by Chris Weitz
And I think maybe it could have all been different, but of course it’s too late.
THERE ISN’T MUCH TIME TO MOURN. I look over the side, and thank God, I can’t see the sidewalk below. I know Rab is dead. I will cry later.
I get the football by its handle, pull it to safety. Chapel has dragged himself over the threshold from inside and is shouting, “We need the access codes!”
I look over Peter’s shoulder as he tears open the worn black briefcase. Inside is a satellite phone…
And an empty binder.
The launch codes are gone.
I fall to my knees. Now it’s time to cry.
DAMNED IF I’M NOT GOING TO be famous after all. I don’t mean, like, as “Saint Peter.” That’s just fame by association. That’s just famous for being famous.
I run to where Donna’s got the football. She’s crying about the missing launch codes. Apparently once Evan realized we’d win, he wasn’t going to let the world live past him.
Now my big fear is that if the biscuit—the little satphone thing with the link to the arsenal—is gone, there’s nothing we can do.
I find it intact, tucked into a pocket in the briefcase. Win!
I let them all wallow in despair for just the tiniest moment, I admit. Check out the lost and forlorn looks on their faces as they ponder the end of everything. So I can make my entrance.
Then I pull the paper from my pocket. The codes Brainbox dictated to me, out of his supernatural memory.
His last message to the world.
I hand them to Chapel, who seems to know exactly what they are. He parses through the list, looking for a particular sequence.
He takes the biscuit from my hand and starts punching in numbers with great care.
I realize that if I didn’t manage to write down the codes correctly, this isn’t going to work.
Same if Brainbox got it wrong. Or if he told me the wrong codes on purpose. Why would he do that? Maybe for a moment like this, to show his contempt and disillusionment.
Maybe his last message is a big raised middle finger. Maybe he was trolling all of us.
At last, with a surprisingly everyday sound, like a laundry machine announcing its cycle is done, the biscuit signals that the launch has been aborted.
Chapel closes the leather flap on the biscuit and sinks back down to the ground, his energy seemingly spent. And Donna and I get to work on his leg.
I’m gonna be famous for saving the world.
“Good work,” I say to Chapel.
He smiles.
“Now put your hands behind your back,” I say. “You’re under arrest.”
WE PUT OUT THE FIRES on the sixty-seventh floor. It seems like a good way to begin things.
Then we make our way back down to the world again, with Old Man Chapel as prisoner. The young world isn’t going to start with Brainbox’s murderer free. If Chapel can prove his good intentions, we’ll let him go.
The Ghosts and the freed girls are waiting at the bottom of the stairwell, even though I told them they should go once they’d finished sending us up. I ask them all their names—their real names.
Imani’s Slayer Queens have secured the Bazaar. She seems a little surprised to see us, but I think she’s pleased. I ask her if she’ll help figure out how we’re going to run things from now on. There’s an awful lot to organize. Negotiations with the Reconstruction Committee. Distribution of the Cure. Policing. Civil services. Food supplies. Contact with other survivors in distant cities.
Meanwhile, we look for someplace to rest. Me and Donna.
RAB’S SEND-OFF IS A VIKING funeral in Central Park, his body laid on top of branches in a rowboat floating in the Harlem Meer.
Chapel is already in negotiation with the Reconstruction, with Imani at his side, holding the satphone to his head. She’s smiling. It’s a nice smile.
Soon, technicians, builders, doctors, academics, workers from Syria and Iraq and West Africa will begin arriving, coming to help us rebuild.
I look around at the mourners. Kath and Theo are cute as heck. Maybe they’ll even straighten out their two little psycho kids.
And Peter. I remember when I asked him to come along on a little recce up to the public library. And he said he was down for it ’cause he needed to meet new people. Well, he did. He’s even got his own entourage. After all, he’s a celebrity now.
The smoke from Rab’s pyre joins the sky, where all the other fires expend themselves. Falcons wheel; dragonflies skim the surface of the water.
Myself, I wonder if Jeff and I can rebuild what we had. Can we go back to the moment on the boat, long ago, when we told each other how we felt? Or a morning in Washington Square, when we were just your average carefree post-apocalyptic teens? Or go even further back, to some point before the Sickness, before we lost so many people, and life held out a different promise?
No. But we can go ahead.
Night is coming. But then morning comes.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Alvina Ling, Jill Yeomans, Nikki Garcia, Farrin Jacobs, Bethany Strout, Kristina Aven, Nellie Kurtzman, Andrew Smith, Jennifer Corcoran, Victoria Stapleton, Melanie Chang, and everyone at LBYR who have made this such a happy experience for me. Also to Suzanne Gluck, David Lubliner, and David Wirtschafter of WME, as well as my redoubtable cousin and lawyer, Alex Kohner.
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
DONNA
JEFFERSON
EVAN
JEFFERSON
BRAINBOX
KATH
DONNA
KATH
DONNA
PETER
DONNA
PETER
RAB
DONNA
JEFFERSON
DONNA
PETER
IMANI
PETER
EVAN
JEFFERSON
PETER
DONNA
PETER
JEFFERSON
EVAN
KATH
DONNA
JEFFERSON
EVAN
PETER
DONNA
EVAN
DONNA
PETER
JEFFERSON
DONNA
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Chris Weitz
Cover art and 3-D type © 2016 by Michael-Paul Terranova
Flap texture and art by Shutterstock
Cover design by Marcie Lawrence
Cover © 2016 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
lb-teens.com
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Boo
k Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
First ebook edition: July 2016
ISBN 978-0-316-22635-6
E3-20160622-JV-PC
