Lafferty, Mur by Playing for Keeps [html] Page B

leaned into Keepsie and whispered, "What's his power?"
    "Elevator control," Keepsie said out loud.
    "Oh, excellent," Clever Jack said. "We can use you."
    Jason looked terrified. "I don't know."
    Keepsie stepped forward and leaned into Jason. "Check us out, Jason.
    Look at what the heroes did to me and Peter." Peter stepped into the doorway, his face stony, and Jason gasped.
    "I have it on good authority that they have been torturing Ian as well,"
    Peter said. "We need to free them, Jason. Clever Jack thinks you could help us.
    Will you?"
    Jason nodded. "But, what can I do?"
    Clever Jack grinned the smile that was starting to make Keepsie uneasy.
    "The most secure cells are only accessible by elevator key card."
    "Oh. Well I can help with that," Jason said. "I thought you needed me to fight or something." He snickered nervously, raising his thin arms.
    Clever Jack motioned for them to follow. "Not even a little bit." The four of them followed Clever Jack back to the elevators.
    "Any idea where the others are?" Clever Jack asked.
    "I think Ian is in the eighth basement," Peter said. “Barry and Tomas, I have no idea.” "Eighth basement sounds about right. Take us there," Clever Jack told Jason. Jason pushed the button marked "B8."
    "That's it?" Keepsie said.
     
    "What did you expect?" Jason asked. "I can get us there without stopping anywhere else."
    "I thought Clever Jack's power would keep us from running into heroes,"
    Peter said.
    "Only an idiot doesn't use the tools that fall into his hands," Clever Jack said. "If I were hunting, I could probably find a deer that had broken its neck in a fall, but it's much easier to just rely on a clear shot with a gun."
    The elevator descended, with no interruptions, to the eighth basement floor. When the door opened, Clever Jack looked at them. "Keepsie, I need you to come with me. The rest of you wait here. Keep the elevator here. If someone comes down the hall who isn't us, take the elevator to the topmost floor and wait for me."
    "Wait, how will you get there?" Jason called after him.
    "Luck," Clever Jack said.
    Clever Jack paid Keepsie no attention as she followed him. He looked at every door, placing his hand on each one, shaking his head, and moving on.
    “Jack, why me? I’m not really useful in a fight.”
    Jack didn’t look at her. “I need the device now, Keepsie. I need it to free the rest of our friends.”
    “So you can’t just luck your way into their cells?”
    “What did I just tell you about tools? I need that tool to open the cell quickly before anyone finds us.”
    Keepsie fingered the ball in her pocket and hesitated. Jack sighed. “Do you want Ian out or not?”
    She handed it to him, a sense of powerlessness coming over her as she lost her final bargaining chip.
    Jack took it, a look of reverence on his face. “Thank you.”
    He crouched down and put it on the concrete floor and spun it, just so.
    As it whirled around, it began to open, unhinging and revealing a small cavity inside where a handful of small, blue pills lay resting on some cotton.
    “That’s it?” Keepsie said.
    “Don’t discount it, you have no idea what these are. What they can do,”
    Jack said. He reached into the cavity and pulled a pill out. He dry-swallowed it and waited.
    Keepsie stepped back, not knowing what to expect. Clever Jack closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them, focusing intently on one of the doors. It was large and metal with a keypad containing several symbols on it. Keepsie had no idea what the symbols meant, but Clever Jack went to the pad and punched in a long code. A light came on over the keypad, bright red. Jack smiled and keyed in another code. The light began to blink.
    “Finally.”
    Jack bent down and picked up the device. It shut at his touch, and he slipped it into his jeans pocket.
    “This is all I needed. I’ll get the rest. You go back to the elevator now.”
    Keepsie watched the red light blink. “Is Ian in there?”
    “Not