The Temperature of Me and You, page 31
We dart out of the room, racing down the hall.
“Laboratory one,” Savanna says, pointing at a sign. “Keep going.”
We pass laboratory two, then slow to a jog. We approach the door for laboratory three cautiously. It’s partly ajar. I lean closer to the opening and hear a conversation. I put my finger to my lips. I push the door a little farther open. Then the three of us slither inside through the crack. We tiptoe down a short hallway, which eventually turns into a large open space. The ceiling must be four stories high. I peer around the corner of the wall. My eyes lock onto two figures. I jump back to shield myself. My breath catches in my throat.
“What’s wrong?” Savanna mouths.
“It’s her,” I whisper.
“Who?”
“Dr. Ivan.”
Savanna and Perry shake their heads. “We should leave,” Savanna says. She grabs my arm and pulls me to the door. “She’s obviously not trying to help you. She can’t be trusted. The police can handle this.”
“No. Not yet. We have to try. Jordan is counting on us.”
I look back at the scene. A man with gray-and-black hair is sitting at a desk. Dr. Ivan stands over him. Her hands are on her hips. I was so focused on her that my mind didn’t register the long, oval face and thin, skeletal frame of the man. It’s him. The one who’s been following me. Why didn’t he leave for Falcon with the others when we got here?
A glass chamber, just like the one at Dr. Ivan’s office, is built across from them. It’s empty inside.
“What would you like me to do, Pete?” Dr. Ivan says to the man. Her face is tight. “He’s not going to come tomorrow like he is supposed to, and I certainly can’t kidnap a kid.” She throws her hands into the air and then rubs her forehead.
“You have to find a way,” Pete says. His tone is sharp. “Or the experiment isn’t going to be valid. There can’t be these large gaps of time in the research. You and your team have already ruined the experiment with Jordan. Don’t mess this one up too.”
“You’re not listening to me.” Dr. Ivan makes a fist. Her hands shake. “The boy is frustrated, and rightfully so. We have to give him time to cool off, and then we can restart the experiment.”
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t told him there was some ridiculous antidote to fix him, he wouldn’t be so comfortable running around town and skipping his visits! That was the whole point. Scaring him so he would come back to us.” Pete swipes a pile of papers from his desk. “This isn’t some science-fiction movie.” He shakes his head. “Antidote…You’ve got to be kidding me.” He crosses his arms.
“Oh, really?” Dr. Ivan paces. “I had to make up something. He was about to blow up the lab and run away for good. In my opinion, if he thinks there is an antidote, he will keep coming back.”
“And what do you suppose happens when he keeps pressing you about the antidote, and then finds out that he isn’t dying and there is no need for your fake antidote? Have you thought that through?”
Dr. Ivan cocks her head. “Did you think through the possibility that your first subject could pass on his powers to someone else? And did you think through that maybe if that were the case, it would most likely be someone they were close with? Did you think through how that would affect your experiment?” Her head falls into her hands.
“Hey!” a man’s voice shouts from behind us. “Who are you?”
Savanna gasps. I snap my head in the direction of the sound so fast my neck cracks in three places. Two men are standing over us. One of them grabs Perry’s arm and pulls her to his chest. Perry screams. She kicks her legs into the air. I stand, stepping out from behind the wall. Savanna jumps behind me.
“Let go of her!” I yell.
“What’s going on over there?” Pete asks. Dr. Ivan’s heels clack against the floor as she walks toward us.
“Wait, wait, wait,” she says. “That boy is much more powerful than you think. Back away from him.” She points at us.
“How long have they been there?” Pete asks. He stands and slides his chair across the floor.
“I said let her go,” I say to the man holding Perry. Dr. Ivan is right. I am much more powerful than they think. She told me not to use my powers for my health, but maybe she was really saying that to keep herself safe. There’s no reason to hold back. It was another lie.
I step forward. The man takes a step back. He squeezes his arm around Perry’s neck. Her fingers pry at his wrist. Her face scrunches and reddens.
The man next to him pulls a gun from his waist and points it at me. “Back off, kid,” he says.
My body heats up.
“Do not shoot him,” Dr. Ivan says.
“Who are they?” the man asks.
“The boy is part of the Ator experiment. I know who he is. Just let me talk to him.”
“You don’t get to talk to me!” I yell. I turn and stare her down.
“Dylan…let me explain.” She slowly creeps forward with her hands in the air.
“You had your chance to explain. Instead you chose to lie.”
“It may seem like that—”
“It is like that. Are Jordan and I dying?” I ask one final time.
“It’s complicated.”
“Are we?!”
“No! You’re not.” She hangs her head.
I take a deep breath. I put my hand in the air, palm facing toward her as if I am about to blast a series of flames her way. She stops walking and whimpers.
“Don’t come any closer,” I say. She nods, biting her lip. “Tell him to let go of Perry.”
She looks past me to Perry. “Let go of the girl,” she says. Her voice is uneven.
The man only tightens his grip. Perry chokes. He glances at his partner next to him.
Suddenly, an alarm booms from an overhead speaker. A red light flashes from glass boxes haphazardly spread along the walls. My body shudders. Savanna covers her ears. I look across the room. Pete reaches for a phone in the wall next to his desk. His other hand presses an alarm.
“We need extra security to laboratory three in Section E!” he says. “Right now!” He slams the phone down.
I don’t hesitate. I lunge toward the man holding Perry and press my hands into his arm as hard as I can. He screams. His arm goes limp. My red handprints are etched into his skin from the heat. Perry falls to the floor, gasping for air. She clutches her neck. The man with the gun turns and runs for the door. My heart is racing like never before. I jump and float through the air after him. I squeeze my muscles to zoom faster.
I reach the door in a few seconds and land in front of it before the man has a chance of escaping. I hold up my hand. He’s unable to stop his momentum, and it collides with his chest. The collision knocks him backward. His face instantly turns a deep shade of red. He collapses to his knees. His limbs jerk three times before he passes out with his mouth agape. I grab the gun from his hand and shove it in my waistband. The alarm still rings.
Savanna holds Perry and rubs her back. Dr. Ivan comes up behind them and shakes Savanna’s shoulders.
“Girls, I am here to help him,” she says as I get closer. “Let me help. Speak some sense into him.”
“Get away from them,” I say. I snap my fingers, causing small flames to erupt from their tips. I pull out the gun. Dr. Ivan stands and runs from us toward Peter. I raise the gun and point it in her direction, but I’m not aiming for her.
I fire at the experimental glass box. Everyone freezes. I fire again. The shots are louder than the alarm. The glass box cracks and spiderwebs around the bullet holes. I fire at every corner of the box until I’m out of bullets. I throw the gun at the glass and scream.
“No more experiments!” I shout. “No more.” I look at Dr. Ivan as I say the words.
I turn to Savanna and Perry. “Guys, help me load everything inside.”
“What do you mean?” Savanna asks.
“The files and papers and all their equipment. I’m going to burn it.”
They nod and run to the file cabinets, shelves, and boxes lining the walls of the laboratory. We pile everything next to the crumbling glass box. As I dump a drawer full of papers from Peter’s desk, I kick one of the walls of the glass box. Half of it shatters to the floor. Dr. Ivan watches in horror, shaking her head.
I stand over the pile of Jordan’s misery and HydroPro’s secrets. I shoot a flame from my hands for what I hope is the last time. The papers catch fire first, followed by the computer equipment. Savanna gives Peter’s desk a push, and it rolls into the flames. The added fuel sends the fire spinning toward the ceiling. The glass box slowly disintegrates into nothing as the heat intensifies.
“Stop!” Dr. Ivan yells. She grabs a large broken piece of glass from the floor and charges me. “You’re destroying everything that will help you.”
The extra security guards enter the room. Dr. Ivan waves them after us. “Stop them! Detain them!”
“Run for it!” I yell to Perry and Savanna.
I turn my open palm toward Dr. Ivan, preparing to knock her out with flames, but I freeze.
Peter walks up behind her, cocking a gun and pointing it at the back of her head.
“No,” he says flatly.
Dr. Ivan slowly raises her arms. Her chin trembles. “Peter…what…what are you doing?” The whites of her eyes show as she strains to look at him. “Shoot them, not me. Them!”
“We’ve had about enough of your disgraceful experiment.”
“My experiment? It’s…it’s ours.” Dr. Ivan spins to face Peter. He tightens his grip on the gun. Flame light flickers along the sides of their faces. “We’ve been working on this for almost a year. What are you doing? We came here for—”
“I’ve been here for the Ators…to protect their son…and now protect Dylan. That’s it.” He nods in my direction.
I swallow. Perry grabs my wrist.
Dr. Ivan’s mouth falls open. “What?” She gasps for air. Her eyes bounce between Peter and me. “But…why? How?” She clutches her chest.
“Greg and Jen were the best people at this company. They were trying to do good for the world. I wasn’t going to leave you to your own devices here and destroy what they built. Guards, escort her out, please.”
“No!” she shouts. She makes a run for it, but the guards, who outnumber her by five, trap her within moments. They lock their arms around her and drag her toward the door.
“Save my notes from the office! Don’t let this be a waste!” Her legs flail as she’s pulled from the room. She loses a shoe as they turn down the hall. The sound of her voice becomes muffled by the crackling fire.
I step toward Peter. His brow is clammy. “You?” I ask. He puts his gun back on his waistband.
“What about me?” he asks. He wipes sweat from his lips.
“You weren’t trying to kidnap me…or Jordan?”
He shakes his head. “Jordan wasn’t as alone as you think. How were my undercover skills?” He winks. “If you would’ve let me talk to you earlier, I could’ve explained and avoided this mess.”
The flames climb the walls, reaching the ceiling. Pieces of debris begin falling to the floor.
“You knew his parents?” I ask.
“For decades. Came to know Greg when we started at HydroPro together as junior engineers.”
“You’re from Arizona?”
He nods. Sparks shoot from the burning pile of broken glass and equipment. They whiz past my head. “Kid, you’re going to die in here if you keep asking questions. And that would end up being a hell of a waste of my time.” He puts his hand on my back and pushes me forward toward the exit. Perry and Savanna follow with glazed eyes.
We run through the same halls from earlier. Red emergency lights guide us back to the main entrance. The deafening fire alarms continue to reverberate in my chest.
“Does this mean you saved Jordan?” I ask, running to Peter’s side.
“No. I wasn’t aware of that emergency number he had for Ivan. He ran from her, and I don’t know where he is.” He stops us at an intersection. He peers around the corner, then waves us onward. “When you and Jordan were in Ridley Creek State Park, I threw that smoke grenade to divert HydroPro, but I lost you guys too.”
“That was you?”
He nods. I choke on my breath, thinking of how Kirsten sent his picture to the police when we should have sent Dr. Ivan’s.
“Where can I look for him?” I ask.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He’s running as fast as my thoughts are racing through my mind. When we reach the lobby, a horde of police cars and fire trucks are parked outside. I spot Kirsten talking among a group of reporters.
“You can’t go out there!” I yell to Pete. Before anyone sees us, I push Perry and Savanna behind the front desk. We dive to the floor and crawl into a front office.
Pete huffs as he spins to change course. He follows us into hiding.
I push my back against a wall.
“They here for me?” he asks. “You really should’ve let me talk to you earlier.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, breathing heavily. “If I knew you were on my side, I wouldn’t have ratted you out.”
Pete nods. “You did what you had to do. I’ll figure something out.”
A bang erupts in the lobby. “Falcon Crest Police!” someone shouts. “Come out from that office now!”
“You’re going to be on your own now, Dylan,” he says. My face wavers when my name leaves his lips. “I’ve done all I can. The rest is up to you.” He gives me his gun.
“Wait, what?”
Pete jumps out of the room and back into the lobby with his hands up. “I’m here.”
“Hands up! Put your hands up!” the police shout.
“They’re up,” Pete says. “Everyone calm down.”
Metal handcuffs grind and click into place around Pete’s wrists. Boots squeak along the tile floor until the lobby is silent again.
Perry shakes me from my daze. “Dylan! We have to get out of here.”
I nod. I lift a chair and chuck it through one of the office windows. I wrap my arms around Savanna and Perry, and we float through the broken glass to safety. We sprint across a grassy field for about a hundred yards. Before we enter a wooded area, I turn back to look at HydroPro. An orange glow flickers in each window.
This experiment ends just as it started, by erupting in flames.
HydroPro is the only topic covered in the news over the next few days. The Philadelphia facility is permanently shuttered, partly from the investigation and partly because it’s halfway burned to the ground. Even if nothing comes of the inquiry from Kirsten’s reporting, at least Falcon Crest knows them for their arsons and crimes rather than their hydrogen-fueled vehicles and machines.
I’ve blocked Dr. Ivan’s phone number. I have no interest in devoting any more of my mental capacity to her. Each day, I bring my paint-by-numbers canvas onto my front porch to paint and watch for silver cars. But there’s always nothing. Today, I’ve finally finished my spring painting of the blue flowers.
Kirsten’s press conference is making national news. It started off local, but then someone retweeted the original video and another person retweeted it, and then it was viral. She’s been doing a different interview for a blog or website every day. She’s basically famous. I want some credit eventually, but I am letting her have her moment for now.
I’m in Kirsten’s room standing next to her desk. Kirsten is sitting in the middle across from Savanna. Professional ring lights shine on their faces. A camera is set up on a tripod on her desk, recording one of her interviews. My hand hovers over it.
“Why did you feel like it was finally time to come forward and tell your story?” Savanna asks. She’s holding a small notecard over her crossed legs. For once, the roles are switched. Kirsten is an interviewee.
“For me, I think the turning point was when I realized how much the fires were affecting other people,” Kirsten says. Her hands are folded in her lap. “I was frustrated with the pace of the investigation, especially since I was seeing firsthand the burden that it was placing on my fellow classmates. It became more than a contest for me.” She shrugs. “In the end, the public was in danger, and I had a responsibility to share what I knew.”
Savanna nods. Then Kirsten turns to me. “Okay, hit Stop,” she says.
I push a button and stop the recording.
“How was that?” she asks. “Was that better?”
I nod. “Much.” That was the third time we filmed that segment of her interview with Savanna.
“Awesome.” Kirsten gets up and plucks the camera from the tripod. “Thanks again, Savanna. I’m getting so many questions through Instagram and Twitter too. We’re going to have to film a few more of these Q and As for fans.”
Savanna smiles. “Of course. Anything to help set some of this straight.”
“So, did you win the contest?” I ask.
“I think I technically disqualified myself,” Kirsten says. “But who even cares anymore. I’m getting more internship offers than if I won the contest. I don’t know how I am going to decide which offer to take.” She clicks through her camera roll. “I’ll have to edit this fast. Do you want to stay and help me edit, Savanna? You can tell me if any angles are bad for you.”
“I think my angles are the least of my concerns now, but I can definitely help.” Savanna clicks off the ring light.
“What’s on your agenda, Dylan? Do you want to stay?” Kirsten asks.
I shake my head. “I think I am going to go for a walk.” I look out the window. The ground is covered with snow.
Kirsten sighs and walks toward me. “Are you sure you’re okay, Dyl?” She gently massages my arm.
I throw up my hands, then rub my forehead. “I’m trying to be.”
“Nothing from him?”
“Nope.”
Kirsten gives me a hug. “I still think there’s a chance he’ll come back.”
“I hope you’re right.” I lift my backpack from the floor.
“I’m sorry, Dylan,” Savanna says.
“Thanks, guys.”
“How is your dad holding up?” Kirsten asks.
“He’s fine,” I say. “His old company took him back right away. It just makes things harder because I can’t talk to him about what happened. He goes on and on about HydroPro…but he barely knows half of it.”
