Running on Fumes Read online

  “Quiet.” I grabbed Frank’s arm and pulled him into a crouch beside me. “Mondo,” I whispered.

  As we watched, Stench’s bodyguard laced the flap of a large tent closed. Then he headed toward the row of Porta-Pottis.

  “I’ve never seen Mondo away from Stench,” I commented.

  “Which makes me think whatever is in that tent is important,” Frank answered. “It’s too big to be his sleeping quarters. Let’s check it out.”

  We waited until Mondo was in one of the potties with the door shut behind him. Then we raced toward the tent. I untied the flap, and Frank and I stepped inside.

  “That thing isn’t solar powered,” Frank said.

  I couldn’t say anything for a second. And that hardly ever happens to me.

  “A helicopter,” I finally managed to get out. “What does Stench need a helicopter for?”

  “Maybe for emergencies. To get one of his people to a hospital if they needed it?” Frank suggested.

  He moved up to the cockpit and opened the door. “You’ve got to see this.”

  I was still trying to take in the fact that we’d found a copter in the antitechnology compound. They didn’t even use washing machines. Or have TV. And Stench had a helicopter?

  “What are you waiting for?”

  I hurried up to Frank and stared into the cockpit. Low airspeed indicator. Doppler NAV. Tachometer. “Notice anything weird?”

  “Like what?” Frank said.

  “No stick!” I burst out.

  “Right. There’s no way to fly this thing!”

  “Can I help you boys?”

  I spun around. Mondo stood in the entrance to the tent. For a huge guy, he sure was quiet.

  My brain felt like a hamster on a wheel. We needed an excuse for why we were in here—but I couldn’t think of anything.

  Searching for a bathroom, maybe? No. A tent and a Porta-Potti don’t look anything alike!

  “Dave’s mom invited us to take a look at her lab,” Frank told Mondo.

  My brother sounded completely calm. But I knew he had to be freakin’ the same way I was.

  “She didn’t give you very good directions. Janet’s lab is only a few tents away from yours.”

  “We were just going by size,” I jumped in. “We figured the lab had to be in a big tent—and this is one of the bigger ones. Besides the dining hall. And we knew it wasn’t in the dining hall.”

  Enough, I ordered myself. When you’re lying, it’s better not to blab too much. You just get yourself in trouble that way.

  Mondo ran his hand over his crewcut. Did he believe us?

  What would he do if he didn’t?

  “Go back to your own tent,” he told us.

  Were we under house arrest?

  “We all take at least an hour’s rest in the middle of the day. A siesta. It’s the best way to survive the desert,” Mondo continued. “You can pay a visit to Janet’s lab later.”

  “A siesta sounds good,” Frank said. We hurried past the bodyguard and went straight to our tent. We’d have to do more snooping later.

  “That helicopter is definitely suspicious,” I told Frank. I flopped down on my sleeping bag. “He had to get it custom-made. And why? Why a copter with no controls?”

  “The only answers I can come up with are bad ones. Like you want to drop a bomb without putting a pilot in danger. Or you want to spray hazardous chemicals.”

  “Or spray gas and start a fire,” I added. “Pain and destruction.”

  “We’ve got to work this assignment fast.” Frank stretched out on his bag and tucked his hands underneath his pillow. “We don’t know when Stench is going to make his next move.”

  He frowned and sat back up.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Somebody left something under my pillow.”

  ON FIRE

  “What is it?” Joe demanded.

  I reached under my thin pillow and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. I opened it and read the message aloud: “Check Stench house.”

  Joe snatched the note away. “No signature.” He flipped the paper over just to double-check. “But at least someone is on our side.”

  “Maybe,” I answered.

  Joe makes decisions quickly. I like to have more time to think.

  “You think it could be a setup?”

  “I think the only person I trust in this place is you,” I told my brother.

  “We do have to get a look in Stench’s house. Possible setup or not.” Joe refolded the note and handed it back to me. “The one building with a lock and no windows is definitely the place to keep information on a secret plan.”

  “Yep.”

  “You brought the lock picks, right?” Joe reached for my backpack.

  “They’re in there. But I have a feeling Mondo’s going to be watching us,” I answered. “We’re going to have to choose our time carefully.”

  “If only Stench hadn’t dragged us on that mission today,” Joe complained. “With him and Mondo gone, it would have been the perfect time for a little breaking and entering.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. I bet Stench brings every newbie on a mission as soon as possible,” I said. “To make sure they’re his kind of people.”

  “Or to turn them into his kind of people,” Joe suggested. “I still feel slimy about today. We didn’t really do anything—”

  “—but it feels like we did,” I finished for him.

  We waited out the siesta time. If Mondo was keeping an eye on us, I wanted him to see we were following his instructions. But as soon as the hour was up, Joe and I headed back out into the compound. I did a Mondo scan. Didn’t see him anywhere.

  Petal, however, hurried right up. Had she been watching our tent? Had someone asked her to? Mondo? It seemed strange that she was on us the second we stepped out of the tent.

  Joe here. I have to step in because Frank is so out of it. It’s not weird at all that Petal came right up to us. Of course she was watching our tent. She wanted more Frank time.

  Do you understand, Frank? The girl liiiikes you.

  Go away, Joe. I’m telling the story.

  Okay, maybe Joe’s right. Maybe Petal was hanging around because she wanted to accidentally-on-purpose run into me. See my famous blush. Hear me stammer like Elmer Fudd. Whatever.

  “I’m on my way to do a little more target practice.” Petal waved her bow. “Want to come?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Joe looked at me in surprise. But I figured we needed to get a sense of Stench’s routine. That way we’d know when we should make an attempt to search his house.

  Why not use Petal to get some info?

  “Have you ever tried archery?” Petal asked as she led the way over to the bales of hay she used as targets.

  “Only a couple of times,” Joe answered. “We’re more track and field guys.”

  “That’s cool.” Petal stopped about thirty yards from the target. “A bullet will go about a hundred yards without any drop in trajectory. An arrow starts dropping a lot faster. That’s something to keep in mind when you’re aiming.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows. Why was this girl talking about bullets? How much did she know about firearms? And why? Just another hobby?

  Petal handed me her bow. She moved close behind me and practically hugged me as she helped me position the arrow.

  “Get a room,” Joe joked.

  Not funny. He thinks I have no sense of humor. What he doesn’t get is that a lot of the time, he’s not funny.

  “I wish I could,” Petal answered. She grinned. “I wouldn’t mind giving up a tent for an actual room.”

  “Stench only believes in rooms for himself?” I asked.

  Petal stepped away. “Go,” she said. Not smiling anymore.

  I let the arrow fly. It hit the hay at least.

  “Mr. Stench has a lot of demands on his time,” Petal told me, her voice cool. “He needs more privacy than the rest of us.”

  “Right. It
’s a thinkatorium,” Joe said. He held out his hand for the bow. I gave it to him.

  “Any tips?” he asked Petal.

  “Aim and shoot,” she told him. No hugging for Joe. He should be grateful.

  “Mr. Stench really does get the best ideas in there,” Petal said once Joe’s arrow had landed. Landed closer to the center of the bale of hay than mine had.

  “He’s in there right now,” Petal continued. “Sometimes, once he’s inside, we don’t see him for days. But when he comes out, he always has a million new plans.”

  For pain and destruction, I silently added.

  “Days, huh?” Joe asked.

  “Sometimes days. Not always,” Petal said. “Your turn, Alex.” She took the bow from Joe and handed it to me. Then she got her arms wrapped around me again.

  “Did I mention Alex is one of my favorite names?” she asked just as I let the arrow fly. It missed the target. Entirely.

  Petal laughed, but not in a mean way.

  I reminded myself that she’d been hurling paint on people a few hours ago. I couldn’t trust her.

  I suddenly spotted Dave pushing a wheelbarrow of what looked like vegetable peelings. “Need some help?” I asked. I was ready to get away from Petal.

  “Sure,” Dave answered. “I’m going to add this to the compost heap, then do some weeding in the garden.”

  Perfect. The garden had a clear view of Stench’s house. If he came out, Joe and I would know about it.

  We weeded until the sun started going down, but the door to Stench’s windowless house stayed shut. Mondo left once and came back with a couple of pineapples—snack or sword practice. That’s it.

  When it got dark, the compound shut down. That’s the way it is when you live in a place with limited electricity. (Solar Man could only do so much.)

  Joe and I headed back to our tent. The sun had gotten to me again. I knew Joe was saying something, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  I fell into a dream. I was back in the lawyer’s office, where Joe and I had had our last mission. But Joe wasn’t with me. Petal was.

  In the dream it was easy to talk to her. And in the dream I didn’t suspect her of anything.

  “Do you smell smoke?” Petal asked.

  I told her not to worry about it. Yeah, the building was on fire. But we could just rappel down. And it was only a dream. One of those dreams where you kind of know it’s a dream.

  I started to cough. Which was weird. I mean, there was smoke in the office. But it was dream smoke. And I knew that.

  Wake up, I told myself. This is annoying.

  Don’t you wish you could channel surf in dreams? But no. I was stuck in this one.

  “The place is on fire!” Petal exclaimed. But her voice came out sounding like Joe’s.

  “Wake up, Frank!” Joe shouted. “The tent is on fire.”

  My eyes snapped open.

  This was no dream.

  Flames covered the ceiling of the tent!

  PAYBACK!

  Frank and I grabbed our packs. As I stumbled out of the tent, a motorcycle almost ran over my toes. Beefy was on the back. “Go back where you belong, hippie!” he howled.

  He splashed gas on the tent next to ours as he zoomed past. Scrawny was right behind him. Without slowing his bike down, he touched a torch to the gas-splattered canvas.

  Whomp!

  A fireball exploded.

  A bearded man raced out of the tent and started after Beefy and Scrawny. So did Frank and I.

  Helpless. We didn’t have our bikes. We didn’t even have a garden hose to turn on the tents!

  “Bucket brigade!” Frank cried.

  I tried to remember how much water was produced in Janet’s lab. Didn’t matter. We had to try something.

  “There are some buckets behind the dining hall,” the bearded man shouted.

  The three of us raced toward the dining hall. I couldn’t see much. Just flashes lit by headlights or flashlights or torches.

  A Jeep zigzagged through the garden, tearing up the crops.

  Red Face ran past on foot. He used a knife to slash one of the tents as he went. “This is payback!” he screamed. “You thought you got away—but we followed you. You’re going down, freaks!”

  A stink bomb hit Frank on the back of the neck. I didn’t even see where it came from.

  “Get outta here!” a man shouted as he used a baseball bat to smash the magnifying glasses of the stove.

  A teenage girl behind the wheel of a beat-up convertible backed over two of the compound bicycles. She blew me a kiss as I tore by her.

  And then it was over. There must have been a signal, but I missed it. The shouts stopped. The motorcycles and vehicles roared off.

  The sound of my own heartbeat filled my ears as we retrieved the buckets and filled them with water.

  But it was too late. There was nothing left of our tent to save. Nothing left of our neighbor’s.

  As the sun began to come up, Frank and I wandered through the compound, joining with the others in a sad, silent parade as we took in the destruction.

  “Everyone to the garden!”

  Stench’s voice filled the compound. He spoke through the megaphone again. “Everyone to the garden immediately.”

  It didn’t take long for everyone in the community to gather. I stared at the tire tracks running across the neat rows of vegetables. Smashed vegetables.

  How long would it take to repair the damage that had been done in less than half an hour?

  We all formed a circle around Stench. He dropped the megaphone. “Now, first things first. Was anyone hurt?”

  There were a bunch of “no”s and headshakes.

  Stench nodded. “So they stuck to property damage.” He began to pace. “Can anyone tell me why you think we were attacked tonight?”

  I thought it was pretty obvious. Payback, like Red Face had yelled. We’d attacked people in the town. People in the town attacked us.

  Of course, I didn’t say that. I was supposed to seem like a good little Stench follower. Nobody else said anything either. I guess everybody knew Stench liked to answer his own questions.

  “Oil,” Stench said.

  Huh?

  “The oil companies have been out to get me ever since I started Heaven,” Stench continued. “They know if we succeed in our mission to create alternate energy sources, they will be out of business.”

  Stench pulled his sword free of its scabbard. “Now, it may have looked like it was just a few hot-heads from town who did this to us. But the oil companies were behind it. Oil company dollars.”

  Swish! Swish! The sword cut through the air.

  “Yes, they’re out to get us.” He pointed the sword at Solar Man. “Out to get you, my brother. Because they know your way works.”

  “Yes!” Solar Man’s panels clanked as he thrust his fist into the air.

  “Out to get you”—Stench pointed his sword at Einstein Wannabe—“because they are afraid of the very idea of geothermal.”

  Einstein Wannabe nodded, his wild hair getting even wilder.

  “They tremble at the very word hydroelectricity,” Stench said to the man dressed in the long white robe identical to Stench’s—the one who had been praising hydroelectricity at lunch.

  Man, Stench was a genius. He was stroking egos like crazy. Making everyone feel so important.

  “Those oil companies think all they have to do is pay off a few townies to take care of us.” Stench brought his sword to his forehead and sighed. “They think they are so smart. With all their MBAs and scientists working for them.”

  Stench spun in a fast circle. “But I say that there is no one working at one of those fat cat oil companies who is smarter than any one of you.”

  Applause burst out in the circle.

  “I say the oil companies’ reign of terror is about to come to an end! We aren’t going to take this from them, are we?” Stench’s eyes blazed.

  “NO!” everyone in the circle yelled.
>
  I mouthed the words. I couldn’t bring myself to become part of the mob. I think Frank did the same.

  “Are we gonna make ’em pay?” Stench bellowed.

  “Yes!” the crowd shouted back. Smiles on every face.

  “You’re darn right we are! Tonight at midnight is payback time!” Stench exclaimed. “Be ready. Because we are going into town!”

  Cheers. Screams. Applause.

  My stomach churned. Maybe this would be a good thing. I pulled Frank aside. “This is it. Our shot. They go into town. We go into Stench’s house.”

  I glanced over at the building. It had escaped the torches.

  “It is the perfect time,” Frank agreed. “But we have to go into town with Stench. You heard how furious he is. If he gets too out of control, we have to be there to stop it.”

  “Tonight’s not his big plan,” I argued. “He didn’t know this attack was coming. He’ll probably just do something like the paint again.”

  “We can’t know that, Joe.”

  “But we have to risk it. We have to find out what his big plan is. If we don’t, we might not be able to put an end to it.”

  Frank didn’t look convinced. “What if he is going to put the big plan in motion tonight? What if he decided to move up the schedule because of what happened?”

  He had a point. “How about this? We know that the coptor without the controls has a part in his plan. It has to, right? You don’t have a thing like that just sitting around.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So tonight, we hide out in the tent with the copter. We don’t want to be in sight when Stench and the others leave for town, anyway,” I said.

  “But if Stench is putting the big plan in motion, we’ll know,” Frank agreed. “Because somebody will come for the helicopter.”

  “Right!”

  We slid under the back of the helicopter tent just after sundown. We figured it was better to be hidden away early.

  My biggest problem was trying not to doze off Sitting there in the dark and everything. But that stopped being a problem when somebody grabbed me by the back of the neck.

  Did I mention how quiet Mondo can be?

  He looked from me to Frank. “Mr. Stench requests the honor of your presence.”

  THE FUSE