With the fire climbing high into the night sky behind it, Jack’s taxi hurtled down the dirt road and onto the highway.
“How’s your brother doing?” he asked Sara once he’d caught his breath.
“I will be fine,” Seth answered for her. “It is important that we gain much distance from this location.”
“Glad you’re feeling better,” Jack said, trying to stay calm. The adrenaline was no longer pumping through his veins. He now felt mainly disbelief, not to mention quite a bit of anger. “You’ll need your strength to explain to me . . . WHAT JUST HAPPENED BACK THERE!?”
Jack waited for a response, but there was only silence.
“Feel free to just dive on in,” he continued. “We can start with whose cabin it was. Or what was growing underground?”
He paused.“Or, hey, I got a fun one. Maybe you could tell me who the guy in the robot suit trying to kill us was?”
Sara and Seth remained silent.
Jack had had enough. Slamming on the brakes, he brought the taxi to a screeching halt. He spun around.
“Here’s the deal,” he informed them. “The cab doesn’t move until your mouths do. Start talking.”
“The information you are seeking is not within your grasp of understanding,” Seth said.
Jack felt as if he were about to explode. “I saved your life, and now you’re calling me stupid?”
“My brother means no disrespect, Jack Bruno,” Sara said gently. “But we are dealing with issues outside the realm of . . . your world.”
“I’m a cabdriver,” he shot back. “I’ve had plenty of worldly . . .” His words trailed off as he saw some rather unearthly lights rising from the smoke. “. . . Experiences . . .”
Sara and Seth looked out the back window and saw the lights, too.
“Jack Bruno, I suggest you drive now,” Sara pleaded.
“What is that?” Jack asked, transfixed by the lights.
“Just drive!” Seth yelled.
As the lights drew closer, Jack was still trying to figure out what they were. Maybe they were coming from a small airplane. But why would a plane be coming so close?
Seth turned to his sister. “Sara, we have to go.”
Sara concentrated her energy on the gas pedal, and the cab started speeding forward.
“Hey!” Jack yelled as he was thrown back against his seat.
But the taxi just kept increasing speed. Jack tried to gain control of the vehicle and outrun the lights, which now seemed to be in full pursuit of them.
And they were. The lights were coming from a small spaceship piloted by the Siphon. He had escaped the fiery inferno and would not stop until he caught his target.
“What is it?” Jack yelled as the Siphon fired off a sonic blast.
A huge chunk of asphalt exploded right in front of the cab. Jack had regained full control of the cab and jerked the wheel to avoid the explosion. But as a result, the cab careened down a steep incline.
The taxi raced down the hill. It didn’t help that a fog bank had rolled in, making it nearly impossible to see where they were going.
Looking through the rear window, Sara saw the lights casting an eerie glow in the fog.
“He’s coming!” she warned them.
They reached the bottom of the hill, and jumped onto some train tracks. A few minutes later they raced headlong into a dark tunnel.
Cutting the lights, Jack slowed the taxi to a crawl. Maybe they would be safe in here. . . .
“We can’t let him destroy it,” Seth said to Sara. She was clutching the device they had retrieved from the garden.
“Who is he?” Jack demanded. “And this time I need real answers.”
“A Siphon,” Sara told him.
“A what?”
“He’s an assassin,” Seth answered. “Trained to pursue his target until his mission is completed.”
“And his mission is . . . ?” Jack wanted to know.
“Us,” Sara responded in a serious whisper.
Just then, the tunnel filled with light. The Siphon was back! They waited. Was this the end? Then, just when it seemed they were doomed, the lights zipped back out of the tunnel and into the night sky.
Jack let out a sigh of relief. But he didn’t for a moment think they were out of danger. “We can’t just sit here,” he said. Cautiously, he began to drive the cab out of the tunnel. Safely outside, Jack was about to gun the engine when he noticed that the tracks ran along a cliff. On the other side was nothing but a nasty drop-off. Ahead was an iron bridge over a river.
He had barely registered the situation when a sonic blast ripped through the air. The Siphon had returned! For one terrifying moment, the taxi—and Jack, Seth, and Sara—were airborne. Then, the taxi bounced off one of the iron girders on the bridge and somehow ended up back on the tracks. But the Siphon followed them, hitting the bridge with blast after blast.
Jack clutched the wheel. His only hope was to get into the tunnel at the far end of the bridge. He pushed the pedal to the metal and with moments to spare, they entered the safety of the tunnel. There was no way an airplane could follow them, Jack thought.
But he was wrong.
The Siphon flew into the tunnel in hot pursuit.
Jack gunned the engine again and started to pull away from the Siphon. The Siphon’s vehicle barely fit in the tunnel and couldn’t maneuver well. Sparks shot off when the edges struck the tunnel’s rocky walls.
“We can do this! We can do this!” Jack yelled to himself—and his cab—in encouragement. Just then he heard the whistle of an approaching train.
“Oh, come on!” Jack wailed. Was he never going to catch a break?
They were trapped, the Siphon pushing them from behind and a freight train coming at them from in front. Jack was driving as fast as the taxi would go, but it didn’t seem possible for them to reach the end of the tunnel before the train blocked them off.
Inside the locomotive, the engineer was startled to see the two sets of lights approaching. He yanked on the brakes and blasted the horn. The train’s wheels locked up and sent a shower of sparks flying in every direction.
“Faster!” Seth screamed.
“It won’t go any faster,” Jack yelled, his foot pressed all the way down to the floorboard.
Sara focused her concentration on the engine, giving it an extra burst of energy. The taxi rocketed out of the tunnel inches from the hurtling train.
The instant they were clear, Jack wrenched the wheel hard to the right. They slid off the tracks and down an embankment.
Behind them, the train slammed into the Siphon’s spacecraft, producing a giant fireball that exploded throughout the tunnel.