It was as angry as Jack had ever allowed himself to be in front of Diana. He flinched, waiting for her biting reply.
But she answered softly. “I know what I am, Jack. I’m not a very nice person.” She pulled a rolling chair up and sat down close to him. Close enough that her nearness made him uncomfortable. Jack had only recently begun to really notice girls. And Diana was beautiful.
“Do you know why my father sent me to Coates?” Diana asked.
Jack shook his head.
“When I was ten years old, Jack, younger than you, I found out my father had a mistress. Do you know what a mistress is, Jack?”
He did. Or at least thought he did.
“So I told my mother about the mistress. I was mad at my father because he wouldn’t get me a horse. My mom freaked out. Big scene between my mom and dad. Lots of screaming. My mom was going to get a divorce.”
“Did they get a divorce?”
“No. There wasn’t time. Next day my mom slipped and fell down the big staircase we have. She didn’t die, but she can’t really do anything anymore.” She pantomimed a person barely able to hold their head up. “She has a nurse full time, just has to lie there in her room.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Yeah.” She clapped her hands together, signaling the end of sharing time. “Come on, let’s go. Pack up your little techie bag. Fearless Leader doesn’t like hanging around.”
Jack obeyed. He began stuffing things—small tools, a thumb drive, a juice box—into his Hogwarts shoulder bag.
“It doesn’t mean you’re bad just because your mom got hurt in an accident,” Jack said.
Diana winked. “I told the police my dad did it. I told them I saw him push her. They arrested him, it was all over the news. Messed up his business. The cops finally realized I was lying. Dad sent me to Coates Academy, the end.”
“I guess that’s worse than what I did to get sent to Coates,” Jack conceded.
“And that’s only part of the story. What I’m saying is that you don’t seem like a bad person, Jack. And I have a feeling that later on, when you realize what’s going on, you’re going to feel bad about it. You know, guilty.”
He stopped packing, stood with a set of earbuds dangling. “What do you mean? What do you mean about what’s going on?”
“Come on, Jack. Your little PDA of doom? The list you keep for Caine? All the freaks? You know what that list is about. You know what’s going to happen to the freaks.”
“I’m not doing anything, I’m just keeping the list for you and Caine.”
“But how will you feel then?” Diana asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Jack. How will you feel when Caine starts going down that list?”
“It’s not my fault,” Jack said desperately.
“You’re a deep sleeper, Jack. Just now, while you were sleeping? I held your pudgy little hand. Probably as close as you’ll ever get to holding hands with a girl. Assuming you even like girls.”
Jack knew what she was going to say next. She saw his fear and smirked triumphantly.
“So, what is it, Jack? What’s your power?”
He shook his head, not trusting himself to talk.
“You haven’t added your own name to the list, Jack. I wonder why? You know Caine uses freaks who are loyal to him. You know as long as you are completely loyal you’ll be fine.” She leaned so close he was breathing her exhalation. “You’re a two bar, Jack. You used to be a nothing. Which means your powers are developing. Which means, surprise, that people can acquire the power late. Isn’t that so?”
He nodded.
“And you didn’t bother to tell us. I wonder what that means in terms of your loyalty?”
“I’m totally loyal,” Computer Jack blurted. “I am totally loyal. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“What is it you can do?”
Jack crossed the room on shaking legs. Without warning life had turned suddenly dangerous. He opened the closet. He drew out a chair. The chair was steel, functional, no-frills, but very solid. Except for the back of the chair where the metal crossbar had been squeezed till it formed the perfect impression of fingers. As if it were made of clay, not steel.
He heard Diana’s sudden, sharp gasp.
“I stubbed my toe,” Jack explained. “It hurt a lot. I grabbed the chair while I was hopping around and yelling.”
Diana examined the metal, tracing the outline of his grip with her fingers. “Well, well. You’re stronger than you look, aren’t you?”
“Don’t tell Caine,” Jack pleaded.
“What do you think he would do to you?” Diana asked.
Jack was terrified now. Terrified of this impossible girl who never seemed to make sense. Suddenly he knew the answer. He had a way to push back.
“I know you did a reading on Sam Temple. I saw you,” he accused. “You told Caine you didn’t, but you did. He’s a four bar, isn’t he? Sam, I mean. Caine would lose it if he knew there was another four bar out there.”
Diana didn’t even hesitate. “Yes. Sam is a four bar. And Caine would freak. But, Jack: your word against mine? Who do you think Caine will believe?”
Jack had nothing else. No threat. His will crumbled. “Don’t let him hurt me,” he whispered.
Diana stopped. “He will. He’ll put you on the list. Unless I protect you. Are you asking me to protect you?”
Jack saw a ray of hope in his personal darkness. “Yes. Yes.”
“Say it.”
“Please protect me.”
Diana’s eyes seemed to melt, from ice cold to almost warm. She smiled. “I’ll protect you, Jack. But here’s the thing. From now on you belong to me. Whenever I ask you to do something, Jack, you’re going to do it. No questions asked. And you will not tell anyone else about your power, or about our deal.”
He nodded again.
“You belong to me, Jack. Not Caine. Not Drake. Me. My own little Hulk. And if I ever need you…”
“Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”
Diana planted a butterfly kiss on Jack’s cheek, sealing the deal. And she breathed into his ear, “I know you will, Jack. Now, let’s go.”
THIRTY
108 HOURS, 12 MINUTES
QUINN WAS SINGING a song. The lyrics were a sort of gloomy homage to surfing.
“That’s perky,” Astrid commented dryly.
Quinn said, “It’s Weezer. Me and Sam saw them down in Santa Barbara. Weezer. Jack Johnson. Insect Surfers. Awesome concert.”
“Never heard of any of them,” Astrid said.
“Surfer bands,” Sam said. “Well, not Weezer so much, they’re more ska-punk. But Jack Johnson, you’d probably like him.”
They were walking out of Stefano Rey National Park, downhill, down the dry side of the ridge. The trees were smaller and more sparse, mixing with tall, sere grasses.
That morning they had stumbled on a campground. The bears had gotten to a lot of the food there, but enough had survived for the five of them to eat a hearty breakfast. They now had backpacks and food and sleeping bags belonging to strangers. Edilio and Sam each had a good knife, and Quinn was charged with carrying the flashlights and batteries they had found.
The food had improved everyone’s mood quite a bit. Little Pete had come very close to actually smiling.
They walked with the barrier on their left. It was an eerie experience. Trees were often cut in half by the barrier, with branches extending into it and disappearing. Or else poking out of it. The branches that came out of the barrier did not fall, but they were clearly dying. The leaves were limp—cut off, it seemed, from nutrition.
From time to time Sam would check out some gully or peer behind a boulder, always looking for a place the barrier did not reach. But that soon came to seem pointless. The barrier reached into every ditch, every culvert. It wrapped itself around every rock, sliced through every bush.
It did not fail.
It did
not end.
The workmanship of the barrier was, as Astrid had observed, impeccable.
“What kind of music do you like?” Sam asked.
“Let me guess,” Quinn interrupted. “Classical. And jazz.” He stretched the word “jazz” out to comic length.
“Actually—”
“Snake,” Edilio yelled. He danced backward, tripped, and fell, bounced back up looking sheepish. Then, in a calmer tone, he said, “There’s a snake there.”
“Let me see,” Astrid said eagerly. She approached cautiously while Sam and Quinn stayed even more cautiously out of range.
“I don’t like snakes,” Edilio admitted.
Sam grinned. “Yeah, I kind of got that from the way you moved away so gracefully.” He brushed some clinging dirt and dry leaves off Edilio’s back.
“You should look at this,” Astrid called urgently.
“You look at it,” Edilio said. “I saw it once already. One look at a snake is all I need.”
“It’s not a snake,” Astrid said. “At least it’s not just a snake. It should be fairly safe, he’s down a hole.”
Sam approached reluctantly. He didn’t really want to see the snake. But he also didn’t want to look like a coward.
“Just don’t startle it,” Astrid said. “It may be capable of flight. At least short flights.”
Sam froze. “Excuse me?”
“Just step lightly.”
Sam crept closer. And there it was. At first he just saw the triangular head peeking up from the bottom of a foot-deep hole padded with fallen leaves. “Is that a rattlesnake?”
“Not anymore,” Astrid said. “Come around behind me.” When Sam was in position she said, “Look. About six inches below his head.”
“What is that?” Flaps of leathery skin, not covered with scales, but gray and ribbed with what looked like pink veins, hung flat against the snake’s body.
“They look like vestigial wings,” Astrid said.
“Snakes don’t have wings,” Sam said.
“They didn’t used to,” she said darkly.
The two of them drew slowly back. They rejoined Edilio, Quinn, and Little Pete, who was gazing up at the sky like he was expecting someone from that direction.
“What was it?” Quinn asked.
“A rattlesnake with wings,” Sam said.
“Ah. That’s good, because I was thinking we didn’t have quite enough to be worried about,” Quinn said.
“I’m not surprised,” Astrid said. When the others stared at her she explained. “I mean, it’s obvious that there’s some sort of accelerated mutation at work in the FAYZ. In fact, given Petey and Sam and the others, the mutation must have preceded the FAYZ. But I suspect the FAYZ is accelerating the process. We saw the gull that had mutated. Then there was Albert’s teleporting cat. Now this.”
“Let’s get moving,” Sam said, mostly because there was no point standing around moping. Everyone walked more carefully now, eyes down, very aware of what they might step on.
They stopped for lunch when Little Pete started losing it and staged a sit-down strike. Sam helped make the food, then took his can of peaches and his Power Bar and sat alone at a distance from the others. He needed to think. They were all waiting for him to come up with a plan, he could feel it.
They were a little bit above the valley floor still, out in the open with no shade. The ground was rocky. The sun beat down. It didn’t look like there was much in the way of shelter or shade ahead of them. Just the barrier extending on and on, forever and ever. From this height he should have been able to see over the top of it, but Astrid was right: no matter where you stood, the barrier seemed to be equally tall, equally impenetrable.
It glowed a little in the sunlight, but mostly the barrier never changed, day or night. It was always the same faintly shimmering gray. It was just reflective enough that sometimes you could almost believe you saw an opening, trees that extended beyond the barrier, or a feature of the land that seemed to pass through a hole in the barrier. But it was always an optical illusion, a trick of the light.
He felt rather than heard Astrid come up behind him.
“It’s a sphere, isn’t it?” he said. “It goes all the way around us. All the way under us and all the way over us.”
“I think so,” she said.
“Why do we see the stars at night? Why can we see the sun?”
“I’m not sure we’re seeing the sun,” Astrid said. “It may be an illusion. It may be some kind of reflection. I don’t know.” She stepped deliberately on a small twig and snapped it in half. “I really don’t know.”
“You hate saying ‘I don’t know,’ don’t you?”
Astrid laughed. “You noticed.”
Sam sighed and hung his head. “This is a waste of time, isn’t it? I mean, trying to find a gate. Trying to find a way out.”
“There may not be an out,” Astrid confirmed.
“Is the world still there? I mean, on the other side of the barrier?”
She sat beside him, close enough to be companionable, but not touching. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I liked your egg idea. But to tell you the truth, Sam, I don’t think the barrier is just a wall. A wall doesn’t explain what’s happening to us. To you and Petey and the birds and Albert’s cat and the snakes. And it doesn’t explain why everyone over fourteen disappeared all at once. And keeps disappearing.”
“What would explain all that?” He held up a hand. “Wait, I don’t want to make you say it again: you don’t know.”
“Remember when Quinn said ‘someone hacked the universe’?”
“You’re getting your ideas from Quinn now? What happened to you being a genius?”
She ignored the gibe. “The universe has certain rules. Like the operating system software for a computer. None of what we’re seeing can be happening under the software of our universe. The way Caine can move things with his mind. The way you can make light come from your hands. These aren’t just mutations: they are violations of the laws of nature. At least the laws of nature as we understand them.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So.” She shook her head ruefully, disbelieving her own words as she said them. “So I think it means…we’re not in the old universe anymore.”
Sam stared at her. “There’s only one universe.”
“The theory of multiple universes has been around for a long time,” Astrid said. “But maybe something happened that began altering the rules of the old universe. Just a little, just in a small area. But the effect spread, and at some point it became impossible for the old universe to contain this new reality. A new universe was created. A very small universe.” She took a deep breath, a relieved sound, like she’d just set down a heavy load. “But you know what, Sam? I’m smart, but I’m not exactly Stephen Hawking.”
“Like if someone installed a virus in the software of the old universe.”
“Right. It started small. Some changes in individuals. Petey. You. Caine. Kids more than adults because kids are less fully formed, they’re easier to alter. Then, on that morning, something happened that tipped the balance. Or maybe several somethings.”
“How do we get through that barrier, Astrid?”
She laid her hand over his. “Sam, I’m not sure there is a ‘through.’ When I say we’re in a different universe, I mean we may not have any point of contact with the old universe. Maybe we’re like soap bubbles that can drift together and join. But maybe we’re like soap bubbles a billion miles apart.”
“Then what’s on the other side of the barrier?”
“Nothing,” she said. “There is no other side. The barrier may be the end of all that is, here in this new universe.”
“You’re depressing me,” he said, trying and failing to make it lighthearted.
She twined her fingers through his. “I could be wrong.”
“I guess I’ll find out in…what is today? In less than a week.”
Astrid had no answer for that. They sat
together and gazed out over the desert. In the distance a lone coyote trotted along, nose down to catch a scent of prey. A pair of buzzards inscribed lazy circles against the sky.
After a while Sam turned toward Astrid and found her lips waiting. It felt easy and natural. As easy and natural as something could feel that made Sam’s heart threaten to break out of his chest.
They drew apart, saying nothing. They leaned against each other, both reveling in that simple physical contact.
“You know what?” Sam said at last.
“What?”
“I can’t spend the next four days in a permanent cringe,” Sam said.
Astrid nodded, a movement he felt rather than saw.
“You make me brave, you know?” Sam said.
“I was just thinking that I don’t want you to be brave anymore,” Astrid said. “I want you to be with me. I want you to be safe and not go looking for trouble, just stay with me, stay close to me.”
“Too late,” he said with forced lightness. “If I blink out, where does that leave you and Little Pete?”
“We can take care of ourselves,” she lied.
“You’re very confusing, you know that?” Sam said.
“Well, you’re not as smart as I am, so you’re easy to confuse.”
He grinned. Then grew serious again. He stroked her hair with one hand. “The thing is, Astrid, I can spend the time being afraid, trying to find a way to escape. Or I can spend the time standing up. Maybe then, if I do disappear, maybe at least you and Little Pete…”
“We could all just—” she began.
“Nah. We couldn’t. We couldn’t just hide out in the woods eating dehydrated camping food. We can’t just hide.”
Astrid’s lip trembled and she brushed at a tear just forming.
“We have to go back. At least, I do. I have to stand up.”
As if to illustrate the point, Sam stood up. He took Astrid’s hand and drew her after him. Together they walked back to the others.
“Edilio. Quinn. I have made a lot of mistakes. And maybe I’m making one now, too. But I’m tired of avoiding a fight. And I’m tired of trying to run away. I’m very, very worried I’m going to get you all killed. So you guys all have to decide for yourselves whether you want to go with me. But I have to go back to Perdido Beach.”