Hunger (22 page)

Taylor heard Sam yelling instructions to Dekka. Seconds later the truck, tons of steel, floated up off the ground.

Taylor saw the two thugs gaping up at it.

Sam raised his hands. “Guys?” he said to the two startled thugs. “Way I see it, you have a choice. Drop your guns, run away, and live. Or point those guns my way and burn.”

The two guns clattered on the pavement. The two boys stuck their arms in the air.

“You have anything we can eat?” one asked.

Dekka dropped the truck back into place.

It made a huge noise, smashing, bouncing but remaining upright.

“Have you seen Brianna?” Dekka asked them.

“No,” the boy said.

“But if she tried to go after them inside, she’s not coming back,” the other said, trying to sound tough, even though his hands were in the air.

“Taylor,” Sam said. “Double-check the guardhouse.”

Taylor bounced into the guardhouse. She was on a hair trigger, ready to bounce back out again. But she saw no one inside.

Outside, through the window, she saw Edilio’s soldiers piling out of the last car, machine guns ready. Howard stepped out of the SUV, scared, cringing. And slowly, like he was an old man with arthritis, came Orc. Howard was a tiny shadow beside him.

Taylor bounced to them.

“No one’s in the guardhouse,” Taylor reported. “And no Brianna.”

Dekka looked at Sam. “If anyone’s hurt that girl, they don’t get the chance to walk away.”

“Dekka, we need to play this smart,” Sam said.

“No, Sam,” Dekka said with sudden, savage ferocity. “Anyone who hurts that girl dies.”

Taylor expected Sam to put Dekka in her place. Instead, he said, “We all love her, Dekka. We’ll do what’s right.”

Taylor bounced next to Dekka. She put her hand on Dekka’s strong shoulder. The girl was trembling.

18
HOURS
, 1
MINUTE

SAM WISHED CAINE
would come out after him. That would be best. That would be the thing. A straight-up fight, out in the open. Last time they’d had that fight, Sam had won.

But Caine wasn’t going to step outside.

The fight had barely begun and already he had lost Brianna.

Poor Breeze.

“What do we do?” Edilio asked. He was at Sam’s side. Edilio was always at his side, and Sam was profoundly grateful for that. But right this moment, standing here in the shadow of the hulking power plant, with images of Brianna filling the next hole in the town plaza, he wished Edilio would shut up and leave him in peace.

But Sam was the guy who made decisions. Win or lose. Right or wrong. Life or death.

“I should have brought Astrid along,” Sam said. “She knows the plant better than either of us do.”

“They gotta be in the control room,” Edilio said. “Whatever Caine is up to, he’d want to have the control room.”

“Yeah.”

“Only two ways in, as far as I remember. Either in through the turbine building or back through all the offices. They’ll have both covered.”

“Yeah.”

“Kind of narrow hallways from either direction. Come through the turbine room, maybe they won’t want to get crazy and do anything that messes up the plant, right?”

Sam looked at him sharply. “You’re right. That makes sense. I should have thought of it. Caine doesn’t want the plant destroyed.”

Edilio shrugged. “Hey, man, I’m not just your good-looking Mexican sidekick.”

Sam smiled. “You’re not Mexican. You’re Honduran.”

“Oh, yeah,” Edilio said dryly. “Sometimes I forget.” Then, serious again, he said, “Caine didn’t come here to wreck the place. He came here to take it over, use it somehow. Boy doesn’t want to sit in the dark any more than we do.”

“But he’ll do what he has to,” Sam said.

“Yeah. If the other choice is him coming out peacefully and letting us lock him up, or…”

Howard sidled up. “We standing around here all night or what? Orc’s, like, let’s do this or let me go home and go to sleep.”

“I kind of thought we’d take a couple of minutes to think it over,” Sam snarled. “We’ve probably lost Breeze. But if you’d
rather just have Orc go barreling in there alone, fine.”

“No, man,” Howard said, backing down quickly.

Sam laid his hand on Edilio’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “He may have hostages.”

“Yeah,” Edilio agreed. “My guys. Mike and Mickey and Brittney and Josh.”

“Okay, as long as we understand,” Sam said. He made eye contact with Edilio. Edilio gave just the slightest nod in return.

“Here’s my plan. Taylor bounces in, carries a shotgun, starts to blast. One, two, three rounds, then bounces out. At that point we hit them all together, straight through the turbine room.”

“Yep,” Edilio said. “Straight through the turbine room.”

Looking perfectly casual, Edilio slung his knapsack off his shoulder and began rummaging inside. He called over to a kid named Steve, one of his soldiers. “Hey, Steve, man, where’s my Snickers bar? I had it right here in my backpack.”

Steve frowned and headed over. The pockets of his cargo pants were bulging.

Edilio drew a gun—too big, too brightly colored, and too plastic to be real from his backpack. He pumped it once, leveled it at waist level, and fired.

A thin stream of watered-down yellow paint sprayed thirty feet.

At the same time Steve drew twin cans of spray paint from his pants, aimed, and fired.

Edilio and Steve both sprayed in a circle, twirling, hitting
kids and cars and foliage.

“There!” Sam yelled.

Bug was almost completely invisible at night. But a lot less invisible with a spray of yellow paint across his chest.

Bug bolted, looking like nothing more than a dancing, racing streak of fluorescence. He pelted away, yelling, “Open the door! Open the door!”

Dekka took a stance. “Make it look good, but not too good,” Sam whispered.

Suddenly Bug tripped. Gravity had ceased to exist, but he stumbled out of Dekka’s range, regained his feet, and hit the door.

“Nice,” Sam said.

The door opened, and Bug fell into the darkness beyond.

“You think he heard?” Edilio asked.

“Yeah. He’ll be blurting it to Caine right about now. So we go in hard and fast.”

“How?” Edilio asked.

“Right through the wall,” Sam said grimly. “Howard! Orc!” he yelled. He pointed at the turbine room door, which had slammed shut behind Bug. “Take out that door. Edilio, grab your best guy and go with them. Make lots of noise. Make it look good. Everyone else with me.”

“Lots of noise,” Edilio echoed in a worried voice.

Sam tightened his grip on Edilio’s shoulder. “If I were ever going to have a Mexican sidekick, you’d be the guy.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Ready?”

“Nope.”

“So let’s go,” Sam said. Then, louder, “Let’s go!”

They raced for the door that Bug had taken. Across the parking lot at a crazy run. Edilio, Steve, and one other soldier, half pushing Orc ahead of them as Howard drifted strategically slower and fell behind in relative safety.

Sam, Dekka, and the remaining soldiers kept pace, then peeled off, dodging left and racing along the building.

Taylor stayed behind with two guys guarding the rear.

Orc ran straight for the door. He plowed into it like a bull, full-speed, heedless. The sound of the impact echoed around the parking lot.

The metal door crumpled but did not give. Orc reared back and kicked it with his stone foot. He fell on his back, but the door flew open.

Gunfire erupted from inside.

Orc stayed flat. The others dodged aside.

Edilio began firing through the doorway, an earsplitting din. The muzzle flash was like a strobe light.

Sam and Dekka raced away, hugging the wall.

“About here, I think,” Sam said, panting.

The two of them stepped away from the wall, and Sam raised his hands.

Blistering green fire exploded from Sam’s upraised palms. The brick wall glowed red. Almost immediately the masonry began to crack, and then Dekka made her own move. Gravity beneath the wall ceased to exist.

The wall began to crack. Flakes of mortar and stone flew
straight up in the air. Some of the smaller chunks caught fire and burned as they rose. The wall was coming apart, but too slowly.

“Orc!” Sam yelled.

The boy-monster rolled to his feet and came at a rush.

“Dekka, off!” Sam yelled.

The green fire died, gravity returned with a rain of dirt and gravel, and through it ran Orc. He hit the weakened wall with one massive shoulder. The cinder block collapsed in like a fallen pie crust.

Orc backed up, then hit it again and he was through. Sam dashed after him, but unlike Orc he was not immune to the heat he had himself created. It was like rushing into an oven. He brushed against a bit of red-hot brick and yelped in pain.

Sam froze.

Inside, beyond the cinderblock wall, was not the control room. Instead of breaking through to the control room and catching Caine off guard, he was in an outer room filled with old-style metal filing cabinets.

The whole plan had just fallen apart. The diversion was now pointless.

Dekka was right behind Sam. “So much for the element of surprise,” she said.

No time for regrets, Sam told himself, but it was a bitter moment. Surprise might have saved lives. Surprise might have allowed them to rescue the hostages.

“The next wall should be easier,” Sam said. “Take cover!”

Dekka jumped behind a row of filing cabinets as Sam
attacked the inner wall. The temperature in the filing room went from stifling to dangerous in seconds.

Sam’s light burned away paint and wallboard in a few seconds, but beyond it, inside the wall, was a barrier of dull, gray metal.

“It’s a radiation shield,” Sam yelled to Dekka. “Lead.”

The lead melted quickly at the touch of Sam’s probing fire. Liquid lead dribbled down the wall and pooled, instantly igniting anything it touched.

But now the file room was too hot for anyone. The air was gone, and Sam was woozy, unfocused, forgetting what he was doing.

“Orc! Grab him!” Dekka yelled as she dove back outside, gasping for breath.

Sam felt himself lifted off his feet. It was curiously pleasant. Outside, the shock of cold air on his face snapped him back to reality.

He glanced to his right. Gunfire still kept the turbine room doorway clear. Edilio was flattened against the wall, unable to do anything but reload and keep firing blindly. His soldiers had been ordered back to safety behind parked cars.

The attack was failing.

Sam stood up, fighting nausea and dizziness. He faced the wall again. He could shoot through the outer wall, through the room beyond, and hit the lead shield. But his deadly light was diffused at that distance. And he had no room to ply the blowtorch back and forth and widen the hole.

He raised his hands and unleashed the power. The lead
sheath melted quickly. But too late, Sam knew. Too late for surprise. Too late.

And in the end, too little.

A red-rimmed hole about the size of a manhole cover dripped melted lead like tears.

Then a familiar voice cried, “Sam!”

Sam ignored it.

“Sam, in three seconds I’m pushing one of my hostages into this hole you’ve made,” Caine yelled. “One!”

Sam widened the gap as much as he could, working the edges, melting lead.

“Two!”

He couldn’t stop, Sam told himself.

But if he didn’t stop, he had no doubt, none, that Caine would make good on his threat. Caine could literally hurl one of the hostages into the fiery hole Sam was burning.

Sam dropped his hands. The light died.

“That’s better,” Caine yelled.

“Come out now, Caine, and maybe I let you walk away in one piece,” Sam blustered.

“Here’s the thing, brother,” Caine called back. “I have two of your people. Give a shout-out, kids.”

“It’s me, Sam. It’s Mike Farmer! Mickey’s here, too. And Britt, she’s…she’s hurt.”

Sam shot a look at Dekka. She stared back at him, stone faced. Caine had said two hostages. So he was counting Brittney as dead.

And no mention of Brianna. The Breeze was not a hostage.
At the same time, Sam told himself, Mike hadn’t listed her, either. So at least she wasn’t lying defeated in that room.

The gunfire at the doorway had ceased. Edilio still stood ready, but not knowing what to do next.

“Let them go, Caine,” Sam said wearily.

“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” Caine answered.

Sam ran his hand through his hair, beside himself with frustration.

“What is it you want?” Sam asked. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I have the power plant, that’s obvious,” Caine said. “Stupid of you to lose it, Sam.”

Sam had no answer to that.

“What I’m going to do, Sam, is turn off the power to Perdido Beach.”

“You do that, you’ll be sitting in the dark, too,” Sam shouted back.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Caine said with a laugh. “But it turns out that’s not true. It seems we can turn off some parts of the grid from here and not affect other parts.”

“I think you’re bluffing, Caine. I’ve seen the control room. It would take you a week to make any sense out of it.”

Caine laughed easily. “Oh, man, you are right about that, brother. Hey, it would probably take me a month. And Diana’s no better at the techie stuff. And Drake, well, you know Drake. But…”

Sam knew what was coming next. He closed his eyes and hung his head.

“Fortunately, our mutual friend Computer Jack, here, he’s
pretty much got it whipped. In fact…How’s it going, Jack? Got it yet?”

There was a murmur, barely audible. Then, Caine again, taunting. “Guess what, Sam?”

Sam refused to answer.

“Jack here says the lights just went off in Perdido Beach.”

Caine laughed, a wild, triumphant sound.

Sam caught Taylor’s eye. She teleported over to him. “Check it out,” he said. The girl nodded once and disappeared.

“You sending Brianna to check it out?” Caine shouted. “Or Taylor?”

Sam said nothing. He waited.

Taylor popped back into view, right beside him.

“I bounced to a bend in the road where you can see town,” she reported.

“And?”