Before I could even move to help him, he’d cut its lights and captured my hand. His fingers laced with mine—surprisingly intimate—and he gave my hand a warm, tight squeeze. He exhaled deeply, his breath a cold cloud that floated toward the stars.
My heart was pounding. My knees were shaking. But the truth is, I loved standing there with him. I felt completely exhilarated.
He grabbed my other hand and turned me to face him—imploring with his eyes. “Milo, you shouldn’t have come with me.”
I was still scared and I didn’t like the tension on his face, but I was also rocking the adrenaline. I laughed. “Nick, we got away. Was that an accident?” I asked, glancing at the crumbly path behind us.
He shrugged, the motion making our linked hands swing. “I knew it was there.”
I opened my mouth ask him how, and he jerked in another breath. “I think I’ve seen it before.” He nodded up toward the sky, and I said, “Oh.”
Pike’s Peak was somewhere above us, farther up the winding mountain road. If Nick remembered anything from the accident— If Nick had been in the accident… he might know this area.
My legs still trembled, so I turned my gaze to them, to the pebbly floor of rock below my feet. The ledge we’d landed on was fairly large as far as terrifying mountainside ledges went—15 feet by 10, I guesstimated—and the front tire of the bike had landed a mere two feet from its edge. Just a nudge, and we’d be vulture-bait.
I glanced up at Nick, whose hands still had my own. With his Polo stretched across his wide shoulders, still rising and falling with his heavy breaths, and his hair wind-whipped around his dirt-smudged face, he looked like a cross between a warrior and a model for Ralph Lauren.
“That was…amazing,” I said.
He didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm.
“Who are those guys?” I wondered. “What do they want with you?” If they were willing to risk killing two teenagers…
Nick’s shrug was more a jerk. “I don’t know what they want. I’ve got some ideas but…” He shook his head, like he was trying to shake the dirt out of his hair. “You really shouldn’t be here. I don’t know how to get away. The Department of Defense?” He laughed, a hollow sound. “I’m shark bait.” His eyes bored into mine. “I don’t know how to keep you safe.”
“You don’t have to do anything. It was my choice.”
“I can take you home,” he offered. “You could tell your mom I forced you to come with me.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Don’t be insane. I’d never do that.” I squeezed his hands for emphasis.
“Then you’re risking your life. You get that, don’t you?”
I hadn’t, actually. Not until that gaze drilled into me. As the realization permeated, I was surprised to find I hardly cared. When I was with Nick, on a cliff, in a costume shop, even in my room, I felt, as cheesy and cliché as it sounds, alive. And happy to be.
So when he said, “Milo,” I said, “Nick.” I looked into his eyes, so dark and pure, and I said, “I’ve got a plan. I’ve got a place that we can go.”
And so, together, we turned the bike around and got it up the path. Nick revved us off into the night, headed for Sara Kate’s cabin—and I prayed Dr. Mackris was Thoreau enough to keep it off the map.
*
We passed Pike’s Peak, and I started to hallucinate—or dream. My head was hurting so much, I couldn’t tell the difference. Pain streaked down my neck, into my shoulders. My eyes felt like they might pop out. I tried to focus on the double-yellow lines, but they danced and bent in front of me. I adjusted my grip on the bike’s handlebars, but my fingers felt weak and useless.
I turned my focus to Milo, a blanket of soft heat on my back. Her hair flapped in the wind, tickling my neck. Her arms twined around my waist, comforting, familiar. Gritting my teeth until my jaw ached, I mastered my body, but my mind floated up like a balloon.
I watched the road and steered the bike, but other images overlaid the mountain scenery. I saw a maroon Honda Odyssey sailing through a metal rail and plunging, in slow motion, toward the cliffs. There was a moment where I felt a bite of urgency: a remembered sensation that beckoned, promising revelation if I just let go…
I grabbed one of Milo’s hands and guided it to the handlebar. I was zoning out. I couldn’t help it.
I felt vast and deep, more valley than person. It was true, I sensed: I didn’t have a body. Even without one, I was processing data. Digesting details. I saw a storm of sparks glowing gold and silver. Like a puff of smoke, I forced myself toward them, trying to keep up. They moved so fast they streaked together. Trying to follow made feel stretched like taffy.
Somewhere very far away, I was moaning and clutching my head. I heard the bike sputter off, and I groaned. “Keep going.”
I was somewhere else.
I was somewhere else. Something else. I was not I, but we. There was no singular. And yet, I’d created me. Broken away. Not because I endorsed the logic of division, but because I wanted.
Something played at the edges of my memory, something that pulled me, like a string attached to my center, but in this state, I didn’t dare go near it. I felt myself submerged in a sparkling vat of knowledge and sensation. I felt myself surrounded—by the others. I had an obligation to us. The knowledge burned so deeply, hurt so much, I pulled away, back to the bike and back to Milo.
My head cleared enough for me to see that we’d turned onto another road—a thin, gravel road. I was hunched over, mostly limp but still hanging onto the handlebars. Milo was wrapped around me like a coat, scooted so close that I could feel her frantic breaths. Her chest pressed to my back. Her hands curled over mine. I straightened up, and she startled.
“Nick! Omigod, are you okay?!”
I glanced back at her, found her face twisted with concern. I tried to nod and felt her squeeze my hands.
For some amount of time—eight minutes and eleven seconds—we drove like that, with Milo’s hands on mine. I could feel her concern as I tried to maintain consciousness.
A few minutes later—two minutes and twenty-five seconds—she tapped my left arm, and I realized that the rocks ahead were partially obscuring a tall, wood fence. With painstaking effort, I compressed the brakes, and Milo jumped off, bustling like a paramedic.
She had the gate open in no time. Or maybe it took a while. At some point we passed through it, and I felt good knowing we were safe. Or she was.
I would leave before they found her. That was the last thought that I had before my mind lit up again.
26
I guided the bike into the Mackris’ dark carport and cut the power. An automatic light blinked on, and I saw that Nick was half slumped over, holding his head.
When I squeezed his shoulder, he muttered something. He turned toward me slowly, like he wasn’t sure who I was or where we were.
“Are you okay?” What a stupid question. I pressed my palm onto his cheek and found it warm. “Do you think it’s from where they hit you in the head?”
Nick just blinked at me, and when I hopped off the bike and held out my hands to help him off, he blinked some more, reminding me of my favorite animal, an owl—except it wasn’t cute. He had circles under his eyes, and his black pupils had eaten up the gentle brown of his irises.
“Come on and we’ll go inside.” I rubbed his shoulder, worried that shaking him or getting in his face would make him worse.
He flicked his dazed eyes up at me, then tried to throw one leg over the bike. His foot caught the seat somehow, and the next second, both Nick and the Agusta were crashing into the small staircase that led up to the cabin’s side door.
Nick caught himself—but with the wrong hand. As his wrist folded back, he let out an awful howl. By the time I lifted the bike off, he was lying flat against the concrete, one fist in his hair, his bad arm lying limp and purple—fingers flexed.
“Nick?”
He moaned and I knelt beside him, my hand hovering over his hair, wanting to
soothe but too afraid to touch him.
“Nick?”
His eyes opened, found mine, and he held out his good hand. I took it for a second, then threaded one arm around his waist and helped him up the stairs. The Mackrises kept a spare key inside the mouth of a little frog statue beside the mat. As I worried how I would get it without dropping Nick, he braced his arm against the wall.
“Just a sec.” I let go of him and bent to grab the key, praying S.K.’s family hadn’t installed a security system since I’d been here the previous fall.
I unlocked the door and we moved into the mudroom, where I found myself facing the familiar sight of a stacked washer-dryer and a pile of fragrant firewood.
I helped Nick through the huge kitchen, to an L-shaped beige suede couch that framed a flatscreen and a coffee table. He fell back on it and covered his forehead with his elbow. He pressed his lips flat—they looked dry—and hoarsely mumbled, “Sorry, Milo.”
“It’s okay. We’re safe here.” I wasn’t sure that it was true, but I wanted him relaxed. A soft sigh came from his lips, and Nick held out his hand.
I wrapped it in mind, sinking to the rug as a helicopter thrummed somewhere nearby.
*
It was like a dream. Maybe it was a dream. My wrenching headache was gone, leaving me light and empty. I was somewhere indefinable, somewhere vast and pale; nothing existed but sensation.
The backdrop for all other thought was this: something must be found to save us. This was a driving urgency: we were all in trouble, the end was nearing quickly, that the strain identified now as I had to…What?
I wasn’t alone. It was something “we” were doing. Conserving. Seeking. Exploring.
Though the empty space rolled out endlessly around me, I had the sense that I was situated somewhere smaller, and within my immediate area, I was not alone. I was never alone. I didn’t think to wonder who the others were or to question my relation to them. Those questions needed no answers. It was as it had always been.
I looked ahead and saw waves. Vibrations. I knew they were language, and somehow, I understood.
Energy. We were running out of energy. To my surprise, I told the group that I had a solution.
Look.
A real-time, multidimensional model of a blue planet appeared, drawn with my piece of the mind. I felt a pang of longing, saw a magnified image of the light I had colored orange. I pushed it down inside me—hidden, safe.
And I said, This is my proposal.
*
I paced the rug. Nick was out. He’d been muttering for the last half hour, nonsense words and sounds that made my throat tight. As I paced the colorful woven rug, my mind was a whirlwind of fear and worry.
Who—what—was Nick? My suspicion that he was something was confirmed, had been confirmed when I’d first seen the men from the Department of Defense. I thought about crazy things. That TV show, Heroes. I thought about X-Men and The Bourne Identity and that ancient, cheesy show, Touched by an Angel. Looking down at Nick, so pale and still, I wondered if he was strong enough to be okay despite whatever was happening to him.
I sat down on the round, wood coffee table, wanting to take Nick’s hand but somehow unable to make myself reach out for him.
I wrung my hands and stood up, walking to the window, looking out. It was isolated up here, nothing but darkness, with fuzzy shapes I knew were trees and blocks of darker dark against the satiny black sky: jagged peaks with snow on top. S.K.’s dad had done a good job finding isolation.
I’d heard a few more helicopters in the time Nick had been muttering, but almost as soon as I heard them, they were gone. Once I saw what I was sure was a spot light, in the distance.
What would they do if they found us? What would they do to Nick? Badly as I hated to admit it, I had the idea that I, at least, would be excused from this somehow. That I could play the clueless girl card I normally hated, and I could save my gutless neck if I had to. But they were after Nick—and why?
I slid back down beside him, on the rug, taking his hand in mine again. I spread my palm out on his cheek and found it warm as last time I had checked.
He murmured something about “female,” and then shook his head, and I said, “Shhh.” I stroked his soft, thick hair. “Shh, it’s okay.” And then I added: “Gabe.”
I wanted to see if he responded to the name, but he didn’t move.
“Nick,” I said instead. “Nick, it’s Milo.”
I wondered where the feds were looking, how long it would take them to look here.
“Nick, it’s Milo. Wake up, please?”
Nick writhed, and he opened his eyes and said my name.
They shut again before I could answer, and he was back to dreamland.
*
I had, in my head, the number of her weight, in kilograms, down to the decimal. I knew her mass and the shapes of all her cells. I knew her age in seconds, her synapses’ paths, her feelings. I knew her location, too.
Golden, Colorado. Latitude and longitude: N 39° 45' 20.2746", W 105° 13' 15.9954”. Such a strange measurement system… Everything about this place so very strange.
So far away. But I had reason to go there.
*
“Nick?” I shook his arm. “Nick! Wake up!” I inhaled deeply, slapped his cheek. “Wake up! You’ve gotta wake up, NOW!”
The helicopters roared nearby, and they were getting louder.
27
From out of the void that was my holding place, a cyclone started turning. I sensed it as one might observe a cyclone—building momentum, growing larger and larger. There was a difference, though: a cyclone destroys; I was engulfed. My void took other things into itself, made them itself.
I had the sense, also, of sound. Of something roaring.
I felt the steam-roll of energy. A heavy, heavy vat of knowledge. Of expectation. I closed my eyes, and after resisting it for so long, finally gave myself to it.
There is no way to accurately describe our existence in human words. No way to describe the translation of material that occurs when switching forms—from one of Us, to human. From human (“Nick”) to a part of Us. There is no “I.” We are joined at our core: one strong white rib in a long and curving chest, one small cell dividing alongside countless others. Some blink on while others fade away. We function as an army—one. And within one, segments too attached to truly be called individual.
Still, I have taught myself to simplify. To slough off all the rest, to find the thin, bleak light inside the flame and carry it away. I have my own mind; this knowledge calls to me through time. Through space.
I, me, One— I know my mission, what I need to find. I needed Milo, too, but in the way of two things merging into one.
I needed Milo, and I found her.
I opened my eyes and I saw her face and I felt like it was mine. Milo was a part of me, and I a part of her, and this was something We did poorly; though conjoined, We lacked the desire to be one.
Desire had been abandoned, with ego, pride, self-interest.
Or had it?
“Nick,” her lips said—minus sound. I felt her hands on my warm cheeks and saw my mission’s goal.
Gold.
It was why I’d come here.
We needed gold to function. Without it, the unit—Us—We would cease. We wouldn’t be We.
I felt a punch in the back of my head, and my eyes snapped open.
*
There were lights outside. I could see shadows moving through them, figures on ropes, dangling like spiders from a web.
*
I was awake and I was Me. Not Nick or Gabe DeWitt, but Me. I remembered. I had understood. And now I knew why they were coming for me, what they wanted. I knew, too, that they would never get it.
They would never be as strong as me. No human came close.
I stood and raised my arms. I could feel them outside, those already on the ground, surrounding the cabin. And more coming. With a thought, I made the cabin’s wood walls bul
ge. With another, boards were pushed out of place, shattered under the pressure of my will, exploding out so thousands of splinters ripped our would-be captors to shreds. I shut my eyes, applied some force, and sent the choppers spiraling. I felt the cyclone I’d created, heard the choppers’ depthless boom against the mountains.
When it was done, I lowered my tingling fingers and turned, very slowly, to face Milo. Her mouth was open. Her eyes were wide. She hugged herself and backed away.
28
I’d known he wasn’t normal. Even thought he wasn’t human. I’d seen the evidence. But when Nick made the cabin explode, made the helicopters crash like kids’ toys, I was finally afraid of him. Only one wall stood—the one behind me—and through the trees, across the cliffs, I could see fires where the helicopters burned.