Tor Maddox: Disarmed Read online

  Chapter One – Under the Radar

  Are you paying attention? Are you aware that Man's Best Friend just became Public Enemy Number One?

  - www.governmentsecrets.us

  First posting: September 6.

  I couldn't get those words out of my head as Cocoa yanked his leash with all the strength of his twenty-five pounds and tugged me toward the dog park. Sure, I know it was just another one of those weird conspiracy blogs, like the ridiculous ones I like to read about Apollo missions being faked with special effects, or 9/11 being planned by the CIA. I follow enough real news that I know there's no way our government could pull off a stunt that big and keep it quiet for long. As Shakespeare, my absolute favorite wordsmith said, "The truth will out."

  I'm not the kind of girl who believes everything she reads on the internet, but this entry had an unusual ring of authenticity. Okay, so Cocoa didn't look like the next scourge of the ages with his dark brown tail wagging frantically in anticipation of social time. Still, this new blogger's message resonated (echoed and hummed) in my mind while Cocoa pulled me out of our typical So Cal suburban cul-de-sac and over the bridge across the dry creek bed. I've never seen a drop of water in the creek, but, in theory, if we ever got enough rain, it would run down from the nearby mountains. Well, not exactly mountains—more like parched, rocky, scrubby hills.

  What exactly had that blogger said? I pulled up the webpage on my phone.

  Are you paying attention? Are you aware that Man's Best Friend just became Public Enemy Number One? It's easy to be distracted by all the other potential disasters looming on the horizon. You count on the media and your government for clues.

  I don't know about the government, but I do count on the media. I admit, I'm glued to CNN from the moment Cocoa and I get done with our daily walk and romp. I have after-school dog duty, and my brother Rody does the six a.m. walk because he's one of those annoying people who wakes up ready to roll when the alarm goes off. Plus, except for his crazy long bangs, his short clipped brown hair takes about two seconds to wash and dry, whereas my long dark tresses demand lather-rinse-repeat as well as conditioner. This arrangement works out great for me because Cocoa is a morning pooper and Rody has to deal with it. Totally fair.

  Cocoa's legs were full of stored up energy, prancing along as fast as I could walk, even with the stride of a giant—well, not exactly a giant, but five ten on a girl is pushing the limit. Before letting him inside the fence to mingle with the other dogs, I planned to take our usual lap around the park so he wouldn't be quite so overwhelming. He came to a dead halt, yanking me backward, and pushed his nose through the chain link of the Small Dogs Only pen, where he traded sniffs with a white Westie.

  "Come on, Cocoa. I'm the human here," I insisted, giving a slight snap to the leash. "I'm supposed to be your pack leader. So follow me."

  He heard my exasperation and came willingly to heel. Six years ago, Cocoa had adopted me at the humane society when he was just a motley-looking puppy. All we could figure was that somewhere in his family tree was a beagle who gave him shape and stature, a chocolate lab who gave him color and sweetness, and a terrier who gave him spirit and a mustache. He's a fine example of the American canine melting pot.

  I set a good pace around the chain link, waving at familiar folks on the benches. Still, that crazy blog was tickling my brain, demanding attention. Much of what it said was true.

  You count on the media and your government for clues. And what are they doing? Watching for hurricanes on the Gulf Coast; monitoring the northern border of Pakistan for terrorists; measuring seismic tremors along the San Andreas Fault. They are scanning the night sky for inbound comets and asteroids; tapping phones and reading emails and profiling charge card bills across America looking for terrorist sleeper cells. They are sweeping the skies for migratory birds carrying avian flu; scrutinizing North Korea and Iran for evidence of intercontinental atomic missiles.

  I couldn't argue with that, although some threats were more realistic than others. Bird flu was old, old news. We'd been getting ready for that since 1998, for eighteen years. (Our quarantine emergency supplies would have expired long ago except for Dad's compulsive restocking.) And by the way, the blogger had left out mudslides and wildfires, a couple potential disasters that are especially worrisome to us here in San Diego.

  That's where we've all been looking for the next major disaster—he/she/it went on—looking up, out, and in. But it flew in under the radar. We should have been looking down, down at that cold, wet nose pressed lovingly into the palm of our hand.

  We came around to the gate of the pen reserved for medium and large dogs, and Cocoa pressed his cold, wet nose lovingly into the palm of my hand. I dried it on the silky fur between his ears. "You're not a modern day flea-infested plague carrier, are you, fuzzy face?" I asked him.

  He looked at me blankly, as usual, with an innocent dog smile. See, I only asked because the blogger had gone on to spout some weird theory about a coming pandemic that was going to be caused by dogs. But he never got any more specific. Undoubtedly a total nut.

  When Cocoa tipped his head on one side and stared at his friends running free, I opened the gate for him and unclipped his leash. He bounded onto the grass with a happy woof.

  The white Westie in the next door area raced up again, yipping a greeting that sounded like a fistful of gravel in his bark box. I knew hadn't seen either him or his owner before, because I would have remembered the human specimen, for sure. He was about six feet of lean surfing muscle, sun-bleached hair, and clear blue eyes. The tight tank top he was wearing showed off his well-spent hours in a weight room and proclaimed his allegiance to UCSD—he was a college guy.

  What was he doing here in Poway, fifteen miles inland, instead of cutting class and hanging out on a Del Mar beach where he so clearly belonged? His loss, my gain.

  I smiled openly at him. He lifted one eyebrow in my direction. Very charmingly, I thought.

  Our pets exchanged polite butt sniffs through the fence. Then something about Cocoa’s scent launched the Westie into sneezing spasms, and a glob of yellow mucus sprayed out and stuck to the dark brown fur on Cocoa’s toes. He twisted and licked himself.

  "Oh, no. I'm sorry," the owner said. "That's gross. Must be allergies. Westies are prone, you know?"

  "No, I didn't." I froze a smile onto my face. "Learn something new every day! Cocoa, come." I turned away ASAP, my stomach flipping over.

  "Hey, are we okay?" the guy called after me. "Are you mad? I just got Wessex back from the kennel, but he’s perfectly healthy. I promise he's had his kennel cough vaccine."

  He said We? I peeked back over my shoulder. His sweet blue eyes were worried. He was extremely cute again, and I could be very forgiving.

  "Don't worry about it," I said. "Cocoa's had his Bordatella vaccine, too." I wasn't showing off, just making myself sound a little more mature. No, really.

  Cocoa barked and raced off to mingle with the big dogs. Before I could follow, the guy's hand shot out and landed on my shoulder. Zap. A fizzing current ran straight through me to my feet. I spun my head to look over my shoulder (we ballerinas can do that, you know, for spotting) and found myself pupil-to-pupil with him. His eyes were so ocean blue I heard the surf crashing in my ears. The Earth stopped spinning. Time itself refused to move on. Excuse my hyperbole, but this was a new experience for me, the mutual "whoa!" of the eye-lock.

  He blinked first. "You want to go get ice cream? With the dogs, I mean?"

  I was stunned for another microsecond. Was this a date? Mom had said I wasn't allowed to date till I'm sixteen—forty-eight long, long days away. So no, this wasn't a date. Because then I wouldn't be allowed to say, as I did, "Yeah. That would be great!" Because really, it would just be walking Cocoa…to the ice cream shop…with another dog…who happened to have an owner.

  "My treat, this time," he said.

  This time? My brain sang wild, crazy melodies that even Mozart never thought of.

&nbs
p; "Thanks. I didn't bring my purse," I said, and that covered the reason he was paying, because God knows, it wasn't a date and I'd swear to that if Mom caught me.

  Cocoa was confused when I called him back and snapped on his leash before he had finished socializing. "Trust me, fuzzy face, you're going to like this," I promised.

  We walked the dogs up to the main road toward the Super Scoop. I have to admit, I noticed that we turned a few heads as we went along, him with his tall blondness and me with my tall brownness. I bet they even thought we were a couple. I checked out our reflection together in a store window and approved.

  It was easiest to talk about the dogs (I guess that's why grownups always talk about their kids), so I learned that his little guy, Wessex, was allergic to grass, loved the car, and preferred banana ice cream. I found myself accidentally spilling the tale of my most embarrassing moment, right after we got Cocoa when my Mom caught me trying to bleach him with L'Oreal hair coloring because I wanted a golden retriever. It was logical. Mom's own Doris Day blonde look came out of the same bottle.

  At Super Scoop, he ordered two kid scoop dishes of banana for the dogs and two double fudge chocolate waffle cones for us. I couldn't decide whether it was very manly of him to order for me or slightly obnoxious, so I decided to go for manly. I double-blinked as he peeled a twenty off a roll. I was right. Definitely manly.

  "Wait a second," I said with the realization that we'd been chatting like old friends. "I don't even know your name. I can't take ice cream from a stranger."

  "Sorry, I've forgotten my social graces," he said with a very old fashioned, unexpected, and adorable bow. He stuck out his hand. "Erich. With an H."

  "Herik?" I teased. I slipped my hand into his. Strong. Warm. Wow. I almost forgot to reply, "Tor."

  "Tor? That short for Victoria?" he asked.

  "Uh, no. Torrance," I admitted.

  "Torrance. Like the beach?"

  I nodded.

  "Gnarly waves," he said with a hint of a suggestive smile and a raised eyebrow.

  That trick with the eyebrow gave me happy shivers. I pretended the goosebumps on my arms were due to ice cream. I can’t remember much of the banter after that, just that the ice cream disappeared too fast, and we wandered back.

  "This isn't my regular park," Erich said as we came in sight of it again. "When are you usually here?"

  "I get over here most afternoons about this time," I said. "How come you're so far from campus?"

  He sighed. "Long story, but basically my folks are making me live at home to save money. How about you?"

  "Oh, I live at home, too." Well, it was true.

  "No kidding. Small world. What year are you?"

  "Sophomore," I answered briefly.

  "Hey, me too," he said with a disarming grin. "I'm assigned to Warren. I don't think I've seen you before, but it’s a huge place. Which school are you in?"

  I chose this crucial moment to answer without thinking. "Poway High."

  Hello, Tor. Anyone home in there?

  His eyes went from soft and friendly to wide and shocked in an instant. He took two steps backward. "Well, yes. No wonder," he stammered. "Oh, God. Look at the time." He looked at his arm, which, to his obvious chagrin, had no watch. His eyes darted around, slightly panicked. "Nice to meet you, Tor."

  "Nice to meet…oh, spit," I whispered at his retreating back. So much for my first, secret not-a-date.

  In spite of my dimwittitude, I couldn't wait to tell Sioux about Erich.

  Sioux's my UBF, ultimate best friend, knows me better than anyone in the world. She's not one of those fashionable girls who look with envy at my body and say, "God, Tor. You should be a model. You could even be a supermodel if you got a boob job." It mystifies them that my fashion choice is men's slim jeans (28-32's, which are not easy to find), a faded brown Padres T-shirt, and a baseball cap slammed down over my long straight brown hair. When we hang out at the mall, they play dress up with me, beg me to put on the super-mini styles that make them hate their own thighs.

  Even Sioux sometimes teases me for my lack of feminine taste, but she knows my darkest secrets. She has seen me dressed from my perfect, tight hair bun to the tips of my pointe shoes in glittery pink and floaty white. She has seen me twirl and leap and sauté arabesque. She has seen me in mascara and eyeliner and red blush and lipstick. For creeps sake, she has seen me in a gauze tutu. My secrets are safe with her, a girl with her own multiple personalities, so to speak.

  So I finally got her alone the next day as we were fixing up our black bean burgers at the Fixin's Bar in the cafeteria at lunch. Swiss cheese, fried onions, and ketchup. A small slice of heaven on earth.

  "How old do you think he was?" Sioux asked after I had laid bare the whole un-sordid story.

  "I don't know. Twenty? Twenty-one?"

  "You vixen, you!" Sioux said enviously. "Can I come with you next time?"

  "Sioux-san! What would your mother say? Besides..." I grinned. "The way he ran off with a big 'jailbait' sign flashing in his dilated pupils, I'll never see him again. Not at my dog park."

  So I was half right, as things turned out.

  During last period study hall, I added governmentsecrets.us to my bookmarked blogs and indulged in my usual "nuts and news" scan. The teachers don't care whether you're really doing homework as long as you're quiet and not trying to break through the site-blocks. Today's cryptic, paranoid message was annoyingly brief: Watch the news carefully.

  When Cocoa and I got back from our walk (alas, as predicted, no Erich today), Rody was already home from fall baseball practice, thumping around in the kitchen and fixing himself a snack. The TV was playing extremely loud music videos. Mom and Dad weren't home from work yet.

  "If you don't mind," I said and switched straight to CNN.

  He stood at the kitchen counter, smoothing huge amounts of peanut butter onto six stalks of celery. “Does it matter if I do?" He glared at me through the strands of his long, dark bangs, still wet from the shower.

  "Nope." At least I'm honest. "Hey, how was the chem lab write-up? You done?" I reached over his shoulder and snatched a piece of plain celery. I tower over him by four inches, much to his dismay. Judging by the way he was eating and his unusually thick look, he was getting ready for the growth spurt that would elevate him to Dad's respectable six foot two.

  "Yes, I'm done, and no, you can't copy," he said. He crunched forcefully for emphasis.

  "Duh. Just wondering," I shot back, trying to sound hurt. I'd been hoping to…not copy…just compare…data and analysis. That's all. That's fair. I help him with Language Arts, after all.

  See, we're both in tenth grade, and for three hideous months of the year we're the same age, even though my birthday is October 24th and his is the next August 14th. People who don't know us very well assume we're twins. When I explain that I am actually nine and three-quarters months older, they smirk and say, "Oh, I see. Irish twins," which if you didn't know is an ethnic slur and inappropriate way of pointing out that our parents had sex and got re-pregnant mere days after I was born when Mom was supposed to be resting and recovering.

  There are just some things you don't want to know about your parents. That's one of them. And now I can’t un-know it.

  I sat down at the table with my vocabulary worksheet, one ear on the TV.

  "How can you concentrate with all that talking?" he asked.

  "It's relaxing," I said. "I need to know what happened today."

  Call me a news junkie. I won't argue. At school, they think I'm just a smidge odd for caring about what goes on in the world. I've had this reputation ever since sixth grade when the other kids found out that I'd helped my parents hand out lawn signs to elect our current president. (Okay, so maybe passing out campaign buttons in the cafeteria wasn't such a great idea.) Well, they're welcome to their high school oblivious ignorance. I, on the other hand, know that one day, I'm going to have to live in the real world. I'd like it to be a decent one.

  Rody does
n't share my enthusiasm for news. "Fine. Whatever." He grabbed his plate in one hand and shouldered his backpack, yielding the TV to me, his elder.

  "Hey, take that with you.” I pointed to the bag of reeking practice uniform.

  In the background, the newscaster was talking about our war casualties in Africa. I glanced up from trying to write a sentence using the word "mitigate" (which, as I had just discovered, means to lessen the effects of something), and I caught the very tail end of the words crawling across the bottom of the screen, the part they call the ticker:

  …0 CONFIRMED CASES OF MYSTERY FLU IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA TOWN.

  That caught my attention, and my natural curiosity kicked in. What had I just missed? Was it actually zero confirmed cases? That wouldn't be news. Twenty confirmed cases? More interesting. Two hundred confirmed cases? A disaster in the making! And if they were calling it a mystery flu, they must have already run some tests on the victims and decided it wasn't the deadly Avian flu breaking into fortress America. I watched for another hour, but strangely enough, no one reported anything about it, and the tag never recycled. That should have told me something.

  Look for TOR MADDOX: UNLEASHED

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