by Tracy Deebs
“What is that supposed to mean?” I interrupt, insulted. “Theo’s not too much for me!”
“He’s a little intense, Pandora.”
“I can do intense.”
“So you do want Theo?” Emily says with a grin and an eyebrow wiggle, both of which I ignore.
“I don’t want either of them! You’re the one who brought up the whole ridiculous subject.”
Rolling her eyes, she grabs my hand and starts dragging me upstairs. “Come on, girl. You look like hell, and that just won’t do for your first date with Eli.”
“It’s not a date. It’s pizza.”
“Trust me, the way he was looking at you? It’s definitely a date.”
Emily bulldozes around any and all of my objections, even going so far as to insist that I change my clothes. I start to argue, but there’s no winning when she gets like this. And besides, it’s nice to spend a few minutes doing something normal—or, at least, normal for her—instead of freaking out about that stupid game.
About what’s going to happen next.
By the time Emily’s satisfied with my appearance, the shell-shocked-survivor look is gone. My choppy haircut has been ruthlessly tamed into submission, and even I have to admit that the shimmery purple tank top Emily found at the back of the closet looks great on me.
“So, are you still determined to go to Little Nicky’s for your birthday?” she asks as we head downstairs, my backpack filled with extra clothes slung over my shoulder. “Or can we try somewhere a little more sophisticated?”
“I want pizza.”
“Of course you do.”
We start to settle on the couch to talk—it’s not like there’s anything else to do right now—but then the doorbell rings. It’s Eli, and he’s changed as well. His wild hair is tamed a little, and he’s pulled on a cool South By Southwest T-shirt. It makes me smile, because I have the same one upstairs in my room.
He grins when he sees me. “Hey, you look great!”
“Uh, thanks.” I’m not sure what else to say, because the way he’s looking at me is so flirtatious that my breath catches in my rib cage. Which is stupid. And all Emily’s fault. If she hadn’t gone on and on about him, everything would be like it was earlier instead of my practically swallowing my tongue while trying to make conversation with him.
“Theo’s in the car. Are you ready to go?”
“Sure.” I slide my laptop into my backpack with the rest of the stuff I packed, and then sling it over my shoulder, ready to go straight to Emily’s house once dinner is finished and the guys drop us off. My own feels kind of strange now. Haunted, almost.
I lock up, then we climb into Theo’s fully loaded Range Rover (could he get a little more yuppie-in-training?)—Eli and me in the back, Emily in the front—and head toward the shopping and restaurant area where Little Nicky’s makes its home. The three of them talk about Pandora’s Box and school and a bunch of other stuff, but I don’t participate. Though it’s my birthday, I’m tired and my head hurts and I just don’t have it in me to try to keep up.
I kind of drift along for the fifteen-minute ride, letting their voices soothe me in a way their words never could. In the back of my head is the worry about where this game will end. About how bad things are going to get before they get better. I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that Emily’s dad is working on Pandora’s Box. Like she said, he’s one of the best there is—surely he’ll figure out a way to fix everything.
I rouse myself when Theo pulls into the Little Nicky’s parking lot. It’s packed, as usual, but he manages to snag a spot in the very back. We walk, paired up, toward the pizza place, and for a minute I can almost forget everything else that’s going on.
It’s a beautiful night, not too warm, not too cold. The leaves are finally beginning to change color and fall off the trees. We crunch some beneath our boots and I shiver at the sound. It’s crazy, I know, but I love the crisp noise they make and always have.
Eli’s hand brushes against mine, and though I stiffen in surprise, I don’t move away. A few seconds later, his fingers tangle with mine, and I relax. Let him hold my hand. In those moments—despite the game, the lack of communications, my absentee mother, the lost e-mail from my father, and everything else—I’m calm, forgetting to freak out.
Which lasts until we hit the back door of Little Nicky’s, and find, inside, chaos reigning in all directions. It’s eight o’clock, and the place is still packed as usual. But instead of the regular semiorganized disorder that comes from people jockeying for tables as their friends or family members wait in line, there’s an air of palpable panic that is turning the place into a madhouse.
“What’s going on?” I ask, absurdly grateful that Eli is still holding my hand.
“I don’t know.” Theo shoulders his way through the seething crowd and we follow, Emily, me, and then Eli in back. We get close to the counter, and I realize that the three people working there aren’t entering the orders into the registers like they usually do. They’re handwriting them, then trying to total the items up on pieces of scratch paper.
They don’t even have calculators, and from the frustrated looks on their faces, math isn’t their strong suit.
We stand there watching. It’s kind of like rubbernecking at an accident that’s about to happen. You see the two cars about to run into each other, you want to stop them, but you’re too far away and the drivers aren’t paying attention to you, anyway. You can’t do anything but watch as they collide.
Here, at Little Nicky’s, that collision is just happening, and the fallout is growing with each passing second. Because even when the cashiers do get everything right the first time, which has only happened once in the nearly ten minutes we’ve been standing here, the customer can’t pay. The credit-card machine is down and she doesn’t have any cash on her.
Her shoulders slump as the two children, one on either side of her, start to cry, and it’s obvious she’s so frazzled by the whole situation that she doesn’t know what to do. I think of my debit card nestled in my wallet and how I don’t have any cash, either. If I did, I swear I would have given it to that mother with the two hungry kids.
“Let’s go,” Eli says. “Nothing good’s going to come out of this.” He starts pulling me back through the crowd, which has grown bigger and more hostile in the time we’ve been there. People are yelling and demanding service, some are pushing and shoving, and others are berating the people behind the counter for being slow and stupid.
I’ve never seen anything like this, and it scares me a little. I can tell Emily feels the same way, because as Eli uses his massive build to force our way through the crowd, she clutches on to my other hand so tightly that I fear ending up with a bloody stump when she finally does let go. I look back at her, just to make sure she’s doing okay. Over her shoulder, I see Theo pull out his wallet and hand the upset mother some money.
The crowd is spilling onto the sidewalk in front of the pizza place now, their complaints growing louder and louder. Any joy I had in the beauty of the night is gone, and I can see that my friends feel the same way.
“So, do you want to try someplace else?” Eli asks, though he doesn’t sound encouraging.
“It’s going to be the same anywhere,” Theo answers grimly. He isn’t looking at us; he’s looking across the street and when I follow his gaze, I realize that he’s right. I can see through the front windows of the two restaurants across the street—my mom’s favorite little French-style bistro and the Greek restaurant Jules swears by—and the situation is just as dire over there.
“Screw it. We have food at my place,” Emily says. “Let’s go there. My dad has an old radio he’s using to keep in touch with his partners. Maybe he knows more about what’s going on.”
I don’t speak until we’re back in the car. I’m in front this time, next to Theo, whose hands are clenched on the steering wheel so tightly that it amazes me he can even turn it. “Why are the credit cards failing?” I ask quiet
ly.
“They’re not failing. Or at least I don’t think they are,” Theo says. “But with no phone lines or Internet, they can’t make a connection with the banks, so nobody can charge anything.”
“And this is happening all over Austin?” I’m horrified.
“I’m pretty sure it’s happening all over the country.”
“So there’s no money?” Emily asks incredulously. “Anywhere?”
“Oh, there’s money.” Theo shoves a hand into his hair, and this time it doesn’t fall back into place. I take it as a marker of how upset he is that he doesn’t even notice. “But people can’t get to it. At least not without actually going into a bank. And since it’s eight thirty on a Wednesday night, that’s so not going to happen.”
“Oh my God.” I slump back against my seat and bury my head in my hands. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
This can’t be happening. This just flat out can’t be happening.
But as we head through the quaint little shopping district, I realize it is. People are everywhere—in the stores, on the streets, in loose groups on every corner, and outside every shop. They look angry, confused, panicked, distraught—all of the things I’m feeling but don’t know how to express.
Theo flips on the radio. It’s tuned to the alternative station, but he quickly presses the scan button. Nobody says anything as the radio plays a few disjointed seconds from each station, but then there’s really nothing to say. Nothing good, anyway.
Finally, the radio hits on someone speaking, and Theo presses the button to keep it there. It’s a news station, and the commentator is talking about today’s communications collapse as if it really is the end of the world.
“The Internet is down in every city and state in America. It’s down in Europe and Asia, Africa and South America, and even Australia, crippled to the point of total and complete uselessness by the Pandora’s Box worm.
“Phone systems are down. Satellites are failing. The digital networks we use for our cell phones are collapsing in places as far flung as Malaysia and Norway even as I’m saying this. Control systems are also being affected, for everything from assembly lines at the Oreo cookie plant to systems that regulate air traffic control, and they are all grinding to a halt.”
Emily starts to cry a little, and I reach back to squeeze her hand even as the announcer’s words send me reeling.
“The streets are filling up with preachers screaming that the end of the world is here, while thousands of people are at home playing a game created by the same person who caused all of this, in the hopes of making things return to normal. I don’t understand what’s happening here. I’m not sure anyone does.
“The Pentagon is calling it cyberwarfare, and Homeland Security promises they have their best agents at work trying to track down the ‘evil genius’ who created this. In the meantime, they’re asking people to refrain from playing the game in case it makes things worse. But no one is listening—the number of players in the game is increasing with every minute that passes, as people buy into the promise, ‘Beat the Game. Save the World.’
“Since the government can’t stop it, why not give us the chance to fix things? Besides, how much worse can it get, people? All of this seems like too little, too late to me. The Internet is built to withstand nuclear war, but not a worm? Or a ‘blended threat,’ as Homeland Security is calling it? So what is going on, and how on earth are we going to fix something that we never thought could break? That’s what I’ll be talking about after these messages.”
The question hangs in the air for one second, two, before the airwaves are taken over by a commercial for a local oil-change place. I barely hear the cheerful jingle as it plays—I’m too busy straining to comprehend everything the commentator said. But I can’t. My brain is on the verge of a total meltdown.
I think of my mother, in Alaska. Wonder what she’s thinking—and if she’s worried about me. Realize that I’m worried about her—how is she going to get home from Alaska if the worm has taken out air traffic control? It’s already started to snow up there. How can she drive in those conditions? And where will she get a car? How will she pay for it?
Just that easily, panic sets back in.
Aren’t there fail-safes for this kind of stuff? Government security that stops things from getting this bad? And if even that security has failed, what are we going to do? How are we going to live if there are no communications? No money. The others are talking, but I can’t follow what they are saying. I can’t think, can’t breathe.
My whole body is tense, shaky, like I’m in the middle of a major caffeine rush, and I’m having a difficult time seeing. I blink my eyes a few times and eventually my vision clears. That’s when it hits me. I’m crying.
But I never cry. I gave up the habit right after my dad left and my mom told me tears wouldn’t change anything. At first, it didn’t matter; I couldn’t stop. But weeks passed, and once I realized she was right—that no amount of tears were going to bring back my dad—I simply dried up.
I’m not dry now. I lift a trembling hand to my face, feel the water slowly rolling down my cheek.
What are we supposed to do now? I wonder. What can we do?
The tears continue to spill over as Theo negotiates the streets. I try to be quiet about it, take shallow breaths from my mouth and don’t sniff at all, but somehow Theo knows. He reaches over, rubs my knee in a way that I know is meant to be comforting, but it’s not. It’s just more proof that things are so not what they seem. What they should be. Because in the real world, there’s no way brilliant, moody Theo would ever have anything to do with me. Or me with him.
The thought depresses me further, and I pull my leg away. He doesn’t say anything, but he moves his hand back to his thigh, where he’s tapping out a rhythm only he knows.
It’s dark out, and I stare straight ahead at the green light shining like a beacon directly in front of us. The trick is to concentrate on the small stuff, I tell myself. On the things that are right in front of me.
Electricity is still working for the most part. That’s good, right? And I’m no longer alone. Homeland Security is on this thing, and so are some of the best computer-security people in the country—people like Emily’s dad, who—
A huge delivery truck comes barreling toward us. Theo brakes, but it’s too late. It plows straight into us—directly into the right front quarter of the Range Rover.
9
Emily screams and I try to answer her, but all the air has been knocked out of my lungs at the impact. Then we’re spinning, and I can’t even think let alone speak as the Range Rover turns in circles again and again.
I reach out and try to grab on to something, to brace myself, but the giant white air bag is in the way. Besides, everything is happening too fast. The world outside is one huge, spiraling blur of lights and colors I can’t quite focus on. Like I’m looking at a Kandinsky painting through a lens that has grown foggy with age. Or into the sun after I’ve been swimming underwater with my eyes open for a long time.
My seat belt cuts into my body as my arms flop uselessly around me. I turn my head, see blood coating Theo’s face and the air bag in front of him as we continue to spin. Somehow that’s even more surreal than the lights outside the shattered windshield.
I close my eyes. I don’t want to see any more.
We rotate for seconds, for hours, for an eternity that feels like it will never end. Except then it does, with a sickening crunch of metal and glass that flips us and sends us skidding across the asphalt on the roof of the car. As we finally come to a stop, the seat belt jerks me hard against the seat back.
We’re upside down and pressed hard into another car, the passenger side of the Range Rover squeezed against the driver’s side of a small red SUV. My head hurts from where it cracked against the window, a dull ache that blends into all the other aches sweeping over me.
For long seconds, nobody moves or speaks. I swear, we’re all holding our breath.
But then Eli coughs, and it breaks the strange spell that has us in its grasp. “Is everybody okay?” Theo demands, a hard edge of command in his voice.
“I think so,” Eli replies.
“My leg hurts,” Emily moans.
“I think I’m okay,” I tell him.
“Good. We need to get out of here.” Theo unbuckles his seat belt and falls hard against the windshield, the now-deflated air bag doing little to cushion his fall. He shoves against the driver’s-side door, but it’s jammed, won’t open.
“Can you get your seat belt off?” Theo asks me. He’s bleeding from small cuts around his cheek and forehead—from flying pieces of glass? I wonder dazedly. Or something else?
“Shouldn’t we wait for 911?” I ask, craning to look out his window.
A part of me expects an ambulance to materialize from thin air, at least until he says, “There is no 911, remember?” Theo reaches for me, grabs on to my hand. “Are you ready?”
I barely hear his question—I’m too focused on the horror of his first statement. No 911? No police? No ambulances? What are we going to do?
Behind us, Emily starts to sob, and I realize the reality of our situation has finally hit her, too. “It’s going to be okay, Em,” I tell her, though I’m afraid I’m lying. Right now, I can’t imagine how anything is ever going to be okay again.
Theo releases my seat belt right then, and I fall, not nearly as hard as he did, though, as he shifts so that he can catch me. His gallantry costs him. I can tell from his hard exhale, the groan he can’t quite bury.
“Sorry.”
He shakes his head, lets go of me slowly.
Behind me, Eli has released his seat belt as well and is trying to help Emily out of hers. “I can’t,” she wails. “It hurts.”
“I know it does.” He speaks to her soothingly. “But we’ve got to get you outside, so that we can see what’s wrong.”
I twist to face her, peer around the side of the seat to get a better look at her. Then I almost wish I hadn’t, as she’s a mess. She’s even bloodier than Theo, her face already bruised and swelling from where she hit something, hard.
