by Peter Telep
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
We charge toward the truck, still lying on its side.
As we near it and duck for cover, Cypress turns back.
“What’re you doing?” I scream.
She stands there, squaring off with a billion tons of jagged rocks and ice.
Meanwhile, directly above us, a wreath of masks like the one I saw cut through the cave on Halsparr, plunges through the clouds.
The wreath rotates slowly at first, but then it speeds up as it descends. The faces blur into streaks of pulsating energy that crackle and whine like a chainsaw.
Silvery wisps of energy begin spinning off the wreath as it plows through the showers of stone.
It’s gone for three, two, one—
Before it strikes the ice like a nuclear bomb, sending massive shockwaves our way.
Suddenly, the air tugs hard at my shoulders, sucking me toward the impact…
But then the concussion strikes. It all happens so fast that I don’t realize I’m tumbling until I already am. Somewhere behind me is the truck, screeching and rattling.
And then, just as fast, with no time to react, we crash like drunk skiers into mounds of deep snow.
Not two seconds later, the rocks and ice drop like meteors, thumping and punching and clattering everywhere.
Keane shouts for Hedera, and she hollers for Meeka.
Steffanie waves over Tommy as Cypress wrenches me to my feet.
We start back for the truck, now lying on its roof. My legs feel rubbery, but it’s not me. The ground quakes so much that we can barely keep our balance.
We’re about halfway there when Cypress yells for me to run. She spins around to launch her shields—
And just in time, because the debris field is so dense now that rocks ricocheting off those glowing hexagons pile up and form a wall below—all within seconds.
Wearing a look of utter concentration, Cypress rotates her palms, reshaping the shields into domes and then guiding them together so they connect into one.
As those hexagons sweep over our heads, the bolts linking them together sputter with every impact.
Cypress’s shoulders slump as larger boulders crash into the dome and split apart, further draining her power.
Meeka and Steffanie holler for me to get back.
“Coming!” I shout.
Hedera, Keane, and Tommy are on their way, too, and for now, we’re safe beneath Cypress’s dome.
However, the effort is killing her.
Out of breath and still dizzy, I huddle against the truck, with the huge, tank-like track leaning overhead to provide a shallow awning and at least some protection—
And that’s great, because Cypress’s dome starts to weaken around the edges, and the hexagons start flickering out.
“She can’t hold on,” I tell Meeka.
“Then let’s get her,” she answers, looking to Steffanie and then Keane, who’ve been listening.
We jump into our personas, and in the next second, we arrive near Cypress.
“Come on!” I shout as we grab her arms.
She nods and can barely catch her breath.
Her eyelo goes dark—
And the dome shatters.
We wrap her arms around our shoulders and carry her back to the truck, trying to get there before the first wave of rocks buries us.
Something whacks me in the back just as we duck beneath the track.
Tommy slides Cypress tightly against the truck, and then rolls to shield her as the hurricane continues.
“No help, To-me!” she shouts.
“Sorry, young lady, but you’re gettin’ it!” he fires back.
After we pull back our personas, Keane huddles alongside Hedera. Meeka holds me tightly, while Steffanie clings to my arm, pressing her head to my shoulder.
That wreath of masks must be digging even faster now because superheated rocks start hammering across the truck. The glowing pieces clank and ricochet off, thumping down to sizzle in the snow.
Dirt hisses through the tracks and starts trickling into our eyes. The air has grown warmer, almost comfortable, but it’s so dusty that it’s hard to breathe, and we’re all pulling our shirts over our noses and mouths.
The cutting, grinding, and burrowing noises continue, but they grow lower in pitch and eventually fade as the wreath gets deeper and deeper.
All the tremors created by their tunneling begin to soften, but the ground continues to rumble.
And then… nothing. Not a single vibration.
A few rocks clatter across the piles, and the swelling dust begins to disperse, carried off by a cold gust that sends a chill down my back.
I gaze across the foothills, and it’s shocking.
All that shimmering snow and ice that covered the valley has been replaced by the most enormous dark brown anthill I’ve ever seen.
“What’s happening?” Meeka whispers.
“They’ve reached the lab—but they can’t get in,” I answer.
“I hope so,” Meeka says.
Out of nowhere, three quick booms from an enormous bass drum echo across the valley, followed by a high-pitched hum that has us clutching our ears.
Before I can blink, a perfectly square beam of blue-green energy cuts down from the sky and blasts into the pit created by the masks.
The beam is about as wide as a skyscraper and extends all the way back to the ship. It begins to change color, shifting into that familiar paisley pattern.
Without telling anyone, I project my persona and jump across the valley, standing there on the edge of the colossal hole. I’m within arm’s reach of the energy beam.
I squint hard and then gasp.
The Galleons have collected the energy from all the people they’ve abducted and combined it with those hexagons from the queen robe. What I’m looking at must be a weapon, and now the Galleons’ plan seems clear. Stage one was burrowing down to the lab’s main entrance. Stage two involves blasting open the doors with this beam.
My gaze sweeps up along the column as an occasional face appears, the eyes wide, the mouth gaping as though the poor soul is shrieking in pain and begging for rescue.
Balls of light flash through the beam, coming in waves of three, then six, and then more.
The humming grows so intense that it passes through my persona and rattles my ribs.
From the corner of my eye I spot Keane, Steffanie, and Meeka arriving on the edge in their personas. They’re calling to me, but we can’t hear each other.
I point up at the beam—
Just as a flash of pure white light blinds me. My persona shakes violently, and I realize there’s been an explosion.
Panicking, I return to my body, falling forward, along with the others, just as another eruption rips through the ground, shaking the truck. More rocks and ice clang and boom.
And then we’re struck by a blast of heat so intense that it feels like I’m holding my face over a barbecue.
I blink hard and strain to see as thick columns of fire rush up from the hole and lick their way along the energy beam.
As the flames climb higher, a rattling-chugging sound like an antique train rises from the pit.
At the same time, the air clogs with even more dust, and that fried circuitry stench is so bad that I’m gagging.
My heart leaps as the chugging gets faster.
The flames grow even brighter.
And the ground heaves like we’re sitting on the chest of some creature whipping itself into a rage.
The piles of debris shake hard.
Rocks and ice begin tumbling across them.
And then the valley falls into darkness as some even more enormous thing passes overhead.
And when I glance up, there it is:
A sphere as wide as the energy beam. It’s covered in the blank white faces of the masks.
The sphere passes into the beam, and then shoots down, into the hole.
I doubt they can hear me, but I scream anyway. “Han
g on! Hang on!”
A deafening roar turns into a ringing in my ears, and then the air is sucked from my lungs.
I hold Meeka even tighter—
As we’re blasted away from the truck and back toward the foothills.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I open my eyes.
The world spins. Darkness stabs me for a few more seconds… and then everything comes into focus.
And I wish it hadn’t.
Meeka’s staring at me with a bloody gash across her forehead. She’s stroking my cheek and shouting something.
“I’m okay,” I say, but I can’t hear my own voice. The high-pitched ringing continues.
She nods, taps her own ear, and says something, maybe, “Come on...”
I take her hand and sit up.
Everything hurts—even my tongue, which I must’ve bit during the blast. I try to swallow, but my mouth’s sandy. I spit and taste blood.
I blink hard, but my eyes lose focus again. My head feels weird, too. I reach back and find a major lump. My fingers come back bloody.
Someone touches my shoulder and just turning my head sends shooting pain into my neck.
Cypress slides down beside me.
She’s talking, but I point to my ear. She nods. And whoa, she looks really bad, like a disaster victim:
Her green-and-white hair is clogged with pebbles and dirt, turning it into a brown mop. I can’t see her freckles anymore, just white rings around her eyes. Blood trickles down from her temple and slides across her dusty cheek. I point to her head and she touches the blood and makes a face.
Her eyes lift to the rest of the valley, and I guess it all hits her at once: the devastation… and the loss of Punk and Mr. Gurdy. She buries her face in her palms.
I’m ready to join her, but I can’t.
We’re still here, right?
That means we can still fight. But for now, all I can do is keep spitting and waiting for my vision to return.
Meeka tugs on my jacket. Steffanie and Hedera sit just a few feet away. They’re blurry but I recognize them.
They’re blinking dust from their own eyes and staring in shock at the valley. Hedera starts shouting, but again, her voice sounds muted.
Now Meeka’s pointing to the sky, where wave after wave of white knights dive into the hole dug by the masks. As best as I can tell, all those piles of rock and dirt have been swept away, completely leveled, and now the entire valley lies beneath a thick, black layer of soot, with deep scars shooting outward from the pit.
I swear under my breath.
They got in.
And that thought sends me bolting to my feet. My knees buckle for a second, but I catch myself.
I shut my eyes and snap them open. My vision improves. I whirl around and spot Keane lying off to our left.
He’s not moving.
Hedera doesn’t see him because a boulder blocks her view.
I start picking my way between jagged hunks of ice and rock. Meeka and Cypress join me. Steffanie sees what we’re doing and grabs Hedera.
From the corner of my eye comes Tommy fighting his way up. He has a bloody nose and a limp, but those are laughable injuries to a United States Marine.
I’m first to reach Keane, who’s lying on his side. I motion for the others to keep back, even though Hedera’s trying to push past me. Steffanie grabs her by the shoulders.
Hedera projects her persona and gasps Keane’s name. Even though I can barely hear her, she makes me even more nervous.
Tommy slips in next to me. He reaches down and checks Keane’s neck for a pulse while I stare at his chest, looking for the rise and fall. Nothing.
Tommy readjusts his fingers on Keane’s neck.
I hold my breath. I think we all do.
Tommy frowns, pushing his fingers deeper into Keane’s neck, and then he angles his head, trying to listen for breath sounds, but I bet his ears are still ringing, too.
My eyes ache.
This is Keane. My best friend. My crazy blood brother.
He can’t be dead!
Okay, universe, let’s make a deal:
I don’t care anymore if Keane wants to be on The Bachelor or be this goofy hipster and say ridiculous things because he thinks they sound cool.
I don’t care if dresses up like Willy Wonka in front of the entire world.
And I definitely don’t care about his constant complaining and second-guessing everything I do.
I just need him to be okay.
Are you listening?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Trembling and holding my breath, I reach out and try to connect with Keane.
For a second, I can’t sense anything—
But then I find myself riding through a demolished street somewhere in the City of Violet.
It’s quiet. Twilight. The shadows grow as I slip past the endless piles of concrete, glass, and girders beneath rows of melted skyscrapers. An icy breeze flutters through my hair.
My bike’s a mashup of parts scavenged from the ruins. It shimmies and squeaks but feels comfortable, like home.
I get the urge to veer right, heading between two towering walls of stone that broke off from the buildings and stabbed the ground. They rise like strange memorials.
Behind them I arrive at a campfire and several beat-up old buckets, just small sedans about the size of my Dad’s Toyota.
Fifteen or twenty people in dust-covered winter clothes huddle around the fire. They vary in age from elderly to a few no older than five. Behind them lies someone on a stretcher fastened from old pipes and tarp.
I ride up to the stretcher, drop my bike into the dirt, and then kneel there in front of my father with his wild gray hair and long beard:
His name is Corrales Centennial Trusand.
That’s right. I don’t know how or why, but I’m Keane now, in his head, reliving his memories—
Just like I relived my mother Lori’s memories when she connected with me. I became her. Felt like her.
But she was an immortal when she invited me in.
So does that mean Keane’s already—
“How did we do today?” Corrales, I mean my father, asks.
I answer, but my voice is Keane’s: “Not so good. Just two cans. We’re running out of food.”
“They were wrong,” my father says. “We shouldn’t have come here. It’s too dangerous.”
“I know. Now they want to go back to the Highlands. They’re talking about hunting the grren.”
My father shakes his head and begins to cough.
“Dad, I can’t do this anymore.”
“Nonsense. You’ll prove them wrong. They didn’t know it, but they made you even stronger.”
I start crying.
“Come here.” He grabs my arm and pulls me to his chest. I weep like a little boy.
“Keane, you’ll never give up. You’ll keep fighting for your mother and sister. And for me.” He lifts me away and stares into my eyes. “Tell me, son, what’s your job today?”
I know the answer because Corrales made Keane recite this mantra twenty times a day.
“Dad, my job is to survive,” I tell him.
“And how do we do that?” he asks.
“By never losing hope.”
The old man smiles, but in the firelight, the life is already fading from his eyes. And maybe the hope, too.
“Now don’t worry about a thing,” he says, and then begins to chuckle. “I’ll hang on as long as I can. I won’t die till it’s the right time.”
“I know you will—because you have to keep that stupid calendar, and you keep making all those stupid lists of stuff to do, like it really matters anymore. What’re you going to do? Pick a day and decide to die, so it fits in your schedule?”
“Keane, the world changed, but we didn’t.”
“Really? So you’re still teaching at Grayflower? Last time I looked, the academy was blown up, and all those little kids in your history classes—the ones you couldn�
�t save? They were burned alive.”
“You’re talking about situations,” he argues. “I’m talking about what’s in our hearts. I’m still a teacher, and you’re my best and only student.”
“You keep telling me how it was, but now it isn’t. And it’ll never be like that again.”
“It’s up to you and your friends to rebuild our world.”
I get to my feet, shaking my head. I drift away from my father and walk directly into the campfire—
As those around us scream.
But I pass easily through the flames, come out the other side, and step into our living room at the safe house, where Keane sits on the edge of the sofa with an Xbox controller glued to his hands.
He glances up at me. “I miss arguing with my father. I miss it a lot.”
“What the hell is this?” I ask.
His eyes widen on the screen. Something big is happening in his game. “Aw, man, you kidding?” He faces me. “What?”
“I asked you what this is.”
“You mean, this? Oh, I’m just deciding if I wanna live or die. But can I ask you something? What’s DLC?”
“It’s downloadable content. Basically, you add more cool stuff to the game, but really, it’s how the people who make the games get rich and the players go broke.”
“Okay. And some guy told me to look for eggs, but I can’t find any. What’s up with that?”
I smile. “He means Easter eggs, but would you shut up about the game?”
“You’re right.” Keane sets down the controller and rises from the sofa. “Dude, come on.”
We head out the back door and cross onto the sundeck of a mansion in Malibu, California that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. I know this because Keane says, “This is a mansion in Malibu, California that overlooks the Pacific Ocean.” He wriggles his brows and tips his head back—
Where the announcer dude from The Bachelor comes over with a silver plate containing a single red rose.
“Keane?” the dude says. “This could be the most exciting moment in Bachelor history. Are you ready for us to bring out the love of your life?”
I turn to see Keane’s reaction—
And sigh. He’s back in his Willy Wonka gear with that tall brown hat, giant bowtie, and purple jacket.
