And that’s when we caught a couple of big breaks in a row. First of all, Kevin’s in-box was set up as his homepage, so we found his e-mail account with no problem. Beyond that, the computer was set to “remember” him, so we didn’t have to mess around with guessing his password. If I’d known he was that careless, I’d have checked the computer first.
Unfortunately, his in-box was empty, except for four messages that had come in that morning. Two were spam—porn, based on the subject lines—and the other two were advertisements from Popular Mechanics, which made Kevin sound smarter than he was, and a video-game site. He clearly kept his in-box cleaned out pretty well.
Not so with his Sent folder and his virtual trash can. Among the messages Kevin had recently deleted, I found one from his father, dated three days earlier. I opened it and scanned the contents, while all three of the toms read over my shoulder. It was in response to an e-mail Kevin had sent his father several hours before—along with a Word attachment titled “Updated tracker codes.”
Jackpot.
I opened the attachment while Jace turned on the printer and checked the paper tray. I printed four copies—one for each of us—then forwarded the message to myself, my father, and Michael, just to make sure that the evidence of Milo Mitchell’s involvement was well disseminated, in case something went horribly wrong and none of us came out of the hunt for Marc alive.
“Shit, Dan!” I glanced at him with both eyebrows raised, the paper still warm in my hand from the printer. “Your name’s top on the list. They implanted you first.”
Dan frowned and started to say something. But then Jace cut him off. “Eckard’s fifth from the top,” he said, and I skipped down five entries on the list. And there it was. Adam Eckard—tracking code 44827. I rolled forward in the chair and reactivated the tracker, which had gone into power-save mode, then typed in the five-digit code. Within seconds, information flooded the screen, including the current longitude and latitude of Adam Eckard’s GPS microchip.
At the bottom of the screen was a virtual button reading Map View. I pressed it, and a satellite image map appeared, showing a densely packed forest surrounding a glowing green dot—presumably Marc, carrying Eckard’s chip.
“There he is!” I shot up from my chair with the tracker in hand, and was already halfway to the hall—eager to get going now that we had a target to shoot for—when Jace called me back, his voice oddly strained, as if his throat wanted to close around the words as he spoke them.
“Faythe, look at the last name on the list.”
Irritated by the delay, I pulled my folded copy of the list from my back pocket, where I’d hurriedly shoved it, and skipped to the bottom of the page. The final entry read: Marc Ramos—tracking code 44839.
Shock raced through me so fast I got light-headed, and the edges of my vision darkened. “Marc’s been implanted? When? If they could track him, why would they try to kill him?”
Feldman shoved an empty duffel bag back into Kevin’s closet with his foot, then closed the door and leaned against it. “Maybe something went wrong. Marc woke up in the middle of the procedure, or he remembered too much afterward and figured out what they were doing, or something like that.” He pointed at a name on his list, and I glanced at my copy to follow along. “Look at the third entry. It’s been crossed out.” Using a strike-through font effect. “And he’s the first of the toms to go missing. There are three more entries like that, and I haven’t seen any of those toms in a while, either.”
I nodded slowly as understanding surfaced. “So the toms who made trouble were killed and buried. Only Marc didn’t die as planned—he killed Eckard instead. But if Marc knew he’d been implanted, why bother to take Eckard’s chip?”
“I don’t know.” Feldman shrugged, and gestured toward the display I still clutched in my right hand. “Where does that thing say Marc is?”
“Just a second.” I typed Marc’s code into a box at the top right corner of the screen, expecting the device to show his little green glowing circle overlaid with Eckard’s. But instead, the map disappeared and new coordinates appeared, along with another button promising me a map view. I pressed the button, and a new map appeared, this one displaying the satellite view of a small, neatly laid-out neighborhood, with the streets labeled.
Weird. The green dot on the new map was on the south side of a street called Magnolia Drive. “Guys, aren’t we on Magnolia Drive?” I asked, glancing around the room at the other faces, my eyes narrowed in uncertainty.
“Yeah, why?” Feldman said.
“Because according to this, Marc’s here.” But that couldn’t be right. If Marc were in Kevin’s house—even if he were no longer breathing—we’d have smelled him the moment we’d come in.
“Here, where?” Jace stepped close enough to view the screen over my shoulder again, and his chest brushed my back, sending warmth and ill-timed tingles through me. “In this house?”
“I think so.” I stepped subtly away from him, disguising the motion as I turned to face the rest of the room. And when I moved, though the dot on the screen stayed still, the map rotated with me. “Wait…” I pressed the plus-shaped zoom button three times, and the image on-screen tightened until it would go no further, showing a thirty-yard span which included a black-and-white view of the roof of Kevin’s house, as well as the edges of those to each side.
Unfortunately, his in-box was empty, except for four messages that had come in that morning. Two were spam—porn, based on the subject lines—and the other two were advertisements from Popular Mechanics, which made Kevin sound smarter than he was, and a video-game site. He clearly kept his in-box cleaned out pretty well.
Not so with his Sent folder and his virtual trash can. Among the messages Kevin had recently deleted, I found one from his father, dated three days earlier. I opened it and scanned the contents, while all three of the toms read over my shoulder. It was in response to an e-mail Kevin had sent his father several hours before—along with a Word attachment titled “Updated tracker codes.”
Jackpot.
I opened the attachment while Jace turned on the printer and checked the paper tray. I printed four copies—one for each of us—then forwarded the message to myself, my father, and Michael, just to make sure that the evidence of Milo Mitchell’s involvement was well disseminated, in case something went horribly wrong and none of us came out of the hunt for Marc alive.
“Shit, Dan!” I glanced at him with both eyebrows raised, the paper still warm in my hand from the printer. “Your name’s top on the list. They implanted you first.”
Dan frowned and started to say something. But then Jace cut him off. “Eckard’s fifth from the top,” he said, and I skipped down five entries on the list. And there it was. Adam Eckard—tracking code 44827. I rolled forward in the chair and reactivated the tracker, which had gone into power-save mode, then typed in the five-digit code. Within seconds, information flooded the screen, including the current longitude and latitude of Adam Eckard’s GPS microchip.
At the bottom of the screen was a virtual button reading Map View. I pressed it, and a satellite image map appeared, showing a densely packed forest surrounding a glowing green dot—presumably Marc, carrying Eckard’s chip.
“There he is!” I shot up from my chair with the tracker in hand, and was already halfway to the hall—eager to get going now that we had a target to shoot for—when Jace called me back, his voice oddly strained, as if his throat wanted to close around the words as he spoke them.
“Faythe, look at the last name on the list.”
Irritated by the delay, I pulled my folded copy of the list from my back pocket, where I’d hurriedly shoved it, and skipped to the bottom of the page. The final entry read: Marc Ramos—tracking code 44839.
Shock raced through me so fast I got light-headed, and the edges of my vision darkened. “Marc’s been implanted? When? If they could track him, why would they try to kill him?”
Feldman shoved an empty duffel bag back into Kevin’s closet with his foot, then closed the door and leaned against it. “Maybe something went wrong. Marc woke up in the middle of the procedure, or he remembered too much afterward and figured out what they were doing, or something like that.” He pointed at a name on his list, and I glanced at my copy to follow along. “Look at the third entry. It’s been crossed out.” Using a strike-through font effect. “And he’s the first of the toms to go missing. There are three more entries like that, and I haven’t seen any of those toms in a while, either.”
I nodded slowly as understanding surfaced. “So the toms who made trouble were killed and buried. Only Marc didn’t die as planned—he killed Eckard instead. But if Marc knew he’d been implanted, why bother to take Eckard’s chip?”
“I don’t know.” Feldman shrugged, and gestured toward the display I still clutched in my right hand. “Where does that thing say Marc is?”
“Just a second.” I typed Marc’s code into a box at the top right corner of the screen, expecting the device to show his little green glowing circle overlaid with Eckard’s. But instead, the map disappeared and new coordinates appeared, along with another button promising me a map view. I pressed the button, and a new map appeared, this one displaying the satellite view of a small, neatly laid-out neighborhood, with the streets labeled.
Weird. The green dot on the new map was on the south side of a street called Magnolia Drive. “Guys, aren’t we on Magnolia Drive?” I asked, glancing around the room at the other faces, my eyes narrowed in uncertainty.
“Yeah, why?” Feldman said.
“Because according to this, Marc’s here.” But that couldn’t be right. If Marc were in Kevin’s house—even if he were no longer breathing—we’d have smelled him the moment we’d come in.
“Here, where?” Jace stepped close enough to view the screen over my shoulder again, and his chest brushed my back, sending warmth and ill-timed tingles through me. “In this house?”
“I think so.” I stepped subtly away from him, disguising the motion as I turned to face the rest of the room. And when I moved, though the dot on the screen stayed still, the map rotated with me. “Wait…” I pressed the plus-shaped zoom button three times, and the image on-screen tightened until it would go no further, showing a thirty-yard span which included a black-and-white view of the roof of Kevin’s house, as well as the edges of those to each side.
