Doomed

by Tracy Deebs

  Because the man I’m looking at isn’t some stranger, like I first supposed.

  He’s my father.

  45

  As the realization slams through me, my feet stop moving of their own accord.

  “Pandora?” Theo asks, reaching for me. I clamp on to his hand, weave my fingers tightly through his, and wait for the shock to stop ricocheting through me. It takes longer than I expect.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  Before I can answer, my father starts down the steps. “Pandora?” he calls as soon as he’s close enough to really see my face.

  Theo stiffens. He’s figured it out, too.

  “Are you all right? You look awful.” My father runs up to me, reaches a hand out as if to touch me. I can’t stop myself from physically recoiling.

  “How could you?” I whisper, horror and anger and fear roiling around inside me until I think I’m going to explode. “You sick bastard! How the hell could you do this?” I’m screaming now. I can’t help it. Now that I’m here, in front of him, I can’t hold it in any longer.

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” He glances at Eli and Theo. “Who are you?”

  “Pandora’s friends.” Theo’s eyes are narrowed, his tone more unfriendly than usual.

  “They saved my life, a lot, these last few days.” I throw the words at him, a definite challenge.

  His shoulders slump. “Come on into the house. We need to get the three of you cleaned up.”

  “What we need is for you to turn off this damn game.”

  “It’s not that simple, Pandora.”

  “Sure it is. You upload the kill code and then we can get the hell out of here.”

  “Come inside.” His tone is firmer now. “We’ll talk.”

  When none of us make a move forward, he sighs. Then he turns around and walks back up the stairs and into the house. He leaves the door open, the choice up to us.

  I’m pissed that he’s still calling all the shots, but standing out here isn’t going to do anyone any good. The guys must reach the same conclusion because we start forward as one.

  As we cross the threshold, I’m a little shocked by how comfortable his log cabin is. It’s warm and cozy, despite the chill in the air. There’s electricity, the smell of coffee percolating. It’s a far cry from the Unabomber cabin I was imagining.

  “The bathroom’s down the hall to the left,” he says from the kitchen, where he’s cutting thick slabs of bread to assemble sandwiches.

  “This isn’t a social visit, Mitchell.” I can’t bring myself to call him Dad. Not now, after everything that’s happened.

  He lays the serrated knife he’s using on the counter, turns to me. “I know. I just thought you’d be more comfortable after you clean up.”

  “That’s what we’ve been doing for the last five days. Cleaning up the mess you started.” My voice breaks and I stop, try to pull myself together. I hate that I showed him even that small weakness. “Why would you do this?”

  “Because I’ve tried everything else. This was the only way.”

  “Killing people? Destroying the world?” I gesture to myself, to Theo and Eli, both of whom look like they’ve been to hell and back. “This isn’t a game. These are people’s lives you’re messing with.”

  “Do you think I like seeing you like this?” he counters, reaching for the coffeepot and filling four mugs. As he pours, I realize his hands are shaking. What does he have to be nervous about?

  “I don’t know what to think. What kind of man does this? What kind of father?”

  Something in his eyes softens. “I’m sorry, Pandora. I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve tried every way there is to get people’s attention. Nothing else has worked.”

  “This isn’t working, either. How can you not see that? People are terrified. They’re dying in the streets.”

  “People die in the streets all the time—from famine, disease, war. This is no different, except that now it’s here, where you can see it.”

  “That’s your defense? A lot of the world’s in bad shape, so why not bring the whole thing to the brink of nuclear annihilation?”

  He slams two mugs down on the table so hard that I think they’re going to break. “Let’s get one thing straight. The politicians brought us to this point, not me. With their lobbyists and campaign money and agendas that have nothing to do with their constituents or solving real problems. They’ve been warned, the world over, again and again and again, that they couldn’t continue to do what they’re doing. There are consequences to their actions.”

  “Death isn’t a consequence! This isn’t a game. These are people’s lives.”

  “I know that,” he replies fiercely. “Believe me, I know. They’ve been monkeying around with people’s lives for decades. Filling the earth with chemicals, poisoning our land, our water, our food, the very air that we breathe, because turning their backs on the issues gives them a better chance of being reelected, and being reelected brings them more power and money. And you stand there and accuse me of murder?”

  “How is what you’ve done any better? Have you been listening to the radio? It really is the end of the world out there. A nuclear power plant in England has already blown up. There’s anarchy in every major city in the country, in the world.” I take a step back, gesture to myself. “Look at us! Do you know how close I’ve come to dying these last few days? How many different times and different ways I’ve nearly been killed?”

  “I can’t stand the idea of your being hurt, Pandora.” He slumps down at the table, looking years older than he did when we first saw him. “I never wanted that.”

  “Never wanted? You did this. You created this worm, you sent it to me so I could set it loose. Don’t tell me you didn’t want exactly this to happen.”

  “I wanted you to see, to understand. I wanted a better life for you than the one you have now. A life where cancer isn’t an everyday thing, where you have the chance to be happy and healthy and whole.”

  “Do I look happy? Do I look healthy? I know I’m not whole, not after everything I’ve seen and done these last few days to get here. None of us are.” Theo reaches out, rubs a hand between my shoulder blades, and it’s all I can do not to crumple right here. “There are some lines you can’t cross. Some things you can’t come back from.”

  “That’s exactly my point!” He shoves back from the table, begins to pace. “We’re at a crossroads. Not just you and me, but this entire planet. It’s reached crisis stage. We can either go on the way we have and kill this planet once and for all, or we can start over and do things right this time.”

  “Do things right? Poisoning the planet with nuclear radiation is doing things right?”

  He waves his hand. “That was never going to happen. I wouldn’t have let it. Besides, I knew you’d make it in time.”

  “But I didn’t, Mitchell. All those people died in England, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. The earth will be poisoned there for decades.”

  “That was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. If they’d taken better precautions—”

  “Are you listening to yourself? ‘It shouldn’t have happened. That wouldn’t have happened. It’s the politicians’ fault.’ ” The words burst out of me. “Well, it is happening. And what about you? What are you responsible for? You can’t really think you’re innocent in all those people’s deaths?”

  “I know my sins very well, Pandora. I know the evils I’ve unleashed.”

  “Then stop them!” I plead with him. “Turn off the game before things get any worse.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You mean you won’t do it.”

  “I mean I can’t. I’m not a monster. After what happened in England, I tried to stop it. But it’s too late. It’s taken on a mind of its own.”

  “What does that mean exactly?” Theo jumps into the conversation for the first time.

  “It means that the fail-safes I built in aren’t working. The back door I wa
s planning on using to shut it all down has been corrupted.” He pauses, takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m locked out of my own matrix.”

  46

  I’ve imagined this confrontation countless times in the last few days, thought about it from every angle and every possible outcome. But I’m not prepared for those words. Not prepared for the idea that my father wants to stop things, but can’t.

  “Can I see what you’ve done?” Theo asks.

  “Who are you exactly?” my father asks.

  “He’s my friend.”

  My father studies him for a minute, then shrugs. He crosses the room, pushes a button that slides the entire paneled wall to the side, and reveals a computer system that looks like it belongs in NASA instead of a log cabin in the middle of Wyoming.

  Despite everything, Theo’s eyes light up at the sight of it. Eli and I smile at each other—boy genius is very definitely in his element.

  Theo sits down in my father’s chair, his hands flying across the keyboard. All kinds of code scrawls across the screen, lines and lines of symbols that I have no hope of understanding. My father stands behind him, watching the screen as intently as Theo. Every once in a while one or the other throws out a comment, but it might as well be Greek to Eli and me.

  Long hours pass and Theo doesn’t move from the chair, his fingers flying faster and faster over the computer keys. I feed him, take a shower, explore my father’s cabin and the world directly outside it. Feed Theo some more. Watch him and my father work. Play tic-tac-toe with Eli. Take a walk.

  I finally fall asleep around midnight. I’m sitting in one of the recliners in front of the fireplace, and everything that’s happened these last few days catches up with me. If you’d told me a week ago that I’d be able to sleep with the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation hanging over my head, I would have called you a liar. But sitting here, knowing that the fate of the world is no longer in my father’s hands—it’s in Theo’s—makes it so much easier to believe that things are going to be okay. When my eyes start to close, I let them.

  I wake up a few hours later to see Theo stoking the fire. “Did you do it? Did you find a way in?”

  “Not yet.” His voice is grim as he drops down beside me.

  “You’ll do it.” I scoot forward and press a hand to Theo’s cheek. He looks so tired, so worn down, yet so much like a warrior, with his bruised face and battered body. Not to mention the bad-ass gleam in his eyes that tells me he’s determined to run this thing down. It’s hard for me to imagine I once thought he was crazy.

  He closes his eyes at the first touch of my fingers. He doesn’t move away, so I trace one of the many cuts that still decorate his dark-angel face. He pulls in a sharp breath and I yank my hand away. “I’m sorry. Does it still hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” I put my hand back, lightly brush my fingers over the bruise on his high cheekbone, then move down his strong jaw to the cut on his chin, and over the small slices from falling debris that decorate his cheek. So many different injuries. So many different times he didn’t back down when an average guy would have.

  I pause at his full lower lip, then sweep my finger over the scrape there, toying with it. He looks at me again, and this time his eyes are so dark that I can’t distinguish his pupil from his iris.

  I know I’m playing with fire right now, know I should take my hand away just as I know that I’m not going to. I can’t help myself, don’t want to help myself. For days I’ve sat by and watched while Theo stayed cool and calm and in control, no matter what happened. I’ve watched him get beat up for me, shot for me, seen him do things that only someone incredibly brave or incredibly stupid would do, again and again and again.

  It’s hard to forget all of that, hard to think that it didn’t mean something to him. Because it meant something to me, means something to me still as he continues to battle to save the world. I’ve never kissed Theo, but sitting here, touching him as dawn streaks across the sky, feels a million times more intimate than anything I’ve ever done before.

  Then Theo stands up abruptly, pulls me outside. My dad and Eli are asleep, but I understand his need for privacy. I feel the same way. Out here, as red and purple and orange make their way across the early morning sky, I don’t want to think about everything that’s waiting for us, all the responsibility we still have to carry. I just want Theo to kiss me.

  It’s cold out, the wind harsh, but I barely feel it as Theo presses me back against the house. His arms come around me and he holds me to him, his chin resting on the top of my hair. “This isn’t the right time,” he tells me.

  “I know.”

  “Everything’s messed up, confused.”

  “It is.”

  He smiles against my hair. “You don’t care, do you?”

  “Not really. Not anymore.”

  “I really like you, Pandora. I don’t want to make a mistake with you.”

  “Life’s full of mistakes, Theo. And if you don’t kiss me now, when are you going to? We’re almost out of time.”

  “I won’t let us run out of time.”

  I think about everything we’ve been through, everything he still has to do to end this nightmare. “Promise?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer. Instead he puts a finger under my chin, tilts my face up until I’m looking him in the eye. Then he lowers his mouth to mine. And I was right. I’ve never, ever felt anything like it.

  It’s fireworks after a baseball game, a cool dip in the pool on a sweltering, summer day. Front-row seats at a kick-ass concert.

  It’s the sweetest melody I’ve ever heard, playing in my head over and over. I don’t ever want it to end.

  I press myself against him, wrap my arms around him, and tangle my fingers in the cool silkiness of his too-long hair. The hair that should have been a tip-off about who he really was all along.

  His arms harden around me, his hands clenching at my back as his lips move gently against mine. His tongue comes out, traces my lower lip, and I gasp at the sweetness of it.

  Theo laughs a little, and then he’s kissing me, really kissing me, his tongue sliding against mine as rockets—forget the fireworks—launch all around us.

  I laugh, too, even as I draw him deeper. He tastes like spicy cinnamon and smooth, sweet caramel. He tastes like hope, which I need more now than I ever have before.

  We’re both breathing hard and he starts to pull away, but I stand on my tiptoes, yank his mouth back to mine. I’m not giving this up—not giving him up—at least, not yet. I want to hold him to me a little longer, to take his light inside me until it burns so brightly that nothing diminishes it, not even this nightmare we’re both locked into.

  It’s Theo’s turn to gasp, and then he’s kissing me everywhere—his lips traveling over my cheek to the ticklish spot behind my ear.

  Down my neck to the hollow of my throat.

  Across my eyes to my temples and back over my jaw to my lips again.

  I don’t know how long we stand there, kissing and touching and murmuring to each other, but when he finally pulls away, his lips are swollen and the dazzling colors of the morning sky have faded to blue.

  “We need to go in,” he whispers.

  “I know.” I fight the urge to beg for just a little more time.

  “You know, no matter what happens, we’re going to have to call someone. Your dad—”

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He made his choices. He deserves to go to jail. No matter how good his agenda was, no matter how much he wanted to help, this isn’t the way.”

  Theo nods, then leans down and kisses me one more time. I cling to him, cling to this one perfect moment before letting him go. He takes my hand and we walk back inside.

  Eli’s sitting on the couch, reading. He looks up with a smile that quickly clouds over when he sees my fingers twined with Theo’s. He doesn’t say anything, though. For long seconds, none of us do. We just stand there, absorbing this
newest shock wave to rip through our world. It’s so much less, yet so much more, than the ones that have come before it.

  Finally, Theo walks over to the computer and starts to work. I head into the kitchen to find something for breakfast, and Eli … Eli heads outside without another word.

  I follow him, the cabin door slamming behind me like a gunshot. I expect Eli to be sitting on the porch, but he’s not there. Instead, he’s halfway across the meadow, running like the demons of hell are after him.

  I don’t stop to think, don’t try to figure out what I want to say. I just take off after him. He’s faster than I am, though. Has more stamina, especially after everything we’ve been through the last few days. I finally get a stitch in my side and have to pause as I struggle for breath.

  I expect him to keep going, but a few seconds later, he circles back. Drops onto the ground at my feet. And smiles up at me—that same charming grin I used to see before I got to know the real him. It hurts a little to see it now, to realize he’s using it as a form of self-protection—against me.

  I sit down beside him, but don’t touch him. For a long time, I don’t say anything and neither does he. We just sit there, staring out at the horizon. Finally, he comments, “You and Theo, huh?”

  I nod. “Pretty much.”

  “You know he’s a mess, right? His dad’s death really screwed him up.”

  “Yeah, because the two of us are such pictures of mental health.”

  He laughs, drapes an arm over my shoulder. “It was worth a shot.”

  “Give me a break. If things were normal, you’d be so blinded by your harem that you wouldn’t even know I existed.”

  “Sure I would.” He reaches over and plays with a strand of my still-brown hair. “None of my harem had purple hair, after all.”

  “Well, there is that.”

  “Anyway, normal is highly overrated.”

  “I don’t know.” I lay my head on his shoulder, watch as a flock of birds takes off, flying in some preordained formation as they fill the sky. In no way disrupted by the nightmare that has all of mankind in its grip. “I kind of miss normal.”