Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear (33 page)

FORTY-THREE

BEN STOPPED AND LISTENED for Mrs. Beauregard. He knew she loved to work in her garden every afternoon, and could have been just about anywhere.

Pud asked, “Are we there, yet?”

“No,” he pointed behind the craftsman-style house to Morgan Creek. “We need to cross right there. But heads up. There’s usually an old woman around.”

Pud ran straight to the water. Ben wanted to yell, though he held back, sure Mrs. Beauregard would hear—if she hadn’t seen the little animal scampering through her backyard already. They could have gone to the bridge. It was three blocks away. He wanted to be covert, though.

“Oh, my goodness!” Mrs. Beauregard wailed. She was crouching on her knees, pulling dandelions from her strawberries, and Ben had almost tripped over her. “What the dickens are you doing!”

She stood to her full four feet nine inches and peered at him from under a wide-brimmed, straw sunhat. Her flowered apron bulged at the waistline, the result of few missed meals.

“Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Beauregard. Just passing through. Gonna cross the creek to my parent’s place.”

“What! Why do you need to cross the creek? Don’t you know this is private property? Why don’t you go to the bridge? That’s what adults do. Cross the creek, indeed. I expect that kind of foolishness from kids, but you’re a grown man. What’s wrong with you?”

Ben had no answer. He peered behind the elderly woman, wondering where the heck Pud had run off to. He didn’t have to wonder long.

“What the…what is that!” she snatched a shovel from the dirt and smashed it on the ground. It rang with a resonant chime but missed Pud. He darted through her feet, running behind one of Ben’s legs.

“Land o' Goshen! It’s a raccoon!” she adjusted her round, oversized glasses. “Or a possum!” she squinted. “What is that thing!”

She again let the shovel fall, aiming at Ben’s ankle. He stepped away. The weight and momentum of the garden tool made her collapse. Her dress flew up, exposing a pair of baggy, white knickers. Ben searched for Pud and didn’t find him anywhere. Then he heard a horrified
Screech!
and right away knew what had happened.

“HELP!” Mrs. Beauregard was on her stomach in the groomed grass. Pud sat on her shoulders. “It’s got me! HELP!”

Pud snatched the lady’s hat off her head. With it came a mass of hair—a wig. He puzzled at the clump of gray in his hand, at the lady’s balding scalp, again at his hand, and started to yell right along with her. Ben wanted to scream, too.

“You little beast!” she got up and clutched at her unkempt mop, tap dancing around Pud.

He dodged to avoid her attempts at stomping on him, waving the wig like it was a rabid squirrel.

“Oh! Oh! I’m calling the police! That’s what I’m going to do!” she ran on her tiptoes to her back porch, knocking over vegetable planters, running into bird houses, hitting hanging flower baskets. “Harry! Harry! Where’s the phone!”

“Come on!” Ben sprinted to the end of the yard and vaulted over the cedar fence. Pud caught and overtook him, splashing into the creek with abandon.

They made it across and climbed up the bank to Pleasant Avenue, a quaint road populated by unassuming dwellings and yards filled with large, dignified timbers.

With Pud close behind, Ben sprinted to a white, two-story bungalow displaying a graceful, pillared veranda and freshly whitewashed picket fence. His parent’s house.

“I hope my lab equipment’s still intact,” he hunted under a terracotta flowerpot and found the key. “My parents are on another trip, so I took the liberty of setting up a few things.”

Pud stepped inside and let his eyes wander over what once had been a functioning living room. Couches, recliners, end tables and lamps pushed to one corner, the space lit up with noise and light and color radiating from a large, transparent cylinder filled with sparkling gel. The glistening substance hummed with activity as Ben approached.

Ben scanned his workstation. Everything was intact and untouched. Amazing the police hadn’t confiscated it yet. Maybe they hadn’t realized he’d been staying at his parent’s house. One good result of the separation. The only good result.

He checked the system status readouts while cradling the O/A. Green lights across the board. “Let’s get you into the Quantum Foam, okay?”

He put on his goggles and placed his hand over the system interface. The lid opened on the large glass container, letting escape a tiny dusting of glittery mist. He finessed the O/A over the top and sank it into the gleaming ooze.

“Now, let’s get you opened up. This won’t hurt a bit,” he held his palm over the control panel once more.

“You, you talk to it?” Pud leaned in.

“Well, I talk to you, don’t I?”

“Oh. You gotta point,” Pud blinked. Then he lifted his nose and sniffed. “You have food!”

“Sure. Help yourself.”

Pud dashed into the kitchen.

Clang! Crash!

Ben winced. “Don’t break anything!”

He resumed his delicate task, pressing the control membrane again. Suspended, the O/A rotated and exposed its underbelly. The smooth exoskeleton split down the middle. Microhinges kept it in one piece while it cracked opened to let the inner workings free, a maze of strands, spiraling in all kinds of shapes and colors. The gel aided to hold the machine’s gyrating innards intact and, more important, functioning.

The bath started to have an effect. All at once, each of the bits of glitter in the translucent froth erupted, countless tiny supernovas blinding him for a quick moment. When he recuperated, he discovered thousands upon thousands of thin capillaries connecting each of the shimmering particles in a vast, dense web. In the middle of the cluster hovered the O/A, teeming with renewed radiance. It was working.

The O/A’s outer shell slipped through the webbing into a tube attached to the main cylinder. A tiny partition fell, separating the two chambers. The foam substrate drained from the tube. Once the cleansing cycle was complete, a ready message flickered on a suspended hologram screen.

Floating in the charged material, the naked core swarmed with motion and sound, surging and ringing and pulsating. A single, violet light traced its outline, following its spine and staggering down each individual fiber of webbing. Over and over the illumination traveled its circuit, while the bath finished the job.

The foamy mixture started to flare up again. Ben pulled his hand from the controls and readjusted his safety goggles. The tiny specks became brighter and brighter, bursting with energy.

“Uh, Ben?” Pud came out of the kitchen carrying a half-eaten deviled egg, mustard smudges in the fur around his mouth. “I think we’ve got trouble.”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Hard, heavy knocks at the door. Ben grimaced.

“This is the police!” a voice thundered outside. “Open the door. Now!”

“Yep,” Pud popped the rest of the egg in his mouth. “We’ve got trouble.”

“No! Not when we’re this close!” Ben flipped open the lid and extracted the O/A’s shell without doing any testing. The bullet hole was gone. He hoped the repair had worked.

“We know you’re in there! We can hear you!” the cop shouted.

“Hurry! Hurry!” Pud ran and pushed against the front door.

Reaching into the cylinder, Ben forced the shell into the Quantum Foam. He cupped it over the substructure, sliding it like a glove. The protective skin flexed closed, both sides merging until the seam vanished. Then he yanked it out of the enclosure.

“This is the police!” the voice repeated. “We’re coming in!”

“Come on, Ben!” Pud grunted. Ben heard the police barking orders but tried not to listen. Wiping off his trembling hands, sweat trickling, he examined the O/A for signs of damage. It seemed repaired, though he needed to be sure.

From all over his parents’ house, he heard rumbling, banging, shouting, glass breaking. The police were inside. Only a matter of seconds now. His fingers wouldn’t move. All he had to do was press the O/A. Just one tap. Yet he froze. Then the door crashed down and Pud was buried under a sheet of splintered lumber. The police hurried in from the front entry, upstairs, the back porch, the kitchen—all shouting for Ben to lay down his ‘weapon’ while pointing theirs at him.

He stayed still, cupping the machine in his palms, heart racing. He knew his life hung by a thread. Eight fully loaded, semi-automatic pistols, all aimed at him, all on hair-triggers. He didn’t think about that. He didn’t think about what might happen to him. He thought about Jack. What would happen to Jack? His hands steadied. He refocused his will. No way were the police going to stop him from saving his boy.

He held his palm on the O/A’s surface and it stirred to life, the electric-indigo lights flickering, the Gravitomiton humming.

“He’s using the weapon!”

“Drop your weapon! NOW!”

“NO!” Pud pushed through the scattered wood fragments. The police only watched as he sprinted in front of Ben and growled, brandishing his sharp, uneven teeth. “If you want him, you gotta go through me!”

The police eyed each other. One of them started to laugh, creating a chain reaction. Soon, they were all slapping thighs and wiping tears.

“What
is
that thing?”

“Hey, that’s one of the animals the chief was talking about!”

“That? That can’t be dangerous. Look at him. He’s too cute to be dangerous.”

Pud lifted his shoulders, took a deep breath, and let out a roar so loud it pushed each officer back a few inches. They stopped laughing and gave each other wide eyes. Ben took advantage of the distraction. He pressed the O/A, setting it on power level one. The machine surged.

“James! Don’t do it!” an officer glared over his .45 caliber pistol. “Turn that thing off and put it down!”

“I can’t do that!” Ben shouted. The O/A began its startup cycle. Heavy thumping made the floor shake. Crystal figurines rattled off shelves and crashed to the Berber carpet. Pictures fell from walls. “My boy needs me right now! I can’t let you take me!”

“That’s right!” Pud grumbled, flexing. “Nobody’s doin’ nothin’ to nobody!”

The O/A produced a series of chirps, then a steady rumbling. He felt a spark in his hand, a synaptic connection between machine and user. In his peripheral vision he saw himself duplicated over and over, in different locations, going on forever. The omnidimensional field. He braced for the rush, knowing it would be any moment.

“This is your last warning!” the officer screamed over the noise. He leaned his hand against the wall to keep from falling while the whole house swayed.

Ben examined his invention. He got the sinking suspicion it would become woefully erratic. Such power, such a strain on his psyche. Unlimited and unyielding. How could he possibly harness it? Such a fool. He had no choice, though. Jack was in trouble, and he had to save him.

“What are you going to do? Shoot me? I’m the only one who knows how to turn this thing off!”

“Then do it!” the officer ordered. “Turn the damned thing off!”

“NO!”

A massive jolt hit him hard. The dimensional duplicates all at once merged into his body and instantly he had a thousand times his normal strength. More than a thousand. His heightened sense of awareness, his euphoric burst of power, both physically and mentally, made him feel superhuman. It also scared him. Along with the strength, a flood of concepts and emotions rushed into Ben’s mind. He was fighting to stay in control, and it wasn’t working.

“Hold on!” he warned. “Here we go again!”

The police argued what to do.

“Shoot him!”

“No! We might not ever get that thing to quit!”

A cop stepped forward. “I won’t shoot him,” he told his partners. “But I’ll taze him!” he raised his hand aimed a stun gun. Squinting, he pulled the trigger.

A blinding, purplish radiance pulsed from the O/A, blasting through Ben’s body. He had time to scream one last word.

FORTY-FOUR

“WELL, KIDDO,” LIZ TURNED to Lily in the backseat of the police cruiser. “This might be the end of the line.”

“Mrs. James,”
an officer spoke over a bullhorn.
“We know it’s you. We don’t want you or your daughter to get hurt. Just come out with your hands where we can see them.”

Lily sniffled. “But, what about Jack?”

Liz hung out the window. “I’m not going anywhere until I find my son!”

“If your boy is missing, we’ll find him. Just give yourself up first.”

“No! There’s nothing you can do! Ben’s the only one who can save him! Only Ben and his machine!”

“Mrs. James, your husband’s a fugitive. You’re in a lot of trouble, too. Don’t make this any worse. Please. Give up!”

“I can’t!” she insisted. “I have to get my son back! I have to find the monsters who took—”

Her guts wanted to jump out of her throat. She noticed a black Chevy Suburban with a dented grill parking next to one of the squad cars. Archer Savage got out, and she nearly vomited. He rushed to the officer with the loudspeaker and handed him a document, whispering into his ear. The cop examined it. His shoulders lowered. He glared at Savage, shoving the paper into his chest. Savage took it and smiled, gesturing at the Suburban. The doors swung open fast. Four men dressed in black suits poured out, each armed with menacing rifles.

“Sorry, gentlemen,”
Savage said over the PA. His men rushed to the car where Liz and Lily cowered.
“This is a matter of national security, now.”

Liz locked the doors and rolled up the windows. “Officers! These are the people responsible for the kidnaping of my son! Arrest them! They’re the criminals, not me!”

Savage strode toward her. The sun dipped behind a cloud and his shiny spectacles dimmed. He cupped his hands on the glass. Peering inside, he wore a sickening grin.

“Where are the Tanakee?” his eyes combed the cab. “What did you do with the creatures?”

His henchmen also searched through the windows, scanning every visible corner of the interior.

“They’re not in there, sir.”

Savage became rigid. He clenched his fists and forced a short breath. “Take them anyway. They’ll be our bargaining chips.”

One of the men aimed the butt of his rifle at the passenger window and smashed the glass. It speckled Liz with tiny fragments in her hair. She didn’t care about herself, though. She tried to fight the man taking her baby from the backseat. Lily screamed. Liz did, too, reaching for her in desperation. She grasped at air, unable to rescue her daughter. Someone was tugging at her shoulders, grabbing her waist, her legs.

They carried her and Lily to the waiting Suburban. She felt her body melt into the seat while the SUV filled with agents. Her skull became heavy and wobbly on her neck, the stressful effects of the last twelve hours. Finally, it all caught up with her. Her vision began to spin and her stomach objected. She heaved. Nothing came out.

Savage sat next to her, making her stomach even queasier. He gave her an expressionless look. She wanted to slap the man, yet hadn’t the strength. She thought about begging him, getting down on her knees and pleading for her children’s lives. She shoved that idea away. No, she’d rather die than beg that monster. She’d find her son. And Ben would fix the O/A. Then that soulless animal and his inhuman boss would get what they deserved.

“I’m going to ask once and only once,” he said after the doors were closed and locked. “Where is your son with that annoying creature?”

Liz felt a twinge of hope begin to burn inside of her.

“You mean…you mean you don’t have Jack?”

“DON’T play games with me,” he shoved his face in hers. “You people split up for a reason. And something tells me you know where your son is. Wherever he is, the Tanakee are, too.”

“Don’t touch the Tanakee!” Lily shouted. “Leave them alone!”

Liz nodded. “What are you doing with Enola, anyway?”

Mumbling. The men chattered under their breaths.

“Shut up! All of you!” Savage commanded. The men fell silent. He spoke again to Liz. “That’s none of your concern. What should concern you is the safety of your little girl. That, I can’t guarantee, unless you tell me where the Tanakee are.”

Liz threw Savage’s menacing glare right back to him. He bristled.

“Fine. If you won’t tell us, maybe little Lily will,” he reached for the girl.

“No!” Liz covered her child with her own body. “Don’t touch her, you monster! I swear, my husband’s gonna get you for this. So are Jack and Takota. You wanna know where they are? I’ll tell you! They’re coming! They’re coming for you, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”