Criminal Destiny Read online

•Run in woods (45 minutes)—watch out for roots!

  •Learn about outside world (ongoing)

  •Control rage (difficult but necessary)

  •Cut down on the pizza!!!

  That’s another reason I have to exercise. Doesn’t the McNally cafeteria serve anything healthy? Or is the problem that Randy and his friends never met a vegetable they didn’t hate? Not that beggars can be choosers, of course.

  Randy thought I was crazy when I peppered him with questions about the campus and schedule, but I needed to plot a running route where no teacher would ever look for me. I time myself to finish when classes are changing and it’s no problem for me to melt into the crowd of kids. One thing about life outside Serenity—you see so many random faces that you can’t think too much about any of them.

  Monitoring my heart rate with a finger on my throat, I join the parade of girls crowding into the dormitory. I have to remind myself that the inquisitive glances coming my way are saying “Who’s that?” not “Clone alert! Clone alert!” Nobody knows about that except Randy. I wonder what they’d think if they did. I’m not even sure how I feel about it—just that I feel it a lot.

  Then I’m in the safety of the nurse’s room. Tori’s got the stethoscope on, the probe pressed to the wall. I shoot her the high sign that, no, I haven’t been followed.

  She beckons me over.

  I don’t really share Tori’s obsession with listening in on the girls next door. The things that are important to them seem shallow and borderline stupid—like which companies manufacture their clothes, or which guys at McNally are “hot.” Trust me, none of the guys here are hot the way they mean it—as in good-looking. At one point, I could have sworn they were talking about Malik, if you can believe such a thing! It’s almost enough to make me want to go back to Serenity.

  Almost.

  Tori removes one earpiece and extends it to me. We have to get really close to listen in together, but that’s not unusual for Tori and me. We’ve been best friends practically since birth.

  The girls next door are going on and on about necklaces they bought on a class trip to a Native American art gallery in Pueblo that morning.

  I roll my eyes and whisper, “You’d think they’re talking about a cure for cancer or something.”

  Tori cuts me off with an urgent finger to her lips. That’s when one of the girls mentions “. . . those cops in the weird purple uniforms.”

  My eyes meet Tori’s. Purple uniforms? I don’t like the sound of that.

  “They must be from the Never-Never-Land Police Department,” the other girl giggles.

  “What color do the Pueblo cops wear?” I ask in a low voice.

  We rush to the nurse’s computer and call up the website of the Pueblo PD. A smiling officer in a jet-black uniform appears on the screen. There’s no way anyone could mistake it for purple.

  Only one kind of “cop” wears purple.

  It’s bad news. Worse than bad. There could be only one reason for a Purple People Eater in Pueblo, Colorado—Project Osiris has put two and two together and played a hunch that the four of us would have come to Randy. The more I consider it, the more obvious it seems.

  “We have to tell the guys,” I decide. Compared to Serenity, Pueblo seems gigantic. But it isn’t so big that the Purples will have much trouble finding McNally Academy once they start nosing around.

  And getting caught isn’t an option. One thing all four of us understand is that escaping Serenity is something we will only ever have one chance to do. If we’re dragged back, they’ll put cameras on us while we sleep, and brainwash us into forgetting Project Osiris ever existed. The only reason we got away the first time was that they didn’t know that we were learning the truth about ourselves. If they get their hands on us this time, we’ll never be free again. So far, freedom hasn’t been that great. But it still beats what we’ve come from.

  We’re out of the building, running for the Hayden dorm, where the boys are staying.

  We bust into Randy’s room without any kind of knock, secret or otherwise.

  “The Purples are onto us!” I bark. “A couple of girls spotted one in town!”

  “That explains the call!” Randy says gravely.

  “What call?” asks Tori.

  “My parents called an hour ago,” he explains. “They were asking all kinds of nosy questions. And they told me not to do anything stupid. Like they don’t know I’m always doing something stupid!”

  Eli’s on his feet. “The message was don’t get between us and the Purples. That means things will get rough if we don’t go along with them.”

  “You think they’re ready to start breaking heads?” Randy asks, alarmed.

  Malik picks up a lacrosse stick leaning against the bookcase. “Ours aren’t the only heads that can break.”

  Tori is practical. “If you go up against a trained commando, you’re going to lose. There’s only one thing for us to do, and that’s escape.”

  “Using what?” Malik challenges. “Our jet-packs?”

  “There’s a bus that goes into Pueblo,” Randy supplies. “You can catch it at the bottom of the hill at the end of the main drive.” He turns to Eli. “I guess this reunion’s going to be shorter than we expected.”

  Eli is pale, but determined. “We’ll never forget what you did for us, man. I—I just wish things were different.”

  They shake hands, but that’s all the ceremony we’ve got time for.

  We’re just about to head out of the room when, plain as day through the front window, we see a black SUV pull up the circular drive and stop between the two dorms. The doors open, and there they are. Our worst nightmares: the Surety with their purple uniforms and wine-colored berets.

  “We’re too late!” Eli moans.

  I find my eyes traveling to Malik’s lacrosse stick. Win or lose, I’m not going down without a fight. To my surprise, I’m almost relishing the idea. For the first time ever, I think of the criminal I’m cloned from, languishing in a prison cell somewhere. This must be her impulse, not mine. But it’s there all the same. What am I turning into?

  No. Wrong question. I’ve always been this. I just didn’t know it until recently.

  “We need cover,” Tori says, her voice strangely calm.

  Malik is freaking out. “There’s no cover! Either we go out and get spotted, or they come in after us! Those are the choices—bad and worse!”

  In answer, Tori runs out of the room and pulls the fire alarm. Instantly, the Hayden dorm resounds with a blaring siren. Doors are flung wide, and the halls fill with students heading for the exits. We all realize it at the same time. This is Tori’s cover—hundreds of other kids, all milling around in the general confusion. I wish I’d thought of it.

  “Follow me!” cries Randy, leading us into the throng.

  Outside the dorm, the crowd surges. It reminds me of something my mother taught us in science—a giant amoeba. We try to stay near the center of it, its nucleus. Kids are spilling out of the other dorm, and faculty members are running over from the main building to investigate the alarm.

  Stay calm, Amber, I advise myself.

  I get a fresh stab of fear when I spot my first Purple—the one that we used to call Rump L. Stiltskin. He’s scanning the crowd, peering into faces. That has to be good news. It means the enemy hasn’t spotted us yet.

  You know how people talk about walking tall? We walk short, keeping to the center of the crowd. I identify another Purple—Baron Vladimir von Horseteeth. And there’s Bryan Delaney, the husband of our water polo coach. We shuffle along, but the odds are stacked against us. The Purples know us so well. Some of them have been watching us since the day we were born.

  I have no idea how we think we’re going to get away. Plan A is out of the question. No way can we go to the bottom of the hill and wait for a bus now. And there never was a Plan B. There’s no to-do list for this situation.

  Rump L. Stiltskin points. “There!” At first I think he’s found me, but
no—it’s Tori in his sights. She keeps on walking for a minute. I have no idea how. I would have been frozen like a deer in headlights.

  They start closing in. Five Purples—I see them all now, spaced around the students like the points of a star. Kids begin to scatter. Purple uniforms or no, the Surety look like they mean business.

  And then Tori’s running. She breaks from the mass, and the Purples fall in behind her. That’s how quickly it turns into a chase. I resist the impulse to run to her. It wouldn’t do any good. And, let’s face it, I’m every bit as much a target as she is. Moving with speed fueled by raw desperation, Tori sprints across the quad, and up onto the lawn. She’s a good athlete, but her pursuers are gaining on her. They close the gap to thirty feet. It’s only a matter of time before her break for freedom ends in disaster.

  As she passes by the main flagpole, Eli scrambles out from the milling students and unwraps the flag rope from the cleat that holds it in place. All at once, the crank is spinning, and a dark shadow descends from above.

  Just as the five Purples pass by the pole, the huge flag flops down on them. The broad, heavy silk lands with such speed and force that it flattens them in their tracks. They struggle against the fabric, arms and legs growing ever more tangled as they flail.

  The door of the SUV is thrown open, and the driver emerges. It’s Secret Agent Man, one of the older Purples. He’s torn for an instant. Should he go after Tori, or make an effort to free his fellow Surety from the fallen flag? Before he can come to a decision, Malik barrels out from a group of students and makes a bull run at him.

  Malik crashes headfirst into the Purple’s midsection. The guy’s a trained security guard, but the element of surprise knocks him backward on his butt.

  We’re all running to help Malik when I see it: the SUV is right there on the driveway, key in the ignition, idling. Not only is it a possible means of escape—it’s our only one. I have no idea how to drive a car, but Eli sort of does. He drove us out of Serenity in a stolen truck piled high with orange traffic cones.

  The other Purples have thrown off the flag, and are pounding our way. Secret Agent Man is gaining the upper hand in his battle with Malik. We have to act now!

  I hurl myself in through the open driver door, and scramble to the passenger side to make room for Eli at the wheel. Tori jumps in the back, terrified and hyperventilating.

  Eli stares at the dashboard. “This isn’t the same as the cone truck!”

  “Drive!” I never knew I could scream that loud.

  It does the trick because Eli throws the car in gear, and climbs the curb onto the lawn. Secret Agent Man gets Malik in a headlock. And the next thing he knows, his own car is coming at him, chewing up turf. The rear door swings open, catching him in the side of the head.

  Nice shot, Tori!

  It literally peels him off Malik, who hits the ground, bounces up, and hurls himself into the backseat, flattening Tori.

  Eli stomps on the gas, and we thump back onto the driveway. For a moment, I spot the other five Purples in the side mirror, running full out, chasing us. Eli speeds up, and we leave them in the dust. That’s our last view of the McNally campus as we start down the hill—cheering, excited kids, and six Purple People Eaters, flat-footed and stranded.

  “Maniac!” Malik gasps. “You could have run me down!”

  Eli is hunched over the wheel, concentrating on his steering in the manner of a very early beginner. “You think I was aiming for you?”

  “There’s no aiming in your driving! You just grip it and rip it!”

  “Shut up, Malik!” I snap over the seat. “Where would you rather be—in here with us, or back there with them?”

  Malik’s anger melts away. We’re all quiet, thinking about what almost happened.

  A new voice breaks the silence, one that doesn’t belong to any of the four of us.

  “What’s your status? Have you got them? Over.”

  We’re all struck dumb until I notice the two-way radio built into the dashboard. But who’s calling? Surely not the six we left back at McNally. They know their status. Are there other Purples around?

  “Please respond. We see you’ve left the campus. Repeat: Do you have them? Over.”

  “How do they know where we are?” whispers Tori. “Are we being followed?”

  “No, not followed.” I recognize the rhythmic clatter behind the voice over the radio. I roll down my window and stick my head out. There’s a helicopter directly overhead—the Purples’ helicopter. “The chopper,” I conclude.

  Eli presses down on the accelerator, and the SUV speeds up. Its wheels bite at the gravel of the soft shoulder as he struggles with the steering on the winding road.

  “Slow down!” Tori urges. “You’ll get us all killed!”

  “It’s not like this thing can outrun a chopper anyway,” Malik adds in a resigned tone.

  “As long as they’re up there and we’re down here, we’re not caught yet,” Eli argues stubbornly.

  As we reach the bottom of the hill and swerve onto the main road, we’re passed by a fire truck heading up toward the school, siren wailing. It already seems like hours ago that Tori pulled the fire alarm. But the truth is it’s only been a couple of minutes. Time slows down when you’re running for your life.

  The radio crackles as the chopper asks about our status once again. Only this time there’s a furious response from one of the Purples we left behind at McNally. “We’re still at the school! The kids took off with our car!”

  There’s a stunned silence, then, “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Repeat your status. Over.”

  Malik reaches up from the backseat, pushes the button on the radio, and barks, “Our status is ‘leaving’! What are you—blind?”

  After a long, static-filled pause, the voice from the chopper says, “Be reasonable, kids. We’re directly above you. There’s no way you can escape.”

  The unfairness of that really gets to me. “Like they have the right to tell us what’s reasonable!” I scoff. “The people who thought it was a great idea to clone criminals!”

  Malik presses the button again. “So land on our roof and arrest us!”

  “Cut it out,” Eli says peevishly. “I’m having enough trouble as it is, keeping this thing on the road.”

  Without warning, Tori stretches over Eli, clamps a hand on the wheel, and wrenches it to the right. The SUV swerves off the road, lurches over some scrub brush, and bumps up onto pavement again, a narrow curved ramp. We whiz past a sign:

  I-25 NORTH—DENVER

  “What did you do that for?” Eli’s voice is an octave higher than usual.

  “This is our route,” Tori insists.

  “Our route?” Malik echoes. “We don’t have a route! We don’t know where we’re going!”

  Tori points. “Look how crowded that road is. It must be a highway. We have to blend in with a lot of other cars if we want to lose that chopper.”

  She’s right. The strip we’re about to merge onto is humming with more cars and trucks than we’ve ever seen in our lives, all moving at high speeds.

  Eli inserts the SUV into the nearest lane of traffic, his shoulders up around his ears, like he’s bracing himself to get hit by another vehicle. There’s no accident, but a chorus of horns greets our arrival, and keeps on greeting as dozens of cars stream around us.

  I watch the parade of angry faces, many accompanied by rude gestures. I should be insulted, but really, I’m just fascinated. So this is the real world—infinite faces, infinite moods, infinite speeds, hurry, hurry, hurry. The first word that comes to mind is messy. There doesn’t seem to be any order out here. It’s just a clash of everybody doing their own thing, at the same time, in the same space. But it’s also messy the way a forest is messy, with its thousands of species of plant life, growing every which way. The sheer chaos of it is what makes it cool.

  Eventually, Eli figures out that he needs to match the speed of the other cars. The horns and angry shouts begin to fade away.
One problem solved, crossed off my mental list.

  Only nine hundred to go.

  For a guy who taught himself how to drive on Xbox, Eli’s doing a pretty good job. We continue on that way for about an hour, Malik watching through the sunroof, following every move the chopper makes overhead.

  “It’s still up there, in case anybody’s interested,” he reports. “If they’re planning on losing us, they need to hurry up and do it.”

  “They’re not going to lose us,” says Eli grimly. “They’re trained trackers. They’ll follow us to the ends of the earth.”

  Tori looks thoughtful. “We have to ditch the SUV.”

  “And do what?” Malik returns. “Jog down the center line of the highway?”

  “We could make a break for the woods,” I suggest. “A chopper can’t land there.”

  Eli nixes that idea. “Then we’d be stranding ourselves. They could take their time, and come and get us at their leisure.”

  “Have you guys been seeing these signs along the highway?” Tori puts in. “‘Beat the Traffic—Ditch Your Car’?”

  Malik is too keyed up to be patient. “If it doesn’t get that helicopter off our necks, why do I care about this?”

  “Because we’re looking for a place to ditch our car, dummy,” I explain.

  “No, we aren’t,” he reasons. “There are Purples up there! The minute we’re on foot, they’ll land the chopper and grab us.”

  “Not if we’re somewhere so big and crowded that they can’t find us,” Tori reasons.

  I haven’t noticed any of the signs before, but now that I’m looking, they’re every couple of miles. Denver South Park-n-Ride. I don’t know what it is, but it sounds big.

  We notice the parking lot first—acres upon acres of vehicles, far more than we’ve ever seen in our lives. Unless the Purple People Eaters are ready to bring their helicopter on top of somebody’s station wagon or SUV, they won’t be able to get within half a mile of us.

  “Go!” Tori urges.

  Eli’s already veering onto the exit ramp, two packed lanes that veer off and cloverleaf over the highway. At the center of the sea of cars is a sprawling terminal building. Dozens of buses stand along it, loading up. The instant a full one drives off, another arrives to take its place. The stream of passengers never slows.