Everfound

Seth was in solitary confinement; all high-profile prisoners were. But the only way out was through the main cell block. Moving a prisoner anywhere in the detention center always required two guards. Allie could skinjack one guard, put him to sleep, then leap to the other guard and run with Seth—but that wouldn’t go over well in the middle of a crowded cell block—especially one where the inmates wanted to see the Benson Burner lynched just as badly as the public. Allie knew the only way to get Seth out was to get him out of the cell block first in some legitimate way. . . .

* * *

That night Seth Fellon broke his nose. His wails echoed in the halls of solitary. “I deed a doctor!” he yelled. “My doze! I deed a doctor!”

One of the guards on duty reluctantly came to check it out, peering through the little window into the small concrete cell. He cursed about the bloody mess that was all over the room, then went to get a second guard so they could escort him to the infirmary.

“You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” one of the guards said, as they pulled him out of his cell. “Mess yourself up, then claim that we did it to you.” Then he pointed to the corner of the hallway. “See that? That’s a security camera, moron. It’ll prove you did it all on your lonesome.”

Once they arrived at the infirmary, the doctor on call took his time in getting there. Both guards remained while the nurse took care of him, doing her best to stop the bleeding and disinfecting the gash across the bridge of his nose.

“How did you do this?” she asked.

“Fell and hit my face on the toilet.”

“Ouch,” said the one of the guards, then laughed, so that no one could accuse him of being sympathetic to an arsonist.

Then, when the doctor finally arrived, the nurse turned to him and said, “It’s about time you came down off your high tower.”

“Don’t start,” said the doctor as if it were a perfectly natural thing to say.

Seth met the nurse’s gaze, recognizing something in her eyes.

* * *

As far as Allie was concerned, this was all about timing. She knew there were five security doors between them and the main entrance. She knew where she needed a magnetic swipe, where she needed a code, and where she’d have to be buzzed in by a guard. She was only a single skinjacker, but if she had her timing down, she could do this.

“We’ll take X-rays in the morning,” the doctor said, after he had sewn up the gash, “once the swelling goes down a bit.” Then he pulled off his surgical gloves, tossed them in the trash, and was gone.

“All right,” said one of guards. “Back to your cell.”

But Allie handed him a clipboard. “Not until you fill out the accident report.” Then she excused herself to the restroom where she promptly left the nurse’s body asleep in a stall.

In the examining room, Seth watched as the guard filled out the report. “See,” the guard said. “Doing that to yourself was a waste of time.”

“And,” added the other guard, “it’ll hurt even worse in the morning.”

Seth kept waiting for Allie to return, but she didn’t. Then as the two guards led him out of the infirmary, the one on his left said, “You’d better not try anything fu

The other guard looked at him strangely. “We’re taking him to the warden?”

“You know our orders. If anything unusual happens to the Benson Burner, we’re supposed to take him straight to the warden.”

The other guard wasn’t convinced. “That’s not protocol.” He pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Let me call it in.”

Allie leaped out of the left-hand guard, through Seth, and into the right-hand guard just before he pressed the button to talk—but she had leaped so suddenly that the first guard—who she had put to sleep while skinjacking him—was jarred awake. He didn’t even stumble.

“Hey,” he said reaching for his weapon, knowing something strange had happened. “How’d we get in the hallway? What’s going on?”

Damn! Allie leaped back again into the left guard—she never even had the chance to put the right guard to sleep, and he knew something had been possessing his body.

“Something’s wrong here!” he said.

There was no time to think now, so Allie tried something she had never done before; she leaped from one guard to the other and back again, over and over, back and forth, staying just long enough to keep them from doing anything she didn’t want them to. Faster and faster she bounced, until she was seeing double—two separate images from two pairs of eyes. She kept increasing the speed of her jumps, images flickering like a projector getting up to speed, until she couldn’t tell whose body she was in anymore. Then she realized that she was skinjacking them both at once! Allie settled into the rhythm of this alternating current. It was exhausting, but she had no choice.

“What’s going on?” Seth asked.

“Move it,” she said and found that the words came out of both men’s mouths simultaneously. Striding in unison, they came to the first set of security doors, and punched in the code, bringing them one step closer to escape.

They needed to be buzzed through the next door, and the guard on duty asked,

“Where are you taking this prisoner?”

Both guards said in unison, “Prisoner transfer.”

The guard on duty chuckled at the apparent coincidence, and buzzed them through. Allie realized that both men were sweating profusely, but she couldn’t do anything about that. They were also fully awake, and knew everything that was happening to them—and although they struggled to get control of their own bodies, they had no experience with such a thing. As long as she kept hammering them down, she would stay in control.

They made it through one more door without incident. Ahead was one more guarded door, then they’d be in the prisoner admissions area—kind of like a criminal’s lobby. After that they would be home free.

But before they got through that last security door, from an adjacent corridor came a small, bald man with an unforgiving face.

“What are you doing? Why isn’t this prisoner in his cell?”

Allie’s hearts sank. This was the warden. She couldn’t bluff her way past him, because any transfer would have already gone through his office, and he would know about it. And so she did the only thing she could. She began leaping into him as well, turning her two-step dance into a waltz.

One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three . . .

The warden tried to speak, but it came out as a stutter. “Uh . . . Uh . . . Uh . . .”

Left-right-forward, left-right-forward . . .

And in a moment, Allie was seeing through three sets of eyes instead of just two. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. It was like juggling, body-juggling, and if she bobbled any of them, it was all over. But perhaps it was worth the risk, because the guard at the admissions door wasn’t going to question the warden.

“Good evening, sir,” said the guard as they approached the door.

All three skinjacked men nodded, and the guard buzzed them out to the deserted admissions area, watching with only mild interest as they strode out the front door into the chilly night.

“I’m go

Allie had all but forgotten Seth, the single member of the foursome she wasn’t skinjacking. “Quiet!” she said in a three-voice chorus. It took even more energy to speak with three sets of vocal chords under her command, so conversations had to be kept to a minimum. She reached into her pocket, all three men mimicking the same exact motion. While the guards came up empty-handed, the warden had his car keys in his hand. He hit a button and the Lexus in the warden’s parking space unlocked.