Pursued Read online

Chapter Four

  AXEL

  Axel dropped his hot dog on the sidewalk and took off down the street.

  “Get him!” he heard one of the Pursuers shout, only the accent made it sound more like “Geet heem!”

  “The endless sprint,” Axel huffed to himself as he ran. His life for the past six months had been one endless race—Daisha and him against the Pursuers. The Doctor’s men would never stop chasing them, and he and Daisha would never stop running from them.

  All because of the earth-shattering scientific breakthrough his dad and Daisha’s mom had stumbled upon in a messy lab tucked into the basement of Stanford University’s Varian Physics Building.

  “Watch where you’re going, jerk!” a portly man wearing a gray suit barked as Axel came within millimeters of plowing into him.

  “Sorry,” Axel mumbled and took a quick glance over his shoulder.

  The Pursuers were less than twenty yards away, charging in his direction. He ran faster, his backpack bouncing up and down on his shoulders. The pack slowed him down, but he couldn’t drop it. Everything he owned was inside—changes of clothes, extra shoes, US passport, and a 10 GB flash drive filled with family photos.

  “Stop him!” one of the Pursuers shouted at passersby. “He stole from me! Thief!”

  Throngs of people stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, gawking at the sudden commotion. Axel ran past them and saw a tall woman with short blond hair hurry down a set of stairs leading to the subway. He followed right behind her. A rush of dank, stale-smelling air hit him in the face as he ran down a long corridor. Loud footsteps coming from behind him meant the Pursuers were close.

  Gates and turnstiles blocked the end of the underground hallway. Axel saw a row of ATM-looking machines selling something called a MetroCard. Commuters swiped the card and passed through the turnstiles. Axel didn’t have time to buy a card and follow the rules. Without a moment of hesitation, he leaped over the turnstile and ran down the dimly lit platform.

  Dozens of people were standing behind a wide yellow line. Some played with their phones or stared at reading devices; others glanced impatiently down the dark train tunnel, waiting for their next connection. Axel looked too. He saw a distant set of headlights rumbling down the tracks.

  A woman’s loud gasp made him look up. He saw that one of the Pursuers had knocked over an old lady as he was clumsily climbing over the turnstiles without paying. A crowd of concerned citizens rushed to help her. Three young men came at the Pursuers, yelling at them to apologize. The tall Pursuer closed his fists and punched two of the men square in the face. The shorter, heavier Pursuer yanked a handgun from his jacket pocket and pistol-whipped the other one.

  Frightened screams echoed down the platform at the sight of a gun. People ducked for cover. Parents clutched children close; others dialed cell phones, presumably calling 911. Axel hid behind a large steel support beam at the end of the platform. His pulse raced as the subway train’s headlights grew closer, but they were still far from the station.

  “Has anyone seen a boy with long, curly brown hair wearing a backpack?” one of the Pursuers asked the crowd.

  “We know he’s here somewhere,” said the other.

  Axel peeked around the support beam and saw a trembling bald man with thick glasses point in his direction.

  “That’s the kid you want,” the bald guy said. “He’s at the end of the platform.”

  As the Pursuers ran toward him, the train tore into the stop. A loud ding-dong sounded, the train doors opened wide, and crowds of unsuspecting people poured out.

  A computerized-sounding female voice rang out from an intercom, “This is Twenty-Third Street. Transfer available to…”

  Axel didn’t hear what she said next. He took advantage of the bustle and jumped into the subway car. The Pursuers pushed past the crowd and ran toward Axel, wicked smiles plastered across their faces. As they closed in on him, another computerized voice blurted out, “Watch the closing doors, please.”

  There was another ding-dong sound. The subway doors began to shut, but not before the shorter Pursuer managed to stick his pistol-laden hand between the closing doors. The train lurched forward, sending Axel tumbling to the floor.

  The train slowly rolled out of the station with the Pursuer’s hand still stuck between the doors. A look of panic washed across the Pursuer’s face. He ran alongside the train, desperately trying to yank his hand free. His gun fired wildly in Axel’s direction. The bullets shattered windows and pierced holes in the seats. They came so close to hitting Axel that he could hear the bullets fly by his ear.

  Finally the Pursuer wriggled his hand free from the subway doors and fell back onto the platform. The train whizzed out the station and into the dark depths of the tunnel.

  Chapter Five

  DAISHA

  Daisha had more in common with an antelope than just her running ability. Her last name—Tandala—was the Swahili word for antelope in her deceased father’s native Kenya. She needed every bit of her namesake’s strength to outdistance the Pursuers who were closing in fast.

  “Don’t make me shoot!” one of the Pursuers shouted.

  The cornfield gave way to a pitted dirt road snaked with tractor wheel tracks. She bounded across the road, heading for the woods and the path the boy had told her about. A gunshot blasted over her head. The bullet struck a low-hanging tree branch and sprayed wood chips into her eyes, temporarily blinding her. Daisha stumbled into the weeds and crumpled to the ground.

  “You hit her!” she heard one of the Pursuers say. “Doctor Stain wanted her alive if possible.”

  “Well, in this case,” said the other, “it was not possible.”

  Daisha gently wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. Her vision was blurry, but she could see the well-worn path described by the boy. She jumped to her feet and started running again. The Pursuers had gained on her because of the fall. They were now less than fifteen yards behind.

  “Stop!” a Pursuer barked. “Or I’ll shoot again!”

  Although the boy had described the natural bridge over the creek as a fallen tree, it was really more like a large, lightning-struck limb. Daisha placed her right foot on the bridge, which was no wider than her sneaker. She clutched her satchel and placed her left foot on the limb. The Pursuers were racing toward her with guns drawn.

  “Right foot, left foot, right foot, left…” she chanted, tightroping her way across the bridge to the creek bank on the other side.

  The Pursuers fired a round of bullets at her from the opposite side of the creek, but all missed their mark. Daisha ducked behind a tree, gasping for breath. She watched as the two Pursuers attempted to scurry over the bridge. The first one took four tentative steps before tumbling into the muddy water. The other one made it slightly farther, but he, too, quickly lost his balance. A round of loud cursing from the Pursuers echoed through the woods.

  “I hope the leeches suck out every last drop of your blood!” Daisha shouted at them.

  “We’re going to suck your blood!” a Pursuer hollered back.

  Daisha picked up a rock, hurled it at them, and then raced down the path. The woods soon gave way to an expansive grassy lawn. A large sign read Welcome to the Mount Vernon Water Park. She saw a huge yellow waterslide, two Olympic-sized pools, and a spray park for little kids. Swimmers packed the place. Shouts and squeals reverberated around the pool. Kids and adults screamed happily as they slid down the waterslide and splashed into the deep water. She scanned the crowd carefully, hoping someone she didn’t know would walk over to her and say, “You must be Daisha. I’m Magnes Solace, and I believe you have something for me.”

  But Daisha had no time for such fantasies. She turned and saw the two sopping-wet Pursuers emerge from the woods. They saw her standing next to the fence surrounding the pool and continued the chase.

  “This is my horrible life,” she said to herself after quickly tightening her shoelaces. “Run, hide, run, hide, get shot at, and run some more.” />
  The GeoPort in her front pocket buzzed as the Pursuers zeroed in on her location with the tracking device. She took a deep breath and started running again, this time a loping jog to try to conserve energy. Tears welled in her eyes as she moved across a busy road and into a residential area of small houses. She wasn’t crying for herself, but for her mother, Axel’s father, and even Axel.

  Axel was the only one on the entire planet who could make her feel better, but he was who-knew-where and she was here. The Warp took twenty-four hours to reset. That meant she would have to flee from the Pursuers for a whole day before she could punch another set of coordinates into the GeoPort and get out of Ohio.

  The cat-and-mouse game with the Pursuers lasted for the rest of the day and into the early evening. The chase took her through neighborhoods, school athletic fields, and dinky downtown Mount Vernon, and into the outskirts of town with acres of cornfields. Only when the sun went down did Daisha feel safe. The solar trackers were useless in the dark, but to give herself distance from the Pursuers for the next morning’s inevitable chase, Daisha continued to walk until the moon was high in the sky.

  “It’s got to be midnight,” Daisha said, then plopped down at the base of a large tree. Every fiber of muscle in her body ached with exhaustion. She fumbled around in her satchel and found a bottle of water and a half-eaten chocolate Clif Bar. As she ate, her thoughts drifted back to life before GeoPorts, Satellite Warps, and the Doctor. A smile came to her face as she remembered the family bungalow in the University South section of Palo Alto. Her mother and Axel’s father were colleagues and best friends. One of Daisha’s earliest memories was of playing with Axel at Centennial Fountain in front of the Green Library. The space was a whispering gallery, which meant the two of them could stand on different sides of the fountain and hear each other’s every word even though they were far apart.

  “I wish we could do that now, Axel,” Daisha whispered softly to herself. The coordinates she had committed to memory flashed in her mind.

  37.4302° N, 122.1288° W

  Her eyelids grew heavy, and she drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  AXEL

  The last words his father and Daisha’s mother ever spoke echoed in Axel’s mind.

  The Doctor wants to use them for very bad things, but you two can’t let him. Take them to Magnes Solace! his father had cried.

  Only the electron diffusion region can destroy them, Daisha’s mother whispered. The coordinates are Latitude 23.1483…

  Before Daisha’s mother could finish the coordinates, gunfire tore through the trees. Axel and Daisha had watched in horror as bullets mortally wounded their parents. They’d looked up and seen six men rushing toward them. One of the men aimed his gun directly at them.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Daisha had screamed. “They’re going to shoot us too!”

  With a push of a button, Axel and Daisha were gone. There was nothing left of them but a puff of white smoke and a blast of electrical discharge.

  The jostle of the train knocked Axel back to the present. He sat up straight and rubbed his tired eyes. The Doctor his father had referred to was Doctor Lennon Hatch, the zillionaire who’d funded their parents’ work. He and Daisha also knew that what the Doctor craved so desperately was now in their hands. This was why the man had killed their parents and wouldn’t stop until they were dead too. But Axel had made a promise to his father that day. He was going to figure out where to find this Magnes Solace person and destroy the GeoPorts.

  But the mystery of Magnes Solace was a puzzle Axel and Daisha had yet to solve.

  “Twenty-four hours,” Axel muttered as the subway train sped down the tracks.

  He glanced down at his GeoPort. Actually, the time was down to only twenty-one hours and forty-seven minutes before the Warp reset and he could punch in the coordinates to get out of New York City.

  But where would he go?

  He and Daisha had made an emergency contingency plan in case of separation. They would meet back at the Hoover Park Dog Run, where their journey had begun. He had memorized the coordinates by heart.

  37.4302° N, 122.1288° W

  Home.

  And when the two hooked up again, they’d walk to their favorite restaurant, Ammar’s Hummus Shop. Axel would order a side of falafel and a big plate of chicken skewers and wash it all down with a glass of cold lemonade.

  His stomach growled just thinking of food. He’d spent the last of his money on the hot dog and didn’t even have a chance to enjoy a single bite.

  “One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street,” a male voice announced from the subway intercom. “Watch the closing doors.”

  Hordes of people came and went as the train wound its way around the city. Axel rode the rails for the next few hours, hopping on a different train every couple stops, avoiding the Pursuers. As he rode, he cupped the GeoPort between his hands, feeling its warm and steady rhythmic hum. The little device was like holding a cyborg’s beating heart. His father and Daisha’s mother had invented the world’s most advanced technological organ. But instead of pumping synthetic blood to give physiological life to a mechanical person, this heart transported a real human being to any place on Earth with the press of a button.

  The GeoPort’s concept was actually very simple. But learning how to manipulate the device was a lot of trial and error. The device worked like those simple hand-held GPS units he had used in Boy Scouts for geocaching. But when he and Daisha punched in latitude and longitude coordinates, instead of just showing them how to get to a location, the GeoPort plopped them there in a matter of seconds.

  Unfortunately, sometimes those latitude and longitude coordinates included bodies of water. One of the first times he and Daisha had used the GeoPorts, they’d learned that wet lesson the hard way. They had carelessly typed out a set of random coordinates without first investigating their destination. The Warp transported them from the frenetic French Quarter in New Orleans directly into a crocodile-infested swamp deep in the Australian bush. The two of them had spent hours clinging to tree branches just out of reach of several hungry, man-eating reptiles. Thankfully, a local crab fisherman eventually boated past and rescued them.

  Insights about the GeoPort came fast and furious after that. They learned that the devices needed twenty-four hours to reset and had highly sophisticated DNA security encoding. The GeoPorts operated only with their specific DNA. When they touched the devices, a sensor scanned their skin cells. Wearing gloves was a big no-no when trying to turn on the GeoPort.

  The worst thing about the GeoPorts was how they had come to possess Axel and Daisha. After their parents’ frantic call to meet at the Hoover Park Dog Run, he and Daisha had only minutes to glean information on how to use the GeoPorts before the Doctor’s Pursuers shot their parents in cold blood.

  Don’t run from who you are.

  Aslan’s advice to Lucy in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader popped into Axel’s brain. He loved all the Narnia books and could recite whole passages from memory because he had read them so many times. He used to fantasize that flying through the Warp was like the Pevensie siblings stepping into the wardrobe and entering another world. After months of running from the Doctor, the comparison now felt shallow. Narnia was an imaginary world of made-up characters and places. The Warp was real. His personal White Witch was the Red-Faced Man. The Pursuers were his wolves, Black Dwarves, and Giants all rolled into one.

  Chapter Seven

  DAISHA

  As Daisha drifted deeper into sleep, images of the first time she had laid eyes on the Doctor a year before flooded her dreams. Her mother had been planning the dinner for a week. She was making her specialty: Jamaican jerk chicken served with coconut rice and peas and for dessert a scrumptious Caribbean black fruitcake.

  “I hope the cake is low sugar,” Daisha said, placing silverware on the dining room table. “The nurse at school said too much sugar is bad for you.”

  Her mother rolled her eyes. “A lit
tle sugar once in a while isn’t going to hurt anybody. How often do I make my fruitcake?”

  “Only for special occasions, like my birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving.”

  “And when I’m trying to impress my extremely wealthy research sponsor,” her mother interrupted. “Now, my dear solis, go put on that decorus vestio your avia sent from Port Royal.”

  “Speak English please!” Daisha protested.

  Her mother laughed. “Go put on the beautiful dress your grandmother sent you. I’ll have you speaking and understanding Latin before you’re a teenager, heaven help me.”

  Daisha rolled her eyes and went into her room to change. Her mother was always spouting about how the study of Latin trained the mind and made speaking different languages much easier. Daisha was starting to pick up on many of the words, but she refused to let her mother know.

  The dress was what her grandmother back in Jamaica called a traditional quadrille dress. Her mother simply called it a bandanna dress, and Daisha liked that name much better. The skirt was red, white, and maroon, and the dress came with ruffled sleeves. It was beautiful, but she refused to wear the head tie. She changed out of her T-shirt and shorts into the new outfit.

  “Ta-da!” Daisha announced, bursting from her room. She swished cheekily around the couch, nearly knocking over a table lamp.

  “Beautiful,” her mother said. “You look like a—”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Is it him?” Daisha asked.

  Her mother nodded and pulled her daughter into the kitchen. “I need to tell you something before I open the door,” she said. “His name is Doctor Lennon Hatch. Only he’s not a real doctor.”

  “Then why does he call himself one?”

  “Vanity, I guess. A university in Arizona gave him an honorary doctorate because he donated the money for a new building, but that’s not important. He has a very large birthmark on the side of his face that can be alarming at first.”