Burning Midnight

by Will McIntosh

  “Is that how you know where spheres are hiding?” Mom asked. “Because it’s telling you?”

  Hunter considered. “More like it’s showing me.” She picked up one of the spheres they’d found—an Auburn. “Can we get Dom and Mandy over here? I want them to see I didn’t cheat them.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Sully parked Mom’s station wagon in the Yonkers High parking lot and ducked down so no one passing by would see he wasn’t getting out of the car. He watched for Dom’s Camry.

  This would be his fifth consecutive day of missing school. He wasn’t exactly a stellar student; it was going to be hard to catch up when he went back on Monday. If he went back on Monday.

  Drop out. Holliday’s words echoed in his head. Those who can’t do, learn. Maybe it wasn’t the worst advice in the world, given the situation. He and Hunter could spend all day harvesting spheres.

  It was still hard to grasp that there was no need to hunt, that they could just drive around and pluck the spheres from their hiding places.

  Mom would not be happy if he dropped out, though. Maybe if he had Dom’s parents it would be easier to ignore what they wanted, but Sully had a wonderful mom, and he hated to repay her by dropping out when trying hard in school was one of the few things she asked of him.

  Dom’s Camry pulled into the lot, a plume of black smoke in its wake. It was amazing the thing had taken them to Mexico and back.

  Watching in his side mirror, Sully waited for Dom to draw close, then rolled down the window. “Dom.”

  Dom looked his way. Sully motioned at the passenger door. “Get in.”

  As Dom slid in, he gave Sully a dark look. “We’ve been friends our whole lives. You meet a girl, and suddenly you’re on her side.” He squeezed his eyes closed, lifted his hand and made a fist. “Millions of dollars, Sully. Millions. And it’s all gone. I can’t just forget that and move on like it never happened.”

  Sully pulled out and headed toward Rockland Avenue. “I didn’t take her side because I like her. I took it because she was right. Holliday and his goon were coming through the door. Holliday would have taken them, and we would have had nothing. I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”

  Dom sprang forward in his seat. “We ended up with nothing anyway. Unless you count Hunter having gold skin and going crazy as something. Besides, you took her side before they broke down the door.”

  “No I didn’t. I said we needed to keep our options open. You were the one who was saying Hunter’s idea was off the table.”

  “That’s because it was a bad idea.”

  Sully pulled up to a stop sign. He looked at Dom and smiled.

  “What?” Dom said. “You think there’s something funny about this?”

  “Yes. But I know something you don’t.”

  Dom studied his face. “What’s that?”

  Sully drove on. “You’ll see. I promised not to tell. Call Mandy. See if she can sneak out of school.”

  —

  Sully turned the knob, motioned for Dom to go first, then pushed the door open.

  There were spheres all over. Almost a hundred of them. Mom hoisted a milk crate of Lemon Yellows and Lavenders. She was sorting them by color.

  “Holy—” Dom said, taking it in. “Where did you get these?”

  Hunter appeared from the kitchen carrying a glass of Coke. “I told you I’d make it up to you.”

  “I don’t understand. Where did they come from?”

  “Hunter knows exactly where spheres are hidden. That’s the power the Golds gave her,” Sully said.

  Dom clutched his heart. “You’re serious? Oh, my God.” He ran to Hunter and hugged her, then ran to Sully and hugged him.

  “Where’s mine?” Mom asked, opening her arms. Dom ran over and hugged her as well.

  “Except that’s not exactly the power they gave me,” Hunter said. “At least, that’s not what it’s meant to be. It’s a side effect.”

  “A side effect?” Dom looked around and spotted their best finds lined up on the couch: Sky Blue (sense of humor, rarity four); Indigo (enhanced eyesight, rarity five); Periwinkle (good with numbers, rarity six); and good old Plum (erase memories, rarity six). “That’s some side effect. What’s the main effect?”

  “Mine is talking to me,” Hunter said.

  “Your what is talking to you?”

  Hunter shrugged. “Whatever they are. My alien, I guess.”

  Dom looked skeptical. “What’s it saying?”

  She took a sip of Coke. Her hands were shaking. “I’m still trying to figure that out, but I’m pretty sure it’s telling me I need to find the other Midnight Blue.”

  “There are only two?” Sully asked.

  Hunter nodded. “Two Midnight Blues. Two Golds.”

  That’s what Sully had figured. Now he knew for sure.

  “You know where it is?” Mom asked.

  Hunter nodded. “It wants me to burn the Midnight Blues. I don’t know how I can do that, since Holliday has the other one. And anyway, I don’t think I want to.” She closed her eyes, swallowed. “But it says if I do, something wonderful will happen. And not just for us.”

  It felt like something was crawling down Sully’s back. He was beginning to think they were in way over their heads.

  “Hunter, I’m scared,” Mom said, echoing his unease. “I think it’s time we tell the authorities what happened.”

  “That would be a mistake,” Hunter said.

  “Why? Why would it be a mistake?” Mom asked.

  Hunter shrugged. “I’m just telling you what it said.”

  Mom froze. “It can hear me?”

  “I guess so. Or maybe it’s hearing me think about what you said.”

  There was a knock on the door, which Sully had left open. Mandy was standing in the doorway, her hand still raised, gaping at the spheres all over the living room.

  Sully motioned her in, turned back to Hunter. “Do you know what the wonderful thing is? Is it a third wave?”

  She looked toward the ceiling, her lips moving silently. “Yes. But these will be bigger.”

  Mandy was looking from Hunter to Sully. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, let’s see,” Dom said, finger to his lips. “How do I summarize this? Hunter says she’s talking to the alien inside her. It told her where the other Midnight Blue is, and says if she burns the Midnight Blues something wonderful will happen.”

  Mandy absorbed this. “The alien inside her?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  Dom looked slightly stunned. “Do I believe something is talking to her?” He shrugged. “She turned gold. She can find marbles. I figure that earns her the benefit of the doubt.”

  “No, I mean, after what happened to her when she burned the Golds, do you believe something wonderful will happen if she burns the Midnight Blues?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sully said. “Holliday would never give us the Midnight Blue, so we’ll never know unless we find the other and sell it to him so he can burn them.”

  “Holliday can’t burn them,” Hunter said. “I’m the only one who can burn them.”

  Mom headed toward the kitchen. “That’s it. I’m calling the authorities.”

  “Whoa, hang on, Mrs. Sullivan,” Dom said.

  Sully beat her to her phone, which was sitting on the counter.

  Mom looked like she was going to cry. She held out her hand for the phone. “It’s too big, Sully. It’s too serious.”

  “We’re not getting both Midnight Blues, so nothing is going to happen,” Sully said. “Except we’re going to find a buttload of spheres, and we’re all going to be rich. Think about it: if they take Hunter away, no more spheres.”

  “Do I get a say in this?” Hunter padded into the kitchen in her socks.

  “Of course.” Sully slid an arm around her waist.

  Hunter fixed Sully’s mom with her luminous gaze. “Please don’t call anyone. We’re the ones w
ho found the Golds, so we’re the ones who get to use them. Not Holliday. Not the government. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s the rule.”

  “It sounds to me like the rules are changing.” Mandy was still in the living room, hands on her hips. “Since when can only one person burn a pair of spheres? I don’t like this.”

  Looking pained, Mom turned to Hunter. “Just don’t do anything without asking me first, okay?”

  “Sure,” Hunter said. “You got it.”

  Dom held up a canvas shopping bag he’d found in the living room. “Come on, I’m dying here. Let’s go find more marbles.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “Turn right up here,” Hunter called to Dom from the backseat. They turned down a stretch of road lined with cyclone fences and dotted with businesses: a concrete supplier, a cabinet factory, a transmission repair shop.

  “Here we go,” she said, pointing at a dirt driveway. The beat-up sign out front read DELL’S AUTO WRECKING AND SCRAP METAL.

  “I’ll go ask them for something so they don’t get suspicious,” Mandy said, heading for the office. It had taken some cajoling from Dom to get her to come. That she would miss out on retrieving a fortune in spheres if she didn’t tag along probably helped as well.

  “What are you going to ask them for?” Dom asked.

  “I don’t know. A carburetor for a 1994 Chrysler LeBaron.”

  Dom pointed at her. “Nice car. Convertible or hardtop?”

  “What do you think?” she called over her shoulder.

  Hunter led them through rows of junk vehicles at a jog, to the back of the football-field-sized space. She stopped by the back fence, in front of a school bus that was more rust brown than yellow, with no back wheels.

  “What are you seeing?” Sully asked. “What do they look like to you?”

  “It’s like an overlay. I see everything just the way I used to, but I also see what the Gold is seeing: the spheres are colors floating in space; the rest is just wedges of colored light that twist and angle. It doesn’t see the bus at all.”

  Trying to imagine what that would be like, Sully followed Hunter through the bus’s open door and gripped the bar at the top of the steps.

  The seats were piled with engine parts. Hunter went straight for the back, knelt beside the second-to-last seat, and dug around in the springs and padding under the seat.

  When she stood, she was holding a Mustard.

  High IQ. Rarity nine.

  Dom let out a whoop that came straight from his belly. He raced to the back of the bus. “Can I see it?”

  Hunter handed it to him.

  “Oh, my God.” Dom lifted the Mustard and kissed it. “We’re so rich. We’re so freaking rich.” He threw his arms around Hunter. “I’m so sorry I doubted you. You were so right, and I was totally wrong.”

  Hunter patted Dom’s back. “There’s more where that came from.”

  Dom spun, tossed the Mustard to Sully. “Think fast.”

  Sully snatched the sphere out of the air. He held it up, admiring it. A Mustard. He never thought he’d hold a Mustard. He stashed it in his pack.

  They followed Dom back to the car.

  “I don’t think we should sell them all,” Hunter said to Sully as Dom headed into the office to fetch Mandy. “We should burn some.”

  Sully was startled by the thought. He’d been thinking purely in terms of making money. “You said burning spheres meant taking living things inside you. I don’t know if I like that idea.” He’d already burned the Teals, though, so it was kind of a moot point. Still, after what had happened to Hunter, the things Mandy had said about there being no free lunch were making more sense.

  “I told you—they can survive in our world only if they’re inside us, hitching a ride in our brains. They’ve got a personal stake in us staying healthy and happy.”

  “Then why did the Golds make you flip out?”

  Bundled in her parka, Hunter raised one golden-bronze eyebrow. “Because it’s in my head, and I can feel it there, and it’s really weird. They’re using our brains, you know; they’re locked right into us. But they mean well, and it’s getting easier for me. I’m understanding it more and more.”

  How many people had burned spheres without anything bad happening? Something like two billion? Sully had always envied the kids who could speed-read, the track stars who’d burned Seafoam Greens.

  “There’s another Mustard maybe an hour from here,” Hunter said. “We can head in that direction, pick up others along the way.”

  Burn a pair of Mustards? The idea made Sully’s head spin. What were a pair of Mustards worth? But they already had an apartment full of spheres, and more on the way. As many as they wanted.

  “You can sense a Mustard from an hour away?” Sully asked, finally registering what Hunter had said.

  “It’s getting easier.”

  Dom and Mandy were laughing as they exited the office, Mandy carrying what looked to be a carburetor.

  “Hey, guys,” Hunter said. “We’re gonna burn some. In a few days me and Sully are gonna take a long trip, and we can use every edge we can get.”

  “Are you still talking about finding the Midnight Blue?” Mandy asked.

  Hunter nodded.

  Mandy put a hand on the Camry’s hood. “Look, if you’re going to find it so we can sell it, I’m all for that. But I don’t think we should screw around with burning these big ones anymore after we almost lost you.” She gestured at Sully’s backpack, where the Mustard was. “We can get all the marbles we want. Why risk screwing it up?”

  “I have to agree with Mandy on this one,” Dom said. “We’ve got a good thing going here. A great thing.”

  Hunter held up a finger. “You’re forgetting something. It’s not just the four of us in this.” She poked her chest. “The thing living inside me wants this. Bad. And it’s showing us where to find these marbles, not me.”

  Dom considered this.

  “Is it saying it’ll stop telling you where to find marbles if you don’t go after the Midnight Blue?” Mandy asked.

  Hunter shook her head. “Not exactly. It’s begging more than threatening.”

  On that note, they climbed into the Camry and headed toward the parkway.

  Sully had always known the explanation for the spheres’ appearance had to be something unbelievable, something that would change the world, but not knowing what it was had kept the strangeness from getting too overwhelming.

  When the spheres first appeared, it sent shock waves around the world. On TV, experts and pundits had debated where they came from all day. As the years went by, though, and no solid answers to the mystery materialized, everyone started taking the spheres’ existence for granted.

  Beside him, Hunter reached into the basket of commons they’d picked up along the way, plucked out two Tangerines, and pressed them to her forehead.

  Sully was about to ask why she’d just burned a couple of commons that did nothing but let you mimic sounds, when Hunter said, in a near-perfect impression of Dom, “Hey, there’s a Burger King. I could use a burger and fries.”

  Everyone laughed except Dom, who said, “Come on, that doesn’t sound anything like me,” as he pulled into the Burger King.

  —

  Sully reached over to Hunter’s hand resting on the seat and laced his fingers with hers. The contrast of his white fingers and her gold ones was mesmerizing.

  “Will you come with me to get the Midnight Blue?” Hunter asked, her voice low. Dom and Mandy were joking around up front.

  “Where is it?”

  She closed her eyes. “India, I think.”

  “India?” Sully couldn’t even find India on a map. “Are you sure we have to do this? Can we at least put if off for a year or two?”

  Hunter shook her head. “I can’t put this off.”

  The truth was, the Midnight Blue made Sully uneasy. There was almost no way Holliday was going to let them have the matching Midnight Blue, but what if he did? Mandy was ri
ght: burning the Gold had nearly driven Hunter crazy, and now she was going to try to burn the other oversized spheres? It was Russian roulette.

  “I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” he said.

  Hunter lifted their hands to her chin. “Please, Yonkers. I’m scared, but I know going after the Midnight Blue is the right thing to do. You said you loved me. Well, I love you, too. I don’t want to do this without you. I’m not sure I can do it without you.”

  Part of him wanted to put the brakes on, but another part wanted to keep going. There was no getting around it: his life was deeply intertwined with the spheres. He’d made a living off them, he’d discovered two of the rarest in existence, and now they were about to make him and his friends rich.

  He was worried about Hunter, but if she was sure she had to do this, and the spheres wanted it, Sully would stand by her. And them.

  “Okay. We’ve gone this far; let’s see it through to the end. Or at least as far as we can.”

  Hunter grinned, looking relieved. “Thank you.”

  She kissed him. Her words echoed in Sully’s ears as he kissed her back.

  Well, I love you, too.

  Hunter loved him. They were rich. Sully realized he’d never had a moment in his life that was so perfect.

  CHAPTER 29

  As the limo pulled up to the terminal, Sully was terrified that as soon as Hunter stepped into the line at the security checkpoint, she’d be whisked off by TSA officers. Maybe it wouldn’t take that long—maybe the first police officer who saw her would come running, gun in hand.

  “Ready?” Sully asked as the driver opened Hunter’s door.

  She took a deep breath, wiped her sweaty palms on her knees, and nodded. “Cool and badass, like it ain’t no big thing.” She definitely looked the part of a model, in heeled boots, black pants, and a black leather jacket that reached her knees. Her gold skin was brilliantly offset by the black outfit.

  A valet hurried over to take their bags as they climbed out of the limo and headed for first-class check-in. His heart in his throat, Sully forced a big smile and tried to act like there was nothing strange about his gold-skinned companion, like they flew all the time. The truth was, Sully had been on a plane exactly twice, both times to visit his grandma in Florida, and Hunter had never been in an airport in her life. Sully had walked her through the process from check-in to baggage claim, and they’d watched a YouTube video for newbie fliers, so she could pass for someone who flew all the time.