Pulse

by Patrick Carman

  She knew this wasn’t entirely true. She’d heard, from someone Clooger knew nothing about, that there had been activity in the building of potentially high importance.

  “I debriefed the survivor about two hours ago. James, a low-level, just recruited last month. I’d say he was rethinking his decision. He escaped out a window before the trouble started.”

  There had been some important people in the group, but James had not been one of them. He was of little use to her and certainly was not allowed to know where she was stationed.

  “That’s unfortunate,” she said, her mind already on other things. She had always been a calculating thinker, and she was smart enough to realize that the massacre was inevitable. She’d known it would come to this and, more importantly, that there would be many more casualties before it was over.

  She looked into Clooger’s battered face, thinking of the various Tablet networks she had control over. “Use G10; keep everyone calm. Let’s not end up with a revolt on our hands.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “And be careful about your business. Our situation is fragile.”

  As Clooger turned and stepped away, Meredith stared at the tattered eagle on the back of his trench coat. She wondered how many weapons he was carrying and of what kind. There was no way of knowing how many pockets lay hidden inside his coat, but she knew from experience that Clooger was a master of many war crafts. He knew a hundred different ways to kill a man and had the tools to accomplish them all.

  “It wasn’t my fault. It just . . . happened. It got crazy is all.”

  Wade Quinn was in an empty classroom staring into his Tablet. The only other person within earshot was Clara, who stood by the door watching for anyone who might walk down the long, empty corridor. She loved nothing more than seeing her brother in hot water, and this situation was boiling over a gas flame. She was all too happy to throw some grease on the fire.

  “He was with a girl,” Clara said, loving every second of where this was going. “I told him not to, but you know Wade. He can’t keep his hands off the ladies.”

  Wade took his eyes off his Tablet long enough to shoot his sister a cold stare, but it didn’t last long. A hand slammed down onto an unseen desk in the video feed. When Wade looked back, the face in the Tablet was not pleased.

  “I told you both to control yourselves, and you didn’t.”

  “Hey, whoa,” Clara said, moving over in front of the Tablet feed. “I had nothing to do with this. It was all Sasquatch here. This is on him.”

  “Shut up, Clara.”

  The command came from a female voice neither Wade nor Clara could see. She was on the other end of the Tablet feed, standing off camera. It was a voice they knew not to mess around with. “Go back to the door. Keep quiet.”

  Clara slunk away, staring bullets at her brother as she went.

  “Just a bunch of Drifters anyway,” Wade said under his breath, trying to make himself feel better. “Nobody’s gonna miss ’em.”

  “They’re more important than you think; I’ve told you that a thousand times. Did you kill them all?”

  Wade thought this was an odd question to ask until it crossed his mind that if there had been more than ten and one had ran away, this whole thing could come back to haunt him in a hurry. He decided it would be better to lie, then clean up the mess later if he had to.

  “It happened really fast. They jumped me, and I lost control; that’s it. Took maybe two minutes. But yeah, they were all dead when it was over.”

  The person on the video screen wasn’t so sure, but he let it go. “And you disposed of the bodies?”

  “God, this is so gross,” Clara said. She opened the door and walked out, leaving Wade to deal with the situation on his own. Wade started to yell at Clara, but the person on the Tablet stopped him.

  “Let her go. She’ll be fine if you give her some space.”

  Wade returned his gaze to the Tablet, trying his best to stay focused.

  “Yeah, I know where the bodies are buried. It was some work.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive. Drifters are dangerous and unpredictable.”

  “A plague on the earth,” the unseen female voice added. “I can’t say I mind fewer of them taking up space.”

  There was a pause as the man looked at Wade for a long moment. “Did you know what you were doing, or did it feel like something else was in control?”

  Wade didn’t want to answer the question. The Wire Code had made him more violent and alert. He’d never felt that powerful; and it really had happened very quickly, like a bolt of lightning, and it was over: dead bodies everywhere, Faith sitting in the cart shaking uncontrollably. He’d given her a second Wire Code so she’d block out everything. It was risky, especially for a first-timer, and he’d felt badly doing it. But he couldn’t let her remember what he’d done. Not an option.

  “They attacked; I went for it,” Wade said. “To be honest, it’s all kind of a blur. I don’t remember exactly.”

  The whole thing had been crazy, and while he thought Drifters were subhuman losers who were too stupid to live in the States, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that he’d actually put ten of them out of their misery.

  “Stay away from the girl,” the man in the video feed said. “It’s a distraction you don’t need right now. Get stronger, do the training, and be ready. I’m going to need you at your best.”

  The feed went dead, and Wade was pleased that the Wire Code hadn’t come up. He breathed deeply, like he’d been holding his breath during the conversation and finally he was allowed to get it all out and feel what he was really feeling.

  “Holy shit, Wade,” he said to himself. “You killed ten Drifters.”

  His emotions were all over the map. Part of him was amped at how incredibly powerful he was. Drifters were bad people: killers, thieves, con men. He’d had that drilled into his brain for years. He was thinking about taking on fifty, a hundred Drifters. Bring on the ninjas, send in the mixed martial arts champ; he’d take them all at once without breaking a sweat. Another part of him was struggling to make sense of what he’d let himself become. He didn’t feel like a guy who’d take out ten people in a matter of minutes without thinking twice, but that’s exactly what he’d done. He thought of Faith, and what she’d think of him if she knew. He liked her, and that was becoming a problem. It wasn’t in the plan, and Wade Quinn was all about the plan.

  All those thoughts were swirling around a more central one occupying a huge piece of real estate in his brain.

  Something was up with that Wire Code.

  Wade snapped his Tablet to small, put it in his back pocket, and went in search of an answer he could only get from one person.

  Hawk, you better shoot straight with me, he thought as he opened the door and started down the empty hallway. Otherwise you might be number eleven.

  “You realize what he’s done,” Andre said. Gretchen stood at his side, unmoving but clearly pleased. Talking to the twins always got her blood boiling.

  “He’s started a war,” she said. “I would have expected nothing less.”

  “It’s not the timing I would have chosen.”

  “The games are only a month away. We stick to the plan. This changes nothing. And you should encourage him more. He needs to get used to this. Ten Drifters was just the beginning for Wade.”

  “I don’t know. Meredith can be unpredictable. This may set her off.”

  “You worry too much. She’s only one person, and she’s surrounded by castoffs and fools. I think it’s good Wade did this; it shows how stupid she is. If she thinks Drifters will be of any help to her, Wade has made it clear they’re going to be useless in any kind of real confrontation. She’s running scared. Trust me.”

  Andre couldn’t look at his wife. She was striking in the meanest way he could imagine, a characteristic that had been enticing and powerfully attractive when they’d met. In situations such as this one though, he felt nervous about her energy.
She wanted power, lots of it, and as fast as it could be gotten. And there was something else, a thing that Andre understood all too well that Gretchen did not.

  Meredith was a lot more powerful than he was. If things got complicated, their hope rested with the twins. It was a risky bet he wished he didn’t have to rely on.

  “Where have you been?” Hawk hadn’t seen Faith for a week. She’d gone off grid, locked the door to her house, vanished.

  “I was sick. It happens.” Faith hadn’t felt right for days and decided to take her classes from home, give herself some time to regroup. It was allowed, and in some ways even encouraged, this idea of schooling on one’s own. Mr. Reichert and Miss Newhouse only asked that she check in every day with her Tablet, let them know she was getting her work done, staying out of trouble. It had taken six days to shake the headaches and the bouts of fever. She’d felt adrift, lost to the world, unable to reconnect.

  “You were already skinny enough,” Hawk said. He looked up at her face, which was bordering on gaunt. “You wanna hit the cafeteria? We have time, like fifteen minutes before the first bell.”

  They sat together eating pancakes and cold cereal, the only two things besides milk that were always available for breakfast at Old Park Hill. Ten or so other kids were there, too, scattered in little groups around the cafeteria, eyeing Faith like she’d come back from the dead.

  “Can I ask you something, Hawk?” Faith asked, slurping on a spoonful of wet cornflakes.

  “As long as you keep eating, you can ask anything you want.”

  Hawk was careful to look up every few seconds in case Wade or Clara appeared. He’d been dodging them like a secret agent for days, steering clear of any trouble.

  “What do you know about Wire Codes? I mean, are they dangerous or just fun?”

  Hawk’s throat went dry.

  “It’s okay; you don’t have to answer me. I thought maybe, you know, since you’re all techie and stuff, you’d know more than I do.”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Because I think I might have been given one without knowing about it.”

  Hawk started pouring syrup onto his totally uneaten pancake.

  “You’ve got a little lake forming there,” Faith said, pointing her spoon in the direction of Hawk’s plate. Hawk set down the syrup bottle and cut a corner of pancake free, stabbing it with his fork. He swirled it around in circles in the slop on his plate, which made him look like he was high or stupid or both.

  “Forget I asked,” Faith said, shaking her head and standing to leave.

  “No, it’s cool. Really, I just—well, I just hope you’re not in any trouble is all.”

  A kid Hawk’s size always had a certain level of paranoia, sort of like a Chihuahua trying to make a go of it in a family of four or five people without getting stepped on. But the pressure was definitely getting to him. Word in the halls was that Wade Quinn was looking for him; and whatever he wanted, it might involve rearranging Hawk’s face. And now Faith was asking questions he wasn’t sure how to answer.

  “How would I know if I’d been given a Wire Code?” Faith asked quietly, sitting back down and leaning over the table toward Hawk.

  “You’d know.”

  “How?” Faith asked. “Are there side effects? Like, is it possible I’d forget stuff?”

  “Maybe. The first time can be unpredictable. How much does it feel like you can’t remember?”

  Faith shifted in her seat uncomfortably. She hated talking about her symptoms even more than having to grovel for information.

  “Honestly? I can’t remember anything from the night with Wade. It’s a total loss.”

  Hawk understood more than he was saying. He knew the only way blank-slate memory loss occurred was if a person took a second Wire Code before the first one wore off. He also knew a dosage of that level, especially for a newbie, could cause irreparable brain damage. And there were other side effects, too.

  No wonder she hadn’t come to school for a week.

  “Have you had headaches, right here?” Hawk asked, touching the center of his forehead.

  “Yeah, feels like someone hit me with a hammer.”

  “Thirsty?”

  “Totally,” Faith said, and to prove it, she drank all the extra milk in her bowl and licked off the milk mustache.

  Hawk didn’t ask anything else, but Faith could tell she had her answer by the way all the color drained out of his face and he wouldn’t look at her.

  “So Wade gave me a Wire Code; you’re sure?”

  “I don’t know who gave it to you. But yeah, you had a Wire Code. No doubt.”

  Faith was angrier than she could remember ever being in her life. She wanted to find Wade Quinn and slap him across the face.

  “That’s what I thought,” Faith said. Her voice shook with frustration at what she’d let happen to her. “Why would Wade do that to me?”

  Hawk had a pretty good idea, but he didn’t think it would help the situation to tell Faith what it was.

  “I don’t know,” he chose to answer, because it was the only marginally safe thing to say. His stomach churned as he looked at the puddle of syrup on his plate. When he glanced up again, Faith had already left. Hawk couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that it was the second Wire Code in quick succession, not the first, that made a person lose their memory. He’d told the Quinns never to do that because it was risky. The things a person did after experiencing two Wire Codes could be unpredictable and at times violent.

  What was Wade Quinn trying to hide?

  Chapter 10

  The Smallest Guy in the Room

  Hawk found Wade before Faith did.

  “Why’d you do it?” Hawk asked. Wade was alone on the practice field, holding a metal handle attached to a four-foot-long chain. An iron ball, which was sitting in the grass, was attached to the end of the chain.

  “Busy here,” Wade said, not looking up as he swayed back and forth. “I’ll have to rearrange your face in a second.” The hammer throw was Clara’s best event, but Wade was having some trouble mastering it. Working with the hammer always put him in a bad mood.

  “My finger is hovering over a SEND button,” Hawk said, undeterred as he stood his ground a few feet away. “It’s not the kind of message you want going out.”

  Wade shifted his gaze from the iron ball in the grass to straight up the length of the long, rarely used football field. “You know how far it is to the other end?”

  Hawk felt a cool breeze blow against his shaggy hair, sending a chill through his body. “I can ruin you, Wade Quinn. Just tell me why you gave Faith two Wire Codes.”

  “It’s a hundred and twenty yards, long ways,” Wade said, staring back at the iron ball and tightening up the slack in the chain. He began to spin around in a circle, and the ball rose up in the air as he turned faster and faster. When he let the handle go he yelled, and the ball and chain ripped through the air like a rocket. Hawk couldn’t help backing up a step or two as he watched it sail wildly through the air and land somewhere near the other end of the football field.

  “Next time I’m going to throw that thing at you,” Wade said. He had moved silently within two feet of Hawk and yanked the Tablet out of his hand. Hawk knew he should run, but the idea of leaving his Tablet behind was more than he could deal with.

  “You were serious?” Wade asked dubiously. He stared at the Tablet screen and realized that Hawk was about to send a message to the authorities about Wade’s Wire Code usage. “You were really going to rat me out. Would have gotten yourself busted right along with me. Dude, you must be sick in love.”

  “Shut up, Wade.” Hawk surprised himself—his voice sounded so angry. “She was just a conquest for you; is that it?”

  Wade’s emotions were already fragile. He’d been unable to find Faith Daniels, and he needed to know how she was doing, because deep down he did like her more than he was willing to admit. This stupid kid had some bad dirt on him. And on top of all that, he couldn
’t quite shake the feeling that maybe there had been eleven, not ten, Drifters that night.

  “Our conversation is going to be a lot more useful if this thing isn’t distracting you,” Wade said. He whistled sharply, then held the Tablet over his head like a marker.

  “What are you doing, man? Seriously, give me back my Tablet. I won’t send it. Just leave her alone; that’s all I’m asking.”

  “You act like you’ve got some control here, sport,” Wade said, “That’s like a joke, right?”

  Hawk jumped up and down, practically climbing up the side of Wade’s leg trying to reach his Tablet. It wasn’t until Wade pushed him hard to the ground that Hawk heard the scream from the far end of the football field. He hadn’t seen Clara there before—she must have been standing off to the side—but she was there now. She was staring at the hammer that was flying through the air in Hawk’s general direction. If he could have made out her face, he would have seen that she was concentrating feverishly on the iron ball as it flew.

  “Sort of pisses me off,” Wade said casually. “She can really throw the hell out of that thing.”

  He held the Tablet out to Hawk, and Hawk thought for a brief instant that he might be able to get out of the situation unscathed. He reached out, already thinking about how stupid this had been and how fast he would run once he held the Tablet again. Just as his fingers touched the slippery glass, Wade pulled the Tablet away and flung it hard up in the air.

  “NO!” Hawk shouted. He was up on his feet in a flash, running under the Tablet as it kept rising skyward.

  If he’d been watching the hammer fly, he would have seen that it was about thirty feet from landing. He would have seen that as his Tablet was flying up in the air like a Frisbee, the hammer was changing course. It was turning to the right and rising, not falling. Hawk’s Tablet reached its apex, and all Hawk could think about was staying under it, catching it before it landed with a thud on the football field. Unfortunately for Hawk, when the Tablet was five feet from landing in his hands, the hammer smashed into it, trailed by the chain and the handle. The Tablet burst into glass and electric light, smashed into a thousand pieces as it showered Hawk with shrapnel.