Maybe we’d have to go through the forest on our bikes. Dozens of trails lined these woods, and the military couldn’t be guarding them all. We’d go out into the wilderness, get to Canville, show up at the hospital, and not use our real names. Maybe we’d break the quarantine, but I didn’t care; the point of the quarantine was to keep us safe and healthy, and that’s all I wanted to do for Maggie. Besides, if the town was safe, why was it under quarantine?
When I reached where the trail crosses Route 93, a two-lane back road, I hit the brakes. I heard something, maybe metallic? I didn’t know what, but something on the road was trying to be quiet.
Whatever it was, it was far ahead of me, silent and cautious. My hearing, I realized, had grown as sharp as my eyesight. I moved to the side of the road and down an embankment.
Near the bridge a coyote emerged from the trees and trotted onto the pavement. It sniffed the air and zeroed in on me. With a growl and one lip raised in a snarl, it slowly approached.
Another animal attack—great. I gripped my handlebars, ready to swing the bike wheel at its head.
The coyote crossed the road’s double yellow line, closing the gap between us quickly, when I heard the noise again. The coyote heard it, too, and stopped, its ears rotating like satellite dishes. It wasn’t a broken twig or an errant footfall.
It was the sound of someone chambering a round.
A moment later, there was a faint whisper followed by a cacophony of gunfire. The coyote did the Bonnie and Clyde ketchup dance, dropping to the ground and jerking around as the gunfire went on for several seconds. Finally, the shots slowed to one here and there, like popcorn finishing up in the microwave.
After all went silent, a squad of soldiers came out of the woods. They didn’t look my way. They were focused on the dead coyote.
One man had a tank of something on his back connected to a long metal tube, and he stepped forward to point the tube at the furry red carcass on the pavement. Flames burst from the tube, engulfing the coyote, and this went on for, I kid you not, five whole minutes. They were cremating this thing.
Afterward, a soldier carrying a collapsible olive-green shovel scooped the remains into what looked like a large black garbage bag with a zipper on top. When that task was done, the flamethrower guy blasted the ground again, melting any traces that might’ve been left. Then the soldiers disappeared back into the dark woods, not a word exchanged among them.
How ’bout that?
I didn’t move. I don’t know how long I remained frozen, crouched in the embankment, but as much as I hadn’t wanted to go face-to-face with that coyote, I also wasn’t keen on getting anywhere near the dude with the flamethrower. Those military guys sure weren’t animal-friendly, and they didn’t strike me as human-friendly, either.
What was the point of that demonstration of literal firepower? They shot that animal to pieces, so why then did they feel compelled to obliterate it? What needed to be reduced to ashes? Was another metal octopus-like thing in the remains that they swept up? How would it have gotten into the coyote in the first place? It’s not like the military was giving vaccination shots to wild animals.
I hadn’t reached the power plant, yet this bike ride already was making my head spin.
CHAPTER 24
Jordan
THE PLANT CAME into view, and I slowed down to look for guards. Before me, looming in the dark, were the two immense cooling towers, with a cluster of other buildings to the north and a large parking lot in front. Although it held some cars, most of the lot was taken up with the same kind of shelters we had at the evacuation camp, perhaps for workers such as my dad who had to live here.
Serving as the plant’s backdrop was the enormous peak that gave our town its name. It rose four hundred feet into the air, a massive outcropping of rock just above the Sweetbay River.
I could see surprisingly little military presence at the plant. A twelve-foot-high chain-link fence, topped with razor wire, surrounded the facility, but that had been there as long as I could remember. At a guard shack by the fence gate, two soldiers stood talking.
The more places I looked, the more security cameras I saw—atop the fence, the guard tower, the streetlight …
I fished in my pocket for my headlamp, which I’d brought because I assumed I’d need it to see the trail. Once I got going on my bike and realized I could see everything amazingly well, I’d stuffed it into my shorts. Now I didn’t want to sneak up on the guards; I wanted them to think I was an everyday teenager wanting to talk to his dad. So here I was, all lit up. Don’t shoot, please.
I took a deep breath and walked my bike down a wide trail that led to the road.
Almost immediately the two men at the gate turned, one putting his hand on—was it a pistol or a radio? The other soldier picked up his rifle. He didn’t point it at me but was ready to. The light was directly above them, and their helmets cast shadows on their faces.
“Stop!” one of them ordered. “State your name.”
“I’m Jordan Conners,” I said, stopping twenty feet from them, leaning my bike against my legs and raising my hands in the most nonthreatening way possible. I hoped they didn’t think my being black represented a threat in itself. “I need to talk to my dad, Jermaine Conners. He’s an engineer. It’s an emergency.”
“What is the nature of this emergency?” the man with the rifle asked. He had an odd, abrupt way of speaking that reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t remember who. I could see from his rank insignia that he was a private first class. The other guy, older and stockier, was a corporal.
“Family matters,” I said.
“Elaborate.”
“Our house burned down in an explosion yesterday. My mother and brother were injured and helicoptered away. I was left alone and need to tell him.” I was laying it on thick, but this all was true. Being an abandoned, newly homeless kid should lift me past the threshold of getting to talk to my dad.
The older guy stared at me as if he didn’t believe me. Then he got on his radio: “Thunder Central, Thunder Central, this is Thunder Two. Over.”
There was a pause. “Thunder Two, this is Thunder Central. Go ahead. Over.”
“We have a kid here who wishes to see his father. He reports there have been injuries in the family. Over.”
Pause. “Name of child and father? Over.”
The corporal relayed the names.
“Stand by,” the radio squawked. “Over.”
We stood there in silence, me by my bike with my hands still in the air, the private with both hands on his gun, the corporal holding the radio in his left hand while he rested his right on his sidearm. It was as if we were all posing for a photo—or painting—with none of us looking at one another.
The wait was agonizing. They probably were looking for my dad, wherever he was, to see whether he could leave his duties. Would he be working this late? Might he be in his shelter or wherever he spends the night?
They also might have been checking up on me. We’d all filled out so many forms during the evacuation that they probably had my shoe size (11½) and favorite album (Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, of course).
“Thunder Two, this is Thunder Central. Over.”
“Go ahead, Thunder Central. Over.”
“We are sending a car for him. Over.”
Holy shit, it worked. I resisted saying, “Great news. Over.” I did decide to press my luck in noting: “I thought this place would be full of you guys. Where’s the rest of the army?”
The corporal eyed me. “We wouldn’t be doing a good job guarding the plant if we let everyone see where we are.”
I looked into the trees surrounding the plant and wondered whether they were full of soldiers. I doubted it. Then I wondered whether I could leap up and over the razor-wire fence like I’d jumped the fence while escaping the bear. “What are you guarding the plant for?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” the corporal asked, a slight edge in his monotone.
> “Are you afraid someone’s going to come here and attack? Terrorists?”
The corporal looked away. He was done. The private gave his head a slight shake and said, “We’re not big on explanations.”
“Just following orders?” I asked with a smile.
The private looked at me as if I were a mosquito who’d flown too close to his ear. Thus ended my charm offensive.
Soon a golf cart drove toward us from the parking lot carrying two more soldiers, also decked out in gear and fatigues. It pulled up to the guard post, and the guy in the passenger seat asked, “Jordan Conners of 2045 Wade Hampton Road?”
“Yes, sir.”
Unlike every soldier I’d ever seen in the evacuation camp, neither of these men had his name written on his chest or any rank on his shoulder. The driver faced straight ahead, and the soldier in the passenger seat turned to me and said, “Give me the last four numbers of your Social Security number.”
It had been on every single form I’d filled out over the past year, so it was top of mind, and I recited it to him. He pulled a flashlight from his belt, shone it in my face, and looked at his clipboard to compare the real me to whatever photo he was looking at.
“Get on,” he said, and gestured to the small rear-facing seat in the back.
“Yes, sir,” I said, and did as requested.
The cart drove to the far end of the parking lot and around a corner, out of sight of the guarded gate. I hadn’t seen the major construction project on this side of the plant. Two large cranes stood over a cluster of dump trucks, and a steel framework surrounded a pit. I couldn’t tell what they were building.
The driver pulled up to a curb next to a gravel walkway that led to a blank steel door.
“Is this where my dad is?” I asked as we headed to the door.
The man didn’t answer, but he pulled a blank white card from his jacket pocket and waved it in front of a plastic square next to the door. A light turned from red to green, and the door clicked. He pulled it open and motioned for me to enter.
We were definitely not at the front desk. A narrow hallway, with linoleum flooring and a chemical smell, lay before us, air-conditioned and chilly. I could hear the faint hum of electricity, like from an old refrigerator.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Then take a left.”
Boot steps echoed behind me as I walked. I was sweating more now than I did during the whole eight-mile ride through the woods.
I shouldn’t have come here. I should have waited for my dad to come home—but how soon was that going to be? There was no home for him to come back to, anyway.
We turned left at a T junction and went down another long hallway, with doors lining the left side. The walls were cinder block, painted beige to match the floor. The place looked weathered and smelled like school bathrooms after the janitor had washed them.
“Room 203,” the man said sharply.
I turned the knob, which was cold, and entered the room to see a few people sitting and standing around a table, none of them my dad.
Two men in suits, the ones who had come to watch football practice, were there. So was a third man who didn’t stand. He appeared to be a scientist, wearing a white lab coat, and I had a shock of recognition.
The face. Skin pulled back. Burnt.
The man from my nightmare.
CHAPTER 25
Jordan
I STUMBLED BACKWARD into the wall, staring at the grotesque scientist. His skin was stretched across his face. He was heavily scarred, whether by fire or acid or some major plastic-surgery mishap. He had no lips, so his teeth were completely exposed, as if he were a grinning skull. He had no ears, at least as far as I could tell, and his hair sprouted in little parched-crabgrass patches. One of his eyes was completely white and opaque, and the other was a dot of black.
I had a dual impulse to vomit and to blubber like a baby, but I was too shocked to move. I reminded myself to breathe.
“Please sit down,” said one of the men with no please in his tone.
The human-looking guys offered little to tell them apart. Aside from their identical black suits, white shirts, and black ties, they wore their dark hair parted on the left and looked to be about six feet tall. The best way to tell them apart was one man had a small scar on his chin, while the other sported a plain gold ring on his finger. Each was the all-American man: white, tall, lean, and someone who could give me a lot of trouble.
“Please,” the gold-ring guy directed, pointing to a chair on my side of the heavy steel table.
“I’m just here to see my dad,” I gasped, trying to avert my eyes from the nightmare scientist.
The door closed with a click, and my soldier escort was gone. I edged toward the exit, pondering whether I might make a break for it. Would that work? I had a hunch that … no.
“Aha,” the scientist finally said, his voice thin, reedy, and punctuated by wheezes, as if he were trying to catch his breath. “Rho. You—ah—you have come to us. This is good. We thought we would have to go and—ah, ah—fetch you.” With every “ah” he sounded like he was sucking air through a thin straw, and his pronunciation was off because he couldn’t use his lips.
“Fetch me?” I asked. “I wanted to see my dad. Is he coming?”
The scientist was wearing a white glove on his left hand, which made me think of Michael Jackson, which made me want to ask whether he’d had a really bad experience shooting a Pepsi commercial. Then I noticed that he had no right hand, and I thought maybe it wasn’t the best time for my pop-culture comedy act. What happened to this dude?
“We, well, Ishango is very interested in you—ah—Jordan Conners.”
I couldn’t hide my jolt of recognition upon hearing that name. “Ishango,” I said, my heart pounding. “Okay. But why is it interested in me?”
I turned toward the two suited guys.
“Why were you at my football practice?”
They stared back silently.
“You—ah—Jordan Conners. You, you were injured, am I, am I right?” the scientist asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Day of the evacuation. Car accident. That was a year ago. If my dad isn’t coming, I really need to go.”
The scientist shook his head, his grin looking all the more maniacal. “No, a new injury.”
“At football practice,” the man with the gold ring said. “You hurt your head.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Bad play. I might’ve gotten a concussion, which I wish I could say is unusual in the game of football, but, alas, it is not. Did you see that movie Concussion? Will Smith trying to pull off a Nigerian accent? It wasn’t great, wasn’t terrible—though the accent kind of was—but I learned some stuff, and you might, too. It makes you reconsider our whole societal attitude toward football, especially as it concerns our young people. Peewee football and all that. Anyway, I’m okay—some headaches but nothing too bad.”
The scientist nodded slowly. I didn’t know whether to look at his white eye or the dot. I went with the dot. “A concussion,” he said. “That was unfortunate. You are not to get injuries of that kind. It has compromised Ishango’s authority.”
“Wait, what?” I said, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.
The scientist closed his eyes (thank you), then opened them again (oh, well). “You are special,” he murmured, the word coming out as “seshal.”
“Seshal how?” I couldn’t help myself.
“You’re feeling no ill effects from the—ah—fire, yes? That was a test, you see.”
“Huh? Test for what?”
“Omega noted your cellular—ah—regeneration level in the lungs. You ran at near optimum speed despite—ah—what would have been—ah—a fatal level of smoke inhalation for most people. Omega was supposed to retrieve you for repair that evening, but—ah—unfortunately failed in his assignment.”
“Retrieve me for repair?” I boomed. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not a machine. And who’s Omega? The flaming, molting,
running dude?”
The scientist and his freaky tooth face just grinned at me. I fought off an impulse to knock those teeth out of his skull.
“And what do you mean it was a test?” I shouted, gaining volume. “Families died in that explosion, man, people I’ve known all my life! Kids! Parents! Grandparents! A piece of glass stabbed my mom’s back like a dagger—she could have died, too! Instead, she and my little brother were taken away to the evacuation camp—I think—and now I’m all alone. Which is why I want to see my father. Please let me see him!”
Without so much as a shrug, the burned man looked at the men and said, “Ah—inform the unit. Rho is to undergo a—ah—reauthorization.”
Rho? Row? R’oh?
“Why do you keep calling me Rho?” I asked. “I’m Jordan. That’s what my dad named me. He’s an engineer here. I need to see him now.” I stood and gave the table a sharp shove that prompted the suited guys to jump back. I moved toward the door.
“I can see you will have to be—ah—sedated.”
“No way, bro-zay,” I said, realizing that made no sense as I tried the doorknob.
Locked.
“I’m a minor. You can’t do anything without my parents’ permission. If you won’t take me to my father, then I’m out of here.”
“I’m afraid—ah—not. We need to fix the problem first. Then you will be ready, Rho.”
This whole scene was freaking me out. I felt like I could collapse into a hysterical puddle any second, but I also knew I needed to keep it together, keep my instincts sharp. “Ready for what? I can’t understand half of what you’re saying, and not just because you don’t have lips. Did you do something to me to give me my new abilities? I don’t need or want them—I was fine with how I was. And I’ll take a pass on the ‘fixing,’ thank you very much.”
“Sit down,” the gold-ring guy said, standing up. I was taller than him, but he was thicker.
“Nope, I’m done taking orders,” I said. “I need to know what’s going on, because this is bananas.” I pointed at the scientist. “You I’ve seen in my dreams. And they weren’t good dreams. How does that work? What kind of evil voodoo are you up to?”
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