Jacked (17 page)

“Yeah. Anyway, I saw you come bustin’ out the front with the little kid. I was going to follow you but the ones out front went pounding after you. There was no way I could beat them to the alley with the head start they had, so I cut down the street, figuring I’d pick you up on the far side.” Toby started laughing. “I ain’t never seen you run so fast. I couldn’t even dream of catchin’ you. You came flying out into the next street—scared the crap out of that guy driving that big old car, the kid right there with you, too. I cut to the next street, thinking I’d catch you there but you never came out.” He turned to One Shoe. “I was looking for a safe place to settle in for the night when Oso came up on me.”

“I’m glad they didn’t catch you,” Tar said.

Toby shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry, Tar. You’re my book and I didn’t do anything to get you out of that jail. I should’ve done something.”

One Shoe blew his lips. “Like what, kid? Take on the Shirts by yourself? You could’ve gone for help, if you had anybody to go to, but then you would’ve missed him and Jimmy bustin’ out.” The Moene leader punched his finger down on the table top, punctuating each word. “You never leave one of your own behind. Sometimes that means tough choices. Your best chance was to wait for the right time, and then do whatever you could to help when the chance came. You did all right or Oso wouldn’t have gone so easy on you.”

Toby touched the growing black mark under his eye.

One Shoe turned to Tar. “You still want to try to find the other fixers? Or you want help getting up into the mountains?”

Tar glanced at Toby and the other boy just shrugged. Tar realized this was his decision. “I need to find them. They might need help.”

“Okay.” One Shoe tapped his fingers on the table again. “You know where you’re goin’ first?”

“Winchester Street was the closest. We’re going to start there.”

The gang leader clicked his tongue and twisted his head to the side.

“That’s outside Moene territory. I can’t get you all the way there.” He stood up and stretched his arms high before looking down at the boys. “But I got a couple of ideas. You guys look juiced out. Get some sleep. In the morning I’ll tell you what I got in mind.”

Chapter 22

Little more than an hour past dawn, Tar and Toby followed a group of Moenes out the front door of the Galley. The boys held blankets over their heads and quickly moved to a car at the curb, gang members flanking them to protect them from curious eyes. But the battered vehicle was the real attention-getter, painted yellow with crisscrossing black stripes and a faded poster of a half-dressed woman on the roof.

Tar leaped across the backseat so Toby could follow him in the door when a rotten stench mixed with exhaust fumes swam into his nose, drifting up through the hole in the floorboard on the passenger side. Tar and Toby both started coughing but Oso just laughed as he plopped down beside them.

“Don’t worry,
amigos
,” he said. “It’ll clear once we start moving.”

About a half dozen Moenes piled onto the trunk of the car, each one bouncing the back end lower until Tar was sure he felt it hit the road. Jimmy squeezed into the middle of the front seat before One Shoe sat down beside him and signaled to the driver to take off.

Tar stared out the window as they pulled away from the building. He could only remember being in a car once before when Mr. Coppen had taken him along to pick up equipment to repair one of the heating units in the apartment building. Now, just in the past few days, he had ridden in two vehicles. He tried not to think about the fact that both times he had needed to hide as a part of the ride. He looked at Toby and saw his friend gawking at the surroundings while wearing a grin.

They drove down street after street, and Tar stared at the buildings. Some structures still looked relatively clean, seemingly ready for their owners to move right back in. Tar knew, however, that daylight had not illuminated their boarded-up interiors since The Crash. Yet other buildings were on the verge of collapse. Oddly enough, these were the ones with people moving in and out. Tar decided it was the people, not the elements, who wore these sad structures down, taking whatever they needed as they moved through life and on down the road.

They drove past dozens of side streets. Some were wide open asphalt paths, leading off to some distant neighborhood, other buildings, and other people. Some streets were jammed full of empty cars and trucks, reflecting the morning sunlight, abandoned and ownerless. These were the newer vehicles, the ones that used to talk to the air. When The Crash came they went into their own sort of hard boot.

That was why they rode in a smelly old car with the street zipping by under his feet through a hole in the floor. It was too old to have tech so it had survived The Crash and fired back to life, useful once more, as long as the driver could afford gas.

One Shoe waved a hand to the driver and pointed. They turned a slow semi-circle in the street and stopped by the curb. Tar was surprised when the back of the car suddenly bounced up in the air. He turned and saw the Moenes had hopped off the trunk.

One Shoe opened the car door. “Wait here. You, too, Pup,” he said to his brother, who had slid away from the middle of the seat. Jimmy made a disappointed sound but sat still.

The gang members walked to the closest side street and One Shoe began gesturing with his hands as he spoke. A short Moene with purple and green hair walked over to a dented blue BMW on their right and pulled a huge set of keys from his jacket pocket. He tried a couple in the door and finally hit pay dirt on the third attempt. Without hesitating he hopped inside. The other Moenes walked to the front of the car and pushed it out into the street, moving it close to the curb.

Tar had no idea what One Shoe had in mind but he watched in fascination as the Moene with the keys moved to the next car in line. This one was a deep red color that still sparkled in the sun.

He and Toby both jumped when a metallic clunk came from behind them. Most of the gang members had moved to the back of the car and raised the trunk, blocking whatever they were doing from view. A few seconds later a pair of Moenes walked by carrying an oblong, silver and black box between them. They went to the red car where the purple-and-green haired Moene had raised the hood and the duo placed their box inside. They carried six of the boxes in multiple trips. Each time One Shoe leaned over the quarter panel his upper body disappearing into the front area of the car. Finally, he gestured toward the boys and they wasted no time opening the doors and walking toward the gang leader.

“Here’s your surprise,” One Shoe said to Tar. “Can you fix it?”

Tar leaned one way and then the other, his eyes never leaving the red paint on the car. “I can try,” he answered. “Does it have any gas?”

One Shoe laughed. “Doesn’t need it. It runs on tricity. We juiced those batteries last night.”

Tar stepped up beside the car. “Electrol,” he said before looking up. “What’s a Coupe 3.0?”

One Shoe leaned back against the nearest car and shrugged.

Tar looked back down and reached out, his fingers trembling until they caressed the side of the vehicle. Nothing happened. “I don’t feel anything.”

“There’s a black metal box in the front with the batteries,” One Shoe said. “Jung always swore that was the brains, the tech. Try that.”

Tar nodded and leaned into the front like he had seen One Shoe do. This time, as soon as his skin touched the box the tingle climbed up his arms to his head.

Right away Tar was surprised. He had expected the car to be overwhelming, crushing his mind between layers upon layers of pathways and tech. Instead, the machine was easy to navigate, making his way without effort through the long maze of lights and alleys. Sure, he ran into one big ball of twisted paths and dead ends. He even found another area where the light wanted to disappear beneath the black of the unused halls. But overall it was not even as hard to fix as Jahn’s app.

He opened his eyes, ready to say how easy the work had been, but then he noticed the sun overhead and Oso snoring where he lay on the hood of a nearby car. Even Toby and Jimmy were sitting in the shade of an unused doorway.

“How long?” Tar asked.

“How long you been bangin’ on it?” One Shoe asked. “I don’t know, maybe two hours. You was humming for a while and you kept moving your head back and forth but your friend said that’s how it worked so we let you keep at it.”

One Shoe slid in behind the steering wheel. He placed a key in the dashboard and reached down for the double-barred shift in the middle of the console. With a wink he pulled back.

The tires scrunched against the street, old and stiff with the movement. A squeak drifted out from one of the wheels. Otherwise the car was silent—no engine, no rumble of exhaust. It backed out into the street with One Shoe grinning like a madman.

“Chilly,” Oso said from behind Tar.

One Shoe stopped the car and hopped out. “You did it, man! It’s app again!”

“How far will the batteries take you?” Tar asked.

“I don’t know. But it’s not for me. It’s for you. It will be safer for you to travel with this instead of hoofing it.” He laughed. “I bet it’ll even outrace the Shirts on their horses.”

“Really?” asked Toby. “It’s for us?”

“I don’t know what to say,” said Tar.

One Shoe put his arm around Jimmy’s narrow shoulders. “You don’t have to say nothin’. We take care of our own.” He glanced down at his brother, then looked back up. “And we take care of those who help us. Oso.”

The big gang member slid off the car hood and walked over to the boys. Oso held a blue and orange bandana in each hand. He offered them to Tar and Toby.

“You’re part of the Moenes now,” One Shoe said.

Oso laughed and slapped Toby on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger a step, which just made the big Moene laugh even harder.

#

Tar waved as they pulled away from One Shoe and the other Moenes. For the last hour he and Toby had practiced driving. At one point Tar accidentally drove up onto the curb as he spun the car around, the wheels squealing. That was when they decided Toby would drive. After that, the gang members led them to the Junipero Serra, a wide multi-laned road that stretched out in front of them, empty except for abandoned cars here and there along the sides.

Long after the Moenes were out of sight Tar stared out the window through red eyes, buildings and cars going by half-seen. For the first time since Jimmy had led him through the back door at The Galley he realized he and Toby were back on their own, unprotected, and it scared him.

“I’m gonna miss them,” Toby said.

“You might get to go back someday.”

“Yeah.”

They were quiet for a long time as Toby drove slowly down the highway. They could have gone faster but One Shoe had warned them not to go so fast they called attention to themselves, something that would probably happen anyway if the Black Shirts caught sight of their silent and shiny red car.

Late in the day Tar saw the sign for Winchester Boulevard. “It’s coming up,” he said.

“I see it.”

Toby eased the Electrol onto the exit ramp and jerked to a stop. He moved forward a little and peered up and down Winchester. “Which way?”

Tar looked left and right. He had never been to this part of town. It looked foreign with its shorter buildings and stands of trees. “Go right. It looks like there’s more houses that way.”

Toby spun the wheel and they drove for a few blocks, seeing a few people gathered in small groups around houses and buildings. They drew several glances but that was all the reaction they received.

“They don’t look all that surprised to see a car on the street,” said Tar.

“No, they don’t. What’s the number we’re looking for?”

Tar grabbed his backpack off the floor and rummaged through the side pocket. He found the folded piece of paper and brought it out. “525 South Winchester Boulevard,” he read, stumbling a little over the words. It had always made him nervous to read out loud, even with kindly Mrs. Schumacher.

Toby slowed their vehicle to a crawl and stared at the passing homes. “We’re going the wrong way. The numbers are getting bigger.”

“We better go back,” Tar said. “Don’t ya think?”

Toby twisted the wheel and the car turned in a slow arc until they headed back the other direction. They watched the numbers go down, lips moving silently as they counted while the tires crunched over small rocks in the street. They were moving only about as fast as a man could jog, adding to the sense of a long, drawn out search. They were both staring so intently they jumped when another car roared up from behind and whizzed by on their left, belching black smoke from its exhaust. The other driver stared at the boys as he went by, his eyes opening wide when he saw who was in the red car.

“This is a bad idea,” said Tar.

Toby continued to stare straight ahead, his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel. “We’re almost there. Tell me if you see it.”

Directly ahead of them a concrete and metal bridge passed over the street. Tar realized it was the Junipero Serra, the highway holding a silent vigil over the surrounding area. He glanced at Toby, the sweat standing out on his forehead, but his friend never hesitated, steering them directly into the shadows underneath and back out into the sunshine on the far side.

“I don’t like that,” Tar said.

“I don’t like a whole bunch about what’s happenin’,” said Toby. “But we come too far now. Gotta keep pinging.”

Tar nodded and stared down the right side of the street. Two and three-story buildings were mixed in with store fronts. It only took a minute to see the problem. “Toby, these are all even numbers,” he said. “542, 540, 538A, 538B….”

“Maybe the odds are over here. Look on my side.”

Tar scooted toward the middle of the seat, leaning over the partition that rose up from the floor of the car. He stared past his friend’s face and through the glass beside him.

“You’re right! 533, 531…” Tar stopped. No more buildings stood out along the road and the area opened into a lot with only one building. The wooden structure was a massive collection of disjointed additions topped by a red roof. Palm trees and grass surrounded the house and a ten-foot high chain link fence with barbed wire around the top encircled it, every few feet a yellow and black sign marked with what looked like a lightning bolt hanging at eye height. Tar had no idea what that meant but it did not look inviting.