Cold Case

15

How many times, running a bit behind schedule, had Matt sat in an autobus seat, alternating anxious glances at his watch with silent curses at the vehicle’s maddeningly slow speed? The metropolitan autobus system had a national reputation for dependability, safety…and a speed that made turtles look swift in comparison.

Just my luck, Matt thought as he clutched for the metal handle on the seat in front of him. Now I wind up on the one autobus trying out for the stock-car racing circuit!

The autobus was careening madly along the six-lane boulevard, muscling other vehicles out of the way as if it suddenly believed it was a stock car. So far the bus was maintaining its programmed route, but even as Matt watched, the bus roared past a stop where people had been attempting to flag it down.

What are they, nuts? he wondered. This thing’s clearly not doing what it’s programmed to do!

If anything, the computer running the bus seemed to be increasing its road rage. Brakes squealed and horns uselessly sounded as the vehicle cut through traffic even more aggressively. Then came a screech that put Matt’s teeth on edge. Metal against metal — a car scraping its way along the side of the bus. The impact sent the bus shuddering up on two wheels. And when it bounced down, Matt and his friends had to fight to keep from flying.

That left David at a disability — he had too much stuff to hang on to. The bump left his cane skittering one way while his laptop took off in another. David, of course, went to rescue his computer, reaching out with both hands.

Right then the autobus jarred its way through a lane change. Matt and Megan were just jostled. David caught his computer, but he didn’t have a grip on anything to hold himself in place. He went tumbling from his seat, still clutching the laptop.

Matt launched himself into the aisle, one hand clenched on the tubular seat grip, the other outstretched to snag David’s arm as he hurtled by.

The good news was that Matt managed to catch David. The bad news was that the autobus lurched round on a new tack, spinning both boys around in the aisle.

David didn’t cry out, but Matt heard a wheeze of pain hiss from between his friend’s clenched teeth as he landed on his bad leg. Then Matt wasn’t hearing much of anything. The edge of his forehead smashed against a pole set in the aisle. It was supposed to offer a grip for standees during rush hour. But for someone flailing around in a near-empty bus, it was a disaster.

Bright yellow novas of pain erupted in the back of Matt’s eyeballs. He lost his hold, and both he and David went skittering along the thrumming floor to the rear of the autobus.

Matt’s cheek felt wet. Oh, man, he thought, have I landed face-first in somebody else’s mess?

As he came to rest in the back of the bus, he tried to wipe off whatever was on his face. But the barest touch sent a new twinge of pain though him. His fingers smeared some slimy/sticky gunk across his skin.

“Matt!” David’s voice sounded oddly far away. “Are you all right?”

“ ’M I awri?” Matt slurred. “Howze ya leg?”

“Bad,” David gritted. “How’s your face?”

“Face?” Matt blinked his eyes, trying to get them to focus. He wasn’t seeing stars anymore. Now he could make out David’s concerned face leaning over him.

Matt raised his hand. Now he could see what the slimy/sticky stuff was. Blood.

His blood.

Matt tried to rise up from his prone position, but either the sudden movement was too much for him…or maybe the crazed bus had just whirled end for end. He thumped back, trying hard not to throw up.

“Easy — easy!” David said.

Matt tried standing up again, much more slowly this time. His attempt to turn was more like a flop. But he managed to lever himself up, first on his elbows, then on his hands, until he was halfway into a push-up position. He was also wondering who was sitting on his shoulders.

David grabbed him as the bus wildly shimmied through another lane change. “I think you just split the skin where you hit,” he told Matt, looking closely at his forehead. “But it’s bleeding like a sonova—”

“Frack!” Megan’s shout from the front of the bus drowned out David’s words. “Stupid fracking hammer! Where is it?”

While David and Matt had been bowled to the back of the autobus, she’d fought her way to the front — and the emergency cutoff switch. This was supposed to stop the bus dead in its tracks. Every kid who rode an autobus had it drummed into his or her head that this button was to be touched only in the direst emergencies.

Well, that’s what this is, Matt thought as he tried to see what Megan was doing up there. His right eye — the one under the cut on his head — seemed to have its lids gummed together somehow. Matt couldn’t quite see—

Wait — Megan was pounding with her fist on the transparent plastic plate that protected the cutoff button. What was she doing that for? There was supposed to be a little metal hammer chained in place—

Oh. That’s what she’d been swearing about. The hammer wasn’t there. And the button couldn’t be pushed until she got the protective plate out of the way.

Matt’s head sank back to the floor. He noticed a grinding noise entering the whine of the autobus engine. Of course, the motor wasn’t built to power the kind of high-speed maneuvers the vehicle’s out-of-control computer was attempting. It might just blow a valve or something and they’d end up rolling to a stop. On the other hand, the engine might blow or start a fire, and they’d be trapped in a fast-moving inferno. Or they might stop by crashing into something — maybe even killing all of them plus some innocent bystanders. Megan had to get to that button — now!

He looked around for something to use as a tool — and his hand fell on David’s cane.

“Megan! Here!” Matt tried to toss the cane under-hand. His arm didn’t move as well as he wanted it to, and the cane clattered to the floor about four feet short of Megan’s waiting hand. Luckily, momentum made the cane skid another foot or so, and Megan was able to stretch out a leg and catch the handle under her foot. Holding on to a pole by the entrance door, she crouched down, pulling the cane in with her foot while reaching with her free hand.

She grabbed on to the shaft of the cane and rose to both feet. With a yell she swung the cane handle against the protective window. It didn’t break.

“What the—” Megan snarled, smacking the supposedly brittle plastic again — and again.

As if it knew what Megan was trying to do, the autobus began jinking back and forth from lane to lane. Megan was tossed one way, then the other, clinging des perately to the pole. The bus doors opened. If the vehicle succeeded in throwing Megan loose, she’d become a smear on the pavement.

“Megan, get away from there!” David called.

Megan glanced over her shoulder. Even from a distance and with one decently working eye, Matt recognized the stubborn jut of her jaw. She braced both feet against the autobus dashboard, pressing her back into the pole. Then, using both arms, she brought the cane down on the clear barrier. It finally broke.

The bus careened again, and Megan lost the cane out the doorway. But somehow she managed to hold on to that pole. Regaining her balance, she launched a martial-arts high kick, nailing the emergency stop button squarely with her toe.

“Way to go, Megan!” Matt cheered.

The only problem was, the bus still wasn’t stopping. Megan punched the button again, and again. The bus wobbled, but it didn’t stop. The mutinous computer was apparently fighting the cutoff order. Now the ominous smell of frying circuit boards up front joined the increasingly scary engine noises in the rear.

“Megan, get away from there!” David pleaded.

“Why? So I can put myself into the best position to get hit when the turbine throws a vane?” Megan shouted back. She glared around the autobus interior like an Amazon searching for a weapon. “You guys get up here. These passenger poles are only screwed in place. We could work one loose and ram it into the computer housing. That should kill it.”

And maybe us, too, with who knows how much electricity coming up the metal rod, Matt thought. But it beats dying in a crash and taking out the whole bunch of us and anybody in the way.

“Megan! Come back! We’ll meet you in the middle!” he called. Maybe Megan’s cutoff attempt had enjoyed some success. The autobus changed course again, this time veering to the right across the boulevard traffic. It didn’t seem to be an attempt to self-destruct — at least the autobus wasn’t aiming for a building. Bare trees, bushes, and bleached winter grass showed through the windows. They were heading into a park.

Not wanting to meet a tree trunk firsthand while moving at near light speed, Megan began making her way back from the front window. Matt and David struggled painfully to meet her halfway. David was crawling along the floor, his injured leg trailing behind him. Matt wasn’t all that much better. He felt dizzy whenever he tried to raise himself higher than his knees.

The three friends met just as the bus jumped a curb.

“Hold tight!” Megan yelled, wrapping both arms around a pole.

The front tire bumped onto the sidewalk, turning the autobus at a steeper angle. Ahead was a steel-rod fence. They tore through as if it weren’t there.

“I think we’re slowing down a little,” Megan said, peering out the window. Matt and David were both too low to see anything but tree branches whipping past.

“Probably because the dirt under this grass is soaked from snow melt and rain,” David said. “Pure mud.”

“I think we’re going slightly uphill, too,” Matt added.

“We’re still going too fast to try a jump.” Megan’s face reflected her obvious thought. Especially with the two of you so badly banged up.

Matt pulled himself into a position where he could see through the front windshield. The bus plowed its way through a planting of brush. Then came a clear area, and—

“This may be it!” he yelled. “We’ve got a tree coming up at one o’clock!”

The autobus was still moving at an angle and might have made it past the large, old oak with only a body scrape. But the right front wheel hit a boggy spot, and the whole bus sheered around as it pushed its way out. In the windshield, the tree moved from well to the right to dead center, then slightly to the left.

Megan dropped down to Matt and David’s level. “We’re not going to miss,” she said. “Hold on tight!”

They all climbed between seats in the back, bracing themselves as best they could.

Matt closed his eyes.

The autobus hit the tree with a bone-shaking crash! Then the front windshield shattered, sending shards of glass tinkling all over the place. The bus heeled round as if some giant had punched it in the face. It bounced free, the engine noise rising to a shriek as the wheels revved in thin air. The suspension screamed in protest. Only half the wheels — the ones on the right side — touched the ground.

Like a dog going to lie down, the autobus swung round in a half-circle. Then it overbalanced and toppled over on its side.

Matt and his friends rode out the impact as best they could. The wheels were still spinning mindlessly in the air as Megan pushed her way to the bus windows that were now overhead. She grabbed the red emergency handle on them, pulled, then pushed against the frame. The window flew up on a hinge and fell over.

Megan climbed out, then leaned back inside. “Help David get up!” she shouted.

Though still wobbly on his own feet, Matt managed to get David upright. His friend still clung to his laptop computer.

“Let me hold it,” Matt said. “You’re gonna need both hands to get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving without that sucker,” David vowed.

“I’ll hand it up before I even try climbing,” Matt said. “Promise.”

With Matt pushing from below and Megan hauling from on high, they managed to get David out the window. David held Matt to his promise. Matt had to hand up the laptop computer before he began climbing.

Then it was his turn to climb to freedom. For one awful second, his legs buckled. He didn’t think he was going to make it. Two sets of arms grabbed him, holding him in place until he managed to catch a foothold. He made it! He was out!

From there it was a simple job to get away from the crazed autobus. Matt and David helped Megan transfer to the ground. She controlled David’s descent as Matt lowered him into Megan’s arms. Finally Matt slithered down the roof of the bus while his friends tried to catch him.

Then, with Megan bracing David on his bad side and Matt hanging on to the other shoulder, they staggered away from the still-screaming bus.

We probably look like we just lost a war, Matt thought. But this feels like a victory to me.

They made it through the newly torn hole in the bushes when Matt heard oncoming sirens. Megan stumbled, and the three of them went down.

With luck, they were far enough away to survive if the autobus decided to explode.

Matt hoped.

Megan was leaning against the tailgate of the Emergency Services ambulance, watching the paramedics patch David and Matt, when a familiar face passed her field of vision.

“Captain Winters!” she called out in surprise.

Winters wheeled on hearing her voice and came straight over. “I came here as soon as I heard the names of the passengers on that bus.” His face filled with concern as he looked into the ambulance.

He probably did the same thing with his Marines, Megan thought. Taking care of his men. Once a military man, always a military man.

“The kids all came through this surprisingly well,” the paramedic stanching Matt’s bleeding forehead assured the captain. “I’ve got the worst of them, and there’s no signs of concussion here, although we’ll have to check and make sure later. Otherwise, a few butterfly clips to close the wound, and the boy should be fine.”

“We’ll need an X ray to make sure that this young man’s bone hasn’t broken again,” the young woman setting the pressure cast around David’s leg said. “But I think it’s fine, just bruised.”

“I lost my cane in all the excitement,” David said. He held his laptop computer cradled in his arms.

“I will personally see that you get a replacement cane,” Winters promised. “What I’d like to hear now is — what in the world happened on that bus?”

“It went nuts,” David said.

“Tried to break the land speed record back to my house,” Matt put in. “When the on-board computer saw that wasn’t going to happen, it apparently tried to take a short cut through the park.”

“Another accident,” Winters said grimly.

“Nuh-uh,” Megan told him, remembering what happened right before the bus went haywire. “I don’t think so. We were rolling along, just another boring Saturday ride, when this car came up beside the bus. I thought we were going to get sideswiped, but someone in the back of the car had a gizmo.”

Winters leaned forward. “What kind of gizmo?”

“I only got a quick glance. It looked like some sort of flat antenna grid. That’s all I saw — except it was shoved out at the front of the autobus.”

“At the front — where the computers are. I’ve heard of experiments being done — the effects of a localized electromagnetic pulse—” Winters’s eyes grew sharp. “Did you see anything to identify the car? The make? A look at the license plate?”

“It was black and had dark tinted windows, so I couldn’t see anybody inside it. Sorry. What can I say?” Megan spread her hands. “That’s when things began to get a bit exciting.”

“Oh, yeah,” Matt agreed. “The computer said, ‘Wahoo! We’re off to the races.’”

The captain pulled out his wallet-phone. “We have a technical crew down here, and there’s a team coming from the manufacturers. They expect to see some sort of accident. I’m going to pass along what Megan saw. Let’s see if they find any—”

“Evidence,” Matt finished for him. His pale face had a stony expression. “Otherwise, this will be just another accident.”

“It might also explain one of the earlier ones,” David said slowly. “What if the truck Harry Knox was driving got a taste of EMP? There’s so much drive-by-wire control circuitry in those big rigs, it could have gone wild.”

“And who’d really notice after the electronics took a nice dunk in the Potomac?” Megan added.

“Interesting question,” Winters said, punching a code into his wallet-phone. Apparently it was to the central offices of Net Force, which in turn routed him to the tech crew at the wreck. The captain sketched out what Megan had seen, listened for a moment, then said, “Yes, we’re at the ambulance.”

A few minutes later they were joined by a short, balding guy with a big nose and glasses — he looked like a geek, not a Net Force agent.

Megan found herself wondering how the guy ever survived the combined FBI-Marine physical training course for Net Force officers. When he turned cold gray eyes on her, she began to suspect how.

“You saw some sort of aerial?” the man barked.

“It was flat, like a grid,” Megan said. “Whoever was holding it needed both hands to keep it steady. I could draw it for you if that would help.”

“Later,” he said.

She closed her eyes, trying to reenvision the moment. Another detail came. “The person holding it had gloves on. Shiny gloves. Not leather. Something like — rubber? Plastic? Maybe for insulation?”

The technical guy made a disparaging noise and turned to Winters. “I don’t know how much we’ll be able to recover from the vehicle. Most of the circuit boards were damaged by the impact with the tree. Others had already burned out. Someone had activated the emergency cutoff.” He made it sound like an accusation.

“Well, excuse me for trying to save our lives!” Megan flared. “That vehicle was doing something like ninety on the straightaways when it wasn’t playing bumper cars with everything else on the road. If you don’t believe us, check with Metropolitan Transit. I’m sure you’ll find that we got here well ahead of schedule. Or you can check with all the motorists who almost got nailed, traffic control, and I’ll bet we passed enough building security cameras to give you quite a show! Besides, the stupid cutoff button didn’t work. We wobbled a bit, but we kept going.”

“Is that the usual effect of an emergency cutoff?” Winters asked. “I always expected it to bring a bus to an instant stop — at least as instant as the brakes and the occupants could handle.”

“What happened here was definitely anomalous,” the techie said stiffly. “But, given the state of the hardware, I’m not sure we’ll ever identify the exact nature of the failure.”

He gave Megan an affronted look — an expert faced with an impertinent layperson.

The little guy was surprised when Matt’s sarcastic voice rang out from the ambulance. “Sure, pal. Some failure! One that caused a nearly fatal accident.”