Installment 8

            Look, I know it was a bad idea.

            At least, I know it now. When I did it, I don’t suppose I thought much along those lines. The general idea was that I was bored and I had to do something to keep myself from rummaging through Clara’s backpack, and if that something involved putting both of us at risk, well, I would do my best not to get caught.

            Like I said, it was a bad idea.

            Clara fell asleep while poring over a notebook. She had obviously latched onto the idea of being an agent quickly -- searching for clues, testing out the equipment she had…everything. But yet with all that, she was taking this seriously -- very seriously.

            I know what you’re thinking. And you weren’t?

            I was taking it seriously. But here’s the thing: I wasn’t scared.

            Not even a bit.

            And the part that did disconcert me was that I was partly enjoying it.

            I had been passed around from foster home to foster home all my life. I couldn’t wait until I graduated and I could legally head off on my own. It seemed that every couple -- or single person -- I was given to was completely incompetent at knowing what to do with a kid. Trust me, I’ve seen all sorts. There are those who give you whatever you want, or they think you want, and there are those who never want to give you anything, and there are those who try to keep a balance but they’re so obvious about everything that it’s clear as day that they don’t really care about you.

            I’ve got an idea. Let’s change the subject.

            No one really ever kept me around for very long, because I was so not normal. But with the sudden arrival of a policeman, a strange girl, and a computer program called Back Door, I was part of something. I had a thousand questions and no answers, I had a vague idea in the back of my mind that this was dangerous, but I mattered.

            As that thought struck me, a memory came flashing back.

            Do you matter at all?

            I threw it off as quickly as it came. I had grown experienced in this task, but not experienced enough, because with the memory of that question came other memories of other questions, questions I would dearly like to forget.

            I focused on the backpack next to the sleeping Clara in order to block out the memories, and I found that, surprisingly enough, it worked very well. Troubling thoughts were replaced with an overwhelming desire to search her backpack and all the gadgets she claimed were within it. And I knew that she would kill me if I did that, so I made a decision to go out and look around to see if the police were still there.

            I snuck out quietly without Clara waking up. We were in a back hallway. I had lived in this town all my life, so I knew that this part of the bus station wasn’t originally part of the station. It used to be a set of offices belonging to some company, but now, it was used as a set of record storage rooms. Apparently Clara had chosen the one empty room.

            I slipped down the hallway, and through another one, trying to remember exactly how we got in. It was a small little complex attached to the bus station, but I didn’t want to walk straight into the waiting arms of the police, and so I tried to be careful.

            Suddenly, I heard a noise. I froze and flattened myself against the wall. I could hear voices coming closer, and I frantically looked both ways for somewhere to go.

            I spotted the door to what I assumed must be a broom closet for a janitor, and I jerked it open, slipping inside and shutting the door.

            The voices came closer, and I realized they were walking through my same hallway -- and I felt a shiver run up my back when I recognized one of the voices.

            “Deal with it? What do you mean, deal with it?”

            It was Larson from the police station, but he sounded far angrier now than he had before.

            “Obviously I’m not telling you to deal with it. I’ll deal with it. I wouldn’t trust you to ‘deal with it,’ anyway.”

            The second voice belonged to Travis Thatcher, and he had the same sarcastic voice I had heard before. I knew it was dangerous…but I couldn’t help crouching at the keyhole to watch.

            “Heavens, Thatcher!” Larson snarled back. He was rubbing his forehead with his hand, looking positively furious. Travis had leaned back against the wall, arms crossed.

            “It’s not that big a deal to deal with,” he shrugged. “Seriously.”

            “Not that big a deal?” Larson exploded. “It’s a huge deal! We let the kid get away! It’s our fault!”

            “So he got away.” Travis spread his arms in a careless gesture. “So what? He can still fulfill his purpose.”

            “Oh, really? How?” Larson challenged.

            “Simple,” Travis insisted. “To me, I mean. I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Mr. Drew Larson. Simple in my boat, but complicated in yours.”

            “You and your stupid mind games,” Larson muttered, and for a moment, I saw a genuinely unsettled expression on Travis’ face. Larson had succeeded in unnerving him for a moment, but only a moment, before Travis rearranged his features into the same confident air, and Larson never noticed the change.

            “Mind games?” he said smoothly, tracing a crack in the wall with one finger. “What do you mean?”

            Larson rolled his eyes. “Stories, and lots of them. Everyone knows them. Only a few people recognize them for what they are. But then again, only a few people have ever wittingly played your games, have they? I’m not one of them, Thatcher, so you should explain things normally.”

            Now Travis smiled his crooked half smile -- but it was not a smile of relief. I got the sneaking suspicion that Travis was not particularly happy with Larson’s revelation. “The kid’s a fugitive. He’s just as much use to me as a fugitive as jailed or arrested.”

            It was Larson’s turn to be confused. “What? How?”

            I have to go. I meant to get farther… but I’ll get back soon.

-Nathan T. Dalton

Installment 7

You know, looking back on it, I can see how Clara planned it perfectly. We arrived at the bus station at exactly five o’clock, and everyone was taking a bus. The crowd was so thick you could barely breathe, and since Clara and I were just below the average height of everyone in the place, we were almost unnoticeable.

            The police cars showed up five minutes after we did. Come to think of it, maybe she planned that out too. But by the time we heard the faint sound of sirens, we were both holed up in a small back room.

            I think it was once a staff room for the bus drivers, but by now it was deserted of all human life and furniture.

            “Are you sure no one comes in here?” I asked.

            “Positive,” Clara replied, swinging her backpack off of her shoulders.

            “How?”

            “Because I’ve been living here for the past two months,” she said simply.

            I gaped at her. “What? How has nobody found you?”

            “I sneak in at the right times. People don’t see me in the crowds, and the staff don’t come in here. So I don’t get caught, and with luck, neither will you.”

            For five minutes, I stood listening at the door, and when I finally decided that no one was going to come charging in after us -- at least not right away, anyway -- I turned back to Clara.

            She was sitting up against the wall, closely examining some notebook from her backpack. I thought about snatching it out of her hands, but decided against it.

            “So,” I began. “Do I get an explanation?”

            Resigned, she set down the notebook. “I told you that there wasn’t much of one. I’ll tell you what I know, but really, it’s not much more than you do.”

            “That’s virtually nothing,” I cut in, “So I don’t see how you could know any less.”

            “Fair enough,” she admitted. “Okay. Let’s try this.

            “My parents used to work for an agency -- that is, back when they were alive. They died when I was two…but we’ll get to that. The thing is, I don’t know what agency they worked for, or what their job was, or anything. No one’s ever told me, mostly because they don’t know.

            “Anyway, the deal is that back when I was two years old, my parents were both found dead. Actually, my mother was dead -- my dad was still conscious, but barely. They took him to the hospital, but he was already in bad shape and didn’t have long to live. Apparently he kept saying things that sounded like gibberish to the doctors, and all they remember is him saying the name ‘Travis’ several times.

            “After that, the agency clammed up and wouldn’t release any information about their work or what happened or anything. My parents had set things up so that I would get passed along to my uncle -- he’s not really my uncle, he’s a distant cousin -- if anything happened to them. He never knew anything either, and believe me, he wasn’t cut out to take care of kids. He tried, I guess, but he just wasn’t very good at it.

            “So a year ago, I decided to do some investigating for myself. I dug around in my parents’ old records and found a phone number, some codes, a few passwords. None of them turned up any leads. So I bought a bus ticket and headed out to my parents’ old house. And that’s where I found all this stuff.”

            Clara gestured at the backpack.

            “The sunglasses and everything else. I don’t quite know what all of it does, but I’ve figured out some of it. Apparently the house was barely touched after they died. Anyway, when I was there, I found an email printed out dated from the night before they died.”

            She fished around in the backpack, and finally came up with a crumpled piece of paper. I smoothed it out and read it.

To: Frederick Stone

From: Pseudonym

Re: Operation 497

     You were right. It was Thatcher. 497 is underway -- now. This is our last chance.

     Just in case things don’t go horribly wrong, the kid’s name is Nathan T. Dalton.

     I stared at the email. “You’re kidding.”

            She shook her head. “Hardly.”

            “And this is all there is?”

            Clara nodded. “Uh-huh.”

            I hesitated before handing the paper back. “It’s a complete disconnect! Operation 497? Travis Thatcher? Then they throw my name in there?”

            “Remember that we don’t have the whole conversation. This is just the last word in it.”

            “And who’s Pseudonym?”

            Clara reached back into her backpack. “I found a couple other mentions of the name in this notebook, mostly with strings of numbers after them.”

            “Tracking numbers?”

            “Already tried it. They come up a blank.”

            I nodded. “Go on.”

            “So I looked you up -- just your name, that is. I couldn’t really find anything, but when I decided to stick Travis and Thatcher together…I got some crazy mix-ups. His name is everywhere, but you can’t find any information on him. It’s mentioned in little articles, passing mentions…But imagine my surprise when I finally found something worthwhile. Someone used the words ‘Travis’ System’ on a blog.” Clara passed me a printed out blog post. I scanned over it. It seemed like it was about pretty boring things, but my stomach did a flip when I saw the title of the blog.

“Operation 497?” I said out loud.

Clara nodded. “Since there are a lot of random blog names, I wouldn’t have thought twice, except for that there were also a few other things that didn’t make sense…including the fact that the words ‘back door’ are capitalized for seemingly no reason, and that the writer makes a very obscure reference to a main character in a movie called ‘The Hack Job,’ who’s apparently named Nathan. It could have been a coincidence…but I decided to follow up on it. The post was written from this town. So I caught another bus and came out here. I’ve been living here, in this room -- ” she gestured around the small room that was practically a closet -- “while I’ve been trying to find a new lead.”

“I wasn’t hiding or anything,” I pointed out. “Why couldn’t you find me?”

“Because I wasn’t looking specifically for you,” Clara answered. “And because I was afraid to go into any public place and be recognized. I don’t know if my uncle’s still looking for me. Anyway, I found Travis a day or two before you did. He showed up at the police station. I only know because I happened to be passing the station on my way here when he and Larson were talking outside. Travis told him his name, and I recognized it right away. After that, I hung around the police station a lot to see what I could pick up. A couple days later, they brought you in. I was outside the window, and I heard everything they said. I figured that there must be some good explanation for all this, and since Travis just as good as admitted he was framing you, I thought I’d get you out of there.” Clara leaned back and crossed her arms. “That’s all I have. Do you have anything to add?”

I shook my head, disappointed that there wasn’t more. “No. I’ve never heard of any of this in my life.”

Clara nodded, and I could sense her own regret. “Well, we have far more questions than answers.”

            “We?” I interjected. Clara raised her eyebrows.

            “I sprang you out of the station, Nathan. They’re not going to be happy with either of us. We have to stick together or they’ll catch both of us eventually.”

            I had to agree with her, but there was something about trusting a complete stranger that I was not so eager about.

            “So the plan is to catch a bus tomorrow at ten o’clock?” I said finally.

            “Yes.”

            “And you’re assuming that the police will be gone by then?”

            Clara tried to look confident, but failed. “Of course. They’ll decide we went somewhere else by then.”

            “So we’re here all night? Where are you planning on heading?”

            Clara leaned forward. “See…that’s the problem. I don’t know.”

            I have to post this before I run out of battery. Until next time…

-Nathan T. Dalton