by Alex Barnett
“I don’t understand,” she said finally.
“I know,” Zack said, “and I’m sorry about that, but we’re running out of time.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ava demanded. “Lyds, don’t listen to this, let’s just go get Mike.” Ava grabbed her hand and started to pull her away, towards the front door, when Caleb suddenly spoke up.
“Please,” he said. “Please just listen. I swear, we’re not trying to hurt anyone. Just hear us out and if you don’t believe us, we’ll leave. We’ll jump the fences ourselves and take our chances trying to get back to our truck.”
That pulled both Lydia and Ava up short.
It seemed to pull Zack up short, too. He whipped towards the sound of his brother’s voice. “Say what? I didn’t agree to that!”
“You suck at this, you don’t get a say anymore,” Caleb said, not breaking eye contact with Lydia. “Do we have a deal?”
Lydia looked over at Ava, who shook her head violently. Her friend was all but vibrating with the need to get out of the kitchen. She was pacing back and forth, tight little steps that never took her very far away from Lydia’s side. She watched the two boys with mistrust, but the fact that she hadn’t made good on her threat to try and throw them bodily out or go get Grandpa showed that she was at least willing to hear what they had to say. Something about the Reeds had to have inspired at least a little trust in Ava. And Lydia trusted Ava’s judgement more than almost anyone’s.
“Your call,” Ava said, as if reading Lydia’s mind. She shot her a significant look, arching one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. Lydia’s mouth turned up in a shaky smile. She…she had to know how they knew about her. A strange, insistent feeling gnawed at the pit of her stomach, the back of her neck, urging her forward. To what, she couldn’t say…but this felt important. What they had to say was important.
“All right,” she said cautiously, “I’m listening.”
Caleb’s shoulders slumped in relief, and Zack let out a soft little sigh. “Okay. Okay, look, sorry—my brother’s an idiot. We were trying to think of the best way to tell you, but we’re kind of on a time limit, here.”
“How did you find out about me?” she demanded, leaving the ‘running out of time’ aside for the moment. Ava stepped closer to her. She reached down and grabbed her friend’s hand again, silently readying herself to throw both the boys back from them if they tried something.
Caleb sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That’s the complicated part,” he hedged. “Look, you know about Psios, right?”
Ava snorted, answering before Lydia could. “Everyone knows about Psios. They do a whole section on psionic powers every year in Health.”
Caleb dipped his chin and his eyes shifted to Lydia again, dark and intense and seeming to plead with her for understanding. Silence stretched between the four of them, growing thicker and heavier until Lydia felt like she could taste the tension on her tongue like bitter acid. The air seemed to be getting colder, a leaden realization growing in her gut.
“You know,” she said dully, and they all knew she wasn’t talking about just the fact that she was a Psio.
They knew what she could do. They knew how powerful she was.
Caleb pressed his lips together and nodded, his face grim. It was Zack who spoke, though.
“Yeah, but not for any of the reasons you’re thinking.” He pulled his ever-present glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. “We weren’t spying on you, and I swear we didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“You had to be,” Ava said, her glare dialing back up a notch. “Lyds hasn’t used her powers hardly at all, except for yesterday. How else could you know?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Zack said, with a grin that was a little too sharp to be self-deprecating. He took a deep breath, spreading his hands. “I’m like you. A Psio.”
Lydia felt her eyes growing wide, her mouth falling open in surprise. Beside her, Ava gasped.
“You’re like Lydia, how?” Ava asked, her grip on Lydia’s hand tightening. “What can you do?”
A strange look passed over Zack’s face, indecipherable with the misty blankness of his eyes. “Nothing physical, unfortunately. Woulda made our lives a lot easier if I had one of the kinetic powers. No, I…I know things. Before they happen.” For the first time, some of the jovial, laughing confidence leeched out of his voice. “Bad things, mostly.”
“Precog,” Lydia said, mostly to herself. Zack nodded anyway, rocking back on his heels. He tapped his fingers along the island until Caleb moved closer to him, and it occurred to Lydia that the boys were nervous. She understood why.
Precognition was one of the least common psionic abilities anyone ever showed. Well…no, that wasn’t exactly accurate. Confirmed precognition abilities showed up only a little less often than things like telekinesis or telepathy; it was just a question of how useful a precog Psio’s power would be. Precogs who could see more than a few seconds or minutes into the future—that was highly unusual. And Zack had said he was like her.
“You’re strong,” she said, following the thought to its logical conclusion. “Your power’s strong the way mine’s strong.”
Strong enough to make people take notice. Strong enough to be different even in a world full of differences. Strong enough to be dangerous.
Zack’s mouth turned up into an ugly, grim smile. “Yeah,” he said simply. “Something like that.”
“Okay, I’m glad you two are having a mystical Psio bonding experience, or whatever, but can someone please explain what’s going on to me?” Ava interrupted.
“Zack’s a precog,” Caleb said, and Ava turned to pin him with a glare.
“I got that, thanks. How do we know you’re telling the truth? Lydia’s powers are easy to see…why should we just take your word that you can see the future?”
She sounded angry, but Lydia had known Ava since the second grade. Her friend was searching for confirmation, some proof that her own impressions of the boys’ trustworthiness were true. If Ava really thought either of the Reeds was lying, she would have started throwing things by now, no matter what Lydia said. But, they had to be cautious. Lydia straightened, planting herself more firmly beside Ava.
“Yeah. How do we know you’re a Psio?”
For a moment, Zack seemed honestly confused, as though he couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t just take him at his word. Caleb sighed.
“Rule thirty-five, Z,” he said. In an instant, the confusion on Zack’s face was replaced by chagrin.
“I’m doing it again, huh?” he said. Before Lydia could ask him what he meant, he leaned forward again, stretching out his hand, palm up. “I can prove it, but fair warning, you might not like it.”
Lydia stared at his hand, as though the creases in his palm could tell her something. There was a jagged cut running up one side of his arm, healed but not old, standing out pinkish against the warm brown of his skin. She found herself wondering how many scars this new world had already left on him, how many bruises and cuts and injuries the brothers had had to endure on the road, dodging Burnouts wherever went.
“What’re you gonna do? Precog is random…you can’t make yourself have a vision,” she said, recalling words and lessons Grandma had given her as soon as she was old enough to understand. Old enough to train and control her ability. Touch helped her grandmother in crowded places and unfamiliar surroundings, let her hone in on someone and hear their thoughts back, but precognition was different.
If Zack’s expression was anything to go by, though, that might not be entirely true.
“Telekinesis is a card trick…you can’t lift anything more than a pound or two. But I’m pretty sure you do,” he said in exactly the same tone, grinning that too-sharp grin. With the mischievous tilt of his eyebrows and quiet voice, he seemed otherworldly for a moment, puckish. She was struck with the sudden feeling that taking his hand would lead her straight down the rabbit hole, even further than s
he’d already gone since the Burnouts appeared.
“Lyds,” Ava said uneasily, but didn’t try to stop her as Lydia stepped forward.
She glanced over at Caleb, who was leaning against the edge of the sink with his arms crossed over his chest. He met her gaze briefly and nodded his encouragement, though she thought she saw nervousness in his eyes. Fear. The boys were both acting like there was something breathing down their necks. She looked down at Zack’s proffered hand one more time, and then reached out and grasped it firmly.
#
She had always been able to tell when her grandmother was using her gift, and she figured Zack’s had to be at least a little similar to Grandma’s telepathy if he thought he’d be able to form some kind of connection with her to prove he was telling the truth. She expected a gentle nudge of warmth, maybe a tingle on the back of her neck, the little signals that had always preceded Grandma’s soft, bell-like voice in her head.
Instead, it was like being punched in the throat.
For the second time, Lydia felt as though the air was being sucked away from her, her chest closing as her lungs struggled to draw enough oxygen. Heat rushed through her whole body, like hot wind racing through her veins, and then…
And then she was sitting in her living room. On the comfortable couch that they had bought last year, with its overstuffed cushions and Grandma’s old throw pillows piled up by the arms. The one that now formed part of the barricade over a gap in the fencing between Jim Perry’s backyard and Eric Grant’s. She was sitting on the couch in her living room, but she was also still standing in the kitchen. She could feel the warm weight of Zack’s hand in hers, the rough scrape of a scabbed-over cut on his knuckles, the way he was squeezing her fingers tightly. She could feel Ava’s hands on her shoulders, hear her best friend’s frantic voice in her ear.
“Lyds? Lydia! What’s happening?” Ava was calling.
“Any luck?” Ava was saying.
Lydia could only blink, still gasping as Ava’s voice sounded twice, like some weird overlay. Her vision blurred further, a headache building in her temples as she tried to wrap her mind around the double vision of herself in the kitchen with Ava, Zack, and Caleb, and herself in the living room, also with Ava.
Lydia-on-the-couch tossed her slim personal netglass down onto the coffee table, glaring at the sky-blue display that read No Channel Available. She looked at her friend, who was curled up on the other end of the couch.
“I’m okay,” Lydia whispered.
“Nothing,” Lydia-on-the-couch said.
“Stop it, let her go!” Ava yelled.
“How can this be happening?” Ava said.
“It’s fine, Av, I’m fine,” Lydia said, shaking her head and closing her eyes. The kitchen faded away, the living room sharpening in focus until only Zack’s hand in hers seemed to anchor her to the kitchen.
To the present, she realized.
When she opened her eyes again, it was like she was back in the living room, even Zack’s hand only the faintest shade of real for her. She drew her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, staring in rapt horror at the netscreen on the wall opposite the couch. She knew, dimly, that the screen had been pulled down in August so that Eric could strip out its wiring and circuitry in an effort to keep the shield going on the barricades. Now it was scrolling newsfeed after newsfeed, all talking about one thing: the Burnouts.
She and Ava sat in silence as picture after picture was shown—scenes of chaos, scenes of destruction, scenes of fear. For nearly a week now there had been news reports of something strange happening in isolated places all over the world. Cities cancelling flights and smaller countries in Europe and Asia closing their border stations. Hospitals overwhelmed with victims of some kind of fast-onset wasting disease. Rumors of military divisions being scaled to high alert; off-duty soldiers being called back to their bases with no explanation.
This, though. This was beyond belief.
Can now confirm that it does not appear to be a biological pathogen
City-wide curfews in effect
Both the Eastern and Western League Alliances in Europe, Africa, and Asia confirming that there are cases in all member-nations
Invasion-era tech the likeliest suspect
No higher cognitive function left in victims
Authorities are urging citizens to evacuate major metropolitan areas in an orderly fashion
Lydia watched the news flash across the screen in numb disbelief. In less than forty-eight hours, what had been containable incidents had escalated to a worldwide disaster. The net channels were all jammed in a way that wasn’t supposed to be possible as people frantically tried to reach loved ones. She hadn’t been able to raise her mother on the comm all day, and Ava was having no better luck with her parents or her older brother and sister. She hadn’t even tried to get hold of her grandparents in Arizona, or her various aunts and uncles scattered across the country.
Ava threw her own netglass down beside Lydia’s, the same cheerful blue screen informing her that no comm channels were available, and raked her hands back through her hair. She turned wide, scared eyes on Lydia, her face paler than usual. Lydia knew she looked no better.
“What’re we gonna do?” Ava whispered.
They turned back to the screen, watching the chaos play out in real time—the highways were filling up, and some places were deploying the National Guard around hospitals and churches to try and form orderly evacuations. No one had called for Columbus to evacuate, yet, but surely it was only a matter of time.
“We just wait for Grandpa,” she said with confidence she did not feel. “As soon as he gets back with your mom and dad they’ll decide what to do.”
She could not bring herself to think what would happen if Grandpa didn’t come back. He had left over an hour ago, promising to bring Ava’s parents back to Meadowbrook and making them swear they wouldn’t open the door for anyone but him or Jim Perry. Ava’s house wasn’t that far away, but everyone was trying to get out of the cities and those…those things. They were everywhere.
They sat in silence that seemed to press down on them, listening to newscasters trying to keep the panic out of their voices as they described what was happening outside. As the second wave of images started up, Lydia plucked her netglass up again, running her thumb across the screen to call up the comm. Ava did the same.
“I’m gonna try Dani again,” she said. Ava’s older sister and her husband lived in California, near Los Angeles. Her older brother, Matt, was a journalism student at Otterbein University.
Lydia squeezed the netglass, calling up Mom’s contact icon. Jennifer St. John had been in Las Vegas the week before for a nursing convention, and Lydia and Grandpa had encouraged her to stay an extra few days to attend a high school friend’s bachelorette party. They’d insisted. Practically forbidden her from coming home until she’d had a real vacation. As she moved to try and connect the comm, her netglass background faded to lavender, and a notification materialized in the center. Lydia’s eyes widened. It wasn’t a comm, just a text message…but it was from Mom’s ID. The timestamp said it had been sent hours ago, only now making its way through the comm channels.
Her whole world narrowed to the netglass as she thumbed up the text screen, waited for the message to download. Ava was muttering in the background, switching between English and Spanish as she rattled off a message to her netglass, to be delivered to Dani when—if—a channel became available. Lydia held her breath, gripping the netglass so tightly that the rounded edges of the clear plastic tablet creaked. When it did, she slumped back on the couch, a sudden roaring in her ears as her heart started to pound.
I love you. Be brave.
The roaring intensified, her blood rushing in her ears, drowning out even Ava’s voice. Lydia felt cold, then hot, then cold again. She couldn’t look away from the scrolling text.
I love you. Be brave.
She wanted to scream. To rage. To howl out denials until she
could convince herself that the message didn’t mean what she thought it meant.
I love you. Be brave.
She wanted her mom. She needed her mom right now more than she had ever needed anything in her life. The roar in her ears was growing, drowning out Ava’s scared pleas for her sister to call her, the commentary on the screen as another city ordered evacuations, the screams outside their door.
I love you. Be brave.
The screams. The screams? Lydia blinked as darkness crept into the edges of her vision, blurring the living room. The netglass, Ava, the newscast—it all faded away. Lydia was still standing in the kitchen holding Zack’s hand, was still sitting on the couch holding the netglass…was running across the court clutching her blaster. The Burnouts. The Burnouts were in the court.
The Burnouts were in the court, a writhing, frenzied mass of glowing white eyes and silver veins battering down the Royces’ front door. People were screaming over the roar of gunfire, the whine of the blasters.
Their defenses had failed.
People were dying.
People were dead.
They were all going to Burn if she couldn’t get to them, if she couldn’t get to Jill and Andrew’s house. Someone was running behind her, heavy breathing tinged with panic, but the steps were too heavy to be Ava. They had to go faster, they had to move! The Burnouts were closing in from all sides—there were more streaming in through the broken barricade. They had to…
Zack let go of her hand.
Lydia cried out as the vision splintered, and she was once again just in the kitchen. She swayed, blood rushing to her head, and then her hands flew to her mouth, as though to keep back a scream. She stared at Caleb and Zack, her eyes so wide they had to be practically bugging out of her skull. At the same time, Zack stumbled backwards, he knees nearly buckling as Caleb dived forward, wrapping one arm around his brother’s waist.
“Z!” he said urgently, holding the other boy up. A thin stream of blood trickled from Zack’s nose, and he was heaving like he’d just run a marathon. Sweat glistened on his forehead.
