Author's Notes: First, thank you all for the reviews. I appreciate them even though I don't have the time to personally respond. The review monster is still hungry, though, and would like to see more.
A few things... More of Vlad is coming, I promise, in the next chapter. And yes, there are people missing, but they aren't going to show up immediately. There are some things that need to happen first.
Just a warning, this short chapter has some much needed character development and not quite as much action. Things will pick up again, but Friar Tuck insisted on having a moment, so I obliged him. Let me know what you think.
In the meantime, if you haven't checked out my DP one-shots or "Do Overs", please do. I'd be interested in hearing what you think of them.
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Donny DeFranco hadn't had this much fun in years.
He enjoyed football immensely, but the game was rigid, structured, full of does and don'ts. Running around the fairgrounds, though, chasing after the dog, was completely different. No whistles, no bizarre plays to confuse the opposition, no other players to keep track of. This was just plain vanilla running.
His expensive brand name sneakers were ruined now. First the sno-cone incident left syrup stains over the toes, now the mud was creeping in every time he hit a puddle left over from last night's rain storm. He couldn't bring himself to care, though. Playing, unencumbered by pads and helmet with no one yelling at him to stop, gave Donny a sense of freedom he had never felt before.
It was almost as if he could fly.
Donny laughed. He couldn't help himself. Every few moments, the tiny little pup would stop and growl cheerfully, its stubby tail wagging away. The board hung from its jaws like a giant chew toy, the only thing Donny could get close to. And when Donny got close enough to make a grab for the board, the puppy took off in a completely different direction.
Occasionally, the dog would allow Mara or Tuck to approach it, but the end result was the same. As soon as any of the teens got close, puppy would run a few feet away then wait for the humans to chase it.
Donny laughed again. He dodged under the scaffolding and almost crashed into Tuck. The techno-geek snarled.
"Dude! Watch where you're going."
"Sorry, Tuck." Donny gave the other boy a friendly slap on the shoulder. "I'll try to be more careful."
Tuck ducked his head in confusion. "Yeah, well, you'd better."
Donny stopped for a moment, trying to decipher the comment. "Have I done something to offend you?"
The immediate reaction was a look so cold, Donny swore the other teen had ice for eyeballs. Then resignation took over and Tuck shook his head while rubbing the back of his neck. "No. You haven't done anything wrong."
Just like that, fun time was over and Donny DeFranco remembered what these two believed him to be. He hesitated over whether to make a snide remark or not. Not worth it, he told himself as he turned away.
"Time to call home," his i-Bug beeped.
"Delete reminder," he instructed with a heavy sigh, taking the long route back to rally central.
"Reminder deleted," the phone cheerfully chirped.
Scaffolding towered above Donny, five stores of pipes, walkboards and ladders constructed to hold up the horse track's deteriorating stadium seating. Sunlight streamed brightly between the cracks, gleaming with the promise of better things to come. He knew better to believe it. Spring always lied. The only things that came later were the hot weather and bad storms of summer which promptly led into autumn's death-of-all-things.
"Tuck," Mara's voice called, "What happened? What's wrong?"
If Tuck answered, Donny didn't hear it. He did hear a piece of wood hit the ground. Even as he walked away from the game, the dog trotted towards him, board forgotten. "Yip."
"Second reminder," the i-Bug beeped again. "Time to call home."
Resisting the urge to bang his head against the nearest scaffold, Donny stopped and leaned forward into it. "Delete reminder. Dial home."
A series of clicks filled one ear as footsteps splashed up behind him. He could practically feel Mara and Tuck breathing down his neck.
"Donny? You there, Son?" his father's voice crackled over the tiny receiver. The i-Bug contained the best digital solid state technology available. Anyone could talk on these things from anywhere on the planet with no reception problems and John DeFranco managed to be the one person in the universe who still couldn't make his work properly.
"Yes, Sir."
"What time is it?"
Donny didn't bother glancing at his watch. Dad had programmed the reminders to go off every four hours when the younger DeFranco wasn't in the house. "One o'clock."
John harrumphed. "You have homework to do."
"Yes, Sir." No use arguing. His father had probably snooped in his book bag the moment he left for the rally.
"Did you see that girl?"
"Dad!"
"Did you see her or not?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Time to come home. I've been called out on a job." The connection clicked off.
"Yes, Sir," Donny replied in monotone to empty air. "What ever you say, Sir."
The dog bumped up against Donny's leg, whining as if it knew something was wrong. Donny reached down, absently scratching the pooch behind the ears when his fingers caught on the collar's tag.
I knew it! He does belong to Ember.
Most animal licenses were short rectangles, just big enough to contain an RFID and a holoprojector with the contact details of the pet's vet. In the modern age of private information paranoia, all roaming pets were returned to their vets who in turn contacted the owners. This tag was mostly round, straight along one edge, embossed on the front and flat on the back. There was no RFID embedded and no signs of a holoprojector. Instead, the flat side had writing engraved on it and the front side was shaped into the letter 'D' surrounding a fancy 'P'. The center of the 'P' contained four stylized symbols in a line.
Donny frowned, puzzling over the four symbols until Mara leaned over his shoulder, touching the tag with her forefinger.
"I think it says 'Cujo'," she said.
"Rarwf!" the puppy agreed.
"Cujo?" Tuck came around the other side of the dog. "What kind of name is that for tiny little guy like this?"
His good mood broken, Donny couldn't bring himself to smile. "It could be a girl, you know."
Tuck smirked and pointed. "Look between the legs. Cujo's a he."
"Oh."
Mara flipped tag over, her fingers brushing against Donny's as she did so. She still leaned over his shoulder, her breath warm in his ear as she silently tried to decipher the engraved writing.
You have a girlfriend, DeFranco, he admonished himself before making his own attempt to read the message. "Wait a sec... That can't be right."
"What can't be right?" Tuck asked.
"It says, 'Return to Phantom if found...OR ELSE'."
Mara blinked. "Okay. This is officially the weirdest dog license I've ever seen."
"XCopy that," Donny agreed. "I wonder what kind of veterinary clinic calls itself Phantom."
"Maybe it's a city," Tuck offered, pulling an atlas up on his wristcomp.
"Nooooo," Mara said slowly. "Look at the symbol on the front. Doesn't it seem familiar?"
"Looks like something you'd see in a museum or a history class," Tuck commented, still searching his atlas.
Donny gave Cujo another scratch behind the ears, then got back to his feet. "You guys mind returning him? The clinic should have his owner on record."
"Yo...You're not staying?"
Donny's heart fluttered at concern in Mara's voice. Tuck's expression was carefully blank, but his body language said he was tense. Donny shook his head. "Can't. Gotta go home. Homework and all that."
"Dude," Tucker scrunched his features into a frown. "It's Saturday. Everyone gets Saturday off."
"I'm not everybody." A bitter edge crept into Donny's voice despite his best attempts to be bland. Usually, no one ever noticed. The other A-Listers were always too wrapped up in their own concerns and took such comments at face value. Tuck and Mara noticed, though, their eyes narrowing sharply as soon as words left Donny's lips. He slapped his hand to the back of his neck, rubbing hard to keep a flush from painting his face red with embarrassment. These two so-called losers were a lot sharper than he expected.
"Um, I gotta go." With those final words, Donny DeFranco turned on his heels and fled.
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Tuck winced as Mara's fist pounded into his upper arm. "What did you say to him?" she demanded.
"Nothing!"
His best friend glared at him the way only a goth could, death and the promise of eternal agony in her eyes. "You said something. He was laughing, Tuck. I've never heard DeFranco laugh before. And then you said something and he looked like you punched him in the gut. Spill it!"
Tuck bit his lip, shaking his head. DeFranco's mood isn't my fault, he told himself, recognizing the lie in his words.
Where did the jerk-jock get off acting like they were friends, anyway? First the dude rescued Tuck and his comp this morning, then apologized all nice-n-polite when he nearly ran Tuck down, even giving Tuck the best friend's slap-on-the-back routine. It wasn't fair! DeFranco's attitude messed with the system, broke all the rules and destroyed the status quo. How was anyone to know their place in the social structure if the jock kept crossing lines like that?
Yet, Tuck had to admit he missed having a guy friend. Mara was great, his best friend in the whole wide world whom he trusted with a lot of his secrets. But she was a girl and there was just some stuff boys did not talk about with girls. DeFranco, on the other hand, might actually understand the guy stuff. Tuck could see himself and the jock being close friends, which only infuriated him more. Popular kids did this routine all the time, pretended to be nice to a loser, learn the loser's most carefully guarded secret, then outing said secret to the entire school for their own amusement. So, when Donny asked if he had offended Tuck, the techno-geek had given the only response he could.
The overwhelming hurt in DeFranco's eyes was not the expected response. Tuck waited for the insults and beatings to start. Instead, the jock turned away, shoulders slumped in defeat.
I didn't do anything, Tuck mentally yelled at his conscience.
That's the problem, his conscience argued back. You didn't even give him a chance.
Then DeFranco called home and defeat became complete, exhausted resignation. The kind of resignation Tuck felt when Denver and Kasey bullied him. The same expression on every loser's face at school when cornered by the A-Listers. Which only confused Tuck further. Since when did popular kids feel the same emotions as the rest of the universe?
The mutt managed to perk DeFranco up, though, if only for a moment. Then Tuck opened his mouth again and the jock recoiled.
"I'm not everybody."
Most people would hear only the words and assign an aura of arrogance and self-importance to the speaker. Tuck, however, heard the sour self-hatred behind the voice. He used that tone quite often
himself when he was alone and depressed. The idea DeFranco hated his life surprised Tuck.
Mara jabbed him in the ribs. "Tuck, are you listening to me?"
The techno-geek ignored her question, reaching to scratch the mutt's ears and encountering nothing. Tuck jumped up, looking around frantically, but the little green bulldog was gone. "Whoops."
Mara stretched as she also rose. "So much for finding out more about the dog. I wanted to question its owner about the whole green fur and solid objects thing."
Tuck killed the atlas. "Maybe we imagined the whole thing?"
Mara's eyes met his and Tuck blanched. "Or maybe not," he amended.
She sighed, curling the ends of her hair around one of her fingers. "We need to find out what that symbol was, the one on the front of the tag."
"Why? The mutt's gone."
Mara stamped her foot on the ground. "Don't be an idiot. First, by definition mutts are multi-breed dogs. That puppy was obviously full-blooded bulldog. Secondly, we might run into it again. Lastly, I want to know how it managed the wall trick. If we figure out the symbol, we'll know which clinic to go to. You can hack their records, find the owner and we can get some answers."
"You're going to be obsessing over this until we have an explanation, aren't you? Even if we don't see the dog again."
Mara smirked in response.
Tuck sighed. He loved his best friend, he really did, despite the overly zealous curiosity which always, always, always got him into trouble. "Fine. Let's blow this popsicle stand and find a quiet place to do some research."
She smirked again, leading the way towards the exit. Tuck had to get in one last word, though.
"Bulldog or not, Cujo's still a mutt."
Mara smacked him on the arm.