Read Jumper 1 - Jumper for Free Online Page B

jumped to my backyard, behind the oak tree. Dad's car was in the driveway, but the only lights on were in his room, the den, and my room. What's he doing with my room? I felt panic rising, but forced it down. Ignore it. You'll be able to get to your room.
    The gardening stuff was in the garage, on a shelf above the lawn mower. Rakes, shovels, and a hoe hung on nails across the wall below the shelf. I appeared before this collection and groped past insecticides, fertilizer, grass seed until my hands closed on the old gardening gloves. I put them on, then jumped to the front driveway.
    Dad's Caddy gleamed in the streetlight, a huge, hulking beast. I walked to the passenger side and tried the door, gently. It was locked. I looked in, at the plush upholstery and the gleaming dash. I could vividly remember the smell of it, the feel of the seats. I closed my eyes and jumped.
    The car alarm went off with a whooping shriek, but I was expecting it. I opened the glove compartment and took the flashlight. The porch light came on and the front door started to open. I jumped to my room.
    The alarm sounded a great deal quieter from here, but still unpleasant. I was sure that porch lights were coming on all over the neighborhood.
    The ski mask was in the bottom drawer of my dresser, buried under several pairs of too-small long underwear. I found it just as the car alarm stopped. I started to jump, then realized I didn't have the flashlight in my hand. I looked around the room and saw it on the dresser.
    The front door shut and I heard footsteps in the hallway. I picked up the flashlight and jumped.
     
    The gloves were leather, old and stiff. They hurt my fingers just to bend them. The ski mask was large enough, even though it was four years old. All the stretch was gone and it was pulled out of shape, but I thought it would work. Positioned right, it covered all of my face except my eyes and the bridge of my nose. The bottom half hung loosely over the rest of my face, but it concealed it.
    It itched like hell.
    I jumped.
    I appeared in a pitch black room with dead air and a smooth floor. I waited a moment before I turned on the light, steeling myself for the scream of an alarm. I was also afraid I wasn't in the right place and didn't want to rush the moment of failure's discovery.
    I didn't hear any alarms, though, for all I knew, lights could be flashing on a dozen monitor consoles from the bank all the way to the police station. If there were other teleporters in the world, wouldn't banks know about them and take measures? Like flooding the vault with poison gas when it was locked? Or booby traps? The air around me turned thick, and the darkness pressed in on me until I thought that perhaps the very walls were moving in. I flicked the flashlight switch without conscious volition.
    So much money!
    The carts I'd seen earlier were stacked high—either with neatly bundled piles of money or with trays of rolled coins or rough canvas bags with "Chemical Bank of New York" stenciled on their sides. Most of the shelves held bundled stacks of new bills.
    I closed my eyes, suddenly dizzy. By the vault door there was a light switch. I turned it on and fluorescent lighting lit the room. There didn't seem to be any TV cameras in the vault, and I couldn't see any little boxes on the wall that looked like any of the heat sensors I'd read about that afternoon. No gas flooded from vents. No booby traps sprang into action.
    I turned off the flashlight and went to work.
    The first cart I came to was obviously from the previous day's deposits. The money was definitely used, though bundled neatly. I picked up a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills. The paper band wrapped around the middle said "$5,000" and was stamped with the Chemical Bank's name. There was a cardboard box on another cart. It was filled with packets of one-dollar bills, each packet holding fifty bills. I tried to estimate how deep the stack went, then shook my head. Count later, Davy.
    I picked