“I’m afraid you two kids are in serious trouble,” he said, looking down at us.
“You’re not gonna arrest us, are you?” Cindy asked, knowing that he would do no such thing, but also knowing that he expected kids to talk like that.
“Well, I think your parents are going to have to decide what to do with you, Little Miss Cindy,” he said, trying to keep a stern front. “Where do you live?”
Cindy, to her credit, reeled off a fake address by rote, as if it were an address her parents had made her memorize.
He opened the back door of the car—where the criminals ride. I was surprised; I was sure he would let kids, joyriders or not, ride up front with him.
Then I remembered that he had called Cindy by name.
We hadn’t given him our names.
Was I imagining things? Was I being paranoid?
I didn’t think so.
Cindy climbed in without further bidding. My mind raced. Could I somehow warn her of my suspicions without alerting our captor? Doubtful.
That left one option.
“I need boost,” I declared. The cop reached down, grabbed me by the waist and picked me up.
I intentionally grabbed his hand.
He shrank just as quickly as the man at the diner had—and to an even younger age, barely one year old. Fortunately, we both fell into the car, hitting the car seat.
Cindy gave me a horrified look. “What did you do that for?” she demanded.
Before I could answer, the radio crackled. “Agent # 9, do you have the subjects? Please respond.” Then, “We have not yet been able to reverse-engineer the formula;
it is imperative that we get the doctor so that we may compel her to reveal the secret. DO YOU HAVE THE SUBJECTS?!”
Cindy gave me a look. “How could you know?” she asked, her tone one almost of wonder.
“He called you by name; we never told him our names, even fake ones.”
She gave me a look of deep respect. Maybe now, she’d stop treating me like a toddler all the time.
“Now they know about me, too, apparently; and since they were looking for us in the area, they clearly know more about our recent movements than is good for us,” I
mused.
“Well, we left quite a big trail back at the restaurant,” Cindy pointed out, meaning the waitress and owner we had accidentally “zapped.”
“So we’d best be getting out of here, before they find this big ol’ clue we just left,” I pointed out. I gave a cool look at our horrified one year-old “cop.”
At one year of age, our would-be captor was no match for Cindy, who used the shirt as a net to avoid physically touching him again when she grabbed him. We stuck
him in the back seat of our car; there was a good chance the fake cop car had a tracking device. We figured we would stop-start drive along until we decided we had
a suitable doorstep to drop our little bundle of joy onto.
As it happened, we ran out of gas near a small farm, out in the middle of nowhere. Before we could decide what to do, out of nowhere came the kindly old couple who
lived there.
They were understandably appalled at the idea of a nine year-old girl, a three year old boy, and a baby boy alone in a car in the middle of nowhere. They talked to each
other as if we weren’t there—typical around kids as young as we were. “We’ll have to call the authorities, see if anyone’s kids are missing …”
Cindy and I shared a horrified look. That was the last thing we needed—especially since our enemies were looking for us.
“The truth?” I asked.
She considered quickly, then nodded.
Not surprisingly, they didn’t take our story seriously—until Cindy briefly grabbed the hand of the older lady, and she grew visibly younger.
THAT got their attention.
When we finally explained everything to them, and they actually believed us, the old man—who told us his name was Steve—stroked his whiskery chin in thought.
“Well, now. You two do seem to need help, an’ that’s a fact.”
“Could you—” The halting voice came from the woman—Carolyn, she was called. “Could you please—touch me again?”
“We can’t control it,” I explained. “We might change you into a child, or even a little baby—like him.” I jerked my thumb at the infant “cop”—we had explained about
him, too.
“I’ll take the chance,” she said firmly.
Cindy and I exchanged a look—and Cindy shrugged. She ‘tapped’ Carolyn lightly, a couple of times—each time, she got noticeably, but not extremely, younger. After
several tries, she got her down to what we all estimated was roughly 27 years of age, and we all decided it was safest to stop there.
“We’re still contagious,” I reminded our hosts, and Cindy, in case that had slipped her mind. “Even if we don’t touch you, you’ll still grow younger—just more slowly.”
“Which is something I want to discuss with you two … ‘young’uns’,” Steven chuckled at his witticism.
“We should make it fast, before we regress your wife too far,” Cindy pointed out.
“And there is still the danger of the people following us,” I added. “We thank you for your help, but you’re putting your lives in dang—“
I stopped, as Steven reached into his truck and brought out a shotgun. With a determined look in his eye, he stated, “I’ve dealt with thieves and lowlifes most of my
life. I ain’t gonna let some cowardly kidnappers stop me from helping good people in need.”
Back at their house, we discussed the matter further. The infant “cop” had been removed from our presence so we wouldn’t make him too much younger—villain or
no, we didn’t want to kill him by making him too young to survive—and we talked with Steven, who was too old for us to notice him growing visibly younger. But even
though Carolyn only came in occasionally, minimizing her contact with us, she slipped down from 27 to 24 with just a few contacts of a few minutes, or even seconds,
each. We agreed that we had to leave soon.
“Well, there’s a few choices you have, as I see it,” Steven said. “There is an old freight train that stops nearby every day, an’ you’re in luck; there’s one headed for
Chicago later today. I reckon I could sneak you two youngun’s onto a cargo car—though I do feel awfully about leaving the two of you alone on a train, even if you
only look like kids. I wuz hopin’ you’d take me up on my other offer.”
“If we take the train,” I piped up, “We should ‘zap’ you as young as we can first—if you wish to take the risk.” Cindy nodded her agreement.
Steven gave a grateful smile—then laid out his other option. “I’ll drive you kids to Chicago—or as far as I can get you, at least. I’m an old man, an’ maybe this growin’
younger thing will take a while to affect me. There is the problem that I cain’t be sure I can get you all the way to Chicago before I grow too young to drive. I
wouldn’t abandon you in the middle of nowhere—”
“Oh, yes you would,” Cindy insisted. “We’d be no better off if we let you grow too young to drive, and we’d be three stranded kids instead of two.”
“Well, that’s your choices, so far as I can see.”
Cindy turns to you. “What do you think?”