Rex pushed over a stack of boxes, slowing the cops down enough that we got a decent head start. Ogden managed to keep up with the rest of us, but in his condition, I knew he wouldn’t be able to for long. Glancing back, I saw that Officer Walrus wasn’t going to be able to keep it up, either. He was already struggling, falling behind. But his partner was fast and determined, and he seemed to be running directly at me.
Rex and Claudia and Ogden were angling toward the sidewalk on the right-hand side of the street. On a hunch, I angled toward the left, and sure enough Officer Wellplant changed course to follow me.
It occurred to me that we probably had more firepower than they did, but apart from the fact that we’d have to stop to get our weapons out and they were much better trained than we were, the last thing I wanted was to start shooting people, or starting a gunfight when we should be up in the tower shutting down the network.
Then I had another idea. I was scared, but I knew the important thing was for Ogden to get inside and do what he needed to do. I wasn’t actually all that essential to the plan. So when we ran out of the tunnel and into the sunlight on 9th Street and the others all turned the corner, I kept going straight.
Rex called out, “Jimi!”
I called back, “Keep going!”
I figured if Officer Wellplant stayed after me, I’d lead him away from the others. If he went after them, I’d try to dart him. When I looked back, Officer Wellplant was still coming after me. Officer Walrus was stopped in the tunnel, bent at the waist trying to catch his breath.
I slowed down for half a block, letting Officer Wellplant stay close enough that he wouldn’t give up and go after the others. Then I put on some speed.
I started sweating as soon as we left the coolness of the tunnel. Now it was pouring off me. After a block, Officer Wellplant was still coming, and I wondered why. We hadn’t done anything, other than sneak past the police tape. And why me instead of the others? I thought back to that moment during his speech when Howard Wells looked directly at me, and all the other Plants did, as well.
The next time I looked back, he was gaining on me. And even more distressing, another cop with a Wellplant had joined the chase. To my horror, as I watched, yet another Plant joined them, a woman in a business suit. Maybe she was a plainclothes detective or whatever, but I got the sense that she wasn’t a cop at all. Which meant that she wasn’t responding to a call for backup over police radio. She was there because of her Wellplant.
I pictured a thousand Plants chasing me through the city, like a horde of fast zombies, but I knew that if they were all after me, they’d catch me before there were more than a dozen. I imagined them approaching from all sides at that very moment panic tried to assert itself, but I knew if I was to have a chance of getting away, I needed to stay calm and focus.
Approaching 10th Street, I considered my next move. I didn’t want to lead the Plants back to Rex and Ogden and Claudia, but if I was planning on rejoining them somehow, I couldn’t just keep running farther and farther away from them, either. I decided I would turn on 10th Street, start to circle back toward the tower and the parking garage, where the other secret entrance was. If I could lose my pursuers on the way, great, and if not, I’d just keep running. Hopefully, Ogden would succeed in shutting down the network without me, and the Plants would all stop chasing me then.
I moved to turn sharply around the corner, but what I saw made me stop so abruptly, I almost went sprawling, and probably came close to blowing out my ankle.
At least a dozen Plants were running toward me from the right. Turning the other way, I saw three more approaching from the left.
I cursed and kept running straight, following Cuthbert Street as it tunneled under another building. Up ahead, the tunnel opened out onto 11th Street, where Cuthbert Street ended. Across 11th, I could see the Reading Terminal Market. It was a historic indoor market under an ancient defunct railroad terminal and one of my favorite spots in the city, a maze of tightly packed stalls and storefronts, always jammed with tourists and locals, with nine or ten entrances to choose from.
Halfway through the tunnel, I glanced behind me and saw ten pursuers now outlined against the sunlit street, with several new ones turning the corner to join them. As I turned back ahead, a figure stepped out in to street in front of me. He looked big and strong, an Asian man in his thirties wearing a business suit.
I cursed again, trying to keep my fear at bay, and ran directly at him. I remembered Stan, rolling and tumbling like a trained athlete, and I wondered what tricks this guy might have ready. I was a good runner, but evasive maneuvers weren’t really my thing.
As I approached, he spread his arms wide and smiled. I lowered my right shoulder and angled right, then pivoted left. As he went for me, I pivoted right again and arched my back as I spun around him.
I crossed the street, stunned that I had somehow managed to get past him, and pulled the heavy old glass door open just enough for me and my backpack to slip inside.
The first thing to hit me was the smell—kind of gross, kind of delectable, hundreds of different foods combined with centuries of people and a very old building. The second thing to hit me was that it was practically empty. There was no crowd to get lost in or to slow down my pursuers.
Recalculating on my feet, I zigzagged through the stalls. If I wasn’t being chased by a murderous horde of Plants, it might have been fun, running through the wide-open aisles that were usually so densely packed. But this wasn’t fun. I was terrified, and not seeing any pursuers when I looked behind me barely lessened that terror.
I passed a souvenir stall with a rack of windbreakers and sweatshirts on display: Liberty Bells, sports logos and other touristy graphics. I grabbed a windbreaker and a cap as I ran, putting on the cap and pulling the windbreaker over my backpack as I darted through the exit onto 12th Street.
I immediately slowed to a leisurely pace. My legs were grateful, but every other fiber of my body wanted to keep running. I crossed 12th and walked slowly past a shoe store with an impressive selection of hideous boots in the window. As three Plants burst onto the street behind me, I ducked into the shop.
I watched them through the window as they looked up and down the street, searching for me.
The store was very trendy, pricier than I could afford and edgier than I could pull off—so edgy that the sales rep who asked me if I needed any help was a chimera. I glanced out the window and saw that the three Plants were still out on the sidewalk, talking.
“Do you have these in an eight?” I said, grabbing the least hideous boots I could find on the New Arrivals rack.
She gave me an unpleasant look as she took them, presumably thinking that even with twenty percent off, it was unlikely I could afford $400 boots.
And she was right.
As she went into the back to check, the three Plants went back inside the market and I slipped out onto the street. I felt bad for wasting the sales clerk’s time, but I was trying to stay alive and helping to save the world. And frankly, she’d been kind of rude.
I hurried down the street while trying to look like I wasn’t hurrying. It was 3:40, which meant there were only twenty minutes left until “Operation Wellspring.” Hopefully, Rex and Claudia and Ogden were already up in Wells Tower, shutting down the entire network. I wondered if I should even bother trying to help them, or if the best thing I could do would be to keep drawing any possible Plant pursuers away from them. As I puzzled over that, I circled back around to the parking garage.
With every step, the backpack slapped heavily against my spine, hard enough to distract me. While I was stopped at an intersection, I pulled the backpack around to the front so I could tighten the strap. And while I was doing that, I remembered why the backpack was so heavy.
“No, no, no, no,” I said, tugging open the zipper, then quickly tugging it closed, hoping no one else on the street had seen the signal optimizer, which Ogden said was essential for the plan to work, or the dart gun for that matter. I looked at my watch again—3:45, only fifteen minutes left, and now I knew I had a critical component with me. I needed to be there or else the whole plan was going to fail.
Putting my trust in Smartdrive, I darted into the street, and as traffic screeched to a halt, I ran.
Wells Tower loomed a block away, dominating the sky above me. At its base, I saw the entrance to the underground parking garage, and the sign that said, NO PEDESTRIANS—CARS ONLY. Whatever, I thought, as I ran down it anyway.
The service door was supposed to be near the bottom of the ramp. I was already going fast, and the slope propelled me even faster down the spiral ramp. My eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the relative darkness, and when I rounded a curve I almost ran into the gate before I even saw it. I tried to stop but couldn’t, so instead I jumped over it. I landed okay, but my momentum sent me sprawling onto the floor between two hulking transit vans.
I skinned both knees and the palms of my hands, but the fall might have saved my life. While I was on the floor, I looked to my right and saw, under one of the vans, a bright green door, and in front of it, a pair of shiny black shoes, cop shoes, and they were walking slowly around the other van, coming my way.
I scooted over behind one of the tires in case the cop looked under the van. As his footsteps grew closer, I eased open the zipper and pulled out the dart gun. I held it up and waited, wondering if I was about to die, and wishing I had called my mom like I wanted to.
The first thing I saw as he stepped out from behind the van was his gun—a bullet gun, not a dart gun—held in two hands out front of him. As he crept forward, I saw the peak of his hat, then the badge on the front of his uniform and the Wellplant above his eye. He stood motionless, listening, processing.
I didn’t want to rush the shot, but I didn’t want him to see me, either. I held my breath, not making a sound. Finally, he took another step, and I fired, two darts, and landed both of them on the side of his neck. He slapped his hand over them, then turned and glared at me. He raised his gun, aiming it at my head. I fought the urge to try to climb under the van, knowing it would only make my death humiliating as well as tragic.
He smiled, as if he recognized me, then he pitched forward and toppled like a tree. I scrambled out of the way, so he didn’t land on me, and he hit the cement floor, face-first, with a wet smack and a metallic crunch. His shades smashed into pieces, and blood trickled out of his nose. I couldn’t see the fate of his Wellplant.
I raised myself into a crouch and was about to run over to the green door when I heard more footsteps approaching—two sets, maybe three. I crept farther back, against the wall, and as the footsteps grew closer and closer, I squeezed between the front of the van and the wall, keeping the van between me and them.
The footsteps came to a halt and shadows spilled across the wall to my right and across the cop on the floor. I slid around to the far side of the van and crept toward the back with my dart gun raised. I paused at the rear fender and took a breath, preparing to jump out and dart them all in the back, then jump back and try to stay hidden and hope they joined their comrade on the floor before they had a chance to kill me.
But when I jumped out, my finger on the trigger, I wasn’t looking at their backs, I was looking at their faces, and they were looking at me. I was so keyed up that I fired anyway, but managed to raise the gun a little higher at the last second. As a trio of darts flew over their heads, Rex, Ogden, and Claudia all shouted, “Jimi!”