STARSCAPE BOOKS(63)
“I got it,” Flinch said. “You can put out a single fire, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So let them merge into one fire.”
“But the firemen are coming.”
Flinch took the binoculars from Torchie. “It won’t take long. Hang on. We just need it to spread across the whole wall and meet the floor. Just a second or two. Okay. Try now.”
Torchie took the binoculars back, grasped the fire in the room, and made it become not-fire. The flames died, and stayed dead. By the time the firemen broke in, there was nothing to fight but some smoldering wood.
“Good job,” Flinch said. “I knew you could do it.”
“That makes one of us.”
They headed back up the hill toward the street that would lead them, after a long walk, to the cabstand.
“I wish I could drive,” Flinch said.
elsewhere …
BOWDLER SLAPPED THE swagger stick into his open palm. He wanted to smack Dominic, but he knew that wouldn’t be productive. The boy didn’t want to talk. They’d made little progress all afternoon. He just kept saying something about an oath. But he didn’t even seem to know where he was. Maybe he wouldn’t know who he was talking to.
“Dominic,” Bowdler whispered, standing behind him. “It’s Eddie.”
No reaction. He tried another name. “It’s me. Philip.”
Still nothing.
“It’s Martin.”
The boy jerked his head. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Good. I knew you’d keep our secret.” Bowdler pulled up a chair and sat behind the boy. It would take a while to extract information. But that was part of the fun.
BY THE TIME the boy passed out that evening, Bowdler felt he had learned every detail of the group. He got up and stretched his kinked muscles. What a discovery—telepathy, mind reading, fire-making. And all of that power would be under his control. Maybe he’d return to active duty. They’d promote him now. They’d have to.
He fell asleep and dreamed of moving the world.
Bowdler woke at 5:00 AM. The phone rang an hour later. It was Santee again. “There have been sufficient sightings to narrow their location to an area south of route six-seventy-six and west of Broad Street. Probably north of Chestnut.”
“Chinatown is in that range,” Bowdler said.
“Affirmative.”
“Give me a minute.” He checked the data he’d amassed about Dennis Woo and got the names of his parents. “See if there is anyone cross-linked in any way with William Woo or Sarah Woo. Keep me updated on any progress.”
The phone didn’t ring for two more hours. When it did, Bowdler was greeted with information he’d never expected.
“There’s been a problem with that experiment you installed on the cargo ship,” the man said.
Bowdler listened to the report. “I’m sure it’s a simple malfunction. I’ll have it taken care of next week.”
He hung up the phone. It rang again within minutes, bringing more bad news.
response
IT WAS AFTER 2:00 in the morning when we got back. I was so tired, I just made sure Torchie and Flinch were okay, then passed out in bed. I woke around eleven—about the same time as Cheater. Martin and Flinch were up by noon. Torchie finally woke after one. My arm still ached, and the rest of my body didn’t feel much better, but at least my mind was clear.
“No calls?” Torchie asked when he got up.
“Not yet. It’s going to take a bit of time. Things move slower on Sunday. But the people in charge of the companies have probably already been to the accident sites. They should be able to figure out right away that Psibertronix was involved.”
“If they’re smart enough,” Cheater said.
“They’re smart enough,” Flinch said. “They might be evil and greedy and heartless, and they might be happy to rip off the government whenever they get a chance, but they didn’t become zillionaires by being stupid.”
I nodded. “Yeah. As soon as each company makes the connection, they’ll be all over Bowdler. And he’ll know it was us. But he can’t tell them that. What can he say? ‘Sorry. The telekinetic I kidnapped has a bit of a revenge thing going on.’ That wouldn’t go over too well.”
“We need to be ready when he calls,” Martin said. “We need everything figured out ahead of time so we can get Lucky back and make sure Bowdler never bothers any of us again. So, what do we do when he calls?”
“We ask him to bring Lucky to us,” Flinch said.
“Or we could just demand that he lets Lucky go,” Cheater said.
I shook my head. “No, I want to see that he’s okay. And I want to meet Bowdler face to face, so he understands that this is over. We need to figure out a safe place for that.”