Cold Case

the engine noise rising to a shriek as the wheels revved in thin air. The suspension screamed in protest. Only half the wheels — the ones on the right side — touched the ground.

Like a dog going to lie down, the autobus swung round in a half-circle. Then it overbalanced and toppled over on its side.

Matt and his friends rode out the impact as best they could. The wheels were still spinning mindlessly in the air as Megan pushed her way to the bus windows that were now overhead. She grabbed the red emergency handle on them, pulled, then pushed against the frame. The window flew up on a hinge and fell over.

Megan climbed out, then leaned back inside. “Help David get up!” she shouted.

Though still wobbly on his own feet, Matt managed to get David upright. His friend still clung to his laptop computer.

“Let me hold it,” Matt said. “You’re gonna need both hands to get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving without that sucker,” David vowed.

“I’ll hand it up before I even try climbing,” Matt said. “Promise.”

With Matt pushing from below and Megan hauling from on high, they managed to get David out the window. David held Matt to his promise. Matt had to hand up the laptop computer before he began climbing.

Then it was his turn to climb to freedom. For one awful second, his legs buckled. He didn’t think he was going to make it. Two sets of arms grabbed him, holding him in place until he managed to catch a foothold. He made it! He was out!

From there it was a simple job to get away from the crazed autobus. Matt and David helped Megan transfer to the ground. She controlled David’s descent as Matt lowered him into Megan’s arms. Finally Matt slithered down the roof of the bus while his friends tried to catch him.

Then, with Megan bracing David on his bad side and Matt hanging on to the other shoulder, they staggered away from the still-screaming bus.

We probably look like we just lost a war, Matt thought. But this feels like a victory to me.

They made it through the newly torn hole in the bushes when Matt heard oncoming sirens. Megan stumbled, and the three of them went down.

With luck, they were far enough away to survive if the autobus decided to explode.

Matt hoped.

Megan was leaning against the tailgate of the Emergency Services ambulance, watching the paramedics patch David and Matt, when a familiar face passed her field of vision.

“Captain Winters!” she called out in surprise.

Winters wheeled on hearing her voice and came straight over. “I came here as soon as I heard the names of the passengers on that bus.” His face filled with concern as he looked into the ambulance.

He probably did the same thing with his Marines, Megan thought. Taking care of his men. Once a military man, always a military man.

“The kids all came through this surprisingly well,” the paramedic stanching Matt’s bleeding forehead assured the captain. “I’ve got the worst of them, and there’s no signs of concussion here, although we’ll have to check and make sure later. Otherwise, a few butterfly clips to close the wound, and the boy should be fine.”

“We’ll need an X ray to make sure that this young man’s bone hasn’t broken again,” the young woman setting the pressure cast around David’s leg said. “But I think it’s fine, just bruised.”

“I lost my cane in all the excitement,” David said. He held his laptop computer cradled in his arms.

“I will personally see that you get a replacement cane,” Winters promised. “What I’d like to hear now is — what in the world happened on that bus?”

“It went nuts,” David said.

“Tried to break the land speed record back to my house,” Matt put in. “When the on-board computer saw that wasn’t going to happen, it apparently tried to take a short cut through the park.”

“Another accident,” Winters said grimly.

“Nuh-uh,” Megan told him, remembering what happened right before the bus went haywire. “I don’t think so. We were rolling along, just another boring Saturday ride, when this car came up beside the bus. I thought we were going to get sideswiped, but someone in the back of the car had a gizmo.”

Winters leaned forward. “What kind of gizmo?”

“I only got a quick glance. It looked like some sort of flat antenna grid. That’s all I saw — except it was shoved out at the front of the autobus.”

“At the front — where the computers are. I’ve heard of experiments being done — the effects of a localized electromagnetic pulse—” Winters’s eyes grew sharp. “Did you see anything to identify the car? The make? A look at the license plate?”

“It was black and had dark tinted windows, so I couldn’t see anybody inside it. Sorry. What can I say?” Megan spread her hands. “That’s when things began to get a bit exciting.”

“Oh, yeah,” Matt agreed. “The computer said, ‘Wahoo! We’re off to the races.’”

The captain pulled out his wallet-phone. “We have a technical crew down here, and there’s a team coming from the manufacturers. They expect to see some sort of accident. I’m going to pass along what Megan saw. Let’s see if they find any—”

“Evidence,” Matt finished for him. His pale face had a stony expression. “Otherwise, this will be just another accident.”

“It might also explain one of the earlier ones,” David said slowly. “What if the truck Harry Knox was driving got a taste of EMP? There’s so much drive-by-wire control circuitry in those big rigs, it could have gone wild.”

“And who’d really notice after the electronics took a nice dunk in the Potomac?” Megan added.

“Interesting question,” Winters said, punching a code into his wallet-phone. Apparently it was to the central offices of Net Force, which in turn routed him to the tech crew at the wreck. The captain sketched out what Megan had seen, listened for a moment, then said, “Yes, we’re at the ambulance.”

A few minutes later they were joined by a short, balding guy with a big nose and glasses — he looked like a geek, not a Net Force agent.

Megan found herself wondering how the guy ever survived the combined FBI-Marine physical training course for Net Force officers. When he turned cold gray eyes on her, she began to suspect how.

“You saw some sort of aerial?” the man barked.

“It was flat, like a grid,” Megan said. “Whoever was holding it needed both hands to keep it steady. I could draw it for you if that would help.”

“Later,” he said.

She closed her eyes, trying to reenvision the moment. Another detail came. “The person holding it had gloves on. Shiny gloves. Not leather. Something like — rubber? Plastic? Maybe for insulation?”

The technical guy made a disparaging noise and turned to Winters. “I don’t know how much we’ll be able to recover from the vehicle. Most of the circuit boards were damaged by the impact with the tree. Others had already burned out. Someone had activated the emergency cutoff.” He made it sound like an accusation.

“Well, excuse me for trying to save our lives!” Megan flared. “That vehicle was doing something like ninety on the straightaways when it wasn’t playing bumper cars with everything else on the road. If you don’t believe us, check with Metropolitan Transit. I’m sure you’ll find that we got here well ahead of schedule. Or you can check with all the motorists who almost got nailed, traffic control, and I’ll bet we passed enough building security cameras to give you quite a show! Besides, the stupid cutoff button didn’t work. We wobbled a bit, but we kept going.”

“Is that the usual effect of an emergency cutoff?” Winters asked. “I always expected it to bring a bus to an instant stop — at least as instant as the brakes and the occupants could handle.”

“What happened here was definitely anomalous,” the techie said stiffly. “But, given the state of the hardware, I’m not sure we’ll ever identify the exact nature of the failure.”

He gave Megan an affronted look — an expert faced with an impertinent layperson.

The little guy was surprised when Matt’s sarcastic voice rang out from the ambulance. “Sure, pal. Some failure! One that caused a nearly fatal accident.”