Data Runner (20 page)

I am amazed by how quickly the fire spreads. By the time Pace skids to a halt outside Mr. Chupick's house, flames are already pouring out of several windows as if they were fluid.

We run up the steps and Pace kicks in the door. Inside, there is smoke everywhere, but the fire is still contained to the rooms where it first exploded out of the pipes. We run into the kitchen only to find a wet mess of soot and ash, and a giant hose coming in through the back door. The hose is attached to a pump drawing water from the well. Pace and I follow it. Through the kitchen and up the stairs, where we find Mr. Chupick standing outside his upstairs bathroom pushing back flames like a burly firefighter.

He sees us. “The barn,” he says. “Get the animals out of the barn.”

Pace tries to take the hose from Mr. Chupick but again he insists that we take care of the barn.

“You stay here,” I tell Pace. “I'll get the barn.”

I run down the steps and out the front door, vault over the porch railing and run to the barn that is burning even faster than the house. And through the roar of that fire, I can hear the horses and sheep. When I pull open the door and enter the inferno, the first things I see are the horses neighing wildly on their hind legs and the sheep circling furiously in their pen. Whatever else there may be is hidden by smoke.

The hardware on the first stall burns my hand. I have to pull down my sleeve and use it as a glove to get at it. The instant I trip the latch, I have to dive out of the way to avoid the 800 pound animal rushing past me to get out of the barn. I move to the next one, opening the latch and getting out of the way to let that horse to freedom. Then the next. Four horses in all.

Then the sheep. I swing the pen open and move to the side expecting them to rush out like the horses, but instead they stay inside. Moving in circles but never out of the pen, even though they now have a clear path to freedom.

“GO,” I scream, but they just keep bleating. I move inside the pen and try to force them out individually, but that doesn't work either. It's not until I move all the way to the back of the pen and stretch my arms wide to herd them out that they leave, all at once.

A large crack echoes through the barn as a flaming roof beam suddenly breaks off and collapses to the ground, immediately igniting the hay. Now that the horses and sheep have escaped, and their cries with them, I hear the chickens. I don't want anything to burn alive, but since it's between them and me, I'm the only bird who's going to make it out of here.

Another roof beam falls as I run. I slide to a halt. Dive back in the other direction to avoid it crashing down on top of me.

SLAM!

Instantly the flames begin to spread at my feet. I back up, pushing myself further into the barn, further away from the exit as the smoke and fire grow in between. There is only one way out and that is over. I run. Plant my foot on one of the stalls. Leap. Not over a concrete object but over fire. This time the fire is the obstacle, and I have to clear it just as cleanly as if it were a gap or a railing.

I leap over the crest of the fire, catching smoke in my eyes and heat in my lungs as the flames singe the bottom of my shoes. Land and keep going. The entire roof cracks. I leap again over a second blaze that feels much hotter than the first. Land. Run for the doors.

The roof. Comes. CRASHING DOWN!

As the horses and sheep make their way deeper into the pasture, the entire barn collapses behind me releasing hundreds of glowing embers that dance into the night like fiery particles of the devil's aura. Only there is no devil behind these infernal sprites—unless you count Blackburn.

The barn is gone, but the house seems to be under control. At least there aren't flames pouring out of it anymore. I'm about to run back inside when the front door opens, and Pace emerges half dragging Mr. Chupick on his feet. I run up the porch and wrap Mr. Chupick's arm around my shoulders to help him.

“The barn,” he coughs.

“It's gone. The horses and sheep are clear, but I couldn't get to the chickens.”

“We put out the fire upstairs,” says Pace.

Mr. Chupick keels over and launches into a violent coughing fit. We try to help him but he refuses our assistance. “I'm fine,” he says. “You two need to go.”

“We have to get you to the hospital.”

“The hospital,” Mr. Chupick wheezes in horror. “There may not be a hospital in twenty minutes.”

Pace bumps my arm. “Come on.”

I'm still reluctant to leave Mr. Chupick like that, even though I know he'll be okay. “Go!” he insists.

Pace kickstarts the dirt bike and digs half a donut into the ground as he turns it around and pulls up next to me. “We'll come back for him later. I swear.”

That'll have to do. I jump on the back and grab his jacket as he guns the throttle, and we go zipping through the pasture.

I peer around Pace's shoulder as we race into town where an orange glow reflects off the hills in the distance. This isn't the creep of dawn coloring the sky just beyond the hills, it's the brilliant glow of Brentwood on fire. All the little flames from individual buildings have joined together with a singular purpose—to burn down our hometown.

The bike leans as Pace takes a turn I wasn't expecting. “What are you doing?” I yell.

He points out Main Street in the distance, which is lit up like a bonfire. It makes sense. That's the section of town where the most pipes run, so it would be the section of town with the most explosions. Now it's ablaze, smoke and flames pouring out of every window of every building.

“I don't see any fire trucks,” Pace yells back.

Most of the buildings in that section of town are boarded up, like the old Library. “There's not enough resources,” I shout. “They probably decided to just let it all burn.”

“That's why we have to be sure,” says Pace.

I know what he means. It isn't just the PK club that uses those buildings to train. Lots of kids from school use that space for a variety of reasons. Just because those buildings are supposed to be empty doesn't mean they are. I slap his shoulder. “Hit it.”

The bike lurches forward as Pace opens up the throttle and sends us screaming toward the fiery center of town.

Coming down Main Street is like driving straight through a furnace. The air is baking hot and the flames are even hotter. I'm about to tell Pace to head to the hospital since no one could survive inside one of those buildings, when I hear something. Barely. It's something like a cry. It's so faint that Pace probably can't hear it through his helmet and the roar of the fire and whine of the bike, but I do. I punch his shoulder to stop. He hits the brakes so hard that the rear tire nearly slides out on the slick road.

Pace removes his helmet. “What?”

“Listen.”

Nothing.

“What?”

“
Help me…please
.”

“Did you hear that?”

Pace nods.

“
Help me, I need help, somebody please help
.”

The voice is too faint to discern, but there is a certain quality about it. Timid, almost childlike. I know I've heard it before…

And suddenly it hits me. Red Tail. The first time I met her, back on the train. The voice she used to ask for the time. That was it. That's the voice I hear now, calling for help from inside the building. I pull Pace off the bike. “Come on.”

Pace and I run into the three-story redbrick building. Inside, ripples of flames pour off the walls and fill the air with hot, gray smoke that immediately catches in our lungs.

“Where was it?” Pace coughs.

“It sounded like it was coming from upstairs.”

A long, hard crack echoes through the building, the sound of something in the structure destabilizing. Pace and I make our way up the stairs to the second floor, where the fire and smoke are just beginning to appear. “Hello?”

“
Up here,
” calls the voice from the floor above us. “
I'm up here…please help
.”

Pace is already on the move, but now my suspicions begin to kick in. And when we get to the top floor and see no one, I know right away that something is amiss. “Hello?”

“
Over here. I'm trapped. Please help
.”

It's coming from the far side of the floor, just beyond the load-bearing wall. Pace is about to run straight over, but I hold him back and instruct him with a hand signal to make a wide arc around the wall. That way we can see what's back there without having to stick our necks out.

“
Over here
,” calls the voice as we come around. “
Over
he-ere
, Carrion-kun.”

“Jesus!” screams Pace, who nearly buckles backwards. Me, I was already expecting something like this.

Mr. Ito leans on his katana as if it were a cane. He smiles. “
Help, help,
” he says in the voice. He breaks into a laugh. “See, I knew that little girl was important to you. If Red Tail-chan in trouble, Carrion-kun will run into the fire to save her. Too easy,
deshyo?
”

Yes, it was too easy. I should have known better. But then again, so should he. “You're too late,” I tell him. “The cargo has already been removed.”

“Yes, I already figure that,” he says. “But we have a contract with Blackburn to disrupt you, and we don't stop until that obligation is fulfilled. In this business, reputation is everything. Mr. Ito has not failed a single job yet, and this will not be the first.”

“Blackburn contracted you to disrupt the cargo, not me!”

Mr. Ito seems amused. “You are Arcadian, Carrion-kun. You
are
the cargo, and the cargo
is
you. I don't stop until your wing is clipped.”

Pace backs away as Mr. Ito twirls his katana into his hand, rips off the scabbard and throws it aside like he doesn't have the slightest intention of recovering it afterwards. By the look in his eyes it's obvious only one of us is leaving this building alive.

“Run now!”

The thing to remember is this: when I tell Pace to run, it isn't an indication of panic. When a traceur says run, it's a call to action—an instruction to do exactly what we do best. When I tell Pace to run, I'm telling him to trace.

We go in separate directions and Mr. Ito follows me. I run straight at a column like I'm going to hit it and keep going, vertically, all the way up to the ceiling. That's how you have to approach it, believe that you can in fact run straight up the column until you hit the ceiling, even if you are just taking two steps and kicking off. That forces Ito to turn sharply to follow me, swinging his katana through the air behind me. I run straight for another pillar. Two steps up and kick off, this time throwing in an aerial twist as I change directions. Again Ito swings his sword at air as he is forced to turn. Up another pillar and kick off—360—another whoosh of the katana. Again and again. Midair breaks that are nothing for me force Ito to make hard turns. Tiring his knees. Tiring his legs. Tiring him out. This time he strikes the pillar well after I'm gone.

Pace has already made his way down to the second floor. I vault over the railing and Turn Down but don't have a chance to shake it out before Ito's blade comes slicing through the bannisters. I let go just in time to keep my fingers and drop wildly down to the second floor. I hit the deck heels-first and fall backwards, slamming my arms into the floor to break the fall just like Dexter showed me. Then without so much as a blink, I roll back and Kip-up just as Mr. Ito comes dropping down from above.

The second floor is ablaze. The smoke is thick and suffocating; it burns my eyes so badly I can barely see where I'm going. But from somewhere inside that smoke, I hear Pace's voice calling me. Until all hell breaks loose.

A section of ceiling falls and blocks my path with a lattice of beams. I grab a stove-hot two-by-four and underbar through it, singeing my hands but getting through just the same. However, when I land on the other side, the smoke grabs my face and makes me lose my bearings. All I see is a wall of white lit up by orange flames.

“Jack!” screams Pace. I can't even tell from what direction.

Mr. Ito comes somersaulting over the rubble behind me. It's a sideways somersault that's supposed to land him in stance, but even he is not immune to the smoke-filled air all around us. He misses his landing and falls. I pick a direction and run. But for all the effort I exert trying to see through the smoke around me, it never occurs to me to watch out for the floor beneath. Three steps later my foot hits the floor and keeps going, straight through the floorboards. I keep scrambling even as my knees drop below floor level, and all I can do is grab a fractured beam and hang on as the detritus drops into the blazing inferno below. I hang on by a single arm.

Then I see him. Directly below me. Like a monster in a pit, he waits patiently for my grip to run out. Gendo. He doesn't even care that he's standing right below me. He wants to be sure it isn't the fall that kills me. He wants that pleasure for himself.

“Jack, hang on!” Pace calls out from somewhere above. At that exact moment, patent leather toes and a blade of folded steel appear at the edge of the hole. And that's when I realize, I'm not just hanging on by an arm, I'm hanging on by my wing. If Mr. Ito wanted to clip and kill me in one fell swoop, he would get no better chance than this.

Mr. Ito smiles as he taps the tip of his katana on the splintered boards of the torn-away floor. “
Chyoto warui
, Carrion-kun. Nowhere to go,
deshyo
.”

Mr. Ito doesn't raise his sword. Instead he just lets me hang, waiting for my grip to run out. He won't have to wait long. The burn in my arm has already migrated to my head.

Dizzy. The air stings my eyes shut between each blink.

Dizzy. The rest of my body floats in nothingness.

As I cough and choke and tighten my grip, the entire building goes topsy-turvy until I don't know which direction is up. And with the loss of direction, the pain in my arm loses all meaning, until I begin to wonder why it is I'm hanging on at all…if the floor is just inches below my feet.

Just a short hop to the floor.

“Jack!”

I breathe the dragon's hot breath.

Just let go and float gently down to your toes.

“Jack, hang on!”

My fingers slip, from the base knuckles to the middle knuckles.

All you have to do is let go.

From the middle knuckles to the tips of my fingers.

Let go.

The moment my fingers leave the beam, the entire world comes back into focus. Like the free fall itself shocks me back into cognition.

All I see now is Pace, who blindsides Gendo right out from under me, clearing a space that is barely big enough for me to land, but it's enough. I drop straight down onto it, catch the ground and roll across debris that stabs my shoulders and back.

Gendo already has Pace in his powerful grip, but even still he does not scream for help. He screams for me to go. “Jack, go! I mean it. Get out now!”

A searing crack rips through the building, shaking the foundation, rattling the entire edifice as the roof finally gives and crashes into the third floor.

“Jack, go! Get out!”

There's no time to do anything else if I ever want to see the light of day again. I scramble to the door and turn just in time to see a heap of flaming roof come crashing down on top of Mr. Ito and straight down onto—

“Pace!”

The heap of flames engulfing them blows me out the front door with an explosion of smoke and fire that knocks me off my feet. I see a flash of yellow at my side. My sleeve is on fire. I try to pat it out before suddenly remembering—stop, drop and roll. I roll back and forth in the dirt until the flames are smothered.

C-RRR-AC-K!

“Pace!” I scream frantically.

All at once but in slow motion, like a controlled demolition, the walls collapse and the rest of the building comes crashing down on itself until all that is left is a burning heap of wood and brick in a cloud of smoldering ash.

“Pace!” I scream again. But it's no use.

I hear nothing but the snap of burning wood because there is nothing more to hear.