by Chris Weitz
I look over at Kath. “It wasn’t worth it.”
“Oh, don’t,” says the Old Man. “So many have died. Don’t be sentimental. Believe me, if I had been unable to overcome my emotions…” He looks away now, lost in thought. He comes back. “I would not be here today.”
He takes a long drink of water, then picks up the syringe Brainbox gave him. I start involuntarily, but he holds it up to his own arm and smiles.
“Andrew’s a thoughtful soul. Thanks to your friend, I will soon be able to dispense with daily injections.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “How did you survive in the first place?”
“I have what they call a rare condition. Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome. One in fifty thousand. In almost all respects, it is a terrible affliction to suffer. Not only the physical symptoms…”
Again his mind seems to wander. Somewhere in the past, he is being attacked. “Do you know what it’s like, to be different that way? Do you know how people treat you?
“At any rate,” he says, “it was natural that I would pursue research in the field of hormones. And, as it turns out, it was natural that I would be resistant to the… the bug. Even so, I have to pump myself full of steroids to survive.” He holds up the syringe that Brainbox prepared for him. “The effect, as you can see, is physically unpleasant.” He gestures at the blotchy, paper-thin skin of his face. “Not to mention the fact that I have a difficult time processing cortisol. Stress hormones. I’m a nervous wreck.” He takes a swig of water. “Some days I don’t want to go on. But I do. For humanity. And thank God for that. If it were not for my survival… the world would end.”
He stares at me, wanting me to agree.
“I want to go home,” I say.
“Oh,” says the Old Man, “there’s no question of that. You have to stay here. You’re too important.”
“I want to go home.”
“This is your home now.”
He slips the needle into his vein and presses the plunger.
CHAPTER 38
I’M GOING FULL-ON Green Mile up in this bitch. Like, my new best friend is an ant.
I met her—I think it was yesterday? She was crawling along the seam of the floor and the wall opposite my cell door. She looked kind of busy, but I was like, “Whoa, girlfriend! Hang out for a while! Have a drop of water. Try a piece of protein bar. Tell me what’s doing back at the anthill.”
But after a while, she moved on. Not many visitors since. Just the swimming darkness and thousands of seconds on my hands.
Then the door swings open. The blond kid is there, and Brainbox is with him. It’s confusing because Brainbox is totally free? Like not tied up.
Blond Kid: “It’s time to get ill.” He taps a sawed-off bat against the wall.
Then Brainbox holds a Taser up to the kid’s neck and zaps him.
How did Brainbox get a Taser? Why didn’t the kid suspect him? What the hell is going on?
The kid is down on the floor, spasming, retching, and wetting himself all at once. Brainbox zaps him again.
Brainbox: “Come on. We need to get out of here. Something big is happening soon.”
Me: “What’s happening?”
Brainbox: “You’ll see.”
Me: “How do you know?”
Brainbox: “I heard it on my radio.”
Me: “Dude, there’s nobody on the radio.”
Brainbox: “Yes, there is.”
Me: “What?!” Like, what?!
Brainbox gives me a look that says There’s no time to explain now.
“Come on,” he says. “It’s over.”
CHAPTER 39
“THIS IS YOUR home now.”
The Old Man smiles.
Then a drop of blood oozes out of his nose. He wipes at it and looks at the red smear on his hand. He looks at the syringe Brainbox gave him. The syringe he just emptied into his veins.
His body tightens, as though his brain has ordered his entire body to clench every muscle at once.
I stand up. He tries to stand up, too, but he can’t.
CHAPTER 40
QUICKLY NOW, all ninja and stuff, we lock the door behind the kid spasming. Brainbox has his club and his keys.
Across the corridor is another cell. We open it and find Peter in there, half asleep against the far wall.
Brainbox: “Be quiet.”
Peter gets up quietly, squinting in the light of the corridor. Down the way, the video games and music are still going.
Peter: “Theo and Captain?”
Brainbox: “Past the games room.”
But at that moment, two of the Islanders come out. They stare, amazed, and duck back, raising the alarm.
Peter: “I’ve got this. Go find Jefferson and Kath.”
He charges toward the Islanders as they pour out of the games room.
CHAPTER 41
I LEAN OVER and grab his throat.
His neck is like a tree trunk. I worry that my hands might lose their purchase, but the ridges and valleys of his screaming tendons and the absolute dryness of his skin mean that they don’t slip.
His strength is terrible. He tears at my arms, scoring deep scratches that run with blood.
But, as the seconds go by, the air leaves him.
And finally he stops moving.
When I look up, Brainbox is at the door, with Donna at his side.
My first thought is to go to her and take her in my arms. But my hands are still frozen into claws; my blood and his blood are all over.
Peter bursts into the doorway, bruised and bloody himself. Captain and Theo trail behind him. They just have time to swing the metal door shut before the Islanders can get in.
CHAPTER 42
JEFFERSON IS ALIVE. I had prayed for this, to whoever was or wasn’t out there. I had bargained and negotiated and promised anything in return.
Guess I’ll be going to church. Guess I’ll cultivate a better attitude.
He’s leaning over the Old Man, who is very dead, his eyes all bulging. Judging by how Jefferson looks, he’s the one who did it.
Brainbox goes over to a table where Kath is lying.
Brainbox: “She’s gone,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
Jefferson straightens up and closes his eyes like he’s about to cry.
Kath, you bitch. You always have to steal the scene.
Peter is trying to keep the round handle of the big vault door from spinning. The Islanders are trying to turn it on the other side.
We all go to help him, grunting as we grab onto the handle with slippery hands.
No way out. No weapons.
This is the end.
CHAPTER 43
FOR A WHILE, there’s nothing but the sound of breathing as we struggle to keep the door locked.
Then, quietly at first, I begin to hear a regular, mechanical drumbeat: whup whup whup.
The handle of the door turns for us as the resistance drops off on the other side.
I risk a glance through the glass—and I see the Islanders turning away from the door.
The sound gets louder. WHUP WHUP WHUP.
And I realize that it’s the air being cleaved by blades.
That can’t be possible.
We let go, looking up to try to catch the noise—
WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP.
“I need to tell you,” says Brainbox. “They’re coming. I heard it on the radio.”
“The radio’s dead,” I say.
“No. Shortwave. Long distance. The signal bounces off the ionosphere.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say.
“Go and see,” says Brainbox.
So we open the door. The sound is louder now, deafening; you can’t speak over it. So we stop trying to.
By now the corridor is abandoned.
And in the forecourt of the building, the Islanders are standing, looking up at the heavens, their hair blown back.
I follow their eyes. This is not possible. Not unless everything we thought we knew
was wrong.
Not unless something has been hidden from us.
Then, in a moment, I see it all, and the truth takes my breath away. Brainbox fiddling with his radio. In the middle of the night, alone in his library, he switches to shortwave and hears the voices of the world that has survived skipping off the top of the sky. Alone, he listens. And keeps the secret.
I look over at Brainbox. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he says. He looks up at the sky.
He looks up and doesn’t seem surprised at all by what he sees.
It’s a helicopter. A swirling halo of black blades above a gray underbelly.
On the belly, a white star in a blue circle. A word: NAVY.
Leaning over the edge, a man—a man—thirty, forty years old? Who can tell anymore? A face in a thick, sealed helmet. He gestures for us to get out of the way.
I reach out and take Donna’s hand. She looks into my eyes, unsure.
Nearby on the ground, a teddy bear somebody dropped.
We stand together and look up at the old world as it arrives.
The grown-ups are back.
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I am grateful to Professor James Giordano, director of the Center for Neurotechnology Studies and Regents’ Fellow of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, for his advice on bioweapons and his patience with my slow understanding. Thanks also to the Science & Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences, for introducing me to Dr. Giordano. It needs to be stated that I took tremendous liberties with his good ideas and am entirely to blame for the resulting inaccuracies and inadequacies. My gratitude also goes to Alvina Ling, my editor at Little, Brown; and Suzanne Gluck, my book agent at William Morris Endeavor, for their kind guidance. Certain ideas regarding money, culture, and economics in David Graeber’s book Debt: The First 5,000 Years were very inspiring. I also wish to thank Mr. Reif Anderson, formerly of the Allen-Stevenson School, for insisting that his students write stories daily. Thank you to Ms. Genny Thomas and Ms. Leila Thomas for their assistance and encouragement. Lastly, I would like to thank the populace of Black Rock City, Nevada, for their stirring example of how life might be lived.
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
CHAPTER 1: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 2: DONNA
CHAPTER 3: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 4: DONNA
CHAPTER 5: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 6: DONNA
CHAPTER 7: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 8: DONNA
CHAPTER 9: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 10: DONNA
CHAPTER 11: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 12: DONNA
CHAPTER 13: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 14: DONNA
CHAPTER 15: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 16: DONNA
CHAPTER 17: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 18: DONNA
CHAPTER 19: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 20: DONNA
CHAPTER 21: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 22: DONNA
CHAPTER 23: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 24: DONNA
CHAPTER 25: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 26: DONNA
CHAPTER 27: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 28: DONNA
CHAPTER 29: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 30: DONNA
CHAPTER 31: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 32: DONNA
CHAPTER 33: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 34: DONNA
CHAPTER 35: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 36: DONNA
CHAPTER 37: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 38: DONNA
CHAPTER 39: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 40: DONNA
CHAPTER 41: JEFFERSON
CHAPTER 42: DONNA
CHAPTER 43: JEFFERSON
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 © 2014 by Chris Weitz
3-D type by Adam Swaab
Cover art © 2014 by Steve Stone
Cover 3-D type by Adam Swaab
Cover design by Neil Swaab
Cover © 2014 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
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Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book 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 2014
ISBN 978-0-316-22627-1
E3
For more about this book and author, visit Bookish.com.
