AXEL

Axel Jack exploded out of thin air and hit the concrete with a bone-crunching thud.

His head throbbed, and his body ached from the sudden blast through the Satellite Warp. He shook off the impact, lifted his head, and saw the shoes of passing pedestrians — sneakers, high heels, loafers, wing tips, sandals. A set of dirty bare feet walked directly toward him.

"You Houdini?" a grizzled voice asked.

A gnarled, arthritic finger touched Axel's shoulder.

Axel clutched the GeoPort unit in his jeans pocket and sat up on his knees, every muscle tensed to run. The old guy towering over him had a long beard and a pockmarked face, and smelled like he'd just urinated all over himself. Relief swelled in Axel's chest. The man definitely wasn't a Pursuer. He was safe — for the moment.

He stood up and stared at the strange surroundings. Hundreds of people clogged the busy sidewalks. Honking yellow taxis whizzed down the street. Skyscrapers soared into the clouds like giant man-made mountains.

"I'm in a city," Axel said. "A big freaking city."

"New York City," the man mumbled. "You a magician or something?"

"Huh?" Axel grunted back.

"One minute I'm drooling over a sweet hunk of carrot cake in that deli window, and the next I see you. A loud boom like a car backfiring and then a big puff of smoke like you was in a magic show or something."

"I wish it were magic. You said I'm in New York City, right?"

"The one and only Big Apple. Got a dollar?"

Axel reached into his pocket and pulled out a bill. "Here you go. Sorry, it's Vietnamese dong. That's where I just came from." He hoisted his backpack over his shoulders and sprinted down the street.

The weather was warm, but not like the oppressive humidity of Vietnam where his last chase had taken place. He took off his jacket, tied it around his waist, and headed toward a patch of green in the otherwise gray urban landscape. The GeoPort vibrated in his pocket. He quickly took the palm-sized, twenty-first-century version of the Holy Grail out and read the coordinates.

40.7420° N, 73.9876° W

"Madison Square Park," Axel said aloud. "Homeless people never lie. I'm smack-dab in the heart of New York City."

Axel slipped the GeoPort back into his pocket, his eyes nervously scanning the faces in the crowd. He knew the Pursuers back in Vietnam had a short window of opportunity to find the Warp with their trackers. If they sniffed it out, some extremely nasty men would soon materialize in front of the deli with the carrot cake in the window.

A bright yellow sun beamed high in the sky. Axel knew from the sun's position that it was noon on a hot June day. If the Pursuers were able to follow him, he'd have to run and hide for the next nine hours or so. Until the sun went down and the Pursuers' solar tracking device could no longer pinpoint his location. He grabbed a spare shirt from his backpack, wiped the sweat off his flushed face, and jogged down the street.

One thought raced through his mind as he dashed in and out of the throngs of walkers choking the sidewalks: Daisha, her look of surprise and shocked horror when the Pursuers had burst into the Café Gac Hoa at 92 Pham Ngoc Thach in District Three of Ho Chi Minh City.

Their peaceful, relaxing lunch of spring rolls and iced tea had suddenly exploded into glass breaking, tables overturning, and angry shouts in the dialect of the Pursuers. The chaos was so intense that he and Daisha hadn't had time to synchronize their GeoPorts. All Axel remembered was frantically pushing buttons, blindly setting new coordinates on their GeoPorts, and then disappearing into the temporary safety of the Warp.

Moments later, the Warp dumped him on a street in New York City and Daisha was ...

He had no idea because he hadn't seen her coordinates on the GeoPort. She could be in Spain, Alaska, Tel Aviv, or Timbuktu.

A loud groan came from the pit of his stomach. The Pursuers had ruined his lunch in the Ho Chi Minh City café. He scrounged around in his backpack for money. Besides the forty-two thousand in Vietnamese dong, equaling about two US dollars, he had a handful of change in US currency. The beefy scent of hot dogs drifted inside his nostrils. He crossed the busy street and ordered one from a place called the Dog House.

"Three fifty," said the man behind the cash register.

Axel dumped his change on the counter. "I have three dollars and five cents," he said.

"Dog is three fifty. Better come up with another forty-five cents."

As Axel was scraping away his change, a woman with dyed purple hair shouted from behind him. "Just give the kid a hot dog," she said. "I'll cover him."

The man shrugged and handed Axel a hot dog. He was just about to douse his lunch with mustard when he saw two very familiar-looking men standing on the opposite corner of the street. One was tall and muscular. The other was slightly shorter and heavier but just as athletic looking. Both wore their short blond hair in a military cut. They had on black pants and matching black suit jackets with white shirts.

The taller of the two men pulled a round electronic device the size of an Oreo cookie from his pocket. He pointed it toward the Dog House. The GeoPort in Axel's pocket throbbed to life, buzzing and vibrating like an angry wasp trapped under a glass.

The Pursuers had found him.

The chase was on.

DAISHA

Daisha Tandala landed face-first in the dirt. She let out a loud groan and checked her extremities for injury. Besides a dizzy head and nauseous stomach from her sudden plunge into the Satellite Warp, she felt okay. She stood up, wiped the grime and muck from her face, and scanned her location. She was right in the middle of a flowing sea of green.

"I'm in a huge field of corn," she mumbled.

The sunny June sky above her head was bright blue and cloudless. That meant if the Pursuers back in Vietnam had found their opening, they would burst through the Warp exactly where she had fallen moments ago. And they'd have lots of sunshine for their solar trackers. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her palm-sized GeoPort, and read the coordinates.

40.4150° N, 82.4603° W

"I have no idea where I am," she growled.

Thick woods surrounded the perimeter of the cornfield. She grabbed her new satchel off the ground — the one Axel had bought for her at the Binh Tay Market — and made a dash toward the trees. Her arms pumped furiously; her strong legs powered her between the rows of corn.

A dog barked behind her. A voice called out, "Who the heck are you?" She stopped running and saw a big, black mutt with a white spot on its chest and a scruffy boy no older than eight or nine emerge from a row of corn.

"This is my dad's farm," the boy said. "What are you doing here?"

"Where am I?" Daisha asked.

"I told you ... It's my dad's farm. Well, really it's my grandpa's farm, but it'll be ours when he croaks."

"No. I mean what part of the country. You speak English just like me so I'm assuming it's the United States."

The boy and the dog cocked their heads and gave her a confused look. "Ohio," he said. "Don't you even know where you are?"

Daisha looked past the boy to where she had landed in the cornfield. "Some days I do," she said with a shaky voice. "Some days I don't."

"Did you hear the thunder and see that smoke?" the boy asked, stroking...