The Bar Code Prophecy Part 7

"You're Native American?" Dr. Harriman inquired.

Grace thought this was a strange thing to say, but Eric seemed to know why Dr. Harriman was asking. "My father is half Hopi, half Irish," he answered. "My mother is full Cherokee."

"Have you come to talk to me about The Bar Code Prophecy?"

Grace turned toward Eric - the prophecy, again - but Eric wasn't paying any attention to her. Instead he and Dr. Harriman were locked in a meaningful stare.

"I didn't come for that," Eric said. "I had no idea you knew anything about it."

"But you know about it, don't you?" Dr. Harriman said.

Nodding slowly, Eric approached Dr. Harriman. "First things first," he told the older man. "Why is there a top priority file on Grace?"

Dr. Harriman's ice blue eyes darted thoughtfully between Grace and Eric. Grace's heartbeat quickened with antic.i.p.ation.

"There is a special top priority file on Grace Morrow because she is the daughter of the inventor of the bar code tattoo."

"Your daughter?" Grace spoke softly as the impact of his words struck her.

"My daughter," Dr. Harriman confirmed.

Now it was she and Dr. Harriman who studied each other with keen eyes, each searching for physical features that might connect them. There was nothing Grace could see. Where his eyes were bright blue, hers were a deep brown, like her hair. But slowly she realized that the shape of her eyes and line of her eyebrows were the same. She owed the ridge of her cheekbone to him, too.

"The darker gene often dominates," Dr. Harriman remarked, as if reading her thoughts. "But I see much of myself in you."

"Why didn't you want her to get the bar code tattoo?" Eric asked while Grace stayed almost frozen, finding it hard to absorb this shocking new piece of information.

"I'd like to explain all this to you someday, but there's something you should look at right away." Dr. Harriman beckoned for them to come around his desk and look at his monitor screen.

Global-1 police swarmed the bottom floor lobby.

"What's going on?" Eric asked, alarmed.

"They arrived just minutes ago. They want me but I'm sure they'd be delighted to take you two, as well," Dr. Harriman explained calmly. "So far I've locked off the executive elevators and the emergency stairways, but I'm sure they'll figure some way up eventually." He looked at them sharply as a new idea occurred to him. "By the way, how did you two manage it?"

The deafening flap of helicopter blades suddenly roared around them. It sounded like more than one. "Drone helicopters," Dr. Harriman observed. "I once wanted to be a helicopter pilot. Now the profession doesn't even exist. It's all drones."

"Why do they want you?" Grace asked. "You work for Global-1. Aren't you on their side?"

"It seems I've turned renegade on them," Dr. Harriman explained. "No longer cooperative."

The chopper blades were growing louder.

"We should go," Eric said.

"How are you proposing we leave?" Dr. Harriman asked.

"We're in a flying craft that takes only two," Eric said. "I'm afraid we have to leave without you."

"I saw a photo of it online," Dr. Harriman said. "I read that it was used when this building was attacked just six months ago. Can't I squeeze in?"

"Come on, let's go, Grace," Eric urged, taking her hand and pulling her along. "Sorry, Dr. Harriman, there's only room for two."

But you should take him, Grace thought. After all, Harriman was the prize. He was the one Decode would want. Grace was n.o.body.

Still, Eric had made his choice. And he wasn't going back.

Together they ran back to the roof door. The moment they pulled it open, gale force winds a.s.saulted them, stirred up by the two drone helicopters over their heads.

Staggering under the wind of the whirring blades, they ran under the blinding lights from above, crouching toward the swing-lo. A line of red appeared inches from Grace's feet and she followed its line to its source - the helicopter nearest them. "Laser stun!" Eric shouted over the thunderous roar.

At the swing-lo, they dove inside. Eric activated the engine but didn't turn on the lights. Immediately the craft began to rise. It was four feet in the air when a man's hand grabbed the side. Dr. Harriman was trying to climb in.

Acting on an impulse not to leave him stranded, Grace seized Dr. Harriman's arm and began to pull. Another line of red pinged off the side of the swing-lo, raising sparks.

"He's too heavy for us to carry!" Eric shouted.

"We can't leave him out here like this!" Grace countered, gripping Dr. Harriman. It took all her strength to pull him in, his legs still dangling over the edge.

The swing-lo weaved wildly. Grace clutched the scientist, terrified that he might fall.

Red laser lines crossed the dark night.

Eric regained control of the craft and flew horizontally to the right, staying below the helicopters. There was a moment's respite in the laser attacks, and it seemed they had outrun the helicopters or at least eluded them in the dark.

Grace craned her neck around Dr. Harriman. Although she could not see the copters' lights, Grace could still hear them. They sounded close.

Suddenly they rose on either side of the swing-lo, their lights nearly blinding. Eric pulled back on the throttle and the craft rose abruptly above the helicopters. The red lasers sparked on the sides. Pulling the throttle to the right, Eric sent the craft speeding horizontally, creating a distance between it and the copters. "We're going dark," Eric announced as he shut the swing-lo's lights and flew out of the beams coming from the helicopters.

The shaking that Grace had noticed earlier was now very strong. Eric drove the craft toward the tops of some trees. Their speed increased tremendously and Grace looked to Eric for an explanation. "I'm riding an air current," he explained. "It's pushing us along like a wave."

The swing-lo was suddenly flung upward with amazing force. "We just collided with one of the helicopters!" Eric explained. "I think they're cloaked."

"Do you mean invisible?" Grace asked.

Eric nodded. "Stealth technology."

"They are cloaked," Dr. Harriman confirmed. "I developed the technology for Global-1 myself."

"Hang on!" Eric told them. "I want to go higher into this fog to get away from them." When they had climbed steeply, the craft hung in the air a moment and then began to shake violently, "What's happening?" Dr. Harriman demanded.

"We're too high!" Eric announced pointing to the gauge, which read 1000 feet. He reached under his seat and pulled out a nylon bag the size of a backpack. "There's one under your seat, Grace," he said. "Give it to the doc. You and I will share."

Rummaging under her feet, Grace withdrew a nylon bag identical to the one Eric held. "What is it?"

The sounds of cracking metal made them all turn toward the jagged tear at the side of the swing-lo.

"Parachutes," Eric replied, pulling open his sack.

"But it's pitch black out there!" Dr. Harriman cried.

"Just put it on, Doc," Eric insisted.

The swing-lo rattled even more violently. "Put this on, Grace," Eric said, handing Grace a harness. "You're going to clip on to me."

"Listen, Doc, we're low to do a sky dive," Eric instructed as he and Grace got into their halters. "Pull the rip cord right away, as soon as you jump." He showed Dr. Harriman where to pull.

"Grace, as we exit, tuck your chin and try to arch your back," Eric explained, speaking with rapid urgency. "Don't be scared. You'll be clipped to me."

Eric attached Grace to his harness just as, with a horrific sound of tearing metal, the swing-lo ripped apart, its pieces disappearing into the night.

Suddenly there was nothing beneath Grace's feet. She wanted to scream but the tremendous force of the wind blowing into her face s.n.a.t.c.hed away her breath. They were falling through the night sky.

Grace was too amazed to be terrified.

How was this happening to her? She was high up in the black night, free-falling rapidly through the sky.

Then all, at once, with a tremendous whoosh, the chute opened over her head and she was floating, drifting toward the earth below.

Grace opened her eyes and, in the first soft light of morning, saw Eric asleep a few feet away, his nylon backpack at his side. She sat up quickly, alarmed and confused about how she'd gotten into this field of dense tall reeds. And what was she sitting on?

The nylon parachute beneath them snapped memory back to her: The wild feeling of falling through the night sky; her immense relief when the parachute opened; the hard rolling landing, tangled in the lines and nylon of the chute. Finally they had staggered into this field of high stalks and gra.s.ses and collapsed in this small clearing, grateful to be alive.

Her last memory was of watching the lights of the two cloaked drone helicopters fly off, having abandoned their pursuit.

a.s.suming, no doubt, they had died in the crash.

Standing, Grace searched for Dr. Harriman but didn't see him - though in this high gra.s.s he might be asleep just yards away. Opening her mouth, she was about to call to him, but decided that she didn't want to wake Eric. Not yet, anyway.

Grace needed time alone to think about everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

There was so much to absorb, to try to make sense of.

She was adopted. That was okay. Her family was still her family, the only family she'd ever known. But it might explain some of the differences she'd always been so aware of - why she was the only one who was good at math, including her parents; why she was the only one of them who was athletic and had no fear of heights; and probably why she alone was slim while the others tended to be shorter and rounder.

All at once Grace knew who she looked like: Dr. Harriman. But with brown eyes. So who was this brown-eyed birth mother of hers?

Grace remembered Kayla's story of being part of an experiment. Mfumbe had said there was nothing like that in her file ... but still, it seemed possible. She would insist that Dr. Harriman tell her everything. He owed her that now. She had saved him from the Global-1 cops.

Turning her gaze to Eric, she felt less angry at him, not as betrayed. It was just that she had liked him so much and had loved thinking he returned the attraction. She could deal with this new relationship though. He was a good guy and she was glad he was around. She felt safer with him. She would never be able to trust him completely - but maybe she could trust him enough. He hadn't left her stranded at GlobalHelix when he should have taken Dr. Harriman instead of taking her. That said something about his feelings for her, at least.

"Grace?" Eric rubbed his eyes as he sat up. "Are you okay?"

"No broken bones," she reported.

"Boy, you have a lot of guts," Eric praised her.

It brought a smile to her lips. "Thanks."

"Are you all right? I have some first aid stuff in my pack if you need it."

Grace was aware of her stinging arm that had become sc.r.a.ped when she landed, but the pain wasn't too bad. "I'll be all right. How are you?"

"Still in one piece," he reported. "You've had some day, huh? How's your head?"

"Spinning," Grace admitted.

"No kidding," he sympathized. Eric stood and checked the area. "No sign of Harriman. I hope he made it down okay."

It hadn't occurred to Grace that Dr. Harriman might not have survived the jump. "We should look for him," she said urgently. "He might be hurt."

"You stay here and call out to him. If we get separated in this tall gra.s.s, we might never find each other again."

"We can find each other; we have our phones," Grace said out of habit. She could always find her friends in crowds when they each had their phones - which was always. Ever since she could strap her bendable phone around her wrist, Grace even slept with it.

Grace checked her wrist, and the image of Eric tossing it, in pieces, out the back of the speeding truck came back to her.

Eric raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and grinned at her reaction.

As the realization of her phoneless state returned to her, Grace frowned deeply. It was disconcerting not to have her phone and she felt terribly vulnerable without it. She had never before worried about being lost. With Tilly always crooning directions in her ear and friends only a finger glide away, she was never lost. It was as if she'd suddenly gone back in time to some long-ago past when people lived without being able to always contact each other.

"You'd be in a Global-1 police station right now if you had your phone," Eric reminded her.

Grace wondered if that would have been so bad, but Eric and the others seemed convinced that it would be. So did Dr. Harriman.

Eric pulled his lightweight pack onto his shoulders. "I might as well take this with me in case he's hurt."

Grace began shouting for Dr. Harriman while Eric pushed off, also calling. The minute he disappeared from sight, Grace fought down the panicky sensation that she was utterly alone. She could still hear his voice, and that helped.

"Dr. Harriman! Where are you?" she shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth and raising her voice to full volume. "It's Grace. Can you answer?"

Pausing to listen for a response, she heard nothing but the rustling of the gra.s.ses in the breeze ... and then Eric's voice, m.u.f.fled and distant but rea.s.suringly there.

The sensation of being vulnerable and alone grew as Grace continued to call. The gra.s.s swayed around her and Grace had the eerie feeling it was closing in on her, growing thicker somehow. It's all in your head, she a.s.sured herself. You're only scared and imagining things.

Grace listened for the comforting sound of Eric's shouts ... and heard only the rush of wind through the gra.s.s. She waited some more, ears perked, but heard no human voice.

Panic snaked its way up her spine, squeezing her with cold fear. Where was he? How would she find him again? She didn't even know how to find her way out of this field. If she had her phone, Tilly would have her position by satellite and would be directing her every step of the way.

She listened again and heard the rustle of gra.s.s being pushed aside, reeds being broken; someone was coming through. It was more than one person.

Eric had found Dr. Harriman!

The reeds parted and two Global-1 police officers stepped through, dressed in their black uniforms. "Grace Morrow?"

This didn't make sense. How had they located her?

"Yes. Have you found my family?"