Read Online The Twin Powers by Robert Lipsyte - Free Book Online Page B

stronger and stronger, a pencil of light with the heat of a hundred suns, a million suns, burning, scalding out of my brain, boiling me along with the target. The padlock began to sizzle and smoke. Just before I passed out, the padlock melted and the gate swung open.

Twenty
    BRITZKY
    SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA
    2012
    Â 
    W E were near Washington, D.C., when Alessa and I were kidnapped off the tour. One minute we were sitting in the wagon eating turkey wraps, and the next we were being hustled toward a van by Erin and two security guys. We didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to Eddie, wherever he was. Would Eddie even care?
    I tried to squirm out of a security guy’s grip. “Where are we going?”
    â€œSomeplace else.” He pushed me into the back of the van. Alessa was pushed in next to me. There was a metal screen between the front and back of the van. We were in a cage.
    Erin leaned in. “It’s nothing personal.”
    Yeah, right,
I thought. I said, “Is the tour over?”
    â€œFor you two. We’re headed for the Capitol.”
    She slammed the back door shut and locked it. The van began moving.
    â€œWasn’t the tour about kids leading the way?” said Alessa.
    â€œThat was then,” I said. “Before Homeland Security took over.”
    â€œWhat about Eddie?” said Alessa.
    â€œThe good jock? He goes along.”
    â€œI thought you liked him.”
    â€œI do,” I said. “Remember when he was pretending to be Tom last year? He did everything we told him to do. I thought it was because of us. But it’s him, the way he is.”
    â€œHe came up with the idea of Tech Off!” said Alessa.
    â€œBecause he couldn’t figure out how to turn on a computer.”
    â€œWhat’s your point?”
    â€œIf you can convince him that something is good for the team, he’ll go along,” I said. I felt a little disloyal dissing Eddie, but it was the truth. “He’s the good jock. He won’t ask questions, try to look under the rock.”
    â€œAnd that’s bad?”
    â€œIt is when there’s something under the rock.” I suddenly thought,
We could be bugged in here,
and I made the
zip your lip
signal to Alessa.
    Alessa got it and shut up too. We looked around for hidden cameras and microphones.
    The van was on a highway, then outside a small city, then within rows of suburban homes, and finally into farm country. We turned up a two-lane road, then a one-lane dirt road leading up to a farmhouse surrounded by empty fields as far as I could see.
    A man and a woman in dark suits came out of the farmhouse and opened the van doors. The woman said something to the two men in the front seats of the van, then hustled Alessa and me into the house. The van drove off. I could tell that Alessa was getting more scared now. I winked at her, trying to keep a brave front so she wouldn’t freak out, but my knees felt like Jell-O.
    They put us in separate rooms.

Twenty-one
    TOM
    SOMEWHERE IN NEW JERSEY
    2012
    Â 
    B Y the time I came to, Ronnie had driven through the open gate of the industrial park and into an abandoned warehouse, a dingy, rusty old building with high ceilings and a floor littered with scraps of tire rubber and metal shavings. Rats scurried. Were those bats flying up near the ceiling? Buddy leaned out the window and barked at them. I thought I saw a snake slithering through piles of garbage. I shivered.
    Ronnie put a hand on my forehead. “Are you okay?”
    â€œFine,” I growled, but I wasn’t. I had to hug my elbows to keep my body from shaking. I couldn’t tell if it was from thinking about snakes or from using my powers. I hoped using them wouldn’t always knock me out.
    â€œThat was amazing, the way you melted the lock,” said Ronnie. “Can you see through things?”
    â€œJust fuzzy shapes,” I said. “I have to practice.”
    Ronnie frowned.
    Then a