No Safety in Numbers (2 page)

The Beamer screeched to a halt.

“Whoa, dude. I think you dinged the handlebars.” Marco knew that voice: Drew Bonner, Mike’s partner in terror. So it was two-on-one.

Marco knew Mike had it in for him—hard to miss the “You’re dead, Taco” scrawled across his locker on Friday—but what he hadn’t realized was that anyone at school knew he worked at the mall. Years of abuse had trained Marco in the tactics of survival, which boiled down to this: If every time someone spoke to you, you fired back some sarcastic, fuck-you response, people tended to leave you alone. This method had served him well; now in his
junior year, Marco was practically invisible to his peers. But not completely, as he was now aware.

The engine screamed—Mike was straining the belts. Marco’s feet slapped the pavement as he booked it for the central pavilion: a small glassed-in room with the escalators up to the first-floor courtyard. From there, it was a quick jog around the central fountain to the elevators up to the third floor (multiplex theater, giant bookstore, bowling alley, ice-skating rink, and sit-down restaurants, including the Grill’n’Shake). No way Richter would chase him all the way up there.

But Mike cut the M3 down the aisle right next to the pavilion, squealing to a halt beside the doors.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Mike shouted across the parking garage. There were already tons of people at the mall, meaning more than enough cars for Marco to hide behind, but alas, no helpful Samaritan or witness to his execution.

Marco leaned against the door of a green SUV and considered his options. He could run out the garage’s exit and try to haul ass for the doors to the JCPenney. But that would mean spending at least five minutes on the road unprotected. Plenty of time for Mike to run him down.

Gravel crunched under the car’s wheels: Mike was on the move.

“Where’d the Mexican mallrat go?” Drew yelled.

I’ve never even been to Mexico, you douche.
Marco’s grandparents were Costa Rican, and he’d inherited their black hair and olive skin.

“We’ll sniff him out,” Mike said.

Marco needed a better hiding place. As a busboy in a chain restaurant, he was intimately familiar with the bowels of the Shops at Stonecliff, the megamall under which he was currently trapped. He could book it for the utility hallway, then take the freight elevator. But that would mean fumbling in his wallet for the card key, and Marco’s pockets were jammed with keys, bike lock, ghetto burner phone (who needed a decent phone when the only caller was your mom?), and iPod (link to his stake in the EVE-verse, controlled at home from his Alienware gaming laptop—cost: one year’s wages). With Mike trolling the aisles, he didn’t have that kind of time.

There was a light on by the Dumpsters. The door to the HVAC closet had to be open; it was the only possible source of light. Some guy must have been doing maintenance. For once, a lucky break.

The heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system—HVAC for short—was housed in its own little bunker right next to the trash Dumpsters. It had no windows and only one door. If he could get in without Mike seeing him, he was safe for sure.

Marco crept around to the back bumper of the SUV. Crawling between the cars all the way down the aisle was an option, but the pavement was vile, and anyway, once he stood up, Mike would spot him. Marco figured Mike would have no qualms about smashing into a parked car and crushing Marco’s legs, and he had no interest in ending up in a wheelchair over a scratched paint job.

Up and over it is.
Springing onto the sedan’s trunk, Marco began leaping from car to car, hood to trunk to hatchback to hood.

“He’s over there!” Drew screamed.

Brakes squealed. Gears shifted. Marco had seconds to get back under cover. He hopped off a hood and hid behind a minivan. Then he dashed across the aisle, around a concrete pillar, and sprinted for the HVAC bunker.

Not only was the door to the HVAC room unlocked, but the gate in the chain-link fence that surrounded the giant machines inside hung open as well. Alas, he didn’t have time to linger on why such a blessing had been bestowed on his sorry ass—he wasn’t going to look a gift hiding-place in the mouth. He snapped off the light, carefully closed the chain-link gate behind him, and slunk into the thrumming dark of the HVAC cave.

The HVAC machines themselves were the size of small cars. Four of them sat in a row, each a giant block of metal with pipes like veins running into and out of them. At the end nearest Marco, two-foot-wide ventilation shafts protruded from each machine, running up into the mall to recirculate the temperature-controlled air.

Marco skulked between the whirring, vibrating metal shafts. Every few seconds, one of the giant fans inside the machines spun up, blowing the hair from his forehead in a single, soaked flap. Sweat poured down his face. Panels on the far ends of the machines blinked with little LED lights, flashing toxic orange and green across his skin.

The door creaked open. Marco slipped between two shafts and held still in the dark against the smooth side of an HVAC machine.

“You see him?” Mike called from outside.

Drew paused—Marco guessed he was peering around in the shadows.
Let him not see me, let them move on…

“Nah,” Drew said finally. “It’s too dark, and I’m definitely not crawling into that rathole.”

The door slammed closed.

Marco spit the air from his lungs in a single whoosh of breath. He flopped to the floor and held his head. He’d survived this encounter, but tomorrow? Or Monday at West Nyack Hellhole? Perhaps he should take a bus up to visit his sister, Frida, at Skidmore for a week and let Mike find a new target. Worst case, his oldest sister, Gaby, was in law school. She could sue Mike’s rich-ass family for wrongful death.

He got up and turned on the light. The floor was disgusting. A thin layer of black slime coated the entire slab of concrete. He had to get up to work. He didn’t want to lose this job, especially now that he needed a new bike. He brushed what muck he could from his jeans.

Then he noticed the second set of footprints.

“Is someone else in here?” he called. Perhaps there was a maintenance man after all.

The machine next to him clicked on with a blast of air. Marco nearly jumped out of his skin.

He followed the footprints around the machine. Nothing. The footprints stopped, then turned and went back out to the gate. It must have been the maintenance guy; he probably forgot to relock the fence.

Marco pushed the gate open. The bottom bar of the fence hit something—a chain. And a lock. A broken lock.

A maintenance guy wouldn’t have cut the lock.

Marco shuffled back to where the footprints ended. He squinted, peered into the shadows. The wall of the
machine was smooth, interrupted in places by pipes jutting out of the metal case and coiling back along its top. Farther down was one of the blinking LED panels. It was just like the other machines. Then a red light flashed. None of the other machines had a red light.

Stepping back, Marco noticed that the light was attached to a small black box on one of the ventilation shafts, just above his head. Nowhere near a panel. The box had two bubble-like cylinders sticking out of its sides. The box started to beep.

That can’t be good
.

Marco pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

I
f Mom is going to be on the phone the whole time,” Lexi said, slumping in the backseat, “I don’t see why Darren couldn’t come.”

Her father (one Arthur Ross) eased the Volvo into the parking space. “This is a family day. She won’t be on the phone the whole time,” he said. “Anyway, I thought you and Darren were cybernetically connected.”

Lexi closed the game she’d been playing on her phone. “Not yet,” she said. “But we’re working on it.”

Mom (the Senator Dorothy “Dotty” Ross) held up a finger. “John, I don’t care if we have to move the committee meeting, but you set up that face-to-face with the governor.” With her free hand she mimicked a yapping mouth.

Whatever.
If her phone call was really some boring yackfest, why was the Senator on her cell instead of paying attention to her FAMILY? Especially when it was the
Senator’s idea to drag everyone out on a Saturday afternoon to the godforsaken CommerceDome for a movie and lunch at the fake-Chinese restaurant (the Senator’s favorite, not Lexi’s). A movie that the Senator would probably end up missing because of the stupid call (it’d happened before).

“Okay, John,” Dotty said. “Sounds good.” She lowered the phone. “We’re here!”

“You noticed,” Lexi mumbled.

Her father gave her a
be nice
look. As if the Senator cared whether her fourteen-year-old daughter was happy with her. It’s not like Lexi could vote.

The Senator craned her head around the headrest. She looked like she was about to say something. Lexi braced herself. Then the phone rang.

Dotty sat straight, opened her door, and answered the phone.

The Senator couldn’t even be bothered to ream her out. That was how far down Lexi was on the priority list. Even on “Family Day.”

She got out of the car and followed her parents into the mall.

Dad was carrying a bag. Why would he carry a shopping bag
into
a mall?
A gift?
Yes, that had to be it. A peace offering. They totally owed her after forcing her to go to Irvington Country Day, the prep school from hell, instead of letting her attend public school like a normal person, like Darren.

On the escalator, she stuck a finger into the bag and caught a glimpse of the box.
No freaking way!
It was a
drawing tablet—had to be, judging by the size of the box. Plus, she’d been dropping hints that her old one was fritzing.

“No peeking,” her dad said, tugging the paper from her grasp. Then he nudged her with his elbow. “We got the good one.”

Visions of CG fairies danced in her head. “The professional?” It was a struggle to keep from yanking the bag from his hands.

Arthur stepped off on the third floor and tapped Dotty’s arm. “Tell her, hon,” he said.

Dotty walked a step away, pointed to the phone.
(LIKE WE HADN’T NOTICED!)

Arthur shrugged. “You can open it,” he said to Lexi, handing her the bag. He walked up to the hostess stand at Chopsticky Buns. “Three for lunch.”

The hostess showed them to a booth and Lexi slid into the seat opposite her dad. Dotty was still standing by the entrance, blathering away into the phone.

“Dare I ask why you’re giving me a five-hundred-dollar piece of computer equipment?” Lexi was going to make them say they were sorry for this whole private school nightmare. She wanted to hear that word:
Sorry
.

“Can’t a father give his little girl—”

“I’m taller than you,” Lexi said, nudging her dad’s leg under the table. She’d inherited her mother’s height, but not the willowy frame—she’d developed the obnoxious boobs and butt that bulged on her grandmother. One of the least thrilling hellos she got at Irvington: “What’s up with that badonkadonk?” hollered up the stairwell.

Arthur snuffled a laugh and rubbed his shin. “Fine,”
he said. “Can’t a father give his all-grown-up, high-school-attending, honest-to-god teenaged daughter a gift without getting the fifth degree?”

“Well, maybe.”

The Senator sat next to Arthur. “Sorry!” she said, all blustery like she couldn’t believe she’d been disturbed by a phone call. “So, you like the tablet thing?” The Senator was not into computers the way Lexi and her dad were.

“It’s great,” Lexi mumbled, sliding the package back into its bag. She raised her eyebrows at Dotty. “What’s your excuse for giving it to me?”

Dotty’s smile wilted at the corners. For a moment, Lexi regretted her sarcastic attack. Then the Senator drew herself up and took a deep breath in. “We get that you don’t like the new school,” she said. “But skipping class? Really, Lex?”

So that was it. Not regret over having ripped her out of public school to enroll her in a fancy, rich-kid prison. Not concern over the fact that she sat alone every lunch period staring out the perfect little framed windowpanes at the flame-colored leaves or that all the other kids at Irvington had been there forever and were all friends and totally ignored her. No, this “Family Day” was dedicated to rooting out what dysfunction had led Lexi to skip one freaking period (gym—who even needed gym?) to work in the computer lab on her movie. The drawing tablet was Dad’s attempt at sugar to help Mom’s medicine go down.

“
Class
seems like a strong term,” Lexi said, dragging the bag off the table and into her lap. “It was gym. I didn’t feel like playing volleyball-in-my-face.”

“Is this a new thing for you?” Dotty said, leaning back
into the shiny, red fake leather of the booth. “Should we expect weekly reports of your delinquency as punishment for sending you to one of the top ten private schools in the country?”

“I didn’t ask to go there,” Lexi said. “I was perfectly happy in public school.”

“Time-out!” Dad said, waving his arms between them over the table. “In your corners for at least ten seconds.”