by Shannon Hale
Something clamped my wrist. It was a massive metal cuff. I reached with my Fido hand to pull it off, and Dragon snapped a second cuff over my robotic wrist, both connected by a short, thick chain. I’d designed these cuffs but no longer remembered exactly how. Restrained, my left hand couldn’t reach to remove Fido and get free.
Dragon said something as he took a few steps back. Was he afraid that I would crush his skull? And would I?
I turned, looking for Wilder. There was a streak of blue and a sting on my lip. I smelled powder. Wilder was standing beside Mi-sun. He’d had her try to shoot a pill into my mouth. Something to knock me out? Something to kill me?
I pressed my lips shut and backed away.
Wilder approached, hands up again, talking. If I focused beyond my heartbeats, maybe I could hear him. I tried but heard instead the sound of the water below, like television static, crackling, angry, insistent.
We’re a team, I imagined Wilder saying, and I felt that stronger than my own heartbeat. But Ruth was dead, and Wilder had tried to drug me, and I wasn’t even sure who Maisie Danger Brown was anymore.
Wilder was still talking, Mi-sun was crying. I stepped to the edge of the deck.
The water spread out before me, calm, undemanding. The water looked like freedom. I wasn’t strong enough to run away from Wilder, but I was strong enough to fall.
So I fell.
Part Two
Runaways
Chapter 18
I hit the water like a bomb, knocked off my shoes, and kicked. My hands were chained, so my legs did all the work. The chilly water didn’t bother me, though I was intensely aware of it, every molecule of H2O brushing over my fingers and toes and the tiny hairs of my skin. The water felt hard to push against, but a good kind of hard. Satisfying, the speed liberating.
A helicopter clacked above me, spraying water. Didn’t Ruth bring down a helicopter? Maybe she didn’t mean to. Maybe I wouldn’t mean to either.
Wilder was calling to me with the megaphone, and I ached to give in. He was the thinker; I shouldn’t leave him, I wouldn’t be okay without—
Ruthless, her fist coming down on Duarte’s head. The memory shocked me like a live wire, and I dived under, burying myself and my thoughts with five meters of water. I kicked, leaving a trail of bubbles. Some time later I came up for a breath and spied the helicopter a ways off. They couldn’t find me. Pain bit at my heart, but I could take it. I went down again.
The whole world was blue, as if it had absorbed the sky. Currents rushed past me like wind, fish like birds darted over my head. I seemed to fly.
The next time I surfaced, the helicopter was out of sight. I fought the waves into shore, dragged myself onto an empty beach, and lay facedown on the sand. I wanted to be dead. I fantasized about a huge crane raising me into space and then dropping me. If I went home to Mom and Dad—Ruthless, her fist …
Although I could no longer remember exactly how the cuffs worked, I did recall worrying that Ruth might discover a certain weak spot. I hammered there with my heel and eventually the cuffs came free.
I heard voices on the beach and spooked, fleeing back into the water and swimming away. My speed and the strength was more than Fido could bear, so I tucked my Fido arm against my chest and swam on my left side. I sped, I zoomed. I gasped. I was getting even stronger.
Blind, I swam through the night. I was so hungry, my entire body throbbed like a wound, aching, aching, needing.
Dawn came like a seizure. I dived, trying to escape the sun, and stayed in the deep for twenty minutes at a time. I had no plan except the idea that I should get as far away from Wilder as I could. Thoughts came in slow, thick drips, the way cold honey pours. I didn’t seem able to think the truth—I’m too dangerous now, I can never go home—but the idea was there, burning. I swam away from it.
My muscles trembled, anxious for nourishment, and my bones creaked, demanding it. When I could no longer bear the pain, I crawled ashore, scavenging for food and finding nothing. I saw cars nearby, and I was terrified that if I got near people, I would do something horrible. I turned away from the cars and the sea, and I ran.
My bare feet were alert to everything I stepped on, from the jab of broken glass to sand grains on asphalt. I left the paved road, ripping through clots of dark vines that hung between trees like webs of massive spiders. A couple of times, I ran straight through a tree.
At an empty rest area, I gulped water out of the bathroom sink, went back outside and slumped on the ground next to the vending machine. I was so hungry, the world seemed to vibrate to the rhythm of my need—food, food, food …
My body trembled with tiny, hard shivers. I splayed my hand on the vending machine glass. I pressed. The glass cracked, making a web around the spider of my hand. It was beautiful. I knew there was a reason why I shouldn’t break the glass, but at the moment no reason made sense to me. I pressed harder. The glass clicked and groaned. I gripped a shattered edge and tore a hunk away. Exposed now were the neat, careful rows of candy bars, nuts, chips, granola bars, crackers, fruit leather.
I ate it all.
When the frenzy passed, I was sitting in a pile of broken glass and wrappers. I noticed the sound of a chittering bird in a tree nearby, the windy zoom of cars on the highway. Perhaps Ruth’s token hadn’t turned me into a mindless brute—perhaps my brain had just been too underfed to think clearly.
I picked up a shard of glass and tried to press it into my palm. I could feel the edge of the glass, but my skin didn’t cut. I pressed harder. The glass broke.
A car pulled off the highway toward the rest stop, and I stood and ran like a kid abandoning a broken cookie jar.
If I didn’t go home to my parents, I would either steal to live or starve to death. But if I did go home, would I hurt them?
Maybe I wouldn’t turn into Ruth. Maybe I could be careful. Even with Ruth’s blood on my hands, her volatile token in my chest, I knew my parents would welcome me. I closed my eyes, so grateful I thought I might cry.
With a thought, I activated the phone in Fido and dialed.
I was sobbing as I spoke. “Dad? Dad, can I come home?”
Chapter 19
Dad wired me money for a bus ticket and food. Mom and Dad drove south, I rode north, and we met at a bus station in the middle.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Mom hugged me and I held still, raising my hand to almost touch her back. I was mindful of what I could do to her with just a squeeze, and it made me feel sick beneath the constant hunger.
“¿Qué pasó?” she whispered, asking me what had happened.
I looked around the bus station. Some people were staring. My clothes were stiff with salt. I felt like garbage swept up with the tide.
Dad said, “Let’s talk in the car.”
On the long drive home, between bites of food, I told them everything. The Beanstalk ride and space, the techno token and Fido, the car crash and robot suit, Ruth’s death and the brute token, the fear and the long swim. I spoke until my tongue was sticky.
“Howell’s people haven’t figured out yet if the tokens are harming us or how to get them out, and I don’t think they’re going to.”
“So stay home,” Dad said, “and we go on as we always have.”
“They might come after me,” I said.
“Then we’ll deal with it,” said Mom.
How? Hours later when Dad turned onto our street, we still hadn’t come up with a plan. Everything looked so small—the bungalow houses, the rectangular front yards, the skinny road, as if since leaving I’d grown into a giant.
Luther was sitting on the front porch. He looked the same.
“You know what’s longer than three weeks?” Luther said when I got out of the car. “Six.”
“I haven’t gotten to advanced math yet, but I’ll take your word for it.”
“Well hello there, Luther,” Dad said in an overly casual tone. He pointed to Luther’s bike lying on the lawn. “You know why a bicycle ca
n’t stand up on its own? Because it’s two-tired.”
There was a pause. Dad turned to Mom and mumbled, “I thought it was funny.”
Luther’s gaze dropped to my right arm. “That’s not Ms. Pincher. Did you get a new one?”
Instinctively I curled my fingers into a ball, my wrist twisting, a gesture too intricate for a normal prosthetic.
“Whoa. What is that?” Luther whispered. He took in our startled faces, and his eyes narrowed. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I mean, I got a new prosthetic at astronaut boot camp. Whoever got the … the highest score on the final exams won a prize.”
“Frak, Maisie, in what universe can you win a robotic arm at summer camp?”
We’d decided to keep my change a secret, but Luther was too smart to fool. Mom and Dad gave me significant looks and left us alone on the front steps.
“Before I tell you what’s going on, make a guess,” I said.
Luther sighed, careful to look indulgent. “Bonnie Howell met you and said, ‘I can rebuild her. I have the technology.’”
“The truth is so much weirder than that.”
“Double good,” he said, plopping down on a step.
So I spilled—parts, anyway. I had Luther at “extraterrestrial nanorobots.”
“You have to keep this to yourself, Luthe.”
“Of course. My parental units are not like yours. They would so not be okay with my being shot into space and implanted with alien hardware.”
“So mum’s the word?”
“I hate that phrase, but yes, of course I’ll keep your secret. So are you going to go out on the mean streets and fight crime?”
“I’m going to take a shower. My hair smells like the fish department at Food 4 Less.”
“Maisie, you’re Luke Cage. You’re Wonder Woman. You have to be a superhero.”
“Shower,” I said as I went inside.
When I came out, clean and dressed, Luther was on the tablet, searching “police scanners.”
“Won’t work,” I said. “There’s no way we can get to a bank robbery or high-speed chase before the police.”
“In Gotham, Batman just stumbles onto crime,” said Luther. “Salt Lake is annoyingly tame.”
“I can’t get noticed,” I said, doing some pushups. My muscles were going crazy after the inactivity of the drive. “It’d be off to a government cage or the trophy case of a crazed supervillain. If you’ve read any comics you know.”
“Just how tough are you?” he asked, picking up a pair of scissors. I laughed derisively.
“Really?” he said.
I shrugged. “Go ahead.”
He stabbed my leg lightly. Then harder. I wasn’t numb. In fact, the brute token seemed to heighten sensitivity along with strength. But nothing broke my skin, though he did make a hole in my jeans.
“Hey!” I said.
I got bored with being stabbed, so I went into the kitchen in search of anything edible. There was a tug on my hair and a click.
I swirled around fast. Luther dropped the scissors and leaped back, hitting the wall. My heart sped.
“Don’t … okay?” I said. “Don’t do anything too close to me. Or surprise me. Don’t.”
His eyes went really big. He glanced at the door out, and I felt way more pain than being hammered at with a pair of shears.
“You won’t hurt me,” he said.
“You can’t be sure.”
I took a step back. He came closer.
“I’m sure.”
I nodded. “Okay. Okay, Luther.”
He nodded too, then held up a small lock of my hair. “And now we know that the nanites don’t care about protecting your hair.”
“Great.” I fingered the hole in my jeans. “Whatever purpose I was made for, apparently I can do it bald and naked.”
Luther turned red and quickly opened the fridge.
Seriously? Was he imagining me bald and naked? In retaliation I tried to imagine him bald and naked … and then quickly busied myself making a few cheese sandwiches.
Don’t do that again, Maisie. Ever.
Too late. My brain filled up with the image of Luther again, naked but not bald. How come it was easier to imagine him without clothes than without hair?
Stop it!
We ate and made rapid conversation that had nothing to do with nudity till Luther had to go home.
I stood by the door and watched him ride his bike away. It felt so normal having him around, like I was still just Maisie Brown, working with my study buddy. I wondered if I was happy now. I’d left home and come back changed. In a way, wasn’t that what I’d wanted?
My stomach squelched. I was probably just hungry because, hey, I hadn’t eaten in ten whole minutes. But the squelch seemed like fear.
I carefully shut the front door and locked it. The deadbolt felt cheap under my fingers. I wasn’t sure what I was locking the house against, but I suspected the act was useless. Something or someone would find its way in.
Chapter 20
I was awakened by hunger the next morning. Mom had gone grocery shopping and hard-boiled three dozen eggs. The increase to my skin’s sensitivity as well as my strength enabled me to walk without stomping through the floor, pick up a cup without cracking the glass, and peel an egg without damaging the white flesh.
“I’m coming into the kitchen,” Dad said, narrating his actions as my parents had begun to do around their brute daughter. He yawned and rubbed his bald spot. “First thing in the morning, a hard-boiled egg is hard to beat.”
“Uh-huh.”
He pointed to the last egg in my hand. “Are you going to eat that?”
I plopped it into my mouth unpeeled. Crunchy.
“Good for you. Eggshells are rich in calcium,” he said, cracking a banana off the bunch.
“Ruth took a few days to gain and control her strength, but the effects of the second token were faster for me.”
“Because your nanite network was already laid?” said Dad.
“Maybe. I also wonder if the first couple of days the nanites were scoping out our internals and reporting to the token, and the token was reprogramming the nanites for human specifics. The second time around, the brute token already knew the inner workings of my species.”
“Have you noticed changes to any other bodily functions?” Dad asked.
“Well, I don’t seem to produce very much, um, waste.”
My body was so efficient now, nearly everything I ate was used to enhance energy and strength.
“Fascinating,” said Dad.
Yes, my father was fascinated by my poop schedule. Biologists.
Dad shambled off again, so I was alone when I became aware of him. Heat and cold poured through my middle; my heart beat so that I heard it. I pressed against a wall away from the windows, which was pointless since I knew he could sense me too.
Then a dog barked.
I peeked out the blinds. A gorgeous German shepherd was sitting on my front lawn. The guy holding the leash wasn’t hard on the eyes either. I wanted to run away. Hold him. Scream. Hide. Die.
I opened the door.
Wilder was leaning against a yellow convertible.
“Maisie. How are you? You look good. You look great, actually.”
“I’m okay.” My chin started quivering as if I would cry, so I focused on the dog. “What’s his name?”
“Laelaps,” said Wilder. “Happy birthday.”
“How did you know it’s—”
“I still have your astronaut boot camp papers.”
I had his memorized. I jumped down the steps and knelt by the dog, letting him sniff my hand before I petted his head. My skin sensed every hair of his thick coat.
“Since your rhapsody about Europa the moon, I read up on Europa the queen,” he said. “Did you know Jupiter gave her four gifts? There was the dog Laelaps, a javelin that never missed—I’ll have to work on that one—and a bodyguard named Talos. But you don’t need a
Talos. You are the bodyguard.”
Laelaps nuzzled my hand. My pets over the years had included a turtle, hamster, and hermit crab. Let me say that German shepherd trumps hermit crab. But I wished it was just the dog that was making me feel all jump-up-and-down-ish. I wondered if drugs did for addicts what Wilder’s nearness did for me.
“Jupiter also gave her a necklace,” Wilder said, pulling one out of his pocket. It looked handcrafted, beads in white, black, and several shades of brown, woven as a choker with a separate strand dangling a brown tanzanite. I would have taken Wilder for the gold-and-pearls type, but this looked like something I would wear. If I were rich.
He gestured to my neck, asking for permission. I stood up.
He stood close to me, facing me, leaning around to see the back of my neck as he did it up. Taking his time. His hands touched my neck, his chest pressed against my arm, his breath tickled my ear. My eyes closed.
“I could do it up faster with one arm,” I said.
I could hear him exhale a small laugh. I wanted to cling to him and tear in half anyone who got too close. Was I a giddy girl or a wasp-stung caterpillar?
I heard the clasp click, felt the necklace settle, but still he didn’t move. The side of his head rested against mine, his hand pressed the back of my neck.
“Come back with me,” he whispered. “We need each other to get through this, and whatever else is coming. I know you feel that.”
Like a bonfire in my chest I felt it. But I also remembered Wilder talking to Ruth beside the helicopter, so suave, so sincere—all lies. An hour later, she was dead.
“These nanites mess with our heads,” I said. “And they’re probably filling us with instincts that don’t make sense and a premonition of a danger that will never appear.”
Laelaps nudged my leg. I pulled away from Wilder and crouched to scratch the dog’s neck. His pink tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. Wilder sat beside me, petting the dog’s other side. I glanced at Wilder’s profile, his chin, his lips. I suspected that the dog was the only thing keeping me sane in that boy’s presence.