The Gifted (17 page)

“Kids, why don’t you see if you can get
anything off of these computers,” Brock said.

“No problem,” I said. I took Hayasa with me
to a computer and turned it on. Everything was fine until I got to
a password screen. “These are old,” I said. “They still use
passwords.”

Meanwhile the other men and Guido were
checking the filing cabinets. This lasted a few minutes, and
everyone was silent. I kept expecting some enemy to barge in with
guns or powers.

“Interesting,” said Brock.

“What is it, Brock?” Tracy said.

“Well, it’s not my best side.” He showed us a
file that had his name on it. It had a picture of him and several
pages of notes. “It looks like they’ve been spying on us. Here they
have where I grew up, what I did at the facility and even how long
I worked out each night. They even have marked down how often I
used the bathroom. Tuesday I must have been dehydrated. Any luck
there with the computers?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Not here,” said Tracy.

“No,” said Han.

We kept trying computers and they kept going
through files. One of the soldiers said, “Hey, check this out!”

He held up a file and showed Brock.
“Interesting,” said Brock. Then he brought it over to me. It was a
file with my face on it. Then they brought out one for Tracy and
then Han. The only one who didn’t have a file was Guido. No
surprise there. They probably didn’t know he existed.

We got back to work. Another couple minutes
went by and no one came to stop us. Hayasa had just laid down at my
feet when Han said, “Got it.”

“What is it?” said Brock.

“I got in,” said, Han. “They used an easy
password.”

“What was it?” said Brock.

“Password,” said Han.

I laughed. “Of course. I wonder if that will
work on mine.” I gave it a try, no luck.

“Give me a minute,” said Han. “I’ll tell you
when I find anything.”

“You do that,” said Brock.

“More files with faces we all know,” said a
man from the back. “They must have a lot of spies back home.”

“Or one really good one,” said Brock.

“Another soldier spoke up, “Huh? Wait, that’s
impossible. No, I get it. Brock, you have to see this.”

Brock approached the man, “McGregor, what it
is?”

“Check this out,” he said.

Brock checked out the open folder and nodded
his head. Then he said, “Hard to believe, but I guess it makes
sense.”

“Okay men, things have changed,” said Brock.
“We have a traitor, and evidently a spy.”

“Who is it?” said some men at once.

“It’s the general,” said Brock. It was an
email to Abe from General Garcia, giving the location of Tracy and
her discovered ability. He showed me, but didn’t show Tracy. “This
is not good,” said Brock.

“What are we going to do?” said one of the
other men.

“One thing at a time,” said Brock. “We only
do one thing at a time.”

There were more pictures of men from the
facility in the files. Many of the men found pictures of each
other. Something about finding a folder with your face on it makes
you worry more.

For a few minutes we all pondered these
things quietly, the only sound coming from filing cabinet drawers
opening and closing. Tracy and I finished trying all the computers
and found that we could not get into any of them. We went over to
the filing cabinets and started working on those.

“Brock?” said Han quietly. He waved him
over.

Several of us headed over to where Han was,
but Han yelled, “No, just Brock!” This was shocking, because Han
never yelled. We left him alone.

Brock stepped over to Han. “What is it? Is
that what I think it is? Show me the next screen.”

Everyone was dead silent in the room
listening. “This is trouble,” said Brock. “Where did they put
it?”

No one answered, since no one knew what he
was talking about.

Brock stood up and stretched. “It’s been a
tough day,” he said. “You’ve all done very well and we’ve covered a
lot in one day. You should all be very pleased. By the way, I hope
you all have good life insurance.”

What was he talking about?

He continued, “It is a beautiful island
though, isn’t it? And we saw some of the craziest things. I mean,
that bull thing was tremendous, wasn’t it?”

What was up with Brock? I heard a couple of
soldiers whispering to each other.

Then one of the men spoke up, “What is it,
Captain?”

One of the younger men said, “Captain?” He
sounded worried.

Brock took a deep breath and sighed, “Well,
gentlemen. On this island somewhere. . .” He stopped talking as if
he couldn’t get the words out. He just stared into space.

“Yes Captain?” said the young man in a high
voice.

“We. . .we.” Then he shook his head twice,
looked up to the sky, and hit his forehead with an audible “whap.”
Then, standing up straighter, he announced, “Gentlemen, we’ve got a
nuke.”

“What’s a nuke,” I asked.

Guido touched my arm. “You ever see an old
movie where a plane drops a bomb?

“Yeah,” I said.

“Imagine a bomb that can wipe out a whole
city; just that one bomb!”

“Whoa,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Guido, “whoa.”

“How are we going to stop it?” said one of
the men. “The nuke, how are we going to stop it?”

Brock was staring at the wall unblinking.
“Stop it,” he said, not even looking at the speaker. “Stop a
nuke.”

I spoke up, “Does the file on the computer
say anything about it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I have no idea. I
have no idea about any of this.” Brock just stared into space.

“We can take it,” said another man. “Come on,
we can do it!”

“There’s something else you should know,”
said Brock. “Han, tell them the name of the folder where you found
that document.”

“It was in a folder called Operation Nuke
America,” said Han. “The nuclear weapon is named
The New York
Special
.”

“They’re gonna get New York?” some guy with a
high voice said in the crowd.

“Can’t we shoot it out of the sky?” I said.
“We have weapons for that, don’t we?”

The soldier closest to Brock said, “But
Captain, our anti-nuke weapons have been decommissioned for years.
No one has a nuke program anymore.”

“That’s right,” said Brock.

“You mean they have a nuke that we can’t
stop?” I said.

“That’s right,” said Brock. “All nuke
programs were shut down as part of U.N. Peace Initiative 151. You
only hear about them in history books and by those who worked with
them. So, you know what we’re going to do?” he said.

“What?” said one of the men.

“Take out that nuke,” said Brock. “But I
don’t expect we’ll survive this one.”

Silence.

“D-do you know where?” Tracy said in a small
voice.

“Somewhere underground,” said Brock. “It has
to be somewhere underground. Have you seen anything underneath this
training facility?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was hoping not to go back
there. There is lava and a dragon and it’s horrible what the dragon
says.”

“Ahhhhh!” said Brock, “Anyone know what that
meant?”

“Yeah,” said Tracy. “Follow me.”

Tracy led the way and as she did so I
realized why she was leading again. She had the best sense of
direction of all of us. I had been there too, but I didn’t remember
how we got there. Tracy was a natural with directions. Maybe that’s
what leadership is, finding the right person for the job, even if
they don’t know it yet.

We ran through the corridors again, this time
with no one stopping us. Hayasa ran next to me, just like a normal
dog for a while and then zoomed ahead and came back in a
streak.

I had wondered what happened to our enemies,
but then again, we had hurt or tied up a number of them so maybe
they were scared to face us now. I hoped that was the case
anyway.

Tracy ran ahead making right and left turns
until we were right back at the dungeon where we started. This time
she went down the same sloping hallway we had gone down earlier. We
came to the door with the scratches on the other side. Once
through, a soldier said, “What happened to this door?” He was
staring at the scratches.

“When did that get there?” asked Guido from
somewhere to my left.

“It was always there,” I said trying to avoid
eye contact. “I didn’t want to scare you, so, I didn’t mention
it.”

“Great,” said Tracy. “Anything else you
failed to mention?”

“Not that I can think of,” I said. “Let’s go,
we’ve got a nuke to catch.”

“We’re nuts!” said Guido.”

“Evidently,” I said.

We followed the same path we had in our
earlier adventures. The only difference was that this time we knew
what we were up against. When we got to the part of the tunnel that
was dark, a few soldiers took out flashlights. That made it
easier.

At one point Tracy said, “Brock, can I talk
with Andy, Guido, and Han for a minute before going on?”

“Talk away,” he said. “But be quick, I don’t
know when we might be pursued again.”

Tracy took us aside and whispered, “Okay, so
far this is the way we went, but up ahead is the dragon. We know
that after the dragon, the path only leads out through the
mountain, so that cannot be the way. There must be another
way.”

“If there is, we never saw it,” I said.
“There was only the path we took.”

“Not quite, Andy?” said Guido. “I took a
different path at first but you didn’t notice me do it. Look behind
you.”

We turned around and saw a section where we
could not clearly see the wall. This was because there was no wall.
“It was there all the time,” said Guido. “I saw it as we ran past
the first time, but we were running out of light and so I didn’t
say anything.”

“Good going, Guido,” I said.

“Sometimes being practically invisible has
advantages,” he said. “I tend to see things others just pass
by.”

We motioned for the soldiers and Brock to
follow us and we all walked down the new tunnel. It was dark, so
men with flashlights came to the front.

This went on for some ways. Eventually, the
walls, which had been solid rock, turned to cement. “I hope that
means we’re headed in the right direction,” said Tracy.

“Me too,” said Brock.

After a few minutes the tunnel got brighter.
There were fluorescent lights up ahead like the other parts of the
cave we had seen before. Suddenly, the cave stopped. At the end
there was just a cement wall. There seemed to be no way
through.

“Well,” said Tracy, “it looks solid enough.
Maybe we have to go back!”

“Wait a minute,” said Brock. “Why would they
spend the extra effort to put lights all the way through this part
of the tunnel if all it did was come to a dead end? That doesn’t
make sense.” He rubbed his chin. “No, there must be something here,
something hidden, and we have to find it. Everyone search for a way
in. There must be a knob, or hidden lever—something.”

All the men started feeling around the wall.
This went on for several minutes until it seemed that we must have
felt every part of the walls and even the lower parts of the
ceiling. Then we started checking the floor. We couldn’t find
anything.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t look like
there is anything here.”

“How about at the beginning of this tunnel?”
said Tracy. “Maybe there’s something there.”

“Okay,” said Brock. “We’ll give it a
try.”

We all headed back through the tunnel until
it became stone again, and then back to the beginning of that
branch of tunnel. “Okay,” said Tracy, “let’s check here.”

So we did. We looked high and low. We checked
for levers and knobs. We looked for trip wires and special places
to step that might open a door. Finally we ran out of ideas.

“Okay, men. Break!” said Brock. We were all
frustrated and tired. We sat down. I had forgotten how tired I had
been. We must have run miles since our jailbreak.

Hayasa laid down and panted quietly at my
feet.

Some men brought out snacks. Military
rations. “Here, want some?” said a man with a boyish face next to
me. “My name’s Harry,” he said. “Don’t name any kids after me
though. I got teased a lot growing up.” I laughed.

He offered me something in the shape of a
brick. I didn’t know what it was, but I was hungry. It was heavy
and a bit sticky. I tried a bite and it was good and sweet, and a
bit chewy. “Thanks, Harry,” I said. “This is good!”

“Fruitcake, military style,” he said. “Most
people don’t like it, but for me, it’s one of my favorites.”

“So how long have you been in the service?” I
asked.

“About four years,” he said. “I’m almost done
with active duty though. If I get through this alive, I’ll probably
give it up.”

“What’s your plan after that?” I said.

“I think I’ll go into teaching,” he said. “I
like the idea of a teaching life. I have kids of my own and I like
to teach them. I’m especially good at math.”

Guido interrupted, “If you were to hide a
lever or switch in a tunnel like this, where would you hide
it?”

“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out
the whole time,” I said. I was upset and tired. I stroked Hayasa,
more of a comfort to me than to him.

Harry was silently eating something out of a
bag.

Guido started up again, “You would put it
someplace you could find it, but no obvious place. You don’t want
anyone else in unless they belong.”

“Right,” said Han. “But where?” After a
pause, Han said again, “Where things don’t all look the same.”

Then Han and I looked at each other, “Where
rock meets cement!” he said.

At this, everyone stirred. Brock came over to
me and said, “What’s going on?”

“Brock,” I said, “We have an idea, but let’s
not get everyone’s hopes up. Can I borrow a flashlight?”