Kinetics: In Search of Willow (23 page)

"I'm pretty sure she has a thing for
you actually." I curled in tighter around myself. The cold aluminum
of the floor was beginning to sink into my bones.

"Me?" Harry laughed. "Dude, you have
no idea."

"Why?"

"Willow is great, and beautiful, but
not my type." Harry smiled.

"I thought everyone loved redheads." I
chuckled.

"Yeah, man... but… I kinda… play for
the other side." His face was full of amusement as he
spoke.

"Other side?" I blinked.

"Yeah, you know." His grin grew
wider.

"Oh. OH. You like guys?"

Harry nodded, his eyes full of
amusement.

"Sorry." I didn't know why I was
apologizing.

"Don't be. It's not a big deal. But
listen, when me and Willow hung out she talked about this guy she
liked. Aaaand I think she was talking about you." He nodded his
head toward me.

"She never said." I looked down at my
hands.

Harry shook his head. "You can't
expect her to know how any more than you did."

I curled in on myself a bit. "I'm
going to make it right, Harry. I'm going to save her and I'm going
to tell her I love her."

"I'm with you all the way, man." He
smiled and rested his head on the equipment behind him.

"Thanks." I laughed.

***

“
We’ve lost them for the
moment but we’ve figured out who the other kid is.”
Napoli said over the phone.

Jacob took his cellphone off his desk
and pushed the speaker phone button off. Best to not let anyone
listen in on this.

“
Send me a report later.
To the secured email.” He said.

“
Right,”
Napoli said. Jacob could hear the frustration in
his voice.

“
What is it now?” Jacob
asked.

“
Jake, this isn’t right.
There’s more going on than your kid brother wandering across the
states. This route they are following... Joe seems to
think--”

“
Nap, I understand your
concern, but right now is not the time. Find their trail again,
they can’t have gone far. I’ll meet up with you in a few days to go
over the plans for H-ville.”

“
Ok, but Jake, you owe me
big for this.”

“
Got it.”

Jacob hung up the phone and shook his
head. This all better be worth it.

CHAPTER 17

"As a Neutral, I don't
think it's right for either the Alliance or the Isiroans to
interfere in our lives. We want nothing to do with the war, so why
should either of them pay any attention to us? We only want to live
our lives in peace." 
~ Martha Macha
in an open letter to the Isiroans and the Alliance from the Council
of Neutral Kinetic Societies. 1992.

I was startled awake by a loud crash
and a bright light shining in my eyes. I pushed up back against the
farm equipment and saw Harry groggily looking at the source of the
light. A man was shining a light into the trailer and was glaring
at us.

"Step out! Get out here!" He shouted
at us.

We slid out from the equipment and
jumped out onto the ground. We were pulled off to the side of the
freeway. On one side was a stretch of fields off to the right. It
was almost dawn. We had been in the truck for a few hours
already.

"I told you, Bill, that lock looked
sketch." A second guy said.

"Shoulda said somethin' earlier!" the
first guy said.

"I did! You said I was drunk!" the
second guy said.

"Man, I can never tell with
you."

The two continued to bicker and Harry
caught my eye. He jerked his chin toward the wheat field off to the
right. I nodded.

Harry mouthed the
words: 
On three.

I nodded again.

One.

Two.

"Three!" We bolted toward the field
and enveloped ourselves in the prickly strands of wheat. I heard
them shouting behind us and heard their pursuit, but they were not
nearly as young or as athletic as Harry and I were. Harry pointed
in the direction of a rusty water tower surrounded by equipment. We
skidded behind some large barrels. I pressed my back to the barrel
and strained my ear for the sound of the two guys. I could hear
them off in the distance shouting at each other, but their voices
were receding.

Harry laughed and swung his backpack
around to set it in his lap. "Well, that was close."

"Yeah, let's not do that
again."

We waited until we heard the truck
pull off before coming out from behind the barrels. "Where are we
anyway?"

"Not sure. It's only 5:30 A.M. Hold
on." Harry tapped his phone and pulled up a map. "Let's get back to
the road. Maybe we can hitch a ride to the nearest
town."

"Hitchhiking again?"

"You got a better idea?"

"Not really."

Harry shrugged and led the way back
through the wheat field. For the next few miles people passed our
outstretched thumbs without stopping. I guess we didn't look like
the trustworthy type. We were covered in dirt and dust. Neither of
us had showered in at least a couple days, and now there were bits
of wheat I kept finding in my hair.

Harry's phone wasn't getting any
signal out here so he couldn't pull up the GPS and get us
directions. About three miles later we passed a sign that confirmed
we were in Oklahoma. From the mile markers and the signs we had to
be about 60 miles from our next destination.

It was a small town called Quinn just
off the freeway. I opened my phone but I was also getting no
signal. There was no chance of calling Nick right now.

"Do you remember what the town was
supposed to be?" I asked Harry.

"Not really. Though I do remember Nick
saying something about it being a town with a high population of
Kinetics. Wouldn't something like that stand out?"

We walked another four miles before
someone finally stopped and offered to drop us off at the nearest
town. Once there Harry took it upon himself to ask a bunch of
people if they could get us a ride to Quinn.

"No takers." Harry said after almost
two hours of wandering around the gas station.

I sat down on the edge of the sidewalk
around the gas station with a huff. "Well, maybe we ought to keep
walking."

"Uhg." Harry came and sat next to me.
"It's the middle of the day and I think we would probably die of
heat stroke."

"Hey guys." We turned and there were
two police officers coming up to us.

"We heard you guys have been looking
for rides." The first officer said.

"Got any ID?" the second
asked.

We pulled out the fakes that Nick had
given us.

They looked between the IDs and us for
a moment and then one stepped away to talk into his walkie. The one
who stayed with us smiled and said, "You guys far from
home?"

I exchanged a glance with Harry,
"Yeah, kinda."

"Where you headed?"

"Quinn."

The guy laughed. "That Podunk
town?"

Harry and I chuckled. I wasn't sure
exactly what we were laughing at though.

The second cop came over and talked to
the first in low tones. They looked at us and then handed us our
IDs.

"Florida IDs, huh? Far from home,
aren't ya?" The second guy asked.

"A bit." Harry replied. I could see
the gears in his head turning. He was trying to figure out how to
get out of this, I hoped.

"You guys can't just be asking for
rides around here." The first officer said.

"Yeah, where are your parents or
guardians?" The second one said.

"Uh…" A few lies passed through my
head but none of the preparing that Harry and I had done had
prepared us for this.

"Boys!" An unfamiliar voice called out
to us.

We turned and saw a woman coming
toward us. She looked between Harry and me like we were long lost
family.

-I'm sorry for the
intrusion. But act like I am your Aunt
Josephine!-
 a telepathic voice rang
through my head. It was coming from the woman. I hadn't ever felt a
telepathic voice besides Willow's before now and the sensation was
unsettling. It was like an alien had just left a message in my
brain. It didn't feel right.

Harry jumped at the same time but
acted faster to the telepathic voice than I did. "Aunt Josephine!
You found us!"

I kicked myself into gear a second
later. "Our cellphones are dead! We couldn't call you to tell you
we missed the bus."

‘
Aunt’ Josephine played
right along. "As soon as you didn't show, we knew something was
wrong. Oh, Officers, thank you for looking after my boys. We were
sure something had happened to them."

"It's alright, Ma'am. Just be sure
that next time you boys keep a full charge on your phones. We can't
have hitchhikers out here. It's not safe for them or
you."

She smiled at them.
"Thanks."

"Sorry," Harry said, grinning at the
two officers.

The cops walked back to their cars and
took off. Josephine patted our backs. "I overheard you boys are
headed to Quinn?"

"Yeah." We exchanged
glances.

"My husband and I live in Quinn, and I
would be glad to take you there."

"That would be awesome."

Quinn was one of the few openly
Isiroan towns. Nick had said it was mostly populated with elderly
people who were much too old to fight in the war
anymore.

Josephine and her husband, Theo, were
not terribly old, but still lived in the quiet little town.
Josephine was quick to tell us her life story, trusting us with a
transparency I had only witnessed in little kids.

She drove us to her place and offered
us dinner.

"My children have long left the nest
so it's always nice to see young Kinetics out and about in the
world. Did you know that it was once regular practice for young
Isiroans to travel the world at your age?"

That was another thing. Because we
were headed into Quinn she believed us to be Isiroans. Harry and I
were comfortable letting her believe whatever she wanted
to.

Theo was a little more cautious of us
and had a never ending list of questions.

"How long have you been
traveling?"

"A few days." I said.

"What are you kids in Quinn for?" Theo
had another question waiting as soon as I answered the
first.

"We're looking for information about
someone." Harry said, equally ready to answer any and all
questions.

"Who?"

"A man named Marcus Grey."

"Why?"

"He has something we need." I
interjected. I was less sure about this guy. He seemed a bit
shady.

"Marcus Grey was here not too long
ago." Theo watched us carefully. "He had a young girl and a woman
with him if I recall the gossip."

"That would be Willow." I
nodded.

"Mr. Grey stopped in only briefly,"
Theo said. "I believe he visited the little clinic on Tyson
Street."

Josephine chipped in. "He went to
visit his son."

"He has a son?" Harry asked in
surprise.

"As much as a vegetable can be a son,"
Theo shook his head.

"I want to go visit him." I
said.

The clinic was small. More of a
nursing home for the elderly, but Marcus Grey's 35 year old son lay
in a bed just as comatose as many of the other
residents.