low that it was hidden behind the stalks. We were walking through the shadows, and it was starting to get cold.
I kept thinking about the scene in the house. I couldn’t get that man’s face out of my mind or his voice out of my ears. And there were the bodies. Two dead bodies. I’d seen dead people before. That was part of volunteering at a seniors’ residence. What wasn’t part of it was seeing people who’d been murdered. I just wished I could talk to my parents about what had happened. They’d heard my message by now and had probably tried to call me a thousand times. They must be worried to death. If only I could give them a call.
Gene was walking ahead of me. In his right hand was the briefcase with all the information. And the vials of liquid — the serum. I hadn’t even thought about that until now.
“The serum, what is it?” I asked.
“It’s a part of the program. It’s the culmination of decades of research, the product of the life work of countless scientists and researchers.”
“So, it’s worth millions of dollars,” I said.
“Not millions. Billions. No, that’s wrong. It’s priceless, and that’s why I couldn’t risk it falling into the wrong hands.”
“But why didn’t you pour all of it away?” I asked.
“I thought it might be needed in our escape. You have to make me a promise,” Gene said. “If something happens to me, if my functioning is compromised or I’m killed.”
A chill went up my spine. “If they’d kill you, does that mean they’d kill me?”
He didn’t answer, but of course I already knew.
“If that happens, and you’re able, you have to promise that you’ll destroy the remaining vials. You can’t let them fall into the wrong hands.”
Numbly, I nodded my head. “Is this stuff what makes you smart?”
He didn’t answer. He looked like he was thinking it through, weighing the variables. Finally, he spoke. “My intelligence is based on a variety of elements, and this serum is one of the major components. It’s an enzyme. What do you know about babies?”
“They’re cute, they sleep a lot, they wear diapers.”
“And they learn quickly. Think about how they acquire information like language.”
“I don’t know if it’s that quickly; it takes years for a child to learn to talk,” I said.
“Language is only part of the huge passive learning that they absorb.”
“I don’t know what ‘passive learning’ means.”
“When you’re studying for a test or trying to learn anything new, you have to actively, consciously, systematically try to input, integrate, and then utilize that information. If you were to try to learn to speak French now, you’d have to actively try to learn.”
“And babies don’t need to study to do that,” I said.
“No. Information just naturally enters their minds because of brain-derived neurotropic factor, or BDNF for short.”
“And the stuff in those vials, that’s the enzyme.”
“It’s a synthesized, much more concentrated version of that enzyme. Not only is passive learning enabled, but it happens so much faster.”
“How much faster?”
Gene didn’t answer. He tilted his head to the side. It looked like he was listening for something, and then I heard it — a motor. It got louder and louder. There was a flash of red in the gap of blue between the cornstalks, and a small plane roared over top of us. The sound of the engine got quieter with each passing second until it died away completely.
“I’m sure nobody could have seen us,” Gene said, “but why would a plane be here?”
“There’s a small airport south of here.”
“How far south?” Gene asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I think about thirty miles.”
“We need to get there, but not tonight. It’s going to get dark soon. We have to find a place under cover. I want a roof over our heads to hide our heat patterns.”
“You’re going to explain that, right?”
“All living creatures emit heat. A satellite or an airplane or even a drone equipped with thermography — thermal imaging — can see the heat patterns of living things.”
“Couldn’t they see us now?”
“During the day, the sun heats up everything so our heat signature is lost in a sea of warmth. At night, as it cools, we become more visible. We glow red on the monitor, and the background is blue or green.”
“It isn’t like there are a lot of options out here.”
“We’ll find something.” Gene looked at his watch. “And hopefully within ninety minutes.”
24
I opened my eyes. It was dark, but there were little leaks of light coming through the cracks and holes in the shed. It wasn’t morning yet, but it wasn’t night either. As my eyes adjusted, I could see the farm tools hanging on the walls and the tractor in the corner. What I couldn’t see was Gene.
I pushed off the crinkly metal space blanket. Gene’s blanket was off to the side. These blankets were thin, but mine had kept me amazingly warm. Well, the combination of that and being fully dressed.
Just before dark, we’d come out of the corn and stumbled on to a farm lane. We’d trailed along it until we found their drive shed. I’d thought there was no way that, lying in the dirt with so many questions percolating in my mind, I’d be able to sleep. Instead, the moment my head hit the ground I was out like a light. Now that I was awake, those thoughts came rushing back again.
My parents must be going crazy. What would they be thinking? I was sure the first place my father would have gone was Gene’s house. Was he the one who’d discovered the bodies, or had he found the police already there? I shuddered at the thought. What would he think had happened? What would everybody think?
