Episode V

17.

“Let me get this straight,” Mink scoffed, her feet propped up on the seat in front of her. She wore Converse like me, except hers were red. “You put on that moldy old cuff, became a Roman gladiator, spoke Latin, punched a college professor, tied up a security guard, and fought a 500-pound silverback gorilla?”

“I didn’t really fight the gorilla. I just curled up and waited to die.”

“And you expect me to believe all that?”

I shrugged. Why would she? I lived it and was having trouble believing it.

“Where’s the cuff now?”

“I don’t know. My grandmother hid it.”

“Why? If it can give that kind of incredible ability, why not turn it over to the government?”

“She says that the cuff represents, you know, unimaginable power. And politicians are the most power-hungry people in the world. Bad combination.”

Mink thought this over. She licked the Butterfinger dust from her fingertips. “Yeah, makes sense. I guess that’s why those phony cops were chasing us. Who do they work for? Big Business? CIA? China?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how they found out we have the cuff.”

“Your wild night at your folks’ memorial might have tipped them off.”

“True, but how did they know it had that power? My grandmother had explained away my behavior that night by saying I’d had an accidental overdose of antidepressant medicine because of my parents’ death.”