“Nothing.”
“Come on. I know you. What’s going on?”
He pulled something from his pocket. “Look what I found. I figured it was okay to take it since it belonged to the bad guy. I was afraid the other guy would want it back.” He held up a small gadget that looked like a fancy TV remote control. I figured he’d gotten it from the lab.
“Wow,” Martin said. “A box.”
“It makes a cool sound,” Torchie said. “There was a label on it saying it’s an FME device, whatever that is.”
“Probably frequency modulation,” Cheater said. “Maybe something to jam a radio transmission.”
Torchie pressed one of the buttons, and a whirring hum filled the air. “That one says CHARGE.” He pointed the control at Flinch and pushed the other button. “That one says DISCHARGE.” There was electronic chirp. But Flinch had already jumped out of the way.
“Watch out,” he said.
“It doesn’t do anything,” Torchie said.
“FM is just a type of radio signal,” Cheater said. “It can’t hurt you.”
“Some of the stuff I’ve heard on FM hurts a whole lot.” Flinch held his hand out. “Let me see.”
Torchie handed it to him. “Promise you won’t shoot me?”
“I promise I won’t not shoot you.” Flinch pressed the CHARGE button, then pointed the device at Torchie and pressed DISCHARGE.
“Hey!” Torchie said as the gadget let out another chirp.
“Will you guys quit playing around,” I said. “Put that away. It’s just a piece of junk.”
Torchie grabbed the thing from Flinch and shoved it in his pocket. “I found it and I’m keeping it.”
“Whatever.” I headed toward the hospital with the guys.
major glitches
“MAYBE YOU SHOULD sneak back into your room,” I told Cheater when we reached the hospital.
“I will. But I want to be there when you give the disrupter to Lucky.”
“Sure. I wouldn’t want any of us to miss that.” I felt so good about this. Of all of us, Lucky was the one who had the hardest time coping. Finally, thanks to the disrupter, he’d have a shot at a normal life.
We walked up to the desk outside the psyche unit. “We’re friends of Dominic Calabrizi,” Martin said. “We came to visit him.”
“He’s not here,” the nurse said. This was a different woman from before.
“He went home?” Martin asked.
She nodded. “You just missed him. His father came for him about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Thanks.” We turned to walk off. This would delay things. But even if I couldn’t give Lucky the disrupter right away, I was glad he was heading home. Maybe he was getting better. Halfway to the elevator, I stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Martin asked.
“Something doesn’t feel right.” I went back to the desk. “Excuse me,” I said to the woman.
She looked up. I realized there was no way she would answer the question I was about to ask. At least not if I asked it straight out. What did the man look like? I’d have to find a way to trick the information out of her. “Was it Dominic’s father or his stepfather?” I asked.
“I hardly see what the difference is,” the woman said.
“Well, I want to know where I should go to see him. Was he about this tall …” I held my hand about six inches above my head. “With really short hair and a dark blue jacket.”
She nodded automatically. It had been an accurate description—not of any imaginary stepfather, but of our far-too-real enemy. “Thanks.”
I spun and dashed for the elevator.
“Bowdler?” Flinch asked.
“Has to be.”
“Oh no,” Martin said as we got into the elevator. “Bowdler has Lucky.”
“It looks like it,” I said.
“How?” Martin asked.
“It wouldn’t be hard. He had my name and Cheater’s name. Maybe he ran them through a computer and Edgeview popped up.”
“It would be easy from there,” Cheater said. “He wouldn’t have any trouble finding out where Lucky was.”
“So what do we do?” Flinch asked.
“Thurston should still be at the funeral home,” I said. “He can help.”
As soon as we left the hospital, Cheater pulled out the cell phone and punched in the number Thurston had given him. He listened for a minute. “No answer.”
“Are you sure you called the right number?”
“Of course.” Cheater repeated the number.
It sounded familiar to me. I looked at Flinch. He nodded. “That’s the one.”