Payback Read online

He nods understandingly. “I left home around your age too. My old man kicked me out. Said I’d never amount to anything. By the time I was eighteen, I’d made more money than he’d ever see in his whole life.”

  Lenny has a question. “How did you find us? Where’d you get the address?”

  “From the cops.”

  He’s incredulous. “And they gave it to you?”

  “Not all of them,” I admit. “But it only takes one.”

  “To protect and to serve,” Alabaster snorts in disgust, dislodging the oxygen feed from his nostrils. He reinserts it with a trembling hand and turns back to me. “Well, Bryan, I know it’s been a long trip, but I’m glad you came. The thought of my own kid marching into the police station and demanding my address—it’s classic. And then showing up here. You’ve got some guts, I’ll say that for you. Runs in the family.”

  He dissolves into another coughing fit, a longer one this time. Numbers on the electronic monitor change rapidly, racing up and down again. At a beep of warning, the nurse comes over and covers the patient’s mouth and nose with a breathing mask. After a few more seconds, his respiration stabilizes.

  Alabaster himself removes the mask, and shoos the nurse back to her former position. “All right, kid. You wanted to meet me. So you’ve met me. Now what? What are your plans?”

  I hesitate. No way can I hit him with Project Osiris and the clone thing now—especially not after my whole sob story about running away from home to come find him.

  So I shake my head. “I don’t have any.”

  “Where are you staying in town?” he persists.

  “It isn’t your problem,” I tell him.

  “It is my problem,” Alabaster shoots back with surprising force. The voice is still reedy, but there’s authority, even vigor behind it. For the first time, I see how this weakened shell of a person used to be what the newspapers called the most successful gangster in American history.

  “You’re my kid,” he goes on. “You’re staying with me. Lucky for you, a dying man doesn’t take up much space. Your girl too. Bring her in here. I want to meet her.”

  Lenny has a concern. “Boss, putting up runaways—the cops’ll make trouble for us if they get wind of it. They’re already bent out of shape that the judge sprung you.”

  “Let them,” scoffs the old gangster. “My last stop was Joliet and my next is a hole in the ground. What can they do to me—arrest me again?”

  That’s why, a few minutes later, I’m back outside. Laska is pressed up against the porch rail, trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the two goons, who have resumed their card game. She’s clutching a full glass of lemonade like it’s the head of a cobra, and if she relaxes her grip it’ll swallow her whole. She’s cloned from a notorious terrorist, but she can be a total Goody Two-shoes sometimes, with a holier-than-thou attitude that drives me crazy. As if drinking a gangster’s lemonade makes you an accessory to everything he did.

  “How did it go?” she whispers.

  “Not bad,” I reply at regular volume. “In fact, we’re moving in.”

  Her eyes widen into saucers.

  “My dad wants to get to know his long-lost son,” I explain. “So he invited us to stay with him for a while. Come on, he wants to meet you.”

  As Lenny leads us down the hall of gold-framed mirrors, Amber sidles up to me. “Did he tell you anything about Project Osiris?”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t get that far. He still thinks I’m his kid. Oh, and one more thing. If anybody asks, you’re my girlfriend.”

  “What—?”

  Her protest goes no further than that, because Lenny opens the door and ushers us into the room, and she’s face-to-face with a dying crime boss. I feel bad about blindsiding her this way. But not so bad, since watching Laska squirm is at least a little bit fun.

  I’ve got to hand it to her, though. She pulls it off, somehow making her expression of loathing come across as respect.

  Alabaster appraises her critically and turns to me. “You like them wild, huh? I approve.”

  Wild? I regard Amber as if for the first time. She was wanted by the cops back in Denver, so she had to cut her long blond hair and dye it black. Now her natural color is growing out, and there are splashes of dark, fair, and even some red where the dye is fading. It’s a very punk look after a dunk in the river and an eighty-mile-an-hour blow-dry on top of a speeding camper. What a change from the prim and proper Serenity girl she used to be.

  She says, “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Alabaster.”

  “Call me Gus.” He goes into another coughing fit, but waves away the nurse as he gets himself under control. “When they sprung me from Joliet, who would have thought I was headed for a family reunion? Who would have thought I was headed for a family?”

  And I’m the guy who has to tell him it isn’t true.

  Lucky me.

  4

  TORI PRITEL

  I guess I can’t really call myself an artist anymore. I haven’t so much as sketched anything since we left Serenity (which feels like two lifetimes ago). My parents made me a fully equipped studio in our attic, but that’s hundreds of miles away in an empty, dead town that was never real in the first place.

  One thing has stayed with me, though—my eye for detail. I notice things that other people don’t. For example, a stroller, a small bike, and a Big Wheel in the open carport means there are kids in this house. And kids like cookies.

  I ring the doorbell. The woman who answers has a baby on her hip and a cell phone at her ear. Perfect. Just busy enough not to ask too many questions.

  “Hi, ma’am. I’m selling Girl Scout Cookies to support my troop. Would you like to buy some?”

  Amazingly, she’s able to fish out a ten-dollar bill without putting down either the phone or the kid. “Have you got Thin Mints?”

  That’s something I’ve learned in the past hour. Everybody loves the Thin Mints. Luckily, I’ve got a huge supply of all flavors. (I happen to have an entire warehouse at my disposal.) Obviously, I can’t bring the whole warehouse with me. But Eli found a loading dolly that we piled up, and I’ve been selling the stuff around the neighborhood. And business is booming.

  It definitely beats carrying groceries.

  I hand over her Thin Mints and her change. She’s about to close the door, when she asks suddenly, “Shouldn’t you be in your uniform?”

  I give her my best smile, the one with all the teeth. “They have mercy on us in the summer. The outfit’s really hot. Thanks again!”

  In Serenity they taught us that honesty was the most important of the Three Essential Qualities of Serenity Citizens (honesty, harmony, and contentment). Here in the outside world, though, a lie comes to me as easily as breathing. It used to make me sad, but now I’m so focused on survival that I’ll say anything to anybody. Staying free is all that matters.

  I head down the walk toward the next house, pushing the dolly ahead of me. The stacks of cookie boxes are a lot shorter than when I started out. And there’s no mistaking the thick wad of bills bulging in my pocket. I must have over three hundred dollars. If Yvonne-Marie Delacroix knew there was so much money in Girl Scout Cookies, she might have given up robbing banks.

  The thought makes me laugh out loud, but there’s really nothing funny about this. I’m selling stuff that’s not mine to sell, which is a kind of stealing too. The whole purpose of Project Osiris was to see if evil kids would still grow up to be evil adults if you give them the perfect upbringing. I don’t have to turn into Yvonne-Marie Delacroix. I’m her already. For sure, the keen powers of observation I’m so proud of were useful to Yvonne-Marie in casing banks and finding weak spots in security systems.

  On the other hand, Eli and I need money if we’re going to eat—although we’ve both put away so many cookies in the last two days that we’ve probably stored up enough calories to hibernate until Christmas. Fine, we’ll buy clothes, then. We’re both wearing the same stuff we escaped in, and it’s ge
tting plenty ripe. (We obviously can’t keep a low profile if people smell us half a block away.)

  I guide my rolling inventory up the next walk. This house isn’t any bigger, but it’s beautifully maintained. The paint is fresh. The windows gleam. The landscaping is perfect. There are two nice cars in the driveway. Let’s hope they like cookies. They can certainly afford to buy a lot of them.

  A kid opens the door—a girl a year or two younger than me.

  “Hi,” I greet her. “I’m selling Girl Scout Cookies.”

  Her eyes narrow. “You’re not part of our troop.”

  Uh-oh. “I’m from the north side of town. My mom dropped me off here because our neighborhood is all cookied out.”

  “It’s the wrong time,” she says with a frown. “All the big sales were last month. Where’s your ID badge? You’re not even wearing your uniform.”

  “Well, it’s so hot—”

  Before I can stammer out an excuse, the mom appears behind her. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s our annual fund drive,” I explain smoothly.

  “I’m the troop leader for Troop three twenty-eight,” she tells me. “I know all the troops around here. No one has an annual fund drive. Where did you get those cookies?”

  I may not be Yvonne-Marie Delacroix, but I know when it’s time to disappear. I roll the dolly into the doorway, blocking it, and take off like a jackrabbit. My career as a Girl Scout is officially over.

  I cut through backyards, hurdling lawn chairs and vegetable gardens and vaulting over fences. It’s a talent I inherited from my DNA donor, along with my powers of observation—not just the athletic ability to escape, but also the instinct to be stealthy about it, rather than just taking the easy route and fleeing down the street. I have no idea if that troop leader will call the police over grand theft Girl Scout Cookies. Still, I can’t take the chance of leading anybody back to the warehouse—especially not the police. There’s a car there that really is a grand theft. And if the cops start looking into Eli and me, no good will come of that.

  Where the neighborhood ends, I dash through a scrap-metal yard and cross the main road, heading for our warehouse. I don’t hear any police sirens, which is a good sign. But that doesn’t mean the troop leader isn’t on the phone right now, reporting me to the Girl Scout head office. I obviously need to disappear, and fast.

  The sight of the warehouse gives my feet wings. I blast up to the gate and reach out to unwind the padlock chain. The shock is like a physical blow.

  The chain is loose, hanging down to the pavement. I know for a fact that I rewound it carefully after letting myself out with the dolly of cookies. Eli would have done the same.

  Someone has opened the gate.

  5

  ELI FRIEDEN

  I have a knack for computers.

  It doesn’t make sense. Tori has a lot of talents that probably trace back to the bank robber she’s cloned from. Malik is tough and intimidating, even a bit of a bully, just like a mob boss would be. Amber is passionate, reckless, and absolutely unstoppable once she decides on a course of action. One by one, none of these traits are so bad; together, they describe Mickey Seven, the terrorist whose DNA created Amber. Even Hector is an echo of the embezzler and con artist C. J. Rackoff—super-smart, but in a figuring-the-angles, untrustworthy way.

  But I’m cloned from Bartholomew Glen, the notorious Crossword Killer. Trust me, it’s not a fun thing to know about yourself. Every flash of temper, every time I get angry, or frustrated, or impatient, I have to wonder if that’s my Glen DNA coming out. Not only did Bartholomew Glen murder nine people—he made a game out of it. He taunted the police with clues to the killings in the form of elaborate crossword puzzles.

  How does that translate to being good with computers?

  Not that I’m complaining. My skills helped us discover the truth about ourselves and Project Osiris back in Serenity, and they’ve saved our necks more than once since we broke out. Again and again they’ve provided us with valuable information to help us survive in the outside world.

  That’s why I’m sitting in the office section of the warehouse, hacking into the Amarillo Police Department’s website. It takes me just a few minutes to access their stolen vehicle reports. I scan down the long list, looking for the car that’s parked on the other side of the wall, amid the tall storage units of Girl Scout Cookies.

  I check and double check. It’s not there.

  I try again, this time searching by license plate number. Still nothing.

  I frown. I guess people who try to kidnap girls in parking lots don’t want too much involvement with the police. They haven’t reported the theft, but that doesn’t mean they never will. They’re probably trying to find the car on their own first.

  The question remains: Who are they? Purple People Eaters? Nobody else knows we’re—special. If it isn’t someone from Osiris, who else could it possibly be?

  A burst of laughter draws my attention away from the computer. I’ve got the TV on too, in case there are any news bulletins that might involve us. I glance over. It’s a sitcom—one of those shows where the audience laughs way too much at jokes that aren’t that funny. It seems to be about kids in a school on another planet somewhere in outer space.

  Suddenly, the camera angle shifts to a close-up of a boy sitting in the back row.

  I stare at him in disbelief. It’s like I’m looking in a mirror. Okay, maybe not exactly. He’s a little bit older. His hair’s slightly longer than mine. He seems relaxed and mellow; I haven’t been either of those things since learning the truth about Serenity. Other than that, we could be twins.

  I peer down at my reflection in the glass cover of the desk. I’m not wrong. This is more than just a passing resemblance. We have the same face.

  My mind races. Could I have been cloned from this guy and not Bartholomew Glen? Don’t I wish! But it’s impossible. This kid would have been a baby when Project Osiris was creating their lab rats. The whole point was to use criminal masterminds, not innocent infants.

  No, he must be related to Bartholomew Glen somehow. Which is the same as being related to me.

  I watch the show to the end, barely hearing a word of it, yet unable to take my eyes off my mysterious on-screen twin. When the closing credits finally come on, I learn his name: Blake Upton.

  Immediately, I swivel back to the computer and Google him.

  The picture reminds me of my eighth-grade class photo. I plow through the short biography:

  Blake Upton, 14, is an American actor currently appearing as the character Jesse in the cable TV sitcom Jupiter High, about an Earth colony school on the Jovian moon Ganymede. The show, which is shooting at Atomic Studios in Los Angeles, is the first major role for the southern California native . . .

  The sound of a door closing draws my attention from the web page. Tori’s back. Could she possibly have sold all those cookies? More likely she got sick of dragging the dolly from house to house in the blazing sun.

  I’m just about to call to her when I hear voices—two men. I can’t make out their exact words, but one of them says something about square footage.

  A real estate agent—and he’s showing the warehouse to a potential customer!

  I mute the TV and press myself up against the door-frame, peering out to see who’s there. Two guys in suits are heading my way, moving through the corridor of the office area toward the main warehouse. My first thought is to hide under the desk and hope they don’t notice me. Then I remember the car parked beside all those storage shelves. That’s going to tip them off.

  Out of options, I make a run for the car. I know I’m giving myself away, but that’s going to happen anyway. At least now, I’ve got the element of surprise and a head start.

  “Hey, kid—what are you doing here?”

  From behind me, the heavy clop of dress shoes accelerates. I’m being chased.

  I burst out of the office area, slowing down only to hit the button on the hanging cable control
. The metal loading bay door begins to rattle open.

  I jump in the car and waste precious seconds fumbling the keys out of my pocket. By the time I start the engine, both men are in the warehouse, striding toward me.

  “Whose car is that? How old are you?” The taller man reaches for the passenger door.

  I put the car in gear and step on the gas. That’s when I realize my mistake. The rising door is behind me, and in my mad rush, I shifted into Drive. The sedan lurches forward, knocking into a shelf. From high above, a cascade of cookie boxes rains down on the car and the two men.

  I finally find Reverse and begin to back up toward the open bay. One of the men reaches the cable box and hits the button. The garage door begins to descend again. I watch it through the rearview mirror, desperately trying to calculate if I’ve got enough room. It doesn’t make any difference, I reflect, because I’m not stopping.

  Come on, Eli! I exhort myself. Faster!

  There’s an ear-splitting screech of metal as the bottom of the door scrapes along the roof of the sedan. There’s no way the antenna would have made it, but luckily, we cut that off a couple of days ago.

  Another screech and I’m free, backing across the property, heading for the main gate. I’ve already decided I don’t have time to stop and open it. I have to blast right through.

  To my surprise, the chain-link barrier offers no resistance and flies open the instant my rear bumper touches it. As I roar out into the road, out of the corner of my eye, I spy a slim figure diving headfirst into the ditch.

  I almost hit someone!

  I slam on the brakes, and I’m about to jump out and offer assistance when she comes crawling up to the shoulder, rumpled and dusty, but otherwise unhurt.

  Tori.

  She gets in the passenger seat and buckles her safety belt, just like we were going for a Sunday drive.

  “I almost killed you!” I exclaim, shaking.

  She shrugs. “It didn’t happen. What’s up at the warehouse?”

  I don’t have to answer that question, because at that moment, the two men burst out of the building. One of them is talking into a cell phone.