Brainrush 04 - Everlast 01: Everlast (8 page)

M
Y BACKPACK WAS
at the back of the plane, but I
could still feel the energy emanating from the mini. It felt good in a way I’d
never felt before, like I was stronger somehow and everything was going to be
all right. I’d known all along Dad had taken it from the island, and I’d been
tempted to ask him about it several times. But he’d wanted to keep it a secret,
even from Mom, so I let it go.

“It’s so cold,” my sister said, shivering under our shared
blanket. Ahmed scooted closer on my other side, draping his blanket over the
three of us.

We huddled together on inward-facing web seats in the cargo
compartment of a transport aircraft that Ahmed said was a C-130. The interior
wasn’t finished like the passenger jets I’d been in before. Instead, it was
noisy and drafty, and it rattled like crazy every time we hit the slightest bit
of turbulence. There were two covered pallets of cargo tied down near the back
of the plane and two guards toward the front. One of them was dozing and the
other had just plopped into his seat after prepping a fresh pot of tea.

A man was lying on the seats across from us. At least we
thought
it was a man from the jeans, sweatshirt, and short black hair, but his back was
to us so we couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t moved since we woke up. His ankles were
zip-tied together.

Our ankles were free, but our hands were zip-tied in front
of us and our wrists were chafed from the cuffs. Sarafina had begged the guards
to remove them when we’d first awakened an hour ago from the drug they’d given
us. She’d received a slap in the face. They seemed to hate us and I knew why.
Ahmed had shot one of their friends at the arcade. He’d done it to save
Sarafina, and I’ll never forget the look on his face when he’d squeezed the
trigger. Pure determination. He hadn’t flinched, and he’d held the pistol in a
two-handed grip just like my character held the Colt Python in the Spider game.
But the sound of the shots echoing in my ears, the holes exploding in the man’s
chest, and the expression of terror as blood gurgled from his mouth had been a
lot different from a video game.

I didn’t like it.

When one of the other men had grabbed me from behind and
held a knife to my neck, Ahmed had turned the weapon in my direction, and I
realized part of him had believed he could take out the guy without hurting me.
I swear my heart stopped beating, and if I hadn’t willed him to stop I think he
might’ve tried it.

The guard checked his watch, and I had the sense we were in
a slight descent.

“Maybe we’re getting close,” Ahmed said, keeping his voice
low.

“Yeah, but close to where?” Sarafina asked with a shiver.

She was right. There was no telling where we were. But based
on how hungry I was, we must’ve been traveling for a very long time.

But it didn’t matter. We had a plan, and we were waiting for
Ahmed to get it started.

“Any second,” Ahmed said, watching the guard.

“How can you be so sure?” Sarafina asked.

“He keeps jiggling his knees up and down, just like Alex
does.”

I could see it, too. I had the same nervous habit when I was
holding it in.

 “Get ready,” Ahmed said.

Sarafina tensed. “I’m scared.”

“Like Dad says, it’s okay to be scared,” Ahmed said.
“There’s no such thing as courage if there isn’t fear. Besides, it’s gonna work.”
His confidence helped me relax.

Her lips tightened, but she nodded, leaned over, and placed
her head in my lap, pretending to take a nap. The guard glanced over but Ahmed
was right—the man’s mind was elsewhere.

 Sarafina closed her eyes and I snuggled the blanket under
her chin like Mom would when she tucked me in. Then I caressed my sister’s
hair, casually removing her barrette and passing it beneath the blanket to
Ahmed.

He took the tool and I could feel his movements beneath the
blanket. We’d all done it dozens of times before, a talent we’d learned
compliments of Uncle Becker. He’d taught us lots of things during his visits
over the past year, and getting out of flex-cuffs was one of them. Even the
thickest ties turned out to be no problem, especially if you had a tool like a
barrette with a modified tongue that slid easily between the lock’s angled
teeth. I felt my brother’s relief and knew it had worked. He passed the
barrette back and I handed it under the blanket to Sarafina. It was her turn, then
mine.

A few minutes later the guard rose and disappeared into the
tiny bathroom.

As soon as the door closed, Ahmed was on his feet and
rushing like a crouched ninja toward the other guard. My sister grabbed my hand
and we both squeezed hard. Ahmed reached under the sleeping guard’s seat and
pulled out the leather satchel. The hypodermic we’d noticed earlier was still
protruding from its side pocket. Ahmed grabbed it and squirted its contents
into the steaming teapot. He was about to replace it in the bag when he
hesitated, glancing first at the sleeping guard and then at the closed bathroom
door. Sarafina squeaked and I held my breath, praying he’d stick to the plan
and hurry back. Instead, Ahmed rummaged around inside the satchel and pulled
out a vial. He stuck the vial with the hypo and filled it up, doing it in such
a practiced way that I was reminded he’d spent several years in a mental
institution, where I suspected he’d seen it done hundreds of times. When the
hypo was full, he squirted the contents into the pot. Finally, he replaced the
hypo, vial, and satchel, and was back under our blankets five seconds later. He
wrapped his hands around ours and I could feel the rapid pounding of his pulse.

“They could die with that big of a dose,” Sarafina
whispered.

“How do you know that?” Ahmed said.

“Well, I don’t know for sure, but it seemed like a lot.”

“Too much is better than not enough,” Ahmed said. “And if
they die, they deserve—”

“Holy crap,” a voice said from across the aisle, startling
all of us. The man had turned to face us. His forehead had a bruised lump. It
was Dad’s good friend from Area 52. If it hadn’t been for him, Dad wouldn’t
have ever come out of his coma.

“Uncle Timmy?” Sarafina blurted out.

“Shhh,” Ahmed and I said in unison, checking to make sure
the sleeping guard hadn’t heard.

“Jeez, kids,” Timmy said, rubbing his eyes with his cuffed
hands. “I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.”

“Do you know where we are?” Ahmed asked.

“Not sure,” Timmy said, blinking as if to shake off the drug
he’d apparently been given. He remained reclined, pointing at the guard. “Last
time I came to, they drugged me again, but not before I realized where I was.
They were transferring me from a private jet to this rig at the Kansai
International airport in Kyoto, Japan. You guys were probably on the jet with
me.”

 “Japan,” Sarafina gasped. Tears gathered in her eyes.

I felt like a sharp icicle was slowly pushing through my
stomach. We were so far away from home.
How could Mom and Dad ever find us
way out here?

Ahmed sagged beside me and I sensed his internal battle to
maintain his composure. It was situations like this that usually sent him into
a rant. But he kept his mouth shut, as if he knew we were depending on him for
strength. That made it easier for me to close the drawer on my fear. We all
needed to be strong.

I focused my thoughts and projected an umbrella of calmness
over all four us, kind of like I did to help Mississippi Mike.

After a moment, I felt Sarafina find her center. She
sniffled and pulled the blanket up to wipe her eyes. “We were drugged, too,”
she said. “Back in California. We woke up a while ago but they didn’t drug us again.”

Timmy’s brow creased. “Maybe that means we’re close to our
destination. If I knew which direction we’re flying—”

“Southwest,” I said, and everyone stared at me. I was used
to that. I learned a lot of things on the Web that I didn’t bother telling anyone
about, so it usually surprised people—well, except my dad—when I pulled one of
them out of a drawer in my head. “I saw the stars out the small window by the
bathroom.” I could tell our direction by the location of the Big Dipper in
relation to the North Star.

“Isaac Newton’s got nothin’ on you, kid,” Timmy said.
“Unfortunately, though, that means we’re somewhere over southern China.” He
glanced toward the rear of the plane. “Where’s Tony?”

“Huh?” my sister said. “You mean Uncle Tony?”

My skin tingled.

“Yeah, I saw him during the transfer,” Timmy said. “He was
still unconscious. There were others with him but they were covered up.”

Sarafina gasped. “Maybe Mom and Dad were with him.”

“Maybe,” Timmy said. “But your dad isn’t an easy guy to take
down.”

“Doc was with Dad,” Ahmed said. I’d told him and my sister
about the unexpected visit at the VA hospital.

 “That’s great news,” Timmy said with sudden eagerness. “I
was hoping they hadn’t taken Doc at the same time they grabbed me. If he flew
to see your dad, he went to warn him, which means Jake would’ve been on his
guard. I pity the dudes that tried to nab him, especially if he thought you
guys were in danger.”

A flicker of hope made my pulse race.

“Mom sent out the warning text,” Sarafina said hesitantly.

Nobody said anything for a moment, and from their grim
expressions I suspected we were all thinking the same thing: Mom had been alone
when she’d sent the text and she hadn’t been at the arcade to meet us like she
was supposed to. Dad might’ve been free, but she wasn’t.

Timmy’s expression hardened. “Your dad saved my life. Hell,
he’s saved countless lives, and you can bet that he will move heaven and earth
to find you and your mom and Tony, too.” He looked us over one at a time. “In
the meantime, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

I found myself nodding, seeing a little of my dad in his
determined expression. I’d seen it before in Dad’s other friends. “Thank you,”
I muttered.

“Tony and your mom must be on the second plane,” Timmy said.

“Second plane?” Ahmed asked.

“Another C-130. It was on the tarmac in Japan.”

“So we’ll see them soon?” Sarafina said. “And then escape
together?”

Ahmed’s lips tightened. “No. Even if they are on their way
to the same place we’re going, there will definitely be an army of guards
waiting for us. That’ll make it impossible to escape. Our best chance is here
and now, which means we’re on our own.” He hesitated before adding. “And our
plan
will
work.”

Timmy’s face scrunched up. “Plan? What—?”

The bathroom door started to swing open and Timmy quickly
rolled back to his original position. We stopped talking and pretended to
sleep, but I watched through my eyelashes as the guard poured himself a cup of
tea. He took a sip, and Sarafina and Ahmed tensed at the same time. I wasn’t
the only one peeking.

The guard nudged his sleeping partner, tapping his watch.
The man nodded begrudgingly, stretching as he rose to his feet. He donned a
wireless headset and spoke into the microphone, then pulled two covered mugs
from a cabinet and filled them from the pot. A moment later the elevated
flight-deck door opened and the copilot reached down to accept the freshly
brewed tea.

U
NDER THE BLANKET
, Sarafina’s hand was poking
Ahmed’s leg faster than a woodpecker digging through bark.

“I know, I know,” Ahmed whispered.

I could feel their fear. Drugging the guards was one thing.
But drugging the pilots...

“You have to do something!” Sarafina said.

“Not yet.” Ahmed shifted beneath the blanket, and I could
tell he was getting ready to charge out of his chair.

“What the heck’s going on?” Timmy whispered, twisting around
just enough to be heard.

“Don’t move,” Ahmed ordered under his breath. “You’ll
distract them.”

The crew door closed and the guard with the headset grabbed
a mug for himself. He was filling it when the first guard swayed to one side,
rubbing his eyes and saying something to his partner. The guy punched him
gently in the shoulder as if to say he should buckle up. Then the guard with
the headset turned in our direction. Sarafina and I both flinched and the man
looked at us hard. I saw hate in his eyes.

He still hadn’t taken a sip from his mug.

The guard behind him swayed again, this time setting down
his cup of tea to brace himself against the wall.

If the first guard turns around and notices...

My mind whirled.

What would Dad do?

“Hey, jackass!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “We’re
thirsty, too.”

Ahmed and Sarafina gawked at me. I hardly ever shouted and
the bad word felt strange coming out of my mouth.

The guard stormed forward. “What did you call me?”

I cowered just enough to keep him from slapping me like he
had my sister, but the guard behind him collapsed to the floor so I had to keep
his attention on me. “You’re mean!” I said, doing my best to act like a kid my
mom and I saw throwing a tantrum at the mall. “I’m thirsty and I want some
tea.” I scowled at him and tried stomping my feet, but my legs were too short
to reach the ground so all I managed was to paddle my legs under the blanket.

He seemed amused, and I used that unguarded moment to throw
my mind toward his and fill it with feelings of thirst.

He leered at me, and I felt like a mouse trapped by a cat.
But he raised the cup to his lips and slurped, his gaze locked on mine. I
frowned and he tipped the mug further, taking in several swallows. Finally, he
smacked his lips and flipped the mug upside down. One last drop fell to the
floor.

“After we land, I am going to personally teach you some manners,”
he said.

“You’ll not touch my brother,” Ahmed said.

The man’s expression went cold as he stepped forward and
backhanded Ahmed across the face. Ahmed’s head snapped to one side. But instead
of backing down, he sat up straighter and jutted out his jaw, his defiant
expression daring the man to hit him again. The guard’s face flushed. He cocked
his arm to strike but his movements had slowed. The first guard had collapsed
in less than a minute and he’d only taken a few sips. This man had consumed an entire
mug.

The swing came but Ahmed dodged it, throwing off the blanket
as he used the man’s momentum to push him to one side. The guard stumbled but
kept his footing. He spun around too fast and blinked rapidly as he struggled
to maintain his balance. There was a brief look of shock when he realized Ahmed
was standing before him with no wrist cuffs. The guard’s hands were halfway to
his holstered pistol when Ahmed let out a sharp
kiai
and planted a front
kick in the man’s solar plexus, sending the guard flying to the deck. His eyes
rolled and he was out.

“Quickly!” Ahmed said, grabbing the man’s pistol.

Sarafina and I jumped to our feet and used her barrette to
free Timmy. “We drugged the tea,” Sarafina told him. “But the pilots may have
drunk some, too!”

“Oh, crap,” Timmy said. We raced toward where Ahmed waited
at the foot of the ladder leading to the flight deck. He handed Timmy the
second guard’s pistol. “Do you know how to use this?” he asked.

“Kind of,” Timmy said. “This is the safety, right?” He clicked
a button on the side and the magazine dropped to the floor.

Ahmed sighed. He took the pistol from Timmy and set it next
to the coffee pot. “Better just leave it alone.” He placed a hand on the
stepladder leading to the flight deck. “There’s only room for one of us up
there anyway.”

The engine noise shifted, and I had the impression the plane
had started a slight turn.

“Oh, no,” Sarafina hissed.

Ahmed tucked the pistol in his belt and put his foot on the
first rung.

“Wait,” Timmy said. “Whatever you do, don’t shoot up the
instruments. I may not know much about guns but I think I can fly this plane.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“Not exactly. But I’ve flown every plane in the
Flight
Simulator X
gold edition.”

It was better than nothing but it didn’t give me much comfort.

“Praise Allah for even the smallest of blessings,” Ahmed
said, exhaling deeply. His face darkened and I realized he was readying himself
to do whatever was necessary to hijack the plane, even if it meant killing the
pilots. He clambered up the ladder and my heart was in my throat.

With the pistol in one hand and the door lever in the other,
he looked down at us and whispered, “
Allahu Akbar.
” Then he turned back
and his hand twitched on the door lever. But it didn’t move. He tried again,
the muscles of his forearm straining. Finally, he shouldered the door as hard
as he could.

It wouldn’t budge.

“Get back,” he shouted as he aimed the pistol at the latch.

Timmy herded us behind the pallets. We crouched down, and a
moment later I heard three quick shots. I flinched at each blast. After a
moment, four more shots rang out.

“Damn it!” Ahmed shouted. He climbed back down the ladder
and we ran forward to meet him. The air smelled of gunpowder, and I flashed
back to the room in the underground facility on the island where Sarafina and I
had been taken to force Dad to try to connect with the grid of pyramids. He’d
been strapped in a chair with his head linked to a computer. Mom, Lacey, and
Ahmed had arrived just in time to save us, and Ahmed had used a gun to shoot a
man. It was the first time I’d ever heard or smelled a gunshot. There’d been so
much blood...

 “It’s no use,” Ahmed said. “The door is reinforced. We
can’t get in. And there was no reaction from inside the cockpit. They’ve gotta
be unconscious.”

“Then who’s flying the plane?” Sarafina said, grabbing the
ladder rail as if that could help if the plane dropped from the sky.

“They must have realized they were going to pass out so they
put the plane on autopilot.” He glanced out the exit door window. “We’re
probably flying a racetrack pattern, like when a plane has to hold for a while
because a thunderstorm is crossing the airport.” He rubbed his chin. “Assuming
we’re close to our destination, we probably have about a two-hour reserve of
fuel.”

“What happens when the tank is empty?” Sarafina said.

She realized right away that wasn’t the smartest question.
Her face went white and Ahmed put an arm around her.

Timmy said, “We’ll figure something out. The point is, we
have a couple hours to do so.” He moved to an LCD panel beside the guards’
chairs and began scrolling the screen. “I’ll bet I can pull up our position
from the loadmaster’s screen.” He hesitated on one page and I saw we were
flying at 140 knots at an altitude of 12,000 feet. He nodded and moved to a
menu page.

While he was absorbed in the task, Ahmed and Sarafina
started searching compartments. I walked to the back of the plane and grabbed
my backpack. Everything was still inside, including the mini. Its leather case
was the size and shape of a softball. I picked it up and it sent a tingle up my
arm. After a moment, my senses felt sharper. The smells that had tangled
together into a single odor before were now separated. I smelled rust, grease,
oil, and fuel. I smelled the sweat on the guards’ clothing, the leftover tea,
and the chemicals from the bathroom. It was the same with my hearing and my
vision. I felt stronger and I liked it.

The mini’s case was rigid so I suspected the inside was
lined with metal, and I imagined a felt-lined mold around the small pyramid.
There was a seam around the middle. I tried to twist the two halves apart but
they were stuck solid, locked somehow. Knowing how big a secret the mini was
for my dad, I didn’t try to force it. It might be booby-trapped. I’d heard Mom
talk about how it had killed my dad after he started using it all the time. His
heart had failed and the government had performed an emergency transplant to
save him. That’s why I’d taken the mini. I didn’t want him to die again.

I tossed it up in the air once or twice, enjoying the surge
I felt each time I caught it.

“Hey, we found a parachute,” Ahmed yelled. He and Sarafina
had opened a compartment near the back of the plane. Timmy ran over to check it
out. I stuffed the mini in my pack and slung it over my shoulders as I joined
them.

“That’s not for people,” Timmy said, lifting the edge of the
dusty, oversized pack. “They’re for cargo pallets.”

With an angry grunt, Ahmed slammed the lid closed and moved
on to the next compartment. Sarafina slumped onto the web seating, her face
buried in her hands. I went to sit beside her but she waved me away with a
sniffle. She started to rock gently and I knew she was using her love of music
to help her cope. I went to the exit window to look outside, but I was too short
to see anything except the moon. I climbed onto the railing next to the door
and leaned over to look at the ground. The moon shone through scattered clouds,
but all I could make out was the silhouette of the rolling horizon. I couldn’t
tell if the shadows were hills or mountains. Either way, they looked dark and
scary.

 The wing dipped and I realized we were making another turn
in our holding pattern. The horizon rose, the shadows moving across the window
as the plane banked into a turn.

 “I’ve got something,” Timmy said, and Ahmed and Sarafina
rushed over to join him. But an uneasy feeling made me stay put, and I kept my
eyes on the sweeping view.

Timmy said, “It looks like we’re about a hundred and fifty
miles from our destination.”

The wings leveled. I jumped off the rail and ran to the
others. “We’re lower,” I said.

“Can’t be,” Timmy said. “The autopilot should hold our
altitude—”

He saw the expression on my face. We hustled back to the LCD
and brought up the page I’d seen earlier.

Airspeed: 140 knots

Altitude: 9,700 feet

“No, no, no,” Timmy said, his fingers dancing on the touch
screen to bring up the plot map. “The valley ground level is 1,875 feet, but
the highest peak beneath us is 4,500 feet.” He closed his eyes as he ran
through the numbers. “We dropped from 12,000 to 9,700 feet. Time elapsed was
about—”

“We’re going to crash in 4 minutes and 15 seconds,” I said.
“That’s if we hit the highest peak. But if we make it to the valley, we’ll
crash in 6 minutes, 24 seconds.”

Timmy gulped, and his eyes darted this way and that,
settling on something in the rear of the plane. He grabbed me by my backpack’s
shoulder strap and started running. “This way,” he shouted. Ahmed and Sarafina
raced to keep up. We gathered beside the pallet closest to the rear door.

“Now listen up good,” Timmy said. “Because I don’t have time
to explain this twice, and each one of us has gotta move superfast if we want
to live. First off, did you find any life vests?”

“What—?” Ahmed said.

“No time,” Timmy yelled. “Life vests, life vests!”

Sarafina’s face was white. “But—?”

“The plane is descending,” I said. “It. Is. Going. To.
Crash.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Timmy scrunched
his shoulders and held up his hands. “Well?”

“I saw life vests in the front,” Sarafina said breathlessly.

“Get as many as you can. Alex, you help her.”

I ran after her and heard Timmy say to Ahmed, “Help me with
this chute pack.”

We returned with two dozen inflatable life vests. Timmy and
Ahmed were cinching the parachute pack to the top of the five-foot-tall pile of
cargo on the first pallet. When they were finished, Timmy snapped open a pouch
on the top of the pack and pulled out what looked like a smaller chute pack
connected to a thick line. He left it on top of the pile.

“Inflate the vests and lay them out here,” Timmy said,
pointing to the eighteen-inch space between the cargo and the edge of the
pallet, made narrow by the series of webbed straps that held the cargo in
place. “Divide them evenly on each side.”

A part of me knew what was about to happen but I refused to
think about it. I pulled the red tab and the first vest inflated in an instant.
I laid it down in the space. Sarafina did the same, setting hers next to mine.
Her eyes were as big as saucers. As we worked, my internal clock kept track of
the countdown to the mountain peak altitude.

Two minutes, 50 seconds...   

“Did you find any spare straps?” Timmy asked Ahmed.

“Only a bunch of seat belts for the web seats.”

“Get ’em. I’ll finish with the chute.”

Ahmed hurried off. Timmy finished what he was doing and
moved to a control panel by the rear ramp. He made several entries on a screen
there, and each time he hit the
Enter
key he grumbled. When Ahmed returned
with the belts, Timmy pounded his fist on the wall and came back to the pallet.
By then, Sarafina and I had finished laying out the vests.

“Do you have anything warm to wear in there?” Timmy asked,
pointing to my backpack.

“My hoodie.”

“Put it on. You guys, too.”

Ahmed and Sarafina grabbed their packs. Ahmed had a hoodie
like mine and my sister had a sweater. After dressing, we slipped our packs on
over our clothes. In the meantime, Timmy had cinched a harness of some sort
around his chest and waist.