The Jump, page 9
I step in front of her before she can get to the trash bin, and I fold my arms and glare up at her.
“Yas, talk to me,” I say. “Who cares which of us is right if our friendship is taking hits?”
“Uh-oh,” cuts in a deep, sly voice from somewhere nearby. “Seems we’ve got trouble in paradise, JERICHO.”
Shit. We’re not alone. I look around frantically—down the alley each way, and finally up.
Leaping down from the roof of the brick building on the east side of the alley is Red Cap Guy, his white T-shirt gleaming in the light of Han’s flashlight as he approaches us. Han, somewhere behind me, begins to step backward, taking his flashlight with him. Yas, still beside me, doesn’t move from where she stands. Spider, to my right, glances up at me before deciding to stand his ground too.
“Listen,” says Spider, “I don’t know how you missed the Vault rules, but clue-stealing assholes aren’t tolerated.”
The kid presses a palm to his chest in mock suffering.
“You call me an asshole before you even know my name?” He sucks his teeth, and something about his smile sends a chill up my spine. “Damn shame.”
“What is your name?” asks Yas bitingly.
“That’s Lucas,” comes another voice from behind me, making me jump. We all whip around to see two people, neither of them our Han, stepping closer. A super-tall—seriously, he must be Yao Ming’s long-lost Black cousin—kid with a shaved head and a tailored purple blazer is closest, hands casually stuffed into the pockets of his purple pants. Wait… are those velvet? His whole suit is velvet!
“Who are you supposed to be?” asks Yas, probably noticing how weird-as-hell his outfit is.
“Where’s your top hat, man?” asks Spider.
“Guys,” I say, holding up my hand for a mock request for silence. “Easy on Black Willy Wonka and his clown posse.”
That gets a smile out of Yas and a giggle out of Spider. But the girl behind this Dr. Facilier wannabe is unamused. Her mouth is a flat line, her eyes narrowed and scathing. Her blond hair stirs in the slight breeze in this alley, stopping sharply just above her shoulders. Her bangs hang short, only halfway down her forehead, and she’s dressed in all black, fists wound tight under her long sleeves.
She levels her eyes at us, folding her arms before saying:
“No need to go easy on us, JERICHO.”
I glance at Yas, who’s sizing her up.
“And your name?”
“Sigge,” she says, her voice surprisingly even. “You?”
“Yasmin.”
Her friends call her Yas, and she apparently doesn’t want ROYAL knowing that.
“Splendid,” says Dr. Facilier. “Now that we’re all acquainted—”
“Hold up,” I say, stepping forward and leveling my eyes at the kid who’s a monocle away from looking like Mr. Peanut. “You haven’t said your name.”
Sure, this kid has been on the Vault for a while, but that makes hundreds of us.
“My name?” he asks, taking a step forward and lifting his nose ever so slightly higher into the air. He glances past me to give Lucas a knowing smirk. My heart is racing. It feels like these people are closing in on us—on JERICHO. Well, the three members of JERICHO who are still here.
Where the hell did Han go? I can’t help but wonder.
“My name,” continues this weirdo, “is Karim. And this”—he gestures around the alley to Lucas and Sigge with his palm upturned like he’s holding the world’s most delicate teacup—“is Team ROYAL.”
Something about the way he says the word “royal” makes me think this guy thinks he’s actual royalty. Who shows up to a cryptology puzzle dressed like… like that?
“We know,” says Spider, clearly over the theatrics. “And you’re here for the next clue, which you’d better leave alone if you don’t want to get kicked out of this puzzle.”
“Pardon, but are you the captain of this team?” asks Karim. Spider’s eyes go wide. He’s clearly affronted, looking to me now for some defense. I don’t disappoint him.
“I may be leader of the forum, and I may be the captain, but we are all leaders of JERICHO. Based on what your cohort back here was up to, your left hand doesn’t know what the right one is doing.”
Karim grins a twisted grin that makes my stomach sink like a stone. But I’m careful not to let my face show it.
Lucas steps between Spider and me, knocking his shoulder into mine as he joins Karim and Sigge, sparking a flame of fury in me.
“Watch it,” he says, turning to look over his shoulder at me. “Boy.”
That word turns that flame in me into a volcano, and I feel Yas’s hand on my shoulder. I want to shrug it off and glare at her. How dare she telepathically tell me to calm down right now? Red Cap Guy is a full-blown racist. I know that look he just gave me. That wasn’t just an “I’m better than you” smile. That was a hard-R smile. He didn’t have to say it.
It’s the three of them facing the three of us who are left.
“Three on three,” says Karim, “and you’re still intellectually outmatched.”
“Imagine,” says Sigge flatly.
“Can’t relate,” says Lucas with a shrug.
“We have resources you all could only dream of,” says Karim. “Good luck. You’ll need it.”
“A team with resources wouldn’t need to steal clues,” I say. “You’re desperate to win this.”
“The prize is power,” continues Karim, straightening stiffer where he stands. “Something we already have in abundance. But something we don’t have is control over you. If you win, you’re taking down Roundworld. It’s not hard to put together. It’s just a shame we have to play against people like you who are actually desperate. Sad, really.”
The nerve of this fucking guy. I try to keep my face even as I wonder how much he knows about us, about me.
About Abba’s store.
About Spider’s mom’s restaurant.
About Han’s dad’s job.
About Mama’s garden.
Wait… what the hell? I swear to Black Jesus I’m seeing one of the garbage bins just behind Team ROYAL… move. Maybe I’m seeing things. Maybe it’s too late to be out here looking for clues and my brain is fried and playing tricks on me. Or maybe…
Karim raises an eyebrow and follows my gaze to the bin, and I’m hoping it doesn’t move again.
Come on, Han, I think, not when he’s looking.
I know what’s happening, and it’s taking all the willpower I have not to smile right now. Han didn’t desert us—not that I ever think he would—he’s found his way into the air vent under the bins.
FIND A BIN. LOOK AROUND.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to check what’s happening, ignoring the glances exchanged among Team ROYAL. Yas, Spider, and I all look down at our phones to read Han’s text.
HAN: It’s a serial number on the bottom of the bin.
I look at Yas. Yas looks at me. I look at Spider. Spider’s mouth curves into the slightest of grins.
We all know not to look at the bin.
But what do we do? I guess as the leader, I’m supposed to know.
And then an idea buds in my mind. They’re here for a clue, right? The one under the bin. But… they don’t know that. So, what if I just made them think…
I clear my throat and hope the gang catches on to my plan.
“We’re wasting time with these fools, y’all,” I scoff, hoping my front is working. “Come on, let’s find our—”
I pretend to be interrupted by a thought, and then I pretend to reread the text.
Then I turn around, glancing back at Team ROYAL for only a moment, and take off down the alley as fast as my feet will move me. I soon hear several sets of footsteps behind me.
“Hey!” calls Lucas’s biting voice behind me as he closes in like a pit bull. My eyes start darting, looking for a poster. Any poster. Anywhere. If I can just make them think I have the real clue, maybe it’ll lead them off the chase. It’s not breaking a rule, as long as I don’t steal the actual clue…
…right?
My arms and legs fly, propelling me through this alley so fast, I can feel the wind under my jacket. Yas pulls up on my right.
“Jax!” she hollers. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve got it!” is all I have time to say before I reach the end of the alley and realize that I very much don’t have it. I’m not even sure what it—my decoy—will be. Are there really no posters on this whole damn block? I can’t stop now, though, or ROYAL will suspect I’m trying to confuse them. I check my phone again for effect and take a quick glance down the street before looking around.
The footsteps shuffle behind me, and I turn back to Team ROYAL.
“Think you can outrun us?” asks Karim, even though I smile at the fact that he’s slightly out of breath. I look to Lucas, whose eyes are darting around so confused, I feel like I’ve already won this round.
Karma for stealing the first clue, I think happily to myself.
I notice that Sigge is not only out of breath but keeping her eyes moving. Following the instructions in the clue. Find a bin. Look around. A mark of a true cryptologist. I know she’s one to watch.
But Karim? Karim don’t scare me. And neither does his frat-boy-wannabe sidekick.
Come on, why are there no posters here? Not even a wooden telephone pole that you could staple a poster to if you wanted to. I look around for any scrap of paper that might pass for a clue. But nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a sign or a stray newspaper sticking out of a trash can. But finally, finally, I hear what I’ve been hoping for—the sound of paper crinkling in the wind. I turn to find a single orange envelope tucked under the windshield wiper blade of a dark blue Chevy Malibu, and I don’t hesitate. Once more glance at my phone for effect and a look aimed at Karim, who’s looking at me like he’s gone from mocking us to wanting answers.
Now.
I hear the hiss of the bus I hadn’t noticed just behind the navy Malibu. Not the arrival hiss of a bus kneeling to let passengers on, but the hiss of a bus about to take off.
I see my chance.
“I don’t need to think I can outrun you,” I say to Karim before darting for the car and snatching the orange envelope. “I just need to do it!”
And I sprint to my getaway vehicle, slipping my narrow ass between the doors just as they slam shut. I’m up the steps and to the coin machine just before Lucas’s hands land on the glass, slapping the door like a damn child. I raise my middle finger, since I might as well, now that I’ve got them all fully convinced that I’ve made off with their precious clue.
“Nah-uh,” says the driver behind me suddenly, and to my horror, he lifts his hand to open the door.
“What are you doing?” I ask, more aggression in my voice than even I was prepared for. If this man opens these doors, I might have to fight. For the very first time in my life. “What the hell, man?”
“I won’t have you kids roughhousing on my bus, and I won’t have vulgarity, either.”
“I’m tryna stay away from those guys!” I insist, softening my voice. “Please, I’m sorry I flipped them the bird, but… you’ve got to take me away from here. I promise I won’t cause trouble.”
What the hell kind of activist am I, sitting here apologizing to a white man for flipping someone else the bird, begging to be allowed onto his bus in peace? This ain’t 1955 and we’re nowhere near Montgomery, Alabama.
“Please?” I ask, my eyes welling with tears. Not at the fear of him clicking that door open button, but at the fact that I have to beg for my safety like this in the twenty-first century. The point is, I made it onto this bus, and they didn’t. I should be safe.
Right?
“Fine,” he says, lowering his arm, to my relief, before throwing the bus into drive and turning out.
More of Lucas’s hand slaps ring out against the window as he yells for the driver to open the door. As I take my seat in the front row—thank goodness this bus is otherwise completely empty—I can’t make out exactly what he says, just muffled whining. Until I hear one distinct phrase hollered, muffled, from outside.
“Fuckin’ thief!”
The nerve of Lucas calling me that when he’s the one who actually stole a clue. All I did was grab somebody’s parking ticket, which they’ll be notified about in the mail later, assuming the owner of the car has a place of residence. But when I look up, the smirk I’m wearing gets wiped clean off.
The bus driver’s eyes, icy blue and full of rage, are staring at me in the rearview mirror at the front of the bus. We’re stopped at a light, and he’s glaring at me like he could kill me where I sit. My hand creeps up to that amethyst around my neck as I realize the full weight of what’s just happened.
The driver heard Lucas’s words. Fuckin’ thief. That’s all it took.
“I ought to kick you off this bus right now,” he spits. “When I was in Iraq, we shot motherfuckers like you, you know that?”
“I-I’m not a thief,” I say. More tears. Dammit. “This is all a big misunderstan—”
“I ought to take you right to police headquarters.”
My throat closes at the idea. Sure, I didn’t technically steal anything, I don’t think. It’s not illegal to swipe a parking ticket, is it?
…is it? I don’t know! Now my hands are all sweaty as I think of a plausible answer to all of this.
“I took this,” I admit, holding up the orange envelope. “That was… Lucas. We’re friends. We got into it. I told him not to park there, but he said it’d be fine. So… I took the parking ticket and hopped onto the bus. I was mad… I wasn’t thinking… Please, don’t kick me out.”
He says nothing. The light turns green.
He moves the bus forward. Rain begins to pelt the window.
I clutch the orange envelope in my fist and send a text despite the blurred vision through my tears.
ME: DID YOU GET THE REAL CLUE, HAN?
Han
Despite being underground, this air vent is still pretty breezy. I saw the grates under bin 415 and knew the clue might be underneath. The last place most people would’ve looked. And I could’ve stayed and flipped the bin, but Team ROYAL was watching, and I knew they’d be right behind us if I pointed it out. So, here I am, phone flashlight shining up through the grate at the serial number on the sticker on the bottom, right next to that mysterious eye symbol.
I hear Jax get cut off, and I freeze.
“Come on, gang. Let’s find our—”
I peek out from under the garbage can at everyone’s feet. I see Jax’s red shoes turn and take off full speed down the alley.
“Hey!”
Lucas.
And everyone sprints down the alley except me. I don’t know what they think they’ve found, but the clue is right here. I look up at it again just to make sure. The eye symbol. The serial number. Yup, that’s the clue.
I open my phone’s camera and snap a picture. Then I study what I’ve got. All numbers. Twelve of them.
934589594853.
I imagine it formatted like a phone number. 93-458-959-4853. Maybe.
Then I imagine doing that thing with Euler’s number—the e on a calculator, so the number is actually… what would that be?… I pull up my calculator app.
e27.563
Also, maybe.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I read the text.
JAX: DID YOU GET THE REAL CLUE, HAN?
I think for a moment. Did I get the real clue? Does he mean “Did you get the real clue?” as in “Did you locate the real clue after we all ran off after a fake one?” or “Did you take a picture of the real clue after we all ran off after a fake one?” or maybe “Did you take the real clue after we all ran off after a fake one?”
It could be any of them. And I think back to the boy who called himself Lucas, who tore down that poster in South Lake Union and almost cost us the puzzle, and I wonder if Jax is changing the rules. Maybe the game is changing? Maybe he wants me to take this clue so that we can stay ahead of ROYAL? Maybe he thinks changing the rules like this is the only way to win?
ME: YES
I send the text, peel the sticker off the bottom of the bin, and sink back down into the air vent and off through the dark tunnels toward Westlake Station, where I can catch the Link Light Rail home.
Jax
I skipped dinner so I could lie on my bed, stare at my phone, and figure out this sequence of twelve numbers that Han sent me a picture of. A trash bin serial number? Nah, Han already said those don’t exist in the downtown area. A phone number? Nah, too easy. Besides, the only country code that starts with a 9 is Afghanistan with the prefix 93, which fits. But it makes the rest of the sequence a ten-digit number, which does-not-an-Afghan-phone-number-make. I tried to call it using a Google Voice number so I wouldn’t incur international call fees, but I got a dial tone.
I growl in frustration—I can’t tell if it’s from this puzzle or from the irritation at that asshole of a bus driver—and run my fingers through my curls as another text comes in from Spider.
SPIDER: Anyone tried plugging it in as a URL?
YAS: YUP. Got porn. Had to explain to Abba.
HAN: HAHA.
I roll my eyes. Funny, sure, but I wish they’d stay focused. Those ROYAL goons weren’t there to fool around. It won’t take long for them to figure out that the “clue” we led them to was a straight-up decoy, and then what? They’ll catch up to us if we don’t get our asses in gear. I curl up against the wall behind my pillow, and my fingers fly over the keyboard.
ME: It’s not a phone number.
SPIDER: Tried that first. Then I tried translating those numbers into letters, but it just got me… hold on…
I can’t help but hope that there’s something in these letters after all, that maybe one of us will see a pattern where Spider saw none, but then the letters come back.
SPIDER: ICDEHIEIDHEC 93-458-959-4853
ME: Maybe they’re scrambled? Anyone on desktop and can use a word unscrambler?
