1 - Sam
“W HY DO THEY MAKE SCHOOL so early again?” Sam complained over the wireless earbud to Nico as he waved I got this to Raul, who had stood up from the doorman alcove.
“That’s not the way to convince me to go back.” Nico’s voice was right there in Sam’s right ear, his tone reassuringly warm as Sam pushed out of his condo building’s revolving door and headed to the subway.
Sam’s breaths puffed white in the frigid air.
“It’s cool you could get a job without finishing high school.
” He winced—that came out way more judgy than he intended.
There was a break in the backed-up traffic on Eighty-Seventh, so he stepped over the dirty snow at the sidewalk’s edge to cut south across the street, heading for the Q line on Second Avenue.
“They are training me,” Nico said.
Uh oh. He sounded defensive. It was the third day Nico was gone, and phone calls were making everything weird. Sam was so glad Nico would be back tonight.
“Anyway, being a barista doesn’t have a lot to do with having a high school degree.” Nico sounded cooler. “And between the two of us, I actually have job experience.”
“Yeah, you’re right, of course.” Sam tried to smooth things over.
He didn’t want to get into the same argument about how Nico didn’t have to work but for some reason wanted to anyway.
Sam noticed a white van parked on the south side of the street.
Blue letters stenciled on it read A NDY’S A IR C ONDITIONING R EPAIR . Two guys sat in the front.
“Shit, I didn’t mean…” Sam started, but worried he was only going to make things worse. He said what he was feeling instead: “I just miss you.”
“I miss you too.” Nico sounded a little less cold.
That was the right direction.
“Change the subject?” Sam suggested.
When he got to the sidewalk Sam pulled out his phone and switched on camera mode.
He pretended he was taking a selfie and focused on the van over his shoulder.
The guys were just hanging out, on their phones too.
Sam panned down to record the front license plate, but it was blocked by parked cars—he’d need to get closer.
It didn’t make sense. Who needed their A/C repaired when it was freezing out? Below freezing, actually.
“I watched your new vlog,” Nico said.
Sam was torn. Head to school or check out the suspicious van? If he got their license plate, Ari could run it for him. Maybe run photos of the two guys too, if Sam could get clean shots.
“What did you think?” Sam tried to be casual, switching the camera to forward-facing and walking down the sidewalk toward the van—away from the subway that would take him to school. He tried to make it look like he was texting instead of spying.
Fifty feet.
“Your point about all the straight love interests surviving but not the one gay couple was good,” Nico said.
“Yeah, that really pissed me off.”
Forty feet.
Sam was happy to vent about something safe.
“But the stupidest thing was that if the aliens really could reset time back to the beginning of the day they died, wouldn’t it stop resetting once they had a day where they didn’t die?
Otherwise they’d just be stuck in an endless loop.
Even alien life would have to follow some basic evolutionary logic. ”
“That was a good point too,” Nico said. “You’re really smart about stuff like that.”
Sam felt himself blush. It was awesome his guy—his husband!—thought he was smart.
Thirty feet.
“Thanks, the plot holes just kind of pop out at me.” Like this bogus air conditioning van he was walking toward. Sam told himself to stay calm and casual. To channel Bond. Or at least Nico.
“You still up for tonight’s Bond flick after the party?” Sam asked. Having a normal conversation made this whole spying thing feel safer somehow. Kind of like Nico was there with him.
“Sure,” Nico said. “I’ll meet you at the hotel at seven. Crazy to think it’s been a month since we broke everyone out.”
Twenty feet. Sam could see the yellow N EW J ERSEY at the top of the front license plate, but the letters and numbers were still partially blocked. He raised his camera, video on record to grab it, but saw the driver look directly at him—he looked pissed. The other guy did too.
Oh shit. Sam stopped in his tracks.
“Which movie are we watching again?” Nico asked.
“ Die Another Day .” Still recording, Sam swiped the camera across their faces. The move was like flipping a switch, and both guys banged out their doors and lunged at Sam—to beat him up? Sam wasn’t going to wait to find out. He spun around and sprinted as fast he could.
Sneakers pounding the sidewalk, Sam gulped cold air. When Bond ran he looked so cool, so determined, but Sam knew he looked panicked.
“You okay?” Nico asked. “Sounds like you’re running.”
“Uh—have to catch the subway—talk later—love you!”
“Okay… bye.” Nico hung up.
And it occurred to Sam that all those great chase scenes Bond movies start with don’t include how fast your heart’s pounding when you’re the one being chased. And how you realize that if they have guns, there’s no way you’re going to outrun a bullet. Let alone a hail of bullets.
Did they have guns?
Sam pocketed the phone and risked a glance over his shoulder, but a patch of gray ice on the sidewalk nearly spilled him to the ground. He pinwheeled his arms for balance and whipped around the corner down Second Avenue.
No guns in their hands, but then again, why would they advertise being bad guys?
They were definitely trying to catch him.
Who the hell were they?
Sam didn’t have much of a lead. Maybe fifteen seconds.
Traffic heading downtown was at a standstill, no getting away that way.
There was scaffolding, three buildings down, by a concrete mixer truck. One story up on the scaffolding, a plywood sidewalk shed created the perfect place to hide—if he could get there in time.
With a running leap Sam got onto the first X crossbeam and climbed like it was a jungle gym.
People looked at him funny, but Sam didn’t have time to care: hands, feet, up, pull!
He grabbed the plywood edge and scrambled to get some purchase against the smooth green paint.
With a grunt Sam flipped over in a messy summersault, backpack squished between him and the plywood, feet slamming on the wood planks that made a roof for the pedestrians under him.
Sam froze. Had they seen him? Heard him?
Gasping into the collar of his coat as quietly as he could, Sam peeked through the seam between two plywood boards facing north.
The bad guys rounded the corner full speed but slowed as they scanned for him. Second Avenue might as well have been a parking lot, and the sidewalk bustled with people heading both ways.
Sam studied the guys who’d been chasing him from the safety of his hiding place.
They were both young—early twenties? The guy with dark hair was kind of handsome, in a mean way.
Serious acne scars. The other guy was football-player big with muscles to match.
He was pale and wore his reddish hair in locs.
The dark-haired guy cursed in a language Sam didn’t know. Russian, maybe?
“Where did he go?” He did sound Russian. He led them in Sam’s direction, looking all over.
Red-Locs shook his head. “She’s not going to like this.”
She?
“Zatkniss!” the Russian snapped, and Red-Locs clammed up.
At least now Sam knew how to say shut up in Russian.
They were under him. Sam checked his backpack for anything he could defend himself with.
He had his journal and Montblanc Meisterstück fountain pen without the acid or secret microphone Bond had in Octopussy , so no help there.
He also had his laptop, and two textbooks.
But unless he threw World History or Modern Biology at them, he had nothing.
Sam looked around. The second-floor interior had been completely gutted and the walls looked new.
There weren’t any workers Sam could see, just a heating fan aimed at the wet-looking plaster over the drywall seams. Outside next to Sam was a ten-gallon bucket of gross partially frozen water, like slurry from the plasterwork, and about a dozen bent drywall screws that had been tossed out the window. At least those were sharp.
Sam zipped open his backpack’s outer pocket and, careful to not poke himself as he crept along the windows, stuffed them in. A minute later he had the makeshift ammo stored.
Where were they? Sam slung his backpack on his shoulders and carefully stood up from his crouch. Had they come out the south end of the scaffold tunnel yet?
“There!” the Russian shouted.
Sam turned, and across the street the glass-faced modern building might as well have been a mirror.
And there he was, head and shoulders poking up above the center of the scaffold barrier, just in front of the cement truck.
The Russian was right below him, turning from Sam’s reflection to order Red-Locs south.
“That way—corner him!” They both started climbing.
Sam thought about trying a window and running into the building but didn’t want to get trapped inside.
The Russian was already eight feet up and his fingers were reaching for the plywood. Sam grabbed the bucket and heaved the wet slop onto his head.
Sputtering and cursing Slavic syllables, the Russian fell back.
A quick glance south and Red-Locs was already pulling himself over the plywood barrier.
Sam took a few steps back. Four feet out on the street was the concrete mixer, its blue cowboy hats turning clockwise on the giant drum.
Red-Locs landed on his feet and started toward Sam. “I got him!” he hollered to the Russian, who was climbing again.
Sam didn’t like his choices. He scrambled up on the plywood like one of those geckos he’d seen in Huatulco and hurled himself out to the slow-spinning metal cylinder.
Sam’s feet flew out from under him as he landed and went down on his butt—skidding off toward the street side of the rotating concrete truck.
“Pizdets!”
“We’ll get him!”