Immunity Index, Sue Burke [accelerated reader books txt] 📗

“We’ll come to meet you!”

“I’m fine. Be careful. Don’t spook him.”

“We’re coming.”

Irene knew she should be afraid. She should be worried about a long list of things. Or … this could be performance art. Sure. Girl rides mammoth. She ought to be dressed in prehistoric furs and leather. Her T-shirt would have to do. At least it was brown.

“Ahead, mighty steed! Now, stay calm, Nimkii. This is where things get tricky. I’ll try to get you to your pen. How about extra elephant chow today? And apples. A watermelon or two. Think about the watermelon, not about all the annoying people and cars.”

They passed a man on the shoulder of the road recording a video. He backed away. She waved and smiled—a big smile—regardless of the consequences. Nimkii turned his head and stopped, but she rocked to keep him going. The driveway was coming up. She tugged on his fur. “Okay, now turn down here. Pedazo, can you smell it? It smells like home, doesn’t it?”

Apparently it did. He rumbled, turned willingly, and walked a little faster. The rumble might have been a purr. Another sheriff’s car was approaching with its lights flashing. Then the car steered onto the gravel shoulder, still far away, and stopped. A man in uniform got out.

“Are you all right?” he called.

“Yes. The mammoth took a little walk, but now he wants to come home. I don’t think there’ll be trouble if we all just stay calm.” She patted the hump. “Nimkii, you’re calm, aren’t you?” He was still purring.

“Irene!” Alan shouted from far up the drive. “Is he coming back?”

Irene didn’t want to shout too loud for fear of spooking Nimkii, but she waved and tried to act relaxed.

Relaxed? She was riding a full-grown male woolly mammoth. No one had ever done that before—maybe in all of human history.

Nimkii knew where he was going and seemed focused. Alan and Ruby ran toward them, followed by Will’s barking dog. What if the dog attacked Nimkii?

“Hold the dog!” Irene said.

Alan grabbed it by the collar and held tight, looking stunned. Ruby looked angry, but she always looked angry.

“Open the gates!” Irene called.

Alan jumped. “Ruby, take the dog!” He ran ahead to the pen.

Nimkii seemed to have no interest in anything besides the open outer and inner gates. He rushed toward them. Irene held on tight.

The slipper-soft feet made no noise on the bridge, but the wood creaked. Once inside, he finally stopped, turned around as if to reassure himself, and trumpeted as loud as he could, deafening. The vibration traveled up Irene’s legs to her fingers and the top of her head. He was home.

Behind them, Alan closed the gates. Irene leaned forward and hugged Nimkee’s shoulder hump tight. The sheriff, a deputy, and the man from the side of the road, still recording, had come to the outer fence. She waved at them.

Now she needed to get down. A snag of a tree stood close enough. She tugged on his fur.

“Nimkii, take me to the tree.” She rocked toward it.

He took a few steps, uncertain. She rocked again. He started walking. With a little more coaxing, he stood close enough for her to grab the trunk and shinny down. He stepped back and watched, shifting his weight.

When her feet were on the ground, she turned to face him, her hand out.

“We had a great trip, didn’t we? Now it’s time to get back to work. You entertain the visitors while I get you some yummy food. We can play again sometime soon.”

He twined his trunk around her arm, and when he seemed ready, she lowered her arm and began walking away. She could slip through the inner gate, now closed, and then she’d have a lot of explaining to do.

In fact, all sorts of things might happen, a lot of them bad, maybe catastrophic, but whatever came next, it had been worth it for now. Nimkii was safe, and he trusted her.

Berenike had almost finished her work shift, managing the morning rush hour with no special problems other than the usual cranky customers because there were never enough cars, a boring job at best, demeaning in every other way. Worse, her job and its drudgery gave her too much time to think.

Being fired wouldn’t ruin her life. What came after it would, since no one would want to have anything to do with her. A sheltered home? That would be like jail, and it would last only as long as the funding for those homes did, and then—maybe one of those reeducation camps? She’d heard rumors about them, none of them good, and she believed the rumors.

Swoboda would be a worse fate, though … if he was telling the truth. He’d sent her a message, and she’d ignored it. She had nothing to say to him.

But according to her phone, Papa hadn’t even received her message to him from yesterday. Maybe he had been arrested. Maybe the next time I see him we’ll both be in a camp. But she was catastrophizing. On the other hand, catastrophes happened.

Or they might not happen. Two more days. And then, everything might change, if everyone was lucky and everything went right. If she could last for two more days …

Her replacement, Jalil, arrived with only a few minutes to spare before his shift started, not eager to come early to a job he hated and couldn’t escape. They’d gone through training together, selected by AutoKar at high school graduation. Supposedly they could say no to the training, which had a guaranteed job at the end, but then they’d have nothing, no other scholarships or offers, because they’d turned down an opportunity. And once hired, they couldn’t even switch to another company, because a court case had ruled that AutoKar deserved to recoup its investment. Shared anger had turned them into friends.

She trusted him enough to have told him about the coming mutiny. He was all in. Their role was simple: they’d merely ignore corporate rules that ran counter