It’s almost time to go, he says. We’ll take the woman to lead us to Sam and Sarah.
‘Nine,’ I say. ‘You ready to get out of here?’
‘God, yes. Been ready forever. I really have to pee.’
Special Agent Walker glances from me to Nine and back again. She doesn’t know where to point the cannon, so she moves it back and forth between us. Agent Purdy stands again and does the same. The guard in the back of the truck points his rifle at us.
‘If they move, shoot anything but a vital organ!’ Agent Purdy says, moving to stand shoulder to shoulder with Special Agent Walker.
Bernie Kosar jumps from my lap and crawls up the glass door. He flitters his tiny cockroach wings at me and he says to count to five.
‘Hey, Nine?’ I ask.
‘I’m already on three, my man,’ he says.
Walker shouts at us to shut up. My bracelet vibrates and sends a thousand pinpricks up and down my wrist but I ignore it. Nine breaks all of his restraints as if they were nothing, and stands up. I do the same, though it takes more effort for me. Nine kicks the Plexiglas wall at the front of his cage and the whole thing pops easily out of its frame. As he steps out, the guard fires at him. With a smile he just raises his hand and stops bullets in midair. He lowers his hand, and the bullets fall to the floor one at a time.
He looks over at me, ‘Need some help there, buddy?’ He kicks in a wall of my cage, and I step out. BK scrambles back into my pocket.
Before the guard can do anything, I use my telekinesis to launch him to the ceiling and twist his weapon into a useless piece of metal. Agent Walker and Purdy both fire their Mog cannons at us, but Nine stops the streams that come out of them. He smiles, and shakes his finger at the two agents. ‘No, no, no. You should know better by now.’ He looks over at me. ‘Get ready, Johnny, ’cause we are going for a spin!’
The truck immediately flies off the road and starts rolling. Without warning, Nine grabs me and links arms, pulling me along until I gain my footing. We run up the left side of the truck, moving like a hamster in a wheel so we can stay horizontal as the truck flips over and over. Metal crunches around us, sparks rain from every corner and the guard and agents look like rag dolls as they’re tossed in all directions. The force of the crash causes the back doors to pop open and when the truck stops rolling, we jump out. There were a number of police vehicles trailing us and they’ve all come to a screeching halt with their sirens blaring.
‘Hey, John?’ Nine says, unfazed by any of it.
‘Yeah?’ I say, shaking my head as I try to lose the dizzy feeling from the spinning truck. Neither of us is taking our eyes off the blinking crowd of police cars.
He starts to step back towards the truck and I do the same. ‘We gotta get our Chests back, dude, and do what BK said and get that woman agent.’
‘Definitely.’ I pat my pocket, making sure BK is still there.
‘So why don’t you take care of that, while I take care of this.’ Nine telekinetically lifts two police cruisers off the ground, and the officers inside struggle to get out.
I dash back to the truck, now smoldering in the ditch. I jump inside, avoiding the guard and Agent Purdy, moaning on the floor, and find our Chests. Special Agent Walker sits against what remains of the metal bench, staring at the blood on her hands in a daze. Her red hair falls loosely down her shoulders, and there’s a long scrape along the side of her face. The Mog cannon is now a shattered pile of parts under her legs. She watches me arrange the Chests under my arms, and I drop to a knee in front of her.
‘You’re coming with us.’ I am not asking.
She opens her mouth to speak, and a trail of blood trickles out. It’s then that I see the piece of metal sticking out of her shoulder. I put down one of the Chests and try picking her up, but she groans and coughs up more blood. I let go, afraid if I move her again she’ll bleed out and die before I can find out where Sarah and Sam are.
‘Where are they?’ I ask. ‘Tell me now! You are going to die any second, lady, and I’m trying to save Earth and my friends. Now, tell me! Where are Sam and Sarah?’
Special Agent Walker’s head flops in my direction and her green eyes open wide, as if seeing me for the first time. The gunfire outside is getting closer. ‘You … you’re an alien,’ she finally whispers.
I punch the side of the truck in frustration. ‘Yeah, I am! But I’m here to help, if you would just let me! Now, before you run out of time, out of breath, tell me where they are. In Washington?’
Her breathing turns ragged and it’s as if she can’t see or hear me. I’m losing her. I’m losing her and I still don’t know where Sarah and Sam are. My voice sounds small all of a sudden. ‘Just tell me where they are. Please.’ Our eyes meet and I can tell I’ve gotten through to her.
Special Agent Walker’s mouth opens to speak and it takes a couple of tries to find her voice. ‘Out west. In …,’ then her voice trails off and her eyes close. Her bloody hands clench and then relax; her whole body goes slack.
‘Wait! Hold on!’ I frantically grab at my Chest, trying to get it open so I can get my healing stone. All I can think is, if I heal her she’ll tell me where they are. I’ve just placed my hand on the lock of the Chest when a group of officers jump into the open end of the truck, guns drawn.
‘Get away from the agent! Move! Or we’ll shoot! Down on the ground! Hands behind your back! Now!’ They are barking orders at me, but I can’t obey. I don’t want to obey. I need to get the healing stone. I need to hear what she was going to say. I reach to open the Chest and I hear the officers screaming, ‘Hands up. HANDS UP. HANDS UP!’ I reach into my Chest anyway.
I hear the first gunshot, immediately followed by dozens more. As the hail of bullets fly around me, my wrist starts to tingle more strongly than ever. It doesn’t hurt anymore, and the bracelet starts to expand, covering my entire arm with a sheath of red material before spreading and popping open like an umbrella. I have no idea what is going on and I really don’t care. I can only think of my healing stone and the limp body of Walker so close and yet so useless. Suddenly, I’m behind a six-foot-high shield that curls up over my head and under my feet. The bullets bounce right off it.
An orchestra of gunfire erupts, and countless bullets ricochet off my shield. After a couple of minutes, they become less and less frequent, like microwave popcorn that’s almost done. When the gunshots finally stop, the red material compresses itself back into the arm sheath, and then shrinks into the tingling bracelet around my wrist, all of its own volition. I look down, amazed at how effective it is, how perfect its timing is.
Walker is still lying unconscious by my feet. The officers with their guns trained on the back of the truck just a moment ago are gone, but I hear gunfire outside. I’m torn between looking for my healing stone to revive Walker and going outside to see if Nine needs help. I want to wake her up, force her to tell me where Sam and Sarah are, but I can’t leave Nine alone if he’s in trouble. I decide that Walker will keep – she’s clearly not going anywhere and I just have to hope she doesn’t die on me. I take the opportunity to stuff a Chest under each arm and run out. As soon as I emerge I see the officers running in the opposite direction. I don’t know what Nine did while I was in there getting to know my bracelet a little better, but they all look terrified.
‘Ah, Nine?’ I call over. ‘What exactly did you do to them?’
He smiles. ‘Just used my telekinesis to lift them all about thirty feet in the air. Then I offered them a choice: go higher or run away. I applaud the wisdom of their decision, don’t you?’
‘Looks like they made the right choice,’ I say.