Memory Maze by Gordon Korman

Author:Gordon Korman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

The voice was distant, and distorted by echo in the cold, open room. Jax struggled to locate the source of the sound. At last he saw movement on the platform. He squinted through the imperfect light and could just make out four figures standing up there. Three of them wore ski masks; the fourth, their prisoner, was Braintree.

The old man answered with another question. “Where’s Evelyn Lolis?”

A cruel laugh. “Did you really expect her to be here waiting for you?”

So there it was. A trap. And they had walked right in the door.

“Answer me, Grandpa! It’s a long way to the floor! Where’s Jackson Opus!”

“Nowhere you could find him,” Braintree snapped back.

Not unless you spot me sneaking in the door, Jax thought, crawling on his belly into the shadows, taking cover behind the control console for the conveyor.

Another voice said, “What are you wasting your time for? Bend him!”

“I can’t take the risk that he’ll bend us! Come on, man! I want an address!”

“Gettysburg,” said Braintree.

“Gettysburg?”

“Right,” said Braintree. “Now that was an address.”

The next sound was unmistakable, even at a distance — the smack of fist on flesh. Jax flinched as if he himself had been hit. He had to do something to take the heat off Braintree. And fast.

Heart pounding, he hugged the control console, feeling urgently for the power switch. He found the largest button and, breathing a silent “Oh, please,” dared to press it.

A warning Klaxon sounded twice, and then the system clattered into operation. Meat carcasses marched across the floor, and then began to rise toward the butchering platform. Startled shouts rang from above, and flashlight beams cut the gloom. In alarm, Jax reflected that he’d succeeded in taking the attention off his mentor. But in the process, he’d sacrificed something very important. The bad guys now knew that Braintree was not alone. How was he going to reach the old man and get him away from here?

Without thinking — because he never would have done it if he’d thought it over — he took a running start, jumped high, and clamped his arms around a moving beef carcass. The thing was cold, and covered in white, slippery fat, but he hung on for dear life. As it carried him across the factory floor, the carcass also hid him from the probing flashlight beams.

When the hoist began to lift the side of beef up toward the platform, Jax knew he had passed the point of no return. He was thinking now, and none of it was very good. What was he going to do when he got up there?

As the carcass rose, Jax got a close-up view of the frantic action on the platform. The three enemies in ski masks were sweeping the space with their flashlights, searching in vain for the phantom intruder. One of them, the biggest, had an iron grip on Braintree. As Jax heaved into view, the hulk’s eyes widened inside the eyeholes, and he blurted, “Dopus!”

Jax flinched. There was only one person who called him that — Wilson DeVries, who had made his life miserable at Sentia.

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