Maxwell Huxley's Demon (8 page)

A little more work , and our hacking will be done for us. After that we just piggy back into whatever system the platform has found and send in whatever instructions we want executed from the inside .

The truck lurches ; the laptop almost falls off the racks. Walker looks at the other kids. “Hey, anyone else getting excited to be in a city for the first time?
” Walker recalls pictures and video he had seen of cities. They always seem like efficient machines. “How big is Kiddymat anyway?”

“It’s Kiti -mat, and it ’
s small compared to most cities.
About ten thousand people, ” Naomi answers.

“No sky scrapers then?
”
Walker sounds disappointed.

---

Agent Pirelli mans the roadblock , talking to his hands-free cell .
“
The kids are nine. All of them. They’re either walking in a wild environment that is entirely hostile to human life, Canada, or they hitched a ride ”
.

“Which is it? Hitched a ride or walking?”

“
They hitched a ride. I’ve stopped every truck with a trailer and nothing so far. I’m running out of time. I t’s not likely I’ll find them today.
”
No wait. I definitely won’t find them today. But I have to sit here and put in my time.
One of the officers on duty taps on Pirelli’s wi ndow.
Pirelli mutes the cell call and lowers the window.

“What time can we call it a day?” the officer asks.

“Couple more hours.”
The officer sighs and walks away. Pirelli un-mutes the call.
“I’m b abysitting grown-ups and little mutant critters. What kind of nine-year-old s breaks out of a maximum security prison four hours up a mountain road and then evades an experienced pursuit team looking for them on the one and only road out of the facility?
”

“The kind we made.”

“I hate these mountains!” He drops the call.
I’m never going to catch this one.
The whole scene is spotless; I have nothing to go on.

Agent Pirelli waits in his car as vehicles pass through his roadblock.

Chapter 7
–Keith

As he waits, Keith alternates between sit-ups and push-ups.
It’s been three days now; Dr. C. will come get me in about five minutes.
He’ll be calm and considerate and try to make me understand that I am only hurting myself. I’m starting to believe that the only way to get out of here will be to hurt others.
I want to determine my own path and leave nothing to fate .
I will not sit around and wait for someone to help .
I’
ll pull together what I need. Then I’
ll hav e revenge. Then I’
ll be respected .

The door buzzes, unlocks, and opens. A guard motions him to come out. From past experience , he knows there will be two other guards here , one on either side of the doorway. They lead him down a sterile white hallway to a room he is quite familiar with. Dr. Concilian sits at a stainless steel table and gestures to the chair across from him. “
Have a seat, Keith.” Keith sits. Dr. Concilian waves the guards away. They leave, locking the door behind them.
“So—Keith. You ’
r e back here. What do you think?”

“I think you’re a sad old man with nothing better to do than frighten children . What do you think Dr. C?”

“I think you’re not making it. I think you’re angry, frustrated, and isolated. I think you’re dangerous.” Dr. Concilian open s a file on his tab let . “Your—eight h escape attempt?”

“Ninth. I like to count the time you found me building a tank in shop class as an attempt.” Keith blows his nose into his hand and smears it on the table top , marring the perfectly clean surface.

W
ith a pinched look on his face , Dr. Concilian shivers and backs slightly away from the table and the boy . “So , after this interview wher e do you think you are going ?”

“We ll, I’ll spend the mandatory three more days in the halfway rooms between solitary and the school. You need to see if I can look after myself, right?”

“Not this time Keith. This time it’s different.”

“There hasn’t been anything different in this place ever. Same classes. Same training.” Keith’s face reddens with anger. “You train me to escape only to re-capture me and then train me in new and better ways of escape . What, are you going to do, teach me how to build a Tardis this time?”

“No Keith, you’re writing your final exams this time.”

Keith sit s slightly straighter even as he tries to seem uninterested .
“
Final doesn’t sound so good.
Why would I bother writing your exam?”

“It’s just an exam, your first official one .
If you pass , you get more freedom and m ove out of this school. On to—d ifferent things.”

“And if I fail?”

“You get P
rocessed.
If you choose not to write it, you get P
rocessed. So this is j ust what you always wanted , Keith. Control of your own fate.”

“Let me get this straight. If I fail, I’m a vegetable. If I refuse to play with you, I’m a veg etable. If I play your game and pass , whatever that is, then you will send me on to some other place, one which I have no understanding of. One that could be worse than here . . .
screw you, Dr. C.”

“Alright, alright, how about this? If you write this exam , I’ll giv e you your own lab, j ust like Max used to have.
Hmm ?
”

---

Keith walks back into the residence. He feels eyes on him, other boys watching him as he walks along the rows of beds to his. At least his area is left as it was before.
“W
hat !
” he says . Many sets of eyes turn away from him.
Afraid. It’s easy to be afraid.
If you don’t understand, you’ll easily be afraid .

I see empty bed s at the other end of the room. I hope he’s far away from here now. No more worries.
I guess I might be on his side , but he left me behind. I’m the one who made him think about escape. I deserve more. I deserve everything they gave him. Everything he got without earning it. I deserved the chance not him.

Now I get the lab and then they all hurt.

Keith collapses on his bed.
“You people are boring .”

Chapter 8
–Kitimat

At the first red light the truck stops , and everyone scrambles back into hiding within the empty bread racks .
Soon enough, the reverse alarm sounds as the driver parks the truck.
Max does his best to stay calm , but confined spaces aren’
t good for him.
He feels the world spin.
He guesses this is probably a normal reaction when you’re on the run from a sinister government organiza tion that is systematically kid napping children , and not one of his bouts starting .
He counts his breathing and slows it down , then works on his plan to get into a hotel.

In his hiding space, Walker holds onto the digging bars to keep them from clanking, and check s that his laptop is in his backpack every few seconds, th en adjusts the backpack straps.

Virginia balances on one toe and then the other, using the time to increase her lowe r leg flexibility and strength.
She wishes the truck would hurry up and park already.

Naomi picks a t an errant cuticle , senses the agitation of the others and the boredom of the driver. She wonders what her older sister is doing right no w.

At this point, i t occurs to Max that the driver might just leave them locked in here.
I guess I should have had a plan for that.
Break out with the digging bars?
The truck hits the loading dock bumper, the engine turn s off, Naomi sneezes, and they all wait. The driver opens the trailer doors, ge ts the hand power fork lift, pulls the fi rst stack of racks out backward , spi ns and moves into the building.

Max pushes to get out of his hiding spot and his stack of racks fall s over.
Walker , Virginia, and Naomi sm ile as he stand s up out of the pile of racks. “Just like a cat,” Virginia jokes.

Out of the truck , they squint in the sunlight and hurry around the corner of the bakery building.
Max is surprised how hot it is. They must have come a long way down off the mountain for it to be this hot.

“
OK
, so this is Kitimat, first thing we need . . .” The four of them stare at the town around them .
Distracted by being in a town for the first time, Max forgets what he was going to say .
They walk along in silence.

Naomi breaks the silence.
“D’you think they have a candy store here?”

“I want to see a regular school.” Max turns to Walker. “Did you hack and enable wireless on everything?”

“Yup, ”
Walker says as he scans up and down the street.

“Uh m, Walker , I know we decided to take the d igging bars, but you’re gonna have to leave them .”

“
Aw , man .”
Walker lays them down beside the curb.

“It’s a lot dirtier than I thought it would be,” Naomi says. “I thought cities were clean, why did I think that?”

“
I thought a city would be bigger . . . and less smelly, ”
Max adds.

“I want to go to a diner,” Virginia says. “With a jukebox, and chrome, and order a malted.” Tears well up in her eyes , and she turn s away from the others .

Max doesn’t say anything, but he knows what they’re all thinking.
I want to be a regular kid .

---

They
pick a direction at random and walk .
The street is dry, mostly empty of cars and people, and lined with s mall industrial building s .
It’s hot.
They walk to the first intersection and pause.
Looking over her shoulder, Virginia says, “Where to Max?”

“Left?
”
Max shrugs.
“
Water is that way.
I like water. Let’s go left.
”

Halfway down the block Naomi stops and puts an arm on Max’s shoulder . “M
ax . . .”
He looks over at her .
“Max , look at the cars on this street.”

Max glances at the cars.

“N
otice anything?”
Naomi says as Walker and Virginia carry on.

“Uh, I see twelve cars and one van, all with roof racks, two Alberta plates, various colours, mostly old, rusting, worn out, except for that one.
”

“
Ya except for that o ne.
” Naomi points. “Black and shiny, totally out of place.”

Max looks at the black car two blocks down, heading slowly in their direction.
With it pointed out to him, he sees how it stands out. Like a shark swimming in the surf .
“
Walker . Virginia.
Come back, ” Max calls ahead . “
You need to see something .”

Virginia rolls her eyes. “Seriously?”

“That car, the big black one . . .
let’s back track and try to find another way downtown.”
They turn back, walk half a block , and move into a side street hoping to catch another road downtown.
As soon as the car is out of sight Max says , “Run!”

They quickly spread into a line with Virginia at the lead, Walker and Naomi together, and Max lagging behind. “In the alley on the left.
” Max hears the squeal of car tires behind him as the others disappear in the alley he pointed to.
He knows the black car has turned the corner and is closing in . Wasting time on a look back , Max see s the car picking up speed.

Tick.

Max runs as fast as he can. His mind accelerating .
The neutrons will be the footprint. The p rotons carry the process es. Each lone p roton will seek a new pro cessing space, repelling other p rotons , eventually all processing spaces will be full. Osmosis. The 2
nd law of thermodynamics will kick in. The e lectrons are data or informa tion, but which?
Max runs.

Turning in the alley , Max sees that Walker and Naomi are on top of a concrete wall that blocks the far end .
Virginia is standing at the bottom of the wall , waving at Max . He thinks she is saying something, but his ears seem to have stopped working. H
e only hears his heart beat and his breathing.

Tock.

Protons will r oot themse lves and “call” the electrons.
Neutr ons will authorize.
Left spin e lectrons will accept command s.
Right spin e lectrons will trigger command execution .
Max looks over his shoulder.
The shark turns smoothly into the al l ey. He looks forward and stops—the distance has to be right.

“Max!” Virginia screams. T
his time he hears her.
“Keep running!”