Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The Heat

Saturday morning, Summer and I rumbled into the parking lot just before nine a.m. We’d taken her Jeep, partly because the rough gravel parking lot was a threat to my Tesla’s undercoating, and partly because I wanted some time to think without having to focus on driving. We’d even left all of our various pets at home, which was saying something. Summer claimed that Riker behaved himself while he was alone in her condo. I wished I could say the same for my little dragons. The last time I’d left them alone on a Saturday, two of my neighbor’s cats had suddenly gone missing. I never saw any evidence, but I doubted it had been a coincidence.

Summer glanced at the parking lot. “Are you sure they’re going to find this place?”

“They’ll be here. We’re just early due to someone’s lead foot.”

“Hey, I’m efficient.”

“Well, Wong is not. So don’t be surprised if he’s late.”

“Is she efficient?” Summer asked. Her tone was casual enough, but I sensed the danger there.

“Yes, but they said they’d come together, so it probably balances out,” I said.

“Don’t know why she needs to come anyway.”

“They both offered, and they didn’t have to. We’re going to need help.”

Summer muttered something under her breath that I imagined I didn’t want to be repeated, so I’d let it slide. With the trials and everything occupying nearly every waking moment of my consciousness, I’d been leaning on her a lot lately. Her business at the firm had slowed down a fraction since their big project wrapped up, and she’d offered to take all of my dragons for a couple of weeks. Judging by the scratch marks on her arms, it hadn’t gone very smoothly.

A soundless flash of sunlight on muted steel marked the arrival of another car, Korrapati’s little white electric coupe. I should have known she’d be the one to drive; Wong was a firm believer in bumming rides whenever and wherever he could. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if he owned a car.

“Now, be nice,” I said. “They didn’t have to come.”

“I’ll try,” Summer said dryly.

Korrapati parked on the far side of the little gravel lot, probably a wise move on her part. She climbed out, already biting her lip. Wong managed to saunter out of the passenger seat. Both of them wore dark sunglasses. For a moment, the pure comedy of the situation made we want to laugh. Here we were, meeting in an all-but-abandoned parking lot.

“Hey, guys, thanks for coming,” I said as they walked up. “This is my girlfriend Summer.” I still got a little thrill at introducing her as my girlfriend.

“Hello, I’m Priti,” Korrapati said.

Summer blinked, undoubtedly having the same reaction that I did when I first heard her name.

“It’s P-R-I-T-I,” I said.

“Ohhhh,” Summer said. “Sorry.”

“It’s perfectly all right. I get that a lot.”

“Well, it’s fitting. You are pretty.”

Korrapati blushed. “Oh, stop. You’re the pretty one.”

They were being incredibly nice to each other, and yet alarm bells were ringing all over my head. I took the opportunity to jump in. “And this, of course, is Wong.”

“Nice to meet you,” Wong said. He looked from her to me, and his eyebrows lifted over his sunglasses. “Zuò dé hǎo.”

Good job. I chuckled. “Xiè xiè.Thank you.

Summer elbowed me in the ribs. “Stop that.”

“So, we’re here,” Korrapati said. “What now?”

“Now, we’re going to find a geocache.”

“What?” Korrapati asked.

Summer gave me a side-eye. “You were serious about that?”

“Of course. We’re here, aren’t we?”

“I’ve not done one before,” Korrapati said.

“They don’t get any easier than this one,” Summer said. “It’s so easy, even a complete noob could do it.”

I was fairly certain that was a jab at me, but I let it slide. Summer and I both had the destination waypoint saved in our watches, so we set that as a destination.

Wong brandished his own watch. “Send me coordinates.”

I beamed the coordinates over, and couldn’t help but notice that he had the same model watch as I did—only a much newer model. “Whoa, let me see the hardware.”

He obliged, holding out his wrist so I could have a look. Sure enough, it was my watch—and Summer’s watch—but his was even cleaner than hers, and had some display items I hadn’t seen. “Is this a gen-three?”

“Think so.”

“They’re not even out yet! How did you get your hands on this, Wong?”

“Borrow it from a friend.”

“You have a lot of friends. I wonder why I’ve never met any of these people.”

“Maybe you meet them already.”

I laughed. “Yeah, maybe.”

He fell back to walk beside Summer, who wanted to compare watches.

0.34 miles to target. Well, not the most ambitious start to our geocache, but I supposed that was a secondary goal anyway. Korrapati’s shadow fell into step beside mine.

“So, have you figured out a plan yet?” she asked.

“I was hoping you had one.”

“You’re the planner, remember?”

“I know what we need to do, but I have no idea how we’re going to accomplish it,” I said.

“And what is that?”

“Take the Redwood Codex back from Greaves.”

“How did you find out he has one? Did he tell you?”

I wanted to share it with her, but I’d promised Redwood to keep his secrets. Summer had, too. And somehow I knew that if I betrayed his confidence, he’d find out about it. Not to mention the fact that she probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.

“He must. How else is he printing living, breathing dragons?”

“I thought there was only one.”

“Evelyn told me there was a prototype. Redwood had it.” Only part of that was a lie, and it was more of a matter of perspective. “I’m guessing Greaves somehow got his hands on it.” Nothing false about that.

“That sounds, um, highly illegal.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“Can we do anything about that?”

I nodded. “Evelyn’s trying, but it’s a slow process.”

“Plus, legal procedures are not what Noah Parker is known for,” she said.

“Hey, now. What is it that you think I am known for?”

“I plead the fifth.”

We skirted around an old saguaro that split the trail.

0.27 miles to target.

“So, you think we should take Robert’s Codex.”

“Take it back, yes. It’s the only part of the process that he can’t reverse engineer on his own. If he doesn’t have it, he’s out of the game.”

She sighed. “I suppose it’s better than arson.”

What I didn’t tell her—what I didn’t want to tell any of them—was that if we couldn’t retrieve the Codex, I wanted to destroy it.

0.19 miles to target. I nearly yelled for Octavius to glide ahead and start looking for the cache when I remembered that I hadn’t brought him. I guessed we had good reasons—there was no need to reveal all of my secrets to my designers in one sitting. As far as I knew, all of my unlicensed dragons were technically illegal.

We crested a ridge then, and we could see the area where I knew the cache to be. “All right, you two are on your own. It’s straight ahead, not far from the trail.”

“You aren’t coming with us?” Korrapati asked.

“It’s not allowed. Summer and I both found this one already.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Summer said, as if suddenly remembering. “And . . . who was it that found it first?”

“Come on, this was my first successful geocache.”

“It wasn’t my first.”

I smiled at her, because I liked flirty Summer. “Little did I know the capable and experienced woman who’d been here before me.”

To their credit, Wong and Korrapati trekked down the slope and began making a “search” for the cache. They tackled it with about as much vigor and enthusiasm as Connor cleaning his room. Which is to say, not much.

“Did you explain to them what the word cache means?” Summer asked, as Wong nudged around a few rocks with the toe of his boot.

“Nah. You know how it is with kids these days. They have to learn it for themselves.”

The weather heated up in predictable fashion. Finally, in a surprise twist, Wong nudged the correct log with his boot, and actually got down on his knees to look inside.

“Isn’t he the guy who rides a scooter everywhere?” Summer asked.

“I think this is the most I’ve seen him move under his own power.”

Wong reached into the log tentatively. Then he went elbow deep and still didn’t come up with it.

“That’s odd,” I said.

“Not really.” Summer stretched and yawned. “I came here yesterday. Shoved it really far in there.”

I laughed. “You are evil. You know that, don’t you?”

“Gotta haze the rookies.”

With some encouragement from Korrapati, Wong committed the full arm and came up with the cache container. He held it up in the sky like he’d just won a trophy.

I sighed. “I remember that feeling.”

They opened up the container so that Korrapati could sign the log inside. Wong dug into his pockets and found something small to exchange for one of the trinkets inside. Since he and Korrapati had legitimately found the cache, I logged it for them under the account I’d created and named “KoraWong.”

“Well, you’re on the board,” I said, once they’d returned the container and come back. “Congratulations, Team KoraWong.”

“That was fun,” Korrapati said. She had a sheen of sweat on her face but was smiling.

“Lot of work,” Wong said.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that, as far as geocaches went, this was a pretty easy one. Instead, I made sure no other geocachers were coming down the path, and scanned the sky for drones. Nothing. We stood in a shallow basin of sorts, with rocky, unforgiving slopes on three sides. The path we’d taken was the only way in. Anyone following us had nowhere to park except the small gravel lot, and no way to approach us without being seen. Maybe I was being a touch paranoid, but when you went up against Robert Greaves, you didn’t want to take chances.

“Well, here we are, so let’s talk,” I said.

Everyone seemed to register the tone; they moved closer until we were all within arm’s reach. Which might not have been the optimal scenario given how much we were all sweating, but oh well.

“Greaves has to be operating somewhere around Phoenix. We need to figure out where before we do something to stop him.”

“And by something you mean take his Codex,” Korrapati said.

“Right. The problem is finding his facility. I checked property tax records and corporation filings, but if Greaves filed anything, it’s not under his own name.”

“He doesn’t have a corporate lease on file, either,” Summer said. “I checked.”

My mouth fell open. “You did what now?”

“I looked while I was at work.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Her autonomy on my risky project threw me a little. What if she got caught? I’d never really planned for Summer to face any consequences. The idea sat uncomfortably in my gut, but I plunged forward. “My best idea right now is to try to track down Greaves himself. He’s not exactly hiding from the public.”

“I don’t like that idea,” Summer said. “What if he catches you?”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Blending in and being cautious are not your strong suits.”

“Maybe we follow O’Connell or Frogman,” Wong said.

I bit back a sharp retort aimed at Summer. “That’s actually not a bad idea. I bet we can track down one of their home addresses.”

“Or ask me. I know where both live,” Wong said.

I clapped him on the shoulder. “I knew there was a good reason to bring you in on this.” A dark thought intruded. “You don’t know where I live, too, do you?”

“You offer me carpool, maybe I find out.”

“Ha! You are too much.” A little plan had started to formulate in my head. “So here’s what I’m thinking. We get eyes on one of them and see if they lead us to their lab.”

“Which one?” Summer asked.

“Both of them. It doubles our odds.” I pointed at Korrapati and Wong. “You two take O’Connell. Summer and I will try to follow the Frogman.” These assignments weren’t arbitrary; O’Connell and I had never really gotten along very well, so if he spotted me it could go really badly. In contrast, I could walk five feet behind the Frogman wearing a clown suit and he might not notice me.

“So if one of them leads us to their lab, then what?” Korrapati asked.

“Then we find out what we’re really up against,” I said. And hope that we’re equal to the task.


Back | Next
Framed