The Giant Smugglers (11 page)

“Whoa, that's awesome! I think you just got a new name,” decided Charlie. “I'm calling you Bruce. You even sort of look like him. Well, a bigger version.”

“Bruce,” responded the giant, still keeping his eye on the action.

“Right! That's him. And now, that's you. You're Bruce.”

 

13

Jamie coasted to the Accelerton security point. His rear still smarted from the morning injection, but he'd used the pain as motivation to push through a tough workout and make the substantial ride out to his dad's lab.

He pulled his bike up to the intercom and pushed the buzzer. The gate didn't open right away so he hopped off his bike, picked up a decent-size rock from the parking lot, and hurled the stone toward one of the greenhouses. It banged a pane of glass, cracking it. He was just about to try again when the security gate buzzed and slid open far enough for him to walk his bike through.

Jamie eschewed the bike rack at the edge of the parking lot. He dropped his racer right on the manicured Accelerton lawn and went through the lobby door, almost colliding with Neil Barton. The guy, lost in his phone, didn't even say hello.

Jamie noticed how awful the guy looked. Barton's froggy eyes were swollen and red, and his fat face was even puffier than usual, which was saying something. A large van checked in at security, and Barton hustled to meet it. Dr. Fitzgibbons called from the lab corridor. “Come on, Jamie, let's go.”

His father led Jamie to a room that reeked of acrid chemicals. He groaned when he saw racks of dirty test tubes, beakers, and sample dishes stacked on the stainless-steel counters. Fitzgibbons opened a closet full of long light-blue coats and handed Jamie a pair of safety glasses. “No way,” he refused. “These things make me look like a dork.”

“I've got no time for the usual nonsense today. Put on the gear and get to work. Glass goes on the trays. You know the drill: Load them in the washer and press
Start.
When the cycle is done, put the clean ones on the drying rack, and start all over again.”

Jamie stared at the mountain of dirty glassware. “All of it?”

“For starters,” said Fitzgibbons. “Then you can go around to all the open labs and take the trash out back. I'll see you in a couple hours.”

Jamie slammed glass into the cleaning trays, and his stomach growled. Morning workouts made him hungry as a bear, so he hurried to the hall to ask his dad for snack machine money. But he was too late. At the end of the corridor, his father was just disappearing inside his top-secret lab, the one Jamie was never allowed inside. The boy watched the door's slow close before it locked tight with a metallic click.

He returned to load trays of dirty test tubes into the industrial washer and start the cycle. He listened to it shoot hot chemical water over the glassware and felt his own blood rushing. Alone in the room with nothing but the mundane task in front of him, Jamie felt like chucking test tubes against the walls, just busting stuff up. He took deep breaths the way his linebackers coach had tried to teach. “Controlled fury” was what he'd called it.

A clatter in the hallway caught his attention. Jamie went to the small square window in the door to see what was going on.

It was tubby Barton, struggling with a wooden crate. Jamie scoffed. It didn't look that heavy, but the guy was huffing and puffing like it was full of cannonballs. He caromed down the corridor, then attempted to rest the crate on his knee so he could press his sweaty palm to open the door.

Jamie did all he could not to bust out laughing. Every time the awkward guy lifted his hand, he lost his balance and almost dropped the crate. After half a dozen tries, Barton managed to both unlock the door and wrangle it open.

He threw the door as wide as he could, then hefted up the box and stumbled through. In a flash, Jamie saw a window of opportunity open. He had like four seconds before the door closed.
One thousand one. One thousand two.

By
one thousand three,
Jamie slipped out into the hall as quietly as he could and sprinted for the lab. At
one thousand four
, he lunged for the heavy door just as it was about to shut. The steel pinched his fingers, and he bit down hard on his lower lip to keep from yelling in pain. Holding the door open just a hair, he knew he needed to move fast. He pried the door open far enough to slip into the lab and dove under the nearest table.

The door sealed behind him.

Jamie's heart pounded as his dad helped Barton lift the crate onto a stainless-steel table in the middle of the lab. From his hiding spot, Jamie took in the massive server rows, incredible monitor displays, and mazes of glass tubing that ran throughout the room.

“There's one more box,” Barton said, clutching his lower back.

“Let me give you a hand this time.” Dr. Fitzgibbons sighed. The two men started for the door, and Jamie slid farther into the shadows under the next lab table, taking care not to get caught in the spider web of cables and wires.

The door opened once again. Conversation faded as the door clicked shut.

He scrambled to his feet, alone at last. Jamie had been to his father's labs in other towns, but none of them looked like this one. There was way more high-tech gear, for one thing, and the weird empty space in the back. He checked out the equipment displays, but they were a mess of math moving at a million miles an hour.

He turned to Barton's computer, which was easy to pick out by the pile of empty takeout bags surrounding it. Jamie knew his dad wouldn't eat that crap, and if he did, he wouldn't have been such a slob about it.

Jamie grabbed Barton's greasy mouse, and the monitor came to life. An animation featured a model that looked quite a bit like Barton—pudgy, balding, and wearing glasses. It stood in the middle of the screen, flanked by digital graph lines. The vertical gradient on the left measured height, and the Barton-model stood a few inches below six feet. A series of tabs labeled
Gen1
,
Gen2
, all the way up to
Gen50
, marked the bottom axis. Jamie clicked on
Gen1
, and the model grew to about six foot two. His features and muscle structure also enlarged to match the model's new size.
Gen2
brought the man to six foot five. Jamie was about to see what
Gen50
yielded when there was a noise in the hall. They were coming back.

He minimized the animation program, which revealed a security profile. Fitz had to look twice. There was a picture of Lawson. Charlie Lawson!

The door clicked open. Fitz ducked out of sight beneath the workstation table. His head spun as he tried to connect growth simulations and
Charlie Lawson
. Had his dad chosen Lawson as a test subject for whatever new growth stuff they were working on? Jamie remembered his father's sermon earlier in the basement, about guys like Lawson killing for the chance to get bigger. The potential betrayal burned.

Barton and Fitzgibbons hauled in the second crate, setting it next to the first and pulling the sides away on both. Inside, rats climbed over one another, complaining in a communal
chee chee chee!

Fitzgibbons signed a series of release forms and acceptance acknowledgments on a clipboard. “Get JoAnne to file these,” he said, handing it to Barton. “And then we'll check the restriction enzymes.”

As Barton took the clipboard and hustled to the door, Jamie saw the way to escape. His dad already had turned his attention to calculations at his workstation. Jamie crouched as Barton left, timing the closing of the door.

With his head still reeling from the discoveries he'd made inside the lab, Jamie slipped out behind Barton and back into the utility room like nothing had happened. But now Jamie had a pile of questions.

He dismissed asking his father for answers. If Jamie admitted sneaking into the lab, his punishment would be way worse than washing dirty dishes. He shoved another rack into the washer and started forming a plan to pound the answers out of Lawson.

 

14

Charlie shut off the movie projector, despite the giant's protest. The newly christened Bruce continued practicing his new kung fu moves in the musty warehouse air.

“I can't do
Enter the Dragon
again, dude. Twice is enough,” Charlie said. Watching Bruce nail move after move with just a little practice was pretty cool, but even that was getting old.

Charlie's phone rang. He expected his mom on the other end. But the glowing screen read
Adele.
At the sound of the musical ring tone, Bruce leaned in. Charlie answered the call.

“Boy,” said Adele, “I just got an interesting phone call.”

“Huh?”

“We're on a date right now! Didn't you know?” she teased.

Oh no,
Mom, you didn't.
Charlie closed his eyes in dismay. She'd made good on her threat to double-check his story.

“I hope I'm having a great time!”

“I … I…” he stammered as his brain spun in its tracks.

“So what's really going on?”

Charlie was busted. All his fibs were coming back to bite him in the butt, so he tried a version of the truth. “See, a friend of mine is in town, but then my mom's boyfriend invited me to go to Madison…”

“So, you needed to tell your mom a lie, and you used me as your alibi,” Adele concluded. “I don't really mind all that much, but next time you might want to let me in on it so we get our stories straight, you know?”

Charlie flinched. “What did you tell her?”

“Said we were on a date, of course,” said Adele, laughing. “You think I was going to rat you out?”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. I totally should have texted you. I owe you big-time.”

Bruce spun and practiced a high kick. The boy turned away so he could talk without distractions.

“Thing is, she talked to my mom, too, and I had to cover,” Adele confessed.

“Whoa. What did you say?”

“Told her we're going to the outdoor tonight to see
Total Turbo: The Movie!”

“A movie?”

“Movie!” exclaimed the giant. Charlie smacked him in the leg to shut him up.

Adele's voice got shy. “So what do you say we go, maybe? Then everything's cool all around.”

Did Adele Hawkins just ask me out?

“Charlie? You still there?” Adele asked. “You in or what?”

Bruce had a goofy smirk on his face as he mouthed, “Movie!”

“I … do want to go,” Charlie managed. “But, I'm kind of hung up with what I got going right now.…”

“I thought you owed me big-time,” Adele said. “No worries. I'll make up something to tell my mom.”

“Go,” Bruce urged.

Going to the movie would make things right with both Adele and his mom. He wouldn't have lied after all. And the giant seemed for it. “Wait!” The words tumbled out of Charlie's mouth. “I'd love to go. To the movie. I mean, yeah, I'll go see
Total Turbo
with you.”

“Sweet,” said Adele, the warmth back in her voice. “I mean, okay. Great.”

“I'm … going to have to meet you there,” Charlie said.

“My mom's headed out that way to the grocery store anyhow. Sure you don't want us to pick you up?”

Charlie turned away from the elated giant. “No, I'll meet you there.”

“Awesome. Later.”

“Later.”

Bruce got loud again as soon as Charlie pocketed his phone. “Movie!”

“Yes, I'm going to a movie,” Charlie said. It was a long haul out to the Starlite 14, even on a bike. To make it there before the previews, he needed to get going and soon. “But, don't worry—I'll sneak back in here after it's over.”

Bruce thumped his chest with his fist. “Go!”

“Whoa,
you
go to a movie?” asked Charlie. “There's no way. Somebody would see you for sure.”

Bruce pointed behind Charlie. The boy spun around. He didn't see anything. When he turned back, the giant was gone. It was impossible!

Charlie searched the shadows. Even though the warehouse had grown dark, it was unimaginable that someone twenty-some feet tall could conceal himself so well. “Okay, okay. You are officially the world's biggest ninja. C'mon, Bruce.” But the giant had vanished. Charlie wheeled around.

And there was Bruce, right behind him, smiling like he'd just won a bet.

Charlie jumped. “Holy crap! How'd you learn to do that?”

“Hunting.”

“Ah, I get it. If you didn't learn to hide and move quietly, animals would know you were coming from a mile away.”

“Movie,” Bruce agreed.

“Boy, I don't know.” Charlie admitted to himself that the big guy could basically disappear when he needed to, but still. “You could stay hidden the whole time?”

“Yep!”

“I sure wouldn't want to be stuck in here by myself,” Charlie said, his voice warming to the idea. Based on the old man's previous visits, Charlie calculated they'd need to be back before eleven. “We should be able to sneak back in here before Hank shows up.”

“Go!”

Charlie laughed. “Okay, let's do it.”

Bruce crouched down, scooped up the boy, and scooted into the elevator shaft.

“Hold on, big guy. How are you going to climb out while you're holding me?” Charlie asked.

Bruce bent his knees and launched skyward. It took all of Charlie's will not to scream as the bricks of the elevator shaft blurred past. The leap propelled them out the top of the shaft and into the night. They plummeted into the alley, where Bruce landed in nimble silence, his massive frame melting into the shadows of the tall oak Charlie had climbed that morning.

“Wow, you pretty much killed that,” he said, swatting a leafy branch away from his face. Charlie took a moment for his stomach to settle—he wasn't used to traveling by giant. Now there were directions to consider. “I'll tell you where to go, okay? When we have to turn, I'll go like this…”