Bad News

by Pseudonymous Bosch

  Cass looked from the dragon to Clay. “You’re sure you know how to handle these creatures? Better to tell me now…”

  “I’m sure.” Clay avoided her gaze.

  The dragon had bent its head and started licking its wings. Grooming itself.

  “If you say so,” said Cass. “Looks like what we really need is some dragon catnip.”

  As soon as they were safely past the white posts, Clay tugged on Cass’s arm and they hurried toward the tower. When they got to the ladder, they glanced around—they seemed to be alone—and started climbing.

  Clay pushed opened the hatch door, and they pulled themselves into the room at the top of the tower. Cass took in the banks of computers and the beeping, blinking radar. Then she stepped to the window to observe the green dragon, now stretching out in a patch of sunlight.

  “Okay,” said Cass. “As soon as you turn the dome off, we’re going to have to move fast. We slide down the side of the ladder like it’s a fire pole, then jump right onto that dragon.”

  Clay nodded uncomfortably. There was no sense saying that they wouldn’t be able to jump onto a dragon like that. They would just have to try.

  His hand hovered over a big red button beneath the digital map tracking the dragons’ movements. “I think it’s this one.”

  “Well, press it.”

  Taking a breath, Clay put his forefinger on the button and pushed.

  “It doesn’t go down.”

  “Maybe you have to unlock that first,” said Cass, pointing to a small keyhole.

  Clay pulled Gyorg’s key ring from his pocket. He tried a few keys until he found one that fit.

  Just as Clay’s hand hovered over the red button again, Cass tensed. “What was that sound? The dragon?”

  “Actually, it was a car,” said a voice. “Parking.”

  Clay quickly tucked the key ring under his waistband. Then turned around to see Gyorg pointing some kind of rifle at them.

  “This is tranquilizer gun,” said Gyorg. “It will not kill you. But it will put you to sleep. And then when I push you out, there is very good chance you will die from fall.” He motioned to the open hatch door at his feet. “Or you climb down. You choose.”

  Ms. Mauvais was waiting for them at the bottom with an expression of mild interest. Behind her, looking exceptionally smug, was Charles.

  “Well, well,” Charles said. “What have we here, Austin?”

  “Austin?” Cass repeated.

  Clay nodded, trying to convey with his eyes that she should play along.

  “I told you he was with the opposing team,” Charles said to Ms. Mauvais. “Or should I say the other side.”

  Clay’s stomach lurched. He’d had a feeling Charles was onto him.

  “No, he’s not,” said Cass quickly. “He’s not on any side. I just met him.”

  “Somebody left the padlock open and dangling,” Clay jumped in, “and I… decided to look inside.”

  Ms. Mauvais regarded him with undisguised skepticism. “Left it open, you say? How careless.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” said Cass. “So anyway, he found me inside and took pity on me. Some people are like that. It’s called compassion. Let him go.”

  “Oh, you know me better than that, Cassandra,” said Ms. Mauvais scornfully. “I don’t let people go.” She made it sound like a silly new dance she would never try.

  She turned to Clay. “It seems I was wrong to hope your father would continue investing in our little project here. But perhaps you will be valuable in any case—as a hostage. Now turn out your pockets so we know you’re not hiding any keys in there.”

  His heart beating uncontrollably, Clay did as he was told. Luckily, he hadn’t had time to move the keys from his underwear to his pockets.

  Ms. Mauvais nodded curtly, then snapped her fingers. “Gyorg—”

  Gyorg reached for Clay. Clay jerked away, and Gyorg wound up pulling the hat off Clay’s head.

  “No!” Clay shouted before he shut his mouth. They were taking away his link to Leira and Brett and all of Earth Ranch, but he couldn’t risk letting them know that. “Hat head,” he said in response to Ms. Mauvais’s raised brow.

  “You’ve got a lot more to worry about than hat head, young man,” Ms. Mauvais said.

  She turned toward a waiting Land Rover. “Put that riffraff somewhere, Gyorg. I’ll deal with them later.”

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  THE VISION IN THE TOILET

  Meanwhile, back on the ranch…

  Jonah, dude, you okay?” asked Pablo.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’ve been in there for two hours. People are getting worried, man.”

  “I said I’m fine. Go away.”

  “Plus, you know, they need to go. You’re not the only guy in camp who has bodily functions to take care of.”

  “Tell them to find a tree.”

  “Let me talk to him,” said Kwan.

  They were standing in line in front of every camper’s favorite outhouse. Favorite because it was isolated on a hill and therefore more private than the others (usually). Also because it had no roof and therefore was not smelly and even had a bit of a view.

  “Jonah, if you can’t pinch a loaf in two hours, it ain’t happening,” said Kwan. “So pull up your pants, open the door, and get your plugged-up butt over to Puke Yurt. Nurse Cora will give you something that will straighten you out in no time.”

  “And if she can’t, I’ve got more of that exploding gum I made,” said Pablo. “That might help.”

  “You guys are disgusting,” said Jonah from the other side of the door. “And, FYI, I’m not trying to poop, okay?”

  His friends looked at each other. “You’re not?”

  Leira and Brett walked up.

  “I think he’s worried about Clay,” whispered Leira. She held up the conch shell walkie-talkie. “We told him the phone line went dead.”

  “He’s probably crying in there,” Brett mouthed. “But don’t say anything, okay?”

  “Jonah, are you crying in there?” asked Pablo loudly, grinning at the others. “Brett thinks you are.”

  Brett rolled his eyes.

  “We don’t care—you can cry in front of us,” said Kwan. “There’s no shame in that.”

  “Yeah, just man up and own those tears, bro!” said Pablo.

  “Anyway, it’s just us. It’s not like there’s”—Kwan looked down the line and counted—“ten kids waiting to use the toilet or anything.”

  “Okay,” said Jonah. “You really want so badly to know what I’m doing, come in and see for yourself.”

  “No, that’s okay, some other time,” said Kwan quickly.

  “Yeah, man, your business… is your business,” said Pablo.

  The door opened, and Jonah beckoned them inside. He was standing up and fully dressed.

  “No, please, come on in,” said Jonah. “I insist.”

  Reluctantly, his friends all squeezed inside.

  “Well, this is cozy,” said Brett cheerily. “Thanks for inviting us in.”

  “Look—” Jonah pointed to the toilet.

  “Do we have to?” said Leira.

  “Yep.”

  Jonah’s four guests looked into the toilet and were relieved to see nothing except water.

  “So what are we looking for?” asked Brett. “Just out of curiosity.”

  “You don’t see any swirling shapes?”

  “Not really.”

  “Or, like, sparkles or shimmers?”

  “Nope.”

  “I guess that’s ’cause you guys don’t have second sight.” Jonah pushed his friends out of the way and looked down at the toilet himself. “I didn’t want to say, because it’s kinda embarrassing, but this is where I have my best visions.”

  Leira laughed. “Oh, so you weren’t crying in the toilet. You were—”

  “Scrying, yeah. And it’s not a joke,” said Jonah. “I’ve been trying to see what’s happening wi
th Clay, but he’s half a world away, and I’ve never been there, and that makes it harder.…”*

  Then Jonah leaned farther in. “Wait, I think I’m seeing something!” he said excitedly.

  “Is it yellow or brown?” Pablo snickered.

  “Shut up, I’m serious.”

  The water in the toilet bowl, which had been reflecting the clear blue sky, now seemed to darken.

  Jonah peered in, trying to discern what the darkening gray blob in the water could be. “I think that might be the body of an animal, and those—could those be wings?”

  The others gasped as the vision in the toilet bowl suddenly became clear.

  “It’s a dragon!” Jonah shouted. “But what’s happening? Is it attacking Clay?”

  Heart in his throat, Jonah concentrated still harder on what the toilet bowl was showing him. The dragon’s features became clearer and clearer, and closer and closer, as if it were coming right at Jonah. “It’s getting bigger, and it looks vicious!” he shouted.

  Leira tapped him on his shoulder, but he ignored her.

  “Where is it?” he asked frantically, still staring at the water. “Where’s it going? Has it already attacked him? Clay, can you hear me, buddy?”

  The shoulder tapping turned to shaking.

  Finally, Jonah leaned back. “What do you want?! There’s a dragon out there somewhere, and I think it might be eating Clay!”

  “There’s a dragon, all right, but it’s nowhere near Clay,” said Leira.

  “Huh?”

  “That wasn’t a vision you saw. It was a reflection.”

  Jonah glanced around; his friends’ faces were all turned upward, their necks craned.

  “Oh, wow,” he said when he finally saw what they were seeing. “Sure looked smaller in the toilet.”

  Swooping low over the island, like a great eagle returning to its nest, was a dragon—the dragon known as Ariella.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  THE PRISONER IN THE SILO II

  It’s the principle of the thing,” Cass said, shaking her head at the patch of freshly trampled dirt. “Do you know how hard I worked getting those seeds to sprout?”

  Cass walked over to the door, where a security guard was now posted twenty-four hours a day. She and Clay wouldn’t be able to sneeze without Ms. Mauvais knowing about it.

  “Did you even wait to apprehend us before destroying my garden?” Cass shouted at the door. “Strange set of priorities, if you ask me!”

  I could say the same to you, Clay thought, but he didn’t say so aloud.

  He sat against the wall, slumped down with his chin on his knees. He wished Cass would stop yelling so he could be miserable in silence. He had failed—totally, utterly, no-bones-about-it failed. No, it was worse than that. What was it called when you double down on failure? Instead of rescuing Cass, he’d been thrown into jail with her; there were now two prisoners rather than one.

  All they could do was sit and wait… for what? Who would come save them? Owen and the Earth Ranch crew were grounded, thanks to the volcano’s appetite for seaplanes, and who else was there? Max-Ernest? Yeah, right, Clay thought. Fat chance.

  Cass stopped pacing and looked at Clay, as if noticing him for the first time. “Clay? I hope you’re not just sitting there moping,” she said sternly.

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Things could be much worse.”

  “Worse?” Clay said, exasperated. “How?”

  Cass shrugged. “We could be trapped in here with one of those dragons. Or they could be torturing us for information. Or we could be shipped off to some supersecret Midnight Sun prison in Antarctica.…”

  “Okay! I didn’t actually want examples,” Clay said. “I just can’t believe I messed this up so badly.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. It’s very self-indulgent.”

  “Thanks,” said Clay sarcastically. “That makes me feel a lot better.”

  Cass seemed like she was about to lecture him some more, then stopped herself and sat down next to Clay. “Look. Back in the day, your brother and I got in much worse scrapes, and we always got through it.”

  That was the last thing Clay wanted to hear about. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “My brother never would have screwed things up so bad. And I’m sure if he was here, he would tell me all about it.” He paused. “If he talked to me at all.”

  “Uh, excuse me?” Cass said, leaning back to look at Clay. “Max-Ernest screwed things up plenty of times, believe me. And let’s face it: He has a lot of faults, but not talking has never been one of them.”

  “Oh yeah?” Clay scoffed. “The last time I saw him, the only time he visited in two years, he talked a lot, sure—to you, on the phone. But he only talked to me for a minute, and that was about what kind of helmet I should wear when I skateboard. I don’t think safety lectures really count as quality time.”

  Cass looked at him with what for her passed as sympathy. “You know what he was talking to me about that day?” she asked.

  Clay shook his head.

  “He was trying to convince me not to come here alone.” She glanced around their silo prison. “And, in hindsight, he had some good points.”

  “Okay, so he doesn’t even convince you not to go on a suicide mission—sorry, it’s true—and then the minute he gets off the phone he runs off to Mexico with that Anthony dude. He barely said good-bye.”

  “Well, he and Anthony had to go talk to this man named Perry about the Keep.”

  “Perry? You mean Brett’s father. The guy who kidnapped Ariella for the Midnight Sun.”

  “Well, whatever he did in the past, he’s a broken man now. The Midnight Sun beat him up and left him on the side of the road in Baja. More or less.”

  “He deserves it,” said Clay, remembering the moment when Brett’s father left him and Brett under the volcano to die.

  “Maybe so… Your brother and Anthony didn’t get anything useful out of him, but they had to try.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m sure they enjoyed themselves. It was their first trip together and all.”

  Clay looked at her askance. “Wait—you don’t mean together together?”

  “Oh, you didn’t know?” Cass asked, flustered.

  Clay shook his head.

  Cass could see the wheels turning inside him. “Are you surprised that he’s with a guy?”

  Shrugging, Clay considered this. “I guess I’m surprised he’s with anyone at all.…”

  Cass smiled. “I know what you mean. Max-Ernest isn’t exactly the dating type.” She nudged Clay with her shoulder. “That’s why we should be happy for him, right?”

  “I guess so,” said Clay, not entirely convinced.

  “But maybe a little sorry for Anthony,” Cass joked.

  “Yeah, heh…” Clay chuckled. “I hope he likes puns. Like, a lot.”

  (I’m afraid I don’t see the humor here.)

  “At least he’ll get chocolate,” Cass reflected.

  “What about you?” Clay asked. “Weren’t you with Yo-Yoji?”

  Cass threw her head back and laughed so loud it echoed in the silo. “Oh that was a long time ago! Yo-Yoji has had a lot of girlfriends since then. Comes with the territory, traveling the world as a DJ. You know he’s designing his own product line now? It started with headphones. Now there are phone cases, sneakers, sunglasses…” Cass shook her head, lost in some memory. “I’m counting on him to start funding the Terces Society.

  “And you?” she asked. “You seem a little more… advanced than Max-Ernest and I were when we were your age.… Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “Er, no, but…” Clay could feel his face turning red. He was grateful for the darkness.

  “There’s a girl you like?”

  “Sorta.” Clay avoided meeting Cass’s eyes.

  “She has a boyfriend?”

  “I don’t think so.…”

  Just then there was a loud tinny banging sound from above, and t
hen an echoing caw.

  Clay looked up in surprise. Satya’s falcon, Hero, was swooping down from an air vent with something hanging from her beak.

  “She has a bird, though,” he said, staring.

  “That one?”

  “Yep—ow!”

  Hero landed on Clay’s shoulder, digging her claws in, and dropped Clay’s ski hat into his lap.

  “Thanks,” said Clay to Hero as calmly as he could.

  The falcon bowed her head in acknowledgment. Then, job done, she lifted off and flew back up and out of the vent, leaving Clay rubbing his shoulder.

  Inside the hat, there was a folded-up piece of paper.

  Cass raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s one way to send a love note.”

  Blushing even harder, Clay opened it. Satya had scrawled a few words in pencil:

  Be ready in five—

  Reading over Clay’s shoulder, Cass smiled. “Hmm, I think I like this girl.”

  They were waiting right beside the door, when Satya stepped into the silo, leaving the door cracked open behind her. Hero was sitting on her arm.

  “You guys ready?”

  Clay nodded, his ski hat now back on his head. “What happened to the guard?”

  Satya grinned and held up a walkie-talkie. “I used my dad’s walkie to call him off. But he won’t be gone long. We have about three minutes to get out of here, tops.” She looked at Cass. “I’m Satya, by the way.”

  “Cass. And thanks,” said Cass.

  “Yeah, thanks. This is so… awesome of you.…” After his confessional conversation with Cass, Clay was having a hard time looking Satya in the eye.

  He made for the door, but Satya pressed a hand to his chest.

  “Wait—first I want to know who you are. Really.”

  “I wanted to tell you,” said Clay eagerly, “but—”

  Cass clasped them both by the shoulder. “I don’t want to ruin the moment, but can we do this later?”

  “Sure.” Satya nodded and pushed open the door.

  “Clay! My name is Clay!” Clay said as the three dashed outside.